Meditation to help overcome fear and stress

Lately I've had some times where I've felt so scared and overwhelmed. Be it an imminent "thing" or a life change, sometimes I have felt my heart pounding and the sweat poring out of my skin and it has been so consuming I have felt trapped. I have been trying to bring meditation into my life, and in the 3, maybe 4 instances lately where I have felt myself starting to succumb to stress, anxiety and general "Oh my GOD why is life putting me in this situation?!" moments, I have tried a quick, spontaneous meditation.

Maybe it's more breathing exercises but I see it as meditation. I have closed my eyes, taken a deep breath in, held it for as long as I can, then released. I've done this 5 times then I've envisioned myself connecting with the earth. Then I ask the Earth for help, for guidance, for strength. Whatever in that moment I feel I am lacking, I have breathed slowly and asked for help. And the crazy thing? It's helped. It has brought me back down and given me clarity. I don't know whether it's just taking time out to be with myself, to calm down, to just be. But this little spontaneous meditation has been so helpful and nurturing when I've needed it.

I love the guided meditations I have from my art course, and would really like to devise some of my own - who knows, maybe even record them to play back at another time. So I think my next thing to go on my to-do list (this is the Master to-do list, of which I have several more todo lists living inside of it!!!) will be to learn how to structure meditations. I've found a lot of youtube videos for meditation and creative meditation as well as spying a meditation centre near my mum's house so the next chance I have I am going to have a calm, meditation exploration day!

Art journal spread about feeling calm