Your Daily Meditation Practice

1. Introduction To The Course: Hello, and welcome to this 30 day meditation course. The idea of this course is to introduce you to a collection of different meditation practices. Primarily, we're going to focus on mindfulness. Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposely paying non judgmental attention to the present moment. That's a bit of a mouthful, but it basically means just being aware and accepting what is arising. What is arising in our mind? What is arising in the world? Your mind wanders and you bring it back to the object of meditation. I'm going to give you a variety of different techniques that help you with that. We're also going to add a little bit of breathwork, slowing down the breath in through the nose, low to the belly and slow. You slow down the breath, calm to the body, calm the mind. We're also going to touch upon a little bit of visualization, thinking positive thoughts, thinking healing thoughts, thinking healing visualizations. This isn't woo woo. This is us impacting the body, impacting the mind, impacting our focus. My name is Zachary Phillips. I am a counselor and a coach author and a poet, and I teach mindfulness insight and self healing. And in this course, I'm going to expose you to a variety of different techniques that you can take and use and adapt. Everyone is different. Our goals for meditation are different. So what this course will do will give you a couple of things. I'll give you 30 days of practice, 30 days to establish a habit. I encourage you to find a space, a place, and a time that works for you, and practice every day at that same time. If you miss a day, that's okay. Get back on board and begin again. By the end of this course, you'll have a collection of meditation practices for your meditation toolbox. Some will be amazing and work for you instantly. Others will require practice, others may not be at all for you. Try them all. Flag or star or note down the ones that work, return to those sessions or even more ideally, return to them as a self practice and continue. Meditation is a pillar of self improvement of health, and it's something that I do daily. I've been doing it for years, and I recommend it to everyone. So my hope is that with this 30 day course, you can try a bunch of different techniques, find bot works, and, you know, take it on for the rest of the life if that's what you choose to do. Either way, I want to welcome you to this course. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you in the first session. Gotcha. 2. Habit Building & Class Project: Hello, and welcome to the session. In this se session, we're going to be talking about habit building and how to establish a daily meditation practice. If you're looking to just begin, if you're looking to just start practicing, feel free to skip ahead. But if you're looking to learn how to establish a daily meditation practice, establish positive habits into your life, be it meditation or exercise or just about anything, this session is for you. I encourage you to stick around and like I said, skip forward if you want to start meditating straightaway. The first thing about establishing a positive habit is to realize that there is a lag between your actions and your rewards. If you were to go into the gym and exercise once, you wouldn't expect to see a transformation. You wouldn't expect to see or notice strength or fitness or flexibility improvements from one session, right? It takes a while. There is a lag. You do the work, you get the result. Same thing is true for meditation. If you're meditating for focus, for clarity, for calm, for whatever it is, there will be a lag. You meditate daily? And then eventually the results come. There is a little bit of trust or faith in the progress. This is why you have to believe in either the style, but ideally the style and the teacher delivering it and your ability to do it. In this format, there will be options for you to, you know, share your progress, to ask questions, and I will answer and respond back. So you've got a little bit of a back and forth going here, so that's great. There's plenty of resources to look into. So if you stick with it, you'll eventually get those results. You just have to wait for them to come in. You can't expect instant results. Don't worry. Every session will make you feel something, but those long term deep changes take time. That's okay. If you know that it's going to take time, you won't expect it so soon, and you'll have a bit more patience. Lots of patience equals lots of results. That's the first one. The second one is to establish a specific time and place to meditate. Habits for whatever reason, form best when they are locked in in multiple instances. So if you say, Okay, when I wake up, I'm going to meditate for 10 minutes in my couch outside on my altar, whatever you decide to do, you're locking in a time and place, and that just makes it easier to do. So find a time and place that works best for you to practice meditation, either these daily sessions or whatever you end up deciding to do, right? And on top of that, there's a little sort of extra hint here of pegging a behavior or tying a behavior to something you've already got establish. For example, I'm going to assume that every day you brush your teeth. Right? If you brush your teeth every day, that's an opportunity to add a behavior on top. You brush your teeth, then you meditate. You brush your teeth, and then you just also meditate. Do you see how you've already got an established behavior that we're just adding onto? That's one thing to consider. Find what works for you. What works for me may not work for you. I meditate every morning, and then I've got an alarm on my watch that reminds me at 5:00 to meditate at night, I like to do a morning and a night session. The mornings are locked in. The nights are something that I'm still trying to establish. So I've got a time and a place, and it's a matter of just working on that and building it up over time. But find what works for you. Might be in the morning, it might be at night. I might be in the car as you're waiting for work to begin. Find what works for you. The next tip is to get your family or your roommates, whoever you live with on board with your practice. They don't have to be meditating, but they have to understand why you are meditating, why you're choosing to do it, and what you need from it. Hey, in the morning, at this time, I'm going to be spending five, ten, 20 minutes, whatever you decide to do, meditating. This will help me to maintain my clarity, my calm, my focus. It'll help me to feel better. If I feel better, everyone feels better. Tell them why, tell them what you expect. When I'm meditating, either join in calmly quietly or just give me that space, please. That's the way they know. It's also a good way to use sort of social proof or social pressure. If you're trying to establish a habit, you can say to your family, say to your friends, whatever. I'm going to be meditating daily. This is a positive habit that I'm doing. Then you're sort of obliged not only to yourself, but to them. The next thing you would want to consider is starting small. Start small and build up over time. A lot of people, particularly around sort of the New Year's time, go, Oh, I'm going to exercise daily. I'm going to do this big, positive change. And they get it for a couple of days, maybe a few weeks. But then life builds up and they realize all the stuff that they pushed aside to establish their new habit is still there. Life doesn't instantly change for them, right? It becomes a thing that they have to slowly address. If you want to meditate or exercise daily, you need to actually start to carve out that time. Things will fall away that aren't important for your new habits. That's normal. But if you start small, right now, if you were to say, I'm going to meditate for 1 minute a day in silence, you've got a minute. If you were to say I'm going to meditate for an hour, do you have an hour? Probably not. You could find an hour for a few days, but eventually that stuff will build up, be it the actual work and family and home and life obligations or just the need to rest and relax. You start small, start with a minute, start with 5 minutes, start with 10 minutes, something small, and then build up over time. Does that make sense? The final thing that you could attempt to do if you want to establish a positive habit is get a day by day calendar that you can see on your wall. You know, those month by month or, you know, a year where you get to see every single day. And just put an X on every day that you do the habit, X on every day that you meditate. You'll see this chain of Success is building up over time. You see it building up over time, you like, Oh, I've got this. Now, if you are building up a habit over time and you fall off, you make a mistake, you stop meditating, you miss a day. That's okay. Life happens. If you meditate six out of seven days of a week, you'll end up meditating for about 300 days that year. That's incredible. If you said that for exercise or for diet, you're getting pretty fit. It doesn't have to be every day. Ideally, we do it every day. Ideally, the habit is like this is what we do every day. If it doesn't okay. You build up slowly over time, right? And if you miss a day, you figure out why and you get back on board. That's it. That's what you do. That is how you establish the habit. There's quite a number of things that we put in there, set a time and place, get your family on board or use social proof and say, Hey, I'm meditating. Start small with a small amount of practice, five, 10 minutes, whatever you can do, and then build up over time. Remember, there's a lag between actions and results, you start meditating now, it will take time to see the results. Stick with it and track your progress. You can see the progress building up, get that streak going, and if you miss the day, that's okay. Figure out why you missed the day and get back on board. The final final thing, and this can be a bit of a class project, feel free to share it if you'd like. Work out your why. Why are you here? Why are you engaging in this course? Why do you want to meditate? Share a single sentence summary of what you're doing here and why not only share it with the community, but also put it on your wall so you can see it. You've got the calendar that you're tracking your progress and you've got your why. Why are you here? Just a single sentence and stick it on your wall. Could be something like I am doing this course to learn the basics of meditation and to establish a daily practice, so I can attain some focus and calm, something small, something simple, but unique to you. So I'm not so angry and reactive, so I can enjoy the small moments of my life. So I can feel grounded, whatever it is for you, write it, stick it up, and if you share it, that'll be great. I can comment, and we can connect over that, as well. Good luck. In the next 30 sessions or more, you're going to be seeing a bunch of different meditation practices, engage with them. But realize it will take time to see the results beyond the feelings that you get in the sessions as they come. Each session will make you feel, make you do, make you be. That's great. But there will be a long term benefit building up over time that will take time to see. The good thing is by the end of the course, we will definitely start to notice some of those benefits starting to come in. I'll see you in the next session. Gotcha. 3. Introduction To Mindfulness: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin taking some slow, deep, sighing breaths. I'm Just dropping any surface level tensions that might be there. Ah. Taking a moment to check in to the feelings arising in the body, things popping up in the mind space. Just releasing anything that might be there. And turning your attention to the sensation of the breath at the nose. This is a core mindfulness practice. We choose an anchor for attention. In this case, the breath at the nose, and we focus upon it. And when our mind wanders gently and lovingly, return our focus back to the sensations at the nose. Let's give it a try. If you find yourself lost in thought, you've moved your focus gently, lovingly, return your focus back to the sensations at the breath. Really focusing in on the sensations of the breath at the nose. Noticing the temperature change a little bit cooler on the way in, a little bit warmer on the way out. Noting where you're noting the sensations of the breath at the nostrils, at the lips or somewhere else. The goal isn't to empty the mind. It is just to notice where the mind is and then just gently and lovingly return it back to the sensations at the breath. H. If you find yourself lost in thought, planning, memory, anxiety, bodily sensations, anything, that's okay. You can label it all as a distraction. Then just gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the breath. At its core. Mindfulness is the act of purposely paying non judgmental attention to the present moment. We practice this by setting an anchor, in this case, the breath. We focus our attention upon that anchor and when our mind wanders, we bring it back. The point isn't to empty the mind it is to notice where the mind is, where attention has wandered. The active mindfulness is capturing, understanding, realizing that we've become lost and returning it back to the breath. We're training two things, awareness of where the mind is at any one time and focus. In this way, mindfulness meditation is one of the core pillars of meditation in general, mental health, focus, insight, and clarity. So once again, lovingly, return your attention back to the sensations of the breath, of the nose and for the next minute, let's really, truly, deeply feel those sensations. Trek if the mind has become lost in thought and return it again and again and again back to the sensations of the breath at the nose. Y y K. So how did you go? This practice of mindfulness can be extended. You can choose any anchor you like. Typically, or traditionally, the breath is used because it is always there, always available, and ever changing. It's a great target of attention. But you can choose whatever you like. Sensations in the body, sounds, sights, smells, tastes. Or even aspects of the mind space. Becoming mindfully aware of the thoughts that are passing through and other things. That can be a little bit more challenging, but it's one thing to explore if you like. So thank you for joining me. I'll see you next time. 4. Present State Awareness: Hello. Welcome. I invite you to take a seat or lay down. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Begin taking some slow deep sighing breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. We settle into the session. It's just begin by drawing your attention to the sensations of the breath of the nose. Noticing the sensations of the breath. The temperature a little bit cooler on the way in, a little bit warmer on the way out. Noticing which nostril the air is going in. Have you noticing your mind wander, just gently, lovingly, bringing it back to the sensations of the breath at the nose? So with mindfulness meditation, we choose an anchor. Something to focus the mind on. In this case, the breath. The mind wanders, we notice it, we bring it back. And that's the basic practice. But we can choose anything as an anchor. So today we're going to practice a present state awareness meditation. Also may be known as a 54, three, two, one grounding meditation. Basically, we shift our focus to the different aspects of our senses, using each sense as an anchor. So taking a moment to turn your attention to what you can hear in this moment. You can hear the sound of my voice. But what else can you hear? Maybe some sounds of other people. Technology. The breath. Really just listening. What can you hear in this moment? Now, turning your attention to what you can see, either behind closed eyes or open. Just observing just witnessing. You'll notice as you're looking or listening or feeling the tendency to label, to judge, to categorize. Notice that as well. We see things, and we almost instantly prescribe meaning. But we want to witness as if we were sitting on the edge of the road looking across perhaps at a mailbox. The analogy is cars are driving by. We see a car, we observe it, and then it goes. Oh, look, there's a truck, we observe it and it goes. Now a pedestrian is walking by. We're just witnessing, just observing, just allowing it to let go. We're not jumping on board the truck. We're not walking with the pedestrian. We're just witnessing it all passing. The same is true with our senses, turning your attention now to what you can feel in your body. Once again, just feeling. Feeling the ground or the floor underneath you. The clothes upon your skin. Internal sensations and pressures. The breath. Just noticing what you can feel in this moment. No judgment. Witnessing. And finally, turning your attention to what you can taste and smell. Are there any lingering senses, smells or tastes? Just witnessing them, being curious about them. You might cognitively know what the smell is or what lingering tastes are there or what caused them. But again and again, we return back to the physiological sensation arising. Being curious about it. Almost as if we're attempting to witness it for the first time. Okay. Now, taking another slow, deep, sighing breath. I'm going to allow our awareness to drift between the different sensations in the body. Noticing what we can see, feel, hear, taste, smell in this moment. And if at any time, our mind gets lost or trapped in thought, we gently, lovingly return it back to the sensations that are arising in the body. Let's try this for just 1 minute. A Just noticing the sensations in the body. What you can feel, see, hear, taste and smell. If you find yourself lost in thought, if you notice you're distracted, that's okay. Indeed, that's the entire point of mindfulness based meditation practices. You notice your mind wandering? You bring it back to the anchor to the focus point. Might be the breath, but in this case, it's the sensations from the body. Let's try one more time sitting with the sensations in the body, noticing if our mind is wandering, then gently, lovingly, bringing it back. I I Okay. So that was an introduction to present state awareness. You choose either one sensation or all of them as the anchor and you draw your attention to it, what you can see here, feel, taste and smell. When your mind wanders, when you notice it wandering, you bring it back. The goal isn't to have a locked in mind or a blank mind. The goal is to notice where the mind is going. You capture it lost in thought. You say, Hey, we're focusing on the senses. It wanders off into a memory. Like, Hey, we're just listening. And you keep doing that. And over time, two things happen. You get very good at noticing where your mind is wandering and your mind begins to settle. It's a dual process. So whether or not you're able to stay focused or whether or not your mind is wandering, that's actually a sign of a good meditation. A good meditation is the one that you do, regardless of the subjective quality or the nature of your mind in that moment. Every time you witness it wandering and bring it back, that's a win. So thank you for joining me. 5. Labels To Enhance Mindfulness: Hello. Welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Begin slowing down the breath. I'm