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Don’t be “in your show” where you see all the episodes, you won’t be able to do it. Just go to general podcast app and hit the search icon. Type in Low Tox Life. DON’T click on one of the single episode /shows that comes up, click on the Low Tox Life square tile. Once clicked on that, you’ll see 3 tabs: Details. Reviews. Related. Click subscribe, then click reviews and there you can write your review. 2 words, 1 sentence, biggest AHA… Doesn’t matter, just for you to leave one is so much appreciated and helps us stay visible in ITunes charts and Thrive. Thanks so much guys, Alexx x

 

Now onto the show…

This week in keeping with the new year’s theme of a couple of gentle topics for our body and mind, I have Tom Cronin on the show – a gifted meditation teacher. We discuss his personal path to finding stillness and using the power of meditation to recover and rebuild his health, as well as how meditation can work for everyone if we stay open, curious and don’t think we have to ‘empty our heads’. We then do our very first LIVE meditation on the show – it’s so relaxing and just 10 minutes. I hope you enjoy it!

 

Here’s a little snapshot of the juiciest bits in today’s episode…

• If you have any state of disease, anxiety, insomnia, depression, that’s a cue for change. It’s an indication that the current status quo is not serving you anymore.  “Suffering is proportional to our resistance to change”.
• Tom started his career as an investment banker before having a nervous breakdown and being diagnosed with agoraphobia. He then stumbled upon meditation and tried different techniques as he embarked on his journey into the world of meditation.
• The greatest gains he noticed after starting to meditate were first on the physiological level: better sleep and an overall feeling of wellness. His emotions started to change because his body was not in a constant state of fight or flight anymore which meant he was producing more melatonin, oxytocin and serotonin, the essential hormones that promote a good sleep, a sense of joy, creativity and wellbeing.
• Sleep only removes part of the stress accumulated during the day. Look at it from the perspective of stress versus rest ratio by picturing a sliding scale. Adding a meditation to our day is like adding a supplement to our daily sleep in helping remove the stress, helping us feel more balanced, lively and vital.
• There are many different types of meditation: everyone can find something that works for them. Try various techniques until you find the one that really resonates with you and helps you to relax.
• Meditation is not about the practice it’s about the result. It’s important to find good guidance when you start meditating. The changes you can experience from meditation can be quite confusing and confronting at times, so having the support available is important. A teacher can also help you refine your technique and ensure that you get the results you’re after.
• Kids these days find it quite difficult to relax and unwind especially with the technology going around. As meditation requires withdrawing from the world of senses to explore the inward, it can be hard for a teenager, for example, to do it because they’re still in the exploration phase of their life. Live and breathe meditation yourself so your children see it’s part of your lifestyle and approach it as a “normal” part of the day. Hopefully, if you can inspire them, they’ll follow you in your practice.
• It’s almost impossible to have a “still mind” in meditation, even as an advanced meditator. Thinking that meditation is going to help you achieve stillness can lead you to more stress. Meditation puts us in a profound state of physiological rest and as a result, we start to unlock stresses. Our mind becomes still, the physiology gets into a very deep state of rest where the reorganisation starts to occur. Some subtle and some more marked physiological reactions can start happening: twitches, spasms, coughing. This in turns stimulates the brain and the mind into getting active again. You can acknowledge that and continue your meditation, as reaching stillness and being bumped out of it, is part of the ebb and flow of the meditation process.

To find out more about Tom’s work, retreats, resources and more, you can visit his website HERE 

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