هیس!

119 - Shhhh

Hello there, Kevin here. With another episode of the Feel Good English podcast. Welcome back!

Or, welcome, if it’s your first time here. This podcast is here to make you

Feel Good. Feel better, about your English abilities and your life.

Lessons that’ll show you ways to grow as a person, and also lessons perfect for growing your English skills too.

To start this episode, let me ask you something. Do you have a voice inside your head? Like, do you have “something” inside of you that speaks to you? As weird as that sounds, I bet you do.

And I’m not talking about “hearing voices” in your head, like a crazy person might, but just that self-talk we all have that guides us, or at least tries really hard to guide us. It’s that voice inside us that starts having a conversation as soon as we open our eyes in the morning. The voice is obsessed with the past, and also obsessed with the future.

So is that voice us? Is that who we are? Or is it just part of us? And is there a way to tame this voice? To not be blindly controlled by it?

I recently read a book that was recommended by one of my students.

The book is called “10% Happier” by Dan Harris. This book attempts to convince skeptics on the benefits of meditation, by taking a very practical approach to the science behind this mindfulness practice, and showing you how and why letting go of your ego is important for living a stress-free life.

So that voice in your head, we can refer to that as the ego. E-G-O. I’ve talked about the ego before. It can get in your way, make you do dumb things, and keep you from connecting with others on a deeper level.

And the author of this book talks a lot about the experiences that led him to discover the benefits of meditation, but I’ll just sum it up so we can focus more on what meditation is and how you can start doing it, if you don’t meditate that is.

Long story short, the author of this book was a very successful, and busy journalist, who got so caught up in the competitiveness of his field that he ended up having a panic attack live on tv. After this panic attack he knew something needed to change, and he went on a journey to figure out how he could rein the incessant voice inside his head, which he discovered was the reason for his panic attacks.

And what was this tool he found to be so helpful? Meditation.

That’s what I’m going to talk about today, meditation. And if I could sum the benefits of meditation up in a sentence, it’d be this: meditation creates mindfulness, and mindfulness gives us the ability to respond, and not react to our surroundings as well as our impulses.

Going to get in to that lesson now, so relax, open your mind a bit, and learn more about why you should try meditating and also how to do it, the easy way like I do.

Ready? Let’s go.

Aaammmmmmmm. (just kidding) Let’s get to it.

Let’s first talk about that voice in your head. In the book, he calls that incessant voice your ego. Your ego comments on your actions and behavior from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you go to sleep at night, telling you what to do and what not to do.

For example, your ego is the voice that tells you “I’m way too tired for the gym” even when you made plans to go earlier in the day. It’s what makes you worry about how many likes you got on your Instagram post, so you keep checking your likes all day. The ego makes you get pissed at the car going slow in front of you, even though you’re not in a rush and getting mad won’t change a thing.

Also, the ego is the source of behavior that is self-serving or unconcerned with the well-being of others.

The ego loves especially to dwell in the past and thrives on drama by keeping old wounds open. It’s the reason that you complain to your spouse about a work problem at dinner, and it’s what causes you to talk bad about past relationships, even though you’re happily married today.

Your ego constantly assesses your worth against the appearance, wealth and social status of others, but will always put you as being a failure. No matter how smart, beautiful or wealthy you may be, according to your ego, there’s always someone smarter, more beautiful or wealthier.

Thus, your ego will try to get you to continually strive to become that “better” person.

But after achieving what your ego wants, will you be happy?

No. The ego is never happy. Just think of all the rich, famous or fortunate people who have committed suicide, become addicted to drugs or otherwise ruined their lives.

One of the biggest turning points in my life was when I started to realize I wasn’t my thoughts, that this ego is not who I am. The voice in my head that tries to dictate all my behavior, isn’t me. It’s part of me, of course, but I can also be separate from that voice.

Am I losing you? Some of you listening to this will know what I’m talking about, you’ve already realized you can be an “observer” of your thoughts. While others, this might be very foreign to you.

But I can tell you this: learning how to calm that voice in your head, or at minimum not be controlled by it, can relieve a lot of stress in your life.

What I would hope is that after this episode, you will get a glimpse of what it means to be able to create just enough space in your head between that voice inside of you and how you respond to it, so you can be less impulsive, and more grounded.

And this is how you can do that.

So let me tell you my history with meditation. Tell you the story of how I came to a place today where I can at least notice that voice in my head.

Sometimes I can calm it down, sometimes I just am a witness to it, and sometimes, often even, it still takes control of my thoughts. But, one important thing, I don’t think the voice will ever go away; learning how to deal with your thoughts is a life-long journey, in my opinion.

So about 10 years ago I got an invitation to go to a meditation course.

This was a few day course in the evenings, and what was taught were breathing techniques, yoga, and of course, meditation. This was my first introduction to these things, and I was open to learning them. Probably because I wanted to tame the voice in my head.

And after the few day course I definitely noticed how calm I felt after leaving at night. I was definitely more at peace, less stressed; I felt good.

The voice had been tamed.

Then a couple weeks later I continued my education on these things with a 4-day meditation retreat. Whoa! 3 days of this retreat were in silence, meaning all of the participants were completely quiet. Only the hosts of the retreat could speak. We learned deeper meditation practices, meditated for longer periods of time, and I had some pretty wonderful moments during this retreat. After leaving on the 4th day, I got in my car and started driving away, and my head was literally buzzing with energy. In a good way. I had saved up so much energy over the course of the last few days by not having to talk. It was great. I wish I could do that more often.

