Coming Soon . . .

Effortless Mini Courses

 
In the Spring and Summer of 2025, we will be adding a number of mini courses:

Effortless Mindful Movement

Effortless Music Improvisation

Effortless Breathing, Relaxation and Yoga Nidra

and in the Fall we hope to add several more:


Effortless Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Effortless Body Percussion and Body Rhythms

Effortless Mindful/Heartful Habit Change

About the Mini Courses

Effortless Mindful Movement ($29)

Mindfulness is a meditative practice that involves being calmly, gently yet intimately attentive to what you’re experiencing in the moment, without judging it good or bad. It’s usually practiced in a still seated position or with very slow walking.  

The ultimate goal of mindfulness practice is to be able to bring that same quality of calm, intimate attentiveness to all our activities. But being mindful while engaged in activity can be challenging – and the more complex or difficult the activity, the more challenging it’s likely to be.  

Practicing mindfulness with slow, meditative movement is a gentle and enjoyable way of helping to build your ability to remain mindful while engaged in more complex activities such as walking around at normal speed, engaged in work, or having a conversation.  

In effortless mindfulness, rather than focusing on what you’re aware of (whether it’s sounds, thoughts, sensations, or the breath), your focus is mainly on the simple sense of being aware, being present. From that sense of simply being aware or present, it is easier to be more heartfully mindful of what you experience. 

As we guide you through the meditative movements and you begin to get a taste of what it’s like to be effortlessly absorbed in the sensation of movement, the feeling of the breath, the sound of the music and the images in the video, it will be much easier to experience the spacious, open-hearted awareness which is always there in the background of our experience but which we rarely pay attention to.

Effortless Music Improvisation ($39)

One of the most magical ways of getting a feeling for effortlessness is through musical improvisation. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never played a musical instrument before. Sometimes when I was busking (that is, playing my keyboard in downtown Asheville), I taught people this simple technique. Even if they never played an instrument before, they were delighted to discover they could do some basic improvisation in less than 5 minutes.

If you play an instrument other than a keyboad, you can apply the same basic principles to improvising on any instrument, or even to simply drumming out a rhythmic improvisation on a tabletop, pot, pan, or any surface you like.

You can also play on freely available online keyboards, such as this one: https://www.musicca.com/piano. If you have an IOS operating system, you can use the free Garage Band app which has a digital piano keyboard, as well as digital drums, and an amazing digital guitar, with bendable strings - and lots more!

Having said that, you’re likely to have more fun with this over time if you do have a musical instrument - even one of the small basic keyboards that you can get for anywhere from $50 to $150.

I guarantee that if you practice regularly for a month, you’ll be able to experience the joy of effortless improvisation.

Effortless Breathing, Relaxation and Yoga Nidra ($29) 

In this mini course we’ll be introducing you to some wonderfully simple and effective breathing, relaxation and Yoga Nidra practices that can make a profound difference in your life.  

Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed out, feeling sluggish at work, having trouble focusing or learning in school, whether you’re experiencing strain or conflict in your relationships, or you’re longing for more of a sense of meaning and purpose in your life, these practices will give you a strong foundation for making a positive difference in your life.  

Effortless Breathing Practices

First, you’ll be learning some simple breathing practices that will give you a quick and easy way to regulate your nervous system. That means you’ll be able to calm yourself when you’re feeling hyper or agitated, and you’ll be able to energize and motivate yourself when you’re feeling wilted or lethargic.

Effortless Relaxation Practices

Next, you’ll learn some relaxation exercises that will help you release tension from your muscles. Tense muscles are a major contributing factor to both fatigue and physical pain. So relaxing muscle tension can give you more energy as well as help to reduce any pain you may be experiencing. 

Effortless Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep, or “Non-Sleep Deep Rest”) Practices

Finally, the Yoga Nidra practices are an excellent way to gently train your attention so you can more easily choose what you give your attention to - without needing to strain or force yourself to focus. And they are aware wonderful way to prepare yourself to have a deep, restorative sleep. 

Integrating the Practices Into Your Daily Life

You’ll also learn how you can use these practices to create a daily seated effortless mindfulness or any kind of meditation practice – and how you can use them throughout the day to shift your experience in the midst of an activity. 

What Makes all this Effortless?

The experience of effortlessness comes from the way we guide you to do the practices - but also from how we approach the learning process itself.

Often, when you start to learn something new, it can trigger all kinds of tension – about whether you’re doing it right, whether it’s working, whether you’re going to succeed or end up feeling discouraged. All that tension makes the learning process much more difficult – and much less effective.

So we invite you to approach the learning of these practices in a relaxed and playful way – without judging how you’re doing, jumping to conclusions, or striving for results. Just really allowing yourself to enjoy the adventure of learning – and like a young child, being innocently curious about what you’re actually experiencing in the moment.

These breathing, relaxation and Yoga Nidra practices are among the most important foundations for learning conventional as well as effortless mindfulness, and will make any meditative or contemplative practice you engage in much easier.

In fact, they will make everything in your life easier.

Being a member of our Effortless Living Community for a month or two, can be a very helpful support for learning the effortless approach that is the foundation of all the courses, and can help you get the most out of them.