Meditation & Coffee - Walk Into Sunshine

Sometimes you just gotta make your own sunshine! From a very rainy London, I invite you to join me in this simple sunshine morning visualization, and give yourself permission to start the day calm, warm, present, and focusing on what feels happy - no matter what’s going on outside. Sending sunshine!

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. And now, On to the meditation and coffee. Good morning friends, We're live on another session of meditation and coffee. Hello hello hello. So there's a very obvious theme to today's meditation and coffee and that is purely and simply sunshine. It's absolutely bucketing it down with rain outside in London today. Yeah, So that's good. The thing is, With London weather, It doesn't rain all the time. There's this myth that it always rains in the UK. It doesn't always rain in the UK. Actually sometimes we have some absolutely glorious sunny days, Weeks of heatwave and sometimes it can be wonderful. However, The thing about the weather in the UK is that it's not predictable. So just because it's August, Just because it's, You know, Summer, Doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to be beautiful. And that is what is happening today. So yeah, Woke up this morning, Saw the rain outside and I thought, Today is a day for sunshine. There is a quote that I always go back to, Which is very cheesy, But I kind of love it. And it says, Sometimes you just got to make your own sunshine. And that's what we're going to do today. So I have got my coffee in my very sunshiny mug. Other watchers of meditation and coffee will know that this mug is, Yeah, It's basically what I always take out the cupboard whenever I need a little boost because it's got beautiful sunshine yellow inside the actual mug. So it always makes me feel that bit happier when I start my day and especially for today's meditation and coffee. If you have your coffee, I invite you to join me. Or of course tea, We also accept tea drinkers. We accept decaf drinkers as well. Few years ago, I would have said decaf is not proper coffee. But the older I get, The more I realise the power sometimes of a good decaf. So yeah, So here's me sipping from my very sunshine yellow coffee mug and inviting you to join me in a sunshine meditation this morning. This is honestly purely practising a few techniques in meditation, This technique. It's going to practice what we worked on yesterday, If you listened to my meditation yesterday, The mind body connection, Using your body as a tool to help you feel better in your mind and in your brain, In your spiralling thoughts. And it's also going to be a meditation to help you focus on what's good. Meditation does sometimes get a bit of a rep of being kind of very serious and very solemn and you know, And sometimes it is those things because it can be a spiritual practice, It's got a long history, These things are all true. And we do have a responsibility to practice meditation sensibly and with reverence. However, That doesn't mean that we always have to approach it with sort of seriousness and doom and gloom. And sometimes I like to meditate on just what feels good. And just noticing, Hey, Actually, If we want to, Or if we can, We can focus on the good, We can focus on the joy and on the nice things in life. And meditation helps us to become more aware and helps us work through difficult things and problems, Yes. But it can also help us just notice the nice things in life. You know, If you adopt a more mindful attitude, It can help you to think, Okay, Well, Maybe not everything is going perfectly in my life right now. Or right this second or something terrible has happened or just first of all, Problems, You know, Like, Oh, It's raining outside, Like, I can't do anything about that. And it makes me feel a bit crap. But, You know, So why not instead of focusing on the bad and the stuff that I wish wasn't happening? Why not try to cultivate and build a mindset that is positive? And again, You know, This is not me trying to pretend everything's great when it isn't and it's not about pretending that everything's fine and slapping some toxic positivity on it. It's not about that. But just let's notice let's try to notice despite everything going on despite the bad things despite everything that we might have to worry about the joy and the positivity. I'm feeling good noticing, Practicing, Noticing feeling good because it is a practice. It's really easy to get stuck in noticing the bad things and noticing what's not going right and noticing how stressed we are. So let's try and shift that today. Purely because why not if we can help ourselves feel better? Why Why would we not try at least to do that? So, As usual, I invite you to get into a comfortable position wherever you happen to be sitting. You can sit cross legged or just however feels comfortable and supported. Whether you're on a chair or a cushion, Or on the floor or in bed, There's no rules here. The only thing that I will say is making sure that you are sitting relatively upright so that you can feel kind of alert and awake and balancing your neck evenly on your shoulders and your shoulders evenly across your spine. Feeling balanced and grounded wherever you happen to be sitting today. I invite you to notice how it feels to be sitting. And if you'd like you can close your eyes or you can keep them open, Just looking slightly ahead of you. Coming into position just taking some nice good, Gentle deep breaths, No fancy breaths nothing special. Just breathing as you would normally. Allowing yourself to expand your chest, Sit back, Elongate your spine as you breathe in. Feeling the air filling your lungs. Breathing out. As you breathe out allowing your muscles to relax. Noticing how relaxing it can feel to allow the skin of your face to relax. Skin around your eyes, Cheeks, Your neck, Your shoulders. And noticing where you can feel your breath most strongly today. And just practicing using that as your anchor for the next few breaths. Noticing where you can feel your breath coming in. And out. And if you feel distracted that's ok, Totally normal, Totally natural. Try to notice the distraction and bring it back to this feeling of being seated, Of being calm in your body and noticing your breath. Now I invite you to notice this feeling of calm and groundedness. And we're going to do a body scan imagining that we are stepping slowly into beautiful warm golden sunlight. Now however this shows up for you in your mind there's no absolute correct picture that you need to summon. Maybe your sunshine visualisation doesn't look anything like my sunshine visualisation and that's perfectly ok. But what we want here is for you to imagine bit by bit from head to toe that your body is being bathed in beautiful golden warm sunlight. So if you want to imagine that it's just scanning down your body starting with the head. Some people like to imagine that they are stepping out from shade into darkness and that very slowly as they slowly walk into the sun the light hits them bit by bit on their body. So starting with the top of the head and imagining the sunlight hitting your body and noticing what that feels like. Warm, Golden, Sunshine that's not too hot, Just pure golden warmth. Noticing the effect that it has on your body as you walk into it. Does it help relax it? Does it allow the muscles to decontract? Going down the rest of your head, Your forehead, Your eyebrows, Your jaw, Your chin and your neck. Allowing the golden light to seep down those parts of your body. Your shoulders, The tops of your arms, Your chest, The top of your back and your shoulders, Your elbows, The bottom of your arms, The lower part of your torso, Your lower back and your hips, Your sit bones and your lower hips, Your wrists, The tops of your hands and each of your fingers being bathed in this golden, Beautiful, Warm sunshine. Noticing how it feels to be imagining this, Noticing if it affects the way that your body feels, If it conjures up any particular connotations for you or images or memories. Getting really curious about how it feels to be imagining this warm, Golden light on your skin and the warmth of it really bathing you in this simple joy of stepping into the sun. Nothing more, Nothing less. Continuing to notice how it feels in your thighs, Your hips, Your shins, Your calves, Your ankles and the top of your feet and the soles of your feet all the way down to your toes. And now, However you're imagining yourself, Whether you're standing straight up in a power pose in front of the sun or whether you're imagining that you're feeling very cosy, Thank you very much, Just as you're sitting right now doing this meditation. Holding your entire body in that feeling of sunshine, In that feeling of warmth, Joy, An uncomplicated noticing of how it feels, Of pleasure, Of feeling good. Imagining that you have nothing else to do, Nowhere else to be, Nothing else to worry about except noticing how this golden, Warm, Uncomplicated, Beautiful sunshine is feeling on your body right now as you hold your entire body gently in the light. Continuing to breathe gently, Don't hold your breath but continue to breathe. Holding your body very gently in this ray of golden sunshine and light. And noticing again how this continues to change, Maybe the sensations shift in your body. What effect does imagining this have on the areas of tension in your body? Does it allow them to relax, To unclench, To turn towards the sun? And if you get distracted or you find that a thought takes you away, That's fine, That's totally fine. Bring it back to this feeling of being warm, Being held in this perfect ray of sunshine. Allowing yourself to be in this moment with nothing else to do, Nowhere else to be. Noticing how focusing on your body and especially something positive like sunshine can help you to start your day with more calm, Give you a little bit of space and perspective on your mind. Allow you to check in with your body and notice how it's doing and also giving you permission to relax and unclench those areas of tension and notice how it feels to focus on something purely uncomplicated such as sunshine on your skin. On this kind of sunshine you don't need to worry about being burned, You don't need to worry about getting the sun cream out, None of that. And if you like you can almost shift parts of your body as you would if you were really standing outside in the sun to try and make sure that it touches everywhere. So maybe you might shift from the front of your arm to the back perhaps or different parts of your head. Imagining the light source in front of you and you're sitting here being bathed in that golden light. Allowing yourself to take a few more gentle deep breaths in and out. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Allowing tension to release as you exhale. Checking in with that feeling in your whole body one more time. Giving thanks for this practice, For being able to do this today. And if you had your eyes closed you can open them now. Come back into the room. Thanks so much for being here, Thanks for joining along with this sunshine meditation with me today. As I say you might be able to hear the wind and the rain outside my window today. There's definitely no sunshine where I am right now but taking the time to just do that little visualisation can really work wonders on your mood, On your happiness. And realising that it is within your power to notice nice things and good things. And again this is not toxic positivity I'd never suggest to someone, Oh you can think yourself happy or just focus on good things, Like it's not as simple as that. But we can slowly train our mind to feel like it's ok to notice nice things even if horrible things are happening as well. To take a break, Give ourselves permission to just have a bit of an interlude in what might otherwise be a stressful or difficult day. So thanks so much for being here, It's been a joy. From me and my super yellow sunshiny mug, I wish you a wonderful day. Let me know how that went for you, Let me know if you have any comments, Constructive criticism, Feedback. As always you can listen to these meditations on Insight Timer as well, The free meditation app, I know a lot of people do that so hello to my Insight Timer listeners. And as usual if you are happy with this meditation and you'd like to support them, They are free, You can buy me a coffee, That would be amazing. It doesn't have to be any kind of particular coffee but hey I will put it towards the meditation and coffee fund. You can do that via the donation tool on the Insight Timer app itself. You can also buy me a coffee, Any amount that you want. If you head to paypal. Me forward slash breathe like a badass, That's massively appreciated and can enable me to continue doing these meditations for free. Which is what I love to do, Starting the day with meditation and coffee. What could be better? So thanks so much for joining me, Have a wonderful day. From me and my sunshine yellow cup, I will see you 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 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 liked 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.