 Hello and welcome to day five of our mindfulness challenge. Today's another different day in our life here in the house. I honestly think that my wife has contracted the coronavirus. She's in bed, she's got a really high temperature and she's quite lifeless, but we're giving her tablets. She suffers from asthma so we're going to have to watch how we go with her breathing and if it deteriorates over today, we're going to call the hospital and see where we are. But we have to keep going on, we have to keep fighting, we have to keep being in the right frame of mind and I know how much and people have said how much they're enjoying these videos but also there's a lot of important messages especially around this time. Last night at 8.30 our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, stated that we are now in complete lockdown. You cannot go out unless it's for essential things. So there are testing times and with all of these testing times we have a lot of thoughts and we've spoke a lot about thoughts yesterday. But what about our emotions? What about these emotions that come to us and they conjure up things like anxiety and depression and fear and all of these things. What I want to talk about now is we've been doing loving kindness all week. Today we're going to do a body scan that I've recorded previously which we'll use from one of my mindfulness meditation courses on Udemy and we'll put that in today. But I want you to think about a couple of things. I want you to think about self-kindness versus self-judgment. What does that mean? Well, it's very easy for us to beat ourselves up over every little thing that goes wrong. So, if something goes wrong or we blame ourselves we say, oh, look, why does it always happen to me? Why is all this about? And we have to treat ourselves with care. We have to treat ourselves with understanding. We have a desire to heal ourselves, to comfort ourselves and be with ourselves, to soothe ourselves and give ourselves if we need a hug at times when we need it most to ensure that we are allowing self-kindness to cultivate over self-judgment. We're far too quick to judge ourselves. We're far too quick to have to try and ascertain on times unrealistic levels of our life based on what we're told us around us. A lot of our lives are manufactured from or indoctrated you can never say that word by what we're taught. And we're told, you're born, you go to school, you meet someone, you get married, you have children, you got a job, you buy a house, you get old and you die and then on it goes. Well, that's fine and that's life. But we have choices and we have choices how we're going to live that life and free will for me is one of the greatest things. But when we think about self-kindness and self-judgment, stop trying to really strive for things that you don't need or put yourself under immense amounts of pressure that then you beat yourself up about. You create these emotions about you're not good enough and you're a waste of space and you're a burden and all of these things. When really if you sit with yourself and have self-kindness it really does help to treat yourself with care. Then there's what I talk about is normality, humanality. Normality, humanality. Where did that come from? Versus, you know, isolate ourselves. And what does that mean? Well, we need to reframe a lot of our experiences and put them into the context of the world that we're living and the life that we are leading. Sometimes we'll put ourselves in isolation because we think everything I do is wrong. I'm just not going to bother. I can't be asked. Well, this is rubbish. It's always me. It's my fault. And we put ourselves in isolation. We're all in isolation at the moment for different reasons. But this self-isolation is there because we don't think we're good enough. We don't think we can do it. We think it's always happening to us and my life is poxed and if I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all and what am I going to do? And we have to remember that most of the things in our lives good or bad or very bad have been felt and suffered by a large proportion of people all over the world. We do not suffer in isolation albeit we penalize ourselves and put ourselves in isolation. If something goes wrong, it's not abnormal. If something bad happens, it's not abnormal. It happens all over the world and know that life will have its ups and downs. It's going to go wrong. We have to think about how we isolate ourselves on times and realize that if we do that it's really going to have a negative effect on us. We really want to be able to do and really start to get and live a life where we can really build resistance to things is we turn to face the issue. We turn to face the problem. We don't immediately go into problem-solving mode. We can just sit with it, stop. Stop wherever you, if you've got a problem on an issue think about it, bring it into your thoughts, stop and just sit with it and witness it. You might be sat there for an hour, a half an hour. No judgemental thoughts, no problem-solving, just sit with it and understand that we all have issues, we all have problems. I started this video today talking about my wife's illness but I'm not in isolation with that. This is happening all over the world. This is unfortunately becoming a normality. So we have to think about how we have common humanity. We all have and we all experience these feelings. We all have painful things happen in our lives. We have to be aware of our suffering. We have to notice our suffering, to be able to offer it compassion and mindfulness. And mindfulness allows us to be with that suffering where we can turn towards it and be with it. We can notice it, we can breathe with it and we can know that it will pass and that what is happening to us happens to people all over the world. Again, if we start self-judging ourselves, it's that niggling pain that really hurts us. It never goes away. We get lost in the role of being the self-critic. We forget how much we're hurting and we just keep beating ourselves up. We need to turn towards the pain, the suffering, the anxiety. Notice it, breathe it and let it pass. As I said, we go into problem-solving or fight or flight when issues start and that really, it can help solve some of the problems but it doesn't help solve any of the emotions and when we're in emotional pain we want to fix it straight away and it's when it comes to emotions and problem-solving that we really want to sit back and wait for the best response. There's a lot of wisdom in our problems. There's a lot of learning in our traumas and let's not throw that away. So let's sit with the problem, let's sit with the emotion, let's sit with the traumas and understand exactly what happened. Take the learning lessons from it and understand that it's