September 2, 2025 • 28 mins
✨ Episode Summary: Welcome to Season 2! In this warm and witty kickoff, your favorite stress therapist brings us back to what matters: stillness, consciousness, and the radical magic of not saying “I’m tired.” Through heartfelt stories (including a rainy river trip that turned into a core memory), this episode reminds us why meditation matters and how we can reclaim our peace—one breath at a time. It all leads to a gentle guided breath meditation to help you get grounded, get quiet, and just be. Whether you're new or returning, this episode is your loving nudge to start again—with humor, honesty, and heart. 🧘♀️ 3 Key Learning Points:
- Tired is a choice—stop saying it! You create your reality with your words. Saying “I’m tired” only fuels the fatigue.
- Complaining makes things worse. Every. Single. Time. Even in miserable moments, keeping humor and presence can transform the experience.
- Meditation is not about nothing. It’s training your mind to focus on one thing—your breath, a mantra, or stillness—and taking custody of your consciousness.
- 🛶 Rainy canoe trip with Andre – a core memory filled with laughter and no complaints.
- 📿 "You create your reality" – inspired by Parmahansa Yogananda.
- 🧠 Quote nod to Michael A. Singer – on the mind being separate from the self.
- 📵 The Brick – a real gadget the host uses to remove distractions from her phone.
- 💬 Classic quote reimagined: "All of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone for 15 minutes."
- 🧘♂️ Guided Meditation Included – a back-to-basics breath-focused meditation with gentle grounding.
- 📩 Special Love for Owen Flake – for producing the show with care and clarity!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Okay, So today we're gonna
do a little bit of a refreshmer. We're gonna remind
ourselves why we're here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're going to remember that meditation is amazing and that
stress I don't know if we manage, but we definitely
get better at it, and that we're going to work
together to do this, and then we're gonna do it
with a sense of humor and not take things so
seriously and try it to be so offended and try
to just like make our life the best it can
be with all of the stuff that goes down.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yes, that's what we're gonna do today. Hey, beautiful people,
It's time for some stress therapy, a podcast about how
(00:48):
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 you're me
this stress therapist, Cherry Flake. Hey, beautiful people, So, how
(01:23):
are you, like, really like, how are you? How are you?
How are you? How are you? I so hope you're
doing okay. I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay. There's a
lot going on. Right, there's always so much going on.
You're not one of these people who answer is busy
when someone asks you how they're doing, though, right, No,
no busy, no tired, No busy, no tired. Yes I
(01:48):
said tired. Can you believe that I got an idea
for you for the rest of your life starting today,
just try this and then tell me I'm crazy. Tell
me great. You can't tell me I'm crazy unless you
try it for the rest of your life, starting right now.
When someone asks you how you're doing, okay, busy is boring.
Everybody's busy. I can get busy right away and pick
up my phone and here I am busy. Nobody wants
to hear how you're busy, So that that I'm done.
(02:12):
I'm done explaining that. Don't say you're busy. It's very boring.
We want to know how you're doing. How are you?
How are you doing? Okay? For the rest of your life,
when someone asks you how you're doing, how about never
say you're tired? How about never say the words I
am tired? Ever again? Ever? I mean, we've talked about
(02:34):
how you create your reality, and you know. Paramahanze Yogananda
says that he tells everyone to stop saying that they're tired.
First of all, you're creating more tired nests. And I mean,
come on, unless you're talking to your therapist or you're
maybe your doctor, and nobody really cares if you're tired.
It's so boring. I mean, every single night you have
(02:54):
another chance to get untired. Go to bed, Go to sleep.
Why are you so tired? Go to sleep. The reason
why you're tired is because you keep talking about being
like you're tired. That's why you're tired, because he keeps
saying that you're tired. When my kids were really little,
I went on this canoe trip with Andy Pray. And
Andy pre is my bestie who lives in North Carolina,
and we have nothing in common. That's why works. It's
kind of like me and my husband. But anyway, she
doesn't even have anything in common with my husband either.
(03:16):
They're like all of us are opposites. But anyway, she is.
She used to be a river guide, right and she would,
you know, show people how to go rafting and kayaking
and all these things. And I am not good at
these things. The only reason I do these things is
because and Pre makes me do them, and we were
gonna go on a canoe trip. And I was with
(03:36):
my kids and they were small, okay, so it was
right at COVID. So let's see, they're like eight and ten,
maybe nine and eleven, okay, so they're not adults by
any means, Okay, not remotely and not really not at
the most unannoying age, but not super annoying. Saying if
you hang around kids at all, you know what I'm saying. Right,
(03:58):
And we get in these canoes. We we drive up
and it's pouring. I mean it's not raining. It is pouring, okay,
and we all have rain gear on, but it's still
pouring and it's like fifty five degrees. It's cold. Okay,
it's cold rain pouring down on the front Broad River.
