‘What will you do with your one precious life?’

Big question. I never liked it.

When I was young, I was always aware of time. I was either waiting or late.

It’s hard to answer ‘What will you do with your one precious life?’.. if you have a mild anxiety about time.

What’s a good way to make friends with time?

Make friends with the present moment.

Know the present fully to learn from life’s experiences fully.

There’s no point planning your future if you don’t know your present.

Plan from a place of calm and knowing.

I am working on a concept: ‘5 Seconds of Mindfulness is Enough’.

This is my favourite way into the present.

Let me know if you are interested in learning.

We’re action-based - monkey see, monkey do x1000, monkey rich.

The thing is, if you do something 1000 times.. you may build wealth but you may forget how to feel rich.

Kids and dogs have a type of richness..

When I see this, I love it, but I also feel like I want to be the cool kind of rich.

Maybe I want status.

Actually, no, I do want to be dog happy.

My expression of joy does not lower my status - it enhances it.

What would this 🌀Abundance feel like?

Feeling so rich in a moment, you don’t need to change a thing.

Having a certain type of presence.

That presence can be built through Action..

Imagine if you have a stress reaction to a situation.

Imagine your urge is not to react but to check in with yourself for a moment.

Act as if you are more important than the problem.

Imagine you have a stressful thought.

Instead of generating more thoughts, you take a moment to feel where it came from.

Act as if you are more important than pop up throughts.

Imagine an unhelpful habit.

Imagine pausing and choosing curiosity over repetition.

Act as if you are more important than the habit.

And you can take this presence further → 🪙 That Billion-Dollar Feeling.

Feeling so naturally filled up, it’s flowing out of you as warmth and presence.

Imagine if someone else has a stress reaction to a situation.

Imagine your urge is not to solve but to be fully present to them for a moment.

Act as if they are more important than the problem.

Imagine someone tells you a stressful thought.

Imagine your presence disolves their need to keep thinking about it.

Act as if they are more important than their pop up throughts.

Imagine someone has an unhelpful habit.

Imagine your curiosity and presence flows on to them and they feel differently.

Act as if they are more important than the habit.

When you make contact with this type of presence - you’re sending a powerful message.. “I am enough. I am abundant. I have enough presence to share.”

I had a fun conversation about this with Rohit ⬇️

And lately, I’ve been wondering:

Is there a limit to the real estate of my mind?

And what the hell am I building there?

I recently read a New Scientist article that said; ‘As our brains think.. they create structures in at least seven mathematical dimensions... which appear and disappear like sandcastles on a beach..’

You don’t just dip into social media stories — you build something.

How much energy does it take to be The Architect?

Every post, every image — it takes that energy — to process — to interpret.

Think about the social complexity and the messages in each post.

You’re constructing cities to house the stories and opinions of others.

Every time you scroll, you get more architect’s plans.

Each blueprint asks your mind to build another structure —
a little skyscraper of meaning.

Is scrolling on your phone actually work?

Mixing cement and raising towers of thought and identity.

Each post - every few seconds.

Building a city is a great way to neglect yourself

I think I’m getting something from my phone..

but really, I’m pouring in a lot of effort.

And you can’t build a home in the imagination.

Where to Pour Yourself

Pour your awareness into the breath.

Pour your awareness into the body.

Build your home in the Present.

The Present isn’t just a city - it’s a whole world

It doesn’t need building - it’s already here.

You just need to make contact with it.

Rest into it

So what would it feel like to pour yourself into this moment right now?

To let awareness fill your body, then spill into the room around you?

Expanding beyond the room..

Listen — to the most distant sounds you can hear right now.

It’s not all bad

Building a city in the imagination helped me write this article.

Which city have you been spending too much time building?

Doc Brown had to get plutonium from terrorists.

It was hard to get that time machine running.

But by the second movie, Doc Brown had rigged it to run on garbage…

Banana peels. Beer dregs. Every day waste.

It runs on all your shit.

What if you could change the past and the present with all life’s shit?

Let’s call this time machine the Thanks Capacitor.

At first, it’s really difficult to run, it’s like finding plutonium!

But when you get good with it you can fuel it with all your life shit..

The messy, the difficult, the breakups, the failures, the regrets..

..those are your banana peels. That’s your fuel.

It takes all that shit… and kicks out basically pure abundance and goodness:

👍 Thankfulness

👍 Appreciation

👍 Acknowledgment

👍 Admiration

👍 Praise

👍 Honor

👍 Valuing someone or something

And those things can take you anywhere.