going to pass and understand that lots of people have these issues and it's how we deal with this inner world that drives everything and the conventional views of emotions are very rigid. If this happens, you feel this way and we need to be more open with how our emotions affect us. We need to sit with them, we need to be with them and what I'd like you to do and you don't have to do it right now because if you want, okay? Go and get a book and pen and get open a page and I want you to write on a blank piece of paper what you're feeling right now. Write it down and write it as if nobody's reading it or if nobody's going to read it and then sit with it and we need to understand that our lives are fragile and at this moment they have never been so fragile since, you know, well, I don't know maybe the wars, whatever but we need to understand that our lives are fragile. We want to move away from these rigid responses and move towards a loving kindness, a compassion and a love for ourselves if we can move away from seeing emotions of being good and bad and actually look to see where the positives are in them and we'll always still be positive, you know? And that's a standard response but if we can sit with it understand it and just be with it it's amazing what we can achieve. We know that if emotions are pushed to one side that they grow, we know, we talk about our awareness and when we push our awareness and we awaken then we bring these emotions back into play and let's face those emotions today sit with them, be with them knowing that you're not alone and these emotions are normal as our life unfolds the more we try to stop thinking emotions the more they grow and I was told a story once and it's great really it's like the chocolate cake in the fridge when you're on a diet the more you think about it the more chance you're going to go in the fridge and get it and before you know it you're sat down with a cup of coffee and a piece of cake so when you think about where you are today especially in this enforced isolation sharing the love, the knowledge that you're not alone you're not a bad person for feeling emotions but please realise this is normal open your heart and let the emotions flow and let your emotions out and accept them in the knowledge that you're not alone and life can be good or it can be bad one of the things I talked about which always gets comments is we are not our thoughts our thoughts are real but they're not true in the same context we own our emotions they don't own us we generate the best pathway to our best life a life where we're truly compassionate kind and loving to ourselves and to others be love and give love again we are not our emotions we own our emotions they don't own us sit with them turn to them, acknowledge them and let them go emotional agility is what we talk about allows us to take the values from the emotions but not to allow them to affect our lives and what we're feeling is normal and just finally before I go think about there's a thing called secondary response and when something happens it conjures up the emotion and the secondary response really is the point where it's not great so think of it this way the problem is generally not the problem it's our relationship and response to the problem so for argument's sake if I was working in a kitchen in my bar and I burnt a piece of food and I go oh it always happens to me bloody hell and I bang the stove and the chip pan falls off and fat goes all over the floor and the dishwasher walks down and she slips on the fat and burns herself and I'm oh see I told you it's always me why is it always me I can't bloody do anything and I've caused a catastrophe or I could turn around and say I burnt that just do another one the problem is the same the response is different and the long term response is different too so just think about it and again I want to remind you of a saying that I'm using quite a bit at the moment when we talk about you know how bad we all are and the situations we're all in and somebody once said to me don't pray for a man who has no shoes pray for a man who has no feet I'll leave that with you and just remember one thing we own our emotions they don't own us and we are not our emotions I'm going to put the mindful body scan video on the body scan video really is great because you're going to lay down you're going to sit with your emotions and you're going to see what rises we're going to connect with every part of our body parts of our body that we've never connected with before where we might have pushed some repressed emotions but now we know how to deal with these emotions we know how to accept them I hope you enjoy it here's the body scan and I'll see you in a minute now the body scan is very much we're going to go right the way through the body we're going to open it all up and we're going to see what emotions come out and then you know you can send me comments or whatever it is if you want to tell me what happened to you or whatever the scenario is so again what I want you to do is get into this very comfortable position I want you to be comfortable and not too relaxed this meditation or meditations ok so it's comfortable rather than relaxed so get into that comfortable position I want you to close your eyes ok I want you to close your eyes and I want you just to follow my breath follow my voice sorry ok just follow my voice again I want you to close your eyes and I want you to be aware of your breath so the mindfulness meditation that we've done just a few moments ago I want you to do it again breath in breath out breath in breath out and as I've said before if you have any thoughts that come into your mind acknowledge them breathe them in acknowledge them hold them accept them and then breathe them out breathe them away ok so you're sat now and you're going to focus on your breath breathing in breathing out at that point of contact your breath you feel it it's on your shirt or whatever it is breathe it in breathe it out now what I'm going to do is I want you to find your own natural rhythm ok your own natural breathing rhythm alright and I want you to be now comfortable and warm and you can sit in this position but your eyes now have closed gently and I want you to take a few moments again just to get in touch with the movement of your breath and the sensations in your body just sit and follow my breath follow my voice breathing in and you're breathing out now as I said you may be feeling some sensations in your body when you're ready bring your awareness to the physical sensations in your body especially the sensations of touch or pressure if you like where your body makes contact with the chair or the bed wherever you are on each out breath I want you to let yourself go so you can feel when you're sat in the chair or you're