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Balm To The Soul - Energy Healing to soothe mind, body and soul
This podcast has everything you need to know about energy healing. My mission is to show that if you are not looking after your energy field, then you are missing a big piece of the puzzle which is our overall holistic health. If you upgrade your energy, you upgrade your life.
When we consistently look at, clean and expand our energy fields we are able to achieve better balance on all levels - that is mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. When our energy is clean and clear we feel more centered, joyful and focused.
Sometimes it can be very confusing as to where to start, so this podcast is about looking at the options out there. What can I try? What will it help me with? Where could it lead me?
Pop over to my website www.dandeliontherapies.co.uk and use the free Healing Meditation to get an idea where you need to start.
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Balm To The Soul - Energy Healing to soothe mind, body and soul
Cool Head, Warm Heart, Hot Belly: A Journey into Meditative Practice with Jane Otton
Ever felt like meditation "just doesn't work" for you? Jane Otton, founder of Calm Mind College, reveals why—you might simply be using the wrong style for your learning preference. With over 16 different meditation techniques available, finding your perfect match could transform your experience completely.
Jane takes us on a fascinating journey through the world of meditation teaching and holistic coaching. Her online school trains practitioners from 26 countries worldwide, balancing scientific evidence with esoteric tradition to make meditation accessible to everyone. The conversation explores how different learning styles—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic—connect with specific meditation practices, from guided visualizations to chanting to walking meditations.
What truly sets this episode apart are the practical, everyday applications of mindfulness. Rather than viewing meditation as another task on your to-do list, Jane shows how to incorporate it into routine moments—feeling the warm water in your shower, noticing the flavor of your food, or simply pausing between tasks. Her simple yet powerful mantra, "Cool head, warm heart, hot belly," activates your body's natural happy chemicals with just a touch of your hand to heart and belly.
We delve into the fascinating connection between meditation and brain function, particularly how it helps bridge our analytical left brain with our intuitive right brain. Jane explains how Sanskrit—the ancient vibrational language—activates energy centers through sound alone. For those who struggle with traditional meditation, she offers simple alternatives like grounding yourself by sitting barefoot on the earth for 20 minutes.
Whether you're a seasoned meditator looking to expand your practice or a skeptic wondering if it's all just woo-woo, this conversation offers fresh perspectives and practical techniques to enhance your well-being. Ready to discover which meditation style might be your perfect match? Listen now and learn how even five-minute practices can transform your relationship with stress, sleep, and self-awareness.
Jane Otton - Founder and Head Teacher of Calm Mind College
info@calmmindcollege.com
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/sky-toes/featherlight
License code: ZTXJPK8BA5WMLKSF
My new novel The Red Magus has recently been published in conjunction with the Unbound Press. An entralling mystical adventure set across time and space, where past and current lives converge. Find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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Natasha Joy Price
www.dandeliontherapies.co.uk
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Books:-
Freedom of the Soul - available on Amazon UK
The Red Magus - available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
so welcome everybody to another episode of balm to the soul, and today we have a new guest and her name is jane otten. So welcome, jane. Thank you ever so much for coming on to the podcast, thanks natasha for having me oh no, it's a pleasure. So jane is the founder and head teacher of Calm Mind College, so we're going to have a chat about that. So just tell us, jane, mainly what Calm Mind College is all about.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Thank you, Natasha. Well, we are an online school that teaches students how to become meditation teachers and holistic coaches, and we students that study with us are able to practice in over 26 countries around the world.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So we're here to give support to our students so that they feel often when you study online, that you may feel that you're not having the same experiences if you're having it in a face-to-face classroom. So our program is beautifully designed with modules that you can access. On the online classroom. You can, at any time, 24-7, study, which a lot of our students love, because we're all so busy and we're trying to study while we're working or raising children, living our life, and that just means you can study whenever you want. But probably the most important aspect is our support. So we offer I offer personal support, mentoring, there is feedback when you study that's written, but, most importantly, we also have a Facebook group that meets online twice a month so that we can discuss topical topics that are related to being a meditation teacher and a holistic coach, do some meditating together and, just you know, connect, because that's what it's all about is community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, so you are physically in Bondi Beach in Australia yes presumably your students are all over the world, are they?
