Reduce Anxiety & Stress With The Forest Of Curiosity

This is a guided meditation that will help you to relax and quieten the mind and open your awareness while using your imagination to enjoy a wonderful forest experience.

First of all we'll settle in.

We do this by just becoming aware of our breath.

And first we invite the body to become comfortable.

When you feel a little settled just let your mind know that it does not have to be active while we do this meditation.

The narrator can have a little time off.

And the simplest way of doing this is to move your awareness from your mind down through your body to your heart centre and just to become aware of your breath.

I'm breathing in,

I'm breathing out.

Breathing in calm,

Breathing out relaxed.

Breathing in calm.

Breathing out relaxed.

There's nothing you need to do in this moment.

There's nothing your body needs to do.

Your mind can be simply quiet and be restful.

You don't have to do anything with your breath.

Just notice how your breath automatically becomes deeper and the out breath automatically becomes longer and slower.

Just become aware of how much quieter the mind is now.

And your body is naturally relaxing on each out breath.

You can imagine a wave coming down from the top of your head going right down through your body on each out breath just relaxing any pockets of tension that may be a bit stubborn and staying behind.

Just imagine them fading and dispersing and relaxing and softening.

Imagine that you've just got to the edge of this wonderful forest,

A place where you know is full of charm and wonderful friendly animals.

There's nothing in this forest that will harm you.

Anything you come across is friendly and welcoming as if they have known you all their lives.

This forest is like your home.

As you walk into the forest you notice it is slightly darker but the sun rays are poking through the tops of the trees.

You can feel the warmth every now and again land on your face.

It's just the perfect day for a gentle walk in the forest.

You have all the time in the world you don't have to get back for anything.

As you continue to walk in the forest along the path there are bushes either side there's wild flowers everywhere.

The trees are really tall and you can see for quite a distance.

Every now and again you can see a little animal popping its head up looking being a little curious about you and then without fear they carry on doing what they're doing.

You can hear the birds in the top of the trees.

You can hear the smaller animals foraging around amongst the dry twigs.

Every now and again you can hear a little twig break.

There's nobody around apart from you and the whole of the forest and nature.

As you continue to walk deeper into the forest you start to feel even more comfortable and more at home in this wonderful place.

With each breath you have a deeper feeling that this place is where you belong.

You feel safe,

Secure and free in this wonderful forest.

There's nothing you need to worry about just completely opening your heart and letting all the senses be open.

You can smell the distinct smell of the forest,

The greenery around.

As you continue to walk you can hear a little river in the distance.

And as you approach there's this wonderful tree that's really tall but opens up at the bottom and it forms a perfect seat for you to sit on the ground just next to the tree.

So as you get closer you can hear the water trickling and you sit down and it's really comfortable,

Perfect shape for you to sit and be still.

There's lots of little animals that start to become closer and they start to become more curious about you and you just sit and watch them.

You notice the butterflies just fluttering around on top of the bushes moving from flowers to flowers.

The butterflies seem to be interacting with each other,

Flying close by then flying away from each other,

Then landing on a different part of the bushes.

The butterflies are so delicate and they so calmly fly around.

You just watch them for a while.

It's almost like time stands still here in this beautiful forest.

There's nothing to do but just be curious,

Be open to what you can hear,

What you can feel and what you can experience.

And from the bottom of this wonderful tree you look around and what can you see and what can you hear?

And as you continue to open all your awareness to what you can hear and what you can smell,

From this whole moment in this forest,

Do you feel at home,

Do you feel at peace?

Notice the way that just that on the base of this tree,

Listening to the birds,

Watching the butterflies,

Gives you a sense of calm and peace.

You don't need to do anything in this moment,

Just enjoy.

In a moment we're going to bring this experience to a close.

I want you to bring back this peaceful,

Calm curiosity back with you.

And what it would be like to come from this place of peace and calm the rest of the day.

To see the magic and be curious about everything.

It is easy as that in a wonderful mysterious forest.

But can you keep this curiosity right here for you wherever you are?

Now I'm going to come back from five and we'll come back to the physical surroundings.

To five,

Four,

Open your eyes gently,

Three,

Stretch out your arms,

Wiggle your hands,

Two,

Take a deep breath,

Let the breath out and smile.

Welcome back.

We can use the imagination to do anything.

And that's one of the things about being human is our ability to use this wonderful imagination.

And we can sit wherever we're sat in a car or sat in a doctor's surgery or wherever we're too.

We can just gently close your eyes a little.

We don't have to close them perfectly.

And just recognize that we can transport ourselves away from this area,

Away from this current anxiety and stress.

We can go to our peaceful place.

Thank you.

I'm Stephen Webb.

Namaste.