September 24, 2025 • 45 mins
✨ Episode Summary: This classic replay episode is one of those golden ones that deserves a second (or third!) listen. In this heartfelt and high-energy convo, Cheri welcomes the legendary Davidji—named one of USA Today's top five meditation teachers to follow—to wrap up her 12-week series with a deep dive on making meditation a lifelong habit. From his iconic "RPM" method to the science behind morning rituals and his game-changing 16 Seconds to Bliss technique, Davidji offers wisdom that's wildly practical and deeply soulful. Plus, there’s a beautiful guided meditation and a few tender moments about Peaches (yes, the Buddha-princess pup). A must-revisit for anyone ready to recommit to stillness—one breath at a time. 🎧 Originally aired thanks to our dear friend Owen—this is a lovingly handpicked replay. Enjoy the magic all over again. 🧘 Key Learning Points:
- Ritual beats willpower. Davidji’s "RPM" formula—Rise, Pee, Meditate—makes your practice as natural as brushing your teeth.
- Subtle wins are still wins. Meditation changes your brain and your life, but the signs might whisper, not shout—so stay tuned in.
- 16 Seconds to Bliss works—even if you know the trick. A simple breath technique can stop stress in its tracks and bring you back to the now, anywhere, anytime.
- 🧔♂️ Davidji – Meditation master, author, and founder of the Masters of Wisdom & Meditation Teacher Training
- 🐶 Peaches – Davidji’s mindful Morkie and tiny teacher of unconditional love
- 📖 Books by Davidji:
- Secrets of Meditation – the OG foundation (and all proceeds go to charity!)
- Destressifying – Cheri’s favorite, packed with real-world tools like SODA and SQUEEZE
- Sacred Powers – a deep dive into transformation through powerful inner questions
- 🧪 Study Mention: Broadcasting Happiness by Michelle Gielan – research showing how your first 30 minutes shape your entire day
- Special thanks to Owen Flake – For helping bring this classic episode back to the feed through producing and editing. We love you!
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So while we get all of these magical episodes together
for you and work on making things even better, we're
going to give you this classic stress therapy episode for
you to enjoy. So relax and settle in and listen
up because your stress therapy session is about to begin
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey, beautiful people, guess what today? We have David G
on the show The David G. Last week, he was
just named in the USA today as one of the
top five meditation teachers to follow, and we have him
as a guest today. He's going to give us his
personal experience and of course his professional experience on how
to make meditation habitual because it's week twelve of my
(00:43):
twelve week series, the Big Finale, Making meditation habitual. How
to build a daily practice that lasts a lifetime. Let's
explore it together with David G. Meditation WTF.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Welcome to Meditation WTF, a podcast about.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Meditation for people living in the real world.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And now you're a host the stress therapist Sherry august
d Flake.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hey, beautiful people, today is an extra special day because
we have a superstar on today. And if you're listening
to a meditation podcast. This guy does not need an introduction,
but I'm going to do it anyway because he's so cool.
His name is David G. And he is an internationally
recognized stressed expert corporate trainer. He's also, of course, a
(01:51):
meditation master, even a recording artist, an award winning author
of Secrets of Meditation, where he lays it all down,
you destrassifying my favorite one, and the Sacred Powers book,
where he has been working for twenty years and studying
and teaching these excellent wisdom traditions, and he's learned these
(02:12):
profound secrets of awakening his own sacred powers. And now
he travels the world what everybody was traveling world member,
traveling the world and sharing these timeless teachings to all
these people, and even teaching teachers how to teach what
he teaches. He has a meditation academy, and I was
I was blessed and honored to be a student of his,
(02:32):
and he is here today. I'm so excited, so welcome
David G.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Oh My, what an intro. Well, I'm so grateful to
be here with you stress therapists. Truly, not only you
know did you study with me? But you're you've got
certified with me, You're a certified Masters of Wisdom and
meditation teacher. And what a joy to be with you
(03:01):
and to be in your glow. And yeah, I remember
traveling the world day one day. One day, that'll happen again.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Maybe it'll happen again.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, I'm a huge fan of yours, as I think
you already know. I mean, I just love you to pieces.
I met you at the Choper Center back I think
it was like two thousand and seven or two thousand
and eight, and my big takeaway from that was, RPM,
can you explain to our listeners what that is and
(03:32):
why it's so important and why it helps with making
a daily meditation practice.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Sure, and thanks for asking. And I think this is
really one of the key elements of really establishing a
meditation practice. Most of us think, oh, I'll just remember
tomorrow and I'll meditate and then I'll remember the next day.
Or maybe I've got some really strong willpower and I'm
gonna wake up and launch out of bed and do
my thing, just like I head over to the gym
(03:59):
every day, just like I always go to yoga class,
and just like I don't eat that thing on my
plate that that's non nourishing. And the reality is that
none of that stuff really works out very well unless
you ritualize it. And so one of the beauties of
meditation is if we ritualize it, create a daily ritual.
(04:19):
Since we have a whole bunch of different rituals. You know,
we wake up.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
We pee, we poop, we wash, we shower, we groom,
we eat liquid, we eat a meal, We take care
of the people in our home, maybe we feed them,
we dress them, we walk our dogs.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
We feed our animals. You know, we do all that
stuff and we pretty much do it in the same
order every single day. And we've been doing that probably
for as long as we've had these rituals in our lives.
So I'm in an adherent to the philosophy of our PM,
Rise P meditate. And why is that Because if you
(05:02):
can essentially wake up and then pee and then the
next thing you do is meditate, then every single thing
you touch and everywhere you go, and every conversation and
every interaction carries with it just a little bit of
stillness and silence. And the beauty of our PM is
(05:25):
that we don't have to like come up with a
time to meditate, just like we don't have a time
that we brush our teeth. You know, we typically all
of our morning ablution rituals, we wake up, we do
one thing followed by another thing, followed by another thing,
and there's no time we just do that thing. And
so if we can push meditation to the very very
(05:47):
front of our morning ablution ritual train, then we will
have that stillness and silence in us all day long
to follow us throughout the day, and maybe we'll be
a little calmer, maybe we'll be a little more patient,
will be a little kinder, and maybe we can be
a little more intentional as we walk through the day.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I love that. I love that to pieces. And also
I've kind of made it my own. I mean, you
mentioned brushing your teeth. I can't rise pee meditate. I
have to rise pee brush my chumps meditate because then
the entire time I'll think about my teeth. So I
think it's okay to make it your own, right.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Well, my philosophy is whatever works. If you're gonna, if
you're gonna, if you're gonna rise pee brush, meditate and
do that every day, then I say rock on, do
that thing. Brush those choppers. But you know a lot
of times you make excuses, well, I want to rise,
(06:47):
I want to I want to pee, I do want
to make my coffee. I do need to feed the cat,
I do need to walk the dog. I didn't to
dress the kids. I do need to get online, I
do need to look at my emails. And suddenly you
know it's four hours later and you're like, oh, yeah,
that meditation didn't actually happen. So I would recommend that
(07:08):
not to insert too many things between you know, rising
and meditating. The only reason I say that is because
with every moment once we open our eyes, there's just
a little more activity going on inside of us. And
you know, all of those special hormones and chemicals that
(07:30):
have been allowing us to sleep all night they get suppressed,
and all the you know, chemicals and hormones that are
infused into us in the morning when the sun comes up,
they're designed to like wake us up. So with every
moment that we wait. So I would say, if you
have a tooth fetish like sherry, then yes, rise, pea brush, meditate,
(07:55):
But if you don't happen to have that particular tooth fetish,
I don't I Actually I used to just my model
used to just be rise meditate, but then I realized
during my meditation I was I had to pee, and
so that's why I inserted p in there. But if
you need to, you know, insert brush. If you need
to insert, at least put on the coffee maker while
(08:19):
you sit. Don't drink caffeine before you go into stillness
and silence. But I think, yeah, whatever works. We want
to make this a fun and joyous process. And we
know that if we can see it as a gift,
we'll show up and do it, and if we see
it as a chore, we're not going to.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That is an excellent point. So that kind of brings
me to my next question is why do you think
I mean, it seems like when people try meditation, will
they either go on and on and on about why
they can't do it or they just they love it.
