Meditation

The benefits of a meditation practice. What is meditation?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to a place where we're thinking together
and thinking deeper about who weare.
Welcome to the podcast.

William Forchion (00:19):
Hello and welcome to the Billosophy
podcast.
I'm William Forchion today,meditation, according to
gaiam.com.
Meditation is an approach totraining the mind similar to the
way that fitness is an approachto training the body.

(00:40):
Many meditation techniquesexist.
University of Wisconsinneuroscience lab director,
Richard J.
Davidson PhD told the New Yorktimes in Buddhist tradition, the
word meditation is equivalent toa word like sports in the U S
it's a family of activities, nota single thing and different

(01:02):
meditation practices requireddifferent mental skills.
I guess this begins, or this ispart of a series on self care
meditation and the process ofmeditating.
I was introduced to meditationin high school by my wrestling
coach, coach sharp would have usat the end of each practice.

(01:27):
He called it a relaxationtechnique.
He would train us very hard withthe goal or the, uh, the reward
at the end of training, beingthat we would have a 15 or 20
minutes of relaxation.
He would lead us in a guidedmeditation to relax each of the
muscles in our bodies.

(01:49):
And this process for him was tohelp us in wrestling.
You have three, three minuteperiods in which you're going
all out.
There's no break.
If you rest, you'll be defeated.
So you push yourself for threeminutes.
And his relaxation technique wasa way that in between the three

(02:09):
minute periods, we could trainour body to essentially relax,
shut down for the gap in betweenthe interval between periods and
come right back refreshed forthe next period.
And over time, I continued withthis after I wrestled for two
years in high school, my juniorand senior year.

(02:31):
And I continued that practicefrom practicing meditation in
high school, through mywrestling program, meditation
had become a part of my dailylife.
I used it and I use it in allthe things that I've done as a
runner.
I would use meditation after mytraining runs to relax the
muscles, to help myself stretch,to release my mind.

(02:54):
When I worked as an Acrobat withCirque du Soleil, I used
meditation during day, and alsoat the end of each training day,
I would find a time to do my ratrelaxation drill exercise, or I
would find a time at the end ofmy day, whether it was part of
my bath, my shower, or astretching process.

(03:14):
At the end of the day, I woulduse relaxation.
Now I believe my wrestling coachcalled it relaxation because
meditation early eighties wasstill a little woo, little
different, and there are manydifferent meditation techniques
and practices.
There is concentrationmeditation, concentration

(03:36):
meditation involves focusing ona single point.
This could entail following thebreath, repeating a single word
or mantra staring at a candle,flame, listening to a repetitive
gong or counting beads on aMala.
Since focusing the mind ischallenging.
A beginner might meditate foronly a few minutes and then work

(03:56):
up to longer durations.
There's also mindfulnessmeditation, mindfulness
meditation encourages thepractitioner to observe
wandering thoughts as they driftthrough the mind.
The intention is not to getinvolved with the thoughts or to
judge them, but simply to beaware of each mental note, as it
arises, there are various othermeditation techniques.

(04:18):
For example, a daily meditationpractice among Buddhist monks
focuses directly on thecultivation of compassion.
This involves envisioningnegative events and recasting
them in a positive light bytransforming them through
compassion.
There are also moving meditationtechniques, such as Tai Chi.

(04:38):
Chi Gong and walking meditation

Speaker 3 (04:42):
meditation is to be aware of every thought and of
every feeling never to say it isright or wrong, but just to
watch it and move with it inthat watching you begin to
understand the whole movement ofthought and feeling and out of
this awareness comes silence.
Jidu Krishnamurty.

William Forchion (05:04):
If relaxation is not the goal of meditation,
it is often the result.
There are many benefits ofmeditation studies on the
relaxation response havedocumented the following short
term benefits to the nervoussystem, lowered blood pressure,
improved blood circulation,lower heart rate, less

(05:25):
perspiration, slower respiratoryrate, less anxiety, lower blood
cortisol levels, more feelingsof wellbeing, less stress,
deeper relaxation.
My meditation practice hasevolved and transformed and
changed.

