Thank you very much, Antony. It's nice to have Anthony on board, isn't it? Always look forward to, seeing Anthony.

So, yeah. Lovely to see people, hear people, know that you're all there tonight. As always, I always sort of start thinking about what we're going to do on a Sunday, and I'm running about 4 mindfulness courses at the moment and, I'm I'm getting a bit braver because I'm really beginning to sort of flex my mindfulness away from just the sort of very standard.

And mindfulness based stress reduction course and trying to fit as we've tried to do with these Sunday meditations, tried to fit a little bit about sort of where people are at and what's happening and I had a meeting last week that I was very pleased and sort of comforted to be involved in because I've been doing a lot of work with NHS England with the frontline COVID stuff, and we had a meeting about what we should. The, and I love these shoulds that you get from the NHS, . And I always imagine that it's somebody about sort of somebody right at the beginning of their career who's got a bit of paper in front of them telling us what we should and shouldn't do, but you know, we rise above that, don't we?

And but they were saying we should now because we, in terms of the pandemic, we're moving into the third phase, OK, and the third phase is when we start to take action. And I kind of thought, well, you know, I think I'm starting to take action is this very gradually getting back to work, getting back to school, getting back to other things, and I thought, well, do you know what we should be saying is the third phase is being mindful about what what action feels safe and wise for us to take going forward as individuals with markedly different lives, and I have a very dear friend who has a son. A little lad with Down syndrome and she's also a teacher, and she's just saying her school is saying it's safe to come back and her son has such a compromised immune system that she was on one of my mindfulness courses and she said she found the three stage breathing space with action steps so helpful because it was that sense of, you know, what action step do I want to take.

And stopping before we take it and using wisdom and using compassion and warmth and reminding ourselves about that step and how it impacts on what matters most to us as individuals and human beings. So our first meditation today is the three stage breathing space with action step, which is the recording of this one is already with the webinar that. And should and I think it's a really nice one.

So it's the last of the three stage breathing spaces. And if you can imagine for a moment a an hourglass, do you remember the 3 stage breathing space starts by just stopping and saying, So what's going on in my life at the moment and then it's that lovely opening up and if we were doing yoga at this point here, it would be one of those moves where we sort of open up our chest and stretch out to the side, almost in a sort of position of just welcoming in. Our mind and just welcoming in whatever comes a bit like the guest house, you know, opening up and just letting stuff in and then that hourglass narrows to the very focus and the anchoring to the breath where we start to feel safe again and we start to find our breath and connect with it and that anchors our attention and then we take our attention out into our bodies and into our lives.

And at the very end of the action step meditation you'll hear me just start to get you to think possibly about, OK, so what action Might I take going forward. To just take me forward towards the person I want to be. So with no more ado, this is a seated meditation normally.

So if we can get ourselves into our wonderful dignified position, find your mindful heart, smile. And let's go. So the three-stage breathing space with action step.

And we just take our attention as always with my meditations, I love to centre the mind first, just outside of the room. Where we are sitting, meditating. And just get a sense of the light.

Out there. And even with our eyes closed, we can get that. That sense of the light outside of the room that we're in.

And then bring your attention into the room where you're meditating and notice whether it brightens or does it darken. And then taking our attention right in. And finding our breath in the core of us.

And just getting a sense of the colour. That Manifests there as we just find our own centre. And then we ask ourselves, so what's going on in my life at the moment that I'd like to just let in and attend to?

And this is the point where we just roll our shoulders back. And we let that stuff in. Openly without judgement.

It's not bad. It's not good. It's not scary.

It's just stuff. And we let it in And we almost go looking. Is there anything that we've inadvertently closed down and There it is, and let that in as well.

And sit with it. Sit with it in this. Mind state of Awareness and openness and trust.

And we smile at what we find. We let it in And we sit with it. And if emotion shows up, we just smile and name the emotion and Stay with it.

And if a thought comes in, we smile. And we say, not now, please. We take our attention back.

And if there's any judging, we just smile and say no judgement. Just stuff. And then we let go.

And we narrow our attention. And we find the focus of our breath. Anchoring our attention to the breath maybe.

Taking a hand and placing it gently on you. On your abdomen, on your tummy. And just feeling the breath as we breathe in.

And as we exhale out. If our mind goes wandering, we smile. And we just almost put an arm around our mind and we say, not now, just back to the breath.

His breathing, That's good. And then we extend our awareness once more. And we just scan our body.

