 Welcome here in our fourth webinar, An Insight to Mindfulness, here in Moodle Academy. Today with us we have Usa Raman. Usa is a certified trainer, behavior consultant and a master of life coach. She facilitates workshops in personal development, specifically in the areas of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Her love for training has enabled her to train hundreds of people globally and today is with us. When not in training, she's an advocate for volunteerism and has organized self-empowerment programs in Asia Pacific for over 20 years. Currently she's a lead volunteer administrator for two non-for-profit catering to refugees and other vulnerable communities. In 2019 she received the award iconic woman creating a better future at the World Renowned Conference Women Economic Forum. Having positively shifted her life and career through embracing mindfulness and emotional intelligence, she can now make it her mission to serve mindfulness and emotional intelligence strategies so that people and organizations can thrive no matter the circumstances. Usa, welcome. Thank you so much for being here and initiate and join the mind initiate mindfulness in Moodle Academy. The floor is yours. Thank you so much Anna. I'm really excited to be here to share this topic which I'm very passionate about so and it's you know so welcome to everyone and thank you for coming online. So this webinar today, this insight into mindfulness is more of an introductory session and you know I want to get asked this this term mindfulness gets thrown around so much you know and everywhere these days there is a mindfulness cost going on like what do you think about that which is just a buzzword or something but I for one am very grateful that the term mindfulness is getting so much air time because I think it deserves it and now because of that we've got so many researchers and scientists involved studying the benefits of mindfulness and how it can help us in so many ways and very honored to have two of those researchers here today as well Anna being one of them and Astheria as well so yeah it's attracting a lot of good attention so that we can then have more evidence-based proof of what an amazing well-being technique this is that we can all adopt and we can all adopt it quite easily which is the best thing about mindfulness you know it's not one of those quick fixes but it's one of those with all the time with me fixes so to speak yeah so we're all anyone familiar with stress I should ask anyone here familiar with stress yes yes I think no one's really a stranger to that to that concept so this session that we're having today it's really about you know for this little while we're together if you can just relax and imagine they were just enjoying the view of a mountain and what that would feel like instead so just noticing even now in your body if you're holding any tension can you just relax into your body taking some nice deep breaths as we come into this room lovely and it's always nice to start with some collective intentions as we get together so that we can have a more meaningful and purposeful time together and that very first step of that is to be here which is why we I I said take those nice deep breaths and if the mind wanders up at any point in time which it will even now maybe you might have noticed it already wanted off a little bit just bringing it back and just breathing and being here yeah keeping an open mind always a great thing because we are educators and we all know what a detriment it is to have a close mind when we're learning something so keeping an open mind engaging because in the virtual world that that's that's always nice because we can't read body language so much right so please engage take charge of your learning if there's any point in time you think oh that's a question I'm not sure about ask Anna's on the chats and you know of course because we are trying to be here and taking charge of our learning if you have any distractions around you maybe closing up those other windows and those little notifications that can distract us from why we're really here for and questions at clap time so you'll know when it's time because you'll see me clapping and so we will take those questions at clap time and Anna will keep track of them in the chat if needed yeah thanks for that Anna so everyone all right with the collective intentions maybe give me a thumbs up show me your you're here with me fantastic and if you don't have your video you can still do the thumbs up on through the the zoom yeah excellent so we've got five objectives today to cover why mindfulness what is mindfulness what am I practicing now in my life and understanding and principle the very first principle and understanding of mindfulness and a couple of mindfulness practices that we can go ahead and practice after this session yeah so let's look at why mindfulness and it's always nice to you know have that bird's eye perspective of what is actually going on in the world in terms of mental health right so the numbers are quite staggering and this is from the WHO website this one so 280 million people do tend to you know find depression a challenge in their lives 284 million people have anxiety and it's about 700 000 people each year decide to end their lives and what I thought was quite staggering about that particular number was that people from the age of 15 to 24 suicide is the the fourth leading cause of death for those people in that age group and you know that kind of gives us a little bit of a wake up call because we're all educators doesn't matter whether they're the admin or developing or student facing or customer service we work in the education institution building these beautiful education machines and if this is what the younger generation which are the ones that we are also nurturing are feeling that this is the that there is no hope in living or whatever then perhaps could be in little ways begin to change that and how can we affect that and perhaps mindfulness could be a great tool that we can somehow slowly involve in and include into the education system in some way could that be something that we're thinking about and of course in terms of mental health challenges we know that with mental health challenges also comes the the risk of unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol use disorder and drug use disorder so these