Ep #73: Integrative Healing Meditation

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Hey there, and welcome back to the show. I’m feeling a little frisky because I’m getting out of the house this weekend. I am going to Toledo Bend, going to go outside with my friend and get some joyful nature walks and hopefully sit by the water and have some good healthy food, and amazing conversation. So I’m excited, I feel like it’s the back to the good old days when I used to record before I would head out for trips. It’s been so long since I’ve done that.

Alright, so I have some goodies for you today. We’re going to do something a little bit different. So I’m going to introduce to you an integrative healing meditation. I have been doing this with my group in the mornings and teaching in a meditation practice. And it is such amazing healing that comes through this process, it’s really simple.

And I find that meditation kind of has a bad rap. So many people say, “Meditation is hard. I can’t quiet my mind. I’m bored and frustrated. I can’t sit still. It’s uncomfortable. My mind just wanders all over the place, I can’t control it, I can’t stop it.” That is what I hear. But this is a simple approach to release stress, process emotions, ease pain, and allow self-healing on a deep cellular level. And regular practice will result in ease, calm and a joyful sense of being in your body and mind. What? How does that sound?

Alright, I hope you’re going to stick around for this one. So here’s the problem, we westerners are trying to force our way into meditation the way we do everything else. We’re doing it wrong. We’re doing it from a logical approach. We’re trying to mindset our way to results, force, white knuckle, suffer through the no pain, no gain mentality, like making ourself sit still, turn the thoughts off, you need to go away. And that is not working, that is actually not even meditation. News alert.

Alright, so I have a solution for you. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be hard. There’s a way to do it with less effort and you actually get better results. So stick around if you want to know how to create this calm ease and internal joy in your life. What? That’s giving it a lot of credit. But, guys, truly believe so much in this process. I have been doing it for years and I’ve just recently dialed it in and brought it down to this really simple basic process, so here we go.

Let’s talk about why is it hard. It’s because it’s uncomfortable. We don’t know how to handle the sensations in our body, so we want to escape, avoid, run, hide.

Reason number two, because it’s a habit, it’s all we know. We’re literally breaking the habit of being ourselves. And the way we break the habit is through change and repetition of that change. So we do things differently consistently.

The third reason why it’s hard, we don’t understand. We don’t have the awareness and we don’t have the tools to do it differently. That’s it. Those are the three reasons why meditation is hard. So I’m going to take you through the actual practice in this episode. And I’m going to invite you to come and do it with me in person.

So what’s happening is the stress is being released from years, decades of unprocessed, unintegrated and unresolved unfelt pain, anger, rage, disappointment and grief. So that’s a lot of un words in one sentence. So what I mean by that is there is built up stress in our body. We have unresolved issues in our tissues, we haven’t integrated experiences. And we haven’t felt this old pain, anger, rage, disappointment and grief.

So basically it’s not having the ability to feel feelings, to process emotions, and to fully experience things that have happened in our life that we didn’t know what to do. And by not having the tools the brain creates this drama, these distractions and we react. And then we have thoughts that create more sensations and then that repeats that whole cycle, that’s it, that’s all that’s going wrong.

And if you can understand why it’s happening then you have the awareness of what it is. And then you can drop the defense, not be so afraid of it, and recognize that it is just sensations in the body that’s brought on by thoughts. Now, some of the thoughts are unconscious. And so it is actually fear that is not real that is happening inside of us. But through this practice you will start to recognize those, you will become aware. And you will have a process to handle it. Now you will have the awareness, the understanding, the tools to deal so you can feel and heal. You’re welcome.

It’s such a gift. I wish I had this 30 years ago, but I actually had to experience the learning of the process in order to be able to teach it to you today. So I’m going to sit here in gratitude and humbleness and appreciation.

So here we go, get ready. I’m going to take you through the process and I’m also going to invite you to practice with me by coming over to the More Than Mindset group or if you’re not on Facebook, we’ll put the link in the show notes. And the practice is at 8:15 in the morning, Monday through Friday, Central Standard Time. So wherever you are, figure out your time, click on the link. Come in a few minutes early to get settled, okay, so that’s my invite.

So here we go, we’re first going to set up the proper conditions to prepare for a pleasant experience.

So first you’ll put away your phone, you’ll let your people know, so you’ll put away your people, your pets and your problems. Now, don’t worry, you can pick all of this back up as soon as you’re done with your meditation. But you want to set up the proper condition, so let people know, “Hey, I’m going to be doing my own thing for the next 30, 40 minutes, so please don’t disturb me. I’m going to go ahead and put the dog away, I’m going to lock the door. I’m going to turn my phone off.” So you’ve set up the proper conditions.

Then you’re going to choose a mantra, so the mantra is just an anchor to stay in presence. And presence is like the ability to return to conscious awareness. So that’s why you’re going to use a mantra. It could be something as simple as “I am safe,” “I am healthy,” “I am calm.” We use a group meditation, so if you come to meet us live then you’ll receive that there with us. But I say for today just use your own mantra, whatever you come up with or something that you have used in the past.

And in my book, I actually use, “I am here now.” And it’s just this way of bringing myself back to presence of I am here. I am here. I am safe. I am healthy. But in this particular practice you’re going to just choose one.

Now, here are the don’ts, if you can say, these are the rules. Don’t try to control your thoughts. I know that’s a big one because we’ve been taught differently, we’ve been taught to sit and not think. And that is actually going against the very nature of our mind. It’s like to spit out thoughts on a regular basis. That is what our brain does. It’s like we are a thinking machine. So by trying to shut the thoughts off it’s very unnatural and it’s going to create this resistance and that struggle. In fact it’s going to make a very unpleasant experience.

So the first thing is don’t try to control your thoughts. Don’t try to shut them down. Don’t try to figure them out, don’t follow them, don’t let them tell you stories, it’s just a noticing I am thinking, and then you will return to the mantra. Don’t try to control your breath, so you’re not counting your inhales or exhales. And don’t try to match your breath and your mantra, so you’re not connecting the breath to the mantra. You’re going to allow the breath to be what the breath is, and you’re going to allow the thoughts to be what the thoughts are.

Don’t try to control noise. So if there is a noise in the room or if something occurs around you, then you will just allow that to occur. Don’t judge or compare yourself, your thoughts, your practice, don’t judge or compare anything.

And don’t try to meditate, that’s the best one. So you’re not trying to do anything, you’re actually doing it. So the actual meditation is being in the practice of being present, of being in the experience, of watching the breath, watching the thoughts, if that’s what’s happening in the experience. When you notice that you are thinking or when you notice you are trying to control the breath, or you are in the awareness of what is happening in your environment, then you will bring yourself back to the mantra.

So that is the actual meditation practice, notice when you are no longer thinking the mantra and come back to thinking the mantra without force, without judgment, without comparing. Because we tend to do this like if it was a great meditation yesterday, then we want to – this one wasn’t so good. Or this one was so much better. But let’s just drop all of that, drop the labels, drop the even expectations, and that way you can be fully present in the actual experience of whatever it is in that moment.

So if we are trying to effort, or force, or control it then we’re not actually meditating. We’re just doing the same thing that we do in the material world. And meditation is a practice of this presence and awareness. And this ability to tap into this really ease, calm, settling, grounded, dropping down into a being state, rather than a doing state. This is not about more effort, force or trying, it’s about experiencing, allow it to be easy and effortless.

That is what makes it so hard for our minds is we live in a world, it’s totally different rules. It’s control the mind and force things and we have to white knuckle or make it hard, or really push through. But you don’t want to take the rules of the world into your meditation because it’s a different game. So it would be like taking the rules of football onto the basketball court. So see if you can recognize them as two different spaces.

So when you set up the proper conditioning, you put signs on the door, put the puppies away, put the phone away and you’re going into a different environment. And the rules in that environment change. And so these are the rules of the environment. We want to set up proper conditions in advance. So we want to solve problems ahead of time. You’re going to practice being the seer of the experience, being the watcher of the experience, and to being the witness of the experience. So you will actually be the experiencer experiencing the experience, whatever it is.

