June 10, 2025 • 28 mins
🪷 Episode Summary: In this classic replay, Cheri Flake brings us back to basics with heartfelt humor and soulful honesty. Through personal stories, down-to-earth wisdom, and a warm shout-out to Louise Hay and Davidji, Cheri shares how to truly begin a daily meditation practice—without overcomplicating it. Whether you're a binge meditator, a meditation dropout, or totally new to the cushion, this episode is your permission slip to just start—three minutes at a time. Bonus: includes a calming breathwork-based meditation to kickstart your practice with presence and grace. ✨ Three Key Learning Points:
- Three Minutes > Zero Minutes: Starting small, even just three minutes a day, beats lofty goals you never stick to. Build the habit, not the hype.
- RPM = Rise, Pee, Meditate: This simple formula helps anchor your practice before the world (or your phone) steals your focus. Mornings work best—even for night owls.
- Feel Good to Change: You can't shame yourself into transformation. Real change starts with compassion and showing up, not should-ing yourself into guilt.
- 📖 Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki – Back-to-basics spiritual inspiration.
- 🎉 You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay – The queen of affirmations and thought power.
- 🌬️ 16 Seconds to Bliss by Davidji – Breath practice featured in the episode.
- 🎙️ The Skeptic Metaphysicians – Podcast Cheri recently guested on. Woo meets wonder.
- 🧠Quote Drop: “Your personal reality creates your personality” — Joe Dispenza.
- 🎯 Accountability Tip: Text a friend “RPM” every morning to build the habit together!
- 💻 Cheri’s site: ilovetherapy.com – For retreats, consults, and sweet stress therapy mailers.
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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 going
to listen to a past episode that I really like
because it gets us back to the basics, back to
a zen mind Beginner's Mind, which is a great book
by Suzuki if you want to pick it up. But
when we come back to the basics, we remember exactly
what we want, and that is to be meditating every
single day. Listen. I know we've been talking a lot
about changing our thoughts and how hard that can be,
(00:22):
and I am not naive. Listen. I know that some
of you are like whatever, lady like as if, but
I'm saying that I am not naive. I get it.
I get it. I totally get that we cannot control
every single thought that we have. We're having sixty thousand
thoughts a day, man, I get it. But I do
know that if we pick the big ones, the ones
that make us miserable, that are not true, and we
(00:44):
manage to change those those sticky thoughts, they flourish out,
they bloom, They just keep growing and growing and growing
in life gets grander because you start to attract different
kinds of thoughts. I totally get that, and the way
that we do that the way that we become more
conscious about what we're even thinking and more aware. Usually
it's just a default thing. We're just letting thoughts in
and thinking them and believing them and feeling rotten. But
(01:05):
the way that we can get much much better at
that is by meditating every single day, by making meditation habitual,
by making it not negotiable. So here's our classic past
episode from Stress Therapy Meditation. Here is where you start,
Here's where you start fade. Hey, beautiful people, it's time
(01:41):
for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how to meditate
and get better at stress for people living in the
real world. Finally a place to park by twenty five
plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in
the mental health field and now your host me the
stress therapist Cherry Flake. Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Okay?
(02:14):
So I was just a guest on a podcast. Ooh,
it's like one of my favorite ones. You have to
check it out. The skeptic metaphysicians. These guys are awesome.
They are like looking into all of the wo to
see if it's true you know what I'm saying, and
it is so cool and they are just the best couple,
and I just love them the pieces. They're super cool. Anyway,
you have to check it out. It's wonderful. So every
single question that they asked me, it was a podcast
(02:36):
episode pretty much, because of course they're trying to figure out,
you know, what I do and how I work and
what works and how to get to meditate all the time.
That was their basic agenda. And we can talk about
mental health. We can talk about hard conversations. We can
talk about personality problems are how your you know, personal
reality creates your personality and the wise words of Joe Despenza.
(02:59):
We can talk about how do stay motivated. We can
talk about how to create healthy habits, all these lovely
things that I love to talk about. But sometimes every
twenty or twenty five episodes or so, we need to
come back to the basics and talk about where to start. Okay,
so I want to be better. I want to be
a little bit better and a little bit better and
(03:20):
a little bit better so I'm a lot better later.
But how do I start with just a little bit better?
