COVID-19: Guided Meditation: 30 Minutes to De-Stress

Hello, I believe I'm live. Hi, everyone.

Um If you're here, you're here for guided meditation. And uh my name is Gil, I'm the creative video manager here at osmosis.

And um I lead the guided meditation for osmosis. Once a week.

Looks like we have 13 viewers. I'll be getting explanation since we get a few more.

Thanks for joining us. I hope uh everyone's enjoying themselves as best they can trying to keep it light.

Um Always uh remember that uh we're surrounded by technology, you can call a friend facetime with someone go live and share some experiences um here at osmosis.

We're working really hard to get you all the information you need. Um And uh you can find that uh on osmosis.org um uh or you could search osmosis COVID-19.

There are some great extremely informational videos uh uploaded to our youtube channel that you can watch and share um with your friends and family.

All right. So we've got a few more joining the stream.

Uh If you just got here. Hi, my name is Gil.

I'm the creative video manager at OSMOSIS. Uh I've been here since uh 2018.

I started in January of that year. Um And I've really enjoyed my time.

Uh, it, uh, it was about a year into this position that, um I was approached by Hillary, uh who you'll see in, um, in a little bit.

Uh, she wanted to start these guided meditation classes. I was extremely interested in that because I had uh led guided meditation at uh my previous job for my coworkers.

And I've been doing it pretty much since about 2014, 2015. Um Like I said, I really enjoyed it.

Uh I enjoy providing this time for people. Um I also enjoy taking this time for myself and to relax and maybe step away from the keyboard or my cell phone a little bit.

Uh Speaking of which, go ahead and put yourself on, do not disturb mode. You don't need any distractions during guided meditation.

Um You're here to just be for a while. You have to check social medias.

You don't have to, um, you don't have to always uh read the news, um stay informed, but don't stress, these are stressful times.

Um Guided meditation is uh something that I find extremely helpful and I hope you find it helpful too. So you're here to be guided through some meditation.

What does that mean? Well, if this is your first time, um Don't worry, it's real easy.

You basically just have to sit there and listen. Uh I'll be talking most of the time.

I'll give you some um pauses in between uh the parts of my guided meditation um to uh really allow yourself to breathe, take in the space that you're in and relax a little bit.

Uh My practices are in three parts. The first part is a complete body scan.

Body scan is very simple. You just fix your posture, close your eyes if you'd like and bring your focus to very top of your head and scan down.

Slowly becoming aware of maybe where you're holding your stress where there might be some bothersome pain or something in your body that you weren't aware of.

Um The scan helps you uh really sit in yourself and uh become aware of where you're at, how you're feeling. Uh And that leads to the second part of my practice, which is uh more or less the uh guided story or small affirmation.

Um I switch it up depending on uh the week. Yeah.

These aren't always the same. II do uh keep it interesting.

Uh And then after the small story or kind affirmation, I do uh a poem reading. These are real short.

Um They don't rhyme. They are just kind of for you to either focus on and take the message away and um or you can more or less meditate at this point.

Uh As I go on through my practice, I will be slowing down my speech a little bit. Um I hope that doesn't distract you.

It's just meant to give you more time to really enjoy this practice. So, and then I'm done with my intro.

We can begin with the body scan. First thing you wanna do sit straight in your chair.

I always tell people try to balance the skull on top of the spine. Take this time to breathe, get used to the feeling of being still, have your hands resting at your side on your lap.

Yeah. And if you will bring your focus to the crown of the head, we start at the very top and work our way down to the temples, the eyes to the jaw where a lot of people hold tension.

If you're one of those people and you feel it now go ahead and take your, your knuckles and just kind of slide them down either side of your jaw.

Release that tension that might have built there over the course of the morning. Oh, moving down.

Notice the neck, fix your posture. Uh drop the shoulders, not any tension here.

The shoulders are another popular place to hold stress. Moving down your arms to your forearms in your hands.

I type all day at my computer editing and um I end up holding a lot of stress in my hands. So every once in a while I'll stretch my wrists with my fingers hurting the pops.

The hands are a great place for stress to hide as well. Moving back up your arms to your chest, not the rise and fall as you breathe in and out.

You to focus down to your core, relax your abs, your pelvic floor, your glutes, your quads. These are big muscles that do a lot of work.

Let go any tension there and really feel gravity push down on you and you in turn pushing down on your chair, sitting, takes the weight off the knees.

