Thank you very much, Paul. Yeah, I'm really, really pleased to be with you all tonight and, just a joy to be able to share, mindfulness-based stress reduction with, with more people and quite excited about the being able to do it in a way with, you guys, in, in, in Arizona. I just a little bit about me, just.
I've been working in the field of mental health and as a therapist for probably 25, 26 years now, and my own history is, I'm someone who actually for many years really struggled with stress and anxiety myself and found that the sort of rigours of my job used to leave me sort of reeling sometimes and struggling. And about sort of 15 years ago I started to dip my toe into mindfulness and very quickly found it to be something of a lifesaver really and I now do a lot of the webinars in the in the UK with the webinar that and we've had thousands and thousands of vets now. And people working in, in, in vet practises who have been part of, part of this sort of real exploration of how we can use mindfulness to make the job and make our lives a little bit more manageable, but really importantly to find the joy of life that sometimes if we're so busy that we miss.
And so if we look at this first slide, what we see there is, I think this was me, 15 years ago, and it's the sense that, I have a lovely dog now, Billy, and, This certainly wasn't the case. You know, all those years ago that my, my, my thought bubble would have been even fuller than that. So you'd be out walking the dog after a day at work and whilst there's, you know, the sun is out and there's beautiful scenery around, but I can honestly say that, you know, I probably saw none of it.
I probably didn't even see my dog because your head becomes so full and in our automatic pilot, we just don't manage to really appreciate what life might bring us, whereas the dog, as we can see there, you know, his mind is beautifully empty, and he's mindfully taking in that which is present right in that moment. And for me this is what mindfulness brings me. It does bring me an enormous stress reduction, but it really allows me to Get much more in touch with the stuff in life that really matters to me, you know, family.
Beauty, that the world around me, the people that matter to me, and sometimes without mindfulness, we miss so much. So if I just slide through to the the first. Slide and just having to have a little look at tonight.
So there's a lot of myths about mindfulness. So I am going to explore what mindfulness is and also what it isn't in order to help you all to kind of, I hope, be inspired to explore this a little bit further and maybe to begin to think about it, you know, I might fancy developing my own mindful practise and to see what, what it can bring to my life. I'd like to help us to understand how increased mindfulness can improve the well-being of people working in the veterinarian profession.
I'd like to have a little look at how mindfulness can enhance what we call brain plasticity, and this is that sense that, you know, our, our brains can continue to develop and we can, actually, Make structural changes actually to our brains merely by beginning to Bring meditation into our lives, and we can make positive impact on the, the, the, the, the sort of makeup of ourselves in many ways. We're just going to have a little look at how mindfulness has moved from what started as a very ancient discipline, not just Buddhist actually. A lot of people argue Christian as well, so a real worldwide phenomenon, this sort of secular version that we're using today.
And for those of us participating in tonight's meditation, I hope you're gonna really enjoy two of the core meditations from our eight-week course, which is the body scan, which is the very first meditation that we do. And the mountain meditation. But above all, I hope that you'll take away from tonight's session a sense of the real value.
Of being able to respond to the stuff of life that sometimes sort of hijacks us, and we find ourselves reacting with sometimes with aversion, so we push things away a little bit too quickly or we shut things down or most commonly we just get into this avoidance strategy, which means that we become so avoidant that we stop seeing the stuff of life that brings us joy as I've Mentioned already. So that's what I hope to be doing. And when we get to, towards the end of the, the, the presentation, I will be asking people for a Q&A, and, you'll see the Q&A buttons, and when we get there, Paul, I'm sure will help us just sort of navigate through that.
It'd be great to get a little bit of feedback about what people are, are feeling and how they found this experience. So you know it seems kind of ironic, I suppose, that you've got this. Chap sitting here in Britain at just after 2 a.m.
In the morning, talking to you about mindfulness-based stress reduction when, you know, one of the heroes of my life is, is, is an American, John, John Cabot Zinn, and You know, and, and, and this is his definition, and it's, it's one of my favourites. That what mindfulness is. Is the ability to pay attention on purpose.
In the present moment, non-judgmentally. Now, who am I to, add anything to the great man's definition, but I'll, I'll give it a go. I would add just 11 word to that.
