Meditation & Self‑Hypnosis: From Scattered Thoughts To Steady Focus

We explore realistic meditation, why emptying the mind is not the point, and how observation builds attention. We connect meditation to self‑hypnosis with practical tools like “thought bubbles,” phone-as-bell cues, loving kindness, and the release, reframe, reprogram framework.

• normalizing busy minds and frustration with meditation
• attention as a skill: observe, then return to center
• the monkey metaphor for scattered thoughts
• tiny wins and habit building for presence
• using notifications as a bell to become present
• brain states: beta, alpha, theta and practical anchors
• risks of algorithmic feeds in hypnotic states
• techniques: breath, bubbles, candles, mantra
• bridge to self‑hypnosis with intention
• three moves: release, reframe, reprogram
• community Q&A, feedback requests, and live session planning

Chapters

• 0:07 A Realistic View Of Meditation
• 0:56 Why Emptying The Mind Isn’t The Goal
• 3:12 Attention, Observation, And The Monkey Metaphor
• 7:50 Habit Building: Tiny Wins And Centering
• 12:15 The Bell Practice And Phone Triggers
• 16:41 Alpha, Theta, And Falling Asleep
• 20:03 Algorithms, Emotion, And Hypnotic Feeds
• 24:03 Practical Focus Aids: Breath, Bubbles, Candles
• 28:07 Meditation With Intention: Toward Self‑Hypnosis
• 33:05 Techniques: Release, Reframe, Reprogram
• 38:02 Mantras, Loving Kindness, And Blue Light

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

We are on the line. Happy Monday.

SPEAKER_02: 0:10

Yeah. So to you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Our weekend was spent in contemplation and meditation. Just relaxing.

SPEAKER_02: 0:22

Yeah. Even when it didn't feel like relaxing. Sometimes meditation doesn't feel very relaxing.

SPEAKER_01: 0:28

Yeah, I get that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 0:31

Sometimes being in contemplation is really engaging, but it's good. It doesn't have to be uh all blissy.

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

And I don't think it has to be all, you know, clouds, clouds moving through your mind and letting thoughts go. You know, I I get a lot of uh clients that oh Les is getting his coffee. I get a lot of clients that get really frustrated. They tell me about their frustration with meditation because they can't empty their mind. And I try to tell them as very normal. And if if we think about people on earth that dedicate their life to being in meditation or prayer, I mean they've been practicing their whole lives and I'm I'm sure they're not perfect. So just give yourself that time. It's so easy to have thoughts impose on our our mind as we're trying to empty it, right? We have we have a busy mind, whether that's visual or or words or thoughts or all the different ways that it can be busy. So it's very normal not to be able to clear the mind. I I personally don't do a lot of meditation where I just clear my mind as much as possible. My meditations are very guided in my mind or or with an intention to find something out or go on a journey or something.

SPEAKER_02: 2:06

I think it's you know, uh any kind of meditation or self-hypnosis practice is gonna reveal your mind to you. And I think that's a really good approach to be aware that the mind is multi-leveled, it's multidimensional, that you can have uh multiple streams of activity going on inside your mind, that there's parts of your mind that can just manage things while you are thinking. And it's amazing how sometimes while we're thinking, we're talking at the same time about two different things. The mind is is deep in terms of its capacities, and it's it's very, very flexible. In many respects, it's too flexible, right? That makes it able to bounce it around and hold multiple things at the same time. We use, you know, see yourself as just uh a being with a mind, and you use your mind when you focus, right? Attention is that really that aspect of the mind that we use. And so to see how your mind can bop around with ideas, thoughts, memories, feelings, images, all that stuff just happening. And you can choose or not choose to put your attention on anything. But when you put that attention on something, you can then bring sort of the force of your mind, the power of your mind forward. And that's not always the right response to the chaos of the mind. Sometimes observing it is a wonderful learning process, you know, simply allowing it to bop around and just be aware of where it's bopping to, and be aware of how each of those various locations, for lack of a better word, ideas brings with it a different reaction from inside you, yeah, emotional.

SPEAKER_00: 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:15

So there's sometimes there's value in letting the the monkeys jump around and observe them and see what interests the monkeys and see what the monkeys are focused on and see what the monkeys really want in terms of your attention.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

Yeah, I think recognition of what you're focusing on is is the first step because most people going through life and and uh you know, we're now gurus over here, but most of us don't know what our attention is being focused on. We don't even know what's been going on in our mind for the last 20 minutes. And so having that sort of gentle attention uh on what your mind is focusing on is the first step towards changing mind, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 5:07

Well, it yeah, I agree. It's it's it's what it's an awareness that you then, for better or worse, kind of judge. I like this, I don't like this, I want this, I don't want this, I wish this would stop, I wish I could stop thinking about that. You know, the subconscious mind has an incredible ability to shove things into your attention. Um, its purpose is to keep you safe. And that's why things find themselves in repetitive nature, thoughts find themselves repetitive because the subconscious mind is trying to draw your attention to that which concerns it. And so, yeah, just sitting with that for a little while and not trying to clear it out, in many respects, you can really calm the subconscious mind by simply acknowledging what it's brought to you, to your mind, what's brought to your attention, and just say, I see, thank you. And have that as a meditation practice to start with. I mean, practice is the magic word, isn't it? This is using that analogy of monkeys, this is trying to train monkeys to sit quietly. So the first thing you want to do is see what distracts the monkeys. Learn about the monkeys. You can stand there and order the monkeys around, you're not going to be very successful, but you can understand what's going on for the monkeys and then you can start to address it. So I really think, you know, although, you know, meditation is taught in particular ways, and I think, you know, some of the best teachers, when I tried to learn about and then learn how to meditate, um, I was reading books by Jack Cornfield. I was reading books by Pema Chodrin. Pema Children has a great book just on meditation. This is somebody who spent most of the last 50 years practicing meditation as a teacher, as a master, as a leader. And when she talks about meditation, it's kind of funny because she goes through all the same things that everybody goes through every day. She has the same struggle of calming her mind. But it's it's I think it's about it's less about trying to control it and more about allowing it to the point where it quiets.

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

Yeah. I'm sorry, my mind went off in another direction there. There you go.

SPEAKER_02: 7:40

Go, monkey go.

SPEAKER_01: 7:41

Trying to be present. And now I'm thinking about it. Yeah. So I I just want to jump in here uh for people that are new. Sometimes I forget to say, if you have any questions along the way, just drop it in the chat, okay? And we'll we'll get to them either during the podcast or at the end. Yeah, I think I think meditation, I don't know if it was you that said this or somebody else along the way. Uh it was you, actually. It's more the pra it's more the practice of bringing yourself back to center. And with that practice, it just well, hopefully, it becomes a normal thing that your mind does. So what I mean by that is sort of okay, let's sit and create space and and and be present in the mind. And then, oh, there goes a little thought, and then sort of grasping that, acknowledging that, and then bringing yourself back to center again. Oh, there's a thought, bring yourself back to center. Oh, there's a thought, bring yourself back to center. And this repetition creates the habit of recognition that thoughts are spirally and they go off in different directions. And so that way when you're when you're maybe busy, you're out grocery shopping, or you're you're you're going throughout your day, you're not just sitting there trying to meditate. The mind naturally goes, Oh, there's a there's a thought that that maybe we shouldn't follow and and and comes back to center as much as possible. So I think it really is just a habit building of being present as much as you can.

SPEAKER_02: 9:23

Yeah, uh I wanna I want to say that there are there are lots of suggestions on how and what matters is to to to claim it as your own. In other words, there's no right or wrong. There are teachers who suggest this is more helpful than that, and that's okay. We can listen to them. But I think if if meditation is something you're beginning, or meditation is reaching a point where it's not as effective, it's not as useful, I think that there's value in spending some of your practice time just observing, just seeing how your mind and your body are interacting, how your body can get activated by what's going on in your mind, how uncomfortable you can become. I mean, I remember those days where it's funny how I think I think there's resistance in the mind. There's resistance in the mind because sometimes the mind thinks that you need to be doing, not sitting. Sometimes the mind thinks that the problem is pressing and you should be acting on it. Sometimes the mind doesn't want to spend time thinking about stuff that makes it uncomfortable or unhappy. And so the mind being deep and being integrated into this body complex, sometimes, and I went through this for a while, where I'd always have a pain in this particular part of my back from sitting. And I tried all kinds of postures, and then I finally came to the conclusion, had nothing to do with how I was sitting or where I was sitting or what I was sitting on, and had everything to do with my mind's resistance to me spending time in meditation. So I think, you know, you've got to develop your own practice, and all that really means, I think, is start with dedicating time. That's the hard part, I think. Carving out a piece of time.

