Unpacking What We Carry - Sustainable Stress Management

Hello and welcome.

Welcome to this meditation on how to mindfully connect to the mental and physical load you carry.

I'm Inge and I'll be guiding you through this practice.

I'm someone who can,

In the pursuit of meaningful goals,

Put a lot of pressure on myself.

And over the past five years,

As I transformed my science career to a yoga journey,

I have developed some tools to deal with the worries,

The pressures,

And anxiety that comes with the pursuit of meaningful goals.

These emotions come up when we deeply care about something.

When we pursue our dreams and our passions,

Stress and big emotions serve a function.

There is no such thing as a stressless or emotionless or dreamless or goalless life.

Stress and dreams and feelings serve a purpose.

The goal is not to live a life without them,

But to develop the ability to pause and choose when to use them and when to lose them.

This meditation is such a tool.

It is designed to evaluate what we carry on a daily basis.

This meditation is a three-step practice.

The first step is feeling the load.

One way of taking better care of yourself is to develop an intuition for knowing when the load you are carrying is simply too much.

For some of us,

The natural tendency when we don't feel well is to ignore it or to work harder to get rid of the load.

We ignore our body's signals until our body decides to pull the plug and collapse.

If we learn to listen to our body and feel the load,

This is the first step to a more sustainable yet driven lifestyle.

Step number two is about unpacking a load.

It is important to pay attention to your worries,

Fears,

Goals,

Pursuits,

Pressures and pain.

Because some things we carry with us may be ghosts from the past or things we can't control or things that are not our responsibility or simply things that need to be heard and seen.

When we spend mindful time with the specific burdens we carry,

We can prioritize and reorganize and be more compassionate with ourselves because we're aware of all that we carry.

In the third step,

We will repack the load.

When we repack our load,

We choose what we wish to carry and what we are able to carry and we choose what we wish to let go of and we acknowledge which load we may need help with.

It may be used to make sure you have a journal nearby so you can take some notes at the end of this practice.

When you are ready,

Let's begin.

Sit comfortably.

Close your eyes.

Place your hands on your legs.

Allow your shoulders to release down the back.

Actively press your sits bones into the surface beneath you and from there,

Rising your spine up,

Creating length,

Opening the chest,

Widen the collar bones,

Inhaling freely through the nose,

Open the mouth,

Sighing out slowly,

Inhaling through the nose,

Gently sigh out,

In,

And out.

Now take a moment to notice what you've brought with you today to this practice.

And that all your worries,

Your pain,

Your goals,

Your pursuits,

Fears,

Joys and troubles are all packed into one backpack that rests on your back.

Feel the load you're carrying today.

Is your bag heavy and vague?

Or light and small?

Or perhaps something in between?

Focus only on really feeling the whole load pressing on your body,

Not on anything in particular.

Where do you feel the load pressing?

This will feel very different for everyone,

And it will feel different on different days.

And it may take several sessions to even recognize.

See if you can just be open to what comes up,

Whatever it may be.

How does your load feel today?

Is it bearable?

Or does it feel overwhelming?

And however your load feels today,

Sitting with it and finding a place of compassion and kindness,

Whether the load is light or heavy.

So let's start to unpack.

Then you swing the bag off your shoulders and put it on the ground.

How does it feel to take a moment of rest and take this load off your shoulders?

Open the bag.

Look inside and notice the first thing in there.

Perhaps you notice anxiety,

Joy,

Pain,

Perfectionism,

Pride,

Whatever it is.

Unpack it and put it in front of you and have a look at it.

What's this item in my bag?

Observe it from a place of compassion.

You can say for example,

Oh,

I see that I'm anxious about my upcoming presentation.

Or I'm really angry about the way that person treated me.

Our item comes out of your bag,

Give it your kind attention,

Acknowledge it,

See it,

Nurture it.

And when you've noticed and acknowledged your first item,

Have another look in the bag.

What else do you find?

Keep unpacking your bag until there's absolutely nothing left.

You can press pause here to take as long as you need.

When everything is unpacked,

Have a look at all that is in front of you.

And if it is a lot,

Take a moment to acknowledge that.

It is time to grab your journal and write down all the things that are lying in front of you now.

You can press pause here to take as long as you need.

Write down which of these items do I have control over.

Which items are at this moment not within my ability level to carry?

Which items are my responsibility and which items are not my responsibility?

Which items are ghosts from the past,

Emotions that I keep reliving,

That I would like to gently release and let go of?

Which items do I need help with?

You can press pause here to take as long as you need.

It is time to repack your bag.

Pack only what you can carry.

Those are things you have control over,

That are your responsibility,

That are in this moment within your ability level to deal with,

And that you feel you need on your journey.

Mentally repack your bag.

Put all those items in that are meaningful to carry.

Bring the bag over your shoulder and check how it feels.

If you feel a strong physical reaction,

Listen.

Go back a step.

Reassess.

Those items you left on the floor today may need to be unpacked often.

That's okay.

It's part of the practice.

Perhaps that someday you feel there is more room in your bag and you can take them back into your backpack then.

This meditation is really for you to practice how to feel and shift weight so over time you can carry more appropriate loads.

Thank you for practicing with me today and trusting me with your mind and body.

I'm honored to share this practice with you.

Namaste.