How To Have a Mindful Stress-Free Holiday Q & A | Ashok Gupta

Hello and welcome back to our session on a mindful stress free Christmas. So this is our Q and A. So thank you for watching the first section. And now I'd love to answer some of your questions. I know that many of you are using the Gupta program or doing the Gupta program, and I know some of you during the holidays, let's just take the program step by step, whatever way works for you. But the holidays are a great time just to at least master the meditation aspect within the Gupta program. Laura says, I was busy re engaging with joy and I missed the first half. Happy holidays, Ashok and the team. Ah, that's very sweet of you. Thank you. Brenda says, how do I not absorb other people's stress? That's a really good question, Brenda. You know, many of us empaths, and especially those involved in the Gupta program, tends to be people who are more sensitive and more empathic with those around us. The way to not absorb other people's stress is to create your own force field, your own shield. And the way that we do that is firstly to practice regular meditation and breathing that creates that force field around us. So other people's stress just dissolves away from us. It just slips off us. And secondly, it's recognizing that it's their stress. Just because a family member or a friend is stressed, it doesn't mean that we should be stressed. Sometimes we feel we need to take on their energy or try to help them out in some way, and that's why we take on the stress. But instead we create that sense of boundaries that that's their problem, their stress, their challenge that doesn't need to be something that I kind of absorb into and of myself. So once again, protective response through regular breathing and meditation. And then secondly, recognizing it's their challenge that you don't need to take on. Thirdly, breathing slowly and deeply in a slow motion technique. So when you find yourself getting stressed because someone else is getting stressed and busy, breathe slowly and deeply and go into the slow motion technique. And the slow motion technique is basically when we do everything 20 to 30 minutes slower. And in that way we become more mindful and we don't get lost and dragged into other people's drawings. Catherine says hello from Scotland. Nice to see you, Catherine. Hanny, hello to you from Germany. Laura from Georgia in the US Lovely to see you. Jennifer is tuning in from Phoenix. Josephine from Northern Ireland. And something I want to share with our American friends is that right now there's a huge amount of polarization in the political situation in the US and whichever side you're on, what I would love for you to do is to take these principles we've talked about and reach your hand out first to someone who thinks very differently to you. And I know it's challenging because if you're on one side of the fence, you find it difficult to reconcile your views with people of a different political elk. Yet I encourage you that this is a very powerful transformation, not only for you, but for others. When family friend. Family members or friends, you actually reach out to them and have a conversation. Because I know that this political situation is splitting up families, splitting up friends. But reach your hand out first, talk to them about it, get their point of view without needing to make them wrong. And we can create some healing around these, this polarized political situation we're experiencing right now. Josephine in Northern Ireland, hello to you, Susan from Colorado, Jerrianne from New York. Josephine says, love your tree, Ashok. Yes, well, unfortunately, a lot of the decorations haven't arrived yet, so we've done the best that we can. I think they'll arrive after Christmas. Sue says hello from Rutland. Laura says, I have great results recovering from fibromyalgia and chronic Lyme. Can the Gupta program help my daughter with her migraines? Laura? Good question. The important thing here is that you always get these things checked out by a doctor first. So if your daughter is experiencing migraines, make sure she has all the normal tests. And once that has occurred, then, yes, someone definitely can improve anything related to pain. Jerriann says, do you have an anchor, something to remind you to come back to the present moment during a stressful situation? The secret is always our breath. So as soon as we become aware that we've lost that sense of connection to the present moment, we've got lost in thinking. The breath is our way of coming back. And if you need a reminder, think about what is that anchor? What is that thing that you do over a hundred times a day? It's looking at that phone. So the home screen of your phone can be anything that helps you remember to come back to the present moment. It could be a picture of your children. Right. That always helps us bring us the present moment. Or a representation of love. What represents love to you? Is it a figure from your religion or spirituality or a beautiful nature scene or someone you really connect with? All of these things can help us anchor more often in the present moment. Diana from Calgary, welcome to you. Grace from Sheffield, Nice to see you. Yes. And Grace, you've talked about, you're thinking of doing the Gupta program as you've done the 28 day trial and you're eight months into post Covid and still unwell and the long term effects are not being talked about. Yes. So we now know hundreds of people who are suffering from long haul Covid and as you know we are now treating that successfully at our clinic. There's already a video of a lady who's recovered who was in bed for six months. So Grace, I hope you have the opportunity to use the Gupta program and to look to heal yourself from that long haul Covid. And yes it can be a lonely time because not many people understand it. There's not many resources given to people. And I hope that we at the Gupta program can help you in any way we can. Geetam, just asking about how to join our program. Yes, very simple. You go to our website guptaprogram.com and there you can sign up for the free trial and watch lots of free videos and then you can take it from there. And if any questions please do email our clinic@infoguptaprogram.com maybe Jess, our marketing manager can just post that information as a reply to Geetam. Louisa says how did