Does This Matter? Like for real?? Does Anything Truly Matter???
How can we miss out on less and enjoy more? How can we make this very moment count? I think it’s being aware and asking ourselves this one question…
In this episode we will learn:
~ One question we can ask ourselves that will help us to stay present and create more joy.
~ How presence makes our lives so much better.
~ Om Namah Shivaya meditation experience with the musical stylings courtesy of The Sonic Yogi
Meditation Music by Sonic Yogi
Deep Sleep With Singing Bowls
Pythagorean Dream
Listen to Sonic Yogi on: Spotify Apple Music Amazon Music Watch Sonic Yogi’s Ted Talk
Interesting Mentions:
Heartwood Retreat Center : location for Cheri’s Georgia Mountain Retreats Jekyll Island: Location for Cheri’s seaside retreat
The Host for this podcast: Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW The Stress Therapist and Author
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[00:00] Hey, beautiful people. What’s up? So we talk a lot about being in the moment, but what about actually deciding what that moment is gonna look like? We’re gonna talk about what exactly matters from day to day. And that’s gonna be up to you, man. How can you figure that out and make your life better and make this moment count? And a lot of times it’s by doing absolutely nothing. Yes. So relax and settle in and listen up because your stress therapy session is about to begin right now. Hey, beautiful people. It’s time for some stress therapy. A podcast about how to meditate and get better at stress for people living in the real world. Finally, a place to park my 25 plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental health field. And now your host, me, the stress therapist, Sherry flake. Okay, before we get into the thick of it, we’re going to take a teensy tiny break. Be right back. Hey, beautiful people. I would love, love, love for you to be on a retreat with me. But I get it. You’re on the fence. Not sure what’s it going to be like? Well, here’s what it’s like.
[01:31] One of the best experiences I’ve ever had. The way she facilitated, the way she held the space. And I tell the truth when I need to tell the truth. She was magical. The accessibility to be able to meditate today.
[01:42] Beautiful.
[01:42] Yeah. Amazing experience. And I know leaving this retreat. I’ve been to so many meditation retreats. This was different because it’s accessible. I can start with five minutes and build from there. Every meditation retreat I’ve ever been to, I didn’t build a practice. I’m confident that I’ll build a practice following this one. So it’s just made it real, real life application. And the place is magical. The music, the food, the art, the walks to the place have no expectations, but yet know it’s amazing.
[02:14] Hey, beautiful people, what’s up? Okay, so if you’re new to this podcast, you should know that we talk a lot about how to get meditation into our lives, how to be into the moment, how to make our lives better, how to create healthy habits. That’s the. The jam here. That’s all we talk about. How to be happier, experience more joy, and how to make sure that we’re meditating regularly so we can figure out what those benefits are going to be for us. Because it’s different for everybody. And that’s why I’m always harping on it. I want you to do it every day, like brushing your chops so your life will look better. However, we are all dealing with the mundane. We are dealing with tragedy. We deal with disdain. We deal with annoyances, frustrations. We deal with day to day hassles. We deal with the time like delusion, you know, that it’s going so fast. Or sometimes if we’re super bored, it’s going really slow. But if you’re bored, side note, good for you, because we’re not really spending a lot of time being bored. And it’s so good for your brain. And we talk about brain health, and we talk about how to think about things a little bit differently. So the things that we think about begin to change. Right. But today, I kind of want to think about the moment that we’re in. Yeah. We’ve talked about being in the moment and remembering that nothing’s going to happen in the future. It’s all going to happen right now. And nothing ever happened in the past. It all happened right now. And if you’re not in the now, then you’re going to be missing it. Right. And that makes that time delusion even faster. And you feel like you’re missing everything. And so that’s why we need to remember the moment that we’re in, when we’re in it, how we can make it better. And sometimes that’s by doing absolutely nothing. And sometimes that’s by making a quick decision. And sometimes it’s asking yourself just this one question. Does this matter? Does this really matter? Does this matter? And often the answer is no. And often the answer is absolutely yes. This morning, I usually get up. I meditate. I take a good long time to meditate. By the way, I do walk the walk, but my husband’s out of town and my daughter was sleeping with me, and I woke up in the morning, and she is 13, so you can see that sometimes, you know, sometimes she’s a little salty. And I totally get it. I mean, she is going to middle school, which is, if you’re not american, it’s this institution where she is hanging out with the most annoying