The amazing Gabby Bernstein helped to heal my relationship with meditation.
I have always been somebody that wanted to bring those positive effects of meditation into my life and feel better because of it.
I remember when my mom was probably only a little bit older than I am now, and she got really into spirituality and self development. And she was able to meditate in ways where she would be able to like meet up with her Archangels and her spirit guides and all of these different forces, and had these Lucid dreaming type meditations that were just amazing to hear about.
And I always thought, ‘gosh, I want to do that, too.’ I have not been able to connect with meditation in that same way, even though I do connect and relate to all of those things.
I just can’t seem to access it the same way that she could, and maybe it’s not.
Maybe it’s a thing off yet…
Maybe I can’t do it yet…
Or maybe I’m just meant to access it in different ways.
But I remember a few years back when I had a very young fourth child, baby, and I discovered…
I’ve read every one of Gabby’s books, and this was somewhere in between. The Universe Has Your Back and, Super Attractor, that I found this and she had these free guided meditations.
And one of them was a yoga need. And I have never done this before.
I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never done it before and I put it on.
And when Jordan, my youngest, was a baby and he would nap several times a day, oftentimes I would lay down at least one of those naps and try to get a little bit of a snooze myself.
But this afternoon, I was like, I’m just gonna get my earphones in, and I’m going to listen to this meditation and see what happens.
And I had already done, like, guided meditations and things like that.
I’ve always tried, but I would always fall asleep, and I felt like I was failing because I was falling asleep during these meditations.
I was supposed to be getting something out of this, was supposed to some kind of clarity or some kind of, ‘ah ha,’. Or like I was, I had this expectation, this outcome attached to my meditation experience that was honestly killing it for me.
So I turn this on and it’s 20 minutes and Cool, I’m just gonna lay down I’m gonna put this on and I love that she actually told me to lay down.
For once they’re not telling me to sit upright with my feet grounded on the floor and close my eyes but don’t fall asleep and you know, breathe and all I ever wanna do when I do that is lay down and go to sleep, okay?
And I always felt like I was somehow messing it up, failing, not doing it right, an awful meditator.
So she’s like, ‘Yeah, lay down’ and she’s telling me how this is one of the deepest possible states of meditation… How it’s almost lucid dreaming, and I’m like, ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I get to surrender and I don’t have to chant and I don’t have to sit upright, and I could just melt into my bed and just drift off.’ And I had permission to do that!
And she’s there reminding me that and that no matter what, whether I fall asleep, it’s gonna work.
It’s still working.
It’s still doing its thing that you know that that deep part of me, whether I’m conscious or unconscious, is still going to take it in and make something amazing of it.
Yeah, that she’s speaking my language and you know, she’s reminding me not to get agitated and because so often, you start to meditate and you have to remember to breathe, and you have to keep coming back, and that’s that’s the process.
And I get that more and more as I do it more and more.
But it is a beginning meditator. It could be really frustrating.
To know you’re meditating, you’re breathing, you’re here, you’re now and then all of a sudden, your mind is somewhere else, and you have to remind it “Hey, hey, come on back here” and she’s just letting me let it go, and I’m like, “This is awesome!” and you know, my core self is taking it in.
Even though I’m sleeping, she’s telling me that. I’m believing it, so I’m feeling like I’m not F ing up, and even though you know, she takes you through affirmations and she takes you through your heart’s longing statements and she takes you through a full-body scan and all of that, I’m usually asleep by that point, I honestly had to, re-listen to it, to remember all the things she takes you through because usually by several minutes and Mama’s out.
And I am loving life.
And then, so many meditations or different things that help you to sleep, have these, crazy alarms or chimes at the end that honestly made me jump out of my body and it kind of ruins it for whatever reason.
And then this one just ends super peacefully.
So I guess if you were in a really deep sleep, you could keep going.
But there’s something about the way that she does it. That just magically brings me back at the end, and I just come out of that state and she has you, flow like water to an upright seated position and feel it.
Yeah, I’m flowing, I rested.
The music in it for some reason takes me back to massages I used to go get when I was healing from my first big car accident, several decades ago, and that feels really good too because that was a really good time of healing in connection for me and that music, for whatever reason, just takes me right back there.
And, yeah, I don’t know…
But it’s so nice to be able to awaken with that sense of peacefulness and clarity that I felt like I couldn’t get doing other meditations at other times feeling like I was screwing up.
So finding that meditation that Gabrielle Bernstein walked me through, opened up a whole new world of what meditation could be and how I could gain from it, even if I got a nap at the same time.
Because that’s like the best of both worlds in my mind, spiritually awakening and a nap.
Does it get any better than that?
No, I don’t think it does.
P.S If you wanna experience some of the tapping meditations that I’ve created, click here.