Overcoming Anxiety About the COVID-19 Pandemic Pt 4– Free 4 Part Video Course

Sam.

Please remember that this investment of time in your own self care is the most loving thing that you can.

Do for your mind and your body right now.

It's an incredible act of self love.

When we go through challenging times, taking care of our emotional health is key.

And it also promotes a healthy immune system. So I hope you'll keep up the commitment because it will bear fruit not only in reducing your chances of getting an infection from a virus, but also improving your overall mental and physical well.

Being in so many ways.

For instance, reducing your chances of of any chronic condition.

In today's video, we'll look at how.

We can relax our minds about the current situation to an even deeper level to promote good health and a strong immune system. Mindfulness has been shown to increase the strength of our immune system.

And once you get used to living.

This way, this state of mind, nothing can ever be the same again. This is mindfulness. Mindfulness is being aware of your body, your thoughts, your emotions without judgment, rather than having a mind full of thoughts and worries. Instead, it's being mindful.

As we walk this path, we can realize that this is also a profound journey of self discovery. And what is it that we're discovering? Well, let's find out. Let's play a game. Please just close your eyes right now. Now what happened just then? You might have had some thoughts, right? Maybe thinking, why has he asked me to close my eyes if he's not going to say anything? Or is my audio on? Or perhaps you were thinking about what's going to happen later. Or maybe you were thinking about chocolate. In these cases we're identified with the thoughts in our minds. We just go along with whatever our mind does. Now let's close our eyes again. But this time I want you to label your thoughts for oh, that's a thought about tomorrow. Oh, that's a thought about such and such person. So we are aware of what the mind is thinking about. Now what just happened then? You were watching your mind and it was a different experience, right? You may have noticed that you had less thoughts because now you're aware of what the mind is doing. So let me ask you a question. Are you the same as your mind? Are you your mind? Can we be the mind and also be able to observe the mind at the same time? So instead, rather than being our minds, we can observe our minds, be the witness of our minds. And normally we're carried away with whatever the mind is doing and thinking and saying. And if we identify with the mind, we're living life more Unconsciously. But instead we take a step back and we can disidentify.

It's like this stream or this river. We are in the stream of thoughts and we're being swept away by the random gushing whims and fancies of our minds. Or we can rise above our minds and be the witnessing, awareness, the observer. This means we sit on the banks of the river and observe the river rather than getting carried away with it. Well, when we are the witness, we can observe all those rushing thoughts and emotions that don't serve us but just drain our energy. We can see all the dirt that also goes along with the stream. We can observe it and not be so affected by it. Then we can retrain our dear beloved minds with compassion. We can channel that stream of energy in a different direction. And it's all about becoming more conscious, more aware of what's going on in that stream.

We may also notice that when we're caught up in our thoughts and our worries, like this water in the stream, our mind is contracted, we feel smaller. But when we're maintaining that witnessing awareness position, sitting on the banks of the river, we feel more open and expanded. We see life from a higher perspective, and we feel calmer and happier.

As you strengthen your muscles of awareness by sitting on the banks of the river more often, you'll notice that you'll find new worry patterns, the more sneaky ones, and you'll discover new moments when you're not pacing and you're rushing. This is discovering new blind spots and exposing them to the light of awareness. How can we practice mindfulness and be sitting more often on the banks of the river? Well, firstly, regular deep breathing and meditation and making sure we meditate twice a day. Secondly, mindful moments. And thirdly, mindful activity.

Firstly, regular daily meditation helps us to be more mindful during the rest of the day. And what is meditation? Meditation is like a concentrated period of sitting on the banks of the river. And what are we doing in meditation? We're building that muscle for being the witness, being the observer, the observer of the stream of constant thoughts going on in our mind. And we don't get carried away with.

Them and we don't get caught up in them.

We're just the witness.

This is why breathing and meditation are so beneficial in retraining. Just a small, slow, deep breath in can reset the mind because it tells the brain that you're relaxed and therefore it should become relaxed too. We become aware of our thoughts or worries about the body. We let them go and bring our focus Back to the present moment. And in that present moment it might be the sound of my voice or the music or the mantra, or a sound that we use to meditate.

Perhaps you've been meditating for a little while now and I would love for you to meditate for longer than 20 minutes. Perhaps you can use the 30 minute meditations instead, if you aren't already. Now why do we want to meditate for longer? Because sometimes it takes us, our minds around 15 minutes or so just to settle. Some people say that just going for a mindful walk is meditation. Well, I would say that it's not a substitute, it's a nice addition. Regularly sitting down, closing our eyes and doing at least a 20 to 30 minute meditation twice a day is so important. When our nervous system is in this hyper defence mode, when our brain is in hyper alert mode, it finds other things to do. Our mind doesn't want to sit down and just rejuvenate. And that's often when we then make excuses to ourselves not to meditate. But these thoughts and feelings are exactly why meditation is so good for you. It's food for the soul. How often do we go into automatic pilot? We get caught up in our worries. Worries about the future, regrets about what we did in the past. All of this is just a waste of energy, especially worrying. We sometimes don't even know that we've got cause caught up in this stream of worries, we're just getting carried away.

By it down the stream.

So we can regularly remind ourselves each 30 minutes or so to pause to sit on the banks of the river. And this can really help. Or perhaps at least every hour, we can reset our nervous system and take that pause from our churning mind. It's easy, just take 30 seconds to pause whatever we're doing, bring our mind into the present moments and just breathe. Let's practice a mindful moment.

Right now.

The first thing that we do is stretch our arms and yawn deliberately a few times. So let's just do that. Now stretch your arms. Just yawn. And stretch down to your body in your chair or standing up as much as feels comfortable. Yawning again. And now you take a seat and close your eyes and let's take a slow deep breath in. And slowly breathe out. Let's become aware of our breathing. And we just observe it like a curious observer. Now imagine your whole body, notice your whole body as one energy field. And we can ground ourselves in the presence and the stillness. This present moment right now. Let's continue to breathe slowly and deeply. Enjoying the presence and stillness of our body. And now let's take another slow deep breath in. And breathe out. And when you feel ready, you can just gently open your eyes.

So how did that feel? Just imagine if we repeated that every hour. It would help us to become more aware beings. We'd become more mindful, more the witnessing awareness of our thoughts and emotions instead of getting carried away with them. We're a human being, not a human doing. We tend to focus on doing things. But are we aware of our state of mind whilst we're doing? Because often it's not the activity that makes us tired, it's the mindset with which we do the activity that causes that exhaustion.

Let's take everything slowly. Rather than rushing, we can engage in mindful activity. And mindful activity means allowing our attention to be in the present moment during the activity, enjoying the state of flow. So we're absorbed in the activity and flowing with the moment. Rather than thinking about the past or the future, and rather than thinking about the outcome, we're not doing an activity, we're being the activity. There are three aspects we can practice during an activity. Firstly, the slow motion technique. Secondly, breathing. And thirdly, being aware of the present moment sensations.

The slow motion technique. Now, if there's one thing you practice after today, I'd love for it to be this one technique. The slow motion technique. Basically, we do everything 30 to 40% slower. We breathe slower, move slower, think slower, speak slower, type on our laptop slower, read slower and of course eat slower. Some people may have low energy, but.

I watch them jump up and rush.

To do activities with speed. Just try and get it out of the way, trying to save energy.

When we perform activities slower and we breathe slowly, our nervous system gets calmer and nothing is more powerful than practice. Doing things in slow motion naturally places us on the banks of the river. And what is the slow motion technique doing for us now? This is the secret. As we engage in the activity, we are still connected to the witnessing awareness within us. We flow with activity whilst maintaining a healthy background awareness of our stress levels.

Breathe slowly. As we're doing an activity, let's become more aware of our breath. Let's breathe slightly more slowly and deeply as we do things. And of course this naturally comes with practicing the slow motion technique. Anyway, this helps us to stay more calm and centered and more aware in case the activity is overstimulating us slower. Deep breathing signals to the amygdala that we're safe. Whereas if we breathe shallow from the chest, it signals that we're in danger.

The present moment, sensations, Our senses can help bring us into the present moment. When you suddenly stop and become aware of what you can hear, what you can see, what you can feel, you suddenly notice there's a lot of activity occurring in this present moment. What can also help is to bring our mind to what? Our hands. So if we're washing the dishes, how does the water feel? What do the bubbles look like? Our senses help focus our mind on the present moment. And of course, absorbing ourselves in the activity can also be useful at the same time. We don't want to forget about pacing.

So let's go ahead now and let's pause the video and make ourselves a drink. And we can practice the three aspects. One, the slow motion technique. That's most important. Number two, the deep breathing. And number three, being present to the sensations to bring our mind in the present moment. Perhaps we can make ourselves a herbal tea. So let's practice that now for a few minutes, Okay? So how did that go? Felt different, right? Were you aware of how your senses can help to bring you into the present moment? And people report that as they practice these different techniques, especially the slow motion technique, they feel calmer, they enjoy the activities more. They even connect with that inner stillness more. They're more of a witness to what is going on around them. That's as simple as it can be to be on the banks of the river rather than being carried away with our thoughts. And this helps our nervous system stay calm.

If you want a quick and easy way of being mindful. Some people find that just doing the slow motion technique incorporates all of naturally, brings our breathing into check, calms the nervous system. And this is lifelong practice, evolving to higher and higher levels of awareness and stillness. And as we practice, each moment becomes more of a joy, each activity is expanded, and we bring more happiness and into our own lives and the lives of others, we literally radiate positive energy.

La.