The stress of daily life has us functioning from places within the human psyche that are for pure survival – creating both neurological habits and sending hormones into our body – making it nearly impossible to step into a no-thought meditation.

Because we live in a society where we expect immediate results, we forget that creating our current mindsets and mental habits took time – usually our whole life – and may take a while to reap results as we adopt changes to our routine such as meditation. In our culture, it’s easy to find ourselves in “survival mode,” habitually expecting the next “attack,” the next to-do item, and the next problem to address. Emails, phones, and even work or social situations become background battlegrounds. Until we can release the “stranglehold,” of our lives, it’ll be difficult to enjoy and benefit from meditation, let alone life in general.

Meditation helps almost all human conditions. Let’s explore how we can ease frustrations as we build this new skill, make sense of it, and make it easy to fit into hectic daily life.

Please note that this information is from my experience and information channeled to me. I’m not a meditation coach or expert by far, but I have been doing the work daily for many years. I’ve realized meditation wears many different costumes. You can make it match your lifestyle, your energy, and your phase of life, and it can – and should – feel good to you, wherever you are in your four bodies (biological, mental, emotional, and spiritual) today.

The first thing I want to mention is a direct message from Spirit on this subject.

Meditation is Medicine.

When Spirit talks of medicine, it is energetic and co-creative. It is the form of spirit moving inside of you directed by the form you’re deciding to use. Spiritual medicine can be music, yoga, meditation, sex, gambling, food, drugs, alcohol… any accessory that arouses or calms the human senses and/or extrasensory perceptions. One main point of awareness though: if you misuse or abuse any medicine, it will backfire. If you learn to use medicine appropriately, you can find much wisdom and health within as it’s a direct line to Universal communication. The most powerful way Spirit talks to us is through how we’re feeling. It’s that simple. So, when you use an external thing to feel differently, you’re using medicine, as defined by Spirit. And it’s a double-edged sword.

Meditation is supposed to remove you from trials in your mental world by entering silence, but I want to challenge this today. Yes, learning to become quiet is one way to meditate and begin regenerating from a place of relaxation as we consciously step out of “survival mode.” But sometimes it just isn’t so easy.

The stress of daily life has us functioning from places within the human psyche that are for pure subsistence. Our “lizard” brain checks off tasks that keep us alive, fed, safe, and sheltered, pulling decisions from how we currently perceive our world: are we in fight or flight, or are we safe and sound? The hormones these feelings create in our body make it impossible to simply step into silent meditation. This takes time and effort and usually creates more stress for the beginner attempting this. Frustration, anger, and doubts arise, encapsulated in a feeling of failure, leaving him or her feeling worse than before and ready to give up. Sound familiar?

Now, let’s dig deeper.

First, please delete the societally-created message that you must be sitting on a fancy expensive meditation cushion by a tropical waterfall with tribal flute and singing bowls in the background while you contort yourself into a pretzel with your fingers shaped into Os, your back screaming in this new posture while you’re trying in vain to empty your headspace and enter the realm of marvelously other-worldly visions that will answer all of life’s questions and immediately produce a sage-like sense of ease, childlike-wonder, and healed spirituality. (If this is what works for you, by all means, continue doing so.)

Here’s the thing: you can meditate anytime, anywhere when you aren’t actively engaged in other verbal or mental activity, and it can be on any subject you need to explore to find that ease, childlike wonder, and healed spirituality.

Let me explain. When you’re doing the dishes and thinking deeply yet easily about your son’s problem with his math teacher, that’s meditation. When you’re driving and deep in your imagination seeing (and feeling!) what the job you’re applying for will be like when you get it, that’s meditation. When you’re daydreaming, it’s a form of meditation. When you’re showering and enjoying mentally philosophizing, that’s meditation too. As is the empty-minded early morning stare at the wall as you prepare your coffee. As long as you’re doing these activities without force – just letting the information flow with ease through your mind, letting go of what doesn’t suit your conversation with yourself and aligning with the components that do – you’re flowing with information from your higher self and perhaps guides and Source, or God. The safe space you’ve given your mind to explore the topic is where you find answers, wonderment, and conversations with the Universe.

The key when beginning meditation is not to empty your mind, but to empty your emotions.

By emptying your emotions that create while thinking through something, you create energetic room for Spirit to join the conversation with you, and leave behind forceful thoughts. All you need to do is notice the emotional feeling coming up and let it go. For example – you’re trying to calm and empty your mind but your to-do list keeps popping up: You can’t forget this one thing! Your anxiety heightens, your heart starts beating faster, your face flushes and you get frustrated or angry that your mind isn’t quiet! Your mind and emotions just hijacked your safe space and you feel like you’re swept up, once again, in the failure tornado of meditation.

Hey. That’s OK. You may truly require a to-do list to survive and thrive. Honor yourself and your list by writing the thought down on a piece of paper you have next to you, thank your over-worked mind for helping you, and feel the fear-based emotions that just began to rise release with ease. Feel back into your heart, love yourself, have gratitude, and continue on. This will take practice. The more you call out and switch this “monkey mind” into heart space and gratitude, consciously moving back into the quiet-mind, the easier it will get. It is a practice, after all.

Note that if something keeps popping up when trying to truly empty your mind, you may need to give it some time to “speak” to you. You may be getting a message from your guides to explore the topic for insight or some answers. Again, write it down to mentally explore later and continue on with your intended meditation.

Learning to Focus

If you are having problems focusing, quieting, and need a bit of a warming-up to the practice of meditation, here are some ideas you can try.

Remove all other “medicines” and distractions.

• For me, a quiet car (alone with no music or podcasts on, preferably a long road ahead of me) is the most potent of meditation. The longer the road, the deeper the meditation. This is also where Spirit most easily comes to me in the form of downloads and channelings, so I always have my phone handy with a voice message or dictation app to record insights, downloads, and messages immediately (and safely). You may find you forget the channeled messages. This happens a lot since they’re not thoughts your mind produced.
• Shopping or going to a restaurant alone is also a great way to disengage emotionally and have deep thoughts with yourself. Silence your phone and go to a store/restaurant for fun. If you feel safe with your surroundings, pop some earplugs in to reduce the tinny elevator music or credit card ads coming from the front desk and get lost in yourself.
• Do some chores without the TV or music on. Complete silence while doing physical work can immediately place your mind into a zone of comfort and safety for everything subliminal to come up, leaving room for – you guessed it – Spirit.
• The more you work on dismissing the annoying anxiety-to-frustration/anger spiral, the easier it gets. Just dismantle it one little nut and bolt at a time. The machine your brain has built throughout life may be massive, so take it easy and enjoy watching it get smaller as you remove the pieces.

Guided Meditations

Guided meditations quickly help the beginner because with the sounds of music and the guide’s voice you can eliminate your “monkey mind,” and increase the power of your visualizations. This is a great first step into the world of quiet, however, I caution you not to overdo it as you advance. Practicing a truly quiet mind is the only way to truly have a quiet mind.

You can taper off from guided meditations, however. When you’re beginning, try one a day for a month. Then step into just meditation music for a month. Then every other day try quiet or turn down the music little by little. See what works. Play with it!

Journaling

• I’ve never been a journaler except for a stint in high school. I used journals to empty my emotions so I could move through life with less burden, opening space for Spirit to flow – and boy did it. Manifestation wasn’t even a buzzword back in 1994 but I was making magic happen by ridding my being of heightened and unnecessary energy and emotions in the form of a written dump on those pages.
• Journaling can also be a way for some people to meditate and bring forth messages from spirit. Try relaxing and writing about a subject important to you, or perhaps a question you want to throw to the Universe, and just begin writing about why you’re asking. See what comes up. Be curious like a 5-year-old. If emotions come up, honor them and write about them easily, honestly, and openly.

If you love music, write or think deeply about a song. Ask questions like:

• Why does this song affect me and how does it affect me?
  • How do I feel during different sections of this song?
  • Who do I remember when listening?
  • Where does my mind or spirit go?
  • Is it the lyrics or the melody/harmony that’s affecting me? Perhaps it’s the percussion or the instrumental/vocal swells?

Notice your spiritual quirks

During one multi-year phase of my spiritual evolution, I couldn’t go to sleep without a movie reel playing behind my eyelids. This was a nightly event, always sober, where I would turn the lights off, close my eyes, and the strangest lights, shapes, colors, art, and whatever else would dance before my eyes. At first, it was extremely distracting but as I dealt with it every day, year after year, I became friends with the phenomenon. It developed into a very valuable companion in meditation. Observing it let me let go of thought and simply watch quietly in wonder. The patterns and colors, still or moving pictures, fireworks, and sometimes even auditory “hallucinations” became the way I’d relax from the day. Then when my body and mind were sufficiently calm, these images and sounds would suddenly stop, leaving me in safe, silent darkness. I then knew I complete for the day and fall asleep. If you find that you have something like this happening in your life, embrace it and see where it takes you. It could be a way your brain is dumping the day, or Spirit could be offering messages. Experiment and find out!

Noticing interesting blips in your life and sinking in without pushing back in frustration can be extraordinarily helpful while navigating your spiritual journey. With all of this comes practice – and lots of it. It’s work, and sometimes it’s hard. It may take many years or your whole life to find the mind-monkeys calming down, and it’s OK! As long as you stay in gratitude, quell lower emotions, and reduce the need to control what’s happening, you’ll begin to quickly notice and enjoy the evolution of your mind.

If you find you need more support in your meditative journey, receiving consistent energy alignment and balancing helps hasten the process while relieving or dissipating the lower, or “negative” emotions or thoughts, check out my sacred group the Healed Collective. Here you will receive not only weekly energy healings but also a wealth of information and coaching on all spiritual subjects you can imagine. Come join us!