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6-Week Meditation Challenge

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Challenge Overview

Do you want to establish a regular meditation practice?

Or maybe you have a dedicated practice that you'd like to renew or deepen. We've created this challenge to help you to connect or reconnect with daily meditation! Join Sandra Anderson for six weeks of inspiration, supporting practices, and meditation instruction — everything you need to get or stay on track with your practice.

Each week for six weeks you'll get:

  • An audio or video download with a guided meditation practice

  • Theme-based articles or videos to expand your understanding of meditation or supportive lifestyle changes.

  • Supporting practices including a choice of asana classes, breath training and pranayama instruction, and relaxation practices.

Conventional wisdom tells us we need about 40 days to truly establish a new habit. So settle in and let us support your intention to gently disengage your mind from it’s usual preoccupations and the pains and pleasures of the world for just a few minutes each day. We hope you'll join us.

Certificate of completion

3 CEU’s Upon Completion

Self Paced Learning

Challenge Outline

10hrs to complete

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Section 1
  • Here’s your first guided meditation practice: Guided Meditation for Body and Breath. A comfortable, well-aligned sitting posture makes all the difference. A few pointers may save you from struggling with legs that fall asleep, discomfort in knees, hips, or back, or a mind that feels dull. Try this sitting posture tutorial to find the meditation seat that is just right for you: Finding Comfort in Sitting Tension in the body makes it difficult to find comfort and inner focus in meditation. Relaxation practices not only release distracting muscle tension, they also develop mental focus. Here are two...
  • Let's get started.
  • Your week 1 guided meditation
  • Find your ideal meditation posture.
  • A five-minute class to help you relax and stretch key areas of the body before pranayama and meditation
  • A systematic practice to help the mind, body, and breath to connect and relax, allowing for a deeper meditation experience.
Section 2
  • Here’s a new guided meditation for you: Guided Meditation #2. If you are inspired to sit longer than the length of the guided practice, please continue, but do try to sit for the length of the practice each day. Remember, some days are easier than others! If you are an experienced meditator and enjoy practicing with a mantra, sit a bit longer after the breath awareness centering and let the mantra be your focus. You may have noticed that during your best meditation experiences, your breath becomes smooth, regular, and subtle. Gently training your breath can help you easily establish a meditative...
  • Your week 2 guided meditation.
  • Relax, sleep better, and support your meditation through the practice of diaphragmatic breathing.
  • A simple and sweet 50-minute yoga class designed to release muscular tension and reconnect the mind to the body through the breath.
  • A dynamic, 30-minute practice can be incorporated into a vigorous asana flow, or serve as an activating prequel to breath work or deep relaxation.
  • If you’re a gardener, you know the value of choosing an ideal site and preparing quality soil for nurturing healthy plants. The same is true for tending to your inner growth: when you devote a nook in your home to your practice and sow it with your higher intentions, you create the right conditions for your spiritual life to thrive.
Section 3
  • Here’s the next guided practice: Guided Meditation: The Movement of Prana Because breathing patterns and breath awareness are such powerful tools for managing the mind, you’ll want to keep your nose clear and sensitive to the touch of the breath. One of the six cleansing practices of yoga is neti kriya. Watch ayurvedic specialist Kathryn Templeton demonstrate this practice. This week’s gentle asana and relaxation practice is with Rolf Sovik: Stretch and Breathe Asana is a powerful tool to direct the flow of energy in the body and mind. Learn a subtle application of the bandhas in asana practice...
  • Your Week 3 guided meditation
  • A neti pot tutorial to get you started.

  • Stretch and Breathe

    28m
    Hatha Yoga
  • This 75-minute class will explore bhandas (energy locks) in standing asanas and in poses like marichyasana, cow face pose, camel, dolphin, and more.
Section 4
  • If you haven’t already, you may find it easy to increase your sitting time at this point. Try adding five minutes to your practice this week. Remember, consistency is important for long-term changes, so even though 10 minutes longer may be possible today, you’ll want to make sure your minimum time is sustainable in the long term. Here’s another guided practice for this week: 15-Minute Guided Meditation, with Sandra Anderson We have been working with diaphragmatic breathing and increasing sensitivity to the breath in the nose as a way of intensifying our inner focus in meditation. This week we explore...
  • Your week 4 guided meditation.
  • An alternate nostril breathing tutorial.
  • Imagine having a mind that is unwavering in its clarity, one that is ever alert in the moment yet has no trouble recalling the lessons of the past, a mind that goes where you direct it and stays where you put it.
  • Learn how to practice anuloma pranayama, which can help to open blocked nostrils and clear congestion. Even if you are not congested, anuloma sensitizes the nostrils and dispels sluggishness; it’s a wonderful practice right before nadi shodhana and meditation.
  • Enjoy a (still guided) anuloma pranayama practice with more doing and less explanation.
  • A 55-minute asana class that explores the more subtle aspects of practice. This sequence includes poses such as triangle, warrior I, tree, revolved head-to-knee, Bharadvajasana I, bridge, and more.
  • A 75-minute audio class, which invites you to awaken a renewed understanding of the breath in asana practice. This class features wheel pose (with a twist), a variation on half frog pose, strong standing poses, and much more.
Section 5
  • We’re adding another five minutes to the guided meditation practice this week. 20-Minute Guided Meditation This might be a good time to look back over your journal and notice any trends. Or, if you haven’t been keeping a journal, it’s not too late to start!
  • Your week 5 guided meditation.
  • Remember the tale “The Lady or the Tiger?” As it ends, the hero is standing before two identical doors: one conceals a beautiful maiden; the other, a ferocious tiger. The hero must open one of these doors—the choice is his—but he has no way of knowing which will bring forth the lady and which will release the tiger.
  • Rest and restore with this gentle 20-minute practice. This sequence consists of three to four restorative poses with several creative prop options.
  • This 25-minute sequence will prepare you to lie in savasana with comfort. It can be done at the end of a longer practice or on its own. Enjoy simple shoulder openers and hip stretches, and warm up the spine gently before you come to rest in final relaxation.

  • Prayers & Reflections PDF

Section 6
  • This week’s meditation introduces a mantra that coordinates with the breath—so ham. The literal meaning of this mantra is “sah aham—I am That,” meaning “I am the flow of consciousness that sustains the flow of breath and life.”

  • Guided Meditation with Soham Mantra

    7m
    Guided Meditation
  • I have been trying to meditate for six months without success. I can only focus on the mantra for a few moments before I start daydreaming, making plans, or attempting to solve a problem. How can I turn my mind inward?
  • You want to attain a state of happiness that is free from all pains and miseries. Yet you constantly live with fears, concerns, strain, and struggle. Why? Because you do not live in the moment, you are not fully present and aware.
  • A short practice that combines asana, focused breathing, relaxation, and meditation

How to Get This Challenge?

To obtain unlimited access to this challenge on all your devices, along with access to 300+ other yoga course and challenges, and all the content of Yoga International, just create a Yoga International account. The first 7 days are free. Cancel anytime!

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Meet Your Teacher

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Sandra Anderson
For over 20 years Sandra Anderson has shared her extensive experience in yoga theory and practice with... Read more

Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely, you can include this challenge in your Yoga Alliance training hours, with each hour equivalent to one continuing education credit.
This challenge is entirely self- paced, allowing you to learn at your convenience.There are no imposed deadlines or time constraints for Challenge completion.
No prerequisites are required; this challenge is open to anyone interested in deepening their knowledge and practice.
No, the challenge is accessible to all individuals interested in enriching their understanding and practice of yoga.Yoga teaching certification is not a prerequisite.

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