Now, Let's Heal Our Planet – Guided Imagery Meditation & Talk [Episode 10]

The show you're about to hear is a recording from Dr. Miller's webinar series titled Life Meditations. He began this series in response to the pandemic, and his goal has been to provide wisdom, practical tools, and comfort to people during these stressful times. Watch the entire series at drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations. So today we're talking about healing our planet. Last week we talked about the, the tipping point that we may be reaching And we pointed to that picture, that little egg that's just reached over the edge, and that there's huge, huge changes that are going on. Some of us are becoming aware of it. And a lot of us are pretty much trying to stay in denial, and I can't blame you because there's a lot of stress associated with actually becoming aware. Um, but as you'll notice, like every few weeks or every month or so, another page turns and we realize, oh, wait a minute, this, this, this cancer is going even deeper than we thought. It's not cancer, but We talked about the confluence of the three major stressors, that is, on both the individual as well as a collective level, at the national level, at the global level, and I called it two pandemics and a lockdown. Lockdown we're pretty all aware of, and I'm going to get more into that next week. You know, and of course the COVID pandemic we're becoming more and more and more aware of. Slowly, so very, very slowly, we seem to be understanding that it's not like, okay, we can all just go back and jump into the situation we had before. We're going to have to think that one through, coming out of the lockdown, and But today I want to focus a little bit more on the second pandemic, the pandemic of violence in our society, our growing awareness, and I want to remind you of that curve, the tipping point curve, you see, where you have the early innovators, then the early adopters, and then you come to the chasm. That's the chasm in terms of the current issues out there. We've come to that chasm before, but we've slipped back. We didn't make it across the chasm. If we make it across the chasm, then it's possible that we can have transformative change. And of course, at the personal level, but also at our collective level, at the national level, and at the global level. You know, what we do here has an effect at the global level. We see everybody protesting about George Floyd here in our country, but guess what? They're protesting around the world about that because they recognize that what they're seeing in our society over here is a reflection of what they see there, and they're on board. Hey, what do we do about changing this situation on a global level, not just on a national level. Our newspapers keep telling us now that America's had enough and we want to do something about it. At least it appears that, appears that we want to do something about it this time. We're marching for justice in unprecedented numbers in small towns, big cities across the country, thousands of people giving voice to the grief, the anger that generations of Black Americans have suffered at the hands of the criminal justice system. Young and old, Black and white, family and friends are joining together to say enough. But will it be enough to cross over the chasm? As I look at it, it seems that we're beginning to recognize the enormity of the problem here, and I think what's special is the fact that now we have cell phone videos. I mean, all of the things that are, that are bringing people into the streets would have been much more subtle, kind of as in the past. It would have been just a bunch of Black people up there complaining and looting and things like that. But now there's huge numbers of people of all races that are out there because there's something undeniable about a video. You know, we can go online and watch George Floyd being tortured and murdered in front of our eyes by someone kneeling on his neck with all of their weight and two other guys kneeling on his chest. So guess what? Of course he couldn't breathe, but we saw it and we're going, wait a minute, what about this? And we're becoming more aware that if something's going to be done, it's really going to have to be all of us that take part in doing it, that the Black nation or the Black people of the nation themselves are not quite capable of doing it alone. They don't have the wealth, they don't have the power, and they don't have the privilege. But perhaps they can do something if there's some help from the other side. And we're learning things like who, who knew about the massacres at in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're marching now and we're changing the landscape in certain ways that we know— what we know of. And we've learned about Tulsa, how an entire— basically an entire community, and this was a wealthy community, a whole bunch of uppity Black people. They used to call this the, the Black Wall Street because people were beginning to make money and some of that wealth disparity was, uh, was changing. And, um, well, a bunch of white fellows felt that that wasn't a good idea, so they burned it to the ground. And then there was Roseville right there in Florida and the massacre, another group that just kind of got wiped out in that way. And well, we didn't know that before, but that's coming to the surface now because it's a different world. We have the information explosion, we have our computers and we can get on there. You want to see what happened in Tulsa? Just go to your computer, go to your cell phone, take a look. All of these things that, that weren't known of by us before are coming to light more and more and more. And that's a lot of what I'm talking about here today is not just one simple thing that's going on, but I mean, if we just kind of take a look at what's happened to us recently, when February 23rd, you know, there we were, you know, treated to Ahmed Arbery being shot on the street as he was jogging through the neighborhood. And we