Hello it's Dr Bethany Brown here and thank you for joining me for this self-celebration exercise.
To begin with I would invite you to take up a position that feels comfortable yet alert.
This could be seated,
Standing or lying,
The choice is with yourself and if you would like to close your eyes I invite you to do so but alternatively a soft gaze at a neutral point is equally okay.
In this exercise we are going to try to acknowledge,
Recognize and connect with memories,
Situations,
Occurrences that are things that you would like to celebrate about yourself,
For yourself and to yourself.
We're going to try to cultivate an acceptance around self-celebration,
An embracing of self-celebration and importantly a connecting to and with self-celebration.
Let's begin by taking a moment to just settle into this exercise.
So taking a moment to bring your awareness to your breath,
Following each in-breath and each out-breath from a place of non-judgment and non-striving,
Not trying to do a perfect breath or a particular type of breath,
Simply observing the present breath as it is.
Noticing the different parts of our body that we're experiencing our breath in and observing that from a place of curiosity.
What can we learn from that?
What does that tell us about our present moment experience?
And then from that observation and curiosity I invite you to give yourself a choice point.
Is there anything you would like to change?
Would you like to change your positioning?
Would you like to deepen your breath for more relaxation?
Or are you happy and settled as you are?
And now we're moving on to think about this concept of self-celebration,
This concept of recognizing things we've done well,
Achievements,
Successes,
Qualities,
Challenges we have overcome or attempted,
Things that we would like to acknowledge and celebrate about ourselves.
And to do this,
Let's start by bringing something to mind,
Just anything that comes up,
Inviting our mind to think about something that merits celebration,
That's merits celebration.
And this can be something big,
Like an exam,
A presentation.
But equally,
It can be something that on first observation may feel smaller.
The act of kindness that we did even when we were really tired,
The biting our tongue in a difficult interaction,
The taking the time to do this meditation,
To allow ourselves to celebrate ourselves,
Seeing where your mind goes and what comes to mind and allowing ourselves to connect with that and use that as our focus for self-celebration in this moment.
And I would like to begin by building that visualization of what you are celebrating about yourself,
Of the situation,
The moment,
The behavior,
The quality,
The personality trait,
Whatever it may be.
Start by building that visualization in your mind's eye of what you are celebrating,
Picturing it in as much detail as you can.
And at any time your mind wanders,
Which of course it will do because that is what minds do,
Notice the distraction and bring yourself back to the point of celebration.
And as you hold that in your mind,
I'm going to ask you a series of questions that I want you to simply answer to yourself.
What are you celebrating about yourself today?
Why is this important to you?
How does this make you feel?
What have you learned about yourself?
What does this mean about you?
What qualities do you have given that you have done?
What do you have done?
What do you like about this?
What do you like about you because of this?
And now I would invite you to place your hand on your chest.
And I want us to move to a mantra section of this exercise.
And I want you to complete this mantra in your own words,
Which link to what you are celebrating about yourself today.
I am celebrating myself because I feel proud of myself because I am celebrating myself because I am proud of myself because repeating these mantras at your own pace,
In your own words,
Hand on heart with that self connection,
Hearing those words,
Feeling your hand on your chest,
And bringing awareness to how this feels,
Any sensations in your body and connecting to those feelings,
Embracing those feelings.
And just as we move to ending this exercise,
I want to leave you with one last question to answer.
What do I want to take away from this exercise?
And just sitting with that answer for the final few moments,
Taking two or three further deep breaths before finishing the exercise there.
