The Body Scan Meditation
Two guided meditations for you to try
Hello All
I hope you’re keeping well.
Just a short post this week about one of the foundational meditation practices we often start a mindfulness programme with - the body scan.
I wrote in a bit more detail about this practice a few months ago here if you’d like to take a look.
Whether you’re an experienced meditator or this is something brand new to you I’d encourage you treat this kind of practice as an experiment - just give it a go and see what happens.
All the guidance is in the recordings below but just a quick word before beginning.
Meditation is, in part, a way to develop the skill of attention and learn how to focus. But it is not just about focus. The nature of the awareness we bring to our experience is also crucial.
We encourage a kind, curious, non-judgemental form of awareness. We are not shining a harsh, unforgiving light on ourselves and our experience, more like a warm, gentle lamplight.
I’ve included two versions of the body scan meditation below - one of just over 15 mins and one closer to 30 mins. Neither is better or worse but it may be easier to start with the shorter version if this is new for you and build up to doing a longer practice. Alternatively, if you are familiar with longer meditations already then why not do the shorter version just to see what it is like as a change?
See if you can do this each day for a week or two and see how it goes. As always feel free to reach out in the comments here on Substack or to email me with comments/questions.
I also offer a free 1:1 session online which you can book here if you’d like to go into more detail or see about working together 1:1.
If you’re coming to this on a day when there’s a lot of pain or discomfort in the body or there are some particularly strong, difficult thoughts or emotions about then maybe it’s worth just listening to the practice for now to get an idea of what it is about and coming back to actually follow along at a time when there is a bit less going on for you