The Kingdom: The Power Of Meditation

PRAYER is when you’re speaking to your source of higher power. MEDITATION is when you’re listening to the messages coming back to you. Join Justin as he breaks down what meditation is NOT, and how you can break past the age-old myth of “getting your mind to stop thinking” to finally find a consistent practice that fits with your messy, modern life.

Think of The Kingdom like spiritual church—for everyone! All beliefs are welcome to these prayerful masterclasses.

Transcript

I'm Justin Michael Williams,

And welcome to the Kingdom.

This is Spiritual Church for everybody.

We begin each session with a prayer.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that has been,

All that ever will be.

May you keep us aligned on our sacred path.

May you help us stay on track,

And every time we start to veer too far away from the path that you have us on,

May you bring us back into our center more and more quickly every time.

Thank you for helping us to remember that every time we fall off track,

We have the opportunity and the power to learn and to grow and to expand if we see things through the light of you.

May we remember that we are connected to all and to one another,

And that we are the light of the universe.

Thank you for bringing us together from Nigeria to Canada to the United States to South America and beyond to connect into this space within us that is endless and infinite,

To connect to something greater.

Thank you for giving us a moment to have a chance to come together.

Despite all the craziness that's going on in the world,

We know that people are good and that by us being here,

We're spreading those ripples of goodness out throughout the world.

I call upon the light of the universe to spread the message of hope and love through all of our voices and all of our actions.

And now I'd like to offer all of you a prayer of protection before we go into our personal prayer,

And I derive this prayer from Brenda Villa,

Brenda Rode.

This is the prayer of protection.

I call upon a divine ray of love and protection,

And I draw a circle around me and my bodies.

And in this circle,

I place the white light of peace,

The blue light of healing,

The clear red light of energy,

And the purple light of protection.

And I declare that nothing and no one shall come between me and my circle.

Only good is allowed here.

I am in control of my sacred space.

And in this moment now and forevermore,

I am protected.

This is a moment now to welcome in your own personal prayer for the next 60 seconds or so into your practice.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been,

All that ever will be,

We thank you.

Please let all the words that are used today from me,

From the musicians,

The sounds of the musicians,

And everyone speaking in the chat box and everyone listening to be used for the highest good of all.

So it is.

Let's begin.

So today's practice is really special to me.

It's a really important one.

And it's a topic that we've been skating around pretty much in every single session.

In every single session,

We've talked about it,

But I've never talked about it directly.

And I think you're all ready for it now.

And so this session today is on the power of meditation,

The power of meditation.

And we're going to talk about this very specifically.

And you heard me just a few moments ago say that prayer is when you're speaking to your source of higher power and meditation is when you're listening to the messages coming back to you.

And I'm going to say that quote over and over and over today.

And today we're going to get into how you can actually start to build a meditation practice that takes you into that space to actually be able to listen to that voice.

You all know the reason I wrote a meditation book,

Got my book right next to me here always,

Is not quite frankly,

And I say this all the time,

I don't give a shit about meditation.

I don't.

I don't see anywhere in my bio,

Anywhere,

Anything calling myself a meditation teacher,

Which I know sounds crazy because I wrote a book about meditation.

The only reason I teach meditation is because it is the tool that quite frankly will transform your life more than any other practice that you can do.

It's the way that you anchor in all the things that you're doing outside,

All the therapy,

All the books you're reading,

All the podcasts,

All the things you're learning,

All the reading things,

All the journeys and ceremonies.

It's the way you anchor it into your life on a day to day basis so that you can hear the voice and the whisper that's guiding you toward the next best move.

What Oprah always calls the next best move in your life.

Basically what I am offering to you all today is I'm going to go through a really kind of no bullshit and I won't keep cussing,

But just like no very practical approach to how you can transition to yourself and to somebody who tries to meditate from somebody who wants to meditate for somebody who like,

Oh,

I meditate sometimes,

But then I don't meditate sometimes and I can't get my mind to stop thinking and I should feel like I should meditate and I know it's good,

But I don't really do it.

Raise your hand if that's you.

It's okay.

I know it's most of us,

Right?

But to how to transition from being that way into being somebody who has an actual meditation practice that you can stick with because this practice hands down will change your life if you're doing it right and if you're doing the right kind of practice.

The way that I got into meditation is usually shocks people to be honest with you because the truth is when I tell people that I'm a musician,

They see me,

Say a little black dude,

Right?

I'm like,

I'm a musician and they're like,

Okay,

That makes sense.

Then they usually ask me,

Well,

Are you a dancer?

I tell them,

No,

I'm not a dancer,

But I like dancing.

Then when I tell them,

Well,

I'm also an author and a meditation teacher,

People usually,

If they're being polite,

They will lean into me and they'll be like,

Well,

How'd you get into that?

If they're being a little bit more blunt about it all,

Quite frankly,

They'll say,

Well,

You don't look like a meditation teacher.

I get why.

Here's a really great example.

