Meditation Advice That Actually Works

[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this session, you're going to learn the meditation advice that actually works in real life. Shereen and I have been doing meditation between us for nearly 60 years. She's got 30 years meditation experience. I have about 28 years. And so we have, you know, thousands of hours, probably 30, 40,000 hours meditation between us. And we're going to share with you the most powerful things that can help you have deeper, more powerful, more enjoyable, more transformative meditation. So let's dive into it. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello, Michael. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Hey, Shereen. How's it going? [00:00:39] Speaker B: Wonderful, wonderful. So I'm ready. Tell me, what is the meditation advice you're going to give me? [00:00:48] Speaker A: Well, we have a lot of tips here. The first thing that comes to mind is that whenever we're going to do some sort of meditation, it's very important at. Right at the beginning to know exactly what style or what type or what practice we're doing. Because if we just say, I'm just going to sit there, because a lot of people, they just sit down. So it's my meditation time, and they have a time and they sit down and they haven't really thought about what their practice is. So then the mind wanders here and it wanders there. And what about this? Think about what they're going to have to eat afterwards, you know, and all these different things that haven't happened in the day and all this stuff, right, comes up. So it's really important before you do meditation to just think about or even write down what is my practice specifically? And we, of course, have, you know, hundreds of practices and we have all these courses and programs for free to teach this. And it's important just to pick one main thing that you're planning on doing and make sure that the practice that you have is a practice that touches your heart, that actually is something that you want to do, that feels good to you. Because if you're trying to do some kind of practice that you actually don't like and you don't want to do and you're not interested in, then you've. You've set yourself up for an unpleasant experience right from the beginning. So what is your practice right out of all these hundreds of practices? And is it something that you feel good about? That. That's. That's the key thing before you even attempt any meditation. What do you think about that? [00:02:30] Speaker B: I love it, Michael. I love it. You know, I've been working out, right? I go to the gym and I have someone, I work out there, and she introduced me to this free app that you can actually get into the app. And then there are all these thousands of people teaching you workout, right? And she usually sends me, okay, we'll work out on. We'll work this out. We'll work out this routine and then this routine like that, right? And she goes through it and she sees how to do it and all of those things, and then she shows up really all prepared. And I don't do any of that stuff. I just show up. And her workout is so much better than my workout. So I was thinking that when you were sharing that it's good to initially, right? Just like workout. I'm new to working out and she's much more seasoned and I need something. I need some kind of guidance to be able to do it. I can't just go to the gym and feel. Feel lost, right? Because that's the way meditation is too. Like, don't feel lost, right? Go through our meditations wherever you may find them, inside, timer, YouTube, wherever. Go through our meditations. Tell yourself, okay, I'm going to meditate for half an hour, 20 minutes, whatever it is, I'm going to meditate for this amount of time. And what you do is you pick two or three meditations that would add up to that amount of time. And you sit down and you have a discipline about meditating. And I. So that's what I like. What you were sharing is that there has to be discipline about meditating, right? It can't just be, oh, on the fly. And the other thing is, let's say you have an important meeting, you have it on your calendar, right? You don't just think, oh, I'll remember it somehow because the day comes and the day goes, and then you forget your meetings. In the same way meditation, think of it as your most important meeting with yourself, with your true self. And put it on a calendar and put a timer every day. This is the time you're going to meditate. Put a timer on, right? Don't just let it, you know, oh, okay. If it happens, it happens. No, put a timer on. Pick out your, what meditations you're going to do for half an hour or however long you want to meditate and then sit down and play those meditations. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. If it's not scheduled, it's not real, you know. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:36] Speaker A: So that's something huge, huge benefit of having a practice that you do consistently on a certain time of day or, you know, or even twice a day. Because once you do that, then you build a habit. So it's important to know what your practices Are even like, write down. What am I going to do? I remember when I started learning meditation, I was taught all this knowledge. And then I remember going to this morning meditation class, right? And I remember sitting there and I'm like, what on earth am I supposed to be doing? Because no one actually taught me to meditate at all. I was just sitting there like, what? So now I've got all these methods, right? Shereen has probably more methods than anyone I've ever known, right? She's got, like, thousands. I said, if you write a book, it'd be like this thick of all these methods, right? So if you don't have any methods, ask Shereen, and she'll give you plenty of. She has a whole book of drills that she has hidden away somewhere. So. So there's all these practices. We have to pick something that is very clear that we know what it is. Whether it's like practicing being a soul or going beyond or giving good wishes, you know, or breathing in certain things or feeling certain vibrations, whatever it is, right? But there's hundreds of practices, and then you schedule it so that you actually have a time to do it. And otherwise, realistically, right? If we didn't have scheduled time, none of us would ever do any meditation because we're always busy, aren't we? Running around doing all these things? So we have to have times of the day, and we have to remember that the meditations that we do actually give us back much more than they take away in terms of the time. Because I think that it is very important. Because when, for example, I'll just. Just personal confession time. Confession with Brother Michael. The last week, we were supposed to do the podcast, right? And I didn't do it because I had a project I'm. I was working on, and I had coffee first thing in the morning, right? And I think it just got me in this kind of layer. I normally drink tea, and I was like, just get it done, get it done, get it done. And I thought, let me just plow through this thing and just knock it out, right? And I was. I can't do anything. Cancel the podcast. Cancel everything. I had all these other appointments. Everything was canceled. And then by the evening, I was super stressed out, super stressed out. And I went to bed late. And then the next day, I just took the day off. And the day after that, I took the day off pretty much because I. Because I was like, morning. My head wasn't right. And then I looked back to what I'd actually done, and I was like, this is Just completely ridiculous. And I had to redo it anyway. Right. So if I had. I normally don't do that, thank goodness. But like I was. That was one of those, like, I'm just going to get this thing finished. If I had just stopped for like an hour meditation or even 20 minutes, or I'd had little breaks, that wouldn't have happened and I would have got more done and I would not have needed to act in that way. So I'm just telling you, it gives back, the clarity comes. So then the next day, actually I went to a meditation event and sat there for like an hour and a half. And all of the ideas that I needed to solve this problem that I was thinking about in my head for my work just all came to me. And by the time I left that event, I just dictated my ideas on my phone and it was job done. It was job done. [00:09:16] Speaker B: And. [00:09:16] Speaker A: And everything's been smooth since then. So meditation like solves so many problems in our life, whereas running around causes us problems. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Should I give you some Hail Marys? [00:09:30] Speaker A: Give me some Hail Marys. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Because you said it was confession time. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Yeah. There we go. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Okay, so meditation, some more meditation for this evening. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Meditation tips. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Meditate. No, instead of, instead of Hail Mary's, you get some more meditation. Do some more meditation. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Would be, would be better. Yeah. So the next, the next tip, which is for me has been extremely powerful. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Just one second. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Sure. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Double click on what you just said about. There is a version of it I tell myself is stillness beats strategy. Right. You could sit and strategize hundred million ways in which you are going to do something, but if I just be quiet, even for half an hour, it beats like hours and hours of strategy. And so that I'm just agreeing with you on this, like really, like anytime, right? Anytime I have to do something, I just really have to be very quiet. Stillness beats strategy. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Stillness also creates better strategies as well. And I was reading something today, business book that was basically saying that the mistake a lot of people make is optimizing for something that shouldn't exist. So in other words, we can be running around trying to fix all these problems that we like, doing all these things that we could actually just cancel entirely. And that's one of the main benefits of stillness, is that you can see, do I even need to be doing this at all? Like, why am I even thinking about this or doing this thing? So another thing that's very helpful is once you know what your meditation practice is going to be and it feels good to you before you actually start the meditation, I highly recommend giving yourself permission to do meditation right. Now. This might sound kind of obvious, but people who don't do this, what happens? Because I'm sure everyone who's. Who's here watching this, listening to this, has had the experience where you sit there, you try and meditate, and your mind goes all over the place. Yeah, but what about this