Self Care: Taking A Moment

What Had Happened Was…


I just came from a great guided meditation, and I feel like my calm self again. I feel like my family riled me up and I had to put on a protective layer to “be who I needed to be” in order to show my authentic self, and I hate that. It makes me sad. So I’m going to walk you through a little of what I just did. I would send you the meditation, but it’s specifically for trauma and PTSD and panic attacks and copyrighted, and I would rather not mess with their research nor start my own.

Do you have a few minutes for yourself? Let me walk you through a meditation. The first few minutes is slow, and is centered around your breathing. Breath is basically the most important thing in mediation work. It’s the easiest voluntary thing you can do to change the physiology of your body to relax. Once you think about your breathing and only your breathing, think about slowing it down and pulling the breath from deeper in your body. Some say from the diaphragm, others say from the abdomen, I like to think of it as a line down the center of your body, and you’re just pulling from whatever feels comfortable and right and deep. The deeper the pull, the more relaxed eventually you’re going to feel.

Again, in no way is this supposed to hurt you, so if anything does hurt, pull back. It’s no judgement on you. It doesn’t make you any less or the exercise any harsher. It just is how it is for now. So we’re a few minutes in. Do we feel like we’ve got our breath down? It’s okay if you don’t. You can either spend more time on your breathing, or you can move onto the next stage which can also help you relax your breathing if concentrating on the breathing is actually throwing you off!

I’m going to group muscles together for this first one, and then maybe in a later blog get more in depth. So start with your facial muscles and neck. Around your smile, cheeks, under the eyes, lifting the eyebrows, each for a few seconds, then for a few breaths focusing your breathing around your neck area and just feeling it slightly heat up as the blood flows and rest comes to the muscles as they contract. I bet you didn’t notice you were holding them up, did you! Spend about three to five breaths on the shoulders, not worrying about the count but simply focusing on the self, five or seven on parts of the back that need the heat the most, probably around the shoulders and lower back, perhaps a couple breaths just filling your whole torso and letting the breath relax every part of you. You mustn’t forget the arms and the fingers. Every time I do them they seem to heat up like I am massaging my arms in the hot radiance of the oven, not burning but warm. Breathe. Let yourself be yourself. This is a you moment. Deep as you can one breath. Two breaths. Then down your legs to your toes. Lie there until you are absolutely certain your moment is over, knowing that you can take with you this calm, compassionate version of you with you wherever you go. Remember this relaxed version of you the next time you are angry at yourself for some mistake you made. Remember the kindness you bestowed your body the next time you are angry at yourself or someone else and see how it might affect the exchange!

I love you! I hope you continue loving yourself! And I hope to continue learning how to love myself too!

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