Compassion Break Discussion & Practice

Listen to Jon talk about self-compassion and how to take short breaks when you are having a difficult time. Then sit back and enjoy the compassionate break practice. Discover why you might want to stop from time to time and consider others and also being kind towards yourself.

Transcript

We've all got three minutes haven't we?

We've all got 30 seconds just to stop.

We can all do that regardless of what's going on.

Now the three minute breathing space is fantastic because it involves attention,

Focus and awareness in those three stages.

But sometimes,

Yeah,

The day is really tough or emotions are running high or that pain,

I've just tweaked something,

Oh it's painful,

Yeah,

And it's triggering a bit of anger or it's triggering something and everything's tensing up.

It's like,

Oh this is really difficult,

Yeah,

We all have those moments in the week at least,

Yeah,

So that again that's human,

Yeah,

It's nothing new in that.

The problem is when we're feeling stress and pressure of the body,

The mind or the outside world then we get cortisol levels rising.

That's the stress hormone.

The problem with rising cortisol is that it takes a long time for it to reduce.

It's quick to act because it's fight or flight.

But then it takes a while for it to,

Oh,

I feel better now,

Yeah,

So we've mentioned,

I might have mentioned prison officers,

They have a low,

Really sad,

They have a low survival rate after after retirement because the body never gets a chance to do that on a daily basis because their days are full of stress and pressure.

Yeah,

They're like soldiers,

Police,

First responders,

Yeah,

And even with some of your council work you'll be in situations where the stress and pressure follows the same processes of these people on the front line,

Yeah,

And if you don't,

We don't,

Do that on a regular basis we'll store up cortisol,

Yeah,

Which ravages the body with tiredness,

Lowers the immune system,

Can't sleep,

All host stuff,

Yeah,

You can read all about the effects of that yourselves.

Mindfulness is really good for that,

Oh,

Decompression,

But sometimes it's not quite enough and in fact if you've had a really,

If you're really in the middle of it,

Yeah,

So you come out of a difficult meeting or difficult email,

Difficult at home,

It might not be the best thing to go,

Right,

I'm gonna go upstairs,

I'm gonna sit on my cushion and I'm going to breathe this away because it probably won't go away,

You'll get really peed off with it and it won't do your meditation practice any good,

But there is another way,

So similar thing,

This idea of three minutes,

We're going to take a little bit longer because we can,

But when you notice you're having a difficult time,

There is a natural antidote to the stress hormone cortisol and we can produce it and we are good at producing it,

It's called oxytocin,

So you may have heard of it,

It is,

It's the love drug,

It's the hormone that makes us feel affection and love for people,

I don't know who I'm looking at,

But this is if they,

Yeah,

It's the,

It's the,

It's the hormone that enables a baby to feel safe enough to snuggle in and to feed and it's also in the mothers to feel safe enough to feed my child,

Yeah,

We don't feel a chat,

We don't feed a child very well when we've got cortisol running through the body and through the milk,

Yeah,

So where do we and how do we develop or create oxytocin,

Not in an instant,

But it's in there to be accessed and the compassionate break does that,

Okay,

And what it does,

We'll do it in little stages,

So we'll do the mindfulness thing which is I'm just being present with what's going on but we recognize that actually this is really tough,

I'm being really honest with myself,

You know,

I've had a tough day,

These emotions,

I just,

I just can't deal with it,

Or the pain,

Yeah,

So we recognize we're going to allow it to be there but the interesting thing is we're going to go hang on a minute,

It's not just me who isn't like this,

It's actually other people and there are millions of people out there right now like you and me somewhere in the world going through exactly what you're going through,

Yeah,

So we bring that to mind,

We're going to use it to our benefit because instead of focusing on me and my problems,

It's like me,

My problem,

And it's just a mess,

Me,

Mine,

Mess,

I like that,

It's very egotistical but that's what we do when we're under pressure,

We shut down,

We close down,

Just like we're on pain,

When we've got pain it's like oh yeah,

Strong emotion,

So we've got a fight,

We say hang on a minute,

It's not just me,

There are other people like me,

It's not,

It's not all about me,

And open up to them,

Yeah,

And then we're going to ask ourselves so what is it right now that I can do that is kind towards myself or how can I be kind towards myself and it puts the mind in a different direction because kindness and love generate oxytocin,

It's almost like an act of self compassion that's why it's called a compassionate break,

I'm having a break,

I'm having three minutes and we're going to do the routine,

So let's have a go,

We need to know what it feels like,

Now whether or not you're having a difficult time at the moment it's worthy,

It's worth running through the routine for you to practice because if you can practice in the good times it's going to be easier to do it in the tough times because your brain will know the routine,

Yeah,

One stage will follow naturally after the other,

The grass has already been walked over and a path has started to develop in the mind,

Yeah,

So over to you,

Get yourself comfortable,

If you need to stretch you need to stretch,

Hmm and we'll do,

It's called compassionate break,

Can be three minutes but we're going to take our time,

Okay,

Okay,

Intention,

Motivation,

You know why you're here now bring that to mind,

You know you can have that kind of start to develop a bit of that inner fire,

Yeah I'm here because hmm I'm doing this because hmm yeah and I always try to ultimately you know it's gonna I'm really here because of others I'm hoping it towards us,

Okay,

So however you are right now notice your own breathing,

If we're having a difficult time we can be honest and say to ourselves you know what John right now this is a really tough time and if right now he's not so tough you could imagine one or I could remember the last time you had a bit of a tough time if you want but as long as you remember the process I'm having a tough time right now,

Oh this is a difficult moment right now and we're just going to be with it okay so let's just be with our breathing perhaps deepen it slightly,

Longer out breath,

You could either be recognizing the difficulty as you breathe or the pain right now or just the memory of something that happened because you might feel the tension somewhere in the body yeah so how is the body so this is a difficult time but actually right now in the world there are literally millions of people experiencing exactly how I am in this moment and perhaps you just connect with that statement in your own way or be with that statement it's not just me there are hundreds,

Millions of people in the whole world right now that they're having a tough time just like me notice how the body responds to those kind of statements notice where your mind takes you it's not just me hundreds of men and women out there just like me and I'm wondering how can I be kind to myself in this moment or what is it I need right now so just have a moment of quiet how can I be kind to myself in this moment or what act of kindness could I bring to my to my life after this meditation session you know what will it look like so we're just sitting opening and allowing anything to pop up or not how can I be kind in the moment don't worry if nothing arrives or nothing comes just go back into the body you know maybe I wonder if you could put your hand over your chest the heart space they call it yeah you know can I be kind to myself in this moment yeah can I just stop and be kind what would it look like you