Julia Molchanova
I invite you to join my original program of guided meditations for those who want to improve their quality of life. These meditations are based on mindfulness practices combined with psychotherapeutic techniques.
Who are these meditation courses for:
For those who:
- are looking for ways to return to a comfortable psychological and emotional state amidst chronic stress, anxiety, burnout, sadness, feelings of loneliness, fear, and discouragement.
- are in a crisis, experiencing panic attacks and fears after trauma or stress.
- want to learn to do this on their own, in a simple and gentle way.
- want to improve their quality of life and sleep, increase productivity, strengthen self-confidence, improve focus, find solutions in difficult situations, and much more.
What you will gain as a result:
Under the guidance of an experienced psychologist, you will learn how to influence your psycho-emotional state. You will practice skills to do this independently and receive individually tailored self-help techniques for your personal “psychological first-aid kit”.
Schedule and participation fee:
Classes are held online once a week, each session lasting 1 hour.
Cost of individual participation – $60 per session.
Cost of group participation – $20 per session.
Guided Meditation Programs:
Meditation Programs:
What is Mindfulness Meditation?
Mindfulness meditations are health practices that have come to us from antiquity and are created according to all the rules of meditation. Their only difference from ancient practices is that they lack a part related to rituals or religion.
Mindfulness meditations are recognized by the global scientific community as an effective self-help tool, a way to achieve concentration, calm the mind, improve well-being, and achieve a sense of inner balance.
The best description of meditation is that it helps to distract from a chatty mind. Our consciousness constantly processes numerous thoughts to which we react with emotions, and many different processes occur, most of which we are not aware of. There is never a moment when the brain is in complete rest.
By practicing mindfulness meditations, we try, with conscious effort, to stop this and momentarily be in a state of mental rest. A few simple trainings, and we noticeably start feeling better: sleep better, worry less, become more confident, more focused.
better: sleep better, worry less, become more confident, more focused.”,
“Many university studies have found a link between meditation practices and a reduction in depression and anxiety symptoms. It is known that the effect of meditation is comparable to the effect of antidepressants, and moreover, does not cause side effects.
Breathing techniques during meditation improve circulation and promote faster metabolism, which, combined with relaxation, effectively reduces nervous tension.
For people who practice meditation, the activity of the brain area responsible for anxiety, fear, and stress significantly decreases. This leads to a reduction in stress hormones and reduced anxiety.
These proprietary guided meditation programs are based on mindfulness meditations combined with psychotherapeutic techniques, which prove to be an effective tool for various states.
Program "Meditations for Stress Reduction"
Most life events induce stress in the body. There are beneficial and harmful types of stress. Beneficial stress is the kind that initiated mechanisms that once saved us from predators and signaled danger. It adapts us to a changing world and aids memory retention of new experiences.
On the other hand, harmful stress is a reaction to events that we cannot manage, adapt to, or resist, resulting in pain, powerlessness, and fear. Any memory of this evokes strong emotions and distress. The “spot” of psychological trauma hurts, suffers, all with one aim – to grab our attention! The brain will repeatedly craft scenarios giving us another chance to rectify past mistakes.
This traps us in chronic stress, constant failures, insomnia, depression, insecurity, and anxiety.
The “Meditations for Stress Reduction” program will help master self-help techniques, reduce stress levels, and reclaim joy and pleasure in life.
- Coping with the Anxiety of Change
Have you noticed how challenging it is to accept life changes? Observing how time and opportunities fly, how our children grow, and how swiftly the world around evolves. Is it familiar to feel like you can’t keep up with these shifts? That unfolding events outpace your reactions? Such experiences lead us to believe that we might fail to handle future challenges. This is a reason we often hold onto the obsolete or redundant, like habits, convictions, and expectations, hindering our progress. In the \”Coping with the Anxiety of Change\” meditation, we hone this beneficial skill.
⠀ - Safe Space Technique
Ever felt uneasy in a noisy crowd or discomfort from constant forced company? Would you like a cozy mental sanctuary to retreat to during tense moments? Creating such a refuge is like receiving a gift – a shelter shielded from outsiders, free from stress and tension. This pleasant practice will enable you to rejuvenate after a hectic day, physically and emotionally unwind in the midst of the hustle and fast pace of modern life.
⠀ - Releasing Tension and Regaining Bodily Comfort
Are you familiar with physical overexertion? When muscles tense up, and you’re seemingly ready for a leap that never comes. This mechanism was once defensive, aiding our escape from potential threats. However, what once protected now contributes to modern-day strain and physical discomfort, as our body operates the same as it did millennia ago. This practice will help remove accumulated bodily chronic stress, teaching the body to relax instead of tense up in response to worrisome thoughts, signaling the brain that there’s no threat.
⠀ - Grounding and Stability
If you feel that you are currently in a phase of life where there’s a noticeable lack of balance, stability, and tranquility, let’s undertake this short meditation. You’ll sense how even with such a simple practice, your inner state can transform. - Feel the Difference
How much do thoughts influence our feelings and emotions? Initially, we react to negative events with emotions like anxiety or fear. We immediately feel the characteristic tension and “tightening” of muscles – the body needs to either become less noticeable or prepare for fight/flight. The tense body sends a signal to the brain, leading to anxious thoughts. The brain seemingly tunes into a frequency searching for danger; we look for confirmations of our fears, and thus we walk in a closed circle, winding ourselves up even more. How to deal with this? This practice offers the ability to handle anxieties by breaking the closed loop, and when combined with other meditations, provides a powerful tool for self-help.
⠀ - Letting Go of Expectations
The more we think about how exactly things should happen or how someone should act towards us, the more we get attached to it and believe that it will be exactly so. But expectations are a trap that people set for themselves, leading to disappointment and dissatisfaction. We get disappointed because we expect. It’s like shaking an apple tree, yelling and cursing it for not having apples in the winter. How can we learn to let go of expectations and allow events to take their natural course? Let’s try a practice that helps to hone this beneficial skill.
