Biblical Leadership Show
The Biblical Leadership Show podcast explores timeless principles of leadership through a biblical lens, offering insightful discussions and practical wisdom for leaders seeking to integrate faith and leadership in their personal and professional lives. Join us as we delve into biblical narratives, lessons, and values to inspire and equip leaders to make a positive impact in their communities and organizations.
Biblical Leadership Show
Summer Escapades & Spiritual Explorations: Balancing Adventures with the Power of Prayer and Meditation
What happens when a summer filled with water slides, national parks, and Texas heat meets a podcast episode? Tune in as Tim Lansford and Dr. Dean Posey share their refreshing summer adventures, from Tim's culinary delights and water park fun in San Antonio and Arizona to Dean's serene escapes in Isle Royale, Voyagers, and Indiana Dunes National Parks. Dean even takes a plunge into the cool waters of Lake Michigan with his grandkids, making for unforgettable family moments.
Ever wondered about the true power of prayer and meditation? We tackle a listener's request by dissecting these practices, highlighting their unique purposes and techniques. Discover how prayer focuses on connecting with God while meditation emphasizes self-awareness and inner peace. Plus, get a sneak peek into our upcoming series on biblical leadership principles, promising ancient wisdom tailored for today's challenges. Whether you're seeking mindfulness tips or spiritual enrichment, we have you covered with practical advice and intriguing insights.
Lastly, we wrap things up with a lively discussion on Wisconsin's festival culture—every weekend is a fest! From gratitude exercises that could change your leadership game to guided meditation techniques perfect for nature lovers, our episode is brimming with inspiration, humor, and actionable tips. Don't forget to visit our website to share your topic suggestions; we can't wait to hear from you!
all right, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, come on, come on. All right, welcome to another exciting episode. All right, I'll just go ahead and do it, welcome, welcome. Welcome to another exciting episode of the Biblical Leadership Show.
Speaker 2:My name is Tim Lansford and with me is the famous Dr Dean Posey. I don't know about the famous. Yeah, you know it's famous in this arena right, I might be a legend in my own mind.
Speaker 1:That's me, you're famous in here, right my kids know you right.
Speaker 2:You know, luke and Elise are like hey we're in the studio. There's two of us, only two of us, today.
Speaker 1:I know the kiddo's back in school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our guest hosts are back in school.
Speaker 1:They are not going to be happy with me when I tell them I recorded a podcast today. And you were not here.
Speaker 2:Sorry, can't cut school for that.
Speaker 1:Can't cut school, but that's all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, how have you been?
Speaker 1:I've been good. We both sort of did a little vacation in there to sort of kick off. I did it right before kids went back to school. You don't have quite that problem, but we got to see our kids.
Speaker 2:Now here's a question that my wife and I have talked about more than one time Since we are retired it's not really a vacation, it's a trip. Now we still use the word vacation, but we slip up. So it's really, we were on a trip. You were on vacation, because you have to not do work to take a vacation.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, or you take the work with you. I never take vacations.
Speaker 2:If that's the definition.
Speaker 1:I'm in trouble, right.
Speaker 2:So we were on a trip, yeah, and you were where. Where were y'all going? We were at the San Antonio.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean the last part. You know, we, we came back and uh, we got back from Arizona, um, did like a birthday trip, and then we, uh, this last weekend we took one to uh Arizona, so, uh, you know, I mean Arizona is San Antonio, so, yes, so, it was good it was great.
Speaker 1:We did a lot of water slides and a lot of different things to keep us occupied. I put a lot of climbing stairs and water slide time in, so that was my my dadly duties of the trip and the river walks Awesome.
Speaker 2:There's so many amazing restaurants down there. You could stay down there for a month and eat at a different restaurant every day and have great food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had some good food.
Speaker 2:I bet you did.
Speaker 1:Even some of the little places we went to, it was actually pretty good.
Speaker 2:That's good. Yeah, well, we got back last night. We were up in the northern part of the country. Right, we were up in the northern part of the country. We were continuing our trip journeys to visit some national parks, and so we were actually up at the border of the United States and Canada.
Speaker 1:And you added like three more. We added three more.
Speaker 2:That's correct. What's?
Speaker 1:our grand total.
