All the things that I've taught you here are the product of several years of meditation and mindfulness practice. There are lots of pitfalls, there are lots of dead ends, there are lots of false leads and false positives.
I've weeded all those out and I've presented to your meditative practices that work. However, these materials will not work for you until and unless you commit to doing them.
It's really important that you go through this training in order. Don't skip. Don't jump ahead. Focus on it one step at a time. This way, you will be able to fully benefit from the techniques that I have described in this training.
It is also important that you focus on consistency. A lot of people think that meditation is just another activity that they engage in because they're looking for a result. They are looking for some sort of solution.
While that may ultimately be the truth, please understand that you must look at meditation and mindfulness as ends in and of themselves. In other words, they're not just means to an end. They don't just enable you to go to where you really want to go. Instead, they must be your destination. They must find some sort of value in doing them. That value must be in the act itself.
If you're able to do this, then it becomes part of you. It becomes part of your personality in addition to your daily routine. You will then be able to put yourself in a position where you will level up your ability to focus, stay in the present moment, achieve emotional distance and emotional clarity.
Ultimately, it's all a choice. You have to exercise that choice. You have to be responsible for yourself, your thoughts and your actions.
Do It Today
One of the most common problems I've noticed people experience with meditation is the fact that they feel that they would be able to only do it when things are right. They feel that they have to feel a certain way. They think that certain conditions have to be present in their life for them to do this.
What you're doing is you're just giving yourself excuses to not start. I'm telling you, if you don't even get yourself to start, you are failing. You're not dealing with your stress, you're not getting your life back, you’re not setting things in order as far as your mental peace and tranquility are concerned. You're achieving nothing.
You might be thinking that you're researching book after book about meditation, but what you're really doing is you're just giving yourself an excuse to not start. You have to understand that when it comes to any kind of profound personal change, our number one enemy is ourselves.
The Paradox of Self Sabotage
I know it sounds kind of weird. You know how frustrated you are. You know that you feel that something is missing in your life. You know that you're not fully content. You understand that meditation can help you achieve some sort of balance.
You understand that meditation can lead to a greater sense of inner peace. Why in the world would you want to get in the way of that? Why in the world would you want to sabotage that?
Well, it's actually quite simple. We're all creatures of habit. We get accustomed to things. We grow attached to things. Once you do things a certain way and you think about things a certain way, you feel that you're stuck in that pattern. You feel that you're not capable of going outside of that pattern.
I know it sounds weird, but you know that you're not really all that happy. But ultimately, at some level or another, most people would rather deal with the devil they know rather than roll the dice and take chances with something better.
They know they’re not happy. They know that things could be so much better, but they are afraid of trying something new. These are the issues that you have to confront with. They will crop up sooner rather than later.
I share them with you and I shine a light on them at this point in the training, so you can spot them a mile away. Understand that when you start bargaining with yourself about why you should not meditate at the appointed time, you're basically giving in to this. This is all too predictable. This is to be expected.
Now that you know that you're going to be playing all sorts of games with yourself, stick to your resolve. Stick to the game plan. Understand that there's a lot at stake.
You are trying to get your life back. You're trying to gain control of your emotional and mental processes. You can be so much more productive, and you can be so much more effective if you overcome your old patterns.
Unfortunately, if you allow yourself to make all sorts of excuses and justifications to go back to your old way of thinking, you give up a tremendous future for convenience. You've grown to love your chains.
One of my favorite philosophers in college was the French Enlightenment thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau said, “Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains." This quote, of course, is all about political philosophy.
But Rousseau was absolutely right on a personal level. We are born free. We are born with a tremendous amount of possibility. We are born with a tremendous amount of personal power.
We have it in us to do great things. If you are doubtful of this, just think of the great thinkers, builders, and innovators of this world. Think about people who managed to build vast fortunes even though they were born with nothing?
People have potential. All of us do. If successful people can succeed, you can too.
How do I know? Well, each choice you make is an exercise of power. You have all this unlimited potential in you. And it all flows from the fact that you have a choice. Your choice gives you power of the things you think about, talk about, and the things that you think you are capable of doing.
But the reason why you feel so powerless, so limited, so small is because you've allowed yourself to live in a neat, tidy little box. This box indicates what you can and cannot do. This box indicates what you are, what you're about, and what you are not. Nobody put you in that box. You chose to be in that box. You chose to live in a mental prison.
It's as if everybody's walking around with this tremendous amount of personal potential, but they're looking at their chains. They're saying to themselves, "I'm a victim. I'm wearing these chains." Little do they know that the key is in their hands.
Understand what is at stake. You have no excuse. You only have choices. I wish you nothing but victory.
