This short meditation is a technique that I find useful.
In calming myself when anxiety begins to take a hold,
You can expand it to as long as you'd like.
We're going to begin by settling ourselves.
Find a comfortable position and relax your body.
Loosen your shoulders.
Let them relax downwards.
Loosen your jaw muscles.
Relax the muscles around your eyes.
And with purpose,
Slow your breathing.
In a moment,
We're going to take some deep breaths and then count our slow breath up to ten and then another deep breath.
Let's begin.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
We're breathing in through our nose and breathing out through our mouth as if you were breathing through a straw.
Let's try that again.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Now we're going to count ten normal breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Now another deep breath in and out through the mouth as if blowing through a straw.
Breathing in.
Out.
Even this simple technique can be repeated as often as you'd like.
The next part of the meditation is based on a Buddhist form of meditation called Metta meditation.
Metta is a Sanskrit word which loosely translated means loving kindness.
The first person who should be the subject of your loving kindness should be yourself.
This meditation normally takes the form of three phrases,
Each phrase on one breath.
And that set of three is repeated three times.
At the end of this process there will be a different phrase and that will complete a set of ten phrases.
At the end of this we will do another deep breath and breathe out as if we were breathing through a straw.
The three phrases that I use are these.
May I be happy?
May I be healthy?
May I be free from fear?
We're going to do three sets of those,
One on each breath.
At the conclusion we'll finish with this phrase.
May I be calm and confident?
If it's convenient you can say these phrases out loud.
If not you can think them mentally.
Remember one phrase on each breath in and out.
Calm breaths,
Longer breaths.
Let's begin.
May I be happy?
May I be healthy?
May I be free from fear?
May I be happy?
May I be healthy?
May I be free from fear?
May I be happy?
May I be healthy?
May I be free from fear?
May I be calm and confident?
Deep breath in,
Out.
At this point you can repeat the whole process again,
Repeating the three phrases three times and ending on the final phrase with another deep breath in and out.
Repeat this for as long as it takes your anxiety to reduce.
You may either make this a short meditation when you feel your anxiety rising or you can make it a longer one to give yourself some peace either at the beginning of the day or at the ending of the day.
I have found this to be an effective way to minister to my anxiety and I hope you do too.