They just they can't understand why they're not doing it daily.
So why do you think people have such a tough
(08:59):
time with meditating in particular, in creating a healthy habit
with meditation in particular, Like maybe running was easier, or
practicing Chinese or the clarinet is easier than meditating every day.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
You know, that's that's so brilliant. And it's because all
those other things that you just mentioned, whether that's you know,
you know, eliminating chips from your diet for a week,
you know, all those things, you know, learning a language,
learning an instrument, getting on the scale, they all have very,
very tangible, in your face results. You know, if I
(09:34):
try to learn Chinese and I practice for a week
and suddenly I'm able to say, you know, seshe or
something along those lines, I'm like, hey, this thing works.
I got it, And that positive reinforcement really propels us
to continue our practice. Just like when we're dieting or
we're trying to to you know, replace carbs with celery
(09:54):
or something like that, we just hop on the scale
and we see those tangible results and the result that
we experience for meditation are so much more subtle, and
we have very high opinions of ourselves. So suddenly when
we're more patient, a more patient listener to someone, we
don't attribute that to our meditation practice. We just say, hey,
(10:17):
I'm amazing, I'm so patient. And when we don't, you know,
scorch the village. When we're angry, we suddenly say, huh,
I guess I'm really learning to control myself, and so
we can't. You know, so much in our life gets
impacted with a meditation practice, and yet it's so subtle,
and yes, we're so you know, so proud thinking we've
(10:40):
done it all separately, that we don't draw that connection
and we don't think, oh, that's really because of my
meditation practice. I sleep better at night because of my
meditation practice. I'm a better friend because of my meditation practice.
I'm a little kinder to myself and others because my meditation.
We don't think that. We just think, damn awesome, amazing,
(11:02):
that is so cool.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Because I have to tell you I was around, you know,
I work in mental health, and I was around when
prozac came out. It was like the same phenomenon I was.
People would say, oh my gosh, my mood is so
much better. But it's not because of the prozac. That
was always like, it's the same thing. You know, I
commune yesterday with a ladybug, But it's not because of
my meditation exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
It's because I'm just amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So we do hear a lot about the benefits of meditation,
and there you know, I always say to people, it's
about as good for you as water, so you know,
you might as well give it a chance. Or I
tell my kids maybe social services or come and get me.
But I say, you know, you could skip a meal,
but don't skip the meditation. So we hear about all
these benefits of meditation, But what benefit has surprised you
(11:50):
and your personal practice, Like what benefit have you been like, oh,
my gosh, I think this is because I'm meditating more.
Or even a story you've heard from a student.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, well, you know you nailed that when you said, oh,
I think this is because I'm meditating more. You know,
if we're really engaged in our practice and paying attention
to it, we realize the direct correlation. But even water, right,
we all need water, and some people just exist on coffee,
that's it, you know, coffee and soda, and they go, well,
I'm getting my water. You know, it's in the form
(12:22):
of coffee and soda. You know, even even if we're
drinking juice, you know we're getting you know, we're getting water.
So when we don't even recognize the powerful cleansing and
rejuvenative and restorative aspects of water, so hard to attribute
(12:42):
it to meditation as well. But I have drawn some
really clear direct correlations in my own life. I'm from
New York. My basic nature is to be a little fiery.
And as we came out of the womb, everybody grew
up in New York, you know, as you came out
(13:02):
of the womb, someone whispered in your ear and the
doctor probably or someone said, okay, welcome, welcome to planet Earth.
Here's how it works. Effort and focus. You want to
make something happen, effort and focus. It's not working. More effort,
still not working. More focused, still not working, more effort,
push harder. And we know that obviously, you know, after
(13:23):
years of being here on planet Earth. It's like that
doesn't always work. Perhaps being you know, more efficient with
our energy and perhaps being a little more patient, perhaps
being a little smarter. Perhaps you know, it's not all
about how hard can I bring it? Sometimes it's about
how wise can I be in the moment. And so
(13:45):
meditation some of the really direct correlations for me have
been I sleep better, you know, because I'm pretty fiery.
It's easy for me to like lie in bed at
night and ruminate about how I'm going to save the
planet and all the things I'm going to do and
all the conversations I've ever had in my entire life,
and all my wounds and all my trauma and all
the things I need to do next, and all my
(14:06):
you know, choices that I have in the in the
material world. And I'm also you know, I'm from New York.
So when someone starts to talk, within like two seconds,
I already know what they're going to say, so they
don't really have to say it. I can just cut
them off, you know, just run right over them and
(14:27):
interrupt and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew what you're
going to say before you even said it, and here's
my answer to what you're going to say. And like
that's not really emotionally intelligent, and it's really you know.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
So I could like.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Sit on my hands and put duct tape over my lips,
or I could just meditate and say, hey, let me
listen to what this person says. Maybe I don't know
everything that's about to unfold. I'm not, you know, clairvoyant
in every single moment. And I think that, you know,
for me being a better listener, for me being a
little more patient, for me being a little more compassionate.
(15:01):
Someone tells me a story or gives me an excuse,
and my basic nature is to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,
and guess what, you know, I've got a lot of
excuses as well, So maybe I could be a little
more compassionate, you know, with other people's reasons for why
they were late, or why this didn't get done, or why,
(15:22):
you know, something else in life. Really, having a consistent
daily meditation practice has allowed the world to come at
me in slower motion, so I'm not overwhelmed as much.
And I don't know, is that like thirty percent as
much or fifty percent. I'd say it's probably like two
hundred percent, because I can actually sit in a conversation
(15:45):
and allow those words from the other person to unfold
slowly land on me, allow myself to really digest them,
and that then allow me to be just a little
more thoughtful, a little more reflective, a little calmer, a
little kinder. And that's like a big shift for an
(16:05):
East Coaster like me, and I believe that's really a
big shift for everyone. I believe emotional intelligence is so
underrated in our world, and I think it's really the
source of all of our connection, you know, sometimes people
have nonverbal communication with us, sometimes they really need to
say the final word in the conversation so that we
(16:27):
can really get the point. And meditation has lowered my
blood pressure, it's lowered my pulse. It's allowed me to
be a little more concentrated, it's increased my focus, it's
enhanced my memory. And so for those of you who
like I think I'm living in my memory a little
(16:49):
bit as I get older, well that's actually part of
the process of the brain. You know, the you know,
the the gray matter in our brain gets thinner as
we age, and you can actually offset it and stop it.
We're slow it by meditating. So you know, everyone's you know,
buying prevaging and all these like memory enhancement tools, and
really if you just sat for ten minutes a day
(17:10):
and meditated, you probably have a much more profound and
evidence based result from that.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Wow, that's super cool. So you know you kind of
covered with the keys to a successful practice, are you know,
having the motivation because you know what the benefits are,
and making sure our PM is in there and all
of that, But like, do you want to add a
couple of your keys to a successful daily practice?
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Yes, I would.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
So there's a there's a study in a book. The
book's called Broadcasting Happiness, and the author is Michelle Geelan.
She is a happiness guru, and the book Broadcasting Happiness
is great, and haw's a particular study in there where
she she's a former news anchor from al Pas, Texas,
(18:01):
and spent a lot of time on TV, paying attention
to TV and the news and all that stuff. And
so she did the study exposing five thousand people to
violent images the news that might be the newspaper, that
might be within the first thirty minutes of them waking up,
and then twelve hours later she simply said, so how
(18:23):
was your day? And these people, even if they got
a new job, got a new car, or started a
new relationship, you know, suddenly fell in love, they were
still forty percent more likely when they were asked twelve
hours later, so how was your day? They were forty
percent more likely to go, man, it was okay, having
(18:46):
nothing to do what actually happened in the day. Then
these same people were exposed to positive imagery in the
first thirty minutes of when they awoke. Sugg as spending
time in nature, meditating, watching puppy videos, and then twelve
hours later they were asked, so, how was your day,
And even if they got fired, crash their car, or
(19:08):
got dumped in the relationship, they were still twenty percent
more likely to say, you know, it was a pretty
good day.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
So this this.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Study, and there are many more studies like this, you know,
it pretty much says, whatever happens in the first thirty
minutes of your day actually determines how you will assess
your day at the end of it, no matter what
happens during the day. And so imagine if we are
assessing our day, you know, negatively because we didn't meditate,
(19:38):
and then we you know, assessed the last four days
of the week as negative, we'd say, well, that was
a crappy week, and the last three weeks or two
and a half weeks, now I was a crappy month.
