Welcome to this session with me.
In this short meditation,
I'm going to teach how to do a very quick body scan.
Because sometimes you don't have time for a whole body scan in a very systematic and structured way,
Simply because we're busy.
But anytime you can draw on this,
If you're moving through the day and there are a lot of stimuli,
And it's not uncommon,
This is a way for you to come home to your body.
And your body can teach you a lot of things about what your emotional states are.
Because sometimes we get flooded,
And I do get flooded a lot.
And I used to be very incapable of actually identifying my emotions in the moment.
And which is so crucial,
Emotional self-awareness is so crucial,
To be emotionally intelligent.
And to have agency,
To be empowered to act and respond mindfully the way you want to,
Versus how you get forced by,
You know,
Forces beyond your control,
Seemingly.
That is our emotions.
But emotions do pass,
And we can pay attention to them.
And when we pay attention to them,
We can actually manage how we want to respond,
And how we want to react without suppressing or denying or invalidating or negating your feelings.
So it's kind of coming home to your body.
So one of the things that I would recommend is that if you continuously practice your body scan in a more structured way,
And I always find that it's very nice to do it at night before we go to bed,
Or in bed actually.
It's perfect to kind of relax your whole body and go to sleep.
But then doing that consistently actually develops our capacity to be attentive to our body cues.
So if,
Say,
You're imagining,
Like,
You know,
You're running through the day,
You have kids,
You're driving,
They're traffic.
Or you are in a subway in New York City,
Hoping for a day when New York City subways are crowded and we hate it again.
Or you are standing in line somewhere for,
You know,
DMV or a grocery store that's full or anywhere where you could get triggered.
Or you are waiting for a meeting with a client,
A key account.
Or you're waiting for a doctor's result.
Or you're waiting for your performance appraisal,
Your meeting schedule with your boss,
And you're getting a little bit of.
.
.
Or you have a big speaking engagement that is happening.
And so one of the things to do is,
In those moments,
Kind of teach yourself,
Right,
Like to pay attention to where it is sitting.
Like,
So teach yourself,
Like,
Okay,
This happens,
And this is.
.
.
You can train yourself.
And very quickly scan your body to see where am I stressed.
Like,
For example,
When I had a lot of emotional over flooding and when I didn't know how.
.
.
Especially when I was younger,
I had absolutely no clue because I'm definitely a very late emotional bloomer.
And so one of the things that used to help me is.
.
.
That I didn't know then is that my heart would go and I would feel,
Like,
Choked up.
And,
You know,
Beating fast.
And I kind of feel like my breath is not coming out.
It's kind of stuck here.
And if you're stressed sometimes,
Like it sits on your shoulder,
Your neck,
You know,
For a lot of people.
Like,
For my husband,
For example,
Like,
You know,
He's like.
.
.
I kind of like massage his mark here because that's where he gets very stressed.
And then when he gets stressed,
Your lactam acid builds up.
And so with body scan,
What you do is.
.
.
The minute you catch,
You feel like I'm going to be flooded or I'm stressed or I'm anxious.
Use your body to kind of name the emotion.
Because sometimes you don't know.
Right?
Because we don't know because we don't know what we're feeling.
There's a generalized anxiety.
Or I am feeling depressed.
Or I'm feeling sleepy.
I'm feeling like extremely hungry,
Constantly eating.
Or I'm not eating.
Or I'm not starting my work.
I'm feeling very lethargic.
It could be so many different symptoms that show up in a behavior.
But one of the ways to look at it is like,
Okay,
What do I feel in my body?
And then take a deep breath.
Send some soothing energy to that part.
If you're stressed because you're part of the stomach,
Send some soothing energy there.
If you're like me,
If your chest is constricted,
Send some soothing energy there.
And you can do that.
Or you're feeling a little bit slumped.
And imagine sending energy to your spinal cord.
As if there is a little thread pulling you up so that you feel confident.
So this is kind of drawing on the biofeedback,
Which is not very new.
And the body scan meditation,
Which is not new at all.
It's been around for thousands of years.
To use these things as tools for your emotional well-being.
And actually being proactive and catching it before it becomes a full-blown thing.
And when we start doing it regularly,
You would be able to actually catch it.
Because it becomes automatic.
You train our brain to do that.
So try this and let me know.
Basically,
Come back to your body.
Come home to your body.
Because this is where we live.
This is who we are to the world.
And this is our home.
And so kind of having an intimate knowledge of your own body.
And how that tells you the clues to your emotional landscape.
And saying,
If I'm excited,
It feels different.
If I'm stressed,
It feels different.
And if I'm tired,
It feels different.
And so kind of paying attention.
And to also develop some equanimity.
So not just like excitement is positive,
Excitement is good.
It's not that.
It's just kind of like having a little bit of an even reaction.
By managing your own expressiveness.
Not denying your emotions.
Not suppressing them.
Not invalidating them.
But accepting,
Acknowledging,
But regulating your expression of them.
And so you're not caught by it.
And you actually have some control over it.
So thank you for joining this.
Let me know if you try how this works.
