Body Balance Meditation

This latest podcast meditation came about when I became aware of how much easier it was for me to sense the right side of my body than the left. I was doing a body scan and when I noticed this difference in perception of the two sides, I began experimenting with favoring the signals coming from the left side. The result was a pleasant sense of balance and wholeness. I tried this out with my local guided meditation group and everyone loved the experience. The session had been recorded and so luckily we can share it with you. Doing this meditation, especially if you use it repeatedly, should enhance mind-body coordination, and increase mental and physical balance. The Body Balance Meditation guides you to focus more than most of our meditations. You will be directed to put your attention on the right and left side of the body (moving from feet to head) and notice if you experience each side with equal clarity. Often it will be more difficult to sense one side than the other. When one side is less clear to you, you'll be guided to try to sense that side more, holding the intention of experiencing both sides with equal strength. As you do this, be very easy about this focus. You don't need to strain or concentrate hard to reach the goal of sensing each side equally. If you don't find your perception of each side shifting, that's fine. As with all of our meditations, any effort you make is an "effortless effort". As you repeat this meditation over time, just naturally the balancing of the perception of the two sides will take place. Simply having that intention will gradually make this shift happen.

I'd love to hear your experience with this meditation, and, as always, am happy to answer questions.

Guided Meditation for Patience

I'm so glad some of you asked for a meditation for patience. I really needed this! Whenever I'm creating a new meditation, I explore my own experience. Exploring my experience of impatience brought insights, and helped me notice when I was trying to rush things rather than relaxing into the natural rhythm of how things are unfolding in my life. This new podcast meditation was created to allow you (and me) to relax into life's natural timing. When we are impatient, we are in a hurry for things to be different. Whether we're eager to finish a project, or make a change in ourselves or our circumstances, we are focussed on the future. We're at point A, but our attention is on getting to point B. In essence, we feel that things will be better at point B, and we're trying to get away from point A.

The fast pace of life and living in a culture that values quantity and speed feeds impatience. For many of us, it takes a strong intention and usually some sort of practice to counteract that. Meditation is certainly a great antidote to our speedy culture, and you can add to that an intention to come back to the present throughout the day. It's a great help to be in tune with your body, because it will tell you when you are rushing.

Next time you feel impatient, check in with your body. What do you feel? Chances are you'll feel some agitation and restlessness. Let yourself be present to that. You might then find that some other feeling emerges -- sadness, anger, frustration, fear... Allow yourself to be present to that. Allow the emotions to be felt and see what happens. See what else you experience by being present to yourself and the moment. Hopefully you'll notice the aliveness that is there, and find fulfillment in simply being present to what is.

Take a little more time, and look around you and see what is there -- the richness of experience is nothing short of a miracle. You hear sounds, touch textures, see colors and shapes, and have a huge variety of smells and tastes to feed the senses. If you find a relief in relaxing into the now, make note of that for the future. Take a moment to let that sink in, to recognize that the real fulfillment in life doesn't have anything to do with finishing a project or changing yourself and your circumstances. It has to do with the simple experience of being alive, and the richness of that experience.

Guided Meditation for Stillness, Stability and Balance

In the swirl of activity and the intense demands of life, it's easy to lose ones center. It can be challenging to maintain a sense of stability and balance. Our latest podcast meditation is designed to help you experience stillness in the midst of busyness, and then to create a stable reference point within that stillness. The meditation helps focus and steady the mind. I've had requests for a morning meditation and as well as a meditation especially for students. This meditation may be good for both purposes.

Tips for this Meditation

1. This meditation is best done sitting up in order to maintain alertness. It's not a meditation for falling asleep.
2. Occasionally my guided meditations suggest some use of visualization. In this meditation, you are guided to locate stillness and then a stable balance point within it. That point then becomes the focus of the meditation. It's important not to strain to create this point or to work at concentrating on it. Just be very easy about the whole process. If what I suggest comes easily, fine. If not, let it go. It may take several repetitions of this meditation to get the hang of it.

I'd love to hear what you experience with this meditation. All comments and questions are welcome!

