Posts

Posted on

Embrace the Power of Small, Consistent Improvements

In the journey of personal growth and achievement, we often envision grand goals that can feel overwhelming, even paralyzing. The weight of a huge aspiration can create self-doubt, and the pressure to be perfect can make us hesitant to even begin. But here’s the secret: success isn’t about making massive, life-changing leaps every day. It’s about committing to small, consistent improvements that compound over time.

Think of the process like chipping away at a block of stone. Each small tap may seem insignificant, but over time, it shapes something beautiful—whether that’s a new habit, a new skill, or a better version of yourself. This is the power of focusing on small, one-percent improvements.

Why Small Changes Matter

The idea of making progress through tiny steps may seem counterintuitive in a world obsessed with quick results. But consider this: when you break down a big goal into smaller, manageable pieces, you no longer feel burdened by its size. Instead, each little step is an opportunity to make progress, no matter how small it seems in the moment.

Small improvements are more sustainable because they don’t demand dramatic changes to your life. You don’t need to completely overhaul your routine or dramatically change your mindset overnight. Start with something simple: a five-minute morning stretch, a ten-minute journaling habit, or making one healthy meal each week. These actions will add up. They shift your mindset from a place of overwhelming ambition to one of steady, confident progress.

Meet Yourself Where You Are

You won’t always feel motivated, and that’s okay. We all have days where the drive isn’t there. Instead of forcing yourself into a rigid routine, focus on where you currently are, without judgment. Accept that not every day will be perfect, and that’s completely normal. The key is to make small choices that align with your goals, even when motivation is low.

Take a moment to reflect on what small action you can take right now, even if it feels insignificant. Maybe it’s reading one page of a book you’ve been wanting to dive into or walking around the block. Those small acts of effort create momentum that carries you forward—even when you feel stuck.

When you adopt the mindset of improvement over perfection, you remove the pressure of needing to be “great” every single day. It’s about progress, not perfection. And progress comes in many forms, often through subtle changes that accumulate into something much larger.

The Ripple Effect of Small Actions

One of the greatest benefits of focusing on small improvements is that they create a ripple effect. When you improve one aspect of your life, it often positively impacts other areas. Maybe you start with your physical health by exercising just ten minutes a day. As you feel more energized, you begin to take better care of your mental health, and then your relationships improve as you radiate positive energy.

These little shifts create a snowball effect. Small habits, when consistently nurtured, bring profound transformation. And before you know it, you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve come—not because of one giant leap, but because of the small steps you took every single day.

Conclusion

Remember, you don’t need to change your whole life in one go. The small, seemingly insignificant actions you take now will have a powerful cumulative effect over time. Focus on making tiny, one-percent improvements in your daily routine. Meet yourself where you are, trust the process, and know that each small change brings you closer to your bigger goals.

Stay committed to the small steps, and watch as your life transforms, not through a single breakthrough moment, but through consistent, powerful progress. Success is not a destination; it’s the journey, one small step at a time. Keep moving forward. You’ve got this.

Posted on

The Stillness After Striving: Rediscovering Purpose Through Love, Contentment, and Creative Expression

There are seasons when nothing seems to work—when you strive toward goals with every ounce of energy you have, only to fall short again. And strangely, even when you do accomplish the thing you thought would finally make you feel whole, the celebration fades quickly and leaves a familiar emptiness. It’s as if every mountain climbed reveals not a breathtaking vista but another peak in the distance. The quest for meaning becomes exhausting, a constant chase that never rewards you with rest.

But this cycle—frustration, achievement, emptiness—points to something deeper. It calls attention to the fact that goals alone cannot satisfy the human spirit. What actually fills the inner void is connection: connection to God, to purpose, to alignment, and to the deeper parts of ourselves that are often drowned out by busyness and ambition.

Learning to focus on the emotion of love for God and the feeling of contentment can become a quiet revolution within you. It doesn’t mean abandoning ambition or refusing to grow; it means shifting the core of your motivation. When your drive comes from fear—fear of failure, fear of insignificance—you burn out. When it comes from love, gratitude, and a desire to expand the gifts you’ve been given, your spirit steadies. You stop chasing outcomes and start cultivating presence.

