#25 Meditation Made Simple: 3 Steps To Calm PTSD Fast | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our final day of the week, but our Recovery Secrets daily coaching session. We are so, so excited to be here with you on this awesome, awesome Friday. We have great content planned for today and for the rest of next week. So we're super excited for that.

So good morning, everybody. Great to have you here. I am very excited. For, for today's coaching session. And we're going to be talking about a really great relief tool and just overall tool for, for life in general, which is meditation. And we're going to really boil it down to really 3, 3 simple steps that you can go through to get the most out of meditation. And a lot of people out there like to complicate it. And, you know, there's a lot of different types of meditation and it can be, it can get really confusing. You know, there's all these different benefits that people are telling you. So we're going to kind of Boil it down to the essentials of, you know, what you should be doing and kind of the goals of meditation.

When it comes to meditation, right, this is something that a lot of people like to overcomplicate, you know. And I don't know about you, Brad, but like when I was like first learning about this, like for whatever reason, like it was like very taboo, right? Just like, just like meditation, right? It's like this, you know. And I, for a long time, I thought it was like a spiritual practice. Like I really didn't have any idea what it was. And like, when I thought about meditation, my brain was like, okay, like, that's for monks who live in the Himalayas and wear loincloths and like chant, right? And, and they do that, right? But it's not just for them. And there's a tremendous amount of benefits to meditation. And I actually have a definition of meditation that I want to share with you, right? So all meditation is, you know, it's not just for monks who, who live in the, in the Himalayas. It's not a spiritual practice.

Hmm.

But it could be part of one, right? So it's not foundationally a spiritual practice, but it could be part of one, just like anything, right? So meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique such as focusing their mind on a particular object, thought, or activity to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. So I'm gonna read it again. It's a practice where an individual uses a technique such as focusing their mind on a particular object, thought, or activity to To achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. And so by definition, meditation is, is literally just a practice where you're, you're focusing on something in order to achieve that mentally clear, emotionally calm state.

Mm-hmm.

That could be anything, right? So it doesn't have to be spiritually based. It, it can be anything. Okay? And so by definition, Meditation could be me focusing my mind on this particular object, which in this case is my water bottle, in order to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. And so I know we haven't covered this within our coaching, but for those of you who have practiced grounding right now, grounding is a process of focusing your mind on something in order to achieve an emotionally calm, mentally clear state. So So definition, grounding is a form of meditation, right? And so the reason that I want to share all that is because I want to start to kind of break this, this like, oh, meditation is this, this big thing and like you have to be enlightened to do it and like all these, all these things, right? Now, a couple of weeks ago, a couple of Fridays ago, maybe a month ago already, we talked about safe space. So I taught safe space in one of our lessons here. And for those of you who don't know, safe space was just a visualization exercise. Safe space, by definition, also falls underneath a meditation. Okay? So again, all of these things, basically anything can be a meditation. You're just focusing on something in order to achieve mentally calm, emotionally clear state. So that's what meditation is foundationally. Now, when we teach meditation, we teach it, we teach what's called like technically a breath-focused meditation. But we like to keep it super, super simple. And the reason that we teach, again, what's called a breath-focused meditation is because it's, it's very easy because like it or not, you're always going to have that breath, right? So as long as you're going to be practicing meditation, that's always something that you have that you can focus on. So that makes it real, like a breath gives us an anchor to kind of fall back on. So that's the reason that we teach this and it keeps it super, super simple. So do you have any in your life, any experiences, Brad, that you want to share about, you know, how meditation like helped you or anything like that?

Yeah. So I think it's great that we started with the foundation of what meditation is because it can be a lot of things like Cayman said. It's like some people, like I've heard some people focusing on like a candle, just watching a candle. You focus on that and let your thoughts kind of drift away so you can achieve that mentally clear, emotionally calm state. But this technique that I'm going to be teaching you today is a great foundational tool to start to develop the, the, the muscle, right? It is a muscle of being able to focus and allow your thoughts to kind of drift away and achieve that mentally clear, emotionally calm state. So this will be a practice that we will encourage you to do daily. And then what you'll find is that you'll find that different activities throughout your day or in your life, you'll be able to bring that same type of focus, that same type of energy to achieve that same type of goal.

So.

Whether that down the road is processing. So you're gonna be able to focus more, you're gonna be able to be more aware. Or for me, some examples is running. Like when I run, it is a type of meditation for me. And sometimes I listen to music. A lot of times I don't like to because I find it distracts me from, you know, just being in the moment. And that's a big part of, you know, meditation as well. It's like gaining that presence and that presence is in a way how you achieve that, that clear, calm state. So that's how it kind of has impacted my life is that You know, you build this as a daily practice of the breath-focused meditation, and then you, you build that muscle and allows you to basically get into the present moment and basically make anything you want a meditation, which will strengthen, strengthen that muscle and allow you to just bring that clear, calm state throughout your life, right? In all different moments. And it's even better when you can start your day off with some type of meditation as well, because then you start your day with that, that calm, clear state. And if anything starts to like ripple up throughout the day, you notice it and you can address it. Right. So it is a muscle. It's something that grows in time and then it will start to, lack of a better term, flood into the rest of your life. You know, it'll start to permeate into the other areas of your life. You'll be more present. You'll be more calm. You'll be more aware. All of which are just great things to feel.

