Mindful Foliage

This recording is certainly a break from most of the noise that goes on during the day! When the wind isn't blowing, it's completely silent - somehow pressing down on your ears even more heavily than sound would. 

Take a 10 minute vacation from the sounds outside with a little bit of desert quiet.

If you've ever settled in to prune an especially important or lovely plant, then you probably know the joyously powerful sense of awareness this has brought. It can certainly be easier at times to bring your awareness to a plant than to the mindless mindfulness of deep meditation. 

Today we'll be engaging three of the senses, all centered around whatever plant catches your attention. Starting with vision, one of the easiest senses to engage in nature, you'll be guided to look over every aspect of whatever is growing before you. Smell too, which floats on the wind and air that both your and the plant are sharing. Texture is just as important, to get a sense of the plant's physicality. 

Please to do not breathe in or touch plants that might cause an allergic reaction or other issues. I wouldn't touch a poison ivy - but they're probably fine to look at! 

This guided practice can be performed indoors or outdoors equally well. I recommend trying both if you have the time and weather to do so. 

The outside world is always putting on a music show. The unique combination of wind, water, rustling plants, and moving critters provides a cacophony of sound to keep you right in the here and now. It's impossible to predict (and difficult to record!), and sometimes the best thing to do is sit back and listen. Being present for all these wonderful sounds can deepen our connection to nature. And, added benefit, mindful listening is a practice we can benefit from at nearly any time.

I highly encourage you to go outside and find a comfortable place to sit or lay down. Even if it's not in the heart of the woods or adjacent a burbling stream, I'm sure there's a tree rustling or a bird calling somewhere nearby. If the outdoors are a little far away, listening to the sounds happening outside your building, inside it, and in the same room are useful alternatives.

Today's guided meditation is a routine that I employ pretty often. This session includes three easy practices:

This combination of practices is easy to work into other meditation routines or expand into a longer session. 

The guided portion begins at 1:50. The introduction prior to that explains how each of the steps will go - recommended if you've never tries humming bee breath!

One of my favorite practices is simply sitting still and listening to nature. There's always something going on out there - nature is always making music through the plants, animals, wind, water, and earth. Being present for all these wonderful sounds can deepen our connection to nature. And, added benefit, mindful listening is a practice we can benefit from at nearly any time. 

I highly encourage you to go outside and find a comfortable place to sit or lay down. Even if it's not in the heart of the woods or adjacent a burbling stream, I'm sure there's a tree rustling or a bird calling somewhere nearby. If the outdoors are a little far away, listening to the sounds happening outside your building, inside it, and in the same room are useful alternatives. 

The guided portion begins at 1:10. The goal is to keep your awareness on the sounds happening around you. To make this easier, try to practice this with only one earbud in, or by playing it off the phone speakers. Give your ears the chance to hear the music. 

Square breathing is a pranayama that flows exactly how it sounds. Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 4, then hold for 4 more. This even pace is astoundingly powerful at calming the body and mind together. The long holds stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, balancing it against an overactive sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system. 

Try to breathe deep into the lungs. Use your diaphragm, and focus on the feeling of your belly expanding and contracting with each breath. If you're not yet used to breathing with your diaphragm, then it may be easier to practice laying down.

The guided portion begins at 1:28. You can practice square breathing anywhere you can practice regular breath! Once you become accustomed to the rhythm, try changing the pace to be a little longer or slower, or just breathe evenly at whatever pace feels right for the moment. I highly encourage you to practice square breathing whenever you have a few spare moments and a desire to relax. 

When thoughts get a little too intrusive or it seems impossible to clear your head, sometimes simply making some noise can drown out the events going on in your mind. For this follow-along meditation, we'll be chanting Om for a few minutes. If you'd like to continue after the podcast is over, I highly encourage it! 

The chanting portion begins at 4:25. The segment beforehand is an introduction and time to settle in. 

Om (Aum) is a combination of three sounds, made without the tongue in use:

These three sounds (and the silence between them) are the basic sounds of the universe. They combine together, are mixed up with the tongue, and come out as the words and sentences and speech we use. By chanting them, we resonate with them, and the sounds to unlock stuck points in the body and spirit. 

Today I'm back at my favorite canyon for mindful listening. This is an invitation to listen to nature at three distances - far away, middle distance, and right near by. Take in the music of nature all around you, and experience it as if it's your first time. 

