Meditation has been hacked by Silicon Valley!

I just emerged from a 7 day Jhana Meditation retreat in Northern, California and it was delicious!

I have always had a deep desire to do a meditation retreat but have heard a fair share of horror stories about sitting still for 10 hours a day with no movement or journaling allowed - yikes! These stories have unfortunately really kept me from meditation retreats and also made me judge my own practice.

There are so many expectations you hear about meditation: you must sit still, you must focus, you must concentrate, you must do it for 30m at least, you must do it every day. For an Eastern Practice it has always felt oddly Western in its rigidity. I have never considered myself a great meditator because I have trouble sitting still, figit constantly, prefer movement in my meditation and feel most ‘connected’ to myself, the world around me and the universe when I’m on a difficult hike to a rocky summit.

I have known that I can access heightened states of consciousness and awareness due to my lifetime awareness of being a natural born intuitive and empath; and all the body / energy awareness it brings; and through my energetic & sound healing practice of 15 years. I never had words for these heightened states and would call them just that - “heightened states of consciousness,” “altered states,” being “blissed out,” or “in flow.”

As it turns out, these are Jhanic states: Jhana is defined as a meditative state of profound stillness and ’collectedness’ in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed.

Like other epic crossovers (i.e. rap music falling in love with country and vice versa) I find it beautiful that the engineers and tech guys of Silicon Valley have hacked meditation using Left Brain techniques and skills. The facilitators at this retreat described it best when they said they “are using Left Brain Techniques to teach Right Brain Concepts.”

Think of it as a drop down menu:

Try to Relax, is it working? If yes, continue, if no, see if you can enjoy. Is enjoying working? If yes, continue, if no, try to observe, and so on and so on. The pillars they taught gave me confidence to ease into the techniques - and my favorite part - if you get distracted just allow the distraction to be part of the experience. ‘Distraction is traction,’ as they say - this is one of the biggest missing pieces for me! You mean I can invite all my thoughts and feelings, colors, songs from high school, bird noises, random dreams, “what am I going to eat later, when is my next hike” thoughts into my meditation?!

And you know what?

It worked! Instead of trying to “quiet my mind,” I opened it up instead. Instead of trying to stop my thoughts or single focus on an object, i loved every thought, every feeling, every breeze, every birdsong, every murmur of someone talking in the background, any feeling into my awareness and loved it deeply. I started to see my distracted thoughts as a little kid running into a house and interrupting a conversation - the kid is just excited to share - he deserves love and attention - and the more he gets it the more he goes back outside to play. When you try to “stop” your thoughts you are literally putting resistance up, and not surprisingly getting resistance in return.

I like to explain the Jhana’s through my hiking analogy as that was the epiphany that I had that I realized I’ve been doing them my whole life. Maybe this will help you connect to your own pathway to the Jhanas:

For me, Jhana 1 is like being on a hike and seeing the top of the mountain I am going to summit: there is ecstatic, excitement, high levels of vibration and energy flowing through my body, almost as if I want to wiggle out of my skin, the defined area of my body begins to dissolve and become one with the atmosphere.

~ Important note I also realize this is why people don’t like hiking with me haha!! I get into these rapturous states and they’re questioning why are we friends ~

Jhana 2 is like summing the mountain: the euphoria starts to dissolve into a softer happiness, a gratitude for my body that I did it, a contentment, a non-egoic sense of accomplishment.

Jhana 3 is after I summit a mountain I send energy to everyone I love. I call it the Care Bear Stare and if you know me personally or watched the 80’s cartoon The Care Bears, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I send love and appreciation to all my friends all over the world, everyone I’ve ever met and even people i used to know. This is my way of offering friendliness and appreciation to everyone that has journeyed with me in this life.

Jhana 4 is either a) the hike down the mountain or b) when I am in bed later holding the deepest gratitude in all of the cells of my body. The most peaceful state of returning, of relaxing.