Yeah.

It's just nice to feel calm and, and, and focused and clear. and not overwhelmed with all of your emotions and things like that. But it also will help you with, you know, like I said, down to processing or, you know, just regular life problems. You know, when you're in a clear, calm state, you're able to become aware of what the problem is much, much easier and solve the problem. And if you were with us for introspective healing, we said profound answers only come to calm minds, right? So you can see how all this stuff starts to tie together, right? And that was the first processing tool that we taught. So by developing a practice of meditation, it's going to impact, you know, how well you do on your processing, the quality of your life and everything else, the quality of your work. You're gonna be able to focus more. Like, it's such an amazing tool. And just on a day-to-day basis, I notice when, when I do meditate versus days I don't meditate, my day is so much calmer and more relaxed and just better when I take that. You know, for me, I, I like to do around 20 minutes, 20 minutes or more. When I take that just 20 minutes to sit in the stillness and allow my mind to just calm down. But we'll get into the steps, but that's, that's a way that it kind of impacted my life along my journey and just in my daily life. So it's, it's a really great practice just to start doing. And it's not, it's not like Kayleen said, a spiritual practice or, uh, you know, something just for monks. It's, there's actually a lot of, there's a lot, there have been a lot of studies done on meditation that show how it, you know, it actually Increases the gray matter in your brain, actually increases the, what do you call it? The prefrontal cortex, which is where kind of your critical thinking and when you think of like human consciousness, that's where like that activity is. So there's a lot of studies on that. It's not just some spiritual thing. There's actual science backed behind meditation and it does grow your brain in some awesome ways. So I'll let Kayleen dive into kind of more of like the effects and like the benefits of. Of meditation.

Yeah. So what's cool, and I love, I love the story that you shared and, and your experience with it. One thing actually, but before we get into that, I just wanna backtrack one second to something that you said. Brad said, you know, it's great if you meditate in the morning because it kind of settles things down. So what you can think about sometimes, a good visual for this is imagine your mind's like a snow globe, right? So a snow globe, right? And your mind is snow globe and it's all shaken up. What happens when you have a snow globe and it's shaken up? Right? It's just snow everywhere. You can't see the little tiny little landscape that's inside it. What happens when you settle that snow globe, when you meditate, when you settle your mind, is all of that snow falls, the globe settles, and you see this beautiful snow-covered landscape inside.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so that's, that's just a, a visual that can help you understand kind of what's going on, right? So you're all shaken up, right? And then you meditate, you let it settle, and then everything's clear. And so what Brad was saying is now throughout the day, throughout your life as it goes on, It'll be easier for you to notice, hey, like something shook up that snow globe. Hold on, like things aren't— they were clear and now they're not clear. Okay? And so meditation has a lot of benefits. Now we recommend it as a relief tool, right? So as basically a coping skill. So when you're all shook up, right, when you're triggered, you know, using this to kind of settle down, to refocus, to kind of get back in the present moment, basically. And it's also a skill we want you to practice regularly, not just when you need it. So it's great when you need it, but it's also something we want you to practice regularly because there's a lot of benefits to it. So I absolutely recommend practicing every day because, again, your, your, excuse me, meditation literally grows your brain. Now, your brain is a muscle, okay? And meditation is like lifting weights for that muscle. That's one of the ways that we can actually grow our brain. Now, when I was in school, I don't know, I'm sure you got a similar lesson, right? When I was in school, I remember being in elementary school and, you know, my teachers and, you know, police officers, whatever, would come in and, and, you know, do presentations and they'd say, kids, you gotta wear your helmets because, you know, once you hit middle school, high school, whatever it was, you know, your brain stops growing, you know, and, or, or you gotta hit the books. You gotta learn as much as you can because, you know, once you hit whatever age it was, you're not gonna be able to learn anything basically ever again. I remember getting that lesson in school and being like, I'd be like anxious about it, being like, oh man, like I better study, right? I better buckle my helmet, right? But that's not actually true, which is good news. Yes, you should still buckle your helmet and hit the books, but the good news is your brain can grow throughout a lifetime. And now meditation is like lifting weights for your brain, and it's specifically going to grow your prefrontal cortex. Now what's really cool about your prefrontal cortex is it houses a lot of great things, right? It's responsible for retrieval of memory. I want you to think about Ask yourself, why would these things be important on the PTSD recovery journey? It's responsible for reason and logic. It's responsible for your personality. It helps you with focus. It's responsible for verbal expression. It's responsible for strategic planning and problem solving. It houses, most importantly for our cases here, your working memory, and it's responsible for judgment, among other things. Okay. So specifically, again, I want to hone in on your prefrontal cortex houses your working memory. When we're using processing tools, everything that we're doing with processing tools specifically, what we're working to do is activate that working memory. Okay? We are teeing up the ball for your brain to swing. Okay? Your brain knows what to do. We need to just kind of push it in the right direction. And your working memory is where that processing is going to happen. Okay? So meditation is an amazing practice for a lot of different reasons. It's going to help you with— it's going to help you with judgment. It's going to help you with focus. It's going to help you with self-control. There are all sorts of things That this is going to help you hone in on. Okay, it's gonna—it's proven to alleviate depression. It improves memory. It improves physical stamina, reaction times, reduces anxiety, stress, fatigue, exhaustion. It's gonna give you heightened present moment awareness. I mean, all sorts of things: self-control, impulse control. All of these things are gonna help you with your journey. Okay, now not all these things are like you know, like imp or like reaction time—not something super super important for your PTSD recovery journey, right? But A lot of things are really, really important and are going to help kind of ease the burden of this journey. And again, help you to grow that muscle and grow that skill. So when the time comes to do the processing, that muscle is nice and strong. Okay? So that's, again, there's, there's more than just the benefit of having that calm in the present moment. So we use this as a recovery tool, excuse me, as a relief tool. We use this as a coping skill, and we want you to practice this, right? Because you can't go to the gym once and come out. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? We want you to practice this daily. We want you to bring this into a daily practice so you're building this muscle. Now, it doesn't have to be 20 minutes a day. Me personally, 7 minutes hits the spot. Okay? It— I wouldn't do any less than 5 minutes, right? But a little bit each day, and you're gonna build this muscle just as if you do 5 pushups a day. If you did 5 pushups a day, over time, you're gonna notice that you get stronger. Right? And now it's not an incredible feat to do 5 pushups a day, but we're just chipping away at it. Okay? Same thing with meditation. You wanna find what works best for you. So do you wanna talk about the steps?

