Thank you for joining me for this practice.
This is a gentle,
Movement-based meditation to help channel the agitated energies of stress or anxiety.
This practice is intended to help you complete the stress cycle by engaging your body's natural fight-flight impulses through a few simple Qigong-inspired movements with an emphasis on mindfulness.
As you put your restless energy to use intentionally and mindfully,
You are signaling your nervous system that you are in control and that you're okay in this present moment.
With practice,
You can use these movement meditation tools to decrease the unpleasant physical sensations of anxiety and to help calm overthinking and worry,
Which is often fed by the agitation in the body.
As I describe these simple movements,
If any of the details don't work well in your body or the verbal descriptions don't make perfect sense,
Please make the movement your own.
It's not that important that you get the movement exactly right.
Set the intention to be present with this experience and trust your intuition as you go.
Let's find our posture for this meditation,
Either standing or seated in a chair.
If you're standing,
Set yourself up in a way that feels stable with your feet about hips width apart,
The knees a little bent,
And the spine long and tall.
If you're seated,
You might want to sit near the front edge of the chair so you have a little more room to move your arms in a moment.
If that's not possible,
No worries.
Let's place one hand on the chest and one hand on the abdomen.
Notice that you are already breathing.
You might become aware of some sensations like the movement of the breath and possibly some sensations that indicate stress or anxiety.
Just taking a moment to recognize any tightness,
Heaviness,
Prickliness,
Heat,
Numbness,
Or any other sensations that you associate with stress.
Can you sigh out a breath with that?
And notice that another breath flows in afterwards.
Sigh it out and let the next breath flow in.
With the following movement practices,
We can begin to shift this stressful energy or shift our experience of it.
Energy needs to move and flow.
It's uncomfortable when it gets stuck.
So let's use our hands to brush off as if we're gently cleansing the body of something that's become stuck to our skin.
Without going into the details of the story of whatever's bothering you,
You can imagine that you're brushing off that experience or encounter that has happened or may happen in the future,
Or that feeling that's just hanging onto you.
Starting at the top of the head,
Use your hands to brush down the sides of the head and face,
Down the neck,
Just gently stroking with your fingers,
Brushing off the shoulders,
Using intention and a bit of imagination to symbolically remove unhelpful energy,
Continuing down each arm,
The back of the arm,
To the hand,
The inside of the arm,
To the palm.
We aren't really getting rid of the feelings or the anxious energy,
But we can move it around,
We can relocate it,
And we can give ourselves more space.
Moving to the chest,
Brushing down the front of the torso,
Chest,
Solar plexus,
The belly.
Don't forget to brush your sides,
Too.
And then reach behind you and brush the parts of your back that you can reach,
Brushing down from the ribs to the low back and continuing on downwards.
You can bend forward if you're able to brush off the legs,
Inner,
Outer,
And backs of the legs,
Maybe all the way to the feet.
But don't worry if you can't touch everywhere,
You can continue it in imagination.
When you finish your brush off,
Notice how you feel.
Without expecting anything,
Simply be open and curious to any sensations that might be here.
Now let's shake off the agitated,
Restless energy.
You can start to flick and wave your wrists,
Bounce your shoulders,
And let your elbows bend and move.
Keep going and let your breath be long and flowing.
If you're standing,
You can bend your knees to bounce your lower body.
You can go faster or slower,
Deeper or shallower,
Depending on what feels good.
You can hear my pace through the bounces in my exhales and my voice,
But your pace might be different.
If you're seated,
You might try lightly stomping your feet,
Both together or alternating left foot and right foot.
Sometimes it's also fun to lift a leg and shake it in the air,
Whether you're seated or you're standing and shaking out.
This could be a little bit playful.
Let your exhales be as loose as possible as you keep going.
You can breathe out through the mouth.
It's also totally okay to take breaks if this gets tiring.
I find that shaking really gets that stuck,
Anxious,
Prickly energy moving so it can be channeled into vitality rather than creating unpleasant sensations and feeding mental activity.
And we know from observing animals that shaking is a natural way to complete the stress cycle,
To literally shake off the activated energy from a startle or from a challenge.
Let's slow it down,
Slow it down,
And pause again for a moment,
Being a little more still for a moment.
And notice what you feel.
Maybe you still notice the areas of your body that often harbor stress and tension,
But can you also feel other areas coming alive as well?
Do the sensations you feel feel solid and heavy and tight?
Or is there more space and flow now?
