Guided Meditation—Body Scan

Hello, this is Paul Krismer, of the Happiness Experts Company. I’m pleased to share this brief guided meditation with you. Our goal here is to learn just a little bit about letting ourselves go, reflecting on our connection with our bodies, clearing the mind, and enjoying the natural relaxation that comes from this process.

To begin, set yourself up sitting comfortably. A straight, erect back is recommended. Now, take a deep breath in, perhaps holding it for a count of four, and then exhale just a little longer than it took you to inhale. This is a little cue to your brain to say it’s a time to be relaxed. Any time our out breath is longer than our in breath, our brain is telling our bodies to relax.

So, again, breathe in slowly, deeply, hold it, and let it go, let it go. And repeat. Taking a deep, long breath in, hold it for a count two, three, four, and exhale. Three, four, five.

We often carry tension in our face that we don’t recognize. Let’s examine that. Consider your jaw, let it go completely. Let your mouth fall open and totally relax the muscles of your mouth and your jaw. And now, as you close your mouth back up just gently, ever so softly bring your lower teeth up to just about touching your upper teeth. And rest your tongue, the top of your palate just behind your upper teeth, softly letting go. Your mouth is relaxed.

Now, consider your eyes, just let the muscles go completely. Possibly open them just ever so slightly, then consciously close them very softly. And now, your forehead. We often hold tension here. We furrow our brows. If you can’t feel yourself letting go just lift one hand up, three fingers to the center of your forehead and just push up ever so gently and you’ll feel what it is to have a relaxed brow. Let go.

Now, consider your ears. Even if you’re not aware of your muscles here, just imagine that you are. Letting your muscles completely relax and let go. And now, consider your scalp. Imagine that bungee cords hold the skin tight across the bone inside your head. And now, just imagine that you can just release the bungee cords so that the tension falls away, and your skin just sits relaxed across your head.

Now, let’s consider our back. You can breathe in imagining the air going refreshingly into your upper neck and on the exhalation muscles just completely relax and let go. Again, breathing in and on the out breath just completely relaxing and letting go. Now, you may breathe into your upper back between your shoulder blades, and on the out breath completely let go and relax. And the same for the middle back, breathing in fresh air, refreshing and on the out breath completely relax and let go. And now, into your low back and on the out breath you let go and you may feel the tension give way all the way into your buttocks, completely letting go.

Consider the front of your body, your neck, your chest, your diaphragm. We’re going to breathe into our necks and on the exhalation completely release. The neck, the chest, and the diaphragm totally relaxed.

Consider your arms. Breathe in, upper arms, breathe out, let go, upper arms, forearms, right through to the ends of your hands and fingertips. Completely letting go.

And now, for the big muscles in our legs, these upper muscles in the front and backs of our legs. Breathe in, and let go, completely relaxing. Let’s breathe into our calves and shins and on the out breath completely let go. Totally allow this part of your body to relax. And finally, your feet. Tops, heels, bottoms, right through the toes. Breathe in and letting go, breath out.

Regular meditation is a beautiful way to increase your personal happiness, sense of emotional contentedness, and frankly to win more control over your own brain, your own thinking, and feelings. I appreciate you spending this time with me. Be well, be happy.