Our Mindful Nature: Meditation Inspired by Nature to Soothe the Overwhelmed Mind and Ease Anxiety

In order to feel free, in order to experience FUN, we must be able to be with ourselves without fear of judgment, shame or recrimination. This is possible when we learn how to let our brain take a break from dominating the conversation and we let the body speak. This is possible when we pay enough attention to actually acknowledge how we feel. This is possible through our meditation practice. Join me today for this short practice!

These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

I recently stumbled across a 2016 NY Times article about Google’s quest to understand what makes some teams so successful, so productive, so creative while others stumble time and again.

What they found was that it doesn’t matter how smart the individual team members are or their achievements or backgrounds… What matters is Psychological Safety.

In order to thrive, we must be free enough to share the things that scare us without fear of recrimination.

Isn’t this true for us as individuals as well? Isn’t it true that in order to feel free, in order to experience FUN, we must be able to be with ourselves without fear of recrimination?

In today’s episode of The Mindful Minute, we dissect the key elements of psychological safety and apply them to ourselves both within meditation practice and within real life. Tune in today for this discussion and 20-minute guided meditation. 

Last Call: This Saturday {Dec. 21}, I am offering a Winter Solstice VIRTUAL meditation retreat! Visit merylarnett.com and click on “events” to get all the details. Be sure to use code “MindfulMinute2019” to save $5 on registration.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

Article referenced in this episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html}

#meditatewithmeryl

The first step in awakening is learning how to be with whatever arises in the moment WITHOUT judgment. This is removing the secondary layer of pain to any situation. The first layer of pain is the actual thing that hurts {you stub your toe}, and the second layer of pain is how you feel about yourself for stubbing your toe {i.e. “I’m so stupid for runing into that chair!”}. Join me today for this mini-meditation and practice simply being with your experience and noticing what judgments arise. Curious about the stages of awakening as we work this practice? Be sure to tune into last week’s episode {Finding the Fun part 2} to learn more about what is happening as you practice.

These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

In today’s episode of The Mindful Minute, we are taking a look deep inside the brain to understand what is actually happening when we meditate, especially as we start to lighten up and enjoy life more! 

Have you ever wondered if your meditation practice is working? If so, this is the episode to help you answer that question!

Let’s look at our normal, non-meditative life first… For most of us, we are living in a never-ending ping-pong game of stress. Something happens {you stub your toe} and it HURTS {this is pain 1}, and almost immediately your brain screams “WHO MOVED THAT CHAIR?!?!?!?” {pain 2 is the anger directed towards self or others}.

The real bummer is that pain 2 primes our brain for more fear and anger so the next thing hurts MORE and we get angrier quicker. This doesn’t sound like much of a fun life, does it??

Yet, if we develop a meditation practice, we can trace our way through the 4 clear stages of awakening and see the shift away from pain 2 as well as the lessening of pain 1. Hello to a lighter, perhaps more fun life!

Tune into today’s episode to find out which stage of awakening you are currently in and what you have to look forward to if you keep meditating! And, if you want to geek-out on the brain facts from today’s episode, consider picking up Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson & Richard Mendius. It is a fantastic look at what is happening in the brain as we grow a meditation habit. 

BONUS: you’ll hear me reference last month’s abundance series and some of the personal work I’m doing regarding abundance. You can learn more by visiting blissfulbudget.com {https://www.blissfulbudget.com/}.

DOUBLE BONUS: This year, for the first time, I am offering a Winter Solstice VIRTUAL meditation retreat! Visit merylarnett.com and click on “events” to get all the details. Be sure to use code “MindfulMinute2019” to save $5 on registration.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

Hermann Hesse wrote, “the high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy. My advice to the person suffering from lack of time and apathy is this: seek out each day as many as possible of the small joys.”

Our meditation practice unquestionably wakes up to these small joys; these moments of fun. It asks us again and again to come back from our fear-based projections and ask us to dwell here in the moment-to-moment small joys.

Tune in today for a mini meditation that invites us to wake up to the small joys of today!

