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On The Empowered Spirt Show podcast this week, I talk with Rachel Reid Wilkie about meditation and the struggles many have to sit still. Rachel shares her story and how this practice has opened up her creativity and allowed for new expressions to come forward for her.

Rachel shares her experiences on Entering the Mind and how she was able to move through the changes covid brought forward, guiding her to embrace a new world of creativity and possibilities, all by taking time each day to build her meditation practice.  She shares how this has helped her to overcome the fear of performing as she shares her art in a profound way.

Our conversation brought up a lot of important points and concepts.

Meditation can be many things to many different people.

Usually, it’s defined something like…  a practice that involves focusing or calming the mind using a combination of mental and/or physical techniques.

Everyone can do it yet people say to me all the time, I can’t meditate.  The can’t part is about sitting still and thinking that they have to clear their mind and not have any thoughts totally.

But the thing is, devoting time every day to sitting still is more to the point and that is really where people, especially empaths have so much trouble.

In our fast-paced society, it is hard to slow down and sit still for even 5 minutes. The average human has an attention span of just 8.25 seconds according to recent studies – 4.25 seconds less than in 2000.

For Empaths, meditation can be hard. 

The energy field is wide open so naturally, the mind tends to go in many directions at once.  Empaths are always on the lookout for what is about to happen and without good energetic boundaries, it is very easy to focus everywhere else except for the place you need to focus on, like getting quiet and tending to your own mind.

I’ve been meditating since 1997 and know the many benefits it has offered me. I teach focused breathing meditations, Reiki meditations, intuitive meditations, and guided meditations all of which vary in time and results.  

Personally, I love the quiet time.  I love the peace that it offers. 

However, here comes the confession, that I really didn’t want to admit especially as a meditation teacher, that I was skimping on my meditations.  I was busy teaching my students, doing live training and private mentoring, all using energy and meditative skills, but I wasn’t getting enough of my own meditation time. 

Don’t get me wrong, I was gardening, hiking, camping, and making jewelry,  all very creative choices which can help release stress, but I wasn’t using my meditation techniques and allowing myself to go deep within.

I was finding lots of excuses … too busy, got to get going, I’ll do it later until I finally made myself stop and address this issue.  What I realized was that I was allowing myself to be drained from helping everyone else which is totally an empath trait… help everyone else first.  

I know that when I’m drained and low on resources, it must have to do with pulling in too much outside energy and the very thing I need to do are the ones I tend to drop.

I would set my timer but started noticing that I would finish a few minutes early. At first, I was like, oh well, at least I did it but then would find myself jumping on Instagram. Oh no! 

What was my problem? FOMO!

Why did I think Instagram was more important than sitting in meditation especially knowing that meditation helps maintain my blood pressure, it allows for messages from Spirit to come in and it opens up my creativity.

This is a common issue for empaths. The boundaries slip.  Empaths become busy and immersed in everyone else’s feelings.  The self is lost.  Burnout and emotional exhaustion sets in.

Unconsciously, we absorb other people’s energy which can be overwhelming to our energy. This leads to feelings of anxiety, feeling the weight of the world (especially right now) or even depression with so many extra emotions collected… and then we become a mess and have a come apart!

Know what I mean?

Deep down I knew (taking my own advice) to just keep showing up each day, add in a minute or two, and I would get back to the practice I love.  I knew it would help in all the things I needed help with… creativity, new direction in my life, and even helping me get over a breakup

I admit many empaths may find it troublesome to sit still and calm the mind yet it is the very thing that can help with burnout and overwhelm that so many experiences on a day-to-day basis.  As I have found, stilling still in meditation will help you to get off social media 100 times a day. It will help you to improve your focus on yourself and calm the distractions of ADHD.  Yes, you will need to be patient with yourself as you build your time one minute at a time but you can work through that.

As I always say, notice what you notice in the minutes that you do build each day.

For more awareness on how meditation helps, you can listen to the Empowered Spirit Show Podcast here.