December 22, 2025 • 20 mins
Self discipline is the only way to form new habits and achieve new goals. Keeping your word with yourself is the first step towards being able to keep your word with others. Many times we can get swept away by the daily struggle and days, weeks, months can go by in between steps towards progress. Meditation can help form new patterns of behavior, to break free of unproductive thoughts and habits. One breath at a time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to mindful meditations with calm, the bleep down. As always,
I am your guide, Michael Beckameier, and today we are
going to become masters of ourself. Let's get started. As always,
we have a mindfulness quote to help us go into
our meditation with some intent and purpose. And today our
(00:34):
quote comes from Laotsu and it reads, mastering others is strength,
mastering yourself is true power. I like that quote because
it reminds me of discipline, which is something that I
personally have been thinking about a lot lately. You know,
(00:54):
you get busy, you get into increasingly bad habits or
unproductive habits of taking it easy, putting stuff off till tomorrow,
and then putting stuff off again till the next day,
the next day, the next day, the next thing, you know,
a week has gone by and you haven't done that
thing that you said you were going to do or
(01:17):
that you promised you would do. And this goes for everything.
And if you tell someone you're going to do something,
you need to do it. But also if you tell
yourself you're going to do something, you need to do
it because nobody can make you do anything but yourself.
(01:40):
And if you are trying to accomplish something a goal
like you want to run a marathon, or you want
to exercise, or you want to work out, or you
want to control your temper on things. The only person
that can make you do that is you. And the
thing is, when you have something that you need to
(02:01):
train yourself to do, you have to take baby steps
towards that. You can't just say well, I'm not going
to do that anymore and then poof there It is
because habits are things that are burned in our brain
and burdened into our routine so much so that we
don't think about it anymore because we just naturally do it,
do that thing. So what I like about how that
(02:24):
ties into meditation is for me, meditation is the one
thing in my life that I have From the day
I started doing it and I decided I was going
to be a daily meditator. From the day I started that,
I haven't missed a day. And at first it was like,
(02:45):
oh man, what if I miss tomorrow. I might miss tomorrow.
So I actually still to this day have alarms and
notifications and reminders set up on my phone to ding
and say did you meditate today? Because way back four
or five years ago. So when I first started, I
didn't want to forget that I was supposed to be
a daily meditator now because at first it was something
(03:08):
that I wasn't. Then I had to train myself. Same
thing goes for eating healthy, exercising, working on a project.
It's discipline for me. The reason I like the analogy
of how this ties into meditation is because meditation requires discipline.
It requires you making yourself sit down, close your eyes, relax,
(03:30):
and breathe. Even if you only do it for two
minutes a day, you can still do it. Very often
find people who say I want to meditate, I wish
I had time to do that, And my response is,
meditate for sixty seconds. Everybody has a spare minute, even
if it's right before you go to sleep at night.
And then you know, people either make excuses for why
(03:54):
they don't have that minute. Who doesn't have a minute,
But some people have an excuse for why they don't
have a minute. Some people are very busy. I get it.
There are days when I wake up that's like I
feel like I have not had a spare minute. But
I still meditate it because for me, it's a promise
I made myself, and with practice, you can make promises
(04:17):
to yourself and get used to keeping them, and then
with time you can start making promises to other people
and just know you're going to keep them. Because you
keep your word with yourself, and it's a standard that
you've set for yourself to keep your word. Now you
can keep your word with other people. It's just a practice.
So that's what we're going to meditate on today. So
(04:40):
for this meditation, you can sit down or lie down,
and if you've never meditated before, that's okay. First thing
you want to do is close your eyes and start
slowing and lengthening your breath. Start to imagine yourself relaxing,
so loosening the tight tense areas of your body. And
for me, I start thinking of it as when I exhale,
(05:06):
I get more and more loose, more and more relaxed,
heavier and heavier with each exhale, and I slip deeper
and deeper into my relaxation with each breath. And then
I scan my body from head to toe and check
all the other hidden places that I might be holding tension,
(05:28):
like very often in my cheekbones and my mouth, my jaw.
Relaxing your shoulders, your neck, torso arms, legs, all the
way down to your toes. Maybe flex your fingers and
(05:48):
rotate your wrists, and maybe do the same thing with
your toes and your feet and your ankles, and let
yourself sink deeper and deeper into relaxation with each breath,
breathing in and out, heavier and heavier with each axim
(06:21):
And as you do that, you're meditating. But also as
you're doing that, from time to time, you may notice
that your mind has wondered. They call it monkey mind.
Your mind just jumping around like a monkey from place
to place. That's a normal thing. That is something that
(06:44):
every meditator deals with. Once you notice that your mind
has wondered, just without judgment or frustration, without getting in
noise out quitting, just bring it back to the breath. Oh,
(07:08):
recognize that thought and come back to your breath. In fact,
noticing that your mind has wandered from your meditation, from
your breath is mindfulness. And since we're working on discipline,
we stick with it. We don't get frustrated, we don't quit,
(07:29):
we don't get annoyed. We're just distancing ourselves from those thoughts.
Returning to our breath and continue pushing forward, breathing in
and out, over and over and over again, repeating that process,
(07:55):
allowing yourself to get lost in this present moment, never wavering.
The present moment is always waiting for us to return
to it. It's there, It's a constant, and it is
always there. The present moment is happening whether we are
in it or not. It isn't as if we get
(08:18):
to rewind a clock and do that second minute or
hour over again. It has already happened because time keeps
moving forward, the present moment, and it is just waiting
for us to join it, and we join it with
our breath, one breath at a time, and out in
(08:50):
and out as it. Continue with this practice on your
own for a few moments. I will return at the
end in an.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Out us.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Instant Us one must us in as music.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, wherever you are in space and time, it is
time to return back to your body. Let that silence
and stillness and relaxation settle in for just a few
more moments. Take a few more cleansing breaths in and out.
(18:58):
Maybe it's your first time meditating, maybe it's your thousandth
day meditating. Either way, you practiced today, and you practice discipline,
and for that you should congratulate yourself and you can
take that with you throughout the day and carry it
(19:21):
with you until tomorrow, when hopefully you will sit down
and practice meditation, mindfulness and discipline again, and with that
you can open your eyes and go about your day,
(19:41):
be well, and have fun. That's it for this time
(20:01):
on Calm to bleep down. If you like this meditation,
please feel free to send us an email, post a comment,
hit us up on Instagram or TikTok, where we're posting
a lot these days. We'd love to hear from you.
Once again, I'm Michael Beckamaia reminding you to please calm
the bleep down. We'll see you again soon. Thank you
for meditating with us. Be well, have fun, and no mistake.
Welcome to mindful meditations with calm, the bleep down. As always,
I am your guide, Michael Beckameier, and today we are
going to become masters of ourself. Let's get started. As always,
we have a mindfulness quote to help us go into
our meditation with some intent and purpose. And today our
(00:34):
quote comes from Laotsu and it reads, mastering others is strength,
mastering yourself is true power. I like that quote because
it reminds me of discipline, which is something that I
personally have been thinking about a lot lately. You know,
(00:54):
you get busy, you get into increasingly bad habits or
unproductive habits of taking it easy, putting stuff off till tomorrow,
and then putting stuff off again till the next day,
the next day, the next day, the next thing, you know,
a week has gone by and you haven't done that
thing that you said you were going to do or
(01:17):
that you promised you would do. And this goes for everything.
And if you tell someone you're going to do something,
you need to do it. But also if you tell
yourself you're going to do something, you need to do
it because nobody can make you do anything but yourself.
(01:40):
And if you are trying to accomplish something a goal
like you want to run a marathon, or you want
to exercise, or you want to work out, or you
want to control your temper on things. The only person
that can make you do that is you. And the
thing is, when you have something that you need to
(02:01):
train yourself to do, you have to take baby steps
towards that. You can't just say well, I'm not going
to do that anymore and then poof there It is
because habits are things that are burned in our brain
and burdened into our routine so much so that we
don't think about it anymore because we just naturally do it,
do that thing. So what I like about how that
(02:24):
ties into meditation is for me, meditation is the one
thing in my life that I have From the day
I started doing it and I decided I was going
to be a daily meditator. From the day I started that,
I haven't missed a day. And at first it was like,
(02:45):
oh man, what if I miss tomorrow. I might miss tomorrow.
So I actually still to this day have alarms and
notifications and reminders set up on my phone to ding
and say did you meditate today? Because way back four
or five years ago. So when I first started, I
didn't want to forget that I was supposed to be
a daily meditator now because at first it was something
(03:08):
that I wasn't. Then I had to train myself. Same
thing goes for eating healthy, exercising, working on a project.
It's discipline for me. The reason I like the analogy
of how this ties into meditation is because meditation requires discipline.
It requires you making yourself sit down, close your eyes, relax,
(03:30):
and breathe. Even if you only do it for two
minutes a day, you can still do it. Very often
find people who say I want to meditate, I wish
I had time to do that, And my response is,
meditate for sixty seconds. Everybody has a spare minute, even
if it's right before you go to sleep at night.
And then you know, people either make excuses for why
(03:54):
they don't have that minute. Who doesn't have a minute,
But some people have an excuse for why they don't
have a minute. Some people are very busy. I get it.
There are days when I wake up that's like I
feel like I have not had a spare minute. But
I still meditate it because for me, it's a promise
I made myself, and with practice, you can make promises
(04:17):
to yourself and get used to keeping them, and then
with time you can start making promises to other people
and just know you're going to keep them. Because you
keep your word with yourself, and it's a standard that
you've set for yourself to keep your word. Now you
can keep your word with other people. It's just a practice.
So that's what we're going to meditate on today. So
(04:40):
for this meditation, you can sit down or lie down,
and if you've never meditated before, that's okay. First thing
you want to do is close your eyes and start
slowing and lengthening your breath. Start to imagine yourself relaxing,
so loosening the tight tense areas of your body. And
for me, I start thinking of it as when I exhale,
(05:06):
I get more and more loose, more and more relaxed,
heavier and heavier with each exhale, and I slip deeper
and deeper into my relaxation with each breath. And then
I scan my body from head to toe and check
all the other hidden places that I might be holding tension,
(05:28):
like very often in my cheekbones and my mouth, my jaw.
Relaxing your shoulders, your neck, torso arms, legs, all the
way down to your toes. Maybe flex your fingers and
(05:48):
rotate your wrists, and maybe do the same thing with
your toes and your feet and your ankles, and let
yourself sink deeper and deeper into relaxation with each breath,
breathing in and out, heavier and heavier with each axim
(06:21):
And as you do that, you're meditating. But also as
you're doing that, from time to time, you may notice
that your mind has wondered. They call it monkey mind.
Your mind just jumping around like a monkey from place
to place. That's a normal thing. That is something that
(06:44):
every meditator deals with. Once you notice that your mind
has wondered, just without judgment or frustration, without getting in
noise out quitting, just bring it back to the breath. Oh,
(07:08):
recognize that thought and come back to your breath. In fact,
noticing that your mind has wandered from your meditation, from
your breath is mindfulness. And since we're working on discipline,
we stick with it. We don't get frustrated, we don't quit,
(07:29):
we don't get annoyed. We're just distancing ourselves from those thoughts.
Returning to our breath and continue pushing forward, breathing in
and out, over and over and over again, repeating that process,
(07:55):
allowing yourself to get lost in this present moment, never wavering.
The present moment is always waiting for us to return
to it. It's there, It's a constant, and it is
always there. The present moment is happening whether we are
in it or not. It isn't as if we get
(08:18):
to rewind a clock and do that second minute or
hour over again. It has already happened because time keeps
moving forward, the present moment, and it is just waiting
for us to join it, and we join it with
our breath, one breath at a time, and out in
(08:50):
and out as it. Continue with this practice on your
own for a few moments. I will return at the
end in an.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Out us.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Instant Us one must us in as music.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, wherever you are in space and time, it is
time to return back to your body. Let that silence
and stillness and relaxation settle in for just a few
more moments. Take a few more cleansing breaths in and out.
(18:58):
Maybe it's your first time meditating, maybe it's your thousandth
day meditating. Either way, you practiced today, and you practice discipline,
and for that you should congratulate yourself and you can
take that with you throughout the day and carry it
(19:21):
with you until tomorrow, when hopefully you will sit down
and practice meditation, mindfulness and discipline again, and with that
you can open your eyes and go about your day,
(19:41):
be well, and have fun. That's it for this time
(20:01):
on Calm to bleep down. If you like this meditation,
please feel free to send us an email, post a comment,
hit us up on Instagram or TikTok, where we're posting
a lot these days. We'd love to hear from you.
Once again, I'm Michael Beckamaia reminding you to please calm
the bleep down. We'll see you again soon. Thank you
for meditating with us. Be well, have fun, and no mistake.
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