G'day and welcome to today's meditation,
Avoiding the Vortex.
My name is Dylan and I'm going to be guiding you through the next 10 minutes of your meditation practice.
You may be wondering what I mean by avoiding the vortex.
What I mean by this is that the feeling of anxiety or panic can come at us so rapidly,
So quickly,
And it feels like we're being sucked into this vortex with very little ways of escaping and it can feel quite immersive.
So here I offer you a ladder.
I offer you the opportunity to calm the mind,
Calm the body,
And let's re-shift our focus and reorient ourselves.
Some people feel these heavy emotions in physical places in the body.
If that's you,
Then I invite you to simply close down the eyes in your own time and in your own way and then take your hand,
Place it over the affected area.
For example,
If you're feeling tight in the chest,
You place a hand over your chest.
And we'll begin by simply taking a couple of deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And if you can,
I'd like you to start lengthening the amount of time it takes for you to inhale.
And then perhaps you may notice the time it takes to fully exhale right to the very end of the breath.
Breathe in through the nose incredibly deeply and then let it all out to the very end of the breath.
That's right.
And when you start to feel like those physical symptoms are subsiding,
You can lower down those hands back into your lap as you begin to find some stillness in the body and the mind.
And of course,
During this process,
You may have thoughts coming in and out and that's okay.
In fact,
That's perfectly normal.
How you let those thoughts affect you.
Will you let those thoughts distract you away from the breath?
Indeed,
If you find yourself getting taken away from my voice,
I would like you as an option to simply return to the breath,
Focusing on those deep inhales and those lengthened exhales all the way to the very end of the breath.
That's right.
And you know,
Certain thoughts about certain situations can give us feelings of anxiety,
Nervousness or panic and other thoughts of situations can help us to relax and feel calm.
And anxiety is a natural survival response.
In the right place at the right time,
It can be a useful response.
And as you continue to relax,
A part of you can begin to unpick what situations anxiety is useful for and what situations should you respond differently.
And you can respond differently now.
And many people wonder how you stop a panic attack or anxiety and to stop them before they occur.
You can learn to stop worrying and instead start problem solving.
And the more you can problem solve what you used to worry about,
The more anxiety seems to fade away into the background.
And you can preoccupy your mind and become absorbed in the other ways of thinking.
And as you do this,
You may see changes begin to occur.
People will often wonder how you may remain so calm.
And it's useful to remember that a flood of emotion only lasts a few minutes and has to keep being topped up if it's going to stay.
And you can rate this emotion in your mind from one to ten and notice how it changes over time.
And notice how quickly it fades away.
And notice that any response to that emotion also passes.
And during negative emotions,
You can step aside,
Become the observer as you begin to calm down.
And I don't know how you will integrate this learning and how you will learn more for yourself.
As my voice begins to quiet down in the background,
You take this time to learn and update the mind and body on an unconscious level.
And you know,
If a car alarm is too sensitive,
It keeps going off and annoying people and it irritates the owner.
If the alarm isn't set sensitive enough,
Someone may steal the car.
And just like how Goldilocks discovered it,
It has to be just right.
And as you begin to deepen that breath,
I want you to become observant of how that breath has changed since we started and how quickly these ten minutes have gone by.
As you bring your hands to your heart center,
If you can feel your heart beating behind your left hand.
This is your constant reminder to be in the moment.
That this moment will pass as the next one will pass.
And that you too will begin to feel different when you start to shift that stagnant emotion.
In your own time and in your own way,
I invite you to start waking up the physical body,
Wiggling the toes,
Wiggling the fingers and in your own time and in your own way,
You can begin to open the eyes and come back,
Come back to the room with a different emotion present.
With the acknowledgement that it was you who changed this emotion and that was all your inner resilience and inner strength and incredible power of your subconscious mind.
