32: How Meditation Re-Wired My Brain + 5 Tips for Making the Habit Stick

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What's Next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot the Only Move that Matters Is yous Next One, which launches in September of 2016.

In this podcast I talk with peak performers to reverse engineer their most successful career. Pivots interview experts on what it takes to be agile in a rapidly evolving economy and open the kimono on what happens behind the scenes of my book and business. You can learn to capitalize on risk, fear and uncertainty as the doorways of opportunity. My promise is that you will leave every episode with practical tips, tools and tactics. For show notes from this episode, visit JennyBlake Me podcast.

If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello friends. Today's podcast is on a topic that I am excited and a little nervous to talk about how meditation rewired my brain and five Tips to make the habit stick, among many other things. Why am I nervous? Because it's such a big topic and I'm not a monk or a trained expert. I mostly want to share how my morning routine goes, how this practice has truly transformed my life, and how I tackle it and make the habit stick. I'm a normal person, I'm not a pro, but hopefully that's what will make it useful. I know nowadays hearing about meditation is kind of like saying eat your spinach, it's something we know we should do. Or like flossing your teeth. But a lot of people have a hard time sticking with it. As some of you know, I co founded a meditation app and platform lucent with my good friend Adam and our friend Carlo that we ran for a about two years. We've recently sunsetted it, but in that time I studied a lot of research and we asked hundreds of people what gets in the way of them starting a meditation practice and what questions they have. So I'm going to address some of that today. First, a little plug for a rating or review. If you are enjoying the Pivot podcast, please take a moment to leave a rating or review on itunes. It lets me know you're listening and helps me understand what topics you love and might want to hear more about. You can do this by searching for Pivot Podcast by Jenny Blake in your podcasts app or go to Bit ly pivotpodcast to pull it up in itunes. And even if you're already subscribed, it's kind of annoying. You have to go through this process and then it will let you rate it or write a review. Thank you so much to all of you for listening and to those of you who have submitted reviews. It really means the world to me. All right, let's get into today's show. Today I'm going to talk about common objections people have, myself included, how I got into meditation, details of how I practice, five tips to make the habit stick, a few other techniques that I've been practicing, and some apps, books and courses. Because what would a Pivot podcast be without resources and homework? When I say that meditation has rewired my brain? Dan Harris wrote a book called 10% happier. I have to say I feel 100% happier. I've been reflecting on this for months. Like actually over a year and a half now. Is this really true? Is the other shoe going to drop? Is it possible to feel this calm and generally grounded and happy with my life? I used to have so much anxiety when I was growing up. I actually feel like for the first 30 years of my life I would. It was like the saying of hitting yourself on the head with a hammer and that you don't know how good it feels until it stops. For some reason, the way that my chemical makeup is and was, I just felt like for the first 30 years I didn't wasn't even aware, but there was like an inner hammer hitting my brain. I had constant worry and anxiety and stress and I was a people pleaser, an overachiever, a perfectionist. Of course, I still am recovering from these things. I'm not perfect in any way. See, look, there's my perfectionist admitting that I'm not perfect. The point being, it wasn't until that inner hammer stopped pounding through my meditation practice and possibly age and maturity and working on Pivot, a project that I'm so in love with and obsessed with, but that I realized what it feels like without an inner hammer hitting at my brain all the time. And so I started to notice this. I started meditating daily in 2013, truly when all hell was breaking loose in my life and the inner hammer felt unbearable. I remember there was a point later in the year where I said, I'm too sensitive for my own life. I don't know how I can wake up and make it through the day with as much emotion and overwhelm as I feel. And I had been meditating and journaling and doing gratitude lists and doing yoga. I was doing all the things, and I still felt this unbearable anxiety and transition. Now, as you all know, that's the period of time I wouldn't trade it for the world, because getting myself out of that pickle and figuring out how to get back on solid ground again is what sparked Pivot, the book and the Pivot Method and turning it around. And, you know, I ended up tripling my income the following year by working on the Pivot method and putting it into practice in my own life. But one of the things that was a constant starting about mid 2012 and to this day, was a daily meditation habit. At first, I would say 2013, when all the tumult was happening, yes, I was meditating daily, 20 minutes. But I didn't yet have a sense that, oh, it's this miracle drug, you know, life is now sunshine and rainbows. However, on the other side of it now, 2014, 2015, we're into 2016, and I'm on 115 day streak. As I record this, I feel like a different person. I am a different human being. When I say meditation rewired my brain, what I mean by that is that I wake up without the hammer feeling most of the time, whereas previously in my life that wasn't the case. And I feel a sense of really, like I said, grounded, calm, focus. And again, even if it's a combination of factors, age, maturity, making it through a tough time, working on a really powerful personal project, meditation has been an anchor and a source of focus and strength and really a joy. It has since become the most important thing I can do in any given day and have a visceral sense of that. Not just a concept, an intellectual concept that, oh, yeah, I should do that now. I want to. So before we jump in, I want to read an excerpt from a book called Buddha's Brain. And, you know, I have. My ears are perked to any time an author talks about change. So let me read you from a section called Keeps Changing. The author says, this is by Rick Hansen with Richard Mendias. And they say, consider the turbulence of your nervous system. For example, regions in the pfc, the prefrontal cortex that support consciousness, are updated five to eight times a second. This neurological instability underlies all states of mind. For example, every thought involves a momentary partitioning of streaming neural traffic into a coherent assembly of synapses that must soon disperse into fertile disorder to allow other thoughts to emerge. Observe even a single breath and you will experience its sensations changing, dispersing and disappearing. Soon after they arise, everything changes. That's the universal nature of outer reality and inner experience. Therefore, there's no end to disturbed equilibria as long as you live. But to help you survive, your brain keeps trying to stop the river, struggling to hold dynamic systems in place, to find fixed patterns in this variable world and to construct permanent plans for changing conditions. Consequently, your brain is forever chasing after the moment that has just passed, trying to understand and control it. It's as if we live at the edge of a waterfall with each moment rushing at us, experienced only and always now at the lips, and then zip, it's over the edge and gone. But the brain is forever clutching at what has just surged by. How many of you feel like that in your life? Sometimes that you're right at the edge of this waterfall and we're thinking about the future and looking back at the river, at the past, and trying to grasp and create some stability. It's almost like we're building the boat while at the edge of the waterfall and we're about to tip over. And it can get really stressful when we try and build the boat, build the solid structure. And yet there, there's some magic loophole that if we stop trying to control things so much or recognize our own brain's desire and tendency to control things, that we can then start to live in the paradox of being at that edge and trying to have structure in our lives while being open to uncertainty and flexibility. It really shows how we all struggle with this. Some common objections that I hear often and believe me, I had, I had all these, which are two busy. I can't sit still. Maybe you can, but I can't sit still. Oh, my mind is too active and I don't know how.

