Mindfulness Meditation Instruction

What meditation is:

Meditation is one way to become integrated with your entire being. A regular practice can create a pathway to living in the present, without which we can fixate on the past or catastrophize about the future. It is a means to learn your inner strength. You can learn to stay in stillness while the waves of emotion crash and recede into peaceful waters again. It offers processes for making sense of trauma, for working with acceptance of difficult emotions, and for living and loving where you are in the moment.

What meditation is not:

Meditation is not psychotherapy. It is beneficial to use meditation practice in tandem with talk therapy, especially for trauma processing.

Meditation is not a replacement for traditional western medicine. It pairs well with treatment for any medical or complex psychological issue, but it does not serve as a substitute for a doctor’s treatment. Use meditation as a tool to process and enhance your medical experience.

Learning to live from a wiser place

No one is immune to the insults of life. Many of us shut down aspects of ourselves to avoid feeling pain. This is a reasonable and human response. But this shut down serves to dull our lives and dim our light. The off switch does not discriminate. Awe, love, joy and humor all exist on the same breaker as grief, fear, anger, and pain. But we can learn to integrate our experiences. We can learn to live our full life as a whole being. We can learn to trust our own core and live in a freer space.

You Belong

You can learn to love and care for yourself. It is a natural progression from self love to self care. Think of the lengths you would go to to protect your loved ones. Now put yourself on that list. At the top. 

You belong. You belong. You belong.

Julie Palian is a meditation teacher who resides in Virginia with her husband, three children and two cats. She is at home in the woods, exclusively eats plants and loves the world in all its grittiness. Her hope is to help others to integrate their life experiences into wholeness of being. 

Why Side by Side Life?

Side by Side Life gets its name from three threads. One is the way we live with the ability to feel immense joy simultaneously with extraordinary pain. The second thread has to do with the way we help one another to live each day with simple acts of love. And the third is from the song my family picked up in the 1920’s and passes along still as one might pass a family crest. But more rag-timey.

Group Meditations

If you are local to Prince William County, VA, and you would like to attend an outdoor group meditation on a Wednesday at 10:00, starting June 8th, 2022 at Kinsley Mill Park, 8844 Hastings Dr., Manassas, VA 20110 or please send an email to admin@sidebysidelife.com.

Suggested, but not mandatory donation for group meditation: $8 – $15.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please reach out to admin@sidebysidelife.com if you cannot find an answer to your question