The idea of having a black queer man teaching meditation,

Thankfully it's becoming a little bit more common.

A decade ago when I started this,

I'm a little older than I look,

Y'all,

I know,

The black don't crack.

I'm just kidding.

The way that I started this is what you wouldn't expect.

To prove this point,

It was interesting.

When I got on my book tour,

The first stop that I made on my book tour,

Which was so amazing before it got stopped because of COVID,

Was actually at Google's headquarters.

It wasn't the headquarters,

Google in San Francisco.

Right before I was getting ready to go speak at Google,

I had this thought.

I said,

Huh,

I wonder if I Google the word meditation,

How long it will take me to go through the Google image search results.

When you click Google and go images and you see all the pictures,

How many pages of search results it would take me to find a black man meditating.

The folk woman is here laughing because she know,

Right?

She's a black meditation teacher as well.

I do this Google search typing in meditation and before I see a black man meditating,

I see this.

Now,

It's cute,

Right?

It's cute.

It's wonderful that,

You know,

This is such a cute picture.

We love dogs,

You know,

But it is sad and quite frankly not okay that it is more likely for this dog to be meditating than for me to be teaching meditation,

Okay?

And it just shows the propaganda that has happened in this world that has made these practices feel like there's something that's not for us.

And so I want to say something right now that is very direct,

Okay?

And I'm going to say it shamelessly because it's the truth.

All of these practices from astrology and tarot and crystals and meditation and mind,

All of these practices come from indigenous people and people of color.

Originally,

Every single one of these spiritual practices,

Okay?

And what's happened as we've seen the colonization of our wellness practices in the West is what's happened is the practices have become demonized over time,

Corporatized,

Colonized,

And then sold back to us in a way that we feel like,

Oh,

Well that ain't for us.

That ain't for us.

I don't do that shit.

Only white people do that.

You know what I mean?

Like this is what I grew up hearing and everybody has their own reasons why they feel like it's not for them.

It's only for these woo-woo people.

It's only for this people.

It's only for that.

And so I'll tell you all a story that actually did not make it into my book.

It's one of the stories that I wish was in my book but had to get removed because of space and this is a really big one.

So the way that I got into meditation is not like most of you would expect.

So what actually happened is I,

So most of you know that I grew up in a home with gunshot holes on the outside of my house.

With domestic violence and trauma and emotional abuse and watching physical abuse and just a lot growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

A lot of things that kids are facing today.

And one of the things that they're calling it now is instead of calling it post-traumatic stress disorder,

PTSD,

It's present traumatic stress disorder because the kids are just facing it day after day after day.

This is why I dedicate so much time to teaching mindfulness to youth because it helps promote post-traumatic growth,

Which we talked about in our last session last week.

And so as a kid,

You know,

Anytime that you grew up with that kind of trauma,

You learn to adapt.

And my adaptation was to try to become an overachiever because the way that you get out of that environment is usually one of three ways.

You either sell drugs,

Didn't do that,

Play sports.

My mom's on here.

She'll tell you I was terrible at sports.

She probably won't tell you because she'll try to think I was good.

I was not good.

I was on the bench always.

You know,

You're not good if your dad is the coach and you're still on the bench.

So I was not good at sports.

So that wasn't going to be the one.

And then it's academics.

And so I choose to be a,

Chose to be an overachiever.

And I don't know about any of you all out there,

If you relate to this,

But does anybody have that feeling when you become a chronic overachiever?

What happens is your success and your accomplishments get tied with your self worth.

And so for me,

I checked every single box that there is to check on the list.

Okay.

And so for me,

I checked every box there was to check to try to live my life based on what I thought everyone else wanted me to do,

Wanted me to be so that I could be loved so that I could be successful so that I could be validated and approved.

And so I graduated the top of my class in high school.

I get a full ride academic scholarship to go to UCLA.

I was president of my class.

I gave the graduation speech at high school.

I was that dude.

Okay.

Everything.

And the one thing I didn't get was I was not homecoming King.

I was second place and I was pissed.

Okay.

I got runner up.

And so that kind of overachiever.

And so I get to UCLA.

I have all this extra money for the first time in my life because I gotten so many scholarships from applying to every scholarship in the world.

I'm living in this ritzy neighborhood in Westwood.

I'm out of the closet for the first time.

I have my first boyfriend.

I'm going out in West Hollywood.

I'm living wild and free.

And the thing was on the outside,

My life looked exactly like I had always dreamed of when I was a kid.

When I was 16,

I went to LA for the first time when I was 16 to visit colleges.

It was the first thing I did when I got my license,

Went with a few friends on a road trip.

I said,

I'm going to live here and this is what I'm going to do.

And so there was the moment where I'm sitting in the life I had always solved for myself.

And I had this moment where I said,

I'm still miserable.

Why am I still miserable?

I think we all have these things.

We try to change our external circumstances.

And this was my biggest first lesson on this,

Trying to change our external circumstances,

Our job,

Our relationship,

Our money,

Our hair,

Our body,

Our whatever.

