The one-minute meditation practice that may save your life.

This will only take a minute.

I started meditating again last fall. I’ve been teaching yoga since 2008, I’ve done 3 and 10 day vipassana silent retreats, I have an embarrassing amount of yoga certifications, and yet I’ve struggled to keep up a formal meditation practice. Last year, I was awakened to the meditative practice of gridding. Gridding, as I understand it, is putting yourself in a frequency, mood, or mental state that you would like to live in for only 60 seconds at a time. Of course, you can do this for longer, but when you commit to only 60 seconds, something clicks. No longer can you fool yourself with “no time.” I suggest you do this first thing in the morning. Admittedly, it is hard if you wake up in a shit mood. It is hard to do if you’re feeling deep grief or pain. However, if you are able to be willing to be willing to allow your frequency to shift into the golden frequency of love or hope or dreaminess or whatever you wish your body to transmit to the world that day, you will find yourself slightly better than you started.

I was doing well with this practice last year until I was hit over the head with a spiritual initiation that caused an overwhelming amount of grief. This grief portal disrupted my winning streak, and I completely stopped gridding. I’ve only recently remembered, and even as I’m writing about it, I can feel my entire body lighting up.

Another form of meditation I fell into last year was heart meditation. Again, I have an ungodly amount of yoga certifications, and yet, I had never heard of this meditation. It’s simple: observe the heart space. Feel your heartbeat. Thats it. If you do this for even just five minutes a day, so much will shift. Our heart is a receptor, a receiver, and a magnet. Tuning into this concept has dramatically shifted the way I orient myself in the world. I am more aware of the energy I carry into a room. I am more apt to hold an energetic boundary when I’m around folks I don’t fancy. People always say follow your heart, but they never say how. First, you’ve got to feel it. You’ve got to get serious about learning your heart’s language; speak it fluently. If you can’t speak your heart’s language, how can you expect someone else to understand it? How can you expect yourself to teach someone how to understand it?

Shout out to the brilliant poet Miss Natalie Marie, whose Gladcast podcast helped rewire my brain to be more open to play and gratitude last year. Thank fucking god. I’m less of a grump! Everyone needs to be de-grumpifying themselves during these trying times. Thanks Natalie. I tip my hat to you!