So this is my favorite part of the body scan is noting how nice your knees feel without pressure, without the pressure of walking or standing, moving down your legs to your calves and your ankles note how nice it is to feel the ankles decompress sitting in your chair from the ankles to the feet.

The feet are where the rubber meets the road. Of course, be kind to your feet today.

It's easy to forget about them and you know, you're walking on them all day, standing on them all day. Be nice to your feet to end the body scan, curl your toes, pretend you're on a beach, digging into the sand, digging into the earth, raise that arch and then return the feet back to neutral.

Now, raise the toes and point them to the ceiling. The arch goes up again, feel that stretch and relax.

Moving back up the body from the ankles to the knees, the quads the glutes the core, the rise and fall of your chest, your shoulders dropped your hands, relaxed skull on top of your spine and finally bring your attention back to the crown of the head and that's a body scan.

I'm gonna take a small break here for you to really feel your body as a whole. Listen to what it's telling you after that few minutes of awareness, breathing in and out, continue breathing at a steady pace.

Be very aware of the air rushing into your nose, feeling your lungs as you pull your diaphragm down, let your chest fall, push it out your mouth.

Now, the second part, which is the uh affirmation or small story, keep those eyes closed and just focus on that breath. Imagine a spark within yourself.

Now, this spark is the thing that we all have in common. It's within all of us.

Some people's spark is brighter than others. But why is that?

It's our inner child simply put that spark that we all have in common is a kid. You all of us were Children.

Once, imagine that feeling and picture it as a spark as we grow. We enter adulthood by force, but we still have a little bit of that spark.

The grit of the modern world can make us cold. It makes the world cold, but in a cold wo world be warm.

Take time right now or today to acknowledge that spark, that inner child do something you enjoy. Maybe something that you haven't done in a long time, an old hobby.

See if it reignites. The spark a little bit.

When that spark grows, you feel it be kind to this innocent version of yourself as you would be to any child. Love the spark, love your inner child, tell your inner child you are worthy.

You are deserving love, the innocence, love, being protected, love, feeling safe, be kind to that spark. Today, the third section is uh a poem reading.

It's real short. I'll read it three times in a row with a small break in between.

It will be about a minute long and again, during this part, you can just either sit and enjoy the reading. Take the lesson that the poem gives to you or simply zone out and really go for that uh meditation.

The, the the mind's Eye version of meditation. The poem today is if you would grow by Daniel F me, if you would grow to your best self, be patient, not demanding, accepting, not condemning, nurturing, not withholding self marveling, not belittling, gently guiding, not pushing and punishing for.

You are more sensitive than you know, mankind is as tough as war, yet delicate as flowers. We can endure agonies, but we open fully only to warmth in life.

And our need to grow is as fragile as a fragrance dispersed by storms of will to return. Only when those storms are still so accept respect and attend to your sensitivity.

A hammer kin, a flower cannot be opened with a hammer. If you would grow by Daniel f mead.

If you would grow to your best self, be patient, not demanding, accepting, not condemning, nurturing, not withholding self marveling, not belittling, gently guiding, not pushing and punishing for.

You are more sensitive than you know, mankind is as tough as war, yet delicate as flowers. We can endure agonies, but we open fully only to warmth in life and our need to grow is as fragile as a fragrance dispersed by storms of will to return.

Only when those storms are still so except respect and attend to your sensitivity. A flower cannot be opened with a hammer.

If you would grow by Daniel f mead, if you would grow to your best self, be patient, not demanding, accepting, not condemning, nurturing, not withholding self marveling, not belittling, gently, guiding, not pushing and punishing for you are more sensitive than you know, mankind is as tough as war, yet delicate as flowers.

We can endure agonies, but we open fully only to warmth and light. And our need to grow is as fragile as a fragrance dispersed by storms of will to return only when those storms are still so accept respect and attend to your sensitivity.

A flower cannot be opened with a hammer and as you return to yourself to your body in your chair, in your room, in your house apartment, I hope you take this practice with you for the rest of the day.

And remember you can do this anytime, anywhere. It's a great way to censor yourself, especially in these unknown, unprecedented times, treat yourself to a glass of water, maybe a short walk.

And thank you for joining me in continuing to care for your mental and physical health. During COVID-19, you can tune in later today for an AMA with doc doctor Rishi Desai.

We're also offering a yoga session on Saturday and you can meet me back here next week for another guided meditation. You can find more information regarding these events and all our COVID-19 resources at osmosis.org/covid-19 OSMOSIS has your back.

You're welcome.