I.M. Meditation

Stretching and meditation

You might have heard many meditation teachers talking about the importance of stretching before your meditation session. Many meditation classes start with a short session of stretching during the relaxation procedure. In yoga, which is basically a meditation lifestyle, there are plenty of stretching exercises. So, why is stretching so important for your meditation journey? Let’s start with the basics.

If you have already practised some kind of meditation, you already know that the most important subject we work with is our energy. Energy is basically a magnetic field full of vibrations which flows inside your body. Imagine energy like a river which flows inside your body. Take some time to imagine this river flowing inside you. Use your mind to feel this river. Watch it flow from your coccyx to your spine, to your neck and head and then moving downwards from your tongue to your throat, chest, solar plexus, belly, perineum and back to your coccyx. Now imagine that river flowing towards any direction inside your body. Watch it flow towards your arms and legs. Watch it move towards your whole torso, your vital organs, everywhere. Can you feel it?

Now, let’s make a short introduction to energy in order to understand its nature and needs. Energy is basically the transmissions of vibrations from one part of your body to the other. In order to fully understand this, simply observe a wave at the sea. Can you see how a wave moves towards the coast? Can you see how this energy that forces the water moving upwards is transmitted from one part of water to the other? Exactly the same way your energy moves inside you from a group of cells to the next one. Now imagine your energy trying to pass through your neck area. If the muscles around your neck are loose the energy will pass unostracted. This can happen because a loose muscle is flexible and able to receive and transmit this wave of energy easier. In order to understand this, do the following experiment: Take a rope in your hands. Tight one end on a steady surface. Take the other end to your hand. Let the rope loose. Now with the other hand try to move the rope towards any direction. It is easy, right? Now tighten the rope as much as you can and try to move it again. It must be quite difficult now. The same way work your muscles. If a muscle is too tightened, the energy is unable to pass due to inflexibility. If your muscle is loose the energy will pass easier.

This is why stretching is so important. Stretching techniques help your muscles and organs to stay loose. They also help your bones move a bit away from each other so they can move unobstracted. When you do some stretching, your body is in a better condition to move your energy. The higher the energy the deeper the meditation experience. For that reason I strongly recommend to do some easy stretching exercises before practising any meditation. Be careful though not to overdo it. Stretching, like meditation in general, must be joyful, not painful!

Fotis De Tao.

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/immeditation

Will you help me to spread love and kindness to the world?

Hello my friends!

This post is about how to spread love and kindness to the world. If you believe that we need to do something so we can eliminate violence and encourage love and kindness to people, please read this until the end!

First of all, thank you so much for showing interest for this website. As you already know, this is a website about Internal Melody Meditation technique, a technique which combines the ancient philosophy of Tao with the modern science of music therapy.

I can proudly say that this technique has already helped a few people walk their meditation path and live plenty of joyful moments during their day. This is very important for balancing our internal world.

Now let me tell you a few words about why and how I have created this meditation technique. I have spend more than half of my life creating and performing healing music. What do I mean healing music? A music which helps me release negative energy and encourages positive emotions to appear. For more than ten years I perform and teach music to people of all ages. From very young to elder people. I can clearly see how my students transform their emotional world after a few lessons of their favorite instrument. I usually teach guitar or music production. I have also experienced myself a huge transformation using my own internal music. From my first steps in music I have noticed how powerful tool is. This is why I decided to spend my life to it. I have studied audio engineering to have a deeper understanding of how music works and why it affects our psychology so much. For those who don’t know, music is basically a combination of sounds. After finishing my studies and having a great knowledge of the engineering of music, I started to work with music in a full time basis. All these years I perform as a guitar player or vocalist, I have composed and produced a lot of underground projects, I have worked as audio engineer in plenty of gigs, I have been also a DJ for many years and of course I have teach many students about the emotional benefits of music.

Growing up, studying and exploring music deeper and deeper and doing a lot of mistakes all these years, I gained a lot of knowledge and experience on how music really works and how we can use it as a meditation tool so we can balance our emotional world efficiently.

A meditation tool made by music is much easier for someone to follow because it is very entertaining and very familiar. Everyone has some experience of music, even as a listener. So I decided to create this technique and help people walk a joyful and very entertaining meditation path.

