Calgary Mindfulness Weekly Meditation

Thanks for participating in our weekly Sunday 15 minute meditation. This week we explore letting go of defensiveness and needing to protect ourselves, and look at how we can approach the world around us with curiosity and wonder, which gives a greater understanding of our true agency. When we're on the defensive, we can only react to the negative stimuli around us with more negativity; when we're ready to appreciate and create, we pave the way for enjoyment and resilience. You may listen to this podcast via your favorite streaming/podcast software also. If you enjoy this podcast, we invite you to leave a good review and share with your friends! To watch, please visit https://youtu.be/fhsfqvin0Pc . For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca. Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Thanks for participating in our weekly Sunday 15 minute meditation. This week we explore setting intentions for the new year. Our topic is authenticity: having an inner and outer experience, mind/body/heart congruence, so that we don't feel like we're checked out of any part of our lives. Authenticity is key to self-compassion and enjoying the little things that make up life.To watch this practice, please visit our Youtube Channel at https://youtu.be/O4UlrsYXUXg. If you enjoy this podcast, we invite you to leave a good review and share with your friends!For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards,Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings meditators, continuing our preparations for the Christmas, Hannukah and holiday season with meditations upon generosity.Last week we covered ways to be generous with ourselves, and today we explore a generosity practice for others.Generosity doesn't equal giving STUFF to others, but our loving, full presence without an agenda for control and change.For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.We offer workshops and instruction and much more! To watch this meditation on Youtube, please click the following link: https://youtu.be/W9RIRhb_1MUFor information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Good day! In today's practice, we begin preparations for the Christmas holiday season, and our first theme is generosity. Not with stuff, but with our attention, focus, and presence, for ourselves and others. To watch this practice, please visit https://youtu.be/0mWuwZOOyDQFor more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings! Today is part 3 of our work with mindfulness & depression. We have a guided practice that explores focus on sensations in the body and visualizations.To watch today's practice, please visit https://youtu.be/T0dL8n-Q4fwFor more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards,Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome! Our second sit regarding depression. In today's practice, we continue our exploration of thoughts of fear, shame, anxiety, and work through a couple breathing practices to help bring these thoughts to light and to release their hold on our stream of consciousness. To watch this practice, please visit https://youtu.be/F2grqobkAa8For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Good morning and welcome to our weekly Sunday meditation.We began this season with mindfulness approaches to managing stress and anxiety in difficult times, and now after a couple weeks of honoring the Day of the Dead and Remembrance Day with loving kindness meditations, we are moving on to a new theme: the mindful exploration of depression.Meditation isn't "enough to fix" depression, especially if people are really struggling with long term or major depression, but it can provide an opportunity to understand what we're feeling and thinking.Often when we're feeling down, it's accompanied by a chronic substream of very negative thinking of which we are unaware. Mindfulness of both the body and of our thoughts, can help us reconnect with awareness to our experience, so that we can develop knowledge about our bodies and our thoughts. What are the negative thoughts that hold us prisoner? How can we interrupt the repetition? How do these negative thoughts make me feel--do I feel them as tension in my shoulders, abdomen, heart area? How would I feel if I could let this go?In today's 15 min practice, we explore mindfulness of our thoughts: what are we thinking that is rooted in fear?In the next several meditations we will explore these other ideas.For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.We offer workshops and instruction and much more!For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary MindfulnessTo watch today's practice, please visit youtube at https://youtu.be/i7_ENCXSGSM

Good morning & welcome to our annual remembrance day meditation. Today we practice loving kindness for those that have passed on during the violence humans inflict upon one another in war. We also meditate upon our own peaceful thoughts, from the premise that peace comes from within, and that the world we perceive and create can only reflect the violence, discord, and un-ease within if we do not work to understand our own lack of peacefulness first. To watch this meditation, please visit https://youtu.be/Wby0SsS4pIw. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Today, it's about mindfulness of toxic mistrust! Greetings and welcome to our FIFTH session of the autumn 2025 season, Today, we use mindfulness of thoughts as our primary anchor to continue to explore developing the embodied presence. We are tasked with noticing thoughts of toxic mistrust that arise during our practice and then returning to the breath. Toxic mistrust can manifest against ourselves (we feel unworthy of the love, attention, care of others) against our inner circle (my family/colleagues/friends don't love, respect, etc me enough and want to take my stuff) and the world generally (the world/government/ strangers) are out to get me, take my stuff, are unsafe). We are what we think; how many of our thoughts take on this flavour? To watch this meditation on video, please visit https://youtu.be/UQaZhCNVYkMFor more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome to our Sunday morning meditation. Today we're taking a break from our current series on how to keep your cool in stressful times. Today we stop to celebrate our ancestors and loved ones who have passed on, in loving kindness meditation.To watch this podcast on video, please visit: https://youtu.be/OAJoAhRvrmsFor more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more!

