Christmas Classic: Loving Kindness!

In this special Christmas replay episode of The Stress Therapist, host Cheri Flake celebrates the holiday season by exploring the power of loving-kindness and connection. Through a calming guided meditation, Cheri invites listeners to reflect on shared humanity, embrace the present moment, and spread love and peace to themselves and others. The episode also highlights the importance of self-care and setting meaningful goals for the new year, all while using soothing music from Sonic Yogi to enhance the experience.

In this episode we will: 

~Loving-Kindness Meditation: Learn how to use meditation to cultivate feelings of love, compassion, and connection for yourself and others.

~ The Power of Presence: Understand the importance of living in the present moment and how it can transform your perspective and reduce stress.

~ Shared Humanity: Explore how reflecting on our commonalities rather than differences fosters greater peace and harmony in relationships and the broader world.

Meditation Music byhttp://sonicyogi.com
http://sonicyogi.com
https://open.spotify.com/track/7lpLx4vtoQusvoqidRY6vN?si=0db8efd9082c40eb
https://open.spotify.com/track/0Qotx90teY3iZ00PgUCwty?si=44a1c18c52e24e1f

Listen to Sonic Yogi on: 
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xJT8mRbrqa7rTY6d4y5Fq?si=q2YYpPSzQOmu4R8-W4jkpw
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sonic-yogi/722350162
https://amazon.com/music/player/artists/B00FQMVVIC/sonic-yogi?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Y5q68A8LSQQGzl01PQC7Uaw6c

https://youtu.be/p2jtMEkdh6g?si=rVq-Q8o85mI75S4_

INTERESTING MENTIONS:
Shantaram Inspiration:
The literary example of seeing everyday objects through the lens of admiration reminds listeners to appreciate the beauty in their surroundings.

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The Host for this podcast: Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW The Stress Therapist and Author

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RANSCRIPT:00:00] The Stress Therapist: Hey, beautiful people, what's up? So it's Christmas time and whether or not you celebrate a holiday this time of year, it's hard to ignore that there is a lot of good, juicy loving kindness and beautiful juju coursing through the ether right now.[00:18] Let's take advantage of that and listen to a classic stress therapy episode, loving kindness during Christmas time. Relax and settle in and listen up because your stress therapy classic edition is about to be begin right now.[00:48] Hey, beautiful people. It's time for some stress therapy. A podcast about how to meditate and get better at stress for people living in the real world. Finally, a place to park my 25 plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental health field.[01:03] And now your host, host me, the stress therapist, Sherry Flake.[01:22] Okay, y'all, I can't believe it. Beautiful people. But here we

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, beautiful people, what's up. So it's Christmas time, and
whether or not you celebrate a holiday this time of year,
it's hard to ignore that there is a lot of good, juicy,
loving kindness and beautiful juju coursing through the ether. Right now,
Let's take advantage of that and listen to a classic

(00:22):
Stress Therapy episode Loving Kindness during Christmas time. Relax and
settle in and listen up because your Stress Therapy Classic
Edition is about to begin right now. Hey, beautiful people,

(00:49):
It's time for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how
to meditate and get better at stress for people living
in the real world. Finally a place to park by
twenty five plus years of experience of working as a
psychotherapist in the mental health field, and now your host me,
this stress therapist, Cherry Flake. Okay, y'all, I can't believe it,

(01:24):
beautiful people, But here we are, and we have been
together one hundred times. Can you believe it's so exciting?
One hundred episode? Here we are, and I think it's
a really cool time. Whether you're Christian or not, whether
you're celebrating some sort of religious holiday this month or
holiday season or not, it's always a beautiful, wonderful time

(01:45):
because a lot of people are and there's a lot
of love in the air. To examine the idea of
one love, that we are all one love, that with
respective value, we are all exactly the same. We come
from the human race, we come from this beautiful, beautiful earth.
And when we think about our sameness rather than our differences,

(02:07):
things look better, We feel better. If I was able
to open up your body and take out your beautiful soul,
it would fill up the entire universe and more, it
would fill up galaxies and galaxies and light years and
light years. That's how valuable and beautiful and lovely that
you are. And you share that with all these other people.

