How To Prepare for a Meditation Class
I share the step-by-step process of how I prepare to teach a meditation class. If you ever feel anxious about what to teach or how much to prepare, I think you will find this episode helpful! Also, check out the YouTube video for a more in-depth explanation.
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Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am your host, Lou Redmond. I am a meditation creator, an artist and coach and all the things and I love working to empower other people, teachers, coaches, creators on the journey to help you make an impact, make an income in the wellness and coaching industry. I love helping you use meditation as a medium to share your gifts with the world. So if any of that interests you, you're in the right place. I share this podcast as someone who has been pursuing my own journey since 2015. I quit a full time job to figure out what is my purpose and how do I share that with others in the world. You might have heard my story on recent podcast episodes. So if you're interested of some of what I mean, what happened after I quit that job and how I've navigated to make a successful career out of it, you can go ahead and check those previous episodes out. For now and for today, our topic is how how to prep for a meditation class or how I prep for a meditation class and how that might inspire you for things that you could try out, things that you can do to help your classes go smoothly and to help you feel a sense of authority and confidence, competence. I pause on saying confidence because often, sometimes we might not feel confident and we have to find the courage to keep stepping into a class, even amidst us feeling a bit unconfident. So we'll get there in a moment. Before I get into today's episode, I'm going to do something that a lot of the business social media gurus say not to do. And that is to tell people that this content is actually on another platform and that platform might be a better place to view this content. So I'm gonna break the rules because my intention is for you to get the most value. And maybe you don't do this if you're driving right now. Maybe you do just listen to this episode and I'm gonna, I'm gonna give my all to it. However, I do wanna share here that I created a YouTube video that literally goes through me as I am preparing for a meditation class. So I created a video in the whole process and I did some screen shares so you can see what that meditation class looks like. You can have a visual of how I script and can give you some resources on doing that. So the YouTube video will be linked in the comments below. If you're listening to this and have the opportunity to watch it, check it out on YouTube. If not, hang around. I'm still going to give you how to prep, how I prep, and this is going to be still lots of value in this, but I figured I will plug that because it might be helpful for you to just see my actual script. So again, most marketing people, social media people, who knows who these people I'm talking about are, but they'll say to not send people somewhere else when they're already here. But alas, I'm here to help you as much as I can. So Preparing for a Meditation class I gave a class just last week and the class was on a Wednesday night at 7pm I did not think about this class until Tuesday morning. The day before, I blocked out in my calendar that this was what I was going to focus on on Tuesday morning. So I knew I had the whole morning to focus on creating this class and I didn't think about it until then. Now, would I suggest that if you're just starting out, maybe, maybe. But if you're just starting out, I might recommend doing it at least a couple days because then as you prepare a little bit for it, especially when you're doing it in person and you can't rely on a screen or on notes, giving your mind a couple days to get the memorization. And I say memorization in a loose way to get the structure in your mind so that you feel more confident. I've done this hundreds of times, so I feel more confident in how I can remember just with one day of prep. And when I used to teach a weekly class, it was often the Friday before and the class was on Saturday. So each Friday was my day to make that class. My mind would learn it overnight and I would practice in the morning and I'd go in and teach that class on Saturday. So I'm used to that one day turnaround for you, this might be different. So beginning with I sit down on Tuesday and say, okay, well what class do I want to share? Now? I've taught, like I said, hundreds of classes. And the easiest thing for me to do would be to go look at a previous class I taught, find one that I knew resonated, and bring that topic, bring that meditation to, to this new class. I've never taught this class to this class, so I might as well just bring that energy here. Now that can work out great. And if I was rushed for something, if this was really last minute, if I didn't want to spend the time to see what new could come, I would have just done that and that's fine. Now what I would suggest and what I did. And how I think about these things now is having that time right before tuning in, slowing down, and really connecting to my own energy allows something new to emerge, and it allows us to start to align with something