Vishen Lakhiani argues that meditation isn't just breathing exercises. He outlines six types: creative visualization for performance, intuitive meditation for ideas, directed healing for physical recovery, shadow work for emotional clearing, connection meditation for compassion, and reprogramming for changing beliefs and habits.
Questions this video answers
Over 50% (the speaker states "over 50% of people in America have tried meditation").
8% (the speaker states "only 8% do it regularly").
November 2, 2018
Chapters
The word meditation is starting to annoy me. Let me tell you why people are using meditation the way we use the word exercise. Think about the word exercise, right? There are so many different types of exercise. There's yoga, there's jogging, there's super slow strength training, there's minimum effective dose exercise. There are probably a hundred types of different exercise. So when we say the word exercise, we know that it's a rough term for a wide array of different protocols. Just like you can use the word sport and you know that there are hundreds of different types of sports, from taekwondo to skiing to soccer. Now, when people use the word meditation, they think it's one thing. And this misconception is the reason why so many people start and then end a meditation practice. By some estimates, over 50% of people in America have tried meditation, but only 8% do it regularly. The big reason this is happening is because we have confused meditation with one type of meditation, one type of meditation that is pushed over and over and over and over and over again. Imagine if you told your kid that they should try sports, that sports are great for their body, but that the only sport that they could try is soccer. And they try soccer and they hate it. And they're like, that's it. I'm done with sports. I'm never doing sports again. Wouldn't that be disastrous? Cause your kid hasn't figured out that there's skiing, there's aikido, there's a whole range of different sports. But that's the case with meditation. Almost all meditation apps, almost all meditation lectures out there, focus on one type. This one type is often called mindfulness. It is a meditation that is about going within, about slowing down your breathing, focusing on your breathing, attempting to clear your thoughts. And it is wonderful. Don't get me wrong. But the problem is, it's not for everyone. There are two types of meditation. You see, There is hermetic meditation, meditation that was popular in China and India hundreds of years ago. And there is modern meditation, meditation that we use to make ourselves better at life and the world. Now, when people are focused on mindfulness and breathing and trying to still their thoughts, they're focused on hermetic meditation. And that's great if you're a monk or a hermit. But in today's world, with our jobs, with our careers, with our kids, with our dreams, that alone isn't enough. It's great. It's great to relax, but it isn't the full scope of meditation. So what are the other six types of meditation? Well, I Want to give you a list so you can open your eyes to just how vast this field is and what you can be exploring. The first thing to understand is that maybe we, we shouldn't be using the word meditation at all, because so many people get it wrong. I prefer the term transcendent practices. In my book the Code of the Extraordinary Mind, I coined the term transcendent practice to describe any practice that is about going within, that's about transcending the physical and going within. Now, when you look at meditation as a transcendent practice, there are six additional types that open up. And I love these six types. And when you understand that it's not just breathing or mindfulness and that there are six additional forms of meditation use, start seeing that you can actually use meditation for more than just relaxation, but to actually get really, really, really good at what you do. So the first type is creative visualization. Numerous studies on creative visualization have shown that it can improve your performance at work, that it can improve your performance at sports. And creative visualization is essentially meditating, relaxing your mind and visualizing a particular outcome. Now, the second type of meditation is intuitive meditation. It's sitting still, opening up to intuition, and ideas flow. If you follow Tom Bilyeu, who runs that famous show on YouTube, Impact Theory, Tom Bilyeu talks about how he does this process called thinkitation. When he meditates, he thinkitates and he has ideas flow to him. That is essentially intuitive meditation. Thinkitation is intuitive meditation. He's tapping into a clarified mind to download information that can help him get better at life. The third type of meditation is directed healing, sometimes called imagery therapy. And this type of directed healing meditation is often called energy medicine or alternative healing. But study after study has shown a remarkable impact on what it can do for healing ailments in the human body. The fourth type is shadow work. Shadow work is about going within to clear out your clutter. Forgiveness practices is a form of shadow work. Rescripting is a form of shadow work. These are practices that you do while in a meditative state to get rid of negative charges or feelings that you may have taken on in the past. Number five is connection meditation. Connection meditation is about compassion. It's rooted in Buddhist practices related to compassion and prayer and bringing peace to the world. And the sixth one is reprogramming. Reprogramming is when you meditate and you basically use commands or visualization to reprogram bad behaviors or beliefs, and you use mentally stated commands or visualizations to reprogram and bad behaviors. Or to reprogram habits or to clear yourself of bad beliefs. It's a very powerful technique. So when you look at meditation from this perspective, you find that it's so much broader than what you think. And in the words of the great meditation teacher Emily Fletcher, meditation is not about getting good at meditation. Meditation is about getting good at life. And so when you look at meditation from this view, you understand that there's so many different practices you can explore to get good at life. And if one practice doesn't gel with you, just like one sport might not gel with you, it's okay. Try a different practice. If you find these ideas interesting, try the six Phase meditation. That's a meditation protocol that I invented, and it's been really popular lately in articles in Billboard magazine and Ebony magazine. Just this past week, it was revealed that the R and B star Miguel uses the six phase before he gets on stage. Now, the unique thing about the six Phase meditation is that it integrates all of these practices to make meditation fun, hyper productive, and to make you better at life. Thank you. You can check out the six Phase. It's completely free on this link below. Sam.
