Gail Brenner

A meditation for tuning into our inner experience and unconditionally welcoming everything that arises.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Deep Healing of Trauma-Based Patterns: Tending the Fertile Soil for Awakened Living This recording is the information call about the course. 4-part Course: June 2, 5, 12, 19 
9:00 – 11:00 am, Pacific Time
 To register: https://opencirclecenter.org/event/gail-brenner-course-june-2020/ The event will be recorded and emailed to participants after each meeting.
 You are welcome to join even if you are not able to attend all the live sessions. Description: A powerful insight is illuminated when we realize how much our conditioned patterns mask our happiness. Many of these patterns have plagued us for years. We hear about freedom as a possibility, but we just don't know how to find our way there. And meanwhile, the patterns keep getting played out in our minds, our emotions, our relationships, and our choices in life. We feel stuck in the painful sense of separation…from ourselves and the sacredness of all of Life. In this 4-session series as we create a safe and supportive healing community to do the deeper work that unfolds on the path of awakening. Through helpful practices, including guided meditations, clarifying wisdom, and heartfelt conversation, we'll learn to untangle these patterns and find our way home to the ever present space of inner aliveness.◦ We'll cultivate a sense of safety for those hidden, cut off parts of ourselves to come out into the light of loving awareness. This is what heals shame.◦ We'll attend to the nervous system and the body to stay rooted in the world. ◦ We'll learn to notice repetitive thought patterns without getting caught in them and challenge limiting beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. ◦ We'll practice honoring and embracing difficult emotions so they can be offered the loving attention they so desperately long for. ◦ And we'll discover, over and over, the ground of being, your true home that has never been touched by these experiences. Stress and worry…people pleasing…persistent relationship struggles…proving yourself through accomplishments…these longstanding patterns are profound invitations into liberation from the sense of separation. Together, we lovingly embrace our humanness as we expand into overflowing appreciation, vibrant joy, and deep connection with all of Life. "At any moment, within the field of your own experience, there is an inner sanctuary of presence and stillness. You access this space by shifting your attention away from the jumble of thoughts, feelings, stories, fears, and external input such as others' opinions. You simply turn inward—beyond all mind movement—and be. In no time at all, you find the ground of being, the light of living vibration that's here in every moment. It's timeless, which means it's eternally present, and all-embracing as the unity of all. Don't be afraid of this vast love. Fall into its arms…" Course registration: To register: https://opencirclecenter.org/event/gail-brenner-course-june-2020/ Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and author who who has a passion for embodied conscious living. Her work lovingly illuminates our everyday humanness with the deepest spiritual truths. She meets with individuals and groups and continues to study pathways for healing from early trauma. Gail is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-Help and Suffering Is Optional.
 gailbrenner.com

Guided meditation, Q&A, and loving conversation in support of inner freedom.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided meditation, Q&A, and loving conversation in support of inner freedom.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided meditation, Q&A, and loving conversation in support of inner freedom.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided meditation, Q&A, and loving conversation in support of inner freedom.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided meditation, Q&A, and loving conversation in support of inner freedom.  For more about Gail and to sign up for her popular weekly newsletter, please visit GailBrenner.com

Whether it leaves you seething inside or it explodes into your relationships, anger is a powerful emotion. But many of us are uncomfortable with anger, especially if we think we're "spiritually advanced" enough to have moved beyond it. How do we react to feeling angry? We fight it, justify it, deny it, or stuff it. We're frustrated when anger overcomes us and we feel so out of control. We feel guilty if we believe it's an unwholesome emotion we shouldn't experience. Anger is one of the ways the timeless, formless breath of life breathes itself into form. So let's bring anger out of the shadows of shame and meet it with the endless embrace of love and understanding. Anger is a normal expression of the human experience. And seen through the eyes of awakened awareness, it's a doorway to embodying our essential aliveness beyond time and space. We investigate the experience of anger that's behind the actions it brings about. Anger consists of a narrative in the mind and strong physical sensations in the body. We'll explore how anger contributes to the pain of separation and learn ways to be with the elements of anger that are practical and enlivening. Unexamined anger feeds the illusion of the separate, limited self. When we turn toward anger with curiosity, it's no longer the raging beast driving us, but becomes a powerful ally for awakening and authentic living.

