Anxious? Stressed? Overwhelmed? HERE’S THE ANTIDOTE!!!

Music: 0:00

I will not be afraid of the shadows in the dark. They will lead the way to the hidden pathways of the heart and that secret place that is where I find my start.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:17

Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher, davidji.

davidji: 0:23

And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:33

Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into in two.

davidji: 1:02

Hi, davidji. Oh, hello there, Elizabeth. This would be the perfect episode to talk about the thing so near and dear to both of us. No, it’s not Peaches the Buddha Princess, my mindful Morky, my LA rescue. It’s meditation.

davidji: 1:23

We’ve alluded to it, we’ve meditated together in the first season and we’ve meditated a little bit during this season, but it’s time for us to go a little deeper, because it would be our hope, my hope and I know Elizabeth is rooting with me that everyone who listens to the Shadow and the Light at some point would find connecting to the stillness and silence that rests within to be a valuable tool as they navigate life. And I don’t know what your technique was. This morning, Elizabeth, I practiced a very particular mantra and of course, I wove into that my gratitude practice and my prayer, asking myself sacred questions and really being reflective and still and practicing a little pranayama breathing techniques. We’ve shared all of those individually with you, but I think now would be just such a perfect time for us to explore the concept of meditation, because people in the most secular places do it and people on the other end of the spectrum, in the woo-woo land, they are also doing it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 2:30

Why should we meditate? Why meditate, right? I used to be a crisis meditator. What is a crisis meditator? It’s like you’re going through a crisis, so you sit and meditate, and I have plenty of clients I work with now that that’s their existence, right. But then we can also cultivate a practice of daily meditation, or multiple times a day, which becomes this way of filling up your cup or charging up your battery, et cetera, et cetera. And this makes me think of something I’m going to share.

Elizabeth Winkler: 3:05

So a big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk Monk. He barked in a voice accustomed to instant obedience Teach me about heaven and hell. The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain teach you about heaven and hell. I couldn’t teach you anything. You’re dumb, you’re dirty, you’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight, I can’t stand you.

Elizabeth Winkler: 3:44

The samurai got furious. He shook red in the face. Speechless with rage, he pulled out his sword and prepared to slay the monk. Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly that’s hell, that’s hell. The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell. He put down his sword fell to his knees, filled with gratitude. The monk said softly and that’s heaven. So I think that this story shows us, when we are connected to our truth, what we are devoted to, which is what the story is about, you know. And so when I started to practice meditation more regularly and we’ve talked about this in season one, when I had little little kids and I was having a hard time getting out the door, everything changed, and that devotion to my practice had an impact on my entire field, my kids, and it affected them. And so how does the story of the monk affect you?

davidji: 5:00

Well, as you know, I’ve been teaching law enforcement for over 10 years now. Well, as you know, I’ve been teaching law enforcement for over 10 years now. Members of the military Marines, dutch Special Forces, nato Very, very traumatized, perhaps Very serious individuals, perhaps a little resistant to things like mindfulness or meditation and I don’t really teach that. I’ve created a whole signature lane of teachings to help people connect wherever they are, and I think that’s one of the secrets, because, by a show of hands right now, raise your hand if you woke up and meditated this morning, and raise your hand if you meditated in the afternoon, and perhaps raise your hand if you did a little body scan or yoga nidra right before you went to bed. And to that I’ll reply exactly because 85% of the planet are crisis meditators. That leaves only 15% who are not just dabblers, 15% who are not just dabblers but have a consistent stillness and silence practice, which is a tiny percent. That’d be like. Imagine if only 15% of the people out there brush their teeth every day. We could go on and on with all these autopilot behaviors that we’re all on, that we’re all on. But when we talk about like why would meditation add value to your life? It’s a simple answer, because you rebounding energetically off something that just happened will rarely lead you to the best place If we’re all on some kind of journey to express ourselves at our highest level or our best expression. Realistically, the only way to get to that best expression is to put a little break in between what’s coming into us and what’s going out.

