Yoga Nidra Practice: A Desire for Life with Deep Relaxation and Sensation Awareness

In this yoga nidra practice, we explore the desire to live that flows through all our cells. Be prepared to feel many sensations that are the pathway to presence.

Are you ready to drift into a tranquil oasis of self-discovery and inner peace? This episode offers a serene escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life as we embark on a meditative journey through Yoga Nidra. We'll anchor ourselves in the calming rhythm of our breath, connecting deeply with our physical sensations as we explore a safe and comforting space within our minds. Set an intention, surrender to the moment, and join us in this session of deep relaxation and awareness.

As we delve deeper into our practice, we'll encounter the fascinating interplay of desire and aversion, exploring these sensations as they arise and subside with each breath. Imagine yourself in a place of complete stillness, where you can invite new possibilities and embrace the dance of passion, curiosity, and avoidance. As we awaken to these senses, we return to our physical world, replete with a renewed sense of balance and calm. Whether you're an experienced practitioner or a curious newcomer, this Yoga Nidra guided meditation promises a rejuvenating experience for mind and body. Join us in this journey of self-exploration and tranquility.

Want to learn more about how Nid designed this practice and it's benefits? Then read more at the blog https://www.nidsnidra.com/blog/desire-yoga-nidra

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:57

Welcome to this yoga nitro practice. Take a moment to find yourself in a comfortable lying position, perhaps something underneath the knees to ease the low back and perhaps a small pillow to relax your neck. Have any layers to keep you warm as the body temperature drops throughout the practice, and perhaps you'd like something over the eyes to allow your awareness to draw inwards a little further. As you settle down into this comfortable position, the legs apart at hip distance, the palms away from the body, with the back of the hands resting down onto your support, Lengthen the back of the neck, allowing your chin to slightly drop down towards your chest, and take a nice, big, full-bodied inhale, letting your whole body feel all that tension of an inhale and a sighing exhale, letting everything drop away, letting your body ease. If you need to take another to wriggle and settle the body down into stillness for this practice, then please do take an extra sigh or two so you'll be able to let the body rest throughout this practice. Allow the eyelids to rest gently across your eyes, the tongue to soften inside the mouth and the lips to gently touch with a gentle lift at the ends. Feel the body melting down onto your support, each exhale softening and opening a little further. Take a moment to become aware of your environment through your sense of sound. Listen to objects and movement, both far and near, without judgment. Just know where you are through sound, begin to become familiar with the sense, feeling of the fabrics touching your skin, their weight, the sensation as your body breathes and moves with that fabric, becoming aware of your breathing and movement of air across your top lip and the way your breath moves your body, perhaps the abdomen rise and fall, or some feeling in the chest. And bringing your intention to practice yoga nidra, to remain conscious and listening to this voice if your awareness drifts in and out. Returning to the words being said without judgment, allowing the words to move through the mind and becoming aware of what your mind interprets and creates from hearing these words.

Speaker 1: 6:11

To begin, we come into your safe space. This place may be real or imaginary. It is somewhere that makes you feel very safe and well, calm and content you can relax into through the power of your mind and imagination. Take yourself to this place in this moment and feel those reassurances of well-being and safety. Know that this place is available to you at any time throughout the practice, should you feel drawn to it and also any time in your daily life and from this place, allowing your heart's felt deepest desire to rise up as your sank helper for this practice, repeating three times, in the present tense, your current intention with true feeling. Release that intention and come to your body.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Rotation of awareness, placing your awareness on the sense, feeling or visualisation of a body part as feels comfortable for your sense or visualisation abilities. We begin inside the mouth and the floor of the mouth, inside right cheek, inside left cheek, roof of the mouth, back of the mouth, the tongue, whole inside of the mouth, sinuses, right eye socket, left eye socket, middle of the mind, right ear, left ear, back of the head, crown of the head, forehead, tip of the nose, point where the lips touch the face, the whole of the head, face of the throat, right shoulder, upper, right arm, right forearm, right wrist, back of the right hand, palm of the right hand, thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky finger, right hand, right arm, right armpit, right side, waist, right hip, right thigh, knee, shin, right ankle, top of the right foot, soul of the right foot, big toe, second toe, third toe, fourth toe, pinky toe, right foot, right leg, right side of the body, the whole right side of the body, base of the throat, left shoulder, left upper arm, lower left arm, wrist, back of the left hand, palm of the left hand, thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky finger, left hand, left arm, left armpit, left side waist, left hip, thigh, knee, knee, shin, left ankle, top of the left foot, soul of the left foot, big toe, second toe, third toe, fourth toe, fifth toe, left foot, left leg, left side body, the whole left side of the body, base of the throat, middle of the chest, pupic bone Groin, front of the body, the whole front of the body, left heel, right heel, left hip, right hip, left shoulder blade, right shoulder blade, tail of the spine, all the way to the base of the head, back of the body, the whole back of the body, the head. Right side of the body, left side of the body, front of the body, back of the body, the whole of the body, the whole of the body, the whole of the body. Come aware of your breathing. It's natural rhythm and pace Breathing in and out of the abdomen, inhaling as though drawing up from the tailbone Through the sacrum Behind the navel, allowing it to exhale back down from navel, sacrum and tailbone, inhaling up and exhaling down, just following with your awareness the inhale drawing up the spine and the exhale falling down the spine.