got to see it happen. And you know, that was February 23rd. No one was charged for anything until May 5th. And only then when a 36-second video was leaked that generated the nationwide outcry that led to what happened this week, where the 3 white men who ran him down and shot him basically Yeah, and I guess they were scared. They thought maybe he was a crook or something like that. And of course they descend upon him, and of course he's going to defend himself because he's scared, and it's a good reason to kill him. March 13th, police use a battering ram to enter the apartment of Breonna Taylor, 26-year-old African-American emergency room technician. Apparently a beautiful woman who had wonderful goals in life, the kind of thing that we'd like to see from all the Black people who are out there who are really— who care about themselves. Killed by 8 bullets that were shot through the door by the police. And then on May 25th, which was really interesting, in New York City, there in Central Park, where Christian Cooper is watching birds. Interesting guy, he's 57 years old, a Harvard graduate, a member of the Audubon Society, and a civil rights activist. And he politely asks a woman to put her dog on a lead, as is required by law in the park. She refuses and becomes increasingly aggressive, and eventually calling the police to report, "There's an African-American man threatening me," right? This is— this is the threatening guy, you know, and But he had his camera, so he was able to show it, and we got to see that. Then, I mean, later the same day, we had a chance to see that horrible scene of George Floyd being killed. On the same day because they thought he had passed what may have been a counterfeit $20 bill. And of course, his name has become widely known because, because he's a metaphor. And then on June 12th, I mean, all of these in the tight little bunch that we're learning about, the guy who's obviously inebriated and you can hear the recordings of him having a perfectly nice conversation with the police. Finally, he starts to run away and he's shot in the back. And that just didn't— doesn't feel right to so many people. So these are the kinds of things that, that we have going on now. and that are awakening, awakening us to the fact that maybe, that maybe there really is something that needs to be done. George Floyd's name is really a metaphor for the stacked inequalities that are producing this, which may turn out to be our American Spring. Remember the Arab Spring? And perhaps we get to see a little more deeply into this underlying culture of thinly veiled violence that white America has been pretty much in denial of. Black America is not in denial of it because we live it every single day. And we watch this casual sadism of the manner in which George Floyd is killed by a police force that is pledged to serve and protect. This has become a symbol for the brutal inequities that the Black population has been forced to endure, the grief, the poverty, the malnutrition, and the disease that falls disproportionately on the Black race because of the institutionalized racism. Race in our country is a shorthand for just the inequalities between whites and African Americans. Look at infant, infant mortality. Morbidity, unemployment, income, wealth, facts they face daily but is pretty much unknown to most whites. And it kind of reminds me of back in the '70s when I became aware in my practice of how many women had been sexually abused as children. People were still going by the Freudian principle, "Oh no, this is just their penis envy." Well, it wasn't penis envy. and when we started to look at it in the '70s and '80s, we began to see that a large percentage of women have been abused in that way and are suffering PTSD as a result of it. But we didn't know until then. And then the discovery of the tens of thousands, of the hundreds of thousands of little children who were being abused by Catholic priests. You don't know until the information is made available. It's like the awakening that happened in response to the #MeToo movement, where suddenly, "Really? It happened to you too?" But there was silence before then. But now in the current situation, we can see the violence against the Blacks, against— and against the protesters. You know, the protesters are protesting violence and the police are saying there is no violence, and yet we see a 75-year-old guy shoved to the ground by police who then simply walked past his bleeding body. And then there's the pictures of the two police cars in New York City that are driven intentionally into the protesters. And then the two college students who were shot with stun guns as they're sitting in their car. And all of this is occurring in the context— the background behind this is this pandemic in which Blacks are dying at 3 times the rate of white people. And meanwhile, our government is trying mightily, striving to cancel Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, which is just going to lead to millions of them having no way to even get treatment. It's bad enough the statistics show that when they come in to get tested for COVID, they're turned away much more rapidly and much larger numbers than white people are. Well, does the frustration and anger surprise you? Just because this is the information that's there. Obviously the social contract has been broken. The agreement is, okay, you can have guns, you have the right to guns, and you have the right to helicopters and armored police cars, and in return for that you protect me. But if you're not protecting me, then why should I live up to what you're doing? In other words, the whole notion of civil disobedience is what's going on. So, and on top of that, there are the people who are having the, having the, who are turning into a free-for-all out there. They can loot everything that they can. And I just, to say a little bit of what I think the feelings are that are going on, let me just show you this, this little clip where Kimberly, Kimberly Jones, I think expresses it really well.

