Meghan Kaul

Crammed Schedule Solution: Pranic Healing!

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As we well know, modern life is getting ever more packed with work, family, social responsibilities, and more. One hundred years ago, single-tasking was probably all there was. We didn’t have a phone ringing just as we were changing lanes on a busy highway or work message alerts going off at home while squeezing shoes on our kids.

My advice (and most others’) around this stress-inducing dilemma of higher demands and more expectations to meet in the same 24-hour day has always been centered around doing less in order to stay mentally sane and keep the physical body healthy. Working too much and being busy morning till night can take a toll on multiple levels and even amount to a serious health condition down the line. We say we should therefore re-organize our schedules and decline commitments or additional responsibilities to stay healthy. We may even go for a career change or move to a town with a slower pace of life.

But what if we could accomplish all we are currently committed to–or more–with a genuine smile on our faces and plenty of energy till 10:00 at night?

Some of us can’t change our jobs or schedules–or we love what we are doing and don’t want to! Some of us want to do more but just don’t have the stamina. This is where the miracles of energy and Pranic Healing come in.

What do I mean by the word “energy”? We throw this word around a lot and mean different things by it at different times. Here, I mean it rather literally as the most critical form of fuel we run off of: prana.

While we can live for weeks without food, days without water, and minutes without oxygen, our bodies would die within a fraction of a second without prana.

Being energetically depleted zaps you not only physically, but mentally (making it harder to think and process information) and emotionally (making it harder to stay calm and positive) as well. We all need plenty of physical, mental, and emotional energy to get through a normal day of work, family, and social life.

When a person says they have no energy to do something, that statement is more accurate than they realize. When you feel exhausted, your energy, the overall level of prana in your system, is low or depleted. Your entire energy field, the egg-shaped blob of energy your physical body resides inside, is actually smaller when you are in this exhausted state. Yet it can change and expand in MINUTES with a few simple techniques!

Something you base your schedule around as a fixed piece of the equation (how much you can do or handle in a day) is instead a variable which can be altered quickly and easily!

So instead of coming home from work and collapsing on the couch, you can enjoy enriching time with your family and friends, a hobby, favorite book, or more before it’s actually time to hit the hay. You can also get out of bed and off to work with a spring in your step, no caffeine required!

I used to be really resistant when I heard about people doing what I considered “too much” in a day. It’s true that too many of us pressure ourselves to do more, sometimes for unhealthy reasons or fears.

But I have realized it’s not always unhealthy to be busy, especially when you love what you do! And it’s not unhealthy when you truly do have the energy for it! And these tips from Master Choa Kok Sui’s Pranic Healing make it possible to keep going–when everyone else has dropped!

I have come to know some people in Pranic Healing with unbelievable schedules–Master Co comes to mind first–who work endless hours, maintain unbelievable travel schedules, don’t get sick, look young for their age rather than old… and have energy to spare.

Want to learn their secrets? Read on…

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Technique #1 Cord Cutting

This is the fastest technique, and can be done at your desk at work! You may need to choose a time when there aren’t a lot of people around, as it looks funny to those who don’t know what you’re doing. And hey–if you are brand new to energy healing, this will sound and look funny to you too! My recommendation is always the same: If you have gotten this far, you at least have an open mind. Keep an open mind, and try the simple experiments Pranic Healing describes. Then simply decide for yourself they helped you!

Energy cords are something we all have. We have “positive cords” to other people we love, to happy memories, and more. We also have undesirable cords which drain our energy, and these are to negative thoughts, negative memories, or people we aren’t getting along with. (Don’t worry about cutting positive cords, they are too strong to cut.)

Negative energetic cords can drain a LOT of energy from us, and cutting them takes only seconds! I have watched people have cords cut during healing who look years younger in seconds. If you are in a line of work where you are healing and helping people (counseling, medicine, etc) you will also have energetic connections from clients and patients (perhaps a lot!); they will subconsciously attach to you since you are a source of energy for them. This is draining for you as well.

