Episode 6 – The Power Of Meditation
If there is one single thing I wish I’d discovered sooner in life, it would be meditation. I just assumed it was something the hippies and monks did… not realizing the power in it for “regular” people like me. I’d dabbled in meditation during Life Coaching school but it wasn’t until I became desperate to heal my mind and body (after nearly dying due to childbirth) that I made the COMMITMENT to learn and practice it regularly. The benefits have far succeeded even my wildest expectations.
In this podcast episode, we dig deep into the amazing benefits of a consistent meditation practice with my dear friend, and master meditator, Rani. Rani quit her successful corporate career to follow gurus around the world for years and learn their spiritual practices and teachings. She is a wealth of wisdom and information when it comes to the science behind meditation and the mind/body connection.
We also discuss the dos and don’ts for starting a meditation practice and how ANYONE can do it… even those of you that claim you’re not the “meditation type.” We cover how to get started with the most practical and doable techniques.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to the My Inner Tiger podcast. I'm your host Sidney DeCamella. I'm also a wife, mother, Master Life Coach, course creator and spiritual Sherpa. Over the past few years, I have overcome extreme anxiety, depression, addiction, infertility and chronic illness. And as a result, I've made it my life's mission to teach other women like you that no matter what battle you're up against, you have an inner tiger, a power within to create and manifest whatever your heart desires. If you are tired of being a victim and ready to be boss of your life, you have come to the right place. In each episode I'm going to share tools, teachings and techniques I have used and taught countless other women, so that together we can create a life beyond our wildest dreams. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your inner tiger is just waiting to be unleashed. I'm so happy you've tuned in. Let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to the My Inner Tiger podcast. I am so excited about today's episode. I have a dear, dear, dear friend, Rani with me, and she is going to be talking to us about everything meditation. So let me just give you a little background about how I know Rani. We met through a friend of a friend maybe a couple of years ago, through a vision board workshop. I just was immediately drawn to her and her energy is as you'll see in this podcast, she's just so peaceful and relaxing just to be in her presence. There's just an energy about her that I'm completely drawn to. Fast forward to when I was in the hospital, Rani came and did some praying, chanting type things over me, energy clearing type of, I don't even know what we'd call it, but it was really powerful for me while I was in the hospital.
She's just become such a big part of my life. I love and respect her so dearly. I was super excited to bring her on as my very first guest in the, My Inner Tiger podcast.
Meditation has been such a huge part of my healing journey, and it's been part of my healing my body, but it's also been a huge part of just the overall healing of my mind and my soul and my emotions. And I would never be anywhere close to where I am today as a human, without this meditation practice that I have. It has become everything for me really. It's the key. If someone were to say, what's one thing, just one thing you could tell people that would change their lives for the better and heal their mind, heal their emotions and heal their body. The one thing would be meditation. That's why it's so important for me to bring this early on in this podcast is because it's just something so integral to the healing process. So, now I’m going to let Rani tell us a little bit about her background and what brought her to be such a specialist when it comes to meditation. Rani, I'll let you take it from here.
Rani:
Yeah. Hello. My name is Rani and I was in a career for about 10 years and I was really stressed out. I was struggling with depression and anxiety and just an overall chaotic mind. After I discovered meditation, I completely fell in love. It changed my life. I left my career to, learn more about it and follow a few gurus whom I met, who then spent the next five years teaching me everything they knew about meditation and spiritual discipline. And so that is what has brought me now today to sharing as much as I can about what I've gained from my time with them.
Sidney:
Awesome. Tell us a little bit about the science behind meditation and what it actually does for the parasympathetic nervous system.
Rani:
Yeah, it's one of the most studied benefits of meditation. Basically, when we put ourselves into a meditative state, our parasympathetic nervous system activates, and this is the part of ourselves that tells our brain and our body it's time to heal and it’s something that is not a common experience these days because we're so busy, we're working over 40 hours. Both parents are working, um, there's advertisements, we're on our phone. There are all kinds of emotional triggers that are going on in our lives that keep us from just relaxing and switching on that healing mechanism that our body naturally has. When it is activated, there's something in our brain called the amygdala. And this is the part that releases the stress hormones that tell the rest of our body that we need to go into a fight or flight response; that we need to react, that we need to protect ourselves or run away.