Well then, let's go with that. Let's say that's what it is. Let's ask ourselves why in this country in 2020, the financial gap between poor Blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it. That they are so hopeless that getting that necklace, getting that TV, getting that change, getting that bed, getting that phone, whatever it is that they're gonna get, is that in that moment when the riots happen and if they present an opportunity of looting, that's their only opportunity to get it. We need to be questioning that why. Why are people that poor? Why are people that broke? Why are people that, that food insecure, that clothing insecure? Insecure, that they feel like their only shot, that they are shooting their shot by walking through a broken glass window to get what they need. And then people want to talk about, well, it's plenty of people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got it on their own. Why can't they do that? Let me explain to you something about economics in America. And I'm so glad that as a child I got an opportunity to spend time at PUSH where they taught me this, is that we must never forget that economics was the reason that Black people were brought to this country. We came to do the agricultural work in the South and the textile work in the North. Do you understand that? That's what we came to do. We came to do the agricultural work in the South and the textile work in the North. Now, if I right now— if I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you, and for 400 rounds of playing Monopoly I didn't allow you to have any money. I didn't allow you to have anything on the board. I didn't allow for you to have anything. And then we played another 50 rounds of Monopoly, and everything that you gained and you earned while you were playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you. That was Tulsa. That was Rosewood. There are— those are places where we built Black economic wealth, where we were self-sufficient, where we owned our stores, where we owned our property. And they burned them to the ground. So that's 450 years. So for 400 rounds of Monopoly, you don't get to play at all. Not only do you not get to play, you have to play on the behalf of the person that you're playing against. You have to play and make money and earn wealth for them, and then you have to turn it over to them. So then for 50 years, you finally get a little bit and you're allowed to play play, and every time that they don't like the way that you're playing, or that you're catching up, or that you're doing something to be self-sufficient, they burn your game, they burn your cards, they burn your Monopoly money. And then finally, at the release and the onset of that, they allow you to play and they say, okay, now you catch up. Now at this point, the only way you're going to catch up in the game is if the person shares the wealth, correct? But what if every time you share the wealth, then there's psychological warfare against you to say, oh, you're an equal opportunity hire. So if I played 400 rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years, every time that I played, I— if you didn't like what I did, you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood. How can you win? How can you win? You can't win. The game is fixed. So when they say, why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood? It's not ours. We don't own anything. We don't own anything. There is— Trevor Noah said it so beautifully last night. There's a social contract that we all have that if you steal or if I steal, then And then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us. So the social contract is broken. And if the social contract is broken, why the fuck do I give a shit about burning the fucking Football Hall of Fame, about burning a fucking Target? You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn't give a fuck. You broke the contract when for 400 years We played your game and built your wealth. You broke the contract when we built our wealth again on our own, by our bootstraps in Tulsa, and you dropped bombs on us. When we built it in Rosewood and you came in and you slaughtered us. You broke the contract. So fuck your Target. Fuck your Hall of Fame. Far as I'm concerned, they can burn this bitch to the ground. And it still wouldn't be enough. And they are lucky that what Black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.

Okay.

I think maybe you can get a feeling of the, shall we say, righteous indignation that she's— Miss Jones is experiencing. You know, my way of thinking is that there may indeed be something there that we need to pay attention to. And I think it's a really good idea for us to consider the possibility that in fact there's something there that we need to be paying attention to. If we don't believe it's possible, then we won't be able to see it. So maybe we can open our minds and say, you know, maybe there's something going on here, instead of turning the channel off whenever another revelation comes up. Maybe we could look at it, maybe keep score in our own mind. But for me, I see all of this is just the most visible symptoms of a deeper disease, the one that I described in Our Culture on the Couch: 7 Steps to Global Healing. It's hard to believe that it's happening right here in, in, in our culture, of how much, how much denial they've been. It reminds me of China, where China won't, won't do business with anybody who, who publicizes the fact that the Tiananmen Square massacre took place, and we shake our head and say, what? They're just going to deny something that big? Yeah, and the people who live there don't know. That's the way that we have a tendency to not know here. So, um, again, what I'm saying is that the— it's the information that we need. When we find out the truth of what's going on, just as we did when the abolitionists showed us what slavery was all about And when we saw the gross inequality where that was changed by the separate— we, uh, Supreme Court ruled separate but equal back in 1896 because it was so horribly unequal. And then, of course, the Jim Crow laws