Speaker 1: 18:21

And on your inhale, breathing in something you desire. What it is to feel the sense of desire in your body as you exhale? What it is like when you desire something in your life, breathing in desire and breathing out desire. What does desire feel like throughout your body? Where do you feel desire?

Speaker 1: 19:36

And now breathing in something that you have an aversion to, you dislike, you do not want, and allowing yourself to breathe out that which you have an aversion to, breathing in and out the sense, feeling of aversion. Perhaps there's an easy memory of something you seek to avoid. How does that feeling of avoiding, of aversion, feel in your body? Where do you feel it? You're returning to inhaling desire. What does I feels like inside your body, where you feel desire and breathing out aversion? Feeling as you exuberance, a version in your body? How do you experience avoiding or seeking to avoid something in your body, If possible, as you inhale desire and as you exhale a version, breathing in the one, what you want and breathing out the other you do not want?

Speaker 1: 22:48

And is it possible to hold both desire and aversion in the body at the same time, in one experience and releasing the feelings and the breath, bringing the awareness to the space between the eyebrow centre, a dark space where there may be shapes and lights and visuals for some Since. Or maybe visualise yourself like a seed or a baby planted in a dark womb, resting in stillness, but a full of energy of creation of new life, of new expression. Feel that deep desire arising of possibilities that come with new life. Allow this energy and possibility to begin to unfold in this dark space, feeling that energy of desire pulling forward forward into life, always staying in this place of the womb, exploring in this dark space through sense. Or, if there are visuals, where do you receive nourishment? How do you receive your fuel? Perhaps this place of growth, of change, of unfolding, feels murky, the shapes are unclear.

Speaker 1: 27:20

Allow the experience to be what it is, for each time you come back to this womb, it may be a very different experience and from the depths of this womb, feel this desire to be born out, this call of passion, the temptation of desire, sweet allure, a nectar yet untasted, a beauty you have never seen, drawing you forth to discover this calling, filling yourself with passion, desire and curiosity. Allow all the senses to be aroused, awakened and alive, the senses consumed with moving towards this discovery. Allow the senses, the desires that call you forth To preoccupy all your field of choice. What is it to disregard, if this is good or bad? Is it pain or is it pleasure? Is it joy or is it sadness? Allow this desire to experience all these feelings, all these senses. Allow yourself to be washed away into the depths of desire and feel the umbilical cord holding you back to your centre, allowing your soul to cool you back to your centre, releasing all those desires, all that sensual, awakening and alive feeling.

Speaker 1: 32:31

And when you return back to the womb, the quiet space of nourishment, allow rest and in your place of deep rest, repeat your sound helper, that heartfelt desire, three times, with that same feeling you had at the beginning of the practice.

Speaker 1: 33:40

Begin to draw your awareness back to your body, breathing, allowing its natural movement of breath, maybe feeling the fabrics touching your skin, going to hear some of the sounds in your space, reorienting yourself to where your body is located in this world. The practice of yoga nidra is now complete. If you wish to fall asleep, now is the time to go into deep rest. If it is time for you to continue with your day, then take some time to roll onto one side, allowing your hands to start to touch your shoulders or your chest or your face, beginning to come back into your body kindly, with an element of firmness as you touch your own skin. Returning into your body, use your hands to bring you up to seated when you are ready and when you feel fully present in your body and in the space that you are located in. Go about your day and have a most wonderful day today.