Consciousness: Meditation, Prayer, & Intention Setting

How much discipline do you have for choosing to engage in a practice that consistently presents the most promising range of possibilities afterward? 

Through meditation, prayer, or intention setting, you can discover a process that works for you, that gives you the range you need to find the most possibilities to succeed in all of life, to discover ALL of who you are. 

Have discipline to choose stillness in one of these processes and you shall find strength. Your greatest strength through stillness reveals your range of possibilities. 

Find who you are when you see what you can do.

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Speaker 1 0:06

Hello and welcome! Here is a podcast just for you, where everyday I'm teaching you something new about how to be the best version of yourself, so you can be an inspiring visionary for everyone else. I'm showing up to guide you through some things that you may have often overlooked, such as how to strengthen your mindset, without having to read a book. In a world where everyone's focus is on what everyone else is up to, I'm hoping I can help you slow life down so you can focus on what you can do. The world needs more people to believe in what they see and to have visions beyond diagnoses with a focus on possibility. So, I'm asking that as you listen in, please open up your mind and together, let's see all the ways we can make better what we find. This is a podcast about diversity, equity and inclusion. And it's also about my experiences with exclusion. And it is my hope that in each episode, you're able to connect with me. And when we leave the conversation, I hope you are forever committed to the cause, See ME not asd. Let's get started. Hello and welcome. This is episode 12 of a See ME not asd the podcast. I'm your host, Devika Carr . This is a continuation sort of , of episode 11. And in that episode, we talked about Aesculus the Buckeye Mala . It is a meditation and prayer or intention setting tool, guidance tool that will help you find your power and discover which power energizes you to achieve your dreams. But in this episode, we talk about consciousness. I'm introducing you to what meditation, prayer and intention setting really is. And I'm asking you to tap into the source that gives you the most possibilities for success.

2:09

The monologue question in this episode: How much discipline do you have for choosing to engage in a practice that consistently presents the most promising range of possibilities afterward? Our segment goal: discover process that works for you. That gives you the range. You need to find the most possibilities to succeed in your life in all of life and to discover all of who you are.

Speaker 1 2:39

So when I think about power, I call upon my favorite book. It's called range by David Epstein. I may or may not have introduced this to you already. Probably if you've heard me talk about this book, you may be tired of it, but it is by far my B my favorite book , um, range by David Epstein is a book that I stumbled across last year. I really don't even know how I found it. I think I was just going through a bookstore and honestly I liked the color of the cover, but when I really tapped into , uh , kind of the introduction and really just seeing what it was about, I was intrigued because I have typically been a person who does a lot of different things and often confused about how those different things all come together. And so the title of this range, why generalists triumph in a specialized world? I thought to myself, well, that sounds like me. I, I sound like I would probably fit into the category of being a generalist as opposed to a specialist. So I picked it up and I started reading it. And I quickly discovered that it is the first book I have ever read. That finally gives me a clear definition of what kind of person I am. And so a lot of this episode is going to rely on the things that I've learned in that book. Uh, but in particular, we're focusing on one chapter and it's called flirting with your possible selves. And I think it's perfect for talking about consciousness and meditation, prayer and intention setting, because if you are currently engaged in such a practice, or if you're not the truth is we look to pray and to meditate and to set intentions for our daily lives. Because we want to be sure about who we're going to be that day, who we're going to try to be that day and how we're going to best achieve what it is that we hope to be. And so this book really gives you permission, or this chapter really talks about what it means to give yourself permission, to be who you are now, not who used to be. And that goes pretty deep for a lot of us. I think there's some judgment that we place on ourselves thinking that we're not allowed to change who we are, because we don't want to seem like we're changing. And yet we should be giving ourselves permission to change. For example, if you evaluate who you were yesterday, and you discover that you didn't like that person, or there was something that you did that you didn't like about yourself, then today is a new day to change that you don't have to be who you were yesterday. And certainly, you know, there's this perception from some people that people don't change, people can't change, but that's untrue. We change what we want to, but we're committed to changing. And so it's not that people can't change it's that people have to be committed to the change that they wish to make

