This week’s wellness is all about openness, and since honesty is the best policy, I’ll go first.  I hit a wall last week. I got some news that was as surprising as it was disappointing. I let one thing send me into an all-out internal panic, until I finally gave myself permission to land. It was time to change and growth finally pushed through all the angst. Even though the news I received was as surprising and shocking as it was disappointing, I was stuck in that place until a great friend of mine (none other than my sister) shared something with me that totally changed the game...

E2_A Glimpse Into The Real!

Once we understand that thoughts become things and that some of our thoughts aren’t doing us any favors, the next step is to intentionally create new ways to see ourselves and change how we talk about our experience. In Victim to Victor, there’s a crazy story that you must read to believe (or listen to the podcast for the cliff’s notes version)! The story has an interesting conclusion about how the writer didn’t realize she was being a drama queen until someone else pointed it out. To be fair, is was a pretty crazy set of circumstances so it makes total sense that she needed some time to process all the details. However, it did get us thinking, if so much of how we experience meaning in our life has to do with how we tell our story – why not make it a good one…

E3_What's Your Story?

It’s Labor Day and a perfect time to start relaxing if you’ve been an uptight person recently or if you’ve been in a great place and want to keep the good vibes and energy flowing. In this week’s wellness we start off with a quick read illustrating how subtle patterns and ways of thinking can negatively affect our mood, and how a one-word shift can give us the attitude adjustment needed to positively affect our circumstances and change our outlook on everything. Since the energy we give off has the power to attract obstacles or optimism, let’s make sure we give ourselves the power to decide which one…

E5_What Does Your Energy Attract?

There are plenty of times in our lives where taking in too much of the news, interacting with difficult bosses or co-workers, or even just the internal pressure we create for ourselves when tackling our never-ending to-do lists can start to put our minds and bodies in a hyper-charged state of stress and anxiety. It’s a feeling where every nerve in our bodies is at attention and we feel like we need to be “on” all the time since disaster could be anywhere. For some of us, we may even live in neighborhoods or homes that are filled with volatile behavior where someone could pop off at any moment. In this week’s wellness we uncover how to stay peaceful and happy in the midst of these trying situations and give practical tips on effective stress management. We even share advice from a certified bomb disposal expert (who has the epitome of a stressful job!) on how to stay calm despite any circumstance…

E6_Keep Calm & Stay There

In a world full of noise, both figuratively and literally, sometimes silence is golden. It can be the most powerful tool at our disposal and, even though it can feel counter-intuitive at first, over time it creates a peaceful stillness that is unshakeable even in the most trying of circumstances. Meditation, in its simplest form, is the practice of intentionally quieting the mind. It’s finding stillness amidst our busy schedules and opening ourselves up to the possibility of living more full, peaceful and balanced lives. This week’s wellness is full of tips, tricks, and things to remember as you start or navigate your way through your own meditation practice…

E14 - The Power of Silence

Sometimes, all it takes is one Fox news story or an ignorant tweet to rock our peaceful boat. That was the BZ Team experience this week that led to this Monday's all-too-important topic… how to protect your peace and guard your energy from emotional and media vampires. Are we being dramatic with the use of the word "vampire"? Perhaps, but let me tell you, the draining of energy is real! Like all responsible adults, we want to know what's going on in the world around us, but this week the news just had to be turned off. It got us thinking, “How do we maintain our peace while still being active members of society?” In this week’s wellness, we provide a few key ways to maintain our energy and guard our joy in the midst of these tumultuous times…

E55_A New Political Tactic...Guard Your Joy

The most surprising discovery at any stage of life is that we're still in the process of creating our story. Given the average age of life expectancy in the U.S. is now 81 for women and 76 for men, once we reach our 40's we most likely still have another lifetime left to live! This Weekly Wellness is all about acknowledging that we are never too old to do something we want to do and are never too young to live life in the 60+ range when you have the freedom to do what you want, and are armed with the understanding that you are your only audience.

