69 Self-Compassion Body Scan

Hello and welcome to the meditate your brain portion of the RxChill Pill podcast, the podcast that strengthens your resilient mind every time you listen. These mini meditations are designed to elicit your relaxation response, the antidote to your stress response, and they're portable so you can take them anywhere and do them anytime. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a physician and mom specializing in mind-body and lifestyle medicine. Find out more about me, my personalized online courses on procrastination and mindset coaching for students, parents, educators, and professionals at mindbodyspace.com. February was all about relationships. It started with episode number 70, Our Highest Potential, where I chat with Fiona Merton, chartered psychologist, about relationships. Then episode number 71 was a chat with John Berger, who just released his new book, Make Your Move. The Science of Dating and Why Women Are in Charge. And today we're going to do a mini meditation to nurture one of the most important relationships we'll ever have, the relationship to ourselves. As always, find a comfortable and safe place where you can sit for the next few minutes. Please do not operate a moving vehicle while you're listening.

So sit with your spine tall, inhaling, growing taller in your spine, and exhaling, releasing your neck and shoulders. Take another deep breath, just settling in. Inhale and exhale, surrendering to this moment of peace and quiet. Now place one hand over your heart and the other over your belly. Take another slow inhale whenever you're ready and notice the rise and fall of your belly your chest, letting your breath breathe you. Now bring your attention to the top of your head and just releasing any tension there.

Now bring your attention to the muscles of your face around your eyes.

Bring your attention to your cheeks and jawline, your lips and your eyes, all the areas of your face that work for you to be expressive, to radiate joy with smiles and kindness. So grateful for all of the expressions that our faces can make for us. To communicate with other people. Now bring your attention to the back of your neck and shoulders and down your spine, vertebra by vertebra by vertebra, releasing the tension in your spine, imagining a waterfall washing away the tension. As your spine grows taller, the muscles around it release. Your paraspinals, all the muscles of your back that hold you up all day. Let's nod in gratitude. We can be grateful for all of these amazing muscles protecting us and holding us tall. Now on the next exhale, Release tension from your shoulders all the way down your arms and out your fingertips. With intense gratitude for our arms and hands and fingers and all the fine motor movements that we're able to do with our hands. They work so hard for us. Our hands are miraculous and we are grateful. For all the work they do. Now bringing your attention to the front of your chest and abdomen, inhaling and exhaling. Grateful for the openness to breathe in the air in our chest and for our abdomen holding in all of the most essential organs. In our body. Now down to our legs, our thighs, our knees, our calves and shin and our feet.

Inhaling.

And on the next exhale, whenever that is for you, releasing tension all the way down your legs and out your toes into the ground, feeling the ground beneath you. Feeling the bottom of your feet, whether it's in your shoes or socks or barefoot. Feeling gratitude for our legs and limbs and even our big toes. Our big toes are essential for balancing, for walking and balancing, running. Yes, the big toe. We don't often think about it, but it is a key player in balancing us while we stand and walk and move. Now on the next breath, inhale and exhale and bring your hands to your heart and belly again if you haven't moved them. They're still there. If you have moved them, bring them back and bring some wishes for yourself. May I be well. May I be happy. Now experiencing a feeling of general gratitude for all of our body parts and all of the work they do for us. The miracles of fine motor movements and the complexity of of our bodies and nervous system that altogether work smoothly for us to make the miracles of everyday living possible. May I be well. May I be happy. And whenever you're ready, just gently raise your arms above your head, inhaling. Exhaling, allowing the room to come back to focus. Doing a couple of head rolls to the left, to the right.

And if you haven't done so already, you can open your eyes and check in with yourself and feeling ready for whatever is left of your day or evening.

Please share this podcast with everyone who could use a dose of the relaxation response who could boost their resilience right now.

This is mind-body medicine, working with our mind to enhance our immunity.

I know we can all use this right now.

So until next time, this is Dr. Juna Bobby MD.

Thank you so much for spending time with me.

I'm wishing you and all your loved ones wellness.