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When the world feels like it’s unraveling, how do we come back to ourselves?

In this gentle, grounding guided meditation, activist and educator Kazu Haga invites us to sit beside our fear—not to fix or push it away, but to witness it with compassion. Through breath, body, and the ground beneath us, we rediscover a quiet strength that endures even in chaos.

This episode is more than a meditation. It’s a refuge. A place to reconnect with your essential self, to hold space for the parts of you that feel overwhelmed, and to find peace not by escaping the world, but by grounding more deeply within it.

Grounding

Kazu Haga: Taking a moment to ground yourself, wherever you may be. Whether you’re seated somewhere, or standing, or even walking around.

Becoming gently aware of your body, the weight of your body against the earth. Finding all of the spaces that your body is in touch with the earth.

Bringing your awareness to your breath, this exact moment. Noticing how it is that you know that you’re breathing, in this moment.

Noticing all of the places in your body that is moving with your breath. The rise and fall of your chest, the expansion and contraction of your stomach.

How are you, really?

As you settle into your body, as you settle into this moment, just checking in and asking yourself, how are you doing in this exact moment? Not how are you doing when you woke up this morning, or how you’re generally doing in life, but in this exact moment, how are you doing?

Noticing that in our society today, we move at such a pace that when people ask how you’re doing, that’s oftentimes not a real question. Taking this moment to really ask yourself, How are you?

Slowly expanding your awareness and asking yourself, How are you doing in your relationships?

In your relationship with yourself, with your family, with your community. Trying not to judge or interpret or fix or grasp anything that may be coming up, just noticing and giving space for whatever might be coming up when you ask yourself, How are you in relationship, in this moment?

Expanding your awareness one more time and asking yourself, How are you doing in the context of the world that we live in?

With all of the chaos and destruction, but also all of the beauty and the joy and the laughter in the context of everything that is happening in the world around you.

How are you doing?

What’s stretching you?

As you observe yourself, as just one being in this large world with so much that is happening, see if you can notice and find one place that is bringing you into stretch.

One place where you are being challenged, where you may be grieving, confused, lost, or angry.

Finding a place where you might perhaps even be in a little bit of panic, where things feel like it might be black and white, where it may be really difficult for you to see a different perspective and invite that part of you into the forefront of your awareness.

Noticing that you are not that panic, but that you are experiencing that panic. That panic is not your essential self. It is an experience that you are having.

As you notice that you are not that panic, you might notice this panic, perhaps taking a form inside of your mind. This panic might look like yourself, taking a certain body posture.

It may manifest as a younger version of yourself, perhaps someone or something that represents the feeling that you’re having. Perhaps it is a color. Whatever form that this panic might be taking, find yourself sitting next to this form to this being and notice them.

Notice how they’re breathing. Notice where in their body, in their shape, they may be holding tension.

Being aware not to take this on for yourself. Just noticing it in this form that is sitting next to you.

If you notice tension in them, being aware not to take it on in your own body, just being aware that it is sitting next to you and continuing to have awareness of your own body.

Breathing deeply with the earth

As you breathe deep, continuing to notice the spaciousness in your own body with each in breath. Extending towards the sky, with each out breath, grounding towards the earth.

As you bring awareness to your own body, notice if anything shifts in the being that is sitting next to you.

As you breathe, breathing in the nourishment from the trees and the plants around you.

As you breathe out, exhaling whatever no longer serves you.

As you breathe, notice the earth breathing with you.

The earth breathing through the tides with the rise and fall of each day. The coming and the going of each season.

Aligning yourself with the slow, deep rhythm of the earth.

Knowing that no matter what happens, the earth continues to breathe slowly and deeply.

Noticing, again, if anything has shifted inside of you and noticing if anything might have shifted in the being that is sitting next to you.

Perhaps as you are grounded by the earth, this being has received a little bit of grounding from you.

Accepting and welcoming whatever stretch and panic may still be present in this being.

Noticing how it might feel for this being to have this space, to have this attention, to be welcomed in your body with you just sitting there next to them.

Closing

As we move into our closing, perhaps making a commitment and a promise to continue to create space for this being, to continue to create space for feelings of panic, of fear, of confusion that may be moving through your system, through your body.

Notice if this changes anything for this being, to know that you’re not saying goodbye, but that there will continue to be space for them in your mind and in your body. You’ll continue to welcome them and to be with them.

When you feel ready to, when you feel that this being may be ready, gently notice it fading away, for now, knowing that you’ll come back to it, continue to create space for it.

Coming back to yourself, noticing yourself grounded in your truest, essential self, separate from experiences of panic and fear that you may be feeling.

Finding yourself, just with the purity of who you are. Offering yourself some gratitude for these few moments of practice.

These few moments to slow down and to welcome all of your experiences in the midst of a busy day, a busy world. Offering yourself gratitude. We’re taking these breaths, we’re slowing down.

As you hear the sound of the closing bells, seeing if you can take all of the slowness, the groundedness, all of the care that we cultivated in these past few minutes, as the sound of the bell enters your mind, using that bell to integrate all of this slowness from this practice deep into your body, into your bones.

Have this slowness extend to every cell of your body as you move through the rest of your day.

When you can no longer hear the sound of the bell, gently opening your eyes if they were closed. Perhaps looking around the room, noticing what you see.

What shapes? What colors are present? Can you see the sunlight? Some plants outside of your window?

Reconnecting with the larger world outside of yourself. Giving gratitude to all of the beings you’re surrounded by for creating the space for this short practice.

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