E071: Meditation

now on to this episode. Hello. This is James and this is Jane,

and here we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. What are we speaking about today? Jane,

well, today we have an old friend of the show back. We have Jillian McMichael with us excited, and it is exciting. I love Gillian, and some of you may remember her from way back in like series two or three, where we had long conversations around coaching and the experience of being a coach, and what you can get from coaching, which is great, but actually, today we're going to be talking to her about something a bit different. We're actually going to be talking to her about meditation.

That's exciting, isn't it? It's like it's a good time for meditation. It's a helpful thing to be able to do. So hopefully we cover a range of good stuff. Our plan is certainly to speak a little bit about what meditation is, how you can get better at meditation, some of the benefits of meditation, and broadly, just kind of explore the whole topic. And quite excitingly, we're actually planning to record a series of guided meditations with Jillian that we'll release after this. So I'm looking forward to that. Are you? Are you keen on guided meditations? Jen, I'm really

excited about this because I think I'm really interested in Jillian's experience as a master coach, and how she's recognized the role of well being in a person's life, and therefore try to think about how she can help contribute to people's improvement. And for her, a big part of that is her own experience of learning meditation and then learning to teach it. And so for me, someone who struggles with intrusive thoughts and letting them come and go, I find meditation really interesting, and I'm really excited to hear what she's got to say. Cool. Well, let's get into the conversation and see what we learn.

Okay, so here we are in the core body of today's podcast, and we're having a conversation with Gillian McMichael, and we're going to be speaking about meditation and what it is, and how it works, and all that kind of good stuff. But before we get into that, Gillian, would you be able to say hello to the audience and introduce yourself and say a bit about your background? Yeah,

sure. Hi everybody. I'm Gillian McMichael. I'm a master coach. I'm also a show presenter, meditation and wellness teacher and I've been involved in wellness and helping and supporting people achieve their goals and aspirations for the last 17 years.

Wow, that's quite a journey, isn't? I always forget that you're you're quite early to move to coaching, which is exciting. Yeah, I kicked off in 2004 so, yeah. So it's been an interesting journey so far. Yeah,

have fun. Well, today we're going to be chatting about meditation, and I guess if we just start with the real basics. You know, what is meditation?

Yeah. So meditation is a journey from activity into silence. It's a technique or a tool that allows you to settle into quieter and quieter levels of awareness until the aim is to achieve pure silence within so a journey from activity into silence. It's also known as a purification process. It helps us become who we really are, and overall, it enriches anything that we do,

right? And, I mean, that sounds pretty good. It sounds like a type of thing people would have been hoping to achieve for a long time, the sort of calmness and the sense of connection with who you really are. In terms of where meditation comes from. Is there just one path of meditation? Are there lots of different ones? Is it different places?

I mean, there's lots of different types of meditation. But obviously meditation comes from ancient India. Basically, many of these records come from the Hindu traditions of vedantinism. And after that came Taoist in China, and then Buddhist India. So there are kind of the three core kind of stems of meditation. The meditation that I teach is known as primordial sound meditation, that's based upon the ancient Vedic traditions of India. But you do have other meditations, such as Transcendental Meditation, VIP NASA meditation, Zayn chakra meditation and yoga meditation. So there's lots of different adaptations of meditation, depending on what you're really looking for and what you Yeah, what you need, I suppose.

And are they significantly different? I mean, I don't want to get into big detail on them, but how related Do you think they are? I just

think they come from different schools of thought. To be honest, I would say that most of them are very similar, the yoga, meditation and then you can you. And also use meditation through kind of Tai Chi and other kind of Japanese movements and so forth. You know, that's kind of using movement and breath. And actually, all of meditation uses and focus on conscious breathing to begin with. I suppose the difference with some of the meditations is that some meditation practice allows you, or encourages you, use to use a mantra, and that mantra is a vehicle to take you from the activity externally and bring it internally, and it allows you to reconnect at a deeper level. And other meditations will allow you to listen to music and encourage you to to you know, kind of connect with the music and just lose yourself in that the breath and the mood and the music and others will include movement. So again, it depends on what you're looking for. So when I do yoga, for example, I am very much in a meditation mindset, or a more mindfulness mindset, whereas when I'm doing my traditional primordial sound meditation, I'm using mantra and mantra, and that mantra that I'm using is the one that is based upon my date of birth, the location of my birth and the time of my birth, and that's based upon the lunar cycle and the primordial sound that the universe was making at the time of my location, place and date of birth. So it allows me to go into much more of a deeper meditation, connection with self.

