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.

Which is where we come to the first reason why meditation won’t work for many people. It’s because they try to quiet the mind using the same mind that is creating the problem.

I don’t know how often I’ve heard people say to me that they just can’t stop thinking while meditating or they find it impossible to sit still long enough to feel relaxed. Think of your mind like a rebellious child. The moment you try and control it you’re in for a heck of a time.

We can’t shut the mind up by expecting it to go quiet whenever we want it to – that just doesn’t make sense.

The next reason why most people will fail at meditation is because they have an expectation of what ‘should’ happen.

This again is a misunderstanding of what meditation is and how it works. It just means that more astute study is required before trying to meditate.

For example, did you know that the only time we are actually meditating is when we stop thinking? The mystics call it, ‘entering the gap between our thoughts’. It’s in this empty space that we find what we have been looking for – vast and limitless inner peace.

Even science has been able to measure what happens to our brain while in deep meditation. It shows a direct correlation between our brainwaves and how calm and relaxed we become.

The last reason why almost everyone that starts out with good intentions to meditate won’t learn to shut their mind up is because they view it as a stress relief pill rather than a way to connect deeper within.

Yes, it can and does relieve stress but that is just a by-product of quieting mind and was never the original intent of meditation – that came later on.

When meditation was around thousands of years ago the world wasn’t as hectic as it is now so meditation wasn’t used for relaxation as the pace of life itself was much slower. Instead, it was a way to connect to your spirit and remember who you were beyond the mind and body.

The reality for many when they try to meditate is that it just makes them even more stressed because it frustrates them. The pill certainly isn’t working then

If you are struggling with meditation then here’s my advice for you – find a better teacher!

Who you learn meditation from matters as they will either set you up to reap all the benefits that comes from it or leave you certain that it’ll never work for you.

If you’re not meditating twice a day for 20 minutes each time then don’t expect to get the full benefits out of any meditation technique.

That’s just one example of the truth of meditation versus smart marketing tactics to lure you in with false hope of a few minutes a day.

The last thing to mention is that I have not met anyone that I haven’t been able to show how to meditate deeply almost instantly.

That knowledge only comes from someone that has the experience to draw upon.

If you’d like to join a group of budding meditators then head over to our group Transcend Limits where we do amazing meditation challenges to get you started.

Everything we need to be happy, whole and free in this world comes from within. 

We are the solution to everything we think is wrong about us or the world as in truth there is nothing wrong but what we perceive to be so. Just being present brings balance to our live which of itself is also a solution. 

Out of presence anything can blossom for there is nothing in the way to resist the flow and expansion of life. To be present we need but to harness the power of our mind so that it works for us rather than against us. 

We are the master of our mind and so we get to choose how we focus it. The mind is a mechanism and we are far more than the mind and body. That’s why the less complicated we make our lives the easier it is to become the solution to anything that may arise that is not in balance.

A simple way to retrain the mind to be your friend instead of your foe is to practice mindfulness. Just by being-here-now with your breath, body or surroundings your mind will become very powerful.

Try it right now if you like.

Step 1. Notice your breath as it comes in through your nose and how your chest or belly expands.

Step 2. Notice your breath moving out through your nose and how your chest or belly deflates.

Step 3. If your mind wanders just keep bringing it back to observing your breath coming in and out of your nostrils. 

That’s it, you’ve now been mindful for as many breaths as you choose.

Mindfulness really is that simple!

I don’t know about you but meditation is an important part of my daily spiritual
practice. I’ve been doing it almost every day for over 20 years and it still inspires me.

But even if you don’t yet have a meditation practice, or if you struggle to meditate, I have some tools that will help you to love meditating. Whether you sit down to meditate or do a moving meditation, just putting time aside to meditate is a powerful act.

It lets your ego know that there’s a new player in town and that player is one who longs for spiritual connection. 

Consistent meditation practice will enhance your personal growth, deepen your connection to your intuition and creativity, and strengthen your spiritual connection.

The tool that I’d like to share with you today is your eyes. This is one of the simplest ways you can get started on regular meditation.

All it takes is to sit in front of a candle flame or even a flower and just gaze gently at it for 3 to 5 mins with your eyes open.

The methodology here is simple when your eyes are open is easier for you to slow down the mind because you’re giving it something to do just by focusing on an object.

Then, all you need to do is remind yourself to keep coming back to the object you are gazing at whenever you notice the mind wanders.

When you are finished with the gazing exercise, simply close your eyes and relax for a minute or two and notice how you feel. There is no right or wrong result here as what you create with your eye gazing experience will be perfect for you.

However, as a general rule, you will notice that your mind is quieter and you feel more energized.

As you get more comfortable with this exercise, I encourage you to sit in front of a mirror and gaze into your own eyes. Make sure that the lighting is not too bright (use candlelight if you can) so that your eyes don’t water too much.

Then, just follow the same process as before. One of the main differences though, is that you may start to notice that your face starts to change or even disappear or that you can see colors or light appearing around your head.

All this is perfectly normal and just means that your mind is quieting down, and you are making a deeper connection to your spirit. The more comfortable you get with this exercise the longer you will be able to do it and the deeper it will go.

I recommend up to 20 minutes at a time as a good time-frame for maximum benefit.

Well, I hope this has given you some food for thought on how you can do a very simple eye-gazing technique to deepen your spiritual connection.

​Einstein said, “The sign of true intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

Here’s what most people don’t know about imagination. We’re using it all the time. It’s just that some imagine a life of abundance while others imagine a life of lack and struggle.

Whatever we imagine we become in our thoughts, words, and deeds. If we imagine that life is hard and that we are not enough then that’s what we create more of.

If we imagine that we are happy and that we have everything we want and have ever dreamed of, then that is what we will create.

The thing is that as kids our imagination has no limits but for most people, as they get older it starts to get reduced to imagining things for the worst.

When we let our limiting beliefs and our fears dictate what we imagine then life becomes very hard.

That’s why to fully use our imagination in the way it was intended we need to get back to that space our childlike innocence within ourselves once again.

We need to give ourselves permission to stop taking life so seriously and become more playful in the way we think and behave.

When it comes to imagination, the math is simple… the more negative, limiting, or fear-based thoughts we have the more darkness we’ll imagine into our lives.

Conversely, the more joyful, playful, and optimistic thoughts we have the more light we’ll bring to our lives.

All of us have an inner creative genius waiting to be freed. Some have already done it while others get stuck living a more rational and left-brain type of life that leaves little room for our God-given gift.

Logic has its place in life, but to really soar high among the eagles and live a life of wonder and adventure we also need to balance it with our creative mind.

If we think about it, everything that exists in the man-made world came from someone’s imagination. Cars, clothes, technology, medicine, things – everything.

The challenge with imagination is that we either use it to create new things in our lives that make our soul sing or we use it to worry about everything we cannot change or control.

When we worry about something then we are imagining things for the worst. And, because our brain doesn’t know the difference between what we imagine or what is real, it receives those thoughts as real.

That’s why we have to be mindful of what we imagine as the moment we imagine something positive or negative – the brain perceives it as real. Then our physical reality takes on that vibration.

So, why not imagine things for the best, and imagine that we are happy, healthy, wealthy, and empowered. It’s the same energy, it’s just that one helps us to grow while the other keeps us stuck in the dark.

I’ve found that meditation really helps to get the creative juices flowing in your life.

It helps to get the left and right sides of our brain talking to each other and when that happens our creativity blossoms in the most beautiful of ways.

Problem-solving gets easier and more fun, your artistic talents start to flow from nowhere and you get to free your inner genius.

If you can imagine it you can become it. So make sure to imagine your life exactly the way you want it to be.

The truth is that the life you have created now is exactly what you imagined it would be in the past and your future will look like what you are imagining now.

Imagination is your soul speaking to you so pay attention to it and you will discover all you need to be fulfilled.

I used to be all about the hustle. Working long hours and making sure that I was on top
of everything.

Then I was all about seminars, workshops and retreats. Always doing something to keep myself busy and growing.

And yes, I got results. Then, I started to meditate and something I never expected happened.

I found the missing piece to the puzzle of my life and it was called inner peace and happiness. Not from what I was doing but from what I was being.

