Mindful Magazine October 2021 - How to Practice Self-Care

MINDFULNESS • THE TRANSFORMATION ISSUE

HOW TO PRACTICE

Self-Care +

B RE AT H E C A LM I N TO YO U R W H O LE BO DY THE ART OF M I N D FU L FO R AG I N G

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GU I D E D M E D I TAT I O N S TO I G N I T E YO U R PA SSI O N S T H E P OW E R O F M A LE FR I E N DSH I PS

OCTOBER 2021 mindful.org

HAPPINESS

Why Savoring Small Moments is the Key to Joy

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATION BY CAROLE HÉNAFF. COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY MARESA SMITH / STOCKSY.

THE TRANSFORMATION ISSUE

Self-Care is not Selfish

When we practice authentic self-care, writes Shelly Tygielski, we’re both preserving ourselves and nurturing our communities.

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The Power of Sustainable Self-Care Showing up for yourself, writes Shelly Tygielski, lays the foundation for our life’s purpose: showing up for others.

On the Cover 18

Happiness: Why Savoring Small Moments is the Key to Joy

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Breathe Calm into Your Whole Body

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How to Practice Self-Care

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The Art of Mindful Foraging

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The Power of Male Friendships MEDITATIONS

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Gather Wild Beauty Chelsea Fuss explores how the art of gathering wildflowers lets us embrace openness, creativity, and presence.

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Expanding Our Hearts

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Vast Awareness

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Remember How to Trust

STORIES

18 Mindful Living

Living Large

22 Health

What Happens in Vagus…

26 Inner Wisdom 28 Brain Science

Your Brain Secretly Works With Other Brains

58

Gentle Men Chris Peraro on practising to face— and move beyond—harmful ideas about what it means to “be a man.”

EVERY ISSUE

4 From the Editor 7 In Your Words 8 Top of Mind 16 Mindful–Mindless 68 Bookmark This 72 Point of View with Barry Boyce

VOLUME NINE, NUMBER 4, Mindful (ISSN 2169-5733, USPS 010-500) is published bimonthly for $29.95 per year USA, $39.95 Canada & $49.95 (US) international, by Mindful Communications & Such, PBC, 515 N State Street, Suite 300, Chicago IL. 60654 USA. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mindful, PO Box 469018, Escondido, CA 92046. Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement #42704514. CANADIAN POSTMASTER: Send undeliverable copies to Mindful, 5765 May St, Halifax, NS B3K 1R6 CANADA. Printed in U.S.A. © 2021 Mindful Communications & Such, PBC. All rights reserved.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHELSEA FUSS, KIRSTIN MCKEE / STOCKSY. ILLUSTRATION BY CAROLE HÉNAFF.

Start with a Single Step

from the editor

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Heather Hurlock is the editor-in-chief of Mindful magazine and mindful.org. She’s a longtime editor, musician, and meditator with deep roots in service journalism. Connect with Heather at heather.hurlock@mindful.org.

Full disclosure: I feel like a total hypocrite writing about self-care. I just spent the last six weeks traveling the country in an RV with my family and I can tell you, all of my healthy routines fell away after day three. In the beginning, I got out my yoga mat, did flashcards with my kids, and sat under beautiful trees meditating to the sounds of birds. But very quickly, the trip steamrolled into a mess of blown tires, leaky pipes, bored kids, and Twizzlers for breakfast.

Yep. All the while, I was editing this beautiful issue you now hold in your hands.

I’m coming clean with my lack of self-care because I want you to know that I understand how easy it is to deprioritize your own care. Even when we know what we need in order to show up as our best selves, the practice and routines of care can be the first things to go when life gets crazy—which is right when we need them most.

Thankfully (maybe even presciently), we’ve gathered together a bevy of beautiful souls for the October issue who know that self-care isn’t self-indulgent—it’s essential.

Writer Jane Anne Staw reminds us that savoring ordinary moments, like the beauty of a leaf on the sidewalk, can expand our capacity for happiness (page 18). Mindful columnist Elaine Smookler encourages us to nurture the unique ways we can bring joy, health, and healing to ourselves and our planet, one small step at a time (page 26).

Health writer Caren Osten Gerszberg digs into the science of the vagus nerve and offers us research-backed ways to calm our whole body (page 22). And self-care activist Shelly Tygielski shares her practical and powerful plan for creating a sustainable self-care practice that allows you to take an active role in your physical and mental well-being— and hold yourself accountable (page 36).

True self-care means having the capacity to make healthy choices (for yourself, your community, and the planet) in the face of disruption and difficulty as well as through moments of joy and celebration. Sustainable self-care can help us connect to our inner compass—that voice that knows when our fears are getting in the way of our joy, when our curiosity is crashing right up against our recklessness, and when our desire to do it all meets our wisdom about when to pause (and be kind to ourselves when we eat Twizzlers for breakfast along the way.)

With love,

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAIRE ROSEN

Real Self-Care

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in your words

Inspired Words We asked what inspires Mindful readers and how they bring their creative ideas to life.

How do you tap into creativity?

"I doodle in my journals, along with writing. I also write letters to people—old school!" staceylanius “I tap into creativity by looking through the window of my studio at the blooming flowers, and fluttering butterflies!

I marvel at their freedom in flight and the predictability of the seasonal cycles, and I delve into an art journal with the same uninhibited ways nature models for me.”

Val V.

“I like to find inspiration in nature. Then I paint, either watercolor florals or even design mandalas on flat river rocks...I also love to take photographs of trees in the fall at sunrise, capturing the bold bright colors. And in the spring I love to go to our botanical gardens and photograph the dozens of varieties of tulips they plant every year. Yes, nature is the canvas of life.”

