I took a mindfulness class—here's what I learned
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Hello and welcome to the Claim Your Power podcast, the ultimate show for all things self-love, spirituality, and personal growth. I'm your host, Kim Peretz. I'm a three-time author, content creator, avid traveler, entrepreneur, and matcha enthusiast. You are at the right place if you're ready to rediscover the love within, align with your purpose, and unleash your highest potential. It's time to claim your power.

Hello my beautiful friends and welcome back to the podcast. If you're new here, my name is Kim and I am so happy that you are here. Whether you're on your hot girl walk, you're in the car, you're just sitting on a late night listening to the podcast, wherever you are, wherever you may find yourself, I'm so happy that we are together in this beautiful moment. And I'm so happy that you're here.

And today's episode is something that I seldom talk about, but I think is such an important aspect of my journey and my personal development. And that is the whole concept of meditation and mindfulness. And so before we dive deep into this beautiful conversation, I would just love to ask you to support the show. So if you've been loving the podcast, I'd love it for you if you subscribe and

and left a review and rated the podcast. It truly means the world to me and empowers me to keep showing up every single week with new episodes. And also feel free to tag me at claimyourpower and at kimperettes on Instagram because I love seeing your stories whenever you listen to the podcast, wherever you are. It's just so much fun. And also a lot of you guys actually don't know about this, but I know that you guys will love this. I actually have a free weekly email list. I don't spam you. I send you an email once a week.

And if you want to receive a fun email in your inbox every Monday with an oracle decorating, with wellness tips, with inspiration, with any community announcements, anything that I wanted to share with you that week, I really recommend you join the email list. I'll link it below in the episode notes. It's completely free and it's just like a fun way for you to connect with me more. And I honestly love writing. So it's so much fun to write weekly emails for you guys and connect with you guys on that level.

And so to kick off today's episode, I want to share a quote, one of my favorite quotes, and that is, you spend most of your life inside your head. Make it a nice place to be in. I just love this quote so much because I think it really is the epitome of self-love, of the relationship you form with yourself.

And this is what I want to dive into today. And to give a little bit of background, so this year in 2024, one of my intentions has been to do more things that contribute to my spiritual development. If you look at my life at a bigger scope, my life is pretty fast-paced for the chapter that I'm in. I'm constantly creating, I'm a podcaster, I'm also a student, I'm traveling, I have my friendships.

And so many things are happening in my life. And sometimes I do find myself in that hustle routine. And this is why tapping into my feminine energy has been such a powerful tool and modality for me in the past year. But in 2024, I realized that one of my intentions is I want to consciously choose to have parts of my life and parts of my schedule be dedicated just to my spiritual growth.

And one of the beautiful things that I decided to give myself this year is to take a mindfulness and meditation class once a week. And this class has been so transformative. I feel like it has really connected me back to the basics of my soul, of myself, and

and every single time, every Monday night when I go to the class, I take so many notes. So I thought for today's episode, I would share with you all the beautiful things that I have learned thus far in this meditation and mindfulness class that I think are so impactful and transformative and you can take them and apply them into your life too. So I have so much notes, so I'm just really going to dive into them and

and expand on certain topics that I feel called to expand and maybe just say one part of the topic if I don't feel like there needs to be much expansion on it.

But the first thing that I want to talk about is this idea that you are not your thoughts. You are the one experiencing them and observing them. And I think in our fast-paced world, it is very easy to get caught up in that cycle and that routine and we become kind of on autopilot. We're not really aware of what we're thinking, of what we're saying in our head. And so we start to believe everything that we think in our heads.

But something that you have to realize is that your mind, your subconscious and your conscious mind is made up of so many influences. It's your past memories. It's things you've been told as a child. It's what other people around you have said to you, what past versions of yourself has said to you. So your thoughts are made up of so many different aspects, so many different opinions, so many different fears and beliefs.

