15 Sep 30 Days Of Meditation Challenge Days 1 – 5

Yikes, here’s a BIG challenge for me! I’ve just committed to doing a 30 day challenge where I’ll meditate every day for a full 30 days! Anik April from Montreal is doing this with me so I’ll for sure have some encouragement along the way. 

I’ve meditated a decent amount in the past couple of years but have never been able to maintain a routine. I figured that while some exciting things are happening for me just now it would be a worthwhile time to stay grounded by practicing more mindfulness. This will likely be a part of the retreat I’m planning in Thailand in April 2016, but that’s a blog post for another day.

Day 1 Guided Meditation for 10 minutes

Tonight I was spinning as a very good friend, Will is moving back to Australia tomorrow and another friend, Connor was celebrating a birthday. But I remembered that I’d committed to this challenge so got myself home to do a mediation mid-way through the celebrations.

I used this link to guide me through a 10 minute chakra meditation. I’ve done this one a couple dozen times in the past but not for months. It was tough for me to stay focussed, but I got through it and felt more relaxed after.

Let’s see how day 2 goes…

Day 2 Listening to music with a partner for 15 minutes in the basement

When I awoke early this morning (4.30am) with no alarm I considered doing my meditation then. But I’d had just 3 hours of sleep so went back to bed. I do expect that eventually I’ll be meditating early in the morning but this has not happened yet on this challenge.

After a very exciting day as an entrepreneur for various reasons, I finally got around to meditating with the help of a  good friend, Amanda at 9pm. We just sat and created a comfortable quiet space to listen to some music and to focus on our breath. This quiet space is in the basement. There were no strict guidelines. I just knew that I had to meditate tonight and that I was spinning with excitement. I believe that regular meditation will be great for me at this time to help keep me grounded.

Amanda is a yoga instructor so already has a pretty deep mindfulness background. It was helpful to have a partner for this tonight. 

We listened to some songs from this Spotify playlist. If you’ve never tried Spotify or one of the other live music streaming apps, I highly recommend it.

I’ve come out of the meditation feeling more clear than after last nights meditation and wonderfully relaxed. It was again difficult to keep all thoughts from bouncing around my mind, but I expect that will come with practice.

Day 3 About 25 minutes of meditating with a class

Today was the easiest day yet. A new friend, Chantelle, who I met 2 days ago on my #HumanConnections challenge (a challenge where I need to meet a new person face-to-face daily until a networking event I’m co-hosting on November 3rd) told me about the group meditation that I joined tonight. 

It was hosted by the Sunshine Yoga Academy in a spacious venue near Chinook Shopping Centre. The two yogis spoke about what meditation is and took us through some breathing exercises as well as a guided meditation. We were a group of 9 people and other than one of the instructors, I was the only man. 

I found it easy to follow their instructions and to quiet my mind to the best of my ability yet on this challenge. Some beautiful music was created while we were in the meditation with bowls. I’ve heard them before but it’s never been explained to me how the vibrations created with that music can sync up with people at a molecular level. Amazing! A whole new world is being presented to me.

Meditation is one of those things that I’ve done until now less than 2 dozen times in my life. Each time I’ve done so I’ve either greatly enjoyed the inner peace that it’s created or at the very least felt that my efforts were worthwhile. But it’s taken me until now – until this 30 day challenge – for me to repeatedly meditate. While it’s just Day 3, I have a suspicion that this challenge will almost certainly be creating some real permanent change for me, and I’m excited about that.

Until tomorrow. 

Day 4 I missed my meditation today!

So I’m an excitable character. And there are some exciting things happening for me in my life and business just now. But sometimes when I get excited I can lose my focus and get a little scattered. When I awoke this morning I knew that it would be tough to get my meditation in due to a scheduled performance as part of the Beayerhead festival in Calgary.

But rather than get to the meditation early, I got buzzing into all of the exciting tasks and actions of my day. The next thing I knew I was in circus costume and makeup and we did the show. I got home quite late and instead of meditating, edited and published this video of the evening’s activities.

My head was just not in the right place to meditate. But it’s likely the only thing that I really should have done yesterday.

Here’s a look at that video just the same.

Day 5  12 minutes of meditation on the sofa and today I joined CAPS

Today I was glowing from last night’s performance and from officially becoming a Professional member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. We had our first monthly meeting of the season and it was great to catch up with old colleag
ues and to meet some new people. What a wonderful organization to be a part of. I’m very much looking forward to attending my first national CAPS Convention this December in Halifax. 

Once home I had a client meeting, and finally some much needed rest. Back up late afternoon I was eager to tackle the admin of the day – responding to requests, editing some videos, writing this blog – but I forced myself to slow down.

I turned off all of the devices and decided to just sit in my empty house with some meditation music on and to relax. I did so for about 12 minutes and it was wonderful. This time my mind was not so still but I could just tell that it was good for me. 

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a meditation with my awesome and super-talented twin sister. Wish me luck!