Speaker 2:correct. Yes, we have students in Europe, us, all over the world, and that's what makes this. You know, meditation has and holistic coaching. They are in international language, so to speak. So we focus on, we have an approach that is quite scientific but yet, at the same time, there is a lot of room for the esoteric.
Speaker 2:So we work from the chakra systems all the way meditations to over 16 different styles, and often what happens is, you know, one of the common objections that people have around meditation is well, that worked for my friend and that may work for you, but it doesn't work for me, and that's because they were often taught the wrong style for their learning style, whether it's auditory, kinesthetic, visual, and so once you match the learning style with the student, it can have a very powerful result, and it means that it opens the door to what it feels like to meditate. And so, for example, like people that are anxious or sensitive, they may find guided meditation more supportive or a movementbased practice, whereas people that love to walk and love to move may enjoy, like kinesthetic or walking meditations or forms of yoga. Auditory learners may love to hear chants. Do mantras sound healing, love to hear chants, do mantras sound healing? And so everyone sort of has your pet meditation style. Natasha, do you have a pet meditation?
Speaker 1:style that you like to do. Do you know? I just love silence. I absolutely love being in silence, and I think that probably comes from working raising three kids yes, even though they've gone now, but I still relish complete silence beautiful and do you like to be in nature when you're in silence, or does it matter?
Speaker 1:I love being in nature so, like I said to you, as soon as it becomes warm, I'm in the garden and and I think I feel like that's a bit like flowing meditation, isn't it so that you're, yes, lose yourself really, although you're doing something physically? But, I do also like to go into my room and just lie on the bed and be in silence not very beautiful, but it's a reset button, isn't it?
Speaker 2:absolutely, and that's, you know, what we think is that we have to be busy.
Speaker 2:You know, we're a culture where you're on the go and you value yourself by your output, yeah, yet meditation helps you reset, to find that still space, as you said, where you just lay on the bed and you come back to center, and it grounds you and calms you so that you can recharge and get back into your day.
Speaker 2:So what I love about teaching meditation is the practical aspect of how you use it throughout your day. It's not just a practice where you wake up in the morning and perhaps you have a meditation process you do, or in the evening before you go to sleep. So what we teach are many ways you can incorporate it throughout your day, like Zen meditation. When you're taking your shower, you can notice how the scent of the soap smells, feel the warmth or the coolness of the water droplets, or allow yourself to just take in the visual of the steam. But that pulls you back into the present moment and that is very calming and it helps you kind of learn. What does that mean to be in the present moment? We hear about it all the time, but practicing it is is quite different than sort of just knowing about it. So it's moving from concept to reality.
Speaker 1:I love that you mentioned being in the shower, because I'm an energy therapist and I always get you know my clients in the shower to check in on their energy, to check in on their protection, because it's a great time you you're not having to find extra time, you're doing something that you do automatically. You, you know kids can't be calling you normally. You're, you know, in your own space for that. Yes, so that's a lovely sort of add-on to yeah, just, and you can do it.
Speaker 2:Eating too, like practice any eating, if you're especially by yourself and you're, you know, having a moment of rest in between your busy day. And if you just notice, what does this taste like? I'm looking at the food. What does it visually look like? You know? How does that cup of tea, how does that you know? What does it feel like as it goes down my throat? So when we sort of bring in the five senses to our everyday reality, whatever we're doing, from washing the dishes to going on a walk in nature, we're practicing some sort of sort of present moment-ness. And that's what I love that there are so many different styles and kinds of meditation. And so when people say, oh, I can't meditate, often they've tried it once and it was a style that just did not resonate with them.