⠀ - Stress – SOS. Stabilizing Techniques for the “Home First-Aid Kit”
4-7-8
A simple yet effective breathing technique that quickly helps to alleviate states of stress or heightened anxiety and excitement.
HPP
If there’s a need to urgently cope with anxiety and stress, you have a method that allows you to do this in a matter of minutes. You can perform this practice wherever you are.
Erasing Stress
This mini-meditation is an “emergency response” for stressful conditions. A short practice that signals the brain to initiate a mechanism for quick stress processing and reduce anxiety levels.
Program "Meditations for Reducing Anxiety and Worry"
We constantly worry about the possibility of facing situations we can’t handle, fearing we might feel terrible. At times, this anxiety can become a persistent backdrop of our lives, causing significant distress, depriving us of joy, energy, and sleep. How does anxiety originate, what exacerbates it, and can we influence it?
When something important is beyond our control, it breeds a feeling of uncertainty. This gives rise to the idea that if we just solve the problem by taking control, everything will fall into place. However, when we succeed in addressing one problem, another immediately arises. And another. The number of things needing control increases. We expend more and more resources and energy, hoping it will bring confidence and tranquility.
But the fewer resources, time, and strength we have, the more doubts arise about our ability to handle future challenges. Anxiety then emerges, which, like in a distorted mirror, makes us exaggerate and warp reality. It makes us see problems as massive and our capabilities as limited, spiraling negative thoughts and gloomy predictions. It’s the anxiety that robs sleep and peace, clouds clear vision, and conjures illusions.
“The program “Meditations for Reducing Anxiety and Worry” will help you learn to cope with this. Observe how over time your internal state changes.
- Find resources when they are scarce
What can fill you and become the light that guides you forward when you find yourself in your darkness? During those times in life when anxiety and restlessness have become habitual? Perhaps you have untapped resources that are hard to recognize in this state. Let’s try to find them in your everyday reality.
⠀ - Future under control
We always easily predict the worst-case scenario and foresee all kinds of disasters that most likely won’t happen. There’s a reason for this – by forecasting the future, we create for ourselves an illusion that we can, to some extent, control it. And we readily begin to believe this illusion. We think that in this way we can reduce our inherent fear of the unknown. But in reality, the opposite occurs. We torment ourselves with thoughts of potential future calamities that we won’t be able to handle. This leads to chronic restlessness, anxiety, and depression, which become the source of even darker thoughts. We might wish to stop overthinking, but we simply can’t. Let’s practice reducing anxiety with this meditation. - Inner Critic
How often do you blame yourself for past mistakes or criticize your choices? This inner voice seems like a just self-criticism. But that’s the trap. Quite the contrary. By condemning ourselves, we lose the opportunity to rely on the acquired experience and keep moving forward. If you delve into self-criticism, you’ll see a lot of child-like fear. Lack of support and judgment once took their toll, and now, even as adults, we reproach ourselves with someone else’s words from the distant past. But guilt and self-blame are not what empower us, raise our self-esteem, and give strength during tough times. They deprive us of confidence in our ability to cope with difficulties, endure hardships, and make the right decisions. We’d like to treat ourselves differently, but somehow we can’t. This short practice will help you develop the skill of a different self-perception. - Emotions… Moving On
“Don’t worry!” is one of the most useless pieces of advice to give someone experiencing anxiety. If they could, they certainly wouldn’t be worried: anxiety saps strength, throws one off track, and sometimes fully paralyzes. In a normal state, anxiety is one of the most beneficial emotions. It helps activate protective mechanisms and respond in time. But sometimes we are gripped by a different, unique kind of anxiety. The kind that makes one feel constant baseless fear, leading to thoughts like, \”What if something happens?\” This feeling breeds self-doubt, fear of the unknown, fear of making mistakes, being ridiculed, humiliated, or rejected. Anxious people rarely take risks, avoid decisive actions, and lack initiative. In challenging situations, where calmness and steadiness are required, they get flustered, fret, fuss, and ultimately lose. How can one control this anxiety? We’ll practice this skill with a meditation on emotion management. - Misaligned Focus
Our problems are constant. We fix one, and soon another emerges. But we can react to stress in a way that doesn’t exacerbate it. Our thoughts constantly change. We can learn to decide which ones to continue pondering and which to ignore. If we bring ourselves back to a balanced state of a calm and clear mind before reacting, stress and anxiety in our lives become much less significant. By consciously shifting focus from negative thoughts to constructive ones and organizing our consciousness, we help our entire organism and restore the ability to derive joy from ordinary things. And from small joys, one can gather quite decent happiness.
⠀ - Grounding and Stability
If you feel that you’re currently in a phase of life where there’s a noticeable lack of balance, stability, and peace, let’s conduct this short meditation. You will feel how even with such a simple practice, your inner state can change. - Safe Space
Would you like to have a cozy personal haven where you can mentally retreat during times of stress? Creating such a space is like gifting yourself a protected sanctuary where stress and tension are non-existent. This delightful practice allows you to rejuvenate after an exhausting day, physically and emotionally resting in the midst of the hustle and fast pace of modern life. - Observer Effect
By mastering these simple techniques of observing yourself, your thoughts, and emotions from a distance, you’ll find it easier to navigate challenges, recover more quickly from setbacks, and have enough strength to address complex issues in your life. - Working on Self-Worth
A slightly unconventional meditation for the typical format, but it’s a moving meditation. It allows you to infuse yourself with a sense of self-worth, significance, and other vital personal qualities that can fade during stressful times or might have been diminished by others throughout your life experiences.
When Do I Live?