are just some you know having that nice global perspective and then let's look at us now individually how can we benefit from mindfulness right so we know it can reduce stress and what I'm going to share with you was is from some of the top 10 researchers that you'll find and Anna has very helpfully compiled a lot of research which you can find in the bibliography in the Moodle course later on so these are just some that I will go through reducing stress enhancing well-being protect attention and working memory you know this is such a big part of mindfulness and you'll see a star there for a couple of reasons first because it is very you know important because we have so much distractions going on in our days I remember the times when you know I could sit down for hours and just read a book or see other students read for sit down and just read a book for hours and I'm seeing that less and less and less where you see a teenager just reading a book for hours so it is because of all these attentional distractions that can come away right so the second reason why the star is there is because throughout my presentation I've put little stars around and every time you see the star ask yourself it has my mind wandered off and that's that stars a little check in to take a deep breath and come back to now okay so just this a little check in there we know that can improve empathy physiological markers of health like improving sleep and lowering blood pressure and it's now even used in terms of therapy for relapse of depression slow down aging that's I mean I don't know about you but I'm up for that one so in terms of slowing down brain atrophy that's a great tool as well and it's also used for therapies for quitting smoking and handling food cravings with mindful eating right and in terms of student well-being we've got things like readiness to learn helping them with the academic performance and again attention and concentration is such a big piece and it's so nice to know an analyst on who shared this with me about how a couple of her colleagues are even realizing that you know and have written a paper now that is on the way to being published about attentional literacy and how that is something that we can actually teach because it is true mindfulness is a learned skill and that can how that can help with digital disarray so that's I'm really looking forward to having that as my weekend reading actually yeah we're a little bit and I'm going to keep reading that and there's so many other other things as well I won't go through all of them because you know there is a lot but some things to note will be things like impulse control also very much you know something that as adults I think we can all also relate to and use right and there was another study with developers and how at the end of their their session their mindfulness training there were there was increased feelings of well-being and even an increase in self-perception so it's almost like there was a bit of confidence that came back for them so really it's a very powerful tool so this is my little hypothesis um and it's that when we are building mindful educators and all of us start becoming more and more mindful and including that into our daily lives what happens is we create this so much more headspace and there's so much more that we can now take in where before we may have felt stressed or trying to cope now we're free in our headspace and that's how we build mindful institutions which then build and read those mindful learners who are the ones who are going out into the society and because they are mindful their head is clear they can think very much clearly on what is needed for the planet and building those sustainable solutions for the planet and you'll hear I guess with uh in all of Martin's keynotes he's always talking about these sustainable solutions and it all starts from individuals who are caring about the planet and it's not easy to care about the planet then sometimes there's so many things happening in our own lives that we're trying to manage but when we get more mindful then we have that headspace to create these things yeah so it's my little hypothesis if you will so we looked at the globe we looked at individuals and then we went back up again so let's come back to us again and ask yourself why am I here why do I reckon mindfulness could be something that I could benefit from in my life and I'd love to hear from your from you so please put that in the chat and if it's if it's comfortable to share if it's something that you can share thanks I just read oh wow so in Scotland apparently suicide is actually one of the the number one cause of death for men under 45 I just learned that thank you for sharing that so yeah there are obviously as a blow lots of things that we can do to improve individual mental health yeah while we are waiting for your inputs in the chat please I would like to share my experience and why here um I had the pleasure to get introduced into mindfulness in a very difficult period of my life and a very stressful period of my life and it worked I mean it was like a miracle to me uh blessed to the professor that did that effort the dr aga and helped us so much to not just complete our studies but live our lives better so it's an ongoing process that's why I'm here and that's why I'll be here the next time you'll give a session and I will keep trying to push and stay in touch with this idea and we have the inputs from Mary as well she said that I like the idea of delaying aging and brain atrophy this is really cool and after yourselves calm mind less stress and of course she's agrees with Mary I think we all do these are really big bonus yeah yeah to have the mind still active when we are older I mean that's wow love that right and I actually like the idea of growing older because then I'm learning more and more and more it means my brain is developing and you know if we look back 10 years ago how different I am now and I can't wait oh I'm looking forward rather I should say of reaching 10 years later 10 years later I just want the brain to be healthy while we're there excellent thank you so let's do a quick little poll and I'm going to ask for you to guess how many percent of the time do you think your mind wonders I've launched the poll there I hope you can see that yes we can see it great while you give the answer I'll read Denise input in the chat she says that I'm a yoga teacher and practice meditation every day at home and in my classes I found people particularly since lockdown are losing focus on how to live peacefully how important it seems no amount of guidance keeps them on track in my experience this is particularly prevalent among women age 35 to 55 they had under the covers with their force and get deeper and deeper into a stage of unhappiness I want to learn more about how to help these all people to find that inner feeling of loss oh this is so yeah so big you really speak to my hardiness yeah that's a such a good question and you're right this is such a trying time and I'll digress a little bit here to talk about what's happening now since it's come up and you know COVID has been one of the most I guess well it's been the toughest times for so many of us right and when we really think into the human psyche and how we work we're all wired for survival and COVID hit everybody's sense of survival all at the same time and how if we with mindfulness we're often sort of thinking oh I'm present I'm in this moment we know that the moment that that life is finite but it's not something that we're always consciously aware of but suddenly COVID put our mortality in front of our faces all the time and it was a threat to our survival and then everyone else even the people that we love dearly became a threat to our own survival so if we look at that in that fundamental granular sense of what has happened to the human psyche we'll realize that no wonder people are reacting the way they're reacting and and they're going inwards or they're going into fail mode or whatever it may be and it's so hard for a lot of people to cope so those of us who have the have had the opportunity of practicing things like mindfulness or meditation or healthy coping mechanisms we really should count ourselves very very very lucky and and yes you're right this is also a time to sort of share certain things that we know but without discrediting their journey because what they've gone through on that psychic level or that it's it's not even conscious right it's so unconscious what they're going through and to even express that is so hard when we think about it right so compassion is the key to just keep believing in them trusting in them showing them and sharing them with the compassion and just believing that that's that's believing in them you know so thank you for that great question Denise I know I digress quite a bit there but it's it's something I am passionate about letting people understand what is the the gravity of the situation that the human race is going through at the moment yeah so I'll end the poll here and I think you'll be able to see the results so we have most people guessed 67 percent that's 50 percent who guessed 67 percent nobody guessed 47 some guessed 87 and 97 so the good news is oh I'll share the results I think we can see the results now yeah so the good news is it's not as bad as we think it's not it's not 87 percent or 97 percent it's actually 47 percent and yeah yeah there were two Harvard psychologists that actually did that and they they tracked people using the iPhone app and they found an app that they made and they found that our mind wand is about 47 percent of the time so it's not all bad news however it's good to realize that 47 percent is still about half our lives where we're not really where we are right so it's just something to be aware of but what I thought was really really interesting from their study is that they found mind wandering is directly correlated to unhappiness so imagine you're in a neutral mood or even in a happy mood and things you're happy the blah and then suddenly your mind wanders and that mind wandering is what is causing this unhappiness so that was really quite interesting so the more present we are the less unhappy we're going to be and that's what you know mindfulness has been trying to say for a long time so this was a great study that did that another quick little poll guess how many percent so we have about there's been a lot of literature around how many thoughts we have per day because there's been a lot of I guess debate around what is a thought when when does the thought end when does the thought begin and the most recent one was something from last year where the scientist found that he could track a thought worm as he calls it and it's about just over 6000 thoughts that we have per day at one point people thought it was 60,000 or 80,000 because they said oh we have to include dreams as well because we're thinking it's around you know 6000 the latest one and guess how many percent of that is negative and how many percent of that is repetitive so I'm going to put that onto the poll and I'm going to launch that and let's see what you can guess lovely all right everyone's answered yeah oh no not yet fantastic all right so end the poll everyone's answered now and share the results okay most people thought it was 30 some people said 50 some people said 60 no one guessed 80 let's see and you thought 56 percent of our thoughts are repetitive the most people thought 56 percent of our thoughts are repetitive right so let's stop sharing then I'll share the answer it's 80 percent our brains for some reason and this is called negativity bias or negativity dominance and it's something that's been talked about quite a lot and even a lot of people who do think that I am positive they are positive but some a lot of times the negativity comes in first they're just able to flip and reframe a lot quicker instead of getting lost in that bubble of negativity so about 80 percent of our thoughts tend to be negative and about 95 percent of those tend to be repetitive so we sing the same songs over and over and over and over and when we think about what we worry about a lot of times it's the same things if you think about oh what am I going to cook what am I going to eat how am I going to finish this work can I finish everything in time if we have kids are the kids going to be okay all this sort of stuff that's the same thoughts over and over and over okay so it's it's good to understand what could be the thoughts that I'm constantly thinking about and just get mindful of that and realize oh I actually don't have to hang on to that that's something I've really thought about today okay so let's continue there was another researcher