Don't wait until it's too late - Commit to 1 thing today.

Don't wait until it's too late, is a meditation and reflection on the things that are inevitable. Death, loss, changes, illness and so on - but more so, what we can choose to do, commit to do, before it's too late. In the meditation, you will also find personal stories from my own life, that I hope will inspire you.

Love, Carlos

Transcript

Hello everybody.

I'm sitting here,

Eyes closed,

Peeling orange.

Not because I wanted to do that intentionally,

But because I just finished meditation.

Morning meditation that I guide every morning at six o'clock Danish time.

And the meditation was about the things that we are waiting,

Not that we're waiting for them to happen,

But I asked myself a question this morning.

Why do I wait until I have a seizure before I start eating a lot healthier?

I do eat healthy,

But there's definitely stuff that I could start letting go of that are not healthy to me.

So I grabbed an orange.

So why do we wait until we are struck,

Either by divorce,

By illness,

By cancer,

By all of these things before we wake up?

And we hear this all the time with people experiencing this and it changed their life for the better.

Why wait?

I do know that emotional pain is definitely the most important fuel for spiritual and personal development.

I do know that from personal experience.

But I want to be proactive.

I want to not wait.

I want to do the hard work of,

You know,

Going against those impulses and work with my mind,

Understand my mind,

Love my mind.

And that way choose to do stuff before bad stuff happens.

And I can feel that sharing this with you brings emotions up in me.

There's a flow of energy in my body.

And it brings me to what I was sharing with the early group this morning,

Early birds.

And which this meditation is also about is acknowledging that everything that is in the world will at some point not be,

Including us.

So the meditation today is on this,

Is on accepting that at some point I will no longer be.

But before that happens we have so much hope,

So many possibilities,

So much life to experience.

So let's get comfortable.

And just,

You know,

Just to be quite honest here,

This kind of meditation can be a bit,

You know,

Heavy energy wise.

But from experience dealing with emotions that we're not willing to feel is a path to freedom,

More freedom.

So just embrace the happiness of the emotions that might arise.

Embrace them with love.

Just really meet them.

And if it feels too much of a contraction,

Too uncomfortable,

Just pull out of it nice and easy.

You know,

You can either stop the meditation or just take a break from it,

Reflect,

Come back.

It's still going to be here every day.

Alright,

So let's close our eyes.

And just notice our in-breath.

Notice our out-breath.

Small smile on our lips.

Relax your eyes,

Relax your eyelids,

All the muscles around your eyes.

Notice that when you do this,

It really affects the rest of the face and the body as well,

The shoulders,

Neck,

Everything.

We've worked on the prolonged in-breaths and out-breaths in our earlier sessions,

So you can visit that in a later session if you would like that.

But what we will do on our in-breath is just to hear the sentence,

I know that I at some point will no longer be.

And on the out-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

So just nice and easy on your in-breath,

Nice and easy on your out-breath,

Just inside of you,

Sub vocally.

On the in-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

On your out-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

One last time.

Okay.

So before we move into the next set,

Just notice what you're doing to yourself with this sentence.

It might arise some emotions,

A specific energetic,

You know,

Feeling.

And again,

Just with your small smile,

Relaxed eyes,

Body,

Face,

Organs,

Everything,

Just say yes to the emotions that arise.

And if it's too much,

Just take a break.

Slow is fast.

Slow is fast.

Okay.

For this second set,

Second step,

We use the same first phrase.

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

So just repeat this with me,

Just inside of you,

Before we start connecting the breathing to it.

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

Alright.

So acceptance is difficult.

But what we do usually is we just,

You know,

Put it away.

We don't want to deal with death or.

.

.

I mean,

It's too big of a,

You know,

Thing to talk about.

But it's inevitable.

I mean,

We cannot get around it.

It's there.

And it might just happen before we want it to happen.

Let's do our practice.

Let's do what we can to,

You know,

Practice accepting it.

I do strongly believe that it will make it easier when that time comes.

Okay.

So we're going to start the breathing,

The second set,

Second step now.

So this will prolong your in-breath and it will also extend,

Prolong your out-breath.

So on the in-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

And the same on the out-breath.

And if you stumble on the words or find other words,

Change the sentence,

Please just do it.

Meditation is what we make it to be,

Right?

Okay.

Let's go.

So in-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

Out-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

And just continue.

All right.

All right.

Let's do the last one.

On in-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

Out-breath,

I know that at some point I will no longer be.

And I accept this.

All right.

And just let go of the sentence now and just sit with what is.

And really just be open to feeling whatever is.

Small smile,

Relaxed eyes,

Face muscles,

Neck,

Body,

Emotions,

Soul.

It's all just here being big and open.

Okay.

Okay.

The third step is a question for reflection.

And let me just share right away that the fourth step is a decision.

But only a decision which is for today.

So this third step,

My question is,

What have you been holding back on not doing which you know that you should do or would love to do?

So what have you been holding back on,

What you know that you should do or would love to do that you're holding back on?

And just let your,

You know,

Your body,

Your emotion,

Your mind,

Your soul,

Just let it,

Let anything arise.

It might be an image of an old friend that you miss dearly or the sorrow of losing somebody that you haven't really allowed.

It could be starting to eat healthier or stop working 16 hours a day.

So it could be anything.

We're just practicing,

You know,

The steps.

And with time,

If this is something for you,

You can put anything into these steps.

With love for yourself and for those you care about.

Okay.

And so while we reflect on this inside of ourselves,

Just let the breathing be natural.

And just let anything arise and just embrace anything that arises.

Don't be picky.

Don't think,

Ah,

That's too little of a thing.

What I'm going to ask of you in the next step is a decision for the rest of the day.

So we're just practicing,

Right?

Okay.

So let's go into the reflection.

What have you been holding back on doing?

What you know that you should do and that you would love to do?

So just let all of these things arise and don't be,

You know,

Picky or telling yourself that one thing is better than the other.

Just let everything arise.

And it can be several things,

But I usually say maximum three things,

But a minimum of one thing.

All right.

So you don't need to make your mind up now.

We're just practicing the open reflection inside of us.

The last step before I finish up with some different perspectives is to make a decision to do one thing right the minute after you finish this meditation with me and everybody else who's listening.

To decide to do one thing today,

It could be,

It could be within the next hour.

It could be during the day.

It could be writing a letter to a loved one.

It could be telling your kids or your sister or brother or mother that you love them.

Or any other family member.

It could be anything.

It could be anything that you would really regret regret not doing.

If suddenly us not being here would be,

You know,

What happened unexpectedly.

So let's use the.

.

.

Let's use the inevitability.

I can't say that word right now.

So let's use the knowledge that we cannot avoid.

It's inevitable.

There was.

Let's use the knowledge that death is inevitable.

To raise the energy to do the stuff that we would love to do before it's too late.

So just one thing,

A decision,

That's the next reflection.

One thing that you will decide and hold on to,

Commit to doing today.

And let's go into that with easy,

Calm breathing.

Just tuning in to this one thing.

All right.

There's plenty of room afterwards to reflect if you need more time to reflect.

But don't reflect too long because then it's like,

You know,

Standing in front of the variety of teas that you can choose to add them all and just get all confused.

Just go with the one that appears the first and then go with that.

Go with that.

So we're about to finish.

The reason why stuff like this is important for me personally to practice is that I really,

Really,

Really want to be willing to have a peaceful death.

And a death where I feel that I've done all the things that I wanted to do.

I've said all the things that I wanted to do.

I've cleaned up all the material issues.

I've cleaned up all the emotional issues.

So being able to die in peace means for me that there's no,

Everything is in order,

Right?

You're looking around in the inner emotional shelves and everything is good.

And there might be things that will always be things,

But the major things we've been brave enough to do something while we could.

So just for your inspiration.

I'm a trained psychotherapist and I've been working with people since 2007 with kids,

With couples,

With families,

With leaders,

Leader groups.

But what I've come to understand is that we tend to wait with the most important things.

And what we can do is to embrace that and just look at ourselves.

And you might be doing perfectly fine in this area,

But I wasn't.

So starting to work with this,

Starting to clean up my relationship,

I made a whole page writing down all the people that I've hurt.

This was inspired on,

I was in Sweden on a retreat.

And I just started,

You know,

When the law of attraction.

So when I did,

It was a whole page with people.

So we had to write down all the people that we hurt and on the other page,

All the things that we regretted.

Not in order to,

You know,

Be harsh to ourselves,

But to,

You know,

Really realize that we could do something about it.

And the law of attraction.

I didn't know about that back then.

And it's not necessary for me to call it that.

It's just to point out that I had these crazy experiences with these people on this page that I hadn't seen for years,

Years and years,

Suddenly showing up.

Showing up as an employee in a gas station.

I bought my first skateboard from this guy,

Kasper.

I knew who he was.

I had,

You know,

Been carrying this guilt inside of me for so many years,

Like 15 years.

And I got into this gas station and who was behind the desk?

He was.

So I went up and I had to pay for my gas and I told him,

I said,

Hey,

Aren't you Kasper?

And he said,

Yeah.

And I said,

Don't I owe you some money for a skateboard?

And he says,

Yes,

But don't worry about it.

So I said,

Well,

I need to pay for the gas.

Could you give me 800 kronas,

Which is like $100 a bit more?

You know,

Usually you can do that and get some cash.

And then he gave me the cash and I looked at him and I gave him the cash and I said,

Really,

I'm so sorry for you having to wait for so long for this.

And he took the money without hesitation.

He started with saying that it was OK.

He took the money without hesitation.

And it was just such a relief.

I felt love for him.

I felt love for myself.

So what I'm getting at is let's do this before it's too late.

Let's clean up all this mess.

I called it mess.

You might call it something else.

The last thing that I want to share with you,

Which has meant even more,

Is that we have two girls that are now 11 and 13,

Luca and Vega.

And this,

I started doing this many years ago,

But for the past four years,

My wife and I started doing it together.

We do these yearly trips to Italy for days.

And it might sound just as a romantic trip,

But it's it's an investment in us staying together because,

You know,

That couple,

You know,

It's difficult being in relationships.

So we do this where we scream and we yell and we cry and we make love and we talk about the future.

We do all this stuff once a year.

So what I used to do was alone write a testament for my kids,

Not a material one,

But an emotional one,

Telling them about all the things that have happened in their life.

From my perspective,

How dearly I love them,

What I see their qualities being,

Everything,

Just letting everything out,

Because I knew that if something happened fast and I would die,

You know,

Instantly,

Things would be in order.

Really tough to do it,

Really,

Really tough.

I was crying,

Crying,

Crying,

But with the years I didn't cry as much and I just felt more pride.

What me and my wife started doing in Italy when we were there was that we found a park or found parks,

Set up a camera,

Put on microphones.

And then we started doing a video testament.

Because they grow,

We grow,

And so each year we do this video testament in case that one of us or both of us tragically would die.

Also very tough and difficult,

But also a great pride that they would be able to watch this when they were ready.

So again,

All of this is just to emphasize,

Don't wait.

Don't wait.

We can wait and things will,

You know,

Everything will sort itself out.

But me personally,

I don't want to wait.

I want to grab this and I don't want to wait until something terrible happens with my body or something like that before I do what I know that I should do and what I would love after I've done it,

That I have done it.

So thanks a lot for being here with me.

Even though I don't know you,

I feel that you're there and I actually feel that I'm talking to you.

And not talking to the microphone,

But I'm connected to you.

And I hope in my heart that this finds you in a good place in these strange,

Strange corona times.

And yeah,

Just really grateful for being able to do this and be able to share and get inspiration from so many other people on Inside Time.

So thanks a lot.

Thank you so much.

Bye bye.

Reviews

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️ … Challenge gratefully applied & Thank you❣️

Thanks, Carlos!!

A refreshing and honest approach to the inevitability of impermanence and its use as a tool for motivation. Interesting ideas and engaging practice. My intention I set at the start of today’s yoga practice was commitment. I felt it chose me, in fact. This meditation has deepened that intention. Thank you 🙏🕊️

Simple. Challenging. Powerful. Freeing.

Thank you 🙏

Thank you. You’re so full of inspiration. ❤️