Becoming Present For Anxiety And Stress Relief

This is a twenty-minute guided Mindfulness meditation. Just learning to accept the body and mind as they are right now. We don't need to change anything or be anywhere to do anything. I try to describe mindfulness and how it can help us.

Transcript

So settling into a comfortable position, So you can be sitting with your spine upright but in a relaxed position or you can lie down depending on how you feel. What we're doing in mindfulness is just increasing our ability to be mindful and over time as that strengthens we start to get better at mindfulness, Getting better at spotting thoughts, Getting better at relaxing, Getting better at tuning into our body. So every moment we spend being mindful is worthwhile and we practice mindfulness by paying attention to the present moment. So settling to stillness and what happens as we're in stillness is our bodies will now start to rest and heal. We're in a state of alert wakefulness, We're not too tense and we're not tuning out of the present moment. So there's a middle way, So we're not trying too hard and we're not just zoning out. So coming into the body, Start bringing sensations in the body to the foreground of your awareness, Starting with sensations in your hands. So we physically redirect our attention to the sensations that are happening there right now. So you may feel contact if they're touching something, A sense of coolness, Tingling or vibration and we just need to know that our hands are there, We can feel them, We're aware of them and that is it, That is mindfulness. What we're doing is redirecting our attention away from our thoughts, So they go to the background over time and in the foreground are the sensations of our body. So you may feel one hand is more prominent than the other in your field of awareness and that's perfectly fine. Just stay with that one or you may feel both or it might switch and just let whatever happens happen. There's no right or wrong way to feel and what is happening is happening. Moving our attention now up to our shoulders, So start feeling the front of the shoulders, The top, Back and then as best you can right in the middle, Allow them to come away from your ears. What we find is as we relax, Our breath starts to come a bit more easier, There's perhaps more space as opposed to tightness in our muscles. Move your attention up to your throat and neck and soften the front of your throat. Allow your jaw to soften, Cheeks to relax, Sides of your face, Your temples, Eyes to soften, Forehead to release. And if our mind or our attention has wandered on to thinking, We're lost in thought, Thinking about it could be what we're doing, About meditation itself, Am I doing it right, Does this feel normal or it could be just mind wandering into any old subject or sometimes we have emotional thoughts, Worrying thoughts or something that's bothering us. As soon as we notice we're not here, We're not paying attention to the sensations in our body, We just gently refocus our attention back into the body and it's like we're grounded in the body and the thoughts can play out but in not really attaching any attention to them and then they just fade away and we're left with peace for a moment until the next thought comes. So we're not trying not to think, Not trying to calm the mind or force thoughts out, We're just relaxed, Upright and still. Before we go to the breath we're just checking again with our jaw, Muscles in our face again so it's not a one time and we're relaxed throughout the whole meditation, We're revisiting certain areas, Your jaw and cheeks and eyes again. And what can aid us really as we begin our meditation journey is the breath, So the breath is always here, There's always a flow, It's good at calming the mind and so can we just notice that we've been breathing or we are breathing now, You may feel it in your shoulders rising and falling or your belly and just stay with wherever is most prominent and to help us sometimes if our mind wanders we can use words like in or out as we're breathing in or out quietly or we can just feel the breath, We just need to know we're breathing. And as best we can we try and stay with the whole breath all the way through the inhale, All the way through the exhale and this just helps us maintain our mindfulness for as long as possible before it dips again, So there's a dipping in and out of mindfulness. Not many people can stay 100% mindful, So we just stay with what is prominent, Notice sometimes in the nostrils there's a tingling sensation as the air cools our nose down, That sensation fades on the out-breath and then comes back on the next in-breath. It's important to realize that we're not trying to feel good or get anywhere in mindfulness meditation. If we do try to get somewhere then we are rejecting the present moment in a fashion, We don't like where we are, We want to change it but can we just accept the present moment no matter what it is and include any sensations that may be unpleasant, Just know that they're happening, Gently include them in your awareness, Hold them in a compassionate way, It's okay to feel not so good sometimes. We notice that if we include sensations we don't like then they fade, We accept them, We stop the struggling, We relax more, We accept. So we come back now to more of an awareness meditation away from the breath, So include again sensations in your hands, Bringing them to the foreground, Sensations of being seated, So the chair or the floor pressing back against your hips, Back of your legs. So this is really useful if we're feeling overwhelmed and a bit stressed out, We can just ground ourselves and let that storm pass, Feel our feet on the floor, That sense of contact, Feel the whole lower half of the body now, So sitting and feet, Include your torso, Palms, We're just receiving sensations from all over now, Sensations in your jaw and face, Include those, Allow those face to relax again, If it's tensed up, Eyes to relax and then just let go of any tendency to control what's happening and just receive sensations. So that's 20 minutes, Well done, It's a good amount of time for meditation. If you open your eyes now but still stay in the body, Sitting and we'll end it there.