The Morning Upgrade Podcast Featuring Thom Walters

Welcome to episode #122 of the Morning Upgrade Podcast. In this week’s episode I spoke with Thom Walters, a meditation instructor.

Top Talking Points

• How to deal with life’s challenges using meditative practices.
• Realizing that everything that happens to you has been caused by your human self or your higher self.
• Recognizing that meditation isn’t about “clearing your mind”.

Resources & Links

Connect With Thom at ZenCommuter.com.

The Celestine Prophecy By James Redfield.

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Episode Transcript

Announcer  

Welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast with Ryan cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan

Hey, Thom, welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast. How’s your day going?

Thom

Ryan today is going absolutely fantastic. Here in Nashua, New Hampshire it is a beautiful fall day, my favorite season is about 60 degrees and the sun is shining. So I am eager to get outside as soon as we share some thoughts today.

Ryan

Yeah, I’m excited to talk to you. There’s a lot I want to cover in these 15 ish 20 minutes. And so I’m gonna dive right in. So what’s really cool is that I know you’re your meditation instructor. And you’re actually one of the instructors on Insight Timer, which is the app that I use. And so that’s really cool. Like, learn more about that. But let’s, and I want to talk more about your business because you make your living around meditation, which I find really fascinating. But let’s just start with my, my typical question to start off with is, who you are, what you do for a living, which I kind of just said, right, give us a win happening in your life right now.

Thom

Well, I am Tom Walters, I’m a meditation instructor. And it’s funny, I had a guest on Zack community a couple of years back, and they said, you know, whenever we ask anybody who they are, they automatically go to what they do. So if that is what I do, I am a person who enjoys connecting with other people, helping people find their power and helping people find their calm. These are things that are very important to me. I grew up on the south shore of Boston, right on the coast. So I had a very full life there and continue to have a full life here. And meditation, much like what you said, is my passion and is probably one of the most impactful aspects of my life, to help me stay grounded in the day to day and also understand what is outside of the day to day, more spiritual aspects of my life as well.

Ryan

What about when anything come to mind,

Thom

just living my life, the way I like to live it like every day is when I think that comes from my mindset. It’s just like, what we see in the world, what we experience day to day is just a just a small portion in my perception of what is happening in our lives, both spiritually. And so a win for me is just waking up refreshed, calm, peaceful, and knowing that I am part of everything.

Ryan

And good for you for you said that every day is a win. I’m sure that took some intentional effort to get your life to that point. So good for you for taking action. Thanks. So what do your mornings look like? My morning

Thom

routine mornings are the My favorite part of the day, as I’m sure they are for you as well. But when the alarm goes off, and I don’t even have an alarm, it’s that I’ve got an app on my phone. It’s called the sleep cycle. And it basically gives me a half hour to wake up. And basically, by my jostling or not jostling it lets me know when I’m going to later stages sleep. So I’m in a later stage of sleep within that half hour window that I give it, it gently, quietly wakes me up. So once that goes off, I literally just lie in bed for about five minutes, not closing my eyes. In fact, the exact opposite of just bringing myself to this moment, this day, just looks around the room, centering myself in the here and in the now. After that, I grabbed my journal and wrote down five things that I’m grateful for from the previous day, five wins, or victories from the previous day and five goals that I’m working on currently. Once that’s done, I study Italian for about 15 minutes, get out of bed, throw on some sweats. Take a walk down through the woods to the soccer field at the University, where I meditate for about 20 minutes, come back and then start Monday.

Ryan

Sounds great. You say study Italian? Did I hear that? Right? Yes, you did. First of all, it’s all these guests. And I’m still finding new things as part of my morning routines fast. That’s awesome. So let’s go to meditation. How’d you get so much into it and build a business around it? What led you to this point?

Thom

Well, it’s very interesting. And when I think back on all the different careers that I’ve had in my life up to this point, I never thought that I’d be teaching meditation, but it seems right now. There is nothing in my meditations, there’s I couldn’t be any clearer about what I am supposed to do on this planet. Why I’m here. I’ve been meditating for over 40 years. When I was 18. My mom was teaching meditation to people in the community in Duxbury, where I grew up. And for whatever reason, I don’t know if she said I was too young, but I was actually like, 16 She’d hold these meetings and she’d say, we’re going to be meditating. I’m like, Can I join? It’s like, Well, right now, probably not right now, sweetheart. So I’d be outside the door just like listening intently. And for whatever reason, she acquiesced and maybe she thought I was mature enough or old enough to experience it. And so it became part of that group and I learned meditation there and He’s been with me for over four decades. And it’s changed. Of course, my meditation practice has changed and morphed and continues to grow much like I am. And now I just can’t think of a day without meditating and just the bliss and the peace and the connection that I feel every day because of

