- [Marisa] Just make yourself comfortable.
Just loosen your tie or your waist band
or put on your night clothes.
I really want you to feel comfortable.
And then just sit back or lie back,
take a deep breath.
Close your eyes.
This is a healing meditation.
There is nowhere for you to go.
You're just going to be now.
See I know that you're a busy worker
working in the care system,
helping people through this virus,
working long shifts and doing so much.
And we appreciate so much what you are doing,
but today you're not a human doing.
You're not a human going right now.
You are simply a human being.
And it's very important for you to be.
You're giving so much to us.
And you see, you're rather like a battery.
Batteries need to recharge.
When your phone is all out of power
you plug it in and you leave it alone and it recharges.
And we recharge batteries in the same way.
And I want you to take this time
to recharge like a battery by doing nothing,
going nowhere and just being.
And I want you to give yourself this healing meditation.
Just give this time to you to be.
And I want you to think about how you can look after you.
You are doing the most amazing job of looking after us.
And you see, our mothers, when they looked after us,
if they didn't also look after themselves,
then they weren't always in a good state to look after us.
If our mothers fed us and didn't eat themselves,
they would not do so well.
If our mothers stayed up all night washing our clothes
and getting everything ready for school
and didn't have enough sleep,
they wouldn't be at their peak.
So you're like the universal mother or father,
giving so much to other people,
but you know that you must protect yourself.
You need to sleep deeply every night.
And here's some great advice if you're staying awake
because of all the things you're seeing and doing.
You don't go to sleep and you don't fall asleep,
you invite sleep to come to you.
You may find while you're playing this meditation,
sleep comes to you.
You may find it's a wonderful thing to play
as you get into bed at night to invite sleep to come to you,
to invite those brain waves of sleep to come to you,
to stay with you.
You must allow yourself at least seven hours of sleep.
Sleep is nature's restorer.
Sleep knits out the raveled sleeve of care.
Sleep restores your body.
And for you to give the way you're giving,
to do what you're doing, to so selflessly help us,
you must give yourself sleep.
And you must also give yourself good nutrition.
I work with so many doctors and nurses who are so busy
that they live on candy bars and cans of Coke.
And I want you to imagine just batch cooking protein,
vegetables, making your own energy bars
by doing nothing more than cooking
a big of pan of oats filled with nuts and seeds.
And then baking that and cutting it into squares
and always having that with you.
You are what you eat, you are what you think,
you are what you do and you are what you eat.
And what marks out excellence from average is what you do,
what you think and what you believe.
To be excellent, you need to prioritize your health.
I want you to just imagine always having bags of nuts
that you have in your pocket
or the granola bars that you make yourself,
always having some fruit or something healthy to snack on.
Batch cooking at the weekend,
casserole or soups so you can give your body good nutrition.
You are asking a lot of your body.
You're working long hours in stressful situations,
giving everything for us,
but you must give yourself the gift of good nutrition.
You must nourish your body.
You are so busy nourishing other people with kind acts,
kind words, incredible skills of healing and caring.
And you expect a lot of your body,
you expect it to work long hours in hard conditions.
For your body to look after you,
you must look after it back.
And I want you to see yourself giving yourself
the gift of good nutrition, having better snacks at hand,
having food that rejuvenates you,
even if that means simply boiling a box of hard boiled eggs
at the weekend and chopping up some apples,
so that if you need to snack, you can have a hard boiled egg
or some apples with peanut butter spread on them.
Give yourself the gift of good nutrition.
Give yourself the gift of good sleep.
Give yourself the gift of hydration.
You see, we expect so much from our bodies,
and you have to do just a few nice things for your body
for it to do so many, many nice things.
So you need to eat better, hydrate all the time, sleep.
Whenever you get a chance to sleep,
if you can snatch an hour or 20 minutes, do that too.
If you can cat nap on the way to work and on the way home.
Take every opportunity you can
to get some rest and recharge.
Even in your break, eat and sleep,
even just for 20 minutes, even just for 15.
And be aware that you are deeply valued.
We value you, we appreciate you.
We respect everything you are doing.
You are giving us so much,
and you must give back to yourself.
People need you, the public needs you.
And I want you to really feel needed, celebrated.
You see, every day you make a difference.
Every day, you do something
that gives you meaning and purpose.
What you're doing for us is giving you meaning.
It's giving you purpose.
You are making a difference.
You are contributing something wonderful to the world.
And when this is all over and our children
and grandchildren say, "What did you do during that virus?"
You can say, "Well I was out there making a difference,
"saving peoples' lives,
"doing something extraordinary and wonderful.
"And I did it because I was valued, I was appreciated.
"I was able to feel significant in my job.
"I felt significance, I had connection.
"I made a difference.
"I lived a life with meaning,
"purpose, connection, significance."
So I want to thank you so much.
I want you to imagine a vortex
of energy just above your head.
And I want you to feel this vortex of energy
rather like a child's spinning top,
and I want you to see it moving in a clockwise direction
from left to right.
It's wider than your shoulders, bigger than your body.
It's about to move into the top of your head,
realigning, rejuvenating and restoring you.
