Tag: Meditation

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Meditation Recovery service

Tiny Revolutions with Sara Campbell on Meditation, Therapy, and Acts of Service

One of my regular newsletters that I love to read is Tiny Revolutions by Sara Campbell. She is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and PR strategist who, as she puts it, “has strong opinions about pretty much everything.” 

Sara is the friend you need to help you not feel ashamed or guilty for not living up to other people’s unrealistic expectations. Whether it’s not having the right job, the perfect spouse, or the ideal life, she aims to help us understand who we are. 

Sara’s newsletter title comes from her ten-year relationship with the idea that every day is a small revolution. 

She writes about topics like meditation, mental health, spirituality, and finding meaningful work. 

In addition to writing Tiny Revolutions, Sara does brand and communications strategy. Her background not only helps her writing reach more people, but, in telling her story, she can help people find hope in their own. 

Sara interviewed me in Tiny Revolutions in 2018. (Tiny Revolutions No.5: Interview with Ryan Williams, writer of The Influencer Economy). Back then we wanted to have a conversation about mental health. 

Three years later I’m now turning the tables, chatting with her in my newsletter. To read about Sara in her own words, below are her quotes from a conversation that we had. You can listen to our conversation, here. 

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Sara Campbell of Tiny Revolutions
Writing As An Act of Service

One of the main reasons I started writing [the newsletter] is because I didn’t see a lot of other writing that was candid about mental health and stuff like that.

I personally would have loved to read those types of stories because it helps me feel less alone. Part of the reason for writing the newsletter is really an act of service where it’s me doing it for myself. It’s sort of therapeutic to write this stuff out, but I do consider it as an act of service where I don’t mind talking about these things, even though they’re sensitive, because I’ve worked through a lot of them, or I am working through a lot of them. 

I understand having now been through a lot of my own issues and talking to lots of other people who have issues, none of these things are rare. These things are very common, and it’s just that we don’t talk about it. I feel like that’s a service that I can provide. If I can talk about subjects that are very sensitive, if I’m in a position to be able to do that, which I am, it’s like, why not? That’s something I can offer. 

I get emails from people, and they’ll say, thank you for saying it that way, or, that happened to me. It really is a way of connecting.

How a Depressive Episode Helped Inspire Tiny Revolutions

When I started the newsletter, I was in the midst of a depressive episode. One of the reasons I started it is to make sense of the episode. It was right after Anthony Bordain and Kate Spade died. They had killed themselves within a week of each other. 

I thought:  “Why does no one talk about suicide in an honest way? Why is it so hard to read accounts of this stuff that aren’t just sort of sad or whitewashed in some way?”

It grew out of that. Now it has become more broadly about the work of being a human being that is comfortable and self-actualizing on planet Earth. 

How She Meditates Every Morning

I  meditate every morning between thirty minutes and an hour. 

I’m a big proponent of walks. I think walks and movement really help clear the mind. I was always a classic overthinker who would get trapped in ruminating thoughts. For me, a lot of the work has been to find ways to take myself out of that. 

And so that isolation with walks and talking to others, helping other people in whatever ways you can help other people, um, just figuring out small ways that are sort of acknowledging it’s not all about you. 

On Attending Therapy Over the Years

I’ve been in therapy and I think therapy is really great for helping you understand yourself better. It’s another tool to get to know yourself, to find out what works and doesn’t work, while also making sense of the experiences of your life, which is how it’s helped me. It’s helped me recognize patterns, unhealthy patterns that I inherited from family dynamics or whatever, and try and see how they were playing out in my life. 

I haven’t been in therapy for a couple of years. I’m not saying I won’t go back. I’m sure I will. 

I think where the personal development work comes in is a kind of unearthing. It is like digging to find what the blocks are, what the obstacles are, and what the things that are holding us back from doing, instead of living the lives that we want to live and addressing those things head on. 

Things like drinking too much, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, or choose your poison are all things that we add to try and cover up the problem. I think that personal development is all about excavation and clearing away the unessential in getting to the heart of you, yourself and what you’re here to do. 

On Teaching Meditation

I think meditation is interesting because there are so many misconceptions about it. People get really disheartened and discouraged because they go into it thinking it is a recipe for mental calm. They think it’s a recipe for being calm and relaxed. That actually is a long-term side effect. 

Meditation is to reveal the story and the truth, the truth of your life, the stories that you are operating under the assumptions of, the things that you maybe don’t want to think about. 

When you do meditation, at least the Zazen style that I do (there’s obviously lots of different styles of meditation), it’s really just about being present and dealing with witnessing all the things that are going through your brain.

Giving the things a chance to clear out, stir around, whatever, just noticing and not attaching to specifically to any one of those. 

How Meditation Makes Her Feel

Zazen meditation is an open-eyed tradition and you basically sit and stare at a wall. It’s silent. It’s not guided.

When you do that day after day, you’re witnessing your mind, which is the classic monkey mind. When your mind is all over the place. It gets a little easier to do the more that you do it because you learn to tolerate that it’s uncomfortable.

But it’s about learning to sit with discomfort. You don’t really want to have feelings. You don’t want to experience it. And then over time, you just start to see that that’s okay, there are good things, there are bad things. Some days are harder than others. 

Some days are euphoric. You just start to see the full spectrum of the experience. It’s part of what we are experiencing as human beings. Our minds are busy things.

Some days it’s cloudy. Some days it’s super sunny, while some days it’s misty. Some days it’s stormy with ups and downs. Over time you can start to see things softening, but only because you stopped fighting them as much. It’s the “stop feeling like you need to be happy all the time,” feeling like you need to be a certain way. 