And she's like, do you want to go? And I'm like, sure,
let's let's just go anyway, right, So we go, and
(04:22):
it was first of all, there was a spider in
my boat, and oh my goodness, I'm not good. I'm
not good about spiders. It was so big and it
was so scary. But that aside. The big memory about
this trip, the reason why I have such fond memories
about it, is because it was supposed to be so miserable.
But we had a great time and now we have
this beautiful memory for the rest of our lives. I mean,
(04:44):
we even went under a bridge to like to switch
into dry clothes. We had a couple of SIPs of
hot cocoa. But beyond that, it was a lot of
suffering and we would just trying to laugh through it
and have a sense of humor about it. And I
will tell you when we finally, you know, came out
out of the water, and it was relentless. It never stopped.
It was like two hours of getting rained on in
(05:06):
the freezing gold. And when we got out of our
boats and a pretty said, your kids never complained once,
like she was astounded that my kids not complained. And
my kids are amazing. He has nothing to do with me.
They're just amazing and wonderful and awesome. I got great kids.
But I suspect that the reason they didn't complain is
(05:30):
because it was a pretty miserable experience. And I have
tried to teach them from the time that they were
born the time that they could understand this, that when
you complain, you make things worse, You make things worse,
Like you make things worse every single time you complain.
Complaining makes things worse one hundred percent of the time.
And so that's why we don't want to make tired
(05:53):
and all of that. However, we're if we're using our
ability to create our reality. You know, it's time now
that we spend some time being quiet, being still focusing, concentrating,
and having the custody of our own consciousness that we
(06:16):
decide what we're going to spend our time on. That
our phones don't decide that we decide, because we already
have to, you know, listen to our boss. We already
have to listen to our spouses, our friends, our kids.
You know, we are constantly negotiating with everyone around us.
But when do you truly have custody of your own consciousness? Well,
(06:38):
all the time, it's yours. It's the only thing that
never changes. It doesn't get older, it doesn't get any younger.
Believe me. I walk by the mirror, I'm like, who
is that lady? Who hits that lady? I mean, I
still expect to see myself with like eighties hair, and like,
I don't know stonewashed jeans, which I guess I'm supposed
to rebuy those, but I just can't bring myself to
(06:58):
do it with the fringe and all the hair and
the earrings and oh my gosh, there was so much
of it. But anyway, that's not who I see when
I walk in the mirror. But my consciousness stays the same,
so it still thinks. I'm like, I don't know, eighteen
thirty three, twenty one whatever, whatever age you get stuck on, right,
and we are allowing the world to decide what we're
(07:21):
thinking about, what to think, what to like, what to
not like. And these phones are making me crazy, man,
they're making me crazy. I finally got one of these bricks.
They're not even paying me for this, this brick where
I can, you know, go up to it and take
all my distractors off my phone and then I can
put them back on if I want to make a
post about a retreat or about whatever. But like, it's
(07:42):
I mean, it's constant. I can't manage that. I cannot
manage it, so I certainly don't expect my kids to
be able to manage it. I don't expect you to
be able to manage it. You know, we're being manipulated
and we're like signing up for everyone's agenda except for
our own. I mean, I'm getting like really upset upset
about it. So what do we do? We meditate. We
(08:03):
take time to be still, to become, to be quiet,
to be focused, to concentrate, so that beautiful stillness that
already resides in us has the ability to rise up,
to bubble up and present itself. It's already there. You
don't have to go look for it. You don't have
to find it. It is already there, but it is
(08:28):
covered underneath the layers and layers and layers of thousands
and thousands of thoughts, emotions, habits, you know, whatever. It's all.
It's all. It's buried under there, and so for us
to allow that to come up, and when it does,
it comes with joy, It comes with bliss, It comes
with peace and quiet. It comes with oh my gosh,
(08:50):
please give me a break already from the constant dire
tribe of my Facebook feed that's on Facebook, and my
reels on Instagram, in YouTube and whatever. But also it's
going on in my head, this constant running of judgments
and thoughts and ideas and uck. It's exhausting. It is exhausting,
(09:16):
and so how can we take custody of our consciousness?
