Episodes

"What if your discomfort was a portal to a rebirth, a remembering, an attunement to your true Self?" - Tracee Stanley Tracee Stanley is the founder of Empowered Life Circle, a sacred community and portal of practices, rituals, and Tantric teachings inspired by more than 20 years of study in Sri Vidya Tantra and the teachings of the Himalayan Masters. As a post-lineage teacher, Tracee is devoted to sharing the wisdom of yoga nidra, rest, meditation, self-inquiry, nature as a teacher, and ancesto...

In this series, I named three things that regularly inspire awe for me - Birds Books Meditation All 3 regularly stop me in my tracks, and they make my jaw drop. They make me smile, wonder, and listen. They weave their way into my conversations and my dreams. In short, they inspire awe within me. “Awe experiences are what psychologists call self-transcendent: they shift our attention away from ourselves, make us feel like we are part of something greater than ourselves, change our perception...

I adore a good book, and I’ve noticed that often I feel a sense of energy or connection between what I’m reading and my meditation practice. Sometimes it inspires a question, a curiosity or even just a feeling. It isn’t something that can easily be named or explained, which is exactly what this series is about… The unknown, the mystery, the awe of an experience. In meditation, often we want to discuss what happens. We try to explain. But so often it feels incomplete, doesn’t it? You can’t capt...

This year, I have fallen in love with birds. I know, I know - it's an odd entry to a meditation class, but stay with me - We added a few bird feeders and a bird bath to our backyard garden at the start of the year, and the bird population has absolutely exploded. And, since I sit outside to meditate everyday, I have a front row seat to the show. At first, I found the constant birdsong a distraction to my practice, but I QUICKLY found that it became a soundtrack of upliftment and positive feeli...

What if emotions weren't a problem? What if you didn’t need to fix or change your emotions? What if they were actually not only helpful but vital to our survival? Today, I am delighted to share a conversation with author and researcher Karla McLaren. M.Ed. Karla is an emotions and empathy expert, and she's recently revised and updated one of her books, The Language of Emotions. In this conversation, Karla and I talk about Emotions as a sense rather than a problem Anxiety, panic and how to wo...

It is an unbelievably beautiful gift to be alive and awake. The world will break our hearts both through its cruelty and its beauty. Our job is not to fix that paradox, but to learn how to live within it with resiliency and reciprocity. We grieve, we give thanks, and we act in some personal way in response to the gift of being alive. This last class in the Resilience & Reciprocity series will ask us to shift from an independent to an intra-dependent point of view of ourselves, others, and the ...

Do you know the refrain in Amazing Grace? Amazing grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind but now I see This refrain has been running through my head as I created this month’s meditation series - “but now I see.” Last week, we talked about really ‘seeing’ the earth, and today, we will talk about really ‘seeing’ others, people that are different from ourselves in some way. One of the premises in this series is that comfort equals lo...

In this mindfulness series, we are exploring resilience & reciprocity as skills we build when we bring mindfulness to our relationships with the earth, with others, and with ourselves. In today’s class, we bring the lens of mindfulness to our fractured relationship with nature. Diagnosis like plant blindness and nature deficit disorder, not to mention climate crisis, highlight how removed we are from nature. At the same time, there are writers, poets, artists, and scientists all screaming for u...

Hello dear ones. Today, we step into a new series that stems from some of my recent reading. Every spring, I re-read "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and I also just read a new book from the Foxfire organization titled "The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women". While these books are about different peoples, different times, and different landscapes, I see so many threads of similarity carried between the narratives - Threads of hardship, hard work & happiness. Threads of lack and ...

Are you a Sage? A Huntress? A Lover? A Queen? The answer is yes to all of the above, and author Mara Branscombe joins us in today’s episode to explain why with her new book: Sage, Huntress, Lover, Queen. Mara Branscombe is a mother, writer, yogi, artist, teacher, mindfulness leader, ceremonialist and spiritual coach. Mara is passionate about weaving the art of mindfulness, self-care, creativity, mind–body practices, and earth-based rituals into her life and work, and she has been leading commu...

This meditation class was recorded in the aftermath of a mass shooting in my hometown of Atlanta, GA and after a day of supporting a friend through a mental health crisis. I like to think of meditation as a lifestyle; when we treat this practice as a rich and full aspect of daily lives it quickly begins to offer the benefits that are so lauded when one reads about the practice of meditation. However, there are also times when meditation can serve as a band-aid. It can be an SOS practice that im...

Let me tell you a little secret… I dislike the word manifestation so much. It isn’t because I don’t believe that manifestation is possible, but it is because I find far too often it is over simplified and used as an easy excuse to side-step doing deep work. So, when I met Sara Rae Hoaglund and heard her talk about the contradictions, the work and the mindfulness that is required for manifestation, I knew she was the person to bring this discussion to The Mindful Minute. In this episode, Sara R...

