How To Heal The “Information Junkie” Within Us Through Meditation | Tom Cronin

Today you're going to hear the most important thing that you're ever going to hear. This is not about finding love. It's not about manifesting abundance. It's not about finding your life purpose. What I'm talking about here is something you've probably never even thought of before. Today you're going to discover the key to living life calmly, life in the flow, how to live life smoothly and peacefully, and yet at the same time, dynamically and abundantly. It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, what's more, there's no gimmicks, there's no gadgets, there's no fancy technology. What I'm talking about here is the very essence of you. I'm talking about you behind your thoughts and that stillness. We are at a crisis point on our planet. We're at a massive junction point. We're about to go through a massive shift. And the key to getting through this shift is meditation. And you're probably thinking, ah, meditation. I've tried that. I had too many thoughts. Meditation. No, I couldn't possibly do that because there's no way I'm going to be able to steal my mind. You might not have even thought about meditation. But today I'm going to tell you something about meditation that you've never heard of before. In fact, what I'm going to tell you about meditation is the complete opposite to anything that you've ever been told about meditation. You'll be absolutely astounded when you hear this. In all my time traveling the world as a keynote speaker, a meditation teacher, a retreat host, I've looked inside the minds of thousands and thousands of people. And everywhere I go I see the same thing over and over again. And what I see is a planet in a state of overwhelm. We've been swept along by this huge tidal wave of change. And where does this come in for you? Understand the stresses that you're facing, understand the challenges that you have to go through. Understand that you grapple with health, with finances, with relationships, with time. We've just lost our time. And it's time for us to bring back the gaps in our day. Do you recall those times when you used to sit under a tree and there was nothing to do? Do you recall the times when you would sit on a park bench and there was nothing to do? Or on a bus or on a train or at the traffic lights? There were even times when we used to leave the house and no one could contact us? And now we've filled in all Those gaps with news feeds on Facebook and Twitter and emails and Kik and WhatsApp and Voxer, we're constantly getting this barrage of information. And it's not your fault, because you, like all of us, like me, were swept along by this tidal wave of change that's been happening on our planet. This tsunami of information is just sweeping into our lives. In 2006, we got these things, the iPhone, smartphones, and all of a sudden, we. We filled in every single bit of our day with information. And technology is not going to go away. Smartphones aren't going to go away. In fact, if anything, that wave of information is going to increase day after day, and we have to learn how to embrace those gaps. Back into our day. And it was meditation that totally transformed my life from a state of darkness into a state of light. It was by bringing back gaps into my day that my world totally changed. I'm going to be telling you something about meditation that you've never heard of before. This will completely astound you when you hear this. Thoughts in meditation can actually indicate that you're meditating. Well, that sounds crazy, doesn't it? Because you've been told this really dud story about meditation, and it's time that the veil was lifted. Everyone around the world is getting so disenchanted with meditation, or not even moving towards meditation because they've been led to believe. Then it's about sitting there with no thoughts. And that gets really frustrating because here's the thing. It's actually not possible for you to sit in meditation and not have a thought. And there's a reason for this. I'm going to explain, but first I want to ask you a question. Do you recall those times when you're lying in bed at night and your head's on the pillow and you're starting to feel sleepy, you're starting to feel drowsy, and then all of a sudden, you get the twitch. Right? You know those moments when you get that twitch just when you're falling asleep? Well, what's happening there is the very same thing that happens in meditation. You see, a lot of people who are teaching meditation, they fail to appreciate and recognize the importance that we have a body. And the body is very much involved in your meditation process. A lot of people are teaching that meditation is a spiritual practice or a mental practice, but it also involves the body. And here's the thing. With your body, just as it is with mine, our bodies hold stress. It's like a sponge that mops up all of your experiences in life, and it's stored within your physiology. And that physiology has a natural intelligence to heal, repair and restore balance. And it does that in deep states of rest. So as you're moving towards rest in sleep, you're moving towards sleep, your mind's becoming quiet. Your body also follows that path. And your body drops metabolically into a deeper state of rest. And as that body moves towards a deeper state of rest, it's natural here, healing intelligence within it will start to restore balance and throw away those stresses. It's like squeezing the sponge. And that's why you get those twitches or jolts, because that's the body's way of throwing off stress. Well, here's the thing. In meditation, exactly the same process is happening. Your mind starts to move into quieter states and the body will follow suit. And so the physiology will drop its metabolic state of rest. And as it moves into these deeper states of rest, then some meditation techniques have been proven by. The level of rest achieved in meditation is equivalent to four times deeper than sleep metabolically. And it's these remarkable states of rest that the body will start to unlock stress and throw it away. Now, you think of a house that's getting restored or renovated. There's a lot of activity. Tradesmen are coming in, they're removing kitchens and carpet and they're sawing and nailing, and there's a lot of noise, a lot of activity. The same thing happens into this house. That's your body when it starts to repair balance, restore balance and repair itself. What happens is it's an activity and it will raise your metabolic rate. And as the body raises its metabolic rate, it will stimulate activity in the mind. Before you know it, you'll be having thoughts. So in meditation, many things can happen. You could fall asleep, which is your body's way of throwing off fatigue. You could get jolts or twitches or spasms. You might start to cry, you. You might start to cough or sneeze. It's the body's way of physically throwing out the stress, which is an energy. And all of these things could all lead to stimulation of the mind. And before you know it, you're going to be thinking again. So what we recognize in meditation is that there's a natural wave like experience where you'll start to de. Excite the mind and de. Excite the body. And in the process of de exciting the body, it will unlock stress. And this will stimulate the body and stimulate the mind. And then we come back to our meditation again and it's about acknowledging the sequence, acknowledging the process that enables us to embrace meditation and go, this is okay, this is part of the process. Now, if you were a monk from the age of seven and you've been meditating every day, and you lived in a monastery in Tibet, away from Facebook and trains and deadlines and relationships and children and mortgages and rent and bills, there's a good chance that you don't have that much stress in your body. So from their perspective, sitting for long periods in a thoughtless state is very possible because their body is very different to yours and mine. But if your body is anything like mine, it's probably got stress in it from the life that you've been living. And that stress needs to come out. It's not you, it's not your inherent state. And this was my experience. You see, many years ago, I was a broker in finance and I led a very balanced lifestyle. By day, we were frenetically trading millions and billions of dollars worth of swaps and bonds. And then at nighttime, we'd go out till all hours of the evening with colleagues and clients, having two, three, four hours sleep, doing some really crazy things which you just don't want to know about. But needless to say, it led to extreme imbalances within my body and my physiology. It started to show signs of wear and tear. And what happened was, first it started off as a stress like anxiety and some insomnia, and then it started to exacerbate into more profound symptoms like these extreme panic attacks. Now, I didn't know what they were, but there were these waves of dread and fear and loathing, cold sweats and nausea, and I'd be curled up in a ball just not knowing what was happening in my world. Now, of course, I still persisted with the same lifestyle. I didn't change. And I'd continued doing the same thing over and over again, which is Einstein's definition of insanity. And that's what started to happen. It was like a mild insanity. I started to get depression and this eventually manifested into a full blown agoraphobia, which is where I couldn't leave the house. The prospect of me walking out the front door was so overwhelming for my nervous system, my body, my mind, that I just couldn't even contemplate it. One day I mustered up enough courage to get to the doctors and they explained to me what was happening and they wanted me to see psychiatrists and go on antidepressants. It just wasn't something that I wanted to do. It wasn't right or wrong. It was Just something that didn't resonate with me. And so I knew I had to heal this myself. And I knew in here was the problem. And so I started looking into ways to help myself get out of this dark misery. And so I searched far and wide, many different meditation techniques. And what I discovered in my search was through all the different types of meditation, was that for me to embrace meditation, it needed to have four specific components for it to be able to fit into my life. Firstly, it needs to be fast. That sounds really weird. I know a fast meditation. What I'm talking about is that it's something that I need to be able to fit into my day very easily. I didn't have one, two or three hours to put aside to meditate. I wanted it to be able to fit into my day where it would work and I could fit it around all the other things that I was doing. Secondly, it needed to be deep. If I was going to meditate for 15 or 20 minutes, I wanted to go deep quickly. I didn't want to fluff around on the surface. I wanted something that was going to nourish my body and repair it and restore balance. Thirdly, I wanted it to be blissful, because, let's face it, if you're not going to enjoy it, if it's uncomfortable, if it's full of friction and pain, you're just not going to do it. And we're naturally compelled to do things in our life, whether it's fulfillment or charm. So if the meditation wasn't blissful, I just knew I wasn't going to keep doing it every day. Fourthly, one of the most important things of all, and it's why I believe I continued with my meditation for so long, was the support. Without support in your meditation, many people, I see them time and time again, they give up on their practice, they lose direction, they're not understood, they. They don't know what's going on with their experiences. And you will get a lot of experiences come through as a result of your body purifying in meditation. And by having that support, it's a really important thing. So these are the key components that I was looking for in meditation. And this is why we need to bring back the gaps. Because what happened with me when I did find a technique that really had all of those boxes ticked, everything changed. Like, everything changed. The anxiety, the depression, all. All that went away. The panic attacks just dissolved. Then a lightness and a joy came back. I continued on an incredibly successful career in finance for many years, and now I live the most incredible life. I travel the world as a keynote speaker. Can you imagine being a keynote speaker? And before I couldn't even leave my house. I had suffered clinical depression and agoraphobia. And now I travel the world on stage, talking to people about the power of meditation. I host retreats twice a year in Bali. I mentor people all over the world. I teach meditation. I'm producing a film. I live in the most incredible house that I've just built, overlooking my stunning city of Sydney. And I have an amazing family. And I put it all down to one thing. I brought back the gaps I put into my day. Moments of stillness. What we have is an event horizon. If you haven't heard of an event horizon, it's your sphere of influence. And everything has an event horizon. The sun has an event horizon that goes to Pluto and then some more. Everything's brought into the Sun's sphere of influence. The Earth has a sphere of influence. It goes to the Moon and beyond. Everything's caught in that gravitational pull of the Earth. The Moon has a sphere of influence, an event horizon. It shifts billions of tons of water every day on our planet. And every human being has an event horizon. When a stressed, angry person walks into a room, the whole room feels it. And so our event horizon is very important on what influence we have on the planet. And when we bring millions of people together in stillness, in calm, connecting to the very core of who you are, then that's going to affect the planet. And I love this saying, we're going to leave a dent in the. In the universe. I love that. That's what the Stillness Project is all about. So stay tuned. In my upcoming video, I'm going to share with you a very secret method that I created that's going to help you bring back those gaps. Because I know right now you're probably thinking, tom, that's all well and good. I don't have time. There's no way I can fit anything more into my day. There's just no way I can get that gap in my day because it's already chock full. Well, that's okay, because I was exactly the same when my teacher was talking about meditation. I just thought my life was way too busy to fit meditation into it. And after many, many years now, been meditating every day and it's never a problem. And that's because I developed this secret technique. So stay tuned for that. You'll be finding out more about that in my next video. In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you. Please leave some comments, ask me some questions. If you don't even like what I've got to say, I want to hear about that as well. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, have an awesome.