In the last seven months, well that was a crappy year.
And suddenly we're realizing, you know, that was a crappy decade.
And all we needed to do was actually introduced just
a little bit of stillness and silence into the first
(19:59):
thirty minutes of day, and that could really create a
powerful shift. So I do want to jump on and
reinforce the importance of starting your day with just a
little bit of stillness and silence, just a little bit
of connection to that quietness inside of you, because there's
a whole bunch of noise. If we have sixty thousand
(20:21):
to eighty thousand thoughts a day, that's a thought every
one point two seconds. They're pouring in. And so imagine
if we can just introduce small breaks in the action
over the course of the day. So everything else is
activity and there's only one stillness and we should celebrate it.
And it's part of who we are. That's who we
are at our core. We're not all the activity, We're
(20:42):
not our thoughts, we're not we're not all those things
that are pouring onto us. Where are the stillness that
rests inside all of that? And so we can start
treating each moment with just a little bit of that quietude,
that that calm, and that changes everything in life.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
It's like putting a little bit of the piggy bank
each day. Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah, speaking of
just a little bit, you know, your fame is oh
part of me?
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Go ahead, Well, I was going to say, you know,
it's like that just a spoonful of sugar helldicine. So
you know, just just a spoonful of stillness and silence,
just a little teaspoon makes everything just a little better.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's perfect. Well, speaking of a little by little. You know,
you're famous for this sixteen seconds to bliss, which I
admittedly did before I called you. Can you tell our
listeners what sixteen seconds to bliss is and why it's important?
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Yeah, you know, as I mentioned, every moment is activity,
you know, think about it. You know, we wake up
and then we're in motion and the world is in
motion and stuff's happening, Stuff's coming into us. We're seeing things,
we're hearing things, we're reading things, we're thinking about things
or touching things or feeling things like it's relentless. It's relentless,
(22:07):
and so if we think about it, we rarely you know,
they do it in sports all the time, but we
don't do it in our lives. And that would be
calling a time out. We're calling a time in. You know,
whatever sport you've ever watched, they're suddenly like, oh, things
are getting too intense. We need to calm things down
or slow those things down. Let's call a time out
and so I like to think of us taking a
(22:30):
time in. If we can just introduce a break in
the action, if we can just give our brain just
a few moments to breathe, then the next moment will
unfold without so much conditioning, and it'll be just a
little less reflexive and a little more reflective. And so
(22:50):
a technique that I began initially teaching to marines at
cam Pendleton, which is right up the road from where
I am, which is on the southern California on the
West coast. This was a way to introduce even the
most resistant person I felt to just a pretty cool,
easy to do, very accessible practice. So, whether you like
(23:14):
roll your eyes at meditation, whether you have people in
your life who roll their eyes at the concept you
know of meditation or find it too kooky or woo woo,
or anything along those lines, the reality is we're all
experiencing stress. We're all experiencing moments where our needs are
not being met. So right now, well of you listeners
out there to the stress therapist, see if you can
(23:37):
think about something that's been sort of kind of bothering
you for the last couple of days. Don't go too deep.
This isn't therapy. But maybe you know, someone said they
were going to do something they didn't, or something was
supposed to unfold a certain way, but it didn't unfold
that way. And you know, maybe it, you know, irritated
(23:57):
you or bothered you, or just felt problematic in some way.
And get clear on that. And now close your eyes
and through your nose, take a long, slow, deep breath
in and watch that breath, and when it gets to
your belly, just hold it there, keep watching it and
hold it there, keep witnessing it and hold it there,
(24:20):
and now release that breath and observe it as it
moves up your chest, through your throat, out through your nose,
your mouth, keep excelling, keep witnessing, keep watching it, keep
observing it. Allow it to dissipate into the ether and
they'll feel free to breathe normally. And open your eyes
and it feels comfortable. And that was a mere sixteen seconds.
(24:41):
And in those sixteen seconds, if you were playing along,
because I'm sure some of you are not playing along,
but you get to do it again, you know, But
if you were running along, yeah I did it nice.
Yes I can tell energetically, I could tell, and if
you were playing along, we really accomp pished a few things.
Number One, we weren't thinking about that thing that I
(25:03):
just asked you to think about. And I didn't say now,
stop thinking about the thing. I said, think about the
thing true, and then close your eyes and watch your breath.
And so suddenly we became fully present. And in the
sixteen seconds, we were not in the past, we were
not in the future. We were fully present. And if
you do that four times, it's a minute. If you
(25:25):
do it twenty times, that's five minutes. And suddenly we
have a tool now in our back pocket forever to
bring us into the present moment when we start worrying
about the future or when we start ruminating in the past.
And we also learned that we can direct our thoughts
to anywhere we want, at any time we want. So
if you're suddenly sitting with too much sadness, you know,
(25:48):
and you don't want to be sitting with it, then
you can direct to something else if you want to.
You know, if you're harping on a grievance or a judgment,
you get to adjust your attention to something else. And
so this is a beautiful tool just to remind us that,
you know, we have total power over where our attention
goes in any moment. And the beauty of this practice
(26:11):
is we also this is like the foundational element of meditation.
What we did was we drifted our attention to this
object of our attention, which was just watching our breath.
And that could be the foundation for a meditation practice.
And so with very very little effort and very very
you know, we have to get we didn't have to
get in full lotus position or make our hands in
(26:34):
special position. We didn't have to you know, get our
little Buddha in front of us. You know, we could
be in the car, we could be at a meeting,
we could be at the table, we could be on
the phone. And if we can just access those sixteen
seconds to bliss, to clarity, to ease to come, then
suddenly everything in our life can change. So that's a
(26:56):
tool that I would suggest that all of us practice
once in a while. You know, it's only sixteen seconds.
And if you're sitting staring at someone and you're feeling
a little awkward, I'm not going to close my eyes. Well,
I'm actually having a conversation too. With your eyes open.
It's Okay, no one's ever going to said, you, wait
a second, are you doing that sixteen second thing on me?
(27:17):
That would be really unlikely unless you were hanging out
with Sherry or me, then we would know. But otherwise
it's a powerful tool and it can really help us
live our lives with just a little less stress, with
a little more ease, and just you know, a little
more calm.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
David G I got to tell you that was amazing,
and let me tell you why, because I knew exactly
what sixteen seconds to bliss was. It was not all
my tests, not all.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Of my it was.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It was there all the time, and it still worked,
do you know what I mean. I still didn't think
about the thing, even though I.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Right, it doesn't have to be a surprise. This thing
works even if you know punschline. I know.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
That was the cool thing I always say in my
client It's like your brain is so easy to trick
that we can talk about tricking it and still trick it.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Okay, that was awesome. Okay, so let's talk about your
books just for a second. The first one, amazing, lays
it all down. All the money goes to charity, which
is beautiful and wonderful, and I mean that is so cool.
The second one, my favorite one, destrassifying loved It has
all these little nuggets in it, like soda and squeeze
and all these little like things that you can actually
(28:32):
practically do, like in order to you know, understand and
sort of battle the stress response and understand it so
you can win those private battles in your head. And
then you come out with sacred powers where you're like
really being demanding of your reader. Now now they have
to phase change head on. You're asking them to not
(28:54):
only ask themselves these questions, but like write them down
in the book. You know what I'm saying. It is
like super cool. So what is there to gain? Like,
do you want to bring up a sacred question and
like to sort of tell us what there is to
gain from asking yourself these questions?
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yeah? I think you know, again, in ritualizing our meditation practice,
you know, some of the things that we can do
on a consistent basis are asking ourselves questions, deep, deep,
deep questions. So instead of us, yeah, you know, asking
the question like oh, what should I do with my emails?
