I was having dinner with a couple of friends the other night. The conversation, food, atmosphere was all great. I truly enjoy good quality time with the people I value and care about. The reason I bring this up is right next to us was a large table of eight young twenty somethings probably in college. A good part of their evening I noticed was spent with their faces glued to their cell phones. Now I know we all have times where we need to be connected, but I remember going out with my friends in college laughing, talking and building strong relationships and bonds many of which have lasted over 20 years.   I am not trying to say that we were any better than anyone else, but I do think often the youth of today is getting lost in technology and further away from true personal connections and deep relationships. Here are few important things to think about in order to build and maintain deep meaningful relationships: 1- Realize that there are great people everywhere. You should never feel the need to settle for anything short of true happiness. 2- Be clear about your future expectations. Who would you like to be connected with? What direction are you moving towards with your life? What are your core beliefs […]

Visualization An essential step for developing the right mindset with your meditation practice is to learn how to use a visualization practice. The use of visualization will help you find the right mental space for the most success with your meditation practice. Visualization and imagery will be used most of the time in these 3 ways 1- internal visualizations 2- external visualizations and 3- setting goals. In order to be successful with visualization and improve your mental imagery first you will need to develop deeper levels of concentration. To enhance your concentration you will want to set a time to practice. Having a consistent practice time will allow you to focus all of your energy and you will see the best results. That said, as you improve this skill you will find it easier to do. If you are working on a project or have a competition coming up, the more you can see your self succeeding and performing at your highest level, the more likely it is to happen.   When you design your practice sessions, it is good to set a time limit. If you do not set time limits for your practice, especially in the beginning, it can be easy to get distracted. You may worry about interfering with other things you need to accomplish. If you just […]

How do you define meditation?

How many times have you had an inspiration, an idea or something you wanted to do, but never followed through and made it a reality? Maybe you told yourself I will do it tomorrow, or someday that would be great. Often what holds us back is our lack of confidence in what it may take to accomplish or be successful with this new adventure or direction in life. In psychology there is a phrase called the confidence-competence loop. If you do not ever take action you will never gain the confidence to achieve or develop high levels of competence with anything in life. Lets take a look at a task most of us do well. Like riding a bike. More often than not this is a simple task that involves no fear at all. So if I were to hand you a bicycle you would get on and take it for spin with out even thinking twice about it. But if I gave you a unicycle instead, fear would often set in and many of us would not even give it a try. The only way to over come this fear is to get on and practice. We may fail ten times, one hundred times, but eventually we learn to ride and confidence would set in. This displays how action […]

A Moral life through Meditation According to Plato the human soul strives for three things: wisdom, conquest and gratification. Plato believed that a righteous life is controlled by reason and all three of these elements help one to live a good moral life. Plato’s metaphor of humans living chained in a dimly lit cave facing a blank wall with fire at our back, means to see the truth of reality one needs to turn away from the wall and its shadows escaping the cave. “Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light,” Plato commented. You will often here the comments “I see the light” or “That was an enlightening moment”. Having a moment of clarity and witnessing a true reality offers a solid foundation for making the right choice to create a good and moral life.

Still Resets A couple of weeks ago we discussed the idea of daily resets. There are three types of resets that we will explore with the Meditation Insights system. Still resets, which involve breathing routines, sounds, energetic circulations and internal movements. Movement resets, including walking, standing and sitting physical movements. The final reset you will learn are mental and philosophical resets, which involve visualizations, repeated phrases and emotional reprogramming. In this article we are going to take a brief look at still resets. We will break down three different options and learn why they are used. You will quickly see how easily they can be applied and learn why you may choose one option over the other. Click Here to learn More About Meditation! 1- The first reset is the Grounding Reset. If you are distracted or are having a hard time focusing, then this one is great to try. It can be done in any comfortable position: standing, sitting or lying. Inhale and take in as much air as you can comfortably. Feel your torso expand and gently stretch, but don’t get too tense. As you exhale, make the sound OMMMMMMMM. Stretch the sound as long as you can while keeping your voice smooth and relaxed. Perform this sound for about 2-3 minutes or longer if you like. Start […]

A Moral life through Meditation According to Plato the human soul strives for three things: wisdom, conquest and gratification. Plato believed that a righteous life is controlled by reason and all three of these elements help one to live a good moral life. Plato’s metaphor of humans living chained in a dimly lit cave facing a blank wall with fire at our back, means to see the truth of reality one needs to turn away from the wall and its shadows escaping the cave. “Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light,” Plato commented. You will often here the comments “I see the light” or “That was an enlightening moment”. Having a moment of clarity and witnessing a true reality offers a solid foundation for making the right choice to create a good and moral life.

Kan and Lii Kan and Lii have been an important part of qigong training for many generations. Kan represents water and Lii represents fire. Therefore kan is yin, lii is yang. It is believed by qigong practitioners that everyone has excess yang energy and this is why there are so many yin oriented qigong exercises. The exception is if someone is sick then they may have excess yin. Excess yang is thought to play a large role in the aging process. If you can prevent excess yang you can slow down the aging process living stronger and healthier life.

In the fast pace society we live in today it is easy to become distracted and lose our awareness. So many of life’s hidden treasures come from the subtle often over looked gifts that we are presented with daily. Through teaching meditation anxiety, depression, stress and other negative distractions will fade and have less of an influence on our emotional states. As adult’s we understand that these distractions occur and have the intelligence to make adjustments to help keep them at bay. Children however often do not understand when they are stressed or distracted and this can lead to misbehavior, poor performance and unhappiness. Teaching Meditation is one of the best solutions for this problem. It will allow them to increase their awareness, focus and concentration giving them a clear mind to be happy and present. A school district in San Francisco started teaching meditation programs to help troubled teens. The goal was to have them using meditation for short periods to help them reduce their stress levels and build their focus in hopes to improve their performance at school. The results of the program were awesome. The attendance rate of the students increased by 98% and there was a 79% decrease in suspensions. There was also a noticeable improvement in the students grade point average at the end of the […]