I am delighted to interview Steven Aitchison, author and founder of Change Your Thoughts blog. Steven and Angela Artemis have created a new guided meditation program called The Re-Awakening, a program designed to help someone rid themselves of stress, anxiety and depression .
Steve, please introduce yourself to the Treatment Talk readers who may not know you.
I am an extremely happily married soul with 2 great sons and a mental dog named Kara. My heart and home is in Scotland, UK.
I am the author of Change Your Thoughts blog, which has now been running since August 2006, and it’s went through a lot of changes over the years, but it keeps me writing and hopefully brings a lot of readers some pleasure with articles from myself and many great guest bloggers.
I have also written 5 books and produced 11 Products on personal development, with the latest product being The Re-Awakening: A Guided Meditation program narrated by myself and Angela Artemis.
I work full time as an Addiction Counsellor, mainly helping people recover from alcohol issues. When I’m not doing that I love writing and marketing the business.
Please tell us about your amazing blog. When did you start it and why?
Oh, the blog started in August 2006 and I started it as a way to give my creative brain an outlet for ideas on helping others. I had just finished my degree in Psychology and was writing short stories but felt I had something to give as a personal development writer.
The blog started off quite badly as I didn’t have a clue what to write about, so i started talking about trivial stuff, like how to reduce farting (I know, who wants to know about that 🙂 ). However after writing some rubbish for a month I started to get into it and my creative muse was turned on as I started sharing with others what has worked for me in my life as I was a prolific readers of personal development books.
There have been times when I kind of abandoned the blog in search of making money online, as my internet marketing skills were being born, however I kept coming back to it.
In 2010 I decided I was going to focus solely on the blog. At that time I had 3,000 subscribers. As soon as I focussed all my attention on the blog I started getting more and more subscribers, and funny enough I was making more money from it through advertising.
Today the blog has 32,000 subscribers and I feel we have a great community over there.
How long have you been meditating? How has meditation changed your life?
I have been meditating for around 10 years, but it wasn’t constant. There was always the question of was it working, am I doing it right, am I sitting in the right position, does my legs need to be behind my ears for it to really be effective 🙂 you know all that kind of stuff.
However I discovered when I didn’t meditate there was something in me that was missing. I missed it and felt out of balance when I didn’t do it.
When I found a few guided meditations a few years after I started, that’s when it really became a habit for me, and if it wasn’t for the guided meditations I would still be doing it on and off.
Can you please tell us about The Reawakening Guided Meditation System?
The Re-Awakening has been an idea that has been swirling about inside my head for a few years. Ever since I discovered guided mediation I always felt I could maybe produce better ones and more focussed.
So a few months ago I decided it was time to get this idea out of my head and into the real world.
The Re-Awakening is a set of 10 guided meditations designed specifically to Re-Awaken our heart, mind and spirit. I know it sounds a bit airy fairy, but I truly feel that we have lost our way in the world a bit. The news is like a constant stream of blackness which is infecting our core spirit, so much so that people are afraid to go out the door sometimes. What we sometimes forget is that the news is totally skewed in it’s reporting.
I heard somewhere that for every 19 bad news stories that were reported there was 1 piece of good news reported, when in real life there is hundreds of good news stories to every 1 bad news story. That kind of skewed reporting is truly bad for our spirit. So, The Re-Awakening was produced as a way to counteract, if only a little, the bleak view we might have of the world.
Can you specify how meditation and your program would be beneficial to people in recovery or family members of an addicted person?
Over the years of helping others addictions I feel that there is something missing from the lives of people who have become addicted to alcohol or drugs. It’s only recently that I have kind of figured out what it is: A sense of purpose.
We’re living in a world with fewer jobs, higher divorce rates, more stress, and a less socially connected world. Rather than help someone with their addiction I think we should be helping people with addiction issues finding a sense of purpose in their lives. Without a sense of purpose then alcohol and drugs seems like a way of escaping.
Finding your purpose means finding a place within yourself that has the answers. However, to find this place you need stillness, calm and focus and I feel that meditation can give us all of these. This goes for the person in recovery and for the families of the persons in recovery.
What advice do you have for someone who is new to meditation?
Meditation can seem to much of a hassle in the beginning, but the trick is to make it a habit. When you have a good habit in your life you reap the rewards and the benefits become cumulative, meaning the more you do it the more you benefit. However, as I have found, if you do it for a bit, stop, then start again you are not getting the full benefit from it.
With The Re-Awakening you are bypassing the hassle factor of meditating as you are shown straight away images in your mind that are conducive to deep relaxation and having a deep connection to heart, mind and spirit. Almost immediately you start to feel the benefits which will motivate you more to continue and build on those benefits such as: feeling less stressed, less anxious, able to cope with life much better, more productive, and generally much more in control of your own life.
What about people that say they do not have time to meditate? What suggestions would you give them?
If you can’t take 10-20 minutes out of your day to do something for yourself then there is something wrong.
The thing is with mediation you actually gain more time in your life. You might be thinking ‘If I have to take 20 minutes to mediate each day, surely I would have less time in the day?’ What mediation does is it gives your brain a boost, a 10 minute mediation can have the same effects as having a 2 hour sleep which means your mind is much more alert, much less tired and is able to be more productive, more creative, and make much better use of your time, therefore you are actually gaining more hours in the day by mediating for 10-20 minutes per day.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
The little spare time I have is spent with family. Friday night is movie night in our house, we get a takeway and sit and watch a good movie together.
Saturday and Sunday is the same, I like to spend time with my wife; go for a meal, go shopping, go to the pictures anything as long as we’re together.
The boys are at an age where it’s not really cool to be with us 🙂 but we still spend time together going to rugby, playing COD or at the moment helping them prepare with their exams at high school.
All the rest of time I am working as an addiction counsellor, writing, producing products and dealing with the business side of my life. I manage to survive on 5 hours of sleep per night and I put that down to mediation and good time management 🙂
Do you think meditation is for you? Are you ready to find some calm in your life? Let us know in comments.
For more from Steven Aitchison, please visit his blog at Change Your Thoughts. You can check out The Re-Awakening BY CLICKING HERE.
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