people on the planet. And probably occasionally she’s one of them. I get it. But she’s hanging out with the most annoying people on the planet all day long. Okay, I get it. I would be in a bad mood when I got home, too. But anyway, she can be a little salty, a little annoyed, definitely a know it all, you know, all the teen things. But I don’t know. I have a little bit of empathy there. I think it’s a really tough time but she’s not as snuggly wuggly as she was when she was eight. And she’s not into my opinion, as she was when she was six. And she doesn’t want to be exactly what I am, like she did when she was four. So, you know, she’s growing up, and I’m, you know, trying to grow up along with her. But this morning, she wanted a good, long snuggle hug. Just hold each other, right? Normally, I would just wake up, rise, pee, meditate, right, and get the job done and move on. But I woke up and I could tell that she wanted this from me. And honestly, I savored it. I smelled her hair. I felt her arms around me. I just. In this beautiful, luxurious moment, mother daughter. Because one day, she’s not gonna be even living with me, let alone being anywhere near me. Maybe. I don’t know. You know, I just don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know. Every single moment on this earth is a gift, right? And so I took. I took my time. I took it, like I tell you to do. Take your time, take it. I took it. And now I have this lovely, beautiful memory to put into my little locker full of memories of her. And this one was beautiful and wonderful. And we weren’t arguing, and we weren’t disagreeing, and we weren’t trying to find the same music, and we weren’t wanting something different for dinner. It was all we were. Right. Had a lot of synchrony. Right. So where in your life do you get this beautiful, like, just a flash in the pan moment where you get to decide how the moment’s gonna go? It’s not always like that, man. You know, usually you’re on default. Whatever’s happening is happening. And sometimes you just gotta be like the Buddha and just decide, okay, this is what’s happening. I’m gonna have to accept what is now. There are also decisions you can make in that moment. Like, I could get all riled up, or I could be sad, or I could be upset, or I could be happy, or I could roll with it, or I could be quiet, or I could ruminate about it. I could tell someone about it. I mean, you have a lot of choices about how you handle what’s going on in your moment, but not very often do we get to decide what the moment is going to look like. Right. We’re usually just sort of experiencing what’s happening in our environment, judging it, and deciding how we’ll feel about that. Right? But every once in a while you get this choice where you’re like, well, I could get up and do the thing I always do, which is important. No one rails on you more about how important meditation is than me, right? Or what matters. And so when you’re getting riled up, ask yourself, does this really matter? You know, I’m yelling at the best by installation lady or whatever. Like I’m upset at the gas station because they don’t have whatever, whatever. Does this matter? Not am I going to get what I want from this? Not is this who I want to be? But just does this matter? And I think we get a really good helping of this when we find ourselves at a loved one’s funeral, when we find ourselves empathizing with someone else who’s having to go through something extremely difficult where they can’t even see anything else that matters. Because the one thing that matters the most is consuming them all day, every day. Their health, their wellbeing, addiction, dealing with addiction, heartache, being broke, figuring things out. I mean, there’s constant, it’s constant stressors in our life, right? And we don’t need to be hijacked by something gigantic in order to decide to just snuggle just this once and that I’m not going to be the one who lets go first. You know that I’m going to make it last as long as I’m able to manipulate it, right? As long as I’m able to hang there. And so where in your life when you’re going about your day, you’re getting upset or you’re, you’re, you’re wanting something to be a certain way. You’re wanting something to go a certain way. You want someone to be a certain way. That’s super annoying, right? When someone isn’t acting how we think they should act when we’re shooting on everybody, right? When can you stop and just ask yourself, does this matter? I think this is not only good for your brain and for your experience, I think you’re more likely to experience joy for sure. But I think it’s also really, really good for your heart. It’s really, really good for your soul. And you will find that things are just a little calmer when you ask yourself that. Not in the big picture or at the end of the day, I hate, at the end of the day, I hate that term. Let’s get rid of that. At the end of the day, also inclement. Why are we using the word inclement? No one ever uses it unless they’re talking about weather. And it doesn’t have anything to do with weather. That word doesn’t mean anything about weather. I don’t get it. But anyway, those are my two things. Those are my two cent on that. But not at the end of the day, not when it’s all said and done. Not