Episode 123
How to Create a Meditation Practice with Meditation Master Tom Cronin
Have you tried meditating but you just can’t seem to make a practice out of it, or you think you’re doing it wrong so you give up and just go for a run?
A 2014 study at Johns Hopkins looked at the relationship between mindfulness meditation and its ability to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and pain. Now, how many of you experience fear, anxiety or stress on a daily basis? Sounds like we could all use a little meditation in our lives.
Listen in as I talk with Tom Cronin, the founder of The Stillness Project, who has trained and coached thousands of people all over the world ON how to meditate, break through blocks and transform their lives.
Drink of the week:Bliss
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Julie Brown:
Tom Cronin
Transcript
You've no doubt heard about the power of meditation.
Speaker:If you've listened to this podcast for any period of time, you also
Speaker:know that I am a meditation dropout.
Speaker:I just can't seem to create a meditation practice, even though there are a million
Speaker:articles telling me it's just what I need.
Speaker:Welcome to episode 1 23 of This Shit Works, a podcast dedicated to
Speaker:all things networking, relationship building, and business development.
Speaker:I'm your host, Julie Brown Networking.
Speaker:Professional speaker and author, and today I am joined by Tom Cronan, a leading
Speaker:meditation master who is passionate about reducing stress and chaos in people's
Speaker:lives, helping them to find peace.
Speaker:Through meditation.
Speaker:Welcome to this Shit Works, your Weekly No Nonsense Guide to networking your way
Speaker:to More friends, more adventures, and way more success with your host, Julie Brown.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:In 2011, Sarah Lazar and her team at Harvard found that mindfulness
Speaker:meditation can actually change the structure of the brain.
Speaker:Eight weeks of mindfulness based stress reduction was found to increase corticol
Speaker:thickness and hippocampus, which governs learning and memory and in certain areas
Speaker:of the bringing that play roles in emotion regulation and self referential process.
Speaker:There were also decreases in brain cell volume in the amygdala, which is
Speaker:responsible for fear, anxiety, and stress.
Speaker:How many of you experience fear, anxiety, or stress on a daily basis?
Speaker:I know that to some effect.
Speaker:I do every day, and I've been honest with my listeners about my anxiety breakdown in
Speaker:2010, a breakdown which led me to therapy and a prescription for the antidepressant.
Speaker:Meditation was not discussed in my therapy.
Speaker:Perhaps it's because it was 2010.
Speaker:Four years before a 2014 study at Johns Hopkins.
Speaker:Looked at the relationship between mindfulness, meditation and its
Speaker:ability to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and pain.
Speaker:Researcher, med Hub, GOE and his team found that the effect size of
Speaker:meditation was moderate at zero point.
Speaker:Which is also the effect size for antidepressants, which makes
Speaker:meditation sound like a viable option or tool for lots of people.
Speaker:But what if you're like me?
Speaker:What if you've tried to meditate and you just can't seem to make a
Speaker:practice out of it, or you're thinking you're doing it wrong, so you just
Speaker:give up and go for a run or do yoga, which is what I end up doing.
Speaker:Well, that's when you bring a master meditator onto your podcast to help
Speaker:you create a path to incorporating the benefits of meditation.
Speaker:Into your life.
Speaker:Tom, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker:It's great to be you.
Speaker:Thanks for inviting me along today.
Speaker:Where were you in your life when you discovered meditation?
Speaker:I'm not gonna assume it wasn't something you grew up with, that you discovered it.
Speaker:Maybe there was an impetus for it for you to discover it.
Speaker:Yeah, I'd never been exposed to meditation.
Speaker:I grew up on a farm, went to an all boys Catholic school, and then landed
Speaker:myself on a trading room floor.
Speaker:Very much Wolf of Wall Street style.
Speaker:In the late eighties.
Speaker:And so I was surrounded by big, chunky sort of bloy guys that
Speaker:were, you know, finance guys.
Speaker:And so meditation was something that had never come into my
Speaker:life in any way, shape, or form.
Speaker:And when I came across meditation, I was at rock bottom.
