Meditation & Coffee - Dealing With Uncertainty

There’s no denying these are uncertain and worrying times. So how can we stop ourselves from getting caught in unhelpful rumination, overthinking, stress and anxiety about the past and future? (And there’s no issue too small - our anxiety can make us worry about anything and everything!).

Try this simple meditation to help come back into the present moment, and bring our mind back from overthinking about the past and future - with kindness and gentleness even during stressful times.

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 every weekday morning between 8 and 8.

30am London time.

The videos are also available after the lives on my IGTV page.

Now,

On to the meditation and coffee.

Good morning friends,

We are live I believe,

Yes,

Fantastic.

Sometimes Instagram kind of flickers when it starts and I'm not sure if it's working,

But it is,

Yay!

Good morning,

If you're watching this live,

It is Tuesday and it is another iced coffee day here in London UK because it is still so incredibly warm.

It has been 35 degrees,

Which I don't even know what that is in Fahrenheit,

Hundreds or so,

Hundreds,

Well over a hundred I want to say,

And it's extremely humid.

So it's kind of like if you're awake,

You know that you're sweating,

It's kind of that kind of heat,

You know.

So that's what we're dealing with,

That's why we've got the iced coffee this morning.

I did kind of want to go to one of my beautiful colourful mugs that I usually use,

And I guess I could have had cold iced coffee in a mug,

But it's always a bit strange,

So I put it in a glass and I'm kind of missing my mugs,

So maybe tomorrow I'll have my iced coffee but in a colourful mug.

Today's meditation is about uncertainty.

It's about dealing with uncertainty.

Right now in the world there is still a huge amount of uncertainty,

Even though perhaps we are now in what you might call the new normal for a lot of us,

You know,

We've had a lot of months of upheaval,

We've had coronavirus,

We've had economic uncertainty,

We've had racial protests,

We've had a lot going on,

And there's a lot to come.

And many people that I've spoken to recently have said that even though they are kind of navigating the past few months and sort of starting to think about the future and kind of consider what they might do next or understand how to kind of assimilate all of the craziness that's happened over the past months,

There are a lot of people who are still feeling very uncertain about what's going to happen,

Myself included,

Even for something as basic and as mundane as like going on holiday,

You know,

And I'm not saying in any way that going on holiday is like a major issue,

But that's just a tiny example of,

You know,

What do we do?

Where is it?

Is it safe?

What do you think?

What do you think?

Everyone's got a different opinion.

Am I putting myself and my family at risk if I go somewhere?

Should I just stay in?

But what about taking time off or,

But don't I need to support the economy because so many people are struggling right now,

You know,

What happens if nobody goes on holiday?

So before you know it,

Even for something as kind of tiny and frivolous as that,

You can very quickly get caught in a spiral of thinking and planning and wondering.

And there are people dealing with huge challenges,

Even in my own family,

You know,

People dealing with redundancy,

Economic uncertainty,

Not knowing what's going to happen with their entire industry in some cases.

So it is definitely still a time of uncertainty.

And even when you take uncertainty away from all of the craziness that has been happening in 2020,

Even when you consider it on its own merit.

So even if you think just an average year or an average day,

Many of us have to deal with uncertainty.

And for people with anxiety,

Which includes myself,

But I some people have it,

You know,

10 times worse than I have it.

Uncertainty really can manifest itself every single day over so many things in so many ways,

You know,

And being anxious is is where you can't necessarily separate useful worry or useful preoccupation or useful planning from useless and fruitless worry,

Rumination,

Overthinking,

A spiral of negative thoughts catastrophizing,

Which if you're not sure if you haven't heard the word catastrophizing before,

It basically is what it sounds,

Which is when you take a situation and you think about how catastrophically wrong it could go.

And you immediately go to like the worst case scenario.

And you think,

Well,

If that happens,

Then that happens.

And then you immediately end up kind of what would happen if this was a catastrophe.

And so there's a lot of ways that anxiety can manifest itself,

Even for the most basic reasons,

Whether you're living through a global pandemic or not.

So today,

We're going to do a really simple meditation that is designed to help you deal with uncertainty,

No matter what the cause,

No matter whether you think it's dumb,

Or you're worrying about something that's small,

Or even if you are worrying about something massive,

Like economic uncertainty,

Or a global pandemic,

Or your job,

Or you know,

Whatever it may be.

So we're going to basically work on a really simple meditation breathing exercise that can help us deal with uncertainty and anxiety and spiraling thoughts.

And long story short,

This is what meditation is really good at,

Which is helping us come back into the present.

Because that is really what we need when we're in a moment of spiraling,

Uncertainty,

Negativity,

Catastrophizing,

Worry,

Usually when we're in that state is because we are thinking about what has happened,

Or what will happen.

But neither of those things are where we are now.

You can't change what has happened.

So thinking about it isn't always useful can be in some situations,

But if you're caught in rumination and overthinking,

Thinking about the past is not always that useful because you can't change it anyway,

Right?

Thinking about the future as well.

Okay,

Yeah,

In some ways,

If you need to plan something like you need to plan what time you need to leave house to get to a doctor's appointment.

Yeah,

Thinking about the future in that respect,

Pretty useful.

But if you're thinking about the future in a what if Oh my god,

I don't know what's gonna happen?

What could go wrong?

Thinking about it in a ruminating overthinking way.

Again,

Thinking about the future not necessarily that helpful because it's not going to help you deal with whatever's going on right now.

It's just going to stress you out even further.

And a phrase that I really like about the future is worrying doesn't solve the problem.

It just steals your peace.

So worrying about the future doesn't actually make the future any better.

It just robs you of your current peace right now.

So not only will the future may be stressful,

But your present is stressful as well.

So today the meditation is simply going to be about how to bring yourself back into the present moment and remind yourself that you are safe and that you are good in the present moment.

Regardless of what you're thinking about,

Whether it's the past or the future,

The past and the future don't exist,

Right?

They're only in our heads.

All we have is the present moment.

And like I say,

This isn't about never thinking about what's gone before and it isn't about never planning and never considering the future.

And it's not about that.

It's just about our mindset and our emotional state and recognizing that actually often when we're caught in worry,

It's not useful worry.

It's not helpful worry.

It's just rumination and overthinking and it's not going to help us.

All it's going to do is rob us of our current peace.

So that said,

Without further ado,

I'm going to put my coffee down and I invite you to join me in today's meditation.

So as usual,

Getting into a comfortable position that feels good to you.

Allowing yourself to get comfortable with your back upright and supported and your spine straight and your shoulders balanced,

Your neck balanced gently on top of your spine and your head again balanced on your neck.

Bringing your attention to your body right now,

How it feels to be sitting here today and allowing yourself to melt into the chair wherever you're sitting right now and making sure that your shoulders are balanced and relaxed.

Allowing yourself to take some deep breaths if it feels comfortable and closing your eyes as well if it feels comfortable.

Allowing your hands to come and rest wherever it feels natural and normal for you.

And if breathing feels difficult for you in meditation sometimes that's absolutely fine.

I invite you to bring your attention to your shoulders,

Allowing yourself to open out,

Allowing yourself to take up space and just be and sit and notice what it's like to be sitting here today.

Giving yourself this permission to come into meditation and rest even if only for the next few moments.

As you continue to breathe normally you might be noticing the skin of your face,

Allowing the skin of your face to relax the skin around your eyes,

Your cheeks,

Your jaw bones,

Into your neck and around your shoulders and your back.

Coming to rest,

Allowing your body to breathe normally.

As the meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein always says,

Allowing your body to breathe itself.

And now I'd like you to find an area of your body where you can especially notice either your breath coming in and out of your body or an area of your body where you can physically tune in to how it feels.

So you can choose your breath or a part of your body.

Just an area that you notice that is relatively easy for you to come back to and bring your attention to easily over and over again.

So that might be as simple as your breath.

It might be breathing in through the nose and noticing that you're breathing in through the nose and how that feels.

And noticing your chest as you breathe out and noticing how that feels.

For you it might be your hand on your lap,

Maybe that feels like a stronger sensation.

You feel your fingertips,

You can feel the palm of your hand and the top of your hand resting.

You can feel the texture of your clothes underneath your hand perhaps.

Something like that that allows you to tune into that sensation easily and repeatedly with every breath that we're taking together today.

And I invite you to spend a few moments getting comfortable and curious about that sensation,

Whether it's the breath or a part of your body that you're noticing.

Getting really curious about it.

Temperature,

Feel,

Texture.

Are you breathing shallow or deep?

Does it feel comfortable or a little bit stressful today?

Are you gripping anywhere in your body?

Can you relax any areas?

How does the sensation that you're focusing on change as you pay attention to it?

Maybe you're not really noticing much at all and that's also fine.

And the reason why we're practicing getting this curious about a particular area of our breath or our body is because tuning into these sensations is extremely useful if we're trying to combat the worry and negative spiralling thoughts of uncertainty.

So as a thought comes up or you notice that you're being distracted,

That's totally normal,

That's what the brain does,

Is to be expected,

It's part of the process.

In fact if you didn't get distracted that would be more weird.

So when you get distracted,

Not if,

You can remind yourself that that's part of the process and just part of being human,

Frankly,

And bring it back to this object of focus,

Bring it back to this area of focus that you're focusing on right now,

Where your attention has been.

Continuing to breathe,

Do not hold your breath,

Allow yourself to breathe normally,

Deeply,

However feels good.

And always again when you get distracted,

Renewing your attention to the object of focus.

And even if you have to come back to it ten times a minute,

Or even if you have to come back to it every single breath,

That's the practice.

And what we're doing here is we're practicing our ability to notice when our thoughts are carrying us away,

When our thoughts are distracting us from what we want to be thinking about or what we want to be doing,

And bringing our attention away from the thoughts,

Letting them go,

And coming back to our object of focus.

Now,

When I say letting go of the thoughts,

I don't mean dismissing them as if they're not important,

That's really key.

I don't mean ignoring our own mind,

I don't mean pretending that they don't exist or silencing ourselves.

Letting go of our thoughts and distractions in meditation isn't about gaslighting ourselves,

To be honest.

It's not about saying that what we're thinking is not important,

It's just about saying,

Okay right now,

Is this useful?

Right now,

Is my thought pattern,

Is my distraction helpful to this situation?

Or do I want to feel more peaceful than that?

Or do I want to remind myself that I can bring myself back to the present and be okay in this moment?

And most of the time the answer is,

Yeah,

I do.

I'm reminding myself that I am good and safe in this moment.

So allowing you some time just to practice that.

And like I say,

It is a practice.

Every time we notice we're distracted and we bring it back,

That's like doing a bicep curl in the gym,

That's the practice.

Getting really curious each time about your objective focus.

And if you find yourself getting distracted,

I would encourage you to get even more curious.

Get even more interested in the sensations that you can feel,

Either with your breath or the part of your body that you're noticing.

Imagine that you've got a magnifying glass and you're literally going up to this area of focus and you're really examining it at a super close up level.

Get really,

Really curious.

Occupy your focus with as much detail and curiosity and interest as you can.

Slow it down if you need to.

Notice as much detail of the richness of what you can feel right now.

Thanks.

And I invite you to join me in one last breath however you are whether you've been doing great this whole time or whether you've been feeling super distracted that's great doesn't matter that's part of the practice some days we do great some days we feel frustrated again part of the process so I invite you to join me in one last deep breath where we're gonna focus very intensely on the in breath through the nose so breathing in breathing out let's do one more breathing in holding at the top perhaps breathing out allowing the muscles to relax even more and if you join me on that last breath or those last couple of breaths feel free to open your eyes right now if you want to or you can keep them closed and listen to my voice that's all good but if you were able to join me in those last couple of breaths even if the rest of your meditation practice felt like a nightmare then you've done it that is the practice you were able to focus on your breath for those few moments and in that moment you were in the present and that's all that we can ask when we're dealing with uncertainty or when we're dealing with basically anything that we're using meditation to help with you're bringing yourself back to the present moment and focusing on that because that's all that we have so whether we're stuck in regret about the past or we're thinking about what happened before and then maybe that will affect what happens tomorrow or we're worried about the next thing or something that we can't control all the possible iterations or possible outcomes of a particular issue or event or worry none of that is real none of that is useful necessarily and as people with anxiety we can learn to distinguish between useful planning and useful thinking and unhelpful rumination that is just making us more stressed so like I say even if you were only able to tune in for those last couple of breaths that we did together that's still helping you to rewire your brain to be able to catch yourself when you're in that rumination and bring it back to the present moment and remind yourself okay I'm in the present right now I'm good what can I notice what can I see smell feel touch tell myself about present moment that is going to remove me and just give me a little bit of space from the unhelpful overthinking which can contribute massively to uncertainty so I hope that that is in some way helped like I say this isn't about gaslighting our own brain and telling ourselves that we're done for thinking about the future in many cases anxiety and uncertainty are an absolutely normal reaction to uncertain times like there's a really great phrase it says it's no measure of health to be well adapted to a sick society right and I love that quote because it's true when things in the world have gone completely you know up the creek it would be strange for us not to feel anxiety but there's a difference between responding to uncertainty in a kind of useful and measured way and allowing it to completely steal our peace and allowing it to totally overtake us and allowing our lives to be ruled by anxiety because if we can bring ourselves back to the present and we can tell ourselves yeah I'm safe I'm good I've got this I'm fine it doesn't stop us from planning it doesn't stop us from making plans for the future or figuring out what we need to do or understanding what happened yesterday it doesn't stop us it just means that we can do it from a more calm curious self-loving place rather than doing it from a kind of panicked overthinking ruminating stressed out place so that's what we mean when we say come back into the present when we meditate so I hope again that that was a useful idea I'd love to know your feedback I'd love to know if there's anything else that you're dealing with at the moment that you'd like me to design a meditation around because I love to do that I love getting requests from people so DM me or drop me a comment and yeah from me and my iced coffee on a still very humid day in the United Kingdom whenever you're listening to this or whenever you're watching I really appreciate you for being here thank you so much lots of people watch the replays lots of people listen on insight timer which is where I upload these meditations after I do them on here so please do if you're someone that uses the insight timer app which is a free meditation app go ahead and find the meditations on there and you can save them on your phone listen to them again thank you so much for being here it's a joy it's a joy in these times of uncertainty it is a joy to be with you and start my day with meditation and coffee so thank you and I really wish you a wonderful day and rest of the week but of course I will be back here tomorrow morning bright and early hopefully on a slightly less humid sticky day in London for another session of meditation and coffee thank you so much I really appreciate your comment thank you yeah absolutely we can learn how to deal with anxiety we can learn how to deal with it rather than be swept away by it that's my hope that's what I'm here to help people do and that's what I tried to do in my own life as well so thank you so much have a wonderful day and like I say I'll be back tomorrow for another session of meditation and coffee thanks so much 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 podcast or whatever 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