I’ve just posted a new guided meditation in video and audio format. You can watch or listen as you like on my website. The meditation is described below.
My most recent blogpost discussed a research article that explored the relationship between emotion and the willingness to accept advice. The study produced some interesting findings, namely that when people are angry they are less likely to accept advice than if they are in a neutral state and both of those states are less likely to foster accepting advice than the state of gratitude. What might be a bit more surprising was that the research participants were induced to feel a particular emotional state by watching movie clips of events completely unrelated to the person they were offered advice from, and the advice had nothing to do with the movie clip either. Furthermore, and unexpectedly, they found the same relationship with respect to the accuracy of a judgment made by participants, for no clear reason, the angry individuals were least accurate and the grateful ones the most. For a more complete description and a link to the study see my blog post.
In this meditation, I guide you through a classic Buddhist meditation reflecting on the precious opportunity this human birth affords us. There are many aspects to our human existence that provide us with opportunities to pursue healing and wellbeing, even to pursue our highest selves. Reflecting on this opportunity often induces a deep sense of gratitude. It is particularly effective because all of the aspects are inherent in our existence in humans and not dependent on our immediate relationship to others.