If that fight or flight gets so overworked that we developed some, you know, some mental disorders we can get severe anxiety and so on. So when we teach our bodies to relax, we teach our brain to relax. The Migdal actually starts to shrink, they have found. So people who meditate have a much smaller amygdala than people who don't. That means over time, the more we meditate, the better we get at it and the calmer we get and the easier it is to put ourselves into that healing state. The benefits on top of that, you know, mental clarity, people usually report being happier. Some studies that have shown that the brain will get these sparks of insight. And they see that these different parts of the brain firing off that normally don't get activated during normal living.
All of a sudden, you're getting this inspiration and you're getting this alive mess that comes from letting your brain sort of, unload all the mental mess and invite in happiness and inspiration. Absolutely. I mean, that explains so perfectly what my experience with meditation typically is. Not every meditation is the same, they're all different, but those sparks of creativity, those sparks of inspiration, and just, oh my gosh. The way that it sort of just changes the brightness of the world for me. I can wake up in the morning and just be having an average day, go have a really good meditation and come out. And all of a sudden, the trees are greener, the sun's brighter, I'm noticing I'm much more present. I'm just noticing everything around me. And we're grateful for all the things that I have even more. And so it's just, oh my God, it changes. It just changes everything for you. It's, it's the common denominator, I think in really just living a more enhanced life and then not to mention all the healing benefits.
Sidney:
Yeah, that's really good. And then I would also add into that it's connecting with your intuition. Having a daily or regular meditation practice helps you really get to know who you are at a core soul level. Everyone talks about intuition, intuition. It's like, you know, some people, lots of people, probably most people are like, I don't know how to listen to my intuition. I don't know what that sounds like. Well, you wouldn't, if you don't take the time to get still and quiet and learn what it actually sounds like. And so, um, you know, that's been another huge part in my transformation as well. When we were talking before this, you kind of talked about the scientific and then there was another point you wanted to make. And I can't remember what that was, but it was so good. So I'm going to pass it back to you to talk about that second bullet point that you wanted to talk about.
Rani:
Sure. I think it was about having a clear mind. And one of the things that my teacher always said was when you start meditating, you experience this mental diarrhea and you've had all this stuff, you know, throughout your life. You've been so busy and you've had so many things going on that you sort of shove it down and shove it to the side because you'll deal with it later and you basically become mentally constipated. When you start to meditate, it might be challenging at first because you have all of this mental diarrhea, and it's just, all these thoughts are coming in. What about this? And, you know, you should go and do the laundry right now and not sit. And it just, all this stuff comes up. As you train yourself to sit still and discipline yourself and clear all that stuff out, then you have a more, you know, you're more open to the present moment, like you were mentioning. And you can start to have those more inspiring sessions of meditation.
Sidney:
Yeah, definitely. And so that's, the other thing is like, society is so fast and you were mentioning this earlier. Like we're just bombarded constantly with information and our to-do lists are always so huge. You can't live in the world today without a really big to-do list, unless you're able to commit to a practice of stilling your mind and getting quiet. And, and then it's like, it's like, if you just had this, I dunno, podcast is like, you can't do a visual and podcast, but if you, you can't see me, but it's like, if you have this, just this really wavy life, right. If your life was just like a really spiky, wavy, you know, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, everything just feels so chaotic. And then if you, when you start to implement a meditation practice, it just smooths out that line.
So that things don't feel so dramatic. And even when something really crazy happens like you wreck your car or your child gets hurt or something like things that really trigger me for example, is, you know, instead of going into this crazy fight or flight, if you have a regular meditation practice, you're able to sustain a certain level of peace throughout the chaos. And I didn't used to think that was even possible. You know, like when I get triggered, I was just shaking and it was just like, okay, just avoid triggers. But now I get to live a life where I don't have to avoid triggers anymore. I get to like, just live. And when things happen, of course, I get rattled, you know, worked up if it's not like, I mean, I'm human. If I wrecked my car or if my child gets sick or hurt. And then of course, I'm going to get a little upset, but it's not going to overcome me and take over my state. I can think clearly, I can make better decisions and I can understand, a deeper level of life and how everything's kind of working FOR you, not TO you. It becomes a whole different way to live, and it's beautiful.
