Good evening, everybody, and We're just broadcasting, so we'll just wait for people to come in and I could see people coming in at the moment. And I said to my wife before I came on tonight, I think it might be a bit quieter than usual if the weather's Anything like it is here because it's the most glorious sunny, although a bit humid evening outside. So, but I think, you know, that's the beauty of webinar, isn't it?
People that would normally, oh, no, people are still coming in, so maybe I will be eating my hat. So. I did get an email from one of our regular.
Attendees Over in, in between this week, just talking about this sense of, are they actually used in the email, the sense of getting hooked. And we have looked at this before, but I've kind of changed it. And So I was just listening and replying to the email, and they were talking about this sense of As we Stay stuck to some degree in COVID-19 and I thought what Catriona put me right last week .
And points out to me that actually for many vets it's it's not been Quiet like it has been for the GPs. It's actually been as busy as ever, if not, perhaps even more frantic. And one of our colleagues did contact me and said that it wasn't so much the work stuff.
It was this getting hooked by Frustration, Not necessarily again to do with work, but getting hooked by frustrations about. What's happening at a governmental level, frustrations at the lack of a sense of, coherence about where we're going. Excuse me.
And this real sense of Psychological hooks. And so, what I thought we ought to focus on is that so many of the people that I see for 1 to 1 therapy are also, getting hooked at the moment. And So I just wondered if we might You know, I might have to.
Get a daughter to bring me a, a drink through, but we'll see how I do. Quite often. A lot of the people I'm seeing for 1 to 1 therapy at the moment are also getting hooked, but they're getting hooked into stuff that It's often old stuff.
So although there's a very Present Here in this moment issue obviously with this, very, very stuck is the word that keeps coming to mind for me at the moment. I think so many people are feeling stuck and As we feel stuck and as we deal with emotion and as we continually get presented with stories of loss and difficulty and unfairness. I think that That sense of getting hooked into other people's stuff as a slide says, is So difficult.
And with other people's stuff. We, we watch people that we love, we watch people that we're close to. Becoming angry, becoming frustrated.
And if we're not careful, what we find is that, we move into a sort of automatic pilot. And we start responding to that in a way that perhaps doesn't take us towards who we want to be. So we might find ourselves becoming hooked by a sort of irritation.
And that certainly is a dynamic that we're seeing. I am just gonna see if I can get one of the kids to get me a drink. I'll be one second.
Oh, Girls, Would you bring me a drink, Harry? I keep coughing. Just a cold drink.
That's right, a cold drink is on order. Thank you for, . Putting up with this.
it is, it is literally just a hay fever cough, so, there's no worries about it. So I want to just have a think about when we should use the meditation we're going to do tonight. We're just doing one really meaty, important meditation tonight, but I think it's, it just is going to fit so well, and I'm going to talk us through it before we do it and look at how the mindfulness aspects of it all sort of link in and make sense.
But it does come with a sort of a warning, I suppose, or a little bit of advice and the advice is simply this that sometimes it might be best not to try and unhook from the deep dark stuff because unhooking really isn't for deep dark stuff. So if we are hooked by our A sense of a bit of a pattern match into a past thing. As long as what we've been hooked by is something that is Annoying, and the hook itself and the perpetrator of the hook.
Where the hook comes from isn't. Very closely linked to something that matters deeply to us. So I'll give you an example of this.
With this unhooking process, I would never try and use unhooking or the mind aikido, as we sometimes call it, with somebody with obsessive compulsive disorder. Where their ruminations and their worries were all linked to, you know, if I don't wash my hands 5 times, one of my children will die because that's a very common complaint at the moment, and, and we, I've never seen so much. Burgeoning new cases of OCD in all my life and in all my career, and we're really seeing it at the moment and so much of it is that sort of sense of if I don't, this will happen and it's always to someone who matters.
Now, because the, The connection and the pain and the difficulty is so wrapped up with the people in our lives that matter. You can't unhook from that because you know, we are so enmeshed emotionally with the people in our lives that really matter to us. So this question here, how do I know it's a hook?
