✨ Just the Meditation ✨ Fire is perhaps the most often referenced element within sacred practices from around the world. In cultures near and far, the belly is seen as the home of our life force, our passion, our drive, our digestion {of food, thought and feeling}. When we work with the element of fire in our meditation practice, it is useful to reflect on the element of fire in the external world as well - In reading about controlled burns of forest, two of the most often cited benefits are...
Apr 14, 2025•12 min
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by stress or weighed down by old stories that no longer serve you? What if fire—the element of transformation—held the key to clearing out the past and reigniting your passion for life? In this episode, we dive deep into the ancient wisdom of fire energy, exploring how intentional "burning" can help us release limiting beliefs, manage emotions, and create space for new growth. Just like controlled burns in nature prevent destructive wildfires, learning to work with...
Apr 10, 2025•19 min
✨ Just the Meditation ✨ When an ecosystem is healthy and thriving, we see the elements {Earth, Air, Fire & Water} working in tandem to promote the most prosperity and diversity possible. The same holds true within the inner landscape. We can use the elements both as an anchor for our meditation practice as well as tools for balancing anxiety, depression and overwhelm. In today’s mini meditation:
Apr 07, 2025•11 min
Have you ever felt stuck, weighed down by stress, or unsure how to move forward? What if the key to clarity and transformation was as simple as connecting with the elements? This episode explores the power of elemental meditation, focusing on the wind element as a tool for clearing, movement, and renewal. Through guided practices, you’ll learn how to tap into the natural forces within and around you to cultivate balance and mindfulness.
Apr 03, 2025•19 min
✨ Just the meditation Emotionally exhausted? This meditation is for you. Crafted from the latest in PTSD treatment techniques this meditation offers a unique visualization practice that you can use on and off the cushion. Take a deep breath, settle in, and press play to immerse yourself in a meditation practice that will help you release exhaustion and regain a sense of calm and renewal.
Mar 31, 2025•10 min
Feeling emotionally drained and completely exhausted? Ever wondered if there's a way to restore your energy and reset your nervous system through meditation? Compassion fatigue and emotional burnout are all too common, especially when juggling the demands of caregiving, work, and personal life. This episode explores how meditation can not only help you acknowledge exhaustion but also actively restore your energy using a powerful visualization technique rooted in PTSD treatment research. ☑️ Learn...
Mar 27, 2025•15 min
Just The Meditation: Spring Equinox ✨ A Journey of Renewal & Healing Awaits - As light and dark come into perfect harmony, the spring equinox offers a powerful moment to pause, reflect, and realign with your true essence. Honored across cultures as a time of renewal and rebirth, this sacred season invites you to shed the old and embrace new possibilities. In this **special live-recorded meditation** from our retreat, you’ll be guided through the ancient symbolism of the golden egg—representi...
Mar 24, 2025•12 min
A Special Spring Equinox Meditation Retreat ✨ Are you overlooking the power of the equinox in your meditation practice? As day and night find perfect balance, this season invites us to reflect, reset, and realign with our truest selves. Ancient traditions recognized this time as one of possibility, creativity, and rebirth. In this meditation, we explore the profound symbolism of the egg—protection, potential, and prophecy—helping you connect with your inner wisdom and set intentions for the mont...
Mar 20, 2025
✨Just the Meditation Grief, sadness, and heartache can feel all-consuming, making it difficult to stay present. Today's meditation practice is an invitation to hold these emotions with care—not to fix or erase them, but to nurture connection to ourselves, others, and the natural world. ☑️ Experience a guided meditation practice infused with poetry, breathwork, grounding techniques, and the sounds of Glacier National Park to hold space for your emotions with kindness. Take a deep breath, find a q...
Mar 17, 2025
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by grief that it seemed to erase every other emotion? In those moments, meditation might feel impossible—but what if it could become a space for tenderness rather than escape? Grief, sadness, and heartache can feel all-consuming, making it difficult to stay present. This episode explores how meditation can help us hold these emotions with care—not to fix or erase them, but to nurture connection to ourselves, others, and the natural world. - Learn how to recogniz...