and he found that 85 percent of our worries actually never happened and out of that 15 that did happen about 79 percent of people said that you know what it's not as bad as I thought has anybody had that experience before yeah I think we can all relate to that one right and and out of the the rest that said oh it was as bad as I thought they they also agreed that actually we out of that 79 percent they said it was not as bad as they thought and also they said it's actually a lesson that I really needed to learn which found which meant that 97 percent of our worries are based on this pessimism that's that's got no basting with that's actually unfounded and that's you know so the next time you're worrying ask yourself is this is this really is this really true maybe it's not you know it could this fall under that 97 probably yes and I love this quote from a lovely author we suffer more from the thoughts about our event than the events themselves how true is that we build ourselves up build ourselves up something happens and you know so the suffering is always from the thoughts about the event rather than the actual event yeah so that's about time and that's why mindfulness and we've finished that part of why mindfulness is there any questions or comments um well we do have a comment from Mary famous McBain she says quote I have suffered many strategies in my life a couple which actually happened I love many tragedies in life and only a few of them yeah a couple of them just a couple of them nice one thanks for sharing that very good now let's go to what is mindfulness noticing that there is a star there so feel free to check in anytime we see that star so this is probably one the most famous definitions of mindfulness from John Kabat-Zin who is the creator of MBSR mindfulness based stress reduction and you'll see this probably if you google this is the the definition that comes up the most so he defines mindfulness as means it means paying attention in a very particular way on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmental right so he tells us what not to do which is not to judge because that's what we're doing like good bad right wrong black white you know and there's always these things that well and that's fine that's what our mind is made to do we were built to have an analytical mind and that's okay but we can actually take that step back and realize we don't always have to judge so I particularly like this this definition which is from Dinah Winston from UCLA I'm really sorry about the noise I'm not sure why that's happening I hope that helped a little bit so this is from Dinah Winston from UCLA and she says paying attention to present moment experience with open curiosity and a willingness to be with what is so we're not judging instead we're curious and willingness is the sense of acceptance to be with whatever's presenting itself right so the word mindfulness also comes from an ancient Pali language that was spoken in Sri Lanka a long time ago and that word is sati and this word sati you know when you kind of translate it it's actually remembering to pay attention remembering to come back to your your current experience remembering and maintaining this awareness of reality so if I were to ask you now what do you maintain what would you answer in life normally what is it that you maintain in life put it onto the chat what are some of the things that you maintain if I may ask that question or anyone would like to answer that out loud I think mostly maintain negative thoughts would say the opposite thing a lot of times the things that we maintain in our life if you think about it we maintain our car yeah always focusing on the future yeah we're planning that's true but in life when we talk about maintenance the word maintenance what does maintenance usually mean maintain things like our car anything else house daily things that we do again and again and again mostly yeah a routine or something that's right we have to maintain our house if I have a car a car our our body we have to maintain you know we have to eat we have to drink water we have to maintain all these things so when we look at the word maintaining or maintenance there is that sense of effort that is required yeah and this is a very important piece in mindfulness because a lot of times we hear the word just be just be just let go just be and as much as that is a crucial part of it it is very much also a cognitive function it is very much a doing word because every time the mind wonders even now while I've been talking your mind has wondered you bring it back you notice everything around you can you notice the colors a little bit more can you notice the sounds a little bit more can you notice how you're feeling a little bit more and there is so much doing but we tend to forget that there is doing involved at the being okay so so although it is a state of being it's not just a state of being the being requires some doing and I always say all the workshops if you don't take anything else away if you take this part of the puzzle back we're already winning with mindfulness knowing that it is a verb so to speak yeah great and another word that we like to use a lot in mindfulness is the word cultivate and let me know in the chat when do we tend to use this word cultivate the most when do we like to use the word cultivate planting perhaps yes thank you Farhan I just realized you've joined us welcome yes absolutely nice one it is very much about planting crops and cultivating the seedling and when we think about planting and cultivating crops what do we need we need lots of attention to it we need lots of nurture and there's food there's there is the right soil there is there is sunlight there's so many little little factors that needs to be just right so we're really nurturing and cultivating something to grow and if we think of our mind and mindfulness as this beautiful piece of plant or little seed that we are watering each and every day with mindfulness that's how we cultivate mindfulness so it's very much a process that we have to maintain keep going and cultivate with with that sense of I'm not going to trample on this garden I'm going to walk tread lightly and and and and nurture it the way it needs to be nurtured yeah and we look at how to do that in a little while so although mindfulness uh does look like this you know uh and a lot of times