Stella

Brighton, Brighton and Hove, UK

Kees Toet

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Tina

Gabriola, Canada

Laurie S

Spirituality

Performance

Energy-Based

Focus

English

Tune in deeply to your body and sharpen your inner awareness with this guided practice. We'll develop your proprioception (sense of the body in space) and interoception (sense of inner body processes), giving you greater bodily control and a sense of being grounded.

Body Awareness Meditation

 Welcome, my friend. This is a body awareness meditation designed to help you strengthen your sense of proprioception and interoception. Proprioception is the sense of where the body is in space. And interoception is the sense of all the inner processes of the body. And practicing this meditation will give you greater body control, a better feeling of being grounded and safe in your body. And also the wisdom to understand the inner processes, your own inner landscape. So let's get started together. I invite you to take a comfortable seat. You can also do this meditation lying down if you'd like. Get yourself comfortable. And we'll start with a couple of nice gentle breaths. Just landing here in this moment together. I invite you to close your eyes during this meditation to really focus the senses inwards. After you've taken a couple of nice deep breaths, I invite you to bring your awareness to the places that your body meets the surface underneath you. This could be the seat you're sitting on or whatever surface you are resting upon. Noticing all the points of contact. Now widening your awareness to notice the location of your body within the room or the space that you're in. Where is your body relative to the walls, the ceiling, the floor? See if you can sense the space. Now bring your attention to your hands. Where are your hands relative to the rest of your body? Where are your hands relative to your feet or your nose? Noticing your feet where are your feet relative to your head or your belly button? Now bringing your attention to your head, your skull, your neck. Noticing the tilt of your chin. What is the angle of your jaw relative to the floor? Are you perhaps tilting your head or turning your head slightly to one side or the other? Noticing the location of your head relative to the rest of your body and relative to the space in the room around you. Now bringing your attention inside of your head, see if you can really sense the space inside of your skull. The space between your ears. Moving your attention down into the rib cage, getting a sense of the space inside of your rib cage. And we'll do the same with your pelvis, bringing the attention into the pelvic bowl, noticing and sensing the space. Now coming back out and tuning into the surface of the skin, noticing the temperature of the air. Can you feel the pressure of the air against your skin? Is the air moving or still? Allowing your awareness to travel down your arms to your hands and your fingertips. Noticing the sensation, the tips of your fingers. Starting with the thumbs, concentrating the awareness on the paths of your thumbs. Seeing if you can really sense and feel the ridges of your fingerprints. Moving the awareness to the index fingers. Feeling the bones of the fingers and the fingertips. And then the middle fingers. And the ring fingers. And the pinkies. And now holding the entire hand, both hands in the awareness at once. Now bringing your awareness to your feet. Noticing the sensations on the soles of your feet. Moving to the toes, the tips of the big toes. And the second toes. And the middle toes. The fourth toes. And the pinky toes. See if you can sense the bones of the feet, the tendons and the ligaments of the feet. And pulling your awareness from your feet through the body up to the crown of the head. Really tuning into the sensations of the scalp. See if you can feel the texture of your hair. The weight for the tension of your hair on your scalp. Bringing your attention now inside of the head into the brain. Can you feel the gentle pulse, the circulation of blood and cerebral spinal fluid. The very subtle undulation of pressure, of movement. Following that sensation down into the neck. See if you can sense and feel your pulse at your neck. The circulation of blood. Moving that awareness down into the heart itself. Really tuning into the beat of your heart. Noticing its rhythm. Feeling the contraction of the muscles of your heart. Notice how the tempo of your heartbeat changes as you inhale and exhale. Following that circulation of blood through your shoulders and arms. Can you feel the circulation of blood in your arms and hands? Bringing the awareness into the torso. Can you sense and feel your circulation through your torso and hips? Moving down into the legs and feet. Try to find your pulse on the insides of your ankles. The backs of your knees. Coming back up into the abdomen. Tuning into the digestive system. Can you sense and feel the amount of space that your organs take up inside your body? Feeling the presence and the weight of your intestines, your stomach, your liver, your spleen. What is going on in your digestive system right now? Can you sense the movement of food or food? Can you sense inside of your body where your last meal currently is? Noticing any pressure or movement in the digestive tract. Now bringing the awareness into the lungs. Tuning back into the breath. Noticing the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. See if you can sense the movement of these muscles between your ribs. The movement of your diaphragm that creates this vacuum that pulls air into the lungs. Try to really feel the molecules of air moving into the lungs. Into the deepest lobes of the lungs, into the capillaries, bringing fresh oxygen into the blood. And bring the awareness to the nose, feeling the sense of air coming in and out of the nose. Noticing the temperature of the air as cooler on the inhale and warmer on the exhale. See if you can sense the air moving towards the back of your throat. And now focusing the attention on the very tip of the nose. Feeling the breath here and noticing the location of your nose in space relative to the rest of your body, relative to the room around you. And pause here for a moment with this beautiful gratitude for this incredible, powerful, intelligent, resilient body that you occupy. And start bringing that awareness into your hands and feet, taking slightly deeper breaths. And as you are ready, you can open your eyes, give yourself a little stretch and come back into the room around you.