My goal is to spread the I.M. Meditation philosophy to the world and see more smiley faces and less angry people globally. World acts so violently these days. We need to stop this. Music was always a way to stop violence. Meditation was always another one. Imagine what we can achieve by combining these two gifts to one.

This is why I am asking you to help me by supporting my project on Kickstarter! If you believe that we deserve an emotionally balanced world with less violence and more love and kindness, please back my project. Your help is really important for me! Of course backing this project you can receive plenty of beautiful rewards all been made with love! Whether you want to simply support us or become an I.M. Meditation Instructor on your own you will find plenty of joyful rewards!

If you are interested, please follow the link below and back for the reward you prefer!

I wish you a joyful life!

Fotis De Tao.

You can back this project here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fotisdetao/im-meditation-certified-courses

The importance of distractions in meditation

Imagine this: You go to your favorite meditation place. Let’s say a wonderful beach. You have arrived there just before the sunset. You have choosen your favorite meditation posture, you observe the colors in the sky, you enjoy the sunset, you are ready to deepen inside you and receive the beauty of what you experience and suddenly a group of people arrive yelling each other just a couple of meters away from you. It would be the perfect meditation experience but then, these people arrived and destroyed your whole meditation day. How would you react on this distraction? I have already published a post about how to deal with distractions. In this post we will go a bit deeper on this subject. We will talk about the importance of distractions. We will talk about why we do need distractions while meditating and why we shouldn’t avoid them.

If you are a beginner, it is hard to meditate while someone or something distracts you. I was a beginner myself. I know how frustrating it is to try to meditate while your neighbors yelling at their children or have decided to turn the volume of their hi-fi on ten. I know how it is to try to concentrate on meditation while a dog barks right outside your door. But I have to admit that these distractions combined with my passion to move forward on my meditating life was what really pushed me to become mindful!

I have to admit that if you are a beginner or a person who just try to experiment yourself with meditation, quiet places are what you really need in order to enter the world of meditation easily. But if you are a person who already knows what you want and how far you want to go, distractions might be a very useful tool for you. Let me clear something. Distractions do not only come from the outer world. A thought which came to your mind while meditating or a sudden pain in your body, can also distract you from your meditation. Let’s talk about inner distractions first.

Inner distractions are distractions which happen inside you. The most common are your own thoughts. The most difficult part of your meditation journey is to quieten your thoughts. But, do you really need to quieten them? The answer is NO! Many people quit their meditation journey just because they are unable to quieten their thoughts. Trying to meditating while a plethora of thoughts fulfill their minds, make them feel tired. This leads them to quit their meditation journey once and for all. But this is the biggest mistake you can do in your meditation journey. People who quit their meditation journey because of that, are mainly people who lack knowledge about what meditation is. They also have many expectations about their meditation sessions which do not allow them to enjoy the experience. Let’start with the basics: What is meditation and what is its purpose?

Meditation is a procedure which train yourself to become mindful. Mindfulness means you are fully present. Distractions try to lead you away from your mindfulness, that’s why people believe that they ruin their meditation experience. But this is wrong. Distractions do not ruin your meditation, they train you to become more mindful. Without them you wouldn’t be able to move forward in this journey. Distractions are your trainer. Your thoughts are your trainer, a barking dog is your trainer, your noisy neighbor is your trainer. Your ability to transform a distraction to a meditating object is the most powerful tool you can have in your meditating life. Do not fight your distractions. Do not fight your thoughts. Experience them. Meditate on them. Be thankful of them. This way you eliminate their power. After a bit of practice, distractions will be unable to distract you. That’s the real meditation. That’s mindfulness. Mindfulness is not when you experience no distractions. Mindfulness is the ability to be present no matter how many distractions you experience. So, use distractions wisely to train yourself become mindful.

Fotis De Tao.

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/immeditation

How music affects psychology and vice versa

Music! A powerful tool which can affect your psychology so much. It is true that music has psychoacoustic properties which can activate any of your emotions, most of the times, instantly. But, how can music affect your emotional world so much?

