The ground of loving kindness is seeing the basic goodness in ourselves, each other and our world. This is what gives rise to pure appreciation, friendliness, love and the felt-sense of belonging. In this talk we explore what obscures and contracts our perceptual field, and the pathway of purposefully awakening this transformational capacity of cherishing all life.

www.tarabrach.com

Cultivating Loving Kindness

This heart meditation guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a direct sense of belonging – knowing that we can never be alone (given on retreat).

Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness - Befriending our Lives

2014-02-26 Guided Meditation: A Healing Breath

Meditation: A Healing Breath

Guided Meditation - Letting In Love

Meditation - Letting Life Be Just As It Is - TaraBrach

Did you know you have a hundred million neurons (also called nerve cells or brain cells) in your intestines? The gut is now being referred to by many scientists as the gut-brain. Your heart, in addition to its other functions, also acts as a heart-brain. It’s made up of about 40,000 neurons, all of which can sense, feel, learn and remember. 
 
Yep, that’s right. We have three brains communicating together at any one point in time – The more official names are- the  and you is is you and you (head), the cardiac brain (heart), and the enteric brain (gut). Each organ has complex neuro-networks and is able to store and process information, and each has the capacity for neuroplasticity.

Many ancient wisdom teachings have put great emphasis on checking into one’s own innate intelligence, speaking about following the wisdom of the heart and gut feelings. In recent years technology and neuroscience have finally advanced enough to prove these wisdom teachings to be correct so we now know for sure... our bodies have not one, but three brains. Each of which have different ways of ‘knowing’.

Here is how you can use the intelligence wisdom and intuition of your three brains to make better decisions and stay more in touch with what really matters.

How To Practice The ‘Head-Heart-Gut’ Check In 

We make a lot of decisions every day and these decisions are what determine the direction and quality of our lives. Some are little. Some are completely life altering. All of them matter as you steer the course of your life at each little juncture.

Any time you’re at a decision point you can use this mini meditation to respond (and not react)  to what is arising with with wisdom and intelligence, making more mindful choices leading to a fuller happier more authentic life.

Step 1: Take three deep slow conscious breaths as a way of gathering your awareness to the present moment.

Step 2: Take a deep slow breath as you take your attention to the head and notice what kinds of thoughts are present in relation to the current situation. 

Step 3: Drop awareness down to the heart area as you take another deep slow breath. Take a moment to attend to what values you have in this situation, what you care about and what your deepest intention is. 

Step 4: Drop awareness down into the gut. As you take another breath, acknowledge any hunches, intuitions or emotions that are present.

Step 5: Collect all this Information and take another breath in and out as you mentally ask yourself the question “what shall I do now?” Listen for the answer.

The ‘Head-Heart-Gut’ Check In can be done in just seven breaths. This powerful, simple mini meditation will help you connect to your whole self in the moments when you need it the most. 

Why not give it a try today (and let me know how you go on the facebook page!)

May it be an ally and a support to you in your moments of decision today and beyond

Warmly, 

Melli O’Brien

The Head-Heart-Gut Check In: A One Minute Meditation for Making Wise Choices

This is a guided meditation by Kristen Neff. It is tailored to cultivate self compassion and is a variation of the classic loving kindness practice. Learn more at http://self-compassion.org

Kristen Neff - Self Compassion Meditation

Here is a meditation you can use for overcoming negative thinking. This is one of many meditations I have recorded for the Meditation Studio app (my favourite meditation app) – you can find more of their high quality meditations here: https://apple.co/2BAFphK

Mindfulness Meditation

Untangle Negative Thoughts, from Mediation Studio app

This guided practice includes a body scan, and an opening to the awareness that includes all of life. From that wakeful openness we offer a relaxed attentiveness to the changing flow, and close with loving kindness to ourselves and our world.

Meditation: Awake and Alive - Tara Brach

Practice the RAIN Meditation with Tara Brach

Compassion is hard wired in our organism, and can be cultivated. We have the capacity for affiliative care, to tune into each other and to hold each other in our hearts. Developing this innate potential is the hope of our world.

Using the acronym R-A-I-N (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture), this meditation offers guidance in mindfully attuning to the emotional experience of others and awakening our natural tenderness and care.

Guided Reflection: The RAIN of Compassion

Meditation teacher, author, and clinical psychologist: Tara Brach has practiced and taught meditation for over 40 years, with an emphasis on vipassana (mindfulness or insight) meditation. Tara is a teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. A clinical psychologist, Tara is the author of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart and Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of R.A.I.N. Her podcasts are downloaded over 2 million times a month.

Guided Reflection: The RAIN of Compassion

Tara Brach

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