Balanced Mind with Julie Potiker

Julie Potiker lead you through this guided meditation focusing on what you need right now. She completes the meditation with the poem, "How to Love Yourself", by James Crews.

This meditation ends with the poem so you can drift off to sleep at the end.

How to Love YourselfSit by the open window as long as you can,listening as rain taps out its own rhythmon the canopies of trees at last gone to green.Feel how that music seeps into youas each new droplet sinks into soil,touching earthworm and root, feedingall the small things we cannot see.This solitude is food for you too,the kind of love you give yourselfas you would a guest in your home.Ask: what do you need, how can I help,the way rain offers itself to the world,polishing each stone and leaf, beforedropping down into the grateful ground.—James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Julie Potiker lead you through this guided meditation focusing on what you need right now. She completes the meditation with the poem, "How to Love Yourself", by James Crews.

How to Love YourselfSit by the open window as long as you can,listening as rain taps out its own rhythmon the canopies of trees at last gone to green.Feel how that music seeps into youas each new droplet sinks into soil,touching earthworm and root, feedingall the small things we cannot see.This solitude is food for you too,the kind of love you give yourselfas you would a guest in your home.Ask: what do you need, how can I help,the way rain offers itself to the world,polishing each stone and leaf, beforedropping down into the grateful ground.—James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

This meditation led by Julie Potiker might be just what you need today. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Imaginal Cells", by James Crews.

(This version ends with music so you can drift off into sleep.)



Imaginal Cells, by James CrewsLike caterpillars born with imaginal cellsthat know how to become a thing with wings, we too carry a dream inside ourselvesof a different, better world. There will bestruggle, yes, as we claw our way out ofa chrysalis that can no longer keep us trapped,as we give the heart room to breathe, spaceto seek the nectar of flowers, and the nectarof mud and dung alike, feeding on darknesswhen darkness is all there is. If we canimagine a body that breaks free of its owncontainer, if we can envision a place whereeveryone feels safe and welcome, then we canbecome anything. Perhaps it beginswith a small yes stirring in a cluster of cells,and the trust that this—whatever this might beis never the end of the story.

-James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

This meditation led by Julie Potiker might be just what you need today. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Imaginal Cells", by James Crews.

Imaginal Cells, by James CrewsLike caterpillars born with imaginal cellsthat know how to become a thing with wings, we too carry a dream inside ourselvesof a different, better world. There will bestruggle, yes, as we claw our way out ofa chrysalis that can no longer keep us trapped,as we give the heart room to breathe, spaceto seek the nectar of flowers, and the nectarof mud and dung alike, feeding on darknesswhen darkness is all there is. If we canimagine a body that breaks free of its owncontainer, if we can envision a place whereeveryone feels safe and welcome, then we canbecome anything. Perhaps it beginswith a small yes stirring in a cluster of cells,and the trust that this—whatever this might beis never the end of the story.

-James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Breath in peace for yourself - as you breath out peace for others through this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with the poem, "Light Show", by James Crews.

"Light Show", by James Crews.Before supper, I called upstairs to him:Come see the light show. And withouta moment’s hesitation, he rushed downto the basement to stand next to meon the other side of a pool of sunstretching from the one small windowin the door across the concrete floor.We watched in silence as light movedthrough the leaves of the cherry tree,mingling with shadows, rippling andshifting like the mind when you goquiet enough to isolate each thought—ever-changing, not made of anythingyou can touch. We stood captivatedby that puddle of late light, whichseemed to ask: When was the last timeyou dropped everything and danced?-James Crews

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Relax and breathe along with Julie Potiker as she leads you through this healing breath meditation. She completes the meditation with her poem, "In the Habitable Zone".In the Habitable Zone, by Julie PotikerI let the thought settle—dew on my skin—120 light years from my morning coffee,a world, more than eight times biggerthan Earth, orbits a red dwarf star.Spinning steadily in what scientists callthe habitable zone.It could be a Hycean world, coveredin water so deep it forgets land.And maybe, just maybe, tiny beingsfloat there like Earth planktonreleasing dimethyl sulfide intoan atmosphere the stirs with methane,each molecule , a question flung towardus by the James Webb’s patient lens.Science says: 99.7 percent confidence.Still, let’s be careful. There are otherpaths that mimic life. But I want to exhalewonder. Let awe arise like phytoplanktonbasking in the sun. If the universe speaksin more than one place how can we notlisten with our whole hearts. Maybe, justmaybe, we are not aloneafter all.

