Wellness Minutes

Wellness Minutes

by Dr. Gitika Talwar, PhD

Season 3

Day 17: Invisible work

Recognizing the invisible work we do in our professions and in our homes and communities. Read the poem I referenced: https://pollycastor.com/2019/05/11/invisible-work-poem-by-alison-luterman/ We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 15: Compassion towards Health anxiety

Curiosity about our feelings is one form of compassion . today I bring curiosity to health anxiety. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 14: finding hope in the little things

Plants can teach us so much and give us so much. Hope you get a chance to reflect on how to plant these seeds of hope in your life. Here is a video from one of my favorite plant parents on YouTube, Garden Up: https://youtu.be/G-w2gpbyGaMWe'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 13: Sitting with Fear, one breath at a time

The difficult and sometimes highly unbearable feeling called Fear remains my achilles heel. It incapacitates me and makes it very hard for me to focus, don't know about you! In today's episode I speak a bit about fear and what I have learned from my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam who sought asylum in France after being exiled from Vietnam. His teachings about sitting with our fear (accessed through the Plum Village Youtube channel) correlate well with what the neuroscience has to say about the power of breath and focussing on the present moment as being an important antidote to the overwhelming experience of fear. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 12: Extending compassion to the body

Human civilization has "evolved" to prioritize the brain over the body, much to the detriment of our own holistic health as well as the health of our planet. Today's episode is a reflection on how compassion towards our body is a helpful and concrete tool to practice self compassion. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 11: Let's talk about Anxiety!

How do you talk about this big topic in just 5 minutes? Come listen and find out. And for further information, check out this book (available on Kindle) called Anxiety: Overcome it and live without fear by friend and colleague in India, Psychologist Sonali Gupta. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 10: Inserting mindful pauses throughout the day

Practice the skill of mindfulness by reminding you to pause and bring yourself into the present moment. Tune into today's episode to learn one way to bring your mind and body to the same moment. Essentially, learn how to pause the auto-pilot and nourish the "human pilot"! We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 9: Giving our rage, anger and other "unglamorous" feelings room to breathe

Our Rage, frustration, anger, irritation rise frequently during periods of crisis and these feelings (and us, when we feel them) deserve as much attention and compassion as any other time. As an activist, I have firsthand experience with the profound benefits of both loving-kindness-compassion as well as rage-anger-frustration. In this episode, I invite us to notice how all feelings are feedback and our meditation practice can help us develop an attitude of observing those feelings so we can choose actions based on our wisdom instead of unprocessed anger/ shallow joy. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 8: Why focus on loving-kindness-compassion when you are in crisis?

Focusing on positive and helpful emotions such as loving-kindness and compassion can seem like a denial of stressful realities. Today's episode is a bit about why those emotions aren't about denial but about responding to crisis in a way that are helpful rather than stressful. We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

Day 7: Wellness even during times of stress

Much gratitude to Kaira Jewel Lingo, a meditation teacher I have heard many times including this morning at the Wisdom and Emotions Summit (Keynote address by His Holiness Dalai Lama!!). Her list is based on scientific evidence and is fairly easy to practice on a daily basis: Hope this episode gives you something to think about and also practice! We'd love to hear from you, send us a text! Support the show Thank you for listening, much metta, Dr G https://www.pranhwellness.com/

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