19) How to be Healthy, Vibrantly? - Meditate Now
Video Version - Guided Meditation
Audio Version - Guided Meditation
Written Transcript of the guided meditation
Welcome to the Meditate Now podcast.
My goodness. Today's episode. I am super excited about this topic. I've been working closely with a good friend of mine and exploring this subject and seeing how we can speak to this in a way that introduces so much more play and love and so much less fear, guilt, and shame, which seems to permeate the motivation for being healthy.
So today's guided meditation, "How to be Healthy, Vibrantly", as with many of the things I point to and talk about, what I love is to expose the adorable illusions that we chase after and to see how that's not really what we want in such a way that we can say we want to be healthy, and then our mind paints a picture of what that looks like.
Don’t Look for a Photoshopped Version
What we ultimately want is some Photoshopped version of the email. We say, "oh, if only I could look like this or look like that", "if only I didn't look how I look.", "If only I didn't feel how I feel."
Just like the way the world we have with us, conditioning that ultimately is looking for that Photoshop version where we say, "I can be happy once my life looks this way. I can enjoy myself once I no longer have this, and I have more of that."
So you're presented with so many options to effectively try and manipulate your experience so that you can get what you think you want in the future.
This also feeds a sort of delusion that you're not holding complete right now, that you're not lovable right now, that you're not worthy of being alive until you can somehow become something that you're not and become something that you think you're supposed to be.
By that, we can effectively and playfully waste our life not enjoying it in an effort to get to some moment that never actually arrives.
In this exploration of vibrantly healthy, I want to introduce what might be a new way of seeing healthy. I'm just going to say a few things about it, and then we'll enter a meditative space and then see what arises from that.
Let's just get real honest with ourselves about what we want. Because in our conditioning, the mind says, I want this, that, and the other, because I want something else. And I think if I had this, that, and the other, then I would have that something else. Let's just go directly to the 'something else' that is infinitely more sincere, which is this inner voice that says, "can I just come out and play, please?"
"Can I just enjoy my life?", "Can I feel good in where I am? Is that okay? Or do I have to listen to that voice that looks at myself in the mirror and says, there's something wrong with you. It's not okay to be what you are. It's not okay to enjoy yourself. You have to change."
Yet there's a very sweet, sweet nature within us that doesn't want to play that game.
A very sweet, innocent nature that just wants to be alive.
Conditional Love is NOT Real Love
On the topic of vibrancy, my goodness. Because I guess some more than others, it can be easy, but to manipulate your shape, your body to look a certain way, and we think, "well, if I can just look like that, then I could be vibrant, then I can be happy and healthy."
I talk to people all the time who look amazing. But yet there's no vibrancy, man. There's no play. Everything's so damn serious. They work really hard to get to where they are but didn't get what they were actually looking for, which was love, which was playfulness, which was deep self-acceptance.
This love became conditional. It says, "I'll love you if you look like this and not like that." But conditional love is not real love.
Naturally, comically, when you're really enjoying yourself, when you see that this life is play, there's an effortless self-care that arises. Where you take care of yourself in a way that supports your play.
There's a tremendous amount of gratitude for the support that life provides. Let's call that real food.
It's like life becomes yummy again and all the manufactured crap doesn't support wellness.
There's a transformation of energy — we bring love and gratitude to the table rather than shame, guilt, and fear. Because you have to ask yourself, what are you eating when you eat? Are you eating shame? Are you eating guilt?
Or are you eating a sweet, vibrant love that says, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Let's not forget that this is an energetic dance, being alive. It's not about what you do. It's not about what you don't do. What is the energy you're bringing to the table? What is the energy that you are putting into what you are?
What is the energy that you're sharing with the world?
Let's dive into this meditation.
Start of Guided Meditation
Relax; Play
Alright, welcome to this moment.
Let's just be here.
Take a breath, take five. Relax.
Close your eyes, if you want to close your eyes. Leave them open, if you want to leave them open.
Let's just be here together in the most natural and effortless way.
This moment is an opportunity to release all of those silly expectations and just breathe.
We can allow for this profound opening inside of our hearts.
An opening that says, I'm ready to relax and I'm ready to play.
Just take a couple more minutes, breathe into that space and allow yourself to be open.
