Greetings! In today's podcast, we continue our theme of nurture our inner strength when the external world seems very stressful. This topic is the gift that keeps on giving, since we have approached it from many different angles in the seven episodes of this season!

Today, we explore mindfulness of emotional intensity - how many of our thoughts and emotions are at the red hot end of the spectrum--rage, anger, frustration? How much time do we spend steeping in this toxic tea? If an honest looks finds us there more often than not, then: not only is this unhealthy, but it is inaccurate. If we are not living in an active war zone, then we've been hoodwinked by ideology, media etc to respond as though we are. While this makes big media companies lots of money by capturing our attention, it rewires our minds to respond without emotional regulation, and to produce dopamine etc to when we do; we become addicted in fact to negative news. We get addicted to the rush of anger, the clarity of rage.

Alas not only is this unhealthy but it is inaccurate. Many people don't mind hurting themselves with unhealthy behaviour if it seems to help others, for example, by bringing truth to light, but in this case our obsession with the negative is not accurate; it is not bringing truth to light.

How can we explore this in meditation? Noticing our thoughts/emotions; asking, "what is the root of this"? Usually a fear of not belonging, a fear of scarcity. Then, visualize: "how would I feel if I could let this go?"

To watch this meditation, please visit: https://youtu.be/NW9_a9tqEdU.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.

We offer workshops and instruction and much more!

For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome to our Sunday 15 minute mindfulness meditation, where we explore how to investigate and nuture our thoughts of toxic mistrust. We go further than last week, where we explored how to recognize and acknowledge it.

Today we learn techniques for investigating and nurturing these self-sabotaging thoughts. What is toxic mistrust? Toxic mistrust can manifest against ourselves (we feel unworthy of the love, attention, care of others) against our inner circle (my family/colleagues/friends don't love, respect, etc me enough and want to take my stuff) and the world generally (the world/government/ strangers) are out to get me, take my stuff, are unsafe). We are what we think; how many of our thoughts take on this flavour?

To watch this podcast please visit https://youtu.be/-M5ZcM3lzBg.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.

We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our FOURTH session of the autumn 2025 season, where we are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos.

Alas it is now too cold to meet outside early in the morning! I will schedule alternate indoor times at least once monthly for our group to meet!

Today, we use EMOTIONS as our primary anchor to continue to explore developing the embodied presence; paying attention to any emotions that arise during our breathwork, and then returning to the present moment and the breath.

To watch this podcast, please visit https://youtu.be/XkIZwaeIo2A.

The embodied presence: why this focus? Well, the present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don’t feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control. In our practice today, we explore how the act of paying attention to the sensations we observe during the emotion scan can be relaxing and bring ease to our thoughts and bodies.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.

We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our third session of the autumn 2025 season, where our next few practices are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos. To watch this video, please visit https://youtu.be/WmKt2nZqrWE .

(We are meeting in person while the weather remains warm in Calgary, thus allowing us to enjoy awesome Calgary parks, so if you're local and would like to sit in person, please email Calgary Mindfulness @ Gmail.com.)

Today, we use the body scan as our primary anchor to continue to explore developing the embodied presence, meaning we become conscious of our thoughts, feelings, sub-talk, sensations, so that we are paying attention to here and now instead of being spaced out ruminating over the past, or in a trace afraid of the future.

The present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don't feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control. In our practice today, we explore how the act of paying attention to the sensations we observe during the body scan slows can be relaxing and bring ease to our thoughts and bodies.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.

We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our second session of the autumn 2025 season, where our next few practices are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos.

(We are meeting in person while the weather remains warm in Calgary, thus allowing us to enjoy awesome Calgary parks, so if you're local and would like to sit in person, please email Calgary Mindfulness @ Gmail.com.)

Today I thought to continue to another anchor but in fact the breath is our foundation and is a very fruitful anchor. Today, we continue to explore developing the embodied presence, meaning we become conscious of our thoughts, feelings, sub-talk, sensations, so that we are paying attention to here and now instead of being spaced out ruminating over the past, or in a trace afraid of the future. The present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don't feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control.

