 Hello and welcome to day 19 of the 14 day challenge. I don't know, I think do we change the name of the title? Do we just say the mindfulness challenge day 19? I think I might have a look at that. Just thought about it then when we were talking to be honest. So day 19, how are you all? I hope you're all okay and hope this constant reminder and cultivation and practice of mindfulness is paying some form of dividends for you. I'd like you to know right, we're 90 day 19. Put some comments in, tell me how you're going on, tell me how you're feeling and subscribe to the channel. That'd be lovely and if you also hit the bell button it'll tell you when I launch these videos and I'm going to keep going for the moment. I get lots of emails and lots of nice comments about how much is helping. So if it's helping, I'm prepared to help. So there we are. So today in my household, day number 19, it's more than that for us. I still feel groggy, I still feel here. It just won't go. I'm trying vitamins, I'm trying lots of things to shift it but it's a bugger and we'll see how it goes. But I'm okay, I'm fighting for it. I put something out today as well about board. I'm coming across not so much people in this environment because we're a little bit more aware. But people saying they're bored, I've had enough. Well thank you Lucky Stones, you're bored. If you're bored, you're winning. If you're bored, you're doing the right thing. I watched and I put it out on a video. This lady said, if this passes when you think that was a bit of an overreaction, then we've won. That's as easy as it gets. We've won. So I hope you're bored. Or I hope you're not bored but you're using this time to learn to grow and to transform. Today what we're going to talk about is freedom through confinement. Freedom through confinement. So can we set ourselves free during a time of isolation? Now please stay at home, stay safe, stay everything. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about personal mind, body and soul becoming free. And as I said earlier, I did a post on boredom. It was a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I'm sort of hearing people say they're bored and like with everything I do, I try and get myself to think of other things from a different perspective. Boredom is generally a bit of ego coming out and what it's saying is I can't really be bothered learning, I can't really be bothered growing, I can't really be bothered transforming and I certainly can't be bothered being. What's this being like? I can tell you now that if you're bored you're winning. As I said earlier, there's millions of people around the world today who would love the opportunity of being bored. So I want us to think of isolation and confinement as an opportunity to actually be free. Let's think about it differently. Our freedom has been in many ways eroded over the years by just conditioning and being part of this big plan, the big world, being part of everyone was years ago saying the big this, big that, big this, big that. And we've all been conditioned and as a species we've had to think and move in a world that hasn't been moment to moment. In fact, it's just been aspirational, it's been abundance aspirations. And now we know with everything that's happened in these changes and these uncertain times where there's, you know, we're all under stress, you know, and let's not beat around the bush. There's a lot of people out there that feel stress, who feel fear, who feel, you know, not in control. And that's why we try and change the relationship with ourselves and try and change our relationship with the emotions that's going on. There are so many different challenges at the moment. But if you're watching this, there's a good chance that you have watched previous ones and there's a good chance that you might even classify yourself even on a scale of one to 10, a meditator. And I think the opportunity of social distance and isolation is for us like going on a mindfulness retreat. OK. We can use this time wisely. We can use it as a retreat. We can cultivate and move our spiritual and mindfulness practice forward. So, you know, I want us to think about this in a radical way. I want us to think of it in a different way. And I want us to think about it, you know, of how we can grow sanity, how we can grow love and how we can practice and cultivate compassion and empathy and all those things. We're all sort of suspending our social relationships and not connecting with others, you know, mentally and physically in the Zoom and these sort of things are really helping. But what we are here to do is connect with ourselves and to help others to connect with themselves, but then to connect in a togetherness to help us to alleviate the spread of this virus being told to stay inside. So, through isolation, we can have freedom, though. You know, the real meditation is in a Buddhist centre. It is, but it's not. It's the planet. It's where we are. It's the challenge what we face right here now, right every day. And it's our relationship with that challenge and how we can change that thought process and that relationship within it. We could all be doing, you know, very different things at the moment, but we've decided to drop into this video and drop into this challenge in particular is because of the intention and the collectiveness for yourself and others. And it's driving and cultivating that family of intentionality and the family of deep consciousness and collectiveness. We can drop into this internal moment, amazing, powerful, eternal moment, any moment. You know, we can establish a moment at minus, no matter where we are, what day it is. You know, that's what it's all about. The best you can drop into ourselves, you know, and just be with us. So what I'd like to do now is I'm going to do quite a long guided meditation for mindfulness. And there's going to be quite a lot of talking in it. But all the time I want you to be using the anchors and the triggers that you have and listening to what I'm saying to help you to understand further mindfulness, but to grow that level of and cultivate that beautiful awareness and awakening. And we spoke yesterday about the ability