Grant, one of my meditation facilitators invited me to dive a bit deeper into Jhana 4 so later that night I did and at first it smelled like dead leaves in a forest if it had rained yesterday, the deepest most beautiful sweet delicious and dead leaves earth smell. I felt my body sink into the earth like I was being buried, but in a gentle and sweet sense - my body was returning to the earth. I felt cozy, held by the dirt around me, I felt as if my body and energy was being recycled for something new and then immediately the visual changed to spring and little buds and flowers and moss started growing on the top of the earth over me and I felt complete - that I had completed this natural and sacred cycle.

Later I journeyed with another amazing facilitator - Judah - and in writing about my experience it accidentally turned itself into a poem:

Luminous light with effervescent sparkles

Grounded dissolving bones into the earth

Shallow breaths deepen, pumping diaphragm to ignite the spark of the Solar Plexus

Light where there was darkness

Play tension like a guitar string, a song is possible

When you are powerful you don’t need bad patterns to make you bigger than others

Fractal flowers spiral into dresses with invitation to

A dance hosted in a nighttime canopy of planets and stars

Infinity folds back on itself

What is the experience?

What is experience?

Anything I try to hold slips immediately from my mind, off the shelf and into the void

There is only now

Here

And right now

There is only everything all at once at any time

Inside of nothing cradles everything

Everything turns to nothing

Stephen, another facilitator, had mentioned how when you read a poem the first time it’s lovely but after you figure out these jhanic states it’s like an instructional manual and I couldn’t agree more!

Overall, my deepest realization was that I meditate best when I am not trying to, and that is my playful and curious door into the Jhanas, meditative states, heightened consciousness, altered awareness and being blissed out.

~

So, if you are like me and have struggled with meditating or the idea of meditating - let’s begin together! Here are some helpful hints and phrases from retreat I find invaluable:

• What are you curious about in your experience right now?

• What needs to be acknowledged?

• Can you relax, enjoy and observe?

• Can you forgive yourself for not understanding.

• Nothing exists in our experience independent of how we relate to it.

• Can you let yourself be overwhelmed by your experience?

  
  
  If you’re interested in learning more: I found the retreat to be delightful, the facilitators fantastic. Thanks to Stephen, Judah, Grant, Owen & Jack
  

Click here to learn more about Jhana Jhourney Retreats!

self-inquiry e-book

Hi friends!

I am a life-long learner, a constant student and a seeker of truths - internal and external.

I sit in dialogue with myself, I meditate, I reflect on how I act, what I say, how I make others feel. There is a constant self-inquiry that goes on in my mind.

I created a free Self Inquiry E-Book to help jump start your journey to Self Inquiry and here I thought I would list some prompt questions to inspire threads of thought and streams of consciousness.

Creative questions

• Is this emotion mine?

• Where do I feel this emotion in my body? What color is it?

• I get so _________________ when I__________ / __________ because it reminds me of ___________ and I feel _______________

• If I let go of this story, how would I feel?

• Do I benefit from this story?

• If you’re having trouble making a decision in the moment, is it possible that’s not the moment to make the decision?

• If I wasn’t me, how would life or ________ feel and how would situations / circumstances change?

• If I wasn’t so ________________ I would be able to _______________ because I ___________

• Did that person mean to do that to me? Or were they just meeting their own needs and I was a casualty?

Helpful Questions during Hard & triggered Times

• What makes you say / think that?

• Can you help me understand why you feel that way?

• Do you want advice or for me just to listen?

• I am hurt and feeling triggered and I need some space to process.

• What exactly triggered this emotional response?"

• Is my reaction proportional to the situation?

• What past experiences might be contributing to this reaction?

• Am I interpreting the situation accurately, or is my perception distorted by past experiences?

• What are the underlying emotions I'm feeling right now?

• What do I need in this moment to feel safe and supported?

• Can I communicate my feelings and needs calmly and assertively?

• Am I willing to listen and understand the other person's perspective?

• What boundaries do I need to set to protect my emotional well-being?

• Is there a healthy way to address this trigger and move forward?

self discovery prompts

• What are my values?

• What are my strengths and weaknesses?

• Do the beliefs I hold, hold me back from exploring further?

• Are my actions in alignment with my goals?

• What do I think of myself?

• How do I contribute to life / relationships etc?

• What gives me purpose and meaning?

• Am I present in my life?

• What is holding me back?