E84_Age Is An Illusion

Embracing imperfection in ourselves is about looking at our internal cracks and personal quirks without disapproval, and instead seeing them as an opportunity to paint those perceived flaws with something wonderful. It’s a gentle process and it happens when we step away from the business of life to truly see the canvas we’re working with. Before our break we encouraged you to truly rest and enjoy the summer, and even to take a break from striving toward your goals if that's what you needed. We all know that soon our "summer-life" will fade and it's back to the grind. Yet, by embracing the cracks and imperfections that we all work with, we can keep a bit of that summer peace with us as the seasons change. When we view our process in the Wabi-Sabi way, learning to work on ourselves with patience and acceptance truly does take the "work" out of it…

E86_Embracing Imperfection

You may be asking, "What do my personal finances have to do with wellness?" In short, it’s about having peace of mind. When I first began meditating, the common theme that ran through my thoughts were around money - not having enough of it to live comfortably, how I could make more of it, and what experiences I was missing out on because I didn't have enough. I knew then that to get the most out of my meditation time, I had to either develop a peace about where I was financially and/or change my financial situation. I chose to do both and we’re encouraging you to do the same. To save you the strife of living from paycheck to paycheck, this week's wellness is dedicated to getting your financial house in order. It all starts with finding peace in your current financial situation, and then taking ownership of that circumstance. From here, we can each make the necessary changes to reach our personal version of financial freedom and find peace of mind with our finances…

E87_How To Think About Money Mindfully

Imagine for a moment going into the store and getting every ingredient for the perfect meal. You come home excited to cook because you’ve already thought through all the steps to make sure this meal is epic! There’s just one problem. As you start putting all of your flavors together, you realize you’ve forgotten the most important ingredient of all – salt. Sometimes, this is how life without a meditation practice can feel. It’s like you’ve got all the right elements in place, but something crucial is missing. The flavors of your experience just don’t taste as good as they should, and day-to-day life seems to lack zest. For the Black Zen team, we’ve found that meditation enhances every moment by training us to be fully present and teaches us to enjoy the fullness of our experiences. This week, take a look at your life and make sure you have a well-seasoned plate of mental, emotional and spiritual food. And if you find any area lacking in flavor, like salt, meditation is always available…

E88_What To Do When Life Feels Bland

The keys to a more balanced way of life are none other than patience and equanimity. Equanimity is a $400 word defined as mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation. It's keeping our cool even when it looks like the needle hasn't moved on our progress or when unexpected emotions come up in our meditation practice. Once we learn patience with ourselves, it's that much easier to extend that patience to the people around us...

E89_Hurry Up and Wait

It's been a minute since your girls have completely nerded out on a Weekly Wellness, so let's get into it! In this week's post, we're studying The Room of Requirement. If you are not a Harry Potter fan and have no idea what we're talking about, The Room of Requirement supplied the students of Hogwarts with whatever they needed in that moment. How great would it be to need something and then instantaneously have the means to acquire it? I know what you're thinking, and no, this is not a post about meditation being that room! In fact, that room already exists and everyone has access to it. Here's what we mean...

E90_The Room of Requirement

The butterfly effect concept was articulated best by meteorologist and mathematician Edward N. Lorenz. His theory stated that the flapping of a butterfly's wings has potential to cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. While this may not generally be the case, it's a good example of the idea that tiny changes in complex systems can cause huge and unknown effects. If we think of ourselves as the system being altered, how large of an impact could we potentially have in affecting our trajectory with tiny changes made in our everyday life...

E96_The Butterfly Effect

I'm going to go ahead and date myself here and say I miss the 80's! Gone are the days when I can hop on a bike and head to the Boys and Girls Club after school. There I would squander my days away with Chinese jump rope competitions and tetherball battles (more of a slaughter since Jasmine stopped growing in grade 2, lol). Reflecting on it now, I think I just miss being playful. And while we touched on this back in June in an effort to bring back the idea of a traditional summer vacation, I see no reason to relegate fun to just the summertime. This week's wellness is dedicated to taking the seriousness out of life and finding more playtime, in every season, and even in our meditation practice…

E98_Less Work, More Play

We’re celebrating our 100th episode of the Weekly Wellness podcast! In honor of this milestone, we’re taking some time to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about meditation. As we continue to grow our organization and move our mission forward, we hope each Weekly Wellness is an opportunity for you to enhance where you are, let you know that you've been seen and give you the motivation and the humor to keep on moving towards your best life! 

Humbled to be your partners in progress,
The Black Zen Team

E100_What Is Zen?

At Black Zen, we consistently look for ways to create the best conditions for our success and our peace, and the most important factor we've found in achieving this has been surrounding ourselves with amazing, ambitious and authentic people who inspire us to be our best. It's these folks who truly make up a winner's circle. When selecting your team it's also important to know when to trim the fat. There are some people in our lives who just aren't all that positive. While we would never cut them out of our lives entirely, it may be necessary to create a bit of distance to make sure their influence is not derailing our progress. Listen in to find out the best benchmarks to look for when picking your winner’s circle…

E101_Who Is In Your Winner's Circle?

