If you can make it to The Refuge, an airy and cozy (and crystal-filled) corner tucked away in Fair Park, you absolutely should. Classes include a mix of yin and therapeutic yoga, sound baths, reiki, aromatherapy, and mediation, and run late into the evenings on week nights. Towards the end of last year, I went on an Outdoor Voices-organized nature hike with an assemblage of cool fitness people, and heard one woman say The Refuge was the best thing in their life. That’s an endorsement.
Of course, life doesn’t always allow a trip out to Fair Park. Fortunately, Kirsten Joy Burch, a Refuge instructor, has been thoughtfully putting together guided mediations for quite some time now, all of which are available for free on her SoundCloud page. Her most recent offering, a 5-minute meditation to smooth your breath and calm the mind, can be done in a (parked) car, a quiet conference room, or wherever you can find a good place to regain some chill in the middle of the day.
“This short practice helps move us from our sympathetic (fight, flight or freeze) into the parasympathetic (relax, rest and heal),” says Burch. “It’s useful to schedule your daily meditation at the same time every day to build a new groove in your mind, a neural stability that creates groundedness and greater self-awareness.”
