The second and perhaps more mature title for this post is Lessons Egypt #1. Prioritize connection to source above all else.
Meditation. Connection to source. Essential. Every morning. Hallelujiah! Ok… So since January this year I’ve been meditating consistently. Like, before anything else I do. Wake up, mediate, before I even put clothes on (duh). Meditating to me is connecting to source. Saying waddup to the Universe. Getting my answers and my secrets. ‘Connecting to Source’ will mean something different for everyone depending on your faith and belief (no judgements here, ever!). Connecting to source= connecting to faith. Connecting to whichever higher power you believe. Connecting to whoever/whatever you trust to guide you through what Mike Dooley perfectly describes as the jungle of time and space, this physical life.
Being in Egypt hasn’t taught me to meditate, my lesson is to PRIORITIZE meditation. No matter what. Whether it’s a habit already or not. There is a story wound up in this post. Somewhere.
Here’s what my life looks like when I meditate every morning consistently:
Flow. Things and people just show up. It’s effortless and easy. I am productive and present. I can easily distinguish between my own energy and that which I’m surrogating from others. I am sharply intuitive. I know the answer by just asking the question. I am creative and innovative. I have a lot going on but it’s easy. I embrace it and I get it done efficiently and effectively. I am full to give. I feel joyful and blissful. I am kicking goals- Physically, financially, personally.. In every aspect of my life I am winning. I feel ME. The me-est of me.
When I don’t meditate consistently this is what it looks like:
Mayhem. I feel overwhelmed and anxious. I procrastinate and am easily side-tracked. I sometimes attach to fearless thoughts that aren’t mine. I take others energy on and let it affect me. I am not ‘here’. I am moving upstream more than I am downstream.
I could stop this post right here 🙂 Before I go on, just know that you can’t SUCK at meditation. So many people say ‘I suck at meditating.’ You can’t suck. I understand the frustrations when you feel like you can’t be present. Your mind is racing and you feel so attached to your thoughts. I feel ya! I have one of the most over-active fast moving minds I think on earth. I’m serious. It’s not a reason NOT to meditate. It’s even more of a reason to. So you can catch yourself in crazy-mind time and LOL 😉 Persist. Please persist. You WILL find it easier and it WILL change your life.
I see It like this. So many people say they wanna play the game of the universe. “Give me a sign!” Or “I’ll leave that one the universe” or ” I wish it was easier!” Or “I wish ______ or _____ would just show up.” yada yada.
YOU CANNOT PLAY THE GAME OF THE UNIVERSE IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE FIELD. YOU CAN’T RECEIVE MESSAGES FROM THE COACH OR THROWS FROM OTHER PLAYERS IF YOU ARE ONTHE SIDELINES. YOU HAVE TO BE ON THE FIELD. MEDITATING PUTS YOU ON THE FIELD IN DIRECT LINE OF PLAY.
That felt good 🙂
So, more specifically, why do people meditate? Actually let’s get first person here. Why do I choose to meditate?
– Because google doesn’t have all the answers, unfortunately. And neither does my brain. My brain is the most creative machine ever. Just as much as it can decorate my mind with beautiful thoughts, the ego (Barry the bullshitter as mine is called) can use the mind to create absolute BS. Fear, doubt, stories, craziness.. whatever! I know though, that the mind WILL have a different answer for me every single time I ask depending on a whole range of things.. The answers I really need will come from beyond thoughts in stillness and silence. Same goes for you. You are your own guru. How cool is that?
QUIETEN YOUR BUSY MIND. GO IN. IT’S ALL THERE.
– Our minds are a beautiful garden, where whatever thoughts we plant and nurture grow and expand. But in our garden there is rubbish. Put there by all sorts of people, experiences, stories, ego yada yada. We need to clean the garden every single day or else we won’t ever see the flowers.
– Our thoughts become our things, but we are not our thoughts. Say that again. Our thoughts become our things but we are not our thoughts. First person now… My thoughts become my things but I am not my thoughts. We are separate to our thoughts. We choose our thoughts but we are not them and we have to learn to not identify with them. We use them, duh. We watch them, laugh at them, thank them, be scared by them, put new ones in, take old ones out.. whatever. This is crucial. You can’t be a human without thinking. BUT We are in control of our thoughts and NOT the other way around. I am in control of my thoughts, my thoughts are not in control of me. When I meditate I watch my thoughts. I become aware of them and I let them go until I am present in my body and my energy.