To the steps. Step 1 is to simply relax, right? Relax your body. Get like, lay down into a comfortable position, sit in a comfortable position. You know, some people, some people prefer, you know, sitting in an upright chair and then, you know, having good posture and like, Just relaxing their body that way. I personally like crossing my legs and sitting down like on a couch or on a chair or something, just because that's comfortable for me and that helps me stay focused. I personally don't like laying down. Some people do like laying down just because I have a tendency to fall asleep. I get too relaxed and I fall asleep, which isn't the goal. I mean, if you want to fall asleep, it could be a good, a good goal for you. So I recommend sitting in an upright position somewhere, somewhere that's comfortable. And then the first step is literally just to relax your body and you want to use the, the body scan. exercise that we've talked about before, which literally just means you're going to kind of scan through your body from your toes up to your, up to your, the top of your head, each body part. And you wanna just conscious— consciously relax that. Take a few deep breaths and just relax. Just relax your body, right? And you can relax all the muscles, relax your facial muscles, relax all these things while also keeping a, a good posture. But relax all the, you know, the tension that you're holding in your shoulders and everything like that. So that's the first step is to relax. The second step is to start focusing on your breath. Right now, again, there's a lot of things that, you know, a lot of different ways that people talk about this. You know, they say you should, you should breathe in for this amount of time and exhale for this amount of time, but keep it very simple. Just do what's comfortable. You know, you know, if you like deeper breaths, do deeper breaths. If you like slower breaths, do slower breaths, but whatever's comfortable for you. 'Cause you really just wanna get into a rhythm with your body. You just wanna allow yourself to get into very, a very simple rhythm and you just wanna focus, focus on your breath. And what again I recommend is, you know, you breathe in through your nose and you kind of focus on the sensations of the breathing. So how does it feel? How does it, how does it feel for the air to, you know, go through your nose and, you know, down through your body and into your lungs and then filling up your lungs and expanding your chest and then Exhaling. Again, I personally like just inhaling and exhaling through my nose just because that's simple. But if you like something different, that's, that's fine. It's not a big deal. So you just wanna focus on your breath. And then what you'll notice is that you'll have, as you're focusing, your mind will drift, right? And when that happens, you're gonna, you wanna become aware of it, or when you become aware of it, you want to do step 3, which is just refocus on breath. All right. Simple, right? That's it. That was it. The 3 steps. That's it. It's that simple. So whenever your mind drifts away and you become aware of it, you just bring it back to your breath. And when it drifts away, you bring it back to your, to your breath. And that shift in that drift in your mind is where your brain actually grows. So it's actually good when you become aware that your, your mind is drifting, cuz you're becoming more aware of how your mind is working, right? So every time that you're pulling your your mind back, your focus back to your breath, that's when you're doing another rep, you know, in your mind. Because like you're doing another rep, you're doing it, you're lifting another weight because you're bringing your focus back. You're bringing your focus back. You're bringing your focus back. Right. And then you'll, you'll notice in the beginning, like your mind will, your mind will ping around all the time, like constantly. And you might even have these thoughts where you're like, oh, this, this, this stinks. Or you might have some, some anxiety come up and you're like, oh, I don't really want to be here. It's like, it's hard sitting still. And it is. And I remember just putting the alarm on for 5 minutes and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna do 5 minutes. And then I sat there and I'm like, wow, 5 minutes takes forever when you're doing nothing, when you're just doing nothing, focusing on your breath. But that's part of the practice is being able to sit in the stillness, sit in the, the nothingness, you know, not doing anything and being able to be calm and achieve that emotionally still or mentally, mentally clear, emotionally calm state. So that's really it.