And they're all just like mushed together in your mind. And so sometimes we'll have some thought about ourselves or about our growth or about where we are in our life that can feel very negative or judgmental or a fear might come up. And one of the most amazing realizations that really helped me because the thing is we can't be positive all the time.

It's just not sustainable and we're human and part of the human experience is having moments of discomfort. It's having moments of sadness, of anger, of self-criticism. That is all part of the human experience and when we think that we have to be 100% positive and optimistic 24-7, that puts us on an unattainable pedestal.

And so having this realization that you can't 100% be always positive, but you can be 100% an observer of your current experience in the sense that when you are experiencing anger and sadness and frustration, instead of realizing that that is you, like you are defined by your anger, you actually realize and shift the mindset and realize that no, it is actually you that is experiencing that emotion and experiencing that thought. You are the observer. You are not that thought.

You are the one observing it. And same goes for your emotions. Emotions are energy in motion. And so when we attach ourselves to our emotion in the sense that we think it is part of our identity, that is when that emotion gets stagnant in our body and that can manifest as like physical stuff like acne, back pain, sickness,

um, so many things like when emotions get stagnant and I won't get too much into it, but there's a whole book on it called the body keeps the score about how like certain traumas or emotions or things we've went to in the past, our body keeps that score if we do not release them and feel our emotions.

And so something that you have to just realize about your emotions is feeling them is the best thing you can ever do to yourself. The point is not to be afraid of your emotions. It's to feel them and realizing that in that moment, you are the feeler because when you feel them, you can release them. There was actually a Harvard study that talked about how it takes around only 90 seconds for an emotion to dissipate once you feel it. And so something that I've been practicing a lot with myself

is when I feel a certain emotion instead of identifying my identity with that emotion in that moment I ask myself kind of like in third person and I'm like oh Kim you're experiencing anger right now and

And I let myself feel that anger in whatever sense that may manifest for me. And that is really the whole key of mindfulness is not to resist your emotions, not to resist your circumstances and your experiences, to notice them and become an observer of them. So that same goes for like happy emotions. When I'm feeling joyful or very abundant nowadays, this is something that I have to do consciously that obviously I can't do all the time because a lot of us are on autopilot.

But something that I learned through the course is when I feel a certain emotion, let's say happiness, I can feel present in that moment. I can tell myself, oh, I'm feeling happy right now. What an amazing feeling that is. And I allow myself to feel that happiness because the key is the present moment is the moment where you will feel the most joy and fulfilled and where you will seek the most clarity and answers.

98% of our suffering exists in the past and in the future. That's where anxiety and stress comes from. It's from overthinking about the past or overanalyzing the future. So when we allow ourselves to be present for a moment and be in the moment, that is where our power is. Now, this is not something that is super easy to do, especially if you're someone who's constantly used to thinking about the past or the future.

But this is something that you can start implementing into your life that when you find yourself overanalyzing the past, overthinking about the future, then you take a moment and you snap yourself out of it. Like sometimes you can even snap in that moment or clap to break the neuropathway in that moment and then bring yourself back into the present moment. And this connects back to the idea of pause with a pleasure too. If you guys listen to my episode on the Kabbalistic concepts,

is this idea that when you are experiencing something in your life, instead of resisting it, in that moment, tell yourself, pause, what a pleasure. Pause, what a pleasure that I am triggered right now because this is showing me something really deep about myself.

Pause what a pleasure that I am laughing right now because this is where I can experience joy. Pause what a pleasure that somebody cut me off in traffic because this is testing my patience. So when you really start applying these concepts into your life, your power comes back to you because outside circumstances no longer have the power over you to constantly dictate your mood and how you feel about yourself.

Now it's not black or white. Again, we are all humans. We all get triggered. I definitely have moments where I get triggered and I get angry and I get frustrated. But it's about making that conscious effort with yourself of taking your power back in that moment and not letting every little thing outside of you, including your emotions and including your own fears, dictate your mood and dictate how you feel about yourself. Your thoughts do not control you. You control your thoughts, right?

