The OneMind Meditation Podcast with Morgan Dix: Meditation | Mindfulness | Health

Kate Manser is so happy to be alive. Here's her story.

In 2013, Kate's 27-year old manager at Google and her 27-year old college friend died in unrelated, unexpected tragedies. It shocked and terrified her, and she developed a fear of death that began to take over her life: she would imagine getting hit as she crossed an intersection, envision how the phone call would go when she got the news that her mom died, and avoided taking any risks out of fear of the unknown. It completely clouded the beauty of awe life.

About a year later, Kate's colleague and adventure idol Dan Fredinburg was killed in the Nepal earthquake while climbing Mount Everest at 33 years old. As she struggled to make sense of the loss, she realized that he knew he might die climbing that mountain, but that he had to climb it to truly live.

In that moment, everything changed for her: she realized that she has absolutely no control over when or how she dies but she has complete control over how she lives until that mystery moment comes. All of the energy Kate spent on her fear of dying was instantly channeled instead into living every day like she might die tomorrow.

Since then, she has made radical shifts in her life to better align with her soul including quitting her job at Google, traveling around the world for two years, and writing a book about how thinking about your death makes life better but no shift has been as radical as her shift in perspective. She lives urgently, loves wildly, and is so grateful to be alive.

Life is beautiful. Experience it with Kate via her blog, social media, and in her upcoming book, You Might Die Tomorrow.

LINKS:

Kate's Website
Kate's Facebook Page
Kate's Instagram Page

Preorder Kate's book You Might Die Tomorrow Here.
Want Kate to facilitate The Death Bed Meditation at your location? Contact her here.
Kate's Art installation at Burning Man

The post OM090 – You Might Die Tomorrow with Kate Manser appeared first on About Meditation.

In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On a recent weekend retreat, I experienced some challenging moments. It's not the first time.

In my life, I've gone on more silent retreats than I can count. Two-day, ten-day, 21-day silent meditation retreats. So it wasn't the first time I encountered some turbulence.

But what was different was the guidance I received from within. It was super simple be grateful. Say thank you!

Discovering the Power of Gratitude

This simple inner directive changed the way I experienced the retreat. And more importantly, it changed the way I experience my life beyond the retreat.

In today's show, we explore the life and brain-changing power of gratitude.

What does the science tell us about the benefits of gratitude? What are the psychological, emotional, physiological, and spiritual effects of practicing gratitude every day?

Studies show that gratitude can change your life. Here's how. It can:

1. Make you happier
2. Reduce your inner fears
3. Strengthen your positive emotions
4. Make you more optimistic
5. Increase your self esteem
6. Improve your sleep

As we buckle up for yet another orbit around the sun, let's take a moment to reflect on what we're grateful for and more importantly, let's give gratitude its due.

If you look with patience and perseverance, I think you might find that you have more to be grateful for than you originally thought.

Links

• In Praise of Gratitude Harvard Health
• How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley
• 7 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Gratitude Psychology Today

The post OM093 – A Brief Meditation On The Life-Changing Power of Gratitude appeared first on About Meditation.

In this week’s One Mind Podcast I review the book Radical Acceptance, written by buddhist teacher and clinical psychotherapist, Tara Brach.

Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering, says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork–all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled.

Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach's twenty years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students.”

LINKS:

Purchase the book Radical Acceptance' by Tara Brach

The post OM088 – Exploring the Practice of Radical Acceptance with Morgan Dix appeared first on About Meditation.

BIO:

Jonathan Mozenter is a consultant, coach, and educator. His work focuses on helping organizations and individuals manage positive change. Jonathan helps clients to understand where they're at, identify current challenges, then build and implement plans to help realize their life vision. Professionally, he has been working with people for more than 20 years in both private and public sectors. His natural instinct for synthesizing ideas and inspiring growth has been employed in coaching executives, helping organizations redesign their structure, working with young people, publishing articles, evaluating programs, designing and delivering training materials, and evolving powerful long-term strategies. Currently, Jonathan is on a long-term change management project called Compliance Safety Accountability that is helping the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) redesign their enforcement agency to be more efficient and effective. Jonathan’s formal education is in psychology, organizational behavior, change management, and business, and he has a BSBA and MBA from Boston University. His family background is in social work, which helped him cultivate from an early age his strong psychological approach to problem solving.

Jonathan has complemented his formal training with knowledge in Integral Theory, philosophy, and consciousness, to help craft a profoundly effective approach to mastering change. This includes completing the Core Integral Essential Integral and Advanced Integral courses and training in Tibetan Mahamudra and Dzogchen meditation. Jonathan has published articles in professional journals on identifying trends in organizational development and leadership skills needed to build a learning organization. Jonathan also collaborates with fellow advocates in interrelated fields to help transcend the world's crisis state. He is devoted to sharing his knowledge and methods with all those committed to helping create stronger, wiser, and more abundant communities.

LINKS:

Jonathan’s Email Address
Morgan’s Interview with Jonathan’s Meditation Coach, John Churchill

The post OM087 – Transforming ADD into Higher Levels of Consciousness with Meditation with Jonathan Mozenter appeared first on About Meditation.

How do you keep your meditation practice strong and steady? How do you stay inspired? In this episode, I share some of the things that have added fuel to my fire and helped a lot to keep my meditation practice fruitful.

In particular, we explore the power of getting up early as a way to boost your practice. For me, it's a game changer. I went from never setting an alarm to setting it for 515am every morning and I feel awesome as a result.

Why?

Because I'm logging a minimum of 30 minutes of meditation. I'm reading 10-20 pages of a book each morning. And I'm managing to squeeze in deep breathing and exercise (running) as well. And usually I'm done with all that by around 730.

Coming out of the gates like that every morning affects every aspect of my life and I haven't looked back. I love it.

Another game changer? Intermittent fasting. During the week, I've been experimenting with having just miso and chicken broth at dinner time.

So effectively, I'm giving up dinner during the week. The result? I feel incredible. I don't miss eating dinner. I bounce out of bed in the mornings. I feel lighter and I'm shedding unnecessary pounds.

Also, there is something deep and peace inducing about giving up food. There's a reason that fasting has occupied a hallowed place among the spiritual practices of the great mystical traditions since time immemorial.

Renouncing your core cravings makes you strong and gives you spiritual vitality.

And although I'm only fasting from after lunch to breakfast the next morning from 2pm to 6am or about 18 hours it still makes a difference physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

If that kind of thing resonates with you, I can't recommend it highly enough.

And finally, I share some tips and advice that I gave to one of our members who was struggling with motivation. I think you'll find it useful.

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