The Blanket Exercise - 5 minutes To Reset Your Anxious Day

Feeling stuck in your anxiety or anger? Can’t move past it? This 5 minute guided practice will help you move through your distress so that you can get back on track to focus on what you need to do for your day.

This is particularly helpful for people who are struggling with anxiety, anger, trouble focusing, or need a quick boost to come back down to calm and intention.

Allow yourself to be guided through a quick relaxing visualization, where you take action to reduce the anxiety and distress that is in the way of your productivity. Feel powerful and resourceful, knowing that you can change the course of your day.

Guided meditation written by Pamela Pawelski, Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Inspired by Janet Wright

Transcript

My name is Pamela Pawelski. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and therapist. If you're feeling some anxiety right now and it's difficult to get back to your day, If you're experiencing some anger, And you want to work through it. This is the exercise for you. It's called the blanket exercise. It's a guided meditation and it takes about five minutes. So let's get started. You're welcome to close your eyes. Or you can watch me on this video. Let's start by taking a deep breath in. And as you exhale, You can thank yourself. For taking this moment. To be present. So I'd like you to imagine a blanket laid out in front of you. It can be any color or pattern. We're gonna put some things on this blanket. That might seem a little unpleasant. But it will not destroy the blanket. Imagine the distress. The negative emotions you're feeling right now. As objects. They could be big bowling balls or bricks or rocks. Or any object you imagine them to be. Imagine dumping these objects onto your blanket. Hearing them. As they fall. Clinking onto each other. Either. Into one pile. Or perhaps they're collecting into multiple piles. Notice. When they're all out. You can hit pause if you need more time. But when they're finally all out on this pile, Notice how big the pile is. Or how many piles there are. Now is the fun part. Now you get to choose a tool to use to destroy. This pile or piles. For example, You can use a flamethrower. Or a sledgehammer or baseball bat. You can use a vaporizer that vaporizes everything in an instant. You can imagine pouring lava. And melting everything away. Or whatever tool you'd like to use. My favorite is putting dynamite sticks everywhere. Pressing a red button. And watching them. Go into the sky and explode into beautiful fireworks. Use whatever your imagination decides. And destroy these objects. You can pause if you need more time. Now that these objects are destroyed, Take a deep breath in. On exhale, You can thank yourself. For doing this. You can come back to this exercise. Anytime you have a stressful day. You can do it multiple times a day. Quick enough to do. In between meetings. It's quick enough to do in the privacy. Of your office or bathroom. For joining me. My name is Pamela Pawlowski. Take care of yourself.