Good evening everybody and welcome to March's Sunday meditation session. So I hope you're all warm and cosy sitting indoors somewhere, and you've had a wonderful weekend and haven't had to stay indoors the the past two days because I know somebody, some of you may have had some treacherous weather. We were very lucky here in Liverpool, it wasn't too bad at all.
I was just chatting to Mike and he said he, he went for a nice long walk in the snow, which is always lovely, making the most of the weather. So this evening's meditation as normal, we'll have two meditations, one with Mike, followed by one with myself as well. So as always, I'll just go through.
Slides. We've always got that Vet Life helpline information and if you have if you have any questions about that, please always feel free to email us if you have any questions at all. So tonight we will have the tree house meditation with myself and receiving compassion compassion meditation with Mike.
So make sure that you're nice and comfortable as usual, just getting any pillows, cushions or blankets, making sure you're nice and warm and comfortable for this evening's session. I will pass you straight over to Mike. I hope you enjoy.
Thank you. And thank you very much, Megan, as always. And yeah, this meditation we're doing today is one I've, I've come across recently because .
I've been looking to try and blend compassion focused therapy in a little bit more in my 1 to 1 work with people. It, it fits really nicely with acceptance and commitment therapy and . And meditative practise actually, and this one is sometimes known as a meditation of receiving compassion, or we sometimes call it the experiencing compassion flowing in.
Meditation. And the idea of this one here is, it, it helps us to sort of activate what you might term like, an affiliative emotion, sort of the emotion of being close to people, by using imagery of an experience in our life, of actually receiving compassion. And this is normally done in a seated position.
So if we can just. Get ourselves into a seated position and you know my rule, as long as you're looking dignified and there's a half smile of non-fear on your face, then we're off and running. So Receiving compassion meditation.
So can we begin, please? By just bringing attention. To your breathing.
Observing The flow And the rhythms Of your breath Just staying with the flow. And the rhythm of your breath. Just allowing Your breath to gently.
Come into your body. And then just to breathe out. Not deliberately changing anything but just Bringing an awareness to your.
Individual rhythms. Finding your pace. As you breathe in And you breathe out.
Just Remaining with this flow. For a few more moments. Just engaging.
In soothing rhythm breathing. And now Just bring part of your attention. Into your body And feel The strength And any compassion that's available to you.
In your current posture. There's the half smile of acceptance and non-fear. This is me.
Just finding me. And feel your feet on the floor. Bringing mindful attention to your sitting bones.
Connected to your cushion. Or your chair And mindful attention to your spine. Noticing its upright.
And supported And your posture is grounded. And dignified. And because it's grounded and dignified, it reflects your sense of calm.
And self compassion. And because of that, Just allow your face. To find and form.
A gentle smile. And with parts of your Attention Just staying with the flow. Of your breath Can we please Try and recall.
A pleasant day in your past. When someone Was compassionate. And supportive towards you.
This person wasn't judgmental. And would never condemn you. Rather this person that we're finding.
Was empathic towards you. And cared about you. And your happiness.
As much as you can. See if you can find the sensory details of this experience. Can you recall What you were wearing.
During this exchange. Where were you? Was the weather hot or cold?
Was it raining? Or was the wind blowing? What was the noises in the background, was there a radio?
Was their chatter Was there traffic? Now just bringing part of your attention. Back to the flow of your breath.
Breathing in And exhale and for a few moments just stay. With this imagery. Of that experience of receiving compassion.
Let's try that again. Just breathing in. And breathing out and staying and holding that imagery.
Of that experience of receiving that compassion. And by remembering Receiving such compassion and kindness. You can focus your attention on.
And increase your desire. To be kind and helpful. Towards yourself.
And if your mind as it inevitably will be. Becomes distracted as you. Focus your attention on.
Your desire to be. Kind and helpful towards you. Notice that if your mind wanders away.
Just gather your attention with the next natural. Inhalation And make space for whatever's arising. And then as you breathe out.
Return your attention to your breath. And reconnect with the image. Of your compassionate person.
And as you breathe in again. Bring your attention to the facial expression. Of this person From your past And as we start a new breath.
Allow yourself to remember as much as you can this person's. Body language and movements. What did this person say to you?
That was comforting and supportive. How did they say it? Paying particular attention.
To tone of voice. And stay with this experience for a little while longer. Breathing And out And now bring your attention to the quality of the emotion that this person.
Displayed towards you. How did the person feel towards you? And right in this moment now.
How does this make you feel? To reconnect. With that And sit with this emotion.
And you may feel safe and protected. Or feel as if your body is grounded and stronger. However this emotion shows up, welcome it.
And identify it. As mindful compassion. And invite yourself to make more space for it in your life.
Right at this moment. We have an opportunity to bring attention. To the experience of compassion flowing.
Into you. And now returned to the breath. Inhaling And exhaling smoothly.
As much as you can. Connect with the emotions of. Appreciation.
Gratitude. And happiness that accompany this person's care for you. And for as long as it feels right.
Just remain in the presence. Of this memory When it feels OK to do so. Just let this experience go.
With your next natural exhalation. Allowing the memory and the images to fade. And after a few more slow.
Even breaths. Breathe out and let go. Of this exercise.
But before you open your eyes. Just take a moment. To give yourself credit.
For engaging with your practise of self compassion. Recognising that in that moment you made a conscious decision. To take better care of yourself.
And when you're ready, Very gently. Opened their eyes. And come back into this Sunday.
Well done. Thank you, Mike. That was lovely.
Are you still with us? Yes, I'm still here. Yeah, I just put myself on mute because I thought the dog was gonna bark.
I'm is he? Yeah, no, he's, he's gone out again now. Oh, he's probably tired after all that walking today.
Yeah, he came in and just looked like he was about to woof, so I quickly muted myself. But he, he, he waited till the meditation had finished tonight. Oh, that was, that was polite of him.
Yeah, yeah. That was lovely, really, really nice. Yeah it's a nice one, I like that.
It's perfect for a Sunday as well, bring that compassion for yourself before before starting the week. That was lovely. Do you, should I move on to the next one, Mike, or did you, no, I think so.
I think that, I think that just, you know. Sitting with that. Yeah, it's lovely and just, you know, having that sense of whoever that person was and.
It just takes a moment, doesn't it, to move from that into a different meditation perhaps, but yeah, but I'm ready, I'm sure that that our people are, so I am going to mute myself just in case the. The hand starts wing again. OK, no problem at all.
Thank you, my. Yes, so we're going to move on to the treehouse meditation and that is a powerful meditation that Mike did. I know for me, I, I, I did that this evening and it has moved me quite a lot, so I'm sure it will have as well with yourself, so it may be a good time after this evening to reflect on both the meditations, and just write down or even now if you've got any paper, maybe write down anything that came up or And just observing them with, with curiosity and just noticing how you feel and the body and the mind before we move into the next meditation.
Again, I'll, I'll talk about me. You have actually done this meditation, some of you and one of our members requested it again, so that's why we're repeating it this this week because it has been quite a few months since we did the meditation. It's always nice to, to go over them.
So as I say, it's a visualisation meditation as it's a storytelling and picturing yourself in this situation. So I will. Start the story, the sorry, the treehouse meditation.
So just adjusting any positions so if you're sitting up, you may want to lie down, it's entirely up to you, just making sure that you are comfortable, but if you are sitting up, you've got that nice upright position. And the spines lengthened all the way up to the crown of the head, the chest is open, so creating that space for the breath just to flow in and out. So just come into that breath as you breathe in and out through the nose.
Just softening the breath and settling into the rhythm of the breath. Just bringing your Awareness internally. So any external noises or distractions, just focus and using the breath as an anchor as we come into our second meditation of the evening.
And so we'll start the treehouse meditation. You find yourself in an enormous forest. There are trees as far as the eye can see in every direction.
This is the largest and most beautiful forest you have ever seen. You are in your tree house, high up in the canopy of the forest. You remember this place from before and immediately feel safe and at ease.
Looking around the tree house, you notice that it has everything you might need, food, water, clothes, blankets. Books, even your journal. As you gaze out over the trees, you hear the forest teeming with thy.
Animals calling out to each other, the breeze of the wind. The Lee swooshing birds, perhaps singing. Just observing these noises, these sounds in the forest.
Just allowing your imagination to taking you into the forest. It is summertime and the forest canopy is thick with greenery. Leaves, vines, vegetation consume the view in every direction.
