Emily Fletcher guides a stress release meditation using extended exhales (double your inhale length) to calm the vagus nerve, paired with a "let go" mantra and reflective questions to clear emotional weight.
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So let's start by inhaling through the nose for two and exhaling through the mouth for four. Really good. Inhaling through the nose for two and Exhaling through the mouth for four. And if you're doing this while you're walking, you can inhale for two steps and exhale for four steps. And let's elongate this. Inhaling for three and exhaling for six again. In for three and out for six. And if you feel like you're ready to go ahead and sit down, this might be a good time to do that. And I recommend that you have your back supported and your head free. And you can go ahead and close your eyes if you like. And you can just do this for a few more rounds. Inhaling. Let's take it to four and exhale for eight. So we inhale through the nose for four and exhale for eight. Really good. In through the nose for four and out through your mouth for eight. You can start to take this in your own time, just doubling the length of the exhale from the inhale. And you can keep doing this on your own. And I'm going to talk you through why we double the exhale. So the 2x nerve is a really powerful way to calm your vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve is the thing that connects your brain to your body. It's the thing that can get you out of fight or flight and into stay and play. So you're just doing this on your own. You're inhaling and then doubling the length of the exhale. And as you're doing this, just noticing that your body starts to soften, that you start to bring your awareness into the body, into the present moment. You know, our stress hangs out in the past and the future. Stress is a byproduct of reviewing the past and rehearsing the future. And so as we practice 2x breath, it's a beautiful way to bring ourselves into our body and into the right now. So do a few more cycles of this. Inhaling for four and exhaling for eight. Really good. Beautiful. And now, keeping the eyes closed, we're going to move into an exercise of surrender where you're going to be silently thinking the words let go. So on each inhale, I want you to silently think the word let. And as you exhale, silently thinking the word go and you don't have to worry too much about the tempo. You don't have to worry about focusing on these words. You're just hearing them as a whisper of an echo in the background of your mind. Just breathing in let and breathing out go. Letting it be ever so gentle in the background of the mind. Just hearing Let go and noticing that your body will start to surrender and let go as you gently think these words, using them almost like a mantra, almost like an anchor to de excite the nervous system, to give your body some rest. Like you're hitting the reset button and the recharge so that you can go back into your life with even more clarity and even more awareness. And again, if you feel like you might be falling into sleep or if the mind is racing, that's all. A okay. Just know that you have these words let go to come back to like an anchor. And noticing that your body is doing just that. As you start to hear these gently in the background of your mind, reminding yourself that thoughts are not the enemy. You're absolutely allowed to have thoughts. When you notice that you've taken a mental field trip. A okay. That's your cue to gently float back to the words Let go. You're doing great. It sa sa so let's keep the eyes closed and we'll let go of these words inside. Almost like we're cutting the cord to an anchor, gently bringing our awareness back into the body, back into the room. And as you're starting to bring your awareness into your body, starting to take some deep breaths, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to just listen for the answer. You don't have to consciously think about the answer. Just know that me introducing these questions into your body will wake up your body's innate intelligence. And some of the things I'll say will be true. Some of them won't be true, but all of them will have a bit of an emotional charge. And so what we're doing is that we're just clearing the emotional charge to help get rid of some of the stress. What if I knew that I'm exactly where I'm meant to be? How do I trust that I'm actually ahead of schedule? Why did I get so stressed to begin with? Don't I love my illusion of control? How do I see that it's actually an illusion? How do I trust that nature has my back? How would I act if I knew that I could not veer off my destiny? Wouldn't I have more fun? Would I Wouldn't I feel more brave? Wouldn't I be willing to let go and trust nature? Why do I love my illusion of control? Doesn't it feel safe? Aren't I scared that if I let go that I'll just be a lazy person? How do I see that that's not true? How do I see that the more I surrender, the more I let go, the more present I am in the right now? Don't I know that the more present I am, the better able I am to show up in the world? Isn't it time for me to show up as the most amazing version of me? Aren't I ready for that? Won't it be more fun? How do I see that this stress isn't serving me? How do I give my body permission to let go of it? How do I thank this stress for getting me where I've gotten and simultaneously let go of it because it's going to keep me from getting where I want to go? Isn't that true? The tools that got me here won't get me where I need to go. Aren't I ready to step into my full power? Doesn't the world need my unique flavor of gifts? How do I trust that I'm ready? Taking a big deep inhale through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. And again a big deep inhale through your nose and this time exhaling, letting go of anything that isn't serving you. And one final time, biggest, most delicious inhale you've taken all day. And as you exhale, just letting some sound out and releasing any stress that's left over. So good. And in your own time, whenever you're ready, we can start to slowly, gently open the eyes.
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