Speaker 2:I think we're close to 50, maybe, maybe it's in the high 40s. Nice, yeah, it was really good. So these three you have to actually be going to. I mean it's not like it's like Mount Rushmore even though Mount Rushmore is not a national park but it's a national monument but you have to actually be going. It's not like you pass through it, like Joshua Tree National Park. You're on the interstate, you drive right through Joshua Tree National Park and so, but when you go to Isle Royale in Lake Superior, you have to be going there. I mean, you have to make a boat reservation. The only way you can get there is by boat, and so we got on the boat. We chose not to stay there overnight, so we just went over by boat, stayed a couple hours, did some walking around and got back on the boat. So that was one of them. Lake Superior, beautiful.
Speaker 1:So is it just a big island out in the middle of Lake Superior? It's a big island.
Speaker 2:I think it's on the western side of Lake Superior, but from the harbor there to the island, I think it's about an hour and a half boat ride.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's not like you can swim out there or paddle out there. No, it takes a while, and so we were there for a day. Then we actually went to a place I'd never been before, which was International Falls, and so we were there a couple of days, went to Voyagers National Park, and so we were there a couple of days, went to Voyagers National Park, which was everything was beautiful. I mean, it was just stunning. Up there, the weather was incredible. It was about 40 degrees cooler than it is here in Texas, and that was on a warm day.
Speaker 1:We're in our hundreds phase.
Speaker 2:We are in our hundreds phase here in Texas, and so we went to Voyagers National Park. We're there a couple of days, um, nice little town of international falls, and uh. Then we went and met our kids down in gary, indiana, and actually miller beach, to see indiana dunes national park, and so um had never had the opportunity to see Lake Michigan before, so we were there, swam in the lake. It was a little cool but it was refreshing.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And just got back last night, so it was fun.
Speaker 1:Did you go out? Did you swim a lot or did you just go out for a little casual? Well, there was a Mr Triathlon dude over here. So I'm asking did he train or did you just go out for a little casual? Well, there was a— Mr Triathlon dude over here, saw. I'm asking Did he train or did he just hang out and splash around? No, it was just fun Hang out with the grandkids in the water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just splashed around and there were buoys out there that you couldn't go past. It was about 100 yards so you really couldn't and you could almost walk the entire way. I mean, it was really. The lake was shallow at that point and I know it was not just for swimmer safety but for boaters safety. You don't want to get too close and, you know, hit the sand with your boat. So it was good you could almost walk out there. But the kids we had a great time and just played splash pops you know that was how we did and spent a couple of days there, went into Chicago, had some deep dish pizza.
Speaker 2:Nice had some Garrett popcorn. Nice, yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1:Just check some things off the list. Check some things off the list.
Speaker 2:Saw the bean, saw the beginning of Route 66. Yeah, it was just great. If you've never been to chicago to see the bean, it's definitely worth going the bean the bean it's, it's a mass giant bean it's a giant stainless steel.
Speaker 1:Yes, jelly bean okay, I know which one you're talking about that yeah, it's just massive and uh, people from all over the world.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like the destination. Go see the bean in Chicago and then have some deep discussion.
Speaker 1:What's the symbolism of the bean?
Speaker 2:I have no clue, great I have no clue what the symbolism is. I don't know who, but whoever invented that or thought of it is a genius. Okay, because it draws so many people to this plaza and there were all kinds of flowers around. They had done a really amazing job. And that night there was a music festival and they were rehearsing. So the amphitheater is right next to the Bean and you could hear them rehearse. So we went over there and watched them rehearse for a little bit and then walked around Chicago and we took the train in from Gary, indiana, and into Chicago train back and forth. It was a great day to be with kids and grandkids.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome, awesome it was really good so now we're back in the studio. We're back in the studio. Yes, I wish I was on a trip. A trip, yes. No, no, I wish I was on a vacation. A vacation, see, so I could get away from work and everything like that. So well, I, I try. I'm pretty good about, you know, tuning out, but you know it still does follow me a little bit. I got some good guys that work for me, so they, they pick up a lot of slack well, you do so.
Speaker 2:I can't guys. They've been working with you for a long time, right.
Speaker 1:A long time.
Speaker 2:yes, so just happened to have some dad jokes I know we're going to talk about prayer and meditation today, which was one of our listeners' requests that we do that. We'll get to that in just a minute, but first we have to have some dad jokes.
Speaker 1:We have to have some dad jokes. We've been sort of on vacation mode so you know, got to throw some in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So here's a few, just a few.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:What happens?
Speaker 1:if you get scared half to death twice, just throw that out. Yeah, I'm just going to go with it. Okay, here's another one. I want to grow my own food, but I can't find bacon seeds.
Speaker 2:Nice yeah, nice oh.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to move the iPad here without spilling my drink here. Let's see. What should we do? That one on that one? I don't know. No, no.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that one. That's fine. Okay, this is not really a dad joke, it's just a profound question.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Very profound question Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale? Yeah, that's a very profound question.
Speaker 1:We've talked about that. I just had that conversation like two weeks ago. There's like three mattress places on like the hottest corner and I know what the rent is on that corner and this little intersection in Dallas and I'm like how in the world do you sell that many mattresses to afford employees, lights, rent and all that?
Speaker 2:It's just blows my brain.
Speaker 1:They don't. There's nobody ever in there. So I have my thoughts on what these mattress places are. I don't know. So there's something sus there, as my kids would say, because I mean, literally you just never see anybody in there and it's like I know there's probably a good profit.
Speaker 2:And it's probably an expensive square foot price per month, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's every bit of $15,000 plus on some of their rents, if not $25,000 a month, and it's like what in the world and how, how? I don't know how do you sell that many?
Speaker 2:I don't know. So here's a real dad joke.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:We've got a real dad joke. Oh, okay, we've got a real dad joke. What's the best way to carve wood? What's the best way to carve wood?
Speaker 1:I should know this, you should know this, yes, I don't Whittle by whittle. Okay, I wouldn't have got that one, all right, so let's talk about that. Was actually a pretty good one, I like that you think so.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing we had. We had a listener reach out and because we had a few weeks ago probably about, I guess, a few months now it goes fast we start talking about a little bit about meditation and prayer and we were going back and forth and a listener reached out to us and asked us to expand on that. They thought there was more that they would like to know and because, you know, dr Posey, being 40 years plus in the church and myself in leadership, and I've taught guided meditation and done all that stuff over the years we had very distinct, you know, when we were talking about it and I think that the listener really thought we could do a little bit more deep dive on that. So we said we would revisit it and before we end out this season, we'd like to get back into that and fulfill some of our listeners' thoughts and, you know, some of these things that they want us to expand on. That's what we're here to do. So prayer and meditation you know there's a difference, I think right.
Speaker 2:There is a difference, but there are also some similarities.
Speaker 2:So let's just talk about some of the similarities, or at least one similarity to start out with. And first of all, we thank this listener who, you know, reached out to us and said hey, could you expand a little bit more on that? And so I'd just like to say, if you are listening and you want us to focus on a topic Now, we are going to start a new series here next week and we're going to take the books of the Bible and talk about a leadership principle from every one of the books. Now there are 66 books, so we might not do all the books, but we're going to go through the Bible in order and pick out some of the leadership issues that we feel are important for today's listeners and bring the Bible into modern times.
Speaker 2:And what can we learn from a person that lived 4,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago? What can we learn from a person that lived 4,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago? What can we learn from them as far as leadership in different areas of life? And so there's so many good lessons. We're going to be focusing on that starting next week.
Speaker 1:And I'm pretty excited about that. Just to take every individual chapter, because I mean there's so many you know, and again, you've, you know, hung out with the Bible many, many years longer than myself. But I mean, I think back of, you know, when I was growing up and all the stuff we had to read the Bible, all this stuff. I mean there's a lot of stuff that I you go back to, different chapters, but there's some that I don't know that I've been to, you know, out of the 66 and since I was maybe little right when I had to read them, you know, and and uh, so I'm excited. I'm sort of excited about that one personally, just because it has me, you know, sort of like mandatory study time to go back and at least review you know what each chapter is about.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and so I think it's so important because in my years of ministry, one of the most frequently asked questions I had been asked was how does the Bible apply to my life today? And so, by addressing it from a leadership perspective, using that as our filter as we look through the Scripture, then if we're looking for leadership principles, we'll always find them. Some are not-so-good leadership principles that we don't want to follow, but we can learn from that to say no, we don't want to do that, but we do want to do this, and so we'll be focusing on more of the what do we want to do? A little bit of the time we'll focus on what we don't want to do. But I'm excited about the new series that we start next week. But for today let's talk about prayer and meditation. So, as far as the mechanics of it, both of them have maybe similar mechanics. The question is what's the focus during the time of either prayer or meditation? So let's just focus on the mechanics.