SPEAKER_03: 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:24

The mind doesn't like idleness, I think, most of the time. And so it's saying, I'm gonna spend 15 minutes today and just breathe, you're gonna get all kinds of deep subconscious reactions to that. In some cases, it'll be positive. Yeah, we need to do this. And in some cases, it'll be like, what are you talking about? How do you have the time? There's an old joke by meditation teacher where he says, you should take 10 minutes a day to meditate unless you don't have time, and then you should take 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01: 11:57

And I think that's uh to jump in here, you don't need to try to meditate for an hour a day, right? That's not it's not necessary. Even just five minutes of of being present, or you know, as long as as long as you can, you're building that that uh momentum, you're building that habit. When I work with uh weight loss clients, I'll say, you know, I want you to I want you to exercise every day for one minute a day. And then they laugh and we have a chuckle about that. But it's about building right that little tiny wins and and uh feeling confident that you can do it if you've never meditated before. I wouldn't recommend trying to meditate for an hour, you know. But if you meditate for a minute, you may find that it ends up being five minutes, and there you go, right? There's a little win for yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 13:02

There's a neat story I read, and I wish I could source that, but I can't. And there was a story about a monastery. So if you know, if you know anything about Buddhist monasteries, you know, mindfulness is the primary practice. And within mindfulness, there is the daily work. You know, cut wood, carry water, do the work of the monastery. And what they had in this monastery was a bell in its sort of central courtyard. And anyone could at any time strike the bell. And the purpose was everyone, when they heard the bell, was to bring themselves into the present. Notice how their mind was off the future or off in the past, or off in an argument, or off in uh a conflict of some kind, and just notice it and bring it back to the present. And it wasn't like every hour on the hour. It was random. And what I've done with a couple of clients, I've tried to program them that every time their phone goes off, they become present, right? It's an amazing thing. Of all forces in the world, you know, our phone is just the most powerful. It just has this hold on us, right? And and it's constantly grabbing our attention and leading us off in directions that yeah, that that we find ourselves in a state of confusion because our phone will send us in five directions at once. And then our curiosity and reaction to the phone is going to take us off in directions too. And that's that's the idea of the practice. So, you know, instead of setting aside a 20-minute period where you're gonna have to turn your phone off or you're not gonna get much meditating in, use your phone before you pick up and check whatever notification came through as a moment just to be present and center yourself. And we'll talk about how you might do that in a minute, but you know, center yourself and just use that prompt as a chance to take a deep breath, know that you are alive, feel the life within you, and know that checking your phone is a choice. I'm now choosing to check what's on my phone. And then the phone is not governing you. You're governing the phone. The phone is prompting you to make yourself present, and then you make a choice: am I gonna look at that or not? It's pretty hard not to look at it, but simply doing it as a choice is so much better than doing it as a habit. Yeah, it's it's really an invigorating practice in a lot of ways. Yeah. So I think that the goal in so many respects is just to simply develop a certain amount of control over your mind. So if you spend that first stage of your practice just observing your mind, uh, one of the techniques that was taught to me was imagine that all of your thoughts as they come out of your mind and come into your awareness can be wrapped in a bubble, little tiny soap bubble. And all you need to do is acknowledge the bubble and pop the bubble and go back to your breath. It's a really simple thing. It's not about engaging the thought, the thoughts are going to come, it's about allowing the thought to be and then popping it and getting back to your breath, your breath being your primary focus where you're putting your point of attention as a practice of keeping your attention on something. And it's all practice. And after a little bit of that, you might actually find that the bubbles slow down, there's not so many. You actually have, you know, a whole breath cycle that doesn't get polluted and infiltrated with a thought. Might actually breathe in completely and breathe out completely, and you go, wow, look at that. Right? Now it's a thought, right? Wow, look at that. And thoughts come in so many forms, but that's the point at which you can now shift into something more intentional. And this is where I think, you know, meditation can become self-hypnosis.

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

Yeah. And and I just before we go down that road, you did a I know I've done a little meditation. I think it's in the meditation hub classroom with the bubble thing, but you did a a pretty lengthy meditation in the reframe classroom that involves bubbles.

SPEAKER_03: 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

Yeah. I think it was you are not your mind or or something. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 17:48

One of those I'm not my thoughts.