And what should I do with my kids? Right now?
(29:33):
And what should I do? And do I have to
go shopping? And how many lines do I have in
their fridge? And like all those kinds of things. Instead
we get to ask deeper questions like what am I
grateful for? And what does my heart truly long for?
And suddenly that cuts through everything, you know, when you
ask those questions. And there's scientific evidence now that even
(29:54):
having a gratitude practice, just focusing on one thing you're
grateful or for twenty seconds a day actually etches itself
into your brain. And a lot of times we're just
like we're too busy. It's like has a battery on
my phone? Do I have enough? Guess in my car?
Do I have to respond to that email? Now? Is
(30:15):
anyone following me on Instagram? You know, we can go
on and on with like all that stuff, and then
suddenly ask like what am I grateful for? Who are
the people? What are the things? And you know they're deeper,
deeper questions. And so the reason that I wrote Sacred
Powers is because some people, once they've started, I see,
I believe there's a there's a process. I believe that
(30:38):
there's like a three pronged process, and you know, it's first,
let's find balance in our lives. And then once we
start to really find center and we can balance ourselves
a little bit, then we can really start healing ourselves.
We can heal our wounds of the past. We can
we can heal, you know, the things we haven't forgiven
ourselves and others for We can heal our trauma. So
(30:59):
we can at least begin that work. And once we
begun that work, then we can really start to transform.
We can start to shift our lives from where we
are to where we'd like to be. And so I
think that process of balance heel transform really lays at
the center of so many ancient wisdom teachings for thousands
(31:21):
of years and so many civilizations and so many cultures.
So and sacred power is really what I did was
I tried to identify what are all these overlapping things
that people for thousands of years in indigenous places and
different continents, in different settings, you know, all over the world,
What have they been doing. What have the masters or
(31:42):
the oracles or the wisest people of those civilizations been
practicing and been teaching. And I believe that they were
teaching things that really are inherently resting inside of us.
They weren't teaching us to go out and find certain things.
They were teaching us to awaken those things that are
already inside of us. And so I believe that we
(32:03):
have sacred powers resting deep within, And if we are
willing to go to that place yet still ask deep questions,
we will hear the whispers of our heart. And why
wouldn't we try that? Yeah, wouldn't we Because a lot
of times we're so caught up in our head, so
much intellectual stuff going on in our head, that we
(32:27):
think that that's the answer to everything. And as you said,
we can our we can drig our brain, you know,
really really easily. But the heart never lies. The heart
just never lies. And so if we can just put
a little more attention on quieting the fluctuations of our mind,
we will hear the whispers of our heart. We will
(32:47):
get that divine guidance, We will get answers to questions
we have struggled with, perhaps our whole lives, and we
will make better decisions.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Honestly, it totally works.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I was one of your students, and I will be
really honest with you. I was very resistant to this
you know, I'm a therapist. Okay, I already did all
the work. I already know all this, okay, and I
was like resistant to it. And you know, what we
resist is what we offered me, you know. And I mean,
(33:22):
I think it's really really really cool, very insightful of
you to notice it and bring it about and share
it with all of us. I'm very grateful.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Well, thank you for ultimately surrendering and sending your resistance,
because you are such an important voice in this world,
and you know people are listening to you, and so
hopefully everyone's listening to Cherry and actually saying, oh yeah, well,
if she knows everything and she's still paying attention, maybe
(33:55):
I'll give it a shot as well.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So I have my My last question is the very
most important one. How is your beautiful little teaches.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
She's curled up right next to me right now.
Speaker 6 (34:07):
Peaches teaches, She teaches the Buddha Princess's.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
She is so tiny, she is so tiny and so soft,
and so you know, she really exemplifies these these teachings.
Our footprint is very very soft. She doesn't make a
lot of eyes. She enters the situation, drinks it all in,
and she is also one of my greatest teachers of
(34:32):
resists nothing and you will receive unconditional love. And so
she's doing great, and she is a rescue, she's an
LA rescue, she's a mindful morky multi'e Yorkie combo we think,
who knows. And she's thirteen and she meditates with me
every single morning. And I would recommend to all of
(34:53):
you out there, if you've got little kids, if you've
got othercension beings, whether it's a lizard, a bird, a cat,
or a dog or a spouse, feel free to invite
them to meditate with you, Just to sit down with
you and everybody close their eyes and just and just breathe.
And if that turns into giggling, even better, if that
(35:17):
turns into people falling asleep, how magnificent that you find
gave yourself permission to relax that much.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And so I'm so much better with them there. Right,
I have sight my dog, and I have lollipop my
little kiddie.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah yeah, So meditation, you know, it doesn't have to
be you know, a solo you know thing. It can
be a team sport as well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Right then it's accountability partner built in Peaches is.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Right then, yeah, yes, well thank you for asking about Peaches.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Well, I just love that little thing. I mean, I
you'll love this. I use pictures I like to use
like re member photographs, actual photographs. I use the bookmarks,
and Peaches is in all your books, sure of Peaches
and all my books as a bookmark. Okay, I mean
all my books of yours. Okay. So, David G. Would
(36:06):
you bring us into a meditation?
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Sure, let's do that.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Yeah. So one of the most important things about meditation
is to remember that comfort is queen. So we don't
have to suddenly go up onto some hard matt or
do something or get in a certain position. Comfort. Comfort, comfort,
always keep moving towards comfort. So wherever you are right now,
see if you can just you know, sort of like
(36:33):
nestle in, gently feather your nests and get as comfortable
as possible. And together, let's take a long, slow, deep
breath in and never said gently let that go. If
(36:57):
you hear my other dog in the background, that of
course is not Peaches. But again another long slow, deep
breath in and release. And when your eyes are closed,
just allow your upper lid.
Speaker 8 (37:09):
And your lower lid to be touching so softly, so easily,
and just begin watching your breath.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Simply begin observing your breath. Watch it as it flows
into you, watch it as it flows back out, and
notice that you're settling in just a bit. Notice that
(37:41):
your body is relaxing with each exhale, Notice that your
mind is calming with each exl There's nowhere else to be,
nothing else to do except to be right here, right now,
(38:04):
in this sacred, precious press moment. You notice that the
swirl inside and outside of you is slowing down just
a bit. And as you breathe, notice that there is
(38:25):
just a little flicker of space between the inhale and
the exil. There's just a flicker of space. You breathe in,
there's this flicker of space.
Speaker 7 (38:39):
It's just a millisecond, and then you flow into the exil,
and simply observe that. Miss that, watch that, and at
the top of your next in hell, see if you
(39:00):
can lengthen that.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Space just to beat, just one beat before you flow
into the exil. You breathe in, there's that flicker of space.
You length in that space just to beat, and then
you flow into the exil. You need to force or concentrate,
(39:29):
just allow, and just become aware of that space between.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
That's who you are, the space between the space between
your breaths, the space between your thoughts, the space between
the beats of your heart.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
And now let's ask ourselves what are these sacred questions?
Let's ask what am I grateful for? What am I
grateful for? And just allow all the people in your life,
all the situations, all the dark clouds, all the silver
linings for which you're truly grateful, allow them to just
(40:26):
unfold before you on your long gratitude list, and now
(41:03):
drifts one thing you'd like to carry around with you
that you're grateful for all day long. Just one thing.
There's so many, but just drift your attention to one
thing that you're so grateful for. I've perhaps you've been
taking for granted, or perhaps you just haven't put enough
(41:24):
attention on. But now you're there, and see if you
can invite that one thing that you're grateful for into
your heart. Right now, you got that gratitude and that
(41:44):
particular thing into your sweet tender heart, and with each
breath allowed to grow and expand. I don't even see
(42:15):
if you can create an affirmation for the day that
perhaps starts with I'm grateful for you, know, take a long, slow,
deep breath in and ever so gently let that go.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Some.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
When it feels comfortable, you can begin to wiggle your fingers,
wiggle your toes and take another long, slow, deep breath
in and let that go. And when it feels comfortable,
(43:07):
you can slowly open your eyes and welcome back. Now
you've got this little mantra, this little affirmation in your head.
So as you walk throughout the world, if you stub
your toe, if you're feeling less than, if there's anything
(43:29):
that's not really leveling up, just remember I'm so grateful
for you, and you have that gratitude embedded inside of
you for that thing, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I love it in your pocket all day. David Jane,
thank you so much for being here. You're one of
my all time favorite people, and I'm so grateful that
you were here today.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
My God, thank you so so much for inviting me.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule, and then you got
so many things that you're spinning out there, and so
thanks for making this so special for me.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Well, you have a lovely, lovely day, and maybe we'll
have you back again soon.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I would love that you could just leave all of
your listeners with this one thing. Remember that we transform
the world by transforming ourselves, and it happens sort of
like one breath at a time, one meditation at a time,
one heartbeat at a time. So let's keep that going.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
For sure. You're the best. Thank you so much.
Speaker 9 (44:37):
You have a lovely, lovely day, you too. The Cott
Hey, beautiful people, what's up.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So while we get all of these magical episodes together
for you and work on making things even better, we're
going to give you this classic stress therapy episode for
you to enjoy. So relax and settle in and listen
up because your stress therapy session is about to begin
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey, beautiful people, guess what today? We have David G
on the show The David G. Last week, he was
just named in the USA today as one of the
top five meditation teachers to follow, and we have him
as a guest today. He's going to give us his
personal experience and of course his professional experience on how
to make meditation habitual because it's week twelve of my
(00:43):
twelve week series, the Big Finale, Making meditation habitual. How
to build a daily practice that lasts a lifetime. Let's
explore it together with David G. Meditation WTF.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Welcome to Meditation WTF, a podcast about.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Meditation for people living in the real world.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And now you're a host the stress therapist Sherry august
d Flake.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hey, beautiful people, today is an extra special day because
we have a superstar on today. And if you're listening
to a meditation podcast. This guy does not need an introduction,
but I'm going to do it anyway because he's so cool.
His name is David G. And he is an internationally
recognized stressed expert corporate trainer. He's also, of course, a
(01:51):
meditation master, even a recording artist, an award winning author
of Secrets of Meditation, where he lays it all down,
you destrassifying my favorite one, and the Sacred Powers book,
where he has been working for twenty years and studying
and teaching these excellent wisdom traditions, and he's learned these
(02:12):
profound secrets of awakening his own sacred powers. And now
he travels the world what everybody was traveling world member,
traveling the world and sharing these timeless teachings to all
these people, and even teaching teachers how to teach what
he teaches. He has a meditation academy, and I was
I was blessed and honored to be a student of his,
(02:32):
and he is here today. I'm so excited, so welcome
David G.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Oh My, what an intro. Well, I'm so grateful to
be here with you stress therapists. Truly, not only you
know did you study with me? But you're you've got
certified with me, You're a certified Masters of Wisdom and
meditation teacher. And what a joy to be with you
(03:01):
and to be in your glow. And yeah, I remember
traveling the world day one day. One day, that'll happen again.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Maybe it'll happen again.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, I'm a huge fan of yours, as I think
you already know. I mean, I just love you to pieces.
I met you at the Choper Center back I think
it was like two thousand and seven or two thousand
and eight, and my big takeaway from that was, RPM,
can you explain to our listeners what that is and
(03:32):
why it's so important and why it helps with making
a daily meditation practice.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Sure, and thanks for asking. And I think this is
really one of the key elements of really establishing a
meditation practice. Most of us think, oh, I'll just remember
tomorrow and I'll meditate and then I'll remember the next day.
Or maybe I've got some really strong willpower and I'm
gonna wake up and launch out of bed and do
my thing, just like I head over to the gym
(03:59):
every day, just like I always go to yoga class,
and just like I don't eat that thing on my
plate that that's non nourishing. And the reality is that
none of that stuff really works out very well unless
you ritualize it. And so one of the beauties of
meditation is if we ritualize it, create a daily ritual.
(04:19):
Since we have a whole bunch of different rituals. You know,
we wake up.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
We pee, we poop, we wash, we shower, we groom,
we eat liquid, we eat a meal, We take care
of the people in our home, maybe we feed them,
we dress them, we walk our dogs.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
We feed our animals. You know, we do all that
stuff and we pretty much do it in the same
order every single day. And we've been doing that probably
for as long as we've had these rituals in our lives.
So I'm in an adherent to the philosophy of our PM,
Rise P meditate. And why is that Because if you
(05:02):
can essentially wake up and then pee and then the
next thing you do is meditate, then every single thing
you touch and everywhere you go, and every conversation and
every interaction carries with it just a little bit of
stillness and silence. And the beauty of our PM is
(05:25):
that we don't have to like come up with a
time to meditate, just like we don't have a time
that we brush our teeth. You know, we typically all
of our morning ablution rituals, we wake up, we do
one thing followed by another thing, followed by another thing,
and there's no time we just do that thing. And
so if we can push meditation to the very very
(05:47):
front of our morning ablution ritual train, then we will
have that stillness and silence in us all day long
to follow us throughout the day, and maybe we'll be
a little calmer, maybe we'll be a little more patient,
will be a little kinder, and maybe we can be
a little more intentional as we walk through the day.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I love that. I love that to pieces. And also
I've kind of made it my own. I mean, you
mentioned brushing your teeth. I can't rise pee meditate. I
have to rise pee brush my chumps meditate because then
the entire time I'll think about my teeth. So I
think it's okay to make it your own, right.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Well, my philosophy is whatever works. If you're gonna, if
you're gonna, if you're gonna rise pee brush, meditate and
do that every day, then I say rock on, do
that thing. Brush those choppers. But you know a lot
of times you make excuses, well, I want to rise,
(06:47):
I want to I want to pee, I do want
to make my coffee. I do need to feed the cat,
I do need to walk the dog. I didn't to
dress the kids. I do need to get online, I
do need to look at my emails. And suddenly you
know it's four hours later and you're like, oh, yeah,
that meditation didn't actually happen. So I would recommend that
(07:08):
not to insert too many things between you know, rising
and meditating. The only reason I say that is because
with every moment once we open our eyes, there's just
a little more activity going on inside of us. And
you know, all of those special hormones and chemicals that
(07:30):
have been allowing us to sleep all night they get suppressed,
and all the you know, chemicals and hormones that are
infused into us in the morning when the sun comes up,
they're designed to like wake us up. So with every
moment that we wait. So I would say, if you
have a tooth fetish like sherry, then yes, rise, pea brush, meditate,
(07:55):
But if you don't happen to have that particular tooth fetish,
I don't I Actually I used to just my model
used to just be rise meditate, but then I realized
during my meditation I was I had to pee, and
so that's why I inserted p in there. But if
you need to, you know, insert brush. If you need
to insert, at least put on the coffee maker while
(08:19):
you sit. Don't drink caffeine before you go into stillness
and silence. But I think, yeah, whatever works. We want
to make this a fun and joyous process. And we
know that if we can see it as a gift,
we'll show up and do it, and if we see
it as a chore, we're not going to.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That is an excellent point. So that kind of brings
me to my next question is why do you think
I mean, it seems like when people try meditation, will
they either go on and on and on about why
they can't do it or they just they love it.
They just they can't understand why they're not doing it daily.
So why do you think people have such a tough
(08:59):
time with meditating in particular, in creating a healthy habit
with meditation in particular, Like maybe running was easier, or
practicing Chinese or the clarinet is easier than meditating every day.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
You know, that's that's so brilliant. And it's because all
those other things that you just mentioned, whether that's you know,
you know, eliminating chips from your diet for a week,
you know, all those things, you know, learning a language,
learning an instrument, getting on the scale, they all have very,
very tangible, in your face results. You know, if I
(09:34):
try to learn Chinese and I practice for a week
and suddenly I'm able to say, you know, seshe or
something along those lines, I'm like, hey, this thing works.
I got it, And that positive reinforcement really propels us
to continue our practice. Just like when we're dieting or
we're trying to to you know, replace carbs with celery
(09:54):
or something like that, we just hop on the scale
and we see those tangible results and the result that
we experience for meditation are so much more subtle, and
we have very high opinions of ourselves. So suddenly when
we're more patient, a more patient listener to someone, we
don't attribute that to our meditation practice. We just say, hey,
(10:17):
I'm amazing, I'm so patient. And when we don't, you know,
scorch the village. When we're angry, we suddenly say, huh,
I guess I'm really learning to control myself, and so
we can't. You know, so much in our life gets
impacted with a meditation practice, and yet it's so subtle,
and yes, we're so you know, so proud thinking we've
(10:40):
done it all separately, that we don't draw that connection
and we don't think, oh, that's really because of my
meditation practice. I sleep better at night because of my
meditation practice. I'm a better friend because of my meditation practice.
I'm a little kinder to myself and others because my meditation.
We don't think that. We just think, damn awesome, amazing,
(11:02):
that is so cool.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Because I have to tell you I was around, you know,
I work in mental health, and I was around when
prozac came out. It was like the same phenomenon I was.
People would say, oh my gosh, my mood is so
much better. But it's not because of the prozac. That
was always like, it's the same thing. You know, I
commune yesterday with a ladybug, But it's not because of
my meditation exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
It's because I'm just amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
So we do hear a lot about the benefits of meditation,
and there you know, I always say to people, it's
about as good for you as water, so you know,
you might as well give it a chance. Or I
tell my kids maybe social services or come and get me.
But I say, you know, you could skip a meal,
but don't skip the meditation. So we hear about all
these benefits of meditation, But what benefit has surprised you
(11:50):
and your personal practice, Like what benefit have you been like, oh,
my gosh, I think this is because I'm meditating more.
Or even a story you've heard from a student.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, well, you know you nailed that when you said, oh,
I think this is because I'm meditating more. You know,
if we're really engaged in our practice and paying attention
to it, we realize the direct correlation. But even water, right,
we all need water, and some people just exist on coffee,
that's it, you know, coffee and soda, and they go, well,
I'm getting my water. You know, it's in the form
(12:22):
of coffee and soda. You know, even even if we're
drinking juice, you know we're getting you know, we're getting water.
So when we don't even recognize the powerful cleansing and
rejuvenative and restorative aspects of water, so hard to attribute
(12:42):
it to meditation as well. But I have drawn some
really clear direct correlations in my own life. I'm from
New York. My basic nature is to be a little fiery.
And as we came out of the womb, everybody grew
up in New York, you know, as you came out
(13:02):
of the womb, someone whispered in your ear and the
doctor probably or someone said, okay, welcome, welcome to planet Earth.
Here's how it works. Effort and focus. You want to
make something happen, effort and focus. It's not working. More effort,
still not working. More focused, still not working, more effort,
push harder. And we know that obviously, you know, after
(13:23):
years of being here on planet Earth. It's like that
doesn't always work. Perhaps being you know, more efficient with
our energy and perhaps being a little more patient, perhaps
being a little smarter. Perhaps you know, it's not all
about how hard can I bring it? Sometimes it's about
how wise can I be in the moment. And so
(13:45):
meditation some of the really direct correlations for me have
been I sleep better, you know, because I'm pretty fiery.
It's easy for me to like lie in bed at
night and ruminate about how I'm going to save the
planet and all the things I'm going to do and
all the conversations I've ever had in my entire life,
and all my wounds and all my trauma and all
the things I need to do next, and all my
(14:06):
you know, choices that I have in the in the
material world. And I'm also you know, I'm from New York.
So when someone starts to talk, within like two seconds,
I already know what they're going to say, so they
don't really have to say it. I can just cut
them off, you know, just run right over them and
(14:27):
interrupt and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew what you're
going to say before you even said it, and here's
my answer to what you're going to say. And like
that's not really emotionally intelligent, and it's really you know.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
So I could like.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Sit on my hands and put duct tape over my lips,
or I could just meditate and say, hey, let me
listen to what this person says. Maybe I don't know
everything that's about to unfold. I'm not, you know, clairvoyant
in every single moment. And I think that, you know,
for me being a better listener, for me being a
little more patient, for me being a little more compassionate.
(15:01):
Someone tells me a story or gives me an excuse,
and my basic nature is to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,
and guess what, you know, I've got a lot of
excuses as well, So maybe I could be a little
more compassionate, you know, with other people's reasons for why
they were late, or why this didn't get done, or why,
(15:22):
you know, something else in life. Really, having a consistent
daily meditation practice has allowed the world to come at
me in slower motion, so I'm not overwhelmed as much.
And I don't know, is that like thirty percent as
much or fifty percent. I'd say it's probably like two
hundred percent, because I can actually sit in a conversation
(15:45):
and allow those words from the other person to unfold
slowly land on me, allow myself to really digest them,
and that then allow me to be just a little
more thoughtful, a little more reflective, a little calmer, a
little kinder. And that's like a big shift for an
(16:05):
East Coaster like me, and I believe that's really a
big shift for everyone. I believe emotional intelligence is so
underrated in our world, and I think it's really the
source of all of our connection, you know, sometimes people
have nonverbal communication with us, sometimes they really need to
say the final word in the conversation so that we
(16:27):
can really get the point. And meditation has lowered my
blood pressure, it's lowered my pulse. It's allowed me to
be a little more concentrated, it's increased my focus, it's
enhanced my memory. And so for those of you who
like I think I'm living in my memory a little
(16:49):
bit as I get older, well that's actually part of
the process of the brain. You know, the you know,
the the gray matter in our brain gets thinner as
we age, and you can actually offset it and stop it.
We're slow it by meditating. So you know, everyone's you know,
buying prevaging and all these like memory enhancement tools, and
really if you just sat for ten minutes a day
(17:10):
and meditated, you probably have a much more profound and
evidence based result from that.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Wow, that's super cool. So you know you kind of
covered with the keys to a successful practice, are you know,
having the motivation because you know what the benefits are,
and making sure our PM is in there and all
of that, But like, do you want to add a
couple of your keys to a successful daily practice?
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Yes, I would.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
So there's a there's a study in a book. The
book's called Broadcasting Happiness, and the author is Michelle Geelan.
She is a happiness guru, and the book Broadcasting Happiness
is great, and haw's a particular study in there where
she she's a former news anchor from al Pas, Texas,
(18:01):
and spent a lot of time on TV, paying attention
to TV and the news and all that stuff. And
so she did the study exposing five thousand people to
violent images the news that might be the newspaper, that
might be within the first thirty minutes of them waking up,
and then twelve hours later she simply said, so how
(18:23):
was your day? And these people, even if they got
a new job, got a new car, or started a
new relationship, you know, suddenly fell in love, they were
still forty percent more likely when they were asked twelve
hours later, so how was your day? They were forty
percent more likely to go, man, it was okay, having
(18:46):
nothing to do what actually happened in the day. Then
these same people were exposed to positive imagery in the
first thirty minutes of when they awoke. Sugg as spending
time in nature, meditating, watching puppy videos, and then twelve
hours later they were asked, so, how was your day,
And even if they got fired, crash their car, or
(19:08):
got dumped in the relationship, they were still twenty percent
more likely to say, you know, it was a pretty
good day.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
So this this.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Study, and there are many more studies like this, you know,
it pretty much says, whatever happens in the first thirty
minutes of your day actually determines how you will assess
your day at the end of it, no matter what
happens during the day. And so imagine if we are
assessing our day, you know, negatively because we didn't meditate,
(19:38):
and then we you know, assessed the last four days
of the week as negative, we'd say, well, that was
a crappy week, and the last three weeks or two
and a half weeks, now I was a crappy month.
In the last seven months, well that was a crappy year.
And suddenly we're realizing, you know, that was a crappy decade.
And all we needed to do was actually introduced just
a little bit of stillness and silence into the first
(19:59):
thirty minutes of day, and that could really create a
powerful shift. So I do want to jump on and
reinforce the importance of starting your day with just a
little bit of stillness and silence, just a little bit
of connection to that quietness inside of you, because there's
a whole bunch of noise. If we have sixty thousand
(20:21):
to eighty thousand thoughts a day, that's a thought every
one point two seconds. They're pouring in. And so imagine
if we can just introduce small breaks in the action
over the course of the day. So everything else is
activity and there's only one stillness and we should celebrate it.
