When you wake up to a low, grey weight rather than a racing mind or sharp panic, simply getting through the day can feel like too much to ask. In this episode of Calming Anxiety, Martin Hewlett—clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic—guides you through a gentle, 10-minute session designed to help you set that heavy weight down without forcing a mood change or trying to fix how you feel.Through a grounding breathwork practice focused on lengthening the exhale and filling the space behind the heart, we signal to your nervous system that it is safe to soften.
Affirmations for Healing & Self-TendernessRepeat these gently to yourself or simply let them settle as you listen:"This heaviness is not the whole of me."
"I am allowed to feel low, and I am allowed to feel better."
The script
Transcribed from the audio, so the odd word may be off. Tap any line while it plays to keep the words in step with Martin's voice.
I feel so low today. Perhaps that is the very thought you work with. Not a racing mind, not a sharp edge of panic, just a low grey weight. A flatness where the colour used to be.
The sense that your mood has sunk somewhere you cannot quite reach and lifting it feels like far too much to ask. If you're feeling low right now then you've come to exactly the right place. Nothing is being asked of you here, no fixing, no forcing. Just 10 quiet minutes and a hand held out.
Welcome to calming anxiety. I'm Martin and this is your daily 10 minutes to set something heavy down. I think we make here also lives inside Ancad, our companion app. Over 3000 sessions to reach you.
A library of books at bedtime and a soft night light for the hours that feel the longest. It's there whenever you need it. Day or night. So wherever you find yourself, the edge of a bed, a parked car, under the covers with a curtain still drawn.
Let's begin gently. Let your eyes closed and let the weight of your body be taken by whatever is holding you.
When you feel low, the body tends to follow the mood downward, the breath goes shallow and high in the chest. The shoulders round forward and everything falls quietly inward. In my years on the ambulances, I saw time and again how the breath and the nervous system move as one. Change the first and the second answers.
So we won't try to force a feeling today. We'll simply offer the body a slower, kinder rhythm, gentler to settle into. We begin by letting the out breath grow long. This is the breath that tells the nervous system it is safe now to soften.
So breathe in gently through your nose and now along, slow release. A quiet sigh out through the mouth if you like and just rest at the bottom.
Again, in the through the nose feel the chest rise, hold briefly and a long, audible sigh out. Let the shoulders fall a little further each time. Feel that sense of letting go. Beautiful.
Now we changed the shape of the breath, only slightly a lifting breath. Through all the air in a touch more fully this time. Imagine it filling, not just the chest but the space behind the heart, the place where the heaviness likes to sit and then let it go with a soft, audible sigh. The very sound the body makes all on its own when a weight is finally set down.
Breathe in, filling the space behind the heart. Breathe out with a sigh. Nothing has to change all at once. We are only making a little room.
Now as a clinical hypnotherapist most of my work is with a quiet voice underneath the noise. For these next few minutes we are going to offer it something truer. You don't need to believe every word. You just let them land.
The way the sunlight lands through a gap in the curtains, uninvited but always welcome. Now see these words in your mind I, bright and bon. This heaviness is not the whole of me. I am allowed to feel low and I am allowed to feel better.
I am worthy of care even on the days I cannot feel it.
When I feel low I meet myself with tenderness never with blame.
The light returns in its own time and I allow it.
Let each word settle now. Let the breath carry them a little deeper. The way a slow tide carries something gently towards the shore. Their effort at all just real.
With every out breath truly allow yourself to relax a little bit further.
To let go of the darkness that flowed over you and to truly love all you are.
And then once more in the beauty of your imagination see these words feel them. Let the echo of them reside within you today. This heaviness is not the whole of me.
I am allowed to feel low and I am allowed to feel better.
I am worthy of care even on the days I cannot feel it.
When I feel low I meet myself with tenderness never with blame.
The light returns in its own time and I allow it.
This heaviness is not the whole of me.
I am allowed to rest without first having to earn it.
I am still here and today that is enough.
To lock these feelings in, to grow, to embrace these moments, accept the dips and the setbacks and move forward. Here are today's three daily caring tips. Then move the body just a little. You don't need a walk that fixes everything.
Simply stand. Reach both arms up towards the ceiling and let them fall. Motion lifts the mood in a way that thinking almost never manages to. Two.
Lower the bar for today. On a low day, a good day is not a productive one. Simply one you move through with a little kindness towards yourself. Let enough be enough today.
Three. Reach toward one connection. Send a message to one person. A voice rather than a screen if you can manage it.
Feeling low has a way of making us pull the door quietly closed. So let this be the day you leave it open, just a bit, and if the loneliness lingers and the great days begin to stack up, please tell someone who can sit with you in it. You were never meant to carry this alone. Now gently bring your awareness back into the space around you.
Wiggle your fingers and toes. Kick a breath in, hold at the top and then as you exhale stretch out the arms and legs and then open your eye. If these ten minutes lifted, even the smallest corner of your day, sharing calming anxiety with someone who is quietly having a hard time of it themselves could mean ever think for them. And if you have a moment, a review helps another soul find their way here to us.
If you haven't already, please find Ankerd the app. All of these shows in one package in your pocket for whenever you need it. Until tomorrow my friend, in everything, be kind.