Speaker 1: Opening to welcome. You have arrived exactly where you need
Speaker 1: to be. There is nothing you must do right now,
Speaker 1: nothing to fix, nothing to figure out. Simply be here,
Speaker 1: in this breath, in this body, in this quiet moment
Speaker 1: that belongs only to you. I want you to know
Speaker 1: something before we begin. Whatever you carried with you to day,
Speaker 1: whatever loops played in your mind on repeat, whatever weight
Speaker 1: pressed against your chest as you moved through your hours,
Speaker 1: not because it is vanished, but because you have chosen
Speaker 1: to set it down. That choice, right there is the
Speaker 1: beginning of everything. You may be lying down, or setting,
Speaker 1: or curled into whatever position feels mostly shelter. Perhaps your
Speaker 1: back is against a wall, Perhaps your head rests on
Speaker 1: a pillow that has taken the shape of your face
Speaker 1: from countless nights of use. Perhaps your hands are folded
Speaker 1: on your chest or resting by your sides, like leaves
Speaker 1: fall into the forest floor.
Speaker 2: Wherever you are, let your body arrange itself the way
Speaker 2: a river arranges itself around stones, no effort, no correction,
Speaker 2: just the gentle falling into what is already true.
Speaker 1: The practice we.
Speaker 3: Share tonight is simple, and it is ancient, and it
Speaker 3: has carried millions of people through the same kind of
Speaker 3: restlessness you may feel. Right now, we will use the
Speaker 3: breath as our vehicle, not to force calm, not to
Speaker 3: suppress anxiety.
Speaker 1: But to meet it, to understand it, and ultimately to
Speaker 1: let it dissolve into something softer, something that no longer
Speaker 1: controls the rhythm of your days. Close your eyes, if
Speaker 1: that feels right, If not, let your gaze fall to
Speaker 1: a single point and soften it, the way your eyes
Speaker 1: soften when you stare at a kendle flame in a
Speaker 1: dark room, the way the flame itself softens when no
Speaker 1: wind disturbed it. Let the world be all your eyelids,
Speaker 1: blur and fate, until the only thing that remains is
Speaker 1: the landscape inside you. The sounds outside will still be
Speaker 1: there when you return. The tasks will wait. The boat
Speaker 1: has survived without your attention for billions of years. It
Speaker 1: can survive for the next forty minutes while you tend
Speaker 1: to yourself. If you have been holding tension in the
Speaker 1: small muscles around your eyes, let them release now. The
Speaker 1: muscles above the eyebrows, the muscles at the outer corners,
Speaker 1: the ones that crinkle when you smile, but also when
Speaker 1: you squint against something painful, The muscles just below the
Speaker 1: lower light lashes. Let them all soften, as if a
Speaker 1: warm cloth has been laid across your forehead and gently
Speaker 1: pressed there. You might notice that the moment you soften
Speaker 1: these muscles, something in your mind softens too. The face
Speaker 1: and the mind.
Speaker 4: Are not separate. They are partners. What one does the
Speaker 4: air their echoes. Breathe just one breath, Feel our air arrive,
Speaker 4: Notice where it goes.
Speaker 5: Notice how the body knows what to do without instruction,
Speaker 5: the way a tree knows how to turn its leaves
Speaker 5: toward the light without being told, the way a river
Speaker 5: knows how to find the sea without a map. You
Speaker 5: do not need to micromanage this bread. You simply need
Speaker 5: to let it happen.
Speaker 1: Settling in, take one slow breath in through your nose.
Speaker 1: Feel the cool air slide past your nostrils, down the
Speaker 1: back of your throat, filling the upper chambers of your lungs.
Speaker 1: Notice the tiny hairs inside your nose, filtering the air,
Speaker 1: the warmth of it as it descends. Now release it,
Speaker 1: letting it pour out through slightly parted lips, like steam
Speaker 1: rising from warm tea on a winter morning. There that
Speaker 1: was not ever, That was permission now begin to notice
Speaker 1: the points of contact between your body and the surface
Speaker 1: beneath you. The weight of your shoulders pressing into the cushion,
Speaker 1: the heaviness of your hips settling, the backs of your
Speaker 1: hands wherever they rest, Palms up or palms down. It
Speaker 1: does not matter. What matters is that you feel the
Speaker 1: ground holding you. You are not floating in uncertainty. You
Speaker 1: are held. The chair does not judge you. The beard
Speaker 1: does not ask you to be anything other than what
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 6: Right now, let your jaws soften. Most of us carry
Speaker 6: our anxiety right there, clunched between molars, pressed into the
Speaker 6: roof of the mouth. Imagine your jaw unhinging, not painfully,
Speaker 6: but the way a door swings open on a quiet hinge.
Speaker 6: Let your tongue fall away from the roof of your mouth.
Speaker 6: Let your lips part just slightly, just enough that you
Speaker 6: could feel the cool air on your teeth if you
Speaker 6: were to draw a breath through your mouth.
Speaker 1: Feel the tiny muscles around your eyes begin to release,
Speaker 1: the way sand releases from between your fingers when you
Speaker 1: open your hand. The muscles at the temples, the muscles
Speaker 1: across the brow, the muscles at the bridge of the nose.
