Putting Sanity Back into Your Wine Studies - A Guided Meditation Series

As the New Year starts, thousands of wine students are hitting the books in the pursuit of accreditations and achievements. For some it's a toe-dip for personal enjoyment, for others it's a life-long pursuit to understand every intricacy of the world of wine.

Either way, the overwhelm of balancing work with studies, and navigating "exam cram" while holding down a job or managing life's demands can stress even the calmest of students.

But help is at hand.

Thanks to the kind generosity of ABG Community leader, and award-winning Learning Designer and Wine Educator, Gill Gordon-Smith IWE, we are pleased to offer a short series of guided meditations using voice and breath to help calm the most frazzled of minds.

Here's the back story:

In 2021, Gill noticed that the stress levels in her WSET Wine Studies students were high, and much higher than pre-COVID. Lockdowns, forced online learning, and community isolation had taken its toll across the group.

One of Gill's wine students was Julie Sayasane - a meditation, yoga and Reiki instructor, so Gill commissioned Julie to record five guided meditations to help Julie and her classmates.

The recordings were well received by students, and for Gill, those same meditations also helped her own mindfulness practice and stress levels to balance her own demands of wine studies, managing a wine brand, and teaching.

So now thanks to Gill’s generosity, we can bring these meditations to our ABG community.

Each guided meditation is four to five minutes long and can be listened to either on the ABG website or downloaded to your personal audio device. The cost to you? Zero! Gill just asks the meditations are kept for personal use only and not reproduced in any manner for commercial use.

These meditations are now a central part of Gill's teaching toolbox, both in, and outside of the classroom: "I knew it was really important to provide this as a tool for learners to empower and focus attention during a very stressful time, but I have also found these tools useful in my everyday life."

We will be rolling out a new episode each week for the next five weeks, so follow us on Instagram @abalancedglass to spot the new episodes:

Episode 1: Do Your Best

A gentle reminder of how hard you're working and to give yourself a little grace.

Episode 2: Fear of Failure

Reframing our fear of failure can change our attitude towards it. 

Episode 3: Focus

Focus on how the breath moves through the body to help regain clarity.

Episode 4: Self Confidence

When anxiety or self-doubt kick in, let this meditation remind you what you need to succeed. 

Episode 5: Clearing the Mind

To press the reset button, all it may take is a guided five minutes of calm.

If you like what you hear, you can follow Julie on Instagram at @prem.yoga.and.wellbeing for more guided meditations and mindfulness updates. and if you want to send a thanks to Gill, you can find her at juice learning design and beverage education or on Instagram at @gillgordonsmith

PS - It's always great to be in the good graces of the teacher ;)