Meditation Playlist 003
Meditation Playlist 003, Executive Producer: Ajani Charles, Producer: Ajani Charles, Art Director: Ajani Charles, Model: Nelima Bandeira, Editor: Olga Tymoshchuk, Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2023, Photographer: Ajani Charles
In 2021, I launched a series of meditation playlists via Spotify to provide my audience with easily-accessible audio for mindfulness meditations.
I developed the series to demonstrate to new meditators that meditation is as simple as sitting down (or standing up) and putting on a playlist of binaural beats while focusing on the sensations associated with one’s breath or an inanimate object for a minute or longer in seated or standing position.
Meditation is simple but not easy, as it causes us to face our fears, insecurities, mental chatter, and mortality. Based on my experiences, it was challenging to meditate for a minute or two in 2014 when I began practicing meditation regularly. Still, as of Wednesday, March 15, 2023, I have meditated for 1,646 days in a row, I can now meditate for two or three hours in a row with relative ease, and I am no longer intimidated by the idea of attending a week-long silent meditation retreat.
If I can confront myself, various fears and insecurities, and whom I think I am through daily meditation, almost anyone can.
With that said, I oversee the production, art direction, photography, and design for the artwork associated with each playlist and curate the audio featured within each one. The playlists also act as a way for me to showcase the work of talented models in Toronto and elsewhere.
The playlists feature a variety of binaural beats and are designed for specific purposes, like focus and relaxation.
The playlist featured above, my third, was created to facilitate the transcendence of anger, and it features the Toronto-based model Nelima Bandeira.
Our daily experiences can lead to many situations and circumstances that anger us. So can our unprocessed childhood traumas, our interpretations of global and local events, our unmet needs, undoubtedly unfair circumstances, our genetics, the conditioning we were subject to through our family of origin, and so much more.
Anger can be a helpful emotion; its purpose and evolutionary basis is to signal to us that we have been violated in some way, that we have been subject to an injustice, or that there is a disparity between our current circumstances and an ideal state. However, remaining in a state of anger for hours, days, or weeks can lead to many adverse psychological, health, social, and economic consequences in the long term.
We must create opportunities and situations whereby we can observe anger and let go of it until it passes, like a cloud in the sky. If left to my own devices under certain circumstances, I can get very angry or enraged, so letting go of anger is essential for my well-being and is relevant to the lives of millions, if not billions, of people around the world.
Anger is impermanent, like all facets of the human experience and consciousness.
Binaural beats, like the ones featured in my meditation playlists, are auditory illusions created when two different pure-tone sound waves, with frequencies lower than 1500 Hz, are presented to a listener, ideally through headphones.
According to Healthline and other sources, binaural beats in the alpha frequencies (8 to 13 Hz) encourage relaxation, promote positivity, and decrease anxiety.
Binaural beats in the lower beta frequencies (14 to 30 Hz) have been linked to increased concentration and alertness, problem-solving, and improved memory. The playlist featured herein features binaural beats within the range of 417 to 741 Hz.
