Autumn’s Edge 01: Super Simple 7-Day Meditation Challenge
Welcome, Soul Sibling, to Viral Mindfulness!
I’m here to shake things up and make you pause for a second—because I’ve got a system. Autumn has arrived, and I’ve been thinking about my meditation practice. Honestly, I’ve been struggling with consistency. But I’m not uncomfortable with the struggle. In fact, I embrace it because it’s something we all share—this question of how to get things done and how to practice.
How do I coax myself into doing the hard things, like meditation? I’m inviting you to join me for a 7-day meditation challenge starting right now—yes, today! It’s simple: meditate for just one minute a day for seven days. That's right, 1 minute.
Set a timer for one minute and just sit. If you feel like continuing after the minute, great! But it’s really about starting and ending that one minute. You’ll see that even one minute can have a profound impact on your practice and on you.
I started today, and I’m also teaching pop-up meditations with my students—my soul siblings. I wanted to share some insights I’ve had. I’ll also be posting a few meditation tracks here on the podcast feed, so stay tuned.
Key Thoughts on Meditation:
Pema Chödrön’s wisdom: Meditation isn't about becoming something better, it’s about befriending who we already are. I love that. It's a reminder that meditation isn’t a “fixing” practice; it’s about embracing yourself right here, right now.
The Inheritance of Practice: Meditation, to me, feels like an inheritance—a beautiful legacy passed down through generations. The practice itself is a gift, and I want to be among those who turn to meditation as a source of love, openness, and wisdom. Those are my people.
Challenge Reminder: For the next 7 days, I challenge you to just 1 minute of meditation a day. Sit. Listen. Notice. Love. Stay till the end of the minute. Let that be enough.
I’ll be back here to check in with you on October 3rd. In the meantime, enjoy the upcoming meditation tracks. Some will be guided, some will simply be the sound of water—so you can just be with it.
Welcome to Autumn’s Edge—a little slice of inspiration and calm as we shift into this season. Let’s sit together, soul sibling. We’ve got this.
Key Points for the Episode:
Meditation Struggle: It's common to struggle with consistency, and it’s okay. We’re all in this together.
7-Day Challenge: Meditate for just 1 minute each day. Start small and build from there.
Pema Chödrön’s Insight: Meditation is about befriending who we already are, not striving to become something better.
Meditation as Inheritance: Meditation is a practice we inherit—a gift that connects us to those who have practiced before us and will practice after us.
Mindfulness in Practice: Listen, notice, love, and stay until the end of your practice. Even one minute can be powerful.
TRANSCRIPT
Soul sibling, you're probably waiting for that, welcome to Viral Mindfulness, the podcast. I decided to shake it up and make you think twice. Like, wait. Oh, yeah. I have a system.
Hi. Just popping in. Autumn's here. I wanted to start off really simple, calm. I've been thinking a lot about meditation, and I've been struggling to be consistent with my practice.
And I am not uncomfortable with struggle when it comes to these things. I don't feel like it's something lacking in me. I feel like it's 100% something we all share in common. How do I do things today? How do I coax myself?
How do I practice? How do I not spend so much time on A, B, C, D, E, and do the things that I want to accomplish, do the hard things. So meditation, do you want to join me for a 7 day challenge? That's right. Starting right now today, Thursday, September 26th.
One of the pro tips that I love, there's something in our mind that says we have to meditate for 5 minutes or for 20, and we will not for the life of us. So I'm asking you for 7 days, 1 minute meditation every day. You sit, you get out that phone, you set it for 1 minute, and you just do it. That was my hand hitting the table. Sorry.
You just do it for the next 7 days. I started this morning. I also have scheduled with my y circle that I'm teaching right now, pop up meditations, which are 20 minutes, which I did a second meditation today with my students, my soul siblings, and I just came from there. And I had a couple of thoughts, so I wanted to share it with you. First up, I'm also going to put on the next tracks here on the podcast feed.
I'm gonna put a couple meditations for you. So enjoy those, use them, but meditate every day for the next 7 days until next Thursday, which is October 3rd. And I'll be back here on the podcast to check-in with you. 7 day experiment. 1 minute.
That's it. And if you choose to stay for longer than a minute after you do that minute, so be it. I want you to feel how going towards it, starting it, ending it for 1 minute has more impact and offer, an offering of assistance to you than you than you think. And sometimes it's that simple and challenging to get ourselves moving. So join me.
I'll be doing it from the coziness of my Huntington Beach Zen Den. The other things I wanted to share with you, one is a beautiful thought from Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron is such a great teacher, and we absolutely adore and love her. And she says listen. Open your heart.
Open your mind. Really just short. She says, meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and becoming something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The second thing.
I have this really beautiful thought. It takes me back to a beautiful play on Broadway I saw in the winter of 2019 and the winter of 2020 because the play, a straight play, that's a code word on Broadway, deep theater people, a non musical, a play with no musical theater, a straight play called The Inheritance. It was 6 and a half hours long, so they had a part 1 and part 2. This is the last play I saw before the pandemic shut Broadway down in a historic way. The inheritance, the title of the play is directly referencing HIV AIDS, and the inheritance that one receives as they contract, the virus known as HIV, human immunodeficiency virus.
There's also a very strong metaphor about the link between how you usually contract in the most predominant behavioral ways of contracting the virus. So I was thinking about meditation. I thought, what is the link, the connection, who meditates? And then all of a sudden, I thought, well, whoever has the courage and wisdom to consistently turn towards meditation as a place to love, to open, to practice, to learn. I wanna be with those people.
I want to dance with those people. I wanna make love with those people. These are my people. These are people who are, I don't know, peaceful, who are staying flexible and open. But then I thought over the history of the world, who are What's the inheritance of this practice where one sits, and attempts to stay for period of 1 minute, 1 hour, 5 minutes, 7, 9, 13, 15.
Why do we always do even 15, 10. I guess 15 is not an even number. 10, 20. The inheritance that is built into this beautiful practice, that is what I want to be a part of. Those are the humans that I want to belong with in a special club, those who have died, those who are living, and those who will be born.
Here's my quick remember reminder to you. Make Sid happen. Make it happen. Set the timer. Sit down.
And what if you just listen? So what if you stop trying to meditate and you just listen? And what if you just notice? And then no matter what you notice, just love, and then listen, and then love, and then listen, and then notice, and then stay stay till the end of your meditation. Continue under all circumstances.
So whatever the container is for your practice today, I'm challenging you to 1 minute for the next 7 days. Sit, then listen, notice, love, stay, stay till it finishes. All right. I'll see you on the next couple tracks with some built in guided meditations for you. Some will be the sound of water only.
1 will be guided. And also notice that each podcast episode now has a thumbnail cover with a seasonal photo of me or something interesting related to me. And the ones that are meditations have a little makes it happen circle in the upper right or left corner. So then you can easily know, oh, this is a meditation track, and you don't have to listen to anything, and you get to just meditate. And here we are at Autumn's Edge.
Welcome to Autumn, And welcome to this quick bite of inspiration and color known as Autumn's Edge.
