¶ Introduction and the Need for Meditation
Karen. Yes, you know how I'm always telling you that I really need to meditate more. Yes, and it's usually right after I've had my third cup of coffee of the day.
Right, it's right after, like you go to bed at night, when it's too late to meditate for the day.
You're saying, I tell you that right after I go to bed at night.
Yeah, I always say go to sleep.
I said, go to bed.
Oh, make me awake in bed. Well, I think today's
¶ Meet Cheri Flake: The Stress Therapist
guests might actually be able to finally get me to stick to a meditation routine.
Oh, then that means there's hope for me too.
I'm not sure about that. But you see, our guest this week is a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty five years of experience. But here's a kicker. She's on a mission to get everyone in the world to meditate and actually enjoy it.
Is that a mission impossible?
You know what? In the edit, I'm going to have to put in the mission. With so many meditation teachers out there are so super chill and relaxed, this week's guests may not be the person you would usually associate with meditation.
I like that.
Yeah, see, she's got this super engaging, no nonsense and often hilarious way of teaching people how to meditate. And she says, there's nothing better for you except maybe water. Okay, and you know I hate water.
I know you feel like you're drowning when you drink.
Well, have you been having a difficult time sticking to a meditation routine, then this might just be the episode you've been waiting for. Because once this episode is done, you're gonna want to run to your couch, your matt, your chair, definitely, though not your bed. We'll explain that why, so that you can start your practice right away. This is a skeptic metaphysicians. My name is Will and I'mars,
and unlike moulderin Scully, we both want to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.
We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world.
We've thrown ourselves to weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of.
Witches and wait, you joined a coven yep.
All the interests of finding something, anything that will prove that there's something beyond this physical.
Three dimensional world we all live in.
This is the skeptic medsians. Hey there, I'm Will and I'm caring, and today we got one of the most delightful personalities you'll ever get the chance to meet on our show. As a licensed clinical social worker, she's got
¶ Cheri's Journey and Mission
over twenty five years of experience and has provided counseling, coaching, workshops, hypnotherapy and meditation classes and retreats as part of her own private psychotherapy practice for the past seventeen years now. She believes that meditation is key to healthy living, so her mission is to teach as many people as possible not only how to meditate, but how to make it a habit asks a lifetime.
That's the key.
In a straightforward, no nonsense, highly engaging, in often humorous way, She's taught thousands of people how to meditate and keep meditating day in and day out. There is hope for both of us. Karen, Welcome to the show. V Stress therapists herself, Sherry Flake. Sherry, how you doing?
Yeah? That? Wow, I'm doing great. How y'all do it?
Sherry? You are are obi Wan, You're last best hope.
¶ Challenges in Maintaining a Meditation Practice
We are terrible at We love meditating. Yeah, we don't know, Yeah, we do love meditating. But we can't keep it up. It's so hard, right, I know, So help us, obi wan, how can we maintain meditation practice?
Okay? I have about a thousand ideas.
Okay, well we only got a well got about forty five minutes, so.
Talk fast, Okay, I'll bring up the most important ones. Okay.
¶ Tips for Making Meditation a Habit
So first off, the thing that's well, first of all, I mean, we all know, nothing magical happens on January first, Okay. I often get called on these TV shows to talk about healthy habits, you know, during the you know, New Year, and how to make habits stick and that kind of thing. And I did do that for a good long time, you know, and until I realized that the only habit we really need is to meditate every day. If we can swing that, then you know, life just kind of
falls into place. And so when I watched this with my clients, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't just be teaching how to make running a habit. I can't just be teaching how to eat carrots instead a birthday cake at the birthday party, Like I need to teach meditation all the time. And then those things kind of fall into place. And one of the coolest things about meditation is that. I mean, first of all, come on,
like all the habits were supposed to be doing. Like I mean, I was listening to a comic the other day. I don't remember who it was, but he said something like I feel like a babysit myself all day, Like I'm supposed to drink this, I'm supposed to take that vitamin, and I'm so simp going wrong.
I don't beat you sit myself at.
All at all. Like we're not very very good at the regular habits right.
I'm don feeling very good bigby sitting right.
Right, Like meditation show is extra hard because we're taking our ego out of it, Okay. And so if you want to, like say I I mean, back in the day when it was popular to have like a popular YouTube video, it was a different definition, but my most popular one was how to make running a habit? And I'm not a runner. My man's a runner. There's tons of runners out there, and I just kept seeing people
over and over, you know, talk about it. And if you want to make running a habit, I mean, you can use your ego to get your ass out there, you know what I mean, Like you can be like, Okay, I'm gonna get new shoes, I'm gonna buy a new T shirt. I'm gonna know my neighbors. I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna bring my dogs. It's gonna be so. I mean, it's gonna be so man. I mean, I'm gonna be more with nature. I mean, there's a million ways to
bring your ego into it. Because remember, our ego identity is just who we think we are, right, how we identify, how we would explain who we are when we go to meditate. We don't get to use that, you know, so we're pushing that away, and so our egos get a little bit louder at first. Now I will say that a long time ago, I'm just like you man, like that. That's why I can teach people how to do this, because I was like, what have you seen me? I spin like a top like this is me, This
is me on meditation, you know what I'm saying. Like, I mean, I was like a total complete mess. I was like an impulsive mess. And I did talk to a month years ago who said, you know, Sherry, you are gonna look to your cushion one day and with
joy and anticipation. I was like, yeah, right, I did not believe that, but it's actually true if you can trick your brain into thinking that you're not meditating, okay, and if you can understand what's going on with your ego, and the coolest thing about meditation is the more you do it, the more where you're able to separate yourself right from the listener, right the actual because there's not one of you, there are two of you. And if you don't believe me, have you ever been mad at yourself?