Speaker 1: One by one, Let them go. Scan your body from
Speaker 1: the prown of your head downward, not with judgment, but
Speaker 1: with curiosity, the way a hand passes over silk to
Speaker 1: find its texture. Notice where tension lives the neck, the shoulders,
Speaker 1: the belly, the thighs.
Speaker 7: V cabs, the small spaces between the toes. You do
Speaker 7: not need to fix any of it. Simply locate it,
Speaker 7: name it. Say to yourself quietly, I see you. I
Speaker 7: know you are here. You do not need to stay,
Speaker 7: but I am not going to push you out either.
Speaker 7: We can coexist for these few minutes. Now bring your
Speaker 7: attention to the quality of your breath, not changing it,
Speaker 7: just observing it. Is it shallow quick? Is there a
Speaker 7: pause at the top of the inhale or does the
Speaker 7: breath flow continuously?
Speaker 1: Is the exhale longer than that inhale or shorter? Just
Speaker 1: notice you are a scientist observing the weather inside your
Speaker 1: own chests. No agenda, just curiosity. Entering inner landscape. Now,
Speaker 1: with your eyes still closed, I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: a place. It does not need to be real, It
Speaker 1: does not need to be beautiful, It simply needs to
Speaker 1: be yours. Perhaps it is a room you remember from childhood,
Speaker 1: with afternoon light pulling on a wooden floor in dust mode,
Speaker 1: drifting through slanted sunbeams. Perhaps it is a path through
Speaker 1: a forest, where the canopy filters the sky into fragments
Speaker 1: of green and gold, and the air smells of pond
Speaker 1: needles decaying slowly into rich earth. Perhaps it is simply
Speaker 1: as white space, dark and warm, like the inside of
Speaker 1: a cocoon, where nothing exists but the sound of your
Speaker 1: own breathing. Perhaps is a beach you have never visited,
Speaker 1: but somehow no.
Speaker 8: A griy, skid morning at the edge of the ocean,
Speaker 8: where the waves roll in with a rhythm so steady
Speaker 8: it feels almost mechanical, almost ancient, like a heartbeat belonging
Speaker 8: to the earth itself. The sand beneath your feet is
Speaker 8: dark and wet, the air is salt. The gulls cry
Speaker 8: somewhere in the distance. Their voice is thin and plaintive,
Speaker 8: but not troubling. Or perhaps your place is smaller, a
Speaker 8: closet under a staircase.
Speaker 1: A corner of a barn where sunlight comes through the
Speaker 1: boards and narrow stripes painting bright lines across the dust
Speaker 1: covered floor. A window seat where you sat as a
Speaker 1: child watching rainfall in a garden, listening to the drops
Speaker 1: on leaves, and the distant rumble of thunder that never
Speaker 1: quite arrived.
Speaker 7: The smell of.
Speaker 1: Wet earth I'm raising through the open frame, The taste
Speaker 1: of the air, mineral and electric. The feeling of being
Speaker 1: completely safe, completely unobserved, completely yourself. Whatever it is, step
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 1: Feel the ground beneath your feet in this inner place.
Speaker 1: Is it cool stone, soft grass, warm sand, wooden planks
Speaker 1: that creak slightly under your weight. Let the sensation arrive
Speaker 1: on its own. Do not construct it. Let it reveal itself,
Speaker 1: the way a photograph develops in liquid image, emerging from blankness,
Speaker 1: the picture already there in the paper, just waiting for
Speaker 1: the chemicals to bring it to the surface. Now look around.
Speaker 10: What do you see?
Speaker 1: Colors, shapes, movements, stillness. Let you inner eye rest on
Speaker 1: whatever draws it. There is no wrong thing to see here.
Speaker 1: If you see nothing, that is fine too. Darkness is
Speaker 1: not absence, it is rest. If colors appear, let them
Speaker 1: be what they are. If a single image presents itself
Speaker 1: a candle, flame, a tree, an open door, let it stay.
Speaker 1: Listen what sounds exist in this place? Perhaps a whisper
Speaker 1: of wind through something, perhaps complete silence, perhaps a distant
Speaker 1: sound like what they are moving underground, or the creak
Speaker 1: of old words settling. Let the sounds be what they are.
Speaker 1: You do not need to interpret them. You are not
Speaker 1: here to analyze. You are here to arrive. Walk a
Speaker 1: few steps if you can feel how the ground responds
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 9: Wait?
Speaker 1: Does it give? Does it hold firm? Does it make
Speaker 1: a sound beneath your feet? The crunch of gravel, the
Speaker 1: soft press of moss, the slick give of what storm
Speaker 1: bloody place welcome you the way a quiet house welcomes
Speaker 1: so long returning after a long journey.
Speaker 11: You are here.
Speaker 1: You have arrived. There is nowhere else you need to
Speaker 1: be but wolves houlding? Would you carry in this quiet place?
Speaker 1: I want you to bring your awareness to what you
Speaker 1: have been carrying, Not the events themselves, not the details
Speaker 1: of your worries, what the sensation of them in your body?
Speaker 1: Where does anxiety live in you right now? Perhaps it
Speaker 1: is a tightness behind your sternum, like a fist pressed
Speaker 1: against your breastbone from the inside. Perhaps it is a
Speaker 1: buzzing in the temples, a low frequency hum that never
Speaker 1: quite stops. Even in moments when everything else is still.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is an ad in the stomach, coiled and dense,
Speaker 1: like something swallowed whole that never plague settled. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: sits in the throat, a thickness that makes each swallow
Speaker 1: feel like a small effort. Perhaps lives in the lower back,
Speaker 1: a dike that flares when you think about what comes next.
