In this first class, we learn about Self-Compassion and are introduced to three practices in this session: Affectionate Breathing, Soothing Touch, and Self-Compassion Break.This class is held live weekly on Wednesdays at 12:00 pm CT on Insight Timer (browser or app). We will explore different types of meditations to help us with self-compassion from mindfulness, to guided visualizations, to sound healing, and guided rest (yoga nidra). Classes are recorded and placed in the On-Demand Library.See class calendar for details on how to sign up for each session.
Rest & Restore: A Tool for Stress Management
I LOVE Restorative yoga! This type of resting yoga is what assisted me in my journey several years ago when I became extremely ill with mold-associated illness and its resulting challenges of fibromyalgia, fatigue, lack of concentration, IBS, and respiratory response, to name a few. By this style of rest, coupled with mindfulness meditation, mat or chair yoga, and my dedication to my spirituality, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am grateful for these practices that assist me in becoming whole. I still can have challenges from time to time and more to accomplish health-wise, yet I look...
The Use of Therapeutic Sound for PTSD and Stress
Sound Meditation, Sound Baths and Sound Energy Healing I have been a musician since I was in grade school. I know that music has been therapy for me throughout the years with all the challenges I experienced in my childhood and adult life. To sing a song and strum the guitar, would be a soothing and healing balm. I, too, as I have mentioned previously, have PTSD from various traumas in my life. We often think of trauma as an event in our lives as in “a traumatic event”. However, it is useful to think of trauma not as an...
Guided Rest Improves Sleep, Reduces Pain & PTSD and Decreases Stress & Anxiety
As part of my own self-care routine, each day between 12-3:00 pm I practice a technique that has been extremely restorative to my health, as well as relaxing and restful. It is the practice of Guided Rest, otherwise known as Yoga Nidra. I am appreciative of this ancient technique and how it works in my life as it helps me to reduce pain and provides the rest I need so I can not only do the work I am passionate about but also participate in my daily life. These are just a few of the benefits that I have found....
Stress Relief: How a Body Scan Meditation Can Assist You
You probably already know what stress feels like. Stress finds us on varying levels. We don’t have to look for it; it finds us. Whereas “rest” is something we must invite into our lives. We, as a society, must initiate rest. We often hear the term “stress,” often in phrases such as, “I’m so stressed out,” “I can’t take all the stress,” or “this job stress will give me gray hair.” By definition, stress is a term for a biological response to physical or emotional threats, real or imagined, that bring about mental, physical or emotion strain. These mental, physical...
Mindful Resilience for PTSD
Mindful Resilience for PTSD - A collection of mind-body practices that we teach: Breathing, Meditation, Mindful Movement, Guided Rest, and Gratitude. These tools help us breathe easy, focus clearly, move freely, rest deeply, and remember what is working.
Mindful Sensing: Sights, Sounds, Smells
In recent times, evidence suggests that being mindful or being aware of the present moment without judgments, allows the body to become enhanced in the following ways: Enhance a sense of clarity Increase empathy Increase satisfaction in relationships Improve immune function When you focus on improving the quality of your life and becoming aware of the present moment in conjunction with your openness, acceptance, curiosity and love toward your ongoing experiences you tend to improve your body, mind, and relationships. In order to tap into the opportunity to use Mindfulness for enhancing sights, sounds and smells, let’s take a look...
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a way of looking at things differently and allows a way for you to relate to all of the experiences in your life which may be causing you to suffer. This, in turn, will allow you to personally transform yourself. We as humans are constantly looking for ways to solve the causes of our suffering and then discover how we can alleviate it. Sooner or later you end up asking yourself questions such as: “Why don’t I feel better?” or “Is there something I can do or something that be prescribed so it makes the pain go away.”...
Laughter Wellness
Laughter may be the best medicine after all. Laughing is found to lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and boost the function of the immune system; it also triggers the release of endorphins, increases pain tolerance, and promotes general wellbeing. The “therapy” takes advantage of the natural benefits of laughing and channels them for psychological gain. Ensuring a healthy quotient of laughter every day is a great way to up your quality of life. Through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment, doctors and philosophers advised laughter as a supplement to more traditional forms of care, with such figures as Martin Luther...
Open to Possibilities
Recently, I witnessed one door close that I thought was secure. Yet, I am well aware that In this life change is the only constant. Our lives here are impermanent. It is looking at any attachments that I may have that I believe will keep me “safe” and “secure.” As easy as it is to point fingers outward, for my own healing I point that finger to my mind. What can I learn from this? As much change I have had in my adult life, I know that as the proverbial wisdom says, “When one door closes, another appears.” I...
No Mud, No Lotus
One of my teachers is Thich Nhat Hanh. I know I have to move through the challenges in life, yet those challenges bring me the gift of inner strength. I find that strength when I meditate on words such has Thich Nhat Hanh’s. I would like to share with you some wisdom from his book, No Mud, No Lotus. Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud. Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means...
Asking for Help & Receiving It
I have had trauma and abandonment in my life. Because of the PTSD, I went my path as much as I could alone, closed down, shuttered from the world as I felt I could not trust anyone. I certainly had raised a family, multiple marriages, yet, I was never fulfilled or felt safe. I felt that I had do it all myself since I had been let down so many times. My mantra became “I can do it myself” and felt no one could do what I needed done better than me since they were unreliable throughout my life. I...