Roadmap to resilience: meditation
Learn how to harness the power of your brain to build resilience through meditation. This will lead to a calmer state, less anxiety, and more resilience.
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hi I'm Dr. Vonda Wright, and welcome to our Roadmap to Resilience class. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Today, we're studying a concept that many see as overwhelming or intimidating. Meditation.
You'll learn how to bring your full attention to what you're doing while you're doing it. That will lead to a calmer state, less anxiety,
and you guessed it, resilience. But I want you to know if you're like me, you don't have to be an expert at meditation to be resilient.
I find that for me to focus in the moment, to be all in to where I am when I am, all I need to do
is be present. Because if I can focus in the moment for a minute, the anxiety and the angst of completing
a big project or a big workout goes away because most of us can stay focused on what we're doing in the minute.
So keep watching as some amazing experts will teach you how to build resilience through meditation. [MUSIC PLAYING]
I would say one way to train our brains to be resilient is meditation and mindfulness.
So you can think of mindfulness as this large category of ways to pay attention in the present moment and not resist what's actually happening.
So you can think of even built right into the definition of mindfulness is this idea of resilience of curiosity.
So when we're mindful, we can be curious of what's happening right now, and the more curious we are,
the more we can see that that curiosity fosters and builds and helps us develop resilience itself. As that big circle of mindfulness
helps us build resilience, you can think of meditation as being a smaller circle within that larger circle.
When we sit down to meditate or we do a walking meditation or do some type of formal meditation practice,
in those moments, we can look to see where all of these habitual tendencies are coming up in our minds, and those habitual tendencies
tend to be indicators of resistance or indicators of habits or indicators of things
that tend to make us less resilient, less willing to work with what is. At the same time, we can start to see
how our experience is constantly changing when we're meditating. And that noticing of that flow of experience
can also help us see things more clearly like, oh, this is the way-- you know, things are constantly changing. Can I actually roll with the change
rather than resist the change? Walking, though, through rain, sleet, or snow
has actually been very, very, very good for me. That is a time that I'm able to literally step
outside and smell air and breathe and exhale in a way that sometimes I don't feel like I can otherwise.
So I guess in some ways that's been a restorative. Almost like my version of meditation I think that sometimes happens.
The most resilient time of my life was during childbirth. I was able to build that resilience through my mind,
and every day, I took myself on a journey into a place
through a guided meditation that was safe, and a place that I loved.
And in this guided meditation, I conditioned my mind
to understand that safety is possible. Another way that I was able to build resilience in childbirth
was through daily practice. And it wasn't a lengthy practice.
I know when people think of mindfulness and meditation, they think, oh, I have to do it for 20 minutes.
The fact is you don't have to do it for 20 minutes. You can do it for a minute a day or two minutes a day
after you build up that. And so a daily practice of simply breathing consciously
and see and watch yourself build resilience and get through those tough times.
The deep breathing and the meditation exercises ultimately made my focus more on my health and restoration
rather than the disease. The positive attitude I developed with this fighting chance was a greater sense of purpose and meaning in my life,
a greater sense of motivation to survive this sort of frame of mind and structure had an amazingly powerful influence,
I think, on the way in which I managed to graduate from this very big step in life.
WOMAN: This is your anxiety meditation. Your eyes softly closed.
Take a long, slow deep breath in through the nose, and exhale through the nose.
So just allow yourself to use your breath and use this very simple breath exercise
to reduce your anxiety to lower your stress response
and to dial down on any anxiety or any panic that you might be experiencing.
Deep breath in through the nose and exhale through the nose.
Now, that you know more about meditation, we challenge you to do the following three tasks to build more resilience in your personal life.
Meditate every day for one month. Meditation can seem overwhelming. It's not. We are talking about five minutes or 10 minutes,
even one minute of breathing. Yes, one minute of meditation each day
can make a meaningful difference. Consistency is the key. Download the free Sharecare app, go to Achieve, and then
Programs, and you'll find content to guide you through one minute of meditation. When you're ready, increase the time to five then 10 minutes.
Pausing to breathe every day will help you feel more calm, relaxed, and yes,
more resilient. Get curious about how you're feeling. If you notice that you're resisting
or attracted to something, a task, an idea, a person, ask yourself, what am I feeling?
Where do I feel this in my body? Is this familiar? Is this feeling changing? Curiosity is the anecdote to judgment and fuels flexibility.
The more curious you get the less resistant and more detached and resilient you'll be.
Stay in the present. How much time do you spend worrying about the future or the past?
By the way, you're not alone. We are plagued with, what did I do wrong? What am I going to do?
Our suggestion is that you take one day at a time, one hour, one moment at a time.
Remember, you can't change the past or the future. So next time you feel anxious, ask yourself,
am I OK right now? How am I doing in this specific moment, and then ask yourself the same questions five minutes later.
Thank you for watching. Don't hesitate to ask questions in the comments section. Also, make sure to subscribe to Sharecare's YouTube channel
so you don't miss our next class, which will be on the connection between resilience and the body.
meditation
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