davidji: 7:03

Classic Viktor Frankl, austrian psychiatrist, philosopher, holocaust survivor, man’s Search for Meaning is his seminal book and of course he’s known to have said in between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space rests our ability to choose. In that choice lies our growth and our freedom. So if we cultivate that space between it’s, in that space between that, we will ultimately make more conscious choices. And we’ve talked on so many different episodes about the choice we have in life to not be victims, the choice to step into our power, the choice to be our best or level up, or choose differently or have a creative response. That’s what creativity is and that’s what response ability is. The ability to have a creative response is the ability to have a creative response. And so I believe that meditation is that superpower that we all have the ability to tap into and it’s going to make us choose. Whatever the next moment is, we’ll choose it at a higher level.

davidji: 8:19

The catch is you have to show up and do the thing, and I think that’s what scares most people away. It’s like, oh, I got to do that thing again. It’s like, oh, I have to go to the gym, oh, I have to do this thing. If it was a pill, even half the people who would be taking that pill would forget to take their pill, just like half the people on Eloquus forget to take it. And it’s just like half the people who take so much medications. You don’t forget to take your Moonjaro or your Ozempic, but you forget to take every other pill out there.

davidji: 8:46

So you sort of have to kind of cultivate the practice, and I believe it’s about consistency, not duration. Start really, really slow, start maybe with 16 seconds and then build that up to a minute, and then five, and then seven, and then 10, 10 until you truly build up the time that you spend in that space. But I think we all have that ability and I believe scientifically we know it’s better for our brain, we know it’s better for our heart, we know it’s better for our blood pressure because hormones and chemicals that are released when we’re in meditation or in the afterglow of meditation are actually nourishing, as opposed to the fight-flight hormones and chemicals that are non-nourishing. If you have stress, there’s no off switch for what happens physiologically to us the moment you feel anxious or anxiety or stress or disappointment. But if you can have a woven in practice, it’s the antidote to stress. And so we can do in the moment de-stressifying stress hacks, and or we can be proactive with a daily meditation practice to start our day.

davidji: 9:59

Be proactive with a daily meditation practice to start our day. Set intentions, set our trajectory for the day. Maybe a little meditation in the afternoon just to let go of everything we’ve absorbed. A total release, catharsis meditation, no-transcript. I’ve shared a whole bunch of times about what my daily practice looks like, Elizabeth. What does yours look like?

Elizabeth Winkler: 10:33

Well, it’s evolved over the years. When I first began a daily practice, I had a space in my room, an altar, where I have books and different cards and different things that have meaning to me that I change over time, like some special sacred objects of mine that I keep there and with my meditation cushion, and I would sit there every day and I had particular practices I did. At one point I had a very rigid practice, which I talked about in a previous episode, which became a canoe. Right, I told you, after a year that became a canoe of mine. I was very attached to it and I had a bit of pride of it and all that sort of thing. And then I kind of threw that away and did different practices.

Elizabeth Winkler: 11:21

But it was funny, around COVID I started to meditate in bed, which was something I never would have done. I always wake and meditate, as davidji always says RPM, rise, pee, meditate. So the only thing that you do before your practice is go to the bathroom because you don’t want to be distracted by your bladder. So typically you have to go to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom but don’t brush your teeth. If you brush your teeth, guess what’s going to happen that list is going to start to create, and then you’re going to be like, oh, I’ll meditate later and you won’t meditate.

Elizabeth Winkler: 11:57

So I typically wake up and meditate. I had been meditating in bed, but I just changed it up again and now I’m going back to my altar. I sit and I’ve been listening to guided meditations as of late because I like to be guided into my day. So I’ll go on to Insight Timer and find something that speaks to me. It might be random, it might be something I’ve listened to before and listen to it, and then at the end I might listen to something else or I might do my own practice. That’s how I start my day every day.

davidji: 12:35

Every day. And so do you ever find yourself it’s around noon. I had like a solid six hours of being awake. Do you ever find yourself like, ooh, I’m feeling the benefits of having connected to stillness.

Elizabeth Winkler: 12:54

And so she’s making she’s making an expression at me like, of course I think I told this story, but I’ll tell it again Cause it was in a previous episode, when I was with my kids in the car by LAX and we pulled over. We were waiting for someone to arrive and they were in car seats at the time and I let them get out of their car seats. We parked. We were waiting for our friend to arrive and they were like two seats at the time and I let them get out of their car seats. We were parked, we were waiting for our friend to arrive and they were like two tigers in the back of my car, moving around like crazy little kids do, and normally that would have bothered me. I’d be wanting to calm them down and it didn’t touch me. My whole energetic field was so peaceful, didn’t touch me. Like my whole energetic field was so peaceful and at the core of my being, I felt like I was at the deepest deeper still this like deep depth of the ocean, like there were tidal waves at the top of the ocean and I was not even moving. My whole energetic field was completely still. And that’s when I really got what meditation can create for a human being. I was like what is going on here? This is incredible. And that was when I was first had been meditating regularly for a while. I don’t know how long it had been it probably been maybe a year or so but I was so amazed in that moment because all of this activity and all of this energy didn’t even touch me. So that’s really what it can create.

Elizabeth Winkler: 14:18

Also, I think you know Suzuki Roshi’s quote the goal of meditation is to keep a beginner’s mind. I think a beginner’s mind is a gift that we all would like to have. And for those that don’t know what a beginner’s mind is, think of when you walk outside and you see a sunset or you see the moon and you are just stop. You stop, you’re still. You’re in a state of curiosity, of amazement, of awe. You go to a new country, a new city. You’ve never been there. You’re totally open, you’re available. You know you haven’t been there before, and that’s actually always available to us. Every moment is fresh and new. We’re learning how to walk through this moment right now. And but many of us are living in a groundhog day kind of experience like, oh, I’m doing this again, I’m going to work again, and we’re not living from that open beginner’s mind space and when we meditate we are more in the present moment, we are more available to that beginner’s mind, and then we have that freshness, we have that creativity and availability to be a collaborator of creation.

davidji: 15:34

Yeah, it’s great. Think of all those beginner’s mind moments when we see a cloud and it looks like something. When last night right, remember last night I said look, look, look at the moon, and we had to like bend down through the trees to see that sliver of the moon, there was like an excitement there, again, fully present. We were fully present, not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future, not thinking about what will the moon look like in five minutes, or oh, we should get a picture of this and then put it on Instagram and then do all that other stuff. We just like shared that cool moment. So there are so many of these beginner’s mind moments that we have in our lives. We don’t pay enough attention to them. Now, I think, intellectually, we could put alarms and timers and all this other stuff to get ourselves to pay more attention. Or I believe, Elizabeth, what you’re doing when you are meditating so consistently every single day is you’re cultivating your ability to witness. Are we doing like cool stuff? Yes, is it a woo-woo experience? Perhaps I don’t even know, but we’re cultivating our ability to witness. What are we cultivating? Our ability to witness? Witness ourselves, witness our choices, witness our feelings, witness other people. This boosts your emotional intelligence. This touches us on so many different levels. This allows us to look at what codes am I living my life by? What are the choices and decisions? What are the guardrails that I flow through this world in? What are some like my personal 10 commandments or sacred values? What are the things that matter to me? Sometimes, life is just coming at us so relentlessly that we don’t get the opportunity to even have those internal conversations, and what meditation does is cultivates that space, the space between what comes in and what goes out, that space where we get to choose the next moment, the next thought, the next action, the next word, and that’s going to allow us to enjoy life at a higher level.

