Daring to be HAPPY with Lila B

Join me in Bali for a 6-night yoga & meditation retreat this October. Early bird rates closing soon on July 15. Go to lilab.life/baliretreat to book. Andy Storch is a consultant, coach, facilitator and host of the podcast The Entrepreneur Hotseat. Andy specializes in helping leaders lead, sellers sell, businesses flourish and ambitious business professionals perform at their highest level. Most importantly, Andy is a husband and father of two kids and is devoted to living a healthy and happy lifestyle no matter what comes his way. I met Andy last year at Podcast Movement and recently he showed up on my newsfeed sharing that he had just completed 450 daily meditations in a row, less one day that he missed due to jet lag. So I thought it would be great to get him on the show to find out how he accomplished such a great achievement and how his daily practice is impacting his health, happiness, relationships and performance. Andy started to see a pattern in the entrepreneurial community where meditation was getting talked about more and more and noticed that the most successful people all seemed to be meditating so he thought it would give it a go. The Miracle Morning system by Hal Elrod: Silence (meditation) Affirmations Visualisation Exercise Reading Scribing He introduced everything at the same time and got up to 200 days of doing every element. He founds ways to be creative in how to fit his exercise and meditation into each day, no matter where he was or what he was doing. “It’s about repetition, and commitment and creating a habit. So I started doing all these things together and now they are a regular part of my routine and they are things that make me, in my opinion, a better person, more successful and I’ve been achieving a lot of things and it all started when I started this routine 2 years ago. “ What’s changed as a result of meditation: He became a performance coach, joined a mastermind group for dad’s, starting mastermind, attending more events, a stronger commitment to be a great Dad and husband. Found new business opportunities, started a podcast. Built more confidence and having more fun and enjoyment in life. Built the confidence to match the ambition that he always had. Feels happy, motivated, energetic to help and inspire others. Invested in himself and surrounding himself with people who do great things and raises him up. Growing and learning and enjoying the journey. As a parent - its been all about having more patience with my kids who are experiencing strong emotions and tantrums. Allows me to breathe, not raise my voice and be a calm and peaceful energy for them. No phone Sundays or from 6-9PM in the evenings. And stop multitasking. My advice to a lot of people is: recognise that you can’t try to be present with the people around you. Stop texting when people are talking to you, it’s the most annoying thing. How do you meditate?: 10 minutes a day using the Calm App. That’s it! He’s never more than 30 minutes a day. Courage: We talk about headstands and doing fun challenges in airports and how that relates to courage! Asking for hep is one of the most courageous things you can do. Asking for help pushes past the fear that we are not good enough. We spend so much time worrying about what other people think of us and actually they don’t care, they’re too busy worrying about their own stuff. When you do courageous things not only do you build your own confidence but you inspire other people to do cool,...

Join me in Bali for a 6-night yoga & meditation retreat this October. Early bird rates closing soon on July 15. Go to lilab.life/baliretreat to book. Andy Storch is a consultant, coach, facilitator and host of the podcast The Entrepreneur Hotseat. Andy specializes in helping leaders lead, sellers sell, businesses flourish and ambitious business professionals perform at their highest level. Most importantly, Andy is a husband and father of two kids and is devoted to living a healthy and happy lifestyle no matter what comes his way. I met Andy last year at Podcast Movement and recently he showed up on my newsfeed sharing that he had just completed 450 daily meditations in a row, less one day that he missed due to jet lag. So I thought it would be great to get him on the show to find out how he accomplished such a great achievement and how his daily practice is impacting his health, happiness, relationships and performance. Andy started to see a pattern in the entrepreneurial community where meditation was getting talked about more and more and noticed that the most successful people all seemed to be meditating so he thought it would give it a go. The Miracle Morning system by Hal Elrod: Silence (meditation) Affirmations Visualisation Exercise Reading Scribing He introduced everything at the same time and got up to 200 days of doing every element. He founds ways to be creative in how to fit his exercise and meditation into each day, no matter where he was or what he was doing. “It’s about repetition, and commitment and creating a habit. So I started doing all these things together and now they are a regular part of my routine and they are things that make me, in my opinion, a better person, more successful and I’ve been achieving a lot of things and it all started when I started this routine 2 years ago. “ What’s changed as a result of meditation: He became a performance coach, joined a mastermind group for dad’s, starting mastermind, attending more events, a stronger commitment to be a great Dad and husband. Found new business opportunities, started a podcast. Built more confidence and having more fun and enjoyment in life. Built the confidence to match the ambition that he always had. Feels happy, motivated, energetic to help and inspire others. Invested in himself and surrounding himself with people who do great things and raises him up. Growing and learning and enjoying the journey. As a parent - its been all about having more patience with my kids who are experiencing strong emotions and tantrums. Allows me to breathe, not raise my voice and be a calm and peaceful energy for them. No phone Sundays or from 6-9PM in the evenings. And stop multitasking. My advice to a lot of people is: recognise that you can’t try to be present with the people around you. Stop texting when people are talking to you, it’s the most annoying thing. How do you meditate?: 10 minutes a day using the Calm App. That’s it! He’s never more than 30 minutes a day. Courage: We talk about headstands and doing fun challenges in airports and how that relates to courage! Asking for hep is one of the most courageous things you can do. Asking for help pushes past the fear that we are not good enough. We spend so much time worrying about what other people think of us and actually they don’t care, they’re too busy worrying about their own stuff. When you do courageous things not only do you build your own confidence but you inspire other people to do cool,...

Luxury Yoga & Meditation Retreat Bali Spa Village Resort Tembok, Bali  Sun 28 October - Sat 03 November 2018 I’m so excited today to introduce my friend Maria who I am co-leading a retreat with in Bali in October. So today’s episode is to allow you to meet Maria, get to know her and learn more about our yoga and meditation retreat in Bali. To join Maria & myself for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali – go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! EARLY BIRD RATES AVAILABLE TILL 15 JULY: Twin Share $1590 Single Occupancy $2090 FULL RATES: After 15th July Twin Share $1990 Single Occupancy $2490 *All rates quoted in US$  Learn to meditate amongst the luxury of Bali This retreat offers an immersive experience of total relaxation, contemplation and rejuvenation in Bali. A perfect opportunity to get physically, mentally and spiritually empowered. At the heart of this retreat lies the Ascension meditation course. Your teachers Lila and Maria will guide you through daily sessions, where you will learn and explore the powerful benefits of this easy and effective practice, allowing you to experience your natural state of inner peace and contentment. Supported by beautiful surroundings, yoga classes, a nourishing diet and holistic treatments, the daily schedule has been carefully designed to nurture mind, body and soul from beginning to end. So just bring an open mind, prepare to relax and enjoy the journey in this paradise-like sanctuary! Your Daily Program We will start the morning with a gentle yoga session. Maria will guide you to explore different yoga styles such as Yin-and Hatha yoga, customised for you and suitable for all levels. Meals will be sometimes scheduled as a group and sometimes at your own choice. There will be 3-4 hour daily session with Ascension practice, teaching and sharings - all relaxing and fun! Plenty of time is also dedicated for you to rest, explore the nature, sunbath, enjoy your spa treatments, socialize or to practice even more Ascension. What's Included: 6 nights accommodation Luxury accommodation twin share or single occupancy 3 Meals a day Daily breakfast, three course lunch and dinner along with daily fresh juices, coconut water and snacks. Airport Transfers Return transfers to and from Denpasar International Airport Ascension Meditation Course 3 hour meditation classes daily dedicated to teaching and practice Daily Yoga Daily morning yoga with Maria - yoga mats provided and all experience levels catered for. Spa Treatments Four 80 minute spa treatments over 6 days Sunrise Morning Cruise With options for snorkling and swimming 3 follow-up conference calls 3 fortnightly group video calls following the retreat to keep the retreat vibes going! Lifelong Meditation Support Free lifelong meditation support from a worldwide network of Ascension teachers If you’re thinking about coming, whether you've been to many retreats like this or never travelled on your own or been on a retreat - just do it! It’s a very safe experience where we will take care of you from start to finish but it will be an adventure too.  An adventure on the inside and on the outside. Wherever you are in life, consider the opportunity to give to yourself in order for you to give more to your family and your life when you come back. Just dare to accept the invitation and explore the possibility of living in a different way with a different level of joy and happiness. To learn more & register your interest go to

Luxury Yoga & Meditation Retreat Bali Spa Village Resort Tembok, Bali  Sun 28 October - Sat 03 November 2018 I’m so excited today to introduce my friend Maria who I am co-leading a retreat with in Bali in October. So today’s episode is to allow you to meet Maria, get to know her and learn more about our yoga and meditation retreat in Bali. To join Maria & myself for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali – go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! EARLY BIRD RATES AVAILABLE TILL 15 JULY: Twin Share $1590 Single Occupancy $2090 FULL RATES: After 15th July Twin Share $1990 Single Occupancy $2490 *All rates quoted in US$  Learn to meditate amongst the luxury of Bali This retreat offers an immersive experience of total relaxation, contemplation and rejuvenation in Bali. A perfect opportunity to get physically, mentally and spiritually empowered. At the heart of this retreat lies the Ascension meditation course. Your teachers Lila and Maria will guide you through daily sessions, where you will learn and explore the powerful benefits of this easy and effective practice, allowing you to experience your natural state of inner peace and contentment. Supported by beautiful surroundings, yoga classes, a nourishing diet and holistic treatments, the daily schedule has been carefully designed to nurture mind, body and soul from beginning to end. So just bring an open mind, prepare to relax and enjoy the journey in this paradise-like sanctuary! Your Daily Program We will start the morning with a gentle yoga session. Maria will guide you to explore different yoga styles such as Yin-and Hatha yoga, customised for you and suitable for all levels. Meals will be sometimes scheduled as a group and sometimes at your own choice. There will be 3-4 hour daily session with Ascension practice, teaching and sharings - all relaxing and fun! Plenty of time is also dedicated for you to rest, explore the nature, sunbath, enjoy your spa treatments, socialize or to practice even more Ascension. What's Included: 6 nights accommodation Luxury accommodation twin share or single occupancy 3 Meals a day Daily breakfast, three course lunch and dinner along with daily fresh juices, coconut water and snacks. Airport Transfers Return transfers to and from Denpasar International Airport Ascension Meditation Course 3 hour meditation classes daily dedicated to teaching and practice Daily Yoga Daily morning yoga with Maria - yoga mats provided and all experience levels catered for. Spa Treatments Four 80 minute spa treatments over 6 days Sunrise Morning Cruise With options for snorkling and swimming 3 follow-up conference calls 3 fortnightly group video calls following the retreat to keep the retreat vibes going! Lifelong Meditation Support Free lifelong meditation support from a worldwide network of Ascension teachers If you’re thinking about coming, whether you've been to many retreats like this or never travelled on your own or been on a retreat - just do it! It’s a very safe experience where we will take care of you from start to finish but it will be an adventure too.  An adventure on the inside and on the outside. Wherever you are in life, consider the opportunity to give to yourself in order for you to give more to your family and your life when you come back. Just dare to accept the invitation and explore the possibility of living in a different way with a different level of joy and happiness. To learn more & register your interest go to

Join me for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali – go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! In 2010, Emma Ferris had what she describes as her ‘handbrake moment’. It was a moment that would make her question everything she believed she knew as a clinical physiotherapist and wellbeing practitioner. And on a personal level, it nearly brought her to her knees. The discovery and learning that Emma undertook to get through some very tough times would lead her to discover what true wellness looks like and the critical link between effective breathing and health and happiness. Today, Emma Ferris is the trailblazer behind The Butterfly Effect. She is a wellness architect, a breath geek and someone who is truly, madly, deeply committed to teaching the world to breathe effectively. Emma is the creator of The Big Exhale breathing course, a public speaker, an acupuncturist, a Pilates instructor and a registered physiotherapist with over 12 years’ clinical experience. Emma’s straightforward, yet empathetic approach has seen her help people around the globe realise the power of effective breathing. Emma has helped patients recover from dysfunctional breathing patterns, injury, stress, chronic fatigue, hyperventilation, depression and chronic neck and back pain. I joined Emma in her hometown ofbreath-basedNew Zealand a small isolated town at the end of a road and at the top of a lake. We talk about the stages of life we work towards and expect to occur and the stress and drive we can put ourselves through in order to achieve success. Often it is only when something extreme happens that we consider and look for another way to live. For Emma, this was suffering Hyperemesis gravidarum during the pregnancies of her two children. A severe and debilitating form of morning sickness. Emma is my first guest to not be a meditation teacher or student of Ascension meditation and we discuss the differences between various styles of meditation and I share with Emma a bit about how Ascension works. Emma shares how for her it was through focusing on a breath based practice that she was able to find calm, by focusing on calming her body first it then allowed her to calm her mind and we discuss in more depth the mind-body connection. We discuss the myth that meditation needs to require a form of suffering which must be broken through in order to experience peace found on the other side. Emma shares how the breath and poor breathing patterns take a toll on the body’s blood chemistry. And how it is possible to breathe your way into joy! “If you can harness the power of your breath, you can harness a life of vibrant health and happiness.” Emma Ferris The Butterfly Effect provides breathing training (and retraining) to transform physical and mental wellbeing. We talk about ecstatic dance and the energy and meditative effect that dance can have and our own experiences with it - including my tendency to get angry when dancing! And then also another time when I was so Zenned out from dancing that I drove my scooter into a fence in Bali! Finally Emma shares a simple secret for happiness - SMILING! If you would like to try Emma’s program to discover more calm, focus and joy through better breathing, you can sign up to her 30-day program The Big Exhale - www.thebigexhale.com The first 5 days are free and then you can use the promo code: LilaB to get $30 off the rest of the course - Thank you, Emma, for that beautiful gift! Follow Emma: www.thebigexhale.com

Join me for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali – go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! In 2010, Emma Ferris had what she describes as her ‘handbrake moment’. It was a moment that would make her question everything she believed she knew as a clinical physiotherapist and wellbeing practitioner. And on a personal level, it nearly brought her to her knees. The discovery and learning that Emma undertook to get through some very tough times would lead her to discover what true wellness looks like and the critical link between effective breathing and health and happiness. Today, Emma Ferris is the trailblazer behind The Butterfly Effect. She is a wellness architect, a breath geek and someone who is truly, madly, deeply committed to teaching the world to breathe effectively. Emma is the creator of The Big Exhale breathing course, a public speaker, an acupuncturist, a Pilates instructor and a registered physiotherapist with over 12 years’ clinical experience. Emma’s straightforward, yet empathetic approach has seen her help people around the globe realise the power of effective breathing. Emma has helped patients recover from dysfunctional breathing patterns, injury, stress, chronic fatigue, hyperventilation, depression and chronic neck and back pain. I joined Emma in her hometown ofbreath-basedNew Zealand a small isolated town at the end of a road and at the top of a lake. We talk about the stages of life we work towards and expect to occur and the stress and drive we can put ourselves through in order to achieve success. Often it is only when something extreme happens that we consider and look for another way to live. For Emma, this was suffering Hyperemesis gravidarum during the pregnancies of her two children. A severe and debilitating form of morning sickness. Emma is my first guest to not be a meditation teacher or student of Ascension meditation and we discuss the differences between various styles of meditation and I share with Emma a bit about how Ascension works. Emma shares how for her it was through focusing on a breath based practice that she was able to find calm, by focusing on calming her body first it then allowed her to calm her mind and we discuss in more depth the mind-body connection. We discuss the myth that meditation needs to require a form of suffering which must be broken through in order to experience peace found on the other side. Emma shares how the breath and poor breathing patterns take a toll on the body’s blood chemistry. And how it is possible to breathe your way into joy! “If you can harness the power of your breath, you can harness a life of vibrant health and happiness.” Emma Ferris The Butterfly Effect provides breathing training (and retraining) to transform physical and mental wellbeing. We talk about ecstatic dance and the energy and meditative effect that dance can have and our own experiences with it - including my tendency to get angry when dancing! And then also another time when I was so Zenned out from dancing that I drove my scooter into a fence in Bali! Finally Emma shares a simple secret for happiness - SMILING! If you would like to try Emma’s program to discover more calm, focus and joy through better breathing, you can sign up to her 30-day program The Big Exhale - www.thebigexhale.com The first 5 days are free and then you can use the promo code: LilaB to get $30 off the rest of the course - Thank you, Emma, for that beautiful gift! Follow Emma: www.thebigexhale.com