-In the Habitable Zone, by Julie Potiker.

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Use your breath to focus on what you need right now - through this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with her poem, "11 minutes".

11 minutes, by Julie PotikerThe Karmine Line, invisible.But real enough to draw a boundarybetween us and what's beyond.At 62 miles the air gives up its gripand Blue Origin, that sleek silver wish,carries six women through suborbital space into weightlessness.

11 minutes, a life can turn inside that.

11 minutes, enough to change how the soul spells home.

And when they landed they brought space back in their eyes.I watched video of them landinghow they must have looked at the trees, the grass,and each other differentlyas if the whole world had shifted just slightly toward kindness.I wish I could go, feel the silence, see the curve of the earth with my own eyes.But that journey isn't mine.Not this lifetime.Instead, I breathe into the knowing.We are made of stardust,bones, breath, memory already part of the vastness, already connected to everything.Space isn't only up there.It lives in here.-Julie Potiker

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Join Julie Potiker as she leads you through this Classic Metta Meditation. She completes the meditation with her poem, "March on Meadowbrook Road".

March, on Meadowbrook Road, by Julie Potiker.

Down the way from the old Triumph mine, Narrow-leaf Willow, a rust-colored and wild, leans into the breeze.

Rubber Rabbit-brush waits in stillness, not yet yellow - there's room here forwhat takes time. Basin Wild Rye a parchment scrap from last year's book, whispers its end in a papery rush.

Between patches of snow, soft ground starts to look like something breathing.My boots sink low - just enough to remind me there's life below, waiting to rise, quiet as roots, steady and slow, without need for applause.

Chickadees gossip - Black-capped, mountain, in stereo tones stitched through the trees, voices bright. A Northern Flicker taps at Aspens, bare as bones. Does it know the language that flows beneath this frost? Roots that spill messages deep, a network unseen holding hands in sleep.

And I stand there, Stetson tipped just right, letting the sun do what it does best - warm my cheek. It says: you're here and so is spring.And that's enough. More than enough, I think.

-Julie Potiker

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Find compassion for yourself and those around you through this guided meditation led by Julie Potiker. She completes the meditation with the poem, "The Return of Hearts and Minds", by James Crews.

The Return of Hearts and Minds, by James CrewsI wake before dawn this morningto live inside the quiet, to feaston the dark bread of the possible.The house breathes on its own, thoughno footsteps stamp the floor above,no doors slam shut, and nothingstirs outside except for the maskedraccoon, hungry eyes glowing green.I know who I am in these small hours,and watch for signs that daylight isfinally coming, spreading like a blueink that brightens the sky instead ofdarkening it. This early, I imaginethe hearts and minds of everyonewho gave them up the day before,tossed out as easy as paper crumpledon the floor, suddenly returned to them,compassion flowing into each of uslike an IV drip, like fresh light meetingour eyes with the chance to begin again.—James CrewsFind out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Relax into this meditation -- as you breathe in compassion. Julie Potiker completes the meditation with her poem, "Joy has Four Legs and Doesn't Ask for Permission".Joy has Four Legs and Doesn’t Ask for Permission, by Julie PotikerNo one told them about warsor the price of eggs.Mutts and pure breeds of every flavorrun without hesitation,as if the world has always been this open,this forgiving.Wellington leaps and sprints with every dog chasing a ballMadeline rolls her old bones in the wet sand.One black lab charges the waves with a Frisbee in his mouth,another digs fiercely – sand flying above his head -both entirely certain of their purpose.Just now. Just wind. Just sand and saltand the miracle of tails wagging.Nothing in them resists the day.The heaviness in my chest loosens,This is how healing looks—wild, sandy, and grinning.

-Julie Potiker

Find out more about using mindfulness in everyday life through Julie's books, "SNAP: From Calm to Chaos", and "Life Falls Apart, But You Don't have To: Mindful Methods for Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos". Both are available on Amazon.com.Follow Julie on YouTube and Facebook at Mindful Methods for Life.comThis podcast is available on iTunes, iHeart, Blubrry and everywhere you listen to podcasts.