How to live mindfully - with Andy Puddicombe from Headspace

[Laughter] [Music] an eon absolute delighted that you could be with us this evening and I wanted to start as well as welcoming all of you to this event by actually just saying how grateful we are to you for being here and Andy's here for a fairly brief and actually non-work-related trip to the UK to see family and other things and it's very kindly offered to give his time to be here with us this evening so thank you my name is Mark Williamson for anyone who doesn't know me and I see many familiar faces I have the great privilege of running action for happiness and we host lots of these events for anyone who's not familiar with actual happiness perhaps because you'll hear as a as a huge head space fan and I hope those two communities do overlap I'm sure those communities over that very much we are a movement of people united in a belief that you know human happiness and well-being is not some fluffy nice to have it's actually at the very heart of what it means to live a good life and to live well and to treat others well and we're building a movement of people all around the world who share that conviction so thank you to everyone in this room who does so much to contribute to that not least of which is you Andy because actually we first met just before our launch and in fact when headspace was in really early days and you came to our launch event it seems like a while ago that isn't that did I think we and as much as headspace was part of our happiness our happiness was part of the headspace launch as well you know it was probably about eight years ago that we launched in London and a long time before we had the app and we were doing things like this we were turning up in places venues and just kind of doing doing live events so I remember I was thinking on my way in here back to that launch event I think BBC were there to cover it I'd be very breakfast right and Sean I think was was hosting it and they wanted to film a live meditation and and we were doing it and then someone's phone went in the middle of it and I just remember this this conversation is dialogue of and just be aware of the sounds and the person whoever's kind of phone it was either didn't realize it was their phone or was so embarrassed that it was their phone wouldn't turn it off for this this sort of dialogue continued and please be even more aware of the sounds coming from your pocket but I do I remember that event thank you Andy doesn't really need much introduction because you will all be very aware I'm sure of headspace and I would like to in a moment and sort of take us back a little bit as to your own journey and of course the amazing journey that headspace has been on in recent years but I thought actually before we delve into the details and the conversation it'll be really lovely if you could perhaps help us set the scene about to reconnect with ourselves a bit many of you will be used to hearing your voice in our ears now we can see you live but maybe you could start with a bit of a mindful moment for sure I'm always worried with this because so many people say I'd go to sleep listening to I'm always worried to be so ok Matt Matt's narcolepsy and everyone will just be crying out unconscious but we can try it now I think it's always good you know when you turn up at a place I think most of you will have come into a buyer you know public transport had a busy day probably and there's something kind of quite nice about just putting all that down and feeling sort of bit more present I know that was I heard there was a bit of excitement last night something about some penalties or something so just kind of putting all that dowas be confused actually coming into London it was lovely to come back but the sky was blue the Sun was shining England had won a penalty England won a penalty I I wondered I wondered if the plane had landed in a different country it was very disorientating so how many how many of you have done some kind of meditation mindfulness most of you maybe I should ask you the other way around how many of you haven't okay so even for those of you that haven't this is really simple very straightforward and I talk you through it we're just do sort of a couple of minutes just so I know how many of you do headspace thank you okay so just you know I mean for those of you that listen to this you could probably I was gonna say you could do it with your eyes you're gonna do it with your eyes closed but you probably know that you know the script you know the dialogue so take a moment to get comfortable all right so see however sit however feels comfortable for you don't worry what the person is doing next to you so the only thing I recommend is that you have your arms in your legs kind of uncrossed it's just a little bit easier for the mind and the body to unwind in that way and we're gonna start in the usual way okay so I'd like you to start off not not with your eyes closed but with your eyes open and if you can try and take in the entire space around you so without moving the eyes you can still see either side of you and you can even see above and below so it's a very sort of soft focus and just maintaining that soft focus just take a couple of big deep breaths breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth and if you haven't done already with the next out breath just gently closing the eyes so before you do anything else just take a moment to enjoy that moment of silence of stillness having nothing to do nowhere to go and then just take a moment to feel the sensation of the weight of the body pressing down against the seat feet on the floor maybe just notice how the body feels this evening then we need to do anything about it we're just checking in with the body noticing if there's a sense of stillness or or restlessness don't worry too much about any thoughts you can just let thoughts come and go we're just gonna rest our attention on the breath just for the next 60 seconds or so you have to breathe in any special way just following the natural rhythm of the breath and if at any stage you realize the minds wandered off just letting go of that thought and bringing the attention back to the breath again I'm just letting go of any thoughts and then bringing the attention back once again into the body into that feeling of weight of contact gains a seat feet on the floor and hands and the arms on the legs and then when you're ready just gently thank you that felt somehow very familiar we don't normally do that in every hundreds of feet and the I I'd love to start actually by just revisiting a little bit of your story yeah because I'm sure some will be familiar with it but you of course left I think maybe a you might consider to be a fairly normal life in the UK and and did something rather remarkable which I guess many of us might have thought about doing but never done but then went to a very different life experience that you know it's obviously the profound impact on your journey would you like to perhaps fill us in a bit on what what happened there and I think it wasn't so different you know just regular guy went to become a monk and then stopped being a monk came back I think there's you know I joke about it but it was it was actually very very kind of organic I don't it didn't feel I don't remember it feeling like a really big thing it wasn't that I I i sat there and made a list of pros and cons of being a Buddhist monk and kind of thought about it in that way I do remember having a very sort of strong feeling you know I think often people talk about having a calling in life and that feeling whether we call it intuition or whatever you like to call it the he was strong enough that nothing else made sense I really kind of felt a pull towards that not just towards that lifestyle but towards that sort of inquiry into into the mind and it wasn't I should hate into out this wasn't because I was some kind of selfless kind of noble human being kind of going for great good I was just really overwhelmed with my mind actually and I had a very busy mind and how do you practiced mindfulness or meditation any way before you yeah so I am I started meditation anything with my mum when I was about 10 or 11 years old and very forged different type of meditation but I think there was enough there to sort of create this familiarity with it and even excitement we don't remember kind of an early age it wasn't I carried on doing it all the way through my teens were far more exciting things to do through my teens but it was something I returned to you know it was I think that's the thing with with meditation and mindfulness the Tibetans say it's uh it's a bit like swallowing a porcupine like kind of once it goes down you can't kind of pull it back up again in the same way with mindfulness I once you've tried it can't doesn't really you know if you've been aware you can't really be unaware and once you've kind of tasted it I think it's always there and in times in your life that are challenging there's a fairly good chance that you're gonna come back to it it's really interesting even now kind of in headspace we see different types of kind of users and there's three types of kind of people in the community there are we talked about sort of sort of bitumen type users so people who kind of do it every every single day it's almost like a preventative type of approach it's more like a sprint type users people who wait until they get stressed then meditate and then when they feel better stop meditating and then get stressed again you know as a cycle kind of thing car and then there's that big big life events and and I think this is a really interesting guy we might see someone not using it at all for three months and then something happens and all of a sudden mindfulness feels relevant again and I'm not suggesting that one of those is better than the other I think we all sort of apply it differently but for me that was it was that kind