So I went back to my normal, day-to-day city life, but kept meditating every morning. I had created a routine, so it became automatic. I’d wake up, drink a glass of water, stretch a bit, then sit on a pillow on the floor.

I did this for several months. And there were times when I’d have sudden moments of happiness. Feel just really great during my day. I wasn’t always at peace, but I could notice the difference in my life.

And the “how” behind the meditation? If I remember correctly, I would do some specific breathing exercises that they taught us first, which would calm me down, then I’d just sit there for 20 minutes, paying attention to my thoughts. Nothing real specific. It wasn’t that hard because I had been doing it consistently.

Then I moved to Brazil. I continued with my practice for a bit, but then it became off-and-on. Life got in the way, as they say, and I eventually stopped.

But I always missed it.

So, a couple years later, I found a book on meditation, I think it was called “Why Meditate”, and followed some practices there. I’d still sit on the floor, cross-legged, but I would go through these specific exercises.

Something like “think about the pain and suffering in the world. Now take all that pain and suffering in and cover it with love”. Pretty esoteric stuff. And it helped for a bit, but then I stopped again.

Then, the power of technology came to rescue my mediation habit.

There’s an app called Headspace, I have no idea how I found it, but I did find it way back in like 2011. This tool is still around, and has grown immensely. What’s cool with this app is you can see how many people are meditating with you at the same time. When I started back in 2011, there were often a thousand or two online at the same time, but now there are typically tens of thousands of people meditating around the world while you are.

And the reason this is still around is because I think it works really well.

The meditations in this app are mostly guided. Guided meditation is when someone talks you through the process, tells you what to do while you’re sitting there with your eyes closed.

For example, the guy on the app will tell you to think of different parts of your body, one-by-one, do a body scan. Then he’ll tell you to focus on your breath for a while, counting your breaths. You get the idea.

And this is what I currently do. I use this paid app called Headspace.

And also, I do things much more practically. If you’ve had thoughts about meditating, or even have tried it but thought it was too hard, too uncomfortable, I would tell you to try it again. But do it in a more practical way.

Like this:

When I wake up, I drink some water, water is life you know, do a couple quick back stretches to keep my back from complaining, my back tends to complain about life at times, but anyway, I do a couple quick stretches , grab my phone then sit in a chair. Or on the couch. Yeap, just sit comfortably, not on the floor in a cross-legged position like a buddhist monk, I’m way too big for that, and I turn on the app, usually for 20 minutes, and just listen to the guy on Headspace tell me what to do. It’s so easy, and pleasurable.

When I’m done I always feel a bit lighter. My brain feels lighter.

Sometimes I constantly get distracted, other days it’s easier, but it’s not really a game. The point is just to spend a few minutes a day training your brain to calm down a bit, to relax. It’s like going to the gym for the brain. And the more you mediate, the less control that little annoying voice will have over you.

And there are recent studies that show how our brain makes actual changes from meditation. The book, “10% Happier” goes into this science stuff, but I’m not going to go into here. All I’ll say is mediation is no joke. It’s awesome. It’s probably the #1 most beneficial thing I can do each day.

If I do meditate, and this is probably the most valuable thing I can tell you in this episode, when I meditate there is an apparent, yet slight, difference to my mood that day. I’m at least a tad calmer, more optimistic, less fearful or worried, and I can listen to people better. Like I said, these benefits are apparent, even if they’re slight. Actually, you know what, I’d say there’s about a 10% difference then a non-meditate day. Hey, the author must be onto something.

And I’m telling my story because I want you to know how my experience with mediation has been. A bit messy, but most things are. When I used to think that meditating was only for buddhists, or hippies, and you had to look like one of those while meditating, when I thought that’s how it was done it made meditating harder. But it doesn’t have to be.

I like things to be as simple as possible in the beginning. Or else I’ll often give up.

So if you want to try it, or have stopped and want to try it again, just simply do this:

If you’re somewhere where you can sit, sit. In a chair is totally fine, or in your car, that’s fine too. Now put your phone down, yes you, and look around you for 10 seconds. Pay attention to what’s around you. Next, shut your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Now normal breathing, pay attention to your breathing. Just watch your body breath.

Do this for a minute….

Now, start noticing the sounds around you, feel your feet on the floor, your butt in the chair, and slowly open your eyes. There you go! You meditated. How do you feel? Any different? Imagine if you did that every day for 15-20 minutes.

It’s good stuff. It makes you feel good.

That’ll do it for today’s episode. I hope you learned something. And I hope you feel good. Feel relaxed and a bit calmer.

Meditation is done by all types of people around the world. From buddhists, to news anchors, to CEO’s of big corporations. And in my mind, it’s just a very smart yet simple way to deal with your day, deal with the things that happen and the people you encounter, more gracefully. And most of all, to tell that voice in your head to put a sock in it.

I’ll see you in a couple weeks with a new episode. Until then, keep doing your best every day, actually no, don’t do that. Instead, keep being you, every day. Yeah, just be you, because you are the best.

Talk soon, bye bye.