Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness with William Cooper, Master of Theology, Licensed Professional Counselor

140 Meditation For Deep Relaxation

William Cooper, Master of Theology, Licensed Professional Counselor Season 1 Episode 140

So many of us are experiencing lots of inner and outer stress.  This is a brief, effective, and easy guided meditation for relaxation and to release stress.  Since it could be dangerous when coupled with other activities, please do not listen to this guided meditation when you are driving or doing any other activity.  This meditation is done when sitting or lying down when you are ready to completely focus and let go so that you can deeply release. 

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing into Happiness. I trust you're having a good week. You know, there's a lot of stress out in our world these days, and oftentimes we pick up our own stress or the stress that's going on around us. So, here's a simple meditation to let go and to relax. When you do this meditation, please be in a sitting position or lying down comfortably. If you're engaged in any other activity or driving, please pause this meditation and wait until you can sit down or lie down comfortably and safely so that you can let go completely. At the end of this guided meditation, I'm just going to trail off and leave you to yourself so that if you want to continue to rest and go deeper and deeper, you can undisturbed. If, however, you have things to do and you want to reenter your world, take your time, move around, begin to open your eyes and take a deep breath. And you can take all of this refreshing relaxation with you. It will be your choice to make at the end of the meditation as you see fit. Okay, let's start with a gentle, deep breath. Breathe in and out. You know, when you breathe in for relaxation, you can breathe any way that you'd like. Sometimes a shallow breath feels better. Sometimes a deeper breath. Let's do it again and breathe in a way that feels good and relaxing to you. Breathe in, breathe out. Perfect. So often we hold tension in our body. Perhaps you can locate a little pocket of tension because what I'd like you to do is tense up right where that tension is, maybe tense up a lot or a little, whatever feels good to you. And then let go. That helps drain the tension out or at least begin the process. So, either throughout your whole body or through a specific part, tense, tense, tense and release and let go. Feel how good that feels. Again, wherever it feels good to you, just tense up a bit, just a bit and release and let go. Feel the relaxation begin to move in that place that has been tense and feel how good that feels. One more time. Tense, tense, tense and relax. Deeper and deeper. Let go. And we can begin our guided meditation for relaxation. Take another breath that feels good for you. Breathe in and out as you close your eyes and begin to relax. And you can let all the muscles in your scalp begin to relax and release. Feel how good that feels to let them go. Deeper and deeper relaxed. And that relaxation can flow down through your forehead. Deeper and deeper relaxed, letting go every muscle in your forehead. Down through your eyes. Your eyes work quite hard. So, let them relax and release and let go. Feel how good that feels. Down through your temples and your jaw. Your jaw is a place that often can hold tension and stress. So, let it release, relax and let go. In fact, all the muscles in your head, let them relax and release and let go. Down through the muscles in your neck, the back of your neck. That's a place where there's often tension. So, let it relax. Front of your neck and down through your shoulders. Deeper and deeper relaxed. You can let go even a little deeper. Down through your upper arms, your lower arms, and all the muscles in your hands and your fingers. Feel how good it feels to let your hands and fingers relax. Deeper and deeper relaxed. Let that relaxation flow down through your chest, your upper back, just flowing downward. Down through your stomach. This is a place where tension and stress can really gather. So, let your stomach release, relax and let go. And let your lower back release, relax and let go. Very good. Even more deeply now. Down through your hips, your thighs, your knees. Feel how good it feels to let all the muscles around your knees and your knees themselves to relax. Deeper and deeper relaxed. Down through your calves and your ankles and your feet and toes. Let all the muscles in your feet and toes go deeper and deeper relaxed. Feel how good that feels to let go. And as you let go deeper and deeper, any other place in your body that could use a little more deep relaxation, let it release and relax. Twice as deeply as it already is relaxed. In fact, let's let your whole body and mind go twice as deeply relaxed as it is now. As I count from 10 down to zero, go twice as deeply relaxed. 10, letting go. 9, deeper and deeper relaxed. 8, 7, so deeply relaxed. 6, 5, let go. 4, 3, deeper and deeper relaxed. 2, 1, all the way down to zero. And now even twice as deeply relaxed as you just have become. Let go. Feel how good that feels as you go deeper and deeper relaxed. You can continue to just drift off deeper and deeper relaxed or open your eyes, taking all of this rest and relaxation with you throughout your day.