 Everyone's all talking about mindfulness this and meditation that but does this stuff actually work? Well in this video I'm going to talk to you about my first time meditating so make sure that you stay tuned. What's up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and yeah in this video I'm going to talk to you about the first time I tried meditating and I'm going to explain how it can help you if you just give this thing a try and don't worry don't worry I already know what you're thinking. Yeah Chris that's cool for you but I can't stop my brain from thinking well let me stop you right there because I actually already called this in a video which is perfectly titled why you're wrong about meditation it's linked right up there in the info card and you can check it out right after this video. Also if you know somebody who is stressed depressed or has emotions that are all over the place please do me a favor and share this video on social media so maybe they see it. Alright so let's get started how did I even hear about mindfulness so like sometimes I don't like to admit it but like I was a huge huge fan of BuzzFeed I don't really watch it checking out anymore but anyways so like I remember just seeing like articles one after another after another just like how mindfulness can help you at work how mindfulness can help you with your kids how mindfulness can help you in your relationship how mindfulness can help you in the bedroom and I'm like what the hell is this mindfulness thing people keep talking about and like I wanted to find out so I was about to go on a business trip and this is before I actually started reading a few years ago and I was like you know what if mindfulness can help with so many things I wonder if it can help out with addiction and recovery I work at a rehab I teach other people about staying clean and sober let's see if they have something on that so I go down to my local bookstore and boom there it is and I found this book called the mindful path to addiction recovery and by the way amazing amazing book if you are somebody in recovery like go check this book out I will link it in the description below again if you're somebody in recovery there is a program called refuge recovery I also suggest you check that out but I will do some more videos about that program alright so anyways I'm on my business trip I'm in California I'm in my hotel room and I cracked this book open and the the doctor who wrote this book he actually knows a lot about addiction and he knows a lot about meditation so I'm reading it and like some of this stuff is starting to make sense okay like he's relating it to a lot of the struggles that people who are recovering addicts deal with and their triggers and things like that and then he explains kind of how mindfulness can help with it so as I'm reading the book I get to a part where it's like alright let's try this thing I'm like alright cool so the first meditation I read in this book was a body scan meditation alright so after reading all of these instructions it was like two pages and by the way if you're gonna do a body scan meditation do not read the meditation just download a free app and do a body scan because it was difficult but that may actually be why what happened actually happened so I lay down I get comfy on my hotel bed and I close my eyes and I'm really trying to remember these instructions and they were simple enough like bring my attention down to my feet notice my feet bring that attention up to my ankles and my calves and my knees and then my thighs and up to my stomach and my back and my chest and my shoulders and down my arms and up to my head and like when I when I was done and I opened my eyes I was like what the heck like it clicked it just clicked for me like the one thing the one thing that I've been trying to do most of my life is to turn this thing off it's one of the reasons why I got so deep into drugs and alcohol because I thought that that was the only way to turn this thing off right and I just noticed that after I opened my eyes after doing this body scan meditation I was like that entire time I wasn't trapped in my head and maybe because I was focusing so hard on the instructions paying attention and trying to remember what the instructions told me to do like whatever it was this thing was not controlling my life for even five minutes and I'm like I just saw the potential I saw the potential and I got really excited so as I continue to read this book because it explained that there there's a big difference between mindfulness and meditation okay I'll do some more videos on that too but anyways there was something called mindful walking so as soon as I got to that part in the book I'm like all right let's see what this is about so I go downstairs at the hotel I walk I go outside and I just start walking I just start walking slowly and paying attention and I pay attention to how my feet feel on the ground how my ankles are moving and pivoting how my legs are moving I start to notice what the weather feels like hitting against my skin and once I was done I came out of it again I'm like oh my god like again two for two two for two I wasn't stuck in this thing again I'm like all right I'm sold I am sold on this thing um and I might have I might have had a different experience than a lot of people do but the reason being is I was given instructions and it was explained to me um so the biggest excuse I hear is I can't stop thinking and none of it is about stopping your thoughts it's just about bringing awareness to whatever you have awareness about whether it's the way your body's moving or different sensations you have or you're just bringing awareness to the fact that your brain's going a million miles a minute that's all it is and like I just notice this