Hello lovely,
Pasha Lindy here.
How are you?
So in this next practice we'll see if cultivating kind self-talk helps warm our hearts and perhaps even lessen any feelings of anxiety or isolation.
And just as I experienced,
It's a bit like bringing our inner mentor or grandparent online and building our resilience through offering a lifeline of support in the midst of conflict and difficulty.
I've known people to use this practice going through breakups and to use this practice to remind them that they're still a good person.
I've known people get bullied at work and use these practices to help keep them going,
Keep their morale up.
So there's lots of practical applications for this practice too.
So inviting you to find a comfortable sitting,
Standing or lying position.
Checking in with the posture that your body is well aligned.
Good contact with the ground.
And taking a couple of nice deep breaths to begin with.
Perhaps cultivating a sense of letting go on the out breath.
And then allowing the breath to settle into a natural rhythm.
And to cultivate that sense of friendliness towards ourselves,
You might like to place a hand on the heart or on the tummy.
So exploring that caring touch.
And as best we can,
Allowing ourselves to receive that sense of friendliness.
Feeling those warm sensations of contact.
Allowing those feelings to land,
Land in our hearts as best we can.
And then asking yourself that question,
What do I need?
What do I really need right now?
And noticing what you're really wishing for in body,
Mind and spirit.
Something that if you received it,
Would really allow your heart to rest.
And if the answer is something material,
Like lots of money,
Seeing if you can look for the deeper human quality that you wish for underneath that.
Why do we want money?
So we can experience freedom.
So the wish here is,
May I feel free.
So we're looking for those human needs,
Such as the need to feel connected.
The need to feel respected.
The need to act in a healthy way.
The need to feel safe and seen and supported.
The need to stay calm in the midst of uncertainty or chaos.
The need to feel loved.
And just choosing a maximum of three needs,
If many different ones are surfacing.
And then rewriting them as wishes for ourselves,
Such as,
May I feel connected.
May I feel worthy.
May I be free from fear.
May I remember how beautiful and strong I am.
May I feel safe,
Seen and supported.
May my heart rest.
May I stay calm and courageous in the midst of uncertainty and chaos.
So taking a moment now to phrase those needs of yours in sentences.
And feeling free to press pause if you need more time to do this.
But now we have these phrases,
The idea is that we repeat them over and over again to ourselves,
Silently in our minds.
May I be well.
May I be healthy.
May I be happy,
For instance.
And then repeating,
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
So let's take a few minutes to repeat those phrases over and over for ourselves,
Silently.
And it can help to use a kind,
Friendly tone of voice.
Noticing when the mind wanders off,
Forgiving ourselves because that's normal,
And then bringing the mind back to those phrases.
And you might like to play with pace.
Would it be more kind and loving to slow down?
Would it be more kind and loving to make less effort to allow these phrases to feel easy and natural?
And as best we can,
Not only saying the words,
But receiving the words,
Allowing them to land on our hearts.
And in a moment we're going to come to the end of this short practice,
Just knowing that we can come back to repeating the words we long to hear to ourselves at any time in our day.
It may be that you managed to find the words that your heart really does long to hear.
And there was a kind of inner,
Yes,
Gratitude to hearing them.
It may be that the words were not quite right.
There's still a bit of work to do in finding the right phrases to support us right now.
And it may be that the experience was a bit challenging,
That actually we found it dry or difficult to receive kindness.
And if that's the case,
Seeing if we can find some space for ourselves right now,
Just allowing that to be the way it was,
With acceptance and kindness,
As best we can.
So how do we integrate this into our day?
Well,
Of course,
We could take 10 or 15 minutes to set aside time to formally practice saying the words we long to hear.
But we can also just take one minute to notice,
How am I?
What do I need right now?
And finding a phrase of kind self-talk that expresses that need,
Meets that need for us in any given moment.
For example,
If you send an email and you forgot to add the attachment and hey,
We've all done that,
Right?
You notice your mistake.
You notice that it hurts a little bit.
Maybe now is a good time to say to yourself,
May I be kind to myself when I make mistakes?
May I remember that we all make mistakes sometimes?
You'll also find a life coaching session called Words of Encouragement on my channel,
Which goes into a bit more detail and you might find really helpful.
Well,
Go well with that,
Dear friend.
Until next time,
Bye bye for now.
