Tag: Jeff Cassman

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Meditation

How to Defeat Distraction During Meditation

TRANSCRIPT:

In my insight for today that I wanted to share with you- talking about meditation. So, meditation can be difficult for all of us. Some days you’ll do great with meditation, other days, it just seems impossible with constant distractions coming in your mind. Some of those distractions may be worthwhile thoughts, but some of them are just mindless distractions.

So, here’s what I do. Here’s what I recommend: Have a piece of paper next to you when you’re doing meditation, maybe even a Google document, maybe your phone. And when those distractions come into your mind, immediately write them down or put them in that Google document. They might be worth coming back to later; maybe it’s a good idea for work, maybe it’s an inspiration- something you need to work on- maybe it’s a suggestion for your relationship with your spouse or children.

So, write it down, and then give your mind the permission to forget it and then return to the point of your meditation. And after the course of thirty minutes or an hour of meditation, you might have a dozen different things you’ve written down. But by putting those ideas on paper, you’re no longer trying to force a negative. You’re no longer trying to say to your mind: “Don’t think about this idea.” That’s impossible. You’ve made a note of it, and you’ve freed yourself to go back to meditation.

Now the other thing from this week’s call that we were talking about and I was thinking about was the difficulty of meditation for the beginner or the difficulty of extending your meditation. That first five minutes can be very difficult. How do you ever get to twenty minutes or an hour? 

Well, the way I would recommend doing it is just focus on five or ten minutes. And if you get to that point and you’re just done, you can’t force your mind to meditate anymore- nothing’s coming to mind, it’s just all distraction- stop and go back to the material for your meditation. Maybe it’s a mystery of the Rosary, maybe it’s something from Scripture, maybe it’s the readings of that day- whatever the case may be. Go back to that source, read the next sentence, read the next paragraph, re-read what you’ve already read, and then start over again for another five minutes.

So, if your goal is meditation for twenty minutes, then maybe it’s four different five-minute meditations. That’s perfectly fine. So, that’s what I would recommend, and I hope that that’s been helpful for you. This is what I do in my own life. Have a great day.

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Meditation

Gratuitous Gifts From God

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning gentlemen. One of my meditations this week touched on the gift of Baptism. And as I was reflecting upon it, it occurred to me- our relationship with our Creator. He has given us so much; t’s so gratuitous. He gave us our soul- which we didn’t deserve- our very life, our very being, the very potential of spending eternity with Him.

He gave us redemption when our race fell. He gave us individually our baptisms, so that we have the hope and potential to participate in that supernatural life with Him again. And He has given us the Sacrament of Confession so that when we die, when we empty our soul of that divine life of that grace, we have the ability to gain it all over again.

And I thought to myself how many times in my life I have had recourse to that sacrament and was born yet again over and over and over again. And there our Lord stands waiting and forgiving and merciful to receive us, yet once again.

So, I think about our relationship with God reflecting on these gratuitous gifts and how I have returned for those gifts really nothing but ingratitude and disappointment, and yet there He is, ready to forgive over and over again.

So, as we try to grow it in gratitude during this Lent, I hope that sharing this reflection, this insight video with you has been helpful. God bless.

Categories
Meditation

Precision In Our Spiritual Life

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning, gentlemen. In my insight video for this week, I want to share with you the takeaway from this morning’s meeting that I had with the guys in the Padre Pio group. The degree to which we are specific about, obsessive about, particular about our goals and our processes and our achievements as it regards our spiritual life is probably proportionate to the odds that we have of reaching heaven.

When we track these things every day, when we’re following just how well we’re doing (or how not well we’re doing), it’s a little bit like the way we track things in sports. If you’re learning to play a sport, there’s a very particular way to play every position, a right way and a wrong way, and you practice it over and over again.If you practice poorly, you’re going to play poor and poorly, and if you practice well, you’ll play well. 

We take the same kind of precision and obsessiveness if we’re cooking, right? You don’t want to put any more hot pepper or salt or any other ingredient in that dish than really needs to be there, or else it’s just not going to come out right. Of course, we do the same thing, those of us that are in business. We have metrics and all the rest of it that we follow very specifically.

If we take the same kind of approach to our spiritual life, our odds of making it to heaven and our chances of having a lasting peace here on earth go up dramatically. And if you’re anything like me, Christopher can be kind of annoying with all of his requirements- and sometimes demands- that you do it, you fill in the blanks, you record it, you’re precise, you’re meaningful about all of your feedback. The truth is, of course, that he’s really doing us an act of charity by helping us to elevate our sights, perfect our intention, and take that next step in our spiritual life. 

I hope this moment has been valuable to you, and I look forward to seeing your insight videos.

Categories
Meditation

The Soil of My Soul

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning gentlemen. So, my insight video for this week is talking about what we really mean when we are rating our activities. What really is a ‘3’ when we’re evaluating our efforts towards something? And one of the things that we talked about on our call today was that my ‘3’ is not someone else’s ‘3’.

So, when I look at the lives of the saints and I see them bilocating or levitating, well, that that’s probably not where I am in my spiritual life. So, I need to make an honest, humble evaluation of where I am.

What does the soil of my soul look like? If my soul is the soil in which God the Sower is going to work, what does that soil look like? A gardener is focused on aerating his soil and fertilizing it and making sure it’s the best possible quality and that it’s fresh and that it’s ready for that seed to do what it’s supposed to do. 

So, what is the condition of my soul, the soil? What have I done to it that might make it uninhabitable for the seed? What have I done to it that would make it not be as productive and as fertile as it should be? So, evaluating the ‘3’ of any given activity- have I really done my very best? Am I pursuing that kind of accountability and measurability with the same zeal that I would in business, where many of us are accustomed to measuring? We have metrics, we have goals, and we’re very precise with those things.

So, how am I really doing there? And what score really is appropriate for my activities and where I really am? Taking that same kind of approach to my spiritual life that I might to my health or my business. That’s my reflection for today, and I hope that it was helpful for you.

Categories
Meditation

Beyond Good and Evil in the Spiritual Life

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi gentlemen, Jeff here, and posting my first video in the group. I’ve been lurking for a long time, but thanks to Christopher’s motivation and a little gentle peer pressure, I’m finally joining you all with these videos. 

And on last week’s call, I heard something rather profound. Christopher was talking about doing the examinations and he said something I had not heard quite put that way before. In particular, what he said was that this particular examen we were looking at ourselves, and our day, our conduct in light of “What would Jesus do?”

And of course this is kind of simple cliche we’ve all heard used many times, but what it really made me think about was not just what would Jesus do from the standpoint of obvious good versus evil- we all kind of know, hopefully, how to choose right from wrong- but also in our lives we’re really aiming for something better.

And what our Lord did every moment of every day was perfection. He perfected the law and He perfected human conduct. And that’s what we’re called to do as well; not just to avoid the obvious evils, but also to always choose the higher good. And we make it to a point in our lives where Satan is no longer tempting us to choose something that’s overtly evil. It may be good enough for him that he simply tempts us to choose a lesser good than what God is calling us to.

And according to our state and life, that might be very difficult to discern, right? Do I spend extra time at my job working hard to get the approval of a superior or a client to make them happy, to make more money, maybe advance the company? Or is the higher good to leave the office on time, instead of staying late, so that I can go pray or exercise or spend time with my family- whatever the case may be?

So, choosing the higher good- “What would Jesus do?” That’s kind of my takeaway. Thanks for watching!