Speaker 2:Traditionally, when we talk about prayer or meditation, a lot of times we think about a personal thing that we do. Both can be done in groups. They can be guided meditation, guided prayer. You can have group prayer. You might be in a Sunday school class or home Bible study, or just meet with some people during the week and have a Bible study and then have like group prayer or prayer requests, and then one person closes out in prayer or maybe a bunch of people.
Speaker 2:Right, but some of the? Let's just say you might be sitting in both meditation and prayer. You might be sitting in a comfortable position, whether it's on the floor, in a chair, your eyes are closed, your hands might be clasped together on your lap. So some of the mechanics of that might be similar. The question is, what's the focus? And so, as far as prayer, the focus is upon God, meditation. You can meditate on God, you can meditate on the Word of God, and in Psalm 1, it talks about the person that meditates on the Word of God all the time. It's one of my favorite psalms. But meditation doesn't necessarily have to focus on or many times doesn't focus on the Word of God.
Speaker 2:It might focus on self-awareness, focus on self-reflection, focus on a, a problem, without any references to the divine at all right so you're almost trying to solve an issue, or focus on an issue by your own power, your own wisdom, your own initiative. As far as meditation is concerned, while you might have the same issue in prayer, you're actually tapping into the divine mind or the divine heart to get an answer or guidance to that same issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's one of those things that you know. I think there's those similarities, right, you know, and there's a fine line, I guess, because, no matter what I think both of them if you think of meditation and or prayer, your ultimate goal is to quiet your human mind down right, to ask whether you're trying to talk to a divine being or if you're trying to just find inner peace. Talk to a divine being or if you're trying to just find inner peace? I think it's very similar, just to quiet our human brain and let the universe sort of bring us wisdom, bring us knowledge and open up to the more when we go there.
Speaker 1:So I think that's one of the biggest things you know from a meditation standpoint and prayer side. And I mean, if you go into a deep prayer, it's it's, it's it's waiting for responses and it's it's you know. And here's the thing about meditation that I love is, once people do it and I've taught God in meditation is is they, they're worried about it and they can't do it? Right, because you know a lot of the, the first meditation and there's a lot of different meditations we'll get into in a little bit but it's, it's the quiet, the brain, right? That's one of the first ones I have people do.
Speaker 1:And and people say I just can't do it. You know they'll sit down for three minutes and I can't do it and it's just sort to stop working out. You know, and meditation is is I tell them, take baby steps. And I said you ain't going to be able to do it, you ain't going to be able to quiet your brain. That's overactive in the first 24, 48 hours. It may take you two weeks, it may take you a month. I said, but then you're going to be able to harness those two minutes and then you're going to go well, this is nice, I want five minutes and that five minutes is going to go to 10 minutes, that 10 minutes is going to go to an hour. And it's sort of like prayer. When you're doing deep prayer, you know a lot of people are short, sweet 10 minute, 10 second prayer and they're out.
Speaker 1:But then once you start getting, you start seeing that you know pat on the back and all that stuff and um, you know it's yeah, sorry, I had to take out that one so uh snap crackle pop in his studio here, uh, but uh had a skeeter fly by, so we just we saw it and fly by and we were both looking at it like, oh my gosh, there it is I don't know how mosquitoes get into the studio.
Speaker 2:I don't know. They're just waiting to come in the door. I keep it too cold in here, right right.
Speaker 1:So they just opened the door like go, go, go. So I'm in shorts today. So I've been looking for that. We saw him fly by earlier. I'm like, hey, I can't do that. He's going to be chomping on me in a little bit. But you know, one of the things is meditation and prayer. The more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. It was really where that right.
