Natalie Ledwell: Hi! I'm Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show. Now today, What I'm gonna do is actually answer a question that came through on the inspiration show comments by the name of Richard Barham. Hi Richard! I know that you've been sending lots of comments. I thought that I would answer one of your questions today. Now, in this question, Richard says "in video #9 you spoke about meditation and the technique that you use. I've heard from several sources that you should meditate, which I agree. But no one explains how to meditate. Any suggestion, resource material on meditation techniques, thanks!" Great question Richard! Well first, let me explain what meditation is and why we should meditate. Now, meditation means to think deeply and to concentrate our minds on one thing or no thing. So, while meditating, what we do is we enter into this positive vibration of no resistance. It's like a peaceful centered state. Now because we quiet our minds through meditation, we often know conscious thought and there we feel no resistance to anything. So when you think of that, it's like putting the world on pause. Now we take our subconscious mind into a state of peace to do what it does best. And that is to connect to source. Now by creating this connection it energizes you and it opens you up to receive the ideas that you need to work out the solution for, you know, for you to be able to a achieve your goals. You know, you've heard me talk about the first ten minutes of the day, where I sort of in that brain wave activity, trying to sort out, gets solution to the problems that I'm working on. Well this works pretty much the same way. You sort of opening up that connection and connecting to source. Now for anyone new the meditation don't be concern, there actually quite a few ways and there's no right or wrong way to meditate. It's a personal thing. You know and there are many different methods. So how I started to meditate? I actually started listening to recorded meditations like led meditations. And started meditating with them first. because for me it was really difficult. I didn't know what to do. Probably like a lot of you are there at the moment. Had no idea what to do. So I said let's buy one and I could listen to it and it will lead me through what I should be thinking and what I should be doing at that time. But my personal regimen at the moment. Cost is twenty minutes a day. So, I really consider this to be like my relaxation time. And it gives my body a chance to rest and repair especially after my heavy exercises in the morning. Now, my method is to clear my mind of all thought which in the beginning was much easier said than done, you know. I also keep a pen and paper handy to write down any important thoughts that sometimes come into my mind, flooding into my conscious mind, especially when I begin the meditation with a specific challenge or a question that I wanna have answered. Now if I don't have a specific challenge, simply what I do is clear my mind for twenty minutes and I just recharge for the day. Now this is particularly useful when you can see your day going pear shaped. Now, we all have days like that were you can see things are starting to go wrong. Meditating is like rebooting and starting over. It's like that chance to get down, "NO NO NO..." Clear mind, recharge, and start again. You know, meditating for me is also really instrumental when I'm writing my book. Especially when I'm getting writer's block. What I do is I think about the chapter that I'm currently working on the meditate for 20 minutes. Now sometimes I keep my mind clear and in allowing state. And other times I have a flood of creative ideas flowing through me. Depends on what my day is like. But either way, when I sit down to my computer to start just writing down that chapter, the ideas come to me a lot easier because I took that 20 minutes to meditate beforehand. Alright, so let me share a specific method that you can use to meditate. It's very simple and anyone can do this. The first you wanna do is choose the best time for you to meditate. Whatever works, I mean I'm a morning person so I'd like to meditate before lunchtime. You know, my brain can always with a bit of a rejuvenation time out by then, you know. But some people are night owls. And they take longer to get going through the day. So perhaps early afternoon is a great time for you if you're a night owl because that's when you starting to go and you got all this stuff going and it's time for you to have a bit of a break as you can do that in the afternoon. It's completely up to you. And there are four steps for successful meditation. Okay, step number 1 is to set yourself an alarm clock to let you know when the twenty minutes have passed. Don't do what I did in the beginning and set the alarm on your phone because then the phone rings and it'll interrupt your meditation. So if you have an alarm clock that's a much better solution. Step number two, get yourself into a comfortable position. Make sure that you're close and not restrictive in any way. Now if you don't fall asleep you can actually lay on the floor and meditate in a laying position. I can't do that cause I'll go to sleep. Otherwise what you can do, and what I normally suggest is that you sit in a chair. But when you sit in the chair make sure that you're very comfortable so that you can be in a very relax state and your feet are grounded on the floor. I think that's very important. okay, step number three, the next step is to close your eyes. Now, if you're using an audio, what you wanna do is quickly press play on that audio, on your iPod or what, you know if you're listening it through headphones or whatever, press play then close your eyes. And start you go through that led meditation. If you're concentrating on one particular challenge or one question that you wanna have answered, ask yourself the question first, then close your eyes. And if you just do the clear mind meditation, all you need to do is relax, all you need to do is close your eyes and then clear your mind. And actually in a minute I'll get through some methods that you could do to clear your mind or to keep your mind clear. Now step number four. Breathe deeply and slowly. So initially what you would do is breathe in through your nose, and then out through your mouth, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Do that about four to five times. Then relax, breathing through your nose and then clear your mind. So to maintain a mind clear of all thoughts, which I mean at the moment might be felling like "oh my God how can I do that?" Here is some suggestions. First of all, one suggestion is concentrate on your breathing. So take your breath in and out. Breathing really slowly, breathing through your nose. But try concentrate on just your breathing. And that'll hope to clear your mind of any other thoughts. Thinks of, another suggestion is to think of a single object like a blue flame. Or what I?d like to think about is actually concentrate on the tip of my nose. And concentrating on my breath going in and out. And hopes to clear my mind of any other thought. Another thing you could do is just repeat a single word over and over, such as peace, or love. And if you keep concentrating on that one word, concentrating on your breathing, then you'll find that that'll really helps you centered and to keep your mind from wandering and going off into, you know, what you need to do that day, your shopping list and all that kind of things. Now if you do find that thoughts keep popping into your head, what you're wanna do is gently visualize yourself pushing them away and then go back to your peaceful centered concentration on your breath, on your blue flame or whatever that you're concentrating on. But if you have thoughts that are persisting, and their important ones that you wanna remember, which is why I suggest that you have your pen and paper next to you when you're meditating, rather than punish yourself with thoughts of you know, "God I must remember that, I must remember," which will ruin the serenity of your meditation, just simply write down the thought then get back into your comfortable position and again start meditating again by concentrating on your breath or your blue flame or whatever method of clearing that you're using. Now, as you quiet your mind, it is quite normal, and it happens to quite a few people that you might feel a feasible sense of detachment. You know, I sometimes I start, I feel like I'm swaying. You know, maybe I'm not but I just feel like I'm swaying back and forth. Some people have involuntary body movements. Some people even start to cry. Now, I haven't done that personally but I have heard of it happening. Now all this things are normal. And only indicate that is you actually successfully achieved the state of meditation. And don't be concerned if this takes you while. It actually took me several weeks before I actually could master being able to sit there and being able to clear my mind of all the chatter, which is, I mean let's face it it's hard if we got a busy lifestyle. We all have a busy lifestyle. But this 20 minutes, believe me, will be the best 20 minutes that you spend every day. And if you persevere, you'll undoubtedly see and feel amazing results. You know, more and more studies, top research facilities around the world, you know, they scientifically documenting evidence of a, you know, health benefits, and longevity effects. You know, this even like anti-aging benefits. That's being fantastic, so there's enough reasons for me to be meditating every day. So, what an incentive, that's fantastic. Now, if you would like to start with maybe recorded meditation rather than trying to do this, you know, clearing your mind first, if you just click on the banner to the side there you can go through to a site. There's a scientist there, Morry Zelcovitch, you might have heard his name. Before, we do a lot of work with him. He's actually created some meditation that you might be interested as well. So just click on that button there, on the banner and you will be able to find some more resources again. So, I encourage you, as usual, to leave your comments in the comment box below, especially if you meditate and you have a method that I haven't described here. We'd love to hear what your method is and if you could share that to a lot of community we'd really appreciate it. And also remember that if you haven't done so already, just put your e-mail in the box at the top to get your 6 pre-made mind movies and we'll keep you up to date with all of the subjects of the upcoming shows that are coming. So guys, I hope this has really helped you today, I'll be speaking to you very soon as another video coming out very soon. And remember in the meantime, to live large, choose courageously, and love without limits. Bye for now.