Conversations About Meditation With Regenna London - Ep 1

In this episode of Conversations About Meditation I speak with a dear friend, Regenna London. She is an author, life coach and lover of life believes personal growth and development is the key to achieving the life we desire.

How do you find moments to be with mindfulness during the day? conversation and how she found a moment of mindfulness in the most interesting place. Leave a comment and let me know what you think about these conversations. Let me know if you want to be interviewed as well!

Transcript

Greetings,

I'm Barbara J.

Fason,

Your mindfulness and meditation ambassador with my first installment of Conversations About Meditation.

And I'm excited because I have a dear friend of mine who is Regina London.

She is the author and creator of The 40-Day Plan.

She is a life coach and her website is Tuning Up Life.

And Regina and I met over 20 some-odd years ago when she was a store owner at a store called The Source.

How about that?

A store called The Source.

And we have been friends since and will continue our friendship.

So I'm honored to have you with me.

Honored to be here.

And again,

This is my first installment of Conversations About Meditation.

What I hope to do with this series is to just talk to people who are meditating.

Some are more regular meditators.

Some just do it occasionally.

I wanted to share with people the impact of the practice and to give you live examples of people who do meditate.

So Regina,

Tell me how you started meditating.

Rocky.

I just started off just listening to tapes and of course yours as one of my first practices I would say is listening to the Be Still.

Learn to meditate in 10 minutes a day because it's like who can't do something for 10 minutes?

But when you first start off meditating,

Sitting down and being quiet for even one minute,

It can be challenging.

And we laugh because we talk about that crazy uncle in your head,

You know,

That's always talking.

I think that was a term that one of the masters,

Echotoli,

Yes.

But you know,

We laugh about that because I have a very active mind and trying to quiet your mind and sit in meditation like you think it's like can be challenging,

Especially for a Gemini mind like myself.

So that's how I started.

I'd say I've been meditating for for,

Oh gosh,

Maybe at least 10 years or so.

But and it's an evolution.

So it may have started off by,

You know,

Again listening to Be Still and so you're sitting there and for me,

I like the guided meditation,

Especially starting off because again,

My mind likes to wonder and even listening to something,

I still might go off on this whole crazy tangent of what I've got to do or what I didn't do.

So stay in focus in the moment.

Maybe there's more to your questions than you ask.

So I've been doing it for about 10 years.

My current meditation style,

I still like guided meditations,

But I have gotten to a place where I am able to,

I'm working with training my mind to be quiet.

That's my current practice.

How's that work?

A quiet mind is not a happy mind.

I don't know.

I think that like,

You know,

You never get finished and the refinement is a continual thing.

So where,

So for me if I can get my mind to be quiet for even a couple of seconds,

I'm good.

But the point is noticing that it's not being quiet.

That's the key.

And so I do a lot of,

Oh well,

I don't have to solve that problem at 11 o'clock at night.

When I'm meditating to go to sleep.

These are the things I'm saying.

And if it's something that's already passed and you know how the mind wants to replay,

Oh,

How you could have done it better or what you should have done and all of that.

It's like,

Okay,

Thank you mind,

But there's nothing that I could do to change that prior situation.

So,

Let's not focus on that.

Well,

And I like that you said thank you.

Thank you mind,

Because we want to appreciate our thoughts.

You know,

The same thoughts that we're challenged by,

It comes from the same place that I can lift my hand,

That I can eat,

That I can see.

All of that comes from our brain.

We don't want to stop our brain,

Right?

We just aren't happy with some of the thoughts that we have,

Right?

And to have that appreciation.

And I like that you said we don't have to solve this at 11 o'clock at night because I'm going to bed.

I mean,

I go to bed now,

Please.

Thank you so much.

Right?

Do you do any mantras or chants or any things like that?

Um,

I don't do any mantras or chants.

You know,

I'm a big YouTube person,

So I will listen to mantras and chants.

But my most recent thing that I'm doing now,

Again,

To calm myself,

To calm my mind,

Is just to,

You know,

Say,

I love you,

I love you,

I love you silently to myself,

I love you.

But more than just saying it,

Just actually feeling it as if you're saying,

I love you to that inner being,

That larger part of us that you can't be.

Right.

You know,

And so it's not just like saying it,

It's like really feeling it,

Like,

You know,

Being present.

Yeah,

Being present with that.

And I love you and I appreciate the vessel that I'm in,

You know,

I appreciate knowing that I'm so much more than this vessel that I'm in.

You know,

And just coming from just that,

And I love that.

So I love my,

I love you.

I love you.

All of you.

All of this.

All of this.

The seen and the unseen.

And I'm just so grateful to be coming from this place.

This wasn't no short journey to get here.

This has been years and years of reading and practicing and learning new things and growing and,

Oh my gosh,

Going through the struggles that,

You know,

That it takes to come to a place where you can appreciate some of the more challenging parts of life that we've dealt with,

That we all dealt with,

That we all as humans will experience the things that make us the same.

And that's just how you come out of that,

Into that journey.

You know,

You know,

I do some things that like when they come to the end of their life,

They don't want this perfect body.

They want that,

You know,

That luggage that's been beat up,

You know,

That's experienced life.

But,

You know,

You've got some beautiful memories,

Experiences,

You know,

Where your heart has,

You know,

Lived a full life.

You know,

So you come out,

You know,

Get a little beat up and bruised.

But hey,

I take all of that to be sitting on this side of life where you can appreciate being alive,

Being physical,

You know,

And then you can appreciate knowing that there's no end.

Yes.

Yes.

And that is the beauty of sitting on the other side of the challenges that we go through in life.

Right.

And,

You know,

I remind myself,

We came here to experience life.

And that means all of life in its fullness.

Yes.

Right.

And I'm not sure where we had in our minds that everything was going to be cupcakes and unicorns and roses.

Right.

But there are times when it's not.

So how do you manage those times?

What are some of the strategies that you use to manage those times?

Well,

My good friend here,

One of my strategies that I use is the hands are hard.

You can just put your hand on your heart.

Sometimes I don't even think about how my skin feels.

But when I put my hands on my heart,

You know,

I'm feeling my skin.

And you're taking those deep breaths,

The three conscious breaths,

Yelling and exhaling,

You know,

And just calm yourself,

Calm myself down.

And it calms me down.

I mean,

It connects me back to life,

To the source that's in me.

And that is everything.

So I just calming myself down with that's an immediate step that you could take.

And then that constant everyday knowing.

And when I say knowing with the capital K-N-O-W,

Knowing that at the end of the day,

Things always working out for me.

You know,

And when I am most challenged,

I go to,

Oh,

You know,

I can't wait to see how this is going to work out because,

You know,

I can't solve this and I can't even see a way out.

But,

You know,

Things have always worked out,

You know.

And so the bigger the challenge it is that then the bigger way that I know that the source is showing me that how it's going to all work out.

And so all of that worrying that I could do about it,

There's nothing to influence the situation.

It's just me putting pain points on myself.

And the more I learn about this again,

These aren't easy,

Quick resolutions that I came to.

This is years of practicing.

Some of my pain is being parent.

You know,

And even with with parent pain points,

You know,

It starts to get easier.

And,

You know,

It's like,

You know,

You were climbing up that hill and then you got to the top.

Right.

You know,

It doesn't mean that you got to get back down that hill.

Yes.

You know,

You still got those same obstacles going up,

Down the hill as coming up the hill.

Yes.

But it's like,

I've been here before.

I've seen this.

I'm going to ride the wave.

Like ride the wave.

It's going to be,

Everything is okay.

It's your perspective on it.

That if you want to make it not okay.

Yeah.

But if making it not okay doesn't make it easier,

Right?

No.

So,

Like,

So,

So,

So,

So,

So it's okay.

You know,

You know,

I'll just say my mom is turning 81.

Yeah.

In a couple of days here.

And we were just having this conversation about,

You know,

I'm not afraid to die.

Yeah.

I don't want to be those one of those people that lives to be 100 and can't do anything for themselves or have somebody just sitting around looking at them,

You know.

And I love that we could just have a conversation about death,

Death of the physical vessel.

You know,

Because I feel the same way as my mom.

You know,

Like I am enjoying this physical experience a lot of the time.

Sometimes I'm like,

What's this all about?

You know,

Can I just check out?

But the reasons why I wanted to check out is because I don't want to deal with my situation that I created,

That I created,

You know.

So that we all create.

Right.

So then it goes back to taking responsibility for the things that we as powerful creators that we are,

Even when we don't know it,

That we create.

And then,

You know,

And which comes right back to meditation.

You know,

Then you,

Then I'm going to quiet myself and just sit and breathe,

You know,

Just inhaling.

Yeah,

Exhaling.

That's all you got to do.

Inhaling and exhaling.

So if all you want to think about,

Even if you're,

If you want to just tell your mind just inhale,

Focus on it,

Rise and fall of your chest,

Rise and fall of your belly,

You know,

Just slow it down and just know that,

You know,

This is all you got to do.

Yes.

And sometimes that's all you can do.

I was thinking about,

You know,

People that are paraplegics.

Yes.

You know,

Their physical vessel may not work from here now,

Right?

Mm-hmm.

By jockelesis,

I mean.

But you're still inhaling and exhaling.

You're still breathing.

You know,

It's like you're,

So you're really dealing with being still in a physical way.

True.

Very true.

Yeah.

But your mind,

Your brain,

Your source of who you are,

All of it is still there.

You're not lessened by that.

You know,

Unless you lessen yourself.

That's right.

By that.

That's right.

Yeah.

That is,

That is a great observation.

And I know with you having a sister who is in that situation.

Yeah,

Paraplegic.

It just gives you a different appreciation.

And even me knowing your sister and being around you and your family,

Just that awareness has given me a complete different way of looking at things such as going to the bathroom.

You know,

I do not go into the handicap stand or stall unless there's just,

You know,

Unless I just can't wait because I'm always mindful now that that is for people who really need that assistance.

Right.

So yeah,

I mean,

So I think what I find with meditation,

A lot of it is just that being present,

You know,

And it is meditation is being present to Michael Beckwith says meditation is paying undistractable attention to the present moment.

And that's all it is.

Now I want you to share the story because Regina and I talk just about every day,

If not every day.

In fact,

Sometimes we go,

Why haven't we talked today?

But I want you to share the story about the barbershop because I think that was a perfect example of being in practice with the practice of meditation.

So I'll let you share this.

So I went to the barbershop and normally I'm the first person there because I used to go and I had my routine,

But a coke routine and I went on a different day.

So I called my barber and like,

And this is funny.

So I text him and said,

Are you there?

Can you see me?

And he sent me back saying cooling.

And I'm like,

You know,

That's young people talk.

What does that mean?

Right.

So then I called him because I'm like,

I don't know that means to me,

If I said cooling,

That means I'm chilling out at home for the rest of the day.

So I don't know.

So let me call.

I called him.

He said,

No,

That means I'm yeah,

You can come.

Okay.

So I get there expecting the chorus as usual to jump right in the chair and he's got someone there.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Okay.

So I sit down and there's two different,

Three televisions that's on and the,

And a music is playing.

And then there's all this talking going on and it was like,

And I'm utter chaos,

You know?

So,

But so what I did was I just closed my eyes and I started meditating,

Just focusing on myself,

Like tuning all of that noise out.

And now because I was thinking some people actually,

I thought probably wouldn't be able to stand out this noise.

I would have done just what you did.

So I said,

Let me just try to tune some of this out because it was like the news and the news was on and then the music and all the talking,

You know?

And I just sit there and I was just able to go into his face and then,

You know,

And after a while I heard Miss Regina,

Miss Regina,

You know,

And it kind of startled me.