Ep 30: Welcome to season two! Join me for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali - go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! ............ Thank you for your patience in allowing me this break from the pod-is-sphere. It did last longer than I intended so I thought I should first update you on what I’ve been up to. I’ve officially moved to Auckland and I’ve got a new day job. I’m back in the foodie industry, promoting awesome, fresh, whole food based meals and catering events I’ve taught quite a lot of meditation throughout NZ since last on air, teaching some of the biggest courses I’ve ever taught and I've loved the energy, openness, dedication of the beautiful humans I’ve gotten to spend time with. So what’s coming up this season? Last season I interviewed a lot of meditation teachers. Guests who have really dedicated their lives to living in the present moment and who make it a priority to meditate at least a couple of hours every day. And that’s been amazing. But I don’t want it to seem like that this kind of commitment is the only way to live a happier, more peaceful life. So this season, I plan to also talk to some regular everyday people who enjoy profound effects from meditation without having become a monk to do so. So guests are going to include Jane, who has used meditation as a well of weaning herself off medication used to manage ADHD. There’s also Andy a business coach who has meditated for over 500 days in a row, simply using an App on his phone. And Dave will be joining us from the UK sharing his experience of how music gave him his first experience of the total awe of the present moment and how that lead him to pursue a career in music as a professional guitarist. And we’ll be checking in with a few of last seasons guests who have had some pretty cool developments in life since we last heard from them. …….. Rajita Ishaya is a yogi, writer and meditation teacher from the UK. We met recently on a meditation retreat in New Zealand and she is here today to recite a poem she wrote during an anxiety attack while on a train. For a full transcript of her poem go to: https://thebendywitch.com/2014/06/21/dancing-in-between-the-is/ This poem was the result of the usual moment when creatively can strike - for Rajita this was during an anxiety attack. The writing process enabled her to get out of the way, focus on the words and move her focus away from the anxiety. Rajita shares how she notices that her anxiety is made worse by the thoughts and feelings she has around the anxiety. But what helps is listening in to something bigger than the little anxiety voice in her head and instead, to observe and discover what lies beyond all that. Rajita shares how meditation has impacted her anxiety: Meditation helps you to see with more clarity and what to give your attention to and not to give it to the little voice but to give it the bigger more loving presence which is always there and in all of us. We often don’t give that voice a chance to show up and be heard. “If my practice slips the anxiety creeps in and if I increase my practice everything seems to get calmer. That’s the key, find something that works and make it important. And carry it through everything, you take the peace with you.” Resources mentioned: Dr Robert Holden

Ep 30: Welcome to season two! Join me for a week-long luxury retreat in Bali this October and learn to meditate amidst the beauty and spirit of Bali - go to lilab.life/baliretreat to learn more! ............ Thank you for your patience in allowing me this break from the pod-is-sphere. It did last longer than I intended so I thought I should first update you on what I’ve been up to. I’ve officially moved to Auckland and I’ve got a new day job. I’m back in the foodie industry, promoting awesome, fresh, whole food based meals and catering events I’ve taught quite a lot of meditation throughout NZ since last on air, teaching some of the biggest courses I’ve ever taught and I've loved the energy, openness, dedication of the beautiful humans I’ve gotten to spend time with. So what’s coming up this season? Last season I interviewed a lot of meditation teachers. Guests who have really dedicated their lives to living in the present moment and who make it a priority to meditate at least a couple of hours every day. And that’s been amazing. But I don’t want it to seem like that this kind of commitment is the only way to live a happier, more peaceful life. So this season, I plan to also talk to some regular everyday people who enjoy profound effects from meditation without having become a monk to do so. So guests are going to include Jane, who has used meditation as a well of weaning herself off medication used to manage ADHD. There’s also Andy a business coach who has meditated for over 500 days in a row, simply using an App on his phone. And Dave will be joining us from the UK sharing his experience of how music gave him his first experience of the total awe of the present moment and how that lead him to pursue a career in music as a professional guitarist. And we’ll be checking in with a few of last seasons guests who have had some pretty cool developments in life since we last heard from them. …….. Rajita Ishaya is a yogi, writer and meditation teacher from the UK. We met recently on a meditation retreat in New Zealand and she is here today to recite a poem she wrote during an anxiety attack while on a train. For a full transcript of her poem go to: https://thebendywitch.com/2014/06/21/dancing-in-between-the-is/ This poem was the result of the usual moment when creatively can strike - for Rajita this was during an anxiety attack. The writing process enabled her to get out of the way, focus on the words and move her focus away from the anxiety. Rajita shares how she notices that her anxiety is made worse by the thoughts and feelings she has around the anxiety. But what helps is listening in to something bigger than the little anxiety voice in her head and instead, to observe and discover what lies beyond all that. Rajita shares how meditation has impacted her anxiety: Meditation helps you to see with more clarity and what to give your attention to and not to give it to the little voice but to give it the bigger more loving presence which is always there and in all of us. We often don’t give that voice a chance to show up and be heard. “If my practice slips the anxiety creeps in and if I increase my practice everything seems to get calmer. That’s the key, find something that works and make it important. And carry it through everything, you take the peace with you.” Resources mentioned: Dr Robert Holden

After releasing two episodes a week for the last 3 months, if you’re paying attention you may have noticed that this episode comes over a week after the previous one. Don't worry this is not a podfade! But... I am going to be taking a break from releasing new episodes till after the new year. But I will still be working on the show behind the scenes; Reflecting on everything I've learnt so far, creating a compilation episode with some of the most powerful takeaways shared by my guests so far, recording + producing more guest interviews and setting some intentions for how I support you even further in 2018 -  if you’d like to join me for a meditation retreat, let me know where in the world you’d like to meet, personally I was thinking Bali, NZ and somewhere in America. And I’m very excited about some of the guests who will be coming through in the next season. Meanwhile, you can still follow me via my new Instagram page which has daily posts featuring some of my favourite messages and quotes from both my guests so far and leaders in consciousness from around the world. I’ll also be doing regular Instagram stories for those who want to see what the day-to-day life of a modern-day monk actually looks like. Or you can join me over on Facebook where during this podcast break I’ll endeavour to do more Facebook live conversations. Also, I’d love to invite you to check out a new online radio station which has been created by some fellow Ishaya friends of mine. Now Radio 108 is dedicated to experiencing the infinite now.  Each radio show will contain content that will exemplify aspects of being in the present moment.  The DJs at Now Radio 108 are from various backgrounds and locations globally.  So the daily con tent is diverse and dynamic.  We hope you tune in regularly to experience the many interviews, series, original music and regular programming. And you may even hear me on there from time to time, whether that’s live or as a repeat of some of these podcast episodes. So to check that out I invite you to go to radionow108.com Don't wait till 2018 So before I sign out for the year I want to leave you with something to consider. It’s that time of year when things can start to get a crazy. It’s a time to wind down and celebrate but before that happens it seems there is a whirlwind of stuff to get done. There are parties, there’s shopping, there’s family and there’s all those end of year work deadlines looming. Plus then you realise that another year has passed by and those resolutions you made back in January have become a distant memory and you realise you still haven’t created what you really want in life. Maybe things have stayed exactly the same, maybe things have gotten a bit worse. But next years going to be different right? As the saying goes, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get the results that you’ve always gotten. It goes something like that, right? Now, you can spend all the time in the world, going to the gym to create a better body, going on another date to find a better partner, earn more money to get a nicer house or car or beach holiday. But ultimately none of that is going to make a difference to your inner experience of peace and happiness if you’re not being present. If you’re staying tied to looking at the external stuff to make you happy, your patterns of thinking and behaviour are going to remain, keeping you feeling stressed, anxious and stuck. You have to...

After releasing two episodes a week for the last 3 months, if you’re paying attention you may have noticed that this episode comes over a week after the previous one. Don't worry this is not a podfade! But... I am going to be taking a break from releasing new episodes till after the new year. But I will still be working on the show behind the scenes; Reflecting on everything I've learnt so far, creating a compilation episode with some of the most powerful takeaways shared by my guests so far, recording + producing more guest interviews and setting some intentions for how I support you even further in 2018 -  if you’d like to join me for a meditation retreat, let me know where in the world you’d like to meet, personally I was thinking Bali, NZ and somewhere in America. And I’m very excited about some of the guests who will be coming through in the next season. Meanwhile, you can still follow me via my new Instagram page which has daily posts featuring some of my favourite messages and quotes from both my guests so far and leaders in consciousness from around the world. I’ll also be doing regular Instagram stories for those who want to see what the day-to-day life of a modern-day monk actually looks like. Or you can join me over on Facebook where during this podcast break I’ll endeavour to do more Facebook live conversations. Also, I’d love to invite you to check out a new online radio station which has been created by some fellow Ishaya friends of mine. Now Radio 108 is dedicated to experiencing the infinite now.  Each radio show will contain content that will exemplify aspects of being in the present moment.  The DJs at Now Radio 108 are from various backgrounds and locations globally.  So the daily con tent is diverse and dynamic.  We hope you tune in regularly to experience the many interviews, series, original music and regular programming. And you may even hear me on there from time to time, whether that’s live or as a repeat of some of these podcast episodes. So to check that out I invite you to go to radionow108.com Don't wait till 2018 So before I sign out for the year I want to leave you with something to consider. It’s that time of year when things can start to get a crazy. It’s a time to wind down and celebrate but before that happens it seems there is a whirlwind of stuff to get done. There are parties, there’s shopping, there’s family and there’s all those end of year work deadlines looming. Plus then you realise that another year has passed by and those resolutions you made back in January have become a distant memory and you realise you still haven’t created what you really want in life. Maybe things have stayed exactly the same, maybe things have gotten a bit worse. But next years going to be different right? As the saying goes, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get the results that you’ve always gotten. It goes something like that, right? Now, you can spend all the time in the world, going to the gym to create a better body, going on another date to find a better partner, earn more money to get a nicer house or car or beach holiday. But ultimately none of that is going to make a difference to your inner experience of peace and happiness if you’re not being present. If you’re staying tied to looking at the external stuff to make you happy, your patterns of thinking and behaviour are going to remain, keeping you feeling stressed, anxious and stuck. You have to...

Today I'm joined by Taraka, a meditation teacher from Singapore, who I have been blessed to spend the last few days of my trip with as she has shown me the sights of Singapore. Taraka was caught up in the global economic crises which hit Asia in the late 90’s. Overnight her business collapsed. She was facing the brink of bankruptcy and was blaming the world around her for her misfortune. "One night, after living my life in so much fear, I was standing at my balcony and I wanted to jump. I was ready to call it quits. Not because I wanted to die but because I refused to continue a life this way because deep inside my heart I knew that life wasn’t supposed to be lived like this, but I just had no idea how to get out of this trap I was in." I screamed at God and I wanted to know what is real and what is not. And then the phone rang! And it was an invitation from a lady I had met at a holistic bookshop. She wanted to invite me to a meditation talk. It was almost like this phone call was like a lifeline from God, through an angel to pass me this message - and it totally turned my life around and it literally saved my life. Taraka then shares how without any money she became brokenhearted that she couldn’t afford to actually attend the course. Until the lady from the bookshop offered to lend her the money to go. She noticed the effect immediately, as an insomniac it gave her the deepest most restful sleep, on the very first night. And it was easy - compared to other meditation techniques that she had tried. Because of the instant peace and ret that it brought her. And she found it easy to create the discipline to want to do it every day for the last 17 years. The more I remember to practice I find the meditation takes on a life Totally changed my perspective about who I am and the world around with me. Everything I thought was wrong with me and the world, opened up to show me a different way to live. It looked more beautiful compared to how it used to seem evil and unfair. I stopped being a victim and it empowered me to bring back my creative energy. I experienced much more gratitude despite still having challenges. I could still deal with all the lawyers and banks and people wanting money from me but I could deal with it without any suffering. The power of gratitude is so amazing. The more I feel gratitude for life the more things start happening for me. People will come into my life, money will appear so I can pay a bill. It opens up things beyond what the mind says is possible. Taraka talks about intuition: As the only Ascension teacher living in Singapore with limited support locally, she has had to learn to trust her intuition which as a result has become more and more acute. Most often I felt that I’m being led by an invisible guidance that comes through me and that mostly from just closing my eyes to what God has to tell me. rather than listening to the head. I just trust whatever is happening or what I’m being led to do and most of the time it works out ok. and even if it doesn’t there is generally something to be learned from the experience. We talk about Taraka’s conscious chocolate and meditation courses and how to put love into chocolate. And we learn a new word; bud-gasim! We are joy itself. All of us can be joyful if we allow it. We have to allow the joy to come through us not waiting for something to happen in order for us to be happy. When we are aligned with the present moment being aware of whatever is being presented in every moment, it’s like a smartphone which you’re using and is all lit up. But when we forget to be present, it’s like when you leave for phone for a while and the screen starts to dim and then it goes dark. To me, when I forget there are always telltale signs that I’m slowing moving away from the silence and life starts to dim and everything feels a bit out of alignment. Resources Mentioned: Chit...

Today I'm joined by Taraka, a meditation teacher from Singapore, who I have been blessed to spend the last few days of my trip with as she has shown me the sights of Singapore. Taraka was caught up in the global economic crises which hit Asia in the late 90’s. Overnight her business collapsed. She was facing the brink of bankruptcy and was blaming the world around her for her misfortune. "One night, after living my life in so much fear, I was standing at my balcony and I wanted to jump. I was ready to call it quits. Not because I wanted to die but because I refused to continue a life this way because deep inside my heart I knew that life wasn’t supposed to be lived like this, but I just had no idea how to get out of this trap I was in." I screamed at God and I wanted to know what is real and what is not. And then the phone rang! And it was an invitation from a lady I had met at a holistic bookshop. She wanted to invite me to a meditation talk. It was almost like this phone call was like a lifeline from God, through an angel to pass me this message - and it totally turned my life around and it literally saved my life. Taraka then shares how without any money she became brokenhearted that she couldn’t afford to actually attend the course. Until the lady from the bookshop offered to lend her the money to go. She noticed the effect immediately, as an insomniac it gave her the deepest most restful sleep, on the very first night. And it was easy - compared to other meditation techniques that she had tried. Because of the instant peace and ret that it brought her. And she found it easy to create the discipline to want to do it every day for the last 17 years. The more I remember to practice I find the meditation takes on a life Totally changed my perspective about who I am and the world around with me. Everything I thought was wrong with me and the world, opened up to show me a different way to live. It looked more beautiful compared to how it used to seem evil and unfair. I stopped being a victim and it empowered me to bring back my creative energy. I experienced much more gratitude despite still having challenges. I could still deal with all the lawyers and banks and people wanting money from me but I could deal with it without any suffering. The power of gratitude is so amazing. The more I feel gratitude for life the more things start happening for me. People will come into my life, money will appear so I can pay a bill. It opens up things beyond what the mind says is possible. Taraka talks about intuition: As the only Ascension teacher living in Singapore with limited support locally, she has had to learn to trust her intuition which as a result has become more and more acute. Most often I felt that I’m being led by an invisible guidance that comes through me and that mostly from just closing my eyes to what God has to tell me. rather than listening to the head. I just trust whatever is happening or what I’m being led to do and most of the time it works out ok. and even if it doesn’t there is generally something to be learned from the experience. We talk about Taraka’s conscious chocolate and meditation courses and how to put love into chocolate. And we learn a new word; bud-gasim! We are joy itself. All of us can be joyful if we allow it. We have to allow the joy to come through us not waiting for something to happen in order for us to be happy. When we are aligned with the present moment being aware of whatever is being presented in every moment, it’s like a smartphone which you’re using and is all lit up. But when we forget to be present, it’s like when you leave for phone for a while and the screen starts to dim and then it goes dark. To me, when I forget there are always telltale signs that I’m slowing moving away from the silence and life starts to dim and everything feels a bit out of alignment. Resources Mentioned: Chit...

