The Anti Anxiety Meditation Part 1: Beginning The Journey

Hello.

This is the first of three anti-anxiety meditations that I will produce here for Insight Timer and for our members.

I have worked for over 35 years with people suffering with anxiety working as a therapist and have had a lot of success in these approaches that I'll introduce to you here in these three meditations.

Nothing's guaranteed 100% of course,

But I have come to believe that if a person struggling with anxiety and the invasion of anxiety into their lives will practice diligently to reclaim their own body and their own ability to calm down,

To relax,

To become mindful,

And to put anxiety in its rightful place,

That really good progress can be made.

So the very first thing I want to say to you is that I have a lot of hope for you if anxiety has invaded your life.

Because my hope for you is based in working with literally thousands of clients and helping them overcome the effects of anxiety.

So this first meditation on anti-anxiety will be focused in relaxing the body,

Relaxing your thoughts,

Relaxing your emotions,

And then going to a place in nature,

A favorite place in nature that you really love and have visited before.

Now if you don't have a favorite place in nature that's okay.

You can just make one up in your own imagination.

It's alright.

And then while you're there in this favorite place,

What we'll do in this meditation is I'll ask you a series of questions to help change your perspective in regards to this anxiety and to shift your relationship with anxiety.

And the questions will be easy,

They'll be straightforward,

But maybe a little bit different than how you've considered anxiety in your life before.

So I invite you just to relax and to calm down and to delve into this meditation and allow yourself to enter into it fully.

I think you'll find it helpful.

I hope you will.

So first off,

Find a very comfortable position.

If you're sitting in a chair,

Uncross your arms and legs.

You can also lie down and maybe put a pillow underneath your head and a pillow underneath your knees so you're nice and comfortable.

But whatever position you prefer,

Simply move into that position now and begin to relax in a way that relaxes your entire body.

We're going to start with the use of the colors of the rainbow for relaxation triggers.

And once you begin practicing these colors as triggers,

You can simply imagine the colors or think of the colors and they'll help you relax the different aspects of your bodily experience,

Your mental experience,

Simply by imagining the colors.

So take a deep breath,

A nice easy deep breath into your tummy.

Not way up into your lungs,

But into your tummy.

And then let it back out again.

And feel yourself begin to slow down and relax.

Shift around in your position just a little bit if you need to.

And then let it go.

And take another easy breath,

Slowly inhaling and then slowly exhaling.

And see if you can extend the inhale and exhale up to a count of five.

So let's try that together.

On the inhale,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

And on the exhale,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

Let's try that one more time.

Inhale up to five.

Here we go.

Inhale,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

And now exhale,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

Now take one more breath and just let it all go.

And relax.

And begin to feel this sense of relaxation along with the color red.

We'll start with the colors of the rainbow with red.

And red will be your physical relaxation trigger.

So just imagine the color red.

The kind of red that you most enjoy,

That you like the most.

And as you imagine that color red,

Begin to feel a warm wave of relaxation moving slowly downward from the top of your head.

You can feel this warm wave of relaxation as it stretches out and moves across the top of your head,

Across your scalp.

And just allow this wave of relaxation to move down across your scalp,

Relaxing all the muscles in your scalp,

Any tensions,

Any stresses that are there.

And feel this warm wave of relaxation moving down across your forehead,

Relaxing your forehead.

Just let it go and relax.

And the wave of relaxation continues to move down across the side of your head,

Down towards your ears,

Across your temples,

Relaxing your temples,

Across your eyebrows,

Down to your eyes.

Just relax all the tiny muscles around your eyes.

And the wave of relaxation moves down now across the back of your head as well.

Down past your ears,

Relaxing your ears,

Across your nose,

Your sinuses,

Relaxing your sinuses,

Down across your cheeks,

Your lips,

And your mouth,

Relaxing your mouth and your tongue.

Just feeling this wave of relaxation moving slowly downward across your face,

Relaxing your jaw muscles,

Completely letting go of any stress or tension in your jaw.

You might even move your jaw around a little bit to stretch it out and let yourself relax.

As you feel this wave of relaxation moving down across your neck,

Across the back of your neck,

Moving down across your throat,

Relaxing the muscles of your throat and your neck,

Your chin,

Your tongue,

So that your entire head now is completely relaxed.