I mean, that can be really hard. I totally get it.
And we're all starting there with something, even if it's pickleball,
even if it's I don't know, like my boys killing
it at pre calculus. Even if it's whatever it is,
whatever new thing you want to do, learning to play chess,
(03:41):
playing ping pong, getting better at Spanish, whatever it is
that you want to do and get a little bit better,
Where do you start? You know? And so you got
to kind of think about it, about other habits that
you have in your life that are true and steadfast
and in place, and you don't even about them. And
that's the rub, right, Like we're not thinking about what
(04:03):
we're doing right. We're obsessed with what we're doing wrong.
We're obsessed with feeling bad about what we're not doing
rather than feeling good about what we're working on right.
And you gotta change it around. If I could make
a big billboard, okay, I used to have my business
on a billboard. It was so awesome. I was right
in this early high traffic area and it said stressed,
(04:25):
start living now. And I got so much business from
that billboard. It was amazing. If I could make another billboard,
it would say, if you want to change anything, you
have to feel good about it, okay. And so that's
why Louise Hey her birthday was this week, and I mean,
I just love her to pieces. She's the Queen of affirmations.
(04:45):
Look up her book. It's called You Can Heal Your Life.
She's got a very beautiful version of it. You could
just put on your coffee table for the rest of
your life. It is lovely and it's how you think
about your body, how you think about your life, how
you think about your even your ailments, your aches, your pains,
your physical problems, your diagnoses, you know, and how you
could change your thoughts on how that can change your life.
(05:08):
And it's just a magical, magical book. So this week
I put a picture of me and Louise on my
Instagram page and you could take a look at it.
She was just delicious, most wonderful person to meet. We
went out and I can do it cruise with her.
My husband was very tolerant. It was one of his
first little insights into how I think, you know, we don't.
They've been married a couple of years and we learned
(05:29):
so much from that cruise and from Louise and her
people and her authors and her you know, she has
the biggest self help publishing house in the world, you know,
and she started with just a pamphlet when she was
like fifty four. She has an amazing story. Anyway, Louise
Hay is the one that taught me not to use should.
Don't should on yourself. Don't constantly be saying what you
should be doing, because you make yourself wrong and you
(05:51):
make yourself feel bad one hundred percent of the time.
Its side note, aughts are just shoulds in disguise, right,
So you want to think about the way that you're
talking to you yourself, right, And she's the person that
I learned this from. And one of the ways that
you can do that and trick yourself into feeling good
about something that you haven't accomplished or that isn't going
well or that's super hard, is just you know, forgive
(06:12):
yourself a little bit, man. I mean, I think when
people think about meditating, especially, there's like this goal they
want to get to, like, yes, we all want to
be meditating an hour twice a day or whatever it is,
whatever lofty goal you have, because yes, the more you
do it, the better you feel all of those things,
and more benefits you get. But where are you right now?
And you have to meet yourself there and understand that
(06:35):
the journey in finding that practice is the enjoyable part. Right,
there's nowhere to get to. You're already here. And when
you think about the habits that you already have in place,
like I just mentioned, like brushing your teeth, you're not
thinking constantly about when you're gonna brush your teeth, if
you're gonna have time, if it's worth it. You're not
(06:55):
explaining to people at parties why you missed it this morning,
or why it doesn't work for you, or people say
to do twice a day but you can't or whatever.
You're not doing that. You're probably just rushian and floss
and when you get the chance, and then that's it,
you know what I mean. And you want meditation to
become normal. But how do we start in that long
effort to have meditation become normal. Some people talk about
you know, habits being twenty one days or it takes
(07:18):
you know, I don't know about all that. I think
that James Clear does an excellent job of really putting
together the massive library that we have regarding creating healthy habits.
He's got excellent points in his book. You know, people
have talked about motivation and habit formation and David Allen
and all these things for so long, and then you
know Wayne Dyer and the father of motivation. We can
(07:38):
read all of that, we can be involved in all
of that, but when it comes down to it, are
you showing up? Right? And so that's where you start.
You just practice showing up. So I was, you know,
teaching someone how to begin a meditation practice that really meditates.
You know, it might be like more of a binge
meditator or maybe a crisis meditator where they met take
(08:00):
and do really well meditating. They enjoy meditating, and they
might meditate for twenty minutes or half hour, but they
only do it, like I don't know, once or twice
a month or something, right, so it hasn't become habitual.
And so I told this person, you need to start
with three minutes just every day, like David G says,
Rise pete meditate r p M. I'm from Detroit. I
(08:23):
get it. Like that sounds like rotations per minute, but
it's not. It's rise pee meditate, rise pete meditate and
just do it for three minutes. And this individual was
really frustrated because he was like, listen, I already know
how to do it. For twenty minutes. Why would I
do it for three minutes? That doesn't even matter, And
it matters more than anything because we are not trying
(08:44):
to talk him into meditation. We're not trying to tell
him that it's good for him. We're not trying to
convince him to do it. We're not trying to convince
him how great it is and how fun it's going
to be. He already has all those things. What we're
trying to do is make showing up every single day
habitual and non negotiable. You just show up and it's
(09:07):
only for three minutes, and if it's only for three minutes,
you're gonna win that private battle in your head and
show up for the three minutes. Why three minutes, because
it's less than five so you'll win that battle in
your head. How long for three minutes? I don't know.
I would say two weeks, especially if you've never done it.
Do it for a month like that, do it for
two months? Who cares? How long you only do it?
(09:29):
And I'm making quote marks for three minutes. If it's
a life long journey to be doing it every single day, right,
you have your whole life to make it whatever perfect
or when then trap you've got yourself stuck in. When
I do this, then I'll be happy when I'm doing this,
then I'll be happy when you show up. You are
meditating when you show up every single day, okay, And
(09:51):
three minutes is better than zero minutes one hundred percent
of the time. So if you have fallen off of
your practice, I want you to start with three minutes.
And for those of you that are teenagers or under
the age of twenty four or twenty five, where your
prefrontal cortex is still developing, you might want to do
it at night, so it would be more like, you know,
(10:13):
right before bed r b B. But you have to
like figure out what that behavior right beforehand would be.
So like a lot of my clients would be like
right after shower or right after unmake my bed, or
right after I turn off the lights or right after whatever.
And I would suggest that you do not meditate in
(10:33):
bed so you don't fall asleep. And I have a
whole episode on meditation if you want to check that out. However,
most of you are going to say, well, I'm going
to do that. I'm going to do it at night.
And if you're not under the age of twenty three,
twenty four, twenty five and older if you're a boy,
and younger if you're a girl. Biologically, you're going to
want to do it at night because it's going to
(10:53):
seem easier than waking up earlier. However, if you want
success at this, even if you are twenty three, even
if you're twenty, even if you're nineteen, even if you're eighteen,
you're gonna have massive more success if you do it
first thing in the morning, before you look at your phone,
before you brush your teeth, before you let the dogs out,
before you make the coffee, rise, pee, meditate. David g
(11:16):
Planes is so eloquently and this advice is the best
advice that I can give before anything. You sit only
for three minutes, and you make that the goal each day. Okay,
so say that you do miss one, like you wake
up and your cat was throwing up and you got
wrapped up in that and then you just took Sharon
went to work or something like that. Okay, it happens
to all of us. I mean, nothing gets me out
(11:37):
of bed faster than than my cat puking. She never
pukes on something I don't like. Ever, it's always something
I like, Okay, so maybe that happens. That's fine. Things happen.
The same thing could happen with brushing your teeth. You
might go to work with Dami're like, oh my gosh,
holy smokes, I forgot to brush my teeth. That's crazy.
It never happens, or whatever. Or I put conditioner on
but I didn't put shampoo on or whatever. I mean,
(11:58):
things happen, right, but you get to it that night.
You make sure that it's the last thing that you do,
then get into bed, then sleep or whatever you're going
to do in bed. Okay, that is where you start. Okay.
And I would say, without meeting you, knowing you, and
you are welcome to send me questions. I love questions,
and you are welcome to use me as an accountability partner.
(12:20):
At any given time I am I'm I mean my clients,
my friends, people that I meet on podcasts or whatever.
In my business. I am getting texts each morning from
someone telling me that there arepm that they did it.
And it's at any given moment. It could be six
or eight people a day, and I love it. I
love it on vacation, I love it on my birthday.
