This is a mindfulness meditation to help work with stress and worry.
In our modern world,
It's easy to get caught up in worry,
Stress,
Anxious thoughts,
Feeling that there's just too much to do,
Too many demands,
That we're never going to be able to get it all done,
And that bad things will happen if we don't keep running,
Keep checking off our to-do lists.
When we're in these states of stress and worry,
We tend to treat our thoughts as the truth and create scenarios about the future.
We can easily get into catastrophizing our minds creating ever more dire scenarios.
Mindfulness is a key antidote to stress and worry,
Because it invites us to step out of the mind's stories and come back to our direct experience.
In this meditation,
We'll begin with some practices for calming the mind and body,
And we'll then cultivate present moment awareness,
And practice skills for working wisely and kindly with the thoughts that arise,
Coming back to the body and breath.
I'll include some poems in the meditation,
Because I find that this can be an excellent way of calming our body and nervous system,
And stepping out of our thoughts.
So to begin,
Find a comfortable and relaxed posture,
Sitting in a way that's comfortable,
Easy,
Settled.
Let your back be straight,
Let the shoulders relax and allow your hands to rest comfortably in your lap,
Or on your knees,
Or on your thighs,
Whatever feels most easy.
Let your feet rest on the floor,
Planting them the strong connection with the floor.
Planting them the strong connection with the floor.
Let your attention come into your body,
Feel the weight of your body on your buttocks,
On your thighs,
On your feet.
Feel the contact of your hands with your knees or thighs,
Or one hand with the other.
And we'll begin with some practices to help calm the body and the mind.
So you might begin by just taking a few deeper breaths,
Take a nice deep in-breath,
Filling the lungs,
Filling the chest.
And then take a long slow out-breath,
Releasing the breath.
And then again a nice deep in-breath,
And then again a nice deep full in-breath.
So you're inflating a balloon,
And then releasing the breath.
Imagine you're breathing out any stresses or cares of the day.
And as you breathe in deeply,
You might invite in a quality of calm.
You could say that word,
Silently to yourself as you breathe in,
Calm.
And calm as you breathe out.
Breathing in,
Calming the body.
Breathing out,
Calming the mind.
You could take another couple of full breaths.
Just letting yourself settle into being here now.
And when you're ready,
Let the breath settle back into its natural rhythm.
Just letting it be as it is.
These deeper breaths send a message to the brain and the nervous system that we can relax and be at ease.
That we can come out of the vigilant tense mode,
And just allow ourselves to relax and settle.
And any time during the meditation if you feel you're getting tense or tight,
You can remember just come back,
Take one or two deeper breaths,
And that may help you just settle down again to relax and calm the body and the mind.
And now I invite you to consciously drop your attention out of the thinking mode.
Let your awareness drop from the top of your head,
From the brain,
Down into the body.
You might even scan the body,
Moving your attention down the face,
Your eyes,
Facial muscles,
Jaw,
Chin,
Your mouth and tongue.
Inviting a relaxing of this area of the body,
The head and the face,
Down to the back of the neck and the shoulders.
We often carry tension in this area.
So just invite a softening of the shoulders as though you're putting down a burden.
Relaxing the back of the body,
The sides of the body,
Coming into the torso,
The belly and the chest.
Where we typically tighten up,
Tense up if we're busy,
Or we're late or we're under stress,
We tighten,
We go into the fight or flight mode.
So just invite a relaxing of the muscles of the belly and let the breath come into a relaxed and open belly.
And coming down into the shoulders and the arms and the hands.
It's relaxing any tension in the arms and the hands.
You might bring awareness into your hands,
Feeling the sensations in the hands from the inside out.
Tingling,
Pulsing,
Vibrating,
Hardness,
Warmth.
Simply noticing what's here,
Not through the mind but through the feelings themselves.
Then dropping down to the lower body,
The buttocks,
The abdomen,
The groin,
Down into the thighs and knees,
Calves,
The shins,
Ankles.
Down to the feet and toes,
The whole area of your legs and feet.
Just invite a relaxing of any area where you might be tightening up or tensing up.
Feel the sensations in the feet from the inside out.
You might scan your body,
Moving the attention up the body.
And just invite a softening,
A relaxing of any area where there might be some tension or holding.
And then bringing your awareness to your body as a whole.
Just bringing a relaxed awareness to your whole experience.
Meeting whatever is present right now with kindness and with acceptance.
Coming down into the body,
Bringing awareness into the body,
Invites a relaxing of the brain coming out of our thoughts.
Untangling ourselves from our thinking where we spend so much of our day and our activities in thought.
Coming back,
Dropping down back into the body.
And now I invite you to bring a smile to your face.
Doesn't have to be a big smile,
Could be a half smile.
But enough to activate the muscles at the corners of your eyes and the corners of your mouth.
If it helps you could think of a loved one or a dear friend,
A child or a pet.
Just let their image come to you and just feel the warmth,
Perhaps a natural relaxing.
A smile can be a great support in mindfulness and in daily life.
It sends a message to our nervous system,
To our brain that we can be at ease.
We don't have to be hyper vigilant.
So you might remember that if you're feeling tight or tense at any time or anxious.
Just invite a smile,
Relax back into this moment.
Sitting in a way that's relaxed and at the same time alert.
I'll share a poem by Martha Postlethwaite called Clearing.
Which for me captures the quality and attitude that we bring to this practice of mindfulness and meditation.
She says,
Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose.
Instead,
Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is yours alone to sing falls into your open cupped hands.
And you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue.
So you might imagine this time of meditation as creating a space,
A clearing in the dense forest of your life.
And just allow yourself to be with whatever is present here,
Putting aside as much as you can thoughts of the future,
Thoughts of the past,
Thoughts of what may be going on in the wider world.
