Conversations About Meditation With Felicia Parson - Ep 5

In this episode of Conversations About Meditation I speak with Felicia Parsons.
She is a world traveler and at the time of this interview she was living in Germany with her husband. Felicia shares her thoughts about her meditation practice.
I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Transcript

Greetings and welcome into this episode of Conversations About Meditations.

About meditation.

I am excited to introduce you to Felicia Parsons of the Felicia and Tawaun Too Much Fun YouTube channel.

Felicia is going to be chatting with us about meditation today.

So welcome in Felicia.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here and an honor to be here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

From the other side of the world.

Exactly.

I was about to say Felicia and her husband currently live in Germany.

So we'll talk a little bit about that as we also talk about meditation.

So tell me a little bit about your journey through meditation.

I know when we chatted earlier,

You mentioned that you started some years ago.

So tell me how you started meditating and why.

I started meditating out of the surrounding of the group of friends that I was around.

I was involved with an art community in St.

Louis,

Missouri,

And a lot of my friends were already practicing meditation and had been practicing things in the spiritual realm for many,

Many years.

So I was kind of like latched onto that because it was something that I felt that my soul needed.

And I just kind of started doing what I saw them do.

I didn't really know why I was doing it,

But I knew it was a good thing.

And I grew up in a Christian household and learning that the only way to connect to God,

The source was through prayer.

And learning through my friends,

I realized that meditation is also a form of prayer,

Another way of connecting with the source as well.

And that there are many people throughout many religious practices that do practice meditation.

Were you doing a specific type of meditation or was it called anything when you did it then or was it just,

Tell me about that.

I would have to say mostly for me,

I was doing more mindfulness meditation.

I would go outside and do some grounding and sit outside in the grass or lay in the grass and meditate that way.

I have a friend who's really,

Really into that.

So like I said in the beginning,

It was kind of like mimicking the behavior that I saw the people doing and then seeing the benefits of that.

And now it's more,

I'd say probably breath practices.

I do that a lot for myself.

Those,

That and the mindfulness in the evenings for me.

Okay,

Excellent.

So tell me about what your practice is on a daily basis if you have a daily practice.

On a daily basis,

A lot of times my practice involves having a cup of herbal tea because that is like my medicine that kind of gets me going.

And then it either will be a walk or either just kind of some time in silence by myself during the day.

And recently I've started participating with your group,

Which I'm so happy to have found.

And so I'll do that.

It's usually about 12,

1230 ish when that starts around that time.

And then the evening I will do more of a breath meditation to calm myself down in the evening before I go to sleep.

And sometimes I make it through that and sometimes I don't.

I usually end up sleeping halfway through it.

But that's the whole purpose,

Especially if I'm in bed.

I was gonna say that is mission accomplished,

Right?

You can go to sleep and just go on to sleep nice and easy.

That's always a good thing.

So have you found your practices?

Well tell me about your practices now that we're in for people who may watch this at another time.

We're currently in,

I call it the Corona Chronicles or Corona COVID-19,

Whatever you want to call it.

We're in interesting times where we're not necessarily able to get out and do the things that we may be used to doing.

So how has your practice changed under those circumstances?

For me,

It has been like,

It kind of started before Corona.

And it's interesting how that sets us up for what we need,

Where we need to be,

Will we really need to be.

I was having some health challenges and had went through one surgery and right as the pandemic started,

I had to have another surgery.

So before that I had started to kind of reflect on the meditation practices that I used years ago and really reaching into those things again.

And instead of fighting like,

Okay,

I'm gonna sit still and meditate.

Now I will actually say,

You need this.

This is the same as taking my supplements,

Taking my vitamins.

And so I had been doing that for about six months before the pandemic started.

So then the pandemic started and it has become,

I think I'm more thankful now that I started that ahead of time,

Because I think with the way that my mind works,

I would have been so anxious during this time had I not set myself up for that.

I didn't know what was coming,

But I'm so thankful that I did.

So now on a daily basis,

Like I said,

I wake up,

Start with tea.

I use essential oils.

So I'll put some of that on my temples and like right up under my nose.

Incense love incense.

So I like some incense and trying to eat something is as strange as that sounds,

That's actually like a form of like self care and meditation for myself,

Because I'm not a breakfast person.

The pandemic has made me realize how important breakfast is.

My energy,

You know,

Your energy levels go up and down based on the nutrients that you have in your body.

So eating breakfast and actually spending that time being thankful for what I'm eating,

Chewing slower because of my digestive issues,

Realizing that all of these things are connected together and I think that's what this time is making a lot of us do go,

Oh,

That's what that was for.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I love how you because basically what you're doing is mindful eating,

You're paying attention to what you're doing,

How you're eating,

Being grateful for the food.

You know,

I was sitting out.

What is today?

Every day is Tuesday.

Today is Tuesday.

It's actually Tuesday.

Every day is every day,

My son asked me the other day,

How long have we been in?

Two months.

So every day,

But yesterday I said every day is Monday,

You know,

So I was sitting out Sunday morning,

Anyway,

Whatever day it was,

I was sitting out on my deck.

And I,

You know,

It's so easy to grab a tablet or phone to just find something else to do.

And I said,

I'm just gonna sit out on my deck.

It's a beautiful deck.

I have a bird sanctuary and I ate whatever it was I was eating.

And I just looked at the birds and they flew around and you know,

It's just a whole different experience that that mindfulness and so I think that what I'm finding is I talked to different people about their practices.

I love how everyone is just doing what works for them.

And one of my dear friends calls it you know,

Meditation for life.

It's it's,

It's what we it's how we live,

You know,

Being present.

Present is what the meditation is.

I remember Michael Beckwith saying,

Meditation is paying undistractable attention to the present moment.

Something like that.

I may be a little off,

But basically what you're doing is what you're doing.

You're not doing five things at the same time,

Which is what we've kind of become accustomed to.

Oh,

Yeah.

I like to call it.

What's that?

I said I like to call it the science of busy.

Yes,

Absolutely.

The science of busy.

I've had many conversations with my sister and my other type A friends,

Including my husband.

They're like,

Well,

Today I have this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and,

And like my head is spinning.

And I think I gave up the science of busy many years ago because it was causing me so much anxiety.

And I'm like,

I can't live like that.

And I'm thankful again,

Another one of those things before,

You know,

Quarantine pandemic.

That I was already there because now I needed those.

I need those skills that I learned.

I actually need them and I see why.

Absolutely.

Well,

You know,

Now that I was going to ask you,

So do you find that,

Do you have any challenges with your current practice?

It sounds like you're pretty fluid.

Do you have any challenges with your current practice?

I would probably say most sometimes for me,

It's falling asleep.

And I know that that sounds,

You know,

Like,

Well,

Isn't that what you,

You know,

Sometimes the goal of it.

But for me,

I enjoy the transitions in and out of meditations,

Meditative stages.

So sometimes I want to stay awake.

Like if I'm meditating during the day and I'm,

For example,

On my couch or in my living room,

There's a park next to us and I can hear like the kids playing now and hear birds and things like that.

So if I fall asleep,

I kind of miss some of those moments,

You know?

So falling asleep and then probably for me,

Anything over 10 minutes right now is,

Is I can't,

I just can't do it right now.

And there were other times in my life where I could do longer meditations,

But for right now,

It's just like,

I actually become anxious after that time.

If I'm not,

If I don't kind of give myself an end time.

That's a good observation to know,

You know,

That is a good observation to know.

I was doing a Deepak 21 day challenge,

A few abundance challenge or something.

And I got to the point where I was like,

Well,

I wanted it to be a little bit longer.

You know,

Cause he talked and then by the time he did the meditation,

I was like,

I think the meditation ended up being about five minutes.

So I only got about five minutes and maybe it's because I facilitate every day.

It's just nice to not have to facilitate and to be able to receive.

And so I was like,

Oh,

We're done.

I don't want to be done.

So I'm not quite ready to be done.

So it's good to know.

Some days,

As you said,

Some days your body is a little bit like,

I'm not sure I'm ready to be done with this,

But I love how you are incorporating the tea and the eating and the,

The different aspects of it,

The mindfulness aspects of it,

And then being in our group,

You know,

So that gives you a different energy as well.

Right.

So do you have any apps that you listen to or do you just mainly go kind of on your own?

I have the calm app on my phone.

I recently purchased that a friend of mine suggested it to me and I've used MBO and I think it's another one.

I think it's called sleep sound.

Those are the three that I have on my phone now,

But I also really enjoy Jason Stevenson.

He does meditation.

His voice is probably out of all the voices that I enjoy.

You know,

As far as meditation goes,

I really,

Really enjoy the meditation.

Yes.

And he's in,

Is he in Thailand or someplace like that?

So he will have like the night meditations with the rain and Oh my gosh,

You're just like,

Yeah,

A lot of times his are the ones that I listen to at nighttime because I can get to sleep.

But I try to make it through some of his,

But his voice is so soothing.

It is probably my favorite one right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like him.

I like him and David G.

I don't know if you ever listened to David G.

Yeah.

David G is it's David J I and he used to work at the Deepak center and he's huge,

But he has a very relaxing voice as well.

And he's on insight timer.

I'm on the insight timer app in case you,

They have a free version of the insight timer app,

Which is,

Yeah,

Which is really cool.

I'm not on calm,

But I know they,

I think they're all very similar.

So on insight timer,

You can of course listen to meditations,

But they have talks,

They have music,

They have playlists that you can create and all that kind of stuff.

So,

But,

Um,

Yeah,

Well this has been lovely.

Now I do have a question I want to ask you.

And um,

So do you have anything that you've been indulging in since we've been in Corona,

Um,

COVID lockdown,

Anything that maybe you're indulging a little bit more in?

I am indulging in some Ghirardelli dark chocolate sea salt,

Caramel.

You said all my favorite words,

All my favorite words,

All of them.

Yeah,

That's,

That's probably my hardest thing about living over here is trying to find caramel like,

They're not big caramel people.

You can find it,

But it's not really everything's hazelnut over here.

But for me they have,

And we have access to some American products here.

They have these frozen eclairs that have,

It's like a puff pastry with cream and chocolate.

And I say,

Oh,

I'm just going to have four of them.

And then I'm like,

Two,

Four,

Six,

Eight.

I'm like,

Okay,

This is enough.

So that's probably my go to,

And I actually,

I ate the last of them yesterday.

I'm probably going to have to have some more,

But I am getting better at portioning them because I am learning.

I am a woman who is going through surgical menopause,

Not by choice,

But I'm learning the effects of certain foods and what I can eat when I can't eat and not trying to throw a pity party about that as well,

Which meditation has does help me get out of that mind frame.

But sometimes I am so upset that I ate something and it just ruined my whole day.

So,

Yeah.

Well,

As you know,

This morning when I was doing meditation this morning,

Because we're doing this interview right after our morning meditation,

I'm trying to get on Facebook.

You know,

It's like,

You just,

You know how to just let me take a moment,

Take a breath.

Thank you birdies.

The birdies just say,

Yes,

Take a breath.

Even for those things that can help you just go,

It's okay.

So what Facebook is not working.

You have a tablet.

Thank goodness I have a tablet.

So people are not waiting too late for me to get online.

So those are really important things that we want to keep in mind.

Well,

Felicia,

I thank you so much for your time and we will definitely tune into Felicia and to Juan.

Too much fun on YouTube.

So check her out on her YouTube channel.

Are there any other places on social media that people can follow you that you want to share?

Um,

I have a personal Instagram account.

We don't really have one for our channel.

We're still getting up and going.

But my Instagram is eclectic underscore Afro on Instagram.

And there's some photography and some pictures of some of our trips and travels and things like that.

And I love colorful things.

So there's lots of color on there as well.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for joining us on conversations about meditation.

Be well.

Thank you.