Whew y’all. Are you ready to go deep today? Like really deep? Because today, we are jumping into the deep end with Buddhist meditation teacher Andrew Holecek. Andrew is a teacher and author on meditation, lucid dreaming, non-dualism, and preparing to die from a buddhist perspective. And today we are talking about his new book, Reverse Meditation, how to use your pain and most difficult emotions as the doorway to inner freedom. This is a rich conversation, particularly for those of you wanting...

I have wanted to bring this conversation to The Mindful Minute podcast for a long time now, and today I am delighted to share a conversation with Lillian Charles about our clothes, our bodies, and our mindfulness practice. Lillian created STYLE THERAPY in 2011 as a way to help women remove mental, emotional and physical barriers to living fully expressed lives. She combines traditional Personal Styling with Energy Healing, Intuitive Consulting and scientifically backed Life Coaching methods suc...

Combining meditation and the work you do with a therapist can significantly improve your mental health. Today, I am sharing a conversation with one of my meditation teacher training graduates, Robyn Minefee, who combines meditation teaching and her work as a licensed counselor. Robyn Minefee is a licensed professional counselor and yoga instructor in the state of Georgia. In her virtual private practice she considers herself a holistic practitioner meaning she utilizes movement as a big part of...

I have been leading meditation teacher trainings since 2017, and as I launch my 2023 training, I thought it would be fun to share a few conversations with graduates about their experiences in MTT. Today, I am delighted to share a behind the scenes chat with a former student, Johanna Olivas. Johanna is a registered yoga teacher, Reiki master, sound healing practitioner, and since 2022, a certified meditation teacher. In this episode, we talk about: Confidence and connection: teaching that firs...

I have something a bit different for you today! I was recently interviewed by Sara Rae Hoaglund for her podcast, Spiritually Inspired. I thought you guys might enjoy hearing a bit about my early experiences with meditation, how I defined meditation, and how to deepen your meditation practice when you are ready for more than just 10-minutes a day! This conversation was such a blast. Be sure to check out Sara Rae’s other interviews on Spiritually Inspired and be on the lookout for her interview ...

“I have been meditating for nearly thirty years and practicing asana, the physical practice, for over twenty and I can say without a doubt that the most advanced yoga I have ever done is raising children.” - Sarah Ezrin When I read this quote from author, yoga teacher, and mama Sarah Ezrin, I knew we would be fast friends because this has absolutely been the truth of my experience as well! In today’s episode of The Mindful Minute, we wrap up our ‘Stress Free Summer’ series with an interview wi...

This meditation is both an expression of greeting and of gratitude, and it is a beautiful way to start your day. As we share this practice, remember that the universe outside also exists inside. In so many wisdom traditions, we find writings and teachings that connect the natural world inside of us. When we greet and celebrate the components of the cosmos, we greet and celebrate the components of ourselves. Take a seat outside or near a window if you can. Have one headphone in your ear to hear...

Here in Georgia, we are stepping into the summer season. The kids will be out of school shortly, and I’m struck with the oh-so-familiar feeling (for me at least) of partial excitement - Yay! It’s summer. No schedule. Going to the pool! Going camping! Fun And - Ohhhhhh it’s summer. No schedule. No routine or rhythm to anchor our days. Yikes. I thrive on routine and while I appreciate short breaks, I am also well aware that all too quickly that freedom turns into a source of stress for me. An...

“We are all continually asked to learn how to ask for what we need, only to practice accepting what we’re given.” - Mark Nepo Oh, surrender, what a complex equation you are. So many of us understand surrender to be a passive state or an act of giving up. After all, the very definition of surrender is “to stop resisting”. Yet, with each of these teachings that we have explored in the Mindful Living series comes a deep paradox that we are asked to embrace. Surrender is both strength and softnes...

Recently, my four-year-old daughter asked me, “who were you before you were a mom?” After a little conversation, I realized she was asking me - ‘what was your job before you were a mom’... At four, she already identifies a job as who you are. This week’s mindful living tenet is Self-Study, and this teaching also asks us “who are you?” Who are you without a job? Without a plan? Without a diagnosis? Without a gender? Without any of your conditioning? In this week’s episode of The Mindful ...

Today’s Mindful Living tenet is self-discipline, or more literally, the fire of transformation. This teaching reminds us that meditation and mindful living is not meant to be synonymous with sunshine and rainbows or with joy 100% of the time. Mindfulness grows from burning away non-supportive habits in order to actualize who we really are. Self-discipline is the teaching that focuses attention so that attention becomes intention. We can see a direct example of self-discipline in cultivating a...

“Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions, how it should be ideally, how everyone else should behave. But it’s not our task to create an ideal. It’s our task to see how it is, and to learn from the world as it is. For the awakening of the heart, conditions are always good enough.” ~Ajahn Sumedo “One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming about some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying t...