davidji: 17:45

Now, Elizabeth and I have talked about this concept of love. The answer is always love, and maybe some of you rolled your eyeballs at that one, just like really Not everything is love. This will awaken you to the fact that, okay, perhaps not 100% of the time, it’s so obvious, but if we could choose love, the next moment might be more nourishing, might be more comforting, might be more expansive, might be more mind-blowing. But if we don’t, we will never know, and so all I suggest is weave this practice of connecting to stillness and silence into your life on a daily basis, and I believe every meditation is a guided meditation. Sometimes you’re guiding yourself, Sometimes someone else is guiding you. There’s something really special about someone else guiding you because you can fully surrender. It’s like I’m turning myself over. Just take me. And there are other times where I’m like you know, I just want to silently repeat let go as I breathe in, let as I breathe out. Go, that’s it. And I do that for five minutes every single afternoon. Now I do it for a little bit longer, but it started with just five minutes and that’s why I recommend the book.

davidji: 19:17

Ends of your day, as Elizabeth said, rpm, rise, be, meditate, which I’m a big believer of meditation as well. You want to sit and create an altar or do you want to actually just like wake up, slide your tush up to the headboard and use your snooze button as your meditation timer? But that afternoon meditation somewhere between noon and six, that bookend, that second meditation, that’s where you have an opportunity to release or let go everything you’ve absorbed from the moment you woke up and we are ingesting a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. Think about it. Think of all the stuff that we are just drinking in on social media, in emails, on TV, in the ether. All that stuff, all our thoughts, all our memories, all those inner conversations, stuff, all our thoughts, all our memories, all those inner conversations, and most of us unless you are a client of Elizabeth Winkler’s and having therapy sessions with her and hopefully you checked out my therapy session with Elizabeth was that mind-blowing. Oh my God, that makes me think about am I carrying a canoe every single day, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:31

Right and my meditation practice became a canoe. Anything can become a canoe.

davidji: 20:35

Right, but I would suggest to you, let your meditation practice become a canoe, because right now it’s a nothing, so don’t worry about the canoe aspect of that. But yes, when we get devotional and too devotional to anything in our life, we get too attached and clingy and needy.

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:53

And if you look at the monk and the samurai story, what was happening there? Reactivity or gratitude. So meditation allows us to be more conscious of our reactivity, of the movement of our mind, which is always happening, and it creates that space, it cultivates that space. One thing that I see is anxiety. I think it’s probably the number one thing that walks into my office is the anxious client. I work with a lot of college students. I work with high school students. I work with adults. I work with people getting divorced, I work with people who are facing death.

Elizabeth Winkler: 21:35

All of the different storms that we face that are these tornadoes of anxiety or stress. And when I’m working specifically with anxiety, I will say to someone first question do you meditate? And if you already meditate, I’ll say you know up your meditation. And if you don’t start meditating and do it first thing in your day, because when you wake up, think of your brain like soft clay and the first thing you put into that is going to dictate the trajectory of your day. So if you’re reading the news or going to your emails or your texts and you don’t know what’s on the other side of that, guess what? More stress, probably right.

Elizabeth Winkler: 22:18

But if you put meditation in first, before you look at that text, email or news, you have more capability of handling that storm, whatever it may be. Especially if you’re going through something like a diagnosis or divorce or whatever it may be, you really need to fill your cup first thing in the morning. And so, for all of those anxious people out there, meditation is your friend. It will definitely bring that anxiety down. And one thing I want to say, because all those anxious people listening, they’re like I can’t meditate. I don’t know how to meditate. Every time I meditate, my mind is talking. It’s too loud. I can’t quiet my mind. This is what I hear every time. So let’s go over those myths of meditation. Meditation is not about quieting the voice in your head. It’s not about that.

davidji: 23:15

Oh, my God, this is so, so important. Everyone thinks I can’t meditate. I have too many thoughts, I can’t meditate. I’ve got monkey mind.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:23

Right, yeah, that is meditation. So I was talking to someone the other day and they’re like, oh yeah, well, I had a meditation the other day. I mean, it wasn’t great. I was like you know, I wasn’t really there and I’m like you meditated. Maybe that was your best meditation, that you noticed that you weren’t there, because guess what? Okay, so this is how I talk about it with people You’re there, you’re listening to a guide, or you’re repeating a mantra, and then, all of a sudden, I’m in my grocery list or all of a sudden, I’m thinking about what I’m going to eat later, and then, okay, I come back to my mantra.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:53

