Your Mindful Coach

This guided meditation begins with an awareness of the unfolding of experience and an invitation to let go in to it. In the second half, we'll move from the anchor of the breath and the body to asking, "What is this?" whenever a thought, emotion or sensation arises. The goal is not to figure it out instead to sit with whatever arises.

Solitude can be elusive, even when we are all by ourselves! This talk and guided practice offer approaches to connecting with solitude in any situation or circumstance.

In times of uncertainty, remembering our deep connection with the earth and other beings can be centering and grounding. Enjoy this practice as a way to begin your day or reset throughout the day.

Despite the constraints of social distancing and the limitations of moving through the world in the time of Covid-19, many of us find ourselves still quite busy. The mind is always working, producing new thoughts, ideas and emotions. As we practice, we learn to be aware of this unfolding without getting stuck in it.

The following practice invites one to observe the unfolding of their experience without trying to change it or make it a certain way. As Jack Kornfield says, "the point of meditation is not to perfect yourself, but to improve your capacity to love." By sitting with our experience and letting go of our expectations, we can arrive at presence and peace.

We began our weekly gathering with the story of the 2 Bad Bricks. We are inclined towards seeing the negative but often miss the positive within it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiu7iHzYQhQ. This meditation invites the practitioner to reflect on the 'good bricks' in our experience and settle into a feeling of wellbeing and balance.

This talk and guided practice offers everyday tools for being with our experience. These practices help us create a space between stimulus and response so that we can bring compassion, intuition and reason to our actions.

The challenge of our time is how to be with what is happening right now. Being aware of it and allowing it to be as it is when we have no control. That doesn't mean we are "OK" with it but instead we learn how to respond thoughtfully to our conditions so that we may see them change and evolve. The guided meditation on working with difficulty inspired by Ajahn Brahm's story, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung. Watch Brahm describe it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx2dnLxO2nM as well as the Body-Centered Inquiry work of Jonathan Foust (jonathanfoust.com).

The following practice is a complement to the full talk and guided meditation on working with difficulty inspired by Ajahn Brahm's story, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung. Watch Brahm describe it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx2dnLxO2nM

Today we offer a gentle body scan to connect you with your experience as you drop into presence. Visit us at www.center4selfcare.com to learn more.

The following talk recognizes that despite the difficulties of our lives, we are also gifted with blessings. What is it like to hold these two together in conversation?

The following guided practice invites you to check in with your body and draw the energy of each breath up from the earth. Drawing this positive energy into the body, you can then share it as you release the breath back to the world.

The following meditation invites you to reflect on a gratitude and notice how you feel it in the body. As we build a sense of "How Good Can It Get?", we gently invite a measure of our suffering into the space. Be sure to pick a relatively "modest" suffering at first as you practice and learn this technique.

This is the first in a series of retreat reflections and practices. With body-centered inquiry, we often invite a sensation to grow and evolve so we can sense it more clearly. What if the invitation, when reflecting on a gratitude, was "How Good Can It Get?" This talk includes a brief centering at the beginning followed by a longer meditation at the conclusion.

This simple meditation invites an attention to the body. As we breathe in, we direct the breath to parts of our body with care and compassion.

This February, Simply Meditation explores four challenges that we often face with aversion. In this talk, we explore withdrawal and how it can serve as an invitation to refocus and direct one's attention to what is most important. The accompanying guided meditation includes a body scan where we breath deeply into our body.

This guided meditation invites you to explore a topic or challenge that you have been procrastinating about. By investigating the sensations and emotions that this situation generates, we might experience a shift. What insight, intuition, and wisdom can we find inside of us to move forward? Inspired by the words of David Whyte, https://www.facebook.com/PoetDavidWhyte/posts/procrastinationis-not-what-it-seems-what-looks-from-the-outside-like-our-delay-o/2067686643257328/

This February, Simply Meditation explores four challenges that we often face with aversion. In this talk, we explore procrastination and what messages we can extract from this act. The guided meditation invites the practitioner to explore a particular challenge that they might be avoiding or procrastinating about.

This guided meditation begins with a simple standing meditation before transitioning into a supportive walking meditation. It is best done indoors in a space that allows you to walk back and forth freely.

This talk introduces the practice of standing and walking meditation and includes a brief movement practice. When the mind is busy or the body is tired, traditional practices of sitting or lying down might not support you. We'll explore how to work with a busy mind through these mindfulness practices.