Speaker 1:No, because often when you talk about meditation, you talk about closing your eyes and just trying to stop your thoughts. People say I'm trying to stop my thoughts and it's not about that at all, it's just allowing them to drift across. If that's interesting that you talk about styles, because really Often people will have one thing in their head like that and won't realize that you can do your Zen meditation, which sounds amazing, or you can go for a walk and do flowing meditation.
Speaker 1:But yes it's all the same. It's slowing your mind down, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, because I have a saying which is cool head, warm heart, hot belly. So I'm trying to draw my busy mind into my heart and in that heart space I connect instantly with myself. And it's been scientifically proven that if you put your hand on your heart, you instantly activate oxytocin, the love hormone, and that even if your mind is still busy and says no, that's not happening, says no, that's not happening. It your body is listening and your body is activating that beautiful heartfulness, that connection, and then you bring and draw that energy down into your belly, your second brain, yeah, and then you're connecting with your vagus nerve. You're making mana chi, life force energy.
Speaker 2:So that's like a quick break throughout your day that you could just have this mantra cool head, warm heart, hot belly. So you can put your hand on your heart, then your hand on your belly when you say belly, and again your belly is making serotonin, the feel-good hormone. So you are washing yourself with happy chemicals, your own pharmaceutical, with meditation, because you're activating the relaxation response instead of the stress response. Adrenaline, cortisol and just those minor little pivots throughout your day can mean that you feel less stressed and you feel more centered, and thus you can feel like, at the end of the day, I'm not exhausted. You know, my goal is, at the end of the day, that I'm still making the same amount of energy that I did when I started. I still feel fresh at the end of the day and of course, there's appropriate tiredness, but I'm not exhausted.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, it's that deep bone exhaustion, isn't it that you want to avoid?
Speaker 2:Yes, and because we're in front of computer screens our head gets hot, our mind races and is busy. So one of the key things I believe meditation does is that I call it your left brain, right brain. So your left brain is your. You know your mind and it's analytical. And of course we need our mind for executive thinking skills and you know to work and to study.
Speaker 2:But we believe Western society emphasizes the mind so much that we forget the feeling and being part of our right brain, which is our subconscious. So walking across the corpus callosum, which is the neural network between the left brain and the right brain, is like one of my favorite meditation styles to do, especially with analyticals. You know anyone that's really left brain dominant, because once you get into the right brain and you can tell when you're in the right brain because your breathing slows down, you no longer think you are actually downloading in images, pictures and emotions, images, pictures and emotions and then to be in that space. That's sort of the jumping off point to whatever your belief system is god, the universe, your higher power, your intuition, which is, of course I call your intuition, your religion. It is magical, as you know. So all of these meditation techniques can help you really feel and be yeah and I think a lot of people don't know how to be, do they?
Speaker 1:no, it's, you know, you're moving, you've got to achieve. Yes, you don't.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Well and and. As a holistic coach, which means I work with mind, body and spirit. So that's different than a life coach. So a holistic coach is incorporating your higher self, and if a client's uncomfortable with that, I just use personal development. But that helps you just sort of have a general awareness of how to be and how to approach life differently, from a more self-aware standpoint yeah, so, and the college you teach um, both to be a meditation teacher and a holistic coach.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes yes, yes, so the meditation is the foundation. Yeah, so we teach meditation as a form of therapy, right, yes, as well as holistic counseling skills and we have eight or nine courses, that Right and to practice work with clients. But, more importantly, one of the things that often stops people from entering coaching is they think, wow, I have to have these business skills in this particular area or this knowledge in something that I don't have. And yet the beauty of holistic coaching is that you're empowering your clients to find their own answers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't need to know it all you don't need to know it all.
Speaker 2:But you want to learn the questions, to ask them, because each of us knows inside of us the answer. We just got to go over the corpus callosum to our right brain and there it is.
Speaker 1:So simplistically put, that's how it works and how long are the courses that you offer?