(12:42):
I love it on the weekends. I love it all
the time because I'm rooting for you. And what you
need is someone who is rooting for you. So find
a friend that you want to do it with and
send each other a text every single morning as soon
as you're done. When you finally do, get you to
your phone that says I did at RPM whatever. But
that is where you start, and you stay there. You
(13:03):
stay there at RPM three minutes every morning until it's normal.
It feels a little bit normal, just the littlest bit normal. Now.
That means that when your friend comes to stay with
you for the weekend, you still have to do it.
That means when you have a cold, you still have
to do it. That means when you're on vacation, which
I find the hardest for most people, you still have
(13:26):
to do it. And if you do it, if you
stick to it, there's the three minutes. Okay. The sense
of accomplishment that you will feel in that moment is
one of the benefits that we don't even talk about meditation.
How good it feels to be productive in learning something
new and bringing a new healthy habit into your life.
That's not that easy, right, I mean, that is the
(13:48):
coolest thing of all when you finally are nailing it.
And if you don't believe me, talk to someone who
is playing pick a ball on the reg right now.
They are excited. They're not excited about when they're going
to play perfectly or when they're gonna win that tournament.
They are excited about showing up and playing. And that's
where you need to be because the number one thing
if you want to bring a new healthy habit into
(14:08):
your life is you have to feel good. And this
is the way. It's showing up every single time, not
giving excuses, not talking about why you can't do it.
I don't care about those things. If you're gonna tell
me why you can't do it, I am going to
believe you. Okay, until you can turn it around and
say I would like to do this, I can do this,
I'm going to do this, and this is where I start.
(14:29):
It ain't gonna happen. You have to turn those thoughts around,
and when you start thinking differently about things, the things
that you think about start to change. And that's whether
you believe it or not. And I want this for you.
I want this for you. There is nothing like meditating
every day. Nothing has changed my life or my client's
life more profoundly than simply just adding a meditation practice
(14:53):
into your life with regularity. Okay, you got this, Okay,
you got this. Okay, Okay. Now we're gonna learn a
little bit of a breath that you can try when
you're just starting out, when you go to sit down.
That can get you a little bit centered right before
you meditate, and we'll do that right after this. Okay.
(15:28):
So let's find a comfortable place where you're sitting up,
your chinnis level to the ground, your shoulders are relaxed,
you're not leaning forward or leaning back, find a place
for your hands, and arrange yourself in a way where
you're not fidgeting, where you're comfortable. And I'm doing this
(15:54):
with you. I'm doing this right along side of you.
Starting off really really small. We're going to do what
David g calls sixteen seconds to bliss. Empty your lungs
(16:23):
and breathe in your nose one two three four, hold
it one two three four, out of your mouth one
two three four, hold it out one two three four,
and just allow your breath.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
To be whatever it is. Just watching it.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Okay, We're gonna do it again. Emptier lungs, breathe in
your nose one two three four, hold it one two
three four out of your mouth one two three four
hold it out one two three four, and then allow
(17:22):
your bread to find it's natural rhythm once again. All right,
(17:51):
we're gonna change it up a little bit and deer lungs.
Breathing your nose one two three hold it one two,
breathe out one two three four.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That's three two four three two four. I'm gonna leave
you just for a few minutes alone to meditate, and
(18:25):
I want you to count during your inhales. If you
pause between the inhale and the exhal count during your exhales.
And then notice if you pause between the exhale and
the inhale, and it could be really easy just to
start with breathe in two, breathe out three, and if
(18:50):
that seems too short, you can breathe in three, breathe
out four and just really immersed in the breath. Give
me your exhaled just one count longer than the inhale.
(19:11):
I'm just noticing, and he pauses. I'm just allowing your
breath to be what it is, counting along with it,
and when you notice that you've stopped counting, or that
(19:38):
your attention has moved away from the breath. You simply
come back to the breath counting, and I'll be back
to guide you out up.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
U allow the numbers, the counting, even the breath to
(26:05):
fall away from your awareness. Bring you your attention back
to this time, this room, this moment, this body. Sitting
quietly still with your eyes closed to your lungs, and
(26:30):
take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose, let
it all go out of your mouth. And this time
you could bring your shoulders with you, breathing in your
nose all the way up to your ears, and then
let it drop, breathing out of your mouth. One last
(26:53):
breath in your nose, letting it all go out of
your mouth. When you're ready, you can open your beautiful eyes.
(27:13):
I so hope that was helpful for you and getting
you grounded started and feeling good about just showing up, counting, breathing.
That's it. You just showed up, and you can feel
good about it. Kick those sholds out of the way,
you don't need them. And any time you want to
send me a question, I'm happy to answer it. I'm
(27:34):
rooting for you. I want this for you. It's so good.
I just I want you to have it. So find
an accountability partners, show up tomorrow, text one another, keep
track of one another, root for one another, and have
a lovely, lovely day. Hi y'all feeling after that stress
therapy session? Good awesome? Check out the show notes to
(27:57):
connect with me the Stress Therapist 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 of my clients, go to
my website to find out how you can sign up
(28:17):
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 going
to listen to a past episode that I really like
because it gets us back to the basics, back to
a zen mind Beginner's Mind, which is a great book
by Suzuki if you want to pick it up. But
when we come back to the basics, we remember exactly
what we want, and that is to be meditating every
single day. Listen. I know we've been talking a lot
about changing our thoughts and how hard that can be,
(00:22):
and I am not naive. Listen. I know that some
of you are like whatever, lady like as if, but
I'm saying that I am not naive. I get it.
I get it. I totally get that we cannot control
every single thought that we have. We're having sixty thousand
thoughts a day, man, I get it. But I do
know that if we pick the big ones, the ones
that make us miserable, that are not true, and we
(00:44):
manage to change those those sticky thoughts, they flourish out,
they bloom, They just keep growing and growing and growing
in life gets grander because you start to attract different
kinds of thoughts. I totally get that, and the way
that we do that the way that we become more
conscious about what we're even thinking and more aware. Usually
it's just a default thing. We're just letting thoughts in
and thinking them and believing them and feeling rotten. But
(01:05):
the way that we can get much much better at
that is by meditating every single day, by making meditation habitual,
by making it not negotiable. So here's our classic past
episode from Stress Therapy Meditation. Here is where you start,
Here's where you start fade. Hey, beautiful people, it's time
(01:41):
for some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how to meditate
and get better at stress for people living in the
real world. Finally a place to park by twenty five
plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in
the mental health field and now your host me the
stress therapist Cherry Flake. Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Okay?
(02:14):
So I was just a guest on a podcast. Ooh,
it's like one of my favorite ones. You have to
check it out. The skeptic metaphysicians. These guys are awesome.
They are like looking into all of the wo to
see if it's true you know what I'm saying, and
it is so cool and they are just the best couple,
and I just love them the pieces. They're super cool. Anyway,
you have to check it out. It's wonderful. So every
single question that they asked me, it was a podcast
(02:36):
episode pretty much, because of course they're trying to figure out,
you know, what I do and how I work and
what works and how to get to meditate all the time.
That was their basic agenda. And we can talk about
mental health. We can talk about hard conversations. We can
talk about personality problems are how your you know, personal
reality creates your personality and the wise words of Joe Despenza.
(02:59):
We can talk about how do stay motivated. We can
talk about how to create healthy habits, all these lovely
things that I love to talk about. But sometimes every
twenty or twenty five episodes or so, we need to
come back to the basics and talk about where to start. Okay,
so I want to be better. I want to be
a little bit better and a little bit better and
(03:20):
a little bit better so I'm a lot better later.
But how do I start with just a little bit better?
I mean, that can be really hard. I totally get it.
And we're all starting there with something, even if it's pickleball,
even if it's I don't know, like my boys killing
it at pre calculus. Even if it's whatever it is,
whatever new thing you want to do, learning to play chess,
(03:41):
playing ping pong, getting better at Spanish, whatever it is
that you want to do and get a little bit better,
Where do you start? You know? And so you got
to kind of think about it, about other habits that
you have in your life that are true and steadfast
and in place, and you don't even about them. And
that's the rub, right, Like we're not thinking about what
(04:03):
we're doing right. We're obsessed with what we're doing wrong.
We're obsessed with feeling bad about what we're not doing
rather than feeling good about what we're working on right.