And you mentioned a few words of it, it might just be worth drawing on for people. I guess. Two I wanted to explore were a mantra itself, and kind of understand what, what a mantra is, and then also mindfulness. So people often talk about mindfulness and meditation together. So if we start with a mantra, what is a mantra? Yeah,

a mantra is a is, well, in the in my case, where, because I'm doing primordial sound, it's a vibration. It's a vibrational sound that you make when you're repeating a mantra. Now, most mantras in Vedic tradition would always start with om so it om so om. And then you would also then have known as a bija, which is the seed, which is really unique to you, and then you would always finish it, finish off the mantra with namaha, which is basically closing that, closing the circle of the connection of the mantra. Now other mantras could be more like positive intentions, like I, you know, today will be a good day, or I am strong, confident and resilient. So you could use those intentional thoughts as mantras also. But really with the Vedic traditions, there's this a number of mantras that you are guided to use, or invited to use, where you are connecting with the Vedic traditions of kind of and the, I suppose, what I would call it is more kind of things like the shanty mantra would be a good example, where you're connecting with Lord Shiva and a range of other different things. So again, it depends on your your practice and what you want to do. But you can either go for a traditional mantra, which will, I suppose, the purpose of a mantra is to help you stay in a meditative state, because what happens is, when you're meditating is that you have thoughts, and we have 8060, to 80,000 thoughts a day. So when these thoughts come in, you know, our mind usually kind of hooks on to the thoughts, and we get carried away with that thought. And the purpose of using a mantra, quite simply, is to release the thought, not pay attention too much of thought, and to come back to the breathing and come back to the mantra. So you can remain in that meditation state. Because if we run away with the thought, and we let go of the mantra and we just follow the thought, then we will most probably thinking about that thought for quite a while. And it takes you out of meditation. It brings you back into the external world, not your internal

Yeah, their thoughts can they can hook you can't. You can be dragged along with them. I guess last thing that I have a question at the starting stage really, is about the relationship between mindfulness and meditation, and how does that work? What's the difference, I

think, when you're in meditation, from my experience over the years, you are still being very mindful. But the way that I would describe a mindful practice is very much about when you're in your waking state, so very similar to what we're doing now, when we're in this conversation, it means that you're very fully present. You are listening, you're observing, you're paying attention to what's happening in the here and now, and I suppose that's for me, that's my description of what mindful practice is all about. So when we're busy going throughout our day, you know, we can quickly run away with a thought, and that thought could be attached to emotions, and if a thought is attached to emotions, it will mean that we can either be reactive in that moment to what's going on around us, but with mindfulness, what we choose to do, especially if it's perhaps maybe not necessarily a positive thought, but maybe more of a negative thought, or something around our self belief, or, yeah, something around our self belief, for example, you might find that you're then able to observe your thoughts. Sad emotions, but let them pass without judgment. So you would let that thought float away in the day. So it could be the fact that maybe you're nervous about going for an interview, or maybe you've got a big conversation with your boss at work, or maybe got some difficult decision conversation with somebody at home, and so you might be carrying some kind of nervous energy around with you. And what might happen with that is then your brain, your mind, will start kind of churning out these thoughts. And most probably, because our mind is connected to our ego, our ego will lead us to think that that's going to be a disastrous meeting. I'm not going to get the job, you know? It will bring up those kind of questions of self doubt. I call that our critical companion. And when that critical companion is very present, it means that we end up judging ourselves. And so if we try and connect and try to cultivate a mindful practice, it will allow us not to get caught into our emotional dramas, so to speak, and allow our critical companion to be at the forefront of our mind. Instead, it will allow us to let it drift away and think, Okay, I am nervous about that interview, but that's okay. It's going to be fine. And you just let the you let that kind of thought process just drift away. And so as you go about through your waking day, so when you're working, you're you know, you're getting up, you're going about your daily business, you can start to, yeah, allow your mind to be more relaxed, not to get caught up into those reactive, emotional states that we may find ourselves in. That's