of sort of time in my life I think a couple of I had a couple of really sort challenging challenging things one in particular czar being involved in a car accident where a drunk driver crashed into sort of a big a big group of us and and killed a couple of people and injured a lot and I think for me that left our really yeah he left something there that just couldn't be fulfilled through a traditional lifestyle at that time so sports science was fascinating at university but biomechanic didn't kind of quench my thirst for meaning in life she left your degree I did yeah yeah I remember I was going out with this girl at the time University and funnily enough she was quite into sort Buddhism stuff and I wasn't massively really and it's a kind of ironic that I went off to become a monk but she kept talking about you know these monks and these nuns and how they was so amazing and they live on top of a mountain and Wow and I thought I was watching EastEnders I guess it at some level it must have been going in and so I remember kind of telling her one day and it's tricky and and then going into college and seeing kind of the head of year and and I told him why I was gonna do and he said he just saw shook his head and he said look you know you're gonna regret this for the rest of your life my recommendation is you go and see your doctor and you ask for some Prozac and yeah she's story and the idea that that kind of fulfillment could be found in a bottle of pills was it's an interesting way of looking at life we we agreed to disagree and I left that afternoon well I think there's probably many people in this room who are glad that you didn't go down that other route so you went abroad and how many years were you to be learning this practice for so when off kind of thinking okay well I'm gonna be a monk for the rest of my life you know I had a naivety in an enthusiasm at that stage and I found that actually was a lot more complicated than it first appeared so actually I trained in a number of different kind of monastry over a period ten years I trained in a number of different monasteries the first five years was primarily the Burmese tradition in that time I was a layperson I was a novice monk but then as time went on I think I felt a stronger pull towards that monastic where a life I wanted to go deeper in retreat so I took full ordination in the Tibetan tradition in northern India and then did sort of some long term long term retreat and when in that obviously would have been a very life-changing and intensive experian did you start thinking I might like to bring some of these ideas back to the West if that's the right way of describing is I had that always been there or did that just discover that no I didn't I wasn't thinking that way at all in fact so in I don't know how many of you are familiar with sort of monastic ordination but for those of you that aren't I'm going to assume that some of you aren't in the Tibetan tradition kind of take a commitment you don't take a commitment for life normally you take it for sort of one year three years five years or life and I remember coming to sort of the the next kind of commitment and it was I think it was either three years or life I was a big difference right it's a little something in the middle maybe and I wasn't sure I honestly cut I didn't know and I trusted my teachers so much the more perhaps I was just kind of not wanting to take responsibility for the decision but I said I'd like you to decide you know and so I went into that meeting with that sort of idea the you that you decide and thankfully just another three years and then you know maybe maybe you see and and during those three years I think one I had the opportunity to go through some much longer term retreat I had the opportunity to some teaching they sent me to Moscow where I ended up spending sort of four years mm-hmm and having the opportunity to teach was where I started to see perhaps the the secular application of it a lot of people who were coming along who wanted to learn meditation but who didn't necessarily they weren't that interested in the Buddhist tradition they weren't necessarily comfortable chatting to a bolt-head ago in a skirt smelling of incense chanting you know like it's quite a foreign sort of land for someone just walking in in a suit from the office so it was more and more through having those conversations that I started to think okay well there's there's definitely sort of something here but at that stage I couldn't really have said what it was that I was thinking don't so when we first met in 2011 maybe 2010 you teamed up with rich yeah-ho founder of headspace and as you said earlier it was pretty early days in that journey and it's amazing to see how that's reached so many millions since then but what was it that got you from the I'm here I'm ordained I'm a monk back to I'm back in the UK I'm trying to build something that reaches people that may not want to connect with Buddhism or may have a more secular approach to this I so much wish I had just this really clean transition story for you be so much easier it's not so so actually before headspace I think you know not much so coming back to England I trained in the surface I've seen the juggling on okay so it's what every every monk dreams of running away to the circus so it does make sense it might not sound like you just now so I was in Moscow so prior to being a monk I've been incredibly physical a lot of sports lots of gymnastics and then for 10 years that really hadn't kind of trained at all you know and so I was really excited about getting back into top physical exercise I was in Moscow had a friend who was studying at Moscow State Circus doing a 4-year degree there he said why don't you come along you know so I started going along we enjoyed it another time I was trying to think okay how do I have food to go back to England and do this what is now kind of headspace I suppose type of thing you know make this sector offering I didn't have any money I think even at any kind of many clothes at the time so I was trying to sort of work out how to do this and and in the circus in Moscow they told me you can do a degree in England in in circus arts and the government pays for it and because you're so old I was 32 at the time you know they'll give you kind of money to that's all the grand to live and all that sort of stuff so I thought ok well this he'd kind of really work out pretty well so I did that and I came back and I studied in surface and and in the early mornings and in the evenings I would kind of start writing up the content for the meditation stuff and those who that's really what allowed me to come back and although it's sad really random if you think about the application and mindfulness I actually think is a physical manifestation the the circus is perfect just think of a tightrope walker you know if they're if they're too tight they'll fall off if they're too loose they fall off so there's this constant striving for a physical balance of relaxation and focus and it's a very sort of mental pursuit as well so I found I found that to be a really important part of my transition back everyone finds their own transition back from the monastery but for me the surface was was the obvious way do you still have a mentor or someone who is part of that important part of your life that you know in contact with and he's watched this growing change from the monastery yeah well back from that that period of your life yeah I'm in touch with most mold mates kind of from from school and from the first University and from the surface and from the monastery so I still have friends who are monks and their friends who've left the monastery one of the nicest um days I've had a headspace where as he was last year we had the abbot was in my former retreat master and Tibetan abbot of the monastery Lama Yeshe came out he rich said look we should we every year we do a big retreat for the team at headspace we do up in Malibu and like beautiful kind of setting kind of the hills behind and he said why don't you why don't you ask one of your teachers to come we're gonna fly over to Malibu and kind of do a retreat he said just ask you know so I was bit embarrassed but I did ask when he said yeah and he flew out and he spent a whole day just working with the team and for me knows it was a beautiful thing it really kind of full circle and it was also a sense of I don't know that that connection with the monastery and knowing that what we were doing was furthering so their work as well which for me as a full month was was really important so I'd love to move on to sort of some of the practical aspects of living mindfully you know what you can help us with both as a teacher and also with the experience you've now had working with many people on this but I think I just love to pause and acknowledge and maybe hear a little bit more about the latest news from headspace because you know it started off as this very small idea when we first met with big big mission and of course you've now got I think you were saying hundreds of people in different locations around the world can you maybe just share a little bit of where it's got to and some of the latest news just so we get a sense yes so it's really it's really important to know kind of so I'm the performing monkey that you get to listen to on the app but there's a really big team of people behind their space I've I have people who come up to me in the street sometimes kind of and say also you know there's like five or ten of you few more so there's a there's about 250 in the Santa Monica office we've got about 25 engineers up in San Francisco with people in London people in New York yeah now so it's it's really it's a it's a big team of people and sometimes that's really hard to understand because it's just an app right all those people doing and I wonder some days Wow but I do wonder no it's it is because we're doing so many sort of different thing