Speaker:I was in one of the darkest points in my life.
Speaker:I was having suicidal tendencies, I was suffering anxiety,
Speaker:extreme panic attacks, depress.
Speaker:Phobia that it means I couldn't leave the house.
Speaker:I had to take mental health leave from work.
Speaker:I had chronic, chronic insomnia.
Speaker:I'd seen psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors that put me on medication.
Speaker:No one had ever mentioned meditation, of course, and I was really questioning
Speaker:whether I wanted to even exist.
Speaker:It was a pretty dark time in my.
Speaker:And it just so happened that the universe had divinely coordinated
Speaker:that while I was watching TV in 1996.
Speaker:I remember this was 1996.
Speaker:There's no internet, there's no Google, there's no search options.
Speaker:You know, you're just kind of trying to wing it through life back then.
Speaker:And uh, I was watching a documentary about a property developer that
Speaker:was a very successful property developer in Australia, and there
Speaker:was a tiny slit of that story.
Speaker:So one hour documentary about his success and the buildings he.
Speaker:He did very large high rise buildings in Australia.
Speaker:And, uh, there was a tiny segment that he talked about how he used
Speaker:this particular style of meditation, transcendental meditation.
Speaker:And they showed him in a suit, there was a pinstripe blue suit, and they showed
Speaker:him sitting in a chair, no lotus position, no mudras like that, you know, just
Speaker:a businessman in a chair, meditating.
Speaker:And it was like a, an epiphany for me and it.
Speaker:I knew immediately that that was what was missing in my life and it was something
Speaker:that I need to started to explore.
Speaker:And that's when I started my journey into meditation and mindfulness.
Speaker:So again, 1996, no internet, reliable internet.
Speaker:At that point, you said you started your journey into finding meditation.
Speaker:What did you do?
Speaker:Did you go to the library?
Speaker:Like how did you learn meditation at that point?
Speaker:Yeah, so for all the young kids listening, this is gonna
Speaker:sound really strange to them.
Speaker:I actually went to the front door where we have a big yellow book that was
Speaker:holding the front door open from blowing in the wind called the Yellow Pages.
Speaker:And uh, I plunked the yellow pages, which was at Old Google.
Speaker:Every business is normally listed in this book.
Speaker:It's a huge, massive book, right?
Speaker:And you wanted to get your business known in the world or accessed.
Speaker:You had to be in the Yellow Pages.
Speaker:And so I looked up m for meditation.
Speaker:I still distinctly, this was 26 years ago or so.
Speaker:I still remember.
Speaker:Going to M for meditation.
Speaker:I, I was scrolling down and I dunno if it's the same in America, but in
Speaker:Australia, if you wanted your business to be highlighted, you paid extra.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And as I went down, there was all these different, you know,
Speaker:chakra clearing and Tibetan bowls and all sorts of meditations.
Speaker:And I saw in big red writing, transcendental meditation.
Speaker:And at that point in time I was doing a lot of drugs.
Speaker:I was really into the RA scene and nightclub scene.
Speaker:Plus part of the industry was pretty much built on drinking and drugs.
Speaker:So this idea of getting out of it was really familiar in my space,
Speaker:which led to all the anxiety and the panic attacks and depression.
Speaker:But when I saw that word transcending, I kind of, it sparked something in me.
Speaker:It was what I'd heard in the documentary cuz that's what the guy was using.
Speaker:And I like the sound of that, but also when I saw it written this idea of cuz
Speaker:to transcend means to go beyond, okay, this is why a lot of people struggle
Speaker:with meditation because a lot of the meditations won't get you to that beyond
Speaker:state, which is the state of stillness.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:And so I then did something really, really wacky for a lot of the listeners.
Speaker:I went to the wall where we had this box on the wall, which is where I picked up
Speaker:the handset that started ringing around all the different, uh, meditation centers.
Speaker:Cause we didn't have iPhones back then.
Speaker:And so that was the start of my journey into just ringing
Speaker:up all the different centers.
Speaker:Hey, you know, I, I see you do this.
