The Loss Meditation

This is ambient trance music with spare use of poetic words within a meditative soundscape. It includes bilateral sound, brainwave entrainment, and Native American trance drumming that I blended for what I call shimmering. It is not intended to treat any medical or psychological condition. It expresses my own recovery from grief, my experience with meditative and awareness practices including EMDR, and conversations with other bereaved persons.

The instructions refer to a "loved one," butyou can substitute another kind of loss.Examples: The person you had hoped to be, or that someone else should have been; loss of a po session, status, or health; a dream that did not come true; years spent in a regrettable way.

You can learn about using bilateral sound here. That can help you get more benefit from this meditation. There are also some helpful instructions below. 

Please Note

Some people are not prepared for deep relaxation and whole-brain meditation that can increase awareness. Recently bereaved persons may be an example of this. Readcautions for more on this.

Comments from Listeners

"I discovered the grief meditation in the beginning of January, downloaded it and started listening to it once a day. There hasn't been any recent death in my family, so I interpreted the meaning of loss quite broadly. For instance, I meditated on the loss of a boyfriend six years ago, a breakup that involved cheating and deeply hurt my self-esteem; the more recent loss of a marriage; and even the loss of a carefree childhood that I wanted to have but never did."

";All in all, those pretty typical small-t traumas are usually addressed through talk therapy. But talk therapy never did for me what simply listening to the grief meditation did. I started looking forward to drifting to sleep, because listening to the recording beforehand made me experience a feeling of a safe place. I was on Zoloft for about a year (before and around the time of my divorce), and I have to say that the loss meditation, in my experience, is a treatment superior to the antidepressant."

"I played a portion of the Loss Meditation to my Yoga students during their deep relaxation last Friday, and they loved it!"

"I weaved it in so that they did not hear the beginning, but it was still a very nice 8-minute long relaxation that I suspect must have some hypnotic effect because of the rhythmic drumming and other elements. Anyway, my students clapped at the end of class and appeared quite happy. Next Friday I'm planning to use a portion of Personal Journey for the end of the class. I personally have played it for myself several times and enjoyed it very much, both with and without head phones."

"Thank you so much for creating those sounds."

Instructions

• Focus your awareness on your loss and the feeling it creates in your body as you follow the sounds that move back and forth from ear to ear.
• Allow your feelings to change as you maintain your mental focus.
• Notice any new aspects of the situation or memories that emerge.
• Shift your focus to new feelings that arise.
• Many people get to a more peaceful state of mind as a result.
• If you have any doubt about your ability to tolerate feelings or awareness, have appropriate support before doing anything, including this meditation, that would increase those things.

Audio

Play The Loss Meditation From the Flash or Internet Explorer choices, choose your Internet connection speed. Higher resolution sounds better. If your audio pauses, you might try a slower connection or download and listen. If you want to hear the highest sound quality, but you have a slower connection, then choose the high resolution download from "Direct Download Link" below. Most computers will actually play those links for you as streaming audio. Otherwise, it may take some time to download. Play the downloaded file with an MP3 player such as the free Windows Media Player or this popular (also free) one: Winamp.
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