Meditate the Way You Enter a Hot Bath


By William T Batten

Some days, meditating is easy. Other days is seems impossible. If you're starting out, maybe every day feels like one over the other. As you become more familiar with the techniques, there are more of the good days.

It helps to know what to do when you're having a bad day, though. Maybe you're new to all of this or perhaps you've got a lot on your mind.

Life happens. You don't have to be perfect.

And thanks to one awesome technique, you barely even have to be decent.

The trick is to meditate the same way you'd enter a hot bath.

You know what I mean. You dip your toe in then recoil out immediately.

Then you go for it a second time and it doesn't seem as hard. Maybe you make it to your ankle before pulling out.

On the third try, you lower yourself in a few times.

Then you simply ease into the warm water and let it envelope you.

You can meditate this way, too. Just like with the bath, it's a lot slower but its success rate is phenomenal.

If you're trying to meditate and it's not working, that's okay.

Open your eyes. Breathe. Bring yourself back into your normal state of awareness.

Then go again.

Close your eyes, draw your attention inwards and do whatever meditation techniques you like.

And if it still doesn't work, repeat the cycle. Then repeat it again. Keep going until you're in a state of meditation.

There's a principle in hypnosis called fractionation. The idea is that bringing someone in and out of trance brings them deeper into trance. It's strange but it works. Each time they go back into trance, they go deeper and faster.

It's the same with meditation. Every time you close your eyes, it gets a little bit easier.

Think of it like a warmup. Runners stretch before exercising and this is the mental equivalent. The experience guides you to better results.

And let me tell you this:

This exercise builds your meditation skill like nothing else.

Reaching a state of meditation, even when you struggled with it, is like training with weights on. The difficult days are where you learn the most. The struggle is where you progress.

What I love about this is how friendly it is. If it's too challenging, then stop, take a break and start again. It's so effective and enjoyable that you have no excuse for not using it.

You can apply this with self-hypnosis, too. If your mental landscape becomes unstable, fractionation will bring it right back into balance. From there, you can activate your greatest emotions, skills and states of mind.

Only if you learn about how to do it first, though...

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

Don't Ignore Distractions


By William T Batten

One of the big challenges with meditating is learning to handle distractions. It shocks no one to learn that it's a useful life skill, too. Staying focused despite noise, discomfort or even your own thoughts will transform more than your inner life.

It's a challenge. No one will pretend that it isn't. Some days your thoughts are calm like a pleasant stream. Other days the world around you is a turbulent mess.

Good meditators can enter the right state no matter where they are. Let me tell you from experience that being able to meditate on international flights is amazing.

Great meditators can even handle their thoughts being noisy.

It's funny - even as I write this, I'm getting distracted. There are noises outside, which are nothing compared to the ideas popping into my mind.

That's okay, though, as I'm still writing. And my meditation sessions are similar.

In fact, the problem's worse when I'm meditating. When my mind is quiet, that's when ideas start flooding my mind.

At least, they try to.

The trick is not to ignore distractions. That takes effort and is itself a distraction. There's a much better way to keep you on task.

Suppose that your young child brings you a drawing of theirs. That's cute, right? But let's assume that this is the ninth drawing this hour... and, to be blunt, they're not very good.

What do you do? Do you yell at the child? Tell them to leave you alone? Pretend they don't exist?

Well, you could. It might even stop them distracting you.

But I hope it's clear that this is not the best approach.

What do you do? You take the picture, smile, thank them for the beautiful drawing and wonder if they can make an even better one.

It's a loving, accepting, patient attitude.

Strange as it sounds, it's often useful to treat your own mind like a child. If you are meditating and fixating on distractions, don't blot them out. Acknowledge the thought or sense, and thank your mind for bringing it to your attention. Calmly explain to yourself that you're busy right now. Later, you can give any distractions they have your full attention.

Now, though, you need to focus on this.

Meditation is the ultimate me-time. You need to protect it, even from yourself.

But it can never be a clash of wills. When you fight your own mind, you lose no matter what. Calmly owning what you are entitled to is the smarter way to win.

This technique of treating part of you as another person is very useful with self-hypnosis. With it, you can transform yourself quicker and easier than you might believe.

Change is easy when you work with your mind.

And you can learn everything from inductions to change work right now:

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

Post-Meditation Gibberish Means It's Working


By William T Batten

Now, this is not a universal experience.

It's pretty common. It happens to me all the time and I see it in others, too.

