FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Meditation Studio Opens in Paia—To Help Handle Busy Lives and Emotional Ups and Downs
Maui Business Owners Find Meditation Practice Essential to Their Success
(April 29 2010, Paia, Hawaii)—Cheyenne Ehrlich began by teaching celebrities and Internet executives on how to access the benefits of meditation—and now he brings his transformative practice to Maui’s north shore. Paia Meditation, described by Cheyenne as a “yoga studio for your mind,” offers a peaceful space to develop a practice that is scientifically proven to reduce stress, increase brain function, lower blood pressure and more.
Located behind the Green Banana coffeehouse on the Hana Hwy, Paia Meditation has nonreligious daily meditation classes for both beginner and advanced students. Most exciting, they are offering a monthly workshop, “An Owner’s Manual for Your Mind,” designed to teach people how their mind works and help them understand how to live in a greater state of calm and ease.
Through his workshops, Cheyenne has already found a niche working with Maui business owners. Kristine Hoffman, owner and creator of Sailbags Maui, a company that makes eco-friendly beach bags sewn from 100% recycled kite sails, says, “Since beginning a meditation practice, communicating with clients and employees and the multitude of tiny tasks and decisions that constitute daily business life are approached with a refreshing sense of ease, acceptance and greater clarity.”
Hoffman states, “From the first session, there was a distinct positive shift in how I felt and how the rest of the day unfolded. I was more calm, more observant and, as a busy start-up entrepreneur, my list of "To Do's" seemed more doable and enjoyable as I began a day of organizing production. Now, when an unexpected situation pops up with my business I notice that I'm less reactive, both internally and with my external interactions with others.”
Billy Jalbert, a former Silicon Valley CEO and owner and principal broker of The Maui Real Estate Team, began working with Cheyenne after he found that as the success of his business grew, he was increasingly having trouble sleeping and letting go of his daily to-do list. “I attended a meditation workshop with Cheyenne, and I was able to better understand my thought process, allowing me to sleep through the night without letting my thoughts keep me awake. I find that meditation is providing me with "the owners manual" to my mind. Meditation is helping me teach my mind to work for me, rather than against me.”
Synneve Leake, founder and creator of Love Inside Out, an organic line of hair care products developed on Maui, also discovered how much of an impact Cheyenne’s meditation practice had on improving her clarity and creativity. “Paia Meditation really exposed me to the inner workings of my mind and helped me to discover how to quickly gain perspective especially when faced with making quick and difficult decisions.”
According to Cheyenne, “The overwhelming majority of your life is nothing more than you and your inner dialogue. Whatever you create for yourself in your life is simply you acting out what’s going on inside your mind. So it just makes sense that learning how to change your relationship to your inner dialogue can change every aspect of your life. That’s what we’re doing at Paia Meditation.”
Cheyenne has spent nearly 20 years studying and practicing meditation, including approximately seven years studying full-time in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He explains, “Truthfully, I think that I would be dead, in jail or in a mental institution if I had not found meditation. I was so caught up in the stories in my mind, that I couldn’t see the world around me. And what I see now is that, to a greater or lesser degree, everyone seems to be caught up in what’s going on in their head. At Paia Mediation, I’m lucky to have a venue to share my experience and the techniques and practices that I learned to help me get through this.”
Paia Meditation will be offering a workshop from May 14th-16th which will offer both beginners and advanced practitioners the tools to understand the core of how their mind works and see how their mental activity and reactions impact their daily life. Participants will learn how to calm their mind to reduce stress, insomnia, anxiety and when to let emotions and thoughts “float by.” If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity, call 808 264 6909 or email michelle@paiameditation.co
m to reserve your space. The Kama’aina rate is $250 and specific time are as follows: Friday, May 14th, 6:30-8:30 PM; Saturday, May 15th, 9-11 AM and 6:30-8:30 PM; Sunday, May 16th, 9-11 AM.
Along with the launch of Paia Meditation, Cheyenne hopes to work with community and nonprofit organizations to facilitate tailored meditation programs to meet the needs of individual groups. He is also offering kama ‘aina scholarships for those with limited funds.
Cheyenne Ehrlich was raised in a meditation center, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist centers in the U.S. He was exposed to meditation teachers, scholars and practitioners throughout his childhood. He graduated from Vassar College with a degree in computer science and for the past two decades has focused on incubating early stage Internet companies and studying and practicing meditation. He discovered first-hand how a strong meditation practice greatly influenced his success in business. Currently, he teaches meditation at Paia Meditation and online at www.LearnToSit.com.