Why do you think a person remembers their childhood? And some memories even in the tiniest details? It’s because a child looks at the world with wide-open eyes. Adults live engrossed in their thoughts and daily tasks, often not noticing the world around them. Ever felt that you can’t recall specific days from the past week? They seem so alike. And weeks turn into months, months into years… One could potentially miss out on half their life this way! It then prompts the question: when are we truly living this life? Everyone faces this question sooner or later. It becomes uncomfortable and unsettling to think that somewhere along the way, you might be missing out on the most precious thing you have – life itself. But the good news is that one can cultivate the ability to free the mind from wandering thoughts and consciously reside in the present moment. This practice will help hone the skill of living while truly noticing life.- Meditation for Developing Kindness Towards Oneself
This meditation will aid in nurturing kindness towards yourself and bolster your connection with the surrounding world. Much, if not all, hinges on how you treat yourself, how you can forgive, and not torment yourself with blame. This ability reflects in what you radiate to the outside world and how others perceive you. Embark on your journey to harmony with yourself and the world with this meditation. - SOS – Anxiety. Stabilizing Techniques for the “Home First-Aid Kit”
Panic attacks – techniques and self-help methods.
Breathing that alters your state.
Mindfulness mini-meditation.
Program "Noting Practice, the Art of Concentration"
Can you recall in detail how you drank tea or coffee in the morning? Or how it felt when you touched a loved one? Most likely, no… We miss a part of our lives, not noticing and not consciously participating in what is happening. This is how our brain works, focusing on the important and overlooking the trivial. This results in a substitution of reality with an automatic perception of “it was as usual”. And there comes a time when we can’t distinguish one day from another and can’t figure out how the pages of the calendar have turned so quickly. How can you engage more deeply with what’s happening in our lives?
To be in touch with oneself, with the body, with feelings, and at the same time be in contact with the outside world. Reset your perception before encountering a new moment in life. Remove the automation, which becomes a merciless killer of the present. It deprives us of joy and living life. The unnoticed morning cup of tea, a child’s laughter, a loved one’s smile, the commute to work… How many hours and days are lost in autopilot? And how quickly this becomes a habit, affecting our ability to focus on important tasks. Many know the feeling of helplessness when attention wanes and it’s impossible to return to a task.
For training concentration and reducing automation in our lives, there’s the practice of noting.
- See-Hear-Feel
How can we learn to notice what’s happening inside and around us? How capable are we of noticing and keeping attention on stable or changing events and phenomena? How often do we get distracted and can’t focus on what’s important? This is a small practice where you can find this out for yourself and train the skill of concentrating on details.
- Observing Emotions
We often underestimate how important it is to develop the ability to notice, understand, and correctly identify our feelings, locate them in the body, and train the skill to manage them. All of this develops the skill to understand oneself and others, the ability to control emotions in difficult situations when you need to cool down, think first, and then act. Let’s train this. - Noting Practice
We all suffer from a sense of \”overwhelm\” in life, inherent to the digital age: emails, urgent documents, voice messages, and other things bombarding the brain all at once. We pride ourselves on multitasking, continuing to handle important tasks while managing all incoming channels. However, in trying to control everything, we lose the ability to focus on the essential, retain important information, and maintain clear perception throughout the day. Let’s dive back into the process of observation and concentration, which can be a good exercise for this ability. - Grounding and Stability
If you feel that you are currently in a phase of life where you noticeably lack balance, stability, and tranquility, let’s embark on this brief meditation. Through this simple practice, you’ll sense a shift in your internal state. - Mindful Calm
Are you familiar with a state of simultaneous attention focus and, at the same time, relaxation and peace in the body? More often than not, we find ourselves in one of these states. When relaxed, it’s not a state for work; when attention is focused, our body muscles are also tense. This practice will help you experience and understand how one can be both concentrated and feel profoundly relaxed. - Anchor and Clouds
“Emotions and thoughts are like clouds in a windy sky, they come and go. Breath is the anchor I hold on to” – these are the words of a Buddhist monk. With breathing, we learn to accept changes and to let go of what should already leave our life. With breathing, we learn to be present with what we currently have. This mini-meditation will introduce you to a technique that helps rid negative sensations, alleviate inner tension, and find peace. Tea Meditation
If you wish to rediscover joy in the simple things in life, to rekindle the ability to marvel and rejoice like in childhood, consider adopting the intriguing habit of tea meditation. Each day, we drink our cup of coffee or tea almost automatically, not savoring the taste, and sometimes not even recalling the experience. This meditation doesn’t require a special time allocation. It’s a splendid opportunity to practice the long-forgotten ability to relish the small things. It lets you feel the moments of life as they pass by.
Program "Meditations for Overcoming Loneliness"
From time to time, each of us experiences feelings of loneliness. For some, it’s a reluctance to socialize or a detachment from those around us. For others, it’s a desperate longing for attention from loved ones. For some, it’s boredom; for others, a fear of being unneeded. We all know the feeling of loneliness, but it manifests differently for everyone. Sometimes, periods of loneliness last too long. Likely, the cause then lies within us. The fear of loneliness is the fear of being alone with oneself. A person who loves and understands themselves isn’t afraid to be alone.
They find their own company interesting, value themselves, and during periods of solitude, don’t try to fill the void with someone else. Instead, they use this time to replenish their resources, get to know themselves, understand their desires, and identify what makes them happy. With this series of meditations, we’ll try to infuse the experience of loneliness with mindfulness and learn to harmonize with this sensation rather than combat or flee from it. Even outside relationships, you will feel free and fulfilled. This is a way to make solitude a resource rather than a nightmare.
Observing Emotions
We often underestimate how crucial it is to develop the ability to notice, understand, and correctly identify our feelings, locate them within our body, and cultivate the skill to control them. All this fosters an understanding of oneself and others, the ability to control emotions in challenging situations, to first think and then act. Let’s practice it.
Grounding and Stability
If you feel you are in a phase of life where you lack balance, stability, and peace, let’s engage in this brief meditation. You’ll realize how even such a straightforward practice can transform your inner state.