Speaker 2 5:49

Epstein

Speaker 1 5:50

Brilliantly encourages us to heed the advice of Alice in Wonderland. And he recalls how she to share her story when she was asked to do so. And instead of starting with the semantics of what, of how she became to be who she is like, where she first began, her life, she started with the beginning of her adventure that very morning and Epstein quotes her saying, it's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then. And I absolutely love this quote because she's absolutely right. There's no use in going back to yesterday because you were different and you should start. If someone asks you to share your story, you should start with who you are today. Now in the previous statement, I kind of told you, it's fine to go back and reflect on who you were yesterday. And it is. But if someone's asking you who are you, don't start with who you were yesterday, start with who you are today in the now, and Epstein further quotes her , uh, excuse me, this is the way in which I've seen quotes. Her is a way in which we should all kind of be quoting ourselves as we share our stories with others, right? So if you, if someone asks you who you are and you start with who you are today, and they really want to know who you were yesterday, they ask you questions about where you came from and , and how you were raised, or what jobs have you had previously. And, you know, most extensions of memories of the past. Maybe we should start by saying, I'm no longer who I was yesterday. You know, there's no use in me starting there. Please let me start where I am now. So that gives some perspective on , on how kind we should be to the selves that we are now. And we should consider sharing our own stories and shaping them based on, on time and experience, context and, and evolution, but really the evolution starts now. And then now that I've seen cause upon the life of van Gogh, which I love Epstein's rendition and kind of description of van Gogh's life. It is something I had not contemplated so much before. Uh, but he calls upon the life of van Gogh to teach readers another lesson where like van Gogh, many of us once believed that we found our perfect calling again and again, only to learn in practice that we were mistaken until we weren't. And when you really think about what this means, it's as if saying every time I've contemplated and thought to myself, Oh, I finally learned who I am. I finally have found my calling. I know that this is it. And then you practice and then you learn, wait, I'm mistaken. And then one day you stumble across something and you practice and you learn and you realize, wait, now I do know that this is my perfect calling, and then you're no longer mistaken. And it really is just a pretty unique and craft UAT to remind us that sometimes we think we're where we're supposed to be, or we have stumbled across, across what we're supposed to be doing. And then we discover that we were wrong. And then it's okay to discover that you're wrong because that is not waste of time. That is not wasted experience. That's merely the next step for you discovering what's next. Each time I have the discipline to choose stillness in my life to choose, to sit still and enter into meditation and to enter into prayer and to enter into intention, setting , setting intentions for my day, for, for the moment that I'm going to experience next, I feel that I am born again into a new moment. I , I feel that I'm presented with a new opportunity to shape my future and I get to be led as Epstein calls it into these short-term explorations. And that's what it means to have range. You give yourself permission to enter into short-term explorations so that you can learn new things and gain wisdom and knowledge and new areas, things that are outside of the norm specialization for you. And then Paul Graham , um, someone in , in Epstein's book that he talks about who happened to be the startup funder for Airbnb and , um, and Dropbox and Epstein suggests the Assan his quote from Paul Graham that instead of working backwards from a goal that we should work forward from promising situations. And when I read this, then I really thought about my practice through meditation, prayer and intention setting. I realized that for me, the promising situations are the moments that I'm in meditation. Meditation is a promising situation. Prayer is a promising situation to be in intention. Setting is a promising situation to be in. And when you have the discipline to choose stillness, it means that you are finding strength in these promising situations that are meditation, prayer, and intention setting. And then from there is where you work forward towards your goals. Okay? Further proposes. And I quote don't commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now and choose those that will give you the most promising range of opportunities or excuse me, of options afterward. And so in the now, here are my choices and perhaps they're your choices too . I definitely ask you to tap into them and see what works for you, where you find the power, but in the now the options available are meditation, our prayer or intention setting. These are three ways in which you can choose stillness, but it takes discipline. You have to have the discipline to choose it. You have to have the discipline to sit still long enough to truly meditate, to sit still long enough to truly pray , to sit still long enough to set your intentions. When you choose one or you choose them all at it , and how you practice, you're choosing that, which will give you the most promising range of possibilities of options afterward. And when I say options and possibilities, I don't mean that you're choosing that, which is going to give you exactly what you want. Okay. There's very clear. Uh , let me make very clear that I'm not saying that