Join us for an intimate and transformative conversation with Dr. Joy Bracey, a celebrated authority on executive leadership and mental health. Dr. Bracey shares her deeply personal journey through obesity, shedding light on the emotional and psychological challenges she has faced and continues to overcome. Her candid insights from her podcast, Easy Weight Out, underscore the critical role of addressing inner critics and fostering a healthy relationship with food. This episode is a beacon of hope, offering both inspiration and practical advice for anyone navigating a similar path.
Delve into the biological complexities of obesity, examining how our survival instincts contribute to cravings and overeating. We uncover how the food industry manipulates our desires and discuss the genetic factors that influence body size. Wrapping up with a focus on self-love and wellness,
Practical tips for practicing self-love daily and a calming tree meditation for inner peace provide a holistic approach to embracing wellness and self-acceptance. Don't miss this heartfelt and informative episode!
Please note that we do not necessary agree with all the views on this podcast and leave listeners to make their own mind up with what they do or don't agree with.
Join us for an intimate and transformative conversation with Dr. Joy Bracey, a celebrated authority on executive leadership and mental health. Dr. Bracey shares her deeply personal journey through obesity, shedding light on the emotional and psychological challenges she has faced and continues to overcome. Her candid insights from her podcast, Easy Weight Out, underscore the critical role of addressing inner critics and fostering a healthy relationship with food. This episode is a beacon of hope, offering both inspiration and practical advice for anyone navigating a similar path.
Delve into the biological complexities of obesity, examining how our survival instincts contribute to cravings and overeating. We uncover how the food industry manipulates our desires and discuss the genetic factors that influence body size. Wrapping up with a focus on self-love and wellness,
Practical tips for practicing self-love daily and a calming tree meditation for inner peace provide a holistic approach to embracing wellness and self-acceptance. Don't miss this heartfelt and informative episode!
Please note that we do not necessary agree with all the views on this podcast and leave listeners to make their own mind up with what they do or don't agree with.
Season 16. And in a moment I am going to be honoured to have this next guest, dr Joy Bracey as we discuss self-love and weight loss.
Speaker 2:
I was listening to Dr Joy's podcast earlier Easy Weight Out and I found it very moving and inspiring.
Speaker 1:
Just to give you a big brief overview.
Speaker 2:
Dr Bracey has obtained her Doctor of Education Executive Leadership.
Speaker 1:
You're not slouching and if you're doing something that requires your concentration.
Speaker 2:
All you need to do is just pause this, and you can read the meditation at the time. That is good for you if you're doing the meditation and let she begin so if you look at a tree in front of you, either that is a physical tree or a tree that you've imagined as a present CEO of a non-profit addiction treatment, a mental health agency, while serving in leadership roles on your local national board etc.
Speaker 1:
She seems to have that wonderful way of trying to help other people and, as the wind hits, against the leaves causing your green eyes on the relationship of self love and weight loss, and when I was listening to her podcast I thought, wow, she's been so vulnerable and I'm frightened with everything and if it's very moving to listen to you and I would suggest you check out her podcast and I'll. You are in the moment.
Speaker 2:
I would suggest you check out her podcast.
Speaker 1:
I will leave details in the show notes, but I'm very much looking forward to speaking to Dr Joy Bracey Without further ado. Please welcome to the show, as promised, Dr Joy Bracey. Dr Joy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:
I'm very pleased to have you on the show today as I listened to your podcast, the Easy.
Speaker 1:
Ways Out earlier and, I must be honest, I felt a bit emotional listening to it at times.
Speaker 2:
It was so sincere and honest and the energy that comes from that it can't fake that, it just navigates all the days. You're going to help a lot of people when they feel a strain, but if you look at the tree, we're going to talk about self-love and this weight loss, the sense of ease as you inhale through the nostrils and Joyce, if you would not struggle so far in your experience on your path, you allow yourself to be free within this moment.
