Using Meditation to Dive Below the Crashing Waves to Find Peace Within

I'm your host Kara Stein-Conaway and this is The Business Mamas Podcast. The Business Mamas Podcast is made for women who know they should be doing more self-care and practicing more self-love but are overrun with balancing it all. This podcast provides the tools and support you need so you can have a successful career while also being a present and loving mom.  

In this new season, which is Season 4 of the podcast, beginning with Episode 32, I am sharing with you about my journey with meditation. I'm also sharing a particular meditation in each episode that I love, and that I hope you will love too.

If you haven't already listened to Episode number 2 of this podcast, My Breakdown That Led to My Breakthrough: Why I Don’t Work on Sundays or Go Without My Morning Routine, I would encourage you to pause this episode for now and go back and listen to Episode 2. Then, after you've listened to it, come back and listen to the rest of this episode. In Episode 2, I told you about what led me to developing my morning routine. I also talked with you about all of the different components of my morning routine. One of those components, and the component that I want to talk with you more about today, is meditation.

I've had quite a journey with meditation.

When I first started meditating, I did five minutes a day, and that felt like a challenge at the time. It was five minutes of just sitting there or laying there, being still and observing my thoughts, breathing, and being with myself. It felt like a challenge, and it didn't always feel really great.

Sometimes meditating felt kind of frustrating because I would have thoughts racing through my mind, and I didn't want that. I knew that it was supposed to be a time for peace and calmness.

So, when it didn't feel that way, I sometimes felt frustrated.

But, I committed to it.

I stayed consistent and I kept that five minute meditation in my daily morning routine.

Then, something really interesting happened with my meditation practice.

It just started getting easier, and it just started feeling better.

Pretty soon, I wanted to spend more time meditating.

When I was recording Episode 2, I was talking with you about how I had increased the amount of time I was meditating from five minutes a day to ten minutes a day. I told you about the differences I was starting to feel from increasing the amount of time that I was spending meditating.

Now, additional time has passed. I have maintained meditating for 10 minutes a day for some time until I started feeling like I wanted to do more than 10 minutes a day. I started selecting longer meditations. Sometimes they are 15 minutes. Sometimes they are 20 minutes. Sometimes I'll even do a 20 minute meditation, and I'll know that I want to do another one; I’ll know that I didn't get my fill yet.

I’ll feel like I’m so in my joy of being present, that when I finish the meditation, I'm thirsting for another 15 minutes or another 20 minutes that I can spend meditating and being in that beautiful, peaceful state that I'm cultivating.

And so it really does feel like a beautiful progression that I have watched myself go through since I started meditating consistently beginning in December of 2017, which is when I implemented my morning routine. It’s been years and it's been a slow process. I've been really patient with myself; I didn't force myself to increase the amount of time I was meditating.

Instead, I approached it from a experimental mind-state.

I'm starting to feel benefits from meditating for five minutes. I wonder what it would feel like if I tried this for 10 minutes?

And that same experimental mind-state then allowed me to increase my practice from 10 minutes to 20 minutes, and even longer on some days.

I think that having an experimental mind-state is something that has huge value, not just in meditation, but in all aspects of our life.

When we want to try something new, but we're not sure if we're going to like it, or we're not sure if it's going to be a good fit, or we're not sure if we have time, we can choose to approach it from an experimental mind-state. Just give it a try. Don't attach any meaning or judgment if it doesn't work out.

The thing that I'm reflecting on now, when I look back at my journey of learning to meditate is that by allowing myself to experiment, by leaning in to trying something new, I tried spending a longer amount of time meditating, and I ended up developing a powerful way to nurture myself, a powerful way to soothe myself, a beautiful resource to turn to when I'm feeling low or heavy.

When I'm feeling like there's just too much to sort out, I know that I have this resource of finding a meditation to listen to, to help me get back to that beautiful, peaceful, present state that I know I am capable of living in, and living from, and living with. So, I wanted to share that journey with you, so that you can know that that's a possibility for you too.

If you haven't tried meditating yet, I would really encourage you to give it a try. Start small. Make a small commitment to yourself of five minutes a day.

In the beginning, it might be something that you do have to just make that commitment to do, even if you're not really feeling the wonderful benefits just yet. See if there's a part of it that you can enjoy, that you can appreciate. Even if it's just breathing. There's a sweetness to just allowing yourself to breathe, and five minutes of breathing will benefit you.

Just being aware of your breathing is a gift. So, I hope you'll give yourself that gift of five minutes a day of meditation, knowing that it could lead you to a beautiful new way of experiencing your life.

I'm going to share with you a five minute meditation that I love, that I hope could be a good one for you to get started. Meditations, of course, are very personal. It's a message that you're listening to that either resonates with you or perhaps doesn't resonate with you. And so if the one that I suggest doesn't resonate with you, I would encourage you to search for one that does; I'm sure there are many out there that would resonate with you very well.

The one I will share with you today, that is a five minute meditation that I love, is called I Am the Sea and it's by Carmen Warrington. I found this meditation on the Insight Timer app, and it's free to listen to. Insight Timer has a lot of great free meditations.

I Am the Sea is a visualization meditation. What I get the most out of this beautiful meditation is that it reminds me that even when things all around me feel rough, like the ocean waves, I am capable of diving down deep below the surface, below the crashing waves into the deep water of my soul, of my being, and that I am capable of soothing myself, calming myself, comforting and loving myself.

To be able to show up for myself in that way is such a treasured skill that I have developed over this time. One of the ways that I have developed this skill is by using this meditation: I Am the Sea. So, I hope that you will give it a try. I will put a link to this particular meditation in the show notes of the podcast episode so that you can just click on the link and give it a try to and see if it resonates for you. If it's not for you, then I hope that you'll look around a bit and see if you can find a sweet five minute meditation that you can practice daily.

I will also put a link in the show notes to my free Morning Routine Guide that you can download and start your own morning routine. It accompanies the information that I was sharing in Episode 2, and that we are building on here today by talking further about meditation. I am wishing you peace and wellness as you practice being still with yourself and the beauty that you uncover as you go on your meditation journey.

If you enjoyed Episode 32 and this blog post, I would love it if you shared the blog or the podcast with someone you think could benefit from them. I would also be incredibly grateful if you could leave an honest rating and review of The Business Mamas Podcast on Apple Podcasts as that helps more people find the show and it helps me in sharing this message of practicing self-love and self-care with more people whose lives I know could be enriched by hearing it. Sign up to download my Morning Routine Guide and receive my twice-monthly newsletter at The Business Mamas Podcast. Until next time and with gratitude, Kara Stein-Conaway, @karasteinconaway on Instagram.