1. Host: a Weekly Meditation Group in Your Home

Welcome a group of meditators to practice with you once a week. Even a small group of 2-4 people can beautifully support each other to be more devoted to the spiritual practices of meditation, non-judgment and mindfulness. Invite your closest friends and neighbors. You don’t need to be a meditation teacher, simply provide space and encouragement. You can use the free Sow & Grow Timer App to guide you through the process. The App can even lead your group in one of many meditation techniques, if your group would benefit from that! It’s easy and fun.

2. Sow: Encourage and Support Others to Host Groups

Once your group has been meeting for a while, everyone in it can help you find more hosts that would like to start their own groups. The early success of your group will energize and inform this process, so it will feel natural to share the idea with others.

3. Grow: Encourage Hosts of Groups You Have “Planted” to Sow Additional Groups

Once the new hosts “in your orchard” have gotten their groups started, encourage them to sow new groups of their own. Your experience helping them will make it easy to share how they can find and help others.

This host, sow & grow process creates exponential growth of personal transformation and positive social change.

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Reasons to Host, Sow & Grow

Many Personal Benefits of Regular Meditation & Mindfulness

Since hosting a weekly group will help you stay more regular with your daily practice, let’s start with these well researched benefits of a regular practice of meditation:

• Enhances self awareness
• Reduces stress
• Controls anxiety
• Promotes emotional health
• Lengthens attention span
• Improves your immune system
• Improves quality of your sleep
• Helps control pain
• Can decrease blood pressure

A Vibrant Local Community of Connected People

You know in your heart that you need to be a member of a community of people that care for each other. All mammals share this instinctive trait to band together! Yet the current trends of secularization, tele-commuting, monetization of services and fear of contagion are eroding the traditional communities of faith, work, neighborhoods and even friendships. Hosting a weekly group creates a seed from which a healthy local community can be nurtured and grow. With care, this can be done in ways that feel safe and appropriate to all involved.

Through social connections we can support each other in starting and staying with a steady practice of meditation and mindfulness. When you practice with other people every week, it affirms and supports the solo practice that you do every day.

You may be struggling with a tendency to over commit yourself, leading to a challenge to start anything new, however wonderful the benefits may be. The regular practice of meditation helps to reduce the stress we feel when juggling and helps you to keep things in perspective. This in turn encourages taking care of yourself so you are more available and effective for others. First you grow, then you sow!

Environmental Benefits of a Local Group Meditation Practice

By creating lots of small groups, it will be easier for people to join one that is close to their home.

• Less gas burned / energy spent driving to practice.
• Increase awareness of consumption through mindfulness.
• Finding happiness within can lead to a simpler, lower impact lifestyle.
• Guard against burnout: Regular practice allows you to recharge and de-stress to keep you going on your activist campaigns.

Have a Positive Impact on the Big Picture

The current major trends of growth are destructive and unsustainable on a single planet. These include the human population, the economic system and even technological advances (though some are being leveraged to increase sustainability). These trends are what are driving global climate change, environmental collapse and species extinction. Current extinction rates have not been seen in the fossil record since the last time the majority of Earth’s species were lost, millions of years ago. Some believe that current downward trends of human health point to the beginning of our own extinction as well!

At this crucial time in history, the trend of raising consciousness must out pace these others. Once enough of us wake up, expanding our awareness and identities, we will start to make the choices that will reverse destructive trends and transform our world into a paradise for all. If we don’t, we humans will continue to be the cause of planet wide destruction that could take millenia for the natural processes of life to restore.

We need the global collective consciousness to rise exponentially, as soon as possible!

First Step: Within one week, find one other person who wants to improve the quality of their lives, to meditate with you regularly

Assure them that they need no meditation experience, just the will to practice. Ask your closest friends and neighbors. If they are uncertain, it may be helpful to refer them to this website. Keep it light and fun. Maybe offer snacks and healthy beverages!

As needed, explain why you are doing this: to feel happier all the time. To eventually find your inner bliss and help others to do the same! To leverage that solid feeling into compassionate actions that will build a world of less pain and suffering for all. But it doesn't matter why we practice, the benefits come just the same!

Many people who try to start a meditation practice stop after a few days or weeks because they lack the willpower to sustain the intention alone. People who "Buddy up" are much more likely to maintain their practice over time.

Check-in buddies support each other remotely, using nothing more than their phones.

How It Works

The agreement is simple:

1. The Check-in: The new meditator agrees to text their buddy immediately after they finish a practice session. It can be as simple as "Done" or "20 mins." The Sow & Grow Timer Meditation App makes that even easier.
2. The Affirmation: The buddy replies with a simple affirmation. A thumbs-up emoji, a "Great job," or a heart. This message validates practice as soon as it's received.
3. The Safety Net: If the buddy does not receive a text from the new meditator one day, they send a gentle, text-based check-in the following day.

   Tip: We recommend the buddy set a recurring daily reminder or alarm on their phone for this "safety net" time (e.g., 8:00 AM). This ensures they won't forget to check in if they haven't heard from them!

The Gentle Check-In

Because you have established these roles ahead of time, the buddy's text isn't nagging, it's support. If the new meditator misses a day, the message serves as a gentle reminder to return to their practice.

Depending on your relationship, the text might read:

• "Hey, how's it going today?"
• "Did you not find the time to practice yesterday? Everything okay?"

Why This Helps

Doing practice with the frequency that you have committed to with your buddy, validates and draws from the strength of that relationship. To some extent, you are "borrowing" the others will power, attention and awareness! This is admittedly an intuitive understanding, yet research has shown that the buddy system is highly effective, even when both people are working to create a new routine of daily practice. On a practical level, this method also creates a "digital paper trail." When the new meditator opens their text thread with their buddy, they will visually see their streak of "I practiced" messages and affirming responses. Keeping that streak going is far more motivating than just seeing a statistical display on an app, however fancy it may be!

Finding Your Buddy

Whether you are a new meditator or already practice regularly, it's best to find a buddy you already know and trust.

• If you are new to meditation: Ask a friend to buddy up with you! They don't need to be experienced, your intention might inspire them to start practicing too. Just share this page with them to explain how it works.
• If you already practice: Look for someone to support. Reach out on social media or offer to be a buddy when the topic comes up in conversation. You can provide the willpower they need to build a regular routine!

Don't have someone in mind? No problem! Use the Sow and Grow Meditation Buddy Matcher App. This free service matches check-in volunteers with new meditators (requires a free Telegram account). Tip: If you match with someone online, we recommend having a quick phone or video call first to set clear expectations for your check-in process.

Sow and then Grow!

To create the exponential growth of consciousness that we need, please ask your new meditators to find at least two people that they can serve as Check-in Buddies. This "pay it forward" often feels good and right, so give them a nudge to keep our growth going! If you are comfortable, and it feels appropriate in your relationship, make this clear at the beginning. Otherwise, bring it up when it feels right. This may be when your buddy feels they are ready to stick to their daily practice without needing your check-ins. Success may well inspire generousity!

Sow & Grow Meditation Timer App

The Sow & Grow timer is simple, free, and does not require a login. It is designed to help ween you off of guided meditation recordings. It includes "continuous mantra" guidance, a deep listening practice that is more accessible than silent practice, with many of the benefits. It also has audios to teach you different silent techniques, so you can find the one that works best for you. It makes it quick and easy to text your Buddy after your session. The first time you use it, you provide your buddies phone number. From then on, just two taps take you to your text app, ready to make any final edits to your message before you send it off.