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

Yeah. Yeah. So check out if you're listening or in the chat, check out the classroom in the school when you can, because there's there's some great reframes there in the reframes classroom and some pretty, pretty in-depth, amazing meditations that Lis made. So yeah, back on track.

SPEAKER_02: 18:09

Yeah, just to to throw that in. You know, the goal is to really fill the school with materials that you can use to yeah, you could you can use to retrain your mind in ways that your mind becomes a tool uh that you use to get through the world, yeah, instead of a tool that gets us feeling chaotic from the world. And that's what we want more of. And so what works, if you find something and you say that worked, then please let us know. And we can try to do more of that. And if you find something that wasn't all that helpful, would like to hear about that too. And if there's something you want more of, we'd like to hear that too. I put out a question in the school, just they'll take this moment, asking, you know, for us to do lives, we want to do lives, we want to sit and have a conversation with you and talk about these kinds of things live. And just not sure what time of day works for people. I mean, I can't expect that there's one time for everybody. You know, the the morning podcast works for some, but we'd really like to know what time works for you. And we'll just start building a schedule that there's at least one time in the week that works for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

Yeah. I think right now we're we're sort of going broad, right? We're we've got live anxiety meditations, uh, weight loss, spiritual stuff, confidence meditations. But as we get feedback from people, we're gonna make it really honed, you know, we're gonna make it really specific for people. More responsive. Yeah, more responsive. So we're not just doing like, oh, just listen to this anxiety meditation, you know, which is lovely and I think it's supportive, but I I wanna make it more pinpointed, you know? So yeah, we were about to talk about self hypnosis, I think that's. Any questions? Nope, not right at all. No, no, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 20:03

Well, you know, I used to have this discussion with my teacher. She would get really frustrated with me because she wasn't so much into meditation as she was into hypnosis. And she was more of the mind like, why would you do meditation when you can do self-hypnosis? And we talked about it. And since before I learned self-hypnosis, I was always already struggling with how do I meditate. And maybe I should take that little side note. My personal experience with meditation, and the reason I make the suggestion that I've just made, is that I find it really hard. I find it really hard to quiet my mind. I find I've got to be really patient. And I also find that when I do, it is heavenly. I love it. And so what'll happen to me sometimes is I'll meditate for 10 or 20 minutes and I'll just take a deep breath and say, okay, good try, and just get up and move and off I go. And sometimes I'll meditate for 10 or 15 minutes, and all of a sudden the switch gets thrown. And then I just stay in the chair, and an hour goes by. And it's just so darn beautiful to be in a state of calm. Anyway, and get back to my discussion with Peggy, it was really about how I felt like my meditation was very similar to self-hypnosis. My meditation, my attempt to stay focused and get into my mind, which is really now as a hypnotist, I say, is getting into the theta state, getting that brain frequency, uh rhythmic, slower pace that is internally focused and able to withstand stimulus, noises, sensations, ideas. And I felt like it was the same thing. Like I had to get in a theta state to do self-hypnosis, but I my best meditation was always done it. I was quite aware this is a theta state. I'm in a theta state. And so I would say to her, you know, it's the same mindset, it's the same approach. And I used to call hypnosis meditation with intention.

SPEAKER_00: 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 22:23

That I'm doing a meditation, and instead of trying to clear my mind, I'm trying to retrain my mind. I'm trying to focus my mind on an idea and reframe an existing idea, you know, uh changing the way I thought about something.

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 22:42

That's the magic of hypnosis. Releasing things. I mean, uh, we say it, there's really only three things you do in hypnosis. It's variations of that. You release somehow, release something, you reframe something, think about it differently, see it differently, see how it serves you, see how it's not a problem, and reprogram, you know, get yourself set up so that you are doing what you want to do and not doing what you don't want to do, and you know, sliding that awareness into an intention, into a behavior.

SPEAKER_01: 23:18

I've got a quick question for you. And let's if you want to table it for another day or another time, let's do that. How can someone feel confident to do those three things by themselves?

SPEAKER_02: 23:32

Yeah, maybe we just need to do a lot more on self-hypnosis. We're certainly overdue to revisit that topic.