Speaker 1:
Allow yourself to be the greenery where it resonates with the sense of self, own inner critic, inner love, outer love. And then I started addressing it because I'm a therapist, I'm a problem solver, I'm a leader. I'll think, okay, I just remember I have this inner critic. I developed some tools to address it and I did, and having the absence of, that negative self-talk it's not that nature never has a care for.
Speaker 1:
It can be difficult for nature to navigate. And I thought I had self-love. A lot of people I think, yeah, I can heal myself, great, but within it.
Speaker 2:
But it's really a daily practice and all of this stuff was so good that I just had to share it and then at the same time I had gotten up to 337 pounds. I've been in an obese body since I was. Can you be in line with that nature to calm and deep breath and just allow yourself to gently listen to the tree as it moves so gracefully.
Speaker 1:
And if you mind, it pops off some way, don't despair, just come back to the breath, really please you take in that tree, just allowing yourself to feel completely and utterly free, allow, allow, take a calm and deep breath in and out through the nostrils, as you inhale, exhale as you slowly come back into the moment come back.
Speaker 1:
I had to allow myself to be honest with myself about what I was giving up to stay for 130 hours. So as I'm figuring out self love and taking people about it, I decide to seek medical help. So next week we have an amazing guest and, yes, as always, do stay tuned and if you like the short piece. I was never going to do it again, so if I was going to try it one more time and you all want to get underneath everything, like figure it really out like.
Speaker 2:
What is my relationship with food? How am I benefiting from being 337 pounds? Because on some level I must have been benefiting from that, because I'm a pretty make it happen kind of person. I feel like as much as I wanted to be skinny all those years, I would have done it if there wasn't some benefit to being that larger size. But there were many things like where did my relationship with food go wrong? Where did that come from? How can I build a healthy relationship with food? And if I was going to figure all that out, I decided to bring people along with me, because I know how hard it is when you're living in a larger body to lose weight. It takes so much courage to try again and face the risk of failure anyway. So it was a lot. It a lot happening at one time and I just I learned by teaching. So it's been a real pleasure and joy and honor to bring people along with me throughout this whole thing.
Speaker 1:
What an inspiring story and your podcast is fantastic and I think it's going to help so so many people. So you said you've accomplished so much in your life and I was looking at your resume or your biography and wow, like just achieved one of those things and all the selfless acts you've done to help people and the work you've done helping vulnerable women and children, to name a few of the many, the many things you've done. But you said that you feel that you've failed at weight loss over the years and what held you back from losing that weight in the past?
Speaker 2:
yeah, and when I lose weight like one time I lost 80 pounds and then I lost my way and regained all of the weight and ultimately there's two things at play. One is that obesity is a metabolic disease. It's a genetic predisposition issue. It's an environment versus, you know, nature versus nurture thing. So I had all the parts in place genetically to become obese and that is passed through my family.
Speaker 2:
And I had the environmental factors in childhood to use food as a coping tool and for my personality to develop around the shame that I held that wasn't even mine and you know to develop this relationship with food where food was my comfort. My baby teeth were black because the bottle was in my mouth all the time. It's called baby bottle mouth. When your baby teeth come in rotten, it's because of the bottle. So my relationship with food was probably messed up before I even ever had a bite of solid food. My brain was wired from infancy that if things are bad beyond your control in a way that you don't like, uncomfortable at all, food is the answer.
Speaker 2:
And so acknowledging that and letting go of the shame of being fat, so to speak and I use that word, fat is not a bad word. Fat is something that's on our bodies, like an arm or a leg. I just had some extra fat on me. You know, being fat is not an insult, anyway, so I just want to clarify that. So the first, it's a medical issue. It's a medical issue that has medical solutions I can vouch. And the second thing is that it's an emotional issue.
Speaker 2:
It's what is going on with my relationship to food, as one little example and I did talk about this in the podcast is that when I would go to parties or weddings, baby showers, holidays, I would be obsessively thinking about the dessert. I go look at it, what are they serving for dessert? How long before they cut this cake? How many cases, how many pieces of cake can I eat without people noticing? You know, can I eat one piece of wedding cake over here with this group and then go grab another piece and eat it over here? So maybe nobody notices, or can I? You know, are they offering people to take home a piece of cake? I'm going to bring home a piece so I can eat some more when I get home or tomorrow.
