One of the things I noticed when I have moments when I am feeling anxious is that I can’t be present, in the moment. When I am feeling anxious I find myself follow the thousands of thoughts down the dark rabbit hole and as a result I feel lost and agitated.
Mindfulness is an amazing tool for someone who suffers from unhelpful negative thinking and I used this technique a lot when I was myself being taken over by unhelpful thoughts.
Kim Davies uses a great visualisation technique within her book Pause, which is called Cookie breathing. I have done breathing exercises in the past but never used the visualisation of baked cookies.
Bringing our awareness to our breathing it is a great way to relax and it does help me with stopping the inner dialogue I have going at times.
Placing both my feet flat on the floor, sitting upright I take a deep breath in and then out letting my body relax a little as I do this.
Once I close my eyes I am picture a tray full of cookies fresh from the oven. I can practically smell them. Visualisation is a key element of mindfulness and can be used to help us feel calmer and connected to our breathing.
As I breath in I am imagining the aroma of the cookies. As I breath out I imagine that I am gently blowing on the cookies to cool them down.
The visualisation continues where I keep imagining I am breathing in the aroma of the cookies and then breathing out, trying to cool them down.
I am Allowing my breathe to find its own rhythm, I don’t need to make it any deeper or longer than it naturally is. If I find my mind wandering I bring it back to the cookies and the aroma.
This technique can be done in a few minutes and once you open your eyes and sit for a few minutes.
This was a simple yet effective way to stop and find some inner peace.
I really enjoyed this because I could visualise the baking tray with cookies and I could smell the homely aroma of fresh baked cookies or Biscuits like us british people call them.
What helped me stay calm and enjoy this visualisation was my association to baking biscuits. It reminds me of a simpler time when everything was magical.
Baking in Primary school was something I really enjoyed and being able to visualise it as well as smell the aroma it just made me feel calmer.
It does depend on whether you find the smell of baked biscuits calming, so if the aroma of baked biscuits or cookies doesn’t then what do you find calming? Maybe it’s something else baked or even cooked.
Let me know what you find calming and what visualisation helped you by leaving a comment below.
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