Embodied Mindfulness Meditation for Somatic and Emotional healing.

Dina Kushnir

Podcast Intro – Heart Attending Welcome.This is a space to slow down, to arrive, and to listen — not only with the mind, but with the heart and the body. I’m Dina A. Kushnir. My work offers a feminine, embodied approach to somatic meditation and spiritual awakening — one that begins not with effort or striving, but with tenderness, presence, and loving attention. At the center of my guidance is a practice I call Heart Attending: an invitation to awaken the heart to awareness, to meet yourself with kindness, and to allow loving attention to become the ground of healing and awakening. In a world that often pulls us out of ourselves — into speed, fragmentation, and self-judgment — this practice invites a return. A return to the body as an ally. A return to the breath as a home. A return to the quiet wisdom already living within you. Through Heart Attending, the body, breath, sensations, emotions, feelings, and perceptions become doorways — not obstacles — to presence and peace. As we cultivate gentle awareness and compassion toward ourselves, somatic and emotional healing unfold naturally, forming the foundation for all spiritual growth. The roots of my work are in Buddhist Vipassana meditation, with a deep emphasis on embodied awareness and the direct experience of body sensations. For over three decades, I have guided meditation groups, retreats, and classes, integrating this lineage with somatic, body–mind, and emotional healing modalities from both Eastern and Western traditions. In this podcast, you are invited to rest, to feel, and to remember what it is like to be at home in yourself.There is nothing you need to fix, achieve, or become. Just bring your presence.And let the heart attend.

  1. 6D AGO

    Module 12: Episode 1 - All My Relations - The Sacred Work of Connection

    Send me a note, love to hear from you. In this powerful teaching, we explore a truth that will change everything: connection is work. The Hebrew word for "to connect" literally means taking two ropes and binding them together—it's an action, an effort, not something that just happens passively. Many of us carry a deep wound: the baby inside who never received connection still waits for someone outside to make the effort. But here's the revelation: now we must become that mother to ourselves. We pick up our own inner baby and create the connection we've been waiting for. The practice moves in expanding circles. We start by saying hello to our environment—literally thanking our chair, our table. Then we greet our body parts as family: "Hello, liver. Hello, lungs." The two kidneys are sisters. The two hands are sisters. Everything that comes in pairs is sisterhood within you. From there, we expand to loved ones, then to difficult people, then to our whole town, all continents, all beings. This is "All My Relations" in shamanic wisdom—everything is family. The truth they never told us? We are never alone. Loneliness is trauma's invention. When we come into the body, we realize: we're held by the Earth, by ancestors, by the familiar and the unfamiliar. We're not connected like the internet—we're connected like the INNER-net, through consciousness itself. This year's intention: Become the lover you're waiting for. Not seeking love from outside, but becoming the lover to yourself first. Because what you work on strengthens. What you don't work on disappears. And connection is the most important work there is. Click here to support the show. Visit Dina's website, oliveoasis.com, to learn more about her work and her sanctuary in upstate New York. Click Here to Sign up for Dina's newsletter to receive meditations in your inbox every Wednesday.

    37 min
  2. MAR 18

    Module 11: Episode 5 - The Wise Observer

    Send me a note, love to hear from you. The Wise Observer Learning to watch the waves of thought—without drowning in the story What if meditation isn’t about emptying the mind—but about discovering the one who can watch it? Today we practice becoming the Wise Observer: sensing the body, noticing thoughts as waves, and learning the freedom of not being ruled by our narrative. THE FOUNDATION: We don't develop a mind with nothing in it—we develop a mind that can observe mind. Discerning what is useful or not useful in thoughts. THE PRACTICE: Start with body sensations, breath, awarenessAllow natural impulse of thoughts (don't force or choose)Observe the wave of thought coming from depth of being to surfaceAsk: Is it useful? Is it kind? Does it promote peace?Notice: thought has chemical/energetic reaction in bodyCome back to body sensations—begin againDon't stay up there waiting for thoughtTHE UNDERSTANDING: Observer mind is not reactive—no automatic reactionObserver influences the observationEach thought creates sensations in bodyBrain constantly managing survival/safety—we can observe thisWe're born human beings (with awareness, memory, imagination), not human creatures (only instinct)Faculty that can be aware of itself = gift that makes us Being instead of creature Click here to support the show. Visit Dina's website, oliveoasis.com, to learn more about her work and her sanctuary in upstate New York. Click Here to Sign up for Dina's newsletter to receive meditations in your inbox every Wednesday.