Let’s say that I’m focusing on aham brahmasmi mantra, meaning I am the universe, right? So aham brahmasmi, aham brahmasmi Is that what you’re wearing on your shirt? Oh, he has it on his shirt. Aham brahmasmi Cool, you’re going to get distracted. So my object of attention is that mantra in this particular example. But then I get distracted. Okay, when you get distracted, fine, welcome to being human on planet earth.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:20

You get distracted by the voice in your head all the time. You come back to the mantra, come back to the mantra. Or, if you’re listening to a guide, come back to the guidance. Don’t get upset about it, just come back.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:33

Right, what are you doing? You are strengthening that muscle, just like if you’re picking up a five pound weight. You’re strengthening the muscle of coming back to the focus, to what you want to focus on, what you want to focus on, right? So what is this doing? Well, in my daily life, the focus of my attention right now is speaking on this podcast. If I get distracted, I can come back to what’s in front of me this present moment. So we get distracted all the time in life. And what meditation is strengthening is our ability to refocus and you guys have heard me say hocus, pocus, where’s your focus? So, refocusing on what’s in front of you, rather than the thoughts about it, the story about it, my comparison judgment, whatever it may be. So meditation is strengthening our ability to come back to what’s in front of us, to be in union with what is.

davidji: 25:30

Let’s do it right now. Let me guide you through just a couple of different ways to meditate. And what are the top two? One they call it mindfulness meditation, where that’s just observing, watching, witnessing, essentially noticing your breath as it comes in. And the other technique, very, very popular technique mantra. Certainly we’re familiar with the concept of TM, or transcendental meditation, popularized by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and this has been going on for thousands of years. Buddha popularized mindfulness meditation a mere 2,600 years ago.

davidji: 26:10

People were meditating and talking about the vibration, the mantra OM in the Rig Veda 5000 years ago. So these teachings are ancient and here we are and we can use them right here. So Elizabeth said like what about the myths? Actually, the number one myth is I don’t have enough time. Second myth is too many thoughts. But number three, once you’re actually sitting down to meditate that myth rigid spine or hold the pose.

davidji: 26:41

I believe in dogs, not dogma. I believe in structure, not rigidity. So let’s get comfortable. Comfort is queen. Always keep feathering your nest, always keep moving towards comfort. So once we’ve found our comfortable spot, our sweet spot to sit in, then we slowly settle in. We can take a long, slow, deep breath in here and allow your eyelids to gently float closed and we can let our breath go and just fully surrender it out. And let’s do that one more time Now we know our upper lid is resting so softly on our lower lid. Breathe in through your eyelids and feel that tenderness, feel it go right into your body and, as you exhale, just allow that to be released. We’re going to stay in this space just for a little bit, right here, just watching your breath, and perhaps you’re noticing the air as it’s coming into your nostrils, moving into the back of your throat, moving down your throat, into your lungs, moving down your lungs, and then maybe you’re feeling that air as it leaves your lungs moves up through your throat, out through your nose or mouth. Or maybe you notice how your belly expands and fills and your chest rises on the inhales and on the exhales it eases and relaxes.

davidji: 28:20

There’s no right process here. It’s just you observing and you will drift away to thoughts, you will drift away to sounds, you will drift away to physical sensations and when you realize that your attention has drifted away ever so, gently drift back to observing your breath. And this meditation, like every meditation, is a gentle drifting back and forth. There’s nowhere else to be. There’s nothing else to do except to be right here, right now, in this sacred, precious present moment.

davidji: 29:21

And now ask yourself just one sacred question what am I grateful for? What am I grateful for? And just allow your gratitude list to unfold before you and now invite an intention into your awareness, just for today. And now invite an intention into your awareness just for today Some state of mind, some state of being that you’d like to inhabit at a higher level, just for today. Or perhaps some real world action step that you can take that will bring you just a little bit closer to the fulfillment of your dreams and desires. Little bit closer to the fulfillment of your dreams and desires.

