Mindful Magazine June 2020 - Discover Your Inner Peace

SHARON SALZBERG deepen your love and compassion

LOVING KINDNESS

why being kind matters most of all

Not able to get out?

LET’S BRING THE FEELING OF COMMUNITY IN.

Every Tuesday from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. ET, and every Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. ET, we’ll be getting our minds limbered up for the day with short bursts of mindfulness instruction, followed by mini meditations, all featuring our team of expert instructors.

We’re calling it our coffee-house in the cloud a way to build community, feel connected, and get centered.

For information on how to access this series, visit us at: harvardpilgrim.org/mindfulness

And if that timing doesn’t fit your schedule, check out the back episodes available on our YouTube page.

Looking for even more on demand offerings? Go to our Soundcloud page for an archive of our guided meditations.

Like what we’re doing? Give us a shout on Facebook. Or drop us a line at mindthemoment@harvardpilgrim.org We’d love to hear about how you’re doing, and keeping up the feeling of connection with yourself, and others.

mindthemoment@harvardpilgrim.org • www.harvardpilgrim.org/mindfulness

facebook.com/mindthemoment @mind_the_moment soundcloud.com/mindthemoment youtube.com/mindthemoment

In times of uncertainty, Mind the Moment is here, with new offerings designed especially for the public.

To help navigate these difficult days, check out mindful.org/covid to access a collection of free resources curated to help you tap into community, connection, and love.

With Love for All

While we were finalizing this issue—with Mindful staffers working from home, COVID-19 updates on the news— what kept running through my mind was the depth of our interconnectedness.

That’s such a far cry from the rugged individualism many of us grew up with. In high school, I remember reading Emerson’s essay “On Self-Reliance” with delight. Its quintessentially American view on how to live—avoid conformity, trust your own truth—combined with Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and I was raring to seek adventures wherever my heart led.

Go west, young man!

And I did.

But now, that bold individualism doesn’t feel so alluring. What’s calling now—individually, collectively—is banding together to support one another, to bring kindness where there is pain, generosity where there is need, vulnerability where there is hardness, all softened, smoothed, and strengthened by love, the loving-kindness of interconnection.

Indeed, loving-kindness seems so much wiser, like the grown-up elder who welcomes the young hero from his or her adventures back into the fold and the mature love of community. And loving-kindness seems vital to pull us through this global pandemic. From the heroism of healthcare workers, and many others on the front lines; to the ingenuity of artists, teachers, and innovators finding ways online to lift spirits and ease fears; to communities, neighbors, and families all pitching in and pulling together.

We are all in this together and together we will find our way out.

With that in mind, we’ve dedicated space in the issue to understanding and cultivating loving-kindness with the luminescently inspiring Sharon Salzberg as our guide. Sharon shares her journey to loving-kindness, defining its relevance, and a beautiful vision: “I believe in the possibility of a world where our interconnection is a deeply known and motivating force, where no one is left out…where change might be hard, but is always seen as possible, however stuck we might feel in any given moment.”

As COVID-19 encircles the globe, drawing us closer together even as we need to be apart, I hope you too create—and feel—waves of loving-kindness, supporting, healing, and carrying you forward.

With love,

Anne Alexander is a longtime meditator, yogi, and editor. She is the author of two New York Times best sellers.

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE DIANI

MOMENTS of Meaning

From brewing a morning drink to reading a bedtime story, our personal rituals are like friends, giving us purpose, stability, and flow through the day—even in tumultuous times. How do rituals show up in your life?

How are your everyday rituals helpful to you right now?

“Starting with something familiar helps me cope with the many uncertainties of these times.”

@BOARD_2_BOX

“We play hide-andseek as a family each night. It gives us a time to laugh and connect.”

@VTCONDON

“They’re important to measure time.”

@JARVEVA

“They help me stay on track with selfcare, so I can better support myself and others.”

@JOANNAZAKANY

day.”

“They provide a sense of calm in the storm.”

@MASLOW40

“My rituals—I have a coffee, go for a run, read my kids stories—give me a sense of flow in the day.”

@SAWHITE1987

IN YOUR WORDS

Do you most often do rituals with others, or by yourself?

• With others: 5%

• By myself: 62%

• It depends: 33%

What are some rituals you engage in regularly?

• “Smelling coffee brewing. Walking the dog. Sitting in meditation.”

• “Deep breathing, counting my blessings, and chatting with my kids.”

with any type of exercise.”

• “Sewing gifts for friends and family.”

• “Starting the day with a warm water and ginger drink.”

What ritual connects you to your inner power?

“Deep breathing and listening to a guided meditation. And, of course, reading Mindful!”

ANTHONY KINGSTON, ON

“While getting dressed, I read three affirmation books. I’ve been rereading one of the books for over 20 years! Each daily reading gives me something different each time.”

PATRICIA BRONX, NY

“I go for a walk on the forest trails and stop every so often to do part of a sun salutation. Inhaling and feeling grateful, exhaling feeling grounded and connected.”

ELAINE DENBIGH, ON

“They’re definitely useful for reconnecting with ourselves.”

@MINNIE_BLUELOVER

“They help me stay on track, continue to improve myself, and get my goals completed.”

@HEYEIAN

“They help me to be still in tune with everyday life.”

@MAYASQUILLA

• “Sharing daily appreciations with my husband every night before we go to sleep.”

• “Daily meditation and sweat

• “Stretching in the early morning, then writing my to-do list.”

• “Family dinner most nights, my healing group, and exercise.”

Does your favorite ritual energize you, or help you find calm?

• Energize: 20%

• Calm: 80%

“I try to listen and empathize with people I interact with on a daily basis. It helps me in realizing there is so much joy, laughter, pain, and other emotions people are dealing with from day to day, yet keeping their smile on.”

SHAIFALI STAMFORD, CT

Next Question

What always awakens your feelings of gratitude?

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“FaceTiming with people who are important to me fills me up with hope each

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THE FOUNDATION FOR A MINDFUL SOCIETY

Mindful is published by the Foundation for a Mindful Society. The Foundation’s mission is to support mindfulness champions to increase health, well-being, kindness, and compassion in society.

Did you know Mindful is a nonprofit? We are dedicated to inspiring and guiding anyone who wants to explore mindfulness to enjoy better health, more caring relationships, and a more compassionate society.

and

it with others, you’re helping to bring mindfulness practices into the world where the benefits can be enjoyed by all.

slated to premiere in North American cinemas, but screening plans were scuttled by the COVID19 pandemic. Undaunted, Beemer and team have made The Mindfulness Movement available worldwide to rent or buy at themindfulnessmovement.com.

A FRESH TAKE ON MEDITATION

TOP OF mind

Keep up with the latest in the world of mindfulness.

MEDITATION AT THE MOVIES

Mindfulness and meditation can be found from schools to boardrooms to prisons—and now streaming in your

very own home theater. Written and directed by Rob Beemer, The Mindfulness Movement explores why a growing number of people are practicing mindfulness,

and looks at the benefits of meditation. The documentary film features the Mindful staff at work, interviews with executive producers Jewel and Deepak Chopra, as well as Sharon Salzberg, Dan Harris, Congressman Tim Ryan, Richard Davidson, Daniel Goleman, Diana Winston, George

Mumford, and more. Each of their stories sheds light on why the practice is spreading so quickly and how the shift toward mindfulness is shaping a happier, healthier society.

“Mindfulness is one of those things that you just want to share,” Beemer told Mindful

“Oftentimes you enter it perhaps

because you’re in pain or because you want relief from maybe stress or whatever. And then as soon as you start to see the benefits, it’s so easy to share and the desire is there to share. And it’s just utterly transportable. It’s free. Everybody can do it. It’s secular.

The fact is that it all just makes a better society. I think that it brings out the good in so many people.” The doc also includes two opportunities for audiences to practice while watching. It was

If you thought combining freestyle verse, rhythmic beats, and mindfulness was impossible, prepare to believe otherwise.

Toni Blackman, Hip-Hop Cultural Ambassador to the US Department of State and mindfulness teacher, leads Freestyle Union Cypher Workshops—freestyle rapping in a group setting—that serve as a therapeutic way to let people work through their emotions and exchange ideas. People are encouraged to express themselves to the rhythm of a beat. Blackman led a workshop for Black History Month, and has applied the

concept to MBA programs, business and nonprofit teams, and school faculties. Blackman’s own work includes a hip-hop meditation mixtape Believe: Meditation Mixtape featuring rap tracks and guided meditations that promote self-respect and assurance. Blackman’s forthcoming mixtape is titled Clear Your Mind: A Meditation Mixtape

THE ART OF MINDFULNESS

Does your mindfulness practice include drawing yourself as a tree or painting how music makes you feel? It can be a lot of fun, especially for kids. Teaching mindfulness to children can be challenging if they

ACTS OF kindness

SUNSHINE THERAPY

haven’t developed the attention skills required of a traditional practice. A new holistic art-based program at Laurentian University aims to overcome that by using visual arts to teach kids who are dealing with social exclusion and circumstances related to poverty strategies

to improve focus, strengthen peer relationships, and identify feelings.

MEDITATION IS HARD!

Ah, Barbie! The plastic icon who used to represent little beyond a passion for fashion is now on a selfcare kick. Mattel released a line of Wellness Dolls with themes of relaxation, spa time, fitness—and meditation. Breathe With Me Barbie comes in light or dark skin tones, and she offers calming phrases such as “Repeat after me: I am strong. I am loved.” (Stay tuned for a Mattel–Headspace collab on a meditation playlist for Barbie’s fans.)

A photo shared by China Daily—and internationally on social media— shows a simple act of kindness in Wuhan, where Dr. Liu Kai wheeled an 87-year-old man with COVID19 outside to see the sunset. “The elderly man had been stuck in the isolation ward for nearly a month. I thought the rays of the sun might cheer him up,” said Dr. Liu.

KID STUFF

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg held a special press conference recently, taking questions from kids, and kids only, about COVID-19.

“How can I help?” and “How long does it take to make a vaccine?” were among the queries. Prime Minister Solberg’s main message resonates with young and old alike: “It is OK to be scared when so many things happen at the same time.”

CELLO, NEIGHBOR!

Cello-playing siblings Taran, six, and Calliope, nine, in Ohio, gave neighbor Helen Schlam a private porch concert, while 78-yearold Schlam was self-isolated due to COVID-19. The siblings dressed up for the occasion, and Schlam told CBS the music made her feel “sort of like a little kid.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL SCHLUDI

PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTEL, TINA FLOERSCH / UNSPLASH

Research News

by B. GRACE BULLOCK

PROTECTING SOLDIERS’ BRAINS

Active-duty soldiers face mental and emotional challenges that diminish attention and memory. New research by MindfulnessBased Attention Training (MBAT) codevelopers Dr. Amishi Jha and Scott Rogers finds that mindfulness instruction may lessen cognitive decline due to mental and emotional stress. MBAT combines mindfulness principles and practices with skills relevant to soldiers, aiming to reduce stress and build resilience.

Before the study, professional military trainers completed a 12-week MBAT training practicum and eight weeks of training to teach MBAT to soldiers. Mindfulness trainers who had not worked with soldiers also completed the practicum. Next, 180 healthy, active-duty, male army volunteers received MBAT instruction from either a military trainer or a mindfulness trainer, via weekly two-hour instruction and daily audioguided sessions over four weeks, on themes of concentration, body awareness, open monitoring, and connection. Soldiers in a control group received no mindfulness training. Both at study’s end

and four weeks later, the military trainer group showed the smallest decline in attention and memory. They also spent more time meditating on their own, suggesting that training tailored to their needs may be most effective in preventing stressrelated cognitive decline.

firefighters were assigned to an MBAT group, a relaxation training group, or a no-treatment control group. As in the study with soldiers, MBAT participants received formal mindfulness instruction on concentration, body awareness, open monitoring, and connection, along with eight audio-guided practices, and were asked to

in the MBAT group reported greater increases in psychological resilience than the others. Also, the more time firefighters spent practicing mindfulness at home, the more likely they were to increase their attention and positive mood. Results suggest that mindfulness may help first responders cope with high-intensity job demands.

IMPROVING STRESS RESILIENCE

More on the benefits of MBAT: a four-week Mindfulness-Based Attention Training program may bolster firefighters’ attention, mood, and stress resilience. In a new study, 121

complete at least one per day. The relaxation program used guided imagery, breathing exercises, and progressive muscle relaxation, plus audio practices. Before and after training, all participants completed an attention test and answered questions about their mood and psychological resilience. Those

TAKING MINDFULNESS OUTDOORS

A new research review finds that combining time outdoors with mindfulness may be more beneficial than one or the other. Researchers examined 25 existing studies of nature-based mindfulness programs. Interventions ranged from 15 minutes

to 90 days. Outdoor spaces ranged from small gardens to large wilderness areas. Results showed that practicing mindfulness in natural settings generally yielded positive effects. Programs that occurred in the wild, and those that used informal mindfulness practices (like open awareness), tended to be linked to better outcomes than those requiring formal meditation, as were those that focused on producing a mindful state, rather than building a mindful disposition. Authors believe “the experience of the natural environment, which is so fascinating that it calls for soft attention, thereby allowing disengagement” may explain the benefits of practicing outdoors. They also suggest that being in nature may lessen our mind’s tendency to wander, allowing us to better remain in the present.