• What am I afraid of?

• What am I grateful for?

• Do I meet my own needs?

• How do I express myself?

• What do I want to learn next?

• Who do I want to become? What steps am I taking to become that person?

Musings

Remember:

• You are exactly where you need to be

• What you’re feeling is real

• All your feelings are valid

• If you are too ‘certain’ about the person you are right now you could be destroying the person you’re supposed to be

• You can’t consider the end of something when you’ve barely just begun

• Whatever is happening to you is a direct result of your internal environment

• Times you are afraid is the exact time you can be brave

• Your brain is trying to help you survive - not make you happy!

~

thank you for reading

I hope you enjoyed these questions and got a lot of insight out of them!

I would love to hear from you! Please share your feedback in comments, shares, or likes and let me know what you thought of my Free Self-Inquiry E-Book!

Sending you much love & in gratitude

xoxox

Jess

the four selves

Or as I call them - the Four Jess’s.

I came up with this concept deep in meditation and reflection with the BioCybernaut Institute in Sedona. Here, they measure your brain waves and teach you how to get into alpha state in order to do deep internal work on your subconscious; you can access deep subconscious healing with forgiveness and compassion through finding truths, previously hidden.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

- Dr. Carl Jung

Something that we all know - forgiveness can be really hard. In my time of reflection and solitude in a dark room in Sedona - it occurred to me why forgiveness can be so difficult.

The answer I found is: because we are made up of different versions of ourself - so there are different people inside you that have to be in agreement in order to give permission to fully forgive.

Now, I’ve already written some blogs on forgiveness - you can find one here. However, this is a brand new concept, an evolved method of forgiveness, if you will.

Say you were hurt when you were really small, which may have made you sad, or feel powerless or hopeless.

Perhaps you were angry and vengeful as a teenager.

Now, because some time has passed, you can look back on it logically without getting too triggered (although you still might get a little triggered.) Compassionate thoughts like “they were doing their best with the information they had,” may float around in your awareness.

Perhaps in 40 years you can look back on it and be completely at peace with it.

These are the Four Selves - these selves not only have to feel the feelings, but have to allow external expression of them in order to approve Full Forgiveness. Let me explain:

The little self

The little self is most likely the one that got hurt. How you got hurt will vary from person to person. Maybe you weren’t physically cared for, maybe you weren’t emotionally cared for, maybe you weren’t mentally cared for, and maybe your life circumstances didn’t provide safety or stability to feel cared for.

This makes the Little Self sad; feelings of despair arise, feelings of ‘I’m not worthy,’ ‘I’m not loveable,’ will come up here. Feelings of ‘I’m unsafe,’ ‘I don’t belong,’ can arise here. Feelings of shame can arise here because ‘If I was good enough this wouldn’t have happened to me.’

Sound familiar?

There can be no forgiveness without acknowledging and fully feeling the emotions.

Why?

Because your heart and your head have two different consciousnesses. Logically reasoning something in your head doesn’t access your emotions or allow you to feel in your heart, and forgiveness is a feeling, not a thought.

Let’s allow the little self to be sad, to cry, to yell, to sob, to despair, to deeply feel the feelings of sadness, AND to allow those feelings to become unstuck in our body and be expressed.

So, we emote and express the emotion; after all emotions are energy in motion, and we feel things to heal them. This is the opposite of shoving things down, compartmentalizing, and ‘I’ll deal with that later,’ mindsets. We are pulling these emotions out of being stuck in our body to be processed, live their entire life span (beginning, climax, resolution) and therefore actualized and finally released.

the teenage self

Because the Little Self cannot protect itself, our Teenage Self avenges the Little Self. It has to, because now, it can! The Teenage Self is smarter, bigger and physically stronger than the Little Self. The Teenage Self has access to more resources, coping skills, concepts, wisdom, friends, therapists, counselors.

So, outwardly - we might rebel, we might steal, smoke, drink, yell; or inwardly - we get depressed and implode on ourselves, self harm, become introverted, stay away from people, isolate, maybe we take things personally, or out on other people.

This of course will look different to different people. The way we react will always vary based on our environment and personality.