    25 min
  3. MAR 4

    Module 11: Episode 3 - When the Battle Rages Within

    Send me a note, love to hear from you. When the Battle Rages Within This peace meditation offers a profound way to work with inner conflict by recognizing that battles within create casualties in the body—tension, pain, discomfort, agitation that call for our attention. The Practice begins with awareness of both outer and inner environment, noticing where you are and what's happening without needing to label it. We enter the realm of feeling and sensing rather than thinking, allowing the light of awareness to illuminate what's present. Finding the Battle: When there's a battle in the mind, there's always resonance in the body—fast breath, shoulder tension, knee pain, heart tightness. Someone is crying in this battle, asking for help. There's no winning in battles; there are only casualties. Battle always arises from a sense of lack. When we come into the body and feel, there's no lack in that moment, and the battle can stop. The Mother's Way of Meeting: We hold the pain, discomfort, or agitation like a mother holds her only child—softly, lovingly, without taking sides. This is how peace blooms: through non-judgmental presence rather than choosing which part of us is "right." The Healing Words: "It's all right. It's okay. It's all okay. No need to run out. Let us be here. I am with you." We comfort the discomfort by feeling and sensing without judging, simply being here with it. We tell ourselves by name: "You are okay." The Revolutionary Insight: Peace means wholeness (Hebrew: Shalom; Arabic: Salaam—the same word in both languages). When we allow ourselves to hold all that is in us, we discover our wholeness. We don't make peace or do peace—we ARE peace. Core Teaching: You are not a peacemaker or peace doer. You are peace itself. You are wholeness. The conflict isn't between you and peace—the conflict is between the parts of you that haven't yet been held with love. "Hold your wholeness, your peace together. Come into the body and feel. Suddenly there's no lack in that moment, and the battle can stop." Click here to support the show. Visit Dina's website, oliveoasis.com, to learn more about her work and her sanctuary in upstate New York. Click Here to Sign up for Dina's newsletter to receive meditations in your inbox every Wednesday.

    21 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Podcast Intro – Heart Attending Welcome.This is a space to slow down, to arrive, and to listen — not only with the mind, but with the heart and the body. I’m Dina A. Kushnir. My work offers a feminine, embodied approach to somatic meditation and spiritual awakening — one that begins not with effort or striving, but with tenderness, presence, and loving attention. At the center of my guidance is a practice I call Heart Attending: an invitation to awaken the heart to awareness, to meet yourself with kindness, and to allow loving attention to become the ground of healing and awakening. In a world that often pulls us out of ourselves — into speed, fragmentation, and self-judgment — this practice invites a return. A return to the body as an ally. A return to the breath as a home. A return to the quiet wisdom already living within you. Through Heart Attending, the body, breath, sensations, emotions, feelings, and perceptions become doorways — not obstacles — to presence and peace. As we cultivate gentle awareness and compassion toward ourselves, somatic and emotional healing unfold naturally, forming the foundation for all spiritual growth. The roots of my work are in Buddhist Vipassana meditation, with a deep emphasis on embodied awareness and the direct experience of body sensations. For over three decades, I have guided meditation groups, retreats, and classes, integrating this lineage with somatic, body–mind, and emotional healing modalities from both Eastern and Western traditions. In this podcast, you are invited to rest, to feel, and to remember what it is like to be at home in yourself.There is nothing you need to fix, achieve, or become. Just bring your presence.And let the heart attend.

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