Good Communication - Meditation & Coffee

Sometimes in life we need to have difficult conversations. Misunderstandings can arise, frustrations, people behaving in baffling, selfish or thoughtless ways. The tools of meditation can help us recognise these feelings, and loosen their grip on us, so we can feel less angry or frustrated or confrontational, and choose a calmer, more communicative, helpful path!

Transcript

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 overwhelm,

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 friends,

We're live on another session of meditation and coffee.

I'm just posting what this meditation is about this morning.

It is all about good communication,

How to use the tools of meditation and mindfulness to actually do something which many of us find difficult,

Which many of us are not taught,

Many of us are brought up not really knowing how to communicate in an effective and useful and non-confrontational way.

And this is something that I've had to learn as I get older,

How to actually communicate in a way that is not going to add fuel to the fire of a conversation,

Is not going to inflame the issue,

Is not going to be thoughtless,

Misunderstanding,

Cause more problems.

Communication is also about standing up for yourself,

About saying no,

This is a boundary of mind that you have crossed,

I'm not okay with it.

But it's also about doing that in a way that,

As I say,

Isn't going to make things worse,

Isn't going to make the situation more inflamed and more confrontational.

Many of us think that if we have good communication,

That means that we have to be confrontational all the time,

And that isn't true.

You don't have to be confrontational,

You don't have to go wading into a massive argument in order to make your voice heard and in order to communicate about things that matter to you.

Something that has helped me to do this as I got older and something that has helped me massively in communicating with my boyfriend and my friends,

And just in general to make sure that I feel as though I'm putting my point across,

But I'm also doing it in a way that is at least trying to be compassionate and useful and helpful to the other person without being super confrontational,

Selfish,

Angry,

All the rest of it.

So that's what we're going to do today.

Just taking a moment to appreciate the fact that it's Friday,

And if you're watching this afterwards or a day later or whenever,

Just take a moment to appreciate whatever time of the week that it's been and notice what you have achieved.

We made it,

We've got this far,

You've done it,

We're here.

So congrats on whatever it is that you've done this week,

Drawing a line under anything that maybe you haven't done,

And it's all good.

Today's meditation is massively about self-acceptance,

About self-knowledge and self-trust,

And if you don't know me by now,

That's what I always say meditation is about.

It's about helping us to understand ourselves better and get in touch with who we are better,

Which is like a lifelong process.

Sounds kind of obvious,

It's like well obviously I'm me,

I know who I am,

But actually do though,

Like actually learning who we really are and what we really need to feel good and happy and healthy is a lifelong learning process,

And meditation is a hugely amazing tool that can help us do that.

So without further ado,

I will also say very briefly that there are planes flying over my house this morning.

I live near a major international airport in the UK,

Heathrow Airport,

So that's why if you can hear a rumble every few minutes,

That's what that is.

Unfortunately I cannot control the flight path,

But I can control my breath and my moods through meditation and that is what we are going to do today.

So I invite you to get into a comfortable position.

And when I say comfortable,

I do mean there's no set way to sit,

There is no set way to be,

It is simply something that feels comfortable,

Natural,

Normal to you.

Allowing yourself to come into that position and noticing any areas where you might be gripping or tensing,

Any areas of tension in your body.

And as you notice your breathing,

Allowing yourself to release some of that tension as you exhale.

And coming into position,

Being aware of how it feels to be sitting here breathing in your body today.

No matter what it is that you need to do with the rest of the day or the week,

For these few moments all you need to do is notice your breathing in and out and notice how it feels in your body to be sitting where you are today.

Feeling the gravity on your thighs,

Your legs,

Allowing your shoulders to drop and taking a moment to get in touch with what's going on,

With how you're feeling.

If you'd like you can close your eyes.

And I invite you to gently notice your breath.

And when I say notice,

I mean paying attention to it in a casual,

Curious kind of playful way.

You would be breathing anyway even if you weren't doing this meditation.

So let's just tune in to our breathing that is happening at this moment.

And one of the reasons why we focus on the breath in meditation is not always because the breath is the only thing that we could take notice of,

But it's because it's there all the time.

So it is in theory something that we can come back to over and over and over again no matter how many times we get distracted.

And focusing on the breath also means that we can give our minds a break and we can come into being more aware of what's going on with our physical body.

And in today's meditation,

Getting in touch with our physical body is really useful.

Have you imagined that you are having a difficult conversation with someone or a situation in your life where you felt like you needed good communication?

Like I say,

A difficult conversation,

A misunderstanding.

I had a misunderstanding with my boyfriend last night.

I thought that he was going to come and help me finish doing the dinner.

He thought that I had volunteered to do the dinner by myself,

So I thought that he was being selfish for not helping and he didn't understand why I was getting angry because he thought that we'd already agreed.

So situations like that that are really mundane but that can cause a lot of communication difficulties.

And in these situations,

Being in touch with our body is really useful.

Being able to be aware of what the feeling is making us feel physically.

So for example,

If you're thinking that someone is being very selfish,

How can they do that to me,

Why are they letting me finish this by myself?

You can notice the thoughts but also notice the feeling in your body.

How is it making you feel?

Anxious,

Tense.

My shoulders are going up around my ears.

I feel that my face is getting hot.

Maybe I'm just feeling a sense of tension and anger all over.

When we notice those physical reactions,

We can learn to tune in to what we're really feeling.

Because if we notice a physical reaction,

It can be a clue,

Okay yeah,

I'm getting really worked up about this.

And practicing meditation where we notice those feelings and those thoughts and those sensations can then allow us in the moment to recognize what's happening and give ourselves that perspective we need to step back from the intensity of that feeling of that thought and choose a more helpful path so that we don't end up having a massive full-blown confrontational argument and we can actually respond in a more helpful way.

So I'll give you a few moments to imagine a situation where maybe you felt annoyed or slightly confronted or anxious in a situation in a difficult conversation and noticing in your body any areas of tension that come up.

Perhaps any physical reactions,

Temperature,

Gripping,

Fear.

And then I invite you to notice any thoughts that maybe come up if you think about previously a situation where communication hasn't been great or someone's said something or done something that has been particularly frustrating.

Notice any reactions and thoughts that might pop into your mind.

For example,

He's so selfish.

Or he's so unreasonable.

Or she's so thoughtless for behaving in that way.

And instead,

Practicing noticing what we're feeling in a meditation setting can help us realise that actually,

Often,

People are not selfish.

They're maybe just behaving in a selfish way.

And that's quite a distinction.

Making that distinction from saying that something is absolute and always true and moving it into something that is not absolute and that has room to change and shift.

So for example,

Again,

He's really selfish.

He is a selfish person.

You can realise that you're having that thought and shift it to he's not a selfish person,

He's just behaving in a selfish way right now.

And notice how that changes the dynamic of that thought and means that there could be room for change.

So if someone is behaving in a selfish way right now,

That means that they're not always behaving in that way.

Or that just because they're doing it right now doesn't mean that they always have to.

But if you condemn someone as they are selfish,

That's it,

That's very final.

And when you are in positions of communication with people where you need to employ good communication,

Remembering that and trying not to see things in absolutes is extremely useful.

So again,

Rather than she's always thoughtless,

She's a thoughtless person,

That's a really thoughtless thing that she did,

We can say,

Okay,

Well,

It was something thoughtless that happened or she behaved in a thoughtless way.

But that doesn't mean that she is always thoughtless or always going to be thoughtless.

And again,

That opens us up to be able to have a conversation about it and say,

Hey,

I felt as though what happened the other day,

It made me feel like you were being really thoughtless.

I know that you're not normally a thoughtless person.

So can you explain to me what happened?

Or you can say,

I feel as though that was a really selfish thing that you did.

Rather than you're just a selfish person and you behave selfishly.

It's a small tweak,

But it's massive in terms of not confronting someone,

In terms of being able to open dialogue and also in terms of how you feel about it.

Because if you feel as though someone is just being selfish or just being rude,

That's it.

There's no possible openings to change.

And it also means that you feel as though you're kind of the victim.

Like that person is behaving that way to me and that's it.

But if you notice,

Okay,

I'm feeling this way,

But maybe they didn't mean to,

Or maybe there's a way that we can talk about this.

You're taking yourself out of that victim mode and you're putting yourself in a position where you're able to have a constructive conversation about it.

Again if we realise that we are good underneath,

And that we have value and that we are worth taking up space no matter what,

It's easier for us to have difficult conversations.

Because we know that even if the conversation goes badly,

Or the person doesn't really understand our point of view,

It's okay because we're good.

We are worthy and loved and worth loving no matter what.

Meditation teaches us that as well.

So I invite you to practice noticing the thoughts and feelings that might come up if you're imagining a particular moment or situation of confrontation.

And allowing yourself to breathe into it and just noticing any automatic thoughts that are coming up or any particularly noticeable sensations or feelings in your body.

And if it helps you can breathe deeply to allow some of that tension to diffuse.

And you can open your eyes if you had them closed and come back into the room and grab your cup of coffee or tea or chai or matcha or whatever it is that you got this morning.

And allowing yourself to sit with the practice noticing if you feel any different to when you first sat down.

And remembering yeah this is what I was saying that sometimes life can feel really black and white and absolute.

Like he was behaving selfishly.

And it's like well okay but maybe he doesn't always.

He's not a selfish person that was just one selfish thing that he did.

And when you make that shift from an absolute judgement he is selfish to a flexible judgement he did something that was kind of selfish.

It opens up the channels of communication.

And being able to recognise those thoughts in our head and being able to realise when we're caught in something.

This is extremely helpful because it opens up the channels of communication and it means that we actually can notice when maybe we are being irrational,

Maybe when we actually could use some better communication ourselves.

And it allows us to just step back out of the stress of that situation.

The initial reactions that we maybe feel,

The initial automatic thoughts that maybe come up instantly when we're annoyed or stressed or frustrated.

And gives us space to respond in perhaps a more helpful,

Communicative and loving way.

So thank you so much for today's meditation.

Hello Rebecca,

Thank you,

Good morning.

Thank you so much for being here.

As usual the meditation will be on my IGTV page and I will upload it onto the Insight Timer app if you would like to listen over there as well.

If you'd like to save it for future difficult communications.

However,

Thank you so much,

Have a wonderful weekend and I will be back here on Monday with another session for meditation and coffee.

Thanks so much,

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.

You can also share with your friends on Instagram tagging me at Breathe Like a Badass.

I always love to see you there.

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.