Meditation And Guided Visualization For Athletes

A soothing guided mindfulness meditation and visualization practice to get you ready to perform at your best as an athlete. This meditation is designed to help you connect with your breath, your body, the environment around you, and a sense of calm, before moving into a structured visualization to help create a moment of peak performance in your mind.

Image credit: Dingzeyu Li

Transcript

And so as we get settled in here,

Just maybe even spend a moment bringing your attention back into your body.

So just spend a couple of breaths,

Seeing if you can let your whole body just soften.

Maybe pay attention to what you can feel touching the ground.

And if at any point you feel like you need to adjust the blanket,

Move around a little bit,

Get as comfortable as you need to.

This is your time.

And as we get settled in,

I'll invite us to just take three nice breaths all together.

I'll guide us through these.

And the only thing I want you to think about is on the exhale is just continuing to sink,

Continuing to surrender.

Settle into the ground.

When you're ready,

You can let all the air out with an exhale.

Inhale in through your nose.

Exhale through your mouth.

Second inhale down into your belly.

And exhale.

One more big inhale.

And let it all go.

Sink a little bit further into your mat.

And maybe for a moment you bring all of your attention down to your legs,

Even your feet.

See if you can notice your feet resting on the mat.

Totally calm.

Maybe with a breath in and a breath out,

You just let all those little muscles in your feet that have been working so hard,

Just let them go.

Let them relax.

And then with your next inhale,

You can bring that attention up a little bit and feel your calves,

The backs of your knees,

Your hamstrings and your hips all resting.

And just take a couple of breaths here to let all of the tension,

Let the muscles relax,

Let your legs almost sink and melt into the ground.

Then with your next breath in,

I want you to bring that attention up a little further.

You can almost imagine a ball of light or energy moving up your body.

Just spend a moment in your low back,

Maybe your shoulders and your arms.

And again,

With each exhale,

We're just letting each part of our body sink a little bit further.

For a few minutes,

There is nothing else you have to do.

Nowhere else you have to be.

And finally,

With that next inhale,

Bring all of your attention,

All of your awareness up to your neck,

Your shoulders,

Maybe for the first time you feel your head just resting with a hundred percent of its weight on the pillow.

And maybe with the next breath or two,

You actually pay attention to your face,

Your jaw,

Around your eyes,

Your forehead.

And these are all places that sometimes we hold on to a little bit of tension.

And just see with the next couple of breaths in and out if you can soften your jaw.

Just relax your mouth.

Maybe soften those little muscles around your eyes,

Finding that nice rhythm with the breath that's totally effortless but still intentional.

It's almost as if you're guiding the breath slowly in,

Down into the belly.

Slightly longer exhale out through your nose or your mouth.

Then maybe even see if you can notice a little moment of stillness before you take your next breath in.

Sometimes in life we get caught up with going from one thing to the next,

To the next,

To the next.

But we grow when we pause,

When we create the space.

And it turns out between every single breath there's a little moment for us to pause.

And just see if you can sit in that stillness for just a second and inevitably meditation is part of dealing with the things that come up in our minds.

All of the thoughts,

The distractions,

The things trying to pull our attention,

Pull our system away from being at our best.

And so first it's really important to know that if you've had a thought or a to-do or a worry or just a random thing pop into your head that that's normal.

That is how the brain works and that's the work of meditation.

And I'll just invite you to visualize in your mind what I think of as like your happy place.

Where would you go in the world if you could be in a setting that is just perfect?

Maybe it's on a beach,

Maybe it's up in the mountains.

Where is that place for you?

And I'd invite you to visualize you in that environment,

Totally calm with the people that you love.

And as you look up to the sky you notice that there's clouds moving from one side to the other.

And that each of those clouds are actually those thoughts,

Those to-do's,

Those worries,

Those little things that pull our attention away.

Maybe just spend a moment seeing what it feels like to be in that perfect place,

Knowing that the thoughts are there.

Those little to-do's pop in just like a new cloud moves into the sky.

And maybe you just watch it for a moment or two.

Just acknowledge it's there and then just notice that it passes out of view.

And you're still grounded in that place,

That perfect place for you.

And every now and then you can take a nice deep breath in and just let those clouds go.

Let them pass on the exhale.

Coming back to the breath.

Inhale in through your nose,

Down into your belly.

Exhale through your nose or your mouth a little bit longer.

Then find that little bit of stillness before your next breath.

We're gonna move our attention one last time in this meditation.

I want you to start with a feeling.

I want you to imagine the feeling that you feel when you are in that perfect state of flow.

When you know that you are ready to perform at your very best.

What does it feel like?

Maybe it's calm.

Maybe it's energized.

This bubbling of energy and execution that's just waiting to be unleashed.

And maybe you think back to a moment or two in your life where you've had that feeling and you've stepped on the court or stepped onto the stage and time just stands still.

You are in that perfect zone of performance.

And now I want you to picture yourself in the future.

Maybe it's in a week,

Maybe it's in a month,

Maybe it's in a year.

You've got that same feeling.

You know all those ingredients inside of you are all lined up.

I want you to spend a moment to picture where are you?

What's around you?

Who is around you?

Maybe what are some of the noises and the things in your environment?

Maybe you're just kind of subtly aware of those things because you're so locked in.

Maybe you pay a moment to take a look at the court,

The floor,

The arena,

But you still have that poise.

And then maybe you just spend a moment or two,

A breath or two,

Visualizing yourself moving through some of those plays,

Some of those sequences that you can only do when you are in that zone,

When you are performing at your best in that total flow state.

Feel yourself going through those motions.

Imagine the look on your face,

The feeling in your body.

And then once you feel like you've captured that,

You've bottled it up,

That feeling,

That picture,

You're welcome to just slowly let it go.

Maybe let that picture in your mind drift away with a nice exhale.

And we're gonna end this meditation by taking three breaths all together.

Before we do that,

I want to encourage you to continue to draw in that feeling.

Your flow state is a feeling.

It's a state.

You can draw it in and anchor it inside of you.

And on the exhale,

Feel free to let go of anything that's not serving you,

Anything you don't need to take with you,

Especially when you're in that flow.

When you're ready,

You can empty all the air out of your lungs with a breath out.

Take a nice big inhale in through your nose,

Down into your belly.

And exhale,

Let it all out.

Another big inhale.

And exhale,

Let it go.

Last one.

Make it the biggest one.

And let it all go.

Maybe just enjoy one last moment of stillness.

We have all the ingredients we need inside of us,

Not just to perform at our best,

But to recover and grow and do it over and over and over again.

Part of that equation is taking the time to stay connected to yourself.

And so just give yourself a moment of just gratitude for being here,

For showing up,

For making that commitment.