Mental Resilience, Mindfulness & Self Awareness

1. Introduction: Welcome to this course on mental resilience, mindfulness, and self-awareness. When you consider that our entire experience of life is created in our own minds, then having an awareness of how we are perceiving and relating to the world around us is fundamental in developing resilience, well-being, and healthy habits. It is the foundation of everything else in our lives. And in this course, I will share with you a model that demonstrates how we create our own reality. Explain how to develop the skill of perceptual flexibility, teaching mindfulness tools so you can recognize unhelpful patterns of thinking. Guide you through a simple mindfulness-based meditation and show you ways in which you can integrate these practices into your day to day lives moving forward in ways that are going to be beneficial. Thank you for being here. Now let's begin. 2. Where does our experience come from?: In order to build resilience, we need to start with an understanding as to where our experience is coming from. Let me give you an example. We will often attribute how we feel to something external. So e.g. let's say you've gone for a job interview and you're sitting in the reception area waiting for the interview which is due to start in 10 min time and you've got a cup of coffee in hand. You go to sip your coffee and as you do, the lid falls off and coffee pause down your best outfits. Now, that is something that has happened in our environment. The coffee has poured down our very best outfits just before our interview is due to start. Our emotional experience in response to that, could be one of annoyance, anger, frustration. And we could say that we're feeling annoyed because of the coffee. So we are attributing that feeling to something external. And then our behavior will be representative of the emotions that we're feeling. So if we're feeling frustrated and we walk into the interview, when might not necessarily perform as well as we would have hoped. Because we have these feelings of frustration and annoyance and we're thinking how city we are. We've got coffee or down our front. So in this example, we've attributed our feelings to the fact that the coffee has pulled down our best outfit. But I'd like to offer you a separate framework which more accurately summarizes what is really happening in terms of our experience. So first of all, something will happen in our environment, will take that information in through our five senses and through the faults that we have in relation to what's just happened and the belief systems that underpin those faults, we will create a meaning as to what is happening in the external world. Then our brains will communicate with our bodies to create a feeling or an emotional response and a shift in our physiology. We've ordered these things happening within the blink of an eye, outside of our conscious awareness. We will then respond in a habitual way if it's something that happens on a regular basis or as a one-off behavior of it's not. Ultimately that will lead to the results that we get. The key part here is that we are creating the meaning as to what is going on in the world around us. And based on the perceptions that we have, we will respond accordingly. So let me give you a few other examples to bring this to life. To people can be doing exactly the same thing at the same time, sitting next to each other on a roller coaster ride, experiencing the same thing. And one person could be feeding really excited and exhilarated. And the person sitting next to them could be feeling completely petrified and full of fear. Same situation, just a different meaning. They are attributing to that situation. Or art is also a good example. If this plain blue rectangle was a piece of art and it is, it is just one plane tone of blue. And let's say that you are here to bid for this plain blue rectangle. How much would you be willing to pay for it? Maybe a pound, maybe ten pounds at the most. Or someone else looked at this plain blue rectangle and they perceived it to be worth nearly $17.5 million, which is what they paid for it. Now granted, they had a bit more contexts because they knew that it was IKB one by Yves Klein. So that added a bit of perceived value. But isn't it amazing how one person can look at that plane blue rectangle and perceive it as being worth nearly $17.5 million. And other people would look at it and perceive it as being worth not a great deal. So the key here is that we do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. And the reason that this is really important as a foundational awareness and foundational understanding is because when we can remember this, it starts to help to shift us from feeling like we are the victim of our circumstances, where we will respond in a way that is avoidant, ineffective and ultimately leads to greater suffering for ourselves. To actually being a bit more aware and mindful where we can respond in a way that is more workable. And we're being more resilient because we're taking greater ownership over the situation. We're responding in a way that is more mindful and willing and effective and ultimately leads to greater vitality for ourselves. So it's a very short exercise to enable you to practice this idea of looking at things in different ways and maybe shifting the way you're looking at something from a way that isn't necessarily helpful for you. Looking at it in a way that might be a little bit more constructive. I'd