So, and it, keep it really simple like this, right? And so like Brad said, each time your mind drifts away, think about your mind, like reaching out and like pulling it back. Okay, that's the work. It's doing the work. So when you're finding yourself drifting and like all over the place, thinking about dinner and thinking about something funny you saw and thinking about the text you didn't send and the bill you didn't pay, right? Just try not to get frustrated with yourself and, and you kind of affirm yourself. Yep, like this is part of the process. This is what makes you stronger. And it's going to happen a lot more in the beginning. And then you kind of— so being bad at meditation is what makes you good at it. Okay? And then you get better and better, and then eventually get to a point where— and you'll have some of these thrown in there— where you sit down to kind of do the meditation, you press start on the timer or whatever it is, and it flies by and it happens in like 1 second. And that's what it seems to happen. Okay? And it just like flies by. And then other times, like the thoughts that are going to distract you, you're like, when is this thing going to be over? Okay. So now, in regard to this, what can really help tremendously at first By focusing on your breath. So Brad said, you know, like focus on how it feels is in your head saying inhale and exhale, right? And that helped me tremendously. And so just inhale, say that to yourself, and exhale. And again, just do what's comfortable. You don't— doesn't have to be a certain period of time. Just do what's comfortable. Okay. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and repeat that to yourself. And then eventually what you can do is drop saying that and then just, you change your focus to just the feelings. Right? And then if you get distracted and you start thinking about something, bring it back and start saying inhale and exhale again. Again. So these are just ways to kind of help you with that focus. Now, something else that helped me a tremendous, tremendous amount was, you know, when I would get distracted with those thoughts, the idea with getting distracted is, yes, to bring your focus back to your breath, to bring, you know, to be back in kind of a still state. But what's interesting about, you know, our minds when we do this is, is our minds are gonna kind of start to get attached to, to those things, right? And so we, we change our focus from our breath, from our goal to something else. And sometimes we kind of fight ourselves. And at first doing this, you might say, no, don't think about this. Don't think about this. And that's gonna make you think about it more. Okay? And so something that was really helpful to me, and I don't remember where I picked it up or if it was something that we created, honestly, I totally forget. But, you know, someone had said to me once, you want to acknowledge that the thoughts are there but not engage with them. And I was like, great, but how? That doesn't make sense to me. Okay, so you want to acknowledge that they're there but not engage with them. And a really helpful practice for me was I would imagine in my field of vision that I was looking out over the ocean, a specific place that actually means a lot to me, right? And looking out over the salt pond. And I'd imagine, you know, once I started to have thoughts, I'd imagine myself sitting on the banisters. And I would imagine that there were clouds, you know, on a, on a windy day, the clouds just come in, they go in and out of your vision, in and out of your vision. Then they just kind of move gently, you know, from in your field of view to out of your field of view. And when I would start to have thoughts, I would put those thoughts in the cloud, right? And sometimes I would categorize them and I would say, okay, anxiety about work, right? Like, that's anxiety about work. That's—

Color.

Put that in the cloud. And I would just watch that cloud go in and out of my vision. Until the next thought, and then it would be, okay, like, you know, that, that text message I didn't send, like, put that in the cloud and just watch it go in and out of your vision. And that was the way that really helped me to acknowledge the thoughts but not engage with them, to add a little bit of a visualization element to that so I could watch them and then watch them leave and then watch them and then watch them leave. So I just wanted to kind of share that as, you know, when you were kind of getting that refocus, That can be a helpful exercise because there could be so much. It's not necessarily you're going to sit there for 5 minutes and need to refocus twice. You might need to refocus 10 or 15 times in the course of 10 or 15 seconds, you know. So.