For the folks that have been with us for a while, you know that we take a holiday hiatus for the month of December and devote that time to our personal wellness. We use that time not only to rest and recharge, but to evaluate how we can continue to help and support you. Now with the sudden realization that there are only two weeks left in November, we wanted to leave you with a ton of resources to get you through the rest of the holiday season. To do this we've reviewed all of our past wellnesses and pulled out our top 10 pieces of advice this year. To not overload you with all ten at once, here’s Part I of the countdown. And be sure to tune in next week for the rest of the best tips of 2019. Together, these two weeks of the wellness should keep you going (and growing!) until our January return…

E105_The Best Advice of 2019 - Part I

It's official. Your BZ Team is on its annual December break. As you know we take wellness seriously, so incorporating mindful pauses into our business is not only true to form, but we find it necessary in keeping our content interesting and helpful to you. Last week we mentioned wanting to leave you with a ton of resources to get you through the rest of the holiday season. We also want to help set you up for the year ahead. In addition to 20% off of the BZ Beginner’s Guide to Meditation workbook for the full month of December (use promo code: 2020 at checkout), we've also completed our review of past wellnesses to give you the final top pieces of advice from 2019! Listen in now for the second half of our year-end countdown…

E106_The Best Advice of 2019 - Part II

To continue the conversation on this month’s theme, we talk about how to double down on the power that you have or how to get it back if you think you’ve lost it in a certain situation in your life. This is the key to navigating this year and actually getting results!...

E109_Power: The Top 3 Things To Do To Wield Your Power Wisely

Now that we know that each of us has power, which is the ability to impact or create change - what do we do with it? How do we know where to focus our power to see the most impactful results in our life? The surprising thing we uncover in this week’s final episode on January’s theme is that usually the thing that needs to change is often not what we think it is! Tune in for the final conversation of this month’s theme to start your year off with power…

E110_Power: How to Know What to Focus On to See Results

Since February is always associated with love, we thought it was the perfect month to take a deep dive into relationships! In Part I of this topic, we include the 1 key thing to remember about all of your relationships and we humorously break down the most important element that holds every great relationship together…

E111_Relationships - Part I: The 2 Most Important Elements in Every Relationship

The Black Zen Team has been debating for the last few days about meditation versus wellness retreats and the benefits of each. After numerous discussions about our own personal experiences, we did come to one shared conclusion. Every style of retreat has to have some component that helps us drown out the noise of life to give us the space to find and hear our inner voice. And when we say drown out the noise of life, we’re talking about both the internal chatter within our mind and the external noise we experience every day. This external noise can include things like the sound of traffic, taking in the news, interacting on social media, or even just listening to the conversations around us. The appeal of a retreat is that, by design, it removes us from our daily obligations so that we can get a bird's eye view of our lives, and this month’s Weekly Wellness podcast discussion is focused on building that retreat wherever you are...

E115_Your Personal Retreat - Part I: Setting The Expectation

In this week’s conversation, we continue discussing how to get the most out of your personal meditation or wellness retreat. One of the trickiest parts about taking time out to center yourself and find balance, is that eventually you have to go home, or back to work, or end up right smack dab in the middle of all the problems or circumstances that you thought you’d left behind. How do we keep up the momentum to change after the retreat is over? And how do we find time for wellness given everything that’s going on around us? Most importantly, once we return from our retreat experience, how do we navigate our new self in our old life?…

E117_Your Personal Retreat - Part III: Navigating Your New Self in Your Old Life

With all that's going on in the world right now with the corona virus outbreak, it's definitely putting all of our inner-peace skills to the test! In this week's podcast, we take a detour from our regularly scheduled program to address what's happening in our nation and the world around us. We talk about how we as meditators can meet this challenge and come out peaceful and whole on the other side. Listen in now to get a free perk and to find out how to create the boundaries necessary to guard your peace and joy amidst these uncertain times...

E118_March - Part IV: The Meditator's Response to Covid-19

With all this extra time on our hands, your girls were digging through the archives to find things that would help us all navigate this "new normal". This week's podcast includes 3 of the most important clips we found relevant to creating a home retreat, whether that's watching what we consume in our newly found free time, tips to building that meditation practice or what we've been personally putting into place, trying to make lemonade out of lemons. As a reminder, for the rest of March (you have one day left!) we will be sending this month's guided meditation to everyone who needs it and without subscription. Message us at info@blackzen.co to get your home retreat in gear. There is LITERALLY no time like the present...

