Meditation & Coffee - Open Your Eyes

23:00

23:00

Meditation & Coffee - Open Your Eyes

by Hannah Jane Thompson

Rated

4.6

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

198

An “eyes open” practice to help us train our focus and attention if we feel sleepy, and to remind ourselves that meditation isn't purely about relaxation or "feeling calm" - it's about “waking up” (with kindness) to our biases, patterns, and limiting beliefs...so we can choose a more helpful path.

Meet your Teacher

Hannah Jane Thompson

London, UK

Meet your Teacher

Hannah Jane Thompson

London, UK

Transcript

Hello! You are listening to Meditation and Coffee, The weekday meditation podcast that helps you start your day off calm, Aware, Intentional, Focused and most importantly, Awake. Because did you know that the word Buddha actually means awakened one? I'm Hannah, Your host and founder of the online meditation community Breathe Like a Badass, And I am obsessed with starting the day with good coffee and seriously simple meditation. As a trained meditation teacher and a female entrepreneur, My mission is to help anxious yet ambitious women cut through overwhelm, Negative self-talk, Constant comparison and fear so they can get the calm, Clarity and focus that they need to build happy, Fulfilling, Freedom-filled businesses and lives. Meditation is not magic, But it's a pretty good place to start. So whether your coffee is a shot of espresso, A latte decaf or even a tea or a chai, I invite you to join me every weekday to start your day off right. FYI, These sessions are recorded live on my Instagram page, At BreatheLikeABadass, So if you'd prefer to join in and watch them live, You can do so there every weekday morning between 8 and 8. 30am London time. The videos are also available after the lives on my IGTV page. Now, On to the meditation and coffee. Good morning friends, We are live. Happy Monday morning! If you're watching this live, It's Monday and I've got a huge cup of coffee as usual, Ready to go, Nice and warm. The weather has completely deserted us here in London this week, So far. You wouldn't know it's summer. We had beautiful sunshine not long ago, Absolutely gorgeous, Now look at it. However, It does mean that I'm appreciating my warm cup of coffee this morning more than I might otherwise. Today I wanted to. . . And I'm actually going to paste what we're doing in the comments before I explain what we're doing. So there we go. So I have just pinned in the comments that today the meditation and coffee is called Open Your Eyes. And literally all that means is that we're going to do a meditation where we keep our eyes open. And for some people this will be normal because they always meditate with their eyes open. But I personally meditated for, Gosh, I've been meditating for almost 12 years now and for the first 11 years of that practice I always close my eyes when I meditated. And I always believed that you had to close your eyes when you meditated. I was like, Well, It's about going inward. It's about, Good morning, It's about going inwards. It's about, You know, Getting in touch with what's going on inside. You don't want to be distracted by what's outside. It's about being calm. It's about, You know, Taking a break from the outside. That's kind of my perception that I had of what meditation was and what we were doing when we sat down. And it can be those things, Like it can be, Absolutely. But this meditation is going to explore some of the other sides of why we sit down to practice and why we want to cultivate a mindful attitude in the first place. And really, It can be summarized by why I started this whole meditation and coffee thing in the first place, Which is that meditation is not just about sitting down and getting really calm. It's not just about closing our eyes and blocking out the outside world for a few minutes. It can be those things, But it's also about being awake and aware and open to ourselves, To what we need, To who we are, To what we want, To the person we want to be, To being compassionate to the person that we are right now, To recognizing our strengths, Our weaknesses, Our patterns, Our beliefs that may be not very helpful. So meditation is all of those things as well as just a sitting down and getting calm and sort of chilling out kind of practice. And if we practice most or if we practice consistently, I should say, We can make meditation both of those things. So it can be a time where we step back from our to-do list and give ourselves grace and space and mental clarity and peace. But it can also be at the same time as giving us peace and giving us a sense of calm. It can also be a really powerful technique for waking up to ourselves and who we want to be and the life we want to lead and treating ourselves with compassion so that we can get things done in our life and change our rooted kind of inner critic beliefs and really tune ourselves in to how we're feeling and how we want to feel and the gap maybe there is between those two things. And also just remind ourselves that we can be mindful, We can choose to be mindful no matter what we're doing. So we don't have to be sitting in really formal meditation to feel mindful, To feel good and to be awake to some of maybe our patterns that we have, Maybe the voices in our head that tell us that we're not good enough, Maybe the rising levels of stress that we might feel or anxiety that we might feel about a certain thing in our day or that we just don't really carry. And I find that reminding you that you can meditate with your eyes open is a really easy and simple way of reminding ourselves that we don't have to show up as meditation, We don't have to show up to meditation sorry in any way other than we are. We are awake to ourselves, We're open to what we find when we sit. We are accepting and compassionate and loving of what we find when we sit even when we don't really like it. We are open and aware to our limitations, But I mean that in like a loving way. We're open to our patterns, We're open to our thoughts, Our recurring thoughts that come up again and again that maybe tell us we're not good enough or that we that tell us that you know that we're stressed or that we haven't got this or that we know that we're not good enough in what we're doing or who we are. And actually our meditation can remind us that we can just be and there's no expectation and that we can show up to meditation and just be what we are and who we are and not have to find some mythical sense of Zen inside of ourselves. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Hello to people waving and saying hello. It's great to be here, Great to see you. So that was my quick little summary on why we're doing meditation today with the eyes open. And if I can summarize it long story short, Meditation is not purely a relaxation tool. It's not purely about forcing yourself to be this kind of elusive Zen master. It is also about meeting yourself where you are, Being compassionate to yourself and showing up however you are and being aware of your own biases and patterns. So without further ado, I invite you to take one last sip of your coffee or you can carry on holding it throughout. That's fine, Especially when we're doing an eyes open meditation. Maybe it's easier for you to keep hold of your coffee if you're not going to close your eyes. And I would invite you to come into a comfortable position. Taking your time to allow yourself to get into a comfortable position, Feeling balanced, Feeling grounded, Feeling supported on your back, But not leaning back so far that you might topple over or put your head back. And again, Reminding you that we are trying in this meditation to keep our eyes open. So at this point I would normally invite you to close your eyes, But I would invite you to give it a go this morning, Keeping your eyes open. Now that you don't have to kind of be focusing on something, You can let your eyes kind of glaze over or you can just bring your attention into your breath and your body and how it feels to be sitting here and breathing here today. So I invite you to notice your breath going into your body through your nose and out through your mouth. And as you do that, As you breathe, Noticing your lungs filling with air and your shoulders perhaps dropping to give your lungs space and take up some room. And as you breathe out, Allowing your muscles to relax and melt and drop down. And having your eyes open reminds us that we are training our attention and often we can do that through practicing noticing our body. So right now, Focusing on how it feels to be breathing and noticing the effect that that has on our muscles and where we're sitting. Often our attention is pulled to whatever we can see, You know, If we see something outside or if we have something around us that makes us think, Oh yeah, I've got to do that today or I need to do it. So it's really easy when you're meditating with your eyes open to get distracted by what's around you. And so again, This is an exercise for focus, For reminding ourselves that when we meditate, We're training our attention. So whether you need to train your attention on my voice to stay focused or whether you want to focus more on the feelings of your body and what it feels like to be sitting here and breathing today, Do what feels right for you. And maybe keeping your eyes in one particular position and allowing them to glaze over slightly. But each time you find yourself perhaps drifting off or getting distracted, You can blink, You can bring yourself back to this moment. Oh yeah, I'm meditating. Yeah, Right. Blink back in the room and reminding ourselves gently each time. Oh yeah, Okay, I'm meditating. Oh yeah, I'm trying to focus. Trying to bring my attention back. Okay, Yeah, Uh huh. I'm back in the room. Meditation is attention training. That's what builds the muscle, That's what changes the brain. That's what allows us to be focused and use this technique to be aware of ourselves, Our patterns, Our limiting or inner critic negative beliefs. So practicing that now, Noticing the physical sensations of your body, Keeping your eyes open. And whenever you find yourself drifting off or getting distracted, Bringing your attention back. And maybe for you that means that you do a bit of a blink and like literally, Oh yeah, Wake up, I'm back. Coming back to the meditation, Whatever you need. Or maybe for you, You can focus on one particular part of your body. Maybe your hand resting on your knee. And every time you find yourself getting distracted or being pulled away from what you're doing, You bring your attention back to that hand and that feeling of your hand on your knee. Now remembering to breathe, Not holding your breath at any point. And again, If you find that you need something more to focus on, That you're getting distracted, You can count your breaths if you like. You can breathe in for one. Breathe out for two. Breathe in for one. And keeping on going until you reach ten. So starting again, Breathing in for one. Out for two. In for three. Out for four. And as you count, Up to ten. Trying to just get really really curious about how it feels to be breathing. And again, Keeping your eyes open and training your focus inwards on these physical sensations. And maybe noticing how it feels to keep your eyes open. How it feels different to normal if you normally close your eyes. Continuing to breathe and counting up until ten. When you reach ten, Starting at one again. Basically what we're trying to do here is, Like I say, Train your attention, Train your focus. Meditation is not about emptying your mind or asking your brain to think of nothing. New splash, Ain't gonna happen. Our brains are trained to think of things all the time. Make patterns, Make connections. So instead of asking yourself to empty your mind, Instead reminding you that this is about training focus. And so instead of focusing on things that may be making you anxious or that are on your to-do list, Instead we are taking the time when we meditate to focus on a particular thing. And that's what I mean by attention training. So bringing it back. And each time noticing the physical sensations of breathing. Another benefit of meditating with your eyes open is that you're less likely to nod off, Especially if you're meditating in the morning when you've just woken up. Some people meditate last thing a night and we want to stay awake for our meditation. Unless we're meditating specifically to fall asleep of course, But this is about training our focus and our awareness. And if you find yourself nodding off every time you meditate, Keeping your eyes open can be a really great way of staying awake. Literally and metaphorically. So I invite you to take a few last good breaths. Tuning in to any physical sensations that are making themselves known. And coming back in the room. Bit of a stretch if you need. Bit of a nice deep cleansing breath. So I'd be interested to know how you felt that went. If it's very different from your normal meditations. If you find a struggle to keep your eyes open. If you feel that you need to close your eyes. And there's no judgment. You know, I mainly meditate with my eyes closed. Sometimes I welcome that. I like it. I like the freedom that I feel when I close my eyes and I'm in my own little private world. And sometimes I need that when I meditate and I look forward to that. And sometimes I feel that it's only through closing my eyes that I can really tune in to sensations. But sometimes by keeping our eyes open, We remind ourselves that we are being mindful no matter what. We don't have to be sitting in formal meditation. We can go about our day being mindful. And we can train our attention even if we're not very seriously eyes closed sitting in a perfect meditation posture. And for me, That's kind of really powerful. We can learn to recognize our patterns and our tendencies and just our physical sensations like how it feels to be in our body right now. And the more that we practice that the more that it feels safe. Some people don't feel safe closing their eyes. So this is again another way of approaching attention training and focus and compassion for yourself and your body and what you find when you sit without feeling like you have to kind of cut yourself off from the world. So there's a lot of benefits that can come from practicing different styles like this. So yeah, I really hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you had any comments or questions. If you're watching the replay. I see you said Gemma I felt like falling asleep more with my eyes open. That's so interesting. That's so interesting. Yeah. Okay, This is why we want to cut we want to experiment. Perhaps closing your eyes if you've done it for a while. That helps sharpen your attention. Like I said earlier, Sometimes I do feel like I need to close my eyes. Because that allows me to kind of Yeah, Really intensely focus. Sometimes I like to meditate outside and I open my eyes just so I can see the sky and the beauty around me. So it really is like a case by case. Yeah, I encourage you to kind of throw that into your emotional meditation toolbox and see how you go with it and see if it helps. If it doesn't, Hey, At least you've tried it go back to closing your eyes. And I will be going back to closing my eyes tomorrow in our meditation and coffee tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a joy. I really love having this chance to experiment with you and talk through some of the techniques that that have been life changing for me. If you have any questions, Of course, Always drop me a comment or drop me a DM on Instagram. In the meantime, Have a wonderful day. Have a wonderful Monday. And cheers. Here's to another session of meditation and coffee. Thanks so much. Bye bye bye. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening and spending your morning with me. If you like this podcast, And you are as obsessed with coffee and maybe meditation as I am, Please go ahead and leave a rating and a review on Apple podcasts or whatever you normally listen as it helps spread the word and get the message out to more brilliant women just like us who need it. You can also share with your friends on Instagram tagging me at breathe like a badass. I always love to see you there. If you like this, And you'd like to hear more from me and breathe like a badass on how to use meditation to get the calm clarity and focus you need to build a happy, Fulfilling freedom filled business and life. Head on over to my other full length interview style podcast. Just search breathe like a badass anywhere that you normally listen to podcasts. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you for the next one.