Welcome! You are listening to The Mindful Minute, Meditations Created for Everyday Joy. I'm Meryl Arnett, Mama, Meditator, and Head of Mindfulness for Shoreline Meditation Out. This podcast is recorded from my live Monday Night Meditation Class, where we have a brief discussion followed by a 20-minute guided meditation. If these meditations support you and your practice, please consider donating to the show to support its continued growth, new offerings,
and its ever-expanding team. You can find the link in today's show notes or simply visit MerylArnett.com and click on Podcast. Alright y'all, let's practice! Welcome you guys! Before we get into today's Mini Meditation, I want to just circle back to the big news that I shared in last Thursday's episode. I have opened the doors to my all-new, awakened heart meditation community. This community was born out of the realization
that the time has passed when a simple 10-minute meditation is enough. To go deeper and to feel healthier, happier, and more creative, we must find ways to reconnect through community. This community is here to help you integrate mindfulness and meditation into your actual, real, your beautifully complex life. And I can't stress this enough. This is not another content dump or an online program that you have to feel stressed about adding to your calendar.
This isn't just about learning new techniques or meditating for more than 10 minutes a day. Of course, learning new techniques and meditating is part of it. But it's also about connecting with people. The science is clear, even if your brain is screaming, but I don't like people. I don't want to talk to anyone. The science tells us when we feel connected and supported by others. We are healthier. We are happier. We are more creative. Connection is as non-negotiable
as food and water for our survival. It won't happen by possibly watching a video or listening to an app. It happens when we sit together, when we share in realistic, vulnerable, and supportive ways. When we're willing to spend a few minutes commenting, high-fiving, or sharing with someone else. In one of my current favorite books, Burnout by Emily and
Amelia Nagoski, the authors devote a whole chapter to the importance of connection. And they share four signs that tell us when we are desperately in need of more connection. This is what they write. Here we'll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection. That is, there are all different ways of feeling lonely. When
you have been gasslet. When you're asking yourself, am I crazy? Or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now? When you feel not enough, no individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We're built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you. Helpless in the face of endless
yawning need around you. Recognize that emotion for what it is. A form of loneliness. When you're sad, sadness is the emotion that most needs support and connection to move through. And when you're boiling with rage. More even than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, to hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage, our own as well as others. We don't want to hurt anyone. And rage is indeed very, very powerful.
Now, I don't know about y'all, but I experience all of these emotions and thoughts frequently. It's one of the primary drivers for creating this community. So that none of us walk around believing that if I just meditated for five more minutes, I'd be fine. It's fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. No. Certainly, you should meditate every day. And we must do
so in an engaged, supportive community. When you join the Awakened Heart Meditation Community, you'll have access to new teachings and meditations, my live Monday night meditation class, live stream group sits, community connection and Q&A, community driven meditation challenges, many meditation retreats, discussion and support for practicing and engaging with painful world events and so much more. But let me tell you what the most valuable part
of this community is. It's you. It's your participation. And I know, I know the use of you can be so vague. So let me be clear, Awakened Heart Meditation Community is for you if you have a basic understanding and practice in meditation. You practice for about 10 minutes at a time, at least a couple times a week. You want to go deeper, but you're not quite sure how to get there. And you want to be part of a community of like-minded
meditators. You want to grow your practice to support your emotional resilience. You want to gain new knowledge and skills. You want to experience new techniques to know yourself better for meditation. And you have a desire for deeper experience, for spiritual connection, for more fulfillment from your practice and to learn to handle yourself and your life differently stemming from meditation. The world keeps turning and changing. We're going
to face the changes and challenges with eyes wide open together. You can learn more by visiting my website, merrillarnet.com. The link is also in the show notes. And now let's share in a practice of connection together. A practice designed to create connection to yourself and the community around you. And when you're ready, we will find a comfortable seat. So if you need to shift around it all, you do some. Letting your weight fall into the cushion
or chair beneath you. If you need support for your back, you get it. And when you're ready, let your hands rest down onto your lap and perhaps you choose to close your eyes. That doesn't feel quite right, taking a soft gaze down towards the ground. And together as a group here, let's take a nice deep inhale in. Exhale a sigh out of the mouth. And we'll do that again inhaling deeply. Exhale a sigh. And allowing your breath
to flow. Taking a moment to call yourself right here, right now into this practice. We begin by silently saying, now is my time to meditate. Now is my time to meditate. And as you say those words to yourself, tonight let's remember that there is no ideal attached to that statement. There's no expectation around who you must be or how you must feel in or after this practice. And so we show up tired or stressed, exhausted or empty. And we invite the full weight of our
body to settle into the supports beneath it. And let's really notice that the cushions, the chairs, the earth itself, it really does support us. Something is holding up your body right now. And you let your thighs drop into it and your hips. And so gently you let your mind skim up the length of your spine just making sure you're somewhat tall. Maybe letting go of any unnecessary tension you find along the way. And your shoulder blades drop back
and down. And the crown of the head lifts. And you imagine their forehead smoothing out and broadening. Letting go of any gripping or tension around your eyes. And then the softening along the jaw. And the inside of the cheeks. And the tongue. As we let our awareness move down a little deeper into the chest, bring with you a sense of curiosity. What's here today? Noticing what you feel. The words are the images that
might come to mind. We just linger for a moment right here in the center of the chest. Your awareness drops down into your belly. And you let go of the muscles in the belly. Allowing yourself to breathe easy. And eventually we'll let our awareness land on the breath. Finding the place where you most feel the breath as you breathe in. And as you breathe out. And in a moment we'll settle into ten minutes of silence. And we'll each do our best
to continue feeling the breath. And perhaps we'll let these ten minutes be about nothing except connecting with yourself. Not changing. Not fixing. Not solving. But connecting. Why? drool. Bye. Bye. Your breath continues to flow. It wraps in these last five minutes. The breath is both a source of connection to yourself and to others. The inhale connecting to self. The exhale perhaps connecting with those meditating with you right now. The inhale connecting to self.
The exhale connecting to those meditating to the same recording in other times and other spaces. Until every breath is linked to self and all beings everywhere. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self. Feeling your breath here. The exhale connecting to self. The exhale connecting to self.
A refilling of your own cup. And a deepening of connection to all others. And take one last breath together here. Feeling that exhale traveling far and wide. And take all the time you need to blink your eyes open to let go of your practice. Thanks for listening to The Mindful Minute. If you're enjoying these episodes, please consider leaving me a review wherever you get your podcast. It really helps others to find the show.
To learn more about my live classes, virtual meditation retreats, my meditation app shoreline, or to make a donation to the show, please visit maralarnet.com. Thanks again. I'll see you next week.