really helpful. Thank you. And I'm really interested in how people come to meditation. So how is in your experience, do people, why do they find themselves wanting to explore meditation, and why do you what's the triggers that seem to make them go right? And I'd like to explore this. Yeah. I

mean, obviously meditation is on the rise. Obviously there's lots and lots of people wanting to learn how to meditate, just for their own practice. And I think the reasons why vary, so there's not kind of one set answer, but from my experience of the people that I've been working with, is that most people want to get some stress relief, so to release any anxiety, some tension from their mind or their body. You know, it has been proven that meditation does improve health, it boosts your immune system, but also can give you a greater sense of happiness, focus and a range of other different things. And I genuinely believe that's what people are coming for. If you think about well, you know, how busy we all are. You know, we're in quite chaotic, quite frenetic worlds that we live in and a lot of people are rushing about not really taking a lot of time for themselves. You know, if they're not kind of working or at home, there's that. There's the kind of the social media pull and everything else, it takes us out of being present and takes us out of being a moment. And so I think what people are craving for is to get reconnected and reconnected in a different way, and maybe in a more subtle way, but in a way that allows you to just find some space and peace within

Okay, that sounds very promising. And do you? What do you do? You see differences in people once they start to explore meditation and start to engage in the practice. Is it? Is does it? I mean, does it help them? But do you see any other changes, too?

Yeah. I mean, literally, there's a number of things that do come out of this, and I've seen this myself, and I've also experienced it myself, so seen it when I've been working with people, but also with myself. So first of all, people are more calmer. So this kind of sense of React versus response mechanism, people tend to respond, so they'll be more thoughtful in their responses. They won't jump in and kind of give a belly rumble, kind of answer. You know, they will be more thoughtful in their approach. It absolutely does decrease anxiety and depression, and I've seen that happen with some of the clients I've been working with insomnia. Also, most people, from the research that's been done recently from Harvard Medical has proven that, on average, over 65%

of people have are dealing with aspects of insomnia, unable to sleep properly throughout the night, so being able to get into a deep sleep. So certainly being restless, their mind kicks in, their brain kicks in, and they can't get back to sleep. And what we found is, through regular through regular meditation, that your sleep pattern improves. You get more relaxed, and you can go into that deeper state of sleep. But what also happens as well? So for those especially, I'm doing a lot of work with organizations and encouraging a kind of mindful and meditation practice in organizations. And one thing it does, it improves memory, focus, ability to learn. It allows you to be more creative. More your ability to problem solve and to really deal with complex situations is certainly a lot more seamlessly, more smoother, for a fact. And the other thing as well is that for anybody who, and I've seen this from a physical perspective, people look fresher. They look younger, because actually, meditation decreases the anti aging hormone. So what happens is, you don't age as much. And what can happen is, for example, I've had clients come to me from a coaching perspective where they've been really had sore shoulders or sore necks, or they suffered from long term back problems. And then when we started to take more of a meditation and mindful approach to the work that we've been doing with them. And they've been going away and practicing meditation. Their pain has disappeared. Because what we find is that most people carry and hold tension in their bodies and the stress within their body. So actually, it actually turns into their to issues in their physicality. And what we find with regular meditation is that it

takes that away. Wow, um, and it all makes sense, right? So if you've got some, some level of exerting control over your own brain and the way that it responds, then you know, it makes perfect sense. All those things would be better. And just one thing that I'm really interested about, and probably might be something that you can only speak from experience rather than other people. But rather than other people. But does do you find that when you're faced with a challenging situation, do you feel different when you are actively in a period where you're practicing meditation or regulators? Does it actually feel less stressful, or is it just that the impact is different?