Have you ever been in an argument with yourself? There has to be two of you.
Full disclosure, I'm a Gemini. There's many of me.
Pro'bly like four. Okay. When you said it in like water, I was thinking, is he a Pisce's? My mom doesn't like water and sheese a pisces. It's really weird. But yeah, if you learn a couple of tricks to get the upper hand on your ego, then it becomes like any other habit. Where is you're just trying to make it normal, right, You're just trying to make it normal right now. The
¶ The Importance of Non-Negotiable Habits
number one reason why meditation is not regular something that you do every single day without stress, procrastination or excuses is because it's negotiable. Okay, if it's like I don't know, I'm a parent, so in you guys are parents. Remember when your kid was like I don't want to wear
a seatbelt. You were like, too bad, Like this is what's happening, Like it's not negotiable, right, But then when broccoli came around, you were like, well it became negotiable, and then broccli was out of the picture, was over. You know what I mean. Because you're allowing it to be negotiable. It's something that you're kind of planning on doing, you know, and so there's a there's a million points
to it. So it's kind of like, let's say that you're gonna come to my birthday party, okay, and on the way there, you're thinking, maybe I'll have cake, maybe I won't.
You're gonna have cake, Okay, I'm gonna. I don't care what I say to myself. I'm gonna have cake.
I get it. I used to have a birthday cake problem. I get That's why I'm using example. I'm just like you, man, if you are sitting there going there's no way I'm gonna be able to meditate every single day for the rest of my bla blah blah blah. I'm telling you that was me. Okay. I was in a change your die situation. Though I was like the most unhealthy person in the all world. I had to figure something out, Okay. So I had to figure out how to do it. Okay.
And so I'm with you. If you're like birthday cake, I get it, Okay. But if you say to yourself, I am not having birthday cake and you tell Karen I'm not having birthday cake.
I'm having birthday cake, Careen, Oh yes, I'm here for you.
Okay, you have to You're not gonna have birthday cake. You know what I mean, You're not gonna have it. And Plus, when people talk about meditating, they're like, oh, well, I mean, if I could make one billboard, it was really cool Atlanta tude. For a long time I had a billboard. It was the coolest. Just said stressed and like,
I mean, I was busy anyway. But if I can have one billboard out there in the beautiful I live in Atlanta, it would just say if you would like to change something about yourself, anything, it doesn't matter what it is. You have to feel good about it. Okay, we're way too obsessed with feeling bad about what we're not working on, about bad about what we're not doing about, bad about what we should do, shooting on ourselves all the time, rather than feeling good about what we're working on.
That's where it is. That's it. There's no everyone's trying to get to some magical finish line. That's not it. This is the journey. There's no way to happen is you're on the journey to it. I meaness is the way. Like so it sounds cheesy, but I'm just saying, so how do you get started?
Because I I love meditating. I want to sit there, and I still just don't do it.
You know.
It's like, Okay, I don't go to the gym, and I understand why I don't go to the gym, Yeah, but.
I still don't do it all the time.
I don't know what my game is.
So a couple points there. The reason why I'm going to the gym is because my trainer, Anthony is sitting there waiting for me every Monday and Thursday at nine thirty. Anthony Anthony, he is a super badass. He's at workout anytime in Atlanta. But anyway, that's why he's there. So the accountability again is there. And there there's a mind body app for people who go to yoga or kickboxing or whatever where you already pay you took someone's spot. I mean that app knows what time it is according
to habits, right. But I'm going to tell you a little something that David g taught me, which is one of my teachers, and he nails it with this. It's like like all of us that work in this business, we're trying to articulate, and he just nails it. He says, rise p meditate. Okay, it's not rise pee, look at your phone, let the dogs out, make a cup of coffee, read the paper, and maybe that meditation thing will happen later. We'll come back. It's rise pe meditate, rise pe meditate.
And everybody wants to tell me why they can't do that.
Well, it has to order, right, because otherwise, you know, we don't want to pee, rise.
And meditate or right. That's not good.
That sounds great. However, here's the thing, and of course it's going to be a here's a thing because there's.
So many things. I get it right, call me lots. There's so many things I can't do that.
We are so sleep deprived. So we rise, pee, meditate very succinctly fall right the flip to sleep right. So I need to rise, pee, take a shower, shave, get dressed, go downstairs, make my coffee, check my email, eat my breakfast, sit down, take the kid to the school, come back, finish my email, finish my coffee. Then meditate and then oh crap, I got a meeting in five minutes.
I know you can't. That's not going to work. But imagine if you just woke up five minutes earlier and you didn't look at your phone or do any of those things. See, one of the things is is that when we meditate, we are trying to move our brain waves into a different state without falling asleep. So meditation, I'm a zero percent fan. You have to be in like Sherry Flake graduate school to meditate. Okay, that's like
advanced tep of shit. Okay, if you're going to be if you're new to meditation, you have to rise, get out of bed, okay, and then pee and not do anything else. Wait wait, wait, wait, even if you're sleepy, here's the thing with meditation. If you don't do it in your bed where you associate your bed with sleep and hopefully sex, you don't want to fall asleep there. Okay. Your brain will move into these other alpha waves and then be like oh this, I know this. I'm just
gonna go right backles sleep. Mmm.