I see this a lot in the people. They may have an awesome work ethic and be highly productive in their work and lives and yet internally they are filled with tension.

I saw this in my parents and the tension ended up destroying my father. I saw this in my mother and she had a nervous breakdown.

It wasn’t until I found the opposite of this in myself that life started to make sense. It wasn’t all about the hustle. It wasn’t all about the work, money or things.

It was about balance or as it’s also known these days – alignment.

To give we must first be open to receive whether that’s love, time, energy, or anything at all.

And receiving is an art all on it’s own as that is not what we are taught in school or even at home.

Meditation has taught me to be open to receive. It has also taught me to relax and to have a place inside me where not even my thoughts or emotions could follow.

It opened the door for me to receive my purpose and experience happiness as a way of life.

Unresolved tension in our bodies is the biggest killer on our planet right now. It destroys your health. It destroys your energy. It destroys your flow. It destroys your wealth and it destroys your love.

Yes, we will all eventually leave this planet but until that time wouldn’t it make sense that we make it a priority to enjoy the journey of life as much as we can? 

Recently, I have run quite a few free meditation workshops and programs online to
give people a taste of how powerful meditation can be in their lives.

I was talking to one of the men that did a seven-day program early today and because of what he shared I was prompted to write this post.

He told me that for the past few months he has been unable to bend one of his fingers as it had seized up and that anytime he tried to bend it he received jolts of pain up his forearm.

He hadn’t been able to find out what was wrong or how to free up his finger and stop the pain.

It was what he said next that blew my mind.

He told me that after doing one of the meditations during the program that his finger had simply ‘unfrozen’.

He could now move it freely and there was no more pain and a week later (this morning) it was still as good as new!

He was showing me this live during a video chat.

And… he was not the only person that had physical symptoms of pain either reduced or dissolved doing the meditations.

So, how does this work?

Truthfully, who knows! 

My guess is that meditation transforms the mind and that our mind has the power to transform our body.

Meditation is also known to impact our brain functioning and create what’s called a relaxation response in our body which helps radically reduce stress and anxiety.

So yes, there may be some scientific explanations why supposed miracles happen when meditating but ultimately there are more things in life that are unexplained than we’ll ever figure out.

Rapid Relaxation Technique

Either sit or lay down in a comfortable position.  Take 3 slow deep breaths into your body and then close your eyes and imagine that you can feel or see your breath moving all the way into your feet.  Now tighten your feet and legs by stretching or squeezing them, while continuing to breathe.  Hold for 1 minute then relax.

Bring your awareness to your buttocks.  Imagine seeing or feeling your breath going all the way down to your buttocks.  Now tighten the muscles in your buttocks through tensing them, hold for 1 minute and then relax.

Now focus on your lower back and stomach area.  Imagine that your breath is being drawn into your lower back and stomach.  Tighten or squeeze the muscles in this area for 1 minute and then relax.

Continue the same process for your chest and upper back area (1 minute), shoulders (1 minute), arms (1 minute) and your face. Then allow your entire body to relax and breathe naturally and deeply for a few moments before you get back up and get on with your day.

Do this process at least twice a day, every day for maximum physical, emotionally and all-round benefits.

The Art Of Meditation 

One of the easiest ways to do this is meditation. Meditation has long been used as a tool for deep relaxation and rejuvenation of mind, body and spirit. The fact is that there are a variety of meditation techniques you can use ranging from the more commonly known types of ‘passive’ meditation techniques to the less familiar ‘active’ meditation techniques.

After studying the art of meditation and relaxation for the past 20 years I have come to the conclusion that there is a meditation technique that will work for everyone, despite the fact that many people have given up on learning to meditate because they get frustrated when it doesn’t work for them straight away.

The secret is to find a meditation technique that works for you even if it means trying out several different techniques. To give-up before you find one that works for you is to miss out on one of the greatest relaxation and life-transforming tools on the planet.

Meditation as a Relaxation Technique

Let’s look at little closer at the two different kinds of meditations I spoke of earlier.

Passive meditation techniques are those that require nothing more than for you to sit down, close your eyes and either listen to a recorded visualization or use your mind to focus on something that helps your mind relax and slow down.

