SGM April 2013 Meditation of the Month: “Grow Your Inner CEO”
Press the play button or click here (right click + save target as) to download the audio file
“Grow Your Inner CEO”
Press the play button or click here (right click + save target as) to download the audio file
Welcome to the April 2013 SGM “Meditation of the Month.” I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us.
If your life was a corporate endeavor, which position would you hold in your company? Are you the CEO of your life, leading by inspired vision and consciously setting the company’s direction? Are you more like the Chief Financial Officer, always looking at your life through the lens of your finances? Or maybe you’re the bookkeeper, writing the checks without feeling like you’re in charge of where it all goes? Or, do you sometimes feel like an hourly worker, punching the clock and just getting the job done?
Now, if you were working for someone else’s company, it would be fine and acceptable to be in any of those positions—they’re all important and necessary. However, in your own life, there’s a position you’re meant to be in—you’re meant to be your own CEO. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a higher power from whom you receive guidance, resources, and support, but you are here to take what you’ve been given and grow a life of health, wealth, love, meaning, and purpose. That’s a task that no one else can do for you. You are the CEO of your life.
So, in this week’s SGM Meditation of the Month, we’ll mentally rehearse your role as CEO, so you can play it brilliantly in real life. Before we get to our practice, let’s talk a little more about playing that role.
In his book, “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain,” David Eagleman describes how essential this CEO role is in the functioning of your brain and consciousness. As he says, “consciousness is the CEO of the company: he sets the higher-level directions and assigns new tasks.” Forgiving Eagleman for using the pronoun “he” when referring to “CEO,” his point about the role of consciousness is important.
Without a CEO to unify all the competing factions in your brain, your life would be just one automatic reaction after the next, as one subconscious program after another is triggered—and you would go along for a wild ride. You would see a hamburger commercial and have to buy one, be told you were incompetent and resign yourself to failure, see the sun and be happy, see the rain and be sad, and basically just skip from one subconscious association to the next with no sense of meaning, direction, choice, creativity, or control.
So, it’s essential to understand your Chief Executive functions, so you can consciously take up your CEO role and play it well. That’s the way to get better and better at doing what you are here to do—be the conscious co-creator of your life.
Now, the first important function of consciousness is to manage your time, energy, and attention—choosing what you focus on and how you invest your resources. Consciousness can track your inner feeling state and make decisions to optimize that. Consciousness can track what’s happening in the environment and navigate through that. Maybe, most importantly consciousness can set your high-level priorities and manage your time, energy, attention, resources, and the environment to achieve what is most important to you.
It’s important to note that consciousness is not an all or nothing capacity—we grow consciousness by degrees through practice over time.
Sometimes, we are subconsciously driven and swept up in the current of what is happening inside and around us without much conscious direction. In fact, most of our life energy is consumed by subconscious programs running our physiology, tracking the environment, and generally carrying on the details and automated actions of our life without us being aware of these things. This is a good thing. It frees up consciousness to accomplish our Chief Executive function.
Like in a corporation, a CEO wouldn’t lead very well if all his or her time was spent picking orders and packing boxes in the shipping department. The CEO is called in when there’s a big problem that requires high-level thinking, negotiation, focus, and direction. Otherwise, he or she is there to be the public face of the company, hold an inspired company vision, set the big picture direction, oversee the whole operation, and keep tabs on the most important goals and decisions.
That’s the role of consciousness in your own life. And there’s a specific part of your brain that helps you do that—it’s called your anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Your ACC is deep in your forehead. It has strong, direct connections to all other parts of your brain and serves as a conscious command center.
From its well-connected position, your ACC alerts your brain to contradictions between different competing interests in your brain. This enables you to choose your point of focus and manage your mental, emotional, and physical resources toward the best course of action to meet your most important goals.
The type of calm, focused concentration practiced in meditation has been shown to strengthen and grow the ACC in your brain. Certain meditations, such as Qigong and Core Energy Meditation™ also strengthen connection to your heart and to your gut. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if neuroscience eventually recognizes important command centers in your heart and in your abdomen, as well as your brain. All three of these areas are packed with neural connections and pathways for electrical and chemical communications. We’ll play with all three of those vital command centers in our meditation today. They each add important dimensions to your CEO capacities.
So, this month’s meditation is called “Grow Your Inner CEO.” In this meditation, we’ll take a few minutes to relax into a Core Energy State, then, you’ll imagine yourself as the CEO of your life. I’ll guide you through a mental rehearsal of several important executive functions, so you can understand and get really good at playing this role. Being a great CEO is the key to manifesting the life of health, wealth, love, purpose, and success that you are meant to live.
To prepare for this meditation, I suggest that you take a moment to bring to mind your Core values—the things that are most important to you.
Then, choose one dimension of your life to work with. It could be health, finances, love, purpose—or anything that is a priority in your life right now.
Set one goal in that dimension—a result that you are aiming for.
And, then, define a series of three significant action steps to reach that goal.
As you go through the meditation, you can adjust any of these as you are inspired to do so. You can listen along to the recording in Part B of the audio above.
Enjoy!
“Grow Your Inner CEO”
Let’s begin by settling into a comfortable, relaxed, Core Energy State. We’ll use the four cues of Core Meditation to make that shift. We’ll follow a simple progression to relax, smile, breathe, and feel your inner body. Then, from that positive place, we’ll move into growing your inner CEO.
