Matt Grist

29/06/2020

MF’n British Columbia! Come and get some. All day, every day, baby. Big ups to Mother Nature. She killin’ it in 2020. Woooooooo!

25/06/2020

🎲🎲 ..
Pair ‘o dice

22/06/2020

Every human has a psychological immune system. However, it is mostly an unconscious set of mechanisms to handle the impact of negative experiences. What I am fascinated by and talking about today is how to build a conscious psychological immune system. Meaning that just like building a stronger immune system for our body, we can develop a stronger mental system to maintain positivity and happiness to guide us through our lives.

29/07/2019

“Livin in a van down by the river.” -Matt Foley

28/07/2019

King of the world

21/07/2019

11/07/2019

Loraine Make

26/06/2019

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

20/05/2019

Happiness is a skill. There, I said it. I’ve heard a lot of people over the years talk about how we shouldn’t be looking for happiness, it’s unrealistic, blah, blah, blah...

My question is, “Why would you give up on something so potentially profound, before giving it a true, sustained effort?”

Something that I’ve discovered in my pursuit of happiness is that it’s really hard to know what’s working if we don’t treat our lives like a science experiment. Here’s what I mean by that: remember in like third grade when we learned that in order to test for something you had to only manipulate one variable at a time? It’s the same with life.

I’m learning that we need to build consistency in our daily habits in order to understand what is causing us to feel the way we feel over time. How can you know what’s causing your anxiety, depression, discontent, when you haven’t stabilized your daily activities enough to pinpoint the source?

Creating a daily routine, starting with writing, exercise, meditation, something that gets you into a flow state and then adding more activities until you have built a stable base of mindful habits is the foundation upon which you can begin to truly understand yourself and how your thoughts and behaviors are impacting your mood, success, relationships, and much more.

Until you do that, you will read one book and try it out for a short time, only to discover that it’s not really working, then move on to something else, which, eventually, won’t really get you where you wanted to go either. It will feel like nothing is working until you build a base that you can experiment with ONE VARIABLE AT A TIME. (Yes, that needs to be shouted.)

As you figure out the elements to your happiness, one by one, you will build a life that not only supports your fulfillment, but allows you the freedom to become what you’ve always wanted to be (a dancer, right?). 💃🕺

11/05/2019

Not gonna lie. I’m falling pretty hard for this place.

05/05/2019

14 hours of meditation in 30 seconds.
Yesterday was... interesting. My goal was to meditate for 14 hours, from 6 AM until 8 PM, without food or water or prolonged negative thoughts. It’s been a long time since I undertook something like this. It was more difficult than I was expecting!
Doing something like this is much more difficult without accountability. In the past, I have done this typically with other people who were also doing the same or else under supervision.
I’m happy to say that I did the full amount of time that I set out to do but after developing a headache for a couple hours, I decided to drink some water.
What did I learn? I probably won’t do this again in this way. I find that I am able to get much more deep experiences with meditation when I am doing it for shorter periods of time. But any experience that pushes us is a valuable one!

04/05/2019

Meditating each morning makes a statement to the universe about how you are choosing to set the tone for your day.

Tomorrow I am meditating without food, water, or prolonged negative thoughts from sunrise to sunset (only breaks will be to feed and water Birch) to set a tone for more than just a day.

What statement would you like to make about how you will choose to live your life?

01/05/2019

Sometimes in discovering what you want, you realize just how far away you are from that thing. So, in order manage my progress toward finding more unconditional love, I have begun doing something I’m calling, “fear fasting.”

Because I believe that all negativity stems from fear, I have committed to spending at least an hour each day consciously choosing only positive thoughts. It’s like meditation but the mind is totally okay to wander.

Making a conscious choice to closely monitor my thoughts for an hour has been a very interesting process. I know that in order to get to where we want to be, we must practice our way there and so far this practice is proving to be very eye opening and productive.

There are amazing benefits to meditation and actively keeping the mind clear of thoughts but actually practicing thinking only positive/love based thoughts is something different.

Also, the scenery is helping...

01/05/2019

This week, we adventure into the mountains around the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and find a beautiful high mountain lake to explore.

I share a technique for expanding your awareness through hearing all things within your surroundings at once. This is a great technique to practice while in nature or even to help manage distractions when meditating in busy places.

Hope you enjoy some of the footage of this rugged and remote place. It is so breathtaking!

https://youtu.be/ZQPzQAj__kY

This week, we adventure into the mountains around the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and find a beautiful high mountain lake to explore. I share a techn...

