Am I Safe In My Body Right Now?

This practice is a grounding meditation designed to cultivate a sense of safety in the present moment. It encourages awareness of the body's sensations, breath, and surroundings to counteract the anxiety that arises from uncertainty. By engaging in mindful observation—looking around, feeling physical support, and softening tension—we can soothe the nervous system and recognize that, in this moment, we are safe. The practice also addresses the mind’s tendency to project into the future, offering techniques such as breath awareness, tapping, and reframing thoughts to ease catastrophic thinking. Through repeated focus on the body and breath, this practice fosters a deeper connection to the present and a greater sense of internal security.

Transcript

Today we're going to work with,

I am safe in my body.

So it's very much a present moment practice.

What comes up for us when we say that?

Part of the reason that I thought it would be good to do this kind of a practice today is because there's so much anxiety and fear right now.

And when we feel anxious about the future or when things feel really uncertain,

We don't know what to do.

Our body,

Our mammal body,

Really notices that and we feel unsafe in our body.

So we could start by looking around the room that we're in.

If you're here doing a practice,

It's because you feel safe enough to be here doing a practice.

So if you were in some kind of an immediate body life threat,

You wouldn't be here.

It helps,

I think,

To see that with our mind,

Our conscious mind,

To use our conscious mind to also notice,

Okay,

Right now,

Do I feel safe in my body?

One of the ways that we assess our danger,

Our level of threat,

Is to look around.

So you can look around the room that you're in,

But also look over your shoulder and look behind you.

Look up towards the ceiling and down towards the floor behind you.

And then come back to center.

Do the same thing to the other side and look over your shoulder on the other side and let your eyes see that you're safe right now.

Really notice how you're situated,

Your feet,

Your seat.

If you're lying down in particular,

You might watch and look at the whole back of your body,

What's happening in the back of your body?

Could you settle back?

One of the things that happens a lot is that our brain,

Our survival system is always going into the future.

Am I going to be safe then?

And we have a lot of usefulness with that mechanism,

And we also have a lot of anxiety and stress that comes with that mechanism too.

So one of the ways that we can kind of counteract that forward momentum is to bring our attention to the back of the body.

Notice the back of your head and neck,

Your shoulders.

Let your shoulders get kind of heavy.

If you're sitting,

You could bring your shoulders up to your ears on an inhale,

And then as you breathe out,

Let them soften.

If you're lying back,

Supported against a chair or something,

Then even better.

We could let our whole body be really supported,

Kind of surrender into that support.

And take a few deep breaths if that feels okay.

Notice what it feels like.

Does it feel okay to take a few deep breaths?

Sometimes when we're really in a situation of fear or anxiety,

It feels like it's too much to breathe deeply.

We might be in a bit of a freeze response,

So it can be very helpful just to notice.

Usually when I take a deep breath,

It feels relaxing,

And does that feel that way right now?

Does it feel like it's okay to soften my belly so that I could breathe out and relax?

And notice if your breath is smooth or if you're holding your breath.

If you're holding your breath,

If you want to lengthen your breath,

Anything with the breath,

It always starts with a soft belly.

And even just saying those words,

That can feel like,

Well,

People with soft bellies get gutted.

I mean,

That would be kind of the most extreme.

So having a soft belly can feel kind of threatening,

And it's also the way to deeply relax.

And notice the whole front of your body as well,

Your forehead and eyebrows,

Your eyes.

If you have your eyes closed or your gaze soft,

It means that we can't be on the lookout for danger right now if we have our eyes closed.

So what does that feel like?

Does it feel like that's okay?

And if you're in a familiar environment where you don't need to be on the lookout,

Where your nervous system has some confidence that your body will be safe,

It's easier to close our eyes.

So notice that.

Is it okay to close my eyes?

Is it okay to trust that I'll be safe here?

It's my physical mammal body.

What's my experience right now in this moment?

Is my body safe?

