Will, a clinician with Amir Mental Health, leads the audience through a guided mindfulness and progressive muscle relaxation breathing exercise, walking participants both in-person and online through a body-scan technique to release tension and return to calm after an emotionally charged evening of performances.
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Transcript
[04:03:00] Coming to the stage.
[04:03:01] Jesus.
[04:03:02] All right, so up front, I don’t rap, I don’t sing,
[04:03:12] I don’t dance, I got none of that for you.
[04:03:15] If I’m funny, I promise it’s completely unintentional.
[04:03:19] So my name’s Will, I’m a clinician
[04:03:22] with Amir Mental Health, amongst other things,
[04:03:25] and if your question might be,
[04:03:28] Will, if you don’t do any of that stuff,
[04:03:29] what the hell are you standing on stage for the other night?
[04:03:31] What I do know, what I got for you tonight,
[04:03:34] is a little bit about staying calm
[04:03:37] in situations that are almost designed to make you uncalm.
[04:03:41] In my previous life, I’ve dealt with that a fair bit.
[04:03:44] So what we’re gonna do tonight,
[04:03:46] because energy’s running high,
[04:03:48] if you didn’t feel or see some piece of yourself
[04:03:52] in the folks who were brave enough
[04:03:54] to get up on the stage tonight
[04:03:55] and share and speak their truth to you,
[04:03:57] then I advise you to spend a little time thinking about it,
[04:04:01] because there’s probably a piece of you in there
[04:04:02] that you just didn’t realize.
[04:04:03] So energy’s running high,
[04:04:05] we’ve all kind of got pulled out of ourselves,
[04:04:08] as we’re thinking about other people’s stories
[04:04:09] and what they were brave enough to share with us,
[04:04:12] so we’re gonna do a little bit of mindfulness work,
[04:04:14] and we’re gonna come back into ourselves,
[04:04:16] and we’re gonna make quiet our own bodies,
[04:04:20] so that we can then make quiet our own minds.
[04:04:23] This isn’t a one-shot-fits-all thing,
[04:04:26] it’s not a cure-all by any stretch,
[04:04:27] it’s just something that kind of works
[04:04:29] when you’re feeling a little spun up.
[04:04:31] And hey folks on the internet,
[04:04:32] we didn’t forget that you’re there.
[04:04:33] If you’re still with us at this time of night,
[04:04:35] then you guys get to participate too.
[04:04:37] Everybody loves the audience participation
[04:04:40] and part of this kind of thing.
[04:04:42] So what we’re gonna start with is a real easy
[04:04:44] breathe in through your nose for three seconds, so in,
[04:04:51] and you’re gonna let it out through your mouth
[04:04:52] for three seconds, so out.
[04:04:56] And we’re gonna work this rhythm for a little bit
[04:04:58] so everybody’s nice and comfortable with it.
[04:05:00] Get yourself into a relaxed position.
[04:05:02] If you’re at home, you can lay down.
[04:05:04] That’s perfectly okay.
[04:05:06] If you’re here, and you can find space on the floor,
[04:05:07] and you wanna lay down, have at it.
[04:05:09] If you’re gonna sit up, just make sure your feet
[04:05:11] are in contact with the floor as we do this.
[04:05:13] So we’re gonna breathe in.
[04:05:18] And we’re gonna let it out.
[04:05:23] And we’re gonna breathe in.
[04:05:28] And we’re gonna let it out.
[04:05:30] Try to hold that rhythm as we work through the rest of this.
[04:05:36] What I want you to do now is start by focusing your energy
[04:05:41] at the top of your head.
[04:05:45] And I want you to feel the pressure of the air.
[04:05:48] I want you to feel, if you have hair up there,
[04:05:51] I want you to feel how your hair feels
[04:05:54] sitting on your head.
[04:05:55] Just feel it.
[04:05:57] And if you feel tension, I want you to concentrate,
[04:05:59] concentrate on letting that go.
[04:06:05] In.
[04:06:08] Out.
[04:06:11] I want you to shift your focus a little bit down
[04:06:13] in your body, let it slide down to your forehead
[04:06:15] and your ears.
[04:06:18] And if you feel tension in those places,
[04:06:19] I want you to focus on letting that go.
[04:06:22] In.
[04:06:25] And out.
[04:06:26] Let that wave roll down your body a little bit more.
[04:06:31] Focus on relaxing your face, your jaw,
[04:06:35] the muscles in your neck.
[04:06:37] Feel where you are.
[04:06:40] Come back into yourself.
[04:06:42] Feel the sensation.
[04:06:44] Breathe in.
[04:06:47] Breathe out.
[04:06:50] Let that wave continue rolling down your body,
[04:06:52] pushing tension down through you as you go.
[04:06:55] Concentrate.
[04:06:55] Consciously relax your shoulders.
[04:06:58] As you breathe in.
[04:07:00] And as you breathe out.
[04:07:05] Let that wave of relaxation roll down your arms
[04:07:08] towards the tips of your fingers.
[04:07:10] Let it push any tension you feel in that part of your body
[04:07:14] out through your fingertips.
[04:07:17] As you breathe in.
[04:07:19] And as you breathe out.
[04:07:23] Let the wave slide down the core of your body,
[04:07:25] your chest down into your stomach consciously relax the muscles in your
[04:07:33] lower back and the muscles in your stomach around your belly button as you
[04:07:40] breathe in and breathe out let that wave of relaxation push the tension down past
[04:07:50] your hips into the tops of your legs focus on relaxing those muscles as you
[04:07:59] breathe in and as you breathe out as that wave continues rolling down your
[04:08:07] legs I want you to focus on letting the tension in your body flow out through
[04:08:12] the bottoms of your feet which are connected to the ground because the
[04:08:17] earth is going to take that tension as it comes out of you
[04:08:20] breathe in and breathe out I want you to focus on relaxing the muscles in the
[04:08:29] bottoms of your feet let that wave roll forward towards the tips of your toes
[04:08:35] breathe in and breathe out and now in this moment as we’ve worked all the way
[04:08:44] down through your body and as we work forward and push that tension out
[04:08:48] through the bottoms of your feet and the tips of your toes
[04:08:50] I want you to really embrace the level of relaxation that you’ve found embrace
[04:08:57] how quiet the body has become keep breathing in and keep breathing out and
[04:09:08] now for everyone who’s still awake at the end of this exercise here at the
[04:09:11] speak your truth sleep away camp go ahead and open your eyes and embrace the
[04:09:18] calm that you have just brought to you
[04:09:20] yourself because that’s what this is all I did was talk a little bit you guys did
[04:09:24] all the work here that’s what I got for you this evening I hope everybody is a
[04:09:28] little bit more calm I hope that energy is giving you some positive things to
[04:09:33] take away from here and thanks for coming out guys