Meditation tools that help me.

Feb 3, 2017, Valencia

Facebook reminded me that it has been two years already since I did my first 10 day silence retreat at SuanMokkh in Thailand! Man, time flies. To celebrate, I’ve listed some free tools that help me so you can give it a try!

I had started meditating by myself six months before I went to the silence retreat, with the use of these apps and guided meditations that I’m listing below.

I can not tell you how much meditation has helped me in so many ways. A couple of months ago, I did my second silence retreat at Dipabhavan Meditation Center, in Koh Samui island. This was a 6 day one and I really enjoyed it. I was launching my Live Intensive Coaching program, so Lucia, my coaching client from Brazil went with me. It was her first retreat and I’m sure she can tell you how wonderful it was for her and her work as a therapist, too.  At the end of this retreat I had this conversation (video I did) with two of their most monks, one of them being Dhammavidu, one of the most experienced foreign monks in Thailand, originally from England. If you prefer just audio,  you can go here for the Exciting Career Podcast, full conversation, on your phone or lap top.

1- Insight Timer became my favorite app after I got used to meditating. It’s totally free and has millions of choices of guided meditations in many languages. You can filter what you feel like listening to that specific day. So you can type in “focus”, or “relaxation”, or “sleep”, “relationship”. Two of my favorites are “I am Consciousness” and “Essential Qualities of Meditative Breath” in case you want to check those out, just type it in after you download the app into your phone.

2- Calm is another app that is amazing. I only use their free sources which allow me to listen to the sound of nature that I feel like. So if it’s cold, I’ll listen to the  sound of a fire burning in a beautiful fire place and I actually feel warmer. If it’s hot, I’ll listen to the sound of rain or the ocean. There are dozens there to choose from. And they have a timer so you don’t even have to use your alarm clock . It’s all there in one place for you.

3- Tim Ferris’s podcast interviews, of course. In several of them, his guests explain how their lives have changed with meditation and how they do it, but he made it easy for us with this condensed “radio hour meditation”

4- Headspace was the first one I used, where the first 10 days are free, you do 10 minutes each day. They have these cute mini videos that you can watch and understand the basic principles of meditation.

5-The Instinct to Heal. This book is one of those each time you read, new discovery. David Servan, the french neuroscientist who wrote it, explains how simple things like Mediation, Krill oil, Acupuncture and Massage have a much bigger and healthier impact on solving anxiety and depression than medical drugs.  

6- Wherever you go, there you are. This book is almost like a manual for those who have already started meditating. And it was written by John Kabat Zin, who is known for spreading the concept of “mindfulness” around the western world.