Happy Place

This can help you to conform your own happy place. Lucy asks guiding questions which encourages you to picture a place where you are comfortable and happy which you can use to escape to when feeling particularly anxious or worried.

Transcript

So this meditation is all about finding your happy place. So go and find somewhere comfortable and let's get started. So this meditation as I say is called Happy Place and it's a really traditional way of calming the nervous system and to help us to feel happier and relaxed to visualise somewhere that we remember being particularly happy. Now what I'm going to ask you to do is not to already think what your happy place might be today. For a couple of reasons it might change from day to day or it might be that you think you know where you would choose but actually when you sit here now something completely random or somewhere really surprising will come into your mind and you might actually have an even better happy place experience. That's happened to me on more than one occasion and maybe it will happen to you too. So get yourself comfortable if you're in a chair as always just place your feet down onto the floor and draw up through the spine rolling the shoulders down away from your ears and place your hands down onto your lap or your knees and then whenever you're ready close your eyes or just soften your gaze. Just take a few moments now to arrive here for your meditation and just start to allow any sounds of life around you to begin to fade. Just turn the volume down on life for a few moments and start to connect with your breath. So it might be that you can feel the rise and the fall of your breath within your body and as you breathe out just find a little bit of softness. Just begin to feel the support of the chair or the ground or the bed wherever you are and just be supported in this moment. And we're going to start to take some nice long deep breaths breathing in through your nose and breathing out through your mouth and just do that a couple more times breathing in and breathing out and one more. Close your mouth when you're ready and begin to breathe in and out through your nose if this is comfortable for you. This is the yuzhai breath and it can help us to balance and calm the mind. So just take a few moments now to find your rhythm and your flow with your unique cycle and circle of breath. And remember if your mind begins to wander simply bring your attention back to your breath. Just feeling the contact points of the body supporting you. Just letting go of anything that's on your mind. Just try to focus your attention on yourself and we will begin our happy place meditation. So I would like you to think now of somewhere you feel or felt incredibly happy and allow those feelings of happiness and joy to fill your heart to fill your body and mind. And before we fully transport ourselves to your happy place just absorb these feelings of happiness. So now I'd like you to imagine that you are standing in your happy place and immediately imagine that you're here soaking up all of the sights and sounds maybe even smells and tastes of this place. So let's start by looking around just explore your landscape whether that's an inside room or an outside place. Just notice all of the details around you. I'd like you to look at something that is close. Notice the textures any shapes or patterns and then look onto your horizon. What is the furthest away point that you can see? And just notice what you can see here. I'd like you to look up so whether that's a ceiling or a sky or anything else above you. Notice what is above you. And now looking when you're already down at the ground just beyond your feet maybe even wiggling your toes here. What can you see down on the ground? Whether it's the floor or your outside just notice. Looking over to your left and looking over to your right. Is there anything here that is surprising you? Maybe there's something new that you haven't seen before or maybe there's something missing or something that you can't quite visualise clearly. Don't worry about this just take the experience for what it is. Take these last few moments just looking around before we now ask ourselves can we hear any sounds? Is there silence? Is it quiet? Is it noisy? Are there any sounds that we do not recognise? Are there any sounds that are familiar? Is there anybody with you here in this happy place? Are they saying anything to you? Can you see their face? And what are they doing? Let's take three deep breaths and absorb this moment in our happy place. So breathe in deeply and breathe out. Just feel this sense of being here in your happy place. Take two more big breaths. Breathe in and let go. On your next breath in see if you can imagine any smells here in your happy place. And if you can't then don't worry there is no judgement here. Maybe just continue to breathe in this sense of being in your happy place. And just notice how you feel. Are the feelings the same as when you last came here? Or maybe the place has changed. Maybe you've used your imagination to change this place in some way. But just notice the feelings you are holding now without judgement. And just be in your happy place in peace and stillness for one minute before I speak to you again. Three deep breaths. Few moments really soak in your happy place. Allow your feelings to be absorbed. Have a last little look around. Take in any details. And know that you can always return to this happy place for you. Just take some last long deep breaths here. Really allow your feet to be grounded in your happy place. And then slowly allowing the body to move a little bit more slowly to allow the breath to return to a comfortable rhythm and flow for you. And then you'll slowly bring your hands up and give your hands a little bit of a rub. Create some warmth and heat. And then hovering the hands over the eyes and blinking the eyes open into your darkness and warmth before removing the hands down. And I'm here. And I hope you enjoyed your trip to your happy place today. As I mentioned, Every time you do this meditation you might find you go somewhere different. You'll definitely have a different experience depending on how you're feeling on that day and how clearly you can visualise. And don't worry if you cannot see images. It is not about painting a perfect picture. It's about having an experience and noticing what that experience is. That is what meditation is about. Mindfulness, Meditation. We focused there for 12-14 minutes on one thing and that was this creation of this place but certainly an experience that was unique to you. And I hope it brought a little moment of joy and happiness to your day. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I'll speak to you again very soon. Take care.