CONVERSATIONS WITH OUR TEACHERS

Meditation & Mindfulness Anchors

In this 60-minute video, Manisha Dudley, Herky Chopra, and Desiree Matloob discuss meditation and mindfulness anchors.

You'll learn what these anchors are and how you can use them both on and off the cushion.

You'll also hear about how to respond if lots of judgement is coming up when you meditate, how you can help yourself find stillness when life gets busy, and what to do when your mind just won't stop.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

3:39 Opening remarks that answer the questions: what is a meditation or mindfulness anchor and how can we use them?

8:32 How can we anchor ourselves to the present moment outside of our meditation practice when we're going about a typical day?

15:10 How can sight or smell be used as anchors in mindfulness practices?

21:16 What do we do when judgement is coming up when practicing with different meditation anchors?

26:45 What mindfulness and meditation is and isn't.

9:04 What anchors do you use when your life gets busy and it's easy to put off the sitting practice of meditation? Are those similar to the anchors you utilize during your practice?

34:33 What tips do you have when our minds won't slow down and it's difficult to anchor ourselves to anything?

42:19 Are there certain meditation anchors that work "better" than others to say, build focus, help with sleep, or other?

48:42 Final thoughts & when these meditation teachers teach at WITHIN Meditation

Ease

In this 60-minute video, Natasha Fong, Shundo David Haye, and Tessa Jonson discuss how we can cultivate and access ease in our lives and through meditation.

You'll hear concrete ways to bring more ease to stressful situations as well as increase your capacity to manage experiencing discomfort.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

3:44 What do you think of when you think of ease?

7:01 What is it that you've discovered that really gives you access to that state of ease?

15:43 What are some techniques we can use to create that space and ease?

20:03 What are the things that you find help you to notice that you need to access ease or to get you into a more ease filled place when you're in the middle of a stressful situation or conversation?

28:46 Why can it be so challenging for us to create ease?

35:25 What is the role then of meditation in helping us to create the habitual space for stillness? What's the connection between the need or desire for ease, the hurtle of the culture we are immersed in and meditation?

47:54 What do we do when we're sitting in meditation and it's not ease filled due to some physical or mental discomfort?

53:40 Wrap up and teachers sharing when and what kinds of classes they teach at WITHIN Meditation

Thoughts and Beliefs

In this 60-minute video, Kim Nicol, Shira Appell, and Jonathan Borella discuss how our thoughts and beliefs directly affect our behavior and well-being - and how mindfulness can help us become more aware of them. You'll also hear concrete ways to let go of thoughts and beliefs that don't serve you anymore as well as ways to tap into your innate inner knowing and resilience.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

8:07 What is a thought?

18:51 What is the relationship between emotions, thoughts, and behaviors?

32:47 How can we find and tap into our innate inner knowing and resilience?

41:29 What are the first steps to get rid of beliefs that don't serve you anymore and are deeply rooted within you?

54:40 Final thoughts and reflections

Forgiveness

In this 65-minute video, Susana Cardenas, Jonathan Borella, and Kellie Aponte discuss what forgiveness is and offer mindful and meditative ways to understand and work through the uncomfortable emotions that come up around forgiveness for the self and others.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

11:31 What struck you when you first thought about meditation and its relevance to this topic of forgiveness?

18:35 What is forgiveness?

24:42 How do you let go of the fear, shame, resentment, and other such emotions that come up around forgiving?

37:55 Could you share a personal experience or challenge you've had forgiving yourself or another?

43:40 How do we forgive ourselves when we make mistakes that harm others?

56:12 Final thoughts and reflections

Gratitude

In this video Kim Nicol, Stephanie Osborne, and Kimberely Cooper discuss the importance of cultivating gratitude in our lives while also recognizing that it isn't always easy to tap into and sometimes can be used to ignore other feelings that need attention.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

9:07 Opening thoughts and reflections about gratitude, its incredible power in our lives, and how we see ourselves and our circumstances.

17:28 How do we cultivate gratitude?

24:13 What's the difference between gratitude and giving thanks?

27:38 How can gratitude be used by oneself or others to gaslight?

37:09 How can we find gratitude for difficulties experienced in life?

56:12 Final thoughts and reflections

Wise Action

In this video Karen Broutvaien, Herky Chopra, and Devon Pipars discuss wise action in the context of mindfulness meditation teachings and practices which allow each of us to go within to find our own wise responses to life as it unfolds.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Introductions

7:14 Opening reflections and insights about wise action including what it is.

13:48 How does WITHIN and meditative practices inform wise action?

19:46 How do we maintain a state of peace and come from a place of wisdom when there are others suffering all over the world and knowing there are decisions being made by others that cause such suffering?

34:29 Are there times when not taking action is the more wise response?

42:49 What practices can help us to tap into our wisdom as we go through our day?

49:34 Final thoughts and student reflections

Kindness and Compassion

In this video Lauren Madigan, Kim Nicol, and Manisha Dudley discuss kindness and compassion and how cultivating both for ourselves and others can lead to setting wise boundaries and making wiser choices overall.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

0:32 Grounding meditation

6:05 Introductions

10:42 What is compassion? How would you define it?

20:27 How do setting boundaries play a role in compassion?

42:06 There's an interplay between compassion, kindness, and judgement. Do we need to suppress our judgments in order to feel compassion & kindness?

52:51 Can you recommend one practice that you turn to to find compassion and kindness?

57:41 Closing and what's going on in our studio

Review and Release the Year

In this video Desiree Matloob, Tessa Jonson, and Kellie Aponte discuss the end of the calendar year, school year, or other similar ending followed by a new start and how reflection around these times can serve you in so many ways.

