 I appreciate you taking the time and joining. My name's Scott St. Marie and let's take things real slow. Let's be real gentle with ourselves. At this moment in time, a meditation, hold on, that's the space heater, one second. Turn that off. A meditation teacher would always say, you know, if you're breathing, that means there's more right with you than wrong with you. And I like that. If you're breathing right now, hey, hey, hey, hey, well done. So there's a lot that may be going on in your body, in your thoughts, sensations, a tight stomach, maybe a tight tummy. Your heart maybe feels a little tight. Thoughts of worry, the future, which is just a thought anyways. Needing to plan, needing to make sure things go well. Pressure we put on ourselves, eh? You realize that sometimes, don't you? Man, am I putting a lot of pressure on myself? You can laugh at it if you want to. Come on. Putting all that pressure on for what? For who? What would it mean for you at this very moment if you showed yourself some compassion, care and love right now? What would that mean? What would you do? I get it, the world seems just, there's bad energy out there. It's pretty chaotic, isn't it? It's okay if you feel a lot. But if you'd like to and you don't need to, but if you can and if you feel that it would be helpful, just close your eyes. Take rest, that's it. Just notice how it is in your body. Right now, what's there? Now the key here is don't judge what's going on. You can't mess up here. You can't do this wrong. Just notice what's there. Go easy on yourself. Go easy, that's it. And if you can, just breathe into the body. Through your nose and out the nose. And one more time, in through the nose and out through the nose. You don't have to breathe any certain way, we're not doing that, you just breathe. Let it into your body, you're doing it. Just notice what that breathing feels like for you. What it feels like with maybe cooler air coming into the body, warmer air leaving the body. Each one of those breaths, you signal to yourself saying, yeah, I'm taking care of myself right now. It's okay to feel it. It's okay to sense what's there in the mind and body now. Continue to breathe, just breathe. This moment in time, you breathing right there, where you are and how you are right now, it's the best thing you could be doing to care for yourself. Just stay with that rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. The rhythm doesn't have to feel a certain way, doesn't have to be perfect, it's just you breathing. Now, if you can, with your eyes still closed there, what would a best friend say to you right now? If you were feeling real anxious, what would you say to a best friend? That best friend is you. What do you wanna say to yourself now? It's a voice of care, isn't it? It's a voice of compassion. It's the voice that you matter. Mm-hmm, just notice what that feels like. Take that in, that sense of love and care for yourself. No matter how you feel. When you're ready, you can open your eyes. You don't have to look at the screen or your phone. Just open your eyes, see what's around you. And if you're on a screen looking at YouTube, you see me looking right at you, saying, great work. Great job. You know, sometimes it takes a lot of courage to sit and to be with that feeling. And sometimes the best thing to do is, yeah, I need to distract myself. I need to watch some TV. I need to watch some reruns of some old childhood cartoons. I need to go for a walk. I need to call a friend or talk to mom or talk to dad. And other times we can sit. It's all courageous acts when we don't feel our best. And what you did in this practice is you sat with yourself. And if you don't feel better right now, that's okay too. We can't get upset with ourselves because something didn't work out the way we thought right now with this practice. It's practice. He gave something, a try, and you sat with the emotion. And for that, you are courageous and brave and an incredible human being. Anxiety, what does it mean for you? And can we have a different kind of relationship with the sensations when they come? We don't have to love it. We don't have to say, yay, I feel terrible. But at the same time, we don't need to beat ourselves up. Either put ourselves down, shame ourselves for feeling it, yeah? You know, it took me a long time to recognize what anxiety meant for me and means for me. And my practice isn't over either. I practice all the time. I need to take care of myself and know what I need in particular moments. And this is life's work, everyone. It doesn't go away in an hour, in a 10-minute meditation. It doesn't leave us forever. You know, we think that we can get rid of emotion. That's not what we wanna do. That's what makes us, us, that's what makes me, me, you, you. It's our emotions that drive us, that make us feel, that help us connect with one another. Love is an emotion, right? We don't wanna get rid of that. So we can't choose to keep the good ones and always get rid of the bad ones. There's balance in that. And that's why we practice this. To create space between that you, that imagine that best friend and you taking care of yourself. And the voice that says, I can't believe you're anxious again. This is terrible. Why me? That says it's really bad. Create space in a gentle way. It is the best way I know how in times of stress and anxiety to create some distance. It's you have a whole wide range of tools at your disposal. This is just one of those tools. Sit, breathe, don't judge. You got it. Appreciate you all listening. Appreciate you. Keep up the great work. And I'll see you back here, if ever you feel the need.