Doorways To Peace: Healing Practices For Everyday Life

Course Outline

1: The Bug in The Rug

Welcome! Today we’ll take the first step towards embracing the mystery and wonder of life as we set the stage for this journey together, with the help of a little story about a bug in a rug and my own tales of the sea about how this course came about. I’ll also offer some guidance on how you can get the most out of this course and enjoy the adventure. Today I invite you to embrace not knowing what will happen next as we open the door to a new beginning.

2: You Have Arrived

Today I invite you to be enough, just as you are. With all that you have and don’t have, with all your hopes, fears, and self-doubts.  When we live from a place of being enough, of being at home as ourselves, we bring a quality to our life that is true to our heart and that guides us on a more authentic path. We’ll also explore how stress is a doorway to our hearts and can bring us a sense of trust in life. Today is about beginning to enjoy the bumpy ride that is life just a little more and looking a little deeper at who we are underneath our life story.

3. You Are Enough

Today is a meditation on being enough just as you are and letting life be just as it is. When we listen to guided meditations it’s often the ‘being given permission’ to be how we are that validates our experience and this can be so healing. We feel heard and understood. My hope along this course is that my voice dissolves and your own inner voice and wisdom come forward so that you can give yourself permission to be just how you are and know that deep down you are enough.

4. This Moment Untouched

Today is a meditation based on the wonderful work of Douglas Harding. In this practice we’ll explore the true nature of reality, beyond our identity and what our thoughts tell us about our lives.  The filter of ‘me’ lives through our past narrative, our memories. But when we let this sense of self soften a little, something magical happens and we begin to see the world through new eyes beyond our limited perspective. Just to note that this meditation will begin with a self-hug. If you’re not a hug person then please skip through this part or listen at your own risk.

5. Awakening on Earth

Today is inspired by Eckhart Tolle’s wonderful book, A New Earth. In this session we’re going back in time to explore the evolution of human consciousness as a way to understand why things are going a little sideways here on planet Earth, and where we might find some healing. Our heart will be our refuge in meditation today as we connect with the space that it can bring to our busy and often overwhelmed minds.

6. Our Story of Life and Death

Today we’ll explore how the voice in our head shapes our life, from the moment we wake up to the second we fall asleep. We’ll also look at the narrative that our mind creates about our past, our future and even our death. Yes, we’re going there. We’re addicted to our thoughts and they pretty much validate our existence. The illusion is that thoughts create safely, make things known and controllable. But what if we dare look a little deeper, beyond our thoughts for meaning in life? The question of today is, will you take the red pill or the blue pill? : )

7. Choosing Being

Today is a gentle meditation where we’ll meet that little voice in our head and maybe make friends with it. We’ll explore what it is to choose just to ‘be’, as a kindly presence.  You are not your voice. It’s tricked you into thinking it’s you but it’s not you. Please bring lightness and a touch of humour to your practice as always.

8. Our Friend the Ego

Today we explore how the little voice in our head creates our self-image, the one that we protect at all costs. This is sometimes referred to as ego. Ego creates the feeling of lack and separation, us against the world and the need for more in order to feel complete. We are all connected and when our strong sense of self dissolves, our hearts open to something bigger, kinder and stronger. There’s some healing work to be done and it begins with connecting with our vulnerability and ends with love.

9. Meeting Your Vulnerable Self

Today in meditation we will gently meet, feel into and listen to our vulnerable self to get to know it a little more. Then we will invite this part of us to soften by offering stillness, space and of course kindness. Maybe a little light. When we do this, the healing happens naturally without us getting tangled up in our story, without feeling we have to fix anything. Today is about allowing your knowing, wise self to shine through. I hope you find this meditation meets you wherever you’re at right now.

10. Your Inner Guide

Today we also explore trusting and following our hearts in the deepest sense. We’ll take a look at our persona and how it manifests in our everyday life and how we edit ourselves for the world outside whilst also holding things together on the inside. Doing this is exhausting and creates an endless pushing and pulling. It’s no wonder we’re such restless beings. I’ll also include a little recap of the journey so far just to consolidate learning to ensure you’re up to speed. Most importantly, today is about trusting that your heart can hold anything in when we are in the present moment with all our heart.

11. What Is Truly Essential?

Today our doorway to being is through our body. We connect to the world through our body, it’s our inner barometer and translator. Our meditation practice today is about feeling the depth of any given moment through sensation and meeting the world from that place. Is our body more than just sensation and energy? What truly matters when we are in a place of being?

12. It’s Not Personal

“Events that happen in the moment belong to the moment. They don’t belong to you. They have nothing to do with you” – Michael Singer. Today is inspired by the wonderful teachings of Michael Singer as we explore how we often take what happens to us in life so personally, like it was sent just to us. In reality, our experience is filtered through our conditioned selves so what we see is one tiny view of reality. From its own side, nothing that manifests in life is personal. We just happen to be there to witness it.

13. Let It Be

Today is a gentle meditation practice of letting life be, with all our heart. In this practice we can embrace our curious traveller selves in order to allow what we experience in terms of thoughts, emotions and body sensations, to pass through us. No need to hold onto anything. Life is there to be experienced and then let go of. Today we are choosing stillness, openness and being over our perceived life challenges.

14. Egg Collecting

Today we explore a wonderful short story, originally told by the late Buddhist monk, Ajahn Chah. There are three key lessons from this story which are to be mindful about what we collect and carry with us from the past and in the present moment, cultivating gratitude whenever we can and that we can transform life’s many challenges through acceptance and surrender.

15. Living Through the Heart

Today dive back into our centre, our heart. We’ve already explored following your heart as an inner guide and now we turn towards our heart for healing as we explore how it can bring us to a place of deep knowing and trust in what life sends our way. Our heart can be our inner alchemist turning struggle into love. And when we live from our heart, we return to our true self and a sense of mystery and wonder.