I’m back in New Zealand! Today we draw the winner of the 3-month membership that was kindly donated by last weeks guest, Sandy Newbigging. And the winner is Anne Louise! Congratulations Anne, I’ll get those details to you very soon. Don’t forget you can trial the Calm Community for free for 30-days, you can check that out at www.sandynewbigging.com/calmcommunity Mini Interview with Britta Britta is from Sweden and started meditating 3 years ago after taking a course on the recommendation from her sister. How regularly do you meditate? It depends a lot on the day. I try to meditate for 20 minutes, 3 times a day. Sometimes I do more, sometimes I do less, sometimes I don’t meditate at all. But I really can see a huge difference between the days that I meditate and the days that I don’t. If I don’t I do get grumpy, and it kind of like when I haven’t been sleeping. I always take advantage if I’m on the bus or train to take the extra time to meditate. What helped you maintain a consistent meditation practice? It came along by itself. What has helped is arranging to get together with other people and meditate together because I feel I get inspired by meeting other people who meditate. We try to get together every week, we meet at a different house each week, its a bit like a book club but for meditators - it’s really fun. What is the biggest impact that you’ve seen in your life from meditation? I don’t take things so seriously now. I know everything is going to be ok in the end and understand that I don’t need to worry so much. I realise there is no need to worry about stuff. What brings you joy? I love nature, swimming, skiing, spending time with friends, my job. Do you have more joy now that before you meditated? Definitely. I just see everything, When I go to work, I just see everything. Even though I don’t like mornings, I love biking to work, going through my town. I just love it. It’s not about hating mornings, even if I’m tired if I’m present then it doesn’t matter. What does daring to be happy mean to you? It does take courage to be happy. That has been my experience. You have to put yourself out there and dare to enjoy life. It’s Thanksgiving day in the US! So take a moment today and even every day to acknowledge what you are grateful for and notice the difference that energy is. Gratitude is an incredibly powerful uplifting emotion, that is expansive and high vibe. The opposite, which can be so easy to fall into the to focus on lack and scarcity. Notice the difference when you’re in that kind of energy and space. Notice that it’s more constricting and closed. If you have any questions and would like some support with your meditation practice, you can now leave me a voice message directly on my website. Just go to lilab.life/contact

I’m back in New Zealand! Today we draw the winner of the 3-month membership that was kindly donated by last weeks guest, Sandy Newbigging. And the winner is Anne Louise! Congratulations Anne, I’ll get those details to you very soon. Don’t forget you can trial the Calm Community for free for 30-days, you can check that out at www.sandynewbigging.com/calmcommunity Mini Interview with Britta Britta is from Sweden and started meditating 3 years ago after taking a course on the recommendation from her sister. How regularly do you meditate? It depends a lot on the day. I try to meditate for 20 minutes, 3 times a day. Sometimes I do more, sometimes I do less, sometimes I don’t meditate at all. But I really can see a huge difference between the days that I meditate and the days that I don’t. If I don’t I do get grumpy, and it kind of like when I haven’t been sleeping. I always take advantage if I’m on the bus or train to take the extra time to meditate. What helped you maintain a consistent meditation practice? It came along by itself. What has helped is arranging to get together with other people and meditate together because I feel I get inspired by meeting other people who meditate. We try to get together every week, we meet at a different house each week, its a bit like a book club but for meditators - it’s really fun. What is the biggest impact that you’ve seen in your life from meditation? I don’t take things so seriously now. I know everything is going to be ok in the end and understand that I don’t need to worry so much. I realise there is no need to worry about stuff. What brings you joy? I love nature, swimming, skiing, spending time with friends, my job. Do you have more joy now that before you meditated? Definitely. I just see everything, When I go to work, I just see everything. Even though I don’t like mornings, I love biking to work, going through my town. I just love it. It’s not about hating mornings, even if I’m tired if I’m present then it doesn’t matter. What does daring to be happy mean to you? It does take courage to be happy. That has been my experience. You have to put yourself out there and dare to enjoy life. It’s Thanksgiving day in the US! So take a moment today and even every day to acknowledge what you are grateful for and notice the difference that energy is. Gratitude is an incredibly powerful uplifting emotion, that is expansive and high vibe. The opposite, which can be so easy to fall into the to focus on lack and scarcity. Notice the difference when you’re in that kind of energy and space. Notice that it’s more constricting and closed. If you have any questions and would like some support with your meditation practice, you can now leave me a voice message directly on my website. Just go to lilab.life/contact

Today my guest is Michelle. Michelle is originally from Bulgaria but now lives in Barcelona which is where I’m visiting her today. By day she works as a software engineer but since 2014 has also been a meditation teacher and had a consistent meditation practice since 2011. Earlier this year Michelle made a very courageous and vulnerable post on social media. You see, up until very recently, I knew Michelle as Martin. So Michelle announced that she was in the early stages of transitioning from male to female. I’m curious to find out today how her meditation is supporting her in this transition. Topics Mentioned: Today while recording in Barcelona, the Catalonian’s are also voting for their independent from Spain, so there is a lot of public demonstrations and a heavy police presence in the city. We talk a little about our own experience of the vibe of the city today and how it is affecting us. Michelle before meditation suffered from insomnia and describes herself as a do-er and planner and always trying to figure things out. We talk about what it was like to grow up in a communist country, which required you to follow the rules and wasn't open to differences, which created an underlying fear. A build-up and accumulation of stress between work and a relationship breakup meant that the only option seemed to be to learn to meditate or go insane. She rather sceptically started with the guided meditation app Headspace, but couldn’t deny that it seemed to work. She was getting 10 minutes of peace a day and the first most obvious effect was seeing an improvement with her sleep. But she was getting bored and was going from guided meditation to guided meditation always wanting more. But that changed when she met her first meditation teacher, which just happened to be last weeks guest, Sandy Newbigging. And she in him, a level of peace that she hadn’t seen before and she wanted it. Being a guy has been about being a people pleaser. She felt conditioned to be what others expected her to be, which was a boy. She was laughed at if she wanted to do the things the girls wanted to do, or like the Spice Girls. She wanted to just be able to enjoy the things she wanted to enjoy but was teased and bullied when she fully expressed herself. As an innocent child, she simply thought that although she was a boy she would simply magically grow up to be a woman. When she came to post publicly on social media that she was really a woman and was planning to start living as a woman, it felt very natural and she just wanted it done. She was ready to let go of Martin. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing that without the meditation, to be honest. I think I might have lived my whole life with surprising a part of myself if it wasn’t for meditation. I think meditation has been a very helpful tool with any strong moments in my life. Whenever I couldn’t find any stability in the outside world, meditation has been an amazing tool because on the inside I could always go back to this peace.” The challenge of transitioning. I have 30+ years of expressing myself in a masculine way so accepting that sometimes progress is slow and that sometimes it might seem likeI’m doing the same thing over and over again even though I want it to be different is challenging. I feel so much lighter and more open and at peace, though the more I express the more feminine side of myself. If I have to mentally plan it out, my current situation can look far from ideal. But I’ve always found it much easy to enjoy playing, and enjoy exploring, and enjoy just allowing myself to be exactly as I am right now. I just want to be myself. I’ve started moving in a certain direction and I want to feel open to doing things in whatever way they naturally appear to me without being bound to whether it fits in the male box or the female box. Advice to anyone going through a gender transition: Be yourself and never

Today my guest is Michelle. Michelle is originally from Bulgaria but now lives in Barcelona which is where I’m visiting her today. By day she works as a software engineer but since 2014 has also been a meditation teacher and had a consistent meditation practice since 2011. Earlier this year Michelle made a very courageous and vulnerable post on social media. You see, up until very recently, I knew Michelle as Martin. So Michelle announced that she was in the early stages of transitioning from male to female. I’m curious to find out today how her meditation is supporting her in this transition. Topics Mentioned: Today while recording in Barcelona, the Catalonian’s are also voting for their independent from Spain, so there is a lot of public demonstrations and a heavy police presence in the city. We talk a little about our own experience of the vibe of the city today and how it is affecting us. Michelle before meditation suffered from insomnia and describes herself as a do-er and planner and always trying to figure things out. We talk about what it was like to grow up in a communist country, which required you to follow the rules and wasn't open to differences, which created an underlying fear. A build-up and accumulation of stress between work and a relationship breakup meant that the only option seemed to be to learn to meditate or go insane. She rather sceptically started with the guided meditation app Headspace, but couldn’t deny that it seemed to work. She was getting 10 minutes of peace a day and the first most obvious effect was seeing an improvement with her sleep. But she was getting bored and was going from guided meditation to guided meditation always wanting more. But that changed when she met her first meditation teacher, which just happened to be last weeks guest, Sandy Newbigging. And she in him, a level of peace that she hadn’t seen before and she wanted it. Being a guy has been about being a people pleaser. She felt conditioned to be what others expected her to be, which was a boy. She was laughed at if she wanted to do the things the girls wanted to do, or like the Spice Girls. She wanted to just be able to enjoy the things she wanted to enjoy but was teased and bullied when she fully expressed herself. As an innocent child, she simply thought that although she was a boy she would simply magically grow up to be a woman. When she came to post publicly on social media that she was really a woman and was planning to start living as a woman, it felt very natural and she just wanted it done. She was ready to let go of Martin. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing that without the meditation, to be honest. I think I might have lived my whole life with surprising a part of myself if it wasn’t for meditation. I think meditation has been a very helpful tool with any strong moments in my life. Whenever I couldn’t find any stability in the outside world, meditation has been an amazing tool because on the inside I could always go back to this peace.” The challenge of transitioning. I have 30+ years of expressing myself in a masculine way so accepting that sometimes progress is slow and that sometimes it might seem likeI’m doing the same thing over and over again even though I want it to be different is challenging. I feel so much lighter and more open and at peace, though the more I express the more feminine side of myself. If I have to mentally plan it out, my current situation can look far from ideal. But I’ve always found it much easy to enjoy playing, and enjoy exploring, and enjoy just allowing myself to be exactly as I am right now. I just want to be myself. I’ve started moving in a certain direction and I want to feel open to doing things in whatever way they naturally appear to me without being bound to whether it fits in the male box or the female box. Advice to anyone going through a gender transition: Be yourself and never

I want to start today's episode with a quickie chat with my friend Jen. We just recorded this interview while in the car yesterday morning at 7am on the way to the airport. Jen shares an example of how she used meditation in the workplace. I’d love to hear if anyone else has ever tried creating a meditation group with your work colleagues and how it has helped you. While we were recording that, Kate was also filming us for her Instagram story, so if you want to see the behind the scenes of recording literally on the road and learn more about the day in the life of a digital nomad, check out Kate’s Instagram channel @theremotenomad  Speaking of Instagram, I have just launched a brand new Instagram channel called Daring To Be. I’ll be posting lots of inspirational quotes that come directly from my podcast interviews as well as sharing all the other things that inspire me in life and help me remain conscious. I’ll also regularly be sharing my behind the scenes life as a modern-day monk via Instagram stories so hop on over to Instagram and let’s connect! There’s something wrong with me So I want to move now into today’s topic which is something that’s been plaguing me for a couple of weeks now. I’ve been having a lot of thoughts. Nothing new about that but it’s the paying attention to the content which has been causing me pain. Things like: What am I doing with my life? What am I even good at? I don’t think I’m good at anything I’ve never really succeeded at anything I’ve pretty much failed at everything I’ve ever done Why can’t I just be normal, like everybody else? Why do I always choose to do things the hard way? Why can’t my life just be easier? Why can’t I have what she has? When am I going to meet a guy? Why can’t I meet a guy? Why does it have to be so hard? Why does nobody like me? They must think I’m crazy They must think I’m a loser They’re probably right There must be something wrong with me There’s definitely something wrong with me I think I must be going to crazy No wonder nobody likes me. I don’t like me. Why would anybody want to be around me, or listen to me? If they had any idea what was going on inside my head they would run a mile There’s definitely something terribly wrong with me. Anyone ever had any thoughts like that? Tell me, how did it feel listening to all of that. Was it difficult to listen to? Maybe it was familiar, maybe you recognised some of those thoughts. Side note, if you did and we're both having the exact same thoughts, whose thoughts are they? Is it your thought, or is it mine? Who does this thought belong to - what if it’s neither of us? Anyway, regardless listening to all of that is a bit of a downer right. They're what I called downward spiralling or low vibe. And the thing is this goes way beyond simply negative thinking. These are all just voices inside your head. If this voice inside your head, that sounds very much like you, said these things out loud to you, how would you react? Would you let that person stay hanging around you for very long? Or would you demand they leave the room, or ignore them? The thing is we would never tolerate this sort of commentary if it was actually said out loud. I refer to these types of thoughts as self-violent thoughts. I’m not talking about being physically...

I want to start today's episode with a quickie chat with my friend Jen. We just recorded this interview while in the car yesterday morning at 7am on the way to the airport. Jen shares an example of how she used meditation in the workplace. I’d love to hear if anyone else has ever tried creating a meditation group with your work colleagues and how it has helped you. While we were recording that, Kate was also filming us for her Instagram story, so if you want to see the behind the scenes of recording literally on the road and learn more about the day in the life of a digital nomad, check out Kate’s Instagram channel @theremotenomad  Speaking of Instagram, I have just launched a brand new Instagram channel called Daring To Be. I’ll be posting lots of inspirational quotes that come directly from my podcast interviews as well as sharing all the other things that inspire me in life and help me remain conscious. I’ll also regularly be sharing my behind the scenes life as a modern-day monk via Instagram stories so hop on over to Instagram and let’s connect! There’s something wrong with me So I want to move now into today’s topic which is something that’s been plaguing me for a couple of weeks now. I’ve been having a lot of thoughts. Nothing new about that but it’s the paying attention to the content which has been causing me pain. Things like: What am I doing with my life? What am I even good at? I don’t think I’m good at anything I’ve never really succeeded at anything I’ve pretty much failed at everything I’ve ever done Why can’t I just be normal, like everybody else? Why do I always choose to do things the hard way? Why can’t my life just be easier? Why can’t I have what she has? When am I going to meet a guy? Why can’t I meet a guy? Why does it have to be so hard? Why does nobody like me? They must think I’m crazy They must think I’m a loser They’re probably right There must be something wrong with me There’s definitely something wrong with me I think I must be going to crazy No wonder nobody likes me. I don’t like me. Why would anybody want to be around me, or listen to me? If they had any idea what was going on inside my head they would run a mile There’s definitely something terribly wrong with me. Anyone ever had any thoughts like that? Tell me, how did it feel listening to all of that. Was it difficult to listen to? Maybe it was familiar, maybe you recognised some of those thoughts. Side note, if you did and we're both having the exact same thoughts, whose thoughts are they? Is it your thought, or is it mine? Who does this thought belong to - what if it’s neither of us? Anyway, regardless listening to all of that is a bit of a downer right. They're what I called downward spiralling or low vibe. And the thing is this goes way beyond simply negative thinking. These are all just voices inside your head. If this voice inside your head, that sounds very much like you, said these things out loud to you, how would you react? Would you let that person stay hanging around you for very long? Or would you demand they leave the room, or ignore them? The thing is we would never tolerate this sort of commentary if it was actually said out loud. I refer to these types of thoughts as self-violent thoughts. I’m not talking about being physically...

***WIN*** A 3-month membership to Sandy Newbigging's Calm Community!! www.lilab.life/sandy Enter before November 15 2017 Sandy Newbigging is a specialist in meditation and mind detox, award-winning speaker, bestselling Hay House author and creator of Calmology. Sandy is passionate about meditation and believes the world would be a happier and more friendly place if more people meditated and knew inner stillness... so he's on a mission to help create a global movement of stillness through meditation. Sandy is the creator four powerful techniques - Mind Calm, Body Calm, Mind Detox and Calm Cure (collectively known as Calmology). He's also the bestselling author of six books on meditation, healing and conscious living that are inspired by his 'peace with' philosophy. Oh, and he also just happens to also be an Ishaya monk and teacher of Ascension meditation as well! His therapy and meditation work has appeared on television in more than 30 countries, he's trained practitioners in his methods from over 15 countries and he supports people from all over the world via his online membership space, the CALM Community.  "Meditation gave me a possibility that had never been presented before. A more sane way than how I had been living.”  Topics Mentioned: Learn how Sandy first found success in developing the Mind Detox technique which healed the body through identifying and resolving limiting and unhealthy beliefs in the mind.  This led to him to achieving huge international success with best-selling books and tv appearances… but it wasn’t making him happy.  What was on offer was an opportunity to not spend my whole life trying to change my mind so I could eventually be happier but changing my relationship with my mind so I could experience peace AND my mind.  The mind isn’t our enemy we simply haven’t been taught how to use this amazing tool in the right way. "We are so much more than the voice in our head that sounds like us. We are so much more than the memories or future fantasies, the judgments, the imagination that’s all temporary, it comes and go but there is something within us in which that comes from." "For me, freedom is the willingness to experience whatever happens on the spectrum of life but also be able to do it without suffering."   Peace with Philosophy = Peace with body + Peace with life   Chasing the ideal life leads us to be in conflict with life. We end up resisting stuff that doesn’t look how we are conditioned to want and we end up in conflict which causes stress, tension, dis-ease and problems in life because what you're in conflict with, you remain connected to.  Harmony heals, conflict causes dis-ease. When you make peace with your emotions, your thoughts and mind, your body and how it is, you instantly will have a much healthier body.  ...

