TINAH Talks | Mental Health and Wellbeing Podcast

Space-Oriented Mindfulness: Is This A New & More Easier Way to Meditate?

• TINAH

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🧘 Join TINAH's 12-day Mindfulness Challenge to go from chaos to calm this holiday season + get the FREE PDF workbook here.

Today is Day 7 of TINAH’s 12 Days of Christmas Chaos To Calm Challenge - where we are helping you find a moment of peace and mindfulness to destress and calm your nervous system during the busy holiday period.

The challenge practise we’re sharing with you today is space orienting 👀

Space orientation is used as a nervous system grounding exercise to ease your fight or flight response. The practice involves engaging the senses to observe the surroundings you are currently in, affirm safety, and return to the present moment.

You can practise this exercise pretty much anywhere in under 5 minutes and reap the same benefits as a meditation practise.

‼️ Don’t forget to sign up to receive the full challenge workbook with all the guided prompts dropped daily into your inbox:

BONUS: WIN a Christmas gift from one of TINAH's brand partners. More details on HOW when you subscribe for the workbook. 🎁

See you tomorrow for Day 8 of TINAH’s 12 Days of Christmas Mindfulness Challenge where we will be guiding you through a calming visualization meditation.

#space #spaceorienting #nervoussystemmanagement #groundingenergy #meditation #meditatewithus #meditationforbeginners #meditate #nervoussystemreset #resetyournervoussystem #feelsafewithin #feelsafe #mindfulness

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Sophie (00:00.696)
Hello and welcome back to day seven of Tinah's Chaos to Calm Christmas Challenge. We are guiding you through 12 days of Christmas, different practices that are gonna help you find a moment of calm in your chaotic Christmas schedules. So today's practice that we're gonna be guiding you through is space orientation. So essentially, orientation around your space and orienting yourself in your space helps you reset your nervous system.

by grounding you into that present moment because you're focusing essentially on like where you are, what's around you and what you need to be focusing on at that moment in time which can help ease your body's fight or flight responses. It engages all of your senses and reduces internal stress by refocusing your attention on your external and safe surroundings, helping your nervous system find a bit of balance and return to a state of rest. So I'm gonna guide you through a little practice that's gonna help you

orientate in your space and then Kelsey who is here with me is going to be practicing that alongside you at home. So Kelsey are you ready to orient in your space?

Kelsey (01:06.794)
I am ready. Let's do it.

Sophie (01:10.616)
Perfect. Okay, so before we begin, make sure you're in a comfortable position. You can be sitting or standing, ideally somewhere where you feel quite relaxed and you won't be disturbed.

When you're in that position, take a long deep breath in, really slow inhale and slow exhale can be through your mouth or through your nose to centre yourself and ground into the space that you're currently in. Allow yourself to soften into the surroundings and let go of any tension in your shoulders, your neck and your jaw. You might want to just give yourself a little shake of the shoulders, a little roll of the neck just to...

start making yourself feel a little bit looser and keep those deep breaths going. Now with your eyes open, take a little look around your space that you're in. Gently turn your head to the left, turn your head to the right. You might want to look behind you over your shoulder.

You might want to look over the other shoulder, above you, below you. Just take in what you see without any judgment. Observe the colors that you see, the shapes, the lighting, the objects, the space around you. You might even imagine that you're seeing some of these things for the first time. Have a look and see what you can notice without any judgment of the space that you're currently in.

Now you want to try and engage all of your senses in this motion. As you look around, try and engage more of your senses. So we've already used your eyes. We can already see what's happening and what's going on for you in the space that you're currently in. Start having a listen, using your ears to start noticing any sounds that are currently present in the room that you're in or from the outside of the room. Use your sense of smell to observe if there's any smells in the air within the room that you're in.

Sophie (03:12.598)
and start to really feel the texture of the chair or the floor that's beneath you or even the sensation of the clothing that's on your skin. Start to engage all of your senses to really get a sense of where you are, how you feel in this moment in time and how you feel in the environment that you're currently in.

Now as you take in your environment, I want you to remember that you are in a safe space. Remind yourself, your body, that you are in a safe space. Even if it is just literally telling yourself in your mind or muttering out loud, I am safe in the environment that I am in, that's going to affirm your safety in the space. That is going to make your nervous system feel calm and not on edge or not in fight or flight.

Notice anything that's in your space that's bringing you comfort or warmth or joy and try and focus your attention on that to help encourage and reaffirm that feeling of safety. Something that makes you feel really comforted in the space that you're in is only going to reaffirm that feeling of safety.

Take any final observations in that you might want to make about the space that you're in.

Sophie (04:28.878)
Maybe hold on to a picture that has made you feel safe in this moment in time as we start coming out of this space orientation. So we're to want to start returning back to your body. We've been looking around the room. We've been tuning into our senses. Bring your attention back to your body by just giving yourself a little wiggle of the fingers, maybe a little wiggle of the toes. Come back to your breath. Maybe take a long deep inhale in for two.

and out for two.

Hopefully you're starting to feel a little bit more calm. You're feeling a little bit more safe in the environment that you're in. You've made some good observations in the space that you're in and it's making you feel more at peace and at one with the space that you're in. So you can repeat this exercise at any time. It's a really good exercise for bringing you back to that present moment, which we know is the only moment that we actually have in life. The moment that we can only fuel our happiness from is the now. So whenever you start feeling like the chaos of this

Chaotic Christmas period is getting a little bit too much and you just want to take, literally that took us five minutes to come back to our body, come back to our breath, come back to the space that we're currently in, not thinking about what's next, not thinking about what's been, come back to this present moment. This is a really great exercise for you to be able to do that and release tension when you're starting to feel overwhelmed. Kelsey, how was that? Did you notice any observations about the space you were in through that?

Kelsey (05:59.554)
Yeah, it was great. I've actually been gone from this space for about a month. So it was really nice to like look around and see everything that I've, you know, decorated in the past and just to like kind of reorient into the space. And it was very grounding, very settling, very comforting, instead of thinking about all the things I have to do today.

Sophie (06:21.134)
Exactly, that's the whole point. It's like, you know, you've got a lot going on in this moment in time. Everyone's got a lot going on at this moment in time. This exercise, very quick reminder of where you are, that you're safe in this present moment in time, and hopefully then gives you that comfort to then proceed with all of the tasks that you need to do in the day ahead. So thank you for joining today's Chaos to Calm Christmas Challenge. Just as a reminder, if you would like to further guidance through one of these practices that we are sharing over the next five days,

Make sure you do subscribe to our mailing list in the link and you will get the download, the free workbook that associates with this challenge to guide you through the practices in more detail. So thank you for joining us today. I hope it did help you find a little moment of calm in your chaotic day and we will see you again tomorrow.