Hello everyone and welcome to Holistic Joy.
My name is Tara Van Dam.
Today I'm going to lead you through a stress management meditation.
And it's one of my favorites because it deals with stress in three layers.
You'll start with a cognitive experience.
You'll move into a somatic,
A physical body experience of your stress.
And then we're going to take it even deeper into your energetic body.
What this does is when we're in the cognitive experience of stress,
That's where it's very overwhelming.
We're all in our head.
It's all about the external.
And we lose that feeling of groundedness,
Of control,
Of centeredness that's so important for managing big things.
By coming into the physical body,
Into the somatic experience of stress,
Two things happen.
The first is you feel more grounded.
It's a lot more stable in the physical body than it is in the cognitive space.
And the second thing that happens is it teaches us how to read the signs and the communication that comes from our body.
Our bodies are giving us information all day long that we often don't know how to read or we're so distracted we don't even notice them.
So practicing this skill teaches us how to read,
Understand and therefore respond to what our body is telling us.
And the third layer is bringing you into your energetic body.
So by the end of the meditation,
I'm going to ground you even further by drawing you into your root chakra,
Helping you to feel even more stable,
More grounded,
More connected to earth and stability.
So whether you have come into this space with a specific stressor in mind,
Great,
You can use that.
If you don't have anything stressful specifically,
You can draw from the past or you can draw to something in the future that's perhaps causing you a bit of anxiety.
Either way,
The exercise can be helpful for a current stressor and it can be helpful simply in the sense of practicing so that when something does happen down the line,
You've got a tool that you can draw on.
And you know with meditation,
The more we do it,
The more natural it becomes and the more helpful and the quicker we are able to access the calm and stillness and insights that we gain from it.
So this is,
It could be a practice or it could be something that's going to be directly of service to you because you're currently got something stressful.
Either way,
It's going to be beneficial.
So close your eyes and get comfortable.
Make adjustments,
Move around,
Get all the little wiggles out now so that you're in a place where you are completely content in stillness.
Allow your toes to soften,
Maybe give them a little wiggle before they ease into stillness.
Create space and expansion in your calf muscles and your hamstrings,
Backs of your thighs.
Allow your belly to fill.
Settle your shoulders down,
A little bit of heaviness.
And with that heaviness in your shoulders,
Feel the lengthening in your neck.
Maybe move your jaw side to side.
And then allow your jaw to ease.
Create a lightness in the space between your eyebrows.
For the purpose of this meditation,
I invite you to turn your palms to face down to enhance the grounded sensation that we're seeking today.
And if you haven't already,
Start to notice your breathing.
First few breaths can be full,
Deep cleansing,
If that's what you're seeking.
If you feel a heaviness at all,
Like there's something that's distracting you,
A thought that's pulling away your focus,
Take a big open mouth exhale.
And you can do it again if you need to.
First few breaths are just there to serve you,
To bring you closer inwards.
And when you feel ready to,
Gradually allow your breath to come to a more simple,
Natural rhythm.
Perhaps just lengthening inhales and exhales just a touch so you can connect to that fullness and that release that comes with each cycle of breath.
And start to bring to mind something that either is causing you stress now,
Or maybe it's something from the past,
Something coming up in the future.
But a particular story,
Situation that is currently causing you stress and anxiety.
And start to paint that picture in your mind's eye as vividly as you possibly can.
What happened or what is happening?
Fill in all the details.
Where are you?
Who is there?
What is the space around you look like?
What can you see?
Perhaps what are you wearing?
Are you standing,
Sitting,
Walking,
Reading?
Paint your picture of your chosen stressor in your mind with as much detail as you can.
And as you begin to fill in more details,
Can you notice the sensations,
The feelings that are attached to this stressor?
Allow yourself to feel them for a moment.
Allow yourself to feel the stress as if it's happening right now.
And as the stress sensation starts to build inside of you,
Where in your body do you feel your stress?
Is it a tightness in your chest?
Or maybe a pull in your solar plexus?
Maybe you even feel it in your throat.
Maybe there's tension in your legs,
Sweatiness in your palms.
Where in your body do you feel your stress right now?
And once you've found that place,
Turn your attention away from the imagery and send all of your focus right to that physical sensation in your body.
Connect to the somatic experience of your stress.
If you find your mind wandering,
That's okay.
It's part of the experience.
Just come back to the process.
Visualize,
Feel and shift your focus to the physical sensation.
And now,
Start to breathe into that space.
As you breathe in,
Imagine that that part of your body is filling up,
Expanding.
And as you breathe out,
Send your breath downwards,
Down through your pelvis and into the seat of the earth beneath you.
So you inhale into the physical place in your body and then breathe out downwards.
Breathe into your body.
Breathe out down through your seat.
If you would like to enhance this just a little bit more.
As you breathe out and down,
Imagine that you're sitting on a beautiful,
Comfortable,
Supportive red pillow.
Breathe into the physical body.
Breathe out down through your seat on the red pillow beneath you.
Again,
If your mind wanders,
That's fine.
Just come back.
Breathing into the physical sensation and breathing out down through your pelvis,
Visualizing the big red pillow beneath you.
Breathing out down through your seat.
You've brought yourself from the cognitive experience of your stress and you've drawn yourself downwards into the physical somatic experience of that same stress.
And now you're allowing yourself to be drawn downwards further to a place of unmoving support,
Groundedness and centering.
To a place of safety and stability.
Take about five more breaths in this way.
Filling up the physical space as you breathe in.
You can stay with this as long as you like.
When you are ready,
Just allow your breath to come back to its natural simple rhythm.
Become aware of your physical body within the space that you're in.
Notice the light filtering in through your eyelids.
Take a nice breath in through your nose.
Open mouth exhale.
And if you're ready to,
You can open up your eyes.
