I wanna be like loincloth man.
LOVE YOURSELF
No matter who you really are.
PART 3:
HOW TO TAP INTO THE MOTHERLODE
You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.
—Shrii Shrii Anandamurti; Indian philosopher, social revolutionary, author, composer
Meditation, otherwise known as sitting still and thinking about nothing, is one of those things that can be just as stupidly simple as it is surprisingly hard. It reminds me of those contests where a bunch of people stand around a brand-new car or truck, and whoever leaves their hands on it the longest gets to take it home. The winner winds up on the front page of her local paper, victorious and sleepy, smiling from behind the wheel of her newly-won ride with a thumbs up for
the camera: “Tarrytown’s very own Jill Boender was the proud winner of the 2012 Chevy Stand Off, held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, this past weekend. Jill beat out 68 other contestants from around the country by standing for 173 hours and 9 minutes in the Home Depot parking lot with her hands placed with unyielding determination on the hood of what would soon be her new Chevy Silverado. ‘I’m so excited I won,’ she said. ‘There was some stiff competition, some folks who I thought would never back down, but I really brought my A-game.’”
With meditation, the simplicity is equally misleading.
That’s all I have to do to connect with Source Energy? Sit there and do nothing? It can’t be that easy.
Well . . . it is.
And it’s not.
Which is why it’s called a meditation
practice.
When you shut up and meditate for even five minutes and start to really notice the thoughts that are squirreling around in your brain, it’s rather . . . illuminating. If you’re like most people, the majority of your thoughts are about as valuable and interesting as a bunch of two-year olds fighting over a sippy cup. The goal is to quiet your mind of the chatter so you can connect to Source Energy and instead listen to your inner guidance.
I’m going to give you the breakdown on how to meditate, but first I want to recommend that you start small and work your way up. Try meditating for five to ten minutes each day at first and add on time as you get less squirmy.
There’s no right way or wrong way to do this, no set amount of time, no correct things to feel, no rules about how you have to sit or where you have to do it. All that matters is that you do it if you want to massively improve your life. It’s like drinking lots of water or exercising regularly or not badmouthing other people—you don’t
have
to do it, and the temptation to blow it off is extremely large, but if you
make a habit of it, not only will you start to crave it, but your entire life will change. Because when we meditate, we practice getting into The Vortex and connecting to Source Energy, which automatically:
• Brings us into the present moment
• Raises our frequency
• Opens us up to receive unlimited information and ideas
• Relaxes us
• Relieves stress
• Strengthens our intuition and ability to focus
• Allows us to hear our inner voice more clearly
• Fills us with light and love
• Puts us in a good mood
• Helps us love ourselves
Meditating, and being in The Vortex, is like riding the airstream of awesomeness.
Here are the extremely short and simple steps of some different ways to meditate:
BASIC MEDITATION
• Sit in a comfortable, cross-legged position on the floor, or in a chair, with your hands on your knees or in your lap.
• Sit up straight and relax your entire face, especially your jaw and your forehead.
• Close your eyes, or, if it helps you focus and not fall asleep, keep them open and gaze softly at a spot on the ground a couple feet in front of you.
• Focus on your breathing. Notice it moving in and out of your body; you don’t have to breathe in any special way. Just focus on it.
• Gently release any thoughts that come into your brain and refocus on your breathing. Keep your mind as clear and empty as possible and listen for intuitive hits that may or may not come through.
Tah-dah! That’s it.
OPTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
1. Set a timer. You’ve got enough distracting thoughts without checking the clock to see how long you’ve been at it every thirty seconds.
2. Light a candle and focus on it. Sometimes having a place to
rest your eyes can help you get centered and in the Zone. Sit and face a candle that you place on the floor in front of you while you meditate and see if that works for you.
3. Imagine a bright beam of light shooting down from the sky, shining in through the top of your head, running through your entire body, out your bottom and up to the sky again so that it makes a complete circle. I sometimes find this easier to focus on than the ever-popular breath method, plus it fills me up with energy and light and makes me feel more deeply connected to Source Energy.
4. Use a mantra. Sometimes when the squirrels in my head are particularly active, I bring in a mantra to chase them out. I repeat a word or phrase in my mind like “love” or “thank you” or “yes, please” or “om”—something that makes me feel good and is fairly neutral, but you could use a mantra like “meatloaf” I guess if that’s your thing.
5. Try and do it first thing in the morning so you’re not distracted by whatever the day brings. You’ll also be more connected having just woken up from sleeping.
6. If there’s something in your life that you’re working on or through, you can set an intention/ask for help during your meditation practice. Meditating is about receiving information from The Universe; setting intentions and praying are about sending information out to The Universe. There are two ways you can do this: A) Start with a question, something like,
How do I deal with my pain-in-the-ass teenage son?
And see what, if any, answers download while you meditate, or B) Meditate first, open up the
channel, clear out the chatter, and then ask your question in a space of clarity and connection and see what, if anything, comes to you.
GUIDED MEDITATION
There are countless CDs and DVDs that various hippies and guru types have made over the years to walk you through meditations. I suggest taking the guided route when you’re first starting out if you’re having trouble wrangling your mind into submission. They make great training wheels and I still use them occasionally, especially if I want to focus on something specific.