Speaker 2:Exactly correct. And so the thing about meditation it does not depend on religion or any religious belief at all. Okay, prayer, in just the definition of that is the focus is on the divine. Now, many times we have thinking that the focus of prayer is asking what the divine can do for us, and so our prayer is God, I need this, I want you to do this, almost as if God is our personal servant.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that is a small, small part of prayer, small small part of prayer. But even the way we ask it really can be an advantage to our prayer life or a disadvantage to our prayer life. So in my experience, prayer is really focusing upon the reality of who God is, what he has done, his goodness, his faithfulness, and focusing on the Word of God, what he has said to us through His Word, and then a very small part of prayer is asking God. Now, many times we ask God for things for ourselves. My challenge to our listeners is that we should be praying for others, then at the very end, pray for ourself. So if we actually took, let's just say, 10 minutes of, let's say, 10 minutes we worked up to 10 minutes. Some people pray shorter, some people pray longer, but let's just say 10 minutes to six minutes should be focusing on thanking God or praising God for who he is, what he's done, then about maybe two and a half minutes would be praying for other people and then maybe the last minute focusing on ourself. And if we have that kind of balance over time, our prayer life is going to be richer. If we focus on the me first, praying for my needs, then we'll squeeze in praying for other people. Then, if we get to it, oh, thank you God for whatever. If we focus backwards, our prayer life is always going to be shallow. So I would think the same with meditation. So the question is if we're meditating on just trying to have a mind, that just won't. You know, it's always crowded, you know, whatever, like today.
Speaker 2:I swam at the gym. I got out of the swimming pool I saw a guy that I've known for years and years and years just happened to see him, hadn't seen him in a long time, and he was telling me he's having problems going to sleep. And he said he's taken some things and try to help him sleep and he's just started having problems. I said, well, this is what I've done. And, as I said, when I have problems like that, I said I don't have a problem if I exercise a lot. But when I used to have problems, I said I would have a pad of paper next to my bed and anytime I thought would come into my mind I would just write it down and get all those things out of my mind, because you think, oh yeah, I can deal with that tomorrow. Then you just lay awake thinking about it.
Speaker 2:I think the same thing would be true in prayer and meditation. When you start out, if you want to empty your mind, and so you focus on God or you focus on an issue or you focus on trying to have a quiet spirit, just have a piece of paper or a pad of paper right next to you. Spirit, just have a piece of paper or a pad of paper right next to you, and you know it might take a while. Just write everything down that comes in your mind, it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 2:Call this person have to go to the grocery store. You know, I have to sign this contract. I have to pick up my bicycle from the store. You know, whatever it is, just write it all down. Whatever it is, just write it all down, because sometimes our minds are so busy with thinking that we really can't focus on meditating, we really can't focus on prayer. So part of the benefit of meditation or prayer is what we do in preparation to meditate or pray, and that is preparing our mind getting in a quiet place, emptying our mind with everything that's on it, and then focus on the topic at hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually just gave that advice yesterday to one of my coaching clients and same thing. He's going through a stressful time. He's like I can't sleep and I'm like go get you a pad of paper, put it next to your bed, pencil whatever comes to your head, flip the light on, write it down and he goes well, you know I do that. I'm like no, I don't want you to do it on your phone. He goes well because he sent me a big long text. Everything we want to talk about in the maybe.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you did, and that's what people are.
Speaker 1:I said one thing a pad of paper is a pad of paper is a dumping grounds. It's dumping all the information in your brain. But as soon as you dump, you go into Facebook and Instagram and that's stimulating your side of your brain. So you got to do the only the dumping part, not the stimulation. And if you can do that, it's amazing. When people do this is when they do that and they just dump, dump, dump, dump and all of a sudden they're asleep instantly and people call me the next day. I'm like, oh my gosh, what happened? I'm like, cause you're just, you're trying to remember it. Your brain's circling and cycling, trying to put that in your subconscious. So you remember it the next day Once you dump it, write it down, your brain's like, and you go to sleep instantly. It's an amazing thought.
Speaker 2:It is, and some of the people that I've talked to over the years. It takes them a week or two weeks to actually. It's like a big cup okay, that's maybe 32 ounces, and our brain is focusing on the top five to six ounces. Once we get that out of our brain and on paper, then the next level rises, up to the top, and so it might take a while to get everything down on paper. And then, as you do in your coaching sessions, okay, this very old school, you know the Stephen Covey ABC kind of thing. Okay, now you have 50 things that have been on your mind. Some of them have been on your mind for weeks or months. Now order them in a priority. You know some of them. You say I'm never going to get to that. Scratch it off the list and just get it out of your mind.
Speaker 2:But the focus is not just meditating or prayer. What do you do to prepare so many times for prayer? In order to have a productive prayer time, we actually read the Bible and then, during our prayer time, we meditate on what we have just read.
Speaker 1:And by meditating.
