We hope everyone has been well and pushing through this crazy time in a thoughtful and peaceful way. Over the last few months, we’ve had quite a few partnerships with businesses and schools looking to introduce guided meditation in a virtual way, to help students and adults alike cope with this new environment. In an effort to continue this work an…

We can't even begin to describe how your girls have been affected by recent events. We've been in Minneapolis for some time and the feeling in this city is fraught with anger, frustration and ultimately a heavy heart. The murder of George Floyd has confronted us with the important question of how do we, as peaceful meditators, manage our rage and h…

This is definitely one to get your pen ready for taking notes! The more we looked at how to start viewing food as medicine, the more information we found. In our final episode of this month's topic, we provide you with the Cliff's Notes version ;) We highlight the every day foods we can incorporate into our diet that not only help prevent sickness …

Now that we have a handle on some of the great foods we should be incorporating into our diet, we decided to use this week to find out which foods to avoid to ensure we’re living our best life. We also uncovered some surprising things about junk food that even we were shocked to find out! Food is so integral to our bodies, our mood and our health, …

Last week we discussed the 4 happy hormones that keep our spirits up and our lives feeling healthy and full. We’re following that up this week with the low cost, easy access foods we can incorporate into our daily meals to help keep all those good vibes going! This is also the episode where your Black Zen team may have cracked under the pressure of…

Last month Jas and I talked about creating your own personal wellness and meditation retreats and we hope you’ve been able to implement that in your home, especially now! One of the most direct actions we can take post-retreat is to start becoming more intentional about our food choices. This may seem like a small thing, but the foods we eat affect…

With all this extra time on our hands, your girls were digging through the archives to find things that would help us all navigate this "new normal". This week's podcast includes 3 of the most important clips we found relevant to creating a home retreat, whether that's watching what we consume in our newly found free time, tips to building that med…

With all that's going on in the world right now with the corona virus outbreak, it's definitely putting all of our inner-peace skills to the test! In this week's podcast, we take a detour from our regularly scheduled program to address what's happening in our nation and the world around us. We talk about how we as meditators can meet this challenge…

In this week’s conversation, we continue discussing how to get the most out of your personal meditation or wellness retreat. One of the trickiest parts about taking time out to center yourself and find balance, is that eventually you have to go home, or back to work, or end up right smack dab in the middle of all the problems or circumstances that …

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

Don’t you hate how every romantic comedy stops right at the end of the “meet cute” moments? This week we wanted to find out what happens once we’re finally in relationships and passed the honey moon phase? In our final installment in this month’s series on relationships, we take some humorous and surprising advice from couples who have been togethe…

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

بقلم Black Zen Weekly Wellness Podcast

It's official. Your BZ Team is on its annual December break. As you know we take wellness seriously, so incorporating mindful pauses into our business is not only true to form, but we find it necessary in keeping our content interesting and helpful to you. Last week we mentioned wanting to leave you with a ton of resources to get you through the re…

For the folks that have been with us for a while, you know that we take a holiday hiatus for the month of December and devote that time to our personal wellness. We use that time not only to rest and recharge, but to evaluate how we can continue to help and support you. Now with the sudden realization that there are only two weeks left in November,…

If we look throughout history, every generation before us thought the world was going to hell in a hand basket. And yet, here we are. Our lives continue to evolve and the most important things like love, purpose and the ability to move forward still remain. When we meditate we give ourselves a chance to see society's problems on a much larger scale…

It may come as no surprise that the same person who invented water torture for prisoners also came up with sleep deprivation as another form of punishment. Fam, the struggle is real! This week we’re giving you the tools you need to get your zzzz's back on track. We wanted to uncover the easiest and most effective ways on how to get consistently bet…

No one likes to feel like their back is against the wall, whether it’s literally or figuratively. Being physically pinned in a corner, or “caught on the ropes” to borrow a well-known boxing term, can often leave us feeling like we’ve already lost the fight. This same situation can be true in life. When we’re in a match between our goals and our rea…

At Black Zen, we consistently look for ways to create the best conditions for our success and our peace, and the most important factor we've found in achieving this has been surrounding ourselves with amazing, ambitious and authentic people who inspire us to be our best. It's these folks who truly make up a winner's circle. When selecting your team…

We’re celebrating our 100th episode of the Weekly Wellness podcast! In honor of this milestone, we’re taking some time to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about meditation. As we continue to grow our organization and move our mission forward, we hope each Weekly Wellness is an opportunity for you to enhance where you are, let you …

As people interested in meditation or for those of us with a developed meditation practice, we tend to hear a lot about being "present". Generally, we equate being present with mindfulness in our daily activities and noticing our lives as they are happening in real time. But what does being present in the day-to-day actually look like when you’re a…

I'm going to go ahead and date myself here and say I miss the 80's! Gone are the days when I can hop on a bike and head to the Boys and Girls Club after school. There I would squander my days away with Chinese jump rope competitions and tetherball battles (more of a slaughter since Jasmine stopped growing in grade 2, lol). Reflecting on it now, I t…

Recently someone asked me, "What do you want out of life?" and my immediate (conditioned?) reply was, "To just live comfortably and be happy." It wasn't until the "to just" came out of my mouth that I realized how small and limiting "to just" can look like in real life. The person I was speaking with nodded and seemed to agree with this sentiment w…

The butterfly effect concept was articulated best by meteorologist and mathematician Edward N. Lorenz. His theory stated that the flapping of a butterfly's wings has potential to cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. While this may not generally be the case, it's a good example of the idea that tiny changes in complex systems can cause …

I'm not sure why the "What's going on in your life?" question leaves me unnaturally inarticulate, but it does. It makes me question what the hell I've been doing for the last year and if anything has changed in what feels like quite a bit of time. Even without the holiday season looming, I'm sure we've all gotten questions from distant friends or n…

I imagine all good habits from working out to eating right starts with a plan. When I started doing yoga, my only plan was to shrink the arse following me and to lose an extra chin. It was never my plan to learn a skill set that would prepare my mind and body for meditation, but that's exactly what happened. As it turns out, this is truly what the …

Let's be honest. You know what you need to do to move forward on your goals. So the question is not, "What do you need to do?" but rather, "Why aren't you doing it?" You've read every "do better" article out there and probably have a stack of self-help and success books in the corner of your living room right now, but if all this knowledge leads to…

"Most people live their entire lives in prison, not physically but mentally, a mental prison of their own making, the mental prison that you have accepted to be confined in. You hold the keys within you to escape, a prison break must take place, let the one you want to be break you free from the cell of conformity that wants you to remain who you a…

In the spirit of confronting our fears, this Weekly Wellness is all about how to name what we're afraid of so we can finally put it to rest - or at least have it close enough in our view that we realize it's not as scary as we think. Naming our fear loosens its foothold on us. It frees us up to move about our lives with confidence and ease. The dre…

It's been a minute since your girls have completely nerded out on a Weekly Wellness, so let's get into it! In this week's post, we're studying The Room of Requirement. If you are not a Harry Potter fan and have no idea what we're talking about, The Room of Requirement supplied the students of Hogwarts with whatever they needed in that moment. How g…

The keys to a more balanced way of life are none other than patience and equanimity. Equanimity is a $400 word defined as mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation. It's keeping our cool even when it looks like the needle hasn't moved on our progress or when unexpected emotions come up in our meditation…

Imagine for a moment going into the store and getting every ingredient for the perfect meal. You come home excited to cook because you’ve already thought through all the steps to make sure this meal is epic! There’s just one problem. As you start putting all of your flavors together, you realize you’ve forgotten the most important ingredient of all…

You may be asking, "What do my personal finances have to do with wellness?" In short, it’s about having peace of mind. When I first began meditating, the common theme that ran through my thoughts were around money - not having enough of it to live comfortably, how I could make more of it, and what experiences I was missing out on because I didn't h…

Embracing imperfection in ourselves is about looking at our internal cracks and personal quirks without disapproval, and instead seeing them as an opportunity to paint those perceived flaws with something wonderful. It’s a gentle process and it happens when we step away from the business of life to truly see the canvas we’re working with. Before ou…

Think back to when you were in school, there were really only two important days - the first day of school and the last day of school. I distinctly remember organizing and re-organizing my pencil box and Trapper Keeper in anticipation! Fast forward to June and your girl was spent; I couldn't wait for that last bell to ring. While summer was unevent…

The most surprising discovery at any stage of life is that we're still in the process of creating our story. Given the average age of life expectancy in the U.S. is now 81 for women and 76 for men, once we reach our 40's we most likely still have another lifetime left to live! This Weekly Wellness is all about acknowledging that we are never too ol…

I found myself curiously unable to sleep last week. For those that know me, this is especially rare as I've been known to sleep standing up, or if really exhausted, even in mid-conversation! So staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m. only amplified a steadily growing and nagging feeling. As I laid in bed, my thoughts drifted between decisions about my fut…

I don't know if it's the weather changing or watching all the dry trees sprout new leaves, but there's something in the air right now and it's got your Black Zen Team feeling like it's time to shine! And when we say shine, we mean walking tall and proudly in our accomplishments, which goes well beyond an Instagram post or an updated Facebook status…

Through our previous experiences we've developed habits, defenses and thought patterns to deal with the rough spots. We continually create habitual responses to certain circumstances, people and situations (both good and bad). Now is the time to examine those automatic reactions and see if we're responding in a way that truly moves us forward. Whet…

Jas and I often discuss how meditation can assist and/or fix any difficult situation in life, and while we stand by this, there is another hitch to this cart to make it work. What meditation won't do is alleviate all of our problems quickly, especially if we don't have a true intention to change. All of us have an opportunity to retrain ourselves a…

I was digging through my purse a few days ago and found a $50 dollar bill. Now there are three things you should know about me before I continue this story: 1. My loved ones have frequently described me as, "frugal AF" 2. I rarely carry cash. 3. If I somehow have more than a $5 spot on me, it ain't mine.So imagine my elation at the discovery of thi…

We talk a lot about letting things and people go that no longer serve or help us. This week, we want to add guilt and shame to that list! At some point in time, despite our best inclinations and intentions, we have all done something we are not proud of. Remembering these experiences can make us cringe, and at its most heavy-handed, make us feel wo…

In last week's Weekly Wellness, we touched on the slight difference between being unmotivated and just plain tired! So once we've taken the needed rest to help us jump back into the swing of things or re-gained our motivation to see our goals through, we should still be calculated about next steps so we don't end-up in the same tired/unmotivated sl…

Jas and I were out to lunch today and we laughed for a good 5 minutes over the following statement: "The juice ain't worth the squeeze, and the squeeze ain't worth the juice!" Given the state of our appearance, it would have suggested that our efforts should have produced more than the current results and both the ridiculousness and realness of tha…