I know this sounds crazy, but I promise you, it is the best thing. You will be emailing me telling me, “Thank you.”

So imagine the thoughts are like waves in the ocean. And you see the boats passing by, or you see the waves, or you maybe see the dolphins going by, or maybe the parasail. It’s just, imagine that those things way out there are your thoughts. So if you’re on the beach and you’re watching, it’s just like this recognition, there’s a boat, there’s a parasail flying by, whatever it is. There is a person walking by, and then you come back to yourself, to your body, to your mantra, to your presence.

When you notice yourself thinking, be very gentle when you’re coming back to the mantra. So again you’re not forcing, you’re not efforting. Imagine thoughts are like gentle floating ribbons, kind of like the sailboats, just really gentle.

So I see thoughts, I’m having thoughts, just see them and then notice that the mantra is also a thought. So the boats passing by, the dolphins jumping, the ribbons of thoughts, however you choose to position that, however that works for you, you just choose one. And you’ll notice in the meditation, you might go from one to the other, and that’s okay, don’t judge it. I’m just giving you information and conditioning prior to going into it so that you have the tools.

So if the mantra is the preferred thought, I mean it’s just another thought, imagine it is the preferred thought. So you’re thinking effortlessly, by the way, this is just what your mind does, it produces thoughts. And you notice that you are thinking and so you bring yourself back to your preferred thought, which is the mantra. I am safe, or I am healthy, I am calm, whichever one you choose, just choose one and stick to it.

Imagine the mantra can ground you below the waves. So if the mantra, the preferred thought had the ability to drop you down deeper into the experience, it would be sort of like, do you know when you’re at the beach and you want to go out and float?

You have to get beyond the waves that are kicking your butt by the sand, there’s these few feet where you’re trying to walk out and it’s just like kind of constantly knocking you down. And if you tried to float there it would just keep throwing you in the sand. But if you walk out a few feet further there’s this lull, like if you had a float you would be able to just kind of put it in the water right there and it would just stay, without taking you out and without bringing you in.

So imagine the mantra being the preferred thought could keep you in that lull. So it’s that really sweet spot of effortlessness where you’re just kind of hanging out there. Now, imagine the top of the waves, the busyness of the waves and the mantra brought you down below that, right in between the waves and the bottom of the ocean. It’s almost when you’re walking in the ocean there’s actually this place of warmness.

You’ll get these pockets of warm and it’s like if I could just stay right here, there is this sweet spot. Imagine if presence can take you there, like awareness could take you there, this place of, you’re dropping below the thinking mind and into the being space.

This will be a brand new experience for some of you. So I want to give your mind some visuals so that it cannot question or not try, but yet, recognize that this is a possibility for you. So trying to find that lull, that space where you float effortlessly or you sink beneath where you drop down and it’s this very safe calm. It’s like something that you can’t make up with your mind that you have to experience fully with all parts of yourself.

So that’s it for the instructions, thoughts are normal, they’re allowed, they’re experienced. Discomfort is noticed, it’s allowed, it’s experienced. Discomfort is just sensation that appears in the body and it comes from thoughts and stress that’s being released.

Now, you’re going to close your eyes for a moment, and just notice that when you close your eyes you kind of drop beneath the waves. You’ll practice that for 30 seconds to a minute and you’ll just notice. And then I also want you to notice, set a timer for three to five minutes and notice when you close your eyes and you sit in stillness, how thoughts come effortlessly, and then you’ll just allow that.

Just noticing, you’re not trying to control anything, you’re just noticing how you don’t actually have to go and find thoughts. You don’t have to try to think, your mind just produces thoughts. And that is very natural and it comes very easily and effortlessly.

So that’s your practice. And then what I’m going to offer you is to actually pause this, set your timer for 20 minutes and sit in this stillness, in this quiet, in this mantra, presence, awareness, and just allow the experience to be whatever it is to you. So, 20 minutes.

When the timer goes off you’ll stay for another minute or two so that you can acclimate back to the environment. And by that I mean in meditation we sometimes slip into this very deep calm, and so if the timer goes off and you just try to get up and go back to the normal busy world, it can cause like uncomfortable stuff in your body. It can cause discomfort, or headaches, or just this weirdness of like, what, I’m kind of freaked out here, my body doesn’t want to move. I’m feeling really sluggish and slow. And that is really just because this sense of calmness is unfamiliar to you.