Two of You – You and Yourself
We all experience times when our need for love and attention surpasses what we receive. Everyone has their reasons. These often aren’t linked to external factors: whether it’s night or day, whether you’re surrounded by loved ones or alone, overwhelmed by a busy schedule or, conversely, having an excess of free time. If you feel lonely, it’s an inner signal. Allow yourself some quiet time to listen to it. Get acquainted with your solitary self, accept it, and become familiar with it.
Order in Thoughts
Imagine that your head is your home, and inside it are your thoughts.To feel comfortable in your mind once again, it’s time to bring out the cleaning tools. This visualization meditation will help you organize your thoughts and begin the process of positive transformation.
Releasing Energy
From childhood, we are taught that getting angry is not good, neither is feeling envy or bragging, men don’t cry, and adults don’t throw tantrums. And when a wave of indignation rises to our throat, we often swallow it in silence, not allowing it to come out. This leads to an emotional and muscular blockage in the body, a compressed accumulation of energy that, like a bubble of air in water, is out of place. And we might have many such bubbles. This practice will assist you in releasing physical-emotional blockages that have built up over the years and in transforming the released energy into something free, in other words, into fuel for crafting your life.
Internal Critic
How often do you blame yourself for past mistakes or the choices you made? This inner voice seems like fair self-criticism. But here’s the catch. By condemning ourselves, we lose the chance to leverage the experience gained and to continue moving forward. If you delve deep into self-criticism, you will find a lot of childish fear. The lack of support and prior judgment have already done their damage, and now, even as adults, we chastise ourselves with someone else’s phrases from the distant past. However, guilt and self-blame are not what strengthen us, boost our self-esteem, or give us strength during challenging times. It is what deprives us of the confidence that we can handle challenges, overcome adversities, and make the right decisions. We would like to relate to ourselves differently, but for some reason, we can’t. This short practice will help you develop the skill of a different self-relationship.
Meditation for Developing Kindness Towards Oneself
This meditation will help you develop kindness towards yourself and strengthen your connection with the outside world. Much, if not all, depends on how you relate to yourself. How you can forgive and not torment yourself with accusations. This ability reflects how you project into the outer world and how others perceive you. Start your journey towards harmony with yourself and the world with this meditation.Solitude with Oneself
In modern society, we are subtly told who to be, how to live, and what to feel. By confining ourselves to social stereotypes, one gradually loses their uniqueness and individuality, trying to be something other than who they truly are. How often do we choose life goals based on the successes of famous people, images of someone else’s life, or the behavior of a movie character? When we no longer understand who we truly are, what we genuinely want, and why we do what we do. Then we ask ourselves: Why do I feel lonely? What’s wrong with me? Perhaps, am I unworthy of love and care? And following these questions comes the realization that one can hardly be genuinely happy living day by day someone else’s life. A wise person once said: If you strive to become someone else, then who will be you? This meditation trains the ability to accept ourselves as we are.Loneliness: Suffer vs. Enjoy
Loneliness is a passive state. It is reinforced and gains strength through inaction. When we inadvertently allow it to take root in our soul and do little to change the existing situation. And, if no measures are taken, this state intensifies, ultimately leading to feelings of depression and helplessness. Consider the idea that now, with a little free time on your hands, you can spend it on something you’ve long wanted to do but kept postponing for later.
In this meditation, we’ll try to start “later” right now.Self-Help Techniques for “Home First Aid Kit”
Breathing that changes the state.
Mini-meditation for quick emotional state shift.
Program: "Meditations for Changing Emotional States"
Imagine a hose with water flowing through it. If you step on it or place something heavy on top, the water will begin to accumulate in front of the obstacle, and eventually, the hose will burst. The same happens with suppressed emotions. At some point, there’s an outburst, and a person reacts inappropriately. Or chronic diseases worsen, and new psychosomatic symptoms appear. Therefore, it’s essential to accept our emotions and learn to manage them. When the intensity decreases, managing our behavior becomes easier, and the emotion doesn’t get trapped within the body. The main thing is to understand that expressing any emotion is normal. It’s much worse when we bottle them up and then explode over minor things, causing suffering for both ourselves and those around us.
In this program, you will master techniques for rapidly changing your emotional state, especially if your usual methods are ineffective. Such meditations will help calm emotions and process the accumulated anxiety information. Finding an appropriate way to express them is a challenge within everyone’s reach.
- Stability and Grounding
If you feel you are currently in a phase of life where there’s a noticeable lack of balance, stability, and tranquility, let’s undertake this brief meditation. You’ll experience how even such a simple practice can change your internal state. - Support in Crisis
If you’re tormented by a vague unrest, feeling as if all the wonderful things are passing by and you can’t catch up; if you’re floundering, unsure how to quench your thirst for change or questioning whether you’re doing the right things or heading in the right direction; if you feel like a wild horse wanting to throw off its saddle, wanting to go wild and discard all the “I must” and “I shoulds”, it means you’re in a crisis. Almost everyone goes through it, but the extent of destruction and acquisition varies. How well you’ve learned to balance your emotional state largely determines the scale of losses, gains, and the appropriateness of decisions made. Once anger, irritation, or negativity shifts to clarity, the right decisions will surface.
- Emotional Burnout
Practice this meditation to slow down your life a bit. We often move forward without breaks until we hit a critical state. Perhaps now is the time when your activities have become unhealthy, and it’s time to extend a helping hand to yourself. Allow yourself to create a bit more living space, where you can live, breathe, watch, and walk aimlessly. Let thoughts and concerns about plans and duties slowly dissipate like fog during this practice.
- Find Strength and Resources
We all know times when life becomes challenging, and every step involves making a choice, a decision, or facing change. That which provides strength and stability, restores energy, brings clarity of thought, and calms emotions becomes particularly valuable. Can one navigate through tough life periods with minimal losses? Yes, if one possesses techniques and methods to restore one’s inner state.
- Safe Space
Would you like to have a cozy personal haven to mentally retreat to during stressful moments? Creating such a space for yourself is akin to receiving a gift—a protected refuge where there is no stress or strain. This enjoyable practice will allow you to recharge after a hectic day, rest both physically and emotionally in the midst of the hustle and fast pace of modern life.
- Meditation to Develop Kindness Towards Oneself
This meditation will assist you in fostering kindness towards yourself and strengthening your connection with the outside world. Much, if not all, depends on how you relate to yourself, how you can forgive, and refrain from self-blame. This ability reflects on what you transmit to the external world and how others perceive you. Begin your journey towards harmony with this meditation.
- Release from “Stuck” Negative Emotions
If you feel that a situation has long passed and you should let it go and move on, but for some reason, you can’t and emotions are overwhelming, this meditation will aid you in that.
- Balance of Soul, Mind, and Body
Moments of anxiety and instability. You are in a state of constant stress or are going through a period of change. Intense emotions cloud your judgment, or conversely, you lack the energy or desire to do anything. Old meanings are lost, and new ones have yet to be formed. When there’s a feeling of helplessness, and you feel like giving up. In all these situations, what we need most is to restore the balance of soul, mind, and body.
Working on Self-Worth
A somewhat unusual directed meditation in motion for the standard format. It allows you to fill yourself with a sense of self-worth, significance, and other essential personal qualities, which get lost or fade away during stressful times or were devalued by other people throughout life experiences.
Self-Help Techniques “for the Home First Aid Kit”
4-7-8
A simple but effective breathing technique that quickly helps to come out of a stress state or heightened anxiety and arousal.HPP
If there’s an immediate need to cope with anxiety and stress, you have a method that will allow you to do it in just minutes. You can perform this practice wherever you are.Anchor and Clouds
“Feelings and thoughts are like clouds in a windy sky, they come and go. Breathing is the anchor I hold onto” – these are the words of a Buddhist monk. With breathing, we learn to accept changes and let go of what should already leave our life. With breathing, we learn to stay with what we currently have. This mini-meditation will provide you with a technique that will help to rid negative sensations, relieve inner tension, and calm down.
Program "Meditations for Building Self-Confidence"
Many are aware of how self-doubt complicates a person’s life. We often feel as if we constantly lack something: not enough knowledge, not looking good enough, not loved enough, not honest enough, not motivated enough… This list can be extended indefinitely by anyone. We easily condemn ourselves, and sooner or later, constant self-criticism brings us down, diminishing our personality and making the world around us seem larger and more powerful than we are. Self-doubt is always a product of an individual’s personal history. We are not born shy, timid, or anxious, but we acquire these traits throughout life, forming our self-esteem based on our unique experiences.
In the “Meditations for Building Self-Confidence” program, meditative practices have been designed for you to help address this issue. Together, we’ll take several steps towards a confident self, learn techniques to improve our inner state, recognize the voices that represent our \”inner critic\”, listen to ourselves and our desires, and remember that life becomes much more interesting when we treat it as a thrilling adventure, trusting our intuition and inner feelings.
- Stability and Grounding
If you feel you’re in a phase of life where you noticeably lack balance, stability, and tranquility, let’s conduct this short meditation. You’ll experience how even such a simple practice can alter your inner state.
- Quick Recovery and Stabilization
There are times when our inner resources, strength, and energy deplete, and stress, tension, and anxiety become constant companions. In these periods, the best way to support ourselves is to restore balance and bring back stability to the body and mind.
- I Am Resourceful
This meditation will help you find the strength to deal with current tasks and offer an opportunity to feel confident and stable today. You can practice it wherever you can comfortably sit down and close your eyes.
- Safe Space
Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a noisy crowd or experienced discomfort due to the constant presence of people around you? Would you like to have a cozy personal haven to mentally retreat to during moments of tension? Creating such a place is like receiving a gift—a sanctuary shielded from the outside world where stress and strain don’t exist. This pleasant practice will provide you an opportunity to recharge after an intense day, allowing you to physically and emotionally rest in the midst of the hustle and fast-paced modern life.
- Working on Self-worth
An unconventional directed meditation for the typical format. It allows you to imbue yourself with a sense of self-worth, importance, and other vital personal qualities that often get lost or vanish during stressful times or have been devalued by others throughout life’s experiences.
- Meditation to Foster Kindness Toward Oneself
This meditation will assist in cultivating benevolence towards oneself and strengthen the bond with the outside world. Much, if not all, depends on how you treat yourself—how you can forgive and refrain from tormenting yourself with blame. This capability is reflected in what you project to the outside world and how others perceive you. Begin your journey to harmony with yourself and the world with this meditation.
- From Criticism to Praise
Many of us have grown up believing that to succeed, we must be tough and demanding on ourselves. And this toughness often manifests as a sharp, condemning, or negative self-talk. We hear a voice whispering: “You’re too nervous, you need to calm down, you’re not hardworking enough, you’re too lazy…” and so on. In Hollywood movies, a drill sergeant turns a timid recruit into a tough soldier through shouts and taunts. But in real life, constant self-criticism only leads to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and further self-doubt. Excessive self-criticism will never be a true source of motivation. Let’s listen to our “inner critic” and get to know it better.
- Everyone Runs as They Can
Though we may know nothing about other people’s realities and only see a portrayal of their successes, we often think that another person’s life is more exciting, that they’re more successful than us, but they might deserve that success far less than we do. The brain continually evaluates what we have and what we’ve achieved by comparing it with others. In this meditation, we’ll explore what happens within us when we look at another’s success and what it brings and takes away from us.
- Overcoming Difficulties
One of the skills that one needs to master to overcome self-doubt is the ability to react positively or, at the very least, neutrally to failures. Every time it’s necessary to take a decisive step and show initiative, a person lacking confidence holds back because they fear making mistakes, losing, or ending up in an awkward situation. It would be naive to think that confident individuals face fewer challenges in life than those who are insecure. They simply view what happens to them from a different perspective. Failures and misses only hinder a person from achieving their goals when they see them as a confirmation of their worthlessness, rather than recognizing the valuable experience and skill refinement they bring in overcoming obstacles. This meditation will help train such a skill.