One powerful way to support that shift is to create a list of “badass” things to do—not as a checklist of accomplishments to impress the world, but as a way of honoring your aliveness. These can be bold, playful, meaningful, or simply things that call to your soul: learning a new skill, traveling to a sacred place, creating something with your hands, speaking truth you’ve held back, or attempting something that scares you just enough to feel thrilling. The point is not the completion; the point is the expansion. These experiences become invitations to meet yourself more deeply.

Meditation becomes your anchor in this journey. In quiet stillness, you can feel the love of God not as an abstract concept but as a grounding presence—a warmth that softens your resistance and dissolves the illusion that you are alone. In meditation, achievements stop defining you, and failures stop diminishing you. You can witness your mind without being held hostage by its worries. You can breathe into contentment, not as complacency but as peace.

And from that deeper connection, art naturally emerges. Whether through writing, painting, music, dance, photography, or any other medium, art lets you translate the unseen into something shared. It becomes a testimony of your process—a bridge between your inner world and others who feel the same struggle. Art doesn’t require perfection; it requires honesty. When you create from a place of love, your expression becomes a healing act, both for yourself and for anyone who encounters it.

In the end, the goal is not to escape the highs and lows but to live with a heart anchored in divine love and steady contentment. When your life is fueled by that connection, everything else becomes an opportunity—not to prove yourself, but to celebrate the gift of being alive.

Posted on

Focus on Your Strengths — and Then the Strength of Your Strengths

In a world that constantly nudges us to fix our flaws, the idea of focusing on our strengths can feel almost rebellious. But here’s an even deeper practice: focus not just on your strengths, but on the strength of your strengths. This simple shift in awareness can nourish both body and mind — much like the way mindful eating nourishes us beyond the plate.

When we meditate, we often observe what is, without judgment. The same can be applied to how we see ourselves. Notice the places where you shine — your patience, your creativity in the kitchen, your discipline with self-care, your empathy toward others. These are your strengths. But underneath each strength is an energy source — the strength of that strength.

For example, say you’re great at preparing wholesome meals. The strength is your skill with food; the strength of that strength might be your love of nurturing others, your sense of harmony with the earth’s ingredients, or your awareness of balance. When you tune into that deeper current, your actions start to feel sacred rather than routine. Cooking becomes meditation. Eating becomes gratitude.

Or maybe your strength lies in stillness — in your ability to pause, breathe, and observe. The strength of that strength might be your trust in life’s rhythm, your inner stability, or your intuitive connection to something larger than yourself. By recognizing this layer, you begin to embody mindfulness not as a technique, but as a state of being.

This practice isn’t about ego or perfection; it’s about alignment. When we understand the essence behind our strengths, we stop chasing external validation and start living from our natural flow. Our nutrition choices become less about rules and more about resonance. You might find yourself craving foods that support clarity, calm, and vitality rather than foods that merely satisfy a passing urge.

Take a moment to reflect:

  • What do I do with ease and joy?
  • What quality fuels that ease?
  • How does that quality show up in other areas of my life?

By meditating on these questions, you’ll begin to uncover the energetic signature behind your actions. That’s the strength of your strength — the quiet power that sustains you when motivation fades.

Over time, this awareness nourishes you at every level. Your thoughts become more compassionate. Your meals become more mindful. Even your breath feels more grounded.

So the next time you sit to meditate or prepare your food, bring this mantra to mind:
“I focus on my strengths — and on the strength of my strengths.”

Let it remind you that your greatest power comes not from doing more, but from being more deeply yourself. When you live and eat from that place, everything you create — every dish, every moment of silence — becomes a reflection of inner harmony.

Posted on

Feelings Come and Go: Checking In with Yourself Through the Waves

There are days when you wake up feeling clear, grounded, and ready to take on your most important tasks. Then there are other days — foggy, heavy, unmotivated — when even simple things feel like climbing a mountain. The truth is, both states are normal. Feelings come and go. They are weather patterns in the sky of your mind, never meant to define the climate of who you are.

When you’re not in the mood to do something important — meditate, exercise, journal, or even prepare a healthy meal — it’s easy to slip into judgment. You might think, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just do it?” But that voice of self-criticism only tightens the knot. Instead of forcing yourself through the resistance, pause and notice what’s happening.

Ask yourself gently: “What am I feeling right now?” You don’t need to fix it — just name it. Maybe you’re tired, overwhelmed, bored, or distracted. Sometimes your mind and body are simply asking for a moment of stillness before you move forward.