This vortex of powerful healing energy
that is spinning, twisting, tipping, turning, vibrating,
is rather like the brushes of a car wash,
vibrating, moving, cleaning.
And right now, the tail of this vortex,
which is rather like a spinning top or a tornado,
has moved into the top of your head.
It's moving into your mind.
And as it moves into your mind, it is installing into you,
an awareness of how much you are appreciated,
how much you are valued, how much you are needed,
as this vortex moves through your mind.
And with your mind's eye, you can see and feel
that you are needed, wanted, appreciated and valued.
As this vortex travels from your mind to your eyes,
you're able to see the difference
you are making to the world.
When you can make a difference,
your life has meaning and purpose.
You can see the difference, see the gratitude,
the respect in peoples' eyes.
And as the vortex goes down to your ears,
you can hear all of the clapping,
as people try to show you in their own way
how much you meant to them.
You can hear that applause now ringing through your ears.
You can hear people saying "thank you so much,
"thank you, thank you, thank you."
You can feel people taking you by the hand,
holding your hand,
trying to impress upon you how grateful they are.
You can see it, you can hear it, you can feel it.
You can see people trying to give you gifts,
offering you food or small tokens,
trying in every way they can to say thank you.
From fisherman, who wish to give away their entire haul,
to people who wish to donate food to you,
to people who wish to do your shopping,
pick up your laundry, donate anything they can.
You're able to see how much you are valued and appreciated.
You're able to hear it, to hear the applause, the thanks,
the offers, how people are trying in their own way
to say "thank you, please let me give something back."
You're able to feel the feeling of wanting to hold your hand
or give you a hug.
And as this vortex moves through your body,
it's moving to your heart, your big beautiful heart.
You have a big heart.
You are a giver, a wonderful, giving, kind, caring person.
And your job is, for many of you, a calling.
But I want you to also receive,
to receive back the admiration we have for you,
the deep respect, the love, the awe, the appreciation.
As you give, you must receive.
You see, when you give a breath, you must take one.
When you take a breath,
you must give one because that's balance.
And as you continue to give so much
because that's who you are,
I want you to receive because that's who we are.
We want to give you back something
because we are in awe of you, we appreciate you,
we value you and we respect you.
We hold you in the highest esteem.
And we're always going to remember what you did for us,
how much you did for us,
how much was done for the many by the few,
how every act you did had a ripple effect for us.
And we thank you and appreciate you,
and I thank you and appreciate you so much.
So I want you to let that in,
to accept any of the gifts people are offering you.
Because we want to give what you are giving.
You are giving so much,
and we want to give you anything back that we can.
That may be someone baking a cake for you,
picking up a meal for you, doing anything they can,
clapping you as you walk down the street,
and wanting you to go to the store first.
We are honoring you, respecting you, admiring you,
appreciating you.
And as you feel it,
that feeling can go a little way to help you cope.
And I want you to also say,
"I have phenomenal coping skills.
"I have amazing coping skills."
This will pass and you're doing amazing things
way beyond the call of duty.
And the situation you are in will pass,
but our remembrance of what you did,
we will remember what you did and that will never pass.
We will acknowledge what you did and that will never pass.
So just go deeper, allowing that vortex
to allow you to see the beauty of you,
to hear the recognition of you,
to feel how much you're appreciated,
to feel your big beautiful heart that does an amazing job,
allowing you to commit to nourishing yourself
with better food and being emotionally nourished
by the appreciation the public have for you.
You are able to nourish yourself
physically with good nutrition,
and to be emotionally nourished by the love,
respect, admiration and gratitude that we all have for you.
You're able to feel emotionally nourished,
and physically nourished.
So just allow that vortex to travel through your body,
to travel through your lymphocytes, boosting your immunity,
to travel through your stomach, the seed of all emotions,
to start to travel out through the soles of your feet.
Making you feel bathed in appreciation, love,
respect and admiration.
We salute you, I salute you.
You deserve to be saluted, commendated, respected,
admired, appreciated, and you are.
So knowing it, feeling it, letting that in
and feeling restored by the love and admiration.
You've done something amazing and we will never forget,
and you'll never forget.
And you can hold your head up really high
'cause what you do makes a difference.
What you do gives immense value.
What you do is so selfless and extraordinary,
and you deserve a lot of praise and praise makes us grow.
And you're growing from all of the praise
the world has for you.
So feeling rested, valued,
appreciated, loved, respected and revered.
You can just open your eyes,
and just come back into the room.
And of course, you can play this whenever you like
before you go to sleep so that you can drift into a deep,
healing, restoring sleep,
the kind you need 'cause you give so much.
And now you're giving to you,
better sleep, better nutrition and better hydration.
And you're being filled up with appreciation and admiration
and respect and love and deep deep gratitude.
Keeping that feeling, just open your eyes.
And I thank you and I salute you and I admire you
and I respect you and I'm one of millions
that feels exactly the same.
To just come back into the room,
and know that you can play this meditation
whenever you need to.
It's a good idea to play it every day at the moment
to just help make a dent in that stress for you.