sense of calm and I'm like I'm definitely going to start trying this more and more often right so I got hyped up I jumped right onto the mindfulness train and um I was in California um a few months later and I ran into like a second or third cousin right and we were just catching up we hadn't seen each other since we were kids she's asking me what I do and I'm like yeah I work at a rehab center and she tells me she works for this place called mindful schools up in the San Francisco area and that's when we just started talking like crazy I'm like yo I've been trying this mindfulness thing and it works and she's like right and we get all excited and stuff and she she tells me what mindful schools is about and she um tells me about some courses that they teach and she got me into one of their courses it's like an introduction to mindfulness course I'm like heck yeah sign me up right but anyways um mindful schools it's it's something that a lot of schools are starting to do you've probably seen um articles pop up or little short videos on Facebook where they're talking about how they're replacing detention with meditation and things like that so mindful schools is a company that teaches how to teach meditation right but the first thing you have to do in order to teach meditation is to understand what mindfulness and meditation is all about so I went through their introduction to mindfulness course and my favorite instructor my favorite instructor on there was this guy named Matt and like whenever he would talk whenever he would talk about his experience and how he found meditation like I just clicked with that dude like a quote that I will never forget that this guy said was when I was a kid nobody told me how intense these emotions would actually be and I'm like yes yes like nobody gave me a warning nobody like like when you come out of the womb and you're a child like they're like here's math here's how to read here's your colors but nobody's like yo you're gonna get intense intense feelings of sadness and fear and all these other things nobody told me that so that's one of the reasons I find mindful schools like extremely extremely beneficial to you know the world like teaching kids like I know that I would have developed a lot better had I been taught this at a child as a child um but but yeah so I just went through their um their course and like they they knew how to appeal to a guy like me they had a lot of uh scientific evidence behind it and a bunch of different studies and things like that but anyways then I went through some of their other courses and actually got a curriculum and I've been teaching my son meditation since he was about six years old and as a parent let me tell you like first and foremost this is not a disciplinary tool and it's explained very thoroughly and something that bums me out is I know some parents who I've explained mindfulness to and they they're they're starting to use it as kind of like a punishment for their kids and that's the exact opposite what of what we're supposed to do supposed to be proactive about meditation okay but anyways um I've seen these drastic changes in my son and for any of you who are thinking about meditating if you have kids this is a great way to do it a great way to do it because it keeps you accountable because you're trying to help them too so me and my son will sit down and we'll just meditate for a few minutes we have uh little apps that we use a ton of free ones out there I'll link to another video about three of my favorite um free meditation apps um but anyways like I I meditate I meditate for maybe five minutes at a time and depending on how my days go because I'm always go go go go go sometimes I do like three five minutes sits sometimes I only do one and I'll be honest with you there's days when I can't do a more formal meditation but the overall goal of mindfulness is is not to do all these formal practices but to have small instances of mindfulness more times throughout the day so if I know that I'm not going to have even five minutes to sit down and just formally meditate I'll be driving and I'll just try to be very mindful while I'm driving right I'm having a conversation I try to be very mindful in that conversation you know what I'm saying so like I I cannot stress this enough some of you have seen me mention mindfulness and meditation in my other videos and you've said that you can't do it or you ask me more about it and I really need to do more videos on it so this is my first one I just kind of wanted to share with you guys about my first experience meditating um but yeah I would love to hear from all of you have you tried it what are the issues or struggles that you've run into because I can't stress enough in order to do this practice you need someone to teach you the same way as if I just handed you a piano and you don't know how to play it like you're not going to be able to just figure it out on your own most likely unless you're like one of those like super ultra talented born with musical skills type people but anyways put your questions down below so I know what to make future videos on okay but again like I said if you know anybody who is stressed depressed or has emotions that fly all over the place share this video please share this video we need to get more people to start meditating all right but anyways that's all I got for you today if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new here I'm always making videos just to help you out with your mental health so click that little round subscribe button and if you got a minute check out some other videos on this channel right there I linked to the video about why you're wrong about meditation check that one out next all right but thanks for watching be mindful and I'll see you next time