Embodied Mindfulness Meditation for Somatic and Emotional healing.
Podcast Intro – Heart Attending
Welcome.
This is a space to slow down, to arrive, and to listen — not only with the mind, but with the heart and the body.
I’m Dina A. Kushnir. My work offers a feminine, embodied approach to somatic meditation and spiritual awakening — one that begins not with effort or striving, but with tenderness, presence, and loving attention.
At the center of my guidance is a practice I call Heart Attending: an invitation to awaken the heart to awareness, to meet yourself with kindness, and to allow loving attention to become the ground of healing and awakening.
In a world that often pulls us out of ourselves — into speed, fragmentation, and self-judgment — this practice invites a return. A return to the body as an ally. A return to the breath as a home. A return to the quiet wisdom already living within you.
Through Heart Attending, the body, breath, sensations, emotions, feelings, and perceptions become doorways — not obstacles — to presence and peace. As we cultivate gentle awareness and compassion toward ourselves, somatic and emotional healing unfold naturally, forming the foundation for all spiritual growth.
The roots of my work are in Buddhist Vipassana meditation, with a deep emphasis on embodied awareness and the direct experience of body sensations. For over three decades, I have guided meditation groups, retreats, and classes, integrating this lineage with somatic, body–mind, and emotional healing modalities from both Eastern and Western traditions.
In this podcast, you are invited to rest, to feel, and to remember what it is like to be at home in yourself.
There is nothing you need to fix, achieve, or become.
Just bring your presence.
And let the heart attend.
Embodied Mindfulness Meditation for Somatic and Emotional healing.
Module 11: Episode 3 - When the Battle Rages Within
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When the Battle Rages Within
This peace meditation offers a profound way to work with inner conflict by recognizing that battles within create casualties in the body—tension, pain, discomfort, agitation that call for our attention.
The Practice begins with awareness of both outer and inner environment, noticing where you are and what's happening without needing to label it. We enter the realm of feeling and sensing rather than thinking, allowing the light of awareness to illuminate what's present.
Finding the Battle: When there's a battle in the mind, there's always resonance in the body—fast breath, shoulder tension, knee pain, heart tightness. Someone is crying in this battle, asking for help. There's no winning in battles; there are only casualties.
Battle always arises from a sense of lack. When we come into the body and feel, there's no lack in that moment, and the battle can stop.
The Mother's Way of Meeting: We hold the pain, discomfort, or agitation like a mother holds her only child—softly, lovingly, without taking sides. This is how peace blooms: through non-judgmental presence rather than choosing which part of us is "right."
The Healing Words: "It's all right. It's okay. It's all okay. No need to run out. Let us be here. I am with you." We comfort the discomfort by feeling and sensing without judging, simply being here with it. We tell ourselves by name: "You are okay."
The Revolutionary Insight: Peace means wholeness (Hebrew: Shalom; Arabic: Salaam—the same word in both languages). When we allow ourselves to hold all that is in us, we discover our wholeness. We don't make peace or do peace—we ARE peace.
Core Teaching: You are not a peacemaker or peace doer. You are peace itself. You are wholeness. The conflict isn't between you and peace—the conflict is between the parts of you that haven't yet been held with love.
"Hold your wholeness, your peace together. Come into the body and feel. Suddenly there's no lack in that moment, and the battle can stop."
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Visit Dina's website, oliveoasis.com, to learn more about her work and her sanctuary in upstate New York.
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