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Welcome to this Drop the Anchor Meditation by Gabriella Demori.
This grounding exercise will help you to calm your nervous system and feel more present and more centred.
Another way to think of grounding is like dropping an anchor.
So if your day is chaotic,
Unpredictable or has had some challenges,
This exercise will help you find your centre,
Find your feet again and come down from all of the adrenaline and flightiness of your day.
Before we start this meditation,
I'm going to invite you to breathe very deeply and very slowly.
Inhaling as you breathe in through the nose.
Exhaling gently and slowly through the nose or the mouth.
Take a few moments here.
The breath is the most important thing for you to focus on.
As you breathe in,
Allow the belly to come out like a balloon.
As you breathe out,
Allow the belly to come in,
Pulling it gently towards the spine.
Do your best to keep your shoulders down,
Your chest falling gently.
Breathe in smooth,
Long breaths,
Extending them a little bit more with each inhalation and each exhalation.
With each breath,
Drop your shoulders,
Unlock your jaw,
Relax your face,
The throat and your neck.
Make your arms and legs and feet as heavy as possible.
Allow the chair or the bed or the floor to take the full weight of your body.
Almost giving yourself a sensation of trying to fall through the floor.
As you become more aware of your heaviness,
Notice where your body meets the chair or the floor.
Where your arms,
Your feet and your back are making contact.
And which parts of your body feel free and untouched.
Take another long,
Slow breath and take a moment to remember all of the events of today.
Everything you have done,
Every conversation you've had,
Every problem that you have solved,
Every task you have completed,
Every person that you have helped.
Just allow for a moment for all of the busyness of the day to come to your mind.
All sounds,
All traffic,
All noise,
Rushing around and yet trying to keep to time.
And I'd like you to imagine that you're on a boat in a raging,
Thrashing sea,
Somewhere out far.
And this boat is being moved by the waves and the motion of the ocean.
It's struggling to stay afloat.
Sometimes there is reprieve between the waves,
But they keep on coming.
You may feel that you cannot control the boat,
That you are at mercy of the sea.
And this is how we feel in life usually,
That life is the sea and we are a small boat being thrown around,
Struggling to stay afloat,
Wondering which direction we're going to be pushed in next,
Where we will have to go against our will,
Without stillness,
Without peace,
Without reprieve.
And now I'm going to invite you to remember that we all have an anchor on the boat.
And that any time you have five or ten minutes of stillness,
You can find this anchor on your boat.
Drop it over the side,
A heavy metal anchor with a long chain.
Just push it over the boat that you're on in this visualization and feel its heavy weight drop all the way down to the sand beneath the water,
Far beyond where you can see it.
And as soon as you hear the thud of the anchor on the ground of the ocean,
Your little boat becomes still and centered.
The waves settle.
And you can trust that for the next little while,
This boat is not going anywhere.
And even though the sea moves around you,
You feel safe and still in your little boat.
You feel weighted to the earth like you can stop here for a little while.
Take a few breaths here.
Feel your boat settle and become still.
Imagine this feeling or sensation of the heavy anchor pulling the boat down a little bit,
Grounding it,
Making it feel still and sturdy,
Less flighty,
Less fragile.
And like in life,
We'll get back to the seas in a little while.
They'll always be there.
We know the waves of life keep coming day after day after day.
The sun will rise and fall and the waves will keep coming.
But we have found this secret anchor that we can use at any time that we need to find stillness.
And our centre admits the chaos.
When you can really trust the boat becoming still and centered,
Be a little courageous to dip your feet into the water over the side of the boat.
You may like to use your eyes to trace the chain of the anchor all the way down as far as you can see.
Feel safe and secure and stabilized by the strength and the weight of the anchor.
Feel your feet flowing in the cool water.
Let your shoulders drop and your face rise to feel the sun.
Let your breath and your belly become full again as you notice actually how beautiful it is where you are.
And suddenly it feels like you are in paradise rather than a scary raging sea.
Being mindful of how beautiful and cool the water feels on your feet.
How warm the sun feels on your skin.
How freeing it feels to take this time just for you.
There's nowhere you have to go.
There's nothing you have to do.
Just rest here for as long as you like.
Making sure your breath is smooth and long and steady.
Let the shoulders drop a little more.
Allow the mind to settle a little more.
Do your best to do nothing and simply be for a few moments.
And as you close your eyes and start to settle in,
Tune in to the sounds of the water.
The sounds of the trees.
The forest in the distance.
Any birds you can hear singing in the far distance.
Close your eyes but hold in mind the beautiful vision of the ocean and the islands around you.
And in a few moments we're going to slowly and calmly bring the anchor up from the bottom of the sea.
So just take a few final moments here to breathe and be still.
Feel the sun on your face and the breeze across your skin.
And when you feel fully relaxed and rejuvenated and nourished,
Slowly start to bring the anchor up.
Link by link.
Drawing the anchor closer and closer to the boat.
Taking your time,
Feeling peaceful,
More centred,
More confident,
More ready.
Wind the anchor all the way up until it's completely lifted out of the ocean and into your little boat.
And when you're ready to leave the sea and your boat and this visualisation,
Bring your new sense of calm and stillness back into your body in this room,
In this moment,
On this day.
And start to imagine that your breath was your anchor in this body and everything around you was the sea of chaos.
Just focus on your breath again,
Moving up and down the centre of the body,
Your own inner anchor available to ourselves each time we remember to tune in and breathe deeply.
Feeling a sense of peace and stillness.
Feeling that your face is relaxed and free and facing the light.
The world goes on around us,
But here within ourselves,
We can always take the time to drop the anchor.
Ground ourselves and pause for a few precious moments.
And just allow how you truly feel in this moment,
On this day,
To come to the surface.
As you find a place within yourself beneath the busyness,
Beneath the chaos,
Beneath the mind.
Becoming more centred and more confident that you can move through the day,
The rest of the week,
From this newly found place of stillness and peace.
Underneath it all,
You find a place of control,
A place of safety,
A place of self-management,
A place of silence.
A place within ourselves that you feel totally capable and totally at ease with whatever the day throws at us.
Totally resilient,
Totally ready,
Totally still.
Just be here with your breath for a few more moments.
Breathing in through the nose,
Belly comes out.
Breathing out through the nose or the mouth,
Belly comes in.
And when you're ready to come back to your day and back to your life,
Very gently and very slowly,
Feeling your feet and your toes.
Gently opening your eyes whenever you're ready,
Whenever you feel prepared.
Thank you for listening to this meditation.
Thank you for listening.
