MF 43 - OMG I can Meditate! Guided Meditations to Help Develop a Regular Meditation Habit with Lynne Goldberg

Sicco Rood interviews meditation teachers of various wisdom traditions

Feb 08 2016

MF 43 - OMG I can Meditate! Guided Meditations to Help Develop a Regular Meditation Habit with Lynne Goldberg

Lynne was stressed-out, sleep-deprived, type-A businesswoman, and ended up a renowned meditation coach. As she talks about in the interview, when she started meditating, no one would have labeled Lynne Goldberg “a natural”.

Lynne had a series of devastating life blows, including the loss of twin baby girls, her mother, her marriage, and her job, coupled with years of infertility treatment and multiple failed adoptions, she counted on overworking and wine to help her survive.

But in the quiet moments she was forced to face the fact that, ultimately, she was still alone, unhappy, unfulfilled, and disconnected. Something—in fact, everything—was missing. Dragged kicking and screaming by a friend to a yoga retreat, Lynne reluctantly abided by the meat-free, alcohol-free diet and sat through the meditations simply because there was nowhere else to go.

But as she found her stress and anxiety slowly dissipating, the reluctance transformed into acceptance, and acceptance into appreciation and outright enjoyment. There was no denying the transformative effects this balanced, healthy approach was having on her life. She felt calm, capable, and in control.

Lynne course-corrected her life onto a path to understanding and embraced a new healthy and balanced lifestyle, studying along the way with Deepak Chopra, Sri Dharma Mittra and Tony Robbins.

Today she is a certified meditation coach, yoga instructor, strategic interventionist, and author of the book “Get Balanced. Get Blissed.”

Her passion and life mission lie in helping others transform their lives and discover true happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment through meditation and personal growth. Her ability to compassionately connect with others, and her accessible, everyday approach to teaching meditation, have led her to copach people from all walks of life, from celebrities, athletes, and business executives to 80-year-old cancer patients and five-year-old children.

Lynne's meditation programs and curriculum have been implemented in elementary and high schools, special needs schools, and hospitals.

Lynne Goldberg is also co-founder of OMG. I Can Meditate!, a mobile and web meditation app that can teach anybody how to meditate in just 10 minutes a day. Lynne's simple and clear teaching style has brought the joy of meditation to stressed-out business executives, soccer moms, eighty year olds, kindergarten kids, and everyone in between. She is the author of the book Get Balanced. Get Blissed.

When Lynne is not helping people find their bliss, she is living her own doing the things she loves most: being in nature, hiking or biking, traveling the world, cooking, or enjoying time with her husband and kids.

(What follows is a summary transcript of the interview. Listen to the episode for the full conversation)

(Above: Guided Meditation video by OMG I can Meditate! Lynn Goldberg)

What was your life like before you started a meditation practice?

Lynn was not a natural meditator at all (stresses this point). So many folks are intimidated by meditation, and look at other meditators and think, "oh, I could never do that". She came to meditation by accident. Her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. At the time when Lynn's mother went through all her cancer treatments, her doctor recommended she try meditation.

And simultaneously, Lynn was going through infertility treatments. So she thought, while her mother was having difficulties with her treatments, so Lynn thought, if it can help her mother, maybe it can help her as well. And when you're pregnant, people like to tell you, just relax, and you'll get pregnant. So she looked at meditation as a way to help her relax for that as well. As well as deal with this stuff that was going on as well.

And over time, meditation with practice became easier.

And you mentioned that you had a lot of other dramas in your life as well, with your business as well. Were you attracted to meditation because you could see another way of dealing with these issues?

She didn't have any plan. What she noticed was that she wasn't coping as well as she'd like to cope. Lynn noticed that she was waking up at 3 am having panic attacks. Sleep was difficult for her. Her self-worth was very low. Lost her job, her marriage started to fall apart. She did not feel very good about herself.

And one of the things that really made a difference was meditation. It started to give her another sense of self-worth. As she started meditating more, those feelings of self-doubt, those inner voices that you tend to hear all the time, started to diminish. So it really helped.

Thich Nhat Hahn talks about the radio stations in our minds, how with time and more meditation, you can turn the channels to a less anxious channel/frequency.

Lynn calls it her automatic thought machine, her ATM, which unfortunately doesn't dispense a lot of cash. Rather it dispenses self-criticism. Over time, the self-talk can become a bit more realistic, little less self-critical.

So the story about yourself is less one-way, less rigid, less negative. It begins to open up...

Exactly. .

What kind of meditations did you start with and how did it evolve?

Lynn's first experience with meditation, she was going through infertility treatments. And she used a cassette tape guided meditation recording. That was more like body scan, that type of meditations. She wasn't physically capable of doing silent meditations, of doing anything but guided meditations. Over time it didn't really change, she'd have moments of peace and tranquility. But it wasn't immediate.

But further down the road, as she started to develop that attention muscle, she could get more silence in those gaps. So she could develop that practice more. But she has to say her mantra for a long time was, "when will this be over, when will this be over".

So during your meditation practice, it was still future oriented..it was still about getting to another place..

Absolutely, yes, and there was an emphasis on the future, and also there was an emphasis on, I was not doing it right. A strong feeling that other people probably had more tranquility, silence, space in their thoughts than I. A lot of comparison, not feeling good enough in the meditation. And a sense that this was something that only I was failing at.

Which was really important to us, as we developed our app. We really tried to address those concerns, that most people have when they meditate. And then give up, because they think that they're not doing it properly. We wanted to reassure people, that this is it.

There's thought, thought, thought, thought, thought...And then you go back to the object of your attention, and you have some more thoughts. And as you continue to do that, eventually it becomes a bit more accessible. A little bit less though, and a little bit more space.

And it sounds like you're putting components of self-acceptance in your app's guided meditations. So that people aren't as hard on themselves, as you did on your former self.

Did you also have teachers along the way?

My first experience, was a meditation retreat. It was a funny situation, my girlfriend dragged me kicking and screaming. Reluctant to go with her. I found out there was no alcohol there. And it was basically Vegan. (laughing) I was hoping to stay in a nearby hotel. So I was stuck there for a whole week.

But I submerged myself, and thankfully so. Because that was the beginning of a love affair.

Did you see it differently at the end of the retreat than at the beginning of the retreat?

I'd love to say that I did..What I did notice, was that I had been craving, hoping to achieve a certain state. Peace and quiet type of state. I noticed that that peace that was so elusive, was accessible for periods of time. And I could access this state of mind, more when I was allowing myself to be still and quiet than when I was not.

And so I counter intuitively I always thought I had to work really really hard to achieve a certain state. If I do this, then maybe I can get there, or have that. But what I recognized, is the less I did, the more peaceful I actually felt. So that was that shift in me. I wouldn't say that it, boom all changed all at once, but that realization was really helpful and important.

Yeah I think that is the case with many people, it doesn't just go from one day to the next. But they may read a story that says it should happen a certain way, so pretty quick it turns to self-doubt, and thinking there's something wrong with oneself.

Did you end up going to more retreats in the future?

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