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 overwhelmed 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 Breathe Like a Badass so if you'd prefer to join in and watch them live,
You can do so there.
The videos are also available after the lives on my IGTV page.
Now,
On to the meditation and coffee.
Good morning,
Good morning.
Welcome to another session of meditation and coffee.
I have got my cup of coffee with me.
It is another gigantic one.
Let me just get it for you.
Huge.
And this mug really makes me laugh.
It literally looks as if it's the same size as my face when I when you look at it on the screen.
And for people listening to this rather than watching,
Trust me,
It looks huge.
Hilarious.
Which is actually pretty funny and apt for today's meditation and coffee session,
Which is all to do with playfulness.
Now,
When I say playfulness,
I do literally mean something that you might do if you were a kid,
Like playing,
Being playful,
Right?
But I also mean it from the point of view from taking things a little bit less seriously and using that as a tool to help you when you're feeling stressed or anxious and also to use it as a tool when you're meditating.
Because often with meditation,
It can feel like something that we sort of need to do or have to do.
It can feel like,
You know,
Kind of eating your vegetables when really what we want to do is eat dessert.
So we kind of know that it's good for us,
But we don't really want to do it because we find it tough.
We find it hard.
I think I've said this before,
But the owner of the meditation app 10% Happier,
Dan Harris in the United States,
He calls sometimes his approach to meditation like meat and potatoes meditation or like,
You know,
Eat your vegetables meditation,
Which is exactly what I just said.
Basically this idea that like meditation is a bit like having to eat your vegetables.
Like you kind of know that you should be don't really want to because it's kind of boring and like dull.
But this technique that I want to look at today and this kind of attitude that I want to look at today is about kind of turning that on its head and seeing meditation not as this boring annoying thing that we've got to do,
Which is good for us,
But kind of sucks and that we feel like we're bad at but it's actually about turning that on its head and remembering that we can approach things with playfulness and curiosity and taking things a little bit less seriously and then suddenly our meditation doesn't become this kind of horrible thing that we beat ourselves up about or that we feel like is a bit kind of,
You know,
Good for us but dull like doing an exercise class that we don't really enjoy,
You know,
And actually making meditation something that we look forward to and it becomes something that we like in our life and becomes a tool in our wellness toolkit or our emotional toolkit as I like to call it that allows us to feel good about the day and allows us to get our mindset in a good place for whatever challenges might come along.
And one of the best ways that I know how to do that is like I say taking it less seriously and making it a nice,
Fun,
Enjoyable playful thing rather than this boring thing that we don't really want to do or that we think that we suck at because lots of people think that this that they suck at meditation and they can't really do it.
So today we're going to look at that.
So allow me to take one more sip of coffee from my gigantic mug.
And if you're going to be joining the meditation today,
I invite you to get into position.
No right or wrong position,
Something where you are sitting up where you feel balanced,
Your spine is upright.
Your shoulders are dropped and loose.
And you allow yourself to take a few good breaths and allow your eyes to close.
I invite you to close your eyes if you feel safe.
If not,
You can leave them open.
Or if you're still feeling a little bit sleepy,
You can always leave your eyes open as well.
And taking a few deep breaths and allowing your spine and your chest to rise and expand as you inhale.
And allowing your shoulders to drop very gently relaxing as you exhale.
Allowing the muscles around your eyes and your face,
Your jaw and your neck and your shoulders to relax and melt into position as we start today.
Now today in this meditation,
I invite you to bring your attention to either somewhere in your body where you can feel your breath the strongest,
Somewhere that feels solid and grounded and good in your body.
Or it can just be a physical sensation that speaks to you right now,
Maybe your hands on your legs.
Or the feeling of your seat on the chair or the cushion.
And I invite you to use that sensation as your anchor for the rest of the practice.
So whenever you get distracted,
Whenever your mind starts running away with itself,
I invite you to bring your attention back to this anchor.
This feeling of sitting here today,
Breathing,
Being in your body.
Giving yourself permission to be here right now.
To be doing the practice taking this time out.
And one of the key things that we practice when we practice playfulness in meditation is curiosity.
Getting curious about our sensations,
Our thoughts,
Noticing in quite great detail how it feels to be sitting here today breathing.
Sometimes if we get very distracted in meditation,
I invite people to get more curious.
Like imagine that you have a little mini magnifying glass and in your mind's eye you've got that magnifying glass and you're really getting up close and personal with your feelings,
With the physical sensations that you can notice.
Really noticing the sensations of breathing in and out.
Or the physical sensations of that anchor that we talked about.
Noticing temperature,
Texture,
Depth of the breath,
Speed,
Shallowness.
So curiosity,
Really the first step.
But the second step,
And this is the good bit,
Is whenever we get distracted,
Whenever you notice that your brain is wandered off as it will,
Whenever you notice we want to cultivate a sense of playfulness and almost kind of laughing at ourselves.
Not in a cruel way,
Not in a mocking way,
But in a kind of like there I go again,
Gosh my brain is so crazy,
It takes me on all these really weird journeys.
How funny,
How strange.
We want to approach it like that or whatever makes sense for you.
Maybe you would never talk to yourself like that but maybe you might say,
Look at my brain going off again.
Maybe you might even look at it from a third person perspective and say,
Gosh isn't it funny what our brains do when we sit still for a moment?
Because it is.
It's bizarre.
The fantasies that come up or the imagined conversations that we have with ourselves when we're meditating or our brain going off down some random memory or imagining a scenario in the future.
Maybe just a song lyric that's stuck in your head and will not go away.
Whatever it is that your brain throws at you when you sit down to meditate and you give yourself a few minutes of peace,
Quite often honestly it is going to be pretty damn funny.
It is going to be pretty damn playful.
Like what the heck brain?
I'm sitting here trying to focus on my breath and you keep throwing me all these random images like what's going on?
And every time that we notice that we've got distracted that's what we want to do.
We want to be playful and think there I go again.
How funny.
Isn't that funny?
Isn't that hilarious what my brain will tell me when I'm distracted?
Like how crazy is that?
And again it's not about beating ourselves up,
It's not about laughing at ourselves or mocking ourselves.
It's almost the opposite of that.
It's almost about realising that everyone's brain is a bit like this.
Like that's just what happens when you meditate.
And about realising that like that's okay because it is.
Because that's what always happens.
So I invite you to practice that feeling whatever feels good to you.
Getting curious about what you're feeling or thinking.
And then when slash if but when really you get distracted.
Noticing the absurdity of it.
Noticing like we're literally sitting here now trying to focus.
Which sounds really simple and our brains will do all sorts of crap to stop us from trying to be still for a moment.
They'll throw us all sorts of random stuff and as soon as we can start to be curious about that and kind of find it interesting and playful rather than seeing it as a bad thing that's when we can start to observe our thoughts without judgement and move forward.
So leaving you to practice that for a few moments.
And as well as the sense of playfulness just reminding you to come back to the breath or to the physical sensation when you get distracted.
And if you like and I know this is going to sound weird but if you like you can even laugh out loud when you're doing this.
Especially if you're doing it at home by yourself there's no one around.
Laughing meditation and laughing yoga is a thing.
So you can literally be sitting there and just noticing the absurdity of your thoughts and the absurdity of this situation.
And you can literally think like this is ridiculous what is my brain coming up with now?
And it's all good it's all normal and we just bring it back.
And again we're doing this not because we're trying to minimise our thoughts or feelings not because we think that they actually are funny or that we're necessarily laughing at our anxiety or our struggles but we are trying to approach it with a lighter touch with a less serious less taking it a bit seriously attitude.
Because if we do that it allows us to take a step back from our thoughts and get that perspective that we need and that space that we need to kind of realise like this is all just my brain like making up stuff.
You know our thoughts generally aren't real we're either worrying about the past or getting anxious about the future.
And really most of the time all we have is the present moment.
And the rest of it is just made up stuff that our brain just throws at us right?
So if we can realise that and kind of see our brain as kind of maybe a small child or maybe even a puppy and we're like oh look at you what have you come up with now?
You know you wouldn't get annoyed at a puppy for being playful would you?
Because that's what puppies do it's the same with our minds that's what they do.
So if we approach it with playfulness rather than getting angry or upset with ourselves it allows us to take a much more light and compassionate and less serious perspective and from that point everything just feels a bit easier.
And if you look at your meditation practice as an opportunity to just take a little peek inside your brain for a bit and sort of see what craziness might be going on there today it's almost kind of like a fun adventure almost rather than like something horrible that we don't really want to do and that's a bit stressful and horrible.
And that's the perspective that we want to cultivate.
Seeing our mind for what it is without judgement and being okay with that and loving ourselves and going what are you like when we notice it like a small child or a puppy.
And we can end our meditation feeling light and loose and kind of a bit amused rather than like stressed and feeling like we did that wrong.
So if you've got your eyes closed I invite you to open them now come back into the room.
I'm going to grab my coffee just to close out this meditation and coffee session.
Thank you for being here thank you for sharing your meditation with me today let me know how it went let me know if you were able to cultivate a sense of playfulness,
A sense of curiosity and a bit of fun.
Let me know what you're drinking I always love to know where you're joining us from today if you're watching the replay.
But from me to you thank you so much and remember taking a playful attitude in your meditation can sometimes be exactly what we need to cut through what might otherwise be kind of serious and stressful thoughts.
So thank you so much thanks for being here this is another session of meditation and coffee I will see you again tomorrow thanks again 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 wherever you normally listen as it helps spread the word and get the message out to more brilliant women just like us who need it.
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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.
