Posts tagged with “meditation”

5 Easy Exercises That Will Make You Lose Your Mind

“Lose your mind so that you can gain a new way of knowing.” ~Holly Lynn Payne

You know those moments when your thoughts seem to be going off in all directions? No logic, no control. All fighting for your attention like a class full of overexcited school children, one shouting even louder than the other at a teacher who’s lost control and ends up running out of the classroom crying.

“What if I don’t get this job?”

“What if they don’t like me?”

“Why hasn’t Rico returned my calls?”

“What if he doesn’t really love me?”

“Did I …

How to Get All the Benefits of Meditation by Balancing

By James Everett Youngblood

“Use only that which works and take it from any place you can find it.” ~Bruce Lee

Ding.

The meditation timer chimes, and through a small miracle of willpower you managed to sit through an excruciating ten-minute meditation session.

What you should feel is a sense of accomplishment. After all, you often skip it altogether.

But instead you feel frustrated having just spent the entire session fidgeting, lost in fantasies that involve bragging to a friend about meditating today.

Your “monkey mind” is strong. It’s like a whole jungle of monkeys in there.

I went through the same thing …

The Anti-Anxiety Techniques That Prepare You for a Crisis

By Anthony Jeannot

“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” ~Dan Millman

One of the paradoxes of learning to cope with anxiety is that it often means you’re prepared for chaos and crisis. When everyone else is thrown by the uncertainty, you’re strangely at home because it is not as far from your day-to-day lived reality as it is to their’s.

I often joke that at a time of crisis, people with anxiety are like early adopters of the iPhone; we’re like “See, this is exactly what I’ve been telling you about!!! It …

How to Meditate Like a Buddhist: Book Giveaway

By Lori Deschene

The winners have been chosen! If you see your name below, please send your address to email@tinybuddha.com so I can get a copy out to you!

I’ve often wished I found meditation much earlier in life.

Like in high school, where I once burst a stress ball from excessive squeezing, shooting little beans or beads or whatever filled the ball in every direction around my overloaded desk. Or in college when the triad of my depression, anxiety, and bulimia began to feel like the foundation of my identity.

I wish I knew …

What You Need to Know Before You Start or Quit Meditating

By Cynthia Liu

“Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.” ~Ikkyu

I was the kid who didn’t like to sleep. In nursery school, I would pretend to be asleep at nap time, while the other kids were sleeping. I’ve always thought life was full of exciting things to explore and learn, and I didn’t want to sleep through it.

So, it shouldn’t surprise you that traditional meditation didn’t sit well with me (pun intended). I remember my Buddhist grandmother chanting and meditating twice a day. Yet I never had …

8 Quick and Easy Meditation Techniques to Calm Your Anxious Mind

By Lori Deschene

Have you ever found it hard to motivate yourself to do something that was good for you, only to eventually do it, feel amazing, and wonder why you waited so long?

That’s what meditating was like for me. Even though I knew I could do it for only five minutes each day to feel calmer, less stressed, and more present, I found excuses not to do it regularly for years.

I’d tell myself five minutes wasn’t enough; I really needed thirty or more, and I didn’t have that time, so why bother?

I’d lament that I was too anxious to …

14-Day Meditation Challenge: Put Down Your Phone and Be

By Zachary Goodson

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can find a number of helpful coronavirus resources and all related Tiny Buddha articles here.

“Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.” ~Sharon Salzberg

I came home from my doctor’s appointment last week and rambled off three to four different things that were happening in the world as a result of the coronavirus. By the fourth item my wife asked me to stop. She said please tell me something good.

I told her that my doctor said my pathology report came back negative. That the procedure on my neck had …

Become a Certified Meditation Teacher – Train with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach

By Lori Deschene

Hi friends!

Since I know many of you are passionate about mindfulness and meditation and creating a more peaceful world, I’m excited to share that Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach are accepting applications for their next two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certificate Program.

Though it’s primarily an online learning experience—which means you can participate from anywhere in the world—you’ll have the option to attend two in-person, three-day workshops in the Washington, DC area. And for those who can’t attend, they’ll be livestreaming the sessions and will also make a replay available.

Space is limited due to mentorship availability and the …

How to Reap the Benefits of Meditation Without Meditating

By Carl Phillips

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” ~Bruce Lee

The benefits of meditation are far reaching and have been well known for centuries. However, the idea of formal meditation doesn’t sit well with some of us.

The idea of sitting cross-legged for extended periods and delving inward puts many of us off before we’ve even got started. Even the word “meditation” can be a very real barrier to entry for some. What a shame, as the many benefits of meditation can be good for us all.

Those benefits can include:

A reduction

…

The Skills You Need to Survive Stress When It Hits

By Rosemary Bointon

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ~William James

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt your world was ending? When the stress was overwhelming and you were so miserable, all you wanted to do was wallow in it and growl at the world from underneath the bed covers?

Or maybe you worry about things that might happen in the future. Do you see a minor accident on the road and have those flashes of imagining that your partner or your child died in a car crash?

