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Somehow in this world of crisis, all people want to talk about is crisis. We are all forever transformed as a result of the crisis we have gone through. I am sharing this with you because nobody would intentionally welcome a crisis in their lives. Nobody would intentionally say “Okay, bring on the crisis.” 

But I have to tell you there is such a gift available to all of us right now, through the pandemic, with everything we are going through in the world . . . it’s such a blessing. In the welcoming of a crisis, it puts you in the redefinition of yourself.

I like who I am now, especially after how life reduced me to my knees. I like this version of me. As I get older, I appreciate this version of being Panache Desai more and more. And there is an amazing freedom that comes along with having navigated my way through a crisis. Things aren’t such a big deal anymore. Having lived through a hurricane, and a child who almost died, and helping my wife with her health issues, I realize we are so blessed to have gone through these things. 

Nothing is definitively known, ever. That’s why Native Americans, in their timeless wisdom, have called life the “Great Mystery.” No matter what scientists do to try to break the code—send vehicles to Mars, create life in a test tube, photograph black holes in space—the puzzle of human existence and life and death is never really solved. Any “knowledge” we come to as a species is a shifting illusion that changes with the years and with those who are “knowing.” That’s the realm of science and the mind—and belief systems.

In today’s world, we are exposed to more stimulation and mental input than our systems are designed to handle. Between social media and the constant news stream of suffering and turmoil, it can feel confusing to know where to place our attention. It’s especially difficult for people who want to help but end up feeling helpless. 

Reminders of the pandemic, environmental emergencies, politics, and devastating world events pile on to our generally full and busy lives –  it’s no wonder so many of us are struggling with anxiety and overwhelm! Fight – Flight – Freeze seems to be on all the time and it’s accompanied by an autopilot stream of chattering thoughts and ideas limited to searching for potential threats. 

None of this is going away any time soon, so we need to learn strategies that will help us become more resilient and able to manage our inner lives without bypassing what is going on in the world. One way to help manage the inner anxiety loop is to learn how to experience a sense of inner peace, groundedness, and calm. You can learn how to reclaim your mental spaciousness by quieting the “monkey mind!” 

But in a world that not only overstimulates us, but that often encourages us to rely primarily on our minds over our other senses and ways of knowing, it can often feel impossible to reach a state of true inner calm and peacefulness – especially when challenges are beckoning for solutions. That said, we all need to take breaks to put our oxygen masks on in order to manage at the very least. 

In order to relieve the stress of your daily life by keeping a calm mind, you can learn practices that help you come back to your center and release your unwanted thoughts when they feel like they’re running the show. 

Why is it important to have a calm mind? 

As you evolve, you stop valuing all the stuff that doesn’t matter anymore and you start valuing the stuff that does. It’s how you feel everyday that matters. Do you want to keep revisiting your past thinking that revisiting your past is going to make a difference? It isn’t. 

How do you want to enjoy and make the best of your time? For me, time is a depreciating asset. It’s the only thing that has any value. I don’t have any ambition, motivation or drive and I’m so happy. Primarily, because I’m not afraid anymore.

Somebody who is extraordinarily driven is extraordinarily scared, insecure, and incomplete. They still think there is something outside of them that they have to accomplish or they have to prove something. Sadly, no matter how much this person accumulates or accomplishes, they will never be enough for them because they don’t know who they are or why they are here. 

I’m still riding the high vibes from an incredible weekend at OraclePalooza Virtual! Every year when we ask participants what they loved most about the event, we get a resounding response of, “The Guided Meditations!” 

Meditation is truly one of the greatest tools that we as humans have available to us for regulating our thoughts and emotions, reducing stress, and finding a sense of peace and groundedness. 

When you begin to meditate regularly, you’ll find that a feeling of groundedness comes more easily to you. 

Instead of being pulled and thrown by every little thing that happens around you, you’ll discover your ability to stay in your center – no matter what is going on around you, returning without as much effort to that center if you find yourself “tossed around”. This is what it feels like to be spiritually grounded. 

I think of this like learning to live in the eye of the storm. Everything can be in chaos and upheaval, but you are connected to a place of inner stillness and calm. Your inner state is no longer dependent on the things happening outside of you. (We’ll explore this concept more in my free workshop next week! Click here to learn more and to get free access.)

Meditation gives us flexibility and resilience to meet life’s ups and downs 

There’s a common myth that the goal in life is to reach a place of balance. 

Every energy you are experiencing is meant to ascend, to be used for your ascension. You’re at the point in your awakening where it’s time to allow your personal vibration and frequency to ascend into the frequency of divine love. Freeing you of control and resistance allows every experience to flow through you and facilitates your ascension. 

We do this by coming into an inclusive framework of our humanity which is what we’ve been doing in our Call to Calm Meditations over the past 400 and something days, and by allowing all of our energy to flow upward. This is important because you have been conditioned to take your energy and to make it everything outside of you. It’s why you are exhausted. This is how you’ve been trained and how you’ve been disempowered. 

When you discover the right tool on your path to transformation, it can feel like discovering a “soul GPS” or a magic mirror that shows you everything you need to know about yourself and about life. 

On the quest for spiritual transformation, there’s nothing better than the feeling that you are being Divinely guided – like the Universe is showing you clues and signals that light the path home toward your higher self. 

This was the feeling I experienced when I first discovered Oracle Cards as a tool for personal growth and transformation. Initially, I was surprised to find out that Oracle Cards weren’t really about fortune telling at all, although yes they can be used to do that too,  but rather that they were like a direct line to an inner ancient wisdom and guidance from a High Power that knew me better than I ever could. From that moment on, I was hooked. 