Paying attention deliberately on purpose in the present moment, non-judgementally, because I think it's that sense of choice that mindfulness brings us to make a decision that, do you know what, I'm not going to spend my life worrying about what hasn't happened yet. And I'm not going to spend my life becoming bogged down and stuck with things that may not have gone well in my past. In fact, I'm going to make a bit of a commitment to deliberately on purpose, live in this present moment for as much of my life as I can because if I'm in this present moment and I'm not judging myself, It's almost like a passport to increased happiness because the moment we lose that sense of nonjudgmentalism, we start to be able to View ourselves with greater compassion and the moment we actually accept that the only time that you can truly live.
If we think about it, is in this present moment, you know, I, I haven't reached the next moment and the moment before has now gone. And I just think that's a cracking. Definition and for me it really does sum up what mindfulness perhaps is all about.
So many myths and about mindfulness and You know, for you're a scientific community, veterinarians, and I know that you, you know, you, you're not easily convinced you want to see the evidence base for this stuff, and I think that there's a real pity that has happened recently, which is that there's a plethora of, Research, quite poor research actually that might claim that mindfulness is almost like a panacea for every ill that befalls, humankind, and it really isn't. What mindfulness is, is a most wonderful, very evidence-based, randomised controlled trial evidence-based approach that can be very, very beneficial for lowering cortisol. For bringing calm.
And for without a doubt enabling people to live lives that are less blighted by stress. And the other thing that the evidence base seems to be is really mandating is that mindfulness-based stress reduction is also very, very helpful for people living with ongoing chronic pain. What it isn't, however, is People sometimes talk to me and say, oh, mindfulness, mind.
That's just positive thinking, isn't it? Well, you know, it really isn't because sometimes mindfulness can be quite you know, we find ourselves in a place where what we have to do is right in this moment deliberately and on purpose, confront that which is not easy. But after confronting it, we can then centre our attention just on the breath perhaps or just on our body.
And through that then find a degree of positivity. This is very interesting for those of you that like your research. Mindfulness isn't a relaxation technique, but my favourite piece of really kind of very technical, Very scientific research is by a researcher called Dussek, D U S E K Dusek in 2007, and this is a most striking piece of research and Dusek found that when individuals Learn and take up a mindfulness practise.
Once we've built our practise up to what Dussek would say was 17.5 minutes, you know, there's a scientist for you, not 18, not 17, but 17.5 minutes, that when we build our Meditation so that we're meditating for about 17.5 minutes every day.
What Dussek found was after about 6 to 8 weeks of Really enjoying and embroiling ourselves in this meditative process and practise, he found that the subjects in the research trial had a significant drop in their cortisol levels, and the moment that the cortisol drops, what we noticed also is a shift in the amount of time that we spend stuck in our sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system is absolutely triggered by cortisol and adrenaline, and Dussack's research went one step further. Not only did Dusack discover that When you hit the relaxation response, as he calls it with meditation, there are significant health gains that one starts to experience.
Obviously above all, it's that drop in the cortisol and the shift to parasympathetic nervous system, but Dusse's research went on to suggest for the first time. That there were actually significant genomic changes that were observable in the participants once they've been meditating for up to about 2 months, and it's those genomic changes that seem to be pointing to the fact that there is something that's happening very positive. And at a structural level in our brains, and I just find that fascinating.
Mindfulness also isn't going into a trance or trying to blank your mind. It's almost the opposite of that, you know, we don't want people to go into a trance because if you're in a trance, you can't be present with the thoughts, the feelings, the experience of this mindfulness. Process.
So just a little bit, I'm sure many of you will already know, I rather like this, this slide, sort of the ascent of humankind, and you know, we see ourselves developing into a species that with luck will start to Stop and pause and take time to think about. The planet, think about our lives, think about the people we love, and to stop this constant sort of quest for more and more, more. And I really like that picture.
And as the slide says, you know, A lot of people would argue that mindfulness has its origins in this Buddhist philosophy. And, about 2 years ago I was asked to do a, a Christian mindfulness. Programme.
And, As an Irish Catholic, that, that, that, that wasn't too much of a stretch actually. But, in, in researching for that programme, what I found was that, we had an, an, a mystic in the 14th century here in the UK, Julian of Norwich. And, and when you look at at those teachings from as far back as the 14th century, from a very Christian place as well, this This ability to be in the moment deliberately on purpose and to just sit with ourselves and allowing ourselves to move into what I would call our observing self and live better lives where it's been around in most of the great religions, certainly in Buddhism and Christianity.
And what I loved about the way that John Cabot Zin in 1979 started to develop this was he managed to take the really the, the, the, the, the, the main tenets of this, This very spiritual approach, and I think he's managed to keep that that level of spirituality, but also managed to make it secular and available for the masses and it's a real, real. A really splendid thing that he's done. And there.
And when we look at where we started, you know, and we talk about using mindfulness now within, mental health and psychology and well-being. And, you know, we, if you go right back to John's work, you know, there's some wonderful film of him, helping people to learn this mindfulness approach. People experiencing pain, people living with long-term conditions.
But where we're really shifted to now. Is this knowledge and this discovery that we don't have to be ill. We don't even have to be struggling.
For mindfulness to become . A very, very joyous, wonderful part of our lives. I meditate every single day of my life and .
I find that if I have a day where my sense of hurry up means that I miss my morning meditation, that I absolutely notice the sense of edginess that, Possibly I was living with without even noticing it all those years. Before So I'd just like to share with you some of my thoughts, and you know I've looked at a lot of the research around The veterinarian and I've worked on a 1 to 1 basis with a lot of vets now and So I'd like to just have a little look at how perhaps mindfulness based approaches could help you guys. Repetitive doubt syndrome, that first bullet point there.
Repetitive doubt syndrome is that You know, I can imagine. Well, I know this to be the case from vets I've spoken to that perhaps you've been involved in a piece of work with With, with an animal or perhaps you've been involved with, the animal's owner and . You've gone home and you've got yourself home to your family.
You've perhaps eaten your supper and you're sitting down, and all of a sudden you stop and think, oh my word, did I do that properly? Or you start to worry about whether . The the owner left feeling secure and happy enough or you start to worry about, you know, did I do a good enough job and I like to call this repetitive doubt syndrome and mindfulness can be so, so useful because In essence, what we're doing is we're looking in that rearview mirror of life, and if we see life through the rearview mirror rather than looking forward, imagine for a moment if you would drive, trying to drive your car and drive forward on the freeway, only looking in the rearview mirror, we, we crash.
You know, or we become stuck and we and we become paralysed. And so what mindfulness teaches us is This sense of equanimity that while I was at work I did the very best I could. While I was at work, I was mindful.
And my mindfulness means that I can be pretty sure that the attention I gave to the animal and maybe the animal's owner was my full attention, my full mindful attention without that level of distraction, and What we find is that mindfulness practise really helps with that repetitive doubt syndrome. We also learn through meditation to approach our difficult experiences in new ways. We're not doing this meditation tonight, but one of my favourites that I will use is it's called the three-stage breathing space with difficulties.
And, most human beings, in my experience of working in this field of, mental health psychology, and, most people I see in my sort of practise have, anxiety issues or, issues with depression. And what I find is that They The way they work with the difficult experiences, the stuff of life that is always there, worries, concerns, emotions, Interpersonal spats and difficulties with each other, is they try and push it away. They try not to have those difficult experiences.
And for me that's a bit like . Imagining yourself sort of at the ocean on a lovely calm day and having a beach ball, you know, one of those large inflatable beach balls. And if you imagine for a moment trying to push that beach ball under the water, well, you can, but it takes a lot of effort.
And you've got the beach ball pushed under the water and in the distance you spot a beautiful seagull perhaps and the moment your attention shifts from keeping that beach ball under the water, the beach ball springs back at you and it comes back with venom and it comes back with power. And unfortunately, if we try to suppress and push away our difficult experiences, Then they just come whooshing back and, and that's when they come back and they come back harder. And what mindfulness teaches us is through perhaps a meditation like the three stage breathing space is to open our minds up and to accept the futility of trying not to have thoughts, feelings, emotions, and to let them in.
But not only to let them in, but to let them in with a kind of accepting smile. And an openness and to allow those thoughts in knowing, really knowing that when you choose. You can leave that which is difficult.