Speaker 1: Breathe toward it, not to push it away, but to
Speaker 1: bring warmth to it. Imagine your breath as a stream
Speaker 1: of warm water flowing directly into the place where the
Speaker 1: anxiety resides, the way warm water softens clay that has
Speaker 1: been left too long in the cold, the way sunlight
Speaker 1: softens frost on a window pane, melting it slowly into
Speaker 1: droplets that slide down the glass, The way a hot
Speaker 1: stone held in the palm slowly transfers its heat to
Speaker 1: the skin until the two temperatures become indistinguishable. You are
Speaker 1: not attacking the anxiety. You are telling it that you
Speaker 1: see it, and that you are willing to stay, and
Speaker 1: that it does not have to keep its grip so tight.
Speaker 1: Name it. If you can say to yourself, this is
Speaker 1: worry about the future, or this is grief. I have
Speaker 1: not finished feeling a loss. I have not yet let
Speaker 1: myself fully feel. This is the weight of too much responsibility,
Speaker 1: too many decisions, too many people depending on me to
Speaker 1: hold things together, when I myself feel like I am
Speaker 1: coming apart, or simply this is fear, the old, simple
Speaker 1: mammalian fear that lives in all of us, the fear
Speaker 1: of not being safe, not being held, not being seen.
Speaker 1: Whatever word fits, let it rise to the surface. Naming
Speaker 1: a thing does not make it smaller, but it makes
Speaker 1: it knowable. And what is noble can be held, what
Speaker 1: can be held can be released. Stay with us for
Speaker 1: a moment, braid, feel the weight of it fully, without flintship.
Speaker 1: This is courage, not the absence of fear, but the
Speaker 1: willingness to look at it with open eyes. There's an
Speaker 1: old proverb that says courage is not the lack of fear,
Speaker 1: but the decision that something else is more important than fear. Tonight,
Speaker 1: what is more important than fear is this practice, this pause,
Speaker 1: this breath, this return to yourself. You may notice that
Speaker 1: the sensation shifts slightly as you observe it. Anxiety does
Speaker 1: not like to be watched. It prefers to operate in
Speaker 1: the dark, where it can swell and grow unobserved. The
Speaker 1: moment you bring light to it, the moment you say
Speaker 1: its name, it begins to lose some of its power,
Speaker 1: not because you have defeated it, but because you have
Speaker 1: made it real, and the real one seen can be
Speaker 1: met the act of letting go. Now we begin the
Speaker 1: work of release. And I want to be clear, this
Speaker 1: is not a forceful act. Letting go is not ripping
Speaker 1: something from yourself. It is more like opening your hands
Speaker 1: when you have been gripping something for a very long time.
Speaker 1: The fingers remember their grip, the muscles remember their tension.
Speaker 1: But when you slowly, slowly uncur, what was held simply
Speaker 1: falls away, carried by gravity, by time, by the quiet
Speaker 1: insistence of your own breath. And imagine the anxiety in
Speaker 1: your body as a color. What color is it. Perhaps
Speaker 1: a murky gray, the color of storm clouds before rain.
Speaker 1: Perhaps a deep red, the color of heat and alarm,
Speaker 1: the color of a warning light. Perhaps a sickly yellow,
Speaker 1: the color of something decaying, of leaves that have been
Speaker 1: lying on the ground too long. Perhaps it is black,
Speaker 1: dense and lightless. Perhaps it is pale blue, washed out,
Speaker 1: like something that has been carried so long as lost
Speaker 1: its original color entirely. But if a color arrives, accept
Speaker 1: it without judgment. This is what it looks like today.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow it may look different. The anxiety that comes from
Speaker 1: the sleepless night has a different hue than the anxiety
Speaker 1: that comes from an unresolved conversation. The anxiety of anticipation
Speaker 1: is not the same as the anxiety of loss. Let
Speaker 1: the color be specific to this moment, this body, this breath. Now,
Speaker 1: with each egg's hill, imagine that color beginning to move,
Speaker 1: not violently, not all at well, but the wast smoke
Speaker 1: moves when a window is opened, slow and curling, drifting
Speaker 1: toward the edges of your body. Each breath out carries
Speaker 1: a little more of that color away from your center.
Speaker 1: It moves from your chest to your shoulders, from your shoulders,
Speaker 1: down your arms, from your arms to your finger tips,
Speaker 1: where it gathers dark and heavy, waiting to fall. Take
Speaker 1: another deep breadth in, feel fresh air filling the space
Speaker 1: the anxiety occupied. Now breed out, and watch the color
Speaker 1: at your fingertip's release. Let it drop, Let it fall
Speaker 1: the way autumn leaves fall from a branch, not because
Speaker 1: they are pushed, But because they have been held long enough,
Speaker 1: and now it is time. The color pools beneath you,
Speaker 1: then evaporates, then disappears, absorbed back into the earth, into
Speaker 1: the air, into the place where all release things go.
Speaker 1: Take another breath in. Feel the likeness in your hands.
Speaker 1: Now they feel different, do they not? Cooler? More open,
Speaker 1: ready to receive instead of grasp. Another breath out, and
Speaker 1: more color leaves from the chest, this time from the throat,
Speaker 1: from the stomach. It moves outward, It gathers at the fingertips,
Speaker 1: it falls. You may feel lighter, you may feel nothing
Speaker 1: at all. Both responses are correct. The body releases on
Speaker 1: its own schedule, not an hour's. Our job is simply
Speaker 1: to create the conditions. The breath is the condition, The
Speaker 1: willingness is the condition. The rest belongs to gravity. Continue
Speaker 1: this for a few more breaths. Let each ex hel
Speaker 1: be a small act of release. Let each inhale be
Speaker 1: a small act of receiving. Watch the colors shift and fade,
Speaker 1: Watch the body soften, watch the mind quiet. Notice how
Speaker 1: with each breath you are choosing peace over panic, presence
Speaker 1: over pretense, breath over busyness. Each of these choices is
Speaker 1: a small victory. They accumulate, they build upon each other.
Speaker 1: They become a kind of muscle memory that you can
Speaker 1: call upon in the moments when anxiety returns and tries
Speaker 1: to convince you that you are not strong enough.
Speaker 10: To face it.
Speaker 1: The body remembers this release even when the mind forgets.
Speaker 1: Long after this practice ends, the cells of your body
Speaker 1: will retain the memory of how it felt to soften,
Speaker 1: to release, to let go. And when the next wave
Speaker 1: of anxiety arrives, as it surely will, the body will
Speaker 1: recognize pattern. It will know the way home.
Speaker 10: It will breed, it will soften, It will let go,
Speaker 10: not because you're told it too, but because it remembers
Speaker 10: releasing deeper layers.
Speaker 12: We have touched the surface. Now let us go deeper.
Speaker 12: Anxiety is not always what it appears to be on
Speaker 12: the surface. Beneath a worry about to morrow, there is
Speaker 12: often something older, something rooted farther back in time, something
Speaker 12: that has been with you so long you have mistaken
Speaker 12: it for part of who you are, the way a
Speaker 12: tree mistakes the wall that has grown around it for
Speaker 12: its own bark. Bring your attention again to the place
Speaker 12: in your body where anxiety.
Speaker 1: Lives, as it shifted. Perhaps it has moved upward from
Speaker 1: the stomach to the chest. Perhaps it has loosened just slightly,
Speaker 1: like ice beginning to thaw at its edges. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: has not changed at all. That is fine. We are
Speaker 1: not demanding transformation. We are inviting it now. Beneath the
Speaker 1: color you identified before, imagine a second layer. This one
Speaker 1: is deeper, older. It may be a different color, entirely
Speaker 1: something you did not expect. Perhaps it is the deep
Speaker 1: blue black of a winter sky before snow, when the
Speaker 1: clouds hang so low they seem to touch the rooftops.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is rest red, the color of old iron,
Speaker 1: the color of something that has been exposed to too
Speaker 1: much weather. Perhaps it is gray brown, the color of
Speaker 1: river silt, of sediment that has settled at the bottom
Speaker 1: of something. Still, whatever it is, to breathe toward it,
Speaker 1: the same, warm, steady breath, not faster, not slower, the
Speaker 1: same piece ye have been keeping, the rhythm of a
Speaker 1: hardpate at wrist. Let the warmth of your breast seep
Speaker 1: through the first layer, and the reach is deeper one.
Speaker 1: The very rain seeps through top soil to reach roots
Speaker 1: varied far below the way warmth seeps through the walls
Speaker 1: of an old house to reach the person sitting inside.
Speaker 1: You do not need to understand this deeper anxis yea.
Speaker 1: You do not need to trace it to its origin
Speaker 1: or solve the puzzle of why it exists. You simply
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge it. Say to yourself, I know you
Speaker 1: are here. I have carried you for a long time.
Speaker 1: You are allowed to rest now. Perhaps this older later
Speaker 1: is the anxiety of childhood. Perhaps it is the residue
Speaker 1: of a loss. Perhaps it is the echo of a
Speaker 1: voice that told you long ago that you were not safe,
Speaker 1: that you were not enough, that you had to be
Speaker 1: vigilant to survive. Whatever it is, it is here, and
Speaker 1: you are not going to run for it, say he
Speaker 1: bree Let the warmth do its quiet, patient work. There
Speaker 1: is no need to force, There is no need to rush.
Speaker 1: The body knows its own pace. Trust it, Trust yourself.
Speaker 1: Trust this moment. You may feel a wave of emotion.
Speaker 1: Some people cry during us part, not from sadness exactly,
Speaker 1: but from the relief of finally being seen, finally being acknowledged,
Speaker 1: finally being allowed to set something down. If tears come,
Speaker 1: let them. Tears are not weakness. They are the body's
Speaker 1: way of releasing what words cannot hold. Let them roll
Speaker 1: down your temples, into your hair, let them faw in
Speaker 1: your chest, Let them be what they are. They are
Speaker 1: not a sign that something is wrong with you. They
Speaker 1: are a sign that something is finally, finally being allowed
Speaker 1: to move through you. If nothing comes, that is fine too.
Speaker 1: Not every release announces itself.
Speaker 13: Sometimes the most profound shifts happened silently below the threshold
Speaker 13: of feeling, in the quiet architecture of the nervous system itself.
Speaker 13: A river can move a mountain of silt without any
Speaker 13: single moment looking dramatic. The drama is in the persistence.
Speaker 13: So too with your healing. You do not need to
Speaker 13: feel it to be happening. Trust the practice, Trust the breath,
Speaker 13: Trust the deeper wisdom of your body, which has been
Speaker 13: healing itself since the moment you were bored.
Speaker 1: Now, Notice the difference between this deeper layer and the
Speaker 1: surface anxiety you released earlier. The surface anxiety was quick, reactive,
Speaker 1: the kind that comes from an immediate trigger. This deeper
Speaker 1: layer is a slower, older, more like the base note
Speaker 1: beneath the melody. It has been there a long time.
Speaker 1: Releasing it may not feel as immediate, but the effects
Speaker 1: are longer lasting. When you release per layers, you are
Speaker 1: not just managing anxiety. You are changing your relationship to it.
Speaker 1: You are becoming someone who no longer carries it as
Speaker 1: a defining feature, meeting your quiet core. Beneath the anxiety,
Speaker 1: beneath all the layers of worry and fear and responsibility,
Speaker 1: there is something else, something that has been eating for
Speaker 1: you to arrive at it the way a light weights
Speaker 1: behind curtains for someone to draw them open. Something that
Speaker 1: was there before the anxiety arrived, and may be there
Speaker 1: long after the anxiety has gone. I want you to
Speaker 1: find it now. It is not allowed. It does not
Speaker 1: announce itself. It is more like the stillness at the
Speaker 1: bottom of a lake after all the reports have smoothed
Speaker 1: themselves out. It is the part of you that existed
Speaker 1: before anxiety ever touched you, the part that here before
Speaker 1: the first wary arrived, before the first sleepless night, before
Speaker 1: the first moment you thought I cannot carry this much longer.
Speaker 1: This is your quiet core. It is not optimism. It
Speaker 1: is not pretending that everything is fine. It is something
Speaker 1: more fundamental than that. It is the awareness that exists
Speaker 1: beneath all thought, the awareness that watches thoughts come and
Speaker 1: go without becoming them. You are not your anxiety, You
Speaker 1: are not your worries. You are not the stories you
Speaker 1: tell yourself about.
Speaker 9: Who you are.
Speaker 1: You are the one who notices all of that, the
Speaker 1: silent witness, the sky that holds the storm without being
Speaker 1: touched by it. Rest here for a moment what it
Speaker 1: is like to exist in this space where nothing is
Speaker 1: required of you, where no problem needs solving, where the
Speaker 1: only task is to be present. This is not escapism.
Speaker 1: This is home. This is the place you return to
Speaker 1: after every storm, even when you do not realize you
Speaker 1: have returned. This is the place you have always been
Speaker 1: able to find, even in the darkest hour, even when
Speaker 1: the world outside seemed impossible to bear. Breathe into the space.
Speaker 1: Let it expand, not with effort, but the way clearing
Speaker 1: expands when the trees around it grow a little further apart.
Speaker 1: Over the years, room bind room, breath by breath, this
Speaker 1: quiet place inside you grows larger until it has room
Speaker 1: for everything, even the anxiety, even the fear, even.
Speaker 14: The weight of all you carry.
Speaker 1: There is room here. There is always room. The quiet
Speaker 1: core does not shrink, It does not run out.
Speaker 11: It is inexhaustible, the way the sgui is inexhaustible, the
Speaker 11: way the ocean is inexhaustible, The way love, when it
Speaker 11: is real, does not diminish by being shared. Stay here
Speaker 11: as long as you wish. There is no clock in
Speaker 11: this place, no deadline, just presence, just breath, just a soft,
Speaker 11: steady effect of your own being settling into your new lightness.
Speaker 11: Let us pause here and notice what has shifted. You
Speaker 11: do not need to measure it or compare it to
Speaker 11: where you started. Simply notice. Is there a little more
Speaker 11: space in your chests, a little more room between your thoughts.
Speaker 11: Perhaps your breathing has slowed without your asking it too.
Speaker 11: Perhaps your heartbeat feels softer, less insistent, more like a
Speaker 11: rhythm you can rest inside, rather than a drum.
Speaker 1: You have to march to whatever has changed, however subtle,
Speaker 1: let it settle. You are not forcing a new state,
Speaker 1: You're allowing a natural one to emerge. The way water
Speaker 1: finds its level when the vessels stops shaking, the way
Speaker 1: dust settles when the room is still. The way a
Speaker 1: city falls quiet after the last train has passed and
Speaker 1: the streets belong again to no one. Your body knows
Speaker 1: how to find peace. It has always known. You have
Speaker 1: simply given it permission. Feel the lightness in your limbs.
Speaker 1: Your arms may feel heavier, which paradoxically means they are lighter,
Speaker 1: released from the muscular tension they have been holding. Your
Speaker 1: legs may feel warm, grounded, connected to the earth beneath
Speaker 1: you in a way you had forgotten was possible. Your
Speaker 1: face may feel smooth, uncreased, the muscles around your eyes
Speaker 1: and mouth finally at ease, the way a face lurks
Speaker 1: after a long hot bath, when every poor has exhaled,
Speaker 1: when every small crease of worry has been summooed by
Speaker 1: steam and warmth. Notice the temperature of your hands. Are
Speaker 1: they warmer than before? The worms of blood slowing frus,
Speaker 1: no longer conscricted by attention. Notice the weight.
