About this episode
On this special release episode over the holidays, still appropriate no matter when you might listen, I’m going a little personal about why I meditate. I’m sharing some of my recent experiences at a weeklong retreat. Had you told this active, love to exercise, entrepreneur with two-armed company that she was going to: Not know the schedule daily beforehand Meditate for up to 35 hours a week Get up and not have matcha or coffee to be at meditation by 6 or 4a I’d have heavily doubted this was something I wanted to do. Yet, before my first was done, I knew there would be a second. After 6 weeks of an online meditation course with a small group and a coach, I was able to make a 20-year change that was overdue for my personal health. That was in the fall and it was the next spring that I attended my first retreat. My daily meditation habit was fairly consistent, at least that is, until I got a puppy. I’d returned to it but wanted to completely immerse myself again. I’m sharing this “why I meditate” episode to share really a little testimonial about meditation, the work of Dr Joe Dispenza, in hopes it might serve you. Questions I Answer in This Episode: Why I Meditate [00:20:42] What happened at a recent weeklong retreat [00:07:32] How meditation is not as woo-woo as some might think [00:07:02] What it is and isn’t [00:07:02] Why I Meditate and My Recent Experience at a Week-Long Retreat During a week-long meditation retreat, in the third of three healing experiences, something profound happened to me. My chair began shaking like someone had their hands on the back shaking it. I wanted to open my eyes and turn and see but I didn’t want to break the healing experience. Then suddenly that continued, and my forearms began bouncing uncontrollably. If you can imagine dribbling multiple basketballs at the same time in rapid motion. I wasn’t doing it and I couldn’t stop it and felt that I didn’t want to/it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I was only mildly aware of the woman next to me on my right taking some deep breaths, maybe crying. I have no idea how long this went on. I wasn’t scared. I was calm and simply conscious that something was happening. When the healing was over, I made eye contact with the woman on my right and shared what happened. She apologized and had something similar occur to her left arm. She wondered if she had flailed so much it bothered me. When we passed a clip board with our names, I noticed she too was a Deborah (different spelling than mine). As we left, she shared that this was her 8th week-long event, having 24 different healing participation. This is her first experience of this kind. We marveled at the experience and then parted ways on the way to lunch. The next morning, she ran into me in the elevator. I said, “what are the chances?” There after all were 1500 attendees, but we then ran into each other again. She said, “I’ve been thinking about you. I wanted to tell you; I haven’t been able to hear out of my right ear since I was a child. This morning, I can hear out of my right ear. “ Why I Meditate and am Hooked Waiting outside the hotel, the demand for Uber drivers was huge. I cancelled the first booking and tried again. Same driver. Still 23 minutes away. Worried about wasting time, I stuck with it. Worried about check-in and making my plane. Seconds later, I get a text from the airline. My flight is delayed from 1:54 to 2:17. Exactly 23 minutes later. The same as my uber wait. Coincidence? Before I left for the retreat, I’d been feeling my right knee bothering me. It seemed like something on the medial side of my knee was bruised or swollen. It wasn’t an acute injury and it wasn’t due to any major training change. If anything, it was chronic but seemed odd given my lifestyle and care. I opted to do a Prenuvo total body scan and when it became available in Scottsdale, I signed up. For those wondering, it’s a total body scan looking at muscle, skeleton, organs, assessing space in spine and between joints. I learned I’ve got a little degeneration at the cervical spine and flattening of that curve. I also learned about Baker’s cysts behind each knee, which explained the right knee issue. I did see a little benign lesion on my liver that might be something to watch and really minor other things. I’ll elaborate on that in another episode. Now, there was a visible reason for what was aching, not when I walked or exercised, but lying my knee straight. Since returning from meditation, I’ve done high intensity interval training, daily walks, and strength training. I’ve had no discomfort. I’m only just realizing it because we only focus on it when it’s bothering us right? It no longer is. I’m not saying that meditation could heal your weight loss resistance problem, your gut issues, or your bone-on-bone situation, but there is research to suggest and testimonials who have grown back a thyroid, healed cancer, or restored hearing. Could it open doors for you? Why I Meditate? I Feel Better! I don’t know that. But I do know, I feel better, and I operate at a higher level of energy when I meditate. I do walking meditations, seated and lying meditations. It’s one of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself. (not the week-long, but the daily practice of it) I fought the entire week at this second week-long retreat with Dr Joe. I had to bring myself back again from my wandering, chattering mind. I was lying in a room with 1500 people, with Dr Joe Dispenza leading a meditation and thoughts of tasks or memories of conversations coming into my mind. I had to ask myself repeatedly, REALLY? You’ve come all this way, you’ve taken yourself out of your normal life so that you can make changes, become the better version and you’re in this presence but not here? I was also sick. In behavior change, illness and injury often show up. You’ve heard about issues in the tissues related to the biology of trauma. We know for instance that being overweight can be tied to childhood trauma or ACES. Tension in shoulders or pain in hips can be related to unresolved emotional trauma. Getting sick is another way for the body to put up resistance and or sometimes to purge.I had some emotional trauma in the recent month that I was dealing with and some pending decisions to make in other areas. It took until the last day of the event for me to be truly rewarded, or so I think. Magic may have happened all those times I was just showing up. But finally, it did. And I keep experiencing new awareness of changes. There’s a risk here and that is that you may outgrow people who don’t operate on the same frequency. You may attract a whole new set of people to you. Why I Meditate Now, and Share this Message Whatever you want, if you have been doing things you think will get you there, and you’ve confirmed that’s really true, it could be that you’re thinking so much more about what you don’t want or the problem, or haven’t identified what it is you DO want, and aren’t focusing all your energy there. You don’t have to be someone who is constantly complaining of ailments or a hypochondriac, but any default thinking that could have been based on something someone said to you years ago, that stuck with you, may have become the identify you are keeping because you haven’t imagined something else. But there’s more… Just yesterday I was shopping and had decided on a set of tights and jackets. I was in line and then noticed two other people also waiting with no structure to this “line.” Dec 2024 Resources: Unlimited with Dr Joe Dispenza: https://drjoedispenza.com Prenuvo: http://prenuvo.com/DEBRA Flipping 50 Retreats: https://www.flippingfifty.com/womens-retreats/ Other Episodes You Might Like: 5 Health Benefits of Meditation, Gratitude and Visualization: https://www.flippingfifty.com/benefits-of-meditation/ References: https://drjoedispenza.com/scientific-research/the-science-behind-a-miraculous-healinghttps://drjoedispenza.com/scientific-research/the-science-behind-a-miraculous-healing https://drjoedispenza.com/scientific-research/demystifying-the-formula-heart-brain-coherence