Anything troubling you, anything which is irritating you, that is your teacher. – Ajahn Chah Isn’t it true that you can learn as much (or more) from unpleasant or difficult experiences as from pleasant ones? Yet, our tendency as human beings is to resist, push away or distract ourselves from unpleasant feelings. The trouble with this often unconscious habit is that what we resist persists. Resistance happens in life and meditation practice when common but difficult emotions or mind states come up, such as restlessness, boredom, agitation, fatigue, and doubt. When we push away these experiences ..read more

Do you think your mind is too busy or that you can’t sit still long enough to meditate? Maybe you feel like you’re trying too hard, expecting that you should feel a certain way (i.e., relaxed instead of stressed and agitated.)  If you’ve had any of these thoughts, you’re not alone. When you first start to meditate (and even for seasoned practitioners), your mind can feel like an out of control thought generator, leaving you frustrated and making practice a struggle. The frustration can even lead some to abandon the practice, thus robbing them of the great benefit of sticking with it. Whe ..read more

Meditation may not only be good for your mind, but it’s also good for your heart! Growing research suggests that meditation may improve factors linked to cardiovascular health and may be a useful part of cardiovascular risk reduction.  Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death for women in Canada and around the world and is largely preventable – 80% of individual risk factors can be modified! Scientists at the Heart Institute are changing that with a focus on diversity and precision medicine in all of their research. You too can have an impact on heart disease prevention, t ..read more

The concept of “empty boats” in Zen teachings comes from a story originally told by Chinese philosopher Chuang Zhu and it has much to offer us as a frame for living with emotional balance and equanimity. As the story goes, a man has freshly painted his boat. He is so pleased with how it looks he decides to take in out on the lake despite it being a foggy day. As he’s rowing along, another boat slams into his and chips the paint of his boat. The man is furious! “Pay attention to where you’re going, you idiot!” he yells angrily but, as he gets nearer, the man realizes there is no one there; it i ..read more

By Jennifer Innes Do you find you are easily distracted? Does your mind sometimes feel like an out-of-control thought generator? Do you sometimes wonder what you accomplished at the end of the day, or wonder how you arrived somewhere, or got yourself into a certain situation? If this rings true for you, you are not alone. A Harvard study conducted in 2010 found that our mind is wandering about 46.9 percent of the time. That same study also found that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. What was particularly interesting about this study is that the predictor of happiness was not so much relate ..read more

“Mindfulness, Meditation & Everything In Between with Jennifer Innes”. Here’s a snippet of the hour-long podcast. Mindfulness, Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation… How does one even approach the subject of mindfulness — is there an actual beginning , middle and end? Is everyone’s path or experience the same? What is the outcome we should be expecting? We’re going through an unprecedented time that’s impacting, our life, our health, freedoms, work, finances etc. It’s a profound time of uncertainty, anxiety and a collective fear. It’s been a year since I started meditating and I trully believ ..read more

Welcome to Ottawa Meditation & Wellness! This website is the culmination of six years of dedicated personal practice combined with mindfulness training, a journey that took me to many parts of the United States and Canada. I began this journey to follow a calling: to teach this powerful 2,600-year-old practice that, when done regularly, has the power to transform. While mindfulness is rooted in ancient Buddhist traditions, it is also a universal practice from which anyone can benefit. Today, mindfulness has expanded far beyond its historical roots and entered the mainstream in the West. It ..read more