Mindful Body Scan Meditation
The mindful body scan practice invites you to find a middle ground, experiencing your body through an objective lens. Systematically you will be guided to place your attention on your body, noticing sensations in your muscles, bones, joints, and organs. Do your best to experience your body without all the add-ons.
When you complete this practice, you may want to revisit the My Body's Feeling Tones Worksheet from Module 1. Sensations in your body are impermanent. This simple exercise is a great way to check in with your physical body throughout this course and beyond!
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INTRODUCTION
PRACTICE
The first foundation of mindfulness is the body. Like your breath, your body is with you all the time. And like your breath, it is easy to take your body for granted or ignore its powerful cues.
On the flip side, it is also easy for us to become overly preoccupied with our appearance, or the aches and pains that are inevitable during our human journey.
When we put energy into actually experiencing our body and we refuse to get caught up in the overlay of judgmental thinking about it, our whole view of it and ourself can change dramatically. To begin with, what it does is remarkable! It can walk and talk and sit up and reach for things; it can judge distance and digest food and know things through touch. Usually we take the abilities completely for granted and don't appreciate what our bodies can actually do until we are injured or sick. Then we realize how nice it was when we could do the things we can't do anymore.
So before we convince ourselves that our bodies are too this or too that, shouldn't we get more in touch with how wonderful it is to have a body in the first place, no matter what it looks or feels like.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Full Catastrophe Living: Using The Wisdom of the Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness