But I know that I also have to grovel again, having not posted for ages, due to the effects of work off the Web (and more recently, LSS and I both going down with the “lurgie”). Many apologies that this has taken so long . And yes, the blog will be back properly after Christmas.

Anyway, enough of that, and onto your present.

People talk about peace, goodwill and love at this time of year, but tensions can rise, and put them in short supply. So this MP3 meditation is designed to help you replenish them and feel good.

Enjoy, and if you like it, feel free to share it.

http://www.selfworks.net/christmasmeditation.mp3

And in any event, please have the happiest of Christmases.

More soon

Clare

PS. If you’re a Goodybag member, this meditation is just one of the goodies in this afternoons final free Godybag of the year. If you’re not yet a member, grab your Goodybag now.

If this is the case, you’re not alone. It happens to lots of us, given the speed of the world, and despite being a coach and supposedly knowing better, I have to put my hand up and ‘fess up to having this problem sometimes as well.

But help is at hand

The good news is, there’s an easy, simple and free way to overcome this problem, that I discovered by accident, but have begun to use more and more.

Whenever you next have this problem, just do the following.

1. Sit down.

2. Take a series of regular breaths, preferably where your in-breath, outbreath and pause between each in ans out phase of breath is roughly equal. So for example, you might breath in for a count of a particular number, pause for a count of the same number, breath out for a count of that number, and pause before the next breath for a count of the same number. The trick is also to do this just until you feel relaxed, which should only take three or four cycles of this at most.

(As to how long your count should be, or indeed, whether this exact sequence will be right for you as an individual…I can’t comment, but can only leave you to decide this for yourself.Only choose to do what feels comfortable for you as an individual. Some people will want a count of three or four, I happen to like six, and some people might even want eight. Or to make the count different for different phases of the breath. Or to breathe in a different way that suits their health and ability. Consult someone who knows your medical history, if in doubt).

The point of this phase is simply that you have a means of breathing and concentrating on it that works for you.

3. This third stage of actually meditating, then magically takes care of itself. Having persuaded yourself to sit down and do the breathing, “because after all, it’s only a few breaths and therefore a minute or so”, you’re then suddenly in a state where meditation seems a much more feasible and attractive idea, whether you carry on with breathwork, or any other type of meditation that you care to name.

Do try this, and check out how it goes for you. As a way to get round your conscious and “busy” mind, it may be one of the simplest tricks yet that actually works.

Hope this helps

More soon

Clare

What is this wonderful piece? “The Urban Warrior’s Way” by “The Barefoot Doctor” (real name, Stephen Russell, I believe).

What makes this so special?

The content of this course is an exploration of Taoist and related philosophies, in accessible language an atotally modern style. (Hence the subtitle styling of this as being the way to “health, wealth, happiness and good looks”). But don’t be fooled by the laid-back approach. Just one of these CDs gave me more relaxation in under an hour than I’ve had for several weeks.

Even more remarkable than the friendly and matter-of-fact tone of it all is the sheer amount of information that is, nonetheless sneaked in to this programme. Normally, I’d listen to all the CDs in something like this one after the other. Not so here. They really do need to be savoured and appreciated as you put them into practice over time.

Not only that, but it’s a joy that ll this info is gathered into one accessible place at all. Don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve looked for plain and simple information about Taoist ideas, it’s either difficult to use, or only available at a mega-active martial arts class.

Finally, to the reason I was persuaded to buy into CDs at all (instead of taking my normal, “Isn’t it just in his books?” approach. Much of the material (at least, so far) is meditation-based, and it really is like having the personal (and repeatable) presence of a highly-experienced Taoist trainer in the room with you, giving refreshingly novel insights…at a fraction of the cost of most on-the-gound events.

I’ll come back to this topic when I’ve finished all the CDs. but if you can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about, check out the info here:

http://www.nightingale.com/turbanwarrior.asp?source=BAREWEB&Dloc=UK

Hope this helps.

More soon

Clare

I suspect that the download (almost inevitably) is supposed to lead to some more bells and whistles of the paid variety in due course. And I can’t say anything about that, because I haven’t tried it and know nothing about it.

But I can say that this current 15 minute miracle is free, and seems downloadable until at least this Sunday.

If you’d like to download it, you’ll need to register, but that’s free too:

http://www.SecretsOfMeditation.com/qigong

Hope this helps you too!

More soon

Clare

And I guess, according to whatever you chose we should consider that at length in a blog by itself.

Briefly though, the bad news is that I’ve been rushing around and neglecting the blog.

The good news is though, that you gain…I’m so horrified that I haven’t been posting quite so much, it seems only fair to give everyone a gift.

I originally made this download for a friend, but she was adamant it was of a high enough standard for public release, so (despite my protestations about,”still learning how to edit out whistles and pops”) here goes.

You can find it, for the time being, at:

http://www.selfworks.net/wellbeingmeditation.mp3

and I’m shortly going to put it into the GoodyBag members’ area too, for good.

As ever, bear in mind that you need to use this only whenyou can relax completely, and it shouldn’t replace any kind of professional help.

Other than that-enjoy! Hope it helps

More soon (the blog is likely to be scanty until around the beginning of next week, and then back to normal).

Clare