Not push it away, but let go of it and leave it, and take your attention and anchor your attention to your breath. And it's that discipline of being able to either anchor your your attention to the breath or to sound, or to bodily sensation that is so freeing and so liberating. And, The other Aspect of this is that so many of the vets I've worked with do talk about I, I don't know what it is about vets and general practitioner, doctors of the two professions, I'd say you two, are sort of champions of the world at this, and it's that kind of being over judgmental with yourselves, you know, maybe over self-critical with yourselves.
It's, it's, it's a real phenomenon in vets and, and very much so in general practitioners too. These, these are just my observations, but what mindfulness really allows us to get is very, very good at losing. That almost automatic self-critical voice because we'll do an exercise later called bold, and you'll see how how adept and very quickly you too can use the bold technique to be less.
Critical and less hard with ourselves. So The formal meditation practise that the mindfulness based stress reduction course encourages us to engage with is meditations including things like the body scan, which brings us more in touch with the way that our body is behaving. It brings us more in touch with the way our body is reacting to the stresses and the difficulties of the day.
And when we are in touch with that, we then have the psychological flexibility to perhaps let go of the tightness of our shoulders. We have the ability to recognise that, you know, as I walk at lunchtime, In the park I can walk in a way that is mindful, so the pace I walk at, whether I walk with a Smile, whether my arms swing from side to side. You know, these are the decisions that we can, take as long as we are, beginning to live more mindfully.
The mindfulness based stress reduction course is also it's not just meditation and more meditation. The course also introduces us to this concept of the informal practise which is we learn to eat mindfully. We learn to Live our lives from a stance and a viewpoint that is so much more compassionate and no longer automatic.
So I hope that you've been able to, as I've been talking there. That perhaps you've been able to get a sense of how mindfulness. Might Really, really help us.
So This is one of my favourite slides of all, really, and the science behind this slide is that Something happens that's like a stress stimulus, and for people that perhaps aren't mindful, then the, the temporal aspect, the time that it takes to go from that stimulus into usually an aversive or a very unhelpful reaction is extraordinary. However, with mindfulness, The stimulus happens and there's a A very, very slight but hugely significant pause then. And if we are mindful, that pause allows us to have the choice to respond rather than to react.
And this takes me back to one of my favourite books actually by Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl was a survivor of the Nazi death camps, and he's also a psychologist. Man in Search of Meaning was the name of the book.
And in that book, he talks about, you know, you can take anything away from humans. We can, we can take, we can rob humans of everything, but we cannot. Rob them of the ability to respond.
As long as we are able to stop. Bring ourselves into the present moment, pause, then we can respond. And it's in our response, Frankel writes, that we find our freedom.
And this has probably been the, the thing that I've experienced. That's helped me more than anything else, particularly as a father, actually, you know, when my children are annoying or behave in a way that might produce something of a red mist of anger. Well, no, if we pause and we engage mindfully, sometimes we get the choice to actually see that, yeah, my child is behaving in this way.
But they won't be behaving in this way in a few moments, and underneath that behaviour is still someone I love very dearly. And so I really do like that slide. I haven't seen it in a little while.
I've just reminded myself how important that. But before we go on to the first meditation, which is, the body scan. Let's just do a little.
A little collection of these thoughts that perhaps I've shared with you. So the mindful approach to stress suggests that we can be with experiences without trying to change them. And in recognising that we lose that sense of the constant strive.
That is so exhausting. Mindfulness helps us with stress. Because it allows us to bring curiosity and compassion to our experience, rather than the beach ball that I described earlier.
And As the last slide showed, we can move to being someone that responds rather than somebody. That reacts, so we move into The first meditation of the evening now. The body scan is normally done lying down.
I usually do my body scanning lying down, but it's just as effective in a seated position. So I'm just going to give you a few moments to think about, the way you're sitting. And As a rule of thumb, I'm not one of these mindfulness practitioners that says that we all have to get ourselves into a contorted lotus position, mainly because I don't think I can anymore, but what I do say is if before this meditation starts, would you mind all just kind of sitting in a position and ensuring that if you had a mirror in front of you, that you would look dignified.
There you go, dignified. So perhaps, you know, we're not slouching. Perhaps we're sitting straight with both feet on the floor, and our spine is vaguely erect, and the smile on our face is one of calm.