And you feel this wave of relaxation moving down,

Down across your shoulders,

Relaxing the muscles in your shoulders,

Or many of us hold tension.

You can feel the relaxation that's happening now as your neck muscles are relaxed,

Your shoulder muscles are relaxed,

And the wave of relaxation continues to move down now across your chest,

Your upper arms,

Even relaxing into your lungs,

All the way into your body.

And take a nice easy breath as you feel that relaxation moving into your lungs,

Moving down across your back,

Relaxing your back,

The muscles of your back,

Your spine,

And easily,

Quietly relaxing all the way down your back.

Down the small of your back,

Across your abdomen,

Relaxing all the muscles,

The organs of your abdomen,

Down your arms,

Relaxing your elbows and your forearms,

All the way down to your hands and fingers.

See if you can feel the tingling in your hands and fingers from this relaxation,

This warm wave of relaxation,

As it moves down now across your hips and your groin area,

Relaxing all the organs there,

And moving down to your thighs,

Relaxing the muscles of your thighs,

And see if you can feel this warm wave of relaxation actually moving into the very bones in your thighs,

Your leg bones.

As the wave of relaxation continues to move down now across your knees,

Relaxing your knees,

Letting any emotions that may be there with your knees be released and relaxed.

Then the wave of relaxation continues to move down,

Down across your shins and your calf muscles,

Relaxing these muscles,

Moving down to your ankles,

Relaxing your ankles,

You can feel the warm wave of relaxation moving all the way down across your ankles,

Down across the top of your feet,

Out to your toes,

Relaxing your toes,

Relaxing your heels,

And now relaxing the very soles of your feet.

So your entire body now has been completely and totally relaxed from the top of your head all the way down to the soles in your feet.

So just relax.

Feel the relaxation as it moves up and down your body in nice easy warm waves of relaxation,

And you relax further and further.

One of the things that we definitely know about anxiety is that it causes us to experience intense tension.

So one way to consider an anti-anxiety life is to practice this kind of relaxation.

So now that you have felt this relaxation,

Perhaps the most relaxed you've been in a long long time,

Just simply put a marker in your own awareness that this is what relaxation at this level feels like.

And you can come back to this relaxation level anytime you wish.

All you have to do is simply imagine the color red,

Because red is our physical relaxation color,

And relax your body.

Feel this warm wave of relaxation,

And you can become completely and totally relaxed.

The more that you do this relaxation practice,

The better you'll get at it,

And the easier it will become.

So now,

For a moment,

Just relax.

We're going to move down the rainbow now to the color orange.

In this model,

Orange is a color for emotional relaxation.

So what we want to do when anxiety comes and in between is to practice relaxing our emotions,

Slowing them down,

Bringing them to a state of ease and calm and comfort.

You can even imagine that your emotions have a volume control,

And that you can take the volume control into your own hands and slowly turn that volume control so your emotions get quieter and calmer,

And you become more and more at ease.

Again,

Orange is the color for emotional relaxation.

Whenever you want to slow down and calm down your emotions,

All you have to do is to visualize the color orange,

And to consider the volume control on your emotional state.

And the more that you practice this,

The better you'll get at it.

We'll move down the rainbow now to the color yellow.

Yellow is the color for mental relaxation.

One of the great struggles with anxieties and invasions for many people is that the thoughts become racing thoughts,

And they jump from one to another.

So as we visualize the color yellow,

Our nice calming golden yellow,

We begin to slow down the thoughts that we're having.

Thinking is totally okay,

But what we want to do is to become better and better at slowing thoughts.

So for just a moment,

Imagine that you have a screen in front of you in your own mind,

And the screen is showing you all the thoughts that are racing across your mind.

And what we want to do as you watch these thoughts,

See if you can actually visualize them and picture them on the screen of your mind right in front of you.

It might be just a little bit above the horizon,

So you have to look up at it just a little bit.

And as you imagine these thoughts racing across the screen,

See if you can just try slowing them down,

Like as if they're kind of like a train.

And each one of the cars on the train is one of your thoughts.

So just to slow the train down,

Have it become slower and slower,

And slower.

And see if you can begin to see each thought as an individual thought,

An individual car on the train,

Which is going slower and slower.

