Week Five - FUN

Well, here we are! Week 5 of the mindfulness challenge. Time flys when you’re having fun right? And this is actually one of my biggest hopes from this experience, is that you’ve had fun. Having fun with meditation is a highly underrated element of it. Exploring the present moment through yourself. Getting lost in the wonder of the here and now.

Life itself IS the greatest gift and taking moments now and then to just experience life begins to open you up to seeing everything .differently. Meditation is the key to this world. You may have experienced flashing moments of this utopia in some of the meditations we’ve done together. I can guarantee you that the more you just enter into meditation just for the love of it, the clearer everything becomes.

You begin to realise that life is a wonderful dance. Full of moments of grab and release, fast and slow. Do the tango with anger and see what it has to teach you. The salsa with desire to see how it moves. Explore the full blended cocktail of ups and downs. You’re the bartender stirring everything together, tasting as you go while dancing to the universe’s groovy emotional music. Add too much sweetness and you’ll begin to feel sick. Pour in too much sour and you’ll be turned off. Life is a game of balance to be played with and enjoyed.

I feel that this dance is often forgotten when we overemphasise technique or hold ourselves too stringent to history’s teachings. Yes, learn, read and seek out lessons shared with gurus and leaders of the past and present, but then, when it comes time to put it all into action, let go. Let it all run through your own present moment filter and if you feel the need to add, adjust or completely change what you’ve learned, then do so. There is no greater teacher than yourself.

From here, my hope is that you’re excited to see where your relationship with meditation goes next. We’ve only just scratched the surface. Barely left the backyard. There’s a whole world out there waiting for you to explore. So let’s go! Put on your present moment party hat and let’s squeeze everything this life has to offer us!

As always, Big love! Luke 💛

The 5 Week Mindfulness Challenge Summary

Week One - FORGIVENESS
Let go of what is holding you down.

Week Two - GRATITUDE
Give thanks for the open space to do with as you wish now.

Week Three - LOVE
Fill yourself up with the source and energy in all things, Love.

Week Four - PURPOSE
Our purpose is to experience life first and foremost. Do this and your secondary purpose i.e. what we’re here to do will begin to become clear.

Week Five - FUN
Enjoy the ride!

the journey continues…

Week Four - Manifest your dream life

What am I here to do?

This is a question that I am certain every human being will ask themselves at some point in their life, and I’m not talking about it in a ‘surface-level ‘ context, like, ‘what should I do for a job?’ or ‘what do I need to do today?’

I’m talking about your life’s purpose.

What imprint are you meant to leave on this world? A very similar question that you might have asked yourself is ‘Why am I here?’

These two questions consumed my mind for years. I would read countless books on purpose, destiny, and finding one’s ‘calling’. I would journal for hours hoping that something would pop out at some point like an epiphany and that my mind would finally be put to ease and I would begin work on living my life’s purpose.

What happened wasn’t exactly what I had expected.

I had always seen purpose as a means of doing something. Dedicating myself to a cause of some type that I was completely consumed and in love with. What I came to realise though is that…

Purpose isn’t about what we are meant to do but who we are meant to be.

This changed everything. Instead of trying to find this lifelong profession/passion of some type. It became clear that my life’s purpose first and foremost was to be as present as possible.

Every human’s life purpose is to BE here now.

We all collectively have the same united purpose. To first and foremost, live in the present moment as much as possible and by doing this what will begin to happen then is the formation of your unique purpose.

Our unique purpose Is what I was first obsessed with finding. What 99% percent of books on purpose talk and strategise about. Which I am convinced will not lead to your true inner purpose. That can only be found through the fulfilment of your connection with the collective purpose first, presence.

Let presence be your life’s purpose and begin to see what happens.

Lastly, you may be thinking, ‘how do I be present then?’ Well, you’re in the right place! Meditation is the number one exercise that will enable you to be present and therefore, enable you to live your life’s purpose and lead you to your unique purpose.

So your exercise for this week is simple. Meditate. Open yourself up to the present moment and allow yourself to connect with your true life’s purpose.

Week Three - Connection to life

Love. How are we able to talk about love in just few hundred words when it is everything? I feel almost embarrassed limiting it to be just the theme for this week when it should be theme of every week of our waking lives. But the beautiful thing about love is that it is limitless and appreciates even the smallest of acknowledgements. For example, take a moment to feel the words ‘I love you’.

How wonderful just three small words can feel. How much impact they can have. Sometimes a manifesto isn’t needed, just three small words.

Yes love is everything, but never underestimate how even the smallest acts of love can make an impact.

The last two weeks have been more preparation than development. You’ve cleared the floor and established a strong foundation through forgiveness. Given thanks for the opportunity to be able to build anew through gratitude. Now it is time to begin building with the power of love.

There are three elements within love to ponder, meditate on and try to remember when doing any action, deed and/or word you speak.

The first element of love to consider when building your new self. Love is completely indiscriminate. Let’s look to how nature embraces this element of love. Does a rose choose who it wishes to share it’s fragrance with? Does a tree decide to only share it’s shade with good people? The clouds above do not discriminate who they rain on. Let your actions show no favour and bias. SImply act with what you feel is the right thing to do in each moment. Let your fragrance be a sweet smell to all and your shade a place of comfort and rest for everyone.

