Is this you?
You are stressed by your never-ending to-do list.
You run from sunup to sundown to try and fit everything in.
You wish you had time to go for a walk or a massage, but those kinds of extras were thrown out long ago.
You’re stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, and tired.
Just pure exhausted from the demands of our new hybrid/remote/ever-more-expensive new life.
What if I tell you meditation is the cure for this?
Did you laugh?
Did you say, “Been there, done that. Who has time??”
For years I thought meditation had to be this big thing that was done. A grand process of enlightenment that lasted an hour. The first time I tried meditation, I had a toddler. I knew I slept better when I did it, but by 930pm, I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed, sit for 30 minutes, and chant.
Flash forward to 2017, when I was given the gift of time. When you have free time, you get to explore lots of things you might never have tried. I choose to really get into meditation. I loved longer, guided meditations and the visions I would see. I wanted more, and I no longer had to wake up at 6 am to get to an office. So enter my flow stage of life.
Each day was run with no plans, no commitments, and what did I want to do now? You might be thinking it sounds like bliss. And it was for a bit. Until I became bored and stuck, but that is a story for another day.
During the peak of my free time flow, I meditated daily. I had time to sit in the juicy feels of how good it felt to think and worry about nothing. I would pop down in the park, the airport, a rock on top of independence pass – wherever and be me. People stared. I stretched and breathed and meditated until I was high on life.
Yet every time I tried to get people to try it, I got the same excuse. “Sounds great, but I have too much to get done.”
I get it, and I challenge you in that. If you say you don’t have time, you are exactly the person who needs to find the time. You are running on empty, and that isn’t sustainable.
Meditation isn’t just cross-legged on a cushion chanting. It comes in a wide variety of forms. You can reach a meditative state on a walk. You can reach and meditative state with music. You can reach a meditative state by listening to static noise in the background.
I launched a 30-Day Meditation challenge to help you feel the benefits in only five minutes a day.
The 30-Day Meditation Challenge was created to teach you a quick and easy method to find joy, especially when it’s chaotic around you. In just five minutes a day, you will activate your parasympathetic nervous system to reduce feelings of stress and increase feelings of inner peace.
Today, your homework is to try listening (ahem, meditating) to the sound of static noise. This noise could be a fan, the drumming of the drier, or the fan of an air conditioner. It doesn’t matter what the sound is, just that it is uninteresting, consistent, and repeating.
Five-Minute White Noise Meditation
Think for a second and select what you want to use. If you have a noise app, use the beach or water running. Those work as well.
Now that you have your sound, I want you to focus on that sound. Just listen for it. Listen to it. What does it sound like?
For most people, you will focus on the sound, then get distracted. Refocus on the sound and get distracted. This pattern might continue, and that is ok. Just continue to return your focus to the sound. Listen to your sound for five minutes. When your five minutes are up, turn off the sound and observe how you feel.
Some of you might have drifted off to what I call The Space Between. You know you are in a room and aware of what is happening, but if asked to recount what you heard, you don’t know. It is a feeling of detachment like you are present and aware but not conscious.
For others, you might have just worked on training your focus muscle. 90% of you will not reach a detached state in the first go-round, and that is perfect. Your focus muscle hasn’t worked like this before. Your focus muscle has been taught to think and think again and overthink. Now you are training it to allow and let go.
This is just one type of meditation, and with practice will help you learn how to shut off the overactive monkey mind and allow your body to reset.
November 14th kicks off the second annual 30-Day Meditation Challenge. This Challenge was designed to support you in building your focus muscle and helping you to reset in only five minutes a day. and it’s free.
The program is great for anyone curious about trying different types of meditation.
This year we are focused on a moving meditation using song. No traditional sitting and chanting over here!
If you are feeling burnout, overwhelmed, off balance, and just kind of done, read more about the program HERE.
We have spent the last few years living in a highly stressful time. Society talked about “returning to what it was before covid,” except we aren’t going back. We are going forward. And to do that we have to redefine what we need to be our best selves.
We have been working in a reactive state for too long. Trying to manage remote work, hybrid work, homeschooled children, and removal of our
We have two big things going on in our bodies, people –
1)You have been living in a reactive, high-stress state for too long. The things you did for fun, like socializing or traveling were removed, and your sense of safety was threatened by all the “unknown” factors of covid.
2) You had to take on entirely new multitasking roles like working from home, remote schooling, and balancing work /life responsibilities without time to carve out the boundaries you need to be able to do it.
We all pitched in and did our best. Now it is time to define what you need to be your best. This challenge will help you on that path. This challenge will help you release the stuck stress, anger, and overwhelm that has been locked up in your body. It will help you process through and reconnect with you.
Learn more about the meditation challenge HERE.