Speaker 2:We're thinking how does this particular passage of the Bible apply to my life today? So we are meditating on that particular focus. So we are meditating on that particular focus. If we're not a religious person, if we don't meditate on the scripture, then the question is what is guiding our meditation? Are we outside, just meditating on a problem that we're having? Are we meditating on just listening to the birds? Are we meditating? We could sit at the beach, like we were up at Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes National Park, just sitting there and meditating, which is a wonderful thing to do. But what's the outcome objective of that? Is it just to have a peaceful spirit or is it to actually communicate with God? And so those are some significant differences as to what's the outcome objective of meditation or prayer.
Speaker 1:Right, so let me ask you a different question you know, and this goes the next step, and this is one of the things that I teach in leadership is the prayer of gratitude or the meditation of gratitude. So giving back in your morning routine talking about gratitude, you know, because I mean you're not praying about somebody else, you're not giving through you sort of the cycle. You know that you sort of put what's your thoughts on the gratitude.
Speaker 2:My thinking is that if we don't have gratitude in our life whether it's gratitude to God, gratitude for our family or our position or opportunities, or the wisdom that we've been given or the skill that we've been given If we don't have a grateful heart, it's going to be hard to be humble, it's going to be hard to be a good leader, it's going to be more of an entitlement attitude and then a grateful attitude. So there's a lot of, let's just say, consequences of not having a grateful heart or spirit, and so part of the meditation or prayer is how grateful am I? How thankful am I? Am I thankful to the person that's sacking my groceries? We were in hotels. It's like we go in. Are we thankful for the people that make our beds or clean our rooms? It's just like if we start looking at life as how can I be grateful on a daily, hourly basis, I think it revolutionizes our thought process and we start thinking about people. We start looking at life different and we get a lot more benefits ourself if we are grateful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's sort of where I was going to go is. You know, a lot of times we take a lot of stuff for granted, right? You know, just simple, doing this, driving to work, being safe, you know, having a job to go to, all these different things, and sometimes we just don't think about what does because we're very habitual people. Right, we do the same routine. Some of us do the same routine, same drive to work same desk, same stream everything and we never really think about it.
Speaker 1:I mean that, right, there is gratitude that you can drive, that you have a license, you have a car you have. There's so many a license you have, a car you have, there's so many things that you can take a breath. You know, that's one of my biggest things Every time I wake up in the morning take a breath, it's a good day. You know everything else. You know Lord's going to help me through where we're going to make it right. It's just you know we're stepping the right direction. That day in I can for my kids, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:every day, vertical is a good day right, yeah, absolutely, and there might be some challenging things that we're going through.
Speaker 2:Everybody goes through challenging things and I think that's where, if we are going through challenging times, we might need to consider having more time in prayer and meditation so we can be focusing on being grateful. We can focus on asking for wisdom and guidance. We can focus on asking to not be bitter or full of rage or resentment or jealousy during something that's happened. We can focus on how can we forgive the people that might have hurt us, that maybe got us fired or got an advancement when we think we should have gotten that. There's so many things that might be in deep down in our woundedness that need to come to the surface and allow that practice of prayer and meditation to actually open up for God to pour in His healing grace into our heart. Very hard to move forward in a positive way without being grateful, so I think it comes back to that a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the things too if you're doing prayer, if you're doing meditation, what you're doing is you're opening up your brain. You're opening up your brain to see the different avenues. I mean, we're presented by billions of bits of information every day. And if you're praying about something every day, if you're meditating or if you're thinking about something, what you're doing is you're opening up something every day. If you're meditating or if you're thinking about something, what you're doing is you're opening up your brain to go put this in the light column, right, instead of the negative column, because if it's a negative column, your brain's just going to wash it. We're not even going to do it.
Speaker 1:But if you start praying I want this, I want a new job, want a new job, want a new job, want a new job, want a new job, want a new job. You, I want a new job, want a new job, want a new job. You're going to be surprised how many avenues come across and how many people mention that, and you're going to think, wow, that just didn't happen, right. Well, it's happening all the time. Your brain doesn't have it in that positive thing, and that's one of the things that prayer and meditation does. It puts it in that positive category. So you, the divine, can help send you the different things that put you in the right place. But if your brain's shut down to all those new ideas, then you're not going to see the messages and all the different things coming through.