like you just to practice something that I call perceptual flexibility. And I've got two scenarios here on this slide. The first one is that you get asked to give a speech in front of 2000 people with a week's notice. How would you automatically feel and what would you automatically be thinking in response to that request? The second scenario is in relation to driving, and I'm sure if you drive, you can relate to this. So let's say you joined a traffic jam and you've spent half an hour inching forward. And all of a sudden, there's a car that comes flying down the outside lane and cuts in front of you and they haven't joined the back of the traffic jam. What might you automatically think and feel in relation to that situation? So just take a minute to consider what your automatic response in those two scenarios might be. And if your automatic response isn't particularly helpful or constructive, I the first situation that you've filled with blind panic, and in the second scenario you are filled with annoyance and anger. What could be another way of looking at this? What could be another meaning that we could attribute to the scenarios that might be a little bit more constructive. And it doesn't mean that we have to stick with these ways of viewing things. It just gives us a little bit of flexibility and reminds us that there is always different ways of looking at things. So think about what your automatic thoughts and feelings are and then consider an alternative way of viewing that situation might be, how else could you think and feel about that situation? So just spend a minute considering that. 3. Build awareness of mental chatter: Having established that it is how we are relating to our environment that affects how we feel and how we respond. One of the first practices that we want to develop an awareness of the thoughts that we are having in relation to the things that are going on around us. When it comes to our thoughts. According to research, we have 50000-70 thousand thoughts every single day. The vast majority of those are outside of our conscious awareness. They are unconscious for it's running in the background. And they are also largely repetitive because we have these neural pathways that have been wired together over time. And so we relate to things in a habitual way. We also have this bias towards negativity. And the reason for that is that the number one job of our brain is to keep us safe. And so we are always on the lookout for potential threats within our environment. And so we have this propensity to be on the lookout for things that could potentially go wrong a lot more than we're on the lookout for things that could go right? And so these ports are really determining how we are experiencing our everyday lives. To demonstrate the power of our thoughts. When I do these sessions in a live environment where we're running a workshop with 50 to 100 people in the room. I say that we're going to do a little exercise. In this exercise, I say that I'm randomly going to select three people to come up to the front of the room and tell a joke to the rest of the group. Now when that happens, people often panic when I get feedback afterwards. It's about 95 to 98% of people who experience the symptoms of the stress response in the body, the sympathetic nervous system gets activated. They experienced an increased heart rate. Butterflies in the stomach, tension in their shoulders, maybe clammy palms, maybe consider for yourself if you were in that situation. Rather than sitting watching this video, we were in a room together with 100 other people. And I suddenly turn to you and said, Can you please come up to the front of the room and tell a joke to the rest of the group. How might you feel if you were in that situation? Now, ultimately, I don't actually get someone to come and tell a joke. I build it up a little bit. I get people squirming in their chairs a little bit. Then I say that actually no one is going to have to come and tell the joke to the rest of the group. But the reason I do this exercise is I want to demonstrate the power of people's faults. And so the first takeaway after we run this exercise is that I get them to notice how the potentially stressful event of standing up and telling a joke in front of a group of 100 other people never actually happened. And so for the 98% of the people who felt that stress in the body, the increased heart rate, the tension, the butterflies in their stomach. It was their fault. Own thinking about the prospect of that thing happening that created stress in their own body. And this is the power of our ports. How often does that happen in our day-to-day lives? Well, according to research from Harvard University, Matthew Killingsworth found that on average, we spend about 47 per cent of our waking hours lost in for mind-wandering, thinking about what might happen or rerunning things that have happened in the past. And so these are constantly driving how we're feeling in the moment. One of the practices in terms of developing resilience is how can we start to bring that 47% down a little bit so that we are just more present and in the moment rather being lost in thought about the things that could potentially happen and how I'm going to look silly if I have to stand up and tell a joke or rerunning things that have already happened in the past conversations we've had with other people. And that's impacting how we're feeling in the moment. And we'll look at ways in which we can do that in the