044 Mindful activity and how it helps with goals with Lucy Woods

In this week's episode I am speaking with Lucy Woods all about mindful activity.

We talk about:

• what is mindfulness?
• the power of mindful moments
• how presence in the moment seems to be becoming more elusive
• the range of applications for mindfulness

What has your experience of mindfulness been like and are you now considering bringing in more mindfulness to your life?

About Lucy:
Lucy is a mindfulness teacher with a passion for helping individuals transform their lives through the practice of mindfulness. Lucy has a masters in teaching mindfulness from Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice and has been teaching full-time for five years.

Inspired by personal experiences with anxiety, and a succession of life challenges, Lucy embarked on a transformative personal mindfulness journey. After two decades as a corporate training manager, she qualified to teach Mindfulness in 2018.

As the founder of Presence of Mind, Lucy offers a wide range of services, including courses, workshops, and retreats tailored to the needs of individuals seeking relief from anxiety, stress, pain, and low mood. With a particular focus on cancer support, she provides valuable mindfulness teaching to those navigating challenging times.

In addition to her teaching and specialist work, Lucy hosts a popular podcast called "It's Not That Deep," where she engages in thought-provoking conversations with a psychotherapist, exploring the challenges of being human and supporting mental well-being.

Lucy has been featured in publications such as Bella Magazine, Take a Break Magazine, and Natural Health Magazine.

Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/its-not-that-deep

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/amindfullifeforall

Instagram: Presence_of_mind_life

Website: Presenceofmind.life

TikTok: @presenceofmindlucy

About Sarah:
Sarah Bolitho helps fitness and health professionals develop their careers and grow their businesses by providing specialist training in teaching, assessing, and internal quality assurance, together with qualifications in exercise referral and disability.   

With over 30 years in the health-related fitness and physical activity fields, Sarah has a wealth of experience and knowledge.  She has worked in most roles in the industry from group exercise to personal training but specialised in working with specialist populations.  For over 25 years Sarah has trained fitness and health professionals to work with clients with long-term conditions, mental health issues, disabilities, older adults and pre/post-natal women.  She has a post-graduate diploma in exercise and health behaviour and extensive training in supporting behaviour change.  She has worked with awarding organisations to develop qualifications and training and with accreditation bodies to endorse high-quality non-regulated training. 

In her spare time, you will usually find Sarah walking in the mountains, by the sea or anywhere in nature.

For more about the training and support Sarah offers, visit www.sarahbolitho.com or contact her at admin@sarahbolitho.com.

Follow her on social media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabnewlous_active_lives
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitnesscareer mentor
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbolitho

Transcript

Sarah (00:01.506)

Hello and welcome to this episode of Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Bolitho, and my guest this week, Lucy Woods, who is going to talk to us all about mindfulness. And I'm pleased that you're a guest on this because I think sometimes we kind of don't know what things like mindfulness actually are or what they mean or what they involve and people don't often want to ask because they're afraid of looking foolish or lacking in knowledge.

Lucy is actually a mindfulness teacher with a passion for helping individuals transform their lives through the practice of mindfulness. She's actually got a master's in teaching mindfulness from Bangor's Bangor University Centre of Mindfulness Research and Practice, and she's been teaching full time for over five years. She also has a podcast, which we'll talk a little bit more about towards the end. But her podcast is called It's Not That Deep. And she has very thought provoking conversations with a psychotherapist and kind of exploring the challenges of being human, particularly in these times, and supporting mental health and wellbeing. So Lucy, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Lucy Woods (01:10.865)

Ys, so I've, it's funny, isn't it? Because mindfulness is one of those things, like you said, is the word has been taken, it's been diluted, it's been stolen to mean lots of other different things. And we see it tagged on a lot of stuff like mindful chef and mindful bites and things that aren't what I would call mindfulness with a big M. You know, it's being mindful, maybe being intentional about stuff. But when we're talking about mindfulness as a practice, we're talking about it as a way of cultivating kind of more awareness of how things are. And I'll talk about that in a minute, but you asked me about me, I found it because in my life, I had worked in corporate for 20 odd years and I was a single mom and I'd had things go wrong. I'm doing that in inverted commas. People can't see that. We feel like this is how my life's supposed to be and then something happens that completely changes that trajectory. And I had done all sorts of things to try and fix what I perceived to be wrong with me, with my life and had talking therapies, I'd tried meds, I'd tried other stuff and nothing quite scratched the itch of this feeling that I wasn't okay.

