Stress Therapy with Cheri Flake: Meditation & Stress Relief for Real Life · Meditation Teacher & Mental Health Counselor, Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW: Meditation, Stress Relief, Healthy Habits, Spirituality, Mental Health, Self-Care, Self-Help, Happiness, Mindfulness

How Your Ego Hijacks Your Meditation (And How to Take Back Control)

·33 min·2 clips

The ego can turn a stray thought into a panic about the front door, the oven, or a lost job.

She opens by asking why meditation can feel harder to turn into a habit than almost anything else. Her answer is that ego gets in the way, and it does so by sounding sensible while nudging you to stop. She turns that into a direct challenge: show up as your real self, not the part that keeps making deals. The tone stays warm, practical, and loose, with the stress-therapist framing setting up advice about procrastination, motivation, and healthy habits like meditation. She then moves into a personal example about being hooked on a Hall's cherry cough drop every night before bed. As part of a 40-day willpower challenge, she decides to go without one and sits with the craving instead of dodging it. At first, that feels manageable. Then the craving returns, stronger and more uncomfortable, and she notices her hand moving toward where the cough drops were kept. She also notices the thoughts that start bargaining for a reset or a tomorrow. The story takes a sharper turn when she comes down with the worst sore throat she has ever had. That makes the craving feel justified, but she uses the moment to show how the mind can recruit real discomfort to support old habits. Her point is not to suppress the craving, but to face it directly and let it pass faster. From there, she widens the lesson back out to stress relief, healthy habits, and staying with practice long enough for it to matter. She closes by shifting into retreat language, describing meditation, sound healing, group hypnotherapy, yin yoga, good food, outdoor saunas, hot tubs, nature walks, art, and time away from chores and pressure. The ending is less sermon than invitation: show up, face the thought-demons, and win by being the boss.

As heard by us

A brisk reminder that the mind can make skipping meditation sound like common sense.

An episode about meditation resistance, it stays grounded in a simple point: the mind can make skipping feel reasonable when it is really just bargaining.

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Why you'd press play

When your meditation practice keeps getting outvoted by your own excuses, and your ego keeps making the case to stop.

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