Hi,
My name is Amber,
And if you're feeling stressed,
Worried,
Or anxious,
Then this guided meditation is for you.
I don't know if you're suffering from longer or short-term anxiety,
But it's common to feel one or the other or both from time to time.
I'm here to remind you that you can feel better,
Even if you feel anxiety quite often.
Let's start by coming to a comfortable seat or lying down somewhere where you can relax.
You can keep your eyes open or close them whenever feels right to you.
Now place a hand wherever on your body you feel anxiety is present.
When I feel anxiety,
Which I do experience quite often,
I feel it in the front of my throat and chest,
Right in the middle of my rib cage.
The experience of anxiety might be different for you.
Perhaps you feel it in your stomach or in the muscles of your forehead.
Take your hand wherever you feel the anxiety now and press your palm there,
Massaging the area where you feel the anxiety or tightness.
And as you massage the area with anxiety with the palm or the heel of your hand,
Bring your attention to how you're breathing.
Just by drawing attention to the breath might cause you to start deepening your inhales and exhales.
And that's what we're going for here.
I find that sometimes when I feel anxiety,
It's harder than normal to relax and deepen my breathing.
If that's happening for you now,
That's okay.
Just take your time.
And perhaps after a few breaths,
You can inhale or exhale.
Just a bit longer than before,
Even if it's not the deepest breath you know that you can take.
Even just a bit of progress and loosening up any tightness is good.
With each breath,
If you can deepen the breath and open up the chest just a little bit more,
That's exactly what you need to be doing in this moment.
And perhaps now you close the eyes if they weren't already.
And you can keep massaging the area that feels anxiety with the palm of your hand if that's feeling good,
Or you can rest your hands in your lap or on your stomach.
Noticing the whole body now,
How the body is present in space in the room where you are,
How the weight of your body presses down against the chair or the bed.
Notice how your arms and legs are situated,
How the muscles of your face are.
Maybe they're tight,
Maybe they're relaxed.
That's okay.
We're just checking in with the body,
Not judging anything,
Just experiencing whatever is happening right now.
Sometimes,
For those of us who experience anxiety,
It shows up as this deep,
Convincing feeling that something in our life,
Our jobs or our relationships,
Is deeply wrong or that there is something that we should be afraid of or worried about.
An anxious mind might then try to solve the problem by identifying something that we should be anxious about and something that we can control or fix.
But the important thing to know about anxiety is that not all of our thoughts and feelings are true.
Yes,
That's right.
Not all of your thoughts and feelings are true.
Some of your most frequent and convincing thoughts might be a result of your anxiety and have no evidence in reality to back them up.
Our task as we try to understand and manage our anxieties is to practice naming and examining our thoughts and keeping only the ones that are useful and true.
That doesn't mean that we should try to stop thinking thoughts that are harmful or untrue as it's nearly impossible to control our thoughts.
But we can simply acknowledge the presence of the anxious thoughts and let them pass without further engaging with them.
Anxious thoughts are like rainy clouds in that way.
We can notice their presence in the sky,
But we know that eventually they'll just pass without us having to do or fix anything.
So practice noticing your anxious thoughts now.
Continue breathing deeply as you observe your own thoughts.
And as the thoughts come up,
You can hold them in your mind and consider them objectively in a way that you may never have done before.
And if you find some of your anxious thoughts are just rain clouds,
You can thank them for trying to protect you and just let them float away.
And if you find that you've gotten some of your anxious thoughts,
You can thank them for letting them float away.
Thank you.
Breathing anxiety is not a simple or easy task,
But as you continue to meditate,
You'll find that you'll be able to pick out anxious thoughts more easily.
And you'll even notice that it's the same ones coming up oftentimes.
And with consistent practice,
You'll be able to take this feeling of peace with you wherever you go as you live your life out in the world.
Going back to the body now,
Feel your hands and feet again,
Your arms and your legs.
Maybe you roll your neck in a circle one way and then reverse it around the other way.
And give yourself a big full body morning stretch as you gently blink the eyes open.
Beautiful job today,
And I'll see you again next time.
