5 Minute Body Scan Meditation

To begin this body scan, lie down if you can, or sit fully supported.

Let the surface take your weight. You do not have to hold yourself up.

When you are ready, you may softly close your eyes.

We will travel from the feet to the crown. The work is to receive sensation, not to improve it.

Begin at the soles. What is here — pressure, temperature, almost nothing?

You do not need to make the feet relax. Just notice them.

Move to the ankles, the calves, the knees. Receive whatever is true.

If a place feels tight, that tightness is information, not a failure.

Continue through the thighs and the hips. Let gravity do the holding.

Arrive at the belly. Feel it move with the breath, without asking it to be calm.

The chest. The back. The places that work all day without being named.

And let them be felt, without a job to do.

Travel now into the hands. Fingers. Palms. The small life in them.

The arms, the shoulders. If they want to drop, they may. If they do not, leave them.

The neck, the jaw, the mouth. Receive the face as it is.

What is it like at the forehead? At the scalp? At the crown of the head?

You have scanned the whole body. Nothing had to change for this to count.

If the mind skipped a region, return to one place — the feet, or the breath in the belly.

Sensation does not need your opinion. Warm, numb, restless: all allowed.

Rest now in the body as a whole, from soles to crown, one field.

You are not forcing relaxation. You are keeping company with what is here.

Let the whole body be received.

Now let your attention travel back. Wiggle the fingers and toes. Feel the room.

Take this listening body with you, as you slowly open your eyes.