Speaker 2:You're right, and so part of opening up our mind and our spirit is, like you said, is, like you said, dumping all those things out of our—and recognizing that there might be something in our hearts, in our minds, in our spirits, that's blocking. It's like a downspout on a house, you know. Sometimes, you know, those things get clogged up and the water can't flow through. And so the question is are we using prayer and meditation to just ask for things? Are we allowing God to flush out our hearts and our minds so we can be open to listening to what's going on?
Speaker 2:Now, I know we just have a few minutes left. Earlier in the show you talked about different types of meditation. Do you want to just kind of just mention that. We don't have time to go through. People can look up those on themselves. But if you want to just mention different types of meditation because you teach this in your leadership classes, I think that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest things that we teach is the mindfulness meditation. You know just to be present, you know to be in your own spot, to quiet your brain down if you can, right. And so you know to be able to quiet your brain, to just live in the presence and everything, and just to the more that you practice. I always tell people this, and the way I describe it is it's like being on an elevator, right, If you go in there and you push floor one, right, you're on floor one there's going to be all this chaos going right, but as soon as you and this is how I describe their brain, because you're not going to be able to calm your brain down, but once you get it, it's going to be all quiet. And then you push level two, you go up on thing and then all of a sudden it's going to start getting all anxiety ridden again, right, cause you're at a different level. And then, once you start moderating, getting used to level two, you put level three on there and as you do this, you progress to different levels and you're able to control your mind. You're able to control the, the thoughts that come in your mind. So that's one of the things mindfulness uh, transcendental is another one that people talk about. That's when you go into this deep, deep, deep awareness, you know, in deep relaxation that's a huge one that people do.
Speaker 1:I mentioned body scan. We do this in alternative healing and some of the other things when we do the whole body scan. You know where you scan and you can do this for yourself. I always tell people you're a giant energy center, if you sort of. I always tell people to take a ping pong ball, visualize a ping pong ball and have it coming in through your crown chakra, your top of your head, and picture this ping pong ball going through your body all the way to your toes, and you're going to be surprised. I've done this with a lot of people and the ping pong ball will go down and it'll stop at the heart and they visualize this ping pong ball can't make it through their heart and I said, do it again and it'll go down and stop at the heart and I'm like, well, you've, you've had something you've closed off, something's happened in your, your thing where you're not truly in a love mode, right, so something shut you down. It could be a past or something you're going through present and that's where the body scan is. And we I always do this with a ping pong ball. Some people can't even get it through their brain right, it just stops there, but a lot of times it goes in different parts of their body and a lot of times that's a message you need to look at. So I thought that was always a fun one.
Speaker 1:Let's see another one guided meditation. You know, just listening to music and guides and different things to walk you down a path. A lot of times in guided meditation we'll take you down through where you visualize something. You visualize something. So example would be like visualize a vehicle that's in your head and I have a reason for the vehicle. But there's a vehicle. Your angel is going to plant a vehicle in your head and I want everybody to tell me what your vehicle is.
Speaker 1:And then we go through and I'm like all right, so before you tell me what your vehicle is, I put out to the universe that I wanted you, everybody, to visualize your vehicle. That's the impact, that's what you're here on earth to accomplish, and that's one of those things that people did the visual, and some people will say cars. And then I've had people say dump trucks. I actually had one that showed up on me and when I did this, this one that I learned and I had this big old dump truck and I saw it like over these cars and it was like this big, big, huge, like not what a little dump trucks, the ones that are the, the huge tires that are size of a building and that's the visualization I got and I'm like, oh, this is great.
Speaker 1:So now I use that one in some of my guided meditations as well. And then we have some of the yoga. You know, some of the outside. You know we do this where you know sort of the walking meditation or sitting outside in the nature, and I told you a little bit about this one at the beginning. We do this in a leadership class on our balance and renewal is you sit outside and you just listen. And you'll be surprised once you sit outside and listen. You listen.
Speaker 1:You can sit outside and drink coffee in the morning and you can hear the birds. You can hear this. But when you start going into a deep meditation, you'll hear sounds that you've never heard before. In the woods. You can hear like something in the woods like a half mile away walking in the grass. You can hear them scratching on the trees. You can hear the wind making like a whistle sound, where you never really pick up that whistle sound. But when you start going in that, you can actually hear the grass, the leaves on the trees, and different trees make different sounds and it's a pretty amazing thing. So we do that on our balance renewal a lot of times on my year-long leadership programs and that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying in that, and maybe different types of meditation, is really developing the art of listening. Yes, right, because so many times we listen in order to respond, we don't listen to listen. Yeah, and so just quieting our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our bodies and just listening to what's around us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one thing I'll add at the end of that is when we were talking about the notepad. That's another thing I do is tell people just to download their brain, right, you know, get it on the notepad, but then you need to come up with something, and I've worked with different people and some people it's all about colors, some people it's all about places, sometimes it's all about colors, some people it's all about places, sometimes it's just a keyword, like mine. You know if my brain's too overactive, I just and that's my keyword. But a lot of times people they focus on blue and all they have to do is think about the color blue and they're just, they're out. Some people think about oceans and waves, and they're out. So that's another step to downloading your brain and stuff and then come up with a different thing that really resonates with you, with your spirit and mind, and keep that as your backup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things I listen to music at the beginning of my prayer time in the morning, but one of the songs that I have and there's different, there's like eight different versions of this song. It's just ocean waves and it's just very calming and peaceful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that is something to check on and this will be our music maestro for the show and everything. But there's different musics. If you look at them, I think it's like 340 is the relaxation. You look at them, I think it's like 340 is the relaxation. There's a frequency that hits our tone, that puts us instantly in relaxation. I think it's 3-40 or there's some kind of frequency, hertz and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure it ends with a 40. And the one that really makes you antsy is like a 32 and something like this, whatever they end with 432 or whatever they is.
Speaker 1:But check into the music and do some research to see if you do it. That's why a lot of these things come out. I know I've got a CD like Harmonic Resonance is one I listen to and it hits that perfect tone which is in that category of relaxation. So even if it's a relaxation CD, a lot of times it's not in that exact frequency. And if you can find something that's exact frequency, man, it'll just relax you instantly by listening to it. So anyway. So what do we got? We got any emergency dad jokes. I think we're pushing that.
Speaker 1:We're way over time my goodness, we are way over time. You know we're a storytelling, you know thing, this one's a fun one to me. I love meditation and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, okay, I got a dad joke, you got a dad joke.
Speaker 1:He's got the emergency dad jokes. You might remember, here a couple of weeks ago we pulled out and we surprised him with some emergency dad joke box.
Speaker 2:He brought it back to studio with him. I was so proud of him. I don't want to keep it here at the studio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here we go.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:What do you call a movie star with salt and pepper hair?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:A well-seasoned actor, oh boy.
Speaker 1:I don't know about that one, but I like it. I was trying to see if I could find some that are really quick ones right there.
Speaker 2:Okay, the past, the present and the future walk into a bar, oh I like it.
Speaker 1:It was tense, nice. I was trying to see if there was any on meditation. What do you call meditation session with cats?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Personal reflection.
Speaker 2:Personal reflection.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, I think I can't hit the groaner button right there. I can do it, right, okay.
Speaker 2:There we go. Well, you know what I'm excited about. Next week we started a series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do.
Speaker 2:We're getting almost to our year anniversary.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that's here in a couple of weeks end of February and so we might just do an hour-long dad joke session. I don't know what we're going to do on that day.
Speaker 1:We will maybe surprise ourselves on that day yeah, have cake and ice cream. Yeah, cake and ice cream that sounds really fantastic. Yeah, that's exactly right. We'll have to invite the kids, right.
Speaker 2:We discovered Culver's restaurants on this trip that we were on. Wow, Great food. I didn't have a bad. Oh, first time I had ever had cheese curds and they were very good.
Speaker 1:Look at you, you're just becoming a northern boy. So just the northern delicacies over there.
Speaker 2:Well, we were up in Wisconsin, drove through Wisconsin, had to have some cheese curds, right.
Speaker 1:Just so you know. Everything in Wisconsin's a fest.
Speaker 2:Every weekend they have a fest. It's a fest.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, I don't even know what to say. Dated a girl from up there and every weekend it was a fest, Every weekend. There was not one weekend that didn't go by that they didn't have a fest somewhere, so anyway. So hey, check us out biblicalleadershipshowcom. Send us some requests if you have something you want us to expand on, especially when we're going into this series about the Bible and all the different chapters of the Bible. If you'd like just to expand, we have no problem circling back to covering a chapter more in depth. So hit us up biblicalleadershipshowcom.
Speaker 2:Other than that, guys have a great rest of the day and Dr Posey take us out Bye.
Speaker 1:Make it a great day, Thank you.