Greetings! In today's podcast, we continue our theme of nurture our inner strength when the external world seems very stressful. This topic is the gift that keeps on giving, since we have approached it from many different angles in the seven episodes of this season! Today, we explore mindfulness of emotional intensity - how many of our thoughts and emotions are at the red hot end of the spectrum--rage, anger, frustration? How much time do we spend steeping in this toxic tea? If an honest looks finds us there more often than not, then: not only is this unhealthy, but it is inaccurate. If we are not living in an active war zone, then we've been hoodwinked by ideology, media etc to respond as though we are. While this makes big media companies lots of money by capturing our attention, it rewires our minds to respond without emotional regulation, and to produce dopamine etc to when we do; we become addicted in fact to negative news. We get addicted to the rush of anger, the clarity of rage.Alas not only is this unhealthy but it is inaccurate. Many people don't mind hurting themselves with unhealthy behaviour if it seems to help others, for example, by bringing truth to light, but in this case our obsession with the negative is not accurate; it is not bringing truth to light. How can we explore this in meditation? Noticing our thoughts/emotions; asking, "what is the root of this"? Usually a fear of not belonging, a fear of scarcity. Then, visualize: "how would I feel if I could let this go?" To watch this meditation, please visit: https://youtu.be/NW9_a9tqEdU. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome to our Sunday 15 minute mindfulness meditation, where we explore how to investigate and nuture our thoughts of toxic mistrust. We go further than last week, where we explored how to recognize and acknowledge it. Today we learn techniques for investigating and nurturing these self-sabotaging thoughts. What is toxic mistrust? Toxic mistrust can manifest against ourselves (we feel unworthy of the love, attention, care of others) against our inner circle (my family/colleagues/friends don't love, respect, etc me enough and want to take my stuff) and the world generally (the world/government/ strangers) are out to get me, take my stuff, are unsafe). We are what we think; how many of our thoughts take on this flavour?To watch this podcast please visit https://youtu.be/-M5ZcM3lzBg. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our FOURTH session of the autumn 2025 season, where we are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos.Alas it is now too cold to meet outside early in the morning! I will schedule alternate indoor times at least once monthly for our group to meet!Today, we use EMOTIONS as our primary anchor to continue to explore developing the embodied presence; paying attention to any emotions that arise during our breathwork, and then returning to the present moment and the breath.To watch this podcast, please visit https://youtu.be/XkIZwaeIo2A.The embodied presence: why this focus? Well, the present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don’t feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control. In our practice today, we explore how the act of paying attention to the sensations we observe during the emotion scan can be relaxing and bring ease to our thoughts and bodies.For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices.We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards, Rosanna D’Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our third session of the autumn 2025 season, where our next few practices are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos. To watch this video, please visit https://youtu.be/WmKt2nZqrWE .(We are meeting in person while the weather remains warm in Calgary, thus allowing us to enjoy awesome Calgary parks, so if you're local and would like to sit in person, please email Calgary Mindfulness @ Gmail.com.) Today, we use the body scan as our primary anchor to continue to explore developing the embodied presence, meaning we become conscious of our thoughts, feelings, sub-talk, sensations, so that we are paying attention to here and now instead of being spaced out ruminating over the past, or in a trace afraid of the future. The present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don't feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control. In our practice today, we explore how the act of paying attention to the sensations we observe during the body scan slows can be relaxing and bring ease to our thoughts and bodies. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings and welcome to our second session of the autumn 2025 season, where our next few practices are dedicated to listening to and developing our inner strength at a time when there seems to be so much more public stress and chaos. (We are meeting in person while the weather remains warm in Calgary, thus allowing us to enjoy awesome Calgary parks, so if you're local and would like to sit in person, please email Calgary Mindfulness @ Gmail.com.) Today I thought to continue to another anchor but in fact the breath is our foundation and is a very fruitful anchor. Today, we continue to explore developing the embodied presence, meaning we become conscious of our thoughts, feelings, sub-talk, sensations, so that we are paying attention to here and now instead of being spaced out ruminating over the past, or in a trace afraid of the future. The present moment is the only one over which we have control, where we can align with our goals and values thoughtfully, so that we don't feel hostage to the whims of circumstances out of our control. Our practice today explores how the simple act of breathing can be a reminder for us to be grateful, to recognize connection, unity, and strength, to honour our connection with God/Creator/Source/, and to recognize the interconnectedness of life. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome back to our autumn session! I hope you had an excellent summer. Our next session of weekly Sunday 8am meditations is guided by many of the participant suggestions we received over the summer, and most have to do with: "how do I keep my equilibrium when the world seems to be going crazy?" From a meditator's perspective, we turn to awareness of the body and senses. Often we are operating in a trance, angry state, completely unaware of how we are mostly feeling and thinking. Once in a while we "correct" our thinking with some "shoulds" and maybe a bit of gratitude, but mostly we have the habit of being disembodied--that is, unaware of how we're really thinking and feeling. The embodied presence - being aware of how we think, feel (both physically and emotionally) and stepping back from the hot or sad emotions to observe, nurture, and enquire is one path out of the mania of public stress, which is certainly a product of tech giants' interest in making more money by securing our attention with increasingly inflammatory media. Let's start paying attention to YOU with the simple tools we introduce in today's meditation, and give your attention back to yourself, where it belongs, so that you can make decisions based on your values and goals, and not be dragged around by the wagon of public opinion. To watch this meditation, please visit https://youtu.be/feDR8KLA5tM. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Greetings, this is our final broadcast and podcast before the summer hiatus, where we will be meeting in person in the Calgary area in our usual meditation flashmobs! I hope you can join us. Please email me at CalgaryMindfulness@gmail.com to register for our meetings (free of charge, but registration is required).When? Mostly on weekends I'll be travelling with my sweetheart and family so we will meet some weekends when I'm working in town, and some weeknights otherwise. It's been an excellent year. Thanks to the hundreds of people that continue to send in your questions each week to guide our practices; it is so helpful for me to tap into so many people all at once and to truly understand how most of us are loving, growing, enjoying and also struggling with the same things, in spite of the differences of age, gender, race, faith, spirituality, gender identity, class, education, income and more. We are all one mind and heart. All fences we prop up against that truth are illusions!To watch this practice on youtube, please visit https://youtu.be/YNAGCKqXFEIIn today's class, we focus on the embodied presence. What the heck is this weird new age term? In a nutshell, it's when we are fully aware of ourselves and our surroundings in the present moment, and not spaced out multi-tasking and figuring out problems in the future or stewing over problems in the past.Why the embodied presence? Well, for one, it is pretty relaxing not to have to multitask! It also build discipline, focus, and helps us connect with inner wisdom, the Creator, and so on; however you phrase this awareness of the consciousnesses that are outside of our own body, and that unify all life on Earth.But, another useful purpose is that being embodied helps us notice and understand our feelings, so that we can plan and do highest and best for ourselves and others. In this class, we use our judgements of others as an anchor. I relate a painful story about my own release of judgements as an example of just how insidious and hidden they can be even when you think you're done with them! Our judgements prevent us from aligning with our highest and best, and it is cathartic to be free of them!For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards,Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

