Your Mindful Coach

This meditation allows us to explore the waves of our experience. Thoughts, feelings and sensations come and go. The practice of mindfulness is the practice of "being with" these experiences, whether they are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral and allowing them to flow in whatever way they need to. Poems shared include: The Little Duck by Donald C. Babcock Ride the Wave by Leah Ayliffe Tell Me by Sandra Belfiore

Using the words of Thich Nhat Hanh and inspired by the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., this meditation cultivates an inner state of peace and love. These qualities allow us to engage with the ever-changing world and create connection and meaning.

This meditation reflects on three questions inspired by Jonathan Foust and James Clear. As you look forward and backward, What worked well in the last year? What didn't go so well? What are you working towards?

This meditation combines a breath-focused mindfulness practice with an inquiry. As we reflect on the coming year, using the model of James Clear's Year in Review (https://jamesclear.com/annual-review), What went well last year? What didn't go so well? What am I working towards in the year to come? Visit center4selfcare.com to learn more or register for our 31-day virtual habit change class at habitchange.eventbrite.com today.

This guided meditation includes a short teaching on equanimity and being with one's experience. As we assume the seat of the witness, we drop into our body and bring a curious attention to what's happening right now. Included are two readings recently shared by Jack Kornfield: https://jackkornfield.com/ep-120-seeding-goodness/

Welcome to Creatures of Habit, a 29-day journey of Mindful Habit Change offered by Center4SelfCare.com. Our second meditation is a visualization where we address a habit, challenge or difficulty that we can recall in words and pictures. We then ask ourselves three questions: What am I doing? Is it right? What will I do next? If you'd like to learn more about our offerings, visit www.center4selfcare.com.

Welcome to Creatures of Habit, a 29-day journey of Mindful Habit Change offered by Center4SelfCare.com. Our first meditation is a visualization where we walk through our day (or the day prior). This can be a relaxing practice but also one that helps us identify routines and habit patterns so we can build on them and change them. Be sure to register at habitchange.eventbrite.com to be part of our interactive community of learning. It's not too late! You can find the first week's video introduction here: youtu.be/lkFgFldwufU

Welcome to Creatures of Habit, a 29-day journey of Mindful Habit Change offered by Center4SelfCare.com. Week 1 is a practice of identifying and exploring our habit patterns. Be sure to register at habitchange.eventbrite.com to be part of our interactive community of learning. It's not too late! You can find the video version here: https://youtu.be/lkFgFldwufU Be sure to support our friends, David Gerbstadt - https://www.facebook.com/david.gerbstadt Scientific Eve - https://insighttimer.com/scientificeve No More Secrets - https://www.nomoresecretsmbs.org

The traditional compassion meditation phrases recognize the reality of our situation as well as our wishes for suffering to be alleviated. They are: May you be held in compassion, may you be free from pain and suffering, may you be at peace. This meditation ends with a brief Tonglen practice which uses the heart as a tool to ease suffering and share love. This episode is dedicated to my friend Ross.

May you be held in compassion May you be free from pain and suffering May you be at peace These traditional compassion meditation phrases recognize the reality of our situation as well as our wishes for suffering to be alleviated. The accompanying compassion meditation ends with a brief Tonglen practice which uses the heart as a tool to ease suffering and share love. This episode is dedicated to my friend Ross.

The following talk looks at the idea of monkey mind and how we can work with the mind and its countless thoughts without trying to control it. The meditation includes a guided visualization that works with this concept. Check out Mooji, who I reference in the talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VsXNURolJc.

Enjoy this brief practice that helps work with a challenge or difficulty in our life and helps us open to possibility as we let go of what we can and let be what we can't.

In this short meditation, we scan through the body, noticing and allowing our experience.

I have countless inspirations for this talk and the accompanying body scan and inquiry practices including Lester Levenson who created the Sedona method and so many of my teachers and guides. You'll find meditations at the 2:45 and 22:30 marks. Enjoy.

The ancient Tale of the Two Wolves suggests that within us exists a fearful side and a loving side. The one that grows is the one we feed. Many of our most beautiful qualities: empathy, compassion, joy and connection are the product of practice. This meditation invites the practitioner to consider the qualities that they intend to cultivate and encourage.