it's not really just about the app you know we our our goal from the beginning really was to create a platform for health and happiness beyond meditation beyond mindfulness and obviously with my background that was an obvious place to begin but I think we always thought kind of it's great people doing mindfulness on a regular basis that's wonderful but if the rest of their life is incomplete kind of chaos and they're going out doing lines of coke every night they're probably not going to be getting the full benefit of mindfulness so it's gone how do we how do we offer this sort platform that sort of covers every sort aspect so we're working very slowly very sort purposely towards towards that as a as a goal I think on the platform right now we have something like I think we're at 32 million or something so every month somewhere between one and one and a half million people sign up to the app and yeah I think it's it's just we were talking about it before it's just really interesting to see the different ways I think that mindfulness can be applied so we work with with Nike and the MBA kind of in sports and we work with sort of mums groups we work with sort of really large businesses we work with NGOs in Syria and other places our conflict and and for me that's the exciting thing what I would ask sort of all of you sort of go away with to have a sort of a thinker but I don't think about it too much but sorry think about is just you know what how does it best fit in with your life I I don't believe that it's for me to sit here and define what meditation is or what mindfulness is you know I think it's defined by the intention of the user so as what does it mean to you so I meet people all the time kind of out and about and some people use it because they want to sleep better some people because they want to feel less anxious some people because they want to be more focused so I'm gonna be more productive there isn't one thing and there isn't one use case so it's more about you know rather than other people defining it for you you finding that sort of aspect in your life that it can be be more beneficial well we're gonna come back and talk about some of those the practical examples of how we can perhaps put that at yeah practice but just I mean thank you for sharing the update on headspace you must be I'm sure very proud of the number of people that have been reached and helped one of the questions I guess that comes up for me especially given your roots in the Buddhist tradition is whether there's been a tension for you between managing what's become a very successful commercial enterprise and for good reason I suggest in terms of being able to invest in creating a really high quality product and reach young people and so on while staying true to this principle of actually this is something that is timeless and universal and you don't want to monetize so I mean I've been grateful to see that you've always had a free offering available you know you'll get some give some program we've been able to give away many thousands of free subscriptions to the to the app and and that's wonderful but has I've been attention that kind of you know they're the principles and the commercial angle and how they Wed it was to begin with I remember we even used to get we used to get letters from angry Buddhists testing they let it go quite quickly I don't know if they did let it go that quickly actually I'd like to think they did but you know who really upset and actually you know I cut at the time I kind of got it I think had I been had I still been a monk and I'd heard about it I may well have been a little bit like that myself and I think it was really in better understanding what was required to grow something like this there's a there's a really strong idea I think that we either have to do good in the world or we can kind of go and be so successful in business the two things aren't mutually sort of exclusive and I found all we found in in in America a real passion I would say for that sort of social impact so businesses the work as businesses they function as businesses and they're able to scale because they're successful businesses but that their their primary intention is to have a strong social impact so over time I'd say it has taken kind of time but over time that's become a lot more comfortable and just the reality of having I'm not really involved in that side of the business the the money side they wouldn't let me near it but I think just understanding what it what it costs to kind of rent out fifty thousand square feet of office space to pay however many hundreds of people and to really kind of understand what goes into making something kind of like that like that work there's been a very steep learning curve but it's something I'm really pleased we did because we actually started off rich and I as uh as a not-for-profit but we were we couldn't quite decide how to position it and I know kind of we had we chatted about this kind of way way back and I think we we found meditation was already a pretty abstract idea for most people ten years ago it's different now like how many people are singing this would take ten years ago talking about meditation people would sort of slowly back away from you I hope yeah and you know and now it's really kind of different and and so we found that we were taking a lot more seriously actually when we became a business than we were when we were when we were kind of presenting ourselves as an offer profit so that for us as being being really helpful over the years well thank you and let's sort of switch then to some of the practice if you like of this because I mean I know you've done a lot of one-to-one work with people as well as obviously recording all the content that people were here in the app but the fundamental challenges of being human being being you know only able to control a certain aspect of what happens to us to be sort of at the mercy of thoughts that are unhelpful to I mean III was thinking about this event briefly last night whilst realizing I'd had my least least mindful most kind of angry at times moments watching this I'm I'm a football fan and I did not particularly calmly all mindfully with the last guard equalizer and the thought of a penalty shootout and I remember thinking this is a genuine moment orbit I mean we will have much more real significant trauma in our lives I would hope than but but recognizing that you know there's someone who's a good or bad practice mindfulness now for 12 years or so recognizing that we're at the mercy of these things and we don't necessarily cope well how do you find the ability to weave that essence of mindfulness into daily life when it involves these really yeah I mean I think I was thinking coming coming over so I'm over here with with my family I know as you know one year old and a three year old and we're flying from LA a few days back and the first night we got on the plane and we sat on the tarmac for four hours and at that point they said oK we've reached a legal limit you're gonna have to get off now and we got off and they kept us in the airport they said I'm not going to cancel it and then we waited and then they said okay now we're gonna cancel it so we went home and we got a few hours even then we went back the next day and we got back on the plane and and I thought at the time you know I thought yeah a life in a monster that was really easy you know what they should do with with monks and nuns is give them a couple of infant's to look after stick them on a plane on a transatlantic flight and then just let them deal with jetlag for a couple of days you know and then that will test their stability and mindfulness I think there are there were I just use a journey for life you know I don't I don't personally believe in the idea that that we be meditating we practice and then somehow there's you know but that's it I think there is a growing stability of awareness and I think the monastery and and that type of training retreat training or even just daily practice that creates a framework for a stable a strong stable practice and then over time we start to find that stability creeping into the rest of our life you know but I we were Martin I were talking about the the penalties a little bit earlier and sometimes I'm a little bit sad in how kind of mindfulness is presented in in the West because I worry that it's presented a bit sort of like this as though we should all just be these robots kind of not responding to life and kind of you know losing that sense of joy and passion and as you think that's part of the human condition I don't think there's anything unmindful about experiencing an intense emotion of excitement when someone scores a penalty if that's what we're get excited about you know likewise I don't think there's anything all right how could we ever say there was something kind of wrong with feeling intense sadness at the passing of a loved one or like so I I think the idea that we should kind of be like this is is really not a helpful or a healthy way of thinking about mindfulness it's more about whether we're able to to be with that with a sense of ease and to see it with a sense of clarity so after that moment of excitement are we able to let go of that or do we then run out into the streets or thrown was around because we're so excited you know that's probably we can let it go sooner than that you know and and with sadness that sometimes that takes obviously much sort of much longer time but can we be with the sadness without being overwhelmed by the sadness and I think it's really important you know in in monastery they talk about sort of happy Buddha sad Buddha angry Buddha jealous Buddha like there's no there's no kind of it none of those things that are all considered bad it's can we be present with each and every thought with each and every emotion as it arises and for me that's a much sort of healthier way of working with the mind I would say thank you and I'm really glad you mentioned that because it was a challenge we often get with actual happiness is so are you saying that you know that we have to be smiley happy all the time or that negative emotions are something to avoid and of course that's the furthest thing for our minds that that the mission is towards a fulfilling happy life with a longer term which of course is about this roller coaster of human experiences but but linking that I guess to this idea of the secularization of mindfulness one of the things that you know we've had many many of you may have been here but we've had people like Matthieu Ricard in this room who's obviously a great believer in in the the sort of compassion and generosity side of the traditional practice alongside the awareness and the other great things and and when I look at some of the ways in which mindful is is brought into the West it sometimes seems to have been a little bit cerebral and lost a bit of a heartfulness and I think I've been pleased to see in headspace that you have the tracks on gratitude and kindness and some of these other things do you sense that as well that we're slightly in danger of sort of over medicalizing yeah meditation and losing a bit of the heart and soul the generosity the kindness they're caring for others I do I think it's something that we're really conscious of early on and something I don't think we would have done anything any different anyway but we were just conscious of that being that being the case and wanting to present it in a more sort of complete way I do think there is some aspects or vehicles of delivery sort of let's say kind of within clinical care where actually maybe it's okay for it to be you know a bit sort of narrow a bit more focused but I think for anyone practicing on a daily basis I think it's so important I actually don't I kind of think it misses the point if we don't have that as a part of practice so I know it's in some packs it's not in every pack but I would encourage you whatever type of meditation you do even if you just sit in sort of quiet reflection every day before you sit down just question I what's your intention why are you doing it and in understanding why you're doing it for yourself then just take a moment to consider okay i none of us live in isolation we're all surrounded by our friends or family the people we work with what's going to be the impact on those people we all know what it's like when we go into work and have to sit next to someone who's really angry or really you know difficult at least I'm assuming at some stata its kind of happened for most to you and hey the difference I think even just a really simple now we're always thinking London those doors that kind of swing on the underground and stuff like if in in that moment if someone has the the clarity of mind rather than just a letter door sort of slam to realize that there's someone behind the difference in that person's day right you must you must notice it's cycling as well all it takes is one car to kind of come out in front of you and it really kind of impacts your possibly you next hour and it's a couple of hours me even sort of the rest of the day so just understanding the ripple effect of how we live in the world I think is really important now when we spoke you mentioned have sort of practice a phrase I wasn't particularly with so they're linking in some of these ideas yeah okay you want to say a bit more about what kind of keen that we maybe learn something different and new there isn't maybe part of a normal heads but yeah buddy so we were talking about something called Tong lens anyone of people so most of the most sort of mindfulness techniques that are taught in the in the West now as sort of a few thousand years old they've been around for a little while tong ends a little bit newer it's been around for eight nine hundred years something like that of the press still old dog you know they've had time to sort work out the kinks I would say and it's um it's interesting because it's really intellectually conceptually it's really challenging I think it's um so the the translation of Tong Len is sort of giving and receiving or sending and taking and normally in in life we are focused on getting happiness for ourselves and holding on to it for as long as we can and pushing away the bad stuff and keeping it at bay for as long as we can and if you look even how kind of a lot of Western relaxation and meditation is taught it's like and breathe in all the good stuff and breathe out all the horrible stuff you know like that's kind of the deal that's often how its taught and and I get I get the thinking behind it but it really it just perpetuates this this cycle of thinking and our approach to life which is give me all the good stuff and keep all the bad stuff away and that's a really kind of even if we're not aware of it that creates conflict in the mind which is always ever-present so Tom Lennon sort of flips the whole thing on its on its head and it says oh look there's someone else suffering mentally I'm gonna take their suffering and I'm gonna give them every bit of happiness that I've ever experienced in my life so they're you know there's a there's a psychological kind of process there where we're flipping it around and kind of saying that person suffering I want to help that person I can help that person by offering them kindness by offering them happiness thoughts off and by taking on their suffering and it creates a really interesting dynamic in the mind that ego is kind of paralyzed hasn't got a clue what to do and in in that moment the thoughts are sort of suspended but it also starts to train the mind that the more we focus on the happiness of others actually the more happiness we discover in ourselves and it's a really it's it was probably the most impactful technique that I learned in that entire time in the monastery I think it's really interesting and it's very very closely aligned with I guess our whole mission of a happier world for helping each other yeah is it something you could share with us could we do a little exercise about it now can ya put you up for it trying to try will do and the rest of you can just you know we'll try to okay so the first the first one we're gonna do I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to imagine somebody who you really sort of care for so the first one's probably gonna be really easy because you already care for this person you want them to be happy so you're gonna want to naturally kind of send them feelings of goodwill the second one there might be a little bit different but we'll come to come to that in a minute so well I'll make it quite sort of make it quite short but just take your again take a moment get comfortable before you do anything just take and just take a breath or two and then just so close you're close your eyes in your own time just make sure you're sitting sitting comfortably can just take a couple of seconds just to check in as you close the eyes just grounding the mind of that sensation of the body on the seat feet on the floor again without doing anything with the breath just noticing the breath just for a few seconds again as always just allow thoughts to come and go and as you do this exercise it's not about trying to get it perfect it doesn't need to be the perfect visualization it's more about the feeling the sense so I'd like you to bring to mind someone close to you somebody who you care about who is going through a difficult time in some way some kind of suffering some kind of difficulty and I just like to imagine them making in your mind they can be sat in front of you they can be sat in a nice sort of quiet place but you know they find comfortable we're just having a clear image of that person and I'd like you to imagine again without breathing in any special way each time your body breathes in it's as though you're taking on taking away some of that suffering for that person each time the body breathes out you're sending them every feeling of happiness that you've ever experienced in your life no and it can be as simple as that or some people find it a little easier to add to the visualization as you as you're breathing in perhaps sort of breathing in a sort of a smokiness as you're breathing out a sense of sunshine whatever kind of works for you just try that on your own for the next minute or so again it's more about the feeling than the visualization so it's as though with each in-breath you take that person starts to look a little lighter a little more at ease with each out-breath you breathe that person starts to look a little happier I'm just acknowledging that sense of pleasure in seeing that other person looking more at ease and seeing that other person look happier and then seeing that person at ease relax just letting the image go and then just gently opening your eyes again now obviously that's just a couple of minutes right so obviously you can do that exercise over sort of 10 15 20 minutes or longer and it starts to kind of really you know starts to feel very very difficult before we go on to the next bit I just wanna a lot of people worry with this exercise they're like what I'm taking on other people suffering and kind of what's gonna happen especially if there's illness in the other person so it's something we were encouraged to do is sort of you know with cancer patients all kinds of and it's really interesting kind of how the mind sort of responds to that the mine feels naturally quite fearful to be clear we are not taking we are not actually taking on ie tonight it's an idea I think in some situations when we're actually with the person mentally we can have a real impact but you don't have to worry about sort of taking on the physical manifestation of illness or or suffering that person has it's really important and I think it applies a little bit to this second one so very often in life there will be people who challenge us in some way and it's really hard