All of this and lots more is covered in this interview that will expand your mindset around meditation and just how easy it can be to reap the benefits of this very ancient and sacred art.

The key takeaways are:

• I share my first meditation experience.
• What it’s like to be a Freedom Coach.
• Mental health tips… how to shut your monkey mind and find some peace.
• The difference between passive and active meditation explained.
• How brainwaves impact meditation
• Scientific benefits of meditation.
• Breathing techniques to help meditate deeply.
• The effects of a pandemic on people’s mental health.
• Workplace meditations to reduce stress and enhance productivity.

Make sure to listen all the way through as this interview is jam-packed with loads of super helpful tips and strategies to positively impact your overall health and happiness.

It took me 10 years of doing jobs I hated before I literally stumbled onto what really lit me up on the inside.

In fact, I found it when I was going through my darkest night of the soul.

But it doesn’t have to take you that long as there is another way to find it.

The Japanese call it Ikigai.

Ikigai is a Japanese word that roughly translates to “reason for being”.

According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life.

The key to a long, happy life they say is to to stay active and work at what you enjoy. In the Western world we say, “follow your bliss” and when you look at the diagram you are going to find it in exactly the same place as the Japanese find their Ikigai.

MY wish for you in sharing this today is that this may help you to find your own ikigai and live a long, healthy, happy and prosperous life.

One of the things that can grind us to a halt and make it feel like we are treading water instead of moving forward is a lack of focus and direction.

Focus and direction happen when we are clear about where we are headed.

Until we have clarity we’re almost always going to lose momentum because now we are just doing stuff for the sake of being busy rather than with any real intention or purpose.

So the first step in getting unstuck is to know your purpose and why you are doing what you are doing.

This doesn’t have to be some over-the-top life or world-changing epiphany either. It just has to be something that is important to you.

It could be to drop 5kg of weight, make an extra $50k over the next year, travel, find your soul mate, start a business, or whatever inspires you.

It just has to be something that matters to you no matter how big or small.

The next step then is to just keep moving forward until you reach your desired destination and this is where 95% of people fail.

Check out my short 2-minute video here that shows you how to move from stuck to unstoppable action and why failure is the #1 key to success.

I used to think this too. For me, it was more about the destination that promised peace rather than understanding what it truly was.

I would look to the weekends to have peace from work and to be making more money to have peace from lack and yet all the while still not finding that deeper peace that I heard the mystics speak of.

I made it my mission for a while to learn about this vibration called inner peace. I stopped looking outside and started looking within.

But it wasn’t really a search, it was a letting go. Letting go of the idea of what inner peace was meant to be and instead allowing my unconscious to guide me to the knowledge of what it truly was.

We all have this capacity you know… the capacity to trust that our unconscious will lead us to the outcome that we need. We are born with it.

My unconscious took me on a journey deep into the heart of silence and stillness through meditation and mindfulness.

It is here that I discovered that peace is found when the mind is quiet – this is what I had been looking for.

Just this week I started doing yoga to loud rock and roll music. Why would I do this you might ask? Because I am seeing how deeply I can stay connected to the state of inner peace while chaos is going on around me.

Usually, I do yoga to slow, relaxing music, and that is always beautiful. Now, I get to also have that same experience regardless of what is happening around me.

It also no longer matters if I meditate in silence or in the middle of a mall – it’s all the same as my inner peace is no longer dependent on external influences.

We just need to remember that we are peace at our core and in that center of our being everything is perfectly still and calm.

We have all experienced this at different times in our life so we know it is there and our unconscious knows how to reveal it to us.

It’s just that the excitement of all that life has to offer in the world keeps the mind distracted so we the deep, still ocean of silence that lives between our thoughts.

The deeper we go into this silence – the deeper the joy and bliss.

Perhaps inner peace is as simple as watching the flow of your mind without judgment and just letting all thoughts pass without getting attached to them.

One of my mentors once said to me, “Michael, it’s none of your business what others think about you.”

I sat with that for a while until I finally got it. Since then, I have had this mantra running through my head 24/7. It’s actually been a Godsend as I’ve been able to lean into it whenever someone may be being negative or having a go at me.

When we go through life worrying about what others may be thinking we’re just putting the brakes on being who we truly are.

We get one shot at life (at least this time around) and being n.i.c.e just to keep the peace and not rock the boat only undermines our own self-esteem and integrity.

If you are too much for people then they are NOT your people – move on, unfollow them, block them, or whatever.

There are so many things that are wrong in the world right now and we either sit back and take it up the a$$ like good little citizens or we express our truth and let the chips fall where they will.

When I walked away from my ‘normal’ life and decided to just follow my heart and be true to myself I lost all my friends and my family disowned me (except my mother).

The thing is it actually didn’t bother me a bit as I loved who I was becoming and how my life was. It was so refreshing to not have to ‘fit in’ with family shit anymore or pretend to be someone I wasn’t.

I don’t live to please anyone anymore and it is so liberating. It doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate or kind but it does mean that I won’t modify who I am to fit in or appease the egos of others.

When you stop caring, and I mean really stop caring about trying to please others you will finally be free to be yourself – I promise!

Sometimes, being silent is enough, or simply saying yes or no when you mean it will suffice. Other times, people won’t like what they hear and will want you to make them feel better. Well – just don’t.

