Hi! I am Annie Weisbrod. I help individuals and groups become more aware and make different choices for healthy living. I do this through meditation courses, healing and coaching sessions, yoga, and sustainability consulting.
I am presenting the 8 week course, Meditation Without Expectations, beginning on February 5. The course will be very helpful for cancer survivors and caregivers. Attendees can pay what they can afford or attend for free.
Meditation
Training the mind to be healthy and resilient is as important as training the body.
Thousands of studies have shown the many benefits of regular meditation, such as improving focus, preventing and relieving stress, enhancing kindness and intuition, and promoting relaxation and a sense of balance.
These behaviors are crucial in a work environment, as well as to our health, efficacy, and satisfaction is all areas of life.
Meditation is one of the most studied and effective techniques to reduce how we perceive and manage stress. There are thousands of studies on the benefits of meditation, and when it does or doesn’t work for people. Here are a few examples from health literature:
- American Cancer Society (2020). “Take a moment with Meditation.” Meditation is considered a complementary or integrative therapy and is used in combination with standard treatments for some health conditions. It is safe and uses our ability to concentrate on the body or a concept. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), meditation by some cancer patients helps relieve anxiety, stress, fatigue, and improve sleep and mood, when used along with standard medical treatment.
- Healthline (2023) “12 Science-based benefits of Meditation”. Research shows that meditation has been used as a technique to reduce stress, control anxiety, improve self-image and positive outlook on life, lengthen attention span, improve sleep, help control pain, decrease blood pressure, reduce age-related memory loss, and generate kindness.
- University of Washington Medicine. (2020). “How Meditation Affects Your Brain and Boosts Wellbeing.Through meditation, you are essentially deactivating your sympathetic nervous system (flight – fight – stress response) and turning on your parasympathetic system (rest – digest – calm response). Over time, the practice of meditation can help reduce pain, depression, stress, and anxiety.
The benefits of a regular meditation practice are well-documented. Thousands of studies have shown that regular meditation improves focus, prevents and relieves stress, enhances kindness and intuition, and promotes relaxation and a sense of balance.
But people tell me they face several challenges with meditating.
One is how to actually meditate on their own, “Am I doing this right?”
Or doing it consistently. Many struggle with how to fit meditation into busy lives, full of conflicting demands and priorities.
And there’s the problem of how meditation is talked about and frequently taught.
It seems some teachers or courses tied to the mysticism industry — and even science-based well-being communities —make it feel regimented, rote, confusing, expensive, or tied to beliefs we don’t share or drugs we don’t like and aren’t necessary.
And some say, “It just doesn’t work for me.”
It’s possible to learn what meditation really is, how to do it, and how to get all the amazing benefits.
Humans have been meditating for thousands of years to improve health and happiness. It has been practiced in some form in EVERY culture throughout history.
It can work for you.
Several thousand people from >30 countries have successfully completed the Meditation Without Expectations™ (MWE) course and report reduced stress/anxiety, distraction, negativity about self and world … and improved mental and emotional wellbeing, resilience, quality of life, and work performance.
Many — if not most — of them said they couldn’t meditate before taking the course …
But then found they could, with ease and even joy.
Meditation Without Expectations™ is an 8-week course available live-streaming or in-person for groups or in private sessions. We typically meet once a week for 50 minutes, including a check-in, short lecture, practice, and discussion.
The program teaches 8 meditation techniques in a specific order and incorporates health coaching strategies and adult learning principles.
MWE is scientifically proven to deliver reductions in stress, and improvements in mindfulness, resiliency, and empathy.
Since 2020, thousands have enrolled in this course. Many take it repeatedlly and encourage their colleagues, friends, and family to sign up, because it works.
Participants who completed the 8-weeks have specifically reported:
• Better ability to concentrate, focus, and be mindful.
• Greater awareness and acceptance of self and others.
• New perspectives on previously stressful situations and relationships.
• Reduction in negative emotions and reactions.