The idea here is the Teenage Self is now protecting the Little Self, and it will do it anyway it can.

So what do we do?

Once again, we allow the emotions. We allow ourselves to fully feel the hatred, resentment, and betrayal. We allow ourselves to feel these emotions as we felt them as a teenager and once again we express them.

To help process this rage we might hit a pillow with a baseball bat, find our nearest Rage Room, listen to angry music to allow the fullest expression of these emotions. We might write letters we never send to those who have harmed them.*

This is cathartic for the Teenage Self.

the current self

Now we are older and wiser, and have the ability to intellectualize concepts: ‘My dad was this way because his dad was this way.’ ‘My parents did the best they could with the resources they had.’ ‘Therapy was taboo when my parents grew up.’ These are enlightening realizations, no doubt, but it still does nothing for our Little Self that was deeply injured and couldn’t protect itself and our Teenage Self that needs someone to answer for the crimes committed against the Little Self.

Time has given us space to heal, but if we don’t allow our Little Self to cry, and our Teenage Self to rage, and both to express this outwardly, the process is incomplete. Mentally understanding an emotional concept does nothing because it’s not on the same wavelength nor does it speak the same language.

Here we must accept the feelings and allow our Little Self and Teenage self to express these emotions without judgment. To allow yourself to hit rock bottom, to fall in a puddle sobbing or howl at the moon.

Now, some of us do not feel like we have certain emotions, or that certain emotions don’t have an affect on them. I’ve met a lot of people who claim they never get angry and yet have uncontrollable sugar addictions. I find whatever emotion you definitely don’t think is a problem - is definitley a problem - and in dialogue with it you can find fertile soil for self inquiry and evolution.

If you have trouble accessing these emotions try my concept on Emotion Hacking:

1. If you can’t access sadness - try watching a sad movie about a dog, trust me you’ll cry.

2. If you can’t access anger - try listening to the angry or angsty music you loved in high school.

3. If you can’t access those old feelings - get a sound healing session with me and we’ll bring them right up to the surface to work on them.

The point of Emotion Hacking is sometimes we have trouble accessing certain emotions, this is normal, so we use an external stimulus (a sad movie or angry music) to pull up resonance in our internal space.

the old self

The Old Self is wise, the Old Self has lived so long and seen everything you have grown through. The Old Self is the version of you who has allowed the Little Self to cry, the Teenage Self to yell, and the Current Self to heal by feeling and responsibly expressing.*

The Old Self is who you needed when you were younger. The Old Self has compassion for all Selves AND all the people involved in the circumstances that resulted in injury. This is because the Old Self is all of your expressions of self and also has a grander perspective having transcended the stormy seas of your youth, your pain and your suffering.

This next part is a Thought Experiment so try this on like you were trying on a T-shirt - if it fits keep it, and if it doesn’t take it off:

Quantum Physics says that the present moment, right now, is the only thing that is technically real. So if we access all Four Selves in the present moment we are Little, Teenage, Current and Old together, united - therefore by feeling all the emotions and allowing the physical expression of those emotions we can find forgiveness because we've received permission from all the Four Selves, because we’ve allowed them to feel, to express, and to be witnessed by all other Selves.

Here we can release the binds and emotions that hold us captive to these past harmful circumstances or people - in this spaciousness of acceptance and surrender, through feeling and healthy expression, and then letting go of expectation.

feel the feelings and then rest in the spaciousness

Once you allow yourself to feel all the feelings you might find there is a sensation of spaciousness, of lightness and freedom. You might have more compassion and true forgiveness because you didn’t try to gloss over your own pain. In accepting our pain and dialoguing with it we deepen our understanding of ourselves, and therefore others.

When we forgive ourselves we can more easily forgive others, when we allow our emotional expression we can sit easier with the emotional expression of others.

~

Try it on and let me know what you think!

~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

—Rumi

*Expressing responsibly is important and an internal journey. You don’t have to do it alone and can have a vulnerability buddy. You are allowed to feel angry; just make sure you are being emotionally responsible by not blaming or yelling at others. You are allowed to hit a pillow with a baseball bat - that does not affect anyone else negatively. This is about YOU and your feelings.