kept the problem going, but then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, those things came about when we woke up, when Martin Luther King stretched his time up there on the podium and said, "I have a dream," you know, how fortunate we were that that took place. But that opened our eyes and the world changed. So I think maybe it's time for us to open our eyes now. Yes, it's true that there's been terrible brutality against the Blacks, but it has been against the the Irish, it has been against the Italians, been against the Jews, and on and on. Because we live in a culture that's been built on violence, on slavery, on denial of the truth. It's like the statues that are being pulled down all over the place. I mean, who knew about the history of some of these people? You know, and we find out that Sutter, you know, General Sutter that so many people worship, all of a sudden it turns out that he was engaged in mass slaughter of Native Americans. And so gradually these stories are coming to the surface, and underneath there's the lies, the cruelty, um, the barbarity that gets hidden. That the false flag wars that we've been in, the Spanish-American War, false flag. It's we started the war and then use that as an excuse. Same thing in Vietnam. You know, when I was in the service, I knew my fellow servicemen who had been on the boat in the Gulf of Tonkin said, "We were never fired on, and we knew we weren't fired on." What? 59,000 Americans got killed in the war, a couple of million Vietnamese. And hundreds of thousands of wounded, permanently wounded, and post-traumatic stress disorder suffering Americans. How did that— and then the war in Iraq, supposed yellow cake uranium and weapons of mass destruction. What's going on? Is it— we need to see these things. And I think that what's underneath this is this violence that that really needs to be able to— that we need to change. And that's what I'm talking about when I'm saying now, let's make the change. And the change that has to take place has to start in here. You know, we keep waiting for the politicians to do it, to come and save us, and we, we go out and we elect them. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna We're gonna be saved, but okay, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. The government makes the laws, but acting in the public interest does not get people elected. Right now, there's no correlation between getting things done for us and getting elected to office. Look at Congress. Congress has a 10% approval rating. 10%, but it has a 90% reelection rate. What's wrong with this picture? They're not going to change it. It's up to us. So let's relax for a moment. Let's get to the good news. My belief is that all of these issues that we see out there are the result of human beings not recognizing that we can We cannot continue to run our lives based upon the guidance of the limbic system, our unconscious mind, the paleomammalian cortex, which is life or death. It has a stress response. We have this highly negatively biased brain. And we're going to see things, any kind of threat, any kind of— anything that's out of whack, it responds with fear or anger or rage or despair or distress. Those feelings are meant for problems of an immediate life or death situation, like being attacked by a, by a lion or by falling off the edge of a cliff. If you don't react in the next 5 or 10 seconds, you're dead. But the problems that we have now that we're dealing with are not 5 or 10 seconds from death. And the way we respond to being 5 or 10 seconds from death is to empower the muscles of the body, stop digesting food, stop creating anything, and save your life. But part of that reaction is to shut down our imagination to shut down our ability to think creatively. Because if a lion's after you, you don't want to be enjoying the, the beautiful color of his fur, you know, or the color of his eyes. That's why we don't solve our problems, and that's why our world is going in that direction. And there is a massive amount of money that's being spent to keep us afraid, to keep us afraid. Because when we're afraid, we will have a tendency to accept whatever apparent solution is given to us. And that's how we're sold goods. You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not bright enough, but our new product is going to save you. Or that's how we're going— that's how we get our people elected. The world's going down the hill, it's terrible, 'Look, this is going to happen. But if you vote for this person here, our guy—' And it's basically a hypnotic technique in which you destabilize a person, in which you throw them into a moment of confusion, and then you suggest to them a solution. And that solution tends to be accepted by the unconscious mind. That's what's going on. And so much of my work is devoted towards explaining that. Take my word for it, that's what's going on. We are not making the decisions that are going on out there in the world. We think we are, but we're not, not even in our own lives. We need to learn a little bit about how to take charge of that other part of us. And the way we do that is by going into a place of relaxation and peace, coming into the present, shutting off all of these distractions, and by realizing that you can be at peace in the moment. And from that place of peace, accessing the power that you have within to guide your life, to bring forth your talents and your skills, skills and your abilities, and then direct that toward creating the future that you want to create. Remember, future is not a place you're going, it's the place you're creating, and you're creating it right now in this moment. And if you can believe that, you can do it. If it doesn't make any sense to you, it's going to be a good deal harder. So let me go ahead and and offer you an experience of doing that. And this— the purpose of this experience is going to be to, um, begin to envision and dedicate ourselves to a world that works for everybody, one in which we don't see some of these horrible things that are going on out there. So let yourself find a place to relax comfortably.

Choose a point on the wall or the ceiling opposite you, or if you're fortunate enough to be outdoors, choose a point in the distance, perhaps something colorful, perhaps something beautiful if you wish, informing your nervous system that you're going to be consciously in charge of your awareness for the next few minutes, and that regardless of what your nervous system might be attracted to attend to, this point is the only place that your eyes need to be. And as you allow your inner awareness to follow the sound of my voice and the sound of the ocean, sound of the music, you notice that even that point that your eyes are focused on gets smaller and smaller until it fades away even from your internal focus. Everything dissolves into a blur, and you may give your eyelids permission to close. And as they do, simply allow your eyes to gently roll upward behind your closed eyelids and to focus on a point there on the back of your forehead, as if you could see the word relax or something that symbolizes relaxation to you, right there on the back of your forehead. And give yourself permission to come into this moment, into the here and now, as if you are allowing yourself to believe that here is the only place there is, and now is the only time that is here. And to intentionally choose to accept as true that right now, this is the only moment that really exists. That the past does not exist, and that not even a single second of the past can ever happen again. That the past is just a story in a book in your mind, that you have the ability at this moment in time to put that book on a shelf in the back of your mind and choose to write your own story with wisdom and to choose wisely. Choose to focus on the truth. The future is not somewhere you are going. The future is being created by you. Right here in this moment. And you can give yourself permission now to focus all of your awareness on this moment and let thoughts of the past or the future fade into a blur and disappear completely. Good. Now become aware of where you are right now on the surface of our planet. Think about all the water and all the land that makes up planet Earth and sense the connection that you feel to this world and the caring that you have for the planet. The purity of its waters, the clarity of its air, its precious minerals. Make room in your thoughts, in your heart, for all these. And bring to mind the vast variety of Earth's green growing things, the trees that supply our oxygen and building materials, the plants that provide food and medication, even the invisible plants that break down complex molecules to produce compost. And make room in your thoughts, in your heart, to care for these fellow living beings, the plants, the givers of energy. Now sense the wonderful variety of animals, from the smallest one-celled creatures that form the base of the food chain, all the way up through the fish, the reptiles, through the feathered flying creatures, to the warm-blooded mammals, the wild ones, the domesticated ones. And sense your caring and compassion and connection to all these animals, the receivers, and make room in your heart and in your thoughts for all of them. And now sense your connection to all the people on this planet and to all your wise and loving teachers, to the prophets and the saints. Let there be room in your heart and your thoughts for all these, letting your capacity to love embrace all those who live in your continent, in your country, and in your community. And sense especially your connection and love for your family, for all those who love you and with whom you share intimacy. Feel them in your heart. And finally, be aware of yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit, your emotions, of everything that is within. And sense your commitment to your body, this magnificent vehicle. And sense your willingness to continue to nurture it and help guide mind, body, and emotions to stay well, to ensure that they receive adequate rest and nutrition so that you will perform optimally. And sense within yourself your commitment to help create a world that can hold and nurture and protect all these— you and all your neighbors on planet Earth. Good. And realize that within you right now, at this moment, is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. And this power becomes available to you when you choose to take charge of your awareness, to guide yourself to relax deeply into the present moment, empty your mind of unnecessary thought, Become aware of your deepest values and what you want to be the driving force in your life, the principles that you want to choose to guide your actions in the world. Now let yourself travel on your magic carpet to your special place within. That sacred space, floating through inner time and space to a beautiful place in nature, a beautiful meadow or a lovely beach, wherever you can feel safe and loved. Picture this place now, this place where you can be in touch with the wisdom that dwells within you. At that level within where you can see most clearly. And here, for a moment, recall those who have taught you about peace and love, those who have inspired you and been models for the person you really want to be. And aware of their love and kindness the generosity and patience, the forgiveness and compassion, wisdom, courage, and honesty their lives have taught you. And feel the resonance within your heart, and know that there is an important truth deep within you. That it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. And know that you are no longer alone, that other candles are being lit all around you now, and their light is beginning to merge, sensing within our shared commitment to strive together at home, at work, throughout the world toward the shared goal of a global human community where peace, harmony, and creativity prevail. And aware at a deep level of the values we all share and the connection you have with those around you in your community or church or your workplace or in your online community. And imagine that the light of your spirit of your deeper values, your purpose and commitment is spreading out to all those around you. Let yourself become deeply aware of the shared values that spread out beyond your community, through the countryside, and throughout your country. Aware that in our global village there is a shared heritage, a shared set of values, and a shared consciousness that unites you to the vast family of 5 billion human beings living in the fragile biosphere on the surface of this tiny spinning planet. And feel your energy joining with that of all those kindred spirits spirits who are awakening. Be aware of the almost limitless power and creativity we can release when we work together. Realize that every crisis presents both danger and opportunity, and that where there is the greatest danger, there's also the greatest opportunity— the opportunity to use our wisdom for the transformation and evolution of our ourselves and of those with whom we live and work. And know deeply that opportunity begins right here, right now, in the very center of your being, as life renews itself again and again with each new breath. Give yourself permission Now, while you are in touch with your deepest truth, to create in your mind now an image of the world you would like to live in. Picture it green and healthy. See pure water and air, and see the people living on it in harmony. Caring about each other and their environment. Envision your family, your community, your workplace in peace and harmony, as healthy, fulfilling, productive places to be. Sense your connection with those with whom you have a common purpose and with whom you are working to create positive change. Let yourself feel and be moved by that sense of being with others who really care about you and that you care about. Picture them in your mind. Imagine you can see the entire planet healthy and at peace. And if you wish, you can choose now to let this vision become a reality. Imagine as we all make this choice together our image is becoming a reality. And know that it all begins here, now, inside you. Feel it, breathe into it, and let it grow stronger and clearer.

Good.