greater. What I mean is, whatever you imagine, God, spirit, source, the universe, God, spirit, source, the universe, whatever that name is for you, it knows who is going to be at this class tomorrow. It knows I'm going to be at this class tomorrow. And so when we take the moment to slow down and connect, we open ourselves in that channel of divine guidance. Because maybe that idea, that energy that comes through me is actually coming through me, because someone who's showing up there tomorrow needed to hear it or needed to work with it, or needed that reminder. It might not be everyone, but maybe there's someone. And so that's why I'd encourage you, especially if you're teaching weekly classes, to connect with your own energy, to really slow down and say what wants to come through me. And often when I connect in that way, it has such a greater impact, and it's a lot more fun. It's fresh. Because when I do that, what ends up coming up is something that feels alive for me, something that feels authentic for me to share, that I'm just excited about. And if I'm excited about it, then that energy is, is going to come through, that's going to be felt. As we've talked about in here before, your state of being is going to matter more than the things that you say. So if you're excited about what you're teaching, if you're connected to it, that is going to be felt. And so once I slowed down and started connecting, what ended up coming up is this doubt that I'm having in this one area of my life. Basically, I have some doubt around if I should be doing the work in schools that I'm doing, because I feel like I get less fulfillment out of it. And I feel more connected doing this, sharing with you, sharing my meditations, doing coaching, I get a lot of fulfillment out of that. So there was some doubt that I was working through as I had a call with the school the following day. And so I just use this as a thread and started to write and work on it and say, okay, maybe this can be the topic. Everyone has doubt in some way. I can open this up in a very broad way, just sharing a little bit of that story. And so as I started to write, I noticed myself, and this happens often in the beginning of creating a class or meditation. I started to. And the Irony is doubt. I started to doubt whether this was going to be impactful, whether this was valuable, whether this was just me working through something on my own and it's not for anyone else. And so I say this because I want to normalize that when you work on a class, you're going to start to have some doubt on if it's going to be valuable, if people are going to like it. And this is often coming from a fear of rejection and a need for validation. Both cases, what we are doing is making it about us. We're making the class more about our fear of rejection and need for validation. Then we're making it about the actual gift and the service and the offer that we're giving, we're making about us instead of making it about the students, the people that are actually showing up. And so this reframe of getting out of our own way, stop making it about us and start to make it about the people that you're serving. And to see whatever you're giving as an offer, as a gift. And not everyone's going to receive that gift. Not everyone's going to like that gift. That's okay. The practice is not being attached to it, but just giving it as an offer. So that's a big practice in helping get out of our own way when doubt in our material, in our work comes up. So next step is I push through the doubt and I just start writing. I just start riffing on what comes up. When I think about doubt, I think about the opposite of doubt is belief. And then I start noticing that doubt and belief are kind of still of the mind. And that there's something deeper than the mind, which is a knowing. And a knowing is something that is more embodied. It is a sensed experience. It is a felt experience. It's like, how do you know that you can ride a bike? You can't really explain it. You just know. And so I start riffing on this both out loud. I'm speaking it as if I'm speaking it to you right now. And I'm just writing. I'm just writing down notes, writing down things that are coming, sentences, bullet points. It kind of flows in the way that it's going to flow. And then I might think of a quote. I might be like, okay, there's a quote that I can put into here. So there's sometimes where I have just quotes that I remember or teachers that I know have said something that I look it up and I find the thing that I'm looking for just from memory. And then sometimes maybe I will intentionally go on Google and search for a quote about doubt and find something that I feel resonates. So it's a mix of things that I have already in my being and my awareness and things that I might search for. So when I start to write, and this happens a good amount of times, or it happens enough where I know to listen to it when it happens is that when I start speaking and I start getting emotional, and this is what happened to me. I started to speak about knowing. I started to speak the Rilke poem about be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and learn to love the questions themselves. And so I'm kind of inviting people. The antidote to doubt is actually this resourceful not knowing where we don't actually need