Rani:
Yeah, that's right. You said it so well that, you know, meditation is the training for the rest of your life. Meditation is not a luxury. It's not something that we should relate to as something that I have to do or I get to do, but rather it's a privilege to train yourself, to sit still, discipline yourself, to work through all of that stuff in your mind and in your body and in your life. So that when you go out into your life, into the world, you can take what you learned and how you grew on your meditation seat and apply it everywhere in life. That is the benefit of meditation. It's the outcome. Shouldn't be “okay, yeah I'm going to meditate. I'm going to go live on top of a mountain and do nothing.”
The more I meditate, you know, that's where I'm trying to direct my life. It's more, how do I learn to sit still? And like, be that eye of the storm, sit still amongst the chaos and not react and not get emotional and be overly emotional. And just really quick on that there is, you know, good emotion! We want to have healthy, emotional responses. I don't want to step over that comment because it is really important that we embrace our emotions, but that's different than, you know, getting angry because someone cut you off. If you can learn to sit still in that circumstance, it's just so much healthier. And again, it comes back to our earlier statement of teaching that amygdala. You're okay, you don't need to release all these stress hormones to get me all worked up so that I react to this circumstance right now.
Sidney:
Right? And that brings me to the idea that high stress, high fight or flight anxiety - living in that space will ultimately cause disease. And I talk a lot about this in all the work that I do. I talk a lot about it in my course, break free from stress and anxiety. If we continue to live these fight or flight high stress lives, eventually something will give out whether it's your health, your relationships, anything. Something's going to have to give because it's not sustainable. And that's the thing about our lives today. Just look back to like the eighties. It was a whole different ball game, even just the eighties, right? It was a whole different ball game on just how life was lived. We didn't have all of these different things coming at us at once. So it's not our fault!
It's just, it's the way the world works today. And in order to really thrive in this world today, we have to implement some kind of process that keeps our humanness at bay. It keeps our humanness at a functioning level with meditation and slowing down. The real thing I think is slowing down. We have to learn to pump the brakes and slow down, and meditation is truly the best way to do that. I mean, that's what I have found. There are Tai Chi and yoga and some other things that you could implement, but a real meditation practice is the best thing for your mind, to keep you healthy and safe, and then to be able to get in touch with your body. To know your body and learn what your body needs, because your body is always talking to you.
It is always talking to you, whether you can hear it or not, it's always speaking. And so how do we learn to know what it's saying? We slow down, right? Yep. And sorry, I'm going to say one more thing before I forget though. To be a meditator, you don't have to be, like you said earlier, you don't have to go quit your job and go live with the gurus and meditate on top of the mountain to have this kind of lifestyle. You don't have to be one of these like super OMI people, you know, that's like a monk or like wearing these fancy Clint. No meditation is for everybody. And I hear all the time people saying “oh, that's just not for me. I can't do a meditation. You know, I just can't meditate. I'm not built that way.” And I get it because I have been there, but it's absolutely just a limiting belief.
Sidney:
It's false information that you're believing about yourself because everyone has the ability to slow down. It's just a lot harder for some people than others. Rani, I want to get into a little bit about the technical part of meditation, like what would you say to a person who says they can't meditate? “It's not for me. It's too hard for me. I can't sit that still.” What would you say to them?
Rani:
I would start out by saying meditation is work. And when you sit down, you go to work. This isn't about you can't sit down and meditate and clear your head and you're not peaceful and whatnot. I would bet that if you don't think you have the time, and if you don't think that you can do it, it's because you're not looking at this.
Like it's work, it's work to sit there. And it's the kind of work that will change your life. Take your time and go slow, set a sustainable goal. This isn't about trying to tell yourself, well, I'm going to sit and meditate every morning. Start out by saying, I'm going to sit and meditate for 30 seconds for three days. And that's it, 30 seconds. And you set that timer. And when 30 seconds is up, you stop. Then take another three-day commitment. And now I'm going to meditate for one minute, for three days. And you build like this. If you think you can start at a higher number, that's fine. I remember the first time I tried to sit and meditate. I sat down, I put on the music in my ears. I closed my eyes and after five seconds, I freaked out! I could not deal with the darkness behind my eyelids. And I could not deal with the thoughts inside my head. And I didn't try to meditate again for years. But when I did finally sit down, this is how I did it. I did the work. I said, I'm going to do this for 30 seconds. Even if it kills me, I'm going to sit here for 30 seconds. And I remember checking that clock every five seconds. I couldn't believe five. So the longest five seconds of my life, but you put in the work and I, and I promise you, once you get to five minutes, it's going to get so much easier to do. Five minutes is easily going to turn into 10 minutes. And once you hit that 10-minute mark your brain actually goes into a Delta state. Your brain finally starts to calm down. So do whatever it takes to get to that 10-minute mark, because that's when you're going to start to see the difference.
My teacher always would tell us that every movement of the body is a movement of the mind. If you find that you can't sit down because you're in pain or you're fidgety or anything like that, make adjustments so that you can sit still. If you have to fidget, if you have to do all that stuff, it's going to make it even harder. So however you can sit comfortably, that's going to make a difference for you. Also, organize your time. If you know that your kids usually get up around eight and they distract you, then wake up at six. Then just sit down right on the side of your bed, or somewhere easy, just make it doable and do whatever it takes to get to that 10 minutes and put in the work. It will change your life. It's worth it. Absolutely. And it, it took me years.
Sidney:
You know, it wasn't until after my kidney failure hospital experience that I got desperate and I knew I needed to figure out how to really get good at meditation. I would do it occasionally here and there, you know, going through coaching school. That was a big thing that we did a lot, but I still never like gave it the credit or the time commitment that it deserved. Mainly because I hadn't really felt the benefits yet. And it was, you know, I was still too go, go, go, go, go. I had not gotten sick enough to really know that I needed to do whatever the heck I needed to do to figure out how to heal my body. I knew that people could heal their body. Naturally. I'd seen other people do it. I had heard all the stories and all the teachers and the spiritual teachers talking about how your body wants to heal itself.
And it can, and I was like, well, then I’ve got to figure out how to do it. Meditation was at the core of all of that teaching. And so, you know, I was sort of forced. I mean, it was obviously my own free will, but if I wanted to get better, I needed to learn how to meditate. And I did. And it was very hard at first because I wanted everything NOW! And in society, we want everything now. And a lot of ways we get that. We get that instant gratification with our smartphones and our computers and everything. It's just the way we're wired, but here, again, learning to slow down and learning that things don't happen so quickly. And no one wants to hear that these days, this is literally the exact opposite of what anyone wants to hear in the world right now.
And that's what we're dealing with. Like, that's the big aha is that back to it's not sustainable. We can't live the lives that we truly want to live without incorporating something to slow us down and to get us quiet and get in touch with ourselves. But the benefits, I mean the benefits outweigh everything, trust me. I mean, I'd put my life on the line to tell you that if you start a meditation practice, your entire life will change. And it's that simple. It doesn't cost anything. It's easy. I mean, it becomes easier, right? And it will become is as important as brushing your teeth at some point, because you'll realize this is the work I need to do to have the life I want to have it. Doesn't come naturally. And guess what? Another newsflash, it doesn't come natural for anybody! No one living in this world just is born into the world and just has life so easy.
And they never have to put any kind of work into creating this, this beautiful, mental clarity, peaceful life that, that we all crave that doesn't exist. And if you think it does, you're mistaken, you know, we think it does because we follow all these people on social media and we see that they seem to be living these great lives. And then how many times do you see on the other side, their lives are just falling apart, you know, because that's not real. Real life takes work. It takes work to actually have the peace that you want to have.
So let's get a little bit technical here. So how do you recommend we sit or lay or be, or act or do during meditation? What would you say about that Rani?
