Love Conscious Human Newsletter November 2022

 "Autumn in a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

-Albert Camus

Hey There Amazing Human! 

The act of meditation is the practice of letting go. A lot of times we think that meditating is trying to “not think”. Although there is some truth in that, the real purpose of meditation is to strengthen your letting go muscles. 

When you are meditating and a thought comes up, the practice is to let go of the thought because that’s not what you’re doing right now. You’re meditating. When feelings or stories arise, the practice of meditation again is to let go. Tell those feelings and stories that you can interact with them later. Right now, you’re meditating. 

The #1 benefit of practicing meditation is acquiring the ability to rewire your mental and emotional patterns. 

The peptides in your brain have well-worn paths of thoughts that circle around over and over again. Stories about how life is or isn’t become hardwired into your brain. Just like a path in the woods that is well worn with much traffic, so are the peptides in your brain. 

Again, just like the pathways in the woods, if you stop using them the soil gets overgrown, and used by the forest again. If you stop thinking repetitive thoughts and telling yourself stories about who you are and how things work, the peptides in your brain recycle, allowing for new thoughts and new, better stories.

 This growth mindset is the result of the practice of letting go, i.e. meditation. We all want to untangle all of the stories that are keeping us stuck. This starts with your mind. Letting go of our stories can be scary, but the only way to the other side is through. What I mean by this is that we must all face our fears of uncertainty and the unknown to make room for new experiences and growth.  

 When we let go of our tangled web of stories about how things could or should be, we make space for gratitude, personal evolution, and countless other positive outcomes. 

November Streaming Recommendation!

Headspace's "Guide to Meditation" is available for streaming on Netflix. Meditation is the pathway to a calmer, clearer mind. In order to exercise your letting go muscles, you must also exert your slowing down muscles. With the constant hustle and bustle required by our daily lives, taking the time to slow down, relax, and be still is often pushed aside by other things. 

However... it doesn't have to be this way! Each episode of Headspace's Guide to Mediation is about 20 minutes long, and features guided meditations at the end to help you put the skill you just learned into practice. This series takes a friendly, low pressure approach to guiding you towards a more balanced, growth-minded lifestyle. 

So, next time you get home from work and have 20 minutes to spare, consider watching an episode instead of scrolling. You may be surprised at how good you feel!

Jack Kornfield on Youtube 

Another amazing resource for your meditation voyage is Jack Kornfield. Kornfield is a renowned author and Buddhist practitioner, who has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 1974. 

His YouTube videos vary in length, but there are countless guided meditations to help you refine a number of skills. Beyond that, Jack Kornfield is a pillar of the Buddhist community and has so much great insight and wisdom to share. 

 We cannot overstate the importance of working meditation into your daily routine. Your thoughts have power, as does your energy. 

We'll revisit the path in the woods analogy. By cycling the same repetitive thoughts in your brain, you bind yourself to the beliefs you hold. This may not inherently be a bad thing, but often times this is how we end up trapping ourselves, walking that same forest loop over and over, never truly growing.

Meditation grants you the power to forge new paths. It gives you the ability to let go of what the path is supposed to look like, and take a new one every day.

Rewiring your brain is a super power, and meditation is the key to unlocking it. 

Bonus Streaming- How to Change Your Mind is a four-part docuseries available on Netflix.

This series, lead by author Michael Pollan, takes a fascinating look into the history of psychedelics. 

While we aren't encouraging anyone to use mind-altering drugs, we recognize that the use of these hallucinogens etc. has undoubtedly had huge impacts on how people see the world around them. We understand that people are able to have life-altering experiences under the influence of drugs that can lead you to reevaluate who you are and what life is.

Meditation has the ability to take you to the same destination, just a different path. And while, again, we aren't saying you should get your hands on some LSD, this docuseries offers insight into different aspects of psychedelics, including their spiritual history.

November Book Recommendation

Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron is available on Amazon. This book offers short, stand-alone readings designed to help cultivate compassion and and introspection in order to help you process the challenges of daily living. 

The best part of this book is that it encourages you to embrace uncertainty. This book suggests that we should relish being uncomfortable, as uncertainty forces us to drop our stories. For us to truly live in the moment, we have to drop the story/stories we tell ourselves about how things are supposed to be. 

This book, meditation, and the streaming recommendations we've provided are all paths to help you work on letting go. Exercising these muscles and learning to work with and through our fear, discomfort, and other painful emotions  is essential to our personal growth.

And while dropping the stories can be daunting, living a fulfilled life is worth the risk. 

Coming Soon...

Dr. Teri's premier book, Flip Your Switch: A user's guide to a whole new mind is almost here! If you're interested in understanding and growing your consciousness, transforming how you see and interact with the world, and changing your mindset, this book is the perfect stepping stone. Use the link below to signup for updates on when we launch!