to want that person to be happy you know so like doing this exercise with them just feel so wrong yeah but yeah but they coming here but nothing kind of every human being wants to be happy and if we're really kind of honest about training the training the mind we should we should really work towards helping every being be happy so I think it's just as important that we work with the people who drive us crazy as the people who kind of we love and we care for very much so next I'd like you to think of somebody whoo you know you have difficulty with make it be any kind of difficult it might be you know it might be could be long-term kind of difficulty maybe I'm spoken for the last decade or something well it might be somebody you had an argument with yesterday it might be the way you feel about your boss every day it could be anything but just take a moment to think of someone who you just find it really hard to to want them to be happy because of the way they behave or the way they speak I'm giving you time because I'm assuming it's really hard to imagine someone you probably had enough time so take a moment again get comfortable we're just gonna go through that that same that same process don't be surprised if the minds you know a little less willing to give it again we sort of train towards that so just making sure you're comfortable again just one one big deep breaths enough in through the nose and as you breathe out through the mouth if you haven't done already just gently closing just grounding the mind in those physical sensations where the movement of breath just picking it up from where you left off before and then just bringing that person to mine again you can imagine they're sat in front of you not too close or in a place that you think they would find very relaxing very comfortable knowing that that person wants to be happy knowing that no matter what they've done what they've said the way they behaved beyond all that there is the desire to be happy at some level very gently present with the breath just allowing that exchange to begin i'd recommend sort of 1020 percent effort there very minimal effort imagining with each in-breath you're taking a load off for them but you're allowing them to let go of those things that get in the way of happiness and with each out breath you're sharing your own experience your own happiness and letting them be partner again just try that for the next minute or so you know that it's quite common to find yourself thinking about the person as soon as you do just letting go of a thought and just coming back again to that feeling of the breath the idea of the exchange though seeing that person look increasingly relaxed freaking me at ease finding some sense of appreciation for that then you can just let the image go in your own time and when you're ready just gently open the eyes again thank you pleasure very powerful I reminded of a quote that goes something like the people who are most in need of love show it in the least loving of ways that whole remembering that sometimes the people who cause us most distress are really just displaying the distress they have in their own lives and just an awareness that changes our relationship to it don't know I'm just gonna say just quick before we leave Tom then just that's a really useful exercise in everyday life as well it's important you train it to get comfortable with it confident in it if you find yourself in an argument it's a game-changer I'm not suggesting that you stand there and say oh excuse me just one moment breathing in through the nose I take on your suffering is that you might get you know but in time with practice and familiarity as that as you become more confident in that practice you can absolutely carry on and have a dialogue whilst all the time being with that a sense of breath being present with the breath and within a sense of exchange it's you cannot engage in blame and anger and all of those things whilst at the same time practicing that thing so it becomes a really transformative practice in a very immediate sense not just in a longer-term sort of sense of mind training very helpful thank you in not too long now we're going to sort of open out for some questions I really want to involve you all and I'm sure you've many many things you'd like to ask Annie as well just a couple of other things that have been on my on my mind Andy the first sir links to what we've just done so with action for happiness with the movement this idea of my wellbeing others being intrinsically linked and actually as you said when you do more to help others it's good for yourself yeah that's always been at the heart of this but one of the things we've seen as well as people help people develop a more of a sense of compassion if you like we see a very very strong I'm sure there when you keep in this room very strong sense of people who are amazing at helping others incredibly kind and caring they may often be in what you might consider to be the caring professions whether that's as a nurse or a teacher or yeah you know a carer in some way but actually you're not very good at looking after themselves and in fact often in those situations we can really get caught up in other people's true mother the ill relative the you know the child with deeply worried about so yeah have you got any advice for us on how you know if we're living in that I really want to help others I'm tied up in other people's suffering that we can actually still create a bit of space to ourselves to get through that yeah I think that's such a common common thing and I think it's essential actually that we do find time to look up we we're really no good to others and that's we're in a healthy spot ourselves and that's really hard to remember especially if we are engaged in a way in looking after others that feels kind of all-consuming I think it's it's really tough to remember but we can never be our I don't say our best but we could we can never be as helpful as we can possibly be to others and unless we take time out for ourselves I also think it's really important to remember sometimes we're looking after others but we're also engaged in a lot of thinking about looking after others and they're two very different things so I've seen I've seen people look after others who seem to do it with a somewhat envious that they seem to do with some was kind of ease it's as though it just comes so kind of naturally and they always seem to kind of gain energy from it you know and then I think for most of us it can feel really sort of like you know hard work and and so I think for me that the difference is perhaps that first person it's maybe not so consumed by the the thinking process because often if we if we have a lot of responsibility we will go away and think about and we develop a storyline in the mind so even when we're not with the person or with the people with the patients whatever it might be but I are so difficult I feel tired as this is and we have created essentially a kind of a loop in the mind and we are telling ourselves that 24/7 until it becomes our reality whereas the more often in truth is we are with that person and then we are not with that person I'm not suggesting we can just drop it like that but I do think that meditation and mindfulness can kind of help to create that little bit of distance from the thinking mind where we're not constantly engaged in it and therefore don't feel so overwhelmed by it we've got to right now we've got about I think it's 65 kind of trials going on two of the biggest well three oh she's so there's London met the police there's about a thousand of them in one study there's NHS is about 2,000 of them and then in a bigger healthcare system in the u.s. is about three and a half four thousand so there's some of the biggest mindfulness studies that have been done and a lot of them around kind of compassion fatigue the NHS one especially is it's their biggest kind of problem is people just burning out and they're burning out because they are putting so much time and care into others that are not really looking after after the themselves so we know it's a real kind of thing but I would say that prioritize know that to be the most helpful you need to look after yourself so prioritize find time for yourself and although it might feel selfish at that time I know that you are doing it for that other person and sit down with intention we're doing that practice for the other person so that you can be kind of more more helpful to them it's like the old adage of it's good to meditate for 10 minutes a day except on stressful days when in 20 minutes that's better yeah so thank you and before we move to questions I'd wanted to take it a bit more bigger picture we all have our own day-to-day struggles in family life and work life and relationships and so on but many of us in this room I think kind of share a for a better world a sort of a social awareness an idea of actually I care about climate change and I care about the state of the world and the risk of war and many issues that are largely outside our control but we can actually have some impact on and of course meditation often is seen as a little bit inward looking we're sort of shelling ourselves off from the struggling in the world and actually many in the actual happiness community who practice mindfulness I think see it rather differently - that is this is an awakening in order to be more effective at campaigning for what you care about to be a force for good in the world so you know I guess from two angles really one for me if I'm worried about Trump Rexie climate change whatever your own issue might be in there's a lot of stuff that we don't need in the world all indeed if there's just you know kind of a desire to make a difference and causes you care about how can we be mindful more authentic and and not shut ourselves off and just get inviolable bubbles I actually think the only way to be to be really effective is to be coming from a place of calm and clarity it's rare that you see sort of positive sustainable change coming about as a result of rage and violence I mean maybe it's happened I don't know but I'm not really aware of it and if it is quite temporary I think you know so I think having the ability I think meditation not only is it often seen as quite selfish it's also also seen as kind of you know people have this idea of oh just go with the flow just you know let everything be as it is and that to me doesn't really kind of capture the essence of it it's more in fact it's quite the opposite if we just go with the flow then we just continue in the same old pattern pattern of conditioned thinking that we've always existed in and you know aren't necessarily happy so it's more about can we change the way in which we experience our thoughts our mind and therefore the world doesn't change the world but it changes our experience of the world and it changes the lens through which we see the world and in having a greater sense of calm we can see okay what's helpful to engage in and what's helpful to let go of so we don't again if there are things that we can be a part of positive change we have enough clarity to know how to do that but we don't just sit at home ruminating over and just thinking about it again and again and again that doesn't really change anything you know so it's it's just recognizing what are the healthy productive thoughts and engaging in those and then seeing the unhealthy unproductive thoughts and learning to let go of those when we do that all of a sudden not only do we have a karma clear our mind but we've become a force for good in the world and do you feel optimistic as you look at the future the world and with your kind of mindful view on it how do you feel about the direction the world is heading in handy it's interesting I think life is you know it's quite sort of cyclical you know and I think there are there are always there always have been times have kind of greater challenge in times of less challenge it does feel like at the moment there's there's an awful lot of noise I think that's you know obviously there are some there are the challenges that have always exists kind of conflict and and everything else but I feel it's the is the amplification and sort of the of the noise and the divisive Ness that is a little different right now I don't think it's certainly living in in America he's just become so sort of black and white and I actually don't you know a couple of years ago if he'd asked me I would have kind of said well these people are more real kind of responsible for I think everyone is responsible for it right now I actually don't see kind of increasingly it's becoming aggressive on both sides and I think that's that's an example of you know that's not how we create strong sustainable change you know it's it's when we lose our sense of calm when we lose our sense of clarity that actually we tend to just follow in the same footsteps of those who we that might kind of frustrate us so I think it's really important to just sort of be able to have that skill to pull back and to see things more clearly bond I'm always optimistic so thank you you're not on that now I'd love to open out to the floor so we have our brilliant team with microphones if you'd like to ask Andy something or comment on what we've heard then please feel free can I see a show of hands of anyone who'd like to start us off so I've lady here and hand up in the blue top so Adam can you head sort of half way back in this block here Thanks hi thank you for the talk um I'm just wondering other than the practice of sitting and a mindful way of bringing like health and contentment into your workplace how have the principles behind mindfulness actually been introduced into your strategy your your day-to-day operations if they have indeed been at all yeah yeah good question I mean I'd be devastated if they hadn't been in any in any way you know I think we've really tried hard so the entire office space was created with with that in mind we have headspace pods all over the office where people can kind of go and meditate we stopped at 10:30 in the morning and 3 o'clock in the afternoon for 10 minutes so that anybody can join we're not a cult so they don't have to join but we do take notes and they know but they we encourage it you know I think it's it's nice and it's good because it's they're not only getting the benefit but they're also getting to an experience of what the community experiences I think it's it's really important we have built into our values selfless Drive courageous heart and my mind's gone blank big is always blank beginner's I think so you know I'm beginners mine and I and I think we we really encourage everybody went through the onboarding process we really encourage people to to better understand what those things mean and and how working together sort of collaboratively we can we can achieve the mission as you walk into headspace the the first thing you will see enjoying letters on the wall is improved the health and happiness of the world and we hope that that's why everybody who works at headspace works at headspace we know that it not why everybody works a headspace but that's okay I think to begin with we started with this idea that we would only employ people who meditate that went well and then we realized that actually what was probably more important was to get the best possible person for the job and to try and instill a culture of meditation in which everybody would would want to kind of be a part of so that's kind of the approach we've taken yeah thank you kind of see general Chopin so we can get Micra Institute better so let's come and take this one here Jake thank you then what comes this lady here out of thank you and my question is do you find there's a bit of a disparity between having an app which is obviously the cause of a lot of people's tensions and difficulties and not mindfulness and promoting headspace through an app yeah I loved attention personally you know I because I don't I don't think that's the I don't I personally don't see it like that so I think the the phone is a piece of metal piece of plastic piece of glass we can't say that the phone makes a stressed it doesn't I just sit there it's our relationship with the phone that makes a stressed so the phone is not stressful our relationship with it is so can we change the way in which we relate to the phone I feel the phone is an incredible vehicle for both good and bad for healthy and unhealthy we've decided to meet people where they are which is on their phone and to try and introduce a culture of healthy kind of use by I'm very well aware that there are plenty of tech people in Silicon Valley working very hard to encourage constant distraction and an engagement with the phone and I'm sort of more unhealthy unhealthy way so I think it's on our siege and every one of us there we have a responsibility not to say that okay this is the phone it makes me it makes me stressed when you get your phone this is what I do I you know take it for what it's worth when I get any new piece of technology gee I strip it back to the bare minimum it's the first thing I do before I do any even take off the things that they put on there if I can or if I can't I'll move them to another page so I never have to look at them again I turn off all notifications I turn off all sounds and and I I do sometimes I'll even kind of turn off email as well but I'll set it up in a way that I know that it won't cause me any stress or discomfort and then I'll build it up in a way that kind of works for me putting apps that I find really positive on there and that really kind of worked for me and not putting apps on there that kind of stressed me out if social media stresses me out why would I haven't my phone take it off so and I know that's easier said than done it takes some practice but I really believe kind of it's it's a bit like with with money you know some people will say kind of money is bad well sure if you buy drugs and guns and stuff with it it's probably not very healthy but equally if you give it to people who are starving and need water it's a really kind of positive thing so all of these things they're not sort of good or bad it's our relationship with them and our intention kind of in in how we how we choose to use them yeah very practical example that that one of my team introduced me to was when I still use now I mean I've also turn notifications off on my phone but now when I hear notifications of other people I use that as a bit of a mindfulness prom right yeah sort of it mean there are no a message is that up take a breath yeah started to introduce headspace to my class there six year old yeah and we do it every day after lunch and they it's been proven to be really successful especially for those children who struggle with focus or anger issues and I'm just wondering if there's any future plans for a program for schools yeah so for those people not familiar with headspace for kids so there's right now in the app it's a I mean it's fairly limited but there's five and undying the six to six to eight and nine to nine to eleven most people think that kids will never be able to get it they get it so much quicker than we did because they don't have all the bag they're carrying around there naturally and they just can't do it you know they're much more comfortable being right now so we've kind of made a commitment to make headspace available for free for all students and all teachers in there in the US and the UK will kind of follow some of it is we're starting out with school programs so we we've trying to do it in in rather than just sort scattergun we know there are lots of people like yourself who've taken into the schools in are already doing it which is amazing but we're trying to do it in sort of research in combination with science so we're getting researchers to look at entire school districts we're looking at how it impacts absenteeism how it impacts school results all that sort of stuff because it's then much easier to kind of roll it out into entire school districts rather than one school at a time my hope is that as we do that there will be programs sort of entire groups and classes rather than four individuals but thanks for being patient with us in the meantime yeah good to hear thank you so the tenth one is Hannah up here and if I just see another question as well so we got ready for the next one off to us and the lady in the pillar top he ran off to us thank you okay I had a question kind of at the urban scale so if resilience came through in the last few decades as a social sort of idea and is now being get applied at a city scale city resilience I was wondering if there's a similar analogy to mindful City I think I think there is I think it takes it requires a very strong leader kind of committed to those those values we did discuss with our saying a mindful City we did discuss with a very small nation about giving headspace the entire population and sort of seeing what is what is it a mindful country look like and that that country was probably similar size to some talks or large large cities but it requires yeah it requires a real commitment I think there's and we see this in companies as well I think it works in us in a similar way it can either go top-down or it can kind of go bottom up when it goes top-down and the CEO is passionate about it or the mayor's passionate about it whatever then I think he can have an impact but I don't think it has a strong an impact we see kind of when people within the team go to their HR professionals or you know their HR leaders and kind of say okay like this thing I love it kind of can we have it in our workplace then you have a lot of advocates and it tends to kind of create a ripple effect and it's a much stronger kind of base from which to from which to build so the way I think about a mindful City kind of growing is each and every one of us taking responsibility for practicing mindfulness for living in a mindful way for other people seeing that actually as a consequence we seem to be happier and less stressed and hopefully a bit kinder then wanting to do it as well and I mean hopefully in not too long a time we we live in a more sort of mindful society but I I don't have any sort specific kind of I mean I'd loved I'd love to walk down into the underground and as you get on there as the doors close you know some voice kind of firm you know take a deep breath in not too deep a breath especially in this heat but breathing out but I think you know there are real kind of things that we can do you know whether it is whether it's through transportation systems and all kinds that are kind of starting to happen I think we're even now it's a little different but I think now we're on probably about 12 12 different airlines or so and starting to see kind of people look at the rather than taking time out to meditate and then there's the rest of their life it's kind of like okay well I do all these things in my day I have all these opportunities to sit and to prank how can I apply them and then I sort of meeting meeting that need I'm being waved that so we've got some questions okay then next this thing's got a mic friend then we'll come to you about that hi thank you so much fun I just wanted to relate to the question that asked by this lady before about how are you being so successful with your children in school learning mindfulness well now I've got the opposite at home I've got a very angry twelve-year-old who absolutely refuses to do any form of meditation or anything like that I think it was because I made a horrible mistake of buying a book by an American author and we were supposed to sit down like a frog to pretend that with frogs again she said absolutely not so so now it just is so completely against this whole idea of mindfulness and she would really benefit from it because she's super energetic and you know and we I went through a really horrible divorce about five years ago she's still really angry with me about that so I would like to meet somewhere and get her to go to get Karma but how can I sort of lure her into understanding mindful burning yeah it's really tricky and really frustrating when you see someone struggling and you know they would benefit from mindfulness ha but they don't want to do it and I think that's just teenagers you know I think it exists across the across the spectrum the worst thing we can do is try and force it on them it will put them off for life you know and I think that's especially hard as a parent it's really hard I think giving them the tools that they need I think there's you know you can say okay look you don't have to use it look I'm gonna put it put this app on your phone is there there's always you get on your phone I don't mind whether you use it or not I think that kind of approach often leads to a more successful outcome where that individual may well have a situation where they don't know how coke where they feel stress where they feel overwhelmed and in that moment they might have a look and as a result of having a look and trying it I mean no one really likes being told what to do doesn't matter how old we are now we don't really like being told what to do so it's how can we say it's not so much lowering but more kind of offering and and just making sure that those tools were available for that individual to discover when they're ready to discover yeah thank you and let's jump to this question at the back thank you lady there Todd hi hey I've got the headspace app and find it really really helpful I'm just trying to do it as much as I can not everyday but I try to I was I've sort of been exploring in other ways and heard elsewhere but in order to really get the practice of mindfulness that you need to kind of go away and do so proper retreats and you know really commit to in that way do you do you agree with that do you think that that is necessary or can you just kind of stick to what I'm doing yeah I don't agree with that it would be a little bit like to really get the the benefit and the enjoyment of playing football you need to go to Russia right now and play for a professional team I just I think you know certain people will have a vocation and so maybe that's like the monastic I think some people will want to go a little bit deeper or once I kind of live in an environment even just for a short period of time in a retreat environment where they have the opportunity for a more conducive sort of practice and I think that's that's great if you if you do if you do go down that route I always recommend starting small don't chuck yourself into a 10 or a 20 day retreat or anything they just feel we can see how it feels and then five days and so I've build up to it but actually I sometimes worry that the retreat culture is a little bit sort of like the binge culture that we have in society so I know lots of people who will go and do a retreat it feels amazing and then meditate for the rest of the year you know and it's a bit like sort of in December we loads and loads and loads of food oh it's Christmastime Oh new year new me I'm gonna drink green juice for a month or whatever you know is I actually I'm much more excited about the idea of doing a steady daily practice I really think I really believed that's where you'll see a more transformative effect where you'll see sort of more benefit but if you can do that and do a little bit retreat every now and again I mean that's that's the optimum and if you ever change your mind want to become a nun let me know oh yeah okay so the gentleman here a feedback will just hand up and then let's take a question from up here so Tania's waving at one who great so we're come up there afterwards thank you so so the first one was this one here Jack thank you Andy it's great it's great to see you in London again I was wondering if you've got such a depth of practice such a depth of experience you've brought it to so many people if you were to go to the edge of your thinking to the edge of your feeling to the edge of your sensing to the edge of your knowing what's the thing that really starting to emerge for you that excites you about what's unfolding within what in particular with the whole mindfulness movement or what you're engaged in at the moment different aspects or dimensions of it yeah very soothing voice by the way I felt like I was being guided through a meditation I mean look if you want if you want a job between you and me I'm a little bit tired so like I'm happy you have my seat yeah that's a great question you know I think wait sites me is I I think this conversation is far bigger than mindfulness I don't think it's really about my sort of things about meditation I think it's about the way we think about health I think is the way we think about the human condition I think is the way we think about society community so I think we're using the word mindfulness and meditation that's certainly not how I think about it if I'm teaching or talking about it you know I think the ideas are much bigger if I think you know over the next over the last 10 years how the conversation has moved on in how we talk about the health of the mind I mean it's massive and you know we're one small part of it as there's one small part of it but I think people are now more willing to be vulnerable and to be open they're even able to talk about it to their employers and to their loved ones and kind of say Jim I'm a tough time we don't have to break an arm or break a leg to get a day off work anymore you know where it's ok to go in and say I'm not sort of feeling so good and I think that's really important because I think health has always been seen through this kind of lens of physical physical health and we've negated and we've ignored sort of this really important thing because I've met people who are who are physically really unwell but