Monday Reset: Gaining Your Centre Ground

A 17-minute talk that reframes Monday stress not as temporary experiences arising from thought in the moment. Listen as I guide you through understanding the different layers of stress from the physical sensation, to energetic, mental, emotional, and spiritual sensing, and how to work with each one.

Through practical exercises, you'll regain your natural state of peace and well-being, which is always available, even in the midst of overwhelming circumstances. Perfect for anyone feeling caught up in the Monday rush who wants to find genuine relief from the inside out.

Transcript

Welcome to the Monday Reset.

Regaining your centre ground when the week feels turbulent or overwhelming.

So here we are on Monday afternoon and if you are feeling a familiar weight,

I empathise.

I spent the weekend on the final module of a course I've already taken.

In fact,

It's the second or third time I've taken the course and people often ask me why I take the time to do a course I've already done.

And it's not short,

It's a seven month course.

Haven't I already had the learning,

The techniques,

The insights?

Do I even have the time?

I take it again because there's always more to see.

Even with the same exercises,

It's different every time.

There's new people,

New mindsets.

Perhaps I've shifted in the way I want to do those exercises or I can experiment within a brave space.

There's also a unique beauty in spending time with others who are exploring the same understanding,

Exploring a connection between our sense of self and others and that artificial separation and exploring that understanding of our self,

Our spirituality and our grounding.

So I start this week feeling energetically rooted,

But knowing that I had Friday out and Saturday and Sunday and that I have a laundry list of things to get done this week.

All this is to say that I know the sense that the week is already running away.

Somehow the morning disappeared without a dent in the to-do list and somehow between this morning's coffee and this moment right now,

Things are feeling a bit heavier.

The lack of perceived productivity has my mind swirling.

Why can't I get more done?

Why am I so unproductive?

I want to spend the next few minutes with you exploring something different.

Not a straight productivity hack or stress management technique today,

But a different way of understanding what is happening when we feel overwhelmed and how we can find genuine relief from the inside out.

Now I know that that can sound simplistic or a little bit too easy.

So let's start gently.

Notice that you are having an experience right now.

You're hearing my voice.

Maybe you're feeling the chair you're sitting in.

Perhaps you're aware of thoughts moving through your mind.

This might seem obvious,

But it's pointing to something more.

All of our stress,

All of our overwhelm,

All of our Monday feelings bumping up against us.

They're all happening within the field of awareness that is you.

They're not happening to you from some external source that you need to fight or manage,

Even though that to-do list looks and feels very real.

They're arising within your consciousness,

Like clouds forming in a clear sky.

Now I'd like you to consider this when you woke up this morning before you checked your phone,

Your calendar,

Or remembered your meetings.

There's a moment of pure awareness.

That awareness,

That capacity to know,

To experience,

To be present,

That is who you are,

Your true self,

Before everything else.

The stress,

The thoughts,

The feelings,

These are temporary visitors to that space.

When we recognize that our experience is happening within us and not to us,

Things can start to seem different.

We can move from feeling like a victim of our circumstances to understanding our innate capacity to respond from calm rather than react from tension.

Now let's look at what happens when Monday stress seems to build up.

Rarely does it appear like a solid block of overwhelm.

Instead it comes in layers.

And unpicking these layers gives us specific places to find relief.

At its core is the physical layer,

And that might feel like a tension in the shoulders and not in the stomach,

A shallowing of the breath.

This is our body responding to demands that it perceives.

And the body is incredibly wise.

The good news is it's designed to handle stress and return to equilibrium.

When we work with our body rather than against it,

A relief can come quickly.

And above our body is that energetic layer,

That feeling of maybe feeling drained,

Scattered,

Like life force is leaking in a dozen different directions.

It's not that it feels like tiredness alone,

But more how energy and its natural flow is being disrupted.

When this layer is disturbed,

Even small tasks can feel monumental.

And our mental layer,

Our thoughts spinning,

The rehearsals of conversations,

Endless planning,

Worrying,

Ruminating.

I'd like to offer you a point of grounding to remember that you are not your thoughts.

You're the awareness in which those thoughts appear,

The thinker of the thoughts.

They are simply like apps running on your phone.

They're not the phone itself.

And beyond that is our emotional layer,

The underlying tone of feeling that colours everything.