When you make that shift with yourself, that it is not your thoughts and your emotions that have control over you, but you are the one controlling them. You are the one controlling your life because you are the co-creator of your life. That is when you take your power back. Another concept that I really loved learning about was the whole concept of stress because I think this is something that really impacts us that I want to dive into is

And it's this idea that stress can actually be positive or negative. So for instance, the stress our body goes through when we're working out, when we're running, when we're dancing, that's positive stress.

But emotions like fear can actually put our body in negative stress. And so when our body is going through stress, it actually requires a lot of energy, which when we're, you know, going through that negative stress, negative periods in our lives of anxiety and stress, then that can actually is what leads us to have sickness, tiredness, lack of creativity. It's because our body is in constant stress.

So if you're someone who struggles with stress, something that I learned about is really the best tool to help with stress is to notice your breath.

Your breath is your life force. In the Kabbalah, the word soul translates to the word neshama in Hebrew. And neshama comes from the root of the word linsom. And linsom means to breathe. So your breath and your soul are interconnected. When you feel yourself going through moments of deep stress in your life, of you losing your temper or you feeling very reactive, come back to your breath.

Because what happens on a more biological level is when we're experiencing stress or when we get out of our comfort zones, our body enters fight or flight in order to protect us from uncharted territory, i.e. stress. And so the best way to soothe your body and your nervous system in that moment is to come back of your breath. So one exercise that I loved learning about that I started doing in my own life that I think you guys will love

is called change of courses. So if you're someone who leads a very busy life, maybe you're a student, you work a nine to five job, you're a mom, you're just constantly traveling and you feel like you're constantly in this upbeat energy, this is something that I want you to try.

So your consciousness, our consciousness often gets lost in the past or the future. And so much of our time and energy is not in the present moment. And when we disconnect from the present moment, again, we disconnect from our power. And that is why when we're present, for instance, when we're dancing or we're in the car driving and listening to really good music, or we're hanging out with one of our best friends and just like really having a good time and constantly laughing. When we're in that present moment, that is when we feel the most fulfillment and joy because

That is the gift. The gift is the present. So I want to share with you an exercise that you can do every single day to help you get out of autopilot and connect you back into the present moment wherever you are. So whenever you find yourself changing courses,

And what I mean by that is maybe you're going, you're driving from work back home. You're going to meet up with your friend. You just finished a class in school and you're about to go get a cup of coffee. So whenever you're experiencing a change of course throughout your day, this is what you're going to do. You're going to give yourself around 30 seconds to one minute. You're going to take a moment and tell yourself in your head the word release. And after you tell yourself release in your head, you're going to ask yourself,

What do I want to happen now?

And who do I have to be in order for this to happen? And this one moment during the transitional parts of your day allows you to get out of autopilot and get back into your creating, manifesting energy. Because in that moment, you're coming back to your consciousness and you can ask yourself, who do I want to be right now? What do I want to create? And what do I need to do or who do I need to be to bring that into my day? This takes you out of the

past, out of the future, and back into the present moment.

So for instance, I just finished up meeting with my friend and now I'm going to go get ready, put my clothes on and go to a workout class. In that moment, I can tell myself release so that I release any energy that I may have picked up in the interactions before. Then I can ask myself, what do I want to happen now? Well, what I would want to happen is I would have a really good workout class and I would feel really good about myself and sweat and just feel a lot of serotonin and dopamine. And then I ask myself, who am I?

Who do I need to be in order for this to happen? And so I can tell myself, okay, I need to be the type of woman who loves her body, who sees exercise as a celebration of her body and not as any punishment, who can be present, who can enjoy the moment, who can be intuitive. And so I need to be the type of woman who loves her body, who sees exercise as a celebration of her body and not as any punishment, who can be present, who can enjoy the moment, who can be intuitive. And so I need to be the type of woman who loves her body, who sees exercise as a celebration of her body and not as any punishment, who can be present, who can enjoy the moment, who can be intuitive.