***WIN*** A 3-month membership to Sandy Newbigging's Calm Community!! www.lilab.life/sandy Enter before November 15 2017 Sandy Newbigging is a specialist in meditation and mind detox, award-winning speaker, bestselling Hay House author and creator of Calmology. Sandy is passionate about meditation and believes the world would be a happier and more friendly place if more people meditated and knew inner stillness... so he's on a mission to help create a global movement of stillness through meditation. Sandy is the creator four powerful techniques - Mind Calm, Body Calm, Mind Detox and Calm Cure (collectively known as Calmology). He's also the bestselling author of six books on meditation, healing and conscious living that are inspired by his 'peace with' philosophy. Oh, and he also just happens to also be an Ishaya monk and teacher of Ascension meditation as well! His therapy and meditation work has appeared on television in more than 30 countries, he's trained practitioners in his methods from over 15 countries and he supports people from all over the world via his online membership space, the CALM Community.  "Meditation gave me a possibility that had never been presented before. A more sane way than how I had been living.”  Topics Mentioned: Learn how Sandy first found success in developing the Mind Detox technique which healed the body through identifying and resolving limiting and unhealthy beliefs in the mind.  This led to him to achieving huge international success with best-selling books and tv appearances… but it wasn’t making him happy.  What was on offer was an opportunity to not spend my whole life trying to change my mind so I could eventually be happier but changing my relationship with my mind so I could experience peace AND my mind.  The mind isn’t our enemy we simply haven’t been taught how to use this amazing tool in the right way. "We are so much more than the voice in our head that sounds like us. We are so much more than the memories or future fantasies, the judgments, the imagination that’s all temporary, it comes and go but there is something within us in which that comes from." "For me, freedom is the willingness to experience whatever happens on the spectrum of life but also be able to do it without suffering."   Peace with Philosophy = Peace with body + Peace with life   Chasing the ideal life leads us to be in conflict with life. We end up resisting stuff that doesn’t look how we are conditioned to want and we end up in conflict which causes stress, tension, dis-ease and problems in life because what you're in conflict with, you remain connected to.  Harmony heals, conflict causes dis-ease. When you make peace with your emotions, your thoughts and mind, your body and how it is, you instantly will have a much healthier body.  ...

This week's question come from Lily, who I just met at my guesthouse in Bali. She asks for some help or suggestions to make meditating easier when you are on the road. She typically uses guided meditation, which she finds easier than sitting in silence but often they aren’t available without wifi. Plus she finds if difficult to find time and space to be alone. Before I answer Lily’s question, I share a quick story about how I got physically assaulted by a monkey last weekend and he stole my sunglasses. Tips for mediating when travelling: Spotify. If you have a Spotify subscription then you can save tracks for offline listening and Spotify does now offer some podcasts including meditation podcasts and guided meditation like Mini Meditations from Chel Hamilton. Don’t be afraid to close your eyes and look weird, you really can meditate anywhere - on the train, bus, in a waiting room, by the pool, in public spaces, like parks and churches, sitting up in bed. A note about silence: You do not need silence to meditate. You need to let this notion go, just like I did around needing silence to record this podcast. In fact with enough noise, I actually think it becomes easier. With enough noise, it becomes white noise which is easy to ignore, like air con, or the sound of crickets, or even people speaking all around you in a language that you don’t understand. See if you can listen to the silence in which the sounds exists within. To understand more about this, make sure you tune into next weeks interview with best selling Hay House author, Sandy Newbigging. Do activities which bring you peace. Especially if you are feeling out of your comfort zone or out of routine. Like I said in the intro, I haven’t had a lot of real alone time over the last 3 months. And I have started to find that a bit difficult. One thing that I have done which is just for me is in the last few weeks while in Bali I’ve been going to yoga most days. Normally I’m a lazy yogi and only go once a month or so, but I find yoga a really active way of tuning back into my self and my body. And yoga doesn't even need to be that active, I’ve been doing a mixture of Aerial yoga, which is just for fun, and yin or restorative which I love because I can meditate for the whole class and this is great if I’ve been finding it hard to find the space to do that. I even fell asleep in restorative yoga that other day and it was the best! So if you can, Do do active things which bring you into that state of calm, whether its yoga or running or hiking and spending time in nature, although I don’t recommend monkeys! Or maybe it's riding a motorcycle or surfing or skiing. If you are used to guided meditations and find sitting in silence difficult, then there are some options and technique out there that you can do on your own and they aren’t hard. The first is simply closing your eyes and counting your thoughts for about 30 seconds or so. Seriously, let’s do this right now, Just for a moment close your eyes…. now count your thoughts as they run through your mind….. How many thoughts did you have? 3, 10, 20 thoughts? Don’t worry the answer isn't actually important. In fact, I’d be more impressed if you had more thoughts because that tells me you were really paying attention. I can guarantee that you had more thoughts than you actually counted. I bet there were some voices in your head that sounded just like you that you didn’t even notice were actually thoughts. So you can count your thoughts, You can also watch your breathe or control your breathing to a certain count. You may know of Pranayama exercises like alternate nostril breathing or fire-breathing but a super simple technique is simply called 4-7-8 breathing which has...

This week's question come from Lily, who I just met at my guesthouse in Bali. She asks for some help or suggestions to make meditating easier when you are on the road. She typically uses guided meditation, which she finds easier than sitting in silence but often they aren’t available without wifi. Plus she finds if difficult to find time and space to be alone. Before I answer Lily’s question, I share a quick story about how I got physically assaulted by a monkey last weekend and he stole my sunglasses. Tips for mediating when travelling: Spotify. If you have a Spotify subscription then you can save tracks for offline listening and Spotify does now offer some podcasts including meditation podcasts and guided meditation like Mini Meditations from Chel Hamilton. Don’t be afraid to close your eyes and look weird, you really can meditate anywhere - on the train, bus, in a waiting room, by the pool, in public spaces, like parks and churches, sitting up in bed. A note about silence: You do not need silence to meditate. You need to let this notion go, just like I did around needing silence to record this podcast. In fact with enough noise, I actually think it becomes easier. With enough noise, it becomes white noise which is easy to ignore, like air con, or the sound of crickets, or even people speaking all around you in a language that you don’t understand. See if you can listen to the silence in which the sounds exists within. To understand more about this, make sure you tune into next weeks interview with best selling Hay House author, Sandy Newbigging. Do activities which bring you peace. Especially if you are feeling out of your comfort zone or out of routine. Like I said in the intro, I haven’t had a lot of real alone time over the last 3 months. And I have started to find that a bit difficult. One thing that I have done which is just for me is in the last few weeks while in Bali I’ve been going to yoga most days. Normally I’m a lazy yogi and only go once a month or so, but I find yoga a really active way of tuning back into my self and my body. And yoga doesn't even need to be that active, I’ve been doing a mixture of Aerial yoga, which is just for fun, and yin or restorative which I love because I can meditate for the whole class and this is great if I’ve been finding it hard to find the space to do that. I even fell asleep in restorative yoga that other day and it was the best! So if you can, Do do active things which bring you into that state of calm, whether its yoga or running or hiking and spending time in nature, although I don’t recommend monkeys! Or maybe it's riding a motorcycle or surfing or skiing. If you are used to guided meditations and find sitting in silence difficult, then there are some options and technique out there that you can do on your own and they aren’t hard. The first is simply closing your eyes and counting your thoughts for about 30 seconds or so. Seriously, let’s do this right now, Just for a moment close your eyes…. now count your thoughts as they run through your mind….. How many thoughts did you have? 3, 10, 20 thoughts? Don’t worry the answer isn't actually important. In fact, I’d be more impressed if you had more thoughts because that tells me you were really paying attention. I can guarantee that you had more thoughts than you actually counted. I bet there were some voices in your head that sounded just like you that you didn’t even notice were actually thoughts. So you can count your thoughts, You can also watch your breathe or control your breathing to a certain count. You may know of Pranayama exercises like alternate nostril breathing or fire-breathing but a super simple technique is simply called 4-7-8 breathing which has...

Today’s guest is Gomata Ishaya. She is from Mexico but now lives in Edinburgh Scotland with her husband Steven. She started meditating in 2009 and become a teacher in 2016. "I already had the husband, the job, the salary, the benefits. I had it all already and yet I couldn’t see it. I couldn't appreciate it but through meditation, it brought it back to what was truly important. It was that little switch of starting to appreciate what I already had and being grateful for what I already had." Topics mentioned: I used to think life shouldn’t be this way, watching the adults get stressed out and complaining about life all the time. there should be more to life than just work and family. I wanted something to help me focus and cope with my work in investment banking. But meditation gave me so much more. "Its not like I won the lottery because I started meditating. But my life was already a lottery ticket, ready to be won, just by meditating and being aware of the beauty of my life already.” Gomata shares how she manages to squeeze her meditation practice into gaps in her day that already existed so she can spend quality time with her family. How her husband hasn’t noticed anything different about her since she started meditating because he already saw her better than she saw herself, already in her perfection. The thoughts are a river and the meditation technique is just a stone that you step onto, so you don’t ever fall into the river of thoughts. It holds you up so you can watch the river of thoughts flow by. We talk about motorbikes and the connection between meditation and motorbikes and Gomata tells us about her unique workplace at Saltire Motorcycles that has its own meditation room. I share my own experience of working with consciously aware people while doing a job I never really expected to be doing. We talk about the importance of an eyes open meditation practice as well as closed eyes. Gomata’s 3 tips for anyone wanting more from their meditation experience: Have guidance + make it a priority Show up Share + Participate Resources mentioned: Insight Timer www.saltiremotorcycles.com Chit Happens by Narain Ishaya [amazon_textlink asin='1452558205' text='Chit Happens - Narain Ishaya' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='20a4023d-bcf8-11e7-a382-7104200bcae8'] If you just so happen to be a bit of a bike enthusiast in the UK, I do recommend you go and check out Saltire Motorcycles in Edinburgh. I wish they were a little bit closer to me as I’ve just started driving a scooter around Bali and now I’d quite like a full motorcycle licence. Bali traffic is known for being pretty insane and crazy, but honestly, I haven’t found that to be a problem, as long as I stay fully present, I can quite happily deal with the chaos and remain calm. And as a result, I’m absolutely loving scooter life. Anyway, you can check out Saltire Motorcycles online at saltiremotorcyles.com.

Today’s guest is Gomata Ishaya. She is from Mexico but now lives in Edinburgh Scotland with her husband Steven. She started meditating in 2009 and become a teacher in 2016. "I already had the husband, the job, the salary, the benefits. I had it all already and yet I couldn’t see it. I couldn't appreciate it but through meditation, it brought it back to what was truly important. It was that little switch of starting to appreciate what I already had and being grateful for what I already had." Topics mentioned: I used to think life shouldn’t be this way, watching the adults get stressed out and complaining about life all the time. there should be more to life than just work and family. I wanted something to help me focus and cope with my work in investment banking. But meditation gave me so much more. "Its not like I won the lottery because I started meditating. But my life was already a lottery ticket, ready to be won, just by meditating and being aware of the beauty of my life already.” Gomata shares how she manages to squeeze her meditation practice into gaps in her day that already existed so she can spend quality time with her family. How her husband hasn’t noticed anything different about her since she started meditating because he already saw her better than she saw herself, already in her perfection. The thoughts are a river and the meditation technique is just a stone that you step onto, so you don’t ever fall into the river of thoughts. It holds you up so you can watch the river of thoughts flow by. We talk about motorbikes and the connection between meditation and motorbikes and Gomata tells us about her unique workplace at Saltire Motorcycles that has its own meditation room. I share my own experience of working with consciously aware people while doing a job I never really expected to be doing. We talk about the importance of an eyes open meditation practice as well as closed eyes. Gomata’s 3 tips for anyone wanting more from their meditation experience: Have guidance + make it a priority Show up Share + Participate Resources mentioned: Insight Timer www.saltiremotorcycles.com Chit Happens by Narain Ishaya [amazon_textlink asin='1452558205' text='Chit Happens - Narain Ishaya' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='20a4023d-bcf8-11e7-a382-7104200bcae8'] If you just so happen to be a bit of a bike enthusiast in the UK, I do recommend you go and check out Saltire Motorcycles in Edinburgh. I wish they were a little bit closer to me as I’ve just started driving a scooter around Bali and now I’d quite like a full motorcycle licence. Bali traffic is known for being pretty insane and crazy, but honestly, I haven’t found that to be a problem, as long as I stay fully present, I can quite happily deal with the chaos and remain calm. And as a result, I’m absolutely loving scooter life. Anyway, you can check out Saltire Motorcycles online at saltiremotorcyles.com.

For today’s episode, we are doing something a little different. Today I have a little mini interview for you with my friend Nick, a business consultant, who has been a committed meditator for almost 20 years but unlike our previous guests, he’s not a meditation teacher, not yet at least. I have a few of these mini-interviews lined up, in order to give you a really down to earth viewpoint of regular people who are simply incorporating meditation into their daily lives and staying committed to it. So let’s see what we can learn from Nick today. So why do you meditate? As a businessman, it’s all about stress release. It keeps me calm How regularly do you meditate and how long each time? It’s wonderful that I can also do it with my eyes open. So I can meditate while driving in the car to my business appointments. I like to try to get there 10 minutes early so I can then sit in the car and meditate before going into my meeting. Really I’m meditating off and on all day. "However at the start, I wasn’t that good. As you get better, as you get used to it, it becomes a nice thing to do. Then you want to do it, rather than seeing it as a chore. Then when you want to do it, you want to do it more and more." Spot the moment Nick accidentally says medicate instead of meditate! What made you become more and more committed to closing your eyes? It became nice to notice the gaps in the day, to stop and smell the roses. To notice the wonderful things all around you that we so often miss when we’re too busy or stresses. I just started noticing things that I would have walked past in the past. What is the biggest impact that meditation has had in your life? Better relationships. It’s nice just to let go of how things are supposed to look and just see what happens next with no expectation. When you take that into relationships, you don’t get cross or upset so often, it makes things that much easier. What brings you joy? Nature, and experiencing everything as richer and calmer with more peace and gentleness. What does Daring to be Happy mean to you? If I asked a whole room of businesspeople about their stress levels, the idea of them considering learning to meditate might really challenge them. So daring to be happy to me means just giving it a shot and see what happens. Thank you Nick, for sharing your meditation experience with us and keeping it so easy and simple. I hope you enjoyed the perspective from a slightly less experienced meditator this week. Have you checked out my Facebook page? If you head on over to my Facebook page you’ll see a couple of things happening there at the moment: There’s a post where you can vote on some options for my new Lila B logo. There’s a link where you can vote Daring to be Happy as the best new podcast of 2017 for the Discover Pods Awards. And I’m currently planning out my first Daring to be Happy meditation challenge, and I’d love to hear from you what you’d like to see included in something like that. Do you want to know where to start, how to meditate, how to meditate for longer periods of time, do you want to be matched with an accountability buddy. Just tell me what you need help with and I’ll build a little fun Facebook challenge around it for you. So the easiest way to find my Facebook page is to use the pretty link lilab.life/facebook. Don’t you love how all my links are easy to remember like that? So my lovelies, with that I thank you for listening and hope to see you go out into the world today and show up, play big, be courageous, find peace and live happy. xx

