Garden of One Thousand Buddhas (Montana)
Meditation and Mindfulness can be practiced anytime, anywhere and by anyone.
Week of Zen will provide a structure for you to begin your meditation practice through daily guided meditations to be completed over the course of one week.
You will be eased into your practice each day with a guided meditation ranging from 12-25 minutes. Each day you will receive an email inviting you to start your practice. Each meditation will guide you in exactly what to do, so no prior knowledge of meditation is necessary for you to begin.
WHAT THE COURSE INCLUDES
A DAY-BY-DAY BREAK DOWN OF WHAT WE WILL FOCUS ON
Day One: Effort & Ease Meditation
(14 minutes)
Day Two: Inner-Compass Vs. External-Compasses
(13 minutes)
Day Three: Seat of Observer: Noticing Thoughts
(12 minutes)
Day Four: Seat of Observer: Noticing Sensations
(20 minutes)
Day Five: Seat of Observer: Noticing Emotions
(25 minutes)
Day Six: Seat of Observer: Bringing It All Together
(25 minutes)
Day Seven: Mindful Moments: Bringing Week of Zen Into Your Everyday Life
(16 minutes)
Begin your meditation practice with Week of Zen.
Who’s Behind Week of Zen?
Marla suffers from anxiety, panic attacks and depression. After Marla introduced a regular meditation practice into her life, she reaped the benefits. She contributes meditation as one of the primary reasons for her healing. Marla immediately realized that so many more people could benefit from introducing a meditation practice into their lives. She wanted to share the same guided meditations that helped her, with people regardless of where they live in the world. A frequent traveler, Marla wanted access to meditations when she couldn’t physically attend classes and panic attacks would hit.
Week of Zen began as an idea to share the healing practice of meditation with those who are unsure of how and where to begin.
Who is Marla Sarris?
Marla Sarris is Founder, Cooking Coach & Chef of the popular paleo blog Paleo Porn. She is author of the Paleo cookbook, Pigskin Paleo, and the upcoming Paleo MX: Authentic Mexican Recipes. She is Executive Producer of the #1 Indie Film of 2016, Minimalism: A Documentary About The Important Things and Director of Finance for the brand development agency at SPYR.
For many years Marla has suffered from episodes of anxiety and depression. Although she has been living the paleo lifestyle since 2009 and had already reaped the many benefits that paleo has to offer, she still found herself suffering for 2 years straight with extremely low energy, inexplicit weight gain, bouts of insomnia, low sex drive, episodes of random panic attacks, irritability & fatigue to the point where cleaning the dishes was the extent to the activity she could take for one day. When she was diagnosed with adrenal exhaustion, brought on by stress, she found that meditation was a saving grace.
The thing is, Marla is not alone. Many people suffer from anxiety and depression but even more are overstressed. Everyone can benefit from spending a few minutes of each day in silence and stillness. Prioritizing this practice doesn’t come easy, especially to those who are taxed with their time. And those are the people who need it the most.
While Marla was healing her adrenal fatigue she started taking classes at The Dailey Method and that’s where she met Lorna. Lorna has a sense of peacefulness that surrounds her. After regularly practicing with Lorna, Marla felt the most calm she had ever experienced in her entire life. She knew Lorna had a gift and she wanted to bring that gift to more people. That is the spark that brought Week of Zen to life.
Marla started working with Lorna to record short, introductory guided meditations, similar to the ones Marla experienced at The Dailey Method. These guided meditations turned into Week of Zen, meant to help others start or continue a regular meditation practice. Lorna’s approach to meditation consists of creating a calming, direct and relatable experience that helps you clear your mind and also feel connected with the world at the same time.
Who is Lorna Bennett?
Lorna is a teacher, speaker, consultant, and life coach passionate about personal growth and transformation. She celebrates people turning themselves on – mentally, physically, and spiritually – to live their passion and purpose.
With more than 20 years experience in consulting, teaching, business leadership and organizational development, Lorna has served as a change catalyst under many umbrellas.
Lorna is an experienced yoga teacher, Reiki Master, motivational speaker, published writer, personal life coach, organizational change facilitator, and mother of three children (five if you include her fur-babies!) Her teaching style offers inspiring, theme-focused classes with a precise focus on Mindfulness, Meditation, and optimal alignment from the inside-out.
From 2012 to 2016 Lorna worked with The Dailey Method international franchise as a studio owner and Chief Spiritual Officer (CSO). She worked closely with founder Jill Dailey to introduce mindfulness training, alignment principles and enhancements to training resources available to studio owners and teachers across the franchise.
Lorna has consulted in Health Care Public Relations, Patient and Family Education, Cultural Competency, and Organizational Development. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education, and undergraduate degrees in Journalism and English.
As a transformational coach and teacher, Lorna empowers individuals to feel passionate, purposeful, free, and inspired to engage deeply in their lives, and to serve their highest calling.
FAQ
About Meditation
Q: What is Meditation?More simply, meditation is a process that involves relaxing the body and quieting the mind.
As Dan Harris says, meditation makes him “10% Happier”, which is also the title of his book about his experiences with meditation.
In meditation, we attempt to make the mind quiet through focus and concentration. When we can observe our thoughts, we enter into a more profound state of awareness and inner peace. The practice of observing (thoughts, sensations & emotions) brings an inner calm that relaxation and unwinding do not produce. Meditation is a practice where we learn to achieve a state of nothingness or conscious awareness. We practice by focusing on breath, visualization or the words of guided meditation.
Q: Why do I lose my concentration when I meditate?“The practice of meditation may seem like just that, practice. It may feel as though you’re practicing for a performance that never comes. But that performance that you’re practicing for is ever present. It’s your daily life.”
Q: Can children meditate?“People want to understand their anger, to understand their fear. But they think that observing the breath, oh, this is not important at all. But if you can’t observe something as obvious and as simple as the breath coming in and out, you have absolutely no chance of really observing your anger, which is far more stormy and far more difficult.”
Q: What are signs of progress with meditation?“Meditative practices have the potential to actually change the structure and function of the brain in ways that foster academic success. Fundamental principles of neuroscience suggest that meditation can have its greatest impact on cognition when the brain is in its earliest stages of development. Meditation can help instill self-control and an ability to focus.”
The New York Times