Thank you everybody for coming.
Welcome to this very special space and this incredibly special collection.
The Gallery is such a support of mindfulness and this particular collection has some interesting things to say around that.
If you do,
Get a chance to wander later on today.
So welcome to everyone into the room.
Welcome Mitch,
Who's joining us on space drum tonight for the music portion of the evening.
And welcome to our listeners who are joining us live as well and we will be broadcasting this evening as our very second podcast for music meditation.
One of the things I wanted to talk about with relation to mindfulness was sparked by a story I had,
A conversation I had with a colleague on Tuesday.
She had gone to a workshop in Sydney,
A mindfulness workshop,
Her sister took her there,
And there was a meditation portion to the evening that she wasn't expecting.
And she said that when she sat down in the silence,
Some very deep emotion came up that she wasn't expecting and she didn't know what it was.
It was unexplained.
She couldn't put her finger on what had happened.
And it made me think about what happens when we give space to ourselves in that moment and why sometimes things can come up when we're feeling fine.
And I really feel like the story is linked to self-love and self-love is a term we hear thrown around a lot.
And I'm going to tell you how I interpret it.
It's a very important part of my life and it manifests in many different ways.
I think what was happening that day for her was what we all know as coping,
A coping mechanism.
And that's where in order to cope in our everyday life,
We shut down emotions inside us that cause us grief and issues.
And it's a natural part of human condition to have emotions and it's also natural to want to do that.
So I think in the space of the meditation that night for her,
The mechanism shifted a little bit and some of those emotions escaped.
And perhaps they'd been pushed down for so long that she didn't actually know what had caused them.
Perhaps they'd been there for so long.
But,
You know,
Emotions are what make us human.
Without emotions,
We'd be dead really.
There's something that we all battle with on a daily basis and on a moment to moment basis too.
And we're all wired to experience emotions differently as we know in relationships with people.
We don't truly know how the other person is connecting or reacting to us.
I know from my personal experience that I've come to realise my huge sensitivity and depth of feeling with relation to emotions,
So it caused me grief when I was younger,
Particularly when I was a teenager.
It now is one of my most great assets as a musician and as a creator.
I harness that.
And it's almost as if I've found a channel for it,
A way to manage it.
What I wanted to talk about today was actually what's happening when we do push those emotions down.
I feel we're really not allowing ourselves to be truly who we are.
Because when we push it down,
We're sort of saying to ourselves we reject that part of us or we don't really like that part of who we are.
And I think that's part of the self-loathing or self-hatred cycle.
We feel a strong emotion and we don't want to feel it because we're afraid of it.
They might not love us back or we might lose that person or we might never get that dream job,
So we push it down.
But we're pushing down who we really are.
Society will tell us to be realistic,
To get a real job and to settle down and be happy with what we have.
But I think there is some real benefit to listening to our inner self.
I think that it helps us to be in touch with our intuition and awareness around that.
Now,
On Your Seats is a little postcard and there's actually an artwork on there.
You probably know what artwork it is.
I think it's from the Burning Man Festival.
So for those listening,
It's the artwork where there are two adults represented in cage form turning away from each other back to back.
The insight is to their inner self represented as children trying to reach out to each other,
Trying to connect.
And in my experience,
The cage that we create for ourselves by pushing our emotions down,
We're wrapping ourselves in the cotton wool of fear,
Blame and judgement and other negative emotions,
It's interesting that what's going on in that poster is those children are trying to reach out despite that.
And that's who we really are.
Not necessarily children,
But our inner selves underneath that cotton wool.
Now,
I'm a success story,
To be completely honest,
Because I failed terribly at doing what other people wanted me to do,
Because I made myself completely miserable in the process.
I went down the classical music stream and I was really unhappy.
And when I started to be myself with my own creation,
It helped.
But it wasn't really until I realised the problem wasn't on the outside,
It wasn't the people I was with,
It wasn't the situation,
It was actually within me when I realised I could change.
The only thing I could possibly change was me.
And I started to do that.
I found an excellent therapist and worked through the journey of looking right into what was going on.
And it was nothing particularly special or traumatic,
It was just when we are children,
We get hurt,
We don't know how to handle our emotions and it is a natural part of who we are that when we grow,
We hold onto those things and we push down certain things that hurt us.
So how does this all come about?
Firstly,
With the poster you're holding in your handout is a seminar I'm giving at the end of this year on this topic,
Self-love.
And it is a culmination of the work that I've been researching about and talking to with the music meditation class every week,
Or every fortnight or so this whole year.
And also it ties into what I wanted to work with you today,
Which is actually some real tools and techniques we can use to help ourselves when we're in that situation in our day-to-day life,
In the moment,
It may be something that's confronting straight away or it may be just something bubbling under the surface.
Because we have access right now to a really powerful mechanism that can help us in any moment and that mechanism is the breath.
Breathing has transformed my life.
I wasn't breathing properly.
I don't know if you're aware of if you breathe properly or not.
I had five years of breath training as a singer and still didn't breathe properly.
We know the feeling of when we get anxious,
We breathe shallowly.
So one thing I love to do in our meditation class is like when you go to the gym and you strengthen your muscles,
You strengthen our breathing practice so that when it comes to daily life,
We have that mechanism in place just to take a breath more deeply.
And if you just try it right now,
If you take a really deep breath,
You'll notice all you're thinking of is just that breath.
So we're going to look at breath today in our meditation.
We're going to do something called the four,
Five,
Six breath and I'll just explain it before we go into it.
The four,
Five,
Six breath is where we breathe in on four counts and we hold for five counts and then on the sixth breath,
We exhale quickly,
Get it all out.
And sometimes if you've practiced a little bit,
It can help to constrict at the throat a little bit.
It helps to create a bit of a funnel and helps us to give the feeling of the out breath,
Which is an important part of the mechanism.
So we'll do that and then we'll also do a really fun exercise that most musicians I know hate,
Including me.
It's called breath counting and it's where I'll give you minutes of silence to let yourself breathe naturally and you'll count each in and out breath as one and you naturally count all the way to five and then you go back to one.
And what normally happens in the setting is that our mind just exits and we go somewhere and before we know it,
We're at seven or nine or 22.
So it's a way of keeping us mindful of counting.
And before we get into that,
I just wanted to leave you with a bit of a challenge,
Something that a teacher,
A Kalpini violinist,
Gave me when I was a teenager in a way to help to change things if you're stuck in a pattern.
Someone in my class said,
I'm stuck,
I've been stuck for seven years,
How do I get out of it?
And the quickest way to get out of it is just to change your patterns,
Whatever you do.
Get out on the other side of the bed.
If you walk to work,
Walk a different way.
If you use a certain coffee cup,
Which I do every morning,
Use a different one.
And it's giving your brain a chance to rewire a little way.
An extreme example is last summer I took my swag and I went camping,
Freedom camping,
Because I wanted to break out of the pattern of having safety to sleep.
And I made sure it was legal and all that kind of thing,
But it really helped,
Like you wouldn't believe.
So changing of patterns can help,
Breathing can help,
And mindfulness,
Which is your mind being aware of the present moment,
Is one of the most incredible things to do.
And we'll start with that in our meditation in the form of a body scan.
So for those of you that are new,
We start and end with the sound of three bells.
I highly recommend you close your eyes,
It can help focus the mind.
And we'll be doing a meditation for about 15 to 20 minutes.
And then Mitch and I will play music for another 20 to 25 minutes,
Depending on how much time we have.
And generally the music component is an opportunity to deepen the practice.
Perhaps you choose to keep with the breathing techniques,
Or perhaps you'd like to just focus on the sound.
But from the feedback I've had from the class,
The music is an opportunity to deepen your experience.
And at the end I encourage you to look at the collection with that different state of mind and see if you've experienced art in a different way too.
Alright Cecily,
Would you mind getting the lights?
Thank you,
We'll get started.
Bells Bells As a way of arriving and settling in this space,
Take a moment to shift and adjust,
Feel completely grounded in your chair.
Straighten your spine a little,
Let the limbs fall.
Feel free to shift as you need during the meditation,
But you might choose to commit to stillness for the sake of going inward on this journey.
Focusing your attention on the breath,
Sensation of breathing in and the nostrils and the lips,
Any tingling,
Coolness,
Vibration as you breathe in and out.
If you're noticing your breath and where it comes into the belly,
You might relax the belly a little more and join with me in a few deep long breaths beginning by exhaling and deep breath in and out.
Deep breath in and out.
Deep breath in and just pause and slowly breathe out.
Just letting the breath go back to its natural rhythm.
Bringing your attention back again to the home base,
Which is your breath,
The feeling on the lips,
The feeling on the nose,
The nostrils.
Expanding your awareness now to the sounds around you.
You might draw your attention to the sounds in this room,
Whether it's my voice,
The echo,
Any other sounds in this room.
Perhaps now sounds outside,
Distant sounds.
And bringing your attention back to the breath.
Becoming aware now of the crown of your head.
Is there any feeling there,
Any tingling?
Moving down the back of the head to the neck.
Feeling the muscles of the shoulders relax and sink down over to the forehead.
Maybe softening the forehead to the eyebrows,
Letting them fall down to the sides.
The eyes,
Deep down behind the eyes where there is a muscle,
Feeling it relax and fall into the back of the sockets.
To the nose,
To the end of the nose.
Any sensations right at the tip,
Tingling,
Vibration.
Down to the lips.
Any energy there,
Feeling of the breath,
Any coolness.
Perhaps inside the mouth,
The tongue,
The palate as you breathe in and out.
Down to the chin and the jaw,
Releasing the jaw,
Relaxing it to the ground.
Down to the throat,
A very important part of expression,
The throat chakra or throat area.
Noticing what's going on inside the throat.
Breathing deeply into this area.
Do you notice any warmth or areas of discomfort?
Any tingling?
Any attacks?
Any blockages of energy?
Just feel with the next in-breath this area opening up and letting go of anything as you breathe out.
Moving down now to the left shoulder.
Looking inside the shoulder,
Is there any energy there?
Any tingling,
Warmth or pressure,
Soreness from the day?
Just breathe deeply into that space if you notice any discomfort.
Moving down the left arm to the elbow,
To the left forearm,
To the wrist and the hand,
Feeling inside the palm of the left hand.
Feeling the fingers,
The vibration and tingling,
Right to the fingertips.
Moving over to the right shoulder.
Again,
Without judgement,
Just looking around the right shoulder,
Noticing any sensations,
Vibration,
Energy,
Pain,
Discomfort.
Feeling that area relax as you breathe into that area and breathe out any energy that's held in there.
Moving down the right arm now to the right elbow,
Noticing how the right elbow is bent to accommodate the rest of the arm.
Down the right forearm to the wrist,
The hand.
Feeling inside the right hand,
In the palm,
Some energy in there,
The fingers,
Tingling right on the fingertips.
Feeling their energy.
Moving back over to the shoulders and down to the lower back.
Feeling the spine straighten,
Letting the upper limbs fall a bit more.
Down to another important centre in the body,
The hips.
A seat of much emotion,
Sometimes an area where emotion is blocked.
Without any judgement,
Just looking into the left hip,
Without observation,
Sorry,
Without judgement,
Noticing any areas in the left hip of pain or discomfort.
Rather than shifting,
Perhaps breathing deeply into this area,
Feeling the breath enter the left hip and release any discomfort with the out-breath.
Moving down the left thigh,
Feeling the volume of the thigh to the left knee,
Noticing how the left knee is bent.
Is there any energy in the left knee?
Moving down the left shin to the ankle and foot,
Bringing your attention to the connection between the foot and the floor.
Observing without judgement the warmth and pressure of that connection.
Perhaps feeling the inside of the left foot,
The volume and hollowness of that space.
Moving back over to the right hip.
Again noticing looking around and inside the right hip,
Any blockages that may be in there.
We may not be aware of them at all,
But with the breath we can assist the area by breathing deeply into the right hip and breathing out and visualising letting go of any energy that might be stuck in there.
Breathing out as we move down the right hip to the right thigh,
Feeling the volume of the right thigh to the right knee.
Moving down the right knee to the shin,
The ankle and the right foot,
Resting our attention on the connection,
The pressure and warmth we feel between the right foot and the floor.
Without judgement,
Bringing our attention now to our whole body,
Connected as one breathing organism,
Expanding as we breathe in and contracting and letting go of energy as we breathe out.
Keeping that visualisation in place as we start our first four,
Five,
Six breaths.
Starting now with an exhalation,
Breathing in on one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Holding one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five and out six.
Letting the breath go back to its natural rhythm.
Giving the mind an opportunity to focus in again on the home base,
The breath,
The sensations in the nostrils and the lips.
Preparing again for another four,
Five,
Six breaths by exhaling and breathing in on one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Holding one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five and out six.
Noticing any changes inside the body with the breath,
The nervous system being a little bit more engaged with oxygen,
Any vibration or tingling,
Any feeling in the mind,
The brain,
Perhaps happiness,
Mild euphoria,
Perhaps feeling that deep breaths.
Preparing again for another four,
Five,
Six breaths with an exhalation,
Breathing in on one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Holding one,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five and out six.
Let the body go back to its natural rhythm.
Noticing any deeper feelings with the breath,
Any sensations,
Tingling or energy.
Feeling grateful that we have access to such a powerful mechanism in any moment.
And again,
Resting our attention back on the home breath,
Giving our mind the opportunity to focus on physical sensations around the nostril and the lips.
As we let our breath go back to its natural rhythm,
Begin our breath counting exercise,
Where one full in and out breath counts as one,
And we count all the way to five and then reset to one.
If we notice our mind has wandered,
Perhaps we stop counting or we over count.
Without any judgment,
Bring our attention back to the breath and restart.
In silence now for the next few minutes,
Counting the breath.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Continuing the breath counting practice or focusing the breath in on the physical sensations of the breath.
And if the mind wanders,
Bringing it back to your home base.
Silence.
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