And that's because I had done quite a lot of work to know exactly why I was like I was. But I found myself very anxious all the time. And I got it confused with depression because anxiety is exhausting and then you feel low. But I look back and I'd had that since I was probably teenagers, you know, teenage years. So I heard about mindfulness and then started reading everything that I could. And I eventually went on a course and that was most helpful because the apps and stuff are brilliant but they're good when you really know what you're doing. The difficulty is they're more about the what and not necessarily the why and the how and you sort of sometimes need someone to go well, my mind's really busy and I'm all over the place I can't meditate or whatever you need someone to question that with so I went on this course and it completely changed my life. Well, not just the eight weeks of the course, but you know, that continued practice and I carried on, you know, went back to my corporate job, I was still doing that and then a few years down the line I luckily enough was made redundant. I knew it was coming because I was sat in the HR department and I just, it was a no-brainer for me. You know, here's a possibility, I love facilitating groups and teaching people, that's what I've always done and here's this transformational thing, I want to share it with the world.

world, when you have something like this you do become a bit of an evangelist and you realise you can't say to everyone you need it. But I honestly think everyone in the world would benefit from practising mindfulness and mindfulness meditation and you know what that is, is not so easy to explain in one second but I'm sure you'll ask a bit more.

Sarah (04:18.502)

I'm going to ask, but I just want to come back to something you said, which is it's like nothing scratched the itch. And I think sometimes that's such a powerful analogy for people. It's like a, it's like having one of those little itches that it's not bad enough to get someone else to scratch for you or for you to reach and do things, but it's just, it's kind of just this low level irritation. And it's sometimes it's like that, isn't it? You have this low level itch, if you like, that something's not quite right, but because it's not really impacting on you at this moment you just kind of I know something's not right but I don't know what it is and I'll come back to it later I think a lot of people feel that and it's like you say something happens that wakes you up to thinking, okay, actually, it's not the itch, it's something else that's going on, and this is what it is, and this has made me realise. And I know I work a lot with people with long-term conditions, and it's called a teachable moment. It's where something major happens that makes you re-evaluate everything and want to change your lifestyle. So we can come back to that in a little bit, but what? Ys, and it's, but it's getting the help at that moment you have that realisation if you like, you have that moment of, okay, I need to do something about this. And for a lot of people they don't know where to look, which, and I think that it passes and you kind of sink back into your old ways, don't you?

Lucy Woods (05:22.021)

Absolutely.  Ys, I think that's a really important point, and I come back to the itch thing because it's being human is unsatisfactory, right? And we have some difficult conversations in classes around the fact that, you know, from the moment that we're old enough to understand that life is finite, no wonder life feels somehow difficult, right? Because it is finite.

Sarah (05:50.018)

Yes.

Lucy Woods (06:12.489)

And we also are fed so much of how life is supposed to be from the media, from society, you know, the things we should have. And if anyone's a bit like me, I thought when you had the things or some of the things that meant you'd be happy, you know, and I had my own house and I had a child and I had, you know, things that other people might dream of, I mean, but I still wasn't happy, then that makes us feel guilty, right? We've got that sense of unsatisfactoriness as we refer to it, but we feel guilty because it's not bad enough like you say, but actually that's part of the human condition to think it's supposed to be a certain way, so we're always striving to change what we perceive to be right or wrong and then we end up just feeling guilty because other people have got it much worse than us and we're moaning or we're feeling moaning internally even if we don't vocalise it. And then something difficult comes along, like you mentioned, I work also with vulnerable people, I work at a number of cancer support centres, and then people are willing to be open to go, right, what is there out there at that point? But we almost want to pre-empt that, don't we? And I know your podcast promotes all these things to kind of, you know, be before that difficulty comes to improve lifestyle or look after physical or mental health. But we don't always know where to look, as you said. We don't always know what's out there. And with mindfulness and meditation, people do have this perception that perhaps it's a bit woo-woo and a bit odd. And, you know, maybe it's stuff that would make them feel uncomfortable, like chanting or, you know, whatever it might be. And mindfulness has been created in a way that's very secular.

So it's suitable for anyone, if you have faith, if you don't have faith, if you're spiritual, if you're not spiritual, it's taught from the very scientific point of view, because it's got a raft of research that shows how effective it can be. So anyone kind of worrying that, oh, meditation, not for me, knowing that, you know, it can be taught in a way that is exactly around the science and research of how the brain works, the neuroscience, and the meditation, although taken from these contemplative traditions like Buddhism and Eastern traditions, it now stands up in an fMRI scanner when you stick your brain in it, so it's okay.

Sarah (08:43.094)

Ys, and that's the thing, isn't it? So let's start off then with the awkward question, if you like, what exactly is mindfulness? Because there's a lot of, I think, misunderstanding and misperception out there about what mindfulness actually is. So at its kind of core level, what is mindfulness?

Lucy Woods (09:04.873)

So I like to make the analogy like it's brain training. You know, it's like going to the gym for your head insofar as mindfulness is a state that we're cultivating to be more aware of what's happening as it's happening. But because our default mode is to mind wander., to be thinking about the future or the past, and then we can get caught up in worrying about the what-ifs and the babies, or we get pulled into the shoulda, coulda, wouldas, we end up getting taken away from the present moment. And so 50% of the time, the research from Harvard shows, we are thinking about something other than what we're doing. And yet we like being present. This same bit of research showed that people were happier when they were thinking about the thing they were doing than when they were mind-wandering even if the mind wandering bit was something quite happy, like a holiday they'd been on or something, they were still happier when they're engaged. And you know from all your clients and guests that you've had on around people engaging in activities, which you have to bring your attention into this moment. So clients of mine that perhaps can't get active might do jigsaw we read, we might play instruments, we might be creative, we might write, you know, all these things pull our attention into paying attention to the present moment. And so we can be mindful, but you know what it's like when you're stressed and you try and read a book and you just look at the words and your mind is elsewhere? That's because our mind will only do it if it's interested.

Right? So what we're doing with the meditation practices is training our mind to come back to the present moment, to concentrate on being here now. Because on those moments of stress in day to day life, we don't always have the ability to just quickly jump in the swimming pool and run or run a mile or whatever it might be, get the knitting out while we're in the middle of a stressful moment but we always have our breath and we always have our body with us. So what we practise is paying attention to something that's happening in the body or with the breath right now in this moment. And we do that and we develop practise. If you were to do a course, for example, you'd kind of develop other aspects of experience in that practise, but we start simply with breath and body because we can keep coming back.

And people often think in order to meditate I need to clear my mind. You might have experienced that when people say I can't do it. Ys you don't know what it's like in my mind I can't possibly empty it. Well the great news is you don't have to. What we're practising is say paying attention to breathing and then noticing that you've started thinking about the shopping or what you did last Thursday or that meeting that's next week and then we bring it back again.

Sarah (11:44.546)

Hmm. Oh, ys, empty your mind.

Lucy Woods (12:06.673)

And we bring it back again and again and again. And that's like lifting weights for your head. The way we bring it back becomes really important because people are often in argument with their busy minds. We have to train it like it was an unruly puppy that we were not training with a stick and a choke chain, which is often how we treat ourselves, but doing it in a kind of deliberate, but friendly way. So the reward, the treat for our mind puppy if you like, is to say well done to ourselves when we come back again. You know, even if we've been lost for five minutes, ten minutes, fallen asleep in the practice, as soon as we're aware again it's like, good, I have this opportunity now to come back. And the more we practice, the more we start to notice in day-to-day life that we can be present more often. And what's the point of that? Well, if we're more aware of what's happening in this moment, as it's happening in our body, in our mind, with our experience, we get more agency over our choice of response. So instead of knee jerk reacting to things in a stress, like stress, for example, or worry, anxiety, anger, all of these big emotions, we get to choose, or I've noticed that my body started to show signs of anger, what would be helpful right now? and a considered response is then possible. And that can help us in so many different aspects.

Sarah (13:34.262)

Oh, it's, you know, a couple of things have just popped into my mind here, but one of them is just over the last couple of years or so, I've noticed that when I have kind of intrusive thoughts and things like that I'll be thinking oh crikey, I write them down or I put them in my notes app on my phone and then I forget about them but I've got them there to come back to and it's almost like that isn't it? It's saying oh right ys I'm worried about the shopping, I'll make a note, a shopping list and then I'll come back to now, the present, because I know that that's something that I'd worry about before bed or things but just make a note do this tomorrow, think about that tomorrow. It's like if I know I've got to email several people, I won't think about all their names, but just check who I need to email. Once I've written it on my list, I can move away from it and focus back on trying to get sleep or whatever. But the other thing I was thinking, and there's been a few of these posts on social media, but it's something I've often thought about is big events, big events, concerts, New Year's Eve fireworks, you probably know what I'm going to say. People are recording them. They are watching this huge once-in-a-lifetime event through their phones. They're recording it. They will never look back at that recording, but they're missing being in the moment of that event. And I don't know if you've seen that or thought about it or probably laughed about it, but to me it's, it's like you're missing the whole experience of that now, you're missing the emotion, the feeling, the everything to do with that, for the sake of recording something through your phone, that as I say, you'll never look at again and it's like I'm just back from Colorado, you know, beautiful scenery, it's the Rockies, the mountains and things like that and when I first started going I was taking all these pictures and I never look at them. Now I just look at it and I absorb nature there and then. I don't think about getting my phone out to take pictures anymore because they're never as good as the real thing and B. I probably won't look at them and I'd rather just sit and marvel at nature as is in the reality of it. I just wonder what you think about that?

