When was the last time you thought about your ancestors? This guided meditation by indigenous scholar Yuria Celidwen will help you connect to your heritage and reap the potent benefits of remembering your roots.

How to Do This Practice:

1. Bring your attention to the center of your chest, allow the chest to open, and relax.

2. Notice an open space in your chest when you breathe in. Pause before exhaling, resting your awareness in the space between breaths, then breathe out. Contemplate the pause that connects the constant flow between openings and returning.

3. In that pause, contemplate your  lineage. Think about the origin stories of your elders, their own elders, and their own elders, moving back in time.

4. Think about those elders and the lands that touched their feet. Imagine bringing that land into the center of your chest, into the pause between breaths.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Dr. Yuria Celidwen is an Indigenous scholar of Nahua and Maya descent. She also works at the United Nations to advance the rights of Indigenous peoples and environmental sustainability.

Learn more about Dr. Celidwen: https://www.yuriacelidwen.com/

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

• Listen to Dr. Yuria Celidwen on The Science of Happiness episode about listening to your elders: https://tinyurl.com/ykn8euhc

• Try the grounding practice led by Dr. Yuria Celidwen from Happiness Break: https://tinyurl.com/24kdurc4

• Why Telling Our Own Story Is So Powerful for Black Americans: https://tinyurl.com/2nvcxpam

We love hearing from you! Tell us how connecting to your ancestors made you feel. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or using the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/28hcdfsd

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We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.