Guided Meditation for Anxiety: Relaxation Response

Orlando Therapist with Guided Meditation for Anxiety

Anxiety and overwhelm can be a powerful dictator in someone’s life. However, it can be managed through a daily meditation and mindfulness practice.

At Mindful Living Counseling Orlando, we provide grounding practices to our clients that struggle with anxiety and trauma. Guided Meditation is one of our favorite grounding techniques.

Get yourself into a comfortable space, and listen to Guided Relaxation Response practice below to give yourself the tools to ground yourself when you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or revved up.

Guided Meditation Practice for Anxiety

Script for Guided Meditation Practice for Anxiety

Hello, and welcome to this guided practice.

My name is Lauran Hahn, and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and owner of Mindful Living Counseling Orlando where we specialize in working with people who struggle with anxiety, trauma, and relationship problems.

This guided practice is based off of Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response. This practice has become one of my personal favorites lately because it is such a great grounding resource for starting the day and it’s something I can lean on as the day goes on when things get hectic or stressful or feeling revved up and anxious.

So, I want you to set aside about 10 or so minutes for this practice. Making sure you are in a place where you won’t be disturbed and that you can let your guard down and allow yourself the opportunity to rest, rejuvenate, and relax.

So, I ‘m going to invite you to do whatever feels more comfortable. Whether it’s lying dow or sitting in a comfortable position.

Either lying down or sitting down, I want you to first just become aware of your breath. Allowing yourself to settle into this moment…..right here right now.

Just watching your breath…. as it naturally flows in and out.

You’re not doing anything to it at this point, you’re just noticing it…… the natural ebb and flow of your inhale and your exhale…..

And next we are just going to start with working with tension in the body and we are going to start with your feet.

So, I want you to intentionally bring your awareness to your feet and I want you to flex and point your feet.

Flex and hold…

Let go.

Point and hold…

And then let go.

Do that just a few more times on your own really allowing yourself to feel the muscle tension in your feet and then letting that go….

Now, I want you to move up your body to your calves. So i want you to flex your calf muscles…. and then let them go…..

Again, flex your calf muscles and then let them go….

And now moving up your body, I want you to do the same with your quads, thighs, and hamstrings….

So, tighten the muscles in your upper legs… and then let them go….

again, tighten the muscles…. and then let them go……

And now, we’ll move to the glutes. Just intentionally squeezing your glute muscles…. and then letting go…..

And now we’ll move up to the torso. The stomach and chest and kind of bring all of that together.

I want you to intentionally tense those muscles…. and then let them go…..

We’ll do it again…..

Tense the muscles…… and then let them go…..

And now we’ll move to the arms.

So, all the way from shoulders to fingers. Really clench and tighten the muscles….

Holding it and then letting it go….

And then again, one more time, tightening the muscles shoulders to hands…… and then letting it go…..

Now I want you to focus on your jaw muscles and your neck muscles and the tension in your head….

Intentionally tighten those muscles…. and then let them go…...

One more time, tighten the muscles….. and then let them go…..

Now I want you to pay special attention and make sure your jaw muscle is relaxed, your teeth aren’t clenched together.

Just become aware of your body now that you have worked through tensing the muscles of your body…

Okay, so, what we are going to do now is pick a word that is soothing to you. It could be a word like ocean or sunflower or something in nature that when you hear the word it is a calming word for you. Or it could be a mantra you are working on. I like to use the word allow. Or let go. Or even the word relax.

So just take a moment and find a word that fits for you today that when you focus on it; it’s a settling thing to focus on for you.

What we are going to do now is pair that word with your exhale. So you’re going to inhale and then when you exhale you’re going to say that word inside silently.

That’s how we’re going to use the next two minutes is to inhale, say the word on your exhale.

And then when you get distracted by thinking, because you likely will, that’s what the brain does, it thinks, you can just refocus your attention back on the word and let the thinking thoughts go and just don’t engage in them.

So we’ll go ahead, I’m going to be quiet to give you 2 minutes of uninterrupted time to just inhale and then exhale and focus on your word.

You can begin……

Okay, so now you can let go of the word and just focus on your breath…..

And we will get ready to close our practice….

What i would like you to do is throughout the day when things get fast paced, or you’re feeling a little bit anxious or pressured, come back to your word and allow this to be an anchor for you throughout the day. You can inhale and exhale to your word and allow that to be settling for you throughout the day.

Thank you for joining me in this guided practice.

Wishing you the most peaceful day.

Namaste

More Guided Meditations for Anxiety

If you liked this meditation and would like more free meditations, or to download it to your phone, click here.

Want to learn more about working with an Orlando Therapist?

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Mindful Living Counseling Orlando is a trauma healing center. Our Orlando Therapy Services include anxiety therapy, trauma counseling, eating disorder recovery, teen counseling, and healing from toxic relationships. At Mindful Living Counseling Orlando, we use a down-to-earth approach infused with cutting-edge therapies that go beyond traditional talk therapy so clients can heal at the root level and experience lasting change. Feel free to access one of our Guided Meditations to help you feel settled and calm now.