I think for me, it it feels less stressful. So I feel that I can take a breath. I might do some conscious breathing. So if I'm feeling a bit anxious or a bit tight, I would most probably do a couple of deep breaths just to connect to myself, and then I would view it from a different perspective. So I'm an Aries, and I'm quite fiery in nature, and my go to for years has been just to jump in and just to react rather than respond. And I think since practicing meditation, I approach situations very, very differently, and maybe that is because what you learn to do with meditation is that you control your memories rather than your memories controlling you. So what happens is that your mindset is a little bit different. It changes. And what you do is you see things from more of a compassionate observer perspective. So instead of making a quick judgment on somebody, I would now go to, okay, so what's going on for them? Rather than seeing it from they've just cheesed me off for them. They've just said something that I don't like. So you just become more calmer. I think you become more more open and more receptive to hear others perspectives before you jump in with your own.

So it sounds a little bit like it's it helps people, certainly from your perspective, helps you create some space in your thinking when things are going on to either be more considered in your approach or more proactive, which is a joyful thing. Speaking personally, that would be a lovely thing to have. Do you find that is different for different people? So you mentioned obviously yourself, you used to jump in quite I would be similar to that. Do you find it helps some people more than others, or that there are different people trying it? Or do you find that actually the sort of the impacts are pretty similar?

I think the impact in terms of the mindset and the consideration, the considered thinking, I think that just comes with everybody. Now we'll all, we'll all kind of arrive at that at different stages, you know, because we're evolving at different different speeds and different paces. But I find that that sense of stepping back, not judging, not making assumptions, not blaming others or the situation, seems to happen within everybody that I've worked with so far, and it seems to be one of the key leading factors is that actually you're able to manage your mind so much better and your emotions so much better, so

on that. I mean, you said a couple minutes ago, but you're doing work with organizations now. In relation to mindfulness, you talked about some of the benefits for individuals around resilience and stress management and sleep and things like that. How do you see those translating into benefits at work, in relation to their work, and into benefits for those organizations?

Absolutely. So, I mean, with the organization I'm working with, you know, they're kind of quite, they're very busy. They're quite, they've got quite full on that they've got, I suppose the organization's got aspirations of being really high performing organizations, and some of those organizations are so, so there's a lot of pressure in the work around performance achievement, being good leaders, you know, being good managers, etc, and just actually achieving what needs to get done. So what I've noticed is the transition so this sense of not. Judging, not making assumptions, is happening already within the organizations that I'm working for, and that means that what that does, it builds better relationships with colleagues and counterparts within and stakeholders in the organization. It also builds this, this capacity to focus so able to get the clarity that's needed really quickly, and to kind of cut through what I've seen through communication, is to cut through some of that background noise that often goes on in organizations and organizational cultures, and to get really to the root cause, or to the kind of the heart of the matter, but doing it in a way that is very transparent, very open, I would say, very nurturing in terms of its communication style, and that, in itself, has changed the dynamics in terms of how people operate, how people are within those that organizational environment. Cool.

Well, it sounds like there are benefits for organizations as well as as well as individuals. So that's good, um, I've got more of it. I'd love to explore in that space, but I'm going to jump on to a little bit more of a practical side of things. I'd like to understand a little bit more about how, you know, we know a little bit about what meditation is, but, but how do people do it, like, you know, procedurally. What's the process? How do you do it? Well, how do you start? I mean, what? What is it?