30/04/2019

Yesterday I spent nearly the entire day building a sauna. I then heated up rocks and spent a couple hours enjoying the very hot steam, followed by cold river plunge, in the middle of nowhere. It was an awesome day.

I love to use heat and cold to take my body and mind to new levels. When pushing my body to it’s limits, I find that my mind can either become an enemy or ally.

It’s when you think you want to quit that the real challenge begins. Seeking controlled stress serves as a teacher for other areas of our lives and shows us that we are often capable of much more than we think.

28/04/2019

Sometimes when meditating, do you notice that time and place seem to slip away? I’m starting to realize that in that space of flow, we are connecting with something not only peaceful, but powerful as well.

If you are new to meditation, or have been practicing for a while, but find yourself struggling at times, see if you can find this experience that I call, “no time/no place.“ There are many names for it but the essence is the same.

When I’m struggling with anxiety or thoughts that keep me from feeling calm and focused, I’ll simply remind myself to go to that place. I don’t need to fix myself. I don’t need to fix people. I don’t need to fix the world. I just allow myself to exist and my equilibrium is returned. Answers then come easily.

If you want to learn more about this, I have a 10 day program that you can check out at www.mattgrist.com/101010 or I’m always happy to talk with anyone who just has questions.

27/04/2019

A perfect day in the southern Okanagan Valley. #

25/04/2019

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

I discovered the astounding truth of this concept this week when, one evening, I decided I was ready to seek enlightenment, in earnest. (I even changed my IG profile, so that means it’s real, right?) It’s something I’ve wanted since about the age of 15 but I knew I had more living to do first.

So, I went about living, diving fully into all that life had to offer. Making many, many choices that lead me not to where I thought they would, however, each choice made, ultimately led me closer to my end goal.

Realizing that part of my experience had been satisfied, I set about seeking to understand what enlightenment really is. What does it mean? What does it look like? I had set a goal to be on the path to enlightenment within 1 year. Well, everything I was hoping to understand became clear over the next 24 hours.

I was surprised and ecstatic over how quickly insight and understanding came to me. Don’t get me wrong, these realizations didn’t make me enlightened, but they made the path clear.

I vacillated over whether to share this or not. I don’t want to come across as though I think I’ve done anything significant here. I am, for the most part, the same person still. The difference is that I know what needs to be done each day to get to where I’ve been wanting to go.

I decided to share this because there is real value in the insights that flowed through me and into my book where I write all my thoughts and appreciation each day. Here’s what changed my perspective:

1. Enlightenment is about embodying unconditional love. Not only for others (which is my biggest challenge) but for all the things and situations that arise in our experience. That means loving the world exactly the way it is, loving ourselves completely, and loving others without needing them to change.

2. My challenge for many years has been that “matt” (I’m using the lower case to identify the small version of me, my ego) had many expectations and requirements of the people around him. These were nearly impossible for anyone to meet, and so he judged them and distanced himself from them in order to not be reminded of his own shortcomings.
3. Because of my more intense practice of meditation over the past few years, I have begun to see myself, often, from a third person perspective. Seeing my actions and habits as that of a character rather than the real “Me” (upper case to indicate the larger, spiritual self). This character has needed all of the experiences that he had in order to get clear that life wasn’t going to ever work out the way he wanted it to until he figured out how to truly forgive and love without condition.
4. Once I realized that I am not my character, forgiveness not only became easy, it became unnecessary. Everything that happened to “matt” (disagreement, unkindness, offence, etc.) was asked for and delivered by individuals that loved him enough to play the role of an antagonist. In fact, those that deliver to us the things that we say we don’t want, deserve our love the most.

The funny thing is, I had been trying to figure out my way to enlightenment without unconditional love. I thought I could somehow sneak by while holding onto all of my grudges and pettiness. And that would have been near impossible if I hadn’t realized point number four above. From this new vantage point, the path forward is not only easier, but appears like it will be fun and enjoyable. Time will tell.

For now, the path is to practice unconditional love from moment to moment. Noticing when I drift into the character, “matt,” and returning back to, “Me,” using whatever means necessary and available to me (typically writing and meditation).

I just want to reiterate here how absolutely bonkers it is that after 25-ish years of contemplating enlightenment, the answer I had been seeking came to me almost immediately after I decided that I was truly ready for it. This is true for all of us, whatever it is we are asking for.

