Body Scan: Hand it Over

What's weighing you down? What feels tense, heavy, or tight that you'd like to let go of? Welcome God's healing touch today and hand over anything you don't need with this Body Scan meditation. For more on the Hand it Over theme, see page 84 of With God in Every Breath by Whitney R. Simpson. 

Transcript

Welcome And Practice Setup

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Hi, I'm Whitney, and you're listening to Exploring Peace Meditations. Today's practice invites you to a body scan meditation. You can practice this seated. I prefer reclined either on a floor, on a couch, or on the bed. You could also practice it lying on the earth outside. As you find your posture, allow yourself to notice your breath and settle in for just a few moments. I'd love to remind you that this podcast is possible because of people like you. And you can find us at exploringpeace.com slash community. Now hopefully you're settled. Let go of distractions and allow yourself to take a nice, full inhalation through the nose. Expand your chest and diaphragm deep into the belly with a full breath. And then sigh out. Let go of anything you don't need today. Let it be an audible sigh. Ah. Repeat that again, full breath in, long sigh out. Now visualize that you are drawing in fresh, healing, revitalizing energy from God's spirit with each breath you breathe. God's energy is vibrant, healing, filling you with vitality, renewal, and health. Your exhales are letting go, handing over to God anything you don't need to hold on to, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Exhale. Sigh that out. Visualize yourself releasing and handing over your worries to God. In Matthew chapter nine, Jesus showed miraculous authority over sickness, disease, and death. You can read more of this in With God in Every Breath. But the invitation was to hand over to God, to release, to let our worries go. And Jesus responded. He held space for miracles. And so we do that today. Hand over to God what you don't need and make space for the healing touch of Jesus in your life. Shift your attention to any area in your body where you may feel tension, tightness, stuck or stagnant energy. It may be in your shoulders, neck, chest, abdomen, or somewhere else. Take a moment to identify one specific area in your body where you need God's healing touch. As you focus on this one area, imagine gathering all the tension from that area of your body into a tight ball. Now make fists with your hands, holding on to the tension, the tightness, the stress, the worry. Squeeze those hands for just a moment. Continue to breathe. Feel the weight of the ball in your fist. What's it made of? What's in this stress and tension and tightness? Recognize that it no longer serves you and that you can release and let it go. So with conscious intention, open your hands. Open your hands to God, letting go, letting go of that ball, letting go of that tension, letting go of that worry. Imagine handing this tension to Jesus. And visualize that tightness, stress, worry in yourself begin to fade away. Take a full breath in and out, appreciating God's willingness to let you hand this over today. See if you can relax a little bit more into your body. Let the back side of your body rest, let the insides of your body soften, and let the top of your body sink down upon the rest of you. Now take your awareness to the top of your head. With gentle movement, engage the muscles in your face, head, skull. Tighten those muscles. Squeeze for just a moment, and then relax. Scan down from your head to your neck. Gently tighten your throat, your neck, the tops of your shoulders, and then relax. Awareness travels to the top of the chest, the upper back, the tops of the arms. Tighten, squeeze, hold, and then let go. Awareness travels to the lower arms and hands. Squeeze, tighten, hold, relax. Scan down your body to your belly and hips. Squeeze, tighten, hold, relax. Awareness travels to the thighs. Squeeze, tighten, hold, relax. Scanning down the body to the knees and the lower legs all the way to the feet. Squeeze. Tighten. Hold. Relax. Take your awareness to your whole body. Allow your whole body to feel engaged. Tight, tense just for a moment as we gather up all the energy that doesn't serve us that we don't need. Hold on to a moment. And then relax the whole body. Letting go, softening. Handing over that tension, tightness, stress, and worry to God. Repeat that again as if you're gathering up on the next inhale anything you don't need, tightening it, squeezing it, holding it from the top of your head to the bottoms of your toes. And with a nice full exhale, release every part of your being. Soften, soften, soften, and hand it over to God. One final time of engaging the full body head to toe. Tighten, squeeze, soften and relax. As you rest and breathe, I invite you to stay here in a relaxed state as long as you're able. I'd like to leave you today with a couple of questions. What's weighing you down? What feels tense, heavy or tight that you'd like to let go of, to hand over to God? And is there an area of your physical body where you indeed long for God's healing touch today? Meditate on that. Welcome God's healing touch in this relaxed state. And rest in the presence of your Creator. Holy God, refresh us with your healing touch. Help us release to you what no longer serves us. In your holy name we pray. Amen. You can find me at whitney rsimpson.com. There's more meditations and opportunities to connect at exploringpeace.com. Until next time, may God's peace be with you.