Learn how you can and why you should slow down and mark these bigger transitions in your life. In addition, you'll bring awareness to the feelings that can come up around these times, hear about tools to work with them skillfully and when ready, release them.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome & a grounding meditation

3:59 Introductions

9:12 What happens to us as we get close to the end of a year?

14:50 What causes the dread, anxiety, and fear that can sometimes come up thinking about reflecting on the past year?

19:07 Can we shift away from the buzz and the to-do list that often comes towards the end of a year and instead look towards this time as an opportunity to slow down, reflect, and mark an important transition?

28:55 What kinds of things are wise to release and how would you go about doing so?

35:30 How do you sit with those uncomfortable emotions that arise and that take time to work through and release?

46:44 As you are looking back at the year, what would you like to share? What are you looking forward to or what question do you have?

55:25 Closing and what our classes are like

Listening Deeply

In this video Kim Nicol, Stephanie Osborne, and Shundo David Haye talk about the power of listening deeply to both those around us and to ourselves in order to make informed and wise choices in all of our relationships. Listening deeply isn't passive, it's active!

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

0:34 Introductions

3:31 Why is deep listening important and what is it about deep listening that would make us want to do it even in those times that it's especially challenging?

6:44 When someone is coming at you in a conversation with aggressive or hostile words, why would you want to listen deeply?

14:07 How do you help yourself listen deeply and stay in the conversation when it's difficult?

22:24 How do we stay curious and humble, but also not just expect others to educate us when it comes to racial experiences that are different from our own?

30:54 How about listening deeply to ourselves? How do we do this?

37:30 How do we listen deeply, and yet not get carried away when what's coming up is overwhelming or when rumination sets in?

43:24 Closing thoughts

46:37 When to sit with our teachers and what's going on in our studio

Rest

In this video Tessa Jonson, Andrea Stern and Jonathan Borella talk about rest and how it can be so much more than just closing your eyes and going to sleep! Bringing a mindful eye to what else rest is and how to cultivate it can have an enormously positive effect on our quality of life.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

0:17 Grounding Meditation

3:06 Introductions

9:17 What is rest? Why do you think it's so hard to get rest at times?

25:00 How do you figure out what’s restful, as it can be different for each of us?

34:21 What do you think about how we can balance rest and showing up for the other people in our lives as well as our obligations?

47:29 Final Thoughts

50:48 What's going on in the studio

Physical Pain

In this video Kellie Aponte, Tasha Brown, and Kim Nicol talk about short lived or chronic physical pain and how mindfulness can help us change our relationship to it and ease our experience of it.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters

0:00 Welcome

0:21 Grounding meditation

8:23 Introductions

20:02 A story about a sea urchin and pain

25:20 What’s going on in our minds and bodies when we’re experiencing physical pain and what are some ways we can shift that experience?

48:24 Closing thoughts

Anxiety

In this video Kellie Aponte and Devon Pipars talk about how anxiety has touched and continues to touch their lives and how they’ve used meditation and mindfulness as a means to understand, manage and befriend it. In this talk you’ll walk away with relatable personal stories and concrete practices to manage your own relationship to anxiety.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters

0:00 Welcome

0:21 Grounding meditation

3:41 Personal sharing about how anxiety has shown up in the teachers lives.

14:36 What reframes or techniques do you use in meditation or mindfulness to work with anxiety?

22:44 How do you know when it is anxiety that’s shown up?

30:58 Is anxiety something that is always going to be there for some people?

38:39 What are some more tools that are available to us to handle anxiety?

50:15 Final thoughts and how students can meditate with the teachers

In this video Kim Nicol, Ranga Jayawardena, and Kelsey Lettko talk about the limiting stories and beliefs that we tell ourselves that can make us feel small and negatively influence our choices. With meditation teachings and practices we can begin to notice these beliefs, claim them, get curious about them, question them and then start to see what’s beyond them. There is a freedom that comes when we realize we have the choice to let go of beliefs and retake our power.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters

0:00 Welcome

0:52 Grounding meditation

2:34 Welcome

3:16 Introductions

11:33 What is a limiting belief and where do they come from?

22:08 How does meditation help us identify limiting beliefs and how does it help us get beyond them or break them?

34:34 Sometimes we bump up against the limiting beliefs of others and that can be especially challenging. Let’s explore this idea further.

49:00 Final thoughts on the limiting beliefs surrounding meditation itself, on naming and claiming your beliefs, and remembering to ask oneself “what or who am I giving my power away to”?

In this video Hannah Knapp, Herky Feroz Chopra, and Desiree Matloob discuss the idea of living from abundance. This is a mindset where we can notice that there is already so much in our life to be grateful for and draw energy from, instead of constantly searching for what’s wrong and living in a sense of scarcity. And, we can practice having this reframe in mind with the many meditative, mindful, and gratitude practices the teachers share. The result can positively impact all areas of life, creating the space to open our hearts and minds to our innate joy and creativity.

If you enjoy this video, please consider making a donation to help us cover the costs of producing it! Click here to donate any amount you wish to WITHIN Meditation via PayPal.

Chapters

0:00 Welcome

0:12 Grounding meditation

4:05 Introductions

6:36 What do we mean when we talk about abundance and what is an abundant mindset?

9:39 What gets in the way of us experiencing abundance and what do you see as the way to get past that?

28:37 What are some specific ideas for cultivating that sense of abundance?

35:54 How do you know when you’ve successfully put yourself in a space of abundance?

47:30 Is there a conflict between wanting abundance and cultivating spirituality? In particular, how does this play out with wealth?

54:18 Closing remarks and how to practice with our teachers