Customer Reviews

Kindly Awareness: Managing Pain, Illness, and Stress with Guided Mindfulness Meditation

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I would like to recommend the Breathworks Kindly Awareness meditation CD to anyone. I received it soon after being diagnosed with breast cancer and I found the CD very helpful, as it was hard at times to feel love and compassion for myself. I am sure this benefited my immune system, along with the other Breathworks Cds, which helped my recovery.

I particularly enjoyed the quality of Vidyamala's voice on the CDs - gentle, balanced and authoritative.

I'd been practising the Metta Bhavana (Development of Kindness) in it's traditional form for about 25 years when I came across Vidyamala and Sona's adaptation of it. I think both ways of doing it are very good, but Vidyamala and Sona have adapted the practice specifically for people suffering from chronic pain and/or other chronic conditions, and I think it works very well. It helps you to empathise first with your own suffering, but then to expand outwards to use your pain as a point of empathy with all beings. Fantastic!

The Kindly Awareness recording nurtures an accepting and kindly attitude firstly towards yourself and then outwards to others. I found Vidyamala's voice, in particular, full of compassion, gentleness and understanding, helping to enter a deep state of wellbeing and relaxation. The speed she moves throughout the meditations is just right, not too fast, not too slow. The recordings show what a great and deep understanding the speakers have of chronic pain, stress, other ill-health and the body and the mind. I am sure their meditations will help many others, from complete beginners to those with more experience, to make profound differences to their lives. I strongly recommend them.

This CD has really helped me to develop a more positive attitude towards life. I try and do this practice every morning, as it sets me up for the day in that I feel more connected with people and more sympathetic towards them. I am an experienced meditator and can really recommend this CD to both those who are new to meditation as well as those who are more experienced. Highly recommended!

I agree completely with a couple of the other reviews. This cd can definitely stand alone but is also a great companion to the mindfulness of breathing meditation cd. Vidyamala leads you gently and at just the right pace through the kindly awareness meditation practice. I have found it an excellent support to my practice.

This CD stands on its own, but is an excellent complement to Vidyamala's other disks. If you've been doing Loving Kindness meditation for years, it'll revitalise your practice. If you're new to it, I bet it'll be a great introduction to this gentle method of changing your emotional relationship with yourself and other people - even the ones you find hard work!

KINDLY AWARENESS
I have always loved this meditation for the feeling of love and intimacy to my friends strangers and the whole world that it gives but recently I had even greater reason to be thankful for it.

I was sent away from home for 6 weeks when my brother was born when I was 1year old. Then I was sexually abused by my father from when I was 5 to about 9. This is the first time I have written about these experiences but I am writing to show how much the Kindly Awareness and mindful moment practice can help even someone who has been deeply disturbed. These experiences have left me depressed and very scared of being alone. I have had lots of Counselling and lots of medication, some of it helpful and insightful(for a long time I didn't know why I was scared) some of it not.

Recently my eldest son went to live abroad for 2 years after living in Bristol and this induced the most terrible panic attacks in me. Then my younger son decided to leave home. I also got a terrible virus which relapsed my M.E. It was back on the merry-go-round of drugs and anti-depressants so that I just slept all day. Then when I managed to drag myself to a Retreat day and we were practicing the Kindly Awareness meditation (which I had been avoiding because I was scared to think about my feelings). Especially I have always been scared to have my father as the person I have difficulty with in case it brought on flash backs, overwhelming anger or fear. I cleared my mind to think how I was feeling emotionally, physically and mentally in THIS moment and it came to me that in this moment I am safe and in the next moment and the next moment. In other words when I cleared all the worries, fears, hang ups from the past out of my head for a moment I learned that I can be safe in each moment. Now every time I feel the fear coming back and I have accepted that it will come back instead of trying to avoid it (and avoiding issues takes such a lot of energy) I think to myself am I safe in this moment? If I am safe in this moment I can continue to be in each moment in spite of all that has happened. Of course there will be times in everyone's life occasionally that we are not safe, accidents and crimes do happen but they come from the real world and not in my fears and fantasies from the past which have dominated my life to now. Kindly Awareness and mindfulness is turning my life around.

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An enjoyable meditation, helping me to reconcile my ambivalence towards certain people while appreciating both the differences and the similarities between them, myself and others that I admire. Helpful for changing attitudes...

A red rose stands for warmth, kindness, friendship ... and this is what this meditation practice allows us to develop.
Good cover for a great CD with a wonderful practice.
The voices of Vidyamala and Sona are really great to listen to!

Both people on this CD have soothing voices, but they repeat and repeat the same words. I do not like Cd's with bells or chimes, because it does not allow you to relax. This is a silly CD!!!