Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our Sunday night. Sunday evening, meditation moment really, 30 minutes where we like ourselves enough to put aside whatever was going on.

And just spend some time. Being mindful. We were starting off this week.

We're going to do two things. I said, do you remember last week we did the 3 good things, and I was just chatting with Dawn, before we came on from the webinar that and Dawn was saying she found that really, really useful doing the, the 3 good things. And, as promised, I, I gave it, I did it exactly the way that the research suggests we do it once every day.

And, I've got one more day, so I need to, I'll be sort of, that'll be my, my week's worth tomorrow, because I started on the, on the Monday. And so, but, but without a doubt, you, you don't have learned some very important stuff about what it is that makes you tick, what it is that makes you smile. So, I wanted just today to Just have a foray into that side of stuff and just see how people are doing, whether, whether you managed to do it.

And if you did, great, and if you didn't, do you know what, the wonderful thing about mindfulness is no judgement, and you'll never get any judgement from me. That's the one thing I love about mindfulness. There's too much judgement in this world, and our minds are set up to be too judging, aren't they?

And so, but I think I'll, we'll be curious to see whether anyone gained any insights into, their mood, any insights into the causal factors for what does make things go well, and whether you're just as simple as that, whether people found it to be an interesting, an interesting experiment. So, if we've got anybody new on this week, I'll just talk that through now before we go on to the chat function. Oh, onto the chat function.

That was a sort of double, double the click there. There we go. So, if there wasn't, if as anybody knew, it was just really simply looking at being mindful about once a day in the evening usually just sitting down and as we are going through our days mindfully just making sure that we do more than Just notice we actually bring mindful focus when stuff happens that goes well, you know, good things in our life, and that mindfulness then allows us to record it in the evening and the research showed that if we can do this three good things practise where you mindfully bring awareness to the stuff that makes us feel good about ourselves.

And primarily the stuff that went well for us in the day, and then we then record it for just one week and. The outcomes clearly showed from a very, very good piece of research that depressive symptoms come down, but most important of all are using a happiness index that keeps going up for up to 6 months after you've spent just a week looking at 3 things that went well for you and a causal explanation for each. So as I was saying, I find this to be a really useful.

Maintenance strategy really because it does, it helps us to maintain if we're currently feeling OK this just gives us an extra boost of well-being and it's and curiosity and mindfully appraising the stuff that actually goes well so . And you find out the, the, the strangest stuff. I gave the example last week of, doing this with somebody and it was, it was a, a, a, a woman I was working with a client, and she was doing this, and she just shared that.

The she had a wonderful, wonderful day and she went to work and she was efficient and she was good and she was light and she was happy and she was smiling and when she sat down to write down, she just, you know, had a lovely morning and then the causal factor, what was the cause? Why do you think you had such a lovely morning? And cause what she wrote in her The journal was that when she woke up she decided to use a very expensive perfume that day and to go into work smelling fragrant and lovely and just doing that somehow meant that she had a really good morning.

For me, I would guess it was because she was being kind and affiliative towards herself. And of course just everyone likes to smell nice, don't we? And so it's sometimes it's the real simple stuff.

So all week whether or not I've been in my NHS role going out of the house and off to the clinic or whether I've been sitting in front of a camera doing Zoom therapy every morning this week I've done a similar thing, so I've, please don't judge on this 10 we're not allowed to are we because it's mindfulness. But my, my, my fragrance of choice is Old Spice. I know I can see some of you saying, well, that's what my dad wore.

I love it. But getting up in the morning and, you know, having a shave and then just splashing on the old spice, so you just smell lovely for the whole day, and it definitely worked for me. So there were lots of insights, but that's just one.

So before we move on to tonight's meditation, I did promise that we'd come back and just see if anybody else had any insights or if you found it useful to have a go at being mindful about just three good things for just one week. It's so easy, isn't it? So if I go to the chat function or the Q&A and just ask if anybody has any insights into How they did with the three good things or interestingly, because this is just as interesting, what it was that stopped them from doing something as easy as this, as evidence-based as this, because that would be interesting as well, because we learned so much from what we don't do mindfully, as what we do do, I think sometimes.

So I'll just see if anybody's coming back on that one and If they do, that's great, and If you're sitting there thinking, do you know what, I'd better give it a go this week, I would really encourage you to do so. So it literally is as easy as that. Every day, just for one week, write down 3 things that went well for you in the day.

Write it down at night with a causal explanation for each and do it every day for a week and the evidence base again is a very good one that this will buffer your mood and sometimes actually lead to increased happiness. It certainly did for me this week. I found it very useful to do.

So, let's gently move towards our, meditation tonight. So this is quite a Quite a major piece of work, this meditation. It's not a quick one.

It is one where we really have to just sit and engage with the process. So it's a reconciliation meditation. Let me just tell you a little bit about it.