Research gathered from University of Miami; California State University; Kennesaw State University; and University of Copenhagen.

Being in nature may lessen our mind’s tendency to wander, allowing us to better remain in the present.

Mindfully EVER AFTER

A growing number of books for kids explore mindfulness themes like focusing on the breath, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. Here are three new books worthy of your library.

The Real Me

This picture book, written by a sixyear-old from Blakely, Georgia, is about accepting yourself, flaws and all. Br’yonna Sealy wrote it because she wanted “all the little girls in the world,” as the book’s dedication has it, to know that they’re beautiful. Additionally, the first-grader wanted to help people living without homes, so a portion of the proceeds from the book will go to her local church’s food pantry—and guests at her book launch were asked to bring non-perishable goods for donation.

Her Body Can

This book bills itself as the first bodypositive book for kids. Its authors, a pair of moms from Atlanta, wanted to offer young readers a book full of true diversity. The illustrations depict kids of all races, abilities, and sizes, and the book’s message is that our bodies are amazing just as they are, no matter what.

The Breathing Book

Chris Willard and Olivia Weisser’s latest book for kids takes an active, hands-on approach to mindfulness. The Breathing Book is packed with practices and activities that bring the book’s message to life, inviting young readers to notice sights, sounds, and sensations that arise as they explore the practices in its pages.

what to do when THOUGHTS ARISE

QSometimes when I’m meditating a thought arises that feels really important. What should I do about important thoughts and ideas that arise when I’m meditating—and what about the irrelevant ones?

AThe essential attitude of a meditator is curiosity. Meditation gives us an opportunity to look at what our minds do when we’re paying attention to them. And what the mind often does is wander off. Try to integrate an attitude of playfulness into your practice. Your practice doesn’t need to be rigid and strict— there can be spontaneity and flexibility. So, your mind wanders. See the thought, touch it—say here’s the thought, spend a moment with it. If it’s important, note that you want to come back to it—feel free to say, in your mind, that’s an

important thought, want to remember it. If it’s irrelevant, note that it’s irrelevant. Either way, very gently bring your attention back to your breath. Gentleness is important here, because what we practice and repeat over time becomes a habit. Consider this: What would the days, weeks, and months ahead be like if you were gentle with yourself? What would be different? When your mind wanders off and you quickly yank it back, it’s worthwhile to go back and say what was that thought again? Take note of it, and practice more gently bringing your attention back.

CONNECT WITH A MINDFULNESS TEACHER

To help you sort through the ever-expanding meditation space and find the right mindfulness teacher for your needs, the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, in partnership with Mindful, is launching a directory. The UK team crafted guidelines that help identify ways mindfulness teachers are credentialed as well as their areas of expertise. This new platform aims to connect mindfulness teachers and students, creating communities of care across the globe. If you’re a mindfulness teacher (or you know a great one) you can sign up and create a teacher profile so people can find you and you can help support their practice.

Elisha Goldstein is a psychologist, cofounder of the Center for Mindful Living in Los Angeles, and creator of the online mentorship program “A Course in Mindful Living.” His course “How To Meditate” can be found at mindful.org/ how-to-course

PHOTOGRAPH BY BRINA BLUM / UNSPLASH PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ELISHA GOLDSTEIN, ILLUSTRATION BY IRACOSMA / ADOBE STOCK

On her blog Children’s Happy Days, Karina invites children around the world to write to her about what gives them joy. She translates and publishes each letter online as a reminder that happiness comes from “our family and friends, enough time, doing the things you love, and seeing the magic in this world.”

MINDFUL OR MINDLESS?

Our take on who’s paying attention and who’s not

by AMBER TUCKER

In Asheville, NC, news anchor Justin Hinton was reporting via Facebook on the first big snowfall—but didn’t know he’d activated “Mystery Mask,” a series of goofy augmented-reality filters. He appeared in a Cats headpiece, a wizard hat, and a neon-pink moustache, to name just a few.

Germany just got greener: The country is converting 62 of its disused military bases into nature reserves, expanding the European Green Belt and protecting countless creatures. The total protected area will be larger than 40,000 football fields.

Guardian Media Group announced it will no longer accept advertising from fossil fuel extraction companies on any of its web or print publications. The group is on a roll: Five years ago, GMG was also the largest fund to divest from fossil fuels.

Members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice spoke up, urging the tech giant to scale back its carbon footprint, which rivals that of Switzerland or Denmark. Three of the workers claim Amazon responded by threatening to fire them.

What’s even less mindful than texting while driving? On social app TikTok, drivers try the popular “cha-cha slide challenge”: swerving all over the road, in time with the D.J. Casper track.

Please just don’t. ●

MINDFUL MINDLESS

The Gift of READING OUT LOUD

Reading used to be a social activity, not something we did silently to ourselves. For thousands of years, we shared the news of the day around a crowded dinner table or a bar, and stories were told aloud after tea and chores. Perhaps now is a good time to revive the art of reading aloud as a form of connection and community. Interestingly, perhaps because of the vast span of historical time when reading also meant experiencing sound, even when we are reading silently to ourselves it turns out we’re

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather Shayne Blakeslee is the founder of Red Pen Arts and publisher of Root Quarterly in Philadelphia.

How Reading Aloud Can Be a Mindfulness Practice

other by reclaiming our roots as storytellers.

still “hearing.” When we’re settled into our favorite book, or armed with our paper on the train (indeed, as you’re reading these words to yourself right now), auditory processing areas light up in our brains.

Today, it’s not unusual to attend a mindfulness retreat and hear someone read a passage aloud. Reading aloud and listening to someone read aloud can be a great way to tune in to the present moment and bring our mindfulness practice to life. And while there’s also evidence that reading aloud can improve comprehension and memory, it is simply a wonderful opportunity to be present with friends and family.

Elaine Smookler, a performer, singer, psychotherapist, and mind-

fulness teacher (and regular Mindful columnist), suggests that to use reading aloud as a kind of mindfulness practice, we should remember that mindfulness is about awakening to the moment.

“Mindfulness is about engagement,” says Smookler. If we’re reading but not necessarily connecting with the other person, or we’re trying to make ourselves sound a certain way, we can easily slip into automatic pilot. “But, if we can courageously stand on the precipice of opening up a book, take a few breaths, and enter into sharing with another person—staying close to the intention of being present—reading aloud can be a powerful instrument of connection.”

By Heather Shayne Blakeslee

Start Small

Consider reading aloud an engaging alternative to zoning out with Netflix. Here are a few ways you can incorporate mindful reading into your mindfulness practice. to allow ourselves to be surprised and shaken out of the routine of our own habits of mind. “So, if we are engaged, we might read it one way today and another way tomorrow. If we’re reading the same way every day then we’ve already lost track of the intention of mindfulness, which is to be present in the moment,” says Smookler.

Just as you start meditating in shorter bouts that became longer over time, give yourself permission here to do the same. Books of short fiction, poetry, and essays are great for reading aloud. You might start with a two-person reading practice, one-on-one with a partner. Depending on the person, it could be a lovely nighttime wind-down ritual. Take turns reading, so that you can spend time with the intimate experience of being read to as well as the way that reading the words out loud makes you feel and see images differently.

Play, Don’t Rush

Surprise Yourself

Remember that the idea is to be engaged in the moment,

The goal is not to get to the end of the story but to experience it fully. Feel the way your breath shapes the words. Don’t be afraid to laugh; don’t be afraid to weep; to stop and ask questions, and to say, “Again!” as a child would after their favorite story ends for yet another time, only a moment later to begin anew. Smookler suggests that no matter how you approach it, don’t let it be about falling in love with the sound of your voice, or negatively judging how you sound, even if it’s a “squeak.” →

Connecting with each

Encourage Others

In our modern book clubs, we all commit to reading the same book together—yet we do the reading part alone. If you’re already part of a book club, you might suggest reading the first few chapters of the next book together, even if you meet virtually. Encourage people to take notes about their favorite passages or ideas as someone reads, or to close their eyes and simply take it in. When the chapter is over, if you’ve found a particularly beautiful or insightful line, have someone repeat it and then have a silent meditation for two minutes to reflect. Then share.

the voice and mind of a beloved author, rather than scrolling through social media feeds. Pick a favorite book, a favorite speech, monologue, lesson, essay, or poem. Can you feel the voice of the author or character as you read aloud? Does it help you connect to them in a different way?

Read Aloud Alone

Reading aloud can also be a way to spend some quality time alone connecting with

Memorize a Favorite Poem or Prose Passage

Embodying a piece of writing, out loud, without reading, offers a unique way to connect with the present moment. Once memorized, those words will always be with you, just like your breath is. ●

Caring for Your AMAZING BRAIN

1 Move It!

Research in the last 10 years has made it abundantly clear—we need to move our bodies not just for the health of our heart, lungs, muscles, and joints, but also for the health of our brain. One of the best things you can do for your physical brain is to break a sweat with aerobic exercise.

The human brain is the most dazzlingly complex entity in the entire known universe: 80 billion brain cells, with additional neural cells throughout the body. Each neuron connects across synaptic gaps to thousands of other neurons, resulting in trillions of connections responsible for all of the brain’s internal communications and processing and all of our external behaviors and creations. Neuroscientists are beginning to map those connections, drawing the brain’s neural “connectome,” much as molecular biologists have mapped the human genome. There are as many neuronal connections in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Contemplating the brain boggles the mind.

Protecting and nurturing the functioning of your brain is important for your long-term health and well-being. You can make lifestyle choices that protect, exercise, and strengthen the physical brain, which in turn supports the complexity of all of your emotional, relational, and cognitive functioning.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Graham, MFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and mindful selfcompassion teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also the author of Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster (New World Library, 2018).

Vigorous exercise makes your brain release brainderived neurotropic factor (BDNF). This is the hormonal growth factor that causes your brain to grow new neurons, particularly in the hippocampus, the structure of the brain that consolidates learning from new experiences into long-term memory. BDNF also stimulates those new neurons to increase the length, density, and complexity of their dendrites (the extensions of the neurons that receive input from other neurons), creating “thicker,” more complex networks in the brain. In addition, BDNF speeds the maturation of new neurons into fully functioning brain cells. This protects related structures, like the prefrontal cortex, from brain atrophy and cognitive decline. Exercise makes you smarter. It can help you think more clearly well into old age. Exercise can even help reverse memory decline as you age.

Regular exercise also stimulates the heart to pump more blood to the brain, increasing the flow of oxygen and glucose in the brain that fuels all of the brain’s activity. Furthermore, exercise causes →

By Linda Graham

Exercise makes you smarter. It can help you think more clearly well into old age. Exercise can even help reverse memory decline as you age.

Making smart lifestyle choices now will support the health of your brain for years to come.

BY ADDICTIVE CREATIVES / STOCKSY

the release of essential neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine that stimulate various types of brain activity; endorphins that make you feel; and acetylcholine, which increases alertness. Because of these effects, exercise has been shown to be as effective an antidepressant as Prozac in head-to-head clinical trials.

Exercise regenerates our telomeres, the protective protein sheaths at the ends of our chromosomes, likened to the plastic caps on the ends of our shoelaces that keep the laces from unraveling. Because telomeres keep our chromosomes from unraveling as they replicate, protecting our telomeres prevents copying errors in our DNA and extends our span of healthy life. Exercise also

especially calming effect on your nervous system while nourishing your brain. Exercising with others— dancing, tennis, basketball, and volleyball—activates your social engagement system, creating a sense of safety in the brain and priming its neuroplasticity. Activities like these also engage the dopamine pathway of pleasure and reward in the lower brain that keeps you motivated. Mix it up to keep your exercise routine interesting. Recruit a buddy or join a good gym to expand your options and enhance your motivation.

2 Aim for Deep Sleep

extends our span of healthy life because it acts as an anti-inflammatory, reducing the underlying causes of many systemic diseases and delaying the onset of degenerative diseases. The body needs to move for about 30 minutes for the brain to release feel-good endorphins. Three times a week is good enough. Five times a week is great. Little and often applies here, too: moderate exercise over several days is more effective (and safer) than a big workout once a week.

