Calgary Mindfulness Weekly Meditation

Greetings! This meditation was motivated by some listener & viewer questions regarding how to handle the increasing level of fear and anxiety that is arising as the American election nears, next week at the time of recording. Sure, fear mongering among political parties to ensure they get into power or stay in power is as old as democracy, but sometimes even knowing that doesn't help us surf i...

Greetings! Today we review a mix of the anchors we have reviewed so far in this season--the mindful body, the breath, sound, gratitude, and the body scan. We mix these anchors fluidly during today's practice, which requires great focus and self-compassion for returning to focus as the mind wanders. Don't you love that we are developing mental and physical discipline? Yeah! As you will see, awarene...

Greetings! Welcome to our weekly Sunday meditation. Today we will use the "rampage of appreciation" strategy to anchor our practice, directing our attention to our private lives, appreciating our friends, family, homes, and also to our public lives, finding what we can appreciate in our work, professional or otherwise public lives. Reminder, to join our meditation real time, or to submit questions...

Greetings! Welcome to our weekly 15 minute meditation. To join live or subscribe to our mailing list, please email CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, and visit our website at www. CalgaryMindfulness. Ca. In today's meditation, we explore scanning the body as a meditation anchor. It is a traditional anchor that you've likely tried before as a relaxation technique or sleep aid. The Body Scan is also an e...

Good morning! In today's meditation, we explore the breath as an anchor. This means how to use the breath as a focal point for meditation. In this practice, we attach a mantra and visualization to the inhalation and exhalation. To join our practice live (Sundays 8am online) please email CalgaryMindfulness@gmail.com . Our weekly practice is guided by your submitted intentions; anything you have on...

Greetings everyone! Welcome to the weekly podcast of Calgary Mindfulness, released each Sunday morning. This is a 15 minute weekly meditation intended to introduce and support new meditators or experienced meditators looking for supported practice online. - Please feel free to submit your questions and concerns, which I always use to guide each week's practice, to CalgaryMindfulness @ Gmail.com ....

Today we explore the idea that the body has a purpose in the giving and receiving of unconditional love. And good morning! Welcome to our final online practice of June. We will be meeting in various locations throughout the city of Calgary over July and August and are looking forward to practicing with you! This practice today arose during a conversation with a friend recently, where I said someth...

In today's Sunday meditation, we explore thoughts and emotions that contradict our intention to align with unconditional love. What da heck does that really mean? Check with our feelings first: when we are joyful, peaceful, patient, positive & forbearing in times of darkness, able to be loving and forgiving, able to experience the behavior of others without feeling easily offended, attacked, i...

Today is Father's Day here in YYC Canada, and in today's practice, we explore honoring our fathers, investing our intentions into embodying qualities of the divine masculine (creativity, nurturing, wisdom, caretaking, supporting the community etc). These are qualities all of us have regardless of gender. In a world where toxic masculine qualities are held in high esteem (such putting one's self fi...

"We are not held back by the love we didn't RECEIVE in the past but by the love we're not extending in the present" Marianne Williamson - one of my favorite A Course in Miracles teachers! I can't recommend this important book enough; I have been a student & practitioner for about 16 years now... Continuing our June series with focus on how to align with unconditional love / God the Creator / S...

Thank you for joining our practices during the month of May to support Mental Health Awareness month. Meditation is one of many important modalities for supporting mental health, and can particularly bring awareness to our thoughts and emotions. In today's practice, we explore a quote from C.S. Lewis, who is of course famous for his Chronicles of Narnia, but who also was a prolific lay theologian....

Catastrophic thinking is not about dwelling on tsunamis and tornadoes, but about our chronically negative thought patterns that box us in to feeling trapped and stuck in whatever tough circumstances life has presented us. Today's practice, we explore the importance of meditation in identifying and changing catastrophic thinking--consistently negative thinking that derails us from taking actions th...