Cutting your cords is extremely easy: Your cords connect to your energy body going straight out like lines or pipes from you, perpendicularly to your body. To cut them, simply visualize collecting all these lines or pipes and grabbing them into a bundle with your fist. You can collect them with two hands, one coming down from the top of you, and another hand coming up from the bottom of your body till your hands meet at the center.

Then hold them in one fist and then simply make a chopping motion with the other hand to sever them. Cut them at the section between your body and your fist. You can also mentally say “cut” three times or so, and if you like to visualize, you can imagine the cords breaking there (but it’s not necessary). With the first hand holding on to the severed cords, now throw the de-attached cords into the sun if you are near a window (just visualize the sun outside and throw them to it). You can also throw them into a bucket of salt water. Salt water has a dissolving/breaking down effect on congested or negative energy. (Always dispose of salt water used for Pranic Healing into the toilet afterward.)

Most people feel an immediate lift from this exercise alone…. Try it right now!

Technique #2: Pranic Breathing

I recommend cord-cutting first to stop those drains on energy first. But even if you don’t cut cords, you can do Pranic Breathing any time too, including at your desk at work.

There are many breathing techniques out there for more energy, clarity, or to help with meditation. I know you may have your favorites already. I do urge you to try a new one anyway!

Master Choa Kok Sui (founder of Pranic Healing) developed this one through lots of experimentation. How could he tell this technique had an energizing effect? Through scanning! Scanning is a PH technique of feeling the energy field of the person. By scanning, he could see not only whether the energy level increased (based on the size of the aura), but how much. He compared this technique with just about everything else out there. Trust me, it works!!

It’s also easy as can be: First exhale out the air in your lungs.

Now inhale for 6 counts

Hold your breath for 3 counts

Exhale for 6 counts

Hold your breath for 3 counts

This is one cycle. Do 7 cycles. Your energy field will increase dramatically in just the couple of minutes it takes to do this! Sometimes even by a few feet. It also has a cleansing effect on the aura, flushing out congested energy and stress energy. You will feel much lighter. Many people (including myself!) notice their eyesight sharpens after this practice!

The slower you count, the more powerful. But if you are finding you can’t get enough oxygen or can’t hold your breath for those 3 counts, by all means, pick up the tempo.

Technique #3: Meditation on Twin Hearts

This technique probably cannot be done at your desk, so make a plan for yourself so you don’t miss out. The below link is for a shortened (and free!) version though, so you only need 15 minutes to do it!

http://www.pranichealing.com/meditation-twin-hearts

You can do it before work or after, or even on your lunch break. Choose the time it’s easiest for you, or the time when you are the most tired and need a boost. For some, it’s harder to get going in the morning. For others, they don’t like how wiped out they feel after getting home and need a boost then so they can enjoy their evening. You can also do it morning AND evening. I personally recommend doing Twin Hearts Meditation 3x per week minimum to really see and enjoy the benefits.

You will still feel an energy boost your first time doing it, though, so don’t think you need to have a big plan for yourself before just diving in. Doing it regularly will have many wonderful compounding effects, far and beyond just an energy boost (mental/emotional healing, more clarity, inner peace, spiritual connection, and more)–so don’t miss out on those!

Many of you have tried other meditations or even have a favorite right now. Again–give this special meditation a try. It has been engineered carefully through experimentation to be extremely powerful and efficient for achieving the benefits I mentioned.

Keep in mind also that many of the healing and spiritual techniques Master Choa teaches us were previously kept secret except to those committed to certain spiritual schools for many years because they were so powerful. They could be mis-used to hurt others, or could overwhelm the practitioner and be unsafe.

At this point in humanity’s evolution, we are ready for more advanced techniques. So when you see discrepancies between something you learned before and something in Pranic Healing, consider that this new information has been updated and enhanced because humans are finally ready, and can be responsible, for more! Pranic Healing hasn’t just been “passed down”… it has been tested, tested, and tested some more.