22/04/2019

This week I am taking a plunge in some ice-cold water, but before-hand, I will be using meditation to control first my mind, and then my response to stress. This is a technique that can be used not only with physical stress, but with emotional and social stress as well.

If you'd like to learn more about how you can use meditation to manage your mind, body, and emotions, check out my 10 day program:

https://www.mattgrist.com/101010

In it, you'll learn the basics of meditation and how to gain more clarity over your mindset on a daily basis. This means less stress, more presence and enjoyment of life.

All the best,

Matt

https://youtu.be/N5Iori4cOZc

This week I am taking a plunge in some ice-cold water, but before-hand, I will be using meditation to control first my mind, and then my response to stress. ...

22/04/2019

There are (at least) eight levels of awareness that mindfulness practice brings:
1. We begin by asking the question, “What am I thinking?“
2. In time, we begin to realize that our thoughts create our feelings.
3. Then we realize that feelings are a choice.
4. We then use this awareness to begin to choose different thoughts. i.e. more positive/less negative.
5. You begin to see yourself in the third person as you become the consistent observer of your behavior.
6. Your judgment and self criticism subsides as you see with more clarity the rationale behind all of your past choices and perceived “mistakes.“
7. Your judgment of others’ behavior subsides as you see your own self in their actions.
8. You start to see through the veil of identity and people’s actions no longer cause negative emotions in you because “they” aren’t doing anything to “you.”

21/04/2019

Since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated with teachers like Jesus, Buddha, and many others who I have learned of along the way. As I have read and heard of how they lived their lives, this concept of “enlightenment” became something I desired on a deep level. So I pursued it, but in a very non-traditional way. I simply followed what my desires lead me toward.

I believed that within each of us is the perfect guidance system to make our way to the truth of who we are, and that is by following what feels right at any given moment.

While that may not always take us on an obviously direct path to enlightenment, I still think it gives us all of the experiences we need to fully contextualize our inspired thoughts with our experiences.

Until we’ve actually lived life, I don’t think we can understand enlightenment. Because part of enlightenment, is knowing what is not enlightenment.

I believe that I have experienced enough non-enlightenment for this lifetime and it’s time to discover what enlightenment really is.

I don’t think that enlightenment is the end of the road though, I think it’s the beginning of a life not lived in fear. I think it’s a life fully embodying love of all things, beliefs, “mistakes,” and possibilities.

Meditation and appreciation writing are my gateway to that life and they are what I’m dedicating myself to as well as sharing them with others in one form or another.

If that’s something you want, too, I’m always here to share ideas and talk. This is my whole world and I want to connect with others who want the same thing.

20/04/2019

That face when you just climbed over 1300m in elevation and you still look and feel fresh as heck.

20/04/2019

Took us a couple days but we finally found the perfect spot. Okanagan living for now...

19/04/2019

Woke up at 6 AM to catch the sunrise at Lake Louise this morning.

18/04/2019

This week, Birch and I wandered around the wilderness, played in the water, and did some meditating. In this video I discuss how we can use meditation as a tool to practice being who we really want to be.

It's possible not only to change, but to change for the better. It may take some work though!

https://youtu.be/NeLHX-sxtIc

This week, Birch and I wandered around the wilderness, played in the water, and did some meditating. In this video I discuss how we can use meditation as a t...

18/04/2019

The season of mountain adventure has begun...

11/04/2019

Rediscovered this quote recently and it is really sticking with me. It’s one that I hope to “get” some day!

10/04/2019

40 pounds of pure love, determination, and enthusiasm for life. It is so much fun hanging out with this guy!

09/04/2019

And those feelings are available to us in any moment.

Have you ever decided that you wanted to feel a certain way and then moved yourself into those feelings?

Instead of seeking outside validation through our achievements and the praise of others, we can create a habit of cultivating all the feelings that we really want to feel each day.

When we start from the place that we are hoping to get to, everything becomes about the enjoyment of the process rather than the struggle.

I developed a writing process years ago that I have used nearly every day since. And I’ve included it as part of my 10 day online program. If you want to learn more about it, check out www.mattgrist.com/101010

08/04/2019

Adventures in Kananaskis Country with Birch along with some fun, scenery, and, of course, tips for bringing more meditation into your life!

https://youtu.be/6YSYzSIdX2Y

This week I am back in Alberta, going on an adventure with my dog, Birch. We explore some of the beautiful wilderness of Kananaskis Country and talk about th...