Natalie Valle

Background:

My background includes Sound Healing training through Soundology, as well as Yoga Instructor (RYT 200 in-progress), and meditation. Since I was very young, I knew I had a deep connection to spirit, but it wasn’t until I was older that I discovered my true roots and all of my ancestor spirit guides who provide me with guidance and wisdom.

Why I practice meditation:

I’ve battled the darkness that stems from the human condition, and through yoga and meditation have found my way back to the light. My own life experience taught me the beauty and art of loving yourself, how to heal from negative patterns, and truly manifest the life of your dreams.

Why I teach meditation:

I feel called to offer people a healing experience that will help them transmute any negative patterns that are holding them back from feeling light, aligned, and empowered. Using sound and meditation, along with other modalities that have helped me along my own journey, I help people create an experience that fits their unique needs and styles.

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Elena Safavi

Background:

Elena began her meditation journey at age 5, trained by her team of U.S. National figure skating coaches to visualize and find stillness to maximize performance. Living, training, and playing around the world, she has worked with mindful artists such as Dai Zaobab, Fawnia Dietrich, and Sofia Thom, gaining experience teaching mindful body movement. After completing undergraduate studies in Buddhism and Traditional Chinese Medicine at UC Berkeley, Elena expanded her area of experience, training under Debra Silverman as a certified astrologer, completing the Unplug 200-hour Meditation Teacher Training, and working with renowned sound healer, Andrew Clark. Elena’s mission is to bring a gentle, safe, and simple approach to a variety of intertwining and complex physical and energetic bodily systems that work together to bring out the highest version of each individual.

Why I practice meditation:

I practice meditation because it allows me to show up as my best version for those around me, as well as for myself. I feel calmer, happier, and am able to find more clarity in my thoughts and ease in my articulation.

Why I teach meditation:

I teach meditation because I wholeheartedly believe in these tools as necessities in a modern, digital society. The diagnosis numbers of depression and anxiety are rapidly increasing, as our society moves faster, grander, and more disconnected. Meditation has the ability to profoundly shift the world to a place of calmer peace, forming a community of happy, inspired, and empathetic individuals.

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Eric Ajna

Background:

Eric Ajna began his journey in 2007 after a near death experience that brought him into a deeper understanding of the nature of the mind and spirit, which dramatically altered the trajectory of his life as an LA based ambient music producer. Eric turned to clinical Hospice work and end of life care as a way to deliver higher spiritual counseling to terminally ill patients in their final days. He integrated various eastern wisdom teachings with alternative healing modalities as a way to alter the relationship patients have to the dying process. Sound and vibration played such an integral role in his own death that it inspired him to study the therapeutic effects of vibration on the mind and body. Eric uses a mixture of acoustic and electronic instruments along with his own voice to bring a more subtle, soothing and meditative quality into the lives of many.

Eric received his mastery in Reiki with the International Center for Reiki Healing and a secondary certification in Integrative Shamanic and Shakti Reiki as taught by Andrea Stark of The Tree of Life Healing Center in Pasadena. He holds residency at several yoga studios across the Southern California region and has also performed at festivals like Lucidity.

Why I practice meditation:

I've spent a number of years meditating on the mystical experience, becoming more intimately connected with the subtle awareness which communicates a language and sense of beauty more pure and sacred than anything I can put into words. Our direct source of communication with our highest most authentic selves will be in this space between silence and thought. By creating space in the mind, we are given the keys to understanding the basic fundamentals of our role as contributors in this world, which is to be loving, peaceful and compassionate to all that occupy our space with us. As one re enters the meditative state, a deeper understanding of reality unfolds and we begin to understand meditation not as a destination, but as the truest form of our own being-ness.

Why I teach meditation:

By re entering the meditative state, a deeper sense of truth naturally unfolds in the consciousness of each individual. It is a truth that dispels any curriculum of study into the quality of meditation as a teaching. We begin to understand that meditation cannot be taught but only understood through simple recognition of what is. If it is to be called anything, it could be looked at as an un-teaching. It is a subtraction. By unraveling the layers of thought we quickly begin to realize meditation as the most natural state, which has not arrived, though has always been present in us. When one is meditating, one is alive, present and profoundly human. It is our own illusion that prevents us from such a simple recognition that we are already there. We are meditation.

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Philipp Schardt

Background:

Gold- and Platinum Award Winning Music Producer & Sound Healer. Initiated and Prof. Certified Healer and Teacher within the Lineage of King Salomon.

Why I practice meditation:

I practice meditation to be of the highest Service to myself and others. Only a still mind can receive higher messages and alignment that is needed to bring more Peace and Healing to our World. Meditation holds the key to be the truest and most authentic self you can be.

