Amanda Rose Zampelli | the blog

Manifesting True Success : 21-Day Meditation Experience

I am embarking on another 21-day meditation experience hosted by Oprah & Deepak Chopra that begins today entitled Manifesting True Success. I love that. In the past, I've participated in their (FREE!!!) meditation experiences Expanding Your Happiness and Energy of Attraction. 

For those of you who have never heard about these 21-day meditation experiences, they all work the same way: each day for a consecutive 21 days, Oprah and Deepak talk you through a 20-minute long audio that calls you focus on your present state, take note of your breathing, and clear your mind by silently repeating an affirming mantra. This is what meditation is on the most basic level, and it doesn't get any easier than listening to one of these (FREE!!!) 20-minute guided meditations each day for 21 straight days.

These meditation experiences have been extremely beneficial to me in the past.  As I noted in this post reflecting on the completion of my first 21-day meditation experience:

"...every day for the past 21 days I felt myself become aware of my core state -- that silent, still, safe place inside that knows I'm okay. [Also] this mediation experience has given me a greater understanding of mindfulness, or registering mindfully what is going on around you at the very moment in which you are, not dwelling on the past or ruminating about the future.

When I'm in that anxious state of mind, I have been able to realize through meditation that that's not at all my core state of being. Each and every one of us has a core state of being that is one of smiling calm contentedness that -- and here's the most beautiful part -- can always be accessed! Furthermore, through meditation I've learned how to access it -- through a practice of mindfulness: being in a state of being."

Still need convincing to give it a try, or want to hear another opinion on it? Head over to one of my favorite blogs ...love Maegan where Maegan talks about starting one of these 21-day meditation experiences and how meditation has positively affected her life.

I hope you decide to join in. (It's FREE!!! ...did I mention that?) Also worth mentioning: completing another one of these 21-day meditation experiences is #4 on my 30 IN 30 list, so it's inevitable that I'll be back in three weeks with a recap post on the whole thing. 

(another) Oprah & Deepak 21-Day Meditation Experience

YESSSSSS! Get through this week, everybody, and then be ready to meditate! :) In one week from today, a new FREE 21-Day Meditation Experience is happening with Oprah & Deepak Chopra, and you bes' be believin' I'm participating yet again.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my start-up feelings toward meditation here, and then what my first time completing a 21-Day Meditation Experience did for me here. One of my favorite bloggers, Maegan Tintari, wrote about starting the experience here, and how completing the challenge and meditating daily contributed to her overall wellness here.

For twenty minutes a day, for 21 straight days, you carve a space out for yourself to sit, listen to the words of Oprah & Deepak, and get a little better at paying attention to your breathing. That's it. By the end of the 21 days, you'll feel alot more calm...and who doesn't want to feel a lot more calm? Did I mention its FREE?

Just spreading the word, 'cause that's what we bloggers do. I hope you tune in.  ♥

To register FOR FREE, go here.

helping me get through my homesickness

I have the homesickness. Cue tiny tear. I've been away from home for four weeks now, and like I hinted a week ago: I never thought I'd make it this long. It's felt different over the course of these past 28 days, but has caused me cognitive distress in some form or another nonetheless.

Here is a list of 5 things that have been helping me get through it:

1. crafting

Coming up with ideas and then using all my cognitive energy to make those ideas happen has been such a help in getting me through my homesickness. Not to mention, when the craft is complete and becomes an uplifting aspect of my surroundings - it helps create calm even after it's done.

2. meditating

I talked about my recent journey into meditation in this post, but since writing it, I've done more research and more practice, and it has been helping. It has allowed me to 'check in' with myself - not in a way that has me 'check in' with my feelings about this or that or what my mom said or what my schedule looks like tomorrow or how homesick I am on a scale of 1 to 10 - NO. None of that.  Meditation has you 'check in' to yourself - your core self of calm and peace and security - and has shown me time and time again that I can access it by turning my consciousness inward to my breath.

3. reading

Actually, to be more specific, this one has been reading about meditating. Or even more specific than that: reading about cognitive distress, fear, and unhapiness (even homesickness?) and how meditation can help you through it. So basically, I've been researching my butt off. I've been raging against the dying of the light by studying what makes the light go dim in the first place. This has helped me with the dark feeling that is homesickness, and provided me with actual strategies to apply to my situation.
(This is the book. I talked a little bit about it at the end of this post. Full book report coming soon.)

4. visualizing my relatives that have passed

This one might sound weird, but it has helped me. I've been in several rental cars over the past four weeks, and when I'm driving in an unfamilar place, I don't like the radio on.  So there I was - alone in a silent car, driving on strange streets.  At one point, I pictured my Nana next to me, in the passenger seat. She was smiling, giggling with me about this crazy ride I'm on (literally and figuratively). Then I visualized my Nonna, my Uncle Jimmy, and my Grandpa in the back seat, all squished like. They were with me. I knew them, and I was not alone.