And perhaps today that's frustration,

Anxiety,

Or an untouchable sense of unease.

Now,

These emotions are not problems to solve.

They're information about how relating to our experience moment to moment.

And beyond that is our joy,

That fundamental sense of aliveness and well-being,

Which is always there even when everything else feels chaotic,

Even when it is being clouded by a Monday.

A Monday stress often happens and feels real and huge and unsmeltable when we lose touch with this layer of ourself.

Coming back into our reset for the day,

I'd like to offer you a practice to help you return to your natural state of balance and clarity.

Starting with our physical layer that I sometimes derogatory call our meat suit,

Take a moment to notice where you are holding that tension.

Don't try to fix it,

Just acknowledge it.

I'd now like to invite you to take three deep breaths.

Breathe in to your belly,

Two,

Three,

Four,

And out through your nose,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Repeat the in-breath.

Feel your ribcage expanding in all directions.

And release.

One further breath in your own time.

This breath sends a signal to your nervous system that it is safe to relax.

Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly.

This gesture connects you with your body's wisdom.

Feel the steady rhythm of your heartbeat,

The gentle rise and fall of your breath as you return your breath to its normal cadence.

The beauty of your body is that it knows stillness and it knows calm.

That's its natural state.

So right now,

You're remembering how to let it be.

And we come to that energy layer that I mentioned previously.

As you breathe,

Imagine a golden light at the centre of your chest.

With the inhale,

Feel the light growing brighter.

With the exhale,

Let it expand through your body.

Through this visualisation,

We are working with that life force and bringing it back to heart centre.

Work with this light for three more breaths.

Feel the light spread to your arms,

To your legs.

As you breathe,

Feel that expansion.

Let the light expand and linger as far as your toes,

As far as your fingers,

As far as the follicles on the top of your head.

And thoughts will show up.

Let them.

We're not trying to stop your thoughts.

Allow yourself to notice them with curiosity.

You may wish to stay with a visualisation of light.

Or you may wish to imagine that you are sat on a rock in a peaceful stream,

Watching the water calmly float down.

And as it floats,

It carries leaves from a nearby tree.

Imagine your thoughts to be leaves on the water,

Floating by peacefully.

You can see your thoughts,

However they do not trouble you.

You have no urge to jump in the river,

To stop the river,

To collect your thoughts.

You can let them pass while you breathe peacefully on your rock in the water,

As it slowly laps the sides and its gentle cascade down.

And as we breathe in and expand,

We expand into the emotional layer.

Whatever you're feeling right now,

Whether you have come to a place of calm or whether there's residual stress,

Frustration,

Overwhelm,

Can you make space for those emotions?

Can you make space for them without judgment,

Without holding onto them?

Can you let these emotions be with compassion and presence?

Our emotions are energy in motion.

When we stop resisting,

They flow and they can move through us and glide by.

And finally,

I would like to recognize what is in each of us.

Beneath the Monday stress,

Beneath the frustration,

The overwhelm,

The rumination on what we need to get done is an unshakable sense of okayness.

We know we are all right.

In the middle of the chaos,

There is a part of us that stands firm,

Stands steady,

Robust.

It is a part of you that has always been fine and will always be fine.

Can you sit and sense that part of you now?

This exercise today has been about reconnecting with how each of us works.

No part of you is broken and you are not in need of fixing.

You are a conscious being temporarily experiencing some turbulence and everything you have and everything you need to find your way back in touch with calm already resides within you.

With this understanding,

Monday becomes a little less stressful and a little less of a problem.

That stress becomes a reminder to ourselves to find our way back home,

To find our way back to centre ground.

Our circumstances might not change,

The to-do list might not disappear,

Not immediately anyway,

But the relationship to them can transform.

So as you go back into your day,

Remember that you are not your stress,

You are not your to-do list,

You are not even the thoughts about what a grind Monday can be.

You are the awareness in which all of these experiences arise and fall away.

I invite you to take this understanding with you,

To let it inform how you move through the rest of your day and the rest of your week.

Remember that this inner peace,

This natural state of well-being is not something that you have to create or earn.

It is what you are,

Always available,

Always here and awaiting at your heart centre for you to simply remember and return home.

Thank you.