As you already know, I have find great value in meditation. Not only does it help me deal with the trauma and emotions from years ago, but it allows me to sleep better and recover faster.
Last weekend, I decided to jump in for a four day virtual meditation retreat hosted by Evolving Out Loud founder Kyle Cease. The premise of the weekend was to give the attendee an opportunity to look at some of the patterns that are running their lives and start to question and process them. Each day including 3+ hours of meditation, group work, and individual case studies.
It took about two days of effort and frustration before things started to make a turn. Until that point, I was in an inner struggle of trying to find and eliminate the problem from an egoic space. What I found was that any time you are trying to solve your problems from the “fixer” perspective, you are going to be creating options that are only from your limited old story. Here is an analogy that hopefully explains this concept: imagine you walked to school the same route every day. I then ask you, can you tell me another way to get to school? Because of your limited perspective, it would be impossible. To find a new route, you would have to deviate from the old. That’s where my breakthrough came. By allowing my thoughts to be observed and letting go of the way it “should"“ look, things started to shift I was able to challenge the thoughts of “this is bullshit and doesn’t work” and “If I could only figure this out, then I’d be fixed!” When I heard these voices come up, I created space and allowed them to be there. Didn’t try to fix or push/pull. I just let them be. Each time I got caught back into the story, as soon as I noticed, I went back to feeling the body and allowed the thought to be there. The beautiful biproduct of this technique is that you get some unbelievable breakthroughs and epiphanies on the other side (which I will share more in later posts).
All in all, it was an amazing experience (one that wouldn’t have been possible without my unbelievably patient and gracious fiancé Lauren) and I am going to continue to integrate these meditative practices on a daily basis.
If you are interested in learning more about meditation and how it can help you achieve your goals, I am here to help! Click the link below to set up a free assessment today!