Meditation

When Focusing On The Breath Doesn’t Help, Try This

By Nicole Urdang | November 17, 2022
Posted in ,

  While meditation can be incredibly soothing and peaceful, many people, especially those with a trauma history, find focusing on the breath triggering. Often, this activates memories of stressful times and can feel even more disturbing. If that is your experience, even if it’s only your experience some of the time when meditating, there are […]

So Hum Breath Meditation & Yoga Nidra Inspired Body Scan

By Nicole Urdang | July 21, 2021
Posted in , ,

Here is a fairly short practice that starts with a silent So Hum breath meditation and seamlessly moves into a different kind of body scan. What I love about this is how it’s perfect before sleep, upon waking, or anytime during the day. The body scan is my riff on a classical yoga nidra body […]

Insight Timer: My Curated List Of Their Best Meditation Teachers

By Nicole Urdang | June 24, 2019
Posted in , ,

I am a huge fan of the free app: Insight Timer. It has over 150,000 meditations. While I certainly haven’t listened to all of them, I have sampled many. With such an embarrassment of riches it’s a bit daunting to sort through them and bookmark all the ones you love. I thought it might be […]

Breathing: 10 Breaths to Create Joy

By Nicole Urdang | February 16, 2015
Posted in ,

Humans needed to survive in harsh conditions since our earliest cave dwelling days. As a result, our brains got very good at sensing danger. If we had a traumatic event, or even a close call, we had to learn from one experience to avoid those situations and any that looked like them in the future. […]

Shanti, Shakti, Prema, Bhakti Meditation For Centering

By Nicole Urdang | December 31, 2013
Posted in

This is a very short, restorative, centering meditation you can do sitting on the floor, sitting in a chair, or even lying down. To start, center yourself with a few deep diaphragmatic breaths, making each one a bit slower and more relaxed than the last. With your hands in prayer, and thumbs touching at the […]

Mindfulness

By Nicole Urdang | July 6, 2010
Posted in

While walking in the park this morning I happened to notice a man ambling along engrossed in a book. Curious as to what was so compelling, I glanced over and saw it was a large book of watercolors. This perplexed and amused me, as the morning was exceptionally beautiful: a rich blue sky punctuated with […]