Welcome to the end of week two. This week we worked on what stress proofing really is. And now we're going to practice some techniques to really stress proof ourselves. So I'm going to give you two concentration meditations. Remembering from before concentration meditations about focusing on one thing. They're not about ignoring.

There's a very big difference between ignoring something and refocusing your attention to something more useful. Ignoring something is we're afraid of it. refocusing means we accept it, we're just making a different choice. massive difference. So concentration meditations are used to disengage from strong thoughts or feelings when you're stressed. So if you feel overwhelmed, if you start to feel really pressured, really pushed when a yo yo to throw things Or you're just feeling sick, you know, a headache, any of those extreme responses to stress are great chance, a great signal that this is a good chance to practice concentration meditation.

And these are helpful biologically because they end the stress reaction instead of lowering it to keep going. As we looked with our coping mechanisms, a lot of times our actions don't actually help our biological stress reactions. They can help they can allow things to keep going, or sometimes make them worse. So one point in particular I'd like to stress to you is that if you're feeling overwhelmed, walking meditation is very useful. We walk so many places in our daily lives. You can use this anywhere you don't have not only when you're feeling overwhelmed.

For example, in my job in a public high school, my first teaching job I had, I used To walk down the hallway to the photocopier a little slower, more mindfully, I did this concentration meditation. And it gave me a really wonderful mental health break. I just felt getting some rest. I'm able to just chill out for a moment, we'll walk. And then I do my photocopying, make my worksheets, all that stuff, come back. No problem.

So you can work in walking meditation into your day. This is great. If you have a dog, you're gonna be walking anyway. Practice walking meditation with what's useful is to have a record or a journal of your meditation. So this is where you just do your meditation. And then you write how it went.

Maybe certain thoughts came up maybe certain bodily sensations. What is it more difficult than last week was easier today. just noticing however it went and just getting it all down. It's not a test. There's no judgment about it, just making a record. It's quite nice to put these records side by side and see, the last week, it was really hard for me to focus.

But actually this week, I could focus a bit longer. You know, this week it feels more normal. And then maybe next week is really difficult and it was really hard to focus. But then later on, oh, but actually, I can focus. We start to see the change in our lives. And we start to see that we're stronger than we think.

Meditation records are very handy for that. If you'd like to have a special journal for writing down your meditations, great, by all means, record your experiences as you go in the way that feels useful to you. And as before, I need you to practice everyday for a week. We're building up that habit. Last week was about the early warning system. This week is about building up that ability to refocus, so that you're not contributing to the stress reaction side of you.

Allowing him to calm down. Calm down a bit. Okay, I wish you much success this week. I'll see you soon.