Meditation reduces cardiovascular events

These days there are frequent references in the media to the power and the benefit of regular meditation. 

In the video below, Mimi Guarneri, a well known cardiologist speaks about meditation and that a study published late last year shows that people who meditation for twenty minutes twice a day experience a 48% reduction in cardiovascular events. 

The results of the study were so compelling that the American Heart Association recommends that people with high blood pressure should be meditating regularly.

How Jin Shin Jyutsu and Family Constellations Support Us

How helpful to have self-healing tools in times of need.  How helpful to use these tools when there is no particular need - perhaps using them keeps problems from materializing in the body.

In the video here I talk about Jin Shin Jyutsu and demonstrate some techniques one can use for wellness.  I also talk about Family Constellations and how the work is of benefit to us.

Natasha from Princeton Community Television on Vimeo.

One of my favorite meditations

A class I taught yesterday at the Center for Relaxation and Healing in Plainsboro, NJ, centered on one of my favorite meditations to share with people.  It is from the Kabbalistic tradition and is 200 years old.  

My first exposure to this particular meditation came 15 years ago.  Rabbi David Cooper included it in his book, God is a Verb:  Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism.  I encountered it again perhaps seven years ago when Rabbi Laibl Wolf, a fellow Australian, was teaching a class in Yardley, PA.

The meditation is named the Archangel meditation and is attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.  It is a practice that brings comfort and peace to those who work with it. 

Archangels represent attributes or qualities of Divinity.  They have no will of their own and exist to carry out God's instructions.  According to Kabbalistic thought, when a human calls upon an angel, that angel (attribute) must appear. 

The process of the meditation is to call upon the four primary Archangels one at a time.  So we place the qualites of loving-kindness, strength, healing and Divine light around us. The last step is to allow ourselves to be surrounded by Divine femine presence. 

The people with whom I share this meditation often report vivid experiences.  This practice is not passive and yet we have the sense of being held in deep peace and nurturance.

The task of preparing material for the class brought delight and fascination as I delved more deeply into the background of the meditation than I had before.  My knowledge was expanded and I believe this translated into a more rich experience for my students who were certainly enthusiastic in their feedback after the class.

Now to prepare more classes.

The power of mindfulness meditation

Can I say too much about the benefits of meditation?  Of course.  But it's been quite while so I remind readers that meditation is really good for us. 

The claims are heady and supported by science.  So you can believe me when I say that regular mindfulness meditation improves cognition (so students, you'll get better grades), reduces the effects of stress on the body, helps us handles stress, reduces pain perception, improves focus, and helps us regulate our emotional responses.  Believe it or not, regular meditation practice measurably changes our brain within 8 weeks of daily practice.

Many people are familiar with the term mindfulness meditation but don't know what it is exactly.  We can define it as the act of paying attention with no judgement to one's experience in the moment.  And like a new food, we can't know what it is like until we try it.  And like a nutritious food, it is very good for us.

Getting started with mindfulness meditation takes just a few minutes.  That's the easy part.  Staying with it is difficult.  It's gets difficult because we think we are not doing it well, or not doing it properly.  It's hard.

Yes, it's hard but it's also easy.  It's gets easy when we are able to let go of our judgements about ourselves and how well or how badly we are meditating.  So we aim to simply allow the experience to be as it is.  And even experienced meditators tell you that they struggle with meditation. 

The point of meditation is not to do it well.  The point of meditation is to do it.

Here's a video that details an innovative mindfulness meditation program created for the students at York University in Canada called the Healthy Student Initiative.

Kerry Kay's healing practice expands to New York

I am pleased to announce that I am opening an office in New York. 

As life takes me from Princeton to Manhattan at least weekly, my community there increases.  So it makes sense that I bring my work with me. 

In early September, 2013, my New York practice launches at 80 E. 11st Street, just below Union Square. 

The office is in the St. Denis building on 11th Street between Broadway and University Place and is conveniently located to the subway.

The building is well-known and has an interesting history.  In 1853, it opened as the St. Denis Hotel.   Among the guests were Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant.  A New York Times article claims that General Grant began writing his memoirs at the hotel and Twain gave him guidance.  P.T. Barnum, Colonel William “Buffalo Bill “Cody and Sarah Bernhardt also took rooms at the hotel.  Alexander Graham Bell's first demonstration of the telephone happened here in 1877.   After 50 years the hotel became an office building.  One of its tenants was Marcel Duchamp.

Today the St. Denis is home to healers of many kinds.  I am pleased to be among them.  My intention is to offer individual hands-on healing sessions drawing from my "kit bag" of Jin Shin Jyutsu, Reiki, Hellinger's Family Constellations and Integrated Kabbalistic Healing.  More information about these modalities is found at my website.

To schedule a session in either New York or Princeton, where I continue to work, send me email:  kerrykayhealing@gmail.com