And you're becoming better and better at slowing it down,

Even right this moment.

You may even begin seeing that the train is going to come to a stop,

And that the thoughts come to a stop also.

And that you can simply look at one thought,

One car on the train,

For just a moment,

And then calmly look at the next thought,

The next car on the train.

In this way,

You begin to feel a bit of separation between you and these anxiety thoughts.

The more that you practice this,

The more you practice slowing down these thoughts,

And visualizing the thoughts on the screen of your mind,

The better you'll get at it.

And all you have to do is to visualize a color yellow,

Picture the thoughts on the screen,

And practice slowing them down.

We'll move down the rainbow,

Down to the color green.

Green is the color for peace.

Now that you've relaxed your body,

Calmed your emotions,

And slowed down the thoughts,

You can experience peace that comes with becoming better and better at calming down your inner life.

So allow green,

The color of peace,

To imbue itself throughout your body and throughout your mind,

So that you feel peaceful.

You feel more at ease.

And you can feel this peace stretching itself throughout your whole consciousness.

Just relax,

And remember,

When you visualize a color green,

You'll feel more peaceful,

More at ease,

More calm.

We'll move down the rainbow now to the color blue.

Blue is a color for love.

Now that you're feeling this level of peace,

You can open up your heart and shine the light from your heart with your imagination into anybody else's heart that you care about.

So just for a moment,

Picture someone that you love,

Who you care about deeply,

In front of you,

And shine that light,

The blue light of love,

From your heart directly into that person's heart.

And see their face and how their face reacts in your imagination to you loving them so intensely.

Allow yourself to express all of your love to this person,

And feel how good it feels to love so strongly.

You might begin to notice too,

That there is blue light coming from their heart,

Coming back into yours.

And for just a moment,

Perhaps,

You can give yourself permission to feel that person's love for you.

There may be relationship issues,

There may be discussions that need to be held,

But for sure,

This person that you chose loves you as you love them,

Or you wouldn't have chosen them.

So just for a moment,

Feel that love going from your heart into theirs,

And coming back to you from their heart into yours.

Remember,

Blue is a color for love.

Whenever you need any more love in your life,

And feel that need,

You can simply imagine the color blue,

Imagine love pouring out of your heart to others,

And imagine receiving love from others into your heart.

This is a great practice for self-love.

So if you ever wonder how to love yourself more,

This is one way that you can actively do so.

We'll move down the rainbow now,

Down to the color purple.

Purple is the color for spirituality.

So however you experience your own spiritual life,

Allow the color purple to embed itself and be imbued with that spiritual life fully,

So that you can imagine your whole self with purple coursing through your body,

Coursing through your mind,

And uplifting your own spiritual life in a way that is healing and expansive.

Remember that purple is a color for spirituality.

Whenever you feel the need for spirituality to be enhanced in your life,

All you have to do is to visualize the color purple,

And see and feel that color racing,

Moving,

Coursing its way throughout your body.

We'll move now down to the final color of the rainbow,

The color violet.

And violet is a color for oneness,

For a sense of connection with all the universe.

However you experience that sense of connection,

Violet is a color to help you focus on the sense of oneness and connection.

So just for a moment picture the color violet,

And allow yourself to feel and sense that experience of oneness with all that is.

Remember that violet is a color of oneness.

Whenever you feel the need to feel connected,

Perhaps if you feel lonely or alone,

All you have to do is visualize the color violet,

And that sense of connection with everything will become part of your life experience again.

We've moved now through all the colors of the rainbow,

And now what I'd like you to do is to come back to that screen in your mind,

And picture in front of you a path,

A path that winds its way forward in front of you,

And begin to walk along that path that you can see on the screen.

Begin to move your feet along that path,

And the path might be sandy,

It might be grassy,

Might be stepping stones,

Whatever it is in your imagination,

Walk along that path now,

And the path will disappear around a curve,

And as you move around that curve,

You'll come to your favorite place in nature.

