Dear Reader,

This past Wednesday, a participant in our meditation circle asked me a question that's stayed with me since. She said something like this. I've done the work, Gabriel. Years of Transcendental Meditation. Joe Dispenza's work. I know how to sit. I know how to breathe. I know how to still my mind. So what advanced practice should I tackle next?

I paused before I answered her, because underneath her question was one I recognize in myself. The assumption that spiritual growth works like school. That there's a next grade. A harder class. A more advanced technique waiting once we outgrow the beginner one.

The heart doesn't grow that way. It isn't a ladder.

Jesus didn't ask us to build a more advanced closet. He said go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. Buddha didn't need better a tree to sit under. He just sat down and stayed there.

Both of them were pointing to the same thing. Presence, not progression. The ego prefers progression. It gets bored of simple. It wants the next practice, the next teacher, the next high, because simplicity doesn't feed it the way novelty does.

I know this one from the inside. I'll tell you exactly how, in a moment.

But before I get there, two new things I'd like to highlight this week. I've started a weekly Sunday Hearstream via YouTube live and registration just opened for our Path of the Heart Seminar here in Granada in September. More info about them below.

The Hidden Trap of Heart Coherence

This week's video is one of the most direct I've been on camera in a while. Heart coherence can bring you real peace. It can calm your nervous system, regulate your emotions, open your heart. But there's a trap inside it. The same practice that brings you home can also become a very sophisticated way of avoiding yourself.

I've watched this happen in students, in clients, and in myself, in almost twenty years of this work. I made this video to name it plainly. Not to make you afraid of your own practice, but so you can tell the difference between a practice that meets you and one that helps you disappear.

What I Was Really Chasing

When I first started practicing heart coherence, the relief came fast. Hand on the heart. Slow breath. A real feeling of gratitude or care held in the chest. My body would soften. My mind would go quiet. Every time, I felt like I'd come home.

Once that felt so good, I wanted more of it. So I started adding things. Music. Coded audio tracks. Brain entrainment recordings meant to take the state deeper. Some of those combinations were incredible. I'd sit down and drop into states of bliss I hadn't touched before.

Then I noticed something. I wasn't chasing the practice anymore. I was chasing the high. I kept reaching for the next track, the next audio, the next layered meditation that would keep me elevated a little longer. Without realizing it, I was quietly running from whatever was actually trying to surface.

Here's what took me the longest to see. The practice I was using to feel better was the same one keeping me from the discomfort that needed my attention. When the music stopped and the state faded, whatever had caused the anxiety in the first place was still there, still waiting. This was a classic example of spiritual bypassing.

So I changed how I practice. Now, before I do anything, I sit for a few minutes with whatever is actually here. I don't reach for the technique to fix the feeling. I let the feeling be acknowledged and allowed first. Only then do I begin the practice, and when I do, it isn't there to push the discomfort away anymore. It's there to hold it.

That's the answer underneath my answer to her. There is no advanced version of presence. There is only a deeper willingness to stop running away from it, and surrender into it.

This Weekend's Practice: Reset & Restore, Two Basic Heart Coherence Practices

I recently published two guided basic coherence practices in my YouTube Library: a 10-Minute Heart Coherence Reset and a 20-Minute Heart Coherence Restore.

Use the 10-Minute Heart Coherence Reset in the middle of a full day. Before a hard conversation. After one. In the few minutes you have before the next thing starts. It's built for real life, not a retreat.

Use the 20-Minute Heart Coherence Restore when you actually have the time. A quiet morning before the day starts. A slow Sunday. The extra minutes give you more room to sit with whatever's here before you move into the practice itself, which is the whole point of what I'm teaching you this week.

Neither one is the advanced version of the other. Use whichever one fits where you actually are today.

Two NEW Events You Might Be Interested In

Sunday HeartStream​
Starting this week, I'm hosting a free thirty-minute live guided coherence practice every Sunday at 10 am US EST. It opens with one simple meditative thought, then goes straight into the practice. A gentle way to close one week and walk into the next with a little more clarity.

​​​Join us live this Sunday →​

Path of the Heart Seminar, Granada.
Registration is open now for the next Path of the Heart Seminar in Granada this September 25 to 27. If you've wanted to do this work in person, together, this is the one to come to. You'll also have the opportunity to explore this magical city in the heart of Andalucía.

​Learn more & register →​

Resources You Might Enjoy

One Last Thing...

For the past few weeks, I've spoken about the earthquake in Venezuela. Something stayed with me from watching the interviews afterward. So many of the homes that came down had been built on landfill, on sand that had shifted before and would shift again. The ones still standing were the ones built on rock.

I keep coming back to that this week. A house doesn't get built by one dramatic pour of concrete. It gets built one brick at a time. On their own, bricks are almost boring. Square, solid, plain. Stacked patiently against each other, they hold up a home for a lifetime.

That's what a ten-minute practice is. Not a breakthrough. A brick.

The Dalai Lama once said that on his hardest days, he meditates more. Not because the practice gets more advanced on hard days, but because the foundation is what holds you up when everything else is moving.

So wherever you are this week, I'm not inviting you to the next level. I'm inviting you to the same ten minutes, again, on rock instead of sand.

Wishing you a really beautiful weekend.

From my heart to yours,

—Gabriel

PS. When you're ready, here are several ways I can support you on your journey.
PPS. One last thing… If someone shared this newsletter with you, you can always subscribe to the newsletter here.