From Aja's journal

Stories about rest, trust, and the moments and places that shape MeditationMinutes.

A starry night sky over dark, snow-capped mountain peaks

Ocean Drones for Sleep

Aja on the sleep track she built with no spoken guidance at all: slow drones layered over real ocean waves, meant to loop all night with the app's sleep timer, even in flight mode.

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A hand arranging flowers among memorial candles and bouquets left in tribute

Finding Your Way Through Grief

Aja on the weekend Norway lost King Harald V, the memories that came with it, and the 20-minute grief meditation she built around standing beneath a full moon.

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A grand gilded opera house seen from above, an orchestra on stage and the audience filling every balcony

A Note From Aja: The One to Listen to Before You Walk on Stage

Aja on the hypnotherapy meditation she built for performance anxiety, opening with Scarborough Fair on solo violin and closing with a bonus Dowland piece, and why it's meant to be repeated, not just played once.

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A ferris wheel and fairground rides silhouetted against a pink and orange sunset sky

Can Meditation Minutes Be an Immersive Experience?

An HBR article on immersive experiences gets Aja thinking about light shows, sound baths, and why that same wonder is already available to you, a few minutes at a time.

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A daisy seen from below against a pale blue sky

The 5-4-3-2-1 technique: a simple way back to the present moment

A fast, senses-based grounding exercise for the days there's no time for a full meditation, and the personal story behind why Aja still uses it.

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A starry night sky over dark mountain peaks, Orion rising above the ridgeline

You are already imagining. The question is what.

A psychologist's research on simulating, reconfiguring and transcending reality, why not everyone sees pictures, and the exercises behind Aja's goal-setting meditation, Imagine.

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A wooden mountain cabin at sunrise, above a sea of clouds

Opening Doors

On von Suppé's Poet and Peasant, the poet and the peasant we all carry within us, and Imagine, a goal-setting meditation built around its overture on solo violin.

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A hazy horizon where coral sky fades into a soft teal sea

AI brain fry? Here's a 10-minute reset.

What the research says about the mental fatigue of supervising AI tools, and the human-voiced soundscape Aja made to help you reset inside an ordinary workday.

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A quiet Norwegian mountain valley with snow and glacier at sunset

Healing is more than music

What the research on sound and healing actually says, and why Aja calls her tracks therapeutic soundscapes instead of meditations with music.

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The Confucius Temple, lit at dusk

The music that made Confucius forget the taste of food

An eighteenth-century ceremonial score, played exactly as written on solo violin, and the meditation Aja built from its six-part structure.

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A large flock of birds flying low against a sunset sky

What the birds were saying

Old weather-reading folklore, and what it teaches us about noticing our own early warning signs before the storm fully arrives.

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An old brick well at sunset in the countryside

Water and the courage to trust what you feel

What dowsing for water with a forked stick can teach us about trusting our own gut feelings, and what meditation actually does.

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Cows grazing on a hillside at sunset

What resting cows taught me about trust

An old farming belief about cattle and good ground, and what it has to do with meditation, trust, and finding your own way back to rest.

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The river at Brother Klaus's hermitage in Flüeli-Ranft, Switzerland

How I discovered Brother Klaus von Flüe — and why it changed my life

How a solo Easter trip to Switzerland led Aja to a 15th-century hermit's hermitage, and to recording The Healing Garden meditation.

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