Speaker 2:
And so I felt a lot of shame at social gatherings around this, I thought I was so obsessed with food and you know that was very shameful and that's one example of the underlying emotional issues that support. Weighing 337 pounds for a long, long time 30 years, you know, between, I would say I spent 30 years between 250 and 330, 340. It's a long time to sustain that sort of weight with calories. That's a lot of calories to eat, you know, and so that is bottom line. In order to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit, which means eating less eating more lean things, less calories and moving more.
Speaker 2:
But why did just that alone not work for me? Because I'm a pretty strong willpower person. For me it was like digging up the medical part and the emotional part, and so on my podcast, I dug in with an obesity medicine specialist to explain to us what is obesity and what are the options for treating it medication, surgery, all of that and then I also had a therapist on to. Two episodes are spent digging into the emotional weight of being an obese body, of being in an obese body and what that experience is like.
Speaker 2:
And my hope was to give people more compassion, because fat shaming is still very prevalent and it's like the last safe place you can openly make fun of someone and not be you know. It's like still okay because we all just hate fat people and that's something we all agree on Right, and fat phobia is built in, baked into us from birth, and so I wanted to tackle that. I wanted to tackle the line between self-love and body positivity, like how do you accept yourself as you are, and also want to change so many of these issues I had my kids on in the second episode.
Speaker 1:
I listened to that. It's brilliant. They sound great and hilarious. You know right off, it's such a genius had my kids on in the second episode.
Speaker 2:
I listened to that. It's brilliant. They're so great and hilarious. You know, my daughter is such a genius I mean both of both of them. So I have four children and three of them are adults.
Speaker 2:
Um, all three of the ones that are adults now had obesity in childhood and I thought I did such a good job navigating their chubbiness, so to speak, speak. And it turns out that I could have done some things better. And my kids were brave enough to be honest with me about that in a recording for everyone to hear, and how my weight loss attempts affected them. And, as parents, what do you do if your kid is overweight? You want them to be healthy. You don't want them to be made fun of. You want life to be easier, yet they have this obvious problem that everyone can see fun of. You won't like to be easier, yet they have this obvious problem that everyone can see and like what is the right response. And my daughter is so smart with this stuff and she cracked you up through the episode and also this is devastatingly heartbreaking, a lot of it, um, and I just think we're not having enough of those conversations like how do we handle childhood obesity. You know how does our body image affect our children.
Speaker 1:
I think that's what I think is so important about your podcast having these honest, open communication conversations because it's going to help other people realize.
Speaker 1:
And as I was listening to you, I was thinking, yeah, there's the emotional side, that it's a disease obesity and I also feel that the food industry they pay people lots of money to make food addictive people lots of money to make food addictive and everyone's busy and stressed these days and then to make it easy as well, but it's just, you know, they pay scientists lots of money to kind of find ways to hit that sweet spot, so that when you have one, you want more. And it makes me think that the food industry should take some responsibility in all this because you know they're playing on people's emotions. As humans we have all different types of addiction and I do agree with you that it's awful how people think it's OK to fat shame people and there's so much more behind it, and yet it is. It's like people can kind of make fun of people, which is it's unacceptable. But I also also like to add that you, you look amazing. I'm guessing you're. You're quite far on it on your journey.
Speaker 2:
yeah, I'm pretty much in maintenance. I think my strategy is to just keep taking care of myself and my body is going to do what it's going to do. I am in a healthy BMI range, but we all know that BMI is not a good, reliable metric of your health. But my blood sugar is good. My cholesterol, my blood pressure all the indicators of health are in good shape. And, um, I went from like a size 26 or 28 jeans um to now I'm like a size four or a size six. So I'm pretty small, like I should. I don't need to lose any more weight, let's put it that way. But but my body may, you know, take off a few more inches.
