Change Your Fascia, Change Your Whole Being

How Body Scans Create A New Sense of Who We Are

A defiant tree being, Sheringham Park, North Norfolk.

Practice Yoga with Julia - New Times for Shiva Shakti and Meditation Classes

Mondays September 1:30pm - 3pm - Union Church
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FREE! Monday Meditation on Zoom 7:45 - 8:15pm
Today’s Meditation not running, the next one is on the 4th November
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Shiva Shakti Studio Classes on Tuesdays at 7:30pm and Thursdays 12pm
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Starting on 7th November!
Community Holistic Yoga Class - Low-Cost Yoga in St Ann’s Library, Tottenham
More information is here
This is a class for people in financial hardship. Please share details of this class with people you know who find yoga inaccessible for financial reasons.
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Dear Yoga Practitioner,

I hope you are well and able to find some islands of peace in these wild and transformative times. The rapid changes, the uncertainty and the many difficulties we face take their toll on our being. Having a practice of yoga during this time is invaluable.

My yoga teacher Swami Gyan Dharma taught me to start meditation sessions with a brief body scan. This practice settles and prepares the body for sitting still for longer periods. It can be interesting to make the whole meditation a body scan. In the Buddhist tradition, this is called mindfulness of the body. A longer body scan settles and prepares our body for being in Life.

Connecting to, and becoming aware of, the parts of the body and then the whole body is a simple yet powerful practice. It helps us notice what is happening in our bodies: how we hold ourselves, where there is unnecessary tension, and where there is laxity. We also pay attention to naturally arising sensations associated with emotions, thoughts and feelings. The body scan begins the process of unwinding the habitual postures associated with the stress, anxiety, overwhelm or sadness that we inevitably feel in this far less-than-perfect culture that we live within.

Our posture may be viewed as a somatic manifestation of our unconscious thoughts, feelings and emotions arising from our relationship with, prakriti, the Life around us. Wilhelm Reich, one of the forefathers of body psychotherapy and Gestalt Therapy, was the first to view the body as the unconscious mind. The fascial network, which interfaces with our skin, nervous system, brain structures such as the insula, and every organ, blood vessel and bone, is living tissue moulded by our psyche.

If we get stuck in a particular posture, we tend to fuel the experience of that emotion. We are often barely conscious of these emotions, as they lie beneath the surface of our awareness. Conversely, if we choose to take on a different posture, or explore various ways of moving and being in our body (as we do in yoga asana), we can loosen the grip that habitual posture has on our unconscious mind. The more we can unwind the tension in our fascia that holds us in a place of discomfort, the more free we become at all levels of consciousness. In this manner, we can expand our repertoire of feelings, expressions and actions, we become less stuck in our ways.

A body scan is a sensing practice that enables you to systematically assess where you are holding tension in your body. Practising body scans can help you reclaim your human right to experience being in a body with more freely flowing breath, energy (prana), oxygen and interstitial fluid. In this way, we have more access to flow, change, openness and dynamic balance in the panchamayakosha, the expression of the wholeness of our being.

Enjoy this simple audio practice, it is more powerful than it seems.

Body Scan Meditation

If you enjoyed this meditation, it’s from a live meditation that I hold most Mondays at 7:45 - 8:15pm. Book your place here, to join us live for free tonight. It would be lovely to see. you there!

With love and good wishes,

Julia xx