Learning To Slow Down & Decrease Bad Habits (Change #3)

Are you tired of rushing all the time, feeling like you have to hustle or scheme for money, feeling like nothing is ever complete, and you're still exhausted? This is a practical meditation/ talk for people who are looking to begin changing their personal lives. The third step in the meditation for change series: The focus is learning to slow down, move through your emotions, thinking through your decisions so that you have the ability to change. We contrast patience and quick conveniences. We talk about setting you up for long-term success.

This meditation/ talk is a practical approach to change. My aim is to give you a few skills, a few thoughts, and hope so that you can begin to change.

*Remember, this is not a substitute for mental health treatment or counseling.*

Transcript

Welcome to another meditation for change.

In today's guided meditation,

We are just going to be listening and breathing normally.

If you find that you are not breathing consistently or normally,

This could be a sign of anxiety,

Holding our breath,

Or depression,

Not really breathing in at a steady pace,

You can go back to the first meditation for change and learn about breathing normally with a little bit of an emphasis on the out-breath and holding that momentarily.

Because this takes some of your concentration,

I would just not advise driving or operating any type of vehicle,

But you don't have to be lying on the floor doing any sort of yogi pose or anything,

It's whatever suits you.

And one day you just stop.

You realize that this need for speed,

This hustle that you've been on,

This never-ending quest to get everything done,

And to earn the right amount of money,

And to have everything you need at home,

Or to complete your outfit,

Or to plan the perfect day or evening,

Continues to be fruitless.

And it starts with something small,

Like in every meditation for change.

There is something.

This may not literally apply to you,

But it may metaphorically apply to you.

So take it for what it is,

What you like,

You can retain from this,

What you don't like,

Just discard it.

People will listen from where they are in their lives at that point.

At some point in your life,

This may apply to you,

And at other points in your life,

This may seem completely nonsensical.

Wherever you are,

Just settle in for a moment and listen.

So you've stopped.

In this scenario,

You did not go to the fast-food restaurant as you were speeding to or from work.

You did not go to the coffee shop in a hurry,

Or the gas station to get an energy drink.

You stopped yourself.

You were patient.

You waited.

You were hungry.

Maybe you were thirsty.

Whatever the case,

You've had enough of running from thing to thing,

From event to event,

Telling yourself that at some point it will be worth it to save the time to run around,

To speed up your life.

And so instead of going to the fast-food restaurant,

Or the energy drink or coffee shop place,

You wait until you go home,

Or wherever you're staying,

And you go there and you assess your situation.

What do I really need to eat?

What do I really need to drink to survive?

As many of you will find out,

It is actually very little.

In fact,

Simple things such as proteins,

Whether they're vegan or animal-based,

And vegetables and some starches might suffice.

I'm not a nutritionist,

So this is not nutritional advice.

Please consult your doctor or the internet for that.

And caffeine,

Where do we get that from?

Do we need that?

Sometimes we do.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But the idea is that you assess your situation and you start to plan ahead.

Perhaps you go to the grocery store or have groceries delivered.

Something overall slightly cheaper than fast food that lasts longer.

So maybe you get some protein,

Some rice,

Frozen or fresh vegetables,

Depending on your situation,

And you cook enough for two to three meals,

Maybe four meals,

Keeping the cost low wherever you can go.

Oftentimes you can ask people or go online to find the best prices at local supermarkets or farmers markets.

Oftentimes the ones that are not corporately branded sometimes have some pretty good deals.

And you spend the time making your own food.

You don't do delivery.

You don't do takeout.

You don't do drive-thru.

And you,

Right there,

Spent some of your time and energy nourishing yourself.

But yet,

What did you avoid?

You avoided secret ingredients that you cannot pronounce.

Trans fats,

Extra sugar,

Extra salt.

Things that,

Perhaps according to nutritionists and scientists,

May not be great in our daily diet for survival.

Obviously if you have come on hard times,

You need to eat whatever you can get.

That is obvious.

That is not meant to make you feel like you are not living the right life through this meditation.