next video. The other takeaway from that exercise that we just spoke about, after they've felt the stress in the body and after I've told them that they're not going to have to tell a joke. After all. I get them just to think back a minute or two into the past and see if they can become aware of the thoughts that they were having in the moment that I said that they might have to stand up and tell a joke. And just to get a little bit of awareness around where those sports mostly avoiding IEEE, did they really not want to stand up and tell a joke where they hoping it wasn't going to be them, that was gonna be picked. This practice, this takeaway gets them just to recognize that they are able to shift where they are placing their attention. They are able to notice the faults that they were having. So there's almost like there's two aspects to themselves. There's the part that is observing and there's a part that is doing the thinking. This practice, this ability that we have as human beings. The scientific term for it is metacognition. And essentially it is our ability to be aware of our own faults. So there's part of us that is doing the thinking and there's part of us that is directing our awareness and able to observe our thinking. Here's a little video to demonstrate how we are able to direct our attention. With the video now playing, I want you to direct your attention to watching the tube going into the tunnel. It's moving away from us going into the tunnel and see if you can see it going that direction. Now, direct your attention to the tube coming out of the tunnel, coming towards us. And see if you can now see it coming towards you. Then you can direct your attention to it going away from you. And then you can direct it's coming back towards you. Depending on how you are thinking about it. That reflects the direction you see a traveling. So hopefully you were able to get that. Now, obviously that is just a gimmick with the video. But if you can notice that there was positive you that was directing your awareness to thinking that it was traveling one way. And then there was part of you that was able to direct your awareness to then thinking it was traveling another way. So there's these two aspects, the observing self and the Thinking Self. And this really is the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to diffuse from our thinking, to take a step back and to notice the thoughts that we're having and to recognize them, to accept them, to not judge them. Simple practice of noticing them and allowing them to pass this by. So in the next video, I will introduce you to a few mindfulness-based practices that you can integrate into your everyday lives. And a simple mindfulness-based approach to meditation. 4. Learning mindfulness and meditation: Mindfulness practices are all about how we can start to become more present and spend less time caught up in thoughts about the past and the future. As we mentioned in a previous video, according to the Harvard research study, nearly half of our waking hours are spent lost him for. So how can we start to reduce that amount of time that we're thinking about things and just being present to the experience in the moment. So here are a few practices that you can start to integrate into your day to day lives. The first practice is to engage your senses. So when you are doing any particular activity during the day, whether that's going for a walk wherever that's cooking a meal, whether that's eating a meal, whether that's brushing your teeth. As you are doing that activity, just practice rotating through the different senses. So as you're doing that thing, what can you smell? What can you see? What can you here? What does it feel like? Obviously with the different activities, there's gonna be different senses that come to the fore. So as you are cooking, maybe the smells will be quite predominant as you are walking, maybe you can notice how the wind fields, how the breeze feels against your face, or how the sun feels against your skin. Maybe you can look around and notice the trees and things that you don't normally notice that birds, whatever there is in your particular environment. So this practice pulls us into the moment, into the sensory experience of the moment, rather than us being caught up in thinking about other things whilst we are doing this activity. So maybe just pick one activity that you do on a regular basis. And as you were doing that thing, just start to engage in the sensory experience of that practice. The next mindfulness practice is called a body scan. And this practice is really about mentally scanning down through the body to notice the different sensations that we are experiencing. So like with the practice of noticing our thoughts and not getting caught up in those sports and not judging those ports. It's the same with our sensory experiences as same with what we are feeling in the moment. It's a process of noticing the qualities of the sensations that we might be experiencing. So if you've got tightness and tension in your shoulders, what does that feel like? Does it feel hard? Does it feel like it's vibrating? Does it feel hot? So these are all qualities of sensation. They're not judgments. They're simply observations of what we're experiencing in the moment. So we can just spend 5 min just sitting quietly scanning down through the body, noticing the different sensations and the different parts of the body. Again, bringing us into an awareness of what we're feeding in