(02:28):
And there is an opportunity here to feel connected rather
than feel separate, to feel love rather than feel hate,
to feel peace rather than feeling discord. And it's an
awesome opportunity to be in the very moment that you're
in because it is so beautiful and every single moment

(02:49):
is a gift. And I know how cheesy I sound
right now, and I don't even care because it's so
good and it's so loving, and it's filled to the
top with juicy lemon lemon la blah, and if you
want some of that that, you're gonna have to spend
some time in the sweet, sweet stillness. Paramahuntsu yogan Nanda said,
live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find

(03:12):
eternity in each moment. The future will take care of itself.
You don't have to worry about it, you don't have
to change it. You just sit in your loving, beautiful
present moment, this beautiful stillness, and you can find your
future in being in the present, because nothing's gonna happen

(03:34):
in the future. It's all gonna happen right now, and
nothing ever happened in the past. It happened all right now,
and you don't want to miss it. And sometimes during
this time of fear, people say, oh, I can't believe
it's Christy. You know, you know this is one of
my pet peas. I can't believe it's Christmas. I can't
believe it's the holidays again. I can't believe it's the
new year again. I can't believe twenty twenty three is over. Whatever.
Maybe you can't believe it, but the reason why you

(03:55):
can't believe it is because you're not spending any time
in it you're thinking about or this holiday party, or
this gift you need to get, or that person you
need to acknowledge, or this thing you need to do,
or that cocktail dress you need to buy or whatever,
rather than being in the very moment you're in. And
there is a juicy loveliness in doing that. And one

(04:15):
of the ways that I like to think about how
we can remember how we're all exactly the same, even
though we don't think we are okay, we all think
we're extra special or extra horrible in some way right
because we're attached to these ego identities. But one of
the ways is this cool hypothetical question. And the question
is this. Imagine that you don't know anything about yourself.

(04:37):
You don't know your age, You don't know if you're
young or old. You don't know if you live in
the north or south. You don't know if you live
urban or rural area. You have no idea. You don't
know how you look. You don't know if you're black
or white, or brown, or man or woman or child
or baby. You have no idea. If you had to
choose though, who or what, but you might support based

(05:02):
only on what you think is right. Who or what
do you think you would choose? And why changes things
a little right. You don't know if you're rich or poor.
You don't know if you grew up neglected or loved unconditionally.
You know nothing, And so who would you vote for?

(05:22):
What would you care about? It's kind of a cool question,
and I think it's a reminder that we are one
love and spreading that can be a lot simpler than
you think. Feeling that it can be a lot simpler
than you think. And I'm going to bring you through
a meditation right now, or we're going to fill ourselves

(05:44):
up to the top with love, regardless of where you
are in the country, or who you are, or how
you were raised, or what you think or believe or
think is important. How you can fill yourself to the
top with human kindness and love and spread it and
bring it to everyone else. During this beautiful time of

(06:06):
year when we often reflect about where we're from, who
we are, who we love, what we're doing, and we
also get ready to make goals and create things, and
so for a couple of weeks during this holiday season,
towards the end of the year and the very beginning
of the year, of the twenty twenty four, our shiny
new year. I'm going to be introducing you to other

(06:27):
podcasters from the Ethereal network of shows that I think
you're gonna love, and then I'll be back to help
you work on these goals and creating goals that cater
to you. Who you are, what you want, not what
your neighbor's doing, not what this chick on Instagram's doing,
not what this other person is doing. I mean, people

(06:48):
are talking and talking and talking, and oh my goodness,
who cares? What lights you up? What brings you joy?
And I'll tell you this, other people knowing about it
are understanding it is not where the joy comes from.
It's the innate act of doing and being who you
were meant to be in utilizing the gifts that you

(07:10):
were given from this universe or God or Boodh or
Jesus or Paramuans or Yoga Nander or Batsy or Susie
or whatever you call it. We're going to focus on
that coming in mid January. Until then, I'm sending you
so much love and light. Get yourself situated, get yourself
whatever you need to feel love. Take a couple of

(07:32):
deep breasts during this quick little break we're going to
take and when we come back, we're going to do
a meta loving kindness meditation. Oh wait wait wait wait
wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Before we go
to break, before we meditate together, you need to know
that we have some.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Amazing music for your meditation today, and I'm going to
be using it like crazy because I reconnected with an
old friend who happens to be the Sonic Yogi.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
He is a super badass guitar player, an amazing musician.
Twenty years ago, we had the same manager in the
music business, and then I went to go see a
concert with the Sonic Yogi. Did not know that my
old friend Jonathan Adler was the Sonic Yogi, and enjoyed
the most amazing experience. I am hoping that you too

(08:24):
have an amazing experience with this meditation music. It is
actually using science to talk to your brain, to get
you to come, to get you to settle. This is
not someone who took like a weekend workshop on how
to be a sound healer. This guy knows exactly what
he's doing, and I think you will find that that
is the truth. When you have this experience with him.

(08:45):
You can find all of his music at sonic yogi
dot com go to the show notes if you want
to become one of his millions of listeners. I mean,
this guy is so awesome and he has given us
some music today to enjoy during your meditation. So again,
we're going to take a quick break and then we'll
be back to listen to amazing music while we meditate.
Love you be right back.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Take a long, luxurious breath in. Let it all go
out of your mouth in a comfortable seated position. Allow
yourself to settle in. Let your head settle with your

(09:46):
chin level to the ground, your spine straight, Allow your
limbs to find a comfortable place to settle. You might
find that allowing the backs of your hands to rest

(10:08):
on your knees or thighs is a comfortable spot. You
might want to turn your hands around and allow the
palms of your hands to be on your knees and thighs.
You might even put your fingers in gianmodra making the
okay sign where your first finger and your thumb are touching. Resting,

(10:33):
resting comfortably, and just allow your shoulders and spine to
settle in and take another long, slow, deep breath in
your nose, Let it all. Go out of your mouth,

(10:55):
and bring your attention to your third eye, to the
space between your eyebrows, this place of wisdom and knowing,
and as if you could breathe into this area, allow
your breath to move in.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Your third eye, out.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Of your third eye, calling on the wisdom of the
Holy Spirit, Christ, consciousness, the Universe's wisdom, the source, whatever
energetic field you want to call on that has the

(11:42):
wisdom and knowing beyond our wildest dreams, whatever you call it. Breathing,
breathe out this wisdom, this knowledge. Take your time a

(12:04):
few moments here to call on guidance from the field.

(12:31):
And now bring your.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Attention to your beautiful heart center, imagining that your breath
is green and bright. Breathing in your breath into your
heart center, now from breastplate to spine, from shoulder to shoulder,
breathing in this lovely, green, beautiful breath that the earth

(12:53):
just gives and gives and gifts. There's always breath for you.
It's always there, exactly how much you need. Lighting up
your heart center. And this bright neon green breath as
it comes and goes, and in your mind's eye, I

(13:18):
want you to think of a person that is so
easy to love. It might not even be a person,
perhaps it's a pet, just some sentient being that is
so easy to love. When you bring this picture into
your mind's eye of this lovely being, breathe in that green,

(13:43):
beautiful breath, and as you breathe out, send loving kind
of send metamitre.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
To this sentient being. May you be happy, May you
be healthy. May you live your life with ease at peace.
May you be happy, May you be healthy. May you

(14:21):
live your life with ease at peace. May you be happy,
May you be healthy. May you live your life with
ease at peace. And as this image moves away from

(14:47):
your mind's eye, take a few breaths, green beautiful breaths,
and bring to mind.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Someone that you know but not.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Really Perhaps you see them at a store.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
That you frequent, maybe you know them from a place
that you visit, or maybe.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
You see them at a club or a place where
you belong a gym, a library, a church, just a
place that you go to a grocery store, and you
might not even know their name, but you see them.
And whoever comes to mind first is probably just the
right person.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Fill your awareness with this sentient being, and again fill
yourself up with that green, beautiful wrath of love and light,
sending it out to this person.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
May you be happy, May you be healthy. May you
live your life with ease at peace. May you be happy,
May you be healthy. May you live your life with

(16:33):
ease at peace. May you be happy. May you be healthy.
May you live your life with ease at peace. And

(16:56):
now allow this person's essence to leave your awareness and
bring to mind a person that you have a small
grievance with someone you're just a little irk to buy

(17:17):
nothing major, and again, with that deep, green, beautiful, loving,
heart centered breath, begin, May you be happy, May you
be healthy. May you live your life with ease at peace.

(17:42):
May you be happy, May you be healthy. May you
live your life with ease at peace. May you be happy,
May you be healthy. May you live your life with

(18:04):
ease at peace. Allowing the situation and person to leave
your awareness once again, and just bring to mind your neighborhood,
all the people who live around you. May we be happy,

(18:30):
May we be healthy. May we live our lives with
ease at peace. May we be happy, May we be healthy.
May we live our lives with ease at peace. May

(18:53):
we be happy, May we be healthy? May we live
our lives with ease at peace? And now, zooming out.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
From your neighborhood, see if you can imagine your entire state,
whatever state you live in or territory. May we be happy,
May we be healthy. May we live our lives with

(19:29):
ease at peace. May we be happy? May we be healthy.
May we live our lives.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
With ease at peace. May we be happy, May we
be healthy? May we live our lives with ease at peace.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Insuing out now, you might want to imagine your entire country,
maybe even your continent, getting that beautiful visual from the sky,
looking down on this beautiful part of the earth. May
we all be happy, May we be healthy. May we

(20:26):
live our lives with ease at peace. May we be happy,
May we be healthy. May we live our lives with
ease at peace. May we be happy, May we be healthy.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
May we live our lives with ease at peace.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Taking another beautiful green breath in lighting up your heart,
imagine that beautiful round earth marble suspended in the black,
starry sky, and wish the entire Mother Earth and every
sentient being on it. May we be happy, May we

(21:33):
be healthy, May we live our lives with these at peace.
May we be happy. May we all be healthy.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
May we live our lives with these at peace.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
May we be happy, may be healthy.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
May we live our lives with these at peace. And now,
take a few more loving, heart centered breaths, Ready your
beautiful body for the most important, loving kindness, for the

(22:25):
most important wish upon ourselves, turning that beautiful love inward.
May I be happy, May I be healthy. May I
live my life with these at peace. May I be happy,

(22:54):
May I be healthy. May I live my life with
these at peace. May I be happy? May I be healthy.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
May I live my.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Life with these at peace. Take a few moments to
luxuriate in this beautiful, loving kindness that you have created,
this calm, this peace that you have wished upon all

(23:36):
sentient beings, including your beautiful self, remembering where you are,
remembering who you are, and what a gift you are.

(23:57):
When you're ready and open your beautiful eyes, I so hope.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
That you were able, just for those few moments together,
to feel love, to experience love, to feel like you're
sending love, to feel like your vibration is higher, that
your energetic level is higher, and that you're able to
just feel a little bit of all this beautiful love
that is coursing through the ether. This is a time

(24:35):
of year where there is a lot of religious rituals,
holiday rituals. It's a tough time for people who have
lost someone. There's a lot of grief lost. There's difficulty
in getting along with other people and having to be
in familial situations that we are the rest of the
year able to avoid for the most part. It can

(24:56):
be really, really hard, but let's not forget what can
be easy. And if you give the littlest amount of
effort to feeling and experiencing love and someone squeezes you
or gets you upset, what's going to come out. Just love.
That's what's going to come out. And so I'm going
to be leaving you with, like I said, with a
couple of Ethereal network of shows over the next couple

(25:18):
of weeks, and I will come back in January to
talk about creating goals that light you up, that come
from you and what you want and your gifts from
this universe, rather than what other people tell us we
should be doing, or what social media is pushing us

(25:40):
or pushing on us to make us think we need
to do where you can get very clear on what
really matters to you, because every second on this earth
is a gift. You just don't know how long you're
going to be here, So what are you going to
do with your valuable, beautiful, amazing time? And part of that,
I hope is going to be spent in stillness and silence.