We sit every day, we sit and we meditate. What
is meditation. Meditation is a focus on one thing, where
you teach yourself how to laser focus and concentrate on
one thing. You know, we tell our kids concentrate focus?
(09:38):
Do we ever teach them how? No, we only teach
them how to be distracted. And if you're practicing being
distracted all day, you're gonna get better at it. Okay,
That's not what we need to get better at, man.
We gotta get better at being quiet, being still, being calm, right,
maybe having pause between thoughts, maybe have God forbid original thoughts, okay,
(10:03):
and not just someone's agenda or something that they want
me to buy or do or you know, get on
their high horse of bower whatever. I mean, what is
still truly yours. All of man's problems stem from the
fact that he cannot sit in a room quietly by
(10:25):
himself for fifteen minutes doing absolutely nothing or something like
that was the quote. You can do that, And I'm
telling you that life is so much grander when you
take this little teensy bit of time for yourself, for
your body, for your brain, for your wellbeing, for your
(10:47):
peace of mind, for just any kind of calmness. If
you're waking up in the middle of the night anxious,
it helps with that, It helps with sleep, it helps
with blood pross myriad of things. It helps you with.
But you have to do it. You're the only one
who can do it for you. You're the only one
(11:07):
who lives there. And if you want to understand the
human condition, if you want to understand yourself in your mind,
you need to sit with yourself and face yourself. I
was with a client yesterday and I was like, listen,
I think it's time that you go on a silent
retreat where you spend just a couple of days. It
doesn't have to be long. Okay, I've been on a
(11:30):
lot of silent retreats. I'm going to talk about retreats
in the next episode, I promise. But on a silent retreat,
there's no reading, there's no writing, there's no taking pictures,
there's no talking, there's no looking at people in the eyes,
and you know, miming or any of that. It's just quite.
You just hear yourself, and it's important that we listen
(11:54):
to that voice. Even though it's small, even though sometimes
it's mean, even though it's never on the money, and
even though it's a tape that's playing in your head
over and over since you were little, even though it
might not even be true, even though all those things,
it's important that you hear those things so you can
see where your emotions are coming from and where you're
coming from, and what you're having to listen to. And
(12:14):
then you can begin to label those thoughts, you know,
planning thought or mean thought or judgment thought or whatever
it is, and begin to be friends with yourself. So
when you are on a silent retreat the next time
or the time or to that or whatever, it's really
good to be with you, and you learn how to
be with you, You learn how to love you. It's
(12:35):
hard to love you when you hear yourself say terrible
things to yourself, or when you hear all the judgment
or the comparison or whatever. It's constant. And maybe those
are just my things, but like it seems like usually
the thoughts that we're having are banal or mean, or
(13:01):
worry some or anxious or depressed or sad or or
filled with regret or about the past, or anxiety about
the future. I mean, it's just it's constant. And when
you can actually hear yourself, not just in the back
and trying to push it away, and you know, get
back to work and listen to the song on the
radio and cover it all up with every day activities
(13:23):
and day to day things. Not doing that, but really
allowing yourself to be heard, maybe you will finally shut
it a little bit. Right. Michael Singer says something like
I could prove to you that you're not one year
two right, because if I gave you a red pill,
(13:44):
I can't remember how it goes on the matrix. But like,
so I give you a red pill and I say, listen,
I can get rid of all those running thoughts out
of your head. Fifteen minutes. You don't have any you know,
Do you want to take that pill or I mean
I think we could all agree that. Yeah, that sounds
pretty good, it sounds pretty peaceful. I'll take you fifteen minutes,
apiece me. I want that. I'll be piece, you'd be quiet, right, yes,
(14:05):
all right. But the other pill is I'll give it
to the person who's listening to that, and you can
get rid of that thing for fifteen minutes. See, that's
no good seat, because that's you. That's you, baby, that's you.
You're the listener. You're the one sitting there listening to
sixty thousand thoughts a day or eighty thousand thoughts a day,
(14:26):
and the forty five thousand that were the same yesterday,
in the day before that and the day before that.
