BIG news, y’all! This month I am celebrating 5 YEARS of podcasting?! 5 years of creating, writing and sharing meditations with you. And, this little podcast has grown to over 40,000 listeners each month! Wow. And, thank you! Thank you for listening and being a part of this community. I’ve got some big goals and some fun giveaways to help celebrate this milestone. Tune into today’s episode to learn more and then to meditate with a beautiful practice from my app: Shoreline. Today’s 10-minute medit...
Sep 06, 2021•10 min
What a fun show I have in store for you today! As I very often do these days, I got an email a few months ago suggesting that I consider artist Kyle Webster as a guest for The Mindful Minute. Now, I get a lot of these emails and 99% of the time, I say ‘no thank you,’ because this show is not primarily about interviews, but occasionally one feels like a really good fit. And this one??? Well, it was suggested we talk about meditation {my favorite subject}, creativity {my second favorite subject}, ...
Sep 02, 2021•44 min
This class originally aired in July 2020: According to the Yoga Sutra, meditation connects us to our inner luminosity & sorrowless joy. In modern day terms, when we talk about meditation as a tool for emotional resiliency, we are really talking about tapping into this inner luminosity. We won't avoid hardship and pain in our lives just because we meditate, but we will be able to maintain connection to that inner luminosity and sorrowless joy to help us move through with more grace. Join ...
Aug 30, 2021•15 min
This class originally aired in July 2020 and is just as fitting today as it was then: This month, my meditation series has been focused on building emotional resilience. We are learning how to use the tools of meditation to help us not only survive tough times but more so to thrive in our daily lives. Today’s episode, the final installment of this series, is my personal favorite because I think it is the game-changing practice. It is the practice of cultivating compassion to take back power. Yep...
Aug 26, 2021•40 min
This class originally aired in July 2020: If you’ve discovered each time you sit to meditate lately, you are overcome with feelings of discomfort {too many thoughts, too much tension or anxiety in the body, too busy, etc.} then this is the class for you. Over the last few months, as I’ve sat to meditate, I’ve noticed a literal feeling of “tangle” in my chest. A tight, anxious, moving feeling that immediately makes me want squash it. Don’t feel that. Stop it. Ignore it. I’ve tried it al...
Aug 23, 2021•16 min
As pandemics and humanitarian crises abound, I am re-releasing my July 2020 series on emotional resilience. This particular class couldn’t have come at a better time. When our hearts are breaking, our fear is overwhelming, and we feel helpless to offer help or answers, we must lean into our own discomfort without needing to fix it. We must love the tangle. Keep practicing. Keep Going. I’m with you & I love you. This class originally aired in July 2020: This month’s meditation series is explo...
Aug 19, 2021•40 min
This class originally aired in July 2020: We can all apply specific mindfulness techniques to help us navigate these emotionally tricky times with as much emotional resiliency as possible. The goal is not to avoid hard times, but to know without doubt that you can survive these times. When we are feeling the impact of traumatic stress, one of the primary feelings is one of powerlessness. Therefore, the antidote is to begin to regain a sense of power during our days. We can start by bringing our ...
Aug 16, 2021•18 min
Well my loves, school has started here and already we are getting covid exposure emails, the news is filled with fourth wave worries, and I’m feeling much of the familiar worry, frustration and fear that I felt last year at this time. So I’ve decided to pause some of the upcoming interviews I have planned, and instead, I’m going to re-run the series I created in July 2020 - Meditation & Emotional Resilience. Can’t hurt to remind our minds and soothe our hearts as we ride the waves of fall 20...
Aug 12, 2021•40 min
Today’s mini meditation is one of the most popular meditations on my app - Shoreline. Take 5 minutes to try it now! “Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson There is something about the imagery of a clock in a thunderstorm - a steady, safe consistency that invokes the feeling of meditation. Meditation isn’t a promise that there will be no loud noises, disruptio...
Aug 09, 2021•11 min
Well y'all... I was SO excited to host this conversation with my Teacher, Tracee Stanley, that I forgot to switch to my podcast microphone for recording.... So the audio might sound a bit different, but I promise the conversation is 100% worth listening to! Without doubt, if you listen to one of my episodes from 4 years ago and one today, you will hear quite a difference in my teaching. Much of this evolution is due to the guidance and practices offered by Tracee over the years. Tracee Stanley, ...
Aug 05, 2021•45 min
This week’s mini meditation is a self-compassion break guided by Dr. Kristen Neff. It is a powerful practice that offers you the chance to access exactly what you need in this moment - tender or fierce self-compassion. You can listen to the full interview with Dr. Neff in the previous episode titled Fierce Self-Compassion. You can learn more about Dr. Neff’s work here: https://self-compassion.org/ Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Baronfig. Baronfig’s line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided jo...
Aug 02, 2021•11 min
I am thrilled to share today’s episode with y’all - I am talking with Dr. Kristen Neff. Kristin Neff received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. During Kristin’s last year of graduate school she became interested in Buddhism and has been practicing meditation in the Insight Meditation tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work she decided to conduct rese...
Jul 29, 2021•40 min
“It is only when you go too far that you discover the boundary.” This was the insight from a recent conversation I had with my partner in Shoreline meditation app, Gordon Hempton. He was applying this thought to recording sounds, and I believe it equally applies to our life experiences. What if we shifted our internal narrative from one of shaming to one of appreciation for the times we misstep, overstep or go too far past our own boundaries? Thanks to our sponsor, Mindful and Modern. They make ...
Jul 26, 2021•15 min
A while back, I was having a conversation with Gordon Hempton, one of my partners in the Shoreline meditation app, about one of his soundscapes titled Dunes. In Dunes, Gordon moves among the dunes of Cape Cod recording the sounds of the surf and the nighttime insects, and as he is describing this soundscape to me, he says, “it is only when you go too far that you realize the boundary for the perfect sound within the dunes.” Lightbulb moment. It is only when you go too far that you discover the b...
Jul 22, 2021•34 min
Within meditation, non-judgment is the idea that whatever comes up within practice - thoughts, feelings, distractions - we simply allow it to be part of our present-moment experience without assigning a good/bad, like/dislike label to it. Within boundary-setting, this same skill is the ability to separate the threads between ‘this is the boundary I need to set’ and ‘this is how I feel about setting the boundary.’ Without the skill to separate these threads, it is very easy to get lost in the emo...
Jul 19, 2021•16 min
No. I have a problem with that. I don’t want to. I’ve decided not to. I feel uncomfortable about…. All of these are phrases we can use to set a boundary, and depending on how you were raised, your conditioning, gender expectations, etc., they can be incredibly hard to say. I understand that I can say, “no.” as a full sentence, but I also feel a way about saying no without an explanation or an excuse tied to it… This is where the meditative skill of non-judgment comes into play. Within meditation...
Jul 15, 2021•33 min
Today’s meditation practice is a practice in awakening to the physical boundaries of your body and the energetic boundaries of your being. This might sound so obvious or simple, but as we talk about often in meditation, many of us live slightly removed from our bodies. We aren’t conscious of our feelings or our embodied experience. This is why the first step of meditation is to get into the present moment, and to get into the body. This first step allows us to become embodied and conscious of ou...
Jul 12, 2021•20 min
In so many of my dharma talks and conversations lately, boundaries have come up. Boundaries showed up in our meditation series on Passion & Paychecks with Tiffany Johnson. Boundaries showed up in our discussions on worry and on fierce self-compassion. Boundaries also show up for me perpetually in relationships, and are something I spend a good bit of time thinking about and working on. Now, I am NOT a boundary expert. Sometimes I find I have very clear, easily expressed boundaries, and somet...
Jul 08, 2021•31 min
There are 3 guiding principles I incorporate into my meditation practice to help guide me in the ongoing balance of making tender choices and tough choices to best support my ultimate intentions: Listening: "To listen is to continually give up all expectations and to give our attention, completely and freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean. In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we...
Jul 05, 2021•15 min
There is a conversation that I have a lot with students; it goes something like this - Me: How is your meditation practice going? Student: Wellllllll, it hasn’t been very consistent lately. I’ve been super stressed lately about XYZ, and I just need to get through this tough period and then I’ll be able to recommit to my practice…. Sound familiar? Yep, I struggle with this exact same issue. And, as a teacher, in all honesty, I struggle with how to respond to this… On the one hand, I gently want t...
