Lori DeLang

Michelle Cullen

Blue Mountains NSW, Australia

Helen

County Wicklow, Ireland

Alessia

Torino, Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy

Shannon

Ottawa, Canada

Janice H.

Raleigh, NC, United States

Sandra Jeans

San Diego, CA, USA

Denise

Panama, Panama

Kevin

Mount Pleasant, MI, United States

Augustė

Vilnius, Lithuania

Alyssa Moore

Ryland Heights, KY, USA

Nichelle Stone

Orlando, FL, USA

Missy Anne

Durango, CO, USA

Morgan Penberthy

Richmond, VA, USA

Belinda

Rahul

Singapore

Snowh Mon

Yangon, Myanmar (Burma)

KimiQ

San Francisco, CA, United States

Shannon Pidgeon

San Rafael, CA, USA

Carol L. Gorski

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Secular Mindfulness

Anxiety

Self-Compassion

English

This practice is designed to help you bring your A-game to an upcoming high stress situation. By fostering a growth mindset and practing self-compassion, you'll discover greater reserves of capabilty and confidence after following this practice with Lisa. This is great to use in preparation for all occasions like big tests or exams, presentations, public speaking, auditions and interviews.

Soothe Stress & Anxiety Before A Big Test, Presentation Or Important Event

 Hi, this is Lisa Abramson. Thank you for being with me today. And congrats on getting here, right here to this moment, when you have something really big and really important on your plate. If your heart is even beating a little more rapidly, even thinking about this upcoming event, that's okay. Just know this is your body helping you prepare and get ready. When your heart beats faster, that means you have more energy and more focus available to help you succeed. So I want us to start this practice and you can just take a seat and get comfortable and you can gently close your eyes. And I want you to just appreciate yourself for showing up here today and taking a moment to reset before you go into your big event. And just see if you can really appreciate yourself. You might wanna put your hand on your heart and just appreciate yourself for showing up here and doing something so supportive and doing something so helpful. And I want you to just appreciate how far you've come already. Appreciate all the little steps that got you to where you are today. And just knowing that choosing courage over comfort, you might be nervous. You might be a little uncomfortable before you take this next step, but you know this is how you'll grow and this is how you'll become the person that you wanna be and that's exciting and that's worth celebrating. Take a moment and just start to notice your breath and your breathing. You can keep your hand on your heart if that's comfortable and just feel the physical sensations of breathing wherever they're strongest, maybe you notice cool air coming in through your nose, your chest gently expanding or loosening your belly and feeling the rise and fall. And find one place where the breath feels strong, your nose or your chest or your belly and pick one place to focus your attention and really get curious about the sensations of breathing. How does the breath feel in your body? How does it feel? And you can always return to the breath if your mind wanders, just tuning into that physical sensation of breathing without trying to change your breath just notice how it is right here, right now. And now we'll practice a little bit of self-compassion because it's hard putting yourself out there, it's hard being brave and we need to be on our own side before we take this next step, before we put ourselves out there. So saying the words of self-compassion to yourself silently after me, ouch, this is hard. We might say, this feels kind of bad right now, whatever resonates just repeat those words to yourself acknowledging that you might be feeling some emotional discomfort or even physical discomfort in your body right now ouch, or this is hard, this feels uncomfortable right now. And then next noticing that we all feel this way sometimes this is part of what it means to grow and to learn and to learn this is normal, it's normal to be uncomfortable before something big is happening. So just acknowledge that saying to yourself, we all feel this way sometimes, we all feel this way sometimes. And now remembering to speak kindly to ourselves and to support ourselves, saying to yourself, may I be on my own side and may I be kind to myself in this moment, may I be on my own side and be kind to myself in this moment, may I have my own back and just notice how that feels in your body to really support yourself, may I have my own back and lastly just giving yourself, permission to not be perfect, to show up, to be brave, to give it your best shot, now I want you to visualize texting a friend or sharing with a loved one after this event is over, imagine who you'll reach out to, who is your biggest cheerleader in your life and imagine yourself having that conversation, sending that text, connecting with that person and saying, yeah, I showed up and I'm proud, I did the best I could and that was good enough for today, and just let those feelings amplify in your body, you imagine sharing, connecting with a loved one and celebrating, you've given it your best shot, you putting it yourself out there and remember, you've got this and when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes,