About a week ago I retreated for a much-needed girls weekend to a spa resort just outside of Santa Fe.
Justine Ruszczyk Damond: What Her Death Is Teaching Me About Living
5 Reasons Your Soul is Calling for a Retreat
I am home from a month in the jungles of Costa Rica where I was vacationing with my sweet family and teaching back-to-back transformational meditation retreats with my older sister Lacy Young. For two weeks we watched beautiful souls soften and transform on meditation cushions right across from us, their lives utterly and totally changed. I left the experience completely renewed and deeply grateful for this incredible work she and I get to do together.
Retreating is near and dear to my heart, and it's something I prioritize in my own life. In the last five years I've attended at least one week-long meditation retreat a year (some years more than one) with many other workshop weekends peppered in for good measure.
I lead retreats because I believe in it. Fiercely. And because I've seen the powerful ripples faithfully attending them has created in my own life. In fact, if it weren't for that first meditation retreat all those years ago, I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing now.
You Are More Than Enough
Today I sat in mediation with tears streaming down my face, and I saw the litany of ways flash before my eyes that I've been beating myself up lately. Big things. Tiny things. Strange little things you wouldn't even imagine.
Like the planter in my window. I tried to start cilantro from seed about a month or two ago, and while three little shoots popped up to say hello, they eventually fizzled and fell. Now the planter is sitting in the window with dried out soil and tiny little cilantro carcasses, and I didn't even realize it was making me feel bad.
Your Go-To Guide for Releasing Negative Energy
It happens to us all. We're humming right along in life, things are a-okay, and then we wake up one day in an undeniable funk. We don't exactly remember why we feel so bad, but we know for sure that we don't feel good.
We find ourselves analyzing and judging it in our minds. We push against it, and before we know it we're owning it. We're talking about it on repeat with our friends and family, and it weaves itself right into the definition of who we are.
The Joy of Mindfulness Meditation (and How You Can Do It Too)
This morning was one of those rushed sort of scenes in our household. My daughter's breakfast was still only half-eaten when we were supposed to be walking out the door, I was slapping hummus on her sandwich while barking at her to EAT, and my husband was running upstairs to take his first call for the day.
Go. Go. Go.
It wasn't until I got home from dropping her at school that I caught myself in the frenzy of the energy. All at once I noticed that I felt anxious and clenched, and I found myself instinctively taking a deep breath and reminding myself to just be here right now in this moment.
Three Ways to Nurture Your Psychic Abilities
"How do you know you're psychic? Is it something we can all be taught?"
I was curled up in my favorite glider in the living room just a few days ago, and my friend was across from me on my dark charcoal couch peering at me with inquisitive eyes. I had been telling her about my recent experience with a Peruvian shaman, and suddenly we were neck deep in a conversation about reading energy, talking to spirits and traveling through dimensions.
The Art of Letting Go
For years now I've had the kind of experiences in meditation that make people either want to smack me or study me. Violent shaking, loud guttural noises and orgasmic energy movement are all par for the course these days, and I've stopped trying to diminish my experience for the sake of making other people feel better. What happens to me isn't normal.
The Earth is Alive
I feel so soft this morning. I am connected to myself and the whole in such a sweet, surrendered way.
I’ve been noticing lately how hard my edges get when I am entrenched in the trappings of the mind. When I am consumed with my body or with money or with whatever other distraction the ego tells me is truth. But when I pull myself away and I feel into the soft spaces of myself and the earth, I realize how false it all is.
I meditated on my connection with the earth this morning. I felt her beneath my feet, and I slipped into her steady warmth. I felt her core emanating vibrance and her waters fueling life. I felt a part of something bigger, and I released into it with relief.
What is Meditation? And Why is it Important?
Simply put, meditation is the quieting of the mind that allows the body deep, cleansing rest. When the body is allowed to slip into this state of rest, amazing things begin to happen. Stress releases. Cells rebuild. Energy moves. Healing occurs. Even five minutes a day can have a tremendous impact on your health and wellbeing. These days most of us live in a perpetual state of stress, yet we don't quite understand how this is physically impacting our health. How are our thoughts and day-to-day stressors creating such tangible effects in our bodies? And how can meditation reverse this?
Meditation Miracle: Abundant Riches and a Wealth of Gratitude
My house is quiet with the sounds of slumber. Chloe’s noise machine purrs with the gentle hum of the ocean. Brian’s slow, restful breaths fill the air of our bedroom. And I am completely still within my grateful heart. Just before I put Chloe down for her nap, she and I juiced together; she on her learning tower, me standing over the juicer chuckling as she handed me the produce piece by piece after sampling each one. Little nibble marks here, chunks missing there; each filling my heart with more and more love and appreciation.
Meditation Miracle: Zero Gravity and Total Surrender
Compete darkness. Total silence. Zero gravity. What if you faced your biggest fear?
Since I began this wildly passionate love affair with meditation just three short months ago, I have found myself toe-to-toe with many beliefs I have held true for my entire life. Each morning I rise before the sun and challenge my monkey mind to surrender to Truth as I purposefully reshape the programs that have been unconsciously running for decades.