In a way it’s like the ultimate surrender. You’re just a person living a life. You’re not deciding to think about all these things, these things are just happening in your mind. So it’s like in a way you’re just kind of surrendering control, thinking  “Tthis is the experience, what can I learn from it?” meditation can really do for you, which is just broadening your field of awareness.

Advice to Someone in Their Twenties 

I think I’m really learning. There are so many different ways that you can use for self-development, right? There are any number of things. And if I were to go back and tell myself at that time, it’s just start doing some form of self-exploration—whether that’s therapy, whether that’s coaching, whether that’s meditation, whether it’s yoga or breathwork or something—try something to get on the path.

Once you’ve found what works for you, then you stick to it. My teacher in Zen always says, “Just find something that you like and stick to it.” Whatever it is that works for you, just do it and, and make it a practice. 

It has to be something that’s relevant to your everyday life or else or you’re not going to stick to it. But it’s like going back to the gentleness thing. Find something that you like, that you appreciate, that feeds you in some way. There are so many different ways you can go about it. Do some experimentation.

Big thanks to my editors: David Burt, Jillian Anthony, and Joel Christiansen.

Read an article on How to Meditate From Scratch

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Sara Campbell writes the Tiny Revolutions newsletter. She also does brand and communications strategy.

Categories
Uncategorized

What Happens in Yoga Nidra: Dreaming, Deep Rest, and Relaxation

I rest on a beaten down brown couch in my Los Angeles garage. I sport Adidas sweatpants, an Austin City Limits blue t-shirt, colored socks, and a zipped up green hoodie. I look up at the white ceiling. 

Lying on my back, my arms by my side, palms facing up, 

Alone, I commit to spend the next twenty minutes lying still. 

My phone is in airplane mode. With earbuds in my ears, I push play on a guided meditation track called Yoga Nidra 20 Min Practice. 

I close my eyes. I breathe in. Exhale, I sigh it all out.

What is yoga nidra?

Yoga nidra is also known as yogic sleep — it’s the state between being awake and asleep. 

Your body is deeply relaxed, while your mind stays awake.

Yoga nidra is an ancient meditation practice that takes you deep into your subconscious. 

It helps treat anxiety, alleviate stress, reduce PTSD, and heal trauma. 

It gives you profound feelings of calm, peace, and relaxation. 

If you feel overwhelmed by the never-ending pandemic, over-exhausted by working too much, or need new coping methods in your life, yoga nidra may be for you.

After getting diagnosed with Complex PTSD, I realized how much of my childhood got buried. Yoga nidra helps me to recover my childhood memories. It allows me to reclaim part of my past identity, moving it into the present. 

I am a different person after practicing yoga nidra meditation. I am a more authentic version of my childhood self. I feel like this is who I am supposed to be.

During yoga nidra, memories of riding my first DiamondBack dirt bike return. Memories of driving my first car, a gray Jeep Cherokee, come back. 

I recall memories of a middle school ice cream date with my girlfriend. 

I love these positive memories. During yoga nidra these recollections flash through my mind. I recall some of the happiest moments in my life, growing up in Des Moines, Iowa.

There is a certain innocence of doing something for the first time as a kid.

Yoga nidra is helping me heal my trauma. 

The mediation feels like a dream. 

I am safe.

I am a witness to my past. 

Seeing my past helps me to comfort my inner child. It completes a loop on some great memories. I sometimes recall bad memories, and leave them in the past. Whereas the positive memories, I take with me. The past moments complete my past, helping me to re-write my own personal story. 

In reclaiming my memories, I practice the saying from 12 step recovery programs: “Take what you want, and leave the rest.” 

Getting back into the practice of yoga nidra, I lie on my back. 

How to practice yoga nidra?

Setting an intention

Lying on my back, the teacher asks to create an intention. She calls it a sankalpa, which is an ancient word from the Sanskrit language, which means a heartfelt desire. 

I say: I am strong. 

As the session continues, I repeat my intention: I am strong three times in my head. 

I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. 

Focused breathing

My teacher asks me to breathe counting backwards from 10 to zero. She suggests that after every breath count backwards with one one number. 

  • Inhale / Exhale / 10
  • Inhale / Exhale / 9
  • Inhale / Exhale 8
  • Inhale / Exhale / 7
  • Inhale / Exhale / 6
  • Inhale / Exhale 5
  • Inhale / Exhale / 4
  • Inhale / Exhale / 3
  • Inhale / Exhale / 2
  • Inhale / Exhale / 1

Scanning the body

The teacher leads a body scan, which is a quick way for me to give attention on specific parts of my body. 

I focus a few seconds of attention on my body from my forehead to throat to each one of my toes and everywhere in between. The idea is to quickly scan the body, with each body part getting a specific energetic focus. 

I feel sensation in my jaw, mouth, ears, nose, cheeks, eyes, forehead, scalp, back of the neck, and throat.

I focus on my left shoulder, left arm, palm of the left hand, right shoulder, right arm, palm of the right hand and both arms and palms together. 

I give energy to the front and back of my torso, pelvis, sacrum, left hip, left leg, left foot, left foot, right hip, right leg, and right foot.

I give energy to my entire body up and down.

I relax. 

My body loosens up. 

I dream.

Intentional dreaming  in yoga nidra?

I’m off on a magic carpet ride to re-explore my past, searching for an inventory of a lost childhood. However strange it sounds to talk to yourself like this, repeating a the mantra is important to my healing. 

I am strong.

I’m a ten year-old version of myself. Riding a Diamond Back BMW bike, I cruise around my Des Moines’ neighborhood. Envisioning myself as a speed demon, I head down to my friend Jay’s house to go swimming on a summer afternoon. The bike ride is mostly down hill, and I have my towel in my backpack. With closed eyes, I imagine the freedom that I felt on these streets. Riding on the sidewalk, with the wind through my hair, I arrive at Jay’s. I am away from my home. I feel happy to jump in his pool during the humid midwest summer. 

I am strong.

I’m twelve years old, biking down Grand Ave. to Bauder’s, the local drug store. I’m wearing a Vuarnet, France t-shirt and OP shorts. Hoping to pick up the latest round of Topps’ baseball cards, I’m ready to be a kid. I also grab a stash of Now and Later sugary candies. 

I am strong.

I am sixteen years old driving my first car – a grey stick shift Jeep Cherokee. With a built-in radio, roll down windows, and a bare bones build-out, I am reminded of the freedom I felt on those sets of wheels. I love driving a manual car. I am driving again down Grand Ave. to get a Frosty at Wendy’s. I think to myself “Oh I miss the freedom of driving when I was sixteen years old.” 

I am strong.

I haven’t thought about most of these memories in twenty years. Yet these memories are some of the happiest in my life. What the f*ck? There is joy. It is remarkably beautiful to relive parts of my past, and remember these purely joyful moments.

I focus on relaxing my breath to the rhythm of natural sounds. Emotionally and mentally, my heart and mind traveled back in time to the Des Moines’ streets. I rode in a DeLorean time machine, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future.‘

By remembering the positive memories, I reclaim joy from my past life. It heals. 

As my meditation teachers have said, “Your body has wisdom.” With focus and hard work, the memories flooded back. My mind remembered my childhood. By the end of some of these sessions, I cried. I grieved for the past I left behind. Yet, after the cry, I’m grateful to recall these memories. I’ve experienced two seemingly conflicted emotions in healing: grief and joy.

How yoga nidra helps trauma

In an eight-week study conducted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, researchers assessed potential treatment for PTSD “among active-duty soldiers returning from the Middle East,” using iRest yoga nidra. 

After eight weeks, researchers found that for:

“Chronic, severe combat-related PTSD symptoms, the greatest relief from tonic states of anxiety, hypervigilance, and rage may come most easily through therapies that cultivate and sustain ‘opposite’ states of mind and body. This fits with the yogic principle of pratipaksha bhavana, which reframes ‘avoidance’ of traumatic memories as the natural gravitation toward balance, integration and health. Participants most highly valued the phases of iRest that focused on sensing physical pleasure, bliss, and essential qualities of inner strength.” International Journal of Yoga Therapy, No. 21 (2011) 

It is a surreal experience. I didn’t realize it, but I blocked out a lot of good, healthy, positive childhood memories. I had a hole in part of my heart. I filled it back in with love. Decades later, I processed my blocked out childhood. 

To recover, I practice yoga nidra smiling, acknowledging, hugging, and grieving my past self. 

A study completed by a leading teacher in Yoga nidra, Richard Miller, Ph.D., theorizes “that there’s no separation between our dream state and reality because they inform each other.” Yoga nidra is a dream-like state.

“Yogis state that 45 minutes of yoga nidra is as restorative as three hours of sleep…It is a spiritual practice that through a structured and conscious movement through sleep states, takes you to realms beyond the mind and into the fourth state of consciousness beyond waking, dream, and deep sleep,” is how Kamini Desai, author of Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep” describes yoga nidra.

During these meditations, I grieve, I feel joy, yet there is pain. I feel a loss of myself. That sounds weird, yet when I address the pain, I find relief. I grieve over parts of my past that remained unresolved. It is emotionally exhausting. 

Crying helps me grieve. 

I sometimes cry during yoga nidra. I cry for my lost past life. Feeling pain for my younger self is incredible. I move onto the present. I stop wallowing in self-pity. I choose to live in the now, accepting the sadness. 

An important part of healing any childhood trauma is doing inner child work. You have to grieve for your childhood, where you were robbed. I went back in time during deep yoga nidra meditation, talking to my younger self. I’ve learned that overcoming trauma, I must grieve for my inner child. While meditating on a childhood memory from my past, I’d tell myself “I love you.” “You’re f*cking awesome.” “I love myself,” during the yoga nidra sessions. I end by reciting the words: I am strong. I am strong. I am strong.

Peeling myself off the couch, like a patient sitting up on a hospital gurney, I’m in my garage, alone, healing myself. Wiping off the tears streaming down my cheek. The entire world heals when you heal.

The Buddhist monk Mingyur Ringapoche talks about how you have to “shake hands with the negative emotions.” I not only shook hands with my past sadness, I gave myself a bear hug. I loved what I lacked as a kid. It was like going back in the past, time traveling to past events. Rather than take an airplane, I went back via my mind. Layering memories of my subconscious, I recalled nearly every major moment of my youth. 

I learned that I am strong. 

I went under the hood of the car, checking the engine of my mind. 

I cleaned the engine, checked the oil, and restarted the car battery in my brain. 

I left with a calmer mind. 

Links:

What is Yoga Nidra? Cleveland Clinic

iRest Yoga Nidra 20 Min Practice by Dr Richard Miller

Shiva Rea Yoga Nidra

Daphne Lyon Yoga Nidra

Rest as Resistance: Deep Relaxation Yoga Nidra Practice

________________________________________________________Big thanks to my Editors: Anushri Kumar, Tom White, Kyla Scanlon, Brett Friedman, Stew Fortier, Jeremiah Cohick, James McGirk, Sara Campbell, Charlene Wang, Dilan Dane, David Vargas, Ritesh, Adam Tank, Chris Angelist. 

 

 

 

Categories
healing Meditation

The 15 For 15 Meditation Challenge 🧘

This is the welcome email for my The 15 For 15 Meditation Challenge 🧘. to help people meditate fifteen times in fifteen days. It’s a free fifteen day journey, where you’ll get 5-6 emails from me helping you to create a daily meditation practice. You can read the first email in the Challenge below.

