Grounding And Relieving Stress

This visualization will help you to become grounded in times of stress or overwhelm. Immediatly transition your mood and gain self-sustaining tools for future use. This visualization is helpful for personal and professional situations.

Transcript

I'm about to lead you through a visualization that will help to reduce stress and guide you to access calm in the midst of chaos.

My goal for you is that you'll be able to gain tactics to manage stress,

Increase awareness,

Feel rejuvenated,

And obtain a more sustained sense of calm.

Visualizations are like meditations,

And you can receive similar benefits.

The advantage of a visualization is that you're taken through a guided experience,

Which is accessible to unexperienced meditators,

And visualizations offer tools that you can emulate and use in the future.

In a moment,

I will ask you to close your eyes.

Closing your eyes removes environmental stimuli that your brain would be processing.

With your eyes closed,

You're able to access more sensations,

Deeper thoughts,

And stronger visuals.

It's also worth noting that closing your eyes is a great method to help you get grounded and release stress much quicker than you can with your eyes open.

First things first,

Please get in a comfortable position with your feet on the ground.

If you feel comfortable,

Go ahead and take your socks off so you can feel your feet on the ground,

Which will be helpful later in this visualization.

Let's now go ahead and close our eyes and return to our breath.

We start with breath because breath is the base.

The breath is a great way to gauge how your emotional state is and an excellent ally in times of stress.

With just a few mindful breaths,

You can reset your system and adjust how you approach a situation.

With your eyes closed,

Let's begin our journey with three deep breaths.

Take a deep breath in,

Nourishing your body,

Starting in the belly,

Moving it up to the chest,

And now hold for three seconds.

And slowly release any tension.

Let's do that again.

Breathe in fresh air through your nose,

Into your belly,

Up to your chest,

Hold for three seconds,

And release any stagnant air.

One more time,

Breathe in cool air through your nose,

Into your belly,

Up to your chest,

Hold for three seconds,

And then slowly release any warm air out.

Let's now do a quick body scan.

See if you can find any areas where you might be holding stress.

Indications of stress might be tightness,

Soreness,

Or discomfort.

Start by scanning your body by beginning with your feet and seeing if there's any tension there.

Work your way up your legs,

Hips,

Stomach.

See if there's any tightness in your chest,

Your back,

Arms,

Neck.

See if your jaw is tight or if you experience any tension in your eyes or head.

Once you've found an area or areas where you hold stress,

Take a moment to imagine sending your breath to those parts.

I sometimes also like to massage the area of stress while I'm bringing breath to it.

I feel like it helps direct the breath to an area and allows me to work from the inside with the breath and the outside with massage,

Dually releasing stress.

I'll give you a couple seconds more here to release the tension in this area.

Take one more big breath and release anything that needs to be released.

Good.

Before we move on,

Make sure you're seated with your feet touching the ground.

With your eyes still closed,

Bring your attention to your feet.

Your feet are an incredible resource for quickly getting you centered in chaotic or difficult times.

So let's take a little time to interact with them,

Beginning with bringing your attention to feeling them on the ground.

What kind of sensations do you feel?

What is the temperature difference between your feet and the floor?

Is the ground soft or hard?

What does it feel like when you wiggle your toes?

What does it feel like to slide your feet across the floor?

And what does it feel like to tap your feet on the ground?

Is there anything around you that gives your feet a different type of texture or sensation?

As a reminder,

Your eyes should still be closed.

Take another moment to feel where your feet meet the ground.

This is the meeting point in which gravity allows for us to be here on Earth.

Now let's play with our imaginations.

With your next exhale,

Imagine having your breath go all the way down to your feet and back up through your body with your inhale.

Breathing out any internal disorganization and breathing in through your feet the feeling of being grounded.

Next,

Imagine being in a place in nature that makes you feel grounded.

For me,

I like imagining feeling my feet touching sienna red clay.

It always feels grounding and nourishing.

Maybe your feet feel grounded when your feet are in sand or when you're hiking through a redwood grove or it could even be something like smelling the smell of eucalyptus trees.

Take a moment to explore what makes your feet feel grounded and nourished.

Now let's breathe this feeling into your whole body,

Starting at the feet.

So bring it up through your feet,

Up to your legs,

To the base of your spine,

Into your belly,

Up to your chest,

Your neck,

Your head,

And down through your arms and fingertips.

Let's do that one more time.

Breathe in whatever it is that makes you feel grounded up through your feet,

Your legs,

The base of your spine,

Your stomach,

Chest,

Neck,

Head,

And then down through your arms and the tips of your fingers.

Notice how you feel so that you can access that same feeling in the future.

Bringing awareness to an experience helps to embed a memory so that you can more easily access and template this feeling when needed.

Before we wrap up this visualization,

Let's take a moment to place both hands at the center of your chest.

Feel the contrast of body heat of your chest and your hands.

Let's now play a little with heat.

Rub your hands really quick together and create some heat between the hands and then again place your hands at the center of your chest.

Keeping your hands at the center of your chest,

Imagine what calmness feels like.

Everyone's different in how they may perceive this.

You may see an image or have a physical feeling or a smell or maybe even a word pops up for you.

What comes up might be vivid or subtle.

Take a few seconds to see if you can identify what this might be for you.

In a moment,

We will transition to opening our eyes.

Through this visualization,

You have identified three things.

One,

Where you hold stress and ways to release it.

Two,

How to get grounded.

And three,

What calm feels like.

Let's go ahead and begin to bring yourself back into the room by wiggling your toes and fingers.

When you're ready,

Open your eyes and in silence,

Take a few minutes to write down or draw what worked for you and what you experienced during your visualization.

Reviews

A nice visualization for those who are looking to reduce and release stress in their busy lives

This left me feeling way less stressed. Very grounding.