Meditation & Coffee - Self-Kindness

A morning practice to help us realise that we don’t need to show up as anything other than we already are. This meditation explores how to use open awareness as a positive, kind tool to set yourself up for a supportive and confident day.

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 overwhelmed,

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 lives on my IGTV page.

Now on to the meditation and coffee.

Good morning friends,

It is Tuesday,

Happy Tuesday.

I've got my cup of coffee of course,

Welcome to another session of meditation and coffee.

These are the new live sessions that I'm going to attempt to do every weekday morning as much as my schedule allows.

Just basically a chance for me to come on here and actually chat to you,

Even if you can only watch the replay if you're in a different time zone or if you are starting your day at a slightly different time to me.

However,

I get my cup of coffee at about this time in the morning and I sit down and I start the day.

And my day always starts with meditation and coffee,

So that's why I've called these sessions that basically.

And as I explained yesterday,

I think it's a really nice analogy because the word Buddha actually means awakened one.

And I think that that's really important to remember when we're meditating that we're not necessarily trying to get into a state of deep deep relaxation all the time,

Sometimes we are,

But it's also a way of getting back in touch with ourselves and waking up to who we are and what we need and to recognising kind of what we need in the day.

So as I sit here with my coffee and really start to think about what kind of day I want to have,

What I need to get done in the day perhaps,

But also approaching it in an intentional way and appreciating the quiet that I'm lucky enough to have where I'm sitting,

I can hear the birds outside,

That's about it.

I mean there's a road not far behind me but thankfully it's not right up next to my window so.

And I think it's about giving yourself that permission and that time to actually think like how do I want my day to go?

Like you are allowed to do that.

You are allowed to think what have I got to do today?

How do I want to feel?

How do I feel now?

And what do I need rather than what does this day need from me?

And that is kind of a revolutionary concept I think.

So we are going to do a meditation today but today's meditation I just wanted to explain was inspired by a conversation I had yesterday with a really great nutritionist called Charlotte Forgreen and I'll tag her actually in this video if I can before I even figure out the tech.

Charlotte Forgreen is a really great nutritionist and I spoke to her on the phone yesterday and she said you maybe don't want to start your day with only coffee and I thought oh that's what I always do,

I always start my day with only coffee.

And she said yeah but if you try and eat something with it,

So if you try and have a piece of fruit and some peanut butter that's a good combination so that the coffee isn't absorbed so so fast so that the coffee isn't a shock to your system and the food allows it to be absorbed more slowly.

And I thought that's a really great metaphor for what we are trying to do with meditation because we are not trying to shock our system,

We are not trying to force it into this kind of heightened sense of awareness.

We are not trying to force ourselves to feel any certain way or walk around in this kind of crazy sense where everything,

We just notice everything,

We are hyper hyper aware and we notice how tired we are and we notice all the things we've got to get done.

It's more of just showing up to be alert to what is,

To how we are already and kind of being okay with that.

And that metaphor,

That idea that we shouldn't just bolt down some coffee on an empty stomach and that we should actually try and combine it with maybe some other foods that are actually going to make us feel good and stop the coffee from being such a shock to our system and still get the benefits from it,

Still get the waking up,

The kind of mmm lovely morning coffee feeling and I kind of love that.

So we are going to basically do a meditation today that is inspired by that idea that we are not aiming for any particular feeling when we meditate.

Yes we want to be awake,

Yes we want to be clear,

We want to get clarity but we are not forcing ourselves into some strange sense of super heightened scary awareness.

So I invite you to get into a position that feels comfortable wherever you happen to be sitting.

No perfect position,

I'm just sitting on the sofa with my coffee as you can tell.

So just a position that feels comfortable,

Back upright.

And I'd just like to invite you to send your awareness to how it feels to be sitting here today.

Not trying to manufacture a feeling,

Not trying to change it,

Not trying to force yourself to feel differently.

Just coming to sit and noticing.

Noticing the textures of your clothes,

The texture of where you are sitting,

The pressure of sitting down.

Noticing the temperature.

And you can close your eyes if you feel comfortable,

If it helps you to focus more.

And just bringing your attention to how it feels to be sitting.

Like I say,

The texture,

The temperature,

The pressure.