Got it. But I got to clarify something.
Okay.
Are you suggesting you meditate on the toilet?
No?
Okay, because you know I didn't get that at all. Here's why I need to defend myself. Our bedroom. When you get up and you go pee, you it's the bathroom is right in the bedroom. There's wheel chairs. There's no other place to meditate than the bed or the john. So it's one or the other unless you go downstairs. And at that point I may as well make a coffee.
Yeah, okay, So here's the thing. You're gonna need to have a designated spot. So like, remember I told you that Monk told me that I would love and I would look to the cushion with joy and anticipation and all that. Oh she said I would look to the cushion like I was greeting an old friend. I was like, I'm not gonna be doing that, but I definitely do that now I can't. I really have to hand it to her. Really, what I do is I rise pee.
I'm avy at sherry Flake School, so I do brush my chumps, then meditate because otherwise I think about my teeth all day. But you start with rise pea meditate. That's you. That's where you, that's where you live, your rise p meditate. So what you want to do is you have to have a designated spot, so your brain associates that spot with sitting quietly.
But that spot is downstairs, right next to the coffee pot.
You're going to have to resist the temptation to make coffee, rise pee and go right to that room. Do you have a pet?
We do, Yeah, we got a dog.
Okay. What's really nice is your pet is going to pick up on meditation habit way faster than you. So what I noticed was my dogs would lead me into the meditations because I could go straight for the coffee, okay, and I don't know if you guys want me on
coffee all out the experience. Okay, I can go straight to the coffee, or I can go right, and they always go right, and they sit on the cushions and they wait for me to sit down, and then I each give them something to chew, and I'm already sitting in the space, and then my brain's like I get to sit here because it's a big present for yourself. The reason why it's tough is because, a it's negotiable. You know, you're like, well, I can meditate today, I
can meditate tomorrow, I can meditate whatever. But once you
¶ Benefits of Meditation
start to really like look at like, do yourself this beautiful favor. I used to give this talk before COVID to the National Association of Social Workers every year about meditation and its benefits. And it took me like an hour and twenty minute talk to talk about the clinical benefits that had been proven one hundred years ago now right, that meditation was helpful for physical symptoms, you know, physiological symptoms, psychiatric,
all these things. And once you kind of pick one, like let's see, yours is going to be I want to lower my blood pressure, right, or I want to eat more mindfully, or I wanna be calmer or whatever it is. Okay, whatever it is, So I get this. I get this gig to go to the middle school and talk about meditation. And I'm like, there's one thing you can do. And people who do this thing after three weeks, only three weeks of doing it every single day,
they're better at sports. They learn faster and quicker, they're more sociable, they're happier, they're calmer, they have better attention skills, they're more focused. So I start naming all these things, right, and everybody likes the better at sports one because they're in middle school, right, And I'm going on and on and on, and then I said it begins with m I was out of middle school. I mean, they all came in. I know Karen's with me. Maybe you don't
want that story in there. I'm just saying, what is it?
Oh? Good god?
Oh no, I don't even know you. No.
I was thinking, like marijuana. I don't know.
All the boys are like masturbation. I was like, oh no, that's terrible. And then there was a little boy out there who was like twelve years old and he's meditated with me a thousand times. His parents are big meditators. They come on retreats. And he said, no, it's meditation. So it has a happy ending.
Excuse me, yes, it does.
A terrible Okay, can you have a dirty mind and still meditate? Yes, because once you start looking at all of these benefits, whatever it is, the one that you pick, whatever it is, the one you pick, you will magically get that benefit if you start meditating. I mean it's it's unbelievable, but you will also get a benefit that I could that no one can predict, like if you really do decide that you're going to do it every
single day, like brushing your chumps. I mean, nobody says to me, I'll have time to rush my chumps, right, Like, come on, come on, it's not negotiable. You're brushing your chomps. And if you miss a day, fine. I mean, these people are like, I haven't missed a day in twenty years. I'm like, whatever, it's usually a man, and there's usually a woman behind that man, but it's never a woman
saying man. Okay, I'm just throwing that out there. But anyway, side note, you know there are these people who say, I haven't missed a day of meditation or twenty It doesn't matter if you miss a day. Have you missed a day brushing your chomps, You're fine, You're fine. Get on to the next day, Get onto the day that you're in. Get onto this moment, not five minutes from now, or this moment right here or right here. How I'm gonna end this sentence right now, now, right now, this one,
right here, This is it. This is all we got. Nothing's gonna happen in the future. It happened now. Nothing's gonna happen in the past. It happened right now. And if you're saying shit like I can't believe it's Solloween, and I can't believe it's Thanksgiving, and I can't believe it's Christmas, why can't you believe it? Okay, you need to be in the moment that you are in. Christmas
always comes out Thanksgiving. Why can't you believe it? Why are you saying things about your kids like when he walks, I'll be happier when he goes to kindergarten, I'll be happy when then, Shit, none of us get out of here alive. You have no idea how much time you have. Take the time that you have right now and now and then this now, this is it. This is all you got. All you're gonna take with you wherever you go is your consciousness, work on it a little bit.
You know, if you work on being distracted all damn day, you're gonna get real good at it. And everybody wants to press me. I got adhd. I'm like, join the club, everybody, you got a phone. You're good, you got it, You're you're you are meeting symptomology. Usually if you are remotely complaining about that, and it's because you're getting really good at it. You're practicing it. So maybe practice being quiet, practice being calm, practice, breathing slower, practice, mantra practice. And
that's the other thing too. Nobody knows what meditation is. That's why it sucks. They don't know what to do when they go sit down.
That was weirda be my next question, Actually, am I doing it right?
Yeah? What you're doing is remember this meditation is not because people like I can't clear my thoughts. I'm like, well, no one can't. I mean, like some monks can, but like even they for they keep coming back, you know what I mean. It's the same thing. So you're not trying to clear your thoughts. Meditation isn't thinking about nothing,
no thing. It's concentrating on one thing. Okay, And you know, this gets into the yoga philosophy, and without doing that, if you can focus on one thing, it's incredibly calming. And the thing that we always have with us is our breath. So when I teach meditation to kindergarteners, they're so cute. I'm like, who here is breathing? And they all check. They're like, you know what I mean? And then I go in to talk to lawyers, which for
some reason, I'm always talking to lawyers. I just got another gig today with lawyers because these guys are stressed out, you know what I mean. They have no idea how, they have no idea how to meditate. And I say, who here is breathing? They're like, they don't even, they don't check, right, how do you know? You gotta check? Okay? And I live in the South, which is so funny because people I'm not from the South. I know, I don't come across as Southern. I'm from Detroit. Okay, I'm
from Detroit. Except the people here are so sweet. They say all the time. They'll say it's part of their culture. They'll say, hey, I'm gonna say a prayer for you. And I'm always like, right now, like or later, like, are you gonna call me? Like when will I know it went out? Like how am I gonna know that you did it? You know? And it's the same thing with breathing. They're like, I'm gonna take a breath, take a deep breath, and they're like okay, And I'm like,
did you take it? You didn't take it. No one took it, No one's doing it. Everyone's talk talk dot talk talk talk talk pos post pousers and down by the beach, and I'm all dressed in white and I'm like, I don't that's not it. That's not what this is. This is every single day, not negotiable. Brushing your chomps. You want someone take a picture of you brushing your chomps or sleeping? No, okay, this is a private personal thing. You don't even need to tell anyone you're doing it.
You can keep it private. Every time. My husband's like, I'm not telling anybody for five years that I'm meditating. I'm like, I'm telling everybody. I'm just kidding with the But I will tell you this. My husband had. The doctors told me, thankfully after his surgery that it was the most extensive surgery that a human can endure. Okay, it was like fourteen hours. It was terrible. I tell him, it was so much worse for me. I mean, he was sleeping. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding you guys,
for those of you that are listening. I just made like a funny like I was joking. Disclaimer. But when when he came out of it in his room, I had it all decked out in the Buddhast medicines and the Jesus shawls and all the things, and the bullshit and the incense in the crystals and everything. There was stuff everywhere, because hospitals are a horrible place to heal. But once he was dealing with this incredible amount of pain, he wanted to sit. He wanted to sit. He did
¶ Cheri's Personal Meditation Experience
not want the pain pills, like I made him take some painbells, but like he wanted to sit. He always preferred that over it. And I'd read all the studies about morphine and meditation being more effective than morphine for pain, and I did not believe that. I didn't believe them. I'm like, yeah, there's a bunch of bullshit. It's like I'm gonna look at my cushion like an old friend.
Yeah right, I'm doing this so I don't die, so I don't have an heart attack, you know what I mean, So I don't freak out, so I have a pleasant life, so I could slow down well enough to see something because I am raced up. I'm like this all the time. My husband's like, okay, time to stop doing cartwheels, handstands, Let's go to bed. I mean, I have a lot
of energy, and meditation will also help with that. If you're feeling like once you spend some time being calm, okay, I mean if this might be shocking, but I used to just say whatever I thought all the time. Now I have a little bit of a filter. Okay, a little bit of a filter, but like I'm just saying,
I'm so happy. I just want you to have this, right, So when I see these people who come in, and you know, I got a friend who's also a therapist, and he always says, you can't quit your private practice. But I want to tell as many people as I possibly can, please just try this and then tell me it didn't work, you know what I mean. Like on my tombstone, y'all can write like what if it works? What if it does. What if it works and you have this magical benefit, and then you have the magical benefit.
My benefit is I have never saw a sunset until after I've been meditating for probably twelve years. Like I never even noticed one. I was too busy, do you know what I'm saying? And now I don't want to miss any I have one painted in my little meditation room. I don't I want to see them all the time. Last night I said to my husband last night, I said, is this a joke? Like? Are these how sunsets have
always been? There's like tears running down my face, like, I mean, this is not my cup of tea, This is not who I am, But it's definitely who you want to be because you allow yourself to step aside, and you'll get to be who you really are, which is a holy in divine and creative creation and creator. I mean, you're you're lovely, and you don't really get a chance to face yourself like that.
You know, I'm making a big mistake here. I'm feeling like I'm listening to your show. I just love the way you talk, right, so I'll just like I'll just let you talk. Oh I'm not listening to her show. She's on my show. I got to have a question. I have a question too, Okay, ask.
¶ Morning Routine and Meditation
Okay, let's hear it. Question.
Okay, I'm ready, get up, pee, go downstairs to the room.
How much time?
Okay?
Are we talking about fifteen minutes?
Thirty minutes?
What are we looking at here?
Okay? So when we're trying to get together a habit that we want for the rest of our life, okay, like brushing your teeth or whatever. My daughter sits a timer for two minutes, she brush her tea for two minutes. Can you believe that? I guess it's the recommended I don't know. I don't do that. I don't do it. You're trying to do this forever, okay, not to January thirty first, or like this year or whatever, right, you want to do it forever? And so my clients all start with three minutes.