This practice brings awareness to the body through a gentle scanning. The body supports us in being in the present.

One of the principles of mindfulness meditation is bringing the mind, heart and body together. We spend quite a bit of time "in our head." This practice invites you to drop below the neck and into the body, feeling sensation with the body itself as opposed to analyzing it with the mind.

In this guided practice, we open to the experience of sound around us. Sound can be a powerful anchor to presence. The meditation concludes with a poem, Everything is Waiting For You, by David Whyte.

Today's talk begins with a guided lovingkindness meditation based on the work of Thich Nhat Hanh and concludes with a reading from Pema Chodron.

A guided meditation inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh

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.

This talk and guided meditation explores the Vedenas or "feeling states" that we are sure to experience throughout our day. We move from pleasant, to unpleasant and to neutral as we evaluate the quality of our experience. The guided meditation, taught to me by Jonathan Foust, uses pleasant sensation in the body as an anchor for our attention. When we find ourself aware of unpleasant, we gently guided our attention to a different part of the body. At the end, we explore this unpleasant sensation with a caring heart. This practice is best done lying down.

This guided meditation explores the Vedenas or "feeling states" that we are sure to experience throughout our day. We move from pleasant, to unpleasant and to neutral as we evaluate the quality of our experience. This practice, taught to me by Jonathan Foust, uses pleasant sensation in the body as an anchor for our attention. When we find ourself aware of unpleasant, we gently guided our attention to a different part of the body. At the end, we explore this unpleasant sensation with a caring heart. This practice is best done lying down.

Enjoy this simple guided body scan meditation either lying on the floor or in bed or seated in a chair. Just make sure you can balance relaxation with a deep focus ss we draw attention back to the experience of the body, nourish and care for ourselves.

We continue our exploration of meditation basics awareness of the body. We give our body very little attention as we move through a day full of thinking, analyzing, judging and comparing. As we draw attention back to the experience of the body, we nourish and care for ourselves. This episode begins with a short reflection followed by a lying movement practice and guided body scan.

At its simplest, meditation can serve as a radical act of non-doing. A focused breathing practice, like the one offered at the end of this talk, is an invitation to return to the present moment again and again. It is natural to get caught up in thoughts or carried away with emotions. Enjoy this introduction to a mindful practice that can serve as a foundation.

Today's guided meditation takes a step back and introduces a very basic mindfulness meditation. It is a radical practice of non-doing. We simply observe the breath as it flows in the body without trying to change it or make it a certain way. Inevitably, we will become distracted. And that's ok. We simply guide our attention back to the breathing body and begin again.

This guided reflection invites the meditator to reflect on the year that has passed and then look forward to identify "What am I working towards?" This meditation is helpful during times of change and at transition points in one's life. Inspired by the habit change work of James Clear and the Body-Centered Inquiry discipline of Jonathan Foust.

One of the most meaningful acts of generosity one can offer is the generosity of assumption. When we withhold judgment, we open to possibilities and move out of thinking, analyzing and comparing. In this talk, Marc shares some stories from Ajahn Brahm. The accompanying guided meditation is derived from "The Work" of Byron Katie (thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/). When we examine our assumptions, we make room for other and new possibilities. It may be that we were right all along or perhaps we missed something. This practice invites us to recall a difficult or challenging circumstance and reframe our narrative about it.

Today's guided meditation is derived from "The Work" of Byron Katie (https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/). When we examine our assumptions, we make room for other and new possibilities. It may be that we were right all along or perhaps we missed something. This practice invites us to recall a difficult or challenging circumstance and reframe our narrative about it.

This talk explores the many kinds of generosity we can bring to the world. The accompanying guided meditation invites the practitioner to bring to mind memories of generosity - both received from others and given by us. Though we can't always be generous, we can always connect with the feeling, inclining the heart and being open to each moment. Learn more about the idea of givers, takers and matchers and Adam Grant's work here: https://onbeing.org/programs/adam-grant-successful-givers-toxic-takers-and-the-life-we-spend-at-work/

This guided meditation invites the practitioner to bring to mind memories of generosity - both received from others and given by us. Though we can't always be generous, we can always connect with the feeling, inclining the heart and being open to each moment.