Anxiety: Meditation To Prevent Emotional Overwhelm (The STILL Technique)

Anxiety is a part of life. We can’t avoid it, but we can choose how to respond to it. The STILL Technique (Stop, Take a breath, Investigate, Listen, Learn) was developed by Chibs Okereke to help his clients deal with situations when they get emotionally triggered. It helps to turn off your fight or flight response and get your mind & body back into a calm and relaxed state. STILL can be used in the moment, in the midst of anxiety, but you can also use it as a tool to reflect on a past situation.

Transcript

Welcome to the STILL series.

Today we're going to work with a technique called the STILL technique.

STILL or S-T-I-L-L is an acronym for stop,

Take a breath,

Investigate,

Listen and learn.

This technique helps us deal with situations when we get emotionally triggered and it helps to turn off the fight or flight response and get your body back into a calm and relaxed state.

The STILL technique helps us pause for a moment and consider different ways of responding,

Making us more likely to respond in a calmer,

More rational way,

Rather than reacting in a way that we might regret or reacting in a way that might cause us more suffering.

It's a way of acknowledging our negative emotions rather than avoiding or pushing away our emotions.

It can be used in the moment,

In the midst of our anxiety,

But it can also be used as a tool to reflect on a past situation.

So let's begin by getting into a comfortable position,

Sitting in an alert and a relaxed posture,

Knowing that it's okay to move at any time during the meditation.

Just make sure that you're comfortable.

I invite you now to close your eyes,

But as always,

You can leave your eyes open with a soft gaze.

Some of you may be coming to this meditation with feelings of anxiety right now in this moment.

So for you,

This next meditation will help you with those feelings.

If you're not feeling particularly triggered by anxiety at the moment,

We can work with anxious feelings that you've had in the past.

If that's you,

Then what I'd like you to do is to bring to mind a situation in the past where you felt fearful or anxious.

Make it a memory that you can easily bring to mind.

And also make sure that it's not something that's too traumatic.

So if 10 out of 10 is the most anxiety provoking thing that you can bring to mind,

Then let's just go for a five or a six out of 10 today.

We don't want to cause ourselves any stress or pain.

Perhaps it was a presentation or a speech that you had to do that made you anxious.

Or maybe there was a time when you were nervous about asking someone out on a date.

Or perhaps there was a time where you were worried and uneasy about the amounts of bills that were piling up and you felt that things were getting on top of you.

Or maybe it was just time when you had a general feeling of anxiety and there didn't really appear to be any reason for it.

I'll give you a few moments so that you can bring this anxious memory to mind.

Now that this anxious memory is in our mind,

I'd invite you to allow yourself to feel it as best you can.

Not pushing the anxious feeling away or ignoring it,

But really feeling that anxious sensation inside the body and inside the mind.

Maybe we can imagine or remember what we saw at the time that this event happened.

What did you hear when this was happening?

What thoughts were running around your head?

What were you doing at the time?

If other people were involved in this situation,

Who was there?

What were they saying to you?

Where were you when this was happening?

What could you see around you?

What could you hear around you?

So as best we can,

Really allow your body and your mind to be there in that moment.

And then we're going to practice our meditation.

Whenever we notice that we've been triggered by anxiety,

Fear,

Nervousness or unease,

The most important step is to stop.

We make the decision not to react in that moment.

Once we've stopped,

The next step is to take a breath.

And right now I invite you to take a few deliberate deep breaths.

So in through the nose and out through the mouth.

In through the nose and out through the mouth.

Really feeling into the breath,

Focusing on that breath.

As we focus in on the breath,

We allow our bodies to become still.

As we become aware of the breath as it enters the body and when it leaves the body.

And paying really close attention to the breath.

So on the in breath,

There's the cool air coming in through the nostrils.

The lungs and the chest and the stomach are expanding.

And then the warm air leaves the nostrils on the out breath and the body relaxes and softens.

Taking one more full breath in.

And a full breath out.

And now allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm.

