I have been doing the 21-Day Meditation Experience with Oprah and Deepak Chopra. I know, right? Two of the best to learn meditation from. It’s an app that encourages a daily practice of meditation to create a lifelong habit. Oprah opens each practice with insight on why this meditation will be important for your life. Day 7, entitled “Obstacles to Grace Melt Away,” she opens with this:
“When you feel struggle, pause, try to take a step back, give yourself a moment’s time to find your center. That struggle is a gift, a whisper, it is your graceful, true self, tapping you on the shoulder a little bit trying to remind you, ever so gently, to look again. Because you always get to choose, do you react to an obstacle as a negative or do you embrace it as an opportunity to respond with the open-hearted knowledge that all will be well?”
Deepak, I feel like it’s okay to call him by his first name just like we do Oprah, right? Then walks you through the meditation practice. On this particular day he explains:
“Once we start the practice of gratitude, our perspective opens up. We start to see how the universe generously supports us in countless ways. From this shift in perception optimism naturally emerges, because the ups and downs of daily existence, hale beside the infinite generosity of nature just as a candle fades in the noon day sun.”
I love that visual – our problems can be the candle, but if your sunlight, aka your gratitude for life, is shining so brightly, you won’t even be able to see the candle. But when your world is dim, sometimes all you can see is that flame. It’s funny how making a change in something as small as perspective can define how we view our entire life.
Finally, Oprah closes the episode by sharing: “There is a gift in every moment, good or bad. Allow the wisdom of difficulty to speak to you and lead you to where your life truly wants to go.”
When she puts it that way, to me those obstacles become freeing. When you allow those things to happen, it is just life/ the universe/ God correcting you where it wants you to go.
This reminds me of a quote I saw recently from musical composer Truman Fisher, he said, “The pause is as important as the note.”
I am so guilty of wanting to get to that next note, sometimes before I’ve even finished playing the current note. The notes are where I shine, the notes are what I am proud of, and the notes give me joy. But why can’t those pauses fill us in the same way? It is opposite of what our society preaches, being busy is glorified and rest is lazy. But think of how much goodness we miss, by not enjoying the pause, because we mistook it to be an obstacle.
I’m so excited for you to hear the experts I’ve interviewed for Season Four.
My interest in meditation grew after my conversation with Dr. Amanda O’Bryan and she shares mind-blowing meditation techniques with us. Stephanie Feger also preaches the importance of perspective as she encourages you to “color today pretty.”
Maybe you will find inspiration from the dynamic female duos in Kelsey & Lauren, harvesting seeds in women entrepreneurs or Katie & Kari teaching us all how to turn our homes into sanctuaries.
I went straight to the horse's mouth for my interview with Tyler Lloyd from LOU CBD. I wanted to find out all about the latest CBD craze. I also talked to Josh Johnson, aka The Kentucky Gent, about how he gets to travel the world, eat all the food, and call it work.
And I know you will love the stories of blood, sweat, and tears that will light you on fire for your dreams when you hear the bravery from Brianna Rooney, Jenna Ahern and Maizie Clarke. These ladies are doing big things, and I’m blown away and how they juggle all the hats they wear.
Whichever episode becomes your favorite, I hope we can all find a place in life that allow us to celebrate the notes AND the rests. That we can remember to take time to meditate, breath and
