Out of the Clouds - Waking Heart

This practice was recorded live during Anne’s program called 21 Days of Mindfulness and Loving Kindness. Anne guides participants through a transformative practice of self-compassion and compassion for others. 

Focusing our awareness on our moment-to-moment experience and the flow of life that is the breath, Anne starts by inviting us to rest with the waves of the inhale and exhale. We explore the quality and texture of the in-breath and out-breath, before leaning towards it with a tender curiosity. With each inhale we receive nourishment and care, allowing the breath to naturally carry qualities of kindness to every cell of our being.

As the practice unfolds, we are invited to extend this compassion outward, envisioning the exhale as a flow of goodness directed towards loved ones in need of support. Through this visualisation, we tap into a vast reservoir of compassion, allowing the breath to do the work of delivering kindness from our hearts to others. This act of giving and receiving is meant to foster a deep sense of connection and empathy, reinforcing our interrelatedness to all beings.

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Loving Kindness meditation is known as a practice for opening the heart that helps us develop compassion. This short practice, recorded live in January 2024, invites us to explore the practice of Mettā towards a benefactor. 

How it works: we silently repeat a set of phrases of well-wishing, like mantras laden with positive intentions, while we visualise someone in our life.

You may wonder who is a benefactor in your life. Here we mean someone who has shown you care,  inspired you, or looked after you. It can be someone close to you or someone you don’t know, such as a distant figure that somehow has brought good into your life. Overall, choose someone who brings a smile to your face when you think of them.

As Anne invites us to concentrate on our benefactor, she reminds us that the juice of the practice is in the combined power of our concentration meeting the intentions contained in the phrases.

Anne ends with a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that says: 

‘Only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible and without limits.’ 

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Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler guides us into a mindfulness of the body practice, where we explore the points in the body that are in contact with the floor and the surface upon which we are seated. 

We are invited to find a posture that invites a sense of aliveness, energy as well as a feeling of relaxation. Then, noticing the quality of the support at each touch point, we learn to rest our attention to examine and be with the sensations that may be present in the body. 

As with other mindfulness of the body practices, we try to remain with the body as best we can, exploring this realm of pure sensations, without letting our mind wander off. But when it does (which it will), we gently come back to rest our awareness on the sensations, as they come and go. 

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This short guided meditation was recorded live in January as the first of a 21 day course on Mindfulness and Loving Kindness.

When we do the body scan in meditation, often our mind will default to try and visualise the areas of the body that we are guided to explore. Teacher Anne Muhlethaler here invites us to use our attention like a sensorial flashlight, in this short 15 minute body scan. 

Placing the power of our awareness on the sensations, whether external or arising from within, we are guided to examine and stay with our moment-to-moment experience. 

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In this 12-minute guided meditation, teacher Anne Mühlethaler invites us to first explore the touchpoints of the body, making them the anchor for this mindfulness of the body practice.  

While we keep our attention focused within the body — on the hands, or the sit bones or the feet against the ground — we may feel a multitude of sensations. We are also invited to note what sensations may arise, careful not to narrate the experience but instead concentrating on the felt sense of what is occurring in the body. 

Anne notes that fluctuation is the only thing that is truly permanent. 

So we learn to rest our attention, and yet our attention is continuously moved and pulled by the river of the moment-to-moment sensations. 

In practising mindfulness of the body, we become intimate with the movements of aliveness within and, as best we can, we rest our awareness on the changing experience. 

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This is the first in a series of guided practices to teach new and curious beginners the meditation called Mettā, or Loving Kindness. Mindfulness and Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler has chosen to develop a short course to help newcomers to meditation trial this lesser-known yet powerful ancient Buddhist practice. 

Mettā is said to be a practice of cultivating unconditional love as well as positive energy towards oneself, others, and the world at large, by putting our attention on psycho-active phrases like well-wishes. 

Because it’s often hard to find more time in our day to add yet another thing to do, this series features short meditations. Each new step will build onto what’s been explored in the previous lesson, and the goal is to get us to start with five minutes a day. 