And it's part of who we are. That's who we
are at our core. We're not all the activity, We're
(20:42):
not our thoughts, we're not we're not all those things
that are pouring onto us. Where are the stillness that
rests inside all of that? And so we can start
treating each moment with just a little bit of that quietude,
that that calm, and that changes everything in life.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
It's like putting a little bit of the piggy bank
each day. Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah, speaking of
just a little bit, you know, your fame is oh
part of me?
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Go ahead, Well, I was going to say, you know,
it's like that just a spoonful of sugar helldicine. So
you know, just just a spoonful of stillness and silence,
just a little teaspoon makes everything just a little better.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's perfect. Well, speaking of a little by little. You know,
you're famous for this sixteen seconds to bliss, which I
admittedly did before I called you. Can you tell our
listeners what sixteen seconds to bliss is and why it's important?
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Yeah, you know, as I mentioned, every moment is activity,
you know, think about it. You know, we wake up
and then we're in motion and the world is in
motion and stuff's happening, Stuff's coming into us. We're seeing things,
we're hearing things, we're reading things, we're thinking about things
or touching things or feeling things like it's relentless. It's relentless,
(22:07):
and so if we think about it, we rarely you know,
they do it in sports all the time, but we
don't do it in our lives. And that would be
calling a time out. We're calling a time in. You know,
whatever sport you've ever watched, they're suddenly like, oh, things
are getting too intense. We need to calm things down
or slow those things down. Let's call a time out
and so I like to think of us taking a
(22:30):
time in. If we can just introduce a break in
the action, if we can just give our brain just
a few moments to breathe, then the next moment will
unfold without so much conditioning, and it'll be just a
little less reflexive and a little more reflective. And so
(22:50):
a technique that I began initially teaching to marines at
cam Pendleton, which is right up the road from where
I am, which is on the southern California on the
West coast. This was a way to introduce even the
most resistant person I felt to just a pretty cool,
easy to do, very accessible practice. So, whether you like
(23:14):
roll your eyes at meditation, whether you have people in
your life who roll their eyes at the concept you
know of meditation or find it too kooky or woo woo,
or anything along those lines, the reality is we're all
experiencing stress. We're all experiencing moments where our needs are
not being met. So right now, well of you listeners
out there to the stress therapist, see if you can
(23:37):
think about something that's been sort of kind of bothering
you for the last couple of days. Don't go too deep.
This isn't therapy. But maybe you know, someone said they
were going to do something they didn't, or something was
supposed to unfold a certain way, but it didn't unfold
that way. And you know, maybe it, you know, irritated
(23:57):
you or bothered you, or just felt problematic in some way.
And get clear on that. And now close your eyes
and through your nose, take a long, slow, deep breath
in and watch that breath, and when it gets to
your belly, just hold it there, keep watching it and
hold it there, keep witnessing it and hold it there,
(24:20):
and now release that breath and observe it as it
moves up your chest, through your throat, out through your nose,
your mouth, keep excelling, keep witnessing, keep watching it, keep
observing it. Allow it to dissipate into the ether and
they'll feel free to breathe normally. And open your eyes
and it feels comfortable. And that was a mere sixteen seconds.
(24:41):
And in those sixteen seconds, if you were playing along,
because I'm sure some of you are not playing along,
but you get to do it again, you know, But
if you were running along, yeah I did it nice.
Yes I can tell energetically, I could tell, and if
you were playing along, we really accomp pished a few things.
Number One, we weren't thinking about that thing that I
(25:03):
just asked you to think about. And I didn't say now,
stop thinking about the thing. I said, think about the
thing true, and then close your eyes and watch your breath.
And so suddenly we became fully present. And in the
sixteen seconds, we were not in the past, we were
not in the future. We were fully present. And if
you do that four times, it's a minute. If you
(25:25):
do it twenty times, that's five minutes. And suddenly we
have a tool now in our back pocket forever to
bring us into the present moment when we start worrying
about the future or when we start ruminating in the past.
And we also learned that we can direct our thoughts
to anywhere we want, at any time we want. So
if you're suddenly sitting with too much sadness, you know,
(25:48):
and you don't want to be sitting with it, then
you can direct to something else if you want to.
You know, if you're harping on a grievance or a judgment,
you get to adjust your attention to something else. And
so this is a beautiful tool just to remind us that,
you know, we have total power over where our attention
goes in any moment. And the beauty of this practice
(26:11):
is we also this is like the foundational element of meditation.
What we did was we drifted our attention to this
object of our attention, which was just watching our breath.
And that could be the foundation for a meditation practice.
And so with very very little effort and very very
you know, we have to get we didn't have to
get in full lotus position or make our hands in
(26:34):
special position. We didn't have to you know, get our
little Buddha in front of us. You know, we could
be in the car, we could be at a meeting,
we could be at the table, we could be on
the phone. And if we can just access those sixteen
seconds to bliss, to clarity, to ease to come, then
suddenly everything in our life can change. So that's a
(26:56):
tool that I would suggest that all of us practice
once in a while. You know, it's only sixteen seconds.
And if you're sitting staring at someone and you're feeling
a little awkward, I'm not going to close my eyes. Well,
I'm actually having a conversation too. With your eyes open.
It's Okay, no one's ever going to said, you, wait
a second, are you doing that sixteen second thing on me?
(27:17):
That would be really unlikely unless you were hanging out
with Sherry or me, then we would know. But otherwise
it's a powerful tool and it can really help us
live our lives with just a little less stress, with
a little more ease, and just you know, a little
more calm.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
David G I got to tell you that was amazing,
and let me tell you why, because I knew exactly
what sixteen seconds to bliss was. It was not all
my tests, not all.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Of my it was.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
It was there all the time, and it still worked,
do you know what I mean. I still didn't think
about the thing, even though I.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Right, it doesn't have to be a surprise. This thing
works even if you know punschline. I know.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
That was the cool thing I always say in my
client It's like your brain is so easy to trick
that we can talk about tricking it and still trick it.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Okay, that was awesome. Okay, so let's talk about your
books just for a second. The first one, amazing, lays
it all down. All the money goes to charity, which
is beautiful and wonderful, and I mean that is so cool.
The second one, my favorite one, destrassifying loved It has
all these little nuggets in it, like soda and squeeze
and all these little like things that you can actually
(28:32):
practically do, like in order to you know, understand and
sort of battle the stress response and understand it so
you can win those private battles in your head. And
then you come out with sacred powers where you're like
really being demanding of your reader. Now now they have
to phase change head on. You're asking them to not
(28:54):
only ask themselves these questions, but like write them down
in the book. You know what I'm saying. It is
like super cool. So what is there to gain? Like,
do you want to bring up a sacred question and
like to sort of tell us what there is to
gain from asking yourself these questions?
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Yeah? I think you know, again, in ritualizing our meditation practice,
you know, some of the things that we can do
on a consistent basis are asking ourselves questions, deep, deep,
deep questions. So instead of us, yeah, you know, asking
the question like oh, what should I do with my emails?
And what should I do with my kids? Right now?
(29:33):
And what should I do? And do I have to
go shopping? And how many lines do I have in
their fridge? And like all those kinds of things. Instead
we get to ask deeper questions like what am I
grateful for? And what does my heart truly long for?
And suddenly that cuts through everything, you know, when you
ask those questions. And there's scientific evidence now that even
(29:54):
having a gratitude practice, just focusing on one thing you're
grateful or for twenty seconds a day actually etches itself
into your brain. And a lot of times we're just
like we're too busy. It's like has a battery on
my phone? Do I have enough? Guess in my car?
Do I have to respond to that email? Now? Is
(30:15):
anyone following me on Instagram? You know, we can go
on and on with like all that stuff, and then
suddenly ask like what am I grateful for? Who are
the people? What are the things? And you know they're deeper,
deeper questions. And so the reason that I wrote Sacred
Powers is because some people, once they've started, I see,
I believe there's a there's a process. I believe that
(30:38):
there's like a three pronged process, and you know, it's first,
let's find balance in our lives. And then once we
start to really find center and we can balance ourselves
a little bit, then we can really start healing ourselves.
We can heal our wounds of the past. We can
we can heal, you know, the things we haven't forgiven
ourselves and others for We can heal our trauma. So
(30:59):
we can at least begin that work. And once we
begun that work, then we can really start to transform.
We can start to shift our lives from where we
are to where we'd like to be. And so I
think that process of balance heel transform really lays at
the center of so many ancient wisdom teachings for thousands
(31:21):
of years and so many civilizations and so many cultures.
So and sacred power is really what I did was
I tried to identify what are all these overlapping things
that people for thousands of years in indigenous places and
different continents, in different settings, you know, all over the world,
What have they been doing. What have the masters or
(31:42):
the oracles or the wisest people of those civilizations been
practicing and been teaching. And I believe that they were
teaching things that really are inherently resting inside of us.
They weren't teaching us to go out and find certain things.
They were teaching us to awaken those things that are
already inside of us. And so I believe that we
(32:03):
have sacred powers resting deep within, And if we are
willing to go to that place yet still ask deep questions,
we will hear the whispers of our heart. And why
wouldn't we try that? Yeah, wouldn't we Because a lot
of times we're so caught up in our head, so
much intellectual stuff going on in our head, that we
(32:27):
think that that's the answer to everything. And as you said,
we can our we can drig our brain, you know,
really really easily. But the heart never lies. The heart
just never lies. And so if we can just put
a little more attention on quieting the fluctuations of our mind,
we will hear the whispers of our heart. We will
(32:47):
get that divine guidance, We will get answers to questions
we have struggled with, perhaps our whole lives, and we
will make better decisions.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Honestly, it totally works.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I was one of your students, and I will be
really honest with you. I was very resistant to this
you know, I'm a therapist. Okay, I already did all
the work. I already know all this, okay, and I
was like resistant to it. And you know, what we
resist is what we offered me, you know. And I mean,
(33:22):
I think it's really really really cool, very insightful of
you to notice it and bring it about and share
it with all of us. I'm very grateful.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
Well, thank you for ultimately surrendering and sending your resistance,
because you are such an important voice in this world,
and you know people are listening to you, and so
hopefully everyone's listening to Cherry and actually saying, oh yeah, well,
if she knows everything and she's still paying attention, maybe
(33:55):
I'll give it a shot as well.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So I have my My last question is the very
most important one. How is your beautiful little teaches.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
She's curled up right next to me right now.
Speaker 6 (34:07):
Peaches teaches, She teaches the Buddha Princess's.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
She is so tiny, she is so tiny and so soft,
and so you know, she really exemplifies these these teachings.
Our footprint is very very soft. She doesn't make a
lot of eyes. She enters the situation, drinks it all in,
and she is also one of my greatest teachers of
(34:32):
resists nothing and you will receive unconditional love. And so
she's doing great, and she is a rescue, she's an
LA rescue, she's a mindful morky multi'e Yorkie combo we think,
who knows. And she's thirteen and she meditates with me
every single morning. And I would recommend to all of
(34:53):
you out there, if you've got little kids, if you've
got othercension beings, whether it's a lizard, a bird, a cat,
or a dog or a spouse, feel free to invite
them to meditate with you, Just to sit down with
you and everybody close their eyes and just and just breathe.
And if that turns into giggling, even better, if that
(35:17):
turns into people falling asleep, how magnificent that you find
gave yourself permission to relax that much.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And so I'm so much better with them there. Right,
I have sight my dog, and I have lollipop my
little kiddie.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah yeah, So meditation, you know, it doesn't have to
be you know, a solo you know thing. It can
be a team sport as well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Right then it's accountability partner built in Peaches is.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Right then, yeah, yes, well thank you for asking about Peaches.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Well, I just love that little thing. I mean, I
you'll love this. I use pictures I like to use
like re member photographs, actual photographs. I use the bookmarks,
and Peaches is in all your books, sure of Peaches
and all my books as a bookmark. Okay, I mean
all my books of yours. Okay. So, David G. Would
(36:06):
you bring us into a meditation?
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Sure, let's do that.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Yeah. So one of the most important things about meditation
is to remember that comfort is queen. So we don't
have to suddenly go up onto some hard matt or
do something or get in a certain position. Comfort. Comfort, comfort,
always keep moving towards comfort. So wherever you are right now,
see if you can just you know, sort of like
(36:33):
nestle in, gently feather your nests and get as comfortable
as possible. And together, let's take a long, slow, deep
breath in and never said gently let that go. If
(36:57):
you hear my other dog in the background, that of
course is not Peaches. But again another long slow, deep
breath in and release. And when your eyes are closed,
just allow your upper lid.
Speaker 8 (37:09):
And your lower lid to be touching so softly, so easily,
and just begin watching your breath.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Simply begin observing your breath. Watch it as it flows
into you, watch it as it flows back out, and
notice that you're settling in just a bit. Notice that
(37:41):
your body is relaxing with each exhale, Notice that your
mind is calming with each exl There's nowhere else to be,
nothing else to do except to be right here, right now,
(38:04):
in this sacred, precious press moment. You notice that the
swirl inside and outside of you is slowing down just
a bit. And as you breathe, notice that there is
(38:25):
just a little flicker of space between the inhale and
the exil. There's just a flicker of space. You breathe in,
there's this flicker of space.
Speaker 7 (38:39):
It's just a millisecond, and then you flow into the exil,
and simply observe that. Miss that, watch that, and at
the top of your next in hell, see if you
(39:00):
can lengthen that.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Space just to beat, just one beat before you flow
into the exil. You breathe in, there's that flicker of space.
You length in that space just to beat, and then
you flow into the exil. You need to force or concentrate,
(39:29):
just allow, and just become aware of that space between.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
That's who you are, the space between the space between
your breaths, the space between your thoughts, the space between
the beats of your heart.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
And now let's ask ourselves what are these sacred questions?
Let's ask what am I grateful for? What am I
grateful for? And just allow all the people in your life,
all the situations, all the dark clouds, all the silver
linings for which you're truly grateful, allow them to just
(40:26):
unfold before you on your long gratitude list, and now
(41:03):
drifts one thing you'd like to carry around with you
that you're grateful for all day long. Just one thing.
There's so many, but just drift your attention to one
thing that you're so grateful for. I've perhaps you've been
taking for granted, or perhaps you just haven't put enough
(41:24):
attention on. But now you're there, and see if you
can invite that one thing that you're grateful for into
your heart. Right now, you got that gratitude and that
(41:44):
particular thing into your sweet tender heart, and with each
breath allowed to grow and expand. I don't even see
(42:15):
if you can create an affirmation for the day that
perhaps starts with I'm grateful for you, know, take a long, slow,
deep breath in and ever so gently let that go.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Some.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
When it feels comfortable, you can begin to wiggle your fingers,
wiggle your toes and take another long, slow, deep breath
in and let that go. And when it feels comfortable,
(43:07):
you can slowly open your eyes and welcome back. Now
you've got this little mantra, this little affirmation in your head.
So as you walk throughout the world, if you stub
your toe, if you're feeling less than, if there's anything
(43:29):
that's not really leveling up, just remember I'm so grateful
for you, and you have that gratitude embedded inside of
you for that thing, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I love it in your pocket all day. David Jane,
thank you so much for being here. You're one of
my all time favorite people, and I'm so grateful that
you were here today.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
My God, thank you so so much for inviting me.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule, and then you got
so many things that you're spinning out there, and so
thanks for making this so special for me.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Well, you have a lovely, lovely day, and maybe we'll
have you back again soon.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I would love that you could just leave all of
your listeners with this one thing. Remember that we transform
the world by transforming ourselves, and it happens sort of
like one breath at a time, one meditation at a time,
one heartbeat at a time. So let's keep that going.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
For sure. You're the best. Thank you so much.
Speaker 9 (44:37):
You have a lovely, lovely day, you too. The Cott
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