Lucy Woods (15:58.857)

Ys, and I 100% agree with you. And the lady you had the other day on your podcast talking about the forest bathing and the walking was talking about very much about noticing what's happening as it's happening. She was talking about, you know, mindful awareness of of nature and it's the same thing and unfortunately it comes back to a bit of a societal thing with the photographing everything because it's for Instagram or it's for Facebook it's to say to other people I've done this thing I've been at this thing I think rather than us look back at those photos we're all a bit guilty of it but you're absolutely right my other half is a photographer and what he has taken from me, I suppose, is to really, before he even picks up the camera, to take a moment to experience that thing he's going to take a photo of. So giving himself time to really look and see and feel because it's an emotion, you know, not necessarily even a kind of emotional bodily response of maybe pleasure or happiness or contentment or relaxation when we experience something that we know is nice. 

Now the problem that we have as humans is we're really disconnected from our bodies and you must work with people all the time that kind of you know they exercise but they're not paying attention to what they're doing so they're vulnerable to injury you know they're prone to hurting themselves because you know what it's like you're in a class or something you look around other people are stretchier or bendy and you push yourself a bit more and you can end up doing yourself a bit of damage instead of turning that awareness inwardly and one of the things that we know is that the body is the barometer for our experience if you think about stress we all think about it being very thought-led but how it shows up in the body is the key when I'm anxious the churning in my stomach or tightness or if I'm stressed my jaw will start to go the shoulders maybe even clenching my fists so if we can start to cultivate more awareness of what's happening in our entire experience moment to moment we really start to notice those moments where we've gone from maybe a neutral kind of state into something unpleasant so that we can respond wisely or into a pleasant state so we can respond again adequately to really think right gosh this is gorgeous this sunset that's happening instead of thinking about oh so-and-so would like it or it reminds me of the sunset I saw in Thailand in 2017 just seeing it feeling it you know experiencing your surroundings and being present for it and we're not very good at it anymore. As a small child, 

I don't know how old your little ones were that you were with but up until about the age of seven we're quite mindful, we're very absorbed in what we're doing until we need to eat or go to the loo or something but as soon as that kind of introspection, self-reflection, comparison stuff comes in we get very kind of caught up in our heads and we lose that ability or we get out of the habit of that ability to really pay attention. But I think getting your phone out has become a habit. What we practise grows stronger and we can practise good helpful things and we can practise unhelpful things. Anxiety is something I practised for years and years and years and needs training to practise another way and you know that's where something like mindfulness meditation, you're training your brain to respond to things differently.

Sarah (19:48.61)

That's it. And it's, you know, if you watch small children when they're drawing or doing something, they're totally absorbed in it, totally absorbed in it. And they're not worried about the outcome. They're just doing it because it's wonderful. And I think, you know, that's something that changes is you start to worry about it being perfect or being good enough to show people. Small children when they're drawing their pictures don't care what anyone else thinks. They've just got the joy of I've drawn my family. And that's all there is to it.

Whereas as they get older, it's like, oh, that's not good enough, I'll start again. And it's something I, I've mentioned this before on podcasts, but it's something I've learned with, I love drawing, I love sketching, I love painting. I'm not particularly good at it, but I love doing it. And I'd started, after I'd been for a big hike or something, I would sit down and I would sketch the area. And I would be trying to replicate it. And after a while I thought, I'm never going to be able to replicate this because I'm just, I don't have that sort of ability or that sort of talent. But what I can do is draw how it is from an emotional point of view. So it might not actually look like where I've just been, but it's my emotional interpretation of where I've just been. And, I don't care if people see it or they don't see it, that's not why I do it. But I get much more absorbed when I'm just focused on the paper rather than look up, sketch that bit, look up, sketch that bit I get much more absorbed in it and much more pleasure from it, from just drawing, just letting my pen free draw if you like. And I think that's gone.