With those energies, you can step out of your stuckness, your stories, your worries.

You can change your present.

Gratitude can change your reality - ‘I am not stuck!’

Presence makes the coffee taste richer.

This freedom makes the laugh linger longer.

And you can change the past.

Remember: if you visit the past with different eyes, you see a different past.

It’s not possible to be happy in the present if you are bitter and angry about the past.

Memories that once felt heavy — regrets, wounds, difficulties — could become treasures that made you strong and wise. If… let them change!

And now you’ve already started to manifest a new future.

I’m sure your’ve seen people who are bitter about the past that can’t seem to grow.

But grateful people see what’s ahead with more joy, more curiosity.

You start to expect life to unfold in a more flowing way.

You’ve started to rewrite your entire timeline.

So you are now drawn to positive situations and outcomes.

So ride gratitude — rewriting the past, letting it deepen the now, and letting the DeLorean carry you forward to a brighter future.

Watch me talk about this on a YouTube video..

Big thanks to my friend (and YouTube co-creator) Rohit for contributing to this concept!

Ever find yourself acting in the same way with someone again and again?

Or having the same old repetitive thoughts about a situation?

I get upset.

I feel like a scared cat.

Scared cat creates mafia boss character to protect it.

Mafia boss becomes controlling.

Mafia boss shouts a cat for being weak.

We sure love to give ourselves a hard time, don’t we?

After a while, these characters generate their own lore.

We collect whole back stories about situations in our life.

Cat hates when a certain person says a certain thing.

Cat can’t handle certain situation.

Cat is hard done by.

Interesting question: Where do they come from?

Are they passed down from parents and teachers?

Are they in-built human archetypes like the warrior or the sage?

Do we copy people from movies?

I don’t know.

This is where mindfulness can help.

Those characters or roles come in subconsciously.

These roles or parts don’t deal with the underlying energy (the feelings).

We probably employed them when we where in a stressed state.

When a situation bothers you.

Pause.

Don’t step into that old role.

Don’t act out the same old scene.

See what it feels like.

What do you need?

What automatic reactions are you being pulled into?

Pause.

And when you are ready.. Choose how you want to react.

This is an invitation to open that frame again.

Sensory Awareness as Meditation

Whether you're walking, sitting, or just listening, treat this as a kind of guided meditation. Let your awareness soften and follow where your senses lead. Every sensation—physical, emotional, or cognitive—is a doorway into presence.

Thoughts? They're made of images, sounds, sensations. Emotions? They too arise as sensations in the body. Everything is sensory, and yet most of us have never been taught how to simply be with sensation.

Instead, we rush to do something with it: act on it, fix it, or spiral into thoughts about it. But what if we just sat with the sensation like we would with a nervous pet or child? With patience, kindness, and curiosity?

Sometimes, that's all it takes.

Collapsing the Dream

Ever tried to explain a vivid dream upon waking? There's that surreal, emotional richness that starts to slip away the moment we try to capture it in words. You remember your childhood home—but it wasn’t really your childhood home. You spoke with someone, but it wasn’t really them. Still, it meant something, didn’t it?

As we wake, we instinctively collapse the dream into a story, a to-do list, a message. But the dream wasn’t designed to be logical—it was multi-dimensional. When we try to make it linear, something gets lost.

This collapsing happens all the time—not just with dreams. We experience a feeling, and we rush to name it. But “anger” today is not the same as “anger” yesterday. Words never capture the full terrain.

Wine Tasting, Word Tasting

Here’s something curious: when you taste wine, and someone says, “Do you notice the peach?”—suddenly, you do. The experience intensifies. The label expands the sensation, even though words usually shrink things.

Why?

Because the right word can open a space—a pause, a kind of reverence. Just like saying “peach” during a wine tasting draws your awareness in, naming a feeling—“this is grief,” “this is longing”—can expand your experience of it. The word doesn’t reduce the emotion; it invites you to taste it more fully.

So here’s a practice: be a sommelier of your experience. Taste the moment like you would a fine wine. Explore the earthy notes of your tiredness. The bright acidity of your joy. The smoky swirl of your confusion.

Walking Meditation: A Sommelier of Now

As I walked the other day, I did exactly this. I tuned in, and dipped into each sensation, each sound, sight and feeling. This is what I noticed:

• The sun on the right side of my face.

• My feet pressing into the ground.

• A car fading into the distance, dissolving at the edge of hearing.

• A thought arose: Is this making sense? I felt it behind my forehead. I stayed with it.

• The wind brushing my back.

• Children playing. A smile rising unbidden.