For today’s episode, we are doing something a little different. Today I have a little mini interview for you with my friend Nick, a business consultant, who has been a committed meditator for almost 20 years but unlike our previous guests, he’s not a meditation teacher, not yet at least. I have a few of these mini-interviews lined up, in order to give you a really down to earth viewpoint of regular people who are simply incorporating meditation into their daily lives and staying committed to it. So let’s see what we can learn from Nick today. So why do you meditate? As a businessman, it’s all about stress release. It keeps me calm How regularly do you meditate and how long each time? It’s wonderful that I can also do it with my eyes open. So I can meditate while driving in the car to my business appointments. I like to try to get there 10 minutes early so I can then sit in the car and meditate before going into my meeting. Really I’m meditating off and on all day. "However at the start, I wasn’t that good. As you get better, as you get used to it, it becomes a nice thing to do. Then you want to do it, rather than seeing it as a chore. Then when you want to do it, you want to do it more and more." Spot the moment Nick accidentally says medicate instead of meditate! What made you become more and more committed to closing your eyes? It became nice to notice the gaps in the day, to stop and smell the roses. To notice the wonderful things all around you that we so often miss when we’re too busy or stresses. I just started noticing things that I would have walked past in the past. What is the biggest impact that meditation has had in your life? Better relationships. It’s nice just to let go of how things are supposed to look and just see what happens next with no expectation. When you take that into relationships, you don’t get cross or upset so often, it makes things that much easier. What brings you joy? Nature, and experiencing everything as richer and calmer with more peace and gentleness. What does Daring to be Happy mean to you? If I asked a whole room of businesspeople about their stress levels, the idea of them considering learning to meditate might really challenge them. So daring to be happy to me means just giving it a shot and see what happens. Thank you Nick, for sharing your meditation experience with us and keeping it so easy and simple. I hope you enjoyed the perspective from a slightly less experienced meditator this week. Have you checked out my Facebook page? If you head on over to my Facebook page you’ll see a couple of things happening there at the moment: There’s a post where you can vote on some options for my new Lila B logo. There’s a link where you can vote Daring to be Happy as the best new podcast of 2017 for the Discover Pods Awards. And I’m currently planning out my first Daring to be Happy meditation challenge, and I’d love to hear from you what you’d like to see included in something like that. Do you want to know where to start, how to meditate, how to meditate for longer periods of time, do you want to be matched with an accountability buddy. Just tell me what you need help with and I’ll build a little fun Facebook challenge around it for you. So the easiest way to find my Facebook page is to use the pretty link lilab.life/facebook. Don’t you love how all my links are easy to remember like that? So my lovelies, with that I thank you for listening and hope to see you go out into the world today and show up, play big, be courageous, find peace and live happy. xx

I’m here today with Rudra Devi who is a coach, healer and meditation teacher who removes chronic pain without the use of drugs using a technique she’s developed called the Rudra Devi technique. This has taken her 13 years to create and develop and it has 100% success rate. She specializes in fibromyalgia but also works with arthritis, chronic fatigue, ME, migraines and depression. “Imagine that your life is like a jigsaw, and there is this one piece that never quite made it to the jigsaw and it was floating in the ethos. On my first morning of this meditation course, that piece dropped into place, and I saw the picture fully for the first time in my life and I was like, wow, this is what it’s about.” Topics Covered Rudra Devi shares how her life was turned upside down 13 years ago when she left an abusive relationship and was left homeless and bankrupt with 3 kids under 4 years old. Despite feeling like a loser and wallowing for some time in self-pity there was a tiny glimmer of wonder as to how she would turn things around. She heard about a guy called Tony Robbins who was said to turn peoples lives around, so she signed up to his course, not knowing anything about him, thinking there would be about 30 people there and instead there was 10,000! She left with a bag of tools and started implementing them in her life. She went back to school and finished her degree, got a good job. But there was still something missing. Rudra Devi shares how her own health problems caused her to research and learn everything she could about the Mind-Body Connection, which led her to the work of Dr John Sarno. Rudra Devi talks about the patterns she started to see amongst her coaching clients - only certain personalities seemed to develop certain illnesses. For example, Fibromyalgia people appear to be super loving, caring people but they forget to put themselves first so the pattern seems to be the body saying, "Hey! You need to look after yourself, so I’m going to make you by giving you this illness". Learn the remarkable meaning of Rudra Devi's Sanskrit name and how perfect it is for her! “Everything in life is cause and effect. Illness and chronic pain is the same, you dont just wake up and have an illness, you don’t wake up and have chronic pain, something has got to have happened for it to have got there in the first place.” “If we are whole in ourselves, then it's easy to be able to help others, but when we’re not, then that’s when the problems start.” Rudra Devi talks about her new work rule - she has dissolved all limitations in her company. That means that anything is possible from this moment onwards. She doesn’t want to hear any ideas unless her staff think they are totally unrealistic - because only unrealistic people shift mountains. Rudra Devi shares two stories of healing with clients who suffered from fibromyalgia including a 19-year old woman who was on 22 tablets a day and was unable to work and sleeping 16 hours a day. “Meditation brings me joy. I thought meditation wasn’t really for me, it sounded boring, sitting around doing nothing, because I’m quite a busy, active, energetic person but I was so wrong, because its not what I thought it was. Now I realise that it’s about expanding my experience from within, I get a completely different experience from it and so it brings me joy.” “The biggest thing that’s given me the most peace is that  I now know that in every moment I have a choice and that choice is how

I’m here today with Rudra Devi who is a coach, healer and meditation teacher who removes chronic pain without the use of drugs using a technique she’s developed called the Rudra Devi technique. This has taken her 13 years to create and develop and it has 100% success rate. She specializes in fibromyalgia but also works with arthritis, chronic fatigue, ME, migraines and depression. “Imagine that your life is like a jigsaw, and there is this one piece that never quite made it to the jigsaw and it was floating in the ethos. On my first morning of this meditation course, that piece dropped into place, and I saw the picture fully for the first time in my life and I was like, wow, this is what it’s about.” Topics Covered Rudra Devi shares how her life was turned upside down 13 years ago when she left an abusive relationship and was left homeless and bankrupt with 3 kids under 4 years old. Despite feeling like a loser and wallowing for some time in self-pity there was a tiny glimmer of wonder as to how she would turn things around. She heard about a guy called Tony Robbins who was said to turn peoples lives around, so she signed up to his course, not knowing anything about him, thinking there would be about 30 people there and instead there was 10,000! She left with a bag of tools and started implementing them in her life. She went back to school and finished her degree, got a good job. But there was still something missing. Rudra Devi shares how her own health problems caused her to research and learn everything she could about the Mind-Body Connection, which led her to the work of Dr John Sarno. Rudra Devi talks about the patterns she started to see amongst her coaching clients - only certain personalities seemed to develop certain illnesses. For example, Fibromyalgia people appear to be super loving, caring people but they forget to put themselves first so the pattern seems to be the body saying, "Hey! You need to look after yourself, so I’m going to make you by giving you this illness". Learn the remarkable meaning of Rudra Devi's Sanskrit name and how perfect it is for her! “Everything in life is cause and effect. Illness and chronic pain is the same, you dont just wake up and have an illness, you don’t wake up and have chronic pain, something has got to have happened for it to have got there in the first place.” “If we are whole in ourselves, then it's easy to be able to help others, but when we’re not, then that’s when the problems start.” Rudra Devi talks about her new work rule - she has dissolved all limitations in her company. That means that anything is possible from this moment onwards. She doesn’t want to hear any ideas unless her staff think they are totally unrealistic - because only unrealistic people shift mountains. Rudra Devi shares two stories of healing with clients who suffered from fibromyalgia including a 19-year old woman who was on 22 tablets a day and was unable to work and sleeping 16 hours a day. “Meditation brings me joy. I thought meditation wasn’t really for me, it sounded boring, sitting around doing nothing, because I’m quite a busy, active, energetic person but I was so wrong, because its not what I thought it was. Now I realise that it’s about expanding my experience from within, I get a completely different experience from it and so it brings me joy.” “The biggest thing that’s given me the most peace is that  I now know that in every moment I have a choice and that choice is how

To #metoo or not to #metoo? It’s been a question that’s been running through my mind all week.It’s been amazing to watch the conversation come to light and be told, by millions of women across the world, each in their own unique way, with their own unique experiences. It’s been amazing to watch the conversation come to light and be told, by millions of women across the world, each in their own unique way, with their own unique experiences. I don’t think it’s wise to judge whose story is more worse or better than others. And I don’t think its wise to them demand these women share any more details than what they have already shared. The story actually isn’t important. It’s of no importance to compare each experience. To rank or rate the severity of each experience because the fact is ANY level of harassment or abuse is too much. What is important is that these women have had the courage to speak up. And that collectively we have seen the extent of the problem. Across cultures, across race and across economic boundaries. Which leads me to wonder if I am part of this club? One-in-three women have been sexually abused. ONE-IN-THREE!?! Thankfully, I can very comfortably say that I have not. That’s a privilege that I don’t take for granted.  But I have two sisters, which means the odds are stacked against one of them. That’s terrifying because it’s never even occurred to me before now to talk about this with either of them. Harassment on the other hand… Well, I’d be surprised if you could find a women or girl who doesn’t know what it feels like to be stared at, called out to, patted, pinched, brushed up against or groped. Have I experienced harassment? For that, I can say #metoo. I’ve never understood why men call out at women as they are minding their own business simply walking down the street. I’ve never really understood what they expect to get out of it? These days, it doesn’t happen so often. Maybe I’m not as cute as I used to be. Maybe tradies have tied up their act a bit. Certainly, having worked amongst a fair few tradies and contractors this year while working on the roads doing traffic management, I’m happy to report I’ve been treated with nothing but respect. Although perhaps, cat calling is too old-fashioned these days. Because instead now I get the pleasure of having explicitly inappropriate things messaged to me on Tinder. And I wonder the same thing - do guys really expect that to work? This week I even had a pornographic GIF sent to my business page on Facebook. It was utterly delightful. Next comes harassment within the workplace, which is what started this entire #metoo movement, from the actions of a powerful Hollywood director with what sounds like practically every woman he’s ever encountered at work. This was a hazy area for me. Have I experienced harassment while at work? I’ve worked a lot of jobs in a lot of places around the world. One event keeps coming to mind though. It wasn’t a big thing. In fact before this week of #metoo’s I probably would have disregarded it altogether.  It made me question whether it was bad enough to qualify. But here’s what I remember, it was bad enough that it left me feeling angry. It was bad enough that I told my girlfriends about it. It was bad enough that it left an icky feeling in my gut. That’s as bad as it needs to be. It’s the icky uncomfortable feeling in your gut that tells you ALL that you need to know. No one else gets to pass judgement on it if YOU are experiencing that. That is your personal barometer of what you know to be true and right. Words and actions can do damage, especially to young minds. But especially when the same message is sent to us over and over again. Our experience of the world around us through the words and actions of others shape how we view ourselves and who we believe we are. When I teach meditation, we refer to these as groves. Imagining the truest version of you as the...

To #metoo or not to #metoo? It’s been a question that’s been running through my mind all week.It’s been amazing to watch the conversation come to light and be told, by millions of women across the world, each in their own unique way, with their own unique experiences. It’s been amazing to watch the conversation come to light and be told, by millions of women across the world, each in their own unique way, with their own unique experiences. I don’t think it’s wise to judge whose story is more worse or better than others. And I don’t think its wise to them demand these women share any more details than what they have already shared. The story actually isn’t important. It’s of no importance to compare each experience. To rank or rate the severity of each experience because the fact is ANY level of harassment or abuse is too much. What is important is that these women have had the courage to speak up. And that collectively we have seen the extent of the problem. Across cultures, across race and across economic boundaries. Which leads me to wonder if I am part of this club? One-in-three women have been sexually abused. ONE-IN-THREE!?! Thankfully, I can very comfortably say that I have not. That’s a privilege that I don’t take for granted.  But I have two sisters, which means the odds are stacked against one of them. That’s terrifying because it’s never even occurred to me before now to talk about this with either of them. Harassment on the other hand… Well, I’d be surprised if you could find a women or girl who doesn’t know what it feels like to be stared at, called out to, patted, pinched, brushed up against or groped. Have I experienced harassment? For that, I can say #metoo. I’ve never understood why men call out at women as they are minding their own business simply walking down the street. I’ve never really understood what they expect to get out of it? These days, it doesn’t happen so often. Maybe I’m not as cute as I used to be. Maybe tradies have tied up their act a bit. Certainly, having worked amongst a fair few tradies and contractors this year while working on the roads doing traffic management, I’m happy to report I’ve been treated with nothing but respect. Although perhaps, cat calling is too old-fashioned these days. Because instead now I get the pleasure of having explicitly inappropriate things messaged to me on Tinder. And I wonder the same thing - do guys really expect that to work? This week I even had a pornographic GIF sent to my business page on Facebook. It was utterly delightful. Next comes harassment within the workplace, which is what started this entire #metoo movement, from the actions of a powerful Hollywood director with what sounds like practically every woman he’s ever encountered at work. This was a hazy area for me. Have I experienced harassment while at work? I’ve worked a lot of jobs in a lot of places around the world. One event keeps coming to mind though. It wasn’t a big thing. In fact before this week of #metoo’s I probably would have disregarded it altogether.  It made me question whether it was bad enough to qualify. But here’s what I remember, it was bad enough that it left me feeling angry. It was bad enough that I told my girlfriends about it. It was bad enough that it left an icky feeling in my gut. That’s as bad as it needs to be. It’s the icky uncomfortable feeling in your gut that tells you ALL that you need to know. No one else gets to pass judgement on it if YOU are experiencing that. That is your personal barometer of what you know to be true and right. Words and actions can do damage, especially to young minds. But especially when the same message is sent to us over and over again. Our experience of the world around us through the words and actions of others shape how we view ourselves and who we believe we are. When I teach meditation, we refer to these as groves. Imagining the truest version of you as the...

I’m delighted to welcome my guest today Sri Ishaya. Sri is from Sweden but her work in International Peace and Security has led her to live in various conflict countries around the world including Congo and Mali, where she supports women in their local communities and advocates for women’s rights. And it may come to no surprise to you, that she also happens to be a meditation teacher! Topics mentioned: How her interest and desire to contribute to the world through human rights causes started early on in life. Her interest in meditation started with dance and yoga and she was introduced to meditation by her sister. “ It was the first experience for me where someone encouraged me to just rest from my thoughts and just allow the thoughts but that I did not have to engage in thoughts or thinking… and it was such a relief for me. That I didn’t have to engage in critical, analytical thinking was like - wow!! It gave me very deep rest. and it made me interested in what meditation could give me. That it could give another quality to life.“ “No matter I’m doing on the outside, of course, I want to live my life from this present moment, to be aware and engaged in whatever I do. That completely changed my life.” It’s become a joy to be of service to exchange knowledge and experiences with people and see how together we can make the world a better place. How her meditation practice gave her the resilience to stay working and living in remote and difficult areas of The Congo for longer than most peace workers are able to do. Wherever you go, people are all looking for the same thing. Everyone wants to experience joy, more peace, more contentment and inner security. It doesn’t matter if its Congo, or South Sudan, or Spain or London. Sri shares her experience of teaching other peacemakers and aid workers to meditate to help them cope with the stresses of working in the field in conflict zones. So they can help care for themselves. People who were already working for peace on the outside, they felt a huge relief to also start experience peace on the inside. They are stressed out, activists, working for peace day and night, but it comes with stress, trauma, violence in their daily lives. So for them to have a tool to actually rest and have peace inside was huge. To stay in their own peace, even if they had those stressful situations around them. Meditation does have an effect, what we experience on the outside has an immediate effect on our environment around this. We see this, we want to be around people who are happy, joyful and who are calm inside. We are all connected, it becomes so apparent. Lila and Sri discuss how meditation is like a secret weapon, that no one needs to know you’re using but it has an impact on everyone around you. And it helps to keep you anchored, recharged, centred, present. LOVE + CONNECTION - brings Sri both joy and challenges! Greatest Lesson: That everything is here, that there is nothing more to search for. This moment is absolutely perfect and full and rich and abundance of everything you can wish for. And there is nothing on the outside that can compare with that experience. Sri wisdom: Find a practice that resonates with you and commit to it. If you follow the instructions it will change your life. My sincerest thanks to Sri for joining me today. What an incredible first-hand experience she was able to share with us, that no matter who we are or where we are from, we are all looking for the same thing, peace and joy and freedom of stress. She is totally playing big and showing up fully for life and spreading peace not just in a practical and external sense, in areas of the world that need it most, but also in sharing the gift of meditation with both...

