Hello,
And welcome to this meditation for teens.
I got a request from someone in school looking for meditation for anxiety and school.
So if that is you,
If you feel like you're being pulled in many different directions,
Like a lot of pressure is being applied on you all the time,
Like you're really stressed and really anxious,
So much so that it interferes with a lot of what you're doing than this is for you.
And at the end of the meditation,
You will feel much more grounded in yourself,
In your truth,
And have a stronger foundation to then go out into the world,
Go to school and your activities and all of that.
So to begin,
We will sit or lay down with a flat back and just gently place a hand on your chest,
A hand on your stomach,
And maybe pressing gently down on our body,
Tapping into our hands,
Feeling the texture of our clothing,
Our skin,
On our fingertips,
Our palms,
And then tapping into the body underneath the hands,
Feeling the way the hands are applying that pressure.
And from this place of simple connection,
We'll start to invite a slower,
Deeper breath.
We'll breathe in here,
Exhale here,
One more in,
And out.
Good,
Inhale,
Exhale.
Continue to breathe like this,
Slower and deeper on your own.
And notice as you breathe in and take in that air into your body,
Notice how your hands on your chest or your stomach,
They go out.
And when you breathe out,
Your hands move inwards.
So your attention can,
It doesn't have to focus in particular anywhere because I'm sure you're already using so much of that focusing energy on school.
So I invite you to let your attention wander.
From the breath itself,
Slow and deep,
To perhaps the hands,
Feeling the sensations underneath the hands.
And then when you feel like it,
Letting that attention wander back to how your body is moving as you breathe,
Maybe you decide you want it to wander elsewhere and that's fine.
Just allowing the sound of my voice to guide you when you feel like coming back and continuing to breathe slowly and deeply.
Sometimes to encourage a sense of wandering,
You can maybe invite a sway into your body.
Maybe some neck rolls if that feels good.
There's no particular goal here except to start to slow down our breathing so that we enter into a more relaxed state.
We become more at ease,
Giving ourselves a break from stress and anxiety.
And then also exploring what wandering and lingering feels like,
Giving ourselves a break from having to hyperfocus all the time,
Or at least try really hard to focus all the time and keep our attention fixed on certain areas.
Breathing in here with me,
Inhale,
Exhale,
One more in,
Out,
Noticing that as you breathe slower and deeper,
The breath naturally wants to become slower and deeper on its own.
On the next breath,
Go ahead and rest your hands in your lap or maybe palms down on the ground if that feels good.
Just press slightly downwards,
Feel the way your legs push back against your hands or the ground pushes back against your hands.
And we'll do a couple of dramatic breaths.
The point is to really relax almost to the point of collapsing or melting into the ground beneath us.
So we'll do a big inhale,
Open mouth exhale,
Just letting that breath travel down your body,
Feeling the body sink down into the ground.
One more inhale,
Exhale,
Letting it all go.
One more time,
You can try a couple on your own if what you're needing right now is a melting.
You can experiment with breathing in,
Feeling that breath wave through your body and then melting into a little pile on the ground.
Maybe what you're craving is something more active so you can breathe in nice and dramatic and then almost like you're throwing your shoulders down collapsing onto the ground.
When you feel like you're nice and grounded,
Return to a more slow and natural breath,
Feeling supported and held by the ground,
By the earth.
And on the next breath,
You can place your hands wherever feels good.
And I invite you to,
In this more relaxed and grounded state,
Tap into yourself,
Tap into how you're feeling right now.
Any thoughts that come up,
Just let them kind of come up and almost like you're watching a movie play in your head,
You don't have to do anything.
Just letting what needs to come up,
Come up in this meditative state that might not have had the chance to come up in your regular life.
Because you're focusing on your activities or your school,
Any feelings,
Any thoughts,
Any daydreams.
Now is the time to let that come up if it wants to.
If nothing comes up,
It's fine.
Just sit here with me and sooner or later something random is going to come up and you don't have to worry about what to do about it or even where it came from.
Just sit back and enjoy what's popping up.
It might feel weird to literally just be sitting here and doing nothing,
But when we invite a state of being that is so different and opposite from our main state of being throughout the day,
It's almost like a little vacation or a mini spa day for yourself,
Your body,
Your thoughts,
Your feelings.
You're like,
Oh my goodness,
Finally I can just be and not really have to do anything.
We'll breathe in here together.
Inhale.
Noticing if that feels good.
You can look at each breath too.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Good.
Continue like this on your own,
Knowing that for the past 15 minutes now,
You've given yourself space and room to relax and be,
And you've allowed yourself to get in touch with what feels good for you,
What is true for you.
So when I say true,
It comes from you and not from other sources.
So those little random thoughts,
Those little random feelings that have come up during this meditation that is much closer to what's true for you.
And when we give ourselves that opportunity to connect with what feels good and what feels true for us,
We can then go back out into the world much more grounded,
Much less scattered or anxious or stressed.
So I hope you enjoyed this meditation and we'll close out our practice with three final breaths.
We'll breathe in.
Exhale.
One more.
And our last breath all the way in and all the way out.
Congratulations for meditating,
For getting back in touch with yourself.
I hope you go out into the world with a clear head and a feeling of wholeness and truth in your heart.
