Hello and welcome.
My name is Alisha Olivier-Park and today I'm going to guide you on a meditative journey that will help you to transmute anxiety into a sense of trust and confidence.
We will begin by finding a comfortable space to start to quiet down,
Center,
Focus the energy inward.
As you begin to settle in,
Allow your breath to become your focal point.
Feeling the expansion in the lungs,
Maybe even you feel it down into the lowest lobes of your lungs,
Which can feel like the belly expanding even.
And then letting it all go as you exhale,
And you may even want to exhale today through your mouth,
Sighing out anything that's being held within,
Any buildup of anxiety.
And gently moving back and forth between expansive inhalations and exhalations.
By this meditation,
I invite you to have a nice tall spine,
Shoulders rolled up,
Down,
And back away from the ears,
Releasing any tension in the shoulders or neck,
Releasing the weight of the world.
The eyes be gently closed or softly peaking and focusing on one point,
Maybe just on the floor in front of you.
And scan the body with your breath,
Release any tension that may be accumulated at the jaw,
The neck,
Shoulders,
Back,
And the stomach,
And legs.
Let yourself fully relax and release as you arrive with your breath.
Now we will begin our journey.
It's often said that these big emotions like anxiety and depression,
That anxiety can be the buildup of too much future-based anticipation,
Too much future-based thinking,
And that depression can be attributed to too much past thinking or reflection or experiences being stuck in the past,
Can lead to feeling depressed.
Whereas anticipating or worrying about the future can lead to periods of anxiety,
Whether it's for a short,
Brief moment or a longer period of time where it becomes more potent and palpable as something that's a discomfort within you.
And so as we begin our work today,
Specifically around transforming from any anxious state to a state of more trust and peace,
The confidence that comes from that,
We'll begin by getting in touch with the anxiety and maybe even noticing that this may be true for you.
As you're breathing,
Pay attention.
The anxiety you're feeling,
Is it around something in the perceived future?
And just kind of see where that takes you.
What is it that you're feeling anxious about?
Let yourself explore this as you continue to breathe deeply and remain focused within.
As much as you can,
Give yourself permission to feel the anxiety.
So often we're conditioned to disconnect from our feelings,
To numb,
Run,
Avoid.
For the purpose of transmuting this anxiety into the higher elevated form of trust,
Peace.
Give yourself permission for this moment in the safe and sacred space to feel what you are anxious about.
You may even want to say it out loud.
I am feeling anxious about.
That word feeling is so important.
So often we start to identify with our feelings instead of realizing that they are a temporary experience passing through just like the weather.
So when we say I am anxious,
We're identifying with that as more of a personality trait or constant.
When you say I am feeling anxious about,
You're giving yourself the opportunity to identify what's going on for you right now,
Which is very valuable.
Continue to breathe and honor whatever you're feeling anxious about.
Some of you may not have specific things that come to mind if that's okay.
Maybe you feel it more physically.
Maybe it feels like a tightening in the chest or a clenching in the solar plexus or like a wobbling energy throughout the body spinning in my thoughts.
Whatever it is for you,
Honor what that is,
What you're experiencing.
There's no right or wrong.
And now begin to breathe even deeper,
Slower.
So if you found an area of tension in the body that feels like it's anxious,
I invite you to breathe into that space.
Feel the breath.
Feel that expansion as you inhale.
And again,
You may even want to open the mouth as you exhale,
Sighing it out,
Releasing and letting it go.
And if you've come in contact with what you are feeling anxious about,
You can visualize,
Picture or even just use the information you gathered and breathe into that.
Not trying to change it or fix it.
Just breathe,
Lean in,
Soften.
This is what I'm feeling anxious around.
The deeper the breath,
The deeper the opportunity to transform,
To move from one state to the other.
Allow yourself to receive the oxygen,
The nourishment,
The energy,
And then release and let go and really let yourself let it go.
And so you have come into contact with anxiety,
Anxious energy.
You may have some insight into where that is or what that is for you.
You've softened,
Leaned into,
Breathed into it.
Now being able to ask if there's anything else that you need to feel or know or experience here and now.
And now as you have honored and shown up for the emotions and the experience,
Let's now move into transforming that anxiety into a sense of peace.
I find for me that in being able to come into a space of trust,
Being able to come into a space of faith,
Which is trust without any proof or validation,
That you just begin to entertain that it's possible that whatever it is that you're feeling anxious about,
That there's a really good possibility if you can connect to trust and faith and to allow flow that you're anxious about.
It could change form.
We start to ask ourselves questions like instead of what's the worst that could happen and start going down that rabbit hole that we start asking,
Ah,
Well,
Maybe that's one outcome is all these perceived hypothetical future things could happen or maybe what's the best that could happen here?
Maybe I can lean into trust and debate that this is all going to work out as it's meant to.
See if you can just for a moment start to at least just play around with that energy.
You may not be able to fall into faith all at once and that's okay.
You start to dip your toe in the pool,
Trusting just maybe a little bit.
Maybe you are safe.
Maybe all the perceived fear is not necessarily true.
Maybe you could let go just a little bit and feel what it feels like to be at peace with this.
To strengthen this,
Maybe spend a moment and contemplate times in the past as they say hindsight 20-20.
Maybe you can take from your own past experiences.
You can borrow from those and you can start to establish some proof for yourself.
Maybe in the past you had a similar fear or you felt anxious around something similar and maybe it actually ended up being okay or it worked out.
Draw upon your own past experiences and examples from that where you could feel a sense of trust and faith.
You could rest a little bit more in the energy of peace because you have had some experience at some point where everything worked out.
Even when you were anxious and afraid beforehand,
It worked out.
Breathe into that feeling.
What did that feel like?
That relief and that peace that came when?
It was like,
Okay.
The perceived threat that is no longer.
Keep coming back to those big,
Full,
Smooth inhalations and exhalations.
As much as you can now,
Allow that other side of this emotional polarity from anxiety to this faith,
To this peace and the confidence that comes when we have more and more experiences like that.
We have the confidence to trust and to fall into faith even when there's anxiety present.
So fill up as much as you can with that sense of peace.
Feel it in your body,
Your mind,
And your emotions.
Maybe the breath gets even slower.
There's a peace to it,
Softening.
Maybe your heart rate is even slowing down,
Coming to a peaceful pace,
Knowing that everything is as it's meant to be.
In this stillness,
You may be able to feel that service.
Now we will begin to feel the wholeness,
The completion,
Acknowledging yourself.
Honoring yourself for showing up and being willing to lean into an emotion like anxiety that can be something we try to avoid,
But then it only gets stronger.
Honoring yourself for showing up and being willing to lean into,
Breathe into anxiety,
Any anxiety that you've been feeling,
And that you were willing to move to the other side of that and to tap into trust,
Peace.
Maybe that has led you to feeling a deeper connection to that faith,
That confidence.
You know that this is a practice,
A meditation you can come to time and time again.
And the more that you come and sit with that which is challenging for you and learn to transmute it into work between the polarities,
You find that beautiful still point,
That balance point in the middle.
You will become more and more emotionally intelligent and centered.
That emotional intelligence allows you to navigate all of life's experiences and emotions regardless of what they are.
Allow for a few more breaths here and closing your meditation in any way that honors you today.
Thank you for joining me.
Have a beautiful day.
