Meditation For Reducing Stress and Finding Spiritual Guidance!
Updated: August 3, 2021
I’m still riding the high vibes from an incredible weekend at OraclePalooza Virtual! Every year when we ask participants what they loved most about the event, we get a resounding response of, “The Guided Meditations!”
Meditation is truly one of the greatest tools that we as humans have available to us for regulating our thoughts and emotions, reducing stress, and finding a sense of peace and groundedness.
When you begin to meditate regularly, you’ll find that a feeling of groundedness comes more easily to you.
Instead of being pulled and thrown by every little thing that happens around you, you’ll discover your ability to stay in your center – no matter what is going on around you, returning without as much effort to that center if you find yourself “tossed around”. This is what it feels like to be spiritually grounded.
I think of this like learning to live in the eye of the storm. Everything can be in chaos and upheaval, but you are connected to a place of inner stillness and calm. Your inner state is no longer dependent on the things happening outside of you. (We’ll explore this concept more in my free workshop next week! Click here to learn more and to get free access.)
Meditation gives us flexibility and resilience to meet life’s ups and downs
There’s a common myth that the goal in life is to reach a place of balance.
Personally, I don’t think balance is always the ideal place to be. Life has ups and downs. Currently, we are in a collective time of change and transformation, and we are not in control of what’s happening in the world around us.
In times like these, balance doesn’t really serve us. Instead, we have to aim to find a place of flexibility, adaptability, and resilience so we can ride the waves with more ease. So we can meet life on life’s terms with grace and maintain a sense of peacefulness.
As changes happen around us, we can meet them from a place of calm, observing what’s going on with discernment, and cultivating flexibility, responding rather than reacting.
When things don’t go the way we want them to, we can be resilient and have healthy boundaries with ourselves and our emotional reactions. If we do find ourselves reacting we don’t stay in that state long, and we can recover much more quickly. But, it’s not about repressing or bypassing our feelings, rather we learn to ride the wave of that energy and discover what good could emerge from them.
Compassion and empathy for others often come from our more challenging experiences.
It’s important to have flexible boundaries and those boundaries always begin with the self. If you want to work on reducing your stress, you need to begin setting boundaries with yourself and your own thoughts and emotions. When your fight/flight/freeze reactions and inner chatter run the show, you can’t approach your life from a grounded place.
Using meditation to escape fear-based thinking
Practicing meditation helps us stay grounded. And when we’re grounded, we can listen deeply.
Through spending time getting centered and in touch with our inner-selves, we can reach a receptive state where we are able to listen to guidance from the Universe – the little clues and hints that are being shown to us all the time – but that we might miss otherwise.
From that place, you can shift out of always looking for evidence that the thoughts and worries that swirl through your mind are true. Instead of looking for evidence that you’re right to feel afraid, you can get into flow with life and experience true spiritual guidance.
Escaping the cycle of anxiety and fear-based thinking is just one of the many benefits of meditation.
The fact is, no matter what we do with our minds, we can’t control our outer world. Things can change on a dime and ultimately, we have no idea what’s going to happen! The last year and a half have been proof of this, and there is more to come.
When you practice meditation, you can come from a grounded place that allows you to stay in the adventure of discovery – watching life unfold and being brave in the face of fear. Not needing to try and control the things that actually aren’t in your control anyway.
From a grounded place, you can make more magical choices
The magic of life and the Universe is all around us.
Little messages from Spirit are always being sent our way to guide us toward our highest good. But if we’re stuck in fear-based thinking and distracted by our every thought, we can miss out on the magic of life.
Meditation is a key component of slowing down enough to get into the flow and start living a Spirit-led life that’s full of magic. Because when you’re relaxed, grounded, and centered, you’ll begin naturally making the kind of magical choices that help you move from who you were to who you’ve always desired to be. This is where the benefits of meditation begin to make deep and profound shifts in the course of your life.
“Slowing down” has become kind of a buzzword these days – something you hear floating around on social media, but often without a concrete description of what this looks like or how to do it.
If you really want to discover how to slow down in life, you have to begin within yourself. You have to address the mental chatter and come to terms with the places you need to have better boundaries and discipline. Having discipline with your thoughts through a practice like meditation means opening up space for magic in your life.
You can’t get there from a place of reactivity, fear, and chronic stress or worry. And although there are lots of tools and practices that can support you to become more grounded and aware of the guidance of Spirit, meditation is one of my absolute favorites.