Everywhere you look, there are hues of green and brown, and gazing off into the distance, you notice a haze of blue light above the tree line. Just taking Your awareness here, just observing that blue bright light. Shining through.
And then autumn comes, the leaves start to turn and suddenly your daily view of the forest becomes a symp symphony of rich new colours, purples, reds, deep yellows and oranges. Maybe you can hear the crunching of the leaves as the animals walk. The air beneath.
Your tree house. One day you awaken to dark skies, an eerie black that can only announce an incoming storm. Safely in your tree house you have a prime view of the lightning in the distance.
You hear the cracks of thunder, the shearing screech of trees ripped apart by airborne electricity. Just breathe in here as you observe the storm from your treehouse. Next comes the rain.
With monsoon force, it beats down on the leaves all around a crescendo of droplets fills the air. Cleansing, clearing, washing everything away. As the storm passes and peace returns to the forest, the air feels fresh.
Night falls and the cloudless skies adorned with endless stars. Once again, you drift into a deep sleep. When you awaken, the first of the winter snow covers the forest, the deep blanket of soft snow.
Icing adorns the landscape and turns every sunbeam into an explosion of colour. Up in the tree house you are warm, safe and well. The observer, a witness of the days.
Before long the snow melts and the spring announces itself with the new life, new growth, new promise. Wildflowers break grounds on the forest floor. The trees are alive once more with song.
One day you realise that you've witnessed everything that the weather and the rhythm of the seasons has to offer. The tree house in the centre of the forest has kept you safe and well throughout. Just in your own time, allowing that vision of the tree house and the forest just to drift off slowly.
To come back to the body. And the breath. You breathe in and out, maybe moving the fingers and the toes.
Just in your own time. If your eyes are closed, you can begin to open them. And well done.
That was the tree house meditation. So there were a number of reasons why I thought it would be good to do the tree house as we are coming out of the winter and into spring, believe it or not. We've got a few weeks left, it's 25th, around the 25th of March, .
So it's a good time just coming through those seasons and there's a lot of change and we'll be the seasons do affect our emotions as well. And also there's lots of different things that you can take out from that meditation. So obviously the storm, we are observing the storm from afar and as we all know, our emotions can change and things can change in life and that can affect us greatly.
And sometimes it's just good to know that you can always come back to that safe place. And sometimes, obviously if you, if, if you're in work and something shifts, something changes and affects you, you, it may not be a good opportunity to do the treehouse meditation, but remembering that you can always use the breath and that can be your safe place and your anchor to come back to just to check in with yourself and notice what's going on. So that was the Treehouse meditation, well done, everybody.
It was lovely. Oh, thank you, Mike. I do, I do like that one, it's really nice.
Mm, really gets you into that observing self, doesn't it? And, and for no other reason than just how lovely it is to be kind of like, bit of respite from being stuck in ourselves a little bit, it was lovely. Oh, good.
I think we had a little comment. Oh, it's, I thought we had a question pop up. If anybody does, or, as always, have a question, you know, feel, please feel free to, to pop that in.
It has come up, sorry. Somebody said that they found that meditation quite tough. That was the first one with Mike, which was interesting, and yeah, definitely it would be one to go come back to.
Know what might help. Which I didn't do today, but sometimes what I'd say to people is, if you have an idea of who that person might be, is, do it again, that meditation, listen to the recording, perhaps, and then get a photograph of the person that you think it might be. And just look at the photograph of the person that you're gonna use for the meditation and sort of set it up a bit.
And, and then go in and and do the meditation. And that, that sometimes helps. Brilliant, thanks Mike.
Now, I know it, I kept shifting when I was doing medic from. A couple of, a couple of people shift shifting from one to the other throughout that, and I was like, Megan, stay focused on one, so that was quite interesting for me. Wonderful, thank you very much, everybody.
As, as I always say, if anybody has any questions, please feel free to email. Email, it's probably best actually to email Megan at mind fromsportrofessionals.net or you can email into the office for the webinar vet which is office at the webinar vet.com.
If there's anything that you would like to see on the next, next month's meditation or the following months, please feel free to ask us. I hope you have a lovely rest of your Sunday evening. Thank you as always, Mike.
Pleasure and see you all soon. See you all next month. Thank you.
Bye bye now. Bye now.