I’m delighted to welcome my guest today Sri Ishaya. Sri is from Sweden but her work in International Peace and Security has led her to live in various conflict countries around the world including Congo and Mali, where she supports women in their local communities and advocates for women’s rights. And it may come to no surprise to you, that she also happens to be a meditation teacher! Topics mentioned: How her interest and desire to contribute to the world through human rights causes started early on in life. Her interest in meditation started with dance and yoga and she was introduced to meditation by her sister. “ It was the first experience for me where someone encouraged me to just rest from my thoughts and just allow the thoughts but that I did not have to engage in thoughts or thinking… and it was such a relief for me. That I didn’t have to engage in critical, analytical thinking was like - wow!! It gave me very deep rest. and it made me interested in what meditation could give me. That it could give another quality to life.“ “No matter I’m doing on the outside, of course, I want to live my life from this present moment, to be aware and engaged in whatever I do. That completely changed my life.” It’s become a joy to be of service to exchange knowledge and experiences with people and see how together we can make the world a better place. How her meditation practice gave her the resilience to stay working and living in remote and difficult areas of The Congo for longer than most peace workers are able to do. Wherever you go, people are all looking for the same thing. Everyone wants to experience joy, more peace, more contentment and inner security. It doesn’t matter if its Congo, or South Sudan, or Spain or London. Sri shares her experience of teaching other peacemakers and aid workers to meditate to help them cope with the stresses of working in the field in conflict zones. So they can help care for themselves. People who were already working for peace on the outside, they felt a huge relief to also start experience peace on the inside. They are stressed out, activists, working for peace day and night, but it comes with stress, trauma, violence in their daily lives. So for them to have a tool to actually rest and have peace inside was huge. To stay in their own peace, even if they had those stressful situations around them. Meditation does have an effect, what we experience on the outside has an immediate effect on our environment around this. We see this, we want to be around people who are happy, joyful and who are calm inside. We are all connected, it becomes so apparent. Lila and Sri discuss how meditation is like a secret weapon, that no one needs to know you’re using but it has an impact on everyone around you. And it helps to keep you anchored, recharged, centred, present. LOVE + CONNECTION - brings Sri both joy and challenges! Greatest Lesson: That everything is here, that there is nothing more to search for. This moment is absolutely perfect and full and rich and abundance of everything you can wish for. And there is nothing on the outside that can compare with that experience. Sri wisdom: Find a practice that resonates with you and commit to it. If you follow the instructions it will change your life. My sincerest thanks to Sri for joining me today. What an incredible first-hand experience she was able to share with us, that no matter who we are or where we are from, we are all looking for the same thing, peace and joy and freedom of stress. She is totally playing big and showing up fully for life and spreading peace not just in a practical and external sense, in areas of the world that need it most, but also in sharing the gift of meditation with both...

First, an update from me…. I’m now in Bali!! But I almost, kinda, not really, didn’t make it to Bali because of a volcano and may or may not erupt. Find how what I learned about non-attachment as a result! Plus I’m having all these issues trying to find a quiet enough place to record my podcast, so maybe you can hear a bit of background noise, maybe you can’t but I know it’s there and it’s annoying me!!! So what does attachment have to do with it all? You might have heard that it’s super useful to master non-attachment. What exactly is non-attachment? Non-attachment is pretty much how it sounds, It’s about not being attached to any particular outcome. Why is this useful to practice? Because when we are attached to a certain outcome and then it doesn’t occur or materialize or work out, then we experience resistance to what’s being presented instead. And it’s that resistance which causes us pain and suffering. That’s when we get angry, annoyed and pissed off. It just makes life harder to deal with and when we start in on that downward spiralling behaviour, recovering to find an acceptable solution gets harder. So what should you do instead? Be open. Go with the flow and don't sweat the small stuff. Make plans but be open to them changing and unattached to having the plan go exactly the way you expect. That way we can become more adapable. We’re able to roll with the punches more and it makes ‘fixing’ things when they don’t go to plan a lot easier. So I thought I was kinda ok at this whole non-attachement thing. Just yesterday I was making plans to meet a friend and spend a week with her in Ubud which would have been super fun. Then I got a message from her saying that she wasn’t coming to Bali anymore, but she had a really good reason, it was actually good news for her. And I was like ‘great!’ and instantly I saw that it was actually going to suit me way better to not go to Ubud next week and would probably be easier to spend a shorter amount of time there maybe later in the month. That way I can get more settled in Canguu and create a more stable work routine while I’m here. But the mind is a super tricky thing. And sometimes when you think you’re being open and non-attached suddenly you realise that your mind has been tricking you. I recently caught myself out with this whole volcano situation when I was ‘trying’ to be open to the plan changing but it actual fact I was daydreaming about how I would handle the plan changing, and what I would do instead. I was going to stay in Spain longer… or go to Sri Lanka instead… or Noosa in Australia. Turns out I had actually become really attached to wanting the plan to change so much that I had talked myself out of Bali!?! WTF! WTF! I discovered that I needed to be unattached to both the plan changing AND the plan staying exactly the same. So what’s the best way to naturally experience and develop this non-attachment, go with the flow kinda attitude? Well, you guessed it - meditation! Because meditation helps us to live the experience that we are not our thoughts. It helps us to naturally not take anything seriously, without trying to do anything different. The more you meditate the easier all this is to master. It’s just one of the natural side effects. Want to know my top 8 tips for meditation? If you’d like to learn some of my favourite resources for starting, building and committing to a regular meditation practice, I have a new free resource available, just for podcast listeners - it’s my 8 top tips for meditation. To access it you need to head to lilab.life/toptips As always thank you for tuning in and listening. If you have a question about meditation don’t forget you can send these to me by emailing lila@lilab.life and I promise I’ll send you a personal reply and your question may just get featured on next weeks...

First, an update from me…. I’m now in Bali!! But I almost, kinda, not really, didn’t make it to Bali because of a volcano and may or may not erupt. Find how what I learned about non-attachment as a result! Plus I’m having all these issues trying to find a quiet enough place to record my podcast, so maybe you can hear a bit of background noise, maybe you can’t but I know it’s there and it’s annoying me!!! So what does attachment have to do with it all? You might have heard that it’s super useful to master non-attachment. What exactly is non-attachment? Non-attachment is pretty much how it sounds, It’s about not being attached to any particular outcome. Why is this useful to practice? Because when we are attached to a certain outcome and then it doesn’t occur or materialize or work out, then we experience resistance to what’s being presented instead. And it’s that resistance which causes us pain and suffering. That’s when we get angry, annoyed and pissed off. It just makes life harder to deal with and when we start in on that downward spiralling behaviour, recovering to find an acceptable solution gets harder. So what should you do instead? Be open. Go with the flow and don't sweat the small stuff. Make plans but be open to them changing and unattached to having the plan go exactly the way you expect. That way we can become more adapable. We’re able to roll with the punches more and it makes ‘fixing’ things when they don’t go to plan a lot easier. So I thought I was kinda ok at this whole non-attachement thing. Just yesterday I was making plans to meet a friend and spend a week with her in Ubud which would have been super fun. Then I got a message from her saying that she wasn’t coming to Bali anymore, but she had a really good reason, it was actually good news for her. And I was like ‘great!’ and instantly I saw that it was actually going to suit me way better to not go to Ubud next week and would probably be easier to spend a shorter amount of time there maybe later in the month. That way I can get more settled in Canguu and create a more stable work routine while I’m here. But the mind is a super tricky thing. And sometimes when you think you’re being open and non-attached suddenly you realise that your mind has been tricking you. I recently caught myself out with this whole volcano situation when I was ‘trying’ to be open to the plan changing but it actual fact I was daydreaming about how I would handle the plan changing, and what I would do instead. I was going to stay in Spain longer… or go to Sri Lanka instead… or Noosa in Australia. Turns out I had actually become really attached to wanting the plan to change so much that I had talked myself out of Bali!?! WTF! WTF! I discovered that I needed to be unattached to both the plan changing AND the plan staying exactly the same. So what’s the best way to naturally experience and develop this non-attachment, go with the flow kinda attitude? Well, you guessed it - meditation! Because meditation helps us to live the experience that we are not our thoughts. It helps us to naturally not take anything seriously, without trying to do anything different. The more you meditate the easier all this is to master. It’s just one of the natural side effects. Want to know my top 8 tips for meditation? If you’d like to learn some of my favourite resources for starting, building and committing to a regular meditation practice, I have a new free resource available, just for podcast listeners - it’s my 8 top tips for meditation. To access it you need to head to lilab.life/toptips As always thank you for tuning in and listening. If you have a question about meditation don’t forget you can send these to me by emailing lila@lilab.life and I promise I’ll send you a personal reply and your question may just get featured on next weeks...

My guest today is Padma Sundari. She is a meditation teacher from Mexico but now lives in Norway, and she has been on a journey of self-discovery through choosing for happiness and learning How to choose for happiness. She is also a mum to her 9-year old son Khaled and has been a solo mum for much of her son’s life, and I’m looking forward to finding out how meditation has supported her in her life both with parenting and re-establishing her life in a different country and culture. Topics Mentioned: Curiosity led her to learn to meditate. Previously, happiness was following the recipe - finish school, get a job, get a husband, have a family and then the fairy tale says that after that you are happy forever. But after getting pregnant to her boyfriend she realised that that wasn’t what she wanted - So she decided to be a single mum - the first thing she did to consciously own her own happiness. “I really wanted to feel good, happy, grounded, mature and I was open to it. I was directly my journey towards meditation, because I was getting peace from it and I knew it worked.” She thought meditation would fix her but she learned that there was nothing to fix. Being ‘fixed’ was just a concept, a judgement. Kids don't care about judgements and beliefs because when we are young, we are just happy for no reason. “I had a clear goal, to do something that I knew works, to close my eyes, to find who I was beause I knew that I could be a better version of me, for my son.” How Padma made it a priority to meditate every day, making it work, even as a parent, even with her son around. And now her son meditates with her. Biggest impact - finding courage, finding the real desires that are in me, being true to who I am and not what society dictates. When Padma stopped looking for love to fulfil her, she found someone who was willing to prioritise her peace as well. It is beautiful to experience love with no judgement - it feels great, authentic, it is the experience I had always been looking for, it just happened to be with another woman. Biggest challenge: Acceptance - learning how to be accepted in a new country and culture. Wisdom: Do what makes you happy. Try different things, make different choices, follow your heart. Meditation helped Padma realise that there was a part of her that intuitively knew where to go and what the right choice to make was. I loved noticing that both before and after Padma Sundari made meditation a part of her life, her inner drive was always pulling her toward putting love above all else, even at the risk of going against convention or at the risk of experiencing judgement from others. First is taking the courageous decision to raise her child on her own and then later in entering a same sex relationship. Resources Mentioned: Chit Happens by Narain Ishaya [amazon_textlink asin='1452558205' text='Chit Happens' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='43810324-aa60-11e7-9a8b-397257a39f19'] This episode is brought to you by Audible. Don't forget you can trial Audible for 30 days with one free audiobook by going to lilab.life/audible.

My guest today is Padma Sundari. She is a meditation teacher from Mexico but now lives in Norway, and she has been on a journey of self-discovery through choosing for happiness and learning How to choose for happiness. She is also a mum to her 9-year old son Khaled and has been a solo mum for much of her son’s life, and I’m looking forward to finding out how meditation has supported her in her life both with parenting and re-establishing her life in a different country and culture. Topics Mentioned: Curiosity led her to learn to meditate. Previously, happiness was following the recipe - finish school, get a job, get a husband, have a family and then the fairy tale says that after that you are happy forever. But after getting pregnant to her boyfriend she realised that that wasn’t what she wanted - So she decided to be a single mum - the first thing she did to consciously own her own happiness. “I really wanted to feel good, happy, grounded, mature and I was open to it. I was directly my journey towards meditation, because I was getting peace from it and I knew it worked.” She thought meditation would fix her but she learned that there was nothing to fix. Being ‘fixed’ was just a concept, a judgement. Kids don't care about judgements and beliefs because when we are young, we are just happy for no reason. “I had a clear goal, to do something that I knew works, to close my eyes, to find who I was beause I knew that I could be a better version of me, for my son.” How Padma made it a priority to meditate every day, making it work, even as a parent, even with her son around. And now her son meditates with her. Biggest impact - finding courage, finding the real desires that are in me, being true to who I am and not what society dictates. When Padma stopped looking for love to fulfil her, she found someone who was willing to prioritise her peace as well. It is beautiful to experience love with no judgement - it feels great, authentic, it is the experience I had always been looking for, it just happened to be with another woman. Biggest challenge: Acceptance - learning how to be accepted in a new country and culture. Wisdom: Do what makes you happy. Try different things, make different choices, follow your heart. Meditation helped Padma realise that there was a part of her that intuitively knew where to go and what the right choice to make was. I loved noticing that both before and after Padma Sundari made meditation a part of her life, her inner drive was always pulling her toward putting love above all else, even at the risk of going against convention or at the risk of experiencing judgement from others. First is taking the courageous decision to raise her child on her own and then later in entering a same sex relationship. Resources Mentioned: Chit Happens by Narain Ishaya [amazon_textlink asin='1452558205' text='Chit Happens' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='43810324-aa60-11e7-9a8b-397257a39f19'] This episode is brought to you by Audible. Don't forget you can trial Audible for 30 days with one free audiobook by going to lilab.life/audible.

Who would you be without your story? Who would you be without your past? What if you could leave it all behind? What if you were no one's child? What if you were no ones parent? What if you were no one's partner, no one's ex? What if your resume was wiped clean? If your job wasn’t a part of your identity? What if you had never been hurt? What if you had never hurt anyone? If the past didn’t exist… Would there be anything to feel angry about? Guilt about... Shame about... Sad about. Would you feel the weight of responsibility or expectations, Would you feel judged, would you be worried about what others think? If the past didn’t exist… would you feel broken? Would you need to change anything about yourself, your body, your life or the world around you? Do you know what a life without a past, without a story would look like? It would be free. YOU would be free. Free to LOVE for yourself and all things unconditionally. Free to experience uninhibited JOY. Free to live with unbounded AWARENESS. There would be nothing to fear, nothing to feel anxious about. If you are no longer tied to your past or your story, all that is left is pure YOU. The pure YOU that you were naturally when you entered this world. That pure innocent version of yourself. That YOU who you naturally were as a young child. Do you remember that YOU? If you had no story, there would be nothing to fix, there would be no limiting beliefs to dissolve or heal. There would be nothing to forgive. All that would be left would be the perfection of YOU. That YOU doesn’t know fear, doesn’t know pain doesn’t know suffering. How wonderful! So my invitation today is simply to play with this. Close your eyes and tune into to that person you would be if you had no story, no past. What does that version of yourself know to be true? What qualities does that pure YOU have that make you special and unique? What superpowers does this version of yourself possess? Now from this space, go out and be the powerful, amazing, blissful, beautiful, shiny being that you are!!! Thank you for your emails, reviews and feedback, I love hearing from you so please keep them coming and let me know how you find this exercise, let me know who are you if you have no story? Don’t forget that if you want some help with healing your relationships with yourself and those who may have hurt you, you can download my free Pink Light meditation technique from lilab.life And with that I want to express my gratitude to you for listening and praise you for your willingness to show up, play big, be courageous, find peace and live happy.

Who would you be without your story? Who would you be without your past? What if you could leave it all behind? What if you were no one's child? What if you were no ones parent? What if you were no one's partner, no one's ex? What if your resume was wiped clean? If your job wasn’t a part of your identity? What if you had never been hurt? What if you had never hurt anyone? If the past didn’t exist… Would there be anything to feel angry about? Guilt about... Shame about... Sad about. Would you feel the weight of responsibility or expectations, Would you feel judged, would you be worried about what others think? If the past didn’t exist… would you feel broken? Would you need to change anything about yourself, your body, your life or the world around you? Do you know what a life without a past, without a story would look like? It would be free. YOU would be free. Free to LOVE for yourself and all things unconditionally. Free to experience uninhibited JOY. Free to live with unbounded AWARENESS. There would be nothing to fear, nothing to feel anxious about. If you are no longer tied to your past or your story, all that is left is pure YOU. The pure YOU that you were naturally when you entered this world. That pure innocent version of yourself. That YOU who you naturally were as a young child. Do you remember that YOU? If you had no story, there would be nothing to fix, there would be no limiting beliefs to dissolve or heal. There would be nothing to forgive. All that would be left would be the perfection of YOU. That YOU doesn’t know fear, doesn’t know pain doesn’t know suffering. How wonderful! So my invitation today is simply to play with this. Close your eyes and tune into to that person you would be if you had no story, no past. What does that version of yourself know to be true? What qualities does that pure YOU have that make you special and unique? What superpowers does this version of yourself possess? Now from this space, go out and be the powerful, amazing, blissful, beautiful, shiny being that you are!!! Thank you for your emails, reviews and feedback, I love hearing from you so please keep them coming and let me know how you find this exercise, let me know who are you if you have no story? Don’t forget that if you want some help with healing your relationships with yourself and those who may have hurt you, you can download my free Pink Light meditation technique from lilab.life And with that I want to express my gratitude to you for listening and praise you for your willingness to show up, play big, be courageous, find peace and live happy.

