Help Dealing with Anxiety

-Are we ready to go?- -Okay- Hey everybody. Today's topic is how do we calm our minds? How do we do it? So stay tuned. So like I said, today's topic is kind of like a meditation for beginners. Because I hear from many of you, that anxiety is one of your biggest struggles. And the racing mind, trust me, I have a racing mind too. And I completely understand the issue. And something that I do, and that I know many of my yoga teachers and my friends do that kind of helps them calm their mind, is what I call meditation for beginners. Now all you need is 10 to 15 minutes. You need an area where you are going to be quiet, no one's going to barge in on you. And put yourself in comfortable clothes. So that's kind of how I would start it out. In the end they say that they hope you can do this at any time, any place, blah blah blah. But right now, we need to kind of create our own meditation environment. Now what we have to do, is we sit comfortably. They said you can sit with your legs crossed, like a traditional meditation type stance, or seated position. Or however you feel comfortable. Because I honestly can't sit cross legged for that long. So I usually stick my legs straight out or kind of off to the side. Whatever is comfortable for you. The most important thing is that our back stays straight. Because, something to do with the way that our body's positioned. If we are hunched over our mind immediately goes into kind of a sluggish, slow, down kind of mood. And so they say that keeping your chest open to receive, and it helps with breathing and it also helps with your mood. So make sure that your back is straight. And now we are going to get into the knitty gritty of how it works. They say that you can leave your eyes fully closed or partially closed. Partially closed just feels weird to me, so I always just close my eyes completely. And you are supposed to focus on your breath. You breathe in and out through your nose, and you can feel the breath. Now that's what I want you to kind of tune into, you can do it with me right now. So we are going to close our eyes. And we are going to breathe in through our nose and out through our nose. And I want you to feel where the breath goes. Does it feel through your stomach, your chest and up through your shoulders? Do you feel it brushing along your nose, as you breathe in and out? I want you to stay focused on this. Now this is when our mind takes over, right. All those thoughts that we normally keep busy so we don't have to actually pay attention to them become aware to us. Many of you have told me, 'You know when I try those breathing exercises I feel like my mind races more, and it gets worse.' It actually doesn't get worse, it just brings our awareness to it. So we are actually paying attention. It's kind of funny, huh. That happens all day long but we keep ourselves so busy that we don't notice. And so every time you find yourself, you know, falling away in to thought, 'Well when I get done with this I've got to go do this, and when this is over I should do this, and ahh I should have called that person, da-da-da-da.' I want you to focus back on your breath. Feel it in through your nose. Feel it building in your body. Feel you breathing it out. I want you to take full uncontrolled breaths. You don't need to hold it, you don't need to breathe fully all the way to the top. Just feel yourself breathing. And if you can do this for ten minutes, you will feel a lot better. I promise you. And I know some of you will be like, 'Ten minutes is a really long time Kati', and 'Oh my god I don't think I can do it.' Then we will start with five. But we just have to start with slow incremental shifts, where we focus back on our breath. And the thing that's great about it is, they say that our mind is kind of like the ocean, right. And I'm at the ocean. And when the waves are coming across, right. The waves are kind of like those crazy thoughts that we have, all the racing thoughts. It stirs up the bottom of the ocean, right. And we can't even see anything. And if you get down with your goggles, it's cloudy. But if we let the waves pass and the water is actually smoother. You look down below and it's clear. And what Im trying to do is clear our mind, so we can see more clearly. When we do meditation more frequently and it's more a regular part of our self care, you will find that you are happier, your relationships are going better, you are more able to change. Because we are giving our mind some time to be still. To figure out who we are, what we are doing, what feels good to us. When we quiet our mind we can actually do what's best for us as a whole. Now I know some of you are like, 'Kati this is a little, you know, hokey pokey.' But give it a try, and let me know how it goes. Start with five minutes, move to ten. Ideally we want to ten or fifteen minutes. And I promise you, you will feel a world of difference. So if you like these kinds of videos and you want me to do more meditation, breathing, yoga, things like that. Give it a thumbs up and let me know. And also don't forget to find me on instagram. Or on twitter. I'm also on tumblr. And obviously on youtube, hello. And don't forget to add me on google+ because if you leave your comments then I can respond back. And I can give you whatever advise or answer you are wanting. Subtitles by the Amara.org community