you will always receive, you want, but there are possibilities to succeed. There's more than one way to succeed. And so when you open yourself up to the stillness of meditation, prayer, and intention setting, then you're opening yourself, opening yourself up to receiving through the energy that you have placed in your meditation, in your prayer, in your intentions. You're open, opening yourself up to receive what becomes possible. So for example, if you don't meditate, if you don't pray, if you don't set intentions, if you just exist in life without any clear stillness, clear moments of stillness, if you don't have the discipline to sit still long enough to ask for what you want to set positive affirmations, to what you want to, the things that you desire to achieve, will they happen for you? There's much speculation about how much as possible when you're always negative, how much is possible when you are always speaking negativity into the world and putting out bad energy and putting out the energies that won't facilitate promising situations. And so I believe that that meditation, prayer, and intention setting each have each, each of them has their own range of possibilities, but all of them have a range of possibilities when you pray. When I not even you, when I pray, I pray to God. And when I pray to God, I have faith. I have faith that whatever I'm praying and I'm asking for that, I trust that whatever is willed to be done will be done. When I meditate, I'm entering a time of stillness that I know is going to make me feel good and feeling good. It's going to open up possibilities for me to achieve whatever comes through my day. When I set intentions, I trust and I have faith that the process of setting my intentions will do one of two things. It will either the , the, the moments that I live throughout the day after I've set those intentions will either match up to what I've intended or I will, that my intentions may be different. Each of those processes reveal something different. Each of them has a range of possibilities. There are so many unexpected and unknowns. Having a practice of stillness is not me being able to be sure of what's going to happen next. No, it's not that, but it is making sure that I am calm and I have clarity. And I have faith that whatever happens next and whatever possibilities are revealed, I will be ready for them. I will be ready to serve in whatever capacity appears and whatever opportunity presents itself. I will be living in the now I will be experiencing the now and then I will be able to reflect in my memories of my past experiences. And then I will be able to capitalize on whatever it is, whichever direction I am meant to go. It means by having the discipline to choose stillness, it means that I am opening myself up to the possibilities that will come to me in my life. It's very simple. And it's, it's difficult to do. Concept is simple, but the it's very challenging to actually achieve it. So the call to action is for you to meditate for you to pray or set intentions. I want you to have discipline. I want you to choose stillness, and I want you to find strength. And when you do this, I want you to write down. I want you to live in the moment of meditation. I want you to live in the moment of prayer. I want you to live in the moment of setting your intentions. And then when you're done, I want you to go back and think about, recall the memory of your experience in doing so and see what strength you have found in the power of what that is. See what energy you can call upon based on those moments of stillness, to reveal the possibilities that are meant for you and decide which form of stillness best serves you, which form of stillness gives you the greatest strength so that you can find your range of possibilities. Only. You can answer that question and you're not answering it for me. You're answering it for yourself. And I encourage you to engage in the practice consistently show up for daily show up for yourself, commit to yourself that you will have the discipline to show up, to choose stillness so that you can find your strength. Consistently. Creative action is for you to check out my favorite book by David Epstein range and flirt with your possible selves, by understanding how having a range of interests and qualities, professional and personal roles, et cetera, it doesn't mean that you're lost. It doesn't mean that you don't fit. It doesn't mean that you have done something wrong or that you're not on the right path. What it means is that you just have a range of possibilities to succeed. When I discovered that after reading the book, I discovered that I am enough, exactly the way I am exactly the way I think. And even if that means I am a mother and artists , a lawyer, an entrepreneur, and a public speaker, then fine. I'm all of those things. I have range. But that also means that an all of my roles and all the capacities that I serve others, there are so many possibilities for me to succeed. And that feels so great. That's a realization that I've been waiting for my whole life. And this book really changed my life. The mantra is I know who I am. When I see what I do by her mania Ibarra also quoted in the book. I hope that each of you will give yourselves permission to tap into these sources of consciousness, of stillness and discipline and strength. And I hope by doing so when you step out into the world and you tap into all those possibilities for you to succeed, that you see all that you're capable of, that you do things that you never trumped up, that you serve in ways that you didn't think were possible. And in doing all of those things, when you see what you do, I hope you know who you are. Thank you so much for tuning in until next time.

Speaker 3 19:17

[inaudible] ,

Speaker 1 19:18

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