Breaking the Stress Cycle, with Sam

This is "Dear Headspace", a podcast where each week, I sit down with a Headspace meditation teacher and we answer your questions. Sometimes we can be so consumed by strong emotions. Isn't that something that's being forced upon you? You want this change to occur? The practice is designed so that we remember what is already present. Check out this clip from one of our episodes. All right, Sam, are you ready? I'm ready. Hi, this is Luca from Germany. I've been meditating with Headspace for more than four years now. It's already helped me in many aspects of my life. There's one aspect where I don't see the progress that I wish for and that's when I'm feeling restless or stressed. I tend to put a lot of pressure in myself to keep in control of everything. I start judging myself for being stressed. I stressed about being stressed. I was like, "Okay, this is not good for your health. You really should slow down now." Even when there's no rush, I'm rushing. I see it but I just can't seem to stop it or really change it. Am I just being unrealistic or should I just be more patient or do you have any other advice for me on this? Hmm. First of all, thank you Luca, for this question. I'm hearing perfectionism out the wazoo in this question. And that very familiar feeling of restlessness. And you know, the energy sometimes when you sit down and your mind is racing. And meditation also feels like the last thing you can do in that moment. It seems like walking or standing would be a great modification. I am very restless in the mornings. Like I just wanna go, go, go. But today, I started with six minutes of walking. So I walk very slow and I think of the words, I have arrived. I have arrived, with each step. Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's a great, just like, "Here I am, this is now. This is my life." And you go as slow as you need to to feel the sensations in your feet. And it's a really great measure. Because you know, when your mind has left your feet. The other part I was hearing is about stress and our relationship to stress. We're trained to think that stress is very bad for us. That there's all these physiological effects from, you know? Cancer to, you know, shortening our lifespan. Hypertension and the heart attacks. Yeah, yeah. But the way we frame stress can actually affect the way our body feels from it. So it's really important to stop and go, "Okay, I feel stressed because I care. Because I have meaning in my life." If you don't have meaning in your life, you don't have things you care about, people you care about, yeah, you might have less stress but you'll be just hopelessly depressed. There's nothing wrong with you because you're feeling stressed. Right....