Speaker 1:
I don't know no, you do, you do, you do fantastic, but it's amazing. But I think anyone that's listening to this and they're going through their own journey of this would you say it's taken in all the factors and also taken away the shame. Because you know, I don't know, I can understand emotionally because sometimes I've had a hard day. My thing is like dark chocolate. I will go for dark chocolate but I know it doesn't necessarily. You know it's quite heavy but it doesn but doesn't necessarily groove maybe, because then it kind of it can make me feel a bit anxious. So I'm going a long way about it. But I know that when I was listening to your podcast and your son was saying that, as different foods can have that kind of like impacts, like on on our and our body, could be like a kind of a micro habit maybe for someone to have the awareness of actually maybe taking a diary about shame, of what foods have different impact. I don't know if that's a good suggestion or not. Over to you.
Speaker 2:
I think it's great. I think that we don't think enough about that. My son in the podcast for to give your listeners context he said that he has really discovered that eating beef is that what it was. He said that he has really discovered that eating beef is that what it was. He said eating beef gives him anxiety, yeah, yeah, or that just as a result, like after he has eaten beef, he is more anxious and I've heard this from several people actually throughout my you know little podcast tour talking about this, these issues.
Speaker 2:
And that's something I had never thought about I. When I first began this journey of weight loss, I got on a GLP-1 medication. Everyone is talking about these. Um, it was Zempic, is the one everyone knows. I was on the evolution after that is uh. The off-brand or the generic name for it is terazepatide is what I took, and now it's uh, it was called Moundaro and now the FDA has approved it for weight loss and now it's marketed under the name Zepbound.
Speaker 2:
That's the one that I use, and that medication corrects the hormones that lead to the disease of obesity. So the messages that your brain sends out when you have the disease of obesity your brain is fighting to keep you the size that you are, so you can exercise, you can eat less, and maybe it's still not going to work for you because your body is determined to keep you where you're at and, like I, have the disease of obesity, even though I am not obese anymore, I'm always gonna have to manage my disease. This might mean that I will might be on medication to correct these hormones for the rest of my life in some form, but it's not something I can ever like. Oh, because my brain is always going to be fighting to put me back there. That is where it's comfortable. That's what it knows.
Speaker 2:
It takes some time for your body to adjust to being smaller and it'll send in cravings that are hard to resist. Like hunger isn't in, it's a a bodily imperative. Like eating is a bodily imperative. You have to eat and your brain wants you to eat because it's a survival thing. So it thinks you need to eat more and therefore it'll make you crave things that are going to pack on the pounds. This is, and also the food industry, as you pointed out, totally play into this also. They know this, they've researched it, they understand how it all works and they put it into our food so that we'll want more of it, all of the sugar and preservatives and salt and whatever it is they're putting in there to make it effective. That personal formula of how food impacts you is so, so good. You know what, what you know, keeping a track of not just what you're eating but how you feel, your mood, your bodily function.
Speaker 1:
Like function like. Are you, you know, nice and regular, or are you having stomach problems?
Speaker 2:
or you know, like what's happening, and I think that's a great practice definitely, and and different foods can have different effects on different people.
Speaker 1:
So just because something's in the health food bracket doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy for the, the individual, as I've found and I was listening something the other day and they were saying that I quite often when restaurants put bread on the table before a meal because it kind of releases sugars in the brain and actually makes you then want to eat more. I don't know if it's as conceited as that with every restaurant, but it's kind of yeah, so it's. Oh, it's kind of watching this thinking, oh, actually is bread going to be the best thing for my myself now? But I like the way you, um, doctor, you disassembled the.
Speaker 1:
It's not just people think, oh, people are beast because they don't exercise and they're lazy and all this nasty like shame that they put on people. But like you said, it's it can be a hormone thing, it can be emotional reasons, the whole. It's a whole number of things. It isn't, it's an addiction, but also a medical reason for for for having that. How do you think as a society we can help other people to to realize that and and offer the support that people need?
