When you have not checked in with your body for a while
Position
Sitting or lying down
Style
Guided, a conversation with each part of you. Music underneath
You go through the body and actually talk to it. Hi toes, how are you? Then you wait, and you listen to what comes back.
About 16 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.
Toes, feet, ankles, all the way up. Each part gets asked, gets a moment to answer, and gets thanked for what it does. Sometimes a part tells you something you had not noticed. Sore, swollen, tired. I do this a couple of times a month, because we rarely check in with the thing carrying us around.
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Thank you for sitting with me.
Steven
Who this is for
You spend the day in your head and your body is carrying you around unthanked.
You go through it part by part in this one and actually talk to it. Hi toes, how are you? Then you wait, and you listen to what comes back.
What happens in this meditation
Toes first. Notice them resting there, say hello, ask how they are, and then pause.
Whatever arrives is the answer. Warmth, coolness, a tingling, tiredness, heaviness, or nothing at all. Then thank them. For balancing your steps.
Then feet, ankles and calves, knees and thighs. Then the whole torso, the back and the stomach and everything working away inside it. Then shoulders and neck, arms and hands and fingers.
Then the mind, which goes blank for a second and then realises you are talking to it and starts offering you things.
Then the senses. Hearing, smell, taste, sight. Between them they are how you get to experience any of this at all.
Then the heart. Then the whole of you, and a hand over your chest.
How to get the most from it
Sixteen minutes, and the pause after each question is where it happens. Skip the waiting and it becomes a list.
Some parts will tell you something you had not noticed. Sore, swollen, tired. That is the healing half of it, and it is worth having.
I do this a couple of times a month, and once you have done it two or three times you can run it yourself.
Questions people ask
What if a part does not answer?
Then that is the answer for today. There is no right response, only what is actually there, and nothing is going wrong if it is quiet.
Does it really help with healing?
It helps you notice what needs attention, which is usually where healing starts. I would not claim more than that, and I would not claim less.
Can I do a short version?
Yes, and I would. Sat in the car: hi legs, how are you doing. Hi heart, how are you feeling. Thirty seconds and it does much the same job.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
gratitude · healing · body-scan
Read the transcript
Hello and welcome to my Inner Peace Meditation. I'm Steven Webb and this meditation is about appreciating and having
a bit of gratitude for our body and it also helps us to heal our body by listening to the
different parts and it's something I do quite regularly, probably a couple of times a month. And just go through
my body each part, just asking how are you doing and how is it feeling? And then just appreciating it
for what it does for me. And I find it's It's really helpful to check in with our different body
parts because we don't always take notice of our body, what it's doing and how it's feeling. And it's a
really simple meditation. If you just do it two or three times, you'll be able to do it without the
guidance. So become comfortable.
Just allow your body to relax into this moment.
And remember to relax into this moment. You don't have to actually do anything. You just have to allow this
moment to be what it is.
Allow your breath to be what it is.
Your body to be what it is.
And you allow your breath to be what it is. And you don't have to do anything with your breath.
Just the same as you don't have to do anything with the air around you. You can still breathe it
in and breathe it out and
You can still appreciate everything for what it is. You
don't have to do anything with it.
And if you gently close your eyes, or just soften your gaze to a few feet in front of you.
And with each breath, just breathe in calm and breathe out relax.
And with each breath, just feel your body becoming more relaxed.
Breathing in calm,
breathing out relax.
And now let's turn our attention to our toes. And you can feel them resting there. Notice their presence.
And
you can gently say in your mind, Hi Toes. How are you?
And then you pause and just listen.
Feeling for whatever sensations arise,
whether it's warmth or coolness, there may be a tingling, perhaps
nothing at all.
There may be a tiredness, there may be a heaviness to your toes.
And just acknowledge their response.
And now with a genuine heartfelt gratitude, thank them. Thank
you Toes. For supporting me and for balancing my steps.
And now move your awareness to your feet.
Notice their weight and their texture.
And again ask, Hi feet. How are you today
And the same as the toes. We just wait for their response.
Maybe it's a sense of heaviness or a lightness.
Maybe you can feel them in their shoes.
And again with a genuine appreciation say thank you. Thank you feet for carrying me through my journey.
For grounding me to the earth.
And You continue this dialogue, just gently moving your awareness through each part of your body.
And You can move to your ankles and calves.
Hi ankles and calves. How are you doing?
And give a few moments to wait for the response.
And then with genuine gratitude, thank you for holding me up.
Thank you for supporting me along with my feet.
Now we'll move to your knees and your thighs.
