SNS 120: Saturday Night Special – The Art of Meditation

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode, 120

[00:00:05] Brian Steele: I'm Brian Steele, author of the kingdom field guide. And I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world. How by using your time, your talent and your treasure to live out your calling.

[00:00:22] Discovering how to seek first God's kingdom is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader

[00:00:35] Scott Maderer: meditation at first glance. Sounds like it's easy, but it's actually pretty challenging. I've been doing meditation every morning. For over 10 years now. And I still have mornings where the truth is I get done with the meditation and I might as well not have done it because my focus wasn't there, my energy wasn't there and I struggled with it.

[00:00:59] Welcome. And [00:01:00] thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:25] And tonight's Saturday night special. I talk with you about the art of meditation. I also share some of the benefits that come from meditation. And I talk with you about why meditation is good, but we can often find it. Challenge. One area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity.

[00:01:49] Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really. I've got a course called productivity [00:02:00] for your passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:15] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personnel. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:33] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash law. Whether you call it meditation or you call it relaxation exercises or breathing exercises, [00:03:00] or doing the things that you know, you sit down and you just learn to quiet your mind.

[00:03:06] It's showing over and over again, that meditation. Helps us realign our thoughts and make our mind more calm and controlled. It helps us deal with negative emotions and negative thoughts. If we can develop this relaxation or meditation process in a helpful way, in a good way, it helps increase our self awareness and become more aware of our surroundings of our thoughts of our emotions of our internal state.

[00:03:37] And because of that. By getting in contact with those feelings. It lets us begin to understand them better, which then over time can reduce stress, can help sleep, can make you a happier person. It promotes and encourages emotional health. It helps us [00:04:00] get a better attention span and be able to focus and concentrate better.

[00:04:05] All of these things are shown as well as physical effects like decreasing blood pressure and these sorts of re releasing and reducing certain stress hormones. All of these things show up. So obviously meditation is something that we should quote, learn how to do. But why is it then that most of us don't have a meditation habit and it started the same reason why most of us know that physical exercise is something that we should all do at some level.

[00:04:40] And yet we don't go to the gym. We don't go for a walk. We don't go for a run. We don't exercise. Because we focus so much on taking care of the needs of other people and getting things done, getting our work done, getting our effort done that we don't carve out the time. To do it. And [00:05:00] meditation is probably going to be one of the last things that we put on that list of things to do, because it seems fufu and woo.

[00:05:07] And not really that important. And I'm not going to say that physical exercise and mental exercise are one of them is more important than the other, but instead they're both something that we need. To learn to carve out and put in our life. Even taking 10 minutes to sit quietly in your car at lunch and take deep cleansing breaths and relax is something that can have tremendous value on the rest of your work.

[00:05:38] Consistency is so important, whether it's physical or whether it's mental exercise consistent see is important, being able to set up a time. So here's the truth. Start with making a commitment to meditation. Say you're going to do it for the next [00:06:00] six months or three months or two months. Whatever it is that you can commit to, don't commit to trying it out or giving it a shot or doing it one time, commit to doing it for a sustained period of time.

[00:06:16] We're a member. It's not going to be easy because it's a new habit. Then pick a day or a time that you can do it. Are you going to do it every day? Are you going to do it three times a week? Schedule that time on your calendar, put it on your to-do list. Make sure that it's something that pops up and tells you to do it for most people morning early or late in the evening are the best times to do meditation.

[00:06:46] And so I would recommend starting with a morning meditation routine, if you can, because it tends to be the easiest time to have good quick success. Recognize when you first begin this [00:07:00] process, you're not going to be very good at it. Start with just 10 minutes or 15 minutes or five minutes even of meditation.

[00:07:10] Start with sitting quietly somewhere, not too tight, not too erect, not too lining splotching in the seat, but sit down, calm. Don't do all of the, you don't need to set necessarily cross-legged or on the floor on a mat. You can even sit in a chair or even do this standing and begin to concentrate on your breath, slow, deep breaths, and let them go and do this and put a timer on.

[00:07:44] When the time is gone, And begin to do this. Also let everyone else in your household know that you're going to be doing this for the next 10 minutes. And to please leave you alone and let you have quiet, communicate it, create a space [00:08:00] that when you go to that space, that's going to be your meditation space.

[00:08:05] The truth is. We often have challenges when it comes to meditation. It's why taking an online course or getting a meditation coach could be helpful because the truth is you're going to find usually at the beginning that you're going to think you're going to quiet your mind. Total peace. And trust me, that's not going to happen.

[00:08:26] You're going to find it's hard to concentrate. You're going to find it's hard to sit still. You're going to find that you lose track of what's going on and begin to think about your to-do list and what you need to get done today. And all of those other things, and part of meditation is learning to quiet that let go of it and go back to the basic of breathing.

[00:08:48] And resting your mind. You're going to find things distract you. You're going to hear the dog barking outside, or the leaves blowing in the wind. And they're going to distract you. [00:09:00] You're going to find that it's easier to say I'll do it tomorrow. I don't really need to commit to do this. You're going to find that sometimes believe it or not, it's hard to breathe.

[00:09:13] In the right way, you may end up hyperventilating or you may end up not breathing in a good rhythm and then having to struggle to catch up on your breath. All of these things are common challenges that I've seen people have. Meditation at first glance sounds like it's easy, but it's actually pretty challenging.

[00:09:34] I've been doing meditation every morning for over 10 years now. And I still have mornings where the truth is I get done with the meditation and I might as well not have done it because my focus wasn't there, my energy wasn't there. And I struggled with. So don't expect perfection, but if you do this and commit to it and do it over and over again, you will [00:10:00] see benefits.

[00:10:01] Thanks for listening.

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