Why I teach meditation:

We all are here to share our Passion. My Passion is to uplift others in everything I do - be it through Music, Healings or Teaching Metaphysics and Meditation. Meditation holds the key to empty and quiet the mind & release Stress so more of our innate Truth can flow through us. When we then apply this truth in our Lives we can create a circle and uplift others.

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Gwen Gaydos

Background:

Gwendolyn, Transformational Coach & Spiritual Healer, began her journey over two decades ago as a traditional Pharmacist. Her mission is to help you holistically heal in body, mind, and spirit, transform to your highest potential, and expand futher than you could ever imagine.

Gwendolyn loves healing with Vibrational Medicine, Reiki, Essential Oils, Crystal therapy, Yoga, and Meditation. Gwen also enjoys teaching others Reiki and guiding others to Soul Expansion- connecting privately, through her signature programs, and live classes and events.

Why I practice meditation:

I believe the ultimate expression of self love is to give ourselves time and space just to "be". I practice meditation because it allows me the time and space to do this, deeply relax my mind, and connect to my true self and intuition completely. I have found it helps with anxiety, stress, depression, focus and most immediately helps to calm my very busy mind!

Why I teach meditation:

I want to share this beautiful tool and teach others so they can eliminate anxiety and calm the mind chatter to connect with their truest selves, which I believe is the key to living an authentic, passionate, purposeful life! I love teaching in a classroom setting because, from my own experience, it has given me the time, space and permission to practice meditation for a longer period of time than I normally would give myself at home! It has helped me to drop in more deeply, and feel super blissed out the whole day. It has changed my life, and I want this for you!

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Dr. Nikki Starr, M.D.

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Background:

I began my call to healing as a medical doctor. During medical school I began practicing yoga and meditation, which began to shift my way of seeing the world. Travel transformed my vision of life too and by the time I was 25 I touched every continent except Antarctica. After completing my internship at NYU Medical Center, I realized that some of best prescriptions for a healthy, happy life include love, self care and conscious living. This sparked my personal spiritual journey and shifted my focus to alternative healing. Naturally my work shifted more to holistic coaching and healing session. On my journey I've also completed two Vipassana experiences and continue to teach classes, workshops and retreats worldwide.

Why I practice meditation:

I meditate because this practice supports me in embodying my truest self, it connects me to my heart center and allows me to live my fullest potential. Meditation has also helped to awaken my intuitive and healing abilities.

Why I teach meditation:

My personal mission includes elevating love on the planet as well as supporting humanity in our healing and spiritual awakening. Meditation is one of the best tools to facilitate healing, transformation and awakening in people.

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Jake Ferree

Background:

Jake teaches from the heart with a simple yet powerful message: There is always more to explore and discover. Dedicated to personal transformation inside and out, Jake's true gift lies in his ability to inspire and empower.
Here is what you can expect by meditating with Jake:
Empowerment through playing your edge
tapping into your true potential where the impossible becomes possible. An authentic experience of peace, joy and inner-strength that resides within.

Why I practice meditation:

I practice meditation to help keep myself present.  Distractions are all around us and I have checked out in the past, living on a bit of an autopilot.  Meditation keeps me aware, keeps me here and keeps me present.  Plus it makes me feel great!

 

Why I teach meditation:

I teach because it’s important for me to share the things that I love

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Melanie Kaplan

Background:

My path to meditation began with yoga. I began doing yoga in college, it seemed like the natural transition from ballet.  It was yoga that opened me up to meditation, breath work and the myriad alternative healing modalities.  Upon graduation from college, I entered the hectic world of advertising which left me stressed and feeling unfulfilled.  I pursued a path in massage therapy, Acupuncture and traditional medicine.  During my education, my meditation practice expanded to include many other forms.  I have been practicing acupuncture since 2004, and shortly after getting my license, found myself working with patients overcoming addiction, eating disorders and other mental health issues. While I personally had felt the benefits of meditation myself, it was incorporating meditation with acupuncture in the setting of rehab centers or in my office with patients that I began to fully realize the universal power and depth of transformation that meditation offers. 

Why I practice meditation:

The very nature of the word "practice" means that there is an inherent ritual, and  I clearly like things that need to be "practiced" meditation and acupuncture! I feel that having rituals are grounding and supportive.  I practice meditation to slow myself down and to slow the world around me, to bring me more fully into the present moment, and for those blissful moments when there are no thoughts...just silence and stillness.  Meditation also makes living with me and living with myself infinitely more tolerable!

Why I teach meditation:

Besides believing that the world as a whole can change if everyone meditated, I feel that meditation is a gift, being able to share that with others is a true joy and so fulfilling.  Teaching anything for me has always been an exchange, to foster something in others has always deepened and furthered my own experience.  I believe that we are forever learning and expanding, and teaching others teaches me so much.

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Unplug Meditation

12401 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 101 Los Angeles, CA 90025

(310) 826-8899

info@unplug.com