Speaker 2:
one thing that I love to point out, that people cannot deny to get them in the right frame of mind thinking about this, whether it's to stop shaming others or to stop shaming ourselves, because we do that too. You could never hear a single insult toward you about your weight, but you might look in the mirror every day and criticize your own body. Here's the thing. I'll know someone who is?
Speaker 2:
super skinny. They eat whatever they want. They eat packaged foods, junk food, they don't mind their nutrition at all and they're thin. And what we say to them is congratulations on your good genes. Like you won the genetic lottery, you're so lucky you can eat whatever you want and stay thin. That's how we communicate with people like that. That's our relationship to that. Yet when someone is obese.
Speaker 2:
We don't say, oh man, I'm so sorry that your genetics were like this. It seems like every single thing you eat shows up on your rear end, Like we don't at all attribute fatness to genetics, but it is a genetic issue and it is a biological and medical issue, and so that's something that we can't deny. You know we have to be able to say okay, you're in an obese body, there's some things maybe going wrong that we can fix with medicine, and it shouldn't be the shame around our body size or even what we eat.
Speaker 2:
I still eat delicious foods. I eat yummy foods. There's not one single food that is off limits for me unless I'm allergic to it or choose Like don't eat beef or pork. But that's just a personal choice. So, and it's not about weight loss, there's no shame in my food choices, and one of the ways that I really know this and to encourage all listeners to think about their you know, if they are overweight or obese and they want to address it, to let go of that shame, is such a helpful part of the process because there will always whether, no matter how skinny you are, if you are in a place of shaming yourself, you'll find something to shame yourself about.
Speaker 2:
Losing 194 pounds didn't fix the. You know the my feelings. I had to do that. It's separate work. It's separate work. And when I first started taking the medication, um, I got. I was having a really bad day. Both of my sons that still live at home were both, in their own way, getting into trouble or causing me frustration, like one of them was in trouble at school or something, and um, so I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home to get my son a treat right. To get him a treat, I got myself a king size snicker and a king size Twix I think were the two, and I ate half of both of them. In the car and because of the medication, I was able to really feel that effect on me and I felt the calming. It was like someone had given me, you know, a relaxant medication. You know it's like I could feel.
Speaker 2:
I was like oh my goodness, Like when all of the food noise is happening and the shame. You're not even feeling what's happening in your body or your feelings, you're just. I was totally out of touch with it. Food had become such a coping tool for me that I would skip the feeling that I was trying to avoid altogether, so like if someone hurt my feelings, instead of thinking, oh, that hurt my feelings, let me think about this. It would be like hurt feelings craving ice cream. We're just going to skip over why we're craving ice cream and go just eat it. So, and I immediately knew that the medication was powerful because I I could, for the first time, feel all these processes in my body, like, oh, you were really struggling to cope with your son. You turn to food and it totally relaxed you, and so from there I was able to start tuning into myself and not using food in those cases, you know, trying to learn other tools Mindfulness.
Speaker 2:
That's amazing yeah, yeah, so you saw the connection.
Speaker 1:
It helps you kind of see the connection between emotionally eating and it just brought that awareness. It sounds really amazing this medication.
Speaker 2:
It sounds like it's going to help a lot of people yeah, and right now they're studying it to treat, uh, addiction to alcohol and other drugs. The data shows that even if you don't lose any weight on it, it still reduces your risk for cardiac events. So it is projected that I think it's within a few years. About 10% of people are going to be on this medication for some reason or another, and I think it's going to get way bigger than that, because it really fixes the reward. Not to get too science geeky on people here, but the way that it works is that when you're addicted to anything whether it's food or drugs or shopping, sex, gambling, whatever, whether it's food or drugs or shopping, sex, gambling, whatever your brain begins to withhold dopamine from everyday activities that should make you feel good, like when your puppy comes up to greet you or when you hug your baby or, you know, accomplish finishing a load of dishes that, like feel good feelings begin to be withheld.