And sense within now your desire to guide your thoughts, words, and actions towards making this vision a reality. Feel it strongly, for nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. And ask yourself, what do I want at the deepest level to let my special contribution be? How can I use my special gifts to make the world a better place in which to live, in any way, large or small? How can my behavior serve love and connection rather than fear and isolation? How can my behaviors reflect respect, love, and connectedness? What do I feel motivated, positive, and even enthusiastic about doing? Good. Now, what can you imagine saying or doing that will make a real difference? How powerful, effective, and committed can you imagine yourself? And imagine yourself actually doing this. See it clearly in your mind's eye. Put yourself into this image, applying yourself fully, giving of yourself deeply, and feel how good it feels. Experience the excitement and the enthusiasm of using the best parts of you to bring about a change you really care about. What is it you need to let go of in order to bring the best of you forth? What attitudes? What kind of thinking? What kind of relationships? Whatever. Imagine letting go of whatever you need to, to free yourself. So you can accomplish your goal and make your vision a reality. Imagine yourself doing that now. Visualize yourself thinking and acting the way you really want to, and feeling the deep fulfillment and satisfaction of doing your part, connecting with others to create the world we all want. Wise, congruent with your deeper values, and expressive of the real you. Feel it strongly. The more powerfully you can feel it, the more you are leading and motivating your body to behave in just this way. Breathe into this feeling. Breathe strength and power into it as you imagine living this scene all the way through to complete success, and breathe it throughout every cell of your body. Good. And letting yourself be aware of your most deeply held values— love, peace, honesty, Equality, freedom, whatever they are, and letting them guide your thoughts, words, and actions. You are transforming the world as you live one day at a time, one breath at a time, nurturing your hopes, goals, and visions for the future. Living this day well Knowing deep within that tomorrow's strengths will come tomorrow. This is your mind and this is your life, and you have the right and the power to choose what thoughts and images are held in this mind. To know your beliefs belong to you, and sensing your most deeply held values Know that when you choose to hold beliefs that are congruent with and in harmony with those deeper values, you are creating integrity, understanding that these beliefs are giving rise to your future. And each time you picture yourself living your life in the way you really want to, You are more and more this person because this is the person you really are down deep inside. And each time you go within, you are able to access your deeper wisdom, your deeper love. And each time you imagine behaving in harmony with your values, your inner wisdom, and the vision you have of global healing. You are leading your mind, your body, your words, and your behavior along the path you know is right for you, fulfilling your duty to the deepest part of yourself. And in a moment, I'm going to count from 1 to 5, and as I do, let yourself float back on your magic carpet to this place here where your body is resting comfortably, bringing back the relaxation with you. 1, floating back. 2, feeling more and more awake to the environment around you. 3, coming back with a feeling of inspiration and enthusiasm, feeling rested like you just had a long sleep. 4, coming all the way back. 5, letting your eyelids open and thinking wide awake. Good.

For those who found this a little rapid, I went through it quickly because we only have an hour. I don't have the courage yet to ask you to spend an hour and a half or 2 hours with me, but I think, uh, if you can help me grow the audience, um, I'll be able to do that. I also hope to have in the future breakout sessions, so people who want to focus on one or another specific area can do that both by sending donations. We spend many, many hours putting each of these shows together, as I hope you realize, and this would help to compensate us, especially myself, for my daughter Erin, for Jesse Churchill, and for all the other people who have, who have contributed. So if this has been a little bit fast for you, then you can watch the past webinars right there, which is described up on your screen. So you can go to drmiller.com/life-meditations, drmiller.com/life-meditations. You can listen to this again and again. If it's all kind of new for you, then I'd suggest you listen to some of the earlier meditations because we started out with things that are a little bit easier, a little bit less challenging than this one. If you, if you want to experience this meditation done in the, um, in the form that I've done it in the studio, you can go to shop.drmiller.com and take a listen to Healing Our Planet. Looks like this, Healing Our Planet, and that's at shop.drmiller.com. You can just search for it there. Other ones that are useful to you: Awakening the Leader Within. We're going to get more into that one in the future as you may realize, and I didn't specifically mention it before, the leader that we need now to bring about this transformation is inside. The leader is not out there. The leader is inside, and it's inside of you, and it's me, and we're not really as different as you might imagine that we are. That's their game, to make us feel different. If we realize how connected we are whether we're out protesting or whether we're getting out the vote or whether we're using other skills and talents and gifts, including money and training and passion and compassion and love, whatever it is, healing. If we bring those forth now, we can change all this, and that's called awakening the leader within to really Perform at Your Peak, Optimal Performance is the CD or the download that will work for you. The stress that we're dealing with, Letting Go of Stress, is still the world's favorite way to learn how to harness stress. And in future situations, future presentations, I'm I'm going to talk a little bit more about how to actually harness the power of stress instead of having it work against us. If it can work against us, it can work toward us. Again, my— I keep mentioning our culture on the couch. Seven Steps to Global Healing. You can purchase the book on Amazon or it, shop.drmiller.com. I wrote it back in the early part of this century, published it in 2009. You probably skip the first few chapters where I talk about the deterioration in the world because it's deteriorated quite significantly since then. After that, the principles for what we need to do to change it, that are the last half of the book, are the same principles that we need to apply right now. I put many hours into trying to give you the scientific reasons that this is true, um, and you can get a free copy of it if you sign up for our newsletter. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go ahead and download it. It helps you make sense out of the things I talk about here. Next week we're going to talk about what to do as we— as lockout comes— lockdown comes to an end. That produces a whole other bunch of stresses, and I want to talk about how we can get through there is better. That's my other information that may be of value to you. I will post up on the screen. So there's the suggested programs listed up there. Questions and comments can go to aaronm@drmiller.com. For coaching sessions, or, um, there's room perhaps for a few more people in my medical practice, but for coaching or medical practice, you can go to that number there. Call Lisa at 530-478-1807 extension 1. Upcoming webinars will be on a calendar that's continually updated at drmiller.com/calendar. We will be shifting to Thursdays next week. Yep, at 11 o'clock on Thursdays instead of Friday. We'll be going to Thursdays at 11. And again, please tell your friends, people you you think may be interested about this. It's, it's a numbers game. If we can get enough people, then we can iron out our presentation and bring you even, even more powerful experiences. Again, it's so important to have some kind of regular, ongoing deep relaxation or meditation experience. In your life. The answers come from the silence of being together. It's going to be important to find kindred spirits, those who resonate with you, not those that are trying to convince you to believe what they believe. Avoid groups who, if you say anything that seems to question or in any way go against what their dogma is, that they threaten to abandon you. If you find yourself in that kind of group, don't wait to be abandoned. You abandon them right now. When you see them doing it to other people, it's time for you to quit that group and find those who are open-minded and open-hearted. Again, sometimes it feels irrational to follow your bliss, sometimes it's really good to have a partner, a coach, a guide, someone that you can trust who's read what you've read, who can resonate with what you're going through, to help you see the rationality and the importance of following your true bliss. And again, through going into into the depth of the present moment helps you find what your true bliss is. Your true bliss is not another can of beer, another puff on a joint. It's not. Go deeper. Your true bliss has nothing to do with winning a victory over someone else. But when you find people whose beliefs are different You find yourself getting into a debate, uh, it probably is not going to work. It can make you feel very righteous because you're upholding something you believe in, but usually you're just driving the other person further away. That polarization that I talked about in my book 12 years ago has just become much more severe. It's It's just like people will yell at you for wearing a mask in public because to them that's a political statement, or else it's a political statement if you're not wearing a mask. We're so polarized now. So rather than debate, you want to learn how to have dialogue. You want to have dialogue. Write to me and I'll send you a form that compares debate and dialogue so you can see the difference between the two. Dialogue means listening to the other person, listening with an open heart. And if you're not willing to listen to me with an open heart, then we can't have a dialogue. We can have a debate, but that's just going to drive us further apart. So when you're ready to be open and you truly listen to listen and not think about how you're going to respond to what I'm saying, but open your mind to the possibility that something in what I'm saying may have truth, maybe a lot of it that you've never learned about before. A good book for that is Getting to Yes. It's from the Harvard Negotiating Project. Getting to Yes. Talking to Yes, very famous book, shows you how you can get to yes with people. When does being careful become paranoid? Hmm, if you're in— the older you are, the worse the inflammatory diseases that you may have in your body, high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes, if you're over 50, more so if you're over 60, more so if you're over 70. All of these mean you have a higher likelihood not only of getting the disease but of getting it in a much, much more harmful way, a lot more morbidity and even possibly possibly death. You know, so if you're a young, vibrant, healthy person that's never been sick in your life, well, you don't need to be nearly as careful. When you get into those high-risk areas, you know, you're, you know, maybe you're running a 5 or 10% risk of dying and probably a 20 or 30% risk of suffering damage that's going to affect you for the rest of your life. Whereas if you're this young person, you know, your likelihood of that happening is a fraction of a percent. So I don't know, the moment you get on your— the moment you get in your car to drive on the highway, or the moment you get on a plane to fly someplace, your likelihood of dying or being injured goes up very significantly. But that doesn't mean you don't fly. Nobody can really choose for you, but If you're in a high-risk group and if you're going to be around other people and if you're likely to be closer than 6 feet, then you want to be more careful. If those people are going to be singing or yelling or coughing or breathing hard from jogging or exercising, you will want to be at 12 feet in terms of your distance. I don't have a great belief in the mask as protecting you from anything other than droplets that are in the air, but they do protect other people from the moisture in your breath should you be an asymptomatic carrier, and certainly if you have the disease. So if we're going to be in this together, we need to protect other people. So bottom line is we should all be wearing the masks when we're out out there, end of story. If you care, if you're, if you're compassionate. And those people saying, oh yeah, come on down to the rally, come on down to the bar, we don't need to think about it. Yeah, you may survive this, but you may be responsible for somebody else dying because they breathed in your air and they have a significant risk factor inside. You know, take a look at what's happening in Texas and Arizona and Florida because they decided to not pay attention. And start looking at what happens when the hospitals are overloaded and people who can't, can't even get into the ICU and they leave them out in the hallway or out in the sidewalk in front of the hospital dying. You don't want to be a part of that. Wear your mask. Feeling peace during these turbulent times is always about remembering that a miracle is right around the corner. And if you can believe in it and look at whatever little thing that you can do— think of those people who are out there protesting. Look at the changes that have taken place. Look at the millions and millions of dollars that have been offered by companies now. Look at the laws that are being changed. Look at the new rules that are being handed down to control the police. Look at all those things that are happening. This is different. If you look at those protesters, one protester, it doesn't mean much at all, but when they're all together, ha, then something amazing can happen. Don't believe that when they tell you you don't have the power to do anything. So feeling peace is finding your own inner peace in the moment. Finding out what you can do and going out to do it. Dealing with feelings of grief. It's important to go through the grieving process. If something is lost, grieve it's lost. Grieve it and then let go. Don't hang on to it. Helplessness is what we call learned helplessness. You're not helpless. Do something. Get a goldfish and take care of it. Go and volunteer somewhere. Find people who are being active and just call, say, "Look, I'm not ready to go out and march because I'm in a high-risk group, or I'm super careful, but what can I do to help you? Can I send you food or money? Can I pack you lunch?" You know, can I knit you a cap? What can I do? There is something. There is something you can do. Look around. It can work. What we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg. Let's lift that sucker right up out of the water. This is what we need to do to evolve as a society. Keep being grateful for the beauty that is in your life, for the privilege that you've had. You're listening to me over a computer now, aren't you? Can you feel the gratitude? And then ask what it is. Ask your spirit. Ask what's deepest within you. Academic institutions will be around in the future. They will change, and they've been wanting to change in the direction that we're talking about today. Look forward to some amazing new courses coming about in institutions of higher learning. Have a question about relationship, building patience and everything. If a relationship— if you're in a relationship, going deeply into the present and ask yourself if it's worthwhile to continue that relationship, and if the answer is yes, then teach yourself to be patient. Quiet that part that feels like something has to happen and ask yourself, how can the relationship be deepened? How can it be deepened? Good. Well, that's all I can do for today. I hope that's been useful to you. Again, thank you so much for your many different kinds of donations, your comments, um, Happy to hear that so many of you have known me for so long. Thank you so much. Good. Oh, I'm so happy that you enjoyed the webinar. Ah, getting better every week. Oh, I like to hear that. Yeah, it was a little bit jumbled today. I mean, I only went through about half the notes. Notes I had. That's why it was jumbled. I skipped a lot of really good stuff, but we're going to move on. We're going to come back to leadership. We're going to come back to healing the planet. We're going to come back to spirituality, and we're also going to come back to dealing with specific things like how to harness stress for peak performance and how to deal with specific illnesses that we may have. So, so keep in touch. Again, get the newsletter. Oh, and get— send invitations to the newsletter to all your friends and tell them to send it to their friends. And that's how we can grow exponentially to do what we have to do here. To those people who say God will protect them, I think there's always that story about the flood that came. And it's a flood that was coming up to this fellow's front door. A motorboat came by, says, "Come on, hop on and we'll take you to safety." He says, "No, God will protect me." And pretty soon he's up on the second floor of the house and they come by with another bigger boat and say, come aboard. And he said, no, God will care for me. And finally the water's filled up all around him. He's just there on top of the roof, and they send a helicopter and drop a ladder. And he says, no, go away, God will protect me. And of course, eventually he drowns and he goes to heaven. He says, God, how come you didn't save me? You promised you would save me. And God says, what do you mean? I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more do you want me to do? Right? So yes, God will protect them, but must ask, is there some help? Is God sending them any other messages? And if so, don't miss them. Saying that God will protect you can also be a way of being in denial. Suggest that they consider that possibility. That's all. That's all you can do is share the possibility and then throw throw it out if it doesn't appeal to you. So have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Keep your light shining. Bless you all, and by all means, stay tuned. If you enjoyed this video and found its information helpful, please like, comment, and subscribe to Dr. Miller's YouTube channel. Doing this will help to get Dr. Miller's content to more and more people. If you'd like to watch the entire webinar series, you can do so at drmiller.com/life-meditations. That's drmiller.com/life- meditations. Be present, be kind, and be well.