Stress Relief Meditation

Hello and welcome to this stress integration meditation.

My name is Genevieve McKenzie.

I am a certified psychosynthesis life coach.

Psychosynthesis is essentially the study of the soul,

And it teaches us how we can lead our lives from a place of expansion and curiosity rather than fears,

Worries,

Doubts,

And what ifs.

With this meditation,

We are going to bring up our biggest stressor in our life right now,

And rather than trying to think through that stressor as we often do,

We are going to call upon different decision-making functions within ourselves.

So whether that is body sensations,

Emotions,

Imagination,

We are going to use all of them to get ourselves out of that thinking loop and become more embodied to cultivate more clarity.

We are going to begin this meditation by getting into a comfortable position,

Whether that is lying down,

Seated upright,

Perhaps even standing,

Whatever helps you feel calm and relaxed.

I am going to have you go ahead and close your eyes,

And I want you to breathe on your own for a moment,

And I want you to count how many breaths you have in these next few moments of silence.

You can begin now,

Hearing yourself inhale,

Then exhale,

That's one,

And see how many can count in these next few moments.

Now that we have connected to the breath,

We are going to now focus on relaxing our body.

Where in your body are you holding the most tension right now?

Perhaps your jaw is clenched,

Or your tongue is still sitting stuck to the roof of your mouth,

Maybe inviting the abdomen to soften,

Or relaxing the shoulders even a little bit more.

Just explore the parts of yourself that aren't quite totally relaxed yet,

And when you notice them,

Say to them,

It is safe to relax now.

And with that,

We are going to repeat a couple different affirmations to help us arrive here in this moment.

You can repeat after me,

Either aloud or in your head.

I am here now.

Here in this moment is exactly where I am meant to be.

I will get everything done calmly and easily.

I give myself permission to have this time of stillness.

Now I want you to check in on your own inner climate.

Ask yourself,

What does it feel like to be me right now?

Does it feel stressful?

Tiring?

Perhaps it feels really good.

What does it feel like to be you right now?

Now I want you to bring to mind the biggest stressor you have in your life right now.

Whether that is a job,

A relationship,

Perhaps a decision you have to make soon,

Whatever is causing you the most stress currently in your life.

Now,

I know it may feel intense to bring this stressor to mind,

But just continue to remind yourself that you are safe and you're processing this and this is good for you.

And as you bring this stressor to mind,

I want you to pay attention to where you feel it in your body,

Perhaps in your chest or in your stomach,

In your head.

Where do you feel it and what does it feel like?

As you notice the sensation present,

Our reaction is typically to shy away and not interact.

But if you notice as you give it more attention and you focus on that part of your body,

It actually begins to soften and release.

You can even place a hand on the part of your body where you feel a sensation.

And here just affirm to yourself that you are safe,

This sensation is safe,

And confronting this stressor is a really good thing for you.

Now with the stressor in mind,

I want you to ask yourself,

What emotions are present when you think about this stressor?

Fear,

Anxiety,

Hopelessness,

What's present for you?

And as you name these emotions,

I want you to affirm yourself after each one to say,

And that is okay.

So it will sound like,

I feel anxious and that is okay.

And I will give you a few moments here to name the emotions that are coming up and affirm to yourself that it is okay to experience them.

As we confront these emotions,

I now want you to check in with your impulses or desires.

As these emotions come up,

What is your impulse?

Is it to immediately numb out and shut down?

Is it to over-engage with them and feel it all out?

What is your impulse?

And as that impulse comes forward,

I want you to again affirm to yourself that that is okay.

So for example,

I want to take a nap and that is okay.

And I will give you a few moments here again to check in with the impulses that come up and affirm to yourself that it's okay to have some impulses that aren't so productive or aren't so aligned with being an incredibly vivacious person.

It's okay to sometimes want to reclude or move backwards.

So I'll give you a few moments here to name and acknowledge and affirm those impulses that you are having.

Now we will be moving into imagination.

I want you to imagine the stressor in your mind right now.

What does it look like?

Can you see yourself moving through the stressor or is it more symbolic?

When you imagine the stressor,

What does it look like?

Are things going really wrong and does it feel scary or are things kind of moving right?

Now I want you to intentionally ask yourself to imagine you confronting this stressor and things actually just falling into place.

Go ahead and imagine what that would look like.

Now we will check in with our thoughts.

As you bring this stressor to mind,

I want you to take a moment and simply observe the thoughts that come up around it.

I want you to imagine those thoughts coming across your mind as if they were clouds floating by.

We aren't going to interact with them or tell ourselves a story about these thoughts.

We're just simply going to observe the ones that come up.

So as you lie here,

I'm going to give you again a few moments to just simply observe what thoughts come up when the stressor is at the front of your mind.

Again,

We're not engaging,

We're just simply observing.

And I'm going to go ahead and give you a few moments here now to observe.

Now we are going to create an affirmation for you to take with you that you can use later on today,

Later on this week for when the stressor shows up and we use this affirmation to connect ourselves to the part of us that is calm and does trust that everything is going to work out.

So as you have this stressor here present in your mind,

I want you to ask yourself,

What could you know about the future that would help you release some of the tension around this stressor?

If you could know something about how everything will turn out or how things will come to you,

What do you need to know to not have so much panic around this stressor?

Now,

I also want you to imagine a friend just shared this stressor with you.

This friend is moving through the exact same experience you are,

And they just shared with you how they're feeling and all of their worries about it.

What would you say to that friend?

What advice would you give to them?

You can take both of these statements and write them down and you can use them as affirmations.

I typically use affirmations when I feel triggered.

So when that stressor is really present,

I will use those as reminders to help calm me and again,

Return me back to the part of me that believes that it's all going to be okay and she knows that she can work it out like she always does.

Now,

We are going to finish this meditation with a brief visualization exercise.

So I want you to release the stressor that you've been thinking about for the duration of this meditation.

Let it know that you are grateful for it being here and allowing you to interact with it.

But let it know that you don't need it here right now and it is time to focus on other things.

And as you release the stressor,

I want you to imagine yourself standing on a ledge.

And on this ledge,

Your arms are stretched out straight and you're holding on to two handlebars.

And tied to those handlebars is a string that then attaches to a crate.

And inside this crate are all of your worries,

All the things causing you stress,

The roles you show up as,

The responsibilities you have.

All of them are here in this crate.

And as you peer over the edge,

Holding this incredibly heavy load,

You see white and gold fluffy clouds.

These clouds represent grace,

Trust,

Surrender,

And it represents the love that whatever higher power you believe in has for us.

And as you stand here,

Gripping on to all of these heavy,

Heavy responsibilities,

You hear a voice that lets you know that it's okay to release.

It's okay to let go of your grip.

What does that voice say that lets you finally allow grace and trust to take over?

And as you hear that message,

I want you to visualize yourself releasing those handlebars and allowing the weight of those responsibilities and roles and stressors to gently fall into this white,

Golden,

Fluffy cloud of grace,

Trust,

And surrender.

You can go ahead and take another deep breath here,

Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Again in through the nose and out through the mouth.

One last deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And I want to thank you so much for joining me for this meditation.

It has been such a pleasure.

This is a meditation that I do with myself pretty often.

Typically decision making gets me the most stressed,

So I will take myself through this with whatever big decisions I have coming up.

And it really helps me to get out of that thinking loop and drop into new possibilities,

Gain clarity,

And truly see myself stepping into this space as who I want to be,

Not who I'm afraid of becoming,

But a much more intentional as I've got this.

I'm not the victim.

I'm in control here.

Again,

My name is Genevieve McKenzie.

Have a lovely day.