Welcome to day five.
This is the final day of the new moon phase.
The seed that you planted in this first cycle is a powerful one and it takes devotion to continue to care for what is growing underground,
For this basic foundation of mindful meditation that you've been cultivating.
So I want to share a couple of things that are common questions that are asked when I'm first teaching meditation and some people come up to me almost as if they're wanting to confess something and they'll just say meditation is super hard and I'm doing it but I don't know if I'm doing it right and it just it's hard.
My response is meditation goes against our conditioning.
Our conditioning is to be tumbling into the future and there's this kind of chain reaction and thinking and planning is what many of us have been taught.
Multitask.
Multitasking is how you get more done is like the tagline of the Western society and with more and more research coming out we actually know that doing one thing at a time is better for our mental health,
For our physical health,
For spiritual health,
For our awareness because we're doing what we're doing while we're doing it so we can actually be experiencing our lives and experiencing how we're breathing and connecting with the world.
And sometimes meditation feels difficult and life is difficult.
Everything that comes up in our life will most likely come up on the cushion.
So it's a practice ground.
We're practicing for our life.
To be present for our life.
And it's not like you'll just not have a difficult time in meditation after you've been doing it for a while.
The different phases of our lives bring different layers of difficulty and it's in our devotion to the practice,
Our devotion to coming home to ourselves that allows for us to work with what's arising from a kind and tender place and it will get easier to quiet and to be in stillness.
And some days are more easy than others.
The more kindness and gentleness we can have with ourselves as our mind runs wild,
The more kindness we can bring across all facets of our life.
Ruth King,
An author,
Describes the basic characteristics of existence as quote,
Not perfect,
Not permanent,
Not personal.
Just like that.
Right?
So you don't have to be perfect at meditating.
The emotions,
The things that are happening,
They're not gonna last forever.
And it's not personal.
None of it.
One of the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is take nothing personally.
So when you have a challenging meditation,
Don't take it personally.
It's fine.
And if you have an easeful meditation,
Don't take that personally either.
There's an openness that we are asked to bring to our experience just as it is with a non-judgmental frame.
And that takes practice.
It just does.
When I was working with Tia May,
She asked me to sit every day for an hour.
As I told you,
I thought she was crazy.
I just thought,
There is no way I'm gonna be able to do that.
An hour is so long.
And then I did it.
And I devoted myself to sitting with myself.
Because I wanted to be a good therapist.
I wanted to know the thoughts that were coming into my mind.
I wanted to see what everybody was talking about.
You know?
Thousands of years meditation has been used.
I had heard about it,
Of course.
I knew that yoga was made for meditation.
Not the other way around.
And so I thought,
Well,
I really want to work with Tia May.
I really want to learn from her.
And I want to be a good therapist.
So,
All right.
I'm devoting myself to sitting every single day.
And in that time,
Every part of my life changed.
For real.
Every part.
I never even knew how busy my mind was.
In fact,
I didn't know that I wasn't present.
In all those yoga classes,
I would hear,
Be here now.
Be in the breath.
And I could follow the breath.
And I would leave and I would feel really good.
So much so that I was completely addicted to my yoga practice.
Because I would feel so good.
I was like,
What is happening?
And what was happening was,
My mind and my body were actually coming together.
And I was simply breathing.
Allowing for my autonomic nervous system started to come into balance.
Because I was right in the moment.
And what we've learned about meditation,
And what studies are showing more and more,
Is that the meditation practice,
Which is similar to a yoga practice.
Yoga practice is just movement meditation.
And seated meditation is not the same thing as a yoga practice.
However,
The yoga helps move out the kinks in the body so that we can sit in stillness.
But what we found out is that this prefrontal cortex,
Which is responsible for making decisions,
Actually starts to shift.
And our amygdala,
Which controls the emotional response,
Starts to change.
The hippocampus,
As well,
Which is responsible for memory and learning,
Starts to have some changes within the structure of our brains themselves that allow for new neural pathways to start to form.
So then,
When I started sitting in regular meditation practice,
I thought,
Wow,
I feel so much better.
And my mind is actually quiet.
When I would drive my car,
I would just look at all the other cars on the road,
And look at the license plates,
And look at all the trees,
And look at the birds.
And I would actually keep my eyes on the road.
And I would just drive.
I would feel my foot go off and on the gas.
I would feel my hands on the steering wheel.
I would feel the wind on my face.
I would hear all the sounds of all the activity that being in a car brings.
There was so much to notice that I had completely missed.
It's like I had missed my life.
And I started to feel better.
I started talking more slowly.
I liked being by myself for the first time as a super extrovert.
I started just wanting to go on a walk by myself.
My body started to feel better.
I started to listen to the messages that my body was communicating with me about when I was hungry,
Or even the aches that I was feeling,
Where those were coming from.
And I started sleeping better.
I had more intimate and connected sex with my husband.
And I felt my heart was moving slowly when I woke up in the mornings,
Instead of racing and pounding in my chest,
Thinking about my to-do list before I even opened my eye.
I felt that in sitting every day,
I was creating a space for myself to just slow down.
And then,
After a couple weeks,
I started actually craving meditation.
I thought,
Oh,
Wow,
Yeah,
I want to do that now.
I'm so glad that Tiame had that strict rule with me.
And now,
It's so great how we learn from our teachers.
That's exactly what I do to my clients.
That's exactly the approach that I take,
Because it goes the same for everybody.
We have to be devoted to this practice.
We have to be devoted to our health—mental,
Physical,
Emotional,
Spiritual—in order to heal.
And it takes time,
And it takes practice.
And I'm only interested in working with people who really want to heal themselves.
And meditation is by far the most powerful tool I've ever found,
Ever,
Ever,
Ever.
And it's thousands of years old,
So I didn't even find it.
So now,
I'm sharing this technique,
This tool,
This life-changing magic with you.
Let's drop in.
I'll mind the time.
Take a few slow,
Deep breaths.
Notice how you're feeling right now.
Notice what's happening in your body.
And I invite you to come to a comfortable place.
We're simply noticing the moment.
And catching ourselves when our mind wanders.
Noticing what's happening in your body as you slow down.
Compassion and kindness to your thoughts,
To your body,
To spirit,
To your soul,
To your town,
To your community,
To the world,
To the moon,
To this vast and complex solar system and beyond.
As this new moon phase comes to a close today,
A little more light can start to be can start to be seen.
What are you starting to see more clearly about what you are devoted to over the next couple of moments?
I encourage you to come back to your body,
Come back to your breath.
Letting those questions that I posed drift away and simply be here.
And noticing as the thoughts come and as they go.
In meditation,
I sometimes have the most profound thoughts ever.
Insights into my business.
I have thoughts about what to share with people.
I feel deeply connected to my experience of source,
My experience of God,
My experience of this oneness that is me,
That is all things.
There's so much that can happen when we create the space for things to just quiet down.
So it's not about not thinking.
It's just about knowing when our mind is wandering consciously.
And then when the mind wanders and you're like,
Oh,
There goes my mind.
Maybe you want to complete a thought and then you come back to the moment.
We spend so much of our days letting the thoughts go.
Meditation is truly the time to call yourself back.
So call yourself into the moment now.
With your breath,
With your body right here,
Right now.
Noticing,
Feeling in yourself what it's like to be devoted to this practice right now.
Now that the light from the moon is starting to show,
What are you seeing more clearly in yourself about what you are devoted to?
See you tomorrow.