So wait, wow, three minute meditation.
Guess what, It's better than zero minutes.
But it doesn't let me even I don't relax until like twenty minutes into it.
I can't, I know, I know. So you are learning how to make showing up habitual first, Okay, so you come and you sit for three minutes. Now. I don't know if you've listened to the show about motivation, but you know, there's three little motivators that I always talk about it.
I listened to every one of your first I can't believe that.
It's so funny too, because I just hit record and then I just start talking about whatever. The other day, my boy, he's doing my editing. He's like, I can't I'm not really doing that much. You're just talking, okay.
¶ The Three Mothers of Motivation
So there are three mothers of motivation, the moms I like to call them, okay, the big dogs, okay. And the first one is you gotta feel good, okay, and so in order to do that, motivation comes after action, not before. Motivation comes after action, not before after Okay. If you think it comes before you're thinking of inspiration, that's great, right. And like, you know, if you watch a Rocky movie, I'm dating myself. But if you watch a Rocky movie, you might feel like you want to
go learn how to box or whatever. But if you like run up by Down this year's in Philadelphia, like you know, you're gonna have motivation movement, okay. And the second one is little by little, little by little little bit you get a little bit better and a little bit better, and then next thing you know, you're a lot better. Okay, and then the third one and this is the tough one, and this is the one you're talking about.
Will.
Is that when you go there and you're like, Sherry doesn't know what she's talking about. I feel great, it's only been three minutes. I'm gonna keep meditating, right. What happens is is you feel motivated because you're just medavotated for three minutes. If you feel great, and it's in alignment with your true purpose, okay, because you really want to be a meditator, like you're into it, right, But you have to leave on a high note because motivation means you want more. And if you sit there for
twenty minutes, your brain's like, I'm not doing that tomorrow. No, I have five for that shit. Okay, I'm not doing that. Okay, that's not We have to do this, this, this, and it's gonna pick three different categories of all the reasons why you can't do it. It usually has to do with your body, time, or your environment. You're gonna pick one of those things and be like, I'm out. I gotta make the lunches. Okay, I don't have time for I gotta clean. Okay, this my hip hurts when I sit
that long. Okay, okay, all these reasons why you're not gonna sit there. And so the third one is you have to leave on a high note. You have to leave wanting more so, if you're running, and you're running and you're like Cherry said, eight minutes run, yeah, whatever, I feel great. I'm gonna keeprunning. I'm gonna keep running. I'm gonna keep running. I'm gonna know my neighbors, and I feel great. What if you would stop right then? Okay, And this is a great example. Have you met anybody
playing pickleball? They're stopping on a high. They're the happiest people on earth. They're like, they big ball. It's amazing. It's the most amazing thing. They're not at the end of it. They're not talking about their scores. No one tells me if they're any good. They're just doing it, you know what I mean. That's it. That's all they're doing, is it. They're just showing up and they are pumped. Okay, like they're the most happy people in the world. A
couple of retreats. Ago I called our group text the pickleball enthusiasts because I used it as an example, and everybody they're like, bick a ball and they went on and out and not about how great it is. All I'm saying is you got to be in it to win it. You got to be doing it, okay, And what you want is for your brain to go. I want to do that again. And so the next morning
¶ Starting Small with Meditation
when you get up to rise, pe meditate, you're gonna show up because it's only three minutes. And that's an argument you can win with yourself.
City Let's take a break and we'll be right back. And now back to the skeptic metaphysicians. So then when do you expand that or do you not? Do you do three minutes for the rest of your life, or do you expand it out to ten, fifteen, twenty?
Eventually you do, so you make it longer. Now is this this is gonna get like the after hours thing. Again, Deeper is better than longer.
I hear that all the time.
I get. Deeper is better than longer. Okay. So you want to have a more you want to have a really good experience, okay, Rather than you know, sitting there and like clutching, you know, the wheel sort of thing, and there will come a time where it's really easy. I have this amazing client, who I mean, he would be a very It's funny because all my clients are like my clientell very lucky therapist. I have a very
diverse crowd, and none of them look like meditators. None of them look like yoga teachers, none of them look none of them, I mean, they're all like that verson's meditating, you'd be really shocked. But one of them and he's you know, he's he's from Georgia, and he he ups his meditation thirty second intervals so his brain won't notice them.
So does he set a clock or yes?
Okay, so I'm very opinionated about that. You don't want to have an alarm, you know, so you want to have an alarm that's not very alarming, right, Like my first alarm was like Krishna Das or something like that. Someone's singing pretty things to me. Now I'm listening to Patty Griffin. Oh my gosh, she's got you know, oh oh, there's so many good Petty Griffin songs, Like you want to pick you want to pick something that's lovely to
hear because when you're done meditating, you know. I think it was Para Mahansa Yogananda said, you know, you don't want to milk the cow and then jump up and kick the milk over, like you know, just like sit there for a second, right, so after your three minutes, you might open your eyes and just sit there. Okay.
I think I'm really bad at remembering who said what, but I think it was Edison that said something like, you know, all of our problems stem from the fact that we can't sit in a room quietly for fifteen minutes doing absolutely nothing. I mean he nailed that in a time when we're not even dealing with this. Right, did I answer your question though? Because you said you ride, you get up.
You extended out, and you said yes, three seconds and then you do it.