This audio guides you to learn the useful tool of deep conscious breathing. It's a tool you can use anytime and especially when you're triggered by strong emotions or conditioned patterns. 

"There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveler, if you are in search of That Don't look outside, look inside yourself and seek That." ~Rumi I'm so pleased to introduce you to my friend, Ellen Emmet. Ellen has a beautiful way of creating the space for the separate self to dissolve through guided body awareness. She is an expert in welcoming people into the direct experience of emotions. I invited Ellen to join in a conversation with me. We're both therapists, and we share a passion for meeting each moment with full aliveness. I hope you enjoy our conversation. To learn more about Ellen, please visit her website, EllenEmmet.com. And be sure to listen to her guided explorations available here. 

This audio includes a guided meditation and short talk on self-compassion. It was recorded live on September 13, 2016 at a meeting of Living in Truth.

This is an interview with Phil and Maude Mayes at PhilandMaude.com. Phil and Maude's mission is to bring peace to the world one relationship at a time. In this interview, you will learn the tools you need for making your relationships more peaceful. Phil and Maude are clearly experts, and it's very inspiring!

This meditation is part of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at GailBrenner.com. This meditation invites simple shifts of attention away from objects that draw your attention and to yourself, the aliveness that is present as your actual experience in the moment. This is your true home. You'll notice you're very connected, present and open, still and alert. 

This meditation is part of the 3-volume series, Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Available at GailBrenner.com. Surrender everything, and you get a taste of the pure aliveness in this now moment—so luminous, brilliant, and utterly mind-blowing. 

This meditation is part of Volume 3 of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at GailBrenner.com. This meditation focuses on how we meet our relationships and the people we encounter as we move through life. Here's the invitation: to go beyond our conditioning and our personal wants and desires to meet people from presence and love, with no filters in the way. You open into the space of oneness, where you realize the essence of you is the essence of everyone and everything.

This meditation is part of Volume 3 of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. Emotions are part of the normal landscape of this human life, but we sometimes feel gripped by them. This meditation is not about fixing or changing emotions. It offers an invitation to deeply accept emotions as they appear. We stop fighting with ourselves and realize that peace comes by embracing our experience as it is. We heal inner division and tap into the joyful possibility of being one with life.

This meditation is part of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. Many of us feel like we're worthless or inadequate. This meditation untangles these painful beliefs and invites a gentle return of our attention to our natural wholeness. Then you're available to the magnificent, never-ending river of life.

This meditation is part  of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. Stressful thoughts and feelings are like clouds passing through the sky. You're invited to be like the cloudless sky, staying open and stable as clouds come and go. 

This meditation is part of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. In this meditation, you're invited to give up all effort to think, be, or do. What is left? Effortlessly being aware. So relaxing to be in this present moment.

This meditation is part of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. It takes energy to resist, and when we resist, we feel separate. Resistance takes a myriad of forms. Judgments such as, "I like this, I don't like that;" thoughts that worry about something that's not here right now; being lost in the past. All that is thinking that moves away from presence. This meditation guides us to no longer being caught in the mind. We realize we can just be here, conscious and aware, resisting nothing. We experience quiet...stillness...presence...

This meditation is part of Volume 3 of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1-3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. Here we introduce four practices to have in your pocket when you're feeling anxious. They interrupt the story of what is making you feel anxious and focus instead on your in-the-moment experience. These practices support you to ground in the present moment.

This meditation is part of Guided Meditations for Wholeness, Clarity, and Freedom. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are available at www.GailBrenner.com. This meditation is for anyone who is caught in a habitual way of being. It describes that there is only one way to move through these habits that hold us back from fully living and that is to make a different choice in the moment. 

