Yes, we like to be heard, but deep down, we all know we could be better listeners. And when we think of self-improvement and healing, whether in modern science or traditional teachings, we think first about how to adjust the body, what to eat, or what medicines to take.

But what if simply listening more closely could unblock the essential areas of life in which we struggle?

In fact, we are all born with unique sound vibrations that can be powerful sources of strength, says Sanjeev Verma, Sonima’s meditation adviser.

“What I have discovered, through my meditative awakenings, is that every single human being is born with 108 sound vibrations,” Verma says. “These vibrations are embedded in you at the time of birth. As soon as you entered the whole world, the whole universe imprints on you not only the light of the planets, not only its electromagnetic fields and its energy, but also its sounds.”

But identifying and reconnecting with these individualized seed sounds can be difficult, especially in a multimedia world full of distractions. “Normally, these sound vibrations are not being recognized by us, because they are deep inside us,” Verma says. “We must try a meditative state to hear these inner sounds.”

The innovative new Ananta mobile application, which launched to the public this week, is specifically designed to help people find their inner sounds and incorporate them into meditations that can help them across all areas of life. The Ananta app is now available on both the Apple and Android platforms.

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Ananta is a Sanskrit word that means infinite and limitless, and this new meditation app focuses on using your sounds to more easily enhance your life, fulfill your desires, and become limitless with the practice of mantras that are unique to your goals.

While each of us is born with the 108 sound vibrations, Verma says, there are six to 10 that most influence all aspects of our lives. The unique feature of the Ananta app is that it guides users through an onboarding process that allows them to quickly identify their core six to 10 seed sounds, and then customize them around specific goals.

Once users have downloaded the app, they choose their birth details and then a specific purpose. Ananta then generates the appropriate seed sound and a related meditation mantra that Verma recommends people listen to for 10 to 20 minutes every day over a 28-day cycle for maximum results.

“The human cycle is 28 days, and so as you listen, it raises your vibrational field and then you start to have a higher experience,” Verma says.

Ananta is designed to support beginner, intermediate, and advanced mediation experiences, and it focuses on six overall areas, with more specific purposes within each:

• Relaxation and stress relief
• Reducing anxiety
• Focus and productivity
• Being more mindful
• Healthy lifestyle
• Manifesting effects in your life

Users can try one customized mantra for free ongoing, and two more for 30 days. A full subscription unlocks many more unique meditations and ways to customize your goals and is $3.99 a month or $37.99 annually.

Every experience is highly customized to the individual and their seed sound that will unblock their challenges. Take career, for example. “You’ll go on the purpose screen, click ‘career,’ and select from some options,” Verma says. “That then identifies and leads you to your sound, which is the vibrational feel of your career. And that will be fixed. That is for you, and it’s fixed. And if somebody else uses that sound for their career, it’s just not for them, because theirs would be different than yours.”

Ready to listen? Download the sound-breaking new Ananta mediation app from the Apple or Android platforms.

The post Tap into Your Seed Sounds to Unlock Your Full Potential appeared first on Sonima.

If you find it challenging to focus this time of year, it’s not your fault. Combine the enticements of summertime fun, the tendency to get overheated and dehydrated, and our natural penchant for doing many things at once, and you have a recipe for concentration deficit. This lack of focus makes us less productive and is also a leading source of anxiety.

One primary way to minimize the effects of all our multi-tasking is to set aside some time during the day to unplug from social media and outside inputs altogether. But I want to give you an additional strategy to subvert the effects of all of that multitasking. I want to give you a tool to train your mind to focus better, attend, and be present in an easy and meaningful way.

If you think you are exempt, try this test: The next time you sit down to eat, challenge yourself to be mindful of each and every bite. You will soon discover that even when you think you are doing only one thing—in this instance, eating—you may also be listening to music, chatting, reading, or checking email. So strategy number one is to practice mindful eating once in a while, if not once a day. Even just for a few bites, concentrate only on eating!

Truly training the mind may require a more targeted practice, so I want to offer you two techniques. Think of these together as a reframe, a chance to retrain yourself and increase your ability to concentrate, focus in the moment, and, ultimately, remain focused effortlessly. Scientific studies show that meditative practices like these actually develop parts of the brain used in concentration and focus. It’s like a fitness regimen for the mind: You are building the ability to get present and stay present, training yourself to let go of thoughts as they pop up (and they will always pop up!) and become more immune to distractions overall.

This first technique is simple and requires just minutes a day: Count breathing cycles. Inhale, exhale, one. Inhale, exhale, two. Inhale, exhale, three. And so on. You may be able to get only as far as two or three at first. But with practice, you will improve, and so will your ability to concentrate. Do what you can, and when a thought interrupts, go back to one.

The second technique is this guided meditation. Together we work up to 10 breathing cycles.

What a relief it is to learn that you can control your mind. You don’t have to pay attention to every little idea that pops up or detail of the world around you. For a few delicious moments, you can sit quietly and just notice. When you can be mindful in the present moment at will, your ability to concentrate naturally increases.

Do one or both of these practices daily as a gift of mind-training to yourself. Then get out there and take advantage of all the season has to offer!

Related: 7 Realistic Ways to Approach Mindful Eating

The post How to Focus Better: A Meditation appeared first on Sonima.

When I first discovered I was pregnant with my son, I went through the full gamut of emotions—excited, nervous, terrified, anxious, and elated. I prepared his nursery, bought a few onesies, pre-registered at the hospital, took a mildly helpful birth class, and considered myself ready.

I had 17 years of meditation practice under my belt going into motherhood. I figured, how different can motherhood be from the other upheavals of everyday life? How hard will it be to meet life with presence and awareness with babies, when I have been training at it for so long?

Turns out, extremely different, and extremely hard. In my experience of having two kids 15 months apart, I can say that motherhood hit like a semi-truck and dragged me down a road of complete confusion and disorientation (with a healthy wallop of sleep deprivation) for two years before I felt like I got some of my footing back.

Now that I am somewhat steadier, I want to share my top three pieces of advice, as well as accompanying meditations to help you on your parenting journey. My hope is to help prepare you for this transition or, at the least, assure you that you are not alone.

Parenthood Lesson #1: There Is More to Babies Than Meets the Eye

Mindfulness tip: Forgive yourself and ask for help

It was 2 a.m. My 15-month-old was waking up every three hours with a 103-degree fever. My 3-week-old was refusing to breastfeed, waking up every few hours and screaming inconsolably and almost perfectly coordinated to the moment that I finally got my other son to sleep. My husband screamed into his pillow. I thrust my screaming baby at him and went to sob on the dirty bathroom floor.

Those days, my husband and I battled daily about who was acting more like a baby. The truth was, we both were. We were pouring every ounce of parental energy and care into our children, leaving us feeling parched for care ourselves.

When I stopped thinking of my desire to be cared for as an embarrassing inconvenience and more like a necessity, two things changed. First, I started to be kinder and gentler to myself during the course of the day, forgiving my messy house, my pile of endless laundry, and the fact that I let my son repeatedly lick the side of the garbage pail because it kept him quiet.

I asked myself the question, “What can I do for you right now? How can I cushion this very hard time?” Sometimes that was just a deep breath. Sometimes it was a trip to the coffee shop. It didn’t matter what exactly it was. The self-kindness was all that mattered.

Second, I started asking for help like it was my job. I asked family, friends, local mothers groups, acquaintances, and even Facebook for babysitting, advice, food, and even comfort. I have never been much of a help-asker, but when I started considering the multiple babies in my house (especially my husband and me), and the sheer impossibility of surviving alone, I summoned up the strength to ask. A surprising number of times, people came through. And even when they couldn’t, it still felt good to ask without shame.

Parenthood Lesson #2: You Are Going Through a Massive Change

Mindfulness tip: Try to be patient

Pre-motherhood, I thought that having a baby would be kind of like buying a new couch for my home. It was a big investment. It would bring a lot of comfort to my life. It would require upkeep. But ultimately, I would still be me, and the couch would be the couch.

Instead, having a baby changed the molecular structure of who I am as a person. Being a mother was not just “Yael + baby”. The math of motherhood transformed the being that was “Yael” into someone that was almost unrecognizable. My body was completely different, with new folds and cushions that didn’t exist before. My mind was filled with thrashing to-do lists, new and urgent fears, and a disorienting sense of time passing both too slowly and too quickly.

In my old life, my daily meditation was the place where I centered myself. Now, in the rare moments I could take to formally meditate, I never made it very far out of mental grocery lists and diaper orders. I was reeling, inside and out.

It took a while to realize the colossal change that becoming a parent would bring. I clung to the baby-as-couch idea far after it became clear that motherhood was something much more radical and transformative than I imagined. Realizing this and accepting the grief that came with the death of the old life, I could slowly step into my life with more patience, curiosity, and even surprising joy.

Related: Think You Don’t Have Time to Meditate? Try This

You will not be the same post-babies. Even if you did not give birth to them, you will be transformed in ways you don’t yet see. Try and be patient as your life and your old sense of self dissolves and rearranges.

Parenthood Lesson #3: Your Spiritual Path and Your Life Are Not Separate

Mindfulness tip: Be present

Scrolling through Instagram on maternity leave, a newborn sleeping lightly on my lap, I was awash in jealousy for the gorgeous photos of people doing yoga on distant beaches, emerging bright and glowing from meditation retreats. I was aware of the irony of that jealousy, since for decades I had felt it while looking at photos of people in my exact situation with newborn babies, but there you go. Jealousy isn’t exactly obedient to logic.

I met with a spiritual director during this time. After listening to me whine about missing my practice and wishing I could go on a retreat, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Yael, your spiritual life is not different than your real life.” I felt the truth of it hit me like a lightning bolt. Of course! I was looking for wisdom and insights and freedom everywhere except right where it has always been—in the present moment. Life, as it is.

Re-adjusting my vision to see my life with the babies as my practice, I started noticing a lot. I saw the pain and the beauty of impermanence as my sons grew out of their clothes and learned new skills. I felt the vulnerability and the heart-expanding love beyond the borders of the self when staring in their eyes or holding their tiny warm bodies. I felt the suffering of resisting life when I clenched up against the unfolding of my life as a mother, and the release of that suffering when I softened into it and opened up to the flood of feelings underneath.

Related: The Healing Power of Self-Care Through Ayurveda

Your spiritual life is your everyday life. The two are not separate. If you notice you are fighting with life, pushing against the truth of how things are, escaping into your phone or running away in your mind, see if you can gently, courageously come back to the present moment. Even if it’s painful, you will suffer less and notice more. Life is right here, waiting for you.

The post 3 Meditations to Help Moms Embrace the Transition to Motherhood appeared first on Sonima.

Meditation Posture Tip #1: Keep your back straight

You’ve probably heard that you should sit as upright as possible when you meditate, and there’s a good reason for that: When we shut our senses off through meditation, we take our energy inward. That energy connects with and enhances the energy of our chakra centers. These chakras line up along our spine, so in order for them to be aligned, the spine needs to be straight. This also allows energy to flow freely through the chakras. In addition, keeping your back straight enhances your breathing, as you’re able to maintain smooth, relaxed inhalations and exhalations without any extra effort.

Meditation Posture Tip #2: Sit on the floor

These days there’s a lot of flexibility in where we sit for meditation—you can sit in a chair or even do meditation in bed. But to get the most out of your session, you should sit on the floor. This allows your root chakra at the base of your spine to be grounded into the floor and connected with the earth’s energy. What’s more, a seated position allows energy to flow upward from the earth, through your spine, to the crown of your head.

Many people use a cushion to make sitting on the floor more comfortable. Wood is a bad conductor of electricity and does not let you connect with the earth’s energy, so if you have a wooden floor, using a cushion is especially important. The cushion material you choose also matters. Wool and silk are preferable, since they accumulate and possess the energy of the animals they came from. Cotton is the next best option.

The color of the cushion can make a difference, too. If you want an active, energized meditation, a red cushion is best. If you want a more peaceful, tranquil state of meditation, sit on a white cushion. And if you meditate for material gains and prosperity, choose a yellow cushion.

Meditation Posture Tip #3: Bring your legs into lotus pose

Lotus pose is a yogic asana, or position, and has its own physical benefits. The yogic texts say that blood circulation is very gentle but effective in this position. It’s said that if you sit in lotus position for about 20 minutes, you have a complete circulation of blood through every part of your body.

There are two variations of lotus pose—full lotus, where you cross your legs and pass them through each other, and half lotus, where you simply cross your legs. If full lotus is uncomfortable, half lotus is okay. If neither position works for you, you can take the support of the wall. Stretch your legs out straight in front of you and place a cushion behind your back to keep it straight and comfortable.

Related: A Simple Guide to the Complex World of Meditation

Meditation Posture Tip #4: Find a meditation spot

It’s not always possible, but meditating in the same place every day—in the same corner, in the same room, with the same cushion, at the same time—is beneficial. As much as possible, keep whatever elements you can the same on a routine basis. This helps to accumulate more energy in your environment and within yourself for a deeper, more grounded meditation practice.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Meditation Posture appeared first on Sonima.

But whether or not you consider yourself a “creative” type, you can still reap the benefits of tapping into your innate creative energy because, along with love, happiness, and several other essential elements of life, creativity is one of the fundamental rights of human beings.

We are all creators in some way. We just express it differently. We want to make our mark, leave our footprint on the world, or make an impression on the planet. Even if we aren’t creating art or even coming up with ideas, we’re constantly creating our world, our destiny, and our karma. Believe it or not, even having children is a form of creativity.

If you pay attention, you’ll see that everyone is creating something, all the time. And for each person, the meaning of creativity (and the result of their creative energy) is unique.

Using meditation to connect with this energy doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly become an artist if you weren’t one before. However, if you are a singer, tapping into your creative energy will make you a better one. And if you’re a manager creating a business strategy? Connecting with your most basic nature will help you be creative with your plan.

How to Meditate for Creativity

Sometimes we don’t exercise our creativity enough, block it, or put it on the back burner in favor of other skills and emotions. This might result in feeling stuck, uninspired, or unmotivated. When this happens, meditation can bring you back in tune with your creative aspect by compelling you to go inward. It allows creativity to flow more clearly and in a more expressive way, which means it’s easier to apply to your everyday life and tasks.

Related: A Meditation on the Creative Process

Any general meditation or mindfulness practice will help you connect to your creativity because when you’re in a meditative mode, you’re connecting with your energy center. Your energy flows where your awareness is, so it becomes much easier to have whatever you’re focusing on manifest outwardly in your life. In this case, it’s creativity.

If you want to go a little deeper, I’d recommend a more specific type of meditation. Human beings have seven chakras, and the second one from the bottom (in the sacral region) is called Svadhisthana. This second chakra is specially connected to your creative energy, and when we meditate on it, our creativity amplifies.

For the most profound benefit, focus on and breathe into the second chakra during meditation to enhance and open it. As a result, you’ll be better at creating your own world with more clarity.

The post How Meditation Makes You More Creative appeared first on Sonima.

“Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you…” – Hafiz

What does it mean to not “surrender loneliness so quickly”? For most of my life, I would have preferred to surrender my loneliness yesterday. Loneliness felt like a painful, aching, hollow feeling at the core of my gut. It was my constant companion and I most certainly did not want it there. At some point in my twenties, I decided if I was going to spend so much of life being lonely, it was worth investigating what loneliness actually was. What I discovered didn’t stop me from ever getting lonely, but it helped transform my relationship to loneliness from something miserable to a powerful source of information.

Loneliness Hack #1: Make Friends with Desire

My first revelation was that at the center of loneliness was desire. It was a powerful longing for love. And yet, I had learned that that kind of longing was unattractive. I was told that I should stop looking for love, and that it would “happen when I least expected it”. I told myself that I better stop wanting things because not getting them made me feel desperate, pathetic, and disappointed. I told myself that I was too old, too ugly, and just too late for love, and then I told myself that love wasn’t real anyway (given the divorce rate). I tried anything and everything to get me to stop wanting love. Nothing worked. I continued to feel lonely.

One day, I was at the beach with my crush and my crush’s new girlfriend. As they snuggled together on the shore, I morosely wandered into the waves, feeling lost in a haze of loneliness and frustrated desire. Suddenly, I decided that instead of fighting off my yearning, I was going to try and open up to it. With each wave that crashed over my head I called out a new desire. “I want the dress I saw on 5th Avenue,” I started. Crash. “I want to be pretty.” Crash. “I want real love.” Crash. Instead of feeling depressed or lonely, opening up to each desire felt liberating. It felt strong and brave and exciting. Nothing guaranteed I would get these things, but just saying them felt almost as good. Within loneliness is a deep and powerful desire to connect. Trying to get rid of it won’t help. Opening up to the longing will.

Loneliness Hack #2: Learn the Difference Between Your Stories and the Truth

Everybody’s stories are different. Mine sounded like this: “I am so lonely. There must be something wrong with me. I’m too picky. I choose the wrong people. I must be immune to real love.” Sometimes another voice would swoop in: “You will find love! You just have to join a different dating app, cut your hair, and buy some new clothes. You can do this!” And on and on. These voices were part of the overall chorus of mental chatter that accompanied me throughout my day. Much of this “self-talk” was developed as a child to try and navigate my world, and much of it has stayed at the child level in terms of its maturity and problem-solving skills.

