As a new year begins, the simple, sophisticated and the simply luxurious life is kicking off a new limited series that's going to run weekly throughout the entire year of

2006. Rest assured, this is not replacing anything. This is simply an additional offering to

further your cultivation of living a simply luxurious life, which is grounded in true contentment.

This new series is a guide for establishing the tool of

meditation into your daily life. As longtime listeners and readers of the blog will know,

at the heart of living a life of contentment, which rests at the foundation of living a simply

luxurious life, there is the necessity to be present, fully engaged in our

everydays. And we can only be fully present if we are comfortable with our own company,

whether with others or on our own, because our mind is with us wherever we go while doing

whatever we do. The mindfulness practice of meditation,

something we have talked about quite a bit. In fact, I teach it in depth in the contentment master

class, but I've also talked about it quite a bit here and there in various episodes and in various

posts, some in detail, some just alluding to, this skill of meditation is something

that we can all learn. And when we understand how to do it properly, and just as important,

if not more so, why we meditate, because there is a lot of misunderstanding as to why we meditate,

and we'll talk about all of that in the snips and bits

throughout this series, we begin to see the life elevating benefits, inner peace, joy, happiness,

and freedom. Life begins to open up when we start forcing it to be what we want it to be.

Meditation helps us let go, to see clearly,

and to understand how and what we need to heal within ourselves. So long as we don't understand

why we are suffering, we will continue to create more unnecessary suffering for both ourselves and others. Meditation helps us understand.

To not only be more loving toward ourselves, but the rest of the world. And here is the beautiful part.

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