When You're Stressed Out and Almost Broke, Turn to This Helpful Mindfulness Website

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Several years ago I felt like I’d hit the jackpot when I found the website DailyOM.com.

This is just an awesome website I want you to know about. I swear I’m not hawking QVC-style inspirational website content. I’m not an affiliate.

Back when I found this website, I didn’t have a lot of money for extras like exercise classes or inspirational courses. It was depressing. I was depressed in both the clinical and ho-hum sort of ways.

Stumbling on DailyOM felt like magic

DailyOM.com offers a plethora of classes for body, mind, and spirit. Their tagline is “Be happy.” The classes are sold on a sliding of scale of $15, $30, or $50. With online instructional and inspirational courses often costing $100-$500 DailyOM.com is a definite bargain. These are high-quality, curated courses. They explain their sliding scale as such:

We are offering this course with the option of selecting how much you want to pay. No matter how much you pay, you’ll be getting the same course as everybody else. We simply trust that people are honest and will support the author of the course with whatever they can afford. And if you are not 100% satisfied, we will refund your money.

This gem of a website has been around since 2004. I think I may have stumbled on it by clicking on a Madisyn Taylor article when I was feeling blue, but I don’t remember for sure.

DailyOM features a universal approach to holistic living for the mind, body, and spirit and supports people who want to live a conscious lifestyle.

DailyOM was founded in 2004 by Madisyn Taylor and Scott Blum, and was born out of their desire to bring the world together by offering messages of consciousness and awareness to people of all walks of life.

My DailyOM experience

On November 28, 2016, I signed up for Stephanie Bennett Vogt’s course “A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back!” (AYTC for short). It goes along with a companion Facebook group and Stephanie now has several books available for purchase.

I discussed it with my husband, and we decided we could justify $15 for a class. And, this class happened to be a year long — with a short lesson for 365 days. It felt like a bargain. And, it is. It was also a lot of hard, and worthy, work. I was happy DailyOM includes a free newsletter with purchase if you’re interested, usually written by Madisyn Taylor. There’s also an option to sign up for a free daily horoscope. If you’d rather not receive daily inspiration, there’s an option for weekly, or none at all.

AYTC is composed of bite-sized daily lessons on clearing space in your mind and environment for a less cluttered life experience. The unique angle on decluttering captured my interest. Stephanie Bennett Vogt and Marie Kondo remain at the top of my decluttering Guru list to this day.

When my year was up, I'd actually stuck to it and completed the course. The companion Facebook group helped keep me accountable and build camaraderie while completing it. I started browsing other courses.

DailyOM.com offers courses in subheadings:

• Self Improvement
• Healthy Living, Relationships
• Home and Garden, Spirituality
• Meditation and Relaxation
• Energy Work
• Manifesting and Money
• Art and Writing
• Motivational
• Healing
• Nature
• Healthy Living
• Religious Studies
• Inspirational

Over the last four years, I’ve purchased 10 courses

1. Tristan Gatto’s “14 Day Spinal Reset,” and “Overcoming Body Stiffness”
2. Gina Lake’s “60 Meditations For Greater Happiness”
3. Dudley and Dean Evenson’s “A Year of Guided Meditations”
4. Spencer Sherman and Brent Kessel’s “Heal Your Money Karma,”
5. Cynthia Kane’s “How to Communicate Like a Buddhist”
6. Jacqui Justice’s “Shedding Your Menopausal Middle in 10 Days”
7. Dan Millman’s “The 4-Minute Peaceful Warrior Workout”
8. Dina Proctor’s “Transform Your Life 3 Minutes at a Time”
9. Stephanie Bennett Vogt’s “A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back!”

How DailyOM has inspired me

After completing AYTC I was feeling frazzled in my parenting duties. I knew meditation would be beneficial for me but sitting for ten or twenty minutes felt akin to climbing Mount Everest. I wasn’t prepared and it wasn’t going to happen. When I found “Transform Your Life 3 Minutes at a Time” it was a huge moment of clarity for me. It saved my sanity when my children were younger.

This is a short course, with only three lessons of video and audio content. I easily navigated the course. I could sit in a parking lot, while waiting to pick up the kids, and close my eyes to listen to a 3-minute guided meditation. This was another win for me and DailyOM. Dina even touched on something I hadn’t heard of before — intuitive eating — which has come in handy for me ever since learning about it.

I’ve partially completed some of the meditation sections of the courses I’ve bought as well as some of the exercise courses.

“A Year of Guided Meditations” consists of short spoken meditations that can be listened to while watching a video of soothing nature imagery. For people who have trouble “emptying their minds” and keeping eyes closed, this is a great alternate choice.

“Healing Your Money Karma” is on my course to-do list this autumn/winter.

That’s one thing I love about DailyOM. The courses are around forever and students get to go at our own pace. I appreciate that I can come and go to these at my leisure.

A sampling of instructors

Dan Millman is a former world champion athlete who teaches a very gentle and intuitive form of stretching. I deal with chronic pain and stiffness at age 42 and his peaceful approach to exercise, also in tiny bite-sized chunks at 4 minutes at a time helped me feel so much better within my body. I’m planning to revisit his course this autumn.

Tristan Gatto is a Physical Therapist Assistant and Yoga Trainer. He bubbles with gentle enthusiasm and reassures his students that we are good enough. His video courses are some of the most enjoyable exercise courses I’ve ever tried. I’ll admit I have limited experience here though.

Takeaway

From time to time I’ll see a post on Facebook from a friend who expresses they’re feeling down in the dumps, they need some inspiration, and they don’t have any/much money to spare. DailyOM.com always comes to mind.

Although it has been running since 2004, I’m not sure how well-known it is. My circle of friends and acquaintances usually haven't heard of it.

My one main gripe about DailyOM.com is there’s not a feature for online journaling. Many of the course creators recommend keeping a journal. I don’t have a printer to print out their pages and I’d rather type than handwrite. This is minor in the overall scheme of things.

DailyOM features a treasure trove of courses and I’m thankful for the serendipity of finding it several years ago.

If you find yourself looking for inspiration at an affordable price, I highly recommend taking a look through DailyOM.com’s offerings.

It's likely you'll be pleasantly surprised that there are resonant courses waiting there for you, too.

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A previous version of this essay appears in Age of Empathy