Hello, everyone.
And welcome to our guided meditation for anxiety.
Please take this opportunity to find
a comfortable place for yourself for the next few minutes.
If you can, safely put your feet up or roll a towel or a jacket,
tuck it behind your back for support.
If it's possible safely, you could even recline.
Support your knees if you'd like, perhaps even your neck.
The important thing is to be safe.
Begin to sink into your chair or whatever
support you have and notice your body's contact points
with that chair or that mat.
As we bring focus to the body, begin
to circle your ankles with all the toes if that's comfortable.
Please be sure you don't move or breathe
in any way that could aggravate any pain condition that you
have or discomfort.
Instead, just like an athlete visualizing their tennis serve
or their path down the mountain, imagine the movement or breath.
That visualization registers in the brain.
A good thing to know when you're laid up--
just imagining movement brings benefit.
Gently circle the shoulders, the wrists, wiggle the fingers.
Trace a small circle with your nose gently.
Do it with your breath.
Breathing in as you round up and breathing out,
finishing the circle.
Other direction.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Continue with this nice, mindful breath, feeling grounded,
inhaling into the belly, opening the lower ribs and upper chest,
exhaling bringing the upper ribs in,
the lower ribs like an accordion,
and then the belly to the spine, like a sit up.
Engage that core.
With your next breath in, allow yourself to notice
any anxiety in the body.
Where is it?
In your heart, in your belly, in your shoulders, in your mind?
How does it feel?
Does it have a color?
Is it cloudy, sharp, tight?
What's there?
Worries, habitual, sometimes inherited patterns
of tension and protection?
As you breathe out, imagine the edges
of that tension, that protective tightness, gently blowing
as if on a breeze.
Breathe into that anxiety, meeting yourself
where you are at this moment with compassion.
You certainly deserve it at this time of unknowing.
Again, as you breathe out, visualize that tension
blowing out as if on a breeze.
On the next inhalation, gently squeeze
the muscles of the arms, the legs, the seat, the face.
Squeeze everything a bit more.
Then release with a big sigh.
Once more, squeeze.
Breathe in, squeezing everything.
And then release.
Shake it out.
If it's comfortable, bring your hand or your hands
to the area of anxiety, whether it's
your head, your knee, your shoulders.
Send relaxing energy from the center of your heart
out through your shoulders down through your hands
into that area.
Open up to your own calming heart energy.
And return your hands to a neutral position.
Surrender again into your seat, releasing
through those contact points of your body
with your chair or your mat.
Inhale spaciousness.
Exhale, releasing unnecessary tension.
Inhaling, exhaling, imagining that tension just softening
and releasing.
See this energy as breath moving, opening, releasing.
Allow an intention, be it courage, peace, calm,
to ride on that breath.
And exhale, releasing, seeing that tension moving, easing.
Make a memory of this and know that
with this compassion for yourself,
this awareness, this knowledge, you
can use the breath to open up, to release,
to transform anxiety into wise action,
even if it is simply a destressing, anxiety-busting
mindful inhalation and exhalation
or a gentle movement.
As we close, allow yourself to say as you breathe in,
I am safe here.
In this moment, with this breath, I am safe.
Breathing out, send that intention through your heart,
through your mind and body, out around you.
I am safe here.
May you be safe.
Make a memory of how you feel and know
that you can choose to bring yourself to this space,
to this destressed state, through your own mindful breath
anytime, anywhere, day or night.
Thank you.