And you gotta change it around. If I could make
a big billboard, okay, I used to have my business
on a billboard. It was so awesome. I was right
in this early high traffic area and it said stressed,
(04:25):
start living now. And I got so much business from
that billboard. It was amazing. If I could make another billboard,
it would say, if you want to change anything, you
have to feel good about it, okay. And so that's
why Louise Hey her birthday was this week, and I mean,
I just love her to pieces. She's the Queen of affirmations.
(04:45):
Look up her book. It's called You Can Heal Your Life.
She's got a very beautiful version of it. You could
just put on your coffee table for the rest of
your life. It is lovely and it's how you think
about your body, how you think about your life, how
you think about your even your ailments, your aches, your pains,
your physical problems, your diagnoses, you know, and how you
could change your thoughts on how that can change your life.
(05:08):
And it's just a magical, magical book. So this week
I put a picture of me and Louise on my
Instagram page and you could take a look at it.
She was just delicious, most wonderful person to meet. We
went out and I can do it cruise with her.
My husband was very tolerant. It was one of his
first little insights into how I think, you know, we don't.
They've been married a couple of years and we learned
(05:29):
so much from that cruise and from Louise and her
people and her authors and her you know, she has
the biggest self help publishing house in the world, you know,
and she started with just a pamphlet when she was
like fifty four. She has an amazing story. Anyway, Louise
Hay is the one that taught me not to use should.
Don't should on yourself. Don't constantly be saying what you
should be doing, because you make yourself wrong and you
(05:51):
make yourself feel bad one hundred percent of the time.
Its side note, aughts are just shoulds in disguise, right,
So you want to think about the way that you're
talking to you yourself, right, And she's the person that
I learned this from. And one of the ways that
you can do that and trick yourself into feeling good
about something that you haven't accomplished or that isn't going
well or that's super hard, is just you know, forgive
(06:12):
yourself a little bit, man. I mean, I think when
people think about meditating, especially, there's like this goal they
want to get to, like, yes, we all want to
be meditating an hour twice a day or whatever it is,
whatever lofty goal you have, because yes, the more you
do it, the better you feel all of those things,
and more benefits you get. But where are you right now?
And you have to meet yourself there and understand that
(06:35):
the journey in finding that practice is the enjoyable part. Right,
there's nowhere to get to. You're already here. And when
you think about the habits that you already have in place,
like I just mentioned, like brushing your teeth, you're not
thinking constantly about when you're gonna brush your teeth, if
you're gonna have time, if it's worth it. You're not
(06:55):
explaining to people at parties why you missed it this morning,
or why it doesn't work for you, or people say
to do twice a day but you can't or whatever.
You're not doing that. You're probably just rushian and floss
and when you get the chance, and then that's it,
you know what I mean. And you want meditation to
become normal. But how do we start in that long
effort to have meditation become normal. Some people talk about
you know, habits being twenty one days or it takes
(07:18):
you know, I don't know about all that. I think
that James Clear does an excellent job of really putting
together the massive library that we have regarding creating healthy habits.
He's got excellent points in his book. You know, people
have talked about motivation and habit formation and David Allen
and all these things for so long, and then you
know Wayne Dyer and the father of motivation. We can
(07:38):
read all of that, we can be involved in all
of that, but when it comes down to it, are
you showing up? Right? And so that's where you start.
You just practice showing up. So I was, you know,
teaching someone how to begin a meditation practice that really meditates.
You know, it might be like more of a binge
meditator or maybe a crisis meditator where they met take
(08:00):
and do really well meditating. They enjoy meditating, and they
might meditate for twenty minutes or half hour, but they
only do it, like I don't know, once or twice
a month or something, right, so it hasn't become habitual.
And so I told this person, you need to start
with three minutes just every day, like David G says,
Rise pete meditate r p M. I'm from Detroit. I
(08:23):
get it. Like that sounds like rotations per minute, but
it's not. It's rise pee meditate, rise pete meditate and
just do it for three minutes. And this individual was
really frustrated because he was like, listen, I already know
how to do it. For twenty minutes. Why would I
do it for three minutes? That doesn't even matter, And
it matters more than anything because we are not trying
(08:44):
to talk him into meditation. We're not trying to tell
him that it's good for him. We're not trying to
convince him to do it. We're not trying to convince
him how great it is and how fun it's going
to be. He already has all those things. What we're
trying to do is make showing up every single day
habitual and non negotiable. You just show up and it's
(09:07):
only for three minutes, and if it's only for three minutes,
you're gonna win that private battle in your head and
show up for the three minutes. Why three minutes, because
it's less than five so you'll win that battle in
your head. How long for three minutes? I don't know.