(05:45):
I have most recently been usingmeditation as a stress reducer,
uh, taking some of the stressout of my daily life.
And, uh, my practice haschanged.
It's become very mindful in away.
I also will use guidedmeditation, which I pull off of

(06:06):
YouTube.
Sometimes I'll, uh, lay in bedat night with your buds in and
have a YouTube video playing ona guided meditation.
I also have added in eachmorning.
I take a walk in the woods.
Then I've taken this walk manyfor many years.
I try to walk every morning inthe woods, just outside my home.

(06:27):
And at first it was just acalming beginning to my day to
walk through the woods.
I then started becoming mindfulduring that time you might, it
might even be considered mindless of paying attention to each
of the thoughts that popped upin my head until they, uh, they
blurred and there became anothing inside my head.

(06:50):
So the thoughts didn't stop.
It was that there was no need toattach to the thoughts.
The thoughts could just come inand go without holding on to one
being any better or worse thanthe others.
What I also found during thatmeditation was the woods had

(07:10):
changed.
There were different sounds.
There was an essence to thesilence that is the woods, the
bird song, the insect noises,the wind through the trees and
the trees themselves.
Each had a sound and a resonancethat I became aware of in that
silence and in the cacophony ofmy meditative brain, that

(07:37):
practice transforms and goesthrough transition constantly
each morning.
I cannot step out into the woodsand expect anything.
I can't expect what happened theday before.
And I have to accept what istoday in that, that meditation.

(07:57):
I also discovered in that thatmeditation didn't have to be the
process of sitting and thinkingor sitting at non-thinking.
I discovered walking meditationthat I could walk and continue
to walk through the woods andfind a different awareness or a
different way of being withinthe process, walking and, and

(08:22):
being aware of my footfalls myheart rate, the sound of my
pulse in my ears, my eardrums,the wind, or the sounds as they,
as they hit the hairs, uh,entering my ears.
It was an awakening into adifferent world.

(08:43):
When I entered that meditativeprocess differently.
I also have used a concentratedmeditation meditation where I,
when I couldn't get the, thesounds in my head to quiet down
and I have used affirmation andI have used mantras.

(09:03):
Mantras is if you're not aware,a mantra is just a repeated
phrase.
One of my favorites is I amenough.
Uh, you'll hear Matt in many ofmy podcast.
I am enough.
And hopefully you'll start toincorporate that in your life as
well.
The, I am enough process.
And even in that process withthe mantra, when I would use any

(09:26):
single one, it would stir upother things.
It would be like stirring a potwith a spoon or staring with a
fork or staring with achopstick.
Each one will stir that potdifferently, causing different
reactions within whatever's inthe pot.
And each of the mantras willstir up different parts and
different things in the mind andstimulate different thoughts and

(09:50):
reactions.
And it is not necessarily toquiet those things, but to
become aware of them becauseeach of those thoughts is
begging for attention.
And that's why they pop up thosethings that are popping up
seeking our attention areasking, are begging to become

(10:10):
our teachers.
And we could try to cast themaside and push them away or
shovel out because we don't wantto deal with them.
Or we can ask, I can ask, whatis it that you're trying to
teach me right now?
What is it that I need to learnfrom what you're presenting

(10:30):
right now?
The, I am enough mantra for mestirs up.
So many of my insecurities.
I am enough.
And what am I enough for?
That's the first one that popsup was I enough to do that
thing?
Am I enough to make breakfastfor my kids?

(10:50):
Am I enough to not trip on theroute?
As I walked through the woods,all these insecurities will pop
up and what is it that I'mlearning from them?
Of course, for each of us, thelessons we learn from the ideas
that pop up will be different.

(11:10):
I could tell you some of thelessons I've learned, and that
could be informative for you.
Or you can start to ask thequestions of your own mind on
how you can inform yourself.
Some people aren't even aren'tat the level to get to that
place.
There are the, there are manypeople you can talk to about

(11:33):
this.
There are folks who lead guidedmeditations.
There are folks who do a dream,uh, analysis, and sometimes even
in that guided meditation or inthat walking meditation or in
the meditation process,concentrated meditation, it will
be like a dream.
There will be things that pop upthat will be part of what is

(11:56):
going on in your world, bothyour inner world and your outer
world.
And just like, just like in thedream where it's hard to
understand what does that twothing mean?
Or what does whatever it ismean?
There are people who will say,Oh, do you understand that that
is related to the younger you,or that is related to your

(12:22):
feminine side, or that isrelated to your masculine side,
or that is related to, um, ahurt that you have experienced
our brains and our bodies workin such amazing and mysterious
ways.
And they have the ability toteach us more about ourselves.

(12:44):
And the meditation.
Meditative process is awonderful learning tool.
It's also a wonderful relaxationtool.
It's also a wonderful stressreducer life enhancer, exercise,
prayer and meditation areexamples of calming rituals.

(13:07):
They have been shown to induce ahappier mood and provide a
positive pathway through life'sdaily frustrations.
Chuck Norris, for me, themeditation process at first was
an escape.
It was an escapist illusion thatI could take myself out of the

(13:33):
world for a moment to anotherrealm, a peaceful, calm realm in
which I was in control.
I have learned to see verydifferently in the mid
meditative process and what isthe meditation or how that

(13:55):
meditation is for me and worksfor me.
And that is part of a, atransition or an evolution or an
evolving of my practice.
And it is a practice issomething I do have to practice
every day.
It helps me reset.
It helps me restart.
It helps me calm.

(14:16):
It helps me.
It helps me put intoperspective, the big picture and
all the little pictures of lifeof my life.
It is just like with many thingsin life.
This is about me.
This is about you.

(14:37):
It is a personal thing.
The changes that you will happenin, in and through meditation
are in, you are in me, are inthe practice or, or the
practitioner of the meditationthrough changing yourself.
You will change the world, howeverything that responds and

(15:04):
reacts to you will respond andreact differently to you.
As you change, as you find thatspace through meditation, that
space in your mind, in yourbeing in your body, in your
world, it will change how youmove through the space of the

(15:26):
world.
How you move from point a topoint B, how you interact with
everyone around you and in doingso change happens.
Not because you forced anythingelse to change, but because
you've encouraged and you'veasked yourself to change.

(15:46):
One of them, the concentrationmeditations that I use and have
used, especially in high stresssituations is, and it's a way of
not shutting out or shutting offall the processes of the brain,
all the things that pop up, buta focusing and pinpointing on

(16:08):
one thing.
This technique is to just sit ina place, comfortably, find a
place.
And at first, when I starteddoing this, I needed to be in a
quiet place, alone, isolatedfrom everything.
Now I can do it anywhere.
I can sit in a busy hotel lobbyin an airport, on a plane.

(16:28):
I can sit in my living room.
I can find the space to do itanywhere.
So finding that space and thensimply breathing in and
breathing out.
And as you breathe in, in yourmind, you say I'm breathing in
and as you exhale and breatheout in your mind, you say, I am
exhaling.

(16:50):
I am breathing in I'm exhaling.
And you can say, I'm inhaling.
I'm exhaling.
I am inhaling.
I am exhaling.
And you continue to thatfocusing only on your breath and
the words, your breath and thewords, your breath, and the

(17:11):
words.
When I first started doing thispractice, I could last for maybe
10 or 15 seconds before my brainwould wander off.
My mind would think about, Oh,did you get that thing done?
Oh, what is the deadline for?
Have you made that phone call atall?
These other things would pop up,Oh, you got an itch.

(17:31):
You should scratch the back ofyour ear.
Oh your knee.
It doesn't feel good.
All these things would pop up.
And those were just ways ofdistracting.
My brain distracting me, medistracting me from focusing,
breathe in and breathe out.
It's something we have to doevery day.

(17:53):
And focusing on that breath, I'mgoing to focus on my breath in
the evenings.
You can also do a thing with acandle candles are magnificent,
where you focus on a flame andyou just h yper f ocus on that.
Flame, watch the flame flickerand move and change colors and

(18:15):
rise and lower and twist andturn and how i t, it dances upon
around the wick.
And you'll start to notice thenuances of a candle flame as, u
h, when I first started doingthat, when I did that one for
quite a w hile, it was amazingbecause then I would start to
see things my brain would makeup things in that candle, flame.

(18:38):
It would make up people dancing.
It would make up, u h, faces,and it would start to create new
things.
And that was just my braingoing, going crazy, trying not
to calm, trying to, or workingharder, which is something I've
trained it to do.
I've trained my brain to worklike crazy and not to relax.

(19:01):
And even then with that practiceof staring at a flame, it took
quite a while to where I couldget to a minute of staring at a
flame without losing myconcentration without losing
focus.
I will tell you the meditativepractice is amazingly rewarding.

(19:23):
It has helped me to relaxthrough situations where I would
normally have just goneballistic or crazy that moment
when you're in a rush and you'rewaiting for, or you're trying to
get something to happen here,you're late for your flight.
You're trying to get theconnecting flights or whatever,
and where I would normally justrun and go batty.

(19:43):
I've found that I've takenbreaths in between.
And those breaths, even thoughthey have taken more time than
racing around, trying to getwhat I want done.
They created a space and adifferent space inside of me and
outside of me that always opensup.
And I guarantee this, this ishappy for my life.

(20:04):
They, it always has opened up amiracle space, a place where the
unexpected happened.
And what I have encounteredthrough meditation is a
knowledge that the next momentin our life is completely
unknown.

(20:24):
We may have prepared andplanned, but it's always an
unknown in that space.
Things happen, accidents happen.
A misunderstanding happens.
Miracles happen, magic happens,but creating that space and
creating that a welcoming spaceopens up the possibility for
more miracle space to happen.

(20:47):
And I call that miraclereadiness and meditation has
made me much more miracle ready,and it's, it's an innocence.
It's a return to what we allknew as children and has had
been taught out of us or learnedout of us, or worked out of us.
That innocence, that space of,of joy in the moment and joy in

(21:12):
the unknown and in theunexpected.
When you're a kid, you lay inthe grass and watch the clouds
going over.
And you literally don't have athought in your mind, it's
purely meditation.
And we lose that Dick Van Dyke.
I guess I can guide you through,well, not fully guide you

(21:36):
through, c ause it takes alittle bit of time, but the
meditation practice or therelaxation drill that my
wrestling coach passed on to mein high school and were passed o
nto the whole wrestling team.
I can't say that it was just meand I have passed it o n t o
many of my, my students thatI've taught through circus and

(21:57):
theater.
The relaxation technique is tolie flat comfortably on the
floor, no pillow under y ourhead.
You want to lay as flat as youpossibly can lie flat, as you
possibly can, u h, with spacebetween your arms and your body
space between your legs.
So each all parts of you arejust lying on that floor.

(22:18):
A softer floor was better hardfloors work.
You tend to, your brain willtend to make you uncomfortable
sooner on a harder floor,starting at the feet.
You breathe in and you breatheout.
And when I say starting at thefeet, your breath wants to go in

(22:41):
your mouth and breathe all theway through your body.
As if the enter the air isfilling up.
Every part of you like aballoon, all the way down to
your toes and out through yourfingers and the top of your
head, and you're gonna breathein and you're gonna breathe out
and breathe in and breathe out.
Then you're going to breathe inand hold and breathe out.

(23:05):
And you can do this for fourcounts, breathing in for four,
holding for four, breathing outfor four on the hold.
You're going to tense your toesand your feet.
So you'll breathe in hold,squeeze the muscles in your
feet, your toes, and thenbreathe out and release.

(23:27):
Then you'll breathe in.
And then you hold this time.
Everything below the knees, allthe way down to your feet, toes,
you're going to hold and breatheout and release.
And we're going to add from thehips all the way down to the
toes.
As you breathe in you, holdsqueeze your quads, your calves,
your feet, your toes, your, yourhamstrings and written release

(23:50):
and let it out.
Then you'll breathe in usingeverything from your waist down
your butt, your quads, calvesfeet, all the way down, let it
go.
Then we add in the abs and thelower back.
The next one.
When you hold squeezing the abs,your lower back, your butt, your
quads, all the way down to yourtoes and then release.

(24:13):
Then you work up to your chest,your back, everything from the
shoulders down goes, you haven'tadded the arms in yet and
release.
Then you'll breathe in andyou'll start with your arms.
Everything from your shoulders,all the way down to your hands,
your chest, your back, your butt, your abs, all the way down to
the toes, squeezes and release.

(24:34):
And let it go.
Then add your neck andeverything down and release.
Then you're going to add yourface and release.
Now your whole head from the topof your head to the top of your
feet, your hands, arms,everything, squeezes and holds

(24:58):
and releases.
And you'll do that again.
Whole body squeeze tight andhold and hold and hold and
release.
And again, one more time,squeeze and hold release and let
it go.
Now, just breathe.
And as you breathe, feel the,all the spaces where there was

(25:21):
tension, that's gone.
Let the air fill those spaces.
And as you breathe in, your bodyfeels like a balloon and it
relaxes, and it feels like aballoon and it relaxes.
And you may start to feel yourbody, either sink slowly into
the floor or rise slowly out ofthe floor, let it go, let it go.

(25:42):
Whichever way it's going.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
[inaudible]

William Forchion (25:46):
feel that sensation the lightness, the
release of tension, and anywherethat you feel the tension, you
can breathe into that space andhold again, and then let it go
and release, and then just keepbreathing in and out, no holds
in and out and be aware of whatyour body is telling you.

(26:10):
And let that go from eachbreath.
If there's a thought that comesinto your mind, as you let out
the breath, as you exhale, goahead and let out that thought.
If there's any tension on yourinhale, wrap that breath around
the tension and on your exhale,let it go.

(26:31):
Everything is going to becolored in that breath.
If the tension isn't going,create a color for that tension,
what color is it?
Is it red?
Is it black?
Is it green?
And each breath that you let outshould have color of that
tension going with it.
Each breath should release someof the color until your breath

(26:52):
comes out.
Clear, goes in, clear, comesout, clear, releasing
everything, and you can continuethis until you fall asleep or
you come awake.
And as you do decide to come outof it slowly, let your body come

(27:13):
back into realization of whereit is slowly.
Let your body start to talk toyou and tell you about the
things that are going on in itand let them go.
And as you open your eyes, andthis is a magical part of it, as
you open your eyes, you'llnotice that the colors around
you have changed.

(27:34):
You'll notice that there isthings that you didn't.
There are things that you didnot notice before, even in your
own space, in your comfortablespace.
You'll start to see things verydifferently.
If you're lying on the floor,you may notice underneath some
of your furniture, there mightbe something that you just
hadn't seen, or from looking upat different vantage points.

(27:57):
You might see something at adifferent angle.
And that's part of that newawareness that you will gain
through the meditation that youdo.
Some people become hyper aware.
They start to see things verydifferently as if they had an
infrared vision or as if, uh,their, their site and their

(28:18):
hearing and their taste had alljust been turned up slightly.
If that happens for you, just beaware of it.
It's okay.
It may become your new normal,or you may go back to your old
normal it's all right.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
The real meditation practice is how we live our
lives from moment to moment tomoment.
Jon Kabat Zinn

William Forchion (28:52):
meditation is to dive all the way within,
beyond thought to the source ofthought and pure consciousness.
It enlarges the container everytime you,

Speaker 3 (29:03):
and when you come out, you come out refreshed,
filled with energy andenthusiasm for life.
As I wind down this, talk onmeditation, please add your
comments, add your queries, addyour questions through the

(29:26):
comment section.
And we can continue thisconversation.
I encourage you to find your wayof meditating to begin your
meditative practice.
If you haven't begun it and tostrengthen the practice you
have, if you are alreadymeditating, it's something that
we need.
We without getting political theworld around us may seem crazy.

(29:49):
It may appear to be out ofwhack, and we can follow that
down the path of, out ofwhackness by getting ourselves
out of whack or focusing on thatfact that it's out of whack, or
we can start to get ourselvespositively manifesting.
We can step into a new way ofbeing through meditation.

(30:10):
You want to call it relaxation,call it what you need to call
it, but do it for yourself.
This is as powerful as anymedicine and you create it in
the factory of you.
It's manufactured by you foryou.
It's tapping into the divine,the energy of the universe,

(30:35):
exercise your mindfulness,exercise, your mindlessness,
exercise.
Your I am enough, and you willdiscover rediscover experience a
new way of being a new way ofbeing you.

(31:00):
And that is a miracle that ismagical.
That is wonderful.
And I hope to hear from youabout your experience.
Let it, let me know what's goingon.
If this is working, if thispodcast spoke to you, well, let
me know, and I will continuedoing what I do.

(31:23):
Hoping that it, it improves andenhances.
It educates it entertains you inwhat you do.
And with that, this is theBillosophy podcast.
And I am William Forchion.
Go forward with passion andpurpose.

(31:44):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
[inaudible]

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Billosophy podcast.
Keep checking in as we will beregularly releasing new
episodes.
[inaudible].