Bring your attention inward to your body,
Your breath,
Thoughts in your mind.
Notice your inner environment right now.
Notice what it feels like to acknowledge the level of threat that you feel right at this moment.
We're tighter in our body.
We're often holding our breath.
We have compulsive catastrophic thoughts.
We're trying to discern what's the truth of the situation.
What is an accurate perception of threat right now?
We can really feel that,
The effect of that fear,
The effect of not knowing in our nervous system.
The tightness of our shoulders,
The clenching of our teeth,
The tightness in our gut.
For the next few minutes we could actually rest,
Letting all of that be here because it is here.
And also to bring our attention to the fact that right now in this moment and for the next three minutes that we're safe.
We could take this time to breathe and to relax our body.
And one of the ways that we can do that is by noticing that even though we feel fear,
Even though we don't know for sure what to do or what's going to happen,
That we have a reasonable certainty that for the next three minutes we could relax and we will be safe to do that.
Notice your breath,
If your breath feels kind of stuck or your body feels kind of tight,
One way we could work with that would be to bring the arms up over your head as you breathe in.
Kind of stretch,
Stretch your rib cage,
Let your body open as you breathe,
Bring your arms down as you breathe out.
You could move your shoulders around a little bit.
Take some deeper breaths and longer exhales,
Like your shoulders,
Your neck,
Upper back,
Let all of that release as you breathe out.
And then for a minute or so,
Do some shaking.
You can do it sitting down or you can do it standing up.
After standing,
Really feel the feet on the floor,
Your knees,
Your hips,
Let your whole body start to shake and move around.
Shake out the tension that you're holding in your body.
Shake it out through your shoulders,
Through your arms.
We can get quite vigorous shaking the tension out of our body.
And then take a few deep breaths,
Let this tension release as you're breathing out,
Let the shaking stop.
And let the long exhalations release tension out of your body.
And as you breathe in,
Notice the in-breath,
It's a bit cooler as you breathe in.
And the out-breath is a bit warmer.
We have those sensations of the breath in our nostrils.
As we breathe out,
Our belly softens and moves back towards the spine.
We breathe in,
The stomach rises.
Anchor your attention to the breath for a moment.
Let any thoughts that you have in your mind be in the background.
Just for this next few minutes,
We could rest.
And as you're breathing in,
Notice the inhale and the fresh oxygen that we have come into our body,
The fresh energy.
As we breathe out,
We could release anything that we're holding,
Any fear or tightness or tension.
Let it drain out of you on the out-breath.
Soften through your forehead and eyebrows.
On your next exhale,
Soften through your mouth,
Your jaw,
The hinges of your jaw.
Take your time as we move down through the body from head to toes.
Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth.
Soften the sides and the back of your neck,
The front and the back and the top of your shoulders.
Let your arms soften.
Let any remaining tension in your arms flow out through your fingers,
Fingertips.
Next exhalation,
Move to the back of your body.
Let your awareness flow down from the back of your head through the back of your neck and shoulders.
Through that tight shield of muscle we often have in our upper back,
Let that soften and release with the out-breath.
Back of your arms and hands,
Back of your legs and feet,
Let your back body soften with the out-breath.
There's nowhere to go,
Nothing to do.
Let yourself rest.
We can do this at different moments during the day.
We could do it for five minutes or ten minutes,
We could do it for 30 seconds.
Just tune into your body and let yourself relax and soften.
Let thoughts move into the background.
Let your breath be continuous and smooth.
And let yourself rest.