So, if you will, join me in sitting forward on the front edge of your seat. Rest the soles of your feet flat on the floor and parallel to each other. An ideal seat height puts your hips level with, or slightly above, your knees. If it is too challenging for you to sit for extended time without back support, you can slide back against your seatback when your back tires.
Now, lightly close your eyes.
Feel the soles of both feet firmly on the ground and imagine they are warm and soft as if they are melting into the floor beneath you.
Relax your shoulders down and rest your hands, palms down, on your thighs. Imagine feeling the palms of your hands as warm and soft, as if they are melting into your thighs.
Imagine a string attached to the top of your head, drawing your spine gently upright, creating a little more space inside your body.
Tuck your chin slightly, lengthening the back of your neck. Lightly close your lips and roll the tip of your tongue up to touch the roof of your mouth.
Smile. Allow the feeling of smiling to relax and soften your face, your jaw, your eyes, your eyebrows, and your forehead. Allow the feeling of smiling to wash down through your whole body, creating a positive inner environment, nurturing every cell. Smile into every cell.
Focus into your abdomen and become aware of your breathing there. As you take your next few in-breaths allow the bottom of your ribs to elevate slightly increasing the space between your ribs and your hips. Maintain that slight rib elevation to align yourself in an empowered posture and give you more space to breathe deeply.
Now, as you inhale, imagine your whole body filling up with your breath. As you exhale, imagine your whole body emptying out. Take several, slow, deep, whole-body breaths.
Let go of your breathing and feel your body as a whole from the inside. Feel the entire space inside your skin. Imagine feeling your inner body as open, clear, and spacious. Be as still as you can be and feel your inner body as open, clear, and spacious.
Now in this open, clear, inner space, imagine that you are the CEO of your life. As CEO, it’s your task to hold an inspired vision, set goals, oversee action steps, manage your attention and resources, and be the social face of your life relating well to the other CEOs and the planet.
First, imagine that, as CEO, your primary seat of power is in your heart—this is your office. Imagine as well strong lines of communication from your heart upward to the center of your brain and forehead and downward into your abdomen, legs and feet. In this way, you make inspired choices from your heart that are organized and prioritized by your brain, and grounded in and carried out by your body. Imagine yourself as CEO, seated in your heart and well-connected to your head and your abdomen. Take a few, slow, deep breaths, imagining that you are breathing in and out of your heart to center your awareness there.
To help you take up your CEO role, imagine what you are wearing as CEO of your life. Let’s have some fun with this. What would the CEO of your life wear? Include the style and colors of your CEO clothing.
Imagine you are sitting there in your office looking exactly as someone who is CEO of your life would look.
From your CEO seat in your heart you have a view of the whole operation of your life. Let’s begin with the guiding values of your operation. What is most important to you? What inspires you? What are your Core Values?
Imagine these values appearing right in front of you on a plaque just above eye level, so you can look up and refer to them whenever you need to. Imagine this plaque with bright colors, precious metals, gems, or decorated in a special way that appeals to you. . .
Now imagine a whiteboard below this plaque.
Choose one dimension of your life to work with and write it at the top center of this whiteboard: it could be health, finances, love, purpose—or any area that is a priority for you right now. . .
Is this dimension of your life currently expressing and supporting your Core Values?. . .
What would you like to grow or improve in this dimension of your life?. . .
Set one goal in this dimension of your life—a specific result you are aiming for and put that on the right side of your whiteboard in words or an image. . .
Imagine three significant action steps that you could take to reach this goal. Put images or words representing these action steps in time sequence from left to right with arrows pointing toward your goal on the right side. . .
Now, what is your next step, one simple, small action you can take today to move forward toward your goal? Put words or an image representing that small action step on the left side of your whiteboard with an arrow pointing toward your first significant action step. Each of your three significant action steps is made up of small, very doable actions like this next one. Any significant step toward your goal is just a matter of taking small, very doable steps, one after the next, after the next. . .
Imagine any possible challenges along the way to your goal. You can put those below your action step timeline. Imagine challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. How might you meet those challenges and use them to learn and grow? Draw arrows from those challenges upward to the significant action step they relate to. As you meet those challenges they move you forward in even better and better ways. Challenges refine your knowledge, skills, and effectiveness. . .
Now, imagine any possible distractions and temptations that might draw you off course. As CEO it’s your task to monitor your inner feeling state which will tell you when you are veering off course, so you can refocus and guide yourself back on track. When you face decisions about how to allocate your time, energy, and resources, ask yourself “Is this going to take me toward or away from what’s most important to me?”
Now, as CEO you’ll do best with an open-hearted, learning mindset. Consciousness evolves by learning new things and having novel experiences. The best CEOs lead their ventures on the cutting edge, continuously innovating, expanding in the areas that are on path for them and their companies. The same is true as CEO in your own life. Feed your passion and grow what you value most, by learning every day, growing new relationships, looking for new opportunities, and sharing your gifts with the world. We all need what you have to offer. . .
Finally, imagine yourself as the CEO of your life engaged with all the other CEOs on this planet on a mission to create a more conscious, inspired, and caring world.
You are the CEO of your life. . . What does that feel like?. . . You are the CEO of your life. . .
Take a moment to record that image in your mind and that feeling in your body.
Slowly open your eyes and take in the space around you. You are the CEO of your life right here and now. What is your next step?
Take a moment to write down anything that is important for you to remember from this meditative experience.
Well done!