The most important thing is to start! The entire course will be available shortly on Insight Timer, you can follow Anne’s teacher page to find out more. 

This first episode starts with an introduction to Mettā, to its benefits, the mechanics, so to speak, and Anne shares some recent academic findings about the minimum effort required to start feeling said benefits in our lives. 

Now surprise, surprise, the first recipient of loving kindness is yourself. So for this lesson, we concentrate on ourselves. 

For any questions, queries, and support, please contact Anne.

***

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You’ve heard Anne discuss Mettā and Mindfulness here. But what are their benefits? Do they offer different results? Should you pick one over the other?

In this episode, Anne shares her takeaways from a lecture she heard by renowned teacher Sharon Salzberg on these very questions.

The short answer: Although Mettā and Mindfulness are designed differently, both forms of meditation have the benefit of bringing us a sense of centering and the ability to become more sensitive.

Listen to hear Anne reveal more of Ms Salzberg’s perspective — including how you can sense when the meditation has started ‘working’.

***

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We are born in this strange lifestyle that we rarely admit to experiencing: we sort of live with someone else, an ever-present inner roommate, that is oftentimes the greatest source of distress, anxiety and discomfort in our lives. 

Have you ever considered what could be done to make it a better relationship? Or, let’s say, to create a better living environment in your own mind?

Meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler leads us in a guided visualisation first to imagine our ideal home where we can feel at ease, then to observe the presence of a roommate that shadows our every move. Once we can see how the invading being disrupts the peace and calm of our home, Anne guides us to reflect on our relationship with our inner roommate — that constant narrator in our lives — and consider how it can be improved. 

***

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Khyentse Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher, wrote, "Mind creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there's nothing much to it. It's just thoughts."

Maybe one of the biggest hindrances to meditation is what is referred to as the waterfall effect. As soon as we close our eyes, with the idea that we will somehow find some peace and quiet, we realise that we can’t stop thinking. We feel like we are drowned under the torrent of thoughts coming down on us. Faced with this onslaught, we open our eyes, and at the first chance we have, we'll tell our friends: “Meditation? Oh it’s not for me. I absolutely cannot meditate, I have way too many thoughts.” 

In this guided meditation, Anne Mühlethaler offers a metaphorical journey where we get to observe the mind with the mind, where we approach the contents of our mindstream from another angle. 

Becoming mindful of our thoughts is subtle, and not easy, but it is also revolutionary. As soon as we start to become an observer of the thoughts coming in and out of our mindstream, we gain perspective — starting with this big a-ha: we are not our thoughts.

As Anne explains, we’ll come into contact with the fact that while some of our thoughts are brilliant, others are not so useful, some harmful, others reruns (recurring constantly) or are even fake news. 

In this practice, using the metaphor of a river, we first settle and ground through feeling the sensations in the body before looking at the contents of our mindstream. We learn to notice the thoughts that are supportive, and we practise lovingly letting go of those that aren’t so useful. And using that muscle of mindfulness, we discern that we are the clear nature of the observer, seeing all that moves through the stream, but no longer identifying with it. 

***

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A short and sweet meditation where we are invited to connect with the breath and the sensations in the body, to cultivate a sense of grounding and quieten the mind. 

We often tighten the body without noticing, and in this meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler (@annvi and @_outoftheclouds) invites us to find release, softening and a relaxed presence. And while the body settles, so does the mind. Once grounded, Anne guides us to notice what arises with a gentle awareness, whether it be stirrings, itches and tingles, memories, future thinking, all that is occuring in the mind and body. 

Resting as an observer of our experience, we explore it with a gentle awareness, being with, but not identifying with, the aliveness that arises and dissipates, moment by moment. 

Not pushing any of the experience away, the aim of this meditation is to explore how we can find a sense of calm and stillness, steadily, all the while being present with any and all sensations, thoughts and feelings, and not getting carried away. 

In closing Anne reads a quote from Deepak Chopra: 

‘In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.’

***

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In this guided meditation, Anne introduces us to the practice first, and starts with an explanation of neuroplasticity and the negativity bias.