Rani:
Yeah, I think it all depends on the goals of the meditation. And I think understanding your intention, your goal for the meditation is a great place to start and actually accompanies what we were just talking about, about doing the work. If you just want to relax, if you just want to walk through a forest, whether you're sitting or lying down is fine, if you don't mind falling asleep. Lying down is usually a favorite of my students when they just want to relax. And there's nothing wrong with that. But as far as really getting the benefits of meditation, and the possibilities that it can bring into your life, lying down is not best for that. I always tell people that there's no wrong way to meditate. There are just more effective ways to meditate.
When you train yourself to sit in a cross-legged position comfortably, I usually tell them to have like, don't tie your legs because sometimes your foot can fall asleep, but one foot in front of the other sort of an across like, but not crossed and train yourself to sit up straight. A lot of people don't have the back strength for that right away, but it is something that will develop over time and quite quickly. If you imagine that you have that rod coming down from the top of your head down your spine to your base, that's how straight you want your spine. And yoga helps to develop those erector spinae group, but keeps up those back muscles. Sitting like that is best, and puts your whole nervous system into a state that when you regulate your breathing and you activate that parasympathetic nervous system that all of the blood and all the things that, you know, the, the breath that's coming into your body, the way that your hormones are going to be talking to your body throughout the meditation, it's an ideal way to be sitting for that.
Sidney:
I would add a little bit to that. I still put a folded up towel underneath my tailbone because my back still isn't that strong. I do need to get back to yoga, but I always just have the extra support under my tailbone. So you can sit on pillows or anything like that, but that's how I meditate.
Rani:
Yeah, that's great. That's great. My teacher was very strict with us. We had to learn to sit a certain way, but you're absolutely right. You have the same straight spine and that support is great.
Sidney:
Yeah. So, what about your hands?
Rani:
Typically what I tell people is that if you have your hands face down, that's sort of keeping your energy and your awareness into your body. If you're working on healing, if you're working on keeping yourself, you know, tight in, then I would have your hands resting on your legs facing down. If you're in a more receptive state and you're inviting in inspiration and things like that, then you'll want to have your hands facing up. People have probably seen images of people holding their pointer and thumb together. That would be called a mudra. And there's different ways that you could hold your fingers in particular. There have been studies about this and basically you have your entire, you know, there's so many nerve endings in your hands and your hands are the most like your whole brain is represented in your hands. So as you hold different mood dresses, how they say is that your brain will be directed in a particular way. Um, with that being said, my teacher was not big on this. He emphasizes the more, um, regulated breathing, sitting straight and focusing our attention on our goals, on the meditation and not letting our mind wander.
Sidney:
Okay. That makes sense. And yet I'm the same with the hands up versus hands down. It's just depends on whether you want to feel more grounded, hands down or bring something in like you're inviting in something you'd put your hands up. So, um, what do you say about a guided meditation versus a quiet meditation or versus just listening to music?
Rani:
I will bring up the goals again. If you want to relax, a guided meditation through a forest is a great way to do that. If you want inspiration then a guided meditation on like connecting in with your body is a really good one. There are body scan meditations, there are ones that will get you in touch with different parts of your psyche. Those are very, very useful if you're trying to get inspiration or understanding about certain topics. Healing, meditations, or body scans are really good for that. And also visualizing light and visualizing things that trigger your brain and your imagination to be receptive of those positive things. And if you are just working on discipline and clearing your mind, I would recommend silent meditations. They are challenging at first, they do get better.
Um, I personally prefer silent meditations with mantra. I was not able to do that in the beginning. I had to meditate for quite some time before my brain was clear enough to be able to do it. Once you can, that's when the real discipline comes in. When you start doing that silent meditation or with a mantra, your brain is going to start trying to get you to get up immediately. It's going to say, you need to go do the dishes. Um, you need to go write that email. What if somebody who's trying to call you right now? I mean, just every possible thing to get your body moving, your brain is going to do. And this goes back to every movement of the body, is a movement of the mind, as your mind is like go and going.
It's trying to get your body to move. I think the most effective meditation is training it. It's when I say effective, the most effective in your discipline, that's going to positively impact all the other areas of your life is training yourself to sit still and not listen to those voices. And they do eventually get quieter and they do eventually go away. And then you're just there with yourself. You're there with your inspiration. You're there with your healing and focusing on your breath or focusing on a mantra will help keep you there.
