Welcome to the 4 Part blog series "Meditation for Transformation" where I'll teach you my 4 step process to take your meditation practice beyond simple relaxation (and use it to get unstuck in any aspect of your life and create deep, lasting change).

If you follow these 4 steps (and do the 4 types of meditation), you'll have a simple process and the tools to calm your mind, uncover why you're feeling stuck in repetitive patterns, heal those patterns, and actively create the life circumstances you desire.

If you missed them, you can get caught up with Part 1: Calm Your Mind and Emotions, Part 2: Befriend Your Obstacles, and Part 3: Gain Understanding.

Now let's dive into Part 4 (or step 4) on the Meditation for Transformation journey!

Step 4: Create Transformation

While it's possible to have a random experience that transforms you overnight, in most cases, change and transformation happens over time as you change your habits.

You can either passively allow your life to be shaped by the circumstances and people around you (which often leads to unhappiness), or you can actively and consciously shape your life with the method I'll describe below. The choice is yours.

The transformation process I'm about to describe becomes much easier and smoother when you get into the habit of also consistently practicing the three steps we covered earlier in the training series. Again, they are:

You're gaining more peace and control of your mind and emotions, so you're not constantly distracted by mental and emotional drama. {Part 1}
You're cultivating more present moment awareness, compassion, and acceptance of your triggers, struggles and painful feelings, rather than reacting unconsciously to them or trying to immediately replace them with something pleasurable. {Part 2}
You're taking responsibility for your painful or stuck situations, and using your intuition and power of reflection to uncover the causes (the thoughts, actions, and beliefs) that are keeping you stuck. {Part 3}

Once you're doing those above three things regularly, many aspects of your life will start to shift naturally and become more aligned to your ideal circumstances. But for the things that don't shift on their own, you'll have to actively create that transformation you crave. And this is done by continuously doing these two things throughout your life.

Releasing
Creating

RELEASING

You know those thoughts, actions, and beliefs you discovered were contributing to your feelings of stress, struggle, or unhappiness during your reflection practices?

To create transformation you've got to constantly check yourself and release those limiting thought and behavior patterns that are keeping you stuck.

CREATING

As you're releasing the things that no longer serve you, you're gonna want to replace them with new behaviors that support your ideal circumstances. And since your actions are a result of your thoughts and beliefs, changing your non-serving thoughts and beliefs are equally as important as changing your actions.

This isn't about doing something different once. This is about creating brand new thought and behavior habits.

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

— John C. Maxwell

The best meditation technique to enhance both the releasing and creation aspects of transformation are VISUALIZATION PRACTICES

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.”

— Robin Sharma

Visualization is a technique that will help you change your daily (limiting) thought and behavior habits much easier and quicker. Science has shown that your brain doesn't differentiate much between things happening in real life and things happening in your mind. So by trying on your new thoughts, behaviors, and ideal life circumstances in your mind first, your actually transforming yourself from the inside out.

Visualization coupled with continuously replacing your non-serving habits with better ones, will eventually create your ideal circumstances in love, work, health, and life in general.

Here's a simple visualization meditation you can try out.

Imagine what life would be like if that stuck situation was transformed. If you had a magic wand and anything was possible, what would your ideal situation look like instead?
Set your timer for 10-20 minutes.
Sit comfortably and take a moment to ground and calm your mind.
When you're ready, visualize yourself in that ideal situation. It can be a anything you desire to be, do, or have.
What do you feel? What do you see? What do you smell? What do you hear?
You can imagine an ideal day of yourself living in your desired state. Or just imagine yourself sitting there as if you have your desired state already. However feels easiest for you to conjure those feelings is fine. But embodying that ideal state is key. Just sit there until you can FEEL how it is to be or have that thing you crave. And then let those feelings start to settle and become natural for your body.
When you're ready, open your eyes and thank yourself for the meditation.
The more you do this, the more your body will get used to this ideal scene becoming reality, and the quicker you'll create it.

Remember, this is a process and will take time. It took you years to create those habits, so it'll take a bit of time to replace them with new ones.

BABY STEPS

As you start implementing these new thoughts and behaviors in your life, you're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna revert back to old "bad" habits and patterns sometimes. The thing to remember is, this isn't about all or nothing. It's about taking baby steps and enjoying each step of the journey no matter where you're at.

Consciously choosing the new thought or behavior over the old one once out of every five times is progress, not failure. And with mindfulness, intention, and time, that number will grow. You don't have to swear off burgers and fries forever to get into shape. You just have to start allowing the other healthier habits to become stronger and more frequent. This is true for any aspect of your life you crave change in.

TAKE ACTION >> Begin to replace the thought and behavior habits that are keeping you stuck with new ones that support your desired circumstances (in love, work, health, etc). Do this by:

doing the "ideal scene visualization" above to prep your mind and body for the changes
making the effort to notice when you're repeating those non-serving patterns and actively replace them with the new, more ideal ones. (this will feel hard at first, but will get easier over time)

Patience and the courage to try new things (and make mistakes) are crucial here! I actually prefer to think of mistakes as "feedback". But if you want to speed up the process, you can find mentors who have already created what you want, and look to them for guidance.

SURROUND YOURSELF with those who have what you desire

To help lessen the learning curve in any changing aspect of your life, you can surround yourself with people who have what you desire. If you want a healthy, loving partnership, find someone who has one you admire, and find out what their mindset and behavior patterns are. If you want to quit your 9-5 job for your own business venture, find others who have done it and learn their mindset and behavior patterns. If you want to create a consistent and joyful meditation practice find someone who's done it and get guidance from them (ahem). Coaches, mentors, and even books can be great resources for this.