I have been leading meditation teacher trainings since 2017, and as I launch my 2023 training, I thought it would be fun to share a few conversations with graduates about their experiences in MTT.Today, I am delighted to share a behind the scenes chat with a former student, Johanna Olivas. Johanna is a registered yoga teacher, Reiki master, sound healing practitioner, and since 2022, a certified meditation teacher. In this episode, we talk about:Confidence and connection: teaching that first meditationExpanding creative skillsDiscovering authenticity in voice and in space holdingThe secret sauce of journalingTune into The Mindful Minute today to hear about Johanna’s experience with meditation teacher training, and how she is using this knowledge in her business today. To learn more about my 2023 Awakened Heart Meditation Teacher Training, please visit: https://www.merylarnett.com/awakened-heart-meditation-teacher-trainingWe begin August 16!To learn more about Johanna, please visit https://www.lunaserenity.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

I have something a bit different for you today! I was recently interviewed by Sara Rae Hoaglund for her podcast, Spiritually Inspired. I thought you guys might enjoy hearing a bit about my early experiences with meditation, how I defined meditation, and how to deepen your meditation practice when you are ready for more than just 10-minutes a day! This conversation was such a blast. Be sure to check out Sara Rae’s other interviews on Spiritually Inspired and be on the lookout for her interview on The Mindful Minute next month when we talk all about… MANIFESTING.You can find this interview and so much more on Sara Rae’s website: https://www.spirituallyinspired.co/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

“I have been meditating for nearly thirty years and practicing asana, the physical practice, for over twenty and I can say without a doubt that the most advanced yoga I have ever done is raising children.” - Sarah EzrinWhen I read this quote from author, yoga teacher, and mama Sarah Ezrin, I knew we would be fast friends because this has absolutely been the truth of my experience as well!In today’s episode of The Mindful Minute, we wrap up our ‘Stress Free Summer’ series with an interview with Sarah Ezrin. Sarah has written a new book, “The Yoga of Parenting” and in it Sarah offers 34 practices to find more presence, patience and acceptance - with your child and with yourself.Together, we share our experiences of being yogis and meditators before children and afterWhat a typical practice looks like during the school year and when the kids are out for summerYoga poses that support our parenting Why patience and presence feature so strongly in what we as parents need for ourselves and our kids.There is a lot of laughter and joy in this conversation; there is a lot of recognition in each other’s stories, and I hope a lot of good takeaways to help you move through your summer with ease, with patience, and with presence. You can learn more about Sarah at https://sarahezrinyoga.com/And if you order Sarah’s new book, “The Yoga of Parenting” at https://www.shambhala.com/the-yoga-of-parenting.html and use code YP30 you can save 30%!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 meditation is both an expression of greeting and of gratitude, and it is a beautiful way to start your day. As we share this practice, remember that the universe outside also exists inside. In so many wisdom traditions, we find writings and teachings that connect the natural world inside of us. When we greet and celebrate the components of the cosmos, we greet and celebrate the components of ourselves.Take a seat outside or near a window if you can. Have one headphone in your ear to hear the recording and one headphone out of your ear so that you can hear the sounds of the natural world surrounding you. Let’s begin.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

Here in Georgia, we are stepping into the summer season. The kids will be out of school shortly, and I’m struck with the oh-so-familiar feeling (for me at least) of partial excitement -Yay! It’s summer. No schedule. Going to the pool! Going camping! FunAnd - Ohhhhhh it’s summer. No schedule. No routine or rhythm to anchor our days. Yikes.I thrive on routine and while I appreciate short breaks,  I am also well aware that all too quickly that freedom turns into a source of stress for me. And so, I thought it would be valuable and fun to share a bit of a creative project I’ve been playing with this year.As you know, I almost exclusively meditate outside. My connection to nature deepens my connection to self and stimulates my creativity. It provides a larger rhythm to my days based on when the hyacinth blooms, the hummingbirds return, and the bees swarm that one particular bush that I can never remember the name of… In the next few podcast episodes, I am going to share a few recipes with you - recipes for connecting with nature, with time, and with self. I encourage you to go sit outside if at all possible - on a stoop, porch, park, backyard or even a parking lot staring up at the sky. Have one headphone in and one headphone out so you can hear the sounds of the world around you. Close your eyes and together let’s tap into the rhythms of the natural world as a way to anchor, especially when our daily rhythms aren’t as steady as we would like it to be.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

“We are all continually asked to learn how to ask for what we need, only to practice accepting what we’re given.” - Mark NepoOh, surrender, what a complex equation you are.So many of us understand surrender to be a passive state or an act of giving up. After all, the very definition of surrender is “to stop resisting”.Yet, with each of these teachings that we have explored in the Mindful Living series comes a deep paradox that we are asked to embrace. Surrender is both strength and softness. Surrender is fully letting go of the fight we constantly wage with our lives, and it is taking full responsibility for the vision we have for ourselves. Within today’s class, we willTease apart the difference between letting go and giving upLook at examples of the action of surrenderEngage with the “trustful” aspect of surrenderDiscuss how the weaving together of discipline, self-study and surrender elevate the practice of meditation from a simple concentration exercise to an opportunity for spiritual awakening.I hope you’ll join me for today’s discussion 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