of a real true spiritual awakening of being able to decipher, split out the difference between your situation and the mental chatter. So I'm going to be the mental chatter now and I'm going to talk to you through this meditation. There's no music today, it's going to be quite quiet. But I will put a picture up because then you can focus on that. So what I'd like you to do now is just get comfortable whether that's sitting, laying or standing. So we can drop in with ourselves. We need to close your eyes and just drop in and feel your body and feel the relationships with the parts of your body have either laying down on the bed or sitting in a chair. Where do you feel those contact points? Just check in with yourself and you just start to become aware of your breath. You're here in my voice but let's put the breath at the centre of our attention. Focus on where you feel your breath coming in and coming out. Our thoughts, anxieties and emotions and situations will still be here when we've finished. But what we can do is transform our relationship to the situation, our thoughts and everything that is unfolding. What we like, what we don't like, what we can control, what we can't control. Just let simply allow and invite ourselves to be at home in our body with the breath moving in and moving out. Moment to moment and breath by breath. As we sit here all together breathing, together joining our energy together, even in isolation we are together. Just breathing in and breathing out moment by moment, breath by breath. Moment by moment and just breath by breath. Those of you who are watching this video for the first time or if you're new to this practice. Or if you've been following from day one and you know mindfulness inside out. It may help to keep in mind this isn't a doing thing. It's something we're not looking to get good at. There is nothing to do. There is no place to get to. There is no place to get better. What you are feeling at the moment is through being in the moment. You might be sensing, smelling, feeling, hearing things. The invitation at the moment is to rest and be exactly where you are. An anchor in this place through our breath and the sensations of breathing. As I said you may be feeling your breath in your belly, in your chest. You may be feeling your breath through your nostrils. Wherever it is, that's your anchor. That's where you check in. That's your invitation to anchor with inside your body. If you like we're surfing and riding the waves of the breath. Moment by moment in full awareness and full attention. We are alone at this moment but we're also together with people around the world breathing. People around the world together being in this very moment. Together resting in the awareness. Dropping in to ourselves and just being together. Back to your anchor and riding the waves of this beautiful breath moment by moment. What we are cultivating and what we're doing is difficult. It's not something we've had to get better at. What you're feeling at this moment is special. As we know trying to string together two moments of togetherness. Two moment by moment isn't easy. So I want you to be kind to yourself. If you drift or if you hijacked by your thoughts. Or if you have a rise in anxiety or a thought about your past or future. If you're angry that's okay. It's all part of the practice. You're not doing anything wrong. Let it all rise. Let it be centre stage of your awareness. Be aware of it. And when you notice that you're back in awareness. When you notice the thoughts, the anxiety, the worrying about the past or concerned about the future. Bring that into your awareness and separate the thoughts from the reality. But when you are being aware then you are back in awareness. And just let it all slip away and come back to your breath. Just drop back deep down into your breath. This capacity for embodied awakeness and awareness is so powerful. And it's so beautiful. Just drop back into your breath. Moment by moment breath by breath. If your mind wanders, if your mind moves, if your mind thinks a thousand times. Bring it back a thousand times. Notice your mind is going or moving. Then come back to your breath. Notice what the feeling or emotion is that you're being made aware of. Maybe anxiety, fear, thoughts. And all I want you to do when this happens, when we're sat moment to moment, is put out the welcome mat. Welcome it with open arms and loving kindness. The emotion, the fear, whatever it is. Turn to face it. Separate through awareness the difference between your mind's chatter and the situation. Put out that welcome mat and put on all your problems, your issues, your emotions and the situation and watch it dissolve like everything in your mind does. All your thoughts are temporary and then re-establish yourself with your body and your breath. Being the present moment resting here in awareness. Being aware of your thoughts but they are not your master. Be aware that your thoughts are real but they're not true. Be in this moment rested in awareness. Be in the present moment resting in awareness now and even now you get the idea. Moment to moment, breath by breath. Where's your mind right now at this moment? Is it in your body? Is it experiencing the breath sensations as they rise and fall through your nostrils, your belly, your chest? Or is it lost in the thought or caught up in the turbulence of the mind's emotions and circumstances? The situations that are around us. There's nothing wrong with that. But the key is to be aware that they are just thoughts, that is your mental chatter and that they have no bearing on the current situation that is around you. Being aware is where the true freedom lies. The awareness of your situation from moment to moment and being able to separate the thought is where the freedom is. We're inviting everything to be present, everything to rest in our awareness and be grounded in our body. Keep us anchored and at the same time recognising our awareness is a lot bigger than us. Or maybe you're a lot bigger than what and who you think you are. Just for a moment find the edge of the awareness, the centre of your awareness. If you start to explore and practice where your awareness