Lucy Woods (21:26.997)

What you've, ys, sorry, I was just going to say what you've touched on there is what we need to practise very much when we're being mindful, which is letting go of judgement. You know, we're such judgy beings, are we doing it right or wrong? Is it good or bad? And when we're practising being present, we're observing the present moment as it is, without wishing it was different, without trying to change it. And that can be one of the hardest kind of things to straddle, because we're so used to judging our experience as being good, bad, right, wrong, to actually just pay attention to this moment without trying to change it. And if we're paying attention just as it is and it's pleasant, then we can really revel in it. When it's unpleasant, we can learn to be more accepting of it. And so back to kind of working with people that are living with difficult vulnerabilities, acceptance can be a really tricky word, right? Because it's like resignation or something, but what I like to use is kind of allowing it to be. If we can change it, great. You know, some of those thoughts we have around shopping, well, we just need to do it. If I need to, I, I sing on the side, if I need to learn my words, that pops into my head all the time in meditation, why haven't I done it? But I know I can solve it. But often, when it's a big concern, results of tests or something, and we don't have solutions, the mind likes to go into fixing mode and it's not helpful. So if we can change it, great, let's do that and we don't need to worry, right? And if we can't change it, how might we be more okay with things as they are, which can be really challenging.

Sarah (23:05.726)

It's true, isn't it? And just bringing it into activity then, which is something for me, activity isn't always about going to the gym, going to classes, the more structured, you know, harder, faster, doing more. Activity can be much more gentle, it can be much more meditative. And I think, you know, this is something I know we've talked about, is how activity and mindfulness can be combined.

in order to enhance your experience. Just briefly mentioning dopamine, we tend to think of things like dopamine and endorphins as coming when we're running or when we're lifting weights and stuff like that, but for me they're linked to pleasure, they're linked to pleasant emotions, so a sense of achievement and I think you can get that just as much from something that's less active, less frenetic, but we've forgotten.

like we said about, you know, just watching the sunset, that can be a huge dopamine producer because it's pleasure. But we tend to think we've got to be doing something really active and really energetic in order to get that feeling. But it's not the case, is it?

Lucy Woods (24:14.237)

Ys, no, it's not. And actually, again, I'm going to go back to it's kind of a habit, this doing, this constantly on the go-ness. And of course, we do, like you say, if we are capable of doing a run or something and we get endorphins from it, then we can find real pleasure in that. But unfortunately, in this society, again, I'm coming back to the way things are. We are... It's almost like a badge of honour to never stop, isn't it? You know, you say to people, how are you? I'm busy like it's something good and we feel guilty about stopping and resting and in fact we've forgotten how we think it's boring or we think we should be doing something else and then that becomes a real shock when somebody's unable to do what they used to do whether it's going forward or for a temporary amount of time. So this ability to be able to cultivate pleasure in stillness and comes with being able to be comfortable in the non-doing but it is a kind of, I say it's non-doing but you're still doing something with your mind right you're paying attention because our default mode is to mind wander that's why we can get bored we if in order to be present we've got to give the mind something to get interested in now if it's a sunset we've got in front of us brilliant or like we said jigsaws or something

But there's always something to pay attention to in the present moment. What we have to bring along is something that we call in mindfulness, beginner's mind, as if we've never experienced this moment before, which we haven't, right? So my feet on the floor right now, a bit cold. You know, there's something to pay attention to or how things are in this moment or to really be actively listening to someone we're engaged in conversation with. But it's about drawing up gathering up all the attention to what's going on now. I say you never need to be bored again because even sitting waiting for a bus or something, what can you see, what can you hear, what can you feel? There's always stuff to pay attention to and we start to be able to be more comfortable in the non-doing but we get again because we've trained ourselves to be busy and rushing and getting that kind of what we call drive mode hit.

We need to learn how to put ourselves into soothing mode because that's where rest and digest happens, healing happens, and all of that other stuff which we need just as much as we need, the kind of endorphins and dopamine, we need to find that steadiness and that peacefulness. We're much happier there too. And ys, we can learn how to self-soothe like a baby did once upon a time.