Our practice today explores how the simple act of breathing can be a reminder for us to be grateful, to recognize connection, unity, and strength, to honour our connection with God/Creator/Source/, and to recognize the interconnectedness of life.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome back to our autumn session! I hope you had an excellent summer.

Our next session of weekly Sunday 8am meditations is guided by many of the participant suggestions we received over the summer, and most have to do with: "how do I keep my equilibrium when the world seems to be going crazy?"

From a meditator's perspective, we turn to awareness of the body and senses. Often we are operating in a trance, angry state, completely unaware of how we are mostly feeling and thinking. Once in a while we "correct" our thinking with some "shoulds" and maybe a bit of gratitude, but mostly we have the habit of being disembodied--that is, unaware of how we're really thinking and feeling.

The embodied presence - being aware of how we think, feel (both physically and emotionally) and stepping back from the hot or sad emotions to observe, nurture, and enquire is one path out of the mania of public stress, which is certainly a product of tech giants' interest in making more money by securing our attention with increasingly inflammatory media.

Let's start paying attention to YOU with the simple tools we introduce in today's meditation, and give your attention back to yourself, where it belongs, so that you can make decisions based on your values and goals, and not be dragged around by the wagon of public opinion.

To watch this meditation, please visit https://youtu.be/feDR8KLA5tM.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings, this is our final broadcast and podcast before the summer hiatus, where we will be meeting in person in the Calgary area in our usual meditation flashmobs! I hope you can join us. Please email me at CalgaryMindfulness@gmail.com to register for our meetings (free of charge, but registration is required).

When? Mostly on weekends I'll be travelling with my sweetheart and family so we will meet some weekends when I'm working in town, and some weeknights otherwise. It's been an excellent year. Thanks to the hundreds of people that continue to send in your questions each week to guide our practices; it is so helpful for me to tap into so many people all at once and to truly understand how most of us are loving, growing, enjoying and also struggling with the same things, in spite of the differences of age, gender, race, faith, spirituality, gender identity, class, education, income and more. We are all one mind and heart. All fences we prop up against that truth are illusions!

To watch this practice on youtube, please visit https://youtu.be/YNAGCKqXFEI

In today's class, we focus on the embodied presence. What the heck is this weird new age term? In a nutshell, it's when we are fully aware of ourselves and our surroundings in the present moment, and not spaced out multi-tasking and figuring out problems in the future or stewing over problems in the past.

Why the embodied presence? Well, for one, it is pretty relaxing not to have to multitask! It also build discipline, focus, and helps us connect with inner wisdom, the Creator, and so on; however you phrase this awareness of the consciousnesses that are outside of our own body, and that unify all life on Earth.

But, another useful purpose is that being embodied helps us notice and understand our feelings, so that we can plan and do highest and best for ourselves and others. In this class, we use our judgements of others as an anchor. I relate a painful story about my own release of judgements as an example of just how insidious and hidden they can be even when you think you're done with them! Our judgements prevent us from aligning with our highest and best, and it is cathartic to be free of them!

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards,

Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

This is our seventh annual Summer Solstice Meditation! To watch our practice, please visit https://youtu.be/8WcAM7HAs8Y

For folks like me in the northern hemisphere, where it is light by 4:30 and not dark until midnight here at the 51st line of latitude in Calgary, the summer solstice is a magical time of growth and power; every plant is bursting with life and green. It is very beautiful. There's a wonder in nature that is comforting and uplifting, and we connect with this today in our meditation.

The second anchor of our practice today is how to handle the increasing amount of fear and worry we are steeped in. Even if we personally are untangling ourselves as best we can from our simmering collective consciousness that has followed in the wake of American bipartisan divisiveness, we are all sensitive to the collective consciousness and may feel increasingly anxious.

Our mindful, heartful presence in the body during meditation is one way to move away from the unconsciousness anxiety we or our circle may be steeped in. Join in this practice for a few tips and tricks on how to connect to the present moment and pull ourselves out of fear and worry.

For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca

Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness