When You're Feeling Anxious But Don't Know Why

If you’re feeling anxious, and you’re not quite sure why this guided meditation is for you. In today’s meditation, I’ll guide you step-by-step through a systematic self-audit of your physical body, your environment, and your emotions to explore why it might be that you’re feeling this way and what we can do to help you feel better.

Transcript

If you're feeling anxious and you're not quite sure why,

This meditation is for you.

I don't know if you've felt anxious for a long or a short period of time,

But I'm so glad that you're here taking the time to check in with yourself,

Because you do deserve to feel good again.

And you can feel good again,

Even if it's been a very long time since you last felt happy and relaxed.

We all know that the body and the mind are systems that are interconnected,

And they affect each other.

Just like when your heart rate speeds up or your palms get sweaty,

When you start thinking about something that makes you nervous.

So when I'm feeling anxious and I don't know why,

Rather than trying to randomly guess what the cause might be,

I like to systematically go through a checklist and see if I've done all of the things that I know from experience that I need to do to feel good.

In today's meditation,

I'll guide you step by step through a systematic self-audit of the physical body,

Your environment,

And your emotions to explore why it is that you might be feeling this way and what we can do to help ourselves feel better.

If you're new here,

Hi,

My name is Amber.

At my day job,

I'm a consultant for a Fortune 100 tech company,

And this is where I teach meditation for people who live in the modern world.

One of the things that I talk about here is how to apply various frameworks and tools so that we can feel as organized and as in control of our inner world as we are in the rest of our lives.

If that sounds interesting to you,

I hope you'll like,

Follow,

And subscribe to join our community.

And with that,

Let's jump in to today's meditation.

Let's start in the usual way by coming to a comfortable position,

Either seated or lying down.

And whatever position that you choose,

You just want to make sure that it embodies a sense of dignity while being comfortable at the same time.

If you're feeling pretty tense today,

It might be a challenge at first to really relax into your seat,

And that's totally okay.

I know that I tend to lean forward and hunch my shoulders when I'm feeling tense,

But as you get situated for practice today,

I recommend setting yourself up in a place where you can lean your back on something so that as you start to relax,

You feel as supported as possible and you don't have to keep holding yourself up.

And now,

Let's begin the audit by scanning the physical body.

Take a moment to check in with your breathing,

See if the breathing is shallow and just operating at the top of your lungs.

And if it is,

Start to slow down the breath a bit,

Taking long inhales and long exhales.

And if you feel like you're not dropping into it right away,

That's okay.

You can have as much time as you need.

If your stress and anxiety level is quite high today,

You might feel like you're only using a small percentage of your lung capacity and that each breath is pretty short.

And take as much time as you need to continue watching the breath,

Deepening it gradually,

Maybe 1% with each inhale and exhale.

Bit by bit,

It'll start to open up.

When I check in with myself,

I use a combination of my intuition and my logical mind.

For example,

My logical mind knows that I need to drink plenty of water and eat three balanced meals per day.

I know that I personally need 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night.

And it's also important to me to do some kind of physical activity like yoga,

Strength training,

Or walking.

And if I haven't done each of these things,

I take that as a clue as to why I'm feeling anxious.

Moving your attention to your environment now.

Is there anything going on around you that may be causing you to feel some stress?

Maybe it's a particularly busy time at work,

Or maybe you had a difficult interaction with someone you know.

If you find that the mind has started to wander and start engaging with your thoughts,

Gently but firmly bring your attention back to the exercise.

We're systematically going through different areas of our lives to gather clues as to why we might feel anxious.

Not so that we can judge ourselves,

But we're just making mental notes of what we find.

Sometimes,

Feeling anxious can be a broad categorization for a subset of more specific emotions.

And not all of these will apply to you,

But pay attention as there may be one or two that stand out to you.

If you're feeling anxious,

You might also be feeling overwhelmed,

Scared,

Worried,

Helpless,

Excluded,

Isolated,

Exposed,

Or vulnerable.

Sometimes giving a more specific name to a feeling can also be a clue to where that feeling is coming from.

If none of that is resonating with you,

You know,

If you've eaten some healthy food,

You feel rested,

And you can't think of a specific circumstance or situation in your life that might be causing you anxiety,

You might consider that there isn't a reason at all.

That you feel anxiety because,

Like myself and many other people,

Sometimes you just feel that way.

I think it's so natural when we have a negative emotion for us to instinctively analyze everything and say,

Okay,

Why am I feeling this way,

Especially if we like to solve problems,

But sometimes the answer is just because you do.

It took me years to figure out that this is what was happening for me.

I have felt anxious walking on the beach on a sunny day with absolutely nothing wrong,

And yet I still felt an existential dread.

If you're prone to anxiety and you know this about yourself,

You may not need to assign meaning or justification for every feeling.

So the purpose of today's meditation is to systematically gather clues about ourselves to help identify if there's a reason why we feel anxious.

And if through this check-in you identify that there's something that you need,

Whether it's a glass of water or some time with a friend,

Now you can move forward with awareness and give yourself what you need.

And if through this check-in you found that you feel anxious because you have the kind of brain that feels anxious sometimes,

You can also move forward with awareness and give yourself what you need to take good care of yourself.

As we come to the end of today's meditation,

It is worth mentioning that if you think it might even be potentially helpful for you,

I'd highly recommend connecting with a mental health professional in addition to your meditation practice,

Because they can give you focused one-on-one attention and work with you on your specific situation.

I'm someone who's done a lot of therapy in my life,

And I recommend it to everyone.

Thank you so much for meditating with me today.

If you like this meditation,

You might like to check out my 7-day meditation series for beginners,

Which leads you through exactly what you need to get started with your meditation practice.

It covers the benefits of meditation as well as techniques like anchoring and the body scan.

Don't forget to leave me some feedback below,

And I look forward to seeing you again next time.

Reviews

I absolutely loved the meditation! Looking forward to doing more 🤗

Beautiful
Lack of judgment in your practice was healing thank you:)