Anxiety is an experience which feels like it can rule our lives,
Take over,
Take us out of the present moment,
Cause us immense discomfort and suffering.
Yet if we look closely at our experience,
We can begin to see that anxiety has two components,
The physical and the mental.
And the suffering of anxiety comes not from the physical sensations themselves,
But from the thoughts that we attach to those sensations.
When we can begin to disidentify with the physical sensations and find stability in our thoughts and our minds,
We can actually experience ease and an inherent confidence in ourselves.
So you might be feeling anxious right now,
Or you might be wanting to develop skills to work with anxiety when it arises.
Either way,
This meditation will support you in terms of how to work skillfully with your anxiety.
Begin by finding a posture which is both comfortable and wakeful.
Find the natural rhythm of your breathing.
Notice if your anxiety is present right now.
And if it's not,
Bring to mind a recent experience where you did feel anxious.
Begin by noticing the sensations of your anxiety.
What is happening physiologically?
Is your heart racing?
Do you feel tension?
Do you feel constriction?
Speediness?
Do you notice difficulty breathing?
Warmth or perspiration?
Just notice how anxiety exists in your body right now,
In this moment.
Now notice what's happening in your mind.
How is your mind spinning in thoughts?
Getting lost in them?
Fixating?
Or going through worst-case scenarios?
What is the quality of your mind?
Now imagine what it would be like to feel calm,
At ease,
Confident.
And confidence meaning a sense of being able to stay connected to yourself no matter what's going on around you.
And if you could imagine your highest self right now,
Facing this experience with courage,
Calm,
And confidence,
What would that feel like?
What would be the quality of your mind?
What would be your inner posture?
And just take a moment to cultivate and nurture this state of stability in your mind.
And if you notice that your mind wanders,
Come back to this place of imagining how your highest self would be relating to this experience.
Come back to this place of stability.
And notice how a settled mind can exist simultaneously with an unsettled body.
Perhaps sometimes we want to disconnect or dissociate from our bodies when there's intensity.
Or we want to fix it or make it different.
So this is a practice of holding both stability and confidence in our mind,
Even as intensity and sensations are arising.
Once you have a sense of what your mind would be like when settled,
Even if it's just a flash of that,
We're going to start incorporating it into our breathing cycle.
So breathing into the experience in our body,
The constriction,
The energy of intensity.
With anxiety,
We often breathe into our upper chest.
So now we're taking deep breaths in,
Filling our lungs,
Breathing down into the lower belly,
Allowing oxygen to circulate throughout our body.
And then on the exhale,
A longer,
Steady,
Extended breath out.
So on the inhale,
Breathing into the unsettledness of our body.
And as we do so,
We could say in our minds,
Breathing in unsettled body or breathing in anxious body.
And then taking that long,
Slow,
Even breath out,
Repeating the phrase in our mind as we do,
Breathing out settled mind.
Breathing out calm mind.
And when we pair these phrases with our breath cycle,
We're synchronizing our mind and body.
And the phrase is just something simple that resonates with the experience that we're trying to cultivate.
So you can adjust it as needed.
Breathing in unsettled body.
Breathing out settled mind.
Breathing in anxious body.
Breathing out calm mind.
And as we're doing this,
Not trying to change anything in our experience.
And if you notice your mind wanders or starts to go into anxious thinking,
Just flash back on that sense of settledness and stability.
Notice the physical sensations arising in your body.
And again,
Come back to your breath cycle.
Repeating in your mind,
Breathing in anxious body.
Breathing out calm mind.
And in doing so,
Not trying to change or get away from the sensations of our anxiety.
Just simply noting them and allowing them to be there,
Knowing that simultaneously we can have a calm mind regardless of what's coming up in our physical experience.
And now as you breathe out,
Begin to imagine that the calmness of your mind,
That settledness,
Could shift down as if on the exhale we're gently pushing the calm down like a plunger.
Down our body to our root,
Our connection with the earth.
And then breathing in again,
A really full breath through our whole body.
And then on that exhale,
Saying to ourselves,
Calm mind,
Settled mind,
And allowing that calm to be pushed down from our experience of mind located in our head.
Down the neck,
Shoulders,
Chest,
Back,
Upper arms,
Lower arms,
Belly,
Hips and pelvis,
Upper legs,
Lower legs.
And down into our feet.
And then continuing with this practice.
So on the in-breath,
Imagining that you are gathering up a sense of calm and stability and equanimity.
Breathing into all the physical sensations and intensity in the body.
And then on the exhale,
Allowing that settledness to slowly sift down from the head all the way down to the toes.
And then breathing in again.
And as we do this practice,
Again,
We're not trying to get rid of our anxiety.
We're not trying to force out the anxious sensations in the body.
And as we come to an end of this practice,
Take three more deep full breath cycles.
Imagining that the entire body could soften and relax,
Even in the midst of discomfort and contraction.
Allow yourself to relax into a sense of confidence and trust that no matter how intense things feel,
No matter what's arising,
You can come back to this sense of stability and equanimity.
Thank you.