at the end of your life when you’re on the desk, right? But just in this moment, does it matter? Because in the big picture, nothing really matters but, like, love, right? And like, that’s it. Like, that’s all right. So, like, come on, we can’t be living a life of love all the time, right? We got to go to work. We got to go, you know, we got to take the garbage out. You know what I’m saying? We got to talk to someone that we might find unpleasant. We have to show up at places we don’t necessarily want to be. We got pay our taxes. I mean, we got to do all these things. Okay? So one love. It’s true. That is all that matters. But we also have to get on with our lives, right? So in the moment, does this matter? And if you’re present, if you’re in the very moment that you’re in, you’ll be able to answer that question. And if you can answer that question, that means you are in the moment. And if you are in the moment, that means that you’re experiencing just a little bit more of joy. Because I’ll tell you something. Most of the time, this moment is pretty **** good. Unless you’re in chronic pain, unless you’re super hungry, unless you’re experiencing some sort of horrific experience. Usually what makes our experience negative is our thoughts around those experiences. Not because it’s happening in this moment. It’s because it happened a long moment ago in our past, and we’re ruminating and thinking about it. Or we’re concerned it’s going to happen in the future and we’re ruinating and thinking about it. So what about this moment that you’re in? Usually it’s pretty good, okay, if you have to judge it. But. But if you can bring yourself there, take a little breath, and just ask yourself, does this matter? You’re going to make better decisions, you’re going to make better choices, and you’re going to experience more joy. So I think meditation matters every single time. So let’s meditate together right now. We’ll take a quick break, and then we’ll come back and just ask yourself, do you want to meditate with me? Does this matter?
[12:35] I think so. Today we’re going to be using the mantra or the mantra mantra. Om nama shivaya. Om nama shivaya. In Yoga, this is a really, really powerful mantra. It represents Shiva. Although seen as the destroyer in Hinduism, this God also represents your true self, the inner knowing, being self realized. Om, the hymn of the universe. Nama. Bow down in the name of Shiva. I learned this mantra when I was going to siddha yoga, and I absolutely love it. It has brought me so much peace. And I think what matters.
[13:58] Is the.
[13:59] Vibration the mantra brings to your awareness, to yourself. The energy that comes from chanting it silently over and over again is where the magic is. So we talk about what the mantra means, but it doesn’t matter. So begin silently chanting to yourself, om nama shivaya. Om nama shivaya. And allow this ancient vedic mantra to fill you up with its beautiful energy and healing power. Om nama shivaya. Om nama shivaya. Sit with this mantra, silently repeating it to yourself, and I’ll be back to guide you out. Om nama shivaya. Om nama shivaya. Allow the mantua to fall away from your awareness, feeling what it feels like to let those vibrations settle inside of you. Feel it soaking in healing with love and all that this God has to offer. Chanting is an amazing way in, an amazing way out. It’s just an amazing way. Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose. Let it all go out of your mouth, and take another long, slow, deep breath in your nose, letting it all go out of your mouth. And one last deep, cleansing breath in your nose. Let it all go. And when you’re ready, you can open your beautiful eyes.
[25:04] It seems to me that the name of the word matter really matters. It makes sense.
[25:14] Matter is form.
[25:16] And in the grand scheme of things, nothing, no matter matters, right? But we still have to live our lives and go about our business and pay the bills and walk the walk and drive to the get gas and do all the things. And so how can we decide along our way what matters? Because definitely not all of it matters. Because truly none of it matters. Right? I know it’s confusing, but it starts to make sense as you begin to practice. And my advice is always do it. When I say, let’s meditate together. Come and meditate with me. Let us stop talking about all the things we’re going to do. We wish we were doing, the reasons why we can’t do things and just do what you can do. What matters. All right, I would love to see you on a retreat. Come to ilovetherapy.com and sign up. Hold your spot. We have a couple spots left at the May 16 retreat here in Georgia. I’ll see you next time. Have a lovely, lovely day. How y’all feeling after that stress therapy session? Good. Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, the stress therapist on social media, hestress therapist on Instagram and stresstherapy on Twitter. You can always go to ilovetherapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If you live in Georgia and you’re ready to be one of my clients, go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free face to face consultation with me. At the very least, jump on my mailer so you don’t stress or miss one thing. Until next time, have a lovely, lovely day.
