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- Meditation
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- Burnout
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- Burnout Meditation 06
Session 6/10
Transcript
Welcome back to day six. Hopefully by now you are starting to feel a lot more comfortable with this exercise. Hopefully, you’re starting to experience some of the benefits of the exercise. The benefit being feeling a bit at ease with your mind and feelings, no matter what they are. Today we are talking about one of the main components of burnout stress.
Do you know that there are two kinds of stress, positive stress and negative stress? Think of positive stress as excitement. Whereas negative stress is classified as a response which overtakes your entire body, forcing it to go in fight and flight mode, leading to mental and physical exhaustion, possibly burnout.
Stress Management is a skill and once you learn to effectively manage the stress, you will have a much better reign at managing burnout. Today we are working on the innate quality of mind that is calm and peaceful. The crux of the exercise is that when the mind settles down a bit, you can see your circumstances and your situation in a much better way. The exercise has a visualization component to it along with a mindfulness one. The exercise strengthens your ability to stay mindful in the moment and not letting the emotions run off to a place of overwhelm.
But now, just take a moment or two to get comfortable in your chair or floor. keeping the shoulders and the posture straight, but relaxed. allow the body to let go of any tension. And when you’re comfortable, start the usual way with a few nice deep breaths. And with the next out breath, gently close your eyes or keep them at a soft focus as you start noticing the sensations around you. Any smells, sounds and movements scan the body from head to toe for any signs of discomfort, tension or stress. continued to focus on the breath as you become more aware of both the physical sensation and the emotions arising in the moment.
If the mind wanders, gently come back to breathing again. You can try counting your breath or simply follow the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling.
We have been using breathing as a tool before. Here. Deep breathing holds even more significance because it signals to the mind and body that everything all right. While fight and flight is an important life saving response, it can easily go into override, unless we train the mind and body to be selective. Your goal with learning to manage stress is to train the mind and body to stay mindful of the thoughts that arise, as well as your response to these thoughts and feelings. Continue to breathe in and out, reminding yourself of why you’re doing this, and how it will help you. And then rest your attention on the rising and falling sensation of your breath. As you do that, begin to visualize a steady flow of warm, gentle light from the top of the head, just sunlight flowing down into the body, bringing with it a peaceful sense of balance. As you feel the sunlight warming your body, imagine any tension melting away. any discomfort there is disappearing altogether. It flows all the way to the top of the head. And any tension in the body continues to be replaced with a warm sense of peace.
And then in that space, just allowing the mind to do what ever it wants to do.
And now just bringing the attention back to the body, starting to feel the weight of gravity, again, contact between the body and the chair, or the body and the floor. starting to notice the sounds again, as you just bring the mind back in the space around you. noticing the world around you on your own time. When you do just maintain the position, not jumping up from the chair. Just taking the time. Really appreciate how it feels to have a greater sense of balance. What it’s like to take that time out for yourself. here I’d like to mention that learning to manage stress is something that comes with time and practice. To increase that sense of familiarity and comfort with being more mindful of your thoughts. Remind yourself to take a few minutes every day to practice this exercise.
This brings us to the end of session six and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow for day seven.
”Deep breathing holds even more significance because it signals to the mind and body that everything all right.