The awareness danced—not held tightly to one thing, but freely moving, guided by curiosity.

This is a kind of meditation too. Not rigid focus, but free awareness. You're still “doing” life—walking, talking—but with an added layer of attention, a deepening into the moment.

Emotional Tasting

Eventually, I’ll guide a practice in emotional wine tasting. But for now, just notice: every emotion is experienced through the senses too. A tightness in the chest. A heat in the face. A hollow in the stomach.

And sometimes, just naming it—this is sadness—opens a space. That space is where transformation begins.

Final Thoughts

So ask yourself:

• When do words collapse your experience?

• When do they expand it?

• What happens when you stop trying to “do” something about a sensation and just sit with it?

Let me know what you taste when you listen to your life this way.

And next time you feel something—before collapsing it into a label—pause.

And sip it curiously.

Watch my YouTube version of this here..

1. Lightning conductors [0:02]
2. Building a log cabin [1:34]
3. All thoughts are driven by emotion [3:02]
4. Intense self-development [3:52]
5. When your practices are not working [4:18]
6. Identity changes can be difficult [5:09]
7. Learning about YouTube - 5 to 1200 Subs [7:13]
8. Summary [8:44]

Transcript of Video

[00:00:00] Okay, so what's been happening the, do you know how sometimes a, something in your life becomes a lightning conductor for your stress and your annoyance? So something, someone will say something or you'll get an email and you'll keep going back to that and I, it's all the lightning of your annoyance and.

Frustration and boredom just goes onto that thing. Well, well, I've had that, but it's been about an actual lightning conductor. So for one of my companies, uh, it was selling a property and we had to get a Lightning Conductor test. And long story short, we got the quotation and. When the company turned up to do the work, they said, actually this quotation is wrong.

It's gonna be three times what we said. And then they send an invoice for that day, a 600 pound invoice. So I think they've misquoted. [00:01:00] I'm getting really annoyed, and I don't think I should be paying for their, for the day they turned up. Uh. So, yeah, so it is been an actual lightning conductor has been the source of my rumination and frustration has all gone into that.

I keep thinking about replying, um, to this, this guy, even though I've already replied, and it was just taken up my time. It was going into my day, into my evening. I was checking my emails and just overthinking about it. So now I'm building a log cabin. So I've always had this idea of building a log cabin, you know, somewhere in the woods where you can get away from everything, be in nature.

I don't know if you've had dreams like that, just being away from everything. Well, now I'm kind of doing it in a, in a way. So this, this, this, this event with the Lightning conductor quote is, has, has, has [00:02:00] invited me to look at how I manage my time, how I check, when I check my emails and I'm putting it off.

I'm building a log cabin of peace by putting off. When I check my emails, I'm only checking 'em in a certain time. I'm only using my phone within certain times, and that is like me going deeper into nature. Finding a place to build this log cabin, the longer you leave it between checking emails or having these ruminating thoughts, every time a thought comes up to do with something that stresses me out, this Lightning conductor, I.

Step back from it and get on with what I was doing. That's me building this log Cabin of peace in the woods, and it's a place I can always go to. Wherever I am, I can always just back off from the thinking I can back off from. Checking emails from checking my phone to get some dopamine to be distracted from boredom or frustration, I can always go to this log [00:03:00] cabin in the mind.

And so this stuff that's been happening is making me think about how all thoughts have an an emotional content to them. All thoughts are driven by emotion. So if you think how many thoughts we have in a day, a lot of them we just forget about at the end of the day. 'cause we're bored of them. They don't have an emotion attached to them.

The ones that we keep ruminating on have like a stronger emotional connection. They have a stronger emotion behind them. And this is good that we have emotions connected to thoughts because otherwise you wouldn't do anything or think anything. Emotions are like the fuel for life and. We can spend a lot of time just being annoyed that we're thinking about stuff, annoyed that we're having emotions, but that's like just being annoyed at your own aliveness.

The stuff that comes up is fuel for life. It just depends how you use it. And I've had quite a lot of stuff coming up for me. I've been doing some quite deep work going into the lower [00:04:00] part of the body to the energy centers, feeling more grounded for feeling more present in the body. And yeah, that's brought up some stuff.

Um, and it has brought up more energy, more aliveness, more emotions, and I'm feeling. Like, it's easier to get stuck into thoughts. Uh, and, and some of 'em, my practices haven't been working. Some of 'em, my meditation practices haven't been working as, uh, as they have been doing in the past, and this has been really strange for me.

