This is one version of a classic first step in a Fitzmaurice “destructuring” sequence.
Begin in a comfortable position on your back. Allow yourself to feel the support of the floor, releasing into gravity.
Slowly begin to draw the front of your body in toward itself. The knees will float up towards the torso, the head may lift off the ground. As you move into a scrunch, continue to add muscular engagement: scrunch the fingers and toes, the face muscles, anything you can, as you condense into a round seed, like a peach pit.
Even as you scrunch, reserve some awareness for the thread of breath that is possible even within this tension. Follow that breath with your curiosity for a few cycles.
Release this engagement abruptly. Note any shift in your breath through this transition.
Begin to engage the back body. Allow your limbs to spread out along the ground, drawing you into a giant X. Work just as vigorously to expand as you did to contract. Take up space. Allow your fingers and toes to spread. Open your eyes wide to the space. Allow the face to open up, perhaps sticking your tongue out.
As you stretch, once again reserve awareness for the thread of breath that is possible even as you work very hard in this direction. Follow your breath. Could you work just as hard, and at the same time allow an opening for a fluid moment-to-moment experience of breath?
Release this engagement abruptly. Note any shift in your breath in this moment of transition.
Begin to initiate a small wiggle in your tailbone. Let it be small enough that you can isolate it to just your pelvis to begin, but soften the rest of your skeleton so that it can begin to receive your tailbone’s movement as you increase the shake. You might imagine a puppy’s excited energy erupting from the deepest part of you torso and then wriggling its way into the rest of your bones. Allow your breath to release along with your bones. Can you let go of the jaw and neck, the shoulders and hips, and allow yourself to flop about with a bit of pleasurable wildness? If sound wants to emerge during your shake, let it!
Release your shake, but allow your breath to continue as it pleases, perhaps with a bit of “destructured,” “fluffy” sound on each exhale.
Once again, allow yourself to feel the support of the ground as you release into gravity, this time with an expanded awareness of your body breathing as it will. Continue allowing fluffy sound on the exhalations, without sculpting or managing the sound in any way, simply enjoying any release of vibrations that might happen. Notice if there are parts of you that are holding on against gravity or holding themselves “together” unnecessarily, and leave yourself alone in the ways you are able. Accept the support of the ground, and continue to breathe.
If you’d like, you can let your curiosity lead you through one more round of scrunch, stretch, shake, and release, on your own time.
Take a moment to feel what is, and try to take this awareness into the next thing you do.