Because then you will stay stuck in the emotional manipulation games that everyone else is playing and you will loathe yourself for it on the inside.

Be strong, be courageous, and dare to be yourself as your soul is waiting for you to step the fu@k up and be who you were born to be without any apologies or hesitation.

The world needs your medicine but when it is hidden behind people-pleasing and wearing masks then was it the real slim shady at anyway?

Resistance is our tendency. Especially when we feel pain. When we feel pain, emotional, or otherwise, we want to resist it. In some ways, it feels right to resist what hurts, what scares us, what we don’t want.

And it’s just not human nature to embrace the pain. But pain is not the cause of the problem; it’s the effect of a deeper problem. When you resist it, you perpetuate it, you feed it.

Even Buddha says that since our mind creates everything, no external cause is really creating any pain for us. It’s the illusion within that creates the pain we feel.

The external cause is what draws our attention to the pain that already exists.

What this means in real terms is that when we resolve the pain within the external situations tend to drop away, as does our suffering.

Blame is also a form of resistance. The more we blame, the more our pain and suffering hang on. The way to break free from this cycle is through forgiveness.

Forgiveness of others and forgiveness of ourselves. Then, we are free to move on.

When we hang onto beliefs, circumstances, attitudes, or people that are no longer serving us or our growth then we are resisting opening the door for new people and opportunities to come our way.

We all have something we can let go of more deeply and when we do then we are once again setting ourselves free from unnecessary pain and suffering.

In essence, we when stop resisting the flow of life and learn to surrender to what is being asked of us at the moment then we are on the path of love and empowerment.

If you’d like to learn more about how to flow with change and have less pain and suffering as a result then come join us in my Transcend Limits Group on Facebook.

With so much going on in the world right now it’s understandable how some people would not be feeling so great.

However, at any moment we have a choice whether to wallow in our self-misery, or rise-up and step into our self-mastery.

Mastery is usually defined as being highly skilled or proficient in one or more areas of life.

To me, self-mastery takes this to the next level. It is to become the master in ALL areas of your life and understand that you are your own guru.

In essence, it means taking full responsibility for your own life and no longer making excuses for why things happen or don’t happen.

In a sense, self-mastery is the foundation for spiritual mastery as it involves discipline and practice combined with the willingness to let go of how things need to unfold.

If we want to improve say our health then to have self-mastery in that area we need to study what health is and then apply it to ourselves until we master it.

If we want to improve our finances then we need to study money and apply what we learn about it until we master it.

This goes for every area of our life. We can practice and become the master of anything we focus on but to do it in all areas of our long process which requires a high level of self-discipline and dedication.

The other way, which requires just as much discipline and dedication are to become the master you already are by connecting to your inner self that is beyond the ego.

It is said that when you remember who and what you are at the deepest level then you have become the master and now self-mastery is not needed at all.

Until then, if you notice any areas of your life are not where you want them to be then go all-in on them. Sometimes, by focusing on the area that is being neglected the most it will naturally lift up the others as you master it.

We are the masters of our destiny in every moment through the thoughts, words, emotions, and deeds we give power to. When we fully realize this – then we truly do become limitless!

In today’s world while we all might want certainty it can sometimes seem that life has other things in mind. 

In fact, for some, it can feel like they are constantly free falling without knowing if there’s ever going to be a safety net to catch them.

It’s that feeling where you’re not quite sure where you’re at or where things are headed and the best you can do is to find a way to be okay with the unknown and find peace among the chaos.  

Have a listen to the conversation below between myself and my good friend Sandhan who actually lived with a spiritually incorrect mystic for some time. 

There’s lots of thought-provoking conversation to get you thinking about your own life and how you show up when things are anything other than flowing smoothly or making sense to you right now.

There’s so much more to life than meets the eye and perhaps the real joy of living is found in what we don’t know yet.

Make sure you listen to an in-depth discussion on what it means to live in the gap and how you can apply this wisdom to your own life. 

We go deep in our discussion and can’t wait to hear what you think of it.

Take the gym, for example, I used to train 1-hour x 4-days a week and now I do just 15 minutes a day maximum and that includes doing both strength and cardio fitness.

The result is that I’m now feeling fitter and stronger than I have in years. All it took was a little research around how peak athletes stay in condition without spending hours a day wearing themselves out.

We can also apply the less is more method to any area of our life. It’s really a case of working smarter instead of harder and figuring out how to get the same or better results with less effort.

Another example is that it is possible to spend less time working and yet make the same if not more money. It’s just a shift in mindset around how much you value your time.

If you get paid $50 an hour now then what would it take to make $100 an hour or $500 an hour? While the less is more method may not necessarily apply to everything if you think of it in terms of quality instead of quantity then you’ll be on the right track.

I’m really enjoying applying the mantra less is more everywhere I can and focusing more on optimizing my time, energy, and lifestyle instead of wasting it.

Where in your life could you be enjoying more happiness, health, energy, love, or prosperity by applying the less is more method?

This could be less self-judgment which brings more self-love; less worry which brings more peace; less busyness which brings more relaxation; or even being less controlling which brings more spontaneity and freedom.

Life really is one gigantic experiment as none of us really know what we’re doing. So why not make the most of it and see how much more we can enjoy it while doing less to make it happen