Launch HN: Chorus Meditation (YC W21) – Meditation for Non-Meditators

Wow oh my gosh! Michelle is that you? Thank you SO much for sharing your experience using Chorus. Being a former fellow Twillion myself it means so much to me to get to share it with the Twilio community.

So great! How was your experience using gyrosco.pe? Would love to learn what you loved / didn't love! And yes, only $40 for ours!

We can't wait to have you! If you have any questions or we can be helpful - just let us know!

I love that you are digging even deeper on the problem! We say it is to “reduce stress”, but that is because that’s a simplified catchall that many people can relate to. You are totally right that stress a symptom. The real underlying cause is lack of awareness and peace within one's own self - the ability to separate from feelings of stress or overwhelm and not let them define you, but look at them more objectively and no longer have upsetting things ruin your day for example. The music has very strong BEATS, which give the mind something EVEN more concrete to focus on (the beat, the breathing pattern, and the teachers voice all serve as the object of attention, like a mantra) - so even though its loud, it does in fact make it easier to cultivate focus for people who find traditional objects of focus (e.g. "following the feeling of the breath") hard to anchor attention on. For anyone who finds silent meditation effective, we are so happy for them and they don't really need our new approach. What we are trying to do is create a new experience that resonates with people who are more drawn to upbeat styles so we can help more people unlock more peace and happiness.

You folks seem upbeat and sincere, so it pains me to tell you this, but having looked into your site I believe you're being irresponsible (that's the nicest way I can say it.)

Yours is not the first crew to do this. It's got a bit of a long history here in the SF Bay Area, going back at least to Leonard Orr in the 1970's, who believed he was on the trail of physical immortality.[1]

I was looking up Grof's "Holotropic" breathing, but WP now just redirects to "Breathwork" which actually lists the big names, including W. Reich and Orr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathwork

(It's written by skeptics with the usual obvious BS: E.g.

> Derived from various spiritual and pre-scientific traditions from around the world, it was pioneered in the West by Wilhelm Reich.

Reich didn't derive anything from any "spiritual and pre-scientific traditions". He was a scientific genius, one of Freud's contemporaries before he was driven out of Vienna for saying folks would be less uptight if they had healthier sex lives. His discoveries around what he called "Character Armor" have yet to be appreciated in mainstream psychology. He is one of the few Western researchers to independently discover "Chi" energy. He did some amazing research and then went insane, died in prison, and had his papers burned by the FDA. True story.)

Anyway, y'all are just "selling air": teaching folks to hyperventilate, to pop music, in their own homes, where they are on their own if any adverse effect occur, and then you use that as a convincer to get people to give you $40/mo.

I have to side with the skeptics here: you don't know what you're doing, the breathing techniques you appear to be teaching can have adverse side effects, you're misrepresenting it as some sort of intro meditation for beginners (the very people who need MORE individual time and attention from their Guru) which it is not, and you are putting yourselves in the position of Guru without taking on the responsibility or having the qualifications (by your own admission.)

This is all bad, and you should probably stop.

[1] He used to say, "Physical immortality: the only cause you can't die for!" and "I made my first million dollars selling air." For more about Orr and his "Rebirthing" breathwork see: => https://ibfbreathwork.org/7715/ "Tribute to Leonard Orr"