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More Americans Are Meditating - ABC News

Meditation has hit the mainstream.  ABC News reports that 40% of Americans are now meditating with positive results.  Check out the story:  "Changing Your Life Through Meditation".

 

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Excerpt from Marianne Williamson's Lecture "You Are the Solution"

Recorded on Election Day, November 2010, the message from this transcripted excerpt from Marianne Williamson's lecture "You Are the Solution" remains relevant today and every day. Recorded live in Los Angeles as part of Marianne's Tuesday evening lecture series.  

All jokes aside, this is for all of us no matter what our politics are - we need a miracle here. And miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. So we are being asked to love the candidates that we do not agree with, which is particularly difficult on the days when they win. But this is extremely important because if we are to look at politics in general in America today and remember this issue that only what we are not giving can be lacking in any situation. If we feel that there is anger from a metaphysical perspective. Remember darkness is the absence of light. You do not get rid of darkness by hitting it with a baseball bat. You only get rid of darkness by turning on the light. 

Excerpt 2 from "Men & Women: Talking Together" with Deborah Tannen and Robert Bly

"Men and Women: Talking Together" is an enlightening program with men's movement pioneer and poet Robert Bly and communications expert Deborah Tannen talking about the different ways men and women communicate.  Enjoy some of Robert Bly's exquisite poetry that he performs in this award winning program.

"After we had loved each other intently, we heard notes tumbling together in late winter.

And we heard ice falling from the ends of twigs. The notes abandoned so much as they moved. The notes abandoned so much as they moved.

They are the food not eaten. The comfort not taken. The lies not spoken.

The music is my intention to you. The music is my attention to you. And when the music came again later in the day, I saw tears in your eyes. I saw you turn your face away so that the others would not see.

When men and women come together, how much they have to abandon. When men and women come together how much they have to abandon. Wrens make their nests of fancy threads and string ends. Animals abandon all their money every year. That’s my best line. Animals abandon all their money every year."

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Robert Bly Bio and Links

Lesson Seven from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

We are delighted to share with you another amazing lesson from Jon Kabat-Zinn's:

LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 
100 Lessons in Mindfulness

LESSON 7: Right Attitude

The attitude with which you undertake the practice of paying attention and being in the present is crucial. It is the soil in which you will be cultivating your ability to calm your mind and to relax your body, to concentrate and to see more clearly. If the attitudinal soil is depleted, that is, if your energy and commitment to practice are low, it will be hard to develop calmness and relaxation with any consistency. If the soil is really polluted, that is, if you are trying to force yourself to feel relaxed and demand of yourself that “something happen,” nothing will grow at all and you will quickly conclude that “meditation doesn’t work.” 

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Available on BetterListen! -- Jon Kabat-Zinn's The World of Relaxation

Available on Amazon -- Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

 

Excerpt from Robert Bly's "What Stories Do We Need"

The following is a transcribed excerpt from "What Stories Do We Need" -- a thought provoking and timeless recording by poet and men's movement pioneer Robert Bly.  "What Stories Do We Need" reminds us that we all carry a personal mythology, but the stories we tell ourselves may not be entirely true... Recorded live at The New York Open Center.

We’re talking about mythology today. And mythology moves towards the soul in the same way that philosophy moves towards the brain. In fact, I think Joe Campbell said the other day, all philosophy is a frozen form of mythology and if you really love a philosopher, then try to recognize the philosopher as being a kind of an ice over the water on which you could walk. And that’s nice, but try to go below and see what the water is doing down there. And in that case, he believes that every philosophical idea has a mythological image underneath it, including all those ones, Heraclitus, and all of that. They come out of centuries of wild mythological imaging.

Excerpt from Marianne Williamson's Lecture "The Power of Stillness"

The following transcribed excerpt is a profound teaching from Marianne Williamson on how we push away that which we most long for by grasping.  This is part of a lecture by Marianne recorded live in Los Angeles on October 5, 2010.  The message is timeless.

I love that section in the Course of Miracles. I love that whole idea that the ego’s dictate in love is “seek but do not find”. We are constantly on a search for love and we are constantly on a search for the various things that we think would mean love. So it could be the love of a person, it could be a certain kind of job, or it could be a certain form of anything. But we are always seeking for that which we think will complete us. 

However, when we are following the dictates of the ego, in doing so we are so misguided in our perception of what it is that is love and what it is that truly completes us, that misperceiving we behave in the very way that self-sabotages and makes sure that we repel rather than attract what it is that we want. We all know what it is to mess up because you cared too much. Sometimes we do this with other people. Sometimes we do this in job interviews. There is a certain way to be hungry that is a good thing, but there is another way of being hungry that is filled with a kind of frantic grasp. And when we are grasping for something, I’ll be okay if I can be in this relationship, I’ll be okay if I can have this place to live, I’ll be okay if I could have that money, I’ll be okay if I could have that job. God does not grasp. God is not overwhelmed. God is not worried. And our purpose on this earth is to learn to love as God loves.   To learn to love as God loves is the same thing as saying to learn to think as God thinks. 

Excerpt from "The Toxic Mind" by Armand DiMele

 

 

In "The Toxic Mind", host of “The Positive Mind” radio show and founder of the DiMele Center for Psychotherapy, Armand DiMele,  along with special guest Roberta Maria Atti, talks about the side effects of suppressing feelings like anger and frustration, and discuss ways to prevent the side effects from suppressing emotions and how to heal them.  Following is an excerpt from this important program.

 

 

 

Hey listen -- here’s something for you to consider. Consider this: the continual suppression of emotions during fight or flight reactions results in atrophy, an endogenous toxicosis in noradrenic neurons. How do you like them apples? That’s what our program is going to be about today. Today we’re going to be talking about this and that sounds pretty technical, doesn’t it? Well, Roberta and I have uncovered The Biology of Mental Illness and Violence, and it’s really remarkable, by E. Van Winkle. And by the way, this work is available in 23 languages. It’s called “The Toxic Mind”. E. Van Winkle just woke up to write this article. 

Let’s start with the theory, the idea here, the following hypothesis, right? The continued suppression of emotions means you feel something and you don’t let yourself manifest it. It comes up, you feel it, and it gets shut off for one reason or another. During fight or flight reactions, now that means when you’re excited, nervous, or tense, when your body is saying we have to do something and we’re going to get all ready for action. So that’s the fight or flight reactions, that if you don’t do something when your body says we’re ready to do something about the situation, it results in a toxic accumulation. Now that’s what we’re going to look at today. 

This is a really interesting thing. How could that be? How does it work? Well, we know how it works because we see it all the time. Your leader at work is in a miserable mood and they bark at you, and you get upset but you can’t say anything about it. So it boils. Part of the suppression of emotions is actually what is the backbone of civilization.   We as civilized humans, we suppress emotions in part because it’s necessary in order to function in a human society.

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Armand DiMele bio and links