Some of you will read this and nod your head. For everyone else, keep this in the back of your mind. You might find it useful one day.

There's a curious phenomenon with meditation. You might go so far as to call it a side effect.

This phenomenon is where, after a really good meditation session, you suddenly become completely inarticulate. You can barely string two words together. I'm not talking about if you try to describe your session, you find your experiences don't translate well to words.

No - this is where you can't talk about anything.

Something as simple as your dinner plans leaves you grasping for the right vocabulary.

Like I say, not everyone will know what I'm talking about. Some lifelong meditators never experience it.

This is for the rest of us.

The best remedy for this is time. Your words will return to you. Simply take a breath or five. Your brain needs to switch gears again, then it will know what to say.

If you don't have time or you don't want to wait, how can you speed this up?

It helps to know what causes it.

The brain has two hemispheres - left and right. It's a misconception to say that you favour one or the other. All complex tasks use both hemispheres. But it's also a misconception to conclude that they are the same. Each specialises in different styles of thinking and logic.

Your left brain tends to be more analytical, its thoughts are more linear and it likes to think of the past or future. The right hemisphere tends to be more open, parallel and thinks in the present moment.

This is an oversimplification, of course. Your brain is complicated and no simple model can capture it. Even so, it's pretty accurate.

Language mostly comes from the left hemisphere. But notice that the right one pays attention to the present moment. When you practice mindfulness meditation, your right brain temporarily activates more than your left brain.

The better you held your attention on the present, the more intense this imbalance becomes.

Of course, this shift is tiny. It's not like your left hemisphere switches off and you become a blubbering, irrational goofball. But if you find yourself unable to find the words, it's because that part of your brain has put its feet up and it enjoying a rest.

Time restores your balance. If you want to speed it up, then start engaging your left brain. Count from one to ten, then start over. Pay attention to specific details in your environment. Make it clear in your mind where your body ends and the world out there begins.

And, of course, you can practice speaking. That's the surest way to find your words again. It's also a good measure of how far deep inside yourself you went and how quickly you're returning.

Another strategy is to learn self-hypnosis. There are techniques you can learn and apply to enter deep trances and exit them smoothly. No fuss, no difficulty and nothing but a great experience.

And you can learn all about this different approach to your inner mind here:

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

Applied Neuroscience Secrets of Ancient Mystics


By William T Batten

The power of meditation is the power of your mind. It trains useful mental skills that lie at the heart of everything you do.

For example, focus.

Learn to do that and nothing won't become easier.

For example...

If you want techniques that improve your memory, the best place to turn to is the latest neuroscience research.

The second best place is a book by William Walker Atkinson.

Memory: How to Develop, Train and Use It is over a hundred years old. It is remarkably timeless, though. Not everything that he wrote still holds true... but most of it does.

A hundred years ago, they knew a lot less about how the brain works. You'd be surprised by how much they knew about using it, though. Atkinson drew on the techniques and traditions of ancient cultures.

And many ancient cultures knew a lot about maximising their memory.

Before the printing press, books were written by hand. If you owned a library, it meant you were rich. If you were lucky enough to be literate, the best most people could hope for is to borrow books.

And if you have to give books back after a week or so...

Well, you'd better memorise as much as possible. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time.

That's not even mentioning cultures that memorise their holy texts. These people need to be word-perfect with long, complex writings.

You can't do that without solid memory skills.

So the brain may have been a black box to them. But they sure knew how to wield it.

The arts of memory require dedicated training in a range of techniques. But there's one principle that you need to master before you can even begin:

You can't make a good copy of a bad recording.

If you're not paying attention, then it doesn't matter how good your memory is. If you walk through life in a mental haze, then you won't notice anything. And if you don't notice something, you won't remember it.

Focus is important. It's the first step in all mental processes. If you don't pay attention to something, you won't remember it, learn it, appreciate it...

The list goes on.

Through meditation, you learn to still your mind and focus on what's in front of you. Master this and nothing else, and your memory will naturally improve. Your thoughts will organise themselves better around good copies of clear records.

And if you decide to learn memorisation techniques on top of that...

Well, who knows how far your memory will develop.

If you want to train both your focus and memory, there are dozens of self-hypnosis techniques you can apply. If you're good at meditating, you'll find these both easy and captivating. If you have struggled with meditation in the past, this might be the approach you're looking for.