Checking in with yourself often is a practice of mindfulness in action. It allows you to meet each moment with awareness instead of autopilot. Every time you stop and notice your inner state, you remind yourself that you are not your thoughts or moods — you are the awareness behind them.

Think of your emotions as waves in the ocean. Some days the waves are calm and steady; other days they crash wildly. You can’t control the sea, but you can learn to surf. Meditation helps you develop that inner balance — not by eliminating feelings, but by allowing them to rise and fall without dragging you under.

So when you’re not “in the mood” to do something that matters to you, don’t label yourself as lazy or inconsistent. Instead, step back and breathe. Ask, “What’s really here right now?” Maybe your body needs rest. Maybe your mind needs quiet. Maybe you’re afraid of failing or simply overthinking the next step.

The key is to check in, not check out. When you check in, you bring curiosity and compassion to the present moment. You remind yourself that moods are temporary, while your values — the things that truly matter to you — are steady and enduring.

Over time, this gentle awareness becomes a superpower. You start to notice that feelings shift faster when you stop fighting them. The fog lifts when you allow yourself to pause and breathe through it.

Next time you feel resistance or apathy, remember: this feeling isn’t permanent. Step into awareness, take one mindful breath, and ask, “What’s the next small step I can take from here?”

Feelings come and go, but your awareness — your calm center — remains. Keep returning to that still point within you, and you’ll find that even the heaviest moods eventually dissolve into clarity.

Posted on

Just Be a Little Better Than Your Worst

There are days when even lifting your head feels heavy, when motivation evaporates like mist in the morning sun. You may sit in silence, feeling the weight of exhaustion, of uncertainty, of trying too hard for too long. In those moments, the world tells you to “push harder,” to “stay positive,” to “keep going.” But sometimes, that feels like asking the wind not to blow.

When you reach this place, where stillness feels safer than motion, there is a gentler path forward — one not of striving, but of allowing. It begins with a simple promise to yourself: just be a little better than your worst.

This doesn’t mean rising to your best self overnight. It doesn’t mean running toward the horizon when your legs can barely hold you up. It means acknowledging where you are — the lowest point, the tired point — and choosing to shift, even slightly. If your worst is lying in bed all day, your “little better” might be sitting by the window and breathing the morning air. If your worst is numbing out in despair, your “little better” might be to feel something, anything, and let it be okay.

Meditation teaches us that awareness itself is transformation. When you sit in stillness and witness your mind’s storms, something subtle happens. You begin to see that every emotion, every thought, every sense of failure is temporary. The tide will rise and fall. You do not need to fix everything — you need only to stay present.

Being a little better than your worst is an act of compassion. It’s the understanding that growth doesn’t always look like progress; sometimes it looks like patience. When you give yourself permission to move slowly, you discover a deeper resilience — not the kind that burns with effort, but the kind that glows quietly, steady as a candle in the dark.

Every step, no matter how small, ripples outward. Each breath you take in awareness becomes a seed of possibility. You may not notice it at first, but over time, those moments of “a little better” begin to build upon each other. The stillness becomes steadier. The darkness becomes less consuming. You begin to sense space — a quiet space within you where peace, strength, and clarity live.

And from that space, new energy arises. You’ll find that the next step doesn’t feel as heavy, that the world doesn’t press so tightly against your chest. You’ll begin to ask, “If I can be a little better than my worst, what would it feel like to be a little better than that?”

This is how transformation happens — not in leaps and bounds, but in breaths and moments.

So, when you feel lost, when you feel small, when you think you’ve failed — pause. Breathe. Remember: your worth is not measured by how fast you rise, but by your willingness to keep showing up.

Today, be just a little better than your worst. Tomorrow, see what else becomes possible.

That is the quiet miracle of being human.

Posted on

Make Your Food Do the Fasting for You

Fasting doesn’t always mean complete abstinence from food. In fact, one of the most sustainable ways to transform your health through intermittent fasting is to let your food do the fasting for you. Instead of battling hunger or pushing your body into extremes, you can invite awareness into your eating choices — one meal, one bite at a time.

The truth is, it’s not starvation that brings success; it’s strategy. The challenge with strict fasting is that it can feel like an all-or-nothing effort. You push hard, you restrict completely, and then life happens — a social gathering, a stressful day, a night when discipline fades. What if, instead of fasting from food, you simply fasted through your food choices?

The principle is simple: eliminate the bottom 20 percent of foods that create 80 percent of your problems. This is the Pareto Principle applied to nutrition. Most of your health struggles — sluggish energy, cravings, bloating, stubborn weight — are often caused by a small fraction of what you eat. The creamy sweet coffee, the mindless evening snacks, the hidden sugars in sauces and dressings. By identifying and reducing these, you allow your body to experience the same reset that fasting offers — without the emotional resistance of total deprivation.

And the best time to make these changes isn’t during a diet overhaul or a grand “Monday restart.” It’s right before you eat. That’s the sacred pause — a moment of mindfulness that bridges impulse and intention.

Before your next meal, stop for a breath. Ask yourself: What can I eliminate right now that doesn’t serve me? Maybe it’s the extra drizzle of dressing, the side of bread you don’t truly crave, or the second spoonful of sugar in your tea. You don’t have to cut it all — just half. Half the milk, half the sweetener, half the portion. Each mindful subtraction becomes an act of self-care rather than self-denial.

Over time, these small adjustments compound. You’re not fasting for long hours; your choices are fasting for you. You reduce the constant spikes in insulin and blood sugar. You allow your digestive system to rest and your energy to stabilize. Your body begins to burn stored fat naturally, not because you starved it, but because you stopped confusing it.

The beauty of this approach is flexibility. You can apply it whether you’re practicing a 16:8 fast, an alternate-day schedule, or just trying to eat more mindfully. It’s not about perfection — it’s about alignment. The more your food choices align with your long-term goals, the easier fasting becomes.

So next time you reach for a snack or pour your coffee, pause. Ask gently: Can I make this meal fast for me? Maybe it’s by cutting the sweetener, skipping the creamer, or choosing whole food over processed ones. Every time you choose less of what harms and more of what heals, your body thanks you in the language of clarity, lightness, and balance.

Let your food do the fasting — and watch your body respond with effortless grace.

Posted on

Why I Teach Intermittent Fasting Through Science, Not Perfection

Let’s get one thing clear: I’m human. Just like you, I have good days and bad ones. I miss a fast now and then. I break a window early. I indulge in late-night snacks when I know I shouldn’t. And that’s exactly why I don’t teach intermittent fasting (IF) as a pursuit of perfection—but as a practice grounded in science.

When I talk about the benefits of intermittent fasting—improved metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, fat loss, cellular repair—I’m not speaking from a pedestal of flawless discipline. I’m speaking from research. From peer-reviewed studies, clinical trials, and the growing body of hard science that continues to validate this approach to eating.

Why Science Matters More Than Personal Discipline

If I only taught what I could practice perfectly, I wouldn’t be able to teach anything at all. That’s not a weakness—it’s reality. Life throws curveballs: social events, stress, travel, hormones, illness. Perfection isn’t sustainable, but consistency and understanding are.

Science gives us a foundation that doesn’t waver with our daily choices. It allows us to say, “Even when I’m not perfect, this method still works—because it’s not about me, it’s about biology.” IF isn’t a fad or a moral test of willpower. It’s a metabolic strategy supported by evidence: time-restricted eating affects hormones like insulin and ghrelin, it influences autophagy, and it can support weight management—even with occasional “imperfections.”

Detaching Morality From Food and Fasting

Too many people tie their worth to how “good” they are with their diet. That creates guilt, shame, and a cycle that often leads to burnout. But when we root our practice in science, we shift the focus from “Did I fail?” to “What did I learn?”

This isn’t about being good. It’s about being informed. It’s about knowing that fasting for 16 hours can lower insulin levels regardless of whether you ate pizza or salad during your window. It’s about understanding that skipping breakfast occasionally isn’t harmful—it might even be helpful. And when we mess up? The science doesn’t stop working. We just keep going.

The Role of Imperfect Teachers

Some might say that if you can’t practice something perfectly, you shouldn’t teach it. I disagree. The best teachers are the ones who’ve struggled, who’ve slipped, and who’ve come back stronger—because they can guide others with empathy and real-world wisdom.

I teach IF not because I’m the most disciplined person in the room, but because I believe in the method, I understand the evidence, and I’ve seen it work in both research and real lives—including my own, even when it’s messy.

Science Is the Anchor

So no, I’m not perfect—and I’m not trying to be. But what I teach is anchored in truth, not trends. I base it on what the science says, not what my last fast looked like. That way, when you come to this practice, you’re not following me—you’re following the data.

And that’s how it should be.

Posted on

Breath awareness meditation and time management

One of the reasons why some people don’t practice breath awareness meditation is that they feel there is not enough time in the day. How do we find more time to do the practice?  This will be discussed: the solution, why it works, and examples of what to do. 

The solutions to having enough time to practice breath awareness meditation is to manage your time better.  A lot of your time is spent spacing out and on low activities.  By reducing the spaces between relevant thoughts and cutting out low activities you can drastically increase your time.    

The better you manage your time the better able you are to allocate time to meditate.  You will see you have enough time to do breath awareness.  Not having enough time will no longer be an excuse. 

The following is how you can manage your time better:

  • Plan your activities and use the 80/20 rule to prioritize your time.  80/20 rule states that 20 percent of what you do gets 80 percent of the results.  Get rid of the activities that have little to negative return on investment and spend more time on activities that have high return on investment.  If we are honest with ourselves, we waste so much time on activities with little to negative return on investment like eating and watching tv.  We could use that time to practice breath awareness instead.  The practice as a lot of wonderful benefits.  It reduces fear, pain, stress, anxiety, and negativity.  You have more energy to live your life. 
  • Use writing procedures, checklists, and mind maps to speed up your work.   It is a good idea to simplify and get clear on your goals and be consistent everyday instead of wasting time wandering around.  Writing procedures, checklists, and mind maps help us get clear on our goals and reach them faster.  
  • Create reusable assets to multiply your work and money.  If you are into slide shows an asset could be something as simple as past saved work in PowerPoint.  It has all the transitions, sounds, timings, and images and text place holders.  You can use these over again.  Build a list of joint venture partners and consumer contacts so you can use them in the future.   Build systems and get people to operate them.   
  • Work on your external environment.  Clean and organize it.  Your external environment is consistent and owns Nero connection in your head.  Your mind will be clearer.  Also, you wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking for stuff.   
  • Develop working memory.  Do the same thing repeatedly for mastery to make things easier and faster.  Your brain will do more with less effort and time. 
  • Use small pockets of time so they don’t go to waste.  There are small pockets in the day when we result to nothing.  We are expecting one big pocket of time to do a work.  It doesn’t happen so we don’t do the work.  Also, the body doesn’t like doing the same thing for an extend period because of carp tunnel syndrome.  Furthermore, the body was designed for movement, and the mind for expansion.  We could chip away at our to do list so later we have time to do what we didn’t get done in the moment.  If you are on the computer and you need a break instead of doing nothing or a low activity, you could be washing dishes. 
  • Let your to do list cycle.   Your brain is always scanning the world for what it is missing.  You can’t be truly happy if you don’t have balance.  Make time to do everything in your list.  You don’t have to complete everything in one day. 

Now that I have discussed ways to manage your time better you are better able to allocate time to practice breath awareness meditation every day.  Use the 80/20 rule to prioritize your time.  20 percent of what you do gets 80 percent of the results.  It is most important.  Use written procedures, checklists, and mind maps to speed up your work.  In addition, you can create reusable assets to multiply your work and money.  Clean and organize your environment.  Achieve mastery through repetition to make a skill easier and faster.  Use small pockets of time so they won’t go to waste.  Let your to do list cycle.  Anytime you think to yourself how you are going to find time to practice breath awareness you know what to do.  Use the time saving hacks mentioned.

Posted on

How to motivate yourself to do breath awareness meditation when you don’t feel like it

Sometimes we can’t get to do an activity no matter how much we try.  This can affect a breath awareness meditation practice.  How do we deal with the situation?  The answer will be discussed:  the solution, why it works, and ideas to get us started.  

The solution 

The brain knows every trick against you, will make every excuse with breath awareness meditation, and will try to keep you down and not do the practice.  The easiest way to get yourself to do the practice is to work on your mood in general. 

Why it works

Your mood affects behavior.  If you feel awful, it will be harder for your to do an activity.  The more you force yourself to do the activity the more you feel awful.  You will be stuck in a negative feedback loop.  We all know how that ends.  As mentioned before, work on your overall mood.  Feeling good in general makes it easier to do activities including breath awareness meditation.   

9 Ideas to get you started

  1. You can listen to inspirational music.  You can go on the internet, specifically YouTube.  Type in your favorite inspirational song and listen to it.  Listen to new songs and add to your list of favorites.  Music can transport you to a different place.  If you want to go to a happy place listen to happy music.
  2. You can fast.  When you are under a lot of stress and dealing with very stressful things in your external environment your body isn’t thinking of digesting food.  Give it a break.  The worse foods you eat the more your digestion needs a break.  You don’t want to feel awful.  Also include prayer.  Now your body as more energy to manifest your prayer because it isn’t digesting food.  Spend more time on areas that are bothering you the most.  Don’t negatively polarize your emotions.  Focus and feel the ideal scenario as if with positive emotions.  Fasting and praying can also make you physically healthier.  Fasting moves energy from the gut to the brain.  You don’t want to overdo it.  Before sleep time eat something but eat something light so you won’t feel sick in the morning. 
  3. You can practice affirmations, and love and gratitude.  Use present and positive connotations for your affirmations.  Affirm who you want to become.  Also, affirm the action you are going to take to reach your goals.  The body will become the mind.  You are building muscle brain memory.  Performing the action will feel more natural.  Think of it as a rehearsal for the real event.  The more you do it the better.  Get a notebook.  Everyday right down ten things you are grateful for.  In looking for positives you are teaching your brain to look for or remember the positive things in your life and stop focusing on the negatives.  It builds positive brain neuroplasticity.  You will be happier.  Your body is also an extension of your brain.  You will also be healthier.  If you want better health, give thanks for the level of health that you have. 
  4. Don’t judge yourself negatively for making mistakes or things not going according to plan.  Do things that will make you positive.  If you work on the strengths and the strength of your strengths your weaknesses will reduce or be eliminated.  Instead of saying you are going to stop eating junk food, say you are going to cook more.  You don’t want to resist junk food and have nothing to replace it with.  You are setting yourself up for failure. 
  5. Take care of burning problems that might be weighing you down.  Is your work boring or stressful?  Do you have more important business?  This can affect your overall wellbeing.  It isn’t just what you do.  It is how you feel about what you do.  Emotions affect chemistry and chemistry affect physics.  Take care of the burning problem.  Decrease or increase the difficulty of your work.  Prioritize your goals. 
  6. The more you learn about something the more you see it from a set of new Nero connections in your brain, become more aware of the different possibilities, and the more you appreciate it.  You don’t want your dopamine receptors to get num.  When you aren’t active, learn.  Learning will help you fantasize and try new things.  If you have too much free time you can increase your financial intelligence.  You will always need money.  You can solve more problems.  You are less likely to do things that don’t serve your highest good with your free time.    
  7. Use the 80/20 rule to make decisions.  All you need is a few habits to make you most happy and productive.  20 percent of the input gets 80 percent of the results.  You know you are getting a hundred times a lot more than you are putting in, so you are motivated.  Then do a different variation of each habit to create nuance.  When making money work where most results are possible with the least amount of effort first.  Do the best micro activity of your best activity.  Plan your time and make reusable assets.  Keep things simple and consistent.  Work on other things also like your health.  Go for the gut and you will solve a thousand other problems.  Allow your to do list to cycle.  This will keep you motivated.  If something doesn’t add to the synergy of all your activities, it should be eliminated.   Take your least important activity that is giving you low to negative results and experiment with something that is potentially better. 
  8. Work on your environment.  Arrange your environment in such a way that it discourages bad addiction and encourages good addiction.  Subliminal messages are always reaching your subconscious mind when you aren’t paying attention and the more you are exposed to them the more likely you are to act on them.   If you leave in a cluttered environment your mind will be cluttered.  If you are always looking for stuff it is a drain on your energy, and you will feel frustrated.  You need a clean workspace to work.  Set up your environment in a way that it reinforces your goals.  You can watch inspirational or educational programs on YouTube.  Write down your goals on paper and affirm the action you are going to take.  Have faith and be positive.  Take baby steps every day and commit to learning.  Make your worst-case scenario still good as you experiment your way up.  Have a routine but rework the worse part of your routine as needed.   
  9. Take a break from your routine.  The left brain likes to follow standard routine all the time.  The right brain is open to learning and trying new things. If you are doing something and it is making you frustrated or depressed, take a break.  Do something else temporarily.  Do something fun that doesn’t involve work, change your environment, or read a book you don’t read every day.  You will be able to come back to an activity with a fresh perspective.  Try not to miss two days in a role of an activity.   

Final thought 

What uplifted your mood yesterday and motivated you to do an activity won’t necessary work today.  Ask yourself what you need right now to uplift your spirit.  It might be doing nothing for a short while.  It might be something else not discussed.  That is okay too.  Don’t fail, give up, and believe nothing is working.  Different things will work at different times and somethings more often than others.  Next time you find yourself not being able to do breath awareness mediation ask yourself, “How do I feel in general?”  Then work on improving your mood if you need to.   

Posted on

Overcoming fear of consistent daily breath awareness meditation practice.

Problems are a part of meditation. Solving problems is what make meditation fun. It forces you to think creatively. You will experience all kind of problems in your practice journey. Don’t focus too much on a problem that you fail to see the possibilities around the problem. A solution usually presents itself when you have a problem, and you are motivated to act. You just need to be persistent.  When the problem arises in the future you would know how to deal with it. One of the problems is the fear of doing breath awareness work. Write down all your fears on meditation on a piece of paper. This helps you see all your resisting thoughts, feeling, and emotions concerning it. You can be better able to deal with it. Then counter those fears and come up with creative solutions to them. Some of the fears of breath awareness meditation will be discussed. There are boredom and depression, overly attached to results, and over complicating your practice.

Overcoming Boredom and depression.

It is not the meditation that make you happy, but your perception of it. Success revolves around happiness. The higher your emotions the more parts of your brain are dedicated to help you reach your goal. Decide 80 percent of what you are going to do 20 percent of the time. Then focus on feeling good independent of the activity you choose. 90 percent of the signal goes from your heart to your brain. It will be easier to add on the activity.

Depression can keep one from meditating. You wake up the same day dreading doing the same thing at the same time. How much are you investing in the unknown? Investing in the unknown is what makes things exciting. Feel free to shake things up. When things unfold in ways you can’t always predict it is exciting.

If meditation is boring, make it fun. Use your imagination. You can reward yourself for doing the practice, or creatively visualize yourself obtaining your highest goal for it.

If you keep viewing your meditation with the same Nero circuitry it gets redundant.  Your brain and body goes on autopilot and your practice becomes boring and stressful.  You can learn more about the work. By doing so, you will be able to apply more meaning to your practice. Learn more benefits to it. You always had the benefits, but you were not aware of them.  One of the things you can do is do your practice differently to add some nuance to it.   You can do a different type for a while and go back to the old type with a new perspective.   You can play around with the duration and time of the meditation.  You can have a new reward. 

Don’t be overly attached to results.

Sometimes it feels you aren’t making progress. You want to quit. The more you look for something the more you push it away. You are saying you don’t have it. Hang in there and be patient. Allow yourself to be successful.

Watch your self-criticism. Don’t destructively criticize yourself. This type of criticism creates fear and destroys creativity.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. It is through experimentation you learn. You can only connect the dots looking back. Continue what works from the past, experiment with new things, and replace the old with new things that work better.     

Don’t over complicate meditation.

Keep it simple.If you make meditation more complicated, you are less likely to keep up a daily practice. The only wrong practice is the one that you don’t do. Showing up is 50 percent of the battle. The more complicated you make your work, the less successful you will be. The simpler you make it, the more successful you will be.

Meditation is straight forward. Focus on your in breath and out breath. Your mind will wander from time to time. The unwanted thoughts are part of your practice. Simply bring your awareness back to your breath. You are going to go back and forth between thoughts and breath. Physical sensations, and sounds are also part of your practice not just unwanted thoughts. You aren’t going to know when you experience stillness known as the gap until you come out of it. You may or may not have a mystical experience. It is okay. Continue your meditation without worries until you are done with it. Surrender without expectations. Move in the direction of comfort. If you need to open your eyes to look at the time or scratch your nose do so.

Summary

Now that the following has been discussed: how to overcome boredom and depression, how not to be overly attached to results, and how not to be too complicating to help you overcome fear of breath aware meditation you are better able to do the practice. Invest in the unknown because that is what makes something exciting. Don’t look for results. The more you look for results the more you push it away. Keep your practice simple. Focus on your breath in and out. Anytime you get distracted from your breath bring your attention back to it. Thought, physicals sensations, and sounds are part of the work. Next time you are afraid of meditation you can eliminate the three fears discussed.