(26:02):
So you're on your own during this time, make sure
that you take your time, remember, take it, actually take it,
and sit quietly every opportunity you get. It's so good
for your brain, it's so good for your heart, and
it's so good for everyone who's around you. I wish
you'd love and peace and happiness and all things wonderful
and loving during this amazing time of year. And I'll

(26:24):
see you in twenty twenty four. Have a lovely, lovely
holiday season. Whoops, whoops, whoops. I forgot to tell you
about my gifts that I was given on this universe
a long time ago, before I had kids, before I
was a podcaster. You know, while I was starting my
own little private practice, I was running around with an

(26:46):
Atlanta pop band. It's pretty bubble Gum, It's pretty poppy,
and our name was thirteen Stories and it was amazing.
We had just enough success to make it really, really fun,
and we traveled around and we wrote all these really
great songs. We might have written, like I don't know,
hundreds of songs, and maybe you know a ton of
them were good, and I think one or two of

(27:08):
them were absolutely great, and one of them I think
is spectacular. And it was my Christmas song. It's called
Christmas makes Me Hot. And I'm gonna leave this with
you over the holiday season and just you know, still
you can enjoy some lovely pop music. I mean, I
love Mariah Carey too, I mean I think she's totally
amazing and wonderful. But come on, we do have some

(27:30):
space for a new pop Christmas anthem. And just so
you know, if you love this song as much as
I do, I invite you to listen to it on
Spotify or Pandora, Amazon Music or wherever you go. iHeartRadio
for your music enjoyment. So here is my gift to you.
It's Christmas makes Me Hot by thirteen Stories. Here you

(27:52):
go enjoy love Dana Christmas chap Room.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
We met online. He told me that he had appeared
and was a small guy.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Did I mine.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
I told him I'm pretty showing myself.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
He mentioned he or Dad the mall. It was a christmasself.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
I never thought it happened.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
We fell in loved so madly.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
I've been umatites and strip that some my boyfriend called
out sadly. I read and we say in lie body
sent to say, dude, get a chance to say, I
want that. I saw Christmas say oh my God, see
thatll oh my God. I kiss my else.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
Swells on myself every Christmas.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Now Christmas makes me hot with the cutest Christmas couple.
You love the su He loves to trim my train.
Everything we do is running green. He likes a cilcle
and when I skaping he makes.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Me toys by hands under my sexy elf is great.
I've been some naughty with him, but I love the purse.
It's costy socking suckers not making the list allwards sol
and other log I'm my helf song out and it
be wrong, but he gets off early up break tag TK.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Oh my God, see that else, O my God, kiss
my else. So on myself every Christmas.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
Now Christmas makes me hum. He's gotta go back up

(30:11):
north after the first I'm gonna miss yours pointy shoes,
and I boys, it's a Christmas curse. I kiss his
little shoulders, They're sweet, tiny sons.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
He scriders. I'll miss my Christmas tree or Santa.

Speaker 6 (30:26):
Don't make him go back to the pole.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
I'll be here till next year, sending candy.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Leadders, playing cours, no wild high.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
And it's super am.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
I have a green so mad.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I know I'm gonna be back next year to love me.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
So oh my, gotta see that else. So I got kiss,
lying out.

Speaker 6 (30:50):
Something on myself every Christmas, now Christmas Christmas, so my
gota see.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
My God, it's my.

Speaker 6 (31:07):
Thanks Christmas Christmas.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
How y'all feeling after that stress therapy session? Good? Awesome?
Check out the show notes to connect with me the
Stress Therapist on social media at the stress Therapist on
Instagram and at stress Therapy on Twitter. You can always
go to I Lovethapy dot com to find out about
meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there.

(31:45):
If you live in Georgia and you're ready to be
one of my clients, go to my website to find
out how you can sign up for a free face
to face consultation with me at the very least jump
by my mailer, so you don't stress or miss one
thing until next time. Have a lovely, lovely day,