Harnessing the Power of Mindful Meditation

Unlock the Power of a Focused Mind with Timeless Wisdom and Modern Techniques!

Dive into an enlightening conversation that bridges ancient wisdom with contemporary mindfulness practices. This episode reveals how mindful meditation can transform your life, inspired by none other than Abraham Lincoln's profound approach to deep thinking. Discover practical strategies for cultivating focus, resisting distractions, and nurturing self-awareness in our fast-paced digital world.

Key insights from this episode include:
- A unique meditation technique to strengthen your prefrontal cortex for enhanced focus.
- Strategies to overcome common pitfalls like addiction through intentional thought redirection.
- The importance of affirmations in reshaping your mental programming towards positivity.

Tune in now and embark on a journey toward mastering your mind!

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I want to introduce to you a certain form of meditation, a mindful practice that is it's very useful, has been very useful and made a difference in a number of of clients' lives that I've worked with in the in the past and just introduce it to you and see if it may be useful to you. And before I introduce this form of meditation, I was reflecting this morning on, a statement that I memorized years ago that was made by Abraham Lincoln. And when people when I was reading his biography, a lot of, information came from people who were around him, who knew him intimately. And it was very common for people to say that he was a deep thinker, meaning that that he would study things deeply in his mind, mull things over more so than than the average person. And and then I I read something that Abraham Lincoln said, and and this is and this is what I committed to memory years ago.

He said, that when he was a boy, he would, you know, live in in a cabin, and there were people people would come over to visit his father, and they would talk. Remember, this is it. So just picture being in a day and age where there's no electricity, there's no television, there's no phones, there's no social media, there's nothing to contaminate the mind. It's just the mind thinking of what people are saying through language. And so he would listen intently to the conversations that went back and forth between people.

And then this is what he said is he would go to bed at night, and he he said, you know, he would try to sleep. He said, I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on a hunt after an idea until I caught it. And when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over again until I had put it in language plain enough as I thought for any boy I knew to understand. Now this was a kind of passion with me and has stuck by me, for I'm never easy now when handling a thought till I have bounded it north, bounded it south, bounded it east, and bounded it west. And I don't I don't hear anyone talking like that in this day and age where they looked at an idea or a thought and looked at it from every single angle.

Anyway, it's very instructive to me, and I think it's useful for us to to ponder that as we're thinking about things, thinking about the decisions that we make from day to day, thinking about what we are allowing. If we slow down and think about what we are allowing into our minds through the social media influx that is is meant to grab our attention. And whatever grabs our attention controls our energy in our life, and there are some insidious forces out there that specifically are directed toward the limbic, emotional, survival part of the brain. Food, anger, sex, those things rule everything else as it is as survival needs, and they would they were they will grab our attention unless we choose to intentionally not allow that to happen or that we increase our awareness to a a certain level that we know what's there, we choose not to go there. So this is the form of of meditation that I have found to be very useful for many who practice it.

And the purpose of this meditation is to help you become more aware of how naturally wild your mind is. Some researchers have suggested we have thousands of thoughts a day. I mean, 50 to 70,000. I don't know how they come up with that number. But, anyway, we we our mind is all over the place and sometimes going so fast.

So this is a form of meditation that teaches us to slow down. And as we look at the concept of the 2 part brain, we have the prefrontal cortex, rational, logical, aware. That's when we live in consciousness, we're aware of our surroundings, and then the deeper unconscious part of the brain, the emotional brain or limbic system, that drives most of our behavior where thoughts are are emanating from all the time. So this form of meditation teaches us to intentionally focus on a specific thing for a period of time to strengthen the prefrontal cortex in to that that can help us learn to focus better at a on a task at hand. Because at the end of the day, right, is We accomplish things when we're able to focus our minds.

But if we're distracted through misinformation or going down the rabbit hole in in a 1000000 different ways, then our energy is taken away from the task at hand, and we don't accomplish things. And when we don't accomplish things, our self esteem does not grow stronger. Our self confidence does not grow stronger. When we are involved in certain things, it drags our energy away from us. It steals our energy.

I have a client I've been working with, wonderful, wonderful young man, but he has an issue with pornography addiction. He isn't he hasn't been able to go a week for for a long I mean, couple years without indulging in it. And when I check-in with him, I always check-in how you doing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationship wise. How you doing physically? He says the same thing as we are working on helping him pull out of this addictive addictive tendency of his, he says, I'm exhausted.

I have no energy. I'm depleted of energy. And I go, well, that's where your energy is going. You're misdirected into this limbic this limbic need to to and the illusion is you're connecting with another individual in the highest form. That's the hijack, and it's a complete and utter lie.

You're connecting to an illusionary image, not a real person that what you're truly the the true desire to connect with a human being, it's an illusion. It's a lie. And when you're doing something that's wrong, it will drain your energy and destroys your peace. He is the one of the most miserable human beings that I've I've ever ever dealt with as we're and we're we're trying to unravel that and say, look. You can't anyway, I could go on forever in in talking about some of the techniques.

But I'm I'm introducing this concept of this form of meditation to help him strengthen his prefrontal cortex so that when the limbic urges come, he's able to redirect his thoughts. So here's the form of meditation. So memorize a very meaningful scripture or poem or quote, something that resonates with you individually, whatever works for you. Just like like if I were meditating on what I just, the thing that the quote I remembered from or gave to you from Abraham Lincoln, you simply set your clock for a period of time. You can do it for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and, eventually, you can even do it for for longer than that.

And and the purpose of this meditation is to slowly and deliberately rehearse that verse over and over again, and then watch what your mind does. Let me give you an example. If I were meditating on that the the Abraham Lincoln quote. This is what would go on in my mind. When I k?