thing that hasn't happened? What about. What about this thing that's coming up later in the day? I'm hungry. Or what about this? And all these things come into our mind, right? And when they come in our mind, there's some part of us that thinks, well, I need to address this, right? This is coming up, right? These are real concerns. Because the mind oftentimes is like, yeah, but you need to remember this. You need to remember this. What about this? What about this? What about this? Right? So then there's this fight going on. I want to meditate, but my mind is all over the place. The solution to that problem is to get a piece of paper and a pen if necessary, right? And just say to yourself, look, I'm just wanting to meditate, let's say for half an hour, 20 minutes. Can I know you're talking to your mind? So you imagine your mind is. Is coming up with all these thoughts. Say, now, can you just focus on this practice just for 20 minutes? Just for 20 minutes, right? Is it all right if we just focus on meditation? If there's anything urgent that absolutely can't wait, I have a pen and paper here, and I can write it down. Now tell me what it is, right? And then you can write down, I need to remember this, this, and this, and this. And he said, is there anything else that I haven't written down that is so urgent, that's so important that I can't stop, I can't do this Practice, right, to have a conversation with yourself, and sooner or later the mind will say, no, there's nothing more urgent. There's nothing else you have to do. There's nothing. You have to think. And once that's out of the way, then you can actually sit there and have a really powerful meditation practice because you've cleared all the reasons and excuses that otherwise would start spewing up out of nowhere. And if they do come up again, let's say you have the conversation, they still come up you. So I'm just going to write it down, right? And it just clears it out completely, so there's nothing left. And that's that, really. I feel can double or triple or even 10x. The. The power of the practice. Give yourself permission. [00:14:03] Speaker B: It's a beautiful one. It is. You know, one thing that I was thinking about was like, when you were talking about what is the mind coming up with? Somehow the mind is giving you a message that whatever happened in the previous day, right? That you're carrying on, let's say you're meditating in the morning. Whatever happened in the previous day, or whatever you need to do is carrying on into this moment. And the one important thing, thing I feel is when it comes to the past, right, you have to see what is the message the mind giving you. Because sometimes it's not even about the things you have to do in the future. Something about the past is coming up, you're meditating and something about the past is coming up. I wouldn't suppress it. I wouldn't say, go away, you know, I wouldn't say, oh, it doesn't exist. I'm all wonderful, you know, no spiritual bypassing, right? There has to be a different strategy for that, for the way you handle things going forward. And the way you would handle things going forward is like meditation, I feel, is teaching us in life to be a lighthouse. But our default position in life is to be a lifeguard, right? Any storm that comes, anything that comes, we jump in the water, we tackle it, we do this, we do that. And meditation is completely different. It's something totally different. You have to learn to be a lighthouse. So even though this is not directly related to your meditation, it is kind of related to your meditation because it affects the way you do your meditation. You have to. Your mindset has to be changed and you have to start thinking yourself, I'm a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse. I'm a lighthouse, right? I don't need to jump into every water and save everyone and do any of. No, I'm a lighthouse. Lighthouse serves differently than lifeguards serve, right? Both are important. I'm a lighthouse. Because when you start becoming a lighthouse, meditation becomes a lot easier. [00:16:30] Speaker A: That's a very important point, that we're going into a different consciousness entirely. Because the point of meditation really is to come back to our true self and our true self, who we really are spiritual beings. We've already attained everything and we already are fine. So it's. The perspective is that I'm fine to begin with, whereas the mind normally is. Everything's wrong and has to be fixed. And only after everything's fixed, then I can relax. Which is just a never ending joke really, because when is it ever going to come to an end, really? So meditation is saying, let me come to a place within myself now where everything's already fine, being a lighthouse. And another thing related to this actually that I learned almost immediate when I started meditating, is that if. If I meditate just for myself, that's fine. But actually the meditation experience is significantly more powerful if it's for everyone else as well, which is what being a lighthouse means. So if I'm receiving divine energy and then radiating it out, sending good vibrations all around through the body and then all out into the world and into nature, then it's almost like because the intention is to be of service to others as well, there's extra power that comes into the practice rather than just me, me, me, and what am I going to get personally, right? So the. The irony is that the more we try and have the intention of everyone, may everyone benefit, it actually improves our own experience as a result. [00:18:22] Speaker B: You know, when you were talking about the divine, right, something that lately, you know, like, let's say your body is not cooperating, you're tired, you're doing all of these things. Discipline is very important, very important. But also you have to have a sense of belonging, right? Especially for me, meditation becomes so much easier when I have this sense of belonging to. To a higher power, to the divine source, God. However you want to name with whatever name you want to use in your heart is fine. Is that there has to be this sense of belonging. And it becomes so much easier, so much easier, right? Discipline is important. Like, we need to sit down, right? Whatever happens, we need to. If I say I'm going to sit down every day for half an hour for meditation, it has to be before your life starts in the morning. So whenever your life starts, take half an hour before and sit down and discipline every day. I will do it. Not once a week, not twice a week, or seven days. I did it. You. You know, it's called social licensing, right? Seven days. I did it. Oh, I can just rest for one day, right? And what happens? You can rest for one day. It. Okay, we'll get into that in a minute. But discipline is important, right? You do it. Don't give up on it. And two is, you have to. If you're tired, whatever is happening, you get up and sit down for meditation and go into a state of belonging. Because the heart gets involved and things get easy. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Let's say somebody, for whatever reason, gets up late or they do something, something, something. It's important not to say, oh, I'M already up late, let me just forget my meditation, right? It's better to do the meditation when you do get up because otherwise you might just do it the next day, next day nothing happens. Then you don't do any meditation for six months. So you know, to, not, to not let that be an excuse to just blow everything off, you know, because we all make mistakes in life and have days that are a bit weird. But it, we, it's important not to let that become a justification just to throw a whole thing off, off. Because that does, does happen to people. They say, oh, I screwed up, oh, what's the point? And then next day they don't do it next day and it's finished, right? So if you do make a mess of it or whatever, whatever, you just say, I love myself, it's all good. Let me just do a little bit now or as soon as I can and keep back in the game, right? [00:21:17] Speaker B: This, that's what I meant by moral licensing, right? So we say, oh, I've been good for five days, maybe I'll take a break for one day, right? This is an absolute. No, no, no, no, no, no. In meditation. Because that one day break, before you know it becomes a six month break. And before you know it, you're telling everyone, hey, I'm meditating. But you're not really meditating because the break, you decided that moral licensing, no, I've been so good, maybe I'll take a break. That you have to watch out for that kind of language in your head because otherwise you get derailed very quickly. [00:22:07] Speaker A: It's true. So these are all things that can throw us out of the game quite easily. Another thing that is important, I have a little list here. Another thing is to do shorter times. This is actually a psychological principle that if Parkinson's, Parkinson's Law, right, is that time expands to fill whatever, you know, the task will take as long as you allow time for, right? So if you say I'll finish a project in 10 years, it will take 10 years. If you say I'm going to get it done in six months, it'll get done in six months. So if we say I'm going to have meditation for an hour, right? The actual level of focus and intensity can be diluted, actually, because it's like if you're not clear what you're doing, if you say I'm going to meditate really hardcore for one minute, then all of a sudden all of your focus is condensed into just being completely in the game for a minute. And so or two minutes. Right. And so it's actually very, very useful to have these little practices that you do for like one minute with a timer. So like Insight Timer app has, has an actual timer. That's why it's called Insight Timer. But you can use your phone, you can use a little kitchen timer, whatever you want. So if you pick a practice for a minute and you just really focus on it for a minute, it's can be so powerful. I can honestly say some of the most powerful meditations I've had have been like one minute multiple times. So I might be doing like one minute and then another minute, minute, minute, minute. It might end up being like half an hour, but it's one minute focus over and over again. And in my experience, that chunk of that, like, session is way, way, way more powerful than just saying, oh, I'm just going to sit here for an hour and a half and. And it just sort of wobbles all over the place. So actually, smaller amounts of time can lead to better, more focused meditations. [00:24:22] Speaker B: I'm thinking, who's spending an hour and a half these days? [00:24:27] Speaker A: I know, I like an hour and a half. [00:24:28] Speaker B: You like an hour and a half. [00:24:29] Speaker A: There must I like an hour and a half? Yeah. In the morning. [00:24:34] Speaker B: No, I meant not people like you. Like, you know, nowadays people have such short attention spans. So this whole idea of one minute is excellent. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Could be 30 seconds then I suppose maybe some people think one minute. That's far too much for me. All right, let's just do three seconds. Let's just. Yeah, but short, short is good. [00:24:58] Speaker B: So one of the things I feel is like, you were sharing. No, it's not the length of time, but the concentration level of your meditation. I feel one way in which you lose your concentration. Right. Let's say your mind is wandering. It's actually your mind is a messenger. It's giving you messages for a few days. Just, just write down every time your mind is wandering and where it's wandering to. Because what you do outside of your meditation practice is as important as the meditation itself, Right? You can't do whatever you want the whole day, you know, and then come and sit down and meditate. It's not going to work. You know, your day has to be aligned and then you can sit down for meditation and it will work. If you feel you're not having good meditations, if you feel you're not, not able to concentrate, if you feel you're not able to do all of that, it's because your day is not Aligned to your inner compass. We all have an inner compass and if we don't align our day to that inner compass, then we are totally out of whack. Meditations won't work. Right. So make sure it's aligned. And if your mind is wandering, this is how you know mind is wandering for a few days. Sit down and write down all the ways your mind is wandering and where it's going, what's going on, all of that. Because those are the things you need to align. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. That's why having a pen and paper is a great idea when you're meditating and when you're not meditating, just to have it around or you could dictate it into your phone or whatever you like. All these things, they're here for a reason. And if, if we say, because I know some people have the attitude the most. Mind is completely pointless, random nonsense. And there is a lot, of course, pointless, random nonsense in the mind. There's no doubt about it. And the mind, the mind's supposed to be. The job of the mind is actually meant to help us create solutions and focus on feeling good and experience joy and happiness and love. Right. The mind is supposed to be our friend and supposed to be useful. So if you're getting all these messages in your head and you're trying to ignore them, the mind's not just going to give up and say, well, you know, she didn't listen to me or he didn't listen. No, it's going to keep coming. It's going to keep coming again and again and again. So write it all down. Just, just. That's why journaling and is all is good. Just what is going on here? Write it down, write it down, write it down, write it down, write it down. And it will actually calm down after a while once it's cleared. Because a lot of the time, from my own personal experience, I get a lot of ideas. If I don't write down my ideas, they might disappear. And so the mind is actually just going on and on and on about the same idea because it's afraid I'll lose it if I don't write it down. But once it's written down or I put it in some project management tool or something, then it stops. So, so there could be things that are off in your life that need to be dealt with, which is, which of course happens to all of us. And then there's also great ideas that you have. So in either case, write them down and, and then you can take action on them later. On and it's actually your mind is doing what it's supposed to be doing, you know, and you're paying attention to it. And meditation is a wonderful time to notice what's going on in the mind because when you sit for in silence and there's no noise, then the mind can be seen and heard clearly. [00:28:46] Speaker B: One of the most important things I feel outside of meditation, to have a good meditation outside of meditation, and this really directly affects your meditation, is to have clear boundaries in your life, you know, boundaries with the people you love. Because what happens is every time, you know, for me, self respect is actually dignity in practice. If I looking at self respect, I would say it's dignity in practice. And every time my dignity is out of balance, I'm not in my dignity because I'm not having the right boundaries or I'm not doing the right things to keep my dignity. If I'm not doing any of those things, then it really interrupts your meditation. And there are no shortcuts. Right. You need to have certain safeguards in your life for your own life and for other people in your life. Otherwise you're not going to be able to meditate properly. So even though it's not directly, oh, I'm sitting here and meditating. Even though it's not directly related, it's kind of related because self respect is the cornerstone for a good meditation. You want a good meditation, have self respect and to have self respect, it's dignity in practice. How are you treating yourself? How are you treating others? How are you allowing others to treat you? All of that's going to affect your meditation. [00:30:38] Speaker A: That's very true. Yeah. Everything we do in our life is obviously going to affect us. And so when you sit in silence, whatever's going on is going to come up. So they're not really separate things. Meditation is just a time to focus and experience and observe what is actually, what's actually going on here. Another thing that is very helpful is this concept of purposeful practice. Because meditation is a practice and anything we do, whether it's playing the piano or, you know, writing a book or writing driving the car or anything, there's a certain point where we didn't know what we were doing and we had to practice