Yeah, it's interesting, because most people find meditation quite hard to begin with. Because I think people assume that you can just stop every thought you know, your mind is going to go blank, and you're just going to fit its, you know, slip into this state of Zen kind of way. But unfortunately, that's not how it works. So the best way to meditate is to start off small in terms of short periods of time. So if it's just literally for one minute a day, then that would be a great way to start. And what I mean by that is when, when you when, what you've got to do with meditation, you've got to make it part of your routine. So in a sense, you have to commit to wanting to do this on a regular basis, because the idea of, as it says, it's a meditation practice. So in the word practice, for me, is it is all about practice. So you're never going to be most probably perfect at it, or get the finished results and be, you know, have perfection in terms of your meditation practice. So you have to practice it. So the rule of thumb, I suppose, the kind of the guidelines, are that you would meditate first thing of the morning. So when you get out of bed, you might need to go and do your normal routine, you know, like nip to the loo, brush your teeth, all that kind of thing. But then before you start moving into any other activity, you would meditate. So you can either sit on the ground, you can sit in a chair. But the idea would be not to lie down. Because if you lie down, your memory, your brain, your memory, will connect that with sleep. And therefore, so every time you meditate, you'll fall asleep, and your body will associate it with sleep. So the aim is to sit up, either in a chair. You can sit on your sofa, sit on your bed, whatever you would do, but make sure that you're in a sitting position. And you just start off small. So first of all, you would start with your breathing, and then you could either go into the mantra, if you have a mantra, or you can just keep going with your breathing. And you know, I said, if you do one minute a day for a week, then the next week, you do two minutes, and then three minutes, and you build it up. But you should, you shouldn't really meditate for any longer than 30 minutes in the morning. Now, if you are really seeing the benefits of meditation, and you can find the time, I would also encourage people to think about meditating early evening, so before dinner, so before 7pm It's usually a good time to meditate. And again, you could start off small and do a couple of minutes, or you could do again up to 30 minutes maximum. So the idea would be that if you can get into regular practice, like you're topping and tailing your day with a meditation practice, and it's and what I've noticed is that when I do that, I feel like so much better. I feel amazing. I can sleep better, my energy levels are better, and I have a greater sense of wellness. Now, obviously I've been meditating for a number of years, so I tend to meditate from between 20 and 30 minutes of a morning and 20 to 30 minutes of an early evening. And

I mean, you said you kind of start small and build up. I guess I've got two questions. It sounds like you can get better at it. And that leads me to another thought, which is that obviously there are challenges around it. You said that it's difficult when people start what is it that's difficult about it? What do people find the challenges and how can you overcome some of this?

I think the difficulty is, is that I think most people, and I did too, when you go into meditation, that you want your practice to be perfect. You want to nail it quite quickly, and then you quickly realize that you're on a journey and that can't be done. And the other thing is thoughts. So I had a bit of, you know, I was quite busy with work last week. I was kind of chasing my tail a little bit. And last week, my meditation in the morning, as soon as I. About out of bed, and I started to meditate. My head kicked in and I had so many thoughts that it was actually very difficult for me to kind of get into more of that relaxed meditation state. And I've been doing this for years. So that's another challenge, is that you never know when your brain is going to kick in and go into over overload mode. And so sometimes you can start to judge yourself. Think, well, that was rubbish. I didn't do a good job there. You know, you start judging yourself. So that's the other thing. Another thing that you'll find is that you might fall asleep. I fell asleep a lot, and a lot of people I know fall asleep when meditating to begin with. And actually that's normal, but people get a bit wary about that and feel a bit nervous about it. But falling asleep is actually quite good, because what you're doing is, well, actually what's happening your body is healing itself from all the toxins, from all the stress, the anxiety we've all been most probably carrying around with us in our bodies. And so actually falling asleep is good. And when you stop falling asleep, that means that your body is in more of a restful state of awareness, which is a good place to be. And then the only other thing that might kind of kind of make people question is, is that this, there's the thing known as the gap and meditation. So the gap is where you where one thought comes in and before the other thought, before another thought comes in, because then we have a conscious stream of thought. So as one thought is kind of leaving us, and before another one comes in, there is this thing called the gap, which is known as pure silence. And what happens is, when you fall into that gap, that means that what you're doing is you're connecting at a deeper level with yourself, but it also means that you're connecting to what would be classed as source, so the universe, basically, if that's what you want to believe, but that's what I believe. And when you're in that space, you actually don't know you're in it, but it feels like you're being pulled down into the kind of into the ground kind of thing. And it's can be quite unnerving to begin with, but if you allow yourself just to relax and just go with the flow. What will happen is you may fall into the gap. You may fall or slip into the gap, as they say, but we only know we've been in that sense of pure connection. And that's where infinite possibilities lies. That's when our pure potentiality is there and lies. And so when we fall into that space, we don't know we've been there until we come out of it. So you might kind of think, oh, where have I been for the last five or 10 minutes? You know, because the time has passed really quickly, and those can be a little bit unnerving for people, but the biggest challenge is to quiet the mind and