These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/

Today’s episode of The Mindful Minute kicks off a new series for us: Finding the Fun in Meditation…

Fun. It feels almost clumsy in its simplicity. Like it doesn’t belong here. After all, meditation is a serious practice. With 2500 years of traditions, of monks in robes and vows of renunciation, meditation carries its own weight, and, because of this, it is easy to overlook a simple yet crucial element. 

We are supposed to be ENJOYING OURSELVES. It should be fun! After all, if it isn’t adding to our enjoyment of life, why on earth would we waste time doing it?!

Hermann Hesse wrote, “the high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy. My advice to the person suffering from lack of time and apathy is this: seek out each day as many as possible of the small joys.”

Our meditation practice unquestionably wakes up to these small joys; these moments of fun. It asks us again and again to come back from our fear-based projections and ask us to dwell here in the moment-to-moment small joys.

Tune into today’s episode as we explore the small joys that make life fun and share in a 20-minute guided meditation at the end. 

BONUS: you’ll hear me reference last month’s abundance series and some of the personal work I’m doing regarding abundance. You can learn more by visiting blissfulbudget.com {https://www.blissfulbudget.com/}.

DOUBLE BONUS: This year, for the first time, I am offering a Winter Solstice VIRTUAL meditation retreat! Visit merylarnett.com and click on “events” to get all the details. Be sure to use code “MindfulMinute2019” to save $5 on registration.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

Let’s take a moment to set a mindful intention for the holiday season whether you intend to shop, decorate or ignore the holiday completely! Let’s choose chill. Join me for today’s mini meditation and don’t hesitate to revisit frequently in this often overly-busy time of year!

Happy Holidays!

These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

Synchronistically, as we explore abundance this month as our community intention, within our Yoga + Meditation Teacher Training here at Sacred Chill {West}, we are also discussing non-stealing. Non-stealing is one of the Yamas & Niyamas, which are essentially tenets of living a mindful life.

Of course, non-stealing means exactly what you think it means on the surface, and, a little deeper, we discover that non-stealing has many meanings related to deeper discovery of self.

As we think through what we might want to call in with more abundance, it can be very easy when we aren’t clear {or when we aren’t quite brave enough to name it, yet} to get lost in looking at what everyone else is striving for… The house, the car, the job, the family…. 

When we aren’t steady and present inside, we steal from ourselves by claiming others’ lives as our own. In today’s Thanksgiving episode of The Mindful Minute, we discuss the ways in which we can invite ourselves into a steadier, clearer relationship within, and stay grounded within what our lives need more of regardless of what those around us are doing.

This year, for the first time, I am offering a Winter Solstice VIRTUAL meditation retreat! Visit merylarnett.com and click on “events” to get all the details. Be sure to use code “MindfulMinute2019” to save $5 on registration.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

This week for our mini practice, rather than thinking of abundance as a list of “wants” for our lives, let’s explore abundance as a feeling in our everyday, day-to-day moments. Shifting from a reverie of lack to an expression of the abundant life.

These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl

“For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” ... We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profits. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course, we don’t have enough money - ever.⁠

We’re not thin enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough - ever. Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something..."     ~Lynne Twist⁠, The Soul of Money

The first time I read this quote, maybe a decade ago, I felt it in the center of my gut. Seen.⁠

When I planned out this month's meditation series back in October, I pulled this quote to use again and it hit me just as hard. Still true.⁠

Last Wednesday, another teacher at our studio shared this exact same quote in HER meditation class and it moved me to tears.⁠

The reverie of lack is real and ever-present for many of us, and no discussion of abundance is complete without acknowledging the subconscious mindset we walk around with day after day. And, no discussion of mindfulness is complete without acknowledging the freedom we have to choose our thoughts.

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we explore the reverie of lack and the ways we can address it within our mindfulness meditation practice. Be sure to listen until the end; after our 20-minute meditation, I share one of my favorite mantras for working with this abundance mindset…

This year, for the first time, I am offering a Winter Solstice VIRTUAL meditation retreat! Visit merylarnett.com and click on “events” to get all the details. Be sure to use code “MindfulMinute2019” to save $5 on registration.

Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/ 

***Did you know I have a FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com? It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***

#meditatewithmeryl