 Hello and welcome to day 25 of the Mindfulness Challenge. As some of you may know, or may not know, if you've just joined in now, this started off as a 14-day mindfulness challenge. Well, we're on day 25, I suppose the next milestone is 28 for some reason. But when I woke up this morning I came downstairs and I thought to myself, do you know what? I think we need to start to get our mind around that this is going to be a lot longer process than what we first thought. And I don't want us to have this series of optimism and then a series of deflation. I want us to try and make sure that our highs aren't too high and our lows aren't too low. I want us to be able to sit in the moment and just be and change our relationship and standpoint with everything that's around us to hold it with loving kindness and to separate the situation with our mental narrative. Mindfulness. I'm going to make a commitment now and that commitment is this, if you commit to me I'll commit to you. And I want you to, when all this has passed over, to be able to come out into the world as a new you, a vibrant you, a you that truly understands you and where you would like to go and what you would like to do. Now, a lot of us have stepped off this wheel that's been spinning for many, many years and we're now in this period of learning, growth, transformation, but importantly, rest and reflection. And that rest and reflection is where I want us to, over a period of time, we're not putting any pressure on ourselves, is to get ourselves to a situation whereby we truly now understand what we want to do and how we want to do it. We're making a lot of sacrifices financially and socially, all of these things to be able to ensure that our health systems can cope with the people who are falling very ill. And that's really important. But really important for us is, is let's not waste that time procrastinating and worrying and purporting to make ourselves the best you. I always say that success is, the definition of success for me is being as good as you can be. You can't be anybody else. You shouldn't desire to be anybody else. Two reasons. One, you are you and you're beautiful and two, that other person is taken. Okay? So what I want you to do is to always have this loving compassion for yourself, even during difficult situations. So today I'm committing to 100 day mindfulness challenge. So we are almost, well we are now, a quarter of the way through when on day 25. That's my commitment. I can't see me going anywhere. I think every morning I wake up it gives me something to look forward to. I hope over the period of these videos I will start to feel better. I am feeling a lot better, thank you. But healthier, I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to get walking, I'm going to make sure I look after myself and get myself in that best condition for when I'm allowed out. But to do that, I have to cultivate me every single day. You know, it's like when we plant our seed we can't just expect it to grow, especially if it's in difficult conditions like it's arid, there's no water or there's no light or there's no oxygen or there's no, we have to nurture it and bring it through and help it through some difficult times if there's been no rain we water it, there's been no light we put it in the window. And that's what we need to do, we need to nurture ourselves and cultivate ourselves to ensure that we are again giving ourselves that loving compassion even in difficult situations. I suppose it's easy to live mindfully in many ways if you're financially secure and you haven't got no issues and there's no coronavirus and you live in a forest by the sea and you've got your own veg garden and you're self-sufficient and you know your wife is everything you'd want your wife to be or your husband is everything you want your husband to be, this perfect perfect, it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist and we shouldn't aspire to do that because you know the beauty of life is the challenges, it tests us, it asks us questions, we can challenge the status quo and all of that's being challenged right now because let's be honest it is a difficult situation where we are at the minute but we know that we can get through it because we have that level of confidence and resolve and trust and surrender into the situation and saying I don't mind if I'm here for another 200 days I'm going to make the best of what I've got and I'm going to be ready on the 201st day to ensure that Julian Jenkins is his best self and I want you to be your best self so join with me today, give yourself a pat on the back, congratulations you've made day 25, there is only another 75 days to go, I'll be here every day I promise I've managed to drag myself out of bed when I was feeling really ill, it's a little bit easier now when I haven't got a fight going on here so there we are, so that's where we are, so hope you're well, hope you're staying well, we're going to go into a meditation now which is about giving yourself compassion in a difficult situation and what I'd like you to do is, I'm going to put a video up, okay and I'm going to now, not a video, a picture and I'm going to just ask you to start to sit comfortably okay so I'm just going to move in my chair, you'll hear me now, so like always I want us to begin by taking a moment just to settle into our body into a comfortable position make sure that you're comfortable, and I say it quite a lot but if there's something that's making you feel uncomfortable, don't think it's going to go away because it won't if you're uncomfortable now, you'll be uncomfortable in 5 minutes time, just make sure your phone's off, just make sure you're having quality meditation make sure you're not going to be disturbed for the next 10 minutes, if you are then we know we can come back to it but ideally we want some quality time here so I'd like you to close your eyes, and I'd just like you now when you sat here just to take a deep breath in and just hold it for 2 seconds and let it go and on that out breath I want you to allow your spine to just lift in your shoulders to soften you just lift yourself up in your shoulders to soften and doing that you might just feel you know bits of pain in your back or you may feel the change in posture is giving you a little bit of a movement just be aware of it and just breathe through any pain so when you lift your back and raise your shoulders to down any pain just focus your breath on that area and just breathe through it today we're going to practice self compassion in a difficult situation so I want you to take a full breath in and then take a long slow breath out take a full breath in and then take a long slow breath out I always just sat here now very comfortable and very relaxed focusing on your breath I'd like to invite you to think of a situation in your life right now that's difficult maybe you're feeling a little stressed or a little worried about something happening or perhaps there's tension in a relationship or something that's happening around you this practice is only for a few moments so choose something that isn't too difficult breathing in and breathing out now what I'd like you to do when you've thought of this challenge in a difficult situation is bring that challenge or situation to your mind bring it to your mind's eye now when you bring this situation to your mind what's happened or what you think might happen and now you're holding this situation in your mind I invite you to consider these things just breathing in and breathing out firstly I want you to simply acknowledge that this is a difficult situation find a language that works for you to label what's happening right now perhaps this is a very tough situation a really tough situation maybe you feel a little afraid about this but just bring that mindful awareness to what's happening right now and next now I want you to acknowledge that difficulty, challenges and situations are all part of life it's something you've experienced before and I know that everyone around us including me has experienced these challenges too I'd like you just to remind yourself of common humanity that difficulty is part of our experience and like everything else it too will shift it too will move and what I'd like you to do now also is I'd like you to invite invite you to say to yourself from your mind and say this inside may I be kind to myself in this moment may I be kind to myself in this moment and acknowledge that no matter how hard the situation the challenge or the experience that you've brought to mind you can still be kind to yourself no matter how hard this situation is we can always still be kind to ourselves be kind to yourself right now and I'd like you to use any language that you'd like that supports this sense of kindness perhaps choosing words you would offer to a friend who's going through something similar offer that loving kindness to yourself and say I'm here for you I'm going to be okay and you are loved and at this moment now I'd like you to rest your hand on your heart and offering kindness to yourself just say I'm here for you it's going to be okay you are loved offering the most pure and beautiful kindness to yourself and taking a deep breath in holding your hand on your heart and breathing out and just once more say to yourself I am here for you it's going to be okay you are loved now take a moment to take that kindness in and breathing out and now with that recognition of complete compassion for yourself I want you to finish this with a full deep breath in and a long slow deep breath out breathing in and breathing out should be in that moment coming back into the room with full awareness I hope you enjoyed that it's quite a short meditation it's a short lesson today but I want you to make if you've got a notepad and we're going to move forward just make some notes in your notepad and some of the things that I'd like you to write down today and ask yourself these questions what areas of my life that you can be more forgiving so areas of my life where I can be more forgiving and then if I were more forgiving in these areas it would allow me to what so areas of my life where I can be more forgiving and then if I were more forgiving in these areas what would it allow me to be somebody said to me once tough times don't last tough people do we're labelled in there aren't we I want to say tough times don't last in three years time when we look back on this moment we'll be saying co can you remember spring of 2020 or even autumn of 2020 difficult period but I felt so much better when I came out of it it was as if I had my own awakening my own enlightenment that I could learn I could grow and I could transform good morning Julian good morning Julian I love you good morning Julian