Vishen, author and founder of Mindvalley, joins Cheddar News to offer wellness tips and discuss how his platform aims to provide a mental health toolkit for users.

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Personal Growth Expert Vishen Offers Tools For Mental Wellness

guys between Gaza baker Machado in new york Next month kicks off mental health awareness month, that international meditation month. However, both important topics deserve more than one month. A month of focus in honor of both. Our next guest is offering his tips and his tricks. Starting with his sixth phase meditation, a meditation framework based on daily practice. So joining us now to discuss is new York times, best selling author and founder of mine Valley Vision Fishing, Good to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So like we mentioned our mental health, something we should be focusing on every single day throughout the year. So the month of May is when we can prepare ourselves for the proper tools out there. So walk us through your sixth phase meditation practice. Perfect. So the sixth phase meditation is a mental practice used by athletes in every major american sports team, Tony Gonzalez, who is one of the NFL greats has talked spoken about it Bianca andre askew who won the US Open does it and it's based on these six principles. Now they are all rooted in science except the last one we're going to come to that. The first one is when you meditate in the morning, don't worry about sitting cross legged or burning incense, Just sit up in a comfortable chair and relax. You don't even have to worry about focusing on your breath or clearing your thoughts. But the first thing you do is a compassion exercise. You think about the people you love and you imagine sending love to them now because we have limited time. I'm going to go super fast and simplifies. That's the first one. That's the first phase of compassion. This is based on zen roshi practices of creating loving kindness towards you and everyone else in the world. It makes you a kind of person. It makes you look and smile at people in the eye. That's one number to gratitude. We have all heard of gratitude. Science says that gratitude is the number one human characteristic associated with well being. So guess what? You practice gratitude? Your health improves gratitude has been shown to reduce depression, improve sleep, even reduced back pain. It also makes you a happier, more huggable person. So you think about three things that you're grateful for in your personal life, your work life. And then something about yourself, we are told not to be narcissist. Do not love ourselves too much. That's mm hmm. We You want to think about something about yourself. Maybe it's your hair, maybe it's your eyes. Maybe it's the fact that you are a good tipper that you can be grateful for. Absolutely. Phase three is the toughest one, forgiveness. This is where you forgive forgive and bless whoever you feel has wronged you way back in the past or recently, maybe a waiter forgot your order. You forgive that incident. You create a life where you have no negative charge towards anything. And again, forgiveness so much Science on it. One university showed that it improves your vertical jump, it improves your endurance. We don't know how but forgiveness heals you. That's phase 123 now. Phase 456 are not about present states, there are about the future. Phase four is about visualizing your life three years ahead. Maybe it's that whole, maybe it's that job. Phase five is setting an intention for how you want your data one fold and phase six is simply a prayer to whatever religious idea you have to whatever God you believe in To bless you so that you can fulfill your mission as somebody who has been a meditator everyday for 10 years. And I many ways I think it's saved so much of my mental health and my my sanity and everything. Obviously I know how to do it. But for a lot of people when they're just getting started it's very intimidating for a lot of people to do it because I think a lot of people don't know what meditation is or for a lot of people they have sort of this skewed vision of what it really is. Why do you think meditation is so sort of it's a weird thing for a lot of people people get it wrong. People think it's about it's about closing your eyes and focusing on your breath and preventing any thoughts from entering your mind. That's not true. That is hermetic meditation. If you lived in India for 1000 years ago and you didn't have WhatsApp and facebook and a career and a boss breathing down your neck. Go ahead and meditate for an hour. But in today's world that type of meditation is not so important in F. M. R. I. Scans showing actually what happens in our brain and it turns out you do not need this arduous one hour practices the short burst of the right thoughts, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, etcetera. Can do the trick. So let's talk about Mind Valley here, Bishop, because this platform has 20 million people across 195 countries. But you're utilizing a lot of really interesting technology here. So how are you sort of trying to bridge this gap from connecting with people but also sort of utilizing new technology here? Well imagine if Harvard University and um and a social network had a love child that would be mine Value what we're really creating is a global education model to teach people the stuff that really matters. The right attitude, mindset, entrepreneurship skills, mindfulness, health wellness, well being relationship. But doing it within the context of a global network that brings you together with the right people in your city. So you can co elevate each other. And the other thing I think is interesting here is your goal for mine Valley to reach 100 national schooling systems. Really also sort of focusing in on public schooling here. Why is that? Because the most important thing kids can learn in school is the right attitude and by that we mean self esteem, we mean mindfulness, we mean taking care of their health, healthy eating, how to relate to each other that's way more important than history or geography, or so much of the industrial age education stuff that we're teaching our kids today, but also do you think starting kids young at a younger age, learning a lot of these traits will help them as they get older. So many studies are showing this scientific studies are showing that these attitudes of you put them in a child, this child grow the Children grow up healthier, more well adjusted and and having a better time fitting into a complex world. Really fascinating stuff. New york times, best selling author and founder of Mind Valley Vision, joining us here at Cheddar Studios Vision, such a pleasure to have you. Thank you, Thank you so much.