Relax your body with gratitude with a 12-minute meditation

Take a moment of recovery to de-stress and feel a deep appreciation for your hard-working body.

Taking a moment to pause with the intention of simply allowing our bodies to do this peace of mind can bring a great sense of restoration and renewal in the heart. Our body is very overworked and often neglected. This guided awareness practice will allow us to feel gratitude for our body in all its beauty and mystery.

A 12-minute meditation to rest your body in gratitude

Read the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.

1. To begin, find a pose that is comfortable for you at this moment. There are many different postures that we can choose from. Check your body to feel which posture is best for me now?
2. Once you find this pose, just start noticing and feeling your body here and at this moment without trying to fix or change anything in the body. Often, the body can be used simply for its intended purpose we work, strive and achieve, but in this moment we invite our body to simply rest naturally.
3. Take a few minutes to feel what it means to be alive in your body right now. By paying attention to the body, just notice: How is my body expressing its aliveness in this moment? Maybe it’s with great sensations, maybe the body feels loose and relaxed, or maybe energy is moving through some of our bodies. Whatever is true for your body right now, allow that aliveness to be what you feel in that moment. This is my body and I am grateful for my body.
4. Now allow your attention to rest slightly on the sensations has to do with the body touching that which supports it. Maybe it’s the floor or a pillow, or a bed or a couch. Allowing your attention to rest slightly, feel the aliveness of your body being touched and supported by what lies beneath you. This is my body resting, supported by what is beneath me at this moment, and I am grateful for this body and for this support and this moment of rest. Rests in the same way as a newborn rests in the arms of a parent or guardian. Allow your body to rest, allowing the support, stability and comfort of being held by something to really fill your body and your awareness. At this point, I am being held and supported, and that support is steady and unconditional, and I am grateful. Continue to feel connected and supported by whatever is holding you in this moment, staying connected to this experience.
5. We are going to start inviting our bodies to rest in the sense of space around the body. So we are really just letting our attention rest on the skin of the body. And with each exhalation, allow your attention to relax and go beyond the skin, just going out a few inches around the skin, resting in that space. Instead of focusing entirely on the physicality of the body, we now invite the energy in the body – the tingling, the sensations – to actually rest in the space around us. You can use your imagination to imagine that with each exhalation you begin to feel your body being held by the vast space that surrounds the body.
6. It may be helpful to start from the back, giving the back a rest. Just release into the space behind you. And shifting to one side of the body, feeling that side, feeling the skin, and then inviting that side of the body to just let go. To relax into the space around this side of the body. And then we move to the front of the body: feel the skin, the sensations of the body and the aliveness, and just allow the front of the body to hold and rest in the space in front. And finally, coming to the other side of the body, feeling the skin of the body, then allow your attention to relax into the space around that side of the body.
7. For a few moments while you inhale and exhale naturallyallow your attention to rest, as the body rests, in the space around the body. The body can let go now. Breathing in, feeling how the body is held in our consciousness. Exhaling, we give thanks for the space around the body. This allows the body to relax.
8. As we complete this practicethe invitation is for you to place your hand on your heart, feeling a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the body, the space around the body, and this moment of rest. And remember, gratitude for the body is a way we can always reconnect with that sense of rest, presence, and ease.