Enhancing Resilience To Cope With Stress

This meditation is designed to help you feel resilience in times of stress.

Now take a deep breath,

Feel your body in your seat,

Your feet on the floor.

Take a deep breath in and out.

When you breathe in,

Bring energy into your body.

When you breathe out,

Release any toxins that are there.

Breathe in vitality and breathe out stress.

Breathe in life force and breathe out any negativity that has accumulated into your body.

Continue breathing in deeply,

Focusing on the feeling of deep peace.

Breathing in joy,

Breathing out any sadness.

Breathing in light,

Breathing out darkness.

Breathing in radiance and love.

Breathing out any fear and anxiety.

Now feel the energy that is in your body becoming aware of the warmth and tingling of every single cell in your body.

Now feel this energy extended into the environment.

This energy is in every part of nature and part of every being.

Now bring all these energies together and feel them as one.

Visualise all of this energy shining brightly as the sun and bring this shining radiance of bright energy over the crown of your head.

Feel it starting to travel down into your body from the top of your head,

Entering your crown,

Going into your head and face,

Going into your neck,

Travelling down into your shoulders,

All the way down into the arms,

Down into the fingers.

Feel the healing energy and light going down into your chest and all the way down into your hips.

Feel it continue travelling down your legs,

All the way down into your toes and feel it moving through your feet into roots that extend into the earth.

With every breath that you take,

You feel those roots growing further and further into the earth,

Picking up life force,

Earth energy,

Making you feel grounded and energised and completely anchored.

And now bring this energy back up with you,

Beautiful earth grounding energy and feel it moving back up into your body,

Through the soles of your feet,

Into your heels,

Toes,

Ankles,

Moving into your calves,

Your knees,

Thighs,

Up legs,

Going through the sit bones into your buttocks,

Into your pelvis,

Beautiful life force energising your body and every single cell in your body.

Going into your kidneys and adrenals,

Removing any fight and flight that you experience there,

Replacing it with calm,

Safety and security.

And feel this beautiful earth life force moving into your pelvis,

Into your abdominal area,

Energising all of your digestive and reproductive organs.

Feel the energy moving through your diaphragm into your chest area,

Filling your lungs,

Your thymus gland and your heart,

Energising every single cell of these vital organs and removing any stressful emotions,

Replacing them with love,

Joy,

Calm and peace.

And in your back,

Feel the energy moving upwards up the spine,

Into the mid back,

Going into the upper back,

Moving into your shoulders and shoulder blades,

Going down your arms,

Through the elbows,

Your wrists and into your hands,

Into your thumb pads,

Palms of the fingers,

Going through the thumbs and fingers and pushing through any remnants of negativity through the tips of the fingers to be released and transmuted into the colour violet.

And now your body is filled with this beautiful sun and earth energy,

Feeling completely grounded and energised,

Feeling centred and calm.

And now we're going to take a deep breath into our heart.

You might like to place your hand on your heart,

Giving yourself love and compassion.

And as you breathe gently,

Softly and deeply into your heart,

You might like to breathe in a sense of ease or safety or feel goodness in your heart centre.

And as you breathe into your heart,

Think of one moment,

A time when you felt safe,

When you felt loved or cherished by another person.

Just think of one moment,

This could be with a partner,

A child,

A friend,

A teacher,

It could be a spiritual figure or even a loving moment with a pet.

And as you remember this moment of feeling safe,

Of feeling loved and cherished,

Let yourself experience the feelings of that moment and let the sensations of that experience move through your whole body.

Let yourself stay with these feelings for some moments and notice any deepening in the sense of ease and safety throughout your body.

Continue feeling your hand on your heart,

Feeling the love you're giving yourself,

Feeling the self-compassion and just know that when you breathe deeply into your heart,

You're calming the whole of your nervous system.

When you breathe in a sense of ease,

Safety or goodness,

You allow your heart to respond better to stress.

When you remember a moment of feeling safe and loved or cherished with someone,

You may feel a warm glow washing through your body,

Bringing you a sense of safety,

Trust and calm,

Helping your body to completely relax,

Enabling you to respond rather than react in stressful situations.

And this will enhance your sense of resilience to stress,

Making you more able to cope with this stress.

As resilience is our ability to be flexible,

To go with the flow and to bounce back from stress.

We are inherently capable of strengthening our resilience,

Of finding in a calm in the midst of stressful situations,

Of seeing options clearly,

Finding the perspectives we need to see and responding flexibly,

Choosing appropriate actions,

Moving forward even when in doubt and when we feel discouraged.

Resilience may be negatively affected if we suffer trauma.

On the reverse,

It can be strengthened when we feel safe,

When we feel understood and accepted by another person and whenever we feel positive emotions after upset.

When our brain adapts easily to stress,

We can quickly become centered,

Find ease and well-being even when we've been upset.

We can be calm again and respond rather than react.

Negative emotions often affect our resilience but we can learn to manage these by finding and feeling positive emotions such as kindness,

Gratitude,

Generosity,

Joy,

Love.

When we feel these in our body and our heart,

We are able to relax and stop the fight and flight mechanism.

When you practice positivity,

The result is resilience.

Now bring your attention back to your heart.

Pick up this beautiful sunlight and bring it into your heart and feel this beautiful light expanding from your heart into your whole body.

Bringing it into your chest,

Into your neck and head,

Down your arms,

Down your hips,

Your back.

Traveling down your legs into your toes,

Beautiful light and energy and allow this healing energy to completely fill any physical area that needs any healing energy.

Feel it warming,

Healing and expanding through any constriction,

Any tightness and also allow this beautiful healing light to bring peace and healing to any emotional issues and traumas you may have experienced.

And as this beautiful healing light brings you healing energy,

You can let go of any negativity,

Any sadness,

Grief and upset and replace it with love and light,

With joy and patience.

And feel your heart filled with this beautiful joy,

Love.

Feel your whole body filled with it and just feel a deep relaxing and peaceful feeling of bliss.

In this meditation you have experienced a way to feel calm and safe,

Giving you resilience,

A way of responding rather than reacting to stress.

Now you know that you can use this meditation anytime you experience challenges.

You can also just put your hand on your heart and recall into your heart the positive emotions and the feelings of relaxation and grounding that you felt in this meditation to help you navigate difficult times.

And now take a deep breath and bring your attention back to the room,

Feeling your body in your seat and your hands on your lap or in the seat.

Take a deep breath in and wiggle your fingers and toes and take another deep breath and move your hands and feet.

With one more deep breath stretch and when you're ready open your eyes.

Take a deep breath in and out.