Welcome! I’m grateful that you signed up for this challenge. 

Before we jump in, I’d love to know why you joined me on this challenge. There are thousands of meditations apps, articles, and teachers who could help you on your journey.

Why are you here, in this email, in this course?

I’d love to hear from you, feel free to email me directly what you’re looking to gain from the next fifteen days. 

With the ’15 for 15 Meditation’ 🧘 Challenge, I want to you to prove something to yourself:

You can meditate fifteen times in fifteen days.

I discovered my own system for meditation creating a daily practice.  

Whether it’s finding calm during your stressful day, sleeping more deeply at night, or relaxing your body before starting to work – starting a consistent meditation practice produces results. 

Have you been feeling stressed out after the pandemic, an upcoming career change, or grieving a loss due to Covid-19? Emotional exhaustion is real, and we have to take care of our energy.

The way that we  interact with the world is of great importance. We need to learn to protect our energy; meditation is a practice to teach us how to do this.

To start, I share with you an article I wrote about meditating for 30 days in a row, from scratch. 

Both teaching and practicing meditation has changed my life. I want to help you get to where you need to be, and see how meditation can help. 

Did you start this journey because of wanting to find your own unique energy on the topic of healing? 

How the Challenge Works

This is a two week challenge. During these fifteen days, you will:

    • Choose your meditation space at your home, office, or even in your car.
    • Connect, communicate, and meditate with other mediators on a similar path as you
    • Develop a muscle to journal/write after every session and track your meditations minutes
    • Start to meditate on Day 1, continuing to meditate fifteen times in fifteen days
    • Learn more about different types of meditation from breathwork to yoga nidra (yogic sleep) and vipassana (insight) meditation 
    • Experiment with different types of meditations—different formats, varying lengths—to broaden your practice
    • Expand your practice by addressing your meditations and integrate your newfound knowledge and energy into your daily life 

In other words, you’ll get over the analysis paralysis often caused by trying to commit to practicing and become a full blown meditator.

You’ll receive short emails with step-by-step instructions for each stage of the challenge.

I hope you’re as excited about this as I am. I can’t wait to see how this goes!

Tomorrow, I’ll send you an introduction about how to start the challenge, a spreadsheet with over fifteen free, handpicked meditations, and we’ll start your first daily practice. 🙂

See you tomorrow as we kick off this journey together!

Much Love,

Ryan

PS: If you are reading this, you probably found my writing from my newsletter, have followed my work around the Influencer Economy book or podcast. Or you may have taken a breathwork class with me. Or, if you found me somewhere else…I’d love to know how you found me!

Big thanks to my editors: Tom White, Joel Christiansen, Amber Williams, and Jesse Germinario.

Categories
Meditation

Practicing Meditation from Scratch: How to Meditate for 30 Days in a Row

 

I’m at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. The line to get into tonight’s show is down the block. Running late, my friends Luke and Liam hold a place in line for me. Eventually, the doors open up and we walk into the venue and head straight to the bar. 

We are at The Wiltern to learn about meditation from conversation with Ripoche Minguyard, a Tibetan monk known for going on a “wandering retreat” for four and a half years mostly living without a home in the Himalayas and the flat land of India.

The energy of the room is full of excitement and anticipation, it’s as if we were here for a rock show. Buying the first round of beers for my friends, the bartender serves three micro-brew beers with orange slices. 

The three of us do a low key cheers, and jump into a conversation about mental health, pharmaceutical drugs, and psychedelics. We have a radical conversation that opens me up for the night. This event was a big night in my meditation journey. Looking back, it helped me start a daily practice for thirty days of meditation. 

At the beginning of the conversation, Ripoche leads the crowd in a brief sit-down meditation. 

When  a Tibetan Monk Makes it Easy

He asks us to find our “basic goodness” and to “relax.” As we drop into meditating, he suggested that we “just be” and advises  that we “don’t meditate.” 

He talks for a few minutes and after holding our breath for ten seconds, he says we were done. He suggests that “non-meditation” is the “best mediation.” His advice is to “just be.” 

Well, that is easy.

Up until that night, I was a newcomer to meditation. 

Starting a meditation practice on my own was a hard and lonely struggle.  

Previously, I had practiced on my own sporadically yet didn’t develop a habit. 

If you have meditated a few times to calm down before work, then you’re like me. 

I also meditated on the days before public speaking, yet I never developed the meditation habit.

If you’re someone who has felt meditation benefit your life, and still haven’t prioritized it, then I can totally relate. 

After the talk with Ripoche, I got the itch to practice. He made it sound simple. 

But it wasn’t. It was painful. 

Once I discovered certain tools that work for me, meditation became less stressful. It helped me get in touch with a part of myself that was suffering. 

I accessed a deeper consciousness, and was able to heal a lot of pain inside of my body. By meditating every day for thirty days, I kickstarted my own practice, and found a path to calm and soothe my body.

None of my friends meditated. No one in my family practices. I went blindly into it and this is what I learned. If you’ve been struggling with meditating consistently, take a look and, who knows, you might find just have fun while doing it.

How to Meditate for 30 Days in a Row: The Mindset

What helped me keep going for thirty days:

  1. I meditated first thing in the morning, I’d find a quiet spot in my garage, backyard, or bed. Getting it out of the way early started my day on the right path. Waking up early to meditate helped me to avoid getting distracted. 
  2. I was gentle on myself if I missed a morning session. It’s okay to miss a session.  I was forgiving to myself. If I missed a morning practice, I’d make time for meditation during a lunch break or at night before bed. Self-compassion is a huge part of meditation. Sometimes I would meditate in my car if I arrived early to a meeting, which forced me to get over my own fears of being judged by others for meditating.
  3. I started with guided meditations, led by a teacher. It’s hard enough finding the time to meditate, and it’s even harder to guide your own meditation. It’s easier to push play on a meditation app where someone teaches you how to practice. I recommend Waking Up, Unplug, Tara Brach’s basic meditations (free) and Jack Kornfield’s Soundcloud (free) to start your practice. Turn your phone to airplane mode, and settle into the practice.
  4. I brought a meditation journal with me and would write afterward. After each session, I would jot down any notes, ideas, or downloads from my practice. They would range from heavy thoughts from childhood suffering to more simple thoughts like my to-do list for the day. No matter what I thought, I worked to withhold judgement. Over time if I got too busy to write by hand, I would write in the notes section of my iPhone to document my thoughts/progress. It became a writing practice. I eventually turned the notes into articles that helped me share my practice with others. Sharing my own meditation stories not only helped myself to heal, it helped other people along their own path.
  5. I kept track of every minute of each session, writing out the total number of minutes in the meditation journal. This helped me feel like my practice grew, and made me feel accomplished. The tracking also helped me document it in a clinical sense. Some apps track your hours, which is also helpful in reaching your goals. And when you reach a milestone like 1,000 total minutes, you can feel proud for yourself, even if no one else is there to celebrate the achievement with you.
  6. I came from a place of desperation. Around the time of the Ripoche talk, I had been diagnosed with Complex PTSD, which is a form of ongoing childhood trauma. Meditation was like medicine and I was giving myself a drip of a healthy serum. Previously, I had tried prescription drugs, psychiatry, and therapy – yet none of those treatments helped me like meditation did. Meditation physically calmed my body down.
  7. I accepted that it was a lonely activity.  I practiced in my backyard or garage at first. I had no one to share my practice with because very few (if any) of my friends practiced. Sometimes if I had a huge breakthrough like feeling something like childhood anger resurface or grieving by remembering a sad moment like a friend’s passing. I’d sometimes record a video or audio message to document that it actually happened. Talking to someone in the video helped me to acknowledge any breakthrough, as if I was speaking to a friend. 
  8. I picked ten minutes of meditation and stuck with it. Starting to practice meditation is like working an under-utilized muscle. You have to develop the skills to meditate, and it helps to pick a number and stick with it. I initially chose ten minutes a day, and over time I increased the amount. I gradually built up my practice to doing two ten-minute sessions back to back. Or I would do two fifteen-minute meditations in a row. You can build up your tolerance to the pain or whatever comes up, and over time it gets less challenging! Ten minutes is a great number. As I mentioned before, I was gentle on myself. If I missed a morning session, I’d schedule it around lunch or even do it in my car if I arrived at a meeting early.
Discovering How Meditation Works for Your Body

Remember that not all tips work for everyone. It’s important to figure out what works for you. Life gets in the way, and if you miss a day, it’s okay. It’s not like weight training, where you need to be intense about sticking to a strict plan. 

I downloaded the meditations on my phone when possible. Text messages, email alerts, and social media apps need to be quiet if you’re going to get into a daily routine. Muting your notifications and stopping all your incoming dings and pings will help you to focus on the practice.  

My foray into meditation began at The Wiltern and over a beer with some friends. 

Over time, the growth that you will achieve can make you feel good inside. The process itself can be fun, even though it’s challenging at first.

Meditation can be a radical tool for self-discovery, self-awareness, and finding calm. It is a gateway to go deeper in your life, and enjoy yourself while doing it. 

Around the time of Ripoche’s talk, I was open to new possibilities and ready to make changes in my life. I had been arguing with my psychiatrist around her urging me to start an antidepressant for what she felt like was depression. I had recently cried during a session.

I was desperate for new more natural solutions to mental health care. 

The night during Ripoche’s talk opened up my thinking. My friends talked in-depth about how psychedelics can help people with depression. Specifically, Luke shared that psilocybin mushrooms and therapy help him deal with his depressed moods. 

Starting to meditate can open you up to new consciousness, and be a gateway to living a more open life, and even teach you to love yourself just a little bit more.

Have you, like I did, wanted to practice meditation consistently but for one reason or another it you didn’t? 

If you want to join me in a 30-day meditation journey, leave a comment below or sign-up for my email community and tell me how it’s going. Follow along for more information about the upcoming meditation 30 for 30 course.

For privacy, I changed the names of my friends, since at the time of publishing this article, psychedelics are criminalized in this country. Hopefully we can all work to decriminalize together and end the war on drugs.

Editors

Chris Angelist , Matthew Vere, Joel Christiansen,  Drew Stegmaier, Piyali (Peels) Mukherjee , Blake Reichmann , Steven Ovadia , Ali Q, Roseline Mgbodichimma, Soma Mandal, and Grant Nice.

Categories
Meditation Recovery

What is Loving-Kindness? Practicing Meditation with Jack Kornfield

 

I write bi-monthly articles, publish podcasts, and host workshops on healing, recovery, and the root causes of pain. Sign up for two stories per month, that’s it. I charted my journey and this first article is Complex PTSD: When Your Therapist Thinks You May Be F*cked. My second article is How Breathwork Helps Process Stress, Pain, and Trauma: Why I Practice.

I am sporting a blue hoodie that says ‘Des Moines: Hell Yeah’, unmatched striped colored socks, dark blue jeans, and a black baseball hat.

I’m in a room of over 50 strangers, my mustache, chin beard, and blue glasses starkly contrast to the crowd of primarily white, baby boomer women.

Some people rest on blankets on the wooden floor, while others sit in chairs with their feet firmly rooted to the ground. 

Legendary monk and mediation teacher Jack Kornfield sits in front of us. 

He rings a Tibetan bowl three times. 

“Good morning,” he says, his voice sweet and soothing.

If he was a Crayola crayon in a box of 64-colors, his color would be Calm. 

The room is full of unfamiliar faces, and I have never meditated in a room with this many people. My shoulders remain unmoved as I try not to make any noise above the hum of the heater purring in the background. 

Jack and his wife Trudy Goodman are hosting a Sunday Morning Sit in Santa Monica, CA. at Insight L.A. Sitting in a meditation class with Jack and Trudy is like attending a PhD-level course in meditation. 

What is loving-kindness?

Today’s meditation is loving-kindness, also called metta. 

Though the loving-kindess practice I learn to how to intentionally give and receive love.

Loving-kindness can be super-helpful if no none ever taught you to love yourself. As a child, no one showed me how to love myself. This is how it helped me.

The goal of loving-kindness meditation is to focus unconditional love for yourself, and others. You want good things to happen to other people. You are wishing well to other people and yourself, while you are in mediation. 

Metta is the ancient word for loving-kindness and is translated to mean friendliness, goodwill, fellowship, and non-violence. 

According to Jack, the loving-Kindness meditation uses words, images, and feelings to evoke loving-kindness and friendliness toward oneself and others.

In today’s thirty-five-minute meditation, we move positive energy towards people in our life, to ourselves, and the entire world. 

The practice is in four parts: 

  1. Give love to a friend whom I have an easy relationship with. 
  2. Give love to myself. 
  3. Give love to my community and the rest of the world. 
  4. Give love to a person whom I have a difficult relationship with 

Giving loving-kindness to a friend

Jack speaks at a volume just above a whisper. After a few minutes of sitting together, Jack begins the loving-kindness meditation:

Picture someone with whom you have a loving relationship. As you picture them, then begin softly inside, repeating simple phrases of well wishing and kindness.

I think of my cousin Kathy, someone whom I love. 

Jack asks us to think about this person and reflect on them, giving them loving-kindness and well wishing. 

I feel positive heat surfacing up in my body. From inside my core, the warm energy is pushing itself out to arms, legs, and then feet and hands. 

With a gentle monotone voice, Jack repeats the words again:

May you be filled with loving-kindness.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

May you be filled with loving-kindness.

I sit, thinking of my cousin. As Jack says the phrases of well wishing, I send love to my cousin Kathy, whom I love. I have an easy sense of care for her. In sync with Jack, I say in my head:

Kathy, may you be filled with loving-kindness.

Kathy, may you be safe and protected.

Kathy, may you be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

Kathy, may you be filled with loving-kindness.

Kathy lives on the other side of the country, and I am sending her love from my body. There is a rush of energy warming me.

As a kid, I would meet up with Kathy’s family, going swimming in my Aunt and Uncle’s backyard pool. 

Envisioning Kathy in my mind, I care about her. I imagine Kathy in her house, eating at her kitchen table, and then going on a brisk walk outside with her dog. It’s winter and she is wearing a cold weather jacket. She sees her breath in the wind. Her dog loves running around outside. I send well wishes to Kathy and her dog.

There is a tingly sensation coming from inside my body. 

Giving love to myself

Jack continues speaking and asks us to move onto ourselves. He wants us to give ourselves well wishing. 

 Spoonfeeding me a sorely needed healthy serum of love, my eyes are more relaxed.

Instead of looking outside for validation from others for love, I am looking inwards at my own body. It’s not easy. 

Inside my mind, with Jack’s voice as my guide, I repeat his words:

May I be filled with loving-kindness.

May I be safe and protected.

May I be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

May I be filled with loving-kindness.

As I give love to myself, the left shoulder gets stiff, while my left hip is throbbing. My body’s left side is where I keep the majority of my physical stress. I send love to my body as I imagine loving myself. I struggle with the pain, which feels like trapped negative emotions from my childhood.  

Through the practice, I learn to take care of myself. I learn to soothe myself. I learn to love myself. 

In retrospect, I see that loving myself helped me to become aware of my body. Finding physical self-awareness comes in the form of love. 

Giving loving-kindness to my community and the rest of the world

Jack requests that we practice loving-kindness for the world. 

He asks us to think about our neighbors, the people sitting next to us, and the members of our community. He says:

May you be filled with loving-kindness.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

May you be filled with loving-kindness.

Scanning my life, I’m sending love to a college friend Edward, who passed away in his twenties. He is no longer on Earth, yet I feel his spirit. 

I say to myself:

Edward may you be filled with loving-kindness.

Edward may you be safe and protected.

Edward may you be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

Edward may you be filled with loving-kindness.

I envision Edward and I seeing a concert together when we lived in Nashville. We are dancing in a sea of people at the Exit/In bar. He’s grooving in the front row with me, shaking side to side.

We then pick up BBQ sandwiches at Hog Heaven, a local divey BBQ shack. It’s next to a dive bar where we would drink Natural Light beers, play pool on an uneven pool table, while the jukebox blares Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.

In a dream-like state, I hear his voice in my head for the first time in decades. 

An old nickname from him, “Sugar Boy,” rings in my ear. It’s like Edward is over my shoulder talking. “Sugar Boy.” I hear it again. 

I tear-up, thinking about his spirit. I have not properly grieved for Edward since his physical passing (Later I realize this!). 

Warm energy rushes into my body. I love the memory him. 

Giving loving-kindness to a person you have a difficult relationship with

Jack asks us to give love and well wishing to someone with whom we have a difficult relationship. I think of my relatives with whom I have not always kept in close contact. 