Moving towards that better me as an awful lot of meditation helps us do, doesn't it? So, I don't know whether you've realised this or whether you've experienced this too. I certainly think over the years I have as being someone who has suffered.

Terribly with anxiety and depression in my Sort of 20s, 30s, 40s, and then discovered mindfulness, and I, I don't anymore, which is interesting in itself, isn't it? But anxiety and when we do get anxious about stuff, and I think obviously during COVID this is a very anxious time for so many of us. I was just saying to Dawn that where we live, we've gone into amber, status and the hospital has a lot of cases in at the moment.

Luckily, the death rate is low, but COVID-19 does seem to be having a bit of a surge in Northamptonshire, and we see this stuff and you know, we are just living with this greater level of anxiety. And quite often when we feel anxious, we also find ourselves experiencing feelings of separation, isolation. And, because we feel like, you know, God, am I the only one struggling.

With this level of discomfort from the anxiety from the, the difficulty I'm going through, and that makes it really difficult to just feel at ease, you know, and because of that, I thought tonight's meditation, might be a really good one to do because there is quite a good evidence base again, some of the, the, the, the, the great mindfulness, Researchers like Christina Neff, perhaps, and others, but Christina Neff's done a lot of work into this area as well and it's just beginning to recognise that, reconciliation. Is the path to just making peace with yourself and making peace with those around us and to just live with a sense of being free of resentment and grudges and ill will would almost be a sort of crowning accomplishment, wouldn't it, to be able to say, you know, I managed to live my life. Largely free of resentment and grudges and, and, and ill will towards others or myself.

And just by beginning to practise meditation. Linked to this search, this move towards reconciliation, you open the door to that possibility. And the meditation we're going to do is a three-faceted meditation, and the first aspect that we start to look at is to direct reconciliation towards ourselves.

So it's about making peace with all the ways in which over this difficult COVID time perhaps that we felt deficient or inadequate. And these feelings are the very feelings that accompany anxiety and the very feelings that lead us to have those sorts of thoughts such as, you know, if only I wasn't so anxious this would be happening and that would be happening. And again, what reconciliation practise does is it sort of builds a bridge to truly experiencing that, do you know what, you're OK, you're enough.

You know, it's almost like, you know, wearing a big t-shirt every day that just says on the front of it and big block, black letters. I am enough. What a great thing that would be to do and to believe it.

So stage one is that reconciliation towards self. The second aspect is finding a sense of reconciliation towards people that we may have upset, in, in, in the past few weeks. And if you think to yourself, you know, I don't think I have, that's fine.

But the third is reconciliation towards those people who have upset ourselves or have hurt us. And to be clear, Although this is a reconciliation, meditative practise. The idea of this one is it might eventually lead us to reach out, to make amends and to change our behaviours and to change our perception towards self as part of the process of just working within a meditation like this one.

So as I've been doing, I'm going to record tonight's meditation. And again, the quality of these is slightly dependent on the Scanlon family household being quiet, which they're not always, but . I, I, and, and I'll send you another one as well, which is of, Just I can't remember who it was.

It's, it, I, I, cos obviously I don't listen to myself, but I'll send you the one that I listen to as well, the reconciliation meditation, but I'll, I'll tape ours tonight as well, so I hope that helps. So I'm just going to ask you to Get yourselves into a really comfortable. Warm Smiley place just with that gentle lovely mindful half smile in place and Just begin by closing your eyes.

Either completely or if you find that uncomfortable, just sort of half closing them. And as we close our eyes, we're shutting off some of that stimulus, aren't we? And that's gonna really help.

So, let's go. A meditation of reconciliation. And we Start this meditation.

By just taking a few moments. To pause And to breath. Just finding As we sit in this position.

Where we're comfortable and alert. Sitting just breathing. And as we sit and we follow our in breath in.

And we Pay attention to the exhalation as it leads. And we recognise that with each breath, we Start a new, unique, wonderful moment in our lives. And the potential starts the moment we start that new brain.

And we anchor our attention to the breath, and this gives us confidence and it gives our brain a sense of safety to go exploring because we know that we can find our way back to the safety and the permanence and that recognition of, oh, there's the breath. So it's the anchoring our attention to the brain. And now let's just take just a few moments to pause.

Just check in with yourself. Just asking us how am I feeling? How am I feeling physically?

Today, at this moment. How am I feeling? Psychologically, mentally.

Right now. And how am I feeling emotionally? And my guess is that for many of us, this will be the first time today.

That we've actually stopped. To check in with ourselves. To stop and ask, How am I doing?

And so as you feel into your body and your mind. Opening up and letting in. Just allow whatever comes.

And let it be. This is mindfulness. There's no need to fix or solve anything.

Just acknowledge. Whatever is in, Your direct experience. Right now.

OK. What you're feeling physically. Mentally, Emotionally.

And gradually Gentle your attention back to the breath. Just breathing in. Knowing that you're breathing in.

Breathing out. Just taking your life, one inhalation. And one exhalation.

At a time. This is being present. And now we're going to open up.

So we gently shift from your breath. And feel into your heart. The very core of you.

And as we do so we just reflect. On the preciousness. On the fragility of this life that we're living.

And as you sense into this. Pure sense of self. This preciousness, this fragility.

Hold it with care. Tenderness. And open yourselves up the way we just open up a fruit.

Soft inside and bruises easily. And we're opening up to self compassion. And we're saying let this be a time.

To make peace with myself. To end this war. Of self-loathing.

Listening to our inner critic. Of beating ourselves up. Feel how?

Just like all beings. We are all imperfectly. Perfect.

Imperfectly perfect, just as we are, we're OK. You're OK. And open As we find it OK.

To the hindsight wisdom. That helps us understand how all of our past with its joys and its sorrows have led you to this moment on this Sunday evening. With me, with our colleagues and friends as part of tonight's meditation.

And it's all been a part of what brought you here and now. And open to A deep Reconciliation with your past. Allowing the knowledge that you're Any wounds, any lack of awareness in our past, have contributed to any negativities that we feel about ourselves.

And we let this be a time to open your heart. To deep self compassion and love for you. And gently in your mind's eye now.

Let's just say to ourselves. This evening, May I be at ease and at peace? May I open to deep compassion for myself just as I am.

Ease and peace. And compassion for myself just as I am. And that's rest in this reconciliation with yourself.

For a few months. It's nice, it's good. Now begin to expand this sense of reconciliation.

Just Sending those thought tendrils out. Extending this reconciliation, this spirit of The better me. To those that you've hurt.

Through the words we've spoken, the actions we've carried out. All the stuff we've thought about others. That's been hurtful.

Difficult. And just open yourself. Make amends.

Using that hindsight wisdom. To mindfully reflect. That most of these actions would have been Fueled by fear.

By anxiety, lack of awareness. The need To protect ourselves. It's what humans do.

We hurt others when we feel this way. And feel your heart becoming lighter. And more at ease.

As you understand where you were. Then Extending that reconciliation. To those that we have.

Made uncomfortable. Let's just sit with this. Sense of Deep compassion for self.

Deep compassion for those people that we may have. Contributed to their difficulties, to their sadnesses. No judgement.

Just that curiosity of Do you know why was I like that with them? And finding that of course it was because we were anxious, we were scared. Lack of awareness in ourselves at that time.

And forgive. And now begin to open. To reconciling with someone who has Made you uncomfortable hurt you.

And if you feel a resistance here, just sit with it. . Just free yourself from the burden.

Of living with resentment and grudges and ill will. So just open. Even towards those people who have That's us.

And reflect Just as your own fear and lack of awareness. Was a cause or reason for why we may have hurt others or discomforted others. This will be true.

Very often for those who have also hurt us. And the source of their. Hurtful actions is their own pain and woundedness.

We rest in this sense of reconciliation with ourselves. That sense of reconciliation. Towards the people that we have discomforted.

And we let in that sense of compassion and warmth. For those people who have Who have hurt us, and this isn't easy. And as we do this.

We just ask that may we all find that gateway. Into our hearts where we can experience this level of reconciliation, it just takes us into a place of being better humans. And as you're reading.

To end this meditation. Firstly congratulate yourself. For taking this time to open your heart to reconciling with you.

With those that we've had. And with those Who have perhaps hurt us too. And we sit with this sense of peacefulness.

And we just ask. May all the people. That have lives that cross with my life.

Just Be blessed enough. That they too At some point in their lives, find a time where they too can just dwell. Within this sense of peace.

And OK. Just being OK. And as we come towards The end of this reconciliation.

Meditation, just check in. Yes. How, how are you feeling?

Just check in with whether perhaps this is one that we ought to be doing a little bit more often. And Just sit. Holding this sense of being OK with ourselves.

And with others. Well done. Well done, everybody.

. Just one, meditation tonight, but . Not an easy meditation actually. Some people really struggle, particularly with that sense of reconciliation towards others that have angered us, hurt us, made us feel less than.

But I, I one thing I can promise is when we do this and when, when we, we actually find the ability to move to a place of reconciliation either with self, I'd say probably most importantly, but certainly to others as well, then life just does feel lighter. We do smile more often. We feel more at peace with ourselves.

And I think that's A really lovely and a very important aim. As we move forward on our mindful journey. So I'll just check in.

I'm away on holiday as long as we don't get locked down before we go. And so we're not, we're missing next week, but we'll be back with the meditation, Sunday meditations on the Sunday after that. So, no meditation next Sunday, I think I'll be somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a bit of luck.

But we'll reconvene the Sunday after. So I have lovely, lovely Sunday evenings. And Wish you all well and look forward to Sunday's time.

And Good night now.