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PodcastMeditation is a Practice

Meditation is a Practice

We can’t avoid hard times. In moments of stress, you can always lean on your meditation practice and use intention-setting to guide your decisions on how to respond to challenging situations. Hardships are inevitable, but we can equip ourselves with the awareness to find solutions in the present moment.

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Better mental health starts with Headspace

(mouse clicking) (soft music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Greetings, my name is Kessonga, and I welcome you this Monday to Radio Headspace. Something that we all have in common, regardless of race, religion, culture, country, gender, et cetera, is that at some point or more likely multiple points in our lives, we will be faced with some sort of hardship. It's only natural. What has served me very well during these moments of hardship is leaning on my practice and on my intentions in order to find the most appropriate solution. So I often use the analogy of sports when talking about life and I love to use this analogy, because I like to think of life as a sport. So with any sport, no matter what it is, baseball, basketball, tennis, whatever the sport, in order to get better, in order to improve at that sport, you have to do what? Practice. Well, it's the same in life, the formal meditation, the sitting and being present with your focal point, noticing the distractions, gently letting them go. That's the practice. So when you are playing the game of life, your ability to maintain this level of awareness is already a part of you. It's like that muscle memory, and it's this awareness that's going to help you during those moments of hardship or increased stress. Your practice will sort of guide you into making the most wise and appropriate decisions or choices for that moment. The next thing I will mention in regards to finding solutions during those difficult moments in life is allowing yourself to set your intentions in life and listening to and using them as a focal point. I always thought I wanted to become a physician. I think when I was a kid, I said it out loud one day, and my parents heard me, and so it was set. Kessonga's going to become a physician. And I was initially fine with it. I really was fascinated with medicine. I knew I just wanted to heal people, so that was actually my true intention. So even though I initially thought it was for me to be a physician, I remember distinctly when I was turned on to acupuncture. It was my junior year in undergrad and a gentleman came to lecture about holistic medicine in general, and acupuncture was one of those subtopics. I was immediately hooked. I knew right then and there that acupuncture was how I wanted to heal people. But I had declared being a physician already, and for years, my parents told everyone I would be a physician. I was so torn, I didn't know what to do. And so no, I didn't initially follow that sign that told me to study acupuncture, and I was actually miserable for quite some time trying to force myself into becoming a physician. When I finally listened to my intuition, everything kind of fell into place. That first day of grad school for acupuncture was...

Details

TypePodcast
Duration6 min

About your teachers

  • A former Buddhist monk, Andy has guided people in meditation and mindfulness for 20 years. In his mission to make these practices accessible to all, he co-created the Headspace app in 2010.

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  • Eve is a mindfulness teacher, overseeing Headspace’s meditation curriculum. She is passionate about sharing meditation to help others feel less stressed and experience more compassion in their lives.

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  • As a meditation teacher, Dora encourages others to live, breathe, and be with the fullness of their experiences. She loves meditation’s power to create community and bring clarity to people’s minds.

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  • Kessonga has been an acupuncturists, therapist, and meditation teacher, working to bring mindfulness to the diverse populations of the world.

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  • Rosie Acosta has studied yoga and mindfulness for more than 20 years and taught for over a decade. Rosie’s mission is to help others overcome adversity and experience radical love.

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