We try to change on the external hoping that it's going to change something within.

But we have to learn over and over that that's not how it works.

This is why we started this whole thing at the kingdom with the power of being.

This is such a trip,

You guys.

So I have to just tell you,

If you hear this noise in the background,

I've never seen this in my life.

I'm in Los Angeles right now in West Hollywood.

And there is a huge flock of wild parrots flying around,

Green and red parrots.

Like it's a trip.

I don't know what's going on if they got away.

But if you hear this like crazy noise in the background,

That's what's happening.

So anyways,

Back to the story.

The situation for me was that I realized I was still miserable and it got me depressed.

I just went,

You know,

Spiral down into depression.

And I ended up getting an eating disorder.

And I weighed,

I think I've told many of you this,

That like right now I weigh about 160 pounds.

I'm 5'11,

6 feet with the curls.

And my lowest in college was 115 pounds.

And I had this moment where I went to a therapist and the therapist said,

You should try meditation.

And I'm literally like,

Meta what?

Like you have to recognize this is 15 years ago.

Okay.

15 years ago,

I didn't know any black people meditating.

Oprah had not done a meditation challenge.

I didn't know.

I literally said to him,

I said,

Meditate,

Isn't that worshiping the devil?

That's like literally what I said.

And he'd know and he tells me and whatever.

And so I'm telling you this whole story because I think a lot of us find our ways to meditation into mindfulness,

Into these personal growth practices in some really funky ways.

And so for me,

What happened in that moment was I said,

Okay,

I'm going to try this.

So I start going to try to take these meditation classes and I'm in there like,

This is stupid.

I can't stop thinking,

What are they talking about?

They over here trying to get me,

Imagine a river and imagine you're floating down a river and then you get in a boat and you get in the boat and the sun is setting and I'm sitting here like,

I don't even see no river.

All I see,

All I'm trying to do,

I'm just thinking about lunch and sex,

Literally.

Like my brain is just like going through my to-do list.

I'm like,

This is stupid.

I'm over it.

And then this moment happened.

This celebration moment happened that actually changed the trajectory of my entire life.

And this is a part that didn't make the book that I think you'll all really appreciate because we all have these moments in our lives.

I want you to think of these moments in your life where you've had a big change.

So I get invited to this party by my friend,

Christy.

And Christy is here on the call today.

She's been my friend for years and she's like,

Hey,

Will you come with me to this party because I don't want to go alone.

And you know,

When you go to a party with a friend,

People you don't know,

You know,

And I go to the party and I sit down in the party and I have this glass of wine when I used to drink and I sit down in this chair all by myself because I didn't really know anybody and this older gentleman sits next to me.

So I want to give you all the scene.

OK,

I was fresh out the closet.

I think I had my hair.

I had a ponytail.

I had my eyebrows snatched.

I was wearing a deep V-neck American Apparel T-shirt that I think was highlighter pink and tight jeans.

OK.

And I'm sitting next to this older white gentleman that's in his 60s.

Definitely crunchy,

You know,

Cargo shorts,

Baby Crocs when they weren't cool,

You know,

And some kind of a T-shirt.

And I'm sitting next to this older man and he leans into me and he goes,

Hey,

Young man,

How was your day?

And I go,

Well,

It was good,

I said,

But I tried to go to this meditation thing and I lean into him and I said,

Have you ever heard about meditation?

Now little did I know I was sitting next to as the universe would have it.

I was sitting next to one of the world's most renowned meditation teachers and scholars named Lauren Roche.

He wrote Meditation Made Easy,

Meditation Secrets for Women,

The Radiant Sutras.

He's literally been teaching for 50 years.

And here's my little ass sitting next to him saying,

Have you ever heard about meditation?

Can you imagine?

And so I'm sitting next to him and I start,

He starts asking me questions.

And the thing that was really interesting was in that moment,

He did not let me on to the fact that he was a teacher.

He didn't say anything about him being a teacher.

He just started asking me questions.

And he started saying,

Why are you into meditation?

Why are you interested in this practice?

And I said,

Well,

Because I told him about how I grew up.

I told him about my eating disorder.

I told him about my childhood.

I told him about the gunshot holes.

I told him that I had tried to do everything to be happy and nothing was working.

And so at the end of the night,

He rips out a piece of paper off the edge of his notebook and writes his name,

Lauren,

And his phone number.

And he hands it to me and he says,

All right,

Young man,

If you want to learn to meditate,

Here's my number.

I want you to meet me in Santa Monica at the end of Ocean Park Boulevard at the beach tomorrow at 10 45 a.

M.

And he hands me this piece of paper.

And I'm thinking this old man is trying to pick me up.

Literally I'm like,

I'm going to meditate at the beach with you alone at 10 45.

My mom taught me better than that.

I'm not going to the beach with you.

Like that's what I'm thinking.

Right.

And I'm like,

OK.

