All the songs on Capacity, the upcoming album from Big Thief, are guitar songs save for one. Instead of Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek's wiry guitar arrangements, "Mary" pairs a hallowing piano and organ with the closeness of Lenker's consoling voice. It's hard to imagine any other arrangement sounding this fitting. Recorded in one take with Mat Davidson from Twain on piano, "Mary" is a song that so flawlessly captures an ineffable, deeply personal experience of the world that it becomes universal. It is the sound of snow piling on the windowsill of your childhood home, of a summer rain slanted against some beloved attic's cooling roof, of a childhood photograph rediscovered in a faded frame.

And it's the sound of Lenker's grandparents' house in Andover, Minn.

"We had a fireplace there," she remembers. "And every winter we spent every single winter there. I have memories of sledding down in the backyard; there was a hill that went down a path through this patch of woods. And we would just slide down the hill for hours. And then go inside and my grandma would make incredible hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon she was a heavy cinnamon user and my grandpa would put a fire on, and we would be there. And my grandma painted. And she'd bring out all these crafts and we'd sit and work on paintings and making things ... My grandparents and my grandma, in particular defined homey coziness in my life when I really needed it. Just that feeling of being completely cradled. That was my safe space. It just had this particular smell like potpourri and cloves and cinnamon. And it always smelled that way."

Lenker wrote "Mary" in that house. She first played it on her grandparents' keyboard some years ago, when she was 21 and just home from college, where she'd met a lifelong friend named Mary. ("There's really nothing like meeting a real friend on this earth who holds a space for you to be yourself," Lenker says.) "Mary" carries the warmth of that friendship and those winters.

"It's about childhood being brought to life and reignited after the slush of the teenage years," Lenker says. "There's just a little capsule of a song that allows me to revisit all these colors and pictures and textures and feelings. There's a few lines where I realized that sometimes it's easier on this journey for me to give love and kindness and tenderness and empathy to those I really care for ... and sometimes a little more challenging to direct it inwardly and give it to myself. And when I first wrote the song I thought I was definitely writing it all about this dear friend and these experiences and that time folded into other memories and just like a non-linear stream of life but then later I started realizing in listening to it that a lot of the lines were applicable to myself, and things that I needed to hear."

The song has a simple structure, but its chorus especially is uncommon in its elegant lyricism. As the piano draws back, Lenker incants a quickening series of memories and images in alliterative, internally rhymed fluidity. She lands on a note and repeats it ("What did you tell me, Mary, when you were there so sweet and very / Full of field and stars you carried all of time"), swoops on the beguiling phrase "monastery monochrome" and eventually lands on a passage where she flickers between two notes so lightly the change is almost imperceptible: "Aching planning high and smiling cheap drink dark and violent full of butterflies the violent / tenderness the sweet asylum." Her phrasing, lyrics and performance recall Judy Garland in "Over The Rainbow" the sound of a voice rocking back and forth in a lullabying third as if it were the beating of small wings, lifted off a catalog of simple beauty. Lenker writes at once from the sound of words and their meaning, creating a blissful avalanche of euphonious phrases like the childlike "boom balloon machine and, oh."

"First it sounds and then it means," Lenker says. "That song feels like crying and laughing at the same time. That's what it feels like to me."

That's the sound of Capacity's two polarities. The front of the record is often intense, and sometimes violent. It's a meditation on resilience and recovery with an emphasis on the painful moments that beget them. To Lenker's mind, "Great White Shark" is, roughly, the bridge from the troubled opening to the record's nurturing latter songs. "Mary" is at this section's apex. It is the feeling of being held at last in love, by yourself, through others.

"There's a lot that happens to the body in the beginning of the record that's harsh," she says. "And I think there's a lot that happens to the body in 'Mary' that is finally wonderful."

Standing outdoors, talking by phone on a May afternoon in Wimberley, Texas, Adrianne Lenker remembers winter in her grandparents' house in Andover, Minn., and the song that breathed from its walls with the smell of potpourri, cloves and cinnamon.

"It always feels good to sing that song."

Capacity comes out June 9 on Saddle Creek.

Link:

Big Thief's 'Mary' Is A Meditation On Resilience And Recovery - WBAA

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I suppose its not really that awareness and realization arent important, but rather that they arent things we can cling to. We dont want to attach to them. The Heart Sutra tells us that even the path isnt worth clinging to. The Emptiness teachings arent telling us that nothing exists so much as that theres nothing for us to hold on to.

When we meditate on Emptiness we arent meditating with a technique. We are simply trying to open our minds, to make them open to dwelling in the void.

It seems hard to grasp concepts like Emptiness at first. It definitely isnt our usual way of perceiving the world. But as we develop our awareness and mindfulness practices, it starts to get a little easier. When we develop awareness and start to loosen our attachment to the self, the mind that focuses on I-Me-Mine all the time, then we can start to understand Emptiness a little better.

Excerpt from:

Emptiness and Meditation - Patheos (blog)

If someone had told me that I would be writing an article on meditation and money a few years ago, I probably would have looked at them weirdly, laughed and posted about them on social media.

And theres the thing. If youre into rapid self development, you look back and see a completely different version of yourself.

Take facebooks on this day post that whisks you back three years and you think to yourself did I really post that?. Yep, been there a few times.

Heck, my king Charles cavalier puppy is even called Buddha. I never thought I would own a dog, let alone name it after a spiritual teacher.

So lets wind back a few years. I think its important to put this post into context for you so that you really understand that I truly do mean it when I say I believe you can meditate your way to millions, and potentially into a Ferrari.Actually, that shot was taken on my black 458 in La Jolla, California. I thought it was quite fitting for this post.

Lets wind back to 2012. I was in a pretty tough place in my life. I had about $50k worth of debt, much of which was linked to gambling and drugs. Iwas really living two lives.

I had been a personal trainer since 2005. By day I was helping people get fit, and by the weekend, a DJ and crazy party-goer. My life was on autopilot, and I was really unaware of what I was doing to myself and to the people around me.

The turning point was one Christmas. I had been out partying heavily on xmas eve and was due to be at my sisters house at 11am on xmas day. I had been popping pills and a cocktail of all sorts of drugs that night. I was a mess that morning.

I looked in the mirror, and my eyes were bulging. I was still high. I turned up at my sisters house, spent a few minutes talking and ended up in my nephews bed on Christmas day unable to operate.

I left that day completely ashamed of myself. About a month later, I had a massive calling to basically sort my shit out.

The key turning point was me packing my bags and moving away from where I had been brought upExeter, United Kingdomand moving to Bristol, UK.

I changed my environment, and this started to help me. But I still had a lot of issues. My beliefs, my thoughts, my identity, didnt match who I knew I was deep inside. I had to figure it out, and meditation was going to play a huge role in my success.

Just like in Joseph Cambells famous heros journey, mentors played a huge role in my success and in kick starting my spiritual and emotional growth.

With $50k of debt, I had about $7,0000 left available on one more cardI had 7 maxed outand I handed over $5000, the first part of of a $30,000 investment that I had no idea how I would pay. But I was to make every single payment without fail.

This investment really helped me to find my strength in business, and I started to work with personal trainers to get more clients, leverage their time and market themselves. I started to get amazing results.

But, at this time, while I was making more and more money, I was still drinking and otherwiseself sabotaging. Iwas deeply unhappy.

This is where I made a key decision. I committed to reinvest about 20% of what I generated back into me.

One of the toughest decisions I made was to invest in Tony RobbinsPlatinum Partnership. This would allow me to hang out with Tony in more intimate settings, one of which being India, the home of meditation and spiritual development.

At the time, this was a $65,000 investment, plus travel and trip costs, so comes out to about $150,000, especially if you are flying business classwhich I had decided to do for long haul trips to get more work done and be more productive or sleep!

While I had been meditating for some time prior to this move, it was the trip to India and a post event trip to the Oneness University that really opened my eyes into a whole new dimension of spiritual growth.

Here I was to experience and really start to go deep within myselfto start clearing out past issues that had led me to self sabotage, and to create a destructive lifestyle. I didnt want to generate new financial strength and then go and mess it all up.

As the layers started to be pulled back, I started to grow as a man. I started making meditation a daily non negotiable practice, and the results in my business started to show.

Because I was more centered, more calm, I started to make better decisions. I started to make quicker decisions. I started to tap into my intuition.

I would meditate and then come up with product ideas and blog content. When I was stressed, I would meditate and ask quality questions to remove blocks.

The more I did this, the more I would be raw on social media, and this started connecting me with my audience. I started to become the go-to guy in the fitness business mentoring space in the UK and then it started to go globally.

One of the big shifts I made was starting to touch more and more about mindset and its importance in generatingresults.This would then create more and more powerful case studies.

My meditation practice went from using apps like Calm and Headspaceboth great beginner appsto going deep really quickly and using my state shifts to create shifts in others.

At one event in the UK, I had a large part of a room breaking down in tears and creating breakthroughs through a guided meditation. During this meditation, I asked questions around forgiveness, mission and purpose. This, to me, was hugely fulfilling .

I think that there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are disconnected from themselves, and thats why i found it hugely useful for me to master meditation to help my business and my mission.

Its an integral part of my life, my business and my mission and its certainly generated millions of dollar0s in business. I can safely say that my business would not be where it is today if it wasnt for meditation.

Today, my daily meditation practice changes depending on what I have going on in my life.

Now I meditate and get myself to a place where I feel the feelings of already owning the things I want and helping the people I want to help.

Theres so much talk about money and meditation on their own, but few conversations about how to marry both together so that you can be more connected to your business and financially benefit.

As we grow spiritually, we have a great opportunity to take our business to the next level, and its my secret weapon. If you make it a daily, non-negotiable routine, im pretty certain it will have the same results for you too!Opinions expressed here by Contributors are their own.

Simon Lovell is a former personal trainer, TV presenter, speaker, best selling diet author and founder of The Fitpreneurs, a heroic business and self development program for personal trainers which he grew from zero to $1million in 18 months. He also helps high level entrepreneurs get into alignment. Simon is calls himself a spiritual hustler and his sidekick Buddha is his spaniel puppy. Hes hung out with the likes of Tony Robbins at west end shows and drunk Pussy Vodka with Richard Branson in a hot tub on his private island.

Published May 31, 2017

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How to Meditate Your Way to Millions - Influencive

Maya Lewis, WUSA 12:27 PM. EDT May 30, 2017

(Photo: Hero Images, Custom)

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) - This years National Day of Meditation falls on the most despised day of the work week, hump day.

If you need an extra push to make it through the week, try adding some of these easy meditation techniques into your daily routine:

Mindfulness

This technique includes monitoring the idle thoughts that cross your mind. To do so, find a quiet spot to sit with your eyes closed, and let your usual thoughts float through your mind. Instead of getting stuck on one thought, let your mind race and come back to whats important. Take note of what you find yourself thinking of often. Some people pair mindfulness with concentration meditation.

Concentration Meditation

Find an open place to stare at an object (candles are pretty popular), or even your feet as you walk to lunch. Experts agree that by choosing one object to focus on, you become more in tune with intricate sensations throughout your body. Its also a great way to let your thoughts race.

Visualization

This one you can do just about anywhere. Take a couple moments to visualize your idealized job, vacation, home or future. Focusing on this picture serves as a moment of clarity and motivation.

Mantra

Repeat words or phrases to yourself daily to produce a sense of calmness and focus. You can choose a quote thats important to you, or one of the abundance of Sanskrit mantras available online.

Controlled breathing

Several experts name this technique as one of the best for beginners. Once in a comfortable position, begin to take deep breaths while observing the motions and sensations of air moving through your lungs. Controlling and observing your breath gives you a sense of focus.

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5 meditation techniques you can do at your desk - W*USA 9

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WEST HARTFORD -- "I was really trapped in that cycle of depression," saidCyndi Roberts of West Hartford who also battled anxiety. She was even misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. She was given medication and also abused drugs and alcohol.

"I was suicidal, just really run down, fatigued. I had gained 80 pounds from the medication," she explained candidly. "I had to make a choice - if I wanted to fight or keep going with this life."

She chose yoga and meditation, two practices that helped her kick the bad habits and get in touch with her mind and body. After getting certified, Roberts started teaching group classes but found that one-on-one sessions - of restorative, therapeutic yoga - were more fulfilling to her and her clients.

"I could make yoga work for them, specifically. So I had people who wanted to lose weight, people with injuries," she said.

Now, the mother of a two year old, Roberts wrote a book called "Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby," a guide to prenatal yoga which will be available in July. She co-owns Zen: Body and Mind Holistic Healing where she often works with moms.

"Its giving my clients a mantra to practice while theyre washing the dishes or a mindfulness exercise to practice while theyre sweeping or picking up toys because those are the moments in our life when we need yoga the most," she said. "Take a breath when you feel like life is out of control and you cant breathe. Take that beat, that pause, recharge yourself, its ok. Putting yourself first is not selfish, its necessary and then we can be better for our families."

Roberts is proud of her journey back to health and peace. She hopes to inspire others to take control of their lives and futures.

"I am absolutely a different person," she says. "I have such clarity and a lust for life that I didnt have before. Im in love with every day of my life."

Click here to learn more about Cyndi Roberts Yoga and an upcoming therapeutic crystal workshop.

41.762084 -72.742015

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West Hartford mom shares inspiring story of healing through yoga and meditation - FOX 61

Weve all heard about the benefits of meditation ad nauseam. Those disciplined enough to practice regularly are rewarded with increased control over the brainwaves known as alpha rhythms, which leads to better focus and may help ease pain. In addition to calming the mind and body, meditation can also reduce the markers of stress in people with anxiety disorders. Rigorous studies have backed health claims such as these to convince therapists, physicians, and corporate gurus to embrace meditations potential.

What contemporary and ancient meditators have always known, however, is that while the hype may be warranted, the practice is not all peace, love, and blissful glimpses of unreality. Sitting zazen, gazing at their third eye, a person can encounter extremely unpleasant emotions and physical or mental disturbances.

Zen Buddhism has a word for the warped perceptions that can arise during meditation: makyo, which combines the Japanese words for devil and objective world. Philip Kapleau, the late American Zen master, once described confronting makyo as a dredging and cleansing process that releases stressful experiences in deep layers of the mind.

This demanding and sometimes intensely distressing side of meditation is rarely mentioned in scientific literature.However, this demanding and sometimes intensely distressing side of meditation is rarely mentioned in scientific literature, says Jared Lindahl, a visiting professor of religious studies at Brown University, who has an interest in neuroscience and Buddhism. Along with Willoughby Britton, a psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Brown, the two mediators have co-authored a study that documents and creates a taxonomy for the variant phenomenology of meditation. The paper, published in Plos One, is the beginning of an ongoing series of studies. Just because something is positive and beneficial doesnt mean we shouldnt be aware of the broader range of possible effects it might have, Lindahl says.

To conduct their research, the pair interviewed 60 Western Buddhist meditation practitioners who had all experienced challenging issues during their practice. They included both rookies and meditation teachers, many of whom had accumulated more than 10,000 hours of meditation experience in their lifetime. All belonged to either Theravda, Zen, or Tibetan traditions.

The researchers identified 59 kinds of unexpected or unwanted experiences, which they classified into seven domains: cognitive, perceptual, affective (related to moods), somatic, conative (related to motivation), sense of self, and social. Among the experiences described to them were feelings of anxiety and fear, involuntary twitching, insomnia, a sense of complete detachment from ones emotions, hypersensitivity to light or sound, distortion in time and space, nausea, hallucinations, irritability, and the re-experiencing of past traumas. The associated levels of distress and impairment ranged from mild and transient to severe and lasting, according to the study. Most would not imagine that these side-effects could be hiding behind the lotus-print curtains of your local meditation center.

