My Story and Why Listen To Me
In the first official episode of The Art & Business of Meditation, I share the story of how I came to this work of teaching meditation in hopes it inspires and gives you ideas on how to pursue your unique path.
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Podcast Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. My name is Lou Redmond and this is the first official episode. And so I want to start by sharing my own story because I think it'll give more context to why I'm sharing and where I'm sharing from. And we'll talk a little bit more about what I mean when I say that. But in essence, and I've shared my story in different spaces, so if you have listened to my content, you might be familiar with some of it. But I want to break it down. I have written a book called Find you'd Truth, which really shares this story in depth and shows some guidance on how someone can make some of the changes that I've made. However, I'll give the most pointed explanation in a way that I think is going to serve, and especially if you're wanting to be a meditation creator or guide and understand where I'm coming from. So, in essence, the before, I think if you're on this journey, you might have a before and after, a death and rebirth. A moment where you are in one world and then a moment where you're in this other world. Right? You have awakened something within you and has probably led to some profound changes. So for me, my old world was partying, drinking, going to my corporate job Monday through Friday and going through a loop and a cycle and doing drugs and just having fun and going to work, doing the thing, going to work, partying. And it was this routine. And I hit a low point in that journey. And I, by the grace of the most high, found a group that I was unaware of. I had no idea what the group was really about, but a friend had mentioned it and he had joined one in another city and told me about this group that was in San Diego called Junto Global. And I went to a meeting and that meeting changed my life. That meeting opened me up to a group of people who were seeing life with possibility, that were seeing life as a creation, as a journey to feel the joy of being alive. Rather than a party, really, at the time, I thought life was about having fun. I thought life was a party. And after I went to this meeting, I learned and I got a scope into a group of people that saw life differently. And it opened me up hugely. I honestly didn't know if I'd be allowed back to the meeting. There was really nothing I could contribute. However, I wrote a letter to the founder and I asked if I can continue to come into this meeting. It was an entrepreneurial organization. However, it wasn't just entrepreneurs because I was still at a company. It was just people who wanted to talk about things that mattered and help each other and support each other in their businesses, lives and beyond. And we talked about really powerful things, things that I didn't talk about with anyone else. And so it was the first time that I experienced the power of being vulnerable with other people, being vulnerable with a group. And it changed my life, radically transformed my life. And I picked up some new habits. I picked up reading, I picked up journaling, and I picked up dun, dun, dun meditation. Now to focus on meditation, because that's what this podcast is about. I didn't start meditating with any real intention besides, hey, these people I look up to told me this is a thing that, quote, unquote, successful people do that helps you to be better at your life, be better at your work. And that is my context of how I started meditating. And there was no spiritual aspect to it. There was no even looking or even opening to that question in the beginning. It was simply, hey, this is something that people I look up to are doing, and I've listened to all of the things that they've said and it's helped my life a lot. And so maybe I'll try this meditation thing on. And when I started, there wasn't. I was doing it maybe five minutes a day sitting on my wall in my room. I can still feel the vision of one of those first sits. And that was pretty much it. There wasn't like, oh, God, I love. Oh, this thing is amazing. And I just started going all in on it. It wasn't like that at all. Now fast forward a few months. I had made some serious changes in my life. I had broken up with my partner, who is my current partner as well. We broke it up and I went to live alone. And at that time, I did Deepak and Oprah's Meditation Challenge. I think they do this maybe every November. I don't know if they do it anymore. So this was around 2014 when I did this challenge. And that was really the first practice and intention I had for at least practicing meditation on a daily and consistent basis. But still wasn't like, this is my thing. But I was still giving it time, giving it energy. I wasn't really feeling a lot of the effects in the beginning. And so it was just a thing and a thing that I enjoyed exploring. And just as I enjoyed exploring journaling and reading, it was just a part of my life now. But it again wasn't like, yes, this thing is amazing. This thing is transforming now. Fast forward another couple months and this is where there could be so much I could say about my story. That and for the sake of time and the intention, with what you're going to get out of today, and to give you the context, I'm going to do my best to keep it pointed. I drank on New Year's Eve and was really hungover on New Year's Day and was at the time drinking a lot less, partying less, because I'd been getting into personal development. But still it was a part of my life still. On an occasion I was going out and doing cocaine with friends. And so even though I was in personal development, I wasn't stopping these habits that I had. And on New Year's Day I was really hungover. And there was a moment in that hungoverness that I was witnessing a family play in a park. And I just had this feeling like I never want to be so hungover that I can't play with my kids. Like it was this knowing and this just disgust in a way with myself because I can't imagine not always being hungover. That was just such a pattern in my life. And so the next day I wake up sober and I go on a drive and I head back home. So I was actually in Palm Springs and so I headed on a drive and I decided to go take a hike by myself. And I've never done that before. And I go into this place in Joshua Tree and I go on this hike and since I just started meditating, I'm like, oh, what's cool? It's going to be cool if I go to the top of a mountain and I sit there meditating, you know, cross legged and seeing the vistas and like just I had that kind of cool image of what that might look like. So that's what I was going into this with. And so I start going up the mountain and I take a pause on the mountain and I go off like a trail that's not really a trail. And I decide to just sit and meditate. And I get into a meditation and for the first time I'm really able to drop in. I'm really able to feel something that I hadn't felt before. And I start repeating these words to myself. I'm fulfilled, I'm fulfilled. I'm fulfilled. And as I repeat those words, I can feel the energy inside of me buzzing and growing. And then I get out of that meditation, I'm like, whoa, maybe that's what people are talking about. Yeah. And so I was feeling good, like, okay, I'm going to continue my hike and keep going up, keep going up, because I want to find that top place to meditate. I just want to meditate on the side of the mountain. I want to medit at the tippy top. And so I go up. I go up. I'm getting tired. I'm getting tired. And I see this other ledge. I'm like, okay, I'm Take a break here and I'll do another meditation here. So I take a break and I do another meditation. And right away I start going back into that kind of internal mantra. I'm fulfilled. I'm fulfilled. And then I get the second part of that mantra. I'm fulfilled at my core. I'm fulfilled at my core. I'm fulfilled at my core. And I repeat that. I repeat that. And as I repeat that, there's this, like, inner knowing. There was this mini realization. I wouldn't even say a mini. A realization that God wasn't somewhere outside of me, wasn't some person, that I had an essence of God within me, right? That I am fulfilled at my core, that who I am is that essence. And so there's nothing that I could possibly need. I have everything within me. And there was this. This knowing of it. And with that knowing came this just beautiful bliss state. And it was really. It was magical. It's like, wow. Yeah, this is cool. This is amazing. And so I am like, okay, wow, this is. This is the most incredible hike I've ever taken. And so I get to the. I finally continue. I get to the top of the mountain and what seems like my peak to, you know, to do my final meditation, so to speak. And I decide instead of to meditate, I decide to take out my journal. And I want to just journal about these meditations that I just had while they're fresh in my mind, because I don't want to forget it. And so I start journaling. And as I start journaling, I, for whatever reason, start to write a note to my future son or daughters and to my future sons or daughters. And right when I wrote that, almost like I'm writing a letter to my kids, right when I wrote that, I felt this. This is where it's very hard to express in words. I felt like. To use a term that people have used, I felt like I got a question from God. I felt like. And it wasn't through words. It was through this. This. This knowingness. And I put my pen down, and the question was, do I want all that life has in store for me. And, you know, at first I'm like, yeah, of course. Who doesn't want all that life has in store for them? Yeah, of course I do. But as I knew what my answer was, I also knew and felt what I was being asked to sacrifice, to give up. And what I felt I was being asked to fully give up was alcohol. And that might be like, well, Lou, yeah, maybe that's not a big deal, but this was brand new to me. I'd been drinking steadily for 10 years. I was 25 years old. And I also thought, how. How am I. How would I ever do this? I am. How am I going to socialize? How am I going to be in the world if I don't drink alcohol? This is how I feel comfortable in any sort of social situation. This is crazy. But at that same time, I knew that alcohol had been a problem in my life. And I come from a long, long line of alcoholics. And something in me knew that this was a now or never time. Do I want to make this commitment? And I wrestled with it. It wasn't easy. And I ended up writing in my journal on this day and to my future sons or daughters. On this day, January 2, 2015, I, Lewis Redmond, stop drinking. And I close my journal. And this is where things get fun, if they haven't already felt fun. I close my journal. And it was as if the sky had opened up and I was poured in the most amount of love and ecstasy that I had ever felt up until that time. And I had been doing a lot of ecstasy, so I have some comparison, but this was natural, this was real. This was God love. And I broke down in tears, and I shouted out from the mountain, and I just was screaming, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for this healing, for this experience, kind of connecting with it right now. You know, before I do