I.M. Meditation

How my kitty taught me meditation

Whoever lives with a cat knows that training a cat is not that difficult. The only thing you need to have is patience and a lot of his favourite treat. The cat is an animal which can be trained based on reward and not based on punishment. Actually, in my opinion every animal (also human) is trained better based on reward and not punishment. I never believed in my life that punishment can bring some results. But this is another story. Back to my kitty. If you want your cat to do something for you, the only thing you have to do is to give him a treat right after his good behaviour. On the other hand, if your cat has a bad behaviour it is better to ignore him while doing this or leave the house showing your dissatisfaction. The cat is an animal which always wants to draw your attention. If you ignore him it will end this behaviour in order to win your attention again. Whatever your cat does has a purpose. His purpose is to come closer to you. That’s why it is always wise to reward his good behaviour. A tasty treat and a little bit of petting is the best reward for your cat.

Living a life full of responsibilities and goals that I had to reach, the last thing I wanted was a pet. But life is unexpectable and sometimes takes the right decision for you without your asking. An unexpected meeting with my beloved kitty was a sign that I have to redefine my lifestyle. I couldn’t say no to take this beauty in my home (or maybe I have to say our home, right Deida?) When my kitty came to live with me I had to face a variety of challenges. One of them was the challenge to be able to play with my guitar without my kitty being annoyed. Even a single note of my guitar was very annoying to her. She was literally afraid of that noise begging me to stop playing it. But, my guitar is a very important part of my life. Not only is guitar a part of my job but also it was it which helped me to overcome through depression and anger issues of the past. It was the guitar which helped me release all the negative energy which was built inside me while overthinking about myself and people around me. So I had to do something for this. The guitar was the one which showed me the way towards a meditating life and Deida was the one which showed me the way to the most important values in life. I had to keep them both happy.

So I started to train my kitty to be comfortable with the sound of guitar. In the beginning it wasn’t so easy. As soon as I took the guitar to my hands she was very annoyed. So what I did? I took my guitar in my hand a couple times without playing a single note. After a few tries she was very interested in it and she came to smell the guitar. Right after her try to smell my guitar I was giving to her a tasty treat. After a couple of tries, while she was smelling the guitar I was playing a couple notes and then again I gave to her a treat. After a couple of tries I was playing more and more notes until she becomes familiar with the guitar. Now not only isn’t she afraid of it but she also enjoys it. What convinced my cat to accept the sound of guitar was the exception of a tasty treat right after my guitar playing.

Of course it wasn’t only the guitar the problem in our relationship but if you have positive vibes (and a lot of treats) everything is possible. I have to say that it wasn’t only me who trained my cat but also Deida has trained me about her needs. This is how you build a strong relationship. By showing to the other person your needs and how he can cover them. If the other person has the desire to live with you he/she will do his/her best to cover these needs. That’s how I believe relationships must be. You have to accept the other person as he is and do the best for this person (of course without forgetting your own needs which must be covered). But as always: Balance is the key! Sometimes the opponent’s needs are conflicting. This is when you need to decide what is more important for you and how many steps back you are willing to go.

The last I want to tell you about my kitty’s training is that if I had been tried to train my cat to cover all of my needs at once she would be very anxious and annoying for sure. I had to work one issue at a time and when we were ready with one then we moved to the next one. The impressive here is that my cat did also the same. She trained me at one thing at a time and when she was sure that I am comfortable with that she moved to the next one.

The same applies about the training of your emotional world. This is why I developed I.M. Meditation this way. Every time you transform a melody from negative to positive and let this melody resonate to your internal world for the rest of the day is like you give to yourself a tasty treat and make it happy. This harmonious movement of the energy inside you when a beautiful melody resonates inside your body is the best treat for your emotional world.

One last thing that my kitty taught me about meditation is that you can’t fix everything at once. You need to fix your problems one by one and when you are satisfied with your progress from the first, then you move to the next one.

What energy really is?

Energy! What is energy? Every different philosophy/science has given energy a different definition. This has resulted in letting people being confused about what energy really is. Having these confusing explanations about energy, no one can understand the nature of energy. In this section, I will explain to you the energy as I learned it, felt it and lived it by myself working my way through philosophy, science etc. From Tantra to Tao and from audio engineering to sailing, every chapter of my life had a unique explanation of what energy really is. These different views of energy helped me to fully understand what energy is and how it affects everything around it.

Energy is a term that we often see in physics. We always listen to terms like electric energy, magnetic energy etc. If you take a look at the most recent masters of eastern philosophies you will find the term bioelectromagnetic energy. Bioelectromagnetic energy is the energy that flows inside us. This term is far from random. You see, a human is a complex machine that even today we are not able to understand completely. There is a whole universe inside every human body. Let’s dive deeper into this universe inside the human body.

How can a sperm which travels and finds an ovum becomes a complex machine with millions of operations? This happens because the human body is a group of little tiny particles that they interact with each other. During human life, many particles enter his body while others leave it. So, let’s name these little tiny particles “magnets”. Why magnets? Because they really are. These little particles attract each other like magnets do. Even planets attract each other. Like the universe is made of uncountable planets that attract each other, so is the human body made of uncountable particles that attract each other. That’s why the human body is like a little universe. And these particles are like little tiny magnets.