Mar 13, 2025
Just The Meditation ✨ Do you ever feel like you're being tossed about by life's constant changes, unable to find solid ground in the midst of chaos? In our fast-paced world filled with uncertainty, finding stability can seem impossible. But what if you could stand strong like a mountain through life's storms? In this meditation, you'll experience a peaceful meditation practice focused on equanimity—that steady, balanced quality that helps you remain centered when everything around you is changin...
Mar 10, 2025•10 min
Feeling overwhelmed by the constant changes in life? Struggling to find stability in the chaos? This meditation explores the power of equanimity—your ability to stay steady like a mountain amidst life’s storms. In a world where personal stress, anxiety and global turmoil seem never-ending, how do we stay grounded? Through meditation, we can develop a sense of inner steadiness that allows us to navigate uncertainty with more ease. This episode provides a reflective practice to help you cultivate ...
Mar 06, 2025•17 min
How can we honor and protect the sacred lands that sustain us? Join this special meditation practice dedicated to the Earth, where we deepen our connection and commitment to its well-being. With national parks and natural spaces under increasing threat from policy rollbacks, climate change, and resource exploitation, it’s easy to feel powerless. But through mindful reflection and meditation, we can cultivate a deeper relationship with the Earth—one that moves beyond gratitude into active recipro...
Mar 03, 2025•10 min
Do you ever find yourself tangled in anxious thoughts at night, struggling to ease into restful sleep? This episode offers a deeply soothing sleep meditation set beside a natural hot spring on a snowy, star-filled night. If stress, anger, or racing thoughts keep you awake, this practice will guide you into a state of relaxation through mindful breathwork and gentle visualization. Experience a full-body release of tension with guided breath counting. Learn how slowing your breath naturally steadi...
Feb 27, 2025•11 min
Just The Meditation ✨ Do you ever find yourself lying in bed, unable to turn off your mind—still thinking about the stress of the day or worrying about tomorrow? End-of-day fatigue and mental chatter can make it hard to truly unwind, leaving you restless and disconnected. But what if you could release the tension and reclaim your evenings with a simple, soothing meditation? In this episode, you will consciously release the day's tensions and reconnect with yourself before sleep with a beautiful ...
Feb 24, 2025•11 min
The evening hours often arrive with an unwelcome companion—a mind still buzzing with the day's events, shoulders tight with tension, and thoughts already drifting to tomorrow's challenges. As the sun sets, many of us find ourselves caught in what author Lynne Twist calls "the reverie of lack," that persistent whisper telling us we haven't done enough, aren't enough, don't have enough. But what if you could learn to consciously release the day's tensions and reconnect with yourself before sleep? ...
Feb 20, 2025•16 min
Just The Meditation ✨ Do you ever find yourself lying in bed, unable to turn off your mind—still thinking about the stress of the day or worrying about tomorrow? End-of-day fatigue and mental chatter can make it hard to truly unwind, leaving you restless and disconnected. But what if you could release the tension and reclaim your evenings with a simple, soothing meditation? In this episode, you will consciously release the day's tensions and reconnect with yourself before sleep with a beautiful ...
Feb 19, 2025•11 min
Overwhelmed? Stressed? Anxious? Try this quick 10-minute, lunch break meditation that is designed to reset the nervous system and quiet the mind. No chatter; no distractions - this episode is JUST THE MEDITATION. Pop-in your headphones, settle into a comfy spot and let's meditate on our lunch break. Today's meditation music comes to us from a bamboo forest on the road to Hana - almost musical, definitely rhythmic, and always soothing. Take a few minutes for yourself and experience this grounding...
Feb 17, 2025•7 min
Do you ever start your day with the best of intentions—only to find yourself overwhelmed by midday, rushing through lunch, and feeling completely drained? Midday stress can quickly derail even the best-planned day, leaving you exhausted and disconnected from yourself. But what if just 5-10 minutes of mindfulness could reset your nervous system and bring you back to center? In this episode, Meryl Arnett shares a simple yet powerful lunchtime meditation to help you feel grounded, refreshed, and re...
Feb 13, 2025•15 min
What if you could start your day feeling grounded, grateful, and clear-minded—without the noise and distractions? In this peaceful guided meditation, you’ll be immersed in the sounds of a Maui sunrise, setting the tone for a day filled with intention and gratitude. No chatter, no clutter—just a mindful practice designed to help you cultivate calm, connection, and resilience from the moment you wake up. ✅ Awaken with a sense of gratitude and purpose ✅ Feel deeply connected to nature’s rhythm and ...