a course or a talk or get on something live, I often think of this moment right before. And I say, thank you. I say thank you for this opportunity, because it was that decision. It was that decision in that moment that has led to everything good, everything I've been able to step into in my life since. And so I enjoy that. And I come back down the mountain and I'm floating, like, flying down the mountain, like a bird, literally putting my arms out, waving my arms, waving my arms, and just in this ecstatic lovingness and enjoy that for a while, this hike, just being with nature. And then I get in my car, I start to drive back to San Diego. And I ask myself, what the hell did I just commit to? What the hell just happened? And the only thing that I could come up with one, that this was a spiritual experience. This was a mystical experience, even though I hadn't ever thought about that before. Like, it's almost like I knew I had the language for it already. And so I just recognized that. And then I thought, you know what? One day at a time. What did I commit to? Let's just take this one day at a time. And I start driving back to San Diego. And when I get back, I decide to go to a place in Encinitas, California, called the Self Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens. It was one of Paramahansa Yogananda's ashrams. And it's a beautiful space right on the Pacific Ocean with places to meditate and koi pond and all. Just beautiful, beautiful space. And I go there, and this was a couple days later, and I start meditating right on the ocean. And as I'm meditating again, dropping in, energy's opening in me at this time. I don't have a frame of reference at the time, but looking back and my understanding of it now, I'm having an opening. So energy, it's just like we took a hose and turned it on. And so there's new energy that's flowing. And that new energy is taking hold of my experience. It's taking hold of my life. And while I'm meditating on the. The side of the mountain, or, excuse me, the side of the ocean, and it's like a moment of just blissful crystallization. Like, I open my eyes and it's like this connection with the ocean, the. The rays of the sun, and just this connection with the nature around me was coming into this felt sense of interconnect. And it was on that meditation where I looked out into the ocean and I was like, wow. Like, really got a sense of awe for how big this world is. And I recognized how little I've been playing in it and how I've been living my life in this cubicle doing things that aren't in my highest state of creativity. And I was playing small, and there's so much life to live. So that night, I go to bed and I receive a text from my current fiance, previous ex at the time, that showed me a thing called the Holstein Manifesto. Look it up. It's a beautiful manifesto by a company called Holste. And in that, it says, if you don't like your job, quit. Since I just had that day that Realization. I saw this manifesto, and that specific phrase really stuck out to me, and I said, whoa. I actually did like my job. I'll be honest. Like, I just got a promotion. It was a cool company to work for. So I'm not coming at this. Like, I hated my job, and that's. And if you do, it makes it even easier to leave. I actually liked it. And I was like, but what if I quit? Right? There was this unmistakable energy that was just, like, opening up and saying, louis, no. Maybe there's. You're meant for more. You're meant for more. You meant to do something else. You meant to do something else. I was like, whoa, whoa, what if I quit? This will be crazy. What if I quit? And so I kind of. I stay up on that all night, and then the next day I go to work and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go to work and I'm just going to spread this love. I'm going to spread this energy to everyone. And now this is the day after a long Christmas and New Year's break. So while I'm on cloud nine, you can imagine most people aren't coming back from a break like that. It's Monday, and, yeah, my energy wasn't the same energy as everyone else. And there was this huge dissonance that I felt. And during that day, things just started to make sense, but in a difficult way. Like, things and people. My manager, just the conversations, the topics that we were talking about, what I saw in people, like, were they really happy? Do I want to be these people? All these questions I was wrestling with, and I was wrestling with the thought of, like, maybe I should just quit. All day, all day I was like, maybe I should just quit. Like, I just really felt like, whoa, what if I did this? What if I just quit? We were so much excited. There was so much energy. I don't even know if it was excitement. There was, like an energy that felt the potential of what could happen. And if I quit. And when. I mean quit, I mean, no, not two week notice. Like, there was something in me that just felt like it just needed to just totally cut gears. No two week notice. Just boom, out. And so I decide to not do anything that day. And I sit with this question all night. I go to a place, I meditate on it. I try and find an answer, and I can't find a clear answer. I want to tell people I'm going through this. I want to tell my ex that I'm struggling with this question. But I knew I had to make this decision on my own, so I didn't tell anyone. And it felt like when I was contemplating it, it felt like there was a portal that was open for me. And there was this knowing that if I don't do this now, if I don't do this now, I might not feel like this for another 10 years. That'll be the next portal that comes around where I can step into. And it was really crazy to navigate