How to Create Lasting Change Through Meditation: A Conversation with James Ripley

Anita Adams: 00:00:04

Welcome to the joyful journey podcast. If you're looking for more clarity in your life, clarity of purpose or how to activate that purpose, and you are someone who wants to operate from your highest self to be a force for good, you know this world craves, then this is the show for you. I'm Anita Adams, your host and guide to finding clarity and creating a life you love. Let's tap into our inner wisdom, access our highest self and unleash joy. As we do this, we raise our vibration and heightened the collective consciousness. And that, my friend, is the joyful journey. Let's dive in. Hey, joyful journey here and Anita Adams here your host and today I'm excited to introduce you to James Ripley, who is the founder of the guided meditation Institute. For the past 30 years, James has studied how we can create real, lasting change by leveraging the power of our meditative states, our presence, and what guides us. James is a writer, speaker and trainer in Boulder, Colorado, who is certified in the art and science of guided meditation. In addition to teaching this skill, James loves working with growth oriented entrepreneurs, coaches, therapists, podcasters, and speakers, especially if they are in major life transition, and are curious about doing deep healing work with psychotropic medicine. His specialty, is the two hour guided meditation session that can be expanded to the two day medicine journey retreat. And he'll put a cherry on top by creating a custom guided meditation for you that includes your most powerful symbols for lasting change. He calls it your guided meditation to live by welcome, James. I'm so excited to have you here. Thanks, Anita. Appreciate it. love being here. Awesome. Sherry on top. Yeah. There's a lot there. You know, I don't think I have ever received a bio from someone on this show that has sparked so much curiosity with me. And it's feeding a lot of the questions that I'm going to ask you today. But before we dive into all of that, I want to hear about your personal journey that led you to the work you are doing today. Can you give us a little insight into into that?

James Ripley: 00:02:37

Oh, my gosh, how far back should I go? Whatever feels right. When I was five, I won't start with the therapy sessions. Let's go all the way back. I think the interest probably peaked in terms of meditative state. And what guides us just a little context set up here. The work I do is about guided meditation, which to many is guided meditation, that's a scripted, guided meditation. Sometimes we hear on headspace or calm or however it gets delivered. But the guided and the meditation are two separate parts. And so really, what, what's happened for me over time, and where it started was, the experiences I had in a meditative state that I didn't know was meditative. And then the experiences I had out of that which, in some way or form, I was feeling like I was being guided by something, right, something bigger than myself, or even something that's compelling. So I think, to back it up the interest in guided meditation, I think my first experience was back in college with a hypnosis society, I got exposed to a little hypnosis, we did one of these helium balloons on your hand, your hand goes up, and Wow, isn't that interesting? That felt very real. And from then on, I, I really tuned in to how real our imagination can be, and how our imagination can be guided and what our imagination can guide us to

Anita Adams: 00:04:12

just clarify, so is it an exercise where you're imagining your hands on a healing? helium balloon,

James Ripley: 00:04:19

right, there's a helium balloon, you imagine a helium balloon tied around your hand and then imagine the helium balloon rises to the sky and your hand starts to lift. Okay. Very, very basic exercise for hypnosis, one on one introductory,

Anita Adams: 00:04:31

I've never done that. And I think that's really close. So that that triggered some interest in understanding I

James Ripley: 00:04:37

really did because I was getting a degree in Finance at the time, and I felt like I had to balance it with something a little bit more esoteric and inward, right? Finance was, you know, I'm a spreadsheet junkie, but I'm also a guided meditation nerd. So I had to balance that stuff back then, not knowing what guided meditation was at the time. Hypnosis is really in many ways a guided meditation in terms of what I can, how I would define it can be. So from there, I think what happened was my mind father had passed away in college, and really made an impact. And one impact in this way is that I became very curious on how I could stay in contact with him. And I didn't, I felt like he wasn't gone, even though he was gone. It just didn't feel like he was gone. And I became very curious. So I explored things like astral projection, and hypnosis, and meditation and these things. But ultimately, fast forward a few years. In 1996, I arrived at the Telluride mushroom festival, with all the, with all the big names. And in that, I mean, there were there were big names. So the folks who are in charge of that Terence McKenna's of the world and Alex greys, and, and they were there. And I was told to go there, because for two years, I've been bugging my friends, asking them what, what is God? What is spirit? How do we how do you guys connect with that? And what is this place? Because my sense of reality really is, we're all talking to each other, we have this connection, somehow we communicate. But how is this really happening? Like, what? How is this even possible, right? Beyond the religious type of stuff I wanted to have. And I think what I was really asking for it was an experience. And all of them in the room about at once got irritated me at the party and said, James, if you really want to know you have to have a direct experience of it. And, and they said, you've got to do five grams of mushrooms. And I thought at the time, well, that's crazy, because don't drugs make make things bad drugs are bad. And I ended up at the Telluride mushroom festival, getting in contact with someone who could help me out, we did just a good friend of mine who's one of my closest and longest friends, we ended up doing a very small dose. And what happened was, a party ensued a very nice party for 28, I think a 26, or 20 year old guy. And what was exceptional about it extraordinary about it really in terms of its state was I became less interested in the party with all the good looking girls, and more interested in the tree in the stars outside. I mean, seriously, and I did about three trips back and forth, going to the party saying that that's what I really think I want, but it doesn't feel better than the tree and the stars went back to the tree and the stars laid onto the tree and the stars. And I did this about three or four times before somebody finally said, James, what are you doing at that point, I just went back to the tree in the stars. And where that took me was to a place inside myself that in my experience felt very connected to spirit or God or something greater than myself that I belong not only was being guided by but I belong to. So the for me that that was a direct experience. My takeaway from that? And is this, we can talk about things. We can read books on things, we can debate on things. But until we actually go there, until we have a direct experience, we're just not going to have the learning.

Anita Adams: 00:08:35

Okay. And do you have to have psychedelics to get you there, though?

James Ripley: 00:08:43

No, no, in fact, psychedelics can impact the the physiology and the biochemistry. But at the end of the day, I think that, and they can help but I'm not a huge, I'm only an advocate for those people who are called to that. I'm a huge advocate of guided meditation journeys, without the psychedelic, so you don't have to do that as well. And ultimately, what got me to the guided meditation space was that I was doing a lot of these medicine journeys, having these amazing experiences. And then I would come back and there wasn't an integration practice. It didn't make the experience last and

Anita Adams: 00:09:24

dangerous because that that could cause you to want to do the psychedelics all the time.

James Ripley: 00:09:28

Well, and that's interesting to the the ones I did in a ceremonial atmosphere that I was in. There was never an addictive quality. But when I came, came back from the medicine journey or during the medicine journey, I there was one thing that always stuck out. I always felt more kind of myself and more compassionate to myself in an expanded state of awareness and then more compassionate to others. And many people have remarked that to me over the years of how when If they do a journey with me how there's just there's a calmness and a presence, a greater degree of calmness and presence than not, that's not always everybody's experience, but it's been mine. And, and from that I just sort of deduced, you know, what if what if we do this? It's just a state, right? We're going into a different dimension of ourselves and a state related to that. What if we go into this without the substance? Can we do this? So I pursued the pasta meditations did a couple of those very difficult in my mind, but it's 10 days of meditate of meditating. I thought, well, who has time for that? Even though it's great for us? And there's a great science 2000 plus years of science behind it. I thought, well, how can we get there a little quicker? And and then I found and I kept asking and seeking and I found Anna wise. And she was doing guided meditation and brainwave work biofeedback work.

Anita Adams: 00:11:02

Can you can you tell us a little bit more about that?

James Ripley: 00:11:04

Sure. The, the guided meditation and brain biofeedback work. And essentially what she would say was, she's teaching the ancient art of meditation with the modern day, science of biofeedback, what I got to do, I got a great opportunity with her. She was toward the end of her life, unfortunately, and disabled many ways. But she was still exceptional on her private sessions, I got to sit in on her sessions that she'd been doing for 30 years. And watch people's brainwaves as they're guided down for two to three hours, seriously, they would fly in from Italy for a two to three hour session, then fly right back and pay her money for this. And what she did was she guided people down into a meditative state, and then she would help them walk around. Now think about this. Meditation typically is, let's, let's try to meditate. We think of meditation as we do a meditation we meditate. And what I like, the way I like to see it is, we have meditative states, we experienced them all day long. Let's drop into a meditative state. And then walk around and see how things look. And things she would look at. And what I look at today are what you really want in your life. Right, not the grocery list. But what you really want your heart desires, what your heart desires, and the deeper we go into a meditative state or the greater degree of presence, the easier it is to access that and get clarity on it, and stay connected with it.

Anita Adams: 00:12:38

Okay, you're still speaking my language. And I love it. I feel like you and I are doing such similar work from two different two different angles. When you say get into that meditative, meditative state and walk around. Are you are you actually talking about physically walking around? Or is it taking a journey walking around in your imagination,

James Ripley: 00:12:58

I see walking around your imagination, definitely a metaphor, you're sitting still or in a chair or lying down. The walking around analogy I like because you're the person being guided, I'm facilitating but the person being guided, you're walking around your mind, your heart, your soul, your wall, you're exploring, I'm asking questions. And you're exploring what's there. In terms of that, how I see it in a in a session to our session, if Majan if there's a spiral staircase, and every minute, we come across something in your meditative state, and we look at it, and that's one step. And the next minute we do another step. And down, down, down, you know, after two hours, you've got about 120 steps, it's 10 stories, but you never noticed you're going down, down down 10 stories, you just notice one step at a time. So it's very gentle. It's very kind. But what's drawing you in is not just the state of presence, but it's also the content of our minds and our hearts. And that's where it's where it becomes exceptionally powerful. Because it's not just a meditative state, it becomes a meditative state that reveals something profoundly beautiful about you about what you want, how you want your life to feel, who you want to be the the obstacles that are in your way. And of course, you know what's bigger, what guides you. And, of course, the most, one of the most interesting things about dropping down deeper into our selves into the states, or inner dimensions is that the deeper we go, the more access we have to these deeper parts of ourselves. And the more clearer it gets. And the deeper we go with what we really want. The greater access we get with the deeper feelings of how we really want life to feel and the deeper part of who we really want to be. It's like hyperlinks, superficial, we get superficial we get Deep we get everything deep. Not. And when we go deep, we never lose access to the superficial. That's the irony. But if we stay superficial, sometimes we don't have access to the deep. Yeah, absolutely. And

Anita Adams: 00:15:12

it's so that tapping into the feelings, they imagine that must be such an important part of the journey, because that's, that's where you, you can really end up manifesting what you're wanting. Right?

James Ripley: 00:15:25

Yeah, I there's, I like to the five things I mentioned there, I really use those as facets, what we want how we want to feel who we want to be, the obstacle is always opposite what we want, right? And then, you know, ultimately, the bigger thing what guides us. But one of the key questions that seems to really do it, if people are struggling with any of that is, most people have an easier time with answering the question, How would you like your life to feel? Or how would you like your creative life to feel or today to feel? That's easier than what would you like? You know, what do you want? What do you really want? Or what would you like your life to? You know, what would you like to have happen? So that feeling sometimes becomes a really nice starting point that we can expand on with those other things?

Anita Adams: 00:16:19

Can we go over the five things again? And would you start with the hell do you want your life to feel?

James Ripley: 00:16:26

Yeah, I would start with I always ask, you know, what do you what do you really want? What do you want? What do you really what do you really, really want, right? When it's asked that way, suddenly, it shifts things, it's not about the grocery list anymore. And for even for guys that are providers, it's no longer about the money. They come in, guys, they come in, and I mentioned this to you before, a lot of times the guys it's it's so common that they come in, I asked them what they want, we're just starting to ask questions. And then they say, Well, I want to have more confidence. I said, Well, why do you want to have more confidence? They say, I want to get more money? And why do you want to get more money? Well, it's so I can have a better marriage. Okay, why do you want a better marriage, why just want to feel love with my wife and have that original love back. And then we go a little bit deeper. And well, they want to feel loved by their whole family and God in the universe. And they haven't felt that for so long, and their work mode. And so that it doesn't take a guided meditation necessarily to get there. But when we dropped down into the guided meditation, with that information, it what happens is they can get an embodied experience of what that feels like. Instead of just thinking it and putting it on a sticky note, I want universal love from the universe where I want confidences, which is really superficial and means almost nothing. Once we drop down into a meditative state, they get an embodied experience of what being loved by the universe feels like, which now impacts directly impacts their relationship with his relationship with his wife, the money, the confidence, because we're going to the root. And once we get that experience, usually what comes out of that is a symbol or a metaphor that they can rely on for for the rest of your life a lot of times, and we're going

Anita Adams: 00:18:21

to come back because I think I want you to break that idea about the symbol down more, I want to come back to that. So but I want to know what those five things are that we that has we get deeper and just you've already said them, but I just want to make sure we've got this. So understanding what it is that you really, really want as a first question to ask.

James Ripley: 00:18:42

So first when I asked and do you want, would you like to know more about that question?

Anita Adams: 00:18:48

I'm sure. Yeah, we can. I mean, that's, that's what I always ask my clients to and when I talk about at my retreat, what do you really want, I really, really want. And I had an interesting conversation with somebody recently, in fact, I'm going to be releasing a podcast on this very thing that this client said to me that she thought it was wrong to ask yourself what you really want, because your ego is going to get into the way in the way and it's not going to be for the highest and greatest good for all and she really want wanted to be told what she should do for the highest, greatest good at all. And my response to that was that when you really tune in to what you really want and you're listening to that inner wisdom, your soul voice is always going to guide you to your highest self which is in line with the highest greatest good of all.

James Ripley: 00:19:46

Yeah, I like that. There's a few ways I address it because that comes up in the meditation community all the all the time. Meditation is not what you want. I would say well, if we're gonna meditate, what are we meditating for? To meditate more? I mean, that's pointless. So we're living a life we're an embody. So we're, we're human and spiritual, right? But what's, at the end of every one of my meditations, I always say, you know, and consider what? What your meditate now in forgetting it, but I always say, reflected on a few minutes what meditation can do for you and what it can be in service of right. But which you and that's the other part we explore. Is it the superficial? You? The ego? Yes. Is it a deeper you? Ramana Maharshi, I think he had a great quote, he's an old sage. And he said, Look, if you're going to be greedy for something be greedy for waking up. So that's a want to wake up. Yeah. Right. So at what level? Do we want to approach it? So I think wanting is, and that's why I have like the, you know, there's some levels there. What do you want on a superficial level and medium level on the deep level of who you really are? What do you want. And I found what we really want is, I mean, love, that's the connection, belonging, God, connection with spirit. And I have found that the psychic psychotropic medicines have showed me that is clearly as anything. It's so profoundly meaningful for me to be able to go into a state and be shown that nothing else matters, but just being which is in and another way to say that is just just be in appreciate that, what we have this moment right here, and then from there, and that is another, it's just another way to say love, to love and be loved. Just really appreciate the Beingness without having to do anything to change anything. And it has been my experience, as we dropped down into these deeper meditative states. What happens is we get in touch with that sense of just being. And from there we make, I think, I believe more informed, better informed decisions from a place of being and a place of oneness and a place of belonging, and unity and humanity than from a place of separateness and competition. All of its real, it is the great paradox, but

Anita Adams: 00:22:18

awesome. So you're the meditative states. That's the when you say that you're talking about going deeper, let's say you start at that, like you say, superficial level that is that meditators,

James Ripley: 00:22:31

superficial and ordinary waking state. There are, there are what they call table subjective landmarks are well known for 5060 years, at least 80 years at this point, table of subjective landmarks of psychophysiological relaxation, as our mind relaxes, and it shows up in our brainwaves, we can measure as our body relaxes. So imagine if you're reading a book, your body's relaxed. Let's say you're out in your work mode, driving around running around hyper aroused, and you come home, you sit down and read a book, your minds may be still aroused, excited in the book. And maybe you switch to Tai Chi. So now you're going to crank up your body a little bit, keep the body in action, but you're gonna relax the mind, right? We're relaxing one of those at a time. When we lay down to go to sleep. Generally, we're relaxing the body to stillness in the mind to stillness. Ideally, as we relax towards sleep, we end up really going into a meditative state. If we're to keep our eyes open, right, or awareness or awareness there

Anita Adams: 00:23:35

is that is that like that, that's data level

James Ripley: 00:23:39

terms. In terms of brainwaves, generally speaking in a meditative state, there is going to be a decrease in beta, which has to do with a rational thinking mind. So it's going to just quiet that rational thinking mind which is also where the inner critic arises. Okay, so we want to there's enough of that. So we quiet that we increase alpha, which really gives us an ability to imagine better centralized, so, if I close my eyes, I can see colors. I can, I can visualize things. And it also give Alpha gives us a sense of detached awareness, not just associated but detached. Which is it gives us a detached sense of worthiness from those the inner critic the doubts the complaints, the shoulds and Quds shoulda, coulda woulda, I mean, that's, that's beta brainwave, right there, it's beta land. So we want to diminish that increase alpha and then theta, that is generally associated as we increase alpha and then increase theta, generally associated with, you know, waking up and getting greater access to more of that subconscious or superconscious information. So that thing that's bugging in the background, but you can't put a finger on it. Well, that that information is there it comes up and comes up and alpha now you can see it because it's dressed up. And now what you can see sense Taste smell, but the state so alpha and theta generally increase with your meditative state. And depending on the meditation gamma can increase. If you're having a super blissful meditation, there's probably a lot of gamma there.

Anita Adams: 00:25:17

Can you do you recommend listening to like theta sound waves to help you get into that, that

James Ripley: 00:25:24

the binaural beats? Yeah, yeah. The entrainment brainwaves can help to a certain degree. They ultimately they're they're entrainment tools that help us get to a state there. They're what I call psychotropic light, because they their influence is to take us to a state or an intern or dimension within ourselves, they take us there, they sort of put their influence or force on us, or, or pull us in. So as it pulls us in, it's kind of if you ever sat in a passenger seat, and someone drove you somewhere and then next time you went to the same place, they asked you to drive you didn't remember a thing about how you how you get there. Oh, yeah. And that's the same thing with psychotropics and brainwave entrainment. It's it's doing the work. It's like it's driving for us, it's taking us to a special place for us. So it's still a lot of work. So we can just pay attention and look around and absorb, take it in and learn some things that way. But ultimately, we have to learn how to direct that journey, we have to learn how do we get there and get back. And so if I were to use, optimize the use of Brainwave Entrainment type tools, I would be not just paying attention to what's happening, but how I get somewhere and how I get back. And this is crucial if we're going to be working with any sort of state fluency. The most basic would be, we're in a state of anxiety, and we want to get to a state of calm. And this is what happens a lot. So people don't come into me to see me because they're in a great calm state, they come in because there's something bugging them, maybe create an anxiety. So the first thing we want to do is kind of just look at what the anxiety is like. But then we have to identify a state of calm and what that looks like. Okay, so how do they go from anxiety to calm it's like a little hike, going to figure out how they go on a hike from anxiety, calm. But more importantly, once they get to calm, we almost always forget about anxiety room or calm. Because when we're calm, we think we'll never forget this. I got this on Behold, we're back in anxiety again. So we not only have to learn how we get from anxiety to calm we have to learn how we go from calm to anxiety. And what that

Anita Adams: 00:27:42

is that just because you you want to understand what happened so you can stop it. You can stop

James Ripley: 00:27:48

making that journey. I like the word stop or have choice points. Yeah. So if I if I'm in calm now, and I start paying attention to those little tiny steps that I take that where I stopped to forget calm and I start to remember anxiety.

Anita Adams: 00:28:06

I now have a choice. Right? So it's an awareness.

James Ripley: 00:28:09

It's an awareness. It's awareness building. Yeah, so going back to the brainwave entrainment, there's two things to do with Brainwave Entrainment create tool. Pay attention to what's happening in the state so you can learn about yourself, that's one but also pay attention to how you're getting there and how you're getting back. So you don't need the entrainment tool anymore.

Anita Adams: 00:28:33

That's interesting. I've been you go ahead and go ahead.

James Ripley: 00:28:38

No, go. Isn't isn't that the purpose of biofeedback, if we have brainwave biofeedback instrumentation, the whole point of that is to learn about our brainwaves in a way where we can get rid of the instrument and the equipment. And do that go from a beta to alpha state without the equipment. It's biofeedback.

Anita Adams: 00:28:57

Okay, I get that. And that's probably the same idea with the psychedelics, you you experience getting there. And then you don't you don't use it anymore to get there. Because now you know what that journey is?

James Ripley: 00:29:08

Yes. In theory, yes, in theory, and now some of these medicines are really so powerful, it's hard to just, it's hard to simulate it or duplicate it, but there is an essence of it that can be and one of the things I found really remarkable in working with people on both both medicine journey, and just the guided meditation sessions where there's no medicine, there's no influence of any substance of any kind, is that they report one thing they get in those guided meditation journeys they never seem to get the psychedelics is a sense of clarity. And that a sense of clarity about the next job or the relationship or something, the sense of clarity about everything. And I 30 itself

Anita Adams: 00:29:54

at university

James Ripley: 00:29:59

and I think what happens. There's, they're, they're in an altered state from ordinary day to day, but there's still so much very much themselves, and there's not the influence of an outside substance. All right, it's, it's not it. Now, some of those medicines can create such a deep, deep connection was silly, take the person that as deep from where they're at on a relative scale, but it does give them that sense of clarity that I found they can act on. And one of the things I was reading about in the joyful journey to tie back around a little bit is, you know, what's the point of a joyful journey, a vision of a joyful journey if you can't act on it. And so, this is the reason why with medicine journeys, we have pre and post integration work. And all of that pre and post integration work or most of is done. Without any substance, it's done with your consciousness, your your body, our consciousness is the technology, it's not the EEG machine, or instrument. You know, ultimately, our consciousness is that technology, and the awareness is what we're training. Awesome.

Anita Adams: 00:31:10

In that that process that you talked about, and sort of going deeper, I believe you mentioned identifying the obstacles, or that there's, can you talk a little bit about that? Or do I have that?

James Ripley: 00:31:22

The opposite? I think, you know, if we looked at a coin, there's heads and tails. Anytime we want something, there's also something we don't want, for example, we want a sunny day, but it's raining, the rain is what we don't want. And because of that brain, we don't want we want a sunny day. So it's a polar, polar universe, right? So anytime someone comes in and says, you know, this is what I want to shoot, usually something they don't want. And so the that becomes, in my mind, just sort of the obstacle, in a way or the opposite. What I've found, and it's not what I want to tell myself every day, but what I have found is, you know, the obstacle does guide the way if we let it, there's a great stoic book out, the obstacle is the way and I, you know, just a little twist on that the obstacle can guide the way. And oftentimes, it's on the other side of the obstacle that gives us what we really want.

Anita Adams: 00:32:23

Yeah, okay, I want to I want to explore that a little bit more. You've mentioned a few times in this show. And when you and I spoke before about being clear on what guide you Yeah, and, you know, like, when I think about what guides me and what I talk about all the time is allowing your, your inner wisdom to guide you. But when you're using the word what guide you you're talking about something different.