Yeah. And that's an amazing practice right there. Right? So for me, I do something very similar. It's, it's essentially the same exact thing. I just imagine the thought flowing into my head, and then the thought is like in the middle of my head, and then I accept it, and I don't engage in it. Right? And I just allow it to flow out, or the emotion, I allow it to flow in and then flow out. And I just watch it. I let it come in. I let it go out. Very simple. So that's really, it's, it's very simple. Like it's, it's very simple to complicate. And it's also very simple to do. You might know different variations of meditation. If you have one that already works for you, you can keep doing that. But I can tell you that this, this gets the job done extremely well. And once you get good. Once you get good at this, like Helene said, you want to, you to, to refocus or just to focus in the first place, you can say inhale, exhale as you breathe. And then once you get really good, or then once, once you get that, you can drop the inhale and exhale and then just focus on breath. And then basically the goal state, just to, to, to give it to you, is that mentally clear, emotionally calm state. So like your mind is clear. You don't have thoughts. That's the goal. It's like. You're just, you're almost like in this kind of zen-focused state where you're just like, you're focusing on your breath, but there's not a lot of mind, like you, you're not really thinking about it. Like there's not thought, like you're not thinking about focusing on your breath. You're just allowing yourself to focus on your breath. You're very relaxed. There's no thoughts, there's no emotions. That's the goal. Kind of just like a steady, like flatline, calm, peaceful state. Right? So it's almost like you, like, so. I said, when you, when you want to refocus, you can say inhale, exhale, and then you can drop that and just focus on the breath. I'm trying to think of how to say this. You get to a point once you, once you have practiced this for a while where you almost drop the focus on your breath because then it becomes nothing. Your mind just becomes still. You know what I mean? I hope that, does that make sense what I'm saying?

It does make sense. And it's really weird because you'll, you'll experience it. It takes practice to experience it. But I remember I was just remembering the first time I experienced it.

I don't know if you were just— it's just like nothing because you were there.

And I remember like just clicks. It was just, it was just clear. And then I had a thought that was like, oh, I got it. And I was like, dang, that made me lose it. Like, you know, I was like, oh, here it is, you know. And so it just— you, you just are. You just are without thoughts. And that, that is really kind of the ultimate state. And it's really, really— it takes a while to get to that point. And you're gonna have moments where you get that, and it's part of the process. So just remember that being bad at meditation, focusing on like Your brain being all over the place is part of getting good at it. That's, that's the workout part. That's so important. And then also, remember that this is a practice. This is, this is something that you need to practice. It's not something that's going to happen overnight. And just like when you, you know, you practice and you, you go to the gym, right, you're going to build this muscle over time, right? So consistency here is really, really important. So you don't have to sit down and meditate for an hour or meditate for 20 minutes. I would recommend no less than 5 minutes. But 5 minutes on your day, you know, just after you get out of the shower, you know, just after you get up, whatever it is, make that 5 minutes for yourself. Take that 5 minutes for yourself. I used to do it in the car on my way back from my workout. Just took that 5 minutes. It was, you know, just pull off, just have that 5 minutes. And then what you can do is you can slowly increase that time if you want. You know, increase it to 7 minutes and then 10 minutes and see when it's going to fit your life best. And you can do that after months, right? Do, you can do 5 minutes for, for weeks and then say, you know what, I'm going to try 10 minutes or I'm going to try 7 minutes and see what works best for you. So have a little bit of independence with this and figure out what works best for you in regard to everything that we talked about, right? Just understanding the definition. It's just simply a practice where you focus on something to achieve that certain state of mind. Are you ready for action time?

Action time. Okay. I was going to say I let it 20 minutes because It makes me anxious. It's like enough, it's a long enough period of time where it's like, ah, I do, I don't wanna be sitting here for 20 minutes doing nothing. But for me it's like, that's the challenge where it's like, those are the emotions that are coming in and then I'm just allowing that to be. So for me it's just like, that's like the perfect time. Sometimes I've, I've done like 30, 35 minutes because it's just like, actually sometimes I just, I don't put a timer on and I just get into the zone and I just go and it ends up being like 30, 35 minutes. It's a muscle. 5 minutes will be hard. If you've never done this before, 5 minutes will be challenging. That was a good one. Like, you don't have to, you don't like, you don't have to do that. I would encourage you to challenge yourself to do more and more just for fun. And then you can figure out what's best for you.

Yeah. You want to ultimately figure out what works best for you. And then also think about, right, that we're, we want to use this as a daily practice because of all the benefits, but also that you can use this as a relief tool, right? So you can do a short 5-minute meditation when you just kind of need to settle that still a little bit. any pulley, you can do that quick meditation. Even if you feel like 20 minutes works best for you or 30 minutes in the morning works best for you, you can do just a quick meditation to kind of get yourself settled there.

One last thing I want to say about letting thoughts float, float in and float out, that applies to emotions as well. And I think it's important to kind of say that is that when emotions come in, you want to put that emotion on the cloud as well and allow that to flow out too, because that can feel different, whether it's frustration or anger or anxiety or I don't want to be here. Fear. Yeah, whatever that is, you put it on, put it up there, let it come through. So it's not just like the logical thoughts, it's the emotions, the feelings too. You put that on there and allow it to flow in and flow out.

I love that. So action time is to add meditation to your schedule in some way, shape, or form. Now, we do recommend at the beginning of the day, but I want you to think about what's going to— I want you to ask yourself, what's going to work best for me? And then figure out a time that works best for me. You don't have to even start at 5 minutes. You can start at 10 minutes. You can start at 7 minutes. You can start at 20 minutes. 15 minutes, whatever works best for you. It's gonna be a little bit different for everyone, and that is okay. That's what's gonna make this practice great for you. So I want you to think about the long term here, not just doing this for the next couple of days, not just doing this for the weekend. I want you to think what would be, excuse me, a good pace, a good time that I can commit each day that I can see myself doing this for the foreseeable future and then some. Okay.

For—

For— okay. So what we want you to do today is practice your first meditation. If you haven't done this meditation or if you haven't done a meditation at all, Just practice quick 5-minute meditation. I want you to get that practice in today and then think about adding this to your routine.

And when Candace says today, I would challenge you to do it right after this, right? Right after this, immediately put a timer on for 5 minutes. It's your first one. Just do 5 minutes. Sit there in silence. Allow yourself to struggle and feel, and feel the frustration of just having to sit and do nothing for 5 minutes.

So that's our action for you today. That's our challenge for you today. Absolutely get it done and then add it to your, your, your life, your routine. It's going to be a tremendous, tremendous help. Awesome, Crystal sharing, I go to my mindscape when I meditate. That's awesome. Right. It's, it's about what's gonna work best for you. Right. And so, you know, where I'm doing, you know, when, when I'm in my meditation and I have that kind of visual where the clouds are floating by, I mean, clouds are just clouds, right? And that'll be pretty, pretty common for all of us to have the same kind of thing there. But what I'm seeing below that is, it's a scene that's Mm-hmm. It's a, it's a real scene. It's a scene that's specific to me. So I'm looking out over this kind of marina and out into this, this pond, right? But that's just so I can put the clouds basically in the right place, which is, which is pretty cool. And then Crystal sharing, and then you don't need a guide once you learn it. That's the really cool thing too. Like you, you start to kind of come into your own and like we have 3 steps here. If you look at them, they're really, it's really 1 step and it's, it's really focused on your breath. That's all that it is, right? Focus, refocus, focus, refocus. So it's the, the, the 1 step is just focus on your breath. Mm-hmm. Again, this being a specific type of meditation, which is a breath-focused meditation. So, and it's a, it's like a relaxed focus.

If there's stress, you allow that to, to flow through.

Yeah. Mimi sharing, let thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky. Exactly that. See, I was sharing, your brain can't focus on 2 things at once. It absolutely cannot. As much as we think it can, there's kind of a myth about multitasking, right? And a lot of us think we can multitask and see people that, you know, we think can multitask. And it's actually kind of a myth that we can multitask. What some people have the ability to do is single task on a lot of different things at once.

Quickly.

Quickly.

Not at once. Yeah.

Yeah. So you, you single task, single task, single task, single task.

You just move quickly.

You just basically bounce in between all these different things, as do computers, right? So the, the word multitasking, I believe, came from computers and it came from this idea, which is false, that computers do more than one thing at a time. Which is actually not true. Computers do one thing at a time, but they can bounce from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing to thing to thing at a speed that we can't even comprehend. So it looks like they're doing more than one thing at a time. So absolutely. Rich sharing. That's awesome. Clouds going by, categorizing thoughts and going in, in the mind and out. Simplified serenity. And that's exactly what it is. The categorization can really, really help with the thoughts. You know, when you can just say, I mean, you can put something specific in there, but like, stress about work. And what I found for me is what really helped with that categorization is, you know, I had maybe one thought that was like stress about work or stress about my relationship, and it was one specific thought. But when I put the whole category up there, what it felt like it did for me is it just said, okay, like, that's all the things that I could think about that topic. So I put that whole category up there and let it flow in and out. And so I didn't have any more about that topic is what I found that that categorization can sometimes do for you, which is super cool.

What it also does is it separates you from your thoughts and your emotions. So you're able to, that's another great practice of meditation. It's like many times we're so, we're so tangled up with our thoughts and with our emotions that we can't see ourselves from the pain or the thoughts or the stress or whatever we're experiencing. And with meditation, you start to separate that and you start to see that your thoughts, your emotions are separate from you. Right. If you guys attended the awareness section last week on our bootcamp, that's what we talked about is that separation. So you can look, see what's going on versus it being all tangled up and clouded in with you and you can't tell what's going on. Meditation helps you separate that. And also with the labeling, like when you label it, it's like, oh, this is what it is. I'm separating from that. That's not me. That's a different part of me. And then you can allow it to flow in and out, or you can address it in a different way.

Down the road, right? Because you're not your thoughts. You're not the thought, I want pizza. You're not the thought. That was my example. You're not your thoughts, right? You're not your emotions. You're not your actions. There's something bigger than that. The consciousness behind that.

That's your one prevalent thought.

Joanne cheering. 22 minutes is usually what I do daily depending on the time I have in the morning. That's awesome, Joanne. I mean, so, so I want to point out kind of, Joanne, if you don't mind, and I'm not picking on you, but I guess I kind of am. How specific that period of time is, right? And so 22 minutes is like, well, why not 20? Why not 25? And, and this is a good example of like, you have to do what works best for you. Why 7 minutes, Kayleen, instead of 5, instead of 10? Why 7 minutes, right? Because that's what works best for me, right? So just something to think about, like, just do what feels best for you, and it's going to be a little bit different for each and every one of you. So I appreciate you sharing that, Joy. So we're just asking, while meditating and getting better at it, what are your Your thoughts on visualization, like focusing on positive times in the past where we felt love, peace, and joy, kind of focusing on and recreating that feeling inside of us. Awesome. Oh, I'm in. Okay, you'll— okay. So again, like, it— I want you to do it based on what's going to be best for you, right? So meditation, and I just want to kind of pull up and read the definition again. By definition, all it is is a practice where an individual uses a technique such as focusing their mind on a particular object, thought, or activity To achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. So in that case, you can do whatever works best for you. In that case, visualization is meditation. In that case, grounding is meditation. In that case, there are all these different things that fall under it being meditation.

Like running.

Like running, right? For me. So, you know, if that's where you— if that's what you want, and that's part of like what's going to make you feel good, and, and you want to do that kind of medit— and that's going to give you that Mentally clear, emotionally calm state, do it. I mean, do it. There's so many benefits of visualization. We typically separate them because with visualization we're going for a more specific feeling, and we're typically going for a feeling of like loved or like at peace or joyful, or we're trying to reinforce something positive and/or change something negative. And meditation, we're just kind of looking to settle the score. But again, Do what works best for you. And again, like what I was saying, the clouds floating by, I add a visual element. I add a visualization to my meditation. So you can start to kind of get creative in what feels best for you there and what's going to make you feel— what's going to settle that snow globe. But it might be, you know, having that— what you're focused on, a past memory or whatever, where you're feeling peace, and that helps you settle it. So do your thing, Rich. I mean, and that's— I love where your mind's at, right? Because you're saying, you know, can I do it like this? Can I do it like this? That's great. That's really great. Yeah.

Also, just because like this is your first time showing up live, I don't know if you've seen kind of our past stuff. You did a, you did a specific coaching session on visualization itself. I did. Right. So like we, we teach visualization and it's a very powerful tool. So by saying meditation, we're not saying don't visualize. We're just, this is just a tool to have in your toolbox for when you need it. And it's something that we, we recommend because it is that powerful.

Yeah. A couple Fridays ago we did visualization and actually specifically what you're kind of talking about, it sounds like What you're stumbling upon very naturally, which is cool, is a specific visualization that we teach called a safe space visualization. And it's basically you kind of go to a moment in time where you felt specifically safe, right? And you visualize that and you reinforce that. And so that you have that when you don't have a sense of safety, maybe if you're triggered or out kind of in the world, uh, you can kind of go and, and visit that safe space and create and have that feeling of safety. So I, I would check that out, Rich, cuz you know, especially if you like visualization and you're kind of stumbling toward that on your own anyway, that might be something that you really wanna add kind of to your, to your life.

And visualization is a very powerful skill, skill to have throughout recovery, throughout processing. You'll be utilizing that skill moving forward. So like visualization is such a broad thing. It really just means you're kind of visually experiencing something. It could be anything. So, but it's a skill that we use in a lot of different ways, you know? So I'll just end it with that.

So great question. Judy sharing, can this be a good way to fall asleep at night too? And does this actually help process thoughts and emotions or just control them? So Judy, this is a good question. I mean, you can use this as a way to fall asleep if you want. There are other things I recommend using to fall asleep, like a visualization exercise, like safe space, like mind palace. We have a couple of different visualizations. That the cool thing about nose visualization is they can help you fall asleep in, in a, in a safer kind of space. Because Judy, I know we've kind of had some things come up in the past and we've had some questions come up in the past. So what I recommend for you, Judy, is, is doing a safe space and falling asleep in safe space or falling asleep in your mind palace, because it's, it's going to create something just a little bit different. Meditation is not necessarily going to create the feeling of safety. For you. And so something that, especially for those of you with sleep issues, that safety, that calm can be really, really important. And you can fall asleep in that kind of visualization. Meditation though, is it going to help process thoughts and emotions in the long run? Yes. As its own thing? No. Okay. And so what meditation is doing is it's building the muscles that we use to process emotion. Okay. So it's building those muscles, right? So it's, it's growing your Prefrontal cortex, and your prefrontal cortex is where your working memory is, and your working memory is where processing happens. So the stronger you make your prefrontal cortex, the better your, your working memory is going to be able to do that processing and do its job. So not directly, but, but yes, it, it is going to help us build the skills, build the muscle to process the thoughts and emotions. As we continue down the road with, with doing processing tools and stuff like that, even just with sleep, right? Because we're strengthening those areas.