E119_March - Part V: How To Navigate In This New Normal

Last month Jas and I talked about creating your own personal wellness and meditation retreats and we hope you’ve been able to implement that in your home, especially now! One of the most direct actions we can take post-retreat is to start becoming more intentional about our food choices. This may seem like a small thing, but the foods we eat affect our energy and moods a lot more than we think. We now have the time to cook at home as we stay in place, so tune in to find out about the 4 happy hormones you need to know about so you can start cooking up some happiness in your home...

E120_The 4 Happy Hormones

Last week we discussed the 4 happy hormones that keep our spirits up and our lives feeling healthy and full. We’re following that up this week with the low cost, easy access foods we can incorporate into our daily meals to help keep all those good vibes going! This is also the episode where your Black Zen team may have cracked under the pressure of shelter-in-place. In this episode we’re definitely at our silliest, but always serious about making sure that our community begins incorporating some feel good foods into our diet. Tune in for laughs, good vibes and to unravel the conversation that covered everything from oats and almonds to grits and a good malbec…

E121_Foods That Support the 4 Happy Hormones

Now that we have a handle on some of the great foods we should be incorporating into our diet, we decided to use this week to find out which foods to avoid to ensure we’re living our best life. We also uncovered some surprising things about junk food that even we were shocked to find out! Food is so integral to our bodies, our mood and our health, so it only makes sense that being more aware of what we eat can have a profound effect on our day to day experience…

E122_The Real Danger Behind Toxic Foods

This is definitely one to get your pen ready for taking notes! The more we looked at how to start viewing food as medicine, the more information we found. In our final episode of this month's topic, we provide you with the Cliff's Notes version ;) We highlight the every day foods we can incorporate into our diet that not only help prevent sickness and disease, but can also heal certain ailments over time. Listen in now to find out the obvious (and surprisingly, not so obvious) things we can eat that significantly improve our health and well-being...

E123_Foods That Heal

We can't even begin to describe how your girls have been affected by recent events. We've been in Minneapolis for some time and the feeling in this city is fraught with anger, frustration and ultimately a heavy heart. The murder of George Floyd has confronted us with the important question of how do we, as peaceful meditators, manage our rage and handle all of the other emotions that we experience living in a world that too often doesn't make sense, while also holding on to our core values of compassion and love in all things?

For us, that means utilizing meditation to help fortify our resolve for the work ahead. It means providing our community with a safe space to process grief and to continue building a community that is mentally and emotionally equipped to do what needs to be done to create change.

In light of this, we're providing free, community guided meditation for anyone who needs it. Sign-up is available on our website - blackzen.co.

To our community members protesting in the streets, we are donating I STAY ZEN face masks to reiterate this message of being peaceful while protesting and holding onto our zen while fighting for our right to exist.

This is a lot to hold, but know that we are here to support you and help you carry it.

The Black Zen Team

The Murder of George Floyd and So Many Others...

We hope everyone has been well and pushing through this crazy time in a thoughtful and peaceful way. Over the last few months, we’ve had quite a few partnerships with businesses and schools looking to introduce guided meditation in a virtual way, to help students and adults alike cope with this new environment. In an effort to continue this work and really stay true to our mission of bringing meditation to the masses, something has to give.

The need right now is working with our partners to further our mission of making meditation accessible and relatable to those who are struggling in this new environment and we're creating the time and capacity to answer this call by putting an indefinite hold on the podcast. While this decision was made reluctantly, please know that it was carefully considered.

As you know from our past breaks, we will always leave you with resources. To help you build during this time, we've compiled our best 10 topics and recapped them in this episode. These are all the episodes most likely to keep you growing while we’re away!
For those of you who may miss our couch conversations, jokes and banter without the Weekly Wellness podcast, we encourage you to start from the beginning. We've covered so many topics over the years that we feel comfortable in taking this step without leaving you hangin'. You have access to all of our past podcasts on Soundcloud, iTunes or other streaming services to keep you going and we have over 100 episodes of mindful wellness tips to keep you engaged, peaceful, and growing.

We’re also not going anywhere. If you miss us, reach out at info@blackzen.co to chat or say “hey”. We love you all like family, so please treat this as an open invitation to keep in touch. We'll also update our website (blackzen.co) with news when we have it, and you never know, with us we could be back in the near future if the feeling strikes ;)

Always your partners in progress,
The Black Zen Team

E124_Top 10 Podcasts Most Likely To Help You Grow

This podcast is a weekly discussion on selected wellness topics designed to make you laugh, provide insight and support meditation-based practices.

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