But if you are in a position of any type of stability where you could go to a grocery store or a farmer's market or have somebody go for you,

And spend the time to prepare the most simple of meals,

You have saved time and energy,

Although you have spent it.

And some people think,

Well,

Cooking,

That's a waste of time.

But it actually could be a meditation.

It could be an invitation.

It could be an initiation to slow down slightly,

Saving a little bit of money,

Expending a little bit of time learning how to cook.

It is not too difficult to learn through books or through YouTube or through your local library how to cook basic things.

And in terms of energy drinks,

Perhaps you are in a cycle where you need them.

That is where you are.

Or perhaps you need to save money.

So you buy ground coffee,

You buy green tea,

You find cheaper sources than a $5 to $7 beverage that is made by someone else.

And with this stopping,

With this slowing down,

You don't know it yet.

But this is what they labeled as being mindful.

Forty years ago in the 1980s,

When mindfulness-based stress reduction was first introduced just as a meditation technique to the West,

And as a relaxation and a stress reduction technique to the West.

But what I took from it,

As the years go on and people have tried to rebrand it and to corporatize it and to change it,

Is that it's also a mindset.

It's also something you can do without too much practice.

But you have to have that initial idea,

Which is that you are not just living this life for other people and what they want and what the culture wants and what everyone tells you to do.

You are also living this life for you.

There's only one of you.

And depending on your religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs,

This may be the only life.

But even if it's not,

This is the only one you're currently aware of,

Most likely.

Unless you are super gifted into channeling,

You are most likely only in this lifetime.

And if you are in this lifetime,

There are ample ways to dissociate from your feelings,

To dissociate from slowing down,

To dissociate from what your body really needs.

So this may seem like the most simple and basic thing that you've ever heard in a meditation,

And perhaps it doesn't seem to apply to you.

But in a way,

It can,

Depending on what lesson you bring.

And there are many lessons you can get from this,

But one of them is taking back control.

Taking back your autonomy.

Not giving up your power.

Not spending all of your money immediately on convenience.

Starting to contemplate why you are in a cycle of hustle and bustle and speed.

What is it?

Did you sign a contract of rent that you can't afford and you need to reassess that?

Is it that you bought something that you have to make payments on that you didn't really need?

Did you go above your means and so now you're trapped in a cycle?

Are you really in that bad spot?

And if you are,

Starting to slow down,

Cooking a simple meal,

Saving,

You know,

Cooking for three or four people,

But putting it in the refrigerator and saving it for tomorrow and eating multiple different versions of that meal.

That is a time that you can contemplate,

What choices am I making?

What is one thing?

Remember,

It starts with one thing I can change.

And in this meditation,

It started with what can I feed myself or what drinks can I make at home?

And save my hard-earned money for things that I really do need and or special occasions.

Because obviously going out to eat,

Going out to get a coffee drink or a energy drink is perfectly fine and not to be judged.

It's about the cycle you're in.

Is that what you're doing on the daily when you can't afford that?

Is it even that you can afford it but you haven't taken time to be mindful and think about your life and your choices?

So there's a lot of gurus on the internet and in real life and a lot of teachers and coaches and,

You know,

Even therapists that want to sell you something.

And they're trying to sell you some sort of solution and some of them have great solutions if you follow their paradigm.

And that's awesome.

So if you want to invest in that,

Invest in that.

But know that you're investing in someone else's paradigm.

There are some teachers and doctors and therapists and gurus that basically just give you information that you pay for and they've done the research and they've summarized it for you.

And that's also a great resource.

But understand that you do have to devote your time to that.

In this meditation I'm not selling you anything.

I'm just giving you permission to slow down.

I'm giving you the options that you may not feel you have.

Emotionally our mind might tell us this is a fact.

I have to stop at the drive-thru.

I have to get a sugary soda caffeinated beverage or the canned caffeinated beverage with tons of sugar and additives.

I need that to get through the day.

And maybe you do today.

But when do you say I'm ready to face the uncomfortable situation?

That this lifestyle that I'm in may not be sustainable for me.

It may work right now but perhaps my body is not enjoying it.