And just say, hi, how are you?
And very often after the initial response of maybe a lightness or a warmth or a heaviness,
maybe even a tiredness, they
might even tell you something that you're not aware of. Maybe there's a bit sore there or maybe they're a
bit swollen or something.
And you just appreciate them for being there and holding you up. So thank you.
Thank you to your knees and your thighs.
And now moving on to your hips and your... Torso in general. You can
feel your chest rising and with each breath. And
this is the whole area of your back and your stomach and all
your liver and kidneys and all the insides and all of the stuff that goes on in there to keep
you alive. And just say hi, how are you all doing?
You'll notice how they all work together.
And with a genuine heartfelt thank you. Thank you to all the different parts around this part of your body.
A real genuine gratitude for your
stomach and what it does. Your
bum and all the different areas down there from your liver to your kidneys. They all play a role in
keeping you alive and keeping you here.
And then move on to your shoulders and your neck.
Hi how are you doing?
And you might find you can allow them to relax a little bit more
And just see how they're feeling.
And there's never a right to a wrong answer. It's just exactly the way they feel at the moment.
And then say thank you. Thank you to your neck for holding your head up and your shoulders, for moving
your arms around.
Now we move to the arms and your hands and your fingers and your thumb. Bring them all in and
say hi, how are you doing?
Maybe they can feel a bit hot or cold or maybe they're tired or
maybe they're ready to do more work or whatever.
Now we can say thank you. Thank you hands for picking stuff up for me. Thank you. Fingers and
arms for all the things you do for me every day that I wouldn't be able to do without you
here.
And now we'll move to your head. And
we'll do the head in general first
I mind How are you doing?
And the mind will go blank for a moment. And
then when it realizes you're actually talking to your mind it'll start telling you all sorts of stuff.
And you smile at it and thank you. I really appreciate you for all the thoughts you give me. All
the thoughts you give me that you think I want.
I really appreciate you being here and having this moment with me.
And now move your awareness to your hearing and
to your smell, to your breath,
to your taste and your eyes. Even if you got them closed, you can still see the odd
the odd shape or the odd colour difference. And you can hear my voice. And
we just put all those together and say, hi, how are you doing?
Now you can really appreciate for what they do for you.
Your eyes so you can see. And your nose to smell. And your mouth to taste. And your ears to
listen. And
between them all, they give us an experience of life. To be here. The
lenses in which we see and taste and feel the world.
And now finally we bring to our hearts and our chest.
And with a slightly deeper breath, we just, Hi, how are you doing? To our hearts. And
this is the centre place where we feel
centre place of all our emotions. All of our wisdom.
And we just wait for the answer. How are you doing?
And you may notice that any feelings that come up, just really appreciate them.
And now we do the whole body. Just thank you to your heart.
And just appreciate your whole body and just a general high body. How are you doing?
And you may notice it just feels more at peace. Slightly
more quiet than usual.
And now if you hold your hand over your heart and just really thank you body. Thank you for allowing
me to experience the world.
Thank you for allowing me to be here.
Thank you for my feelings. Thank you for my taste and sight and hearing and my
smell. Thank you for my touch.
Thank you for my whole existence for being here. It's down to you that I experienced the world.
And as this journey of gratitude for our whole bodies comes to a close, just take a moment to feel
the wholeness of you, this awareness and the body as one.
And every part acknowledge and appreciate every part for what it is.
As you carry this sense of gratitude with you and slowly bring your awareness back to the room. When
you're ready, gently open your eyes returning to the world around you. Carrying with you this deep sense of connection
and a thankfulness for the body.
I don't think we appreciate our bodies anywhere near as much as we should you know Without our bodies, we
wouldn't exist here. And yet we pay so much attention to our mind and our thinking and our
emotions that we forget that our toes and our feet and our legs, hands, all they're doing their bit as
well. You know all interdependent on the different parts of the body.
I think when we take a deep breath and really appreciate this. And
this is the way we can heal our body just by appreciating it and knowing it's there and knowing where
the little ailments are that we're struggling with. We can help to heal them. I hope you enjoyed this
and
I hope it helps. And you don't need to do all the whole meditation every single time. Just sit in
the car and go, hi legs, how are you doing?
Hi heart, how are you feeling?
Hi eyes, how are you doing? And when we do that, it just really allows our awareness to step outside
of ourselves. Thank you. And I'm Steven Webb and I've got another podcast, Stillness in the Storms, that
just digs a little bit deeper into helping people through difficult times and seeing the world a little bit differently.
