The following meditation is led by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

Letting the awareness scan through the body, begin by just noticing if there's areas of

particular tightness or tension.

Letting the possibility of bringing awareness to those domains and letting there be a softening, loosening.

For many, the image and shape of a smile can help to bring that ease into the body.

You might sense a smile spreading through the eyes.

With the corners of the eyes gently lifted up the outside corners.

Let the brow be smooth, the eyes soft, slight smile, a real smile at the lips.

Imagine the inside of the mouth smiling, relaxing right down to the root of the tongue.

The eyes are smiling, the mouth.

You can feel the breath in the throat and imagine the curve of a smile in the throat.

Softening, opening there.

And feeling the spread of a smile through the chest, through the heart area.

You can visualize and feel a smile there creating space for whatever experience is arising.

Letting the openness of a smile spread outward and outward so that the shoulders are free to relax back down a little, back and down, away from the shoulders.

And since your awareness can fill the shoulders, continuing a letting go, a softening there.

It says if anything that's tangly or tight can float in awareness, naturally untangle.

Feeling the length and the volume of the arms.

Right down into the hands, letting the hands rest in a very easy, effortless way.

And softening the hands so that you can feel from the inside out the aliveness there.

Since the hands filled with awareness, keeping the hands soft and again sensing the eyes, soft, smiling, the mouth.

The throat.

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