And most interesting thing to me sometimes about the body is the body will tell us things.

It'll give us signs,

Signals,

The way it's shaped,

How it looks.

These can be all signs and signals of what we're doing with our time.

For instance the most obvious example is people that run or jog if they can or take long walks.

They may have stamina and their legs may look different than someone who doesn't do that.

And this is not to be ableist.

Obviously there are people with disabilities and injuries that cannot exercise their legs.

But just look at the shape.

If you have both working legs what do my legs look like?

Have they been utilized or am I sitting?

These are small things not to be shamed about but to notice the patterns we're in.

How do my arms look?

For years my arms were basically skin and bones because I devoted my time to reading and writing and working.

But I realized that I had overly devoted myself to reading and writing and working for reasons that my therapist and mentors need to know about and not you.

And I had neglected my physical body in some ways.

And so how do I integrate a little bit of discipline to get myself to change?

It doesn't mean I have to become a bodybuilder or a gym rat or go to some extreme like our culture is always pushing towards extremes and fixes and solutions.

Just integrating time in the gym or time outside or time walking around or time doing push-ups doesn't cost money to learn to move your body but it does cause discomfort.

Especially at first.

Especially when you don't know what you're doing.

Especially when you haven't utilized it the body is going to react in a certain way.

So just like that when you change your diet or you slow down and start making food at home you're going to notice something.

Your palate is used to the quick dopamine rush of a salty sugary snack or a fatty burger and it is going to not make you feel good at first.

It's going to take a little while before your body gets used to that and starts to for better or for worse adjust to a quote cleaner diet or a cleaner way of living or a slower way of living.

You may have nervous energy when you slow down.

It might be scary.

It may be anxiety provoking but don't take those signals as somehow a reason to retreat or go back on what you're doing.

Obviously go to a doctor,

A medical professional,

A therapist,

A nutritionist if you're making massive changes.

But what I'm talking about is permission to slow yourself down.

Let's say you've got a busy life.

Everyone does.

That's what people say.

How are you doing?

I'm busy.

Busyness is a state of mind and yes there are people out there breaking their backs just so their kids can eat.

But even in those situations having that autonomy,

That mindset to not feel and embrace the victimization.

We have all been victims.

We have all been born into circumstances that we may not have liked.

We all may live in a culture that we don't believe is healthy.

We may have been fooled by the culture or addicted to sugar or foods or alcohol or drugs or whatever just to cope with the situation.

But this meditation is bringing you back to small choices and only one choice needs to be made today and you don't actually have to do it.

You can put it off.

It's up to you to take one thing from this and that one thing for me when I was first starting was just the awareness of what I was doing.

That's all it was for me was just the awareness that maybe I didn't have to live this way.

That was the first step for me.

I don't know what the first step will be for you.

Whatever you're dealing with there are people out there that can help you.

There are books that can help you.

There are internet,

YouTube videos,

Podcasts,

A lot of things that can help you.

The hard part is understand you're doing this for you and if you're a parent or if you are a family member or if you are a friend maybe you're doing it for you and someone else.

But remember positive change has to start with you and maybe you're an activist,

Maybe you're a business person.

Whatever it is that you want to change about the people or the structures or the things you're involved with you've got to start being the example and a lot of us don't want to take that responsibility on because then people are going to question our choices.

When everybody goes to lunch and goes to the fast drive-thru or the gas station or whatever it is and spends money when they could have brought their lunch from home you bring your lunch from home or you don't spend that money to be part of the group.

People may initially question you.

Perhaps you might feel some rejection but that's your chance to say hey this is what I'm doing.

There's no shame in that.

There's also no shame in going with the group sometimes.

Just understand it's a choice and to change we have to make difficult choices but the choices don't always look like a movie where it's this way or that way or up or down.

They're micro choices.

They're quiet choices.

They are not necessarily glamorous or exciting or anything that you would ever tell people about or brag about.

They're quiet.

They come out like the moon.

They shine at night but over time those small micro choices for change get results.

You can monitor those in a notebook or on a calendar or any place that you record information.

Thank you for listening to this meditation for change.