 Hello and welcome to this meditation, the body scan, and a brief talk about negative self-talk. Self-talk is naturally the way we talk to ourselves. It also refers to a lot of the habits and the styles of the way we think and how we automatically interpret events. Unfortunately, a lot of the internal noise, the shouting, the monologue is often negative. It is by no means yet no secret that each of us are our own worst critic. The roommate you would never live with. People are often unbelievably hard on themselves after doing something that they may regret. You're likely to think of thoughts of maybe I'm an idiot, I'm worthless, or maybe even goes as far to think that I hate myself. Maybe you analyze a single regrettable action and then make global assumptions like I'll never get this right, no one can help me and things will never change. Consider this, if a friend said these sorts of negative things about you, how would you feel? You might feel helpless, sad or angry, or you might not want to hang around with this person at all. If this was your roommate, you'd ask him to leave. When feelings of stress, anxiety, or panic arise, it can be like wearing glasses that tend to distort the reality and make it even more worrisome. More worrying, more frightful, more fearful. And this keeps us in a loop, in a circle, in a cycle of anxiousness. It spins in our mind, it has fears, it leads to panic. And when we take the internal thoughts of I'm not good enough, nobody understands me and I'll never do this by myself. Mindfully entertaining these thoughts and buying into them can lead to increased stress, anxiety, depression and mood. The next thing you know, self-judgment starts to rise. I'm just unworthy, I'm a bad person. I put too much pressure on others, no one will ever understand me because I'm different, I don't belong. Or I might just be an undesirable person in the world, no one will ever find me attractive, no one is ever interested in me. The beauty of mindfulness is that it can help you to learn to treat these thoughts, including these kinds of distressing thoughts as mental events, they're rather than facts. And we know that when a thought comes into our mind, you can think of it as an event in the mind. You can become aware of it as it arises and also notice as it eventually passes in the same way that you can sit by a stream and watch leaves float by. Or look up at the sky watching the clouds come and go, while practicing mindfulness you'll learn to become more aware of all the stuff that's in your mind without attaching to it, just being aware as it comes and goes. Are we catastrophizing? Are we exaggerating the negative and discounting the positive? Are we mind reading? Do we think that we know what other people think? People don't like me, you convince yourself, you become the eternal expert. I should have done this, they should have done that, you blame. All of these things, these negative interpretations actually lead us nowhere. They lead us to a life which is restricted, which is fearful, the need just to take a breath, observe and proceed. The benefits of being aware of your body, the body scan is such a wonderful way to get in touch with your mind and your body. And this practice is relaxed in an environment without any distractions and you can sit and just be for a few moments. So get comfortable, take a few moments to be still and congratulate yourself for taking this time for meditation today. And at this moment just do a mindful check-in, feeling into your body and your mind, simply allowing any waves of thoughts and emotions and physical sensations to just be. Perhaps it's been a busy day and this is the first time you're stopping. And as you begin to enter the world of being rather than doing, you may notice the trajectory of feelings you've been carrying within you. There's no need to judge, analyse or try to figure things out. Just allow yourself to be in the moment with all that's there. And when you feel ready, just gently shift the focus of the breath. Become aware of your breathing. Breathe normally and naturally, but just focus on the tip of your nose or maybe in your abdomen. Breathing in and knowing that you're breathing in. Breathing out and knowing that you're breathing out. And at times the mind may wander, it may wander away from the awareness of breathing. And when you recognise this, acknowledge wherever you went and come back to the breath. Breathing in and out to within awareness. And now I gently want you to withdraw your awareness from the mindful breathing as you shift to the body scan. And as you go through the body, you may come across areas that are tight or tense. You can just allow them to soften, let that happen. If you can't, just let the sensations be. Letting them ripple in whatever direction they need to go. And this applies not only to a physical sensation, but also to any emotions. And as you go through the body, be mindful of any physical sensations and any thoughts or emotions that may well rise from these sensations. Bring awareness now to the bottom of your left foot where you feel the contact of your foot on the floor. It could be the back of the heel or the bottom of the left foot. Just sensing into what's being felt. Feeling the heel, the ball and the sole of the left foot. Maybe feel into your toes and the top of the left foot and back into the Achilles tendon and up into the left ankle. And then move your awareness up to the lower left leg feeling into the calf and the shin and their connection to the left knee. Just being present. And let awareness now rise up to the thigh sensing into the upper leg and its connection above the left hip. And now withdraw awareness from the left hip down to the left foot sifting and shifting into the right foot. Bring an awareness to where you feel the contact of the right foot on the floor. It could be the back of the heel or the bottom of the right foot sensing into what's being felt. Feeling the heel, the ball and the sole of the right foot. Feel into the toes and the top of the right foot and the back into the Achilles tendon and up into the right ankle. Just feel the sensations and bring your awareness to those areas. Move your awareness up to the lower right leg feeling into the calf and the shin and their connection to the right knee. Being present in this moment. And let awareness rise up into the thigh sensing into the upper leg and its connection above into the right hip. And I gently now want you to withdraw your attention from the right hip and move into the pelvic region sense into the systems of elimination sexuality and reproduction. Feeling into the genitals and into that region being mindful of any sensations, thoughts or emotions and now lift your awareness to the abdomen into the belly the home of digestion and assimilation. Feeling into your guts with awareness and letting be withdraw your awareness from your belly and move it to the tailbone and begin to sense into the lower middle and upper parts of the back. Feeling sensations and allow any tightness to soften and let be what's not softening let the awareness shift into the chest into the heart and the lungs. Just be present. Feel into the ribcage, the sternum and into the breasts now gently withdraw your attention from your chest and shift the awareness into the fingertips on the left hand feeling into the fingers and the palm and then the back of the hand and up into the left wrist proceed up into the forearm, the elbow and the upper left arm feeling all of the sensations now shift your awareness to the fingertips of the right hand feeling into the fingers and the palm and then the back of the hand and up into the right wrist proceed up into the forearm, the elbow, the upper right arm feeling all of the sensations and just let the awareness now move into your both shoulders and your armpits, up into your neck, into your throat and just be present to any sensations thoughts or emotions. Bring your awareness into your jaw and gently into the teeth, the tongue, the mouth and the lips, allowing any resonating sensations to go wherever they need to go just letting be. Feel into your cheeks the sinus passages that go deep into the head, the eyes, the muscles around the eyes, feeling to the forehead and the temples being present and just let the awareness move into the top and back of your head feeling into your ears and the inside of your head and into your brain just being present. I want you to expand the field of awareness to your entire body from head to toe to fingertips, connect from the head through the neck to the shoulders, the arms, the chest, the back, the belly, connect with your hips your pelvic region, your legs and your feet and feel your whole body as an organism, various physical sensations thoughts and emotions have been present. Breathing in feel the whole body rising and expanding and on inhalation and falling on the contraction of an exhalation. Feel the body as a whole organism being present. As you come to the end of this body scan congratulate yourself for taking this time to be present. May you know that this is an act of love. Knee breath in with your fingers and thank you for joining me with this body scan and talk on negative self-talk. I hope it's helped. Have a wonderful day. Be kind to yourself. God bless. Be love and give love.