Activities like running, vigorous walking, bicycling, swimming, and using the stair climber at the gym are bilateral movements (moving the two sides of the body alternately, thus stimulating the two hemispheres of your brain alternately) and have an

Enough sleep, and deep sleep, is essential to brain and body health. Many of us routinely don’t get enough sleep; our lives are too busy, too stressed. Young people especially don’t get enough sleep. Teenagers may get five to six hours of sleep a night at a stage of development when their brains need eight or nine hours to finish growing.

Lack of sleep affects your metabolism, immune system, and genetic health — and especially brain health. If you get only five to six hours of sleep every night for a week, you likely have the same level of cognitive impairment as if you were legally drunk.

While you are sleeping, doing “nothing,” the brain is doing vital tasks:

• Consolidating learning

and memories from the day and storing that learning in long-term memory. Sleep optimizes cognitive functioning, restoring your ability to process information and retrieve information quickly when you are awake.

• Restoring the equilibrium of the nervous system. Sleep absorbs the stress hormone cortisol. REM sleep is the only time the brain is clear of norepinephrine (adrenaline), processing memories of the day but without emotional charge. There’s less anxiety in the morning.

• Regular housekeeping, cleaning out dead and atrophied neurons.

• Allowing the prefrontal cortex to rest from its executive functioning and from controlling your impulses, making it better able to function again the next day. Sleep researchers have long known about the brain’s two main forms of normal sleep. The first one, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is a slight activation of the sympathetic nervous system. We dream during REM sleep (nightmares result from too much activation). The second one, slow-wave sleep, is a deeper, nondream sleep, an activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Through imaging technologies used in sleep study labs, scientists have discovered that the brain has a third form of sleep. If your brain gets overtired during the day, it will shut itself down for a fraction of a second—a break so short you don’t notice it—and then turns itself back on so that you keep functioning.

3 Eat a Mind Diet

You truly are what you eat. Everything that nourishes the body and the brain comes from the food you eat and drink. The bottom line about a diet good for the brain comes from Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Researchers have identified foods that promote good brain health. The MIND diet (standing for Mediterranean Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) is a good example, recommended to help prevent, reduce, and reverse cognitive impairment from aging and dementia. It includes lots of vegetables, dark leafy greens, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, and olive oil. The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and some nuts and seeds are particularly important nutrients for the brain.

4 Build Your Brain Cell Reserve

The brain learns and rewires itself from experience all the time. The more complex the experience or the learning, the more integrated the functioning of the brain, because more of our senses and regions of our brain are engaged in taking in the new →

Curiosity can be an important part of creativity—following one idea, one turn in the road after another, with openminded interest.

information and processing it. That work of integration and complexity, which harnesses the brain’s neuroplasticity, is a protection against brain atrophy—losing brain cells as we age. It’s called building cognitive reserve. You did that when you were younger by going to college or mastering a craft. By keeping your brain active, you have more brain cells in the bank, so to speak, to buffer the loss of brain cells that comes naturally with aging. To create a surplus of gray matter, try learning:

• to play a musical instrument

• to speak a foreign language

• to play a complex game like chess or go

• your way around a new city

• your way around a new relationship

• your way around a new service activity in the community

All of these examples involve procedural learning: The brain is learning how to do something and processing that experience, not just memorizing new facts. The more complicated the learning, the better.

5 Get Creative, Be Curious

Any creative endeavor— stream-of-consciousness journaling, process painting, mixing ingredients together without a recipe, making up a new game with your children—pushes the functioning of the brain into new territory

and puts the brain in a state of flow. That puts new brain cells to good use. Curiosity can be an important part of creativity—following one idea, one turn in the road after another, with open-minded interest and without preconceptions or judgment. Curiosity is a great spur to creativity. Children tend to approach their world with uninhibited curiosity and wonder at the most ordinary rainstorm or bug.

6 Laugh Out Loud

Many people think of laughter as an emotion, or something akin to one. Not so. Laughter is a physiological mechanism that reduces stress in the body and the brain. Laughter releases catecholamines, dopamine, and norepinephrine—neurotransmitters that make the brain feel sharper and brighter. Laughter is often a good way of breaking the ice and bonding with people,

and bonding with people is supergood for the brain. Play—encountering or creating new situations, dropping into the defaultmode network in the brain, making up new rules, new characters, or new worlds— gives the brain a good workout. Play often also engenders laughter, a sense of connection with other people or things in our world, and a sense of relaxation and ease. All of those are good for the brain, too. We can be so busy and pressured that we forget to laugh and play, and then we forget how to. If you experienced a lot of trauma in your early life, you may never have learned how to safely laugh and play. This capacity is fully recoverable with practice.

7 Hang Out with Healthy Brains

Focus on the power of social interactions with people, casual as well as intimate, to foster brain health and psychological health. We continue to evolve as we mature and move through life in new ways. Sometimes we coevolve with others,

and marriages, friendships, business partnerships, social groups stay intact and flourish. Sometimes shared interests and life paths diverge, and we find ourselves drifting out of touch with people who were once close and significant to us. Sometimes in our own maturing and healing we are no longer as tolerant as we once were of hanging out with unhealthy brains.

8 Turn Off Technology

Researchers are documenting our rapidly escalating overuse of digital devices and identifying the increasingly serious effects on our brains, our relationship, and our resilience—especially the effects on young, still-developing brains. In a world where you brain is constantly bombarded with emails, texts, tweets, and posts, one of the best things you can do for it is to let it rest. Rest from long periods of energy-consuming focused attention and the overstimulation of incessant incoming messages that can negatively affect several essential capacities of your brain. ●

Excerpted from the book Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster. Copyright ©2018 by Linda Graham. Printed with permission from New World Library.  www.newworldlibrary.com

Laughter is often a good way of breaking the ice and bonding with people, and bonding with people is supergood for the brain.

How Can I Mend My BROKEN HEART

My heart felt as if it were being squeezed through a meat grinder. I couldn’t stop sobbing as I drove my pale blue Volvo through the streets of Vancouver, wondering, to quote the BeeGees, “How can you mend a broken heart?”

It is natural to want love. But sometimes, in spite

Elaine Smookler is a registered psychotherapist with a 20-year mindfulness practice. She is also a creativity coach and is on the faculty of the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto.

of all the good things you are doing to keep it going, love falls apart. And you fall apart and everything around you seems to fall apart. And it feels rotten. Even if you have a regular mindfulness practice, at this gut-wrenching moment you might not want to focus on your breath or your body because it all feels so raw and horrible—and then you might feel guilty because you think you should be practicing, but you just can’t or don’t want to. But meanwhile you are really suffering and would like

to feel better. So whaddayagonnado?

Sometimes a broken heart can feel as if someone has taken a baseball bat to it. Maintaining awareness, a.k.a. mindfulness, is about staying present to the times you might want to crawl under the porch like a suffering dog, noticing hurt in a particular way, so that you can offer yourself deep tenderness and compassion and embrace your life as it is—agonies, misfortunes, and all.

The very moment that you would prefer to push

we can investigate how we might stand up to what is beyond our control or choice. Be aware of which channel your mental TV is tuned to. No notice how much you are drawn to replaying painful memories over and over. You might be hoping that this self-torture film festival will make you feel better, but brain science suggests that fixating on the dead bones of anything only serves to unwittingly train the brain to make this painful story your new goto thought-munchie. In times of great distress, you might approach yourself as though you were a creature you’ve happened upon in the wilderness. Pause. Take in the details. Go slowly. Approach yourself with care and friendliness.

Notice the thought-loops in your head, like questioning ways you could have made things work out differently. If you’re up for it, bring attention to the body sensations these thoughtloops activate. Thoughts are not usually experienced in a neutral way—they set chemical reactions and urges in motion. Welcome awareness that gives you permission to intentionally turn toward love and care for the dear one known as you.

Even if the pain of heartbreak is burning you like an acid-bath, you may still need to go to your job, take care of family, and generally continue to function. That’s where our mindfulness practice helps us stay engaged with our lives, even when they seem to be falling apart. ●

Heal From Heartache

This three-step A.W.E. practice can help you lessen suffering and stay engaged with your precious life, even when you’d rather not.

away the nasty feelings that are eating you alive like fire ants, or the devastating feelings that make you think you never want to love again, or the red-faced foolish feelings that heat up shame, is the moment your mindfulness practice can come to your aid.

To begin: Gently notice the emotional maelstrom and slather yourself with the milk of human kindness. Life can feel so hard but we don’t have to make it harder by being harder on ourselves. We don’t have to like it when sorrow is present, but

By Elaine Smookler

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Allow yourself to feel the messy, swirling, uncomfortable sensations that show up. It is natural to want to flee from pain, but turning to face psychological pain can be the very thing that frees us from its overwhelm. If conditions allow: Feel it to heal it.

Welcome what you are feeling and noticing with tender curiosity. Acceptance can reduce agitation and resistance—chums that often act as triggers for fight,

flight, freeze. Ease often accompanies the ability to have compassion for self and others.

Experience gratitude—the gift that keeps on giving. If you can, find anything at all about the situation to be thankful for. Consider anything you may have learned, or any growth that was nurtured. See if holding the whole unpleasant experience with an attitude of gratitude gives you the opportunity to lighten your load.

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When love falls apart, embracing your life as it is, agony, misfor tune, and all, can help you heal.

Mindful is pleased to present How to Meditate—a new online course with psychologist and mindfulness teacher Elisha Goldstein that will help you discover peace, increase resilience, and develop a mindfulness practice that lasts.

The Science of SELF-INSIGHT

Just how much should you know about yourself before it becomes detrimental to your health?

Gabrielle was lonely. A series of short-lived romantic relationships had left her heart in tatters. Although she said she was ambivalent about pursuing a committed, long-term relationship, she reported feeling lonely and continued to fall into intense relationships with men

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sharon Begley is senior science writer with STAT, a national health and medicine publication. She is also author of Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain and Can’t Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions

who didn’t give her the support and intimacy she craved.

With just a few pointed questions, psychologist Colleen Becket-Davenport got to the bottom of what was going on: Gabrielle was choosing men who were “all unavailable in some way,” said Becket-Davenport, who practices in San Francisco. “They were already in a committed relationship, they had mental health issues of their own, or lived far away, for instance.”

When these men didn’t respond to her texts, Gabbie made excuses for them (“He has a lot going on right now”). Despite her insistence that she

didn’t “need a boyfriend,” she found herself feeling hurt and rejected when the relationships ultimately imploded. By helping Gabbie see how their unavailability made her feel (“When he doesn’t respond to my texts, it makes me feel like I don’t matter”), what she truly wished for (“An emotionally intimate relationship with someone who checks in with me and cares how I feel”), and why she was choosing unavailable men (“I don’t think my needs are important”), Becket-Davenport was able to give Gabbie something psychologists have long seen as crucial to well-being: self-insight. →

Includes

• Expert lessons and practices

• Downloadable audio meditations

• Lifetime access to course content

• Much more

How much self-knowledge is too much?

“Most therapy is going to aim to increase self-insight in some way,” said Becket-Davenport. “This may mean gaining insight into your less conscious motivations, understanding how your thoughts influence your behavior, or simply developing better emotional awareness.”

If you don’t look too deeply, it’s hard to argue with the ancient Greeks’ counsel: “Know thyself.” To understand one’s motivations (Why do you procrastinate? treat a certain family member or “friend” like dirt? act like a doormat in relationship after relationship?) is to take the first step toward being mindful about behavior that messes up your work, relationships, and life in general. In my own case, I finally understood that much of what I do—from working compulsively to obsessively checking on my children to periodically blowing through my apartment like a Category 5 hurricane to cull unneeded possessions—arises from anxiety. That insight enabled me to set priorities and behave more thoughtfully.

The assumed value and benefits of self-insight in all its forms, from a clear-eyed assessment of your strengths and weaknesses to a hardwon understanding of why you behave and interact as you do, has scholarly backup. In a 1937 textbook that launched the science of personality, Gordon Allport called “an impartial and objective attitude toward oneself” a “primary virtue.” If any personality trait is unambiguously desirable, he continued, “it is the disposition and ability to see oneself in perspective.”

More than 60 years later, leading psychologists warned, “People who do not see themselves accurately are likely to bungle their lives.”

Science, of course, is about questioning what seems obvious, and the value of accurate self-assessment—a.k.a. self-insight—has been in its crosshairs recently. One reason: If self-insight is so beneficial, why aren’t more people better at it? Not only is

self-delusion about one’s abilities rife (more on this in a minute), but we stink at seeing our own personality states. As a 2019 study reported, people can mostly tell when they exhibit extraversion or conscientiousness, but are clueless about their own agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to new ideas.

Given how rare self-insight is, researchers are asking whether self-insight in general, and into one’s abilities in particular, is necessarily beneficial, and whether a drive for self-insight is, as long assumed, a human universal. If any of those were so, we should have more of it.