And you know it's a hook when something has got your goat, something has got stuck in your psyche, got stuck in your mind, and We can't quite let go of it, and it just stays perhaps for 1 hour, perhaps 2 hours for days and for weeks, and very often it's not even our hook, so we can find a member of staff, for instance. This is a common 11 of our colleagues who is Being spoken to really rudely by another colleague, you know, and. It's not our stuff, it's their stuff, they're adults.
They, they, they're perfectly able to sort of have this conversation and get it sorted perhaps or not sometimes. And we find ourselves unable to let go. Of what so and so said to so and so, that would be an example of somebody else's hook.
A classic hook for us though might be something like at the moment very commonly seeing behaviour on the television that is we consider to be reprehensible or we get very, very hooked by a deep sense of injustice perhaps. Now that one we can unhook from. And so it's beginning to recognise that we know we've got hooked when we feel it, so it's a physiological thing, you know, and we can feel that irritation running through our bodies, and it starts to impact on our behaviour and we start to And we start to sort of ruminate a little bit too much about what's happened in our lives, so we know it's a hook if we feel it.
And If it gets so stuck that we almost are trying to push it away and feel almost frantic to I really don't want to think about this anymore. So That what we're going to do as part of the meditation is, and this is a classic hook you see on the slide, anyone can go that high. You can do better, you know, somebody that we don't actually care about that much, let's say, who criticises our work performance or who criticises our parenting or who criticises us about something that we do that You know, kind of matters to us.
But the person that's doing the hooking and the person that's doing the, that's doing the criticising probably doesn't matter to us a whole hill of beans. So, rather than that, mindless or automatic human response when we get hooked, which is almost to try not to be hooked anymore by pushing away or by getting angry. Which doesn't tend to work and has ramifications.
When we do the meditation, the first part of the meditation is we just sit and we breathe, and then we just connect with, OK, so what really matters to me as a human being, as a vet, as a veterinary professional, as a man, as a woman, as a citizen, what really matters to me. Right now in this moment here. And then we move on and we should try and find mindful curiosity because we know that if we're curious mindfully, the two hemispheres of the brain, fear, anger, frustration, and curiosity just don't sit well together.
And we use our senses mindfully. And we stay with that and we find acceptance. And it's that acceptance, yeah, do you know what, I am hooked.
And it's that lovely mindful acceptance and then. Just very gently then. Bringing up that sense of when I am mindless and when I am in my automatic pilot.
How do I respond to this level of being hooked? But it's at step 5 when we move into the action step, and that's when we find the calm and we find that lovely kind of space between stimulus and response. We create that and we ask ourselves, so the man, the woman I am.
How would that version of me Respond To being hooked by this hook, and we relax into it and we almost play a mind film of ourselves. Unhooking or sitting with that hook, responding kindly, compassionately, warmly, wisely, sensibly. In a way that will work.
And then we just say, OK, so now let's find the me I want to be. How would it be? To be that version of me.
And the meditation finishes by reconnecting once more with the stuff that really matters. And normally By the end of that meditation, we're pretty well unhooked. So, tonight I'm not going to ask you to find a particular hook because I think you'll, it will show up as part of the meditation.
And, my daughter Isabella has bought me. I think that's the lime juice and so. The old tubes are lubricated again.
So that's the meditation and the mindful process we're doing today as the title of this first slide is using our mindfulness muscle to unhook. Yeah, interesting. Someone's just come in.
I will read this one out. I often become hooked by people not achieving what I know they can, usually because they're doing many things but not concentrating on their work. Now this is really useful because if we're hooked by it and it irritates us and it makes us frustrated, Almost certainly I'm gonna guess that the way we respond to the person who isn't fulfilling their potential.
Won't be The very best response that we could have because our hook makes us irritated, exasperated, frustrated, and this was someone who was an anonymous attendee, and I wonder if they would agree that if you could unhook from the frustration and the tightness and their difficulties that it makes you feel, the response you have might be a response that perhaps would be nurturing and encouraging, which perhaps would lead to them concentrating on their work and perhaps move from trying to multitask. So in essence, that would be for this person that's just sent their message through. Yeah, and they've just come, yes, I'd love to achieve this.
I, I, well, This is the way, this is the way for it. I just had some lovely people just come through and say, sorry to hear you've got the cough. I think it is just, a wee cough.
