Calming the Chaos

Namaste. I'm so glad you're here. This is a really short sequence to help you quickly return to clarity and stability when you're feeling that your life is just overwhelming and kind of chaotic. So I'm going to ask you to take a moment now to just notice what you actually are experiencing in your system. And this might not be comfortable. I really want to honor that. We're not going to be here for too long. But if you can tune in on purpose and just see are you noticing something tight? Is your heart racing a lot? Is your stomach kind of in knots? Whatever it may be, pay attention. And then I'm going to ask you to actually come up to standing if you're not already. And I realize that if you're feeling really overwhelmed, you might actually be in a ball on the floor. And that's okay. Right? But try to challenge yourself to actually shift the state of your inner experience by shifting your physical experience. And that's exactly what we're going to do now. Okay? I'm just going to start by having you see if you can connect to whatever is touching the ground, the floor. If you're still on the floor, maybe your shins. And just lift up the toes, spread them, mush them down, rock a little forward and back. Just remember like earth is underneath me. And then from the soles of the feet, kind of up through the body, we're just going to shake. It's that simple. Just shake. And you can do this as gently or as big as you'd like. Yeah? But let's actually shift the inner state. Now it might feel kind of silly. I get that. But ask yourself what's more important. Feeling a little bit of relief and calm and access to your own sense of present moment and logic or your ego. So you choose. We're going to do this for about another, I don't know, 15 seconds or so. Okay? And think down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. It's like you're trying to get rid of some of the extra weight or ickiness. Shake it out into the floor. You might even for the last three seconds or so just open the mouth and do a good. And then start to come towards stillness and just find your center, whatever that may be. Maybe hand on belly, maybe hand on heart. And as I start to return to stillness from that shaking, I realize that my body still has this natural rhythm or flow. And if that's happening for you, just allow it, right? Being aware that, yeah, you're grounded. There's a sense of center under your hands. Now both hands might be on your heart. One hand might actually be on your heart. One might be at the base of your skull supporting your neck and your head. And pause and check into your internal sensations. How do you know that this is an okay place to be? Something spreading, something calming. How's the heart rate? Nice. And now I'm going to ask you to come back to the floor or find it for the first time. So getting into any position that feels most comfortable for you to be in. You can be in cross legged or on your shins, but place your hands onto the ground. Let your mind's eye turn to how it feels to have your hands on the earth or on the mat or on the rug beneath you. See if you can slow down enough to sense how gravity is actually holding you here. And this might feel like enough, like just this reconnection of oh yeah, there's 6,000 miles of earth underneath you holding you up. Or you might want to get even closer to the ground, which is completely fine, in which case you might find a child's pose of just bringing the forehead down. So feel free to stay in whichever position is allowing you to notice a shift. And the shift might be incremental, just tiny lowering of the heart rate, releasing in the belly, slowing down of the breath. Whatever it is, hold onto those little or big nuggets of awareness that things are actually calming down. Yeah, paying attention on purpose in this moment. We'll be here for just one more cycle of inhale or exhale. And of course at any time, if I shift before you're ready, you hang out. You can always press pause on your computer or phone and come back to it. But now if you are ready to join me, just go ahead and find a more upright posture for your spine. Yeah.

So there's still a connection, but now the spine gets to kind of resist gravity. Uh-huh. And I'm going to invite you into your space. So just allowing the head and the neck and the eyes to effortlessly just take in what they want to see. And again, this is a slow movement of the head and the neck and the shoulders without trying to dictate anything. Just let your eyes maybe rest on something that's interesting or pleasant. It might be a shade or a color, maybe a texture, and then shift it to something else. Uh-huh. And now if your external environment is not actually calming or causes you stress, you might consider closing your eyes and visualizing a place that is calming and settling to you. Uh-huh. So now as you let the eyes gaze around, also be aware of your posture. Is it working for you if not allow yourself to shift? One more as you find maybe one more object. See if you can hear the sounds in your environment. Outside of your space, just the ears open enough to receive what's already there, to hear what's already there. Inside of the space, maybe even your own heart rate. Nice. And then just recognizing if there's been any sort of shift. So we'll take a breath in and let it out. Okay. The sequence was very simple. It's move, slow it down and pause and notice. Ground, pause and notice. Return and just orient to your present moment and notice. Now if any of the exercises I suggested don't work for you, feel free to scrap them and just do the ones that do work. And if you know there's any other resources you want to add into this, go ahead and do it. And feel free to do this at any time during the week, not just when you're feeling overwhelmed.

It can actually help support the health of your nervous system to kind of practice these tools of slowing down and non-judgmentally witnessing yourself as you get into inner experience just by practicing often. Please feel free to take this with you. This is yours always. Namaste.