Our newest app! Enjoy the best of our music for meditation, relaxation, yoga.

Music Oasis for Meditation, Relaxation, Yoga

At last -- we have compiled the best of Richard's music in our latest app -- Music Oasis for Meditation, Relaxation, Yoga. If you enjoy the music in the background of our guided meditations, then you will love this app. It gives you the ability to listen to a piece for any length of time with a Timer feature. A Playlist feature allows you to create your own playlist, as well as including some preset playlists. You can also choose from 5 nature sounds to mix with the music if you like. Enjoy this uplifting instrumental music whenever you need calming, relaxation or soothing.

Needless to say, I am a great fan of Richard's music. As a long time practitioner and teacher of meditation, his music is imbued the very essence of the meditative experience and helps others to experience it. We have already received some inspiring feedback: "This is a beautiful app with wonderful music!" 

The app is available in the Apple app store.

Why do we resist meditation?

Do you ever find yourself resisting meditation? Perhaps you've resolved to meditate regularly either because you think it's good for you, or you've enjoyed meditating and what it does for you. And yet, for some reason, you find yourself resisting meditation. Georgina asked about this in a comment:

"I really love meditation and your podcasts have greatly assisted me and changed my life. But even though I love meditation and I know it is good for me, I find myself resisting doing it almost daily… why is that? Do you have any insight on why we resist meditation? Why I find it so hard to sit for just 10 minutes a day sometimes? Is it the mind not wanting you to go away from it?"

Before I comment, I'd like to invite you to share your experience with this. Do you find you resist meditation? How do you experience that resistance? Do you have any idea why you resist?

I know many people struggle with this. As I wrote to Georgina, the best thing is to investigate for yourself why you resist. It can help you get in touch with what the resistance is all about and lead to valuable insights. Often when we become conscious of the feelings and beliefs that underlie our behavior, we can find ways to make changes.

I suspect that the reason for the resistance may be different for different people, but a couple of possibilities come to mind. It may simply be the momentum in our busy lives that keeps us moving at fast speed, as well as our culture which is telling us to do, do, do.

Our culture doesn't recognize a very fundamental principle, and that is that being rested and relaxed is the most important key to being creative and productive. Getting things done is equated with putting in time. With this deeply ingrained idea, we often don't give ourselves permission to take time out for meditation. And then when we do take the time, the mind and and body are in such high gear that we feel restless. You may sit to meditate and find yourself feeling like you have to get up and go. Meditating requires that we be prepared for that and continue to experience the restlessness and let it unwind.

The resistance can also be emotional. All of our busyness keeps us from feeling things we don’t want to feel. Meditation gets us in touch with our inner experience, including our emotions. If there is something going on in our lives that troubles us or we are not comfortable with certain emotions, we may tend to avoid meditation. And yet, to be truly relaxed and present, which are both goals of meditation, we have to be able to experience our emotions.

What is your experience with this? Do you resist meditating sometimes, and do you know why?

Let it Be Guided Meditation

Our latest podcast, Let it Be Guided Meditation, is a variation on a theme. It's the same theme that gave birth to the Simply Being, Effortless, and Letting Go meditations. It's a theme that can be approached from many angles and given many names, but all of the names can be misleading. All these meditations point you to experience the essence of meditation. The words -- effortless, letting go, simply being -- are all meant to invoke a state of being that can't be put into words. I also use the phrase "let yourself be" in the meditation. That's pretty easy to relate to. Being someone who tends to be hard on myself, I need to remind myself to let myself be quite a lot! But what is letting IT be?

What does it mean to "let it be"? Are there any words that can really capture what the meditative experience is like? What did those words mean to Paul Mc Cartney when he wrote Let it Be? What does it mean to you?

**** NEW -- look for Meditation Oasis on Facebook and Twitter!

Meditations for Stress

I recently had an email from someone under a great deal of stress asking which meditations to use to keep stress from making him sick and out of balance. Although anything that's relaxing will help relieve stress, I recommended the following podcast episodes in particular:

• Mini Relaxation Break
• Breath Awareness
• Simply Being
• Effortless Meditation
• Deep Rest
• Letting Go

I recommended these particular meditations because they don't have a specific focus or ask you to be active in any way. My sense is that they would allow for the deepest rest and therefore the most release of tension. When we are deeply relaxed, our body chemistry and muscles switch gears from the flight or fight response into a more relaxed style of functioning. The energy of the body can then go to work to release tension and recuperate.

Ultimately, though, I encourage you to try the various episodes for yourself. Try the ones whose titles and descriptions appeal most to you. That way you can see the effects of the various meditations. It just might be that a focused meditation would be most helpful with some specific types of stress. If you are grieving, for example, the Grief Meditation might be most useful.

(You can listen to our podcast on iTunes or on this page.)

Deep Rest Guided Meditation

I'm convinced that adequate rest is the most important factor for our health and well-being. We're a culture of "doers" and so we might think of exercise first. I'd say exercise is a close second to rest, but being well-rested is the foundation of everything -- our physical, psychological and spiritual well-being. Being well-rested means getting enough sleep at night, and it means taking breaks when you need them during the day. It means not pushing yourself until you're over-tired. With this in mind, it's surprising that it's taken me this long to create this new podcast episode "Deep Rest Guided Meditation". Even though many of the meditations will help with getting rest, this meditation goes further with it. The whole focus is to rest completely -- to let go of everything going on in our lives and allow the whole system to get a deep rest. Just beginning the meditation with that intention starts the process in motion.

It's so easy to overlook the importance of rest, even though it's essential to absolutely everything we do. Most of us have a sleep deficit. Most of us don't get enough rest. If you have to wake up with an alarm, you are probably not getting enough sleep.

To suggest that you get enough sleep and enjoy the luxury of being really well rested is quite a radical thing to do in our culture, and yet with enough rest you'll not only feel better, but make better decisions and get more done. Sleep deprivation accounts for all sorts of accidents and mistakes.

Hopefully you will come out of this meditation feeling more rested and refreshed, but there is also the possibility that you will feel even more tired. That's because of the accumulated fatigue under the surface. We tend to override that fatigue in our rush to get things done. When you relax in this meditation, you may begin to notice just how tired you actually are. If that is your experience, find a time when you can do the meditation and have extra time to rest afterwards. Try to get more sleep.

I promise you that getting enough rest will not mean you get less done! I know when I'm well rested, I can be more creative and productive, not to mention enjoying things more.