Sidney:
Yes, absolutely. So what I would add to that from my own personal experience is coming from someone who did not follow gurus around. And who's just a really normal average person who tried to start meditation only, you know, a year and a half ago. Did I really, um, dedicate myself to doing this?
Rani:
So you're not doing it wrong. That's the biggest thing that I want to tell you is that I used to have this voice in my head all the time for the longest time, especially in the beginning, like, you're doing it wrong. You're not doing it. You're not going to get the benefits. You know, X, it just would keep going on and on and on. But that was always a voice I had in my head about multiple things in my life. You're doing it wrong. You don't know what you're doing, you know? Um, but that's false. You absolutely are not doing it wrong, whatever you are doing to slow down your mind and slow down your body, um, to get that quiet time and get that connection is right for you. So as long as you're putting in that effort, you're doing the right thing and it, it takes a lot of practice.
I practice. I don't want to give you the illusion that the day you start meditating, everything in your life is going to change. That is absolutely not true. In fact, the beginning of starting to meditate can be incredibly frustrating, but just like anything, it takes practice. You know, you don't go to your first yoga class and already know how to do everything. You don't know, it's not easy. You have to build it up. You don't go to your first gym and think like, you know, I know how to use all this equipment. You gotta learn as you go, but that goes for anything. So just keep the commitment, keep the integrity and the commitment with yourself, which is such a huge part of getting anywhere worth getting, gaining progress in your life is to keep your commitments.
Sidney:
As Rani said, start with something really small. Start with 30 seconds, if that's what you need to do. As for me, I started with five minute guided meditations and I just did the five minutes. I didn't judge it after I was done as to whether or not I did it right. Or if I got what I was supposed to be getting, I just did it. And I moved on, I did it. And I moved on, I did it every single day. You have to commit to it for yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. Making that commitment and sticking to it is, is pretty much like 50% of the battle, right? It's just keeping that commitment to yourself and build up from there. So guided meditations are what I personally found are the best.
I still do guided meditation, sitting in complete silence is still extremely hard for me. I get much more out of a good guided meditation. So where do I find those guided meditations? I would say that I do the most on YouTube. I just type into YouTube what I want to look for. Like, if, if that day I need clarity or I need healing. I've done so many healing meditations for my body, trying to heal it, obviously, I just do healing meditation, and you could even put in like 10 minutes because I don't typically go over 20 minutes. 20 minutes is way too much for me, anything after 20, but between 10 and 20 is where I've kind of landed. I've found that to be my beautiful spot, but everyone's different. Everyone's going to have their own spots. You can even put the time in your search, so 10 minute healing meditation, boom, you'll get so many that come up on YouTube.
Or you've got Insight Timer, which is another one. Both of these are free. Uh, I know that Rani is actually on insight timer. At the end, I'll have her tell you how you can find her there. There are two others that I've dabbled in in the past. I didn't love them and they do eventually charge you, but they're great for just teaching you how to meditate. Headspace is one for really giving you a foundational understanding of how to quiet the thoughts in your mind. I found that useful. I started that a couple of years ago. It's probably did give me a good foundation. Um, it's an app, or you can do the Calm app, which is another one that you eventually have to pay for. It's really good. They both have good guided meditations. It's all up to you.
If you're just looking at a start out for something for free, a YouTube and Insight Timer, I think are the best and you can just search for whatever you want in there. Rani, how can they find you on Insight Timer?
Rani:
Yeah. So the, the link to my profile is insig.ht/rani.
Sidney:
Okay, interesting. So yeah, insight timer is an app you can download and I will put in the show notes how you can get a link Rani’s page. What else do we want to say? Is there anything else you want to add about meditation in general?
Rani:
There's so many things I would love to share them with such a huge part of my life. I think some of the key things to keep in mind when you're either starting meditation or refinding it is your intention and your commitment. These are the two pieces of the formula that are going to make a big difference in your practice and are going to keep you coming back and bring you to the level of attainment that you're looking for. Is your intention to, you know, relax at the end of the day, is your intention to clear your mind is your intention to heal. Is your intention to find that higher inspiration is your intention to, frankly, become more efficient because that is the result of dedicated, disciplined meditation as well. There are meditations that are designed to help you attain levels of proficiency and intelligence that you didn't have before because disciplining your mind is what, you know, what intelligent people do.
