Meditation To Go

I'm recording this knowing that I will be going offline for most of the month of October, and I'm doing that specifically because I need to get— give my brain essentially a chance to calm down and to relax. And so it's very privileged that I can do it. I can go on a vacation and I can, since I run my own business, essentially shut down and say, I will be back in the end of the month. But for many people, that's not possible. For many people, the time off, the time you get to unplug is on the weekend or during the holidays, or maybe on a 1-week, 2-week, maybe 3-week summer vacation, depending on where in the world you live. And so I've thought about what are some of the tricks, what are some of the things you can do in the day-to-day that gives you some of the same benefits as in a prolonged period of unplugging. And to those of you who are active listeners and readers, as you will know, one of the things that I advocate is meditation. Meditation in many ways is kind of like a small unplugging. It's kind of like a small pause, giving your brain a chance to calm down, to relax, even for a few minutes. Many of you struggle with meditation, and so I thought I'd talk a little bit about how you can do that relatively easily. First thing is to realize that meditation is not sitting still or singing Om for hours on end or even minutes on end. Meditation, essentially, for me, and I'm sure there are many definitions, but for me, it's about having an awareness of what happens. And that awareness can be an awareness on your breath, which is how many people learn to meditate. They sit still. And they take long breaths and they may count them. They breathe in a different way. So rather than breathing in your chest, you breathe into your stomach. That's one way of being aware of what's happening. Another way that you can meditate out and about is you're sitting on the train or the bus or even in your car and you find something that you pay particular attention to. I'm going to use the train as an example here. I'm sitting on a train and I'm looking at the seat color of the train, the nuances of the seat color, the material, where is it worn. I started thinking about, you know, how they actually make these seats, where they might make them. How often they, you know, how soft they are when they wear out. Perhaps the designer who decided that they needed to look like that. All the details, all the different things I can think about when I'm looking at a seat in a train car. Before you know it, you spend a couple of minutes being very focused and very present on this one thing that's right in front of you. And what that does to our system is it kind of calms down. It's like, yeah, I don't need to think about malpaga or lunchboxes. I don't need to think about plans. I don't need to worry. All I need to do is figure this thing out with this train seat. And so you can actually meditate anywhere you are if you've picked something to be aware about. It can be how your feet feels on the ground. It can be the smells in the air. What am I smelling right now? I'm smelling wood because I'm sitting in a cabin. What kind of wood is it? Where did it come from? Is it local here to this country that I'm in now? Or— And then I start thinking about trees, how old they are, how they grow. All sorts of things. Before I know it, I'm in this world of focus and relaxation. And that's what meditation is. And you can do that anywhere, anytime. So if you don't have the opportunity to go away for weeks and unplug and get new experiences and calm your mind down that way, you can just do it in your day-to-day, on your commute, in the shower, in your yard. Wherever you might be, it's an opportunity to be present and be focused. And that, in my mind, is the best meditation there is. I hope this helps. This is just one of the many tricks there are to becoming more of a whole human and feel more relaxed and more complete. If there's anything else you'd like me to talk about or expand about, Let me know in the comments or send me an email or whichever way you prefer. I'd be happy to hear from you and I'd be happy to help if I can. Thank you.