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How Do We Achieve Meditative States? · Inspiration and Transformation

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Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati,
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an American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
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Sadvi is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education,
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vocational training, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadvi is also
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Secretary General of the Global Interfaith Wash Alliance and director of the world famous International
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Yoga Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom
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and teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiswami Chitinant Saraswatiji, Welcome everyone to
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inspiration and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land
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of Rishikesh, India. There's a lot of reasons that people don't actually listen
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to what we're saying, from the very deep to the more shallow. On
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a deep level, it's really kind of obvious people don't want to hear what
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we are saying. It's very rare that people don't listen when we say I
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love you. It's very rare that you have to say, listen to me.
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For God's sakes, I love you. Listen to me. For God's
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sakes, You're the best thing in the world. Why don't you listen to
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me? It's usually why don't you listen to me? Tell you about either
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what I need from you, which presumably I'm not getting, which is why
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I need you to listen, or what you're doing that isn't what I want
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you to be doing, and if you just would listen, then you would
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change. And the truth is that it gets really tiring for people to constantly
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feel like they are not doing things right. It's one thing when it's every
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once in a while, but if you're in a situation where you feel like
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someone is not listening and what they're not listening to is one of those two
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categories, then chances are you've been trying to say it a lot for a
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long time, which is why you're so frustrated that they don't listen, to
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the point where you'd send in a question about it, meaning I have been
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trying to criticize this person and get them to change for so long, but
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they won't listen. Well, it's a rare it's a rare person. They
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do exist, and ultimately, it's actually a space that we all should work
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to get to in which when someone is criticizing us, we actually are able
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to really hear them. We may not always believe it. It doesn't mean
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that we're necessarily going to internalize everyone's projections on us, but at least we're
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able to hear it deeply and assess it without any sense of defense mechanism or
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any sense of denial reaction, neither defensive nor offensive. But that's very rare,
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because for most of us, when someone's criticizing, it feels like they're
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on the offensive, and so we come on the defensive and we don't listen
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because we don't want to hear it. It's a lot easier to ignore it,
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push it away, roll your eyes, look at the clock, do
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all sorts of things that make the person know I'm not listening because to really
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hear that, Let's assume, let's just assume for a minute that whatever you're
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telling them is correct, that it's not your projection. Just for a brief
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moment's assume that you actually are saying something that is objectively true and that really
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is in their best interest to change, because they would be actually much better
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if they listened. Well, that's touch people in a very difficult space because
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what it means is who you are right now, the way you are right
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now is not right. Nobody wants to hear that. We're hard enough on
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ourselves. Most of us spend most of the time brading ourselves in our own
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mind, telling us that what we did was wrong or stupid or embarrassing.
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The last thing we need is to hear it from another person also, so
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we don't listen. Now, there's another reason that people don't listen, which
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is just the superficial level of what's happening today with people just being distracted.
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I mean, even if it's not you're telling them something that's wrong with them
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or something you need, but just trying to have a deep conversation about anything.
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In general, people have stopped listening. If you can't get it out
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in thirty seconds with captions, people can't hear you. They're scrolling their phones
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while you talk. I mean, how many times do you have a conversation
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with someone who's literally it's kind of blows my mind actually, because it wasn't
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very long ago. I mean I'm fifty one, so to some people that's
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really old. To me, it doesn't feel very old at all. There
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was a time not that long ago in my life before smartphones existed, But
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where if I had something in my hand that I was looking at and playing
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with, whatever it might have been, even if all I was doing was
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fidgeting with it while someone was talking to me, that some adult would say
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to me, put that down, young lady. That is rude. Look
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at someone when they talk to you. You would never have dreamed. I
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mean, could you imagine, for days prior to smartphones, could you imagine
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someone's talking to you when you pull out a book? I mean literally,
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you just open up a book right in front of somebody's face, put on
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your glasses and start reading, right. And could anybody imagine ever doing that?
