In this post, I share my initial disappointment and eventual appreciation from my experience with an Interactive Guided Meditation course from Jack Kornfield.
I just finished an online Masterclass in Interactive Guided Meditation led by Jack Kornfield. Despite my initial disappointment that I had misunderstood the nature of the “cohort” system for this course, I was fascinated and, at times, moved by new tools and the deeper dives into some techniques.
Overview of the Meditation Course
The course was divided into four long sessions, about two hours each. Since it is online, you can take it at your own pace, stop to take notes, etc.
The class focused on:
- working with symbolic images and language (keys, walking sticks, healing palaces, etc.),
- helping folks visualize or “know” the messages they were receiving,
- personalizing the meditation based on what the person you are guiding shares,
- and working with meditations exploring a past life.
The course’s content really called to me. It provided a lot to think about and be inspired by.
My Misunderstanding
I mistakenly thought, when I read about the “see one, do one, teach one” approach and that there was a cohort, that the course would paired us with someone to practice with. That wasn’t the case. We watched Jack lead these experiences on the video. We also heard the feedback of the meditation teachers who were attending live when this series was recorded. I was disappointed not to have someone to practice with.
Some Initial Take-Aways
Despite the initial disappointment about the experience, I learned a lot from seeing Jack Kornfield lead these sessions and talk through how he did it. It was also very helpful to hear folks share their experiences being led or leading these experiences.
I have been working these past few years trying to hear and trust my intuition. It has taken time since I’ve spend decades learning how to be rational, linear, methodical, and philosophical. There are some great advantages to that and I’m thankful I have those skills. But, there are other way of deep knowing.
I’ve found that working with symbolic images or guided imagery can unlock deeper knowing and more bravery to explore this side of understanding. Throughout the class, when Jack said “You can know,” that resonated in a profound way for me.
You can know.
Jack Kornfield
My Future with Interactive Guided Meditation
I’m definitely inspired to work more with symbolic language and creating meditation prompts that allow people to reach into their own psyches or to see what bubbles up from their intuition. I started that work before, so this feels like a nice extension of it.
As for the smaller, one-on-one interactive guided meditations, I need to practice and explore this way of leading meditations before I have any thoughts of possibly offering such a thing.
The meditations and observations motivated lots of notes and thinking. I’m looking forward to what these experience inspire in me moving forward. I’m glad I took the course.