to get better at it. Right. And then once we become, you know, good enough at something, we generally stop learning. So there was a study done on doctors, and apparently doctors who've been in the game for 20 years on average are not as skilled as they were for the first year out of medical School because many times they have one year's experience, times by 20 because they stop learning, they stop like developing themselves. And this isn't just doctors. Like drivers generally are worse after like 20 years than they were when they first passed their driving test because they're not paying attention anymore, they're not deliberately practicing anymore, right? So the people who become best in the world or something like the famous athletes and people who are like top of their game, they keep pushing themselves a little bit beyond their comfort zone, whereas everyone else just stays in their comfort zone. So when it comes to meditation, it's very, very easy. Once you've got a practice that you're comfortable with that you, you just sit there and you just do the same thing as usual, at the same level as usual, and it's just hum, so, hum. So it's just like. So for us to actually break out of that comfort zone, we have to do purposeful practice, which means we know what we're going to practice and we're giving it our, our complete heart and soul and pushing ourselves a bit beyond where we're at. A little bit more concentration, a little bit more effort, a little bit more genuine heart, a little bit more power, right? Just doing something a bit different, expanding it, developing it, deepening it. And, and that initially is unpleasant, actually. It's distressing and unpleasant because we're getting outside of our comfort zone and we're growing and so there's going to be resistance to it. But that's the only way that we actually deepen our practice. Because it's quite possible someone might be a meditator for, you know, 40 years or 20 years or 10 years or 30 years or whatever, but they haven't really made much progress because they haven't been doing purposeful practice. They haven't pushed themselves. It's not been intense effort. So it's worth thinking to yourself, what can I do? To just crank this up just a little bit, not too much, because if you do try and do too much, you'll. It won't work, right? But like, if you're here now, how can you expand it to here, you know, and then to here? And that's how you actually get better meditation. And that means either doing it for more, more long, longer periods of time or for focusing more deeply or for changing the practice or combination of all these things. And, and if you do it with complete concentration as best you can, then you have some sort of upgrade. Even if it's unpleasant initially, you'll find that the next time you do it's easier. And then it gets easier and easier and easier. And then, then you get into a new comfort zone and then you're in the same situation you were in before and you have to do it again and again. So this is how you deepen the practice. [00:34:35] Speaker B: I was thinking it's the same way when you're working out. No. Like you go to the gym and you see some souls. They like, ho hum, you know, on the tread or, you know, bicycling or something, right? And then there are these souls who come with the purpose. They have a routine, they have their. They set up their stations, they go through all of this, set up the whole station. And I'm thinking, wow, it's so different, right? And what I've noticed is people who have this, who have this setup, right? They really have a purpose there. This is the routine they're going to do. This is the stations they're going to go to, not just go on the tread and go home. Those people, actually, I see them come back more often. The others are there one day, not there one day doing all of those things. But actually the people who really put some thought into it really tend to enjoy it more also. So what you're saying is you really want to enjoy. Then follow Brother Michael. [00:35:42] Speaker A: Follow purposeful practice. It's the magic method. And it's not easy. I'll just, just be honest. It's much easier just to sit there and go, oh, I'm just going to do what I usually do. [00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah, just notice the breath, notice the thoughts and blah, blah, blah. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's easier. But it doesn't actually do us much good and it doesn't make us go to the next level in our awakening. We're kind of stuck in a rut, actually. It's just repeating ourselves. So that's very, very important. And a couple other things because we don't want to give you too many tips, but you can think about this. And also in the comments, if you have anything that, that we haven't shared or anything, you can share that in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. So a couple more things. One is spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge, the meditation practice is going to be deeper if it's informed by spiritual teachings that talk about the practices, right? So the more we study deep spiritual teachings that talk about the state and the practice and think about it, that then feeds into the actual practice. Because if we're never learning anything new, then we become stagnant, you know, so we need, we need lots of Fresh energy. Fresh energy. Fresh energy. There's a book I had years ago. [00:37:09] Speaker B: I say mindfulness is boring because there's no fresh energy. You're just randomly looking and watching your breath, watching your