Resilience Meditation During Coronavirus #3: Digging Deep

In these stressful and uncertain times, it is important to build our resilience support so that we can avoid burnout and survive and even thrive despite adversity. This week's resilience meditation helps us learn to Dig Deep to reset our stressed nervous systems, so that we can feel more calm and centered – and ready to take on the challenges of life.

Transcript

Welcome,

Welcome back to another week of resilience meditations during this coronavirus period of our lives.

I'm so glad that you are taking the time to give yourself some self-care,

Some inner resilience supports,

So that you can encounter whatever stresses are present in your life.

And I know that we all are in different ways bearing the burden of this time in different ways.

And the stress shows up in different ways and it's all stress.

You know,

We can,

Under the umbrella of stress,

There are definitely different kinds of stressors and suffering.

So the lesson of resilience is when we have more stressors that are present in our lives,

We need to build in more supports,

More supports not less,

In order to boost our capacity to be resilient in times of adversity and not to burn out.

And I'll just speak to a moment just to ground this even though it's already grounded in each of your lives,

That you know the stressors that are present for you.

Whether you are encountering this period as somebody whose roles have gotten,

You're playing a lot of multiple roles within,

You know,

A tight space within your home,

The pressures of confinement,

You know,

Having the difficulties of that,

You are encountering stressors from the work that you are doing.

I have family members who are on the front lines of this.

I'm sure everybody knows folks who are working in the healthcare field and those folks are such heroes right now.

They are encountering a lot of stress and it can lead to burnout physically,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

If we don't also really be intentional about building our resilience.

Knowing how to dig deep and help ourselves find the supports that we need in order to be able to not only survive this time of adversity,

But even find ways of thriving.

So whether you are,

You know,

A busy mom working from home,

All these multiple roles or dad,

Professional or just,

You know,

Not even working from having to homeschool.

So just even that and kind of being in that challenge,

Whether you are working on the front lines,

Whether you are lonely,

Kind of cooped up in your apartment,

Feeling lonely for others,

Feeling lonely for the activities that you normally enjoy or that you normally can use to help boost your spirits,

Whether you are feeling sick yourself and feeling sick with a fever,

A cough.

So wherever you are,

Whatever stressors are present for you,

This lesson today is about how do we dig deep within ourselves to begin again,

To boost our resilience,

To reset because oftentimes when we are stressed,

We are especially ready to go up into our minds.

It's actually when we are stressed,

There's a bit of a fight,

There's a fight flight stress response that happens.

We are all as human beings.

We have stress response systems that help us be alert to predators or threats to our survival,

Basically.

So when we feel stressed,

It's because we're on more alert.

We are feeling like we are in danger in some way.

And so our fight flight stress response system gets going.

And that can there's a lot of uncomfortableness about being in in the body with uncomfortable emotions that come up from boredom to sadness,

To fear,

To anger,

To annoyance.

When is this all going to go away?

So there's a lot of ways that we can feel uncomfortable emotions that can kind of trigger the stress response system.

That basically the feeling is something is wrong and I need to fix it,

You know.

And so then we're going up into our minds because our minds are trying to figure this out,

Figure out how to fix this.

How can we control this?

How can we get through this?

Or our minds are in the what ifs.

You know,

What is the suffering?

You know,

We can be in a lot of negative self-talk.

For those of us who struggle with anxiety and depression or those sorts of patterns in our brains,

We know well that that spinning that can happen.

So and we've talked a little bit about this that when there's this period of stress,

It can be very easy for our mind to kind of split off from our body and to be really caught up in a lot of stressful thoughts and worries.

And so digging deep is partly about learning to recharge in our bodies,

To bring that busy mind to let go of the thoughts that are creating a lot of emotions and really kind of creating this chronic fight,

Flight,

Stress response.

That feeling of revved,

That feeling of restlessness,

That feeling of agitation.

We're learning to kind of let go of the fuel for that,

Which are the thoughts,

And bring our mind back into our bodies and recharging and resetting our nervous system.

And we're going to do that in today's meditation with some good belly breathing,

With just being really aware of our bodies.

Because that can really help to give us the reset that we need of our nervous system in order to be more resilient in the face of a lot of stress,

So that we don't burn out with all this spinning of our minds,

That we can actually bring our mind back down into our body and recharge and reset.

So let's go ahead and find your comfortable position for today's meditation,

Which will be about resetting our nervous system,

Recharging,

Digging deep,

Bringing the mind deep into the body so that we can feel more resilient from the inside out.

So find a comfortable position,

One where you can feel a sense of groundedness,

Letting your feet rest on the floor,

Allowing your hands to rest on your lap or on your knees.

You can be sitting,

Standing,

You can be walking,

As long as you are kind of feeling just for a moment,

Allowing your body to feel grounded,

And we'll walk through this together.

If it feels comfortable.

And if you're not out somewhere walking,

You can gently close your eyes.

I will have my eyes closed.

And of course,

Again,

I can't see,

See you through the screen.

So don't worry about looking silly or anything like that.

Just allowing the eyes to close and even just letting the eyelids soften for a moment.

And then just beginning to become aware of your breath,

The breath that is always this home base for our awareness.

