Path to Peace with Todd Perelmuter

Send me a message The question, "What makes a good life?" has plagued philosophers and intellectuals for millennia. It is one of, if not the most important question for our species. Everything we do is driven by our desire for a good life. And yet, despite doing our best to have a good life, we're often left feeling unhappy and dissatisfied.  If we give in to every urge and impulse,...

Send me a message Only when we are not living completely authentically, and only when we misidentify with our mind-made versions of ourselves, can we wish to reinvent ourselves. The real question is, "How can I live more in line with my inner nature?" We all know the experience where we are so in our head, planning and plotting what to say or how to act, that we become insecure. When we...

Send me a message We live in a time of rage-filled news and algorithms that serve up content guaranteed to make your blood boil. And while we know on some level that there is no point in arguing with people who will surely disagree with us and never change, too often we fail to resist the urge and we end up spending way too much of our precious time and energy in the comments section on social med...

Send me a message Maybe predators smell fear. Maybe it's sensed. Or maybe there is some quantum mechanics going on. But for whatever reason, when people see themselves as victims, they're more likely to become victimized. This has been demonstrated by people walking down the street. They are more likely to be attacked or robbed if they think they might be. In contrast, people who exude a...

Send me a message Someone recently asked me how I can suggest that even people in Ukraine respond with love when their lives are in danger. The person went on to tell me that they struggle with spirituality because "we have fear for a reason and if a bear is charging at you, it doesn't care if you respond with love or not, it will still eat you. If you respond with fear, maybe you'l...

Send me a message Someone recently asked me this question about how to respond to people who hurt us. I get it, believe me. Our first (unconscious) instinctual reaction is to respond with anger. But this would be a reaction that lacks wisdom, patience, perspective, and most importantly, efficacy. It is just not effective when communicating to respond with anger. People's walls go up and they...

Send me a message One person recently asked me, "Why do I get extreme tingling in my face and fingers when meditating?" The fact is, it is not uncommon for a wide variety of sensations and reactions to occur when we meditate. It's not the meditation that caused it. It's the meditation that allowed this buried feeling/trauma/pain to come to the surface and start to heal. No matt...

Send me a message Burnout is the result of self-sabotage in the moment at the expense of ourself in the future. We think if we just work a little harder, if we just push ourselves and stretch ourself a little more, that we'll eventually reach the success we want and have the happiness we need. In reality, we're sacrificing our mental and physical health that will only result in a major s...

Send me a message Learning to let go is a lot harder when it's letting go of childhood trauma. When we're young, experiences will shape how we see the world for the rest of our lives. It becomes deeply engrained and becomes that much harder to heal from. But there are ways to do it. It is possible to reach deep into our psyche and pull out those weeds of trauma and plant beautiful flower...

Send me a message Today on the podcast I answer the question, "How can I become spiritual?" Before really answering this question, we have to talk about what the word "spiritual" even means.  To every person it can mean something slightly different.  In this episode I lay out what spirituality means to me and how we all have the potential to tap into our rich inner spirit of lo...

Send me a message The future is coming at us fast. If we look at the trend of where technology is headed, we can see robotics and software becoming smarter, faster, and smaller. In many ways, computers are smarter than humans, but a computer still can't design a computer better than humans can. They lack the creativity and the conscious awareness that humans have.  So, if the seemingly inevit...

Send me a message To eat or not to eat, that is the question. During my travels throughout Asia and India, every guru, monk, meditation instructor and meditator told me the same thing when it comes to eating before or after meditation. In this episode, I'll share the wisdom I learned on my travels. And, I'll share what I have found both in my own experience, as well as the experience of...

Send me a message Can I meditate while standing? Driving? Biking? Walking? Talking??? I get it. We all want to reach that blissed out feeling 24/7. So what's the best way to get there? Will standing meditation hurt or help? These questions and more will be answered in today's episode. I'll talk about the benefits to sitting meditation, why we sit, and what kind of effects standing w...

Send me a message Some people have such a loud voice in their head, that they are actually unaware they have a voice in their head at all. It's gotten so noisy and constant, that we don't even have the awareness to hear it because we are completely lost in our thoughts. In those cases, only when a person sits down to meditate and they actually turn their attention inward, do they discove...

Send me a message Jealousy can be one of our most insidious emotions that can end lifelong relationships. Instead of feeling happy for others' success, we feel negative emotions for which we put up walls so as not to feel it, but really we're just closing ourselves in and blocking everyone else out.  We can't fight our subconscious emotions because they are a part of us. But, we can...

Send me a message Most of us have a voice in our head that constantly searches for something to obsess about. It scavenges and scavenges endlessly. There is just no seeming endpoint for this thought-chaser. No matter what happens, our mind will try to label, judge and analyze it forever and ever.  Why won't our minds just do what they're told?! This inner voice disrupts our inner peace a...

Send me a message Is mindfulness about controlling our thoughts or suppressing them? What even is the difference? Are they even possible things to achieve? Are they even worthy of us trying? In this episode, I lay out the differences between these two approaches to dealing with our thoughts. But more importantly, I describe a third option for approaching our thoughts that is actually easy and way...

Send me a message When we meditate, where is the best place to put our focus? Within or out? This is a common question and the answer isn't as simple as one or the other. Mindfulness is about becoming aware of both. But if that's the case, how do we divide up our attention between the two? Sometimes we can be so lost in our mind that we are completely unaware of our surroundings. Other t...

Send me a message Meditation can often look like doing nothing, but that can't be further from the truth. Meditation is very active. It is the act of being between highly alert and highly relaxed. Being between these two states trains our mind and body to later do all the things we do when we interact with the world around us, and yet remain in a very peaceful state. Meditation is the literal...

Send me a message Being in pain can make doing the things we need to do feel almost impossible. When we're in pain, we're not thinking clearly. We are fixated on the pain and we are often mad that we are not feeling well. This is why meditation is most important when we are in physical pain. So how do we meditate in pain? Recent scientific studies have shown that meditation can actually...

Send me a message There are many people who have unpleasant experiences when they first try meditation. This is not uncommon. It's only natural that when we've lived our whole lives busy and always doing things, the first few times where we put away all distractions and turn our attention inwards can be unpleasant. There may be repressed emotions and negative thoughts for us to confront....

Send me a message Today's question is really about using meditation for insights.  Can meditation work to see a problem wholistically? And more importantly, how can we use meditation to gain understanding and wisdom into a particular problem. These are things Todd learned about firsthand when living in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan Mountains in India, and he shares the answer to in to...

Send me a message No matter what it is we put our effort into, we naturally want to see some results. And so the question really is,  "How long do you have to meditate to see results?"  Meditation is much like working out, in that the more effort you put in the more results you will see. However, as you'll hear in this podcast, there are some important things to remember when lookin...

Send me a message Today, Todd talks about whether or not we can meditate while focusing on nothing. The thing is, being unfocused is just our normal state of mind. We typically go about our days just responding to whatever we perceive and whatever thought pops into our head. We are a slave to our impulses.  Learning to focus, by practicing focus, is taking control of our mind. It's using your...

Send me a message Sometimes, when we first start meditating, sadness and other extreme emotions may feel like they're being stirred up. But, these emotions aren't created by meditation, they are revealed by meditation. Most of our lives are spent distracted. We're always so busy doing, we don't pay any real attention to our inner world. In this episode, Todd goes into why these...