Again, I had all those same reservations. I think anybody who is a high achiever or a go getter or a busy person, yeah, it's hard. Any there are switching costs to creating any new habit or routine and so that I don't have time. Totally get it. That said, five minutes, it's pretty hard to not make time for that. Can't sit still, my mind is too active. Well, those are the exact people who could benefit tremendously from meditation. And come on, there's no pain to sitting still. Sometimes I'll put on my tough love hat and say at someone like, too bad, do it. You know, it's like building a muscle. You're gonna get better and yes, you're gonna be antsy as hell in the beginning. I've been doing yoga 15 years and there are still classes where I'm ant the entire time. I'm bored, I'm not loving it, and I stick with it because I know I'll be glad I did afterward and I'll be thankful for the longevity of having that practice in my life. So to those common objections, I said to my friend Adam, this is back in 2012. He had just returned from living in a monastery in Thailand where he had to beg for food in the mornings at dawn and sleep on a bamboo mat. He meditated six hours a day. I mean, super intense practice that he went through. So when he got back, he said, jay, you should really meditate. And I said, oh yeah, running is my meditation. No, that doesn't count. Swimming is very meditative for me too. No, that doesn't count. Well, I love walking through the city with music on. No, that doesn't count. He said, those are all just forms of doing. Try sitting still with your eyes closed for five minutes. And even though I had been reading self help and Buddhist books for about 10 years, it had never sunk in. It always sounded like a nice idea for someone else. But when Adam said that, I knew he was right. And so I started the practice. But I was having a really hard time making it stick. I knew it was a good thing to do. I just kept forgetting and not doing it. So in 2013, that is when all hell broke loose in my life and my meditation practice was a sanity saver. So I'm going to come back to how I make the habit stick and how I finally got it to stick. There are five things that I have found really helpful. But first, I'll share a little bit about how I practice and when. And again, I'm not an expert. I'm just a normal person who really enjoys this. So take what you like, leave the rest, read some books. I'll recommend some at the end. And ultimately I say, make this practice your own. This is just what works for me. And I'd say I'm in my third year of a daily practice, so it's just refining it over time. I sit, I sit on a couch cushion with my spine tall. And they say, you know, it's good to sit. If you can't sit, cross Legged Sit in a chair with your feet planted on the floor, legs at 90 degree angles. The idea is integrity both in your body, integrity of the spine, and integrity for the practice that by sitting hunched over, actually, somatically speaking, sitting hunched over in a position of fear or sadness can create those emotions in the body. You can listen to the previous Pivot podcast with Stacey Sims for more on that. But essentially you want to sit up straight. You want to be a clear channel for energy and breath. And so whatever you're doing right now, if you're walking, this will be the trickiest, but you might still be able to try it. Try just lengthening your spine, broaden your collarbones, tuck your chin slightly in and back. Lift your crown of the head to the sky, almost like you have a rope and someone pulling you up.