When Anne was studying to become a mindfulness and compassion teacher with MMTCP (Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield), she had the opportunity to discover the work of Dr Rick Hanson, PhD, a specialist in positive neuroplasticity. The practice Anne leads us through is directly inspired from his lessons on the ‘negativity bias’.

First, about the bias:

Did you know that we have a natural propensity as human beings to remember the bad over the good? That’s right, this is an evolutionary strategy — a default that was installed over millennia so that we would remember what was dangerous, uncomfortable or unpleasant, to avoid it in the future and, therefore, keep us safe and alive. What was meant originally to protect us from a bear or tiger is still alive and well in us, despite the fact that most of the time, we don’t have the need for this default negative bias mode.

And yet there it is. As Dr Hanson coined it, our brains are ‘Teflon for the good and velcro for the bad.’

The practices of compassion, loving kindness, and this meditation’s blend called ‘warming the heart’ are tools that invite us to remember and cultivate the feelings, the sensations, and the memories of feeling love, connection and caring for loved ones. These practices, over time, will bring us back to a more balanced and equanimous view of our experiences.

So this meditation will invite you to focus on creating positive neuroplasticity, deliberately trying to make a positive change by meditating, visualising and bringing a felt sense of a loving, caring heart. The experience is enriched by connecting into the body and repeating the Loving Kindness phrases. Anne ends with this personal question: Why is it important to you to connect to love and kindness?

With gratitude to Dr Rick Hanson and the neuroscientists who contributed to the field of positive neuroplasticity.

***

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In this guided meditation, Anne offers an introduction inspired by an interview conducted years ago of school kids who had been introduced to mindfulness. One of them, when asked what mindfulness means, quipped: 

‘It means not hitting someone in the mouth.’ 

This funny and direct response implies that a mindfulness practice teaches us the ability to pause before we act, or react. 

We explore in this meditation how shining a light inwards — learning to be with the body’s sensations moment by moment  — helps us become in touch with ourselves so that we can feel our emotions as they arise and subside. By learning to notice first, we become less likely to identify with the emotions. That means we will switch from ‘I am angry’ to ‘I am feeling anger and frustration’, for example. This distance between the emotion and the self gives us a new vantage point from which, when we feel reactive, there is the option to pause and choose the next action, rather than simply react. 

With mindfulness anchored in the body, we feel what’s happening and we get to choose how we respond to our relationships with others and our environments. Anne also shares that while mindfulness is a great tool to notice upset, frustration, sadness or anger, it’s also a tool to connect more directly with positive emotions like joy, love or awe. And in this meditation, while we are exploring sensations scanning down the body, we also invite a sense of decompression, softening and letting go, in various areas of the body, to find a soothing and balanced attention. 

Enjoy!

***

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This is a wonderful practice, suitable for all levels, that connects us to the sensation of support and groundedness in the body. A form of body scan, this centering practice is great for everyday, one we can come back to whenever we want to reclaim our attention and recollect ourselves. 

A useful tool in your mindfulness tool belt, sometimes just a few minutes is all it takes to come back to the here and now. 

And remembering that while our minds enjoy the sensation of feeling settled, with this kind of grounding practise we offer them a break: as it is said, we learn to rest the mind on the body as the body rests on the cushion. 

***

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Mindfulness teacher, coach and communications consultant, Anne Muhlethaler explores why learning how to communicate can unlock better relationships at work and in your personal life and questions why that’s not something on the curriculum of every school and university in the world. 

We can all recall times when meetings or personal conversations haven’t gone to plan, resulting in not great to abysmal consequences. 

In this post, adapted from a talk she recently gave, Anne unpicks what happens when communication goes wrong and why we should all aim to cultivate more empathy and deep listening in our relationships both at work and at home. 

The key to unlock this new type of communication? A new word, one that invites a different kind of interaction, something better than 'we need to talk'. 

After all, words make up the world. She quotes Herman Bahr to end: 

“Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words.” 