I would take a long long time to do it. I would take your time, like we used the term. There's a great there's a great book. I don't think it's called take your time, but it's something by Eknatha Schwar and he does a beautiful job of talking about slowing down and actually take your time with this. You know, take it seriously. Okay, take it as seriously as you have teeth and mouth health. You know what I mean.
You know, nobody says I don't have time to brush my teeth, or I misbrush my teeth so I'm never gonna do it again, or I'm gonna wait till my parents, you know, leave this house, or because they're visiting, I'm gonna wait till this vacation's over to brush my tea.
Nobody says that.
Okay, Like this is your ego trying to get you to stop, because when you're quiet, your ego's not there, and that's scary for you, Okay, And so your ego's like I make coffee and I let dogs out, and I clean up, and I do this, and I get the paper and I look at this and I do that, like it wants to own you.
Right, If you are already a meditator and three minutes may seem to be too short, it's just clarifying. It's cool to do ten minutes, right, or fifteen to start with that, or do you suggest everyone's start back at three minutes.
Well, if you're trying to show up every day, then I would start at five or seven minutes. I would probably still bring it down really low. And I would always use an odd number because your brain like loves odd numbers. That's why we click on links that say eleven things. You know, the clickbait is always odd numbers. So I would use an odd number. I would use seven minutes then, And you know, because your goal has changed.
It's not to meditate sometimes perfectly. It's to medicate every single day for the rest of your life, right right, Okay. And the thing about these benefits, they're great, They're wonderful. There's a million of them. I can't even imagine how many I've gotten. I mean, I mean, it's amazing. But you don't get them unless you do. You have to
¶ Guided vs. Silent Meditation
do it. You have to sit there. Okay. There's a lot of posters out there talk and talk and talking. Sits it.
You mentioned earlier that that meditation is not clear in your mind. It's thinking about one thing, yes or no. Guided meditations versus silent meditations versus music meditations. Do you have advices to which one you use?
Yes? You know? I do you know? I do? Yes? So guided meditation is great. I kind of like to think of it like if you go to Colorado and you want to go skiing, you will probably get someone to teach you how to go down the mountains because it's like serious skiing in Colorado. Right, If you really want to seriously learn how to to do it, you're going to get a teacher. And you know, binaural beads, guided meditation, those types of things they show you. This
is what it's like. This is where you're going, This is how you do your feet, this is how you do your polls, this is how you get on the lift. This is where you know. This might help, this might not help, right, But what you really want is a formal sitting practice where you're not listening to anything, and because then you're just listening to music, then you're just listening to someone talk. I find them now kind of distracting, but sometimes it can be fun to have, Like a
guided meditation. You're gonna hate this answer, but use guided meditation in those after you get the hang of sitting. Okay, use them as your second meditation of the day. Yes, there could be too eventually, so.
I only rise in pee you once. Well, well that's that's not true. I'm over fifty, says that happens a lot. Actually, sometimes I've heard it say too much is too much. So you think more than one is okay a day?
¶ Practical Meditation Tips
I think more than one is okay if you're doing it every single day for like a year.
So how many, two, five, twelve, wait numbers thirteen?
How many times a day?
Yeah? What do you recommend?
Twice?
Twice a day? Okay?
But first, see, that's the thing. We really love to start at the goal. We're like, January first, I'm gonna be running two miles a day. I'm like, dude, you don't say January first, I'm gonna be playing Jimmy Hendricks licks. If you ain't never pick up a guitar. You know what I'm saying. You can't start at the goal. Okay, you got to start. You got to think of your
body like food. You can't just eat a Believe me, if you could eat all your meals for the whole year and one day I would sign up, I would pay and be done and not have to eat. It's such an inconvenience. It's a pain in the ass. I hate making dinner. I hate it. I'm a mom. I know it's terrible. I'm a terrible mother. It's such a drag by the time. By the end of the day, I'm not hungry. How are these people constantly eating all day? I can't believe they're not five hundred pounds. I'm like, God,
it's constant eating. Okay, but if I could, I would eat all my meals in one day. But remember the mother's a motivation. The second one is little by little. You can't do that. You can only eat a cup a little bit each day, okay to maintain what you want. So you need to think of meditation like that. That's how your brain works. That's why when you go to clean your whole garage in one day, you're like, I'm gonna keep it organized and it's gonna be great, it's
gonna be perfect. And then your brain's like, I'm never doing this again. I missed all my shows, I didn't have a fun Saturday. I'm letting it get messy again. That's why we do it once twice, three times a year, all day long. But what you would do instead is maybe just the bikes, you know, and then you'll leave yourself wanting more because motivation comes after action, and then you want to do more and you say, SUREY doesn't
know I'm just gonna do the whole garage. But I'm just saying, what would it be like if you just did a little bit there and you practiced showing up, you practiced being quiet. And you know that also gets into the like you know, you know, running is my meditation and that doesn't make any I mean, like that's like saying talking is my singing, and you know, breathing is my jogging or something like that. That's the difference
between mindfulness and meditation. I hate the word mindful because like, isn't our mind already full? It should be mindlessed, right, I don't know, But anyway, what you want to do is like they say in London, you know, you have to mind the gap. You got to be in the thing that you're doing right. Like so earlier, I was having a very frustrating situation uploading homecoming photos to drop box.
