Yoga with­out med­i­ta­tion is like food with­out salt, cof­fee with­out caf­feine, sum­mer with­out swim­ming – some­thing essen­tial is miss­ing. While asana alone is a pow­er­ful tool, com­bin­ing it with med­i­ta­tion gives us access to a much deep­er expe­ri­ence of PRESENCE.

For any­one inter­est­ed in explor­ing ‘what’s next?’, this work­shop offers an intro­duc­tion to med­i­ta­tion and a taste of its trans­for­ma­tive potential.

The many ben­e­fits of med­i­ta­tion have been exten­sive­ly researched over the last decade. To name a few, it has been shown to: — decrease depres­sion — reg­u­late and improve mood and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders — reduce stress and anx­i­ety — increase grey mat­ter con­cen­tra­tion in many areas of the brain — improve focus, atten­tion, the abil­i­ty to func­tion under stress, infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing, learn­ing, mem­o­ry, self-aware­ness and deci­sion-mak­ing — fos­ters cre­ativ­i­ty — affects gene that con­trol stress and immu­ni­ty — reduce blood pres­sure — decrease cel­lu­lar lev­el inflam­ma­tion and inflam­ma­to­ry dis­or­ders in gen­er­al This list could go on much longer.

While there are numer­ous types of med­i­ta­tion, this work­shop presents the prac­tice of Heart­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion, a sim­ple prac­tice that invites us to con­nect to the space of our hearts. Over time, this prac­tice strength­ens the con­nec­tion between our neo­cor­tex and our lim­bic sys­tem, neu­ro­log­i­cal­ly unit­ing our cog­ni­tive expe­ri­ence with our emo­tion­al per­cep­tion. From think­ing to feeling…is this the path to love? This prac­tice requires no pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence with med­i­ta­tion. Reg­u­lar med­i­ta­tors are invit­ed to expe­ri­ence the difference.

Reg­is­tra­tion: jodaro26@gmail.com