 Hello and welcome to the mindfulness challenge day 33, we are now officially a third of the way through. You may be asking yourself today why is he wearing sunglasses because I want us to have a little bit of light laughter and fun today and realise that life is serious, it is challenging, it is all of these things but we always get through it and if we can do it with a bit of laughter, with a bit of love, with a bit of caring, with a smile then everything is that much easier. Today we're going to talk about and work on recognising our resilience through difficulty, recognising that we have this coping mechanism to be able to get through anything we can and the ability for me to sit here today with my sunglasses on feeling like some you know Hollywood superstar or Hollywood movie or something is fantastic, the reality is is that we we're still in lockdown but that doesn't stop us from seeing the happy side of things and seeing the things we can do and you know we don't give ourselves credit okay, we don't give ourselves enough credit and what I mean by that is is that if you follow this on day one you're on day 33 now that's amazing and this journey is much a mindfulness journey for you as it has been for me there's a mindfulness journey through you know the coronavirus and my journey as well as my experiences and you know it's been it's been an interesting ride but we've got through it, we've got to this point, we've got to day 33 and there's lots of things that would have unfolded and lots of things difficult emotions that would have that would have sometimes where you feel of course going to get a better of me but what we know is is they always pass and and we can make it through and then we know we can and and my sunglasses dictate that I'm seeing it through another lens another they rose tinted I don't know but it's about bringing mindfulness to the process of going through these hard times we know we can retrain and remove and build and recognize the awareness when things happen but build that resilience to it because now we can look at it and say yeah that's okay that's fine this is the situation around me and I've still got my breath I've still got my sunglasses everything is fine seeing clearly that you're capable of handling these difficulties these challenges and have the ability through mindfulness to be able to train your mind is something that's very special and congratulations on getting where you're getting today because you've got here if it's the first day you've watched congratulations it's the first day you've watched if it's the 15th day congratulations it's the 15th day but what would be ideal is I'd like you today to sit in front of your computer and make and dress yourself happy and get your sunglasses on because today is an official mindfulness sunglasses day because now we're going to recognize our resilience and recognize our the power that we have from within to overcome these difficult challenges these difficult emotions all of these difficulties because we know when we sit and we bring it to our awareness and we hold it with loving kindness and we can come away from it not not attaching ourselves to any emotion any fear any anxiety any situation we know that the truth is that this will pass when but it'll pass so today we're going to do quite a short meditation it's not that long but it is a meditation about recognizing your resilience to the situation's challenges difficulties fears and anxiety now for this I'm going to put a picture up and I want you to close your eyes and adjust your posture and become comfortable in the chair taking those deep breaths and grounding yourself and grinding your body feeling your feet on the floor you may hear my office door my spiritual room door is open so the wind is blowing through but that's okay because that's what's happening in this present moment you may hear my door rattle but that's okay because that's the wind that's what's happening in this present moment plant your feet firmly on the floor the body is in a chair or laying down and then when you get to that comfortable position and you feel the space growing around you witness the movement of your breath breathing in and breathing out and what I'd like you to do because we have the confidence and we know that we can overcome any challenge or issue or emotion that I'd like you to bring to your mind an emotion that you've experienced recently bring it to your mind but don't indulge in the story instead focus on the feeling focus on the feeling of the emotion and you can do this by tuning in first to the body when you put that emotion in your mind's eye and you focus on that emotion what does the body feel like when that emotion is present feeling the emotion in the body and investigate your capacity to just be with it what part of that feels overwhelming or unmanageable ask yourself if you're able to handle the feeling in this single moment and then continue to tend to the bodily experience examining whether you're able to be present with it or not take a few minutes move your attention to the mind and the mental state when this emotion is present what's your mind doing notice the thoughts that arise and the general feeling of the mind ask yourself if anything arises in is too much to handle it's too much for you but we know we can bring our attention and awareness to the emotion to the situation knowing that we can hold it with loving kindness with no attachment and we know that it'll pass we just sit in the environment in the situation knowing full well that you've got this notice again the thoughts that arise and the general feeling of your mind with this situation and again you can ask yourself if anything else is arising nothing is too much for you to handle because every time you feel emotion and a fear a situation a difficulty we can close our eyes we can see it we can step away from it we can hold it with loving kindness and we can breathe through the emotion and as we breathe through the emotion we feel it dissolve dissipate into the ground it serves you no more and again you got this we can get through this again and for the final two minutes reflect on the pains and difficulties you've gone through over your life the small frustrations the larger experiences of grief and tragedy think of all the things that have gone wrong in your life your shadow moments all of these things but realize just like i said earlier you're on day 33 of this challenge realize this moment and realize that you've made it today recognize your natural resilience remembering that you are indeed very capable of everything and anything that is thrown at you because now you have the ability to not attach yourself to these situations to change your relationship to the emotions to the fears to the anxiety to anything that's presented to you you can step away from it as a third party look at it hold it with loving kindness and breathe through it breathing it out and breathing it in and leaving it exactly where it is you now have all of the powerful tools you need to be able to mindfully live your day for a moment a moment from breath to breath and i'll leave you for a moment to allow these emotions and difficulties and grief and tragedy and things just to rise this may rise with it emotions it may bring tears it may make your heart race but you know that you can step away from that and you can look at yourself objectively with tears in your eyes you can look at yourself and stand away from your heart racing from your mind chatter you can hold it all there knowing that you are not attached and that you can hold it with the love and the kindness and just watch it through breathing through all of these situations you can watch it dissipate dissolve and fall away take a moment to do just that and when you're ready take a deep breath in wiggle your fingers and move your toes and come back into the room hi it's me again the Hollywood superstar um i hope you enjoyed that i want to bring a bit of light and laughter because we are a third of the way through but i also i want to recognize that all of the time the effort and everything you've done has brought a reward because you are here today your resilience your coping mechanisms your dedication to meditation and mindfulness means that you are capable of now any situation that gets thrown to you because you can bring it into your awareness you can hold it with loving kindness and you can breathe that emotion that fear that anxiety until it just fades away i hope this morning when you woke up on day 33 that you put your hand on your heart and you said good morning julian i love you good morning julian i love you but today i want you to say good morning julian i love you you've got this well done 33 days of a new life and a new way of thinking and a new way of being god bless you be love and give love and i shall see you on day 34 maybe not with the shades but certainly with some more infinite wisdom put a smile on your face have a lovely day take care god bless you be love and give love oh and don't forget i want to see pictures of you sat in front of your computer with your shades on today i see millions of them let's have a nice happy sunny day and let's support those people who help us support stay in stay home stay safe save lives but build your life take care bye