Meditation & Coffee - Stress Relief

A morning practice to help us unite our breath and body to stop stress and anxiety from carrying us away, and come back to a more grounded, balanced, calm and intentional space. To be enjoyed with your morning cup of coffee, tea, decaf or chai.

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 guys, Happy Wednesday. I don't know why I say that, It sounds strange, But I always like to come on and say happy whatever day it is when I'm talking on my stories or coming onto Instagram, So hello, Happy Wednesday. I'm here for another session of meditation and coffee. Quite literally got my coffee here and this is a nice mug that was a gift for Christmas last year which I kind of love, It's quite kind of cool and bohemian. Hope you're doing well this morning. Today's meditation is going to be focused on dealing with stress. Specifically the stress that often our own mind creates. I don't know about you, But as someone who is a freelancer and I have my business and loads of things going on, At this point in the week I often feel quite stressed. My mind is kind of quite busy telling me, Oh I swear it was just Monday, How is it already Wednesday? Or what else have we got to get done today? Or what do I need to get done by the end of the week? You know, Because it's like midweek, Ok, Halfway done, Still got a long way to go, Am I doing enough? And before you know it, Your brain is telling you all these stories and spiralling. Of course stress can come from external circumstances as well, Especially right now, Many of us are dealing with situations and issues that kind of were unimaginable a few months ago. This meditation that we're going to do today can be a really powerful way of coming back into your body when your mind is telling you stories about stressful things. So what you have done or what you should do or what you haven't yet achieved and running away with you into your to-do list and your timetable and your schedule as soon as you wake up. Many of us, And I don't know about you but I'm a major over-thinker, And even though I love my sleep, Sometimes I struggle to sleep because my mind is just saying, Oh well that's a good idea, What about that, Oh you've got to remember that, Make sure you do this. And like I say, Before you know it you're caught in a spiral. And our minds are very good at keeping us distracted and giving us stories. This meditation, As I say, Is going to be a fantastic way of reminding yourself that when you think something, That's all it is, It's just a thought, It's not real. Just because your mind is trying to make you stressed and take you down that kind of negative stress spiral, It doesn't mean that you have to let it. It doesn't make you a bad person if you just say, Hold on a minute, I don't want to start my day like this, I want to start my day calm and feeling clear. And I want to decide what I'm going to focus on today, Not my brain going at a million miles an hour. And it is okay to do that, It is okay for you to say, I want to just take some time to come back to the present and remind myself that I don't have to let my brain or my stresses or my external circumstances dictate how I feel. I can be intentional and learn to cut through the stress. So if you've got your coffee, Feel free to bring it with you. And as with all these meditations, Just sit in a way that feels comfortable. Sit in a way that feels upright and alert, Dropping the shoulders but feels comfortable. You don't have to sit in a special meditation position, You don't have to sit like this with your hands if you don't want to. It's just very much about what feels comfortable, Waking up with the day and dropping into where you're sitting now. So I invite you to do that. Taking a few deep breaths. And if you like, If you feel comfortable, You can close your eyes. Or you can keep them open and just keep them slightly open looking at a point in front of you if you find that it doesn't distract you. And as we take the three deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, Noticing how it feels to just be dropping in to where you're sitting today. Maybe you've got your cup of coffee in your hand like I do, You can feel the warmth of it, The texture, The feeling of the mug. The taste of it. Maybe you're sitting on the sofa like I am, Or a cushion. And as you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, Just feeling yourself drop into where you're sitting. And this is just about giving yourself space and permission to be where you are now and come back to the present. And remind yourself that even though your mind may be going at a million miles an hour, Right now you're practising coming back to the physical body and the present and just saying to your mind, Okay, I get it, I get it, But right now I'm taking a break for me. Just starting my day with a little pause rather than going headlong into what our mind will tell us that we should be doing. So once you've got into a good rhythm with your breathing and you're dropped into the space, Dropping your shoulders, Relaxing the skin of your face, Your jaw, Your neck. Seeing this as an anchor, If you get distracted throughout this meditation, You can come back to that feeling of just noticing your breath going in and out of your body. And I'd like to invite you to turn your attention to your feet. Bringing your attention to your feet can be a great shortcut almost to finding calm within your body. You can feel your feet wherever you are, If you're going about your day. Training your attention on your feet. Noticing the soles of your feet, Temperature, Texture, Tingling, Throbbing. Noticing the groundedness of them perhaps. And again, In meditation we're training being curious without judgement, So you're noticing your feet almost as if you've got a tiny little torch or a little camera and you're inside your foot and you're a tiny detective having a little look around, Training your attention. Anything you notice about your feet, How do they feel today? Continuing to breathe as you do this, Careful not to hold your breath. And using our feet as a way to get in touch with how our body feels is like I say, A great tip to connecting with how the rest of your body feels. And now as you feel your feet, I invite you to notice if there are any other areas of tension or stress in your body. And I don't mean think about your stress or let your thoughts carry you away. If your mind is feeling busy, If you're finding that you're distracted and you're thinking about everything you have to get done today or this week, Acknowledge that thought and then notice where in the body does that stress show up for you. For me quite often if I feel stressed, I notice it above my eyes, My forehead gets quite tense. And many of us perhaps will recognise that our shoulders start to creep up towards our ears perhaps, Giving yourself permission to drop them back down. Maybe for you stress shows up in your belly. Maybe it makes your breath more shallow. Some people feel it in their back or in their hips, A kind of tightening, A sense of unease. That's all okay, We're practising awareness, We're practising noticing these things. And I invite you to, In your body as you sit here breathing, Train your attention onto your body and notice any areas of stress, Tension, Where your mind is affecting your body. And when you notice, Imagining that your body is hollow and you can send breath to those areas of stress. So breathing in through the nose and as you breathe out, Almost imagining that you're sending breath to the areas in your body that are stressed or tense. Like your body is a hollow balloon and noticing how it feels to send breath to those areas. Does it feel calming or cleansing? Relaxing? Does it change the sensation anyway? Then if you get distracted, That's fine, Just come back to it. Acknowledge that distraction without judgement and then come back to the breathing and sending the breath to any areas of your body that come up that feel tense, Where your stress shows up for you. The key here is that we're not necessarily trying to get rid of the stress, We're not trying to pretend that it doesn't exist or that it's useless. Sometimes stress is useless because it just makes us feel bad. But we're not trying to pretend that our feelings are not valid or force ourselves to feel a different way, We're just realising that sometimes stress is just a story that our mind is telling us and it's not helpful, It doesn't make us more productive. Often stress is our brain just freaking out about something or making us feel more tense, More anxious, Rather than calm and confident, Which is what we want when we start the day and attack our to-do list. So using these exercises is not about saying, Oh I shouldn't be stressed, It's terrible, I need to neutralise it immediately, It's more a feeling of how can I bring myself back into my body, Into the present and remind myself that I'm okay and that I've got my body and that I'm grounded and that I'm in this. And that stress is just a human response. The tension that I feel is just a human response and normal and natural but I don't have to let it control me. I can observe it and see that it's there and attempt to diffuse it so that I end the session feeling more grounded, More at home within my body and perhaps more able to choose a more serene path so that we get our to-do list done with clarity and confidence and peace rather than attacking our to-do list with haste and anxiety and stress. So that was today's meditation. If you're still listening with your eyes closed, Feel free to open them. And as I always do at the end of my meditations, Little stretch, Shrugging the shoulders and bringing them back down again just to come back into the room. I'm going to have a little sip of my coffee. Mmm, That is good. Not going to lie. So thank you for being with me for today's meditation. I hope you found it helpful. As usual, I will post it on my IGTV if you'd like to share it or if you'd like to save it and come back to it. And if you've got any questions or any issues that came up for you during that meditation, I'm always here. Reach out, Drop me a comment or send me a DM. I'd love to help. Have a great day guys. Happy Wednesday. Happy coffee or tea drinking. Thank you for being here and I'll see you tomorrow morning. Have a great day. Thanks so much. 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

Soooooo helpful this morning! I have been dealing with chronic tension and pain in my neck, shoulders, arms, and wrists. I know it's due to stress. Thank you for helping me to refocus and relax! ❤