The second element of love to keep in mind throughout life. Expect nothing. When you think, speak and act without expectation of something in return, the universe acknowledges this as selfless service for the entire collective of life. Does the rose expect to be pollinated by the bee for sharing it’s fragrance with him? Does the tree expect it to be watered after it has provided it’s shade? No. They simply give and trust that the universe will provide in harmony with everything around it.

The third and final element to consider with love. Set it free. The moment control enters, love disappears. The rose makes no effort for you to smell it. The tree does not drag you into it’s shade even if you are sunstroke. Any love where there are conditions, there is restriction and love can not manifest if it is held down. Trust is not formed through conditions but by giving the ability to be able to act with complete free will.

Your exercise now is to ponder these elements. Are they present in your thinking and actions right now? How can I adopt more of these throughout my daily life? Meditate on them. Manifest them. Let them shine through you each and every moment and you won’t only experience love like never before. You will begin to release that you are love itself.

Week Two - Opening up

After week one of our meditations and the exercise of forgiveness, you may be feeling a bit uncertain. Do not worry. This is completely natural.

When the veil of conditioning and pain of the past is pulled back we will naturally feel quite bare and exposed. Remember this - you are in a safe place. Allow yourself to trust the process.

Let me reassure you that although you may be feeling a bit vulnerable, you now have a clear and sturdy foundation to rebuild your inner world upon.

But there’s one more thing we need to do before we grab the tools and get to work.

Give thanks.

Yes, taking a moment to appreciate the vast existence of space.

To bask in nothingness.

To look out across the horizon and smile.

First and foremost, existence is the ultimate gift.

Presence is the ultimate honour.

We do not need anything more than this.

It is just the delight of life that we can choose to do more if we wish to.

So take a moment to simply give thanks. Maybe try repeating the following and see how it feels.

“I am grateful for simply being here now.”

That is it.

We could close the book now and that would be enough if we truly embraced the above. However, I know we all live in a world that demands our attention for different reasons. Whether that might be to be a mother/father, a provider, a carer, a thinker, a problem solver, a friend. It would be naive of me to think that we can stay in that space of solitary bliss. Just know that that place is always there if and when you need it.

There is an essence within you that needs nothing. It is already whole. It is the energy, the current, the life-force that runs through nature. It’s your soul.

Give thanks knowing that you already have everything.

You are now ready to give and receive with no expectation and this is a place where life begins to be a steady hum of joyful awareness 💛

Week One - Letting Go

Seems like an odd place to start a mindfulness program right? I mean, who am I to ask you to forgive whoever or whatever has hurt, harmed or wronged you in some way?

I don’t know you. I haven’t experienced the pain, stress, and/or difficult emotions you have. Yet here I am asking you to do something that can be hard, uncomfortable and maybe, completely unjustified.

(Keep in mind my job over the next 5 weeks is to guide you. To open the door and point to the path. You still have to be the one to walk through. There will be no pushing. Every step is completely up to you to take or not. However, the more willing you are to take those steps, the more the internal shifts will begin to happen).

Now coming back to forgiveness, why start here?

Any pain stored as a memory in the mind which hasn’t been dealt with will continue to burden you. Weigh you down and block what your intuition is trying to tell you. Trying all the things to make yourself feel better e.g. eating healthy, exercising, even meditating, will only give you a surface type of healing. We need to clean out the fridge before adding all the new good food in.

It’s like building your dream home on sand. It doesn’t matter how nice, slick and fancy the home is, it’s always going to be unstable. We need to clear underneath and lay a strong and stable foundation first and we do this with ourselves through forgiveness. 

Forgiveness has nothing to do with justice. Forgiveness is completely for yourself. By you thinking that forgiving someone else is letting them ‘off the hook’, is actually only keeping yourself strung up by that exact same hook. 

Forgiveness allows you to be free. To establish a strong base foundation to which you can then build healthy habits upon.

Now it’s time for the exercise itself.

Take 5 minutes to write down anything that comes to mind when you ask yourself the question “what moments in my past still feel painful, uncomfortable or difficult that were caused by someone else?” 

Write it all down. Whatever comes to mind first and keep going till you feel like you’ve gotten it all out down on paper.

Once you’ve gotten it all done. Turn over a new page and repeat the same process, however this time write down whatever comes to mind when you ask yourself the question “what moments in my past still feel painful, uncomfortable or difficult that I did to myself?”

Again, just write down what comes to mind first. You can allow yourself to pause and let whatever needs to arise to bubble to the surface, then write that down until you no more thoughts on the matter come to mind.

Once nothing else comes to mind, take a moment to take a few deep breaths and step away from what you’ve written down, Go and grab a glass of water and take a few moments to compose yourself. When you feel a little more settled, return to what you wrote down, read it back to yourself and now write down the following words under both sections.

“I choose now to forgive and let go of all of this.”

Repeat this line to yourself multiple times. Each time being more certain as you say it. Opening yourself up and really letting go. 

Then when you can, either burn or throw away the pieces of paper.

Well done.

We now have a clear, strong foundation to build on.