Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today we're diving into the five minute Recharging for a Powerful Mind.
You know how it is, busy running around, maybe it's 2pm in the afternoon, you feel like you want to fall asleep, you can't do anything, you can't function, your brain isn't working properly.
We all have those moments.
And so you're going to learn a powerful practice to recharge your mind in a short amount of time.
Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Hello, Michael.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Hello. Hello.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: You know, have you ever had this experience where you're so tired that you completely blank out?
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: You just totally spaced out, totally can't function, can't think.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Like nothing makes any sense. The mind is just wobbling about all over the place or there's nothing there, you know?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Right. Nothing there. Nothing there. Yeah. You know, like to understand, I think this kind of mental fatigue where you're so fatigued you can't put two thoughts together.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: For me, especially at the end of the day, it really happens. Like I cannot think past like 9pm like that. No. Like none of. No work happens, right?
[00:01:28] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: I mean, I just need to sit down and. But even like I remember there were times when I was working younger where I felt it was not necessary. Right. I thought, oh, if I could get in this many hours in a day to work, then I'm being productive.
Right. That was what my thinking was at that time. It was a false belief, of course, but that's what my thinking was. If I got many hours in, then this would happen.
And several times it happened, sometimes more intense than others, where my mind just stopped.
Right? Just stopped. Like I'm like sitting in a meeting or I am trying to teach meditation and nothing's coming out because my mind is totally black and it's scary.
The first time it happened, I'm teaching meditation and suddenly it's just blanked. But also what would have happened is that day, the day that this happened, where I'm teaching meditation and it blanked. My day would have started around 3:30 in the morning.
I'm having yoga in the morning, meditation in the morning.
Then I get dressed and I get dressed enough to go teach the meditation class and I make enough food to last for me, for my breakfast, for my lunch, and then take a pair of change of clothes, then go to the meditation center, change there and teach the meditation class, then change into my workloads, then take my breakfast and everything and go to work and then have a full. Like I need to be at work at 8 o' clock from 8 to 5, have a full day.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: I'm starting to feel slightly unwell. Just, just, just getting started with this whole thing.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: I'm like, have a full day of work, then go home, take a shower, quick shower, eat something to eat. And if I don't have anything to eat, make something in that little bit of time, right?
And then get on the road again, go to the meditation center. And the class would have started at 7, right? So already my day has started at 4:30.
So the first time it happened. So the class is starting at 7. And I was fine till about half an hour into the class and half an hour into the class just blanked, right? I didn't know what to say.
Totally blank.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Was everyone just looking at you?
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they were like, they were just.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Like, is she, is she gonna say something else?
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Right?
And thankfully at that time we used to have those cassette tapes and I said, oh, and we used to have these pre recorded meditations on the cassette tapes.
And so I just played one guided.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Meditation to save the day.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Guided meditation saved the day. But I played one and it like afterwards also it didn't really help. But I mean, at least I was able to replen with that guided meditation, replenish myself. And then anyway, you know, at that point, right, those years, those couple of years, I really understood the importance of breaking that. It's not being productive. Having like a day like that is not productive. It's stupidity.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Not at all.
No. It's insane.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: It's like ridiculous.
That was my normal day. That was a normal day for me for year after year after year. That was a normal day.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not sustainable. You, how old were you around that time?
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Early 30s.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you could. So the body can sort of barely manage, but it, but that's definitely not sustainable at all.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I was in a good. But anyway, a few years after, I really started understanding, understanding the relationship between soul and brain, soul and body, brain and body, right? All of these relationships are very important to understand because if you're going to take a break, right? Why is it that we need to take a break? Because the brain itself, even if the soul is powerful, right? Let's say I'm a powerful meditator and that's fine. I'm a powerful meditator. So the soul is very powerful, but the brain also also has to help, right? The brain has to help. And then not only the brain has to help, the relationship between the brain and the body has to be good.
And also the relationship between the soul and the brain and the body have to be integrated. It can't function on its own just like that, even if it's powerful, right?
One of the things about being so conscious is you take care of things, you come into balance.
It can't be an imbalanced life and say, oh, I'm such a great meditator.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: No, no, we need all, all three. It's that we are here in the world, in a body. So there's no point pretending that's not going on. The body itself has certain needs and certain things are good for the brain and others are not good for the brain, right?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: You know, one of the things I studied since then is this how the prefrontal cortex in the brain, right, actually regulates our emotions and our decision making, all of that. The parts of the brain also regulate these things.
Not just the soul, but the brain is also doing it.
And so I feel if you go to two extremes, right, the brain is doing everything. The soul doesn't exist. Soul is just incidental. Or if you go to one extreme where the soul is doing everything, the brain is just. It's coming along, right?
Both are, I think, you know, dangerous because you need to understand this relationship really well.
So the prefrontal cortex, right? So what happens with fatigue is like when you're stressed, when you're doing this kind of work again and again and again and again and again, again, again, right?
It takes in a lot of the nutrients that you're supplying to the body, including sugars and all of that. It takes in all of those things, right? And then the fatigue starts because it doesn't have enough. Because the more stressed you get, the more it needs.
So the more you do these things, the more it needs.
So when we are taking a break, it's not just we are taking a break for the body, we are taking a break for the brain, and we are taking the break for the soul.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: It's true. We need. These breaks are absolutely critical. And I think the lack of breaks is responsible for a lot of the mental illnesses in the world, you know, because mental illness is just really a state of mind or brain state that's gone just beyond a certain threshold, you know, I mean, because I. I know I have clients of mine who, they're fine, but they. Because they didn't get enough sleep and then they worked too hard and then they still didn't get. And then they didn't eat properly and something, something, something, then they. After all that, something weird happens to their brain. That's one person. I know. And then there is some diagnosis given based on that state in that moment, you know, I mean, so if we don't take care of ourselves, we can really mess and then it's a pretty serious issue to deal with.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Right, so, right.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: So these things are like, we're not making any claims on mental health here, just to be clear, but this is stuff that can help avoid getting to the point where, where things are way out of balance and everything starts looking weird and it's completely out of control. You don't sound like you reach that point because you obviously have a meditation practice and you eat well, but if you had carried on for years and years and years and years and years and your health, you hadn't eaten well, I mean, God knows what would happen. Do you know?
[00:10:22] Speaker B: I know, right? I know, right? It was just such a recipe for disaster, really.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Just asking.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: It was a train.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: I only work full time, right? I work full time for one summer and it nearly killed me. And I, and I said to myself, never again. Like never, never, never. I think it might have been three weeks even.
So I'd wake up early in the morning, do my meditation, go to this meditation class, then I'd cycle to the, to work just in time to get there. And it was 9 to 5, not 8 to 5, so yours is even more ridiculous. Then I'd do a bunch of stuff till 5 o' clock, come back and, and I was like, what happened to my day? Right? Because I wasn't used to that. I'm like, where did it all go? And then I have to catch up with stuff, eat some stuff. Sometimes I go to teach a class or something and then this, the morning, I'm like, what? What is going on? And then it happens again and happens again, happens again. I thought, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: That's just one full time. I had two, three full time jobs.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Good lord. Good Lord. Yeah. No, this is out of control now for me. I mean, I was just like, it's a good thing. My threshold for this is way lower than yours. So I said, that's never happening again. I have to figure it out. And that was it, you know, but, and your, your tolerance level is very, very high. So.
And also, you know, you were doing service and what other choice did you have at the time?
[00:11:45] Speaker B: So I think service, right? You know, I don't mean to be racist or even nationalist here, but you grew up in the Western world.
I don't know how nice to say this, but you grew up in the Western world, right?
[00:12:04] Speaker A: I did, Yeah, I did.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: And so somehow I've noticed that people who grew up in the Western world, they have a very different sense of these things.
I grew up in India where this was normal.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah. When I go to India and I see that the people come to their shop at 5 o' clock and they go to, they leave their shop at like 12 at night, I'm like, yeah. So there's a different idea of work ethic, isn't there?
You're supposed to start work at 5 and finish at 12pm I mean, so. So like 8 to 5 is like, well, you're having an easy life then, aren't you really?
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Right. Even now, Right. Even now in corporate India, it's different from corporate America. It's very different. I've never worked in India really, but that's what I grew up with. And when you come here, you feel that are. Even though I grew up as a princess. Right. I didn't really have to work when I was in India.
Just somehow it just feels normal.
It feels.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Yes. Cultural thing.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: It's a cultural thing.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Australia is really chill.
I have someone who, who work, who lives in Australia and they're really not into it at all. And they take long summers and you know, like four o' clock, everyone's. And they're in Europe, they're trying to cut it down to four hours, four days a week work.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: So I mean, they seem to be fine, right? I mean it's each like. Now I think differently, of course. Now I think very differently. Very differently. Coming back to this, right? Coming back to this break, the break itself, the five minute break, right?
People think that, oh, I need some me time. Let me scroll. That is not a break, right? That is definitely not a break.
No part of the soul, the brain and the body, none of it is getting a break when you do that because you need to do something where all of those are getting a break.
The soul is getting a break, the brain is getting a break, the body is getting a break.
All three have to be aligned in the break.
And so there are two practices. I have several practices, but I'll just share two practices.
The one practice that really helps with this is this practice of like you're visualizing, you know, like. Can I walk you through the visualization?
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Okay, so you're visualizing a.
You're walking into a room, right? It's a beautiful room and there's a table in the center of the room and you're walking up to the table and on the table you're Placing, you're placing. If you have any worries or anxiety, you take it and place it on the table.
Now, if you have any financial difficulties, take it and place it on the table.
If you have any relationship issues, take it and place it on the table.
Any work issues that are going on, any stress with work, take it and place it on the table.
And just very gently, right? Like, let's say you keep going back, say, no, let me do it again.
Let's say you are taking and placing financial difficulties on the table. Then you're like, oh, what about this, what about that? You say, no, be very gentle, but firm with yourself and just take it and place it on the table.
Any work you have to do, any pending tasks you have to do, any roles you have to play, all of that, just take it and place it on the table.
Now walk away from it. Walk away from the table.
And as you turn your back to the table, you see light in front of you. Beautiful, welcoming light.
You're walking towards the light. And as you're walking towards the light, you're feeling lighter and lighter and lighter.
You're becoming light.
And in this instant, very gently and lovingly say to yourself, what if nothing ever happened to me?
What if no hardship, no problem, nothing happened to me.
I was just a beautiful newborn child and nothing has ever happened to me. And be in that state for the rest of the five minutes and just keep repeating this, right? Nothing has happened to me. No hardship, no nothing.
The life is welcoming. It's all beautiful.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
So you're kind of going to a place beyond time or before time or after time or outside of beyond anything like, you know that. So you're freed from the whole burden of this world.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: That's a real break right there, isn't it?
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a real break. Right. People think that, oh, I can just go do something on the Internet and get a little break now. That's not a break.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: No, it's It's a. It's a break from thinking about your problems, which is why people do it and why it's so easy to do. But it's not really going beyond everything in a very healing. It's not healing the brain and the mind, it's just temporarily focusing on something else.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: It's a bit like the. The book Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. What a great book.
Well worth reading.
And he gives an example of.
They're all in the concentration camp and they're all huddled together, sleeping, and someone's having a nightmare, and he thinks of waking the guy up because he's having a nightmare. And he's like, but why am I waking him up too?
I mean, it can't be worse than this.
Do you see what I mean? So we're trying to get out of it every way, but there's a. Something else. That's the real freedom on a higher level.
And that. That's. That's some real nourishment right there. Actually.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: You know, a few years back, someone came to do service at the center.
And this person really has a lot of attachment issues, codependency, and attachment issues to her husband.
And so while she was at the center, she heard that her husband's sister passed away, right? She's doing service. And then she. Her husband called her saying, my sister passed away.
And the husband was freaking out.
And because she had codependency issues on the husband, she was freaking out, right? Even though it's not her sister who passed away, it was husband's sister passed away, who's still really freaking out. Like, really, really freaking out.
And I was like, no, no, no, no.
Let's sit down. Let's just sit down.
And let's just do this, right? And we did something I call enhanced shavasana.
Enhanced savasana is like the yoga pose, shavasana, but it's enhanced, right? Let's just take a break. Let's just breathe. Because, you know, not only that her husband was freaking out, but she was freaking out, right?
And to really calm her down. And after really just five minutes of enhanced savasana, she was fine, totally fine.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: That goes to show the importance of pulling away long enough, you know. So what. What do you mean exactly by enhanced?
This sounds like a nice little method.
Lying down.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: You have to lie down. So this is when your body is resting, your brain is resting, and your soul is resting, right? Three things are happening at the same time.
So you lay down.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Method.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: You lay down. You can do it while sitting if you don't have a choice, but it's best to lay down. But you can do it while sitting.
And you put your. I'm crossing my feet.
You can't see them, but you put your feet with your both feet on the ground like this. If you're just sitting down and you start from the soles of your feet, right? And you would just do it like you would do a shavasana.
There's light in your feet, and it's coming up, you know, see. See the light in your feet, then relax the light. Relax your feet.
You know, your feet are completely relaxed and you're moving up.
The light is moving up.
Now see the light in your, you know, calves, in your shins, you know, knees, all of that. See the light and feel those muscles. Tense the muscles. Then make the muscles loose and limp and just totally relax the muscles.
And now the light which was there is coming up into your thighs.
Now feel your thighs.
Visualize your thighs. See your thighs. Feel your thighs.
And totally surrender your thighs to gravity.
Just make them loose and limp.
And now move the light up to your. To your stomach area, hips and stomach area.
And feel the light cleansing that area.
Right? It's just cleansing.
Now feel that area.
And now surrender that area to gravity. Totally surrender.
Just make it loose and limp.
So now your whole lower part is totally loose and limp and surrendered to gravity.
Now move it to your solar plexus. The light.
Just breathe in and out properly.
Relax and totally surrender that area to gravity.
Make it loose and limp. And now the light is moving up to your shoulders to your torso, cleansing everything there.
And just take a deep breath in and deep breath out and surrender that area to gravity.
Make it loose and limp.
Now your neck.
Feel your neck.
Breathe in and out deeply. Feel the light in your neck and surrender that to gravity.
Now your jaw, your face, your cheeks.
Feel the light and just surrender that to gravity.
And the light now is in the center of your forehead, right here where your third eye is.
Now all your energy is focused in your third eye area.
And everything, your body, your head, everything is totally loose and limp. Your hands, everything loose and limp and totally surrender to gravity.
You're just aware of yourself as this beautiful, luminous being in a body that is totally relaxed and at rest.
In this state of relaxation, just gently bring to your awareness and chant I am a peaceful soul.
Silently.
You can say it aloud if you want, but I am a peaceful soul.
I am light.
I am right here in my forehead.
I am a peaceful soul.
I am light.
I am a peaceful soul.
And do that for the rest of the five minutes.
Om Shanti.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Wonderful. Isn't that great?
Very powerful, very effective.
Ah, yes. So these are things to practice. And I'll share one last method that you might like as well is this is like a power nap SL meditation practice that I'd like to do. And it's very powerful.
So you lie down. I think lying down is good because, you know, we're running around doing all this stuff, you know, we need to just take a break.
And obviously you can't always do it. But if you are at home or you're somewhere where you can take a little rest, that's great.
And so lie down. And what I like to do is we'll actually just do a quick little version of this now. So imagine you're very comfortable and just breathing to start with, just letting your whole body relax with nice gentle breaths.
And as you breathe in, just imagine above you is God's light, pure light, healing, renewing light.
And you just breathe in and feel that beautiful loving energy filling you up as you breathe in that nourishing, calm, loving presence.
And as you breathe out, just sending that energy through your whole body all the way down to your feet, filling up every cell.
So just filling up with that beautiful light and love and peace and letting that flow through your whole body, feeling more and more relax and just letting the whole body start to melt and soften as you fill up with that beautiful divine presence, that link of light, each breath just taking you a little bit deeper into that beautiful feeling.
Everything else fades away and you can just continue doing that until you fall asleep in the light and then you wake up feeling doubly refreshed. Doubly refreshed.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: So there we have it.
Five minute practices to recharge yourself.
This is genuine relaxation and refreshment and spiritual power rather than other, other things. I mean you can still do other things if you want, but at least get your five minutes in, you know.
So.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't always do it, but for a while there I was doing it. It's the 55, 5, 55 minutes of working, 5 minutes of break, you know.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: Yes, very powerful.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: It's very powerful.
Now I try to do 10 minutes, I try to do 10 minutes, but you know.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's 90, 30, there's 55, 5, 50, 10. I mean it's like you can extend and squeeze it, but I think doing more than I can go three hours, hardcore actually.
But beyond that it's just bad idea. And so I mean I'm an entrepreneur so I like, I get paid based on results, not based on hours. Right. And that's that. And that's very important. And I've learned from other master entrepreneurs and multimillionaires that this is the common, common statement that most high level people actually only do three hours of work a day, good work and rest the time, they're just go fly kites, fly kites on the beach or, or they try and do more stuff and nothing comes of it. So it's kind of Pointless really. So if you have like an hourly paid type of job, then obviously you have to put the hours. In other words, you don't get paid. But if you're, if what you do is based on results, really you only need three hours of high level work a day.
And when I try and force myself to do more, it just doesn't work out anyway. So I've just realized I'm much better off just going for a walk or taking a nap or reading a book.
And I can't do meditation for 8, 10 hours a day because that. So like we have, there has to be like, there's meditation breaks, then there's like naps, which you can have meditation that leads to a nap, then there's going for a walk or, you know, talking to somebody or doing something else.
But it's good to just tune into based on your lifestyle.
You what you do your practice to feel good. Then you do some, some work, fully focused, not multitasking. One thing at a time.
Then another nice break, refresh yourself, get some water. You know, I like dancing around the house, actually putting music on. I find that quite amusing.
And then another session and like that. So you're always breaking it as much as you can throughout the day.
And 55. 5 is great. Or 5510 or even 55 20, let's be honest, right?
So try it out. Figure out what works for you. And these are things you can incorporate into your daily life and feel so much better.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Hooray.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: All right, all right.
You want to pick a number.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: 27.
I'm thinking 26 or 27.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: 26 is delight.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Awesome. Delight. There you go.
Delight.
Blessing. If you're stressed out, delight is like the bizarre thing.
One time I was going through some challenging situations and I got a blessing from Shireen that said delight. I still have it over here actually, because it's such a nice contrast if you're feeling like everything's a mess and you're like, oh, let me just come into delight.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Delight.
You've allowed your inner child to come out and play in the cosmic theater of life.
You savor the beauty of life's innumerable wonders with a sense of amazement that rejuvenates your spirit and fills you with joy.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Ah.
So take a break from the whole world, temporarily come into the light and then you can come back with delight.
Thank you, Shereen.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Great ideas there.
Many blessings.