to know. We can kind of surrender into the mystery. And as I started talking about this, I started feeling this kind of emotional charge in me. And I was really connected to it. And I said, aha, okay, this is a good sign. And so I say that, because if you start working on something, if you start speaking it, writing it, however you do it, and you start getting emotional about it, it means it's meaningful to you. It means you're connected to it. And so keep going with that. Because if it's meaningful and connecting to you, it's going to feel meaningful and connected to other people. So that's always a big green flag to keep going and say, yes, I've got something here. So I'm going through the speaking points. I have doubt, I have knowing. I have this resourceful unknowing. I have this faith. Faith is kind of an antidote to doubt as well to trust. And then I have this connection to, from Plato, it's called the three transcendental, the good, the true, and the beautiful. And these are all just connecting. I know this might not make sense to you right now in me sharing it, but these are kind of like bold points on my pieces of paper where I'm just writing out talking points and I script all of my meditations. That doesn't mean that I'm following them word for word when I'm in the class. But it just really helps me to write everything out. And when I do that, it's out of me. And it spurs the reminder of one. I know the bullet points that I want to talk about, and I know the important things that I've written about. And in class, maybe I will hit them, maybe I won't. But the biggest piece in the beginning is I Just like to get every idea, every talking point I could possibly have out of me. And so that's what I do. And so this is before even creating the meditation. I'll pause here. This is something I didn't say in the video that depending on the class, I might not spend as much time writing out the talking points like I'm doing with this class. This was a one off event and I felt like I really wanted to prepare for it. If I was teaching a weekly class, I don't think I'd spend that much time on the talking portion just because I probably won't have that much time to talk. I probably have five minutes to intro and then get into the meditation. This time I have, I had 45 minutes to an hour. So I had the space where there is an expected talk. So I did spend more time actually writing more about what I wanted to say in those talking points. And the reason that I always have a topic, the reason that I always kind of speak and talk about a theme is because that's what gives me the ideas for what the meditation is going to look like. That's what gives me the ideas for the structure and the points that I want to hit in the meditation. So if you're preparing, just let yourself riff on a topic and see what are the themes. Having those bolded sections of your talking points one is going to help you remember when you have to talk about it, but it also gives you clues to how you can create sections of the work that you are doing in the actual meditation portion. Once I've written all my talking points, I then will start working on the meditation. And again I will use the talking points as the structure of the meditation. So the beginning of a meditation is always going to be some form of grounding. And I decide that since I talked about the good, the true and the beautiful is that I'm going to actually use those as grounding points. So I'm going to have them connect to what is true. What is true? What is true is what's happening right now. What's true is what's happening in your body. So starting to get them in their body, slowing down, noticing sensations, noticing emotions, maybe noticing sounds. So that is what is true in their experience. Then I'm going to have them connect with what is good. What is good. What is good might be what they're grateful for, what is good in their heart. And so I, I'm opening, I'm giving them some suggestions, but letting them connect the dots and then I'm going To have them connect with what is beautiful. And that's a little bit more subjective. So I'll open that up a little bit more to them. So this is all in the grounding portion. And then as I talked about in my free course around creating meditation scripts, there are elements that we can put at different parts in meditations that just work. One of those elements are affirmations. And so now that we just went through connecting with what is good, what is true, what is beautiful, I'm going to do some affirmations to have them connect with that. I am truth, I am goodness, I am beautiful. And so I had them, you know, do that and slow down. And so this is all coming to me. This is all like, I'm thinking about this as I'm grounding based on the talking points that I had. And then I'll create another section of the meditation so there'll be a grounding portion. It's almost like a block. And then, okay, well, what did I start talking about? Doubt. So now there's a block where the meditation is going to be around doubt. What are you doubting? Can you experience your doubt? And I used another element in this in connecting with different chakra points. So I had them connect with the third eye center and noticing thoughts and kind of dissolving those thoughts from the energy of the eye. So I'm not going to get too