Here is the Meditation on Twin Hearts link:

http://www.pranichealing.com/meditation-twin-hearts

After you have enjoyed the benefits of the meditation, you will definitely want the full version (23 minutes). You can purchase this on the PH website: http://www.pranichealing.com/store

Technique #4 Mentalphysics Exercises

Last, I must mention Master Choa’s Mentalphysics Exercises. They are perhaps the most powerful energy-generating technique of all. However, to describe them properly would be at least a blog post in and of itself–though they take just a few minutes to complete.

While it is not my intention to simply refer to you to a book or class, I couldn’t leave out the Mentalphysics Exercises in a post about having more energy to get through a busy day. So in this case, I will do it just this once!

These exercises were adapted by Master Choa Kok Sui from an original set of exercises taught by Edward J. Dingle. While the original set takes almost an hour to complete, this updated version takes about 9 minutes and generates about 10 times MORE energy than the original version!

There are countless testimonials from practitioners of these exercises who not only felt more energized by practicing them but even transformed their health by doing them regularly. They will rapidly charge you physically, mentally, and even emotionally. Try them for yourself and see!

You can learn them in the book Your Hands Can Heal You by Dr. Eric Robins and Master Stephen Co (you will also learn Pranic Healing form this book as well!). You can even pick up a used copy through Amazon for just a couple of bucks!

The best way of all: Take the Pranic Healing Level I class this month in Seattle! You will learn them in class, and the instructor will walk you through them step by step. You will then practice them as a group!

Gayle Nelson will be teaching the class March 18-19, 9am-5:30pm both days at the Bellevue Red Lion Hotel. Of course, you will also learn Pranic Healing, with the advantage of in-person demonstrations and practice too!

*Register by March 4th for the early bird discount!

Questions? Email me! meghan@pranichealing.com.

Click below for more information and to register!

https://pranichealing.com/events/civicrm/event/info?id=5505&reset=1

What does “Master” mean in Pranic Healing?

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Pranic Healing was created by a man named Choa Kok Sui, who we call Master Choa Kok Sui, and here on the western half of the U.S., we frequently take classes from Master Stephen Co who is also in charge of the U.S. Pranic Healing Center and co-author of Your Hands Can Heal You. So you will see and hear the term “master” regularly once you take Pranic Healing classes, watch online videos, and read books about about Pranic Healing. You’ll probably hear it once you have even had a couple of conversations with a Pranic Healer about Pranic Healing. Occasionally I see people newer to Pranic Healing react or feel turned off by the term “master.”

This is understandable. It’s easy to imagine a British servant addressing his Lord, “I shall polish the silver at once, Master.” Or a pilgrim or monk groveling, head pressed against the floor: “what shall you have me do, Master?” …as he awaits orders from someone he literally worships.

Neither of these pictures grasps what the term means when we use it in Pranic Healing. I can give you two very short and simple explanations as to what it means and why we use it.

First and foremost, it is a level of certification in Pranic Healing. The first level is Associate Certified, which I and many others have completed. This requires healing 25 different cases/people of a mixture of physical and psychological ailments. 10 of these cases can be simple, like a headache. The rest have to be more advanced, such as a chronic illness.

The next level of certification is called Certified Pranic Healer. For this, you need to complete 40 advanced or chronic cases of healing. The person has to be at least 60% healed of the condition and maintain that healing after two weeks of no sessions for it to count toward either of these certifications.

Senior Certified Healers are, as the Pranic Healing website puts it, “Those who have continued to add to their training and have been working as Certified Pranic Healers for 5-7 years.” There are also Senior Certified Pranic Healing Instructors who have been teaching for a certain number of years as well. I believe there might be another step or two before Master Pranic Healer, but this is all the website tells us right now. Healers beyond Senior Certified are quite rare right now–at least in the U.S.

Master Pranic Healer is another such title. There are just 8 Master Pranic Healers in the world. And that is significant when Pranic Healing is practiced and taught in over 100 countries!

To give an example as to why, let me tell you how Master Co got his title, or certification: He healed someone of blindness in a single session–and in a matter of minutes at that. Permanently. When he told the story to Master Choa Kok Sui, he told Stephen Co that he was now Master Stephen Co.

Why are there only 8 Master Pranic Healers in the world? Can’t anyone keep practicing and gain that in a decade or so? This is where my two simple examples (the certification process, and the miraculous healing) end. There is another piece to reaching such a milestone, because performing consistent, miraculous, permanent, on-demand healing like that requires not only a certain amount of energy running through your system, but certain types of energy.

Both the amount of energy coursing through your system (and consequently, the amount you are able to project for healing) and the types of energy running through your system–or which you have access to–are connected to your level of spiritual development. You simply can’t generate certain frequencies or colors of prana until you reach those levels, just as a 1-year-old toddler cannot reach a doorknob.

Trust me–no matter how many colors of energy you have personally seen or read about, we are talking about ones you do NOT find talked about in books. People who have reached a level of development to have access to these are rare on planet earth right now–hence, just a handful of Master Pranic Healers. So if you do happen to hear what sounds like a slight tone of awe in the voice of a Pranic Healer addressing Master Co during class, you can guess that this could be why.

The first time I got to take a class from him was in 2008, here in Seattle. I was in awe because he was the author of this amazing book I had read, Your Hands Can Heal You. Tom Park, his events organizer at the time, suggested I ask to have my book signed, which I did, and I was even more stoked! But in the last almost 9 years, I have had way more things to be in awe of than that!

Now how do you generate more energy and get access to more types of powerful energy for healing? Lucky for us, Master Choa, founder of Pranic Healing, left us an entire system in place so we could learn to do so. It’s the entire purpose of Pranic Healing: Learn to heal, become as powerful a healer as you can, and help as many people as you can.

After you learn Pranic Healing, you can take classes to hasten your spiritual development and massively strengthen your energy field. These classes are part of the Arhatic Yoga system (you can search for these classes on the Pranic Healing website, http://www.pranichealing.com/events). After just a few years of practicing the meditations and other practices of Arhatic Yoga, your energy field will most likely be a few feet bigger in diameter–or more–than it was before. This makes your healings significantly quicker and deeper. And that is just the tip of the iceberg….

We refer to Choa Kok Sui as “Master Choa Kok Sui” because there’s a lot of syllables there already, but there is one last level of mastery called Grandmaster. Master Choa is the one and only Grandmaster of Pranic Healing. What could he do that even the 8 Master Pranic Healers of the world cannot do? I’ll leave that exploration up to you to discover through the Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga classes. There are many students around who have taken classes with Master Choa (also abbreviated GMCKS or MCKS) who would love nothing more than to share those with you!

Master Choa Kok Sui giving energy, or blessing

GMCKS left his body 10 years ago, but lucky for us, he left dozens of books and classes to share with us everything he possibly could so we could help as many people as possible. I hope you will join me in that goal….

*I am teaching an Introduction to Pranic Healing (Free!) at my lovely friend Akiyo’s house in Bellevue, Jan. 14th from 1-3pm. Email me for details! Mobrien38@yahoo.com (my usual business email is out of commission at the moment :)) Also, Pranic Healing Level I is coming up the 28th-29th of January in Port Angles, WA, so take this opportunity to learn to heal yourself and loved ones!

How to Make Your Affirmations Work 10x Faster

Check out my latest article at New Spirit Journal!

There are so many ways to use energy to heal, materialize what we want in life, and feel happier. What you may not be aware of is that using affirmations is yet another way to use energy, or prana, to heal and improve our lives. However, some of us have been using affirmations for years with little result. There is a likely reason for that! Cont’d….

Spring Specials!

Choose One! Good through June 30th; one per person

* $10 off any session

* Healer’s Special: HALF off any session for those that work at least part-time in a healing profession (massage therapist, social work, doctor, nurse, counselor, reiki, or other healing profession besides PH)

* Pranic Healer’s Special (Pranic Healing Level I Graduates): Take $15 off any session

* Pranic Healing Intro attendee Special: Attended one of my Intros but haven’t taken Level I? Take $20 off any session!

For my availability, click here

meghan@pranichealing.com

503-277-8391

Why I Don’t Believe Happiness is a Choice

I have read a loooooot of New Age and self-help books. More than enough for one lifetime. I generally appreciate and agree with the overall sentiments expressed in many of them, especially when it comes to taking responsibility for one’s life and realizing one’s empowerment to improve it in areas from health to spirituality to finances.

But I have to tell you honestly that when such books (or Facebook memes, or inspirational quotes, et al) tell me that happiness is a choice, I tune out.

I don’t believe that one’s decisions have no bearing on that person’s mood, but saying happiness is a choice basically says that happiness is nothing but a choice, and being happy is as simple as making the right choice.

This is, in my view, invalidating, unfair, and a vast oversimplification of human emotions, not to mention powerful barriers various individuals may have toward experiencing happiness, as well as love, joy, and other positive emotions and states of being.

I didn’t like that advice before I found Pranic Healing, but after I learned MCKS’ Pranic Psychotherapy, I realized in a concrete way why whittling down one’s emotions to a choice was an even grosser oversimplification of the complex factors at play.

Let’s take sadness as an example. It doesn’t matter what the reason is for a person’s sadness, whether it is sensible to you or me. If a person feels sad, there is a buildup of this type of energy in their system, and it is therefore nearly impossible not to feel it!

In case that statement sounds vague, let me specify that emotional energies are specific and concrete types of energies. With experience in energy healing, most any healer will come to recognize them when they are working on someone. First of all, you start to feel the emotion of the other person you are working on. The healer starts off feeling calm and peaceful and then has moments of being hit with a wave of a certain emotion. This is the energy coming off the other person as it is being expelled during the healing process. (In Pranic Healing, we have specific methods for disposing of it so it does not just get absorbed in our systems.)

Next, the healer can simply scan the energies present. Sadness, when scanned (felt with the hands) has a distinct feeling–it is very heavy. For a person who can see energy, they will observe that the energy of sadness, while variable based on other emotions present, will generally look like an irregular, clumpy, or asymmetrical cloud of grayish energy. Positive emotions look and feel completely different.

Once negative emotions have clouded the energy system and gotten stuck in the chakras (energy centers) and meridians, simply choosing a different state of being, while possible, is unrealistic and certainly unfair to expect of someone. The best hope for most of us is a distraction to get our mind off of our negative emotions and switch to different ones. However, this is not a long-term solution, as it doesn’t get rid of the negativity (aka negative energy), and only distracts us from it until it just gets stirred up again, as it is bound to do.

The better option by far would be to extract the negative emotional energies from the person’s system. As I hope you are concluding by now, it is not possible to feel sad without sadness energy in your system. It is not possible to feel anger without anger energy in your system. You won’t feel depressed without depression energy in your system. Or anxiety. Or anything else.

Most people think that when bad things happen, they feel a negative emotion in response to it. A much more accurate way to put it for those of us who habitually feel certain things like anger, anxiety, fear, depression, and other emotions, is that certain situations trigger what is already there. What is already there might have been created or generated decades ago–or last week. In any case, old emotions have to be released if we are to feel peaceful and go through life without quite a bit of turmoil.

Your options are “letting go,” either subconsciously or consciously (lots of us do this with small things naturally anyway, but it’s pretty hard with big stuff), therapy, Pranic Healing, or another healing technique.

In Pranic Healing, we can pluck the things that we don’t want out with the flick of a hand (or a crystal)! We can even implant positive energies in their place. I know this because I have seen it work countless times, on countless people–not to mention myself.

Will the person feel that negativity again? In other words, is the healing permanent? Will doing Pranic Healing mean I won’t feel stress anymore?

Habitual, long-term negative emotions are highly likely to be caused by a huge buildup of them over time, or resulting from a traumatic experience that continues to get triggered. By getting Pranic Healing on those emotions, the person will be substantially or completely healed of them. They won’t get triggered at the drop of a hat anymore. And this is huge. Frankly, most people never even get that relief.

When years of old stuff is cleared away, it is simply far easier to be calm, even when stressful situations arise. We still feel stress and negative emotions, but as I have said in other posts–it is extremely common for us that we aren’t feeling the stress of that day– rather, the stress of the day stirred up the stress of a couple of decades that has been sitting in our system for years. So small things FEEL massively stressful!

Once years of negative emotional energies are extracted, our thoughts are free to go in a new, positive direction, and it is extremely easy for them to do so! This is when it could be fair to say happiness is a choice… But by then it is so easy to feel happy, choosing it would be redundant!

One exception to this: anger toward someone who has hurt you. Healing this is very difficult until the person forgives the “wrongdoer”. The energy system holds on tight to this anger and hurt and a healer will have a very hard time extracting it unless the person has either consciously or subconsciously let go of the situation and any anger toward the other. Even if the healer was able to extract the energies of anger and resentment, the person would re-create them soon enough until they have let the person and situation go. In this case, you need to do Master Co’s Forgiveness Meditation video. For difficult or traumatic hurts, you may need to do the exercise for 30-60 days.

After a healing, you may notice in a few days you are feeling that negative emotion again. Has it “come back”? No. There was simply more stuff buried deeper in your system that has come to the surface. In Pranic Healing, we strongly suggest follow up sessions until the negative thoughts and emotions are healed.

So while we can say happiness is partly a choice, and refusing to take responsibility for one’s life certainly is, I strongly dislike statements that make it sound like happiness is nothing more than a choice. I strongly feel we all need much more help in life than hearing we just need to change our mind about our emotions.

Information on sessions here

Is Pranic Healing like Reiki? No.

I love talking to new people about Pranic Healing! At first, I had to think hard to come up with an explanation and context as to what energy healing was since of course almost none of us grew up with the concept. Lately, I have figured out ways to make it make sense even to those brand-new to the idea (I think!).

For those that ARE familiar with energy healing, the title of this post is virtually always the first question I hear when I say I practice energy healing, as Reiki is currently a popular energy healing modality–at least here in the Pacific Northwest.

Since I like to help people understand what Pranic Healing is quickly and easily, and Reiki is also an energy healing modality, I usually give a quick yes and then point out a difference or two between them.

Here is what Master Co has to say about the differences between Pranic Healing and Reiki (click the link for best resolution):

DIFFERENCES BET. PH & RKI copy

However, I recently decided I am going to change my answer. Upon further contemplation, I would say that Pranic Healing is more like acupuncture than Reiki. I probably did not draw this comparison before because acupuncture uses needles, and in Pranic Healing we definitely don’t! But if you look beyond that piece, I feel acupuncture and Pranic Healing share more similarities based on the following:

1. Pranic Healing uses a depth of information closer to what is available in acupuncture, such as detailed energetic anatomy. Pranic Healing and acupuncture both teach about chakras, acupuncture points, meridians, and (in Pranic Healing) the overlapping energy bodies. Pranic Healing teaches detailed information about which chakras control which organs, physiological systems, and parts of the body.

2. Acupuncture uses cleansing as well as energizing, while Reiki uses only energizing. Cleansing is quite possibly the cornerstone of the Pranic Healing system. 80% of any healing session consists of disintegrating and removing energetic blockages caused by diseased and congested energy. Energetic congestion blocks the channels and chakras/acupuncture points. Without removing it, proper flow of prana, or energy, is impossible. (Improper flow of energy results in energetic depletion which means fatigue, illness, chronic stress, and other problems.) When an acupuncturist twirls the needle counterclockwise, it causes the acupuncture point, or chakra, to expel and release diseased energy.