This episode is a sound to lose your thoughts to - waves crashing on a rocky beach. I apologize for any audio quality issues, as I'm still learning about audio equipment and how to handle wind outdoors. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to send me an email at mindfulfoliage@gmail.com

This was recorded along the beach at one of my favorite sit spots, outside the mouth of a canyon. Dried kelp marks the high tide line, and there I sat. 

I hope you find these sounds as soothing as they are in person. 

A medicine bowl, also known as a singing bowl or brass bowl, is a happy little round piece of resonance. I enjoy playing and listening to singing bowls as a part of my practice, and I hope you do too. The sounds are soothing and just a little hypnotic, and provide a great way to gently move into a mindful state. They can resonate with the energies of your body, opening up stuck paths.

This is a relatively short piece. I hope it provides you a few minutes of calmness in what might otherwise be a hectic day.

Sometimes it's nice to relax and be present in the moment. No plans, no memories, no worries or thoughts. Instead, just let your mind be aware of events happening in the here and now. For today's practice, we start with the breath. 

Square breathing is a rhythm of breath where all parts are even. 4 seconds inhaling, 4 holding, 4 seconds exhaling, 4 holding. This can connect you deeply with your nervous system and help bring balance to your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. 

Following this, we set our awareness to listening. A skill useful in daily life as much as in mindfulness, listening involved directing your awareness to particular sounds happening right now. You connect with the present moment through the sounds happening far away, closer, and then very close to you. 

I hope you find this practice to be relaxing and centering, and an easy break from a stressful day. 

Hello everyone! 

Daily mindfulness practice is one of the best ways to keep your mind and heart in balance (not to mention the many benefits for the brain and body!). Most days, I enjoy starting my practice with the same routine, to get centered and present in the moment. 

To start, a round of resonant breathing. This is breathing to a rhythm of: inhale for 5 seconds, pause, exhale for 5 seconds, pause. This particular pace of diaphragmatic breathing can activate the vagus nerve while bringing balance to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It's also a wonderful way to explore your breathing, keeping your awareness engaged on the relaxation growing in your body. 

Next up is a round of Bhramari, humming bee breath. It creates a wonderful resonance in the throat and head, pushing errant thoughts away while freeing up your voice. It helps you connect with the feeling and resonance of sound itself. 

Then a steady body scan, piece by piece. Starting with the right thumb and moving across every part, this is a chance to connect with your body through the application of your awareness. 

Then a final round of Bhramari to relax the mind even further. 

I hope this is a practice you can enjoy implementing daily as well! 

A medicine bowl, also known as a singing bowl or brass bowl, is a happy little round piece of resonance. I enjoy playing and listening to singing bowls as a part of my practice, and I hope you do too. The sounds are soothing and just a little hypnotic, and provide a great way to gently move into a mindful state. They can resonate with the energies of your body, opening up stuck paths. 

This is a relatively short piece. I hope it provides you a few minutes of calmness in what might otherwise be a hectic day. 

Yoga Nidra is a guided yogic sleep. Unlike normal sleep where your dreams happen in an uncontrolled manner, Yoga Nidra allows you to control your dreaming state. 

This will be a journey with ten stages. We’ll start with some deep relaxation, bringing you out of the world and into yourself. Then, you’ll state your sankalpa - a statement of resolve, your intent for today’s meditation. Personally, I’ll be using, “I am peace.” Settling in deeper, you’ll move your awareness throughout the body, taking in each and every part. You’ll become familiar with how the earth is supporting your body, and where your body sits in the room. Then, a return to the breath, the foundation of a strong practice. With the body calm and the mind quiet, you’ll move through pure sensations - heat, cold, weight. With your senses quiet, it’ll be time to step into the realm of pure emotion, and of visualizing the thoughts and feelings that might still be sparking up inside you. When the body, breath, mind, and heart are calm, you’ll step into your subconscious. You’ll have the opportunity to remind yourself, through your sankalpa, of who you really are.

Then it’s time to return to the world as a calm, centered being.

This breathing practice comes with a rather unique sensation - buzzing like a bee. This yogic breathing practice can bring instant calm, soothing your mind especially well. This practice quite literally sets your brain abuzz. If you’ve got an active mind that feels too busy for meditation, this can drone out those thoughts.

Like other pranayama, Humming Bee Breath activates the autonomic nervous system. It encourages your body to find balance. In today’s world of a myriad little stresses, the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) is often left activated far more than the parasympathetic (rest and digest). This practice on its own stimulates the vagus nerve and brings balance to the ANS. If you lengthen the exhalation relative to the inhalation, it also activates the parasympathetic nervous system deeply.