davidji: 30:30

State of mind, state of being, or a step. Invite that into your awareness, allow it to crystallize, invite it into your heart and plant it there like a seed, in that fertile soil of your heart. Plant it deep, allow it to become. You Feel that seed embed itself into your physiology, into your energy, into your emotional realm. And now take a deep breath in and release your attachment to that intention. How do we nourish the intention?

davidji: 31:21

By repeating the mantra, and we’ll use the mantra I am, I am, I am. There’s no right speed, no right volume. You can say it out loud or you can repeat it silently to yourself over and over, and of course you will drift away to thoughts and sounds and physical sensations and when you realize you’ve drifted away ever so gently drift back to I am, I am, I am. Elizabeth mentioned the mantra, the ancient mantra Aham Brahmasmi, which simply means I am the universe. So feel free to use I am or Aham Brahmasmi and just allow, Just receive this moment and now take a long, slow, deep breath in and let it go. Begin to move your fingers and your toes, feel free to massage your heart if you’d like, and when it feels comfortable you can ever so gently open your eyes. Oh, hello there, Elizabeth. New eyes, right, exactly, new eyes, how’d?

Elizabeth Winkler: 33:24

that feel. It always feels good. It’s like a recalibration to I don’t even know what to say. It just feels like a total reset. I was doing, I am, and then when you suggested Aham Brahmasmi, I shifted to that and it reminds me of the very first time I ever meditated to that mantra, which was I was listening to you. Actually, I was listening to your 40 Days of Transformation on Insight Timer, and I remember I’ll never forget it that day, walking through the world with a totally different to what we’re talking about perspective, because Sanskrit just to speak to Sanskrit for a moment, sanskrit has to me a whole nother effect.

Elizabeth Winkler: 34:25

So you know, it’s this sacred language. It’s the only language that’s never evolved. It’s in its. You know, it’s the sounds of nature, and so when you repeat a Sanskrit mantra, you are connected to all beings that have ever repeated that mantra. It’s like you’re in the same room with them. So you could be, you’re being with the Buddha or whoever, and it’s a really powerful field of energy. I can’t speak to it, there are no words to express it. I encourage everyone to speak to it. There are no words to express it. I encourage everyone to definitely give it a try and see what that feels like for you, because it is a vibration, it’s a frequency, and our body and our energy understands what that is and it aligns with your energy and it, just as I said, it recalibrates to that and so then you’re walking around the world as that field. So I encourage you to hang out with that frequency of Sanskrit.

davidji: 35:42

Yeah, that’s so powerful because, yes, these teachings are thousands and thousands of years old. But how cool is it to be able to be repeating something like Aham Ramasmi, which is one of the ancient Mahavakyas master sayings, and the millions of people who’ve used that exact same vibration? We’re all connecting to these vibrations at such a deep level. There’s just something beautiful about it. Now, I don’t know how long we meditated. Maybe it was two minutes, maybe it was five minutes, maybe we know what that whole journey was, but imagine thousands and thousands of people connecting to the stillness and silence that’s resting within them. Talk about the power of prayer, talk about the power of the collective. That’s what we tap into, and we just cultivated something inside of us.

davidji: 36:29

So if you were like, no, never meditated before, guess what meditator, we would call you a successful tater. So all you taters out there who have been meditating to start your day, or meditating twice a day, or meditating three times a day, and those of you who’ve never really done it except till right now, guess what? There’s no hierarchy. We’re all stepping on this path at the same time together. No one’s better than anyone else. There’s always, bean by bean, day by day, and what’s your practice gonna look like and how often can you consistently show up and do the thing? Which is the secret and the answer to all this stuff. What’s the mastery step? Just keep showing up and doing the thing. What’s the advanced technique? Show up and do the thing. What’s the graduate course? Show up and do the thing. Graduate course show up and do this thing.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:21

