Scroll down to see the transcript for this episode.
Research shows that feeling connected to nature lowers stress responses. This visualization meditation will help you feel safe wherever you are.
Link to episode transcript: http://tinyurl.com/2k6pdh7n
How to do this exercise:
We recommend trying this exercise outdoors
Today’s Happiness Break hosts:
- Begin your practice by focusing on your breathing, relaxing your body, and feeling how your body is supported, especially by the earth.
- Let go of whatever you are holding on to mentally or emotionally and visualize it falling to the earth, allowing the ground to continue to support you.
- Use images from nature to develop feelings of strength and fortitude to support you. For example, imagine your body is like a tree, rooted in the earth and unwavering. Imagine yourself as stable as a mountain, your breath as a breeze, and your heart as open and limitless as the sky.
- Finish the practice by placing your hand on your heart and offering yourself kindness, happiness, and joy.
spring washam I’m a writer and meditation teacher based in Oakland, California.
To learn more about Spring’s work, visit http://tinyurl.com/3bbshnn7.
Read Spring’s book here: http://tinyurl.com/4hkft4js
Additional resources from the Greater Good Science Center:
Happy Break: What to do when you’re struggling in Spring Washam: http://tinyurl.com/mrx8t9st
What happens when we reconnect with nature: http://tinyurl.com/553xwm47
Why is nature so good for mental health? http://tinyurl.com/ycx9ns4p
How nature helps us heal: http://tinyurl.com/2p93682j
Why you need more nature in your life: http://tinyurl.com/28z27wb2
We look forward to hearing from you. How do you connect with nature? Email us at happypod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus
Please help us share Happiness Break! Please rate, copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus
We are living a mental health crisis. Between stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and burnout, everyone can use a break to feel better. That’s where Happiness Break comes into play. In biweekly podcast episodes, instructors teach research-backed practices and meditations that you can perform in real time. These relaxing and uplifting practices are lab-proven to help foster calmness, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more, and the latest science says they directly support your health. Masu. All done within 10 minutes. For a short break during the day.
Transcription:
Dutcher Keltner: This is Happiness Break. In just a few minutes, you’ll find stillness, engage in deeper connections with others and the world around you, and try practices that have been shown to help reduce anxiety.
I’m Dutcher Keltner. welcome!
This week we will be doing a grounding meditation to draw inspiration from the qualities of the natural world around us.
We know from the literature that feeling connected to nature lowers cortisol levels, increases vagal tone, and calms the nervous system.
I highly recommend trying this exercise somewhere, preferably outdoors. However, this exercise can be done anywhere, including indoors.
Today you’ll be guided by Spring Washam, meditation teacher and author of the book “The Soul of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from Below.”
Spring will come when you are ready.
Spring Washam: So when we begin to feel ourselves sitting, and I always like to start by anchoring our attention to the breath as we enter the present moment, we let the breath become our guiding force. Use it as power. This is the anchor of our perception. Inhale it and go up. Then, while exhaling, fall. And now feel where you are sitting and where you are standing. And feel how this element supports you and supports you at every moment.
Relax your entire body and posture. What we are doing when we are grounding is allowing the elements of the Earth to support us.
This sense of grounding and the practice of grounding also lead to connecting with the earth.
Sit, breathe, and let go of everything you have. we give it to the earth. We let the energy of the ground hold everything. It’s as if we dissolve ourselves and allow this ground energy to sustain you.
The more I return to my body, the more grounded I feel. Feel the body of the earth beneath you.
Earth is strong. It’s stable, it’s rooted.
When I think of grounding exercises, I always imagine myself as a tree. My energy is like a tree with roots reaching the center of the earth, right? When you look at these beautiful trees, you can see that their roots reach deep into the earth.
We like to imagine our own bodies as rooted and unmoving. When we are grounded, we are unwavering. Life cannot corner us in the same way.
And as you breathe in, and as you breathe out, let go and give everything you have to the Earth. Distracted mind, anxiety, fear, restlessness.
Now let your body be like a big mountain, imagining that it is about to melt.
And breathing is a breeze.
And my heart is empty.
The presence of the earth element and a sense of being grounded.
And with each breath, let go.
Like a clump of trees, they take root and connect. Our upper body is where our legs are rooted in the earth and our branches grow. So, stretch your body, your upper body, toward the sky, and stretch the branches of the tree toward the sky. The sun and the trunk are the lower half of the body and support it from the ground up.
And when I finish this meditation, I always like to end with a hand on my heart, giving me a feeling of kindness, happiness, and joy. May this body be happy and peaceful.
These are great tools and great visualizations that you can practice at any time. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, when you’re stressed, you can be like the earth for a moment and be like the great mountain. I hope you find this practice useful. thank you.