5. shoving anxiety in a box

Here's another thing I've been doing that might sound weird, but it's been helping.  I caught the video below several weeks ago and for some reason it registered with me, and I've been practicing this mental technique every since.

(I swear, people need to talk to me like ^that all the time.) By 'putting the anxiety in a box', I am able to deal with it in the moment and move on from it easier than I have in the past. Anxiety is an ogre, and I know for sure that my fear, worry, and homesickness would have already consumed me if I hadn't been practicing ways to tame it.

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I hope this little list has helped you if you are feel homesick. I'd love for you to share in the comments anything that's helped you. ♥ Thanks for stopping by.

Oprah & Deepak's 21-Day Meditation Experience

At the beginning of August, I saw a post on loveMaegan (one of my favorite blog reads) entitled LET'S MEDITATE! // OPRAH & DEEPAK'S MEDITATION EXPERIENCE. I read the post and thought about my month of May 2013 when I made it a goal to meditate. When I recapped at the end of the month, I noted times when I did meditative-like activities, but felt like I failed at actual meditation overall. 

Then a few days ago, I posted about anxiety, therapy, zen habits, and my initial thoughts on meditation.  The one 20-minute sample meditation exercise I completed with Oprah & Deepak was eye and soul-opening for me and I decided it was the right time and just the kick-in-the-butt I needed to really attempt this.

Enter August 11th, and the start of Oprah & Deepak's 21-Day Meditation Experience.

 

From then until yesterday, every day for the past 21 days, I made sure to sit with one of my apple devices and headphones and listen to that day's 20 minute recording. Every day for the past 21 days, I listened to Oprah and Deepak share their thoughts on happiness, play, peace, kindness, contentment, gratitude, compassion, serenity, and other components of full, happy life.  Every day for the past 21 days, I've set aside time to relax, to be quiet, to focus on a mantra and release my brain from worry a tiny bit.

Oprah said it all in yesterday's meditation when she said, "This is what YOU did for YOU these past three weeks."  It's all been good. Really good stuff.

However, I would have to say most notably: two of meditation's 'really good stuff' has been the best for me. The first thing is that every day for the past 21 days I felt myself become aware of my core state -- that silent, still, safe place inside that knows I am okay.  Secondly, this meditation experience has given me a greater understanding of mindfulness, or registering mindfully what is going on around you at the very moment in which you are, not dwelling on the past or ruminating about the future. 

For someone like me who often worries incessantly and struggles with bouts of anxiety, these two things have been miracle discoveries. When I'm in that anxious state of mind, I have been able to realize through meditation, that that's not at all my core state of being.  Each and every one of us has a core state of being that is one of smiling calm contentedness that -- and here's the most beautiful part -- can always be accessed! Furthermore, through meditation I've learned how to access it -- through a practice of mindfulness: being in a state of being.

Am I talking trippy dippy hippie lingo? Okay, I'll stop.  But stemming from these past 21 days, I've invested in an another 21-Day Meditation Experience with Oprah and Deepak called Finding Your Flow, and starting today, am going to be doing 21 more days of meditation with those crazy guys. Haa haa! 

In addition, I've started reading the book The Mindful Way through Depression.  It sounds dramatic, but it's actually been everything but. It's a straight-forward read that talks about how the mind gets stuck in negative patterns of thinking and how our instictive way to deal with 'getting stuck' doesn't work when dealing in matters of the mind. It's been very interesting and right on point, and I look forward to finishing it and giving a full report.

In conclusion, some final words:

"The spirtual path unfolds a strange journey because you don't travel any distance.  You begin where you started: with yourself.  But the self you knew at the start isn't the self you know at the end.  Your self at the end is fullfilled.  It has learned life requires no struggle, fear, or resistance.  You only need to be." -- Deepak Chopra, in yesterday's Day 21 meditation

snippets / august 2014

• this month I started meditiating daily, like, really meditating, and the benefits have been nothing short of a miracle

• my cousin, Lauren, demonstrating the bread-in-the-mouth trick while cutting onions

• mom and her new BBQ

• chinese food dinner with friends & a fortune

• new job/new shoes -- isn't that a rule somewhere?

• a dinner with mom, dad, and sister the night before my taking off for Texas

• my first Moscow Mule

• that afternoon I was craving authentic Mexican for lunch, and found El Paisa through yelp.com

• yellow|beige|navy new decor for that Texas balcony thing

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a bit about snippets:

Blogger Manda Townsend posts snippets of her life every now and then, and after seeing her ode to snippets post, I commented that I would join her this year in 'snippetting'. :)  

What I find I usually include are those images that get lost in the shuffle -- ones that I would probably never include in a post or instagram, but are attached to a fun memory or a highlight of the month.

I plan to post snippets of my month on the last day of every month. 
(see snippets of January | February | March | April | May | June | July)