Remember this place from when you visited before,

And if you don't have a favorite place in nature,

Just imagine one,

A place perhaps that you've seen in pictures or your own imagination,

And move into this favorite place in nature,

Allow yourself to feel it,

To use all your senses,

Reach out and touch things like trees or the grass,

The water that might be there or the sand,

Smell the smells,

Feel the wind on your face and the Sun,

Listen for sounds,

Perhaps there's birds or waves crashing onto the shore,

Or the tinkling of water through a creek,

Other sounds of animals,

If there's anything to taste there like fruit,

Feel free to pick it and eat it,

So engage all of your senses and experience this favorite place in nature as you look around and walk around and explore,

And then you come upon a tree stump,

And walk over to the tree stump and sit down,

And as you gaze around your favorite place in nature,

I'm going to ask you some questions,

Some specific questions about anxiety and your experience of anxiety and its effects,

So first I wanted to ask you as you're sitting there on the stump in your favorite place in nature,

What have been the effects of anxiety in your life,

How has it impacted your relationships or your work,

What have been the effects on your emotional states and perhaps even worrying about anxiety coming on,

How have these effects of anxiety challenged you in how you think about yourself,

How you think about your future,

Have the effects of the anxiety hurt your own self-acceptance or self-love,

So just for a moment think about the effects of the anxiety in your life,

And as you think about that,

Look around your favorite place in nature and feel the calming influence of this place,

That you can talk about anxiety while you're sitting here and think about anxiety and its impacts,

But it doesn't disturb the calm,

The serenity,

The peace of this place.

The next questions I want to ask you are when have been the times in the past few weeks when you've been able to refuse to cooperate with this anxiety,

When you've been able to take a stand not go along with it,

What have been those times in the last few weeks,

Think about those moments when you were able to shrink its effects,

To turn away from it and turn your back to the anxiety,

When you were able to hold on to your own self even with the anxiety trying to take over,

So just for a few moments think about those times when you've been able to withstand anxieties invasions in the last few weeks.

And then I want to ask you another question,

When you think about these times when you've been able to stand up to anxiety and to have your life in your own hands instead of in the grip of the anxiety,

When you think about those moments even if they're small moments,

Tiny moments,

What does it mean to you about yourself,

What does it mean to you about how powerful you might be,

And what does it say to you about your own capacity for having your life in your own hands instead of in the grip of anxiety,

Think about that for just a minute,

What does it mean to you that sometimes you are really successful in shrinking the experience of anxiety in your life,

And what could it mean for the future,

As you look around your favorite place in nature consider that if you can reduce anxieties effects even by just a little bit at any given time then maybe you can reduce anxieties effects at another time and begin to put together more and more moments of freedom,

More and more moments of calmness,

Of peace,

And of you being in charge of your life again so that anxiety is no longer running things for you,

Consider the meaning of those moments when you're able to stand for your own life,

And as you think about that feel the peace again in the serenity of your favorite place in nature,

And let that peace embed itself and run all through your entire body so that more and more peacefulness,

More and more calmness flows through you,

And you become calmer and more still and more at peace.

One final question,

As you sit there in your favorite place in nature and you consider your own capacity for slowing anxiety down and shrinking it in your life,

What does that mean about you as a person?

What does that mean about who you are?

What kind of person you are?

Consider that thought.

We'll begin to leave now,

To leave this favorite place in nature,

So as you do so just stand up from that stump and take one last look around.

See this place in nature for what it is,

A beautiful,

Serene,

Peaceful place for you,

And just know that anytime you need to slow down,

To calm down,

To find your own center again,

You can come back to this favorite place in nature simply by closing your eyes and imagining this place,

And imagine yourself here,

Walking around,

All of your senses engaged,

And how special it is for you,

This beautiful place.

It's time to come out of our meditation,

So just remember all the things that you thought and experienced here in this meditation today,

And as you slowly come out just know that you can practice this meditation and listen to it over and over again,

Practice it on your own,

You can utilize the colors of the rainbow as triggers for relaxation,

And you can have this special place in nature be a sanctuary for you.

The more you practice,

The better you'll become and the easier it will be,

So I encourage you to listen to this meditation several times this week,

And to practice it after that once you have it down,

To turn it into your own meditation,

Have it become your own,

And enhance it and modify it as you see fit.

Begin to come out of the meditation now,

Slowly make your way back along that trail,

Come back into the place where you are sitting right now,

Back into your body,

Back into this time,

And when you're ready,

Open your eyes.