And I'm confident that The lime juice has sorted it, so this is a seated meditation, and it is about. 12 minutes long. So it's a, it's a good one.
And you only need to reach in for this one. When you realise that it's, that I've been hooked and I've got stuck with it. And it's great in relationships, absolutely great in relationships.
So, you know, when your partner does something daft or does something selfish or when your partner makes a comment or something that is ill thought through and we find ourselves seething and you know it, and that level of seed and that level of irritation and that level of Sort of malevolence grows in us to the point where we have a huge row. And this is about, well, do you know what, I still will speak to them about it, but let's unhook from the emotion first. And so very often the unhooking process takes so much of the emotion out of the situation, which enables us then to deal with it as per 5 on the handout on the slide here in the way that perhaps we would want to.
So I would say I probably, I probably find myself doing an unhook about once every 4 to 5 weeks and . But it always works, you know, and I probably ought to do it more, but it's when I noticed, you know, Mike Scanlon, you are so hooked by this. Gosh, my word, this is eating you up.
What are you doing? Right. And hook.
So I'm going to do a recording of this tonight, as I have been doing most Sundays now, and as always, I will send it to the wonderful dawn and with a bit of luck, we'll be able to get it over to you as per normal. So if you could get yourselves into our wonderful seated position. Where your back is relaxed but straight, there's no slump occurring, where our shoulders are relaxed, where our head is slightly elevated, where our eyes are just half closed, and we find that mindful half smile.
And let's begin. A meditation Of unhooking Mind Akina. So we begin this meditation.
By finding our breath. Because the breath is our anchor. The breath is always there for us.
And we find our breath. Can we follow as we breathe in. And we breathe out.
Not changing our breathing style. Just breathing. Just breathing.
And as we sit, And we breathe We take a breath in. And as we breathe out, let's just see if we can connect with. The stuff of life that really matters to us.
The stuff of life that It is important. To us. And maybe Just rolling our shoulders back a bit and creating space as we Start to create mind pictures if we can.
Of our work maybe stuff that matters to us. Our home perhaps. Happiness.
Making a difference. Being happy, And now we open up our minds and Just like that guest house poem we just let whatever in. That wants to come in.
And the people that matter to us. We gently just wait enough. Mind begins to allow us to begin to picture those people who really matter to us.
And as we picture them, We just get that sense of each one of the people. That matter And we hold the stuff that matters. And the people Who are important to us in our lives.
We just sit with that. And we hold it in the way that The basin of the earth holds a lake. Just cradling it.
And allowing ourselves to spend time. Connecting with ostensibly. Our values.
And then we just Have a think about. The stuff that normally shows up and hooks us. And is it stuff in the relationship we're in?
Is it, as we've already heard today, frustration and Anger and irritation perhaps linked to work and colleagues and Performance. Or is it small stuff like. Small Clumsy Statements made to us or about us.
Is it other people's behaviours? Do we get hooked by? Political stuff, do we get hooked by behaviours of other humans?
And again we just let this stuff in. And we acknowledge that. This is the stuff that makes me feel.
Unsettled. It creates a sense of unease and sometimes disease in us. And there's no judgement.
We just let it in. And we acknowledge, so this is why I get upset. This is why I get angry.
This is where my frustration comes from. And we ask ourselves, So how does it actually feel? To be hooked by this stuff.
And we Scan our bodies. Starting at the top of our scalp. Working down Letting go of tension as we go.
Letting go of that tension in the jaw and the shoulders. In the throat. Finding if we're breathing easily and relaxedly, checking out our hands, unclenching, softening.
And where we find tension, and we find frustration, we gain no judgement, we nod and we say, there you are. That's where you sit. That's why you resigned.
Let me work our attention down. And where we find Reactive Stuckness in our physicality, we just acknowledge it and say, yeah. That's how it feels to be hooked.
And we returned to the breath. And we anchor our attention once more. And we bring ourselves and ensure that we are in this present moment now.
Just breathing. And we ask ourselves, So What do I normally do? What can I be seen doing when I get hooked by this stuff?
The irritations, the frustrations. The jealousies, the envy. The annoyance, the anger.
And we sit back. And we just find that acceptance again and we watch ourselves. Oh gosh.
