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Exercises to reset the vagus nerve and shift our nervous system into a lower gear - followed by a mindfulness meditation. Give it a try and see how you feel after doing these exercises. If you notice a "downshift," you've got a 5-minute tool you can use anytime to move out of overexcitement, overstimulation, and "fight or flight" and into a more centered, capable place. Go to 1:48 to skip the intro and get right to it!

Meditation is a practice of non-judgment. Meditation is also a practice that leads to discernment, which is defined as "the ability to judge well." How does the practice of non-judgment lead to "the ability to judge well"? An analogy that is often used in meditation can help to square these two, seemingly opposing concepts of non-judgment and discernment: A cup of water is scooped up from the edge of a pond. The water is muddy, containing sediment, twigs, leaves, maybe a bott

Yoga Nidra is a type of yoga, but instead of moving the body, we move awareness. Yoga is a journey into spacious awareness. Enjoy this 28-minute practice as often as you like. After each session, if you have time, try journaling answers to these 4 questions: What clarity or insight arose? Where do I feel resistance? What do I feel called to move towards? What can I release? If you do the practice - and journal - multiple times, look back and see what themes emerged. As always

Mor Keshet ( www.morkeshet.com ) shares a wealth of information on "emotional biomimcry."* These meditations - one a shamatha (or "calm abiding") meditation, one a contemplation meditation, and one a combination - all borrow from Mor's teachings and invite us to learn from trees and their network of mutuality. Version 1 - Shamatha meditation: Humans co-regulate with the other humans (and animals) in their space. The calmer, more grounded and present, we can be, the more we

Today is Halloween and I hope it is glorious for you! Also, I know that Halloween, and all holidays, carry a triumvirate of unhelpful lenses: expectations, assumptions, and "should's." In meditation, we can practice removing these 3 lenses and just being with things as they are. This helps us show up move fully in our lives, without distortion, so that we can better see what's really happening -- responding with more wisdom -- and maybe even joy -- to what is really there. Go

"Biomimicry" is when humans mimic nature to invent solutions to our problems. A simple example is when George De Mestral, in 1948, noticed burrs stuck to his clothing as he walked through the woods and invented velcro. Mor Keshet ( https://www.morkeshet.com/ ) coined the concept of "emotional biomimicry," mimicking the metaphorical example of animals to better regulate our own emotions. For example, the snail carries her home on her back. She has enough within her, just as s

The way we show up changes the world around us. Meditation helps us show up in the way that we want -- in a way that shifts the world around us for the better. I appreciate you being here and practicing -- because it creates more goodness in the world that is contagious. Here's the 18-minute meditation . Go to 3:41 to skip the intro.

The benefits of meditation are cumulative, like practicing a musical instrument. After 6 months of routine practice -- of either meditation or an instrument -- you'll see progress. You'll also likely see where you'd like to keep growing. Even with regular practice, our mind will still wander in meditation. We'll still have habitual patterns that don't serve us well. This practice is just one more session of sitting, resting with reality as it is, noticing when our thoughts go

“When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.” - Thich Nhat Hanh This walking meditation can be done indoors or outdoors. Pick a spot where you can walk in a straight line for roughly 20 to 30 feet -- it's also okay if the distance is shorter and/or curvy. Go to 4:30 to skip the instructions and get right into the practice. https://youtu.be/iwfkrbhT4-k

When we're busy (which is almost all the time), it's easy for our worlds to get smaller, more myopic. Stress pushes us into tunnel vision, which isn't the wisest or easiest place to live. Can we (and it's a real question - because it's not easy), take some time to "unplug" and give ourselves some space to reboot? Here's an 18-minute guided meditation , with a body scan, to give "unplugging" a try.

This meditation is indebted twice: once to Amy Schmidt for her poem "Abundance," which is read at the beginning of the practice; second...

"Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand their shining." - Anne Lamott // Can we be like the lighthouse Anne Lamott references? Grounded and of benefit? This meditation uses a traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice to encourage us to embody the lighthouse.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story of a rider galloping by on a horse. A person standing at the side of the road yells out "where are you...

"One of the best things you can do to prepare for a disaster is to bring your neighbor a basket of muffins, because you have to get to...

Nature moves in cycles. In autumn, trees gracefully shed their leaves, letting them become compost on the forest floor to nourish new...

"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn // This blog posts includes 3 different meditations around...

Meditation builds the habit of being present. The practice of noticing our thoughts and then returning to the present moment literally...

“If we walked around all the time with our bodies leaning forward, can you imagine the kind of aching we would experience? Our backs, our...

Danusha Laméris' poem "Nothing Wants to Suffer" is a beautiful introduction to the Loving-Kindness practice. Loving-Kindess is a...