Meditation & Coffee - Focus

Meditation and Coffee - Monday Focus and Concentration. A simple and calm exercise in how to use sensations in your body to inform your mind to bring some compassion, focus and confidence to your week!

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 live on my IGTV page.

Now,

On to the meditation and coffee.

Good morning friends,

It's Monday again,

How did that happen?

And it's Hannah here for another session of meditation and coffee.

I started this series last week,

Hello to people joining,

Started this series last week to basically explore and take some time to just sit in the mornings.

Hello to people joining.

For me,

Meditation and coffee are the things I start my day with and for me they offer a real sense of pause just before the craziness of the day and the week and everything else gets started and before you know it you're just lost in your to-do list and you haven't taken any time to just think and be and take some time to be intentional about what you want your day to look like or your week to look like.

And I consider it to be a great privilege to have that time,

To have this time.

And as I always say,

The word Buddha actually means awakened one.

So in the mornings I like to draw on that parallel between meditation and coffee and use it as a way of awakening myself but also giving myself that space to get into focus and get into calm and start my day off in a really intentional way that is awake and alert but also calm and peaceful and giving myself grace and letting whatever happened last week or yesterday fall away.

So good morning to people that are joining,

It's really great to have you here.

This morning's meditation is going to be one to help us develop focus which I feel is particularly useful on a Monday morning but can be useful at any time when we feel that our mind,

Our thoughts,

Our worries,

Our anxieties,

However it shows up for you,

Are threatening to drag you away and make you feel out of control and that spiral of feeling out of control.

So today we're going to use a mindfulness meditation practice that is designed to help you be aware of your thoughts,

Be aware of when perhaps they might be distracting you from the focus and the calm and the clarity that you're looking to go through your day with and how to bring it back so that you can continue on a more focused,

Calm and intentional path.

Hello,

So with my massive cup of coffee I hope that you've got your own version of that,

Whatever it may look like.

Just inviting you to get into a comfortable position,

It can be cross-legged but it can be however just works for you.

My only instruction here is to try to make sure that you're sitting upright and you're not too leaning back and you're not kind of still lying down in bed or anything like that and get into a position that feels comfortable,

Alert,

Upright but also balanced,

Giving us time to be grounded.

And as you get into that position that feels good,

That feels balanced and grounded,

If you feel comfortable you can close your eyes but if not just leave them open and looking at a spot in front of you.

And as with all my meditations I invite you to take three deep breaths and as you inhale through the nose,

Bringing yourself upright without adding tension,

Just opening your shoulders up a bit,

Perhaps stretching your neck,

Opening up to the day,

So breathing in through the nose and doing that.

And as you breathe out,

Allowing yourself to relax,

Maintaining the upright position but dropping your shoulders,

Dropping the skin of your face,

Noticing areas of tension in your jaw and your neck and allowing them to relax and melt.

So we have this feeling of deep relaxation and groundedness on the one hand but also keeping our spine upright so that we have a feeling of openness and alertness as well.

Continuing to breathe,

Noticing any other areas in your body where you might be tense or where you might be holding.

Dropping shoulders.

And the spine is an important part of this meditation.

I invite you to notice it,

Draw attention to it,

How it feels,

Again dropping shoulders,

Relaxing your neck.

A good way of looking at the spine during this meditation is seeing it as a flagpole.

Now bear with me,

You see your spine as a flagpole that is alert,

Grounded,

Solid and secure.

And maybe on a Monday morning your mind is the flag on the flagpole,

Being blown around by any which wind,

Your to-do list,

Your worries,

Your anxieties about the week ahead,

Maybe you're still kind of tired from the week before.

And if you imagine that you're the flagpole,

You are a still point in all of that stress and that anxiety.

So whatever the flag on the flagpole decides to do,

It's being whipped around by the wind,

Your thoughts bringing you any which way,

You can just see the flag on the flagpole but you don't have to be dragged away by it because you are the flagpole holding it up.

You're the centre,

The still point in that storm.

So as you continue to breathe and relax any areas of tension in your body,

I invite you to see yourself,

Your body,

Your spine as that anchor to bring back your attention whenever you get stressed,

Whenever you get distracted,

Whenever your brain shows up and says hi I've got something for you,

Just thank it and bring it back to your body and your spine as your object of focus.

The key here is to be compassionate with yourself if you notice that you're getting distracted,

If your mind is dragging you away from your area of focus.

And when I say compassionate I mean if you notice that you're distracted rather than beating yourself up and saying oh god I realise I'm distracted again,

I must bring it back,

I'm terrible at this and all the other things that we can tell ourselves when we're meditating,

Instead just seeing it as part of the practice because it is.

Getting distracted is part of the process.

This is the practice,

No one sits down to meditate and doesn't get distracted,

It doesn't happen.

It's the practice because it's like going to the gym,

Lifting a dumbbell and thinking why am I doing that,

That's a bit pointless.

It's like you're doing it because that's what builds the muscle and it's the same with meditation.

Every time you get distracted and you bring it back to your object of focus you're lifting another dumbbell,

You're doing the practice.

Your mind is always going to get distracted,

Our brain is always strategizing,

Coming up with patterns and plans.

Right now as you sit here listening to me you might be thinking of a million other things,

What you need to be doing this week,

Everything you didn't get done last week perhaps and it can be really tempting to just go headlong into the week without taking time to yes let go of what you didn't get done but also give yourself grace and realize that that's just what your brain does.

Our brains are always trying to distract us.

So rather than think that that means you've done the practice wrong,

Recognizing that distraction means that actually that is the practice and you're doing it right.

And whenever you do get distracted,

Whenever you notice it,

Just putting a pin in it.

Like imagine a notice board and just putting a pin in it.

Okay,

Thanks for the distraction brain.

I'm going to put a pin in it and come back,

Come back to the feeling of the flagpole,

Your spine,

Your body as the grounding force.

Just taking this time to breathe,

Relaxing your shoulders even more,

Opening up each time you breathe in,

Letting yourself relax each time you breathe out.

And whenever you notice yourself getting distracted,

Just putting a pin in it.

It'll be there when you're done,

It'll be there,

Your thoughts will be there,

But right now we're focusing on our body and our spine.

And we're giving ourself grace,

We're giving ourself permission to focus on that,

To start the day before we rush in to the rest of the day and the rest of the week.

So you can take this practice for as long as you need,

Set a timer on your phone perhaps if you feel like you need longer,

But just getting used to that feeling of groundedness and training your attention to come back to your body as that feeling of groundedness,

That flagpole in the wind,

And your thoughts can go any which way like the flag,

But you can choose to be the flagpole and you can choose to be the still point and allow your thoughts to come and go.

Notice them,

But focusing on how you feel and the confidence that comes with that stillness,

With that intention,

With that groundedness as you go on to start your week.

If you've had your eyes closed you can open them now,

Giving yourself a little stretch,

Your neck,

Your shoulders,

Coming back into the room.

Thank you so much for joining me with that meditation today,

A little exercise for focus.

I hope that you've got a massive cup of coffee like I do this morning,

Helping me wake up.

Let me know if you have any comments or feedback on that meditation,

I'd always love to hear from you.

Let me know what you've got planned for your week and I will see you here tomorrow for another meditation and coffee to help you continue your week with calm,

Intention,

Space,

Focus,

Gratitude and of course lots of coffee.

Thanks so much for being here and I will speak to you really soon.

Thank you,

Thank you for being here.

I also wanted to mention that I am taking bookings and free calls for my one-to-one coaching programs which have just opened,

They're brand new opening today.

So if you're interested in working with me one-to-one or you want to know what that looks like,

Drop me a DM and we can talk about it,

We can hop on a call and see if it works for you.

If not,

I'll see you back here bright and early tomorrow morning.

Have a great day,

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.

Reviews

Soothing and relaxing even with a giant cup of ☕. Thank you!