soul: electronic music meditation with belinda matwali
Whether you’re learning about meditation for the first time or looking to make it part of your weekly wellness routine, the benefits of it’s practice have been shared and spoken about for generations. From working with it before bed as a way to unwind or using it to help with key decision making, not only is it simple but it has the ability to reconnect your mind, body and soul. Research has shown that meditation can not only help with sleep, stress and anxiety but it can also improve your memory and reduce pain in the body.
Belinda Matwali is a meditation teacher and nutritional therapist who over the last seven years has trained extensively in both meditation and consciousness awareness practices. From following gurkula style training living with her spiritual mentor in Bali to teacher training with Masters Sad Guru Trivir in India. She has undertaken sacred sound courses and blended her interest in electronic music with meditation to create a unique electronic music meditation that she now shares at festivals and events across the world.
What is meditation?
Meditation for me is about creating a deep intimacy and connection with our being, our divine aspect. The part of us that is infinite and eternal. Our being is the source of love, bliss and consciousness. When we can connect to this part of us it increases our capacity to be aware of our own existence, of others and have a deep felt experience of the interconnectedness of everything in the universe.
We are ‘human beings’ but society only really recognises our human parts - our body, thoughts, personality, emotions - there is never really any emphasis on the fact that we are way more than that. So we grow up identifying with our egoic persona rather than connecting to the true essence of who we are.
Meditation techniques allow us to balance our human aspect - our thoughts, emotions and feelings - so that we are more receptive to the subtle energy of our being in the meditation state.
It’s like you're tuning yourself to a particular bandwidth, the meditation bandwidth and from there you can connect and let go and truly be with yourself.
Even though I teach meditation, I see it more as being a guide to help people remember how to connect to this aspect of us. How can it help us?
What are some of the common misconceptions?
When I’m out and I talk to people about being a meditation teacher, many of them still have an idea that they have to be ready to completely change their lifestyle, that they would need to give up a lot of things. There’s still a misconception that meditation is only for people who do yoga. This came up when a young girl met me when I was out at a nightclub and felt she couldn’t imagine going from a club to meditation the next day. I love clubbing and have been going about sober for almost ten years now. Most people in the past didn’t get it but it’s important to follow our passions and dancing in clubs is something I still enjoy if there’s a wicked sound system. I guess it’s all about balance. Of course eating well and getting enough sleep is important but to be into meditation it’s not all about white clothes and relaxing music all the time.
Secondly it makes me sad when I see someone who tried to sit still for twenty minutes with no training and couldn’t, so they give up. Meditation really is for everyone and there are so many techniques and so many ways to connect. Often it’s really down to finding the right technique.
The final one I want to mention is the difference between meditation and mindfulness. These two terms get used interchangeably. Very simply, mindfulness is being in the moment maybe watching your breathing, whereas meditation is more that you are aware that you’re watching your breathing. There are many deeper levels of meditation too like going into samadhi, it’s an endless journey and one that sooner or later we all go on as part of our awakening journey.
How can it help with focus and performance?
Two of the keys for meditation are love and awareness and I think being able to bring this into life really helps a lot. Generally one of these keys comes naturally to us. So you might be more heart focused but space out a lot - there’s no container to hold your energy. Or you might be really awareness focused but without love, so things in life feel dry and boring. Meditation helps us to cultivate both simultaneously and having a practice tailored to you will help you find that balance.
Being able to hold focus is like creating a container for your passion, rather than having it spill all over the floor; and when you can tap into your spiritual heart and pour that into a project creative surges often come - although I want to be clear that can’t be forced. Just like meditation it’s a paradox of being present but also letting go enough to let energy come through.
The minute you try to control things too much sometimes that flow ceases.
How has it changed your life?
I have a naturally very busy mind - like a million miles an hour and loads of projects on the go. Before I started meditation I was suffering from anxiety, occasional bouts of depression and just feeling directionless in life. I spent quite a lot of time seeking and when I found meditation and learned to connect with my being, I felt a sense of calm and that life made more sense. It was important for me to see the bigger picture and that life is really about bringing the divine energy that I was accessing in meditation into my human body. I felt a sense of relief that life wasn’t just about success and money, it was more about being connected to something so much bigger.
When I get overwhelmed or anxious now it’s often because my mind is creating unnecessary drama and when I meditate and get a reprieve from my thoughts and remember the bigger picture everything feels so much more manageable again.
Even more than that though, meditation has given me a new lens to look through. I see the world as magical, full of miracles and more like a game. A lot of traditions call life a game. In India they say the “leela” it’s like a drama, sometimes happy, sometimes sad and that’s ok.
Meditative living is like being able to surf. The waves will always keep coming, you just get better at riding them, rather than feeling like you’re constantly getting dumped!
You have a love for both meditation and techno music, how do those two world’s collide?
Yes! I love electronic music and the rave scene and in many ways got into it too much with recreational drugs. I reached a low point in my life and that resulted in partying and I knew I needed to pull back. Not long after that I began my spiritual journey and learnt meditation.
I spent a long time away from the party scene because I was mainly living in South America and then spending lots of time in India. In the ashram in India there’s a lot of music and celebration. Often there’d be live musicians and drumming and I made a connection with how hypnotic a lot of the techno I liked was. The next summer I went to Berlin and spent almost every Sunday in Berghain really feeling into the sounds and using meditation techniques to connect and getting on a natural high. I created a course about this sharing some of my experiences from that time in Berlin, which is called Ecstasy Now - it’s about tapping into our innate non-causal ecstasy.
It’s about sound healing principles of hypnotic beats to cut through the mind and then music which opens our hearts. This goes back to my earlier comment about love and awareness being the two keys in meditation.
You have developed an electronic music meditation, tell us all about it…
When I moved back to London in 2019 I knew it was time to start Electronic Music Meditation classes. Prior to this I had been living in Bali for five years and I couldn’t hold live classes because of my visa. Since meditation is so much more mainstream now I thought what better place than London to launch it? Of course what was difficult initially was finding a space since it’s not a class a traditional yoga centre would have.
The beginning of the class I like to create an atmosphere with the music and beats being quite loud so the sounds penetrate the mind and help us come more into our body. There’s shaking or movement in the beginning and then meditation techniques that use breathing or slower movements matched to slower music, before then reaching the meditation part where there is a let go and softer sounds with isochronic tones.
The faster music in the beginning I’ve collaborated with my partner Bushwacka! on some tracks. I feel music carries so much intention, so it’s nice we’ve been able to make some of the tracks ourselves.
The classes are perfect for everyone. After a busy day sometimes relaxing straight away is difficult so this class takes you on a journey to get there, it meets you where you’re at.
connect with belinda and find out more…
visit her website: https://www.belindamatwali.com
follow her on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belinda_matwali/