Ryan

the religious part of your life for that long. Does that make sense? In terms of your mindset? Now, through 40 years of meditating, when you’re hit with an issue, a challenge, something that just throws a curveball at you, which we all got, you know, just that’s just life? How do you handle it personally,

Thom

One of the things that my meditation has been helpful in helping me deal with is just understanding the big picture of me from a physiological standpoint. When I totally feel that I’m kind of stressed or a little tense, I take myself away from wherever I am. And just take four nice deep breaths. I don’t meditate, per se, but then four deep breaths are the beginning of many meditations. And that’s because when we take nice deep breaths, activating our diaphragm, we are triggering the relaxation response in our brain. So part of your brain says, okay, whatever threat was, there is now gone. So let’s just bring the heartbreak back down, the breathing down, bringing the blood back to our fingers and toes, and we realized we don’t fight anymore. So my biggest strategy is just removing myself from whatever’s going on, taking those deep breaths, and reconnecting. And if I do have time to meditate, wherever I am, whether I’m in the car in the woods, or then I’ll definitely do that. Not a full 20 minute meditation, like I typically do, but just five minutes here, five minutes there, and helps me regain composure. And much like we were talking about earlier, it’s the ability to see the big picture. So there’s nothing on this planet short of my family or friends that are in jeopardy or their life is in jeopardy, that means anything to me. And I don’t mean that to sound glib. But I think many times we get so focused on one aspect of our life, whether it be business, whether it be health, or whatever. And we think that this is the focus of our entire life. And when we do that, if things go outside of what we want, then we get unraveled pretty easily. But I just basically say that I am here now and whatever is happening is happening. And whatever will happen or is happening to me is for my growth. So just hunker down and keep calm and bring myself into this moment and deal with whatever’s going on.

Ryan

I’ve had a similar experience. So I’m the Managing as long as you but I found that meditation for those listening that might be considering doing it. Maybe this will be helpful, but I found that Yeah, it definitely slows me down. The gratitude, practice practicing being present is all I’m trying to create habits out of. I mean, the gratitude practice is already a habit, but like being present, combined with the meditation, I find that I just, I’m able to like because I had a couple of things personally, professionally, because some curveballs thrown at me recently didn’t throw me off my rocker too much. No, I was like, okay, and just deal with it. I was able to separate myself from the actual event. Nothing’s just focused on the market. What should I do next? I didn’t get all flustered, like I normally would, in years past. So that’s what I found. It sounds like it’s a similar experience. 

Thom

Yeah, I definitely can’t remember. I mean, it’s so funny because, like I said, I’ve been meditating for quite some time. But my meditation practice has morphed and I remember when I first started meditating, I needed everything to be absolutely quiet. And believe it or not, if I was somewhere and noise kind of became present, I’d be like, Damn, I can’t meditate now. And now it’s noise or sound as part of my meditation. So nothing. I can be anywhere and meditate. One of the other things that helps me in those situations, getting back to your question, real briefly is that I’m feeling that I have a belief that there is our human self and our higher self, our human self is our day to day life and our human body, but we’re connected to something much grander, whether it be at our sole, our higher self. And I’m of the perception that literally everything that happens in my life is of my own creation, whether it be my human creation, or my soul’s creation, and I am brought to different situations to learn and to grow. So if something is challenging, then I’m like, I created this and there’s something that I’m going to learn from this. So write it out.

Ryan

I 100% agree with you that it’s such an important mindset shift. I’m rereading a book called Guy which was about butchering these self esteem prophecies. Yes. Great book. Great book. Yeah. And it’s sort of similar to what you’re talking about. I’m like halfway through the audio. So yeah, a really important mindset shift. So I want to go to business for a second cuz we are getting close to our time together. But I have some more questions. I want to ask you, I want to go, I want to go to business. Before we get off the meditation topic. someone’s listening. They don’t meditate. They don’t think they can get it because they can’t sit still. I know you’ve I get this question all the time. But I got to ask because I’m sure it’s on people’s mind listening. Number one tip for getting started is to just do five minutes. Is it or is it something else? Yeah, absolutely.