I'm happy to share with you an audio recording from a recent meeting. It was so sweet, filled with silence from the first moment. The recording starts with a guided meditation. Then I speak about the in-the-moment experience of finding freedom from mistaken identities we hold about ourselves.  Then there are three conversations. The first is about the experience of stillness available when we step out of our normal, agitated way of thinking. The second highlights the nature of being aware. The third offers the practical possibility of bringing freshness to the moments when we are stuck in conditioned ways of thinking. For more, please visit GailBrenner.com.

Guided meditation for more information, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided meditation   For more information, please visit GailBrenner.com

Guided audio meditation   For more information, please visit Gail Brenner.com

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner   This guided meditation accompanies Chapter 9, Natural Curiosity. It invites you to welcome everything without thought or preference. Whatever arises, welcome it fully and immediately, without thinking. Patterns have no time to take shape, habits and urges lose their power. Nothing is resisted, yet none of it affects you. All stories lose their meaning, and nothing sticks. In this infinite welcoming, your luminous nature is revealed. Everything melts into the welcoming, leaving you in your natural, timeless state—fresh, open, and utterly transparent.   

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner   This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 10, Finally Home. You are invited to explore the question of trust. What can you really trust? What is real? We check out thoughts and feelings, and find them to be unstable and changing. What you discover you can trust is awareness, the simple fact of aware presence, alive in every moment. This is the pure experience of the timeless now that is always here, beautifully intimate, and infinitely at peace.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 8, Awake in Relationship. We explore how needs, wants, and attachments arise in our minds and bring trouble to our relationships. You're invited to welcome these appearances in the space of awareness, without acting on them. In the freshness of what's truly real, you realize there's no separation, no you and other. Here your heart naturally opens, full and generous. This is your true home.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 7, Hijacked by Lack and Desire. We investigate the inner sense of lack and discover that it consists of thoughts saying that you're inadequate or that something is missing and physical sensations. You're invited to pay no attention to the painful story and, instead, explore the presence that the thoughts and sensations arise in. You'll find that  presence, this that is always here at the core of all of our experiences, is already whole, full, and overflowing. Resting here, as yourself, you're free.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 6, Kidnapped by Fear. We explore how fear runs false and scary stories about the future in your mind and grips the body with tension and contraction. You're guided to befriend how fear shows up in you so you can recognize it. Then, you're invited to settle your attention in pure presence, just being aware, where the stories and sensations of fear lose their meaning and power.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 4, Running and Staying. We learn the useful practice of stopping and being aware. This means stopping the movement of your attention into mental activity and into feeding personal needs, desires, and emotions—and simply being aware. We study emotions and discover that they're made up of mind-made stories and physical sensations. You'll be guided to let go of the content of the story and welcome sensations in the vast space of being aware. You resist nothing, and you're at peace.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 5, The Puzzle of Thinking. It offers a careful investigation into thoughts and thinking. We explore the emotions behind sticky thoughts and how the idea of time is necessary for thoughts to form. These experiments chip away at your distorted ideas about yourself and how things are. You're continually invited to rest in the pure aliveness available always.

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 3, Showing Up Ripe and Ready. It asks you what qualities you bring to the spiritual investigation—to see through the illusion of the separate self and know yourself as infinite, timeless being. We address openness, curiosity, receptivity, dedication, compassion, and humility. You're invited to bring these qualities into the moments of your life to support your fire for freedom.  

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 2, Clear Seeing About Unhappiness. You'll see how engaging attention with unhappy thoughts and challenging feelings is behind your personal suffering, as these thoughts and feelings aren't absolutely true. This meditation points out that happiness is a case of mistaken identity. You'll discover the simplicity of just being aware, your true home which is infinitely peaceful and overflowing with love, appreciation, and wonder.  

The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life Author: Dr. Gail Brenner   This guided audio meditation accompanies Chapter 1, Finding Yourself. Experiments are offered for you to play with shifting your attention to different aspects of experience. You'll discover the aware, peaceful, presence that is always here, the stable ground of being. Please enjoy.