So what do we do when we realize we are lost in a maze of depressing self-chatter? First, congratulations! Noticing you are lost in thought (and not just living inside of it) is 80 percent of the battle. Next, notice if there is a feeling underneath the chatter that you don’t want to feel. Desire? Grief? Sadness? See if you can rest and breathe in the feeling itself, not in the mind’s attempt to cover it up. Finally, rather than fighting stories with other stories, try to just notice what is real. The chair underneath you. The wind on your face. Your body as it breathes. These things are real. Wake up out of your circular thoughts by sensitizing yourself to the here and now.

Related: The Fascinating Science of Why You’re So Hard on Yourself

Loneliness Hack #3: Come Home to Yourself

Sometimes loneliness comes to visit us when we are surrounded by people, in a relationship, and/or scrolling through the social media posts of 1,000+ of our “friends”. In my experience, this type of loneliness is a result of being alienated from ourselves. We are not experiencing the richness of life. We have left the building.

There is a Zen quote that says, “A picture of a rice cake cannot satisfy hunger.” In other words, living life glued to our phones, saying things that others want to hear, or being lost in our thoughts leave us feeling hungry, empty, and alone. If you are experiencing this type of loneliness, stop whatever you are doing, and come back to yourself. Meditate with the practice below. Unplug. Exercise. Have an honest talk with a friend or a date with your journal. Your loneliness is a sign of your life calling out to you. Answer it. Come home.

We are deeply interconnected to one another. We breathe the same air, influence one another’s moods, and are made up of the same raw materials. Loneliness is a difficult mind state, but practicing these hacks whenever we feel lonely brings us back to ourselves, to our hearts, and to the interconnected present moment that holds it all. This is how we let loneliness “season” us, emerging more tender and open-hearted on the other side.

The post 3 Ways to Hack Loneliness appeared first on Sonima.

Cultivating feelings of love for yourself and love for others is a wonderful thing. We could all use a little more heart—or let’s call it empathy—not only for those around us but also, perhaps most importantly, for ourselves. By this I mean finding ways to accept what is, observe yourself, and make changes that you decide will serve you as you move through the world. It’s an easy equation: By focusing on yourself first, cultivating a mindfully open and empathic heart, you will find you have love to spare for those around you. As the writer Anne Lamott says, “If you want loving feelings, do loving things.”

Most traditions and cultures, whether ancient or modern, Eastern or Western, talk about the spiritual dimension of the heart and its role in experiencing the power of love, willpower, and inner wisdom. When we linger too long with fear, doubt, grief, and hopelessness in our heart, we undermine our capacity for love and we have officially entered a negative feedback loop.

In this guided meditation for love and kindness, I offer a way to access feelings of love and being loved, and a way to establish a positive loop over time. Don’t worry if it takes awhile to really develop these feelings. Just keep doing it, using your imagination. It involves accessing a memory of a time when you had the feeling of loving or being loved, being cared for or caring deeply for someone else. Just that. None of the backstory or after effects, just the simple feeling of love, however you can call it up in your memory.

Related: How Love and Meditation Are Intertwined

So practice this easy meditation regularly and shine a light around your whole body, especially the area of the physical heart. Open yourself up to a more positive loop. There is no way to be happy all the time or live in a permanent state of joy, nor should we try. We benefit from being open to observing the ways in which we have both negative and positive feelings. The next step is to understand that failures of empathy are human and necessary. The next yet is to reach for the light since as humans, this is a more satisfying way to live our lives. It certainly helps us bond, heal, let go, and be more in sync with those around us.

The post A Meditation for Love and Kindness appeared first on Sonima.

At this point, with everything that we know about the benefits of meditation, most people would probably agree that picking up this daily habit is a good idea. A clearer mind, more emotional stability, and a better attention span are all things that everyone can benefit from.

So why isn’t every single person who knows about these benefits actually meditating? The answer, in a majority of cases, is simple: Time.

Finding Time to Meditate

In today’s world, we are all busy. Most of us don’t have a lot of free time. On top of that, we are constantly focusing on something (or someone) that needs to be taken care of. Whenever we do have a free moment, it’s likely that we’re responding to a text message, reading an email, or checking something else off of our to-do lists. This is a natural instinct.

Our minds like to be engaged in something. When you’re waiting at a doctor’s office, commuting, or sitting on a plane, you’re often looking for something to do. So why not make that something meditation?

Waiting time may be your only free time. So use it for something beneficial that can help calm you down and aid you in accomplishing whatever is next in your day.

Related: The New Science Behind the Benefits of Meditation

How to Meditate While You Wait

When I suggest this idea of using any waiting time you have to mediate, people often point out that public environments aren’t exactly set up for quiet reflection. This is true. You might find yourself in a crowded, noisy, place with no room to sit. That’s okay—you can still meditate there.

There are two main ways to engage the mind: outwardly and inwardly. In order to focus the mind inward when there are a lot of distractions around, we use something called body point meditation. There are 27 body points from head to toe, and by working your way through them from bottom to top, you can practice a form of meditation that has real benefits without necessarily having to actually sit down and be completely still. You can even try it with your eyes open if you need to stay aware of your surroundings.

This type of meditation is very grounding, because it directly connects your mind to your body. In order to do that, you need to be present so that your body is with you, your mind is with you, the moment is with you.

You may even find that this type of meditation withdraws you from a noisy, distracting environment, so it’s a great way to help yourself focus when you’re feeling overstimulated. When you’re disconnected from all the activity around you, you’re almost numb to all external sounds and movements. Your mind is engaged into the movement on the points. It’s a shift of activity from outer to inner.

Related: Why You Need to Disconnect (Not Just from Tech)

Try Body Point Meditation Right Now

To practice body point meditation, simply bring your awareness to the sole of your left foot. Then to the sole of your right foot. Then your left shin, and your right shin. Next, move to your calves, then knees. Once you work your way through your legs, move on to your palms, hands, forearms, and upper arms. Then, work your way up your spine, taking notice of the lower, middle, and upper regions.

Continue on by slowly working your way to the top of your head, breathing deeply throughout. In this way, you engage all 27 points of your body and get the chance to truly check in with yourself.

Once you finish, you can reverse the order, and go from the top to the bottom. Another option is to focus on your breath and start counting backwards from 27 to 1. With something as simple as bringing your attention to your body and breath for a short period of time, you can still have a fruitful meditation practice, no matter how busy you are.

The post How to Meditate Anywhere (Even While Waiting in Line) appeared first on Sonima.

You got married. You got fired. You graduated. You had a baby. You moved. You survived an illness. We’re all dealing with some form of change all of the time. And while a greeting card may exist for the particular type of transition you’re currently experiencing, one thing Hallmark never covers is exactly what you’re supposed to do with the cascade of emotions that accompany any major change, positive or negative, in life.

The good news is, when we wake up to whatever moment of change we are in—major or minor—it becomes a lot less scary and out of control. By figuring out where we are and where we can expect to go, we can begin to gain clarity. We can resist less, open more, and navigate through the waters with some ease.

A helpful map that I like to use is an adapted version of the Transition Framework, developed by William Bridges, PhD, in his bestselling book Managing Transitions. He describes three major stages of transition: Endings, Middle Zone and New Beginnings. Even though these stages overlap and sometimes loop back onto each other, they are helpful guideposts as we begin to chart our journey.

ENDINGS

I always seem to be the last one to realize I am going through a major transition. I notice things seem to be off. I experience periods of depression and anxiety. I long for times past and start thinking if I can engineer my life just right, I can get back to that place in the past where, even if I wasn’t happy, at least I was comfortably unhappy. It always takes more time than I expect, but at some point, either I realize it myself or someone says to me: “Yael, you had a baby earlier this year,” “You moved just a few weeks ago,” “Your job just changed dramatically.” Oh yeah. Right. I am experiencing a transition.

Endings happen at the start of a transition and they are marked by a tremendous amount of grief. Even if the change is a good one, whenever a change happens, the “old you” has to die in order to make way for the new you to emerge. After the birth of both of my sons, I first experienced profound denial about the fact that I had a baby at all. I tried to keep apace with my work responsibilities, despite being on maternity leave and sleeping 2-3 hours at night. I strove to be a hip Brooklyn woman who just happened to have a baby, when in truth the baby was taking over my life, my body, my heart, and definitely my sleep, and resisting that truth was causing a lot of suffering. I needed to accept that the baby-free woman was gone. That life was over and was never going to return. Cue the sense of loss, the tears, the sadness and grief.

And yet, once I opened up to the grief, even though I felt sad, it felt better than fighting with the truth. Once I acknowledged the loss, I could be more present for the new reality that was slowly taking shape. If you are in the Endings phase, you have to be very gentle with yourself. You are shedding a skin, and it can feel very tender, emotional, and difficult. As much as you can, remember that grief is a natural part of this process (even for the good changes) and treat yourself with a lot of kindness as you say goodbye to what is gone.

MIDDLE ZONE

The Middle Zone is the gap. Once you have moved through the grieving of your old life, suddenly you are thrust into a new space with no instructions and no experience of the terrain. It is a time that feels chaotic, uncomfortable, confusing, and disorienting.

These periods are also often marked by low productivity, needing to be alone, a feeling of suspension in time. This is all normal and natural. The old structures that held up your life are gone, and yet you are not comfortable in your new way of life.

When I graduated college, I felt very float-y, very lost. I wasn’t exactly depressed, but I also wasn’t jumping for joy every day. My identity as a student was over (for the time being) and I hadn’t yet started working full-time. Each day was a dizzying vertigo of trying to figure out who I was and what I was supposed to be doing with myself.

It is very hard not to fill this type of silence or gap with distractions, anxiety, or excessive planning. And yet, if you can stay off your phone and open up to the feelings of not-knowing, you will discover a great deal of creativity in this period of time. The Middle Zone is where our new route takes shape, one step at a time. It can feel out of control, but if we practice mindfulness and breathe through it, we will see that we are not just drifting…we are being guided somewhere new.

Related: The Simplest Change You Can Make for Better Health

NEW BEGINNINGS

About two years after I started meditating regularly, I was walking down the street and I stopped suddenly. Wow, I thought, apropos of nothing in particular, I haven’t had a panic attack in about a year! Previously, I was having them about 2-3 times per week. That is what New Beginnings feel like—sudden realizations that you are making your way in new waters with more confidence and skill than you thought possible. Don’t get me wrong. It takes time and lots of work to get there, and New Beginnings can often include many “backslides” back to old patterns and ways of doing things. These “backslides” should not be taken as failures. Change happens in a spiral—not a straight line—gradually getting us to where we need to be. Slowly, eventually, we get there.

The bottom line is, no matter where you are in the transition process, be gentle with yourself and understand that everything changes, and you won’t be in this uncomfortable spot for very long. Breathe. You will make it through this time. YOU’VE GOT THIS.

The post A 15-Minute Guided Meditation for Times of Transition and Change appeared first on Sonima.

At the start of the year, many of us are looking for clear, irrefutable wisdom that we can call upon at any given moment and know it will make a difference to us. Hundreds of self-help books get published annually, providing us with exercises, techniques and insights to assist us as we set new goals and intentions for the upcoming year. We hope that by reading these books, we will be transformed into the beings that we have always longed to be, for example, more patient, more loving, a better listener, more productive, happier, more brave, more understanding, etc. Many of us are addicted to becoming better versions of ourselves.

Ultimately, what we are truly seeking is to experience greater peace. Deep within, we are hoping that the desire to change ourselves will eventually fall away. Imagine if we shared with someone on January 1, “My New Year’s resolution is to just be me and not focus on improving myself at all.” I believe some of us would be shocked and a bit judgmental. We might even accuse that person of being selfish or ignorant. Yet, the best wisdom and insight I’ve found to date (that actually works) is practicing just this: Accepting oneself.

Now, this task may seem lofty to some, and to those I say “give this a chance.” To others who might think this is too easy, I would share that the path of unconditional acceptance may not be a journey that you’ve taken all the way to the end.

I used to think that if I could just get some space from the people and situations around me that made me feel crazy, destabilized or unworthy, I would find peace. About 15 years ago, I tried to quiet my mind via yoga for several years. What I realized was that the other people in the room and their issues seemed to be affecting and disrupting my efforts to find peace. I didn’t realize at the time that what was actually getting stirred up was my own internal battle within myself and not from those around me.

Related: Can Others’ Bad Vibes Affect Your Practice?

So I decided to directly investigate the battle that my mind was waging against myself via Buddhist meditation. I figured I could be alone and read and practice these meditations and insights without anyone annoying me!

What I came to understand over the years was that I was the cause of my own turmoil and the route to peace was an inside job. I discovered that there are great insights and practices from the Buddhist tradition, but also from neuroscience, positive psychology, and yoga that could get one into what I call “peace shape.”

Peace shape is what I believe we all want to attain. I named it this because the task is similar to getting any other part of ourselves in shape. It requires consistent, diligent, sustained effort over a given period of time. Peace is available to each and everyone one of us. It is not exclusive to monks.

Peace shape can come in many different shapes and sizes and wear many different hats. Below, are key insights and techniques from 10 different book authors (in no particular order) who I believe have their finger on the pulse of peace, or at least a piece of it. For book six, I offer an adapted guided meditation that you can do with me right now (click the video above).

1. Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection by Barbara Fredrickson

Take-home message: Love is an inside job that can be shared at any given moment. I chose this book because it helped me not only redefine love, but also expand my definition of it. Scientific research shows that love is far more than a positive emotion one experiences with just those close to them. Instead, it is a group of emotions that we experience moment-to-moment when activated. It also draws us out of our cocoons of isolation to attune with others creating micro moments of love. These consistent doses can help us to grow, change, and become healthier and more resilient over time. The great news is that we can experience these “micro moments of love with other individuals, even strangers, as well as within ourselves if we pay attention and actively cultivate these feelings. Most importantly, we need to feel love within ourselves, so that we feel that emotion as we connect with others.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Every morning, before I get out of bed, and every evening before I go to sleep, I spend five to 10 minutes sending love, first to myself—loving the me that I am right now—then to my children, other family members, and people who I know are struggling at the moment. Over time, this ritual has healed many ruptured feelings that I had toward others as well as strengthened that embodied feeling of love that rests within me at all times, but sometimes can feel obscured. In the book, this exercise is called loving kindness meditation.

Related: 10-Minute Loving-Kindness Meditation

2. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg

Take-home message: We are never angry because of what people say or do. I realized, while reading this book, that a great deal of my unhappiness and stress arose from conflicts with others. I was often making unconscious demands of others in the guise of a request and others were doing the same to me. This common approach of communication can cause ruptures in relationships. Marshall Rosenberg not only explains that the underlying cause of all conflicts is that one of our basic human needs is not being met. He also teaches us how we can repair the ruptured moment using the NVC tools. First, observe rather than judge the chain of events that cause the unwelcome feelings. Next, name your feelings and share which of our basic needs is not being met. Finally, instead of demanding others meet our expectations, request their support. We no longer unconsciously expect others to make us happy. We can also recognize that others struggle with their needs not being met as well and see them more compassionately. This empathy enables us to have greater capacity to support others.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Reflect back on a recent conflict you had with another person and see what need(s) were not being met. Some examples of basic human needs that we all share: Autonomy, integrity, celebration, interdependence, play, spiritual communion, and physical nurturance. Now, can you think of a simple request of an another that would meet your need. Repeat this exercise with other incidents so that you get more practiced at identifying needs and finding solutions.

3. A Mind at Home with Itself: How Asking Four Questions Can Free Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Turn Your World Around by Byron Katie

Take-home message: What I believe to be true might not be. In fact, the opposite might be true. It is our rigid attachment to beliefs that causes us great stress, anxiety, and depression. I think that one of the greatest lessons that I have learned is to not believe my thoughts. This may sound radical and crazy to you, but one thing that I have become certain of is that my thoughts are just that—only thoughts. They cannot, and do not, live outside of my head. It is this unconscious attachment to every thought both “good’ and “bad” that has caused me much of my suffering. Byron Katie’s approach of questioning our thoughts and asking ourselves if they are true and could the opposite be true, too, awakens our awareness to our blind commitment to these beliefs. Simply by asking ourselves the question, Is it true?, we begin to free ourselves from unconscious negative beliefs about ourselves and others.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably and will not be disturbed. Consider a recent conflict with another person—partner, coworker, or friend—and identify what you believe they did that was wrong. Then ask yourself if it is true what you believe. Next, ask yourself if you are 100 percent certain that it is true? At this point, notice what your body feels like as you feel the attachment to this belief. Ask yourself if the opposite could be true as well. Again, notice what your body feels as you attempt to experience this other perspective. Finally, ask yourself what would it feel like if you didn’t have this thought. The mere questioning loosens the physical attachment to the belief.

4. The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is by Jan Frazier

Take-home message: What is happening on the inside of our system is not the same as what is happening on the outside. Jan Frazier is a gifted writer enabling the reader to directly experience the way in which the mind personalizes or conceptualizes what is happening moment-to-moment and distracts us from directly experiencing the present. What is happening simultaneously is that while we are living our lives, our mind is narrating the events and qualifying them as pleasurable or not. In return, our body receives messages communicating the mind’s perception of the situation. Our reaction to the situation is based on these messages. However, the event that is taking place at any given moment is free from these beliefs. They are just events with no quality to them. We assign them quality and when we do this, we suffer. We are resisting the unpleasant sensations being activated in our system. What would happen if we got in touch with these bodily feelings and allowed them their due course? The felt sensations would arise, be experienced, and then dissolved in a matter of minutes. It is our resistance to these feelings that is most painful.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Find a quiet space where you can observe nature. Take 15 minutes and simply watch the natural landscape in front of you. Try to observe all the details of your surroundings without naming them or qualifying them, i.e., old, bare, green, trees, etc. Let your eyes wander as they observe. Notice if your mind wants to analyze or judge the scene and, instead, come back to observing it. When we allow ourselves this gift of simply witnessing, we create a sense of spaciousness within our mind and a loosening of the gripping thoughts.

5. In Touch: How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself by John Prendergast

Take-home message: The heart holds our deepest knowing. Uncovering and living by this truth allows our unique journey to unfold beautifully. John Prendergast is a magnificent teacher and guide of directing one to their own deep knowing of what is most valuable to each of us in any given moment. We discover that when we shift our primary attention from the mind to the heart, we begin to experience what feels right to us as well as what doesn’t. The ability to listen to the body as it guides us toward our deepest sense of happiness and contentment is like following an inner compass that knows which direction we must follow.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Close your eyes and take a few, deep, slow breaths. Feel your feet on the ground and the weight of your body in the chair letting yourself be held by the chair, and gravity and the earth. Be aware of the sensations of your body. Notice the sounds around you (try to listen without labeling them). Then notice the sensations of touch within your hands, feet, back bottom, and legs. Feel the space inside your body and then around your body. Notice your emotions, whatever they are—joyful, peaceful, anxiety, sadness, etc. Let them be as they are. Next, notice your thoughts as you would observe clouds passing in the sky. Notice if they are in the form of words, images or memories, and if they are from the past or future. Let each sensation be as it is. Finally, notice the one thing that has been consistent throughout the exercise: It is the noticing itself. Rest as this silent awareness for as long as you’d like.

6. The Way of Liberation: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Adyashanti

Take-home message: Adyashanti is one of the clearest, most direct teachers for knowing truth and experiencing peace. The journey to freedom from our suffering is all about letting go, not adding on. We must let go of our expectations, judgements, beliefs, and identities that we are blindly attached to if we truly want to experience consistent peace, especially during difficult times. Most of us don’t even know that we are holding onto these things. We just think that is who we are. Consider this: In reality, we are directly experiencing each moment. Any belief that we place on it is like a subtitle added on to a silent movie. What we directly experience in a given moment (without our stories of what should or shouldn’t be happening) is reality. It is our ego’s need to qualify and analyze what is reality that causes suffering. Believing a single thought that opposes the way things are, or have been, is the true cause of emotional pain.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Try this guided meditation, inspired by Adyashanti, to help you practice becoming conscious of awareness. This foundational meditation is a practice of observing and accepting everything that arises within our mind and body without resistance. Scroll up to the top and click on the main image to begin this 15-minute meditation.

7. The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You by Kelly Boys

Take-home message: Discovering where we are blind helps us to see. Blindspots manifest when we are unable to see truth because of past conditioning. Stored within our subconscious are hidden beliefs about ourselves ,like being unloveable or unworthy. They cause us to operate on automatic pilot, acting in ways to avoid these feelings. Unfortunately, the outcomes of these unconscious behaviors usually validate the negative belief. It is difficult to have visibility into that which we are unconsciously avoiding. By becoming aware of these thought patterns, beliefs, and emotions that arise within ourselves, we can begin to see our blindspots. It is through a gentle welcoming practice of allowing ourselves to acknowledge the false stories about ourselves that we become more whole, integrating the wounded past with our truth of the present. This work requires great self-compassion, knowing that we are doing the best that we can.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Stand in front of a mirror (real or metaphoric) as a means to reflect upon yourself. Ask yourself, “Who am I supposed to be?” See what words and images arise as you ask yourself this question. Notice the identities that surface, such as loyal daughter, good brother, patient friend, slender, wealthy, hardworking, attractive, athletic, generous, good listener, etc. Now, ask yourself, “Who would I be if I were none of these identities?” Again, pay attention to what words or images come up as you see yourself naked of the roles, identities, and expectations that you have placed upon yourself. What is left is the genuine you, the unmasked self. Look at this “self” with compassion. Seeing yourself free of roles or judgment fosters loving acceptance of ourselves just as we are.

8. Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson

Take-home message: Although you can’t change an experience, you can change how you feel about it. Rick Hanson, a leading neuroscientist, not only explains why the brain is more susceptible to negative thoughts and beliefs, but also shares how this wiring can be changed over time. We can shift our negative bias of thoughts to be more positive, healthy, and resilient. There is a famous saying that the mind takes the shape of what it rests upon. In other words, where we put our attention and what we focus on defines the wellbeing of our brain (experience, moment). Our brains are like gardens, we can either put up with the weeds and the flowers, or we can consciously pull up the weeds and grow more flowers.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Let’s break down H.E.A.L. 1. Have a positive experience. Find something good in your immediate situation, like a cozy chair, a beautiful tree outside, a warm cup of tea, or think of something or someone you are glad about in your life now or from the past. Or think of something that make you feel grateful, happy, loved or loving. 2. Enrich it. Let this thought fill your mind and enjoy it. Gently encourage the experience to become more intense. Take note of any sensations within your body that arise. 3. Absorb it. Intentionally sense it immerse into you as you immerse into it. 4. Link positive and negative material. While having this positive experience in your foreground and having your attention on the positive feelings within you, bring up in the background a past experience that has been bothering you. Alternate your focus from the positive sensations in the foreground to those negative ones in the background. (If the negative feelings hijack the positive, drop part 4 and stick with steps 1 to 3.)

Related: Ayurveda’s Best Advice on Brain Health

9. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown

Take-home message: Although we are used to protecting ourselves from being vulnerable, leaning into this discomfort is the key to love, joy, and peace. When we allow ourselves to face our weaknesses, we are actually demonstrating incredible bravery. There is a great deal of shame and sense of unworthiness that inhibits many of us from revealing our more sensitive, intimate self. However, if we can tap into the energy that fuels courage and the willingness to face our fears, we begin to chip away at the root causes of it: shame and unworthiness. We will need to be wise with whom we connect with when asking for compassion in a given moment. However, it is in the sharing with a confidant our experiences of shame and unworthiness that they begin to dissolve and loosen their grip on our well being.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Take 15 minutes and find a place where you can be quiet and not be disturbed. First, get quiet, then bring to mind a time in you past where you felt shame. Notice what this direct sensation feels like in your body as you observe the memory. These are future clues for you to be able to notice the next time you experience shame. Next, think of a courageous act that you could do for yourself that helps you feel less hurt. Plan a time you can do this activity. Finally, think of a person who you feel safe to share this vulnerable moment. A person who has the capacity to listen and empathize with your experience. Find a time to reach out to this person and share your shame experience.

10. Whatever Arises, Love That: A Love Revolution That Begins with You by Matt Kahn

Take-home message: What we are waiting for others to do or tell us, we need to do for ourselves. I love the message of this book because it reminds me to not wait for others to give to me what I need to give to myself. We spend a great deal of time hoping that others will validate our worthiness and satisfy our deepest desires. Instead, Matt Kahn asks us to love ourselves, all of ourselves! It might seem easy to love the me that is kind, generous, and understanding. Meanwhile, it’s more difficult to love those parts of ourselves that are jealous, arrogant, sad, guilty, angry, or unworthy. If we are willing to love ourselves when these emotions arise from within, we begin to heal the old wounds that have been suppressed until now. As we truly love all of the emotions that we experience within ourselves, we start experiencing a greater and greater sense of peace and acceptance.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Creating your own personal love statement helps us hear the words that we wanted to hear when we were younger, but did not hear or did not hear enough. Ask yourself, “Who, in my present or past experience, hurt me the most? And what were the words they didn’t say that would have allowed me to heal.” Whatever words come to you are just what you need to hear. The love statement can change from day-to-day or week-to-week. The important part of the exercise is to repeat this phrase as many times a day as you can and with deep intention.

The post 10 Books that Will Help You Find Peace of Mind This Year appeared first on Sonima.

Can mindfulness techniques or a meditation practice help me achieve my goals in the new year?

Sincerely,
Resolute

Dear Resolute,

This is such a meaningful and timely topic. I am a deep believer that the path of mindfulness can provide you with effective resources to achieve your goals this year. In this article, I will draw from applications of mindfulness in organizational settings to discuss how this technique can help you stay focused on your endgame.

I acknowledge this is a very large topic, and I am limited in how much I can get into in a short article. Therefore, I am going to highlight a few conditions that I believe need to be present for accomplishing goals.

The first is that you need to know what your goals are. Seems simple enough, but many people struggle with this. As you prepare for the new year, I suggest you take time to reexamine your values and where your passions lie. It is helpful to look across all domains of your life, including personal, professional, physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and so on. If you’re not clear about your goals, meditation can help you. A sacred pause and reflection is likely most needed for you in your life right now. As you sit with this question and listen for the answer, it may get things moving forward for you. Spending regular time with this type of inquiry will help deepen the process.

Related: A Meditation on Intentions for a New Year

After you list your priorities, rank them in order so that you know where to specifically direct your focus. As human beings, we are all confronted with limited time and energy. Therefore, we must remember that, ultimately, everything is connected. This concept means that shifts in one area of your life will likely bring shifts in others. Once you have your organized list, identify your starting point. Break down bigger goals into smaller, actionable steps and figure out what is the easiest way to get the momentum going.

The second condition is to train yourself to notice when your focus has waned. One symptom of reduced focus is mind-wandering. When your mind is not focused, goal-directed behavior diminishes. Researchers suggest that mindfulness may be an effective antidote to a wandering mind. For instance, one study published in the journal Emotion demonstrated a relationship between higher levels of dispositional mindfulness and lower levels of mind-wandering. They also found that eight minutes of mindful breathing attenuated mind-wandering. This suggests the importance of establishing a daily practice in order to train focused attention. With more efficient focus, you will likely find yourself moving forward with greater ease and freedom.

A third condition is to ditch multitasking. Research has shown that media multitasking is associated with higher depression and social anxiety symptoms. In my clinical experience, I can say that clients who experience depression and anxiety find it very difficult to accomplish goals. Minimizing behaviors that feed these unhelpful states of consciousness is in service of goal completion. Mindfulness has also been shown to effectively reduce symptoms of anxiety and mood problems among clinical populations.

Related: 3 Ways Meditation Puts You in the Success Mindset

Even though you still may be able to finish disrupted tasks efficiently and at a similar level of quality, researchers have found that we tend to make up for interruptions by working faster. This has numerous consequences, such as increased stress, frustration, time pressure, and effort. Mindfulness, through its emphasis on single-pointed focus, trains the practitioner to stay focused on the task at hand and minimize task switching.

Furthermore, researchers found that those trained in meditation stayed on tasks longer, made fewer task switches, and reported less negative emotion after they completed their task as compared to their counterparts, trained in relaxation. Improved memory for the tasks performed were also found both in those trained in meditation and relaxation. These findings clearly suggest the importance of developing a regular mindfulness practice in order to maximize the opportunities to achieve more with ease and gracefulness.

My perspective is that the more we stay connected to our values, the more we can offer to this world and receive back. I am reminded of the poet Rumi’s words, “Now is the time to unite the soul and the world. Now is the time to see the sunlight dancing as one with the shadows.” Mindfulness is a practice that keeps us connected to ourselves and our community. Mindfulness gives us the mental and emotional clarity to draw from all our inner and outer resources to move forward and accomplish with integrity.

The new year is a beautiful time to clear open the psychological and emotional space needed to create a vision and forge ahead. We, as human beings, are always an unfinished project. We must remember—and stay connected to—our creative power and our natural belongingness. Even when we are confronted by great challenges (and life has no shortages of them), we must remember to dance between sunlight and shadow, becoming one.

I invite you to hold the intention in this new year to accept all that comes, and from that place of stillness and love within your own heart, to meet each moment with dignity, courage, and authenticity. Trust in yourself. Trust that the path of mindfulness will allow your authentic self to bloom and your muscles of courage to flex and move you toward your goals. There are many great resources and meditations on Sonima to get you started with a practice.

I wish you the best in the new year and thank you for writing in.

Many blessings,
John

The post A Mindful Approach to Your New Year’s Resolutions appeared first on Sonima.

Here, we recount the greatest lessons we’ve learned and how to implement these strategies into day-to-day life. You’ll find that often the most effective approach is also the simplest—and that true wellness is a seamless process that works synergistically with the rest of your life. Pick up these pearls for 2019 to start the year off fresher, healthier, happier, fitter, and more relaxed than ever before.

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1. Eat Whole, One-Ingredient Foods

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be confusing. Clean eating is fairly simple, says best-selling cookbook author, culinary nutritionist, and wellness expert Amie Valpone. It’s all about focusing your diet around one-ingredient whole foods—a full apple, an avocado. Eating foods in their original state helps your body naturally detoxify, manage blood sugar levels, and fill up without overdoing it. Simplicity is key. Focus on recipes such as salads, soups, and bowls that call for whole foods that promote both health, well-being, and longevity.

2. Focus on Your Hips

“Your hips are required in every moment you make,” says postural alignment specialist Brian Bradley, vice president of Egoscue. Your hips are the epicenter of the body, your anchor when you’re walking, sitting, throwing a ball, or swinging a golf club. Yet, too often, the hips are ignored.

Incorporate daily movements to activate and align the psoas, (the strongest muscle of the hip flexor group). Doing so creates a cascade of functionality throughout the body to the spine, the shoulders, the knees and ankles. When your body is connected and functional, your workouts and everyday movements are more efficient and effective. To light up your hip flexors, try these power moves.

3. Adopt a Bedtime Meditation Practice for Deep Sleep

Have you ever slept a full eight hours only to wake up feeling tired? It’s likely because you didn’t spend adequate time in a deep sleep state—the sleep phase that’s crucial for rejuvenation, recovery, says Sanjeev Verma, Sonima’s Vedic astrologer and meditation advisor. Reaching deep sleep states involves entering a complete state of relaxation. Fortunately, it’s something that can be fine-tuned in your waking hours.

This 10-minute meditation from Verma works you through a checklist to ensure you’re relaxed for sleep. You’ll check in on the tension throughout your body, learn to let go of stressful thoughts, and bring positive memories front and center. In time, deep sleep comes easier and you wake up refreshed and energized.

4. Embrace the Power of Repetition

There are times (in life and in yoga) when we’re unsure about how to move forward; when we feel disconnected from our true selves. These times of ambiguity or challenge can be accompanied by a tendency to drift from our regular practices or to switch back and forth between teachers. But receiving conflicting advice can inhibit you from progressing, says Andrew Hillam, Sonima’s yoga advisor. Maintaining a consistent practice with one teacher, however, builds progress over time.

“By staying with a single teacher, practicing a single kind of yoga, and concentrating the mind in only one direction—those kinds of difficulties (sic) are less likely to arise and can be more easily overcome if they do,” he says. Instead of fearing challenges? Face them head-on with consistency.

5. Work Smarter, Not Harder

In our fast-past society, fast-paced workouts, such as high-intensity interval training (HIIT), have gained traction. But Bradley says most people exercise with incorrect form, creating harmful compromises. “Usually, people go through a HIIT movement so fast that they become shoulder and arm dominant, and they’re no longer using their hips to drive the exercise,” he says. It’s something that can further stress the body and have counterproductive results in the long-run.

But when you slow down and focus on form and alignment through low-intensity deliberate movements, you do the opposite. This favors functionality over speed and activates deep, stabilizer muscles that contribute to balance and mobility.

Low-intensity training requires just the minimum effective dose of movement so that you yield results without diminishing returns. “The low-intensity moves teach your body’s parts to work better together. It will clear up imbalances and help re-establish functional movement patterns stemming from your hips and pelvis,” says Bradley.

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6. Commit to Your Community

Seeing others practice will motivate you to also practice. When you build relationships with other students and teachers, and work together with a group of people, you more fully integrate your practice into all aspects of your life. This builds momentum and positive energy in a way that a solitary practice might not be able to.

“It is very important to have a connection to a local yoga shala,” says Sharath Jois, the lineage holder of Ashtanga yoga. “In many respects, a yoga shala is not unlike a temple, or a place of worship where we go to get connected, detach from material things, and dedicate our efforts to a practice.”

7. Teach Your Children to Meditate

“Meditation is a lifelong practice,” says Verma. That means that children are no exception. “By laying the foundation of mindfulness for your kids—or any child in your life—you’re providing them with an invaluable tool that will see them through life’s inevitable ups and downs,” he says.

Instilling mindfulness into children’s routines can help them gather self-knowledge, become aware of their breathing, and relax—all skills that stay with them and help them build healthy lives, Verma explains.

Age is an important consideration in properly introducing your child to meditation. This guide explains how to introduce kids of all ages the fundamental practice.

8. Never Drink Cold Water

“Water has a deep and rich history in Vedic tradition, the basis of both Ayurveda and yoga,” says professor of Ayurvedic medicine Jayagopal Parla. But Ayurveda follows certain rituals for hydration. For one, Ayurveda suggests that you never sip cold water. “Warmer water is thought to have metabolism-boosting benefits in Ayurveda, as well as health-promotive effects on the gut and digestive systems, and may help to prevent gas and bloating,” he says. To maintain good health, keep your water warm or room temperature when you’re feeling thirsty.

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9. Expand Time with Meditation

In a culture of busy-ness, meditation offers a great benefit: more time. “When the mind is more present and focused, you have an enhanced understanding and comprehension of a given topic or task,” says Verma. “When that becomes a regular part of your working style, it profoundly impacts your ability to learn and work at a high level.”

Greater focus helps you to be more efficient with your everyday tasks and responsibilities. What’s more, this higher level of concentration improves the quality of your work and being. With a strong meditation practice, Verma says you might, for example, be able to complete a 30-minute task in just 20 minutes. “Through meditation, you can relax, and you can transfer that aura of calm to your efforts,” he explains. With leftover time, you might find more moments for relaxation or dive into your tasks in a deeper, more focused way.

10. Practice Yoga to Keep Distractions from Derailing Your Spiritual Path

No matter how well-intentioned, even the most disciplined people can’t control life’s everyday unpredictabilities. “Too often, we let distractions and other situations outside of our control affect us as if we could have done something to create a different outcome,” Jois says. “We think too much about our desires for something better, or become anxious about tragedy or loss.”

Focus your attention on your inward journey with yoga. It’s one way to remove outside stressors and craft a stronger inner peace. “Regardless of the method, when yoga is approached without the chatter, in a silent and humble manner, the more effective yoga will happen within you,” says Jois.

11. Wake Up on the Right Side

In Ayurveda and yoga, a commonly practiced tradition is to fall asleep on the left side and wake up on the right. Why? “Falling asleep on the left side encourages secretions of the liver. It also positions the stomach at the bottom of your body as well as leaves the right nostril open and the left nostril closed,” says Parla. In yoga, the left side of the body is the thinking or creative side, and the right side is the accomplishing or completion side, he says.

Optimize your positioning by turn toward the right when you wake up. This will increase the movement of your bowels, creating an urge to go to the bathroom. “If you do this for 10 to 15 minutes when falling asleep and waking up, that’s enough to reap the benefits,” says Parla.

12. Learn to Tune into Emotions, Needs, and Body Language

To cultivate positive and healthy relationships it is essential to be a conscientious and active listener. Make a daily commitment to pick up on how receptive people are to what you’re saying and how you are behaving. Learn to take in sensory data in your interactions with others, including facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and choice of words. Be present and consider your own choice of words and demeanor.

This level of attention locks you in the present moment, helping you collect clues for how to respond next in conversation and move gracefully forward through your relationships.

13. Master the Art of Theta Through Meditation

In an increasingly hectic world, it’s all-too-easy for our internal peace can be drowned out. However, tapping into a strong, grounded base helps you meet life’s demands when they come knocking. This 20-minute meditation from holistic health expert Lisa Hedley guides you back—toward a state of mind that helps you free up tensions, stressors, and anxieties. Throughout your time spent in the meditation, brain waves to drop into what’s known as a “theta state,” where deep levels of healing can take place. The result: a stronger, more resilient you.

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14. Get Outside

“Going outside moves you to another level of consciousness—it gets you to think differently,” says Bradley. “Nature gets you out of your head and into your heart. And your heart is your instinct.” Yet, today, children and adults spend less time outside than ever—approximately 13 percent of their time. The result, argues Richard Louy, author of Last Child in the Woods, is something called Nature-Deficit Disorder, a lack of outdoor time that takes a toll on quality of life.

Time in nature has been shown to positively affect symptoms of ADHD, reduce stress, and improve cognition. Getting outside—in a park, forest, or a swim in the ocean—should be an everyday priority.

15. Remember, Progress Requires Patience

Rewarding progress comes only when the body and mind are ready, and no sooner. Even with complete dedication, it can sometimes take years to master new poses or move onto more advanced sequences. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, embarrassed, or discouraged by that. Unfortunately, your desire might outweigh your abilities.

But there’s nothing wrong with the plateaus. Be patient while you master the basics—this is the foundation of more complicated work. Turning your attention to your body, breathing, and mind will help build the strength and mental capacity that progression calls for.

16. Acupuncture Can Aid Fertility

The 3,000-year-old practice of acupuncture—in which thin needles are inserted into acupoints on the body—has powers when it comes to pregnancy. “Women come in not only because they’re frustrated with Western medicine, but because of the success we’ve seen over the past 20 years in helping women get pregnant and deliver babies,” says licensed acupuncturist and board-certified herbalist Liz Carlson, LAc, co-founder of Common Point, a modern acupuncture clinic in Tribeca, New York.

It’s thought that the practice allows women to decompress, something that can play a role in fertility. “Inserting the needles prompts a release of endorphins and feel-good chemicals, like norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine, which help move the brain out of stress mode. It essentially stimulates the body to heal itself,” she says. It’s often far more affordable than IVF, too.

17. Chronic Pain Can Be Emotional

It seems all too logical to blame pain on physical injury, a repeated strain or harmful event. Yet, sometimes, pain is coming from a deeper, emotional place—a psychosomatic manifestation of stress or negative feelings. After all, when we experience stress, the body absorbs it. And some researchers believe that the mind can repress emotions, funneling pain to the body, which might show up as back pain.

A dedicated and trusting yoga practice can provide the confidence and calmness needed to hear and heal your body and eliminate stress. When stress is seen for what it truly is, physical symptoms serve no purpose and might very well go away.

18. Add Moringa to Your Plate

“A tree native to India, but also grown in tropical environments around the world, moringa has been used medicinally for centuries, which is why it’s often called the ‘miracle tree,’” says Janet Zand, Sonima’s naturopathic medical advisor. The leaves of the moringa are nutrient-dense and preliminary research suggests that the tree might have anti-diabetes properties and may help protect the brain.

Moringa is most commonly seen as a powder. Incorporate into your daily tea or smoothie for a boost of calcium, potassium, iron, vitamin A, protein, and amino acids!

The post 18 Wellness Tips that We Loved in 2018 appeared first on Sonima.

Most people want to succeed in life; that’s a given. But actually getting to success? That part is a little trickier. What many don’t realize is that there’s an incredibly useful tool to reach success right at their disposal. In fact, the mindset required to reach success lies within.

Whether it’s in your career, family relationships, friendships, health pursuits, or any other area, tapping into your consciousness through meditation can be the first step toward succeeding in any goal. Here’s how.

1. Meditation opens you up to more opportunities.

Success in any aspect of our lives is limited by our own narrow belief systems. We create a comfort zone around our belief system and we tend to stay within that. But meditation helps you work toward a process of transformation so that you can create a new belief system that gives you the confidence to step outside of your comfort zone.

When you know yourself, and your own inner nature, the unknown becomes less scary. If you’re committed to your meditation practice, you can actually bring everything into your comfort zone. Nothing is impossible only when your comfort zone is infinite.

2. Meditation helps you to take the first step.

The first step in any process is the most important. After all, it’s a requirement for reaching the final destination of a journey, and most people aren’t clear on what the first step actually is. The first step is to know your goal. So to take it, you need to know which direction you’re taking that step in. To have that all in place, you need to have clarity of mind.

The quickest route to clarity of mind is meditation. Meditation connects you with your inner core, energy, and consciousness. It brings in a defined picture of who you are and what it is that you sincerely want deep down. This is true for any aspect of your life (work, family, health), and in turn, allows you to take that first step. Suddenly, you have the ability to map your goal, route, and destination. When you have that in place, success is yours. All you have to do is follow the map you’ve laid out.

Related: How Meditation Can Help You Work Smarter

3. The act of meditation is a success in itself.

Meditation is one thing that is not dependent on any goals because there is no failure. There is only success. The more you succeed, the easier it becomes to repeat the process in other contexts. Let’s say you start meditating with the goal to have less stress in your life. You’ll achieve that, but there are so many other fringe benefits you’ll get along with what you initially wanted. You’ll also experience more peace, a clearer mind, more energy, more kindness, more love. When you meditate, you’re connecting with your own inner core nature, which contains all these attributes, and they flourish, whether you are purposely trying to reach them or not.

Here’s the secret: To find success, you don’t actually have to try so hard. Meditation nourishes your roots and when that happens, your whole nature and potentiality blossoms.

The post 3 Ways Meditation Puts You in the Success Mindset appeared first on Sonima.

I am an alcoholic and recently got sober this month. All my old friends are drinking buddies, so I feel like I no longer enjoy their company like I used to. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but I think I need new friends. How do I go about changing my social circle?

Sincerely,
Sober and Social

Dear Sober and Social,

Thank you for sharing this amazing transformation with me. It is challenging to let go of friends and start over. You are not alone in this kind of a search, so your query will resonate and, hopefully, benefit many who are in the same boat.

Before I delve into my response, I would also like to encourage you—if you have not already—to connect with a licensed substance abuse treatment expert. Embarking on significant personal development work can be stressful and bring up a lot of emotions, which could contribute to relapse. I strongly urge you to consider this recommendation. Whenever I teach mindfulness courses that involve intense meditation practice, I ask that participants have at least one year of steady recovery before taking the course due to the potential relapse risk.

Next, I’d like to discuss how critical positive friendships are for our well-being. In fact, researchers suggest that the nature of our relationships matter a great deal for our physical health. For example, positive relationships can stave off the adverse effects of stress. Researchers have also noted a link between one’s social ties and their healthy habits. If you hang out with friends who enjoy healthy food and do not drink, for instance, then you are likely to also engage in those good-for-you behaviors.

The opposite may also, generally, be true. Friendships with risky individuals may contribute to our own risky behaviors. In adulthood, a diminishing social network or adversity in close relationships may have links to health risks, such as hypertension. When considering just these samples of scientific evidence, we can conclude that you are very right in thinking it is time to switch up your friend group.

Related: How to Know When You Need to End a Friendship

There are many possible ways to go about forging new friendships. I can only discuss a few possibilities within the scope of this article. Therefore, I will draw from my background in contemplative practices to offer you a brief and straightforward exercise to engage in as an initial step forward.

The first step in evaluating current and future friendships involves getting clear about your personal values. Values refer to a quality or characteristics, or activity/behavior, that has significant meaning for you in your life. By defining your personal values, you can then seek out values-based friendships. I recommend giving the activity below a try, and if you find it difficult or want to deepen your work, you can consider working with a local licensed therapist who is qualified in both substance abuse treatment and recovery, and contemporary psychotherapy approaches, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I recommend these modern approaches because they emphasize values clarification and interpersonal effectiveness training.

I suggest completing this activity in a quiet, comfortable space, where you will be free from distractions. You can either sit comfortably in a chair, lay down on the floor, or stand up to do this practice, really any posture is beautiful, if you are comfortable. See if you can let your breath be easy and natural. Notice whatever mental or emotional objects may be flowing through your awareness and see if you can get those to settle down as well. It’s OK if they do not.

When you feel settled enough, you may consider placing your hands onto your heart, and asking yourself, “What matters most to me right now?” You can get even more specific and ask: “What matters most to me in friendship right now?” Typically, the answers will come to you in words or images, emotions, physical sensations, and memories. This is all data for you to analyze and to put into values that matter for you. Examples of values might be honesty, kindness, compassion, loving, generous, loyal, fair, generous, and empathic. I suggest writing down a list of all these different values, and then place them in a ranked order to clarify further what is essential for you.

Once you feel you have completed your list and the ranking of the values, the next step will be to do research on how you can meet others who share in some or all these values. You can research online, on social media, web forums, or go to places that you enjoy in your community and see who is there or if there are bulletin boards or event calendars. I think the key is you must be willing to put yourself out there in the world and be prepared to explore different possibilities and to practice repetition with it. Forging new friendships is a process, not a single event, so stay committed to the process and your values in the process.

As human beings, we all need love and support from others. We are beings who give and receive love. My wish for all people is to discover in their own heart how universal this need to give and receive love is and to see how love is one of the many ways in which we are all here together on this planet.

I would like to close with a few lines from the mystical poet Rumi. He speaks of what we might think is romantic love, but I think he means to love beyond any definitions.

The post How to Make New Friends in Sobriety appeared first on Sonima.

When I try to meditate, I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I start with long inhalations and exhalations, but throughout the meditation, my breathing gets shallow and I almost feel like I can’t catch my breath. I know I need to relinquish control, but I don’t think I should feel like this, right?

Sincerely,
Gasping for Breath

Dear Gasping for Breath,

Thank you for writing in! I think many of our readers have questions about the breath in meditation practice. I will offer a few simple insights that I believe can be of service to you on your journey.

Let’s start of by reflecting on the kind of mindset that you bring to the practice. Part of what humans naturally do in meditation is to install their usual mental operating system of filtering an experience through the lens of right and wrong. How I approach meditation practice is never close to all the way right or all the way wrong. It’s more of an evolving process where we have these amazing moments when we feel aligned, and non-amazing moments when nothing feels aligned. This is why we practice, isn’t it?

I’m not saying, “Well, anything goes!” While it is very important to follow the instructions of a qualified teacher, the various techniques that come from lineages, and the good teachings about “how” to meditate, I think we must also be gentle with ourselves in how we apply them. It is a good idea to give our best effort and practice with a healthy intention. But from there, we also must take a leap and trust in the practice to be the exact teaching that we need for that particular day. This is an advanced concept and practice in itself! To be OK with how the meditation is already.

This is why I encourage myself and my students to come to the practice daily. The daily practice provides opportunities to strengthen and grow every day. Trusting is also a courageous act to step away from the judging mind and holding onto expectations about where we want the practice to go. With that said, of course, there is always room for learning and refinement.

When it comes to breathing in the kind of meditation that I practice and teach (mindfulness), the general instruction is to let the breathing be natural and through the nose, if possible. If, on a given day, it feels better to breathe through the mouth, perhaps due to nasal congestion, then that is fine for that instance.

In terms of troubleshooting your breathing, without working with you in person, I can only offer a few general suggestions. The first would be to initiate your meditation with just a few long and slow deep breaths in through the nose, and, in this case, out through the mouth. Following this “opening” style of breathing, you would then let your breath return to a more natural cadence. The purpose of utilizing the opening breathing is to get yourself connected to your body and have a few deep feeling breaths to consciously and physically recognize that you are preparing yourself to enter a more focused and sacred space. Do your best to stay with the natural breathing and the remembrance that in the practice all is sacred.

Based on your question, I wonder if you are trying to stay with those longer inhales and exhales for too many repetitions? If so, perhaps it’s simply too much or unnatural for your body. The body already knows how to breathe, so let it do its job. By letting go of the breath, you may then be freeing up more mental, physical, and emotional resources to be more present and embodied in your meditation.

Related: The Perfect Way to Breath in Ashtanga Yoga

Another essential key in your practice will be to stay attentive to how the breath is moving and how that may be connected to your physical energy levels. In my own practice, I have noticed that when my breathing gets shallow, it is because I am fatigued and moving toward drowsiness and sleepiness. Everyone is unique, so this may or may not be connected to what is happening for you, but it is something for you to check out experientially.

When you notice that your breathing is not feeling good for you, check in on your energy, revitalize your intention, and then reset yourself and your breathing. There is nothing that says you cannot re-initiate through opening breathing and then resettle into the practice. Or perhaps your shift back can be more subtle, such as a simple mental acknowledgement that the natural breathing has stalled, and then come back to it.

My last suggestion would be to do your best to release any expectations or goals that you have for your meditation session. Do your best to let the breath be comfortable and natural, notice when it stalls, and don’t get caught up in judging yourself or the experience. And finally, always come back to a smooth natural cadence of the breath and continue the practice.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, I think most of us are programmed to bring our mindset of achieving, perfecting, and expecting into the practice, but those can mostly end up hindering our growth. I will close with a teaching by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness pioneer in the West, whom I come back to often on my path. He writes in Full Catastrophe Living: “The best way to achieve your goals is to back off from striving for results and instead to start focusing carefully on seeing and accepting things as they are, moment-by-moment. With patience and regular practice, movement toward your goals will take place by itself. This movement becomes an unfolding that you are inviting to happen within you.”

I hope these few insights will help you in working with your breath in a wholesome and more liberating way and serve as a source of encouragement for you on the path.

Many blessings,
John

The post Am I Breathing Wrong When I Meditate? appeared first on Sonima.