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Mindfulness for Health: Guided mindfulness meditations
Chapters
Introduction - Bodyscan - Mindfulness of Breathing - Positive Emotion
The Bodyscan
The Bodyscan practice is simply to learn to inhabit our bodies more fully, to come ‘home’ to our physical experience (and emotions — as these are also visceral and physical). These practices are very simple. You do not need to know anything about meditation, or to have ever done it before. All you need is a quiet space, where you are unlikely to be disturbed for the duration of the practice — about 40 minutes including the introduction. The Bodyscan practice itself is a little under 30 minutes long. The meditations are fully led, and the introduction gives more information and instructions.
“Everything is there in the body; but we do no realize it. For that it is very important to reach a quiet state, to relax. But one cannot directly try to relax. If I remember my inner aim to be present to myself, then I become aware of my tensions. Then something lets go in a fundamental way.”
Jeanne de Salzmann (Gurdjieff teacher)
Audio-visual Resources
Play audio: Introduction to meditation and the Bodyscan (Audio only)
Show video: Introduction to meditation and the Bodyscan (Video)
Show video: Bodyscan posture and set up (Video)
Play audio: The Bodyscan practice (Audio only)
Show video: The Bodyscan practice (Video)
There are many Bodyscan guided meditations (many available are on You Tube) including guided mindfulness meditations by Jon Kabat-Zinn (the founder and original developer of the Bodyscan). These are from the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic at The University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
Show video: Guided Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn
However, one of my favourite Bodyscan meditations is by Vidyamala Burch (the founder of Breathworks). You can find this to download as an audio file, if you go CALM (Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind - Guided meditations), University of Auckland. Scroll down the page until you find:
Body Scanning by Vidyamala (Breathworks)
This guided meditation practice helps us to develop habits of greater ease and awareness of the body. Adopting a comfortable posture, lying down or sitting, we scan through the whole body with our awareness, using the breath to let go of areas of pain and tension.
Download the audio file: 43:22 minutes (19.9 MB)
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