Moving Meditation For Stress And Anxiety Relief

This gentle seated Tai Chi practice combines four flowing movements with mindful breathing to help calm the nervous system and release stress and anxiety. The slow, meditative movements encourage relaxation, grounding, and greater connection between body and mind. A simple and accessible moving meditation to restore balance, clarity, and inner ease anytime during the day.

Transcript

This is a nice four-movement sitting Tai Chi practice. Most of the time we associate Tai Chi with moving through space, With that kind of nice, Flowing, Gentle walking. But you're also able to do a lot of these practices just in a sitting position. So I'm going to show you four classic Tai Chi movements. That flow really nicely together. And you should get a nice bit of flow here. Nice kind of link in the body, Breath, And mind. And just a general feeling good. So the first one is what we're going to call, It's the way a lot of Tai Chi practice sets start. It's usually called commencement. We're going to call it floating arms. So you bring the hands down, The arms are down, Palms. Facing the ground, Down by your hips. And as you inhale, The arms rise as if there's a puppet string on the pinkies up to the shoulders. Exhale. Arms float back down. In this movement six times. So inhale, Float up. Feel like everything's rising. The head rises with the arms, Feeling nice and long. Exhale, Relax. Inhale, Rise. Exhale, Sink. Three more. Last one. Next move we're going to move into is what they call crane spreads its wings. I'll start off on my right side. You can mirror me if you like starting on your right. You're going to cross the wrists, Palms up. As you exhale, I'm going to bring my left arm. You can bring your right. One hand goes up. The other hand goes down. You just feel a nice gentle stretch through the upper hand side. Like a crane, Like a big crane spreads its wings. Nice kind of gentle motion upper hand arm palm goes up and out lower hand palm down and out nice gentle stretch to the side inhale exhale Do one more each side. The next movement is called Repulse Monkey. This is when people do this as a standing movement practice. This is the one people do moving backwards. So you're gonna bring that one hand in front of you. I'm gonna bring my left, You bring your right, It's okay. The other arm's out to the sides, Comes into the ear, And then it's as if the front hand pulls the person towards you, Like you're grabbing their shirt. And this hand is pushing them away. So pull and push. So this hand comes here, Comes out. Bring the hand up so it's the palms are facing each other. Bring it to the ear. Pull. Pull and push. Just getting a nice flow. We'll do this a few more times. Come to the ear, Pull and push. Do one more each side. And bring it down. And to finish up, We do cloud hands. You want this light feeling with the hands as they float across. We'll start, I'll start with my left. You can mirror me and start with the right. So the palm faces you. What we're gonna be doing is just bringing that hand across. Keep your eyes focused on the middle finger. Exhale. And gently rotate Coil that hand so the palm faces down. And gently faces out. As you finish. Bring that hand down, Bring the other hand up. Exhale. Eyes gazing at that middle finger, Coils, Switch. We can go two more each way, Starting now. And one more. One more movement this way. And we'll bring it back down. Let's bring one hand on our belly, One hand on the chest. And just feel this wave-like breathing. Feel the belly expand. And feel it come up to the chest and completely let go. So empty out the belly, The diaphragm engages. And release, Chest, Ribs, Belly. Do one more breath like this. Feel the lower abdomen, Belly, Lower back and sides, Ribs, Chest, And release. Just emptying out, Nice and relaxed. All right, So that was a nice little sitting tai chi practice of four movements. Practice that anytime, Anywhere for a nice little bit of calm and ease. Thanks for joining me.