These two tools have helped me tremendously in life. I am very big on prayer and meditation. Prayer and Mediation is The Master keys to life. It is a very large part of who I am. Every word spoken and thought is a form of prayer. Every act of listening is an act of meditation. Many years ago, I had a hard time quieting my mind and going into a deep mediation. I couldn’t go more than 20 seconds quieting my mind or being still enough to enter into mediation. Now, I can go into deep meditation for hours at a time. Sometimes several times a day.

When I started trying to find out about mediation a friend suggested a guided mediation back in 1995. She gave me a tape cassette with a guided mediation on it along with some of those Marianne Williamson tapes. She said listen to those tapes for 30 days and it will help you. Just try them. On a quiet Sunday, I loaded up the tape cassette with the guided mediation and the guide said, “quiet your mind and breath in and hold breath out and hold, Breath in and breath out.” Then the guided said “you are in sitting in a green field and there is waterfall next to you. It’s a beautiful sunny day. All the sudden, you see a fairy, a small sprite really and it smiles and waves at you then flies into the waterfall. ” As soon as they start saying that stuff, I thought in my head why am I sitting out in this field with fairy’s??? Hold up! Can we get a drag strip with a lit-up Christmas tree and I’m sitting in a 1969 SS Chevel with big block 502 Rat Motor waiting for the green light to drop. Instead of fairies and waterfalls??? At the finish line put some ladies with big boobs, wearing a nothing but a thong next to a card table with a couple big pitchers of ice-cold beer on it. That is my kind of guided mediation! Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus! Amen! Who is running this show? I got up from where I was sitting, went over hit eject, and threw tape along with those Marian Williamson tapes in the garbage. I had to apologize and give my friend a few bucks destroying them, but I figured I was doing a service to mankind for not letting any other men listen to that bullshit. I told my friend, that shit will turn you into a fag! I am trying to learn how to meditate not become homo! She laughed and said Well I was just trying to help. They work for me. I said you got any guided mediation tapes about driving a Monster Truck? Bass Fishing? Shooting Skeets off the edge of cliff? Surfing at Ocean Beach? Snowboarding at Big Bear? Hitting Golf Balls at Big Horn? What about a blow job in a New Corvette? You got any of those kinds of guided meditations??? I am a Man! I’d like to listen to those kinds of guided mediation tapes. hahahahaha

Now, those guided meditations may work for you, but they made me feel weird. I am not interested in sitting in field with a bunch of flying fairies. hahahahaha

I was having a conversation with another person who struggles with anxiety earlier this morning. So, I gave them this very simple tool. I said try it for 30 days. It takes 2 minutes a day to do. Just do it for 2 minutes a day. This tool is what started me on my mediation journey to what is now. It has worked really well for some of the people I have mentored throughout the years. This is how I learned to meditate.

I always ask the same question. What you know about balance? What does balance look like? They began to give me an explanation of how it feels like. I said no, what do you know about balance? They started explaining it again like every single person I have had this conversation with. I said, when you walk into a room and there is a picture hanging on the wall and it’s not centered and crooked, it throws the whole room off right? They said yes! That is right! I said because it is out of balance. It’s not centered. Everyone in the room notices the one thing that is out of balance and not centered because it doesn’t flow with the rest of the room. So, I pulled out my phone, loaded up my level and said brought it to balance in my hand and said this is what balance looks like. This is the definition of Balanced, Centered and Still. It’s not some great mystery that some guru discovered on the mountain top in the Himalayas that you can buy $9.99 with a ShamWow towel if you order now!

This is what Balance is. This is what Centered Is. This is what being Still is. It is not some great Hindu mystery and theory.

What I learned is. If you sit still and hold a level in your hand on level for just 2 minutes a day. That is, it. 2 minutes! Breath in and out. It will start to radically transform your life after 30 days. After a few weeks, close your eyes every so many breaths in and out and picture the level in your mind, then open them and focus on it again. When you hold that level in your hand, you are focusing on true balance, being centered and still really looks like and feels like. You will begin to notice that it is subtle movements that take you off centered and balanced and it us subtle movements that bring you back to being balanced and centered. You see if you are like me, I was prone to knee jerk reactions in life. That is what the world teaches us. Knee jerk reactions which take me further off balance and centered. After 30 days, The Level reminds me that every time I walk into a situation throughout my day where someone is pulling on my emotional, mental and physical level to pause, bring myself back to centered then respond, not react, in subtle movements. No more knee jerk reactions. The level brings me into control of myself and gives me the freedom to respond not react. It is subtle movements that take me off balance and subtle movements that bring me back on balance. The Level taught me that feelings are reactions to not reflections of reality. Visions and clarity come after one first learns to be still, centered and balanced. Being still, centered and balanced is the most profitable thing Mediation offers.

Later in life, I learned to do the same thing I do with a level but using a compass. I find it a very valuable tool. I sit facing due North and I hold it in my hand for 2 minutes just like I do the level. I breath in and breath out. Mediating with a compass has got me out of many situations, that could have cost me my life. Compass are used for finding your bearings and direction. Meditating with a compass is not what the world teaches you. Most of my early life I ran completely on the wing it system coupled with the dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullshit approach to life. The problem with that is, only person I was ever fooling was myself. I ran on that because that is what grownups taught me as a child. I didn’t know any different. I saw the same approach to life from The President, Politicians, Lawyers, Teachers and adults. Everyone ran on the wing it system coupled with dazzle them with Brillance or baffle them with bullshit approach to life. So I did what they did, until I discovered a different way.

Sit with a compass for 2 minutes a day helps me to find center. It places me in the Here and Now. It provides a sense of direction. After 30 days working with a compass, I began to stop second guessing myself and my actions in life. Working with a physical compass, connected me to intuitively work with the spiritual compass within. It placed me in the right place at the right time, all the time. I began to live in harmony with all that is. I was no longer out of synch with life. I began to experience synchronicity in every area of my life. I discovered that synchronicity compounded on many layers produced moments of serendipity.

I would recommend starting with a level. After 30 to 60 days then add the compass. I used both tools for many years and even on rare occasion, I come back to the basics and get them out and work with them again.

You know the Monarch Butterfly fly thousands of miles to their overwintering sites, which are located in central Mexico. They fly over and through the Rocky Mountains to migrate to a place they have been before. All by using an internal spiritual compass. I think that once humanity becomes Intune with that spiritual compass again, it will take them to farther than they could ever dreamed possible. That sure has been true for me, in my life. May it be the same for you.