- Letting Go and Trusting
Sometimes, doubting one’s decisions and analyzing mistakes can be very beneficial. However, if doubt is your constant state, you won’t be able to make any decisions because you’ll consider them to be wrong. And then you won’t be able to handle anxiety. If you constantly revisit and ruminate on that decision, you’ll gradually lose confidence in yourself. Does it make sense? Each decision represents a choice of path, on which there will be numerous crossroads. We will never know how things would have turned out had we taken a different route. Trusting oneself is a resourceful state that provides a feeling of support, and it’s most crucial when pursuing your dreams. Without trust, you’ll worry and fear making every move. Let’s practice this skill.
- I am What’s Needed
Self-confidence is a person’s belief in themselves. It’s an accurate assessment of one’s abilities and capabilities to achieve goals and satisfy needs. A confident person stands out in a crowd. They exhibit an upright posture, an open stance, and a direct gaze, as if there’s a supporting beam made of some robust material running through their body. In this meditation, we’ll search for that support and strengthen what shapes self-worth.
- Self-Help Techniques “for the Home First-Aid Kit”.
Quick work with fear.
Simple skill for managing emotions.
Program "Working with Fears"
Fear is our reaction to events that we once could not handle, failed to adapt to, or resist. During those times, we felt pain, shame, powerlessness, guilt, panic, or despair. To this day, these memories bring back distressing emotions. But why? After all, all of it is long in the past. The thing is, at the moment of trauma, a process is triggered, resembling the pressing of an emergency button in movies – a siren wails, a countdown begins, and bulkheads close, isolating the danger zone. Something similar happens inside of us. The event information is as if encapsulated, preventing it from merging with the rest of a person’s experiences. Inside this capsule, the lights, heating, and internet are turned off; it’s dark and cold. That’s where fear resides.
Existing EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) techniques based on mindfulness meditations help to most ecologically, easily, and importantly – independently reboot the “digestion” mechanism of traumatic experience, which once created the fear.
Working with the fear of falling sick, fear of public speaking, dealing with the aftermath of an accident, as well as any traumatic experience and phobia using the technique of mindfulness + EMDR:
Safe Space
Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a noisy crowd or experienced discomfort from the constant forced presence of people around? Would you like to have a cozy personal haven to mentally retreat to during tense moments? Creating such a place is akin to receiving a gift, a sanctuary shielded from outsiders, where there’s no stress or tension. This pleasant practice offers you the opportunity to recharge after a stressful day, to physically and emotionally relax in the midst of the hustle and bustle of modern life.- Working with a Sense of Hopelessness
This practice will assist you in altering your state if your current situation seems inescapable.
- Working with the Fear of Falling Sick
This meditation is not intended for treatment or prevention of diseases. If you show any symptoms of an illness, you need to seek medical assistance. This meditation will help maintain a stable emotional state if you have a profound fear of falling sick.
- Working with Emotional States During Illness
This meditation is not designed for assistance in treatment or prevention of disease. If you show the first signs of illness, you need to seek medical attention. This meditation will help you maintain a stable emotional state during illness.
- Addressing the Fear of Public Speaking
Many of us are familiar with that unpleasant feeling when the fear of an audience prevents us from speaking or responding the way we envision in our minds. This can greatly interfere with life and create feelings of self-doubt. This practice can be periodically done by oneself and specifically before public speaking, and you will feel the difference.
- Working with Fear
This simple technique will help improve your condition if you experience an undefined fear, phobia, or constant anxiety.
- Addressing the Aftermath of an Accident
This simple technique is beneficial if you’ve been a victim of an accident, car crash, or witnessed such an event. Perhaps after such a traumatic event, you find it challenging to drive or experience other adverse reactions. This technique will help reduce or eliminate the traumatic aftermath.
- Dealing with Emotional “Stuckness”
If you feel that a situation has long passed and it’s time to let go and move on, but for some reason, you can’t, this meditation will assist you in doing so.
- Self-help Techniques for the “Home First-Aid Kit”
Simple methods that you can use on your own in situations when you’re anxious, scared, or subjected to intense emotions.
Techniques to help restore your inner strength.
Program "Meditations for Restoring Inner Balance"
When times are tough, when you’re feeling low or burdened, and when you’re overwhelmed by emotions or drained of energy. When the ground feels like it’s shifting beneath you and there are no familiar anchors. Whether you need to make quick decisions or take a moment to see the right path, or perhaps you’re searching for a new source of strength or a tool for change, and traditional methods no longer yield the desired results. In all these situations, we desperately need inner balance, resilience, and a sense that we have enough supports in our life to face new challenges.
This meditation program can be a simple and rapid way to reclaim your energy, equilibrium, and stability.
- Soul, Mind, and Body Balance
During times of anxiety and instability. If you’re under constant stress or are going through a period of change. Intense emotions cloud your judgment, or, conversely, you lack the strength or desire to do anything. Old meanings are lost, and new ones have yet to be established. When you feel like giving up and a sense of helplessness grows. In all these situations, there’s a common need: primarily, to restore the balance of soul, mind, and body.
- Self-Acceptance
“The moment a person accepts themselves as they are, without judging or comparing themselves to others, both the feeling of superiority and the sensation of inferiority vanish. Tension dissipates; the fruitless attempts to become someone else cease. Stress and depressions that arose from self-rejection fade away,” Osho said. This practice will guide you on the path to self-acceptance.
- Grounding and Safe Space
Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a noisy crowd or experienced discomfort from constantly being around people? Would you like to have a cozy personal refuge, a mental space you can retreat to during stressful times? Creating such a place is akin to gifting yourself a sanctuary protected from external influences, free from stress and strain. This pleasant practice offers you the chance to rejuvenate after a demanding day, physically and emotionally recuperating in the midst of the hustle and rapid pace of modern life.
- Quick Recovery and Stabilization
There are times when internal resources, strength, and energy run out, while stress, tension, and anxiety become constant companions. During these periods, the best way we can support ourselves is by restoring balance and bringing stability back to the body and mind.