mentally they are so strong and so happy and so contented and you know and and vice versa you know so I think that's what excites me the most mindfulness is definitely an important technique and meditation is a really important skill to learn to become more familiar with being mindful but it's more this bigger idea kind of how do we in being Karma and clear ourselves and in be feeling great sense of contentment ourselves how do we make room for compassion and in making room for compassion our lives how do we let go of some of the sort of divisive kind of ideas the these really strong opinions that we kind of hold on to that we're no longer able to listen to others around us I feel like it's a movement that is much much bigger than the mindfulness as as well as I can articulate it sorry it's not really exciting way of thinking about it I think we're running out of time and before we close and I do want to take that last question is up there I would love us to maybe do have one last sort of mindful moment so we'll come back to in a second but let's just end with this last question up here so lady thanks for sharing the story my name is Kay I'm wondering as a with all due respect to your mindfulness practice and meditation practice as a co-founder of a global startup what keeps you up at night mostly my kids so you know joke jokes aside I nothing really I don't know if I'm fortunate or if it's a result of training kind of in in the monastery but drives my wife nuts I got it bad and I fall asleep and yeah so I don't really like weight thinking about stuff and you know I wake up mostly feeling kind of you know jetlag aside feeling pretty pretty good and and fresh I think taking it sort of less less literally kind of the things that kind of can concern me within the mindfulness space I think it's becoming it's really changing when we started there were no meditation apps there are now over 3,000 meditation apps in the App Store so that's happening pretty fast that's happened in the last four six or seven years and when I hear the motivation and intention for those sort of things kind of happening often they are a very very business kind of driven and my concern I guess is that as as this gets presented you know we've talked a bit about it evening that we lose the the aspects of authenticity of lineage of compassion I just I think it starts to change all of a sudden it's kind of okay how can I keep people engaged as often as I can with the app rather than how can we give people the tools they need so that they can use them when they need them most and so I think there's I think it will change I think there will be a rebound at some stage but that's probably the in terms of the spread of mindfulness that's probably the the thing that sort of bothers bothers me but troubles told me the most yeah Andy it's been a real privilege having you here and as many of you will know who you've been to actually happiness events before we was loved if we can to leave people with a real sense of something to go away with taking action bringing this you know in the way that we live the way that we treats each other our loved ones our colleagues and so on so I'd love to invite you to sort of help us do a closing moment of mindfulness meditation whatever feels natural but maybe with a sense of what can we take away from this how can we take this into our lives and continue to have these ripple effects that you talked about yeah so we'll sit and have just a moment of reflection in a minute I didn't have anything sort of in particular so planned but I guess you know as you as you go away number number one like never let anyone else define what meditation or mindfulness is but you you decide kind of how you want to use it in your life and how it can be most most useful I would suggest it going away today maybe maybe make a commitment I'd say let's make it kind of you know a week that's a week so for the next seven days you decide the number of minutes I think less than a minute feels you know we can we can manage a minute right so somewhere between a minute and 10 minutes just just commit to taking that amount of time each day just to sit and be quiet you could listen to the app or you can just sit and be quiet and enjoy that feeling of not being involved in anything not needing to do anything not needing to be anywhere for that time there's something really empowering about it and I think often we'll try meditation on the days that maybe when things are going kind of really either is tends to be the extremes you know can either things are going really kind of difficult and we try meditation oh I'm no good at it but if we do it over the course of a week we see that every day is different some days yeah it feels a bit easier some days it feels a bit more difficult but over time that becomes a little bit sort of more balanced so so commit to doing a few minutes a day for the next seven days alongside that try and I would imagine this is something you guys kind of recommend anyway through action for happiness try before you go to bed at nighttime just have a pad of paper by the side of the bed just write down one good thing that has happened to you during the day one thing that you appreciate one thing that you're grateful for okay so when when we do that it tends to kind of not only make brings us into the present but it tends to change the way we feel and as a consequence we tend to sort of rest a little bit better as well so and it also starts to kind of flex that sort of compassion muscle as well you know we start to kind of think about him being more grateful for others we start to think about who we care for so that's a really kind of positive thing as well so I would say that if you could do those two things for the next seven days just as an experiment and just kind of see how you feel I think that's a really good place to begin there's a lovely circularity about this because if you remember when we first met to do that it'll be proceeded wreckfish series up in Angus Cobra and yeah and we did some mindless and some gratitude and we set them a little challenge for a week right if some really moving stories they can yeah yeah very much endorsed what you've just said thank you did you want University yeah we can do we can we can do that I just had a gratitude thing just just reminded me and just for any parents you've got witty young kids and you got some some holiday started here yet or not quite yet okay really nice thing to do if you have a gratitude like buy a nice little kind of book each and every day I know it's not always easy when your kids are running around and giving you a headache but at the end of every day just write something really kind of that you why you're grateful for them and then at the end of the sum you know put in a few pictures at the end of the summer whole lake give it to your child things are really kind of nice thing to do both for us and for and for your children anyway so we'll just take you again we'll just take kind of two minutes and I think the the importance of this in kind of closing it out is just to sort of capture that intention for for applying those things into your life and just ensuring that in making that intention you kind of are able to carry them out in a in a gentle and sort of flexible flexible way so you can close your eyes straightaway if you feel comfortable just take one big deep breath and in breathing out just gently closing the eyes there's always just ground the mind I'm just becoming aware of those sensations body on the seat feet on the floor hands on the legs just settling back in to the breath not breathing in any special ways allowing the body to breathe and if you ever struggle to feel that movement you can just gently place your hand on your stomach so as you sit there not necessary thinking about it but just knowing you're sitting with the intention to not only benefit yourself but also to benefit those around you knowing the Karma and clear of the mind is the more space we have the compassion in our life just take the next minute or so to sit and then for the next few seconds not even focusing on the breath sitting there allowing the mind to whatever he wants to do any think if he wants to think and then just gently bringing he attention back to the body back to that feeling of contact and before I'm in the eyes just making the intention to carry that quality of awareness into your life and then when you're ready just gently opening the eyes again and it's been absolutely fantastic having you here with us this evening I'm so grateful again for you giving up your time and you know chip through this what with actual happiness we care deeply about this cultural change that we believe in strongly and one the team this week found a bit of research which I found heartening and I think charms of what you were saying but it was about the fact that you perhaps only need to reach about a quarter of people in any given population to have really really profound sort of yeah cultural shift and actually I think if you look at the awareness of these ideas of mindful living and meditation and the amount of people that practice and the discussion we're getting towards that tipping point now yeah a way that definitely wasn't there you know when were you in are you and I first met and as you as you humbly acknowledged headspace as a part of that but I would say a really important and big part of that the millions of people's you've reached and their personal contribution you've made has been a huge part of that shift and I think will continue to be so so on behalf of all of us thank you for what you do and please join me folks in saying a big thank you [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Action for Happiness

Views: 72,558

Keywords: medidation, mindfulness, happiness, wellbeing, mental health, headspace, action for happiness

Id: AOAQFJ3Oj-o

Length: 96min 8sec (5768 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018