Meditation & Coffee - What Do I Need?

A simple and cozy contemplation meditation to help you get still, quiet, and in touch with your needs and wants, so we can build a safe space to ask the (sometimes difficult) questions we need to feel happy and healthy.

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,

Good morning,

Good morning.

Okay,

So as I've written in the comments there,

Today's meditation and coffee and of course I do have my coffee just hiding out of shot here and my bright yellow mug which I love,

I need a bit of sunshine in my life today so I've got my bright yellow beautiful mug.

Today's meditation and coffee is basically a technique that is known as contemplation.

Contemplation meditation.

It's a technique that I didn't really hear much about when I was first learning to meditate.

It's basically,

Long story short,

About asking yourself a question and seeing what comes up.

Asking yourself any kind of question that's been on your mind or that you feel is important to you and seeing what comes up.

And that's basically it.

But I think this can be quite a challenging thing and as I say it's not something that I really heard about at all when I was first learning to meditate because I think there's a perception that meditation is about escaping ourselves or maybe looking for something outside of ourselves to make us feel better.

I think also people come to meditation understandably,

Like I'm not judging,

People come to meditation because they've heard that it can help them feel calm and it can help them to relax.

And that it's basically like a stress relief tool.

And it is,

It is all of those things.

Totally it is.

But I think because of that often people are instructed to,

Almost to ignore their thoughts.

People are told,

Well the instruction is sit down,

Notice your breath,

If you get distracted bring it back and there you go.

And a lot of people sometimes take that instruction,

Myself included when I first started,

We think that the instruction to let go of our thoughts and bring our attention back to the breath means that we should ignore our thoughts.

It means that we should knock them away or stuff them down.

And that meditation is an exercise in getting away from ourselves.

And I think you can use it however you want to use it.

In some techniques it is about coming away from yourself,

It is about giving yourself space from whatever's bothering you or whatever's stressing you out.

However I think if it's used wrongly,

That kind of technique can be seen as a little bit of a spiritual bypassing.

If you guys know what spiritual bypassing is,

It's when you use spirituality or when you use techniques such as meditation to bypass whatever you're feeling and kind of put a sticking pastor on it and pretend that it's okay or just to ignore it completely and just say no,

Not me,

I'm not bothered by my thoughts,

I'm love and light,

I don't need to be worried about getting bogged down in my thoughts,

I'm just going to breathe and it will all be okay.

And I think that's fine temporarily,

Sometimes you know,

Thank you,

Sometimes I think that's okay,

I think that it's fine temporarily like I say,

Because sometimes we do just need a break from our thoughts,

Like sometimes we do just need to breathe,

Not think about it for a bit and just focus on feeling calm and I totally get that.

And for some people meditation can be that,

But I think the problem is that when we only do that we can use meditation as a tool to avoid ourselves,

To avoid issues at hand,

To avoid systemic problems,

To avoid actually dealing with the thing that maybe made us stressed in the first place.

So today's meditation is just a simple antidote to that,

It's a really easy technique that we can use once we have got into the practice of sitting down with ourselves and giving ourselves space and time to just be and notice our breath and our body,

Which is kind of what I always start my meditations with,

We're going to give ourselves permission to notice our thoughts and not just back them away,

To actually notice them and sit with them and ask ourselves kind of what we need.

And you know,

This isn't a practice that's going to completely cure like all spiritual bypassing,

You know,

That's another practice for another day.

But today we're just going to start with this idea that actually our thoughts are not the enemy when we meditate and we're not just trying to escape them and kind of be in this sort of like zen parallel world where we just don't think about anything.

Firstly that's not going to ever happen really and secondly it's good to be able to be aware of our thoughts so that we can understand what they're telling us or understand how we can get more in touch with ourself,

Our own self,

And not just ignore ourself if that makes sense.

So even if it doesn't make sense I invite you to come into meditation with me now.

As usual with my practice I invite you to sit however is comfortable,

Not in what you think is the right meditation posture.

So literally I invite you to sit on a cushion or a sofa or the floor,

Even up in bed and make sure that you're sitting in a position where you feel balanced and grounded.

And you have your shoulders kind of more or less balanced on either side.

And allowing yourself to breathe normally naturally.

And as you breathe in,

Allowing yourself to open,

Allowing your lungs to completely inflate.

And enjoying that sense of expansion.

Taking up space,

You are allowed to take up space.

And as you breathe out,

Allowing yourself to feel the gravity on your body.

Noticing the heaviness of your body sitting where it's sitting now.

And if you haven't already and you feel safe to do so,

You can close your eyes.

And bringing your focus to where you can feel your breath the most strongly as you breathe in and out.

And continuing to allow yourself to breathe without an agenda,

We're not trying to force any kind of condition or any kind of mental state.

Just allowing yourself to breathe,

Breathe,

Breathe normally.

And seeing what happens when you do that.

We rarely give ourselves permission to just breathe in life.

And as you do this,

Trying to be as still and as focused on your breathing as you can.

Now of course in meditation we're always going to get distracted,

We're going to find that our mind wanders off.

But if you can,

Really noticing somewhere in your face or your body that feels very,

Very still where you can get really curious about the sensations.

As you breathe in and out,

Noticing that part of your body,

Maybe your nose,

Your chest or your stomach,

Maybe even your forehead.

Feeling very still and focused just in that one small area where you find your attention.

And taking a deep cleansing breath.

And as you do this,

Allowing yourself if you would like to ask yourself the question,

What do I need?

What do I need?

And just seeing what comes up,

Maybe nothing.

Maybe you're like,

I don't know.

Or maybe when you ask that question something does come up,

What do I need?

And the answer can be anything.

It can be,

Oh I just need to drop my shoulders a little bit more.

Or it could be,

I need to not have another cup of coffee today because I'm feeling kind of anxious.

It could be,

I need to treat myself nicely today because I'm feeling a bit fragile.

Maybe your body tells you that you really need a good workout today.

Like maybe you've been feeling a bit sluggish recently.

Or maybe it's something else entirely.

But allowing your body to be a safe space where you can give yourself permission to ask yourself,

What do I need?

And it's okay,

Whatever comes up.

Maybe you just need a really good hug.

A lot of people have really struggled with not having good hugs because of the pandemic.

And it's okay.

It's not good,

It's not great,

But it's okay.

It's fine,

You can hold it in your meditation and acknowledge it.

And asking yourself the question,

What do I need?

Is a really great practice for asking yourself perhaps more difficult questions.

I mean,

What do I need might be a difficult question for you.

There's no judgement here,

But it's like a practice for saying,

Okay,

Well what do I really think?

Or what do I really want?

Like that can be a really hard question.

What do I not want?

Why am I really doing this?

Another one.

Why do I feel that way about that thing?

Like why am I feeling anxious about this job or this task?

And only you know the answer to these questions.

But so often we can sit in a state of avoidance and not wanting to go there,

For want of a better word.

We understandably can get quite afraid of what we might find if we give ourselves permission to ask those difficult questions.

So we don't do it.

We just stay stuck in,

And I include myself in this,

We stay stuck in resistance and reluctance and feeling like we can't go there because we're worried that if we do,

You know,

Emotional hell will break loose.

And we worry that we won't be able to cope with the answer.

But if we allow our meditation to be a safe space for ourselves,

And if we give ourselves permission,

And we know that because in meditation we don't judge whatever we find,

We can use it as a way of building that safety within our body.

And knowing that whatever does come up,

We're going to approach it the way we would approach anything that comes up in meditation,

Which is with compassion and interest and curiosity.

And also remembering that whatever comes up is not necessarily final or true.

Remembering that you can question what comes up.

Remembering that you can take what comes up and examine it within the safe space of your meditation,

And you don't have to necessarily rush off and do whatever answer comes up immediately,

It's just kind of,

Oh,

I'm just testing here,

I'm just like seeing the lay of my mental land,

Right?

So this can be a practice that can help you practice your own compassion,

Giving yourself permission to ask yourself like,

What do I need?

Like,

That's a big question.

What do I need?

You're allowed to ask yourself,

What do you need?

And another one that I love is like,

What do you want as well?

Because it's not always about what you need.

Sometimes it's about what you want.

Like you're allowed to want what you want.

What do I want?

That's a good question.

What do I not want?

Another good question.

And if we focus our attention on our mind and our body and we use those as tools in meditation,

The more we do it,

The more,

The easier it gets,

We use those as tools to understand ourself and to allow ourselves to go inwards,

We can start using that to help us do things like this contemplation meditation.

Like,

What do I need?

What do I want?

Who am I?

What am I doing with my life?

All these questions that we have.

And this could be a really good precursor,

This exercise to doing some journaling.

If you feel like you've got something that's on your mind or that you're in a particular mood where you're like,

Oh,

I feel like I'm resisting something or I'm getting stuck in the same patterns because I'm not really answering the questions that are kind of in my brain,

Which I do all the time.

This can be a really great practice to start journaling because you can ask yourself,

What do I need?

What do I want in your meditation?

And then once you've practiced that in your meditation afterwards,

You can grab a journal and write whatever comes out.

So I find that journaling can often be,

I like to call it the physical aspect or the physical side of meditation.

So,

Yeah.

And I want to acknowledge you for doing this meditation because it's not easy to ask yourself these questions.

It's not easy to be brave enough to do it.

So acknowledge yourself as well,

Like to be brave enough to do it and hold that space in your own mind to ask yourself these questions.

Like even sitting here and doing it and trying it is like already 75% of the battle.

So,

Yeah,

I acknowledge you for that and thank you being here.

And I would encourage you to try this meditation without me waffling on in the background.

Now that you know the basic technique,

Maybe just take your phone and set a timer and give yourself that space to breathe and come into position and drop down and then see what comes up.

Maybe even the question you're not quite sure about when you sit down,

But when you sit down it becomes apparent.

It's just about allowing yourself to go inward and kind of seeing what comes up,

Right?

So,

Yeah,

Acknowledging you for being here today.

Thank you so much for your time,

For your practice and for asking the difficult questions.

And let me know,

Let me know how it went.

If you're watching this on the replay or if you're going to try it later today with your phone just as a timer,

Let me know how it goes and if you have any questions I'd love to hear from you.

Just drop me a DM.

In the meantime,

Have a brilliant rest of your Tuesday and yeah,

I'll see you here tomorrow for another session of meditation and coffee.

Thank you 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 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.

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