Today, I am blessed to have here with me Amanda Gilbert. One of Amanda's high school teachers led her in meditation. This particular homeschool in the middle of West Virginia focused on search and rescue and outdoor survival skills, but it was also a special high school that included South American wisdom and philosophy because its founder visited indigenous cultures in South America and brought the wisdom of the four winds to the high school curriculum that he developed and then implemented. At this high school, Amanda spent the majority of the mornings working with a teacher who helped her focus on the present moment.
Early in her 20s, Amanda kept hearing about meditation, so she decided to include it in her college undergraduate program. She was frequently given meditation books. Whayout made Amanda become a consistent meditator and a serious meditator was on the heels of a difficult early adulthood life moment.
Amanda was aware that the key to any healing process was meditation. She then went in pursuit of her first meditation teachers, committed herself to daily meditation for a few hours, and started working as a clinical researcher on meditation and mindfulness at the University of California, San Francisco. After that, Amanda became a meditation teacher, and most recently, a professor of mindfulness at USC.
In this episode, Amanda Gilbert dives into understanding meditation and mindfulness. She shares some advice on how you can practice meditation and mindfulness, as well as how you can show love and compassion in this world full of selfishness, judgement, and hatred. Amanda will also share how you can deal with impostor syndrome and practice gratitude, and its impact on your life.
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[9:09] Does meditation increase telomere length? Meditation as an anti-aging tool!
Dr Elissa Epel's research focuses on stress reduction and stress management, including mindfulness and meditation and how these affect our cellular aging biomarkers like telomeres and telomerase.
Meditation and mindfulness actually helped produce more telomerase at times in the body, which helped build back the length of our telomeres.
Overall, our cell health and our cell aging are largely helped by spending time in meditation.
The meditation retreat is well worth your time for your mental health and emotional health and overall psychological well-being.
[13:40] A strong distinction between defining meditation and mindfulness
Meditation is the active practice and training that we engage with in a consistent way, where we are working with our muscle of mindfulness in the mind. It is a training for our brain's attention, that helps us grow our ability to hold our brain's attention in the present moment.
Mindfulness is having our attention in the present moment, moment to moment, in a non-judgmental and kind-hearted way.
Mindfulness is something that we can always be practicing out in the midst of our daily lives.
The first step to any change that we want in our lives always begins with awareness, meditation, and mindfulness.
[23:52] The classical teachings of the Brahma vihara: Loving-kindness, Compassion, Appreciative joy, and Equanimity
When we start to be able to notice these different aspects of ourselves, bringing mindfulness to our mind, bringing mindfulness to our emotions, being able to say with our experience in the present moment, what is helpful is also incorporating the heart in the heart practices.
These four classical teachings of the heart, help us in navigating the inevitable stickiness, the inevitable experience of wanting to judge our minds, judge our emotions, etc.
When we add in kindness and compassion as a modern-day meditator, our whole world starts to transform.
[28:11] How can you show love and compassion?
Be honest with the actual, palpable felt sense experience of this is what judgment feels like in your body. This is what anger feels like in your body.
When we're judging, when we're angry, when we are in the frequency of hate, that's all pointed outwards, that is an external experience. Our awareness is completely anchored outwards.
By bringing our awareness back and saying, how does my body feel right now, that starts to point the awareness back inwards, and we can realize this is not making us feel good.
Instead of moving into judgment, or hatred, you can move into compassion or kindness or simply choose to disengage and not perpetuate that heart out in the world.
What we develop and cultivate on the inside is most definitely what is transmitted and exuded on the outside through our responses or our reactions.
[40:29] Compassion in itself is a direct antidote to Impostor Syndrome
When we're suffering from imposter syndrome, we experience a lot of self-criticisms and the judgment mind is probably very active since we're comparing ourselves to others.
Compassion is how we start to get into those pathways of judgment mind and introduce something else.
You can start to move down a different path the moment you meet yourself with compassion, even if it's just through acknowledgement and recognition.
[45:23] Gratitude: The quickest way back to happiness and joy
Gratitude is a direct antidote to not being contented or aware of where we are actually supported in our lives.
Gratitude shifts us often from a negative mindset or negativity bias that we are all primed with as human beings. It moves us back into a growth mindset, it moves us back into a state of greater contentedness, ease, appreciation, and happiness.
Start to challenge yourself to think of 33 reasons that you're grateful for.
By the time you reach 33, you are in a different mindset, you are in a different frequency and vibration, and you are rooted back in appreciation.
AND MUCH MORE!
Resources from this episode:
Website: https://www.kindnessnowbook.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandagilbertmeditation/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/agmeditation
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Disclaimer: This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast including Ben Azadi disclaim responsibility from any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not accept responsibility of statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guests qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or non-direct interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.