And thank you very much for that. And yeah, welcome everybody and thank you to all of you who have been corresponding in between the sessions, and it's absolutely great, and I think I've replied back to everybody. There's quite a lot of you this time, but it's I just so like that.
So if you do feel like you've got a question or you're getting a bit stuck, don't sit with that stuckness. Do email and ask your question. And tonight's session is looking at, we, we look at mindfulness of the body in movement, so we're going to do a walking meditation.
Now, obviously, because we're doing that, via webinar, the adjustment we have to make is I will be asking you to Make sure your sound is turned up high enough and to be walking on the spot, and it's, it's worth having a go at that. I know from some comments that people have stayed seated during that one and and that's fine as well, but you get, you really get the importance of and, and, and the That the, the feeling of, and the, and the discovery of the walking on the spot is worth doing, I think. We're also looking at this sense of just how powerful it is to just be present in this moment and living all of your moments because I think we get a bit hung up that it's called mindfulness-based stress reduction.
But mindfulness is much more than a process of reducing stress. It's also about living our life, living every moment of our life, and making each moment vital. And before we start tonight, I wanted to give you an example of this.
So I was doing some 1 to 1 therapy with a young woman this morning, and she had been doing mindfulness, a mindfulness based therapy approach called acceptance and commitment therapy. And we've been working for about 6 sessions and then she came out and she said, oh Mike, she said, The next 2 weeks I've been dreading for about half a year because they're going to be so, so busy. So immediately there's me thinking, well, you know, where's the mindfulness gone because for over 6 months, you've been, your headspace has been sort of way ahead of where you actually are.
But also that instead of experiencing things as they are in the moment, she's been dreading this stuff. And so we chatted about this and I talked to her about, you know, even when we know that we've got a busy week coming up, if we can bring mindful attention on purpose to the moments within that busy week and pay particular attention. To the joys, to the smiles, to the friendships, to the little joys that happen throughout the day amidst all of the turmoil and the work stuff, then It acts as a buffer against just how difficult and how busy we are, and I just thought I'd share that with you because I think that's a lot of what we're talking about today.
So in today's meditation we're going to revisit the mindfulness of the breath, and I'm going to share with you some of the comments that I've had via email and I've spoken to some of you on the telephone, which has been lovely this week as well. People that wanted just to have a chat about some stuff. And so I'm going to share a little bit of the struggle that people have been having, and we're going to do mindfulness of the breath more mindfully.
Then we're going to do the walking meditation. So we look at mindfulness and movement, and then what we're going to do is the beginning of the three stage breathing space, which is one of the core series of meditations in this 8 week course. So it's literally a 3 minute meditation, and the idea of it is, is that you can use your breath as an anchor at any time during the day.
So if I think of busy veterinarians or People who are working in a veterinary practise, anybody who's in a really busy sort of job, the moment you're able to take control of that to a degree and on purpose just say, you know, I just need 3 minutes, 5 minutes before I see the next person. And there's the dog barking. Which wasn't that helpful.
So, . It's, it's just been removed and, and, and then sold off. So the whole idea of paying attention on purpose with the three-stage breathing space is that you can make that space, do a very quick meditation, find your breath, anchor yourself in the present moment, and experience that sense of what mindfulness can bring to your everyday experience.
So as always, I just want to draw your attention to the MetLife helpline, and as always that you can also access this via the email service. And I would just, as always, just say to you, if you're finding things difficult, if you're struggling, do use this. If you have questions about mindfulness specifically, email me and I will get back to you.
As quickly as I possibly can. So let's have a think. Are you still weaving that parachute, remembering that weaving the parachute is John Cabot Zinn's way of describing the process of the home practise.
We asked you to Continue Meditating using the body scan. Whether that be the body scan that we did as part of last week's session, which was a linear body scan. Or whether you've been doing the body scan on the YouTube.
Audio that you've been sent by the webinar that we ask you to keep practising at a different time, mindfulness of the breath. And we also asked you to have a look and try and make a note of any pleasant events that occurred in the week. And that's because Tonight's session is looking at the power of living all of your moments.
And as I was saying before, one of the things that we find very often at this stage of the course is that the pleasant events diary, the mindfulness of the breath and the body scan combine to enabling people to Really start to recognise the joys, the loveliness of life, and to pay attention to that lovely stuff on purpose in the moment and then to recognise what that does in terms of Buoying up our experience of just living really. And I do wonder for years and years and years we, we, we struggle and we know that as a nation our longevity is increasing. People are living longer, and I, I kind of wonder whether Our aim should be to live longer, or whether our aim should be to live a fuller, more meaningful, more joyous life.
