3 Great Tips to Turn Your Meditation into a Rewarding Experience!

When I first started meditating several years ago, it was anything but fulfilling!  I would make time in my calendar, sit down and “try” to meditate.  I would get uncomfortable trying to hold the same still position, my mind would be full of thoughts and chatter, and I would feel frustrated and unfulfilled when it was over.  Can you relate to that?   Meditation certainly didn’t live up to its reputation of a centering, peaceful, rejuvenating experience.  I was ready to throw in the towel!

Fortunately, I didn’t!  I kept exploring meditation and my relationship with it through workshops, and even multiple-day silent retreats.  Over time, my investment paid off.  I found various tools that have worked for me, and my experience  of meditation has been richly rewarding ever since.  In fact, meditation has become my favorite means of staying centered and feeling that I am in the flow.  It has become the foundation of my daily spiritual practice and something that greatly feeds my soul and state of happiness.  Hallelujah!

I’d like to help you create a similar relationship with and fulfilling practice of meditation.

Tip #1

Let go of pre-conceived notions of what meditation is and isn’t.  If, like me, you have these ideas about how you “do” meditation and what is “supposed” to happen when you meditate, you may be holding yourself back.  Yes, there are “techniques” and some of them have specific postures and durations associated with them.  But it’s not necessary to start with those forms of meditation.  You can simply start by taking a break in a busy day, closing your eyes, and following your breath.  For me, that was a great start.  I let go of the things-to-do list, and for a few lovely moments, was quietly with me.  In “True Meditation,” Zen Master Adyashanti advises that our attitude is key to our meditation experience.  “We need to come to meditation in a way that is fresh and innocent.”  In other words, let go of the list of ideas and expectations you have and start with a totally clean slate.

Tip #2

Give up “trying to meditate.”  If you are trying to do anything while you’re meditating, you’re defeating the purpose of meditating.  The point here is to let go of doing-ness altogether.  The act of meditating is the only act.  You’re not trying to control the body or stop thought.  When you’re doing this manipulating and controlling in meditation, you’re actually resisting what is, and when you’re in resistance, you cannot feel peaceful and you cannot quiet the mind or body.  It’s in allowing that you are able to do that.  You simply sit and allow everything that happens to happen.  Eventually, the body rests and the mind quiet.  The more often you meditate, the more the body and mind get into a rhythm of releasing and quieting.

Tip #3

Commit to creating a practice.  The experience of meditation and the benefits derived from meditating deepen and expand over time.  David Fontana, author of “Learn to Meditate:  A Practical Guide to Self-Discovery and Fulfillment” says “meditation is a path without end.” We engage in the practice without expectation and keep engaging with open heart and mind.  If every day feels daunting to you at first, choose a different frequency.  If 20 or 30 minutes feels out of the question, sit for 10 or 15 minutes instead.  You can also do briefer and longer sits if you feel called to do so.  I meditate for 30-60 minutes daily and also integrate 2-5 minute mini sits whenever I feel the need to decompress.

The key is to get started and keep going!  Once you integrate these 3 tips, any meditation technique you work with will become easier for you.  In fact, I’ll bet that over time, despite current appearances to the contrary, you will soon discover the Master Meditator that is already within you!

If you are interested in pursuing this more deeply, come check out my next Be Still and Mindful Meditation Tele-workshop at www.StillandMindful.com   I promise it will be fun, easy and rewarding!

Blessings, Love and Light,

Valerie

P.S. In case you’re wondering if I ever have mind chatter, a fidgity body, or don’t feel like I went that deep, the answer is yes.  I just allow and accept every meditation as perfect, exactly as it is.  And, I keep meditating every day.

Today I enjoyed a wonderful You-Tube video with a group of people staging a ‘laugh-in’ on the subway. It is a wonderful illustration of how laughter is contagious!  To watch it, click HERE.  

One of the joys of participating in and teaching Laughter Yoga is that I’ve experienced first hand that laughter, whether purposefully generated or in response to something we see or experience that’s funny, has the same wonderful and generative benefits:  we relax, endorphins go racing through the body, and we receive a big injection of HAPPINESS!  Whoever first coined the adage that laughter is the best medicine was right! 

You’ve probably already heard me say that happiness leads to success and not the other way around.  It stands to reason then that if laughter gives you happy moments, it can contribute to your success. 

Whatever else you do in any given day, take a few minutes to spend some time in laughter.  You can visit my laughter page where you’ll find funny videos, jokes and images, find a laughter club near you (if you’re in Orange County, come join me at the Laguna Beach Laughter Club), check out some improv comedy live performances or videos, or start giggling for absolutely no reason at all!  When you keep it going for more than 20 minutes, the laughter itself is therapeutic and will energize and inspire your day.  If you’d like to bring more laughter into your workplace, invite LaughFit to create a program there.

Wishing you a laughter-filled day, a life overflowing with happiness, and much success in all things.

Blessings, love and light,

Valerie

And then it happened.  From deep in the recesses of my mind came this warning:  

“You can’t wear all that white.  You’ll need to wear white shoes, and white shoes are for Summer!”  

I started to give my tacit agreement to this voice, when it hit me … I had unearthed another old “Rule of Engagement” that was sub-consciously influencing how I live my life.

As I asked myself how many more fashion rules were running around inside, they surfaced, like dead bodies floating to the top of a lake:  

• Don’t wear stripes if you’re not pencil thin.
• No jeans for parties with a written invitation.
• You can’t wear velvet before 5pm.
• Black shoes don’t go with white outfits.
• Nothing shiny for casual affairs.
• Be careful wearing too many bright colors, and so on. 

They are all about how to look a certain way. Why?  Because {Fill in the Blank}.  My why’s were:  I want people to like me, respect me, see me as worthy, fashionable, and relatable.  Why?  Because I know social consciousness makes snap judgments about the inner aspects of a person from the outer expression of that person, so I know people who encounter me today will connect the way I dress with who they believe I am.  Underneath that is an even deeper aspect which goes to being in relationship with the world, so things like be friends with me, do business with me, fall in love with me came up.  Interesting.

Even as my personal journey of Soul Evolution has gone higher and deeper, there remain preconceived notions, or “presets” as we call them in HeartMath, beliefs and values that are charged from the perspective of personality, identity, and woundology (a.k.a. ego or not self) that can hold me back from expressing the authentic Self.  The Self that in the midst of the fashion show felt only the aspect of the Divine – Peace, Love, Joy and Freedom.    

The call to action is to be continuously awake and aware of what’s underneath the surface of the “you-ness” of you.  What are your “Rules of Engagement” and how are they reflecting the ‘not self?’   What are the beliefs and values influencing your seemingly minor everyday decisions like how you dress, where you go for lunch, who you call “friend,” or what you say or don’t say in a moment?  Why are they there?

Instead of going through our lives, asleep at the wheel, allowing these remnants from the past to be our knee-jerk reactions or our ages-old habits and practices, let’s do the exploration into what’s underneath that could be shifted or completely released, that allows us to be awake and impeccable with our choices.  That’s the key to being more connected to our Magnificent Essence, and enjoying more peaceful, free, open and authentic expressions of ourselves everyday!

I wore the white ensemble and thoroughly enjoyed how perfectly it expressed my inner Truth that day.  I’m grateful to be able to catch my human self when it’s about to take me out of alignment with the Truth of who I am.  It’s becoming so much easier to lovingly choose differently.  I wish the same for you!

Blessings, Love and Light!
Valerie 

I’m being interviewed on the red carpet again!  This time, it’s at CEO Space, a free enterprise forum featuring training and collaboration to help build thriving businesses around the world.  Join my friends, producers of “THE STRIP VIEW LIVE!” television show,

The daily webcast schedule features an amazing line-up including Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, Larry King, Sammy Hagar, Donald Trump, Dr. John Gray, Tori Spelling, Jaime King, Bob Proctor, Teri Hatcher, Brad Garrett, Gary Payton, John Assaraf, Sean Astin, Shannon, Elizabeth, Wayne Newton, Les Brown, Char Jackson, Ali Landry, Jack Canfield, and ME!  The shows take place at 5:00 p.m. every day.

Here are some links to help you get the wisdom these folks have to share:

• Full webcast schedule with celebrities and experts: www.VegasNETlive.com 
• Register for TODAY’S segment featuring actress Terri Hatcher and others:  http://vegasnetmedia.com/cms/index.php?option=com_eventbooking&task=view_event&event_id=335
• Register for the Wednesday 2/15 segment, featuring Chazz Palmieri and yours truly!:  http://vegasnetmedia.com/cms/index.php?option=com_eventbooking&task=view_event&event_id=337

I’m excited to share this and other ways to take you life to new levels of success, fulfillment, and happiness!  Please share your viewpoints, questions, and testimonials with us by commenting to individual blog posts, or by emailing us at info@HeartofLivingVibrantly.com.  Please also share this post with anyone and everyone you feel would benefit from the support!

Blessings, Love and Light!
Valerie 

The troublesome aspects of life today are forcing many into total upheaval.  Relationships, jobs, finances and lifestyles are all in a state of flux, and many weighing options to take their experiences to new levels of fulfillment and security.  As they do so, an ages-old proverb appears to be coming into play, and it might be hurting all of us. 

A bird in the hand is worth (better than) two in the bush

Sources like Wise Geek.com and Phrases.org agree this proverb is saying that you’re likely to be better off by sticking with something you already have, rather than pursuing something you may never get.  The warning is that if you pass up a sure-thing (the thing you already have/know) to go for something that might be better, you may end up without both. 

There are several accounts as to the origin of the proverb, some dating back to the 13^th century, including that it comes from medieval falconry where the bird in your hand was the means to getting the two in the bush.  In this case, without the larger and skilled predator skills of the falcon, one wouldn’t be able to eat the smaller birds in the bush for dinner.  Perhaps you gained this wisdom when you read Aesop’s Fable of The Hawk and the Nightingale, in which a Hawk tells its nightingale prey as the latter begs to be released,  ”I’d be crazy to release a bird I’ve already caught in favor of birds I don’t even yet see.” There is even a Biblical reference from 1382:  Ecclesiastes IX – A living dog is better than a dead lion.

Regardless the proverb sounds like a lesson in the wise use of resources.  However, it’s putting a nice “useful” cover on a base emotion of fear, and on scarcity, lack, and limitation beliefs that prevent us from trusting ourselves and taking greater risks to experience our higher good. 

I’m recalling a particular apparatus on a ropes course at California’s renowned Challenge U, one of my favorite experiential learning facilities.   On this apparatus, you’re walking a tight-rope some 40-feet in the sky.  As you traverse the rope with your feet, you are using your arms to balance yourself on individual ropes hanging above your head.  These upper ropes are spaced just far enough apart, that you have to let go of one to grab the next one!  So each step along the way, you have to dangle out there in mid-air for a millisecond holding onto nothing before you can reach the next rope. [You are wearing top-notch safety gear of course, including helmet, safety harness, and gloves, and you’re being guided by one of Challenge U’s expert coaches.]  While there are other apparatus in the ropes part of Challenge U’s tools, this particular experience helps one feel what it’s like to be in the void while going toward a goal. The idea is to help people learn to feel the fear, and keep going anyway.

This is the heart of Courage, Faith and Trust. 

There are times when the bird in hand is practically killing us, and still we won’t put it down until something better is right at hand.  We probably all know at least one person who hates their job, but stays anyway, just for the money; a couple who stays married long after the relationship is over solely “for the kids” or the financial security; people who won’t risk going for something they dream about because they’re not sure they can make it.  

I certainly have been there.  Before I left my last corporate job in 2006, I was “grinning and bearing it” long after I knew I was unhappy.  When I stepped into my radical sabbatical, I felt fear of loss, lack and limitation at a deep level.  It wasn’t easy leaving my corporate salary and business comfort zones.  This proverb came up many times. But in the end, I chose to step out anyway.  

We’re in a time of massive shifts in the Universe.  The New Age of Enlightenment is upon us, and the energies it’s bringing are about destruction of the old, outdated, no-longer-serving-us aspects of our consciousness to make way for Truth.  Now, perhaps more than ever before, each of us is being supported to step into the void in order to claim higher ground.  But instead of stepping out in Faith, many are locked in fear and “hanging in there” with energetic vibrations that are holding them back. 

I believe the struggles we’re seeing around the world are about coming out of this stasis.  More of us have to be willing to step into and learn to thrive in the void if we are to truly shift the vibration of social consciousness.  We must learn to be listen to the signs along the way screaming NO!, it’s time to leave, exit, release, drop, or whatever form of not-doing- it-anymore fits.  

We must have the Courage, Faith and Trust to answer the call to leave before
the something better comes along if we truly want to live our most vibrant lives.

Perhaps our various forecasts of the future have numbed and misguided us.  Humankind’s ability to “predict” weather patterns, revenue, stock performance, life expectancies, prices, unemployment, purchasing, political races, etc. may be teaching us to look too long before we leap.   When we wait for the exact right moment to make change happen in our lives we miss the greater gift that comes from the willingness to dance with the questions and experience the fear as we choose to move forward anyway. 

We must make peace with the unknown, and see our ‘Bird in Hand’ dilemmas as calls from the Soul to step into the void and feel safe! 

We’re always in some form of the unknown.  We can only know so much about how things are going to play out, and even in the midst of our sophisticated systems for projecting and predicting, we still get it wrong.  It feels more important to be at peace without knowing. 

In the NOT knowing, we’re actually at our most flexible point.
In the NOT knowing, we’re open to more possibilities and in the possibilities,
there are more opportunities for triumph.  

Here’s your call to action:  Look at where you are “hanging in there,” or “grinning and bearing it” through what is not serving you, believing it’s your proverbial Bird in Hand.  Go into the fear that is keeping you from acting in your own best interest and make peace with whatever is causing it.  As the fear subsides, instead of waiting to see what will happen if you let go, perhaps it’s time to let go first, and then keep your heart open for the possibilities that you’ve just created!

Blessings, Love and Light!

Taking risks and transforming lack and limitation vibrations may not be easy.  We can help you get more comfortable in the void.  For a complimentary “From Tired to Inspired” consultation, contact us at info@HeartofLivingVibrantly.com.  To receive your copy of Valerie’s eBook “Smooth Sailing”  and other monthly benefits worth $175, join her FREE Heartful Awakening Circle online community at: www.HeartfulAwakenings.com.