Scanning my relatives, I bring love to my Aunt Dolly, Uncle Jerry, Uncle Seamus, and cousins who I have not seen in many years. I send love to my entire extended family during the practice. Our relationship is always delicate, and I give them love.

Alongside Jack, I say to myself:

Aunt Dolly, may you be filled with loving-kindness.

Uncle Jerry, may you be safe and protected.

Uncle Seamus, may you be well, healed, and strong in body and mind.

Mary Ellen, may you be filled with loving-kindness.

As the meditation continues, Jack’s voice goes silent. He suggests that we sit with our feelings in silence. 

Mentally, I am underwater. For a few moments, it’s like I cannot breathe. I am exhausted.

I miss my extended family, and haven’t kept in very good touch with them through the years. I am filled with deep emotion, I would like to quit the meditation. 

I love my family.

I fight to not open my eyes. 

It’s overwhelming to think about loving all these people. 

I hear a ring from Tibetan Bowl. Jack asks us to open our eyes. The meditation is over. 

I stretch my body out. My left shoulder is tight. My left hip is stressed. The love that I give helps to heal my stressed body. 

Through today’s practice, I expand my capacity to love others. I expand my capacity to love myself. As a child, I did not learn to love myself. 

The practice can shift your thinking into helping other people. The practice is a gentle way of looking at the world. 

I learn to hold onto these feelings of love. 

Self-love is a practice. 

Loving one’s self takes discipline, and it never dawned on me to practice it. 

Loving-kindness is an antidote to the trauma, stress, and suffering,  it calms the body down. 

Loving-kindness helps you find new neural pathways that connect your brain. While it opens open up new ways to live a more whole life. 

Loving-kindness can be super-helpful because no one taught you how to love yourself.

You see how much loving-kindness has helped me. You can try Jack Kornfield’s Loving-kindness meditation live from InsightLA or his Loving-kindness recording online. 

Big thanks to my editors: Drew Stegmaier, Piyali (Peels) Mukherjee, Elisa Doucette, Nanya Sudhir, Joel Christiansen, and Kavir Kaycee.

Links:

Jack Kornfield’s Loving-kindness meditation at InsightLA

Insight LA

Jack Kornfield

Trudy Goodman

Categories
CPTSD Meditation Recovery

Meditation is a Practice of Self-Care – How Backyard Meditation Brings Me Healing

After decades of filling prescriptions of antidepressant, mood stabilizing, and antipsychotic drugs, I finally rejected conventional psychiatric wisdom. Using ancient methods, I went against doctors’ orders to heal. Through these methods, I treated the root cause, not merely the symptoms. I charted my journey in a series of essays.

I write bi-monthly articles, publish , and host workshops on healing, recovery, and the root causes of pain. for two stories per month, that’s it. I charted my journey and this first article is . My second article is .

In my backyard, I sit upright on a gray deck chair. My bare feet are squarely grounded on the Earth. I feel small blades of dry grass in between my toes. I am settled, wearing blue jeans, a black ball cap, and a t-shirt that says Des Moines: Hell Yeah. I remove my blue glasses and place them on the circular glass side table. I faintly hear speeding cars racing to work on the freeway in the background. The early morning sun sprinkles its rays while I relax under the shade of a purple flowered jacaranda tree. My hair, mustache and goatee are un-showered and unkempt. I prepare to close my eyes. My backyard is a sanctuary for my practice. Wearing ear buds, I push play on my iPhone to begin my morning meditation. I am ready for my daily ritual of thirty minutes of meditation. Today’s choice is Waking Up by Sam Harris.

The next thing I know, I drop into a memory during the practice. I sob uncontrollably. A moment from my life comes to mind: I am on stage giving a business talk to a packed audience. This is a familiar space, a place where I led marketing workshops throughout the past five years. I am due to host an event there in a few weeks. Tears stream down my cheeks while I am on stage. I hope someone from the crowd comes up to hug me. I am sad. No one helps me. From the stage, I see an old friend Lisa in the crowd. I have been through so much with this friend. I feel a deep connection with her. I want someone to comfort me, and no one helps. I continue to cry, while my body is frightened. I think “We’ve all been through so much together, and I need a hug.” 

After my Complex PTSD diagnosis, meditation became a regular ritual. During the first five months of my recovery, I meditated over 2,500 minutes, which is over two whole days of my life. Meditation became a mini-hibernation to rejuvenate my body. The meditation slows down my breathing and heart-rate. I stopped taking a mood-stabilizing drug called Lamictal. I now feel intense and painful triggers throughout my body that the drug suppressed. On the surface, the drug comforted the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It helped me to manage my pain. I spent years in denial and ignored the root causes of my problems. Like the crew members moving deck chairs on the Titanic as the iceberg approached the ship, I discovered that I too was in denial about my reality. In my backyard, I learned that mindful meditation is a gateway to a new reality. Meditation opens the depths of my mind and it changes my life for the better. I learn to take care of my pain and suffering. Meditation becomes a spiritual healing practice. 

Meditation is a practice of self-care

Back in the meditation session, I lose control of my emotions. I am panicking. My body is sore. The left side of my body is tight. My left shoulder is triggered, while my left hip feels stressed. Even my left toes, ankle, and knee are tense. Taking deep breaths, I gain control. I feel badness and goodness in my body. I am scared of the past that I have not dealt with. Meanwhile, the future feels unpredictable. I am exhausted. I learn to love myself. I soothe my tight shoulder. I repeat to myself in my head, “It’s okay. I am safe.” Awakening from meditation, I struggle to breath. Tears run down my cheeks. My nose is congested from the sobbing. However, my left side body is more relaxed. I recognize that my left hip, shoulder, elbow, and knee need to be loved. I look after my sore body. 

I am healing. 

During the backyard meditation, my 6:00am sessions bring up many flashbacks. The grassy lawn becomes a sacred place for me to be alone. The decades of suppressed triggers resurface throughout my body, from my shoulder to cheek to hip to foot. I need to heal emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. During my initial recovery period, my backyard is a sanctuary. The early morning routine sets my day on a path to recovery. I treat meditation like a job. I meditate on the bus to work. Wearing my sunglasses to cover my closed eyes, I hope that no one looks at me strangely. During my lunch break, I practice in my coworking space’s dark meditation room. Before bed, I practice to ease into a deeper sleep. It is a lonely journey, yet I am determined to heal. Additionally, I attend two therapy appointments per week. Therapy helps to ease some of the burden. 

Meditation creates space to heal

I often get flashbacks to past life events and flashforwards to future events. These feelings are common with people healing from C-PTSD. I am scared and paralyzed by past events, and anxious about future potentialities. The meditation provides a safe environment for my fight or flight tendencies. I learn to focus on the present. I process the flashbacks in the moment. “I think to myself, “Wow, I can heal pain from decades ago.” Meditation is a practice of self-love. Many of these memories come from deep within the practice, sometimes twenty or thirty minutes into a session. 

The memories are visual snapshots into the deeper recesses of my mind. From different backyard meditation sessions, I conjure up vivid childhood memories like this one: 

My family has a ritual of picking up fast food at the drive-throughs of Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco John’s, and McDonald’s in Des Moines, IA. My Dad and I are in the McDonald’s drive-through to pick-up our dinner. I love Chicken McNuggets and I can’t wait to eat them. We return home and I dip a McNugget in my favorite barbecue sauce, and take a bite. I spit out the McNugget, it tastes gross. Looking at the McNugget, it is red and raw inside. The food is disgusting. My Dad, trying to save my dinner, puts the McNuggets in the toaster oven to continue cooking them. He gets frustrated with me and pressures me to eat the McNuggets. I spit them out again. He yells. We then drive back to McDonald’s to return them. I still do not want to eat the McNuggets. I stopped eating McNuggets that day and still haven’t had one since. 

Meditation brings radical change

On some days after a thirty minute session, I am strung out on my feelings. I sweat out the trauma. It feels like stuff is stuck in my body, as if I am breaking a fever. Gross, nasty, and icky are some of these memories from my childhood coming through. Basic emotions and feelings coming out of me. Sweating out the toxins, I want to be normal. Unsure of what normal even looks like, I am alone, and there is no one to speak with. Guilt, shame, and frustration set in. My body hurts. Physically, mentally, emotionally, I am exhausting myself. Closing my eyes, while focusing on the breath brings me comfort. However, it doesn’t always bring self-love. During one session, I recall my Dad’s trauma. This makes me feel like some of my pain is not mine, but other people’s in my family. It is intergenerational trauma, and my parents passed it down to me. I am not living in the moment during these meditations. I am stuck in between the past and the future. During one session I flashback to a few years ago:

I am in conversation with my Dad. He opens up about giving his own Dad CPR after a heart attack. Reflecting on the men in my life, I recognize my Dad has trauma from his childhood, trauma that he rarely speaks about. My Dad tells me that he gave his Dad mouth to mouth resuscitation in the family business office. I wonder if my Dad lives with guilt over his Dad dying months later. My Grandfather’s health was never the same. My Dad is dealing with the trauma of his own Dad dying. My Dad may be a high functioning person, but he is hurt. 

Trauma recovery brings spirituality

One some days, I feel like a new person after practicing thirty minutes of meditation. My backyard is a spiritual place. It is a safe environment for me to explore my life. I never realized it before, but I’m a trauma survivor. Doctors diagnosed me with depression, anxiety, and other normal-ish symptoms around mental health, but never trauma. During these meditation sessions, my body feels gross. My shirt has beads of sweat on it. However, I learned the practice of self-care through this healing journey. 

During one session, I envision telling different friends and family members about the C-PTSD. I have this vision many times, and each time I am ashamed of telling loved ones about my diagnosis. I feel judged. I flash ahead:

Tears fall down my cheeks. I am sad. Whether it is my Dad, friends from college, or childhood friends- I am heartbroken. Sharing with them my diagnosis makes me upset. During one session, I tell a college friend whom I haven’t spoken to in years, and by the end of the session I am crying. During another session, I share my C-PTSD diagnosis with a childhood friend who I haven’t seen in decades, and I sob. During another session, I tell my Dad, and I’m balling my eyes out. I am ashamed. This is all in my head, I meditated these shamed feelings out of my body. 

I treat recovery like it is a job. I full-court press myself to get better, determined to try every last option to find a solution. Since college, I have seen psychiatrists, tried group therapy, gone to one-on-one therapy, and tried cognitive therapy. In my head, I am close to the finish line. This is a twenty-year journey in the making. Mindfulness is a gateway to a new reality. It gives me power. My backyard practice heals leftover feelings of helplessness. It opens up my mind to depths that I need to reach. I discover a radical recovery device that changes my life for the better. 

Through the backyard meditation sessions, I open my mind to a higher consciousness. A steady diet of meditation helps me to rediscover myself. It opens the door to more self-exploration, feeding my soul. I learn the skills of self-care in a new way. Meditation proves to be a gateway to exploring other ancient healing modalities. Whether it is practicing a calm mind with the Dalai Lama, or breathwork to process stress, pain, and trauma, sound healing to help soothe my body – meditation opens the door to expand my consciousness. 

Links:

Waking Up Meditation, by Sam Harris

Editors:Vandan Jhaveri, Abu Amin, Lyle McKeany, Steven Ovadia, Joel Christiansen, Oliver Palmer, and Drew Stegmaier.