A journey through four types of meditation classes in one afternoon:
Attend one, some, or all!
€15 for one, €5 for each additional class, €30 for all four hours.
This afternoon of meditation will keep you interested, motivated, and learning. Aspiring meditators often say that boredom is one of the things that prevents them from meditating for longer, so we’ve designed an afternoon of classes that will keep you interested for hours.
Faster Meditation Progress
You make faster progress when you meditate for longer periods: meditating for four hours in a row produces more progress than meditating for 20 minutes per day for 12 days. That’s because your mind is busy at the start of a meditation, and takes time to reach a meditative state, so if you stop soon after reaching that meditative state, you’re not giving yourself time to stretch into a deeper state. But it’s difficult to meditate for hours on end, therefore, the solution is to do a series of different meditations in one afternoon. That way you get regular breaks to relieve the pressure and boredom, and when you start the next meditation, your mind is already quiet, so you can go deeper and deeper with each meditation.
Variety Is Good
When you go to the gym, you don’t just repeat the same exercise over and over again—you use a variety of exercises to work all your muscle groups. Your mind also has many ‘muscle groups’—skills—that need to be exercised and improved. Some of the ‘muscles’ that meditation improves include the ability to: let go of thoughts, have patience, have perseverance, not beat yourself up for failing, not believe everything your thoughts tell you, be less reactive to emotions, be less self-obsessed, to be more compassionate, not be distracted by sensory input, notice the sense of presence and peace that’s always here, experience a sense of connection with the universe.
No single type of meditation works all ‘muscles’ adequately. Therefore, it’s wise to practice a variety of meditative techniques. In these workshops/classes you will learn and practice a wide variety of meditations. From these, you can select a few that most resonate with you, to use in your day-to-day meditation practice at home.
Each Afternoon is Different
There exist more varieties of meditation than we can fit into one afternoon, therefore, each workshop will be slightly different. The core of the workshop will be similar, but there will be enough variety to make it fun and interesting enough for you to keep coming back again and again.
There are also many common pitfalls and difficulties that meditators encounter, and different ones will be addressed in each workshop.
Attend Part or All of the Afternoon
You get to decide how much meditation you want. The afternoon is divided into four standalone classes, so you can attend any one of them.
Pay only for the parts that you attend. The first class/session that you attend costs €15, and any subsequent class/session that you attend on that day will only cost €5.
For example, if you only attend the Eye-Gazing meditation then you pay €15. If you attend the Eye-Gazing and the Medium/Advanced meditation then you pay €20. If you attend all four then you pay €30.
Combination of Modern and Ancient Meditation Techniques
SOELmethod doesn’t adhere to any one ancient meditation tradition. It uses only what is most effective, and leaves aside ineffective dogma and tradition. Innovation is also an important part of SOELmethod meditation.
Guided Healing Meditation
Guided Meditations are the easiest for beginners to enjoy because they’re a bit like listening to an interesting story that you get to participate in. Participants simply lie on the floor and imagine themselves participating in the guided experience.
SOELmethod Guided Meditations are also healing meditations, which means that in addition to helping you relax, they are also designed to help you heal, both physically and emotionally.
Ever more scientific studies continue to prove that the mind has an amazingly powerful ability to heal a wide variety of conditions. SOELmethod is committed to enhancing this natural ability through the use of engaging and transformational guided experiences, which, in addition to spoken word guidance, also use ‘sound healing’ (via vocal tones and Tibetan bowls and chimes).
Beginners Meditation
The Beginner Meditation Class consists of about one third ‘theory’ and two-thirds ‘practice’.
The theory part includes:
- Overview
This includes ‘big picture’ information about:- What the ultimate goals are;
- What intermediate goals the various techniques are trying to achieve;
- General attitudes that are beneficial to take.
- Instructions
Step by step explanations of how to do specific types of meditation. - Questions and Answers
Participants will have the opportunity talk about what they experienced and ask questions.
The practice part includes several types of meditation:
- Progressive Body Relaxation (Yoga Nidra)
You lie down and are guided to focus on relaxing each part of the body in sequence. It’s an easy type of concentration meditation because you are frequently changing your focus to a new part of your body, and therefore, you won’t get bored. It’s great for releasing stress from your body. It will help you get to sleep if you do it when you go to bed. - Concentrating On Your Breath
This is a central component of traditional meditation techniques. You will learn several variations that are suitable for beginners. - ‘Mantra’ Meditation
Repeating certain phrases while you meditate is another traditional technique, but we have modernized it to make it more effective. Instead of getting you to repeat phrases that in an ancient language that are meaningless to you, we get you to repeat English phrases that help you to focus and to reprogram your mind. - Loving Kindness Meditation
This a meditation that focuses on cultivating compassion for yourself and others, and also on generating a feeling of contentment.
Eye-Gazing Meditation
This is an innovative style of meditation that involves gazing into the eyes of a meditation partner while focusing on various aspects and occasionally repeating certain phrases.
There are various different versions of this meditation. The goals are:
- Keeping you interested and not distracted – you definitely won’t get bored.
- Helping you become more comfortable with people and especially eye-contact.
- Helping develop compassion for others.
- Helping to feel connected to others and less alone.
- Helping you become more comfortable with yourself.
- Helping connect with your inner peace.
Medium / Advanced Meditation
The medium to advanced meditation classes are for people who are comfortable at their stage of meditation and want to move to the next level. If you can meditate for an hour without it being a struggle, then you might be ready.
The class will be tailored to the level of the students in the class. Topics that are likely to be covered include:
- Techniques for reducing and stopping your thoughts.
- Stages of deeper meditation.
- Meditating on the space / presence.
- Meditating on the nothingness.
- Beyond meditation – walking around.
Let us know that you’re interested
We will be running the Meditation workshop in the near future. If you’re interested in attending, please fill in the form below to let us know whether we should hold the workshop on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon.