“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth. It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed. But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune; neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory. It is, rather, the laughter of one who, after having painfully searched for something for a long time, finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Before my very first all-day silent retreat, I bumped into my meditation teacher in the hallway. I had just gotten an “all clear” mammogram following a year of breast cancer treatment and I was so excited.
She said hi to me, so I happily related my test results, only to have another meditation teacher poke her head into the hallway and sternly shush me. This was, after all, a silent retreat.
At the lunch break, that shushing teacher gave me a gentle hug and handed me a sweet note of apology. None was necessary — I hadn’t been offended by having her correct me.
Weeks later, I happened to see her again (not at a retreat!) and she explained how she had felt during her very first retreat when no one would look at or speak to her, because, of course, they weren’t supposed to. She admitted that she felt slighted at that time, and that’s why she hadn’t wanted me to feel the same way after she quieted me. She was so darling and sincere, I couldn’t help but hug her again.
This is something I’ve thought about: at many of these retreats, when we practice noble silence and custody of the eyes, there is a tendency to adopt a dour expression. We’re working hard to concentrate and turn inwards…perhaps a bit too hard. It’s easy to lose that lightness and joy of mindfulness if we’re being too serious.
There is comfort in humor. “Right now” can be a pretty funny place.
At the next retreat I attended, that same teacher was teaching mindful yoga. We were on all fours and instructed to raise up our left arm…then our right leg…and our left leg…leaving a few of us confused since levitation hadn’t been part of the class curriculum. The teacher chuckled and said that we needed to keep a sense of humor about our practice.
I like that idea. And that’s why now when I go to meditation retreats, I bring along my thick socks with panda faces and cute little ears. Life hasn’t been easy and it certainly hasn’t gone as planned. But as I sit there amongst all the other meditators, I smile knowing that I can still find humor in this world.
I wrote my last post about my not-so-mindful behavior in the jury lounge of the local Superior Court, waiting to see if I’d be called to serve as a juror on a case.
I wasn’t, but the situation ended up being stressful nonetheless, and it had nothing to do with my forgetting that I had a metal fork in my backpack and being called out by security for it. (Oops!)
No, what did it was the runaway narrative being played out in my head about potential frustration if I were selected, and whether I could manage all the facts of the case (chemo brain) and the sitting (neuropathy and back pain). While not completely inconsequential, neither chemo brain nor physical limitations were an issue for me as I was sitting in the jury lounge, waiting.
That evening, released from jury duty for another year, I came across an article by beading teacher and author Kristal Wick, who settled on beading as meditation to help her deal with her monkey mind, and in it she wrote about her realization that we are making stress up.
In stressful times, it’s not always easy to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not.
I would clarify that by noting that we don’t make up stressful events themselves, but the toll that anticipating what may happen takes on us depends in great part on our reaction to it. And whether or not we want to admit it, ultimately that’s under our control — although if we’ve established a behavior pattern of anxious reactivity (*cough, cough*), it will take practice to rein in those responses.
But the reminder that those “thousand deaths” that I was dying in advance of something that was not real or guaranteed…ahhhh, I needed that.
Next time a calmer, more realistic response, perhaps?
Do we equally offer everyone the benefit of the doubt?
In his post, Smilecalm describes how mindfulness creates a situation where justice truly prevails. Whereas it would have been easy to make a snap judgment and convict someone who seemed, on the surface, to be guilty, pausing and carefully sorting through the facts provided a different picture.
When I think of the concept of “beginner’s mind”, I think of this kind of patience and open examination of what is before you, instead of moving down well-worn paths to conclusions based on circumstances.
I am sure that the defendant in Smilecalm’s case was grateful for the care with which the jurors considered his testimony. I, for one, am grateful to Smilecalm for bringing to light not only the importance of serving on a jury, but doing so with care and compassion.
My right heel has been hurting — for the past week I contemplated claiming plantar fasciitis to get out of jury duty.
Okay, I knew that excuse wouldn’t fly, but I was stressed about getting pulled out of everyday life, with an already overfull plate, to do my civic duty. The more I thought about it, the more I worked myself up into a lather.
Mindfulness couldn’t cut through the noise in my sleep-deprived head. This agony of anticipation made several things crystal clear:
My nemesis. This monkey will pull your lungs out through your nose.
I ruminate enough to rival a massive herd of cows. Hello, monkey mind! I’d been thrashing through all the unknowns, unfettered irritation and unfounded fears in my head. This was the monkey-on-my-back, screeching madly.
My physiological reaction to even the anticipation of potential stress is out of control. Granted, this reaction was lubricated by a hefty pint of caffeinated coffee from the courthouse cafe. But when the voice over the loudspeaker called out names in alphabetical order, my heart pounded as the list approached where my name would be. I knew what was happening and that it was ridiculous, but simply couldn’t stop.
Instead of patiently waiting to see what happens, I really really really want things to be a certain way. I punished myself by clinging too tightly to expectations. I mean, tight enough to turn my knuckles white (knucklehead that I am).
All of this opened the door to a boatload of suffering. Great. So much for being mindful. My morning as a prospective juror was fraught with anxiety.
Even after several years of daily meditation and mindfulness bells and “take 5” reminders, even after trying to be all zen about it, I was still a mess. Disappointing, by my judging eyes. But also, very human.
Things didn’t improve until I started pacing at the back of the jury lounge briskly enough to feel conspicuous. The motion soothed me, like rocking a baby. It was self care, which is the first casualty of my anxiety.
It was the only mindful thing that I could manage, but it kept the monkey busy as we zigged and zagged around other people to avoid a collision.
Once I racked up a good 3000 steps and a bunch of odd stares (don’t care, don’t care, don’t care), the pressure released a bit. Okay, that and the fact that I’d made it through the first two rounds of juror calls without hearing my name and it was already time for lunch. That combo was like the “pffft” from a fizzy bottle of kombucha. I was feeling better.
I returned from a long lunch break with my reasoning mind in charge, calculating probabilities. Three sections of seats, fifteen rows each, a minimum of three people per row…not counting the folks at random round tables and working on laptops along the walls…hey, that’s a LOT! Safety in numbers! The odds were in my favor, otherwise known as, “if your group is being chased by a hungry leopard, don’t worry about outrunning the cat, just outrun your friends.”
You mean, NONE of this stuff is real???
So the reasoning mind wrestled the crazy monkey mind into a half nelson. But alas, the reasoning mind was still a slave to expectation, with its own monkey-on-the-back. It was a tenuous peace, unstable and easily shattered by the voice over the loudspeaker, but it enabled me to approach the situation with less reactivity even if temporarily.
Guess how this messy day ended: a thousand deaths later (around 2pm, to be exact) the voice from the loudspeaker released us from service, giving me a year’s reprieve and kicking the monkey to the curb. And it was at that moment that I realized how tightly worry had gripped me, and it wasn’t even real. Everything had taken place in the space between my ears.
I thought about how my agony had been self-generated. And that’s a topic for another post.
Much gratitude toSmileCalmwho brought this meditation app to my attention!
So far most of the mindfulness apps and programs that I’ve written about have reflected a more secular version of mindfulness (Insight Timer is an exception, because it encompasses a very broad range of practices).
The opening screen invites you into Plum Village…
However, Plum Village is the meditation app of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village Tradition of Buddhism. It is beautiful in its simplicity, reflecting mindfulness authentically — and appropriately so, as Thich Nhat Hanh is considered the “father of mindfulness”.
Things that ring true for me:
1. It is completely free. There are no in-app purchases or upgrades, and certainly no ads. You download it and have access to everything. It is open to everyone.
2. It is uncomplicated in design, allowing easy navigation within a simple serene tangerine-colored layout.
3. There is no competition inherent in this app: no meditation counters, no record of meditation “streaks”, no gold stars for hitting meditation milestones, nor a way to compare your progress against that of others. It focuses only on the selection that you are doing now. And when you are done with it, you are done. No clinging.
A partial view of some of the categories in the “Meditations” section.
There are five sections, buttons for which run along the bottom of the screen. “Resources” contains chants, poems, mindful movement videos, in addition to spoken and written teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh. “Practices” could be considered the ‘how-to’ section as it explains various mindfulness practices and concepts.
There is a large selection of guided meditations in the “Meditations” section. They are based on Buddhist values, and while most are lovingly presented by monks and nuns, there are some led by Thich Nhat Hanh himself. To round out the collection, there are clips of nature sounds to use as a background to meditation.
The “Ask Thay” section (Thay, or “teacher”, referring to Thich Nhat Hanh) contains a long list of questions posed to the Zen Master with audio clips of his gentle responses. While these within themselves are not meditations, I found myself mesmerized by his words.
But the section I’ve utilized the most is “Bells”. It’s possible to set up the sounding of a ‘bell of mindfulness’ for intervals ranging from every five to sixty minutes. I’ve let that run for the entirety of my workday, setting up the bell to sound every 10 minutes, as a reminder to stay present and focused. When I get lost in work, the bell declares its presence, easily cuts though the noise in my head and serves as a reminder to take several deep breaths.
I have been using this app differently from other mindfulness apps like Calm and Insight Timer. Plum Village is more instructive, and as I am interested in deepening my knowledge of Buddhist Dharma, I use it not only to calm my monkey mind, but also as a learning tool.
Of all the programs and apps I have used, Plum Village feels the most authentic, as if I’m coming home to the roots of mindfulness.
As an alumna of one of the universities involved in the recent U.S. college admissions scandal, I’ve been following the details of this story with great interest. My eldest will be completing college applications this autumn. She is a remarkable student; however, unlike many of my fellow alumni, I have not had the means to put her into every imaginable extracurricular activity.
Yet, I had impressed upon her the importance of always doing her best and getting into a “good” university to improve her choices for the future, particularly since there will not be a windfall waiting for her when I die.
But the recent events have left a sour taste in my mouth. Particularly since my cancer diagnosis, I’ve been rethinking the stressors that are placed on students in the hopes of getting them into the “best” schools.
So much anxiety and lost sleep. Pressures to compete. I can no longer say that it’s worth it. The recent admissions scandal broke open the “secret” that many of us already knew. There is great iniquity in our society and college admissions reflect that.
I do believe that education is very important. That has not changed. But the artificial ways that we twist ourselves to fit a mold, to be granted confirmation of our worthiness of being one of the chosen few, is unhealthy.
I have served as an alumna interviewer for prospective students and become increasingly frustrated by the opportunities that wealthier applicants are given, when in fact they may work no harder than their less fortunate counterparts. If anything, I’ve seen relatively poor students do so much with what they have, sometimes as they deal with complicated home situations and an inordinate amount of responsibility.
But one thing seems to hold true for all students, regardless of income: competition for college acceptance teaches them that they’re never “good enough”. Having good grades and high scores is insufficient — they must do more: sports, clubs, musical instruments, volunteer activities, other distinctions, all at nosebleed-high levels of accomplishment. Nothing less than perfection is expected.
And always planning, planning, planning. There is little time to appreciate what is taking place now.
I don’t want the exquisite beauty of now to be sacrificed for some plastic promise of tomorrow.
I have bright children, but my wish for them is not necessarily to attend my alma mater. That is not what is important. I want them to be good people. Compassionate, empathetic and not so much in a hurry to get ahead, particularly not if it means treading on others. We have the ability to define our own success and we can do so mindfully and with grace.
This is not something that money can buy, nor that a particular diploma can offer. This is something that comes from within. The greatest gift that I can give my children is to teach them mindfulness, to show them how to still their thoughts and calm their worries. That lesson will serve them for the rest of their lives.
What I would like all those students who tried so hard and still weren’t “accepted” to know:
You are enough. You don’t need an acceptance letter to prove your worth.
You are bright and resourceful, inquisitive and engaged. And no matter where you go to school, you will do well. I see the sparkling light in your eyes — don’t let the heaviness of worldly expectations douse it. You, not some musty ancient institution, are who defines yourself.
Strive for what you feel is important, but do so mindfully and with kindness. That is what will make this world a better place for all.
Although I may never be able to prove it, I’m willing to bet that stress played a role in the proliferation of my cancer.
As a result, getting my stress response under control was a high priority, so I started a meditation practice and once the toughest parts of my treatment (chemo, radiation) were done, went searching for a formal class to address anxiety.
My clinical counselor had told me about a book called “Full Catastrophe Living” by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. As it turned out, Kabat-Zinn had been a long-time meditator and, drawing on both Buddhist Dharma and scientific research, developed a stress-reduction program for patients at the UMass Medical School in the 1970s called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
So when I found a Center for Mindfulness at a local university, I jumped at the opportunity to take that same flagship MBSR course.
This is an 8-week class with an additional full-day retreat. The curriculum has been developed to introduce students to mindfulness and help them, over a two month period, develop a practice, both formal and informal to manage stress in their lives.
It is also not cheap! The non-discounted version may cost about $600, depending on where and when you sign up. If I hadn’t had cancer and therefore a powerful reason for needing in-person guidance in mindfulness meditation, I would have considered myself priced out of this course, instead opting for a self-paced, free online version, such as Palouse Mindfulness.
But I used the significant price tag to motivate myself to do each and every homework assignment. The classes themselves were 2.5 hours a week, with daily home practice lasting about 45 minutes to an hour. That’s no small commitment! I had to move around my schedule to be able to fit the practice time in, and even the Center for Mindfulness itself recommended that if you could not accommodate the home practice to wait for a time that you could before signing up for the class.
The teachers were warm and supportive. They genuinely cared about student progress and themselves had a regular practice in addition to having spent time and resources on their own teacher training. As such, the instruction was excellent.
There were a number of resources for the students, including audio and video programs, which are also available to the general public. Currently, as an MBSR alumna, I have access to all the day-long mindfulness retreats for students free of charge. This gives me an opportunity to immerse myself into silent meditation for substantial periods of time in a similarly conducive environment.
The development of a mindfulness practice has more to do with the effort of the student, rather than the expense of a class.
I was struck by how quickly the class registration filled up, and how during the first session, when asked why we were taking the course, so many of us cited the amount of stress and anxiety in our lives. It is a sign of the times that so many people are willing to pay a significant amount of money to take a class to help them get some semblance of control over their inner state.
Actually achieving this was harder than simply paying the cost of admission. This class began with about thirty of us, but fewer than half made it to the very end. A number of people admitted being unable to complete the homework. Some gave up completely. There were others that came for several sessions but then never returned. Everyone was looking for help with stress but not everyone was successful.
As a secular version of Buddhist mindfulness, the course does justice to the tradition. While the expensive registration fee may be off-putting for some (many?), there is tuition assistance available, which I feel is important. As I’ve written before, I don’t feel that it’s appropriate to make mindfulness available only to those rich enough to afford fancy classes.
But in the end, regardless of what type of mindfulness instruction you utilize, what matters is how much effort each student puts into the practice of being mindful.
I have beside my bed a 7-day pillbox. Since I avoid taking pills whenever possible, opting for alternatives to medication, there is only one lonely but mandatory pill in each little box corresponding to the day of the week.
That’s tamoxifen, a final remnant of breast cancer treatment that I’ll be taking for years to come.
I observe the passage of time by the disappearance of the daily pills. They mark the days that I work and the days that I don’t (weekends and Wednesdays). Sunday mornings the pillbox is full. The work week looms before us bringing early mornings and sleepy heads. Wednesday provides a brief respite with an extra hour of sleep and a day crammed with personal errands at home rather than office work. When Thursday rolls around and I return to my job, only the Friday and Saturday pills are left until it’s time to refill the box again.
Days melt into weeks, weeks into months. Make them count.
The weeks seem to go by more quickly as I get older. Time feels slippery and days fuzz into the background. Weeks pass into months as pills are consumed. I’m unsettled by the possibility that when my decade of tamoxifen ends, I’ll realize that I spent ten years waiting the pills to finish and missing what was going on in the moment. It frightens me into wanting to distinguish this week’s row of pills from the next, to make next week different from the last.
I pause as I plop a fresh row of pills into their designated boxes. Could I be kinder to those around me? React more calmly? Sleep better? Support the needs of others more? View my shortfalls with compassion?
Every morning I am able to get out of bed and place my feet flat on the Earth. That is something to be very grateful for, no matter how difficult my week. I represent the fortunate ones who have been given the opportunity to remain alive and present in “now” and appreciate every precious day more than the one before.
Setting time aside for formal meditation is important to me, but what about the hours of the day that I spend off my cushion? As dedicated as I am to my meditation practice, it took a while to find a way to consistently bring mindfulness into the rest of my day.
My workplace was offering an informal program through a Canadian company called MindWell-U, and since I’m always up for trying out anything mindfulness-related, I signed up.
The loading screen of my MindWell-U account. This provided an opportunity to set an intention for the session.
The concept is called “Take 5”. Over a period of 30 days, you are provided a daily computer-based lesson that illustrates different aspects of mindfulness. More importantly, every day you also receive cues to remind yourself to “Take 5” – that is, to take a time-out, settle and focus on five deep breaths. You are provided “Take 5” guidance via a sound clip. As the days progress, the types of cues change. The idea is to notice the present and stay as mindful as possible, establishing space between yourself and emotional reactions.
During every lesson, the program suggested cues for the day (for instance, brushing your teeth) to use to stop and notice where your thoughts are. These changed as the days passed, and by the end, we were encouraged to create our own cues.
Aspects that made a huge difference to me:
1) Incorporating mindfulness into everyday life: When I wasn’t meditating formally, I would often get lost in day-to-day stressors. The cues provided by the “Take 5” protocol, simple as they were, were what I needed to bring mindfulness into the rest of my life. It also made me more aware of where I already was being mindful, even when I didn’t identify it as such.
For example, when I exercise I have no problem staying present during difficult workouts, and this makes them easier to complete. One benefit of this awareness is that I am more compassionate towards those who are not able to maintain the same focus and I appreciate why they may “psych themselves out” before they’ve even begun exercising. This kind of understanding makes me less judgmental.
An example of one video that provided easy-to-follow messages which reinforced the benefit of being mindful.
2) Daily video clips: These were minimalistic illustrations, using the color red to signify getting swept up in thought and emotions, and a cool blue to signify being mindfully present. Topics were relevant, the videos were entertaining and short, and were in small enough bites to provide something to work on for the day without feeling like an obligation. Examples of daily lesson topics: “Thoughts Are Not Facts”, “Reversing The Stress Response”, “Turning Off Autopilot” and “Fight, Flight or Take 5”. I found myself looking forward to each session, which I completed in the morning at my desk, prior to the start of my workday.
A sticky note on my computer monitor reminding me to be present by pausing, taking some breaths and feeling into the moment.
3) Time frame: 30 days is the perfect length of time for creating a new behavior. Again, I already had a solid meditation practice in place; the trick was to take that mindful attitude with me and apply it to the rest of my life.
Important (and sobering) note: it bears mentioning that mindfulness has taken off and is currently being applied to all aspects of our lives, often being a huge money-maker for providers. I myself have invested in programs and classes in the name of getting solid guidance to develop my practice. Ironically, this seems to go against the concept of mindfulness itself, which truly should be available to all, regardless of ability to pay for shiny apps and expensive sessions.
Furthermore, isn’t it antithetical to the Buddhist tradition for companies to encourage their employees to take such classes with the expectation that a more mindful workforce will ultimately result in higher profits?
While I am grateful for any opportunity to expand my mindfulness meditation practice, the above gives me pause. My intention, then, is to use tools like these that further my growth in a way that will also benefit those around me.
In my last post, I sang the praises of the Calm phone app. However, I admitted that a number of the features are only available to users who subscribe. This was an investment I chose to make because I was dealing with a cancer diagnosis and needed quality meditation support to help with my anxiety.
The opening screen has a peaceful minimalist look.
I also didn’t know about Insight Timer at the time.
For those who are looking for more free options, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better mindfulness phone app than Insight Timer, which I have grown to value highly and use daily. While the app does have a subscription option, I’ve been thoroughly impressed with what it offers to unpaid users.
These are the features that I adore:
1) 15,000+ Meditations! That’s gotta be some sort of record. And there are new meditations being added all the time, which means that you could do a different meditation every day. I constantly keep finding new favorite meditations…
This is just a partial view of the most popular meditation selections. There are so many more to choose from!
2) Variety, variety, variety! The number of options is mind-boggling. Choose from different teachers, lengths, recording types (meditation, music, lecture), and of course, a gazillion categories that encompass any imaginable meditation benefit, origin and practice, not to mention an increasing number of languages — I speak a rather esoteric language from a small country and was still able to find a couple of meditations in the lingo. Truly, it’s worth searching through the app to see what a broad selection is available. If you’re interested in meditating to it or about it or because of it, chances are Insight Timer has it.
The meditation timer function lets you create the perfect session for yourself.
3) The Timer: This is a fully customizable meditation timer that includes a variety of background sounds and meditation bells to choose from, with the ability to set the session length and bell intervals. It’s ideal for those times when you want to meditate without voice guidance. I particularly appreciate that once your session ends, the background sound continues to play in case you want to extend your time.
4) And most importantly, most of the features are FREE! Quite frankly, meditation really should be accessible by all. It doesn’t seem right to limit people’s access to something like this based on their ability to pay for it. Insight Timer does have a “supporter” option, but as the developers explain, the fees support the umpteen teachers and composers who provide content, in addition to keeping the site free for most of us. Read more about Insight Timer‘s philosophy here.
For those who decide to subscribe and support the app, there are a number of benefits available, such as a selection of 10- and 30-day courses, a curated Daily Insight meditation every day, high-quality audio, offline listening and the like.
The only downside to such an overwhelming amount of meditations to choose from is that it can become, well, overwhelming. Additionally, you don’t always know what you’re getting due to the variety of teachers posting material, so you might need to do a little searching around. It’s almost guaranteed, however, that you will find something to suit your needs.
Following my cancer diagnosis, my General Practitioner wrote me a prescription for Xanax because anxiety resulted in a steep drop in my weight (not a great way to prepare for chemo!). I’m not a pill popper and didn’t like the idea of treating my runaway anxiety with drugs; nonetheless, I relented because my situation seemed out of control. When my radiation oncologist suggested that I try meditation for long term stress relief, I jumped at the idea, but wasn’t sure where to start.
The opening screen of the app reminds you to breathe. I’ve conditioned myself to take an extra deep breath here.
The Calm phone app was enthusiastically recommended by a co-worker, so I tried it. It remains the only phone app to which I’ve ever gotten a lifetime subscription. I used the free version for several weeks but got so hooked I decided to spring for it — since my first meditation with Calm almost exactly two years ago, I have not missed a single day. I also shamelessly plug it to anyone who’ll listen (*ahem*) like I’m doing here.
Features that are worth the price of admission~
Tamara Levitt’s voice: Perfection! Tamara is officially the Head of Content for the Calm app and her voice is so soothing it could cool sunburns. I’ve tried a lot of guided meditations hosted by a variety of speakers and have heard few voices that can compare to hers. Try one of her meditations and you’ll immediately know what I mean.
This little bubble provides a lot of relief!
Breathe bubble: This is a circle that expands and contracts, enabling you to follow along and breathe as it does so. It has “inhale” and “exhale” tones so you can close your eyes if you wish, and you can adjust the pace and pattern (with or without pauses) of breath, albeit minimally. I wish there were a way to personalize it more fully, but I make do with the available options. I used the bubble feature at times when I was too anxious to effectively listen to a guided meditation and I credit it with getting me through some very tough times.
Just a few of the scenes available to play in the background. Love this!
Scenes: I adore this feature! You can select from (at last count) 35 dynamic background visuals with nature sounds or airy musical motifs to play alone or along with the meditations. All these scenes are available in the free version and suit a broad spectrum of moods. I open the web version of the app on my work computer and play this feature in the background all day long. It’s magical!
As an extra bonus, you can set up the background sounds to continue playing after the meditation is over, so that if you fall asleep during your practice, you’re not jarred awake by sudden silence.
And of course, Meditations: Take your pick! There are a vast variety of meditations to choose from, most guided but some with only bells, and there are a number of lengths (in minutes) available. Since I subscribe to the app, I enjoy the Daily Calm, which has a different topic everyday, always led by Tamara, so you can expect a consistent level of quality from them (kind of like a cup o’ java from a favorite coffee chain, but without the caffeine).
Beginners should try the free “7 Days of Calm” learn-to-meditate series that offers a week’s worth of daily 10-minute sessions to ease you into a mindfulness meditation practice.
Be aware: the free version does offer some meditations, but the majority are available only to subscribers, and you’ll soon find yourself craving for more. At that point, you’ll have to decide whether it’s in your budget to commit to the paid version.
The “more” screen showing additional features available. Loads of great stuff here!
There are other features that I use less often but are worth mentioning. A friend of mine swears by the Sleep Stories, which are high quality tales designed to help you nod off, and a number of them are voiced by celebrities like Bob Ross (yes, the ‘happy clouds’ painter — what could be better?), Matthew McConaughey, Stephen Fry and even Peter Jefferson, who used to do the UK shipping forecast which so many in that part of the world found so soothing. Most, although not all, require the paid version of the app.
There are also Masterclass courses offered that I’ve found useful enough to make my family listen to them during long car trips. Topics are broad-ranging and presented by experts in their fields and new courses are added from time to time. Some courses are free, but most require the subscription to progress further than the first class session.
The Music feature offers a generous variety of specially curated musical pieces that are perfect for creating space in your day, like a life vest in stormy seas. I haven’t even come close to making full use of this feature! Many of these are free and worth exploring.
Calm Bodies is a new feature which brings mindful movement into your repertoire of calming tools. I prefer to do yoga on my own, so I haven’t made use of this feature, which unfortunately is limited to subscribers.
There are other perks for subscribers (even a special relaxation room available at select airports!) not available to those using the free version. For me, investing in a well-curated library of meditation and mindfulness options was worth the cost.
Want to stick with the free version? There are still enough great elements available to merit downloading and playing around with the app.
If you are interested in incorporating mindfulness and meditation into your life, the Calm phone app is a great place to begin.
Frantic Shanti 