However, the survey respondents didnt necessarily perceive every non-euphoric event as negative. In fact, says Britton, she and Lindahl deliberately avoided the word adverse in their study for this reason. Instead, they chose challenging, which better captured the meditators varied interpretations of their experiences. For instance, a person who came away from a retreat feeling very expanded and very unified with other people in the world might have found their oneness with the universe distracting once they returned home. (Thats challenging, not tragic.)

The goal of the study was to look for patterns in the common accounts of unwanted reactions. Who runs into the unexpected hurdles? What are the unique set of factors involved? In which ways do teachers assist students who are struggling? (And do they blame inner demons for the upsets, or maybe something you ate at lunch?) The answers, which still require future research, may one day be relevant to the ways meditation is used as therapy.

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There's a dark side to meditation that no one talks about - Quartz

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So youresitting down to meditate, ready to find your Zen withyour favorite app,a mindful group, or maybe even with the help ofa hammock thats floating in midairand suddenly, keeping your body still is about as easy as walking past an avocado-themed restaurant without even peeking at the menu (AKA impossible).

Hey, it happenssometimes,being busy 24/7 becomesso ingrained that stayingmotionlessand focusing on yourbreath is just not. gonna. happen.

Thats whena mindful walk can be a perfect alternative. Consider it an ideal opportunityto experiencethepositive effects of living in the momentwhile boosting your step count for the day.

You can still practice being presentand awarewhile incorporating movement.

[A walk] can have the same effect as regular meditating, says Jamie Price, wellness expert and co-founder of theStop, Breathe, and Thinkapp. It gets you out of your head and works as a great excuse to get you outside, which itself has a rejuvenating effect on your brain. (Seriously: Science proves that getting outdoors has a positive impact on your mental health).

Unlike seated methods, which can getyou worrying about breathing correctly or your foot falling asleep, walking letsyou focus on the sensationsthat accompanyeach step you take. You can still practice being presentand awarewhile incorporating movement, says Price.

And ifyour thoughts start to wander, simply bring your attention back to your body in motionwhich, for some people, can bemuch easier than pure stillness.

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The simplestplace to begin: Try connecting your mind to your movements. Really pay attention to how every part of your body feels with each step, says Price. For example, notice your foot touching the ground and your thigh muscles moving forward.

She notes that usually, it doesnt take long to get lost in thought (of course), but its also easy enough to hit reset. Get back to whats happening in your body, Price says. Use your next step as an opportunity to start over.

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Another optionis to make a point of enjoying everything you see around you: adorable pups, blooming flowers or your fave smoothie truck on the corner, for example. Really pay attention to your surroundings and observe details without thinking too much about them, she says. Just take it all in without any judgment.

Price says that its key to add a layer of appreciation for what your senses observe. The idea is to [be] open and curious, she explains. I focus on sights and sounds and spend a moment feeling gratitude for how beautiful it is. Cultivate a joyful appreciation.

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Whether youre near greenery or in a concrete jungle, Price notes that this practice travelsanywhereas long as its done outside. Those senses youre experiencing might be triggered differently in a nature setting versus a city, she says, but the conceptof focus and sensory awareness works in any place. So, next time youset out for a stroll,you can always choose to take it up a (mindful) notchwhether youre walking a scenic waterfront path on vacay, getting some forest bathing in, or pounding the pavement during your workweek.

You can also try this outdoor meditation as a genius de-stressing tool. And heres what to do when meditation just doesnt work for you.

See the original post here:

How to take mindfulness on the road, with a walking meditation - Well+Good

Memorial Dayis a time for reflection, a day we come together to collectively honor those who have sacrificed in service to our great nation. A day we openly show our deepest appreciation to those men and women in uniform who gave their last full measure of devotion for the freedom we all share.

That reflection resonates from our heart and soul, shown through the tears and the bonding we as veterans and the families of veterans share when we give thought to those warriors now gone. I give thought to my high school classmates whogave their lives before they were of legal age to share a toast. I give thought to those who survived combat but were never able to deal with the trauma of war and succumbed to an untimely death at their own hand. Then there are those of us who carry the emotions from the battlefield quietly in our souls and just live out our lives and thoughts that we may carry for a lifetime.

