“Welcome to ‘The Mind Lab’—where we work with the mind to transform your life. Whether you’re battling burnout or seeking a new direction, today, we’re diving into the world of meditation—a powerful tool for anyone seeking to reduce stress, enhance focus, and find joy in the everyday. Whether you’re completely new to meditation or looking to deepen your practice, I’ll show you simple techniques that make a big difference. Ready to explore how small shifts can create significant impacts in your life? Let’s begin.
Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to the MindLab. I am here to provide tips, tricks, and strategies to free you from the patterns and the stories that are in the way of your success. I am so glad you’re here.
So if you’re new here, my name is Carri Richard. I’m a mindset coach, and I help high achievers make space and enjoy the ride. I imagine you’re here because you are interested in meditation or interested in no longer being burnt out or hoping to find something that is going to move you in a new direction. I’m here to show you small shifts that you can make, and will make large impacts in your life.
Our bodies are a very amazing thing. And when we work with them, you may be amazed at what you can find. So if you are burnt out, you get to the end of the day and say, Oh, my gosh, I need to do this again, or maybe saying, I didn’t get everything done, or how am I going to get it done, or when is my next vacation? You are in the right place. And so today, we’re going to dive into meditation, and what it is good for.
So you may be thinking, Yeah, there’s an app on my phone that tells me all about meditation. I keep hearing it’s a great thing. I don’t have time for this. Again, you’re in the right place. So what meditation is overall, and we’re going to demystify it a little bit.
Meditation is a time where we sit quietly. There are many forms of meditation. There is meditation that focuses on the breath. There’s meditation that focuses on a mantra. There is walking meditation. There are all sorts of kinds of meditation. So I’m not here to advocate for one specific meditative practice. What I am interested in doing is giving you something that you can implement today and begin the journey of meditation. Why is meditation so important? The wonderful thing is that over the last, probably 20 years, there have been study after study around the effects of meditation, the physical and mental effects of meditation. And that has ratcheted up for sure over the last four or five years with the onset of the pandemic. It has been a very hot topic. NIH, the National Institute of Health, actually did a study within the pandemic for healthcare workers and had a study of half of the group doing meditation on a regular basis and the other half the control group just having the same access to wellness practices that they had before.
And the results were stunning. It showed that meditation actually really had a huge impact on the decrease of burnout and chronic anxiety, Stress, better sleep, etc. As I said, there are So many studies that show that meditation is beneficial. So my encouragement to you is to try it out for yourself. I encourage you to try it for at least the next 30 days.
And again, I’m going to give you a simple practice to start that you can do anywhere. We talk about being quiet in meditation. That only means that you get quiet from the perspective of sitting still. So the encouragement is to sit upright, straight up and down. You can sit in a chair. You do not have to sit cross-leg. If that is comfortable for you, then do it. If not, you can sit in a chair, put your hands on your knees, and just relax. Be comfortable. You will close your eyes during this time and breathe normally. This is the part of you quieting down, settling into one spot for a certain amount of minutes. Now, the outside world. Often we see meditation as somebody’s lit a candle and it’s quiet and there’s no noise anywhere.
That’s not often real life. Now, it may be easier to meditate in that arena. Know that meditation can be done on a train. It can be done at the kitchen table or the kitchen counter with life going on. Actually, some teachers will say, That is the real meditation practice. We sit, we breathe normally. The encouragement, breathe through your nose, in and out through your nose, and you’re going to close your eyes. Okay. So this is the quieting down. Now, often there’s also this idea that meditation takes us to a place where there are no thoughts. That may happen here and there, but that is not the norm. Thoughts are going to arise, and the practice is not to attach to them. So say a thought comes up and the thought is, Oh, I have to get milk at the store. It’s a thought. The encouragement is you take that thought and let it keep going like a balloon floating in the sky by putting that thought on a leaf and placing it in the river. Or you can simply say thinking. This is letting it pass through. The attachment to the thought would be, I have to go to the store and get milk.
Well, I can do that at five o’clock after I finish meditating. Am I going to have to take the kids with me? Blah, blah, blah. It’s taking that thought and then continuing down the road. So it’s going to happen. Be okay. This is also… Meditation practice is also a practice of being extremely kind to ourselves. So know that it’s normal that thoughts are going to arise. And in fact, in some schools of thought, this is an indication of stress release. So if you have a flood of thoughts that come when you sit still, it’s okay. Let them come and let them go. One of my favorite statements about meditation, I’m going to give you two. One is, thoughts in meditation are like difficulties in life. They just are. Scientifically, we still have not been able to determine even where thoughts come from. So just let them up and out, up and out. That’s the practice. Our brains are this big search engine. Our brains function The reality is it is always on the search for something. So this is the practice of taking the search inward versus tying it to a thought or something like that.
We’re going to sit quietly. Again, this is really a practice for us to work with our brains. And as we quiet ourselves, not only is this a positive effect in our brain, in our mind, but studies also show physiologically there is benefit to this practice. Practice. I told you one of my favorite statements. The other favorite statement, the other favorite, is there are three rules to meditation. I expect nothing. I do nothing, and I be nothing. This is just simply sitting quiet, and it is a practice. My encouragement is to Practice first thing in the morning, and if you can, in the afternoon. Ideally, for 20 minutes. If you hear, Oh, that’s a long time. Then begin with five and be curious. Again, you sit. You can sit with your hands on your knees. You can sit with your dominant hand inside your non-dominant hand, cradled. Close your eyes, breathe through your nose, and set a Timer. Hopefully, the Timer does not have a horrible sound at the end. And when the Timer goes off, With my encouragement, keep your eyes closed for at least a few more breaths and just come back. Wiggle your toes, wiggle your fingers, and get on with your day.
I would love to hear. If you have any questions about this, please let me know. Again, encouragement, do this for at least 30 days before you make a decision to continue or to not continue. And until next time. If you found this topic useful, please don’t forget to like and subscribe and hit the bell for notifications. I’d love to hear your feedback. Let me know. Meditation practice. If you do not, please try this out. I’d love to hear from you. Until next time.