Guided Chakra Meditation

Our attention is like a beam of energy. When we direct our awareness to some area of the body, it brings energy to it. Our new podcast episode, Chakra Meditation, uses this principle to enliven the chakras, creating a better flow of energy throughout the body. (If you are not familiar with the chakras, or "energy centers" of the body, you can read about them here.)

As you listen to this chakra meditation, you may notice differences in how you feel as you focus on the different chakras. It may be that emotions come up, especially at the lower chakras and heart chakra, or that you notice subtle shifts in energy. Just be aware of how you feel, not trying to change or manipulate anything. Simply having your awareness on the chakra will wake up the intelligence in that chakra so that automatically things will shift in the direction of greater balance.

You may find that some chakras are easier for you to focus on. Some may seem very faint or slip away from your attention and others may be sensed more easily. If you continue to use this meditation, your experience of the chakras will become more clear over time. If you don't notice anything in particular with you attention on the chakras, doesn't matter. You will still be getting the benefit of the meditation.

Using this meditation regularly should help to bring balance to life, as each chakra is associated with different parts of the body and aspects of living. Let me know how it works for you!

-- Thanks to Barry Stevens for the beautiful chakra image on this post.

Beyond Pain Guided Meditation

We've just published our latest podcast episode, Beyond Pain. It was hard to come up with the right title for this one. The experience of pain is so complex. If we are speaking of physical pain, the pain itself is just a sensation in the body. Unless you are someone who enjoys pain, and there are some people who do, pain is much more than "just a sensation in the body". It can create enormous suffering.

What makes the sensation of pain so difficult? Besides the fact that it can be so strong that it grabs our attention totally, making it difficult to focus on anything else, there are many ways that we suffer with pain. Much of the suffering comes from the thoughts and emotional reactions that we have along with the pain. It may trigger fear, sadness, anger, or frustration depending on our past experiences and beliefs. We may start to wonder how long it will go on, what it means, where it will go, and whether or not we'll be able to endure it.

There may be some underlying feelings about the pain that are very subtle and not so obvious, like the sense that it is a punishment or due to our failings. It can bring up a sense of abandonment or betrayal. Pain can bring up all sorts of feelings. Next time you are experiencing pain, you can investigate what comes along with it and also whether the suffering you are experiencing with the pain is from the pain itself or everything else that it brings up.

The purpose of the Beyond Pain meditation is to bring about a greater sense of ease with the presence of pain. We may tend to tighten up and resist pain which in fact makes it worse. The meditation encourages you to relax into the pain, and to let go of the involvement with all the mind's stories about the pain and the emotional reactions to it. It can help you come to a place of peace in spite of pain. Whether or not the feeling of pain becomes less, the suffering that comes with pain can be released.

We'd love to hear about your experiences with this meditation and invite you to comment!

Breath in the Heart Guided Meditation

We've just added the Breath in the Heart meditation to our podcast. It's a variation on meditations in which you follow your breath. In this case, you maintain awareness of the breath and the heart area at the same time. This helps open and enliven the heart chakra. The heart is the seat of love and connection. Attention on the heart helps to awaken the energy of love. This meditation can be especially soothing as you connect into the energy of the heart. At the same time, it can bring our awareness to any emotional pain which is present in the heart chakra. The pain may be from past hurts or from our current situation. If we are grieving, bringing attention to the heart will help facilitate the feelings of grief. By allowing these feelings to be present, they can move through and resolve.

"Relaxing into Healing" guided meditation podcast

I just added an episode to our Meditation Oasis podcast called "Relaxing into Healing". It's a very simple, direct approach to healing, and probably quite different from most guided meditations for healing.

The meditation is based on the idea that healing is in the nature of life. The natural intelligence of the body and psyche is always moving in the direction of healing. We can cooperate with this natural process of healing by being open to it, relaxing so that the maximum energy is available for healing, and allowing whatever needs to be healed to come fully into our awareness.

Being open to healing -- In the beginning of the meditation, we set the intention to open to healing. This way we become more receptive to the process of healing.

Relaxing to free up energy for healing -- We relax by letting go of resistance to whatever we are experiencing in our body, mind and emotions. Resistance takes energy, and we want to let that energy be used for healing.

Allowing what needs healing into our awareness -- Finally, the guided meditation encourages you to allow everything to come into your awareness that needs healing. The idea isn't to start thinking about it and analyzing it, but to simply experience it. Our attention is a beam of intelligent energy. Simply having something in our awareness brings energy to it. It may be a situation, an emotion or something in the body that needs healing. The meditation encourages you to simply allow yourself to experience whatever needs to be healed without judgment. In this way you hold a compassionate space for yourself to heal.