Recently, my four-year-old daughter asked me, “who were you before you were a mom?”After a little conversation, I realized she was asking me - ‘what was your job before you were a mom’...At four, she already identifies a job as who you are. This week’s mindful living tenet is Self-Study, and this teaching also asks us “who are you?”Who are you without a job?Without a plan?Without a diagnosis? Without a gender? Without any of your conditioning?In this week’s episode of The Mindful Minute podcast, we talk through the practice of self-study and engaging our curiosity muscle. We explore both how this tenet was taught originally and several ways we can incorporate it into our daily lives. And, most importantly, we talk about why this is not ‘fixing’ yourself. Join me for today’s talk and guided meditation practice. 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

Today’s Mindful Living tenet is self-discipline, or more literally, the fire of transformation. This teaching reminds us that meditation and mindful living is not meant to be synonymous with sunshine and rainbows or with joy 100% of the time. Mindfulness grows from burning away non-supportive habits in order to actualize who we really are. Self-discipline is the teaching that focuses attention so that attention becomes intention.We can see a direct example of self-discipline in cultivating a daily meditation practice. I’m sure you can think of a thousand other things that you could do with this time, but as meditation practitioners, we forsake some momentary pleasurable distraction because we’ve named what we are practicing for -  some insight, comfort, transformation or knowing… We show up and we do the work because we know why we are practicing. How we show up for the work also matters.We can be half-hearted - calling it meditation but really we are taking a bath with a glass of wine.We can be ego driven - focused on the fruits of our labor, the outcome, or the goal. We can be balanced by bringing a sense of faith to the practice.Faith is actually a primary ingredient in self-discipline. Faith that the work is enough. That the choices you make, the sacrifices you willingly agree to, the flames that might burn a bit as you walk through them, all of it is the path you are meant to be on. The work is enough. It is in this way that we practice. So that our stories and the weight of discarded emotions, thoughts and beliefs that have fallen to our forest floors don’t burn uncontrolled. Fire at first glance can seem like a fearsome, raging inferno, when in actuality, it is lighting our path and nurturing our rejuvenation. So let’s burn; let’s do the work.Special thanks to today’s sponsor: Baronfig. Baronfig’s line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided journals, notebooks, writing instruments, bags, accessories, and so much more. As an avid journaler, I use and love their guided meditation journal, dream journal and their basic Confidant notebooks! Use code MindfulMinute through 4/27/23 to save 10% on your own order at baronfig.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

“Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.” ~Ajahn Sumedo“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming about some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses blooming under our window.” - Dale CarnegieThe Moment is CompleteThere is no where to go and nothing getThe way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferencesEach of these quotes point towards a fundamental teaching - maybe the most taught about tenet in mindfulness and yet the hardest to grasp -  Contentment. I think of contentment as developing a profound ok-ness with my life, and yet in order to find and experience this sense of well-being, we must be willing to embrace profound paradoxes.Contentment is not about ignoring or avoiding pain, it isn’t about glossing over or using the dread phrase, “it is what it is”... I would venture to say that contentment isn’t even about happiness. Recently, I learned that you can almost always find the antidote to a troublesome plant growing near said troublesome plant. For example, you can almost always find jewelweed growing near poison ivy. Poison ivy will make you itch, and jewelweed sap is anti-inflammatory and anti-itch.Contentment doesn’t mean you will never be uncomfortable; contentment is knowing the antidote is right here, in this very moment. The moment is complete. Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we tease apart the paradoxes within contentment and share in a 20-minute guided meditation.Special thanks to today’s sponsor: Baronfig. Baronfig’s line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided journals, notebooks, writing instruments, bags, accessories, and so much more. As an avid journaler, I use and love their guided meditation journal, dream journal and their basic Confidant notebooks! Use code MindfulMinute through 4/27/23 to save 10% on your own order at baronfig.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

In the last five episodes, I’ve shared the ethical teachings of meditation. Traditionally, after learning these ethical teachings, often taught as ‘restraints’, we would then learn five more teachings known as ‘observances’. These next five teachings, known in Sanskrit as Niyamas, are principles that we observe within ourselves to develop a mindful way of moving through the world. These are in essence the guidance to Mindful Living.We start with one that feels very tricky to me… it is most often translated as purity. Personally, I have a very strong aversion to the word purity. I feel like all manner of dangerous judgments, othering, and oppression happens under the guise of purity. I also believe that it is far too easy to become extreme in our quest to become ‘pure’ (especially in the spiritual world) which hinders rather than helps us. However, when we dive into the teachings of this tenet, what we learn is that this teaching is about connecting to and enlivening our energy levels, and we do this by decluttering our minds, bodies, and physical spaces. So, let’s tap into our inner Marie Kondo and explore joy, energy and the mindfulness of decluttering. Ready? Special thanks to today’s sponsor: Baronfig. Baronfig’s line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided journals, notebooks, writing instruments, bags, accessories, and so much more. As an avid journaler, I use and love their guided meditation journal, dream journal and their basic Confidant notebooks! Use code MindfulMinute through 4/27/23 to save 10% on your own order at baronfig.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