We just open up a little bit and expand our awareness into our body first, noticing if there's any residual tension or tightness or. Whatever it is we might find. And we take our attention out into our lives.

And we move our attention. Curiously, Just beginning to think about the days and the weeks ahead. And as we're doing that, We just moved towards the action step.

And as we think about the action step, We just Kind of Begin to think about what I might do. That might be pleasurable. After this meditation.

What I might do that will give me satisfaction. Begin thinking about What, if anything, do I need for myself right now? And how can I Take care of myself.

Right now, what action do I need to take? And we sit with that. And we allow Just that sense of Acting Compassionately and warmly.

Choosing an action that will move us towards. A kind, gentle, good, compassionate, warm human being. That we know We can be.

Just find that sense of commitment to Take action. When we're ready, very gently, just come back to the room. And I, I think of all the breathing spaces, I do love the, the three-stage breathing space with difficulty, but I think you do need to do that for a while before you get to the action step, because the, otherwise, the action step, I think, is a bit of a leap.

And those of us who've been doing, our Sundays, you know, we, I think we're there for the action step, and I think it has real relevance for where we are at the moment. And I'm just going to check in to see whether there's any. Yeah, I think everyone's OK.

I hope you're all OK with that one. So this just incredible bit of research has just come out, it's a new piece of research which was led by this one, researcher, and, they're all, the last couple of studies have been randomised controlled trials, and what they really show. Is that, and, and most of the studies in the positive psychology school exploring gratitude, are done with people that are pretty happy to explain why they're so happy.

What Wang's done and colleagues is Wang has started to do the same sort of work, but with people who are struggling with their mental health, and the findings are absolutely wonderful because what we're finding is this, and this is a quote from one of the research papers that I just put up for today. So the meditation we're going to do next is a meditation on gratitude. And those of you sitting there thinking, flipping neck, Mike, we might not have a lot to be feeling particularly grateful for at the moment, and I suppose my repository would be, well, the reason I've gone for this particular Meditation tonight is that I'm, I'm, I'm most interested in How the neurology of gratitude means, as it says here, that fear and appreciation of gratitude can't reside in the brain at the same time.

So if we can find every day 2 or 3 times a day just connecting with a sense of gratitude for what we do have, then the neurology and the neuroscience is really clear. That it's fantastic for anxiety, and we're just so many of us are struggling with worry and anxiety at the moment, but the other side of this, of course, is, as I always say, the bit that we miss in in . In mindfulness is it's just a lovely meditation.

So this is the one that I am going to record and then I'll send it on to Anthony and Dawn afterwards. I always apologise for the quality of these because they're just a live recording that I do on the equipment that that I have. But, and this is a bit of a longer meditation, but I've, I've been using it a lot with people I work with at the moment.

Once I discovered this real connection with, you know, the capacity of the brain. It is such that you can't be really focusing on a sense of gratitude and be anxious at the same time, so it's almost like a respite, and I think I'm thinking of it as part of our psychological 5 a day. You know, a bit of gratitude every day along with a bit of self-compassion perhaps along with some positive affirmations and finding positivity.

One random act of kindness which will do us all the world of good and some real good mindful quiet. There's my 5 a day anyway. And so my hope is that you'll find this useful.

So with no more ado, let's see if we can really, really start to help. So, this meditation is a meditation of gratitude, and it's worth reminding ourselves before we engage with it, that gratitude is an emotion of connectedness. And gratitude sometimes can remind us that we're all part of a larger universe.

And the habit of gratitude can really help with feelings of inner peace. With a sense of mastery over Fear And by finding gratitude, we can attract more good into our lives. And we can find gratitude for so much.

We can find gratitude for, the people around us, for our faith. We can find gratitude in all sorts of ways. And At the start of each day, you know, even if we just started each day by thinking about 3 things that we were grateful for, it might really help.

So as we move ourselves into a position where we're comfortable, But not too comfortable, so you'll fall asleep. And we start by just asking you to Think about something in your life that you're really grateful for. And just sit with that and just let that in.

Something in my life that I'm really grateful for. And think about where you feel that sense of gratefulness. In your body.

And in the course of this meditation, we'll be just bringing awareness to the things in our lives that we're grateful for. And I'd ask you to just give gratitude the chance to come up naturally. Try not to force it.

And when it comes, just allow yourself to sit with it. Surrender to it. Be curious about how it feels and what it does to your energy.

And if it doesn't come, that's OK. Don't try and make yourself feel it. Just stay with the process.

And surrender to your heart and not your head. So let's just walk through the aspects of our lives. That we might be grateful for.

So, firstly, just bring your awareness to your breath. As you inhale. And as you exhale, Just connect with the fact that each breath.

Gives you life. And then as you Move forward, just taking your awareness to your heart. Perhaps place in your hand.

Just gently where your heart is. Feeling it beats and pulse. Bring your awareness to your eyes.

And just even though they're closed or half closed. Just finding that awareness of how grateful we are for colour. For our ability to see faces, smiles.

Nature. Sun rises. Ourselves maybe in the mirror.

Bring your awareness to your ears. Taking the sound and Give us music and laughter. And maybe connect to the voices of the people you love.

Our ability to hear silence. And the sounds of life. You find your nose for olfactory skills and senses.

And the smell of. Food cooking in the kitchen. Cake in the oven.

Perfume, And flowers. My favourite smell, the ocean breeze. Allow it and Sit with it and make space for it.

And then bring your attention and your awareness. With no judgement to your lips, your mouth. Your tongue.

Think about taste. And nourishment. Made me think about kissing.

How that feels. And then find your hands. Hands that hold and touch that open and close.

With applaud and squeeze. And our arms and our shoulders that hug. And hold Even our tears.

Our sorrows And when we cry, we cool our face, and we're grateful for it. When we cry, we let go of emotion. And we're grateful for it.

Bring your awareness now. To your abundance. Your expansion as a human being.

Your own evolution from. Not knowing to knowing to not knowing. The perspective shifts that you've experienced in your life and Continue to experience.

The empathy you feel for others. And your ability to see growth. And potential in every moment if we stop.

And let ourselves And now just return our attention once more to the breath. Phil Even more grace. And is And as we do this, Let's find that curious mindful.

Brain of ours and just. How do you feel having engaged with gratitude? Perhaps experiencing the warmth, the love, the compassion, the gratitude brings into us.

Just drift that awareness now. To those nurturing relationships in your life. The new ones.

And the older ones. And material stuff. When I think of gratitude, I love buying things.

And the material stuff that just comes and came them unexpectedly. The stuff that our mind just sends us. A picture of something lovely and new.

And we smile at that no, no judgement. And lastly, Just think of the love in our lives and the connection. To the stuff that really matters.

And when we no longer take life for granted. Perhaps we can become grateful, more grateful. For everything that we have.

Just for the last minute of this meditation. Just like you to breathe. And feel the sense of flow.

That we get as we Allow our mind to flow into the different areas that We can find gratitude and offer gratitude for. Just a minute. Well done, everybody.

It's nice meditation, isn't it? I like that one. Just a big thank you as always to everybody that, came on tonight and I noticed some people came in a bit late, but as usual, I'm sure you'll be able to, check out the recording.

And this, that meditation I did was this, the, it's one I learned from Deepak Chopra, who's a, a real sort of master of meditation and The most simple thing we can do to bring meditation into our lives is what I suggested earlier is just when we wake each morning, just have just 3 things that I can be grateful for today and then a bit later on, almost like prayer, isn't it, just finding that sense of 3 things that I think I can be really grateful for that happened or that came into my life today. And this focus on gratefulness, as I said, can be really powerful in terms of our mental health. So, thank you all, everybody, thanks, Capiona, and, yeah, thank you all.

And, look forward to whatever we find next week. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity of doing this because it's just a lovely thing to do on a Sunday night. So thanks everybody.

Thank. I'll just stop the recording in a second. Thanks, Mike.

That was really splendid. I, I was very fortunate today. I went out for a cycle ride with my wife, and, she was a bit behind me, and I just noticed I was cycling by the beach and I spotted a few birds fluttering around, saw a very nice, very close, usually not so close to the wall as this, but a lovely flock of Dunlo with some little ring clovers mixed in with them.

Which always raises the spirits, doesn't it? So that's certainly what I was grateful for today. Or one of the things, but I, I do agree with you.

I think gratitude it. It does make the world just look a slightly different place, even in these tricky times. It does, yeah, there's so much actually.

In fact, sometimes you've got to go through bad times to really appreciate the good, haven't you, and I think things we take for granted. And that's why I think this has real resonance at the moment, both of these meditations, you know, the action that carefully and this sense of, you know, that's, that's, let's, let's find and engage with gratitude, really important. Yeah, no, this is a real blessing for us, Mike, and you know, thank you so much for giving us your time and I look forward to seeing you very soon on another one of our webinars.

And we'll see you guys next week for our regulars. Take care, bye bye. Bye bye now.