so so I guess maybe it's a bit technical, but if you're there and if you have a thought, or if you have repeated thoughts that are getting to you, or that you're having trouble with, sort of managing. What do you do in the moment to let go of those thoughts? I guess.

Yeah. So for me and I, when I teach this, this is what I say to this my students, is very much around. Just go back to your breath, and we'll try to bring our breath to our heart center, to where our love, compassion, gratitude lies. And if we can just focus back on the breath, and if you just focus on breathing, inhaling and exhaling through your nose in a kind of more rhythmic state. So with your natural flow of your body, you find that your thoughts will drift and they won't tend to come back. So this is just about going back to breath, or if you have a mantra, that's why you would use a mantra. Actually used to go back to the mantra, because that will allow those thoughts to eventually just kind of float away. But at the end of the day, we're human, right? And our human condition is to follow a thought. And I think the key thing is that if you do follow a thought, it doesn't really matter, because it's what it is because there's no judgment. So if you again, you just allow, if you go with a thought, and because I did the other day, I was like, oh, right, right. I need to have that conversation with such a body. I need to do this. I need to do the other and before I knew it, I'd kind of gone down this thought process. And then I thought, Oh, I just need to come back to my breath. So it's just a conscious reminder to come back. And that's all you need to do. And do you?

Do you find that the some of the people that you work with find that aspect of it challenging the non judgment of that perhaps, perhaps there's a link between the kind of people looking to do this in the first place, of people potentially looking to spend more time in the moment, etc. And that's the hard bit. How do you help them? I know it's a slight tangent, but it feels like it's really important to the success of it. How do you help them be comfortable with that? Is through

the teaching of meditation, you learn to let go of any expectation. So the idea is, if you can let go of any expectation that you have for yourself, and this is what I say, is that you know meditation, as I said, meditation is a journey. It's a it's the practice of meditation. So if we give ourselves permission to let go of any specific outcome or desired achievement for meditation and we just allow it to be what it's meant to be for us at this moment in time, then we can just settle into that space ease more easily and be less judging. Judging will always be. There. It's just about how we manage it, and how we self, put self, navigate ourselves through that. But through regular practice, you become forgiving of yourself, you become accepting of yourself, and that allows us. Then when we accept ourselves without any expectation, apart from I am exactly where I need to be just now, and this is here, then that's being in the moment. So they've achieved what they've wanted to set out to do. So it's more about acceptance, more about realizing it's a practice and enjoying the journey, rather than seeking to get to the end destination,

right? Okay, and I can, I can, given it's your and linking this back to what you were saying about creating habit and book ending your day in an ideal scenario. Ideal scenario, it makes perfect sense. It's a journey, because there is no end point, right? It's about shifting the way you interact with your own life. But it kind of implies as well that that that habituation is so important like and as you said at the beginning, so do you? Do you find people want to go all in, because you mentioned earlier the bit about starting with just like, one minute at a time. Do people like, no, I'll start with 10 and then fail. Is that? Because that's quite common with other habits. So yeah,

that's very common in meditation as well. Yeah, it's exactly the same. So it's like, you know, you kind of, you want to push yourself to get to that point, but actually, we're most probably not ready for it. And so again. And I think what people and that's, that's what happens, is people start off thinking, Oh, I can do this. I can, I can really go for this. Do 10 minutes. Some people have gone and done. Tried to do a full half an hour. It didn't work. So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna bother, you know, and then people give up really quickly. And that's why the whole point is taking it step by step and not overwhelming yourself too quickly. As I said, one minute, two minutes a day is really good kind of way of connecting with yourself in this quieter space. And once you've done that, you can then easily build it up to more, more minutes or more, more you know more you know more minutes a day.