So then I go to Christie who's here and I tell Christie,

Look,

This old man tried to pick me up and she tells me who he is.

Obviously,

I go to the beach the next day and my life changed forever that instant forever that day.

Life changed forever.

And I sat down at the beach.

And in that moment,

Lauren walked me through a meditation practice that for the first time in my life,

I saw a future where my possibilities were bigger than my circumstances.

A future where my possibility felt in my body more real than the truth of my circumstances.

And this is what faith really is all about.

And I'm going to guide you through that very same practice that Lauren did with me on the beach that day.

And so that's we're going to do today.

And so what happened that day is Lauren basically says,

All right,

Kid,

I'm going to I want you to try this practice every day for two weeks.

And I want you to text me and call me and check in with me every day.

And if this practice works for you,

I'll teach you everything I know.

And I'm looking at him like,

What?

Why?

I'm still thinking,

What's this white man want?

What does he want?

You know,

Is what I'm thinking.

And so I asked him,

I just felt like,

Why?

And he says this,

Which I'll never forget.

He said,

In all of my 3040 years of teaching meditation,

I have never come across someone who looks like you,

Who's gone through what you've gone through,

Who's been interested in this practice.

And I think one day,

There's going to be people who need to hear your voice,

Who don't need to hear mine.

Never forget that.

And I looked at him because I was a smart ass little young kid,

I just said,

No pressure.

It was like,

No pressure.

But everything changed forever,

Then.

Okay.

And we,

I practiced every day,

Lauren ended up taking me under his wing,

I apprenticed with him,

Traveled with him.

And here we are.

And so grateful that because of Lauren,

Quite literally,

Because of Lauren,

It would have never ever,

Ever happened without him.

I put out my first book in February.

And that's how this all came about.

He even introduced me to the publisher,

Stay Woke,

Which has all the practices.

Many of you have the book for anxiety and stress and trouble sleeping and self-love and confidence and focus and intuition and social justice and change.

And you know,

The thing is about this book,

That's really important.

And about Lauren saying there's going to be a moment when someone needs to hear your voice who doesn't need to hear mine is super important because the questions that I was able to ask based on the trauma and based upon my life experience were completely different than the questions Lauren was able to ask.

Because I started asking,

How does meditation apply when you don't have time,

When you don't got money,

When you're stretched too thin,

When you got three kids and you're working two jobs,

How does it meditation apply to our addictions with things like alcohol and porn and eating disorders and meaningless sex and the need for validation?

How does meditation help us accomplish our purpose and step into the fullness and the truth of who we really are?

That's why I meditate,

Not to relax,

Not to be Zen,

But to help us become more of the full essential nature of who we are to help us become more alive.

That's all of my work is here to do that.

That was the message my Baka passed on to me when she passed away,

To help me fully become alive.

That's the message Lauren helped me with as I learned to meditate.

And that is why I meditate with you all.

So anyway,

Let's get in.

So what we're going to do today,

Okay,

Is we are going to do a practice together,

The same practice I did with Lauren that day on the beach,

Right?

And then right before that,

I'm going to break down a couple of myths that we have about meditation that I want you all to remember to make sure that meditation is something that you can actually do.

And you're not doing the things that are a myth about meditation that people have taught us that are just quite frankly not true.

All right.

So first and foremost,

We're going to talk about this,

And then we're going to get into our practice.

What meditation is not?

What meditation is not?

Now I'm going to go through a few points,

And I want you to listen to me very closely.

And at the end of this,

Before we do our practice,

We're going to do the golden nugget so that you can make sure you remember at least one thing from this.

What meditation is not?

Meditation is not about getting your mind to stop thinking.

I repeat,

Meditation is not about getting your mind to stop thinking.

This is one of the biggest myths about meditation at all.

It's not the truth.

The idea of getting your mind to stop thinking to meditate would be like me saying like this.

All right,

Y'all.

We're about to meditate.

I want everybody to get your heart to stop beating.

Ready?

Three,

Stop your hearts.

That sounds stupid,

Right?

The same thing is just as stupid to try to say you get your mind to stop thinking.

And I'm not saying this to be offensive to any other traditions or any other things,

But quite frankly,

Even if you're somebody who thought you got your mind to stop thinking,

Even if you thought you did it for a second,

What was that?

A thought.

Just the thought that you got your mind to stop thinking is a thought.

Your mind doesn't stop thinking.

The mind is billions of neurons smashing together,

Poof,

A system that is much smarter than this conscious brain that we have.

What I believe is that we don't actually really even want to get our minds to stop thinking.

We've been told that's what we're supposed to want,

But that's not what we want.

Like I said last week,

The mind can read and hear 800 words a minute.

The mind is chilling thinking.

What we actually want is for our thoughts to start working for us instead of against us.

That's what we want in meditation.

That's what we actually want.

We've been told that we want to get our minds to stop.

No,

You don't.

Thoughts are how you get ideas.

Thoughts are how you grow.

