Make yourself very comfortable for this meditation.
But if you're feeling a lot of anxiety,
You might not be comfortable no matter what you do with your body.
Just know that that's okay.
Okay to squirm.
Okay to fidget.
In this meditation,
I'm going to lead you through a process of downshifting your energy.
I call it the downshift.
Where you can learn to take that energy of anxiety and carry it in a different way.
If you're experiencing intense anxiety right now,
I just want you to know I've been there and you're going to be okay.
Let's begin the meditation.
Close your eyes and feel your body supported.
I suggest you do this when sitting up.
It helps to have the vertical relationship between your head and your pelvis for this technique.
I want you to begin by just letting yourself feel the anxiety.
It can be so scary.
It can be so painful.
It can be so unnerving.
And for this technique,
We want to not distract ourselves from the anxiety.
You don't want to pretend like it's not happening.
We want to go right into it.
We want to embrace it.
So do that.
Feel it.
Where do you feel it in your body?
What does it feel like?
Generally when we have uncomfortable anxiety,
Regardless of the content,
Regardless of the thoughts that may be associated with the feeling,
The feeling itself is an overactive energy in the upper half of our body.
You may feel it in your face or in your head.
You may feel it in your chest or your armpits or your throat,
Maybe in your belly.
But if you feel the energy in these upper reaches of the body,
It always feels unmanageable.
These parts of our physiology are relatively frail.
Our skull,
Our brain,
The nerves in our head and our neck,
All very delicate.
Even in our chest,
Collarbones and scapula,
Shoulder blades,
Those upper ribs,
These are all very delicate.
Bones,
The lungs,
The heart,
It's delicate.
It's like too much energy running through wires that are too narrow.
Your arms,
Your fingers,
It's all so delicate.
Start to feel your breath and make your breath a little bit more deliberate.
We're going to start taking the energy,
Almost like we're scooping it up with our inhalation.
And with our exhalation,
We're going to settle the energy,
Encourage the energy,
Like herd the energy downward in our body.
Down from the head into the neck,
Into the shoulders,
Down from the shoulders and the neck,
Down into the chest,
Down from the chest and the upper back,
Down,
Down,
Down beyond the diaphragm.
Sometimes anxiety makes you feel like you can barely get your breath,
But just stay with it.
As you encourage this energy to shift downward in your body,
And that's what we're going to keep doing throughout this meditation,
I want you to feel your belly.
And even deeper than your belly,
Feel your hips and your pelvis,
Feel your legs.
The anatomy of the lower half of our body is so much denser,
So much heavier.
The guts,
The womb,
All these organs are made for heavy lifting.
The womb is made for childbirth,
Gestation,
The guts,
Our digestion,
Our elimination.
Even the skeleton on the lower half of the body,
Those lumbar vertebra,
Or big chunky bones,
The sacrum,
The hip bones.
Just keep breathing that energy down as I'm talking to you.
Down into your belly,
Down into your guts,
Down below your guts into your pelvis.
Your leg bones are the biggest bones in your body.
The nerves down there are some of the biggest nerves in your body.
In your hips,
In your pelvis,
In your deep belly,
You have capacity.
The wires are made for lots more energy.
Just keep softening the face,
Softening the shoulders,
Softening the chest.
Using the exhalation to settle that energy down and down and down.
This is what I call the downshift.
Let your head be really quiet.
Don't worry about your mind.
Your mind is going to do whatever it does.
Just keep softening your head.
Stories,
Thoughts related to your life.
Typical anxiety thoughts.
They might still pop in and it might fire off the energy that wants to dance around in your chest or give you that icky feeling.
Scoop it up with your inhale.
Settle it down,
Shift it down,
Downshift it with your exhale.
Down into your big belly,
Even if you don't have a big belly.
Down into your big hips,
Down into the guts.
Becomes like a fire in your belly.
It becomes just pure power if you can learn to hold it in your pelvis.
The upper half of your body can almost go to sleep.
Can soften your face and relax your head so much.
It's like you're going to sleep.
Same thing with your chest,
Your armpits.
I mean,
You want to keep breathing to scoop that energy up.
Just let the upper part of your body relax and get real quiet.
Just own this energy down into your belly.
There's too much there.
Just downshift it further down into the earth.
The earth can take it all.
The earth has tremendous capacity.
Stay with it,
Shifting it down,
Shifting it down.
See your body,
Your life,
Your experience.
You're doing great.
This is a meditation you can do again and again.
You learn this method.
So as soon as the energy erupts,
It becomes a signal.
Scoop it up with the inhale.
Shift it down with the exhale and live your life.
Power in your belly,
Power in your hips.
Offering the excess to the earth.
And then again,
You're going to be okay.
Keep going as long as you need to.
Shifting up with the inhale,
Shifting down with the exhale.
You decide when this practice ends for you.
But for now,
I'll say goodbye.