Thom

And it is The question I get asked the most is one of my favorites. Because absolutely positively everybody is able to meditate. And one of the things that I think trips people up right from the get go is that like, I can’t clear my mind, I’m like, well, that’s not meditation at all, meditation isn’t about clearing your mind. Because if you have a clear mind, then you’re probably not alive. Our brain creates thoughts. Meditation is about training our mind to be fully focused on one thought, or one focus to the exclusion of all others. So if a thought comes in, we don’t rail against it, we don’t just allow it, we just accept it, and let it move on. So meditation is about becoming one with our thoughts and seeing our thoughts. Getting rid of that perception of that clear your mind is the first thing but to your point, absolutely. Start with two minutes of just sitting, and noticing, and just keep small increments, and just keep going and going and going. And slowly, building up as you go, if that’s what you want. I mean, they’re the same. But meditations have no set rules, people are like, Oh, am I doing it right? And I’m like, if you’ve made the intention to sit still and turn ugly, then you’ve done it, right? Whether that means your mind is flowing with thoughts, it’s not getting it done. So be patient with yourself, kind with yourself, start off small and realize that thoughts are a part of life, and you’ll never get rid of them. Meditation is about learning how to deal with those thoughts.

Ryan

And like we said, it was funny, like if you’re if you’re trying to meditate, and you’re having thoughts, it’s like, congrats, you’re alive. That’s yeah, you’re good. Let’s go to business as this might be my last question. But we’ll see. We’ll see how far deep we go into this question. And then you’ll wrap up a time when they can learn more about you. So you get Zen, Zen commuter, I find it. I find it fascinating. It’s your passion and meditation. But it’s your business, too. It’s how you support yourself, I find it really fascinating. I mean, we have courses, your instructor on site time, or you have a couple other revenue streams. So how do you structure your day? What does a typical day look like for you?

Thom

So for me, I’m probably the most regimented meditator. You know, because when it comes to my business, when I have, there are a couple of days that I do traditional work, processing payroll, that’s just another revenue stream. But for the most part, all my income is coming from the same computer and all the other things, but when I need my own space, when I have my own days, basically, I just set a timer for 15 minutes, and I worked for 15 minutes, take a break for 1015 minutes break for 10. And in that time, obviously, just whether it be marketing, whether it be recording the shows and computer and calmer and five, just on task for those 30 minutes and making sure I give myself a break for those 10. And in those 10, it’s not much of a break, because then I’ll set the timer now to do dishes, for laundry, things of that nature. So I’m always going but having that regimented block of 50. And 10 really helps me out. And I know that my value isn’t based on what I produce, which is contrary to most corporations and most businesses, but I just stick to what I know is going to be most beneficial for my listeners and for my students, and then go from there.

Ryan

A lot of content creation, it sounds like it makes sense to get the podcasts and the courses and all that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You update the courses frequently or is it sort of like you’re creating new courses, to supplement the existing courses,

Thom

The courses are pretty evergreen, which is great. They’re not locked into a timeframe. You can use them at any time for any, any level of meditator whether it be beginner or advanced. The one I’m working on right now is coincidentally enough for business, how to use meditation in the business world in the corporate world to become more creative, more focused, but also be more emotionally intelligent for dealing with difficult peers or supervisors and just maintaining that sense of calm throughout the workday, which I think is a challenge for many, many people.

Ryan

You know, I do professional training, Ballantine, my family’s marketing agency, and maybe let’s talk offline, maybe we’ll have you on for an hour training around meditation. Absolutely. 100. All right. So I do have one last, we have time for one last question. A minute left. And it’s a big question. It’s the whole meaning of life. It’s a personal question because your meaning of life is different, mine is different, everyone is listening, but through the lens of Thom, what’s the meaning of life?

Thom

The meaning of life is to connect to the aspect of ourselves that transcends our humaneness. And it’s my perception that we are all in human form. We chose to inhabit human form to learn some things that we knew when we were not human. Meaning that love is all there is. Love and Light and happiness for me and the meaning of life for me is helping people understand that reconnecting with that divinity with that whatever that is. Whether it be religion, spirituality, whatever, and helping people understand that they are granted they are divine, and the meaning of life is to go through life, finding it for yourself. But also more importantly, or equally important is to help other people as well. Service to all is one of my greatest passions.

Ryan

Excellent answer. Thanks, Thom. Thanks for sharing. If someone wants to learn more about you or connect with you about meditation, where should we send them?

Thom

Yeah, I think the best place would be out to my site is Dan computer.com as the E and CEO and then ut er so many times, watch that spell check as it puts in Zen computer.com And definitely listen to the podcast calmer and five and Zen computer on wherever you listen to your podcasts. I would say I’m on many socials, but pretty much just Instagram. I’m not, even though I know it’s very important. For me, it’s much more important to connect with my audience via email via phone and trying to rack up 10s of 1000s of followers who kind of care or kind of don’t. So that computer.com and listening to the show isn’t computer and commerce in five.

Ryan

Thanks, Thom.

Thom

You got it. 

Ryan

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