Sally Lewis has been a businesswoman for over 30 years and an Ishaya Monk for the past 9 years. Her diverse background allows her to approach consciousness and spirituality in a down to earth manner. Her latest consciousness project is the documentary called ‘A Mindful Choice (http://www.choicethefilm.com/)’ – a film showing the impact that one person choosing for peace can have on those around them, and their community. Topics mentioned:Why Sally & her partner Greg made a movie about meditation – Not everyone wants to learn to meditate, but they wanted to plant the seed that peace was possible for individuals and for humanity as a whole. They wanted to inspire people that they have a choice and if they are motivated to find peace and happiness then doors will open and opportunities will present themselves. Sally’s life before meditation – she was stressed and didn’t know how to slow down, which led to illness and depression. She was always looking for the next buzz, the next project, to feel like she was achieving and being successful. When her marriage broke up, she felt lost, she had lost herself, lost the excitement and fearlessness of her younger days, and felt limited and self-critical. She saw the change is someone else who had learned to meditate and he told her, she had to stop reading about the experience of living in the present moment as it was just a concept, she wasn’t experiencing it for herself. So she learned to meditate and it turned out it wasn’t just for hippies! She had previously believed that anything good in life was hard, you had to work hard at it, so she was sceptical that meditation seemed too easy to work. She wanted to do it perfectly and better than anyone else. She tried to figure it out but discovered that meditation was simple as long as she just did it, it worked and if she didn’t, it didn’t work. Meditating now, she realises that she is really efficient, she loves doing things, loves projects and achieving things, but she does it now from the present moment. “Meditation revealed the real me. I love the real me, the real me is joyous, she’s loving, she loves herself and she loves everything she comes across.”Sally’s early experience of life that told her that love hurts and that she needed to control everything in order to avoid the pain of rejection. Letting go of control has given her the freedom to return to the innocence of a child and not to fear anything. Feeling like she’s part of the world instead of feeling like she was on an island. “On the other side of letting go was the most magical opening of possibility and really living and living my purpose.”What it was like for Sally to meditate with 200 prisoners in the most violent prison in Mexico – the prisoner there were interested not only in their own peace but also the peace of their children, families and communities and they are ready for change. One of Sallys most joyous days – spending time with the children of a Mexican foster school. How these kids have been able to let go and leave their past and move into a new future, through the power of meditation. How the movie has helped inspire and change some viewers experience of their own health challenges. How even individuals making that mindful choice to be more present and experience more peace for themselves, can have an impact on others, whether they get on board with their own meditation practice or not. “Anything is possible, I never knew I could produce a documentary – if we had ever had any doubt thoughts at the start we would have stopped in our tracks. If we had tried to plan it all and go into the future, it wouldn’t have worked. All we did was make a commitment to raising conscious in the world and we allowed ourselves to surrender how that was going to look. We just started and put one foot in front of the other. We never doubted that it…

Sally Lewis has been a businesswoman for over 30 years and an Ishaya Monk for the past 9 years. Her diverse background allows her to approach consciousness and spirituality in a down to earth manner. Her latest consciousness project is the documentary called ‘A Mindful Choice’ – a film showing the impact that one person choosing for peace can have on those around them, and their community. Topics mentioned: Why Sally & her partner Greg made a movie about meditation - Not everyone wants to learn to meditate, but they wanted to plant the seed that peace was possible for individuals and for humanity as a whole. They wanted to inspire people that they have a choice and if they are motivated to find peace and happiness then doors will open and opportunities will present themselves. Sally’s life before meditation - she was stressed and didn’t know how to slow down, which led to illness and depression. She was always looking for the next buzz, the next project, to feel like she was achieving and being successful. When her marriage broke up, she felt lost, she had lost herself, lost the excitement and fearlessness of her younger days, and felt limited and self-critical. She saw the change is someone else who had learned to meditate and he told her, she had to stop reading about the experience of living in the present moment as it was just a concept, she wasn’t experiencing it for herself. So she learned to meditate and it turned out it wasn’t just for hippies! She had previously believed that anything good in life was hard, you had to work hard at it, so she was sceptical that meditation seemed too easy to work. She wanted to do it perfectly and better than anyone else. She tried to figure it out but discovered that meditation was simple as long as she just did it, it worked and if she didn’t, it didn’t work. Meditating now, she realises that she is really efficient, she loves doing things, loves projects and achieving things, but she does it now from the present moment. “Meditation revealed the real me. I love the real me, the real me is joyous, she’s loving, she loves herself and she loves everything she comes across.” Sally’s early experience of life that told her that love hurts and that she needed to control everything in order to avoid the pain of rejection. Letting go of control has given her the freedom to return to the innocence of a child and not to fear anything. Feeling like she’s part of the world instead of feeling like she was on an island. “On the other side of letting go was the most magical opening of possibility and really living and living my purpose.” What it was like for Sally to meditate with 200 prisoners in the most violent prison in Mexico -  the prisoner there were interested not only in their own peace but also the peace of their children, families and communities and they are ready for change. One of Sallys most joyous days - spending time with the children of a Mexican foster school. How these kids have been able to let go and leave their past and move into a new future, through the power of meditation. How the movie has helped inspire and change some viewers experience of their own health challenges. How even individuals making that mindful choice to be more present and experience more peace for themselves, can have an impact on others, whether they get on board with their own meditation practice or not. “Anything is possible, I never knew I could produce a documentary - if we had ever had any doubt thoughts at the start we would have stopped in our tracks. If we had tried to plan it all and go into the future, it wouldn’t have worked. All we did was make a commitment to raising conscious in the world and we allowed ourselves to surrender how that was going to look. We just started and put one foot in front of the other.  We never doubted that it...

Sally Lewis has been a businesswoman for over 30 years and an Ishaya Monk for the past 9 years. Her diverse background allows her to approach consciousness and spirituality in a down to earth manner. Her latest consciousness project is the documentary called ‘A Mindful Choice’ – a film showing the impact that one person choosing for peace can have on those around them, and their community. Topics mentioned: Why Sally & her partner Greg made a movie about meditation - Not everyone wants to learn to meditate, but they wanted to plant the seed that peace was possible for individuals and for humanity as a whole. They wanted to inspire people that they have a choice and if they are motivated to find peace and happiness then doors will open and opportunities will present themselves. Sally’s life before meditation - she was stressed and didn’t know how to slow down, which led to illness and depression. She was always looking for the next buzz, the next project, to feel like she was achieving and being successful. When her marriage broke up, she felt lost, she had lost herself, lost the excitement and fearlessness of her younger days, and felt limited and self-critical. She saw the change is someone else who had learned to meditate and he told her, she had to stop reading about the experience of living in the present moment as it was just a concept, she wasn’t experiencing it for herself. So she learned to meditate and it turned out it wasn’t just for hippies! She had previously believed that anything good in life was hard, you had to work hard at it, so she was sceptical that meditation seemed too easy to work. She wanted to do it perfectly and better than anyone else. She tried to figure it out but discovered that meditation was simple as long as she just did it, it worked and if she didn’t, it didn’t work. Meditating now, she realises that she is really efficient, she loves doing things, loves projects and achieving things, but she does it now from the present moment. “Meditation revealed the real me. I love the real me, the real me is joyous, she’s loving, she loves herself and she loves everything she comes across.” Sally’s early experience of life that told her that love hurts and that she needed to control everything in order to avoid the pain of rejection. Letting go of control has given her the freedom to return to the innocence of a child and not to fear anything. Feeling like she’s part of the world instead of feeling like she was on an island. “On the other side of letting go was the most magical opening of possibility and really living and living my purpose.” What it was like for Sally to meditate with 200 prisoners in the most violent prison in Mexico -  the prisoner there were interested not only in their own peace but also the peace of their children, families and communities and they are ready for change. One of Sallys most joyous days - spending time with the children of a Mexican foster school. How these kids have been able to let go and leave their past and move into a new future, through the power of meditation. How the movie has helped inspire and change some viewers experience of their own health challenges. How even individuals making that mindful choice to be more present and experience more peace for themselves, can have an impact on others, whether they get on board with their own meditation practice or not. “Anything is possible, I never knew I could produce a documentary - if we had ever had any doubt thoughts at the start we would have stopped in our tracks. If we had tried to plan it all and go into the future, it wouldn’t have worked. All we did was make a commitment to raising conscious in the world and we allowed ourselves to surrender how that was going to look. We just started and put one foot in front of the other.  We never doubted that it...

Micci Gorrod is a meditation teacher, actress and coach with her company The Conscious Creative. She is also a tutor at Cambridge University at their Institute of Continuing Education and a tutor for the Queens Young Leaders. And she is also the gorgeous wife of last weeks guest - Jivana. “Life’s not about what happens with your eyes closed, because sometimes the mind can be busy, but it's what I was noticing in my everyday life, that everything felt smoother and calmer and there was an ongoing stillness and contentment which is always there as long as I kept my practice up.” "I felt like I was at the beginning of an adventure - I got excited because I didn’t have to be in nature to suddenly access the great contentment I got from nature. I wanted to find out more about how I could stay in that space because now I had a technique that could take me to that.” Topics mentioned: Micci dishes the dirt on life as Jivana’s wife How she got so much more than just joy when she learned to meditate. Answering the big questions - who am I, why am I here, what am I capable of experiencing? How meditation deals with trauma or torturous thoughts How Micci found she could be as content in a crowded London tube as she could in nature. How the stresses and emotional toll within the acting industry led to her setting up The Conscious Creative The Queens Young Leaders - kinda like the Queen’s super special business incubator for millennials Micci shares her experience of teaching meditation in Rwanda and about the effectiveness of the Pink Light Technique Micci shares her current health & fertility challenges. How her doctors are surprised that she’s not experiencing more pain. How her desire to have a baby is there but there isn’t the anguish that she has seen others experience from it - there is a complete acceptance of the things you cannot change, beyond your control and it's only the resistance to that causes any suffering around it. We talk and laugh about the challenges of technology We talk about grief and I share how I can now acknowledge how naturally present I was when my boyfriends died, that initally all I expereinced was love, it was only later when my mind kicked in that I started to experience pain. When I learned to meditate that initial sense of love returns. “I always thought that meditation was something that should just be good for you, but be a bit boring. But its amazing, there is just more and more joy that comes from moving stress and connecting with that inner peace within you.” “The more present I am, the more effective I am. But there’s a lot less to worry about and to take too seriously so I can start to laugh at the nature of my own mind. Knowing that’s not me, that I am that which is aware of thought and emotions and it all comes and goes and moves.” Resources mentioned: The Pink Light Technique - FREE DOWNLOAD Acts of Gratitude - Rwanada with Jean d'Amour Mutoni The Queen's Young Leaders The Conscious Creative A Mindful Choice Learn to meditate with Micci and Jivana, they are teaching a weekend meditation course at their home in Berkhamsted, just north of London from the 6th to 8th of October, 2017. You can learn more about the course and sign up by Clicking Here Recommended Movies [amazon_link asins='B00EIBO8T6,B00DQJPN18,B01BXJRPYK' template='ProductCarousel'' store='lilab108-20'...

Thinking is really painful - it’s exhausting. So I’ve decided to quit thinking - at least when I remember, lol! Trying to figure stuff out causes pain and suffering. Thinking only ever happens in the past or the future. But I love trying to figure out how I’m going to plan stuff to get what I want in the future. But often what I think is creative brainstorming is actually just being stuck in the future and not being HERE. Thinking about the future is simply about trying to make something that happened in the past, better, good or right. Many problems have been freaking me out lately, because at some point in the future I’m going to have to deal with the fact that I have no job, no home, no car. I’ve been living in a state of fear and lack. So, after asking for help to get the clarity I needed to convince my mind to stop being addicted to thinking, I’ve commited now to staying here - to give in to the adventure and magic of BEING HERE. It’s allowed me to recommit myself 100% and I plan on squeezing every last drop of juice out of this moment right now. Exciting news: Join me on September 30 for International Podcasters Day - I’ll be leading an online workshop on how to Tune In To Your Creative Flow as a Podcaster - Learn more at https://internationalpodcastday.com/ 

Jivana is an actor and presenter living outside London, England with his gorgeous wife a massive cat, Jaffa.  As you will quickly hear in this episode, he loves playing and joking around, and loves delving into the nature of existence, meeting new people and spending time with friends. He also loves Formula One and by putting his peace first has manifested his dream job as a Formula One commentator. "I feel like understanding the nature of life and nature of reality is the most fun game to play by a long long way and certainly if we're going to be here, let’s enjoy it - Let’s play!” Topics mentioned: Renouncing Christianity at the age of 8. Being fascinated by the question of Why are we Here? The first impact meditation had was on his relationship with his wife - she noted that he was more chilled out, relaxed, easier, less judgemental Choice - "I could choose where I put my attention, on movement and the constant churning of an ever unsatisfied mind or on the context in which it exists, the still, silence, space from which everything comes.” Meditation for his career - battle with money as an actor, sense of lack, living hand to mouth. I ask Jivana about Trust- one of my personal challenges - It implies that the universe could get your life wrong in some way, the fact that you have to trust it. Jivana talks about the effect his Dad dying had on him We talk about the power of the Reset Button and I start dropping F-bomb’s. "I saw more and more that I didn’t want my happiness to be based on the state of my bank account. More and more I understood what I wanted more from all of the different jobs that I did." "Prioritising my peace before anything else is the only thing that’s ever worked." “My minds been commentating on my whole life and now I get to commentate on Formula One” "Nothing that has happened, that has happened to you needs to affect your decisions right now. Always, right now you have a choice." Resources mentioned: Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast - Subscribe here Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah [amazon_textlink asin='0099427869' text='Illusions - The adventures of a Reluctant Messiah' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='5de31417-9b93-11e7-886c-434546f0a26d'] Learn to meditate with Jivana and his amazing wife Micci, who coincidentally is going to be on the show next week. They are teaching a weekend meditation course at their home in Berkhamsted, just north of London from the 6th to 8th of October. You can learn more about the course and sign up by Clicking Here Free 30-day trial on Audible: This episode is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend: The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles The Universe has your Back by Gabrielle Berstein All you need to do to get your free 3--day Audible trial is visit www.audibletrail.com/lilab. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. It's that easy. Go to www.audibletrail.com/lilab and get started today. Enjoy! Free Guided Meditation: If you would like to get started with meditation but you're not sure how to start, head over to my website at lilab.life and...

12 hours alone with your thoughts!?! I don’t really want to think about my thoughts that long, I really don’t. I’ve got 55 years of thoughts and their all bottled up. Isn’t that the problem, that we bottle them up and we don’t want to look at them? And most of the time aren’t the ones that we really don’t like, aren’t actually as bad as we think they are? - Glenn the Geek Glenn's question is really a question about resistance. Of resisting a lifetime of bottled up thoughts, feelings and emotions. When we meditate it brings us into the present moment. But the potential beauty of the experience of this moment becomes small or ‘difficult’ if we resist what is occurring. It is only the resistance - not the experience itself - that creates the difficulty. Resistance all stems from a judgement: "this is wrong”. Perhaps we close our eyes, we see these uncomfortable thoughts coming, we don’t like them, so we resist them, we push them down/away, we don’t want to deal with them at all. In actual fact if we allowed them, fully surrender to them, let them engulf us, - and I’ve done this, it’s not comfortable at all. But if you just let it do its thing, it will its only do that for about 30 seconds, 1 minutes tops.it's its intense, super intense but then you allow it to move and it loses its power.However we judge these thoughts, feelings, emotions when we close our eyes to meditate – it is - it’s that judgement of it which becomes the real issue. Our inner resistance to it will not change it. Our internal struggle to push it away will not help us. If we can simply let what is, be exactly as it is, then maybe that simple choice will allow change to occur. Or maybe nothing will change in the external experience, but most certainly the inner experience will be very different – and so everything begins to transform. However we judge these thoughts, feelings, emotions when we close our eyes to meditate – it is - it’s that judgement of it which becomes the real issue. Our inner resistance to it will not change it. Our internal struggle to push it away will not help us. If we can simply let what is, be exactly as it is, then maybe that simple choice will allow change to occur. Or maybe nothing will change in the external experience, but most certainly the inner experience will be very different – and so everything begins to transform.Without that judgement or comment the thought feeling or emotion is just an experience. Just something which you notice as you meditate - as insignificant as a cloud floating past on a sunny day. Without that judgement or comment the thought feeling or emotion is just an experience. Just something which you notice as you meditate - as insignificant as a cloud floating past on a sunny day.But may take courage, make no mistake. It may appear scary at first. And intense. But ultimately it is so worthwhile. Don’t let the idea of a few pesky uncomfortable thoughts take you off track from meditating, from experiencing more peace, more joy, more contentment. But may take courage, make no mistake. It may appear scary at first. And intense. But ultimately it is so worthwhile. Don’t let the idea of a few pesky uncomfortable thoughts take you off track from meditating, from experiencing more peace, more joy, more contentment. The other thing is, there’s always going to be thoughts, whenever you meditate. They could be scary, or funny, or annoying or even just repetitive. Just today I spent all afternoon meditating and the content of my mind was obsessing over pizza - seriously, I’ve been on retreat for almost 2 weeks, all my meals are supplied which means I have very little choice or control over what I get to eat. And this afternoon, I was feeling hungry and all my mind could think about was pizza and chips and dip. So it’s always going to be something, good, bad or just silly. It is possible to treat them all...