Speaker:I'd like to learn how to do it.
Speaker:And so I started to go to a lot of different centers and trial, a lot
Speaker:of different meditation techniques, and that's when I learned the
Speaker:transcendental meditation and it was a game changer for me.
Speaker:How long do you think it took you to learn it?
Speaker:Well, this is a beautiful thing about this practice, and it's why
Speaker:I actually gave up my almost seven figure salary to teach this full.
Speaker:It's because it was so powerful and so effective.
Speaker:It literally changes people's lives and people pick it up
Speaker:in the first session or two.
Speaker:It's so effective because what happens is you get this sound.
Speaker:Now if you just try and empty your mind, and this is why mindfulness
Speaker:meditation is not to dismiss it.
Speaker:It can be very challenging.
Speaker:That's all because you have to apply a lot of discipline to get something
Speaker:to do what it doesn't wanna do.
Speaker:The mind doesn't wanna not.
Speaker:The mind doesn't wanna be still, mind doesn't wanna go into silence.
Speaker:That's like making it redundant.
Speaker:And if people get their jobs put on their line, they start getting placards
Speaker:and rattling cages and start doing protest marches, because that's what
Speaker:the mind doesn't wanna become redundant.
Speaker:So when we introduce this sound, this repetition of this mantra, it becomes
Speaker:incredibly easy and accessible to drop into a deep state quite quickly.
Speaker:Most of my students will have that transcending experience
Speaker:to go into deep still.
Speaker:In their first weekend course that I'm teaching them, which
Speaker:is what happened to me as well.
Speaker:So how did you take the leap from, I'm going to learn how to do this.
Speaker:This is changing my life.
Speaker:I see the benefits of it to becoming a master and a teacher.
Speaker:I like anything, you know, if I have never hit a golf ball and I
Speaker:wanna become a golf professional, it's not gonna happen overnight.
Speaker:You can have the best teacher and the best practice, but these things take time.
Speaker:So it's really about being patient and understanding.
Speaker:It's just about the journey rather than the end goal.
Speaker:And so for me, I learned to meditate.
Speaker:It was very quick in changing my life.
Speaker:The stress, the anxiety, the panic attacks, the depression, insomnia,
Speaker:phobia melted away within days and weeks.
Speaker:And I went back to work, went back into that job with the same clients,
Speaker:the same company for 16 more years.
Speaker:So I had a 26 year career as a broker.
Speaker:10 years of that career were with anxiety, drug addictions, and chronic stress.
Speaker:And the other 16 were without drugs and drinking and without the stress.
Speaker:You know, some days you have some difficult days, and it's pretty
Speaker:intense still on a trading room floor, so it's not like I was an
Speaker:enlightened monk straight away.
Speaker:But I spent another 16 years working as a broker and meditating, going on a retreat,
Speaker:studying Eastern philosophy, traveling to India and Bali to study with teachers.
Speaker:But it became apparent after a long time.
Speaker:I took a long time, a bit slow to change sometimes.
Speaker:It took me quite a while before I decided, look, you know, this is very definitive
Speaker:that I wanna do this full time now.
Speaker:Part of the challenge was just financially going from being a broker with a mortgage
Speaker:and a family of four to being a meditation teacher isn't the best, um, you know,
Speaker:financial career move initially . So I'm assuming in the 16 years we were a broker,
Speaker:that's a very high stress, long hours.
Speaker:How did you make sure that you had time?
Speaker:Did you do it every day?
Speaker:Like did you have a certain time every day that you practiced
Speaker:your meditation every day?
Speaker:How did you make sure you always had room for that in your daily life?
Speaker:There's two big barriers that a lot of people have to meditating.
Speaker:One is they don't believe they have time.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:which of course that's just preferential treatment.
Speaker:And the second thing is to the things that they're allocating time to.
Speaker:And the second thing is, That they don't think that technique's working for them.
Speaker:So the first thing is get a technique that you find a tangible,
Speaker:quantifiable difference by using it.
Speaker:If you don't find that it's gonna have an impact, it's like you said, you know, you
Speaker:gave it up because you thought running and yoga was gonna be more beneficial.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So if you don't find you're getting a tangible, quantifiable difference
Speaker:or benefit from whatever that activity is, we simply will drop it.
Speaker:So finding a technique that you can diff clearly.
Speaker:Recognize that it's benefiting your life very, very quickly, which is
Speaker:why I found and teach this technique.
Speaker:But secondly, when it comes to time, what I realized when the teacher said, you
Speaker:know, for maximum results, we recommend two sessions a day, one in the morning,
Speaker:one in the afternoon for 20 minutes.
Speaker:And I was sitting there when he said that thinking, dude, there is
Speaker:no way I'm gonna be able to do two meditations of 20 minutes every day.
Speaker:I'm a busy broker.
Speaker:I have long days, I've got, you know, a lot of things on my plate.
Speaker:And so I dismissed that initially, but there was so much science and so much
Speaker:data supporting that this technique is gonna make a huge difference in my life.
Speaker:And so I sat there and thought about what motivates action in life.
Speaker:So every person on the planet right now is doing something right now in
Speaker:the belief in some way, shape, or form.
Speaker:It's gonna add value or elevate their life in some way, shape or form.
Speaker:And that someone doing crack cocaine in a ghetto downtown LA someone.
Speaker:Doing meditation in a monastery into bed, someone cleaning their bathroom floor,
Speaker:someone gonna the grocery shopping, someone gonna the gym, someone watching
Speaker:Netflix, someone listening to Spotify.
Speaker:Every action is motivated in the quest to find fulfillment.
Speaker:Doesn't mean that they're gonna find fulfillment, but that's
Speaker:what motivates the action.
Speaker:I feel better when my bathroom floor is cleaner, so I'm
Speaker:gonna clean my bathroom floor.
Speaker:I feel better when there's food in my pantry, so I'll go to the grocery shops.
Speaker:I feel better when I pay my rent.
Speaker:I'll work at the tin canner.
Speaker:Now my life was miserable.
Speaker:I was deeply unhappy.
Speaker:I was contemplating where they even wanted to exist and I
Speaker:knew something had to change.
Speaker:So I, my allocation of time to finding fulfillment wasn't quite
Speaker:getting me to that destination cuz I wasn't fulfilled mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And so I thought about my, my allocation of time preferences.
Speaker:And I worked out that my day had 24 hours in it and every hour has three portions
Speaker:of 20 minutes, which means there's 72 20 minute portions of pie that I'm
Speaker:allocating on a daily basis to finding.
Speaker:So I thought, well, if I just take two of these 72, 20 minute pieces of
Speaker:pie and I make them unconditionally allocated towards meditating,
Speaker:and I'll just do my own research.
Speaker:I'll just see if this teacher, with all his scientific studies sitting
Speaker:on the desk are actually true.
Speaker:You know, Harvard, ucla, Berkeley, Stanford University, you know the Mayo.
Speaker:I'll ignore those studies and have to do my own research.
Speaker:And lo and behold, within just a few weeks, my research was validated.
Speaker:It completely changed my life.
Speaker:So what I suggest to people is find a new way of preferential treatment
Speaker:to the time allocated in your day as to the sources of fulfillment.
Speaker:And what we have is a world that is living predominantly in what we
Speaker:call outcome oriented fulfillment, which means I need an outcome,
Speaker:an activity, or an acquisition.
Speaker:That is going to generate some degree of fulfillment.
Speaker:If I get a new dress, if I get some more likes on my Instagram, if I
Speaker:get a pay rise at work, if someone swipes right on Tinder, I don't even
Speaker:know if that's the right thing to do.
Speaker:Do they swipe right or left?
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:I think you swipe right, Tinder.
Speaker:Yeah, me too.
Speaker:There's something on Tinder that's supposed to make you feel good, , and
Speaker:so we're seeking these outcomes.
Speaker:We're seeking acquisitions for fulfillment.
Speaker:The problem with that is that a, it's inco.
Speaker:Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not.
Speaker:Even if it is there, it arose very quickly.