Feb 10, 2025•11 min
This week, we explore how to weave mindfulness through our entire day, starting with a gentle morning practice that sets our intentions and opens our hearts to daily gifts.
Feb 06, 2025•21 min
Welcome back to Our Mindful Nature! This week, we explore how the woodpecker's drumming can guide us in releasing emotional armor, including anxiety and overwhelm, and deepening our connection with the natural world.
Jan 30, 2025•6 min
Exploring the Depths of Awareness In this final episode of our heartfulness series, we’re diving below the surface of mindfulness into the rich, uncharted waters of the subconscious. While mindfulness often focuses on our conscious, waking mind, heartfulness invites us to explore the deeper layers of our being — the parts of us that dwell in dreams, intuition, and quiet knowing.
Jan 23, 2025•21 min
Welcome back to Our Mindful Nature! This week, we’re continuing our heartfulness series by stepping off the meditation cushion and into the great outdoors. Last episode, we explored the softer, heart-led practice of meditation — a way of being curious, embodied, and a co-participant in the experience rather than its manager. But heartfulness isn’t just for meditation; it’s a lens for living. And one of the most powerful ways to nurture heartfulness is by connecting with nature....
Jan 16, 2025•17 min
Happy New Year and welcome back to Our Mindful Nature, where we explore the intersection of meditation, nature, and mental health. Let’s start the year by diving into a fresh, gentler perspective on mindfulness — or should we say, heartfulness? In this episode, I share a thought that’s been swirling in my mind: what if we reframed our practice? While in the West, meditation is often translated as “mindfulness,” the original Pali word aligns more closely with the concept of “heartfulness.” Imagin...
Jan 09, 2025•18 min
Today’s episode of Our Mindful Nature - a live recording of my Winter Solstice meditation retreat - is the perfect practice to welcome in the winter season. A mini meditation retreat you can do at home! The Winter Solstice is always a discussion of light and dark. Mythology abounds, as do rituals of celebration and reflection. In this class, you will hear some of the mythology surrounding the Winter Solstice. We will explore what it means to ‘harvest the fire’ in this season; we will talk about ...
Dec 19, 2024•28 min
A winter sleep meditation for you today, dear listeners! As we slip into the darker, colder, and yet somehow busier part of the year I thought we would dedicate some class time to the richness of rest. This episode is an invitation to get cozy, to set aside your to-do list for a few moments, and rest. You can utilize this guided meditation for Naptime or a mid-day reset Gentle guidance into evening sleep Support for falling back asleep if you wake in the middle of the night And listeners, I have...
Dec 12, 2024•15 min
There is something magical about the night sky and the winter woods; a place of dreams and possibility; a place of rest and restoration. In today’s episode of Our Mindful Nature, nature field recordist Nick McMahan shares a dreamscape from Glacier National Park. Not quite a guided meditation, not quite a sleep-story, but rather a meditative experience. A connection to both land and self. Perfect for relaxing before bed, taking a mid-day break, or adding some wintery vibes to your day. You will h...
Dec 05, 2024•15 min
Recently, I had a moment where I just didn’t feel seen. And later, as I was processing those feelings, I picked up James Crews’ newest book of poetry, Unlocking the Heart, and I opened to the poem, ‘The World Loves You Back’ - It was exactly what I needed to hear. That I/You/We are all seen for exactly who we are by the animate earth around us. That we aren’t alone. In today’s meditation class, we explore the significance of belonging and being actively engaged in one’s environment. We delve int...
Nov 28, 2024•32 min
Friends, grab a cup of tea, your coziest blanket and join me as we welcome back poet James Crews. James has been a guest on Our Mindful Nature multiple times and his thoughtful presence has become something I look forward to each year. James and I sat down to chat about his new book 'Unlocking the Heart: Writings for Mindfulness, Courage, and Self-Compassion’ right before the November election in the U.S. Together, we reflect on life's challenging moments, the role of poetry in providing solace,...
Nov 21, 2024•42 min
