💗 Meditation Monday 🧘‍♀️ - Calm Your Nervous System
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Welcome to Meditation for Anxiety. I'm Katie Kramitzos. I'm the creator of the Women's Meditation Network and your guide here. I am so grateful you've taken the time to be here with me right now. This episode is made possible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors. And after a message from them, we'll begin today's episode. If you'd like to listen ad-free, become a premium member by following the link in the show notes.

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Happy Meditation Monday. Take a big deep breath with me. I'm so grateful that you're here with me for this Meditation Monday. It's going to be a really special one. There has been...

I think in recent years as meditation has become more and more mainstream, if you will, we are all so fascinated by the science of it and like the physical specifics as far as what happens in the body. And there's so many really great things to discuss here.

And one word that is sort of like in this conversation is our nervous system, right? And the way that meditation affects our nervous system is really special in that every time we meditate and we practice regular meditation and we more specifically practice deep breathing,

We are telling our vagus nerve, which is like the superhighway of the nervous system, that is sending like calming, calming signals to our brain, which tells our whole system to calm down. So that's really getting us set up for the imagery that I'm going to be using for today's meditation. So specifically, if you are feeling like your nerves are shot,

I know that that's kind of a common term that I use quite often. Like, oh my God, my nerves are shot, right? This is going to be a really special meditation for you. So today's meditation has a funny story attached to it, of course. So I simultaneously want to make sure that you are humored today. Okay, so be here with me and be present. Here's the story.

We have some land. So we are not, you know, we don't live house next to house next to house. We have a little bit of land here where we are. And we have some outside birds that are part of our family. And the other day, my husband was away on business. Like he was away in another city.

And at five in the morning, I get a random, not a random, I get a phone call from him, like waking me up from a dead sleep. And he's like, Katie, I need your help. It's an emergency. And I'm like, what? He's like, there's a raccoon trying to get into the bird cages. So I get up, I pop up out of bed. I put on my boots and I'm running down to what we call our little bird barn. I'm running to our bird barn, flashlight in hand. I get down there. I pick up like the hose and

And much like a Western movie, I'm sitting there in my jammies with my flashlight in one hand, my hose gun in the other, and scaring off the raccoon who leaves this crazy loud noise and ends up fleeing the area. It was terrifying. Everyone's fine. Birds are fine. Raccoon's fine. Whatever. So fast forward a couple minutes. I finally make sure the area is secured. Everything's great.

And I get back in my bed and my nerves are shot. That's the feeling, right? Like, I feel like I can't calm down. Like there's this like running energy through me. And I'm like, God, I need to write a meditation call. The raccoon just tried to eat my birds and I need to calm down.

what i came up with instead because perhaps not everyone can really relate to that um and perhaps you might not choose the raccoon calming uh meditation what i came up with instead is calming the nervous system this is such a universal feeling that we have when like

our fight or flight instincts have sort of like popped off where they've been popping off for a little too long and we need to calm ourselves down. Have you felt this way lately? This specific meditation, I'm going to take you through a live version of this. So it's not going to be exactly the one that I just wrote, but the one that I just wrote, I want to read a little snippet of it as a way to enter us into our meditation today. And then I'll kind of go off the cuff, but this specific meditation called calming the nervous system.

is going to be beautifully produced and go out on the Meditation for Women podcast on June...

Let me make sure I know the date, June 10th. So mark that in your calendar, go subscribe to the Meditation for Women podcast on June 10th, and you will see that one come out early in the morning, calm your nervous system. So that's going to be this beautifully produced kind of poetic meditation that I'm going to start with, and then we're going to veer off into our own way, okay? So let's go ahead and take a deep breath, close your eyes.

Just bring yourself here into this moment. Close your eyes gently and breathe in real deep. Let yourself ride the air's waves. Bring all of your thoughts, your tasks, your stress into the rhythm it plays. In and out. In and out. Let each breath reach

A little more and out and out. This time is for you to restore. Imagine the knot tied tight in your neck begin to loosen and unfurl. Imagine the strain pulled tight in your back relaxes as it uncurls.

Now each breath that comes brings calm to your mind. Those thoughts just dissolve in the air. More stillness spreads through and softens each part. Your nerves begin to repair. Now see if you can imagine the soft,

warming energy in the center of your chest. Feel its warmth spread through your body and with each inhale, see if you can imagine that warmth traveling up to the center of your brain and sending calming signals down every nerve traveling through your body, calming you, relaxing you.

Feel that warmth from the top of your head cascading down your neck, down your left shoulder and arm, down your right shoulder and arm. Opening and softening your chest and falling slowly down your back, one piece of your spine after the next.

down, down. Feel that warm softness in the center of your belly, relaxing all the muscles, all the nerves. Feel it lower into your hips, opening and releasing all the tension. And then feel the warmth travel down your left leg, all the way down to your foot, and then your right leg.

falling all the way down. Your whole body from head to toe is calm, is smooth, is still. Take one last deep breath in, filling up your body with cool, fresh air. Hold it for just a moment and then as you exhale, release any last pieces of tension or stress.

feeling total calm inside and outside. Now slowly let your fingers touch your thumb as you bring your body back into this present moment. And open your eyes when you're ready. How are you feeling? Go ahead and let me know in the comments how you feel after this meditation. Maybe a moment that you could save it and use it for, for something that you know is coming up.

or maybe just identifying a moment over these past couple of days when you could have really used this. Starting to train your brain to turn to these meditations when you need them. I have found, I was feeling a little bit of this this morning where like my nerves were shot a little bit and I did this meditation and I found that as soon as I really released all of that like electric energy,

I saw things so clearly. And not only did I physically feel more calm, but my brain was like clear and sharp. All of the emotions that sort of had been weighing in on my day and kind of threatening to pull me under for the day, all of a sudden had really like dissipated and went back into the background so that I could really come into me and see clearly what was ahead of me.

So I hope that's how you feel during this meditation. Remember, we have so many meditations for you to take advantage of and for you to press play on across the Women's Meditation Network.

We are a podcast network. We have hundreds of podcast episodes that go live every single month across our 20 different podcasts. I mentioned Meditation for Women. That is our original show. We also have Sleep Meditation for Women, Morning Meditation for Women, Meditation for Anxiety, Panic Attack Meditations, Daily Affirmations. Like, we got it all.

Just go to the website. I went ahead and linked that here in the notes as well as in the comments. And it'll help you visually see all of our different podcasts so you can go access them on your favorite podcast player or just go ahead and play them there on the website. I love you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope your Monday and the rest of your day is filled with so much more calm and centeredness. Namaste.