Meditation is for everyone : Enter the garden of your mind
Original painting available for purchase, prints upon request.
Some people hear the word “meditation” and feel like not for them. Their brilliant, analytical minds operate in the physical world that constructs an absolute reality. Perhaps they dont know where to turn to or where to start. Some people think meditation is just for crystal lovers who wear blankets on their head and burn sage in a strange attempt to “tune in”. Some believe meditation does not carry any physical application. They have not learned to untap the empowering benefits of sitting with yourself, not only spiritually but, financially, emotionally, and economically. Mediation can help shift your ties to the drama in your life, it can heal old wounds, it can help facilitate forgiveness and understanding, it can illuminate your focus in growing your business with creative solutions and sheer brilliance. It can assist in achieving your wildest dreams, all while ageing gracefully, living peacefully and working in heart centered passion. The best part is, it's free. Out of all the products you have bought into, the serums, the retreats, the diets, the trainers, the physiatrist… all the people that sold you something for your freedom to think… isn’t it worth a moment of your time to tap into something else?
Mediation is for everyone.
Mediation gives you direct access to your inner worlds. It allows you to think about your thoughts, to realize your fears and to conquer them, it allows you to deeply understand what your core values are. Core values are different from goals. Goals are achievements that we wish to gain in our life, they can offer validation and purpose to our dedicated work. Core values are the things you take with you for the entirety of your life. They shape your reality, your relationships, your jobs, and who you are. Core values can change, but usually when they do, it becomes a catalyst for a major shift in your life.
Meditation is the single most valuable tool you can learn. How many of you studied math and history in school? For years you were told to pour into textbooks and to remember processes, methods, and our lineage that had real world applications throughout your life. You learned to calculate, to measure, to make educated decisions, you learned how the world came to be in the state it is now. How many of you were taught how to concentrate in school? How many of you are teaching your children how to concentrate? Personally, I was never taught this. I was told to concentrate, but I was not taught how to actually do that.
Concentration begins in the mind so you must first understand the mind. Imagine your mind like a potted herb garden. The pot with the soil is your mind. The herbs and plants are the places within your mind. For example, your memories, emotions, creativity, spirituality, the special trips you took, your pain, your fear, the trauma, the joy, the people you love, the pets you adore, the recipes, the yoga sequence and the way the room you're in, feels now. It is important to realize the connectivity and function of these two aspects, your mind as the vessel and your thoughts as the garden. Once you realize that these places are accessible doorways, that you can access, you can begin to control how your thoughts move within your mind. Ultimately, this will control physical actions, reactions, and your emotional state to the real world.
Now, imagine the herb garden again. Imagine you have a grow light, that you use to grow your garden. This light is a single beam of pure, white light. This is your awareness. Wherever you shine this light, the garden will grow. This takes time, but with concentrated dedication you can shift the way you think pretty quickly. Just as taking proper care of an herb for a month, allows new growth to form, it allows the plant to become stronger, and will become so vivacious, it will begin to bear fruit. It's the equivalent of going to the gym. We work out certain muscles and over time these mussels grow and develop and our physical bodies can change. The mind is your most important mussel, and the training of your mind is your most valuable asset. The entirety of our culture as we know it began in the mind. It began as ideas that would later bring into fruition the manifestation of entire systems of government, religion, freedom, art, temples, cartoons, and superstars. Ideas created everything we are.
In this metaphor of the garden, the water is your energy. Water does not have a bias for watering herbs or weeds. It does not have a direction for feeding mites or roses, it simply waters and gives life to everything it touches, creating both rot and blossoming growth. How we realize, actualize, spend and transform our energy is essential to our personal development. Most people are seeping their energy out all over the place, giving it to their iphones, to marketing, to a person who is not uplifting, to a group of people who are controlling, manipulative, and not self-actualized, to their drug or alcohol addiction, to the television, or to their job that does not help the greater good. The list is endless. Your energy is not. Your energy, and your life is finite.
Sure, we like to have faith in religion, in the idea there might be something beyond, but no one has yet died, gotten to heaven and sent us a selfie that they hashtagged “pearly gates”. We simply do not know. If you want to find out what's really important to you, just practice the exercise of shortening your time. Imagine a doctor told you, you only have 4 hours to live. You probably wouldn't be finishing this blog, the people who are most important to you would become highlighted in a very real way. The things you loved the most, the things you wanted forgiveness for would light up your world in an overwhelming sense of appreciation for the now. The world would appear completely different in only a matter of moments, you might experience the wind on your skin in a new way, or the greenness of the trees. You might experience the scent of your lover, as pure bliss and the kiss of your dog as an enlightened, poetic example of how lucky you are to experience this great gift of life.
Your awareness will water both positive and negative energetic forces. The training of your mind through meditation will illuminate that which will help your life become more positive. The act of practicing concentration will allow access to real world benefits. You will witness increased productivity, better problem solving skills, the ability to see and actualize opportunity, increased core value system, access to regulation of your central nervous system, access to breathing techniques that will nurture the detox of organs and repair of individual cells. Mediation allows for clearer thinking so you respond rather than react. Realizing your core values gives you the fortitude and strength to be still when the waves around you are crashing and shaking the boat. Meditation allows you to process the emotions of anger, sadness, fear and pain and transmute that energy to places of understanding, forgiveness, growth and love.
Enter the garden of your mind with the attention it deserves. Build a beautiful fence around it and create a key that only you hold. Realize that other people's thoughts and actions can not ever take away the keys to this garden. People can not penetrate or ever take away your willingness to step towards and actualize your own inner peace. Plant your dreams here, fertilize them with a daily practice and watch these seeds grow into full bouquets that you can then pass unto those around you. Give these flowers to the people you love, to your friends and neighbors, plant them in the gardens of random people in a random act of kindness. Plant your hopes, your reverence, your visionary quest and who you are in the sunniest part of your mind, and visit frequently. Place a bench here, next to a water fountain where birds bathe and play near the blossoming fruits of your dreams. Tap into the nurturing growth of these spaces. Watch the animals come closer to you, as butterflies and rabbits frolic through the air that cools your sweet face. Be here, in peace and gratitude for all that can develop and become within you.
Limited edition, signed and authenticated prints available for purchase.
Visit the shadowy place too. Place a pearly gate around this space and have a protector sit in front of the strong walls. This could be a person you admire, a dear friend, a fictional character or a spiritual being. This entity lets you into the shadow place of your garden where you can connect to your fears, your trauma, the pain and sadness that indeed imbues the complexity of our sacred lives. Use your energy here to prune your fears and pain. Ask questions in this space. Ask what your fear wants of you. Ask how your victimhood is serving you. Ask what you are afraid of. That in which we resist, persists. There is healing that will evolve from this space. Sit in the shadows of your mind, on a soft pillow. You might have an emotional or psychological release here, a transformative thought might enter your garden to offer light. Bury all your gold here. Underneath your suffering, for when you truly access that which breaks you, through this openness you have space to transform. With practice you will transform the pain into love and understanding. Leave a bouquet of roses at the tombstones of your grief, leave a bouquet from the sunniest part of your mind. Leave your most elegant, full, and fragrant flowers here as a gift of relentless compassion. Close the gate to the shadowy place, thank your protector for always staying there. Know you can visit any time to heal, to shift and to transform. Visit here to uncover your gold and the treasure that is buried in the depths of the shadows. It is within pain that we can measure great joy. It is in transformation that we can begin to heal ourselves and collectively our planet.
This is an exercise on imagination, healing,and awareness of our thoughts. This is an example of how easily manipulated our minds are. With only my words you were able to visit places you traveled to, places you loved and deplored. You were able to imagine a garden with gates where you closed the door and now you are back in the room, on your cell phone or device reading this blog. Your awareness shifts easily, don't you want to train yourself to create and control those shifts?
With the tools of meditation you can tap into the control of your infinite inner world. Mediation has connected me with some of the most beautiful people, it has led me to realms of peace when I was suffering, it offers light in times of darkness, it helped me grow the pathways of my mind to unimaginable lengths. It is a path that I see as limitless, a forever garden that will one day be the entirety of my existence. Use pure water, shine white light, prune with careful intention and watch the world surprise you as you grow into your divine potential.
Free resources for mediation
App “Insight Timer” (great for guided meditations, talks, and music, offering filters so you can do 5 minutes or 2 hours)
YouTube “guided Meditation ------Blank-----) and pick a topic… Ex: affirmations, divine feminime, divine masquelin, better sleep, inner peace, breathing practice, healing a broken heart, forgiveness.
Book: Alan Watts , The book, Out of Your Mind and Still the Mind
Instagram Live Yoga studio where teachers are going live! I highly recommend my dallas yogis (Both of these centers will lead you to a repritor of trained teachers offering a variety of different courses and techniques)