16. Opening the Heart

Today is a healing meditation for opening our hearts to all that life sends us. I hope this practice brings you a sense of peace, respite and ease. If you feel an aversion to this practice that’s ok. For some, connecting to the heart is something new and unfamiliar so be curious and go easy on yourself. Especially if you read of magical experiences in the classroom. Remember, we all have our own path. We all find our own way and that is always the right way.

17. Your Inner Smile

Smiling is a gift that we’ve been given to live our life with more grace, lightness and joy. Today we explore our inner smile, a smile that comes from our heart but can reside in our whole body.  Together we’ll discover that a smile doesn’t need a cause, it can just arise from nothing and open us up to everything. A knowing smile can transform our deepest fears and challenges like nothing else.

18. Your Smiling Heart

Today is smiling heart meditation. In this healing practice I invite you to offer whatever your present moment experience is, a kind, knowing and gentle smile. And maybe even some love to those darker places that might be calling for some care and attention. Remember, life is a mystery to be lived, loved and smiled back at.

19. Who Am I? (Part I)

Today, we drop a little deeper into the pool of human mystery and ask the question, who am I?  This was the core teaching of the great master Ramana Maharshi. To inquire into who we are is to open a door to a life that is less centred on ‘me’ and more aligned with our heart and the ebb and flow of the universe. Who wouldn’t want that? Today also marks a shift in the course where we’ll move into a meditative space with less teaching and more reflective time. I encourage you to immerse yourself in these practices and see where they take you. Remembering, you are always enough.

20. Who Am I? (Part II)

Today is a meditation that brings together heart and wisdom. I invite you to keep an eye on your spiritual ego here. There’s no mountain to climb, no intellectual exercise to understand. Just a continued softening into life through all your heart, as you connect with a deeper sense of truth and of course mystery and wonder.

21. I am

Today we’ll connect to a sense of ‘I am’ in a meditation. This is a beautiful practice also based on the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. When we connect with our sense of ‘I’ beyond our perceived identity, our troubles, our sense of who we think we are, we tap into our source, ourselves as one. I’ve left the end of this meditation with just a little music as I didn’t want to break your meditative space. But please take a little time to notice how that meditation met you at the end. Knowing that all experiences are valid and you’re welcome to share anything in the classroom. Tomorrow we explore how music and sound can bring us back to a sense of being. Take care and go well.

22. Song Healing

Today we explore the healing power of sound. In particular, how a song can meet our mood and lift our spirits wherever we’re at. I would like to share with you a song that I think captures the spirit of this course and celebrates the idea that every moment is a chance to turn everything around. Please sit back, listen and receive this song however you will. It was an unexpected gift while I put the music for this course together but it might not be your cup of tea and that’s ok. I have gone with my heart and have included it.

23. Nature Our Teacher

Today nature will also be our doorway into being alongside life. Join me in my garden for a live meditation filled with sounds of nature and the city.  The practice of today is simply to notice how you meet each moment and whatever it is, let it be. This includes sounds, thoughts, feelings and emotions. Let it all be as best you can. That’s all. And you’re very welcome and I’m very happy to have you sit with me in my garden : )

24. The Tree

Today we turn to the beautiful, ethereal giants that are trees in a visualisation meditation. We’ll embody the strength, wisdom and elegance of a tree as it stands silently with the ebb and flow of a day’s cycle.  I hope this meditation brings you a sense of grounding, trust in life and deep peace.

25. Healing Through Stillness

“All that is required to realise the self is to be still” Ramana Maharshi. Today we will do one of my favourite practices for connecting to a sense of being through surrendering into stillness. This healing meditation is an invitation for you to allow all the fragmented parts of you to come together. Notice how much you can truly let go into this meditation. No judgment needed. There is nothing to strive for, no goal. Just sit and let life be.

26. The Joyful Breath  

Today we connect with our joyful breath in meditation. This is an invitation to let go of what doesn’t serve you, smile through your whole body and immerse yourself in love and light. This meditation is a reminder that life isn’t about just surviving. We’re here to thrive, to enjoy and even delight in our time on earth. Often, we don’t believe this is possible in our day to day slog but it only takes a moment to pause, breathe, let go and smile. Wishing you joy, light and love through this practice.

27. Opening to The Sacred

“It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed” Thomas Moore. Today is a meditation that really changed my life. It simply involves sitting with your eyes open and immersing yourself in the space that you’re in with presence and warmth. It can feel a little crazy just sitting and looking around but I’ve found when you really allow your conscious awareness to be greater than anything else, something magical happens. If you laugh or smile during this practice it’s likely you know what I mean 🙂

28. A Heartful Sleep

Today is a meditation for sleep or just relaxation. You may want to wait until the evening to listen. This is my offering of a little pause before the final two days of the course as we’ve covered so much. This meditation is also an invitation to connect with other beings on this planet who may have trouble sleeping or just a troubled life right now. Sweet dreams

29. What Really Matters

Today we reflect on the whole course and look at where you are right now in your life and meditation practice, having taken this journey. We’ll do a short meditation to explore what really matters to you right now as a way to begin exploring where you might go next in your life. Then I’ll offer a summary of what I believe the key teachings of this course are. This is also an invitation for you to create your summary or scrap book of what you found was the most enlightening, healing or transformational in this journey.

30. The God’s Eye View

Alas, it’s our last day but the beginning of a new chapter for you perhaps. Today I will offer some guidance on which path could be the right one for you and we’ll gently bring the course to a close with one last story. Now just listen to the session already and stop reading this. I’ve recorded it all so there’s no need to say it again here. Thank you for taking this course. Take care and go well. With love, Andy