Ep 11: My Journey with Meditation
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Jo: Hello, my beautiful friend. Welcome back to the podcast. It's been a busy. A busy week. Really. I was gonna say a couple days, but it's really been a busy week and I have been working more shifts [00:01:00] at the hospital. It turns out I actually kind of missed working as a nurse. I hadn't worked a hospital shift yet this year until a couple days ago, and I missed it. I missed the people. I missed the patients. I missed getting to be in that zone, and helping people in that way, so turns out. The hospital that I'm working at needs extra help on night shifts, so I've decided to pick up three nights this week. It's gonna be so much fun. I will update you on how that goes later. But for now, I wanted to share a story with you because meditation has become more of a popular modality lately, and more and more people have been trying it more and more people have been recommending it, and it's a lot more accessible now than [00:02:00] it was in the past, which is amazing because I absolutely love meditation. I am a huge supporter of meditation because I know what it's done for me, and I've seen how different my life is and feels when I do meditate or when I do have a meditation portion in my daily practice versus when I skip my meditation or when I fall off meditating as part of my self-care. Because that's what it is, it is spending time with yourself. It is really getting into that space where you can be with your mind and your body, and listen to what it has to say. When I was in fifth grade. We had a guest speaker from Africa come speak to our classes and I don't remember anything that was said. The only thing that I remember was this beautiful guided meditation that [00:03:00] he walked us through. I don't think that he actually called it a meditation, but that's what it was. And that is when I fell in love, absolutely fell in love with meditation. That is when my journey with meditation began.
So here he is speaking to this room full, and I mean, packed full of fifth graders. We were sitting in desks and on the floor because we had one class come in to join into another classroom with another class. So there were kids everywhere, right? And what he did was he sat us down and walked us through this visualization. He guided us through visualizing. Turning our brainwaves down, like dialing it down. He walked us through getting into a more peaceful inner state, and that stuck with me. I repeated that process that he took us through over [00:04:00] and over and over again until I became more comfortable just getting into a meditative state naturally. And at the time, you know, I'm young. I was just experimenting. If I'm being absolutely completely honest, I didn't know that there was a right or a wrong way to do meditation. And I think that is where so many people struggle today because we get it in our heads that there's a right way or a wrong way to meditate, and if we don't get our brains to completely quiet down, we're doing it wrong and we just can't meditate and we give up on it. I am here to say, That is a complete and total lie that you are telling yourself because meditation is not about clearing your mind, emptying your mind, and sitting in complete silence. While yes, you can do that absolutely if you want to. It's [00:05:00] not how it has to be. Since that day in the fifth grade, I've walked myself through guided visualizations. I've walked myself through different meditations. I've just sat with my eyes closed and pictured myself turning my brainwaves down. Meditation got me through a rough childhood. Meditation was where I was able to find peace within myself. Meditation was where I was able to quiet down everything that was happening around me. Step back and see a bigger, more clear picture. And then when I was in basic training for the Air Force, we were able to go to church on Sundays. We were able to go worship in whatever way we chose on Sundays. So Sundays were notoriously known for grilled cheese and Jesus, we all looked forward to Sundays because we [00:06:00] knew that we would be able to get out of the dorms and go worship or just have a little bit of time to ourselves. So there were two religious services that offered meditation during their service, and that was the Wiccan service and the Buddhist service. So I ended up going to the Wiccan service. I'm not a Wiccan. I don't practice Wicca, but I did go for the meditation. So while I was there, I had absolutely no clue what people were talking about. While I was there during the service, I, I learned a lot about Wicca. I've learned a lot about, which is, and while I don't practice, Wicca, I do appreciate and respect it, and the guided meditations that we did while we were there were just beautiful. That is where I met my spirit animal. That's where I met [00:07:00] some of my guides. Through my experience in basic training with those guided meditations and visualization I was able to deepen my practice even more than I already had, and I was able to explore. Meditation in a way that I hadn't yet before in a way that I could ask questions and receive answers in a way that I could tap into something higher than just myself. The way that meditation is portrayed oftentimes what comes to mind when people think about meditation is like a, a monk sitting cross-legged under a tree, chanting om the entire time for hours on end and completely emptying your mind. And I really wanna squash that because there are so many different types of meditations. There's walking meditations, there's [00:08:00] sitting meditations, there's standing meditations. You can meditate laying down you can meditate in many, many different ways. Writing can be meditative. Doing simple, repetitive tasks can be meditative. Gardening can be meditative. Taking a hike in nature can be meditative. The possibilities are endless. Okay? And I really just want to shed light on that, and I want you to be able to experience meditation. In a way that feels good to you, and also to explore and experiment and not think that you're wrong because you can't get your brain to shut up. what I've noticed through my practice and through talking to other people who love to meditate or who are experimenting with meditation is that there are a couple of stages. When you're getting into a meditative state, and that first [00:09:00] stage is a little bit of resistance, like your mind wants to just keep going, it doesn't want to shut up, and as you allow yourself to just be there, allow yourself to be present. Allow yourself to acknowledge those thoughts that are coming up. Acknowledge them and just let them pass. And then the next stage after that resistance, you might get some thoughts that pop up. And those thoughts are typically things that you care about the most. Those thoughts are. Typically the way that you show love. So if something comes up and you're like, oh man, I really need to get the dishes done. Or if you're thinking about what's for dinner or what you're going to make for dinner or the laundry that needs to get done, those are. Typically acts of service in some way, shape, or form for you or for somebody else. They're the things that you care about, so acknowledge them[00:10:00] and show yourself some compassion because you care. Those are the things that you care about. And then as you acknowledge and let them go, Then you start to get deeper into your meditative state, and this all happens by allowing, allowing those thoughts to be there, acknowledging them, and letting them pass, and allowing yourself to sit with yourself, allowing yourself to listen to what you need. So my invitation to you It is to try out some type of meditation this week. It doesn't matter what it is. You can go onto the YouTubes and search for a meditation. A guided meditation or visualization. If there's something specific that you want to do, like meet your spirit guides or your spirit animal or whatever that is. YouTube it, search it on YouTube, [00:11:00] and I promise you something will pop up. There are so many resources out there for you, and I'm so excited for more people to try meditation and experiment with meditation because you're not gonna break any rules of meditation. Everybody can meditate, it's a natural state that we can all access so go out there, experiment with meditation, and then find me on social media and send me a DM and let me know what your experience with meditation was like, because I would love for you to share that experience with me. So that's it for today. I've gotta wrap this up because I'm going to go hit the gym before I go to work tonight, so I love you and I will see you next week.
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