EVERYDAY MEDITATION PODCAST: EPISODE #
Listen to "Ep 230 - Focus, Mindset, and Meditation" on Spreaker.
What’s this episode about?
Skill seeking! So you wanna build a new skill, and you want meditation to help.
First, do your homework. What skill? What evidence is there to support a certain path to build a skill?
Second, find a teacher to guide you or/and help you stay accountable to your goal.
Third, if your goal is targetable / trackable or time sensitive, set up a means to track progress a) assess where you are now, b) track at regular intervals, c) if the trend isn't upwards, change what you're doing. Repeat until you reach your goal.
Meditation can help you build your ability to hold your attention on something. You could track your progress using the meditation, but not being attached to your results is a requirement for practice - which means it's gonna be more effective to have a separate test of progress.
Despite loving education and being a teacher, skill seeking has not been my thing. Interestingly, it wasn't until I started teaching that my mindset began to change. See --and the teachers in the room will recognize this-- when you teach, you either know it all or you don't. Trust me, you don't. Or I certainly don't.
And the moment when a student asks a question you realize you can't answer, it becomes obvious that there's more work to do. I love teaching because I learn during it and it's exciting to see others learn. And I didn't want to give that up, so I was motivated to change. Also because very often I'd realize while teaching that I was making connections and learning new things --improving while practicing.
And if you want to improve a (narrow) skill like focusing your mind --meditation can help. But only if you apply some effort, practice through discomfort, and stay at it!!
Here it is important to keep coming back to do your homework because of different meditation techniques will be better suited to different skills. Listen to episode # for more on that.
Keep coming back and you'll likely see change.
Ready to practice a meditation?
Below is the week's "full practice" episode. Click here to listen to the "how to practice" instructions.
Listen to "Ep 227 - Full Arohan Awarohan Kriya Practice - SUN mon" on Spreaker.
I'd love to hear about your experience -- and help out with any questions you have.
Practicing with you,
esther
photo by danielle macinnes via unsplash.com
EVERYDAY MEDITATION PODCAST: EPISODE #181
What’s this episode about?
A little bit of the brain science behind how meditation can help you improve your attention and focus.
What can I do with that?
I go into that in the episode! In brief, if you want meditation to help you improve the way you use your attention, you have to train --like an athlete training for the olympics (or little league, that'll do, too ;).
Don't want "training" to be part of your meditation practice? That's A-OK, too! Just don't expect amazing transformations in your attention skills.
Give the episode a listen and experiment with what works best for you!
Listen to "Ep 181 - Meditation and the Science of Attention" on Spreaker.
Ready to practice the meditation? Below is the week's "full practice" episode. Click here to listen to the "how to practice" instructions.
Listen to "Ep 178 - Full Hum Sa Kriya Practice" on Spreaker.
I'd love to hear about your experience.
Practicing with you,
photo by jason leung via unsplash.com
EVERYDAY MEDITATION PODCAST: EPISODE #174
What’s this episode about?
Attention (effort?) and meditation (ease?).
Can you tell me more now?
I thought you'd never ask!
I'm taking a personal tack in today's episode: I share what attention means to me and how it does or doesn't come into my meditation practice. Ease and effort take center stage for a lot of it.
I also break down 5 different types of attention (who knew?!), and next week, I'll talk about all the juicy brain activity details that show how meditation appears to help improve attention and focus.
What can I do with that?
I share my perspective and personal experience both so you can understand where I'm coming from in my teaching, but more so that you can ask whether there's any similarity in your own experience. If so, maybe this can help you create a perspective shift to make your meditation more effective... whether that's by making it "easier" or more "effortful."
I hope you’ll give it a listen:
Listen to "Ep 174 - Should meditation be easy or effortful?" on Spreaker.
Ready to practice the meditation? Below is the week's "full practice" episode. Click here to listen to the "how to practice" instructions.
Listen to "Ep 171 - Full Apa Japa (Breath Awareness) Practice" on Spreaker.
I'd love to hear about your experience -- and help out with any questions you have.
Click on the bar below to get in touch!