👨‍🏫 Guest Masterclass: Crafting a Consistent Meditation Practice w/ Michael King

You don't do it. Meditation is non doing. And you kind of say meditation is a state that different practices help you to arrive in. It's a state of being. And at the same time, we understand that meditation is a set of practices that help us arrive at the state. So meditation is both the path and an experience that organically arises under the right conditions. So breath work is a part of that journey. All different types of breath work that, as you guys have learned, are going to be prescriptive, depending on how I currently feel and where I am at, to help me get to a balanced state. So meditation as a state can somewhat arise. So there's all these different practices and processes and evolutions of meditation that we practice to somewhat balance and then heal and eventually transcend our nervous system and mind. So our nervous system can become more receptive, open and available. Available to what? Available to what? Through the meditative traditions, I've come to understand, experience and practice this idea that consciousness is infinite and benevolent and beautiful and intelligent. And when our nervous system is in a certain state that is very personalized and closed off, or is that a pure. Is a pure byproduct of our past experience, it's difficult for us to be completely open and receptive to the spontaneous intelligence of consciousness or nature. Does that make sense?

That makes sense.

But when we do this work, it's like the past within us starts to unearth and dislodge and be released. And to the degree that happens, we can spontaneously feel a sense of opening where we can sense and experience the intelligence and the beauty and the brilliance and the love of nature coming through us to guide us into action that is fruitful, supportive and encouraging. And so I imagine that there's a stream of consciousness that can pour into us, through us, and encourage us in every moment. And meditation, breath work, all of these things help us to get in a certain state so that we can live via the intelligence of nature. You know, consciousness is universal and it's. It holds the potential for all experiences. It holds the potential for all experiences. So imagine universal consciousness flows through bird nervous system and gets expressed as bird. Universal consciousness flows through lizard nervous system and gets expressed as lizard. Universal consciousness flows through Michael's nervous system, whatever the state of that is now, and gets expressed as Michael. But it's cool for us to realize we can change the quality of our nervous system and what it holds. And therefore we have a different experience of consciousness and a different experience of the world we live in. We have a different experience. And so it's accurate to say that my experience of the world is based upon the state of my nervous system. I don't see the world as it is. I see the world as I am. And so meditation and breath work help us look within and go, what is the quality of my nervous system? What's in and on my mind? And how can I release that, transform it, and ultimately transcend it so that I can see things more clearly and I can experience more of an accurate view of this crazy, contrasting, beautiful world? And so that's a little bit of the view we kind of take from the meditative perspective that we are supported by, held by, created by universal intelligence. And we have the potential to tap into that beyond anything I even currently understand. And the ramifications that can have on my life. Like, as I said, it's like a degree thing. Like the more I feel open, the more that naturally happens. Like even my little bit of evolution I've had in my short life, the support in terms of making a choice that ends up being extremely fruitful, trusting your intuition to lead to right action that provides results, being able to show up with courage in situations that are challenging, like the ramifications of that in life is just. Yeah, I'm only really just starting to understand how beautiful and impactful that can be.

I love that so much. And one of my questions for you is actually going to be in what ways has your nervous system filter changed in say the last 15, 20 years since you've really been diving into this work and related to that? I remember, I remember when I first came to you, we talked a lot about this idea of efforting or over efforting and finding more ease and finding the kind of joyful creativity that emerged on the other side. And perhaps you could speak to that in light of what you just shared. I imagine that would be relevant for people on this call and watching the replay.

Yeah, yeah. Amazing how, how my nervous system filter has changed. You know, that saying, was it, I think it was Ram Dass that said, like, if you think you're enlightened, go hang out with your family. That Ram Dass, it was. Yeah, yeah. And, and so, you know, I spent in my, like mid to late 20s, a lot of time traveling and, and, and studying this kind of stuff. And, and I had occasional flings and short relationships, but I, I wasn't during that time I wasn't really in a long relationship and I spent a lot of time in nature, a lot of time by myself. And I, I had this kind of idea of, I was a bit of a spiritual wanker, let's say that way. And, and I thought I was killing it, you know, because I'd had some certain experiences that, that, that changed my worldview and offered a different context with reality. And, and the work then really became applying that. And I didn't understand the depth to which it called to be applied until I was in a long term loving relationship, which is with my now wife. And, and that's when you know, the closer someone gets to your heart, the more the old programs come up and the more vulnerable I felt and the more challenged I felt and the more all of my programs from childhood got highlighted and the more I at wanted to run away. But luckily we had such a beautiful connection that we could hold each other through all kinds of processes. So I think the filter has changed.

With.

Probably the courage to show up being completely vulnerable. Even when I taught meditation in my very early 30s, I think back and I kind of put on a bit of a show and I used comedy as a bit of a safeguard to keep parts of myself hidden. And I felt like I needed to be someone in particular and I felt like there was a. Because of insecurity. I felt like I was kind of preaching from the high horse a little bit. And, and now I feel a lot more okay with the flaws and imperfections and the, the wholeness of who and what I am. And I feel like I just want to get together with fellow humans that are also on this crazy journey and just all be together because I feel through the process, I've been through long term relationship, I just feel so much more comfortable in being a man who I am and sharing all of that with people. I feel like that's the wisdom is being able to be here with people. That's what's probably changed the most, I would say the comfortability in who and what I am. Even though it's far, far from perfect. Far from perfect. Whereas before I felt like I was insecure and had to put on a bit of a facade of, you know, something in particular to. And meditations help with that. Like the practices, the constant practice of coming back to what is and being okay with it. That and I feel like the practices around acceptance have just rippled through my being in such a beautiful and powerful way. So that's probably been the most notable change. And of course fatherhood is extremely humbling.

I bet.

And then what was the second part of the question again? I can't remember. You can't? Maybe someone else could remember?

No, I mean, I Feel like you went in the direction that I was most curious. We talked about the. Or I talked about the F, like over.

Oh, the ebony.

