Welcome to the Sensing Ground Community

Explore your body as a compass with these resources:

•  Join our Free Facebook Community here to meet like-minded others
• You will receive one email a day with a short audio
  (these audios are all listed below for easy reference)
• Download your Bonus Chapter pdf with tips for reading your body compass and what to do when you feel like giving up or totally stuck
• Take a look at these research articles on neuroscience, meditation, symptomatology if you wish to get into the science behind body scanning here.
• Watch my TEDx Talk: The Invisible Forces that Shape Us: Using the Body as our Compass and add your comment!

What is a Body Scan?

The body scan is literally a practice of noticing any and all sensations from your head to your toes in any order. It is through body scanning that we learn how to live with our body as a compass and feel clarity about our lives. You can consider the body scan as a tool that helps you to fine-tune your attention and intention, wherever you are.

Your body holds your personal wisdom, insights and intuitions which you sense through your eight senses: taste, smell, sight (including your inner vision or mind’s eye), sound (including your inner voices and music), touch, orientation and location (proprioception), balance and movement (vestibular sense), emotional and body cues (interoception).

The less body scan instructions the better because it is a spontaneous and personal inquiry. If I give heavy instructions, the beauty of your inner inquiry is lost and you give your power over to me; you begin to follow me, not yourself.

So, notice what you notice when you close your eyes and enter your inner world. Explore the space within yourself. Follow your sensations, through your eight senses, and notice where there is aliveness. What stories, symbols, metaphors or qualities do you feel inside of yourself. What do you learn about yourself each time you pause to body scan?

Become curious.

Your bodily sensations attach to a story. These stories inform you about yourself, your culture and your life. You can choose the stories that attach to your body sensations. This choice is your power.

So, what stories does your body hold?

If the story feels icky, off and contracts the body—empty and rewrite it. Attach a new story to those sensations and create an inner world of expansion and pleasure, one story at a time.

A common story that we are all rewriting is “I am not enough”. This story is culturally pervasive and can feel dense, heavy, confusing and painful in the body.

The truer story for all of us is that “I am enough, just as I am, and it is safe to feel my bodily sensations—they are mine to feel”. 

True stories feel warm, expansive, invigorating and uplifting. Each person has their own story.

Only you know your true stories by feeling its resonance through your body—it literally fits you like a lock and key. Nobody else can tell you who you are or what your story is—this is something only you can do for yourself.

NOTE: It is common to feel lost and hopeless when you begin attempting your body scans. You may seek external guidance or want to click play on a mediation app or search for yoga nidra classes on youtube; resist this! I invite you to acknowledge that discomfort and feel it fully—taste and smell it. Locate that feeling in your body. Notice the stories that you hold in your body about body scanning or placing your attention on your sensations.

Practice staying with your body scan even when it feels awkward or hard. You are learning to give yourself your own attention rather than follow somebody else’s instructions. It does not matter how you body scan or whether you start at your feet or your head, or anywhere in between. Start wherever you feel your body call your loving attention. Start where you are, and feel whatever it is that your feel at your own pace.

Give yourself loving kindness and keep scanning to all the corners of your physical body. Get to know your inner shape. See yourself with your mind’s eye and feel your inner world open up with colour, texture and contours. Begin expanding your body scan beyond surface sensations and into all of your eight senses: taste, smell, see (including your inner vision or mind’s eye), hear (including your inner voices and music), touch, orient and locate your body (proprioception), balance and move your body (vestibular sense), feel your emotions and bodily cues (interoception).

There are basic instructions in chapter one of your Sensing Ground book and if you would like to use an audio guide to get you started try the audios on this page.