There are also guided meditation centers all over the place, and it’s really nice every once in a while to meditate in a group— you can really feed off that energy and get the discipline to sit there for an extended period of time. Do a search for meditation centers and ashrams in your area. Sometimes yoga studios hold guided meditations, too.
CHANTING
Chanting is also a great way to get into a meditative state. You can repeat a mantra over and over out loud on your own or, if you prefer to avoid getting busted and very possibly ridiculed, you can do it in a group by attending a Kirtan meditation class. Kirtan meditation involves call-and-response chanting of Sanskrit mantras or devotional songs, and you can attend classes at a yoga studio or meditation center. Also check out Transcendental Meditation instruction, a form that involves repeating mantras and sitting twice a day for around twenty minutes at a time.
I’ve had some pretty profound experiences while meditating; I’ve seen the walls melt around me, felt like I was levitating, and have experienced such a state of euphoria that it almost hurt. I’ve also had extremely un-profound experiences; I’ve fallen asleep, spent the entire time squirming and thinking about what to make for lunch, and have been totally in The Zone, and then realized I was in The Zone, and thought
Awesome, I’m in The Zone!
Thereby pulling myself out of The Zone.
The important thing is that you keep showing up. Even if you’re only in The Zone for one collective minute out of the thirty minutes you’ve been sitting there, it will eventually start making a notable difference in your life.
I think meditation is even more essential now that we have all this technology at our fingertips and distraction has become a way of life. While I truly believe that we, as a species, are becoming more and more conscious, I’m amazed by how, at the same time, our attention spans are rapidly shrinking. I was playing tennis the other day with someone who got a text, pulled out his phone, and checked it
in the middle of a point
. It’s astonishing that we can still speak in full sentences.
Aside from being one of the most powerful tools in our consciousness-raising toolbox, meditation is a much-needed respite from the madness, and will help us from becoming a bunch of scatterbrained ding-dongs as we zoom around our brave, and extremely exciting, new world.
Mind is the master power that molds and makes
And man is Mind and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought and, shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking glass.
—James Allen; old-timey author, self-help pontificator
How often do you stop and notice how genius our Universe is? With all its moving parts and mathematical perfection and chemical reactions and food chains and gravity and all the magnificent efficiency and complexity that makes it up? This display of astonishing brilliance
didn’t just splat down into being-ness by random, dumb luck, it was thought up. Nature is a smoothly running machine, created by a Universal intelligence, where nothing goes to waste; it all has a place and a purpose, and it all works together in its intricately interwoven and compatible way to create the flabbergasting is-ness of it all.
In other words, Source Energy is a smartypants.
As British philosophical writer and self-help pioneer, James Allen, states in the quote that opens this chapter, “Mind is the master power that moulds and makes, -and Man is Mind. . . .”—we are the very thinking substance that was used to create us. Hello?! How major is that?!
This is why positive thinking is all the rage and negative subconscious beliefs are so gnarly and why meditation, and learning to guide your thoughts and love yourself, can change your life.
Our thoughts are the most powerful tools we’ve got.
I think, therefore, I can create awesomeness. Or horrendousness. But the bottom line is that it’s through our thoughts that we create our realities.
It’s also why buying into whatever illusion you’re living in in the present moment is selling yourself so short if it’s anything less than what you truly desire. You created the reality you now exist in with your thoughts, which means you can use the very same power of thought to change it. As Wallace Wattles, author of
The Science of Getting Rich
, so brilliantly states:
To think what you want to think is to think the truth, regardless of appearances.
“To think what you want to think is to think truth”—is that not the best news ever? It doesn’t matter what your reality looks like at the
moment, because where you desire to be is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and if you fixate your mind on this truth, believe that it is real and already here, and take decisive action, it will manifest itself.
This is where most people dig in their heels and say something like, “I am sitting in my ghetto-ass kitchen eating tuna out of a can with a plastic spoon and you’re telling me this isn’t the truth? You’re saying that the truth is that I’m hanging poolside with the president of the United States of America?” If you truly
desire
to hang poolside with the president of the United States of America, and are hell-bent in your mind and your actions to create it, it’s the truth.
Have you ever noticed how a bunch of people can go through the same course, let’s say a class on how to start your own coaching business, and they all get the exact same information and tools, but some will come out of there and totally rock it and others will fall flat on their faces? Even if they all have the same desire to succeed, create beautiful marketing materials and
do
similar things, it’s the ones with the proper mindsets who will succeed. The ones who kick ass are the ones who can see themselves kicking ass, who truly believe in themselves and what they’re selling, who remind themselves how much they want to better people’s lives with their coaching, who are excited to get compensated for selling it and have no limiting, subconscious beliefs holding them back. The ones who feel weird or who worry that they’re being pushy and annoying or who subconsciously believe that they don’t deserve to or can’t succeed—they’re not gonna do so good.
Your thoughts and beliefs dictate your reality, so if you want to change your reality, you have to change your beliefs. The problem is that most people are rill protective of their beliefs and are usually fairly crotchety should you suggest that perhaps there’s another version of the truth.
I’m bad at sales; I have terrible luck; I’m scared of flying; marriages don’t last, I have ugly feet, I’m broke . . .
”Are you calling me a liar? Do
you see a hot boyfriend on my arm? No you don’t, you see a cat on my lap next to my needlepoint project because I stink at relationships—that is the truth and that always has been the truth.” And that will be your truth as long as you choose to think it. As long as you feed the beast, it shall live.