Mindfulness Meditation For Stress Relief

Join me for a mindfulness meditation to melt away stress and tension in the body. Tapping in to where we hold tension and stress in the body allows us to gain awareness and create space for our stress to move through and out of the body. Connecting to our breath by engaging in nostril breathing also allows us to create space between our thinking brain and our emotional brain which allows us to feel more free, calm and capable.

Transcript

Go ahead and find yourself in a seated position. Lay down if that's comfortable for you. Go ahead and close your eyes. Start to tap into the natural rhythm of your breath. Moving your breath in and out through your nose. Just closing your mouth. Relaxing any muscles in your face, Your jaw. Noticing any tightness or tension in the rest of your body. Giving each area of your body permission to release and let go. Any pain, Any soreness, Any tightness, Just with each inhale and each exhale. Just allowing those areas of your body to soften and relax. To let go of any tightness and tension that's not serving you right now. It's not serving you today. Just drawing your attention to those areas of your body that need a little extra love, Need a little extra breath, A little extra attention. Maybe for you that's your shoulders, Your neck, Your spine, Your chest, Maybe your chest. Just noticing for you where these areas are, Where you hold some of this tension, Some of your stress. Knowing that it's okay to soften these areas and send a little extra breath there right now. Maybe setting an intention for this meditation, Something that you'd like to let go of, Release. Maybe there's an emotion, A couple of emotions that have been weighing you down for today, This week, This month. Go ahead and label those emotions. Maybe you're choosing to let go of fear, Stress, Uncertainty, Anger. Whatever those emotions are for you. I want you to label them, Figure out where they're showing up in your body. With each inhale and each exhale, Again giving yourself permission to allow those emotions to float away and to shine the light on them, Not giving them as much power as they once had over us. Just to draw attention to your chest and your heart space, An area of our body where we hold a lot of tightness and anxiety. Just to send your inhale and your exhale to your heart space, A little extra breath there to allow it to open up. Just creating a little bit more space for all the awesome things that are going to happen to you today. The good conversations you're going to have, Experiences that are going to happen. You want to remain open to receive all of the positivity. We want to call into our lives. We're not able to do that if our heart space and different areas of our body are hardened or closed and are tight. Always being mindful of where you're at in your body. When you feel the temptation to close, Remind yourself to remain open. If you're noticing any thoughts that are coming and going throughout this process, Just know that that's okay. That's a part of meditation. It's all part of it. Just giving those thoughts a little bit of acknowledgement, A little bit of attention, And then letting them float away. Letting them take up a little bit more space on the front end so that they don't come back with the intensity and the frequency on the back end. Being mindful of the way that you interact with these thoughts. Just always coming back to the breath. You find yourself wandering into the future, Thinking about what might happen. Also, When you find yourself in the past, Ruminating on mistakes that you've made, Things that you didn't do. Just being gentle with yourself in those moments and always coming back to inhaling through your nose, Exhaling twice as long through your nose, Sending a calming signal to your amygdala, To your fear center. The breath in and out through your nose is like a warm blanket for your amygdala. Allows that part of your brain to feel safe. Let's your nervous system know that it's safe as well. Know that this breath is always accessible to you in moments when you need it. You feel like things need to slow down. You're having this thought spiral. Just know the easiest way to slow things down, To calm yourself down, Is to come back to your breath. Really intentional diaphragmatic breathing can help create just a little bit more space that you need in those micro moments. To allow your thinking brain to turn on and your emotional brain to take a back seat for a second. I want you just to notice where you're at right now in your body. Does it feel like there's any more space in certain areas that maybe felt tense before? Maybe felt tight, Closed? Are those areas a little more open? Do they need a little bit more breath, Attention, Love? Just breathing into those areas. I want you just to draw your attention to what feels good in your body right now. We often spend so much of our attention in our day focusing on what needs to be fixed, What we need to change, What we're not doing well. It's important to be mindful and to shift our attention to what's going right with us. What's going okay? What in your body feels strong? What part of your body feels healthy? Where don't you have pain? Just shifting your attention to what's going right for you will help shift your state emotionally. I want you to draw your attention to what in your body is feeling okay right now. What's going right in your life right now? What in your body feels strong, Healthy? I want you just to silently say to yourself and say to your body, I hear you. I feel you. I trust you. Thank you. One more time. I hear you. I feel you. I trust you. Thank you. Sending your body this message is important. Letting your body know that you hear it, You feel it, You trust it. You have so much gratitude for all of the things that it does for you on autopilot every single day. Our bodies are amazing. Shifting your attention to what your body's doing well, Help shift your emotional state and ultimately create more space for you to slow down and to perform at your best, To be the best version of yourself. I want you just to think yourself for taking the time and the energy and the space to connect with the highest version of yourself today. Know that this meditation will help align you with that version of yourself each and every time that you take the space for it. When you're ready, Just go ahead and start to bring your attention back to this moment, Back to your body, Back to the room that you're in. Start to wiggle your fingers and your toes gently. Do whatever intuitive movement feels good in your body, Just allowing yourself to reconnect with where you are right now, Knowing that this meditation is always accessible to you and your breath work is always accessible to you. Thank you for joining me today.