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Somebody's talking to open the newspaper? Right? And yet somehow with the
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phone, we've got this collective agreement that that's okay to do. But it's
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the same thing. So one reason people don't listen may very simply be they're
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addicted to distraction, and the solution for that is not to get frustrated or
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angry, because they're not purposely doing it. They're as much a victim of
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it as you feel victimized by them not listening. And the way around that
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is simply to say to them, when would be a good time to have
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a conversation with you? Okay, clearly, I see you're busy right now,
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no problem, it's not a rush. When would be the time to
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come back and talk to you? Because what that does is it points out
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that you recognize that they're doing something else, that that's not conducive to a
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conversation, but that you're not going to be the one to say when is
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the right time to have it. Maybe they're doing something important, maybe their
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stocks are all crashing right as you're trying to talk to them, mounos.
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But get from them a time that's their right time to have a conversation.
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It'll make them understand that what you want is something different than what they're currently
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doing. And I can't imagine anyone saying there is no good time. Maybe
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they'll say in an hour and half an hour, how about tonight, how
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about tomorrow morning, and then have your conversation. But I think that we
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all have to essentially come to terms with the fact that we now have these
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sources of distraction, and we can't wish them away, but we have to,
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none the less, not concede to live our lives in a way where
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we never have deep conversations, where we never look in each other's eyes.
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And depending on your relationship with that person, just navigate what's the right way.
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If it's someone you're in a family with a spouse of child, set
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some parameters. No phones at the table, no phones between this time and
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this time. It's family time, whatever it may be. But just set
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some parameters to ensure that people actually can listen if they want to. But
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the last part, since as I said, I always for me such song
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is about us, not others, The last part to me that's the most
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important is when you feel like someone is not listening and you're so upset about
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it that it drives you to send in a question for online set song about
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it. You're suffering and that's not fun. And the question you need to
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ask yourself is why have I put the end of my suffering in someone else's
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hands. I've determined in my mind that I am suffering and what I need
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in order to end suffering. But I've determined it in such a way that
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the end of my suffering lies in someone else's control. And that is about
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the most precarious thing you can do, because no one is under our control.
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And if that which is most precious in my life, my joy,
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my peace, my freedom, my end of suffering is in the hands of
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someone else or anything else that I have no control over, the weather,
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earthquakes, whatever you put your life, whatever hands you put that in,
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or whatever alter you offer that up to it ideally should be something in your
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hands. Otherwise we stay we stay slaves, We stay prisoners to someone else's
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moods, to their actions. I mean, what if someone says I can
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hear you, and I don't want to listen. I mean, imagine they
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put down the phone, they're staring in your eyes. You say your piece,
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and they say, I hear you, I'm not listening. Well,
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there you are, super stock because you've got nowhere to go. Then you've
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decided that what you want is them to listen. They have told you they
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have no interest in listening, which is pretty much the exact same thing when
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someone ignores you for the fifteenth time when you're trying to tell them the same
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thing. They seriously are energetic be holding up a sign that says I'm not
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listening. It's like kids who go they're there in front of you. If
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they just would take their fingers out of their ears and stop going with they
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could hear you. But kids do that when they don't want to listen.
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And when as adults, someone rolls their eyes, looks at something else,
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looks away, interrupts, does all of the things that people do that make
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us feel not hurt. It's essentially them going, I know you're talking,
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I'm not listening. And the question for us then becomes, Okay, why
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am I now going to offer them my peace, my joy, my freedom?
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Why am I committed to suffering based on their inability or unwillingness to listen
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to how I think they could really improve their lives or how they could do
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what I want them to do in a better way. Our goal is freedom,
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and these sorts of things just make us more and more stock because then
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I need you to do something in a certain way for me to feel happy,
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for me to feel peaceful, Because the other way these things go is
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they say I am listening, right, we say listen, I am listening,
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but we still don't feel heard because there's something energetic, but they insist
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their listening. Again, you're stuck. You need something, you want something
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that you're not getting, and you've put your freedom, you're freedom to be
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free of suffering in the hands of someone else's habits or ways. And spirituality
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is all about ending suffering and gaining freedom, which means I have to unhook
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my peace and my joy from other people's actions, other people's words, other
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people's way of living, other people's way of treating me. So, yeah,
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there's a lot of reasons people don't listen. But more more important and
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more interesting than that, is not why don't they listen? But why can't
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I be in peace even though I don't feel like they're listening. Why can't
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I be happy even though they're not listening the way I want them to.
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That's the interesting question, because that's the question that actually takes us somewhere,
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And of course that then becomes about each of our own psyches and what we
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think we need. But what spirituality gives us through our practices, practices of
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insight, of introspection, of contemplation, of reading spiritual books and scriptures and
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works, listening to the words of saints and gurus and rat wise ones and
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doing our own internal practices. Where we get is a place that says,
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I don't need to run my life based on these trigger points on my psyche.
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I know we've all got trigger points. Someone pushes this button, it
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triggers me in this way, and we have different trigger points. Put ten
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people in our room, somebody says something, One or two of them may
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walk away feeling like that was the rudest thing in the world. The other
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eight or nine have no idea that anything even happened. It wasn't their trigger
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point. So spirituality is that which enables us to get free from our own
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trigger points simply by noticing them. Ah. Okay, so maybe I grew
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up feeling not listen to. Maybe I had really vibrant and kind of dominating
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older siblings or younger siblings who kinda took all of mom and Dad's attention,
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and I never really felt listened to. And so that's a little trigger point
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in my psyche. Okay, beautiful, welcome to the human race. We
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all have trigger points. But now I don't need to ruin my peace,
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my joy, my freedom, or my relationships because I've got this trigger point.
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And so through our practice of meditation of yoga introspection, we learned to
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see what they are and then to become free of them just to notice them.
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Ah yeah, there's my trigger point. Okay, I don't have to
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get upset about it. You see it over there. I recognize it,
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But my heart is still open. I'm still in peace, and that's the
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way that we deal with this, because that's the only path that matters.
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Not why can't I get someone else to do what I want? That question
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will take your entire life and you still won't solve it. At the end
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of your life, you'll realize, oh, I guess I've got to come
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back next life to really teach them. We still haven't learned. So don't
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r AI nm RG, brought to you by RAIN and this station. Welcome
22:04
back to inspiration and transformation. I'm so glad to have you all back here
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with me. Some meditation is a practice. What's important to realize is you're
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going back to your true self. A lot of people have this complex around
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meditation. I'm not doing it right. Nothing's happening. I think about it
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like, imagine that at the end of a stressful day, or any day
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rather, but let's call it a stressful day. You come home and you
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want to take a bath. You're tired, you're sore, you're stressed out,
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and you turn on a bath and you fill it with beautiful water,
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and you put in some essential oils and some rose petals, and you make
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this beautiful bath. But you get into that bath with all of your clothes
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on, how's it going to feel? Right? Exactly exactly, She scrunched
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up her nose, like, of course, it's not going to feel good.
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Sopping wet, heavy clothes take that sense of away. In order to
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have that sense of ha, you gotta be naked. It's a prerequisite in
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order to really really enjoy that bath. You've got to leave all your clothes
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on the floor or in your room or hanging up, depending on meat you
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happen to be. But they can no longer be on your body. In
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the same way, in meditation, it's really about a removal of that which
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is on us. The clothes are on the body, but on our awareness.
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On our consciousness is usually ego stuff, my grudges, my pains,
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my fears, my worries, my competitions, my jealousies, my expectations.
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And so when I go to sit to meditate, you may have this beautiful
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environment, like your beautiful bathtub. But if I sit down and I'm full
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of stories, desire, expectations, fears, judgments. It's going to be
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like wearing high heeled shoes and a suit and tie and a hat in a
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bathtub. You're not going to get anything that you're looking for. And so
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that's where prior to going into meditation, a lot of us have practices that
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get us into a more meditative state. So if you look, for example,
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at the eight limbs of yoga that the Sage Batangal they gave. Now,
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of course they can happen at the same time as well. They don't
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have to go sequentially, but they work really nicely sequentially because they begin with
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how you are in the world. If I'm lying and cheating and stealing and
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harming and committing all sorts of adultery and living this life that I feel ashamed
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of and is full of deceit, well it's going to be very hard to
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embark on a yogic practice with that as my foundation. First, I've got
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to just at least have the bare minimum of what you would consider a dharmic
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life. A yogic life, I'm going to be honest. I'm not going
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to tell lies, I'm not going to steal, I'm not gonna harm,
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I'm going to have integrity, right, and then you move into us and
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now, which is a use of the physical body, because of course,
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our physical body is the medium, the medium through which we experience enlightenment,
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awakening. Our brains, which are part of our physical body, are the
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medium through which we experience consciousness and truth. If you're brain dead or brain
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damaged, you're not going to be able to have those experiences. So our
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physical body is the medium. We're not the body, but we need the
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body to experience that state. If the chemicals in my body are all haywire,
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my brain is not going to be able to calm down. If I've
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had thirty cups of coffee this morning, or I'm drunk, or I'm on
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drugs, or I'm all riled up because somebody posted something obnoxious about me on
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Twitter, I'm not going to be able to steal my mind. I'm going
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to become a slave of the mind rather than the one in charge. Usina
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is a practice of using the physical body to find balance, to find stability,
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to find strength. Also, on just a basic level, it's what
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enables us ultimately to sit for long enough to actually meditate. But then it
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gets interesting then we go into praniam, and for me on a personal level,
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that's where my meditative practice starts. I have an arsenal practice as well,
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I just don't do it at the same time. So my meditative practice
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begins with prania. It quiets the mind in a very very very powerful way.
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It fills you with an experience of not being separate from the world.
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I'm taking in breath from outside, I'm letting it go back, and suddenly,
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if you're really quiet still well, you discover there's actually no inner and
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there's no outer. You begin doing praniam, and it's all about the inhalation
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and the exhalation. I'm inhaling in, I'm exhaling out from inside to outside,
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from outside to inside. But if you allow yourself to get really meditative
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and really still, you discover there is no inner, there is no outer,
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There's just breathing. So I begin with prania, and then staying with
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the eight limbs of yoga, we come to put the hard, which is
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a withdrawal of the senses from the outer world to the inner world, which
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is just a very conscious redirection of my attention. I'm no longer going to
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be focused on the sounds outside, I'm now focused on the world inside,
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and of course the mind goes back out and you just bring it back in
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and then darden, which is a sense of single pointed focus. And you
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can use a mantra, you can use a candle flame, you can use
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a word, a name of God, you can use an image. But
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you see how we're going more and more inward, more and more still,
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more and more connected. And then once my senses are withdrawn, once I've
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got that single pointed focus, then you get into meditation. And then ultimately,
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eventually that meditation leads into some adhi, which is that ultimate oneness.
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So in terms of how to do it, I would recommend not just out
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of the blue sitting down, plopping yourself down and saying, all right,
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I've got eleven minutes, let's go, and sort of expecting that you're gonna
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you're gonna get there before the alarm goes off and you've got to do the
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next item on your to do list, But really give yourself a little bit
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of time to make the inner environment as conducive to meditation as possible. You
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know, it would be like jumping off the treadmill into bed. Okay,
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I got eight hours starting now, let's go. Well, you wouldn't fall
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asleep for a long time if you've been running on the treadmill and you're talking
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on the phone at the same time. No matter what time of day it
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is, it's going to take you a long time to fall asleep. That's
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why you sleep specialists always say, you know, start to quiet down,
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lower the lights, put away your device. Like there's all this sleep health.
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Well there's meditative health as well. Before you meditate, create a conducive
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environment, do some pranium, consciously, withdraw your senses. We're now going
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inward. Have something that you focus on. Chanting amenta, watching the breath.
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The breath is perfect. When I teach meditations, that's what we do.
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We follow the breath, we chant Amantha, and eventually what happens is
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the breath seems to sort of stop. It doesn't, but you're no longer
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watching the breath because it's not seeming to do anything anymore. The montha seems
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to start chanting itself, and you find yourself in a very beautiful state of
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meditation, which for different people is a totally different experience. So again,
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there's no right, there's no wrong. There's deep spaciousness, expansive spaciousness.
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There's stillness, there's peace, there's joy, there's awareness, full consciousness of
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all. It's a lot of different experiences that come in that meditative time.
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But it helps if you prepare yourself for it and then you go in and
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you begin by watching the breath. But when you meditate on your own,
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just begin with your pranim bring in the senses, find something divine to focus
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on, and then go into your meditation. But remember, of course,
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that the way that you live your life has to be in alignment with that.
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That you're not going to be able to get to those stages if we're
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not living Yemenia. You can't. You can't start building a house on the
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fourth floor of the third floor if you start with arsna. You got to
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start at the base. And then of course the mind wanders and you bring
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it back, and it wanders, and you bring it back, and it
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wanders, and you bring it back and slowly, slowly it wanders a little
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bit less. But the key point is that it's about the south, it's
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about going in and whatever technique you use, it's just a vehicle. It's
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just a vehicle to take you in. There's one of my favorite stories of
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the three guys who were stranded on an island and they pray and pray that
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they should be rescued, and one day they wake up and there's a canoe
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on the edge of the island, and they're so excited they jump in the
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canoe and they row it back to the mainland, and a couple weeks later,
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somebody sees them walking through the market place and they've got the canoe on
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their heads, walking in a single file a line, carrying the canoe on
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their heads, and the person says, why are you carrying a canoe on
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your head through the market place? And they say, oh, this canoe.
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It saved our lives. We were stranded on an island. And the
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person says, well, that's great, but why are you carrying it through
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the market And they say, oh, this canoe, it saved our lives.
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We were stranded. Well, the canoe was a vehicle. It was
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a life saving vehicle. Glory to the canoe. But once they reached the
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mainland, the canoe actually becomes a hindrance rather than a help because now their
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arms are in a canoe, not able to do much. Now is the
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time to let go of the canoe to just be where they have arrived.
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And the truth is it didn't have to be a canoe. They would have
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been equally happy for a roboat or jet skis or a raft, doesn't matter.
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They just needed a vehicle to get across the water. And I love
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that story because our meditation technique sometimes become like that. We become so attached
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to the technique that it actually ends up making us more stuck than free.
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So whatever technique works for you, use it. There's no wrong way to
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meditate, I always say, other than hitting the snooze button. That's the
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only wrong way to meditate is your alarm goes off and you hit snooze,
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you go back to sleep. That's the wrong way to meditate. Other than
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that. Whatever technique you use that works for you, use it. But
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then as you start to have those meditative experiences, you don't want to come
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back. Oh I forgot to be watching my breath, Like here I am
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in this beautiful, expanded, spaciousness, but suddenly I'm no longer watching my
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breath. Well that's all right, that's all right. That was a technique.
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It got you here. So then you just allow yourself to be in
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that state of meditation, and of course when you lose it, as inevitably
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you will, a thought will come, a sound will come. Then you
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begin again with watching the breath, and then again you reach that state,
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and then you're there, and then you lose it, and then again you're
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watching the breath and it goes like that. This is OTRFM, part of
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the Ethical Treatment of Animals seven five seven six two two pet a Welcome back.
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This is sad Vi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. So the brain
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works almost all of the time, sadly on what you could call autopilot.
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Okay, we've got two different types of brain more than that, but for
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the sake of this discussion, we'll call it too. We'll call it conscious
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and unconscious. Okay, we'll love subconscious and with unconscious. So we've got
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conscious mind and everything else. Most of us spend a tiny, tiny,
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tiny percentage of our life in actually our conscious mind. Most of us are
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running on autopilot. Almost all the time. It's why we do things that
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later we're like, I cannot believe I did that? Who was that?
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We say things that later we think, who was that? Why did I
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say that? Because we weren't conscious, because we're just operating habitually. Now,
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what that means is that in order to change it, I have to
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first become conscious. So being conscious is the absolute most powerful weapon you have
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against the autolitness of your brain, because if you are really conscious, I
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mean, let's say that I have a smoking addiction and I decide I'm going
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to quit smoking, but I don't even realize I'm smoking till I'm more than
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halfway through a cigarette, because I've been addicted for so long that when I
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literally just pull them out of the pack and light them up, totally unconsciously,
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well even without anything else. If I simply became conscious, then I
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would know the moment my hand goes out to reach to grab a pack of
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cigarettes, long before I found myself halfway through it. I would be present,
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Oh there's my Handwait, I don't want to do that. I'm conscious.