You can learn all about self-hypnosis from the ground up here:

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

How Genius Is Like Stupidity


By William T Batten

As you learn a skill and develop your abilities, there comes a middle point. From this point, the road before you looks an awful lot like the road behind you. In a way, mastery is a regression back to your baseline...

Novices see the world in a simple way. This is because the novice ignores most of the information in front of them. Think of someone learning to drive. Before they sit behind the wheel, they think it'll be easy. They've seen adults do it without any drama.

You just turn the steering wheel and go, right?

A master at driving also sees it as a simple task. They ignore most of the information, paying attention only to what matters.

Then they just turn the wheel and go.

In between these two phases - near the middle point - driving is complicated. There is so much information to pay attention to. Lanes, speed, other cars, your destination...

They turn the steering wheel while information floods into their mind.

Both geniuses and dunces see things as simple. The path to mastery is about learning complexity, then how to simplify it.

What separates the masters from the novices is focus. Novices don't know what to pay attention to, so they ignore almost everything. Masters also ignore almost everything, but they narrow in on the one relevant detail and decide from there.

This is the true power of strong focus. Yes, it keeps you on track. Yes, it allows you to ignore lesser priorities.

But its real virtue is being the heart of mastery.

The better you can focus, the more able you are to fixate on the relevant details. Once you know what to focus on, mastery accelerates.

And the best way to train your focus is through meditation. If you can pay attention to your breathing, then you soon realise you interesting it can be. There are so many sensations involved in inhaling and exhaling. Until you notice them, every breath seems the same.

Like a novice ignoring all the details.

When you learn to find interesting variations in your breathing, you can apply that to anything. If air moving in your nostrils is interesting, people are fascinating. You'll never suffer through a boring conversation again, because you realise there's no such thing.

Monks can stare at a rock with rapt attention, mesmerised by its features and details. As the sun moves through the sky, it lights the stone in different ways. You can learn to see more of it through the power of focus.

And when your focus is this powerful, everything else in life becomes easy.

Another way to train your focus is through self-hypnosis. People think of a hypnotic trance as like sleeping. The truth is you become hyperaware. In this state, you can quickly and easily exercise your powers of focus.

And the gym to exercise your mind is right here:

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

3 Types of People Who Can't Meditate (and How They Can Learn)


By William T Batten

When you spend time on personal development forums, talking with curious people or hanging out with open-minded folk, the topic eventually turns to meditation. And this conversation splits itself into two main camps: those who swear by it; and those who tried it and it didn't work.

In these communities, the people who haven't tried it are a minority. That's cool, though I'm not talking about them today. I'm focusing on those who gave it an honest, solid try and walked away frustrated.

Now, I need to make clear that what I'm about to say is my opinion. It may well be wrong, though I'm confident in it. I base this off my own experiences with meditation and the psychology of the unconscious mind:

My belief is that well over 99% of people can learn to meditate. And most of those who "can't" meditate, even after giving it some time, seem to fall into three categories.

The Already-Unconscious

Meditation does many things for your mind and body. If you only use it to relax, that's great - it's an ideal tool for that. Just know that it's like swatting a bug with a suitcase.

It can do so much more. Your unconscious is the source of your emotions. Not just obvious ones like happiness or anger, but complex ones like motivation and concern.

If your emotions are imbalanced or doing strange things, you have options. One option is to find the cause deep in your mind and address it.

People use meditation because it quietens the conscious mind while giving you useful tools, like patience and acceptance. In this state of inner tranquillity, you can expose and resolve patterns in your own thinking.

But there are people who are in this state all the time. By some quirk of psychology, their conscious mind is always quiet. Their inner dialogue is a whisper, or completely absent.

Does that make these people enlightened?

Maybe, maybe not. But if you think this describes you, then my advice is this:

Practice being patient with yourself. Learn to accept your thoughts. If you judge your thinking, then your mind will keep things from you.

A close friend will stop talking to you if you judge everything they say. Treat your mind as you would a good friend.

Then, meditation becomes easy for you. Simply think about whatever you want to work on. You can skip the techniques around focusing and breathing - those get you to a state you're already in.

The Meditators by Different Names

Some people meditate but can't let go, keep their focus or stay on task. They then decide that they tried meditation and it isn't for them.

For some of these people, you dig a little deeper. You ask about their hobbies and it turns out that they like hiking, painting, swimming, movies...

Maybe their favourite thing is playing with their children. Perhaps they love their jobs.

If you have activities that you love, then you can use these to meditate. If you often lose yourself in the activity - if it leaves you feeling recharged or at peace - then I have good news. That's the state of meditation.