Allow your tongue to rest on the soft palate of your upper mouth.

And just notice how you feel.

Sometimes when I'm sitting in meditation and I do 20 minutes every day, 10 if I'm in a hurry. Like one time at a 4am alarm for a 4:30 ride to the airport, that was a 10 minute day. There was no way I was using 20 of those minutes for a meditation. But most days I really appreciate 20, but I'll say it took me a year to work up to that. And sometimes you just gotta go 10 minutes for 10 days and then try a 20 and it's gonna seem like a really long time. But I've. That's really worked. Other times when I've been in a really reflective Mode, I do 40 minutes and I'm loving it, so I kind of just fall back to 20 unless something else is going on. Sometimes to get into meditation, I'll actually start with breath work or pranayama. I did yoga teacher training in 2010 in Santa Barbara White Lotus, and that's where I first learned about this. And it's really pretty awesome. Some of it is hard to describe on a podcast, but when I'm first sitting down for meditation, if I have a very active mind, I'll do. There are three different breathing exercises that I do. One is called Kapalabhati, which is also known as Breath of Fire and it means skull illumination. So I'm gonna. I'll try it right now and maybe you can hear through the recording kind of what it sounds like.

So it's you're exhaling very sharply on the exhale and the inhalation happens naturally. Sometimes I'll do alternate nostril breathing. So that's where you close one nostril, and you breathe in slowly, let's say through the right nostril, pause at the top and then exhale through the opposite nostril. The left side pause at the bottom and then go back the other direction. So go back up through the left side, close pause and exhale through the right side. And sometimes when I do that, I'll start with a count of five. Pause for five and exhale for five, pause for five, and then I'll work up to eight or 10 and try and lengthen the breath. And then another one that I'll do is three long, slow, deep breaths. So if I'm not gonna do any of the fancy pranayama stuff, this is something anyone can do, and I encourage you to do it with me. So find a tall spine and close your eyes if you can. If you're not walking or driving or cooking or doing anything else that you might be doing while listening to podcasts, as I'm known to do as well. And let's just close our eyes and take a long, slow, deep inhale through the nose.

And a big exhale. Sometimes I'll do a loud sighing, open mouth exhale, sometimes out through the nose. And now let's do this with counting. So take a deep inhale through the nose to the count of 1, 2, 3, pause.

Exhale, 3, 2, 1, pause. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, pause.

Exhale, 4, 3, 2, 1, Pause.

Notice how you're feeling. Notice how your body feels. This is something I do if I'm nervous. If I'm getting ready to do a big speech, I'll take three deep breaths. If you inhale and exhale through the nose, that keeps the prana, or life force in your body. It's kind of think of it like an air filter. By doing breathing through the nose, it's very calming. So this sends our body into rest and digestion mode. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system. So it's telling your body, life is good, all is well, you can calm down. That is something really simple that you can do at any point, and that might help those of you feel more active or restless. Settle in for meditation. Then let's say I'm meditating and my mind is super active and I might be thinking about the day. I'll use the mantra, let go. Just even you can do on the inhale, let exhale go. Inhale, let exhale go. Another mantra that my friend Adam taught me is rising, falling, sitting, rising, falling, sitting. Physically, what you can do is you can push I also did Thai massage training in 2012, and we learned all these cool places on the skull where you can press, and they line up with Mariah meridians in the body, similar to what acupuncturists use, and they release pressure. So all of you try this now if you can. If you're able, you can push on your temples and rotate in a clockwise direction. You can take your pointer finger and push right on your third eye. That's kind of between the eyebrows and up an inch. But what I really love, what really helps me relax all the tiny muscles in my face and particularly around the eyes and in my jaw, where I know I collect stress in my face, is press really hard on the very top of your skull, the crown, and close your eyes and see if that doesn't help the muscles around your eyes relax. It's kind of a cool thing. You can also press a little farther back. There's this soft part. If you follow your ears upward at a diagonal, it's a little farther back on the skull and you can press there.

