Take a restorative moment to de-stress and feel deep gratitude for your hard-working body.
Take a moment to pause and allow our bodies to do so Rest in awareness It can bring a great sense of restoration and renewal to the heart. Our bodies are so stressful and often overlooked. This practice of guided awareness will allow us to feel some kind of feeling Gratitude For our body in all its beauty and mystery.
Meditate for 12 minutes to rest your body in gratitude
Read and practice the guided meditation text below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to audio exercises.
- First, find the position that feels comfortable for you at the moment. There are many different positions we can choose from. Check in with your body to feel it What situation is best for me now??
- Once you find this position, just start noticing and feeling your body Here and present in this moment Do not try to fix anything or change anything in the body. Often, only the body can be used for this purpose Work, strive and achieve, but in this moment, we are naturally inviting our bodies to rest.
- Take a few minutes to feel what it is like to be alive in your body right now. With attention lightly focused on the body, just notice: How is my body expressing its vitality in this moment? Maybe it’s a lot of sensation, maybe the body feels relaxed and comfortable, or maybe there’s energy moving through some of our bodies. Whatever is right for your body right now, allow this vitality to be what you feel in this moment. This is my body and I am grateful for my body.
- Now, allow your attention to focus a little on the sensations Associated with touching the body to whatever it supports. Maybe it’s the floor, a pillow, a bed, or a sofa. Allow your attention to rest a little, and feel the vitality of the body touching and supporting everything below you. This is my body resting, supported by what is beneath me in this moment and I am grateful for this body and this support and this moment of rest. Resting just like a newborn in the arms of a parent or caregiver. Allow your body to rest, and allow the support, stability and comfort that the presence of an object provides to infuse your body and consciousness. In this moment, I am embraced and supported and that support is constant and unconditional, and I am grateful. Continue to feel connected and supported by whatever is holding you back in this moment, and stay connected to that experience.
- We will start by inviting our bodies to rest In the sense of space surrounding the body. So, we really allow our attention to focus on the skin of the body. With each exhale, let your attention begin to relax and expand beyond the skin, just step out a few inches around the skin, and rest in this space. Instead of focusing entirely on the physicality of the body, we now invite the energy in the body – the tingles and sensations – to actually rest in the space around us. You may use your imagination a little to imagine that with each exhale you begin to feel your body restricted by the vastness of the space surrounding the body.
- It may be helpful to start with your back, letting it rest. Just leave the space behind. And moving to one side of the body, feeling that side, feeling the skin, and then inviting that side of the body to let go. To relax the space around that side of the body. And then going to the front of the body: feeling the skin, the sensations of the body, life, and just allowing the front of the body to hold and rest in the space in front of it. Finally, reach the other side of the body, feel the skin of the body, and then allow your attention to relax into the space around that side of the body.
- For a few moments, while you breathe in and out normallyAllow your attention to rest while the body rests, in the space around the body. The body can leave now. Breathing, feeling the body holding onto our awareness. When we exhale, we feel grateful for the space around the body. Allows the body to relax.
- As we approach this practiceThe invitation is to place your hand on your heart, to feel a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the body, for the space surrounding the body, and for this moment of comfort. And remember, body gratitude is a way we can always reconnect with that feeling of ease, presence, and ease.