I want to invite our attention to recognize something that's profound.
Let us look at all of the problematic behaviors which seem to give us what we might call the opposite of health, whatever that might look like for you.
Things that in some way or know or in some way or another, you know that it doesn't contribute to the aliveness that you crave, all of this action, all of this doing.
Can we see that these problematic actions come from how you see yourself, and it's in a less than loving way?
There's a self-judgment, and then you punish yourself by doing things that you don't really want to do.
You see yourself as unworthy. So you engage in things that attempt to prove your unworthiness.
Again, my friend, we're just looking at this. It's not another reason to judge yourself.
Discover a Profound Purpose in What You Are
What I'm inviting you to see is that this all comes back to the relationship you have with yourself, how you see you.
Guilt, shame, and judgment are all ways of seeing you -- not enough, less than, unlovable.
My goodness, it's not true.
Like at this moment right now, it doesn't matter if you have those thoughts. It's not true. That's just how you see yourself.
In the emptiness of right now, there's no judgment other than the judgment you perceive. There's nothing in life that says you're not enough.
There's nothing in life that says you should be this or you should be that.
That's all mind noise. That's all silly conditioning picked up from a fearful environment, surrounded by a bunch of human beings that don't see the truth of what they are.
They don't see the love that's available.
So we pick up these silly little things.
You see, what we try to do is we try to force ourselves into action, to do what we think is the healthy thing.
But we don't address the real issue. This is why even if you force yourself into some sort of action, or you force yourself into some new physical shape.
If you don't address the real issue, then the real change cannot bloom.
Your heart cannot come alive.
In the space of healing, this relationship you have with yourself to get in touch with the truth of what you are.
You will see a love for what you are.
Then that love will look out from behind your eyes and touch everything you see.
In this, you will discover a vibrancy, an aliveness.
You will discover a profound purpose in what you are.
A passion for being alive, and a playfulness that's here to celebrate this gift of being alive.
Just like all of your problematic actions come back to how you see yourself, our seriousness comes back to how we see ourselves in such a way that beyond your perception of things being serious, things are not serious at all.
There's a playful quality to life.
It doesn't mean you won't occasionally fall down and hurt yourself. But you don't have to spend the next week thinking you're an idiot. It's not serious. "Oops, I fell down. Okay, let's get back up. Let's play again."
Real Health
REAL health— Not what the world tells you is health. Real health is taking care of you, not in what you do or what you don't do. But in how you see you. Coming home to your heart and being with you.
As you develop that intimacy, your actions will come from that place of love, and that will change everything.
As an exercise, I want to invite you to be aware of this played energy. Like, when you're eating, what are you eating?
Are you eating love or are you eating fear? Because you can eat a nice big old salad and with every bite, you can think, "I'm a terrible person, I'm not good enough. I'm unlovable. I'm not worthy."
That is not going to contribute to vibrancy in being alive.
When you look at food, do you look through eyes of love or eyes of self-hatred?
Do you blame the food for you not accepting yourself? So you withhold love from the food because you think it's at fault for your self-violence?
The reason I invite you to explore this is that it's going to show you so many misunderstandings and confusions.
It's going to show you gently how far removed we are from our own hearts, the truth of what we are, and the truth of our experience, which is a great doorway to see just how important this is.
To let go of the way of the world, search for a photoshopped version of something, and to come home to the realness of what you crave and the realness of what you are.
It's time for that, yeah? Because it's quite possible that you're just exhausted — exhausted of trying, exhausted of efforting, exhausted with all the restrictions of what you can do and what you cannot do.
I invite you into this space of play. This isn't serious. Relax.
There's another way. Breathe my friend, breathe.
Open up to it.
Just breathe with me here for a little bit.
Let's put some more love into the equation.
This all comes back to how you see yourself.
If you can see that, then you can see how important this is— YOU.
While you are here on planet Earth, you are so important.
If you don't have a love for what you are, then how is what you are going to share love in the world?
Come on. Don't spend your life pretending to love, pretending to be kind.
Let's get in touch with the real thing.
That's where the vibrancy is and what's real.
Okay. Go play and listen deeply to your heart and be the love that you crave.
Thanks for being with me.
Cheers.