And if we were more mindful. And we were experiencing more joy. I kind of think that's a better goal than just wanting to live longer.
And live longer, not even noticing the joys and the, the beauty and the, the, the, the wonderfulness of life, really. And I think that's what, what mindfulness brings you. And in line with that, we've also been asking you to continue to shower mindfully, to listen to music mindfully, but to on purpose, I can't get over this on purpose is so important.
So if we don't do it on purpose, if we don't sort of sit down at the beginning of our week and say Monday I'm going to shower mindfully. Tuesday I'm going to eat my breakfast mindfully. Wednesday I'm going to drive mindfully.
Thursday, so we're really kind of planning out our week and making choices on purpose about how we're going to live more mindfully. And because we're working with what we kind of call a beginner's mind at this stage, we're only on week 3 of the, the meditation course, we do need to make those deliberate on-purpose choices to be more mindful. So I hope you're doing well with your practise, remembering that our aim is by the end of the course.
I imagine now if you're doing the body scan about 6 minutes, mindfulness of the breath about 6 or 7 minutes. And Eating a meal mindfully, you're already up to about 12 minutes, 13 minutes of mindfulness a day. So we're only 4.5 minutes away from the research-based finding that if we can build our meditation to about 17 minutes a day, then our cortisol starts to come down, our memory improves, our executive functioning where we're in charge, not our fear brain improves.
We start to respond to difficulties rather than to react to difficulties, and we actually start to achieve some proper genomic change at a physiological level. So, you know, you're more than halfway there, so a little pat on the back required, I think. I'd like to start this evening's meditations by Doing a mindfulness of the breath again.
But more mindfully. So in a moment we're going to start the mindfulness of the breath meditation, and it won't be the same as the recording because I never do the same meditation twice. I, I, I kind of quite like it always being different.
So More mindfully means really using the breath as an anchor. To tether. Your attention to the present moment.
That's what we're trying to do with the Mindfulness of the breath meditation. Whilst accepting and acceptance is a big part of mindfulness, just getting to a lovely place of acceptance that your thinking mind will drift here and there. And it drifts here and here and there.
Sort of dependent upon the currents and the winds that are moving in your own mind. Until at some point that anchor line. Growth taught again.
And just brings you gently back to focusing on the breath. So some of the questions I've made a note of some of them came in, and people asked, Mike, how do I stop my mind from wandering? You don't, not at this stage.
You accept. That your mind wanders. Think back to the quicksand, .
The, the, the, the sense of a person falling into the quicksand. And we struggle and we thrash not to be sucked into the quicksand, and the more we struggle and we thrash, the more we're sucked in. The moment that we go.
Oh, and just stops struggling. The quicksand stops pulling. And our minds are the same.
So the secret is Except that your mind is going to wander. And Be curious. Apply that lovely mindful curiosity to.
Well, Mike reckons that if we accept that my mind's wandering. Label where it's gone to. We Gently escort your attention back to the breath.
Will I really find that it brings me back to this very moment. And it does, and the here and now is always. Available as an anchor.
And may I say a sort of haven. No matter where you are, that's the beauty of the three-stage breathing space we do later as well. So by focusing on the breath and by building your capacity to focus on the breath, you can actually change your experience of life by connecting you with a wider space and a broader perspective from which to view things from, and that broader perspective comes from settling into being in this moment.
And that's what the mindfulness of the breath does for us. So I'd like to start in a second, but I'd like you to really practise and Bring an awareness to when your mind does wander and it will. Accepting it Because mindfulness is nonjudgmental, noticing our tendency to want to judge our experience, smiling at that tendency.
The smile is so important, that lovely, gentle, accepting smile that just says, yeah, my mind's wandered. So, what is this? So.
Let's do the first meditation. And If we just begin the meditation by Closing our eyes. Or just focusing on the spot.
On the wall or on the floor. Bringing our attention to our posture. And just making sure that we're sitting in an erect and dignified posture.
With your head And your neck and your back aligned vertically. Noticing that this dignified position. Is the physical counterpart of the inner attitudes of self-reliance.
Self-acceptance. Patience And the alert attention. That we get with mindfulness that we're beginning to cultivate.
And just bring your attention. Smiling, Without judgement to your breath. And find your breath.
There's my breath. That's my. Just breathing.