If you couldn't think during your meditation practice,

Then you would never be able to even get the lessons,

Hear the whispers,

Get the messages,

Get the creative ideas,

Because guess what?

They're going to come to you in the form of a thought.

If you're pushing down your thought,

You're pushing down the whole purpose,

Which is to connect into the message and the wisdom of your higher power.

Obviously,

Sometimes those messages come in through your body or through feeling,

But the only way they can manifest in the physical form is through a thought.

Number one,

Meditation is not about getting your mind to stop thinking.

Number two,

Meditation is not concentration.

This is a big one.

Concentration and meditation are two different things.

There are concentrative styles of meditation,

And there are so many styles of meditation,

And some of them are great,

Some of them are good to play with sometimes,

But here's the real truth.

I said this in my book,

And I remember my publisher was like,

You sure you want to say that?

I said,

Does it feel true?

They said yes,

So I'm saying it is this.

The reason why most of us have trouble concentrating in meditation is because we're trying to concentrate on shit that's boring.

We're trying to concentrate on boring stuff.

We don't need more practice concentrating.

Everybody be like,

I have ADD.

I know some people do have ADD,

And I honor that,

But everyone's like,

I can't concentrate.

Yes,

You can.

If you think about this,

You could be in the middle of a shopping center,

In the middle of driving,

In the middle of a conversation,

Your phone rings,

And it's somebody that you want to talk to.

You're instantly gone from everywhere in your environment,

And you are concentrated immediately in the moment.

We do not have trouble concentrating on things that we like,

But our minds don't like concentrating on things that are boring.

I don't care how long you meditate or how spiritual you are,

Focusing on your breath or a candle flame or a flower or whatever after a certain period of time is going to be boring,

And then you're going to have trouble meditating.

This is the truth.

It's real,

And this is why so many of us have trouble meditating.

What we have to learn how to do in our practice,

And I'm going to guide you through this today.

This is what Lauren did with me,

Is to learn how to meditate with something that we love.

Meditate with something that we like,

That we love,

That we care about.

Only the way to do that is if the answer comes from within you.

Number three,

Meditation is not about relaxing.

I'm going to make this one nice and big,

Because this is a real one.

Meditation is not about relaxing.

What most people think is that they're only meditating right if they're relaxed.

Do you guys understand what I'm saying?

Do you all understand what I'm saying about that?

We sit down to meditate,

And we feel stressed,

Or we feel anxious,

And then we think the goal of meditation is to get ourselves to relax,

To get ourselves to be calm,

To get ourselves to be peaceful.

It's not true.

I'm keeping this on the screen because it's super important.

Meditation is not about relaxing.

The goal of meditation is not peace.

The goal of meditation is not to relax.

The goal of meditation,

Or at least one of them,

Is to become more alive.

To become more alive,

That means you have to feel more.

To feel more,

That means you have to be able to paint with the full canvas of your entire emotional wheel.

Here's what usually happens.

I'm just going to keep it super real with you.

We all have so much practice pushing things down in our lives.

When we push things down,

We push down our pain.

We push down our trauma.

We push down the conversations that we feel like we're not ready to have.

We push down all these things thinking that if we just push them down,

That they're going to go away,

Or we just ignore them,

Or we've moved beyond them,

Or we've forgiven them.

When you push stuff down,

It just ends up seeping out toxically into your life in all these places it doesn't belong.

It causes you stress.

You end up like an egg shell,

Super fragile.

One little thing happens,

And boom,

You're freaking out and broken over because we have no resilience.

What meditation is here to do is not to help you feel good.

Meditation is here to help you feel,

Period.

Please hear me when I'm saying that.

Meditation is not here to help you feel good.

It's here to help you feel,

Period.

You have to learn in your practice to welcome the joy and the pain.

The celebration and the sorrow.

Because once we can learn to feel all of that,

We gain practice at being able to become more alive,

To feel into the full capacity of how dynamic this life can be.

Sometimes it doesn't feel good,

But we learn to not demonize when it doesn't feel good and let it pass through us.

Finally,

I want to talk about the difference between meditation,

Practicing meditation,

And practicing mindfulness.

This is important because I'll give you the true story.

The reason the words meditation and mindfulness get changed and swapped so much right now is because in a lot of schools and a lot of institutions and a lot of places,

You can't say meditation because people think that it's Buddhist or people think that it's religious and they think that it's Buddhist or that it's religious and you can't go in,

So they just start calling it mindfulness.

There's a difference,

An important distinction between practicing meditation and practicing mindfulness.

Practicing mindfulness is about bringing your attention to something.

It's about practicing the art of awareness and attention while doing something.

That thing that you do could be meditation,

But it could also be,

Like I mentioned in my book,

It could be frying chicken.

You could be mindfully frying chicken.

I am mindfully giving this talk right now,

This sermon,

As some of you were calling it.

You can mindfully write.

You can mindfully run.

You can mindfully do a lot of stuff,

And it brings you into a meditative-like state.

Practicing meditation is different.

Practicing meditation is about being mindful with you,

With what's happening inside of you,

With that connection to spirit,

Intentionally practicing doing nothing but being with you.

So many of us are running away from being with ourselves.

If we can't be with ourselves,

How the hell can we ever expect to know who we really are?

Mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing.

Mindfulness can be practiced through meditation,

But meditation is about being with you alone so that you can get to know the true essence of who you really are.

I know it's hard.

I know it's hard,

But if we just are practicing meditation while we're doing all these things,

People say,

We're running as my meditation and painting as my meditation.

We just fall deeper in love with the act of doing.

I want you to fall in love with you and with spirit.

All right?

Before we get into our practice,

Which we'll get into now in just a second,

I want you to think of what your golden nugget is for this session.

We're doing this a little early so that you can have it with you for the practice,

Doing a little earlier than we normally do.

Go ahead and place your hands over your heart for a moment.

Close your eyes.

I know there's a lot of energy moving.

I want you to think of,

Out of everything that I just talked about,

What is one thing that you want to commit into your long-term memory and pass on to those that you love?

One thing.

Just pick one.

I know there's a lot.

Pick one that is the most important for you that you've learned so far today.

Think of it for about 30 seconds to commit it into your long-term memory.

Think about it again if your mind started to wander.

Let's begin our practice.

As we get ready to jump into this practice,

Here's what I want to tell you.

If you're somebody who thinks you have trouble meditating,

If you can worry,

You can meditate.

This is all artwork that Victoria Casanova did for the book.

She's also who did the flag for the Ending Racism article that many of you have seen.

If you can worry,

You can meditate.

That's because worrying and meditation work the exact same way.

They work exactly the same way.

When you worry,

What happens?

You come back to some negative thought over and over and over.

When we meditate,

We're doing the same thing,

Except we're flipping the switch from worrying to empowerment,

From worry to empowerment.

Let's begin our practice.

We're going to do a meditation.

Sarathi,

I'll invite you in to play for this whole practice.

Allison,

You're also invited in if you'd like,

And there's no pressure on that at all.

I'd like you to first start by getting extremely comfortable.

Getting extremely comfortable.

By extremely comfortable,

I don't suggest that you lay down.

You should stay sitting in some way.

If you need to sit on the floor and put your back up against the wall or get on your bed or slouch or crouch,

Just get super cozy.

I'm going to guide you through the same practice I did with Lauren,

And I call it the dream bigger practice.

I'd like us to actually start with your eyes open.

I want you to look at something across from you.

It could be the picture on the screen.

It could be anything in your space,

A spot on the wall,

Something outside your window.

Just look at something straight in front of you that's not moving and focus your eyes straight on this one point.

Try to look straight at this point without moving your eyes at all.

Keeping your eyes focused on one point,

It doesn't have to be any special point.

Again,

It could just be a spot on the wall.

Just keep your eyes focused there.

I want you to start to expand your peripheral awareness.

Expand your peripheral vision.

Notice as you expand your peripheral vision without moving your eyes,

How far to the right of you you can see without moving your eyes.

Notice how far to the left of you you can see without moving your eyes and how far above and below you you can see all without moving your eyes.

You're keeping your eyes focused on a point and expanding your vision.

Notice how many lights you can take in and how many textures and how many colors you can see in the 360 view,

180 view or more of your space.

I want you to notice that what we're doing with our eyes right now is the same thing that you're invited to do with your mind when you meditate.

Notice we're focusing on a point and we're welcoming in what surrounds us.

Just like you're focusing on a point with your eyes and you're welcoming in colors and textures and light,

The full aliveness of your environment,

In our minds we focus on a point or our voice or our breath or a mantra or whatever it is that we're focusing on in our practice.

Just like we welcome in the colors and textures,

We welcome in our thoughts and our feelings and our sensations and our emotions and the full aliveness of our being,

Of our beingness into this practice.

With all of that in mind,

Go ahead and place your hands over your heart if you'd like.

If you feel comfortable,

I invite you to close your eyes.

If you don't want to close your eyes,

You can keep them open but just keep a soft gaze kind of like when you let your vision blur a little bit,

Just gazing off into the distance,

Softening your eyes so that you can turn your awareness inward and not get distracted by what's around you.

Let's begin.

I'm going to invite you to breathe with me here and we're going to do what's called a three count breath.

You'll inhale for three as deeply as you possibly can through your nose if you can and then you'll hold the breath for three and then exhale for three.

If you can't breathe through your nose,

You can breathe through your mouth,

That's okay but just purse your lips kind of like you're sucking through a straw to limit the airflow if you're going to breathe through your mouth.

Ready?

Inhale one,

Two,

Three.

Hold for one,

Two,

Three.

Exhale one,

Two,

Three.

Great.

Let's do that again.

Inhale one,

Two,

Three.

Hold for one,

Two,

Three.

Exhale one,

Two,

Three.

