Responding To Stress And Anxiety

Responding to Stress and Anxiety So this practice is for when you're feeling stressed and particularly when you're feeling anxious,

Agitated and on edge.

This practice brings together a number of different approaches including mindfulness,

Self-compassion,

Grounding,

Labelling,

Being and allowing.

All of the guidance is offered as an invitation,

So just following the parts of the practice that support your wellbeing and dropping everything else.

So let's begin straight away by bringing the palm of one of your hands to rest on your upper chest.

Maybe just having a sense of the body underneath the hand.

Any sensations of contact,

Of warmth.

And maybe also having a sense of how the hand feels from within the body.

So by offering this soothing touch,

How we release oxytocin,

The hug hormone.

And this can really provide a sense of safety,

Soothe the nervous system.

And offer ourselves a little bit of tenderness and care.

And that happens really slowly,

So we're not really expecting to feel very different at the moment,

But we'll just leave our hand resting here as we continue with the practice.

So often when we feel stressed or anxious,

The nervous system can be really fired up.

And so what we can do is we can use our breathing and we can extend our out breaths and in this way we stimulate the part of the system which is more calming and we ease off on the more driven,

Intense part of the nervous system.

So what we'll do is if we take an in breath through the nose.

And then slowly breathing out through pursed lips.

So in this way we can really help lengthen the out breath.

So breathing in through the nose.

Big deep breath.

Long slow out breath through pursed lips.

And just taking a couple more breaths like this in your own time now.

In your own time.

And now allowing your breathing to come back to its ordinary normal breathing rhythm.

So just letting go of any control of the breath.

Often when we're feeling agitated and anxious we can feel quite ungrounded.

So we might feel dizzy.

We might feel like we're very up in our heads.

Maybe we lose touch really with our body.

So now we're just going to spend a little bit of time reconnecting with the body,

Finding some balance.

And to begin with we can do this by just having a sense of the weight of the body.

So whatever posture you're in,

Maybe just having a sense of giving up the weight of your body to gravity.

And feeling the heaviness of the body down in the feet or the buttocks.

Through the back of the body if you're lying down.

And perhaps with each out breath just giving up the weight of the body a little bit more.

Easing back,

Settling down.

Feeling the contact of the earth pushing up on the body to support you.

Body grounded,

Body heavy.

Also noticing if there's any holding in the body,

Anywhere in the body where we're clenching or tensing.

Often we hold tension in the jaw,

So just letting the lower jaw drop,

Soften,

Release.

Allowing the shoulders to soften.

So it's really giving up the weight of the arms to gravity.

Noticing any tightening or gripping in the hands and maybe just allowing the hands to naturally open the palms to unfold.

Feeling the warmth,

The contact of your palm of your hand on your chest.

Feel of this kind and tender touch.

Also allowing the belly to soften.

Allowing the belly to be round.

Maybe having a sense of any expansion and contraction from the breath down in the belly.

Feeling the weight of the body down in the pelvic region.

If you're sitting down maybe aware of sensations in the buttocks,

Pressure and contact from whatever you're sitting on.

The heaviness of the legs,

Feel of the feet and the toes.

Just feeling the heaviness of the body,

The groundedness of the body.

You'll also notice how as we come more in touch with the senses,

How this begins to slow us down.

Shifting from that intense driven doing mode to more of a mode of existing,

Of just being.

There is not a thing that you need to achieve right now.

Feeling the touch of your hand on your chest.

And if there's any stress somewhere else in the body,

If there's somewhere in the body that feels really tense or tight or agitated.

And perhaps gently bringing your other hand to rest there.

Not to massage away that stress but just to offer it a simple soothing kindness.

As if you would offer goodwill and care and compassion to a sick child or a wounded animal.

And if you find it helpful you might offer yourself a few words of encouragement,

Maybe saying to yourself,

May I be safe,

May I be kind to myself,

May I be peaceful.

And it might be that there's still a lot of stress here,

There's still a lot of anxiety or whatever you're working with.

And maybe for the next few moments exploring what it's like to stop fighting that stress,

To stop pushing it away.

To see what happens when,

Just for now,

Not forever,

But just for now,

You allow your inner life to be just as it is.

Letting go of the need to struggle,

Allowing what's here to be here.

And as we come to the end of this practice,

Maybe just allowing your awareness to drop back down into the lower half of the body.

Feeling the body solid and heavy.

Maybe even having a bit of a stretch.

Maybe just letting that come out.

And by all means,

If there was anything that was supportive for you in this practice then continuing to practice in this way for the next few minutes.

Or maybe coming back to the recording later in the day and giving yourself some more space,

Some more time and some more kindness.

Thank you for practicing with me.

And may you be well.