Speaker 2:thank you, they are. They range from our meditation teacher training course. Um, if you study it full-time, it's six weeks. Part-time, which is what I recommend people do, is three months, especially if you've never meditated before, so you don't need any previous experience. What happens is you develop a meditation practice and it's for. Really that's my goal is that you find a practice, we teach you a practice and we show you over 16 different styles of meditation so that you can learn what is my learning style, what are my favorite styles, but also as a meditation teacher, but also as a meditation teacher, how to bring in various styles into every class so that it resonates with your students who are going to be a mix of styles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it, that there are 16 styles of meditation. Oh, there's.
Speaker 2:So there's so much more than that like this is these are primarily grounded, they're evidence-based, so that for my analyticals they can look up that particular style and go I understand what it does scientifically. That makes me feel good and, you know, for those of us that you know work with energy and we understand energy and the chakra system and it allows like to have a bit of science. But I also like to you know I know a lot about the energy.
Speaker 1:So there's probably, you know, a few styles people resonate with, isn't there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Like guided meditation is the most common one. Like guided meditation is the most common one, and that's often what you see on YouTube, on the internet, insight Timer. Those styles are guided, which means a voice is leading you through a process, and they may incorporate auditory sound, bowl music, um something that it layers in. And then, but also if you're kinesthetic and you like to move, that may not resonate with you, you may really love doing a walking meditation or um so many med. There's sanskrit meditations where you can use your hands, um so, and sanskrit, of course, is a beautiful.
Speaker 2:Those styles of meditations are so beautiful because it's the most ancient vibrational language in the world, so you're almost in state. Just by placing your tongue in the various positions in your mouth, isn't that amazing? You're activating energy centers and that's why you know very simple Sanskrit meditations, like or saying the Sanskrit words with your chakra meditations, sanskrit words with your chakra meditations. I'd love to do that, because it just helps you activate the smaller energy centers and it just pulls you more deeply into state, because alpha and delta are the meditation states and most of us can understand what alpha is because of the human resonance. So earth vibrates at 7.8 Hertz and that's why we love to be outside. We love to, you know, sit on mother earth or put our fingers in the dirt. Fingers in the dirt, go for a walk, because that is a light meditative state, and what I often suggest to people that struggle with meditation is to just go ground, to take your shoes and socks off and, for 20 minutes, just sit on the ground and breathe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you will be a different person when you get up, because you're going to feel more relaxed, more calm, because you're actually taking in the earth energy. Yeah, and it is almost sort of teaching you how to get into that meditative state without having to do anything yeah, yeah, it's fabulous.
Speaker 1:I love Sanskrit. I love I don't know there's a remembering there for me, definitely. It just feels so comfortable. And yes, I read a book once I can't remember the law of light, I think it's called, and he does the lord's prayer and he actually you can do it. He sets it out in Sanskrit, which was what it was written in, and it is beautiful. It's just beautiful. I love that.
Speaker 2:So, oh, that's, that just sounds amazing well, just so, you know, I think on Udemy or you know those, those, those training programs, I think there's some Sanskrit courses like I think I've seen some and I I think it would be really interesting. It's on my my to-do list to learn basic Sanskrit because I love how it makes you feel and, like you said, I think it reawakens, like a part of yourself that is remembering yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1:So, jane, tell me, how long have you been a meditation teacher? How, how did you come to have so much knowledge in meditation?
Speaker 2:I started meditating very seriously 20 years ago. Before that it it was hit and miss because I wasn't learning the right style. So I was really frustrated because I worked in like corporate America and I was burned out and I was just really trying to find my center and I was. I went to like a course and it was for a particular style of meditation that just didn't resonate with me and but I at that time there weren't as many options as there are now. Meditation is becoming much more mainstream than it was 20 years ago. So from there I just was able to meet a holistic practitioner that showed me how to meditate.
