Week 2 message from Light
Suggested reading from Bliss More:
Read up to No More "Thought Shaming" in Chapter 4 (7 mins)
Question:
What are the best kind of thoughts to have in meditation?
Some would say happy thoughts. Blissful thoughts. Divine thoughts. Peaceful thoughts. Etc.
But it's a trick question, because the answer is...
Any thoughts.
It's not what kind of thoughts we have. It's how we handle them.
We basically want to go from "Thought Shaming" which is treating our thoughts like this...
...to celebrating our thinking mind like this
Today's Challenge:
Meditate for 20 minutes by integrating your Settling Sound in with a celebratory attitude around your thoughts:
Find a comfortable seat (no lying down)
You can use a soft alarm, or you can just peek at a clock from time to time until you realize that you're done
Close your eyes
Celebrate all of your thoughts without exception
Rest your awareness on your Settling Sound passively whenever it occurs to you to do so
Stay relaxed and enjoy
When you reach the end, take an extra minute or two before slowly open your eyes
Assessment
Now that we're two days into using the Settling Sound, how did it go? Was there any thought shaming? If so, when you caught it, were you able to adopt the celebratory attitude again? This is your practice for now. It may take a few more meditations, but you'll get it. After your one practice, don't meditate any more today. We'll revisit this concept tomorrow.
Accountability Exercise
Post a selfie or another image that represents you after a week of meditating daily. Share your experience, and take an extra two minutes to scroll through the #blissmorechallenge hashtag and "like" or comment on a few other posts to let people know that we're in this together. Make sure to tag #blissmore and #blissmorechallenge so we can find your posts.
Sample accountability post
Day eight of the 21-day Bliss More meditation challenge! It's only been a week, but I'm definitely noticing better sleep and more clarity. Can't wait to see what the next couple of weeks bring. #blissmore #blissmorechallenge
Wanna get a head start on tomorrow's reading?
Read the rest of Chapter 4 about what makes meditation H.A.R.D. (6 mins), and begin thinking about the Exchange Principle
(Follow #blissmore to see everyone’s progress)