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On this channel, I do what I can to share with all of you--
people who have suffered from codependency and narcissistic
abuse, those who have come from a trauma background.
I try to do what I can to share with you things
that have affected me in my life for the better.
And I also share with you the things
that I did along the way that were wrong
or mistakes that I've made so that you might, on your journey
towards wellness and personal development and healing--
that you don't make the same mistakes I did,
that you don't waste your time the way I did.
And so I wanted to share with this community
the value of meditation and how I went from hating meditation
to absolutely loving it and not being able to almost go
a day without it.
Before I started doing meditation and getting
into the practice of meditation, my life was a mess.
It was spiraling out of control.
I was dealing with clinical depression.
I was severely co-dependent, but I didn't know it.
I was always anxious inside.
My mind was racing at a million miles an hour.
It never stopped.
I remember not being able to catch a thought,
because my mind was just racing all the time.
I was full of fear.
I was full of doubt.
I was just full of angst.
And my body was breaking down.
I had asthma, migraine headaches, stomach issues.
I had rashes all over my body.
I was stuck in fight or flight, so cortisol was always
taking over, and inflammation was taking over.
And I was convinced that if I didn't do something quick,
that I might die.
I watched my sister-in-law die--
28 or 29 years old-- of adrenocortical carcinoma.
And I knew that young people died from diseases.
It was very real for me, that moms die, and that scared me.
And so after my life began to really,
really spiral after my ex-husband and I separated
and I was triggered by my attachment trauma,
things just got really worse for me.
And at one point, I realized I have to do something.
And I remember people saying, oh, you should try meditation,
or you should try yoga.
And I used to get angry, because I was like, you know,
you're making it sound like meditation is
going to cure all my problems.
I have a lot of problems.
How is meditation going to cure my problems?
But I was speaking from a state of unawareness-- ignorance,
even.
I had never tried meditation.
I didn't understand meditation.
And so if you're somebody who is struggling with rumination,
if you are somebody who is struggling
to catch their thoughts, if you are
somebody who is struggling with obsessive worries
about other people, if you have financial concerns,
if you have health concerns, although meditation won't cure
it, won't cure your problems, it's
a gateway to help you reduce your anxiety,
to reduce your stress levels, to reduce your
up and down so you learn to level out your mood,
believe it or not.
And what happens is you gain mental clarity,
and you start to think better.
And so solutions come to you in a way they never could before.
So I want to talk about some of the scientific benefits
of meditation.
Number one, studies prove that meditation
will reduce your cortisol levels,
which means that if you're somebody
who suffers from fibromyalgia, if you are struggling
with infertility issues, if you suffer from migraine headaches,
if you suffer from muscle stiffness,
gastrointestinal issues, you have
to know that science is proving that developing a meditation
practice over a period of time will help reduce
the amount of cortisol in your blood
and, thus, your inflammation.
Studies also prove that meditation
helps reduce phobias.
It helps reduce the amount of fear
you feel in your body, the amount of anxiety
that you feel in your body.
So meditation has been proven to reduce anxiety.
Along with the anxiety, it's also
been proven to help people control their OCD symptoms.
Another thing that is a benefit of doing meditation
is that it increases your self-image and your confidence.
Because as you begin to gain more control
over your emotions, as you're not in so much pain anymore,
then what happens is your self-image begins to elevate,
because the way you see yourself is changing.
It decreases depression.
When I was going through my divorce and attachment
trauma, abandonment trauma, and all
my codependency stuff was coming to the surface
and I was seeing things in myself
that had otherwise been blind to me--
I didn't see myself.
I didn't know I had a self.
I didn't know that I could observe myself.
And that's one of the things that meditation--
it's one of the best things that ever happened
to me through meditation, was that I developed the ability
to observe myself.
But along the way, I noticed that my depression
was lowering.
I wasn't so saddled all the time.
I was actually starting to feel joyful.
And I think it's just a combination of slowing down
my mind.
The fear is leaving me.
