Meditation & Coffee - Give Yourself Permission

What we resist persists! What are you resisting? What do you need to give yourself permission to do, be, have (or not be, do or have) today? What do you need to let go of? Try? Stop doing? Try this meditation exercise to help you be brave enough to ask these questions and discover the answers inside yourself!

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 BreatheLikeABadass,

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.

Hello friends,

It's Friday.

Well,

Maybe it's not Friday when you're watching this or listening to this,

But give yourself a little Friday feeling,

Even if you're not watching this on Friday because Friday means,

In my house anyway,

An extra special massive mug of coffee.

This mug is,

Ugh,

Looks almost as big as my head on the screen.

It's not quite as big as that in real life,

But nearly.

So that's me today.

Good morning,

Good morning,

Happy Friday.

Today's meditation is about giving yourself permission,

Giving yourself permission to do whatever it is that comes to mind when I say that.

In my conversations this week and recently with clients and with people on my podcast,

Giving yourself permission is a topic that's come up a huge amount.

It just seems to be something that,

As women,

We often need to work on.

Obviously it's not just women,

But I find that it's something that women struggle with often.

This idea that we're not allowed to feel what we feel,

Or that we're not allowed to do what it is we really want to do.

And for many of us,

We've actually almost suppressed or resisted how we really feel or what we really want to do for so long,

That actually we need to practice tuning back into that voice and thinking,

Well,

What is it that I actually want to do?

How do I actually really feel?

The idea of imposter syndrome has come up a huge amount as well recently.

So for me,

Obviously I call myself an inner critic coach,

And obviously I'm a meditation teacher,

But they're all linked,

Right?

Imposter syndrome,

Negative inner critic,

The tools of meditation,

Because it's like,

Well,

They're all about the voices in your head telling you that you're not good enough or telling you that you are good enough or questioning those voices and allowing yourself to feel what you're feeling without getting dragged away by the negative stuff.

Right?

And so today I thought,

What better technique than to simply practice giving ourselves permission.

And even before that,

Figuring out what it is that we even need to give ourselves permission for,

Whether it's feeling a certain way,

Doing something that we want to do or not doing something maybe that we don't want to do.

Maybe it's something as simple as,

Hey,

It's Friday,

Let's just try and enjoy my life a bit more today.

Like I give myself permission to take it easy today and not be so hard on myself.

It could be something as simple as that.

I give myself permission to have this big cup of coffee and not make it mean something,

But it doesn't,

You know,

It's just,

It's just my cup of coffee and that's just a tiny silly example,

But it could be you,

It could be huge.

You know,

I give myself permission to quit my job.

I give myself permission to want a different life.

I give myself permission to allow myself to feel sad or angry or upset or excited.

You know,

These things can be really transformational and I think that often we resist feelings and thoughts about things because we're conditioned to believe that we should think,

Feel,

Do,

Behave in certain ways and actually realizing that you have the power to give yourself that permission slip that you need to be,

Do,

Have,

Explore,

Don't do,

Don't be is kind of seriously liberating.

With that said,

Today's meditation is just going to be what you might call contemplation meditation and we're going to work through it now.

So I'm going to put my massive cup of coffee down.

I invite you to do the same.

Take a sip of whatever it is that you're drinking with us today.

Coffee,

Tea,

Chai.

Hey,

Maybe you're in a completely different time zone and you're doing this with gin or wine.

That's totally fine too.

No judgment,

Right?

As long as you're able to feel comfortable and safe in your environment and stay relatively alert.

I think that that's a good,

A good starting point.

So as usual,

Get into a position if you're going to be joining us for the meditation today and allowing yourself to notice your body.

Get into a comfortable position where you feel balanced and grounded.

It can be any kind of position that you feel like sitting upright but also allowing yourself to be relaxed.

And giving yourself permission really starts with the act of coming into meditation.

Often people resist meditation because they feel like they don't have time or that it's kind of useless or that they're bad at it and they're not doing it properly.

And today I invite you to let all of those thoughts and resistance and objections go just for these few minutes that we're together if needs be.

And know that for these next few minutes you don't have anything else to do or anywhere else to go and that you are allowed to take this time to be with yourself.

Which sounds like a revolutionary concept but it really isn't.

Taking time to be with yourself.

So good morning,

Happy Friday.

And allowing yourself to be here right now.

And allowing yourself to do what feels comfortable so you might want to close your eyes.

You definitely want to drop your shoulders,

Allow your hands to come to rest wherever feels comfortable.

And noticing where your body might be holding any tension.

And allowing those areas to relax,

Allowing your body to melt gently and calmly into position.

And noticing what it feels like to be sitting here as you are right now breathing,

Your eyes closed or your eyes open,

Whatever feels right.

And taking some nice deep breaths in through the nose,

Allowing your chest to expand,

Taking in that clean oxygen.

And allowing yourself to exhale,

Dropping your shoulders,

Relaxing the skin around your eyes and your face and your neck.

Continuing to breathe,

Doing that once more.

And now I invite you to bring your attention to anywhere in your body,

Maybe a body part or maybe simply a sensation that feels particularly still or that feels like home.

So that will mean different things to different people.

Maybe you want to put your hand on your chest,

On your heart and that makes you feel safe and at home.

Maybe you put your hands on your lap and that makes you feel safe and secure and at home.

Or maybe for you it's a feeling or a visualisation,

Maybe you can visualise yourself somewhere that feels safe and comfortable and where you are at peace.

So noticing that part of your body or that visualisation and just getting very still and noticing how that feels in your body.

Maybe the feeling of safety feels like warmth,

Maybe it's a certain smell or a certain memory.

And from this place of stillness and safety we are building self-trust.

So now I invite you,

Maybe with your hand on your heart or simply imagining that feeling of safety that we had before,

Ask yourself what do I need to give myself permission to do?

And see what comes up.

It might be a feeling that comes up,

It might be a thought,

It might be a feeling that comes up.

What do I need to give myself permission to do?

And again,

Giving yourself permission is also about letting go.

So maybe it's not what you need to do,

But what you need to not do,

What you need to let go of,

What you need to stop doing perhaps.

And you might need to ask yourself multiple times,

You might get different answers each time.

But our bodies and our minds,

If we give them the space they need to ask these questions usually the answers will come.

Maybe not straight away,

But eventually they will come because our bodies know what we need,

Our minds know what we need if we just give them the space.

And yes,

Give them the permission to let us know.

It doesn't have to be a big huge thing,

You know,

It could just be like I give myself permission to take things a bit more easy today.

I give myself permission to be a beginner today.

I give myself permission to enjoy things a bit more today,

Because it's Friday,

Why not?

And this exercise can be repeated,

So maybe today,

You know,

There's not a lot that you need to give yourself permission for.

But I find that this exercise is great if you're feeling a bit blocked,

If you're feeling a bit frustrated,

Come into position,

Take these 5-10 minutes that you need and ask yourself like why am I feeling blocked?

Why am I feeling resistance?

What's going on?

What do I need to give myself permission to do here?

And give yourself space to see what comes up.

And if nothing comes up,

Which it may not,

Tune in to how that feels for you.

Maybe nothing comes up because actually you're good.

You don't need to give yourself permission to anything today because actually you're fine.

But if you still feel a sense of resistance,

You still feel a sense of kind of frustration,

Then maybe that's a sign that you could use a bit more of this,

A bit more of giving yourself space.

Continuing to breathe,

Don't hold your breath.

Breathing is the tool that our bodies use to renew everything,

So especially with an exercise like this,

The breath can be so helpful in opening ourselves up,

Giving ourselves space like quite literally in our lungs and in our minds.

So taking a few more gentle breaths as you sit here contemplating,

Asking yourself that question.

I'll do one with you now,

So inhaling in through the nose,

Noticing the breath going in,

Expanding and exhaling.

Noticing the muscles relaxing,

The lungs exhaling,

Deflating,

Allowing the breath to escape your body.

If you had your eyes closed,

You can open them now.

Coming back to join me in the room,

Me and my massive cup of coffee.

So I hope that wasn't somewhere useful.

I do also want to congratulate you and say like well done,

Thank you for doing this practice because it is a practice because it's difficult,

It can be,

It can be hard,

It can be tough to give ourselves permission to ask ourselves these questions.

Quite often we are resisting something when we do this exercise and we're resisting it for a reason.

We're resisting it because we don't know what the answer is,

We're resisting it because we feel uncomfortable because we're afraid of something,

We're afraid of what the answer might be,

We're afraid of what it says about us maybe,

There's a lot of shame involved if we're resisting our feelings often.

And part of this contemplation practice is to try and get past all of that but it's not easy.

I always say this,

Meditation is simple but it's not easy right and none of this is easy.

But the idea is that we allow ourselves to come into position and give ourselves that mental space so that it becomes easier.

And we can allow ourselves to get past that resistance because there's a great phrase that I love which is what we resist persists.

So actually if we continue to resist something,

Whether it's a feeling or something that we need to do or a conversation we need to have or something we need to stop doing or just a situation in our lives that's kind of become untenable,

If we continue to resist it,

It almost makes it worse,

It almost makes it stronger,

It almost becomes a bigger deal than if we just gave ourselves permission to let it go or to work through it or to realise that it's not as big of a deal maybe as we thought,

I mean it might be,

Depends on what it is.

And I think so often once we realise like oh I don't have to,

I don't have to do this,

I don't have to be this,

I can let it go,

I can give myself permission to do the thing or be the thing that I actually know deep down that I want or I need.

Like hello,

That's completely liberating.

So today I really do give you permission,

Allow me to give you permission if you find it difficult to give yourself permission.

Like it literally might be I give myself permission to eat biscuits today,

Like it literally might be something like that,

It doesn't have to be scary and weird.

But I think that once you start with things like that it becomes a lot easier to tune into who you are,

What you need,

What you deserve and allow yourself to live in a way that is true to yourself rather than always feeling like you have to be doing things for other people or living your life according to how other people think you should.

It's not what you should do,

It's what you want to do and what feels right for you,

Feels good to you.

And some people try this meditation and then immediately afterwards go in journal.

You know,

Maybe the answers that came up for you in meditation,

There's more there than maybe you have the time or space or capacity to think about when you're meditating.

So maybe do this meditation,

Ask yourself the questions and then do some free writing for a few minutes afterwards,

See what comes up.

That can also help.

Or write at the beginning of a piece of paper or on your computer or on your phone the same question and allow yourself to answer that question through writing.

That can also help.

Another thing that I love is if you maybe just record yourself speaking.

Like record yourself on your phone,

Or you don't even have to record yourself,

But maybe if you want to listen to it back,

It could be useful.

Record yourself on your phone and just speak.

Some people it's easier for them to speak and say what they need rather than write it down.

So just talk through it like,

You know,

As if not so anyone can hear you just for yourself.

And that can bring out a lot as well,

Maybe things that you didn't realise that you were thinking.

Sometimes if you just give yourself permission to sort of free talk,

That's a great way of doing it too.

I will write this exercise in my diary,

Very insightful.

Oh,

Thank you.

And Anna,

You're saying you need permission to do something with art or flowers or both.

Ah,

Yes,

Creativity is a huge one.

Me too.

I tried to paint on Saturdays.

I tried to do no work on Saturdays,

Nothing to do with my business at all and just paint.

And you're right,

Sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to be creative,

Even if the end result is not going to be perfect or beautiful or what we intended when we first started.

Just giving ourselves permission to try something can be huge.

It can be a massive step in itself.

So thank you so much for being here today for this meditation on giving yourself permission.

Let me know if you're watching or listening to the replay what you need to give yourself permission for.

Let me know how this went.

And I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and a wonderful rest of the day giving yourself permission to be,

Do or not do or not be whatever you need.

So thank you from me and my massive mug of coffee.

I'm wishing you a wonderful day.

Thank you for joining me on this other session of meditation and coffee.

Have a great day and I'll see you soon.

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

Love this ☕️🙌🏼

So enjoyable! Gave myself permission to go back to sleep on this Wednesday morning.
Thanks!