#62 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks (Jason Newland) (30th October 2019)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland. This is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

I do have a new timetable for all of my recordings and these... I have to try and remember it off the top of my head. Monday is Sleep Hypnosis Weekly. Tuesday is Deep Sleep Whisper Hypnosis.

Wednesday is Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks. So this one, that's Wednesday, which is today. Thursday is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

Friday is Deep Sleep Whisper Hypnosis. Saturday is this one again. And Sunday is... I have to lose track.

Let Me Bore You To Sleep, I suppose. So these recordings, this podcast is every Wednesday and Saturday. Yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah.

So you can check my website and that will have the timetable on there as well. I'll try and stick to the timetable but due to illness and other things, I can't always stick to it. But I will do my very, very best to stick to the days rather than leaving it for two weeks between sessions, which I have done this time, I think.

But being a little bit poorly, I had a cough, so it's quite difficult to make sessions when I'm coughing. Now, thank you for listening. Thank you for returning again for this new recording.

And what I thought I'm going to do today, instead of talking and going on and on and on, like I sometimes can, trying to fit in perhaps as much information or ideas into one recording, I thought I'd have a very, well, hopefully they're all relaxing, but a much more mindful session today. Particularly, something that I'm a big fan of, I have been for many years, actually, and that is walking meditation.

Now, I'll describe what I mean by walking meditation.

So, I'm not going to teach anything spiritual. I'm not going to teach anything religious. I'm just going to teach, I'm going to pass on my understanding of it in practical use.

And how I use it, because I use it regularly, but not in a meditation practice as such. So, how I learnt it years ago, a long time ago, back to 2003, probably, and I was in the Buddhist Centre, and it was, I was used to learning the, we had two types of meditation that would involve sitting down. I was, I tried to sit on a cushion, but my legs, my hips, do not, they don't play along with the sitting down on a cushion, even back then, when I was 30, I was 32, now 49.

And even then, I just didn't, and I've done martial arts and stretching and everything over the years, but I can't, I don't have the right body for it. So, eventually, after about two years, and I, yeah, probably, I think it was, no, 2005. So, between the end of 2002 and 2005, I tried to sit on a cushion.

And eventually, I decided I was going to sit on a chair, after being on a retreat. So, what I take from that, and what I would pass on from that is, there's no reason to put yourself through discomfort and pain, in order to help, you know, yourself. I think, if anything, that would hinder it.

Because when I was sitting down on a cushion, quite often, I was focused on my knees, or my hips. So, why, the thing I liked about walking meditation, because at this point, I hadn't give, I hadn't attempted to meditate on a chair. Because I had it in my mind, the only people sat in chairs were the elderly, or someone that perhaps had disabilities.

And there wasn't that many chairs to go around. So, I felt kind of almost obligated to sit on a cushion. But no one made me do it.

I just felt that was what I was supposed to do. But it isn't what I was supposed to do. I'm not supposed to do anything.

But I think it's important that we take care of ourselves. So, when I got the opportunity, with the introduction of walking meditation, I literally jumped at the chance, or walked at the chance, whatever you want to call it. Because I was able to move.

And that felt so good, especially when I first learned it, I was on a day, meditation day, where it was from 10 o'clock in the morning till probably seven at night. And it was meditation the whole time, mainly sitting down with intersperses of walking meditation. And I kind of fell in love with the walking meditation.

So, here it is. It's very, very simple. And it's just walking, basically.

But focusing. At the same time. So, I'm standing in my bedroom.

Andre is in the other room. Because I'm just standing here with my socks on. And Andre would be biting my toes right now if he was in there.

So, I'm just going to walk from one side of the room to the other. And that's all I'm going to do. Now, I don't expect you to do it with me, unless you want to.

And if you are going to do this, then I suggest you open your eyes while you do it. It sounds like an obvious thing to say. But you know, you don't want to be banging into things.

And I never walk with my eyes closed. I kind of defocus my eyes in a meditation situation. But if I'm out in the street, my eyes aren't defocused, I don't think.