I allow myself to be conscious about who I want to be in that moment. And so then I can become that person. So this is just a really beautiful exercise that I love to do. And I think if you start implementing it throughout your day, you're going to see so much shifts in your life that you didn't even expect to happen because you just become very conscious of who you are throughout your day.

Another thing that I want to come back to is, again, the concept of emotions and emotions being energy and motions. And actually, when it comes to emotions, the more diversity in your experiencing of the emotions, the more resilient you become as a person.

And so when you ignore or you resist your emotions, you actually are losing tons of energy because the emotion wants to move. Energy in motion. The emotion wants to move. And so you're using all of your energy to act against that emotion, to resist that emotion. And this is why feeling your emotions is so crucial because this is,

It actually takes your body so much more and so much more of your soul to resist the emotion in that moment and to push it off and avoid it versus giving yourself the space to feel the emotion. And so if no one has told you this throughout your life or just today, I'm here to tell you that your emotions are valid and that you are worthy of feeling the full spectrum of them.

And by feeling them, it does not make you weak, it makes you powerful. And so when it comes to feeling and releasing your emotions, the key is actually to learn how to distinct between your emotions versus your actions and how you choose to respond.

And so one of my favorite ways and I think the most amazing way to release your emotions is through the body. You can't think your emotions. You have to feel them. And the way you feel is through the body. And so the best way to release emotions is by movement. So if you're sad, go on a walk and be sad. If you're angry, go to a rage room and hit some stuff with an axe.

If you're really happy, go dance. Feel your emotions physically because that allows the emotion to release so much faster. When you avoid your emotions, when you push them off, then they linger. We don't want the emotions to linger. We want to feel them however much we need to and then release them so that they don't take over our lives.

And so one of the best ways to do that is realizing that if you can't accept the fact that you are experiencing that emotion in that moment, then you actually can't manage that emotion. So the first step is actually acceptance, is being mindful of the fact, okay, I'm experiencing sadness right now. I'm experiencing fear. I feel sad and angry, I feel happy, I feel joyful, I feel rejected, and you accept the

fact that you are experiencing that emotion because the first step is acceptance. When you accept it and you don't push it off or resist it anymore, then you can move through it. And something that I learned is this concept of post-trauma growth.

and I'm sure many of you guys have heard of the concept PTSD, but I don't know if many of you have heard of PTG. And so this idea is so empowering, and there's been a lot of studies on it, of how when we go through hard experiences, traumatic experiences in our lives, it obviously starts with the pain. It starts with the anger, with the sadness, with the shame, with the guilt, with the fear. And it is natural for our souls to go through that. And after, at some point, there is a shift. The

The breakdown becomes the breakthrough and then you start to transition into strength, into power, into resilience, into taking responsibility for your life. So after certain events happen in your life, you have the potential to experience positive spiritual and psychological change that happens amidst that.

And so this idea of PTG doesn't actually deny the pain or the deep distress that you went through, but it actually shows that adversity can actually unintentionally yield change in our lives and in the world and in our soul. I think this is such an interesting topic that I could really dive more into. So if you guys are interested, let me know in the podcast comment section below so that I can know that this is an interesting topic for you guys and we can dive more into it.

But another thing that I wrote in my notes is the idea that the mind can't tell the difference between imagination and reality. And so this is why, for instance, if you're being Delulu and you're having like Delulu visualization scenarios in your head about like...

your crush or like something really positive happening into your life, you start feeling that emotion physically. So maybe you'll have some goosebumps. Maybe you'll feel a smile coming through. Maybe you'll feel like excited and your body is like moving a little. Like all of these things are emotional, physical connections and reactions in the body. And so this is the idea that our body has physical reactions to our thoughts. And that is why concepts like mindfulness and meditation are so crucial because if we're constantly in thoughts,

victim frequency if we're constantly only focusing on the negative if we're constantly saying self-deprecating jokes if we're constantly criticizing ourselves then our body starts to believe that your mind body connection is so so powerful so i want to offer you guys a short meditation practice that i started to implement that i learned in the class that you can do wherever you are

So I would suggest you take around five minutes for yourself once a day to do this, ideally in the morning because that is when your subconscious mind is more receptive. But you can also do it before you go to sleep if it helps you fall asleep. But meditation is just, it's not just about falling asleep, you know, it's also about exercising your mind's muscles.

