Oh, Oh, Oh, this is the stretch.
Hey guys. Welcome back to Lavendaire.
So in March, I decided to do a 40 day meditation challenge
called the Liberation Kriya.
Today I'm going to share my entire vlog of the 40 day process,
as well as the lessons that I learned through this journey.
Before I start the vlog,
I want to say that I am so proud of you to all of you guys
who even attempted this challenge,
because I know that 40 days is a serious amount of time for a challenge.
So just the fact that you tried is more than enough.
It is just amazing.
Those of you who did the challenge,
whether you did the entire thing or just part of it.
Well, let me know down below your final thoughts
and your lessons from doing it.
I loved reading just the post on Vibely,
seeing what you guys were experiencing
and learning throughout this process.
It was just so inspiring.
It actually inspired me to keep going.
I think if it weren't for the community,
I probably would have given up and
had to start over multiple times.
But this time I am proud to say that
I did the 40 days straight without having to start over.
All right, let's start the vlog.
Okay, it is day one of the Liberation Kriya challenge.
I'm doing this challenge either in the morning or the evening
before I go to bed.
That way it's like anchored in a specific spot
either right after I wake up or right before I go to bed.
Togi with my pile of clothes.
Let's start the first day.
I'm definitely going to use my own timer for this meditation.
Oh, well this is the stretch.
This is the one you want to do afterward.
Oh, this one.
Oh, I guess a slightly different muscles to stretch
the right arm is this muscle.
I finished the first day. It was hard.
I wanted to give up even in the first three minutes
and I want to share some tips that helped me get through.
First of all,
the left arm is harder for me. I think I'm just weak.
Second of all,
I definitely was shaking even in the first three minutes
or maybe like between three to six minutes mark.
And what helps me going was multiple things.
Number one is nine minutes is not a long time. It's not going to kill me.
So if I'm not going to die,
I might as well keep trying. Number two is focus on what's easy.
because if you're focusing on the hard part, like the left arm,
you want to give up because it's so hard. But if you focus on the easy part,
I was like, thinking of my right shoulder actually feels okay.
Like that part feels easy. And then later on, I thought, you know,
What's the easiest part? Breathing is the easiest part.
So that takes your mind off whatever's hard. Another thing is like, you know,
sometimes you just got to let the heat out, so you got to breathe.
And I do this in yoga too, is you have to let out audible breath.
Sometimes if you let out like, "Ohhhhh", like whatever sound,
I think it just releases more energy that, and it just makes it easier.
And then lastly,
what was the most effective of getting me past the second half of this challenge
was counting to 10 slowly. I would breathe in and every breath out,
I would count to 10, like one, two, three, four,
like around that pace. And when I finished counting to 10,
I would ask myself like, can I do another 10 seconds? And if my mind's like, yes, I can.
Then I'll just start over counting from ten one, two, three, four.
And I just repeated that over and over again.
I must've repeated that at least 10 times.
Um, because you want to give up if you're not, I guess, anchored on something.
So that really helped me just, can I do another 10 more seconds?
And that's actually a pretty effective tip. Like if you're doing something hard,
ask yourself, can I do this for one more minute?
but can I do it for 10 more seconds? five more seconds? Whatever it is.
And usually you're like, you know what? I think I can.
All right, I'll see you for day two.
I also want to pop in and remind you that shaking is normal. Shaking is good.
If you want to get to the point where you're challenging your body to change and grow.
And one of the videos I watched the yoga guru guy was saying that the
shaking is your body changing on a molecular level.
It's your nervous system being challenged.
And that is what is creating this fresh start feeling
after you complete this challenge, you basically get to start on a fresh,
clean slate because you've taken your body to another level,
another level that is out of its comfort zone that it hasn't been before.
So I think that's the magic of this challenge. So embrace the difficulty.
Embrace the shaking. If you can power through it,
knowing like your arm's not going to fall off,
even though it feels like it wants to fall off,
your mind is stronger than your body. Your mind tells your body when to stop.
It's very interesting and potentially very life-changing.
Hello from me and Togi. So today is day two.
I decided to anchor this meditation at night
because I think the timing is just easier. Let's get to it!
Finished.
Ready?
It's like 2:14AM right now. And I just finished a session.
I'm proud of myself.
I should not have anchored this to the end of today.
They made a mistake, but now I learned from it.
We hung out with friends tonight and I actually drank,
I drank a little bit more than I should have, which I don't normally do.
But like I got so sleepy that I just like took a nap.
And I almost thought that I would not do this today
and that I would have to restart from day one. But when I woke up from my nap,
it was like 1:40 AM ish. And I guess like washing my face,
put on skincare. And I'm like, okay. I feel awake enough to try.
In my mind I told myself, okay, maybe I don't have to do the full nine minutes today right.
So during the, from here to here,
I switched it a little bit earlier before the six minute mark.
But once I got here, I was like, okay,
I'm just going to like engage my arms and just try to do as long as I can.
I'm going to give up when I feel like my arms are shaking and I want to give up.
And I ended up doing the whole nine minutes. So I'm proud of myself for that.
It wasn't like as painful as before.
So I think I'm getting stronger or just maybe building up some mental stamina.
I dunno. But yeah, in the future, if I have plans at night,
I'm not going to anchor this at night. It's too hard. Day four completed.
I noticed the hardest parts are starting.
And then around the first two to three minute mark, it's hard.
Cause you're like, when is the first bell going to go off?
And then I think the easiest feels like the last two to three minutes.
For some reason, once I'm at the end,
I'm like, I'm almost done. I got to just power through and my arms are stronger.
I'm not shaking anymore. So in my mind, I'm telling me, okay, I'll quit.
If I'm like this, that I can't take it anymore. But I think it's okay.
I can take it beyond the physical difficulty. It is just mental.
I did today's session in the daytime since it's Friday.
And I feel like I'm going to be tired tonight.
I'm not going to feel like doing it.
But I noticed it's harder in the day
because my mind is a little more impatient
I'm just like waiting for it to be over,
to get to like what I want to do after this.
I actually opened my eyes to peek on the timer once. Cause I was like,
is it time? Yet?
It is day 10. And we are going strong. I'm proud of myself.
We are one quarter of our way through.
I'm proud of everyone doing this challenge.
You guys on Vibely and in the comments on that timer video,
I love reading your comments and your experience doing this.
And I can tell that you guys are growing. By now, It's not about the pain.
It really is just mental. It's about patience.
It's about setting aside the time, the nine minutes and just sitting through it.
And nine minutes is such a short, manageable time.
That's why I like this challenge. Like it's not too difficult.
You're just like, okay, I can do 10 minutes out of my day,
every single day for something.
And it just reminds me that I could do this for any other habit.
I can really carve out 10 minutes of my day for anything
and do it consistently every day. Typically I'm not that great at being consistent every day,
just because I change up my days all the time.
It's giving me a sense of renewal actually. And I really do like it.
All right. Day 15 is done.
And today I was reciting some affirmations.
I was repeating, I am safe. I am secure.
And it's just because earlier today I was journaling
on some insecurities and wounds that I want to heal.
And so I use the meditation as like the medium to
ingrain these affirmations in my brain and to heal my heart.
I don't know if it's just me, but at this point,
my shoulders aren't hurting as much. I can hold them up.
The muscles are there, but my heart is like working.
Like I feel, you know, when you're doing cardio,
I have that feeling in my heart.
I don't know if it's just because I'm out of shape and I haven't done cardio in a while,
but I also feel that this is working and healing my heart in a way.
It's day 20!
Completed.
We are halfway done with this challenge.
And I'd like to say it gets easier physically,
but at the same time, it's still difficult.
It's still a mental battle to stay patient and finish the time in the last three minutes.
I really want it to end,
but I'm just like waiting for it to end the night when you're anticipating like
the last bell that makes it harder.
So instead just focus on the mantra's patience and perseverance
or just anything that helps you get through and focus your mind on something else.
Other than the time, I'm proud of myself for doing a halfway,
without having to restart. By this point, I'm feeling very committed.
I'm going to finish
and having the community on Vibely also helps
because I see people posting every day, them completing the challenge.
And that just encourages me to keep going.
I think if I was doing this by myself,
I would have more like forgiveness and leeway like, Oh, I don't have to do it.
But at the same time, I've made up my mind. I've decided to do it so.
Day 25. Okay. That last three minutes.
It was still killing me day 25. I'm past halfway through,
but I am still like mentally struggling in this part still.
It's a challenge. I was breathing.
And sighing and making noises today.
Day 34, day 38 almost done.
Today is day 40. And I am so excited. I'm very proud.
I'm just going to finish the session, power through. To be honest this week,
I almost like forgot to do it a few times because it just felt like the last stretch.
And I don't know, I just got really comfortable, but I'm doing it.
I'm committed. I'm happy and proud that I didn't have to start over.
I actually just like knocked it out all at once.
I'm done. Yay.
The best part about doing this challenge was honestly doing it with you guys
in the Vibely, the group, this is our challenge as chat.
And today there's just so many people that posted that they finished 40 days
and I'm so proud of everyone. This has felt long. I won't lie. 40 days.
It feels like a long time. A lot has changed,
but for now I'm just going to enjoy it.
So at the beginning of this challenge was mostly a physical challenge.
And around the halfway point,
it really becomes a mental challenge because your arms are strong enough,
but is your mind patient enough?
There were many days where I was tired and I just didn't want to sit through the nine minutes.
So I gave myself permission like, okay,
if you want to end earlier, you can. So I would just hold my arms up until like,
I felt like I couldn't take it anymore.
But what was interesting that I found was giving myself the permission to like give up early,
made me try to finish. Meaning, I was like,
okay, I'll give up when like I'm dying, I'll give up. When I really, really have to.
And it just never happened. I always felt like, okay,
I could do 10 more seconds. I could keep going.
So I just kept breathing and counting through it.
And eventually the bell rang and I finished.
The one time that I did stop in the middle of it
was because I was meditating and togi's always gotta be doing
something like eating something he's not supposed to while I'm meditating.
So I did break once to like, you know, take whatever he was eating.
And then I just continued on. It was day 24. I wrote it down here.
The ironic thing was the last week of the challenge.
Like the final seven days I started forgetting to do the challenge.
Like there was one day where I literally did my nighttime routine.
I was reading in bed. I decided to go to bed.
We turned off the lights and I was laying there. And then it hit me like,
Oh my God, I haven't meditated. So I woke up,
it was 1:00 AM and I like went to meditate.
And that was the one time that I almost fell asleep before remembering to meditate.
And I think it's just because by then,
like day 30 something, you feel like you're almost done with the challenge.
I almost felt like I was like, okay, like it's done.
I don't know why the last stretch was so easy to forget.
Maybe it's because I had been doing it every single day that some days, like,
I felt like I already did it, but I didn't.
Ultimately the lessons I learned from this meditation challenge was commitments.
Just having the practice to do something every single day for 40 days.
I normally don't do that. Even with journaling or yoga, whatever.
I just don't do it that consistently.
So the fact that I carved out this nine minutes, every single day to do it,
that was like building a muscle of consistency.
Something that I'm not used to.
This meditation challenge is like a mirror for your mental state.
Because like I mentioned, if your mind is scattered,
it's going to be hard to sit through it.
But if your mind, like you've got things together, you're calm and centered,
it's going to be easier.
And another thing it taught me was where my mental stamina was like,
I'm pretty proud of myself because I'm far enough in this journey.
Like I've done this challenge before I've done all these healing practices,
I've meditated and done yoga for years that I feel like I have a level of mental
strength and stamina, which it fuels everything else in life.
You know, it fuels my ability to keep working, keep creating and do everything that I do.
And reading the comments of people who are just trying this for the first time.
People who say, you know,
they can only hold it for like one minute or two minutes
before they have to rest their arms.
It shows me where my mental strength is because
the truth is my arms are not stronger than your arms.
I'm pretty sure the people who have to put their arms down,
excluding the people who have like actual physical problems.
Like our muscles are the same. Like I don't work out my arms.
What that tells me is a lot of it is mental.
Like someone might only be able to hold their arms up for two minutes while
another person can do the
full nine minutes and they could have the same muscle strength.
It really is the mental strength that goes behind it.
Thus, I am super happy to have shared this exercise with you guys,
because I think it is helping you build your mental strength and your mental
stamina and to teach you that it's not just physical. Yeah.
part of it is physical, but most of it is mental.
And if you have that commitment and that mental part of you,
that will persevere no matter what, that is, something that money can't buy.
That is a life skill that will take you through all of the challenges
and obstacles you will face in life. It all begins in your mind.
If you believe you can do it, if you fully commit in your mind and you're like,
I'm going to do this no matter what,
then it's going to be easier to persevere and keep going.
If you don't believe that you can do it.
If you keep telling yourself in your mind, Oh, this is so hard.
I want to give up. When is this over then? Your body's going to feel weaker.
And it's going to want to give up sooner because your mind is telling you that.
So it really begins in the mind.
It kind of reminds me of that quote by Henry Ford,
whether you think you can or you can't. You're right. Think about that.
All right. That's it. If you did this challenge,
let me know what you thought down below.
And if you haven't done this challenge, let me know. Does this interest you, are you intrigued?
Are you planning to do the challenge? Let me know your thoughts.
Let me know if you want more challenges like this,
sending you so much love and I'll see you next time.
Bye.