This very embodied home base for our awareness at any point in our lives,

We are breathing,

Whether or not we're aware of it,

And oftentimes when we're spinning up in our thoughts.

We have no awareness of breath.

And in fact,

Studies of those with individuals with anxiety and depression,

Or when there's a lot of stress.

Studies show that we are breathing,

It gets a lot more shallow,

Or it gets kind of choppy.

So simply by bringing our awareness to our breath,

We,

We begin to create the conditions to heal the nervous system a bit or to reset rather.

Because if we're not breathing well when we're stressed and we are breath tends to be more shallow and choppy,

We're not getting the oxygen that we need but we're also fueling that fight flight stress response.

So today we're learning to follow the breath.

So just take a moment again to kind of just connect with your breath.

Just being aware of the sensations of the inhale and the exhale.

And then I take a moment to just notice the feeling of yourself being held up by the chair or the floor just kind of feeling the weight of your body and the way that the chair or the bed,

The floor is kind of holding you up,

Just sort of let yourself relax and let that be held and you might notice what sounds you're hearing in this moment,

Not with any need to make meaning or react to them or respond even just kind of hearing them as a flow of sounds that help you to feel more connected in this present moment.

You might just notice the quality of your breath,

Not with any need to judge it in any way as being good or bad.

But just kind of notice just getting getting curious,

Noticing perhaps the state of your mind and restless,

Anxious,

More open and curious,

Whatever.

And the state of your breath in this moment.

Notice if those states are at all connected.

And then just beginning to follow the breath now down into the body.

Really noticing you might start by noticing where the breath is entering your nostrils and just kind of following the breath,

Even in your mind kind of like being aware of the breath going up through the nostrils,

Perhaps down the back of the throat and filling the lungs.

And then you might bring your awareness down into the chest so that you're aware of the rib cage that's expanding on the inhale and just contracting on the exhale,

Just the movement of the chest as the lungs expand on the inhale and deflate on the exhale.

And then just notice your heart beating.

Even if there's a felt sense of the beating,

Or just a sense of your heart there.

And then just noticing when the mind drifts back up into thinking,

Which is going to happen for all of us over and over again.

And it's no problem.

Doesn't mean you're a bad meditator.

Just the opportunity to begin again to let the mind open from whatever thoughts it's kind of gotten tight around this open and re relaxed back down into the body.

Now we're going to go even deeper we're going to dig deep,

We are going to let our awareness rests with the belly breath right now,

Just feeling the breath in the belly seeing if you can have an awareness or even this is,

It can be really helpful to just place your hand on your belly and just feel the movement of the belly.

It's like it's a balloon that's expanding on the inhale and deflating on the exhale.

So letting that movement be almost exaggerated letting them inhale be the belly,

Expanding with air the balloon inflating.

And then feeling the movement of the exhale as it deflates.

Letting go of the air,

Letting go,

Maybe letting go of any tightness or tension in your face or in your shoulders,

The exhale can be a wonderful way to just let go of the tightness and tension that we all hold especially when we're stressed,

We get tight in mind and body.

So,

Just sending the breath to those areas where you are aware of carrying the tension.

I'm aware of it in my neck and shoulders,

Especially from sitting at the computer a lot so just letting the shoulders relax down.

I hear my kids coming in.

So I'm going to just let that be part of what I'm hearing.

Let that be part of what you're hearing.

We'll just take another minute or two.

So the key is,

And then whenever we go up into thinking,

Have a tendency to get disconnected from our breath.

So when we notice that's the case,

We just drop back down into,

In this case,

Belly breathing.

So the reason belly breathing is so valuable,

This really deep kind of breath where we're getting the breath deep in our core,

Is because belly breathing is a wonderful way of resetting the nervous system.

So simply by breathing in and out from your belly even a few times,

You might notice yourself feeling a little calmer or more centered,

More grounded.

So when you unite your mind and body in this way,

You are powerfully grounded and centered in a way that's very nourishing for your resilience.

The final thing that I'll bring into your awareness as you continue breathing and being in your body is the idea that,

And there's a plaque from my sister in law on my desk,

It says,

Like the tree with branches high,

My roots run deep as I reach for the sky.

So every time we we ground ourselves in these deep belly breaths,

It's almost like we're planting a seed of our own resilience.

We are digging that seed deep into the soil so that it can have the conditions it needs to really bloom and blossom,

Especially as some of us are entering springtime we're really more aware of the blossoming around us and that's a wonderful resilience builder is just to be out in nature.

So we'll have a session that focuses on that too but as you kind of come back into the room into this moment just let your eyes gently flutter open,

Letting your fingers and toes wiggle a bit.

Thank you for joining another resilient session.

I hope that this lesson has been valuable to you in a little bit of the value of digging deep and finding that reset for your nervous system in those deeper belly breaths,

Wishing you one resilient step one centered breath at a time.

Remember you can always begin again,

And I look forward to seeing you here again next week for another resilience meditation.

Reviews

lovely, grounding, and earnest. I love hearing the ambient sounds of life going on in the background; it reminds us that resilience can come from within, even in the loudest of situations.