Out of the Clouds - Waking Heart – Details, episodes & analysis

In this guided meditation, coach and certified mindfulness meditation teacher Anne V Muhlethaler leads listeners through a transformative Loving Kindness (also known as Mettā) meditation. 

The practice begins with a focus on setting a meaningful intention, followed by a calming breathing exercise to help participants find presence and relaxation. Anne then guides listeners through loving-kindness wishes, starting with sending them toward themselves then extending to a loved one, then a neutral person, before turning to send the same well wishes towards a challenging individual. The meditation culminates with repeating these universal well wishes and sending them to all beings, fostering a deep sense of connection and compassion.

Anne emphasises the importance of understanding one's motivation for meditation and encourages reflection on personal experiences of wellness, happiness, peace, and love. The session is enriched with a quote from the Buddha, highlighting the power of a well-trained mind. 

Anne concludes with expressions of gratitude, encouraging listeners to care for themselves and reflect on their practice. This meditation is a valuable tool for cultivating kindness and compassion, making it a must-listen for anyone seeking inner peace and connection.

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

In this guided meditation, Anne V Muhlethaler, coach and certified mindfulness meditation teacher, guides listeners through a practice designed to help cultivate a sense of gratitude into our daily lives. 

The session begins with a grounding practice, encouraging listeners to find a comfortable position, close their eyes, and settle into the sensations of their body. By focusing on the breath and observing its qualities, Anne helps listeners connect with their nervous system, promoting a sense of calm and awareness in the present moment. 

The meditation progresses to heart-centred practices, where listeners are invited to visualise someone they feel grateful for and immerse themselves in the feelings of love and connection associated with that person. This is followed by reflecting on present-moment gratitude, recognising and appreciating even the mundane aspects of life that bring joy and support. The practice concludes with loving-kindness wishes, fostering a sense of well-being, peace, and self-love.

The episode is beautifully encapsulated by Eckhart Tolle's quote: “It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” 

Anne wraps up the meditation with encouragement to listeners to carry the feelings of gratitude throughout their day.

This meditation is intended to be listened to daily, bringing forth gratitude into every day.

For further information and to subscribe to our email newsletter, please visit outoftheclouds.com.

May you carry the feeling of gratitude throughout your day.

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

In this 12-minute guided meditation, teacher Anne Mühlethaler invites us to first explore the touchpoints of the body, making them the anchor for this mindfulness of the body practice.  

While we keep our attention focused within the body — on the hands, or the sit bones or the feet against the ground — we may feel a multitude of sensations. We are also invited to note what sensations may arise, careful not to narrate the experience but instead concentrating on the felt sense of what is occurring in the body. 

Anne notes that fluctuation is the only thing that is truly permanent. 

So we learn to rest our attention, and yet our attention is continuously moved and pulled by the river of the moment-to-moment sensations. 

In practising mindfulness of the body, we become intimate with the movements of aliveness within and, as best we can, we rest our awareness on the changing experience. 

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

This is the first in a series of guided practices to teach new and curious beginners the meditation called Mettā, or Loving Kindness. Mindfulness and Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler has chosen to develop a short course to help newcomers to meditation trial this lesser-known yet powerful ancient Buddhist practice. 

Mettā is said to be a practice of cultivating unconditional love as well as positive energy towards oneself, others, and the world at large, by putting our attention on psycho-active phrases like well-wishes. 

Because it’s often hard to find more time in our day to add yet another thing to do, this series features short meditations. Each new step will build onto what’s been explored in the previous lesson, and the goal is to get us to start with five minutes a day. 

The most important thing is to start! The entire course will be available shortly on Insight Timer, you can follow Anne’s teacher page to find out more. 

This first episode starts with an introduction to Mettā, to its benefits, the mechanics, so to speak, and Anne shares some recent academic findings about the minimum effort required to start feeling said benefits in our lives. 

Now surprise, surprise, the first recipient of loving kindness is yourself. So for this lesson, we concentrate on ourselves. 

For any questions, queries, and support, please contact Anne.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

You’ve heard Anne discuss Mettā and Mindfulness here. But what are their benefits? Do they offer different results? Should you pick one over the other?

In this episode, Anne shares her takeaways from a lecture she heard by renowned teacher Sharon Salzberg on these very questions.

The short answer: Although Mettā and Mindfulness are designed differently, both forms of meditation have the benefit of bringing us a sense of centering and the ability to become more sensitive.

Listen to hear Anne reveal more of Ms Salzberg’s perspective — including how you can sense when the meditation has started ‘working’.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

We are born in this strange lifestyle that we rarely admit to experiencing: we sort of live with someone else, an ever-present inner roommate, that is oftentimes the greatest source of distress, anxiety and discomfort in our lives. 

Have you ever considered what could be done to make it a better relationship? Or, let’s say, to create a better living environment in your own mind?

Meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler leads us in a guided visualisation first to imagine our ideal home where we can feel at ease, then to observe the presence of a roommate that shadows our every move. Once we can see how the invading being disrupts the peace and calm of our home, Anne guides us to reflect on our relationship with our inner roommate — that constant narrator in our lives — and consider how it can be improved. 

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

Khyentse Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher, wrote, "Mind creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there's nothing much to it. It's just thoughts."

Maybe one of the biggest hindrances to meditation is what is referred to as the waterfall effect. As soon as we close our eyes, with the idea that we will somehow find some peace and quiet, we realise that we can’t stop thinking. We feel like we are drowned under the torrent of thoughts coming down on us. Faced with this onslaught, we open our eyes, and at the first chance we have, we'll tell our friends: “Meditation? Oh it’s not for me. I absolutely cannot meditate, I have way too many thoughts.” 

In this guided meditation, Anne Mühlethaler offers a metaphorical journey where we get to observe the mind with the mind, where we approach the contents of our mindstream from another angle. 

Becoming mindful of our thoughts is subtle, and not easy, but it is also revolutionary. As soon as we start to become an observer of the thoughts coming in and out of our mindstream, we gain perspective — starting with this big a-ha: we are not our thoughts.

As Anne explains, we’ll come into contact with the fact that while some of our thoughts are brilliant, others are not so useful, some harmful, others reruns (recurring constantly) or are even fake news. 

In this practice, using the metaphor of a river, we first settle and ground through feeling the sensations in the body before looking at the contents of our mindstream. We learn to notice the thoughts that are supportive, and we practise lovingly letting go of those that aren’t so useful. And using that muscle of mindfulness, we discern that we are the clear nature of the observer, seeing all that moves through the stream, but no longer identifying with it. 

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

A short and sweet meditation where we are invited to connect with the breath and the sensations in the body, to cultivate a sense of grounding and quieten the mind. 

We often tighten the body without noticing, and in this meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler (@annvi and @_outoftheclouds) invites us to find release, softening and a relaxed presence. And while the body settles, so does the mind. Once grounded, Anne guides us to notice what arises with a gentle awareness, whether it be stirrings, itches and tingles, memories, future thinking, all that is occuring in the mind and body. 

Resting as an observer of our experience, we explore it with a gentle awareness, being with, but not identifying with, the aliveness that arises and dissipates, moment by moment. 

Not pushing any of the experience away, the aim of this meditation is to explore how we can find a sense of calm and stillness, steadily, all the while being present with any and all sensations, thoughts and feelings, and not getting carried away. 

In closing Anne reads a quote from Deepak Chopra: 

‘In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.’

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

In this guided meditation, Anne introduces us to the practice first, and starts with an explanation of neuroplasticity and the negativity bias.

When Anne was studying to become a mindfulness and compassion teacher with MMTCP (Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield), she had the opportunity to discover the work of Dr Rick Hanson, PhD, a specialist in positive neuroplasticity. The practice Anne leads us through is directly inspired from his lessons on the ‘negativity bias’.

First, about the bias:

Did you know that we have a natural propensity as human beings to remember the bad over the good? That’s right, this is an evolutionary strategy — a default that was installed over millennia so that we would remember what was dangerous, uncomfortable or unpleasant, to avoid it in the future and, therefore, keep us safe and alive. What was meant originally to protect us from a bear or tiger is still alive and well in us, despite the fact that most of the time, we don’t have the need for this default negative bias mode.

And yet there it is. As Dr Hanson coined it, our brains are ‘Teflon for the good and velcro for the bad.’

The practices of compassion, loving kindness, and this meditation’s blend called ‘warming the heart’ are tools that invite us to remember and cultivate the feelings, the sensations, and the memories of feeling love, connection and caring for loved ones. These practices, over time, will bring us back to a more balanced and equanimous view of our experiences.

So this meditation will invite you to focus on creating positive neuroplasticity, deliberately trying to make a positive change by meditating, visualising and bringing a felt sense of a loving, caring heart. The experience is enriched by connecting into the body and repeating the Loving Kindness phrases. Anne ends with this personal question: Why is it important to you to connect to love and kindness?

With gratitude to Dr Rick Hanson and the neuroscientists who contributed to the field of positive neuroplasticity.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

In this guided meditation, Anne offers an introduction inspired by an interview conducted years ago of school kids who had been introduced to mindfulness. One of them, when asked what mindfulness means, quipped: 

‘It means not hitting someone in the mouth.’ 

This funny and direct response implies that a mindfulness practice teaches us the ability to pause before we act, or react. 

We explore in this meditation how shining a light inwards — learning to be with the body’s sensations moment by moment  — helps us become in touch with ourselves so that we can feel our emotions as they arise and subside. By learning to notice first, we become less likely to identify with the emotions. That means we will switch from ‘I am angry’ to ‘I am feeling anger and frustration’, for example. This distance between the emotion and the self gives us a new vantage point from which, when we feel reactive, there is the option to pause and choose the next action, rather than simply react. 

With mindfulness anchored in the body, we feel what’s happening and we get to choose how we respond to our relationships with others and our environments. Anne also shares that while mindfulness is a great tool to notice upset, frustration, sadness or anger, it’s also a tool to connect more directly with positive emotions like joy, love or awe. And in this meditation, while we are exploring sensations scanning down the body, we also invite a sense of decompression, softening and letting go, in various areas of the body, to find a soothing and balanced attention. 

Enjoy!

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi