What you will discover by practicing mindfulness?

In this episode, we will go over some of the questions that arise when we want to practice being present.

We will cover one of the obstacles that we face whenever we want to make any kind of change. That obstacle is the ego, the rebel inside every single one of us.

Instead of picking a fight, we will learn to allow our ego to revolt while we stay grounded. Notice the rebel come and go. By allowing ourselves to rebel without rebelling we remove the influence of the ego.

The key is to observe what happens within, and to continue acting as we intended. That way our brain gets mixed messages. We scramble the rebel while allowing it to express itself but not allowing it to stop us from progressing.

Rebellion is not an enemy, it is an ally. The friction that gets created is a stepping stone to our progress. Without it we can’t move forward.

The fact that we think and feel doesn’t mean we have to obey. This is how we slowly begin to understand that we are not our thoughts nor emotions. A fundamental key to mindfulness. Emotions and thoughts are transient, they come and go.

It’s like observing cars passing outside of your window. We are in the house, watching cars passing by. Our fallacy is that we tend to believe we are the cars.

Next time you want to meditate and you meet the rebel within you, say “Hi” from me, then act as quickly as you can.

Episode Notes

00:08 Intro
01:01 How long should we meditate
01:24 Consistency is key
03:32 Use a timer
04:56 What will you discover by practising mindfulness?
05:00 Ego the Rebel
06:05 Stop discussing it, get on with meditating
07:03 Rebellion while meditating
07:41 Drifting mind
08:30 Muddy waters metaphor
10:03 Build awareness in the present moment
11:09 4 steps and awareness
12:14 Managing your internal dialogue
12:47 Conclusion
13:21 Spider web analogy
14:41 Allow yourself to rebel freely
16:01 Be present
16:09 Outro

Transcript

Another episode from Inside Treasures. My name is Phoebus, and I love to challenge myself and those are on me. For the purpose of this podcast is about helping you to heal to change and to grow by listening to this episode, you will discover about finding peace inner stillness and tranquillity. In the previous episode, we talked about a habit that can change our lives, we talked about mindfulness.

Going within noticing our breath, what goes on within our thoughts and our emotions. We talked about why you should go off to the trouble of meditate. We talked about the one. And we also talked about how. In this episode, I’d like to continue it as a part to mindfulness and talk about, we will discover why we start to practice mindfulness. Before I go into that I’d like to cover one small question. How long should I meditate. Should I meditate for an hour 30 minutes. 45 minutes, actually. So, we want to keep it practical, we want to keep it simple.

We know we have a lot of things to do. And also it’s not the time the volume of time in one day will bring you the progress, stay consistent, it’s better to meditate like every single day for a week or five or 10 minutes rather than to meditate upon day out of the week for an hour results like you’re going to get are going to be far better.

When you practice daily, because when we do something once one day, we don’t get the results. It’s like, we exercise, once a week and then we expect the results of athletes are going to happen. timeframe, something that works for you. I don’t have enough time to play with this, but I want to get into a minute. One minute tends to be quite short you have to be really dedicated to get into the zone. The one thing we want to do is shift gears and get into it, you usually need more than a minute, if you’ve done it a lot of times you consult squeeze it in a minute. Then again, he won’t get as much benefit three to five minutes tends to be a good starting point. Want to go 10 to 15, that’s fine as well you

have more time, if you want to play more with it.

But again, first week, stick to three to five every single day. Painful like three days in a row, can I do three days in a row of sitting down one place, focusing on my breathing in for another for another two. No. Two news in a row. Now we have five days. You can have two more rows well you got seven days. One step at a time. It’s a break the whole point of this is to enjoy it. It’s not like to sit there and do it and done it check it, it’s to get in the process of being in the present moment.

Some days, we won’t feel like it. You have breaks that are scheduled a be easier for you another first week try to go for the seven days in a row, that will help you get income and build it up and take a break. Another common question is, I know the time is up. Let’s just get all those excuses out of our minds, I can put a timer on your phone. Put a timer, put an egg timer, whatever you want, just choose one now in your mind and know the next time that you said to do this, you’re going to put the time. Three 510 15 minutes whatever you want. Only when that thing rings. When a stock tiller brings, you’re just gonna keep focusing on your breathing could have a clock, usually clock makes you look around.

And it’s like, How much longer do we have how long. How much longer do I want you to remember that meditation that I gave you last time is simple. It’s very simple. Trying to make it complicated. We’re keeping it simple. And also remember that we all have an internal clock within us that has roughly how long it’s been. If you follow this exercise like even with a timer. It was always a timer. You begin to become aware of how long it takes. Also, you might be practising mindfulness and then you said like you can no longer concentrate your mind is drifting here and there. Okay, stop. For even start to meditate, what you will discover is that there’s a rebel ego, there’s a rebel within you. You’re going to say I want to start meditating Yeah, this sounds amazing this sounds great.

I want to practice daily, but your ego will revolt, he will come forward. He will give you 1000 reasons why you shouldn’t do this. We all have Kolenda we’ve taken a decision to thank you to that thought, I made my decision. This is very important to me, said, find the discipline to not fight. Brace it, creating gap within you can revolve without having any intention, you can see your ego again it’s the same concept you understand, to look within a lot of things to happen without passing any judgement to my life. Aren’t you have you don’t mind, I’d like to go and meditate me peace already having conversations within your mind, might as well make them useful, make them useful towards us because if we engage in that inner conversation. 90% of the times we’re going to lose. Losing and guess myself. Stop discussing it with yourself whether you’re going to have a mindful meditation

or not only staying at discussing it when you keep thinking of it and debating with yourself. Choose to act in the time and commit. You start to think concept can be more present you become more aware, or I’m drifting it’s like your mind is drifting and is drifting into a state of telling you to do that another time. Let’s let’s let it be. You want to do is bring your awareness back to you back to your intention to where you started and and just go and sit where you would meditate. I only have two more minutes before I can meditate. I have 10 minutes, I have to do this job comeback. Just go to the place that you have dumb physical momentum will bring your mental and emotional state to a halt. second wave of rebellion is, while you’re meditating. You’re going to want to move, you’re going to feel an edge. Learn to sit and acknowledge.

Thank you. But now I’m focusing on my breathing sometimes you’re going to give in and scratch. Play with play with I can see that’s a game it’s just like, okay, I decided to sit down and all of a sudden I just want to modify all of a sudden I want to eat all of a sudden I want to do sorts of things. I want you to then keep continuing focusing on microwave, which is that desire to move away. Another common thing that we find is that your mind drift. I was trying to focus on my breath, and now I’m, I’m, I had a thought about this, then that thought brought me to another thing. And then I thought of something else. Now 10 steps later. I’m so far away to where I started again.

Okay. I’m focusing on my breath. The mind chatter the mind chatter just keeps process, wonderful to see doesn’t gang see it as a challenge. When it happens, tell yourself, okay and come back to breathing focus your breath, knowledge and I like to think that I use in hypnosis as well. It’s not a thing can last the house like money. And somehow all this sediment. We have a spoon and we constantly stirring and stirring and stirring. What is that process and it’s all up front sediment all the mud. Any clouds the water. This is how we are in general because we’re constantly thinking mind chatter feeling and there’s all this confusion going on internally, not even aware.

We keep staying and staying and staying nervous. The reason that I like to think of this is because, for example I just mentioned, drift, and then instead of just saying, Oh I drifted off. I just was cooked again, or I made this mistake again. We get frustrated and we really even more start to spread the spoon, more and more and more, and instead of just saying, Oh, I’ve been staying the spoon. Stop staying the spoon and everything settles down all the sediment settles down, say no I need to stop and I Why did I do this. Are we good staying and staying as they leave the spoon alone. All the money, all this cloudiness this thought all this chatter all these behaviours that have been settled down. So what we’re watching on while this conversation is about mindfulness and focus are breathing like what’s the point when awareness, awareness in the present moment, both internal and external for me most important internal. Like I said in previous episode. You have peace within you seeing the world in a different way. When I explain the model lends itself distorted.