far into the actual meditation, because this is more about, like, how to prepare. But I'm hopefully giving you an idea of, like, how I weave in these elements within a completely new theme. And so I move into doubt. And then I talked about knowing. Okay, now I'll move into knowing and explore what meditation wants to come around. Knowing. How do I want to frame this? How do I want to have them sit in the unknowing? This is my. If I had a quote that I said up in my talking portion, I might bring that quote back here. So I had that Rilke poem, and I brought the poem back within this portion of the meditation. And I actually don't talk about poetry in my free course, which, if I look back, I'm like, I wish I had some. Some notes on using poems, because I think that's important. And it's really helpful to give some structure and some uniqueness to your meditations. But alas, I brought this poem back in. And so we had a block on knowing, and I just kept going down, okay, what did I do after knowing? I did faith. Okay, all right. I bring a block on faith, and I do a Little meditation part on how I want them to cultivate faith. And then the last part is I reconnect to the good, the true, and the beautiful. And before I go further, I mentioned when we started, I had them in the third eye with the doubt portion. When I went to knowing, I had them drop down to the heart at the place of spiritual knowing. So see how I'm making that connection through just using those elements and then bringing them into what I'm. When I'm sharing the essence of what I'm sharing, which is knowing. And so I bring it into the heart. And then for the next portion, when I went to faith, I brought it into the lower belly. And then for the last portion, I had them connect with all three of those centers. So it's kind of, sometimes I like to think of the very end of my meditation, if it's not just kind of coming out, it kind of just brings like all of it back together. So like trying to, to wrap all of the work that we just did, have them reconnect with the good, true and the beautiful, have them connect all chakra points. It's kind of like, you know, the finale of a movie, so to speak. And, and this part, what I did at the end is what I do a lot is I had them invoke their own higher power to ask for their own guidance so they can find that trust to move forward despite of doubt. And so that was the meditation portion. That's what came from the meditation portion. And that only took me about 30 minutes. It usually takes me 45 minutes to an hour to create a brand new meditation. I think why this was pretty short is because I spent so much time writing the talking portions and I4 to five specific blocks in the talking portions that when that happens, it becomes a lot easier for me to then, okay, well, how do I make each of those blocks part of the meditation? So I think that's why it was a quicker creative process for me. But don't judge your creative process on how long it takes me. We all have a unique creative process. And so I've created this in two hours Tuesday morning. And I'm going to take a break now because I have the foundation of what I need. And so I took a break. Break. And what I'm wanting to do for the rest of the day is to go back to it and run through it in my mind a few times. And so this is going to start to train my mind to get it into memory or at least get most of it into memory. And A big place where I've grown in my journey is that I've really let go of needing to hit every point that I have prepared for, needing to get every part of the meditation right. I really let go because it's just overwhelming. There's no need to feel like we need to get it perfect. And so there is an element of. Of surrendering when you get there. I'm definitely not trying to hit every talking part word for word. There was a time where I did try and do that. Even when I used to do dharmas in yoga classes, I was like, preparing and rehearsing the speech. It was just because of how nervous I was. I've since become a little bit more just comfortable in the unknown of it. Comfortable and trusting that I can connect with the moment and just speak. Now that's a personal thing for me. Some of you might have already an easier time speaking in public than I had. It was definitely a big part of my growth journey. So surrender your need to get it right. And I find sometimes that I end up wanting to rehearse at least the day before the speaking portion more, or at least kind of go through the points, because when you're speaking, people are looking at you, and there's a little bit less room for taking time to regroup. When you're in a meditation, people have their eyes closed. It's slow. So if you forget something, no one's going to know. And so I tend to, in fear of looking dumb or, you know, whatever comes up. When public speaking, I tend to prep the speaking portion sometimes more because people are looking at me, and it's just a different energy. Again, that's me personally. I've definitely grown a lot in that. But I still, at the beginning of this process, was doing that a lot on Tuesday. So what I did was I went through it again maybe an hour after and then again towards the end of the day. So maybe 5pm I went through it in my mind. And why I wanted to go through it at the end of the day is because I find with anything