I’ve meditated almost daily for 35 years ever since early in my spiritual journey and I’ve watched thousands of people transform their lives, get more connected to the Universe, and claim the future they desire by practicing meditation.
How to begin practicing meditation
In order to begin reducing stress and feeling the benefits of meditation, you need to find a way to make this practice feel accessible to you. It’s best if you can find a way to bring your spiritual practice into your daily routine.
The great thing about meditation is that you can start small. Even meditating for 5 or 10 minutes a day can change your life if you’re consistent with it.
One of the very first kinds of meditation I ever tried remains one of my favorites to this day – guided meditation. Guided meditation is great for so many reasons, but especially because of the way it helps us bypass the subconscious mind (the stories we tell ourselves and the memories about our lives) and get to a deep place of centeredness.
At my recent event, OraclePalooza Virtual, I led thousands of spiritual seekers from around the world through 7 original guided meditations to help them become more spiritually grounded and find clarity to create the sacred vision for the life they dream of.
Meditations were some of the most powerful parts of our live event last weekend. I’m offering special access to a couple of my meditations in my new FREE 3-part workshop.
Get The Top 3 Must-Haves From Colette’s Spiritual Toolkit!
All the Mystical Insight and Spiritual Practices You Need to Trust Your Unique Journey and Claim Your Higher Purpose.
In this free workshop, you’ll get three days of videos with highlights and exercises from OraclePalooza Virtual, along with several of my favorite guided meditations. And on the fourth day, we’ll meet for a live Personal Transformation Plan Workshop to create a plan that feels aligned to bring your sacred life vision into reality.
Click here to learn more and to get access to my free 3-part workshop.
Thank you Colette Baron Reid for the beautiful opportunity it was absolutely amazing. I learned a lot about myself. Today I feel rooted and grounded..
that makes me so happy, Tonia! woohoo! I’m super proud of you!!!
Your messages always resonate with me, Collette. Yes, this time has been hard. Not as hard as some people, but has been a challenge for me personally. As my almost 90 year old dad, who has been independent-thinking all his life, now needs help with the things he’s always been able to handle. He still lives in his own apartment, and I live right near him in an apartment. His memory and focus for things is leaving him, it takes him longer to do things, but his stubbornness and arrogance makes it difficult for me to help him. It’s difficult for him to admit he needs help, like he said, “I’ve never been through this before. ” So slowing down, for me, has been taking moments to realize how I feel and how to respond so he trusts me. You’re right in that balance doesn’t always come, but taking a few minutes lets you deal with life challenges.
know that the Universe is always by your side. you are never alone. please know that I am thinking of you, Bonnie. sending you so much love ❤❤❤❤
Thank you, Colette 🙂
you know that I got you, Bonnie! 💗
I am so excited to finally start my spiritual journey properly. I have heard so many amazing things about you and I am so excited to be doing this with you.
I’m so grateful that we have crossed paths, Kelly! I’m so honored that you’re doing this with me! looking forward to seeing you there!
Thankyou Colette really looking forward to this workshop ❤❤❤
I’m looking forward to doing it with you, Suzie! see you there!
Have just done Oracle palooza virtual with you and 4 200 other wonderful lije minded people, I loved every minute of it, thank you do much Colette ❤ your a wonderful teacher, and I loved you all ❤❤❤
thank you for joining me there, Elaine! hope to see you again on the next one!
Dear Sister, Your meditations are above and beyond any I’ve ever listened too. I could easily put myself INTO the place you were leading me. That rarely happens as my mind is full of monkeys who don’t like to be still.
I’m still on my OPV high and don’t want to come down. I’m just so thankful Divine Spirit crosses our paths… in the most beautiful quiet way. I’m so thankful.
I’ll see you tomorrow in Oracle School! 🦋
I’m so grateful that you loved the meditations, Darci! welcome to Oracle School! you’re gonna love it there! 💜
I am new to guided meditation, I really got something from each one at OP2021, which surprised me, as each journey was different 🧚♀️.. I am already looking forward to this new event! 😊 🙏.. ps. I saw a dragonfly right after event wrapped. Can’t remember last time. Hugs!
Looking forward to spending some more time with you.
Thank you Colette! The guided meditations were definitely ONE of the best parts of OPV this year.
thank you so much, Jessi! it brings me so much joy to know that you loved the meditations! hope to see you on the next Oracle Palooza!
Collette, your meditations are amazing. Each one geared to divinely shift one forward into next phase of acceptance and open awareness. Just blew me away and tears. Am so happy to have found you and this OPV2021 was wonderfully done. True thought, shared purpose, safety and concern that everyone is accepted in a safe space. Truly a great gift. Thank you for doing that for everyone and sharing your authenticity so that others can see it can be achieved as well.
