How To Get Out Of Your Head: A Simple Practice For Anxiety

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your head, overthinking, anxious, uncertain, or spiralling through everything that could go wrong, this practice is for you.

In this beginner-friendly mindfulness practice, Darius shares simple tools to help you move out of anxious thoughts and back into your body, breath, senses, sound, and journal.

You don’t have to force your mind to be quiet. Sometimes, you just need somewhere kinder for your attention to go.

Transcript

Hello, Beautiful humans of Insight Timer. My name is Darius, And I wanted to share with you some of my favorite practices that helped me get out of my head. And when I say in my head, I mean that place in which we can get anxious, We can get uncertain, We can start to spiral and think about all the terrible things that could possibly happen and think about all of the things that are wrong in our lives and with ourselves. And you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Not a fun place when we get stuck in our heads. And for many people that try to meditate, That's what happens. We're in this like loop in our head and we're doubting everything. And that same dynamic happens when we go out into the world and we try to be our best selves. So I want to share with you, These are not complicated. You can stack them. I do all the time and they can work in an instant. Okay. So the first lesson I want to share with you here is, You cannot be in two places at once. You cannot be in two places at once. So if you don't want to be in your head, We have to find another place for you to be. And so let me hit this button and then hit this button and show you a few of my favorite little Tricks. Tools. So the first thing is. You can't be in your head if you are in your senses. So before I meditate, I have a few different things I do to create this really yummy, Delicious sensual experience. Like a delicious drink? Yep. Almost always with me, But right before or even during my meditation. Now, I also love things that smell great. This is some sage. Right. There's some palo santo under there. There's incense. If these are like, You don't know what any of these are, Never fret. Um, You can find a candle, Right? A nice little candle that smells nice. And now my senses are awakened. The deliciousness on my tongue, The delicious smells that are coming through. So guess what? I'm leaving my head and I'm in my body. You cannot be in two places at once. All right. The other thing I like to do because you can't be in two places at once is journaling. Right? If you don't want to be in your head, Get yourself onto your page. And a simple way to start is I feel sometimes when I don't know what I write, I just start with I feel I feel. Frustrated. I feel annoyed. Why do I have to, You know, I feel maybe a little excited too, Right? And then I say, Well, What do I write from here? What do I write? And then usually what it goes into is like, I don't know what to write. I have no idea what to write. Why am I feeling annoyed? I wonder why I'm feeling annoyed. And then I start to leave this spirally place and get into my body with my hands and my journal and my page. And I've got this delicious drink that I think I may have spilt some palo santo or sage into. And here's another little trick I use. Well, One. Don't underestimate breath. Breath is such a powerful tool, Because what happens is, Particularly if you take conscious breath, We are stuck in this top part of our bodies, Our heads, Right? That's where the thinking is happening, The spiraling is happening. And when we breathe, I like to imagine just like following the breath from the tips of my tongue, My lips, Or sometimes my nostrils if I'm breathing through my nose and just And I follow it down, Down, Down into my belly, Into my heart, And I take a breath out. Two things are happening there. One, We are oxygenating. You know, Which helps our brain start stop spiraling to we are moving because we're following the breath from our mouth, Our nose, Our tongue. We're following, Following, Following. You can't be in two places at once. Remember, And we're finding ourselves here. We're finding ourselves here. We're finding ourselves here. I like to energize my heart. And the other thing you might have noticed, Let me take a breath and if you want to take one with me. So breathing in. Do you hear the noise? Most people that are feeling anxious are not making any noise. They're actually breathing very shallow. So what happens when you make some noise? There's a vibration. You connect with the vibration wherever the vibration is happening. And it's really hard to be good. Humming, Whistling, Making noise, Making movement, And being in your head at the same time. And so that's a little trick of make a little noise. And sometimes I move. And it just feels like relief. Relief. Moving from here, Into here, Into here, Into here, Into here, Into here, Into here. You get the point. There are many places for us to move the energy to. Now my last. Um. . . Tool I use. It's a mindset. This one's really powerful. I think one of the worst things you can tell people that are new to meditation is just quiet your mind. That's all you need to do to meditate. You need to quiet your mind. What the heck is that? Quiet your mind? I feel personally that's the worst advice you can give people. Because the mind, If you are curious, If you are adventurous, If you are intelligent, Is all over the place. And the worst thing you can do to someone is say, Quiet your mind. It's like, Don't think of a purple elephant. Don't do it. Don't do it. Of course you're doing it. The mind will immediately resist. So I do the exact opposite. I imagine my mind is like a pent-up dog. It's got so much energy. And instead of saying, Just stop having energy. Unhelpful. I imagine I'm taking this incredible dog with all this energy to this amazing off-leash dog park. It's a nice safe container for dogs. Beautiful in nature and I just open the leash and I say, Go. Go. Think anything you want. And so usually for the first parts of my meditation, After I've done my drink, I've done my beautiful smelling stuff, I've written a little something, I've taken a couple of breaths. I allow my mind to go anywhere it likes to and everything. The worst thought I can think of, I'm just like, Go get the energy out, Get the energy out, Get the energy out. And then guess what happens after I let my mind exert the energy, My mind, Just like a dog that's had a ton of energy and was allowed to exert it in a safe space. Comes back and goes. Hmm. That's usually the moment for my meditation. Goes to this next level. I can't force it. I can't fake it. I just need to have some space to allow my curious, Intelligent, Adventurous mind to go wherever it wants to go. So I hope. There's at least one or two tips here that you can take with you as you perhaps begin your journey into meditation and mindfulness that will help you Quiet your mind? No, That's not it, Right? Help you move from your mind. Move from those spiraled thoughts into other places because you can't be quiet. Two places. At one. Thank you for watching. See you inside timer. More for me soon. Bye everybody.