Sarah (27:09.778)

It's really interesting, isn't it? Because I actually wrote an article last year about what I believe to be important, which is we're so used to it. Like when you're exercising, when you're doing a workout, go to the gym or whatever, and quite often there'll be a bit of relaxation at the end of it. And I was saying, actually, we needed to be doing that at the beginning. We need to be doing some sort of meditation or relaxation or some sort of mindful activity at the beginning before we do the workout, because you know, anyone who does yoga will know you start by relaxing because you shed everything else that's going on. And it means that then you can go into the workout, the practice, whatever it is, with a kind of focus on that. And I think, you know, again, it's something that would be really, really positive, you'd get so much more out of it, because you're not carrying the tension from a bad day at work or the kids yelling at you or not being worried about your finances, you're actually, you've kind of, you start to train yourself in those few moments beforehand to just say, right, okay, let's move all that aside so I can just focus on that. And it's like having positive blinkers on, if you like, so that workout then becomes mindful, even though you're active and you're doing whatever, you are so absorbed in it and presumably, maybe I'll update the article, presumably you'd also notice when something's too difficult or something's a bit of a niggle or something's a little bit, actually that doesn't feel right. So you'd be more likely to notice issues and hopefully ward off any potential injury by doing that.

Lucy Woods (28:51.163)

Ys, absolutely. I agree with you wholeheartedly. And in fact, I'm thinking it doesn't even, you're right, yoga classes, they do it because, you know, yoga and mindful movement in itself, isn't it? But what we talk about very much is that letting go of what's already been today or what might be coming up later, it's like permission to be here and to really be present. Because you're right, if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, particularly if you were doing something like weights or something very strenuous, if you weren't really paying attention, it's very easy to cause yourself some damage because we don't listen to the body, we like that head kind of cut off from the rest of it because we're still thinking about, gosh, I shouldn't have said that thing today or I've got that project to do by next week and we're somewhere else and when we start to do any kind of activity whether it's a still activity or a moving activity, giving ourselves that permission for this time that I'm dedicating to this activity, giving myself permission to be really present for it, to really pay attention to what's happening in the body, in my mood and in my mind. When my mind is straying away from it, can I come back to this thing that I'm doing? And that feels really important to do that.

Sarah (30:13.298)

I think it's interesting actually because it is something that I tend to do is I will spend a few moments just kind of shedding the day, just bringing myself into where I am doing almost like a body scan just to, you know, how's my body feeling? Have I got any aches, anything going on or anything like that? And I think it's definitely something that would be a really useful practice for people. It won't necessarily take a lot of time, but even just five minutes could mean that your workout is going to be so much more productive, so much more beneficial.

Lucy Woods (30:29.301)

Brilliant. A body scan is a brilliant idea, so if people don't know what that is, it's literally just imagining you were like shining a spotlight, let's say starting at the feet, and moving your sort of field of attention up through the body. So if you find that actually, oh, you're gripping the stomach muscles, we tend to hold on to the stomach quite a lot, or around the shoulders you find they're up around your ears, you can deliberately kind of soften the shoulders, soften the facial muscles and the jaw and you can put yourself into a kind of a more soothed state before you begin but people that work in offices or anything you know it's a brilliant idea to do that throughout the day because often we're hunched or tense or you know we've had our bodies in difficult positions and just a stretch and opening out some kind of movement with attention, so we're listening to what stretch would be helpful right now, can make such a difference not just to the body but to the mental state as well, particularly you know I'm thinking in an office environment or something, but for people that perhaps can't move so much it's important to do whatever movement you might be able to do.

So there'll be times when perhaps we can't do anything at all. But if there's some possibility, and I mentioned I work with people that are living with cancer, a lot of people are experiencing treatment. Some of the treatment then causes things like neuropathy and then, you know, there's then those times movement is limited and people think, well, they just stop doing anything at all. But actually, we introduce a little bit of like couple of shoulder rolls or just a head moving towards the chin side by side really gentle stuff which A as you well know our bodies need to move they're designed to move not be these still and sedentary things but B being unwell is very stressful and especially when we don't quite know whether you know the outcome you know how long it's going to take and all that stuff.  And when we get stressed, we release a lot of chemicals designed to help us run away or fight the enemy. And if we're not moving and getting that stuff out of the system, then we're sitting right in the midst of cortisol and adrenaline and stuff that takes us completely away from this rest and digest mode, which is where we need to be to heal. So it's this big kind of paradox. You're stressed because you're ill, but you need to not be stressed in order to heal, and how do you marry the two? And that's where meditation and gentle movements, even we do things like opening and closing hands, you know, twisting ankles, just from a seated position, but just encouraging. And actually when people start to do it, they realize I can do a little bit more than I thought, but we find where the edge of that is. And if you're really paying attention, when you get to that's my limit, you know that and if you've maybe gone too far you can come back a little bit, you don't need to be forceful, everything's done with kind of gentleness.