this particular moment in time. Then the third practice of mindful movement combines these two aspects of sensory engagement and embodied awareness. So when you are walking and this is really great when we're outdoors to start to notice how the body is moving. And to be really aware of how you are placing your feet, how you're swinging your arms. Again, bringing that awareness to what the airfields like against your skin, noticing the sensations in the body as you are moving. Maybe you can slow things down a little bit so that you can really tap into how everything feels as your body is moving. The final practice in developing this capacity for mindfulness is meditation itself. Obviously, these other practices can be done throughout the day. Meditation is a practice that we can do, sitting down with our eyes closed so we can develop this capacity for observing and noticing the thoughts that are arising in the moment. If meditation is new to you, then let's just define what we mean by meditation. I would define it as a practice or a technique which enables us to train our attention and our awareness so that we can achieve a more mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. You can think of meditation as a form of mental fitness training. And we'll go to a gym to work on our physical fitness or a physical muscle will do a bicep curl to build up the muscle in our arm, will meditation will help to build the muscle in the brain. There was a research study done at Harvard University where they found that people who meditated on a regular basis actually change the gray matter in the brain. They started to make the brain function more effectively, enabling them to be more present on a more regular basis. And there are many different approaches to meditation. There's mantra based meditation, there's breath meditation. There's meditation where we using visualizations meditations where we're scanning down through the body and there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all. Some people enjoy certain meditations and some people enjoy others. And there's also meditations that are beneficial at particular times and other ones that are beneficial for other purposes. So it's useful to try different approaches. In this session, I'm just going to introduce you to a mindfulness-based approach to meditation using the breath. It's a simple three-step process and it starts with just sitting comfortably. So make sure that your back is upright but not too stiff but not slouching over. Have your feet flat on the floor and your hands resting in your lap. Close your eyes so you can become a little bit more introspective, a little bit more aware of the thoughts that are arising within your mind. And now, just start counting your breath cycles every time you breathe in and out is one in announce to in and out degree and so on. After awhile, you will notice that you are getting lost in thought. There'll be certain thoughts about whatever it might be popping up in your head. When you notice the thoughts, you don't have to get caught up in it. You don't have to judge yourself for having the thought. This is very natural and normal. But the practice is to notice the four to allow it to pass by. And now bring your attention back to your breath. Once you've acknowledged before and accepted it, return to the breath and start counting from one upwards again. Every time you do that, it's like one metaphorical bicep curl. It's training the brain to come back to the present moment. Notice the thoughts back to the present moment. It doesn't matter if every few seconds you notice another four popping up in your head. The practice over time improves your ability to become more present and also improves your ability to notice the thoughts that you're having and create some separation between you as an awareness and the thoughts that you're having. In the next video, I will guide you through a short meditation which will enable you to experience this process for yourselves. 5. Guided mindfulness meditation: To start this meditation, I firstly invite you to sit comfortably, have your back straight, but not stiff and not slouching. Just relax your shoulders. Let your arms hang loosely. Allow your hands to rest gently on your nap. When you are ready. I invite you to close your eyes. Let's just start by taking a few slow deep breaths. Breathing in through the nose for 4 s, breathing into the Betty than the chest. Out through the mouth with a sign. One more time breathing in through the mouth. For this meditation, we are going to use the breath as the anchor to focus our attention on. Stopped by paying very close attention to how the flow of air feels. As you noticed, the subtlety of your belly and chest rising and falling with every inhale and exhale. Now, zoom into the flow of air where it enters and leaves your nostrils. Just notice how it feels. Cooler in your nostrils as you inhale. And then this will warmer as you exhale. See if you can follow the flow of air the way down to your lungs. And then back out again. Maintaining our single-pointed attention on the breath. Continue observing every inhale and exhale. The next few minutes. It's helpful in mind, you can count every breath cycle. As you inhale and exhale. Inhale, exhale. To just keep counting up. Any stage you notice that your mind has wandered. You're thinking about something else. That is absolutely fine. Even if it happens repeatedly, that he's completely normal. It's part of this meditation process. What about stopping, suppressing, getting rid of the Forbes? Simply about noticing your mind has drifted onto something else. Acknowledging the floor, allowing it to pass through your awareness, not judging it as good and bad and judging ourselves because our mind is busy. Just noticing, allowing. Then you can return your attention to your breath. Starting to count from one upwards. Again. Every time you practice this meditation, start to extend for longer period. For now we will complete this practice. Before we do, let's just take one more deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. When you are ready, you can open your eyes and continue with the next video in the course. 