A BEAUTIFUL INTERVIEW with my dear friends, and sweet co-creative sisters, Madeleine and Bonnie Culbertson on their beautiful new podcast, 101 WAYS TO SAVE THE WORLD.
INTERVIEW on 101 Ways to Save the World
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Tag Archives: Meditation
A minute on the Autumnal Equinox 2020
How to Build a Crystal Grid
Full Moon Meditation of July 4, 2020
a Sunday meditation
VIOLET #2 – A Healing Meditation
A Mandala of Health MEDITATION
Full Moon Meditation for May 2020 – If you can’t go outside, go inside.
ASHRAM – Taking Care of Yourself during these Times
Full Moon Meditation – March 2020
Solstice Intention Meditation
With the New Year coming this is a good time to view the Winter Solstice Intention-Setting Meditation presented by Diana Lang, with performances by Hanna Haas and Aaron Goldberg.
One Minute on BIRTHDAYS with Diana Lang
One minute on the Emerging Feminine
THE WEATHER REPORT with Diana Lang – September 5, 2019
New Moon in Virgo
THIS NEW MOON is potent and powerful and HELPFUL. Think, “the Art of Tidying,” except it’s about every subject of your life. Clean out the clutter in your closet, but also clean out the clutter in your emotional one too. This is a moon that is earthy and real and manifest. This is a moon to organize your priorities and your philosophies. Simple, straightforward and true. Be ready for the changes that are happening, and coming, by putting your inner affairs in order, om~
Exact in Los Angeles at 3:37 pm, Friday, August 30.
THE WEATHER with Diana Lang – August 20, 2019
ONE MINUTE on Tonglen by Diana Lang
sky news
As many of you know, I am a lifelong astrologer, and there is some good news in the sky these days, and I wanted to share. Mercury has been retrograde for the last 3 weeks and it goes direct tomorrow evening, a semi-minor occurrence, as this occurs at least three times a year for about 3 weeks every year. (Though, it gets interesting when the retrograde crosses important points and planets on your chart, and in that case, it can be a very big deal!) Mostly, however, these things come and go like a little frisky wind moving through the life. It is always good, in a wake up and smell the coffee kind of way. Tomorrow, Thursday, Mercury goes direct. If you have noticed little miscommunications or misfires of efforts, the tides will begin to turn now. Wonderfully, it’s also a new moon. Think of this like a little breath of really fresh air. Like a morning where the house is warm and you open up the windows to allow the cool fresh air of winter to come blowing through, brisk, revitalizing and renewing. There is, as always, so much I could say about all of this, but see if this little celestial weather report opens up a corresponding window in your awareness for a new beginning and some bright, clear, clean, forward moving energy in your life.
love, Diana
A new YouTube piece by me, SHARING YOUR GIFTS
ON GENEROSITY
INTENTION MEDITATION – a meditation on pattern changing
Full Moon Afterthoughts at Meditation Mount – Dec. 3, 2017
1 Minute on COURAGE with Diana Lang
Play video to watch >
One minute on ACCEPTANCE with Diana Lang
Follow the link to watch.
An interview with Kim Corbin on NEW WORLD NOW.
Full Moon Meditation – SOUL HEALING
A Minute on Grace
A minute on compassion
A Minute on Truth
A one-minute video on Love
2-minute Full Moon Meditation – July 2017
on meditation
Meditation is fundamentally and etherically practical.
Meditation is an ancient discipline designed to help you learn to be more present in your life. It is an art that is practiced. It is something that we keep growing into, discovering, unraveling, and expanding to learn the gorgeous difference between thinking and mindfulness. Meditation resets your soul compass and reconnects you to your inner guidance.
Meditation works best when you least want to. Part of the discipline of meditation is to sit whether you feel like it or not. It is a training of the ego, to learn what I call, “sit and stay.” In the stillness that this discipline entrains, a space of deep and growing awareness can be known. This is an enormous gift because you inner knowing will never lead you astray. It always leads you to the soul’s next step. By setting up a daily practice, you are opening up a dialogue for an ongoing conversation with your soul.
www.DianaLang.com 2016
INTUITION is Your Superpower
(reprinted from the Huffington Post)
Your intuition is like a superpower. We use it every day in a thousand ways. We use is it in every transaction, negotiation and relationship we engage in.
Intuition is a deep inner listening.
And we all have this ability.
