Calming Fearful And Anxious Thoughts

As we begin a practice or just to orient to the moment if we're feeling kind of off kilter,

Use our eyes,

Which are always scanning the environment for danger anyway.

Use our eyes to notice,

Is it safe enough for me to be here and do a practice?

We can look around and look behind us.

And if there are no visual cues of immediate danger,

We also would bring in our hearing.

Are there any sounds that are not familiar or that might indicate some kind of trouble?

A lot of the sounds we get used to,

They don't bother us anymore because our brain has already done the work of figuring out,

Is that a threat?

Even if it's loud voices and we've had experience with,

It's not a danger to me,

Then our brain stops paying so much attention to that.

We really pay more attention to what we're not sure about.

Our brain and nervous system are very uncomfortable with uncertainty.

Also notice,

What are you seeing as cues of safety,

Of nurturing,

Of nourishment?

Could be what you see at your window,

Could be your dog,

Could be pictures of family,

Art.

Maybe you've just cleaned your house and you're appreciating that.

Look around and notice what is in your view right now?

What does it feel like to be in your body right now?

Some people are very new to the day.

You've just woken up,

Maybe not out of bed yet,

And some people might be partway through their day or towards the end of the day.

What is your body telling you about the day so far?

Are you kind of tensed up at the edge of your seat?

You might have to move into fight or flight.

Is that what's going on in your body?

And if so,

Looking around,

Do I need that level of alertness right now?

And if the answer is not really,

I've looked,

I've listened,

There's nothing going on right now.

So then this activation,

This sense of urgency must be from the past.

Or maybe I'm dreading something that I'm looking to do later in the day.

But a lot of times we just have this nervous system compulsion around something could happen,

Something could go wrong.

Thinking about that,

We have lots of urgency in our thoughts.

So when we're looking to calm anxious thoughts or to feel more soft and present and relaxed in our body,

One of the good things is that we can work with many different layers of that.

There's many streams that come in that affect how safe we feel in the moment.

If you're feeling that kind of edginess,

I can't relax,

It's a sign of hyper vigilance in your body,

In your mind.

So the nervous system's not quite sure it's okay to relax.

So we could give it an opposite experience.

We could see,

Okay,

I'm just going to try this out.

If it does feel like that's okay,

I'm going to really let my back body be supported.

So if you're sitting or lying on the floor or sitting back,

What would it feel like to let your whole body be supported?

Coming back out of some sense of urgency and into a sense perhaps of spaciousness.

I'm pretty sure that for the next 10 to 15 minutes or next hour or two,

It's okay for me not to be ready to respond.

The threat I'm feeling or the anxiety I'm having doesn't require an immediate response.

So I could take a few breaths.

We can move our body a little.

When we're really afraid,

Often our body is stuck,

It's frozen.

So moving helps.

We might lift our arms up as we breathe in,

So we get more oxygen.

We also get a chance to move a little and stretch our body and open our arms and our chest.

We let ourselves experience that it's safe enough to move.

That helps to shift the signals we're giving our body.

And then what's it like to take some deeper breaths?

We could make some noise on the out-breath.

And then let's go into a really powerful practice of cyclic physiological sighing.

Many of you are familiar with this practice.

It's a deep double inhale through the nose and then a long exhale like you're breathing out through a thin straw.

So inhaling.

Again,

So your lungs are fairly full.

And then a long slow exhale through your mouth.

Take your time,

Breathe deeply,

But still within a comfortable range.

So inhaling again.

And as you breathe out,

Relax your forehead,

Soften your mouth and jaw,

Your neck and shoulders.

Notice what's happening in your mind,

In your thoughts.

Often this practice helps to settle that level of hypervigilance,

Have a little bit more space in the mind.

The thoughts tend to slow a little.

You could continue doing that for a little while or just come back into a regular breath.

Assess again,

What is your level of comfort,

Hypervigilance or feeling less alarmed?

What does that feel in your body right now?

If you were to notice,

I feel a little less anxious than I did 10 minutes ago.

Or I feel about the same,

But I'm starting to get a little glimpse of a bit more space.

It's such a relief that my shoulders went down and I don't have them up here on my ears anymore.

I could move a little.

What would be the most helpful thing for you in the next minute or so?

It might be to move.

It might be to be quiet and breathe.

Might be to look at thoughts.

And in particular,

If anxious thoughts are in your mind,

Or if you notice that you've gone into catastrophic thinking,

Worst case scenarios are coming up in your mind,

You might notice that the level of anxiety in your body has risen.

Maybe you're a little less comfortable settling back into the support of your chair.

You have a bit more antsy energy in your body.

The one thing we could always do when we feel anxious is move our body,

Relax,

Soften,

Breathe.

We can also directly look at the thoughts.

What are the thoughts in your mind right now?

If it's a catastrophic thought or something that's really troubling and intense,

It's hard to take our attention away from that.

Then open your eyes and put it on the other side of the room.

Find a spot over there.

Notice that the thought is no longer just in your mind,

It's over there.

You're looking at something.

So you're looking at a thought about what might happen in the future,

For instance,

But you're not actually in the future.

You're here,

You've got a body that you're noticing,

You're breathing.

And sometimes when a thought is really compulsive,

We'll put it in a frame.

Notice the colors and shapes on the inside of the frame,

What makes up that thought image.

And then take your eyes around the empty space on the outside of the frame.

We don't have to do this with every thought,

But if you have a compulsive thought,

It's really helpful.

Exhaling and inhaling,

Let your body relax and just look at this image.

And then take your eyes around the empty space in one direction two or three times,

And in the other direction a few times.

And then notice as you look back at the image over there,

If anything has changed.

Sometimes the image gets softer or less compelling.

Sometimes our body lets go a little,

We feel a little safer in our body.

So we're really working with neuroscience.

This is how our brain operates.

We believe our thoughts,

Including the catastrophic ones.

And then we have so many ways that we can come into awareness of that and then start to shift into a more regulated state.

And as we start to feel less alarmed,

Less hypervigilant,

Less certain that we need to jump into action right now to protect ourselves,

Then we have the opportunity to work directly with our heart.

So you might hold your own hands,

Feel that connection.

You might put your hands on your heart and perhaps offer yourself some compassion.

It is really tough to be caught like that in anxious thinking,

Holding our breath.

Our body is really tight.

And here we are feeling a little better perhaps.

So could we offer ourselves some kindness?

We're not doing something wrong if we feel anxious.

There are a lot of actual threats in the world.

What we're doing in a practice like this is we're feeling and seeing and experiencing that the threats are not immediate in the sense of,

I need to move into fight,

Flight,

Or freeze right now.

They might be fairly immediate in terms of,

I need to organize with other people for social justice,

Or I need to change my living situation or something like that.

But those aren't in this very moment.

Giving ourselves this respite of,

I can come back,

I can come into community.

We know that we're not the only one experiencing this.

So that's very helpful.

Take a breath,

Feel our body,

And let ourselves notice the safety that's here.