So there there's all these ways that you could approach your meditation, but knowing your intention is going to direct your practice. So that's one, and then the next is the commitment. Just like anything that we want to see the results for, what, you know, take those commitments. I'm going to do this for five days. I'm going to do this for a week. Okay, I'm going to do this for 30 days. And that 30 days is a great place to really kick up your meditation practice. If you can do the same thing or similar things every day for 30 days, you know, we all know that's how you create a habit, right? So being able to do that is a huge milestone, and I would highly recommend making a different one like that. But then again, it's also, so like I have a commitment every season to do these nine days of dedicated, intense meditation sessions.
And I put these programs together so that other people can join me because I know how valuable it is. And each season is, is curated for whatever makes sense for that season. So I do that. I've been doing that for years, um, along with my daily meditation.
Sidney:
Yes. And I would add that I do her nine days. What do we call it? The nine sacred days or nine sacred nights?
Rani:
Yes, nine sacred nights.
Sidney:
That's what she does every season. It's like nine days of guided meditation and just amazing inspirational information. And the emails that she sends out are just full of knowledge. I don't even know how to say how much I look forward to these nine nights or days each season. It's just amazing. I will tell you, Rani is an absolutely gifted meditation guider person. I don't know what you call someone who guides meditation, but she, I mean, every time I do it I end up just incredibly inspired or in tears in a good way, or, you know, it's incredibly moving. I never ever missed her nine day meditations. It’s just amazing. And so in order to sign up, if you're interested in getting those, you would want to go to her website, it's inhaleandrelease.com. When they go to the website, how would they get involved in that?
Rani:
Yeah, uh, the best way is to sign up for the mailing list.I usually post about the upcoming nine nights. And if you're signed up to the mailing list, you only ever get emails from me when I'm doing something exciting. I don't usually send emails out otherwise, so you won't get spammed or anything, so it's not risky to sign up.
Sidney:
That's how you'll always stay in touch and always know when the next nine nights is! Definitely sign up for that. I will put the link to the website in the show notes as well. I think that concludes everything I wanted to say about it. Thank you so much, Rani, for being on this podcast with me today. You're my first guest!
Rani:
I feel honored. Thank you. Absolutely.
Sidney:
I hope my listeners got something really valuable. I would love to hear how you're all doing with this. If you really loved this episode, please screenshot a picture of it and post it on social media with #MyInnerTiger or @myinnertiger. Let us know how your meditation is going. I am dying to know if anyone's taken us up on this and how it’s changing your life. It's absolutely just incredible the impact that meditation, a daily practice of meditation will have on your life. And I also want to say that daily can sound really intimidating to some people. There will be some days that I don't do it because things happen, right? I mean, we're not, I'm not saying you have to be so strict, so don't give up. If you can't get to it every single day, I mean, as much as possible if you can. I mean, it's a great thing to just be in the habit of doing right. Um, but don't think you can't do it because you can't do it every day. Just do as much as you can and you will see the benefits and then eventually you'll be like, I don't want to miss my meditation today because I know how amazing the benefits are. Right. So, anyway, again, thank you so much Rani for being on this podcast and, uh, that's all for now. I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of My Inner Tiger. Before you go, I have a free gift to offer you. If you're anything like me and struggle with overwhelming feelings of stress and anxiety on a regular basis, I invite you to download my Freedom in Five Formula where you'll discover how to change your state in less than five minutes. This is my beautiful gift to you and it costs $0. Head on over to myinnertiger.com/freedom to download this. Now, also, if you loved what you heard today, please rate and review this podcast on iTunes so I can keep the ball rolling. And finally, if you're not already come follow me on Instagram @myinnertiger for more juicy goodness, and fun inspiration. I can't wait to connect with you there. Now my dear friend, go out into this world and create some magic. I'll catch you on the next episode.