And in a few moments I'm going to begin. The meditation. This is the body scan, and it's a nonlinear body scan, and it's gonna take us about 6 or 7 minutes.
So let's start. So we begin this meditation. By just gently please.
Closing your eyes. And if you find that difficult, and some people do, just allow your eyes to open gently and fix them on a spot on the floor. Couple of feet in front of you.
And Please just take your attention. Outside of the room that you're meditating in. Just listening.
Whatever sounds. You connect with. Maybe labelling what you hear.
And then bringing your attention in. To the room that you're meditating in. And finally, bringing your attention all the way in.
I'm finding your breath. And just sitting For this moment, Breathing. And just taking that breath in.
And letting it go, not changing it. Not adapting it in any way, just Breathing. And now I'd just like you to please.
Take your attention. To the very, very top. Of your head, your scalp.
Just lodge your attention. In that thin membrane of skin. From which the hair grows.
And as you place your attention there. Just Bringing a mindful curiosity to whatever you experience. I wonder if anyone else is feeling a tingling.
Sensation that wasn't there, or was it? A few moments ago. Just a Attending to your skill.
And let go. The attention on the scam. And take your attention now all the way down your body.
And find the toes. Of your right foot. And explore the space.
Between the toes. Of your right foot. And maybe find that persona of the curious scientist and This is a part of my body, maybe.
But I'd never Explored before. And maybe press your feet into the ground. Below you and As you relax the pressure, just notice.
Any sensation. That may arise. Now as we're meditating, almost certainly.
Your attention will be pulled elsewhere. A thought, a feeling. And emotion.
A distraction. If your attention is pulled away, that's part of the mindful process. Don't fight it.
Smile at it. Notice what it was that pulled your attention away. Allow it, no judgement.
And gently come back to my voice. As we ask you to send your attention. To the toes of your left foot.
And once again, Bring that mindful attention. To your toes and your feet. Just sitting With you.
And your thighs. And let go. And now bring your attention.
Write the way up to your jaw. Notice, is your jaw relaxed? See if you can find.
What's happening there, whether there's tension there. Maybe you smile and notice. With curiosity.
The difference of smile makes to the Tension in our jawline. Now that's interesting. And once again, Just take your attention now.
And find your right hand. And again, Almost as though you were that. Curious scientist, why is my This clenched.
Can I unclench it? And take your attention now. To the finger, the forefinger, and the thumb.
Of your left hand. Just bring your thumb. And your forefinger together.
And see if you can find. There is Finger swirls. Its unique.
I Identifying swells on the paths of Otingha. No. Right in this moment.
Just you And your body. And for the last 60 seconds of this meditation. I'm going to become quiet.
And I would just ask you to Experiment with sending your attention. To another part of your body. And another part of your body.
And bringing that mindful curiosity. To what you find. 60 seconds.
When you're ready. Just open your eyes. And well done.
You've just Engaged in a nonlinear body scan. There are two body scans I use. One is where you sort of travel from the top of your head down to your toes or the other way around, sort of experiencing your body in that very linear.
Obvious pattern, you know, I prefer the nonlinear one because the Body scan meditation, we just Explored them. What I like about it is this ability that we very quickly learn that we can choose to harness our mind to send our attention to wherever we want to send our attention. It's that sense of Mike Scanlon is driving the Mike Scanlon bus, you know, my thoughts aren't pushing me around.
I'm deciding where I want to take. My attention. So I hope you enjoyed the body scan meditation.
We normally would introduce a meditation using my Tingay bells, but at this time of night here in the UK, if my, I have a pointer, dog, and if he hears the bell go, he'll come running down the stairs and bark, which would not be a good idea tonight. So, no bells tonight. Now my guess is that what we do next.
Might be something that you will take with you from tonight's session, and I hope use tomorrow. And the next day and maybe like me, every day of your life. So I have set my phone to .
Go off with a mindful sort of bong sound, and it goes off 4 or 5 times a day. And it does it randomly, quite deliberately and on purpose. I've I've done this because it reminds me, Mike, do a bold.
Let me take you through. What a bold is. So the idea of the bold exercise is this is a mindful living exercise that I hear my I hear my phone bomb.
And that's the signal to me. Come on, Mike'scman. Bold, and I will take one good mindful breath.
