Insights, Reflections, & Guided Meditations.
Joyfully offered to inspire your path.
(14 min Guided Meditation Recording)
This meditation is adapted a Will Johnson practice he calls The Breath of the Unfolding Fern. You can listen to the entire Urban Retreat, and enjoy his magnificent teachings here: https://www.embodiment.net/audios. As he says, it is a very “deeply body-oriented approach to sitting meditation.” I love it.
Continue readingYour lymphatic system, an important part of your immune system, is passive, meaning that it does not move itself.
Instead, it moves when you do. That also means that if you aren’t moving it isn’t either.
A challenge I’m giving myself in these times that encourage taking on challenges…
If we care to look, there are a lot of different opinions about what’s happening in the world, on all kinds of topics, from health to politics, economy to environment.
And when I listen to someone I don’t agree with I give myself this challenge:
Can I understand where this person is coming from?
Think of at least 3 solutions before deciding anything.
And take deep breaths, of course!
Mortal fear shifts us into a neurological state commonly called ‘fight, flight or freeze’. The autonomic nervous system takes over in milliseconds making significant bio-chemical shifts (dumping out cortisol, adrenaline, changing systemic blood flows, etc.) one of which is preferring the hind brain for instant decision making… this mental speed comes at the cost of complexity as it’s largely binary. It’s as intelligent as yes/no or more likely run/fight. This is perfect if the danger is an incoming train or a burning house, but not great for complex social, economic or political decisions.
Continue reading(4m46s video, 1m40s text)
How many times has that happened?!
All of a sudden you realize that you forgot to practice today… or this week, or for the last month or year.
That’s not a fun moment.
It feels bad. You haven’t done something that you know is good for you, that helps you feel great and keeps you sane.
There’s a moment of painful emotions, for me a mix of guilt, shame, frustration, anger, sadness.
3m11s video, 1m read time.
What do you do when you want to assert your thoughts and feelings and you know the person you’re talking to doesn’t agree with you?
It’s good to share what we think and feel with each other, and it’s even better to do it in a way that creates connection and support versus divisiveness and pain.
I’ve been working on this for years and I’m still not very good at it.
Continue readingThis is an excerpt from a book I’m writing about coaching meditation. I find that right away people have issues with comparison and thinking that they have to sit cross-legged on the floor to meditate… both of which are famously uncomfortable things to do! Here are some ways to play with both of those challenges…
Continue readingOne thing that most of us don’t do enough of is move.
And if we do move, we don’t necessarily move those parts that are most effected by our modern, device using lifestyles… like our shoulders.
Continue readingIt’s popular in some circles to denigrate the New Age movement.
And I do think there are some things missing from its positive facing approach.
But what if we recognized that what we can do – and in fact are doing – is growing it into something else?
It’s useful to see what’s missing from something.
It’s helpful to recognize what’s not working.
That’s how we can understand what to add or change.
And it’s often more efficient to take what is useful and add to it, make it better, stronger, and more robust, than to start all over again.