Gaining more control over what was happening in my mind
and, thus, my experience and also the reduction in cortisol.
In order to heal from codependency or addiction
or anything, we need self-awareness, right?
We live below the veil of consciousness.
We are 95% unconscious.
We are sense conscious.
We are unconscious.
We are conscious of our senses.
But we are not conscious of what's
happening on the inside of us.
We're not, because we're so addicted to what's
happening outside of us.
We're stuck in states of survival.
The ego is reacting to everything
that's happening outside of us.
And so most of us lack self-awareness, right?
We are angry when people don't see our side.
We don't realize that our inability
to see this other person's side is
no different than this other person that can't see our side.
We're two sides of the same coin, but we can't see it.
When you start meditating, you develop the ability
to become self-aware.
And that's when you gain the ability
to see patterns in yourself and to recognize and to become
humble when you need to become humble so that you can change
what needs to be changed.
So meditation allows you to explore the inner self.
When you're codependent, you're not attached to the self.
When you are a narcissist, you're
not attached to the true authentic self.
When you're struggling with depression,
you are so far from your inner light.
And using meditation can absolutely
help you explore your inner self and gain
some control over what's happening inside of you
and also some appreciation for the inner you.
Another amazing thing that happened to me
as a result of meditating was that my ability to focus
improved.
When you are struggling with codependency
and you're struggling with an ego that's highly reactive
and you have all this trauma inside of you that's
yet to be processed, it's so hard to focus.
My kids used to say, Mom, you've got ADD.
Mom, you're all over the place.
Plus, I didn't I wasn't attached to myself,
so I didn't know how to focus on myself.
So I was other focused.
When you're co-dependent, you're not attached to the self.
You're not integrated, right?
And so you're focused on everything outside of you.
And so when you have a million things
racing through your head, it's hard to do any one thing great.
And so learning to meditate allowed
me to develop an ability to focus on myself.
And to not only focus on myself, but get projects done.
So before meditating, I would have five different projects
going at one time.
When I began to meditate, it became easier
for me to finish one project at a time and do it well.
Another benefit of meditation is you become a gentler and kinder
person, I guess because you're learning to control yourself.
You're not as reactive anymore.
Your stress levels are going down.
You're sleeping better.
That's another benefit.
I think because there's just so many benefits
to meditating and slowing down and becoming one
with the breath that you become just a gentler, kinder person.
What happened during my meditation practice
was I was able to become aware of the law of one,
that I was never not connected to everything, that I
am everything and everything is me.
And I know that sounds hokey pokey for someone
who's never meditated before.
But when you meditate long enough, what you discover
is this amazing ability to feel connected with everything.
And so you heal this sense of separation.
And you find love for the self.
And as you find love for the self,
you find love for humanity.
You learn to forgive yourself as you become more self-aware,
so you become more forgiving.
You know that people don't know what they're
doing most of the time, if they're
below the veil of consciousness, acting out patterns.
Doesn't mean you tolerate being abused.
Doesn't mean that you don't use boundaries.
It just means that you're beginning
to see things differently, because you're
living more above the veil of consciousness,
rather than below it.
I found that I was able to handle stress so much better.
So before meditating, my life before meditation,
I was highly reactive.
So if the kids knocked over a plant
and there was dirt all over the floor, I would react.
If the kids were late 15 minutes coming out of school
and I thought that they should be out at 3:00, I would react.
If my ex-husband texted me and it was something nasty,
I would react.
If I dropped something in my house, then I would react.
I would call myself all sorts of names.
And so as I meditated, what began to happen
was I became less reactive.
And I was much more able to deal with stress--
everyday normal stress that happens to everybody.
And that was a great benefit not only for me,
but for everybody in my life.
My mood before meditation and before understanding
codependency and really understanding
healing and childhood programming,
it was pretty all over the place.
Like I said, I was depressed, and I didn't know it.
I was reactive, but in my head, it was justified.
And so my mood dependent upon everybody else.
If everybody else was happy, then I was happy.
If my kids were upset, then I was upset.
