John Selby - Meditation. The Cool Way to Calm

meditation

the cool way to calm for young adults,

an effective way to deal with confusion anger & stress

john selby

About the Author

John Selby is the proud father of two teenagers and a grown son (and is now a grandfather). He lives in Hawaii, and leads seminars in America and Europe. The author of two dozen books on meditation and psychology, he also writes novels and screenplays, and records audio guidance CDs and his own music. Visit www.johnselby.com to read chapters of his books online, listen to the guided meditations and emotional-healing programs, and join his community of like-minded seekers of all ages while you enjoy streamed-audio music that will soothe your soul.

Authors Note

There is nothing more intimate and important to us than our inner thoughts and emotions. And there is nothing quite so upsetting as being tormented by our thoughts and suffering from out-of-control feelings. Especially during our teen years, it sometimes seems were on a crazy emotional roller-coaster ride that just wont stopall sorts of bothersome and upsetting thoughts keep racing through our minds, which in turn stimulate feelings of confusion, anger, worry, shame, and guilt. Is there nothing we can do to gain control of our minds, to break free from the emotions that upset us, and to begin to live our lives with more confidence, clarity, peace, and fun?

I was lucky enough to grow up in a town in California where a most wonderful meditation teacher, Krishnamurti, spent half of each year. By the time I entered high school I had learned how to meditate and had a beginning notion of how to take charge of my own mind. This powerful tool of meditation helped me through my teen years. I would like to show you, as you now come of age and claim your place in the adult world, how, in a totally nonreligious way, you can learn to manage your thoughts and feelings to your advantage. I would like to share with you, as I have with my own teenagers, a very simple yet wonderfully effective new approach to mastering the fine art of meditation.

The term meditation means different things to different people. For me, meditation isnt about religious beliefs or spiritual rituals. Its about specific things you can do with your mind to make your life flow better. When we put away all the esoteric religious trappings usually associated with meditating, and get down to meditations logical psychological foundation, we find that meditation is clearly the most powerful and enjoyable mental tool ever invented.

The easy-to-learn approach to meditation Ill be teaching in this book will enable you to take charge of your mind and break free from your emotional aches and mental confusions. As you learn to aim your almighty power of attention, your life will brighten up and take off in directions that you yourself consciously choose.

Put away that stereotype of a bearded guru meditating in some far-off cave in the Himalayan wilderness. Meditation is something you can do anywhere, anytimewhile taking a walk, in school before an exam, while playing sports, while out on a datewhenever you want to calm down, get clear, and enjoy life more. This meditation technique works in any situation and during any time framenot only as a daily half-hour practice but also as a ten-minute reflection break, a four-minute breather, and, yes, even a one-minute CoolCalm quickie when you need to instantly calm down, get centered, clear your mind... and then leap back into action.

This new short-form approach to meditation might make some traditional meditators shake their heads, but as youll find out for yourself, it works absolutely perfectly, allowing you to take meditation anywhere you need its quick powerful boost of emotional calm and mental clarity. You will now have in hand a practical way to help yourself succeed in life.

Right from the very first pages of this book, youll discover that this isnt by any means a traditional instruction book on meditation. Instead, to show you how the power and practice of meditation can become a practical part of your everyday life, this book will move back and forth between an engrossing story of high schoolers applying meditation to their lives, and short reflective discussions that will help you understand meditation. Why are we using this format for exploring meditation? First of all, its just more fun to learn through reading about real-life situations. And second, the dramatic format is simply more effectiveyoull find that right in the middle of an enjoyable story about high schoolers like yourself, youre also learning how to meditate.

Heres another thing about the kind of meditation youll learn in this book: Nobody needs to even know that youre doing it. All theyll see is that right in the middle of being upset or confused or otherwise emotionally and mentally a mess, youre suddenly able to regain your composure, let go of your feelings, and attain a sense of personal balance and power. You are now able to perform at your optimum, relate with strength and compassion, and in general succeed in whatever youre doing at the moment.

As youll see with the life stories in the following chapters, learning to meditate can change your life for the betterand its not that hard to master. Within a few weeks youll be able to do these meditations successfully and discover your inner power to transform your life in ways that you yourself choose.

Youll notice that throughout this book we often talk about how your parents might respond to your reading and learning about meditation and how to actually do it. You might want to consider letting your parents read this book, tootheyll especially like the parts where the parents in the story become actively involved in the dramaand they can of course also learn how to meditate from this book. It works for everyone.

So, enough introduction. Without further ado, lets get right into the story.

Prologue

Julie felt nervous as she headed to the party. Danny would probably be there, and considering the abrupt way hed said Hi to her and then gone off with his friends in school today, she didnt know what to expect of him at all. Was he being moody, or did he just not want to be friends with her anymore?

As she walked up the front steps of the house she could hear loud music. Her stomach felt queasy and she wished she hadnt dressed so sexy. She wanted to be attractive for Danny, but maybe hed get the wrong idea. She thought of just turning around and heading back home; she was under pressure from her dad to raise her grades and she needed to study biology all weekend. But the idea of going home wasnt all that appealing eitherher parents were having one of their big arguments and she preferred to be out of the house when that happened. Besides, she was afraid that if she didnt go to the party, Danny might flirt with other girlsso she walked inside with uncertainty.

Danny was standing with some of his buddies talking about a movie when Julie came through the front door. He immediately tensedshe looked so good! What did she expect? What would he do? So far hed hardly had the nerve to even kiss her goodnight. Part of him wanted to head right over to her as she stood a moment chatting with some of her friends. But he felt frozen, afraid to go moveand before he could push through his hesitancies, she was walking right on through the room, not even noticing him, and out the sliding-glass door that lead to the backyard.

Julie gave a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the house and away from the loud music and the room crammed with partygoers. She much preferred the relative peace and quiet of the backyard. As she was chatting with a couple friends, a relatively new girl at school came by and joined them. She was introduced as Lisa. The high school was so big, there were loads of people Julie didnt know, but this girl instantly sparked Julies attention; she had an unusual peaceful quality to her expression, and she wasnt pushy at all.