So if you're someone who struggles with negative thoughts, then what you do in this meditation is you close your eyes and you imagine you are at a train station. And every single negative thought or negative limiting belief that comes to your mind in that moment or every single just normal thought that comes to your mind because it's really more about being an observer of your thoughts and not attaching yourself to them, you notice the thought and

And then that thought enters one of the trains and you see it rush off. Another way you can do this meditation is instead of the train scenario, you imagine that your thoughts are in clouds or bubbles. But this is just a really great way to start exercising non-attachment to the thoughts in the moment and coming back to the present. Because true wisdom is knowing that you don't actually know everything.

Because when we feel like we know everything and having that sense of control of our every moment, that gives us security. But the truth is the most true security in your life will actually come by accepting uncertainty and accepting that you can't control every single emotion that comes to mind. You can't control every single circumstance, but you can always control your response. And so something that my meditation teacher taught us to do is add this little notification on your phone once a day to pop up.

that says the affirmation, I accept this moment for what it is.

So at 12 p.m. every single day, that notification pops up for me. So wherever I am throughout my day, whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm feeling, it's this constant reminder to accept the moment for what it is, not what it should be. Because when I accept it for what it is, I can move out of situations that maybe aren't where I want to be. Because the moment that I accept something is the moment that I can shift it. So I invite you to join me and add that notification on your phone, in your calendar, and just add that affirmation to pop up once a day. I

I honestly love when it pops up because I find that throughout the middle of my day, it's always popping up in the most accurate time for me. So I want to end this episode by sharing a story that my meditation teacher told us about. It's a really famous story, so maybe some of you guys have heard it. But if you haven't, I love the story. So listen up.

once upon a time in ancient china there was a poor farmer who lived in a small village with his son the farmer owned a horse which was his most valuable possession and one day that horse ran away and so the neighbors upon hearing the news came to the farmer to express their sympathy

Oh my god, what terrible luck, they said. And yet the farmer simply replied, Good luck, bad luck, who really knows? A few days later, the farmer's horse returned and it brought with it a herd of wild horses. The neighbors, now got excited about the farmer's good fortune, congratulated him on his newfound wealth. But yet once again, the farmer remained calm and said, Good luck, bad luck, who really knows?

The farmer and his son set to work taming the wild horses. During this process, the son was thrown off of one of the horses and broke his leg. The neighbors were saddened by this misfortune and came to consult the farmer. Yet he responded with the same words, good luck, bad luck, who really knows. Not long after, a war broke out in the region and the emperor's soldiers came to the village to find all the able-bodied young men. The farmer's son with a broken leg was spared from the draft.

The neighbors, realizing the significance of the situation, acknowledge the wisdom of the farmer's perspective. That what may seem like a misfortune can actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. And so the moral of the story is that we can't control everything that happens in our lives.

and furthermore we don't know why things happen in our lives but we can always control our mindset our attitude and our response and by having that mindset of everything happens for a reason everything happens for my highest good even if it doesn't seem like it in that moment that is when we take our power back from everything outside of us and allow ourselves to draw and attract more blessings and more gifts into our lives

And so I hope you guys like this episode. Let me know if these types of topics are of interest to you because there's so much more that I love to talk about when it comes to mindset and meditation. So I'd love to hear your thoughts below in the podcast poll. And thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I hope you have the most amazing day and I'll talk to you soon. Beautiful souls, thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. As always, I will talk to you next week. Bye.

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