A few weeks ago, after I was out and about doing errands for about three hours, I came in the house and sat down on my sofa to rest a bit before moving on to my next task. It was a rare sunny spring day and I was enjoying the quiet—which didn’t last long. After about ten seconds of stillness, I heard dog whimpers, very soft ones. I stirred around because what I had heard didn’t rise into full consciousness and it was disturbing me on a level I wasn’t quite aware of yet. I resettled and again noticed—in full consciousness this time—that when I got quiet inside, I was hearing repeated, very soft dog whimpers. I thought, This is odd. My dog, Ruffles, is outside on this fine day, on the other side of the house. How in the world could I be hearing him whimper, if this is him anyway, especially this softly?
I also realized the sounds of these barely detectable dog whimpers were coming out of my heart! What??? My heart chakra is now capable of producing audible sound, like a stereo speaker?
With this realization, I decided I’d better check on my dog and jumped up and went straight to the back door. I opened it and didn’t see him anywhere. I called his name, checked the dog house as well as the perimeter of the fence and then I saw it—he had dug out. This is abnormal for him, except in a thunderstorm, but although there had been no thunderstorms, clearly he was out.
I drove through the neighborhood calling his name, until finally I found a group of people who were standing around like they were concerned about something, and sure enough they had Ruffles and had kept him with them for over two hours! Thank you wonderful dog-loving neighbors!
Anyway, what I realized with this, other than my dog appears to be able to send audible wi-fi messages to me through my heart’s speaker system, is my ability to get instantly quiet is what tuned me into the intuitive Oneness that allowed Ruffles to connect to me. Getting in touch with that stillness where all information, knowledge, and wisdom lie is the secret to connecting to intuitive Flow.
It is so important to learn to be still or to Be Here Now, Ram Dass’ famous saying and book title. The challenge is that many people have no idea how to "be here now" or have the wrong idea about it entirely. Or, many of those who go around saying “be here now” are big avoiders and deniers who ignore their inner work and thus, these great meditators may also be known for acting like—well, why beat around the bush—jerks. This does not negate the value of meditating at all, though. It’s just that meditating without also doing inner work is like exercising while also eating a constant stream of junk food. Exercising is very important to physical health as meditating is very important to spiritual health. But clearing out the spiritual clutter and junk food is also just as necessary for spiritual health, and that happens through inner work. "Being in the now" doesn’t mean spiritually bypassing inner or integration work. Both are needed to help expand your well-being in a balanced way.
In fact, one of the benefits of meditating is that by getting to the stillpoint, you are able to connect with your True Self so you can then do more integrating and alignment with the True Self. Learning how to be quiet for a brain-focusing amount of time can also enable you to do inner work more effectively and that increases the volume of your inner intuitive voice. I've done a number of blogposts on inner work, so in this one, I'm focusing on how to "be here now."
In order to "be here now," you go to the calm place at the core of your being, the NOW (No Other When) moment which is the stillpoint of All That Is. Most people can do this but soon, their monkey minds then take over, chatting a gazillion miles an hour about everything that must be done, everything that rude person said to those people at the place you were just at, anything and everything. Even if you calm the monkey mind down for a time, you’ll notice your thoughts wandering all over the place again and again.
To quiet the monkey mind takes brain-training focus. After telling people this, most will then respond by saying to me they must have some amount of ADHD because they can’t focus. Seriously, not to discourage you, my beloved peeps, but it can take years of consistent practice to train the brain to focus and be still. You don’t have ADHD if you’ve tried meditating a few times and it didn’t take. You just haven’t done it nearly enough or haven’t used the right tools that work for you.
Here are three tips and tools to help you train your brain to go to the stillpoint, the NOW (No Other When):
1. Meditation 101: Practice one-point focus by learning to focus on one thing: a mantra, your breath, a body part, a sound (bell or chant), a sight (candle flame, flower, or other object), even a smell. Focus with one of these: your body, your words/voice, eyes, ears, or nose, whatever works best for you. If you find your thoughts wandering, gently and without judgment, bring your mind back to whatever you’re focusing on. Practice practice practice.
2. Meditation 201: Practice open focus. In this more advanced type of meditation, you learn to focus on everything at once. Start off by focusing on one sensation: sight, sound, taste, physical feeling, or smell, and then expand your focus by adding a sensation at a time until you’re noticing as many of the sounds, sights, tastes, body feelings, smells as you can. Hold this open focus and when you notice your brain feeling a bit weary, you can then narrow your focus down to one-point and then go back to open focus, taking in as much sensory data as possible. Again, practice practice practice.
3. Meditation Tutoring. There are brainwave CDs that help the brain focus and reach different brainwave states conducive to meditation. Do not feel that using a brainwave CD is cheating or bypassing the “real thing.” For those of you who have trouble meditating, these CDs can really help tutor or "entrain" your brain and achieve meditative states more easily. Here's one of several free binaural videos available on YouTube. Use earphones for it to work optimally.