Decluttering and the Meditative Life

Was wondering what I'd blog about this week and a trip to our sunroom screamed "decluttering" to me. I hate to say why, but I'm sure you can guess. The sunroom has become a storeroom for our business -- full of boxes for things received, bubble wrap envelopes for CDs to mail, and all sorts of related stuff. Richard is great at keeping things neat. His tolerance for clutter is way lower than mine. But still sometimes we get busy and the boxes start to take over. Hence the room's cry for help. Well, truth be told, hence the cry for help by my psyche! As soon as I walked in the sunroom, I felt the energy of the clutter. It's unpleasant to say the least! I've promised myself to take care of it by day's end. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to doing it. I find decluttering to be a lot like meditation. It's a kind of meditation-in-action for me. It has the same calming and grounding effect when I do it in a relaxed, non-pressured way. It has to be done in a loving way. It can feel so self-nurturing when I'm not chiding myself for what I find, for having let it get out of control. It feels good when I allow myself to be there, fully present to all the sensations, emotions and thoughts that accompany the work, and that includes being present to the self-critical part of me! If I'm present to that self-critical part, I have a chance to cut myself some slack. It feels good when I allow myself to relax into it -- when I give myself "all the time in the world" to do it, not being pressured by the clock.

Is this sounding at all like meditation to you? It does to me. It's the same art. Meditation is all about the art of living, the art of how we do things. How we do something is totally about how we handle our inner world -- how we handle our thoughts, emotions and the experiences that come our way. We can make decluttering a meditative experience. Instead of starting out with a logical plan, I like to just dive in. I enter the room or area that needs to be cleared and organized and just start -- taking one step at a time as my intuition guides me. It's so much more relaxing that way.

I read an article with all sorts of tips about decluttering -- practical things to do. It sounded so intelligent, logical, effective. But I balked at the idea of following some rules, of having to things set up and plan in advance. That's the way that person decluttered -- it worked for them, but I can guarantee you that they didn't start out with that list. That's just how it developed as they did it and then they said -- wow, that worked -- now I can tell someone else how. I much prefer to get in there and discover how I do it. Like meditation, it's an exploration that reveals my own path to me. If I start out with a instruction manual, then I think there's a right and wrong way to do it. I start getting awkward and ignoring my own intuition and inclinations. What's more it becomes work when it can be play!

It's like writing this post. I had no idea when I started where it would take me. I just started writing and discovered where it took me. Just like meditation. Just like life.

Do Twitter and meditation mix? Ramblings of a twittering mind.

What I am really asking is -- am I cut out for Twitter? "Do twitter and meditation mix" just sounded like a good title. Meditation mixes with anything -- meditation can be a part of any lifestyle. But for someone like me who was drawn to meditation partly because of my "twitter mind", Twitter can be a challenge. My twitter mind is a lot like the Buddhist "monkey mind" -- jumping from thought to thought like a monkey from tree to tree. Some of us are more that way than others. In Ayurveda, my mind has a lot of vata energy. For those conversant with Ayurveda, I'd say Twitter would aggravate vata, pacify kapha and be neutral for pitta. But that's a whole 'post in the making...

Noticing anything about this post -- does it seem to be jumping around? Too much time spent learning the Twitter ropes got my mind going. The energy there is incredibly frenetic for someone like me. It's also exciting. My mind tends to go off on tangents and free associates. It's great for creativity, but it has to be tamed. I'm sure that's what lead me to the style of meditation I learned and the style I teach. 

In my guided meditations, I consistently encourage letting go of thoughts -- not following the train of thought. This allows the mind to detach and settle down. Not only does this allow for deep rest, but it allows for the discovery of what lies beneath our thoughts. When we meditate, we experience the quality of awareness itself -- the silence and stability within. We call it getting centered. It is the opposite of having a scattered attention. The attention becomes one-pointed, anchored.

Twitter could easily scatter ones attention as you jump from tweet to tweet, clicking on links wandering here and there through blog posts, videos, and more. It's all a matter of balance -- finding the right mix of activities that keep us balanced and grounded. The "right mix" isn't the same for everyone. What we need to learn is what works for us.

As I said, for me Twitter is a challenge. It's a fun challenge -- I love the interconnectivity and especially the opportunity to connect with more of our podcast listeners. But because of the way I'm wired, I can't spend a lot of time on Twitter. (And that's a good thing -- I have so many projects to work on!) I have to find a way to make Twitter work for me. I need to tweet my way, and how that will look is just beginning to evolve.

For now, if you follow us on Twitter, you will receive updates of new blog posts, podcast episodes and other news. I'll try to follow you back if you look like a podcast listener. Let me know if I miss you, and suggestions are welcomed!

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