TR Meditation Club – Insights from Gloria Latham

Today we will discuss the advice and observations of a teacher of mine, Gloria Latham, and I’ll provide you with a link so you can ‘meet’ her yourself! She is our esteemed Guest of Author today! Gloria is an internationally renowned Yoga teacher who owns four successful and busy studios in Vancouver. You can find her doing Kundalini yoga all over the world or hosting Yoga Raves at one of her Semperviva studios. She has a very realistic and understanding attitude towards meditation and as I evolve the TR Meditation Club, I want to share Gloria’s insights that have resonated with me.

Meeting Gloria on an Island

I met Gloria through one of my local Yoga teachers; she had trained her and I loved her teaching approach so much that I decided I wanted to do my teacher training with the same person as she did. I thought a smooth entry into teacher training with a woman I had never met would be spending a full month with her, on an isolated Greek island that I had never heard of, with a group of people I didn’t know.  So that’s what I did.

Since the kick off of the very exclusive TR Meditation Club, I have received many inquiries about practice, coping, meditation and resiliency. To address a few common questions I’ve received, let’s investigate a piece of advice from Gloria.

Insights on Meditation Practice

Select her photo to view!

I love the perspective that Gloria shares in this video because she echo’s many of the limitations to a consistent practice that I have experienced myself, and written about recently in the TR Meditation articles. Confronting the self is much more difficult than confronting another individual. It takes courage, dedication and will-power. It can be distressing however, how can we fully live our lives and show up for each moment if we aren’t capable of being with ourselves?

We cannot know others until we know ourselves. We cannot be fully present with our partners, friends and fellow humans if we cannot be fully present with ourselves. To see yourself is to see your life and as you look deeper and deeper, life itself becomes a mirror for what you’ve observed in the mind.

Meditation or Other

In Gloria’s video, she speaks about meditation from a very truthful and accurate viewpoint. I will preface this by offering a bit of space on the term ‘meditation’. I think this discussion is relatable to any level of personal introspection. Meditation is one path; there are many paths to higher consciousness. Higher consciousness is akin to expanded awareness; a vast and shifting telescope pointed toward our vast and shifting inner space.

It’s Hard

Meditation is hard because you will make intimate contact with aspects of yourself that you may not want to see. She discusses a flow, a feeling of naturalness when doing something we enjoy. Meditation practice becomes a flow once we are accustomed to seeing our own inner workings; however those moments are often reasons for people to walk away from the practice. I can understand completely (I also have wanted to run from myself); that’s why I hope to provide an easy way of practicing when and where you can.

This doesn’t mean you won’t face it all; you will. There is also something very special about practicing as a group. However, guided meditations that are accessible are a great way of building a foundation. The flow occurs when we can finally let go; let go of expectations, judgment, goals and attachment. All of this occurs in a meditation practice and naturally, eventually, permeates into day-to-day life. It begins, however, with the courage to see. To sit quietly and observe everything that arises.

Are you ready?

That brings me to her next piece of wisdom; are you ready to confront what you’re seeing? Are you ready to confront some of the aspects of yourself that you may not want to? As Gloria says in her video, this is when people tend to bail out. As soon as an unearthing begins to happen, there can be discomfort. Even terror. Pieces of ourselves may begin to arise that we’ve worked very hard to suppress or ignore. This becomes a limitation for continued practice because naturally and justifiably, it is very hard to face ourselves.

Allowing our full selves to emerge may illuminate the need for us to resolve or repair elements of our life. Sometimes, it is too difficult or overwhelming and we would rather live in an unconscious world; becoming a victim of our own mind and crippled by our unresolved inner tension. Only the observed mind can be trained and for that to become a practice, one needs to make a choice to seek understanding of consciousness.

Human Doings

Much of our current societal framework is built upon avoiding ourselves. We are Human Doings rather than Human Beings. We rarely schedule Just Be time and can become anxious if time is left empty because we might get bored and hear our thoughts. Then what? Catastrophe, obviously.

Do we have to confront ourselves? Do we need to do introspective work?

The answer is no. We don’t. We have to choose to and no one can make you do that. In another sense, we inevitably confront ourselves because our behaviors, beliefs and words are a reflection of the multi-layered human condition we exist through. And so, we have a choice. We can choose to be a victim of ourselves, coping with feelings or behaviors that have no visible root.  Or we can choose to be a master of ourselves and an architect of our lives by having the courage to look. To stay. To be with yourself.

How afraid are we? Truly?

I read a study about our ability to be with ourselves; the methodology was simple. Sit in a room alone for 6-15 minutes. It provided one option for entertainment; give yourself an electric shock. The results of the study were published in multiple journals and concluded that people would rather cause themselves physical pain than face their own thoughts. One participant shocked himself 190 times within fifteen minutes and the rest averaged a shock or two during a session.

190?! WTF. Someone help this guy out.

Let’s take a minute to process the depth of fear that has been illuminated by this experiment.

The majority of the participants in the study were so troubled by stillness, aloneness, boredom and facing their own thoughts that they actually chose an electric shock over thoughts. That is how much we fear our inner world.We choose voluntary electrocution over facing our thoughts for FIFTEEN minutes. Concerning, my friends. Concerning.

“Research has shown that minds are difficult to control, however, and it may be particularly hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there. This may be why many people seek to gain better control of their thoughts with meditation and other techniques, with clear benefits. Without such training, people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.”

Reactivity or Confront the Self

This experiment and Gloria’s insights are a perfect illustration of the reason people do not want to meditate consistently, why some even believe it’s dangerous and why many people simply will not help themselves. We would rather suffer; be reactive to our habitual thoughts and stories, and walk around the world acting on impulse after impulse rather than learning to understand and accept ourselves through a safe practice.

If you are ready to confront yourself, you are seeking a better life. You are seeking freedom from what you already know is holding you prisoner. Your mind, beliefs and unresolved tensions. You can free yourself.

Stay Steady

Stay steady. Gloria is one of the steadiest people I have ever met. I believe this is because of a constant reemergence of her own consciousness. She has learned to be with what arises and if you can find the willpower and dedication to do that for yourself, life will begin to shift. You will shift. Take the power back and dive deeply into the unknown. The inner world is a universe of captivation and intrigue.

Thank you Gloria Latham for your insights, wisdom and endless service to others. This article will appear on the Guest of Authors page for future reference!

Remember the TR Meditation Club is a student-directed meditation club. Request something. We’ll see what happens!