Each one took five seconds. I was like, I mean, it was this thing forever, right, and I'm just like sitting there, I'm like like this and I was like, okay, how many breaths can I? Okay take his five breaths? And I was like, well, could I get it to three breaths? You know, one breath, you know, like take advantage of the situation that you are in, you know,
like Joe just spends is so funny. He's like, you gotta hurry up and get up to go to work thing, hurry up and have lunch, and then hurry up and drive home, and then hurry up and watch the show, and then hurry up and eat your thing, and then hurry up and go to bed. So you can hurry up and get up. He's like, where are you going? You're already there, You're here. What are you doing here? How are you gonna spend your time here? The best way to spend your time here is spending a little
time quiet. And if I could do this, I mean, come on, if I can do this, y'all can do this. Yeah, you can do it. Okay you can right, all right, we can do it.
We're gonna have to bring her back on the show. Yes, because we haven't even gotten deeper into this.
How well we're doing? Yes? I need updates. I need updates. So today I was telling my boy, I'm teaching him how to drive. Whoa we got on the highway today. I was like, let me tell you something. None of this happens in Detroit. Everybody know how their car goes, you know what I mean. Just worry about this here in Atlanta. All right, So, Ryse, you're gonna send me a text and you're gonna say rise pee meditator or I did it or whatever. Okay, for three minutes, that's it.
Tell me that you're not dying to get back to the cushion. After three minutes, you're gonna be like, I want to. And then you're gonna be like, I found a feather and I'm gonna put it in my meditation spot. And then like you're gonna be like, and then I found this picture of my grandma. Is there so much? Just put it right there, and like you're gonna want to make that space really pretty, and all of a sudden you're gonna look to it like it's an old front and we're gonna name it Gladys.
Gladys. Oh, I see.
That is hot. That's hot. That's really hot.
All right. When you say deeper is better than longer, what makes something deeper? What's what makes a deep meditation deep?
If you're just what you're learning, you know, when you focus on one thing a mantra, your breath, whatever it is, whatever we call our anchor, that's gonna be our one thing that we focus on. You know, you might have a moment or flash where you're kind of in between, like so to say, like the notes of the music right where there's just silence, there's nothing there. Right. As soon as you realize that, of course you're thinking about
it and it's over, right. But really, what we're trying to do is change our brain waves into alpha, theta, whatever waves. And it's so without falling asleep. Okay, And when we do that, when we maintain that, you have these moments with my husband causin like dropping in. You know, I dropped in my clients. Let's say I dropped in and it's just like this, right, And what you want
are a couple more. If you're having sixty thousand thoughts a day, what if you had fifty thousand, What if you had thirty thousand, What if you're like me, you had eighty that I'm just kidding one million, right, And so you what you want is a meaningful experience. And so that's why I tell people. You know, a lot of people assume that I'm an MBSR practitioner because I'm a social worker.
That's really popular in my business. It's mindfulness based stress reduction, and it's you know, a very practical physiological way to look at meditations.
Great. I tell people, even though I'm a social worker, I think because I'm a social worker, I tell people, bring whatever it is that means anything to you. There the feather, Jesus, Buddha, Alah, Susie, passy, Jimmy, whatever you call it, Bring it to that cushion. Because there are many pasts to one truth and you are kind of you're in touch with yourself. What you're going to realize is the thoughts that are coming and coming and coming,
that you're separate from them right now. You might feel like that's you, right, but you're separate from those things and you just don't take it so seriously. And I think that's why my favorite benefit of meditation, which these you know, these clinicians are having difficulty like defining you know, it's coming across as like people are more real, Like they feel more wise, they feel more compassionate, you know,
those things that everybody wants. Because I think sometimes people think, well, I'm gonna be too chill, or my personality I mean, like, my personality is clearly still here, Like this is it, this is what you get, you know what I mean. But I think seeing myself separate from that, you know, it's it's such a relief, you know, because it's God, it's exhausting, you know, it's it's this constant running thoughts and judgments. I mean, there's nothing you could do about
it except maybe take a break from it. You know. Michael Singer does a really good job in one of his books when he says, you know, I can prove to you that there's two of you. You know, He'll say, if I gave you a pill and I said I could, we could get rid of those thoughts just for like ten minutes, you know, would you take it? And everything's like yeah, hell yeah, I just got the chills. I'm like, I want one. Right, But if I said, how about
the one that's listening to that? If I give you a pill to get rid of that, would you want that? You're like no, because that's you, that's you, that is you. Thoughts ain't you? Okay? We think they're important because we keep going to them, just like we think word is important because we keep going. Right, we think it's it's it's important because we hear it over and over again. What we think about, you know, if we think about something long enough, you know, we think it's true, whether
it's true or not. So why people drink the kool aid? You know what I'm saying. So you have to spend some time facing yourself and then you get this massive benefit of being like, oh my gosh, that's not it's not really, that's not it all.
Right, So I lost track again because I just started listening to you. I started listening to your show once again. When you're on my show.
Huh.
Deeper means losing yourself completely.
Yeah, and just just be okay with it. It's a little scary at first when you slip into those little moments, right. And Wayne Dyer has great books if you want to pick up some of his old old books about how to slip into the into the gap, you know, and he's got you know, like our you know, like like I pledge allegiance or our father, know, like our father, our father slip in there like like try to find the spaces, you know. But deeper just means you're not
sitting there thinking about laundry that can't be here like you. Yeah, you have like laser focus on something right, and there will be times where you sit around and think about think about laundry. If you're gonna do this every day, you're gonna have good times, bad times, and all these months in sage. Just say it doesn't matter. Just go sit again.
