Tuning Into Your Body

Hello, it's Eve here with you. Welcome to this guided practice designed to help you tune into your body with compassion and tenderness. I recommend lying down for this practice, somewhere you feel comfortable, with minimal distractions, but you can also be seated, as well, whatever is best for you. So I'm on my own fertility journey, and I know so well how painful and frustrating it can feel when our body may not be doing what it's supposed to do. Wherever you are on your fertility journey, please know you're not alone. Trying to have a baby or to build a family can be a wonderful experience, but it can also be challenging and stressful, especially if things are not happening as planned. We're consistently told to not get too stressed. And while this is helpful, it's also useless unless we learn ways to manage and release the stress with compassion and tenderness. As humans, we're very good at holding stress and pain in the body. We may start to tell ourselves that something is wrong with us, or that this won't ever happen for us. The body scan meditation has been a really supportive practice for me. I know being in your body may feel challenging at times, but the truth is, if we're more in tune with our body, we're in a better position to understand how we're feeling, and that also means we can hold whatever arises with compassion and tenderness. This practice also helps us to see that the body is not fixed. Our body is changing all of the time. So we will gently scan through the body, starting at the feet, and pay attention to what sensations arise as we move through the body. It's okay if you feel no sensation. You may feel very relaxed and at ease in certain areas, while others may feel tense or even challenging. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong if you experience discomfort. You set the pace. If you need to move past an area, you can absolutely do that. So let's take a moment to get settled into the practice. You can close your eyes or rest your gaze downwards. Connecting with the body, noticing the different points of contact, softening the jaw, and making the next couple of breaths a little deeper. Paying attention to where you feel the breath in the body. And as we go through the practice, it can be helpful to breathe into each area of the body, imagining that any tension or pain you might be experiencing is released with the out breath. And on each in breath, you are breathing in compassion and tenderness for your body. So guiding your focus, the attention all the way down the body to the feet. And feeling into the feet, the top and bottom of your feet, the toes. And noticing what sensations, if any, are present here. Maybe it's a tingling, a warmth, a coolness, an itching. It's also...