And try new ways of meditating also. I think, playing with different ways chanting, saying the mantra out loud, doing in silence, just seeing how these different ways of working with mantra or different forms of meditation, movement affect you.

davidji: 37:41

Right, and this is all about connecting to the present moment and cultivating our ability to witness, and so it’s about consistency, not duration. So we practiced intention setting, we practiced a gratitude practice, we practiced witnessing our breath, we practiced the repetition of an English mantra and a Sanskrit mantra, we practice letting go. Think of all these little nuances, just in that small little component. We’re going to talk a lot more about meditation over the 15 years of this podcast. We have a contract that runs for 15 years. It’s supposed to run until that next solar eclipse. So, whenever that is One thing that I want to stress to you is and Elizabeth hinted at this find the technique that works for you, find something where you go.

davidji: 38:34

I love that experience, I love that journey, I love that process, or I love that technique or that technology. That’s guiding me to something else. I believe that’s why people don’t meditate more. They haven’t found a meditation that resonates with them, and they think the one thing they did that didn’t resonate was the one. So I would say no, no, no. There’s so much more. It’s a vast landscape out there for all of us, and I recommend strongly, endorse, suggest and encourage you to figure out what’s the technique. I have tons of free guided meditations on my own website. Davidji.com so does. Elizabeth has many on her own website. We are also both contributors to the Insight Timer meditation app. I’ve also been working with the Unplugged meditation app for six years or so, plus Apple Music, amazon. I encourage you to tap into that, even if you just dip your toe into this magnificent reservoir of timeless wisdom techniques, because this stuff is gold, this is spectacular and your life will shift, and maybe just in a couple of days. Yeah.

Elizabeth Winkler: 39:55

I remember when I worked with Sanskrit, it started to activate things that had happened when I went to Tibet back in 2001. And I had spent that time with the monk in the cave. When I started working with Sanskrit, it was like it was awakening seeds that had been planted 20 years prior. And that’s what the power of these things can do. It’s really incredible. This is a way of awakening seeds and aspects of our being that have been untapped. It’s really kind of endless what meditation can give you. It absolutely, as I said, will de-stress and bring your anxiety down. It also will bring more kindness into your life, more gentleness, and if you don’t sleep well, that second meditation of the day helps and just cleansing and clearing yourself so that you can be the best version of yourself. So maybe for today’s takeaway, living the light we did let go and I am.

Elizabeth Winkler: 41:04

but you could use that as a practice as you’re walking through your day. So let’s say you’re walking through your day and something’s going through your head that you’re stuck in Just repeat let go, let go, let go as a mantra in your own mind when you’re moving through your day. Or I am, I am rather than I am anxious, I am angry, I am upset. So, using these mantras that we use today let go, I am as you’re moving through your day, as a mindfulness practice, as a mantra practice in your day, do you like that?

davidji: 41:39

Yeah, I love that. I love that. My name is davidji. I’m here with Elizabeth Winkler. This is the Shadow and the Light and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Music: 41:53

Keep meditating, I will not be afraid of the shadows in the dark. They will lead the way to the hidden pathways of the heart. They will lead the way to the hidden pathways of the heart and that secret place. That is where I find my start. The light is the light, the light. If you’re gone, then we’ll go to the deep To take me to you.

Music: 42:30

The light, the light, the shadow and the light. There’s no fog and rock by dawn. You hold it as you’re on the mend, but don’t rush past this moment. The darkness can become a friend. Love will come by your side and you’ll shine brighter than a million suns A million suns. You went through hell, but now you’re in the light. It is here to remove all your fears and to bring new sight. The light, the light Is a light that will go to the deep To take you to new heights. The shadow and the light has come because it loves us. The light has come because it loves us. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes to set us free. The light is here to remove all our fears and to bring new life. The light is here to remove all our fears dead, to bring new light. Oh, the light, the light. It’s a light that will go to the deep to take us to new heights. The shadow and the light.