is you may start to discover that awareness is like space. It is boundless. Every place is in the space. The time of no time is simply here. When somebody asks you the time you can tell them simply it is now. We can draw on this kind of wakefulness for the moment. Promote wise action in the world and when it's time for action we can let our doing become out of being. If our doing comes from being it'll have more depth, it'll have more wisdom. Using the open heart centred space to work on the values of the heart and understand the situation and where we're engaged right here, right now. By doing this we can cultivate a deep path into greater clarity, a deep path into greater understanding and purpose and embodied wisdom as we befriend our minds, our body, heart and soul and everyone that we're deeply connected to. We can be friends and we can be one. When this is all over the time for change we'll be right and we would have cultivated our value system to be right here, right now in this moment. So from now if we can make the best use of this time not to be bored but to cultivate awareness and being and befriend everything around us. Our family, our emotions, our situations, our troubles, our fears. If we can be intimate with all of these things, if we can engage into a major transformation the planet for me is starving for it. And when it's time for action and in action it will come from wisdom not greed or illusion which is so often happens especially when we get scared or we're threatened. But sitting here and cultivating alone but together we are alone together. We are carrying each other in our hearts 24x7 near or far. We know by coming together and being in a moment and living with awareness that we can weather these storms with the least amount of resources. We have the ability to cultivate the privilege that we already have. We have the moment, we have the awareness, we have the awakening through enlightenment. In these turbulent times we can bring calm through awareness to others and to the world at large. The invitation again is to begin again over and over again every moment, every breath. Don't take it for granted that's actually what's keeping our lives going. So let's drop back in again. Drop back in so we can create a habit of a beautiful domain of awareness. It's so much bigger than fear or stories or narratives or our mind. It brings every challenge individually and collectively but we can move forward. We're now just going to sit again as if it's for the first time. Feel your breath. Drop into this invitation. Be at home in your body in your own awareness to be complete and recognise it is this very moment. Not turning away from anything that is going on in our lives and practicing this way for the very few moments as if your life depended on it. You've turned up today so you are intuitive. Our life depends on our breath. We need it to recoup and be with our full awareness. And the ability to separate our thoughts from the situation around us is true awareness. Practice and breathe as if your life depends on it. Thinking it's not the only form of intelligence and it only goes so far, our minds. We can love and we can cultivate intuition and awareness from moment to moment. Taken in your breath as if it's the very first. Cultivating loving kindness for yourself and for others. Sitting in this silence and if your mind wanders a thousand times you bring it back a thousand times. Breathing in and breathing out from moment to moment. And breath to breath. Any thoughts, any emotions, if they arise you put out the welcome mat. You accept them, you acknowledge them and you just watch them dissipate. Just watch them go. And you come back to your anchor, your breath as if it's your first breath. Breathing in and breathing out from moment to moment. Breath to breath. Breathing in and breathing out. I would like you to come back and come back into the room with full awareness. Take your time, slowly open your eyes and come back in. The meditation itself, there was lots of talking but the ability to drop in and feel your way into the present moment in your body and put the welcome mat out to whatever arose in your mind is so powerful. In this sense, you know, we continually meditate even with our eyes open because the continued effectiveness of your awareness and your awakening is like a meditation practice. It's how we live, we live in meditation. We practice being present with loving kindness and awareness all the time. But for a lot of us we now have some time. And if you're watching this and you are a health worker or somebody on the front line, thank you so much. You are the real heroes. I can never thank you enough and I hope the one this is all over, the world is kind to you and that we recognise the work that you do and the sacrifices that you've made. We will always be now eternally grateful. But if you're not on the front line in your in isolation then take the time to learn, to grow, to transform, to be, to cultivate your awareness through loving kindness. For us to be able to come out of this with so many different tools on our tool belt that our lives will be just so much again helping you to help yourself live a happy, balanced, healthy spiritual life with clarity and purpose. And mindfulness is the key to unlock that. I hope you enjoyed day 19. Good morning Julian, good afternoon Julian, good night Julian, I love you. I hope you've done yours today. And just do two things for me. Spare a thought for those people who are up against it at the moment and secondly, give yourself some of this time to fundamentally change or work on your awakening and your awareness and cultivate loving kindness so that you can live this happy, healthy, balanced spiritual life with clarity and purpose the moment the barrier raises and that we can go into being or doing on the fact on the back of being and that all of our decisions and our values will be so much more refined that we can make decisions based on our wisdom and what we feel the world needs not through ego, abundance or boredom. Thank you for watching. This is day 19. God bless you. Be loved and give love. And God willing, we'll see you tomorrow. Take care, bye bye.