I would say two weeks, especially if you've never done it.
Do it for a month like that, do it for
two months? Who cares? How long you only do it?
(09:29):
And I'm making quote marks for three minutes. If it's
a life long journey to be doing it every single day, right,
you have your whole life to make it whatever perfect
or when then trap you've got yourself stuck in. When
I do this, then I'll be happy when I'm doing this,
then I'll be happy when you show up. You are
meditating when you show up every single day, okay, And
(09:51):
three minutes is better than zero minutes one hundred percent
of the time. So if you have fallen off of
your practice, I want you to start with three minutes.
And for those of you that are teenagers or under
the age of twenty four or twenty five, where your
prefrontal cortex is still developing, you might want to do
it at night, so it would be more like, you know,
(10:13):
right before bed r b B. But you have to
like figure out what that behavior right beforehand would be.
So like a lot of my clients would be like
right after shower or right after unmake my bed, or
right after I turn off the lights or right after whatever.
And I would suggest that you do not meditate in
(10:33):
bed so you don't fall asleep. And I have a
whole episode on meditation if you want to check that out. However,
most of you are going to say, well, I'm going
to do that. I'm going to do it at night.
And if you're not under the age of twenty three,
twenty four, twenty five and older if you're a boy,
and younger if you're a girl. Biologically, you're going to
want to do it at night because it's going to
(10:53):
seem easier than waking up earlier. However, if you want
success at this, even if you are twenty three, even
if you're twenty, even if you're nineteen, even if you're eighteen,
you're gonna have massive more success if you do it
first thing in the morning, before you look at your phone,
before you brush your teeth, before you let the dogs out,
before you make the coffee, rise, pee, meditate. David g
(11:16):
Planes is so eloquently and this advice is the best
advice that I can give before anything. You sit only
for three minutes, and you make that the goal each day. Okay,
so say that you do miss one, like you wake
up and your cat was throwing up and you got
wrapped up in that and then you just took Sharon
went to work or something like that. Okay, it happens
to all of us. I mean, nothing gets me out
(11:37):
of bed faster than than my cat puking. She never
pukes on something I don't like. Ever, it's always something
I like, Okay, so maybe that happens. That's fine. Things happen.
The same thing could happen with brushing your teeth. You
might go to work with Dami're like, oh my gosh,
holy smokes, I forgot to brush my teeth. That's crazy.
It never happens, or whatever. Or I put conditioner on
but I didn't put shampoo on or whatever. I mean,
(11:58):
things happen, right, but you get to it that night.
You make sure that it's the last thing that you do,
then get into bed, then sleep or whatever you're going
to do in bed. Okay, that is where you start. Okay.
And I would say, without meeting you, knowing you, and
you are welcome to send me questions. I love questions,
and you are welcome to use me as an accountability partner.
(12:20):
At any given time I am I'm I mean my clients,
my friends, people that I meet on podcasts or whatever.
In my business. I am getting texts each morning from
someone telling me that there arepm that they did it.
And it's at any given moment. It could be six
or eight people a day, and I love it. I
love it on vacation, I love it on my birthday.
(12:42):
I love it on the weekends. I love it all
the time because I'm rooting for you. And what you
need is someone who is rooting for you. So find
a friend that you want to do it with and
send each other a text every single morning as soon
as you're done. When you finally do, get you to
your phone that says I did at RPM whatever. But
that is where you start, and you stay there. You
(13:03):
stay there at RPM three minutes every morning until it's normal.
It feels a little bit normal, just the littlest bit normal. Now.
That means that when your friend comes to stay with
you for the weekend, you still have to do it.
That means when you have a cold, you still have
to do it. That means when you're on vacation, which
I find the hardest for most people, you still have
(13:26):
to do it. And if you do it, if you
stick to it, there's the three minutes. Okay. The sense
of accomplishment that you will feel in that moment is
one of the benefits that we don't even talk about meditation.
How good it feels to be productive in learning something
new and bringing a new healthy habit into your life.
That's not that easy, right, I mean, that is the
(13:48):
coolest thing of all when you finally are nailing it.
And if you don't believe me, talk to someone who
is playing pick a ball on the reg right now.
They are excited. They're not excited about when they're going
to play perfectly or when they're gonna win that tournament.
They are excited about showing up and playing. And that's
where you need to be because the number one thing
if you want to bring a new healthy habit into
(14:08):
your life is you have to feel good. And this
is the way. It's showing up every single time, not
giving excuses, not talking about why you can't do it.
I don't care about those things. If you're gonna tell
me why you can't do it, I am going to
believe you. Okay, until you can turn it around and
say I would like to do this, I can do this,
I'm going to do this, and this is where I start.
(14:29):
It ain't gonna happen. You have to turn those thoughts around,
and when you start thinking differently about things, the things
that you think about start to change. And that's whether
you believe it or not. And I want this for you.
I want this for you. There is nothing like meditating
every day. Nothing has changed my life or my client's
life more profoundly than simply just adding a meditation practice
(14:53):
into your life with regularity. Okay, you got this, Okay,
you got this. Okay, Okay. Now we're gonna learn a
little bit of a breath that you can try when
you're just starting out, when you go to sit down.
That can get you a little bit centered right before
you meditate, and we'll do that right after this. Okay.
(15:28):
So let's find a comfortable place where you're sitting up,
your chinnis level to the ground, your shoulders are relaxed,
you're not leaning forward or leaning back, find a place
for your hands, and arrange yourself in a way where
you're not fidgeting, where you're comfortable. And I'm doing this
(15:54):
with you. I'm doing this right along side of you.
Starting off really really small. We're going to do what
David g calls sixteen seconds to bliss. Empty your lungs
(16:23):
and breathe in your nose one two three four, hold
it one two three four, out of your mouth one
two three four, hold it out one two three four,
and just allow your breath.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
To be whatever it is. Just watching it.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Okay, We're gonna do it again. Emptier lungs, breathe in
your nose one two three four, hold it one two
three four out of your mouth one two three four
hold it out one two three four, and then allow
(17:22):
your bread to find it's natural rhythm once again. All right,
(17:51):
we're gonna change it up a little bit and deer lungs.
Breathing your nose one two three hold it one two,
breathe out one two three four.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That's three two four three two four. I'm gonna leave
you just for a few minutes alone to meditate, and
(18:25):
I want you to count during your inhales. If you
pause between the inhale and the exhal count during your exhales.
And then notice if you pause between the exhale and
the inhale, and it could be really easy just to
start with breathe in two, breathe out three, and if
(18:50):
that seems too short, you can breathe in three, breathe
out four and just really immersed in the breath. Give
me your exhaled just one count longer than the inhale.
(19:11):
I'm just noticing, and he pauses. I'm just allowing your
breath to be what it is, counting along with it,
and when you notice that you've stopped counting, or that
(19:38):
your attention has moved away from the breath. You simply
come back to the breath counting, and I'll be back
to guide you out up.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
U allow the numbers, the counting, even the breath to
(26:05):
fall away from your awareness. Bring you your attention back
to this time, this room, this moment, this body. Sitting
quietly still with your eyes closed to your lungs, and
(26:30):
take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose, let
it all go out of your mouth. And this time
you could bring your shoulders with you, breathing in your
nose all the way up to your ears, and then
let it drop, breathing out of your mouth. One last
(26:53):
breath in your nose, letting it all go out of
your mouth. When you're ready, you can open your beautiful eyes.
(27:13):
I so hope that was helpful for you and getting
you grounded started and feeling good about just showing up, counting, breathing.
That's it. You just showed up, and you can feel
good about it. Kick those sholds out of the way,
you don't need them. And any time you want to
send me a question, I'm happy to answer it. I'm
(27:34):
rooting for you. I want this for you. It's so good.
I just I want you to have it. So find
an accountability partners, show up tomorrow, text one another, keep
track of one another, root for one another, and have
a lovely, lovely day. Hi y'all feeling after that stress
therapy session? Good awesome? Check out the show notes to
(27:57):
connect with me the Stress Therapist 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 of my clients, go to
my website to find out how you can sign up
(28:17):
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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