Yoga Nidra For Anxiety Control

Welcome to this meditation.

Today we are going to experience an expansion of being,

One that is larger than any emotion,

Including an anxiety.

This practice will leave you feeling calm,

Refreshed and in control of your emotions.

As we get ready for this meditation,

Please get as comfortable as you can.

Lay down on your mat in a Shavasana pose.

Laying on your back,

The whole body is centered and straight.

Legs are slightly apart,

Arms away from the body,

Palms facing up.

Head in one straight line with the spinal cord.

Gently close your eyes and get comfortable.

I invite you to start this practice by taking a slow deep inhale and a deep exhale.

And another deep inhale and a slow exhale.

Repeat it a couple more times,

Letting your body settle on the mat.

Make final adjustments if needed.

From now on,

Please avoid any movement until the end of the practice.

We start with a simple breathing practice which is designed to deeply calm your nervous system.

Start with deep,

Slow breaths into your belly.

Breathe with full awareness into your belly.

Allow your belly to rise and fall with your breath and allow yourself to feel increasingly more settled with each breath.

If you know Jaya breathing,

Perform it while doing the belly breaths.

Otherwise,

Simply breathe deeply in and out of your belly.

Give yourself a few more rounds of the slow,

Deep belly breathing.

Feel yourself settling even more and begin to pay particular attention to your exhale.

Now relax your breathing and allow your breath to return to whatever feels the most natural.

Open up to whatever you can hear in this moment and simply welcome the sounds.

Recognize them as sounds and simply be the witness to the sounds you hear in the moment.

They are neither good nor bad.

They are simply sounds.

Come back to the sensation of your breath moving in and out of your body.

There is no control of your breath.

Simply notice yourself breathing naturally and easily in and out through your nostrils.

Return back to the sounds you hear.

Now back to your breath.

Now become aware of your breath and sounds at the same time.

Feel yourself becoming sounds and breath.

Notice your level of attention to those simple yet direct sensations of sound and breath.

Those two sensations are beginning to reveal the thing about us that does not change,

That is always calm and happy and which can hold any emotion.

This is awareness.

Become awareness itself.

From this state of awareness think of your sankalpa.

Sankalpa is a short resolve expressing your deepest desire that you want to come true in your life.

It is like a seed that is planted during yoginitra practice and is bound to grow in your life.

Choose it wisely.

Ask your heart what it truly desires at this moment.

Repeat your sankalpa mentally three times.

Now we begin to rotate your awareness by taking a trip through different parts of your body.

As quickly as possible shift your attention from part to part following my instructions.

Do not move,

Just focus on the body part that I will be naming.

Let's begin.

Bring your awareness to your right hand thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

All fingers together.

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Elbow,

Shoulder,

Armpit,

Right side of the waist,

Hip,

Knee,

Ankle,

Sole of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe,

All toes together.

Bring your awareness to your left hand thumb,

Index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Small finger,

All fingers together.

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Elbow,

Shoulder,

Armpit,

Left side of the waist,

Hip,

Knee,

Ankle,

Sole of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe,

All toes together.

Right shoulder blade,

Left shoulder blade,

Upper back,

Middle back,

Lower back,

The whole back together.

Right buttock,

Left buttock,

Whole of the right leg,

The whole of the left leg.

Top of the head,

Forehead,

Right eyebrow,

Left eyebrow,

The space between the eyebrows,

Right eye,

Left eye,

Both eyes together,

Nose,

Upper lip,

Lower lip,

Chin,

Throat,

Right chest,

Left chest,

Abdomen,

Navel,

Lower abdomen,

Pelvis.

Keep your awareness in the pelvis area.

Notice what arises spontaneously without any judgment.

Often we store a lot of our emotions in the pelvis area.

Relax your pelvis.

Now feel your whole body together,

The whole body together.

Visualize your body on the floor,

Laying perfectly still and relaxed.

Do not sleep.

Stay alert and aware.

Now I invite you to experience a place which you feel is a sanctuary.

It could be your favorite beach,

Park,

Your own home or any place where you feel safe and happy.

Where is the place you love to be?

A place where you feel you can be your best,

Where you can feel alive,

Calm and open.

I invite you to place yourself in this place by involving all of your senses.

What do you see in your sanctuary?

Notice three or four different objects you can see and notice their color,

Texture and shapes.

What is the quality of light?

Are you inside or outside?

Is there anyone there with you?

What are the smells you experience in your sanctuary?

Choose two or three different smells and notice how you feel when you breathe in a lung full of a wonderful smell.

What do you hear in your sanctuary?

Can you pick out two or three different sounds?

Are there any tastes that you can experience in your sanctuary?

What does your body feel?

What temperature it is?

What's on your skin?

What emotions do you experience as you're here in your sanctuary?

Allow those emotions to rise to the surface and notice exactly where in your body you feel them.

Do you feel those emotions in your chest,

Throat,

Belly or perhaps some other part of your body?

Simply notice how you feel,

Describe it to yourself in your mind in details.

Remember that you can always come back to this place whenever you wish,

Especially if you ever start feeling anxious.

Take the beautiful relaxed feeling you've experienced by visiting your sanctuary and become even more relaxed as you invite a greater awareness of your body.

Now,

Only if you're very relaxed and it feels safe doing so,

I invite you to bring to mind something that worries you or causes you an anxiety.

If this doesn't feel safe,

Go back to your sanctuary in your mind until you can feel in control of your emotions and then bring up a smaller worry or simply stay with the awareness of it.

If you feel safe enough to bring a worry,

Become curious about it.

Notice exactly where and how you feel that emotion in your body.

Become curious about this emotion.

Does it have a color,

A flavor,

A quality or maybe a texture?

What are all the ways you experience this emotion?

Does it cause any thoughts to arise?

Does it feel like it has a color or texture?

Remember,

You're not trying to heal yourself,

You're simply agreeing to watch an anxiety as an observer.

What are all the ways you feel this emotion as an observer?

Now,

Choose to let go of this emotion.

Go back to your sanctuary and remember all of the sensations,

The light,

Colors,

Smells,

Sounds.

Now let go of the sanctuary and pick up an anxiety again.

Now sanctuary.

Now an anxiety.

Now feel both sensations at the same time.

Be the part of you that is bigger than emotions and which can withstand any emotion or experience as it comes to you because you're something that is fundamentally larger than emotions.

Hold both and feel that you're becoming something bigger.

You are awareness itself.

As awareness,

There is nothing you need,

Nothing you can't do.

There is nothing you aren't already.

Seeing yourself larger than emotions,

Even tough emotions,

Like anxiety,

May rise from time to time.

You'll be able to see them for what they are,

A changeable,

Interesting part of you,

But not the biggest part of you.

With this awareness,

Anxiety will come around less and less and when it does,

It will not have the same pull on you or to bring you off your center.

Now come back to the feeling of your body laying on the floor.

Notice the sensations of your hands and your feet,

Your belly,

Your back.

Agree that from this moment forward,

You are going to feel yourself as the thing that is larger than emotions.

And whenever any emotion comes up,

You will be able to see it clearly and see it with curiosity rather than something that controls your life.

Notice how relaxed you've become in the process.

Remain relaxed,

But begin to exit out of this yoga nidra practice and resume your life as normal.

After this practice,

You will feel stronger and more grounded and having a greater control of your emotions.

I will now count down from 5 to 1 to finish the practice.

5,

4,

3,

2,

1.

Yoga nidra is over.