And so by doing this as a daily practice it will become more familiar. It will actually become a part of your daily life. The inner calmness, no matter what’s going on in the environment around you will be available to you.

So, again, I want to invite you to join me live where I will guide you and hold the space and we also have a discussion after each meditation, just for a few minutes. So we start at 8:15 and we’re done by 9:00. So there’s about five, ten minutes of instruction before and then we do a 20 minute meditation and then we end with, depending on how, you know, exactly what time we started, we end with 10 to 15 minutes of Q&A.

So what happens is if you’re getting this practice every day and you’re hearing more and more, you have more awareness, you have more information, and then as things come up in meditation, you have the option to ask, to inform yourself and to receive more tools. So I think it’s really important to have that experience with someone else holding the space for you, so that you’re not thinking about problems, or not thinking about what comes up for you, or you’re not wanting to cheat, to kind of get up and quit.

So that’s what I have for you today, just once the timer goes off, I want you to stay for a minute or two, acclimate back to your environment. And here’s a couple of suggestions. You may want to increase the inhale, and extend the exhale. So it would just be maybe taking deeper breaths. Maybe you want to sigh away. You could wiggle the fingers and toes. Make little circle with the wrists and ankles. Maybe reach your arms overhead, take a big stretch. Bring your arms down at your sides, maybe move your head side to side or take your chin down, shrug your shoulders.

These are all suggestions of like getting back into your present environment in the here and now, because meditation is this going into this other space, and then you have to acclimate back into the material world. And what we’re doing is we are creating a bridge between the two, and that is why I’m calling it, integrative healing. And the actual process itself, the benefits are amazing. You do this for a few times, I promise you, you will be hooked.

So know that knowledge is not power without implementation. So don’t just listen to this, actually try the practice. Transformation happens from the awareness and the practice, not from knowing more, not from knowing how, but from doing it.

And I want to just give you a little hint here, if discomfort arises while you’re in the meditation. You may feel anxiety or some stuff just kind of moving through your body. If that happens I want to give you a little bit of instruction here, you’re going to allow the urge to escape. So you’ll just gently get curious and explore and experience. And you’ll notice what you’re thinking at the time, that’s creating these sensations. And then you’ll just very easily and effortlessly come back to the mantra. Notice when you quit resisting, fighting the sensation will just ease away, it will release.

So this is years of pent up stress moving through your body as a sensation, that’s all, emotions don’t harm us. The discomfort comes from our inability to stay and feel and deal with it. And so we have just avoided it for years. And so it’s unfamiliar, that’s it. They are to be experienced, not avoided. So that’s the problem, we for years have avoided these sensations.

So if discomfort arises, allow the urge to escape and instead just stay and to get curious. Maybe you could describe it, this feels like, and you just stay there for a moment, that way you’re telling your brain, yes, I know it’s going on, I am seeing it, I am feeling it, I got it, I’m still safe, and then you come back to the mantra.

So that’s it, it’s really simple, easy, effortless. And I want to invite you, come over to the More Than Mindset group where we talk more about the self-healing modality and actually have a community where we practice and implement. And we have the support of each other to work through this journey, this self-healing journey.

Alright, my friends, that’s what I have for you this week. I really want to hear from you. I’d love to see you in the group or show up in the live practice and kind of work through this process with you. Because I think meditation gets a bad rap because we believe it’s hard, because we actually don’t know how to do it. We’ve been misinformed. And what we do is we take the rules of the material world and we bring it into our meditation practice, which is actually what’s creating all of this conflict. They are two different things.

We need the logical mind; we need the mental understanding when we’re in the material world. But when we’re in meditation, we’re actually releasing all of that and coming to this presence and stillness, and experiencing more ease, more flow, more joy. And then naturally kind of drop into this bliss, this really deep profound bliss, there is nothing like it. And once you experience it you will want more of it. Alright, that’s what I’ve got for you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More than Mindset.