Stress Relief

Guidance through stress, overwhelm, or sadness. Taking some time to turn in and gently heal and look at what needs to be seen. Allowing what needs to be allowed and releasing what doesn't need to be held on to anymore. Spending time with grace.

Transcript

Hi there.

Let's go through a quick series of steps you can go through if you're feeling stressed out,

Upset,

Or just not good.

Let's just start it off by breathing.

Just taking some deep breaths.

We're usually the first thing that happens when we start feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

So we lose touch with our breath,

We start breathing really shallow,

Quick.

So taking this moment to slow that down,

To really deepen and lengthen those breaths.

Feeling your belly,

Your stomach expand as you breathe.

Making those breaths long.

Now,

Breathing in and breathing out.

Just whatever level you can breathe at,

Slowing that breath down.

Whether it's through your mouth right now,

Through your nose.

Probably be longer if you're breathing through your nose.

But just breathing deep into your belly.

Long,

Calm,

Easy breaths.

And slowly noticing your body,

Noticing your body as you're breathing.

Maybe noticing your shoulders rising or your stomach expanding.

Your chest expanding and rising.

Just being with that for a few moments,

Being with your body,

Feeling those movements,

Feeling the actual sensation of it,

Those movements.

It might feel like a pressure in your stomach,

Movement in your shoulders.

And you might start noticing a,

Or the sensation of temperature on your nose.

Noticing the temperature difference between the in-breath and the out-breath.

Might require a little bit more focus and just taking that time to focus right now.

Now,

Taking one more big deep breath.

And just taking that time to focus right now.

Now,

Taking one more big deep breath.

And when you breathe out,

Just feeling 10% more relaxed,

Getting comfortable in your seat.

And another big deep breath in.

And when you breathe out,

Just let everything go.

Letting that out-breath just relax you.

Now,

Let's shift to the mental area of experience,

To the thoughts.

Usually when we're stressed,

There's just so many thoughts going on.

It feels so overwhelming.

Can't concentrate.

Maybe it's like that for you now.

But taking this moment to just notice the thoughts are coming in,

The thoughts are going out,

You might have the same thought kind of repeating over and over.

But starting to look at it as if they're the clouds that are passing through you.

But starting to look at it as if they're the clouds that are passing by.

Some clouds float by quickly,

Some clouds stay around for a while.

The thing about clouds is some of them look like objects,

But they never really are those objects.

They're just clouds.

Same with thoughts.

Sometimes our thoughts can seem scary,

Because they seem so true,

But they're just thoughts.

They're only real inside your head.

But I know it doesn't seem like that.

So for now,

Just noticing these clouds passing by.

And I want you to notice the clouds,

But also notice the sky.

Notice the whole arena that these thoughts are happening in.

Noticing the bigger picture.

There might be a blackness with just kind of the words floating through your awareness.

Might just be a silence with the sound of those thoughts suddenly arising.

But just noticing,

Noticing around the thought,

Instead of focusing so much on the thought itself.

Something that's really helped me in these moments is,

When I see that thought,

When I'm able to catch it,

To kind of repeat it to myself in my head.

So the thoughts aren't really happening so unconsciously anymore.

Because that's when it starts seeming so overwhelming.

We can't even keep track of our thoughts.

They're just flowing in.

Maybe they're insulting,

Maybe they're crowding us.

But if we're able to acknowledge them,

Then we start kind of having control back,

For lack of a better way to say that.

We can start to get ahead of the thoughts,

Catch up with them.

A good way of doing that is to kind of say them out loud or kind of repeat them back in your head.

So imagine the thoughts coming and you just start thinking,

Oh I'm not good enough,

I'm not good at this.

Or whatever,

Whatever's coming up for you.

When you see that thought,

Oh I'm not good at this.

And just kind of say that out loud.

It doesn't have to have the same meaning to it.

But just kind of say those words.

Repeat it.

Maybe even in a robotic voice.

I'm not good at this.

Just say that.

And then let it go.

And keep watching the sky.

And let the next thought come.

Yeah but I'm really not good at this.

Whatever.

And just say that,

Oh but I'm really not good at this.

Notice it.

Let it go.

Watch the whole sky.

That cloud might hang around for a while,

It might just kind of keep popping back up.

And if it does,

You can just keep repeating it each time.

How I think about it is,

These thoughts are kind of like really young kids or puppies.

They kind of want our attention.

I have a young puppy and she's always like that.

She'll get it into her head that she needs some attention and she'll jump on me,

Jump on me,

Whine,

Bark,

Until I acknowledge her.

And as soon as I acknowledge her,

As soon as I give her a little pat,

I scratch her,

She goes away,

She goes to bed.

And it's the same with these thoughts.

As soon as we look at them,

As soon as we say,

Hey I hear you.

I hear you.

I hear you.

I acknowledge you.

Then the thought kind of did its job and it can go to sleep.

So doing that with these thoughts now,

As the thoughts are coming up,

Just repeat them out loud.

Out loud or in your head.

Just acknowledge them.

You know,

I see you or I hear you.

Just watching the arena,

Letting the next one come.

Seeing or hearing that one.

Being with it.

And this might kind of be uncomfortable at first.

Because what we're,

What we've kind of been taught growing up is that we try to avoid these thoughts,

Especially these uncomfortable thoughts we don't like.

We always avoid,

We avoid,

We avoid,

We run away.

We don't like to look at these uncomfortable words.

But the problem with that is the more we run away from them,

The more they build.

They'll start following us.

We run away our whole life.

We've got a lot of thoughts trailing behind us.

So taking this moment to just start acknowledging,

Turning around,

Looking at those thoughts following us and saying,

Hey,

I've been running,

Running away from a while,

But here,

At least for this moment,

I'm ready to look at you.

I'm ready to see you.

Noticing if there is an inclination to turn away from those thoughts.

And you know,

That's totally valid as well.

If some of the thoughts are too intense or if they're too scary or whatever,

You know,

You don't need to stay with them.

Allow yourself to run away if that's what's needed.

We're not always ready to face every thought.

But as much as you can or to your best ability,

Just acknowledging the thoughts that are arising.

Remembering to breathe,

Of course,

As you do this.

Taking deep breaths whenever you remember.

Now let's shift gears for a moment and just fully focus on the breath again,

Bringing in all your attention,

Reining in your focus off of those thoughts,

Off of those clouds,

Off of the sky,

Just into the breathing.

Maybe even focusing on one aspect of breathing,

Like the tip of your nose,

Feeling the sensation there or feeling the chest expanding,

Whatever it is.

Just bringing it back to the breath until that's kind of the only thing you're paying attention to now.

The only thing in the world is that breath.

Breathing out and letting go even more,

Letting go of all those thoughts we just looked at.

Breathing in deeply,

Slowly,

Breathing out and letting go,

Only focusing on the breath.

And just keep taking these long,

Slow breaths.

Breathing in,

Letting go.

Breathing in,

Letting go.

With each breath out,

Feeling yourself get a little bit more relaxed,

Even 1% more relaxed with each breath.

And then doing a dropping down motion into your body if you're able to and just feeling any sensations that you might be feeling in your body.

This is something we're not also not really taught to do growing up.

We stay with our thoughts so much,

But really our body ends up holding all these stresses and overwhelms.

So just moving into your body,

Maybe noticing your forehead scrunched up or your eyes are tight.

Maybe your teeth are clenched.

Maybe your shoulders are drawn up.

Noticing maybe your fingers or your arms are tight or your feet,

Your toes.

Maybe your abdomen is clenched.

Maybe there's an uncomfortable sensation in your throat or your chest or your stomach.

Just noticing these sensations.

Not needing to do anything with them,

Just acknowledging.

You can stay with one for a while,

Move on to the next.

Just feeling.

Really being with the physical part of the sensations,

Not thinking too much about this.

Not thinking about what the sensation might mean or what it feels like,

Just actually feeling it.

Remembering to breathe deeply as you do this,

Making sure you're relaxed,

Breathing and just feeling the sensations just as a sensation.

Just as this abstract sense.

The body is a sensing organ,

Just feeling that sensing happening.

There's always some kind of sensations going on in times of high stress,

Low stress.

Me right now I feel kind of a ball,

A tight ball in my chest.

I'm just going to sit with it,

Just feeling that,

Acknowledging.

I know that these sensations might be very uncomfortable to be with,

Especially if this isn't something you're used to.

And if it ever does become uncomfortable,

Just withdraw and start feeling the breath.

Don't want to overwhelm yourself with these sensations.

Letting the breath be your anchor,

Even as you're feeling.

In fact,

Let's all move back to the breath now.

Feeling that breathing.

Breathing in and breathing out and letting go all these things that we've been feeling.

Breathing in and drawing out that out breath,

Letting go of all these things we've been feeling.

Breathing in slowly,

Deep into the belly,

Breathing out and relaxing,

Releasing.

Letting a sense of calm wash over you as you're breathing.

Letting your body relax,

Noticing those areas that might have been tight,

Tense before in your body,

Letting them relax as you breathe.

Not keeping your attention on the body,

But just relaxing maybe your forehead or shoulders and breathing in and releasing,

Letting go,

Breathing out.

Breathing in slowly and relaxing,

Letting the breath out.

Breathing in slowly,

Noticing that plateau in between and breathing out slowly,

Relaxing.

Breathing in and breathing out.

And if you're ever feeling stressed in the moment,

You can tune in with your breath,

Tune in with your thoughts and tune in with your body,

Even as you're talking to people or doing whatever you're doing in a stressful situation or overwhelming moment.

Just tuning in with your breath,

Slowing it down,

Tuning into your thoughts and maybe repeating them or acknowledging them,

Repeating them out loud or in your head,

Looking at them instead of following them or hiding from them.

Creating a space,

Creating the sky in which we see those thoughts instead of only seeing the thoughts,

Being lost in them.

And we can tune in with the body,

Noticing how it feels in those moments of stress,

Anxiety,

Noticing the uncomfortable body sensations.

And,

You know,

Not being in it so much that it overwhelms us,

But if we're able to be in our body with a sense of calmness,

Even when it's uncomfortable,

Just acknowledging the sensations that our body feels,

Then we're one step ahead,

Already processing the emotions.

Because that's what's needed to process these emotions.

They need to be acknowledged.

They need to be felt.

And so if we can feel them in real time,

They don't get stored and they don't bunch up.

And so we sleep better,

Feel better.

We breathe better.

And it becomes a vicious circle of feeling good.

It takes a little bit of practice,

But it all starts with your breathing.

It all starts right now with a breath,

Breathing in slowly and breathing out and letting go.

Thank you for coming today.

I hope you're feeling good.

I wish you luck and blessings.

Have a good rest of your day.

Bye bye.