You know, I'm still aware of what's around. I'm still aware of the traffic on the road. If I'm walking on the pavement, or the sidewalk, whatever you call it.

I'm aware that there's people about. I'm aware that, you know, of the weather, the temperature. But that's all part of it.

It's not about being unconscious. It's not about focusing on just one thing. It's about reducing your focus on other things, so that maybe the larger proportion of your focus is on your body.

Particularly your feet. The bottoms of your feet. The movement of your feet.

And I understand that there may be people listening to this, that perhaps are unable to walk, maybe they're in wheelchairs or something. A situation like that. Well, if you are in a wheelchair, and you're manually pushing it yourself, I mean, behind it, I mean, with the wheels, if you're pushing the wheels, then you can focus on your hands, the way that someone is walking focuses on their feet.

Because I know it's not the same thing. But from a mindfulness perspective, it can be the same thing. Because your hands, your arms, and your shoulders, you know, you've got that to focus on.

The palms of your hands, all the nerve endings that are in the palms of your hands, and all the nerve endings that are in the soles of your feet, it stimulates the rest of the body. It's very sensitive. Not too sensitive, but sensitive enough for you to notice the movement when you focus on that part of your body.

So if you're in a wheelchair, or you're in a position, maybe you've got crutches, or you've got a walking stick, maybe focusing a little bit on the walking stick. But at the same time, being aware of everything else around you. Because I'm very conscious that if I was needing to use a walking stick, I'd have to have more awareness of the ground in front of me.

I perhaps need to be more aware of making sure that the pavement's kind of straight and, you know, because you're putting a lot of trust in that walking stick and to make sure that you're physically safe as you're walking. So it's going to be different for everybody. But I'm going to focus just on the walking meditation.

And you can adapt it for yourself, because we're all different. And everybody's going to experience it differently. It's personal, very, very personal.

So what I do, I'll go through what I do, and it's really a case of, I'm going to walk and I'm just going to tell you. So I'm just, I've got my eyes closed as I stand up. Again, that's just something that I like to do because I find that I can get in touch with how I physically feel when I've got my eyes closed.

Getting rid of the visual aspects of things. But that's, that's just how I find it. And as I focus on my body, I feel a little bit bloated because I just had my dinner about 40 minutes ago, half an hour ago.

So I feel, I feel full of food. I feel a bit tired as well. The rest of my body feels quite relaxed.

My lower back that I have had quite a few problems with is feeling very calm as well. So there's no, no pain there. My shoulders got no pain either, which is good.

I feel quite heavy, which is a bit strange. I've actually lost a bit of weight, but I'm now 96 kilos. I think I weighed myself yesterday.

When I just put all the weight and focus on my body all the way down and notice my ankles and my feet that are actually supporting the whole of my body, I can feel it. It doesn't feel unpleasant. It doesn't feel pleasant.

It just, it just is. It's not about feeling pleasure. It's just about experiencing the moment.

And that's one of the good things I find with meditation, whether it's walking meditation, whether it's sitting meditation, is if you're comfortable and you get yourself into a mindset of just not holding onto anything, not holding onto pleasurable feelings, not holding onto uncomfortable feelings, not craving the pleasure, just accepting it if it comes, knowing that it will just subside and drift away, just like every other feeling that we ever have in our life.

In the moment, the feeling comes and then it goes. It's just a feeling.

So it's, it's quite nice to take a break from being attached to those feelings. And I'm not talking just about physical feelings, but the emotional side of things, thoughts, ideas, thinking about the past, worrying about the future, all that stuff that gets in the way of feeling relaxed, feeling calm, feeling centred. And I like the idea, the idea, for me, centred, feeling centred is almost have this image of a little room literally in my centre, the centre of my being.

I mean, in a sense, physically, I would say it would be kind of maybe in my chest, you know, it's a space, it's a room that I can sit in comfortably, without anything. And it's literally almost like I go into that room, I've no longer got a body. You know, I've got nothing.

There's nothing there. I don't, you know, any physical issues I might have had before I've gone into that room, that centre. It's just left at the door.

And I go into there and it's, it's almost like it's my essence. It's like who I really am, that goes into that room, the real me. Not the me that's craving attention or wants to do things with people or wants to do this or wants, you know, belongings or not the me that's moaning about stuff and feel sorry for myself.

Not the me that wants to blame other people. Not the me that, you know, gets attached to physical comfort or discomfort. But that bodiless me, almost that mindless me.

So it moves from being mindful to kind of mindless, or just, it's almost like there's nothing there. Just the essence. Just the real you.

No prejudices. No hatred. No, none of that stuff, you know.

No strong views. No strong beliefs. No anger.

No jealousy. No anxiety. No stress.

No pain. None of that stuff. And what's, what I find interesting is when you take all that stuff away, or when you leave it at the door, it's not allowed in, basically.

Well, it's just your essence. You realize that the only thing that can really arise is pleasure. Because pleasure doesn't need anything.

All those other things need stuff. To make it happen. Anger needs stuff.

Hatred. Pain. It needs something.

Needs that energy. Pleasure doesn't need anything. It just arises with the absence of all that other stuff.

Feeling relaxed. And you can give it whatever word you wish. You can give it the word contentment, or happiness.

Pleasure. Whatever the word you want to give it. It just arises on its own, because that is the essence of us.

So when you're doing walking meditation, it's almost like you're in there. That's the navigation, you know? You're in there. You can still, you're in touch with that part of you.

Your essence goes into that room. And the rest of you just carries on. And you're focusing on your feet.

But it's not just your feet. Because as you're walking, and I'm going to walk now, as I'm walking, I can feel my feet on the floor. I can feel my toes cracking a bit as well.

But I'm not worried. I've been doing that for about 30 years. So I think it's okay.

As I move, I can feel my feet. And what's interesting is, and it's something you might not get if you're, I don't know, I've not really thought about it. But if you're in the street, and you've got shoes on, it will feel different to if you've got your socks or got no socks on, walking across your carpet.

But what I'm noticing straight away is the difference in temperature of each step. Because the carpet is very cool. But after a few seconds, the carpet underneath my toes and my feet change temperature, caused obviously by my, my own body heat.

And then I take another step forward, and it's cool again. I take another step forward. And it's cool.

It's almost like a surprise, like a surprise. And it shouldn't be because I know it's going to happen. But I'm more surprised, almost surprised at how cold it is.

And then the coldness just dissipates. I'm moving forward again. Yes, it's a nice sensation.

Feeling the change of the temperature. Take another step. I'll take one more step.

I'm gonna turn around because I don't live in a mansion. So all that part of the mansion I live in has been closed. So I'm gonna use just the bedroom.

So I'm gonna take another step forward. This time, focus on what else do I feel? Now I step forward on my left foot. And the first thing I notice is it feels wrong.

I feel I should have stepped forward on my right foot. But there is no right or wrong really, is there? It's just stepping forward. But for some reason, I had the urge to step forward on my right foot.

So I did it on my left foot, purposely because of that. And it felt a bit strange. But now, it's almost like it doesn't matter.

So now I step forward on my right foot. Again, I'm noticing the temperature of the carpet changing. And you can join me with this if you want.

While I do it. And if you want to replay the recording, you can join me maybe on the second play. If you want, rather than listen, you can listen to it now and replay it and maybe fast forward to, you know, 20 minutes in or something when I first start doing the walking.

What I'm noticing now as I'm standing, one leg, the right leg is in front of the left leg. It's not a big gap. You know, I'm not in a hurry.

Now not everybody, I'm saying this because just from experience what I've noticed, anybody that's ever walked anywhere with me, seems to comment on how slowly I walk. And I walk slowly. Because I like to do walking meditation.

And I like and because I'm so used to walking slowly. When I'm with somebody, I still tend to walk slowly. And I like to just be relaxed.

I don't you know, I like to try and keep a sense of relaxation within me as much as possible. So which is why I like to just take it slow. So there's not much of a gap between the front and the left, you know, the back foot.

As I stand here, I can feel it in my hips. I can feel the, it's not distorted, but I can feel that it's not a way that I would normally stand. Normally, like most people probably stand with both feet together apart, but you know, kind of, kind of lined up.

And if I was going to stand with my feet apart, I would have my left foot in front of me, my right foot behind. That would be kind of the stance that I would stand in, if I was waiting for something. And we've all got our own personal way of doing it.

I'm noticing my body. And I've noticed what I noticed, I'm gonna take another step forward. I've noticed and I've not purposely done this.

But my back is fairly straight. So I can feel my bum, feel the buttocks. And I'm not tensing them, but I can feel them.

And just standard, you know, being tensed as I, as I sort of step forward, still relaxed. But my back is, yeah, my posture is pretty good. And I wasn't even really paying attention to that until right now.

And if your, if your posture isn't as good as you'd like it to be, or your back maybe isn't as straight as you'd like it to be. There's an old technique of imagining a piece of string above your head, you know, kind of hooked to the top of your head, just pulling your neck up, pulling your head up a little bit, keeping it straight, which then straightens out your whole body.

So I'm gonna take another step forward.

So I can feel that in my calves and my knee. So I wasn't, I didn't even notice my knee until right now. I don't think my calves really give me any attention either.

So this isn't something that I focused on. It just, it's almost like my knee and my calf are focused on itself, or focused on me. Like, what are you doing, Dad? Why are you, why are we just randomly taking steps? So I'm gonna step again on my left foot.

And again, as we've talked about in the past, attention, what we give attention to, kind of gives attention back. So now my left knee and my left calf is, I don't know what the right word would be, but it's giving off an energy, it's giving off, it's not discomfort, it's not comfort, it's just there. If I take another step forward, my right foot, it's almost like my knees are not bothered anymore.

They've got the attention they needed. No other part of me is really, I can feel my arm, but that's possibly because I'm moving around a little bit, which I don't really know why, to be fair. And it feels nice.

So I'm moving my right arm around, and I can really feel the air on my arm. So I've got a t-shirt on. So my forearm is uncovered, my hand and everything, because I don't wear gloves inside.

And just by moving my arm gently from side to side, you know, like if I was marching or something, when I was in the sea cadets. And it feels nice. And there's no logic reason, there's no logical reason for it to feel nice.

I'm not doing anything for it to feel nice, but it does feel nice. Ah, so these are things that I notice when I'm walking, doing walking meditation. So I'm not chanting anything.

Some people chant, some people count. Perhaps when I do a walking meditation, I will do a mantra, something like that. All I do is just focus on my body, how my body feels.

Not just my feet, my ankles, my knees. And when I first start, I do focus on my feet. And then I just let whatever body part that wants my attention to present itself to me.

So at the moment, I could feel the back of my head, like my scalp, like the top of my scalp and the back of my scalp. I could feel that, just a feeling. I don't really know what the feeling was.

But I feel the tiredness probably. It wasn't pleasure, it wasn't unpleasant, it was just a feeling, like so many feelings. I would, and this may be an exaggeration, but I would say probably 99% of our feelings are neither pleasurable nor unpleasurable.

They're just feelings. It's just stuff that just comes and goes. It might be an over-exaggeration, it might be 97%.

It might be less, I don't know, I don't care. The fact is, well, I think that a lot of the feelings that we have physically don't really mean anything, or they don't seem to. So I'm now noticing my back as I'm just walking forward.

I'm noticing my tiredness is increasing. There's, for me, there's a correlation between relaxing, and I always relax when I make recordings. So that correlation between relaxing and feeling tired just often comes together.

So, even going back to 2006 when I was doing, first started doing group relaxation sessions, I always yawned before. Before I even started the recording, well, not the recording, the session with people, it's sort of an inbuilt, I feel tired thing with me. But that's often perhaps because I do these at night.

So I'm just walking forward. I'm just walking to right foot forward. And you know something, it's left foot forward.

