A Free Guided Meditation For You Amidst the Challenges of This Time

This is a moment in time we’ve all been struggling with in very different and also similar ways. Procrastination has gotten the better of me in writing a letter to all of you because I haven’t been able to land on what to offer that could speak to everyone’s experience.

But, as I often do, I find myself coming back to the healing powers of mindfulness and self-compassion.

Amidst the escalating nature of the coronavirus, the growth of panic, fear, and anxiety has taken the driver’s seat within most, if not all of us, as we face major uncertainty, and understandably so. Whether you are struggling with contagion anxiety, frustrated by the disruption to your routine, overwhelmed (among other emotions) by having your spouse and kids at home, stressed about your job, worried about loved ones who are highly vulnerable, or feeling isolated and lonely from social distancing – I hear you.

The #1 struggle I’m hearing from clients, friends, and family is navigating uncertainty.

Uncertainty is like a breeding ground for anxiety. It makes sense that you feel worried, anxious, fearful. When you can’t predict what’s going to happen down the road, let alone next week, it’s our brain’s job to go to the worst case scenario in order to protect ourselves and make sure we survive.

This is where mindfulness and self-compassion come in.

As we’ve heard many times, anxiety occurs when we are either focused on something that happened in the past or that may or may not happen in the future. In this case, many of us are focused on the unknown of the future. Mindfulness brings us into the present moment where we have access to our ability to consciously choose our response to stress. It’s where we have access to our breath that can soothe our highly alerted nervous systems.

Also in this case, many of us are becoming increasingly frustrated by our struggles (home life, work, isolation, etc). We are frustrated with ourselves and others, and just want this to be over. Self-compassion means caring for ourselves in the same way we would care for someone we love. Self-compassion reduces suffering and increases resilience.

Please find below my gift to you – a guided meditation to help you cultivate self-compassion.

It’s under 10 minutes, so it’s easy to set aside time for a self-compassion break in the day. In order to cope well right now, I also encourage you to – take walks outside, have FaceTime dance parties with friends, have limits with the media, both social and news, spend more time being present and do things that counterbalance the stress in your body, also, re-frame social distancing as physical distancing (it’s not really about being social).

Click here for your guided meditation!

We will get to the other side of this.

If you have any questions or need extra support, I’m here for you.

You can reach out by contacting me. I’d love to know how the meditation is for you, and if you’d like more meditations sent to your inbox, or for me to start a weekly online group meditation!