I also realized the sounds of these barely detectable dog whimpers were coming out of my heart! What??? My heart chakra is now capable of producing audible sound, like a stereo speaker?
With this realization, I decided I’d better check on my dog and jumped up and went straight to the back door. I opened it and didn’t see him anywhere. I called his name, checked the dog house as well as the perimeter of the fence and then I saw it—he had dug out. This is abnormal for him, except in a thunderstorm, but although there had been no thunderstorms, clearly he was out.
I drove through the neighborhood calling his name, until finally I found a group of people who were standing around like they were concerned about something, and sure enough they had Ruffles and had kept him with them for over two hours! Thank you wonderful dog-loving neighbors!
Anyway, what I realized with this, other than my dog appears to be able to send audible wi-fi messages to me through my heart’s speaker system, is my ability to get instantly quiet is what tuned me into the intuitive Oneness that allowed Ruffles to connect to me. Getting in touch with that stillness where all information, knowledge, and wisdom lie is the secret to connecting to intuitive Flow.
It is so important to learn to be still or to Be Here Now, Ram Dass’ famous saying and book title. The challenge is that many people have no idea how to "be here now" or have the wrong idea about it entirely. Or, many of those who go around saying “be here now” are big avoiders and deniers who ignore their inner work and thus, these great meditators may also be known for acting like—well, why beat around the bush—jerks. This does not negate the value of meditating at all, though. It’s just that meditating without also doing inner work is like exercising while also eating a constant stream of junk food. Exercising is very important to physical health as meditating is very important to spiritual health. But clearing out the spiritual clutter and junk food is also just as necessary for spiritual health, and that happens through inner work. "Being in the now" doesn’t mean spiritually bypassing inner or integration work. Both are needed to help expand your well-being in a balanced way.
In fact, one of the benefits of meditating is that by getting to the stillpoint, you are able to connect with your True Self so you can then do more integrating and alignment with the True Self. Learning how to be quiet for a brain-focusing amount of time can also enable you to do inner work more effectively and that increases the volume of your inner intuitive voice. I've done a number of blogposts on inner work, so in this one, I'm focusing on how to "be here now."
In order to "be here now," you go to the calm place at the core of your being, the NOW (No Other When) moment which is the stillpoint of All That Is. Most people can do this but soon, their monkey minds then take over, chatting a gazillion miles an hour about everything that must be done, everything that rude person said to those people at the place you were just at, anything and everything. Even if you calm the monkey mind down for a time, you’ll notice your thoughts wandering all over the place again and again.
To quiet the monkey mind takes brain-training focus. After telling people this, most will then respond by saying to me they must have some amount of ADHD because they can’t focus. Seriously, not to discourage you, my beloved peeps, but it can take years of consistent practice to train the brain to focus and be still. You don’t have ADHD if you’ve tried meditating a few times and it didn’t take. You just haven’t done it nearly enough or haven’t used the right tools that work for you.
Here are three tips and tools to help you train your brain to go to the stillpoint, the NOW (No Other When):
1. Meditation 101: Practice one-point focus by learning to focus on one thing: a mantra, your breath, a body part, a sound (bell or chant), a sight (candle flame, flower, or other object), even a smell. Focus with one of these: your body, your words/voice, eyes, ears, or nose, whatever works best for you. If you find your thoughts wandering, gently and without judgment, bring your mind back to whatever you’re focusing on. Practice practice practice.
2. Meditation 201: Practice open focus. In this more advanced type of meditation, you learn to focus on everything at once. Start off by focusing on one sensation: sight, sound, taste, physical feeling, or smell, and then expand your focus by adding a sensation at a time until you’re noticing as many of the sounds, sights, tastes, body feelings, smells as you can. Hold this open focus and when you notice your brain feeling a bit weary, you can then narrow your focus down to one-point and then go back to open focus, taking in as much sensory data as possible. Again, practice practice practice.
3. Meditation Tutoring. There are brainwave CDs that help the brain focus and reach different brainwave states conducive to meditation. Do not feel that using a brainwave CD is cheating or bypassing the “real thing.” For those of you who have trouble meditating, these CDs can really help tutor or "entrain" your brain and achieve meditative states more easily. Here's one of several free binaural videos available on YouTube. Use earphones for it to work optimally.
There are also excellent meditation cds that offer guided mediations to help steer your mind so that it doesn’t wander off so easily. Drumming and rattling can also help the brain shift into Theta brainwave states conducive to meditation. Here's another YouTube video with just the beating and rattling.
The more you train your left-brain chatty monkey mind into stillness, the right-brain intuitive flow can and will happen and you will start to hear/sense/feel/know that inner voice more frequently and more clearly—even through heart chakra wifi!! This then can help you become aware of what else you need to heal, let go of, or take action on, even if that’s simply rescuing your intuitive dog!
