Browsing tag: meditation

  • January 22, 2026

    How To Be Alone With Your Thoughts

    FALLING

    I am in this phase of transforming right now. I am metabolizing pain and alchemizing it to wisdom. In the beginning, it was terrifying. Like jumping from a height, falling, unsure of the ground beneath me. Where will I land? How will I land? Anticipating the impact. Feeling the wind. But the wisdom is in trusting that fate is moving pieces around me. I am certain that the bottoms of my feet will touch earth again.

    CHRYSALIS

    The old version of me has died. And so now enters the phase where I no longer exist while simultaneously I am in the process of becoming. The timeline has folded into itself. It’s the archetype of the hermit. I am in a chrysalis. And did you know that when the caterpillar is in the chrysalis they are actually just a mush of enzymes and insect parts?

    What’s next? I am patient as the new version of me begins to materialize.

    STIMULUS

    All the people around me are so busy. Constantly talking on the phone, going somewhere, running an errand, working, tinkering, listening, watching. When is there a moment you can just be alone with your thoughts? Is it in the shower? Is it before you fall asleep at night? I love stimulation as well. Especially as a medical student, I am constantly chasing information, listening, practicing, completing tasks, scanning for patterns, moving, absorbing.

    MEDITATION

    But I do long for the quiet hum of nothingness. I crave sitting on my warm floor, crossed legs, eyes closed, just being. Meditation is sacred. It’s laborious. It requires persistence. The time I spend giving space to my thoughts, dreams, fears, body sensations, rehashing experiences, projecting onto the future is important. It is especially important as I move through this liminal space.

    Information comes to me. It gives reflection a place to unfold. Ideas have a place to land. Insight arrives. My inner world expands. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. I need the space to plan, strategize, and execute it. They say meditation helps you become less reactive and more flow. This work gives me the ability to slow down time and act with discernment.

    EXPANSION

    I am building realities around me using my thoughts.

    My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. What do I want to be able to harvest a year from now?

    My mind is a radio. My thoughts are the stations. What frequency do I want to tune to?

    When it comes to disease, we look at food, activity, habits. Are we looking at the habits of our thoughts? What do you think about all day? I am aware of my thoughts as I am thinking them. I am building the muscle of changing the station.

    This is a transformation led by my soul, not my primitive human self. And I think we can only hear what our soul has to say when we quiet out the world.

    RELEASE

    The recent collection of years have been rapid fire from the universe. God has presented challenge after challenge. I went down so many paths. I’ve fallen and got back up gracefully, messily. I’ve tripped, skipped, ran and crawled away from and towards sequences of my existence.

    It has been a series of open heart surgeries. How many times am I meant to crack my chest open? The reward is resilience. Pain is the spark. And eventually I will start crying less. But I will never stop fighting back.

  • November 24, 2018

    How To Find A Meditation That Works For You

    When we think of meditation, we visualize a monk sitting, legs folded, eyes closed, silent, sitting still. We think that he is in complete peace, his thoughts have ceased, and he’s not bothered by the flies and mosquitoes. His legs aren’t asleep and his back isn’t aching. From the outside, we think meditation is bliss. But when we try meditation on our own, we feel nothing like this.

    Meditation is not all peace and enlightenment. It is learning to get comfortable being uncomfortable, being in pain, and training the mind through consciousness. It’s a practice. Some days you will succeed and some days you will have a difficult time. But as long as you are trying, you will receive the benefits.

    There are an infinite number of ways to meditate. So, don’t feel discouraged thinking that you are just limited to sitting in silence. You can . . .

    • Lay down on your back (But not recommended in the morning because you have been laying down all night while you were sleeping)
    • Concentrate on breathing in and out slowly
    • Count in your head
    • Concentrate on a color
    • Walk slowly and mindfully around the room/anywhere
    • Listen to music – any music! From Nirvana to Beethoven
    • Listen to nature – the ocean, a stream, the wind, birds
    • Dance (Look up Osho meditations)
    • Sew, Stitch, Macrame (Or any other repetitive motion)
    • Cook or bake
    • Draw a mandala
    • Color – there are adult coloring books
    • Sing a mantra (I recommend the Gayatri Mantra)
    • Create your own mantra and repeat in your head or out loud or even write it out – For example, “I am grateful” or “I am deserving of love”
    • Listen to a guided meditation on Youtube
    • Try Yoga Nidra
    • Try Qi Gong

    If you choose to sit or lay down in silence, feel free to use pillows or sit against a wall to make yourself comfortable. Meditation has no rules and you have to find what works for you. And, when you feel pain or discomfort, be mindful of it and see how long you can last without moving or giving up.

    Going to a meditation group can also be helpful because it forces you to stay with the practice. The group energy keeps everyone together and gives you the strength to keep going and maintain. Also, you can make new friends!

    The easiest time to meditate is after the body has been moving and exerting itself. This is why we go into Savasana at the end of a yoga class. Working the body allows more space for the mind to calm down. So, no matter your physical practice, try to take 5 minutes to sit still at the end. If you’re having trouble finding stillness, do 20 jumping jacks and try again.

    Meditation allows us the space to stop and just exist. To be one with ourselves and the universe. When we give ourselves this time and space, we can remove blockages, we can hear our intuition, we can feel the feelings we were repressing, and we can release tension and de-stress. It is easy for our mind to be a tangled web. Meditation teaches us that things don’t have to be so messy and cloudy. Actually, life is simple. We are blessed to be alive and to experience life. Not all experiences will be pleasurable and meditation can teach us how to accept the unpleasant and even appreciate it.

  • August 20, 2018

    How Your Mind Is Like A House

    Your mind is a place full of thoughts. Your consciousness controls the weight of each thought and has the power to change them. But can it control which thoughts are produced? There are many factors: your subconscious, patterns and behaviors you learned in childhood, your traumas, your experiences, the outside world, drugs, and alcohol. Life comes at you in good and bad ways and your mind processes it and stores it.

    If you were wronged, it is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to deal with it.

    If your mind is like a house then all your negative experiences are like clutter. It is easy to have the clutter and shove it in a corner. It is easy to ignore the clutter by leaving your house. When you are working, involved in an activity or hanging out with friends, you leave your house. You leave the inside of your mind and focus on your outside experience. When you drink, smoke, or do drugs, you escape your mind as well.

    The less time you spend inside your mind, the more the clutter builds. The more the clutter builds, the more you feel like you need to escape it. Mess is uncomfortable. It is not pleasant to be inside a dirty house with trash, dirt, and things thrown around. You don’t want to be there. When you see the mess, it is overwhelming. Where do I start? Just like when your real house or your room is messy, you rather ignore it than spend the time organizing and doing laundry.

    Read More