Yeah, and I was speaking as someone who has on and off, dabbled, played, whatever the phrase is, it took me a long time to let go of just that. Okay, so 30 seconds was amazing. Well done, because it was that hard just I guess one question from me is, you obviously have approached it as trying to help other people through things like guided meditations and through coaching them in a way to move through to improve their abilities to meditate. What role do you think that plays? Does that help people? Do you find that the people that you meet and come into contact with quite often have tried on their own and maybe struggled, or if they come straight to you?

Yeah, it's been a mix, actually, but I would say majority have tried it on their own and really struggled, and that's why the guided or the group meditation work that I've been doing over the years has been really helpful to people. I think that you know a lot of people, you know, there's lots of apps out there that are really good for meditation and can help people. There's breathing apps, there's all sorts of different things out there, and I find that people still use those even whilst they're doing the group guided meditation work with myself, but I think it's the combination. I think there's something about connecting to other people in the moment is a really unique experience, because we can do it on our own, but actually there's also something quite unique about doing it as a group. But the guided meditation also. So I mean, all the apps are very guided anyway, so I think the guided meditation just helps people settle a little bit more. It kind of allows them there's a little introduction, and then you move into the meditation practice, and it reminds people. Because I think when people are conscious of the time, or people are thinking, Oh, am I doing it right? They again, we become quite critical or self critical, so that takes us out of the moment. And so therefore, to have somebody else's voice guiding you or leading you through something is, I think, is a lot easier. And certainly even I found that when I started meditation, I did a lot of guided meditations to begin with. I do a mixture of both now, but I find sometimes, if I've had a really stressful day or I'm really feeling quite tired, then actually listening to a guided meditation is more is better for me in those moments than where I'm feeling more energized, and I can draw upon that resource myself.

And I think we're going to record some guided meditations in a bit, which is great. So we're really looking forward to that. One of the things that I've heard you use as a phrase before that, I think is interesting, that I'd like to just have your thoughts on a little bit more, is this sense of the eternal Now when you're being in the present, could you say a little bit about what the eternal Now is and why being in in the moment or being present really matters.

Very good question. Yes, it does matter. Yes, so so that I'll describe it from my perspective. Oh, we're good, we're good. Sorry, carry on. Sorry, I'll describe it to my perspective.

So being in the moment allows, allows me to. Settle so it allows me to connect with my true self. So when we're in the moment. So let me describe another way, actually we forget. So when we're born, for example, you know when we when we're in the when we're in the womb, or when, then when we're born, we're all born with as perfection. And what happens to us is that over the years, you know, through the upbringing we have, the environments we brought up in the schools, you know, the schooling that we have, the careers that we have, all of those kind of things, the friendships and social groups and the communities that we belong to, all kind of have an impact on us in a way that takes us away from that sense of perfection. So what happens is we forget that we're actually perfect, and we all forget that as human beings, because that's a human condition. So what we're doing is when we're reconnecting in that moment, and when we're reconnecting with our truest sense of self and to source or to something bigger than than us, we are reconnecting with that sense of perfection. And when we meditate, and when we go into that space of meditation, we don't we have all the wisdom inside us. We have all the answers inside us. And so when we're in that space and when we come out of meditation, what we're doing is we're bringing some of that wisdom with us. We're bringing some of that perfection back with us into our everyday lives. And that's for me, why it's so important to find that space within us all. We all have the answers, but what we just need sometimes we just don't look or sometimes we just don't connect. And so by being in the moment, allows us to connect us with our true selves, with saucer, with the universe, or that greater something, that greater connectedness with something bigger than ourselves. And it allows us to remind ourselves of who we are, what we are, and actually, most probably, what we're meant to be doing in terms of our purpose. That

sounds lovely. I can see the attraction of that right away. Okay, I think in terms of time, we're probably kind of getting to the end, so I'm gonna start to wrap up. But just before we go, Jillian, would you be able to say a little bit about how people can learn more about you, and I guess meditation and the types of things you do in that space?

