This is a guided meditation to help the listener learn to embrace aspects of their lives that are painful or otherwise distressing, with greater acceptance and equanimity. It imparts a cognitive / perceptual skill that, once developed, can enhance the listener's ability to navigate life with greater ease and confidence in the face of adversity.

This guided meditation begins with a brief talk about a choice we make each day: to live with mindful attention, or become caught in the busyness of habitual thought patterns. It then leads the listener through a breath focused meditation, followed by the experience of allowing the mind to become distracted and lost in thought. The listener is encouraged to contrast the two experiences and to make a wise choice through mindful practices.

Judgment is easily the most toxic mental habit we can entertain, and it is epidemic in our culture. Through judgment we paint ourselves and the world around us in darker shades and this wears away at our self-esteem and happiness. It's a habit that can be broken by transforming it into dispassionate discernment.

This guided meditation begins with a 5 minute talk that explores the issue, followed by a 7 minute guided meditation that blends mindfulness and cognitive therapy techniques. It provides the listener with the experience of transforming judgement into discernment.

In a crowded world that so often appears controlled by agencies beyond our influence, it’s far too easy for most everyone, at some point, to feel that we make no difference, that in the larger scheme of things our lives really don’t matter. It's a sad misperception because your life, all of our lives, matter to the world, to the Universe itself, in ways that you may not be aware of.

This podcast consists of a brief didactic, followed by a guided meditation to help you tap into and consciously participate in the evolving consciousness of the cosmos."

Within each of us is a place where, regardless of the chaos around us, we can find serenity and gratitude. In this life, our minds often take us on journeys far from this true place of belonging. Lured by promises of excitement and pleasure, driven by fears, our minds too often create pathways that we hope will lead to happiness, success in some way or another, or to safety. When we wander too far from our home ground we can become lost in the chaos of this over-stimulating world. Among the many consequence of this are feelings of emptiness and wanting.

If we are not careful to pause, reflect, and find our way home, we may fall prey to generating further plans and strategies for filling the void. Like a person lost in the woods, however, scrambling in this direction and that, we only become more profoundly lost and empty. Yet no matter how lost we become, we are as little as a mindful breath away from beginning our journey home, from accessing our deepest knowing and wisdom, our only source of authentic well-being.

This guided meditation will help you create an internal resource that to help you find your way home

Yoga Nidra stems from the ancient health practices of India and is sometimes referred to as yogic sleep. Unlike the sleep we’re accustomed to, Yoga Nidra involves inducing a state between normal sleep and wakefulness. In the West we sometimes refer to this as a hypnagogic state, a point of transition between wakeful consciousness and the unconsciousness of sleep. During the practice you may become deeply relaxed and only vaguely aware of your surroundings. At the same time, you may become conscious of some of the of some of the subtle workings of the mind, workings that usually elude our awareness because of the busyness of our day-to-day thinking. It is in this conscious sleep that the benefits of Yoga Nidra manifest.