Does your imagination …

12 Habits to Adopt to Make This Your Best Year Yet

By Lori Deschene

Many of us head into the New Year with big goals and ambitions. We think about everything that seems to be lacking in our lives and imagine ourselves far happier and more fulfilled on the other side of massive change.

There’s no denying that certain accomplishments can amp up our life satisfaction, but I’ve found that our daily habits are the biggest contributor to our happiness.

You can have a job that excites you, the best body of your life, and the perfect partner for you, but none of it will fully satisfy you if you don’t also prioritize the …

The Simple Tools That Have Saved My Mental Health

By Tejas Yadav

“Think of the world…you carry within yourself and set it above everything that you notice about you. Your inmost happening is worth your whole love, that is what you must somehow work at, and not lose too much time and too much courage in explaining your attitude to people.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

My twenties taught me many things about navigating the outside world as an adult. Ironically, the biggest lesson was learning to pay close attention to my inner world.

I turned thirty years young this year. Being on the cusp of a new decade feels momentous.

Over these last …

Pain, Suffering, Joy, Love—Meditation Helps Me Experience It All

By Jake Kessler

“I know, things are getting tougher when I can’t get the top off the bottom of the barrel.” ~Jesse Michaels

No one thought I was going to live to see twenty. Including me. In fact, I vividly remember telling my father that it would be miraculous if I saw twenty-five. It wasn’t emotional. It was simply a statement of fact. And yet here I am—mid-thirties, wife, daughter, one on the way, house, job, sense of purpose. What happened?

I was one of those kids with questions. Big questions. “What does it all mean?” questions. I used to wonder what …

The Life-Changing Benefits of Two-Minute Meditations

By Michelle Kennedy

“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I felt everything, from my lower back pain flaring up to tightness in my jaw where I clinch and carry my stress. With my eyes still closed, I rolled my shoulders and repositioned the pillow under my butt. Five minutes had passed, and I had no idea how I would ever make it to forty.

I opened my left eye to see if anyone around me was fidgeting as well and saw rows of people sitting in perfect, cross-legged lotus position with straight necks and relaxed jaws next to me.

Our teacher, …

Living with Depression and Anxiety: How to Lessen the Pain

By George Ripley

“I am bent, but not broken. I am scarred, but not disfigured. I am sad, but not hopeless. I am tired, but not powerless. I am angry, but not bitter. I am depressed, but not giving up.” ~Unknown

Depression and anxiety. Two words we hear often, but unless we have actually lived with them, we cannot come close to understanding the tremendous impact they can have on one’s quality of life.

Depression and anxiety can make people feel as if they are worthless and better off dead. What a horrible plague. But it is 100% possible to tame these two …

6 Ways Meditation Improves Your Life

By Sandy Woznicki

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our hearts, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Back in 2001, I was a freshman in college, and my saving grace from anxiety was a yoga class. More specifically, it was the most glorious of poses we call savasana that kept me sane.

For those unfamiliar, savasana—or corpse pose—is a pose of surrender and noticing thoughts and sensations without judgment, much like meditation. (It’s the pose that looks like everyone is just lying around napping.)

Back then, …

My Life Will Be My Message

By Jake Kessler

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Gautama Buddha

I have meditated for over half my life. It didn’t always look like meditation, and I didn’t always refer to it as such, but the driving need to introspectively understand my universe has been an ever-present presence,.

For a long time, there was a certain guarded nature to my practice. It was intimate for me. I didn’t have words to explain what I was doing in a way that didn’t seem crazy. …

Being Busy Made Me Feel Important, But Now I Feel at Peace

By Heather Picard

“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” ~Ancient Zen proverb

I used to think that life was about powering through things. I’d grab a latte, write my to-do list, and proudly cram as many things as possible into my day.

At work, there was staff, payroll, invoices, customers, marketing, and the occasional cleaning of an office bathroom. At home, there was parenting, dinner, cleaning, homework, bedtime, laundry, and plans for the next day. When my eyes could no longer remain open, I’d fall into a …

The Best Question for Self-Care: What Do You Really Need Today?

By Alison Kate

“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer

About a month ago I came back to my daily meditation practice after realizing I’d been pushing myself too hard, and I was amazed at how easy it was to sit, get into that groove, and just be. I expected to sit for ten minutes, but on this day, my body didn’t want to move. I was completely content in the stillness, in silence.

I have been meditating and practicing …

How I Stopped Feeling So Lonely and Disconnected

By Charles A. Francis

If I were given the chance to relive my childhood, I wouldn’t take it. For the most part, those were times I’d rather forget. I didn’t get along well in school, and family life was less than ideal. About the only thing I liked about the seventies and eighties was the rock ‘n’ roll music.

As a kid growing up in Miami, I had an Asian look about me, even though I was of Hispanic descent. Many of the kids in school asked me if I was Chinese; some called me a stupid chink; and a few just beat me …