Yeah, amazing in the east piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. We live in such a, A culture of drivenness, you know, and so much, if we really, really look, so much of the driveness and the over efforting comes from a forgetfulness of our basic innate goodness. So what do I mean by that? Everyone, not only here now in this conversation, but everywhere has within them the spark of divinity. And it's not earned. You don't have to be worthy of it. You didn't have to earn enough points for your heart to beat. You're born with that gift. The fact you're here in a human body means worthiness beyond measure. But we come into this human body and we grow up with our beautiful family or whoever we grew up with. And well, meaningly, we get taught that here's love, here's acceptance, here's appreciation. When you jump through these hoops and act in this way and do well on the test at school, or use your manners or achieve enough, or behave. And of course that's all well meaning, right? But the message we get as kids is really interesting because when you're a kid, your brain is developing, it's not fully grown, you don't have your prefrontal lobes developed. And so you don't have the ability to discern, to discern and reflect and meditate. So everything that happens to us is egocentric, meaning it's about me. It can't be any other way. It's all about me. So for example, if I am at home and my mom or dad comes in the door after a really busy day at work and they're feeling angry and frustrated and tired and exhausted, and there's toys on the floor and they say, I thought I told you to pick your toys up. And they, you know, they're angry. I don't think, oh, far out. Dad's had a really hard day at work. Hope he's okay. I think, well, something's wrong with me. I'm not a good person. And you know, you multiply that experience over and over and over and over again and we start to think I'm not innately good, worthy or enough. And so I need to do, perform, achieve to warrant love, acceptance, appreciation and even safety. I need to do, to get. And so for a lot of us here as adults, fully grown adults, there's often still a little bit of that program playing out in our attempt to earn a sense of worth through action. One of the meditative principles in both the yogic traditions and Buddhist traditions is this idea of basic innate goodness and coming back to the memory that beyond anything you can do, beyond anything you can achieve, you are just so worthy, so loved, so brilliant, and so uniquely divine. And coming back to that knowing, it soothes the fire of drivenness and achievement. But that doesn't mean you become inactive. The fire is still there, but it gets pointed towards service and meaning, not achievement to earn out of need. It gets pointed towards service and meaning. And from that place we can step into creative energy that even though you're climbing up the same mountain, it feels a little more effortless and it's not exhausting to the nervous system because you're applying effort without sympathetic nervous system overdrive. And you know, because there's no stress about it to the same degree, you know, even when you act and you're fully excited and engaged, you can return to parasympathetic calm, rest, digest in the heartbeat, you know how to do it. There's nothing within you keeping you active and driven when you want to calm down at night, so you have more control over your nervous system. And it also doesn't mean we won't apply effort, because what starts to awaken within us is the idea of consciousness, deliberate effort. So this is what we need to ask ourselves. This is what I ask myself all the time. Are the efforts that I'm applying in my life creating more effort? Or are the efforts that I'm applying in my life yielding more effortlessness? So, for example, if I don't meditate or do any breath work for a few days, because all of my efforts are pointed towards work and catching up with the emails or this social encounter, whatever it might be, I'm applying all these efforts here, there and everywhere. But over the course of a few days, my nervous system gets more and more rattled and I get more and more caught up in the web of action. And I end up having to apply more and more effort to try to keep up the energy that I have going and stay on the hamster wheel. And so even though I'm applying effort, it's begetting more effort and more effort and more effort sometimes to take a pause from life and do some breath work, have a rest, read a book, have a cup of tea, do some meditation, feels like the biggest effort. But if you apply effort consciously and okay, I'm going to step out of life, step out of this rat race and take time to do Some breath work and meditation, even if that feels like effort. Got to do my yoga practice. Even though I don't want to stay in Warrior 2 for two minutes because my leg's burning, it feels like effort. But if it leaves me feeling connected, inspired, alive, grounded, and it makes life more effortless, so I make better choices and I'm more connected so I can look after myself, that's conscious and wise effort. So what effort is worth what's worthy of my effort to the degree that it's making life more effortless? And you find that when you operate from effortless effortlessness and deep calm thought structures emerge spontaneously in your mind that give you great ideas that lead to more effortlessness, that lead to the same successes without having to exhaust yourself along the way. It never ceases to amaze me that when you're operating from being, when you're operating from alignment, how much support comes in from life, from nature, without us having to do as much. You ever have those moments where you're like, I could have never organized that serendipitous moment. I could have never organized that amount of people meeting exactly in that way at that time for that purpose. I could have never organized that with all of my efforts. You know, this one time when I was in Nepal, this is just a silly little example of what I'm saying. I'd been in India for quite a long time and I had to go to Nepal to renew my Indian visa. And my friend and I that I was there with, we were to make use of our time in Nepal. We were going to do a 10 day silent meditation retreat. And we had to get our v. Our passport to the embassy before the retreat started or there wouldn't have been enough time to get it processed for when we wanted to get back to India. So the day before the retreat, we got on a bus from little town of Pokhara up to Kathmandu, which was a hell of a bus ride. I can't actually remember how long, but it was many hours. So we applied all this effort, got on the bus, packed up for the day, paid the money. Bumpy bus ride full of chickens and goats, weeing in the aisles of the bus, people getting on and off the roofs. We get to the embassy and oh my goodness, the lineup out the front of this embassy was 200 people long back to back, and we go, oh, well, we've got to do it. We've got to apply the effort. That's what we get told, right? If you want success, you have to apply effort. So we go and we stand in line and I just felt. And I looked at my friend and I could just tell he was thinking the same thing, but it didn't make any sense logically. We thought this and, but it was, it was a different kind of feeling. It wasn't like, like I'm late, like my family all likes to tell me I'm lazy, but I say I'm wise. It didn't feel like laziness, it felt like intuition. You know, my family, they always say, oh, you're so lazy. And then the next sentence they say, everything always works out for you. How do you land on your feet? My nan used to call me tin bum king. And I have no idea what that means, but I think it meant you always land on your feet, right? And I think what it is, is sometimes I have the courage to follow the feeling rather than logic. So both my friend and I, we go, we have no idea how this will work out. But we, we can agree standing here now that this doesn't feel right. So let's walk away from this line, get back on the basket, back to pocket. We're stupid. Why are we doing this? And then the next day we go into the 10 day retreat and you know, a day goes past and you're silent, you're concentrating on the practice. Don't speak to anyone. And I completely forgot about the visa passport situation. And that's cool to note too, the fact that I wasn't in there thinking, oh, please work out God arranged something to organize this visa passport situation. I'm visualizing it. Nothing. I just did the simple practice. Focus on the breath. Forgot about everything. Forgot about it, right? Ten days go past. You're finally allowed to. So how's it I did nothing but sit down and watch my breath. Ten days go past. You finally allowed to speak again? First I run to my best mate and we have a big hug, tears in our eyes. Oh, that was a crazy journey. You know, the next person who comes and speaks to us says, what are you guys up to? And we're like, oh yeah, we're going to India. And then was like, oh, that's right. The passport thing comes back into our mind for the first time and we say, oh yeah, actually, we've got to sort out our visa. And the first guy that spoke to us says, oh, you never believe it. I met an agent in Pokhara who takes care of everything for you in the same day. It doesn't take a week to process. He even takes your passport to Kathmandu for you. And we're like, no way. First person we speak to and he goes, I'll show you where it is. And so we get on the bus because The Vipassana Center's 20Ks out of pocket or something. We get on the bus and head back into the town and the bus pulls up. We get off the bus with this guy who's going to show us. The bus drives away and right there across the road, exactly where the bus dropped us off, he's like, there's the office right there. We hand our passport in, give this guy a little bit of money, he takes care of everything. The stamped visas in the passport the next day perfectly timed. And so it's one of those moments where we've all had these moments where I could have never organized that. How much effort would I have had to apply how much effort would I have had to apply to yield the same result? If I thought it was all on me, if I thought me as an ego individual had to do everything to achieve everything, it's all on me. It's not all on me. I'm so supported. Do I have the courage to follow what intuitively feels right and apply effortlessness in the things I can't control and apply effort with things that are worthy of effort that I can control? So my hope is that story kind of illustrates what I think about the question fact that there's always room for effort and there's always room for effortlessness. But how do we balance them? How do we balance them? And you know, Patanjali, the, the instructor of most of the meditative traditions said that meditation practice and life is made of both surrender and effort. They're the two wings of the bird. They have to be applied equally and in good measure and balance with good understanding, surrender and effort. So where's the place for surrender or effortlessness? And where's the place for effort? Let me apply effort where it counts the most, which is with changing your internal state. Because when you change your internal state you see and experience an entirely different world. And that's when you have the experiences where your family says, how'd you pull that off? I didn't do. I didn't do anything. I didn't do a thing. It's not me. It's not me. You don't think there's incredible intelligence woven into the fabric of this world? Who's beating your heart? Look at that. Look at the internal chemistry of my brain and body. No human could design that just innate brilliance that we get to participate in and witness. We get to Witness.

