Our Mindful Nature: Meditations Inspired by Nature to Soothe the Overwhelmed Mind and Ease Anxiety

Today’s episode is a special meditation-only episode, just for your practice! In this 10-minute meditation, we go on a journey through the winter woods. First, through a snowy pine forest with the wind washing over us, clearing away any lingering tension or worry. Then, we find ourselves atop a frozen lake. Don’t worry - it is steady and safe; so we sit in the middle of this frozen lake and we listen as it expands. Then the scene changes, dream-like, and we find ourselves settled in front of a campfire. The wind is faint; the campfire is warm, and again, we listen to the sounds of transformation and expansion. Perhaps you even ask yourself, “how am I transforming this season?”These soundscapes and images (if you are watching on YouTube) are from Nick McMahan. Nick is a nature field recordist from Washington State. He has worked closely with acclaimed acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, Offspring Film, Audible Sleep Sound, and numerous independent collaborations. The Director of Quiet Trails for Quiet Parks International (QPI), Nick’s recording experience ranges internationally from extreme cold, tropical rainforests, mountains to deserts. Specializing in soundscape, ambiance, and unusual sound, leads Nick to become a better listener and observer of the world.You can find Nick and his work here:https://www.nickcmcmahan.comhttps://www.instagram.com/nickcmcmahanhttps://www.youtube.com/@nickmcmahanSign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations each week, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.cominstagram.com/merylarnettyoutube.com/@themindfulminutepodcast#meditatewithmeryl

Walking through the woods is perhaps my favorite activity of all, and there is no better experience (in my opinion) than walking through the woods in winter. The space. The silence. The biting cold. All of it crackles with a kind of energy, a nudge towards contemplation and reflection.Yet, in a recent conversation, I was reminded that winter can be very, very different depending on where you live. So, today, in the first of what I hope is many collaborative episodes, I am sharing a conversation with nature field recordist Nick McMahan about the varied experiences of winter.Nick is a nature field recordist from Washington State. He has worked closely with acclaimed acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, Offspring Film, Audible Sleep Sound, and numerous independent collaborations. The Director of Quiet Trails for Quiet Parks International (QPI), Nick’s recording experience ranges internationally from extreme cold, tropical rainforests, mountains to deserts. Specializing in soundscape, ambiance, and unusual sound, leads Nick to become a better listener and observer of the world.Together, we walk through the winter woods discussingThe transformative effects of windLying on a frozen lake at night listening to owls hoot in the backgroundCozying up to a campfire under the winter night skyExpansion, contraction, fracturing, and growingThe power of taking in the whole rather than breaking everything up into piecesAt the end, we listen to a full journey through the woods inviting you to reflect on your own experience of winter and how that is reflected within your internal landscape. Learn more about Nick and listen to his recordings here:https://www.nickcmcmahan.comhttps://www.instagram.com/nickcmcmahanhttps://www.youtube.com/@nickmcmahanBe sure to Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations each week, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.instagram.com/merylarnettyoutube.com/@themindfulminutepodcast#meditatewithmeryl

While on my winter sabbatical at the end of 2023, I had the profound privilege of reading Jacqueline Suskin’s newest book, A Year in Practice; Seasonal Rituals & Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression, and subsequently chatting with her. I’m delighted to share this conversation with you today as a spark of inspiration, a nudge to burrow in, and an invitation to connect fully with the season of winter.My favorite area of exploration is the intersection of contemplative practices, nature and creativity. Jacqueline explores this intersection in depth as a poet and educator who has been teaching workshops, writing books, hosting retreats, and creating spontaneous poetry around the world since 2009.  In this conversation, we chat about 06:12 The Impact of Seasons on Practice10:56 The Cycle of Forgetfulness13:33 The Influence of Seasons on Creative Expression19:26 The Practice of Rest in Winter28:20 Creating a Retreat at Home33:33 The Role of Dreams in Creativity39:32 The Power of Journal Review50:32 Winter Reflections and PracticesListeners, that journal review process was a revelation (imagine a mind blown emoji here!) and I plan on embarking on this process immediately! At the end of the conversation, Jacqueline shares a winter prompt inspired by the lesson of nature and how it might serve as a mirror for us. Don’t miss it.You can learn more about Jacqueline and order her new book via her website: jacquelinesuskin.com.Sign up for my newsletter at merylarnett.substack.com  to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