It’s all about vibrations. In reality, music is just a combination of sounds. Sound is a group of waves which are produced from a sound source and transmitted through the air until they reach our ears. These waves are basically alternations of the air pressure. When a sound source starts to vibrate, it pushes the air around it back and forth causing it to repeatedly increase and decrease its pressure. These vibrations (increasing and decreasing of the air pressure), when they arrive to our ears, they are being translated into sound. Now, you might wonder why these vibrations affect our psychology.

These vibrations are repeated in a specific amount at a specific time, according to the ability of the sound source to vibrate. The more flexible the sound source, the lower the amount of repeats. The less flexible the sound source, the higher the amount of repeats. This is what we call frequencies. In music, a variety of frequencies are produced simultaneously. When these frequencies are matching, the sound is harmonious. When they are not, the sound is disharmonious. When a sound is harmonious the psychology of the listener is good. This happens because human brain works also with frequencies. Frequencies which match, make the brain to receive a clear message from the outer world. This is translated to: “everything is under control”. When everything is under control our psychology increases because more positive emotions appear. When the brain receives frequencies which doesn’t match, the message it receives is confusing. A confusing message means that “something isn’t right”. When something goes wrong our psychology decreases because more negative emotions appear. I have already talked to another article about our negative emotions which are our protectors. You can check it out!

This is how music affects psychology. Confusing vibrations means something is wrong. Clear vibrations means everything is under control. So simple!

How this applies to music? The scales, the chords, the rhythm and the performance of the musicians are all factors which affect the vibrations which are produced through their music. A positive music has a smooth wave of vibrations. A negative music has a clumsy wave of vibrations. When these vibrations arrive to your brain it activates the required emotions according to the situation. When the message of the vibrations is clear, it activates positive emotions that help you relax and be joyful. If the message is confusing it activates negative emotions which help you prepare for fight, running, hidding or anything is needed to protect yourself.

The same applies to the music according to the psychology of the performer or the composer. When the composer experience negative emotions, the vibrations inside him are confusing. That’s why he uses the music tools (scales, rhythms etc) in a way that he can send a message that «something is wrong». When he experience positive emotions he wants to send a clear message that everything is ok. That’s why he choose to use these tools in that way.

As you clearly see, it’s all about the message you send (as a musician) or receive (as a listener). This message can be sent with vibrations through the air. These vibrations is what we call “sound” and many sounds together produce “music”!

Fotis De Tao

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/immeditation

Why is it important for all of us to sing

Some people were born blessed with the gift of a smooth voice. Others were born with the gift of a perfect musical ear able to recognize very easily every little detail of the music they perform or listen to. Others lack any of these music talents.

Me, although I am a music teacher now, I am a person who lacks all of these talents. It took so many years to be able to recognize the frequencies. Furthermore, my voice was always weak because of some medical issues. GERD and allergic rhinitis made my vocal abilities very difficult. In conclusion, I was always a mediocre singer (I still am), but people usually enjoy my singing. Why? Because when I sing I do it with passion. I was almost always out of tune but I was always deep inside the emotions I was singing for. This is why if you make a question to everyone who was there in my live shows, he will say that I am not the best singer but something makes them want to listen to me singing. My emotional statement on stage was what made them follow me in my shows. You see, maybe with these vocal abilities I am unable to follow a singer career but I am definitely able to keep a balance to my emotional world just by singing a few notes. I can transform my emotional statement in any emotion I want, easily in a few seconds, just by singing.

Let’s make this clear. You do not need to be a singer to have the right to sing. Singing, dancing, swimming and many other arts or sports are physical needs of every human and not a luxury for a few people. It doesn’t matter if some people do it better, or to say better, in a more fancy way. This doesn’t forbid the others to practise it. Imagine to allow people to sleep only if they don’t snore, or allow people to eat only if they have totally white teeth!

So, it doesn’t matter if you are a good dancer or not. It is your right to express your emotions through dancing, even if you don’t know a single dancing step. Maybe you will never be able to win a dance competition but you will benefit yourself with this psychosomatic procedure. Same thing with music. You don’t need to be a singer in order to sing. Even if your vocal abilities are weak, singing is still a powerful tool which helps you express your emotions and release energy. This way you can achieve balance in your internal world. Nobody has the right to deprive you of this therapeutic procedure. Singing is a natural need. Like food and sleep. Make singing a part of your everyday life via I.M. Meditation technique. Close your ears and open your soul to let your internal melody act beneficially to yourself.

Fotis De Tao.

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/immeditation

Baby Breathing

Have you ever heard about baby breathing? Or in other words embryonic breathing? This is one of the most important techniques in I.M. Meditation method.

Baby breathing is basically the technique that babies breathe. Everyone used to breathe using this technique when we were babies but while growning up we trained ourselves to lose the ability to use this technique. So, what is really baby breathing?

You might have heard about the term “Diaphragmatic Breathing”. Diaphragmatic, Embryonic or Baby breathing, say it as you wish, is the correct way to breathe if you want to receive the most of energy around you without wasting the energy you have already had inside you. How can you do it? Easily.

Baby breathing helps you to breathe deep without putting too much effort. Now let’s take a look at the mechanisms they work in order to breath deep and how you can activate them.

First of all you need to inhale the right way in order to push the air as low as possible. This will allow your diaphragm to move as low as possible leaving more space to the lungs to fill with oxygen. You can use many techniques in order to push the diaphragm as low as possible. The easiest one is by using your imagination. While diaphragm moves down it pushes your organs to move out of its way. The organs have nowhere to go so they push your abs to move outward. This has as result the expansion of your belly towards every direction. It feels like you have a huge balloon inside your belly. This is the imagination you can use in order to push the air as low as possible. Let’s take a look on how to inhale deep using your imagination.

1. Inhale normal. Don’t force the air to move low or your belly to expand. This must be the result.

2. While inhaling imagine a balloon that inflates inside your belly. This will cause the air to move as low as possible pushing the diaphragm to move downwards.

3. Now it’s time for exhalation. Exhalation must be long in order to remove the whole CO2 from your lungs. This will help you to receive more oxygen in the next inhalation. In order to exhale long, simply let your diaphragm return to its normal position without forcing it. Just relax your muscles and let it return to its position. In order to help you push the whole air out of your lungs use your imagination again. Imagine the inflated balloon on your belly starting to deflate slowly.

Baby breathing must happen naturally. Don’t push yourself to do anything. Simply inhale and exhale while imagining the balloon that inflates and deflates inside your belly. So simple.

Baby breathing can be deeper but we will talk about this in another article. My goal in this article is to help you send the air as low as possible in order to be able to receive more oxygen and release more CO2. Of course there are more breathing techniques that focus on different benefits. We will talk about them in the future.

Keep in mind to use your nose for inhalation. Preferably for exhalation too. Avoid breathing in through mouth because it dries the air and makes breathing more difficult.

Baby breathing is very effective. Practise it every day for a couple of minutes. It helps you release stress, fill your body with energy, slow down your heart rate and many more.

Do you enjoy baby breathing?

Let me know about it.

Fotis De Tao.

Instagram:

www.instagram.com/immeditation

Music And Emotions

Music is a very poweful tool. It can affect your psychology very fast. Remember the last time you listened to a happy song being in a bad mood and you got high before the song ended. Or the opposite. Remember the last time you where high and while listening to a sad song your psychology dropped suddenly. It is for sure that music plays a huge role in our psychology and there is a reason for that.

Emotions (the strange transformation of them)

Emotions. We all experience a variety of emotions every day. Some are positive while others negative. Some are stronger while others are weaker. There are also situations in which we experience mixed emotions. In reality, every moment of our lives we experience mixed emotions. Why? Because every emotion we experience is a combination of positive and negative emotions.

The walking meditation

Something that is very popular these days is “The Walking Meditation”. I hear many people saying that they enjoy to do the walking meditation but when I ask them how they do it and what is this that they like so much about it, their answer always makes me wonder if they know that they do it wrong. Here is the most common answer to this question:

How to deal with distractions

Do you find it difficult to focus on your meditation procedure? Do you feel often distracted by thoughts, sounds or anything else than happen around you, or inside you, while you meditate? Does it sound like a reason for you to quit your meditation? If you feel like this, then this article is for you. Here is a simple tip you can use in order to be able to continue your meditation no matter how many, or how often you experience distractions.