Speaker 2:So I started in a meditation group with about 15 people in Neutral Bay, which is a suburb of Sydney, and some of those people are still in my life today.
Speaker 2:So we met 20 years ago and I knew nothing really about meditation because I was so frustrated that I never really learned how to do it, and within literally the first class, because when you meditate in a group, group, you're joining the morphic field and you are almost energetically, as you know, just kind of pulled into the energy. Yeah, that helped me go. That's what it feels like. Oh, okay, I remember that feeling from like playing my flute in band. I remember that feeling from playing the piano, from doing art. So I started to connect it with other things that I had done in my life and I realized it wasn't this sort of like unachievable process that only ascended masters can do, that real people can do it too, and people that have no experience and but just would love to give it a go, as we say in Australia yeah amazing so yeah, so it's gone from there it's gone from there and I have really in the last five years focused on teaching meditation and running the school.
Speaker 2:Before that I did a mix of both, but now I'm in the third inning chapter of my life and I just have always felt it as a calling. So I am a holistic coach, meditation teacher. I have private practice also and, but primarily, my time and effort is spent with the school amazing.
Speaker 1:And just before we finish, just tell us what meditation, because we've talked about being more grounded, being more present, but it does also physically help you doesn't it with you.
Speaker 2:Know you sleep, yes, yes, there's so many um physiological and um psychological benefits of meditation, such as um it calms your nervous system, it helps you sleep better, it helps you have better focus, it helps you learn how to process information, it helps you relax, and relaxation is sort of the key because when you're relaxed then your body can take over and rest and repair. Yeah, so there's so many benefits from meditating. It's really, as I say, it's the gift that keeps on giving Once you like, develop your practice and it doesn't have to be for long. It could be five minutes a day, but it's just taking time throughout your day doing micro processes, like, just as you said, I just go lay on my bed and I experience stillness, and that stillness is your body relaxing. So that's so important because it's the antidote to the stress response and going into fight or flight, which is where a lot of us operate, especially with work. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So even just you know what I do. If I can't like leave my office, I may just like turn my chair away from my screens and connect with my breath. Just breathe. Cool head. My mantra cool head. Put my hand on my heart. Warm heart, hot belly. Feel that connection. My heart. Warm heart, hot belly. Feel that connection. My body is instantly making serotonin and oxytocin. I just breathe into that space for a minute or two. On to the next project yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I've learned. Thank you for having me, natasha, I love being on and I so appreciate everyone listening no you talk about it so passionately and it I mean I've learned a lot and I thought I knew meditation. But there's always more to learn, isn't there?
Speaker 2:is more permanent students, aren't we? That's how I look at us absolutely absolutely and.
Speaker 1:I absolutely. You've encouraged me to go back and just do it more regularly as well. I think, yeah, it's like a muscle, isn't it? You have to keep it's a muscle.
Speaker 2:Yes, all you do is you, just you know, do it resonates with you? Yeah, you know, find a style, like, if you love Sanskrit and chanting, just do om or vam, or just find you know, bring in the Sanskrit words for your chakra meditation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Simple as that you can be so inventive, can't you to just Absolutely. Yeah, you tip with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Amazing Jane, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you you tip with it. Yes, yes, amazing Jane. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much, natasha. I really appreciated this opportunity to chat and get to know you too.
Speaker 1:Thank you, so I'll put all your details, calm Mind College and how people can contact you, and to go and look at the website underneath the episode.
Speaker 2:I welcome students from the uk and wherever anyone is listening yes, because I should like.
Speaker 1:I'll just point out for you it was, for me it was 9, 30, but for you it was yes, correct, it's very doable, isn't it to yes I actually have students that that meditate from england to australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, because of the times difference, it works, yeah yeah, yeah, very doable yes, exactly yes.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, natasha no, thank you, it's been a pleasure. So if you've enjoyed listening to Jane and I, please have a listen to the episode and share, and you can always subscribe to the podcast, and I will speak to you all soon.