Today’s episode of The Mindful Minute is the second installment of a 2-part series dedicated to the emotion of awe.In this conversation, Jake Eagle, co-author of 'The Power of Awe', and I discuss the concept of 'awe' and its significance in handling existential anxiety and conquering stress. What I love about listening to these two discussions on awe is that you hear from someone who loves meditation and is ‘good’ at it {Dr. Michael Amster} and you hear from someone who loves meditation but struggles with it {Jake Eagle}. Together, I think we get a well-rounded look at the benefits in incorporating the A.W.E micro-mindfulness practice regardless of whether you also do a full sit-down meditation or not. Jake details the A.W.E. practice and he also guides a powerful meditation he developed to shift through different levels of consciousness (Safety, Heart, and Spacious consciousness). He explains how making these shifts several times a day can reset our nervous system, creating significant positive impacts. Jake was a licensed mental health counselor for the past twenty-seven years, and now practices as a meta-therapist, exploring what comes after therapy. Although Jake recognizes the value of therapy, he also recognizes the limitations, and has developed a method that accelerates and simplifies the process of personal growth. Individuals and couples can experience his work in live sessions or via a digital-platform.Jake is the author of Get Weird, Make the Most of Your Life, and co-founder of liveconscious.com, a community of people practicing skills for living and loving more consciously.In this episode, you can expect:00:05 Introduction and Welcome01:08 The Power of Awe: A Discussion with Jake Eagle01:55 Understanding the Emotion of Awe and Its Impact02:50 The Practice of Awe: A Guided Meditation07:19 The Concept of Micro-Dosing Mindfulness16:09 Different Types of Awe29:58 Understanding Consciousness and its Appropriate Use33:05 The Power of Meditation and Consciousness35:38 Existential Anxiety and its Connection to Consciousness42:01 Guided Meditation: the Practice of Shifting Levels of ConsciousnessLearn more about Jake Eagle here: https://liveconscious.com/ and https://thepowerofawe.com/ Sign up for my newsletter at https://merylarnett.substack.com/ to receive free mini meditations each week, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

Today, we are beginning a two part series with the co-authors of a powerful new book that I am so excited to share with you guys today.In this episode of The Mindful Minute, I talk with Dr. Michael Amster about the power of awe and an incredible micro mindfulness practice that you can do in 30 seconds. I'm not kidding. 30 seconds. And speaking from my own experience with this practice, it will absolutely invigorate your meditation practice and benefit your days.Michael is a San Francisco Bay Area-based physician and faculty member at Touro School of Medicine. As a pain management specialist, Michael is keenly aware of the integration of mind, body, and spirit and the effects of physical and psychospiritual pain on health and well-being.Michael is a student of meditation for over 30 years, as well as a certified yoga teacher and meditation teacher trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.Here is what you can expect in today’s episode: 00:05 Introduction and Welcome07:59 Interview with Dr. Michael Amster09:29 The Power of Awe: A New Approach to Mindfulness13:22 The AWE Method Explained18:42 The Impact of Awe on Emotional State21:22 Practical Application of the AWE Method25:47 Introduction to the Concept of Attention26:43 Sharing Personal Experiences with the Practice29:53 The Power of Sharing Awe with Others30:18 Incorporating Awe into Daily Life31:09 The Conceptual Aspect of Awe32:24 Incorporating the Awe Practice into Daily Routine35:10 The Benefits of the Awe Practice41:45 The Power of Awe: Book and Other Resources43:24 Closing Thoughts and ReflectionsYou can learn more about Dr. Amster and his new book, The Power of Awe here: https://thepowerofawe.com/Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

Hello Dear Listeners! How I have missed you over the last several weeks; I am so excited to share in another year of meditative exploration with you. There are lots of updates and exciting stories to share with you, but, for today, let us linger in the New Year transition.In this mini episode of The Mindful Minute, I talk about the shift into the new year and the idea of having expectations in January. Despite my own excitement for the upcoming year and new projects I plan to share on the podcast, I want to encourage us all to embrace winter as a season of rest, nurturance, and reflection. Let’s explore harvesting your internal fire or energy during winter, allowing it to nourish ideas and projects for the months to come. In this episode, you can expect:01:03 Introduction and New Year Reflections02:28 Understanding the Winter Season04:32 The Concept of Harvesting the Fire06:13 The Symbolism of Fire in Jewish Lore08:50 Invitation to Meditate10:49 Guided Meditation: Connecting with the Internal Flame18:34 Concluding Remarks and FarewellThis episode is written and recorded without the use of AI content creation. If you catch a mistake, I hope it makes you smile knowing a real person is behind each of these stories, ideas and guided meditations. Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