- Meditation for Developing Kindness Towards Oneself
This meditation will help you develop kindness towards yourself and strengthen your connection with the surrounding world. Much, if not all, depends on how you treat yourself, how you can forgive, and avoid tormenting yourself with blame. This ability reflects both on what you broadcast to the outside world and how others perceive you. Start your journey to harmony with yourself and the world with this meditation.
- Self-Help Techniques “For the Home First-Aid Kit”
Simple techniques that you can use on your own in situations when you feel anxious, scared, or are overwhelmed with strong emotions. Resourceful techniques.
Program "Meditations for Finding Answers in Difficult Situations"
Each of us, from time to time, finds ourselves in a challenging life situation, searching for an answer or faced with the necessity of making a tough decision. Do you know what helps you on this journey and what hinders you and diverts you from your goal? Such knowledge can be crucial for making the right decision.
In summary, there are only two answer options:
- a decision that brings many other problems but ultimately has more value for you.
- a decision with which you won’t have many issues in the future, but at the same time, this decision will bring less value into your life.
Simply put, it sounds like – harder now but better later, and easier now but harder later. When both options become balanced for us, we are at a stalemate, waiting for the scales to tip. If there’s no time for this wait, we experience stress due to the circumstances. Stress adds emotions and concerns, pushing us further away from making a balanced and thoughtful decision. As a result, decisions are made either with stressful health implications or hastily under emotional influence.
What to do? To not regret the decision later or doubt its correctness after some time, it’s essential to be able to timely abstract from the situation and turn to techniques that can help find answers to your questions.
In this meditation program on “Finding Solutions in Challenging Situations”, you will discover the necessary tools to handle a difficult situation on your own.
Grounding and Stability
If you feel you’re at that point in your life where there’s a noticeable lack of balance, stability, and calmness, this is for you. You’ll experience how even through such a simple practice, your inner state can change.
Waiting for You Beyond the Door
Sometimes people find themselves in situations they cannot see a way out of. But that, of course, doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out. Solely relying on conscious thought won’t solve the issue. The most reliable way to quickly escape from challenging or seemingly \”dead-end\” situations is to tap into the infinite resources of the subconscious. A metaphor is a quick means of connecting with the unconscious, making it easier to seek such solutions. Let’s meet our answers, bringing to the surface what your subconscious already knows!
Seeing the Hidden
In challenging situations where emotions and stress overwhelm, it’s hard to remain balanced and find an answer that’s well-thought-out and aligns with our actual needs. Anxiety and stress create a background noise that, like interference on radio frequencies, prevents us from clearly hearing our inner voice. To assist yourself, it’s worth setting aside time to establish inner silence, where you can ask yourself crucial questions. Once you hear the answers and see the whole picture, you’ll suddenly realize the solution has already surfaced.
Breaking the Deadlock
What do you do when you feel the steering wheel has been taken out of your hands, or you’re trapped with no way out? You likely engage in cyclical pondering and get immersed in stress. Stress induces a feeling of persistent anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and self-blame. The more intense the anxious state and self-blaming, the harder it becomes to find a suitable way out of the impasse. This meditation technique is based on EMDR therapy, a modern method for processing anxious information and stressful scenarios.
Your Answer. How to See What You Already Know
When you’re at a dead-end, finding a way out seems an insurmountable task. However, everything shifts if you look at the situation from the outside. Imagine now that the problem you’re facing isn’t yours and observe it as an outsider. Suppose a friend of yours was in this situation and asked for advice. What would you tell them? Most likely, you’d set aside all emotions and strive to view the situation detachedly and objectively. In this meditation, you’ll act as your own friend. To seek advice from your subconscious, from the genuine you who has long known the answers to your queries.
Initiating the process in the subconscious
If you currently feel like you’re at the bottom of a deep pit, barely seeing any light. If you know that somewhere the sun is shining, people are laughing; somewhere there’s solid ground underfoot, a confidence in the future; somewhere there is even a future, but it’s not with you. If you are in such a state now — this meditative technique will help your subconscious find a way out. When else is it applicable? For the “domino” effect, when everything crumbles one after another, burying a person under misfortunes. For the state of despair, when you don’t know what to do, when mistakes pile up and there are no good solutions. When you know where you no longer want to be; you know what you’d like to feel; but you have no idea how to get there.
Internal state for decision making
Facing a tough situation, it’s hard to think about the future. Circumstances blind us, we get stuck in agonizing uncertainty, changing our decisions multiple times a day. People often regret decisions made in the heat of anger, a surge of desire, or anxiety. How great would it be to have an undo button for them! Hence the saying that important decisions should be postponed until morning. The right decision will mature in your head, like ripe fruit — just give it time. Don’t rush yourself, take a break, and allow yourself to calmly reassess the situation. This way, you’ll avoid impulsive decisions and refrain from rash actions.
Dreamer, Realist, and Critic
If you’re in a tough spot, it’s always useful to get a different perspective on your thought process. Alone, it’s easier to lose touch with reality. Agreeing with someone else’s opinion can be challenging, especially if it contradicts your own. But the ability to listen, accept criticism, and objectively evaluate alternative ideas contributes to solving challenging problems. Brainstorming together will surely help find the optimal solution. Take turns embodying three personas: the dreamer, the realist, and the critic. This multifaceted approach provides a chance to see potential solutions that aren’t immediately apparent.
Maximum benefit vs. The Art of Small Steps
The art of happiness is the art of small steps. Don’t set overly ambitious or clearly unattainable goals, comparing yourself to others. Attempts to compare yourself with others who’ve achieved success will only add unnecessary stress to your life. On this path, it’s easy to lose your bearings. However, the ability to rejoice in small achievements and to stay in touch with oneself brings peace and satisfaction back into life. This is the best foundation underfoot to move towards your goals and understand how to get there. Here, we practice this skill.