and difficult to think about the way I wanted to quit. And I'll save some other parts of this story, but I went to bed that night and I Woke up at 3am on the dot, which is a very mysterious hour to wake up. And I get my morning going and I continue this contemplation about quitting. And I move through, I talk to the people, I tell my parents that I'm going to quit. I have that conversation and I get off that phone call with the enough energy to continue and to actually do it. And I get on my computer and I write a letter to my entire company and announcing that I'm leaving. And this letter is very deep. I was crying, literally crying, crying my eyes out, writing the letter. And that was also how I knew that this was what I was meant to be doing. I was thanking people I was sending love. And I was also leaving in a very difficult way. I was going to leave some people in difficult situations by what I was doing, and I recognized that. And at the same time, I felt like I had to do it. And I sent that email off. And the experience that took place right when I hit that send button was 10 times greater than the experience I had on that mountain. And it was just like a huge pummel of energy. Again, this is ineffable and was a complete mystical transformation, transfiguration that I. There's a clear before and after in my life. And that day is that that day, that January 6th of 2015, the day I was before that is not who I was the day after because of that experience. And, you know, there's this. There's this whole other story of the cops coming. And, you know, there's a wild story of me reuniting with my partner on that. But that's not what this podcast is about. If you want to hear or read that story, you could. You could read the book. You can watch an interview I've done or. Or, you know, just hear it in a different way. But it was through meditation that this experience came into my life and completely transfigured my being brought me into a completely different world in a different state. And the rest of my life, which is about over eight years since that time, has been footnotes to that and has been a journey in actually discovering what was that purpose, what was that calling that I left for that this experience was bringing me to? And maybe I'll pause there and just like say, like that's the context I'm coming at from this work. I didn't. I guess in a way I'm very lucky. I've had maybe experiences that first part of me is like, why the. Why the heck do I. Did I deserve that now? It was incredibly scary. And this is. There's a lot to say about this, of the ups and downs of what happened in the next years, because part of that was I just quit. I just threw away my college training, my. My degree. I was. There was. There was burning bridge. There was no going back for me. And so it was learning how one I was gonna. What it was my purpose. I didn't even know what it was. I quit just feeling a calling to something greater and how to navigate that. And it's through navigating that now, eight plus years later, and coming to a place where I have so much purpose, where I'm impacting people in a way that feels aligned, where I'm supporting myself well, where I have a ton of freedom. That's the context I'm sharing this podcast as. Because I've walked that journey from zero to here from I know I have a calling to give, to share and how. And it took a while and right away, meditation one, it was what kept me grounded and kept me connected to that energy that kept it moving. And it was what I initially started sharing. And so we'll talk about certifications, we'll talk about things like that on this podcast for sure. But the first time that I guided someone in meditation was maybe two months after that experience. And it was simply, hey, this thing completely transformed my life. And I want to show you, here's what I do. Can you sit down? We sat down together, went to a park, sat down with a friend, and I just guided them into what I was doing internally. And then I did it with another friend and another friend. And that's how I started. And it was positive experiences and I loved sharing it. And so I thought, yeah, I'm going to be a meditation teacher. This is a big thing. This is it. I love doing this. It's my favorite thing in the world. This connects me to God. This connects me to that energy. I'm going to be a meditation teacher. And so I looked at trainings and looking at Sarah McLean's training at the time, and I believe it was $2,000 at the time. And while that feels like a, a great investment in a steal nowadays, I just quit my job and I wasn't good financially and I was partying a lot. So I didn't have any money saved and I had no money to invest. And so the thing I'll tell you right off the bat is that I don't have a certification to teach meditation. And for a while that was a big point of imposter syndrome. And I'm not trying to pretend to be anything else than who I am. And that's how I started. And please, I wish every part of my being wants a guru and a teacher. Or what they say is when the teacher is ready, the student appears, or the student is ready, the teacher appears. Both ways could work. And I think one of the biggest things that I want to share and things and biases and blind spots or not even blind spots, I can see it or I wish it. There's so many. When you think of a meditation teacher, one we'll talk about, certification is going to be a topic of this podcast. But certifications, it's not like thousands of years ago the Buddha gave a certification to his followers to, you know, certified Buddhist. Now you can go ahead and teach meditation. We have created the education industrial complex, which we'll again talk more