James Ripley: 00:32:49

Yep, I am, I use a more generic sense. And I just tend to be more generic. I think one of the things that happened, setup for this, I got drawn to the brainwaves and the guided meditation, because I loved the universal language of brainwaves. Everyone has brainwaves, but not everyone's a Christian or a Muslim, or has that sort of spiritual or religious orientation. And so I found that allowed me to get away from things that could be potentially triggering or offensive and use a language that everybody can, can engage with meditation, which if we looked at brainwaves, it doesn't look a whole lot different than prayer, depending on how you're doing it. But brainwaves is a universal language. Could you remind me of the question?

Anita Adams: 00:33:41

I want to understand what you mean by being clear on what guides you? Yes, yes. Yeah. And you, you you also reference that sometimes it's our obstacles that guide us and I'm so curious about about that. So.

James Ripley: 00:33:55

So in a more generic sense, most of the time, people think you say what's guiding you and we tend to generally think of something well, what's the biggest thing that's guiding us is an angel, spirit guide, a book, a principle, or guiding principles, the North Star, you know, those are all good. I tend to back it down a little bit and say, Look, anything that is presently in your attention is guiding you to a certain degree. Also, there are things that are not in our attention, subconscious super conscious that are influencing us, past experiences, trauma, things we really want but we're not willing to admit yet we want those are guiding us to

Anita Adams: 00:34:38

so they felt like layers, they sort of the superficial layers of I've got this deadline tomorrow that's going to be guiding my choices and what I'm going to be doing because I've got this thing in my head, my mind that I have to do. And then there's a bigger life guides, like our principles that you were like our values that guide us and making choices. Those

James Ripley: 00:34:59

two if I'm opted out, I, I generally map it out again, with those five things I mentioned what we want, how we want to feel who we want to be our obstacle. And then the bigger thing was the bigger thing that could be honest, those five things tend to encapsulate the facets of what's going to be guiding us in a given moment. From there, we can fill it in. So yes, it's very generic approach, what what's guiding you, but when we drop down into meditation, and walk around, you know, what arises, is almost, it's hard to see that that whatever arises is separate from the intention that was set before we dropped down into meditation. So if we set an intention for calm or confidence in what shows up as I want to be loved, by the universe, or feel that love from the universe, right? The we might look at that and say, well, they're not connected. And I would say everything's connected. And it's not a coincidence that someone sets an intention for more confidence to get more money drops down into a meditative state. And what they're really wanting in that moment or experience in that moment, is a feeling of love from the universe. Right? And so those two are somehow connected. So what's guiding them? Well, now they get a choice. So it's, I think that question really is about it leads us to ask the question, what is guiding us? That we're aware of unaware of it? And do we want to be more intentional about what's guiding us? If we want our family to continue in a loving healthy way? Am I spending a few minutes every day focused on that vision of that family? That's healthy? And a future? Or am I just going about my day working out going through the motions? Right? So what are we going to put our attention on? So it's probably two steps and what guides us discovering what really is guiding us and pulling us, especially those unconscious forces that and also making a decision? So understanding what's guiding us, and then choosing? Choosing an understanding,

Anita Adams: 00:37:14

right? Yeah, it always comes down boils down to the awareness, isn't it. And that's what meditation helps us understand is that it turns us into an awareness of what's going on inside for us.

James Ripley: 00:37:27

Yeah, and it could be a three minute meditation. Now, here's something I'll share, it's probably, you know, this could be a little vulnerable for me to share, but it, it happens I've had recently and have a special relationship. And I wrote down five things, five daydreams that were going on in the background, that were self sabotaging the relationship. Now, these were never something I expressed, had I written them down or journaled at all, maybe I, I figured out how not to have, but their little daydreams that self sabotage that success, right. And yet, if I'm spending more time with those, or if I'm feeding those, or if those have some sort of strong influence on my behavior, especially unconsciously, it's going to be hard to overcome those. So the first step in this is, if we look at what guides us, if it's an obstacle, if it's anxiety, if it's a self sabotaging thing, to just allow it to at least be there, and then accept it, you know, to acknowledge it, accept it, and appreciate that is part of the transformation of any meditation practice.

Anita Adams: 00:38:35

That comes back to that what you were saying is, that the love for self and the universe is ultimately that highest level of desire that we all ultimately have within us.

James Ripley: 00:38:50

Say it again. I love it.

Anita Adams: 00:38:53

I'm looking at you like don't go have that, right. i My sense is that we all ultimately, we are all seeking the feel that sense of love and belonging, and that greater love of the universe that we are one and that if we lean into that, then we can we can get through the obstacles of our life. Yeah, I don't know. I feel I feel that it feels right. But I don't know. Maybe just it feels too. Too easy in a way

James Ripley: 00:39:29

too simple, too simple. Or too simple. I like that. It's not well, it is simple. It's just challenging. So simple. That's why we don't do it. As well as we could

Anita Adams: 00:39:42

expect life to be more difficult things to be worried. Yeah,

James Ripley: 00:39:45

I like what you said about that. Maybe we go a little more conversational on this, but I I like what you said about because my experience is as we go deeper or higher, higher self or deeper into meditative state deeper into being guided deeper listening. What tends to happen is it gives us a perspective that allows us to deal with the problem, or the problem doesn't even become a problem anymore sometimes. And it we can't deal with it at the same level. So it allows us to get above or below that, that level where the problem as a problem.

Anita Adams: 00:40:20

One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is to help people find other ways in to find that love to find that acceptance to tap into that compassion so that they can, they can lean into the best version of who they they are. And, yeah, so I wonder if we can talk a little bit about how we can help you that I

James Ripley: 00:40:44

love that. So, you know, guided meditation it can be, there can be some trickery involved there. Because I like to, you know, many meditation traditions would say, Well, you don't want to start with what you want. And my experience has been people want what they want, they're not going to stop it, and why fake it. So let's just start with what they really want, which is ego driven, a lot of times acknowledged, appreciated, appreciate it, just start there. That's where they're at. Yeah, that's what we want my god, let's put it at ease. I can't we develop a great spiritual life and still want a great house or a great relationship or whatever,

Anita Adams: 00:41:27

you know, wanting to make a lot of money or wanting to have a house,

James Ripley: 00:41:32

I think there's, there's something about honoring the personality, the ego personality of what's there. And it wouldn't be any different than if we're parenting a child. You know, if, if all they really want is a popsicle Get, get them the popsicle. Right, and look how they relax for the next 1020 minutes. And same with us Can we can we just give them a little bit of what they want. I have to say, I don't know if most people know this that are listening. But the way you create an addiction for someone as you slowly pull things away. If you give a kid a popsicle every five minutes and give it to him every six minutes, and eight and you start pulling away, you create addiction. So now if we're aware of that we can overcome it. But if we're not, then and when someone comes in for a session, the first thing I want to do is really address their superficial ego level needs, if that's what they're coming with, and activated with, let's at least look at those. Because I know that once we drop down into a deeper meditative state, that relationship is going to shift, you're going to realize that the money and the confidence, they still need the money and the confidence. But that deeper connection with spirit, that deeper connection with themselves, that calmness down there, that connection, it

Anita Adams: 00:42:52

can be the same want, but the desire for it comes from a different place,

James Ripley: 00:42:59

it becomes about the way so what were guided by as important, but the way we are guided by is even more important. Okay, good. All right. So we can be what guides us so many things. Okay, great. We know, there's all these things we want, but the way we're being guided and, and so, in that in a meditation, when we're really at a deep level in a meditative state, or in a deep state of presence, or we really feel we're being guided that generally feels like love, kindness, gentleness, firmness, versus the beta brainwaves going off and saying you should, or you could, uh, should have could have would have still means didn't anyway, so what's the point? I mean, get away from that. All the judgment, all that. And so what guides us? Yes, but the way and so, first step, if we're being guided by ourselves, the way we're being guided by ourselves is very critical, very judgmental, very ego. This normal, but it's ordinary waking state. To get away from that. We could look at the way we're being guided, but sometimes that just doesn't work. We just, we just go deeper to what guides us more deeply. And then we get at greater access to a different way. And if we're being guided from within more gently, with more love with more connection, a bigger sense of belonging. Doesn't that come out and our behavior with other people? Absolutely. Yeah. So for me, it's all in terms of the facilitation. It's, I love helping people discover that. You have all these this list of once you have a way you want to feel what's at the deeper levels. What does that look like? We drop down in there we look at the symbols, the metaphors, and we identify personal symbols, personal metaphors, that could be images or experiences We identify those that are uniquely unique to them. And here's why we, I don't know if you need an example of this. But the reason we do that is we want our meditation practice to be anchored in who we are, that we love. That's alive. That's relevant for who we are today. The things that make us feel alive.

Anita Adams: 00:45:21

Yeah. So that's the importance of the symbolism, or the symbolism helps you get into that meditative process. Or they state faster.

James Ripley: 00:45:32

Both. So when we discover, uh, huh, where do we start? Well, there's something called landmarking. Real quick, if you want to accelerate your meditation practice, imagine going on a 20 minute hike. And along that hike, it could be your favorite one, you notice rocks and trees and structures, you know, the hike, like the back of your hand. These are all landmarks in the external landscape. Imagine, if instead of the next time you go on that same hike, instead of starting at the beginning, you could just remember yourself forward to that tree that's 20 minutes in and sit down under it and and start your hike from there. Right. Now, you can't do that on hike. But in meditation, we can do that if I guide you in the native for 20 minutes, and you find a great symbol that represents that state that only arises out of that state 20 minutes deep, you can actually close your eyes access that symbol, it brings your right to the state like a hyperlink. And you just bypass 20 minutes of sitting staring at the back of your eyelids, which I find annoying. You know, just so. So what we what happened, what can happen is we want the state, we want to go into a meditative state, we can't get there. From here, we're going anxiety want to go to calm, we develop symbols, where we find a symbol that really anchors us to calm and we drop into that. So what we do if we're trying to go from anxiety to calm or ordinary state to a deeper state of meditation, we find that deeper state of meditation or that calm and we discover a symbol that reveals itself for each individual that's different, that only a rot usually only arises from that state, that becomes an anchor or hyperlink to that state. So instead of going from an ordinary state or a state of anxiety, where we're we can't get out of it, wanting to go there, we can just think of that symbol, embody that symbol. And it takes us it draws us right in. And so that that's how landmarking your state with a symbol can really accelerate your meditation process or your experience.

Anita Adams: 00:47:49

And you you do the coaching or the guiding with your clients to create and identify those symbols, correct?

James Ripley: 00:47:59

Yeah, identify and develop them. Yes, absolutely. And they're not hard to develop these symbols that arise there not a lot of these have been there for a long time. You know, every time a person goes to, it goes into a meditative state. Whatever they do to get them there, these symbols are always there. But it's just we have a tendency to diminish the value of them, because nobody's talking about them. No interesting. Do you know? Do you know why nobody's talking about them? No. Well, nobody knows. Nobody outside of ourselves knows they're there. Okay, well, that makes sense. So we, you know, everybody accused us up to the nice car, on the couch, and in the new furniture, and the new jewelry and all that. But the stuff that's happening inside that's so intrinsically value, valuable for us for state, for meditation for all of this, nobody's talking about because we don't talk about it. Right. And so what I want people to do is, when I help them to go down in there, and we go into a meditative state meditative state. And let's look at what's happening there. And that's why I say walk around, see what shows up that has energy for you. That's really yours. And and then from there, we develop that relationship, we develop it, and there's a relationship to it. And people, you know, I didn't know this when I started doing this. But these symbols become so valuable, and it's part of what goes into a guided meditation to live by. Because when the symbol itself represents what you want your life to feel like oh my god, now you've got a reference point, a symbol that keeps you in touch with what you want your life to feel like, and if it's a joyful journey, and that's what it feels like then that's a symbol now you can keep you have something visual, or experiential, right. Can you even ask a question? Can I give you an example that yeah, this one is fun. It's so No, that's five years old for someone and I, she, she started, we were talking out on a patio, just a patio one day. And she's a, this setup was this. She's a high stakes consultant and coach to kids. And she was really struggling with the decisions she had to make in our business, what offerings to give. And I think probably some of your listeners can relate to this. What offerings should I do? How would it affect where I live, how much money I make my finances, you know, my daily life, my time with my kids all that. And so she was spending a lot of time and mentors, and getting great advice. But it was often expensive, contradictory. And it still put her back at the beginning of not knowing which way to go Zig or zag. And she said, I just want to be able to make the decision for myself if there's a tiebreaker, or have some intuitive decision making process that's intact for me. So I don't have to spend all this money. I just know I'm making the right decision, or I know it's not time yet. And I said, Well, what do you want it to feel like? What do you want to feel like? She said, Well, I want I want it to feel like freedom and flow. Of course, these are values for her. But I didn't know that that freedom and flow. And so we dropped into that a little bit. Outdoors, summertime patio, a little guided meditation there. And what she discovered was that freedom and flow held an awful lot like her experience in Germany, France, at Monet's garden. Monet's got this beautiful garden, lily pads, people in service of him, that allow him a lot of freedom and flow to just create art. And she says, I want it to be like that she want and that became what she called walking in journey.

James Ripley: 00:51:58

Now fast forward a little bit. With that walking in Journey, she now has this experience because she was there her experience of being there, she can now drop into that, in her mind, like a landmark go right to walk in and journey. And she's now embodying an experience of freedom and flow, that's much more powerful for her than two words on the sticky note written down freedom and flow. Right, we wake up to that we just think, you know, five, six days in what's freedom and flow all about, I gotta get to work, right? But walking in Journey, where it's on a sticky note with freedom and flow. And she has an inner experience of that, because we walked around in that for an hour, developed it developed in the way she perceives it. Now it becomes a barometer for her for making decisions. And what, what she did with it, which was phenomenal. Fast forward. Five years later, I interviewed her recently, she will be part of the podcast coming up. I said, so what is it about that symbol that is so powerful for you, and I'm just gonna kind of actually read this because she, she said, this is for Erin. She said, It's so amazing how influential and reliable my walking and journey symbol has been in my life for the past five years, and how much I've grown to trust being guided by it.

Anita Adams: 00:53:24

Oh, I love that so much.

James Ripley: 00:53:26

Because every time I drop into walk in and journey in my mind, it always three things, it always feels good. It always is so true. And it really sticks five years later, really sticks. As a result, I don't make any big decisions without making sure the decision I'm about to make feels aligned with it and supports it in some way. Either, it feels like walking in jeopardy, or it will lead to it.

Anita Adams: 00:53:59

That's brilliant. That's very powerful. There's a strong feeling that's associated with that, that image and I get that, that she can drop in and measure it up to to that feeling of walking in jeopardy. So it's a symbol can be literally a phrase like it doesn't have to doesn't have to have like a, I don't know, a symbol of Monet's garden.

James Ripley: 00:54:25

So good question. So the symbol could also symbol could be an image for somebody, right? But that's still flat. What we ultimately want to go from is a word of freedom and flow to a symbol picture of walking in Germany, to your experience of walking in Germany, because now we're experiencing freedom and flow. We're not just thinking and that thinking mind is what's in the way to begin with.

