Read along below, or get comfortable and press play on Spotify or YouTube.
Hello.
Today’s meditation is a guided relaxation exercise. I fell in love with meditation through guided relaxation.
As someone with high anxiety, relaxing didn’t come naturally to me. Having somebody walk me through with a calming soothing voice was very beneficial, and I hope it helps you too.
So let’s settle in.
Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and let yourself settle into the body. Feel how heavy your legs are, the ground pulling you towards it. Gravity, safely holding you. Just let the bottom half of the body become so, so heavy. See how heavy your feet could feel.
Imagine they have concrete slippers on, but they’re so comfortable. There’s no pulling or aching, nothing required from your feet. Right now they’re just resting. And bring that heaviness up the legs. Let your calves relax. Let your shins be easy.
Let the top and the bottom part of your leg just be in space. See how much space you can feel in between. Find that spaciousness inside your calf. Let it be. And let the kneecaps be just in space where they are. No pulling, no lifting, no effort required.
Just here. And bring that sense of peace up into the thighs and the hips.
See if you can release any further tension in the hips. Are you holding onto anything here? Can you let just another piece of it go? Letting your muscles be easy. Let them stand by. There is nothing to be on guard for right now.
Just letting the whole leg be heavy in space and letting that heaviness rise now into the torso, the abdomen, letting the whole core of your being just be.
Let the muscles go. There’s nothing to support. Just let your body be held, held by the surface and the space around you, trusting that you can take this moment to deeply rest. See if you can find the breath in the body right now. Where do you feel it?
Is the air circulating in your stomach? Is your chest lifting just slightly with your breath? And do you feel the air at your nostrils? Cool and warm.
Just easy here. Following the breath like clouds in the sky. Just watching them. Watching the inhales and the exhales else. Letting the body be breathed and see where your arms are in space or your hands on your body or on the surface beneath you.
Can your hands get even more relaxed? Can you let even more tension go in your arms? Can you let your shoulders rest? Dropping away from the ears, not pulling, not forcing. Just easy. And see how heavy can your arms feel?
And bringing that relaxation up the neck, the back of the head. Can you let those muscles relax? Can you rest into the surface beneath you, behind you? Can you trust the surface to support you as you rest here?
And as you rest here, can your jaw soften just a bit more? Can your tongue fall into the base of your mouth? Your eyebrows dropping, your eyes not searching. Not straining. Just easy in their sockets. Can you let every little eye muscle relax?
Letting your cheekbones relax, letting your ears relax, feeling your forehead smooth away. Any worries? And just breathing here.
There’s no need to change the breath.
Just watching, like a lapping lake at the shore.
Can you find that inhale and exhale as it waves through your calm and relaxed body.
We’re just resting.
You can stay here as long as you’d like. You can even turn this off and go to sleep. Or if you’re ready to come back to your day,
You can give the fingers a little wiggle and give the toes, little wiggle. And perhaps roll the ankles and wrists just slightly, bringing some movement back to the arms and legs.
And we’ll take a couple deep inhales together before going back to our day, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Thanking yourself for taking this time to relax, to unwind. And one more deep inhale in and deep exhale out.
May this calmness and peace carry you throughout your day or send you off to sleep with sweet dreams.
Thank you so much for practicing with me.
With love,
Esta.
with love , Esta 