This meditation is for anyone,
Teachers,
Educators,
Students,
PhD students,
Anyone who has navigated stressful educational systems in our society and has made it to the end of the year.
In this moment,
I just invite you to arrive here now.
Allow yourself to move or shake out any energy you're arriving with.
So check in with your head.
Do you need to move your head around?
Do you need to loosen up or shake your shoulders?
So much of the stress and anxiety and the pressure that we take in from school and from work and from life lives in our bodies.
So in this moment,
You're just allowing yourself to pause,
To be still,
To be here now.
As you allow yourself to relax in this moment,
I invite you to put your hands over your head or on top of your head and just feel your own touch.
And when you're ready,
Just repeat after me,
My mind is at ease.
I'm at ease with my mind.
My mind is at ease.
I'm at ease with my mind.
Last time,
My mind is at ease.
I'm at ease with my mind.
In the practice of meditation,
Our minds will do what they do.
They will think.
They will jump around.
And our only goal is to come back to the present moment.
Sometimes for me,
I'll imagine my thoughts like tabs in a computer on the internet and I'll just close out the tab and come back to my breath,
Close out the tab again,
Come back to my breath.
You can also imagine yourself responding to your thoughts.
You can say,
Thank you for being here,
Or I see you,
I hear you,
And just let them float away.
I invite you to come to your breath,
Take a deep breath in through your nose,
Out through your mouth.
One more time,
In through your nose,
Out through your breath.
Third time,
In through your nose,
Out through your breath.
Educational systems are not designed for our emotional well-being in mind.
There's so much pressure,
There's so much information we're expected to consume and to learn and to remember,
And sometimes it's just too much for the brain.
So in this moment,
There's nothing for you to fix,
There's nothing for you to control,
There's nothing for you to figure out or understand.
You get to just be.
You get to allow yourself to be in this moment.
You are worthy of this moment.
There's nothing you have to do,
There's nowhere else you have to be.
If it's helpful,
You can say,
I release what I need to do in the future,
I release what I've already done in the past,
It's safe to be here in this moment.
I release what I need to do in the future,
I release what I've already done in the past,
It's safe to be here now.
As we wrap up this meditation,
I invite you to bring to mind one thing you appreciate about yourself today.
Appreciation is a relational skill that research shows helps to boost relationships with those we love.
And oftentimes,
We show appreciation to those outside of ourselves and we forget ourselves.
So if you were to give thanks to yourself for something today,
What would it be?
It can be simple.
For example,
I might say,
Candice,
I thank you for moving your body today.
Thank you for making me a really good breakfast today.
Thank you for taking time to be still on this meditation.
So I'll just give you a moment to thank yourself for at least one thing today.
And if you can,
Say it out loud so your own body and brain can hear your voice,
Because our own voice has the power to heal us.
Thank you so much for pausing to meditate and connect with yourself today.
If this was helpful for you,
Please share it with a friend or a loved one.