A generation of warriors has stood proud since the early days of America's Revolution and we reflect through our history to those whohave served. Our World War I generation is now gone. The last living veteran of that war died February 2011, at 110 years old, and was buried with honors at Arlington. It is a historical timeline worthy of reflection.

Raymond Haerry, a survivor of Pearl Harbor, was serving on the USS Arizona that fateful day of Dec. 7, 1941. Haerry died this past month at the age of 94 and his wish was to be reunited with his shipmates who went down with the sinking of the Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The attack killed 1,177 of the ship's 1,511-member crew, including the more than 1,000 crew members whose remains were not recovered from the ship. The average age of the crew members on the USS Arizona at the time of the attack was 19. Haerry noted before his death that he carried the suffering in his heart for his shipmates for all those years and thought it only appropriate that he share their sacrifice by joining them for eternity. May his soul now rest in peace.

The battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War (sometimes referred to as the "forgotten war") pitted 15,000 allied ground troops against 120,000 Chinese infantrymen. When it was over, more than 3,000 of our troops had died and 6,000 wounded a sacrifice that should not to be forgotten this Memorial Day.

The sacrifice of my generation from Vietnam is in the 58,000 names etched on a simple black granite wall in Washington, D.C. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 16 years has cost the lives of nearly 7,000 U.S. service members. The sacrifice of war seems to be never-ending and the scars of battle are painful and everlasting.

My wife and I recently traveled the Pacific Coast Highway in our RV from Southern California to Washingtonstate. Along the way we noticed many roadside signs honoring the sacrifices of the fallen. Tributes honoring hometown heroes were noted along highways and byways, in city parks and rest stops. They are much the same honors we share in Alaska, such as the Byers Lake Veterans Memorial, James Bondsteel Bridge of Honor over the Knik River, and Medal of Honor Recipient Archie Van Winkle Memorial in Juneau. Tributes sponsored by the local VFW, Boy Scout troops and the Rotary or chamber of commerce. Every sign we saw along the way paid homage to the valued service of our military by reflecting on the same sacrifices that have been shared from generation to generation.

(Photo courtesy Laddie Shaw)

I, like many others, pass these signs on a regular basis with an acknowledging glance at their existence, but many times only give a moment of thought to the honor these signs represent. One sign we passed outside Arcata, California, honored Kevin Ebbert, a heroic Navy SEAL killed in action in November 2012, in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I served with his father, Jeff Ebbert, in the same SEAL community in 1975 and, tragically, Jeff left us too soon. I gave pause to the reverence of this highway sign as we passed. Two generations came together in my thoughts at that moment along a California highway, father and son, brothers-in-arms, teammates, a bond held strong by service and sacrifice.

It is our sacred duty to preserve the legacy of these brave Americans. It remains our charge to work for peace, freedom and security.Let us always strive to uphold the founding principles our service members died defending, let their legacy continue to inspire our nation and let this solemn lesson of service and sacrifice be honored.

Laddie Shaw is a U.S. Navy veteran of the Vietnam War who served with SEAL Team One. He also served as director of the Alaska Division of Veterans Affairs.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, emailcommentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words toletters@alaskadispatch.com.

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Memorial Day is meditation and remembrance - Alaska Dispatch News

1. PATIENCE Practicing meditation is a great way to learn patience! When you force yourself to sit still for a few minutes every day, while focusing on your breath and simply observing the thoughts in your mind without judgment, you will be able to tolerate waiting for your slow friends or siblings without getting stressed out. In fact, you can meditate any time you are waiting for someone or something!

2. JUDGMENT In meditation we train ourselves to simply observe our thoughts without judging them as good or bad. They are just thoughts. Actions on the other hand can have positive or negative impacts on our lives. By learning mindfulness we give ourselves that split second where we observe what we are thinking before deciding what action we are going to take, this is called good judgment! When we see our friends doing things that are going to hurt them or others we can be compassionate for them, because maybe they dont know how to be mindful and are just acting on their thoughts without seeing what the consequences are going to be.

3. ACCEPTANCE In meditation we learn to see our thoughts without judgment. We simply accept ourselves as we are with all our wishes fears dreams strengths and weaknesses. We understand that we are simply doing our best in every moment. Practicing mindfulness gives us a tool to help us see what our best action is in any moment. We can be accepting of people like our friends, family, teachers and coaches who may not have this skill.

4. SELF AWARENESS Being self aware simply means being aware of what you are thinking, how you are feeling and paying attention to what you are actually doing. When we practice Mindfulness we learn to pay attention to what we are thinking, and how those thoughts make us feel. As we go through our days after our morning meditation we will start to notice how people places and things make us feel. Does one friend always bring you down? Does eating junk food at lunch make you too tired to go to your team practice after school? By becoming self aware we can learn to make decisions that will help us get to our goals and avoid situations that are taking us away from where we want to be.

5. PEER PRESSURE Our friends can be a source of guidance help and inspiration, or sometimes not. By becoming self aware we can begin to pay attention to how we feel, our feelings are a pretty good indicator of what we should or should not be doing. If a friend suggests that you do something and you feel your stomach getting upset at the thought of it, that is a good indicator that you are being pressured to do something stupid. We are often afraid that if we dont conform we will lose our friends and that is very scary, but we all have different people in our life. Learn to be mindful of how you feel around certain people and choose to spend time with the ones who want to do cool stuff, stuff you would be proud to tell your Grandmother you did.

6. APPROVAL SEEKING this is the other side of peer pressure, doing things to get attention, to get likes on a post or shares of an instagram. Now, this is important, doing things that are good for others out of the kindness of your heart is the goal, sometimes that can get confused with other motivations. By learning to be mindful we can start to notice when we are doing things just to get attention versus when we are being genuine honest loving in our actions.

7. PLEASURE SEEKING Have you ever had a bad day at school or got in an argument with your mom and just wanted to run to your room and eat a whole tub of ice cream? This is typical pleasure seeking behavior. Often times, we dont want to feel our feelings when the feeling is bad. As we learn and practice mindfulness through our daily seated meditation practice first we learn to just observe and accept our thoughts, then we can begin to observe and accept our feelings as well, as they are often linked. When we learn to accept our thoughts and feelings we wont be as tempted to do things that we later regret just to make the pain go away.

8. PAIN AVOIDANCE Have you ever made a big mistake that you were sure you would get in trouble for? Then hid the evidence, blamed someone else or somehow not taken responsibility because you were afraid you would get in trouble, this behavior is called pain avoidance. It makes sense at first glance but as we have seen, when we meditate we build a safe place inside us where our thoughts and feelings dont have a powerful a hold on us. So you can admit what you did wrong and then simply observe how the authority figure is reacting and you can simply accept what is going on without judgment. Yes you may still get in trouble but you will be in WAY LESS trouble if you admit your faults than if you hide them and get caught later.

9. RESPONSIBILITY As we learn and practice Mindfulness through our daily seated practice we realize that our thoughts come and go and we dont have much control over them, but when we insert that layer of mindfulness into our lives we realize that we do have control over our actions. Thoughts come in and we can choose to dwell on them or let them go and consciously think about something else that makes us feel good, and just like that we can do the same with our actions. When we make this HUGE realization we no longer can blame our friends or our parents for stuff that we clearly chose to do. This is very empowering because it shows us that anything we want in life we have to work towards, this makes us very powerful because we will start to choose our actions more carefully rather than just blaming everything that goes wrong on someone else.

10. COMPASSION As you can see, the practice of Mindfulness Meditation can totally change our lives for the better. As you grow and change you will likely start to notice that you have less and less in common with some friends and you might want to start to find some new friends who also practice meditation! Think of the quality of life you can have when you are all taking responsibility for your own actions and outcomes! Now the flip side of that is having compassion for people who dont have this skill. When you see someone freaking out, sad, crying, sick or suffering you can understand that they probably have no idea how to separate themselves from their thoughts. You can think back to how that used to make you feel. You have developed an amazing skill that helps you literally create the life you want to live, without it, life can be very challenging. So as you go through your day, look around you and be choose to be grateful for what you have and have some compassion for people around you who clearly do not have this gift in their lives.

Maybe you will even want to teach others how to meditate?

Have you meditated before? What do you do to reduce stress? Comment below!

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10 Ways Meditation Can Help You Deal With Your Friends and Family - Kidzworld

DELWYN DICKEY

Last updated10:45, May 28 2017

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The Vipassana Meditation retreat north of Auckland has concerns that a new pistol range being built nearby will disrupt the peace and tranquility of the area.

The Vipassana Meditation Centre north of Auckland is heading to the High Court in an attempt tostop a proposed gun club from disrupting its tranquility.

The centre's efforts to overturn a certificate of compliance through the courtnext month, which is seeing agun club opening in its quiet neighbourhood, could be a serious stumbling block to the project.

Last year Raymond O'Brien and Victoria Pichler were issued a certificate of compliance from Auckland Council for two pistol areas comprising a six-bay shooting range they planned to develop on their newly acquired lifestyle block in rural Makarau.

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Kirsty McKay from the Vipassana Meditation Centre north of Auckland is heading to court to stop a new pistol range from being built nearby.

Auckland council's manager of resource consenting, Ian Dobson, said under the council's district plan this is a permitted recreational pursuit in rural areas.

READ MORE: *Country's largest gun club to be built *Police allowed to use gun range *Police Association alarmed at gun club's ban

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Pistol shooter Raymond O'Brien is upbeat about the court hearing and is confident the range's certification will stand.

O'Brien and Pichler had plans to quickly expand the range from six bays to 30, including two shotgun ranges and a rifle range, with the backing of the Auckland Shooting Club which would make it one of the biggest facilities of its kind in the country.

Meanwhile, down the road between rolling hillsandsurrounded by native bush,up to 1500meditators a year hand in their cellphones, sit cross-legged and suspendall connection with the outside world for 10 days while they observe their breathingin silence.

Vipassana meditators are not the only ones upset with the plansother neighbours to the Tuhirangi Rd property were angry they weren'tconsulted. Many had only found out about the plans by accident on the club's website.

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The meditation centre isn't alone in its concerns about O'Brien's plans.

Auckland Council maintains neighbours don't need to beconsulted for a certificate of complianceand the bigger plan didn't need to be taken into account, as resource consentswould have been needed for parts of it.

"Without having received a resource consent application to assess, we cannot determine what parts of their proposals would require a resource consent," Dobson said.

While not a direct neighbour, theVipassanaMeditation Centre had serious concerns that noise from the gun club would be a serious distraction formeditators who have been coming to their nearby property forquiet contemplationfor over 30 years.

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Vipassana's clients have been coming to the centre for quiet contemplation for over 30 years.

The VipassanaTrust started legal proceedings in Decemberlast year, challenging the Auckland Council's granting of the compliance certificate. The case will be heard in the Auckland High Court in mid-June.

"The Certificate of Compliance could only have been properly issued by the Auckland Council if the proposed shooting range complied in all respects with the relevant district and regional plans and did not need resource consent," trustee Kirsty McKay said.

Auckland Council could not have been satisfied the activity did not require resource consent under the Resource Management Act,the trust alleges.

Auckland Council says it will abide by the court's decision.

O'Brien is upbeat about the court hearing and is confident the certification will stand.

"Even if it is voided, we still have a valid application. We would simply fix the things that need doing," he said.

But despitethe optimism,if the court maintains thecertificate shouldn't have been issued, therecouldbe some serious issues forO'BrienandPichler.

If certification is out, the gun club may not be able to operateon the site until a resourceconsent is granted.

The club is planning to openon July 1 for general membership.It has been confirmed Deputy Prime MinisterPaula Bennettwill officially openthe Auckland Shooting Club and Range Facilities on July 7.

Given the level of animosity from neighbours and some in the community, it seems unlikely Auckland Council wouldgrant aresourceconsentnow without eitherconsulting immediate neighbours or publicly notifyinga consent application.

-Sunday Star Times

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