So you can kind of think of it as like, like Kayleen said, it's, it's a skill. It's building the muscle to help you with the processing, kind of like training. So like I used to row for, for crew. So me training for a crew match by lifting weights and by doing the erg, which is just the machine The rowing machine isn't racing in and of itself. It's not winning a race in and of itself, but it's preparing me for the race, right? So meditation in a, in a similar way is preparing you for the best processing session possible.

So, and the most effective. Yeah. And efficient. So that's a good question, Judy. Super excited for next week. Super excited for next week. Next week, this coming Monday, we're talking about self-talk. We have a great special session planned for Tuesday. We're going to keep it a mystery. Just going to keep it a mystery session. Wednesday, we're talking about grief, lost dreams and opportunities. And helpful tools to kind of cope with, with those things. So we're going to have a conversation about that Thursday. We're going to talk about maintaining sobriety through PTSD. So for those of you who struggle with addictions or compulsions, you know, even if it doesn't fall under quote-unquote addiction, you know, whether it's, it's TV or video games or food or whatever your thing is, that's going to be a great, great session, you know. Or if it's drugs or alcohol, right? So whether it falls under addiction like by definition or it falls under compulsion, If it's something that you want to stop and you can't and you're struggling to stop, that is going to be a great session for you to, to be able to maintain— we're going to call it sobriety no matter what it is— sobriety through this pain and through this journey. Really, really powerful. So lots to look forward to next week. Couple of mystery topics, but a couple of things to absolutely look forward to in sobriety and grief and, and self-talk, which I can't wait for. So that's what you can look forward to. So Emily's asking— this will be the last question before we wrap up here— is this type of meditation as powerful as Transcendental meditation. So, you know, the thing about about everything is it's it's what works best for you. You know, at the end of the day, like I don't want to paint the picture like meditation is meditation. At the same time, meditation is meditation, right? So we shared the definition of meditation today. So no matter how you meditate, what what you do to meditate, we talked about you know grounding, running, like all these things fall under the definition of meditation. If it works for you and if it gets you that emotionally clear, excuse me, that mentally clear and emotionally calm state, then it works, right? So is one more powerful than the other? It's gonna depend on you as a person. What's most powerful in any tool, in any meditation, is that you can take action. So that's what's gonna make it most powerful. If other than that, You know, it's, it's kind of up to you and you as a person. But if, if you're able to take action on it, that's where the power comes in. Like just to be straightforward.

If you know Transcendental Meditation, do it. Go for it. Right. It's, I mean, it's essentially when you think about it, it's essentially the same thing. If you know what it is, you know, you get a mantra and you say it and then you allow that mantra to kind of float away and you're just in this kind of presence with no effort and you allow things to move in and out. It's very similar. So if you know it, do it, and you like it and you have been doing it, keep doing it.

So same thing. What we what we talked about here was what we call a breath-focused meditation, right? So you you just insert whatever you're in. Focus on your mantra. Refocus on your mantra, right? With the ultimate goal of you you let that go, right? And so in this too, and it'll just kind of come naturally. You know, you refocus on your breath or you refocus on that mantra, and then eventually you let it go until you're just. Mentally clear and emotionally with basically nothing going on. So again, this is a specific breath-focused meditation. That would be more of a thought-focused, mantra-focused. There's all sorts of things, right? So again, by definition, meditation is a meditation. So it's just going to depend on what you, what feels best for you, what you kind of want to do.

The most important thing though is keeping it simple and actually taking action, right? Because if you go out there and you start learning all these different types of meditation, you'll end up confused. I was confused for so long. I'm like, which one's the best one? There's hundreds of meditations and people are telling me they're, they're not the same and they're like, things are different. It's like, at the end of the day, just keep it simple. Just start. Get it done. Just start. This works. This works extremely well. Okay. And most meditation is very, very, very similar. Right. So everybody here, excellent job. So we're going to end it here.

Yeah. So you have your time. You have your time. You budgeted this time.

Take your time to meditate.

5 minutes.

That's it.

Looking forward to next week. Keep rocking and rolling. Keep taking that action. Remember, action is the most important thing. Feel free to share in the community here, and we have awesome stuff planned for next week, so make sure you stick around. We love you. We believe in you. We'll let you go do your meditation. Enjoy. We'll talk to you soon.

Have a fantastic weekend. Bye, everyone. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's Absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day, and I'll see you in the next one.