6. Practicing self awareness: Practices that we've spoken about in this workshop help us to become more aware of how we are relating to our environment. Which in turn helps us to be more responsive in a constructive way and develop the capacity to be more resilient in spite of our circumstances. Let's just consider the difference between reacting to situations in a way that is unconscious and automatic pilot and can sometimes not be helpful for us all the situation in comparison to re, responding in a way that is aware, mindful, and hopefully more useful for us in this situation. When we are reacting on automatic pilot, we will perceive something in our environment as a potential threat which will create stress in the body. If we're unaware that we are experiencing that stress, we will respond through our habitual patterns, which as I said, might not always be useful or constructive for us or the situation. We could also perpetuate the situation by getting caught up in an industry reports about what should have happened, why this isn't right, Why this is wrong, which creates an ongoing loop of thoughts and feelings in the body. And again, might affect the way in which we behave and experience the rest of the day. As opposed to if we are responding in a way that is more aware where we can pick up on the signals that something has triggered us to feel a certain amount of stress in the body. We notice the sensations that we're experiencing in the body. We notice the thoughts that we're having in relation to that. We're able to take a step back and ask ourselves, how best can I respond to this situation? And we respond in a way that is more constructive. Have a little think about what are the things that trigger feelings of stress for yourselves? What are the situations? What are the common situations? Is a common people in your life that can trigger those feelings and maybe see if you can become aware of the thoughts that you have in relation to those situations. Is there situations at work? Is there situations at home? What Scenarios create feelings of stress for yourselves? And just take a minute to note down. Because these are the starting points. These are the places where we notice we are reacting to something. In the next workshop on emotional intelligence, we will start to build this capacity to notice the sensations in the body because often they are a useful starting point. Rather than being aware of what we're thinking, we can notice what we're feeling. We can use that as a signal to ask ourselves what we're thinking in the moment. But take a second to reflect on what are your stress triggers? What are the things that you find challenging? And make a note of those? When you do notice you are being triggered by something. There are some simple things you can do just to allow yourselves to take a step back and notice what is going on. So first of all, just take a slow deep breath just to allow yourself to settle into the moment and notice the sensations that you're experiencing. So that you're creating just a small gap between the stimulus that you're experiencing and how you respond to that situation. Take a slow deep breath. Notice the sensations, the feelings, the thoughts that you're having. Maybe say to yourself, I'm having the thought that the wording here is actually important because rather than saying, I am thinking, when you say I'm having the thought that in itself creates some separation between you as an awareness and the thought that you're having. Ask yourself, is it helpful? Is it useful? And if it's not, what's another way of looking at it? Can we use this practice of perceptual flexibility to consider other ways of looking at this situation. And off the back of that, how can I respond in a way that is constructive? So like with any skill, this is something that needs to be practice in order to be good at him, in order to get good at playing the piano, we have to practice that. These practices of mindfulness, of meditation, of recognizing our triggers, of asking ourselves how perceiving this situation, how can I best respond? They take a certain amount of practice and developing this awareness so that we can start to respond in a way that is more resilient and useful for us and the situation that we might find ourselves in. In summary, as Jon Kabat-Zinn said, you cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. The waves are all the things that are happening in our environment. And learning to surf is learning to perceive those things in ways that are more flexible and more constructive so that we can respond in the best possible way. I hope you found this workshop useful and please feel free to explore some of my other workshops that expand on the ideas we've discussed here. But in the meantime, good luck with your practice. Thank you.