One more time.

See if you can breathe even more deeply.

Inhale one,

Two,

Three.

Hold for one,

Two,

Three.

Exhale one,

Two,

Three.

Now just breathe normally.

I'm going to invite you into an imaginative practice,

A short visualization.

I want you to remember that as we're visualizing that some people visualize with their eyes,

Meaning you see things in your mind,

You see pictures in your mind.

We talked about this with Brenda.

Some of us don't visualize with visions,

With images at all.

Some of us visualize with sound or with feeling in our bodies or with taste or with touch or with emotions or with smell.

Welcome all of that to your practice.

As I'm asking you to imagine,

Remember,

Even if you're getting fuzzy or incomplete images,

You're not doing it wrong.

Just notice what you notice.

Let's begin.

I want you to imagine a future version of yourself who is living the life of your dreams.

In this vision,

You have the body you've always wanted.

You look the way you've always wanted.

You live where you've always wanted.

You have the money you've always wanted.

You're in the relationships you've always wanted.

Everything is exactly how you've always wanted and dreamed of.

If this feels impossible,

Good.

Because if we can't think beyond our current circumstances,

We'll never be able to live beyond them.

Let yourself go there.

Notice in this vision,

Are you indoor or are you outdoor?

What color are you wearing in the vision?

Is there anybody there with you in the vision or not?

Do you smell anything?

Do you taste anything or not?

Do you hear anything?

Do you feel any sensation on your body,

A temperature?

Maybe you're touching something.

Notice what kind of environment you're in.

And most importantly,

Notice how this future you feels.

How do they feel to be living the life of your dreams?

And what's happening in this vision that indicates to you that you are indeed living the life of your dreams?

What's happening?

What's happening or is about to happen or happening?

And take a moment now and let the vision expand.

Look around you in the vision and notice if you see anything new or hear anything new.

Even if you see new things in the environment,

Even if they're incomplete or you just get a little glimpse,

Just notice what you notice,

Colors,

Flashes.

Take a circle 360 view around you in the vision.

What do you notice?

And now I'm going to ask you a question.

And I want you to answer this question using one,

Two,

Or three words as you stay in the sacred space of your vision.

Here's your question.

As you look at this future version of you who is living the life of your dreams,

What energy do you need to cultivate more of in your life now,

Today,

To become closer to being that person that you're seeing in your vision?

I'll ask it again,

One,

Two,

Or three words,

Trust what arises first.

What energy do you need to cultivate in your life now?

What do you need more of to become the person that you see in your vision today?

Now whatever word or words you landed on,

It doesn't have to be three words.

It could be one,

Two,

Or three.

Any words are allowed.

I want you to imagine if those words were a color or a texture.

And on your own count with every breath,

I want you to imagine that you're inhaling the energy of these words and imagine the energy of the words literally covering every crevice of your inner and outer body,

Like you're taking a bath in it,

Like you're taking a shower in it,

Like you're healing yourself in it.

On every inhale,

Breathing it in endlessly as it replenishes itself.

There's enough to go around.

And on every exhale,

Imagine you're sending that same energy back out into the world to everyone who needs it.

There's so many people who need this energy.

And so on the inhale,

We're healing,

Covering ourselves,

And receiving from the universe.

And on the exhale,

We're sending that energy back out.

You might repeat your words in your mind as you do it.

You might not repeat the words at all.

You might just see a color or a sensation.

For the next three breaths on your own,

Before we close,

Just breathe deeply with this and let it fill you up fully.

I'm going to be silent and take three full deep breaths,

Pausing at the top,

Just like we started,

And slow exhales with your energy.

Go ahead and begin now.

Three deep breaths.

And go ahead and take a deep breath in and a deep breath out.

When you're ready,

Keeping yourself in this silent,

Still space,

I invite you to bring yourself back.

You might wiggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes.

So here's what's really important.

I want to describe to you why this practice is so powerful and why this is so important.

Because as we are learning to decolonize our wellness practices,

What we're learning to do is to recognize that we have a direct connection to spirit,

To God,

To the universe,

To all that is,

And to our higher power.

And so often in our practices,

What we're taught to do is to look outside of ourselves to find out what we are supposed to need to be better or to heal.

And so what we need to remember,

As you saw today,

Is that you know what you need.

You said it right here in the chat box.

You know what you need.

You need contentment and love and inspiration and joy and sparkly light and decisiveness and all the things that you brought up.

And so the way that we transition into getting into the connection with God,

With spirit,

Is meditating on what He or what she or what that divine force is giving to us from within.

Because it's by cultivating that energy that you are going to step into the fullness and the greatness that is your life.

And so this doesn't mean that you don't use an app to sometimes get something from the outside.

This doesn't mean that you don't follow teachers.

This doesn't mean that you don't get advice and learn.

But it means that ultimately the answers come from within you.

And when I talked earlier about having a practice that you can sustain for life,

It can't be from an app.

It can't be from a book.

It can't be from a guru or a teacher.

It has to be from within you.

It has to be connected to God.

It has to be connected to spirit.

It has to be connected into that place within you that is unshakable and immovable.

That you can always come back to yourself because there's no need for there to be a medium between you and your connection to spirit.

And so these words that you created today,

Remember earlier I said that meditation is boring and we have trouble concentrating because we're trying to concentrate on stuff that we don't care about.

But if you are,

What you did today is you created words that are things that you care about,

You know they're important to you.

And so what I invite you to do is to meditate with those things.

And this leads me to our power action today.

And the power action today,

Putting this up on the screen for you moving forward,

Is to meditate with what it was that came up for you today.

Even five minutes,

The science actually shows that it just takes 12 minutes,

12 minutes to get the benefits of meditation.

So you get your phone,

Put your timer on for 12 minutes,

13 if you're feeling frisky,

And meditate with your words.

And you are all doing it so right.

Did you see how powerful it was that some of you connected with the words?

Some of you connected with the colors.

You saw electric blue,

Pink,

Glitter.

Some of you connected with the feeling.

Some of you connected with the sound.

And so it's not about the words.

The words don't matter.

But it's about what the words represent and how what that represents is helping you cultivate what you need in your own life.

And this is how you change.

This is how you transform at the level of being.

And so just to be very clear,

Here's your power action.

Even just once this week on your own,

If you do it every day,

Even better.

Even just once this week on your own,

Go into your practice.

Timer on your phone for 12 minutes,

13 if you want to go a little further.

First,

Get comfortable.

Second,

Take a few deep breaths.

And third,

Call in that mantra.

That's what you created today,

Your own mantra.

Call in that energy.

And remember,

It's going to be different next time you do it.

You're not going to have me.

You're not going to have Sarathi.

You're not going to have the music.

You're going to be in a different moment in your life.

You won't have an hour of teaching pulling you in this beautiful space of all of us together.

So you might feel anxious.

You might feel sad.

And let me tell you the truth of what happens.

This is going to be the last thing that I'm going to share in our teaching today is that when some of you say that your words are trust,

For example,

What might come up in your mind,

In your meditation practice?

Remember like we did with our eyes,

We welcome in everything.

What might come up in your mind,

Yes,

Might be all the ways that you feel like you're building more trust in your life.

But what might also come up in your meditation is all the ways that you're not trusting yourself.

Is all the people in your life who you don't trust.

Is all the ways that you've betrayed your trust.

And this is not coming up to break you down.

It's coming up to heal you.

It's coming up to be released.

It's coming up for awareness so that sometimes you have to do something about it.

If you see something keeps coming up over and over and over in your meditation practice,

Then that's coming up not to break you down.

It's coming up to show you to say,

I'm knocking on you.

Hey,

Girl.

Hey.

Hey,

Boo.

Help.

We got to do something about this.

That's why it's coming up.

And this is how meditation changes our lives.

So now you know what to bring with you to therapy.

You know what books to read.

You know what podcasts to listen to because you know what you need to change in your own life.

This is how it all weaves together into the transformation of our own life.

Is this making sense,

All of you?

Please let me know if this is making sense.

And it's an evolution.

It'll evolve and it'll grow with you.

The number one thing is that you have to commit.

I love you all.

I love you all so much.

This is such a special time that we get to be together.

And I'm so grateful that in this session we get to focus on the power of meditation.

And I want to thank Allison for blessing us today.

Blessing us,

Allison.

Thank you so much.

This is so beautiful with this violin and sarathi for blessing us with the music.

And so y'all can keep playing and we're going to close out with our closing prayer.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been,

All that ever will be,

We thank you.

We thank you for bringing this community together from all across the world that we may spread ripples of love to all of those who need.

And may this feelings of transformation and growth and the tears that were shed today and the joy and the smiles that are on our faces spread out to everyone who needs us today.

May the first thing that we do after the kingdom today be something that brings us joy and fills us up.

May the first thing that we do after the kingdom today be something that brings us joy and fills us up.

And may we remember to share our golden nugget and something with someone we love so we can spread these messages far and wide.

May we all be happy.

May we all be free.

May we all find peace.

I love you.

I thank you.

I honor you.

God spirit universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been.

We thank you.

So it is,

Thank you.

I love you all.

And remember,

All of this is about the internal work that we all must do to make our external worlds show up differently.

I love you.

And Sarti and Alison will play us out.

To close.

I love you.

I hope you enjoyed this session of the kingdom.

One of the best things that you can do right now is share this session with somebody that you love.

It is only by each of us sharing inspiration in the corners of the world that only we can reach that we will rise together.

Thank you so much for joining me for this session of the kingdom.

I'll see you in the next one.

Reviews

Today was the 3rd time listening to this talk and I finally made it to the meditation as well 😁 Thanks so much for sharing your way into meditation, Justin 🙏🏼 Love the story and laughed - and cried - so much hearing it ✨