Good morning,
Happy Monday.
This is the first of what I hope will be several regular morning coffee meditations.
So,
Good morning,
Happy Monday,
I hope that you've got your coffee with you.
Good morning to people that are joining.
This is the first,
Like I say,
Of what I hope will be many coffee meditations.
Coffee and meditation for me are,
And you can hear it's early because my throat's still scratchy,
Coffee meditation for me is just a really important part of my morning.
I always meditate in the morning and I always drink coffee in the morning.
And to me they go together and they work really well together because something I like to say often is that the word Buddha,
Actually if you translate it,
It actually means awakened one.
So if you think about being more Buddhist or if you think about just trying to approach life in a kind of more Buddhist way or a more kind of meditative calm way,
It's not necessarily using meditation purely as a relaxation tool,
It's actually about using it as a way of being aware and a way of waking up to yourself and how you're feeling and who you are and what you want to feel as well and who you want to be and how you want your day to go.
So when I talk about coffee and meditation,
To me those things are kind of the same as each other because it's about,
Okay,
I'm having my cup of coffee,
Starting the day fresh,
Really appreciating that cup,
The warmth of it,
The feel of it,
And it's giving me a new start to the day in the same way as a morning meditation can give you a start to the day.
So that's why I wanted to start doing these coffee meditations because I feel like it's a great way to connect with you guys and to bring my cup of coffee and say hello.
And also just to really share that idea that meditation doesn't have to be purely a calming exercise or a relaxation hack,
It's actually a way of kind of tuning in with ourselves and starting the day as a way that we mean to go on,
I can see that people are saying hello,
Hi,
And yes,
Black coffee,
Exactly,
I always have black coffee.
And I know some people don't do black coffee,
Some people have their latte or they,
Getting through the sentence having a drink,
They,
Hello people that are joining,
They have their green tea or their strong builders tea as we might say in the UK.
So there's no,
It doesn't have to be coffee that you bring to these coffee meditations,
But I just really kind of love that parallel between the idea that we start our day with coffee,
We wake ourselves up with coffee,
And we also start our day with meditation and we wake ourselves up with meditation as well.
So if you want to join me in just taking some time,
You can bring your coffee,
Your tea,
And you can get into a position that is comfortable for you,
Maybe it's just sitting on the sofa like I am now,
And you can keep your coffee in your hand or you can put it down if you don't feel comfortable.
And I just would love for you to just get comfortable and taking your coffee and holding it if you would like,
And you can close your eyes if you like,
Or you can keep them open,
And just dropping into where you're sitting now.
Deep breath in through the nose,
Breathing out,
Dropping our shoulders,
Dropping the skin of the face,
Relaxing the muscles around the eyes,
And the muscles in the jaw and the shoulders,
And just focusing on the breath going in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And noticing each breath,
Just one by one,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
And with this coffee meditation,
We're using the coffee as a focus,
As a way of tuning in to how we're doing.
Now,
I didn't sleep too well,
I kept waking up earlier than my alarm,
And I've got a lot of things that I want to do today.
It's Monday after all,
Starting the new week.
But as we drop into just giving ourselves permission to rest,
We're using the coffee just to notice how it feels to be sitting here now,
Starting our week.
Using the coffee,
Noticing how it feels to be holding it,
The solid feeling,
The warmth of the liquid coming through the cup,
The feel of it on your lips and the bitter taste,
And noticing the warmth and the feel.
This mug is my mug from Spain,
A really beautiful place that I love to go to.
And holding it just reminds me to feel grateful and remember what it was like to be there.
And I can almost feel the warmth of the sun in the town where I bought this beautiful Spanish mug,
Handmade mug,
When I drink from it.
And just taking this time to breathe and notice,
And notice the feeling of taking a sip.
It's bringing our attention and using this as an anchor.
Just to return our attention to and bring all of our awareness into this point,
This spot,
This morning.
And letting everything else that we need to do for the day go.
And just for these few moments,
Taking the time to give ourselves physical and mental space.
And that is cultivating mindfulness.
It is using the normal things that you would do in your day,
Having a cup of coffee,
Having a shower,
Waking up,
Using those moments as a way of grounding yourself and giving yourself permission to just be you.
Giving yourself permission to take this time to start the day in a way that is calm and in a way that is intentional and meaningful and giving yourself much needed mental space to just breathe and just be.
But also starting the day with awareness and intention.
And it's that mix of relaxation and calm with intention and focus and bringing our awareness to this one point,
This one mug or your tea,
How it feels.
And letting the stresses and the strains of the week fall away.
Good morning.
I see people joining saying good morning,
Good morning.
Letting the stresses and the unfinished business of last week fall away.
And inhaling the new and starting this week afresh,
Enjoying the warmth and the solidity and the sunshine colour of this mug and this cup of coffee.
And if you notice that you get distracted and your thoughts want to tear you away and tell you that you've got a million things to do today and you don't have time for this,
Completely normal.
That's what our minds do.
Our minds tell us that we've got things to do and they're always on us and they want to keep us safe and keep us busy and distracted.
That's just what brains do.
That's what our thoughts and our minds do.
It's perfectly normal.
But if we can use something as solid and as familiar and as comforting as a cup of coffee in the morning,
Just to draw all of our attention into it and use it as like I say,
An anchor to focus on just for these few moments.
That can be a great way of practising that feeling of mindfulness,
Of bringing our focus back to how we're feeling,
Who we are.
We're safe,
We're calm.
No matter what we've got on our to-do list for the rest of the week or today,
We know that we can always come back to this moment and we can always set our day with intention and calm and that open sense of awareness.
So again,
Noticing how it feels to be sitting,
How it feels to be breathing in and out,
In through the nose,
Out through the mouth.
With each breath out,
Dropping our shoulders a little bit more,
Relaxing the skin of the neck,
The face.
And you can always open your eyes if you want to practise that sense of open awareness.
We don't have to meditate with our eyes closed if we don't want to,
Especially in the morning if we're still feeling a little sleepy.
Because like I say,
What we're practising is that mix between calm and relaxation and open awareness.
So we're going to finish this meditation today just with another sip of coffee or tea,
Noticing how it feels to raise.
Raise our mug to our lips and noticing how it feels to be taking that sip.
The taste of the coffee.
The warmth of the coffee in your mouth,
In your chest or in your hands as you hold the mug.
And lastly,
Just concentrating on any sounds you can hear,
Anything that's going on outside.
I can hear birds.
I can hear the wind blowing through the trees.
It's that sense of peace that we're building and into this calm space and this calm or calmer mind.
We can then use that as the foundation to build the rest of our day and the rest of our week.
We're not just rushing head first into what we've got to do,
We're taking this time to think about how we feel,
Letting our breath wash away the stresses and strains of last week,
Maybe a busy weekend.
And taking this time to start afresh and being in the moment with the morning,
Taking this time to be grateful,
To enjoy our cup of coffee.
Noticing how it feels to be sitting here today and on that feeling of spaciousness and calm,
That's what we can build the rest of our day on.
And whatever stresses that may come,
Whatever we've got on,
We can always come back to this feeling of central groundedness and focusing on our breath and focusing on the warmth of our drink.
And starting our day with that open awareness.
So if you've had your eyes closed,
You can reopen them now.
Bit of a stretch,
Shaking off the meditation and coming back into the room and maybe taking another sip,
Noticing what it feels like when you have the urge to take another sip.
And as I said right at the beginning of this meditation,
The word Buddha actually translates as awakened one.
So I hope that taking this time has given you a bit of space to wake up,
Notice your coffee,
Notice a new morning,
A new day.
And let me know how it goes,
Any comments,
Any feedback,
I'd be super welcome.
I'd love to know what I can help you with.
And thank you for joining me for this first ever meditation and coffee bit of an experiment from me.
But I hope to continue to share these mornings with you and start your day on the right foot.
Thank you so much.
I'm really glad.
Thank you.
And I hope that I'll be doing this every morning.
They might all not,
They won't be the same as this one.
But I'll always have my coffee.
I stay with meditation and coffee.
It's a perfect way to begin.
Thank you for being here.
Have a wonderful day.
And I will see you probably tomorrow if not before.
Thanks.
