Holly Ward-Smith

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Tracey R

Bluffton, SC, USA

Jen Jaebird

Charleston, SC, USA

Suyog Shetty

Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Nick G

Boynton Beach, FL, USA

Coti Orías

Córdoba, Córdoba Province, Argentina

Ground yourself through somatic awareness to transform overwhelm into inner resilience.

English

This meditation is designed to help you move through challenging emotions like despair, sadness, or overwhelm. Together, we’ll focus on grounding into the present moment and building a deep inner resilience. You’ll discover how to meet your feelings with compassion, releasing the tension that comes from holding on to fear or uncertainty. By the end of this session, you’ll feel more rooted, supported, and ready to face life’s changes with strength and grace.
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If you’re looking for further support,  call or text 988 (in the U.S.) or chat 988lifeline.org for yourself or if you are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support.

From Overwhelm To Resilience:  A Grounding Meditation

Go ahead and find yourself in a seated, comfortable position, or lying down, or even walking in meditation. Obviously, you'll keep your eyes open if you're walking, but if you're seated or lying down, go ahead and close your eyes. We're going to start with three slow, deep breaths. No matter what is unfolding in your life that is making you feel a sense of despair, a sense of deep disconnection, sadness, overwhelming suffering, I just want you to take these next few minutes and give yourself permission to feel exactly as you feel. Just allowing yourself to be exactly as you are, letting go of any efforting to fix or change. You can go right back to it, but for the next few minutes, just give yourself a break to feel what's here. I'm going to guide you through a somatic process where we explore what's here, but I want to be very clear that any ideas, any thoughts, stories that arise as you breathe into and allow despair, pain, sadness, we want to observe them, not believe them. It's part of what locks in these feelings are the thoughts that hold them in place. When a lot of fear is moving through the body, through the mind, the mind can lose itself in predicting a future it cannot know. I want to invite you to breathe and allow and feel, but any thoughts, especially thoughts of fear, anger, catastrophe, worry, violence, any of that, we want to be with the feeling in the body and not let the mind run with it. How we do that, I want you to go ahead and just take another deep breath into your body. Notice your feet, whether they're on the floor, whether they're underneath you, just breathing into your feet. I'm going to ground down, down into the earth, into the soil, the roots, like a tree. Breathing into your feet, allowing whatever feelings are here just to be without an agenda. How we do that is I want you to notice where in your body feels most activated, most charged. Where in your body might the energy of despair live? Just notice anywhere in your body that gently or strongly draws your attention. I'm aware of my shoulders, my gut, my solar plexus. I'm just letting this energy be here, taking another deep breath. I'm going to feel it most in my gut, so wherever you feel this energy concentrated, this fear, overwhelmed, despair, I want you to focus in that space and place in your body where this energy might live and just breathe into it. Just notice any sensations that arise as you breathe into this place in your body. Just allow the feelings to be exactly as they are. As you breathe into this space and allow the energy of despair, sadness, overwhelm, what do you notice? What's here? I notice a kind of cramping, a little bit of cramping feeling in my gut, some fatigue, heaviness. And again, we're just breathing into it. We're not trying to fix it, change it, just allowing this to be fully welcome. And if there is rage, anger, tears, sadness, anything that arises as you breathe into it, just let it be here. Let it come up and out. Notice the thoughts, but do not follow them. And as you breathe and allow, what do you notice now? What's here now? Just continuing to meet this space, this place with presence and compassion. Taking a hand and placing it wherever you feel the despair. Just breathing into that point of connection, that heat on your belly, your throat, shoulder, chest. And as you breathe into this hand that is supporting you, what do you notice now? What's here? I notice a little softening, the heat in my gut, where it meets my hand. Any thoughts that are arising, I just want you to focus your awareness in this point of connection between this loving hand and this despair. And if you can muster it, just sharing a little, it's okay, honey, it's okay, sweetie. I got you. I got you. I know this is scary. I know this is very terrifying at times. I got you, honey. I got you. And just breathing into your body, into this space, into the feeling of being got. Of being held and supported. And reminding this part of us that we have every reason to be afraid. That it is human, it is legit. But even now, with all of our intelligence, with all of our knowing, we don't know the future. We don't know all of what is unfolding here. And that's not to excuse anything or romanticize anything, it's just the truth. We don't know. We just know that there are big, volatile, rapid changes happening on this planet at this time. And we want to have our own back. So that we can support others, so that we can support all the good that is also happening. All around us in small and big ways. So taking another three full body breaths. Coming back to your feet, feeling and breathing into your feet. Feeling those roots rooting down, centering down. And slowly, slowly opening your eyes. Maybe stretching a little bit. And now just committing to take a moment, whenever you can, to place that hand in the spaces of despair, in support. I got you, I got you. Because the more that we show up for ourselves, that we support, create the backbone, the spiritual backbone that we need right now, the more we can show up in all the ways that we're being asked to. And the more that we support this inner spiritual backbone, the less we need the world to look a certain way. The deeper we are rooted, the more we will bend and shake and dance. And whatever winds come. Okay, have a good rest of your day. If you need some deeper support, we're going to have some resources in the comments. You are not alone. You are not alone. We humans have been through so many shapeshifts on this planet, and we will get through this one. So ask for support if you need it. Thank you.