So breathe in. And I'll breathe out, and that will send to my attention. I will then step out of.
Me, in a way, into what I would call my observing self. If I'm in my observing self, I'm able to Observe myself, and I'm able to look at myself and ask, Mike Scanlon, is the way you're living your life. Right at this moment in the last hour.
The way you Being right now, is that the Mike Scanlon you want to be? And because I'm in my observing self, I'm able to mindfully appraise myself and then look at the D. I'm then able to make a much better decision about the way I want to carry on my day, and this was possibly the most.
Striking time this has ever really . Helped me more than anything was, I do a fair bit of research in my, in, in, in my job role. And, For any of you that know, United Kingdom, there's a wonderful part of, the UK called Cornwall.
It's very wild and, the sea is, is very beautiful and it's very green. And, I was on holiday in Cornwall and just before leaving to go on holiday, I had, started to have something of a, a row. A bit of an argument with one of the professors at the local university of ours.
And I was on holiday and I was walking on a part of the coastline called Damar Bay, which is, you know, for me, God's own country, beautiful, wild, and me and Billy, my dog, were, walking on, on that wonderful, hilltop and my phone went off. And before I went on holiday, I'd had a very vitriolic, unpleasant text message from this particular professor. And my phone went off and there was a bench, a seat.
And I sat on the seat. And I Breathed I took a good, mindful breath. I moved into my observing self.
And when I looked at myself, I realised that for the last hour I had been walking in this wonderful, beautiful scenery. Staring at my phone and replying to the professor's text with the most small-minded. Nasty.
Bruised ego, text that you have ever, ever. Quite unpleasant text actually I'm ashamed to say. I then Stopped and in my observing self noticed that this was what I was doing.
I then leant in and asked myself, is this The man that you're comfortable with? Is this the Mike Scanlon you want to be? And I, I was able at that moment to smile.
And to make a much, much better decision. And I stopped and I texted the professor back just saying, you know, perhaps when I get back off holiday we can meet, have a cup of coffee together and explore what it is that has so upset you. And best wishes.
Mike, I then did something that I should have done before I started walking, which was switch my phone off. But then I did something. Quite extraordinary, go back and back to this first.
Slide. I went back to here, but I, my head was no longer cluttered. I was just like Billy the dog.
I was seeing the wind and the smells and the sounds, and not long after that I even saw a family of seals sort of basking on the rocks below me. Now that's mindfulness in action, and the bold acronym is my way of maintaining that mindful living. And our second meditation of tonight's session is the mountain meditation.
And again, this meditation is 5 or 6 minutes long. This is a seated meditation. So I'd like you to pull yourselves into a That d position once more, please.
And before we start, you've got some wonderful mountains in the states, and I'm sure you have in Arizona, and I just wonder if you could just bring up that visual image of a mountain in your mind's eye as you close your eyes. Just hold that image for a second. If you can't find the visual image, look at the slide here.
And Maybe use that mountain. So let's start, if we close our eyes. The mountain meditation.
Now. Let's just begin this meditation. By bringing our attention.
Deliberately and on purpose to our brain. Just finding your breath. Breathing in.
And breathing out. Just breathing in. And that And then let's take our attention.
And see if we can find that. Mind picture that visual representation of our mountain. And let's start with the lofty peak.
Of your mountain. Maybe it's snowcapped. Maybe there's a pointed.
Jagged Peak that reaches into the sky. And if we can bring that. Sense of the peak of the mountain into our own bodies.
Just allow ourselves to elongate our spine slightly. Allow our body to. Just reach up into the In the clouds.
And if we look at the Peak of our mountain. We connect with the fact that the weather up there is often stormy. The peak is lashed by rain and wind and snow, and in the summer it's baked by the heat.
But the peak just reaches. Never changing. Into the sky.
We bring our mindful attention now to the way that the mountain slopes. Gradually down. And our shoulders.
Not chest, and all that. Can become This mountain The slopes of that mountain. And we know mind's eye, how the core of the mountain.
Moulds itself into the valleys and the earth. For now. And we find our own physical core of our bodies and we centre ourselves as our own living, breathing mountain.
And the mountain has roots, and the roots of the mountain reach deep into the core of the earth. And our feet Become like the roots of that mountain. Securing us to the The, the, the floor, God's .
And we just sit. We bring about this sense of our bodies becoming. It's immovable.
It's massive Wonderful, beautiful mountain. And we think about our own lives. And in the way that the mountain is beset by.
The rain and the wind and the strife and the swirling winds. And the frosts and the snow. Perhaps our lives.
Or also beset. And We too experienced that swirling. That maelstrom of life.
But if we can find This sense of The mountain, the physicality. The ever-present solidity. Of that mountain.
And bring your attention now to your body. And see if you can't. Embody that sense of this strong ever present mountain.
And for a moment, just make a commitment to yourself that you know. Maybe I can use this physicality when times are tough. Maybe I can take this sense of the mountain.
Into the rest of my evening. And hold and sit with that sense of Solidity and purpose. Just enjoy for the last few moments of this meditation.
Being around, living. Breathing. Mo Well done.
That, my friends, is my absolute favourite meditation. I probably do that once a day. I used to do that before I went into finance meetings.
I was working as a clinical lead of a large mental health organisation and my math. Oh, maths, as we call it, you call it math, don't you? Is, is terrible.
And so I would, feel vulnerable, but you know, no one knew I was feeling vulnerable because once I'd found my mountain, I'm sure I must have looked so confident and I felt. And a really good place. So I'd just like to thank you all up to now and ask you a couple of questions really.
It'd be great to see if people are able to respond using the Q&A. And I just wonder, have there been times when some of our audience tonight have reacted to a situation with anger or adversity? When it would have been better to have paused.
And perhaps responded. Wisely you don't have to say yes, no, or don't know, just, just if people would like to comment and Well just think about that question there. And the second one maybe.
Well, I'm just asking, on reflection, have there been situations in your life as a vet where perhaps mindfulness has already helped you? I'm sure some of you have your practise. Or perhaps.
You're sitting there after tonight's session and saying, do you know what, maybe mindfulness, there are situations where mindfulness probably could help me. So, I've really enjoyed sharing this with you. And I just see whether Paul has got any, Paul is my colleague that we're, we're working with tonight.
I'll just see whether Paul's able to, if anybody has any questions, making sure that you can find the, the, the, the. The, the, the Q and A. Yeah.
Oh, we've got a couple of, a couple of responses here that I'm noticing that sometimes daily and oh, I like this one and with a rational can really help with those sorts of frustrations of life that must be part and parcel, of, of just kind of being a veterinarian, I suppose. And a couple more people coming back and saying, there have been times, and I guess what we're getting here is there have also been situations where mindfulness has helped. Yeah.
And I'd be really keen if anybody else is, got any thoughts on how tonight's webinar has been, whether or not it's been an enjoyable experience, whether you've found the meditation challenging, ah, we've had somebody. Does come through here saying that when I do conversations, I'm always mindful and take a moment before responding. What a difference that makes.
Yeah, I've learned to do that most of the time, but I, I honestly believe that before I discovered mindfulness, I would often, you know, foot in mouth. You know, without, without, and, and, and just say mindless things sometimes. And so mindfulness can really help.
And a lovely comment there. So thank you so much. I'll just said the first name, Diane, so she really enjoyed the seminar and she's going to plan on practising and, and adding it to your life.
I would really say that if you are able to access the eight-week course, the 8 week mindfulness based stress reduction course does take you on a really kind of, exploratory, rather fascinating journey. And as I said before, it, it really did change my time. Lovely comment here about enjoyable I'll sleep well tonight.
One of the meditations we didn't do tonight was that you might, you know, meditation is very good for sleep, but there's one meditation called Leaves on a stream. Leeds on a stream is fabulously. It's, it's, it's, it's really good.
I've got a very interesting one here which is asking for a tip, and that's that when I've tried to meditate, I've I've gotten anxious focusing on my breathing. And do you know what I would do is some people struggle with using the breath as the anchor. There's a wonderful way to Choose other than the breath, which would be to use sound.
So rather than focusing on your breath is focus on the sounds and like I did earlier, the sounds outside of the room, the sounds inside the room, and then perhaps the sounds in your own body. Perhaps even your breath, and what that can do is it can reduce that anxiety of, sort of having to, focus on the breath, because a lot of people do find that a little bit difficult at first. Yeah, some really lovely.
Stuff coming through. Thank you for these, these, these very kind and, and, and, and generous. And Diane has come and asking, how we could find a course like this, to share with your son.
There, there are lots of, some good courses. We run one, we have the, eight-week meditation. That Iran is, is, is something that the webinar that could put you on to.
I'm sure Paul could help with some of these queries if you were to contact the webinar that. And, and we have our whole eight week course as a sort of film, I think, Paul, . Yeah, exactly.
So the webinar, the webinar vets.com is where we host all of our webinars. All of the webinars are recorded and then uploaded to the website.
And there's lots of mindfulness content, and as Mike was saying, there's a great course on there that we have as well, . And yeah, as Mike was saying, you know, there's some wonderful feedback coming in if you do have any questions or there's a nice one here Paul from Destiny's just asked. Even when I tried to was you're asking, my mind was still thinking about any other things, and she's asked if there's a tip.
The first tip is, is acknowledge that your mind is flitting here and there. And then, if it is flitting here and there, is find a place for acceptance, that's just what minds do. But the best tip of all is learn to label what your mind, where your mind is pulling you.
And so sometimes when my mind is, is, you know, if I'm very distracted, I'll, quietly label to myself, so where's my attention gone now? Oh, it's gone to feeling hungry. OK, that's my feeling hungry, distraction.
And once you've labelled it and you've smiled at it and you've let it go, it becomes really easy and much, much easier then to reacquaint, your attention back into the meditation. So I would really try destiny, labelling it. And another anonymous.
An attendee is asked about the same benefits as practising yoga. Oh, absolutely. And interestingly, that dose research that I spoke about, earlier, showed that you can get that relaxation, response from yoga as well.
We've had somebody else coming in asking us if we're, if I know about the, the app, the Headspace app. Absolutely I do. My recommendation would be do the.
8 week court before you sort of launch into I found sometimes some of the people I work with, Headspace is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but sometimes if you just go into Headspace without sort of really learning and exploring the theory and practise and taking yourself on that eight week journey, the, the experience of just going straight into meditation without some of the Exploration of what's behind mindfulness as the philosophy and the stance can be a bit difficult. There's no more questions coming in, but some lovely, lovely stuff, and I'm, I, I've really enjoyed tonight, and, and Arizona is somewhere. I had a friend went to Arizona some time ago and talked about the hummingbirds, and it's something I'd like to see one day.
So, one day I hope to travel to Arizona. Well thank you, thank you very much for that amazing introduction, Mike. I've really enjoyed the past.
It's a pleasures from the comments that everyone has really enjoyed that, it's quite interesting from, from my perspective, as someone who's perhaps quite sceptical about a lot of things, some might say cynical, but, . You know, it's quite, quite a sceptic person, but I was really thoroughly enjoying that and when you mentioned the, tingling in the scalp, I actually sort of felt better at the time. Yeah, isn't that interesting that, you know, and I often think, well, maybe my scalp tingles all the time, but because I'm not paying attention to it, I don't know.
And there's the curiosity that mindfulness brings us, which just enlivens our life, really. You get it. It's the kind of thing that, you know, you really do have to get into this and listen to an expert like yourself and and sort of understand it as you say it and that practise that it doesn't make such a difference and if and if anyone does have any other feedback or wants to speak more, to us, then of course you can visit the, the website.
The next course is on there as well, and I'm sure we'll have some other information coming out to you soon. Yeah, and just the last comment saying come and look at our beautiful mountains. Well, I live in a part of the UK called Northamptonshire, and we don't have any mountains, so, that sounds well worth a visit.
So thank you for that. And I, I would also, just coming back to your earlier comments about Cornwall, ask many happy family, trips down to the southwest. It is a wonderful part of the world if any, Americanonia is in the UK.
I highly recommend it. Excellent. Well, thanks again, Mike.
Thoroughly enjoyed it, tonight, and I thank you all for joining us. Yes it's 3 a.m.
In the morning now, so I think that's, now that we're nice and relaxed. Yeah, yeah, cocoa and better, yeah. Good night everybody.
Oh, good day to you, and I hope, I hope we can do this again sometime. Thank you all then, thanks for joining us. See you soon.