 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. The show is broadcast live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show every week as we are doing right now, and you can watch it at your convenience. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can access all of our archives. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. For those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries, so similar to your so-and-so state library. And so we provide services and training to all types of libraries in Nebraska, so you'll find topics on our show that are for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12 schools, corrections, museums, all sorts of archives pretty much are only criteria that it is something to do with libraries. It's something cool. We think they're doing something we think they could be doing. We do a mixture of things here on the show, book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products. And we sometimes have library commission staff that come on and do presentations about things we're offering specifically here in Nebraska, but also do bring in guest speakers as we have this morning. This morning, good morning. Jeremy is with us this morning. Good morning, Jeremy. Good morning. And he is going to talk to us about taking care of ourselves, which many of us definitely, well, it's always been an issue throughout life, but even more so potentially over the last year or so. So I'll just hand it over to you, Jeremy, to introduce yourself and tell us all about our mental maintenance that we can do. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I'm Jeremy Boland, assistant director at Lincoln Parish Library in Ruston, Louisiana. And that's Parish as a county system for those of you that are unaware of how Louisiana set up. We're back to the French. We have that basis where we call all of our counties Parishes. So I'm on the I-20 corridor in North Louisiana, which we like to refer to as the non-fun part of the state. And all the fun happens in the south, supposedly. But we have two universities in my community, Louisiana Tech University and Gremlin State University, which is a historically black college. Great, both great universities and wonderful to have in our community, especially when it comes to the library and getting things going around here. Mental maintenance is a topic that I'm not normally the kind of thing that I would present at one of these kinds of things, but it came up one part in my life when I needed a little extra boost to get through something a little trying for me. It wasn't actually COVID. It was before all that. So it can happen to us at any time in our life. And the main reason why I guess I feel that I can talk on this subject is because I know that it helps. And I know that it is hard. And I know that it can actually help even the people that I consider the hard to help in that kind of category like myself. Because so I call it self care and mindfulness for the overwhelmed and patient fastidious and quick temper because I'm all of those things. You can also add persnickety to the list because that's definitely me. And, and you mentioned this earlier we all need it and librarians especially and why do librarians need more mental and self care than anybody else is because we do care so much. Not only about a profession but about our patrons and about our daily tasks and what it means to the wider world. So you've got to take care of yourself or you're not going to get very far. And before we begin, we're going to, I just want you to know that the best practice is to just practice and to just begin and try and to make a start. There's no right or wrong way to do any of this and there's definitely no wrong or right way that you should think that you have to do any of this. So just want to put that out there first off before we get started. All right, so self care versus mindfulness, they're actually two different things. And I'm going to separate them out today. The definition of self care is rather scientifically based it says the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's health but for today, I'm going to concentrate more on mental health. And it's done through a simple question asking what you need and following through with an honest answer and that's the kicker it's got to be an honest answer. And yes, that can include medical care, but it also means taking time off. This is me time. This is what you need to make your life a little bit better. Another good definition is a prolonged pleasurable pleasurable time resulting in peace, happiness and rejuvenation. So that's my favorite definition for self care. Now mindfulness is a tad different it is a form of self care and later on I'm going to say the best practice of self care. But this is the practice of paying attention in a particular way on purpose in the present moment and non judgmentally that definition comes from John Cabot Zen and his book. Wherever you go there you are he is one of the main Americans that brought mindfulness practice and meditation to the common person in the West. So we thank him for that. And you can't mention mindfulness without talking about meditation so we will be hitting on meditation and how that helps with a lot of things, and we will even practice doing a couple of meditations. Traditional meditation usually focuses on the breath, but there's also some other ways to do it which will touch on as well. And I'm good with questions at any time so feel free to type in anything, thoughts, cares or what have you. Yeah, definitely use that question section type it in I've got the I've got it open on my screen I'll see anytime you guys type in we'll jump in. Okay. So the difference between the benefits of self care and mindfulness for self care you've got better health which of course, usually is a reduction in stress. And it can also boost your self esteem and confidence. It's yourself worth reduces burnout which is a really big one for a lot of people. I mean, a lot of this are probably experiencing burnout, and maybe even a little bit of boredom because you've got a little monotonous during lockdown, and, you know, a reduction in services, and just being overburdened completely by having to come up with new service models so quickly during COVID. It increases our capacity for empathy, even though librarians usually don't have a problem with this, but it also helps rejuvenate that empathy muscle that you have. And it builds resilience which is your mental capacity to bounce back so much faster so that when you do fall down next time you're able to get back up a lot better just make sure brain a lot healthier. And then of course it models good healthy behavior to others around you. The mindfulness of course are all of the above but it also includes greater awareness, clarity and acceptance of your present reality, especially through meditation. It strengthens the brain both cognitively and emotionally. Again, this can be done in the minute, or it can be done through meditation and healthier brain equals a healthier body and all this goes together and that will happen also with just basic self care. Some of the other health benefits that have been proven through mindfulness practice and meditation combined are reduced, better sleep, reduction in pain, headaches, all those kinds of things that a lot of people struggle with health wise that can cause problems on a daily basis. So I'm going to go through a rough guide on how to do each of these. So the self care care quick guide again is asking what you need and following through with an honest answer. To me this is living versus existing or thriving versus surviving. This is why we're, we're here we're not just trying to make it from point A to point B. You, you need the pleasurable things to make yourself to renew yourself to be able to keep going to to exist and to survive we're past that fight or flight time in our life and we should be able to take the time to do this for ourselves. So one thing about self care is this is personal and sometimes very private needs, and nobody else needs to know what your self care is or looks like you don't have to share it with anybody. And there's even some tools that you can use and I've got these listed in the handout that you'll be getting that are assessments that you can take where you score yourself through these six different areas in your life to know where you might need a little bit of help with self care. So you've got the physical, the psychological, your emotional, even your spiritual personal I have an asterisk on that because it's not in all tools, but it isn't in the one that I gave you. And then of course your professional needs as well. All of these models actually come from a book called called transforming the pain, a workbook on vicarious traumatization for professional professionals who work with traumatized clients I think it's interesting that this was included in this workbook so that people who are undergoing stressful jobs and training are able to find a way to fall back and help themselves at the same time that their needs are just as important as their clients. So a couple of examples of easy self care and the categories that they would fall under is exercise is a form of physical self care, a healthy diet course again is physical, regular sleeping routine is physical as well. Taking breaks is a good easy way for professional boost relocating at lunch this is one of my definite amens I really like to get out there and get away from work as at least once during the day so lunch is when it can happen. And to use sick leave when you need it a lot of people still come to work not feeling well and trying to make it through the day but it usually ends up adding a little more stress. Now's a good time for you to use your chat window and share some of your ways that you do self care and we can all start listing a couple of mine as well. Yeah, that actually done by the relocating at lunch and taking breaks. For those of us like myself except for I come in here into my office for over the past year I've been coming in here just about once a week to run this show. But most of the time I'm working from at home. And I have a separate computer room but I don't do those things like I should. Yeah, I grab my lunch in the kitchen go back to my desk. Sometimes, and I'm not good at that I know. Well you should take your break. Away from work away from work. Can you go I have elsewhere I have other building rooms in the house to go to definitely but I just figured I'll just go here and it's just keep doing thing cruise through since and I know that's wrong and bad yeah. Are there any anything coming up in the chat window I closed my chat window. And if anybody has any ideas what do you guys do for this or ways that you think some could work for this. You have somewhere you go out to lunch to your way you take breaks here where I am in my office. I know I used to and I was good at doing breaks. We have here in Lincoln, Nebraska, they call the sky walks, which is over the street walkways around downtown. And not have to be outdoors. So in the middle of winter when it's snowing or the middle of summer when it's 95 degrees out, I would walk those, and it was just you get out and walk it and it's about a mile to walk the whole thing. That's, that's nice. That's one of the things you know exercises always good. A couple of other things that you can do for self care or hobbies, of course, are wonderful way to take it to turn your mind off and turn it on to something if you have a compliment file you could build a compliment file all those wonderful cards or notes that you get or a letter of recommendation that you know really touched you at some point to take those out and read through them when you've got a low day. Go outside play with your pets. My dog is one of my happiest things in my in my life. I, when I found her at the pound she obviously knew I needed some self care because she connected with me pretty quickly. We do have things in finally here actually good thing is the yeah so use the question section and you go to webinar interface. I it doesn't have a little thing that lets me know someone's typing so to wait till you hit send and I see it. So I have to wait and I don't know. See, some of the self care for me is a giant thing of veggies to munch on at work instead of munching on salty snacks. Yeah, definitely healthy. That person says when we were at home felt like you had to keep working at work you always could get up and visit. And that zoom meetings do wear you down. Yeah, there's no. Sometimes there's nobody to get up and visit at home, except for maybe your dog or your cat. Yeah. And so the next person says my co-work and I will go on walks when it's nice. And I love doing post work dancing. Oh nice throw that on my list. Absolutely. A couple of other ones are you can keep a gratitude journal, or one of those pay it forward journals those are really nice. It's, it's funny how taking care of yourself can also end up taking care of other people in a different way that you're not usually And that giving always, of course, you know, releases some, some good hormones as well. And don't be afraid to take a nap. That's a good, good form of self care as well. No, and some of the little crafty things I enjoy scrapbooking and crocheting another person says you. Yep, those are good. Find on something else. Absolutely. Got to click back on my slide to make it go. Anything else I'm gonna go ahead and go on if not. So, this is what I call tips from reality for self care, just the easy, like, just things to remember and you want so you won't get lost. And the one, the main thing is to pay emotional attention. And this is to your attitude to your emotions to your stress factor. It's time and pay attention to that. Don't ignore it. Or that's when you get into, you know, your panic modes, your overstress modes. So pay emotional attention, especially a big one and is to rediscover your joy. The one thing that, you know, that always makes you happy, you know, like for me, it's my dog. If I'm having a bad day, I can go go to my dog and I mean, I'm just better instantly. So if you can find that one thing that, you know, always makes you happy. If it's jelly beans, that's great. It's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, even better. So that one little thing that, you know, will always give you a pick me up. And the same vein always have an anchor. The one thing that always will recenter you. It's a little different than, than just a little pick me up like your joy. This is the thing that, that basically grounds you and brings you back to an even keel. And usually this is like a, an activity or this would be your hobby, you know, that can turn off everything else and give you a minute to refocus. It could even be something as easy as a happy song or a playlist that you listen to when you need it. I put on here wise venting. It's good to get some of those things out of your, your system a little bit. Be careful that this doesn't turn into gossiping, however. And for professionals, it's really a good idea to have a group of people that you can, you know, vent to safely. I've got an open chat box on in my phone with three other assistant directors in Louisiana that don't live anywhere close to where I do. And we just, you know, share things as they come up just to get them out of our system. It's a wonderful tool. I never, I didn't realize I was missing that until I met those fat group of ladies. Read and listen to advice. It helps to read some of the literature that goes through this and there's so many great books and tools for self care out there. I would add it to your routine. And then the same vein make time for that. Don't say, well, I'll get to it after I finish this book or whatever. Work it in. And if you can maybe take a couple of minutes a day in your work routine and add that in as a professional development tool, self care I think is, is part of our professional development because if you don't take care of yourself, how can you work at, you know, at the level that your employers expect you to work? Absolutely, yeah. So make time and of course, you know, audio books are a wonderful time saver. I do almost all of my reading in the car. I have about an hour commute each day. So I get a lot of reading done and it's one of my favorite times of the day actually. It's a good way to get ready for the day and wind down for the day at the same time. And then of course, keep account. And for this, it's like same way as making time. You can keep a calendar. You can also keep a journal. There's actually some published journals now that will guide you through the self care process at the same time. So look for a couple of those if you need some help without just, or keep a regular diary or a gratitude journal like I mentioned earlier. Journaling, yep. You mentioned the wise venting going back to that that made me think of, and I'm sure possibly you were talking about the chat you have other librarians here in Nebraska and I know I've heard from other states too. We have our library directors have regular in the different regions of the state regular get-togethers. And it used to be in person and with COVID they all kind of switched to online. Usually through Zoom. And it is usually an open forum, whatever you need to talk about, not recorded for any period of time. So people can discuss what they need to talk about what they need to and it is really good. And I think more of them have been able to participate because it's been on Zoom. I hope they continue with doing it as that is an option as well. But that get together and having those like weekly, one of them is weekly once. And two of them do it weekly and one does it monthly. I think I think that's really helped a lot of people to hear what other libraries and other staff are going through. And being able to share their concerns and it has been a really a great benefit to everyone, I think. Exactly. And someone did comment when you're talking about audio books that love audio books and podcasts that make me laugh. Oh yeah, that's laughing is a form of self care. Yes, absolutely. It works different muscles than we use the rest of the day to frown on our computer. Okay, so the quick guide for mindfulness, this one is a little bit deeper than I consider self care can be fun. But mindfulness is actually a little bit of work and it uses part of the mind that we're not that we're not usually used to doing. And as I said earlier, this is one of the best acts of self care. And it exercises the brain in a completely different way. So the way to separate the two is to think of self care as taking care of yourself and mindfulness as an actual practice. And there's three different ways that I think of mindfulness, there's mindfulness moments in its simplest form. Mindfulness is really nothing other than being in the moment, which sounds very simple, but it's how often are we really in the moment. And in Titch Not Han's book, I'm drawing a blank on the name of the book, it's one of my favorite books. But in his mindfulness book, he talks about something as simple as washing the dishes. When you're washing the dishes, are you just washing the dishes? Are you thinking about the football game that somebody's watching in the other room? Are you worried about the laundry that you need to do after you wash the dishes? Are you worried about the dog that you can't see in the other room, making some noise, or are you just washing the dishes? So it's just being mindful of the actual thing that you're doing at the minute. A good way to practice this is if you're taking a bath, when you wash your hair, that's a good one to start with. If you just think and concentrate on washing your hair, it's not as easy as you think it is. It's amazing how fast your mind drifts to a million places. The Buddhists call the mind a monkey mind. It's constantly bouncing everywhere and jumping from tree to tree and thought to thought. So to be able to control that thing is definitely something that takes lots of practice and control. So that's your simple way of having a mindful moment is just concentrating on a very specific task and only thinking about that task. So I challenge you to do that at least once today. I was actually going to say, you mentioned, you know, doing something like washing the dishes and whatever and what does your mind do. And then you mentioned the shower is kind of funny because I actually know that when I'm in the shower, my mind wanders actually and I start thinking of things. And I come out of the shower with ideas a lot of, oh, here's a new thing I want to do. Here's something for work or something I want to do in the gardens or whatever. I don't calm my mind. Yeah, I'm like the opposite. So I'll try that next time because it may be a struggle for me. It's a big challenge. And the reason why your mind can wander so easily in the shower because you're in a routine. The shower or getting ready in the morning is a routine half or driving to work is usually a routine. So the way to break those routines is to do it in a different order to think about it a little different and driving to work taking a different route. That's a good way to break that habit because there's been times when it's like I don't even remember driving to work or going home sometimes because my mind is so set on something else other than the moment that I'm in. Yeah, when I used to, it seems to be the longer drives, your brain kind of zones out because right now it's for me, it's a five minute drive. So I'm in a downtown busy traffic, but I used to drive up for five minutes to work. And I, yeah, too many times I'm like, how did I get here? That was scary to realize. And then there's also mindful versions of self care that incorporate the two, like yoga is a good example, Tai Chi is a good example. The use of exercise stretching and then of course breathing, which is the big part of meditation, which is really what meditation is all about focusing on the breath. One of the other things I want to say is it's okay to say no to other people to take care of yourself. I always want to make sure and throw that in. I forgot it earlier. That's a form of self care that a lot of people don't practice either. So sometimes putting yourself first is okay, especially when you're about to drown. So don't forget that. And another good mindful self care practice is knowing you're in the zone hobby, the hobby where you tend to lose time or the activity that you tend to lose time. During COVID I was, when we were in lockdown, I rediscovered and I think a lot of people did because there were hardly any to buy rediscovered the fun of doing jigsaw puzzles. And when I would get focused on jigsaw puzzles, I mean I the hours were just gone. And it's like I had to remind myself to stop and actually go to bed because I wanted to finish the puzzle. And I got into it. So those are your in the zone kind of activities. I get that way with the video games that I play. Many nights up late or too many. How many hours, how long have I been sitting here? Oops. Exactly. My brain was concentrating on it and it was calming and it was, yeah, it definitely is a break that my husband and I both love to take. And it really helps. Your mind is totally focused on something else. There's a lot of reading involved and a lot of concentration and strategy and it's a whole different thinking than the things that stress me out. Yeah. And the key to that is to not feel guilty once you do that. Just remember that don't go, oh gosh, I just spent three hours or 30 minutes doing that and I should have been doing A, B and C. No, that is definitely a no no. So you're going to keep to the self care route. Do not blame yourself or anything. Okay, so meditation, we're going to go deeper into meditation and we're actually going to do a couple of practices for each of the different, well, not each of the different kind, but three of the different kinds of meditation. So Tich Nhat Hanh says that breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. And usually in meditation, you focus only on your breathing as your central focus so that you kind of empty your brain of everything else. The hardest thing that I think I've ever tried to do in my life. That monkey mind loves to jump from one thing to the other you hear a random sound and you start speculating what that sound is. So it is, it is very difficult to do. And he also said to meditate with mindful breathing is to bring body and mind back to the present moments that you do not miss your appointment with life. And to me that just resonates with it'll actually make your brain healthier. And in the moment when you when you're out of your meditation out of your meditation zone, you can be more mindful as you go through your day and not, and not just keep thinking about the next thing to do the next thing to do the next thing to do. Actually, when you get into the practice on it, it becomes an unconscious habit which is good to get into. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the three different although four different types of meditation is of course just focusing on your breathing and usually it's counting breaths or setting a timer and just breathing in and out for a specific period of time. That's the most basic, basic meditation practice that there is. There's all kinds of different suggestions on how to think about focusing on your breath. One says to try to feel the the wind passing by your nostrils, which is really difficult for me because I've got a really bad deviated septum so only one side usually feels that strange way so I usually use some kind of visualization when I'm doing my breathing. It kind of came from the app that came on the Apple Watch. It has like a little mandala that kind of blooms when you're supposed to breathe in and then breathe out. It goes away. So I kind of visualize these mandala looking lilies blooming on my field of vision as I breathe in and then they kind of sink back into the water as I breathe out. So anything that helps keep you a little bit focused but your brain away from your constant constant thoughts is good. A body scan is something you can do to actually help relieve tension in your body and you think of each part of your body and we're going to actually go through one of these in a little bit. We're going to go from the crown of our head down to our shoulders so you'll be able to see what that's a little bit like but to start only thinking about specific parts of your body you'll be able to realize where you carry your stress and how recognizing that can help alleviate that stress and then of course take a large weight off your shoulders. This is also a good practice to do at the end of the day when you're getting ready to go to sleep especially if you have problems going to sleep like I do some days. I will do a body scan to remind myself of all the places that I need to let go of where my tension is. I'm a jaw clincher for some reason and that will be the very last thing that I tend to let go of before I go to sleep. So doing a body scan at night before going to bed will remind me to let my jaw go and hopefully fall asleep quickly thereafter. Visualization meditation is a very poetic meditation thing where you actually use images to visualize your meditation process. So it is a form of mindfulness because you're focusing on each aspect of the visualization. So you can contemplate the snow falling on the mountain, you can contemplate a pebble at the bottom of a stream. You can contemplate monks praying in their way or however but we're going to do a little visualization in just a minute to give you an idea of how that works. And you can actually do meditation walking. I haven't tried these and I really don't have a good space to do it but for those of you that have great wonderful gardens that you're familiar with you can do a walking meditation. You don't have to meditate with your eyes closed. The point is to be able to just be able to breathe and move at the same time and to just focus on that walking and the breathing and it's supposed to be a great way. One of these days I'm going to get there hopefully. And of course I added on guided meditation and that's what we're going to be doing in a minute when I'm going to guide you through a couple of meditations. But there's a lot of apps and recordings out there where you can get some guided meditation help. If you're having trouble getting started or staying in the groove, if you can find one that you like then that would be a good way to go as well. I even include some of those on my handout that she'll be getting. And I'll mention while you're actually mentioning that the handout and the slides and so I think the participant recommendations and some text only slides are available on the session page. I uploaded I added them to there. So if anyone wants to go back to I just did it now over the actual event page for today's show you have links to all of those. Okay, great. All right, so let's go ahead and do their very short practices. You'll be amazed just how a short minute or two can give you at least a taste of what this could be like. So we're going to do a breathing meditation. So the way I want you to set up for this is if you're sitting to just sit straight up with your feet flat on the floor, your hands on your thighs open for an open experience. And you can either close your eyes or close them softly meaning you know half unfocused gaze to the floor or what have you. And we're going to do five breaths in and out. So breathe in and breathe out breathe in and breathe out breathe in and breathe out breathe in and breathe out last time in last time out. Okay, take a minute or a moment to bring your eyes back up to focus. How did that make anybody feel does anybody feel like sharing what that little experience did for you or didn't do for you, or if it was hard, because it can be. I had some people say the last time that I did this, they were at the service desk so they couldn't do it at all. I was like, well, I'm sorry. That is, yeah, that is difficult, I'm sure. I definitely can feel at the end by the fourth or last one, much more calm and relaxed. Yeah, usually on the fourth breath is when it when it starts to hit because all that oxygen that you're not normally getting starts hitting and you kind of feel for me that's when usually when I get to the fourth breath is when I start feeling my the crown on my head tingle a little bit probably because I haven't been breathing. I've been breathing too shallow for most of the day because I was, you know, trying to get things done running around crazy so deep breathing, even for a few minutes is a powerful thing to reduce a lot of stress quickly. So don't, don't forget about that. Comments coming in from people some person says I always get so relaxed when I remember to breathe. Yes, yes, something you don't think about. And some other comments is amazing relaxing. It felt great. So if you can even take start with five minutes a day of focus breathing and trying to keep the mind clear that's, that's your starting goal. And then if you can get up to 10, then you're practically a pro 10 is very, very hard. Yeah. And just to be able to do it at least once or twice a day. My biggest thing is just as I tend to hold my breath without realizing it. So yes, great to like actually think about I need to actually breathe, you know, they sell you to do it but actually practicing it is a whole different thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a moment between breaths to that that you can focus on like, like I was talking about the flower or the mandala blooming so when you breathe in and then there's that pause where there's really no breath. You know, there's just, there's just really nothing. So you can take that minute to visualize the, you know, look at the, I look at the flower or what have you and then when I breathe out and then there's another pause and you can just see it float away. I mean it, it sounds kind of silly but it is a way I mean it's very relaxing for me so if you can find that way of visualizing something that works for you then that would be a good way to get going. Any other questions or comments. No, not right now. Okay. All right, so the next one we're going to do is a short body scan and it's not really much of the body it's just going to be the head and to the shoulders so we're going to start at the top of our head. So again, sit straight up with your feet flat on the floor your hands on your thighs open your eyes either closed or softly closed. And as we breathe in we're going to concentrate on one part of the body. And then we will breathe out. So think about breathing into that part of the body noticing what's going on in that part of the body. And then breathing out. If there's any tension or pain there think about it. Going away as you breathe out. All right. Here we go. Think about the crown of your head. Only the crown of your head. Breathe in to the crown of your head and breathe out. Now focus on your forehead. Only your forehead. Breathe in to your forehead and breathe out. Now focus on your eyes. Breathe into your eyes and breathe out. Now think of your jaw. Breathe into your jaw. Now think of your neck. Your entire neck. Big breath into your neck. Breathe in. Lastly focus on your shoulders. Breathe into your shoulders. Big breath. Breathe in and then breathe out. All right. Take a moment to refocus. Hopefully we lost a little bit of tension somewhere. I know. I do know when I am stressed, I get the back of the head headaches. Oh yeah. That's a thing. And I can, I know that's a place that I will concentrate on for doing this. Yeah. Especially if it gets to a point where it seems to be like a little bug in your bonnet and then a little bit of deep breathing on it. It might actually do a little bit more than you think it would. Just in practice. It's telling me I have a slow connection. I'm going to turn my webcam off. Oh. Oh. Internet connection. Yeah. Which is kind of odd for us, but. We've been having lots and lots of brain lately. So that may be. Okay. So the last meditation we're going to do is the visualization meditation. And we're going to go on a little. A little journey as a leaf here. So again, sit up straight. Feet flat on the floor, your hands. Calm up on your thighs. Relaxed. Eyes closed or softly focused. And to begin your visualization. Think of a lovely tree. On the edge of a stream. The best tree you can visualize. Breathe in. Breathe out. A breeze goes through the leaves of the tree. Breathe in. And breathe out. One leaf. Breaks away from the branch in the breeze. Breathe in. And breathe out. The leaf floats. Down. On the breeze. Breathe in. And breathe out. And ever so lightly. Breathe in. And breathe out. The leaf floats down the stream and around the corner on another journey. Breathe in. And breathe out. Okay. Take a moment to refocus. Usually there's a couple of. Comments about. That method of doing a meditation. It's a little different. Yeah. So anybody have any, what did you think of that one? Or the. Previous went to type, go ahead and. Share. I like that one. And someone says, I love this. It was calming and relaxing. Yes, I wish I was sitting by the tree. Somewhere where I used to live, I lived in an apartment that was right in the middle of city, but there was a park walking distance. And I used to go to this park and bring magazines and sit. On the grass and just read and it was similar to that. So it was an awesome place to do this meditation. Going from the cars and the noise and. Let's see, let's do guys. A lot of comments coming in for this one. Yeah. I liked that one connecting to nature helps me feel more grounded. Absolutely. Yeah. Another person says I like visual visualization. Can go to a happy place like forests and streams and lakes. Yes. Um. Fall is my favorite. So I was right there by the stream watching the leaf. There's a website at tree.fm, like FM radio, that is nothing but forest sounds from around the world. Nice, nice. That's one of the things actually I'm gonna talk about on the next slide is using sound. So that's awesome. And so in the beginning, unfortunately, this is a different kind of comment. We're getting a new roof and they're up there stopping around right now, very distracting. So this is the perfect time. You might need some of this stress release and use some of these techniques. Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Someone else against the tree.tree.fm website, yeah. Okay, great. Okay, so just like before, these are some tips from reality for the mindfulness practice. Of course, again, you can apply the same ones from self-care, pay emotional attention when it's time to practice this. You'll know have an anchor, like your type of mindfulness practice that is an anchor for you to get back into the practice. For me, it's the body scan. It's an easy way for me to remember the value of this practice. Read and then listen to advice. Another thing, there are so many different versions of books out there on how to practice mindfulness and meditation and different points of view from traditional, which is what I give you as my main focus or to the more fun and funny versions of which I think I have a few as well on your handout, but find the voice that you like and go with that version. So do read and listen to different types of material for this as well. And of course, you've got to make time and you can still keep account with this at the same time publishers are starting to make mindfulness journals too, just like the other ones I mentioned earlier. But as well as that, keep in mind that mindfulness is a moment and it is not a monument that you're trying to move. You're doing one thing at a time, one breath at a time and you have to practice, practice, practice. And even when you stop for a long, long time, which I actually did, I was guilty of it. And just to begin again is the point. Tishnod Han said, the future is being made out of the present. So the best way you can take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. So moments, not monuments. You need to recognize, accept and continue, accept your feelings, your faults, your failures and acknowledge them and love them. You have to forgive yourself first and however you feel is how you feel, even regret. So don't beat yourself up over anything when it comes to this practice. Be a tension seeker. Of course, this is going back to the body scan. Know where your problem areas are and seek them out and hunt them down and aggressively get rid of them if you can. And here I've got the soundscapes. There are lots of different ways to use sound, white noise to drown out, hopefully some of the noises that would distract you. There's in full meditation practice, there's what they call sound baths with the Tibetan singing bowls. I think I even gave you a Spotify soundtrack that has some sound bath things. And then if you can find some music that works for you that kind of makes you drift, then that will do the same kind of thing too. And of course, stay mindful that is easier said than done. But remember your problem will be there later and your mind won't be so fatigued from the worry and you'll be able to handle it a lot more easily if you can take a couple of minutes to be mindful. Give your brain and your stressed shoulders a break for a minute and let go. Let go is one of the hard ones for a lot of people. There is an art to letting go. It is a practice and it may take more than once to succeed because some things are big that we deal with. You can visualize letting go by when you breathe in, you gather the thing towards you and as you breathe out, you push it away. John Kabat-Zinn says to let go means to give up, coercing, resisting or struggling in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them. It's akin to letting your palm open to enhance something you have been holding on to. And of course, in the end, just breathe. Breath is what keeps us going and it oxygenates our blood. So at the end of it all, if you can hang on to one thing, just breathe, just breathe. All right. So that brings me to the end of the presentation. I wanna tell you the three main resources that I recommend, if you're gonna read three things, these are the three for you to read. Wherever you go, there you are by John Kabat-Zinn, which I've quoted a couple of times in the presentation and the miracle of mindfulness and introduction to the practice of meditation by Titchhnot Han, which I quoted quite often in the presentation. And for self-care, this one is a bunch of fun. So I have to put it as my main one for self-care. It's called wisdom of a humble jellyfish and other self-care rituals from nature. And Shah goes through all of these different animals and their little quirks and how that's their form of self-care and how she translates it into how we can take care of ourselves. So you learn about some fun animals and then you hear all these weird little stories and it helps you remember how to take care of yourself. So it's a great little book, I really liked it. So check those three out if you've got the time. And if not, I've got a handout full of more things from books and audio books to online resources. And of course the couple of guided meditations and then your music and sound recommendations as well. And another one of the handouts that you've got, I did this presentation for the virtual conference for Association of Little Small Libraries and I had a ton of feedback from participants about things that they do and apps that they use and books that they liked. So I've included all of the things that they share during that presentation with you as well. So as I said, there's no right way to do this. You find your own path and it is the right path as long as you walk it. So hopefully you can begin to practice today. Awesome, thank you so much Jeremy. Anybody has any questions or anything else you want to share? Go ahead and type into the chat. I think this was wonderful. I'm really interested in that Jellyfish book. I think I may have to seek that one out. It's good to know that this doesn't have to be work. It can be fun. Yes, it can be fun. I promise. Yeah, yeah. And I think I know for myself, I'm probably going to have a much more relaxing day for the rest of the day. So I did all of this breathing. I feel much more, more mellowed out. And in spite of the heat in my office right now, I'm not as annoyed about it. Yeah, yeah, it does help. Even the little things, I mean a little bit of breathing goes a long way. Same thing with like me, but I was, I got up and I was really tired this morning. Coffee didn't even help. And I was here and I was like, I've got this presentation. I've got to get ready. It's going to be really good. So I'm excited. You know, a couple of minutes of breathing and, you know, just helps actually wake you up as well. So. Yeah. We feel as luggage. Wonderful session. Someone does it as well. Yeah. Oh, as a male suggests, it's great to do before a road trip too. In case road trip may be stressful or a lot of things you got to be figuring out and dealing with. Yes. Yeah. If there's an event, you know, coming up, Do some of this ahead of time to just start out with a more calm viewpoint, maybe. All right. I think you have your last slide here with your contact info. Yeah. Yeah, feel free to send me an email or call me if you have a question or anything. And I would suggest we need some of these books in our libraries. Yeah, absolutely. Those titles definitely would be good to check your collections and see if you have them. Or if not, add them for both your use and any of your patrons use. Patrons. Yeah. And if you want to, and if you want to sneak in your own mindfulness training at work, you could do it as a program for patrons and then you could help yourself at the same time. Isn't that funny how we can help ourselves through our work? One of the, and a lot of these titles are available through hoopla if you have hoopla at your libraries. Sure. Sure. We have an overdrive group here. I don't know if they're in there. I'm going to have to look and see as well. It's in there or not. All right, I am going to pull because people have been asking and we've been talking about the handouts and things. I'm going to pull presenter control back to my screen to show you share to all of you guys here. Yes, you'd mentioned the presentation and the handouts that Jeremy had. This is the session page for today's show where you may have gone to register if you did or to log in. Where we have links to the slides that he used today. Text only version of those slides. And then the handout and the participant recommendations. We post these on a side share account that we use here. So you have, you can look at them here, you can download them from here, whatever works for you. So here's some other books and websites and things that what you would recommend saying that from other people who had attended at the library's conference. And, and one of the things on that one is a couple of people shared some great resources to get kids going with mindfulness and meditation. I saw that read like a bear and I'm like, 30 mindful moments for kids. Yeah. If many have a couple of board books that's library that are mindfulness babies already so yeah. And then other websites to go to and ideas from people. So these are all linked from here on the session page. As I mentioned we are recording the show and when I do the recording I'll show you where that will be. And if you just, you guys are here, shoot me if I found the page, but just Google and compass live or use your search engine of choice. We're the only thing called that on the internet right now. So nobody's allowed to use that name. You'll come up with our page and our upcoming shows are listed here by the very bottom of them as a link to our archive shows. And then the most recent one at the top. And so today's will be there should be up and ready for everybody by the latest in the day tomorrow. And what I do is I copy this page with all those links, and then then we added link to, like last week's the view of the recording on our YouTube channel. So that will be there along with the other links this is the one from last week just to show you as an example. So we'll have that up there. And then today, or registered for today's show will get an email from me directly to you letting you know when the recording is ready and available for you to watch. While we're here I'll show you we do have a search feature in our archives so you can search look for any other topics see if we've done a show on it. You can search the whole archive or just most recent 12 months if you want something just current. And that is because this is our full show archives. I'm going to scroll down a bit here I'm not going to scroll all the way down I want to go crazy here. And we encompass live premiered in January 2009. So we've been on the show on the on for over 10 years, and we do have all of our recordings going back to the first one here on our site. We're librarians that's we do we save an archive historical information sometimes, and we'll keep them here as long as we can. As long as there's somewhere to host them, but do pay attention when you are watching any of the recordings, look at the original broadcast date. Many of our shows will stand the test of time book reading lists, some session, you know, programming things maybe, but some things may become outdated products and services may no longer exist anymore. They have been changed drastically websites or links might be broken. But we know, as I said we'll keep things up here anyways, but just pay attention to when the date was just in case something seems to be old or missing when you are looking through our archives. So like I said, all of these links will be available when I give you the information for the archive. And I did open up over here that tree.fm site, you can listen to a random forest. I love it. That one's a lot of birds, different birds. Oh, lots of different ones you can listen to here. I'm definitely going to be producing some of those I guarantee. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, I think I might link to it and I'll add it to the session page too, since we have it here. Yeah. And this is a Creative Commons where people have submitted their, I looked at it while I started someone talked about it. Anyone can submit sounds of their forest on to here and it's to help you know, for climate change and everything but they do. Yeah, Creative Commons share like agreement so. Nice. It's resource. All right. And someone just mentioned the tree.fm recordings will loop so just keep playing which is nice. I know sometimes people use this kind of thing and my husband has used things like this sounds on his tablet to help them get to sleep at night. Yeah. So just sleeping in silence was does not work to calm him he needed some things that he would he likes thunderstorms actually, which is now some people do like thunderstorms I just listen to white noise when I sleep. Yeah, I mean that's good. Brown noise. So that'd be good for that too. All right. All right, so. Oh yeah, a fan going fan sound that creates white noise to that would be something someone says absolutely. I'm going to wrap it up today. Any last words Jeremy. Like I said just try it practice and to make a start is the only way to begin. So, yeah, this will inspire you to do a little bit that awesome. All right, so let me get back to our main income page here okay. You'll hear from me tomorrow with the recording. We do have a Facebook page as you can see I linked to it here's our Facebook page here. If you look to use Facebook give us a like over there we post reminders about the show here's reminder login today show information about our speakers. And when recording is ready we announced it on here as well. So if you'd like to use Facebook give us a like over there. Otherwise we do have a hashtag and comp live little abbreviation. What we do post on a Twitter and Instagram as well so if you want to follow us there, or just keep an eye on our website. We have our upcoming shows. We have our shows booked up all the way into August you can see what we have coming up. Next week it's going to be about teaching technology in the library what we have a series we've been starting it's missing that our archives for part series that our technology innovation library and Amanda sweet is doing about teaching technology in the library and part two is next week. Part three is July 14 and part four July 28 part one is already out there recording, but if you want to join us for next week to learn how do people learn about how people learn. So definitely sign up for that one and you can sign up for all the other ones. And any of our other shows we have coming up after that we're going to be talking about something we may need some stress relief to deal with bedbugs in the library. Oh my goodness. It happens. Yeah. So, please do sign up for any rather shows coming up. Thank you. Thank you everybody for being with us this morning. Thank you very much. Jeremy feeling very calm for the rest of my day. And hopefully we'll see you all on a future episode of encompass live. Bye bye. Thank you, Krista. I'm glad to have you. I think it was great. Thanks.