It's been a bit difficult. Uh, I've had to use other practices like breath work, cardio, pushing myself at the gym, inner child meditations, uh, different stuff because my meditation practice where I sort of go to sort of just step back from the thoughts was just too. It was just too e energized. I was needing to move too much.

There'd just be so much emotion there, and so that's okay, [00:05:00] but it's just, just taught me that it's difficult when something changes, when you've had something that works and then it doesn't work in the same way. It can be really difficult and it, it's been doubly difficult for me in an identity way. So as a meditation teacher.

I have not been teaching meditation and I have also changed my relationship with the practices. So this is, is is doubly difficult when something. Changes your identity. A meditation teacher that is changing his practices, uh, and doesn't have the same way of talking about them, doesn't have the same use for them.

They're not, uh, they're not the catchall for everything. Um. But this leaves me more skilled with dealing with people in the future. But I just wanted to notice, notice, tell you that this, when anything changes your identity, like your job or what you think you're good at or, [00:06:00] or anything like that, it's, it's really difficult.

It really brings up questions about. Have I made the wrong life choices? Uh, what am I doing? Uh, it can really make the ground move be beneath your feet, but when you've moved through it, you'll get a deeper understanding. So now I have a renewed, uh, empathy for people that are starting meditation. Uh, I, I'm, I'm reconnecting with that, that feeling I had when I first started where.

If you've got anxiety or you try meditating and it's just awful. It's just really hard at times. You're just hearing about these people that are finding these zen experiences and you just do it and you can't sit still for 30 seconds without being just plagued by thoughts. It's reconnected me, me with that, and that's how I experienced meditation when I first did it.

And so yeah, I now have a bigger empathy for people that are starting out, so I have grown from this. [00:07:00] And I would say if you are experiencing similar, get a mentor or, or reach out to someone that's been through a similar experience and they will have some sage advice for you on how to navigate that. So something else that's been coming up for me, uh, is that I have.

I've been involved in four YouTube channels and one of them has grown really rapidly. It's gone from about five subscribers to 1200 subscribers in a week, and I'm learning so much by working on these channels and trying different things. You might notice on this video I've added a, a contents, uh, page at the start and then the little chapters.

So within the first 30 seconds, you'll. Get some information on what's coming up, uh, uh, so you know, so you know what to look out for. And the other thing we've been experimenting with is creating shores from the longer videos and using that as a [00:08:00] feedback loop. So you create the longer video, then you create the shores, and you find the, the main points that you made, the, the most interesting points, the best sentences, and you put them into shorts.

But by doing that process, you are. Feeding back to yourself what the most interesting part of the video is. And so you can use that process to then improve the next video and to, to work on it that way and create a feedback loop and to do that as soon as possible. So rather than waiting a week before reviewing, do the, create the short straight after you've made the video, and then you'll have it fresh in your mind.

And then ideally create the next video, within a few days or a week. So another thing I'm. Exploring is adding a summary at the end. So, to summarise this video, what is your lightning conductor? Or have you had a lightning conductor in the past that has taken all your boredom and frustration and tiredness and it [00:09:00] just, that became the problem that you ruminate about, but you're actually kind of just bored.

And for me, with ADHD, I just. Want to find something to be bothered about, to put all that energy into. And the second point was about the log cabin. So what is a dream that you have? And it's a bit of a fantasy escape from things. So I. Go and make your dream. Go and build a log cabin. But what can you build now?

What can you build that can help you get away from the stuff that stresses you? You can build this structure in your mind. You can build these boundaries in your life that allow you to get that place, whatever that looks like. Can you bring that into your everyday life with practices? And then there was a point about.

Events and people that challenge your identity. So whenever what you do as a job is challenged or whether you think you're smart at something and then that [00:10:00] is challenged or everything is going right and you have these practices and then they don't work in the same way and you have to question what you, you believed and you have to tweak things and and grow, um.

That can be very challenging. Anything to do with identity as who you are, what you are, what you do. We can be have this grasp of that. We can have this firmness that we hold onto. We make our identity solid when actually everything in nature and in the world. And in us it is just replacing. It's just popping up.

It's just happening. Even the body's replacing itself every seven years. Nature never stands still. No identity stands still. We grow old, we decay. So the best way to live is to accept that and to go with the flow of time.

I want to fill it with big ideas, big feelings and big inspirations.

And it made me think..

I’m always searching for big ideas, big feelings, big inspirations.

You could call searching for the flow state.

You could call it hyperfocus.

You could call it wanting to lose yourself in what you are doing.

You could call it searching for rabbit holes.

Without falling into black holes.

Distractions that draw you in, like your phone.

You don’t finish doomscrolling feeling expanded.

You come out feeling compressed.

Maybe you could call it searching for wormholes.

A wormhole takes you outside of time.

I’m looking for an activity where I lose track of time.

You can’t feel flow before you are in flow.

You could call it believing in what you are doing.

So much trust that you let go of everything outside the activity.

The flow state is really the trust state.

The reflections of light were so lovely; I didn’t mind the rain.

I was looking in a certain way. I was totally present.

There’s this quote by a famous photographer that I think about often.

'If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.' - Robert Capa (Hungarian-American photographer)

How about this for being close..

This guy got very close to his subjects.

He chose to take photos on the beach during the D-Day invasion at the end of WWII.

One of his most famous photos is of someone being shot right next to him.

This guy was invested in what he did.

I’m pretty sure Robert Capa was in the flow state when he was taking photos.

The closer you are to life the more you will be in flow with it.

When you want to feel more flow at any time..

Perhaps you want to start a project or activity.

Repeat these words below with conviction and act upon them.

These words are embedded with change.

Let them wash over you like it’s a poem full of hypnosis.

I get closer to life.

I bring the photographer’s eye to my mind’s eye.

The eye of focus becomes the eye of doing.

The eye I have when I wander around a new city.

I lean in.

I lean in deeper.

To start this project is to know it.

I pour my awareness into it.

And so I begin.

Let me know how you get on.

I could do a whole series on photography meets mindfulness meets hypnosis.

All day we are painting our masterpieces.. we might call it reality!

Emotions flow up to our minds eye..

where we are continuously painting our Sistine Chapel.

Are those with many thoughts just greatly inspired?

Are those with many opinions just frustrated artists..

struggling to share what their mind cannot translate?

How do we make our life’s work beautiful?

Paint beauty in our mind’s eye.

And every now and then remember to take a break from painting.

Climb down the ladder and feel the ground.

Create art in the world, not just in your head.

I created a hypnosis superhero and villain (with the help of ChatGTP and Firefly Image Generator).

The Transcender

Alias: Dr. Christopher Whisper

Background: a master hypnotherapist and mediator who unlocked his abilities while meditating on a retreat in Scotland during a once-in-a-century astrological event. He has the ability to make people relax and see through the veil of their mind. This makes them let go of what they were doing and thinking, often with a yawn. This superpower can help civilians let go of anxiety, and it also works on villains. The villain yawns and lets go of their evil plan. They gain a sense of hyperpresence. They feel enough. They see the world as being beautiful just as it is.

This is basically the hypnotist I aspire to be, helping people feel alive, empowered and enough. I believe the (seemingly paradoxical) idea that by developing an acceptance of ourselves, of others and eventually of everything we can make the greatest changes in our life.

The Enchanter

Alias: Darian Alaric

Background: A hypnotist turned cult leader who uses his mind-altering drugs and his charismatic powers of persuasion to gather a following of devoted zealots. Darian believes it’s his destiny to reshape humanity under his divine rule.
Abilities: Can hypnotize individuals into worshipping him, making them loyal to his cause. He can also amplify his hypnotic powers through rituals, controlling larger crowds at once.
Motivation: To build a world where he is worshipped as a god, ruling over a society free of resistance.

This character is the opposite of acceptance, he is motivated to control everything because he does’nt feel enough. The grandiose sense of self hides low self-belief.

Please note this post moves into the territory of hypnosis misconceptions, so to clarify..

• No one can hypnotise you against your will.

• It is not a special power we all experience hypnosis daily.

• I teach clients self-hypnosis, so they have the power to make change.

I'm curious to know, what would your superhero (or villain) be like?

What would your abilities be?

This introduces you to a new way of dealing with your problems and negative thoughts, and at the end of this article is a video with a guided self-hypnosis exercise.

I call this concept Hot Air Ballooning.

I was just driving my car and some guy rushed through a roundabout shouting at me.

Afterwards, my mind kept going back to the event,

imagining shouting at him or explaining to him why he was wrong.

But anyway, as soon as the event happened, it was in the past,

so there’s no need to waste my time thinking about it.

In a hot air balloon..

you fire the burner, capture the hot air in the balloon and this carrys you off the ground.

In life when a situation happens (eg. someone else’s bad driving)..

we have a fire of upset or anger in the body, we capture the rising emotional energy in our minds and this leaves us feeling ungrounded.

And when we are ungrounded, having negative thoughts will re-fire the emotional burner again.

But here’s the thing..

We don’t need to capture the energy in thoughts, we can let it go,

we can gently land the hot air balloon.

At the end of this article is a video with a hypnosis exercise to do this.

Here’s a secret..

We get used to flying the hot air balloon,

being in thoughts might feel comfortable in some way

so you might have to land gently and slowly.

Here’s another secret..

Firing the burner might feel good in some way.

Having emotions might feel stimulating.

But.. you don’t have to put out the emotional fire.

And another secret..

When you’ve landed the balloon, you can enjoy the fire.

You sit around a campfire. Enjoying the warmth.

The heat of your aliveness!

Don’t use it to float away in thoughts..

..let it warm you up rather than making you ungrounded.

And here’s a hypnosis-y trick..

We often try to get rid of emotions, wanting to release them and be done with them.

Don’t make that a thing.

Do the opposite.. enjoy them and see what happens!

Like blowing on a fire, encouraging it,

taking deep breaths imagine you are blowing on your fire of aliveness energy.

Encouraging it to burn higher and brighter.

This is paradoxical intention. When we try and do the opposite of what we want it takes the pressure off.

Learn this self-hypnosis skill to let go of problems in life.

Learn to notice when you are hot air ballooning.

Learn to land it gently.

Learn to appreciate the fire of your aliveness.

[Only watch when it is safe to do so.]

I USED TO OWN THE DOMAIN YAWNOGRAPHY.COM

I was going to publish anything that would make you yawn or help you sleep.

Because the modern world needs to learn to rest and I find yawning so powerful.

That a yawn is when someone is bored while they're listening to you.

Actually, what it means is they feel safe in your company.

They feel at home, so it's a great thing when someone yawns near you.

..of thoughts, of concepts, of ideas.

For a moment you let go of any needing to do anything.

How often do you get to feel that?

For a few moments, you disappear into the feeling.

You become the feeling.

You become the movement of energy flowing up and out of the body.

Energy flowing freely is very pleasant.

It’s one of those moments of being completely present to the experience.

It can be those little moments in life that are a way into stillness.

We can connect to those moments so we can have more peace in our life.

The ego is constantly wanting you to do stuff.

It’s either wanting stuff or worrying about stuff.

Not when we yawn.

We just experience the present fully without needing to change anything.

With a yawn, you might sample a tiny bit of that ego death that you get on plant medicine retreats or in deep meditation.

That not needing to do anything, that not, no trying, that just experiencing.

You can sample a little of that.

And a little of that feeling of time-stopping is a big deal.

I like the way that the yawn lets go of ideas.

The energy just rattles up, rising up and out of the body without getting stuck in thoughts.

Imagine if your problems did that?

Just by not doing rumination.

Just by letting go and letting life happen,

It's us that sustain our problems.

Would they even exist without us thinking about them and adding to them?

Whenever we hold onto something, like holding feelings down or ruminating our thoughts, they don't flow.

That's when we keep repeating habitual behaviours and thought patterns.

That’s when we cause these stresses in our life.

I mean, no one else is ‘doing’ your problems like you are?

Take that feeling of yawning and use it.

It’s like a type of hypnosis.

When you feel stress, imagine bringing on that flowing, yawn feeling.

Use that feeling of energy flowing up and expressing out.

Let it flow, maybe you sigh or you yawn and in some way it lets go of the problem.

And if you're thinking, that's ridiculous, my problems are important to me, how dare you say a yawn will sort it out?

I'm sure the yawn won't sort all of your life problems.

But just imagine if it did, and you thought it did, you just thought;

‘if I sigh or yawn, and I'm present right now, that is enough.

There's nothing I need to do in this moment.’

The yawn or sign would be enough.

Just some breaths out, and the emotions moving through will be enough.

Then that will be enough. You'd be enough.

Because the present IS enough.

You wouldn't need to keep sustaining anything.

You wouldnt need to keep worrying about something, you wouldn't need to keep holding anything, you wouldn't need to keep up an argument..

..you.. would.. just..

Let it go..

When you die, I feel like that's like a bit like a huge yawn.

It's almost like you shed your own skin and your soul comes out your mouth.

And you're free from doing anything or needing to do anything.

Hopefully that’s not for a long time but I’m looking forward to it in a way.

So hopefully you've yawned while you're reading this, and not because I'm boring.

So hopefully you have and you feel a bit more relaxed.

And encourage yourself to yawn in life, encourage that flowing of energy up and out and letting go without controlling it, without managing it.

And you might be surprised what else in life you can let go of.

so people often want to learn to

meditate to escape something

they want to escape some negative thoughts

they have this idea of going to nothingness

and they can be horrified when they look inside

and they find all this aliveness bubbling up

it’s like a fountain of all these likes and dislikes

all this joy, all these feelings bubbling up

and they don't know what to do with them

and we often then go into consuming

people often think consuming is a way to deal with this aliveness

or they think consuming is rest

but actually, creating fills you up

creating gives you rest

if you're consuming like binging Netflix, boredom eating, doom scrolling

that takes your energy away and leaves you depleted

Creating can give you energy even if you're going to the

gym or even if you just go for a walk or

if you're meeting with a friends you're

making jokes with friends

that will fill you up, that is restful in some way

Even if you're going for a walk,

it gives you the energy to then rest afterwards.

It allows you to then relax and sleep perhaps.

Whereas consuming doesn't give you that

so knowing the difference between

consuming and rest is really important

and the power of creating

whether that's cooking some food

or writing a poem or creating a video,

find these ways to fill you up

these activities express that aliveness

so once the aliveness is expressed and

you're riding that wave of the aliveness

you'll find that peacefulness

that you're seeking

I think it comes

peace it comes in the expression

it comes in the connection

it comes in the creating of things

so when you're creating and expressing your

aliveness you will find that peace in that

and by riding the waves of aliveness,

you can get in touch with that

nothingness that people often seek from meditation

...

Watch this article on my YouTube channel..

[Please note: this post has little grammar and punctuation as it is a stream of consciousness]

I’m old enough to remember games consoles.

You would push a game cartridge into the slot, and the game would load up.

I’ve been taken by this idea that your thoughts are like cartridges.

What cartridge did you wake up with today?

Did you wake up ruminating about the same old shit?

What cartridge are you running right now?

Does it serve you?

HYPNOTIC CARTRIDGE EXERCISE

Try this hypnotic exercise to let go of anything that no longer serves you..

You are going to take a few breaths and then imagine removing a negative thought cartridge from your mind.

And remember it’s hypnosis so the more you lean into believing it, the more powerful the result.

Preparation.. Generate the right breaths.

Breath in.. deep and slow into your belly.

Breath out.. with a slow sigh.

Breath in.. imagine feeling cool mountain air filling the body.

Breath out.. feel that warm old air leaving your body as you relax all the muscles.

Excercise..

Breath in.. Feel cold mountain air filling the body up to the top of the head.

At the top of the breath, put your hand to the top of your head and imagine removing the cartridge. Make a ‘click’ sound with your mouth as you remove it.

As you exhale relax into a peaceful moment..

Feel an openness in the top of your head..

You’ve just removed the negative thought cartridge..

Keep breathing in a slow peaceful way..

Keep enjoying the feeling of openness in the head.

It’s pretty powerful. I just ended up sitting in a cafe and staring out a window when I tried it today.

An empty calmness in the mind.

That feeling of not having any mental programs to run.

That feeling of not needing to do anything.

It’s so powerful you might have to do some grounding to balance it out.

Perhaps some deep breathing and feeling your muscles relax to the ground on the exhale.

Let me know how you get on and what negative thought cartridges you are removing.

Chris

Watch this on my YouTube channel..

Good journaling should take you out of your day-to-day shit.

Good journaling should reveal something about your experience.

I’ve refined a way to drop stress,

a way to gain perspective,

a way that can help you sleep better.

I’ve got a lot out of this method.. which we can call You+5 Journaling.

WHAT TO DO: Go to the free website FutureMe.org

WHY: This site allows you to send an email to yourself in the future.

WHAT TO DO: Write a journal email to yourself in the future.

WHY: This keeps it private but gives it an audience.

WHY: Having an audience gives you motivation.

WHY: Having an audience gives you perspective.

WHAT TO DO: Write to yourself 5 years in the future (You+5).

WHY: Perspective.

WHY: 5 years is long enough for your life to be completely different.

WHAT TO DO: Put on a song and write the name and artist at the top of the page.

WHY: Music sets the scene for this ritual.

WHY: When You+5 reads this back, the music will take you back to this moment.

WHAT TO DO: Write the time, date, and location at the top of the page.

WHY: Perspective.

WHY: This reminds you that you are just in a moment in time.

WHAT TO DO: Write about your day and your mood.

WHY: To describe your mood to You+5, you have to step out of the mood.

WHY: You might be surprised how much perspective and clarity this gives.

WHAT TO DO: Do not try to hard.

WHY: Just know you are writing to You+5, and the magic will happen.

