Welcome to another resilience meditation in challenging times.
And this past week added a new level of tumult to the challenges that we've been facing with the pandemic and the shutdown.
With all the turmoil in our country,
It may have felt like an additional stressor layered on top of everything else.
And when we know from the lessons of resilience,
When there are additional stressors,
We become more at risk for burnout.
Burnout is characterized oftentimes by a sense of racing.
It's really a product of the sympathetic nervous system,
The fight-flight-free stress response being activated.
And when it's activated for a chronic period of time,
It can lead us into feelings of burnout,
Which can be characterized by a sense of racing,
Sense of irritability,
Racing thoughts,
Restlessness in mind and body,
Agitation,
Anger.
All sorts of these,
Depression can be a product of sustained burnout.
Our bodies just get so exhausted from being in this constant chronic sympathetic nervous system elevation response.
So today's topic is on how we calm that stress response so that we can be in wise mind.
Wise mind is a way of facing our challenges by integrating the capacities of our logic mind with our more emotional brain.
So when we can bring those together,
When we can bring conscious awareness into our emotions,
We can approach the world from a space called wise mind.
Wise mind being the integration of logic mind and emotional mind.
So wise mind is really representing this integration and we're going to cultivate that wise mind in today's meditation so that we can bring this more clear headed,
More intuitive way of knowing into our worlds,
Into the challenges that we face so that we might bring greater clarity of mind,
Greater compassion,
Greater wisdom to whatever situation we're facing.
So go ahead and find your comfortable position,
One that allows you to feel supported,
Grounded,
Letting yourself just kind of feel your body in your chair,
Getting a little more comfortable,
Shaking out any extra agitation,
Or you might choose to lie down.
Ring the bell to begin today's meditation.
Letting the sound of the bell be a place for your awareness to just collect and gather.
Noticing how the sound of the bell changes moment by moment and letting our awareness just follow the sound until it fades out completely.
Letting your awareness.
Now begin to collect and gather out of the more agitated racing thoughts that can characterize anxiety,
Or being stuck in emotional brain,
Where we can it's characterized by a sense of overwhelm or feeling out of control in body or mind.
Just beginning to tug on our thoughts to bring our mind down into the sounds that are happening in this present moment.
Letting the sound of the breath that's rising and falling moment by moment.
And just a thriving here in the feeling of the breath that's moving through you in this moment.
You're fearless scattered agitated in some way,
Racing,
Or perhaps more clear,
Curious,
Or daydreaming wherever the mind is just noticing the state of it in this moment.
Just meeting yourself as you are in this moment with curiosity and compassion for what you find.
Perhaps noticing the state of your heart.
In this moment,
The state of your emotions,
Emotions are often found in the heart space we can bring our awareness to the heart space or to our core,
Maybe our belly as well,
Just begin to notice physical sensations,
Or the energies that are present emotions are really a state of energy.
Anger can be characterized by a lot of mobilization,
Perhaps a sense of intense pressure in the heart,
The chest.
A lot of mobilization energy with anger,
And if we can bring conscious awareness to anger.
We can really channel it in a positive way as a clear conscious mobilized force of energy.
And this is quite literally bringing the logic brain and the emotional brain together.
We're bringing our reason down into our emotional space.
And when we unite the two.
In this wise mind integration.
We can be connected with a very powerful way of knowing that unites both reason and emotional information,
Because emotions are giving us information,
All the time about what we're experiencing.
We can practice just becoming consciously aware of the energies of emotion of the information that our emotions are giving us moment by moment.
We can arrive at an inner knowing a clarity,
A sense of intuition that can really be a helpful guide for us,
Especially during really emotionally challenging times or intellectually challenging times.
Wherever your mind has been in this moment,
Knowing that each moment is a gift,
Where you can begin again,
Just bringing conscious mind back into body through the waves of this next breath.
And driving again more fully in this breath.
In this body.
In this present moment,
Which is really the only moment in which we can make a different choice,
A different way of approaching our challenges by bringing a more present focused awareness.
It's a really powerful way of being a sense of calm centeredness that we can approach moment by moment,
Simply by being with our present moment experience with a sense of curiosity and compassion for what we find.
You might access a little bit more of that wise mind compassion by bringing your hand to your heart.
The heart is actually a network.
There is a network of neurons around the heart.
So simply by bringing our hand to our heart.
We convey a sense of warmth and pressure that can connect with these neurons and soothe our nervous system,
Simply by connecting with our heart with a sense of warmth and pressure.
We can bring ourselves out of that fight flight freeze activated state into the parasympathetic nervous system,
Which is that soothing calming integrating healing nervous system.
We can reduce the fear centers in our brain,
As Dr.
Tara Brock spoke about recently in an article in the New York Times on coping with anxiety during Coronavirus.
So even as we bring our hand to our heart and breathe out exhaling inviting a softening.
And then when you feel ready,
Inviting your eyes to flutter open and listening to the sound of the bell.
Breathing.
Thanks for joining another resilience meditation and challenging times.
I hope that this helped you access a little bit more of that wise mind space,
So that you can bring a greater sense of clarity and compassion to the challenges that you're facing moment by moment,
Wishing you well look forward to connecting again in this space next week.