You see more clearly. The point, like I said, is to build awareness in your internal world. Slowly built up competence of noticing your thoughts, emotions and desires to find a way to slowly silence your mind. Won’t happen every time. Won’t happen throughout your whole meditation to find that one moment and know that you can. When you find it up. aced will think, wow. Stop that kind of noise. We live in a couple of episodes ago I talked about the four step model, and one of the fundamentals. First step, was about awareness. Being aware, in a non judgemental way.

Awareness is the first step to any change if we’re not aware of things of what’s going on. Sometimes we have a feeling we have a hint. Sometimes we know, but a lot of times it’s just completely unaware of what’s going on. Why are you meditating.

Are you becoming aware, to something comes rises up. Engage too much. Live without judgement. What was that I just had a thought, I thought about breathing. What happened, I just felt something. I felt, anger, I felt happiness, I felt joy. Come aware of it. I believe without judgement, then let it go and come back to your breathing pleasing to the cooking later.

Oh and I need to take the kids to school. What’s going on, what am I feeling. What am I thinking right now. I’m thinking about something other than what I’m trying to do. And I will remember that later.

And breathing. As I prefer. I like to keep focusing on my breathing, then this will happen again and again and again. It gives us a game, taking us a chance conclusion. Now this episode has been quite playful, and there is a reason behind that line has been so playful. Because a lot of times when we’re dealing with our own thoughts our emotions. Like I said, we met with the rebel, and instead of just having fun with it.

We’re starting to fight that fight is taking us backwards, instead of empowering us. It’s actually disempowering us. We’re losing our own energy, losing our own battles with ourselves. Let it be. Don’t fight, play with it. It’s okay.

When I was a little boy. I remember finding spider webs. And then just noticing what will happen with a spider webs times there would be a fly or B or an ant, what basically happened is minutes something fell on the web. It tried to escape. The more you tried to escape. The more I started to get tangled in the web. Also, this is how the spider knew there was something on its spider web. So all of a sudden there was movement there was motion. Spiders about a low vibration and then know where those vibrations are coming from. And then they go there. As the insect was getting tangled up by the was going, then it would bite it, then it would put it in its own web, a little cocoon. And that’s what we do when we’re fighting with things when we’re fighting with our own selves. Free moment we rebelling against the rebellion or whatever is coming out of us free time we begin to fight. Begin can ourselves. The more we fight. The more we get tangled up to lose track of where we are and who we are.

Allow yourself to rebel, I don’t want to do this. Oh, you have no emotion you have a thought. Reaction to those things, is what really controls our mood or controls our emotions or controls our thoughts, for instance says, there was a blip in time, then it’s what follows that will go away,

Like an urge to go wave to will come. It will go up. Okay, I saw that. Soften your grip. Soften your grip and see, now you’re starting to practice non judgement. Outside of the space where you’re practising your mindfulness. That’s the important bit. So when learning to do it within a timeframe of five or 10 minutes, then it becomes a habit. Then it it creeps into our life becomes a way of living. Is it going to happen every time. No, we don’t have to be perfect. The whole point is to build awareness and build awareness of our emotions and our thoughts of how behave. Other things that we say rebellion against our own progress. Learn to observe internally outwards. Why do we talk about being present. Because most of the time. We’re everywhere, but here.

As Eckhart Tolle said in the Power of Now “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the primary focus of your life.

Please share this podcast with anyone who you think may benefit.

Until next time, like peace guide your life, Love guide your heart and Reason guide your thoughts.

Phoebus

Photograph by Zhang Kaiyv

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