For that reason, the energy inside us is called bioelectroMAGNETIC. Because it’s made by the attraction of these little magnets. More on that later. But how can these particles attract each other like magnets? How do they build a magnetic field so they can attract anything in that? The reason that these little magnets can attract each other is that these magnets are charged with electricity. Yes, inside your body electric energy flows. When you taste a passionate kiss and feel like your body is charged with electricity you are not cheated. It is real electricity that flows inside you. How does this happen we will explain it later. At the moment keep that the energy inside you is called bioELECTROmagnetic because it is made by electrically charged magnets. Finally, this energy is called BIOelectromagnetic because this electromagnetic activity takes place in a living body. I guess this one was obvious.

The interesting thing is that as these little tiny magnets attract each other, they build a bigger and stronger magnet made of all these little magnets. And these new bigger magnets attract each other and they build a bigger magnet and so on. In this way, your organs are created, furthermore your whole body. So you have to think about humans as a collection of magnets that are made of smaller magnets etc. It is obvious to think that human is a part of the universe. Because humans can attract other humans or animals, plants etc and build something bigger.

As you may understand the energy inside you comes from these tiny magnets. In a few words energy is the attraction caused by these magnets. But what is really the energy and how does it flow inside you? In order to answer this question, you need to learn first what exists between these magnets. And here things become a bit complicated.

Some scientists believe that between these magnets nothing exists. Literally nothing. Others believe that simply air exists. Others are sure that something exists but they haven’t discovered it yet. Some people claim that if you collect the material of the whole of mankind you will have a material that will not be bigger than a cube of sugar. This may be true or may not. Maybe it’s just an exaggeration but it is based on logical proof. There are many answers about this and they will definitely confuse you.

Now, if you see humans, like a piece of fabric you may realize that these explanations may be real. Think about it. When you see a fabric from a distance, you believe that this fabric is compact. But when you take a closer look at it you will realize that between the threads there is some empty space. The truth is that this empty space is covered by the air that flows between the threads. You cannot see it but it exists. It doesn’t really matter if it is air or nothing that flows between the threads. The important thing is that the threads attract each other in a way that makes the fabric look compact.

More or less the same happens with the human body. These tiny magnets attract each other and create an illusion that the human body is compact but in reality, it is not. Between the magnets, there is an empty space. Even if it is a totally empty space or air flows in that space it doesn’t really matter for you in order to understand what energy is, because in this empty space the energy flows. How? You will learn about it soon. These magnets inside you not only attract each other but also move to the space around them. This random (or not) movement of the magnets creates some vibrations. (You will have the opportunity to understand better the vibrations when we will talk about the sound). If you could stop the movement of the magnets and take a really close photo of them you would see some magnets scattered here and there inside your body and around them nothing. But, because these magnets attract each other and move to space, they create these vibrations. These vibrations make your body look compact.

If you hit a string of a guitar you will notice that the string will enlarge. This is caused by the vibrations that the string creates. The truth is that the string hasn’t changed its mass but it looks larger because the vibrations make it look like this. Let me explain how this happens. When you hit a string you force it to move up and down fast and continuously. This way the string covers the space around it and looks bigger. The truth is that it is not bigger. It shows bigger to you because your eyes are not able to catch the fast movement of the string. Furthermore, this fast movement causes a disruption in the environment around the string because it violently changes its magnetic field. These are the vibrations that the string causes.

More or less the same happens with your body. The fast movement of the magnets makes your body look compact but it is not. If these magnets weren’t moved, your body would look more like a web.

Now about the energy. Let’s have a summary. When the magnets inside you are charged with electricity they start to attract each other. While they attract they start to move fast in the space around them. Then they create vibrations because they rapidly change the magnetic field around them. These changes in the magnetic field, so these vibrations, are the energy inside you.

As you notice, energy isn’t something spooky. It is real. It is just vibrations caused by the rapid movement of electrically charged magnets which attract each other. And these magnets are real particles.

From now on, when you listen to someone talking about the energy inside you, you have to think about these vibrations between your particles.

I hope I gave you a good explanation of what energy really is without being tired. Now, if you are a scientist and found this explanation kind of silly you have to forgive me. You need to understand that for us, the common people, your terms sound really confusing. And for me, it is very important that anyone who studies this course is able to fully understand what energy really is. This is a must for anyone who wants to meditate successfully.

For you who want to expand your knowledge about energy in a more scientific way, there are plenty of books and articles written by masters of any science that can help you go deeper. Now that you know the basics about what energy is, let’s go deeper and talk about the movement of the energy and how this movement affects your internal world and not only that.

Fotis De Tao.

If you are interested to learn more about how energy works in the human body and how to use it beneficially for you, take a look at our beautifully designed Online Meditation Course!

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 flow 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 move downwards from your tongue to your throat, chest, solar plexus, belly, perineum and back to your coccyx. Now imagine that river flowing in 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 transmission of vibrations from one part of your body to the other. In order to fully understand this, simply observe a wave in the sea. Can you see how a wave moves towards the coast? Can you see how this energy that forces the water to move upwards is transmitted from one part of the water to the other? Exactly the same way your energy moves inside you from one 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 unobstructed. 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 in 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. In 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 stay loose. They also help your bones move a bit away from each other so they can move unobstructed. 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 doing 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.

Do you want to learn more about energy? Take a look at this blog post: What energy really is?

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: