Yoga + Positive Psychology – Guided Meditations – Mindfulness Training
My students often ask “I can’t still my mind during meditation class. What should I do?” “It’s what you should NOT do, is more like a solution.” I say. Trying to stop thoughts coming into our meditation practice is counterproductive. For the mind, we notice what we are resisting, is persisting. It is the mind’s [...]
Why is the pine cone revered as a symbol by so many and diverse cultures from ancient times to now, and what does it mean? In Vatican City, Rome, Italy, there is an ancient bronze statue not of Jesus, nor Moses, nor Mary, but of a four meter tall pine cone, flanked by peacocks. Vatican [...]
Things happen that we do not want. The things that we want do not happen. Life is unsatisfactory. All of us seek peace and harmony, because this is what we lack in our lives. Even if we are free from unhappiness at this moment, we can remember a time when we were miserable, we can [...]
A friend notices over time that his spouse is exhibiting behaviour that could be early signs of dementia. His wife's friend, a registered nurse, confirms this privately to him. When his wife is acting strangely, he gets angry, then feels guilty because it could be illness causing her change in behaviour. Then he denies her symptoms. [...]
If we have a quantity of fear that we can't bear to examine, we cope by busying ourselves to ensure the unwelcome guest of fear does not set up residence in our mind. We busy ourselves with other "guests" - we turn on the TV that fills our environment with sound and images, we go [...]
Not so long ago modern psychology defined a split between how we perceive our world; between flexible conditioned responses to stress, and our genetic inherited traits, the latter then considered as immobile and concrete. At that time, researchers seemed confidant that our genetic predispositions were locked in genetic codes; that the only route to therapy lay within modifying conditioned responses. But recent evidence from the [...]
Managing our stream of strong emotions is like having charge of maintaining and channeling a powerful river. If we fail to look after the river by clearing away debris and removing obstacles to the natural flow of water, then over time there will be log jams, overflow of the riverbanks, and uncontrollable flooding that destroys or hurts [...]
Each of us has everything it takes to be full human being. Think of the progression to full humanity like the seeds of an apple tree. Every apple seed holds the promise of growth to a new apple tree, and each seed contains all of the genetically inherited experience of previous generations of ancestoral apple trees. Yet also [...]
As infants we were instinctively aware that we could not survive without our caregivers. This produced "original fear". Even as we grow from infant to child, we were aware of the feelings of needing someone to protect us, defend us and nurture us. We were dependent. As we mature, our bodies and minds change and develop from [...]
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