Intuition is a faculty of higher mind. It is a kind of extra sensory perception, as it were. Intuition allows us to discern between the billions of information bits that we are thinking, to discover by filtering through all of this sensory data, the common denominator, which is: the truth of something.
There is often so much mental clutter around certain subjects, especially ones that are important to us, that we sometimes cannot cognize what we think. That’s because we are thinking everything at the same time! When we’re afraid, and especially when we feel our lives depend on it, we can be thinking thousands of thoughts simultaneously with no conscious prioritization. This can put us into utter chaos!
But just behind the veil of the pros-and-cons list of our life, and all the myriad information that we pick up along the way – behind all that data – waiting patiently for us, is our personal inner knowing. Not what the world would say, not what someone else thinks about a subject, but our very own precious knowing.
Intuition helps us sense our way through life’s problems. We can sense when to move and when not to move. We can feel the intentions of another. We can intuit if something is right for us or not. It is literally our “inner sight.” It is insight!
Your intuition is the most accurate gauge of someone’s intention and heart. Your intuition can tell you what something really is. By heeding this deep inner listening, the truth of it can shine through. Because we really do know, or I should say, we can know. We just need to stop, and consciously ask ourselves…
…and then, listen.
Like this:
Become quiet inside yourself. This is very like a little mini-meditation. Sit perfectly still and empty your mind. When you think ofthe decision, the person, or the situation, what do you intuit? (Not, what do you think.) For the moment, put aside your opinions, judgments, or preconceived ideas. What does your heart know? What is your intuition?
Really, deeply listen.
Does your inner self give you a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down? Is there an internal nod of YES, or a squeezing contracted feeling of NO? You will feel it. It is very definite.
Here’s the thing, if you are listening with your intuition, you will know. We can be fooled by the external information of things. We can be overloaded by the sheer density of the concerns that are connected to our question, or overwhelmed by the fears we have of the potential domino-consequence of it. The problem is that the answer we think is right may look great on paper but not be good for our life. Intuition includes logic, but logic doesn’t necessarily include intuition.
It’s important to remember as you are gathering impressions to not be tempted to manufacture reasons to substantiate these impressions while you are receiving them. Listen to your intuition. But don’t try to justify your intuition. If you need to “prove” what or why your intuition is telling you something, you are already out of the intuitive state and back into the ego’s limited fear-logic. This is why intuition is intuition, not deduction or analysis. It’s a whole different faculty of mind.
There is no greater insight than what your intuition senses and offers – if you’ll listen.
It is how Einstein was able to conceive E=mc2. He intuited it first; then he proved it.
Your intuition is a powerful tool. It is like having a secret power, and in time, and with practice, you will learn to trust it more and more. It will guide you seamlessly through life. It will nudge you left when left is exactly the right move for you. As you become more adept in listening to your intuition, you will find yourself navigating your life more and more deftly, decision by decision, choice by choice, breath by breath, moment by moment.
And what is extraordinary about this inner knowing, this intuition, this superpower, is that it is adaptable and ever-responding to the ever-changing circumstance of our ever-changing reality!
Like any superpower, you need to cultivate and develop your intuition. Practice trusting your inner knowing. Get good at it. Let your intuition guide your life, for it will always lead you true.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Meditation in Real Life
(reprinted from The Huffington Post)
Meditation is everywhere. Angelina Jolie meditates. Ellen DeGeneres meditates. Sting meditates. Dr. Oz meditates! Oprah and Deepak Chopra present live webcasts to more than half a million people from around the world in their 21-day meditation challenges. Even Clint Eastwood meditates!
In America, more than ten million adults have a daily meditation practice, and those are just the ones that participated in the poll. Meanwhile, many more of us are quietly meditating in our homes and offices.
Furthermore, scientific studies are showing, by testing yogis, meditators, and mystics of every kind, what has been long been known: meditation really works. It strengthens the immune system, lessens the effects of depression, and lowers blood pressure, just to name a few benefits. Meditating even improves the way we age.
Meditation is being used in every kind of setting, from hospitals to prisons. It is being used to help alleviate the effects of stress and chronic pain. Meditation is even being used to help people through the process of dying. Schools are using meditation to assist children with hyperactivity and keep them off drugs. It is being used worldwide by groups numbering in the millions to purposefully raise humanity’s consciousness to a new level. Meditation is sweeping the Western world!
So what is meditation?
Most of us imagine someone sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop in India. But for most, meditation doesn’t fit this stereotypical image. It is rather a simple daily practice, done at home sitting on the couch, or at the office on lunch break. We do it to keep our balance, to find our center, and to stay present – even when things are difficult – especially when things are difficult.
Life can be so overwhelming. We can get distracted, distraught, confused and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of life. We are bombarded with information and stimulation. There’s so much to do. We are trying so hard to make money, raise kids, to be a good person. We get over-stimulated, over-amped, and finally overwhelmed.
There’s never been a time in history where ADHD and all kinds of other nervous disorders and immune system diseases have been more rampant. We eat too much; we work too hard. We swing from gung-ho exercise programs and massive dieting, to total lethargy and Big Macs. We are a bi-polar nation. We are desperately looking for meaning and simplicity.
We are looking for a way to get back to ourselves – to that part of us that is sacred . . . and it’s been right there all along.
Meditation reconnects us to that simplicity and meaning. It awakens that part of ourselves that is always already connected. When we meditate we have the actual experience of inner peace and a deep inner calm. It’s like the feeling after having returned from a long vacation; you return rested with a greater sense of well-being, but also a broader perspective of your life, and for a while we have a whole new outlook. With a meditation practice, you can have that experience every day.
People by the thousands are turning to meditation every single day, because we’re just plain overwhelmed. We’re stressed out and pissed off. We feel powerless, worried, unworthy, or worse, apathetic. All of these states are conditions of being disconnected – which creates pain. We are in pain because we are disconnected.
Meditation helps us to reconnect to our higher knowing. And the really good news is that it’s easy. It’s simple to do and as normal as breathing. Meditation gives you back your most true and authentic self. When we meditate we begin to feel more and more calm, more sure, and guided in every moment. Meditation takes you where you are, accepts you, and gently, lovingly, and in perfect timing, takes you back to yourself.
So, don’t be surprised if you find out your accountant meditates or your next door neighbor does. Wouldn’t you love to know that the nurse that is caring for you meditates? Or your lawyer? The more conscious we all are, the better this world will become. Where there is consciousness, there is compassion.
Meditation is a return to love. It is a return to your deepest inner knowing and that place within yourself you have always been seeking. Meditation literally makes your world a better place, and therefor, this world a better place.
Meditation will take you home. It creates a clear path to real peace and happiness. The place to start is exactly where you are, and the time is now.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Meditation as a Practice for Self Love
(reposted from the Huffington Post)
Life can be so overwhelming. We can get distracted, confused, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it. We are bombarded with information and stimulation. We are trying so hard to make money, raise kids, be a good person; we end up getting over-stimulated, over-amped, and finally overwhelmed!
What we are really looking for, though, is meaning self-love and understanding. We are looking for a way to get back to ourselves — to that part of us that is sacred.
The fastest, most direct route to self-awareness and learning to truly love yourself, is meditation. Meditation takes us straight to our true selves. It teaches us about forgiveness, compassion and acceptance. Meditation reconnects us. It awakens that part of ourselves that is pure presence. When we meditate we have the actual experience of inner peace and a deep inner calm. We learn to authentically love — everyone — including ourselves.
It’s simple to mediate. You can try it right now.
First, make yourself comfortable.
Relax your attention a bit . . . even as you’re reading these words.
Simply, let your attention become softer.
Then, take a deep breath.
Notice if it’s full, or shallow, or held.
As you continue to observe your breath, notice if it feels stressed or calm.
Now, take another deep breath — through your nose.
Exhale slowly . . .
Notice how you feel.
Let your body relax.
Let your mind relax.
Then, take another deep breath
and relax even more . . .
You see? In just a few conscious breaths you can begin to change your state of mind. Even in this very short exercise you can get a feeling of what it’s like to meditate.
Within a meditation many things can happen: insights, understanding, forgiveness, resolution, and inspired ideas, all from this simple process.
There are no rules for meditation. The only thing to focus on is being present. When you are meditating, you are allowing yourself room for stillness and reflection — a vacation from the rushed flow of daily life.
By meditating we discover our most true and authentic self. When we meditate we begin to feel calm and sure. We begin to feel guided in every moment. Meditation connects us to our higher knowing. We begin to know the love that is all around us — all the time. We realize that we are worthy beyond measure.
Meditation connects the soul to the self, and by meditating we are building a conscious bridge. Inside this sacred container there is a whole new world. You’ll come to discover that your inner world is as rich as your outer world is!
By meditating you are sending out a signal that you want to connect, that you want to open your heart to the universe and receive all of its gifts. There is no rush. Meditation is a healing process. It is supreme love in action.
Meditation is a return to love. It will teach you to respect yourself, forgive yourself, and finally love yourself. It creates a clear path to real peace and happiness. The place to start is exactly where you are – as you are. And the time to start is . . . now.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of OPENING TO MEDITATION — www.DianaLang.com
Follow Diana Lang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Diana Lang
Teaching Yourself to “Sit” and “Stay”
reprinted from the Huffington Post
LEARNING TO TRUST YOURSELF THROUGH MEDITATION
COLTRANE on perfect sit/stay – taken by Jeremiah McNulty
It’s easy to doubt ourselves, our choices, our lives, our everything. We can find ourselves second-guessing every choice, all along the way. We wonder whether the choices we made in the past were right, and worry about the choices we will make in the future!
We don’t know how to trust ourselves because we don’t know how to trust our inner Self — with a capital S. This inner Self represents a whole new world of awareness. When you begin to listen to your inner Self, the world cracks open with new insights and understandings.
In my book, Opening to Meditation, there is a line that says this: “If there is a devil, it is doubt.” This doubt is a result of overthinking and hyper-analysis. We become embattled with the ego. This can create a constant state of tension. We become restless inside. We can’t relax. We can get depressed, or anxious, over-stimulated and stressed out. And then, we wonder, “Why I can’t sleep at night?”
All the questions of life come up to be reviewed — but in a state of fear and doubt. If we are single we may wonder, “Will he ever come?” And, if we are in a relationship we may ask, “Is he really right for me?” Or similarly, when we can’t get a job, “Will I ever get a job?” or, if we’ve got one, “I bet there is a better one out there.” These are just a couple of examples of thousands that I could offer — but they are all examples of doubt.
And, all of this is just the play of the ego. The ego is a perpetual worrying machine. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The mind will generate fear after fear after fear. When one is allayed, another one pops up. It is the nature of the beast.
But it can be trained. And that is where meditation comes in. Meditation teaches the mind to become still, to live in the moment rather than the past or the future. It teaches us to connect with our higher selves, our true selves, our sacred selves. In this process, the mind learns to become reflective and listening. We become calm and steady. We start to know.
When the mind has no bounds it is like an untrained dog. The mind will chase after every ball that comes by. It will be sitting quietly in one moment, when suddenly, “Squirrel!” and off it goes, running madly after some random thought. And that’s the problem; it chases every… single… thought. An untrained mind doesn’t know how to prioritize well. It is indiscriminate and fearful, or boasting and trying to prove itself. To the untrained mind, every thought is worth chasing.
In theory, we know everything, we think everything — but — all at the same time!But when we meditate, we discover we have a very refined, highly calibrated, inner psychic barometer within us that teaches us subtlety and discrimination, discipline and awareness.
When we meditate, we are teaching our minds to become observers rather than reactors. We teach the mind to “sit” and “stay.” Thoughts of the ego are always fear-based. The ego chases every squirrel, and pretty much every ball that goes by too. So when we teach our minds to sit and stay, to listen and be present, we immediately become calmer and clearer. Suddenly our lives become simpler because we are not over-complicating them with every single thought we think. We simply begin to know.
One of my favorite quotes is, “Don’t believe everything you think.” This is sage advice. Just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true, or that it’s right for you. We can think many things at the same time — and do! When we meditate we are spiritually prioritizing: THIS ball — not all those others.
You can let them all go by,
and stay …
with
this
one.
In the end, what it’s really about is application, application, application. Over time we build a muscle of awareness. We learn to be conscious and present about every subject of our lives. We begin to learn to trust ourselves.
From a spiritual perspective there is a perfect time for everything. We can stay busy and distracted by chasing after every squirrel, or we can wait for right timing. Squirrel timing will take you on a wild goose chase. Spiritual timing is perfect timing.
This does not mean being passive and doing nothing. It means responding to what’s at hand because you are present to what is happening. It means living your life with passion and gusto, curiosity and enthusiasm. It means bringing your whole self to every moment and to every exchange. When you establish a meditation practice, you will learn that you can trust life, that you can trust love, and most importantly, you can trust yourself.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of OPENING TO MEDITATION –www.DianaLang.com
GOOD ENOUGH
Reprinted from The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-lang/good-enough_b_9396406.html
Life can sometimes beat us up a bit, turn us over, and spin us around on the subject of our worthiness. Friends and family, and perfect strangers tell us what they think about us with a critical, just-trying-to-help-you eye. But all this does, and especially over time, is erode our self-esteem until we can barely lift our heads up from the weight of all the corrections and criticism from the outside of us – and of course, even worse – from the inside.
Our own inner dialogue is often fraught with egregiously negative self-judgment. “We shouldn’t have said that. We definitely shouldn’t have done that,” etcetera, etcetera, until we can become virtually paralyzed by the sting of our own intensely disapproving and manifestly unkind personal self-evaluation.
In response we might find ourselves disappearing into the social wallpaper of life, dissolving into the crowd, trying to blend in to keep safe.
Or, we do the opposite, and overcompensate, trying to prove our worth to everyone in sight!
The worse we feel about ourselves, the more we project this negative self-image into our actual life experience. This is bad for our relationships, bad for our sense of self, and can make it almost impossible to express our personal creative contribution to the world.
The spiritual solution is to realize that we are inherently good.
This doesn’t mean that we do not grow, or change, or challenge ourselves. It just means recognizing that the raw material of us, the essence of us, is good in the first place. As we become more and more aware of this intrinsic truth, then our natural impulses, our inclinations, our loves and passions begin to unobstructedly carve a beautiful and elegant living sculpture of that essence.
You can start right now to improve this inner state by saying these two affirmations.
“I am good.”
“I am enough.”
While these two statements may seem insignificant, they truly are much more potent than they seem.
And, you may find, they may not be so easy to say as they sound.
But, I can promise you this: by saying them, intoning them in your heart, and bodily memorizing them, you will change your life – utterly.
These essential phrases are like a sacred mantra, a veritable spiritual prescription for rectifying self-esteem. By consciously maintaining them you are choosing to embark on a journey of real self-compassion, where you can begin to rebuild a structurally sound and positively focused framework for living a more loving and fulfilled life.
Diana Lang is a spiritual teacher and author of
OPENING TO MEDITATION – www.DianaLang.com
Excerpt from AWE AND WONDER MEDITATION
Be in wonder of the changes
Be in awe of your movement
And your non-movement
Be in wonder at the process of life
As life unfolds
Even within a day
Even within a breath
It is unfolding in all kinds of convolutions
From the essence of us
out.
And each convolution
good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad
Are reflections
Like our shadow
Or our light
Of where we are
Right now.
And when you can stand in awe of this process
vs. egoic evaluation
This process becomes sacred.
It is so tempting to measure where we are
To something, to someone else, to some artificial time frame
Like a date on a calendar
It is so tempting to measure and compare
Ourselves to ourselves
Or to each other
Or to someone else’s standard
When all that the soul is showing us
Is our next step
In perfect timing to the life.
To listen to this meditation in its entirety, and many more, go to:
https://soundcloud.com/diana_lang
© Diana Lang 2015
Excerpt from THE SOUND OF THE SOUL
Photo art by Anna Marinenko
How do you recognize the sound of the soul?
versus the ego’s voice
They are both in our head
So it can seem hard to tell the difference
But, it’s not hard to FEEL the difference
It’s not hard to feel the difference at all.
The soul’s impressions are loving
Always
And only
They are peaceful
Even in the middle of a calamity
The souls advice is calm
And kind
And unafraid
While the ego’s advice is full of fear
And that is why it’s on fire all the time
With LOTS of advice
Conflicting advice
It will argue five sides – in the same breath
The soul’s advice is SINGULAR
And it is simple
s i m p l e
This is another way you can recognize it
Because it is the next step
And the next step is simple
It’s the one right in front of you
It’s not ten steps down the road
It’s the very next one
And so it is simple
While the ego is busy strategizing
What if this happens? What if that happens?
It is projecting
Into the future
Fears…fears…fears…fears…fears
The soul just says, “yes.”
And that is all.
To listen to this meditation in its entirety, and many more, go to:
https://soundcloud.com/diana_lang/the-sound-of-the-soulmp3
© Diana Lang 2015
My first vlog post!
My first vlog.
Making a Wish
AND FINALLY, tonight at 9:30, I had quite forgotten, as I slid into the movements of my Tai Chi practice up on the highest, northernmost facing hill about ten minutes from my house, that tonight was the big Perseids meteoric shower. . . and as I was doing “White-Crane-Spreads-Its-W