Janet Solyntjes | The Role of Doing Nothing When it Comes to Intentional Living and Mindfulness
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
Janet explains the browser tabs in our heads
How Catholic school got Janet wondering about "things" in life
Why the beginning of high school started to bring on feelings of depression
Why she is comfortable in solitude (this wasn’t always the case!)
Why every Sunday, as a senior in high school, she and two of her best friends decided to visit a different place of worship every weekend
Janet shares how losing her father at an early age impacted her life
How discipline and structure serve her in her life
How attending a dance performance inspired her to start dancing
What Janet would say to her dance teacher if she could speak with her today
Janet shares a lesson she learned from a teacher that it is important to “always do things thoroughly and properly”
Janet shares how after college she had a breakdown. And this was not a coincidence.
How Janet got into the world of meditation (it came partially with a “dare”)
Why meditation was initially difficult for her
Why having a teacher is helpful in learning and maintaining a meditation practice
What it was like running a Buddhist Center in Boulder, Colorado (high skill, low interest)
What Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is
Why we have everything we need in our lives to overcome challenges and how MBSR can be useful
What secular meditation means
How a book she randomly picked up at the Salvation Army, and didn’t read until many years later, led her to MBSR
Why people should consider attending an extended silent retreat
What happens on a silent retreat
Why the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado is such a special place for a retreat
What is the “ROI” on walking meditation?
Why a silent leadership retreat is one of the best business “classes” you can take
Why not being the fastest is a good thing
Why you should trust what is inside of you
How to set up a guided meditation
Janet Solyntjes is a certified MBSR teacher and serves on the faculty of the Center for Mindfulness at UMass. She is also on the faculty of the Engaged Mindfulness Institute, helping train people to bring trauma-informed mindfulness into underserved and at-risk communities.
Janet has offered MBSR courses in Colorado since 2000 and has been leading mindfulness meditation retreats in the United States and internationally for over 20 years.
She is co-founder of the Boulder-based Center for Courageous Living, a small business committed to promoting the inherent goodness of individuals and groups through a variety of supportive services, programs, and retreats.
Ways to contact Janet: