Find a nice comfortable seat,
Sense your sit bones on the floor,
Inhale,
Taking a moment to grin,
Growing roots into the earth,
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Starting to bring attention to self.
Inhale and exhale.
When your mind starts to feel overwhelmed or stuck in a state of functional freeze,
Where is it in your body?
Noticing not going into overwhelm,
But just noticing.
The goal isn't to force thoughts to appear.
Instead,
Bringing awareness and mindfulness to overwhelm and functional freeze.
This is about acknowledging it as a valid physical state.
Helping observe overwhelm without the pressure to perform or be productive.
Taking a moment to acknowledge.
Start by naming instead of trying to think of something.
Simply state,
Right now,
My mind feels like your experience.
Allowing it to come in without the presence and the full body experience.
Start to scan your body to see where this lives.
Notice where it lives.
Observe what it feels like to be in this space.
Start to identify the location.
Reminder,
We're identifying not experiencing.
Noticing what this feels for your own lived experience.
Seeing if you can be gentle with yourself here in this moment.
Taking a moment to acknowledge.
Acknowledge where overwhelm is living.
Acknowledge your conversations with overwhelm.
Allowing acceptance to come in for this feeling.
Knowing that it is okay to experience this sensation.
Create a safe space where you can sit with overwhelm.
Inhaling and exhaling.
In this state with grace.
Identifying.
What overwhelm looks like for you?
What your experience of overwhelm is without overwhelm coming in.
Noting where overwhelm comes in.
Keep this in your mind.
Now stepping into the seat of the observer's chair.
Imagine your mind is a theater stage.
Your thoughts,
Feelings and physical sensations are the actors.
Right now,
Observing overwhelm on the stage.
Noticing how the actors are portraying this experience.
Imagine you are getting up from the stage and sitting in the very back row of the theater.
From here,
You are just watching.
Instead of saying I am overwhelmed.
Say I am noticing a thought about overwhelm.
Instead of feeling I am overwhelmed.
Say I am observing a sensation of in my chest.
Allowing this observation to give you a sense of mindfulness.
As you watch and as you notice,
Allow yourself to document like a scientist documenting data.
Document your experience of overwhelm.
What it looks like.
Sitting with watching.
Sensing your sit bones on the floor when needed.
And just allowing yourself to experience this from the back of the theater.
You don't need to invite the actors to stay.
No need to kick them off the stage.
Just watch them enter.
Do their part to show you and eventually move out of view.
You are simply the space in which these things happen.
When you're ready to start to come back.
Once you have felt you've seen enough.
Take one nice deep breath in.
Gently wiggle your fingers or toes and come back into the room around you.