The conventional view is that people are motivated to achieve self-insight because its value is obvious. “Effectiveness in life depends on knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses and in having an accurate assessment of one’s personal

characteristics,” leading psychologists wrote in the book Selfhood . That knowledge allows us to focus on what we need to improve or, conversely, to leverage our true strengths. Individuals with stellar abilities will be more motivated to pursue relationships, ambitious projects, and other challenges—success in which boost well-being—if their self-insight is accurate. If they don’t realize their strengths they may never reach for the stars.

Clearly, however, self-insight can backfire. Gaining 20-20 vision into your mediocre abilities or character flaws—seeing that you’re not, say, the creative baker or the sympathetic person you thought—can sap confidence and even obliviate the will to strive in any realm of life, including relationships and career. That’s especially true if this self-insight comes courtesy of the “honest feedback” beloved in academia and the workplace. No wonder progressing along the road to self-insight can feel more like being pushed into a deep, muddy ditch. Scores of studies have tried to answer whether the benefits of self-insight outweigh its potential harms. I am sorry to say that when it comes to the best-studied form of self-insight, assessment of one’s abilities, the results aren’t clear-cut.

“There is much work out there that shows overconfidence to be costly and work that shows it is beneficial,” said psychologist David Dunning of the University of Michigan, a co-discoverer of the Dunning-Kruger effect (people overestimate their abilities and virtues).

One reason for the discrepancies is that the benefits and costs of accurate self-assessment vary by circumstance.

“When people face extreme challenges, being unrealistic about your abilities can be beneficial,” Dunning said. “Overconfidence is also helpful as a social device when you want to be persuasive.” But if it leads you to take on challenges where you’re guaranteed to fail it can be ruinous (think of an overconfident gambler or stock trader, Dunning said).

“Thinking you’re better than you are might lead you to feel content, [and] think that your life, career, and relationships are going well,” said He. “We do not find that self-insight led to [better] adjustment,” as so many experts assert.

The connection between contentment and self-insight

An influential 2019 study was the latest to cast doubt on the value of self-insight. Researchers at the University of Toronto had 1,044 volunteers complete tests of cognitive and emotional abilities and then estimate how many items they got right. The gap between actual and estimated scores served as a proxy for self-insight into those abilities. Next, for a week, participants filled out a daily diary whose questions aimed to capture their satisfaction with work, relationships, and life overall. In a result that would appall the ancient Greeks, people with poor self-insight were more satisfied with their lives than those who saw themselves clearly. Those who most overestimated their abilities were the most content with their work, relationships, and overall life. Of two people with equal ability, “the one with the highest self-views is the more highly adjusted,” Toronto’s Joyce He and Stéphane Côté wrote. Poor self-insight into emotional abilities—that is, overestimating them—was specifically associated with greater career contentment, while poor self-insight into cognitive abilities was associated with greater contentment in both work and relationships.

How can having the self-insight of a rock bring greater contentment than a clear-eyed assessment of strengths and weaknesses? For one thing, ability does not necessarily translate into success. (Insert your favorite horror stories of incompetents climbing the career ladder, or of the emotionally clueless attracting hordes of friends...or at least acolytes.) Instead, someone who acts with confidence, from proud posture to self-promotion, is generally perceived as both more competent and more desirable (as a friend or more) than someone who does not; through an emperor’s-new-clothes effect, that perception translates into “higher status and adjustment,” Côté and He wrote.

Another factor may be in play. The researchers measured people’s subjective well-being, He cautioned, not “more objective indices, like job performance and income.” Those might tell a different story. But even if they do, self-enhancement carries the day: Poor self-insight extends to not realizing that, objectively, things are not going well.

At least for a while. Eventually, reality has a nasty habit of catching up to self-delusion, and an exaggerated self-image crashes and burns on the shoals of a sputtering career and unfulfilling relationships.

And that’s where self-insight of the sort Becket-Davenport and other therapists help people achieve comes in. For insight, of course, can go well beyond “How good am I at X?” as He measured, to an understanding of motivations and reasons for choices and behaviors. Joyce He calls this form of self-insight “introspection, self-reflection, or even mindfulness.

I think those forms of self-insight are fundamentally quite different. So I don’t think our results would apply.” ●

If self-insight is so beneficial, why aren’t more people better at it?

Progressing along the road to selfinsight can feel more like being pushed into a deep, muddy ditch.

heart TO heart

Loving-kindness is so much more than “just” a feel-good practice. It is the force that can connect, inspire, and motivate us to transform the world. Here world-renowned mindfulness teacher, Sharon Salzberg, one of the foremost teachers of loving-kindness, helps to pave the way.

The LOVING-KINDNESS issue

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WAYHOME STUDIO / SHUTTERSTOCK, KRAKENIMAGES.COM / SHUTTERSTOCK

Founding editor Barry Boyce talks with his dear friend Sharon Salzberg about attention,

BARRY BOYCE: You’ve been practicing mindfulness for quite some time and I’ve heard you talk about how meditation and kindness are inseparably linked. Can you explain?

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned meditation teacher and is the New York Times best-selling author of Real Love and Real Happiness, as well as Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World (scheduled for September 2020).

Barry Boyce is the founding editor of Mindful magazine. An avid meditator for over 40 years, he is also author of The Mindfulness Revolution an anthology of applied mindfulness instructions from leading teachers and experts.

SHARON SALZBERG: Let me start with a little background. Nowadays, if you want to practice meditation, there are meditation centers and studios all over the place. Or you could take a course online. You can go on Amazon and find 50 or 100 books on meditation. When I started, in the early ’70s, lots of us went to Asia. I chose India. When I traveled there as an 18-year-old to meet great meditation teachers, I felt like I knew a lot. I had read plenty of Eastern philosophy and was pretty sure I had gained a good understanding. I was in for a bit of a surprise. The first thing I was taught when I went on my first meditation retreat was to pay attention to my breath.

“What,” I thought, “this is it? Pay attention to my breath? I could have done that back in Buffalo.” In Buffalo, I could even see my breath on many days. I figured I would be able to follow many breaths, maybe hundreds at a sitting. Why not? What’s the big deal? I soon came to find out that it was not so easy as that.

In fact, I had a lot of trouble paying attention to even one breath without my mind going off into many, many thoughts. I found myself having thoughts like why there are roundabouts on highways. Who came up with that idea? What? Why am I having such thoughts at all? I’m not a traffic engineer. It was pretty humbling to see just how hard it was to simply pay attention, and how the thoughts came tumbling down like a waterfall. That’s where kindness needed to kick in.

I quickly discovered that if I was going to keep going with meditation, I would need to go much easier on myself. I would need to accept the inevitability of these thoughts and have some faith that my attention could indeed find its way back.

When people don’t have faith that their attention will find its way back, do you find that they will think they simply can’t meditate?

Oh yes. The experience of being overwhelmed by thoughts is hardly unique to me. Anyone who begins meditating will find this very thing happening to them. Feeling inadequate. So many thoughts! So little attention on the breath. I cannot meditate. Other

people can do it. I cannot. And this kind of thought loop may happen again and again, and each time we can be kind to ourselves about being human beings who have thoughts.

Sometimes when people are introduced to mindfulness meditation, they come to think of it as a dry, technical exercise, a kind of hard work or mental struggle. In fact, for meditation to take hold, early on, we need some warmth and kindness toward ourselves. It’s not a dry exercise at all. It’s learning how to be with ourselves, and when we are with ourselves in this very simple way, the attention and the kindness go together, hand in hand. Some self-compassion must arise if we are to keep going.

What else is essential to keep going?

Frequently in instructing meditation, we say “rest” your attention on the breath. It’s a quality of resting and settling right from the start, a gentle act, not a labored struggle. And as a result of the practice, we develop increased concentration, yes. That is a key factor.

But we also develop greater awareness of what’s going on with ourselves, what’s happening with our emotions, and when we see a thought, we don’t push it away. We notice it. We see →

resilience, anger, and the transformative power of loving-kindness.

“ We are all interconnected. This is the truth of how things are.”

Sharon Salzberg

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINE ALICINO, KRAKENIMAGES.COM / SHUTTERSTOCK

it for what it is. That’s how we begin to get to know ourselves better, and by extension experience what’s happening with others more. We feel our connection to them more. Paying attention is one of the kindest things we can do—for ourselves, for others.

How is it possible to rest, to develop awareness and concentration, in the midst of turmoil and anxiety?

With coronavirus circling the globe; schoolchildren, churchgoers, protesters, and concertgoers being shot in public; immigrant children separated from their parents; signs of resurgent racism appearing; and a deep political divide taking hold in so many places, many people these days feel deeply anxious, and despairing in fact.

These are indeed tough times, but we don’t need to feel powerless. It’s an illusion to think that we are without any agency in our lives, any ability to act.

It’s also illusory to think that we can control events that are, at present, beyond our control.

We clearly don’t have control over everything, but there are things we can do. It’s always been that way. That hasn’t changed. It is not our universe to control. Knowing and acknowledging that is a key aspect of developing wisdom.

When we know that in our hearts—and stop berating ourselves for not

being able to fix everything—we can go forward in a balanced way. We’re not indifferent to the needs and challenges surrounding us, the pain others are going through. But rather than trying to simply fit into others’ expectations of what we ought to do in response, we can pay attention and look and listen for opportunities to help that accord with our capabilities and circumstances. We can respond to what calls out to us when we allow ourselves to be open.

You’re suggesting that we use mindfulness to lead us to what practical steps we can take to seek change?

Yes, I am, and in addition to practical steps like volunteering, donating, voting, and connecting with others, there is also something very significant we can do, starting in our own hearts. We can gradually learn to be present with the pain, anxiety, fear, and vulnerability we feel, rather than push those feelings away.

When we feel pain and yet we can go on, that’s how we build resilience.

Mindfulness practice doesn’t stop at relaxation and concentration. The relaxation and concentration allow us to stay with the feelings that emerge, no matter what is going on in life. It also allows us to savor the moments of joy in life, rather than overlook them because of all the dark clouds.

We hear a lot these days about separation, isolation, and loneliness. The British have even instituted a Minister for Loneliness. Some of this isolation seems to come from how our devices and our ways of working can wall us off from others, and some of it undoubtedly comes from the fact that when we’re anxious and afraid, we may retreat from community with other people. If we think that others are so different from us, we may hesitate to engage with them. We are all interconnected. This is the truth of how things are. When we separate ourselves off, we are fighting that reality, including if we decide to hate someone because of their views.

We never need to hate, but we can be very clear about something that is wrong, that represents a wrong view, that demonstrates gross ignorance and aggression. We need to work against ignorance and wrong views, and yes, hate, without falling into it ourselves.

What about when that ignorance and aggression we are subjected to make us lose our temper?

Wrong views and actions may naturally cause us to get pretty angry. Anger can clearly be a state that causes us great distress and that can cloud our minds and cause harm when we act based on it. It’s a poison that can consume us. I’m very interested, though, in anger as the precipitating event for bringing about change, which it definitely can be. Sometimes it’s the angry person in the room who points out the thing others wish to ignore. How do we keep the part of anger, the spark, that has intelligence, without getting caught up in the destructive part? That’s a valuable inquiry to take up, to contemplate, as part of mindfulness practice.

With mindfulness, we can develop the ability to experience the full dimension of thoughts as they arise. We don’t need to act on every thought that comes up. We can see it,

but not act on it. The way forward may emerge from allowing that little bit of a gap between thought and action, especially with anger.

Meditation can help us see that gap more often, but it sure seems hard sometimes.

Often people will say to me, “Oh, I know meditation can be really valuable, but I just can’t do it, but my partner sure could use some!”

It’s very common for us to think we can’t meditate. A big part of that comes from trying really hard to have a particular kind of experience. Perhaps we think that the sign that meditation is working is having a major transformational experience, so we struggle really hard to obtain that, and meditation ends up being just that: a big struggle. We miss the part about resting our attention. We’ve become too focused on ourselves and our big meditation experience, rather than letting ourselves simply be there. →

“ When we’re trying so hard, and so focused on our meditation achievement, we often overlook what’s right in front of us: the need to be kind to ourselves.”

Sharon Salzberg

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KRAKENIMAGES.COM / SHUTTERSTOCK, JIHAN NAFIAA ZAHRI / SHUTTERSTOCK

I’m reminded of what one Asian teacher said after observing a lot of us: “You are rowing and rowing and rowing, but you’re not untying the boat from the shore.” When we’re trying so hard, and so focused on us and our meditation achievement, we often overlook what’s right in front of us: the need to be kind to ourselves and to those around us.

When we’re trying to develop a regular practice for ourselves, something integrated into our regular life, having friends to help us along, a community of fellow travelers, is a great support. It’s heartening to know that you are not the only one who may have sat through a whole meditation session and noticed maybe one breath. You can laugh at yourself, along with others.

What makes it possible to laugh at ourselves?

It comes back to this thing we call loving-kindness that I’ve written a book about and taught about so often. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of an odd term, because it sounds kind of arcane or removed from day-to-day life. If you go to a café for a cup of tea, you’re not likely to hear the conversation at the next table being about loving-kindness, unless maybe the café is down the street from the Mindful offices!

My concern is that an unusual term like this might make the quality

itself seem somewhat removed from day-to-day life. It might seem precious, in the negative sense of the word, gooey and soft, without strength or wisdom. Just a mush ball.

Nonetheless, some people have suggested we just call it “love” and be done with it, but love is a complicated term. It can mean something very superficial, like “I love vanilla yogurt,” or it can be a medium of exchange, like “I will love you, so long as the following fifteen conditions are met.” That’s not quite it.

The Pali term for loving-kindness, metta, translates simply as friendship, but that to me can merely connote companionship, doing things together, going to the movies, going out to eat, or just hanging out via Zoom in this new world of social distancing. The word that I think gets to the essence of it perhaps the most is connection. When I refer to cultivating loving-kindness, I’m talking about a bone-deep sense of connection.

What are we connecting to?

First off, we’re connecting to ourselves, not floating off in the ether somewhere, but being right here, experiencing our whole heart and mind. Then, we’re connecting to one another, which is not the same as liking somebody. It is rather knowing deeply that our lives have something to do with another, that the

CONNECT WITH KINDNESS

By Sharon Salzberg

This classic loving-kindness meditation can help you to awaken to how connected we all are. You don’t have to like everybody, or agree with everything they do—but you can open up to the possibility of caring for them, because our lives are inextricably linked.

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Begin by thinking about someone who has helped you; maybe they’ve been directly generous or kind, or have inspired you though you’ve never met them. When you think of them, they make you smile. Bring an image of the person to mind, or feel their presence as if they’re right in front of you. Say their name to yourself, and silently offer these phrases to them, focusing on one phrase at a time.

• May you live in safety.

• May you have mental happiness (peace, joy).

• May you have physical happiness (health, freedom from pain).

m The LOVING KINDNESS issue

• May you live with ease. Don’t struggle to fabricate a feeling or sentiment. If your mind wanders, simply begin again.

After a few minutes, move on to a friend. Start with a friend who’s doing well right now, then switch to someone who is experiencing difficulty, loss, pain, or unhappiness.

AUDIO Practice

Offer lovingkindness to a neutral person who you don’t feel a strong liking or disliking for: a cashier at the supermarket, a bank teller, a dry cleaner. When you offer lovingkindness to a neutral person, you are offering it to them simply because they exist—you are not indebted to or challenged by them.

Offer lovingkindness toward a person with whom you have difficulty. Start with someone mildly difficult, and slowly work toward someone who has hurt you more grievously. It’s common to feel resentment and anger, and it’s important not to judge yourself for that. Rather, recognize that anger burns within your heart and causes suffering, so out of the greatest respect and compassion for yourself, practice letting go and offering loving-kindness.

Finish by offering lovingkindness to anyone who comes to mind: people, animals, those you like, those you don’t, in an adventurous expansion of your own power of kindness.

constructs of self and other, us and them, are useful constructs but they are just constructs.

At a certain intimate level of reality, it is all about “we.” That’s just how it is. We are all in this together.

I was driving with a friend and we were caught in this terrible, hideous traffic, complaining about it bitterly the whole while. And then at one point my friend said, “You know, we’re the traffic, too.”

And all of a sudden I realized, oh! There it is. It’s that sense of privilege, of centrality, that we cling to. These are my roads and these people are in my way and where are they going anyway on my Saturday? Go away!

What happens when that sense of it all revolving around us drops away for a bit? We might realize these other folks in the traffic jam are saying the same thing about us. We’re all the traffic.

Think of all the times we’ve figured out who’s in the center and who’s at the margin and let that shape our worldview. What happens when that worldview loosens up, when that sense of centrality falls away, and it’s just us? That’s love, and it’s not weak and mushy. It’s just true. ●

likeIn her forthcoming book, Real Change, Sharon Salzberg explores how compassion and loving-kindness are the forces of change that can both soften and strengthen us.

Most of us are familiar with the description of the fight-or-flight response to stress or trauma: our common tendency to perceive a situation as an imminent threat, and react either by gearing up (physiologically, hormonally, and emotionally) to fight for survival or alternatively gearing up to run away as fast as we can.

I felt gratified when stress experts expanded these familiar descriptions to include another common, ready reaction: freezing. It made sense to me as soon as I heard it. We each engage in all three of these reactions, of course, but it seems that each of us has a tendency to gravitate toward one of these more than the others, based on our individual conditioning. I’ll lay claim to freezing as my most frequent automatic reaction, rather than getting ready to bolt or starting to attack. The reactions of fight, flight, or freeze appear to be more of a chronic state that is starting to rule our patterns of consumption and communication, our media, our use of technology, our relationships, the dimensions of our generosity, and the limits of our imagination. We are more afraid, and we are isolating ourselves more: Not surprisingly, the number of people describing themselves as quite lonely is shooting up, as reported in the United States, in England, in Japan. It’s no wonder we’re fearful and despairing, since it can feel like we’re being hit with an avalanche of sad news on many days, while we so rarely hear inspiring visions of the future. Many people, particularly young people, feel trapped. They say that they find themselves participating in, and therefore perpetuating, a system they did not create, that does not reflect their values, and is destructive of the planet and inequi-

table. How to have inspiration, they ask, when the only game in town feels rigged? There’s a cognitive dissonance that goes along with that kind of trapped feeling. It’s a form of daily moral injury, what journalist Diane Silver described as a “soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality and relationship to society.”

As I’ve traveled around the world teaching, I’ve gotten a sense of the prevalence and depth of the moral injury resulting from world events. In the political climate of the United States in early 2018, I myself encountered near at hand the very ingredients I needed to feel triggered: deception from authority figures, shifting narratives not in accord with objective reality, one’s own perception of the truth continually undermined. My childhood had been shaped by people who I believe cared deeply about me. Yet, they thought the best way to express that caring was by never mentioning my mother after she died when I was nine. They thought it best to describe my father’s overdose of sleeping pills when I was eleven as accidental—never explaining how a mere accident led to the rest of his life being spent in one psychiatric facility or another. It was painful to figure out when I was away at college: “Oh, that kind of pattern speaks more of suicidal intention than of an accident.” Feeling something to be true right down to the cells of your body while having that truth affirmed exactly nowhere outside, in fact denied, can make you feel just crazy. That was the flavor of my childhood.

But now, unlike in my childhood, I have tools I’ve learned in meditation practice. I have values that serve as a North Star in my life, such as a respect for myself and others and a commitment to balance. I have insight into ways of fostering resilience, and can remind myself, with genuineness, of

the crucial fact that I am not alone. I believe in the healing power of love. Helplessness no longer feels natural, the way things are meant to be, but a distortion I can address and do address.

Soft and Strong

When I want to summon strength and power in the midst of awfulness and hate, I contemplate water. Our ideas of strength so often surround images of things that are hard—like rock or even a clenched fist. Perhaps that’s why we think love doesn’t include strength, just softness. We are thinking in only one dimension. That’s why I think of water, in all its manifestations. Look at the many ways we experience water: It trickles, spurts, floods, pours, streams, soaks, and shows itself in many more modes. All these convey evanescence, release, flow. They are all about not being stuck.

Water is flexible, taking the shape of whatever vessel it flows into. It’s always interacting, changing, in motion, yet revealing continual patterns of connection. Water can be so expressive, a signal of our most heartfelt feelings. We cry tears of sorrow, tears of outrage, tears of gratitude, and tears of joy. Water can be puzzling, seeming weak or ineffectual, yielding too much, not holding firm. And yet over time water will carve its own pathway, even through rock. And yes, water freezes. But it also melts. Human beings have always found uplift and inspiration in metaphors, like water, but we also take inspiration from other people, and their strength and resiliency in the face of difficult circumstances—the ways in which they unfreeze themselves and make change. Not just in one way, but in as many ways as water flows. I have been so moved by people I know →

When I want to summon strength and power in the midst of awfulness and hate, I contemplate water.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TODD BELTZ / STOCKSY

The LOVING KINDNESS issue

who act in ways that seek change and who also tap into an inner strength—a way of being as well as a way of acting. I want to lift up exemplary human qualities wherever I see them emerge, however people get there, because it is in recognizing those qualities that we remember what’s possible for us.

Envisioning What Is Possible

This journey of envisioning what’s possible in a very large sense is about agency. It’s about how we marry empowerment to our love for the world, what matters to us, what wrongs we want to right and what collective dreams we hope to realize. Whether that’s resolving conflicts with a crotchety neighbor or combating global warming, certain fundamental principles and practices of mindfulness can lead to the clarity and confidence that let us take that next step.

I remember going to see an old farmhouse for sale down the road from the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, which I cofounded in 1976 with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. I went with Joseph and a friend, Sarah Doering. The farmhouse, as far as I could tell, was simply falling apart. Joseph and Sarah chatted happily. “Well, we could try to move this wall, or at least open up that passageway… Underneath this wrecked floor might well lie hidden beauty… What if we built a small addition onto that door for a porch?”

Finally I broke in with, “Please, let’s not buy it.” I just couldn’t imagine it looking like anything much different

GATHERING OUR ENERGY

By Sharon Salzberg

from what it looked like right then, even if repainted or tidied up. In my mind, it was forever dilapidated, forlorn, and in disrepair. They didn’t listen to me at all.

I realized the vision of what was possible had already been formed in each of their minds. Their visions may not have been identical, but each was bold and, importantly, realizable. They weren’t overly idealistic visions bound to be doomed by impossible fundraising shortfalls or the prospect of too much work—except in my mind I realized they were actually holding the vision of what it was and the vision of what it could be simultaneously. Change would take resources— time, effort, community, money—but the spark that would get things started was to believe that the vision was possible in the first place.

The Truth of Our Interconnectedness

I’m not skilled at seeing the seeds of longed-for transformation in a building. I’m better at seeing it in people. I’ve looked many times at a friend in the throes of a terrible divorce or other devastating loss and been able to picture their healing and expansive happiness. I can see it in front of me, like a faint but discernible silhouette amid the chaos and pain of their current situation. And I’ve been right. And when I am in touch with the perspective and sense of openness that my meditation practice has strengthened in me, I very much see the healing we are capable of—in communities, in cultures, in this world.

I believe that the love we crave,

and that we have available to give, is a healing force. Love is not soft and mushy. It is strong and resilient. It springs from the truth of our interconnectedness, and is powerful because it is aligned with what is true.

I believe in the possibility of a world where our interconnection is a deeply known and motivating force, where no one is left out, where the innate dignity of every person is acknowledged, and where hatred and fear and greed can be tempered. I believe in a world where change might be hard, but is always seen as possible, however stuck we might feel in any given moment. I believe in a world where we can have wisdom to guide us, we can have love to propel us, and we can have the support of one another to try to accomplish a vision of inclusion and care. I also believe in justice, in a world where actions have consequences, where people are held accountable even as we try to take care of one another.

And I believe in a world where the fluidity and softness of love—like water—might superficially seem like the weakest thing of all, but lo and behold, it is indomitable. It can even wear away rock. What kind of world do you most deeply believe in? ●

This foundational attention practice is designed to strengthen the force of concentration. If you consider how scattered, how distracted, how out of the moment we may ordinarily be, you can see the benefit of gathering our attention and our energy. All of that energy could be available to us but usually isn’t because we throw it away into distraction. We gather all of that attention and energy to become integrated, to have a center, to not be so fragmented and torn apart, to be empowered.

In this system, the breath we focus on is the normal flow of the in-and-out breath. We don’t try to make the breath deeper or different; we simply encounter it however it’s appearing, and however it’s changing.

To begin with, you can sit comfortably and relax. You don’t have to feel self-conscious, as though you are about to do something special or weird. Just be at ease. It helps if your back can be straight, without being strained or overarched. You can close your eyes or not, however you feel comfortable. Notice where the feeling of the breath is most predominant—at the nostrils, at the chest, or at the abdomen. Rest your attention lightly, in just that area.

See if you can feel just one breath, from the beginning through the middle, to the end. If you’re with the breath at the nostrils, it may be tingling, vibration, warmth, coolness. If at the abdomen, it may be movement, pressure, stretching, release. You don’t have to name them, but feel them. It’s just one breath.