I am so happy that we crossed paths as well! thank you so much for joining OPV and bringing your energy there, Ann! so proud of all of you! 💗
Colette,
I’m still enjoying the events of last weekend that are still fresh in my mind, but I find as I settle back into my routine the Goblins of daily life are starting to creep back in. One of the changes that I did learn from this past weekend was that meditation does wonders, and I’m going to try to include that more in my daily routine. The meditations that were included in the Oraclepalooza were wonderful, and I hope that you do release them on your website eventually. Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend that almost didn’t take place.
As I was going through my daily grind, I started feeling myself getting worn down. The past 18 months of isolation, the vitriol that has been exchanged between people, and the overall climate was depressing. Like many people I had plans before COVID; I wanted to travel, a young lady that I have been talking to wanted to get together and see some things, and I was looking at taking a job overseas, but when the world locked down those plans went out the window. My plans weren’t working. I started to see the emails for Oraclepalooza and something kept telling me to sign up. Maybe 10 – 14 days before the event I decided to sign up. It was going to be a weekend to reset, relax, and rewind. Little did I know that all of the “re”s that I was looking at came from a nasty Transiting Saturn/Transiting Uranus square, and they were both retrograde! I knew that it was time for internal assessment, as Saturn is the “teacher” and Uranus brings about sudden changes, which pretty much covers the last 18 months. It was residing in different houses for everyone but for me it was my 4th and 7th houses. The last time there was such an alignment were the years just prior to WWII. Hopefully we have learned from those events.
As I prepared for my weekend, I took an extra day off from work for the start of the event. I disconnected from the outside world as much as possible. I turned off the TVs, no phones, no social media (except for the Palooza). I wanted to remove as much stimuli as possible. Just like your ears ring after you go to a loud concert and you need to get away from the stimuli for them to recover, I believe your body needs that same time to recover from such stimuli. I read, meditated, and my mantra for the weekend was “just go with it”. I hadn’t been to the previous Oraclepalooza so I didn’t know what to expect, but I was determined to use the time to invest in myself. I was determined to embrace the themes of the weekend: Trust, Become, and Claim.
As the event started there were a few difficulties. It takes some doing to bring together some 4,000 people from over 50 countries for three days. Given the square that was hitting at the time patience also seemed like a theme for the weekend. Most of the technical difficulties were resolved after the first day. We were placed in groups that were assigned to random breakout sessions after each exercise. The groups were fantastic, given that we were from all over the globe from many different walks of life. I was a member of Group 6: The Palooza 6, The Rainbow 6, the 6 Light Brigade. We gave ourselves many different names as we talked to each other in the chat. The first day I shielded myself from the chat a bit because I wanted to concentrate on the lessons, but as the breakout sessions continued, I discovered that we all wanted more time together. There was something that led us to this moment in time so it was interesting listening to everyone’s stories. As cledons go, I didn’t know if I was there to give something to someone else or if they were there to give me something, but at the end of the time I think that it was mutual. There were many touching stories: stories of achievement, stories of perseverance, stories of acceptance. As I listened to some of the stories that were being told I thought to myself,” Wow! I haven’t been through half of what this person went through. What do I have to complain about?”, but as the discussions continued, I remembered a mantra that I had developed a while back when I was blogging on your site: Don’t measure yourself with someone else’s ruler. We all have been placed here to learn many different lessons, each learning their own. What may be easy for some that is difficult for others is because you are not here to learn that lesson this time around. Maybe you’re here to assist someone who is learning the same lesson that your soul learned a few lifetimes ago. Either way, it was good that I remembered it and it seemed that my fellow Palooza Sixers embraced it as well.
As the weekend continued there were many fun and funny events. During SPIRIT JAM a woman’s grandmother came through that had everyone rolling on the floor laughing (at least I was). It was a “you had to be there” moment so trying to explain it wouldn’t do it justice. The dance sessions were kind of funny, especially as you discovered that maybe the words to one of the songs might have been a bit risqué, but hey, it was all in good fun.
On the third day we had gone through the lessons for the day and the event was winding down. I think everyone was a bit tired but it wasn’t a distressing tired. It was the feeling you have after you do a good day’s work, a feeling of accomplishment. I was thinking about getting back into the normal routine of work, trying to decide if I wanted/needed to go to Oracle School, and wanting to maintain my connections with the people I had met over the weekend. As all of that was going through my mind, and during one of the last events of the whole weekend it happened:
Colette picked me to share the cards I had picked during the exercise.
