Whenever I attend a new program at the Monroe Institute, I try to remain alert for any interesting details or unexpected themes that show up around me. People often notice little clues prior to attending a program that either set the mood or add to the themes they experience in their meditation that week. So, before taking Starlines, I had my eyes open, diligently looking for any themes that could contribute to my program. The funny thing was, nothing appeared. I was busy, distracted, constantly on the go preparing to take this time off from work; maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough? I must admit, I was a bit disappointed, but you can’t force these things.

Then, as I began meditating, I started to notice some rather interesting trends. We’d do an exercise, and then I’d record (in elaborate detail) everything I had experienced. Then, we’d get the briefing for the next meditation. I began to notice, pretty early on, that what I had done in the previous exercise was often what the next exercise was about. For instance, I’d focus on a specific galaxy that I liked to meditate on, and then for the following exercise, we would be told to focus on the galaxy I had just meditated on. Or I would get a message that I really needed to ground myself, and I’d spend extra time working on that only to find out that our next exercise would be about grounding.

Rather than getting clues and insights prior to my week attending Starlines, I seemed to be getting intuitive insights that put me an exercise ahead of everyone else. I’d get to where we would be heading an exercise before everyone else did (and it wasn’t because I was given any clues in advance). I think I may have lost a bit of my grasp on the present time, so deep in meditation that I was able to connect much more fully to my intuition and wound up ahead of myself in the best and funniest of ways.

There was one exercise where we had a “free flow’” (meaning we could set any intention and explore) in our solar system. As I was doing this, I felt the urge to shift my perspective to the idea of our solar system as a whole and feel all the moving parts that created it, to see each small piece and how it added to this great, massive, well-oiled machine of movement. After I did this, I took a step back, and the exercise guide came on and said, “Now, shift your perspective to look at the universe as a whole” (or something along those lines), and I couldn’t help but giggle. I had no idea that was coming, and I had just beat the exercise to that train of thought by a couple of minutes. This happened time and time again with exercises throughout the week.

People often notice little clues prior to attending a program that either set the mood or add to the themes they experience in their meditation that week. 

The benefits of this happy accident were unbelievably bountiful. I found that when this happened, it was because I needed to spend more time focusing on whatever that reoccurring theme might have been. If I found myself feeling the need to ground in one exercise, and the next exercise then happened to be about grounding, I was likely feeling quite up in the clouds and needed the connection deep within the earth to be able to continue my journey in the most personally beneficial way.

I feel that, especially with these happy accidents or little clues and themes that appear to us in our inner journeys, they’re never without reason. It’s never actually an accident, in my opinion. I find they present themselves when we need them most, whether or not we even realize they are occurring. I could have had the same wonderful experience without ever noticing that I was consistently ahead of the group, experiencing the key themes of the next exercise in advance, but it was also nice to just notice, take a step back, and giggle. There’s always the opportunity to find humor in our meditation journeys, and it’s nice to be able to find that humor regularly to keep things fresh.

So, the next time you take a program at Monroe, try to look for little themes that pop up before your program begins and be sure to pay attention to what’s happening while you’re meditating, as well. You may just find some fun, inspiring things or humorous nods that add that extra bit of personality and experience to your journey.