It's exhausting. It's exhausting, okay, And so it's time now
just to couple minutes a day to take control of that,
to be in control of your destiny, just for fifteen
minutes where you decide what you're going to be paying
(14:48):
attention to, and it's just your breath, or it's just
this mantra, or it's just this sound or whatever anger
that you choose. That's the name of the game. That's
what meditation is. That's why we do it. We do
it to make ourselves well. We do it to make
ourselves better, to make ourselves happier, to make ourselves a
little more pleasant to be around, so we can face ourselves,
(15:11):
love ourselves. And when we love ourselves, all we have
is love to give. And so when we are squeezed,
only love comes out. That's all that's in there to give, right,
and so maybe little by little by little, like putting
a penny in a peggy bank, a little bit here,
a little bit here, and after a while you got
a lot of money. Baby, You're rich, You're full. You're
(15:35):
rich and full. And it's not with h I can't
tell it not anymore. It's not that. Okay. So let's
meditate together now and remind ourselves that we just practice,
and maybe this time you just sit there and think
about laundry the whole time. I've definitely done that, okay.
(15:57):
Or you think about that you messed up yesterday and
you made a big mistake, or that tomorrow you gotta
do something really hard and you're scared or worried. Okay,
for now, just for these few minutes, you're gonna set
them aside. Okay. I like to think of it like
(16:18):
a flower. You're going to be right in the middle
of the flower, okay. And each pedal is a thing
that's on your mind, and when it comes up, when
you're trying to take focus on that one thing, because remember,
meditation is not focusing on nothing, no thing, it's one thing.
And while we focus on that one thing, when other
(16:41):
things come up, you just set them on a pedal.
I forgot to pay my rent. Set it on a pedal.
I have to call that guy. Set it aside on
a pedal. It'll all be there, all be there, in
this beautiful flower that you create. In the end, it'll
all be there for you to deal within a few minutes.
(17:05):
Right now, you just sit quietly in a room doing
nothing with me, okay. And then if you do this
over and over each day, and you just allow your
beautiful self this quiet time each day, you tell me
(17:27):
what magical benefit comes to you. Because it's anyone's guest,
no one can predict it. It's always something wild and
crazy and amazing and wonderful and oh my goodness. Okay,
only you, only you can do this. You're the only
one who can do it. So do it for you,
(17:47):
even if it's filled to the top with anxiety, even
if it's filled to the top with boredom, even if
you fall asleep five times, whatever it is, Okay, just
allow this to be your time to take care of yourself.
I mean, do you go to the gym, do you
eat broccoli? We gotta work on the inside too, Okay,
(18:08):
So let's meditate together right now. We're gonna go back
to the basics. Baby, We're going back to the basics.
We're just gonna do breath meditation. Okay, let's meditate together
right now. Okay, so close your beautiful eyes and get
(18:31):
yourself in a sitting position that's very, very comfortable. Maybe
you want to roll your shoulders. Oh, I love doing that.
Maybe you roll them forward, Maybe you want to roll
your neck. That is the stuff, go around the other
way and then just bring your chin level to the ground.
(18:56):
And for this meditation, let's have your hands wherever they lie,
palms down on your knees or thighs or near you.
And because we're going to remain still for a few minutes,
not forever, just for a few minutes. Make sure you're comfortable,
love your body, love your feet, allow your spine to
(19:22):
be straight, you know, and not leaning forward or back.
And then you're sending a message to your brain that
you are alert and awake. So we remain still with
our eyes closed. That's drop number one. And then we're
going to laser focus on our breath. Goodle fashion beautiful
(19:46):
breath meditation. So maybe you focus on your heart's center
or your belly or maybe in your throat or your nose,
just wherever breath passes through. Bring your awareness to one
location so you can watch it come and go, being
a witness to it, not changing it, not judging it,
(20:09):
just noticing that it's there. The breath happens whether you're
thinking about it or not, all day, every day. That's
your second job. And the third job is when you
space out and you start thinking about something else, come
(20:33):
back to the breath. Come back to the breath. Keep
coming back to the breath time and time again. That
is the practice. Remain still with your eyes closed, focus
on your breath, watch it, witness it. And when you
(20:55):
space out, come right back to the breath time and
time again, and I'll be back to guide you.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Out up.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
The who over.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Allow your awareness of the breath to fall away, and
(26:07):
with a deep breath in your nose, with your eyes
still close, remind yourself where you are, what time of
day it is, let it all go out of your
mouth and again a deep, cleansing breath in your nose,
(26:28):
coming back into the room, back into this space, and
then breath out of your mouth, one last deep breath
in your nose, awakening clearing, then let it all go
out of your mouth. When you're ready, you can open
(26:50):
your beautiful eyes. Okay, So I just wanted to give
you guys some reminders this time, just a bunch of reminders,
just a couple of things to remind yourself of. You
are the master and commander of your consciousness. Be careful
what you say. Don't be telling anyone you're tired if
(27:11):
it makes it worse. I mean, try getting it out
of your entire repertoire. I try not saying it anymore
and see what happens. I'm just saying what if it works? Right?