Jul 01, 2021•36 min
When we worry, it is only because we care deeply about someone or something, and there is something that feels threatening or unsafe to the person or thing we care so much about. Worry has its roots in fear, and that overwhelming, suffocating feeling often comes from trying to ignore what it is we fear most in this situation… So our first step in moments of worry, is to create and nurture a sense of safety for ourselves. I know some of you are thinking, “but that sounds a little selfish to put m...
Jun 28, 2021•16 min
Worry is such an interesting paradox isn’t it? It feels truly terrible when we are in the throes of it. Our bodies, our hearts, and minds can feel overwhelmed or suffocated by worry. And yet, worry only happens because we care deeply about someone or something; it feels like something that we must accept as an unavoidable experience in life. Our meditation practice can offer an alternative to this seemingly unavoidable paradox. Certainly with deep, sustained practice we might arrive in a place w...
Jun 24, 2021•36 min
**This episode is a replay of the 2020 Summer Solstice. Enjoy!** {From 2020} June 20th was the Summer Solstice, and it is the first solstice in many years that I didn’t teach a special meditation event. I usually host something extra special to harness the power of these reflective times, and yet, this year, even though I had already mapped up what I wanted to share and reflect on, I just kept delaying until the day was upon us and it was too late… The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the y...
Jun 21, 2021•31 min
**Don’t forget THIS Sunday {June 20} is the Summer Solstice and it is my last live, virtual mini retreat for 2021. I’d love for you to join me! You can learn more at https://www.merylarnett.com/events** Today’s episode is a special interview with Thomas Moore, author of one of my favorite books - Care of the Soul. He is here today to talk about his new book, Soul Therapy. I found myself reflecting that meditation is indeed one form of Soul Therapy for ourselves. This conversation invites us to r...
Jun 17, 2021•41 min
Led by Dr. Ashanté M. Reese, this beautiful meditation is a playful exploration of what it means to belong to one’s self. Our practice can not and should not be exclusively about our individual selves. Our inner realizations are only worth how we reflect them out into the world. How we belong to ourselves reflects how deeply we belong to each other. Let’s practice. These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full epi...
Jun 14, 2021•13 min
This has been a tough 18 months, hasn’t it? Somedays, even with the light of vaccines and seeing friends, I still feel unsure I can handle all that feels broken in the world. The amount of divisiveness feels unsurmountable. Political parties, masks, vaccines, racial injustice, voter rights. It feels like everyday we hear of decisions being made, and I assume, like me, you make a snap judgment of good or completely wrong and unacceptable. With this level of judgment and division comes a sense of ...
Jun 10, 2021•37 min
This week’s mini meditation is a special offering from my meditation app, Shoreline. In this meditation, The Call of the Lizard, you'll hear the sounds of Kalahari desert in South Africa in the evening. You can hear the winds blowing and the quiet call of the barking gecko. Within this meditation, we reflect on the energy of both the desert and the lizard. The lizard is known for its sensitivity to the subtle; its keen sensory awareness, and its ability to be perfectly still as it takes it all...
Jun 07, 2021•15 min
Now, I know y’all know that I am a deep lover of oracle cards, and the first episode I did on working with oracle cards is still one of my most popular episodes! So, today, I am THRILLED to share an interview with Tarot & Oracle card creator MJ Cullinane. MJ has created numerous magical and beautiful decks. The two I currently own are the Urban Crow Oracle and the ROAR Oracle. Both are stunning, wise and a delight to use. In this episode, MJ and I talk about the difference between oracle and...
Jun 03, 2021•47 min
Who do you invite into your meditation practice and why do you do it? Today’s mini meditation is an opportunity to explore what support, connections or wisdom you might connect to within your meditation practice. This is a snippet of my personal meditation practice at this time and I am excited to share it with you. Let’s practice! These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday ...
May 31, 2021•19 min
I mentioned in last week’s class that within my personal practice, I often start by honoring the ancestors of the place I live {the Muscogee/Creek Nation} as well as my own familial ancestors. Afterwards, a student mentioned that she struggles with inviting her ancestors into her meditation practice because she doesn’t think her ancestors were particularly good people. Another friend mentioned that she struggles with inviting her ancestors into her meditations because she doesn’t know much about...
May 27, 2021•34 min
