When was the last time you paid attention to your toes, your ankles, your legs, your abdomen or chest ? When was the last time you didn't realize how fast you were breathing, or how flushed you were when recalling a memory ? Body scanning will help you enter into greater connection with your body and learn to be aware of your mind.
The first thing to come into connection with your mind, that part of your subconscious that seems to move without control, is to regain power and know how to feel and concentrate on what we can control more easily-at this moment-: Our body. For that 'body scan' meditation, the most characteristic and famous form of meditation of Contemporary Mindfulness aims to use the body as the central point of our attention and consciousness.
The method is quite simple: to put deliberate and purposeful attention on every part of our body, going part by part, until we have scanned the whole body. At first it will be complicated, but not impossible. To perform this exercise you will need to enter a state of awareness of your body, which will later be important to enter into total control of your mind.
To start this exercise it is advisable to be in a space that allows you to concentrate. For the exercise you could also use meditation music - we will talk about this topic in other posts -. You will start from the bottom (feet) up (head). Try to feel every fiber of your body and every part: your feet, how are they accommodated ? in which one loads more weight ? Are your ankles cold or hot ?Your waist, is it aligned ? Is there more weight to the right or left ? Is your abdomen contracted ? Are you relaxed ?, Your shoulders, are they drooping or erect ? Are they aligned ? Is your neck, tense or relaxed ?
This exercise is not to search and find in your body, it is simply to re-learn to feel our body in the sense of paying attention to it.
By cultivating this practice you will not only learn to recognize your body, this practice will also help you improve your concentration for extended periods of time, especially in the present moment, it will also improve your ability to relax and calm - if you fall asleep during this practice it would not be strange that you were doing well.
This exercise is part of the foundational basis of Mindfulness because it represents what is sought with it: consciously choosing where we put our attention. This will require us to release in a concise way our thoughts, emotions and what is happening around us. This exercises allows us to put our attention on the sensations of our body.
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