If you’re feeling particularly stressed, just remember to breathe out slowly!

Today's guided meditation is a nice and slow-paced round of listening. Rather than have you go outdoors like I normally recommend, this is listening to what's around where you normally are. If you've been stuck at home for a while, you might be looking for any way to get outside the moment. In this session, we delve right back in to the here and now. 

At the start, I'll also guide you through a few minutes of resonant breathing. This pranayama gets your system in balance, and resonating with itself. This is a diaphragmatic breathing exercise that activates your parasympathetic nervous system and your vagus nerve. Resonant breathing is also known as coherent breathing - and can consciously boost your Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

Today's episode is a pretty short walkthrough of Simhasana, Lion's Breath. Get ready to wake up!

Simhasana pranayama is a great way to let out some noise. Simhasana’s story draws from an old fable, in which Vishnu appears in the form “Narasimha” (half lion, half man) and is generally quite fierce in vanquishing a demon.

That same ferocity, minus the demon, works here on your throat and face. This is an energizing practice, releasing tension in your throat and letting your voice work free. You embody the essence of a leaping, roaring, half-lion god in stirring the energies of your breath. Simhasana is a great breath to apply when you’re feeling angry or anxious, or when you haven’t been expressing yourself in the right way.

Sitali Pranayama can help lower your body temperature and relax your thoughts. It has an overall calming effect on the nervous system, reducing anxiety and agitation. It helps improve focus and reduce high blood pressure. According to some, it cultivates a love of solitude – but that may be because you’re sticking your tongue out like a taco.

For those of us in SoCal with the pending heatwaves and wildfire season, this breath is a must-have. It brings cooling, moistened air into your lungs as needed. It brings down a pitta imbalance, which can build during the summer months.

(Guided portion begins at 7:15)

Resonant breathing is a uniquely-paced breathing exercise. Rather than settling into a timeless rhythm or counting numbers, you’ll be sticking to a set number of complete breaths per minute. In this case, 5. At a pace of 5 full breaths per minute, each breath is allotted 12 seconds. This means you’ll inhale for 5 seconds, pause for one, exhale for 5 seconds, then pause again.

Resonant breathing, also known as coherent breathing, has been shown to maximize your heart rate variability (HRV) and stimulate your vagus nerve.

Please try your best to breathe with your diaphragm. The more effective your breath is, the more effective your practice will be. Try to be mindful and aware during each breath. Allow your senses to center on your breathing, and then expand to take in your whole body.

Diaphragmatic breathing is the foundation for many other breathing exercises.

On a purely physical level, this breathing exercise works the muscles responsible for breathing. And like fixing your posture, becoming familiar with this style of breathing can help fix poor breath practices. It trains your diaphragm to be responsible for the effort of breathing, unlike untrained breathing which can use the muscles of your chest, ribs, and back.

Breathing with your diaphragm can make each breath a little easier and more effective. It can aid you in sinking deeper into focus and concentration as you meditate, or bring you energy as you breathe deeply in the moment. How you apply it is up to you! 

Yoga Nidra is a guided yogic sleep. We’ll relax every part of you, one by one, as deeply as can be. Yoga Nidra is a form of sleep that allows you to be fully conscious. You can relax into your self and have some time away from the stress of the world. 

To go on this journey, you’re going to need a Sankalpa - a vow that connects you with your highest truth. Most goals and resolutions look to change you, but the Sankalpa reminds you that everything you need is already within you. All your happiness, your joy, even your anger comes from within you. Your Sankalpa is a reflection of your innermost, heartfelt truth or desire. It is a personal statement of resolve.

I hope you enjoy this guided meditation!

This time, we've got a self-centering practice. We'll take a look at a few emotions, one by one. We'll bundle all the thoughts, feelings, and memories we have about an emotion, then push it a few feet away. Distance gives us the chance to observe easily, and we can get a look at the shape, size, and texture of each emotion. 

Then, it's time to bring it all back in and accept it. No sense leaving bad emotions outside for other people to trip over!

Simply listening to nature makes me so wonderfully happy. Sometimes, the right thing to do is just sit there and be, while nature is all around you. Today's episode is focused on exactly that - getting settled in the outdoors while sounds are happening all around. This recording was made in my favorite sitting spot, deep in a nearby canyon. It's full of wonderful birds and lively wind, with the occasional dripping water coming from the walls. 

If you can't get outside in the near future to listen to nature, I hope that the sounds in the background of this meditation help you visualize nature. 