Even tiny small shifts count.
Now let's place both hands on the abdomen,
Stacking one hand on top of the other.
Gently begin to circle your hands over your abdomen,
Going upwards on the right side of the belly and tracing the circle downwards on the left side.
You can apply a soft pressure here that feels good to you.
This gentle abdominal circling massage can help release tension in the abdomen and the diaphragm,
Which opens up the breath.
This can also help stimulate the vagus nerve,
Which is the main mechanism of our rest and digest system,
Which is the opposite of fight,
Flight,
Freeze mode.
As you continue circling the abdomen slowly,
You can begin to walk in place,
Lifting one foot and lowering it as you lift the other foot,
Step being at a slow to moderate pace.
These steps can often be done in a chair as well.
Let your breaths be slow and easy as you continue sending the message to your nervous system.
We can take action and take steps in a calm way when we need to.
It's okay to relax right now.
As you slow down your walking and circling,
Eventually coming to a stop,
Take a few breaths with your hands still there on the abdomen.
Notice the effects of that last movement.
For our last movement,
Let's bring the arms up in front of the chest with the palms facing the body,
One hand in front,
The other a few inches behind it.
See if you can adjust so that your wrists are lined up with each other.
There's still space between the wrists,
But they're in a line with each other and pointing towards the center of your chest.
With the arms held this way a few inches out from your body,
You might look like you're giving a hug to an invisible friend.
Let your elbows relax down and take a few breaths here.
Then slowly slide your hands out to the sides at shoulder height and turn the palms down to slowly lower your arms.
Then smoothly sweep the hands in front of you,
Crossing the wrists as you bring them back up to chest height.
And again,
Slide your hands out to the sides at shoulder height,
Turning the palms down and slowly lowering the arms.
We'll inhale as we bring the arms in front again,
Raising and crossing the wrists.
Then we exhale as we separate the hands outward and lower them down.
Don't worry about getting this perfect.
Inhale to bring the arms in front again,
Raising and crossing the wrists.
Exhale as you separate the hands out to the sides and lower them down.
Imagine as the hands pass in front of the chest that they are clearing any unhelpful energy from the heart.
You release that energy down to the earth to be transformed and recycled.
Inhaling the arms in front,
Raising and crossing the wrists.
Exhaling the arms out and down.
Inhaling and releasing any restless,
Nervous,
Jangly energy from the heart.
Now let's keep doing the same movement but raise the arms higher to the level of the forehead,
Crossing the wrists and clearing the space around the head as a way of symbolically letting go of restless thinking,
Worry,
Impatience,
Or whatever you'd like to release.
The arms come out to the sides and downwards the same way as before.
Then we cross them as they raise in front of the body and travel up to the level of the forehead.
Inhaling on the way up,
Exhaling out and down,
Going slowly.
You can do a few more but lower down in front of the belly.
The movement is the same,
Just lower and maybe a bit smaller.
Let's release the butterflies in the stomach and let them fly away.
Inhaling the wrists up to cross in front of the abdomen and then exhaling as you separate the hands out and lower them down.
Let's do a last few rounds of this movement with the wrists crossing in front of the heart again.
Inhaling the wrists up to cross in front of the heart,
Exhaling,
Separating the arms out,
Lowering them down.
And now try shifting the intention from clearing to inviting a sense of safety and protection as if your arms are creating an energetic bubble of protection around you.
This form crosses the wrists because there are acupressure points on the wrist that correspond to the pericardium,
Which is the protective sack around your heart.
In Chinese medicine and Qigong,
These points related to the heart protector are used to calm anxiety and to invoke a feeling of safety.
Doing a last few repetitions,
Feel free to bring in the loving kindness phrase,
May I feel safe and protected from harm.
Breathing with that intention and embodying it through the movement.
May I feel safe and protected from harm.
As we lower the arms and come towards a close,
Let's bring the hands back to where we started,
Resting one hand on the chest and one hand on the abdomen,
Simply being open to whatever feelings,
Sensations,
Thoughts,
Or experiences are here right now.
Knowing that you can move with and be with whatever comes up and that it's okay to claim some space and rest your body,
Heart,
And mind.
When you turn off the meditation,
Consider giving yourself a few minutes to transition.
Rather than picking up a device to see messages,
Texts,
Or emails,
Go look out a window for two minutes,
Have a glass of water,
Or do something simple that you enjoy.
Then return mindfully to your day or evening.
Thank you so much for practicing with me.