that I'm learning, a night's sleep, it's magic. It's magic. If you want to memorize something right before bed, run through it, rehearse it, however you do it, go to sleep. And something in sleep with the synapses of the mind, you wake up the next day and it's memorized in just a different way. It's known in a different way. So I always try to do something towards the end of the day, closer to bedtime. Because I find that that helps me to memorize it for the next day. So the next morning, the first thing I'm going to do, since it's that night, is going to rehearse it again. So I'm going to run through exactly what I'm doing. And that normally looks like just doing it in my head with having the notes beside me and just trying to hit each block, both of the speaking points. And then I'll go through the meditation point. So I'll think about the beginning of the meditation. Okay, that's grounding. And I'll just try and remember in my head, where am I taking them through grounding? Oh, I'm doing connecting to what's true, good and beautiful. Then I'm doing the affirmation. Okay, next part is doubt. What am I doing in doubt? I'm having them think about something where they're doubting. And so I'm just literally going through, trying to see if I can remember. And sometimes I'll go through it and be like, I'm missing something here. I know it's important. That's when I'll look and say, okay, there it is. And then I'll do it again because that's going to help me remember that part that I was missing. And so I'll do that through the whole thing. And then I'm pretty surrendered to the process from here. I know that I'm going to run through it one more time before probably about a couple hours before I go. And so I had a busy day that Wednesday. So what I did is I ran through it once. I had two client calls, I had lunch with a friend. And then at night I was pretty exhausted. And at 5pm I made sure. And this is something that is a little different than what I've done before. Meaning what I've done up to this point is that I take a piece of paper and now I'm going through it again. But I'm writing almost like I'm writing myself notes that I could use if I was having these notes beside me. So I'm outlining in a way, I'm like speaking points, talking about doubt versus belief, how this is of the mind knowing. And I'm just kind of going down exactly what I've been rehearsing in my head, but I'm just writing it. So I'm offering my brain another level of memorization through just writing it down as if I were to have that outline next to me that I could refer to. Now, I do bring outlines and notes I used to always bring a little card with outlines and notes to my meditations. And 99.9% I would not use them, mainly because when I was teaching in a meditation studio, I used to dim the light so far to only have a salt lamp. And so it was just. I couldn't even see the notes if I looked at them. But for the most part, I never really needed them. But it gave me some kind of comfort to write them down and just put them in my pocket because I felt like they were there with me, even though I would never use them. And so I'd recommend, before you're going to the class, can you write out an outline? Maybe you do even write out, like, the sentences or a beginning sentence to help your mind remember so you stay connected to the practice that you want to share. So I did that two hours before. Super tired. I tried to lay down for just closing my eyes to reset my energy. And then I went to the class. Now, some people don't script like me. They don't prepare like me. They're really comfortable in saying, lou, I just kind of go to the class. I have an idea. Maybe I want to talk about doubt, but I don't know what the meditation is going to be. I don't know what this is going to be. And if that's you, then I cheer you on, and I say, yes, if that's how you do it, great. I support that. I know people who do that. I'm just offering how I do it. I like to create scripts, and I like to have that script, because I'm going to write a meditation. I'm going to record a meditation about it later. And so I like to just have that document. It's like I. It's like I created a piece of my work that's now there that I could refer back to again. If that's not you and you like to just show up and flow, then do that. All right. So I get to the class, and it's a room with a circle. And I find a circle setup of people to be a little less intimidating for the most part, and often more connecting, because it's not the sage on the stage where everyone's looking at one person. It's. We're all connected here. And so there is a bit of dialogue here. And something that I didn't share in when I was prepping is that sometimes you'll have classes where you have room to ask questions and get dialogue going, and sometimes you don't. Now, I knew I wanted to Talk for a while, and I had a reflection question of what's coming up for you, or if you feel vulnerable, what's a place in life that you're doubting? So that was going to be the questions that I shared to open up some discussion before we got into the meditation. If I had a lot more time, if it was more of a workshop, the way that I would really secure the fact that people would talk is that I would have people pair up. In education. It's called think pair share, meaning that I would do my