Bill 

Santa Fe, NM, USA

New York

Practice Yoga Nidra to find your inner foundation of safety and align your daily actions with your values.

Spirituality

Health & Happiness

Grounded

Yoga

Yoga Nidra

Visualization

English

Racing thoughts, overwhelming concerns, an uneasiness that persists... What if you could filter the noise? What would you find if you turned inward? Yoga nidra guides you through the chatter of your mind and leads you to the peaceful wisdom of your soul.

Yoga Nidra For Balance & Managing Stress

 Welcome to the practice of yoga nidra. Take your time finding the right position. Continue to make adjustments to become more comfortable. Bring your wholehearted attention to the practice. Let expectation, judgment, and analysis fall away. During yoga nidra, welcome every experience of sensation, emotion, and thought without trying to change or fix or analyze. Meet what arises with curiosity, openness, and grace. As your body settles into stillness, what do you hear? The sounds in the distance and sounds nearby. With the eyes open, closed, or covered, what do you see? The sounds in the distance and sounds nearby. The sounds in the distance and sounds nearby. The floor. The movement of your breath, the vibrant aliveness and energy of your body even in stillness. Just into a sense of safety and well-being in your body, a place of tranquility and ease. Imagine this feeling of being and well-being as spacious, open, timeless, whole, familiar, and unchanging. If it's helpful, bring to mind people, animals, places, or images that nourish feelings of peace, security, calm. Sense this place of resource and notice where and how you feel it in your body. Know that you can connect with this foundation at any time, day or night, and throughout the practice of Yoganidra. A bridge to the place within that is peaceful, whole, safe, and steady. Now touch into what you value, what you long for, what calls you. With an open mind and without expectation, let your heart speak. What do you value? What could you use more of or less of in your life? What calls you gives you a sense of purpose and meaning. Let it arrive in the simplest of terms, in a word, feeling, image. Become what arises and give it permission to develop over time. Whatever it is that matters to you, what does this look like in your life? How can you facilitate it? Small but significant steps. Set an intention that puts the focus on aligning your values with your thoughts, words, and actions. Bring your attention to your body. To each part as you hear it called, sense it as if from the inside, more feeling from the heart than thinking from the mind. Welcoming sensation just as it is. Feel the hinges of the jaw on either side of the ears. Welcoming sensation throughout the jaw, teeth, and gums. Welcoming all sensations inside the mouth and the back of the throat and into the ears. Welcoming sensation deep inside the ears, through the canals, to the outer structure and shape. Take your time. Feeling your way. Not thinking but sensing both ears at the same time. Feeling sensations along the cheeks and the skin of the face. The warmth or coolness as air exits and enters the nostrils. Sensation around and deep behind the eyes. Bring attention to the temples, eyebrows, forehead, crown of the head, and back of the head. Welcome sensations all through the neck and the walls of the throat. The gentle flow of air. Bring attention deep inside the right shoulder. Feel it as if from the inside and flow with sensation from the shoulder into the upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, palm of the hand, back of the hand, and fingers. Feel the entire right arm from fingertips, wrist and forearm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, and shoulder blade. Shift your attention now inside the left shoulder. Bring the sensation down into the upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, palm of the hand, back of the hand, and fingers. The entire left arm from fingertips, wrist, forearm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, and shoulder blade. Let attention divide equally into both arms at the same time. Notice the state of your mind in this moment. If it's helpful, invite a sense of focus and alertness. Then shift attention into the chest and upper back, deep and surface sensations. Move to the abdomen and low back, both deep inside and the surface of the skin. Then let attention wander through the torso, front and back, right and left, deep within and on the surface. Draw attention into the pelvis, and then into the right leg from the hip down into the thigh. Feeling your way from the inside descending into the knee, lower leg, ankle, heel, sole of the foot, top of the foot, and toes. Sense the entire right leg from toes to hip. Then shift attention to the left hip, feeling your way down through the thigh, knee, lower leg, ankle, heel, sole of the foot, top of the foot, and toes. Welcoming the sensation of the entire left foot, ankle, lower leg, knee, and thigh to the hip. Then equally divide tension, sensing both legs at the same time. Feet, legs, hips, and pelvis at once. Sensing the torso, both shoulders, and arms all at the same time. Feelings of the neck, head, face, mouth, and jaw. Welcome now the entire body as a symphony of sensations, letting attention move freely. Sensing the flows of energy from the back side of the body to the front, from the left side of the body to the right. Senses deep inside the body, sensations along the surfaces of the body, the contact with the supporting surfaces. Sensing what's present in the body, experience yourself as the field of awareness in which everything is coming and going. Contact with your foundation of calm and peace. Become aware of the body breathing, the flow of the breath inside the nose, the abdomen gently rising as breath flows in and releasing as breath flows out. Nothing to change. The body breathing rhythmically and intuitively. Follow the natural ebb and flow of your breath. Begin to count backwards on the exhalations from 11 to 1. Breathing out, 11. Breathing in. Breathing out, 10. Breathing in. Continue at your own pace, practicing single pointed focus. Breath at any time you lose count or reach zero, begin again at 11. Let's cue the Let the counting fall away. Continue to follow the natural movement of your breath, being with everything just as it is. A body, a field of radiant sensation. Notice all that's now present in your awareness. Feeling yourself as the one who is aware of everything. Sensing what's present. Sense yourself dissolving into being the field of awareness itself, in which everything is coming and going. Remember to connect to your foundation the felt sense of security and ease. Bring attention to feelings that are present throughout the body, such as warmth or coolness, heaviness or lightness, comfort or discomfort. Where do you feel them in your body? How many memories, images or emotions that arise without analyzing or trying to change them? Become your experience just as it is, letting everything be seen, heard and felt. Let your attention dissolve into being, into a sense of being perfect and complete just as you are. Sensing wholeness of being and a field-like quality that is spacious and open. Aware of all that is present. Experience yourself as the field of awareness in which everything is coming and going. Be attentive to sensations of well-being. Understanding what emerges just as it is. Bring to mind the sensation of joy as an inner warmth that radiates from your heart. This warmth expanding throughout your entire body, flowing out into your torso, down your arms and legs, to your hands and feet, flowing up into your head and face, mouth, lips and eyes. The entire body, radiant and alive with the feeling of joy or well-being or a sense of being okay just as you are. Bring to mind your foundation of safety, calm, ease. Understand it with a feeling of joy and allow it to ripple out in all directions. Dissolve into being pure awareness itself, open and spacious, where everything is welcome just as it is. Sensations, emotions, beliefs, joy, well-being, everything as it is, yourself just as you are. Now come back to your foundation of being and well-being, your place of grounding and security. Feeling your breathing easy and rhythmic, your body warm and at ease. Recall what you value and affirm the intention to keep your values in focus. Imagine going about your daily life, noticing sensations, emotions and thoughts constantly changing, all the while feeling yourself as unchanging, spacious awareness in which everything is coming and going. Re-using your body and the room around you, begin to move in any way that feels right to you. Eyes opening in your own time, reorienting to where you are and where you are going. Like with you your sense of deep knowing and your foundation of love, belonging and peace.