If not, it might be that the grounding muladhara exercise may be hard for you the first time.
Therefore I like to recommend you do the scan first, to learn and understand the different sensations you might feel in your body.
Doing the body scan might make the grounding exercise more easy for you.
What I hear from friends and clients is that they are familiar with the body scan where the focus is being placed on the limbs.
I would like to go a step further with you and instead of only going through the body from toe to head, I’d like to ask you to place your mind in your big toe. So instead of just thinking of the big toe, or looking at it with your physical eyes, I’d like to ask you to bring your mind (your consciousness) to the big toe.
You might start feeling the big toe as it is, round, square, tall, short, or however your shape is. You might start feeling pressure, heaviness, tingling, heat, or maybe even pain.
Pain is often a sign of an energy blockage.
By doing the body scan you may get more awareness of your own body, of your limbs, organs, and tissue. You might become more conscious of what is happening in and with your body when you go through some stages in life.
I have done my first body-scan, back in 2007 after my partner shared this knowledge with me. Only throughout the years, did I start going further as I had a pleasant experience by just doing the limb body scan.
I thought if I can experience this with a limb body scan, what more can I experience if I go into the organs and tissue?
Last year, 2021, I got hit by the flu which was diagnosed by doctors as coronavirus. For me, it was a flu since I had similar symptoms (yes more painful) as the regular flu. I experienced massive pain in my liver, and before I got diagnosed I went to an herbal shop to find some herbs that will give me some support for my liver and ease the pain.
While I was explaining to the saleswoman my pain in my liver, and problem, she informed me that we don’t have any pain receptors in the liver and that we cannot experience and feel pain there. I didn’t know this, and still, I felt something was not going well there.
She gave me some herb capsules, as soon as I started taking them the pain eased and was gone from my liver.
Now, you may wonder, as so do I, if there are no pain receptors how did I know that my liver had problems, pain?
I would fall back on my body-scan exercise where I go with my consciousness also in my organs and not only the limbs.
With this exercise, you will be able to learn to remove your mind from the head, which the Western lifestyle is teaching us to be in.
You will gain more awareness over your body and become more aware of what is happening in your own body. You might even feel problems arising even before the problem is there.
The exercise
If this is the very first time you have ever done a body scan I would like to ask you to scan your body globally for the first time. Do it slowly and mindfully. Don’t rush it, take your time.
Find a quiet place where you can relax without being disturbed. Turn off the sound of your phone, you can play meditative music, but you don’t have to.
I myself like silence and will not play music.
Lie on your back with your arms extended by your sides and palms turned up. Have your legs next to each other and straight, keep distance between the legs. This will distract you less during your exercise.
Close your eyes and relax.
Start with one leg first and when you’re done with that move on to the next leg. You choose which leg you start with.
Bring your awareness to afoot, to your ankle, to your lower leg, to your knee, your thigh,
your hip.
go to the other leg and repeat the steps,
go to your pelvic floor, (the front) lower abdomen, (the back), and the buttocks,
go to your torso, your lower back, your abdomen, your upper back, your chest,
(Now you go to one arm), to your finger, your hand, your forearm, your upper arm, your shoulder,
go to your other arm and repeat the steps,
go to your throat, your neck,
go to the head, your lower jaw, your upper jaw, your forehead, the crown of the head.
When you’re done stay down and feel the sensation in your body, if you have fallen asleep, no problem. You have done the exercise well and you have been so relaxed that you have fallen asleep.
Next time it probably won’t happen and your concentration will improve and you will stay more focused and awake.
While performing this exercise, you may experience sensations in the body. It may happen that you will feel this when you are in the body part you are working with at that moment. If not, you may feel the sensation of the body part you have been working on before.
And is that still not the case?
Don’t worry, let your body and your consciousness experience what it is like to perform a scan. Don’t be too hard on yourself, (it may also be that) your consciousness has to learn to be more relaxed, also to move to the body and not just to be in the head.
Have you already completed your first scan, was it a pleasant experience, and would you like to go deeper now?
Then you can go to step 2.
Step 2
So after you have done your first scan ever you can now start with step 2 and you can try to move more with your consciousness in the parts you are working on.
You can repeat the first exercise, but now you are going to try to move your consciousness completely into the body part you are working on. So, if you are focusing on your foot, for example, you try to place your consciousness completely in it. You may feel a sensation. It can be very clear, or mild. Whatever it is, when you feel it you move on to the next point, your ankle. Now that you are in your ankle you may feel the sensation of the earlier point better.
Be careful not to move on to the next point until you have actually felt something. As you progress through the exercise, you should clearly feel the places you’ve done before. It will feel softened, relaxed with a sensation. Here too you end up in your crown.
What did this feel like? Did you have more thrills now? Are you now ready for the next step, do you want to continue?
Now go to step 3.
Step 3
If you have the opportunity to shift your awareness to all your toes on both feet (and thus both legs) and feel each toe individually, do so. If you can’t do that, start with 1 leg first and when you’re done with that, go to your other leg.
Since you’ve been practicing for a while now it should be that when you do the scan you should feel distinct sensations.
If you are working per leg, you first start: With the toes of one foot, feel them, now to the sole of your foot, the instep of your foot. Now bring it to your ankle. Do you now feel a sensation in the lower parts of your foot better? You may feel heaviness, tingling, heat, ants, or others. If not, I would like to ask you to step back and go to the previously done body part.
move on to your shin, your calf, your knee. Now you should feel sensations in everything below your knee,
go to your quadriceps, your hamstring, and your hip,
you might feel sensations all over your leg, from your toes to your hip.
go to your sexual organ, your lower abdomen, your buttocks, your pelvis,
go to your stomach, your chest, your lower back, your upper back, your shoulder blades (or first one shoulder blade and then the other). If you can do both arms at the same time, do it, if not, do one arm first and then the other.
your fingers, your palm, the back of your hand, your wrist,
your forearm, your elbow, your upper arm, your shoulder,
your other arm if you didn’t do both arms at the same time,
your throat, your neck.
your lower jaw, your chin, your lower lip, your upper jaw, your upper lip, your nose, your cheeks, your ears, your forehead, your crown.
So every time you come from a body part, limb, to a joint you will feel that the lower body parts, limbs, where you have been so felt softened, or give a sensation.
And in this way, you expand the body scan.
The organs, skin, tissue, cells
Now you can continue on the organs, skin, tissue, and cells. You can expand it as far as feels good to you.
You can bring your consciousness to your teeth, into your roots in the jaw. You can’t think of it that crazy, but you as an individual are able to place your consciousness anywhere in your body and thus create more consciousness about your own body.
How much time you want to put into this and how much you want to be involved in it is your own free choice and will.
If you have mastered this and can feel your own body, the grounding exercise will go easier and you will feel and experience the benefits of the exercise.
Good luck 🙂