Yeah, that's what I do. And we find that wonderful warm. Mother cat Compassion We soothe ourselves.
We don't get cross and hard. That's OK, of course you get frustrated. Of course this is difficult for us.
And we allow it. And we make space for it. And then We smile.
We think about the person we want to be. And we think about our qualities. And we ask ourselves, well, How would the me I want to be.
How would they be seen? Dealing with this hook. How would they be seen responding?
To this irritant. To this Unprofessionalism. To this And truth to this envy to this.
Anger The person I want to be. How do I see them? Responding We just let that in.
In the same way that we use the action step. In the three stage breathing space we just Get that sense of our options. That choices.
And the me I want to be. How is that me going to choose? To respond to this hooking process.
Can we sit with that? And we look at Oh gosh, yes. How does that feel?
To be him, to be her. And we allow that in. And again we Run our concentration.
Just down from the top of our head. And perhaps we noticed that Maybe I have let go. Of some of that stuff, maybe there's.
More relaxation. Maybe there's a bigger smile. Maybe there's less tension in my body.
Just curious as to what we find and if we still find tightness. We gentle ourselves back and The me I want to be. How do I see them?
Responding. Yeah. And we just connect with.
How it would be If I actually started. To respond in that way. And we see ourselves responding with wisdom.
And With patience. And with knowledge. And with perspective.
And we kinda nod and smiled. And let that in. And we go back To where we started with this meditation.
And we reconnect first of all with the people. That really matter to us. And we see them And we get a sense of how they would respond to us.
As we Deal with this hook so much better. And as we deal with this hook and we unhook ourselves from it. Just connecting with that sense of moving closer to the people that matter.
And we let in the stuff that matters, our happiness, the joys, the people. The stuff of our lives that really matter. We let that in.
And we fill ourselves up with The people And the things in our life that matter most. As we connect with those things. We gentle our mind back.
To what had us hooked earlier. And we hold both. The hook With the stuff that really matters.
What we find is that Genoa The stuff that hooks me rarely matters. Especially in comparison. To this stuff, the stuff that really Matters and is important to us.
And we just sit holding our values, holding that sense of release. And that sense of commitment to move closer to the human being I want to be. And enjoying that feeling of connection.
Until we hear the bells, just summon us back. From sitting Breathing. And enjoy Well done.
Perhaps you've unhooked. Mind. Well done.
And as I said, This unhooking process can just take us. I can be an absolute lifesaver sometimes because there is nothing worse than finding our mind almost hijacked by difficult emotion that has no right. To be pushing its way.
Into our lives and hijacking our happiness. And This is one of those meditations to store in abeyance. Or if doing it, you realise that, you know what, there are 2 or 3 books at the moment that I think I need to just, properly let go of and unhook from, then maybe this is the time.
To practise with this meditation. But my hope is that that's going to be Helpful to people in the coming week. Mainly because I'm just seeing.
So many people at the moment. Getting good and hooked. By so many different things.
And I think we are living in a country that we're beginning to see angry behaviours. We're beginning to see people behaving in ways that are telling me that they're getting very, very hooked, and they don't have a process for, easing out that hook. And so the hook works its way in deeper and deeper.
And as we all know, as a hook. It goes deeper and deeper. If we suddenly try and pull away from it, it's incredibly painful and difficult.
So we should never react by pulling away. We should never try and pluck out that hook because it's painful. We need to gently ease it out with a very compassionate warm process and hopefully what we've done tonight.
Is going to help that. So Thank you all so much. Really looking forward to, next week's already.
. No idea what we'd like to do, but it was really useful this week to have that email from one of you guys just saying, you know, Mike, this is where I am at the moment, and if there's anything you can do or we can look at to help with that, that, that really helped. So if anybody does have any thoughts about anything in particular, a particular focus for this. Next Sunday's meditation, rather than leaving it to me to guess, do send me off an email, and if you want to send it to the webinar vet, they always get them to me, and I always reply.
So thank you all so much for tonight. I'll just go in and see whether anybody's got any problems or any difficulties with that one. My hope is you found that useful, And I would just really recommend that when I send the recording, give it a listen in the next few days, just to remind yourself, because this is one powerful process, this unhooking.
So thank you all so much and hopefully see you all next week. Good night now.