Speaker 15: Of your head. It may feel heavier on the pillow
Speaker 15: or on the back of the chair. And the way
Speaker 15: that things feel when they are no longer held up
Speaker 15: by effort, but simply rest. Notice the rhythm of your heart.
Speaker 15: It is probably slowed, each beat a little softer, a
Speaker 15: little further apart, a little more like a conversation than
Speaker 15: a shout. This is what it feels like when you
Speaker 15: stop bracing for the next blow.
Speaker 1: This is what it feels like when you trust, even briefly,
Speaker 1: that you can handle whatever comes, not because you are invincible,
Speaker 1: but because you are resilient, and because you are not alone.
Speaker 1: Even in the moments when loneliness feels absolute, the breath
Speaker 1: is with you, The quiet core is with you. The
Speaker 1: fact of your own existence is with you and unwavery
Speaker 1: companion that has never once left your side, even when
Speaker 1: you thought you were abandoned, even when you felt invisible,
Speaker 1: even when the nights seem to have no end. Let
Speaker 1: these feelings sink in. Let it become part of you,
Speaker 1: the way water becomes part of a sponge. You are
Speaker 1: absorb in this calm. You are taking it into every
Speaker 1: cell of your body. It is yours now. No one
Speaker 1: can take it from you. It will stay with you
Speaker 1: long after this practice ends, woven into the fabric of
Speaker 1: your nervous system, a resource you can draw on whenever
Speaker 1: you need it. Breath work, integration. Let us now use
Speaker 1: the breath as a tool for deepening this state of calm.
Speaker 1: I will guide you through a pattern, and I want
Speaker 1: you to follow it at whatever pace feels natural. If
Speaker 1: it feels too fast, slow it down. If it feels
Speaker 1: too slow, speed it up slightly. The pattern is a
Speaker 1: suggestion your body is the authority. We will breathe in
Speaker 1: for four colns, hold for two, exhale for six, hold
Speaker 1: for two.
Speaker 16: This ratio four two six two activates the parasympathetic nervous system,
Speaker 16: the part of your body that governs rest and recovery.
Speaker 16: It is a direct signal to your brain that you
Speaker 16: are safe, that there is no predator, that you can
Speaker 16: stand down. The exhale longer than the inhale mimics the
Speaker 16: rhythm of the body at rest, the rhythm of sleep,
Speaker 16: the rhythm of the breath as it slows towards stillness.
Speaker 1: Let us begin. Breathe in two three four.
Speaker 9: Feel the air fill the lower lungs first, then the middle,
Speaker 9: then the upper hole.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 9: Now exhale slowly through your mouth two three, four, five six.
Speaker 9: Feel the body sulfen with each second of the exhale.
Speaker 9: Hold two. Feel the emptiness, which is not emptiness at all,
Speaker 9: but a kind of fullness, the fullness of stillness. Again,
Speaker 9: breathe in two three, hold to exhale two three four
Speaker 9: five six, hold two Notice that each cycle deep as
Speaker 9: a calm.
Speaker 8: The first round is a signal, the second is an invitation.
Speaker 8: By the third round, your body begins to listen. By
Speaker 8: the fourth, something shifts, The thoughts become quieter. The world
Speaker 8: outside the room grows more distant. You are sinking into yourself,
Speaker 8: into that quiet core we visited earlier. The edges of
Speaker 8: your body grow soft, as if you are dissolving into
Speaker 8: the chair, into the bed, into the air around you.
Speaker 8: Continue this rhythm on your own.
Speaker 17: Now, I will be quiet for a moment while you
Speaker 17: breathe four counts in, two counts, hold, six counts out,
Speaker 17: two counts.
Speaker 1: Hold.
Speaker 17: Let the exhale be the longest part. Let it carry
Speaker 17: away whatever still clings. Let each breath out be a
Speaker 17: small act of surrender, a whispered yes to the release
Speaker 17: you have already begun. Imagine each inhale as drawing in
Speaker 17: a soft golden light, the color of land afternoon sun
Speaker 17: through cathedral glass. Imagine each exhale as releasing a dark
Speaker 17: smoke which rises and dissolves into the air above you,
Speaker 17: disappearing into nothing.
Speaker 1: Take four more cycles. Feel the rhythm become effortless, the
Speaker 1: way a heart beat is effortless, the way the tide
Speaker 1: is effortless, the way the seasons turn without anyone pushing them.
Speaker 1: You are not making this happen, You are allowing it.
Speaker 1: There is a difference, and it changes everything. The mind
Speaker 1: that tries to force calm usually finds only frustration.
Speaker 18: The mind that allows calm usually finds calm itself quietly,
Speaker 18: the way a quiet guest arrives at a quiet house.
Speaker 18: When you have finished your four cycles, return to a
Speaker 18: natural breath. Do not try to maintain the pattern. Just
Speaker 18: let your breath do whatever it wants to do. Notice
Speaker 18: what it does. Often, after breathwork like this, the breath
Speaker 18: finds its own rhythm, deeper and slower than before, the
Speaker 18: way a horse returns to a walk after a gallon
Speaker 18: affirmations for the road. As we begin to wind down
Speaker 18: from this deep practice, I want to offer you a
Speaker 18: series of statements. They are not commands, they are not wishes.
