Body scan

The body scan is a good exercise to gain more awareness of the body. In the body scan, you are asked to lie down or sit with eyes closed and feel every part of the body from the inside. For example, how does your right big toe feel? Does it tingle? Can you feel the outline of it? Is it warm or cold? Does this toe touch the second one or not? In this way you scan your entire body. It is best to do this initially under the guidance of the therapist or with the help of a recorded text.

The body scan invites you to experience the body. Experiencing the many sensations of the body brings it to life and makes you more and more familiar with your body. You no longer have to run away from it and after a while you find peace in it and it becomes your home.

The body scan is not easy for me in the beginning during my eating disorder, because everything in me wants to go away from my body. I only see my body as something mechanical. To deal with it - I promised in the mindfulness course to do the scan every day - I rush it off - the same way I do everything in my life in a hurried way.

One day I get so fed up with this speediness that, before starting the body scan, I decide to do it very slowly this time and to take just one leg - instead of my whole body - to scan.

I find this slow pace scary - because it gives the sense of losing control - but it also gives me peace of mind; the feeling that I now have all the time in the world. I am moved to feel very tiny vibrations in a few muscles of my lower and upper leg. It feels like a delicate and vulnerable life and gives me a loving feeling towards my leg. I feel connected, really connected with the inside of my body. This is where I live. It is alive because it keeps changing every moment. It vibrates, flows, lives, is soft and is so unlike anything I could ever imagine. For the first time I experience what it is like to be alive without trying to control something.”