Mindful Moments with Thai Mama

If you do the math, for you to be here today, there had to have been more than 4000 ancestors to stand before you. Enjoy this unique standing meditation designed to bring awareness to your connection to the past, where your ancestors have given you both gifts and burdens to carry.

Are you burdened by the memory of someone who has wronged you in the past, and continue to harbor negative feelings about them and perhaps their impact on your life? Thich Nhat Hanh said if in our heart, we still cling to anything- anger, anxiety, hurt, blame- we cannot be free. Forgiveness, like many other practices, develops its power in us through repetition. By repeating this powerful meditation, we can practice forgiveness many times, with often the same situation, unlocking a different dimension of understanding and acceptance. The understanding that comes with forgiveness is the true meaning of freedom- free to be fully present, without holding onto the past.

When I was first trying to understand what mindfulness was, I thought of it as being “behind my eyes.” When I got pulled into thinking, and not being in the present moment, imagining that I was behind my eyes helped me get back to the raw data and sensations of the moment.

Waiting is an unavoidable fact of life. When we are waiting, in traffic, at the DMV, or for our food to arrive, we often feel impatient and frustrated. Rather than training our bodies and minds to feel dissatisfaction in periods of waiting, try using these moments of waiting as mini-opportunities to practice mindfulness.

This practice comes from my training with trauma therapists and chaplains in hospice and bereavement work. In moments of high, anxiety or panic, the client is often encouraged to bring awareness to their feet. This simple, grounding practice help Cengage, the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for coming to mind and body.

Moments of clarity and calm are as close as your next breath. Mindfulness of breathing is one of the oldest meditation practices, and because of it simplicity, this type of meditation is referred to as a serenity practice. Help keep your mind on your breath by taking away the worry of how long your practice might be going! The only requirement for this practice is your breath and access to a phone or kitchen timer!

The end of the day is an ideal time to pause, integrate abd reflect. Especially when we’re stressed, after a long day, using this time to come back to ourselves, to allow our bodies to settle, and to integrate the day’s events, positions us to counteract the stress that may have accumulated throughout the day. Tomorrow your mind will be fresh, and you may even have a new perspective.

Nothing compares with the experience of losing a loved one, whether a person or a pet. Here is a meditation to help you find equanimity amid some changes that occur within. The key is to be gently aware of the difficult feelings, or the numbness, rather than self judge, distract, or avoid- all typical reactions that invariably allow the discomfort to remain unresolved and ultimately create more pain.

Past episodes have delved into progressive muscle relaxation, one form of combining breath work with relaxation of body parts. This practice is a short, sweet two minute practice that incorporates the tenets of this type of relaxation into a busy day. Sneak it in between meetings!

A simple technique for catching your breath if you’re anxious and feeling short of breath is to focus on the exhale, and fully empty your lungs. This is mindfulness of the exhale, and helps to counteract that unhealthy shallow breathing that many of us default to when distracted or anxious.

Many of us have no idea how much tension we carry around in our jaw- we’ve become so accustomed to a tense jaw that it feels like our normal baseline. This sweet meditation focuses on our jaw as the anchor of our attention rather the classic technique of focusing on our breath. Give it a try, you might want to come back to this one again and again…

You don’t need anything special or “extra” to cultivate mindfulness throughout the day. In the simple yet powerful practice, all you need are areas of contact between your body and the chair, or the ground, or your bed… or air.

The perfect meditation break can happen when doing something as ordinary as standing in line at the grocery store. When we’d rather be somewhere else, waiting in line can seem very long. If we see a line as an opportunity to practice mindfulness, suddenly a queue of people becomes a perfect opportunity to strengthen your brain.

We are always breathing, yet we are rarely aware of it. In this basic mindfulness practice, you will discover your breath as if you are feeling it for the very first time.

If you have time to breathe, you have time to do this meditation. I call it Three Sighs and it takes only 30 seconds to practice. It’s a natural circuit breaker to the shallow breathing that tends to occur when humans are stressed or anxious.