This is our seventh annual Summer Solstice Meditation! To watch our practice, please visit https://youtu.be/8WcAM7HAs8Y For folks like me in the northern hemisphere, where it is light by 4:30 and not dark until midnight here at the 51st line of latitude in Calgary, the summer solstice is a magical time of growth and power; every plant is bursting with life and green. It is very beautiful. There's a wonder in nature that is comforting and uplifting, and we connect with this today in our meditation. The second anchor of our practice today is how to handle the increasing amount of fear and worry we are steeped in. Even if we personally are untangling ourselves as best we can from our simmering collective consciousness that has followed in the wake of American bipartisan divisiveness, we are all sensitive to the collective consciousness and may feel increasingly anxious. Our mindful, heartful presence in the body during meditation is one way to move away from the unconsciousness anxiety we or our circle may be steeped in. Join in this practice for a few tips and tricks on how to connect to the present moment and pull ourselves out of fear and worry. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Welcome to our annual Father's Day Meditation, where we share loving kindness, forgiveness and gratitude with our fathers and father figures, and with those with whom we share father and father figure relationships. We also dedicate some of today's practice to awakening and nurturing qualities of the divine masculine in ourselves. The divine masculine embodies qualities like strength, protection, discipline, and action, but also encompasses emotional maturity, responsibility, and a willingness to serve. It's not about aggression or dominance, but rather a balanced energy that fosters growth, provides guidance, and encourages positive change. Nurturing the divine masculine involves honoring and developing our abilities for protection, discipline, focus, authority, guidance, resilience, maturity, responsibility, leadership, logic, action, perseverance, confidence, commitment, and willpower. These are just a few of the qualities that all humans share regardless of gender that are traditionally associated with the divine masculine. The divine masculine provides a sense of security and safety, both for oneself and others. This strength is not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual, allowing for the ability to stand firm in the face of adversity. It is a force of action, driving individuals to pursue goals, manifest their visions, and make positive changes in the world. It involves setting clear intentions, following through on commitments, and taking ownership of one's actions and their consequences. The archetype and ideal divine masculine provides a sense of direction and purpose, not through domination, but through clarity, wisdom, and a commitment to serving others. It's probably the first time in history where men have the opportunity to nurture and express this healthier, sustainable vision of masculinity and hence the culture war divisions so common today and some men wrestle with the idea that letting go of domination actually gives more power, true power. That power comes from serving one's community instead of bending it to one's will. The ideal of the divine masculine involves acknowledging and managing emotions in a healthy way, rather than suppressing them. The divine masculine embraces emotional depth and vulnerability while maintaining inner strength. The divine masculine also embodies empathy and compassion, allowing for understanding and connection with others on a deeper level. It's about being true to oneself and acting with honesty and integrity in all interactions. For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.caKind regards,Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness

Good morning meditators! Today's meditation is inspired by an interview I heard on CBC's "The Current" this week with Israeli peace activist, Yonaten Zeigen, whose mother was killed in the Oct 6 terrorist attack in Israel. Vivian Silver was a peace activist, and he has taken up her mantle. I was so moved and filled with peace hearing him speak of the need for a new non-binary discourse that helps us move forward from conflict-based consciousness into something more sustainable and compassionate. As meditators, we know our work as peace activists begins inside, discovering where we are at war with the world, and then releasing this for the much greater payoff of feeling great connection and respect for our fellow humans. We practice this breath meditation today and I hope you enjoy! To watch in video format, please visit https://youtu.be/-QejnTuT-ggFor the interview with Yonaten Zeigen, please follow this link: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/16150671-hamas-killed-mother.-now-hes-continuing-fight-peace Also, I recommend the transcript as well, since his discussion of new discourse to move past binary thinking is well worth reading several times to internalize. I do refer to it in the pre-meditation discussion, and here it is for reference if you'd like to sit with it further. It's about half way down the page; you can search for the interviewee's name, Yonaten Zeigen: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/thursday-june-5-2025-episode-transcript-1.7553590 For more information about Calgary Mindfulness, or to join our weekly practice, please write CalgaryMindfulness@Gmail.com, where we welcome your questions, comments and intentions for future meditation practices. We offer workshops and instruction and much more! For information, please visit www.CalgaryMindfulness.ca Kind regards, Rosanna D'Agnillo, Founder and Lead Facilitator, Calgary Mindfulness