Hello, welcome to the Daily Meditation Podcast. I'm Mary Mechley and I welcome you to day two of the series we're exploring this week.

This week, the theme is about emotional regulation. In today's episode, you're going to be guided in an affirmation to help you regulate your emotions.

Consider this week to be training grounds to manage your stress. I'm going to share with you some insight and then you'll be guided in today's meditation.

When you consider emotional regulation, know that you unconsciously use emotional regulation strategies to cope with difficult situations many times throughout each day.

And these stressful situations can be actual situations but they can also be perceived situations and it's often the perceived situation that can cause the most stress.

So you could be coming stressed about something that's not even true or something that hasn't even happened yet.

It works like this. So there's a situation that can trigger stress. It might be a problem at work with a relationship. Maybe you're worried about your health.

And then you have a thought. You might think you're in danger or you might feel threatened or you might feel self doubt or anxiety.

This triggers emotions. So when you begin to pay attention to how you feel, you can begin to catch triggering emotions and help yourself regulate them.

Next, you act in some way. You might isolate. You might avoid contact with others. You might not pursue your goals or cancel plans you were looking forward to.

So these emotions can become magnified. Again, these could be real situations or simply perceived situations but your body responds in the same way.

But he actually has a physical reaction. You might feel tired or tense. You might lose your appetite. You might do things compulsively to soothe yourself.

So when you take part in a daily training, which is your challenge for today, where you practice regulating your emotions, you think about what's causing you stress, whether it's again a real stressor or a perceived stressful event that has not even happened yet.

Begin to tune into where you hold this anxiety, this stress in your body and then begin to work with it.

I'm sharing with you techniques every day to help you do just that. So one of the most powerful techniques is to begin right where this whole stress cycle process begins.

And that is with your thoughts. Your thoughts are making you feel unsafe in some way. So your emotional state can become revved up to where you're anxious and tense and fearful or your emotional state can begin to spiral downward where you experience fatigue, depression, sadness, grief, remorse.

So when you select an affirmation, which is a positive statement that helps to focus your thoughts, you consciously choose what you want to be thinking.

Now you do this with intention. So you don't simply repeat some positive statement without really thinking about what you're trying to achieve.

Affirmations are best if they're short and size and to the point. So your affirmation for this week that I encourage you to repeat every day as you do your emotional regulation training is I am safe and visualize what helps you to feel safe.

Maybe for you, that's a location. Maybe it's visualizing your seated next to someone who supports you, someone you can always lean on, whether or not that person is still alive, their essence can help you to feel safe.

So settle yourself down now and let's do this together. Now I'm playing the music a little longer today so that you can get in your training.

So you can go ahead and stop the meditation after I guide you through it or you can stay and continue practicing regulating your emotions until the music stops.

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