• More optimism, patience, tolerance, imagination, and creativity.
• Lowered heart rate and blood pressure.
• Efficacy and agency in managing symptoms of chronic conditions.
Here are a few comments from previous participants:
This was a life changing course. I am not sure why we weren’t taught this in school; it is primal living 101 stuff. I went from not looking forward to the weekly class because it ‘interfered’ with work, to looking forward to the class and feeling more ‘in control’ at work, even though there isn’t less work. It was like a mid-day nap for the body AND soul. I will be joining all future sessions and making meditation a daily habit! Thank you!
This is the best course ever that I did in my career. I hope that everybody could have the opportunity to receive it. I was touched and had my life changed by this tremendous course. Keep offering MWE for our employees as most of them need it and never realize it.
MWE was a great learning and I can apply the skills when stress gets to me. I can focus more and I learned to pay more attention to details around me, people, environment. The 5 senses (meditation) really gets to me, making me feel so confident as I focus …. each session was so helpful that I shared with my friends. Thanks for such a great session. Would love to attend more.
Best course and time investment! This course is about us as human beings, not human doings. The lessons I learned in MWE helped me a lot in my daily interactions with people. It helped a lot in my work, which helps (the company) too. BIG THANK YOU to Annie and the whole team. I’ll continue to do the practices.
Your teacher: Dr. Annie Weisbrod has 3 decades and >10,000 hours of education and experience in meditation, resiliency and lifestyle medicine, and environmental sustainability. She wants everyone to learn these primal living skills, include these practices as part of your life, benefiting you and everyone around you.
This is how we can change the world’s trajectory, one little event at a time.
Reflection: “I’d rather be with you.”
I grew up in Washington State, on the furtherest NW corner of the US. When I visit my 90-year old parents on their rural island, I help them with many tasks that they can no longer do. It is a lot of work for me, and also a pleasure to be with them. They are retired professors (field biology & sociology) and they always have deep and interesting perspectives on what’s happening in the world. They also just sit, or walk really really slowly, and we look out at this most beautiful place on earth, through the gray sky, tall trees with lichens, a fox, an eagle, and the neighbor’s dog stops by. On this 3-week trip, I was frustrated that my plans for my work were failing, and really annoyed that I had to work on social media marketing (which every cell of my body resists) instead of spending precious time with them.
All our time is precious, though, isn’t it?
Instead of thinking through what went wrong and how I could fix my predicament, I meditated for an hour each morning, silent and still, sensing into my body and receiving whatever came up. I also walked a couple hours each afternoon along rocky cliffs, in meadows and forests, feeling the wind on my face, watching the rain and birds, and feeling my feet balance on the soft ground or rocks. When I felt through these moments, not forcing a solution but feeling inside, my inner guides and intuition said, “This is what matters … just this, here now … and I would rather be with YOU.” You … are the one who is reading this.
When that intuition became so clear, I let go of the vague ego-driven or business consultant-influenced goal for marketing and achievement of the educational program that begins Feb 5. What matters is informing and sharing about MWE so you can choose to connect, practice, explore what it is to be human, what our lives are about.
This is a different view of “work” and “marketing’ versus what I saw in my big international science, corporate job, and different from what most of the business coaches tell us to do. That old way, dictated by rational planning and goals to achieve money and fame, is what I am fighting to free myself from. I know many of you can identify with this.
For 30 years, I strived to develop and explain sound science in a simple way to convince leaders to do new things that protect sensitive environments and people, to be more sustainable. Now, my heart yearns to support hundreds of thousands of people to change how they look at themselves and their lives, which can have the same result of supporting all beings to live and be well. How can we learn to listen and distinguish our inner voices that keep us alive, achieving, and alone … from our brilliant inner guides that bring us together to face what is arising, with wisdom, courage, and compassion?
Take care, friends! I hope to see you soon for meditation practice on Feb 5/6 or whenever you can join us ….
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