 and welcome to day 14 of the Mindful This Challenge. We've made it, not only we made it to day 14, we're still going, we're still working, we're still and this is the first day really I'm out and about so I'm just out towards the coastline not far from where I live. I just thought I'd change up the energy a little bit really because most of them have all been sat down in the office and and those things etc and today we're going to do and we're going to do a mountain meditation which we'll be on in a few moments time but before that I just want to just talk about you know mindfulness and where we are and how things are going etc etc and I was watching an Eckhart Toll video the other day and he was talking about spiritual awakening and when does the spiritual awakening happen and it's really when we start to come off the normal treadmill where we just sort of float along and everything's abundant and everything's going forward and everything's okay don't really ask any questions of ourselves we don't ask any questions about inner cells or where we are and where we're going it's only on times now where we we were reflecting and we're questioning things you know is when we can really have an amplification of that awakening and that awakening really is is is about us just thinking about ourselves thinking about how we treat ourselves thinking about how we are with ourselves and and this time now when we've got some some time on our hands to be able to do that type of thinking is is is hugely important and you know it's a very short one today and the reason for that is is I just want you to spend some time with yourself not with me and spend some time with yourself thinking about you know being kind to yourself not beating yourself up not setting so many expectations you know and just being loving to yourself and remember that you are the constant that your human physical body is here every single day we're not our thoughts our thoughts are real but they're not true our emotions you know they are what they are and we can live this happy balanced spiritual life with clarity and purpose and be healthy and kind to ourselves so my tip to you you're part of mindfulness today is if you can okay and we allow one walk a day is to go out and just be very mindful go from mindful walk so as you walk in slow down push your awareness and your alertness out listen to the birds listen to the listen to the sea listen now you know my dog in the background is going nuts for for stones again so just listen and just be and enjoy these moments appreciate them listen to the birds so it's a short one today so when you were I'm gonna put the pop up the mountain meditation now for you to do it's a consistent and then I'll speak to a little bit later on back in my office what I wanted to get out and about today just to raise the energy and show setting a bit different be loving give love guys thanks very much you later okay so this mountain meditation is normally done in a in a sitting position either on the floor or a chair but if you want to lay down you can and it begins by if we can sit down now and get into that position and it begins by us sensing into the support you have from the chair or the cushion or the mattress we are laying down and paying attention to the actual sensations of contact finding a position of stability and poise at upper body balance over your hips and shoulders in a very comfortable printable but alert position you can put your hands on your lap or your knees and the arms can be hanging there now by their own weight stable and relaxed and actually you're sensing your body feeling your feet your legs your hips you're lowering up a body arm shoulders neck and head you're bringing awareness to your breath the actual physical sensations feeling each breath as it comes in and as it goes out letting the breath just be just as it is without trying to change your regulator in any way allowing it to flow easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace knowing that you're breathing perfectly well right now nothing for you to do whatsoever allow in the body to be still and sit in with a sense of dignity or laying a sense of resolve a sense of being complete whole in this very moment with your posture reflected in this sense of wholeness as you sit here letting an image form in your mind's eye or as we say in spirituality your third eye in between your eyebrows and I want you to envisage the most magnificent or beautiful mountain you have ever seen or could imagine and letting it gradually come into greater focus and even if it doesn't come as a visual image allowing the sense of this mountain and feeling its overall shape it's lofty peak or peaks high in the sky the large base rooted in the bedrock of the earth crust it's steep or gently sloping sides noticing how massive it is how big it is how solid how unmanoeuvre and moving how beautiful whether from afar or up close perhaps your mountain has a snow blanketing on the top and trees reaching down to the base or rugged granite sides there may be streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes there may be one peak or a series of peaks or meadows with high lakes observing it noting its qualities when you feel ready seeing if you can bring the mounting into your own body sitting here so that your body and your mountain in your mind's eye become one so that you can sit here together you can share in the sheer size and the stillness of the majestic of the mountain you become the mountain grounded in the sitting posture your head becomes the lofty peak supported by the rest of your body and affording a beautiful panoramic view your shoulders and arms the sides of the mountain your buttocks and legs the solid base rooted to your cushion of your chair or your mattress experiencing your body a sense of upliftment from the deep within your pelvis and spine with each breath as you continue sitting becoming a little more a breathing mounting alive and vital yet unwavering in in a stillness completely what you are beyond words and thoughts a centered grounded and moving presence as you sit here becoming aware of the fact that the sun travels across the sky the light and the shadows and colors are changing virtually moment by moment in the mountain stillness and the surface teams with life and activity streams melt in snow waterfall plants and wildlife as the mountain sits seeing and feeling how night follows day and day follows night the bright warming Sun followed by the cool night sky studied with stars and the gradual dawning of a new day through it all the mountain just sits experiencing change in each moment constantly changing it always just being self it remains still as the seasons flow into one another and the weather changes moment by moment and day by day calmness abiding all change in the summer there is no snow on the mountain except perhaps for the very peaks or in the crack shielding for the direct sunlight in the autumn the mountain may wear a coat of brilliant fire colors in the winter a blanket of snow and ice in any season it may find itself at times a shrouded in clouds or fog or pelted by freezing rain people may come to see the mountain and comment how beautiful it is none of this really matters to the mountain it remains at all times it's essential self clouds may come and clouds may go tourists may like it or not the mountains magnificent magnificence and beauty not changed one bit by whether people see it or not seen or unseen in sun or clouds broiling or frigid day or night it just sits being itself at times visited by violent storms buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable matter to magnitude through it all the mountain sits spring comes trees leaf out flowers bloom in the high meadows and slopes bird sings in the trees once again streams overflow with the waters of the melting snow but through it all the mountain continues to sit and move by weather by what happens on its surface by the world of appearances remaining it's essential true self through the seasons that change in weather the activity ebb and flowing on its surface in the same way as we sit in meditations we can learn to experience the mountain we can embody the same central and wavering stillness and groundlessness in the face of everything that changes in our lives over seconds over hours over years in our lives and in our meditation practice we can experience constantly changing nature of mind and body in the outer world we have our own periods of light and darkness activity and in activity our moments of color and a moment of drabness it's true that we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world in our own minds and bodies buffeted by high winds by cold and rain we endure periods of darkness and pain as well as moments of joy and upliftment even our appearance consistently changes experience of weathering of his own but by coming becoming the mountain in our meditation practice we can link up with its strength and stability and adopt this for our very own we can use its energies to support our energy to encounter each moment with mindfulness with compassion with empathy and clarity it may help us to see our thoughts and feelings our preoccupations our emotional storms and crisis even the things that happen to us at very much like the weather or the mountain we tend to take it personally but its strongest characteristic is impersonal the weather of our own lives is not ignored or denied it is also to be encountered honored felt known for what it is but held in awareness and in holding in its way we come to a deeper silence and stillness with wisdom we hold it and our experiences with compassion with empathy and we live in kindness mountains have this to teach us more and we just need to let it in so if you find you resonate in some way with the strength and stability of the mounting in your sitting may be helpful to use it from time to time in your meditation practice to remind you of what it means to sit mindfully with resolve with wakefulness in true stillness so in the moments that now remain continue to sustain the mounted meditation your own silence moment by moment until you hear the sound of the bell so that was the mounted meditation and back inside now a bit windswept but trying to get on and get get everything done and day 14 well done congratulations I hope you are starting to feel the benefits of the cultivation of the mindfulness that we've been doing and starting just to understand things you know I said earlier that you know our spiritual awakening when we're when we're working on these things really is about you know as questioning things when things aren't going right and and when we sat down doing things when they're not going right and all of a sudden we start to question these things and and for me you know we've for so long society has been heading in a very selfish and greedy direction fueled by you know constant need for perfection we set in ourselves some impossible standards and for our loved ones as well and we become deeply disappointed when we don't meet those standards we push ourselves we push our children we push everything we live in an age where instant gratification and everything you need is you know and the bars too high and if we don't jump over that bar then everything underneath is a waste of time so today is an opportunity for us to recalibrate the word I'm using a lot is to re-focus start to make some plans for what's going to happen when all this is finished but good plans positive plans how you're going to transform your life and move things forward and take little bits of steps you know I say that Rome wasn't built in a day but some of it was and and let's start that today so I'm hoping and praying as I said before that the numbers of this coronavirus who pass you know a minimal but the impact of change is monumental I it might hope that when everything gets back to normal we think twice before we go back into making the same mistakes we think twice about getting back on the treadmill we think twice about pressing play on Groundhog Day we have one of the big things here is we want to be able to hold our inner connections our exterior connections when this is all over and I certainly hope it's all over sooner rather than later and our lives get back to normal the one thing that matters is how we treated ourselves and how we treated each other thank you for watching day 14 there will be day 15 I'll do it tomorrow put your hand on your chest and say thank you very much my wife's just put my dinner in thank you very much and good morning Julian and I love you good morning Julian and I love you thank you for watching thank you for my lunch Denise I really do appreciate it this is real I'm authentic I try and do things the right way around God bless you be love and give love and I'll see you tomorrow and start making some real positive changes and plans and how you're gonna you know be the person that we know you can be success is being as good as you can be not as Kim Kardashian or or whoever it is be yourself it's amazing love yourself fantastic day 14 I'm back goodbye end of my lunch