And notice the muscles in your mouth and jaw.

You can move your lower jaw around a little bit,

Let that soften.

And notice your throat coming down into your collarbones and the large muscles that cover the chest as well.

Down into your stomach area again.

And notice the front of your arms and the front of your legs and feet as well.

So one of the ways that we can feel safe is to let our arms and legs be at rest.

We're not being called to do any action in the world right now,

We're doing a resting practice.

So see if you need to do a bit of shaking or stretching in your legs and arms,

Or see if you could just let them settle back and be still.

And as we do that,

It becomes a bit easier to bring our attention inside.

To be internally focused.

And as you are aware of your whole entire body from head to toes,

What's your experience of safety in your body now?

And notice that on a physical body level,

On an energy level.

Notice what happens to your breath.

And then let's go directly to the thoughts.

It's usually our thoughts that are making us feel unsafe.

So right now there's a lot of turmoil and uncertainty in the world.

No matter where you live in the whole planet,

We're being affected by COVID-19,

By climate change,

Economic disruption,

Fear,

Political unrest.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

And our brain doesn't like uncertainty.

And then it goes into a,

Let me try and figure this out.

Let me try and predict all of the things that could go wrong.

And that can be a really tough environment to live in when our brain is hypervigilant for danger and it's desperately seeking to find some certainty in a world where there's very little certainty,

Especially right now.

So let's kind of sit with that for a minute.

What does your brain and your thoughts,

What do they have to do?

What's the connection between your brain and your thoughts and your felt experience of safety in your body?

So we could observe the thoughts as they're rising and falling,

They come in,

Some have a lot of intensity,

Some just kind of drift through in the background.

So what is the content of your thoughts right now in relation to safety?

And what's the energy of your thoughts?

And one thing we can notice about thoughts is that they're usually about the past or the future.

And when there's fear,

We're often really focused on the future.

What's going to happen?

I don't know if this is going to be okay.

And that can have a direct impact on us not feeling safe.

So notice when you follow a thought like that,

And I'm sure we've all had a certain amount of compulsion in our thought stream and certain amount of catastrophic thinking as well.

Are we watching democracy fall apart?

We're certainly watching polarization.

A lot of things that were a little bit more hidden are becoming really exposed.

Life as we know it has really dramatically changed in the last several months.

Continue to notice your body and your breath.

If you're having a lot of compulsion in your thoughts,

And it feels like it's really kind of ramping you up,

You could use some tapping or any of the tools we use for thoughts.

Bring your attention away from the thought and just into the sound of the tapping,

The sensation of it on your forehead.

Some of the thoughts that are in our mind are really scary.

And the thing about our mind is our brain especially is that we don't really know that that's not real.

We're using all the experiences we've had in our life to date,

And then we're projecting into the future.

And with catastrophic worst-case scenario thinking,

We can really alarm ourselves.

So it's helpful to see,

Is that part of what's creating this feeling of unsafety?

And then what could we do?

One of the things we can always do is come back to the reality of our own moment right now.

Right now in this moment,

What's happening in your body?

Are you able to breathe with some ease?

And what's happening in the mind?

What's happening in your thoughts?

One of the ways that we anchor our attention is by paying attention to the breath.

So paying attention to the breath can be that we're really focusing on softening our belly as we breathe out and letting that expansion happen more easily as we breathe in.

So let's focus on that for a moment.

Take your attention away from your thought stream,

Away from your head and bring it down into your body.

Notice your navel center,

Lower belly,

And let that soften as you breathe.

And as you breathe in and then you breathe out,

Let your exhalation be a little bit longer if you like.

And you could also pay attention to your physical body.

Relax your shoulders again.

Notice where in your body that you hold tightness.

And if you're holding it in your jaw,

You could let your jaw soften.

Relax the hinges of your jaw.

If it's in your chest or your stomach,

You could let that soften your back and neck and shoulders.

Very common as well.