Active meditation techniques are for people who really find it hard to relax and unwind from the day. They work best for people whose minds are very active and who find sitting still for more than a few minutes about as easy as watching grass grow.

Natural  Relaxation Through Meditation

Before we talk more about active meditations let’s look at some of the reasons why meditation is so good for you. Meditation is scientifically proven to lower your heart rate and blood pressure, change brain wave functions and reduce stress and tension in your body.

It is a convenient, practical and relaxing way to take time-out from hectic and demanding routines.  The purpose of meditation is to slow down your brainwaves. As this happens your body starts to relax. This is exactly the same process that occurs when you fall asleep.

The deeper you sleep, the slower your brainwaves. This is what allows your body to detoxify from the day’s activities wake up feeling refreshed and recharged. You can also get the same benefit from a 20 minute meditation.  Meditation is a natural way to slow down your brainwaves which then sends messages to your body to relax and get rid of excess tension in your body.

The latest research on meditation undertaken by medical schools proves that it reduces stress, blood pressure, heart disease and anxiety while it increases mental abilities, focus, concentration and longevity. Some of the other benefits of prolonged meditation practice are improvement in sleep patterns, more happiness and calmness and increased confidence and motivation.

How does meditation do all this?

While there are many scientific studies that go into detail of the how and why meditation positively impacts your life the bottom line is that it causes many changes in your brain functioning which has a positive impact on areas such as memory, focus, concentration, problem solving and creativity.

The by-product of this is that as your brainwave functions slow down during meditation your brain send outs chemical messages to your body to relax deeply, much similar as to when you fall asleep. This is when stress and anxiety melt away and you feel instantly calm and relaxed.

Meditation Is The Ultimate Relaxation Technique

I recommend starting off with an active meditation technique if you find it hard to meditate silently in a seated position. One of the best meditation techniques you can start with is progressive muscle relaxation.

No matter what meditation you start with make sure you get into the habit of doing it daily for the first 7 days. This will achieve two things. Firstly it will get you into the habit of taking time-out to relax. Secondly, this is enough time to do a comparison on the impact a full week’s meditation has had on your stress levels.

Once you are convinced that meditation works for you it’ll be much easier to fit it into your everyday routines because you’ll know first-hand the incredible power it has to relax your entire mind and body in minutes.

Here’s where it gets real interesting, the distance between two atoms is likened to the distance between the Earth and the Sun. What’s interesting about this is that just like in the stars above, there’s nothing but space between them.

Even within an atom itself, with it’s proton’s, neutrons and electrons, these particles are ever so small and in between them is nothing but space. So anyway you look at it, from a sub-atomic level we are made up of mostly space, or what I call the ‘void’.

What Is The Void?

Over years of meditation I have come to know of a space within me that is very still, peaceful and expansive. In this space there are no thoughts occupying my mind, nor do I have any wants or needs. It is a space that is completely self contained in which nothing more is needed, yet it is empty.

Now, this may sound like mumbo jumbo to some of you and I can respect that. If someone had of told me years ago that I would be talking about my experiences of being in the void, I would have laughed until I cried. Nonetheless, for me it is now very real, and in many ways far more real than what ‘normal’ life appears.

In some religions this void is referred to as the place of ‘no-mind’, or a place where thought has stopped and awareness begins. This place, or experience, is not just for people who meditate. It happens to all of us at some time or another but the common thread is that it’s always happens spontaneously at the most random of moments.

If you’ve ever had a moment where you suddenly felt like time stood still, you felt incredibly calm and relaxed, while being intensely alert while at the same time being able to breathe deeper than you ever have before, seemingly effortlessly while being overwhelmed with love and joy – then you had a moment of being connected to your void.

How Do You Access It?

If you want to experience more of the void within you, then my recommendation would be to learn to meditate… And not any old meditation technique either. You will need to learn meditation techniques that help you consciously transcend your mind and body.

There are others ways to get there but ultimately they all require letting go of being in your head. Your ego mind does not like to let go easily, which is why meditation is a helpful tool. However, if you can find other ways to get out of your head into your heart and being, then you will find the doorway to your silent power within.