I would like to share this short guided meditation on breathing. It's about 6 minutes long and is aimed as an introduction to a mindful breathing meditation. I would suggest a comfortable seated posture for this.
I would welcome feedback. My intention is to share a variety of meditations in the coming weeks and months of varying lengths.
You can find the recording here
I hope you enjoy it
Breathing- the physical act of respiration. An involuntary action carried out from the moment we are born until the moment life ends.
Easy , right. You'd have thought so.
But, many of us don't find it easy at all . There are of course a host of medical conditions that can adversely affect breathing so this is not suggesting some kind of cure-all. Mindfulness can help one to focus on the breath and use it to bring about a greater sense of calm by filling the lungs more effectively and improving the uptake of oxygen and by emptying the lungs more effectively and reducing carbon dioxide build up. Stress , being busy, meetings, more meetings, filled calendars. All these and more can lead us to forget to breathe- and when we do breathe it's shallower and faster than it could be which can accentuate the feelings of stress which cause us to breathe faster and so on.
This article article gives some more information on breathing techniques ( it's a little old so I am looking for a more up to date one) Here is this one which is more up to date
When we are in a stressful situation our amygdala is stimulated causing the fight/flight/freeze response. Also called the lizard brain. The reactions hark back to our prehistoric ancestors who would have been in situations where they were the intended prey and would have been fighting for survival.
Catching these feelings , being aware of how we feel, can help us to STOP- stop, take a few breaths, observe and proceed gently.
Ask any woman who has given birth how breath can help.
Breathing can give that time to decide how to proceed, the time to take stock of the situation and the time to ground oneself. Obviously if a bear is really about to eat you then I would 100% be saying to get the heck out of there as fast as possible, but in the 21st century, fortunately many of us are not in that situation. But iur lives are busy busy busy (I will come to that in a future post), there are many many external influences on our daily lives and we are bombarded with information 24/7 .
Taking a little bit of time away to develop mindful breathing techniques, to use it in meditation, to explore how it can be supportive. Worth it? Absolutely. All that's needed is a willingness to give it a try.
Research indicates that mindfulness practices can be supportive in a variety of ways. See here
Some techniques to try here and here
I will post a guided meditation on breathing and would welcome feedback/comments.
Thank you for reading.
Here in the UK there has just been a general election. Living in a democratic country we have the choice to vote or not. This got me thinking about self compassion and conversations held in classrooms when children ( often at the start of the new school year) put themselves forward to represent the school on various coiuncils/forums/groups.
Chldren will put together the reasons for why they should be chosen and their peers then vote.
'Can I vote for myself?' is a question I have always been asked in these situations.
The answer I have alwatys given ( and this is where you will see that my opening preamble about the election was not totally random!) : 'Of course you can. After all, everyone gets to vote and if you don't havw belief in yourself how can you expect anyone else to?'
Obviously general election votes are secret , but I can't imagine that politicians vote for their opponents.
So self compassion, self belief. Way before mindfulness was something I had heard of this was something that I firmly believed in and still do.
So why is it so hard to be kind to ourselves? Why, when we can show kindness to strangers, give to charity, tear up at a sad story on the news and be there for our friends are we so often our own greatest critic?
Is it a fear of coming across as conceited? Is it the pressure to be constantly striving to be better.
'Where do you see yourself in five years? What's your plan? What are your goals? Here are some unachievable targets to work towards...' blablabla.
How about the here and now. How are you doing right now? What's going well?
I am not for one moment suggesting that we should not have goals, aims, aspirations, targets, dreams. However, it is so easy to get tied up in those.
I am not perfect- and I wouldn't want to be. Now at an age where I have lost friends to illness the fragility of life becomes so much more apparent. I am trying to be kinder to myself, trying to talk to myself the way I talk to my loved ones when things don't go to plan.
And does it make a difference? Yes a million times over. It takes practice and there are times when the inner critic shouts loudest, but with the practice the voice is becoming quieter.
Breathe, notice, acknowledge, be kind, process, proceed.
If you have never had the chance to read the wonderful book by Charlie Mackesy I highly recommend it. The boy, the mole,, the fox anfd the horse. ( There are quite a few on similar themes but this is my favourite )
To close, I would like to share this beautiful poem written by Becky Hemsley 2023
( You can find her on Facebook or her website here )
I know there may have been times in your life when you’ve
stopped dancing, stopped singing, stopped being yourself
because someone was watching you. Judging you.
And you are not the only one to feel this way. But I can’t help thinking that we’ve got it all wrong.
We’ve been taught that we must only be ourselves if it suits other people.
We must only sing if it sounds pleasing to those listening.
We must only dance if it looks good to onlookers.
But we are so wrong.
The birds sing - not because we might listen -
but simply with the joy of being alive.
And the trees dance in the wind - not because it looks good for us -
but because they are alive. Living in the moment. Whatever the moment may bring.