SPEAKER_01: 23:38

Because you know, if you have a hypnotist by your side, it's you're you're guided, you're you're turning on dimes, right? In a way, you're it's custom. If something comes up, we we go that way, we go this way, you know, and we get to that objective. But yeah, by yourself, it's a little uh it might be a little overwhelming if you're not, you know, trained in it, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 24:02

Yeah, so from my own experience, I did hypnosis 20 years ago. I had went through my series of sessions with Peggy. Then I went back to Peggy and she taught me self-hypnosis. She teaches a certain form of self-hypnosis in a classroom setting. And I learned that practice of self-hypnosis and I engaged it. And I got to a place with that practice where I could do those kinds of things for myself. I became aware of things coming up that were, you know, needed to be released. I became aware of my programs and where they came from, my limiting beliefs, things like that. And part of the self-hypnosis practice that I learned with Peggy is about reprogramming yourself. And so, you know, I think it's really, yeah, it's really important to realize that like the practice of meditation, the practice of self-hypnosis can guide you into skills, skills with your mind. And yeah, we should talk more about that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:08

Yeah. And just to sort of answer a question that we've got here, depending on the meditation, it would be more aimed at getting people into alpha state. So we, I mean, whether it's meditation or hypnosis. I suppose meditation, I mean, you want to be in the theta state, but we you naturally dip up and down between alpha and theta and beta, right? Like it's it's gonna happen, right? In hypnosis, we want you to be hopefully in the theta state. Meditation, I think people generally stay maybe in the alpha state, sometimes dipping down into the theta state, hopefully not going into delta. But I mean, it's lovely if they do to as well.

SPEAKER_02: 25:54

I think, you know, what I would say is um anytime you can dip into alpha, right, from beta, anytime you can go from being totally externally focused and just rapid fire in your mind to a calmer state, more internal focus. And that can happen just with a deep breath. That can happen with closing your eyes and basically shutting off your senses for a couple of moments.

SPEAKER_03: 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:21

Anytime you can go into alpha is a nice reset. And I think that I see it as a long water slide, right? Alpha is that gentle slope that gets you moving slowly. And it's it's you're able to turn around and come back out of it pretty easily. A theta state is much more internally, it's a deeper incline. And it's it, it once you start into that deeper state, it takes you deeper fast. Most of us practice that every time we go to sleep. We practice going from a beta state into an alpha state, and then we go into theta and go rapidly right down to delta. And I think that as a hypnotist, that's part of my challenge, especially working with middle-aged men who never relax. And so when they relax, they fall into sleep quickly. And it's so wonderful for them because you know they'll tell you I don't sleep well, and I don't sleep often, and I don't, and then they get in my chair and we get some breathing rhythm going on, and we start to focus internally, and then swoosh, they go right down the waters glide into Delta, and then I've got to bring them back. Anyway, yeah, I think Alpha State is a useful state, it's a wonderful state. If you could get really good at will, yes, going from a very active, externally focused mind to a calmer, internally focused mind. And I think that's really the bell, right? The bell in the in the Buddhist temple in the courtyard. It's just a reminder, boom, it's time to take a breath. It's time to be back as me in this process.

SPEAKER_01: 28:12

I just want to uh add something uh thoughtful here. We go into alpha and even theta sometimes, many times a day. When we're scrolling, when we're watching TV, you know, when we're reading, when we're knitting, when we're in art, when we're all these things, Tai Chi, as some some of us know. Be careful what you're consuming when you're in those states, right? Because it goes right in, right in and can affect the subconscious, and ultimately, as you can imagine, the unconscious, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:50

Yeah, that is the danger of the cell phone. It is hypnotic.

SPEAKER_00: 28:54

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02: 28:55

And it it really, you know, I heard somebody say it the other day, and I I think it's uh correct. Most of the time, your your your your AI, your your algorithm, your phone is trying to make you do one of two things either get angry or laugh. Those are the things that get promoted. Your phone wants you angry. Angry people buy things. Your phone wants you afraid because fearful people buy things. And it's so important to understand that that algorithm is not meant to entertain you, it's meant to hold your attention long enough that you watch ads. And if anybody is a dedicated scroller, you you you notice that the longer you're on the phone, the more ads pop up.

SPEAKER_00: 29:50

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02: 29:51

You start to get more and more ads, and pretty soon you get ads strung together, right? And that's that's the goal there. That's the goal. They're taking advantage of you in an alpha theta state, evoking emotions and getting your attention to buy things.

