The Meditation Course Podcast Robert Mitchell

Each Sunday Evening from Sun 26 March 2023 on The Meditation Course for the next few weeks, I shall run a Yoga Nidra meditation.

Yoga Nidra is a type of meditation that can help us access the hypnagogic state. This state is the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep. Practicing Yoga Nidra can make it easier to move into this state and therefore help us achieve rest.

To practice Yoga Nidra, find a comfortable and relaxed seated position with your back free and your head balanced. The goal is to enter and stay in the hypnagogic state while maintaining awareness of the warm, comfortable feeling that comes with it. If you wake up from this state and you don't feel sufficiently rested, use the feeling to guide you back into it. Use the feeling of the hypnagogic state to get back into it. So, get comfortable, and let's start practicing. You can also find various other Yoga Nidra meditations on my podcast.

This podcast episode is a recording of a class from The Meditation Course, an online program that offers live guided meditations throughout the year, with up to four classes per week!

You can join us on The Meditation Course by clicking on this link here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/about-the-meditation-course/

If you can't join us for whatever reason but you enjoyed this meditation, I encourage you to become a podcast supporter. By joining us, you'll receive two newsletters and a host of other benefits that will take your meditation practice even further. All for the price of a monthly Starbucks extra shot, caramel latte! Become a Podcast Supporter here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/podcast-supporters-membership/

And if you're feeling generous and you would like to support my work with a single one-off donation, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robertmitchell

Yoga Nidra is a type of meditation that can help us access the hypnagogic state. This state is the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep. Practicing Yoga Nidra can make it easier to move into this state and therefore help us achieve rest.

To practice Yoga Nidra, find a comfortable and relaxed seated position with your back free and your head balanced. The goal is to enter and stay in the hypnagogic state while maintaining awareness of the warm, comfortable feeling that comes with it. If you wake up from this state and you don't feel sufficiently rested, use the feeling to guide yourself back into it. Use the feeling of the hypnagogic state to get back into it. So, get comfortable, and let's start practicing. You can also find various other Yoga Nidra meditations on my podcast.

This podcast episode is a recording of a class from The Meditation Course, an online program that offers live guided meditations throughout the year, with up to four classes per week!

And get this: the price of this program is actually less than what you might spend on a weekly Starbucks latte. Enjoy the countless benefits of regular live guided meditation classes while saving some serious cash. You can join us on The Meditation Course by clicking on this link here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/about-the-meditation-course/

If you can't join us for whatever reason but you enjoyed this meditation, I encourage you to become a podcast supporter. By joining us, you'll receive two newsletters and a host of other benefits that will take your meditation practice even further. All for the price of a monthly Starbucks extra shot, caramel latte! Become a Podcast Supporter here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/podcast-supporters-membership/

And if you're feeling generous and you would like to support my work with a single one-off donation, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robertmitchell

Mindfulness is the undistracted awareness of the experience of the present moment.
Mindfulness meditation is a set of ancient practices now supported by a mountain of scientific study that we use to gain that experience of mindfulness.
There are many barriers, distractions and dead ends that can divert us from our path of acceptance and connection to all of the experiences of the present moment, internal and external.
By connecting to the entire body, we are able to minimise physical and emotional pain enough to learn to become comfortable with it. This is a key step in the process of learning to accept and release our suffering.
In the period leading up to the next nature connection day retreat, I will be teaching practices specifically to support this process of acceptance and connection.
In this class, taught on Thursday 9 March on The Meditation Course, I teach a set of practices designed to connect to the present moment and to our bodies.

This podcast episode is a recording of a class from The Meditation Course, an online program that offers live guided meditations throughout the year, with up to four classes per week!

And get this: the price of this program is actually less than what you might spend on a weekly Starbucks latte. Enjoy the countless benefits of regular live guided meditation classes while saving some serious cash. You can join us on The Meditation Course by clicking on this link here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/about-the-meditation-course/

If you can't join us for whatever reason but you enjoyed this meditation, I encourage you to become a podcast supporter. By joining us, you'll receive two newsletters and a host of other benefits that will take your meditation practice even further. All for the price of a monthly Starbucks extra shot, caramel latte! Become a Podcast Supporter here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/podcast-supporters-membership/

And if you're feeling generous and you would like to support my work with a single one-off donation, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robertmitchell

The body and mind are deeply connected.
The ancients had a concept of the body-mind which is the combination of thoughts, emotions and drives that influence our choices and actions.

This leaves us with a psychophysiological state that can be unhelpful and is sometimes difficult to shift. We can find ourselves 'in a mood' and subject to a combination of autopilot behaviours and mind loops.

We all need to build a toolkit of practices we can use to intervene in these processes. To coin a phrase, we need learn how to take back control.

In this class we explore the ancient third eye meditation which was first taught in the Bhagavad Gita.
We then go on to practice a deep relaxation technique that focuses on the key areas of stress in the body which are: the eyes, the jaw, the shoulders and the hands.

This is followed by what I call The Relaxation Response which is a practice that, in time, you can learn to use to totally change your state with a single breath.

This podcast episode is a recording of a class from The Meditation Course, an online program that offers live guided meditations throughout the year, with up to four classes per week!

And get this: the price of this program is actually less than what you might spend on a weekly Starbucks latte. Enjoy the countless benefits of regular live guided meditation classes while saving some serious cash. You can join us on The Meditation Course by clicking on this link here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/about-the-meditation-course/

If you can't join us for whatever reason but you enjoyed this meditation, I encourage you to become a podcast supporter. By joining us, you'll receive two newsletters and a host of other benefits that will take your meditation practice even further. All for the price of a monthly Starbucks extra shot, caramel latte! Become a Podcast Supporter here: https://www.meditationcourse.live/podcast-supporters-membership/

And if you're feeling generous and you would like to support my work with a single one-off donation, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robertmitchell

This article and podcast are from a class taught as part of The Meditation Course - Four live online classes each week for the same price as a weekly Starbucks latte.

We all have a voice in our heads, and that voice tells a story. I call this voice the Inner Narrative.

Our Inner Narrative can become unhelpful, destructive or self-destructive. It can weaken us instead of strengthen us.

Thought has what I call momentum. Over time, our Inner Narratives can become more intense. It can fixate on one or a few subjects and become really unhelpful. This self-destructive process is intensified by consuming the fear-based narrative of the media.

To counteract all of this, we need a powerful set of tools that have stood the test of time and are backed by a growing mountain of scientific research.

We need to get our focus back from the voice in our heads that is being continuously enhanced by a stream of continuous messaging from the media to us, and to our peers.

This is the place where the focused-based meditations I've been teaching meets our Inner Narrative.

https://meditationcourse.live/meditations-to-calm-the-inner-narrative/

This Meditation is taken from the Deepening Course which is a course for committed meditators. See the end of this description for the link.

There are a five different main areas of focus for our awareness.

There is mind wandering and awareness of the body. These are what are called Inner Phenomena. With mind wandering, our single awareness has been captured by an inner narrative.

There is autopilot and external awareness. These are external phenomena. In autopilot, we are generally repeating activities we have learned unconsciously, such as driving or navigating on a regular journey.

Then there is balanced focus where we can maintain our awareness and yet be sensitive to both inner and outer phenomena.

In this class, we explored these both with meditation and by going through the experiences that we have that enable us to become aware of these different states of focus.

From a class in The Deepening Course.
https://www.meditationcourse.live/about-the-deepening-course/