I thought it was my responsibility
to make them happy.
If my mother was upset, then I was upset.
And so there definitely was this inconsistency to my mood.
And meditation allowed me to normalize the way I felt.
And I began to find this new ground
zero where, suddenly, there was peace in my heart space.
There was peace in my mind, and I began
to understand that contrast.
And once I began to find that peace,
I realized how crazy my life was before I really committed
myself to meditation practice.
As I began to meditate, one of the most amazing things
that happened was my sleep began to improve.
In the beginning, when I first started meditating,
I would have these weird dreams.
And I guess my mind was just working
out some of the repressed emotions and the anxieties
that I had suppressed.
And suddenly, through meditation, in my thoughts
and in the stillness, I was finding emotions and feelings
I never felt before.
And I was just allowing them to come up for me.
I wasn't judging them anymore.
I was just letting them process.
And I think during sleep hours--
I think this is why I began to dream so vividly.
But those dreams, like crazy dreams,
have pretty much stopped.
I don't have bad dreams anymore.
But my dreams are a lot more colorful.
I have flying dreams now, which is just amazing.
I love those types of dreams.
I've had dreams of being in the most magnificent lavender
forest.
It's just incredible.
So sleep will improve eventually if you stick
with the meditation practice.
Your cortisol levels are dropping.
Your mood is becoming more stable.
There's less chaos in your outer world,
because you're not reacting, and that
means you're not equalizing yourself to that energy
anymore.
And so you become a lighter being.
And I think sleep becomes better as we
begin to release all of these reactive ways in which we
used to interface with the outer world.
No more mental chatter.
Well, once in a while, I'll hear something run
through my mentalscape and like, oh, what is that?
Where'd that come from?
But I don't react or attach to those thoughts anymore.
And so we have the ability to calm down the mental chatter
and heal the body of inflammation.
And that is why I am so adamant with my clients
that they begin and maintain a meditation practice.
It makes you more able to process new and healthy data,
and it improves your overall health.
It improves your mental health, and it improves
the quality of your life.
So if you haven't tried meditation,
I do suggest that you give it a go.
So if you haven't given meditation a try,
please consider it.
It's as simple as going to YouTube or Insight Timer
or any of the meditation apps.
I happen to be one of the teachers on Insight Timer.
You go to the app.
You put on your earbuds you find a quiet space.
You pick a meditation that you think you might resonate with.
Maybe it's a heart chakra meditation.
Maybe it's a grounding meditation.
Maybe it's a third eye meditation.
Maybe it's a deep relaxation meditation.
Maybe it's not a guided meditation.
Maybe it's just music.
Maybe you resonate with a male voice.
Maybe you resonate with a female voice.
There really is something for everyone,
whether it's on YouTube or Insight Timer.
And so spend some time investigating
different playlists.
And make sure you find some time in the morning,
as soon as you wake up.
This way, you can balance out your emotional tone,
your vibrational offering for the day.
And you want to go to bed in a high vibration also.
A calm vibration is a high vibration.
It's a light vibration.
You don't want to bring negative energy into the sleep space.
Because once you bring--
whatever you're bringing into your mind as you fall asleep
churns in the subconscious mind.
And what churns in the subconscious mind
creates brainwave patterns, which if we don't check those,
we may actually end up manifesting them one day.
So you want to do what you can to meditate early so you
can start your day awesome.
And fall asleep meditating so you
can go into slumber with awesome, amazing, wonderful
vibrations that allow you to be more peaceful and more light
in your own body.
Meditation helped me save my life, and I'm not kidding.
And I believe it can help you save yours.
Namaste, everybody.
Until next time.
If you want to learn more about the books that I've written,
you can go to Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble.
You can download them also for a free listen at audible.com.
It's all about awareness, dear one.
There is a light inside of you.
You have to become awakened to it and aware of it.
Childhood program might have made you blind to it,
but the light within you exists.
Meditation can help you find light and live
in peace beginning today.
I hope you take me up on that.
Bye for now.