Speaker:You get fulfillment from the new dress, but then your dress won't be
Speaker:new forever, so the fulfillment you derive from that action or activity or
Speaker:acquisition will be eroded very quickly.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So we don't wanna rely on outcome oriented fulfillment.
Speaker:What happens is, ironically, in the hunger and the chase for more fulfillment
Speaker:from our positions and outcomes, we're getting more and more tired, more and
Speaker:more exhausted, which means even when we.
Speaker:The acquisition or the experience, we can't feel fulfilled.
Speaker:So we've got a very wealthy world predominantly.
Speaker:Obviously, there's still a lot of the world that hasn't got the wonderful
Speaker:things that we have the privilege of having right now, but even those people
Speaker:that have immense levels of privilege and nice car, nice home, nice holidays, nice
Speaker:TV screen, nice iPhone, nice computer.
Speaker:The levels of unhappiness within those people is quite remarkable and a large
Speaker:portion of the world are medicated.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:just to try and be happier.
Speaker:And so this is the problem with this acquisition mentality and seeking
Speaker:fulfillment from the external world.
Speaker:It's so unsustainable and leading us into a deep hole.
Speaker:What we wanna do is we wanna cultivate what we call self-referred
Speaker:fulfillment, which is a fulfillment that arises from within.
Speaker:And it's a very simple process of quieting the mind, quieting the body,
Speaker:putting the body into deep states of rest, and increasing our levels of
Speaker:serotonin, oxytocin, and melatonin.
Speaker:The bliss chemicals that generally just make us feel good, and it's
Speaker:been scientifically proven when we quieten the mind, quieting
Speaker:the body through meditation.
Speaker:These deeper styles of meditation, we naturally increase very gently
Speaker:and very subtly, those levels of serotonin and oxytocin, the
Speaker:bliss chemicals that make us feel.
Speaker:Self-referred fulfillment is something we regulate on a daily basis through
Speaker:the process of putting aside some time from acquisition and acton and
Speaker:just going into stillness and silence.
Speaker:And this was phenomenal for me and why I teach this cuz I couldn't
Speaker:believe how quickly people's lives were changing when we introduced
Speaker:this technique into their life.
Speaker:So this is where I understand that this is probably going to be helpful for
Speaker:me and I have a lot of stress induced.
Speaker:Issues as people do when they run companies and whatnot and are
Speaker:overcommitted, but just thinking about sitting for 20 minutes, I, I,
Speaker:number one, I didn't know there was more than one kind of meditation.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, I didn't know there was like meditation, meditation and
Speaker:then transcendental meditation.
Speaker:Like how do we even begin if I was gonna say, okay, I'm gonna
Speaker:go home, I'm gonna start today.
Speaker:I'm gonna spend 20 minutes on trying to quiet my mind and quiet my body.
Speaker:Where do I.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a really good question because you know, it's one thing to
Speaker:talk about the water, but leading the horse to water and then showing them
Speaker:how to use it is really important.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So the first, and I think the most effective thing you can do is to
Speaker:actually find a qualified teacher.
Speaker:And we're talking about one of the most important things you'll
Speaker:ever do in your life, in my mind.
Speaker:And so to not mess around with it, not trying to wing it by yourself,
Speaker:not just trying to, oh, I'm gonna see if I can work this one out myself.
Speaker:You know, enlightenment is the most essential experience that
Speaker:every human should experience.
Speaker:Enlightenment is the absolute quality of what it is to be human.
Speaker:That is to realize our divine nature, uh, in a blissfulness, in a peacefulness.
Speaker:And to fall short of enlightenment is to always fall short of what it is to be.
Speaker:It doesn't mean we're all gonna be light tomorrow.
Speaker:It is a process, but we're really, as a human species, falling way
Speaker:short of what's possible for us.
Speaker:And this is an area that we're only just very starting to scratch the surface of.
Speaker:And so what I would recommend is finding qualified teacher in
Speaker:your area and learning in person.
Speaker:So I would Google basic meditation, V E D I C, or transcendental
Speaker:meditation, primordial sound technique.
Speaker:The Art of Living.
Speaker:These are different organizations or different groups of people
Speaker:that teach a very similar style of meditation that takes you
Speaker:into a deeper transcendent state.
Speaker:And when I say transcendent, it's really important.
Speaker:We understand there's an experience that's available to all humans,
Speaker:the very few people are currently experiencing because of our level of
Speaker:distraction with the outside world.
Speaker:We're constantly phones, emails, family, money businesses, looking
Speaker:externally into duality, which is.
Speaker:The subject experiencing ideally, fulfillment from the object, which
Speaker:is the formal phenomenon that I'm interacting with, which of course is
Speaker:also the thing that's causing all your stress, anxiety, depression, and disease.
Speaker:So what we wanna do is we want to experience something that is
Speaker:free from all of that, and this is what we call the fourth state.
Speaker:It's called Toya, which is a beautiful Sanskrit word, meaning the state of
Speaker:being awake and conscious, but not think.
Speaker:Now we can all access that.
Speaker:It's just that we need techniques to get us into that state, and this is where
Speaker:certain meditations will get you there.
Speaker:That fourth state is beyond thinking, beyond dream state, beyond deep,
Speaker:unconscious, deep sleep, and we're awake, but we're not having a thought.
Speaker:So it's really important we start to experience this in our daily state.
Speaker:So we start to identify.
Speaker:Who I am without thinking, who am I, without emotions.
Speaker:And this is when we really start to have a profound foundation.
Speaker:A bit like the tree.
Speaker:I use this analogy as the tree.
Speaker:So if you take a tree above the surface, the tree gets moved and
Speaker:affected by storms and tempest, which means it loses its sovereign state
Speaker:because elements are affecting it.
Speaker:Now if things get really rough and that tree doesn't have a
Speaker:strong root base beneath the surface, the tree will topple over.
Speaker:And that's what's happening to a lot of us in our lives.
Speaker:We don't have a strong root base now below the surface, regardless of what's going on
Speaker:above the surface, the root base doesn't get moved, whether there's storm and temps
Speaker:above, and we all have this root base within us, this state of, to the state
Speaker:of presence or being, that is unmovable, unshakeable, unr by life circumstances.
Speaker:And so you.
Speaker:You have a stress life.
Speaker:What we have is we have a life.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, and then we have the variability of whether we relate to that, that life in
Speaker:a stressful way or a non-stressful way.
Speaker:That's the variable.
Speaker:The consistency of life is that it's variable and it's
Speaker:always gonna be changing.
Speaker:It's always gonna throw conundrums and challenges and
Speaker:things that we don't expect.
Speaker:But the real variability here is our response to circumstance.
Speaker:So I'll give you an analogy.
Speaker:If we take a four year old child that drops his ice cream, On a hot summer's
Speaker:day knowing that Nana Pop aren't gonna buy him another ice cream, that was it.
Speaker:You're done.
Speaker:Then the tantrum that INS shoes at that loss is absolutely gargantuan because in
Speaker:his world, that is an extreme situation and it's such a big event for that
Speaker:child that the emotional upheaval and the emotional stress response to that
Speaker:situation as a parent or as a grand parent, you, you kind of just think,
Speaker:well, that's relevant for a four year old.
Speaker:We expect nothing less than.
Speaker:But if an adult did the same thing and you saw a 30 year old screaming their
Speaker:eyes out and stomping their feet because they dropped their ice cream, you kind
Speaker:of think they're a bit loony and think there's something wrong with them.
Speaker:And that's because we've shifted our state of consciousness and our
Speaker:relationship to that event has changed.
Speaker:And what we have is unfortunately still a lot of people with that four
Speaker:year old type response to a lot of life circumstances because we're very
Speaker:unstable and we're easily influenced and we see things in a different.
Speaker:Than what we can see them in.
Speaker:And it's not that we've become completely emotional numb, it's just that we
Speaker:stop being so drawn into the story and circumstances of life and have greater
Speaker:capacity to be present the interstate of being and be, we call it such a tusha,
Speaker:the silent witness, but we're just silently witnessing life in a beautiful
Speaker:state of awe and wonder and fascination.
