Tuning Out Anxiety Radio

This is a brief exercise intended to help you create some distance from anxious thoughts, allowing them to fade into the background so you can focus on what matters most in the present moment. Helpful whenever your mind is loud but life is calling you elsewhere.

With gratitude to Chris Collins (indiemusicbox) for the background music.

Transcript

This is a mindfulness exercise intended to help you practice sitting with anxiety and other difficult unwanted emotions. Begin by settling into a comfortable position. Feet flat on the floor, Shoulders relaxed. You can either soften your gaze or close your eyes, Whatever is most comfortable for you. Begin by noticing the breath, Watching each inhalation and each exhalation. Notice the sensations of breathing wherever they feel most prominent for you. There's nothing here to be fixed, No need to change anything. Simply observe. Begin by checking in with yourself. How are you feeling in this moment? Noticing any emotions, Anxiety, Frustration, Sadness. Notice what your emotions are saying to you. Imagine that this emotional voice, This stream of thought is a bit like a radio sitting in the corner of the room. It's doom and gloom radio, Forecasting all the bad to come, Reminding you of all the musts and shoulds, Revisiting old mistakes and pains. Allow yourself to simply listen for a moment to this radio. Notice that this radio is sometimes louder and sometimes quieter. The volume knob doesn't work. We can't turn it up or turn it down. That doesn't stop us from trying, From wishing that we could control the volume. Turn it off, Turn it down. Notice what happens when we try to control doom and gloom radio, How it takes up more of our focus, More of our attention, How it blocks other aspects of our experience from our awareness, Even if we manage to briefly succeed in blocking the sound. However, This voice on the radio, It's just sound, Just noise. If we can let go of trying to control the volume, We can turn away from the radio and allow it to simply fade into the background. Our attention is then free to focus on other things, To take in all the life that happens, The things we would miss if we continue to focus on trying to fix the radio instead of turning away. Allow doom and gloom radio to be simply background noise as we focus on this moment. Noticing our breath, Each inhalation, Each exhalation, The slight coolness as we breathe in, The slight warmth as we breathe out, The movement of the chest and the belly, How it feels to simply come to rest in this moment, To stop fighting and struggling, To change, To fix, And to simply allow oneself to be in the here and now. Before we end the exercise, Take a moment to consider what you'd like to be about for the next few moments of your day. What kind of person do you want to be? What sort of things do you want to do? What qualities do you want to bring to your actions? Can you let the radio play in the background, Let go of trying to turn it off, In service of focusing on being that person, Bringing those qualities into the world, Fully experiencing these moments that are yet to come. Now gently bringing your attention back to the room, Stretch, Wiggle if you need to, Then opening your eyes whenever you're ready.