You might think it strange that something like tennis can be meditative. After all, tennis is about speed, sweat and excursion. But how many tennis players experience time slowing down and the world going quiet, even as they move to intercept a 200 km/hr tennis ball...

Meditation isn't a special class of thinking that only happens in monasteries. You experience it all the time in your life. It's about harnessing, expanding and appreciating something that you already do.

The next time you meditate, keep that experience in the back of your mind. Anything that brings you closer to that state is good. If you move further away from it, go back to what you were doing before.

The Inner-Blocked

Then there are people who find it harder to access their unconscious mind. Their emotions are dulled, their imagination is grounded and the above descriptions about playing tennis made no sense to them.

There's no judgement here. If you think I'm describing psychopaths, I'm not. Some people live highly intellectual lives. There are thousands of rewarding careers that need people like this - people able to rationally think through a problem without getting distracted.

There's nothing wrong with pursuing satisfaction instead of happiness.

If you find meditation difficult because you're too conscious, this might be you. When someone tells you to close your eyes and go inside, you don't know what that means. It's an unclear instruction and, boy, that must be irritating.

You can learn to meditate anyway. The question you might ask is whether you should.

The general rule is that exploring your unconscious mind enriches your life. It adds unconscious material to your conscious awareness, which opens up what you can do. It gives you more options without detracting from anything you have.

Having said that, what you find might surprise you. Most people have a lifetime of experience dealing with strange unconscious materials. Things like random emotions, strange memories and unusual thoughts flicker through our minds all day. If you're not used to it, it can be unsettling.

My advice would be to find a meditation coach. Not just any coach, though. You'll want someone who understands where you are coming from.

Ideally, they'll have gone through the exact process too. They'll know how to guide you to the next step and how to handle anything that comes up.

Working with them might be the greatest decision you ever make.

I suppose there's a fourth category: people who find meditation boring. It's supposed to be boring, as remaining still while your brain craves novelty punches through the veils in your mind.

But still. It's boring.

If you want a fun way to engage your unconscious and explore your mental landscape, look into self-hypnosis. Once you get good at it, it can give video games a run for their money.

And you can get good here:

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

Align Your Body to Align Your Mind


By William T Batten

Meditation involves being still and quiet, both in your body and mind. The problem with a still body and a quiet mind is that it draws your attention to any discomfort. If you plan to meditate for long periods, you need to get your body comfortable.

Then again, maybe you don't.

Discomfort has its place. It can keep you awake and focused. It can drive out other distractions.

But, and I may be going out on a limb here...

I assume that if you want more discomfort, that's easy to arrange. If you want to change something, it'll probably be to decrease discomfort.

And with that not-so-controversial assumption in our minds, let's talk about posture and meditation.

Firstly, it's a myth that you need to sit cross-legged. You can sit however you like. In fact, you don't even have to sit. I usually meditate while sitting in an office chair. I've done it lying down and standing up.

A few times, I've meditated while walking around. I find self-hypnosis works better - I can use the ever-changing scenery and the sensation of walking to drive the experience. For other people, mostly those who are really good at shutting down their inner dialogue, they meditate while walking with no problems.

So do whatever you need to. If doing yoga keeps you calm and focused, do that. If that sounds terrible, don't worry about it.

Secondly, sitting upright is not necessary natural. Our ancestors walked most of each day for most of their lives. If you're not comfortable with it... well, neither were they.

But if sitting still appeals to you, then here's how to do it right.

Your ears, shoulders and pelvis should form a straight line. If you have a mirror handy, use it. If not, don't worry. There's a better way to measure it than eyeballing your reflection.

The first thing to check is to see if there's any tension in your body. Focus especially on your pelvis and lower back. If you are holding the posture using tension, then you're not really holding it. The goal is to remain relaxed throughout.

Then work your way up your core. Are your stomach and back muscles relaxed? If not, release any tension and adjust your position as needed.

Check your pelvis again to make sure the tension hasn't moved.

Do this again with your shoulders. Release any tension and move them into a stable alignment.

Finally, check your head and neck.

This exercise takes practice. If you need a month or two to get it right, take a month or two. It's time well spent.

Or just lie down to meditate.

And if you want to learn more about how to use self-hypnosis - whether you're lying down, sitting up or walking - then click the link below. You can learn to explore your own inner reality even as you navigate the outer one.

   https://guided-thought.com/downloads/unlock-vault-self-hypnosis/

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