March 2022 TDM
The Mental Health Issue
Welcome to the 35th issue of The Daily Meditator. This is your monthly resource for fun, quirky, interesting, and noteworthy happenings in and around the worldwide meditation community, curated by Light Watkins and co. Our mission is simple: to help broaden the horizon of what a daily meditator looks like while providing you with relevant information and timely inspiration for staying committed to your daily practice.
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[ MEDITATION & NEWS ]
The Duke Of Sussex Is All In On Mental Health
“Inner Work” Day anyone? Prince Harry is now the Chief Impact Officer of BetterUp. His role focuses on driving advocacy and awareness for mental fitness and guiding BetterUp’s social mission and impact to bring the science of peak performance and human potential into the hands of people worldwide.
BetterUp is a tech company whose technology is behavioral science, described by CEO and Co-Founder, Alexi Robichaux.
According to pagesix.com, Prince Harry is advocating for Inner Work Day and the importance of making time for self-care regardless of our busy schedules.
Bottom line: The Duke of Sussex may not have the same real-world problems that we normal people have, but it’s great that he’s got people talking about self-care and mental health.
[ MEDION & HEALTH ]
6 Ways Mindfulness Can Help Cancer Patients
Mindfulness comes in very handy when fighting cancer. According to BlackDoctor.org, mindfulness exercises can help cancer patients (metastatic breast cancer patients, specifically) deal with the physical and psychological symptoms of the disease, such as pain, fatigue, emotional distress, and better sleep.
Here are 6 mindfulness exercises for people with cancer:
Observe your surroundings – practice observing sounds or your breath. No labels, just pure sensory stimuli.
Describe your situation – stick to the facts, don’t add on your own story. This helps prevent you from going down emotional rabbit holes.
Choose your words wisely – refrain from using judgmental words to describe your situation and stick to objective ones.
Identify your frequent self-judgment words – this will help you know when you are spiraling into negative (and unproductive) self-talk.
Transform your negative self-talk – learn to shift your self-talk from destructive to constructive.
Focus on your breath – As a tool that’s always here, this helps us stay with the present moment and avoid excessive rumination.
Bottom line: Mindfulness isn’t a cure-all, but it will help make challenging situations a little bit more manageable.
Join Light’s 108-Day Movement Challenge: Light Watkins created this challenge to provide you with a daily exercise that can be completed within 10-15 minutes, a daily step-count goal, and a daily stretch—plus community, support, and accountability. It will get you in the habit of moving your body each day, and will be the perfect complement to your daily meditation and inner work. Click here to join.
[ MEDITATION & PARENTING ]
How To Help Your Kids De-Stress
Is your child displaying symptoms of stress? Just like adults, kids can suffer burnouts, especially in our fast-paced, digitally-driven world. But meditation may provide a solution to that. According to edtechnology.co.uk, meditation offers children a whole host of benefits. This study finds that a brief daily mediation practice will overcome stress while positively contributing to your child’s mental, emotional and intellectual development.
Here are just some of the benefits highlighted in the article:
Helps with emotional regulation and dealing with anxiety
Increased focus and attention
Boosts mental health
Improves behavior and social skills
Builds confidence and self-esteem
Bottom line: Meditating with your kids is a worthwhile thing to do. And the best part is, they probably would be better at it than you.
[ MEDITATION & LIFESTYLE ]
UK Golf Course Transformed Into Meditation Center
Meditation is now par for the course. Back in 2016, the Manor Golf Club in the northern UK underwent a major transformation. Once a golf course clubhouse, the building was made into the Wat Sriratanaram Thai Buddhist temple.
However, up until this week, the monks only had ownership of the building. The grounds were left untouched. Last week, the four live-in monks submitted an application to use the rest of the golf course for “creating, meditation, and the planting of gardens” along with agricultural grazing.
Bottom line: We love the idea of retrofitting former golf clubs into temple spaces.
Do you think you could meditate for 108 days in a row? Light Watkins has been facilitating this fun meditation challenge, which has an incredibly high rate of completion. It’s designed to make you a bonafide daily meditator and includes access to Light’s popular 7-Day Meditation Kickstart video course. Your $39 entry fee will be credited back to you once you complete all 108 days in a row. Click here if you’re up for the challenge?