I've missed hearing your stories. It's good to hear. What was coming up for me during that was this sense of kind of seeing the overlap between what we've been exploring in the last five weeks here. And there's this idea of polyvagal theory that's kind of at the, at the core of nervous system mastery. And my sense is that the practices to get back to ventral vagal, which is basically the state of inherent safety and connection, are very similar to what in the yogic tradition were practices to get you to a kind of more sattvic balanced state where like you say, you kind of feel the, you feel like the inherent safety of life and the support of that kind of secure attachment to life is maybe another way of saying it. And so I'm wondering, oh, there's someone in the waiting room here. Yeah. Kind of with that peace in mind, what are some practical meditative techniques for people to restore that secure attachment to life in every, in everyday life? Like what, what kind of comes to mind for you there? And I, I know attachment theories normally from like person to person, but I feel like we can have a, a secure attachment to life as well. What, what comes to mind?

100 I, I agree fully. I agree fully. My. The first thing that comes to mind is my dear Babaji Ladu Baba, who's my long term teacher in India and a wonderful man. And when I first learned about attachment theory, the first thing that came to my head was exactly what you're saying. That the way that he applied that to life and it always interests, interested me because he was the most non attached person I've ever met. Not, not even in theory. But you know, one day when I was living in Bali, he flew to Bali to spend some time in Bali and do some teaching and whatever like that. And he, he didn't, he'd never been to Bali. He didn't know anything. All he did was book a ticket. He didn't know anything. He didn't know the language I spoke. He didn't know the currency, he didn't know the money. He didn't know the time. He didn't know. He trusted that I would send a driver to the airport to get him and that we'd organized a room for him. And so he came with just the clothes on his back and no, no food, no nothing. It just. The level of non attachment and allowance and flow and surrender can only be put possible with the foundation of deep, deep safety. You can only let go when safety is present. Which is funny because how many people say, even with an old relationship, with an old job, with something that's expired in someone's life, something that's no longer relevant, whether it's a thought structure or a person or a town, just let it go. And people don't just let it go. I literally can't unclench my fists. I don't have. I don't know, just let it go. The thing with safety and comfort and security is it's not how do I let go, It's I no longer feel like I have to hold on. I no longer feel like I have to hold on. I just felt my pelvic floor drop into the seat. You know, my belly just relaxed for the first time in 10 years. My shoulders just dropped. So the reason Babaji was able to be so non attached, he had one little bag, and in his bag he had some of his trinkets, a blanket. That was it. He had his, you know, saffron robes and whatnot. That's all he owned in the whole world. He was very proud of his phone. He had a smartphone because the student gave him it. Ah, have I told you the story? I've missed the phone? Yes, Babaji, you've told me the story of Mr. Phone and how you got Mr. Phone. But the, the reason he was able to be so non attached was because he had such a deep, secure attachment to life. So I see this with Nalu, our kid that's just about to turn four in a month or so, when he has moments where he feels attached, securely, safe, comfortable. The perimeter of his adventure, spontaneity and capacity grows accordingly to the roots at home base.

Interesting.

And if he's feeling uprooted at home base, he won't let go of my hand. He won't go more than five meters away or, you know, in a pool when he's feeling confident with swimming. I can go five meters from the wall and give him a push, and he'll hold his breath underwater and do breaststroke all the way to the wall. But if he's been a while since practices and he doesn't feel safe or capable, he won't even let me push him underwater. 30 centimeters from the wall. He won't let go of me. And so Bubba had this uncompromising relationship with life. Capital L. He used the word God. The. The depth of trust. Ah, everything will work out. Got to arrange everything was. He's probably the. The words that came out of his mouth more than any other words. Got to arrange everything. It was so uncompromising that he had so much safety in it and secure attachment with life in that sense that he was able to let go with everything else. And when I spent months and months and months, you know, walking around the mountains of India with him, the amount of times he would say, everything will be arranged, and it would be, that's probably the coolest thing. Not what he taught, but the experience of seeing how things can work out when you just give life space. So the practical ways, in a meditative sense, to apply that aren't necessarily to try to foster secure attachment now as adults, but to lean into openly and gently, where we feel insecure and inadequate and unadventurous in our lives now, to lean into that and go, how does the tension or the tightness or the fear feel? And to the degree I can maintain a sense of safety whilst exploring my emotionality, let me lean in more, let me lean in more. You know what, what working with polyvagal theory does, and breath work in general, and all these beautiful practices, they get you in a calm enough, stable enough, steady enough, open enough state that you can look at things that you previously weren't able to look at. Stories from the past, memories, emotions. In meditation, we call them samskaras, past afflictions, another word for memory, really. Programming, mental programming. And there's like, there's different steps along the journey of the evolution of consciousness. And the first one is to create deep calm, stability and safety. But if you keep practicing, something interesting starts to happen where your inner environment becomes so safe that it sends a message to your body, nervous system, unconscious mind. We now have enough safety and enough capacity and enough energy to start to process and move through accumulated stresses from the past. Accumulated stresses is a fancy way of saying insecurities, fears, traumatic experiences, and they start to come up into consciousness. And the hope is we've created enough of a foundation of stability that you can maintain stability even as things rattle, because they rattle up to rattle out, things have to come up to come out. And so the invitation with meditative practices and breath work is, can I lean into rather than act out of what I'm feeling, the insecurity, the fear. Can I lean into and question and be curious about why I find this thing hard or that thing challenging and open to it and really learn meditation. You know, like a lot of breath work practices, traditionally at least, are seen as preparation for deeper meditation practices. And the initial meditation practices and breath work practices, like we're saying here, they. They're intended to create mental stability, which is another way. Safety, security, one of the reasons why is because meditation, meditation ripples out in the west and gets taught so much often as mindfulness, just to create calm and to reduce stress, right? But the deeper practices of meditation, beyond that, they are purposefully destabilizing. They're intended to uproot and unearth the past within us so we can process it, move through it, and remember who the frig we really are. And so there has to be a level of safety, security in order to do that and go through that process. And that's the wonderful practices of what you guys are doing. That's why it's so beneficial. Because like my little boy, when your roots are deep in safety, your awareness can adventure to the darkest places of your being that you've hidden away. And you can face them and go, I can bring heart. I can bring love, even to this pain. Love transcends everything. And you know, meditation, what it teaches us is a perspective, how to relate to this thought, this emotion, this memory. In other words, can I be aware? There's two. There's two things, things that make up this, the way we relate to what's going on within us. One of them is awareness. Rather than getting caught up in it, can I see it clearly? Can I be aware? But awareness itself isn't enough because you can be aware of something and judgmental of it, whether it's a good judgment or a bad judgment. You know, I can be aware of something. I'm aware of the rain outside here today, but I still have a story about it. Is it good, bad, timely, annoying? So it's awareness and equanimity. Bringing equanimity means evenness of mind and warmth of heart. So if I'm awareness, if I have awareness and equanimity, aware and equanimous. And I have that perspective, that view trained through meditation. And I come across a memory from the past. Because I'm aware, I'm not getting caught up in it. I'm not telling a story about it. I'm not perpetuating the story. I'm not casting blame. I'm not in analysis. I'm just aware. And I'm bringing love, just love. The security and the awareness that I have now in relation to this insecure thing that's bubbling up within me tells it. I'm safe now. We can go about life in a different way. And the warmth of love starts to melt the solidity of those past stories, and they open and release. And so we don't have to chase down, how do I be more secure? How Do I be more adventurous? How do I be more spontaneous? It's let me lean into where I'm not. And naturally, a little more opening will come, A little more opening will come, a little more opening will come. And to the degree that opening comes, you can't help but it happens very naturally and spontaneously. You can't help but foster a deeper. A deeper relationship with the beauty, the interconnectedness and the love of life. And when that happens, your security grows, furthermore, because you feel a sense of belonging not just in a family unit, but to the world. A sense of belonging not just in your relationship, but in your own skin. Sense of belonging in all of nature. Like, I'm here for a reason or I wouldn't be here for a reason. I'm not sure if that answers the question or not, but that's where my mind went with that.

It's beautiful. It really touched on something I think deeply important. Where my mind is going now is actually two directions. One is, I'm curious, for those of us in the room, I'd almost love to hear some people speak to their experiences with meditation and any barriers or challenges that get in the way with maybe having a consistent practice. And I can maybe begin with that and say that probably like everyone here in the room, everyone listening, I'm so aware of the. The deep and immense benefits of having a consistent practice. And I have a consistent practice right now. But there've definitely been periods or times, weeks, sometimes even longer, where I just forget, like it just doesn't become. It's not something that feels natural during those times. And I'm wondering what is your approach to having a consistent practice? And do you feel like. At least my experience has been there's almost like there's a time where it's like the gravitational pull starts to pull more towards wanting to practice every morning, and that becomes the default. But I know that that can take a while to kind of build up for people. So what would you say for those people who recognize the benefits of having a practice? But maybe there's barriers and challenges, maybe kids, maybe busy life. What kind of comes to mind from that side of things? Love to hear from. From other people in the room?

Yeah. Great. Yeah. You know, you're talking about the kind of yogic view of satva. Before, it said, when a sense of SATVA gets developed, it's it. It's the thing that causes us to then want to practice without effort. So whilst we're cultivating that, it can sometimes be challenging to have the inspiration to sit Even if we know it's good for us. What I found has helped people I've worked with in the past and myself is to simp. There's probably two things. One of them is to simplify. So even if that means in terms of the time that we're going to sit and even the complexity of all the things we think we have to do. So just come back to the bare bones of watching your breath. So don't. There's enough thinking in life. I don't want to have to overthink or over consider what my meditation practice is going to look like. Because as you know, when you start designing your own practice, it can be so exciting even, okay, I'm going to do this breath work, then I'm going to do this meditation and then I'm going to do this, what we call reconstructive practice. Or I'm going to set my intentions for the day or cultivate these qualities in my heart. And it can just be like overwhelming. So the first thing would be come back to simplicity, just to get, you know, just to do something. Because a little bit of practice every day, even if It's a simple five minute practice is better than a 20 minute practice every three days. I think there's something to be said for the consistency. The other one that I find really important is when we want to commit to something, we're like, I'm going to do it. This is beneficial for me. When the mind casts itself into the future and there's an indefinite when it's like, I'm going to commit to this because it's beneficial and it seems indefinite, that also seems overwhelming. And we're like, well, I don't want to commit now because that's just, it's too much. So if we take the indefiniteness of it and wind it in and go, what would can I do this for a week? Say it was a Wednesday.

Yep.

Okay, this time five minutes or 10 minutes on a Wednesday for a week. Because I know that I'm seeking this particular one thing. A little less reactivity, a little more compassion, a tad more presence. I'm going to focus on one intention, one practice for one week. So it's so simple. And then you get to next Wednesday and you are, I did that. That was doable. Okay, one more week. And this time I'd like to build upon my presence and see if I can notice a little bit more of this particular quality. So I think if we go one week at a time or two weeks at a time and have A moment like on the Wednesday in this example, where you stop and hit pause and readdress why you want to practice and reassess how it went and note the benefits and note the challenges so you can incorporate that into the practice for the next week. It really, really helps to have a regular check in and not make the milestone so huge.

Yep.

Because that's when it gets overwhelming and we just kind of shut down there. It's too. Just like there's no end to this, so why start?

Yep. Yep. Could you briefly speak to. And this is maybe hard times. Briefly. But what are the, the benefits and, and what even is the idea behind designing a custom meditation? This is something that you do in the training and something that I found myself incredibly valuable. Could you just speak to that idea of like, the possibility of even designing custom meditations or having a meditation designed for you?

Yeah, sure, sure. It's what I, it's what I love to do. And, and it's not something, you know, I love. I remember when you finished the training, you went and designed the if this, then that oh, yeah model. And that was so cool. I loved it because it's, it's. So in other words, if you're experiencing this, then try this practice. If you're, you know, having reactivity, if you're having memories come up, there's all these situations that we are all inevitably going to face. And a lot of the content in the training, at least the traditional stuff, is based on the teachings of Vedanta, which is the oldest kind of meditation tradition in the world. And what I really love about it is it's holistic in its nature, meaning.

That.

It'S not one practice for everyone. There's a variety of practices. Where are you at? What's your living situation? How much time do you have? What's the quality of your mind? Like, what's the nature of your body? How's your consciousness evolving? What are you seeking? All these things would determine what someone's individual meditation practice would look like. And so, you know, when we run the training, it's like we go through all of the possible scenarios and so that when we as a teacher are meeting with an individual, we can be like, okay, let me take that breathwork practice, that meditation bit, and maybe that heartfulness bit, and put it together to form a really seamless, effective practice for that particular person. And obviously now in this relatively brief conversation, it's hard to go into all of the possibilities of what it would be like for someone to develop a practice for themselves. But at least to start simply, we can say that I'm sure even with nervous system mastery, you guys would have covered. If you're feeling particular sluggish, then maybe some breath work like this, or if you're feeling over extended, then this, this breathwork practice or this way of going about things is going to help bring your nervous system back into balance. And so from a traditional perspective, it's really quite simple to understand that the first port of call is what you said a minute ago, satva. So I'm going to be doing practices that allow me to feel peace, calm, safety, and what's the right word? Lit up or bright. That's the first port of call. And they're the preparatory practices in the meditation tradition, which includes breath work, includes mindfulness, it includes working with the senses, includes working with the body. So I can get to this place where I can sit comfortably and calmly and there's enough relaxation in my body that I can sit still with and not be overly distracted or fidgety. And I have a reasonable ability to hold my attention somewhere. That kind of quality is what we call sattva. So if I look within and I'm not necessarily feeling peace, distraction free, able to concentrate, calm, my senses are wild, there's big energy in my body, then okay, that's. I just need to do what I can to get back to this place of calm and settledness. But let's just say you're like, whoa, I feel good and calm and bright and attentive. What then? Then that's typically where you go into the deeper practices of meditation that are a little bit more intended to be destabilizing, but in a good way. It's like the light gets a little brighter and a little bit more intensely focused towards the process of transformation because the groundwork, the foundation, is set to be able to do some transformative work. So that is when you would be welcoming up some emotions from the past, or that's when you would be expanding your awareness out to create a more all pervasive sense of passivity and depth of calm. So depending on someone's nature, the expansion of practice would look different, but sat for first. The way it's talked about in the meditative traditions is cultivate peace and calm of mind SAT for and then transcend the mind and transcend the mind. What's beyond the mind? Well, it's difficult to put into words, but let's just say your own nature, you know, we get to. It's not something we have to believe, it's something we can directly experience, which is the meeting place where you as an individual consciousness meets consciousness itself. And you can, just like the breath flows in and out, you can expand back and forth between being the wave and being the ocean. And then from there, the invitation is what automatically and inevitably comes from those kinds of meditation practices is self realization. Meaning you remember something about yourself, you remember something about yourself, you have a new awareness, something wakes up, or the other cool thing, this is what I love too. From that level of practice, thoughts come up and, oh, imagine this right when we start meditation back here. Everything we're doing with our efforts in meditation are trying to stop thinking. It's like thoughts of the enemy. It's like, I can't. Just let me cease this bombardment of mental activity. And then you get to these forms of meditation and a thought comes up. And a thought, one thought from source, from your source can change your whole life. Thoughts become the greatest gift. And it doesn't feel like it's a regurgitated thoughts from past experience. A thought bubble emerges from consciousness itself into your mind, and it just feels like pure inspiration. One thought from your own, the depths of your own heart can change your whole life. It completely can rewire your identity. And so from there, the next part of the practice is what we call reconstructive practices, which is, how do I take the realization and take it into action? How do I take this thought and do work? Meditative practices, and even things like working with positive neuroplasticity and these modern scientific practices to start to rewire my brain so that this experience in meditation is in a passing state, but starts to become a lasting trait. So as you can imagine, there's different times along people's meditative journeys where we're at different stages, whether we're focusing more on the preparation type stuff, the transformative practices, or the reconstructive practices, where we're looking at how can we change the nature of our brain and rewire our circuitry so that our mind and brain. Yeah, there's going to be different. Different stages for all of those practices and, and having the understanding of that and being able to recognize that people's meditation practice can evolve as they do. It's a really wonderful thing.

Yeah. Wow. Fantastic. I would love to hear from some of you guys in the room. Mattia, I see that you have your. Your video turned on now. Is. Do you want to. Do you want to start? I'm curious to hear what's. What's alive for you as you're. As you're listening to this and relating to your own experience.

Yeah, I, I was able to join late, so I missed the beginning. But you actually, John, I think you asked the question I was going to ask. I went through and you can already touch the on it.

Hannah.

I used to meditate a lot. I spent many, many years of my life meditating. My life meditating. And then a couple years ago after a bunch of stuff changed, I completely stopped. And I went from like having years of daily practice to like not meditating at all. And it was a very intentional choice and it was very useful to hear. Like it's funny no matter how much self development work I do and stuff, like I still fall back to the same traps and so you're reminded like you just have to do a week. You don't have to do. Like it's. It was, it was an interesting thought. Yeah, but was something that happened in my system. Maybe that's the question that is coming up. As I started doing and Johnny knows the kind of work that I do, that's a different conversation. But as I was starting, starting doing more like emotional work and more, I guess you could call it psychological work, I almost had to stop meditating. That was like part of my journey with that work was to actually reduce the amount of meditation I was doing because. And that took me to realize that I actually probably meditated in a way that was not very helpful for many years because I was actually not feeling right. A lot of my meditation practice for many years ended up being like about bypassing I think and just like calming myself down instead of actually accessing my emotions. And so I've been thinking about going back to it. So now that I feel like in the last few years I've done a lot to actually access those unfelt emotions. So I don't know. It's not, I mean maybe you have to talk about this, maybe you don't, but it's that, that's what came up during, during this wonderful conversation you share.

Wow, beautiful mate. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I remember when it might have been just before you jumped on. But I was telling these guys how I used to be a bit of a spiritual wanker. And back in those days I was pretty strict with meditation practice. Like there was a time when I would wake up, I'd meditate for an hour. I do two hours of yoga practice, I'd meditate for another hour. So four hours of morning practice, go have breakfast and then leave my day. And then 5, 6pm in the afternoon, I'd do another hour. You know, it was just too much. And then at different times, I just was more strict, but not as strict like, you know, an hour in the morning and nighttime. And I noticed at some point my, my mind was addicted to practice. I had this. I remember one day I had this thought that was like.

What?

Who would I be without meditation? And it felt scary. Like I developed a needy relationship, codependent relationship with meditation. And I just thought, yeah, I just thought to myself, I don't want it to be like this. I don't want to have to need it. I want to show that I can be happy without it at all. And so I didn't experiment for over a month. I didn't meditate at all. And, well, there's so much time in life to just live.

This resonates a lot.

Yes. I'm like, I can just enjoy this cup of tea in the morning without any pressure. Are you kidding me? You know, and it was so good to just have a break. And I did some other things like journaled, got into writing more and just sat in nature and just watched. But at the end of the month or six weeks, whatever it was, I remember thinking back and going, I said, this has been fun and really helpful. But I can also see how helpful meditation, it really is helpful and a wonderful practice. So my question became, how can I. I'm not attached to the practice anymore. How can I do it in a way that just feels nourishing, inviting and helpful? Really balanced. What's a balanced way to approach this thing where I don't need it and just coming, coming at it from the perspective of I get to, and I get to design it and it can be fun and I don't have to take it so seriously and I don't have to be rigid about tradition or like, what's going to work for me? And making it fun like that changed everything for me. And then the other thing with the type of practice, it's interesting how in the west, typically the culture is so head driven. And so it's no surprise that out of all the teachings to come from the east, mindfulness has taken hold because people hear the word mind and go, oh, I can relate to that. Is there something else other than the mind? Is there? But when you kind of explore the Buddhist traditions and the yogic traditions, they say the same thing, which is, that's half of the practice and the other half is heartfulness. Mindfulness and heartfulness, or in yoga it's called jnana and Bhakti. And so the idea is feeling based practices are just as important and deserve as much time as the mental based practices of calming the mind and all that kind of stuff. And it's really where a lot of the magic happens in terms of the past is stored within the body. So in terms of developing a beautiful relationship with feelings and emotions and learning how to address them in a new way. Yeah, it becomes so important and it. The other cool thing is it gives us a break from our mind to get in the body, get in the heart. It gives the mind a break, a chance to just. For the fires of the mind to just burn out organically without having to effort so much. So some cool exploration would be some not only feeling based practices in terms of emotional processing, but even some traditional heartfulness practices could be really beneficial as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for show. Can I take a bit and I guess I'll take an extra second.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

What really struck me in all this is I, I had part of my. I've done so many different things and part of it was like heart based practice. And yet there was still a way. I don't think it's a fault of the practice I thought was like an issue with my approach where there was still some management in it, if that makes sense. There was still like some constriction where I was like. And I got great benefit from like regular meta practice, for example, and, and, and things like that where. And yet at the same time I got to also experience again that there was still some managing in it for me. Right. So it's. So I think that that was mostly my realization. But I think, I think you're. Yeah, you're spot on. It's. Yeah. I mean I could nerd out about this for, for a long, long time. But yeah, this was very, very helpful. The last thing I'll say is more of a compliment. Your podcast that I think you did with Johnny, I don't know, a year ago, maybe more, was one of the most fun thing I ever listened to. And that's kind of. Anyways, so it's good to meet you.

Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much. That really means a lot and yeah, lovely to meet you too. Thanks for your. Thanks for your comments and questions.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks so much, Matias. Um, man, maybe we should do a round two at some point. Michael, that was fun.

Always keen.

Um, is anyone else listening either either silently in the background have any questions or any curiosities or meditation challenges that you want to run past? Michael, who is Not Hannah for the renamed you.

I. I was confused about that for a second. Yeah. Kavita, I think I'd love to.

Yeah, I.

Sorry. Go ahead.

I just want to thank Michael for sharing such beautiful words. Like, it kind of resonated with me. And the main reason I wanted to thank you is I was able to tear. After a long time, I was able to cry. And everything that you said about love and being running around, things just, you know, about productivity and stuff, and we forget who we are, in a sense. And that. That meant a lot to me because I was beating up myself that I'm not doing enough, you know? I'm so sorry.

Beautiful.

But. But I. I just felt I'm not wrong because I'm listening to my intuition, so maybe I need to stop. I'm so sorry.

No, please don't apologize. I'm so grateful that you're able to. This stuff's landing. Yeah.

Because I was not able to attend any of the previous sessions. I used to register, but I had something to do, and I would skip but for a reason. I'm here today because I'm supposed to work, but I'm not at work today. And I thought, like, oh, my God, I have this opportunity to tune in and listen, and this is what the universe is tuning into me today. So I'm just. I just want to thank from the bottom of my heart for this. And everything makes sense to me about not having to have so much effort. And in order to be something, I just have to understand who I am more than anything else. So I think this is the best part of attending NSM the whole time. It's. It's not just about the practices, but eventually reflect and think who I am in essence, and then bring to the world what I can offer in return. And. And that's beautifully said. So, yeah, I don't have anything else to say other than thank you.

Yeah, you're so very, very welcome. I really appreciate you sharing that. Thank you a lot. Yeah. So welcome. I'm so glad. It makes me so stoked.

Yeah.

That's my mission. If that happens once, once a day, just someone goes, oh, yeah, I remember who I am then. Like, yeah, really, really cool.

Wow. I felt emotion hearing you share that as well. Thank you so much. And I think that I. That was the. The gift that I. Part of the gift that I received from Michael five, six, seven years ago. Whenever it was that we first met, there was that sense of a similar kind of realization came online. So. Thank you, Cesar. My apologies. No worries.

Thank You. It was, it was really awesome. And I mean, also for me, I feel like it comes at the right time because I, I, I started meditating a bit more consistently, like eight months ago. And then I tried some other, because I noticed it wasn't really what I needed at that time. And I did some other, like, breathing exercises, which really showed me kind of the power of these things, then more consistently. And now I'm ready to go back into it. I told myself that after the course would finish, I'd start meditating again. And so yesterday I meditated again for the first time. Just tried the waking up course, first day, which I've done a bunch of times, but sometimes to the end, sometimes not. And today was the second day, and I immediately felt myself like getting overwhelmed. And for the first, like two hours of the day, I was just on my phone, just like, I, I knew I needed, the first thing I needed to do was meditate, and then I could get to work and then I could get the other things, but I was just like, avoiding it, resisting it. And now I was able to kind of realize that it's. Before I would have had all of these stories in my mind about why, but now it's just like I'm resisting this. Being alone with my thoughts is scary sometimes. Being alone myself. And so I. All of the things you talked about, it so resonated quite a lot. And so I don't know how to still. I think I feel like I'll find myself in this. And this was the same thing that happened like, seven months ago. It just extended my morning so much because it would take me like 45 minutes, sometimes an hour and a half to just bring myself to sit down and meditate. And, and so today I was like, it, I won't do it. And, and then like three hours later, I felt good enough to do it. So how do you approach that? I, I felt the resistance, but I still have no idea kind of what to do about it or how to.

Amazing. Yeah, that's really cool. And so thanks for your question and comment because I'm sure it's relevant to so many of us. And I'm glad you said you felt the resistance because what I was going to say is in these situations, we want to be gentle with ourselves. And rather than try to meditate or try to push through, like, if I feel resistance and then I've become more resistant, you just get double resistance and the resistance gets stronger. And meditation isn't fun. It's not something we want to do, then It's a chore, it's a pain. So rather than try to overpower resistance with effort, what we can do instead is go, I want to meditate, and here's some resistance. And it's preventing me from meditating. So maybe for this day even, I'm going to give myself a break and turn to the resistance. And one thing I like to do in these situations is I would grab out pen and paper and journal write. I find that so helpful. What I imagine is the feeling of resistance itself. I imagine, like it's something alive within me that has its own voice and its own personality. And I kind of imagine that it comes out my arm and out the pen and I just let it go. What does it need to say? What does it want to say? To be expressed, to be soothed, to be heard, to be heard and understood. Because when you say, quite rightfully as well, like, I don't want to be alone with my thoughts, sometimes the thoughts are the. They can be scary, right? But what we're really avoiding is not the thoughts themselves, but the way that they feel. And so if I have the space where I can feel into what's behind the resistance. So it might be some pain or some memory or some insecurity or some fear or some sadness or some grief, or if I can just let the pen tell the story, it sometimes can really help us to get a sense. Like, it comes out of my body and onto the paper. And then there's a feeling of space. And from there, firstly, you're already in the presence of space. You already feel a little more meditative, but you'll find that then you don't. The next morning, you shouldn't have to effort to meditate because it'll just be like, the resistance isn't here anymore, you know? Another example is I remember a time I used to always hear my mum saying, I'm trying to be positive. Something would happen. She'd be like, oh, I'm trying to be positive. And I'd be like, fuck, mom, stop trying to be positive. Why don't you just ask what's in the way of me naturally feeling positive? Because that's my nature. Much better question and actually work through the challenges and the judgments. And she didn't do it. But it was a great suggestion by me. So it's a similar kind of thing, like, why can't I. Okay, what's in the way of me? I know meditation is beneficial for me. I know I want to do it. What's in the way of that and like you said, you can recognize that it's some challenge with being with your own thoughts. And it's really interesting to explore that. A lot of the time busy mindedness and fear of thoughts is more related to the feelings behind them. And I need to find a way to sit with open to that and express them. And there's a bunch of ways you can do it. You guys might have even explored it in the course. Whether you've done something similar to ease practice Jonny, where you can learn to just sit with your feelings and open to them.

Otherwise it's super similar to the somatic surfing exercise which is kind of embodied exploration of the emotional content that's alive.

Perfect, something like that. Rather than a traditional meditation or journaling to kind of address the feeling directly. Turn straight to it, turn straight to it, look it in the eyes and go, I'm here with you for you. I want to understand. You can I love my emotions. It's like we said, love transforms everything.

Thank you.

Yeah, such a pleasure. Really great question. Thank you.

Thank you.

And I hope that helps.

Yeah, it really does. I'll try.

Yeah. Such a beautiful question. And what was just coming up for me as well is like what you're experiencing in those moments is essentially the same as what is happening during these deep advanced meditation practices where these deeper resistances, these deeper parts of our being are coming up to be reintegrated, welcomed back, loved, acknowledged, as Michael said. So in some ways it's like an advanced practice that you're, that you're doing for sure. That's how I think.

And it's like the blessing and the curse of breath work, you know, unearths it. It gets things moving. Just the fact of breathing gets things moving.

Yeah, I've noticed that sometimes the, I don't like doing the ones where like, like the energy energizing type of breath works because immediately I started feeling like anxious and like with like very some tightness in my chest. So it's just the type that I've avoided for now. Just because now I kind of understand a bit more why I've avoided it and what it is. But like instinctually I just wouldn't do these things. Like also the WIM HOF type breathing that I tried just would make me feel anxious.

Yeah.

And I wasn't comfortable being with that at the time. But thank you.

Yeah, such a pleasure.

Yeah, thank you. Okay, well I've got a few minutes left here. Do you know, have any final questions or curiosities before we begin to wrap up Anyone else? Fabio, Jacob, Evan? Any of you guys?

If nobody is asking a question, can I ask one?

Yes, yes, you may take a second.

I actually wrote plenty of questions when, when we were talking, but then my mind stayed shifted and then I didn't even want to ask those questions anymore. This one is how do we know that we are doing it right or not? Like sometimes I feel sleepy. Like I just sleep and get lost track in thoughts and I know like bringing back yourself is what meditation is all about, but how do we really know that this is what I'm supposed to do? Any suggestions or tips?

Yeah, I think the first thing I'll say is most of us, and I can't remember the exact statistic because there's been studies done on it, so you have to excuse me for not remembering the exact statistic, but a huge percentage of us in this day and age are actually sleep deprived. Actually, I read something recently that back before the light globe or electricity was invented, humans slept an average of 11 hours a night, which is a lot different to these days. Isn't that amazing? Just probably purely because of the amount of melatonin we naturally developed through the absence of lights and the presence of red and orange glowing fire candles and things, oil lamps. And so it's pretty natural as our nervous system rebalances that anytime we touch in on deep calm, we get sleepy. I had a. I've had like one on one when I used to do more in person work. One on one session once, for example, where a lady came to see me to learn to meditate and she couldn't stay awake and so I had to put her in bed and close the door and let her have a nap. I don't really care you're paying me if you want to pay me for a nap. There you go. I shut the door and I set the alarm. I said, I'll come back, wake you up in. Yeah, amazing, Johnny. Yeah, I said I'll come back and wake you up in 15 minutes. And then she touched in on deep sleep and she was able to then sit comfortably and meditate. And so that's the first thing. Like sometimes we're just sleep deprived.

Very true. Yeah. I sometimes even put effort to sleep and the whole time I'm sleepless and when the alarm goes on, that's when I actually feel sleepy. So makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that nervous system rebalancing becomes the. The first thing and allowing ourselves to be deeply restful. Of course, like we said, there's times when you're going to be working. And there's times you want to be engaged and there's times you want to be operating in that kind of uplifted faculty. But outside of that, can I just be calm? And then the other aspect around that is the more breath work you do. Like, what you'll notice with breath work is that when you start, it becomes about nervous system balance. The more you do, the more sensitive you become to the subtle energy behind the breath. And when a sense of balance and calm is maintained, the next thing that naturally happens is that subtle energy that rides with the breath that we call prana starts to light the flame of awareness. And nearly like the deeper the body and mind get calm, the brighter that awareness gets. And meditation in that sense is the most. It can be really easily described as like the brainwave activity is in a state of de excitation. The body is as if it's in deep sleep. But somehow amongst all of that, awareness is bright and attentive. And that just comes with more and more practice. And, and in the meantime, if you find yourself in the lucid zone where you're a little bit here and then you kind of drift off and it goes dreamlike and then you come back, that's okay too, because it'll all just happen over time with more practice. Like initially, the individual awareness, it just gets blended into a dreamlike state and then it comes back to awareness like this. But eventually you'll be able to be in the presence of a dream, like calm and be attentive at the same time. But it just comes with more and more practice and the deeper you can be at rest. Yeah, so it doesn't answer your question directly, but just to kind of say you're on the right track and the rest is just consistency and giving yourself enough rest.

If, if I meditate with like with the background voice guiding me or with some kind of intention, is it better to do it without anything? Or guided meditation is like, for a starter, like me, would you recommend the guided meditations or something that just plays music and then I just sit with my thoughts?

I. In the beginning, I recommend guided can be great because it helps you to integrate a certain perspective or relation with your mind, relationship with your mind that you would otherwise forget very quickly and slip back into a default pattern. So it could help hold you there until that pattern or that way of thinking or that way of practicing becomes your own. So it is really helpful to do guided, even if they're really, really simply guided, it can be helpful at first. So Then the question becomes, how do I know when I want to step away from the guided practice? It's really easy. When the voice that held you present and you relied on starts to get annoying, that's a good indicator that it's time to let it go. Or maybe not annoying, a better word's distracting. So in the beginning, a voice holds you there. As you practice more, it takes you away from there. And so when the thing that supported you becomes distracting, then you're ready to practice a little more on your own. And when we guide practices, like when I do a six week learn to meditate course, for example, I naturally lead the meditations in that way where in the beginning I speak a lot, but then week three or week four, I say very little because they're learning to meditate with themselves. And I had an in person meditation course like that here recently. And on the third or fourth week, I was saying that you might notice that I'm saying less in the recordings because my voice that was helping you might start to get a little bit annoying or distract. And one lady basically jumped out of a chair and said, oh, yeah, I'm glad you said that. You were driving me crazy. I said, perfect. Exactly right. Like you're an advanced meditator now.

Well done.

I won't take offense to that because it shows me that you are doing great. So, yeah. Does that kind of make sense?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Yeah, perfect. Pleasure. Thanks for the, thanks for the question.

Yeah, thank you so much. Really, really great questions there. Well, on that note, for anyone who is curious to learn more about your workshops, and I know you're doing a teacher training next year starting in January. February, February, February. Would you like to speak to that briefly? And I can include a link in the, in the chat as well, in case anyone's curious to learn more.

Yeah, amazing. Thank you. So, yeah, as, as we've indicated a few times in this, this conversation, the, the primary thing we do, my wife and I in our businesses run these meditation teacher trainings. And when I first started them, I was pretty adamant that I only wanted to work with people who wanted to teach. But now I've kind of loosened my grip on that and opened up. We've had people who actually just want to do the deep exploration of themselves and learn the practices. And the funny thing is they end up wanting to teach anyway.

Because I.

Guess, you know what, it's like, you get moved and you're like, I want to share this, even if just with friends or family, you know, they Want to express it and share it. But. But yeah, it's. It's one of the things I really enjoy about it, teaching it especially is, is that it's led over such a long period of time and it just seems to be getting longer and longer. I think when you did it, Johnny, it was, well, probably eight months.

Yeah, yeah.

And now it's up to 11.

Oh, wow.

It was, it was eight, then it was nine, then it was 10, and now it's 11. And, and what I love, it gives me more time. The reason I've spread it out, it gives me more time to dive into each specific practice and just really accordion that practice all the way out, so to speak, so we can really understand it. And it's like, here's a practice, here's the philosophy, here's the reason, like do that for just two weeks, just that. Let it integrate and really sink into your bones. And so it becomes such a logical stepping stone to the next, to the next, to the next. Which I think is one of the reasons why we've been able to facilitate some pretty great transformation in people's lives because of the steady pace of it. And if you really think about our lives, 99% of our lives are very ordinary. There's peak moments where we really challenge ourselves, achieve a goal. A child's born, a loved one passes, there's peak moments, but most of it's 99% very ordinary. And so the goal is, how do I make ordinary everyday, every moment, life, just a little bit more bearable in the beginning, maybe, and then maybe even a little pleasant, and then maybe a little delicious, and then maybe a bit, you know, on and on and on like that. And so it's over a really long period of time, 11 months. I always have a pretty small intimate group so we can be deeply connected and really ride the wave of the journey together. But yeah, it is a teacher training and it explores both the traditional aspects of meditation, as I said, coming from the Vedanta tradition, but also the modern scientific aspects of meditation as well, including the effect of meditation, brain, nervous system, positive psychology and neuroplasticity, all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, I won't waffle on too much about it here simply because there's a link that Joni just put. So if you guys want to know more about it, if you're interested, you can check that out. And, and what that leads to as well is us being able to have a one on one chat about the possibility of you joining and, and see if it's something that will fit where you're at and what you're interested in. So we could always have a chat if you want to know more.

Amazing. Well, yeah, I. I had such an amazing time on that, on that training and I know many NSM graduates, I believe, have also taken be a tradition of people finishing NSM and then joining your training. So I, I very much.

And I've met some. Some people from all over the world. Yeah. Yeah. And all point back to you. So thank you so much, Johnny. I appreciate everything you do so much.

Well, I.

Let me. I was going to say as well, let me know if, if any of you guys, because I know people are going to watch the recording of this as well, so I might not know who comes from. So let me know you come from, Johnny, and I'll slip a discount as well just to say thanks. 300 bucks off. Awesome.

Awesome. Well, listening to you today was a reminder of how much I. Yeah. Just appreciate you. You have so much wisdom and such a kind and hilarious way of communicating it. So thank you for your time for being here.

I'm so grateful you guys let me in to NSM and got to be a part of this cool cohort and journey. I feel very privileged, you know, snuck in just on the last day, so that's really great.

Yeah. Well, we'll have to do another. Another podcast sometime as well. I feel like that's. That's over to you.

Yeah. Anytime.

Yeah. Thank you so much. If you guys want to unmute yourselves and say thank you, Michael.

Thank you so much. Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Michael. Biggest pleasure.

Thank you.

All right, have a good night.

Have a wonderful rest of the. The journey and hopefully see you guys down the track somewhere.

You. You.