We're not gonna get many of you tonight because. Of the football, but a good many of you I'm sure will access this recording. Via the recording that we make right now.

So we're gonna go ahead and we're going to. Really do a very lovely body scan today. Because, let's just remind ourselves about the body scan and why we do it.

So one of the reasons for the body scan is, and I'll be really open, it's not for everybody, and it's not always a meditation of choice, even for those who love it, but it is really, really useful. And just for a moment, I'd like you to think about your body as if it were a musical instrument. Mine is definitely a double base at the moment.

And the body scan is a way of tuning that instrument, because we go in, we focus on the different parts of the body, and by tuning to those different parts of the body, we can kind of tune them and move them and get to know them a little bit better. If you think of the body scan as the universe itself, that's really taken it out there, isn't it? The body scans a sort of way to come to get to know all about you and the way that you function.

And sometimes it helps to think of the body scan as more like a house. And when we do a body scan and we do it in the right spirit, it's like throwing open all the windows and the doors. And what you're doing is you're letting the fresh air of awareness just into your body.

And The body scan can be done in 3 breaths, you know, we can be doing it in 2 minutes, but the one we're going to do today is a longer, more mindful body scan. And, before we start, I'm just gonna make a couple of suggestions that what you might notice with the body scan is some stuff happening in your body. So the common things are that people will feel itchy.

You know, goodness me, where's that come from? Sometimes we'll come across aches and vibrations. Sometimes there'll be a sense of tension that moves to relax.

There'll be changes in the temperature. Of our body will experience tingling. We might also experience some emotional reactions such as sadness.

Or anticipation. Sometimes may be release or disgust even. When we get to certain parts of our body and we don't try and change that, and we don't try and do anything about it, but we meet this stuff with curiosity.

You know, and of course, thoughts will push their way in. And quite often what we find is we find ourselves leaving the present moment imagining the future. We find ourselves evaluating and analysing rather than just sitting with the body.

We find ourselves judging our experience. And if that does occur during today's. Meditation, this recording that we're doing together.

Just meet everything with curiosity. Because the body scan itself has proven to be an extremely powerful and healing form of meditation. It's got the most evidence base.

For Making a significant reduction to people's pain experience, for instance. And it involves systematically sweeping the body with the mind. And we need to make sure that what we bring to the body as we do this body sweep is an affectionate, open-hearted, interested attention to the various different parts of the body.

So If we start to . Get ourselves into the position. And I think we're going to be doing this as a seated meditation today.

And what we're going to be doing is we're really gonna be exploring. A whole body So I'll just ask you to. Wriggle, move yourselves about a bit.

Get yourself into a position where you're feeling dignified. And comfortable. And When we're ready, We just close our eyes.

Half close our eyes actually. So that we're looking at a spot on the floor. And or a spot just a little way in front of you.

And if you're somebody who struggles with closing their eyes, just allow them to relax and soften. And This is what we call an intuitive. Body scan because instead of linearly following our attention.

From the bottom of the foot, from the toes and working our way up through the entirety of the foot. And then onto the legs and up. With this one, what we do is we start with the bottom of the body and then we stop.

And we go and wait for our body to lead us. So the best way to do this is rather than to try and experience that or to analyse it or. To get stuck in our minds, let's let go of our minds and step out and find our bodies.

So if we're ready, We'll start with the breath. So we take our attention to our breath. Without changing it at all.

We just allow the body to do that. Mind sweep. And to sweep over the parts of the body.

Associated with breathing. And we find that entails. A focus on our nose perhaps.

A septum Maybe our mouth, our throat. Maybe a chest. Our tummies And we just allow ourselves to get a real sense.

Of the movement of the body. As we just sit here right now. And breathe.

And we get a real sense that as we sit. And we breathe We might well experience some physical sensations there. We might experience.

A pulsing as we breathe. We might experience. Attention and a relax.

Because as we breathe in, the muscles move upwards and outwards. It's on the exhalation usually. That we let go And we get a tiny bit of relaxation as we breathe out.

And then we take our attention. Leaving the breath And we move it all the way down. And we find Right at the very bottom, the toes of the left foot.

And we just take our attention there. Getting that sense of tuning the body as though the body was this musical instrument. And we just find the toads.

And we noticed that they feel relaxed. If we give them a wiggle. And we I get curious with them.

Toes of the left foot. Is there tension there? Is there any cramping?

Are they warm or soft? Do they fail? Like they're a loved part of our feet.

Do we meet our toes with affection and curiosity ever? Because they actually do so much for us. They help us with our balance.

They help us modify our gait. They act as shock absorbers when we run. And we just become mindful of the parts of the body that we just take for granted.

And We move up Through the entirety of the foot. We Focus on the sole of the left foot. And we just push it into the ground below us.

And notice Where the parts of the foot that connect with the ground. The arch missus. You know, we get that sense of where we touch and where we don't.

And we move to the heel and perhaps as we're sitting we just rock our feet and find the heel and very often we don't. Really Love our heels, do we? We just take our attention there and.

Sometimes we even find tenderness there or pain. Because we have that hard skin. And sometimes it's prickly or numb.

And we just noticed that. And then we move. To the top of the foot.

Which has very little sensory capacity. And then up the left leg. Including in turn.

We just focus on the ankle. And the shin And the calf muscle. Moving up to the knee.

And the kneecap. Until we are holding the whole of our left leg, the thigh in its entirety. All the way down.

To those toes. We get a sense of the weight. Of that thigh that left thigh.

And we escort our attention once more. And in exactly the same way we find the toes of the left foot. And this time we even Try and focus on.