Just open to what's present here and now.
Take some moments to bring awareness to what you're experiencing.
If you scan your consciousness,
Body and mind and heart,
Just notice what's present for you right now.
There may be some tightness or a feeling of sadness or worry.
See if you can meet whatever is here with an attitude of acceptance and of kindness.
If you're experiencing something difficult or challenging,
You might see how it is to bring a hand to your heart,
Perhaps a hand to your belly.
Just feel the connection with the life that's here.
Feel the warmth and the contact.
Meeting your experience with kindness,
With care.
Another image that you might find helpful is meeting your experience as though each one is a guest coming to visit.
Rumi speaks about welcoming the guests in his poem,
The Guest House.
He says,
Welcome the guests,
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who sweep your house empty of its furniture,
Still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
So meeting whatever guests come to visit with an attitude of kindness and of acceptance.
Being interested in what's present,
What's arising,
Curious,
Interested,
Kind,
Accepting.
And now as a way of gathering your attention,
Cultivating a present moment awareness,
Some way countering the tendency of the mind to move into thoughts of the future and the past and problem solving.
You might let your awareness come to your own breathing,
Just the sensations of breathing in and breathing out.
In breath,
Out breath,
Letting go of any sense of controlling the breath,
But rather receiving the breath.
Receiving the breath and releasing the breath,
A sense of ease in breathing and just using the breath as a kind of a touchstone or an anchor for your attention that you can keep coming back to.
.
And if you become aware that your attention has moved from the breath into thought,
Perhaps thinking about the future,
Maybe a worried thought or a memory of something,
Or trying to solve a problem in your life,
Or perhaps just random thoughts and images.
Whatever you're experiencing,
Whatever kind of thinking,
See if you can gently and with kindness bring your attention back to the breath.
Gently and with kindness,
See if you can bring your attention back to the breath.
Not making thinking in any way a problem,
Just seeing it as a natural tendency of the mind,
A habitual tendency that we can get caught up in.
And then each time we bring our attention back to the breath and the body,
We're actually training our minds.
We're training ourselves to come out of habitual thoughts,
Perhaps habitual anxiety or stress.
It's like we're creating new pathways in the brain each time we come back.
So you can see this as a great gift when you become aware that you're lost in thought,
To kindly and gently come back to the breath and come back to the body.
Come back to this moment.
Can you find a sense,
A feeling of peace right here,
Right now,
In this moment just as it is?
The poet Dorothy Hunt in her poem Peace says,
Peace is this moment without judgment,
This moment in the heart space where everything that is,
Is welcome.
So see if you can bring this welcoming attitude to what's present for you right now.
Can you find peace in this moment,
Letting go of thinking that this moment should be different than it is,
Or that things should be a different way?
Peace.
And if you find a certain kind of thinking to be persistent,
You keep getting pulled back to a certain kind of thought,
Particularly if it's worried thinking or stressful thinking.
Sometimes it feels it's not enough to come back to the breath because the mind just goes off again to the thing it's hooked onto.
So what can be helpful in this situation?
Let's say the mind gets caught up in a worry about the future,
How something is going to turn out,
Or some relationship or something at work.
We might begin by coming back to the breath.
We might find ourselves pulled towards that thought back again over and over.
So what you might do is when you notice that you're caught up in anxious thought,
Come back to the breath,
But then let your awareness come into your body as a whole.
Feel where this energy of worry or stress is being held in your body.
You might feel it in your chest,
The breath being tighter,
Or you might feel it in your belly,
Muscles tensing up as you go into a fight or flight mode.
So the invitation then is just to drop down into the body,
Allow yourself to feel the sensations of the body.
Let the sensations come and go.
Breathe into them.
Let them have space to come and go.
You might notice that they last for a while and then maybe they go away for a while,
Come back again.
Just meeting the sensations with kindness and friendliness,
Welcoming them as guests.
Staying with the sensations as long as they're calling for attention,
Bringing a kind awareness to them.
If there's a strong emotion moving through you,
Sadness or anger or grief,
See if you can allow yourself to feel this too.
Feel how this moves through you.
See if you can dance with this experience too,
This emotion,
If it's helpful putting your hand on your heart or your belly.
Meeting your experience with kindness,
Recognizing that it is difficult,
That it's painful,
Challenging,
Holding it with kindness.
And each time you get pulled back into the story of the future or the past or what you're concerned about,
The anxious thought,
The worried thought.
You can just simply note that as thinking or anxious thinking and invite your attention back to the body,
Back to the breath,
Back to this moment.
In this way we can untangle ourselves from the story.
Often the story is very tightly wound up with the bodily feelings and the emotions and it feels like it's almost a ball of wall all entangled together.
So the more we can just notice the stories,
Notice the narrative and step out of it,
Step back to direct experience.
The more we can untangle the knots,
The more we can realize that even in the midst of difficult circumstances,
This moment I can be with this.
I can be with this feeling in my body.
I can open to this emotion.
I can be aware of the thoughts.
So we're not governed or ruled by our thinking.
So you might take a couple of quiet minutes to sit and if you'd like to when the meditation is over just to continue this practice on your own.
Using the breath,
Coming back to the body,
Stepping out of thinking,
Realizing and knowing that we can untangle ourselves,
Unhook ourselves from unhelpful thinking,
Unhelpful thoughts.
Poll Teen We'll finish this formal practice with a poem by Wendell Berry called The Peace of Wild Things.
When despair for the world grows in me,
And I wake in the night at the least sound,
In fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake Rests in his beauty on the water,
And the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things,
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water,
And feel above me the day-blind stars Waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
And am free.