spiel, do my talk. I would pose a question, where in your life are you facing doubt? I would have them turn to the person next to them again in groups of twos, or maybe one group of three. And I would have them share with each other. And so when they come back and we open the floor, they have all had time to talk about the thing. And often that opens up an easier way to get people to share in the bigger group. So if you're doing a workshop, highly recommend a think pair share this. I didn't have time, and so I knew that it was just going to be however it flowed. And I did get a chance to ask a question. What's coming up for you? Where are you facing doubt? Some people answered, that opened up a conversation around something totally different. And it ate up a good amount of time, actually. And that's just going to happen. So you kind of have to flow with where those questions might take you. And sometimes you might have no. 1 answer and you'll be like, I would recommend to give at least eight seconds. I didn't say this in YouTube video, but to give at least eight seconds of silence and to invite people to connect with their heart and to see if they feel that bubbling in their heart, because then that's a sign that that something is wanting to share in them. And so you kind of just open that space and you have to be comfortable in that silence. It's such a beautiful silence when you ask a question and no one answers. It's like I've started to fall in love with that silence. And so luckily though, for me, a lot of people were talking and then we got into the meditation, and then I probably wouldn't have done this afterwards. There's a part of me sometimes, and maybe you felt this too, where I want to ask reflections at the end. And there's this part of me that's doing it because of some need for validation, like, oh my gosh, Lou, that was so good. Oh, my God. And I Recognized that there was like this energy. It was already past the hour and I asked the person who had me in if. If we should do a reflection. And there was a little like I'm asking that because I'm just curious how it went because part of me wants to know, did you like it? Did you not like it? And it's. And I say that also, you know, I say that half heartedly, meaning that half of my heart is fully true on that. But then also the other half of my heart is yeah, really wanting to have a time for people to reflect and integrate and any questions that came up. So we did a little bit of that. Someone answered. But I recognized. I'm like, we're kind of over time. If I had done it again, I wouldn't have asked it. She might have felt pressured to say yes because I had asked it. But we're over time and I think respecting people's time, that they expect it to come is also important. Something that I need practice on. So that was great. Went well. Obviously, you know what? I fumbled a few words. I didn't do everything perfect. That's part of it. I'm okay with it. It was great. And I was grateful to have another opportunity to share this work. Something I didn't do that I tell everyone to do that I work with, or at least meditation teachers specifically that I work with is if you're going to go do a class, if someone's having you in, please have a piece of paper and just share that. If they want to hear more from you, if they want to stay connected with. When you're doing new classes in the area or getting free meditations from you or whatever else you want to share with them, please say you can put your email on this piece of paper and I'll put you on my list. That's it. I don't know why I didn't do it, but I recommend you do it for the meditation class that you do. Alright. I think that's all I have on this topic. I think I nailed pretty much everything I say in the video, in the video of this on YouTube, you're gonna see me actually show you the script. So that might be helpful if you want to watch that again or go to the script part just to actually see what I'm talking about when I say how I block it. Sometimes visually learning that is helpful. I know that's how I learn often. And if you want to learn how to script your own unique, powerful, guided meditations, if you haven't heard me talk about it on this podcast already. I have a free course for you called Meditation Script Mastery and it's going to help you learn how to come up with your own unique ideas and how to start to make meditations that people want to play over and over again. That people start to develop a sense of trust for you and that people start to develop a trust, a connection to you and so you can start to build more of a community, a relationship, and have people want to be in the world that you're giving. Have people receive from you and get a chance to share your gifts and do the thing that you want to do. Do what we're talking about here. So if you need some support around that, check out the free course at the link in the description and let me know how you like the course. Let me know how you liked this topic. There's also a link to send me a voice message directly on speaker pipe and I love hearing from you if you have questions. It's an open door. I send you so much love and support on your journey of being a creator, coach, teacher, guide, human soul, all the things. I love you so much and I look forward to connecting with you again very soon.