Sarah (33:59.21)

And that's so true, isn't it? Most people listening will know, I do work on a cancer rehabilitation course, and we promote activity, but it's the activity that is appropriate for the person at that time. And that might be just mobility and stretching. It might be going to the gym, it might be running. It depends on the person, it depends on the history, it depends on what they can do. But it's giving yourself permission to move to a point where you think that's enough for today. We kind of talk about it in fitness, we talk about exercising or being active to tolerance. And that's not necessarily what you are actually physically capable of. 

It's a combination of psychological capability and physical capability. And it's important to recognise the two because I think generally most people could do more than they do, especially in the early stages, but it's building the confidence that it's going to be okay. Do you think this is where that sort of mindfulness is so important at the start? It's almost bringing yourself into the present, saying I am going to move as far as I feel comfortable today so that you're focused on, am I still comfortable? Am I still within what feels okay to me? So it's rather than pushing yourself to what other people might be doing or what you think you should be doing, you're staying within your comfort zone because you're more likely to progress if you're doing it in a way that's comfortable and that feels safe, rather than trying to push yourself to meet someone else's expectations. And I think that's where mindfulness, again, coming back to the activity side of it, having those few moments, those few minutes before a session, is setting your boundaries, setting your permission, and saying, I don't have to push myself today because I'm not in the mental state to push myself. Or other days it's, do you know what, actually, I am going to not challenge myself, but I'm going to make sure that I do a little bit more because that's where I feel today. And I think particularly with things like cancer, as you say, because the treatments, the side effects of the impact of treatments can be so variable day to day, week to week, that you can't ever say, this is what I'm going to do every day. You've got to take it on a day. So again, it's that mindfulness of sitting down before and say, OK, where am I right now?

Lucy Woods (36:10.502)

Ys. 100%.

Exactly. We talk very much about when you're practicing, whether it's a movement or whether it's a, you know, still meditation, whatever it is, can we meet ourselves just as we are without, you know, wishing we were different in some way. And so we're back very much in what you're saying to this letting go of judgment of how it should be, what I ought to be doing, feeling that what we've done isn't good enough, but also being brave enough to not or to see if there's more and if there's not to come back, you know, to to work at that edge. And you mentioned that it's psychological and physical and 100% we would say the same when we're the tools to work with mindful movement are exactly the same as if we were working with difficult emotions. Sometimes you move to perhaps explore the sadness that you're feeling or the anger that you're feeling and you can't go there. Today, it just would be too much and that's okay. That's the edge of where you are. We do have this kind of window of tolerance is what is talked about. And whilst when we're stressed that becomes quite small and we do want to gently, gently push at the edges. We don't want to ever be forceful and that kind of honesty by really paying attention to how things are for us does enable us to notice when we can go that little bit further or when today is not the day. But it's about very much about going gently but giving it a go you know, and I think you'd probably subscribe to the same thing, right?

Sarah (38:00.365)

I suppose it's a bit like blowing up a balloon, isn't it? If you try, if you do it too forcefully and too fast, it will burst. But if you do it gradually, you can sort of say, right, how does that feel? Can I get a bit more in? Actually, no. I don't know about you, I'm not, I do get a bit nervous about blowing up balloons because I've had a few pop. But it is that, it's kind of like, could I put a bit more air in or I might? I know I'm okay with the size this is right now. So it's, but it's giving yourself permission to say, that's enough today. Do you know why? I can probably do more. But this is where mindfulness comes in, isn't it? It's it's because you are aware of exactly what feels right today. And you're not thinking, but last week or the week before, I could do more. You're thinking this feels good today. And I think this is where, you know, with fitness, with exercise, with activity, we tend to have a very kind of linear approach to what people are doing. It's like you're starting here. So you must get, you must do more, you must do more, you must do more. And we know that really in order to improve, you do need to be progressing, you do need to be working. You know, there needs to be a little bit of overload. But also for a lot of people, it's recognizing that the overload one day may just be just doing nothing. That's more than enough. Whereas other days it could be going for a long walk.

