Introduction to Meditation and Mindfulness (6wks)
Weekly Meditation Group
Limber Yoga Meditation Group
Sundays at 6pm
Where: Limber Yoga - In-studio only.
There’s a funny thing about being a city dweller. We are surrounded by humans buzzing about and outlets for stress relief and, yet, can often feel disconnected, lonely, and left to struggle alone with challenges. Booo!
Let’s do something about all that - all while soaking up the benefits of practicing meditation as a group! Accountability and motivation for starters, but we can also learn a bunch from each other’s experiences, insights and challenges.
What will we do?
A short greeting and item of insight/inspiration/reflection to ponder.
A guided meditation (drawing from a variety of practices and traditions). Follow along or proceed with your own practice. Doodle, yoga, stare hypnotically at a candle flame. Whatever works!
Group discussion about the incredible, weird, and challenging world of being a human. Again, verbal participation is not mandatory.
Come as you are. Experienced, beginner, dedicated, distracted, restless, bored, sleepy, unsure, a big ol mess, cool and confident. All are welcome! Let’s explore being human together and see where it takes us. Weee!
This is not specifically a Buddhist or religious class. We’ll be trying on a variety of practices, traditions and modern approaches to ancient teachings that are useful to people from all walks of life regardless of their religious background.
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3 Week Series: Learn to Meditate
Where: Limber Yoga - Both in-studio and remote options available. Recordings will be provided to support your practice and if you have to miss a live session.
Sign up Here: https://www.limberyoga.com/intro-to-meditation--mindfulness.html
Short Description:
In this 3-week series, I’ll be breaking down the practice of meditation to its basic elements in a way that is clear, light-hearted, accessible, and fun.
The idea behind practicing meditation is to strengthen our capacity to experience “things as they are” directly without the filters of discursive thinking, evaluation, or habitual reactivity. There’s a million ways to do this. We’ll dabble a bit and find some that work for you.
So, come as you are - experienced, beginner, dedicated, distracted, restless, bored, sleepy, highly suspect, confident. All are welcome!
What will you learn?
How to Meditate
Working with Thoughts, Stress, and Difficult Emotions
Quick Methods You Can Use In the Flow of Life
To Create a Customized Practice that Suits Your Particular Needs and Temperament
How this Practice Ripples Out and Positively Impacts Our Communities
This is not a Buddhist class. It is a modern approach to ancient teachings that is useful to people from all walks of life regardless of their religious background.
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Long Description Intro Class:
You may have an idea of what meditation and/or mindfulness is. Perhaps you picture someone sitting peacefully on a little pillow, cross legged with hands in some sort of perfect pinch formation, and a slight smile on their face. Ahhhh almighty bliss, zen, enlightenment. Must be nice.
You may also have heard that regular meditation practice can bring about many wondrous benefits: feeling less stressed and more focused, increased productivity and improved performance, better sleep, and lower blood pressure. That and more is all possible and super duper great (if and when it happens), but that’s not really the purpose of mindfulness.
More deeply, the true purpose of mindfulness is to totally transform your way of being in the world.
Insight meditation, which we will be exploring in this course, strengthens our capacity to experience “things as they are” directly without the filter of discursive thinking, evaluation, or habitual reactivity. It consists of bringing a natural and clear attention to whatever occurs in the present moment. Instead of just reacting automatically or being carried away by thoughts about the past or future, with insight meditation there is (at least more often than before) awareness, clarity, and choice.
The point of the practice isn't to improve or feel better about yourself in some way. It is to be free from yourself.
So, back to the person sitting perfectly perched on a cushion looking calm. What you may not know is, just like you and most humans on earth, they are likely experiencing a complete shit show inside their mind and body. They are likely restless, bored, and experiencing a hurricane of thoughts. That’s all part of the fun, exploration, and discovery!
My goal isn't just to teach you basic relaxation exercises (we’ll do those too), but rather to introduce you to mindfulness of body and emotions and also to begin working with thoughts and beliefs as a toe dip into the pond of living a more fulfilling, meaningful life (queue the ducks: quack quack!).