So sing as loud as you wish
and dance as much as you like.
You do not exist for the enjoyment of others.
You exist to be alive.
Properly, fully, beautifully alive.
******
'Mindfulness? That's just colouring and switching off your mind isn't it?'
'Like counselling but without any actual science or research-based practise isn't it?'
'Bit modern and really not my thing at all.'
A few things that I have heard.
It's hard to sum up mindfulness in a way that doesn't diminish it. Yes it is about being present, yes it is about being tuned into feelings. Yes to being empathetic, kind and listening. Yes to being non-judgemental.
All these and so much more. Being kind, showing empathy, being authentic being curious, appreciating life, self, others. Being kind. These are some of the underpinning aspects.
Being kind to oneself, showing self-compassion. Bit of a game changer in many ways. SO easy to blame oneself, berate oneself, criticise oneself.
It's ok to big yourself up- to take a look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are going to have a fab day, and when the day doesn't go so well say that you gave it a good go.
So much more than 'put on a brave face' , 'chin-up' and other often less than helpful phrases.
Acknowledgement goes a lot lot further. Today has been pretty shocking. I am not feeling great about it. I could just not bother tomorrow. All these are totally valid thoughts. Naming, recognising and noticing them. Taking time to process, talk them through or go for a walk, listen to music, make a noise, sing, go for a run. We all have different ways to redirect energy.
It's not about parking thoughts, ignoring them or forgetting the past. It's about riding it out.
I love the film 'Parenthood' and especially this gem from the Grandma:
Ups and downs, highs and lows, happy and sad. All part of life. But I know which parts I want to focus on.
Compassionate mindfulness
This was the name of the course that we had all been signed up to take part in. I am not going to go through each stage of it here because that would be disrrespectful to the course leaders, but I will attempt to give a flavour of the first session.
**Breathing exercise to focus the group**
**Some background to what mindfulness is- there are a LOT of definitions and different teachers have their favourites. Suffice to say it is a lot more than 'living in the moment' . It certainly is NOT about 'emptying the mind' and it's not a religion.** This particular course was mostly based on the work of John Kabat-Zinn
Check this webpage for bios of some other leading mindfulness gurus https://themindfulsteward.com/mindfulness/16-of-the-most-respected-mindfulness-teachers-of-modern-day/
**some background to research and how brain activity can be positively affected by regular mindfulness practises**
**A guided meditation**
And before you knew it the time had passed.
Did it feel strange being in my workplace, with colleagues trying to be relaxed. Yes of course, but very quickly the whole point of just accepting that each feeling came and went, each thought came and went and actually allowing oneself to just have some quiet time was pretty fabulous in itself.
The big takeaway from the first session was to allow yourself to take some time for yourself. I can hear you shouting at the screen right now, but please bear with. Just a couple of minutes to stop, take a deep breath, let it out. Repeat. And then move back to whatever it was you were doing.
STOP- stop, take a breath, observe and proceed.
OK that wasn't too bad, still had a list of things to do but went home at the end of the day feeling far more energised than I had been at the start of the day.
Next post will explore the next part of the journey on self compassion. If you would like to read up on this before I post I have recently read this and found it to resonate with me. Check it out https://www.mindful.org/the-transformative-effects-of-mindful-self-compassion/
If you had asked me what my opinions and thoughts were around mindfulness a few years ago I would have come up with a list something along the lines of:
trendy
a bit like yoga without the moving
colouring
emptying the mind
not for me
another passing fad
You get the idea. To be perfectly honest it wasn't something that I had given a huge amount of thought to. It wasn't something that came up in my family or social circles, it wasn't something that was considered to be especially relevant at work. In a nutshell it wasn't something that I thought would be for me.
My work situation changed and I started to consider alternative career paths. After various conversations, I started an introduction to counselling course. At the same time it was suggested at work that we would devote a big chunk of our allocated CPD time to a mindfulness course. To give a little context to this - the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had just come to an end (the lockdowns anyway had ended) and awareness of mental health , wellbeing across the world was pretty much at the forefront of everyone's thoughts.
I was feeling fairly uninspired by the idea of having to spend a day followed by a series of after work sessions on mindfulness; I found it hard at this point to see beyond the irony of mindfulness and being at work. However, it was certainly something that sounded more interesting than some of the 57,000 slide presentations that one has to sit through sometimes ( sorry, I am prone to exaggeration at times but you get the idea)
The dates were set. Compassionate mindfulness. Here goes...
My next post will continue the journey. I am not going to get all evangelical about things, that's not my style (not even sure that I have a style!) but it's a journey that I am so happy to have started and three years down the line feel that it's one to keep on exploring and learning from.
Do follow my journey into mindfulness; I have been busy these past couple of years starting along this new course and am excited to share this with you. My intention is to update in small steps so keep a check for the beginning of the journey coming very soon.