3. In Pranic Healing and acupuncture, the client receives a healing session specifically tailored to their ailment, symptoms, pain, or psychological issue. Pranic Healing addresses the exact energetic manifestation of the person’s ailment. Energetically (as well as physically of course), asthma looks different from migraines which look different from a phobia. We use a different healing procedure for each ailment, as Master Choa created tailored protocols for hundreds of health conditions which are used for each session.

For a person who has never heard of energy healing or tried it, I agree Pranic Healing and Reiki could easily be in the same category. You are using energy, or prana, to heal. However, in the world of energy healing, the differences Master Co discusses are huge!

I hope this gives you an even broader picture of Pranic Healing! The best ways to understand it are 1. Receive a healing session. You can do this in a private session with me or at one of our Free Healing Clinics. 2. Take a class. You can take Free Introduction with me or someone else, or sign up for Level I, happening April 2-3 with Chandan!

How I Started and Kept My Exercising Habit (18 Years Ago)

How are the New Year’s Resolutions going?

If you said “Huh?,” you’re not alone. I found these interesting statistics at statisticsbrain.com:

Percent of people who are successful in achieving their resolution	8%
Percent who have infrequent success	49%
Percent who never succeed and fail on their resolution each year	24%
People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions

http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

According to this data, only 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolution, with 49% with infrequent success and 24% who fail on their resolution each year. However, notice the importance of making a resolution; it says you are 10x more likely to attain your goals if you do!

However, let us not be in category 3 where we make the same goal year after year!

I was inspired to write this post after watching Master Co’s February Full Moon Meditation video. He always gives a lecture on a spiritual topic before leading a meditation. I particularly liked his discussion of willpower. He was talking about sticking to a meditation schedule:

“When it comes to spiritual practice, the secret is not love. It’s will.”

This is what that means to me: we sometimes confuse being loving toward ourselves with letting ourselves off the hook in doing what we know is right and healthy for us.

For instance, I make a plan to exercise regularly and after a few days, it goes out the window. I am advised to be kind to myself, so I relax about it and don’t push myself with the result that I don’t exercise much, if at all. This is not the intention of that advice to be kind to ourselves! Or if it is, it shouldn’t be!

We are to be loving and forgiving toward ourselves as opposed to beating ourselves up when we miss a workout or don’t meditate as we planned. That doesn’t mean we change our goals or stop trying to achieve them.

Achieving goals takes willpower. You can be willful in achieving your goals and kind to yourself at the same time! But if you are kind without will, you simply won’t make it to the gym or the meditation room.

Master Co also says in the video students ask him all the time for advice or a trick on sticking to their meditation schedule. He says there is no trick. There is no technique. You just do it.

There are so many situations where we massively over complicate things, and this is one of them. We will read every article on the Internet about working out before we actually walk outside and go for a run. We will read and study how to create a habit without doing that thing we want to be habitual more than a couple of times!

You DO have to do things in life you don’t like that much. Yes, I am stating the obvious. But have you applied that fact to your exercise or meditation schedule? Sometimes it’s the obvious that we avoid.

(If you are reading this, thinking about exercising, stop reading now. Put on a grubby old t-shirt and sweatpants, and go jogging outside. Not in shape? Jog until you can’t anymore, then walk. When you have recovered, jog again, and repeat the process for 30 min. Come back home, take a shower, and finish this post :))

I was looking back this morning and realized I have been exercising regularly for almost 20 years. I joined a gym at 16 and, aside from a few breaks, I have pretty much been exercising a few times a week since then, though I will freely admit it’s less frequent than before I had a baby. Do I love going to the gym? Heck no! I do it because I care about being healthy–and yes, looking good–and exercise is simply required.

Naturally, it will help if you find something you like at least a little. When the weather is decent, I go for a run outside, and I do enjoy that a lot. The gym isn’t the greatest, but it’s easy, they have everything there, and at this time in my life, the childcare is more than useful as well.

So how did I ingrain this habit into my life?

Do it every day for 3-4 weeks. Every. Single. Day.

Extreme? No. I am not suggesting you run a marathon every day. If your goal is exercise, just do SOME amount of exercise every single day for 3-4 weeks.

Here’s why: When you do something every day, you don’t ask yourself each morning if you will do it that day. If your plan is to exercise 3x/week, it is way too easy to see that there are 7 days in a week so you can always start the next day. Procrastination is extremely easy. Pretty soon the week is done and you have exercised once or twice. The next week, you’ll be lucky if you get there at all.

When the plan is every day for 4 weeks, it simply silences excuses and stops procrastination in its tracks. There are no mind games with yourself. It’s so simple, it works. By the time the 3-4 weeks is up, you are so used to going to the gym (or whatever the new habit is), you feel positively weird when you don’t. I know, because this is how I did it!

You will also learn that even when you are tired, in a bad mood, had to put in extra hours at work, had a bad latte, or whatever else happened that would have otherwise thrown you off and made you put it off, you can still make it to the gym. You can still do what you need to do, and these small things in life are really just excuses. So when you do create a schedule for yourself later that may only be 4x a week or whatever, when you are stuck in extra traffic on the way home from work, it doesn’t turn into an easy excuse not to go.

Some of those workouts might be ridiculously short or simple, but that’s ok. It absolutely counts. If your workout is at the gym, all you have to do is go and make sure you do something for 10 or 15 min. That’s your minimum. You are ingraining the routine into your life as long as you are going, and that’s your only goal right now!

It works the same for meditation. When the question changes from, “should I meditate today?” To “when will I meditate today?” you are miraculously fitting it in. You have to change the question you ask yourself!

Master Co also said in a class, “You don’t practice spirituality when you feel like it.” I wrote that down, typed it up later and printed it out in big bold letters. Then I hung it on my bedroom wall.

If you miss a day, you still don’t beat yourself up. If you beat yourself up, it’s so damaging and disheartening, you won’t continue. Why would you, with such abuse from a simple mistake? That is key. Notice you missed a workout, figure out how to prevent it the next time, and then just literally forget about it. Next day, keep going with the plan. There is no other way, and I don’t care how fancy/exotic/exciting people make their plans or their tricks come across. In the end, you are either doing it or not.

By the way, when you start exercising, the biggest hurdle is not learning all the things you “need to know” about how to work out or lift weights. That stuff is so ridiculously easy and simple compared to your first task of simply getting to the gym or outdoors to exercise daily in the first place. Don’t procrastinate yet again by telling yourself you need to learn more first, you need to learn how to workout, you need to learn the best workout first. You DON’T. It doesn’t matter if you are doing hopscotch for 10 minutes some of those times, as long as you are doing something!

Putting a new routine in place is difficult, and remember that the hardest part is (unfortunately) the first step you have to take, which is creating the new routine. It can be incredibly hard! But once you have that down, the rest is so easy. Then you can study about what workout is best for you and tweak your routine.

You are not hurting yourself to push yourself. You are not being unkind to yourself to aim high and force yourself to achieve a goal you know is good for you! We’re not talking about pushing yourself to do 2 hours on the treadmill here! Just pushing yourself to move your body every day until it is a natural part of your life. Getting yourself out of one routine and into a different one takes a push for everyone. That is ok! This is good–this is empowering!

I hope this post wasn’t too boring, and I apologize for lack of lightning bolts and wand-waving, but I guess I get a bit annoyed with all the fluff and math that I read about accomplishing simple things, and though I guess this concept will be a lot less exciting, as least you can rest assured it’s honest and functional. And let me add that self-honesty is not a given and not easy. Master Co also says sometimes we need a “psychic slap,” I believe was how he put it…. At least, I can tell you it works for me! 🙂