I've been talking for 38 minutes so far. Right foot, left foot, right foot, and just turn around. Right foot, left foot, right foot.

So if I was in a meditation room, doing walking meditation, the walking would be very slow. If I am in the street, walking somewhere, although I walk slowly, I don't walk that slowly. Because it's almost slow, it's almost slow motion.

You know, people moving their legs and really putting their feet down really slowly on the floor. I'm not going to do that in public. But I do walk very slowly.

And during this time that I've been making this recording, not once have I thought about the future. Not once have I thought about... Well, I felt relaxed the whole time. If that makes any sense to you.

I felt focused. I felt good. Good.

Or we're talking about that essence, you know, inside that little room in our center, you know, the core of us. That little room, it could be a big room if you want. And when we're in there, it's just our essence.

And pleasure just happens, naturally, because when you take away all the other stuff, feeling good is actually our natural state. Feeling at peace, at ease. I think as we grow up, or even when we're children, a lot of us would get taught that feeling good is all about this big emotional rush, opening presence, doing something big, having this big... like an exciting thing.

When, in my experience, I like pleasure when it's just natural, organic, not connected to anything. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the other either, because it's lovely to have fun. Of course it is.

And have as much fun as you can. This essence though, that room, that, you know, in the center of us, the core of us, when we're in there, just the essence of us, you could say the essence of us is always in there, regardless of what we're focusing on, or what we're doing. That is us.

It's the real us. Not all these learned behaviors, these learned prejudices, beliefs, and all that stuff. Just the real, we could call it love.

If that isn't too soppy a word. The essence is love. I'm not talking about romantic love.

I'm not talking about any particular kind of love. More love as an essence. Like the purest kind, I guess.

The kind of love that doesn't ask anything from anybody, including yourself. Doesn't expect anything from anybody. Doesn't need anything from anybody.

Reminded me, you have to play along with this one, an analogy. I got woken up by Andre, my ferret. Andre, my little boy, he was in the garden shed.

I've got a garden shed in the bedroom, which is my recording studio eventually when it's sorted out. But I got this big sheet of polythene. And it's in the shed as well.

Andre's been taking his toys in there bit by bit. He's turned it into his own little den, I think. Next thing I know, I'll come in and it'll be in the tree, his own little tree house.

Anyway, he woke me up. I don't know what time in the morning it was. And he was in the shed, playing with the polythene.

And although he woke me up, and he was making a bit too much noise really for that time of night, that was a happy ferret. He was happy. He was having a lot of fun.

He was playing. And he was happy. I could just, I spent so much time with him.

I know when he's happy. And he was happy. I couldn't tell him off.

I couldn't say, stop doing that. I'm trying to sleep. It's almost like that.

That is his essence, is to be playful, and to have fun. And he's happy. He doesn't need, I mean, that is just packaging.

That polythene was part of the packaging of a bookshelf that I got. He's happy. He doesn't want the bookshelf.

He wants the packaging. He's happy with that. There's been times in my life, and maybe you can relate to this, when, there's one particular time, you know, things were a bit difficult in life at the time.

And I had a lot of stuff going on, and had to move house, and all this stuff. And I remember, and this is when I was a counsellor, I remember sitting down in a chair, and it was this recliner chair, and they were moving out of their building as well, of the counselling place, so everything was a bit up in the air. And I remember laying down there, and everything dripped away.

It was almost like I'd just got out of the swimming pool, and I sat down in the sun, and my body was just being dried naturally. And I could feel the water just dripping off my arms, and my shoulders, and my back, and my legs. That sense of release, which can happen naturally.

And it did in that occasion. I didn't do anything other than just sit in the chair. I wasn't preparing to relax, just, I was sitting there waiting for something.

And suddenly, I just felt myself completely let go of everything. And it felt absolutely wonderful. And it's a similar kind of experience to what may be the essence, you know, spending time in that room at the core of yourself, when you focus on that essence of yourself, and how that feels.

And how relaxing that feels. Whether you're doing walking meditation, whether you're just sitting watching television, you focus on that essence inside you. And right now, I'm actually touching just below my breastbone.

I don't have breasts, but I have a breastbone. Mind you, no, I do have man boobs now. But it's just below.

I don't know why I'm touching there. So it doesn't matter where you feel it in your body. It doesn't even matter if it's in your ankle, to be fair.

Who cares? It doesn't matter. It's about where you feel it. I don't mean physically really, because we're talking about the essence, the core of you.

The part of you that cannot be tainted, it cannot be affected by anything. It's you. It's the real you.

Not learnt behavior, but the real you, the real love, the real relaxed you, the real content you. Contented, calm, relaxed. So that's something you can, if you choose, focus on.

What can happen? It might happen. It's happening to me for some reason now that I'm thinking about it. It's that feeling that's inside, the core, that feeling, that essence.

It's always there, but for some reason, the more you focus on it, just like, I guess, anything, it becomes stronger. You can feel it more. And I'm starting to feel it in my buttocks, my legs, my feet, my shoulders.

I feel it physically spreading through me, like from the out, from inside out. I can feel it in my forehead, my eyes, my jaw, my throat. I can feel it in my yawn.

It feels really nice. There's a real, there's a realness to it. It's just, and it's for no reason.

And I'm just going to continue walking, just gently. And you can walk at any pace that you want. I mean, if you're in the street and you're walking somewhere, you can still walk at the normal pace that you walk at.

But when you focus on, or you let your body let you know what you're focusing on, it's almost like you don't have to do anything. Just start focusing on your feet. And the rest kind of happens, you know? And if I hadn't been talking about, briefly about a past, you know, learning meditation and sitting down in a cushion and sitting down in a chair, for the last hour, nearly an hour, I've not even thought about the past.

I've given the future no mind at all, really. Nothing. And it might sound even strange, I'm not even really thinking about now.

Like the present, in this moment, but not the present as in the day. Because when I think about the present, and I think, what's, you know, what's happening in your life right now? I don't think about like this right this second. I think about the day.

You know, what happened when I woke up? What happens between now and when I go to bed? That's the present. So I've not thought about that. All I'm thinking about is just this moment as the moments change.

That yawn. I don't think I normally yawn this much when I make these recordings. And that's another thing is, it lets you get in touch with how you're feeling as far as if you're tired.

If you're tired, maybe it's time to go to sleep. I think it's my time soon. And I'm just walking up and down the room.

It feels nice. I almost don't want to sleep. I don't want to stop doing it.

This could be the longest recording I've ever made. I might just start talking for the next five hours or something. Don't worry, I won't.

I will be bringing this to the end very soon. It's now 50, 56 minutes in. What on earth have I been talking about? I watch videos on YouTube sometimes and the video is only three minutes long.

And they seem to last for ages. I wonder what it feels like for mine that lasts, that literally do last for ages. Does it feel like hours? I feel so much more relaxed than I did.

And I'm just continually or continuing to walk gently. And maybe if you haven't joined me in the walking whilst you've been listening, perhaps you'd like to listen again. Or you could just give it a go yourself.

You could do it in your own bedroom or living room, as long as there's... you'll have your eyes closed anyway, so... but ideally, make a little bit of space so you don't bang into things. And just walk from one side of the room to the other, just slowly, or as slow or as fast as you wish. There are no rules.

Just don't run. Although even then, if you wanted to run, you can, because you could mindfully run. You could mindfully jog.

You can mindfully do pretty much anything. The main thing is that you take care of yourself and you're gentle. That's my rule for everyone listening.

Be gentle. So this is bringing us to the end of this recording. Are you making a new one? At some point, I forget what day it is, you have to... I can't remember.

I did say at the beginning of the session, it's on my website. It's twice a week. So it's Wednesday.

So I guess... I think Saturday probably be the next one. Yeah, Wednesday and Saturday. But check the website anyway.

The timetable's on there. And I'm going to go now. So thank you very much for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. You really do. And be gentle.

Be gentle. Lots of love. Bye.