Speaker 2:
And then, when you partake in the thing that you're addicted to in my case sugar your brain dumps the dopamine. You know the good, feel good chemicals. You get overloaded with it. So you then will seek out more of that to feel better, to feel good, and that's just your brain doing its thing. That's not a shame, that's just the way addiction works. And so there is now a medication that fixes this, that it is a miracle. And so people do shame a lot around.
Speaker 2:
You know, having lost the weight, people will say very silly things to me, like, um, oh, oh, you must have done it the right way and you did it all yourself. What they're saying is did you have surgery? Did you use medicine? Because if you did, then your accomplishment is null and void, which is hilarious to me. Like, yes, after losing 100 pounds of medication, I went and had gastric bypass. I had the great, you know, struggling decision of, of which took a lot of courage, to have surgery to cut off, disconnect my stomach from my digestive tract, and, um, that took a lot of bravery and I went through a lot to make that happen. And and then also I have to eat a certain way for the rest of my life. I'm exercising. All of it works together.
Speaker 2:
But people really just want to know off the top, did you do it yourself? And I'm like, well, I didn't realize I had an option of somebody else doing it for me. And if people are, you know, can he take that answer? I will happily educate them that, um, you know, weight loss takes all the things. You can have surgery, sure, but there are people. Some people don't lose enough weight and they, um, some people regain the weight because surgery doesn't fix everything. You still have to do a good bit of work yourself it's, it's different components to it, isn't it?
Speaker 1:
so that brings me into self-love. If I'm the listener and I'm listening to the show now and I'm thinking, oh, I'm on my own journey, how would, what tips would you give them to help them to kind of realize that self-love, to to love themselves more and to accept themselves?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, um, there's so many good ones, I think. For for me, starting with the inner critic is the place to go. What are you thinking? What are you saying to yourself on the regular basis? What do you believe about yourself? Starting with that, because mostly we try to turn off that voice. We say, oh, my inner critic. His favorite thing to say to me was who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to be? You know, trying to write a book? No one's gonna do you think you are to be. You know, trying to write a book. No one's gonna listen to what you have to say Like you don't know anything. It always was trying to make me small. So now, when I hear those things in my head, I think, ooh, that's something to pay attention to and I asked myself what are you afraid or ashamed of? What's?
Speaker 2:
going on here when before, when the inner critic would come, I would just eat over it, I would run from it in some other way, distract myself with doom scrolling or Netflix or food or shopping. And now tuning in, like turning around and saying that is a part of myself that needs my attention. There is a part of me that is afraid right now of something going wrong. There is a part of me that is ashamed of something. And so when those thoughts come in, instead of running away from them or just trying to stop them, instead turn around and face it compassionately, objectively, like huh, really Does everyone hate you? Because that seems like that'd be kind of crazy if everyone hated you. You know you can have a little conversation with yourself. You can picture your best friend addressing that voice. What would your best friend say to someone who said to you who do you think you are? Your best friend would have some words. You can just let that conversation play out. So tuning in to those messages is really a critical starting point After that, to realize that self-love is a practice. It's not just how you feel about yourself, it's what you do for yourself.
Speaker 2:
I was in a funk last week. I realized that I wasn't feeling myself, I was low energy, and so on Sunday, I took one of those showers where I gave myself a scalp massage, I shaved, I did the whole like treatments and exfoliation, and really took care of me that I'm, you know, put on an outfit that I loved and put on makeup and took myself out of the house on a date with my stepmom to lunch. I cooked some healthy food for my kids, I walked my dogs, I did a whole day of things that I love, purposefully and intentionally to take care of myself, to be my own best friend all day long, and I was out of my funk.
Speaker 2:
You know, self-love is not going to cure mental illness but it doesn't hurt and it certainly helps with, you know, those feelings of inadequacy or just feeling blue or whatever. We can care for ourselves through those things, and so it's a daily practice. How are you showing up for yourself? Because when you're in a relationship with a person, you can say I love you all the time, but you have to show them also, and so how are you showing yourself that you love you? You know what are the action steps that you're taking every day.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Yeah, what actions are showing you? Is there anything that you wish everybody knew?
Speaker 2:
oh, I wish everybody knew that they were valuable and worthy and glorious and that just by being born onto this planet they are as worthy as anyone else of amazing things, of love, of abundance, of, of happiness and joy oh, fantastic, I love that, thank you, that's amazing, that's.
Speaker 1:
And finally, if I'm a listener and I'm listening in, how can they is? How can they learn from you, work with you. If you just like to share that, that'd be fantastic.
Speaker 2:
Sure. So I teach self-love and do a lot of content creation on Instagram, facebook and TikTok, and you can find me at D-R-J-O-Y-B-R-A-C-E-Y, at Dr Joy Bracey, and I also do one-on-one work with coaching and therapy with people, and they can listen to my podcast. The easy way out that's w-e-i-g-h. Anywhere they listen to podcasts, um, and then my website is drjoybraceycom. You can reach me there too perfect.
Speaker 1:
I'll put details in the show notes, but it's been really how can I describe it? I feel really humble, like speaking to you. I feel like it it's been like a gift, a gift to the world, and it's. It's look, keep doing this amazing work, because you're going to reach and help so many people. And I just said, dear listeners, do not sit there feeling shame. If you're going through a similar journey, then do listen to dr joy's podcast and her website and things like that. But, dr joy bracy, thank you so much for joining me today and, um, I wish you a wonderful rest of your day and as always, listeners, do stay tuned.
Speaker 1:
There's a meditation at the end of this podcast. Thank you, dr joy bracy. Thank you so much. Here is your meditation. Top tips for the meditation is either sit nice and cross-legged on the floor with a nice, straight back always nice to sit on a block or a cushion or that's not available for you. You sit in a chair with the back nice and straight. Important thing is you're not slouching, and if you're doing something that requires your concentration, all you need to do is just pause this and you can reconvene the meditation at a time that is good for you.
Speaker 1:
If you're doing the meditation, let's begin. So if you look at the tree in front of you either that is a physical tree or a tree that you've imagined after seeing in a book and you just have your gaze in one spot and you just allow that tree to move, you allow the branches of that tree as you look at it to move in the breeze, the reverberation as the wind hits against the leaves, casting a green and magical breeze like a sea in the air, and just think that wind is blowing away all your cares and you're just allowing yourself to be. Imagine that you're as perfect as can be as beautiful as you are in the moment. Allow, allow and be. Allow, allow and be. Watch as the leaves move and they dance and they sing and they prance in the wind and the gentleness of the breeze helps to illuminate a sense of ease within your being. Perhaps today has been a little bit more difficult to navigate than other days. Meditation may feel a strain, but if you look at the tree it can help you feel this breeze, this sense of ease. As you inhale through the nostrils and you exhale and you let it all out, you allow yourself to be yourself, to be free within this moment. Allow yourself to be the greenery why it resonates with the sense of self-love inner love, outer love, love for others, love for ourselves.
Speaker 1:
Nature is so godly in the sense that it is beautiful, it is there, it is resilient. It's not that nature never has a care for it can be difficult for nature to navigate who's eating who? Who's feeding off who, but within it nature is in the moment, nature is in the now. Nature is so beautiful. Nature just knows. How can you be in line with that nature? Take a calming, deep breath and just allow yourself to gently listen to the tree as it moves so gracefully in the breeze. And if your mind pops off somewhere, don't despair. Just come back to the breath, breathe deeply as you take in that tree. Come back to the breath, breathe deeply as you take in that tree, just allowing yourself to feel completely and utterly free. Allow, allow, take a calming deep breath in and out through the nostrils as you inhale, exhale, as you slowly come back into the moment. Come back into the room, knowing that whenever you feel a bit of sense of disconnection, try this meditation as you look towards the tree. Thank you.