So sometimes if my mind is really active or my face feels tight and stressed, I just press down right on the top of my head with my eyes closed. And it's almost like sending a relaxation waterfall down into the system. On other days, I will do an inquiry. So an inquiry is something's on my mind, and I'm having a tough time with a life challenge or a big question or even a business decision. And I will first settle into my meditation for about five to 10 minutes. I really let myself get into a quiet, calm, grounded place where I'm not thinking with my head. And then I'll put the inquiry into my mind, and I try and feel into the answer. I try and listen for guidance and that sense of an intuitive voice giving me an answer or a visceral feeling. And that's very different than intellectually chewing on an answer and spinning around a problem or question. So usually within, if I can grounded and I ask a question 10 minutes in, boom, insights will come up or I'll understand how I'm really feeling and I'll sit with it and I'll kind of work with it and find gratitude and turn things around. And so that's. That's really helpful. And I, you know, it's not about. It's not about crunching on a to do list, but I will say this is where it's helped me in business. When I'm stuck on something, it's through meditation that I come up with a solution. And an answer or something that's going to be way more fun than what I been planning. I shared this on an earlier podcast, but I was going to do a three week launch sequence and it was going to be called the. It was going to be called the Momentum Challenge, and something just wasn't sounding right about that. And it was through a meditation session that I realized, aha, I want this to be fun and playful. So I decided to call it a Momentum Safari. And that seemed like a much better fit if I'm experiencing a particularly tricky challenge or something that is causing me to feel bad in my body. I learned this from Tasha Silver, who I'm hoping to get on the podcast Fingers Crossed in her book Outrageous Openness. And that's surrender. Turning something over to the divine, the universe, whatever you believe in, but offering up a problem or question or challenge and saying, I turn this over to you, show me the answer. Basically saying, I surrender. I trust in something higher than myself or the super consciousness or timing. Whatever you do believe in, it's surrendering a problem to that. Sometimes my meditation is that it's just offering up a challenge and not trying to solve it, but saying, I release my grip on this. I release having to know all the answers. And as Tasha suggests, you can kind of say, if this is meant to happen, please show me a sign. Please help me understand the one next step that I can take.

Toward the very end of my meditation session, I take a few minutes for gratitude, and that's thanking everything I'm grateful for in my life. Usually my staples are my health, my family's health, my friends, my family, my business, my book, my body, all of it. My apartment, New York, you know, everything I'm grateful for. Every day I try and reflect and spend some time on those things. And then when I come out at the end, sometimes I'll journal because it's a nice way to transition. So that's how my meditations usually go. I would love to hear from all of you in the comments at jennyblake Me Podcast, click on this episode. I would love to hear what your practices are and how you do your morning meditation. Now I'm going to get into five tips for how I made the habit stick. One of them is meditating. First thing when I get out of bed, I used to. I used to feel like, okay, yeah, I'll get to it. You know, I would get up, maybe check my phone, maybe read a book, have some coffee, another cup of coffee, another cup of coffee. And then by the time I tried to meditate. My mind was just racing already. Whereas when I've just woken up and gotten out of bed, there's this really amazing liminal space in the morning. Liminal meaning in transition or in between, where the mind is still relatively soft and relaxed, Especially if you don't check your phone. So don't check your phone, I beg you. When you wake up, if you've listened to the Dream podcast, you might write down your dreams. And then for me, in an ideal world, I'm waking up before sunrise, which does not always happen. But I'll light a candle, meditate for 20 minutes, and then my reward is getting to make tea. I make Earl Grey Rishi Earl Grey tea and then rent or listen to a podcast for the next sometimes hour. And so that's my reward. And by doing that, my mind is more receptive to being able to meditate. And the day hasn't encroached upon it yet.

The second thing that really helped it stick was a meditation app. Now, even four years after I first started, we're so much farther ahead in terms of apps. Even though Lucent isn't still around, I've used Insight Timer and absolutely loved it. And part of what's critical here is tracking stats. And I don't know about you, but for me, I'm so motivated by consecutive streaks and badges and how many days and how much time. It just motivates me to have that data. And we're so lucky that there are all these amazing meditation apps now. So get an app, whether it's Insight Timer, headspace, calm, or 10% happier is another great one with tutorials. And go for some badges and consecutive streaks. It's really motivating. And do a challenge with a friend or give yourself a goal. And then I would just say, don't get discouraged if you break a streak because it can be really devastating in some weird way where it's like, ah, screw it. I just won't even bother the next five days because you broke the streak. My friend Nikki and I were talking about that, but try not to let that happen. It's really about longevity over time. Celebrate every streak that you do get and then start another one. The third thing is mindset. I have come to believe that meditation is the most important thing I can do today. Now, I didn't always really feel that, but I started to tell myself when I was questioning, well, do I have time for this or do I feel like it? Those were inviting doubt. And again, it creates, like, some decision fatigue. Like, if you're having to decide every day whether or not to meditate, it's just creating drag, decision, drag in your brain. And you have enough big stuff weighing on you already. Don't add another thing. It's like you don't decide whether to brush your teeth most days, you just do it. And ideally, meditation is the same. So rain or shine, whether you feel like it or don't, saying to yourself it's not, oh, if I have time, I'll squeeze it in. But actually, oh, this is the most important thing I can do today. The reason I've come to actually believe that is it helps me get grounded. Clear, focused, strategic, more calm, more grateful, more loving, more compassionate. I mean, the list goes on. So when I really consider what else do I have to do today or this morning or can my email wait another 20 minutes? Yes, it always can. It always can. So I encourage you to find your own intrinsic motivation of why this is important to you and stick with it. The fourth thing, just because I need extra backups, is I add it to my to do list every day. I have. I use monthly Moleskine notebooks that have the. They come in a pack of 12, there's one for every month of the year. And I hand write every day, meditate, and I get to check it off. So not only is my app tracking my stat count, I also get to check it off every day. And there's a wonderful, delightful feeling, a little dopamine hit of getting to that source of sense of accomplishment. And that's helpful because on my to do list is a lot of big projects, but I also put fitness things like yoga, Pilates, go for a walk. And so it helps me stay accountable to myself and it helps me remember that this is a part of my day too. And this is an item on my to do list too. And it matters. It's not just some ephemeral idea floating around in the day. Those are the five, I would say the last thing is the bonus here is notice your performance. Clarity, focus, calm, gratitude, compassion over time, kind of like me, you might not feel in a day or a week or a month, you might not feel, oh yeah, this is the cure all. Oh my God. Meditation. It's a miracle. And I'm walking on rainbows every day. But you might, I'll just say that you might notice a difference. I would imagine after a month that you will. But give it time and you'll see it starting to rework your brain. I feel like, I think, you know, I heard a while back, I wish I remembered the science of it, but that a certain energy of a thought, so like a depressing thought or sadness, creates more neural pathways like it, so that these kind of, let's say a depressing series can create more cells like that. I don't know how to describe it, but. So I feel like it took me time. It took me a year and a half of doing this every day. But where I do feel my brain is rewired, I do feel that the calm days have added up and strengthened these neural pathways of groundedness that I didn't have before. There was a time I just gave up on trying to be happy and I just said, please, please, just let me feel equanimity. And now, a few years later, I do feel that for the most part, knock on wood, you know, anything can happen at any time to throw me off of it. But I just would say in General, I feel 100% more internally resourceful. So that motivates me to stick with it over time.

There's some techniques that I also wanted to share. One is this idea that our thoughts are like a waterfall and you go behind the waterfall. Dan Harris shared this in his book 10% How I Tamed the Voice In My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self Help that actually works. A true story. I thought this book was hilarious meditation for fidgety skeptics. That's kind of how he describes his app in his book. And he's a news anchor for Good Morning America who had a panic attack on national TV twice because he was doing prescription drugs and cocaine. And this book is his story of finding meditation. And he was a fidgety skeptic. He really didn't buy it. But as he started interviewing experts and practicing and getting his own mentors, he has come to become an evangelist for it. And I love his podcast, 10% happier. It's one of my favorites. So this book is great. And I wanted to share the part where he goes to a workshop by Tara Brock, who's the meditation teacher, and she describes the rain method, recognize, allow, investigate, and non identification. Some of those things can just sound sort of esoteric or broad if we don't have an example. So I want to read you Dan's example. He says. Just a few weeks later, I put her advice to work and got behind the waterfall. I was having a bad day. I was worrying again about whether I'd get the promotion and then beating myself up for said worrying. I hit the couch in my office again, but this time I tried Brock's rain technique. Especially the bit about investigating how my inner turmoil was playing out physically.

Noting chest buzzing, head pounding, Flophouse in Duluth in six months. Guaranteed worrying chest buzzing, pounding earlobes hot. I didn't try to stop it, I just felt it. It I was allowing letting be and investigating buzzing, tension buzzing. I'm doing it. I'm being mindful of my angst. Noting self congratulation. The effect was something like the picture in picture feature on a television. Normally, my mental clatter dominated the whole screen. When I pressed the mindfulness button, though, I had some perspective. My thoughts were playing out in a larger space, and while they still burned, they burned a little less. The process felt, in a sense, journalistic. Or at least it conformed to what we reporters tell ourselves we are objective, dispassionate, fair and balanced, if you will. It was a revelation. The voice in my head, which I'd always taken so seriously, suddenly lost much of its authority. It was like peering behind a curtain and seeing that the wizard of Oz was a frightened, frail old man. Not only did it ease my agita in the moment, but it suddenly imbued me with a sense of hope about better handling whatever garbage my ego coughed up going forward. A success, yes, but I still had questions. I just love that and highly recommend the whole book. Another thing I've noticed for times where I'm really busy. So again, when I'm in a really get shit done period, my brain's buzzing around. It's like I have a hive of bees in there and they're less calm than when I'm in a reflective state, maybe just coming back from Bali or some other vacation. And so sometimes at night, if I'm having a hard time falling asleep, I use Insight Timer again and they have these guided meditations for sleep that are awesome and I'll put on a 20 minute one and let that help me sleep. And it really works. As many of you know from the Dreams podcast, I also when my head hits the pillow, I reflect on five questions in my head. What was my high of the day? My low? Victory? Something I want to celebrate, Something I'm grateful for, and an unanswered question that kind of helps me do my mental accounting. Sometimes I fall asleep while I'm doing it and close out for the day. And in terms of programming dreams, sometimes having an unanswered question helps set your subconscious toward answering it, and that by at least framing the question, we make progress on it over time.

In those busy periods. Again, just like with yoga for me at Least some days are better than others. I'm sure you all have some practice in your life that is this way. For example, I'd been doing yoga for 10 years, and on my 10th year, I did a warrior one pose and liked it for the first time. It took 10 years. I hated Warrior One for 10 years. It didn't keep me from yoga, but I was always dreading it. And so I know, you know yogis, you probably have a Nemesis pose. My current one is Bird of Paradise. I just cringe when we have to do that in class. But yeah, and then it was kind of this breakthrough that, holy shit. You know, I stuck with this practice for 10 years and I got this reward of year 10 and day one. Oh, my goodness, I actually like this pose. Things can change. I also recently tried Kundalini. I've now been doing yoga almost 15 years and I had never done Kundalini. My friend Sally Hope was doing teacher training. I'd heard about it. It's definitely out there. It's not what you typically think of as an kind of physical postures, yoga class, but it's really awesome. And Kundalini is all about breathwork, chakras, energy, the energy body, pranayama, like I described earlier. Meditation, numerology, astrology. It's really cool. So if you're open, it's definitely different. But for me, it's like the best way to get high in a healthy way, you know, like, I don't do drugs. I don't drink very much. I'm not even doing coffee these days. Kundalini is this way that when I leave class, I feel elevated, I feel calm, I feel happy. I'm like blissed out, walking through the streets of New York, just so happy. So I highly recommend it if you can kind of make it through the first few classes and find a teacher you like. Some books I've already talked about 10% Happier Buddha's brain. I really liked Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein. It's a little more thick and it's more really going through Buddha's teachings, but I really loved it and. And I'm going to link to all this in the show notes as well. There's a 10% happier course within the app and you even get assigned your own meditation teacher that you can text questions to. So that's pretty cool. And there's a ton more stuff out there. I mean, the list goes on and on. So ultimately I would say just try it and make the practice your own. If I waited to be perfect or know exactly how to do meditation or I judged myself for doing it right, right. I would be completely missing out. So that's my encouragement for today is just try it. Don't try and be perfect. And something is much better than nothing. Happy meditating and I can't wait to hear how it goes in the show Notes. Thank you so much for listening. And if you want to get bi weekly updates behind the business and the book, those are at jennyblake Me Updates Updates.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. To learn more and get in touch, visit JennyBlake me where I blog about systems at the intersection of mind, body and and business. Or find me on Twitter at Jenny Underscore Blake and remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.