[ MEDITATION & TECHNIQUE ]
The Four Steps To Manifesting Anything
Have you been practicing your manifestation abilities? Whether you want to start a business or another creative endeavor, it helps to begin with a clear vision. And according to msn.com, here are your next four steps:
Identify your ideals, values, and motivations.
Meditate to allow wisdom and insights to bubble up to the surface.
Use your imagination to see how your plan might be carried out.
Write it down. A goal without a plan is just a dream.
Bottom line: Having a solid “why” helps you articulate “what” you will do and “how” you will go about doing it.
[ REALITY CHECK ]
The Secret Believers
By Light Watkins
You will never realize how invested you are in the opinions of others until you start living from your inner guidance. Because the inner guidance is never going to nudge you in a direction that makes everyone else happier about your choices.
Instead, it’s going to point you toward your most authentic self… which means you will have to, at some point, disrupt your status quo. And that’s when you’ll hit the resistance:
“She’s lost her mind!”
“He’s crazy!”
“Can you believe she walked away from a good-paying job—and with no fallback plan?!”
“He won’t listen to reason.”
You’re going to hear it all… until you prove everyone wrong. And then years from now, they will all tell stories about how they supported you the entire time.
It’s a funny thing. No one ever remembers discouraging you.
But as you’re going through it now, you have to stay true to yourself, even though you will lose things, including the occasional friendship.
It’s ultimately better for you, and it’ll make their stories better when they tell everyone about how much resistance you had to overcome and how they were the only ones who secretly believed in you :)
[ READ. WATCH. LISTEN. ]
Read: Embracing Bliss: 108 Daily Meditations
From author, Jeff Kober, Embracing Bliss: 108 Daily Meditations is a collection of writings designed to uplift the reader and to redirect them toward a more life-affirming perspective. Based on the author’s extensive study of the Veda, Vedantic teachings, and meditation, these reflections support a steady shift of consciousness from darkness to light. Read more
Watch: jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
A documentary event presented in three acts from Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah, jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is an intimate and revealing portrait of Kanye West’s experience, showcasing both his formative days trying to break through and his life today as a global brand and artist. Watch now
Listen:
Hosted by Krista Tippett, On Being, is a groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning — spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and the arts. New conversations every Thursday, with occasional extras. Listen now
Have you listened to Light’s podcast At the End of the Tunnel? If inspiration was a drop of water, At the End of the Tunnel would be like an ocean. Each candid interview is sure to leave you uplifted, inspired, and motivated to follow your heart, take a leap of faith, and believe in yourself. Listen or watch now.
[ REPORT FROM THE FIELD ]
Meditation unglued me from the darkness, allowing me to move toward the light.
What have you gotten from Meditation? My life. Meditation unglued me from the darkness, allowing me to move toward the light.
Strangest meditation moment? Once, after helping our teacher with five pujas and teaching some 85 students in one day, meditating with each of the five groups of them, in the middle of the last meditation of the day I found myself thrown from my chair and stumbling forward, trying not to fall on my face. Apparently, the kundalini felt it was time to make itself known.
Most unexpected benefit of meditation? Freedom from who I thought I was before. And frankly, all the benefits were unexpected. Nothing I had done before to fix what was “wrong” with me had worked. I assumed this would be just more of the same—one more failed experiment in trying to get better.
Two of Our Favorite Instagram Accounts with a Purpose
Ruth King (left) is the Founder of Mindful of Race Institute, LLC, and is a celebrated author, educator, and meditation teacher. Both provocative and compassionate, Ruth speaks to the heart of her audiences with audacity, authenticity, and joy. Ruth teaches mindfulness meditation retreats worldwide and develops meditation practitioners. he has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, CA, and is the author of several publications including her most recent, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism From The Inside Out. Follow her @ruthkingmindful
Marc Laws II (right) is a yoga teacher who seamlessly blends artful body geometry with crystalline mental awareness and emotional intelligence. For Marc, yoga offered a direct means of liberating the mind, strengthening the body, and reminding us of our true nature: connection with ourselves, others, and this ever-giving and abundant planet. Marc has been teaching on the global stage, from dynamic classes in London’s top studios to soul-quenching workshops and retreats across Europe to the picturesque bamboo shalas of Bali—the place he now calls home. Follow him @marclawsii
Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.
— Paulo Coelho
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