Light your torch with another’s fire
Dead ends plunge us into a stagnant state. To reclaim the vitality of life, it’s necessary to remember what it’s like to be brave, passionate, elevated, and goal-driven. Try to recall yourself in such a state and feel those emotions. This will help you come back to life. Use everything that inspires you, focuses you on the struggle, and prompts you to seek unconventional solutions. There’s a belief that self-motivation is short-lived. Well, the feeling of fullness after a meal also doesn’t last long. Therefore, it’s worth attending to it daily. Achieving a goal, of course, depends on us, but motivating words will surely assist on the path to success. This is an unconventional meditation-motivation for you and your success.
Program "Meditations to Enhance Productivity and Gain Energy"
We learn to control time, but often treat energy as if it were unlimited. We aim to squeeze out maximum efficiency 24/7. However, no amount of time will suffice when there’s no strength or desire to accomplish planned tasks. To get everything done, it’s crucial to timely recharge one’s energy reserves.
Where to get this energy and how to keep it at a high level? These are the questions we’ll tackle in these meditations, and everyone will find the best method to accumulate life energy. Energy management is a concept created analogous to time management. The essence is that managing time won’t lead to productivity if our “batteries are drained”. We can have a meticulous schedule and set priorities right, but if we lack the energy for its execution, the perfect plan won’t help. It’s believed that one can achieve peak productivity by fully immersing oneself in the tasks at hand but periodically completely disconnecting from them. It also argues that for high productivity, we need 4 types of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
⠀PHYSICAL energy determines our well-being. It’s our foundation, the fuel for productivity and achieving goals. Most often, when we say we lack energy, we’re referring to physical energy. Exercise, nutrition, sleep, and rest influence our physical energy levels. Alternating between phases of work and recovery is perhaps the primary key to boosting productivity.
⠀The source of EMOTIONAL energy stems from a sense of challenge and new opportunities, self-confidence, activities that bring joy and self-realization, favorite hobbies, and relaxation. Conversely, irritability, anxiety, impatience, and resentments consume a vast amount of energy and deprive us of the ability to think clearly. Breathing exercises, meditative practices, and techniques for managing emotions are some of the simplest and most effective methods.
⠀To maintain a high level of MENTAL energy, regular and varied brain exercises help. For instance, thinking through and solving problems slightly outside our “comfort zone”, engaging in creative activities, and applying a creative approach to work tasks, diversified cognitive activities that help form new neural connections.
⠀SPIRITUAL energy is the deepest level. It’s not about religion, but ensuring that activities align with our value system. Maintaining a balance between self-care and obligations to others preserves persistence and enthusiasm despite potential obstacles on the path to goals.
⠀To boost productivity, it’s crucial to first identify what specifically energizes you. Spend some time reflecting and list the tasks and activities when you gain and expend energy. Monitor how you feel after a workout or a favorite dish, after a pleasant conversation or goal setting, after a meeting or after talking with a colleague. Observe how your energy levels fluctuate throughout the day and from interactions with different people. This way, you can pinpoint the sources of your energy and your “productive hours”.
⠀In the program “Meditations to Enhance Productivity and Gain Energy”, you’ll develop the necessary skills for this.
I am in resource
Meditation will help you find the strength to handle current tasks and give you the opportunity to feel confident and steady in the present day. You can practice it wherever you have the chance to sit comfortably and close your eyes.
Grounding and stability
If you feel you are at a point in your life where there’s a noticeable lack of balance, stability, and calm, let’s undertake this short meditation. You will feel how even with such a simple practice, your internal state can change.
Increasing efficiency at work
It has been proven that short, even second-long, breaks at work significantly impact our attention. Every time we switch contexts, refocusing from one action to another, our mind needs time to shift. Herein lies the loss of productivity. Moreover, wasting time on a single message in a messenger is akin to the time lost when switching from, say, writing a poem to coding an algorithm. It’s as if our brain is a train that screeches to a halt because of an emergency brake, and very slowly gets back into motion. The hardest part is learning to manage distractions to focus on a single task for an extended period. Let’s train this skill.
Where energy goes
We all need energy; it’s our life force. We not only get it from food but also from engaging activities, social interactions, creativity, and touching upon something beautiful. The primary drain on our life force is prolonged stress, the body’s response to irritants. Deadlines, crowds in the subway, information noise, and conflicts at work result in constant tension, spasms leading to chronic fatigue, and digestive problems, which can culminate in diseases. This deprives us of life force and leaves us weakened. This practice will help dispel accumulated stress and find the fuel to boost efficiency.
Working with emotions, from negativity to resilience
Accumulated emotions are an enemy of productivity, and it’s hard to dispute that, especially if they’re negative. What if there was a way to release these emotions, letting them out as desired? Unfortunately, in reality, you probably can’t shout at the top of your lungs in the middle of an office or hit your boss with a chair. But there’s a secret – the subconscious doesn’t distinguish between reality and fantasy and obediently releases muscular and emotional tension, reducing stress hormone levels. This meditation will teach you to easily change your emotional state.
Rest for the brain
The modern world instills in us the rule that we shouldn’t waste precious time resting. In the eyes of society, it appears as a sign of laziness and counter-productivity. Don’t follow the crowd; that’s a big mistake. Scientists have found that nearly half of the best ideas emerge when we are relaxed. This activates our subconscious and nonlinear thinking. That’s why, by occasionally disconnecting from work, you become more productive and return to current tasks full of energy and interesting ideas. Here we will train a skill essential for such situations – the skill of deep relaxation.
Self-help techniques “for the home first aid kit”
1. Every day, the body and brain undergo severe strains. They accumulate unnoticed, making us inefficient, wasting time and energy on secondary tasks, leading to fatigue and carelessness. A tense mind leads to a tense body. A tense body breeds emotional tension. In a state of emotional tension, our productivity and efficiency vanish. Let’s break this vicious circle.
2. The Zeigarnik Effect. Let’s use it to enhance productivity.