I think that's probably can be the hardest thing for me, is stopping thinking about doing laundry.
You don't have to stop thinking about it, start thinking about it. This is what you do. You tell yourself you have three jobs. You go This is from Kelly McGonagle. By the way, you go and sit down. Okay, you're gonna remain completely still for three minutes or five minutes or seven minutes, however you're starting. Please don't go over seven minutes unless you want to be unsuccessful. You sit
completely still with your eyes closed, sitting up. Okay. You're not leaning back on something, and you're not leaning forward on something. You're sitting up. Okay. That's your first show. Okay. Your second job is to just notice that you're breathing. Is if someone else is breathing for you? Okay, because someone else kind of is. I mean, we go to bed every night and we breathe all night, like I'm not doing it? Are you doing it? I don't know
who's doing that. Someone's doing that, It ain't me. Okay, So you're just gonna watch it. So you're not gonna change it and make it deeper or shallower, be like my breath is no good, or it's too long, it's too short, like judgment whatever. You're just gonna notice that you're breathing. Okay. Your brain is gonna find this incredibly boring, okay, right away, it's gonna be like I want to think about lunchtime, I want to think about later, I want to go to work, I want to do this. This
is boring. I've made a mistake yesterday. I should do this, I should do that. All this should all this running stuff, right. Your third job is to just notice that and come back to the breath. Okay. If you notice that and come back to the breath five hundred more times than me, you're gonna benefit from that sit more than me. Okay. So if you're terrible at this, awesome okay, Like it's okay to be terrible at it. That's it. One two three.
You sit quietly, You notice your breath. When you space out, you come back to the breath. That's the practice because every time you come back to the breath, and maybe we can talk about this next time, you have physiological changes in your brain and your prefrontal cortex that show up only about after about three weeks four weeks of meditating.
M oh okay, Well, if you enjoyed listening to Shary today, then you got to check out her show Stress Therapy, right, because not only do you do exactly what you just did is giving us practical advice on how to continue to meditate, but then you actually do it with us. Right.
You want to meditation every show too, So if you enjoyed Shary today on our show, do yourself a favor and go subscribe to her show Stress Therapy because it is really, it is so it is, it's it's one of my favorite I'm fine we met because I was listener to your show. I know, sweet, it is a great show and I can't recommend it enough. But if someone wanted to reach out to you to maybe go on some of your treats that you do which are really cool, or learn meditation from you directly, or if
they're in the Atlanta area. Why don't you bring you on as their counselor what's the best way for someone to reach.
Out to you. You can go to my website. It's the stress therapist dot com. It's not a stress therapist, it's these.
Because of course there could only be one.
It's only one. If you can't remember that, it's you can go to I Love therapy dot com too. That's the same place, but you could. You could also shoot me an email. I'll root for you, I mean, I love, I will root for you. I will I will help you along. I mean I Sometimes I do these interviews on like script news or whatever, and they'll act like they're all interested. They'll be like, Okay, did you do it?
So I really want to be around people. Yeah. I really want to be around people who actually want to do it, you know, And it's fun to of course. I think it's fun to talk about it. But you don't have to. You can keep it private. It can be your own private thing where you can just tell me. You don't have to tell your spouse or your neighbor or anyone. You could just kind of see have it. Let it be your own little adventure, your own little piece of joy, your own sunset right.
¶ Cheri's Meditation Retreats
And so for those of you who are just running out with meditation or having a hard time, this is the perfect way forward. For those of you who are already seasoned meditators, you already know the benefits of meditation, but are having a hard time sticking to it, this is a perfect way to do it.
And I even have on my retreats people that are doing it twice a day every day. They still come on the retreats. So I have one in the mountains that's pretty immersive. You know, you are meditating and eating amazing food and then doing yoga, and then meditating and eating amazing food in the and then doing yoga. Pretty immersive. And then I have one at Checkle Island right off the coast of Georgia. We just did one during Hurricane Helene. That was a trip, but we did it.
You know, it was great, and if you can keep meditating during that, you can keep.
I mean, it was amazing. I can't believe how everybody. I was like, is everybody okay? They were like, we're great. I was like, we don't have any power, we don't have any cell service. We were using our paper maps to get to our beautiful beaches to meditate. So if you want to come, I'm really trying to serve my community here in Georgia. You know I'm licensed in Georgia. That's probably why. But I'm happy to hear about all
your endeavors across the world. I love hearing from everybody everywhere about how they're meditating and actually showing up, actually doing it, and then you know, with their own little stories that I just I could never You know, it's anyone's guess how it's going to be for you. It's anyone's guess, and I don't want you to miss it. I don't want you to miss out on it. I want it to be your your little private joy. I want it to be your sunset.
Wow, oh my god, you are so joyful. Oh just that energy. It's like shooting out of our computer at us. Thank you so much. This is just fantastic, so sweet.
I'm so happy I was on the show.
Well, it's not gonna be the it's not gonna be the last time, Sharry you. You are quickly becoming one of our absolute favorite guests. You were always one of our favorite people, so this is just bringing you to right all right, Cherry, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. We look forward to doing many more of these in the future. I can't wait,
and a huge thank you to you. We know that there are tons of options out there, and having you decide to come along on our journey of discovery with us is an absolute honor for us. If you know someone who would benefit from hearing the message we're sharing on the show, do them and us a favor and share the show with them. It will help get the word out about us and it might just change someone's
life for the better. Well that's all for now. We will see you on the next episode of The Skeptic Metaphysician. Until then, take care,