A grounding yoga Nidra practice to bring awareness to your inner light. This class works with meditation, body scan, visualization, and affirmation practices to encourage a deeper state of rest and release. You are light; you can heal yourself through self-care practices that align breathe and body where you might discover your truth.
Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation that involves Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) to come into a relaxed state of conscious rests between waking and sleep. You’ll close practice feeling refreshed and ready to move into the rest of your day.
Take the Yoga Nidra for better sleep.
Style: Yoga Nidra
Duration: 23-minutes
Level: open
Props: none
Focus: a guided meditation in yoga Nidra
Location: Vancouver, BC
Meditation
Come to lay on your back using as many or few props as you prefer. Extend your palms wide to either side and your legs off to the corners of your mat. Extending the limbs away from the torso creates less stimulation. You may also place your hands on your torso to feel your heartbeat and your breath moving through your body.
Envision your body softening down into the ground as you exhale.
Body Scan
Open to a brief body scan by taking your awareness to all parts of your body and simply observing how you feel and softening into the expression. Inviting a deeper breath and willing the body to soften will help the muscles relax and calm the nervous system.
In this space, we drop into the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), also known as rest and digest mode. When in rest and digest, the blood pressure lowers, and our brains learn to distinguish real-life stressors from regular life stressors. The PNS system promotes better digestion and aids in eliminating waste from the body.
Visualization
Visualize a ball of light in your belly. In the Indian/Yoga tradition, the solar plexus is where our power center resides. Bring your awareness to the place just above your navel, and breathe into this area. Imagine that every time you inhale, the ball of light becomes brighter and bigger within, lighting you up from the inside. As it becomes brighter and bigger, the ball of light begins to illuminate the rest of your body so that you’re glowing from your core, and the light extends to reach the furthest points of your body.
Envision the light illuminating your mind; allow it to burn away any thoughts that do not serve. Let the light clear any impurities or negative thoughts or emotions. The light becomes so bright that you can no longer see or feel your physical body; you are simply bright light radiating from the inside, outwards. With every inhale, open to receive the light. With every exhale, release and soften your body into the earth.
Affirmation
From this place, from the source of your inner light, create an affirmation. Choose something that resonates with you, here and now, such as:
Allow your breath to feed this affirmation as you be and breathe. Hold on to your affirmation as you bring your awareness back into your belly. Gently soften the light so that it resides in the abdomen and is concentrated at the solar plexus. As the light diminishes, guide your awareness to your physical body and observe your breath and the sensations.
Place your palms on your belly and upper chest, and breathe your affirmation into your hands to light your body up with your intention. Keep sending light through your body from the belly to your heart.
Keep your palms on your body or extend your palms away from your torso with palms facing upwards as a symbol of reception.
To close practice
Come up to sit and bring your hands together at the center of your chest. Breathe deeply into how you feel and observe the effects of the yoga Nidra practice on your mind and body.
Additional Resources:
Listen to this podcast, read the blog post, or take the yoga class for more on Manipura chakra.
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