Open awareness is a non-referential meditation, meaning you don’t use any reference point such as the breath or the body to keep your mind focused. Those focal points are useful as first, but as you progress, they can hold you back. In open awareness, your attention rests with everything that’s happening. To this end, you meditate with your eyes gently open. Normally our eyes are trained to focus on a single object. Here, you softly take in everything in your field of vision simultaneously, particularly the periphery, the way you might gaze at a wide expanse of ocean.

In this way, you go beyond sitting in mindfulness to expand your meditation to embrace your daily life. The practice of openness can feel challenging at first because our minds are so habituated to contracting—around our problems, our storylines, our ideas—but the more you practice, the more you realize that openness is actually your natural state, and contraction is the source of suffering. Openness is the key to your freedom.

This meditation is partly inspired by one offered in the book REVERSE MEDITATIONS by Andrew Holecek. Relax and enjoy!

Music & audio engineering by the fabulous Eric Fischer: audio-refined.com

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Join novelist, essayist, and canoe adventurer Mar’ce Merrell as she unpacks her spiritual and creative toolbox, sharing how she uses meditation to move through stuck places in life and on the page. Mar’ce describes the steppingstones of her journey from the moment her therapist first suggested meditation to a literal “breakthrough” experience at an MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli at Mount Madonna Center. The breakthrough encouraged her to “show up for herself” in radical ways. She undertook an Outward Bound Woman of Courage Canoe trip, during which she wrote a prophetic letter to her future self. Mar’ce’s spiritual and creative explorations then took her to Greece, where she participated in a GoodWorld Journeys Writing Salon taught by George Saunders and Mary Karr—another life-changing experience. In the course of the interview, we discuss George Saunders’ story "Victory Lap," and how the surrendering of old beliefs has been a through-line of Mar’ce’s journey. Finally, Mar’ce describes some of her extraordinary life-and-death moments in the canoe, how she learned to work with water and not against it, and how her life has unfolded in the gap between the impossible and the possible.

Mar’ce is the author of the novel Wicked Sweet, a Barnes & Noble Best Summer Read pick for Young Adults. Her stories and essays include: “Water Calls, Water Holds” (Embrace Your Divine Flow), "Architecture as Reconciliation" (Fold Magazine), and "Variations in a Living Thing" (Hags on Fire Magazine). She holds an MFA from Sierra Nevada College and lives in Ghost Lake, Canada, where she “writes to observe and record the natural world and the wilderness in our minds.” Mar’ce currently facilitates online creative writing circles or “Nests” whose participants hail from all over the world. Mar'ce is on Instagram. You can find out more about her work and her mentorship at www.marcemerrell.com.

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

This is a shorter version of Episode 71 "Tranquil Ocean Shamatha," with a bit less instruction. Shamatha or “peaceful abiding” helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present to an anchor provides scaffolding or training wheels to help keep your mind focused. Over time, practicing Shamatha meditation steadies you inwardly. You learn to calmly witness your thoughts without being triggered by them. Eventually, this leads to a natural decrease in unhelpful thoughts. Very freeing! This meditation is partly inspired by one offered in the book REVERSE MEDITATIONS by Andrew Holecek. Relax and enjoy!

Music & audio engineering by Eric Fischer: audio-refined.com

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Shamatha, which means “peaceful abiding” or “tranquility," is the foundational meditation of Buddhist practice. It helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present to an anchor provides scaffolding or training wheels to help keep your mind focused. Once you become proficient at Shamatha, you no longer need an object of meditation. Meditating without an anchor or reference point is known as Open Awareness. Over time, practicing Shamatha meditation steadies you inwardly. You learn to calmly witness your thoughts without being triggered by them. Eventually, this leads to a natural decrease in unhelpful thoughts. Very freeing! This meditation is partly inspired by one offered in the book REVERSE MEDITATIONS by Andrew Holecek. Relax and enjoy!

Music & audio engineering by Eric Fischer: audio-refined.com
Photo by Jordan Steranka

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Lovingkindness, also known as "metta," is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. A longer version of this meditation can be found under the title "Lovingkindness Deep Immersion." Whether done on the meditation pillow or spontaneously in the course of a day, metta has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety and increase compassion for oneself and others. It is a powerful life affirming practice. Relax and enjoy.

Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke.

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Join sculptor and poet Don Freas, author of In-Between: Creativity Set Free and Swallowing the World: New and Selected Poems, in a rich exploration of the relationship between meditation and creativity. Don describes how his practice of Liangong, a form of Qigong, deepens his somatic awareness in the studio and in life. He explains how his process of journaling, partly inspired by Robert A. Johnson’s book Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, has deepened self-inquiry, and thereby, self-compassion. Don lets us in on his decades-long conversation with an inner wisdom figure he calls Sophie, a voice who regularly encourages his intuition and questions him when he goes off track. He describes Sophie as “a voice from the long history of humanity, or of the universe.” Don shares insights gained from many sources, including spiritual teacher Byron Katie, physicist David Bohm, Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson, and Akashic Records teacher Linda Howe. Don takes us on a deep dive into the “material meditation” of making art. “When you look back,” he says, “your own accrued shape appears in the spaces between the things you’ve fashioned.”

Don holds an MFA in Poetry from Bennington College and lives in Olympia, Washington, where an upcoming exhibit of his sculpture will take place at Childhood’s End Art Gallery. Visit www.DonFreas.com to learn more and follow Don on instagram@donfreas and FaceBook@donfreas.

Audio Engineering by: https://www.audio-refined.com/
Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke.

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

Metta is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. A Pali word, metta means lovingkindness. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. Whether done on the meditation pillow or spontaneously in the course of a day, metta has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety and increase compassion for oneself and others. It is a powerful life affirming practice.

Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke.

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.

A rerecorded, remastered version of Episode 41, this guided visualization is based on a near-death experience described by Carl Jung in his memoir Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. Jung experienced this vision as he hung on the edge of death after a heart attack. Following a brief relaxation exercise, you will be guided through this vision as if you are experiencing it for yourself. Feel free to replace the particularities of this vision with your own and let it unfold as it wishes. This meditation is a deep dive to be undertaken with care. If you have a history of schizophrenia or psychotic disorder, consult with your doctor before using this meditation.

Relax and enjoy and the journey!

Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke.
Audio engineering by Eric Fischer.

Support the Show.

Tess on Insight Timer
Tess on YouTube
Tess's novels: https://tesscallahan.com/

Thank you for listening !

DISCLAIMER: Meditation is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical healthcare or therapy. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of listening to this recording. Use the material provided at your own risk. Do not drive or operate dangerous equipment while listening.