WHY: You are writing to someone who will have been through this.

WHY: You are writing to someone who will have grown.

WHAT TO DO: Write before bedtime, around 3-5 times a week.

WHY: It helps you sleep. It wraps up your day.

WHY: No day is wasted if you learn something from it.

TO SUMMARISE..

1. Goto FutureMe.org and write to yourself 5 years in the future.

2. Put on a song and write the name at the top.

3. Write the date, time and location.

4. Write about your mood and your day.

5. Be ready for a new perspective. Be open to revelations.

6. Do this every weekday evening.

This is not just a gift for You but also for You+5.

I remember pre-smartphones.

Makes you think how much things have changed.

Life is so voyeuristic now, isn’t it?

Sitting on the toilet..

Hiding away from life..

Watching other people’s lives on our phones..

There’s a thing in the mindfulness world about Mindful Toileting..

Have a listen to this 😳

I’m laughing but mindfulness does have a place in every part of your life..

But I would suggest that for most people.. don’t try too hard..

Yes, do not take your phone to the toilet with you..

Don’t hide away, escaping life.

But don’t sit there expecting any transcendent experience.

Just **** quick and get on with your day.

As you would if there were no phones.

What I’ve been up to…

I’ve just got back from a menswork retreat in Ireland. It was extremely powerful.

I will share more about it when I get time.

The landing in Ireland was interesting because of Storm Darragh…

Bad advice…

1. Location rules - ‘sit in the office till the work is done.’

2. Time rules - ‘grind for a 3 hours morning routine.’

3. Breaking tasks into ‘To Do’ lists. FutureMe will not be given homework.

4. Coming back to a task next week. No mate.

This is what works for me…

1. No location rules. I have a laptop 🤷

2. No time rules. Keep my day flexible to work when inspiration hits.

3. No ‘To Do’ lists! I trust my subconscious knows what matters to me.

4. Get the work done in one session. Ride the inspiration wave. Streamline your process. Go from Idea → Finished Output.

Let me know. Is your brain is similar?

What I’ve been up to..

Enjoying the autumnal sunshine and a 3-day Hypnosis Convention 🌅꩜

IF you can feel something is drawing you in

AND it doesn’t serve you to get caught up in it,

THEN draw your focus (your kite) back to yourself.

With any people and situations that bother you,

just don’t spend your time thinking about them.

This includes negative thoughts.

Just because you have negative thoughts.. doesn’t mean you have to entertain them.

'Just because it’s windy... doesn’t mean you have to fly your kite.'

Positive psychologist Alfred Adler had a concept called ‘separation of tasks’.

For example, whether someone likes you or not, is their task, not yours.

Don’t concern yourself with other people’s tasks - Don’t people-please.

Just do your tasks - Gain your independence.

I might extend this to thoughts.

It’s not my task to entertain my thoughts.

It’s my task to see them as thoughts and do something else, something I want to do.

A better hobby than kite flying might be Meteorology (reading the weather).

How to read the weather..

EITHER.. Sit in your log cabin, light a fire and stare out at the sky.

OR.. be the hawk riding above the wind, watching it below you.

DON’T.. Fly your kite.

Get to read the weather well..

because on a deeper level, you could say you are the weather.

What I’ve been up to..

I’m recording new meditations for my YouTube Channel. Subscribe to be in the know when I launch those videos..⬇️

My fellow meditation teacher Dan Conneely and I hosted another inspiring Meditation Mondays meetup..⬇️

I’ve become obsessed with the X-Files. Luckily there’s 218 episodes and 2 movies..⬇️

Bye for now..

Chris

Maybe that’s why it took me so long to realise something in my life should be sacred...my focus, my awareness, my experience.

I don’t want to waste it on being annoyed.

I want to use it to create beautiful things.

I want to use it to feel appreciation for beautiful things.

..as our lives become what we focus our awareness on.

This all sounds kinda religious, doesn’t it?

Maybe we can see it in a different way.

This isn’t giving power to a God like in the TV series American Gods..

..it’s a way of valuing YOUR power!

If you are with me up to here, this leaves just one more rather important point..

..How do we treat something as sacred if we’ve stripped sacredness from modern life?

Modern life encourages us to value ourselves by our achievements;

our popularity, our money, our followers or our productivity.

Sacred is above all that..

It can be a journey back to sacredness.

But in my experience, it also feels very natural.

Life is better when we have something to value.

Here’s where to start ⇩

If you found this interesting, please share it 📣

Feel free to reach out to me if you want to chat 📩

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