And as we do that and as we come into this moment without a lot of thought over layer,

What's your experience right now?

Are you safe in your body right now?

What's your direct experience?

And then at some point the mind might get bored with that and go back to worrying about the future.

So keeping some of your attention kind of really grounded in your body and your breath and in this moment in time.

Let's work a little bit again with the thoughts.

So this is what our survival brain does.

It projects into the future based on the past and we tend to worry and entertain worst case scenarios so that we're ready for them if they happen.

And it's actually not helpful.

I think we all know that through experience.

So what can we do if we have a lot of that kind of thought?

So we could do the tapping or any of the other tools.

We could put it in a frame.

We could look at it across the room.

Okay,

I'm hearing words.

I'm seeing them written out.

I'm seeing colors and shapes for pictures.

We get quite enthralled with the content of our thought stream at times.

So it helps to step back and go,

I'm watching thoughts.

And we could remind ourselves of that.

We're uncomfortable with that.

We don't feel safe when we don't know what's going to happen.

So one of the ways that we could work with that is to have some softness around that,

Some compassion.

Like every other person in the world,

I always feel better when I know what's going to happen,

When I have some confidence that I'm going to be okay.

And right now in this moment,

What's really scaring me is the thoughts in the mind.

So as you're doing that,

Really focus in on when catastrophic thoughts are present.

As soon as you notice that,

Then stop.

Say,

Okay,

That's not real.

It might happen.

It might not happen.

I have no way of knowing that.

Right now,

All I'm doing is doing a practice.

I'm relaxing my body.

I'm letting my breath have some ease.

And I'm not letting my mind scare me.

So any thoughts about the future,

I can just go,

Nope,

I'm not entertaining that right now.

Right now,

I'm doing a relaxation practice.

And I'm letting myself have a break.

I'm letting myself downregulate and become calmer.

And we could enjoy the feeling of the warmth of our breath as we breathe out,

Or the softening of our belly.

The support,

If we're laying back or sitting back,

The support through the back of our body.

Just this little few moments of relief.

This noticing that right now,

My body's safe where it is.

And it's safe for me.

It's okay for me to relax a little bit,

To have some deeper breaths,

To enjoy some relaxation in my body.

And if I need to figure something out about the future,

I'll do that later.

And it's surprising how little we need to plan for the future.

When a big storm's coming,

We might want to get some water and basic groceries or something,

You know?

But for a lot of what's happening in our mind,

It's not really a big deal.

And it's actually not helpful at all.

It prevents us from actually being present,

Because we're off in the future and we're so stressed.

So we could really come back over and over just to this moment and experience if this moment you're safe.

Is your body safe right now?

Let your whole body soften as you breathe out.

And we can let go of fighting for democracy or any of the other concerns that we might have right now.

We can take it up again.

Try to stay really focused in your breath,

Your body,

And to not follow catastrophic thoughts in the mind.

If they come up,

Which they might,

Say,

No,

I'm not going there.

I'm just going to relax and soften for a moment.

And if it feels okay,

Take a few really deep breaths.

Big inhale,

Let your whole body get some fresh oxygen.

Long,

Slow exhalation,

Like the air is just kind of leaving a balloon.

Just let it get kind of softer and softer in your belly.

And then we can remember to unclench our teeth later on or to say no if the mind is getting taken over by catastrophic thinking.

We can refocus our mind to something more helpful.

Reviews

Your teachings are great blessing. Thank you. I have had three incidents of BPPV vertigo and chronic dizziness for the past 9 months. I'm finding your teachings to be so very helpful. Thank you.

I'll be coming back to this one. Made me feel safe in my body. Ty,Gbless you. 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

I can See … 💜👀💜

So very helpful...changed my moment 🙏🏼

Thank you so much Lynn :)
Our brains so have a tendency to think of the future and the past a lot, but thanks to your meditation today, I have some tools to help me ground myself in the present moment :)
Sending so much gratitude and compassion!