laying on the bed you feel those points of contact you're breathing in you're breathing out on every out breath as I said I want yourself to go I want you to sink a little deeper into the chair I want you to sink a little deeper into the bed if you are remind yourself of the intention of this practice the intention is to let all of your stress your emotions, your fears to go it's a name not to feel any different relax or calm this may happen or it may not but instead the intention of this practice as best you can is to bring the awareness to any sensations you detect as we focus on each part of the body or bring your attentions to the physical sensations in the lower abdomen becoming aware of any changing patterns or sensations in the abdomen in your stomach wall and as you breathe in and as you breathe out take a few moments to feel the sensations as you breathe in and you breathe out having connected with the sensations in your stomach in the abdomen bring your focus or spotlight of your awareness down the left leg so slowly your focus and awareness is going through the top of your thigh through your knee through your calf into the left foot and out of your toes on the left foot I want you to focus now on your breath on each one of these toes in the left foot in turn bring in a gentle curiosity to investigate the quality of the sensations as you find perhaps notice in the sense of contact between the toes a sense of tingling warmth or no particular sensation when you're ready on an in breath feel or imagine the breath enter in the lungs passing down the abdomen into the left leg left foot and out to the toes of the left feet then on the out breath feel or imagine breath coming all the way back up out to the foot into the leg and through the abdomen in through the chest and out through the nose as best you can continue this for a few breath breathing down into the toes and back out of the toes it may be difficult to get the hang of this practice this is just breathing into things as best you can approaching it in the right way now when you're ready and out breath let go of the awareness of the toes and bring your awareness to the sensations on the bottom of your left foot bring in a gentle investigative awareness to the soul of the foot the instep, their heel and notice in the sensations where the heel makes contact with the floor or the bed experiment with breathing with the sensations being aware of the breath in the background as in the foreground you explore the sensations of your lower foot breathing in and breathing out now allow the awareness to expand into the rest of the foot to the ankle, to the top of the foot and right into the bones and joints then taking a slightly deeper breath directing it down into the hole of the left foot and as the breath lets go out on the out breath let go of the left foot completely allow in the focus of awareness move into the lower left leg the calf, the shin, the knee and so on in turn continue to bring awareness and a gentle curiosity to the physical sensations in each part the rest of the body in turn to the upper left leg to the right toes to the right foot, to the right leg to the pelvic area into the back breathing through the abdomen make a point of contact to your chest your fingers, your hands and your arms your shoulders your neck, your head and your face and in each area as best you can bring the same detailed level of awareness and gentle curiosity to the bodily sensations they present breathe in and breathe out through your fingers, through your hands through your arms, through your shoulder and when you become aware of any tension or other intense sensations in particular part of the body breathe in acknowledge that emotion in turn hold it, breathe out and let it go using the in breath gently to bring awareness into these sensations and as best you can have a sense of letting them go or releasing them on the out breath so as you work yourself all over your body if you feel any emotions any feelings, breathe them in accept them and breathe them out your mind will inevitably wander away from the breath and from the body from time to time that is entirely normal it's what your minds do when you notice it generally acknowledge it noticing where the mind has gone off to and then gently return your attention to the part of the body you intend to focus on you breathe in and you breathe out so take that time now to go through all parts of your body down your right leg right thigh, right knee right down through the calf, through the foot through the sole and through the feet through the toes and now you're connected with your right leg I just want you to breathe in and see if any sensations or emotions or anything comes to this if it does we're going to breathe it in we're going to acknowledge it and we're going to breathe it out we're going to let it go and as we let it go we let go of all of our energy that we don't need any negative stress anything in those parts of the body we're going to let go and you need to scan the whole of your body and after you scan the whole body in this way spend a few moments being aware of the sensation of the body as a whole and of the breath freely flowing in and out of the body becoming too relaxed and falling asleep you might find it helpful just to prop your head up with a pillow you may also want to do it with open in your eyes practice sitting up rather than laying down and you could adjust the time spent in this practice by using larger chunks of your body to become aware of spending a short of longer time with each part the body scan is about you going through each part of your body breathing in finding any emotions anything and breathing out breathing in and breathing out okay so that's um that's a practice that we use the body scan in it okay um I'm sure you enjoyed that it's a little bit deep and it's a little bit can be a bit emotional and when I've done it with lots of people they said I never realised I stored that emotion in my right foot and I didn't realise I had so much anger inside me I didn't realise I didn't realise I didn't realise and that's fine you know doing these things and cultivating our mindfulness techniques and using some absolute profound wonderful things that have been gifted to us by some of the most greatest minds in the world we can truly start to live that you know helping yourself live that happy balanced healthy spiritual life with clarity and purpose God bless you stay safe and don't forget when you woke up this morning good morning Julian I love you good morning Julian I love you be love and give love God bless please leave your comments underneath if you've got anything to say please share the video and of course if you'd like subscribe to the channel we will be on day 6 tomorrow God bless stay safe take care bye bye