PICK UP ONE SMALL STONE

Sympathetic Joy, or taking delight in other's happiness, is one of the four Brahmaviharas along with compassion, loving-kindness, and equanimity. All four require a psychological expansion of self. Sympathetic Joy is said to be the hardest to practice -- maybe because of our natural negativity bias, maybe because of a scarcity mindset. But, when we practice it, we get to experience more joy! And, the practice of sympathetic joy also feeds into the other Brahmaviharas, increas

Both of these meditations incorporate James A. Pearson's poem, "Meanwhile," which landed like a gift in my inbox at a particular time in my life. It was a time when something so big was happening in my own life that, at first, I didn't understand how the world kept obliviously spinning. Have you ever had that feeling? Maybe with a birth, a death, some big life event -- your world is forever changed and you can't believe that everyone else doesn't also recognize the enormous

A gratitude practice for Earth Month. Go to 2:55 to skip the intro and get right into the 16.5-minute meditation .

For more of a written explanation, please see here .

Two meditations honoring the transitions of Spring: Wednesday, 3/25's Meditation: This 17-minute meditation uses the James Pearson poem " This Spring ." Go to 2:07 to skip the intro and get right into the meditation, which is an invitation to rest in the "both/and" reality of this spring -- its beauty and its ugliness, the excitement and the fear, whatever it is we are feeling. Friday, 3/27's Meditation: 16-minute meditation  Spring puts change front and center. Shorts one

The Spring Equinox is an invitation to pause and reflect. It invites balance. (The sun rises due east and sets due west on two days a year, the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. Day and night are equal length on the Equinox.) It also invites connection to the wider web of life - to nature and to all the people who have celebrated the Spring Equinox for thousands of years, from Macchu Pichu to Cambodia to Ireland and more. This 17-minute contemplation practice is an invitation to

In honor of Women's History Month, I wanted to pass on this proverb. Kathy Casey shared it with me. I think there is something lovely about the chain. Feel free to also share it. "When sleeping women wake, mountains move." - Chinese Proverb Meditation is a practice of waking up, of seeing reality clearly without the interface of our identities, our opinions, our fixed ideas. As we wake up, mountains move. Please enjoy this 17-minute meditation recorded Friday morning (3/13)

Go to 1:58 to skip the intro. A loving-kindness practice for equanimity during scary times. When we are scared or threatened, our human instinct is often to retreat back to "our group" - to close the castle gates and to increase our "othering" of those outside our group. Loving-Kindness helps us expand our sense of who is "in" our group, so that we have a broader, more stable base. Operating from a sense of "me, myself, and I" can be a very narrow, reactive place to be. Broad

" You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour ." - Zen Proverb Modern science is proving this ancient proverb to be true. When we carve out time for meditation, we are more productive and perform better . I'm not a big proponent of pushing for more productivity and performance (enough already!) -- but I can confirm that I have a feeling of spaciousness and calm when I make time to meditate. It's as if, when I med

There is an idea that we can't feel physical sensations (like feeling the body breathing, feet on the floor, etc) at the same time we are thinking. Like the gas and break pedals on our car, we can toggle quickly between the two, but they are discrete and perform different functions. This 16-minute meditation is an invitation to explore feeling vs. thinking in our own body using Alan Fogel 's guidance for a diffuse awareness of the body -- letting awareness travel wherever it

These meditation practices are designed to help us become an observer of our thoughts, rather than identifying AS our thoughts. Both practices use the technique of labeling our thoughts as "thinking" and then returning back to the breath. In this 16.5-minute practice , go to 1:38 to skip the intro and get right into the practice. In this 24-minute practice , go to 2:00 to skip the intro and get right to the meditation.

These two (2) Mindfulness of Emotions practices can help us be better listeners. By building self-awareness, we can better understand the "baggage" and perspectives that we're bringing into a conversation. This self-awareness can help us be better at listening to understand, rather than listening to soothe our own ego or justify our own POV. Both meditations use the RAIN (recognize, allow, investigate, nurture/non-identify) framework. 16-minute Mindfulness of Emotion  Go to 1

This 15-minute meditation uses a noting practice to shift us into the mode of observing our thoughts, rather than reactively following after them. Go to 2:29 to skip the intro and get right into the meditation. "Don't believe everything you think." - Joseph Nguyen "Thought is not reality, yet it is through thought that our reality is created." - Joseph Nguyen "Are you sure?" - Adreanna Limbach

Jon Kabat-Zinn offers a definition of mindfulness with 4 parts: paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgement. These meditations move through the 7 senses (5 + proprioception and interoception ) to practice this paying attention with as little judgement as possible. Practicing an openness to "what is" helps us develop equanimity -- a greater spaciousness, rather than tightly holding an idea of what we want. And, ending with the sense of interocpetion

This practice combines the (usually) calming practice of belly breathing with John O'Donohue's poem " Beannacht: a Blessing for the New Year." You can go to 2:30 to skip the intro.

Meditation instruction is so simple to say: notice when your mind wanders and come back. Meditation is can also be tricky to practice. Sometimes the place our mind wanders is very alluring. Maybe something big (positive or negative) is happening in our lives. Or, maybe, the place our mind wanders is just very familiar - and in its familiarity, it may be a very comfortable place to hang out. In fact, they might even seem part of our identity, so that to let them go would be to

Robert Emmons' definition of gratitude places us in the world. It allows us to be connected to goodness beyond ourselves.

The "Yes and..." practice can help us accept the reality of wahtever we are feeling in the moment while also making space for gratitude. ...and speaking of gratitude, I'm very grateful to Liza Kindred for teaching this meditation and allowing me to share it. 23-minute practice. Go to 3:40 to skip the intro. 16-minute practice. Go to 2:35 to skip the intro.

Thank you. Really: thank YOU for meditating! It's not always easy or convenient. There are 100 other things you could do -- and probably feel like you should do. I personally appreciate you being here (really, really!) and also I do believe that self-care is community care. The more rooted we are in our own basic goodness, the more we can move through the world in alignment with our own values. The more we are able to see clearly -- and release our habitual reactions -- the m

A Shamatha (or peaceful abiding) meditation. Go to 2:11 to skip the intro and get right into the practice.