Episode #4 Building Focus & Intent
In this episode, we look more closely at HOW to grow into coherence.
There are four obvious types of meditation, mindfulness, contemplation – whatever you want to call it– and we explore how these four types form the foundation of this work. All of them help us to build our focused attention into intention.
As we’ve said already, the key to successful practice – to building enduring habits – is to evoke a background affective texture (that is, a feeling) that is intimately woven with the act of our practice. The feeling of Joyful Curiosity – the child-like wonder of something truly magical happening – is the key to this. If each breath, or each moment of watching a candle flame, or a leaf or whatever we choose, is utterly magical, then it’s far more likely to be engaging and we’re far more likely to want to bring our mind back again to the single point of focus.
And then we move to Open Focus meditation, which is the same kind of life skill, but spread out into everything we experience in the moment: everything we see, hear, smell, taste, feel – all of it, as it happens, in the moment. This is an eyes open meditation and a really good grounding for becoming fully present through the days.
The music that book-ends the podcasts is created by Caro C and is called ‘Sense Ability’ – you can find it here.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THESE RECENT EPISODES
Building Trust, One Conversation at at Time: Cooperation Hull with Gully Bujak
This podcast exists to open doors, to let the world know some of the many, many things that are happening around the world to bring us closer towards that just, equitable and regenerative future we’d be proud to leave behind. And this week’s guest is someone who lives, works and acts at the cutting edge of possibility.
Meditation for the Spring Equinox 2024
This guided visualisation walks us into the moment of balance between the long nights and the long days, the restorative time of winter and the outward-acting time of summer, between being to doing. Please take time for yourself to sit quietly and create a space out of time that has meaning for you. It doesn’t have to be at the moment of the equinox, whenever that is for you, wherever you are in the world, it’s the connection that counts, the marking of the day.
Vulture Capitalism – Exposing the toxic system and how to outgrow it with Grace Blakeley
Grace Blakeley, staff writer at Tribune magazine and author of the eye-opening “Vulture Capitalism”, peels back the layers of our economic system, exposing the stark realities hidden beneath the veneer of ‘free markets’ and ‘democratic’ institutions.
Seeds of Hope: Cultivating a Future of Flavour and Resilience with Sinead Fortune and Kate Hastings of the Gaia Foundation
Our guests today are two remarkable women who bring energy, commitment and deep thought into building communities of food both nationally and internationally, in bringing ancient local species back from the brink of extinction and rediscovering, or in some cases, building anew the local technology that’ll help to rebuild the communities of place that have been focused on food for millennia and only recently been eroded. They are both masterful storytellers, bringing enthusiasm and the spark of hope to something that touches us all.
STAY IN TOUCH
For a regular supply of ideas about humanity's next evolutionary step, insights into the thinking behind some of the podcasts, early updates on the guests we'll be having on the show - AND a free Water visualisation that will guide you through a deep immersion in water connection...sign up here.
(NB: This is a free newsletter - it's not joining up to the Membership! That's a nice, subtle pink button on the 'Join Us' page...)