you find this much love that you radiated? Doing the Gupta program for about four months and it feels like I'm far away from this. Louisa, that's very kind of you to say. You don't need to find the love to radiate. You already are that love. It already exists in an infinite amount within you. We simply need to remove the barriers that stop us from radiating and expressing that love. We are all that source within us. And what stops us expressing that love is fear. Fear of whether we are loved. Fear of whether we can express and truly love others. Fear of what life means. The uncertainty of life needing to take control. All of these things block our sense of being able to express and radiate love. So step by step, through retraining, through the Gupta Program or the Meaning of Life experiment, we remove these barriers, these layers, these conditioned layers until we become more and more embodiment of who we truly are. Which is blue. B for bliss unconditionally happy no matter what happens in life. L for love unconditionally loving to those around us. U for unity, that sense of connection with the people, life, the entire universe, the entirety of existence. And finally, E for eternal existence. That moment when time and space stops and we experience the fullness and magnanimity of the entire creation. That's who we truly are. We are blue. And what will you change today? What little step Will you take to come closer and closer to who you truly are? And life is a process of letting go. Each moment is not about learning anything new, not about imbibing something new within us that we need to learn. But it's simply removing the layers of dust that cover this beautiful diamond that you are. Jane says hello from Minnesota. She's looking forward to using the Gupta program for mould toxicity. Good luck with that. Thank you for the tips and other stress reducing tips. Thank you. Very helpful. Elizabeth says, holiday greetings from Bend in Oregon. Hello to you, Sarah from Northampton. Welcome. Ilona says, love your work and your program. Any suggestions for breaking the addiction to WhatsApp? That I have Facebook too, a bit. I always know when someone says a bit, they mean a lot. It's recognizing, why are you addicted? Why are we addicted to screens? Now, those very clever people in Silicon Valley, they actually employ psychologists to figure out how they can make their apps sticky. Simply means how can they make you keep coming back again and again and again like a drug? And so what social media and these devices do is exploit human vulnerability. It exploits that little psychological vulnerability of wanting a dopamine hit. Now, what is a dopamine hit? It's that little reward chemical that says, oh, you did that thing that felt good, let's do that again. So when we go on social media and we get a like on our post, we read something interesting, give it a little dopamine hit, then we come back for more. We come back for more. Come back for more. And a great documentary that can help support you through this challenge is called the Social Dilemma. So I'd love for you to watch that during Christmas Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix. So the way that we can break that is to notice the addiction. Half the process of breaking addiction is to notice and be aware that you have it and to acknowledge it and to recognize it's real rather than deny it. Notice how you keep reaching for the phone to go onto WhatsApp or Facebook and instead take time to say, stop in that moment that you're reaching for it, stop. Ah, get away and actually do something else. Do something that you find more rewarding or more productive. And secondly, have periods of time where you deliberately say, I'm not going to be on the phone, I'm not going to be reaching for my phone, doing other things in life instead. So you set some parameters. Some people love to say, right, Sunday afternoons are the time that we have technology, free time with the family, let's say, and realize that sometimes we feel like we're missing out, fear of missing out. And that's why we keep going on to these various devices. And it's about having substitutes. So filling your day full of activities such as communing with nature or gardening or reading things that don't involve a screen setting time allocated for those things, and that can break some of these addictions. Tory says hello from Southern California. Thank you for this live event. I'm consciously doing Christmas differently this year after doing the first few sessions of the program. Yes, remember the ELF care. So if nothing else from today, just remember it's all about elf care. Okay, so lots of comments here. May not be able to get to all of you. Josephine, talking about struggling with brain fog. Do you have any advice? Yep, just continue with the Gupta program. Step by step. The brain fog can lift. Elizabeth, talking about pacing, how do we pace during this holiday period? Yes, there can be a lot of pressures, especially when there are family around to fully indulge in all the things that everybody is doing. You may want to eat the food that everyone else is eating, even though you know it's bad for you and give you a bit of a dip. Or you may find that you want to engage in all the activities that everyone else is doing or staying up late and the pacing is so important. For those of you who are perhaps using the Gupta program or people in general where you need to pace yourself, it's very important that you make those spaces during the day. So first and fundamentally, even if there are lots of family not home, tell them that meditation is incredibly important for you. So you need that 20 to 30 minutes out to do some deep breathing, to do some meditation. And obviously we can do the alternate nostril breathing and the meditations that we have on the app. And if you want to go deeper, you can take even the Art of Living course, which teaches some fabulous breathing techniques. It's called the Online Breathing and Meditation course, and you can do it online now. So there's no reason to even travel. You can find more information@artofliving.org so that would be a great way of also learning to breathe to calm down the nervous system and pace yourself. So it's that ability to not need to feel like you're keeping up with everyone else, but creating that time and space for yourself. And then during the day, if you find yourself overwhelmed, just take some time out. Just go upstairs or go into the bedroom and just take some time to breathe and bring stillness back to your system. Sometimes it is that fomo, that fear of missing out on Christmas, fear of missing out on all the fun. But number one priority is always my self care, how am I feeling? And by doing that, you're giving yourself that love and respect. That's true self love. And Susan saying also similar question, the slow motion technique. Yes, Susan, thank you for bringing that up. The slow motion technique is saying how can we do everything 30% slower, talk slower, move slower, cook slower, entertain slower. And in that way we slip into the rhythm of life, become more connected to this source, this energy which is all around us and that just makes us feel happier. Grace also asked me a similar question about coping with family. You know, many of us do have challenges with family and there are lots of different characters that come during Christmas. Now I know many of you may well still be in isolation during Christmas. But remember, it's not social distancing, it's not social isolation, it's physical distancing. So we still want to attempt to connect with people on Zoom, on WhatsApp, on video, whatever it may be. We now have the technology to not feel lonely ourselves and to relieve the loneliness of others. But in terms of those characters that do turn up, if we are planning to have family Christmas, know that it's perfectly normal to feel that stress and that pressure and to overdo it as a result. First of all, we can accept the people around us, they are different to us. They have their own habits. And the reason we cause ourselves stress is because we want them to change, we want them to be different. We're attached to an outcome and then we become stressed and we suffer. So the number one thing is let people be who they are. You're not going to change them overnight. And as I mentioned, in terms of overdoing it, prioritizing our self care and making sure we have adequate breaks that we take rest. We have a little alarm going off every 20, 30 minutes to remind us to breathe and take some time out and realize that we're not missing out on anything. Okay, we're going to feel far worse from that little bit of extra time we spent with family that we thought was bringing us joy. We feel far worse afterwards if we don't pace. And there is no wondrous joy that we're definitely going to get from that. We have it within us. It's just that when we spend time with family, when we spend time with friends, we give ourselves permission to feel that joy and love. But we can do that in any situation, in any environment. Joyce says, I have a habit of reading whilst I'm eating And I can't seem to break this habit, even though it makes me feel tired. So, Joyce, I've seen your name before, so I know that you're on the Gupta program. So you can use the Gupta program techniques in a very similar way. Every habit that we break involves that first a of awareness, just being aware. Oh, I'm reading again. How do I break out of that habit is to become consciously aware and say, hey, stop, stop, stop. Let me do something different. We change that way of being and use a seven step process to be able to do that. Good. Well, some lovely questions today. Thank you for joining me on this Facebook Live. Once again, please do share like and comment. Please do share this video on your Facebook feeds, on your Instagram and on any pages that you are members of. Because this type of content, this kind of information can be useful for absolutely anyone. Taylor asked, do you think you need to stay off your phone to recover? No, Taylor, no. I don't say that. To recover from various different mental, physical, emotional disorders or conditions. The phone can actually be something that can support and help us. But what we do want to do is reduce phone addiction. So we want to use the phones but not abuse the phones. So if we notice that we're pushing beyond our limits, that we're on our screens far too many hours a day and now our phones do tell us how long we're on the phone for. That's something that we can break out of through the techniques that I've mentioned. And on the MOL page at the Meaning of Life Experiment page, we actually have a whole video on how to reduce screen addiction. So thank you so much for all of you for watching. Please do share the videos, especially the first video that we did on how to have a mindful, stress free Christmas. And I just want to thank everyone at the Gupta Program as well. So I want to thank Jess, our marketing manager, for all the great work that she does for the Gupta Program and putting this event together. So thank you to you, Jess, and from everyone at the Forum team as well, thank you to all the forum moderators and volunteers. You do a sterling job in keeping the Gupta Program forum healthy and respectful. So thank you for the great job that you do. Hope you have a great Christmas. Thanks to all the coaches. We have 30 to 40 coaches around the world who support people through their challenges with chronic illness. Once again, if you're experiencing any chronic illness yourself and you're finding some challenges, you can work with one of our coaches straight away if you like. And you can find them@guptaprogram.com coaches. You can have a free 50 minute chat with any of our coaches and see if you gel with them and want to work with them. I'd say thank you to Christine, our office manager for all the great work that she does dealing with all of your queries and questions. And thanks to Drishan, our website manager who takes care of things. I'm sure we're here 247 for you and anyone else that I've missed out. All the wonderful people who work with the Gupta program, work on the Gupta program and for you, our audience, our friends who are working on yourselves, who've taken this brave step in 2020, 2021 to work on yourselves to uplift and heal. You're the real brave people here because it is a brave journey, a journey of self discovery, connecting back to the source of love that we truly are. So thank you to all of you. God bless you. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and I'll see you on the 1st of January for our special Facebook Live on setting our goals and vision for a new 2021. Take care. Thank you and goodbye.