Noticing any urge to. Breathe Any differently to the way you are just breathing. Noticing any urge to breathe better.
Just breathing. Staying with the breath. And finding that Attitude of the curious scientist.
Oh As if we are connecting with our breath for the first time ever. With this curiosity. So Where does my breath start today?
Does it begin in my chest? Does it begin just below my nose? Is it a shallow breath?
Is my breath cool? As I breathe in, Does it change the temperature as I breathe out? Immersing yourself.
This Curiosity about something that we take for granted. Every moment of our lives. Finding where your breath begins.
Where it shifts into an out breath. And wear that out breath. Relaxes again into an in breath.
And for the next few moments just sitting. Breathing. Bringing an awareness to Any judgement Any urge to try and make this experience other than what it is.
Bringing that On purpose, deliberate attention to. Where did my mind go? What pulled my Attention away from Just breathing.
And accepting that Being distracted. Being pulled away from the meditation. Finding moments of nothingness.
Are all part of the mindful experience. And then Just gently. Escorting your attention back.
Along that gossamer thread of thought. Back into the breath. Finding the breath, anchoring yourself.
Once more. In this present moment. Just breathing.
And for the next minute. For 2 minutes. Just staying with your breath.
And Accepting When you Thoughts. Pull your attention away. When you're ready, Just gently congratulate yourself for having Engage with the mindfulness of the breath meditation more mindfully.
Well done. So if you're having thoughts, if you found that difficult. If you're beginning to get this acceptance, this sense of no longer struggling or fighting with, you know, it shouldn't be this way, the quicksand, and noticing that the moment you accept, yeah, my mind wanders.
With that acceptance. The mind wanders less. Seeing whether that's the experience you two are having.
So I like this. Try the walking meditation to see the world your thoughts have been covering up. And One simple way.
Of bringing awareness into your daily life is to practise the walking meditation. And as you might guess, this does mean bringing your attention to the actual experience of walking as you are doing it. So it means simply walking and experiencing your body walking.
And one of the things that you're beginning to find out, I imagine. As part of this course and as you've been practising your mindfulness for a while, is that, you know, nothing is as simple as it first appears. And this is so true for the walking meditation as it is for anything else.
For one thing, just think about it for a moment. We, we actually carry our mind with us when we walk. And as we Usually very absorbed in our own thoughts to one extent or another.
We're hardly ever just walking, even when we're going for a walk. And the walking meditation that we're going to do in a few moments involves intentionally. Attending to the experience of walking itself.
It involves focusing on the sensations in your feet or your legs. Actually feeling your whole body walking and you can also integrate awareness of your breathing. With the experience of the walking, so it really does move us to another level.
And We make all these judgments when we do the walking meditation for the first time. The amount of people who've said to me, you know, Mike, should I be wobbling when I'm just standing still? And I say, you know, yeah, actually I think you probably wobble slightly every time you stand still, but you've never been mindful enough to bring an awareness to the myriad of tiny movements.
That your body has to initiate in order just to be in that erect standing position and rather than struggling with that, it's just to accept that, you know, This is my experience. Once we have mastered the walking meditation we can bring it to Every time we go for a walk, we can just Expand it then and include things like mindfulness of sound. So sometimes if I go for a walk in the woods with Billy, the barky dog that you all just heard.
He's usually more mindful than that. Then what I'll do is I will always spend a bit of that walk just bringing attention to the way I'm walking and to walking and to being and to the mindful movement itself because sometimes we discover things like, you know, that in terms of I overp pronate as I walk and as soon as I bring a mindfulness to that, I can correct it. So there's real gains there, but I also think that after I've been mindful walking, then I will use a mindfulness of sound, which is I take my attention deliberately right out to what I can hear out there.
Then I bring it in to what's in my immediate vicinity, and then I bring my attention to the sounds that my body is making as I walk. And then mindfulness of sight, so the walk becomes this richer, more wonderful, more mindful experience, and It means that I don't spend my walking time totally immersed in thoughts. So I am experiencing the walk as best as I can.
So I'm going to ask you all, and I know it's a bit of an ask, but I'm going to try to, if you wouldn't mind, please, to stand up. Because we're going to do the walking meditation, and because we're doing it via webinar, obviously, if you all go walking, you're gonna trip over, you're gonna bump into walls and I don't want that. So I just Wait a few moments and ask you all please to stand on the spot.
Allow your arms just to Hang by the side. And Let's begin. So I'd like us to begin this walking meditation.
By just standing still. And right in this moment now. Bringing a Open, curious awareness.
To Whether or not As you're standing still. You really are still. I'm not.
Noticing with Mindful accepting curiosity. The myriad of tiny movements and adjustments. And twitches and shifts that your body is making constantly.
Just Enabling it to stand still. And bringing a real Curiosity and a smile to this. Is this new?
Did you know that standing still was quite such an involved process? And then we just begin. By placing our attention.
And becoming fully aware. As we start to walk and 1 ft. Contacts the ground.
And as the weight shifts onto it. The other foot lifts and moves ahead. And then comes down to make contact with the ground.
So bringing A real mindful attention to the process of walking, so. Does my heel hit the ground first? It rolls onto the ball of my foot, my foot lifts.
And at that moment, The process is mirrored on the other side. Just being in this moment. Exploring, walking.
Noticing as well. Any urges to put your hand out as if you're going to fall over. And the speed at which you're walking.
Walking deliberately. On purpose, paying attention to. The processes Of putting 1 ft.
In front of the other. And walking On the spot. And as with all the other Mindfulness experiences we've had.
If your mind wanders away from your feet or your legs, or the feeling of the body walking. Just simply bring it back. And we know But it's wandered.
So in order to deepen your concentration, Don't look around at your room. But keep your gaze just focused in front of you. Don't look at your feet, they know how to walk quite well on their own.
It's an internal observation that's being cultivated, just the felt sensations of walking. Nothing more. Noticing As you're walking on the spot.
But Your Beginning to notice that maybe Thoughts are pushing their way in. Maybe even condemning the exercise. Calling it sort of daft or.
Maybe an urge to start to play games with the pace. Or with your balance. And as we're walking on the spot, Taking our attention up from the soles of our feet.
And our ankles. I'm paying attention to The lift of the knee. To the thighs And then becoming aware of the rest of the movements of the body.
Particularly our arms. And now our arms Walking And moving in time with our walking, or is it? That as our right leg moves, our left arm moves naturally.
So don't try and change the experience. Just be with this experience of walking. Noticing what our arms are doing in terms of balance.
Bringing your attention to your breath. Noticing that we're breathing automatically. As we're walking, Just walking.
On the spot, And again when your mind wanders, and it will. Just to gently bring your attention back. Find your gate.
Find the Pressure of the floor. As your feet touch the floor. Walking mindfully.
I'm well done. Now just stand. Still again, Both feet on the ground.
Bring your attention back. To the stillness. And the Place where we started, just that sense of all of that.
Tiny movement that takes place when we're just trying to be in the moment. Just standing. Well done.
That was good. Now, we send you a, a walking meditation this week. So one of the meditations that the webinar that send out is the walking meditation, and it's about 7 minutes and it'll be a bit different to the one I did today because they always are.
And My recommendation is that listen to it again, but when you practise the walking meditation, I don't think it helps necessarily to have the recording going on in, in, in your head, as it were, because . You know, you, you can just, once you've learned it, once you've got an idea of what you're, what you're trying to do, you'll find that it's, it's, it's a really nice one. To do.
So I hope you found that. I generally, when I first did that, I've got to tell you, I found it so, so interesting, so interesting because I was so blown away by this fact that . How much is involved in just standing still, and that's mindfulness, you know, is, is this, this kind of a bit of a voyage of discovery.
So Let's have a think about where we've got to a little bit. So we've, we've started to look at How mindfulness allows us to come to our senses. And we've done the mindfulness of the body and we've done mindfulness of movement now.
And we've explored looking and listening. We Experience this sense of feeling sensations with mindful eating we've honed our sense of taste and our sense of smell. Maybe we've begun to bring a mindful attention to the world around you as you've looked and listened and touched and taste.
More But actually, what's really interesting is by now, week 3, we're beginning to understand what I sometimes think of as the sixth sense, and that's your mind. And I'd just like you to think about the mind and the self for the moment. So with mindfulness, we are able to recognise when we are in perceived self.
So perceived self generally comes from strife, generally comes from difficulties we're having in our lives, and most often comes from, you know, our formative years, our childhood. So our sense of perceived self, especially if it's a bit negative, is quite strong and we maybe have some underlying sort of negative. Beliefs about self, you know, I'm rubbish at that.
I'm not very good at this. I'm an anxious person. I'm this.
I'm a fraud. I'm not good enough. All of these I am.
Come from the perceived self. What mindfulness allows us to do is to make contact with self in actuality. So right at this moment now, am I a fraud?
