Meditations you can listen to or read
A Lovingkindness Meditation – led by Sylvia Boorstein (7 min)
This meditation is a great model for parents and kids to do together.
For Feeling as Safe As You Reasonably Can – led by Rick Hanson, PhD (5 min)
Daily Practices
Working with Fear and Uncertainty – Tools and practices to better understand your response to fear and move through it with intention
Poetry Unbound – short episodes (<10min), each featuring a poem and thoughts about the poem from Padraig O Tuama. Listen or read (though Padraig’s accent is wonderful, so I recommend a listen). Also available through podcast apps.
Writing and/or videos to inspire you
Poetry for Tumultuous Times – curated by the On Being project
First Steps video – a little surge of joy
Untitled Blessing – Holly Wren Spaulding
Pandemic – Lynn Ungar
Podcasts to settle the heart
Sylvia Boorstein says spirituality doesn’t have to look like sitting down and meditating. A Jewish-Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, Boorstein says spirituality can be as simple as “folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in [your] family even though you’ve had a long day.” And she insists that nurturing our inner lives in this way is not a luxury but something we can do in the service of others — from our children to strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store. Also available podcast apps.
Tending Joy and Practicing Delight
There is a question floating around the world right now: “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which writer Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?” He says joy has nothing to do with ease and “everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” The ephemeral nature of our being allows him to find delight in all sorts of places (especially his community garden). To be with Ross Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible, to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the work of justice. Also available through podcast apps.