Anita Adams: 00:54:50

Yeah, how long did it take for this friend of yours to create those connections? Was that just like in one session of guided meditation with you, or did it take many times to come and find that

James Ripley: 00:55:04

immediate, you know, once she got that locked it well she knew she wanted freedom and flow, right? People know their values what they want more of in their life. Some people it's connection, some people it's power, who knows, whatever it is some people it's harmony, or ease. But whatever that word is. She went from the word freedom flow to the feeling of freedom and flow, maybe having a static image of the walking into 72, then being in it. And one of the things we can do in a guided visualization or guided meditation, is we step into it, we walk around, so you're having in an embodied experience, and experience that many times is more real than life itself feels more real, and we can their subjective landmarks to a scale, we can actually check off on that, once we start having that embodied experience where even for a moment or two, it's just as real as this life. It has an effect on bringing that closer, it magnifies that, somehow it magnifies our ability for manifestation or for, it's just how it works. I mean, the science on visualization, and the effectiveness for even pro athletes is No, I don't need to prove it, go Google it. So and one of the other things that happens is really fascinating. I did not know this till recently. And it's, it's just a theory. least as far as I know, there's no science and I would love for anybody in your audience wants to reach out on this, this would be great. But these symbols, these metaphors that arise, they're happening before the rational analytical mind, the critic gets a hold of it. That's where it kind of the inner parent is. Now, you know, what happens when a parent tries to parent us there's immediate resistance, and resistance, it makes it harder when we have a goal or something that draws us. So we're now getting in contact with these symbols and metaphors that are that are about what we really want how we want our life to feel who we really want to be, we're getting in contact with them before the resistance brigade shows up, which allows us allows everything to start to tune in and align to it much more quickly before the doubts get in. And the the purpose of these guided meditations really, that are one to two hours long, is really develop it in such a way where it's so strong for a person before they leave that session, that doubts aren't going to be able to overcome it or get rid of it anymore. And we strengthen it. So at last

Anita Adams: 00:57:53

you, you mentioned that we might be able to do a demonstration of this guided that

James Ripley: 00:58:01

week can we can't so this, you know, I'll just set this up nice. I kind of I love the the idea of a job joyful journey. And there's so much about what you do, I don't know. But I, I did read enough about it and learn enough about it. What I did was I put together a guided meditation, it's it's my, it's just a standard guided meditation I use all the time, but I've got a little bit of a setup. And it's just a little bit of a reflection piece about what a joyful journey might mean for somebody. And so for your listening audience, who's into the joyful journey work, I thought that that setup in primer, might be a nice place to just get your mind to, before we drop into meditation, so much about meditation, or psychedelic journeys, or any big event is really about the setup, right? There's the pre and the post, you know, before a tree flowers, you know, the whole thing has to be healthy, right? It's just not going to flower if it's got to be set up, there's cultivation, there's that. So this is sort of the setup for that. It's one of the things I do for businesses too, sometimes if we're just they want to, and I was happy to do this for you. But sometimes it's nice to deliver your message in a warmer way. Same message just a warmer way. So I'm happy to do that. And so it's about seven to 10 minutes long. So you know folks listening right now if that's what it's going to be you're not going to hear me a whole lot here driving put this on pause. Right right. And you know, for the listeners there if you're actually going to do this or if you're not driving at home at the end and get out a sheet of paper and see if you can write down a similar to that comes up for you metaphor, something anything that arises. It doesn't you don't have to think it's relevant. Go by the feeling of it. Does it have a strong resonance for you a strong feeling the aliveness of it. Those things probably have a lot more power than we give them credit for. Just because they're inside. Also, I might want to save this. Can I mention one more little trick? Pro tip these please the low story. It's like three minutes long. There's a scale Liz she's such a sweetie. She's like a bucho five second wet and from a rural area. Love you, Liz, if you're listening, and this was probably 11 years back maybe 12. Now, I was I the pleasure to teach and wises workshop it's a five day awaken mine brainwave training workshop, all guided meditation for five days for 12 people it Aslan, loved it. And, but day three on a Wednesday, everyone's hooked up with brainwaves and we're on break and Liz is sitting off in the corner, still hooked up on brainwaves while everyone else is on break. And I looked at her brainwaves and she had the best brainwave pattern of the whole week. And I'm a little unsalted feeling a little offended because of course, I'm leading her guided meditation. And she's got the best brainwaves? Well, I'm not. So I said, Liz, you know, as being a lower of Robin, I just said Liz, you know, you have the best brainwaves of the week right now. And she looked over without even hesitating said, you know, James, I'm playing to duco every time I do Suzuko, I just, it's my happy space. And I learned something, I learned something. What I learned was, it's not about meditating. It's about the meditative state. Whatever gets you there, do it. And this is what my class I teach a class on this. It's about. It's kind of like a life hacking skill for how to get into a meditative state. I help people link, we focus, we look at what they do that they love to do everyday shower, gardening, hiking, couch potato, and whatever it is. We look napping, I do napping, that's how I do it. So we looked

Anita Adams: 01:01:54

so happy to hear you say that because I like to nap to nap.

James Ripley: 01:01:59

It's how I discovered meditation. I was taking power naps in high school and I'd wake up but I didn't want to. I didn't want my parents to know I was awake or they put me to work before dinner. So I just stayed still in the living still in the living room. And if I stayed still and didn't move, they wouldn't see me. But what happened was by staying still, that nap took me down out of beta down through alpha theta and into big delta. And then I woke up kind of like going into meditation from the underneath from the backside. It's like the back door. And I woke up in a meditative state didn't move. And I was just like laying in bliss for 1020 minutes before they said dinner. And it was just so ever since then I do that all the time. I take a power nap I wake up I still for a few minutes. And and it's so much easier to do that than to spend 20 minutes looking at the back of the eyelids trying to stay still. You have

Anita Adams: 01:02:47

this is huge for me. Thank you so much for sharing that because that's my My thing is to lie down and Yeah, and just have that little meditative NAP that is so energizing and refreshing afterwards. And yes, I've always felt a little guilty

James Ripley: 01:03:03

is like I'm not Oh, don't, don't don't, it's better for everybody. And then of course it relaxes the mind and the body. Wake up. The key is, once you wake up, stay still and don't engage with your thoughts. Just watch them. Blissful. Okay.

Anita Adams: 01:03:20

I'm excited about naptime today.

James Ripley: 01:03:22

There you got there you go. So so that was in that. But Liz was back to Liz, who was over in the corner plains to duco getting the best brainwaves over week. So Liz, what's going on over there? She said, Well, I placed the duo. And every time I do it, it's my happy place. I said, Well, how's your meditation going this week? She said, I'm just not doing that great, which I could tell from our brainwaves. I said, Well, how about you do this instead of you going to meditation? Next time? Why don't you just once we come back for guided meditation, just go to just to do go with place, your happy place, because that is a meditative state. And from the rest of the week, she just started off when she closed her eyes, she went to her landmark, which is to duco space,

Anita Adams: 01:04:03

in her mind's eye and like she went to place to do quote, and she wasn't actually on her voice.

James Ripley: 01:04:07

She wasn't actually playing the device, although she could have probably done that. But she had the brainwaves while she's playing. Interesting. Okay, so I just go to your hat, your, your Suzuko space, your happy space start there. That's a landmark to start at. Okay, so the whole time she was trying to meditate. And with the symbology what what we're finding or discovering about ourselves is, anytime we put church over there or meditation over there, a place we go to, and then come back from we've immediately created separation. Right? So we want to we want to meditation is union. So we want to we want to eliminate those conditions and the separation

Anita Adams: 01:04:50

and judgment, the shoulds

James Ripley: 01:04:53

and that's all beta brainwave. So if we dropped down into alpha theta, we have this native Lang wedge of our meditative state, this native language of how the universe speaks to us how the symbols that are that are there for us, to the universe speaking to us, in our own native language, love it, there are symbols and some are universal, some everybody experiences, a sense of lightness, a sense of growing a great size, those are kind of universal landmarks that a lot of people commonly experience if they go down into a deeper meditative state. But if we, if we go if we have this experience of great lightness, and surrounded by light, which is universal landmark, but we're also talking to her sister in the house, we grew up and, and having that conversation, in our, in our minds that's unique. And that's a symbol of love. Why does that come up every time? You know, why does it come up for someone when they say they want more confidence? Well, you know, and then they spent 30 minutes in their, in their mind apologizing to their sister for something that they did, that they felt bad for. Well, that erodes confidence. So that's the, you know, the the unknown obstacle that guides the way as well. The apology to the sister, even if it's in our inner mind, right. So Liz, did go ahead and have a better meditation week because she started to start with her personal symbols, not mine, right. And for that entire class for three days, I'm feeding heavily scripted, guided meditations, which are all contain my symbols or someone other writers symbols. And what I do in the private sessions I've learned to do over the years is create guided meditations that are more generic so the person can have a more personal experience. Okay, that's so interesting. Yeah. So in this, what they'll, what they'll get here is the next three minutes is just a set up a reflection, which has a lot of personal symbology around, it's a reflection around around the joyful journey, through reflection about what a joyful journey could be, what it's about for them. And as your listeners listen to this, they can start to, you know, go ahead and close their eyes and bring their attention inward and, and do that. And, you know, if you're ready, I'll just go through and drop them in. It's about seven, eight minutes long.

Anita Adams: 01:07:29

When I close my eyes, and you can do, okay,

James Ripley: 01:07:33

sure, yeah, keep the videos on, we'll have fun with this, but I'll just drop into it. And, again, for those listeners, if you're there with sticky notes or a sheet of paper, have that ready at the end, draw what happens for you assemble a metaphor and, and let a need to know what happened. You know,

Anita Adams: 01:07:51

and just one one quick question. Ken, would you be kind enough to record this separately afterwards, so people can also come back to it and not have to go through the whole podcast? Absolutely. We'll put it up on our top or something. Yeah, I plan

James Ripley: 01:08:05

on that it'll be a little bit more refined. You know if you'd like to, like version This one's it, but

Anita Adams: 01:08:12

I love the bootleg versions. Okay. Let's let's do it.

James Ripley: 01:08:16

All right. listening audience. And thank you, Anita. Yeah. So here we are. So when I looked at your, you know, he looked at your joyful journey process and all the good folks there in the pictures. What what came to me was, I started wondering what makes what makes for a joyful journey.

James Ripley: 01:08:43

You know, is it is it clarifying our purpose? Is it connecting with our potential? Is it understanding our nature? With all the changes we endure the triggers that arise within us.

James Ripley: 01:09:10

And those difficult life transitions that move us sometimes before we're ready. What if a joyful journey isn't just about who we choose to be what who we understand ourselves to be understanding where the joy is, then choosing choosing that joy then understanding it even more deeply. Understanding and choose mean to walking hand in hand the to walk in hand in hand to lean into that inner wisdom to look to listen to learn and take action what if the Life You Want To Live isn't joyful or inspired until you start living it worth far more than any potential or vision left unexpressed. The next few minutes is an invitation to come along on a guided meditation it's an opportunity to allow that joyful journey that's inside to guide you inspire you activate you and then express in outward action so if you please join me by going ahead and closing your eyes if you haven't already and bringing your attention inward

James Ripley: 01:11:32

with a deeply inward focus and consider what it is that you would like to heal or nurture or explore

James Ripley: 01:11:49

on your joyful journey consider what it is you really want and go ahead set that intention now and when you're ready simply release it let it go allowing everything to just be as it is aware of how this feels right here right now aware of how it feels to be you and begin to crystallize this experience in a word, a phrase an image

James Ripley: 01:14:02

something to remember it by something that allows you to return to this space more easily the next time. And begin to bring your attention to a close knowing that you can return to the space easily anytime, anywhere. Reflecting on what a few minutes of meditation can do for you and what it could be in service of When you're ready, coming back to the outside space, and for the listeners out there, you're welcome them. Get that sheet of paper and pencil out, draw out the best you can what you see what you experienced, what happened for you. And see if there's anything related to what you really, really want or how you'd like your life to feel or who you want to be. Maybe there is an obstacle in your way and that could be guiding you. Or maybe there's just something greater there than yourself that is supporting you and doing that for you. Thank you,

Anita Adams: 01:15:52

that was that was really beautiful. I can listen to your voice for hours. It helps your voice helps to really calm calm me, I just feel really grounded, just listening. I was really lovely. I had some really strong visuals. come to mind. So

James Ripley: 01:16:17

can you share for your audience? What?

Anita Adams: 01:16:20

Yeah, so there's a place for me that I just feel such expansion of love for yourself and my environment. And it's on Long Beach in the west coast of Vancouver Island. And there's just one the, the physical space is so expansive, it just goes on and on. And and when I'm in this space, I just feel so free freedom is one of my values as well. And full of love. And I've had had my husband actually proposed to me on this beach many, many moons ago. And we've brought our family back to this place every year. And it's just an incredible, incredible place for me of of connection, you know, connection and love and simplicity. I think that's a big part of what I want. I know it's a big part of what I want my life is simplicity. And yeah, so just dropping into this place on Long Beach, Vancouver Island chesterman Beach for those who may be familiar with the area you can see a visual is so spectacular. And when you look out into the ocean off and it's foggy in this part of the world, but I love that too, and stormy and cloudy and and there's so much energy in this space. So it embodies this environment embodies so much for me in this business vitality and life and energy, and love and freedom and I feel the wind in my hair in my face. And that just brings me alive. So yeah, it's it's awesome. That's that's gonna be my What do you call it a landing

James Ripley: 01:18:11

a landmark or a City landmark. So a landmark is you've identified something on the in the interior landscape, close your eyes, whatever that interior landscape holds, there are landmarks. It could be a landmark, that's a symbol, just a visual, it could be a landmark, that's more of a metaphor. So if you're What if you're in space and time you're walking on Long Beach, and you're embodying that, that's a metaphor. So it's a landmark metaphor. But that metaphor embodies, as you said, It embodies so much and embodies free and full of love and connection, simplicity and life and energy. So imagine, if you wrote those words down on a sticky note, a bunch of sticky notes, and you looked at those every day. Or you looked at those for five minutes, where you close your eyes and close your eyes and go inside and get on Long Beach and start walking around and embody that. Maybe you even sit down on the beach and meditate. Okay, all of this is mine stuff. That's not what meditation is for. But the mind stuff supports the meditative state, which gives us access to those deeper places. And that's something greater than ourselves.

Anita Adams: 01:19:26

I feel this expansion in my heart when I just think about it. Like I just feel expansion is the best word.

James Ripley: 01:19:33

Expansion. Expansion. Expansion of your heart. Yeah, and expansion of your heart is like walking on Long Beach. Yeah,

Anita Adams: 01:19:43

yeah. And what I was going in with the intention of what I want is a loving connection so suddenly popped into Long Beach.

James Ripley: 01:19:54

So you're making a connection between the intention when you started the meditation which was short and And the symbol that arose. Yeah. And that's what I've seen over and over and over. If you're actually intentional about it. It's, you know, you could say it's a holographic universe. It's just not going to be that far off, you know, Appleseed gets an apple tree and apples, right? I mean, it's just how it happens. So you set your intention, what arises, whether it makes sense or not, at the time is usually exactly what needs to be. Sometimes when an obstacle arises, we say, well, that's not supposed to be there. But it's the obstacle that's guiding our way to Long Beach, perhaps, but in your case, sounds like you just want one to one set intention, get the symbol. Now, you've known about this symbol before, right?

Anita Adams: 01:20:46

How do you mean,

James Ripley: 01:20:48

you knew? Do you ever daydream about walking on?

Anita Adams: 01:20:54

It? Well, it's a place I love going to and my husband and I were talking about time, we're heading there in November, so maybe it's fresh on my mind.

James Ripley: 01:21:02

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever used it as an access point for a meditative state?

Anita Adams: 01:21:06

I see. No, I haven't. No, I haven't.

James Ripley: 01:21:10

Well, this is fun. This is fantastic. Well, would you mind doing that and reporting for that to me or to your listeners, like, seriously, next time, today, tomorrow, you have five minutes, drop and just start with a daydream. Here's, here's what I want to give everyone permission to do. This is really, this is what excites me, my word. I love value, I have a word, it's probably imagination. Secondary words and values would be connection, to be to be with a huge value system about being with and through imagination. But here's what this is a really interesting way to look at imagination. In the present moment world, we can say, well, if you're in your imagination, past or future, then you're not being present. It's not true. If we drop into an imagination, like walking on Long Beach, and you're so present with it, that it feels just as real or more than real life, you are in a heightened state of presence more so than ordinary waking state, you're present with your imagination. Now, the imagination might be past or future, but you're more present than you are most of the day. So that the imagination is in service of your metaphors in service of what

Anita Adams: 01:22:43

might my my goals, my aspirations, my intention,

James Ripley: 01:22:48

yes. But it's also in service of what meditative state presents greater presence. By putting our attention on this thing we really, really want, it creates a hyper focus. And one of the three things that creates a great deal of presence in us is one is hyper focused. Second is body awareness. Not going to tell you the third, you gotta tune in the show, but hyper focus on a rock climber who has no rope. And with dyfi fell, he's hyper focused, she's hyper focused, and guess what they are present is present. And I asked, I have a friend that does this. I say, Why do you do it, it says I've never more present than when I go free, free climb. Okay. When we get when we give ourselves permission to want what we really want, we get hyper focused, when we give ourselves permission to tune in what really feels good, what we want our life to be like, we get hyper focused, when we get a sense of who we could be or who we want to be. Wow, I mean, that is, that's actually the bigger one, if we can lock into that the rest just shows up. And if we can open up to a little bit to the obstacle that's in the way. And, and maybe just for a moment, ask, Well, maybe it's guiding the way, not in the way, boy, it just opens us up to curiosity, which helps everything else. And if we can really get in touch with what's guiding us, do you really think we're not being guided? Okay, just that maybe we're not being guided by anything. But just the sense that we are the sense of belonging that that brings up for us at that deepest level. I got those five things we want to lock into those all engender a deeper meditative state, a greater state of presence and what happens when we get that greater presence, we become kinder to ourselves more compassion to ourselves, compassion to other people. It informs us about our next step in a way that the ordinary waking state can't. So there's, again We're using a lot of this stuff and the mind the symbols, they become mine. It's content of the mind. But it helps us develop the state because the content of the mind we're looking at, we go to a meditate, we set an intention. We go into a meditative state, we see what arises, which is a deeper level, the same, it's just reflecting our intention at a deeper level, to see that it's our intention updated, upgraded up leveled at the deeper level of ourselves. And then we work from there. And we're in service of two things. Our meditative state, and what our meditative state can do for our life. I'm not a huge proponent of just doing a meditative state to get a better meditative state. That's it, it doesn't do things for people, but I want people to have a better life and a meditative state, and greater presence. And those two work together, they're married. Wow, understanding and choosing what, what is? And what could be. That's the other part. Should I meditate on what is isn't meditating about allowing everything to be as it is? Yes, that's meditation. And don't you want to live to love? So what are you gonna do with the action element? So allowing everything to be as it is lack of control, let everything be as it is? Yes. That's meditate, meditative attitude, we got it. Now. This is what is now what could be, what could be for your life. Let the meditative state and present state in form that through your symbols, let the symbol speak to you, they are representing their advocates of the meditative state. And they can, how do you talk to a meditative state? What does that look like? How do you communicate with it, it's just a ethereal. So the symbols actually embody the state just like long walking on Long Beach is the metaphor symbol that for you embodies expansive, heart, love, freedom, and all that stuff. Now, it's complicated. Now, you don't even have to go one off a symbol for each one, you have one symbol metaphor that embodies all of it, which is really how we work anyways, we're more complex,

Anita Adams: 01:27:15

and it's so powerful. I love it. There's so much here. And I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what you can do with people and helping them on their journeys. So you know, I'm acknowledging the time I think this is the longest I've ever been with anybody and I love how much we covered and and the whole, the whole journey, the whole experience, I want you to share in our closing a little bit about how people can connect with you if they want to experience your your training one on one, or what are the options even for them to work with you. Connect?

James Ripley: 01:27:56

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Anita. So so first of all, I think it's, you know, the guy guided meditation. institute.com is the website. That's how you connect and I, they're welcome to connect by phone 720231 7900. That is a cell phone. But I'm a huge advocate of texting and calls, I love that I'm just like old fashioned or something, I don't know. But if you're feeling a little bit shy, too shy to text, which I will reply to thing, just go ahead and visit the website. And there's probably three, three things you're looking for, you got to ask the question, do you want to have more of a private session, right to our private session where you I facilitate you one on one through this, we do that on Zoom? And do you know what you want your life to feel like in a year you've locked in and connected with that is that developed enough to really allow that to guide you moment to moment, day in day out? That's one the other is, you know, I do a class about every two months, it's on creating your daily meditation practice. People typically come to that after they do a private session, or after they do a medicine journey with me, because that class is six weeks since designed to prepare you for the private to the medicine journey or allow it to last longer. And it's if you're going to go come in for a two hour session with me. Then what are you going to do the rest of the time, and the next week, the next month, we want you to have a practice. But here's the key. Once you do the class is designed so you're not going to meditation as as if it's one more thing it's designed so that you're going to your inner symbols. So Anita, your your meditation practice would be five minutes, somewhere on a hike, wherever where you drop into walking on the beach, Long Beach, that's it and allow that to develop and speak with you. That's it's that simple. But we've got to get to those symbols first and for that we got to drop down into meditation. And then it'd be comes yours. It's not a meditation outside, it's who you are, you're just going to you. And for me, it just becomes kind of a love affair for those inner symbols that include everyone around me. My family, my friends, my right. So

Anita Adams: 01:30:17

it's your launching pad. It's where you start from that then allows to open up so much more.

James Ripley: 01:30:22

Yeah, yeah. So private sessions, sorry, private sessions, six week class, create, create your daily meditation practice. And then of course, medicine journey, if anybody's on a going through a huge life transition, or is just wanting to do some healing, deeper healing with psycho tropic medicine. That's a two day retreat I offer as well. So

Anita Adams: 01:30:43

do you offer those regularly throughout the year?

James Ripley: 01:30:47

Well, I offer those on schedule, folks. Usually, that's scheduled one on one I do Oh, it is. I've led groups, I've led groups, I prefer the one on one, because in the one on one, I'll do it. Let's say it's Saturday, Sunday, we'll do all day guided meditation training, get the symbols, get clear about how you let go, how you surrender how you get open to this experience that's coming. And then we have we have the journey, the medicine journey that night. And then the next day, you're staying the night in this beautiful log cabin. And then the next day, we go ahead and drop back in and see what happened from a guided meditation place. So it's really about 36 hours of work.

Anita Adams: 01:31:25

Wow. I'm intrigued, I might have to do that sometime come down to Boulder, and experienced so what you have to offer that sounds really cool.

James Ripley: 01:31:34

It's very, it's very, it's very intense. Not in a bad way. But very just it's not a walking around sort of retreat thing. But yes, invite you and anybody else, but it's wonderful. And it's really that deeper level. Where were my guided voice, you know, for that medicine journey drops off, there's no more talking and I'm there and you're you go off to spirit, the whole thing is set for you to go off to that connection.

Anita Adams: 01:32:04

And did you say you do small groups as well? Like it doesn't have to be one on one. It could be a small group of people can be a

James Ripley: 01:32:11

small group as well. Yeah. Not an issue. Okay, cool.

Anita Adams: 01:32:14

Very interesting. Thank you so much, James. I got so much out of this conversation. And I'm excited to drop into my symbol, my Long Beach experience and see what opens up for for me as I continue to practice my meditation and go on that journey.

James Ripley: 01:32:32

Love it. Love it. Thank you for having me. And it is such a pleasure. Always a great conversation with you. And I hope you spend a lot of time walking in Long Beach. Me too.