And I am a firm believer that complaining makes things
(27:34):
worse one hundred percent of the time. So let's take
the time that we normally would complain about being tired
or whatever and just spend a little quiet time. It's
so much better for you. It's so much better for you,
and it's way way easier in the end, you will find. Okay,
I love you, have a lovely, lovely day. How y'all
(27:59):
feeling after that's 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 loovethapy dot com to find out about meditation and
yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If
you live in Georgia and you're ready to be one
(28:20):
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,
Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Okay, So today we're gonna
do a little bit of a refreshmer. We're gonna remind
ourselves why we're here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're going to remember that meditation is amazing and that
stress I don't know if we manage, but we definitely
get better at it, and that we're going to work
together to do this, and then we're gonna do it
with a sense of humor and not take things so
seriously and try it to be so offended and try
to just like make our life the best it can
be with all of the stuff that goes down.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yes, that's what we're gonna do today. Hey, beautiful people,
It's time for some stress therapy, a podcast about how
(00:48):
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 you're me
this stress therapist, Cherry Flake. Hey, beautiful people, So, how
(01:23):
are you, like, really like, how are you? How are you?
How are you? How are you? I so hope you're
doing okay. I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay. There's a
lot going on. Right, there's always so much going on.
You're not one of these people who answer is busy
when someone asks you how they're doing, though, right, No,
no busy, no tired, No busy, no tired. Yes I
(01:48):
said tired. Can you believe that I got an idea
for you for the rest of your life starting today,
just try this and then tell me I'm crazy. Tell
me great. You can't tell me I'm crazy unless you
try it for the rest of your life, starting right now.
When someone asks you how you're doing, okay, busy is boring.
Everybody's busy. I can get busy right away and pick
up my phone and here I am busy. Nobody wants
to hear how you're busy, So that that I'm done.
(02:12):
I'm done explaining that. Don't say you're busy. It's very boring.
We want to know how you're doing. How are you?
How are you doing? Okay? For the rest of your life,
when someone asks you how you're doing, how about never
say you're tired? How about never say the words I
am tired? Ever again? Ever? I mean, we've talked about
(02:34):
how you create your reality, and you know. Paramahanze Yogananda
says that he tells everyone to stop saying that they're tired.
First of all, you're creating more tired nests. And I mean,
come on, unless you're talking to your therapist or you're
maybe your doctor, and nobody really cares if you're tired.
It's so boring. I mean, every single night you have
(02:54):
another chance to get untired. Go to bed, Go to sleep.
Why are you so tired? Go to sleep. The reason
why you're tired is because you keep talking about being
like you're tired. That's why you're tired, because he keeps
saying that you're tired. When my kids were really little,
I went on this canoe trip with Andy Pray. And
Andy pre is my bestie who lives in North Carolina,
and we have nothing in common. That's why works. It's
kind of like me and my husband. But anyway, she
doesn't even have anything in common with my husband either.
(03:16):
They're like all of us are opposites. But anyway, she is.
She used to be a river guide, right and she would,
you know, show people how to go rafting and kayaking
and all these things. And I am not good at
these things. The only reason I do these things is
because and Pre makes me do them, and we were
gonna go on a canoe trip. And I was with
(03:36):
my kids and they were small, okay, so it was
right at COVID. So let's see, they're like eight and ten,
maybe nine and eleven, okay, so they're not adults by
any means, Okay, not remotely and not really not at
the most unannoying age, but not super annoying. Saying if
you hang around kids at all, you know what I'm saying. Right,
(03:58):
And we get in these canoes. We we drive up
and it's pouring. I mean it's not raining. It is pouring, okay,
and we all have rain gear on, but it's still
pouring and it's like fifty five degrees. It's cold. Okay,
it's cold rain pouring down on the front Broad River.
And she's like, do you want to go? And I'm like, sure,
let's let's just go anyway, right, So we go, and
(04:22):
it was first of all, there was a spider in
my boat, and oh my goodness, I'm not good. I'm
not good about spiders. It was so big and it
was so scary. But that aside. The big memory about
this trip, the reason why I have such fond memories
about it, is because it was supposed to be so miserable.
But we had a great time and now we have
this beautiful memory for the rest of our lives. I mean,
(04:44):
we even went under a bridge to like to switch
into dry clothes. We had a couple of SIPs of
hot cocoa. But beyond that, it was a lot of
suffering and we would just trying to laugh through it
and have a sense of humor about it. And I
will tell you when we finally, you know, came out
out of the water, and it was relentless. It never stopped.
It was like two hours of getting rained on in
(05:06):
the freezing gold. And when we got out of our
boats and a pretty said, your kids never complained once,
like she was astounded that my kids not complained. And
my kids are amazing. He has nothing to do with me.
They're just amazing and wonderful and awesome. I got great kids.
But I suspect that the reason they didn't complain is
(05:30):
because it was a pretty miserable experience. And I have
tried to teach them from the time that they were
born the time that they could understand this, that when
you complain, you make things worse, You make things worse,
Like you make things worse every single time you complain.
Complaining makes things worse one hundred percent of the time.
And so that's why we don't want to make tired
(05:53):
and all of that. However, we're if we're using our
ability to create our reality. You know, it's time now
that we spend some time being quiet, being still focusing, concentrating,
and having the custody of our own consciousness that we
(06:16):
decide what we're going to spend our time on. That
our phones don't decide that we decide, because we already
have to, you know, listen to our boss. We already
have to listen to our spouses, our friends, our kids.
You know, we are constantly negotiating with everyone around us.
But when do you truly have custody of your own consciousness? Well,
(06:38):
all the time, it's yours. It's the only thing that
never changes. It doesn't get older, it doesn't get any younger.
Believe me. I walk by the mirror, I'm like, who
is that lady? Who hits that lady? I mean, I
still expect to see myself with like eighties hair, and like,
I don't know stonewashed jeans, which I guess I'm supposed
to rebuy those, but I just can't bring myself to
(06:58):
do it with the fringe and all the hair and
the earrings and oh my gosh, there was so much
of it. But anyway, that's not who I see when
I walk in the mirror. But my consciousness stays the same,
so it still thinks. I'm like, I don't know, eighteen
thirty three, twenty one whatever, whatever age you get stuck on, right,
and we are allowing the world to decide what we're
(07:21):
thinking about, what to think, what to like, what to
not like. And these phones are making me crazy, man,
they're making me crazy. I finally got one of these bricks.
They're not even paying me for this, this brick where
I can, you know, go up to it and take
all my distractors off my phone and then I can
put them back on if I want to make a
post about a retreat or about whatever. But like, it's
(07:42):
I mean, it's constant. I can't manage that. I cannot
manage it, so I certainly don't expect my kids to
be able to manage it. I don't expect you to
be able to manage it. You know, we're being manipulated
and we're like signing up for everyone's agenda except for
our own. I mean, I'm getting like really upset upset
about it. So what do we do? We meditate. We
(08:03):
take time to be still, to become, to be quiet,
to be focused, to concentrate, so that beautiful stillness that
already resides in us has the ability to rise up,
to bubble up and present itself. It's already there. You
don't have to go look for it. You don't have
to find it. It is already there, but it is
(08:28):
covered underneath the layers and layers and layers of thousands
and thousands of thoughts, emotions, habits, you know, whatever. It's all.
It's all. It's buried under there, and so for us
to allow that to come up, and when it does,
it comes with joy, It comes with bliss, It comes
with peace and quiet. It comes with oh my gosh,
(08:50):
please give me a break already from the constant dire
tribe of my Facebook feed that's on Facebook, and my
reels on Instagram, in YouTube and whatever. But also it's
going on in my head, this constant running of judgments
and thoughts and ideas and uck. It's exhausting. It is exhausting,
(09:16):
and so how can we take custody of our consciousness?
We sit every day, we sit and we meditate. What
is meditation. Meditation is a focus on one thing, where
you teach yourself how to laser focus and concentrate on
one thing. You know, we tell our kids concentrate focus?
(09:38):
Do we ever teach them how? No, we only teach
them how to be distracted. And if you're practicing being
distracted all day, you're gonna get better at it. Okay,
That's not what we need to get better at, man.