Speaker 18: Their reflections of what is already true in you, even
Speaker 18: if the anxiety tells you otherwise. I will speak them slowly,
Speaker 18: and I invite you to repeat each one silently, letting
Speaker 18: the words settle into the spaces you have just opened.
Speaker 18: I am safe in this moment. My breath is my anchor,
Speaker 18: and it has never failed me. I release what I
Speaker 18: cannot control, and I am lighter for it. Anxiety does
Speaker 18: not define me. It is a passing weather, not the sky.
Speaker 18: I am allowed to rest. I do not have to
Speaker 18: earn it. I trust the process of my own healing,
Speaker 18: even when I cannot see it. With each breath, I
Speaker 18: grow lighter, softer, more at peace. I am more than
Speaker 18: my worries. I am the one who watches them come
Speaker 18: and go. My peace is not fragile, It is deep,
Speaker 18: and it is mine. I choose to return to the
Speaker 18: stillness whenever I need to. The door is always open.
Speaker 18: I am enough, exactly as I am in this breath,
Speaker 18: in this body, in this life, I welcome come into
Speaker 18: every corner of my being, even the corners I have
Speaker 18: been afraid to look at that those were settled. You
Speaker 18: do not need to memorize them.
Speaker 1: They are already stored somewhere deeper than memory, in the body,
Speaker 1: in the breath, in the quiet core that does not
Speaker 1: forget what it knows just because the mind is busy.
Speaker 1: It will surface when you need them. Pipes in the
Speaker 1: middle of a difficult conversation, perhaps in the small hours
Speaker 1: of the morning, when sleep will not come. Perhaps in
Speaker 1: the moment before you walk into a room full of strangers.
Speaker 1: You will not remember hearing them here, but they will
Speaker 1: be there, rising up from the part of you that listens.
Speaker 1: A final walk through the clearing. Let us take one
Speaker 1: more work through the inner place just covered at the
Speaker 1: beginning of Dyspectus. Step back into it now, feel the
Speaker 1: ground beneath your feet, Look around at what is there.
Speaker 10: Has anything changed?
Speaker 1: Perhaps the light has shifted the way it shifts when
Speaker 1: afternoon times due evening, when the gold deepens into rows,
Speaker 1: when the rose deepens into violate, when the valet finally
Speaker 1: surrenders to the dark.
Speaker 19: Perhaps the space feels wider, less enclosed. Perhaps it feels
Speaker 19: exactly the same, and that saneness is itself a kind
Speaker 19: of comfort. Walk slowly through this place. Let your hand
Speaker 19: trail along whatever is near, a wall, a tree, a railing,
Speaker 19: Feel the texture of it beneath your fingertips, rough bark,
Speaker 19: smooth stone, cool metal. This place is yours, and you
Speaker 19: can return to it when other world outside becomes too loud,
Speaker 19: to demanding, too heavy. You do not need an hour
Speaker 19: to find it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a single breath taken with intention will bring you
Speaker 1: back here. Sometimes closing your eyes for three seconds in
Speaker 1: a crowded room will open the door. Breathe the air
Speaker 1: of this place. It tastes different than the air outside.
Speaker 1: Does it not cleaner somehow? Dinner Like the air altitude
Speaker 1: where the body has to work a little harder, but
Speaker 1: reward you with clarity, Or like the air after a
Speaker 1: long rain, when everything has been washed and the world
Speaker 1: smells new again, when the streets shine and the leaves glisten,
Speaker 1: and the air itself feels grateful for to washing.
Speaker 2: This is where.
Speaker 1: Anxiety loses its script. Not in the frantic search for solutions,
Speaker 1: not in the replace of conversations and catastrophes, not in
Speaker 1: the exhausting rehearsal of words tier scenarios that the mind
Speaker 1: loves to perform, like an hour who cannot leave the stage.
Speaker 1: But here, in this still quiet place, where the only
Speaker 1: sound is your own breathing and the only task is
Speaker 1: to be alive, the anxiety cannot follow you here. It
Speaker 1: is too heavy, and this place is too light. It
Speaker 1: can knock at the door, but it cannot enter unless
Speaker 1: you invite it. And here in this place you no
Speaker 1: longer wish to invite it. Here you choose stillness over struggle,
Speaker 1: presence over panic, breath over busyness. Here you are the host,
Speaker 1: not the guest. Sit here for one more moment.
Speaker 20: Feel the ground beneath you, feel the air around you,
Speaker 20: feel quiet inside you.
Speaker 1: You are here, You are enough. You are home. And
Speaker 1: home is not a place you go. It is a state.
Speaker 1: You remember a moment of gratitude Before we leave this place,
Speaker 1: let us pause for gratitude. Not the performance of kind,
Speaker 1: not the chance of blessings recited by route, but the
Speaker 1: real kind, the kind that rises from the chest unbidden,
Speaker 1: the kind that brings a heat behind the eyes and
Speaker 1: a softness in the throat. Be grateful for this breath.
Speaker 1: It has been with you since the moment you were born.
Speaker 1: It has never taken a day off.
Speaker 10: It has never asked for recognition.
Speaker 1: Is it simply sustained you, faithfully, tirelessly, the way the
Speaker 1: earth sustains everything that grows upon it, without asking for thanks.
Speaker 1: Each in hale is a gift, Each ex haile is
Speaker 1: a small completion. Together, they have kept you alive for
Speaker 1: every second of your life, even the seconds when you
Speaker 1: were not conscious of them, even the seconds when you
Speaker 1: did not want to go on. The breath did not
Speaker 1: ask whether you wanted.
Speaker 10: It, It just kept coming.
Speaker 1: Be grateful for your body. For the heart that beats
Speaker 1: without being told, For the lungs that expand and contract
Speaker 1: in their tireless rhythm. For the nerves that carry sensation
Speaker 1: from the souls of your feet to the crown of
Speaker 1: your head. For the eyes that have seen so much
Speaker 1: beauty and so much sorrow and have never once refused
Speaker 1: to open. For the ears that have heard music and
Speaker 1: laughter and grief and have translated it all into something
Speaker 1: you could understand. For the hands that have held and
Speaker 1: built and reached for things. This body has carried you
Speaker 1: through every difficult day, every sleepless night, every moment of fear.
Speaker 1: It is still here, It is still carrying you. It
Speaker 1: deserves your thanks. Be grateful for this moment, For the
Speaker 1: fact that you chose to stop, to breathe, to sit
Speaker 1: with yourself rather than running from yourself. That choice is
Speaker 1: not small in a world that rewards constant motion, that
Speaker 1: the profits from your distraction, that treats stillness as laziness
Speaker 1: and presence as inefficiency. Choosing stillness as a quiet revolution,
Speaker 1: and you just participated in it. You just gave yourself
Speaker 1: forty five minutes that belonged to no one else, that
Speaker 1: served no productivity, that produced nothing except this, this quiet,
Speaker 1: this peace, this return.
Speaker 21: Returning to the world. We are going to return now
Speaker 21: gently the way you rise from a warm path, slowly,
Speaker 21: letting the transition be gradual rather than jarring. There is
Speaker 21: no urush. The world will wait begin to bring you awayness,
Speaker 21: back to the room around you. Notice the temperature of
Speaker 21: the air on your skin. Perhaps it is cooler than
Speaker 21: you realized, perhaps it is warmer. Notice the sounds of
Speaker 21: the world outside the wolds, however, guard passing in the distance, the.
Speaker 1: Hummuff, a refisherator, the wind. If you are listening carefully,
Speaker 1: notice the weight of your body on the surface beneath you.
Speaker 1: You are not leaving that quiet place inside you. You
Speaker 1: are carrying it with you. It lives in you now,
Speaker 1: not as a memory, but as a space you can
Speaker 1: access whenever you need it. Wiggle your fingers just slightly,
Speaker 1: feel the energy returning to your hands, the way feeling
Speaker 1: returns to a foot that has been asleep. Now your toes,
Speaker 1: the sensation of movement, gentle and deliberate, like.
Speaker 14: Stirring after a long sleep. Move your wrists, roll your ankles.
Speaker 14: Let the body remember it as limbs when you are ready,
Speaker 14: not before. Let your eyes open. Let them open slowly,
Speaker 14: the way curtains open on a stage, revealing the world
Speaker 14: one narrow slie at the time. The first thing you see,
Speaker 14: let it be solved. Do not reach for your phone,
Speaker 14: do not reach for a task.
Speaker 1: Just let your eyes adjust to the light, and let
Speaker 1: that adjustment be its own meditation. Notice the colors, notice
Speaker 1: the shapes, Notice that the world is still here, unchanged
Speaker 1: by your absence. Patient and unjudging. You have done something
Speaker 1: important tonight. You have turned away from the noise and
Speaker 1: toward yourself. You have met your anxiety not with resistance,
Speaker 1: but with compassions. You have breathed through it and around it,
Speaker 1: into it, and you have found on the other side
Speaker 1: a stillness that was always there waiting for you.
Speaker 15: Carry this with you.
Speaker 1: The anxiety may return, It often does. The world does
Speaker 1: not become easy just because we are breasted. But now
Speaker 1: you know the way back to this place. You know
Speaker 1: the breath that opens the door. You know the quiet
Speaker 1: core that holds everything, even the things that feel unholdable.
Speaker 1: You are not at the mercy of your fears. You
Speaker 1: are the one who watches them, who breathe through them,
Speaker 1: who lets them come and go, like weather across a
Speaker 1: wide and patient sky. Sleep well tonight, or if you
Speaker 1: are listening in the daylight, move through your day with
Speaker 1: this lightness, this softness, this quiet courage that comes from
Speaker 1: having faced the storm and discovered that you are and
Speaker 1: have always been, the sky that holds it. May your
Speaker 1: breath be steady, May your heart be soft. May you
Speaker 1: find in every moment the quiet that is already yours.
Speaker 1: May the anxiety that visits you find a different door,
Speaker 1: a door that you no longer open. And when it knocks,
Speaker 1: may you remember this practice, this breath, this relief, and
Speaker 1: may you breathe through it. As you breathe through it
Speaker 1: to night. You know the way. Now you have walked
Speaker 1: it once, you can walk it again. Rest now breed,
Speaker 1: be held by the quiet that holds you. You are safe,
Speaker 1: you are well, You are home. This episode was created
Speaker 1: with AI assistance, with each word carefully chosen to support
Speaker 1: your journey toward peace and the release of anxiety.