taking a moment to check into the body. Noticing and releasing any surface level tensions that might be present. Turning your attention to the mind space. Noting any lingering thoughts, memories, moods, emotions. Just allowing them to slip away. To pass. Today, we're going to be looking at mindfulness meditation. Adding the idea of labeling. So we'll begin with the basic Mindfnes meditation instruction. You pick an anchor, in most cases, the breath, and you turn your attention towards it. So let's try that now. Really deeply feel the sensations of the breath entering and leaving the nose. Have you noticed your mind wandering gently, lovingly. Return it back to the sensations of the breath at the nose. Our goal isn't to change anything, to alter anything. It's just to become aware. Our mind wanders, we bring it back. We nosed ourselves getting lost in thought. M. Sensation. We bring it back to the sensations at the nose. We just feel the breath moving. That's the basic practice of malfous meditation. But we can add something known as labeling. We maintain our anchor upon the breath. But when we catch our mind wandering, we label it. We label what we got lost or what we found ourselves focusing on instead of the breath. Your mind wanders, and you realize you're lost in thought. So you label it thought or mood or memory or sensation or sound. The act of labeling gives you a better chance of being able to bring your attention back to the breath, back to your anchor. Your mind wanders, you label it. Bring it back. If you notice yourself distracted, if you notice you've stopped focusing on the breath, label what you got distracted by, and then gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the breath. Sometimes you don't know how to label what captured your attention. In those cases, you might just label whatever it is as distraction. Or you might find that there's a combination or an overwhelm. When that arises for me, I call it the cloud as in sort of a raging cloud of different things. If you find yourself lost, if you find yourself distracted, label it and gently, lovingly return back to the sensations of the breath at the nose. It's important to remember that the goal of mindfulness meditation is not to empty the mind. It's not really even to stay focused on the breath or the anchor. Really, it's to become aware of the contents of consciousness, to notice where the mind is. So when you catch your mind lost, distracted, that's the goal. You're doing. Now, yes, over time, you will develop focus. You will get better at maintaining a single point. But the goal of the practice primarily is to notice where the mind is. And then bring it back. That's why we say gently and lovingly return it back to the breath. You don't berate yourself, bring yourself down or criticize yourself when you notice yourself lost in thought. It's actually the thing you're looking to do. It's better to capture yourself, to realize your mind has become lost in thought, returning it back to the breath than it is to be unaware that you've become lost. So one more final time, we turn our attention to the sensations of the breath at the nose. If we find ourselves lost in thought, emotion, memory, sensation, sound, the cloud, distraction, we label it and gently, lovingly return it back to the sensations of the breath at the nose. Okay. So I want to thank you for meditating with me. I just remind you that the goal of mindfulness meditation is to become aware of where the mind is. It's not to empty the mind. It's not to never become lost in thought. Those states may be possible. But for all intents and purposes, our goal is to become aware of where the mind is and then gently and lovingly return it back to the breath. This practice will begin to transcend off the meditation mat. We don't meditate to get better at meditating. In the same way that we don't exercise to get better at exercise. We exercise so that our body is healthy, also that our skills and strength improves when we're not exercising. In the same way we meditate so that our mind we are more aware of our mind, and our mind is more focused when we're not meditating throughout our day, you'll start to see moments of anger of jealousy, of fear, of joy, of love, of happiness. You'll start to notice the contents of your consciousness and be able to make better choices rather than just falling in, you'll give yourself that mindful pause and be able to choose what to do instead. Practice daily, and that will start happening for you. So thank you for joining me. And I'll see you in the next session. 6. Mindfully Focusing On The Body: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and keep yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by slowing down the breath, taking some slow, deep sighing breaths in through the nose. I just turning your attention to the sensations arising in your body. Not trying to move towards or move away from feeling whatever is arising. Approaching and accepting it all with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Okay Taking a moment to label the feelings that are arising. Maybe there's tension, pressure, movement, softness or heaviness. Sharp or dullness or perhaps emptiness and numbness. As a feeling from the body comes into attention. Observe it. Label it and watch as it slowly dissipates to be replaced by a different sensation. I if you have the urge to shift or move or scratch due to pain or other sensations. Do your best to just observe the feelings that are arising. Those are just more sensations to observe. If they become unbearable, gently, slowly, mindfully shift the body. But observe the process as you do. The body is in constant motion. The breath, the heartbeat, digestion. But also within the muscles, activation, release, tension, pressure. These are the sensations arising in your body in this moment. Observe them. Accept them. Label them. But do so without clinging. Watch them come and then watch them go. Okay. So today, we're practicing mindfulness, but using the body and the sensations rising as our anchor. Your mind wanders, you bring it back. We also looked at the idea of labeling. We label the sensations that are arising. Not as a judgment call, not as good or bad. Not as aversive or desirable. But just to help better identify and focus upon the sensations, pressure, tension, numbness, all feelings good or bad, or rather that we would traditionally describe or crave or run from are built from component parts. And those component parts can be observed and described. So in a formal session like this, we sit, we observe, we describe, and we watch those sensations come. Get stronger for a bit, peak, and then fall away, just to be replaced by more sensations. And that's the practice. So thank you for joining me, and I'll see you in the next session. 7. Intention Setting: To lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and just begin by taking some slow deep breaths through the nose. Just taking a moment to scan the body, scan the mind, see if there are any tensions, any thoughts, any surface level things that we can just release. If so, do that. Maintaining the slow breathing. We're going to begin this session with a brief discussion of intentions. As we sit down to meditate, there's often an implied intention. We're going to do the practice. We're going to sit for the duration of the time we've decided to sit or to listen to the guided meditation. And we're going to do so with a certain attitude. That's always implied. But sometimes it's good and some people find it quite beneficial to have a formal intention for their meditations, a little phrase or a little idea or a certain set of small instructions that help contain or frame the session. I'm going to offer you two that I jump between depending on the style or the people that I'm working with. The first one will be used for, say, a mindfulness based practice, and you're welcome to use this one. For the next few minutes, I will be meditating mindfully to improve my clarity, calm, and focus. I will gently return my focus back to the breath for the duration of the session. That intention, and I'll read it again soon, tells you what you're doing and how you will respond when things arise. Once again, feel free to use this one if you like. For the next few minutes, I will be meditating mindfully to improve my calm, clarity and focus. I will gently return my focus back to the breath for the duration of the session. So with that intention in mind, let's do some basic mindfulness for just 1 minute. We're going to sit mindfully, focusing our attention on the breath at the nose to improve our clarity, calm, and focus. And if our mind wanders, we're going to gently return it back to the breath. Let's give it a try, 1 minute. Let's begin. Okay. So how did you go? For some people, setting a clear intention like this one. For the next few minutes, I'll be meditating mindfully to improve my calm, clarity and focus. I will gently return my focus back to the breath for the duration of the session. It's clear, tells you what to do, tells you why, tells you how to address things that arise. Good intention. Feel free to use that at any time. The other intention I use is more for the deeper inner work, the introspective work or the deep healing work. And this intention tells you sort of an attitude to take. I will approach and accept everything that arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. I will approach and accept everything that arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. That intention gives us a mental attitude. Obviously, you combine these two intentions and make your own. That's the ideal. But once again, it tells you how to approach things. Soon, we're going to sit in silence. Things are going to arise. The best response to those things arising, if we're looking from a healing and introspective capacity is to approach and accept them, not to run from them, not to hide, not to push them away, but to approach and accept. These are the things that are arising. The attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Those four words give us a really good frame to approach things. Thoughts pop up that might be challenging. Yeah, things from the past, things that aren't that comfortable or nice. Let's have compassion to ourselves. Let's be curious why are those things arising? Let's be calm and grounded and confident that we in this moment can handle it, being our own inner parent, our own in a therapist or guide, us, the sense of self, the observer has it. We might be holding on to things, the body keeps the score, parts work, all of that stuff. But we can grind ourselves in the sense of self. When things pop up, with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence observe what arises. I'm going to sit for 3 minutes with this intention to approach and accept whatever arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Let's give that a try. Things will arise. You approach and accept them with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. And you just keep going. 3 minutes. Let's begin. Okay. So the idea of setting an intention is to help better frame the practice you're doing. Sometimes it helps you to contextualize, helps you to focus, helps you to remember what you are doing. Oftentimes when we are doing a class in real life or a guided session with a instructor, their presence sets the intention. They might say it explicitly, specifically, or just the fact that they're leading you into something is the intention setting. But if you are working by yourself, it may help to have an intention designed for the kind of practice you do. So today, I offered you two intentions. The one that we worked on first was for a mindfulness based practice, but you could tweak it however you like. For the next few minutes, I'll be sitting mindfully meditating to improve my clarity, calm, and focus. I'll gently return my focus back to the breath for the duration of the session. Tells you what you're doing, why and how to respond. Very good for a beginning of a mindfulness meditation practice. You might set the timer for whatever time you're working on. Say that intention a couple of times to yourself and then settle in and set. That's a great use. The other intention that we looked at, I use for deep inner work introspective and that sort of in a healing approach. And I will approach and accept everything that arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. This is an attitudal intention. It helps you approach or respond to the things that are arising in an appropriate way. My goal is to see what's coming and to process. So when things arise, it would be good to approach and accept it, whatever it is, good, bad, ugly, unknown, things that are changing, with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Compassion curiosity, confidence and calm are all very good ways to approach things that arise, and it helps you to process it. So I just sort of remind myself of that intention. I go to sit, set my timer. I will approach and accept everything that arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. So I encourage you to consider adding an intention to your practice, particularly the ones that you're practicing by yourself. Those solo practices benefit from an intention. But at the very least, if you're doing a guided session like this one with an instructor and you feel it necessary, the base intention is just to do the session. My intention is to sit and engage fully with this practice for the duration of the session, something like that. Seek yourself in intention and you'll find that your practices go far deeper and they will give you the benefits of the practice quicker, more intensely deeper because you're working with something. Yeah. Either way, thank you for joining me, and I'll see you in another session. Catch up. 8. Self Soothing Touch: Hello. Welcome. I invite you to take a seat or to lay down. Get yourself comfortable, close down the eyes if you wish. Begin by taking some slow, deep sighing breaths. One more. On this next one, just allowing any surface level tensions to fall away. I and turning your attention to the body into the mind space, feeling what's arising. Today, we're going to do a little bit of a self soothing activity. Just place your hand upon your heart space. One hand or two hands and just feel the warmth. Really focus in upon the warmth of the sensations of the hand upon the heart space. Maintaining the slow deep breathing. Just feel the gentle pressure and the warmth of the hand upon the heart space. There is something deeply soothing about touch. We need it. Infants that are not touched, that are not comforted, that are not soothed. It's not that good. They can struggle in development. And touch has been shown to be quite regulating and needed in adults. So we can give it to ourselves. That's really feeling the hands upon the heard space. Gentle pressure. Turning our attention towards the nice feelings emanating that subtle warmth. If you're so inclined, you could add a visualization into this space. Imagining healing energy, radiant light or some other form of self healing emanating from the hands into the heart space. This is you healing yourself. Your inner parent soothing your inner child. You giving yourself some self love. Self compassion. Self care. Now we can try a different position. Put one hand on the back of your neck, the other hand on your belly. Once again, feeling the warmth. Offering yourself love. Adding a visualization in if you're so inclined. Just the intention of acceptance. You can say into this space to yourself, to parts of you that are struggling. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. The final pose, self love poses a butterfly hug. Hands grabbing around your body, big self hug. Once again, it can feel or seem a little bit silly to begin with. But ultimately, we can and should need to know how to soothe ourselves. We do so through daily self care, meditation practice. Through exercise, through slowing down the breath. But we can also self soothe through physical contact, big self hug. Taking another slow, deep sighing breath. Allowing your hands just to return to a neutral position on the body. Taking a moment to check in to scan the entirety of the body, noticing if there is anything else that your body in a child or a part of you is looking for. We've tried hand upon the heart space, hands upon the back of the neck and the belly, and the butterfly hug. But maybe there is something more that you can offer yourself. Some gentle, self soothing Touch. For the next minute, just sitting, offering, healing. With the words or the intention behind the words. I am enough. Who you are. As you are. It's all you need to be. It's enough. Taking another slow, deep breath. And as you release the breath, releasing any tension or any muscles that are activated. And Okay, well done. You can use this practice, this self soothing touch at any time. The ones that I showed you, the hand upon the heart space, the one hand on the back of the neck and the belly and the butterfly hug. They're ones that I gravitate towards. But there are many more positions and many more parts of the body you could self soothe with. How many more parts of the body you could self soothe with? If you had an injury or a chronic issue or an illness, and there's a part of the body that is being called for you to self sooth. Do it. You can do it in response to overwhelm as a part of a meditation practice or just as an act of loving self care. You can give yourself the contact that you are need. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you next time. 9. Breathwork Basics: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin by slowing down the breath. Taking a moment to scan your body and your mind for any tensions that you might be holding onto. If you can let go of anything, just let it go. Today we're going to be practicing a slowing of the breath. So we've already begun. There are plenty of techniques and counts that you'll be introduced to that will help you to slow down the breath. But all of them fall under the category of just slowing the breath down. That's the overarching principle. Sometimes if we try and hold our breath to a certain count, for example, a box breathing, breathing in for four, holding for four out for four, holding for four. It can get a little bit stressful, a little bit hard to follow along with the count if it's not in line with what you're doing. So all we're going to focus on today is just slowing the breath down. It's taking another slow deep breath through the nose. With each breath, just slowing the rate of breathing down a little bit more. And a little bit slower still. We're aiming for the slowest breath we can, but one that isn't causing strain. If you find yourself gasping or straining or struggling, it's a little bit too slow. Our goal is just to breathe a touch slower than our usual. In a breathwork facilitation course that I completed. They summarized breathwork as three simple steps, nose, low and slow. So we're breathing in and out through the nose. We're breathing slowly and we're breathing low. This is something known as a yogic breath. We breathe into the belly first, the belly expands deep. Then our chest fills. Then there's a final sip or a little taste at the top at the throat. We hold, and then we release in the reverse order from the throat, then the chest, then the belly. Nose, low, slow. Breathing into the belly, then the chest, then the throat, pausing for a moment without strain, and then releasing in the reverse order, releasing from the throat and the chest. The belly. Nose low, slow. Without strain. Let's give that a try now. A Remember our goal with breathwork is to simply slow the breath down, but doing so in a comfortable way, in a way that isn't straining, providing tension, causing it to gasp, nose, low. Slow. Slowing down the breath is an excellent way to be in the process of grounding and anxiety reduction. The mind and the body are deeply connected. If you slow down the breath, if you slow down the rate of talking, if you relax the muscles, if you move slower. The mind picks up all of those signals and a part of it thinks to itself, there's no danger here. We're breathing slowly. We're moving slowly, we're speaking slowly, and muscles are relaxing. Therefore, we are safe. Therefore, we can relax further. Conversely, if you sped up the voice, sped up the breath, move the body quickly, and had a lot of muscle tension, the mind will read those signs as danger and activate the sympathetic nervous system. Thus releasing cortisol, perhaps adrenaline and other stress based hormones to get you ready for fight and flight. You can play with your internal system using the lever of the breath. If you'd like to calm down, breathe slower, move slower, speak slower, relax the muscles in the body. Let's try this for one more minute. Nose low and slow, doing the yogic breath of in the belly, then the chest, the final sip at the throat, pausing for a comfortable amount, and then releasing in the reverse order. Throat, chest, belly. Let's try that now. Okay. Thank you for joining me in this session. You can take the principles from this practice into everyday life. If you notice you're overwhelmed or stressed or anxious, just slow down the breath and maintain a slightly slower rate of breathing until you calm down. It sounds a little bit far fetched or cliche, but it helps. I encourage you to give it a try. Until then, I'll see you in the next session. Catch up. 10. Finger/Mountain Breathing: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat and lie down and get yourself comfortable. For today's session, we're going to keep our eyes open. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, checking into the body and the mind, releasing any surface level tensions that are arising and settling yourself into the session. Today, we're going to be combining mindfulness with slowing down the breath. Mindfulness offers focus, clarity, and presence, the slowing down the breath calms the body and calms the mind, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, the system that activates when we calm. So what we're going to do is something that you might have seen when you were younger. This one is often offered to young kids as a simple exercise to help them to just release some of the pressure that builds up. It's called finger breathing or mountain breathing. You hold your hand out in front of you and you start with your finger at the base of your thumb. As you breathe in, you bring your finger to tip of the thumb. You pause there for a little bit, top of the mountain. As you breathe out, you bring it down the other side of the thumb. As you breathe in, you bring your finger up the pointer finger, pausing at the top of the pointing finger, and then as you breathe out, you bring it down into the middle. As you breathe in, you bring your finger up the mountain to the middle finger, top of the middle finger. As you breathe out, you bring it down to the base of the middle finger and so on. Finger breathing. What we're doing here, it's mirvenes and slow calm breathing. Why is it mindfulness? You're focusing on watching and feeling the sensation of the finger rising. Focusing on the breath. These are the points of focus. If your mind wanders, you bring it back to the task. Bring it back to the sensations of the finger climbing the mountain. It's slow calm breathing because we're going to do it slowly. So it combines both activities. Now, yeah, it looks a little bit silly, but that's okay. This could be a practice you do by yourself or you could have your hand suddenly down beside you as you do it, if this is something that appeals to you. Let's give it a try. We're going to do one finger, one hand rather, finger at the base of the thumb, breathing in. Pausing at the top of the thumb. When you're ready, breathing out. When you're ready, breathing in, climbing to the top of the pointing finger. Pausing when you're ready, breathing out, climbing down. When you're ready, breathing in, climbing at the middle finger. Pausing. When you're ready, breathing out, coming down. Ring finger. When you're ready, climbing up. Pausing when you're ready, coming down. Last one. Pinky finger. When you're ready, breathing in. Pausing at the top and breathing out. So each hand has the opportunity for five slow, calm breaths. That takes about a minute to do. So you can do a minute and a minute and a minute and so on and so forth with each hand. Like I said, this is a mindfulness exercise. And when you do this and you really focus on the sensations of the hand, really focus on the sensations of the finger moving up, really focus on the breath. You're training your mind to focus on a particular object. But because this is a mindfulness practice, you're also being aware of where the mind is. Your mind wanders to thoughts of the past or the future. You bring it back. You have feelings about the exercise itself. This is a silly exercise. Even that you acknowledge, you bring it back to the sensation. Anywhere your mind wanders, you bring it back. Because you're actively slowing down the breath, the mind picks up cues from the environment. If you are breathing fast, quick breathing. The mind perceives danger. Why are we breathing quickly? Similarly, if we slow down the breath, really slow it down. The mind picks up the idea, we're breathing slowly. We must be safe. You can use your hand and climb the fingers on the mountain as slowly as you like. I go to try. Really, if you're pausing at the base and you're pausing at the top of the mountain of the fingers, this is a box breathing practice. Box breathing or square breathing, also known as tactical breathing. When you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. You could visualize a box as you're doing that. But really, you're almost feeling that pausing at the base for 4 seconds, climbing for 4 seconds of the finger, pausing at the top of the finger for 4 seconds, and coming back down for 4 seconds. We're just adding more tools. It's an idea known as entrainment. When you add things, if you have a busy mind, adding more things for your mind to focus on can help you to maintain the focus on what you're doing, maintain mindfulness, maintain your meditation. So if you're looking for a mindfulness practice that also is a calming practice of breathw practice, give the finger breathing or perhaps box breathing a try. Thank you for joining me. See you in the next session. 11. Box Breathing: Hello. Welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to scan the body and the mind space to see if you're holding onto anything. Just allowing yourself to release any surface level tensions. Anything you're holding onto from the day. Settling into the session. Today we're going to be diving into breathwork, but breathwork that's designed to calm you down. The basic principle is this nose low and slow. If you want to use the breath to calm you down, breathe through the nose. Slowly, nose slowly, and into the belly low. The yogic breath, you go belly, chest, and then throat. So you're breathing deep, filling up, and then breathing out in the reverse order, releasing from the throat, the chest, and then the belly. Nose, low. Slow. Give that a try now. Just remember with all breath work, whether you're just slowing down the breath or you're going to be doing a count like we will do today, nose low and slow, and it shouldn't be strained. If you are following a count and you find yourself straining or gasping or struggling to keep up or going too quickly because the person counting has a different timing to your inner breath or what you need, change it. Change it, but with the principle of nose low and slow. That's the overarching gull. Breathing in and out and holding to a time or to someone else's instruction is great if that timing works for you. If it doesn't adapt it. Let's take another couple of slow deep breaths and then we'll introduce the count. The type of breathwork that we'll be working with today is called square breathing or box breathing or tactical breathing. There's a few different names for it. But the basic premise is this. You breathe in for a count of four, so you're breathing in. Hold for a count of four, out for a count of four, hold for a count of four or three or five, whatever works for you. But let's give it a try now. I'll move up to breathe in, cross to hold, down to breathe out, cross to hold, and so on. We'll try a cycle of four. Let's begin. Breathing in. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. So if that count was too quick or too slow, change it. Change it along the principle of nose low and slow. Now, the good thing about box breathing is that you can entrain or add some things to box breathing. Entrainment is when you add an extra thing for your mind to focus on, and this is great for people with busy minds or if there's a lot going on. If you visualize a square, imagine a ball of glowing light in the bottom corner of the square, and as you breathe in, you visualize that light going up. To the top corner. As you hold, you visualize the ball of energy going across the square. As you breathe out, you visualize it going down the other side. Then as you hold again, you visualize it returning to the starting space. In this way, as you are doing the breathwork, you're also visualizing. In, you visualize the ball of energy traveling up, hold, you visualize it traveling across. Out, you visualize the energy traveling down. Hold, you visualize it returning back. You've entrained, you've added. Now you're doing two things at once. You're doing breathwork and a visualization, and it just gives your mind a little bit extra focus. Breathwork is great for calming down the body, which in turn calms down the bind. But what we're doing by adding the visualization is adding something from the mind to do in addition to the breathwork. So let's try another set now and behind your closed eyes, you're visualizing the ball of energy traveling with the breath in that square. Let's try it. Breathing in. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold. You've got the breathwork and you've got the entrainment of the visualization. But there's one more little tool that we can add to this practice. If you find that having a digital counter, for example, on a device or on a watch being a bit distracting, you go to use your timer for meditation, but then you're on your phone thing. You can actually do Brock breathing to a time but counted on your fingers. If you touch your thumb to your point of finger, that could be a count of one. So for example, you breathe in, hold, out, hold, then you move your thumb to your middle finger, I hold out, hold. To your ring finger, I hold out, hold, to your pinky finger in hold out, hold. In that way, you've actually given yourself a count of four cycles. Each time you use a hand, you can actually count, you can actually time yourself for about a minute. One hand is 1 minute, two hands is 2 minutes. So you've actually got a inbuilt meditation timer that relies on no tech. Also, if you want to train, if you want to add some more for your mind to focus on, you can focus on the visualization. You can also focus on the sensations of the fingers touching. Now you're giving yourself three things to do the breathwork coming down the body, the visualization to focus the mind, and the physical stimulus of the fingers touching. Extra things for a busy mind to do great in response to anxiety. Each hand is about 1 minute. But if you look closely at your hands, you'll see that each finger has three components. So if you touch your thumb to the top of the pointer finger, that could be one cycle. Then the middle, then the bottom. Then you move to the middle finger at the top, middle finger, middle, middle finger, bottom, and so forth. You'll find that each hand actually has 12 cycles, which gives you about three to 3.5 minutes per hand. What this gives you is two hands is about six to 7 minutes. It means that you can really go deep in your practice and you can go, Okay, I'm going to meditate for 3 minutes for 6 minutes, for 9 minutes, you can keep adding time without the need for any tech, without the need for any distraction. And if you're out in public, if you're struggling with anxiety or a trigger or something overwhelming, you're okay, I'm going to take myself somewhere and meditate for 3 minutes. Counting the fingers each section. It's a useful little tool. Let's practice for one more minute. We will do the breathwork in hold outold, we'll visualize the square with the ball of energy, and we will count on our fingers, feeling the pointer finger in the thumb, middle finger in the thumb, ring finger in the thumb, pinky finger in the thumb. It's a lot to do and if it's too much, just do the breathwork. That's okay. Let's give it a try. Breathing in. Hold. Out. Hold. Middle finger. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Ring finger in. Hold. Out. Hold. Inking finger in. Hold. Out. Hold. Okay. So how did you go? In this practice, we looked at box breathing with the principle of nose low and slow. We added the visualization and the finger counting for extra entraen. So thank you for joining me. And I'll see you in the next session. 12. Gratitude Breathing: I invite you to take a seat or lie down and close down the eyes if you wish. You can get yourself comfortable. And just begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Let's take a moment to scan the body, scan the mind to see if there is anything that you're holding onto that you can let go of. Any surface level tensions that you can release. We're going to begin with a couple of slow deep sighing breaths to breathing deeply in through the nose and then sighing as you release. And another one. Continue with those slow, deep sighing breaths. But on the next one, actively release some of the tension in your body. Dropping the jaw, releasing the shoulders, letting go of any tensions in the belly or the legs or anywhere else you're holding onto tension. So we're doing a physiological pig and actively releasing any tension in the body. I'm going to add to this one more practice a little bit of gratitude to maintaining the slow, deep sighing breath, maintaining the noticing of the body and the relaxation. Just begin to foster a feeling of gratitude. Picturing in your mind's eye a person, a pet or a plant that you feel grateful for for being in your life. Now, on your next slow, deep sighing breath, releasing the tension in the body. Just offer that part, that person, that plant, that pet gratitude. Love. A Okay. So we call that practice a gratitude breath practice. You do a slow deep sighing breaths actively relaxing the muscles in your body and fostering a feeling of gratitude for a person, pet or plant in your life. Now, we're going to sit in silence for 10 minutes. You're welcome to continue that gratitude breath practice. Or practice, anything that you'd like? Perhaps some mindfulness, some introspection, or any of the other practices you're working on. Let's begin. Okay. So if you'd like to maintain the meditation, you're more than welcome to do so. Perhaps mute or pause the audio. Return back when you're ready. I'd just like to say thank you for joining me in this session to remind you to remind you that the practice we began with the gratitude breath practice is is one you can take anywhere, rather than doing a slow, deep, audible, sighing breath. Also do it sort of like an internal sighing breath. Be quieter if you're out in public, it's not appropriate to be super audible with it. But you just do an internal sighing breath. You release the body, and you foster gratitude for a person, pet, or plant. And you can repeat that process until you're calm until the challenging thoughts have gone, or for a set duration or time. Either way, I want to thank you for joining in with me in this session. I'll see you next time. 13. Heart Space Connection: Hello. Welcome to the session. It's good to have you here. I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to scan the body. Noticing if there are any points of tension. Any muscle pressures? Any places that you're holding onto? Actively releasing them. Often we find ourselves holding onto tensions in the body. Almost as if we're bracing against something. So taking another slow deep breath and really just releasing. I invite you to place your hand upon your heart space. One or two hands at the heart with a little bit of gentle pressure. I'm taking a moment to really feel the warmth. This is a simple, self soothing action. One that you can do almost anywhere or anytime. You know what the heart space where your hands are visualize that space as a flame or a ball of energy or a light and whatever color manifests for you. And and with the breath, visualize the heart space growing stronger and brighter. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter, we embody, embrace and become the heart space. A feeling the warmth of the hands upon your skin, visualizing the heart space as a flame or a ball of energy or a light or whatever color is manifesting for you. Allow yourself to almost fall into or to become or to perhaps start witnessing from the heart space. Can often feel like we if there is such a thing, sits somewhere behind the eyes. But that's not true. And it's not necessarily true for other people either. And it's possible to shift that space where you feel like you are. With the breath, we visualize the heart space growing stronger and brighter. We embody, embrace, and become the heart space. Almost as if we are attempting to move the subjective seat of consciousness from behind the third eye from wherever we feel ourselves manifest in the head down into the heart space. Feeling the warmth of the hands upon the skin, maintaining the visualization and just sitting in the hard space. With the breath, the heat space grows stronger Brighter. We embody, embrace, and become the heart space. A Okay. So if you'd like to maintain the meditation, you're more than welcome to do so. Just want to take a moment to thank everyone for joining in. This is an act of self care. Meditation, heart space connection. So thank you. Thank you for joining in. And you're more than welcome to join in with the heart space connection at any time. Hand upon the heart, turning your attention towards the heart space, visualizing the heart space as a ball of energy or a light or a flame, sort of sinking into it, embodying, embracing, becoming hard space. 14. Heart Space Expansion: Okay, so hello. Welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or to lie down get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to scan your body. Just allowing any surface level tensions to release. Checking into your mind space, noting any thoughts or moods present, memories floating around. Once again, allowing anything that's on the surface to release. And when you're ready, placing your hand upon your heart space. Visualizing the heart space as a ball of energy or a flame or a light. Whatever colors manifesting for you. And as you breathe in, visualizing the heart space growing stronger. And brought out. We're connecting to the heart space, visualizing the heart space growing stronger and brighter. And settling into that space. Often we feel like our sense of self is behind the eyes somewhere in the head. But with this practice, we can shift that shift it down to two. Feeling the warmth of the hands upon the skin. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter, we embody, embrace, now if you like, we're going to train or add something to this practice. As you breathe in, visualize that ball of energy, the light, the heart space, traveling down through the body, into the Earth. Pausing. As you breathe out, visualize it traveling back up, back through the heart space, out through the top of the head, into the universe or to the heavens, pausing. As you breathe in, you're bringing it back down, visualizing it. As you breathe out, bring it back up. So with the breath, we visualize the heart space is a ball of energy, a light or a flame. With our in breath, we visualize it traveling down. Pausing. And in the outbreath, visualize it traveling up and pausing. Let's give that a try. A a behind your closed eyes. As we breathe in, we visualize the ball of energy, the light or the flame from the heart space traveling down. Pausing on the outbreath traveling up, pausing. We can add to this or in train your eyes from behind closed eyes, tracking the ball of energy moving down. As you visualize the energy moving down, you move your eyes down. As you visualize the energy moving up, you move your eyes so we're in training. We're adding a visualization, a breathwork, and movement of the body in terms of the eyes. We keep adding. We keep adding until our system is holding so much that all other distractions are taken away. And we fall into the present moment. We fall into the practice. So if you like, you can add to the visualization and to the breath, tracking with the eyes. And now if you like, we can add or train one more aspect. As you're breathing in, as you're visualizing the energy traveling down, you add or train a mantra. It's love on the way down and trust on the way up. So we're visualizing the ball of energy or the light traveling down with the breath. Pausing and traveling up with the outbreath, pausing, tracking the movement with our eyes. Then if we like, we can train or add one more thing. A mantra of our choosing or perhaps the words love on the inbeath and trust on the outbreath. Let's give that a try. A a Now, taking a moment to release release the visualization, release the movement of the breath, release the eyes, release the mantra, release the hands and just sit and feel. Releasing any tensions that you're noticing arise in the body or the mind. Sitting in this space for a minute. Y y Okay. So today, we practiced a heart space expansion, placing the hands upon the heart space, feeling the warmth, visualizing the heart space as a glowing ball of energy or light or a flame falling into that space, you know, seeing ourselves and behind the eyes, moving our sense of self to the heart space. And then visualizing that energy moving down into the Earth, pausing, up to the heavens, pausing in training it with the breath, with the tracking of the eyes, and with a mantra. In training means adding or combining. If you find yourself with a busy mind, you find yourself doing a basic mindfulness practice, the mind wanders, you bring it back to the breath, but that's not quite working or or you feel like you need more focus. You can train breath work, and train a visualization, and train a mantra, and train a bodily movement. The more that you add, the more the mind has to hold, and the less chance it has of getting distracted. Thank you for meditating with me today. I'll see you next time. 15. Heart Space Exploration: Hello. Welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Today, we're going to be practicing heart space exploration, connecting to the heart space or the sense of self, embodying, embracing, and becoming the heart space, and then using the heart space to explore the different parts of the body, offering them love and reintegration. So if you haven't already, gently place your hand upon the heart space and just feel the warmth of the sensations of the hand upon your skin. H Begin visualizing the heart space as a ball of energy or a flame or a light. I can manifest as whatever color you desire. But with the in breath, visualize this energy growing strong and brighter. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter, we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. It may feel like you are located or awareness behind your third eye or in your head somewhere. If you can for this session, drop that awareness down into your heart space. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter. We embody, embrace, and become the heart space. In a moment, we're going to begin the heart space exploration. On the in breath, you'll visualize the energy or the light or the flame of the heart space, traveling to a part of the body and pausing for a moment. And on the outbreath, you'll visualize that energy returning back. So as you breathe in, you visualize the ball of energy from the heart space, traveling to the part of the body, pausing, and on your inbeath visualize it returning back to the heart space. So with the breath, with the visualization, with the sense of self from the heart space, we connect to each part of the body. If you like, you could add a mantra or a prayer of your choosing, or perhaps just the words love on the inbeath and trust on the outbreath. So we're offering the parts of our body love and asking for trust, connecting to the parts of the body and whatever they're holding onto. On your next in breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the left foot. On your next in breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to your right foot, pausing for a moment and then returning to the heart space. On your next in breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the top of the head, pausing for a moment. And then returning back to the heart space. On your next breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the groin buttocks and hips, pausing for a moment, and then returning to the heart space. On your next in breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the back of the neck, pausing for a moment and then returning to the heart space. Your next breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the belly, pausing for a moment, and then returning back to the heart space. Your next in breath, visualizing the energy from the heart space, traveling to the left hand, pausing for a moment and then returning back to the heart space. Y. On your next dim breath, visualizing the energy traveling from the heart space to your right hand, pausing for a moment and then returning back to the heart space. On your next in breaths, visualizing the ball of energy, moving from the heart space to any parts of the body we may have missed and any that feel the need pausing for a moment and then returning back to the heart space. Okay now returning your attention and focus back to the heart space itself. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter and we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. We let our awareness, our sense of self where we feel all of this emanating from drop from the mind into the heart space. From this place, we reconnect to the entirety of the body. So spending one more minute in the heart space and connecting to every part of the body from them. With the breath, offering love, receiving trust and reintegration. Let's try it. I Okay. So you can use this practice of Hart space exploration to reconnect to every part of your body as an internal grounding practice. Or if there's a particular part, physically, emotionally, or perhaps from your past that you'd like to connect to ground yourself in the heart space, visualize it growing stronger and brighter with the breath, embody embrace and become the heart space. And then from that space, send the energy, send the love, send the connection with the breath, to that part of the body, to that part of your personality, to that part of your past, pause for a moment, and then reconnect, bring it back. This is a subtle, but continual and deep practice. It's very, very, very delicate, but it's persistent. And in that way, we can use it to heal and reconnect and reintegrate so slowly that it feels natural. Just a very delicate touch with the breath and the heart space and an invitation to return. So I want to thank you for joining me in this session. And I'll see you in the next one. 16. Mindful Awareness Of The Belly: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lie down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin to slow down the breath, taking some slow, deep, sighing breaths, releasing any tension in the mind or the body that you're holding onto. And another one. Hi. So today, we're going to be looking at a form of mindfulness meditation. The basic practice of mindfulness is that you set an anchor. You turn your attention towards the anchor. And when your mind wanders, you gently and lovingly bring it back. The goal isn't to empty the mind, it isn't to necessarily focus the minds to become aware of the contents of consciousness, to accept reality as it is for what it is right now without judgment or filter. Today we'll be using the anchor of the sensations within the body, particularly in the belly. I encourage you to put your hands on your belly and just feel what is arising within. The touch of your hands upon your skin. Internal sensations. Maybe feelings of digestion. Paying close attention to the sensations within the belly. We're doing so without judgment. Just noticing and accepting what is arising. And being really curious curious about the pressure, about the movement. At the sensations within the belly. If you notice that your mind is wandering gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the sensations at the belly. You might notice slight muscle contractions and releasings You might notice feelings of movement, pressure and release. You might notice a heaviness or an emptiness. We're just noticing what is arising. Accept. If you notice your mind wandering gently, lovingly, turn it back to the sensations at the belly. Really double down your attention, really focus and try and capture everything that is arising in the belly. All of the sensations. Noticing, witnessing, accepting without judgment. These are the sensations that are arising in this moment. On Okay. So with mindfulness meditation, you pick an anchor or an object to focus on. Oftentimes people begin with the breath, but you can choose whatever object you like. Information from any of the senses and even internal thoughts. So in this session, we chose the ball. Sensations arising from and at the bally. Our mind wanders, we bring it back, our mind wanders, we bring it back. Practicing marveness on the belly gives us three benefits. The awareness of where our mind is in the moment, the primary benefit of Mnvelnes, the training of focus, focusing our mind on a particular point, but also a mind body connection, a somatic connection. And becoming more aware of the sensations in the body, in the belly or otherwise, can be deeply integrating and deeply healing. So I enjoy practicing mindfulness meditation on focusing on the heart space, on the belly, and on other parts of the body. So if this session feels compelling to you, feel free to explore and play with different anchors of mindfulness. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you in the next session. 17. Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Hello, and welcome to the session. Hello, and welcome to the session. And take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. Close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to check into your body, into your mind. Just releasing any surface level tensions and thoughts and other things we're holding onto. Today, we're going to be practicing a progressive muscle relaxation. This is a simple technique of squeezing the muscles and then releasing. The idea of being is that as you progressively squeeze and release the muscles in your body, it's an active active relaxation. Tense, then you release. I will say some parts of the body in order. You'll squeeze squeeze squeeze and then release. This combined with a slowing down of the breath is a simple way to achieve calm and reduce anxiety. I let's give it a try. Left foot squeezing and release. Left leg, squeezing and release. Right foot. Squeezing. And release. Right leg, squeezing and release. Growing in buttocks, squeezing. Release. Belly and lower back, squeezing and release. Sternum mid back, squeezing and release. Chest and upper back, squeezing and release. Eft hand. Squeezing. Release. Left arm. Squeezing. And release. Right arm. Squeezing and release. Bright head, squeezing and release. Shoulders squeezing. Release. Neck, squeezing and release. Face and head. Squeezing. And release. And now we're going to do the entirety of the body. The entire body, squeezing and release. And again, the entire body squeezing and release. One more time squeezing. And release. Okay taking a moment to take another slow, calm, deep breath in through the nose. And just feeling the body and the mind once more. Do you feel a little bit more relaxed? A little bit calmer, a little bit more present. This technique, the progressive muscle relaxation operates of a body mind connection. Coming down the mind calms down the body. But coming down the body also calms down the mind. When you relax the muscles, when you slow down the breathing, your mind goes, we're feeling calm, we're feeling safe. I can release, I can relax more. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system. There's something known in CBT as behaviors, thoughts and feelings. Slowing down the breath, actively squeezing and releasing in a progressive muscle relaxation on the body impacts the behavior. That in turn will impact our thoughts and our feelings. As our body calms down, our mind starts to release and to relax. This produces nice feelings. So at any time you are able to you can take yourself to a, you know, calm place and just go through this process of squeezing and releasing. You can be as specific as you like. Hands, arms, moving down to fingers. Or you can just go the full body. Let's try it one more time, taking a slow, calm, deep breath. I'm going to squeeze and release the entirety of the body. Squeezing and releasing. Another slow, deep, calm breath. Once again, squeezing and releasing. Final round. One more slow, deep, calm breath as we squeeze and release. You can use this practice or technique as a leading to your normal mindfulness and as a way to reduce the feelings of stress or overwhelm in your day. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you in the next session. Gotcha. 18. Radical Self-Acceptance + Action: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin by slowing down the breath. Taking a moment to scan the body, noting any points of tession or pressure. Any points Any parts that you may be holding on to things. Just taking note of what you're feeling in your body right now. If there are any surface level tensions that you can release, release them. Now turning your attention to your mind state. The thoughts, moods, memories, inner visions that might be arising. We're just observing, just accepting, just becoming aware. It's taking another slow, deep sighing breath. We'll begin with a focus or an intention of radical self acceptance. Acceptance is one of the three keys to self healing. First, we become aware, aware of what's arising within, aware of the things that might impact us, aware of us as a person. Then we accept what's arising, except ourself, accept reality as it is for what it is right now and combined that allows us to take action to do or not doom to change or stay, to ask for and accept help, to meditate. It's taking another slow deep breath in through the nose and sighing out through the mouth. We're just going to accept what arises. Except the feelings in the body. Except the mind space. This is you as you are right now. These are the sensations that are arising in your body right now. These are the thoughts that are arising right now. Good or bad, pleasurable or painful, confusing or understanding or numbness. This is reality. I What can you hear right now? These are the sounds that are appearing right now. We really only have one choice to accept them or not. This is our reality. These are the sensations. These are your thoughts. Now, of course, we become aware, then we accept, and then we act. I like to blend radical self acceptance, the acceptance of all aspects of myself, the good, the bad, the ugly, the unknown. But also realize that what I am and my situation that I find myself in is forever changing. So I like to blend it with a dialectic approach. Love and accept myself, whilst changing myself, whilst moving towards a idea or a goal of continual, gradual healing and improvement. Then the most simplest expression of that is a calming of the nervous system and a focusing of the mind. I accept that my body is the way it is right now. I accept the sensations that are arising. I accept the reality of my nervous system, of my mind, of the potential for racing or ruminating thoughts. But I'm going to take some action to address it to shift towards a more regulated and relaxed nervous system. So I become aware. I accept, and then I take some action. The simplest action is to become aware of the present moment mindfully. Slow down the breath, and actively relax the muscles in the body. Let's try that now. Listening to the sounds that are arising, slowing down the breath, relaxing the muscles. That's it. What can you hear in this moment? Listen, as you relax your muscles. Listen as you slow the breath. Listen, as you become aware of the thoughts in your mind and perhaps add the thoughts. It's okay. I am safe. I accept myself. It's okay. I am safe. I accept myself. It's okay. I am safe. I accept myself. Okay. So first, we become a wam. Then we practice radical self acceptance, accepting the good, the bad, the ugly, the unknown, but also the possibility of change through action. The basic actions we took today was to slow down the breath, to listen mindfully, to relax the muscles in the body, and to add the thought. It's okay. I accept myself. I am safe. Together, those interventions will help you to shift to regulate, and to relax your nervous system. Thank you for meditating with me, and I'll see you in the next session. 