SPEAKER_03: 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:09

So as much as it is comforting, and that's another whole topic to talk about, the whole idea of comforting. I mean, it is incredibly comforting. We know that by picking up my phone and scrolling cat videos, right, I feel better. I am, I might be bored and I'm looking for something, or I might be just overwhelmed and I'm looking to break away from it. I might say, I'm just taking some time for myself. Right? That's the bell. The bell, take time for yourself. But you don't have to use it. It's very comforting because it takes your mind off your life, it takes your mind off your worries, it takes your mind off the things that are pressing for you. And that can be comforting, no different than eating a bag of chips, donut, no different than gambling or having a drink, or you know, using your favorite intoxicant. These are all things that comfort us, they calm our mind and give us the space away from that which causes us anxiety.

SPEAKER_00: 31:21

The unfortunate part is most of it is unhealthy.

SPEAKER_02: 31:26

Yeah. Yeah. The trick is to find healthy means of comforting. So that's what meditation is. That's what self-hypnosis can be: a healthy alternative to the kinds of things we use to comfort ourselves, calm ourselves, make ourselves feel better. So I think if you ever say, Well, I don't think I could meditate, sure you can. If you can scroll on your phone, you can meditate. You just need something to hold your attention, right? Because everybody finds it hard to tolerate the scattered nature of thoughts and minds and the way the mind wants to keep you active and taking care of yourself and protecting yourself from the world.

SPEAKER_01: 32:06

Some form of meditations are eyes open, looking at a a spot, a flame. Uh again, you know, it's something to acquire your attention. And in that attention, in attention, you can sort of feel more centered and maybe expanded. You know, that sort of doesn't make sense to be expanded and centered at the same time, but in a sense, your your your mind is expanded, but you're feeling centered in the body.

unknown: 32:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:39

Yeah. We have these lovely electric candles in front of us right now. And you know, a candle flame is a great alternative, but if you if you're meditating and you fall asleep, that might not be the safest thing. And so using an electric candle is really good because the worst thing that happens is the battery drains. Yeah. And uh you just put a new battery in. But using things to bring your focus, there's nothing wrong with that. That's why we use the breath in meditation. That's why we use a point on the body often in meditation. So, you know, maybe we've got to come back to this. Maybe this is a bigger topic than we thought. You know, come back to the idea of self-hypnosis. Yeah, I think it's maybe tomorrow. But we'll just introduce it with the idea that you're calming your mind, you're slowing it. And for me, the magic is in realizing that moving from the beta state to the alpha state is going from an external focus to an internal focus. It's it's it's slowing the mind down. And, you know, your senses, your perception is some of the biggest distractions from entering any kind of meditated state. And that's why we lower the lights, we either have silence or we create some kind of really gentle music. Again, another topic we should talk about music for meditation. Use some kind of gentle music, and the the simple answer to that is music without a beat and music without words. And so it's tones. And so it doesn't grab you. You know, we all hear that beat and we get grabbed. So when there's no beat, there's nothing for us to attach onto. The tones are simply the replacement for what we might hear and react to. So, you know, you dark, you get comfortable, you put your body in a comfortable position. And that's why I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is they think they have to sit in on a particular cushion in a particular position to be able to meditate. And you don't, but you could practice that and you could get good at that. And I think there's truth in that posture, providing a real value, an added value to the beginnings of your meditation practice. But it's certainly not needed to get started. You know, I've I've had a chair for about 20 years.

SPEAKER_03: 35:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:10

And I call my meditation chair because it holds me in a perfect posture. But anyway, you know, don't get caught up in the trappings of meditation. Be aware that it's hard to control the human mind.

SPEAKER_01: 35:24

And that's why in practice it Yeah, even Pematodrin has it shoes.

SPEAKER_02: 35:29

Exactly. The most experienced meditators. So quickly, what are some of your favorite forms of meditation? What are some of the the things you do?

SPEAKER_01: 35:38

Yeah, that's a question for the chat. Loving kindness meditation. And I'm gonna get I'm gonna get back to yes, tomorrow we'll chat about bineural beats. We're just gonna write that down. I like to personally I like to meditate and go on a journey. Like I'll I'll pick a guide for that day, and I'll usually just imagine going and sitting on a bench near a lake, and my guide is next to me, and they're just telling me things. Giving me information, or you know, I'll have a question.

SPEAKER_02: 36:17

So, would you call that meditation or self-hypnosis?