people tell me oh but Ushah but you know I don't want to be one of those people that after practicing so much mindfulness will I be boring and I'll just talk in this monotone and this is how I'll always speak and it will be so lovely how I feel but I will put everybody else to sleep you know and it doesn't it's it's not necessarily the case at all in fact I think the more and more we do practice mindfulness we are so aware of what we're feeling and thinking that we can really step into our own and and have a personality that is truly me you know and truly more authentic in that way because you're not clouded by the worries or the stress right so although this is what we tend to see when we're practicing mindfulness it really is this it's mental gym it's not has uh I guess it's not a sexy to market that that supposed to this so we don't really see that but it is in fact mental gym yeah great so I always recommend writing your own working definition of mindfulness and I'll just share with you mine and being an educator I suppose I like to know the why what how when you know those questions so this is my working of that uh my definition of mindfulness that I'll share with you I look at it as a lifelong practice because practice means it's you know something that you keep doing each and every day lifelong practice of sustaining present moment awareness to embody at any time so what is it practice of sustaining present moment awareness when do I do that it's something that I can embody at any time right and how do I do it with intention and compassion and we'll look at compassion a little bit more but intention is pretty much going you know what today I'm going to be mindful oh yeah my mind wanted I'm going to be mindful for the next one minute you know or whatever it is but always having that little pieces of intention and why for my own inner peace that's why I'm doing it yeah so in the in the in the course in your webinar in your course there's actually a place where you can you can share your own working definition of mindfulness is there anyone who would like to share something that's popping up in the head now I don't see something in the chart okay I was kind of buying time because I really needed a drink for some reason there was a tickle in my throat okay I'll just jump in to say that in course activities inside the course you will find several activities and I will explain as we go we hope that you will go through them after the session all the activities will be released so you may move on thank you Anna and that's how you go any questions about what what is mindfulness that's sort of one of the easiest ways that I could explain it and it is a very experiential thing so the more you experience it that's when you understand it more and more I suppose yeah anything from the chat no everything is clear here don't see anything in the chat you can move on thank you so the next one what am I practicing so there is another video I've got on the modal course by Shauna Shapiro also a researcher in mindfulness and she tells the story of how she got into it and how a monk told her what we practice grows stronger and it's such an important thing to remember because a lot of times we're practicing things unconsciously you know these little habits that we have we redo them because that's what we've always done and there are some that we are conscious are not best for our for our health or our mental health but some could be that we don't normally have time to take stock of for example things like judgment things like impatience things like self-doubt or worries or stress or anxiety maybe even withdrawal right frustration and and and I hear this so much in just the language of people that there was a coaching client of mine who said you know he just dropped his keys and he was so upset with himself for dropping his keys and he's like ah and then he's bending because his keys and all he did was drop his keys why are we operating on this constant undertone of frustration or the undertone of I have to do everything right there's this sense of stress that we put on ourselves that we might not actually even realize so it's a good time while we're all here together to go oh is this something changing habit is the most difficult things absolutely Nicole so so right there's a great book by James clear called atomic habits actually which is a it's a good one to eat for changing habits yeah you know that book yeah a great book and so it's a good time to sort of ask while we're all here reflecting is there something here that I could potentially be practicing you know and maybe instead of practicing some of these things we could be practicing these things instead the ones in the in the yellow text and if we look that the thing with mindfulness is we're never labeling things as bad or good right and we're just taking things as they are and and giving them the attention that they deserve so if we give judgment the attention that we just that it deserves then we can look at it as oh that's judgment presenting itself ah and that's the the the thing that's reminding me to be open ah impatience is presenting itself and that's exactly the emotion I need to remind me to be patient and if we look at all of that just like remind us on our phone or remind us on our to-do list then none of those emotions need to be good or bad and this this is constant resistance that we sometimes feel when we get stressed and we're resisting with our body we're resisting anxiety with our body we're resisting all of that and that resistance is creating more and more of the thing because that's what we're practicing you know so if we just treat them as not good not bad is they're just there for a reason and understand the reason behind them then we're able to flip and flip and flip more and more easily yeah so what we practice grows stronger and is that something from that list that you think you can practice more feel free to put in the chat oops patience thank you mary yes me too a lot of times patience to to finish the work sometimes I want to see results really quickly and then I go oh you know actually I'm I'm holding on too strongly I need to be patient I can let go thanks mary anyone else I was about thinking about anxious and yeah and yeah just mental yeah then he says all of them I think we have a lot of work to do with ourselves oh every all of us it's a constant