Many philosophers and modern teachers of mindfulness tell you to “take a deep breath and relax.” This common wisdom is based on a principle called the Hering-Breuer Reflex. When you inhale fully and slowly, stretch receptors in your lungs signal relaxation in your cardiovascular system and up to the brain, triggering a holistic relaxation response. Try it!

While many people think of the breath as the classic “anchor” for our attention, points of contact is another way to be in the present moment. Your body is always in contact with some thing, whether it’s a chair, the ground, the bed, or even the air around you. This practice is a powerful way to tune in to your present moment experience by being mindful of these points of contact any time, in sitting meditation or throughout the day.

Many people who share their feelings of stress or sadness or anxiety with others are often met with pep talks and positive affirmations such as “Try to focus on the good things” or, This too shall pass”. These unhelpful responses send a message that feeling uncomfortable emotions is a sign of weakness and/or should be avoided. Indeed, the best thing to say to people who are struggling, Including ourselves: “it’s ok to feel this way.” This practice helps us notice and label ALL the emotions, all of which are OK to feel.

Memorial Day, born out of America’s bloody Civil War, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States. I record this days after the last mass shooting in our country, so I think of those two teachers who died in defense of the students they loved. Here is a practice that strengthens our neural networks of focused attention and gratitude, remembering to be in the present moment.

Many of you have requested I record this practice, and requests quadrupled after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. I’m sorry it took this long! Tonglen is an ancient form of meditation from Tibetan Buddhists that is a less common but just as powerful mindfulness tool in times that seem filled with uncertainty, trauma and grief. Tonglen means “sending and receiving” and it is the practice of coordinating one’s breathing with mental intentions of goodwill. I hope this helps, dear ones.

Our culture tells us to pain is “bad”, and should be masked with medication or avoidance. What avoidance ends up doing is getting greater power to the pain, as it becomes scarier and more mysterious. With this mindfulness meditation, you are invited to move towards your pain, to investigate it with a scientific objectivity. Perhaps removing the mystery can make it a bit more bearable.

Ever notice that the Buddha always seems to have a small, peaceful smile on his face? Neuroscience points to how smiling spurs a chemical reaction in the brain, that releases certain hormones that can increase feelings of happiness and reduced stress. Let’s practice using this small, Buddha-like smile in a challenging moment to trick our brain into feeling more easeful.

Research consistently points to how gratitude goes hand-in-hand with mindfulness. Not only can formal meditations on gratitude improve your outlook, but the science also indicates that it can increase our resilience and improve our relationships. As we move into the holiday season- a time that for many evokes stress- let’s practice evoking gratitude.

The body is always in contact with something, whether it is a chair, the ground, your bed… and even the air around you. This is a powerful practice that helps beginner and experienced meditators alike come back to the present moment, without judgment.

Paying attention to your breath is a foundational mindfulness practice. Whole Body Breathing Invites you to notice your breath, and its gentle impact on your entire body.

Many of you have reached out to me sharing your experiences with trauma over the past year and a half. Try this Body + Mind autogenic practice which has the power to calm a dysregulated nervous system.

As we all worry about what a “Delta Variant Winter” will look like, our minds can become distracted, reactive and anxious. Bringing attention to parts of our body, called “interoception”, is a powerful way to train the brain to relax into the present moment’s experience.

When we’re stressed, it can feel like we are experiencing decision overload. Try this meditation that shows us that a simple, gentle acknowledgement of “thinking” when a thought is swirling can be a gentle way to decrease its power.

You have a simple mindfulness superpower at your disposal- new knowledge of your vagus nerve, and its role in modulating stress. Use this mindfulness practice to capitalize on your feet, hands and belly to kickstart the vagal nerve!

Hundreds of athletes are gathered in Tokyo for the 2021 Olympics, with many employing a specialized breathing technique that helps maximize performance. Recent research confirms that a longer exhale can not only improve physical performance and calm the mind, but this simple breathing hack can also improve decision making capabilities.

Did you know that opening your “sense doors” can bring you quickly to the present moment?

It’s far too easy for the human mind, with its bias towards negative stories, to get stuck in a cycle of rumination. This meditation allows us to practice the art of letting go. As Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah reminds us, “If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be free.”