thoughts, and then what? [00:37:21] Speaker A: Exactly. It's lazy meditation, isn't it, really? And. But we had a whole episode on mindfulness we watch later on that we want this again. We're not gonna. We're not gonna get in it. So there's a. There's a book I read ages ago about teaching that said, this teacher was saying, I'd rather teach from a flowing stream than a stagnant pond. Right? In other words, it's better to have fresh ideas that you're reading about and learning about to teach. But same is true for meditation. I'd rather be meditating from a flowing stream than a stagnant pool, like a little puddle, right? So we have to keep filling our mind with fresh ideas, fresh inspiration. Which is why having a daily spiritual teaching practice, learning practice is extremely important. And last thing I'll mention is places. Places and people. As much as I love meditating in my house, and I do have good meditation here, when I go to meditate in a group or if I go, like, to some special meditation spot, which in some cases is out in nature, in some cases, it's like. Like there's a Buddhist stupa here in Sedona that I like to go to. It's just a different vibe. Because when we're in our house, we are normally triggered by the kitchen, the people coming, the phone, the Internet. Do you know? I mean, everything is a trigger for doing everything other than meditation, right? Shireen lives in a meditation center. No doubt. Do you still get triggered by various things being. I mean, I was pretty easier for you. You have a meditation center. [00:39:16] Speaker B: But, like, yeah, it's so easy. I made 12, 24 hours a day. No, actually, I have something to share about this. I feel that as much as I told you earlier, to pick certain practices that you want to listen to and listen to it, especially if you're starting out new. But the distraction of the phone, right? Like, I don't have my phone with me. If I have a timer, it's a timer like this, right? If I'm doing a timer, it's a timer like this. I don't have my phone with me because it's so distracting. Like, everything seems important. And that is one suggestion I wanted to make was if you are not going anywhere in your meditation, then you need to really look at how much consistency, consumption of the phone and media are you really doing? Because what's happening is if you're never taking a break from your phone, if you're never taking a break from social media, you're never taking, you know, time, like really detox time away from your phone, then meditation is going to be very hard because we never allow ourselves to be bored, even for a minute. Right. Like, we just can't be just still for a minute. Like someone is standing at the traffic light. Right. Recently I was watching someone standing at the traffic light waiting to cross the road. So how long it's going to take? 10 seconds, 15 seconds. In those 15 seconds, they had to look at their phone. And that's all. Every single person at that crosswalk was looking at their phone. Every single person. And so if you're that involved, right, with your phone, it's going to be very hard to meditate. You have to have distance, you have to have detox times. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah, we've done whole episodes on this. I put my Internet, I unplug the Internet, put my phone in a box at night, so I can't even check it until a certain time the next day. And when I go out to meditate, I never bring my phone and if I do, it completely destroys my meditation. I brought my phone out maybe about five times ever. Literally five times. Because I needed to call someone. Something ruined my practice, totally ruined it. Because I'm not focused on what I'm doing. I'm focused on, oh, is there more messages? Right? So when, if you go out somewhere, don't bring your phone. Even that sounds, for some people, it's like, oh my God, how could I leave the house without a phone? It's fine, it's fine. People did it for thousands of years. It's totally all right. Don't worry, it's okay. So you can go out without your phone and if you're in your house, it's worth turning it off, putting it somewhere else to meditate. Because if you're sitting there, right, and you're trying to meditate and it's got notifications and sounds binging at you, how can you meditate? Do you know what I mean? Every 10 seconds, bing, bing, bing. So, so ideally go somewhere different without your phone. That's a meditation type place, whether it's a group meditation or like some special spiritual place. And you're going to have way, way, way easier, better meditation because you're just focused on one thing at a time. So there it is. Hopefully. This is great. Any, any final thoughts? Shireen it's got a bit dark here. There's a thunderstorm coming, so if you're wondering why it's all dark, thunder and lightning. Blessing Blessings. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Okay, I'm just picking up Encouragement. You've beautifully this is a blessing for you from God. Encouragement. You've beautifully embraced the journey of self love and acceptance. Your joy for the success of others glows from within and you cheer on their victories as if they were your own. You embrace others by igniting courage and offering support. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Yay. Thank you so much and we'd love to hear your comments. What did you learn and is there anything we missed that you think has helped has helped you for meditation so that other people can learn from you? Thanks for being here, sending you lots of love and talk to you. In the next episode.