journey isn't it yeah everyone yeah for for me every day and and and and anxiety if we think about anxiety and we think we ask where does anxiety live anxiety lives in the future if we we think about something that's already passed and we know that that's gone chances are we don't feel anxious about it we can feel surprised that that happened or disgusted that it happened or horrified that it happened but we don't feel that same level of oh no the uncertainty that's gone because we really know what's going to happen right so anxiety is pretty much an emotion that lives in the future so anxiety is just a reminder to come back to now yeah so it's a beautiful emotion to have to come back to now yeah so it's a good one that I'm also always practicing so so uh first um so I just saw Nicole yes all of them absolutely that that's why I put all of them there because that's probably the most general one accepting the unknown future makes us anxious absolutely Mary um and and it's something that I talk about a lot uh uncertainty in some of the workshops that I run and there's so many techniques actually out there in dealing with uncertainty maybe we could do that another time so moving on to the first principle and understanding of mindfulness right so understanding one is your mind wonders did anybody's mind not wonder this whole 40 minutes that we've been together nobody right did anybody's mind did wonder the whole 40 minutes that we've been together yeah absolutely absolutely so our mind wonders so the the very first principle of mindfulness is that we accept your mind we accept that the nature of our mind is to wonder it's this beautiful free child that's out and wanting to explore the world and if we look at our our mind that way it just becomes so much more easier to accept that the nature of our mind is to wonder just like the nature of a rabbit is to hop the nature of of um you know a flower is to bloom it's just nature we can accept all those other things a nature of a dog is to bark we can accept that but we tend to not accept that our mind is also something that likes to wonder so accept your mind yeah and just because we accept our mind does not mean that we identify with our mind so what do I mean by this we accept that the nature of the mind is to wonder okay so we wonder we have a sad thought it wonders it has another sad thought wonders it has another sad thought but that does not mean my identity is that I'm a sad person okay might have an angry thought angry thought angry thought and we thought a few times a day does not mean that my identity is an angry person but a lot of times we we mix the two and we go oh I'm having all these sad thoughts I must be a sad person I'm having all these bad thoughts I must be a bad person you know and we fix this this this thoughts with identity together and we don't know how to to break free from that right and it's really about letting go and understanding that a thought is just a thought so even sometimes like the other day I was driving and I saw these kids playing on the road and my first thing was like oh no I hope no one runs across the road they were fine playing in the garden but that was my first negativity bias that went straight there that's right and I thought oh why did I have that thought that's weird and then I said hang on that's not weird it's just a thought I don't have to explain myself or try and form an identity of why did I have that thought what does that mean for me who am I and we go into this overthinking and overwhelming without realizing that and and Eckhart Tolle says this so beautifully the author of The Power of None because we are not our thoughts nor are we the sum of all our thoughts yeah so we are way way more than this one transitory behavior one transitory thought and it's just so important to remember that people are not their behaviors we are not our behaviors we're just a product of what sort of happened from that moment but at each moment if we allow and accept we can form new identities we don't have to be fixated to an identity and you hear this this phases of identity all the time oh but I'm not that kind of a person or I'm this type of person so be really really careful and mindful if you do hear yourself saying those words and ask yourself ah have I fixated on an identity here you know and is there something that I can be more open to if I was not so fixated on that identity that could perhaps serve my life a little bit more okay so every time the thought comes we can just go it's just a thought it's just thought yeah great so how do we accept your mind that's and the the piece to that is having compassion to ourselves and in the bibliography you'll find a researcher custom neff who's done a lot of studies on compassion so feel free to explore all those links there in your leisure and how do we explore this compassion to ourselves is very simply speaking to our mind like we would to a five-year-old being a loving adult to a five-year-old you know how would it a loving aunt or a loving parent or just you know somebody who cares about a young child how would you speak to that young child okay because it's wandering off they're wandering off in the playground and go darling come back darling come back so these are the three words I always like to say darling come back every time the mind wonders we go oh darling come back darling come back and and the the the the most important part of those three words is the word darling because that's the compassion that we're showing ourselves okay so darling come back so practice it for the next few times your mind wonders while we're here together and I see Denise has got a comment is that is that though we are not our thoughts concept yes absolutely Denise yeah we are not our thoughts we're way way more than our thoughts we we are you know we've got some we've got hopes but dreams we are we've got you know experiences we've got so much within us that is is and a thought cannot encapsulate that right so we are not our thoughts absolutely not we're way way more in that so there are there are nine attitudes of mindfulness that John Fabbaz and does cover and the two the first two is non-judging and there's also curiosity is one of them so we looked at non-judging not judging things as black and white or right or wrong and understanding that we can operate from this sense of willingness and openness and curiosity and that always remembering to be the child in that playground you know and these these two are actually written in there there is some reading that you can do about that in the in the course as well so I'll leave you to read that in your own time and there's an in-course activity my favorite one is to put a picture if you can of your five-year-old self in the forum and you know I've already put a picture of myself and my twin sister there from when we were around that age and it's just to share with each other this sense of yes I can be compassionate with myself now I am going to talk to myself like I would a loving adult would to a five-year-old right and if you if you can't find a picture of a five-year-old self or if you're not comfortable sharing that's completely fine find a picture that makes you feel like a five-year-old again and and share that picture there okay great so now let's just take a little bit of time Mary was saying I was looking for a photo this morning fantastic so um examine your language even right now can you think of potentially three unhelpful phrases that we may be saying to ourselves especially those phrases that are masked as um they're okay like dropping our keys and going ah all that all the same things oh that was silly of me oh why did I do that that was stupid of me and we hear these phrases all the time but these are non-compassionate language sometimes we use even more uncompassionate language like oh that was I can't believe I did that why did I do that there's so so um you know horrible of me to do that all you know so so it doesn't matter what degree it is and if it's comfortable enough I suggest be brave put it out there um put it in the chat because I know I do that too right um fantastic thank you Mary I'm often thinking what kind of mother am I it's yeah oh no my coat is full of bags from Farhan and Nicole says others are always better than me this is a really cool I can say that yeah yeah and and and and this the comparisons um in mindfulness we talk about comparisons quite a bit and comparisons we call that um that's when the ego mind is talking actually it's not the authentic self and this ego mind always wants to compare myself with others myself with my future plans of who I should be or where I was before now I'm not doing as good as before and all that sort of comparisons and these are really good awareness that we all have so thank you so much for for sharing Denise and Jessica are agreeing about them I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry it's like that I have a helpful phrase and yeah Mary it's about I'm never going to manage this I'm wiped out yeah it's also true and these are um are unhelpful phrases so if we can flip them around and go oh it's just a thought um and that's it we leave it at that you know and and we can then pick what else I'm gonna say next you know so if I think oh I'm never gonna manage this and I felt that way this week I'll be very very honest there was so much to do and and this week at one point I was like oh gosh this is a lot and I think the last couple of days I slept for like six hours and I went oh wow I'm really tired and then I went ah don't know if I can do all this and then I went hang on I'm gonna that's a very good um that's just a thought and that's a good reminder to come back to trust I'm gonna trust that my best is good enough because that's how I can do them just gonna do my best and leave the rest right so yeah I just it's lovely that we can't have these thoughts because then we go oh it's just a thought and what what am I gonna think now that I've got this moment this new moment that's presented itself with a new thought that I can have right and we're more intentional about those things yeah so thank you all for sharing that I love your your joke there Farhan it's a good one clap time any any questions now about the the first principle of mindfulness which is to accept that your nature of the mind is to wonder oh good go ahead I don't see something there Chuck great great so we're running just perfect in terms of time I think so great we're looking at mindful practices we'll just look at a couple so this one is called using semantics to go into observer mode and I do talk about observer mode a lot more in some of my other courses but just a quick thing is that you are looking at yourself having the experience so to speak so we can use language to help us with that so even now think of some upsetting thought that you normally have maybe on a scale of 0 to 10 it's a 6 we won't start with the highest one just something that's a 6 or 7 maybe I am bad at my job or I am you know whatever it may be you know something that's an upsetting thought to you I am impatient perhaps okay and now completely believe it for 10 seconds just feel into that and go oh I am impatient I am impatient I am impatient just 10 seconds believe whatever it is that you're believing and feel that in your body and now say the words oh I'm having the thought that I am whatever it is I'm having the thought that I am impatient I'm having the thought that I am whatever it may be okay and just notice in your body what that feels like and then now say to yourself I notice that I am having the thought that I am I notice that I am having the thought that I am whatever I notice that I am having the thought that I am and notice what happens again okay did anybody feel a difference in how their body felt when we were using language to distance yourself anyone you felt a bit of a feel the distance yeah yeah so language is so interesting and important part of our lives yeah light it felt like a nice thanks Jessica thanks Esther yeah yeah more light so we can actually use semantics to help us create the sense of I'm going into observer mode I'm just going to observe that thought oh okay and then we notice it fantastic yeah then you say that that heavy feeling I get in my pelvis when stretching lifts wow nice thank you yeah it's it's it's like suddenly the weight is a little bit less yeah and we especially we're sitting down all that weight is in our hips and we're like ah yeah yeah and suddenly we can feel lighter great so the next one is a very simple breathing technique it's called the labeling technique and we use three words here rising falling and drifting so every time you breathe in you fill your belly fill your lungs and you allow your belly to expand and in your mind you see the word rising and as you allow your belly to contract expel the air you say falling and then if the mind wanders in between we go drifting drifting and then come back to rising and falling and what this does it stops us from say oh my mind went off again right so it's we the way we say uh drifting is very important we don't go drifting oh drifting drifting we don't do that we go drifting drifting come back to rising falling rising falling okay so let's just i'm going to play a little bit of music let's just do that for a couple of minutes so we got a feel for it and i hope you can um how is that music for everyone can you hear the music okay and my voice over the music is that all right and that's good yeah thank you so just closing down your eyes just for a couple of minutes and just allow your whole body to relax this is your time and your space to just be and just acknowledge this beautiful breath of life that is life creating life sustaining and life giving and with every deep breath that you inhale just repeat the word rising every deep breath in filling the lungs rising and every time you exhale just repeat the word falling and just keep this going as you just breathe deep belly breaths and just allowing your whole body to relax even more knowing that if the mind wonders that's okay we just go drifting drifting and coming back to rising and falling coming back to rising and falling and if we need to we go into drifting drifting coming back to your breath let's see relax your head your eyes your jaw your throat relaxing your shoulders your fingertips all the way down your body filling all your organs just rising and falling all the way down your legs to all 10 toes rising and falling rising and falling and as you begin to relax even more know that whenever you need some time to just feel some peace all you have to do is come back to your breath and it can guide you to your peace and your calm taking three rounds of deep breath now three deep breaths the deepest breath you've taken all day long whenever you are ready just gently opening your eyes thank you so that was just a simple one and i've got a recording of it um well we've got a link to it of a breathing that's about six minutes breathing it doesn't say the words rising falling but now that you know these three words while you're listening to that breathing practice you can go rising falling rising falling drifting drifting rising falling and that's all in the course and we do require you to put in some bits of reflections and there are three three reflections to log for both the semantics practice as well as the breathing practice and every time you log one in the next the next log opens up yeah so do that and you know you can get the mindfulness badge so instead of me summarizing everything um i'd love to hear what your top three takeaways maybe from a couple of people um would anybody like to share what their top three takeaways were you can put it in the chat or you can share actually maybe everyone can unmute themselves even and just share well 12 people is writing you can start i think that the the last activity is um i've been quite stressed late late week and i was trying to remember those guided mindfulness meditations and yes i think this uh rising fall breathing it's the best idea quick and very effective to get you organized that's one though and uh nicole says accepting and breathing and darling come back yes i get that too yeah darling come back i that's something that's that i always have to remind myself it's so it's easy to forget but that's running these sessions because then i get to remember all those techniques as well yeah i learned about i learned about mindfulness delaying aging i didn't know what was one of its benefits i also like the darling come back idea and i study assess understanding the importance of staying mindful accepting the mind practicing makes stronger absolutely yeah so what are we practicing so let's practice mindfulness together all of us thank you so i already spoke about some of the post-webinar activities go through them um and yeah there is a few more i think in there and if you have any questions or anything like that i'm always available and i really want to give a special shout out to ana and jessica here because they've been so amazing to work with so easy to work with and i really really appreciate all that you guys do especially for the model community as well um yeah and i think um we've got a few things to say ana and i do have a little bit of um announcements later at the end but i do want to say that if anyone is interested in things like group coaching or corporate training for your for your team or a monthly newsletter that i sent out with latest articles and things like that um feel free to email me um and we can always this chat offline um ana you've got i'll show this again later but i think ana you've got some things to say well yes first of all thank you so much for having you here today it was brilliant session to start the weekend it's saturday morning in greece it was a gift to be here and before you all go i would like to tell you a few tips how to get involved in a moodle academy because you can help us grow and contribute to its development as usa did today you can suggest topics or contribute to webinars uh come here you will find in a site the suggests ideas and you can also tell us how you can contribute to those courses please do serve your expertise and uh yeah why not get contributing get a badge about that and uh in the next last slide from me uh i would like to invite you to spread the word about the moodle academy tell your friends they're your colleagues um join moodle academy create an account take the open courses so we offer the course that we shall prepare and as well as the session are will be always open and available to you under open licenses so you can use them and you can uh uh run them in your own context so you there are a lot of things to gain here you can serve and spread the word literally and invite more people in the academy and if you are an educator and you have experience in teaching with moodle come on and take the um are you ready for the mec quiz and check if you are ready for the moodle educator certificate an international certificate from moodle hq and i'm going to stop the recording now thank you all for being here thank you