***

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Going on a journey with mindfulness of breath:

This mindfulness of breath practise is an invitation to learn to follow the journey of the breath, first in and around the nostrils, and then into the body. The breath moves us on a cellular level, and while we know this, cognitively, mindfulness of breath can be one of the only times in life where we explore how far we can feel the breath move us. 

Beyond the connection with the inhale, the exhale, the heart beat and the dance of aliveness in the body, Anne guides us to let go of striving and let it be easy. Easy to focus, trusting that our attention will waver and yet come back to the anchor of the breath. Making it easy so that we know we can always come back to the breath, even when things are challenging, throughout the day. 

Letting it be easy is also a reminder that sitting in mindfulness meditation, and watching our breath move, can be a holiday, a vacation, whether we want to feel energised, or relaxed, focused or open — the breath is always there for us. So let it be easy, this holiday season. And if things are challenging, this practise is your reminder that you can always have a break. 

***

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In this live recorded practise, mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler starts with an inquiry around intention: what is our deep reason for meditating, for practising?

Then we are led through a mindfulness of breath practise where the focus is not just to watch the movements of the breath, but to use it to help us through the challenges of meditation. 

Learning to move the dial of the breath up and down — so that when we feel dull and need to feel energised, the breath comes in to refresh us; or when we feel anxious, excited, scattered, and we seek to calm our nervous system and settle down, — can help us collect ourselves and be the anchor that helps us stay more present in the moment. 

***

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In this guided meditation, recorded live, mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler guides us in a classic Mettā, or Loving Kindness, practise. Mettā, from Pali, can also be translated as ‘friendliness’ or ‘connection.’ The meditation is simple, but not easy, and its benefit can be felt in as little as a single practice. 

We are invited to repeat Loving Kindness mantras or phrases, like ‘May I be well, May I be happy’ and then find our own rhythm with the repetition of them, keeping our attention on each word, making the intention contained to take root. 

Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman says Loving Kindness phrases are psycho-active. The more we repeat the phrases, the more we practise, the more we begin to nurture a sense of connection: to others and to ourselves. Using gentle visualisation, this meditation invites us to also connect feelings of wellbeing in the body, to bring them into our experience. 

Choose to practise this once or take the challenge and choose to practise every day for sixty days and discover the power of Loving Kindness for yourself. 

***

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Mother Teresa is known to have said that: ‘The problem with the world is that we draw our family circle too small.’ 

Inspired by her words, this abridged Loving Kindness, or Mettā meditation practice focuses first on self before moving to a neutral person, then a difficult person. To finish, you’ll carry the intention of the loving-kindness phrases to all beings everywhere around the world. 

Extra requirements! You are invited to find a comfortable supportive seat: choose your spot carefully so you can be at ease and be as present with the practice as possible. 

Also, a soft smile is welcomed particularly at the end, as Anne suggests, to bring an extra touch of positive energy, while you focus your practice on this widening Mettā circle, before closing with the sounds of the bell. 

***

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In this live recorded meditation, teacher Anne Muhlethaler introduces the practice by turning us to focus our attention on sound. The goal being to nurture a receptive awareness of the soundscapes that are unique to each of us, moment by moment. 

Later, she invites us to follow a guided body scan in which we engage with aliveness, whether connected to the breath and body. At the same time, we learn to work with the waves of thoughts that come and go, taking us away from the practice and away from the present moment experience.

Combining in effect a mindfulness of body and mindfulness of thought, Anne guides us to observe the movements of the mind, the waves that rise and fall, and note if we find repetitive thought patterns. 

Deepening our direct sensations with the present moment, we also learn to be with, or ride, the sometimes tumultuous currents of our awareness. 

Anne closes with a quote attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn which says: 

‘You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.’ 

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

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Podcast host, certified mindfulness and yoga teacher Anne V Muhlethaler introduces her new podcast, Out of the Clouds - Waking Heart, dedicated to mindfulness, compassion and Loving Kindness practices. 

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For all notes and transcripts, please visit Out Of The Clouds Waking Heart on Simplecast - https://out-of-the-clouds-waking-heart

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