Noticing that we don't have to do anything or make any effort to breathe.

The body knows exactly what to do.

So just allow the body to do the breathing itself,

Letting go of any need to control the breath.

Now that we've stopped and we've taken a breath,

The next step is to investigate.

So we release our attention from the breath and we move our attention now to sensations inside the body.

Emotions can always be felt somewhere in the body.

So where is the anxious or fearful or uneasy feeling in your body located?

Perhaps it's located in the stomach or the chest or the temples or the back of the neck and shoulders.

Or maybe it's felt across several parts of the body.

As best you can,

Try not to have any judgments about these feelings.

We don't want to label these feelings as uncomfortable or unpleasant.

We want to take our opinions out of it.

What we want to do instead is investigate the raw sensation of this feeling of anxiety or unease.

So for example,

Is it a sensation of anxiety or unease?

Is it a sensation of heat or tingling or pulsing,

Maybe coolness,

Throbbing,

Vibrating?

Is the sensation strong?

Is the sensation subtle?

Are the sensations maybe getting stronger as you bring your attention to them?

Or are they getting weaker?

Or maybe they're changing into a different type of sensation?

Or maybe the sensation is getting stronger as you bring your attention to them?

Or maybe they're changing into a different type of sensation?

Or maybe the sensations are stopping altogether?

So just suspending our judgment about the thoughts and just investigating the raw sensation.

And as we investigate the sensations,

Just noticing if you maybe have any thoughts or judgments about the sensations or about the practice that we're doing as we're doing the meditation.

Just noticing any thoughts that might be popping up.

Now that we've investigated the feelings,

The next stage is to listen.

We sit with the sensations and we listen to the sensations.

We sit with the sensations and we listen to the sensations.

So try not to avoid the sensations or push them away.

We're not trying to change them in any way.

We're just sitting here and we're listening to them just as they are.

And if at any time the sensations are too unpleasant or uncomfortable,

Then we always have the breath to come back to.

The breath is always there.

So we need to remember that.

It's our constant companion.

It's our anchor that brings us back into the present moment whenever we need it.

We're not trying to put ourselves through any stress or any trauma here.

So if it's too uncomfortable,

Always come back to the breath.

We can also listen to our thoughts.

Our intention during the meditation is to remain calmly present without reacting to any thoughts that might be with us.

And as we sit here and we listen to our thoughts,

We understand that thoughts are just thoughts.

They're not always true.

But we can be curious about what thoughts are present in the mind.

And we continue to listen,

To listen to the sensations,

To listen to the thoughts.

We're letting go of any need to control the situation,

Any need to control our sensations,

Feelings or thoughts.

We're allowing them all to be listening to them just as they are.

The final stage of the process is to learn.

Is there anything we can learn from this experience?

We could perhaps consider why this feeling of anxiety is being triggered inside us.

Where is the anxiety coming from?

Is there perhaps a history behind it?

Often negative emotions such as anxiety are a result of us feeling inadequate or disrespected or unliked in some way.

So perhaps you could ask yourself that question now.

Am I feeling inadequate or disrespected or disliked in any way?

Now we're not judging whether our feelings about this are right or wrong.

We're simply bringing a new perspective into the situation.

Another way of us learning from this exercise is to perhaps think about ways in which we could have dealt with that triggering situation in ways that might not have created such discomfort for us.

Could we have responded differently?

Could we have responded in a way that might have had a more positive outcome for us?

We don't actually have to do anything of course.

We're just imagining a different,

More positive way of responding to the situation.

Thankfully through mindfulness and through using the still technique,

We can tune into the body and we can break that vicious cycle of anxiety.

As soon as we notice we're in an anxious state,

We can stop,

Take a breath and investigate the feelings and sensations inside the body.

When we tune into the breath,

When we tune into the body,

We become grounded into the present moment.

And when we're in the present moment,

We're better able to calmly and passively observe our emotions and thoughts.

And we can see how these thoughts and emotions manifest inside the body as physical sensations.

So sweating palms,

Buzzing in the brain,

Tension in the neck and shoulders,

Pounding heart,

Shortness of breath,

Not in the stomach.

They're all physical manifestations.

And when we sit back and observe them as sensations and not threats to our safety,

It gives us the opportunity to work with our feelings of anxiety in a more grounded and calm way when anxious thoughts arise.

And as we approach the end of our practice,

Let's take a couple of breaths,

Feeling the body once again connected to the ground or to the chair.

We're just noticing how the body's feeling right now.

Do we feel any less anxious?

There's no right or wrong.

We're just noticing.

And keeping the eyes closed,

You can now relax your attention and we'll recap what we've learned.

So when we find ourselves triggered by anxiety,

We can employ the still technique.

We can stop,

Take a breath,

Investigate,

Listen and learn.

When we find ourselves in the live,

In the moment situation where our anxiety has been triggered by someone or something,

Often going through the first three steps is enough to interrupt that cycle of anxiety.

When we notice that we're triggered in the moment,

We can use the first three steps.

We can stop,

We can take a breath and we can investigate the sensations of anxiety inside the body.

And that's often enough.

So you can use the first three stages in a public setting,

Say if you're at work or with family or out and about.

But if you're alone and you get triggered,

Then the last two stages,

Listening and learning,

Can provide some really good insights and can help you to respond in a much more positive way.

The still technique isn't just useful for anxiety.

It can also be used whenever you get triggered by anger,

Sadness,

Guilt or any other negative emotion.

Feel free to check out the rest of the still series.

There are more meditations there to deal with these other emotions.

And bringing your attention now to sounds inside the room and sounds outside the room.

Gently wiggling your fingers and toes and maybe having a little stretch.

When you're ready,

If you haven't already done so,

Slowly opening the eyes in your own time and congratulating yourself for having taken time to investigate the new skill.

I hope you found this technique useful and I encourage you to use it the next time you find yourself triggered by a negative emotion.

Have a great day.

Reviews

This was such a helpful practice after feeling triggered by a neighbour making an unkind and judgemental comment just now as I arrived home. It felt practical, focused and balanced. I really appreciated the guidance to notice and just be with how I was feeling rather than pushing it away, combined with breathwork to soothe and the opportunity to find some learning in the situation. For me, I am choosing to reframe this as an opportunity to learn how I manage myself in the face of others' behaviour that I can't control and this was a great resource to help me with that. Thank you.

Thanks ☺️

Great!!!

So helpful. Your voice is very relaxing. Thank you

I came to this meditation when I felt my anxiety creeping up. It helped me to stop and understand my feelings deeper. It helped me not to feel hopeless. Thank you so much!

Will definitely use STILL on a daily basis. Thank uou

The tone and warmth of the voice really calms me down. The words bring me next level. Love to do meditations with Chibs🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This was incredibly helpful! It worked for me even though I of course picked a too intense experience to use (go big or go home! ) I had a real breakthrough and will definitely use this many times as well as check out your other offerings. Thank you so much, Chibs 🙏🏻💚.

This really helped me step back and realize that my feelings were stemming from feeling inadequate

That was great. I did it lying down and it helped me get back to sleep.

Very helpful & I will definitely use this method when needed. Thank you.

Your voice and techniques are truly a gift to me. Thanks so much from Canada❤️🇨🇦

This is very helpful! I’ll be practicing it frequently.💖💖💖

I am finally getting somewhere, thanks to so many of you wonderful self care teachers and practitioners! I will definitely be checking out the other STILL techniques you teach. Thank you 😊 💓

Thank you for introducing me to STILL. I will continue using it whenever I feel anxious . 🙏

I love having a positive method to deal with anxiety. Chibs was very clear in his presentation.

Great educational meditation which I intend to use in future. Thanks and namaste 🙏

Very useful tool

This is a very helpful practice, thank you!

I will definitely use this technique the next time I find myself anxious. Thanks 🙏🏽