**This class will be the last podcast episode of 2023 for The Mindful Minute. I’ll be taking a break over the winter months to rest, to practice, to study, and feel through what 2024 will ask of all of us as meditation practitioners. I’ll be back in early 2024 with a new year of meditation classes tied to the natural world and centered on well-being for the Earth, humans, and the more-than-humans that make up this universe. I look forward to practicing with you again soon. I have been teaching Monday Night Meditation for 8 years, and airing it on The Mindful Minute podcast for 7 years. It has been my greatest joy to share my own meditative journey and to witness yours as we have practiced together. My own practice has evolved profoundly in the 13 years I have been sitting on a meditation cushion. I began as a Tantric practitioner, settled into Mindfulness for years, and returned to Tantric traditions as my own awareness continues to awaken. For the last several years, I have been deeply devoted to exploring our connection to the natural world, as taught in Tantric traditions, as a connection to our deepest Selves. There is something that happens when we fully embrace our connections to the land that we live, walk, and breathe upon - it allows us to tap into our own inner indigeneity. That rootedness that was here before all else. And, I feel called to further my exploration and deepen my teaching on nature-based meditation - as a response to climate crisis, eco-grief and eco-anxiety certainly. But even more so, as a response to the call to be more ourselves, to be more awake, engaged, and purposeful in how we live and move through the world today. Ancient wisdom traditions teach us that the body is a universe.Carl Sagan once told us that we are “made of star-stuff”. Modern science proves that mindfully connecting to nature has a huge impact on our well-being - boosting immunity, reducing anxiety & enhancing creativity. Yet, weaving together our contemplative practices with the natural world offers us so much more than a quick health fix.Nature-based meditation anchors us in a larger, more ancient story. It invites us to understand ourselves on a deeper level, and offers a tantalizing invitation into the spiritual side of a meditation practice. Nature serves as mirror, storyteller, and space holder.This class will be the last podcast episode of 2023 for The Mindful Minute. I’ll be taking a break over the winter months to rest, to practice, to study, and feel through what 2024 will ask of all of us as meditation practitioners. I’ll be back in early 2024 with a new year of meditation classes tied to the natural world and centered on well-being for the Earth, humans, and the more-than-humans that make up this universe. I look forward to practicing with you again soon. If you have questions or comments, don’t forget you can always reach out via merylarnett.com.Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

What does witchcraft have to do with meditation? SO much more than you might have originally thought, dear listeners. Which is why I am so excited to share a conversation with Jamie Della today.Jamie Della is a witch, an ordained Priestess, and the author of ten books, including her newest book, A Box of Magick, as well as The Book of Spells: The Magick of Witchcraft and The Wicca Cookbook. She has a writer’s spirit and a faery soul, and she loves to teach, create, throw pottery, and get out in nature.Jamie shares that her new book A Box of Magick is an invitation to a magickal life with herbs, rituals, and spells--through the guidance of two priestesses, one here on Earth and one from beyond the veil…Jamie and I talk about the origin story of this book, and we spend a lot of time unpacking the witch archetype in this episode. We also talk about:Elemental magicDivination and synchronicitiesAncestorsEarth-based spirituality …and so much more. I share a bit about my own resonance with the title witch, and I’ll be curious to hear - do you feel a correspondence between your meditation practice and witchcraft after listening to this episode?  Jamie’s new book A Box of Magick is out now and it is a perfect read for the season! Learn more about Jamie here: https://jamiedella.com/PS. Listeners, we recorded this interview right in the middle of mercury retrograde and we have some technical difficulties at the end. If it sounds a little glitchy, well it's the universe’s fault ;-) Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

To allow an emotion to be simply means to let the feelings come and go without needing to DO anything about them. Simple to understand; much much more difficult to put into practice. In today’s episode of The Mindful Minute, we use myth as a pathway to understanding the practice of allowance. Rather than trapping an emotion - giving it a label, a meaning, and box to live in - what if we track the experience? What happens if we stay open to sensation and story? To image and insight? In the last installment of our Big Emotions series, we put together the practice of Soften, Soothe, Allow so that we are able to rest into the experience of attending & befriending our emotions.Join me for a short talk and 20-minute guided meditation.Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl

Oh friends, I am sure, like mine, your heart is broken over the horrors we are witnessing between Israel and Palestine, as well as the hate crimes we are seeing in response to this crisis.In a moment of pure serendipity, I had an interview that was scheduled months ago with poet James Crews to chat about his new book, The Wonder of Small Things; Poems of Peace & Renewal. I originally planned to air this conversation as a Winter Solstice offering, but his book feels like the perfect balm for the pain of this moment. So, I am releasing this episode as quickly as possible in hopes that it offers you a tiny salve for your heart, a spark of okay-ness, as you continue to engage and bear witness to what is happening in the world. James Crews is the editor of several bestselling anthologies, including The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry—The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment—and a book of short essays, Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion and Connection. James also speaks and leads workshops on kindness, mindfulness, and writing for self-compassion. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont.You can hear more about James and the connection between poetry and meditation in our first interview which aired in 2022. Listen Here: https://www.merylarnett.com/podcast/path-to-kindness?rq=CrewsYou can learn more about James, buy his new book {highly recommend!}, and subscribe to his Weekly Pause newsletter here: https://www.jamescrews.net/Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dBYEUL to receive free mini meditations each month, creative musings, and more.Make a donation or learn more about my free offerings and live classes by visiting merylarnett.com.IG: @merylarnett                 #meditatewithmeryl