Today's practice is focused on settling yourself firmly in the now. It starts with the breath, and then a steady body scan. You'll take a look at each part of the body, bringing it into your awareness to feel it as it is. Once you're fully inside your body, it's time for the main course: Concentrating on a single object. This is a concentration exercise that keeps you anchored to the present moment with an object in your view. 

Before starting the meditation, make sure to pick your object of choice! Pick something small enough that your eyes can take it in completely without moving, and big enough that you don't have to squint. I often use a small leaf for this practice. 

Concentrating on a single object settles your mind quite firmly into the present moment. When you focus completely on a task, nothing else interrupts you. Your own thoughts don’t get in the way, and neither do any of your worries and aversions. Concentrating in a mindful way is much like this, except that you’re not really trying to accomplish something. You’re trying to simply be. And, at the same time, not trying. At first, it will take effort. Your attention will wander to thoughts, you’ll force yourself back to the task of concentrating. As your ability for mindfulness builds, you’ll find yourself drifting away less. At the same time, you’ll find directing your attention to be even easier. At the very height of mindful concentration, this will take no effort at all. You’re working to not work.

This change in concentration doesn’t happen overnight. For most of us, there’s no sudden moment of enlightenment that makes it all click. You may sit one day and find yourself settling easily into focusing on a single object. Other days, you may be tired, spending as much time re-straightening your back as you do trying not to think about it.

Concentration improves gradually.

Please practice from a state of kindness and compassion for yourself and whatever you’re looking at. Be gentle with yourself when your awareness wanders, and be kind with how you encourage yourself to draw it back to the object in the present moment.

Nature is one of the most wonderful artists. A rich visual tapestry, full of the tastiest food and the most delightful scents, also makes music that can't be predicted or copied. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is sit down and listen. This is a guided listening meditation meant for use in the outdoors. Spend some time reconnecting with nature and all the life that exists around you. 

I hope you can find some time to explore nature before or after the episode. The outdoors and the life within it are some of the greatest gifts around us.

Get yourself outdoors for a bit with this guided mediation of the senses! We'll start by getting centered, then transition to exploring scent. Spend some time with the air that's moving all through you. Move on to mindful listening, one of the greatest qualities we can employ. Hear the sounds all around you, and exist within their music. Then we engage our bodily feeling, as we explore the support the earth offers our bodies. If you're in the right place, finish up with some time looking!

I hope you can find some time to explore nature before or after the episode. The outdoors and the life within it are some of the greatest gifts around us. 

It's time to sit down and get a look at our emotions. It's easier to get an idea of how our emotions act within and without us if we can get a view of how they are - totally. We need our emotions, so let's not leave them out. We'll pull them back into our glowing heart center, to transmute them into love. 

I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing time. 

Squeeze and Release is an easy exercise that can relax you any time you have a few minutes and a clear patch of ground. Just tighten a muscle very firmly, hold it for a moment, then let it go completely. This is a guided once-over of your whole body, running just a few minutes. The guided portion starts at 2:57. 

Please be aware of any conditions or adverse effects that might come from tightening certain muscle groups. Be aware of your body. 

Yoga Nidra is a guided yogic sleep. We’ll relax every part of you, one by one, before we journey inward, away from the senses. And there, resting calmly in the center of your being, you’ll have the space to simply be.

To go on this journey, you’re going to need a Sankalpa - a vow that connects you with your highest truth. Most goals and resolutions look to change you, but the Sankalpa reminds you that everything you need is already within you. All your happiness, your joy, even your anger comes from within you. Your Sankalpa is a reflection of your innermost, heartfelt truth or desire. It is a personal statement of resolve.

I hope you enjoy this guided meditation!

This episode was recorded at the bottom of a narrow canyon. Water pours down constantly from the rock wall and hard-packed dirt up above, causing frequent landslides. Objects fall in from above, like forgotten bits of nature. A piece of bamboo five inches across and eight feed long lay impaled on the rocks at the bottom. 

As water dripped on it from above, the hollow shape acted as a beautiful drum. Birds argued throughout the canyon - finches, hummingbirds, and the occasional crow. 

I imagined this was the sound of a midday rain on the a home in the jungle, or a quietly rainy day on the balcony. 

This field recording was recorded by placing the microphone as close as possible to the falling water without it getting wet. It is a continual recording, omitting only my footsteps at the beginning and the end of placing the microphone. 

I hope you enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed being there.