There's a whole set of tools we can use internally to deactivate ourselves when we feel anxious, worry, angry.

So one of those tools, of course, is just changing the way we breathe. Another tool is becoming aware of the full body

relaxing any tension or tightness. So let's set to work on developing these tools which often go underutilized.

We'll take three breaths together just to bring our practice into a bit of unison. So take a nice smooth long in breath through the

nose and lift the shoulders if you like, up to the ears.

So you're trying to touch your ears with your shoulders

and then holding them therefore a moment

and then breathe out through the mouth

and release those shoulders all the way down.

See how far they can fall away from ears.

And then another in-breath pulling in the belly

as tight as you can so you're like trying to tighten

tighten tighten tighten and then breathe out through the mouth and soften the belly and

keep softening it until there is just a nice soft experience.

And then for our third breath, tighten any other muscles you like muscles in the face, the arms, the buttocks, the legs, the fists, anything

you want to tighten and then hold it and then you to breathe out. So we've already given ourselves now one basic tool which is you can think of the

in breath and holding the in breath as a way to enliven the mind and the body.

And you can think of the long out breath as a way to soften your experience, develop ease, develop the greater degree of tranquility.

So those two tools.

Now let's take a moment to survey the body and see if there's any areas besides the shoulder and valley.

We can relax if you know the face is tense, the forehead or the muscles, micro muscles around the eyes.

Just send a message to this area of the body and encourage those muscles to release or you can imagine what it would feel like if you could breathe in to the forehead or the eyes to soften.

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