812 Calm Your Mind and Master Meditation

This is episode number 812, Calm youm Mind and Master Meditation. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Eckhart Tolle said, you, have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer. And Marcus Aurelius said, nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. This is all about calming your mind and becoming the master of meditation for yourself, whatever that looks like for you. I've got some incredible leaders in this space to top in the world at what they do in meditation and calming the mind here to reveal the strategies, the secrets, the techniques to support you in doing just that. Jay Shetty is a former monk, award-winning host, storyteller, and viral content creator. He's got over 24 million followers globally on Facebook. millions of people on YouTube and Instagram learning how to become more wise in their own way through his content. Preetaji and Krishna Ji, founders of One World Academy in India, they do workshops and retreats around the world to help people tap into their own consciousness and find peace within on a daily basis. Dan Harris is an Emmy award-winning ABC news correspondent whose panic attack live on Good Morning America led him to something he always thought was ridiculous, which is meditation. He went on to write a bestselling book, 10% Happier, and he started the app 10% Happier Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He's got a podcast, 10% Happier with Dan Harris. Interviews guests on whether you can still be ambitious and pursue enlightenment, and Andy Peticolm, who is a meditation and mindfulness expert, an accomplished speaker, author of many books, and founder and the voice of Headspace, here to bring you wisdom on how to bring more calm in your minds. And in this episode, we talk about the single thing that is with you your entire life, the three-minute meditation that will connect you with your emotions, how to release yourself from suffering, why objectifying your thoughts is so important, the science behind the benefits of meditation, and so much more. Get ready to tap into your soul and tap into your heart in this episode. Make sure to share with your friends. If you know anyone who is dealing with stress these days, just take this link, text them, post it all over your social media accounts, tag me @LewisHowes on Instagram stories and let me know you're listening and share this and be a champion to someone who is dealing with stress in their life today. LewisHowes.com/812 to send them the meditation episode. All right, my friends, get ready, get excited, and get ready to tap into the power of meditation and calming your mind.

I remember my first day of monk school. I've just shaved my head. I'm now wearing robes. I still look like I'm from London, like I can't get away with it. I'm walking around and I notice this monk who's teaching. This monk's 10 years old and he's teaching a group of five-year-old monks, right? And I see him teaching. He looks like an adult, like, you know, his ability to, like, teach these five-year-olds and conduct himself. And he's got this great aura about him. And so I'm kind of eavesdropping on his class. I can't obviously go and sit with a bunch of five-year-olds even though I really want to because I'm like, I feel like a five-year-old next to that 10-year-old. And I went up to him and I said, what are you doing? And he said, oh, well, we just taught their first class ever. And I said, oh, cool. And he said, well, what did you learn in your first class at school? And I said, oh, well, I learned the alphabet and numbers. And I said, well, what did they learn? He said, you want to know what they learned on their first day of school? I said, yeah, of course. He said, the first thing that we teach them, the first thing you learn at Monk School is learning how to breathe. I said, why? He said, Because we're taught that the only thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die is your breath. All your friends, family, the country you live in, all of that's gonna change. The only thing that doesn't change that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die is your breath. And he said, Notice when you get stressed, what changes? your breath. When you get angry, what changes? Your breath. When you're sad, what changes? Your breath. When you're happy, what changes? Your breath. Every emotion is experienced with the change of the breath. So he said, when you learn how to navigate and manage your breath, you can actually navigate any situation in life. And I was just blown away. I was just like, wow. And then I remember researching it and noticing how Athletes who are taught how to breathe, musicians, singers, especially those who play wind instruments, who have to reach really high notes, they're all trained how to breathe because they have to use their breath in challenging, stressful, pressure-filled situations. But I was like, so are all of us. You've gotta go on stage in front of 10,000 people. You've gotta go to a concert. You just lost a deal or a contract. Our breath changes in all those scenarios, yet we don't know how to use our breath to change our life. and so for me, that was a huge learning point where I just thought, wow, that's what you're taught. The priority is on the root of things, not the leaf or the symptoms. And that's the biggest thing about living as a monk. You're not dealing with your challenges at symptomatic level. You're dealing with it at root level.

Right?

People say, oh, if you're stressed out, just take a stress pill. If you're stressed out, just go to get a massage. If you're stressed out, just relax, watch Netflix and chill. But all that's doing is pacifying you escape for that hour, two hours, maybe a week. But going to the root of it and learning how to change your breath, I mean, you can manage any situation in life. And that principle, that's an example of the principle, which is so much deeper that always go to the root. It will take longer, but it will last longer.

Right, right.

If you go to the root, it takes longer, but it lasts longer. But if you go for the symptom, you get it quick and it never lasts. And it never lasts and we all know that. So that was the deepest principle I learned as a monk. You always go to the root. Cut down the root of that weed in your heart. Cut down the root of that weed in your mind. Don't just let it grow and kind of water a little bit and snip, snip, cut a bit. Just really go to the root and just knock it out there. Just get rid of it.

Get a big axe and cut it down.

Wow.

Are there any weeds in your life right now? loads in your heart or in your mind?

Always. My daily practice is to refine my intention. The biggest weeds that we all get is on our intention. So when I say intention, I mean my current intention is to use everything I've been given, everything that I have in the service of others. So I want to use the following that I have to help people. I want to use the money that I have to help people. I want to use the network that I have to help people. But every day that intention, which is a beautiful little plant that's growing, gets weeds around it. No, do it for the money. I hear that voice, right?

Do it for the fame.

Just do it for the fame, do it for the followers, do it for this. All these weeds are going around my real intention every day. Every day. That's a weed. A weed is the intention that you don't want. And the problem is, sometimes you've let it grow so much, the weed looks like the plant, right? The weed looks like your intention and you start believing it's the same thing. So for me, my daily practice is going back in, reflecting on what is my voice right now in my head? What am I saying to myself? And I'm hearing, make that deal, it makes a lot of money. Do this, do that, do this, more followers, fame, all that stuff. And I'm cutting it down. I'm cutting that weed every day. And you've got to do it every day because the more you're surrounded by that energy, Right. The more it's gonna keep creeping in like a creeper weed, right? Like I'm just using the plant analogy because I don't guard in a tourney, right?

Like I have no idea, but. What's the intention you set every morning for yourself then? If it's going back to the core of what you really want to create, what is that thing you want to create the most?

Service? Yeah, service. To help people find their purpose, whatever that may be, and help them help other people find their purpose. I think Mark Zuckerberg said it brilliantly at Harvard. He was saying that finding your purpose isn't enough. You have to help other people find theirs. And I know you're passionate about this. Whatever that definition is, but it has to lead everyone. So whether I meet a celebrity, an entrepreneur, or whether I meet someone who's starting out, I'm always asking them the question, how can you use what you have to make a difference in the life of other people? Because if you start there, everything else will work out. But if you're starting from the point of what am I gonna get, then you're always gonna feel disconnected. And I see that, I see people who live like that and feel pain in their lives every day. I see that, it's not like some conceptual philosophy. We see it, I see people who are only in it for themselves and they feel disconnected, dissatisfied every single day. And then you see the other extreme where people are just trying to give too much, more than they even have themselves and they also feel disconnected. And again, they have nothing at all. And they have nothing at all, right? So we know again, Attachment and aversion, two sides of the same coin. So we want to be in that dynamic balance of growth, but always to give. So I always think, how can I go three steps deeper so that I can move three steps forward so I can give three times as much?

Right?

That's always my mentality. How do I go deeper to go more forward to give more? And if I can get those three in action for that reason, see it's all about the reasoning. you can do anything you like, but it's why are you doing it? We know that.

Of course.

For most part of our lives, we really don't know that we're suffering. We don't know that we are in this limiting states of anger, of fear, of frustration, of stress, of anxiety. Yes?

Yes.

We feel in that space life feels so difficult.

Yes.

In that space, life feels so painful, so heavy. So we have a practice, even the smallest three-minute practice that we say, Get to your emotion. What is the exact emotion that is arising within you now? It is a small practice for three minutes. So people learn that practice, they know what exactly they're feeling, and it involves a small technique of visualization. To move them away from place of that emotion to a place of calm.

Should we try it?

Yes, definitely.

Okay.

You want to try?

Sure. Or do you want to try with me or the audience or both of us?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

Close your eyes. Can you practice three conscious breaths where you inhale deep and let your exhalation be prolonged. So let us do it for three conscious breaths. what is the exact emotion that is arising within you right now? It can be an emotion which is limiting say anger, fear, frustration, stress, anxiety or it could be an emotion which is a beautiful state. It can be a state of calm, peace, love, joy, serenity or bliss. Recognize the exact emotion that is arising right now. As you recognize this emotion, observe your mindset. Where is your thinking revolving around? Is it moving into the past? Are you moving into the future.

Or.

Is it moving in the present? Are you just in the present, observe your thinking? If you're obsessing about your past or obsessing about your future or are you in the present? Now visualize a candle flame glowing. in the middle of your skull.

The.

Place around your pineal gland. Visualize the candle flame glowing, When are you ready? You may open your eyes.

So why that process? What does that process do for us?

It actually helps in getting in touch with your emotion. You don't know. you feel so clouded because you're so fast. You have to do one after the other, you have to send your children to school, then you have to get to work, and then you have to attend to all the problems there, the challenges there, then get back. Life is so fast.

We're reacting a lot.

We are reacting not even knowing from which space you're coming.

So this process is to be aware of how we're feeling.

Yeah, and it is just a three-minute process. It doesn't take longer than three minutes.

So when we're aware of that, okay, I'm frustrated.

Actually, what happens is, if you think this as the brain, this is how the brain looks, right?

Yes.

So the entire activity around the brain when you're in the negative states, when you call it negative states, the limiting states where you feel separate, it's about fear or anger or frustration. It is this part of the brain, which is the limbic system that gets activated.

When we're frustrated or angry.

When we're frustrated and angry, this entire part, we can call it the neocortex. And This part of the brain is responsible for analytical thinking and logical thinking. So we are not concerned about it. We have enough schooling already happening and all skills given to. Yeah. So the journey that is happening right now, a journey, a moment within, a moment of actually knowing what is happening. It focuses on activating the mid prefrontal cortex, mid prefrontal cortex which is responsible for experiencing the expansion and experiencing connection. And it's a place of greater wisdom. This small practice that we did kind of moves away from the limbic activity from the limbic system to the mid prefrontal cortex.

Okay. So we're activating a different part of our brain.

Different part of the brain, which is kind of neglecting.

Refocusing our attention on something different. How did you learn all this?

We want to help people. We want to help them move out of the suffering states to a beautiful state. We know life can be lived out of a beautiful state. You don't need to suffer all along in order to create wealth. You don't need to suffer all along to achieve. You don't need to suffer being those painful states of stress and anxiety. Because if you're not in that space, you can create so much. You can innovate so much. You can create nurturing relationships. you can stay in a beautiful state at all the time having the space of joy and then still go about doing whatever you want to achieve but in a more... what do you say?... more intelligent way?...

Intentional... yeah... the beauty is when you.

Look at the true the freedom is automatic.

Really?

Yes.

So nothing else needs to happen, nothing.

Else needs to happen.

Look at the truth, you see it, yes, realize it's about me, I'm suffering because of my obsessive self-centric thinking. Yes.

Once I recognize that, then the suffering goes away. Yes, because you clearly see that you have moved away from love, you have moved away from connection, you have moved away from courage, you have moved away from vision, your passion to yourself. So you have moved away from also addressing your problems. to yourself, then you are in the space of really answering the question, what is important to me? Am I going to keep suffering like this and obsessing about myself?

Right.

Or if I have a problem with my children or with my wife, am I going to move to a beautiful state and address the problem? Because I need to address it. Because if I go on this path of suffering, everything around me is going to get destroyed.

So that's, I feel like a lot of people inflict suffering in themselves, whether through their beliefs, through religion or through family stuff, they just, they feel have to suffer to, I don't know, live better in the afterlife or do something or give back in some way? What is that doing for us? Why do we focus so much on suffering when it only hurts us more and more and takes us away from joy?

Well, the first answer is we don't know how to come out of the suffering. This is the first one. The second answer is we really do not have a stronger, deeper purpose for our relationships. We need to find those answers. And the third one is we need to look at the truth. See, I was in London giving a talk when I started in 2009-2010 and there was this woman who stood up and asked me this question, Krishna Ji, I understand these two states and everything but throughout my life I have been taught that if you suffer from there your passion to get more in life or achieve more in life is easier because now you have learned a lot and you have suffered.

Now you are driven or something? No, you are driven.

So I just told her that you just do not have, you just not learn the art of creating success from a beautiful state. That's it.

From inspiration as opposed to inspiration proving people wrong or trying to make yourself look good.

Yes, absolutely.

So what's the importance of a spiritual vision? and if we don't have one, what's.

Going to happen to us? Well, if we don't have one, we are going to suffer.

We don't have a spiritual vision.

Yes, because spiritual vision is all about living in a beautiful state and acting from that beautiful state, addressing your problems from a beautiful state, not from a state of anger, not from a state of fear, insecurity, loneliness or depression, but from a state of courage, passion, connection. So one needs to learn to live in the state. That should become the most important thing because as I told earlier, all experiences are happening within you.

It's our interpretation, right?

One, it's our interpretation. Two, if you're suffering, there's only one interpretation, it's about you.

But there's experiences happening in the external world.

Yes.

And then we interpret it in a certain way internally.

Yes.

Right?

Yes. And it's either suffering experience or non-suffering.

Yes. And you are right. But when suffering arises, you stop interpreting outer world. You're only thinking about yourself.

Gotcha.

Okay. But if you're just interpreting the outer world without suffering, then you are probably thinking about how do I solve this problem from our strategy point of view or just from a vision perspective, you're looking at how do I make this just better? You're not suffering but you're just seeing it at a practical, pragmatic way.

So.

Yes, spiritual vision I think is the most important thing. If you do not learn to live in a beautiful state and learn to relate from that state, you will not be a enjoying any of your relationships, be it your kids, your wife, your work, your profession, and yourself.

How do we cultivate that on a daily basis besides being aware of we're not suffering, but how do we just stay in that and cultivate it?

There are definitely certain meditations that we offer which you can practice on a daily basis. Those will help cultivating the beautiful state.

Why is meditation so powerful?

Meditation is powerful because meditation becomes powerful when you apply wisdom. See, meditation should go along with wisdom.

So not just meditating and meditate, not understand why.

Yeah, not understanding.

But understand why you're meditating.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You have to, there has to be a purpose for meditation. And that purpose must have the right path. Then you're meditating in the right way. Otherwise meditation by itself has no purpose. It might make you just feel good, but you don't have achieved it.

It might help for a few hours.

A few hours, a few minutes, etc.

What would you say to your spiritual vision then?

My spiritual vision has always been to live in a beautiful, powerful state and address my challenges and my vision in every aspect of my life from that state.

How does this wisdom apply for business because you've built a number of successful businesses, you've done very well financially. How do you apply this mindset and this way of being in all of your relationships in business because there's a lot of entrepreneurs watching?

Yes.

And what if they're like, well, this is just for your relationships, your family and your intimate relationships, but can this really be helpful for my career, my business?

Yes. I have interacted with many business people and one of the strong emotions that they work from is competitiveness. They constantly compete with somebody else.

Competitiveness.

Competitiveness.

Yeah.

So I was in a meeting with one guy here in India who's a very big business person and I was asking him what's the vision and what's the purpose and he was telling me like I want to become better than that guy, right? I want to do things better than that person. I want to get those projects. Then I told him, I don't think that's going to work because that guy is good at what he's doing. So you need to find what you are good at and what you really love doing. Then I think you'll be far more successful. So I think it's very important, number one, to find what the vision is. And number two, not to go about achieving that vision from a place of fear. See, we are constantly, most business people want to achieve from a space of fear. and after achieving they don't want to lose what they've achieved against fear. So there's definitely no enjoyment in this entire path.

So.

I have done it from a beautiful state. If there's a challenge, because I can differentiate challenge and suffering, I address it. I see the suffering is about me and once I am out of my suffering, there is immense clarity and power to address the challenge. whatever the challenge might be. Because now you're seeing challenge as a challenge, you are not part of that. So then there's tremendous clarity to address those problems. Unfortunately, we make it too much about others, we make it too much about our image, we make it too much about what people are constantly thinking about us. So if you bring awareness and if you start looking at the truth, then you will actually see that 70% or 80% of the time time. You are spending thinking about yourself rather than your business.

I do a lot now, so I've kind of jumped into the deep end of the pool, or at least I'm trying to. So I do two hours a day. And. But my. My way of doing that is I tell myself I can do it in whatever increments I want, whenever I want.

Five minutes at a time.

I could do five minutes. So this morning I had time, so I did 70 minutes. And so at some point during my goal during the rest of the day will be to get those 50 minutes in somehow. And I do straight up mindfulness meditation, which is there are lots of permutations of that. So usually the basic instructions are just to feel your breath coming in and going out, and every time you get lost, go back to the breath. So I do a little bit of that, but I also do what's called noting practice where drop my focus on the breath and just note whatever's happening in my field of consciousness. So thinking, feeling my butt on the chair, feeling the cold air coming in. Yeah. So it's, and why that's useful is in a sense you're kind of like objectifying your thoughts and the sensations that come up in your consciousness, and so you're not taking it also personally. And so when anger comes up in your real life, you're not yanked around by it. So when somebody cuts you off on.

The freeway, it's like how someone just cut me off in the freeway.

You don't have to, you will get angry. You're not going to be like transformed into, you know, a bowl of Jell-O. But you don't have to take the bait and act on it and start chasing that dude down the highway, your kids in the back of the car. So the, the, The cliche here, and I hate meditation cliches, but the one that I love is that what meditation teaches you how to do is respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. And that's the game. That is mindfulness. Why do you think we react so.

Much to so many situations in our day-to-day life?

Because we're unaware of the central feature of our lives, which is our inner narrator. Nobody points out to us that this voice that's offering up terrible suggestions like, you know, eat the 18th cookie or say the thing that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage or whatever, nobody points out that that voice is full of shit, you know, that it's just a, you know, it is has no relationship necessarily to reality. Sometimes it has great ideas, but you have to have an awareness. Mindfulness, yes, you have to be able to step out of the traffic and to see it with some nonjudgmental remove in order to figure out, in order to separate wheat from chaff, in order to figure out, oh, this is a good idea, this is a terrible one. And mindfulness is a basic human capacity we all have. It's our birthright. It's not just something like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra have. We all have it. And all you have to do is have it pointed out to you that you have this capacity to step out of the stream of consciousness a little bit and to see it without blindly reacting to it. And meditation teaches you how to do it.

Why do you think we were wired and designed to be this way?

You know, it's the best guess I've asked this question a lot. I mean, we we evolved for threat detection. We as a species evolved in a time when there were a lot of threats, saber-toothed tigers, other dangerous human beings, other animals. And so we had to constantly be on guard. And what made us different from other animals is this ability to plan for the future and learn from the past. And so really we evolved this part of the brain, the new part of the brain, really evolved and allowed us to do some of the things that are the most remarkable feats of humanity, like I was saying before, build, plan and build skyscrapers.

Go to the moon, build a new planet.

Yes, yes, yes. And, but it also, you don't see your dog spending a lot of time worrying or planning. This is by the same token, the dog poops on the rug, so it's not. Mindful.

I don't know if you want to.

Call it, there's a difference between being present and mindful, right? Exactly. But the dogs are present. Yes. My cats are present. I don't know if they're mindful when they're puking on my bed. Which they do.

They all do, right?

Oh, man.

Amazing. So no one's really giving you a great answer except for that answer of- that's the guess.

That's the guess. But clearly we also have in our brains slash minds this capacity to be mindful. And the genius of the Buddha, and I say this as a guy who describes himself as a Buddhist, but at the same time, I'm not religious. I think Buddhism is not something to believe in, but something to do. The genius of the Buddha was, and lots of other people in history, by the way, not just the Buddha, but the Buddha is the guy who I just know the most about, is that he saw that we have this ability to kind of hack our own minds and get out of this rut.

How many years ago was Buddha?

2,600 years ago.

Pretty incredible. Yes.

Yeah.

So what's next for this mindful space, this meditation space? There's a lot happening. There's a lot of voices, experts, books, apps. Where is it heading and how can we know what's right for us or what can we start with?

I think it's awesome. I think there's like kind of an explosion now where you're seeing it in corporations, you're seeing it in locker rooms, you're seeing it in TV stations probably. Absolutely. We have a meditation room on the 13th floor of our building.

Really?

In ABC News. We have a meditation room.

Do you go in there?

Yes.

See other people?

I do.

I do. When I go, it's usually because I usually go before I anchor Nightline and so I'm by myself. There are three o'clock meditations almost every day.

No way.

Someone's leading the meditation. Actually, you know, they use the meditations from our app. That's cool. In the room. Okay. And sometimes people lead it and it's a whole mix, but it's taken off on its own. Lots of corporations have meditation rooms now. Lots of, I mentioned before, the lead singer of Weezer is a daily meditator, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, 50 Cent. A lot of people. A lot of people are meditating. So, I think it's an awesome thing. I don't know. Where it's all heading, where I hope it's heading, is that this is the next big public health revolution. I think that- But the next yoga.

Like the way yoga is becoming mainstream.

It's like this is the next. I think we're going to view mental exercise the same way we view physical exercise.

Yeah, you know, gyms. I mean, there's a, I don't know if you're aware of the meditation center that's- Unplug. Yeah, unplug.

Yeah. You know, I'm assuming those are going to be opening up yoga centers. There's one in New York now called Mindful. I just heard that they're opening up, I just got a call from a woman who's opening up in the epicenter of Miami. I know there's one in Austin, so it definitely happens.

Meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention.

When you're already doing well.

Exactly.

Not when things are crazy and messed up.

Yeah, only because it's that much harder, you know, like if you think, if you're in the middle of a really intense situation and someone's like, oh, just learn meditation.

Yeah.

You're struggling to even deal with, never mind learn new stuff. so it doesn't mean we can't use it for, for those things. But I think if we can get into a cycle and a habit in the same way, we don't wait for our teeth to go really well in Britain.

We don't get bad.

Exactly. Right.

So we get into this kind of pattern. That's hygiene. And in the same way, I think it's hygiene of the health of the Mind. You know, how do we just kind of keep it fresh and sharp and calm and focused? And if we do it consistently, that happens.

Interesting. I love it. It's like flossing your brain.

Yeah.

Right? It's like getting the gunk out in between the stuff.

It's a new line.

Let me just, it's flossing the brain.

Yeah.

I didn't prep you for this, but I'm curious, can we do like a couple minute meditation or something? Okay. I would love to. Yeah. I mean, just to either give people a sample of what this even looks like and sounds like and feels. I know you have different tracks for going to sleep and all these other things in there. Let's do one, again, I'm putting you on the spot here, but let's do one for preparing yourself for a big moment in life.

Okay.

You're feeling anxious because you've got a big speech, TED Talk, you've got a big sports game, the biggest game in your life. You're going on the first date of the woman of your dreams. that you're about to meet. And you were just like, your heart is pounding, your mind is racing, nothing bad is happening in your life, but you're just overwhelmed and you can't relax, but you want to perform and do the, this is like your make or break moment.

We can do that.

Let's do it.

The context and it's important to give, because it's as much about genuinely, like the technique's important in meditation. But the approach is even more important because unless you know how to approach it, you're not going to get the benefit from it.

What do you mean by that?

So for example, three, just three tips kind of which I think will give you more benefit from this exercise. So tip one, expectation. Like if you are sitting down and you're thinking just because we're doing something called meditation that your mind is immediately going to switch off and be quiet and there'll be no thoughts, you're going to think that this has failed.

Right.

Might not do it again because you think I'm no good at this, you know?

Right.

Because your first time, it's probably not going to be calm.

Exactly.

You're probably going to continue to have thoughts, not be able to focus.

Exactly. Perfectly normal. Like learning any skill.

Yes.

More than that, meditation is not even about stopping thoughts. It's about stepping back and seeing the mind more clearly. And so this place, I always think about it like cars on the road. Kind of the road is the mind and the cars are the thoughts. kind of, the job is not to kind of run around in the road, kind of trying to stop this thought and chase after that thought. And it's about actually stepping off the.

Road and seeing the world.

Sitting on the verge comfortably and witnessing thoughts coming and going. And when you do that, over time, the traffic starts to kind of slow down a little bit. And you might one day, doesn't happen very often here in LA, I know, but you might just see a road without any cars on it at all, you know? Who knows? Who knows? It could happen. So expectation is the first thing. So, Know that your mind will continue to think thoughts will arise. That's okay. Perfectly natural. Second thing, effort. Okay. We again live in a society where we're encouraged to kind of do stuff and to do stuff kind of with passion and intensity and well, that's fine. And it's great. And it gets us kind of to a lot of place we want to get to in life, but you can't force relaxation to happen. you can't force a quiet mind in the same way that you can't force sleep. So, you know, I would say the things are very similar. You lie in bed, let's say you've got that big presentation or whatever it is the next day, and you're lying in bed thinking, I've got to get to sleep. I've got to get to sleep. Well, the more you think that the less likely you start, start sweating, you know, I said, oh, my God, I can't get to sleep. No, I've got to try harder. I've got to try harder. This is never going to work.

Right.

So in the same way, you know, with meditation, it's can't, it can't be a case of, I'm doing terrible. I've got to focus harder. I've got to focus harder. I was saying to someone the other day, there was a talk I was giving, I can't remember. I was in a, I went to do a thing in a bank once, 600 kind of bankers, traders there.

Teaching them meditation.

Yeah. And as I walked in there, one of them say to the other one, right, I'm going to meditate the crap out of this. And it's kind of like, okay, well, if we're going into it with that kind of intensity, We're probably not gonna get the benefit we're looking for.

Yes, you wanna give your full effort.

Exactly.

But that doesn't mean like...

It's not kind of a will kind of thing. It's more kind of actually like easing off a little bit, like and kind of saying, oh, this is nice. For 10 minutes, I don't have to do anything.

Right.

So expectations are first, efforts are second. And the third one, I think of it as blue sky. For me, this idea was a total game changer. I always meditated with the idea that, as we were talking about earlier, like happiness or peace of mind was somewhere else and it was maybe five minutes ahead of me or 10 minutes or maybe a year ahead of me. And if I could just get to that point, then everything would be okay. And then one of my teachers said kind of like, think of it like this, you know? So even on a cloudy day, the blue sky is still there. If we think about the blue sky being that peace of mind, that sense of kind of happiness and ease, like that's always there. And if we live in a very cloudy country like England, where I'm from, you know, sometimes you forget. You don't see it much. You don't see it much. And so you forget and you kind of, and you have to get in a plane and kind of go up through the clouds to be reminded, okay, it's still there. And in the same way, like in the mind, happiness, peace of mind is always with us. It's never been anywhere else. It's just that we've got so called up in the clouds or the clouds have obscured our perception so much. that we've forgotten about that. So it doesn't make any sense to be sitting there trying to create what we think is relaxation or happiness or peace of mind, because it's already there.

It's within us.

And so all of it, that does something to the dynamic, rather than trying to project an idea onto the experience, instead we simply witness the experience. So remembering that your mind will think anyway, knowing that you don't have to try too hard, and knowing that peace of mind is within us and is always here. If you can remember those three things, then you start to get some benefit from the exercise.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode all about mastering meditation and calming your mind. If you did, please share this with a friend. just take the link on the podcast, wherever you're listening to this, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or anywhere podcast are listened to. Take the link and text a few friends right now. The link you can be a champion in someone's life by sharing this message to them. If this is your first time here, please rate, subscribe and review over on Apple Podcasts right now. The more reviews we get, the more this message spreads far and wide and we can help more people in taking their life to the next level. And as Eckhart Tolle said, you have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer. And Marcus Aurelius said, nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. You have the power in your soul to tap into something much greater than any technology out there. You have the technology within you. If you're willing to manage your thoughts, calm your mind, transform your mind into one of clarity, calm and peace. When you change the thoughts in your mind, your emotions start to transform from chaos to stress or anxiety or resentment or fear or anger to one of pure love, love and flow. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be in the flow. Because that's when you can create something at your fullest potential in those states, love and flow. You cannot create full potential results in any other state of of anger, anxiety, stress or overwhelm. Calm your mind, master the art of meditation, step into your purpose of love and flow. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.