I'm so glad you're here.
Anxiety and stress,
Toxic stress,
Can come on the same way shortness of breath or other physiological obstacles come on.
And sometimes it's very clear,
The source of the stress,
And sometimes you simply feel that tightness in the throat,
The heart,
A sinking feeling in your gut,
Pressure running from the throat cavity all the way down the center channel of your being.
It can behave a bit like a radio frequency,
Pulsing,
Constricting,
And sometimes making it hard to breathe.
You're here now and you're not alone.
You're not alone in struggling with the very human experience of your nervous system feeling overwhelmed,
Feeling beyond its capacity to cope.
And I'm here to tell you it will pass.
And even by showing up,
To listen to this guidance,
You've started the process of shifting gears from constricted and defended to softening.
Take a nice deep breath in.
See if you can move the breath all the way down into the lower abdomen.
See if by inhaling in an expansive way,
You can clear the channels of constriction with the filling of the chest cavity and the belly with breath.
And then on the exhale,
See if you can release some of that tension.
If you're in a private and safe place to do so,
Even sighing out audibly,
Even loudly,
Like a great big sigh,
Can be helpful.
Breathe it in,
Clear it out.
And you're okay.
The good news about these physiological symptoms of tightness and constriction,
Overwhelm.
The good news is impermanence.
Feelings are always moving through us.
They are not monolithic.
They are not static.
And once the moment of mindfulness arrives,
Awareness of the difficulty and the physical sensation associated with it,
That's when we restore some agency to ourselves.
That's when we have a choice to breathe,
To come back to the present moment,
To see if we can stay with the direct experience of the tightness,
The pressure,
To breathe into it and to clear it out.
So let's try that again.
Inhaling deeply,
Filling the chest cavity and the belly.
And then exhaling completely,
Fully,
And maybe even energetically.
Release the stress.
Allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm and then see if you can become softer,
Release any tension in jaw and eyes,
Shoulders,
The back body melting,
The weight of your body releasing into whatever's supporting you right now.
Becoming heavier,
Becoming softer,
Anxiety as it expresses in the physical body can have a pulsing sensation.
Breathe in with it and exhale and just see if you can soften it a bit.
Maybe just around the edges,
Softness seeping in to the edges of where it's tight and pressured in the throat,
The heart,
The belly,
Like water seeping into the edges of a sponge.
Imagine that water seeping into the very center of your being.
Feel the support of the earth below you.
Notice the rhythm of your breath.
It's okay to feel this way.
Breathe into it.
Release what you can.
There is a truth that it will pass.
There is a truth that you're not alone in experiencing this.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Whatever it is,
Known or unknown,
Seen or unseen,
That's creating an obstacle in your life.
May it pass.
May solutions arise.
May you visualize yourself on the other side of this worry.
You will get to the other side as you have done so many times before.
It doesn't take away from being in it right now,
But there is a universal law that all things pass.
Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Stay with breath and the weight of your body here and the reassurance that you can come back to this practice,
Play it on repeat,
Anytime you need.
Be well,
Dear soul.
It's going to be okay.