And again, I think this is where mindfulness can help you kind of rethink the way you set goals and targets. So instead of saying, I'm here now, I want to be there then, it's I'm here now. Cool, Scott. Ys. Today, I am not in the mood for going for a walk, but I am going to do some gentle mobility and stretching at the time that I would normally go for a walk. Or it might be that you sort of say to yourself, actually today, I can do a lot more. I'm not going to push myself, but I'm just going to take it as it is. And I think we, people will probably end up doing more and improving their activity in their fitness levels by listening to their body and doing it a day at a time, rather than having very set rigid targets they have to meet that if they don't meet them they oh god you know i failed i can't do it because if you're using this the sort of whole mindfulness approach you're just working for this is where i am today and like i say you'll probably end up getting where you want to go but in a much more gentle and appropriate way than trying to push yourself on days where you just it's not going to happen

Lucy Woods (39:40.185)

Ys, every single time. Ys, I love that word, kind of what's appropriate right now. I think that feels important. And there's a sense of kind of gentle discipline with ourselves. So it's not just, oh, I'm being kind to myself. So, you know, I let myself off the hook. We need to move and sometimes we don't feel like it. And that's when this kind of, it's almost like a gentle discipline as a gift to ourselves. Is the, someone said the highest form of self care to have that sense of it's what my body needs. And if we were really listening, and when we recognise that we've done a bit of stretching and the body is almost saying, thank you, especially if we haven't moved for ages, remembering how good the body will feel, how much we as humans need it to be a sort of motivator, but then working within those parameters of what's okay for us. Ys, that feels important. I'm going to put this in a video. It's going to be so much.

Sarah (41:19.48)

And that's it, isn't it? It might be that you say, well I had planned to go for a long walk today, but actually a short walk is what I've got in mind. You might end up just by starting by going at your own pace, you may walk further than you thought you would, but it's giving yourself permission to say, do you know what, I need to pull back a little bit today because my body's feeling this, or it might be that you do, like I say, mobility, you stretch and then your body goes to hear that, you need to be focused on that moment, don't you? And it's so important. Lucy, I'm aware of time, and this has just been so interesting. And I know that, well, I would like to say, I'd love you to come back in a couple of few weeks and just talk a little bit more about this, maybe something a little bit more specific that we could do with people. So ways that they could actually apply this at the beginning and end of of a workout or how people with working with long term conditions or major health diagnoses could apply it to help with things. So I would love to invite you back on in a couple of weeks to talk about this. But in the meantime, thank you so much for doing this. As I say, I could talk for ages about this, but I'm just aware of time. How can people find you? I will put all the links in the information, but just tell us a little bit about how people can find you.

Lucy Woods (42:09.201)

I’d love that, I  know. I could talk to you all day about it. 

Lucy Woods (42:55.133)

Ys, so I have a website which will be in one of the links, PresenceofMind.life, and my contact details are all on there. I run courses and retreats and they're public ones, as well as the work that I do, like I said, with different support centres. I have a podcast and that's quite an easy way to kind of access some of the stuff that we talked about, about being human. We discuss things like why do we get stressed? Why do we procrastinate? Why, you know, I can't think, we did one, why do we feel life's gone wrong the other day? And I do that, like you said, with a psychotherapist and we try and give people some tips and advice and fundamentally make us realize we're all in the same boat a little bit with the podcast. That's quite an easy way to kind of understand a little bit more about what we do. But I have a drop in meditation group. If anyone wants to give it a go, I don't know if Sarah, I could give you a code that people could come and try it out. I'd be more than happy for people to come along.

Sarah (43:56.303)

That would be brilliant because I think a lot of people worry about what mindfulness actually involves and they think, you know, they're a bit nervous that they won't be able to do it. So being able to try it in a safe environment would be really, really helpful. So that would be fun.

Lucy Woods (44:06.879)

Ys, I think it's really important because it is one of those what on earth is it kind of things and as you know from our conversation it's not that easy to do in a short period of time so ys I'd be more than happy to do that if people want to come and give it a try 

Sarah (44:23.286)

That would be fantastic thank you and just to remind everyone the podcast Lucy's podcast is called it's not that deep

Lucy Woods (44:31.205)

My son said to me, he's got all his bowls or something in his room, like, mum, it's not that deep, you know, it's the things that are a big deal and the things that we stress about that just really aren't.

Sarah (44:41.678)

And do you know, it's funny, isn't it? And I know we're running out of time here really, but sometimes we stress about the smaller things because actually it's easier than worrying about the big stuff. And it just occupies our mind so that we can push the bigger stuff away. So I mean, maybe that's something we can talk about next time, but I definitely want you to come back on because as I say, this is something we could just keep talking about. And I think it is such an important part of an active life is actually being able to be still  because I think it helps us be more active generally. Lucy Woods, thank you so much for coming in. You've been listening to me and my guest Lucy Woods talking about mindfulness on creating active lives. Do listen in to the next episode and we will see you all very soon. Thank you.

Lucy Woods (45:17.885)

Thank you.