You pulled through.
My name's Ruben and welcome to this practice.
A reflective practice.
It's about acknowledging the times that you've pulled through.
Our brains don't like to give us the credit for those times that we've pulled through.
The things that we've done,
The qualities that we have shown.
Our inner strength that has come through in those times.
And this is so important to do because when we can open up to it and acknowledge it,
It will help us for future moments,
For when times are tough.
And despite what society tells us,
Social media,
The things that we pick up,
Everybody struggles.
Society goes through tough times,
Struggling with their thoughts and feelings.
It's not just you,
It's part of the human condition.
Let's get into this.
So allow yourself to think back to a moment when you were going through a tough time.
And this could be something that was just two weeks ago.
But it could also be something that was two years or 20 years ago.
And at the time when it happened,
It would have felt like it was out of your control.
In the very moment when we're caught up in a struggle,
That's often how things feel.
Like it's completely out of our control.
You got through this situation.
What did you need to make it to the other side?
What did it take to do this?
And there may have been times when you knew what the right decision was,
Deep down in your heart,
Your intuitions.
But then your thoughts might have contradicted that.
So you could have been going from one thing to the other and back to the other.
Sometimes you might have had to make space for the thoughts that contradicted what your heart said.
And maybe you gave up at times.
We all do this.
We just stop,
Maybe to get the well-deserved rest that our body needs.
Maybe because we just feel like giving up.
This is normal.
This is part of the human condition.
Some days are worse than others.
And there can be so many factors involved,
Not just because of the tough time at that moment that we're going through.
But through lack of sleep,
Stress,
Interpersonal things that are going on.
And yet,
Even though you struggled at times and maybe gave up at times and it seemed foggy or confusing,
There would have been those little moments of clarity.
Where you helped yourself pull through.
Because you were there for you.
So even in the midst of this storm that seemed like it was out of your control,
There would have been little moments of clarity.
Even just for a few seconds,
Some of these things in your life that are meaningful,
Little glimmers of meaningful connection along the way.
And as you experience these,
Maybe it was from somebody else.
It could have been a friend.
Or even kind words from a stranger that just happened to say the right thing.
Whatever your experience was or wasn't,
The main fact is is that you made it.
You got to the other side.
You had the capacity to move through this.
The more we can acknowledge getting through the tough times,
The more we are able to get through these tough times.
This is because the more we do this,
The more we open up to the difficult.
And in doing so,
It gets easier to experience these little moments that open up to us along the way.
They show us that there is something here that we care about.
Even if it's just for a few seconds.
Now is the time to come into this moment anchoring to a point of connection.
Coming out of our heads,
Letting go of the reflection,
Letting go and allowing thoughts to linger to come and go,
Allowing feelings to linger to come and go.
In their own time,
As you gently rest in this moment,
By gently connecting to the flow of your out breath and noticing each out breath,
How it speeds up,
Slows down and comes to a pause.
Whilst you connect to this movement of your breathing,
There is distance between you and your thoughts.
Thoughts coming and going.
As you gently rest your awareness with your out breath.
And if you've got a really busy mind in this moment,
What you can do is to imagine counting your breathing in any way that you wish.
And you can either see these numbers appearing in front of you or hear them in your mind.
It's up to you.
But right here and now,
After this gentle reflection that we've had,
This is a time to very gently come more into this moment and less in our heads.
Staying with this and seeing how gentle you can be.
And so,
To finish off,
As you go about your day,
You might like to gently remember how you pulled through.
Yes,
Sometimes you may have given up.
Yes,
Sometimes other people might have been there to help you along the way.
But it was you who experienced what you did.
It was you who experienced the difficult thoughts and feelings that at the time made things seem like it was completely out of your control.
You made it.
You got to the other side.
You pulled through.
Yes,
Simultaneously you see how you actually when you take it you feel quite confident