SPEAKER_01: 36:20

Yeah, that's a good question. Hmm. I guess in the end it's well, no, I don't I I don't know. I think it's a mixture of the two because I'm not I'm not receiving information and then, you know, reprogramming. I mean, maybe at some level I am, but I'm just there to receive, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02: 36:39

So you go into meditation with the intention of receiving?

SPEAKER_01: 36:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:44

Yeah. I didn't know that. Well, maybe I did.

SPEAKER_01: 36:51

Another one in the chat using a mantra and repeating it with intention. Yes, that's a big one.

SPEAKER_02: 36:57

And that's really a self-hypnosis practice.

SPEAKER_01: 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:01

Depending on the meaning of the mantra and the changeability of the mantra.

SPEAKER_01: 37:05

Yeah. There's another one in the chat a while ago. I did a course called Theta Healing. That sounds lovely. And I still use their basic meditation to send unconditional love. You might be touching on self-hypnosis from the theta state. Absolutely. Yeah, I I think I think that sending of unconditional love, that loving kindness, deep meditation. I think when you're and that can be visual too, right? Like for instance, some people might send unconditional love from their body, but for instance, I like to go into outer space and look back at the planet and send, like, you know, waves of color, love, and and all that.

SPEAKER_02: 37:46

Well, what they describe there is my go-to practice.

SPEAKER_01: 37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:50

So my go-to practice is very similar to that idea of well, it's really simple. I sit down, I take a few breaths, and then I decide when I breathe in. I'm now forming the intention and desire to breathe in blue light love. And I take it in from source, whatever you whatever you want, think of that. Doesn't really matter. It doesn't really I think of it differently every day, really. I take it in from source, I take in that blue loving light, and then on my exhale, I share it with the world. And sometimes that's very specific to things around me. You know, when the dog is sitting right beside me, she gets a lot of it. And when I'm sort of sitting on my own, I try to send it out far and wide and imagine myself being simply a conduit, receiving and sharing the blue light of love, the blue light of source. And I can spend a lot of time there. I can often, it's a it's become a practice, so I've gotten effective with it so that it doesn't take me 20 minutes to calm down. Sometimes it takes a good five, but I get into that place, that rhythm, and that's when I'm pretty sure I'm locked into a nice state of state. And I use meditation to bring me into self-hypnosis. I sort of go from that clearing of my mind to the stating of intentions, which you could consider a mantra of sorts. I use as a beginning the seventh path self-hypnosis that I'm actually going to offer a course on coming up soon on the school. In fact, I just need to pick some dates. I was going to send out an email to some people and pick some dates. But anyway, I'll use seventh path and I'll also use some stuff that I've learned from Paul Selig's work. He's a channel, and he channels uh uh teachers that go by the name Melchizedek, and they are. Offer some lovely, I'll use the word mantras, the statements that are very, very full of meaning and they have lots of meaning for me. And so I'll use those kinds of things to bring myself into a state of connection. And then from there, I might discover things going on in my subconscious mind that I will try to release. And when I release, I use that light and let that light come in and replace the vibration, the light of the problem, whatever's bothering me. I will reprogram, I will use a simple statement that allows me to program myself to do things that I just don't seem to be able to do. And I have used that methodology to regress and discover where things are coming from and do my best to release that and resolve that. I have a long repertoire of reframes that I've learned and been taught over the years of hypnosis. So I have a whole catalog I can quickly turn to that's already in my mind when I'm into my self-hypnosis. So that's a bit of a description of what I do, not as a recommendation, just a description. And if there's anything there that's useful to you, you might want to pursue that.

SPEAKER_01: 41:27

Well, I think this is such an expansive topic. We can dive more into self-hypnosis tomorrow and some binaural beats.

SPEAKER_02: 41:37

I just want to say I love having somebody here put asking questions and taking these topics deeper and in the directions you really want to hear. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01: 41:46

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, we started this podcast two years ago. The third year now. Yeah. And so if you go on to Apple or Spotify or your favorite streaming service, you can find us under Coffee with Hillary and Les at State of Mind Hypnosis. And there's like, I think we're at 170 podcasts now. But most of them don't have people that have joined us. So this is relatively new and we're just growing it. So thank you for being part of that growth. Yeah. We gotta get going. We've got a busy day here. If you see something on the schedule you want to join later, please feel free to join. And yeah, I hope everyone has a beautiful Monday. Thank you. Yes. Les is going to work out. I'm actually going to a coffee shop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll see you later, guys. All right. See ya.