Yeah, sure. So I have regular learn to manage your mind workshops, and you can go to Gillian gilliant, michael.com or you can email me at Jillian at gilliant, michael.com I do regular virtual sessions, but also in person sessions, and I can also, we also work with people on a one to one basis. So if you're looking to really think about your wellness, how you build your resilience, how you tackle your if you're struggling with anxiety, then you know, come and find out more, and I'd be really happy to talk you through how I might be able to help you. Great.

Thanks, Gillian. And as I said earlier, we're going to be recording some guided meditations, and we'll be releasing them at the same time as this. So that's a great way to learn a little bit more about about the work that Jillian's doing and about meditation. I guess it's just time to say goodbye. Thank you very much for that Julian, that was excellent. So thank you and goodbye from me. Thank you, yeah, and a massive thank you and goodbye from me too. Thank you so much. Bye.

Okay? So you are back in the room with us after our conversation with Jillian, I think we covered some good stuff there. It's always great to to learn from somebody who knows so much about a specific topic. Jane, what were your key takeaways? Was there anything that stood out for you? Or what are your reflections? Well,

aside from the utterly hypnotic sound of gillian's voice, which I find incredibly soothing, so I'm really looking forward to hearing those guided meditations. I think, for me, a revisitation of the idea that if you're trying to learn a new skill, you reach out and you find someone who knows how to do it and who knows how to teach it, and you allow them to guide you through the first few times, right? And yet, so many of us, I think, who've tried meditation have often tried to action it completely on our own. And so for me, that that piece around, you know, allowing yourself to be guided through it and just absorb the experience the practices start, I think is really powerful.

Yeah, I think that's definitely something. And I for one, have been guilty of trying to teach myself far too many things in my own life, including meditation, and I've not been as successful. So there's really something in there about getting some help and support. I guess one of the things that really stands out for me, that I'm starting to appreciate more as I get older, is that things like meditation really do provide benefits from calming us down, and the ancillary benefits round out around things like sleep and focus and all that stuff. Every time I hear more about that, I'm always kind of struck by how powerful this stuff is, and it feels like it aligns with other important things, like, you know how important sleep is to me, and a lot of the benefits seem really similar to that. So yeah, so it's just nice to hear that reminder, and I feel kind of inspired to go out and get a little bit of help. And like you. Really excited to see these meditations come up and to use him. I think that's that's exciting,

yeah. And I think the one other thing I'd probably just say is, and you, I think you pointed out in a conversation we had separately, but not on, not on the actual conversation. And so forgive me if I'm repeating it, but I really like how Gillian has her own world view and her own view of what's important and how all of these things work, but she is completely open to sharing her perspective within the frame of her own perspective. And I love that. And so for me, yeah, there's always a thing about listening to her talk, that's, that's a it's helpful and useful, but also I'm learning something about someone else's perspective, which I love,

yeah, yeah. And in a humble way, right? I mean, it's not imposed in any way like some people do when they share their world perspective. It's a really open and sort of a humble presentation, yeah, that's

what, I guess. That's exactly what. I mean, yeah, yeah. There's no, there's no presumption, there's just, here's how I think about it, yeah,

this is it cool, but we certainly enjoyed it. We hope you do. I hope you did as well. We'll be releasing the other podcast soon, meditation for guided meditation. So hopefully you look forward to those and until next time, it's just goodbye from me. Yeah, and it's good luck and goodbye for me. Hi. Thanks