about. But what it was more was the teacher who was trained by often was male. So I mean his or her teacher, but many times it was male. They gave the teacher permission. They said, okay, you are at a certain level of awakening and you can go now teach on your own. And there's a lineage in that and there's also a transmission in that. And so I'm very aware that I'm not in that lineage, so to speak, that a traditional meditation teacher, whom many would mostly take seriously from a very serious standpoint, you know, someone like a Joseph Goldstein, a Jack Kornfield, some of these more well established teachers who got permission, who went did their training in a far off land, got permission from their teachers to bring it to the West. And that to me, my insecurity shows of like, well, that's a real meditation teacher. And we're going to break away from labels on this podcast because I'll offer this to the universe. I continually ask, you know, if I'm meant to be in this lineage or a lineage. Show me who what is it like? Show me. But it's not been shown. Maybe my awakening is not ready and that's okay too. And so I'm really coming at this not as, as a expert meditation teacher or some realized being. Even though I told you about these mystical experiences. Well, we're going to talk about the traps also in, you know, I've been through messiah complex and that's going to be a topic but I think that's important some pitfalls that we can fall into. But I share all of this with you to just give you the context of how I'm looking at this work and there's so much more to the journey. Obviously this was eight years of figuring it out. I'll tell you what I do have a certification in. I'm a 200 hour yoga teacher. I have a 95 hour kids yoga and mindfulness certification. So I've done a lot of work, work with kids and certifications trainings are great. But in the essence, really my teaching, if I call it that, I more call it sharing, I more call it just living and sharing notes. Sharing what's been helpful for me has been self taught and self experienced. And I try. I'm going to come to this podcast with my experience and the interviews is where I'm going to hopefully bring in other people's experiences. And so again I'm aware I'm going to have biases and blind spots. And so I'm trying to paint that picture here early because I don't because I have a lot of imposter syndrome around. Oh my gosh, now I'm the business or the art expert in meditation and maybe people will see me like that and that's whatever. I can't control other people's projections. But really this is just me sharing what's been helpful and how I've used been able to have meditation, support myself, share my gifts, make an impact and I want to help you. As I say in one of my bios, I'm not an enlightened guru. Right. Well, maybe even talk about bios on this. It's always funny to write something in the third person. Well actually this is in first person. I'm not an enlightened guru. I'm just a friend on the path and I might be just a few steps ahead in some ways. And it's, it's that I want to show, I want to show you the map. I'm going to share my map. Maybe it's helpful. You got to walk your own way map. So as always with this podcast, take what resonates for you, leave what doesn't. Follow your own journey. This is a heroes journey that we are embarking on when we're sharing our gifts. And so I am thrilled to be sharing with you if you're like, whoa, who I want to learn more about this story and more about kind of the things that I shared today. I wasn't expecting to get as emotional as I did, but I'm glad I did. And I'm excited because so I wrote a book. The first thing I did, which maybe I wouldn't recommend to everyone, is I wrote a book because I needed to share the story of what the heck happened to me the eight months before. And I wrote a book called Find you'd Truth. That was actually a big thing I did after I quit my job was for the next first two years I wrote a book and I just. This came out in 2017 and I just released the Audible version that I recorded in 2018, but didn't have the money to get edited and get it actually out there. So I'm glad to finally have it out there. So if you want to hear the story, you can go check that out on Audible. And that's also, you know, I share that because that idea of having the money, you know, I just wish I learned more about that earlier on or I wish I learned more about how to save or invest or how to look at and actually look at it as a business. Right. So often we're going into meditation. We don't see this as a business. We. We just see this as a gift that we're sharing. So that's the context. That's where I'm. Where I'm sharing from is this whole experience. And, and I'll share obviously much more about what I've learned on the path. I hope something in here sparked maybe something in you. I hope it gives you some reflection, some permission. A big thing is just the permission that you can be and share what's true for you. And no one has to give you permission to do that. And so these are my blind spots. These are the things I don't have. Not a lineaged meditation teacher, but I try my best to do my own work and share from there. So if that resonates for you and you want to stick around and you want to learn more about the art and business of meditation, I hope you stay with this podcast. And please, please, please, if you know other people that are on this journey that are interested, that want to explore maybe making a change in their life that want to share meditation, share this podcast with them. I really appreciate getting it out there to as many people as possible. So thank you so much and I'll see you on the next episode.