And if you notice any areas of tension,

Don't feel as though you need to instantly relax,

Just notice them.

How does it feel?

What does tension look like in your body?

And the idea here is that we're not trying to force ourselves to feel a certain way.

We're not trying to change what we find when we sit down to meditate.

We're just coming at it with a sense of open awareness,

No judgement.

And now I invite you to bring your awareness to your breathing.

Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth,

However feels comfortable.

And again,

We're not trying to force ourselves to breathe in any given particular special way.

What we're doing is bringing our attention to how we would be breathing anyway.

And just being aware of it and noticing it.

Without judgement.

Just being aware to your body doing its breathing,

Because it breathes by itself,

You don't need to do it.

You don't need to force it.

You don't need to remind it to breathe.

It does it by itself.

So just show up for it,

Just notice what it's doing in and out.

And again,

If you're noticing any sensations in your body as you're breathing,

We're not trying to change it,

We're not trying to force it to be different.

We're not trying to force ourselves to be different to how we are.

We're just practicing noticing.

Thank you for watching.

You can see someone says they've got to go.

Thank you for being here.

And as we sit in this kind of open sense of awareness,

Practicing not judging what we find,

Just noticing how it feels to be sitting in our body breathing today.

What we're practicing is non-judgment.

We're practicing just being open to how we're feeling and sitting with it.

And for many people,

That can be difficult,

Because often we have this voice in our head telling us that we need to be different to how we are,

Or that our reactions are wrong,

Or that we're not good enough,

Or that we should be this or could be this.

And so practice practicing just sitting with who we are now as we find ourselves,

Whether that's our body or our breath or our thoughts is the first step in undoing that negative inner monologue that we maybe have.

And knowing that we can tune in and find ourselves and tune into ourselves.

And it starts to feel more like home.

It starts to feel more,

Ah,

Okay.

I'm practicing just sitting here being with myself,

Not trying to force myself to be any which way.

And that's okay.

And I'm just showing up for who I am right now.

No judgment.

Because if we don't practice non-judgment,

Then awareness can sometimes be a tool that we can weaponize against ourselves.

And we feel as though we have to be a certain way.

We have to be sitting in the perfect meditation posture.

Or we have to be a certain level of Zen or achieve a certain kind of calm.

And actually,

All we're doing is showing up and noticing what is.

And practicing coming back to that when we get distracted over and over.

And being okay with it.

And being okay with ourselves in a world that is always telling us that we're not good enough is like a genuinely revolutionary concept.

And if we can learn how to feel good enough in ourselves,

In our body,

In the awareness that we bring to our body when we sit,

That can be a really powerful first step in going a long way into being okay in our own skin.

And feeling as though we're on our own side and we've got our own back.

So just continuing to notice how it feels to be sitting here today breathing.

Noticing our body.

Noticing our breath going in and out.

If we get distracted,

That's okay.

Just noticing that again without judgement and bringing it back to the feeling of sitting.

To the feeling of being okay in our own skin and our own body and mind.

Any sounds that we might be able to hear,

Just letting them come and go.

Letting them pass through.

And if you had your eyes closed you can open them.

Bit of a stretch,

Neck stretch,

Neck roll.

Have a sip of your cup of coffee and notice the taste,

How it feels.

It's a good batch this morning.

So I hope that that was a useful meditation for you.

In future sessions I'll do some more specific exercises of how to actually train our focus on different areas of our body.

But I think that one was just about resting in that sense of open awareness and realising that awareness is about seeing what we find and being with ourselves as we are.

Which is difficult,

Which is hard for those of us that are programmed and are so used to finding fault with who we are.

But if we can sit and practice that idea of just being with what we find and not trying to change it or judge it when it comes up.

That's a bit of a revolutionary idea I think.

And from that place we can move forward into our day feeling good about who we are.

Feeling good about how we've woken up.

So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you,

Have a good day yourself.

Have a good coffee,

Tea or whatever it was.

And I will see you here tomorrow morning for another session.

Another meditation and coffee.

Have a great day.

Thanks for being here.

Let me know what worked for you.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Just drop me a comment.

Let me know if you watched the replay.

Have a great day guys.

And I'll see you tomorrow.

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

I love coffee & I love meditation so this was lovely