The spaces between each toe. And we smile. And we notice, as we said before, that this is our fine tuning of the body.

You know, And the other thing we're doing is it's remembering that the body scan is a way of, it's a bit like cleaning our house out, you know. We're attending to these different parts of the body and we're sweeping them with our mind. And where Sort of opening the doors and the windows and.

Letting in awareness. For the first time in a long time maybe we're realising just how important our toes. Our soles, my feet, our heels are.

And so many of us sort of grimace when we think of feet. But this is our opportunity to fine tune. These incredible parts of the body.

And again we work our attention up the right leg. And we find the. Ankle And a shin And a calf And we move up and find our knees.

We delve into our knees and our kneecap. We sometimes there. We find pain perhaps.

Achiness. Maybe we find A sort of Tension and a relaxation there. And when we look at the emotions.

That we're connecting with as we do that and noticing if we felt a sense of impatience or wanting to stop. Or whether we felt a sort of disgust, even as we've found the various parts of our body that we've developed some antipathy towards. Maybe even surprise.

Gosh, actually. That feels rather nice to rock those heels back. And then we stop.

And we returned to the brash. And we wait. And what we're gonna do now is intuitively.

Body scan And that just asks us to Take a bit of a sweep. From the Bottom of our toes. Mind sweeping.

Taking our attention up. Turning on our intuitive powers. And looking for where that instrument of yours.

Might need a bit of a fine tune. Maybe we find the lower back. Or maybe we find tension in the shoulders or in the arms.

Or maybe we find a tightness in the scalp or the jaw. Or the eyes Or maybe we find that we are struggling to fully let go of the tension in our shoulders. In our hands.

And we just choose a part of the body. When we've chosen that part of the body. We just use our mind's eye and we visualise it.

And then we Put an arm around our consciousness. And we have find those. Stances of affectionate curiosity.

And maybe even a half mindful smile. And we just escort that attention. To the part of the body that we We want to tune.

That we want to flood with the awareness of mindfulness. And we meet it with curiosity. Why, why is there tension there?

Why does that feel less relaxed and calm than the rest of the body? And we find it. Can we imagine just moving into it.

Instead of recoiling away. We're moving in with curiosity. And we're looking and we're feeling.

And we're listening. We're getting a sense of that part of our body. And if we're fine tuning it, perhaps we're softening.

That part of the body Perhaps we're exploring how we've been using that part of the body. Have we been Bending well Have we been attending? With affection and love To that part of the body or has it been missed?

And later when we bathe or shower. Perhaps we can take an opportunity to really. Meet this part of the body with awareness and comfort it and Make it feel that little bit better.

And when we're ready, We let go. We take our attention back. And we anchor our attention once more to the breath.

And as we breathe mindfully. Bringing awareness to the movement of the body. We get ready and we do another mine sweep.

And this time we start at the top of the head. At the scalp And we work our way down. We work our way over our eyes, our nose.

Our mouth, our jawline. Until we find An area of our body that we want to open the doors and the windows of the mind and sweep in. With awareness And concentrate there.

Maybe it's those shoulders. Now he is. Rather than relaxed and soft And as we minesweep and find our shoulders.

And the space between the shoulders. And we allow ourselves to really move in. And to explore.

That area of our shoulders, our shoulder blades. The bottom of our neck. And we flood that part of the body with awareness.

Remembering those times when we have been stressed and immediately our shoulders rise protectively. And then Later on in the day when there is no threat. But our shoulders are still there.

And we let them go. And we soften them. And maybe we roll them back a bit to create space in our chest.

And as we roll them back, we just allow some of the fluid that runs between our joints to. Get into some of the parts of the body that have been starved. We make space for them.

Once again we check out. What's happening physically? Psychologically, spiritually.

As we Mind sweep as we flood that part of the body with awareness and warmth and compassion. And we smile. We take our attention back to the breath.

And once more. We breathe Holding each breath. And letting it go.

And we mine sweep again. Using our intuition. To just take our attention to wherever our body needs us.

Where have we been? Omitting to care for our bodies. Where have we been?

Mindlessly just using that part of our body but with no care. No consideration. And once again we find a part of the body that Like the musical instrument again needs fine tuning.

And we settle our attention there. Like a butterfly just landing on a flower. We settle our attention there fleetingly maybe, but we're there.

In the same way that. Butterfly just feels and. Prods around and looks for the pollen.

We just ease our attention in. Exploring and finding. And softening I'm being curious.

Enjoying it. And when we're ready We just begin to. Relax and smile.

And The more we do this. The more we body scan, the better we get at it. We can really start to.

Develop a better relationship, really. With our bodies. And I just wanted to, as we come out of this.

Meditation to just share with you a little bit of James Joyce and the Dubliners. And I'm just gonna read that for you as we gently come out of our meditative state. Mr.

Duffy lived a short distance from his body. I'll say that again. Mr.

Duffy lived a short distance from his body. And I think that might be an address. Too many of us share.

And what we've just done then is we've taken that miracle of embodiments that we take for granted perhaps. And we've started this process of a profound healing of our lives because we don't want to be like Mr. Duffy living our lives a short distance from our body.

We want to get back in touch with it. And all it takes. I practise And body scanning And perhaps a spirit of adventure.

That every time you go body scanning in an intuitive way. It's like opening our minds up. To a very small A very important adventure.

So thank you all for joining me today. I'm aware the football starts in 30 minutes. I'm aware that Dawn will be doing anything other than listening to it.

But for those of you who are Italian, good luck, and for those of you who are supporting England, good luck too. And we'll watch the match mindfully, shall we? Good night, everybody.