Greetings! May is mental health awareness month, and meditation can be an excellent tool to support our mental health. It's easy to practice anywhere, anytime; it's free, and you can get pretty good benefit from even short but regular practices. The "fingers" on the "hand of mental health" I refer to in our practice today are Sleep & Rest, Food and Eating Habits, Relationships & Emotions,...

In today's Sunday meditation, we honor Mother's Day by sitting in loving kindness / hesed / God's unconditional love for our mothers, for ourselves if we are mothers, and to nurture the potential in all of us to express the important spiritual qualities of the divine feminine--such as interconnectedness, intuition, empathy, creativity and nurturing. To join our class live, or to submit intentions...

Greetings meditators! Continuing with our theme of identifying and releasing blocks to self-awareness. Often we don't like to admit qualities or thoughts about ourselves that seem "negative" or destructive, so we block awareness, and thus block compassion and self-awareness. In this meditation, we explore how to nurture the upward spiral of self-awareness and self-compassion. To join our weekly pr...

In today's Sunday practice, we explore a question submitted by a participant in our group, regarding gaining traction on releasing negative self talk. From a meditator's perspective, we are not trying to fix or change anything while practicing, but observe what is, developing the skills of focus, attention and equanimity. Often we adult humans would prefer to distract ourselves from our painful th...

In today's practice, we notice and explore the pleasurable sensations we get from regular meditation practice. Far from being a waste of time, this is an important acknowledgement of the payoff we get from contribution our sincere heart, time and energy to this physical and mental discipline. Even infrequent meditators feel a slowing down, a feeling of being very present in one's body, the relief...

Painful thoughts and emotions are a fact of life. Attempting to avoid or stifle these is impossible. Sometimes people want to use meditation to shut off painful thoughts and feelings. It works differently however; one of the side effects of meditation is increased ability to sit with our painful emotions and feelings, resulting in greater compassion for ourselves and others involved in our situati...

In today's practice, we explore a member's question in our zoom chat about how hard it is to focus away from "the negative"; we unpack the physiological and cognitive behaviour correction aspects of our choices, and explore how meditation can assist with this process. To join our weekly practice, please visit www. CalgaryMindfulness.ca or write Calgary Mindfulness at Gmail.com . Thanks!

In this episode, we explore a member's question regarding why it's hard to focus during practice, since thoughts of all that s/he needs to do and be first before becoming compassionate with the self...today we explore the practice of how to start feeling we are worthy of giving and receiving unconditional love. To join our practice live, please write Calgary Mindfulness at Gmail.com . Thanks!

In today's Sunday practice, we explore the theme of spring, and its promise for renewal in our lives and thought process. Like the world around us, we are never stuck, and in meditation practice we can reconnect to the movement, flow, openness to help us move out of feeling stuck. To join our practice live, please email Calgary Mindfulness at Gmail dot com and visit CalgaryMindfulness.ca .

In today's Sunday practice--thanks to those who attended our practice live despite the spring forward time change--we explore the opportunity to lay intentions for delivering our highest and best to ourselves and others. After a traditional mindfulness meditation where we care for tense parts of the body, we explore any intentions that arise and commit to honoring those for the week. To join our p...

Welcome to our weekly 15 minute mindfulness meditation! Today we continue our exploration of the very fruitful meditation anchor of loving kindness. Noticing today that as we freely offer loving kindness to all those within our circle (family, friends, colleagues, strangers with whom we intersect) we are enabled to grow our own patience, clarity, ease, wisdom and freedom from worry, shame, judgeme...

Welcome back! In today's meditation, we explore loving kindness as a conflict management opportunity, visualizing someone / people with whom there is a troubled relationship and freely offering them our loving kindness. To join our practice live, please write calgary mindfulness at gmail.com . You can also get this podcast at your favorite podcast host.

In today's practice we attend to a request from a prayer circle to which I belong regarding an intention to transform humanity's impulse to envy and revenge into love, acceptance, forgiveness and trust. Beginning with mindfulness basic anchors to create the space for allowing these difficult thoughts and emotions to arise. For spiritual seekers, admitting and exploring our own dark thoughts that s...