Okay, this isn’t happening! Now I had been to a workshop that Colette did with Sylvia Browne MANY years ago, participated in her blogs for a time when I was going through a bad time, and read many of her books. I don’t know if you remember this, but when you were writing “The Map Uncharted” you had asked some of your bloggers to submit some of their writings for the book; I was one of those writers! I told myself that if I had a chance to talk to you, I would mention the time that writing in your blog when I was flat on my back for a year fighting an autoimmune disease that acts a lot like COVID helped me get through it. I seem to recall that back then that the theme, at least for me, was patience. I wanted to acknowledge my fellow “Palooza Sixers” who were going nuts because I got chosen. There weren’t a lot of people chosen from our group. I felt so bad for a fellow “sixer”, April, who had audio problems the first day when she was chosen to participate and share her cards. There was so much going on and so much to coordinate, and although you said that you would get her back on at another time, but I knew that the odds weren’t good. I told her that I would ask them to choose her over me if I got the chance to speak. I don’t know if Spirit was accepting my challenge but there I was. Did my microphone work? Did I have anything in my teeth? Oh dear! Although my fellow sixers were cheering me on, I was thinking, “Don’t screw this up!” When I finally got on camera and saw myself, I noticed that there was an audio delay. “Don’t pay attention to the delay, just speak.” I was trying to remember all of the things that I wanted to say. I even put your mantra, “What is for you won’t go past you” as my screen saver and desktop on my computer. I’ve had it there for years and made it my Zoom background for the event. As I was trying to get all of these acknowledgements in and trying to remember what I wanted to say I remember pointing to the mantra on the screen as my background. Now I remember during the first day of the event you wanted to see us who were on different monitors but your producers kept telling you to look into the camera to talk to us, in doing so you couldn’t see what we were doing but only hear us as we talked. So, as I was trying to explain that I had this desktop and background for the event after the fact the realization came: “She couldn’t see what you were pointing to, you dope!” That was cringeworthy to me because I know how producers don’t like “dead air” and there were a few moments where I wasn’t saying anything. I had on a sunglasses filter that gave me the Morpheus look from the movie “The Matrix”. I like the look because so many people think that I look like Laurence Fishburn and also to remind me that a lot of the systems that we live under are just different levels of control, and that I need to pay attention and look around from time to time to determine if I’m doing it because I want to or because someone else wants me to, or expects me to; I have the power of choice. I managed to move on and discussed the cards I had chosen for myself after the event: 20 – Flying, 51 – Moonbeam. I told the story that we had talked about in our breakouts about the bird with the broken wing who was rescued and nursed back to health, but mentally he didn’t know if he could fly again. The Moonbeam card was about trusting your intuition. With the selection of these cards at the end there couldn’t have been a more fitting ending to the weekend.
We all have been knocked off of our perch over the last 18 months. It definitely was a time to look inward, to examine where we were in our lives, to pay attention. There were some important things that happened that begs the question do we want to continue on through the monotony of daily life doing the same things that we have done for decades, possibly facing our own demise, or do we want to change the way we go? I leaned that my plans haven’t been working in the wake of COVID. Maybe it’s time to trust that there is a bigger and better plan. When you spread your wings wanting to take off, wondering if you can fly it is comforting to know that there is a net below you to catch you if you fall. The takeaway for me is that if I spread my wings into a worthy endeavor that I want to try, I shouldn’t be looking for a net below, I should trust that I won’t fall to begin with, because Spirit is the wind beneath my wings. (kinda cliché, huh?)
Please thank all of the people who worked so hard behind the scenes to put on this event. The breakouts were great, I wish they were longer. Although myself and the rest of the 6th Light Brigade managed to create a channel to stay in contact perhaps there might be a way to join random breakout room during breaks, before and after the day’s events, so that we can converse with each other. Of course, that is only for the ones who want to. Oh, you might want to curtail the “Bring Your Own Unicorn Night”; I noticed that some people couldn’t keep theirs from jumping all over the furniture and they kept eating all of the snacks, but I digress 😛 Thanks again for all, see you at the next event, hopefully see you next year for Palooza ’22, and maybe even Oracle School! Until next time!
Best wishes,
Eric
hi, Eric! thank you so much for joining Oracle Palooza and bringing your wonderful energy there. I enjoyed reading your comment, every single bit of it. I hope to see you again on the next Oracle Palooza! stay kind and radiate positivity! 💗