Hey, welcome back to Day Three of our seven day meditation challenge. I hope you enjoyed exploring the concept of self-compassion yesterday. This is not only foundational to mindfulness, but also fundamental to our pursuit of a good life, a fulfilling life. So see if you can continue to integrate selfcompassion into your life as we go throughout these days. In today's session, we're going to explore a new practice, one that can help you feel more grounded in stressful moments and be more purposeful and intentional in the present moment.

And it's a method I like to call the Barbecue Method. Barbecue is an acronym, B-B-Q, and I'll explain what those stand for and how to utilize it. So let's just imagine you're in any particular stressful situation. The first thing that we would do with the Barbecue Method is just take a deep breath. Very simple.

But when we're breathing deeply, what happens is we lower our center of gravity and a deep breath triggers to the brain that were more calm and grounded than maybe we actually feel. It's almost physiologically impossible to be in a stressed out state when we're breathing slowly and when we're breathing deeply. So even though it might seem simple, that deep breath goes a really long way for regrounding you back into the present moment and taking you out of that hijacked state of stress and fear. So the first thing we do, just take a deep breath, feel your center of gravity, lower and reground yourself. The next thing, the next B stands for body posture.

And so we attune to how am I holding my body right now? Am I like this? Am I looking down? Am I cowering? If we're in a fearful, anxious, stressed out state, chances are our body is going to assume a position that it's used to when it's in a stress out state. Maybe the hands are clenched, maybe we're, the shoulders are forward, whatever it might be. It's unique to each person. But chances are, you also are familiar with how your body holds itself when you're feeling confident, when you're feeling grounded, when you're feeling peaceful. For me, I already noticed a shift.

My shoulders came back slightly. I felt my center of gravity lower again. My feet went more flat on the floor. And my chin was up a bit more. And so for me, through years of conditioning, I know that when I'm feeling grounded and confident, this is how I hold my body.

Interestingly, in, in the present moment, when we're feeling a little stressed, if we assume a body posture that feels more confident, more open, more peaceful, more grounded, it will start to shift our internal state. And so the second thing we do is just notice what our body posture is like and shift that to something that feels more grounded and empowering. And the third step is the cue, and this is to ask a more empowering question. The questions we ask ourselves create the running narrative in our mind. And so if in this stressful situation you're asking: Why is this happening to me? Uh, why does this always seem to happen to me and nobody else? How long is this going to last? Then you're going to get answers to those questions.

But if instead you ask something like, What can I learn from this situation? How can this help me grow? What is something here that I'm not seeing that that, that could really help me get through this and grow through this? Different questions create different running narratives in our mind, and that will condition a different physiological response. So this is the Barbecue Method. Take a deep breath, assume a more grounded, open body posture and ask a more empowering question. Try it out today. Thank you for your practice and let's settle in for our meditation.