– To connect to source. Quite simply. It goes like this… “Source/Universe/God waddup! Another day to walk this beautiful planet? Really? Ahh thank you!! I’ve been to sleep and had some dreams and probably picked up some energy that’s not mine. My connection to you may be a little bit corroded, can we make it super shiny and clear so that I can hear everything you wanna tell me today? So that I can be guided and protected? And so that today can be as it’s meant to be? So that today I can be the me-est of me?” It’s like
“HEY universe! Reporting for duty! Clear me up and get me ready to rock the bazooka outta today!”
– Some people even specifically meditate ON things. Like will focus on a topic, or thought or an event, and move into mindfulness, stillness, and quiet where they can hear intuitively what they need to hear about the topic/event/whatever. I sometimes do too. IE.. Should I fly to this event or am I better going to this one that’s on at the same time? My conscious brain would probably tell me a) on Monday and b) on Wednesday. I need some REAL guidance. Of course, seriousness of questions differs. I wish I could record my questions 😉
BEGINNERS: If you are just getting started with meditating- try this simple technique for 5 minutes per day.
Sit quietly… Comfortably.. And just watch your breath. Easy peasy. (It isnt hard. Nothing is. But this especially isnt). Breathe in, and out and just observe your breath for a minute. Then, imagine.. You are sitting on a bean bag in the peace and serenity of some place beautiful (you decide) and you’re watching a big outdoor movie screen in front of you and it’s playing all of the thoughts you’re thinking… Whatever is coming up in your stillness. You are watching your thoughts. They are outside of you. And you are in complete control of them. Be honest with them and bring them all up onto the screen. Good or bad. Positive or negative. No judgement.
When you begin, usually you are trying SO hard to be present that your thoughts are like this (mine were, sometimes still are!!):
“The bloody clock is ticking”
“I have so much to do today. “
“I wonder if I have any peanut butter left”
“Is my phone gonna go off? I should silence it.”
“Am I doing it? Am I meditating?”
Whatever it is. Just watch it on the screen. You are YOU, watching your thoughts. Now you can either do one or two things here. You can get a remote control and delete them as you watch them go by, almost like ok cool, NEXT, DELETE! Or you can place each one on a giant leaf, on the river bed that’s beside you and let it float down stream. Watch it float away.
Do this until you feel present. Until you really are aware that you are creating your own thoughts and that there is a silence there that is a lot more fun. You can stop here and enjoy the presence. Or you can move beyond and this is where the listening begins. This is where you are YOU. This is the time to ask questions, give gratitude, manifest. When you are connected and in your own, powerful energy.
I found at the beginning of my meditation journey, guided meditations were easy for me. I just listened to people speak beautiful things that I wanted to go into my head.. A super easy way to fill the mind with beauty and remove some of the gunk.. I made one for this reason and you can find it here.
Anyway, the reason I meditate is all of the above. Those are my brief explanations (I promised this blog would be off the cuff, raw and just as is). Because I function with the universe as myself and my best friend at once and I want to be tuned to the messages he’s (some days she’s a girl) got for me so that I can stay in flow, in ease, and on path.
Anyway, getting to my lesson. I’d been meditating every single morning in Egypt. I love my morning ritual of chanting, meditating, gratitude and visualizing/creating. It’s my way of grounding, connecting and having presence guide my day. It allows me to be in the energy and space that I want to function from. Ease, bliss, joy, love…. I do it because I prefer life to be easy (note this does not mean you dont work. It just means easy). I don’t enjoy struggle and I don’t enjoy figuring things out. I would SO much rather have a super tight bond with the big guy so that he can take a lot of it off my hands. He can see so much more than I can from here and he’s always up for the challenge. Makes sense to me. In fact, I don’t think there is ANYTHING more important in my day than the first 30 minutes I spend checking in with old mate, the universe. What could be more important than making sure you are the you-est of you? This also puts me in MY space to write and speak my gratitudes for what I have already manifested and what’s coming up. I’ll admit, a lot of the time there are tears. I honestly wake up thinking YOU. FREAKING.BEAUTY. Another day to walk this badass planet? ESPECIALLY in the life of me which is so beautiful and free? Waking up wherever I choose, knowing that the WHOLE day is mine. There are infinite possibilities and I can do and be and feel whatever and however I want to do be and feel? I mean REALLY. Another one? With these two arms and two legs? And these fully functioning systems and organs? And a brain that thinks? And eyes that see and ears that hear?
Gratitude overload every single morning
Wait… Hold on. Let’s spend some time here. This is a post in itself for another time but how grateful are you for each day? Really? I can take a stab and say that those who are TRULY and deeply grateful for the fact that they’re alive, have more success and abundance than those who don’t. And when I say success and abundance, what I mean is, true success and abundance… happiness..
Little tangent but that’s cool. I recently learned that A.D.H.D means ‘Attention Dialed into a Higher Dimension’ so I am owning the shit out of my erratic writing. SQUIRREL!.
Moving on.. I learned to prioritize this part of my day no matter what, because the day I crashed the motorbike, was the only day I didn’t meditate. No, it wasn’t a coincidence, coincidences don’t exist. I didnt meditate because we decided to ride our motorbikes to Karnak Temple. I stupidly thought, Oh I’ll do it when we I get back. (stoopy stoopy). I left the hostel on my ‘own’. I had Corroded connections, poor guidance and not present in this physical world. That may sound extreme to some of you, or woo woo or whatevs. But it’s the truth. The streets were definitely not busy. It was 6:30am in Egypt (they’re night walkers here) and it was an extremely random accident which was really like God had manouevered the whole thing with his pinky fingers so that I’d learn a lesson without teaching me TOO much of a lesson. IE Here. Have chunks of skin ripped from your foot and leg. Some swelling. And not being able to swim or shower like a normal human for 2 weeks JUST so you can learn..
My lessons were huge. Gratitude for everything (even more so). Mindfulness. Lessons about Egyptian roads. Lessons about grounding and remembering what world we actually do live in ‘fairy land’ and earth are two separate places. That’s not the story here.
Ever since the accident, I’ve been riding around confidently, with ease and with complete TRUST in myself, other drivers and the universe. This isn’t to say that i’m immune to another accident. Not at all. And this isn’t to say that meditation will prevent most accidents. NOOO not at all. Don’t go there. It was however a reminder to me how important it is to connect, tune in, ground and be present in my body before doing anything else. I prefer to let go of my worries, let go of what’s not serving me, trust my guidance, be plugged in intuitively and live my days with ease and grace. This is exactly what happens when I prioritize connection to source and meditate daily, and sometimes more than once daily. It just so happens that a little motor bike accident happened to hammer this home. Use it as a metaphor for things in your life that may have been avoided if you had been connected intuitively to what was rewarding for you.. or even better, what about times that you perhaps didn’t notice something rewarding for you, because intuitively you weren’t plugged in? I can think of so many times in my life where my gut has told me to turn left or right (not literally), and I have, and it’s been something that has so so so needed to happen. My mind cant do that! Neither can yours! Only your connection to source can. Woo woo or not, that’s how it works. Period..
So, the peace, calm, connectedness, trust, truth and clarity I feel from my one on one date with the universe each morning, is something that I have learned to not only enjoy, but to prioritize.
Who wouldn’t want to have a one on one date with the biggest babe that ever existed? Each morning I get to hear all the secrets that are especially for me. I get a hose inserted into my brain which sucks out all of the gunk. I get to water my beautiful blossoming garden of flowers in my mind. I get to begin my day in the essence of who I really am, and not who anyone else thinks/wants me to be. I get to personally thank the universe for yet another day to walk this babe of a planet. I get to thank the universe for so efficiently manifesting everything I’ve ever asked for, whether it’s appeared yet or not. I get to pick my angels up from the bus station and carry them around with me all day. Whether it’s 5 minutes, 15, 30, or longer. One of my lessons from being in Egypt is that meditating and connecting to source is not just a habit or a ritual but a priority every single day of my downstream, blissful life. It’s a priority, because if you wanna play the game of the universe, you’ve gotta be on the field, ya dig? You can’t receive plays from the sidelines.
Love to all from paradise, J