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I'm aware, Because when you're conscious, you've got full control over your
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hands, your legs, your tongue, both what you eat and what you
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speak. We only do things with our arms and our legs and our tongues
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when we are not conscious that we end up not wanting to do or regretting
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that we did, because they are habits. If we're conscious, we have
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full and complete control. There's nothing that you can't do. I mean,
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you may not be able to, you know, do back flips on a
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balance beam, but within within reason, there's nothing that you cannot do with
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these hands, these legs, this mouth. When you're conscious about it,
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you can say what you want, not say what you don't want, eat
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what you want, not eat what you don't want, do what you want
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with your hands, not do what you don't want, go where you want,
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not go where you don't want with your legs because we're conscious, but
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most of us function on just such autopilot that we are slaves to the habits.
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My favorite story about this is the friend of a very beautiful no longer
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in his body, but was a very very beautiful spiritual teacher, and he
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would tell the story of his friend who every day when the friend went to
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work, he got off the bust to his work right in front of this
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pastry shop, and he would go into the pastry shop and by pastries before
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he went to work. And then he decides he's going to stop eating sugar,
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so no more pastries. But every day, nonetheless, he still finds
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himself sitting down to his desk with a bag full of pastries. And he
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cannot figure out how this is happening. Every day he's going in and buying
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the pastries. So his friend, this beautiful spiritual teacher, says to him,
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well, why don't you leave your wallet at home? And the guy
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says to him, what you mean, I should steal them? And I
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love that story because the idea that the guy could actually not get the pastries
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was inconceivable, and so if he didn't have his wallet, the only other
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alternative must be he had to steal them. And this is how most of
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us operate. So it's a great question that you've asked, and really the
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answer is actually quite simple. Become conscious now, yes, So we're going
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to come there and then we're going to come into the actual habit. So
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how to become conscious? We learn being conscious in meditation. It's the easiest
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and best place to do it. So when I am meditating, lots of
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things happen. My knee itches. I want to scratch it. This ankle
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is hurting a little bit against the roughness of the map. I want to
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move it. I'm thirsty. I want some water. My mind suddenly is
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thinking about this really difficult conversation at work I have to have later today,
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all of these things that are trying to pull my mind off of what I'm
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meditating on. But as I practice meditation, I simply notice them. I
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don't go with them. So before I develop this ability, it shows.
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I scratch it before I've even realized what I've done. It hurts. I
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move it before I realize what I've done. A thought comes I go off
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on it. I have no idea where I started where I end up.
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I mean, you're meditating and suddenly smell of coffee comes from your neighbors,
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and suddenly it's like, oh God, that coffee smells so good. I
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don't know why I gave up coffee to begin with. Any Way, the
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research now says it's a good thing to have. God. I remember those
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days used to sit in Paris on the chance Lise, drinking cappuccinos, watching
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people walk by. Those were such good days. Why did I give up
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that job off? Or God, that would have been so good. I
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could be living in Paris now, okay, right, A smell of coffee
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and I'm now questioning the last thirty years of my life, decisions like how
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did I get there? But that's how the mind works. So the moment,
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we're actually conscious, which is just a practice. But as I sit
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to meditate, I smell the coffee and I simply note smells and I'm back
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to my breath. Later on, the more and more humanitate, you don't
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actually have to name it. You just simply draw the aware us back.