We gotta get better at being quiet, being still, being calm, right,
maybe having pause between thoughts, maybe have God forbid original thoughts, okay,
(10:03):
and not just someone's agenda or something that they want
me to buy or do or you know, get on
their high horse of bower whatever. I mean, what is
still truly yours. All of man's problems stem from the
fact that he cannot sit in a room quietly by
(10:25):
himself for fifteen minutes doing absolutely nothing or something like
that was the quote. You can do that, And I'm
telling you that life is so much grander when you
take this little teensy bit of time for yourself, for
your body, for your brain, for your wellbeing, for your
(10:47):
peace of mind, for just any kind of calmness. If
you're waking up in the middle of the night anxious,
it helps with that, It helps with sleep, it helps
with blood pross myriad of things. It helps you with.
But you have to do it. You're the only one
who can do it for you. You're the only one
(11:07):
who lives there. And if you want to understand the
human condition, if you want to understand yourself in your mind,
you need to sit with yourself and face yourself. I
was with a client yesterday and I was like, listen,
I think it's time that you go on a silent
retreat where you spend just a couple of days. It
doesn't have to be long. Okay, I've been on a
(11:30):
lot of silent retreats. I'm going to talk about retreats
in the next episode, I promise. But on a silent retreat,
there's no reading, there's no writing, there's no taking pictures,
there's no talking, there's no looking at people in the eyes,
and you know, miming or any of that. It's just quite.
You just hear yourself, and it's important that we listen
(11:54):
to that voice. Even though it's small, even though sometimes
it's mean, even though it's never on the money, and
even though it's a tape that's playing in your head
over and over since you were little, even though it
might not even be true, even though all those things,
it's important that you hear those things so you can
see where your emotions are coming from and where you're
coming from, and what you're having to listen to. And
(12:14):
then you can begin to label those thoughts, you know,
planning thought or mean thought or judgment thought or whatever
it is, and begin to be friends with yourself. So
when you are on a silent retreat the next time
or the time or to that or whatever, it's really
good to be with you, and you learn how to
be with you, You learn how to love you. It's
(12:35):
hard to love you when you hear yourself say terrible
things to yourself, or when you hear all the judgment
or the comparison or whatever. It's constant. And maybe those
are just my things, but like it seems like usually
the thoughts that we're having are banal or mean, or
(13:01):
worry some or anxious or depressed or sad or or
filled with regret or about the past, or anxiety about
the future. I mean, it's just it's constant. And when
you can actually hear yourself, not just in the back
and trying to push it away, and you know, get
back to work and listen to the song on the
radio and cover it all up with every day activities
(13:23):
and day to day things. Not doing that, but really
allowing yourself to be heard, maybe you will finally shut
it a little bit. Right. Michael Singer says something like
I could prove to you that you're not one year
two right, because if I gave you a red pill,
(13:44):
I can't remember how it goes on the matrix. But like,
so I give you a red pill and I say, listen,
I can get rid of all those running thoughts out
of your head. Fifteen minutes. You don't have any you know,
Do you want to take that pill or I mean
I think we could all agree that. Yeah, that sounds
pretty good, it sounds pretty peaceful. I'll take you fifteen minutes,
apiece me. I want that. I'll be piece, you'd be quiet, right, yes,
(14:05):
all right. But the other pill is I'll give it
to the person who's listening to that, and you can
get rid of that thing for fifteen minutes. See, that's
no good seat, because that's you. That's you, baby, that's you.
You're the listener. You're the one sitting there listening to
sixty thousand thoughts a day or eighty thousand thoughts a day,
(14:26):
and the forty five thousand that were the same yesterday,
in the day before that and the day before that.
It's exhausting. It's exhausting, okay, And so it's time now
just to couple minutes a day to take control of that,
to be in control of your destiny, just for fifteen
minutes where you decide what you're going to be paying
(14:48):
attention to, and it's just your breath, or it's just
this mantra, or it's just this sound or whatever anger
that you choose. That's the name of the game. That's
what meditation is. That's why we do it. We do
it to make ourselves well. We do it to make
ourselves better, to make ourselves happier, to make ourselves a
little more pleasant to be around, so we can face ourselves,
(15:11):
love ourselves. And when we love ourselves, all we have
is love to give. And so when we are squeezed,
only love comes out. That's all that's in there to give, right,
and so maybe little by little by little, like putting
a penny in a peggy bank, a little bit here,
a little bit here, and after a while you got
a lot of money. Baby, You're rich, You're full. You're
(15:35):
rich and full. And it's not with h I can't
tell it not anymore. It's not that. Okay. So let's
meditate together now and remind ourselves that we just practice,
and maybe this time you just sit there and think
about laundry the whole time. I've definitely done that, okay.
(15:57):
Or you think about that you messed up yesterday and
you made a big mistake, or that tomorrow you gotta
do something really hard and you're scared or worried. Okay,
for now, just for these few minutes, you're gonna set
them aside. Okay. I like to think of it like
(16:18):
a flower. You're going to be right in the middle
of the flower, okay. And each pedal is a thing
that's on your mind, and when it comes up, when
you're trying to take focus on that one thing, because remember,
meditation is not focusing on nothing, no thing, it's one thing.
And while we focus on that one thing, when other
(16:41):
things come up, you just set them on a pedal.
I forgot to pay my rent. Set it on a pedal.
I have to call that guy. Set it aside on
a pedal. It'll all be there, all be there, in
this beautiful flower that you create. In the end, it'll
all be there for you to deal within a few minutes.
(17:05):
Right now, you just sit quietly in a room doing
nothing with me, okay. And then if you do this
over and over each day, and you just allow your
beautiful self this quiet time each day, you tell me
(17:27):
what magical benefit comes to you. Because it's anyone's guest,
no one can predict it. It's always something wild and
crazy and amazing and wonderful and oh my goodness. Okay,
only you, only you can do this. You're the only
one who can do it. So do it for you,
(17:47):
even if it's filled to the top with anxiety, even
if it's filled to the top with boredom, even if
you fall asleep five times, whatever it is, Okay, just
allow this to be your time to take care of yourself.
I mean, do you go to the gym, do you
eat broccoli? We gotta work on the inside too, Okay,
(18:08):
So let's meditate together right now. We're gonna go back
to the basics. Baby, We're going back to the basics.
We're just gonna do breath meditation. Okay, let's meditate together
right now. Okay, so close your beautiful eyes and get
(18:31):
yourself in a sitting position that's very, very comfortable. Maybe
you want to roll your shoulders. Oh, I love doing that.
Maybe you roll them forward, Maybe you want to roll
your neck. That is the stuff, go around the other
way and then just bring your chin level to the ground.
(18:56):
And for this meditation, let's have your hands wherever they lie,
palms down on your knees or thighs or near you.
And because we're going to remain still for a few minutes,
not forever, just for a few minutes. Make sure you're comfortable,
love your body, love your feet, allow your spine to
(19:22):
be straight, you know, and not leaning forward or back.
And then you're sending a message to your brain that
you are alert and awake. So we remain still with
our eyes closed. That's drop number one. And then we're
going to laser focus on our breath. Goodle fashion beautiful
(19:46):
breath meditation. So maybe you focus on your heart's center
or your belly or maybe in your throat or your nose,
just wherever breath passes through. Bring your awareness to one
location so you can watch it come and go, being
a witness to it, not changing it, not judging it,
(20:09):
just noticing that it's there. The breath happens whether you're
thinking about it or not, all day, every day. That's
your second job. And the third job is when you
space out and you start thinking about something else, come
(20:33):
back to the breath. Come back to the breath. Keep
coming back to the breath time and time again. That
is the practice. Remain still with your eyes closed, focus
on your breath, watch it, witness it. And when you
(20:55):
space out, come right back to the breath time and
time again, and I'll be back to guide you.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Out up.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
The who over.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Allow your awareness of the breath to fall away, and
(26:07):
with a deep breath in your nose, with your eyes
still close, remind yourself where you are, what time of
day it is, let it all go out of your
mouth and again a deep, cleansing breath in your nose,
(26:28):
coming back into the room, back into this space, and
then breath out of your mouth, one last deep breath
in your nose, awakening clearing, then let it all go
out of your mouth. When you're ready, you can open
(26:50):
your beautiful eyes. Okay, So I just wanted to give
you guys some reminders this time, just a bunch of reminders,
just a couple of things to remind yourself of. You
are the master and commander of your consciousness. Be careful
what you say. Don't be telling anyone you're tired if
(27:11):
it makes it worse. I mean, try getting it out
of your entire repertoire. I try not saying it anymore
and see what happens. I'm just saying what if it works? Right?
And I am a firm believer that complaining makes things
(27:34):
worse one hundred percent of the time. So let's take
the time that we normally would complain about being tired
or whatever and just spend a little quiet time. It's
so much better for you. It's so much better for you,
and it's way way easier in the end, you will find. Okay,
I love you, have a lovely, lovely day. How y'all
(27:59):
feeling after that's 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 loovethapy dot com to find out about meditation and
yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If
you live in Georgia and you're ready to be one
(28:20):
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,
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