Hey there,
This is Karl Munson with a first meditation made simple since I made the decision to give up having bad moods on the 11th of October,
Which I think was last Thursday.
And since then a lot of things have come into focus for me or become clearer,
Other things have fallen away and I think I've written somewhere that it's taken 30 years to have a kind of overnight epiphany or,
Excuse me,
Let me just clear my throat.
Yeah,
It's taken 30 years to have an overnight change with this stuff and it goes back to when I first found Barry Long's book Ridding Yourself of Unhappiness in Sheffield in Yorkshire in England.
I went to the Waterstones bookshop in,
I think it's called Orchard Square,
The shopping centre.
And you know how it is sometimes when you've got a certain vibe about you and then a book almost falls off the shelf in front of you or just shouts,
Pick me,
Pick me.
And that was the book I was ready for in which Barry Long talks about freeing yourself of unhappiness.
And I think at the same time I got a poster or similar where he talked about,
Barry Long by the way is an Australian spiritual teacher,
He's no longer with us,
But I also got hold of a poster with the book or because I wrote to the organisation and the poster was a hard hitting little number which began I think something like you have no right to be unhappy ever and then detailed why that was the case.
And I think it's immortalised in his book Only Fear Dies,
You can find it on the internet,
I think there are links to it in some of my more recent work.
And so that's all come together as a sort of biographical interactive online documentary about my lifelong interest in what makes people tick and why is it nobody wants to really be happy like truly.
It's an odd thing isn't it,
There's a hell of a lot of material in the world about being happy and a lot of discussion about being happy but when it comes down to it,
It looks like people are quite committed to their unhappiness.
And then you're going back to last Thursday,
I had this moment after a pretty shitty day on Wednesday actually where I'd inflicted my foul moods upon my family here.
I'm just sat on the open doors sat by on the,
I'm trying to call it a balcony,
It's not really a balcony,
It's like a sort of patio doors that I'm looking out onto the valley.
It's beautiful,
You'll be able to hear it,
You can hear sort of noises from the family home from behind me and a little bit of traffic in the valley but also birds singing and neighbours,
It's just a really nice scene to do this.
What was I saying,
Yeah I'd inflicted my foul mood and I knew better than to do that,
I haven't been reading about this stuff and been aware of it for a long time but I couldn't contain myself,
Just felt justified in venting and being an asshole basically,
A twat to the family in my behaviour and how I spoke and slamming things and just basically being an idiot but you know it's quite normal,
A lot of people do that and think it's quite normal to behave like that and let people know that they're not feeling great and that the whole world needs to know about it and it was on the Thursday and I realised that's just not on.
For me it's not on,
It's fine if that's the world people want to live in,
That's their business isn't it and that's how they want to run their family it's okay but I just felt to myself I knew better than to do that and I decided on Thursday I'd give it up and that comes after giving up quite a few things,
Changes of lifestyle and personal habits and so on and some quite serious changes to how I operate,
How I run myself if you like and yeah,
Thursday was that day that's why the website is now called That Day in October,
That's what this blog,
Book,
Interactive online unfolding documentary,
Multimedia documentary is all about,
Just bringing all the things together that I've been thinking about over the last 30 years or so and I hope that will be helpful to you as will be this meditation when we finally get on with it.
So apologies if you've tuned in hoping to find a meditation for letting go of bad moods and it's taken this long to actually connect with the process but let's go.
Find yourself a comfy place to sit and with your upper body kind of upright pivoting on your backside so that you're not slouching at all.
I'm moving about in my chair,
Got a nice height of chair,
My what are they called,
Thighs are pretty much horizontal,
It's good to get the thighs or the knees lower than the hips so you're not uncomfortable but kind of levels alright,
You know what it's like to feel comfortable and have your upper body pivoting on the chair so your body doesn't feel like it's time to rest or go to sleep.
We need some conscious awareness of what's going on in your body right now and to get into a real sense of peace and freedom and that's the state which is the counterpoint to the bad moods.
So it's very easy for us to be,
To catch a bad mood I suppose or have the beginnings of one and then ferment it in our minds.
Mind's a perfect place to ferment a bad mood you know,
To be very justified,
To feel quiet and entitled to feeling bad and having to share that with everybody but this process,
This very simple meditation made simple,
Just get yourself sat down on a chair,
Withdraw from that process because you generally can,
You know it's an act of will to not go there,
To not be justified,
To not be entitled,
To not let everyone know how bad things are and how bad you feel and how angry you are.
Spare the words,
Enough of that isn't there?
I mean we don't like it when other people do it so why do we feel like we've got the right to inflict that on people?
And if you're the sort of person who feels entitled to your moods,
Oh I've got a cat who wants to join me,
I put him on my knees now.
If you're the sort of person who wants to revel in your emotions and feels quite justified in being angry and if you're angry you've got to let it out,
There's no point holding it in then this probably isn't the place for you,
You know and I'm not the place for you either,
I'd rather you didn't do that in my atmosphere as I'm endeavouring not to do that in yours.
So yes you've got that body on the chair listening to the words and just get easy,
Just let some breath out and then breathe in and just kind of refresh and recharge yourself and we're getting the focus away from all that shiddiness and difficulty and just bringing it,
Bringing your awareness,
You know it's a precious thing,
Bring your awareness to something benign,
You might even call it good,
Breath is good isn't it,
Without it we're pretty useless so bring your attention,
Your focus to your breath and your breathing and your breath going into your body.
And recharge and refresh and rejuvenate yourself with oxygen,
Chi whatever you want to call it,
Just that good stuff that gets into your body and makes everything possible.
The cat's joining in,
Got kids crying across the valley and this is life,
This is life,
Stuff is going on and you've got the choice to go with it or just come back and focus on your breath coming into your body.
And obviously he's let it out as well and the cat's joining me on my lap.
And I can feel the weight of my body on the chair,
The weight of the cat's body on my lap now and the cat noddling into me,
This body isn't happening at your end but if it is what a spooky coincidence but really just be aware of oh the cat stood on the phone that could be bad.
Let me just make sure we're still recording.
Yeah the cat hasn't killed the meditation but he's getting tied up in the microphone cable and stuff so this could be interesting but I don't need to get into a bad mood about it do I?
I don't need to be an idiot about this.
You can just let what's going on go on as long as it's not too difficult.
And it's interesting the cat's biting me now,
The cat's giving me a little nibble as if you know life is saying K months and you're doing these meditations,
You said you didn't want to get in bad moods,
Let's test you,
Let's let the cat bite you,
See how you get on with that and she stopped nibbling me now,
She's settled down just to have a little sleep on my lap.
So I ask you to do the same,
Be aware of what's going on in your senses around you,
A sense of touch.
You're hearing,
You're hearing me speak,
You're hearing probably the kid in the other side of the valley crying and we can assume that the parents over there are taking care of it.
If it gets really bad obviously we can step up and do something about it but wherever you are just be aware of the sensory information okay,
Not your thoughts,
Come back to your senses,
Come back to your breath.
Let everything go just for a little while,
A few minutes,
You know we can do this,
We have this,
If you're listening to this chances are and I hope you're not driving or.
.
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