19. Loving Kindness (Metta): Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lie down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Today, we're going to be practicing something called a meta meditation or loving kindness. Every tradition that offers mindfulness every book, every teacher that I've come across, they teach mindfulness practice. They're returning a focus back to the present moment of the acceptance of reality. But all of them without exception, end their book their teachings with a loving kindness practice. Sometimes as an afterthought, sometimes offered as a balm to heal the deep inner work we're doing. So there's something there to explore. At its core, a loving kindness meditation, a meta meditation involves us holding ourselves, someone else, the world, all living beings in the heart space and offering them love, compassion. Some people will believe that this is like a prayer, this practice will help that person. Other people will believe or hold that it's you working on softening your own heart, helping you to better act in the world. I'm not sure. I'm agnostic. But what I do know is that the more that I practice metamditation, the better my relationships are with myself and with the world. There's a calming, a soothing, a releasing and a softening. So we'll explore this practice today. Traditionally, you begin by working with yourself. But I've found that picturing someone or starting with someone that is easy to love is a good first step, someone or maybe a pet. Picture that person. Hold that person in your mind's eye. Hold them in your heart space. Just begin by sending them love. Compassion. I could come in the form of a feeling or a visualization. But perhaps with the words or the intention behind the words. May you be free of ill will. May you be free of suffering. May you be full of loving kindness. May you be happy? May you be free of ill will. May you be free of suffering. May you be full of loving kindness. May you be happy? May you be free of ill will. May you be free of suffering. May you be full of loving kindness. May you be happy? Now, you can stay with that person if you like. But I encourage you to consider moving on to holding yourself in this space. You in this moment, you over a lifespan. Or, you as the newborn baby. Once again, offering the visualization, offering the feelings, offering the words or the intention behind the words. May I be free of suffering? May I be free of ill will. May I be full of loving kindness? May I be happy? May I be free of ill will. May I be free of suffering. May I be full of loving kindness. May I be happy? May I be free of ill will. May I be free of suffering. May I be full of loving kindness. May I be happy? And then moving on, if you like, or staying with yourself, but moving on to the world or perhaps to all living beings. Everyone. If you imagine a world in which all living beings were full of love, we're happy, we're free of ill will, free of suffering. Wouldn't that be a beautiful place? Once again, we're not aiming for a global transformation. It might be ideal. We're doing self work. We're softening our own heart, opening ourselves up, and perhaps offering a prayer or intention. So either working with a person with yourself, with the world, with all living beings, even with the universe? Once again, offering the visualization, the feeling, the words, or the intention behind the words. May all living beings be free of ill will. May they be free of suffering? May they be full of loving kindness? May they be happy? May all living beings be free of ill will. May they be free of suffering? May they be full of loving kindness. May they be happy? May all living beings be free of ill will. May they be free of suffering? May they be full of loving kindness. May they be happy. This practice of meta meditation, loving kindness meditation can be practiced on its own. This practice can be practiced on its own. But it can also be practiced as a addendum, as a finishing up from your mindfulness or from another practice you've been doing. You do your practice, you've gone through the process, whatever that is, and then you sit at the end, offering love to the self to another or to the world. I encourage you to explore. Over time, it will deeply soften and release. But it may feel a little bit forced or cliche at the start. That's okay. Like every practice we do here, it is skill development, it is practice. Over time, you'll eventually realize that indeed you do wish for freedom of suffering, freedom of ill will, being full of loving kindness and being happy to everyone. There is a suggestion to start this process by working on either yourself or someone that is easy to love, but then extending it, extending it to strangers, extending it to acquaintances, extending it even to people that have wronged you or people that are wronging you. That can be the tricky one. It's not necessarily about forgiveness, but it is about the offering of them reducing their own internal suffering because the chances are that if that person was free of ill will, was free of suffering, was full of love and kindness, and was happy, they'd be acting differently. But that's one to work on overtime, more of an advanced process. Either way, I want to thank you for joining in on this session. May you be free of Elwell? May you be free of suffering? May you be full of loving kindness? May you be happy? Thank. I'll see you in the next session. 20. Gratitude: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow, deep sighing breaths in through the nose. I'm just taking a moment to check into the body. Noting the general sensations arising. Points of movement. Anything you're holding onto. Just allowing whatever can release to release. And moving to your mind space, taking a moment to check into your thoughts, moods, memories, and other phenomena arising in the mind. Just approaching and accepting it all with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Allowing whatever to fall away to fall away, whatever to remain to remain. Placing your hand upon your heart's face upon the chest, another one upon the belly. Just feeling the warmth of the hand upon your skin. Settling in. Today we're going to be doing a basic gratitude practice. Sitting with, bringing forth and perhaps becoming the feeling of gratitude. It's all too easy for our minds to fall into anxiety or worry. Or craving or other less than ideal emotions. It keeps us safe. It helps us to continue moving forward. It helps us to not stagnate. At least when those feelings are working for us. But all too often we spiral, and we dwell, and we ruminate. But a counterpoint to all of those feelings is a feeling of gratitude. And the feelings of gratitude can be fostered. We can pull forth the feelings of gratitude from our memories from our body, and from the present moment. And fall into those feelings, become those feelings and embrace those feelings. This practice not only provides a counterpoint against the rumination, but also something that can be done to help open us up and integrate us. It's just once again returning your attention back to the sensations of the hand upon the heart space and the belly. Feeling the feelings and being grateful for the warmth that a simple self touch provide. Isn't it beautiful that you can take a slow, calm breath, place your hands upon your body, and begin to sooth. I am grateful for my hand upon my heart. I am grateful for my hand upon my belly. I am grateful for this next breath. I'm grateful for the fact I'm able to take the time to do this very practice. Taking a moment to bring to mind a person pet or plant in your life. Someone or something that you are grateful for. Someone that you can focus upon that is an easy target for this practice. Someone that on balance is tremendously positive in your life. That brings you joy that you're grateful for. Hold them in your heart's space or in your belly or in your mind's eye. And offer them love and compassion. With each breath, breathe in gratitude. Feel how they add what they bring. If you notice any thoughts or feelings arising, perhaps coming as a counterpoint to gratitude. Negativity or what ifs or examples or ruminations or anxieties or any of that. You acknowledge it, you accept it with an attitude of compassionate curiosity, calm confidence. You can even say to them internally. I hear you. Nothing's ever perfect. I will come back and we can contemplate you after this session. But for the moment, I'm going to sit with a feeling of gratitude. Sit with an inner acknowledgment of gratitude to this person, pet or plant in my life. Nothing's perfect. It doesn't have to be. That's okay. I have the breath. I have my hands upon my body. I have this person, this pet, this plant in my life to be grateful for. I also have this moment, myself in this moment. Taking the time doing an act of self care, self love, self I'm grateful for myself for working on gratitude. It's a little bit meta, perhaps a little bit circular. But in every moment that you are moving towards a goal, and that goal could be just to improve basic functionality, to heal, to even simply be present in this moment in a session like this one. Be grateful for that. It is an act of self love. It is you healing, embracing, loving yourself. That's a beautiful thing. Taking this sensation, this feelings, these thoughts, and extending them outwards to your family, to your house, to your friends and community, to your workspace. To your town, to your country, to the world. Yes, it's not perfect. But within that imperfection lies much gold, much opportunity, much love. There are aspects of all of those things to be grateful for. Find them. Hold them in your heart. And foster more gratitude into those spaces. I am grateful for the waves at the beach, the sound and the smell of the salt water. I am grateful for the trees at the park in the nature reserve. I'm grateful for the sound of the bird call. I'm grateful for the taste of coffee in the morning. I'm grateful for the welcoming smile of my coworkers. I'm grateful for the fact that there is a road to drive upon. I'm grateful for the fact that the technology exists to be able to have this meditation with you right now. I'm grateful for the fact that I have access to food, to water, to shelter. I'm grateful for the aspects of myself that are healthy. And I'm grateful that I can get the support that I need to help myself in the aspects that are not. I'm grateful. I am grateful for the support to help me through the hard times. I'm grateful for the fact I can help others through their hard times. I am grateful for the times of connection, be it a once off or a lifetime. I'm grateful. A I'm grateful for that breath and this breath. And the next breath. I am grateful for presence in this moment. I am grateful. I am grateful. So. I am grateful. Okay. So perhaps releasing your hand from your heart and your belly, taking another slow, deep, sighing breath. And returning returning back to the moment. Back to yourself, back to your day. Gratitude practice is interesting. It is us choosing to look to the positive. It is so easy to focus on the negative and what we want and what we need. Understandable. It's a survival mechanism. It's something that is hard wired in to help keep us safe and alive. But it can become the cause of tremendous distress and rumination if we don't take a moment to connect. Some people choose to do a daily gratitude practice in the morning or night, actively thinking about things they're grateful for, perhaps journaling it, or just adding the question or the contemplation of gratitude to the end of their meditation practice. What are you grateful for? That's enough. I'd like to leave you with this question as a form of contemplation. What if you gave thanks in advance for the wonderful things that are going to happen? What if you gave thanks in advance for the wonderful things that are going to happen? I E, a gratitude practice into the future. Good things will happen. True. Bad things will as well. It's easy to focus on that. But what do you have to be grateful for that you know will come? It's a beautiful contemplation. It's almost like a gratitude practice into the future. A sort of manifestation of sorts. Sit with that, and I'll see you in the next session. 21. Basic Mindfulness Recap: And welcome to the session. I invite you to lie down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and just begin by slowing down the breath, breathing in through the nose, low and slow. Taking a moment to scan the body. Noticing any points of tension, pressure or movement. Just allowing anything that can release to release. And taking a moment to scan the mind. Noticing any thoughts or moods or memories, A feelings present. Once again, allowing what can release to release. Today, we're going to be exploring mindfulness. The awareness that arises from purposely paying non judgmental attention to the present gnomen being here now. The base practice of mindfulness is that you choose an anchor, an object for attention. And then when your mind wanders, you bring your mind back to that object. The most common object for mindfulness is the sensations of the breath at the nose. So you can choose to use that today. But for some people, breath work or focusing on the breath can be a bit overstimulating, overwhelming, or triggering. Some instructors would suggest to push through it. Feel those feelings that are arising. You mind ws you bring it back. That's one option you can take. But the good thing about mindfulness is that you can choose to focus on any object. Something that you're hearing, something that you're seeing, something that you're feeling, something that you're smelling, tasting, internal sensations, or even the contents of consciousness, although that's a bit of an advanced practice. So for today's session, I'm going to choose to use the sensations in my belly as a meditation object as an anchor. I encourage you to choose whatever meditation object serves for you in this moment. Any of the five senses, any of internal feelings, perhaps even your thoughts. Your mind wanders, you bring it back. Your mind wanders, you bring the goal being isn't to empty your mind of thoughts, isn't only have positive thoughts. It's to bring it back to focus lovingly. Let's give it a try. Choose an object. Begin. If at any time, you find yourself lost in thought or distracted. Notice that? Lovingly, gently, return your focus back. C. Really focus deeply, fully, intently on the object of meditation. Witness everything that is arising. Notice any judgments popping up. Notice any memories being triggered. Noticing the pull into distraction or thought. Noticing at all and returning your focus back to the object. I when I start talking, you notice you're lost in thought. Don't berate yourself. Don't get frustrated. This is the practice. The practice is becoming aware of where your mind is, what it's focused on. Catching your mind lost in thought, lost in distraction is the point. So when you do, either through your own internal awareness or through an external prompting like me talking. It's okay. You gently, lovingly, return your focus back to the breath. The act of discovering where your mind is is the meditation. That is the point. To begin again. I Okay. So how did you go? Today we practice mindfulness meditation is one of the core pillars of all practice of, I think, all forms of self improvement, healing, and goal attainment, awareness, acceptance. Action is the way through. We become aware of what is arising in the moment. We accept what is arising in the moment without running from it or towards it. It is what it is. We don't have to like it, but it's truth. And then we take actions aligned with our goals. Now, the good thing about mindfulness meditation is it gives us all three. It helps us foster awareness. This is reality. This is what's happening. This is the state of my mind. I become aware. It helps us with acceptance. My mind is wanded. These are the feelings that are arising. And it itself is action to improve our mind and thus, our ability to act in the world, to see our values and our goals, what we actually believe, what we actually want, and take further steps towards it. Awareness, acceptance, action becomes a loop. And we can practice a little bit of that loop every day by practicing mindfulness. When you're meditating, if you find your mind wandering, that is the goal to see where your mind is. It's not to be blank. It's not to go, I've emptied my mind of thought because there is always something popping up. Neurons are always firing. There's always sense information coming in. It's to focus the mind on an object, but more importantly, to realize when that focus has gone. So you're effectively training a couple of things. The ability to focus the mind, you will get better at focus. But also, and more importantly, to be aware where the mind is, and it begins to wander, you bring it back. You're aware of where it is, you bring it back, right? The benefits come off the meditation mat, not just here in this session, but into everyday life. Something is happening, your mind wanders, you bring it back. You feel an emotion taking over. You go, Oh, that's interesting, 'cause you're aware of it. You just lost in it. You bring it back, you can make better, more aligned choices. That's the whole point. Mind wanders bring it back. We also talked about the idea that anything can be a meditation object. Traditionally, it's the breath, always there ever changing, great point of focus. But for some people, they find it a little bit confronting, a little bit triggering, a little bit anxiety inducing. Fair enough. Work with anything else, something you can hear, something you can see, something you can feel, taste or smell, internal feelings or even thoughts, a picture of a guru or religious icon, a tree. Feel it all, see it all, witness it all. Everything that is coming in. You choose the meditation object, set it for the session. You mind wand as you bring it back. Try it. Try different objects. You might find one that resonates with you more. The way you know you resonate with it more is that you want to keep meditating or keep going or doing it more every day. If the breath feels hard, you're like, Oh, I'm a Virgiin. I don't like this. Don't start there. Start with something else. Maybe explore it later. Does that make sense? Either way, thank you for joining in. I'll see you in the next session. 22. Advanced Labelling: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. It's taking a moment to scan the body scan the mind to see if there are any surface level tensions. Anything that you can just release. Maybe with a slow, deep, sighing breath. Just let it go and turn your focus to this session. And now allowing your breath to return to a normal pace. Turn your attention to the sensations of the breath at the nose. If your mind wanders, gently, lovingly, bring it back. Really focusing deeply on the sensations of the breath at the nose. One tool that can help us with our mortal focus is labeling. So as you maintain the focus of the breath at the nose, you may catch distractions arising. A physical sensation, a thought, an emotion, a memory, a future plan or anxiety, an impulse, the realization that you are thinking about thinking or a sensation of a connection to the divine. Or more. If you notice one of these distractions from the nose arising, label it. Label it as distraction. Or perhaps more specifically which distraction it is sensation. Then return your focus back to the breath. Thought. Return your focus back to the breath. Memory, back to the breath. And if you find yourself lost, if you find yourself distracted, captured by the distraction, that's okay. Label it and gently return your focus back to the breath. If you realize your mind is wandered away from the breath, label it as a distraction. Gently. Ly return. And if you can't quite discern what sort of distraction captured you. Maybe it's a combination many thoughts and emotions and memories and ruminations about the future all combined. I like to label all of that as a cloud. As in a cloud of mental space phenomena. I realize that the cloud has distracted me. I label it as such, and then return my focus back. Yes. Okay. So how did you go? We can use labeling as a way to boost our mindfulness. We pick the meditation object, most commonly the breath. Our mind wanders, we bring it back. But by labeling, it gives us a little bit of an extra boost in our capacity to notice the distractions before they capture us. With our broad awareness, we realize a thought is coming. Oh, there's a thought there. I see it, but I'm maintaining my focus on the breath. Oh, an emotion. But I'm maintaining my focus on the breath. Sometimes you'll notice your mind is being captured by the distraction. That's okay. You label it as such, return your focus back to the breath. This is enhancing our capacity to be aware of the contents of consciousness, non judgmentally. And as I said, sometimes what catches us is a overwhelming combination of sensations, thoughts, and memories, moods, future focused anxieties, and hopes, impulses, all of these things. If that's the case, you label all of that as the cloud, a big storm cloud that has captured us or distracted us. That's okay. You label it. Turn your focus back to the breath, repeating that process for the duration of the session. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you next time. 23. Focused Attention Vs Broad Awareness: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. Close down the eyes if you wish, and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Take a moment to scan your body and your mind space. Just taking note of any surface level feelings, moods, emotions, tensions. And if they can be released, release them. I'm going to take another look at mindfulness meditation, but doing so within the context of the skill of focused attention versus broad awareness. So we'll begin with the traditional practice. Turning your attention, focusing your attention on the sensations of the breath, entering and leaving the nose. Let's try that now. If you notice your mind wandering gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the breath. Y The goal of our practice is not to have an empty mind. And although we're focusing the mind or our attention upon the breath of the nose, our goal isn't exactly to even maintain that focus. Rather, our highest goal is to become aware of the contents of consciousness, to notice where the mind is and then gently return it back to the breath. That's the goal. So if you do notice your mind wandering, gently, lovingly. Bring it back to the breath. We're using the concept of focused attention. We're focusing our attention on the breath. Now, focused attention is almost akin to a laser, to a pointer pointing at something. We focus our attention and it stays on the breath. But the problem with the laser is that it can shift and laser focus somewhere else. It's not very good, and this is the skill that we're developing, initially, particularly, it's not very good at staying in the one spot. And if it shifts, we can get hyperfocused somewhere else. So the way we do this, the way we address this is through broad awareness in tandem. This is sort of a bit of an advanced technique, but we have our focused attention on the meditation object. But then we deploy also some broad awareness. This is like peripheral vision. We're pointing the laser of attention at the breath. But then we expand our senses wide as well. It's like a peripheral vision. We are looking through the microscope at an object, but with another eye or another sense, we're scanning everything. So we're aware of the sensations in the body. We are aware of the things we can see, of the things we can hear, of our thoughts. We're not focusing on them, but we're broadly aware of them. Maybe it's, for example, a 90% focus on the sensations of the breath at the nose and a 10% focus, 10% awareness on these other things. Internal sensations, information from your senses, feelings within the body, aspects of the mind space. We take note of them broadly and it's like, we can see that there's a distraction coming. Maintain the focused attention on the breath, but there's a potential risk of a distraction here. Maintain the focus, potential risk, maintain the focus, potential risk. In that way, we do our best to stay focused on the object of meditation. In practice, what we do is once again return your focus back to the breath when it's been lost, maintaining that focus, but a small part of your mind is just like, there's an external thought that's coming. I'm aware of that now, broadly aware that that's there. I'm not going to let that distract me, back to the breath. There's some physical sensations that might I'm acknowledging that their presence is there, back to the breath. Basically, what we're doing is not letting ourselves get blindsided by a thought or a sensation, not letting the laser focus move somewhere else without our realization. So let's try for a minute or so. Once again, sitting with the anchor of the breath, but broadly aware of all of the other things, information from the senses, within the body and the mind space. Let's try it now. Okay. Maintaining your focus on the sensations of the breath at the nose. Just become broadly aware also of what you can hear what you can see, what you can feel. Become broadly aware of thought patterns and memories. All the while maintaining your focused attention on the sensations of the breath at the nose. And wonders if it gets lost in thought. If you didn't see something in your broad awareness and it captured your attention, that's okay. Gently, lovingly. Return your focus back to the breath and re engage the broad awareness. So today, we practiced mindfulness with the addition of the concept of focused attention and broad awareness. Remember, mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposely paying non judge beental attention to the present moment. We practice it by choosing a meditation object, traditionally the breath, but it can be anything. When your mind wanders, you bring it back. But your focused attention is like a laser point that's controlled by a untrained monkey, the monkey mind, it points everywhere and darts around, and it can be hard to focus that laser point, and it can be easy for that laser point to dart off and for you not to even realize that the laser is pointing somewhere else. Focused attention is very sharp but easily movable. So through regular mindfulness practice, we repeatedly return it back to the anchor. This trains it to point in the one direction. An additional tool that we can add is the concept of broad awareness. We apply 90% of our effort to maintaining the focus on the meditation object, really feeling those sensations deeply. Mind orders bring it back, mind orders, bring it back. But we have about 10% of our mind capturing a broad awareness, like a peripheral vision, noting the sensations in the body, noting the feelings, thoughts, moods, memories of the mind space, noting what we can hear, see, and feel in this moment. Noting it all. And being aware and sort of monitoring or checking to see if anything will distract us. That's the point. We have our focused awareness on the breath, broad awareness on other things that can come. And in that way, we don't get as easily blindsided or moved off from the meditation object. We can stay focused. This is a little bit of an advanced technique, but I encourage you to give it a try in your practice. Either way, thank you for joining me, and I'll see you in the next session. 24. Vipassana: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin taking some slow deep breaths and through the nose. Taking a moment to check into the body, check into the mind seeing where you're at, seeing if there are any tensions or thoughts or other things you're holding onto seeing if you can let go. Becoming fully present and aware in this moment. Today we're going to be looking at a little bit of pasna. This is a form of mindfulness practice upon which we begin by focusing the mind on the sensations of the breath at the nose. And then we move that focus down part by part, piece by piece, focusing on every point of the body in turn and just feeling and accepting what arises without moving towards it or away from it. Equanomus. No judgment, acceptance. So we're going to first begin with the turning of our attention to the sensations of the breath at the nose. Really focusing your attention on the sensations of the breath, entering and leaving the nose. If you find your mind wandering, just gently and lovingly, return it back to the sensations of the breath. Really paying close attention. Which nostril is the air traveling up and down? Can you notice the subtle temperature differences a little bit cooler on the way in, a little bit warmer on the way out. Where specifically are you noticing the sensations of the breath? Inside the nose, at the tip of the nose, on the lips, perhaps. If you notice your mind wandering gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the sensations of the breath at the nose. Okay. So now we're going to move to a partner based body scan. We're going to start at the top of the head and then part by part piece by piece, feel the sensations rising. Part without judgment, without filter, noticing without responding to any feelings that are arising good or bad, treating them the same with economous awareness, with acceptance. With attention, feeling each sensation with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. If you can, let's sit in strong determination. Finding a comfortable position, sitting or laying down. But one in which you don't need to move the body. If you notice pain arising, acknowledge it and return to the point of focus. If you notice sensations arising in other parts of the body, acknowledge them. But then return your focus back to the part you are working with. If there is an extreme amount of pain and it becomes intolerable, you're more than welcome to move. But if it's a small bit, be curious about that as well. Let's begin. Turning your attention to the top of the head, feeling all of the sensations arising and accepting them. Turning your attention to the sensations arriving at your face. Y. The back of your neck. The front of your neck. So Four. You left arm. You left hand. Your right arm. Your right hand. Yeah. Your chest. Your sternum. No belly. No hips grin. Oh a back. B my back. Dog. Your left leg. Your left foot. Your right leg. Right foot. Okay. So we begin this practice, this Vpasna based mindfulness practice with the focus of our attention upon the sensations of the breath at the nose. That part of the practice is known as Anna Pana. It's the foundation. From there we scan our body part by part piece by piece from head to toe. Accepting what arises without craving or aversion. Good or bad, we just witness it and feel it. We practiced sitting in strong determination. That is doing our best to not move the body, even if there is pain. Instead, feeling it, being curious about it, witnessing it. But obviously, if it's too much, allowing ourselves to gently shift mindfully. And in this way, we scanned the entirety of the body, feeling what arises. If we were to continue the practice, you would return that scan head to toe, toe to head. Then maybe left to right, right to left, front to back, and so on and so forth. Scanning, feeling, just accepting the feelings that are arising within the body. Fundamentally, this is a brilliant mindfulness practice that has tremendous healing benefits. We're releasing stored feelings. We're allowing our body to tell the score that it's been keeping small. And big. So thank you for joining me and I'll see you in the next session. 25. Protective Barrier Visualization: And welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. I'm taking a moment to scan the mind and the body. Noticing if there is anything there that you can let go of. Any surface level tensions or thoughts or other things arising that you can just release. Today, we're going to practice the visualization of a protective barrier. Something that you can do in response to external stress, just as a way to psychologically keep yourself safe. People will practice visualizations like this one with the belief that they are impacting the external world, that's up to you to decide. But at the very least, visualizations like this will change your internal space, which can in turn impact the world. It's through that framework that we're going to be operating. Let's begin by placing your hands upon your heart space. Visualizing a ball of energy or light or a flame that is growing. With each breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter. And we embody, embrace and become the heart space. With your next breath, visualize from the heart space a barrier or a shield extending outwards in all directions. You might visualize this as gold or white. Whatever color is manifesting for you. But the nature of this barrier is such that you can choose what you allow in. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger, brighter, and the barrier or shield extends outwards. Into this space, you can say the words or the intention behind the words. I am safe. I can choose what I allow in. I am safe. I am safe. I can choose what I allow in. I can choose what I allow in. I With the breath, we visualize the heart space growing stronger and brighter and we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. From the heart space, we visualize a shield or a barrier extending outwards in all directions. The shield has the capacity or the nature such that it allows us to choose what we let in. And You can choose to use this practice as a daily practice or you can do it in response to certain people or places or events. Like I said at the beginning, this is primarily a mental exercise. You're starting to feel overwhelmed. You're starting to feel like there's too much going on, starting to become a bit withdrawn. You take some slow calm breaths, hand upon the heart space, picture that glowing ball of energy or light or flame, sink down into the heart space, and then visualize a shield or a barrier extending outwards. One that keeps you safe, one that allows you to choose what to let in their energy, their inputs, their impressions. You're here, safe. Into that space, once again, you say the words, I am safe. I can choose what to allow in. Okay. With these visualizations, you've got a couple of options to finish the session. The first one is that you almost say to it, I release you, you let it go. You drop the visualization, ground yourself back in the moment, and then continue with your day. The other option is that you almost leave it on. You leave the visualization going. Once again, we're just playing with the mind and it's us protecting ourselves using what is at least a psychological response or process or perhaps trick. Maybe more depending on what your belief system is. But you can choose to leave this barrier on. And then throughout the day, every so often, you just take a slow calm breath and sort of reignite or reinfuse that barrier. That's something that I do. It's like I know that I'm going somewhere that could potentially be stressful, check in, grab myself, do the process, put this barrier in place, and then throughout the day, I just sort of remind myself that I've done this practice. Whether or not I'm impacting the real world is neither here nor there, because what I've found is that by grounding myself in the heart space, I'm checking into the self, and I'm just reminding myself that there is a difference and a space and at least a psychological barrier between me and the people and the event and the places in the overwhelm. Does that make sense? Either way, thank you for joining me in this session. I'll see you in the next one. 26. Cleansing Liquid Visualization: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Just take a moment to scan the body and the mind, perhaps release anything that you're holding onto. Any surface level tensions or thoughts that can pass. Allow it to pass. Place your hand upon your heart space. In this session, we're going to work on a cleansing visualization. Like all visualizations, the practice of visualization, people have varying beliefs. Some believe that it is solely a inner practice. Whilst others believe that a visualization can impact the external world. But regardless of your internal belief system, an inner visualization practice, and in this case, an inner cleanse, is at the very least a psychological response. It is a process that we can use to help ground, to help practice, and to help release. A rituals, even those that are made up, heal and help because the reality is that every ritual is made up. So with those caveats aside, belief systems aside. We're going to work on a inner healing and cleansing visualization. With your hand upon your heart space, we're going to begin by visualizing the heart space. It's a glowing bowl of healing energy, of light or a flame. Just for a moment at least. With the breath, visualize the hard space growing stronger and brighter as you embody, embrace, and become the hard space. I'm taking a moment now to visualize a dense cleansing golden liquid entering the body through the top of the head. It's going to begin filling up the feet into the legs, into the belly, into the chest, the hands, the neck, the head, then flowing out the top of the crown of the head, flowing over um and then away. The nature of this dense golden cleansing liquid is such that anything that is not um floats to the surface. Top. As this liquid enters, it takes with it anything that is not you. Any tensions, any energies, any hang ups, maybe visualized as sort of little specks of dirt or darkness cannot help but float to the top. And this liquid comes in, fills up, comes out, flows over and away. It takes with it anything that is not you. Hand upon the heart space. Visualizing the heard space growing stronger and brighter. So we embody, embrace and become the heart space. Visualizing the dense, healing liquid, filling us up, taking with us, taking with it anything that is not us. Visualizing it coming in, filling us up, flowing out the top of the head over and taking away anything that is not us. You could imagine this process like you are a cup of water, perhaps. That currently has impurities or externalities or isn't yet pure. You're visualizing more water coming in. As that water comes in, it fills up the cup. The cup begins to overflow, releasing all of the impurities. Over time, over time, over time, eventually, all that will be left in the cup is the pure water. All the impurities will have floated to the top come out over the top and washed away. As you're visualizing the dense golden healing liquid, entering, filling us up, flowing over away and releasing, you may notice that there are parts that seem stuck. The nature of this healing liquid is that if something is not being released, gradually and over time, it works upon This process is you taking steps to release. If you do notice that something does not want to move, does not want to release, take a moment to really get curious about that. What are you holding onto? What needs to be looked at? What needs to be done? Does that part of you or part of your past want to let you know? What is it doing for you? What does it need from you to release? With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter. We embody, embrace, and become the heart space. Visualizing the dense, golden, cleansing liquid flowing in, filling us up, flowing out and over and away, taking with it anything that is not us. Visualizing things that are not us perhaps as impurities, as darkness, floating to the top, floating out and floating away. And anything that does not want to budge just yet, knowing that the nature of this liquid is such that over time, it will work on it and release and getting curious about those parts, connecting to them, looking and seeing what's there. Game taking another slow, deep, sighing breath. Choosing how you'd like to end the session. With all visualizations, you have an option. You can either choose to gently release the visualization, end the cleansing. Let go of the heart space returning back to the room. Well you can choose to keep this process happening in the background. As you go through the day, every so often you check into the heart space, visualizing it as a glowing ball of energy or a light or a flame. You check into this process of cleansing, visualizing the dense healing cleansing liquid coming in, filling you up, flowing out over and away. That's your choice. Both options are valid. All visualizations are us impacting our inner state at the very least. They're all an opportunity to introspect this practice, the cleansing liquid practice helps us to release what wants to release, but also can help draw our attention to things that don't. If you notice internally, visually, something you're holding onto that this process does not want to budge, you turn your attention to it. There's a message there. There's something that you need to know. Perhaps do. With curiosity, with compassion, with calm confidence, you'll be able to get some introspection, some internal understanding, perhaps some integration. And over time release. So thank you for joining me, and I'll see you in the next session. 27. Heart Space Transmutation Visualization: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish, and begin taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. It's taking a moment to scan your heart space. Your body, your mind, seeing what's arising, and perhaps letting go of anything that is sitting on the surface. Placing a hand upon the heart space. Feeling the warmth of your hand upon your skin. Today we're going to practice a heart space, transmutation or transformation. I'm going to begin by visualizing the heart space as a glowing ball of energy or light or flame. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger or brighter as we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. The heart space, the self, you. This area is the part of us that is connected, connected to the divine, connected to us, the witness. It's the part of us that is well, us. This space is untaintable, uncorruptible. Whatever that comes in contact with it cannot help but be transmuted, transformed into love, into compassion. Let's take another slow deep breath in through the nose, visualizing the heart space growing stronger and brighter as we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. We're going to practice a transmutation. We're going to begin breathing into the heart space, the feelings that are arising, and then releasing love. Through my highest self, heavy emotions transform into compassion. Taking a moment to breathe in. Thoughts arise. Breathe them into the heart space. Sensations arise. Breathe them into the heart space. Emotions, memories. Anything arising. Breathe it into the heart space. And allow the pure heist form of ourselves, that flame, that light to dissolve it, to transform it, to transmute it into love. Any feelings of anger, resentment, anxiety, fear, jealousy. All those negative emotions, all those heavy emotions. You notice them arising? Breathe them into the heart space. Breathe out love and compassion. The heart space is such, but it is pure and untaintable. Corruptible. Anything that comes in contact with this space cannot help but be dissolved into love and compassion. Through my highest self, heavy emotions are transformed into compassion. Extending this practice outwards now to our family, to our community, to our workspace, perhaps to the world at large. Breathing into the heart space, the heavy emotions. Breathing out love. I This practice is us transforming, transmuting, not pushing away or discarding or getting the universe or some other force to deal with it all. It's us tapping into our highest self. It's us bringing it in and then releasing as love. It's us taking a step towards positivity towards healing, towards a connection to our highest self, to the divine, to the spark within. If at any time you notice a heavy emotion internally or externally, breathe it into the heart space and allow it to transform it into love. If you find yourself interacting with a friend or a family or a co worker, and they're not settled, you can visualize breathing that heavy emotion, that distress, that duress into the heart space, this pure and untaintable place and releasing it as love. You have to decide if this practice is making impact on the external world or if it's just an internal practice for you alone. But either way, even if it is only you alone, if it transforms your view of the world and your actions and your inner state and being, you will act differently. You will be calmer, kinder, more compassionate, which will in turn impact your actions, which will in turn impact the real world. So either way, this is a practice worth exploring. We connect to the heart space, visualize it as a glowing ball of energy or light. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter, we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. We connect to this highest form, this highest part of ourself and breathe in all heavy emotions, internal and external, allowing the highest part of ourself, the heart space, the witness, the part that's perhaps connected to the divine to transform those heavy emotions into compassion, into love. Okay. So this practice is one that you can choose to continue. It's one that you can sort of leave on, so to speak. As you interact with people, you maintain a little bit of a visualization of the heart space. And as you breathe in, you're transforming all heavy emotions into love and compassion, you're breathing that out, radiating love, radiating compassion, radiating care. Those heavy emotions no longer derail you or impact you, but indeed, you become the conduit for their transformation. That's one option, or you can choose to release the visualization, return back to the space, and then continue with your day. This practice is a visualization, but it's also a practice of meta or loving kindness meditation. The practice where you wish yourself, others, all living beings to be free of ill will, free of suffering, full of loving kindness, and to be happy. It's another way to foster those feelings, and one that I find is quite powerful. So with that said, may you be free of ill will, May you be free of suffering? May you be full of love and kindness? May you be happy? Thank you for joining me. And I'll see you in the next session. 28. Inbox Zero & The Power of Silence: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Begin by taking some long slow deep breaths in through the nose. Taking a moment to scan the body and the mind. Just seeing if there's anything that you can release. Any surface level tensions that you can just let go of. Today we're going to be practicing a variation of mindfulness meditation called the Inbox Zero. But first, we'll just begin with the most traditional form of mindfulness. Turn your attention to the sensations of the breath, entering and leaving the nose. Paying close attention to the sensations, the feelings arising. And if your mind wanders just gently, lovingly, bringing your attention back. Our goal is it to change the flow of the breath. It isn't even to empty the mind. It's just to become aware of what is arising in this moment. Your mind wanders. Bring it back. That's all. And Really paying attention, focusing your mind on the sensation of the breath at the nose. Maybe using the tools of labeling when things pop up. Something pops up? Oh, that's a thought. Something else pops up. Ah, that's sound. And then returning your attention back to the breath. If your mind wanders gently, lovingly, return your attention back to the breath. That is the whole point of this meditation, noticing the contents of consciousness. If you notice your mind wandering, you're doing it. We're deploying our focused awareness on the sensations of the breath at the nose and our broad awareness, peripheral awareness to see any potential distractions before they derail us. If you mind wanders, bring it back to the breath. Okay. So that's our base or our core mindfulness practice. Focus your attention on the breath, your mind wanders, and you bring it back. There are a variety of different tools that you can use like labeling, broaden focused awareness, and other things to maintain your focus. But that's the base practice. You notice your mind wandering? With loving care, with compassion, you bring it back. That's the point of the meditation to notice the contents of consciousness, to repeatedly bring it back. But you can also use mindfulness on just about anything. A inter, even thoughts, you focus your attention upon the thoughts or just even upon awareness itself. Your mind wanders. You bring it back. An even more advanced practice is something that has been labeled as an in box zero practice. By Naval Ravnkant. The practice is pretty simple or at least it sounds simple. The meditation is that you sit for an extended period of time. And allow the inbox of the mind to process and release. The idea being is that in the silence in the sit, the mind will reveal. Open up the inbox. Here's an unread message. Process it and release process it and release, and so on and so forth. And peace comes. Mindfulness comes. When that inbox reaches zero, and the daily practice is to sit and just allow that inbox to go to zero. With that context, we will sit for 10 minutes and quite literally just allow the mind to reach inbox zero. That's it. If you notice yourself engaging, if you notice yourself perpetuating, if you notice yourself obsessing over an email, so to speak, mental email. That's okay. Take a breath. Return back to the practice of allowing the emails to be read. Let's give it a try. Okay. In the meditation, you're more than welcome to do so. But for everyone else, I invite you to return back to the room and back to this space. There is something to be said about the benefits of silence and of boredom, and just allowing the mind to wander. The idea of the inbox zero meditation, allowing our mind to sit in silence for an extended period of time. Just opening up those emails, allowing them to process, and just release. The analogy being is that every day, we accumulate an inbox of unopened emails in the mind, thought threads, conversations that happened, memories from the past, anxieties and thoughts and contemplations and ruminations of the future, internal bodily sensations, just the workings of the mind in general. All of these accumulate as unread emails, so to speak. So the practice of inbox zero is simple. We sit, we just allow it to process. For the duration of the session. You could sit for 10 minutes, you could sit for 60 minutes. But you could also do this practice as a just daily ongoing thing, rather than playing the podcast or the music or some other distraction as driving or when you're washing the dishes or doing any of those other Mundane tasks rather than distracting yourself, rather than putting more information in even educational information. Instead, you return to this practice to the silence, to the inbox zero, and just allow your mind to process and wander. For whatever reason, our society currently almost demonizes boom. But what is botom? It's a lack of stimulation. It's a lack of input, it's a little bit confronting because it forces us to fill that gap, fill that silence, fill that void, with what? Ourselves, our unprocessed feelings and emotions, it forces us to read those emails. But there is a tremendous healing benefit of silence of allowing ourselves to be bored, of allowing the process to happen. And what's more it can spur creativity. As you're falling asleep or perhaps as you're having the shower, thoughts pop up. It's because in those moments are the rare moments that all of us usually allow ourselves to be in a state of relative silence. What if instead of just those random rare moments, we allowed silence in, and we perhaps even looked to silence as the teacher. What then? Now, don't get me wrong. There is a drive to feel the need for more information. Indeed, we're evolutionarily primed for it. More information traditionally has kept us safe. If someone tells you about a dangerous plant or dangerous area or dangers in general, you are very much primed to listen. Why? Because it keeps us safe, or rather it did. But that same drive now is being super exploited, super focused upon. Our eyes are gravitated towards all of the events happening across the globe, some of which may be significant, but the vast majority are not. But we can't quite tell the difference. So we maintain the viewing, we maintain the scrolling, we maintain the listening, like it will help us. Some of it, a small percentage may, but the vast majority is just noise. The way I've learned to filter that out is twofold. Number one, am I doing this based on a choice? Or did I just mindlessly fall into observing and scrolling and listening? If it's the latter, turn it off. Number two, am I getting actionable information? Is this story podcast, video, talk, whatever? Is it giving me information that I can take action upon? Learning is the changing of behavior in response to information. You're getting all of this information? Does it impact what you're doing? Or are you just listening instead of getting stressed? If it's the latter, turn it off. There is a real lasting benefit to just embracing silence. To pausing to allowing to listening. And yeah, to being bored. So I encourage you to try this idea of the inbox zero meditation or just allowing silence into your life. You could do it formally. For example, setting a timer for 1060 1 minute, whatever works best for you and just allowing you could do that and I strongly encourage you to do, but you could also just allow silence into your life. The moments that you find yourself filling the silence with noise while cleaning, while traveling. Maybe instead. Just allow the silence. You will feel uncomfortable at first because you're not used to it. But eventually, when that inbox gets close to and hits zero, you'll discover the present moment the teachings that are available to you, the wisdom. My final thoughts on this are that before all of the tech, before all of modern society, humans evolved. We came into this world when there was relative silence. That's normal. A normal is relative silence. There might be something there to return to. It might feel uncomfortable at the start. But a lot of the hang ups, a lot of the neurosis, the anxiety, the depression, all of it? What if all of that is compounded by noise or rather by a lack of silence, the silence that we evolved to expect. Give it a try. Thank you. 29. Focusing On The Present Moment: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. And just begin by slowing down the breath, breathing in through the nose, low into the belly. And slow. Today's practice will be a mindfulness connection to the present moment. We're going to begin by just listening. Listen to the sounds that are arising. What can you hear in this moment? The sound of my voice. Technology, nature. The wind. Other people. Just listening. These are the sounds that are arising in this moment. These sounds are happening now. Taking another slow, deep sighing breath. Turn your attention to what you can see behind open eyes or closed eyes. Just seeing what you can see right now. Any movements? Colors, shapes. Really focusing in on what you can see right now. These are the things you can see in this moment. These are the things you are seeing now. Turn your attention to what you can feel taking another slow and deep breath, draw your attention to the sensations in your body. Noticing the seat or the floor underneath you. The clothes upon your skin. The temperature of the room. Internal sensations, tensions, pressures and movements. You're breathing and heartbeat. These are the sensations arising in this moment. Taking another slow deep breath in through the nose. Returning your breathing to a normal rate. Draw your attention to the sensations of the breath. This breath is happening now. This breath is happening in this moment. Stay focused on the breath. If your mind wanders to the future, to the past. Just gently return it to this moment, back to the sensations of the breath. Now, taking a moment to release all focus and just be in this moment. These are the sounds, the feelings, the visions, the breath that is arising in this moment. Just simply be in this moment. Okay. So this practice today was us focusing on the present moment mindfully, what we can see, feel, and hear this breath. These are the things that are happening now in this moment. And this practice of focusing on this moment and the things that are arising in this moment is very grounding. And if you're finding that you're struggling with anxiety, with overwhelm with ruminate panic, with grief, just looking, just listening, just feeling, just breathing, and returning your mind mindfully again and again and again, helps get you into this moment. Because the reality is that this moment right now is most likely fine, safe, calm. If we can just return ourselves back again and again and again, we not only learn to focus the mind, but to ground ourselves in the present moment and become aware when our mind is wandered to the future or the past. I encourage you to take this one with you. You can use it as a formal practice, but also as a response to daily overwhelm. Thank you for meditating with me. I'll see you next time. 30. Mind Space Witnessing: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to lay down or take a seat and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by focusing your attention on the sensations at the breath. Feeling the air, entering and leaving the nose. Today's session, we're going to be practicing something that I call a mind space witness. This is analogous to a body scan, but for the mind. In a body scan, you scan each part part by part, piece by piece, just feeling the sensations that are arising without judgment, without filter, a mindful observation. We can do so with the components of our mind. Getting deeper, getting more subtle, but exploring the aspects that make up the mind space mindfully. It's taking a slow deep breath. I'm going to turn our focus to the most obvious thing that our mind picks up information from the senses. Noticing what we can hear. Noticing what we can feel in our body. Noticing what we can see behind closed eyes or open. Noticing what we can taste and smell. Noting any internal feelings that are arising. These are the sensations that are arising in this moment. Let me If at any point during this meditation, we find ourselves lost in thought. Return our focus back to the breath and then onto the object that we're focusing on currently. Noting the sensations that are arising in this moment, what we can see here, feel, taste, smell, perceive internally. Taking a slow, calm, deep breath. I'm going to move into the mind space a little bit deeper by becoming aware of any thoughts that are arising. Noticing the content, the internal volume, the voice of which is speaking. Is it as or is it another? Is it speaking to from or about us? Is it nonsense? Just observing and accepting any thoughts that are arising. I taking a moment to consider where these thoughts are coming from and where they're going. We're not choosing which thoughts arise. They sort of just do we observe them, then we watch them go somewhere. We can choose to make a thought appear. But thoughts just seem to appear on their own as well. Just wait. Take another slow deep breath in through the nose. I'm going to go a little bit deeper still, into emotions. Feelings. Mood. Noting if there are any emotions or feelings or moods present in the mind. I'm really focusing in deep on how we know that those moods are present. Maybe it's just a general sense. Or you're picking up upon the collection of bodily sensations. Perhaps an internal mental feeling, like an overlay looking through allophane. Maybe there's more than one present. It's taking a moment to note the moods, emotions and feelings that are arising, their strength, the parts of the mind that they take up, the parts of the mind that they don't, witnessing it all. Taking another slow deep breath, as we go a little bit deeper still into the mind space into memory. What memories are present in the mind? And how are those memories presenting to you? Are you witnessing them from the first person as in you in those memories? Appearing like a television show where you're watching it externally. How vivid are the memories? How clear? Or maybe it's just a general knowing of something that has happened. Getting curious about the memories. Why are those memories present and not others? What aspect of them are you holding onto or focusing upon? How old were you at the time? We're just observing, we're just witnessing, we're just looking, we're just accepting that these are the memories that are arising right now. I Taking another slow deep breath in through the nose. Do we turn our attention deeper still to imagination to future focused thought to hopes to anxieties. Noticing where our mind is drifting towards thoughts of the future feelings about the future. Witnessing it create things out of nothing. Why these thoughts of the future, these anxieties, these hopes. Why these creations, visualizations, and not others? Just witnessing it all. Going a little bit deeper still into the mind space with another slow deep breath. Taking a look at out impulses. These are by way of analogy, almost looking at the programming of the computer, the part of us that causes us to act, our desires, our versions, our addictions, our base tendencies, our gut reactions, the impulse to move or to do. Doing our best to witness any impulses that are arising and their immediate consequences. Once again, we're not judging. We're approaching and accepting whatever arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. These are the impulses that are arising in your mind in this moment. That's okay. It is what it is. We're just mindfully witnessing. A going a little bit deeper still into metacognition. Your awareness of awareness, the part of you that is aware that you are doing the meditation in this moment, the part that is aware that it is thinking, the observation of the observer and the part that is observing that the infinite regress. It is us attempting to turn the lens of attention in upon itself, witnessing the witness. Notice all of that arising. Notice your minds pull towards the earlier focus, the sensations, the thoughts, the emotions. But then notice you noticing that. And noticing the noticing of the noticing of that. This is like breaking our own fourth wall. Now going a little bit deeper still into states of consciousness. What is the overall state of your mind in this moment? No judgments. Just it is what it is. Now you're focused, mindful, distracted, sleepy. Confused at peace. Just noticing the overall mode of your mind. Just noticing the overall mode of your mind. I'm not arising in this moment. The final aspect, one more slow deep breath is the sense of self or soul, the heart space, the part of you that is connected to the divine, the emptiness, the spiritual side. If you have access to such a space, feeling and witnessing the resulting sensations, thoughts, emotions, memories, moods, everything that arises from mind's full observation of the mind space, and from that connection to the self, or to the divine beyond. Now taking a moment to let it all go, returning our focus back to the sensations of the breath at the nose, but being aware of all of the different aspects of the mind space, sensations, thoughts, motions, moods, feelings, memories, imaginations, anxieties, hopes, impulses, metacognitions, states of consciousness, and the sense of the self or the soul. All of it. Being aware of it all arising, but returning our focus back to the breath. Witnessing it all. Allowing it all. Okay. So today, we practice mind space witnessing a mental version of a body scan. I have a little bit of a mnemonic to help you remember the order. You say these words and the first word is the same as the thing you scan. Sometimes the elephant makes imaginary. Ice cream meringues super salty. Sometimes for sensations, for thoughts, elephant for emotions, makes for memories, Imaginary for imagination. Ice cream for impulses, meringues for metacognitions, super for states of consciousness and salty for the sense of soul. So if you'd like to practice this mind space witnessing on your own, you remember the mnemonic. Sometimes the elephant makes imaginary ice cream meringues super salty. And you can take yourself through each step as you go. But this is just an order that I created, going from the most overt and obvious down to the most subtle. I encourage you to explore your own inner space, find the component parts of your own mind, and perhaps find a way to explore your own mind space in an order that works for you. Just remember that whatever is arising, we accept it with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. Thank you for joining me today, and I'll see you in the next session. 31. A Loving Inner Vision Exploration: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. Start by placing your hand upon your heartspace just feeling the warmth. Today, we're going to be practicing something that I call a loving inner vision exploration. We're going to turn our attention inwards to a part of the body, part of our personality, part of our past. And just explore what arises when we connect to it. The physical sensations, the memories, the thoughts, and the inner visions, approaching and accepting it all with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. If we hold that the body keeps the score, the idea being that things have happened in the past, unless we release it at the time and process it, we hold onto and we hold onto it until we do process it. And if we don't, physical sensations, symptoms, pressures, illnesses and other things manifest. Psychological hang ups, disturbances and other things manifest. So we hold that the body keeps the score, and we hold that emotions and sensations are messages. And in this practice, we're going to allow some of that to be released. We begin with the hand upon the heart space, just feeling the sensations of warmth there. Visualizing the heart space as a glowing ball of energy or a flame or a light. And with the breath allowing the heart space to grow stronger and brighter as we embody, embrace, and become the heart space. The heart space is your base. If you find yourself lost or overwhelmed, return back to the hand upon the heart. The vision of the heart space as a light or energy growing brighter with the breath. Take a moment now to welcome in welcome in a part of our past that is holding onto something. Intuitively, you'll know where it'll arise and find this part where it is being held in the body. Connecting to the part of the past, connecting to the part of the body. And just feeling just accepting. Just allowing. Feeling the sensations that are arising in that part of the body without judgment. I opening up the mind space to that part. What color does it have? What thoughts and memories and moods are arising? Explore them. Are there any inner visions appearing, symbols? Metaphors. Approach and accept what arises with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. In. This practices are loving in a vision exploration. If you're noticing something arise, explore it, enhance it, embrace it. Go deeper, really feel, really acknowledge, really embrace what's arising. And if at any time, it becomes too much, return to the sensations of the hand at the heart space. When you're ready, dive back in. U We're just listening, just observing, just accepting what is arising. The mind wanders, we find ourselves lost. That's okay. We return back to the part of the body, the part of the past we're working with. Really feeling the sensations that are arising, really exploring any inner visions that gum, the memories, the moods, the analogies, the metaphors, the thoughts. Oh No judgment. You might have been holding on to whatever you're holding onto for years or decades. That's okay. Whilst we'll try and make sense of what comes, we don't have to. We're just adopting the attitude of the inner parent, with the inner guide, inner counselor, therapist. Just seeing what arises. Just listening. Just accepting. So, at the end of these sessions, when you're working with a part of um, there's a couple of things you can do. The main one should be to offer a commitment to return. This isn't a once and done practice. You're gonna come back. But that way, the part that you're working with knows that well, you're here. Whatever happened, and now it's gone. It's going to connect with you, with the self, with the heart space as a reintegration. So you let it know, you say, Hey, I'm going to come back. I'm going to explore this practice again, maybe later today, tomorrow, sometime this week, check back in. And on the heart space. Heart space growing stronger and brighter. Connect to this part. Let it know you're returning. Let it know that it can begin to express, to explore to release a little bit. This is a slow, deep practice, but one that is tremendously therapeutic when done repeatedly over time. So commit to return and then do so. And at some stage one feels intuitively right, you can ask this part. Hey, what are you holding on to? Would you like to release to let go? Is there something that you're hiding that you'd like to share? Gentle, loving probing questions, and just approaching and accepting everything that arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. I like to offer it with a delicacy of the breath. Almost like we're touching that space with the breath and then return. Love and trust, love and trust, and just continuing that process. Over time, eventually, it will soften, release, and reintegrate. Thank you for joining me in this session, and I encourage you to return to this practice at any time. 32. Intuitive Guidance: Hello, and welcome to the session. I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable. You can close down the eyes if you wish. Just begin by taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose. I invite you to place your hand upon your heart space just to begin feeling the warmth, feeling the connection, and visualizing the heart space as a glowing ball of energy, a light, perhaps a candle flame. And with the breath, the heart space grew stronger and brighter. It's taking another slow, deep breath. Really settling into the feelings of the hand at the heart space. With the breath, the heart space grows stronger and brighter as we embody, embrace, become the heart space. For this session, the hand upon your heart, the sensations that are arising, and the visualization of the heart space as a ball of energy, light, or flame will be your anchor. If you find yourself lost or overwhelmed, just return back to it gently and lovingly. Today, we're going to be practicing a process that I call intuitive guidance. It is us taking time to connect to and to heal the parts of us. If we hold that the body keeps the score, if we hold that things happen, and if we don't process it at the time, they sort of stick to us and stick within us, in our bodies. We hold on to stuff. If we hold to that, we also hold that the emotions that we're holding and the physical sensations are part of us, that part of our past, that part of our body, attempting to say, Hey, this is what I'm holding onto. Help me. So we connect to the heart space, to the sense of self, to us at our core, becoming our inner parent, our inner therapist, our inner guide, our heart space, our self wise mind, the part that's connected to the divine, what do we call this space? And then we connect to those parts of the body. And we listen. We feel. We approach and accept everything that is going to arise with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. The body keeps the score and the emotions and the feelings and the sensations and messages. And in this session today, we're going to start listening. Feeling. Connecting. So going to begin with a little scan of the body. Feeling the parts of the body and finding a part that we're called to work with. A part that is holding onto something. It might feel intense feelings or perhaps a feeling of numbness. Or just you'll have an intuitive understanding. It's like, Hey, I'm holding onto something here. Just taking another slow deep breath. Just feeling the sensations in the head. The neck, the shoulders, the left arm and hand. The right arm and hand. The chest and upper back, the belly and lower back, the hips, groin and buttocks. And the left leg and foot. The right leg and foot. The entirety of the left side of the body. The entity of the right side of the body. The front of the body. The back of the body. Inside the body. Taking a moment to scan any part of the body we may have missed and allowing our mind to settle upon a part or a collection of parts that are sort of being called or calling to work with today, settling your mind there and really feeling the sensations that are arising, feeling into those sensations deeply. Can you trace in line or find the edges of the sensations? Are these sensations on the surface or are they deep? Would you describe them as heavy or light? Hot or cold? Are the edges sharp or dull? Is there movement or stagnation? Just approaching and accepting all of the sensations that are arising with an attitude of compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. For the next minute, with your mind upon the sensations at that part of the body, we're going to focus deeply and feel it all, every shift, every movement, every point of tension or pressure, really deeply feeling, listening, and accepting. Let's try that now. Okay. So we hold that the body keeps the score and the sensations are messages. But there's more than just sensations that we're holding onto. We are a body and mind. And oftentimes we hold onto sensations, and they express themselves as tensions or injuries or illnesses, chronic pains, but also thinking patterns, distortions of thought or ways of viewing the world. So connecting to the sensations in this part of the body, also begin to open up the mind space, really feeling the sensations, but being open to thoughts, to moods, to memories, to visualizations, introspections, insights. Is there a color associated with this part of the body? Is there a color associated with this part of the body? Just opening up our mind space to this part of the body and saying, Hey, show me. I'm here to listen. Once again, maintaining the hand upon the heart space. That's your anchor, that's your safety. Heart space growing stronger and brighter with the breath. But opening up the mind space and saying, Hey, What do you have to show me? And we're just listening, accepting disconnecting, exploring. Almost like we're being our own in a therapist in this part of the body is saying, Hey, this is what I'm holding onto. Talking in terms of sensations in the body, but also things in the mind. What colors are there? What imagery is arising? Are there metaphors or analogies? Allowing it all to unfold. That's again for a minute, really just connecting to that part of the body, the sensations in that part of the body, but also opening up the mind space and just exploring what comes. Thoughts, moods, memories, visions, visualizations, all of it, accepting. Let's give it a try. I we can ask this part of the body. What do you need me to know? What do you need me to see? What do you need me to feel? What do you need me to understand? What are you holding onto or keeping secret or protecting me from? What role are you doing? And what would you rather be doing? One of those questions will have resonated. Sit with it, ask this part of the body, and just accept what arises with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. And You can ask this part of the body how old it is or how old it thinks you are. Just get curious about the answer. And if it feels young, let it know how old you are now and what has come with age, wisdom, change, safety, insight. And perhaps ask it if it wants to come to the present or what it needs to do to get here, to return to reintegrate. We're not rushing. We're not forcing. We're just offering. For the next minute, really deeply feeling the sensations in that part of the body, really opening up our mind space, and just connecting to what arises. Approaching and accepting it all with compassionate curiosity and calm confidence. The body is holding the score. And by really feeling deeply and connecting deeply and opening up the mind space and just witnessing and accepting, we are allowing that part of the body to communicate with us. We are allowing that part of the body to express to release. This is a slow, delicate process, one that takes time and perhaps many sessions like this, but that's okay. We're here, we connect, and we accept. It's for the next minute really going deep, just accepting it all. Okay. Into this space, we offer a couple of things. The first one is a offering of love. With the words or the intention behind the words, maybe put the hand upon that part of the body now, saying, It's okay. I accept you. You are safe, and I invite you to release. It's okay. I accept you. You are safe, and I invite you to release. But also offering a commitment to return. This part of the body might have been holding onto things for years, decades. And it'll take time for you to trust the process, for it to trust you, and for it to share and express and release, the body holds the score. It's gonna take time to share that story. So we commit to return, maybe doing this practice again later today, tomorrow, next week, coming back to the session and just re engaging. I like the idea of offering the breath. It's like with the breath, I'm like, Hey, very delicate, very gentle, very subtle, but continue on. So commit to the practice, commit to this part of the body. Commit to returning. And over time, eventually, perhaps, they will find release, return and reintegration. Thank you for joining me in this session. Thanking the part of you for allowing the space to process and to connect. And I'll see you next time. Thank you.