Take a Break with Me
A Guided Meditation
By: Lexie Beckstrand, LPC
(Estimated read: 2-3 minutes)
If you’re multitasking while reading this, I’d kindly invite you to stop. Quit whatever else you’re doing, and be present. Look at the words on this page. Engage with this earnestly for the next three minutes.
Find a seat, if you’re not seated already. Are both of your feet firmly planted on the floor? If not, arrange them to be. Notice your breath.
Where are your shoulders? Do they need to come down? How’s your jaw? Are you scrunching your face or clenching your fists? If there is tension anywhere, lean into it- exaggerate it, and then let it go.
Ball your fists extra tight and then release them, slowly.
Clench your jaw and then notice your tongue, neck, and chin as you unclench.
Sit up extra straight in your chair, squeeze your glutes, and then sink back into your seat.
After your next inhale through your nose, see if you can exhale for a second or two longer through your mouth. Repeat that three, maybe four times.
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Consider: everything that has ever happened to you, everything that preceded this very second, is only a memory. It is wholly up to you how you’d like to show up in the next moment.
You have an opportunity, right now, to be present and grateful.
Did you turn off your early alarm this morning from a safe, cozy bed? Did you notice the luxury of warm, soapy water on your hands and arms as you scrubbed your pan in the kitchen sink, or gave your kid a bath? Can you get groceries to make a home-cooked meal tonight?
So many of us feel that happiness is around the corner- once the task is out of the way, once we get a promotion, once we fall in love, once ‘x’ chore is no longer ours, once we can buy the cool thing, once we earn someone’s respect, or once we stop feeling so depended upon. This is a moving goalpost.
We cannot become happy; we can only be happy. Stop waiting for the moment when everything is ‘just right’. Give yourself permission today to let something go, to light the fancy candle, or to call your mother without an agenda. This isn’t a rehearsal; this is the show.
I don’t write these things to invalidate or brush past your hardship, suffering, or pain. Life is chock-full of it. This is meant only as a reminder that the tools to feel differently (even if only for a moment) exist within you, and they always will.
If you’re anything like me and you speed-read through this to get to the end, that’s okay. Go back to the top. Take a breath, and take a break with me.