Speaker:So your.
Speaker:Piece of advice is find a qualified teacher.
Speaker:That means you have to commit to this.
Speaker:This is something that you have to realize that like anything else, that
Speaker:if I wanted a coach, if I wanted to learn how to play tennis or if I wanted
Speaker:to do whatever, I would hire a coach and I would put in the The effort.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the time, I know you're in Australia, do you offer.
Speaker:Workshops or retreats that most of my listeners are in the United
Speaker:States, like how would people access what you have to offer?
Speaker:Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker:I do run retreats.
Speaker:I do weekend courses.
Speaker:I, I teach a lot in person and travel around Australia teaching courses.
Speaker:I just had a retreat last week where people can go away for
Speaker:much more intense experiences.
Speaker:Very powerful.
Speaker:We had Bali a couple months.
Speaker:What I did was, because when we started teaching this, there was no
Speaker:internet and uh, you know, people would learn in person by looking up
Speaker:the yellow Pages and go to their local teacher, and that's all there was.
Speaker:But what that did was it excluded a lot of people from the world that
Speaker:couldn't access these modalities.
Speaker:And so I was in a real conundrum because I had this tradition that was taught only in
Speaker:one particular way for thousands of years.
Speaker:And then people at the world when the internet came and I was doing videos,
Speaker:Instagram and things like that.
Speaker:And people started saying, Hey, can you teach me?
Speaker:And so what I did was I created an online program over 21 days where
Speaker:they learn this technique in a very similar way, but not exactly the
Speaker:same because it's not in person.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's the next best option.
Speaker:And there's nowhere else out really that I've been able
Speaker:to find that was doing that.
Speaker:And that's partly because a lot of people wanted to maintain their tradition.
Speaker:They wanted to keep the authenticity of the way it's been done for
Speaker:thousands of years, but the world has changed and we've now.
Speaker:A lot more inquiry.
Speaker:We've got podcasts talking about this and people going, well, I'm
Speaker:anxious, I'm stressed, I'm a bit overwhelmed and I need some support.
Speaker:What am I supposed to do?
Speaker:I live in Midwest and there's just no teachers in my cause.
Speaker:Most of the teachers live in really cool places like Santa Barbara or
Speaker:Yeah, Venice Beach, or in Australia.
Speaker:They live in places like Bono Beach or Paddington.
Speaker:And so, you know, it's, um, become quite inaccessible for a
Speaker:lot of people around the world.
Speaker:So that's why I created that program.
Speaker:And so how can people find that online program?
Speaker:Um, they can go to my website and just contact me, tom cro.com.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And, uh, yeah, I can definitely reach out and send them the link and they
Speaker:can have a look at that program or we can put in the show notes as well.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I'll put it in the show.
Speaker:Tom cro.com and the show notes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before we finish and we've got just on that, we've gotta, we can
Speaker:give everyone a free book as well.
Speaker:It's a 12 step guide to Okay.
Speaker:Reducing Anxiety.
Speaker:So I'll give you that link after this podcast, and they can just get that
Speaker:free book and they'll be able to find that program through that book as well.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:They'll get the free book while they're there.
Speaker:Before we wrap up, I wanna ask you about your movie, because I know you
Speaker:had a movie on meditation come out.
Speaker:Can you talk to us a little bit about that movie and the stories within that movie?
Speaker:Yeah, so the film's called The Portal and it's all about going through that
Speaker:portal in meditation to free yourself of crisis and challenge and turmoil.
Speaker:And it was kind of inspired by my own journey of crisis and how crisis
Speaker:was a catalyst for transformation.
Speaker:And for most of us, we see crisis as something we're a victim.
Speaker:But what we present in the film and what was in my life is that crisis
Speaker:is actually a part of an evolutionary communication system that is guiding us.
Speaker:When we are misguided, it's a way for us when we're very stubborn and resistant to
Speaker:change, to have change enforced upon us.
Speaker:So we start to find a way more progressively in our life forward.
Speaker:And so the portal is six stories that all have crisis, and they use
Speaker:meditation and mindfulness to expand their mind and break themselves outta
Speaker:the shackles and the constraints of the life they're living so they can start
Speaker:to find a more harmonious way forward.
Speaker:And that's what crisis is all about.
Speaker:And then we look at.
Speaker:The impending global crisis or crises that we keep going through.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, because we're so resistant to change.
Speaker:And even now that we come outta Covid, we see people going back
Speaker:defaulting to the same patterns.
Speaker:Let's get wasted.
Speaker:Let's blow all our money in the shopping mall.
Speaker:Let's get back online and buy a whole bunch of new things that we don't need.
Speaker:And so we're really missing a lot of the guidance that we're getting in
Speaker:our life to live a very different.
Speaker:And how can people access that movie?
Speaker:How can they watch that movie?
Speaker:They can go to the website, enter the portal.com, but they could also
Speaker:find out my website, tom cronan.com.
Speaker:And a good way for people to find me is on Instagram.
Speaker:I'm most active there, so they can just reach out and message me anytime
Speaker:I'm, I respond to all my messages and, uh, like to hear from my
Speaker:audience and communicate with them.
Speaker:So they're more than welcome to find me at Tom Cro and on Instagram.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I can put it linked to that in the show.
Speaker:It says now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This was great.
Speaker:Thanks so much for coming on and talking to us about this.
Speaker:Well, it's been great chatting.
Speaker:It's always wonderful to share space with someone like yourself.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:So what did you think about Tom, his journey and the lessons he
Speaker:told about the power of meditation?
Speaker:Still not sure.
Speaker:Yeah, neither was I, but I wanna be completely honest with you.
Speaker:At the time of the recording of this interview, I was in a shit storm.
Speaker:I had recently lost a friend to cancer.
Speaker:My dog was fighting his battle against cancer, and I was facing my most
Speaker:intense speaking schedule of my career.
Speaker:I wasn't sleeping and I was having consistent panic attacks in the middle
Speaker:of the night, and also during the day.
Speaker:I was literally overwhelmed by my external life.
Speaker:So I decided to take the plunge and sign up for Tom's 21 day course.
Speaker:I decided I would start on October 30.
Speaker:I chose this date because it gave me a solid nine days at home to practice
Speaker:before I headed out for another round of speaking gigs in which I was going to have
Speaker:to find the time to meditate on the road.
Speaker:So what happened in those 21 days?
Speaker:Was I a meditation dropout again, or did I stick with it?
Speaker:Did I notice any change or did I come to the conclusion that this
Speaker:is all a bunch of horses shit.
Speaker:Tune into next week's episode where I talk about my 21 days of trying to
Speaker:create a meditation practice in my life.
Speaker:Now onto the drink of the week.
Speaker:Since Tom's 21 day course is called 21 Days to Faster, deeper Bliss, and
Speaker:that's the journey I'm about to take.
Speaker:I have picked a cocktail simply called Bliss.
Speaker:Here's what you are gonna need.
Speaker:One part light rum, one part white.
Speaker:One part lemon juice and a half apart vanilla simple syrup.
Speaker:Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail or coop glass,
Speaker:squeeze a lemon twist over the drink and use that twist for the garnish as well.
Speaker:All right, friends, that's all for this week.
Speaker:If you like what you heard today, please leave a review
Speaker:and subscribe to the podcast.
Speaker:Also, please remember to share the podcast to help it reach a larger.
Speaker:If you want more, Julie Brown, you can find my book.
Speaker:This shit works on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Speaker:You can find me on LinkedIn at Julie Brown bd.
Speaker:Just let me know where you found me when you reach out.
Speaker:I am Julie Brown, underscore BD on the Instagram, or you can just pop over
Speaker:to my website, Julie Brown bd.com.
Speaker:Until next week.
Speaker:Cheers.
Speaker:Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen.
Speaker:Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a tip.
Speaker:And remember, you can unapologetically be who you authentically are
Speaker:and still be wildly successful.
Speaker:That's a fact.
