Should you make lots of effort in your meditation practice? Or is that counterproductive in a practice that’s really all about letting go? It’s a great question. And the answer isn’t so obvious. But if you’re serious about making progress on the path of meditation, it’s a question you can’t ignore. Why? Because you need both. Sometimes we need to make ALOT of effort. At other times, we need to ease on back…way back. So how do you know when to make effort or to ease up? And what kind of effort are we talking about anyways? Let me start by telling you a story based on the experience of a seeker ..read more

Body Scan Guided Meditation During the recent 10-Day Meditation Challenge, we took a tour through several different meditation techniques. And I want to share one of the best of those with you – the body scan meditation. During the first five days, we dove into basic mindfulness meditation. That’s one of the most popular meditation techniques available. It’s also incredibly effective when it comes to calming your mind and learning how to cultivate self-compassion and loving kindness. In fact, if you want to develop a mindfulness meditation practice of your own, we are launching a 5-week M ..read more

We're nearly halfway through the Coming Home 10-Day Meditation Challenge. So I wanted to share with you two quick audios from the Challenge. In these two excerpts, I answer some excellent questions from the participants. For context, we've spent the last four days learning and practicing basic mindfulness meditation. And the instructions for that practice are simple. 1. Take your seat. 2. Find your breath. 3. Label your thoughts "thinking". I know, sounds really simple. But there's a world of depth and discovery hidden in the space between those words. Question 1 So to paraphrase the questi ..read more

Over the holiday, I was visiting family in North Georgia. We were there during the Winter Solstice. And as you may know, on that day we mark the longest night of the year. Indigenous cultures the world over have celebrated the occasion with ceremony and ritual for millenia. When my family and I were visiting Stonehenge in England this past July, we learned that the Winter Solstice is the biggest annual event there, when pagan pilgrims come to recognize and honor the “rebirth” of the sun for the new year. And that’s what we did in Georgia. A Solstice Burning Ceremony One cold and windy night ..read more

One amazing tool we have to support our mindfulness practice is music. For me, there are certain songs that help center me in my heart. Music helps us bypass our minds and gain direct access to the tender and sometimes cloistered chambers of our own innermost feelings. And of course, music has been a constant around the camp fire and in the ceremony circle for as long as humans have sought to elevate their consciousness and harness the hidden secrets in their hearts. In that spirit, I wanted to share with you some of the songs I’ve been listening to lately. These tunes often catapult me into ..read more

How do you bring your mindfulness meditation practice into your active life? There’s a simple exercise to do this. Take a moment and reflect on this question. Identify Reactivity & Grab Where do you experience grab in your life? Where do you get hooked and notice reactivity rising in your experience? It could be any number of things. Frustration with a coworker or spouse. Anger at yourself for making a mistake. Impatience with poor customer service or standing in line. Regret over saying something in a fit of passion. Maybe you get angry at other drivers in traffic. We all have these mome ..read more

At the heart of meditation practice, there’s a compelling koan. A paradox that creates positive tension inside of us. In the simplest terms, it’s this. Discovering That Nothing Is Wrong When you really let go of all the noise in your head and let yourself drop down deep into the center of your being, there’s a boundless ocean. There, you discover that nothing is wrong. In fact, you find out that nothing was ever wrong to begin with. Everything is perfect as it is.  In that place of perfect peace, there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. There are no problems to solve. And most importantl ..read more

There are 5 things that we all need to carry in our self-care tool box. This was one powerful lesson that came out of the death doula training I recently took. The general idea is this. If we’re going to provide the kind of loving presence and balanced attention that’s required at the bedside of someone who’s dying, we need to make sure that we fill our own cup first. Because if we don’t, inevitably we are not going to be up to the task. Something is going to come up that challenges our capacity to stay present. That’s guaranteed. This is also a great lesson for life in general. Especially ..read more

Leap X Consulting The Flow Research Collective The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler The post OM105 – Flow States, Mindset, and Peak Performance with Vedran Peric appeared first on About Meditation ..read more

There’s one thing I noticed pretty quickly when I started to practice mindfulness meditation. And it’s something I come back to ALOT. In a lot of ways, it’s the heart of my practice. It’s about relationships. In particular, it’s about relating to my six-year old daughter. She’s smart and sassy and she’s a real joker. Having a little girl grants me a lot of gifts. For example, she’s taught me how to play again. How to get down on the ground and relate at kid-level. It’s a whole different world! Avoiding Relationship, Avoiding Ourselves But it’s also forced me to see the many many ways tha ..read more