I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on a hunt after an idea until I caught it. And when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over again, until I had put it in language plain enough as I thought for any boy I knew to understand. Now this was a kind of passion with me and has stuck by me for I am never easing now when handling a thought till I bounded it north, bounded it south, bounded it east, and bounded it west. I could not sleep, although I tried to. And then another thought would come in and say, okay.

You're on the second time of doing this. Wow. That's really cool. And my mind would go off, and then I'd just gently bring it back. Could not sleep, although I tried to when I got on a hunt after an idea.

And then a thought would hit me. Are you hungry? Aren't you hungry for something? Let's go get a drink of water. Could not sleep, although I tried to when I got on a hunt after an idea until I caught it.

Now that and and my mind would and I would just recognize my mind going off. I don't get upset. I don't get angry. I just simply bring my mind back on task, and then it goes off. And the only purpose of this meditation is to bring your mind back on point.

And as you continually practice this, you are developing the capacity to focus. And this and how this can be related into your life, then you create your intentions, your future vision statement. No. I love being clean and sober. I love having my mind clear.

You say you you state the things you truly desire in your life, and they become the program that you start to run-in your mind. That's another form of very powerful form of helping recreate the program that your mind runs from is by writing affirmations like I am statements. I am strong in my mind. I am healthy in my body. I love exercising.

My immune system is powerful and strong, stating things as if if they are so. I am full of energy and clarity of thought. I have tremendous capacity. I love the capacity to focus on positive things. So so you're practicing your affirmations.

You set your future vision and state the things you want physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationship wise. So you create that future vision of yourself. And then when you go out into the world and then you come across temptations, which they just are a natural part of life. And remember, the instinctive things that grab our attention faster than anything else, food, anger, fear, and sex. And that's that's why there's there's a diluage of of trouble in the world with TikTok and Instagram with all the anyway, it's it's all these flashy things that have to deal with those things, and it grabs our attention.

But if you can notice the triggers that are pulling you in that area as you have practiced this meditation of of bringing your mind back, you can identify. You're aware of the trigger. Oh, I'm having I'm having a a craving to get on Instagram. I I noticed that. I'm having a craving to look at pornography.

I'm having a craving to have a drink of alcohol. You notice it, identify it, and bring your mind back to, oh, but this is who I am. I am strong and stable. I love having a clear mind. There's another individual I'm working with, wonderful young man who struggles with alcoholism.

And and so this is how he describes how this has helped him in in what he's dealing with. He was coming home from work, driving on the freeway. And when he's tired, his mind just naturally goes, oh, there's the exit that I that I take the limbic system. There it is, capital IT. It's going, here, let's just take this exit because then there's the liquor store.

And he is able now to recognize as he's driving down the freeway, you know, about a mile from the exit, he goes, there's the craving. Let's get off on this exit, and then we'll just go get some stuff, and then we'll go home, and we'll just drink some vodka and stuff like that. He says, I recognized it, and I brought my mind back and said, nope. I it makes me feel sick. I don't wanna feel sick.

Let's move over into the left lane, the far left lane, and just keep focused and drive right on past that exit. And so he was able to do that. And then he got home. And as he was talking to me, so we were having our therapy session and they did it the day before. And and I said, well, how do you feel right now?

He says, I feel great. I'm not sick, because when when he drinks, he just binges, and then he gets sick for, like, 4 or 5 days at a time. And it's just it's just horrific. And so, and then it's at the same time, after he's done that, like, I do not become overconfident in that because it, the limbic system, will do whatever it can to go, well, congratulations. See?

You're not an addict. You're able to control it. So next time, we can we see, it will use anything. That's how the limbic part of the brain works. So you just gotta recognize it and go, no.

That's not who I am any longer. I choose not to allow that to to control my life. I love. And so when he does his affirmations, it's always stated in the positive tense. I love having a clear mind.

I love it when my stomach is full of healthy, nutritious food. I love it when I I I feel strong in my body. See, he's not he's not saying things. I am not, I will never I don't wanna feel like throwing up. I don't wanna feel sick in my body.

I don't wanna you know, you don't because whatever you focus on, your brain tends to go there. And so you always state things in a positive tense. I am strong. I am healthy. I am mighty strong.

I have great relationships. I, you know, etcetera etcetera. So, anyway, just thought I'd introduce that form of meditation. Again, all you do is memorize something. It it doesn't need to be the one that I the one quote that I gave you is, you know, you know, maybe that's way too long.

It can be one simple little verse of of whatever. But you find something that works for you and just practice that. And just just for a period of 5 minutes, start maybe start 2 minutes at a time. And then move to 5 minutes and 10 minutes and 15 minutes. And just see if you can you keep working on that and bring your mind back on task, and then you have that you're building neural networks that that can help you focus on whatever it is that your goals are, and then you can accomplish them one small step at a time, but to keep you moving in the right direction.

One of the greatest challenges we face in our world right now is misinformation and misdirection. And people, human beings, we all have a tendency just to believe an authority figure. If they sound confident, we just we just have a tendency to believe them. I'm just asking you to question things. Dig deep inside your soul.

Ask the question. Is this true? Is this not true? How do I feel about that? Check with your gut on all things.

When you gain some information or listening to someone speak, stop. Say, does this make sense rationally? And what does my gut feel like? Have you have you ever just had a gut reaction where something seemed off even though a person was smiling and talking and using flowery words? I've had that experience many times, and I can tell you always my gut has has told me the truth.

It's only when I I dismiss it, I don't pay attention to it. I'm so wrapped up in other things that I find myself having more, much more challenges and difficulty in life. So anyway, encourage you to practice this form of meditation, and and, see if it can be of a benefit to you.