All of our life experiences have been trying to teach us a certain grand lesson: Liberation from our captive condition (whatever that may be in the moment) cannot come by further deliberating it. We can see the wisdom in doing nothing toward our own troubled thoughts and feelings when we realize that the only way not to be dragged under by these negative states is to stay out of their life.

In many ways, this kind of watchfulness is a meditation. It involves our willingness – wherever we are and in whatever we’re doing, and regardless of what that moment may be that brings up in us what it does – that to do nothing in the face of those reactions is the beginning of a new relationship with them, the beginning of the next level of meditation. Because you see, meditation isn’t just sitting someplace with our eyes closed, quietly contemplating something of a spiritual nature, or doing whatever discipline we do in order to make the mind be still. No. That’s not meditation, at least not the next level that we’re looking at together.

Everything is moving us to optimize our experience in being a human being. 

Optimizing our experience means you have to get in touch with what you need to figure out inside of you, getting in touch with what resonates with you and with what no longer resonates with you. For example, you don’t have to accept every invitation and go to everything everybody else is doing when you already know it’s not going to be in harmony with you, and you know it’s not aligned with who you really are. You know on a soul level that you are wasting time. For every moment, come into the acceptance of the moment. Our ancestors knew full well how to navigate our reality. 

We’ve complicated self-care and it doesn’t have to be complicated. You basically need to sweat, you need to hydrate, and you need to move to whatever degree you can. You need to provide yourself the fuel and support yourself in strengthening your foundation. There’s freedom in this. 

Sometimes what we're missing is the courage to express our vulnerability. We're unwilling to be vulnerable. Sometimes we’re hell bent on powering through things, needing to prove things, or needing to assert certain things in certain situations. At some point we have to embrace vulnerability, especially as empathic sensitive beings. This can be scary because you've put yourself out there before and you've articulated your fears and concerns only to be shut down or not be embraced or not be heard. And so I get that vulnerability is really hard. However, I've discovered that it's the only way to truly make it.  

The more you begin to embrace vulnerability, the more your energy, frequency and your gifts expand. This takes being willing to be honest about how you're doing it. Be willing to be honest about what you're going through. The more you can be honest about what you're dealing with and what you're going through, the less of an issue it is.

There are different aspects of the divine. There’s the manifest aspect, which is light, and it’s this reality. Everything in this manifest material world is the form of God. Once you begin to accept the form, you then access the formless nature of God, which is the void and it’s pure potential, pure space. 

In India, these two manifest forms of guides are categorized as Shiva and Shakti Shiva. The alpha, the masculine, is the formless Shakti. The creator. The omega is the form. When you have both together, you have the infinite. Everything outside of us, all of these deep esoteric truths and teachings, correspond to everything inside of us. 

Liberation is no longer offering any aspect of yourself. The more you are in a loving, inclusive relationship with yourself, the more the masculine and feminine aspects of who you are merge, and you become infinite.

The nonstop noise of the external world often keeps us from experiencing the quiet at the core of our being. There, a timeless eternal presence without sound or language awaits us, a connection to something greater than our individual, seemingly short lives. Outer distractions, both audio and visual, continuously surround us from our TVs, laptops, and cell phones and prevent a deeper relationship to all of life. Traffic sounds, machinery, and loud voices in nonstop conversation interrupt our peace of mind, even if we don’t consciously recognize the dissonance. Yet, something within each of us does know something is amiss and longs for an absence of sound within which we can feel calmer, more centered. How do we get there?

Recovery from addiction is a long road, but so is the process that led many people down the past of substance abuse in the first place. Any noble endeavor deserves time and care, and reclaiming your life from the drugs and alcohol governing your behaviors is no easy feat.

Meditation is a powerful tool for addiction recovery. Much like a gentle and well-trained therapist, it puts you in touch with your inner workings and lets you examine the beliefs, behaviors and patterns that lead to substance use. Here’s an in-depth look at how the process works and how you can get started with your practice.

How Meditation Works Hand in Hand With Therapy

Meditation and therapy complement each other in myriad ways. One form of treatment, dialectical behavioral therapy, directly incorporates mindfulness techniques into the modality.

It is common for elderly people to experience depression and anxiety. This can happen due to a mix of factors, like changes in the brain that come with aging, less social interaction and more isolation. Some elders may also feel anxious about their future or have feelings of guilt or regret from things they have done in the past or due to a past trauma. It can be hard to shake those feelings and move on which is why it is so important for seniors to stay connected with the spiritual aspects of their lives. Though there are various professional help available along with facilities like nursing homes or memory care to cure these mental health problems, some spiritual practices can be of additional help to keep them under control. This blog post will outline how elders can deal with these types of emotions better through spiritual practices. 

In the last Soul Inspirations article, I mentioned how you can find any answers you’re seeking by looking within to your soul. This week, I want to give you a meditation you can try to help you access this inner-wisdom anytime:

Find a safe, quiet and comfortable spot where you can sit with your feet planted firmly on the floor. Close your eyes and relax. Take a few deep breaths through your nose, exhaling slowly out of your mouth.

Now, bring your awareness to the bottom of your feet. Let your breath assist you in transferring this relaxing energy up through the bottom of your feet. Slowly work your way up to your calves, your thighs, your abdomen and your chest, directing this energy into these areas.