So that's why I know I was really in a meditative space.

But,

And he says,

Oh,

I saw you over there meditating.

That's some good stuff,

You know?

And I'm like,

It was,

I was so proud of myself.

Yes,

Yes.

Look,

In the middle of chaos,

I was able to tune out of all of that and to connect with myself and that was the what better use of my time,

You know,

Than to,

And what a great use of my time,

Just to focus on myself and,

You know,

To tune in and instead of being caught up into all of this stuff that does not bring value to my life.

Right.

Well,

Thank you for sharing that.

And when we,

When you called me and we talked about that,

I was just,

My heart just filled because it is in those times that we really want to remind ourselves of our practice.

Meditation is a practice.

It is not a goal.

You can set goals,

But meditation itself is not a goal.

It is a practice.

It is something we take with us into life.

And when we realize that we can show up and we can read consciously wherever we are,

Regardless.

And that's one of the reasons I'm like,

Okay,

We're outside and we're not going to be in a vacuum where silent,

You know,

Just like you said,

You walked in,

I know when I've gone to the barbershop,

It's like,

Okay,

My God,

Is there anything else that can be on?

You know?

And so what has happened is that I feel like we have so connected with all of this outside stuff,

Right?

And we don't even know what silence sounds like.

And we certainly don't know what to do with it.

And I think it's important that we realize that we can come to those times.

Now I'm going to share a quick story when we,

When I went to visit you in Barbados,

We went on a tour and we were on a hiking tour.

And this was in 2008.

And I remember as we're on the tour,

Something was going on.

We were actually underneath the ground as part of this tour.

And our tour guide was new and got lost.

We were underneath the ground and all of these people,

And we were walking around because it was supposed to be like a 45 minute tour and it's almost three hours by the time we finished.

So we're underneath the ground.

And at one point we were standing there waiting.

I think we finally realized that the tour guide was lost.

Of course,

We're underneath the ground.

So it's not like cell phones are going to work.

And I remember this little girl that was there.

She was like,

We're all going to die.

And I was standing over to the side.

And I remember you looking at me saying,

Cause you calls me BJ,

Are you okay?

And I was like,

Yeah,

Cause I really was just kind of being still.

And I was just praying for guidance for the person who was,

Cause I knew I couldn't guide them out.

And I just remember that moment.

And it's those times like that.

It's the barbershop times.

It's the times when you're underneath the ground and you don't know,

I certainly didn't know where I was and I knew you were going to be okay.

It's those times that we can reach for that meditation practice.

Go touch your hand to your heart,

Take some deep breaths,

Do what I say,

Have a go-to phrase in this moment,

All is well,

Because it was well.

We were alive.

We had snacks.

We had water.

And we were exhausted when we got done,

But it was quite an experience.

And that was when I first started blogging.

And that was,

So they're usually those impetus,

You know,

That was the impetus for me to,

I think I want to write about this.

And you know,

Barbara,

About that same experience,

What I remember most was at the end,

Remember we had to go up that steep incline and there was someone at the top that hand was reaching down to help pull us out into the light.

Yes,

You could actually see yourself being pulled up into the light.

We can look at it now,

Look back on it now and just really think about all of the implications of what was going on at the time.

Of course you're in it.

And I was meditating,

But I wasn't thinking about it to that degree,

But it's just amazing.

And so little simple things like stopping,

You know,

We're out here in the backyard.

I have seen that red cardinal fly by a few times right behind you.

I haven't seen your bluebird.

There's usually a bluebird when I'm talking to you.

I'll be on the phone talking to Regina on the deck and the bluebird will come.

Like your bluebird is here.

So I just encourage you to realize that meditation doesn't have to be,

It can be that,

But it can also just be sitting outside hearing the wind chimes,

Listening to the airplane that's flying by and just taking in what you see and how you feel in that experience.

Yes.

So is there anything else you want to share as we close out our interview?

Thank you.

You know,

I always say if Barbara's doing something,

You know,

It's a good thing to do,

You know.

So I follow many of her practices and we share a lot together.

We're both totally committed to helping people enjoy life more and live life better.

And by better,

We're seeing,

You know,

That you should be laughing more and smiling more and feeling better inside.

And,

You know,

If we can find you a Barbara or Regina in your life,

You know,

Somebody that you can share the same type of concepts and wisdom and experiences with,

You know,

I'd say to do that.

So thank you for introducing me to meditation.

She's meditating way longer than me.

It's not going to ever,

Well,

I won't say it won't ever,

But you know,

I still challenge sometimes when I first second I sit down and to meditate my mind might go.

So,

But you know what?

It's all right.

You know,

Coming back,

I'm getting better,

You know,

And it's just a paying attention and being in the moment means paying attention to what's going on in the moment.

And as Barbara says,

Train your brain,

Be kind to your mind and pay attention to how you feel and what you're thinking about.

Yes,

That is my goal growing,

Going mantra is just what am I thinking about right now?

And oftentimes is not what's happening right now.

It's what's happened in the past or what's happened in the future,

Which is where stress stress is generally in the past or in the future.

Anxiety is definitely in the future.

Yeah.

So when we remember those simple practices of hand to heart,

Take some deep breaths and ask yourself how you want to feel.

Take the time to think about what you want your next experience to be.

I've just gotten off the phone with probably five or six different customer service people from insurance to home Depot.

And everyone I talked with was very accommodating and very,

I'm back,

I'm waiting on someone.

She's like,

I'm going to give you call me.

I'm going to call you back.

You know,

Just people who enjoy what they do or they don't,

They pretend enjoy what they do,

But they're,

They're connected.

And so when I take the time to do my three conscious breaths or hand to heart and think about what is the experience I want to have.

I want to have an experience that I'm able to get my questions answered by someone who is pleasant,

Fill in the blank.

And I call that planting seeds.

And I do that at night.

I do that during my day.

It is about focus.

What am I choosing to focus my mind,

My energy on?

So I thank you for tuning in to this conversation about meditation.

And this is Regina Ludden,

The author and creator of the 40 day journal.

Did I get that right?

40 day plan.

But it is a journal.

It is a journal.

It is a journal.

And it's designed to help you focus.

And it's designed to help you focus.

And we did,

I'm just going to share this quickly.

We did 40 days of radical forgiveness at the beginning of the year.

And can I say that was life changing?

So yeah,

It really was.

Came at the perfect time in my life.

And I was going through some added responsibilities of being a president of an HOA.

I needed those 40 days of radical forgiveness.

But even in that,

When I say that,

You know,

All of your experiences,

If you allow them tend to let them help you discover what it is that you need to focus on in your life.

That you can breathe easier.

Yes,

Exactly.

So you can breathe easier.

And I just want to say thank you again.

And we will continue to do this.

Regina and I will be doing some things together.

So be on the lookout.

And I want you to remind,

I want to just remind you that you are the creator of your life.

100%.

100%.

Hard pill to swallow.

But once you've swallowed that pill,

You'll breathe easier.

Right,

Right.

And know that that does not mean that we're not going to have those challenging times.

Because that is what we came here to experience.

And if you don't have challenge,

You can't necessarily appreciate.

And you don't have challenges.

So just keep that in mind and remember that it is almost always a good time to stop,

Breathe,

And savor life.

If you enjoyed this interview,

Please subscribe,

Like and share.

Because we are on a mission to help people breathe more.

Because it starts with me.

One breath,

One thought,

One deed.

Namaste and be well.

Reviews

That was refreshing. This is the type of conversation, while I was just sitting in listening to, that has been missing from my space. Thank you for sharing. The concepts and conversation resonated and planted seeds. Made me think about how long I’ve been meditating and how I am different now that I’ve been meditating for almost 10 years. I reflected on those moments where meditating was my way out. I feel better this morning after listening to your talk. Namaste to both you and Regenna. Thank you. 🙏🏽