Notice what arises. And if images or sounds, emotions, sensations arise, but they’re not strong enough to actually take you away from the feeling of the breath, just let them flow on by. You don’t have to follow after them, you don’t have to attack them; you’re breathing. It’s like seeing a friend in a crowd— you don’t have to shove everyone else aside or make them go away, but your enthusiasm, your interest, is going toward your friend: “Oh, there’s my friend. There’s the breath.”

Notice when you’re distracted. When something arises—sensations, emotions, thoughts, whatever it might be—that’s strong enough to take your attention away from the feeling of the breath, or if you’ve fallen asleep, or if you get lost in some incredible fantasy, see if you can let

go of the distraction and begin again, bringing your attention back to the breath. If you have to let go and begin again thousands of times, it’s fine, that’s the practice.

You may notice the rhythm of your breath changing in the course of this meditation session. You can just allow it to be however it is. Whatever arises, you can shepherd your attention back to the feeling of the breath.

Remember that in letting go of distraction the important word is gentle. We can gently let go, we can forgive ourselves for having wandered, and with great kindness to ourselves, we can begin again.

When you feel ready, you can open your eyes. See if you can bring this awareness of breath periodically into your day.

Excerpted from Real Change, © 2020 by Sharon Salzberg, with permission from Flatiron Books. Available for preorder now.

Love is not soft and mushy. It is strong and resilient. It springs from the truth of our interconnectedness, and is powerful because it is aligned with what is true.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAVIER PARDINA / STOCKSY

AUDIO

Practice

Practice online with Sharon Salzberg as she guides you through this meditation for gathering energy, focus, and awareness.

mindful.org/ salzbergenergy

Bring to Mind a Circle of Love

Visualize yourself in the center of a circle composed of those who have been kind to you, or have inspired you because of their love. Perhaps you’ve met them, or read about them; perhaps they live now, or have existed historically or even mythically. That is the circle. As you visualize yourself in the center of it, experience yourself as the recipient of their love and attention. Gently repeat the phrases of loving-kindness for yourself: May I be safe, may I be happy, may I live with ease.

SHARON SALZBERG

WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE

CLEAR VISION

How connecting with your purpose helps you thrive

By Rich Fernandez • Illustrations by Edmon de Haro

You know those moments when things don’t go as planned—the job, the relationship, your health—and you feel unmoored and unsure of your next steps? Or, when things are going so well that there’s a sense of opportunity right at your fingertips? Those are the moments when having a clear sense of purpose can both anchor and guide you; it can also help you navigate the tricky in-between stages when your life feels a lot less clear, offering a sense of ease and skill and, dare I say, grace. Uncovering your purpose is a process. In fact, I like to define purpose as an ongoing process of developing a clear understanding of what is most meaningful to you, and aligning your actions and behaviors in the world to be consistent with those qualities. It’s the skill of being in tune with your mind, heart, and body, so you

can recognize when you’re about to stray from your path and find your way back on course. And, equally important, being clear can help you acknowledge those moments where your path and your purpose are aligned so you can celebrate them with gratitude.

Getting clear about your purpose is an internal practice of connecting with the sources of meaning, joy, and inspiration that reside deeply within you. The work of defining purpose is the work of becoming fully conscious of what you love and what is most alive within you and then (and this can be the hard part) acting accordingly. This work takes time, practice, imagination, compassion, curiosity, and kind awareness. It’s an evolving process, a beautiful and sometimes painful one, that you can be in relationship with over the arc of your whole life. →

How I connected to my purpose

About nine years ago, I began experiencing a vague sense that I was misaligned in my work. I found myself dreading work, rather than feeling excited or engaged by it. Bad work habits began creeping in—I would heavily procrastinate on projects, not be responsive to emails. The quality of my work began to suffer as well. And the most troubling sign of all—my attitude and personality also began changing. I was no longer energetic and excited about work, instead a dullness took over and I became more and more stressed. This was especially problematic because I managed a team of people and my mood changes became increasingly apparent and affected some of them in negative ways.

I had spent years successfully building my career as an organizational psychologist working with some very interesting companies. My work was fulfilling for me personally and also provided me and my family security and stability. So I was feeling very confused about what to do next.

Thankfully, I had been practicing meditation since college. I knew that I needed to take time to sit in quiet reflection with all that was arising for me. As I did so over the course of the year, I came to realize that what I most wanted to do was focus full time on sharing the practice of mindfulness and meditation in organizations. It was so alive for me. But this was way before mindfulness was mainstream. And the thought of building a career teaching mindfulness in organizations sounded a little crazy.

Yet I couldn’t ignore what I was feeling.

At the time, I had an exciting job at Google, where I was responsible for providing leadership development programs for senior leaders across the company. It was a great role and rep -

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

resented the culmination of many years of hard work. I felt grateful and very lucky to have such a job—yet I couldn’t escape the feeling that my work was hurting me, physically and mentally. I was feeling depleted. My heart, mind, and body were saying “Focus more on your meditation practice, go deeper, see what’s possible,” but my logical mind couldn’t imagine quitting a job at Google. It took a lot of time to clarify my purpose and work up the courage and resolve to flip the script and take the big career- and life-changing step that I was considering next. Eventually I chose to leave Google and cofound a workplace wellness and mindfulness company called WisdomLabs. It was a tough decision to leave, both because it meant a career transition and because it had real financial consequences for me and my family. But from the moment I stepped into this new role, I felt a sense of fulfillment that I had never experienced before. And over time the company began to make good on the vision of bringing mindfulness and wellness solutions to organizations around the world. Following my calling to offer mindfulness solutions to organizations continues to be a source of deep fulfillment for me to this day.

I eventually moved on to my current role leading the global nonprofit Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, which offers science-based mindfulness and emotional intelligence skills development solutions to communities and organizations around the world. Uncovering my purpose—which is to live and work toward the full integration of mindfulness in all domains of my life—and then acting on my discovery is how I created my reality today.

The journey to live your purpose is in a sense nothing less than a process of connecting with the aspects of your life and work that are most meaningful to you, and living and working in a congruent way. Importantly, this is a practice, a process, not a once-and-done.

That means it’s essential to check in regularly so you’re in tune with your current purpose and aware when changes naturally begin to crop up and require you to change course.

I’d like to share the practices that helped me create clarity about my purpose and my ongoing commitment to align my life with my discovery.

Are You Misaligned with Your Purpose?

By Rich Fernandez

Three key ways to assess if you are aligned with your purpose—or not.

When you find yourself feeling drained or unhappy in your work, it’s important to ask yourself whether you’re experiencing the normal growing pains of career growth or if your discomfort is actually revealing something deeper.

As you move towards greater alignment with your purpose, it’s important to remember that this is an ongoing process and that moving through difficult experiences is part of the journey. Be kind to yourself. Be patient. Take some time to explore these three clarifying ways to help shed some light on the path to living your purpose.

1 Distinguish between learning and undue suffering

There is no doubt that it is important to experience challenges and overcome struggles in order to learn. The great social reformer and writer Fredrick Douglass famously said, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Be clear, however, when a challenge causes excessive or undue suffering that no longer promotes learning.

Some suffering is to be expected during challenging times. Ongoing suffering may indicate that you may need to move on.

2 Keep an energy journal

Track the experience of being drained versus being energized. If your work or life situation leaves you feeling predominantly drained with little to no experience of enjoyment, inspiration or positive energy, that may be a clear sign that you are misaligned. Are you consistently very stressed? Are you predominantly in a bad state of mind or negative-feeling state when engaged in your life or work activities?

Consider what actions it would take to move from being drained to being energized and experiencing vibrancy in your situation.

3

Recognize when you are disconnected from

your values

Simply stated, your values are the qualities in life that you consider most important to you. If your situation takes you further away from rather than closer to your values, that is a sure sign you are misaligned. Have you ever wrtten down what’s most important to you? Take some time to think about that so you can activly seek congruence between your values and your everyday life. In this way you can begin to ensure you are living and working true to your purpose.

Rich Fernandez is cofounder of Wisdom Labs, which focuses on science and data to promote mindfulness, resilience, and purpose-driven performance. He is currently the CEO of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. Rich has held positions in executive education and leadership development at Google, eBay, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase. He lives with his family in San Francisco.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF PURPOSE

There are four research-backed qualities that lead to a strong sense of purpose: awareness, values, aspirations, and congruent behaviors. The good news is that these qualities can be nurtured with simple mindfulness practices designed to activate these four “pillars of purpose.” Those practices are: awareness, to connect with what’s alive within you; intention, to visualize your best life; alignment, to match your actions with your values; and resilience, to unhook from rigidity.

HOW TO PRACTICE

AWARENESS

Connecting with What’s Alive for You

Awareness simply means paying attention to the experience you are having as you are having it. You can practice awareness of your own sense of purpose through quiet meditation, taking the time to simply notice the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that arise when you consider your life and what purpose means to you. By observing your thoughts, emotions, ideas, sensations, discomfort, and anything else that arises, with kindness and curiosity, you can begin the process of discovery that can lead to insight into your purpose.

exercise awareness. Be kind to yourself as you bring curiosity to these large questions of purpose. We’re all unfolding. Life is a process. The fact that you’re interested in aligning your life with your purpose means that you’re already halfway there. Reflecting on purpose helps you gain insight into your own lived experiences and, when necessary, into how to respond appropriately and effectively to opportunities as they present themselves. In both the formal meditation and integrated practices of developing awareness of purpose, the most important

WHAT DO YOU NOTICE AS YOU MOVE THROUGH YOUR DAY, OR AS YOU ENGAGE IN TASKS, MEETINGS, OR OTHER FORMS OF WORK?

You can also integrate the practice of awareness into your everyday life. Ask yourself: What do you notice as you move through your day, or as you engage in tasks, meetings, or other forms of work? Is your life and work situation energizing? Draining? Does it sometimes bring feelings of joy or well being, or the opposite?

Remember that awareness practice is a process and that each phase, stage, and chapter of your life is a stepping-stone and a learning experience in which you can

consideration is whether your life or work situation is contributing to a sense of aliveness for you. Perhaps more than anything, focusing on what makes you feel alive and energized is a key indicator of what is good and true and worthwhile to consider in terms of purpose. Aliveness can take many forms: joy, absorption, meaningfulness.

I find that this concept of a search for what is most alive in one’s life is not only profound and beautiful but also very practical. You know it when you see, feel, or sense it!

HOW TO PRACTICE INTENTION

Imagining Your Best Life

Intention is your innate capacity to harness and direct your energy and effort at will. It seems simple enough, but it takes a lot of practice to harness your innate ability to direct your attention at will. And it’s also a critical skill for the journey toward realizing your purpose. Setting a clear and strong intention toward realizing purpose helps you to create the conditions for that purpose to arise. Some call this serendipity but there may be a more scientific explanation linking our thoughts and intentions with our behaviors. Neuroscientist Regina Pally describes how setting intentions (or goals) for yourself causes your brain to nonconsciously predict what is most likely to happen in order to achieve

those goals. Then your brain becomes wired to act in ways consistent with those expectations. “According to neuroscience,” says Pally, “even before events happen, the brain has already made a prediction about what is most likely to happen, and sets in motion the perceptions, behaviors, emotions, physiologic responses, and interpersonal ways of relating that best fit with what is predicted.” In many ways, setting the intention to live with purpose is an act of imagining an ideal future, and then living and working toward the realization of that vision.

Setting intentions isn’t reserved only for things relating to your purpose with a capital “P.” Living a life of purpose means investing everyday moments with intention—which is why another key element in practicing intention is love. Having our intentions informed by love emphasizes the quality of how we are being in the world, rather than what we are doing. Bringing love to the mundane activities of everyday life is an invitation for each of us to live every day as our best selves. No matter what, intention imbued with love can bring us closer to a sense of congruence and alignment between what we value and how we act in the world.

HOW TO PRACTICE

ALIGNMENT

When Your Actions Match Your Values

After you do the hard work of uncovering what’s alive for you, and setting the intention to direct your energy to incorporating those things in your life more, the next step is aligning your actions. It can be hard work: acting in a way that aligns with your values. It is sometimes all too easy to lose sight of what’s most important to you when you’re in the middle of the slings and arrows of everyday life. It is very easy to succumb to the “busy-ness trap,” or prioritize the needs of others over your own—to lose the forest for the trees. The days, months, and years pass by and there can be the surreal feeling or realization of “How did I get here? Where did my time go?”

It’s helpful to consider that all of the decisions and

A Mindful Journaling Practice

actions you take eventually help you better understand what alignment means to you. The very act of recognizing that you feel misaligned is the absolute necessary beginning point on the path to full alignment with your purpose.

So, how do you know if you are living and working in an aligned way? In the simplest sense, it is about congruence.

“Look closely at the present you are constructing; it should look like the future you are dreaming,” suggests Alice Walker, the renowned American writer and activist.

How do you know when you are on course to this “future you are dreaming”? I’d like to offer the following inquiry-based practice focused on the three “gates” that lead to aligned action.

This is a practice I call The Three Gates of Aligned Action. To practice this, you’ll want to find a comfortable place to sit where you can enjoy silence and stillness for a few moments. Please read through the practice and then journal about your findings.

Settle in. Begin by connecting with a felt sense of your body.

Connect with the sensations of breathing and if you like, enjoy a few deeper breaths. Allow the mind to settle and stabilize.

Allow yourself to be met by any thoughts, feelings, or sensations with a kind and gentle touch. Without judgement, observe what arises for a few moments.

Invite some reflection about your life situation. You may reflect on some specific questions:

1 What is good in your life?

2 What do you know to be true?

3 What actions and behaviors can you undertake to be of most service?

Note whatever arises with an open and curious mind. Continue to reflect on these three questions, The Three Gates of Aligned Action.

HOW TO PRACTICE RESILIENCE

Unhooking from Rigidity

Resilience is the learned capacity to bounce back from adversity, adapt, and thrive, according to worldrenowned resilience expert Linda Graham. (See her article “Caring for Your Amazing Brain” on page 24.) Learning resilience is critically important to realizing your purpose because it allows you to gracefully and effectively navigate the challenges you will certainly meet along the way. Challenges and setbacks are inevitable. I’d go as far as to say they are necessary: They force you to redefine and connect with your purpose in an even more meaningful way. That’s why the final pillar of realizing purpose is the ability to harness resilience to come back to your sense of purpose when you lose your way. The good news is that more than five decades of research show that resilience is highly trainable. A mindfulness practice called response flexibility underpins the core research-backed resilience factors of optimism, balanced management of strong or difficult emotions, a sense of safety, and a strong social support system. According to Graham, response flexibility is “the ability to pause, step back, reflect, shift perspectives, create options and choose wisely,” especially when we are met with adversity.

A Mindfulness Practice for Building Resilience

This practice, called the response flexibility practice, allows you to put some space between a potentially activating situation (a snarky coworker, an underinformed family member) and your reaction. It’s very simple:

Pause. Stop for a moment and allow some space for contemplation.

Notice. If you have been activated, notice how that shows up for you in the moment. (Are you experiencing strong emotions?

Tension in your body? Sensations such as heat or a high energetic charge?)

Reflect. Breathe. Practice focused attention on the breath. Label sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise. Give them a name. (e.g., “Anger,” “Frustration,” “Sadness,” “Worry.”)

Respond. Skillfully problem-solve rather than react.

This practice will help you meet and navigate the strong thoughts and emotions that arise especially when meeting adversity. Remember it’s never about “canceling out” difficulties, but rather meeting them with mindfulness, wisdom, and wise action.

Your purpose is not some elusive hidden treasure that reveals itself all at once in a blaze of euphoria. Contemplating your purpose and taking aligned action is a process, a sometimes scary and painful process that unfolds over time. Sometimes long periods of time. Perhaps even the arc of a lifetime. As you live your way into a deeper understanding of what is true and good and meaningful for you, no matter how on or off course you might feel right now, you will gain the capability to acknowledge and invite new possibilities to live and work with awareness, intention and aligned action.

Developing your purpose is ultimately an exercise in imagination and creativity, because as the beloved Brazilian philosopher and educator Rubem Alves noted, “The frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual.” What, then, is possible for you?

Developing a sense of purpose for all that is possible (and not only what is actual) means listening deeply to your inner voice and connecting with what is most alive, true, and good in your life. ●

“LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PRESENT YOU ARE CONSTRUCTING; IT SHOULD LOOK LIKE THE FUTURE YOU ARE DREAMING.”

Alice Walker

WHAT’S ALIVE FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?

INTERVIEW BY VICTORIA DAWSON

The thread that runs through Rich Fernandez’s life—unifying his undergraduate degree in literature; his pursuit of mindfulness practices and martial arts; his master’s in organizational psychology, and doctoral work in counseling psychology; his years with corporate giants like JPMorgan Chase, eBay, and Google; and his eventual shift to the nonprofit sector—is a simple question: What makes us thrive? How, Fernandez, asks, can humans flourish at work and extend that flourishing to other realms of their lives? To that end, in 2013, he cofounded Wisdom Labs, whose mission is to provide workplace wellness and mindfulness via digital platforms. In 2017, Fernandez took the helm of the Google-born Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI), a nonprofit global initiative whose face-to-face programs include mindfulness and emotional intelligence training for individuals and organizations. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and their teenage son.

It’s interesting that your life’s work—career and calling—has revolved around the subject of work

Most of our productive time, energy, and attention is spent at work. We spend about 40% of our waking life working—90,000 hours across a lifetime. For me, the essential question is how can work be transformational? How can it benefit people and the planet?

Can you identify any sources of inspiration for that optimistic view?

My mother grew up in the Philippines. She came to the United States when she was twenty and she had me in her mid-twenties. A year later, her marriage dissolved, and I moved to the Philippines for three years to live with my maternal grandmother and aunt. After I returned to New York City, we continued to visit the Philippines often, and the culture and language are still very much alive for me. There is an expression in the Filipino language, Tagalog, that has guided my own work. In Tagalog, you don’t

ask someone, “What do you do for work?” You ask, “Ano ang hanapbuhay mo?” What is your search for life? It’s a beautiful way to talk about work. It’s not just your livelihood. It’s how you make life. It’s what makes you feel fully alive and allows you to bring the best of your gifts forward.

I’m curious if, elsewhere in your youth, there are hints of your eventual dedication to mindfulness and other awareness practices?

I went to a parochial school about three blocks from my apartment in Manhattan. In middle school, I started going to church for ten or fifteen minutes, before school, to just sit there. It was the only place I found quiet and stillness. My mom wanted to know why was leaving early for school. “Well, I’m going to church,” I’d say. She was very suspicious: “There’s no Mass now, why are you really going? What are you doing there?” I’m just sitting.

A four-part video course with Rich Fernandez to help you uncover meaning, set intentions, and more. mindful.org/ rich-fernandez

Were you in particular need of quiet?

My mother had remarried, and I shared a bedroom with my baby sister. So, there I was, a middle school boy with an infant waking up every three hours and crying. We were this blended family starting to come together, in a small apartment. It was a bit tumultuous. So, church was an island of calm and repose and peace. I didn’t use those words at the time. All I knew was that liked to go. The sacredness of the space itself connected me to something beyond myself.

It’s not unusual for the path to mindfulness to begin with a personal crisis. But that wasn’t the case for you, was it?

In my freshman year of college, a dorm-mate invited me to a tai chi class. Neither of us had tried it before, and didn’t know anything about tai chi. But in that first session, I felt a real shift, an opening up of consciousness. I didn’t have the words to name it, but it was a kind of embodied mindfulness experience. At the end of class, I asked the instructor, “What were we doing?” She said, “Meditation in motion.”

I asked, “What’s meditation?”

And that was it?

It was a “wow” moment. The instructor recommended books by Thich Nhat Hanh, Stephen Levine, Lao Tzu, Zhuang Zhou, Alan Watts— and I read them. From that class onward, meditation— mindfulness—became a formal pursuit. Suddenly, there was a model to follow. I came to mindfulness through a gravitation toward the innate goodness of life that, through formal practice, I could finally access.

After you earned your PhD you had a successful run in the corporate world, from Bank of America to eBay—the latter move occurring in the throes of the financial crisis.

As a retail business, eBay was severely affected. People around me were freaking out. I was worried, but I like to think I’m fairly grounded—and I practice, right? Some of my colleagues were curious. “We’re facing a crisis, how come you’re so chill?” I told them that I find my ground every day. “How?” they asked. I told them that meditation helps, and they asked, “What’s meditation?” I started holding sits for about five of my colleagues, teaching them to cultivate awareness using their breath. Before I knew it, 20 people were showing up.

The arc of your life seems striking for the absence of bad career decisions.

My practice has been an anchor point for me. Each step of the way, my convictions have been informed by an underlying sense of what my life is about. I feel very fortunate that I’ve managed to find my way, to live and do what I love. ●

Rich Fernandez sharing his passion for purpose during a keynote address on the science of mindful leadership, given at the 2018 APEX Leadership Symposium in Ottawa.

“WORK IS NOT JUST YOUR LIVELIHOOD. IT’S HOW YOU MAKE LIFE. IT’S WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL FULLY ALIVE AND ALLOWS YOU TO BRING THE BEST OF YOUR GIFTS FORWARD.”

Rich Fernandez, CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, talks about how he leaned on his mindfulness practice to turn his career into a calling.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RICH FERNANDEZ

Easy Speed

What swimming taught me about self-compassion and letting go.

By Kelly Barron

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelly Barron is a freelance writer and mindfulness teacher in Los Angeles. When she’s not meditating or swimming, she loves to play table tennis.

I’mno Diana Nyad. But I’m a capable swimmer. During the summer months, I regularly swim a half-mile in the Pacific Ocean, churning through waves and unpredictable tides with the selfassurance of a Los Angeles lifeguard.

So when a gym pal encouraged me to improve my strokes by taking a lesson with Dan Halladay, a retired UCLA women’s swim team coach, I was game. I liked the idea of refining my freestyle, polishing my flip turns, and getting in some intense swim workouts.

As I headed to the pool for my first lesson, I was surprised to feel a pang of nervous tightness in my chest. I met Dan, a fit 68-year-old with a genuine smile, at the far end of a lane reserved for lessons. Dan got down to business quickly, explaining that he’d film my first 50 yards on his iPhone and then get in the water to instruct.

I pulled on my orange swim cap, squared my goggles over my nose, and slipped into the chlorinescented water. Taking off with purpose, I whirled my arms and kicked my feet at a fast clip. I hit the wall, reversing course with

a solid flip turn, and kept pace to finish strongly.

Dan was waiting at the water’s edge. My friend had told me that no matter how good a swimmer I thought I was, Dan would offer corrections. Of course; that’s why I was taking a lesson. But what Dan said surprised me.

“Wow, you’re like a wind-up toy in the water,” he joked. Taking a more serious tone, he told me: “Relax. Slow down.” Then, Dan relayed the kind of wisdom that transcends sport: “We only have so many starry nights left.”

The nervous tightness in my chest blossomed. I felt both embarrassed and profoundly seen by Dan’s seemingly obvious observation of my Type A tendencies. The harsh voice of self-criticism rang in my ears: “Why are you trying so hard? You’re not training for the Olympics!”

Then, as it often does when I need it most, my mindfulness practice showed up. I took a deep breath and softened my body. In the space I created between my critical thoughts, waves of selfcompassion arose. Pema Chödrön’s sweet refrain of self-acceptance—“allow, allow, allow”—floated into my mind. Reframing my reactivity with kindness, I thought how normal it was for me and for all of us to return to our habitual set points when we try something new, feel stressed, or just get a bad night’s sleep.

Healing the wound of overachieving

And yet, there in the pool my striving was laid bare. Swimming, like many sports, can be an embodied metaphor for how we relate to life. I’ve long equated effort with excellence. More often than not, I’ve made it happen, rather than let it happen. Sometimes there’s merit in that hardnosed approach. It’s made me successful. But it’s also made me stressed and, at times, woefully unhappy.

Like many people who begin and then develop a lifelong meditation practice, I began meditating as a way to unwind my tightly wound nervous system. It’s worked. Even in times of great difficulty, I’m so much less stressed than I ever have been. The way I muscled myself from one end of the pool to the other, though, told me that the wound of overachieving was still open. It also told me that by taking swim lessons I might have the opportunity to further heal it.

Dan was more than a worthy teacher. In his decades of coaching, he’d trained some of the best collegiate swimmers in the country, teaching them how to efficiently glide through the water at maximum speed.

Swimming, it turns out, is highly paradoxical. Slicing through the water quickly while preserving precious energy requires the perfect

muscular balance between laxity and tension. Swim with too much effort and you’ll be gassed before the race is over. Make too little effort and you’ll wallow in the water.

Dan called this razor’s edge of effort “easy speed.”

After our brief chat, Dan jumped into the water and stood in front of me in the

during meditation or flow while writing—that the feeling couldn’t be forced. But it could be felt, acknowledged, and trained.

A look of recognition must have registered on my face. Dan smiled. He then explained that instead of ripping and tearing at the water, I needed to extend my arms from my shoulders and reach toward an imaginary pole in front of me that could pull me ahead one stroke at a time.

I made a few fumbling attempts. Dan told me to soften my hands and loosen my fingers, spreading them like Japanese fans. Loose hands meant water could slide more readily past me.

The lesson continued with Dan making numerous corrections and me making numerous bids to embody them. My head was too high in the water. I dropped my right hand before my left hand reached out in front of me. It would be better if I rotated my torso more, and so on.

pool. I missed my thrashing and the illusion of control striving bestows. But when I finished my lap, Dan enthusiastically said: “You won’t believe how fast you were motoring.”

Staying loose in the face of resistance

In the swim lessons since my first, Dan has upped the ante, tethering me to a bungee cord and forcing me to create easy speed against resistance. Life, like swimming, doesn’t always go smoothly or as we plan. So I saw the wisdom of training easy speed in the face of difficulty.

shallow end. He grabbed my hands and stretched my arms out in front of me, lightly moving them in a rhythmic freestyle motion so I could feel easy speed in my body.

It was a mix of presence, physical ease, and mental relaxation. I knew from other experiences— absorbed concentration

Dan, though, had me at starry nights. Midway through my lesson, I held my hand up and with the kind of confidence only a recovering overachiever can muster, I told him: “I think I’ve got it.”

I swam the length of the pool, letting my body fall into a state of dynamic relaxation as I concentrated on one or two of Dan’s technical notes. It felt as though I was swimming through peanut butter, barely making headway across the

And, in fact, the feeling of easy speed has returned to me on dry land. It has appeared at times as a welcome companion amid uncertainty, preventing me from regressing into wellworn, stressful habits. My striving nature will likely always be a part of me. I’ve become far more accepting of it. At times, I even appreciate it. It’s what drove me to take a swim lesson in the first place. But maybe, sometime in the near future, striving won’t be what propels me forward. Easy speed will be my new set point. ●

Dan relayed the kind of wisdom that transcends sport: “We only have so many starry nights left.”

STRANGE SITUATION

A Mother’s Journey into the Science of Attachment

Bethany

How many movies or TV series have you seen depicting psychotherapy? Every time it’s the same scene. The therapist in a comfortable chair, their hands nested beneath their chin, listening intently or speaking wisely. Across from them sits the client on a chair or couch, usually a little more anxious. Salmon, a clinical psychologist teaching in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Louisville, asks us: Is anything missing from this picture?

No movement. Because movement is, he says, traditionally “viewed as outside the realm of ‘talk therapy.’” Salmon—who is also a certified exercise physiologist, registered yoga teacher, personal trainer, and mindfulness teacher—encourages clinicians to consider incorporating “purposeful, mindful movement” in their interventions. He is not talking simply about exercise but about movement infused with awareness of what’s going on in body and mind, which can “provide a way to rekindle appreciation for our ability to move and be physically active.” Moving, he emphasizes, is baked into our DNA, but our lifestyles have greatly reduced it. Physical activity itself can create tangible experience that helps us be more than sedentary bodies with overactive brains, providing “an anchor to moment-to-moment reality.”

Salmon leads off by offering five progressively more engaged ways to bring movement into therapy. He then defines mindful movement and makes a case for it, as well as reviewing how mindful movement is used in existing clinical programs. From there,Salmon offers practical applications, first in a general way, and then for various kinds of conditions, such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and addiction. There are also 29 audio guided practices that purchasers of the book can use personally or with clients.

Research has shown that our very earliest relationships affect everything we do later in life—”how we love, work, marry, create, lead, pray, scroll, drink, eat, study, sleep, have sex,” writes Bethany Saltman. As a new parent, troubled by the shadows of her emotionally neglected childhood, Saltman sought to come to grips with what “good” attachment is, how we can heal from the “bad” kind, and her own self.

Attachment parenting is now de rigeur, she writes, but is often contradicted by the science of attachment, which she dives into headfirst with this moving memoir. Her journey explores the witnessing of sadness, hurt, and anger, and the universal desire to be seen. Attachment, she discovers, isn’t only about mothering — it’s available to any of us who truly delight in those dear to our hearts.

KEEP CALM AND LOG ON Your Handbook for Surviving the Digital Revolution

Gillian “Gus” Andrews, EdD • The MIT Press

This handbook is crammed with practical information, from understanding bias to figuring out who owns a particular website. Andrews points out that the digital revolution— with its promise of connecting us all, extending access, and generally spreading more fun—often makes us feel more disconnected and proliferates disinformation. Her book is for those of us who feel “bad

at” technology, addicted to it, or at a loss for how best to navigate a world dominated by it. She addresses FAQs around privacy, online etiquette, critical thinking, intimate online relationships, and more. Worksheets, practices, advice, and resources for further reading make this guide valuable for anyone who wants to better understand one of the defining revolutions of our time.

Saltman • Ballantine

MINDFUL MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

Paul Salmon • Guilford Press

WELL NOURISHED

Mindful Practices to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Heal Your Whole Self, and End Overeating

Andrea Lieberstein, MPH, RDN • Fair Winds

This step-wise approach to healing our relationships with food offers worksheets, charts, graphs, prompts, and practices to lead readers through an inventory of how, what, and why we eat and overeat. Lieberstein outlines what she calls our “eight bodies”: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, social, intellectual, and creative. A lack of nourishment of one or more of those bodies may lead us to overeat, Lieberstein writes. Subsequent chapters focus on

each of those bodies—with research-based information about the importance of each to our well-being, along with tools for tapping into awareness, setting intentions, and making changes to better nourish each of our bodies. Well Nourished is a practical, compassionate, customizable approach to an issue that can feel insurmountable—we have to eat to survive, but failing to address our relationship with food and overeating can stunt our ability to thrive and live fully.

TUNE IN TO Mindful

Visit mindful.org for featured meditations from Hugh Byrne, Kristin Neff, and JG Larochette

FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH ANXIETY

A 23-Minute Anxiety Practice to Calm Body and Mind

When we’re anxious, caught up in fearful or worried thinking about what might happen, these difficult feelings will often lead us into acting in habitual ways. Using mindfulness, we can allow ourselves to experience the feelings and then choose whether we act on them. Explore this practice to lay the basis for more healthy and beneficial responses to your anxious impulses.

PODCAST Reviews

EMOTIONAL BADASS Episode: Managing Our Feelings Through the Coronavirus Crisis

LONGER

Michael

A 20-Minute Meditation to Cultivate Compassion from

During loving-kindness meditation, the meditator thinks of a particular person, visualizes them, and silently repeats a series of phrases to invoke friendly wishes or good intentions. The best part: Research shows that loving-kindness meditation is “dose-dependent”—the more you do, the more powerful the effects. Work with this compassion practice to create more supportive self-talk and uplifted moods.

A 6-Minute Breathing Practice to Stay in the Moment

A San Francisco medical doctor who is also an awardwinning science fiction and fantasy author, Blumlein passed away in the fall of 2019 after a long illness. Longer is the work he produced during his final year and its principal theme is mortality. He presents a world where it’s possible to “juve,” to add another life span. With current

pharmacology, one is able to safely add more “lives” twice (which is still not enough for some). Dream come true, right? Well…maybe. The fact that Blumlein himself was facing his own death while composing the novel gives it power and palpability that is the mark of the best kind of science fiction. Ironically, this is a book brimming with life.

Resting attention on the breath is the foundational practice of mindfulness. Breath may be a little shallow or a little deeper, at different times, but the breath is always here for us right here, right now. This gentle practice, which is also a great way for children to explore mindfulness, helps us to practice drawing our awareness back to the breath, time and again, training our attention so that we can focus in each moment.

As much as the world of podcasts offers entertainment, education, and news, it also provides valuable tools for mental and emotional support, in the very real and human moments when we need reassurance. In this episode of Emotional Badass, psychotherapist Nicki Eisenhauer calls on the life lessons she learned through surviving Hurricane Katrina. With both confidence and compassion, she voices the quiet inner truths we need to be reminded of right now: That our basic needs of food, shelter, and rest are top priority, even (especially)

during a crisis. That having safe boundaries is a strength we can and must practice: “Sometimes saying no when we want to say yes is the most loving thing that we can do.” That financial worry is valid, and yet isn’t bigger than our ability to find a way. And that bearing witness to our storm of emotions creates space for loving-kindness, rather than blowing us over. Dr. Eisenhauer ends with a 10-minute guided meditation that powerfully affirms our own capability, strength, and resilience. Particularly worth remembering is her note that “Fear is not equal to how much you care.”

THE 180 PODCAST Episode: Coronavirus: Keeping our Children and Ourselves Safe, with Pamela Cantor, M.D.

Pamela Cantor, MD, discusses how to address the fear, stress, and disruption children and teenagers will likely experience during the pandemic. This hour-long episode discusses both physical and emotional safety—e.g., how we can encourage new practices, like more frequent handwashing and strict physical distancing. Helping them shift their behavior, without stressing them out more than necessary, means “patient persistence,

enlisting [children and teens] in helping others, and understanding that others are being impacted even more than them.” For their emotional health? Truth and authenticity matter, says Dr. Cantor. Talk to your kids proactively, and answer their questions patiently. Parents should also model habits of well-being, as best they can: “Taking care of yourself, including using reflective practices like meditation, will help you care for others.” This episode is wonderfully well-rounded, grounded, and practical. ●

from Hugh Byrne

Kristin Neff

from JG Larochette

Blumlein • Tor

“A potent gift that can transform our approach to difficult conversations about the things that matter.

.” OREN JAY SOFER , author of Say What You Mean

68 mindful June 2020 June 2020 mindful 69 read, listen, stream

Award-Winning Children’s Books

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IT’S NOT ONE AND DONE

by BARRY BOYCE , FOUNDING EDITOR

In season 1, episode 4, of the hit television series Fleabag, the title character (a hot mess who runs a tiny struggling café in London and who struggles with just about everything) and her sister Claire (a very tightly wound business executive who also struggles with just about everything) receive the gift of a mindfulness retreat from their dad. It seems like, 1, he’s trying to get his trying daughters out of his hair for a while, and 2, he’s hoping they will return as completely different people.

Hilarity ensues.

annoying. The whole thing just feels like a crock of shit.

It can be very amusing to see the movement (or field or fad, if you prefer) you’re part of—and part of promoting—so mercilessly sent up. I have to admit that it also made me grimace a bit. Do I do that? Is this really what we’re putting out there?

In fact, though, the show has picked an easy target: the cliché

just that. They exist as peaks. When mountain climbers reach the summit, they don’t stay very long. They can’t. The air up there is too thin.

When mindfulness really starts to make a difference is when it can be brought to ground and integrated into everyday life. The practices are not magic talismans that transform you upon touch. They are ingredients that get added to all the other parts of our

version of the mindfulness world. And to be fair, every cliché reflects some truth. There is plenty of crappy and creepy stuff out there parading as mindfulness. Caveat meditator.

Point of View

This scenario becomes the pretext for a full-blown satire of the mindfulness revolution. The retreat takes place in a posh estate surrounded by lush, manicured grounds. The woman leading the retreat speaks softly but wields a big passive-aggressive emotional stick that is thinly concealed. She’s better, calmer, more aware, and more woke than the messed-up women (it’s a women-only event) who wash up on her shore. And speaking of washing, participants are made to do lots of cleaning chores, and they are paying for the privilege. Silence is not gently encouraged. It’s enforced with prison-guard-like scorn.

Needless to say, Claire and Fleabag find the whole experience disappointing and

At the heart of the cliché depicted in the show is that mindfulness is an experience we have, something to get and collect. What the two sisters were sent to seek was a peak experience that would change them forever. They were expecting to travel to Mindfulness-ville, as if it were a special place you visited, pure and rarified and free from the pain and drudgery of life, a place that also leaves an indelible mark. It’s the ultimate trip to Paris. And thereafter, you’ll always have Paris.

But as meditation teacher Jack Kornfield famously pointed out in a classic book, after the ecstasy comes the laundry. When we practice mindfulness, awareness, kindness, and compassion, we may very likely have life-changing experiences. No problem having them, or wanting them for that matter. Peak experiences, though, are

life. And one of the nice things about mindfulness is that in bringing attention to details and to changes within us and around us, it complements so many other habits and disciplines in our lives, such as nutrition, exercise, relationships, gardening, art, craft, and all kinds of skills we learn in order to thrive within our lives, like listening and learning to be a better leader.

The two sisters were served up mindfulness as an airy-fairy one-stop experience, delivered from the mouth of a soft-talking expert. The difference between that and sustainable mindfulness is the difference between cotton candy and an apple. At its best, mindfulness is a lifelong path that takes us straight to the center of our heart, where we can keep finding a compass that can guide us through the unavoidable challenges of living down here on the ground. ●

The cliché is that mindfulness is an experience we have, something to get and collect. It’s the ultimate trip to Paris. And thereafter, you’ll always have Paris.

Barry Boyce is the founding editor of Mindful and Mindful.org and author of The Mindfulness Revolution. He has been an avid mindfulness practitioner for over 40 years.

Founding editor Barry Boyce and managing editor Stephanie Domet dig deeper into these ideas on the Point of View podcast. mindful.org/ pov