Today on the show I’m delighted to be speaking to Arjuna. Arjuna used to be an outdoor instructor in New Zealand until he discovered the joys of meditation, learning in 2003, so he’s been doing this gig for a while now. Then he sold up, became a meditation teacher and travelled the world, ending up in the UK. He now lives in North Yorkshire with his wife and baby and teaches meditation fulltime. This includes teaching the only meditation and mindfulness course approved for the British military. In his spare time. His favourite things are whitewater kayaking and food. "meditation gives everybody who practices it, exactly what they need to be the best version of them, to really fully live their life. “ Topics covered: Seeing two versions of himself and realising he was only living half a life because what was missing was that sense of me. Listen as my mind gets blown as Arjuna and I discover an amazing connection we didn’t know we had, that our paths have crossed Listen as my mind gets blown as Arjuna and I discover an amazing connection we didn’t know we had, that our paths have crossed before and that we were both experiencing a funk at the same time, in the same place! The impact of learning to meditate: Allowed him to rediscover a connection with the real him (and becoming a nana driver!) The problem of being confused by life wasn’t there anymore. Life was exactly the same but without the annoying habit of getting hooked on the future and the past. More authenticity - nothing to prove, nothing to hide, here I am. Nothing wrong with me Arjuna shares his experience of teaching meditation in the UK military.  What it’s like to live with a family of monks - a lot of fun, a lot of laughter and a lot of honesty and openness. How meditation helps him as a new dad - multitasking causes stress - especially with a young baby and why he has put down all the baby books. Changing relationship with food - eating what your body needs, not what your head thinks you should eat. Your perception of food changes food more than food itself. Arjuna’s greatest lesson - Acceptance and Allowance. Where our plan meets reality can oftentimes result in stress. The sooner you can be fluid with your plans and drop them for what simply IS, the sooner you get clarity, contentment and peace. Meeting reality as it is, rather than how you think it should be. Arjuna’s WISDOM - Find your foundation, your way of being at peace with the world and your life and connecting with your true self. It’s not about giving up anything. Your passions are there because they are you. If you stop living your passions it’s like being a lightbulb that doesn’t work. The world needs more passionate, alive, content, fluid people. People who want to be happy more than they want to be right. Resources Headspace App Insight Timer App Follow Arjuna's blog at www.arjunaishaya.com You can reach out to Arjuna at arjunaishaya@gmail.com If you want to learn meditation from Arjuna, he is next teaching in Richmond, North Yorkshire, UK on the 10th November. Learn more here Awareness by Anthony de Mello [amazon_textlink asin='B000TDGZUM' text='Awareness by Anthony de Mello' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='f6833c30-951f-11e7-add9-b124e101d39d'] - Arjuna’s summary: If you want approval from anyone, even love - then you're a monkey on a chain and you're imprisioned. If you want...

Hi guys. And welcome to another play time session.I'm not sure if this is actually going to be a playtime session. I'm not going to do a Q&A. This week instead, I just really felt compelled tonight to share with you what I'm doing and where I'm at, at the moment. So I'm not sure if this qualifies as a playtime session. I think maybe it might be more of a Daring session where I just take a moment to get really real. And so right now, I have returned to one of my most favourite places in the world which is a place called Guayrapa which is a retreat centre on top of a mountain, in a small village, kind of near the coast, a couple hours south of Barcelona, in Spain. And this is where I spent six months meditating full time when I first discovered meditation and where I became a monk and where I trained with the Ishaya's of The Bright Path. I graduated from that course three years ago this week. And so, quite nicely really this week I've returned for the first time. And I'm planning to spend all of September here. It's been a really magical few days coming back to this beautiful place. And I just want to set the scene for you a little bit. Right now I'm actually sitting on the roof outside of my home for the next month. Tonight the sky is clear and there is a full moon and I'm staring right at it right now. And I just had to come outside onto the roof and record this episode. So you might hear a little bit of wind. There's a small breeze coming through. I'm hoping you hear the crickets because there is a little background symphony of crickets going on. And this place in terms of a retreat is kind of everything you would want or hope for a retreat to be. The village that it's in is really small, it's called Mont-Ral. There's probably less than 100 houses in this village. It's based on the top of a mountain and right at the top of the mountain is this amazing old church. I've never had a chance to go onto it yet because it's always been locked. I'm not quite sure how old it is that I will take some photos and I will share them on the show notes so be sure to link through to lilab.life if you want to check them out and then the retreat centre itself. It's called Guayrapa and it's on quite a large property, kind of on a sloping hill and we have a dining room and a student lounge which is where all our meals are prepared and we get food three times a day. Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner. All mainly vegetarian food. They have this beautiful organic garden just below the kitchen so a lot of our salads and fresh vegetables come straight from the garden. Below the garden, there's actually this kind of clifftop lookout that you can walk along to and then above the student lounge you head up the hill and the first thing you come across is a beautiful little yurt which is just a lovely place to spend time and meditate, particularly in the afternoons. Go a little bit further up the hill you'll find a swimming hole and it's September now it's just starting to cool down. The weather's just about to turn slightly into autumn but I dipped my toe in the pool today because the sun was out, really for the first time this week and it's not quite warm enough. And then as you go further up the hill, we get to our meeting room where we spend most of our time meditating and have meetings a couple times a day. Normally one during the morning and then a big meeting during the evening with our teachers. These meetings are an opportunity for people to share their discoveries and experiences of their meditation that day. And for the teachers to give guidance and students to ask questions and for everybody to kind of just learn and discover more. And that's also where we often will receive homework and things and focuses to place our attention on as we are meditating. And so the whole point of being here is basically to meditate as much as possible. But it's not a silent retreat as such. It's very social. You get to meet everybody,...

Savitri is an Ishaya monk living in Wellington, New Zealand. She loves showing people how to transform their relationship with their minds and she teaches Ascension meditation regularly in schools and prisons. She is also a writer and a communications consultant. She is proudest of her two amazing daughters and her favourite thing is laughing. Topic’s Covered: Meditation for creative flow How her life isn’t that different to what it was 10 years ago and yet the way that she experiences her life is very different. How it’s changed her relationship with her life because she has changed her relationship with her mind. The effect that holding onto thoughts and beliefs was having on her life and how letting all that go has made life different. How our mind finds things to believe that are wrong with our life, with the world - and how to park your car correctly! How meditation has brought joy into her whole family and made family time more present. How quick kids are to notice if you're present or stressed. Savitri shares her experience of teaching meditation in prisons & schools. How children are a great reminder and example of how to play in the present. Prisoners are hungry for peace, and are motivated to let go of pain which they recognise hasn’t served them well in life. Savitri shares her experience of teaching meditation in prisons and how meditation is helping inmates mange strong emotions life anger and create more calm in a challenging environment. How we can all be inspired by meditating inmates - if they can find peace, then anyone can. It’s not about the external circumstances but the internal choice we can all make on here we put our attention. Savitri’s biggest challenge - letting go of her children. As a mother, letting go of controlling tendencies and letting go of her own resistance is easy compared to surrendering the things she wants/desires for her children. Savitri’s greatest lesson - how to enjoy life, not take everything too seriously and how to live and show up, be fully present the here and now and embrace all things as it happens. What does being a modern day monk means to Savitri - service and teaching, sharing consciousness with the world. Commitment to peace first and foremost in order to then be able to give to others. Savitri explains the difference between mindfulness and meditation Resources mentioned: [amazon_textlink asin='B001XVD2Z0' text='The Matrix' template='ProductLink' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='22f4672d-92c3-11e7-aba2-f7c00130dceb'] Kiwi’s - join Savitri’s next weekend retreat September 29 - October 1st in Otaki, Wellington, NZ - learn more at www.thebrightpath.com

Question Today's question comes from Roman Castro, a fellow podcaster I met recently at Podcast Movement. While I did record his question from my iPhone, we were in a noisy conference room and there is a bit much background noise which I don’t want to put you through. So pretend for a moment that my voice is a bit deeper and with an American accent, Roman says… When I think of meditation I think of observing what my mind is doing whether it is observing my breath or whether it’s getting distracted from observing that breath and having thoughts instead. There’s no objective to remove thoughts or clear my mind. However, I notice that some people talk about medtitating and say "Oh yeah, I meditated and cleared my mind for 10 minutes and I thought about nothing. Or I got upset and instead of getting upset and processing it, I pushed it off to the side and ignored it.” So Romans questions are: Is that considered meditation? Are they both meditation? Which one's better? Do they both work? Answer So that’s the questions. Now the short answer to all those questions is YES, they are both meditation, they do both work, and actually, neither is any better than the other. However, let me explain further. Sometimes when you meditate you may have lots of thoughts, you may start off simply observing your mind or your breath but constantly go off on thought and feel like you have a busy mind. As long as you continue to keep coming back to watching/observing that is fine - it’s no drama. It doesn’t mean you're failing at meditation, just treat it as a gentle flowing dance between the two states, watching and thinking. Other times you may sit down to meditate, doing the exact same technique but this time, the mind is still, there aren’t any thoughts, it’s just silent. So why the two different experiences? Well, it depends on the state of the mind and the body when we sit down to meditate. The body, the mind, the nervous system is always changing, it’s always in a state of flux, there are always different factors at play. It could come down to the time of day, how tired you are, what you just ate, coffee or sugar and going to have a different effect on the body and mind than say a green juice or a salad or meat, how much exercise you’ve been doing, how stressed you are at work or at home. Everything always changing, right? So then it makes sense that your meditation will always change. In fact, I would have to say I’ve never experienced two meditations the same. Sometimes it’s busy, sometimes it’s quiet. My only job is not the judge how it looks and just do it regardless, returning to my techniques over and over again, 100, 1000 times if I have to. So they are both working. and while we may have a preference, I’m guessing you probably would prefer a quiet peaceful, silent meditation to one filled with lots of thoughts, actually that doesn’t mean one is better than the other. Either way, you are creating a space for the mind and body to rest and recharge, what happens next is simply what the nervous system needs to release in order to get that rest. It was great to meet Roman and chat about meditation with him. When I asked what his podcast was about though, he was a little reluctant to tell me. Turns out that his podcast is about spearfishing and he was a bit worried I might not that cool about killing animals, which I actually thought was kinda funny. Spearfishing actually sounds like quite a sustainable way to catch fish if you ask me, you have to really work for it and it’s all done by hand. And when we really got into it, turns out spear-fishing is actually a form of Freediving. Roman talked about how quiet it was under the water, and how you had to be very present, you had to watch your breathe and have control of your breathing. And he talked about how incredible that experience of being under the water was, how he often...

How do I build a consistent meditation practice? I’m not actually the best at creating new habits. I’m not even the most consistent meditator, particularly at the moment. That’s because I don’t have a lot of routine in my life right now. Actually to be honest I resist routine for some reason. I think that’s because the idea of having routine makes me feel a bit trapped. On the flip side I know routines are essential, especially for getting shit done. It always makes me laugh when people who talk about creating healthy habits use brushing your teeth as an example. Because no-one questions brushing your teeth right? It’s just something you do every morning, it’s a non-negoiable. Well, a little secret about me - I’m really crap at remembering to brush my teeth. And I know somewhere there’s a whole lotto people going , ewwwwww gross! I can’t explain it. Even as a child I hated having to brush my teeth, it’s so boring! Plus I’ve been incredibly lucky to be blessed with good teeth - I’ve never had a filling in my life. If I had I might have been further motivated to keep up the brushing. So because I recognised this about myself, for me what ended up happening was I dived in deep and went to a retreat environment in order to cement my own meditation practice. I spent 6-weeks there the first time and in total spent 6 months out of 12 meditating that year. Because of that, the impact meditation had on my happiness levels was swift and very obvious. Equally as obvious was the impact not meditating had on my life, if ever I started to feel was is now quite an unfamiliar feeling of anxiety or annoyance I quickly realise it’s because I haven’t made the time to meditate as much in the previous few days. So that all played out in what was perfect for me and my journey. If you’re starting out now though, it’s probably not practical to take 6 months off, move to spain and meditate full-time. So I would say start with this: Be super clear on what it is you want from meditation- be it more peace, more contentment, more joy. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t. i.e. focus of your desire for peace rather than your desire to be less stressed. For me, when my boyfriend died it was to be free of pain, free of grief. Make a commitment to yourself for 6 weeks and create some form of accountability around it. Whether that’s in the form of an accountability buddy, someone to do it with or report your progress to, some form of reward system and carve out the required time in your schedule to make it happen. Stick with one technique for that 6 weeks. Make absolutely no judgement on its effectiveness until that 6 weeks is up. Just do it, everyday, no arguments, no excuses and simply ignore all thoughts related to whether it is working or not (because trust me, those thoughts will be there). At the end of 6 weeks make note of any changes. How do you feel. How are you reacting in certain situations - the same or perhaps different. Perhaps things that used to trigger certain unwelcome behaviours or feelings in you aren’t happening quite so much anymore. And if you don’t think anything is different then ask the people around you if they have noticed anything. Finally, I want to leave you with one of my all time favourite quotes: "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which...

[spp-player] On today’s Episode: Jaya Ishaya has been teaching meditation for over 15 years, in many countries all over the world. Born in New Zealand and raised on a farm, Jaya has always had the idea of freedom as something to find in nature or in travel. Interestingly she was introduced to meditation by a friend and rejected the idea initially. But once she tried it, it changed her life. A life that was once centered around parties and being popular, changed to a life about service and giving. Today Jaya's greatest passion is to share and teach. She loves to run retreats and loves to see peoples lives change. Meditation for her isnt just about a tool, but a lifestyle. She loves to help people change the negative ideas people have about meditation, and to invite them to live in joy, fun and laughter, loving the life we were all given. Topics Covered: Partying and trying to fit in and be popular - can be painful and exhausting How negative thinking influences us and how meditation can turn that around Not wanting to need anything or rely on anything but discovering that we all need guidance and you don’t have to do it on your own How Jaya handled the breakup of a 10 year relationship with love & understanding soon after learning to meditate How her family and friends reacted to her becoming a monk, how they saw her change, become happier and how they love and respect the work that she does. They can see that meditation and being a monk is a real experience - bringing all the awareness that meditation brings us into everyday life. Jaya shares a story of one of her most inspiring meditation students - who discovered that meditation could help her deal with the pain of fibromyalgia without the use of alcohol and drugs. And how meditation helped her see that it was her mind which was causing her suffering around her pain, rather than the pain itself. Lila and Jaya discuss how suffering is a choice, whether pain or problems exist or not. How meditation can bring clarity, bring joy and bring adventure. Jaya share’s her experience of teaching meditation in communist Cuba - and how people in Cuba understand inherently that freedom isn’t about what’s on the outside but is possible internally. Jaya answers the question - What is enlightenment? And explains how it really is possible for anyone to make enlightenment a real living and attainable experience. Two of the hardest things for Jaya, and for many people to master - letting go of control and the judgments we make about those we are closest to - our families. Jaya’s greatest lesson from meditation: Noticing when we are judging others and seeing instead that no one needs to change - their path is perfect, they are a perfect person and a divine being. Resources Mentioned: [amazon_textlink asin='B01MSAJ7IU' text='Choices by Jaya Ishaya' template='ProductLink' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='12418869-92c0-11e7-88aa-c30bcc184711'] [amazon_textlink asin='154535457X' text='Born to Fly by Jaya Ishaya' template='ProductLink' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='2e142ece-92c0-11e7-b652-e9876e00db96'] [amazon_textlink asin='B00AALUFFY' text='Kung Fu Panda' template='ProductLink' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='3b30f5e6-92c0-11e7-8a3b-77cbe50502f5'] Don't forget to check out my brand new website over at www.lilab.life and signup to receive me free pink light meditation for healing relationships.