The Buddha said that the quality of one's breath dictates the quality of one's life. While the mind-body-breath connection remains an enigma to many medical practitioners, what we DO know is that savoring each inhale and exhale, with a sense of curiosity, can alleviate stress and invite a sense of ease into one’s experience.

Thai buddhists believe that everything consists of the four primary elements of earth, fire, water, and air. Observing the presence of all four of these elements within us can be an important way of recognizing how our individual composition is the same as the composition of the rest of the universe. Plus, it can be wonderfully soothing to remember this fact: you are nature.

We are always breathing yet we are rarely aware of it. Let’s revisit this classic anchor of mindfulness- its beauty is that it is always available to us. As Buddhist scholar and activist Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “Our breathing is a stable solid ground that we can take refuge in... No matter what is going on, our breath is always with us, like a faithful friend.”

Use this informal “S.T.O.P” practice in the heat of the moment, to mindfully shift from a state of defensive distraction, to a place of calm, intentional presence. It’s like jujitsu for the mind!

It’s common belief that stress starts in our mind, which then sends signals down to the rest of our body to tense up, with shoulders tight, jaw clenched, tummy unsettled. Modern neuroscience- and the Buddha- tell us that training our body to instead send messages upwards to our mind is a powerful yet underused approach to alleviating stress. Give this meditation, which encourages the body to send relaxation messages to the mind, a try- it’s one of my favorites!

Neuroscience tells us that naming your thoughts deactivates that “fight of flight” feeling sparked by the amygdala, and activates the more rational, calm, executive level prefrontal cortex. Here’s a simple practice that provides several ways to note, or NAME those thoughts that tend to reoccur as our “Top 10 Most Played”.

Try the classic body scan, a practice that involves mindfully scanning your body for sensations of tension, tightness, or... temperature. Developing greater awareness of bodily sensations is one way to become more aware of how your body is connected to, and reflects, your state of mind.

I love using the snow globe as a metaphor for your swirling thoughts, In this meditation, you’ll use your breath an an anchor to settle those swirling flakes (thoughts) in the snow globe (your mind).

So often meditations focus on either relaxation OR gratitude. Why not combine both? In this guided meditation, we prime our bodies with the classic “soft belly” meditation before sending thanks to the simple things. “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “thank you”, it will be enough.” - Meister Eckhart

Paying attention to the breath is a common way to anchor our attention to the present moment. But did you know another handy tool to mindfulness is... your body? Use this simple, five step exercise to focus on the 5 senses to unhook from anxiety that invariably results from the worries about our past and future, to anchor attention in the present moment.

Election anxiety is palpable. All eyes are on Philadelphia (where this podcast is recorded) as the vote count continues. Why don’t we take a few minutes for some mindful breathing to anchor ourselves into the present moment and activate our parasympathetic nervous system (aka our relaxation response)?

Nine months into a global pandemic, mentally buffeted by bad news, infection spikes and an acrimonious national election, it’s easy to feel like our emotions are jerking us around. In this classic visualization meditation, you’re invited to emulate a mountain to become more grounded. Through your mountain-esque strength, you’re better able to weather the daily storm what life in 2020 has to offer.

There is a subtle yet powerful difference between “noticing” your thoughts and feelings, and being distracted by them. This meditation helps with the practice of noticing them. The more you notice a thought or a feeling, the less likely you are to be “owned” by it.

When stressed, that voice in your head, that inner narrator can say some pretty negative things. Try Kristin Neff’s “Affectionate Breathing” meditation to remind that voice to be kind, be gentle.

Spend some time simply noticing your breath, and how each inhale and exhale moves through you. And those pesky thoughts that tend to distract you? Remember that they are like your breath, coming and going. NOTE: My introduction indicates this will be a 5-minute meditation- turns out I was so relaxed, it turned into 11 minutes! Please allow for, and enjoy those extra minutes of mindfulness.

If you find yourself ruminating with your anxious thoughts, imagine your thoughts are clouds in the sky of your mind. This is my go-to meditation when I need to take a step back from my “top 10 most played” list of worries.