Helpful for anxiety, pain, body acceptance and stress. This meditation brings our awareness into the body and its sensations to help us to relax and let stresses melt away. This is the shorter version of the practice. If you would like to go deeper into the practice, a longer 40 minute version is available as part of the BM☼BH course and also available for separate download.
By mentally scanning through every part of your body, you can notice any sensations, pains, comforts, discomforts in a non-judgmental, non-striving way. It is a useful relaxation technique as you shift your awareness from being up in your mind with your thoughts, to being down in your body with your sensations. The body scan can be a useful tool in the management of pain and tension, allowing you to feel the sensations in your body without attachments or aversions to them, which are what lead us to suffering.
The body scan can also be profoundly healing for our relationship with our bodies. In a world where certain body types, shapes, and abilities are often privileged over others, and we are programmed to think we should strive to change our bodies to fit the "ideal mould", many of us find it hard to accept our bodies as they are, and we forget to appreciate their miraculous functions & the richness of experience of living in a body. Give yourself a break with this body scan as we allow ourselves to be just as we are, without trying to change, alter or judge ourselves in any way.
You will place your awareness in each part of your body as I guide where to go. We practice the body scan in a non-judgmental way; to observe the sensations without attaching emotion to them. Nothing is right or wrong, we simply notice.
This practice is best done lying down in a warm and comfortable position free from distractions and disturbances and is best enjoyed with headphones.
