Release stress through grounding exercises, sensory awareness, and self-compassion to find inner stillness.

English

Feeling weighed down by stress?  In this grounding practice you will learn skills for grounding yourself to the present moment and feel more settled.  You will discover increased self-awareness and some gentle practices that will help you to release the heaviness felt from stress and open up space for calmness and ease.

A Grounding Practice For Stress Release

This is a grounding practice for stress release. Let's start by expanding your awareness outward. Notice the space around you. Turning your head from right to left, very slowly notice what colors you see. You may see blues, browns, blacks. Just notice, you can say them out loud if that helps. And do that again, turning your head from right to left, and then left to right. What shapes do you see? Maybe circles, triangles, squares. Look behind you as well. What is behind you? What colors, what shapes? Now take a moment and tune in to the sounds in the room. You may notice the air conditioner or heater, maybe a pet, or maybe the sound of silence. Or you just hear the sound of my voice. Turn your awareness to outside of the room. Perhaps you hear some birds, squirrels, or maybe the lawnmower. It can help to close your eyes, to really tune your focus to outside of the room to the sounds. Good. Feel the temperature in the air. How does it feel on your skin? Does it feel warm, cool, or neutral? Paying attention. How do your clothes feel on your skin? Heavy? Are they light? Maybe uncomfortable, tight, scratchy? If they're uncomfortable, try to make yourself more comfortable, if you can, for this meditation. Feel the floor beneath you. Placing your feet on the floor, feeling the support of the floor. And remember, the earth is also supporting you, holding you up. It has you. Now feel the balance between the left side of your body and the right. Notice if one side feels different than the other. Tune in to the front of your body, from your face to your chest, your torso, front of your arms, all the way down to the front of your legs and feet. Now notice the back of the body. Same thing. Back of the head, back of the neck, upper body, lower body, upper arms, lower arms and hands, back of the legs, back of the feet. See if you can notice, does the front feel different from the back, or the same? Now connect with the space around you in the room you're in, feeling the sense of connection to objects, to others, people you may live with, animals. Extend that connection, that sense of connection, to the rest of the world outside your window, outside of the city you live in, the country, the world. Feel that sense of connection. And we all are interconnected. Just as a reminder with this meditation, if you feel overwhelmed at all, know that you can always go back to your outer awareness exercise that we started with, noticing what's in your space, colors, shapes, objects even, bringing awareness there. If internal awareness is too much, we're moving to inner awareness now. Place one of your hands on your belly, and place the other on the heart center. If this feels uncomfortable in any way, you are welcome to hover above your body. Allow yourself to be here, and notice with your hands above your body or on your body, turning in. See if you can feel the rise and fall of your breath beneath your hands. Feel your heart beat under your hands. Allow yourself to release what you don't need, and fully embrace this moment, giving yourself the care and compassion you so deserve, that maybe you give so much to other people, but not yourself. Give yourself that self-compassion, reminding yourself you are worthy of this time and space. Give yourself some grace. You've gone through difficult things, and still you thrive. No matter what you've been through, you keep going. That takes courage, perseverance, and resilience. When you're ready, removing your hands from your chest and your belly, bringing your hands together, palms facing each other, into prayer pose. Rub your hands together until they're warm, like you're getting ready to give someone a massage. And when they're ready and nice and warm, place both palms on top of the eyes, cupping the hands so you're not squishing your eyeballs, but just hovering above, touching if you feel comfortable. Feeling a little solitude and space. Rest here a moment in silence. See what you notice, and try that again, rubbing your hands together until they're warm, and cupping the hands, placing them on each eye, creating some darkness, some stillness within. And notice the silence. What comes up as you give yourself this time and space, this comfort on your eyes? Maybe there's thoughts, feelings, visualizations. Look at these with curiosity, and don't judge yourself for whatever comes up. If it's a thought, just notice, and then let it go. Moving back to the sensation of the hands over the eyes, you can give a little more pressure if you'd like, or less, you decide. See if you can melt into the moment, melting into calmness and soothing inside. And when you're ready, taking your hands and moving them from your eyes into your lap, checking in, noticing how you're doing in this meditation. What emotion is there? Can you be curious and see what's there? Or if there is more than one emotion, getting your attention. Notice thoughts as they come up still. Are they calm thoughts or more stressful? Do you notice your thoughts jumping from one to the other? Or is there more stillness in your mind now? We're just noticing. See if you can do a quick body scan from head to toe. Notice each body part. See where you feel tension or maybe some other sensation. Bring awareness to that place of tension. We're going to breathe in to that place of tension and bring in the intention of softness. Let's give it a try. Bringing awareness to that place of tension. Now take a breath in, bringing softness, and then exhale, releasing stress. Inhaling softness, exhale the stress out. Inhale, bringing softness, exhale, releasing the stress. When you're ready, allowing your arms to hang at your side. Inhale, bringing the arms up, making a circle all the way up so your biceps are at your ears. And then exhale, bringing the arms back down nice and slow, coming back to start. Inhale, bringing arms up, arms in line with your ears. And then exhale, bringing arms back to start. Bringing awareness back to the room, back to the external awareness. Tuning in once again to the sounds in the room, the sounds outside of the room. Feeling the temperature, feeling again the floor beneath you. Bringing your feet into the floor until you feel tension in your legs, and then release. Making fists with both your hands, and then release. Bringing shoulders up to the ears, feeling the tension, and then slowly release down. Keeping your eyes open if they're closed, and notice how you feel. Have you released some stress? Check in with your breath, and allow yourself to come back to this meditation as often as you need to.