My guest this week is Amanda Gilbert, a meditation teacher, speaker, and author of a book called Kindness Now: A 28-Day Guide to Living with Authenticity, Intention, and Compassion (affiliate link). This was Amanda’s second time on the podcast and it was great to catch up with her. This time we focused our discussion around how to develop a consistent meditation practice. If you’ve felt drawn to meditation but have struggled to do it regularly, this conversation is for you.

Topics we discussed included:

• The type of meditation that Amanda practices
• Insight meditation
• What meditation has to offer when we’re struggling
• The value in simple awareness
• The revolutionary experience of slowing down or sitting in stillness
• Meeting the truth of our situation with honesty
• Mindfulness as the intentional direction of awareness
• Being able to hold our experience with loving awareness
• Growing the capacity to hold the heart of our experience
• The mindful presence and openness required for letting ourselves be witnessed
• Who Amanda would be without meditation
• What makes it hard to maintain consistent meditation practice
• The lack of instant gratification in meditation
• A lifestyle that supports mindful awareness
• Identifying cues that can help to trigger the habit of meditation
• Having a meditation guide
• Knowing when one is ready to lead others in meditation
• Amanda’s new meditation teacher training program

Amanda Gilbert is a meditation teacher, speaker, recent lecturer of mindfulness at the University of Southern California, and the author of Kindness Now: A 28-Day Guide to Living with Authenticity, Intention and Compassion.

Before dedicating herself to teaching full-time, Amanda was Center Director for The Aging Metabolism and Emotions Center at the University of California San Francisco, conducting clinical research and publishing investigations on the biological and psychological effects of mindfulness and meditation.

Her formal meditation training has been with UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, in Primordial Sound Meditation with Deepak Chopra and within the Insight Meditation tradition at InsightLA.

Amanda’s teachings span from coast to coast in the US as well as online. She has led meditation for top companies and startups like NBC, Paramount Pictures, The W Hotels, Merrill Lynch, Macy’s and YouTube.

Find Amanda online at her website and on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Her meditation teacher training is available through her website or at the training website.