Am I not good enough? Am I useless? Am I crap?
No, right at this moment now, I'm meditating. I'm participating in this. Voyage of self-discovery.
And then when we get even more. Mindful. We can move into what is the ultimate place really for mindfulness, I think, which is the observing self, which is, we can step out and look at ourselves.
And we can say, what are you doing that for? And that observing self opens up our possibility to be more in the moment, more mindful, more aware, and much less stressed. So An exercise that I'm going to introduce you to very quickly now is called BOD.
So the bee, this is an exercise that I do about 5 times a day. So I set my phone to go off randomly at 5 times a day, and I have, I would, wouldn't I, a sort of gentle bong sound on the phone. And when I hear that bong, if I'm in the middle of the lecture at the university, I can't stop and do the exercise, but I'll do it when I finish.
I'll make an effort to do it when I finish. So the B is take a mindful breath. The O is just shifting your observing self.
Just look at yourself. With compassion and kindness. The L is lean in.
And ask yourself right now. It's the way I'm living my life, the way I'm being, the way I'm thinking, the way I'm acting, the way I'm reacting. Is that taking me towards being the human being I want to be?
And D is make a decision. And the decision is pure John Cabot Zinn. Do more of what you're doing if it's enhanced in your life.
Do less of what you're doing if it's depleting your life. Bold. And For our final meditation of the evening, we're going to have a go at the 3-stage breathing space.
Now the 3-stage breathing space has 3, you see the hourglass there. It's a bit like an hourglass. So we begin this meditation by just We're not doing it yet.
I'll do it in a minute. I'll probably signal us in. So it begins by just asking ourselves, so what's going on in my life?
At the moment, what's happening in my life at the moment and we open up our attention and we expand our awareness and we open up and we just take that courage to be able to say, so what is going on in my life? And what's going on in our lives is a mixture of good stuff, bad stuff, and different stuff, stuff, and we just let all of that in. And then we gather our attention and we focus it right in, so that's where the hourglass comes in, right in to just being with the breath.
Anchoring our attention. And then we expand that awareness out into the rest of our lives again. So, and the idea is, this is the meditation that I'm going to ask you to do a couple of times a day and in the course of a day and to help you remember to do it, sometimes I say to people, you know, maybe do a three stage breathing space after at coffee time at 11, maybe another one when you have a cup of tea at 4 o'clock.
So linking it to the imbibing. Of tea or coffee is a useful way to have a reminder to do a three-stage breathing space. So if we can get into our sitting mountain position once more, And we're going to send you the recording of this one as well.
A 3 stage breathing space. We begin this meditation. By just acknowledging I'm bringing ourselves.
Into the present moment. By just asking, So What is going on with me? At the moment.
Now notice and just acknowledge your experience. Don't turn away. Just accept what you find.
What's going on with me at the moment? You may find experiences in the body when you Open up and Make room for that. You may find emotion.
You may find Thors. Whatever you find Just stay with them. For a few moments.
Even allowing Any negative feelings. Or experiences. To be present.
And then let go of that. And gently Focus your full attention. Into the breathing.
Experiencing fully. Each in breath And each out breath as they follow one. After the other.
Bringing a mindful. Understanding To This experience of your breath functioning. As an anchor To bring you into the present.
And to help you to tune in. To a state of awareness. And stillness.
Now, Expand your awareness around the breathing. To your whole body. And the space that your body takes up.
In this room where we're meditating. As if your whole body. His breathing.
Bringing a sense of the space around you too. Holding everything. An awareness Taking our attention out.
Into the rest of our evening. Noticing that We can Acknowledge what's going on in our lives. We can anchor our attention to the breath.
We can then Expand that attention. Out into the rest of our bodies. And then the rest.
Of our evening with a positive Compassionate intent. Well done. I love the three-stage breathing spaces.
So over the course of the next 5 weeks, we're going to be doing. I'm gonna be asking you to practise this one this week. Next week, we introduce you to the three-stage breathing space with difficulty.
Just wait for it. That's a great meditation. Then the three stage breathing space with coping.
And finally towards the end of our course, the three-stage breathing space with action step, and by that time, boy are we beginning to see the gains that mindfulness is bringing to our lives. Before we move on to the homework, this is one of my, favourite mindful poems, and some of you may have come across it before, and I apologise if you have, but I'm just going to share it with you and See what you get from this because I think this is about bringing a mindful awareness to, we're at week 3. Do we need to be falling into the same holes that we've fallen into for years and years?
Or can we start to actually use mindfulness? You'll see what I mean. So, Portia Nelson.
Autobiography in 5 chapters. I walk down the street and there's a deep hole. On the sidewalk and I fall in.
I'm lost. I'm hopeless. It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out. I walked down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault, it still takes a long time to get out.
I walked down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it's there.
I still fall in. It's a habit. My eyes are open.
I know where I am. It's my fault. I get out immediately.
I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
I walk down another street. I think that's mindfulness. That's what mindfulness gives us.
It gives us this opportunity to make mindful change to stuff that has just been happening for years and years and years, or weeks and weeks and weeks. So, Before we go to questions, what we're going to ask you to do this, this week is to practise mindful walking, maybe listen to the sound recording you're going to be sent a couple of times and maybe try walking on the spot before you take this out there into that world. At a different time, please.
Continue to practise using the mindfulness of the breath and the body scan. And then integrate using the 3 stage breathing space 2 or 3 times a day. Listen to this at times that you've decided in advance.
That's really important. Is plan for it. And this week, we're going to ask you to complete the unpleasant events diary.
Just one entry per day. We don't want you kind of, you know, Smorgasbording on unpleasantness. What are the unpleasant events that pull you off centre get you down?
And what do you find you most? Don't want to look at. I'm going to ask you also to start to notice mindfully that's what the bold was about really, wasn't it?
Breathe observing self, lean in, make a decision. Notice when you move into that automatic pilot and when are you most often? In your automatic pilot.
And that same client that I was telling you about that I saw this morning was very funny about this as well. She'd had her niece in the car and she said that she'd been driving for about 40 minutes when she realised that the CD player had been playing Wheels on the Bus and other songs suitable for a 3-year-old. But she said, because I was so absorbed in my thoughts, I hadn't even connected with the fact that this music was dreadful and that it was .
Nursery rhymes and stuff and it was not even that nice. And that's what I mean by on what circumstances do you most often find yourself in your automatic pilot? For me and the client this morning is when I drive.
Yeah. So as best you can, try to capture with awareness. All the moments of your day, good and bad.
Well done tonight. And so I'll hand back now to Megan for any questions. Hi, Mike.
That was fantastic as always. There's lots of good, great tools there I think that we can, we can take away with us, especially like the idea of the alarm and setting that at various times throughout the day. It's really yeah, that, that helps me because otherwise, you know, we get so busy that we just miss it.
Yeah, no, it's a great idea. I'll definitely, I'll definitely be trying that as well. So yes, just before we do start the questions and answers, As usual, we have a survey that just may have popped up in your browser.
If you could possibly spare some time just to provide some feedback, we would be very grateful. And the feedback is anonymous, so if you would like us to respond, please let us know who you are and do provide your email address and we will get back to you. Your thoughts on this evening's webinar and any future ones as well are very much taken into consideration.
So thank you in advance for that. So yes, please feel free to pop any questions into the question answer box and I'll read those out to Mike now. OK, Mike, so we have a few, we've had a few people saying thank you very much and how fantastic the webinar's been, and a few people who attended, your last sessions as well have said that they've they've been really successful and they've managed to keep them going, so that's really nice to hear.
We've got one question here. I've not yet managed a meditation without falling asleep. Do you have any tips at all?
Yeah, that interesting. Maybe change the time if you're doing it at the same time, maybe shift the time that you're doing it. But, the other thing is, is to have a real think about, the way that you're sitting or, or, or the, the way that you're lying.
So if we think about, posture for a moment. It does help to adopt that erect and dignified posture. And To try and be comfortable but not too comfortable.
And I guess the other, the other thing about that is It's the time you do it, the posture that you're, you're, you're doing it in, but also maybe a bit curious about that, you know, what's that telling us about the maybe the quality of your sleep at other times. Now next week we, we, we, we start to use the sleep meditation called Leaves on a stream. And the 4th thing is don't get too hung up on this, you know, if you fall asleep.
That's your experience. It obviously is better if you can get to the end of the meditation, but, and the other one is maybe, maybe it's my soporific voice. If you go onto Google and you Google short body scan, short mindfulness of the breath, you might find somebody whose voice isn't perhaps ashoorific as mine.
It might be that, you know, my voice sends you to sleep. Brilliant. And that actually answers somebody else's question.
They were wondering why it's important to sit in an upright position. So I think you've, you've answered that already. Yeah.
Somebody else has asked the, oh, whilst meditating, does it matter if you breathe through the nose or the mouth? No, not at all. It makes no, you know, some, some of us, I'm a nasal breather.
I always breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. It's just the way I breathe, you know, getting into this, there is no right or wrong way to do this stuff. It's your experience is your experience.
Absolutely not, no problem at all. OK. That's good.
That's interesting actually because I've always thought it was through the nose, but that makes sense. Yeah, it's what's comfortable. Yeah, yeah.
Brilliant. Could I just whiz in a quick second on this one? Yeah, of course I just request of everybody.
We've had just under 40 responses to the research question that The webinar that's sent out asking you to complete the DAS score. The DAS is the depression and stress score, I think, and it's one questionnaire and it's very, very quick. So you just, if people wouldn't mind.
I wonder, Megan, do you think it'd be possible to send it out again? Yeah, no problem. We can send out the research question, the research link again.
You just click on the link, it's all anonymous, and you do the deaths, which should take about 5 minutes, and then just send it back to us and that will allow us to further we we did a piece of research into debs. And people working in the veterinary profession and looking trying to just get a bit of an understanding about how mindfulness can help with stress and it just would be lovely if we could get a few more respondents and I'm getting a bit, I'm getting nagged by our, our researcher Rosz, so it'll be helping me a little bit get less nagged. Yeah, so we'll send that out, .
Yeah, I think it's been out a couple of times, but perhaps just once more and then. To fill it in if they wouldn't mind. Yeah, it can get missed sometimes if you receive a lot of emails, so we will, we'll send it out again, no problem.
Somebody has asked, can you do mindful cycling instead of walking on a few of the occasions during the? Oh yeah, yeah, mindful cycling. A really nice one with mindful cycling is the one I said earlier, which is, you know, really paying attention to the, the mechanics of the process of cycling to and then to, to being mindful of sound, mindful of, of, of what we see.
Absolutely, . Yeah, mindful cycling is wonderful. I think that there's even websites, you, you know, specifically.
Honing in on just how how wonderful mindful cycling can be. Brilliant. That that'd be interesting, .
Definitely do. Another one we've asked, how long should the mindfulness, of the breath take? The YouTube videos only 4 minutes, but I think you'd mentioned it would take about 10.
Yeah, the one we've sent out is a short one at this stage. What we'll do is we'll send out a longer one. Probably not this week, next week.
Why I do that is because there's one thing sure to turn people off, meditation is kind of trying to do too much too soon. And what I don't want to happen is for the time you're spending meditating. So if you're doing the 4 or 5 minute one of the breath.
You're doing the body scan. Now you're doing the three stage breathing space. You're already up to around about 1213 minutes a day, and I know that doesn't sound much, but I can't tell you the amount of people that give up mindfulness because they struggle to find the time to do it.
I always think about that, you know, how often do we spend watching What's that? Oh, you probably all love it. That Gary Barlow thing.
I did. I was mindlessly watching the Gary Barlow thing the other day, and I realised that I've been watching for about 15 minutes and then, and then thought, what am I doing? And so, you know, that's just we, we, we, we, we spend our time quite happily doing nothing.
I don't maybe just thinking about, you know, it's 1213 minutes of mindfulness. Such a chore and so I guess I'm saying. You can start to build that one up, but you can also, and, and it's absolutely OK to do this, you know, is if you feel that you need a longer one at this stage, if you go on to, Google and you find the mindfulness of the breath, I would always go for a Mark Williams or a John Cabotzin.
Meditation and find one of their longer meditations, you know, don't feel bound to the ones that we're sending you. Do try and play with some of the other meditations that you could find as long as it's by John or by Mark Williams, then they'll be good. Evidence-based, well put together meditations.
Great. Thanks, Mike. That actually links in nicely to the next question.
We have a lady she says she has a toddler and struggles to find the time for exercises and because of that, she often feels rushed and a little bit panicked, which I think that can apply to a lot of people with children. Yeah, yeah, and, and you know what I think if you're managing to meditate at all with Lilands around, then just sit back and bask in just how what a wonderful person you are because it's such a, I mean my children are 21 and 19, but I still have vivid memories of really struggling to, to do, do anything mindful when they were rug ratting around on the floor, you know, so, no. Relax into that.
Find the time when you can. No judgement. Keep awake.
Watch out for that making judgments about yourself and I'm not doing enough. I ran a course in Derby. Not so long ago, and our goal, because it was with really busy health professionals, was by the end it was 5 minutes, by the end of the whole course, all we aimed for was, can we get people to meditate for 5 minutes a day.
We didn't even try to get them to meditate for more than that because what we found with this particular group of school nurses was that they couldn't, they just couldn't do it. So 5 minutes, it's 5 minutes a day combined with a mindful stance towards life. I believe it's still so wonderful if you can get there.
So don't get hung up on, on getting stuck with it and certainly don't, don't sort of be judgmental and panicky with yourself, you know, pat on the back. Yeah, absolutely. OK.
We'll have Are you OK? Just a couple more questions, Mike, and then we'll finish up. OK, great.
Somebody's asked for the YouTube link for the mindful walking. I think Dawn has popped that into the chat box, so just keep an eye out for that. And we will, if we'll also email that at around as well.
And the other one this week that we're sending out is the 3-stage breathing space on it. So it's 4 of those. So it's just the first of the 3-stage breathing spaces.
OK, great. Somebody said they are struggling to find quiet time, or a quiet place rather where there's, you know, no background noise. And if there's any suggestions of You know, yeah, don't, I, I really think with that, that, that, there's this kind of myth that, that, you know, we have to have quiet to meditate.
The reality of life increasingly these days is to find that real quietness is a struggle. The last Live course I'm live. This is life.
The last course where there were sort of people in the room with me, I ran was below a snooker hall and It was the noisiest course I've ever done, so there were, you know, there were, there were snooker players walking round and round tables on this very old Victorian. Old floorboards and it just creaked constantly and what we found was that actually in a strange way it enhanced it, it, it helps the experience because we get so good at just quietly saying just noise, just the sound. And not attending to it.
So if you can get to that, you know, there's a car, there's a sound, there's the dog, there's My wife louching around the kitchen, you know, just label what you find, accept it as being part of your experience, and it makes you even more mindful. So you don't, you know, it's rare as hen's teeth that I get quiet to meditate in, but I meditate every day. And, and Don't get hung up on needing quiet.
Brilliant. I think that would be for most of us actually trying to find a quiet place. Yeah, I do apologise earlier.
Did you hear, Megan? Billy decided to, hear someone at the door and laugh. Had a little walk.
Oh, that was fine. It's all part of it beings and then he got, then he got sound he told off. No problem at all.
And we just, we'll finish off with this one last question, . Let's have a look. Oh, I wondered if we should have our eyes open or shut for the three stage breathing exercise.
Oh, I think if you can shut your eyes. OK, great. The breath, the body scan, the three-stage breathing space, and the mind for walking on the spot.
It's worth just closing your eyes for a second, but don't fall over. On the spot, actually walking on the spot today. So that one sort of watching the screens and everything as well, aren't you?
Yes, I didn't do the mindful walking, but I, I definitely will afterwards. I have my headphones on so I wonder if people, people that did do it walking on the spot, did you get that thing where when you first just how, how amazing it is that standing still. Is quite such an involved experience.
I just thought that always never fails to, to always never fails. That never fails to surprise me. Yeah just closing your eyes on the spot you feel unbalanced, you feel like you and actually that wobble is probably taking place all the time.
Yeah, no, it is amazing. Yeah. Fabulous.
Oh, that's lovely, Mike. I think again we do have a, a few more questions, but I know you've said at the start of the webinar that you're happy for people to email through. I think Dawn is going to pop, your email address into the chat box.
So if anybody does have any questions, feel free to email those over and kindly answer those. So thank you for that, Mike. Really appreciate that.
So, I think that's all for the questions. Is there anything else Mike you'd like to say just before we finish up? I just hope that Arsenal are winning because I think we should get back.
I think a few people may sign off on the on that 10 no, thank you again, Mike. That was, as always, really, really good. Well done on going, you're doing brilliantly.
Pardon? They're all doing brilliantly though, you know, just stay with it now because we're nearly halfway there and, and now it starts to really help. Yeah, I know it's flown by the past, past 3 weeks.
So it'll be the 4th session next week and same time next Wednesday, my favourite session. I'm looking forward to it too, so it'll be 8 p.m.
Next week. Yep, thank you again, Mike, really great, some great stuff there and thanks to everybody for attending this evening, or it may be your daytime depending on where you are. And thanks again to Dawn for being a fantastic co-host.
And obviously to the RCBS for sponsoring the Mind Matters initiative. So we hope you enjoy the rest of your day or evening, and as always, we look forward to seeing you on next week's Mindfulness webinar.