Meditation

Free Your Mind

"I teach one thing and one thing only: suffering and the end of suffering"

- Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

The Power of Attention

"The education of attention would be an education par excellence" - Dr. William James

Everything we experience, we experience through the filter of attention. We can be in the most idyllic of environments, but stressed and suffering from ruminating all night about a challenge at work. Or we can be injured and penniless, but appreciating the life and love still connecting us. Every moment we are focused on something, and how we pay attention can either create more suffering or free us from it. Meditation trains us to wield this most essential of human faculties with grace and skill, and thus has been the cornerstone of my healing for a decade.

Start with Pleasure

"What you practice gets stronger" - Dr. Shauna Shapiro

Meditation rewires our nervous systems, allowing us to strengthen neural pathways that help us and prune patterns that create suffering. Since we can train anything with meditation, I find it most beneficial to begin by growing what Dr. Rick Hanson calls positive emotional resources - ease, joy, safety, love, pleasure, spaciousness. This creates an immediate positive feedback loop, turning meditation into a welcome refuge from the busy-ness of life instead of one more task to push through. Focusing on the somatic or felt experience of these states also brings a richer awareness into the body, restoring balance to our narrowly mind-centered culture.

Open to the Flow of Energy and Space

"Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground" - Danna Faulds

Grounded in these resources, we then turn to the areas where we are suffering mentally, emotionally, or somatically. Many people believe that meditation is about stopping distressful thoughts, and try to enforce control over the mind to do so. This can work temporarily, but requires constant effort and doesn't address the root pain. Instead, I find it far more effective to identify the somatic distress that's causing the mind to race, bring to it a self-compassionate presence with the resources that can allow those stuck sensations to be processed, and then enjoy the symphony of flowing energy in space that results.

Mindful Inquiry

In private meditation coaching sessions, I also draw on effective methods of mindful inquiry to help you navigate challenges in your life. These include Dr. Tara Brach's RAIN, Byron Katie's The Work, Connirae Andreas' Core Transformation, Dr. Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, Ron Kurtz's Hakomi Method, and Gabor Maté's Compassionate Inquiry.

If you are interested in exploring this valuable healing path with me privately or in an online course (currently in development), please e-mail me or fill out the contact form to stay updated on new offerings. You can find more of my recorded meditations here.

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