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But it helps in the beginning to note what you are noticing. Don't tell
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a story about it, don't judge it, don't analyze it. No adjectives,
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no adverbs, no stories. Just smelling. That's it. That's all
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that's happened, smelling. I'm back to my breath. I'm back to Amantha
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itching, back to my breath, back to my Amantha. And slowly,
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slowly, you develop a skill of being conscious, being present. Now in
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that moment, the consciousness is simply that I am smelling something that I am
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itching, and now that I am aware of my breathing. But once you
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find relief from the distractions, which happens relatively quickly, just not immediately,
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then that consciousness starts to actually expand, and then you start being able to
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have a consciousness that is far beyond what the senses are experiencing or where the
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thought might be going. But it begins by simply being aware. You notice
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it. You realize that you are separate from it because you're the one who's
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watching. I'm the one who notices I'm itching, which means I'm not the
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itche I don't have to scratch it. I've got a choice. I've just
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noticed it. And that technique and ability stays with you the rest of the
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day. So you find that you are, as I said, in control
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of the hands, the feet, the tongue. Because you're aware, you're
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conscious of what you're reaching toward, what you're grabbing for, what you're pushing
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away. You start to notice it grabbing, whether it's for a gulab jaman,
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whether it's for appreciation from the boss, whether it's for anything, whatever.
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What are you grabbing for? What are you longing for? What are
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you pushing away? That sense of aversion, We just become aware of it.
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We don't have to act on it. We just become aware. And
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so that's when you gain this conscious control over your life. But going back
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to your specific example about getting out of bed in the morning, any of
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these types of habits they take a while. This is why I began by
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saying the brain functions on autopilot. It's just a habit. It's a groove.
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Literally, neurologically we say a neural network. We talk and we talk
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about sanscadas grooves in our psyche. This is how we do things, this
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is how I react. And in order to change it, all you have
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to do is commit to changing it, and then stick with it for a
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few weeks, and you'll lay brand new networks, brand new patterns, brand
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new grooves. But it it takes usually at least a few weeks, some
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cases a couple of months, but we're not talking decades. Short period of
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time. Just come in and if you find that you're hitting the snooze button,
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you can do what I used to do in college, which was put
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my alarm clock at the opposite end of the room so that you can't actually
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hit it from bed. You've got to get up, you've got to walk
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across the room in order to turn it off. Once you're up, you're
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up. Then you just need a little bit of willpower not to actually crawl
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back under the covers. But the snooze button happens kind of while we're still
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asleep. We're not even aware of it until we wake up hours later and
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realize, oh my god, I hit the snooze button. I never got
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up. So just stick your alarm on the other side of the room as
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far away from your bed as possible and make it as loud as you can
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so that you can't sleep through it. The other thing that you can do
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that works is start giving yourself sort of rewards and punishments, so you don't
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get breakfast until you meditate. Missed getting up early, okay, well whatever
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time you did get up. If you don't meditate, you're not getting breakfast.
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And then be strict with yourself. Set up, set up some of
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these little techniques. They're just techniques to keep you going for enough days in
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a row that it becomes its own habit, and slowly, slowly, slowly,
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it'll just that'll become your new habit. Last peace about this is one
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of the things that keeps a lot of us from getting up in the morning
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because we don't get to sleep on time at night, and so we're really
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tired. And no matter how many times we say I'm going to develop a
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pattern of getting up early each night, when we get to bed much later
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than we had hoped, we say, well, not tomorrow, because I
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really need to sleep. So day after tomorrow, I'll start getting up early.
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Tomorrow for sure, I'll go to sleep on time. Never happens.
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Instead, make yourself get up. Nobody ever died from lack of sleep for
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one night. Get up on time, no matter how many hours of sleep
55:47
you've had, because what that means is you're going to get to sleep early
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that night. If you actually got up on time, even though you went
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to sleep late, you're going to be so tired that now you will sleep
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on die and thus you will get into a good pattern. So make yourself
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get up regardless of what time you go to sleep, and just be strict
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with yourself for a couple of weeks. First it just takes will power,
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and then it becomes its own habit, and it's it's how we change anything
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in our lives. But you can do it, and that's a beautiful question,
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and congratulations for having this, this vision, and this goal at this
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young age. It's wonderful this brings to a close this hour of inspiration and
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transformation. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so glad to
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be together with you all each week, and I look forward to being together
57:07
again next Thursday, same time on Home Time's Radio