Amy G. "Sidewalk chalk! I get to be outside, the work isn’t permanent, and lots of people get to experience it as they walk by."

“People-watching. When I’m at the grocery store, coffee shop—anywhere really—I pay attention to the individuals around me and wonder about each one’s life.”

How often do you get a chance to be creative?

• EVERY DAY • EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE • JUST ON WEEKENDS • ALMOST NEVER

Pamela C. "Embroidery and quilting" dmorinhome “I get my most creative ideas when I am moving. When I am stuck, I go for a run or get on my mat!”

24%

28%

11% 37%

Sue K.

cementalbreak

Next Question…

What makes you feel empowered?

Send an email to yourwords@mindful.org and let us know your answer to this question. Your response could appear on these pages.

↓ @muchable.nl designed this pattern while relaxing outdoors with a cold beverage at hand.

↑ @atxyogagirl leads a camp for teens and encourages self-expression through art.

This piece was done with block printing.

→ @kindtraveler spent their weekend reading Mindful’s June issue and learning about how we create our reality.

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committee, more readers will have a chance to experience that stillness in their own language.

TOP OF

mind Keep up with the latest in the world of mindfulness.

SKIN DEEP When his brother lost a limb in a collision, John Amanam, a 33-year-old Nigerian native, learned that the majority

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of prosthetic limbs available in his country were white or wood-toned.

A former movie special-effects sculptor, Amanam noticed the lack of confidence that

came with having an artificial limb with a mismatched skin tone. And, despite having no formal training, Amanam set out on a mission to help people feel whole and at home in their own body.

“If I could give back or solve this need, it would go a long way to ease that emotional

trauma and loss of confidence,” he told Reuters.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION Winnipeg kindergarten teacher Karla Dueck Thiessen’s picture book It Starts With A Breath…a Book About Mindful Breathing has been translated into Spanish by a teacher in Mexico, and now two other Winnipeg school teachers—Lorraine George and Gloria Barker—are translating it into their own Indigenous

languages, Cree and Anishinaabemowin respectively. And George plans to have her students help by incorporating the project into the Cree/English program at her school. “It’s in the stillness that our breath connects us to our body, mind, and spirit,” Dueck Thiessen told the Winnipeg Free Press. And through this project, enabled by some funding from the city and from Dueck Thiessen’s church’s truth and reconciliation

If you’re up late and tuned in to the new BBC Radio 1 Relax channel online or on your radio, you might be treated to the sounds of chopping and crunching, courtesy of the new ASMR program, or an hour’s worth of ambient sound captured in the Arctic and Antarctica, featuring stirring winds and adorable penguin sounds on “Deep Sleepscapes.”

Daytime listening includes guided meditations with Stuart Sandeman, downbeat music mixes, and the seemingly contradictory “chillout anthems” from the likes of Florence and the Machine, Anderson .Paak, and the Arctic Monkeys.

REPLY-ALL FOR FRIENDSHIP Who among us hasn’t groaned at the appearance, in our inbox, of an email chain with hundreds of replyall responses?

PHOTOGRAPH BY TLIGHTSCAPE IST / UNSPLASH, VERGANI FOTOGRAFIA / ADOBESTOCK

TUNE IN, ZONE OUT

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PHOTOGRAPH BY BROOKE CAGLE NUY / UNSPLASH

ABC Carpet and Home recently let customers know, by email, that their couch delivery would be delayed.

Altogether, 204 customers were copied on the email—and after an initial surge of complaints about the delay, and the rookie move of not putting all the addresses in bcc, this accidental community began to bond over what its 204 members had in common besides the lack of a new couch.

They shared stories about their pandemic lives—talking about their pets, their losses, their dating lives, their hopes and dreams for the delayed couches. One

member started a fundraiser for a family in need due to the pandemic.

Many expressed compassion for the person who sent the email and neglected to bcc everyone.

And at least one experienced a moment of personal growth.

“The weight of feeling like a fraud in this group is too much to bear,” Gus Goldsack wrote to the group.

His couch had not been delayed. It arrived in February. “It’s beautiful,” Goldsack told the others. “I love it.”

THE CARDS YOU’RE DEALT The pandemic made grieving a lonelier endeavor,

taking away opportunities for mourning with our communities and loved ones. The Artists’ Literacies Institute in partnership with the New York City Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster began exploring how art could help process loss. The result was The Artists’ Grief Deck, flashcards curated from an open call to artists, griefworkers, and people mourning around the world. The deck includes artwork that invites reflection (a painting of a woman weeping, a photo of birds in flight), grief prompts, memorial actions, and acts of mindfulness.

ACTS OF kindness HAUL PASS

COVID-19 restrictions had Canadian Aaron Wylie wondering how he could visit his terminally ill mother one province over—until he found a loophole.

Truck drivers, considered essential, could travel, and Wylie had the right driver’s license. He posted online asking for a weekend job that would take him near his mother’s home, and received hundreds of responses overnight. One person even offered to donate their liver.

SHIRT STORY

When Andi Musser, 10, shared hand-me-downs with a friend who couldn’t afford

new clothes, the friend cried tears of happiness.

Right away, Andi began dreaming up the Kindness Closet that is now a reality at her US elementary school. With the help of her principal and some local shops, she’s set up a place where fellow students can get new or gently used clothing for free.

THANKS A BUNCH

Muthupandi, a fruit vendor in Kovilpatti, India, hangs bunches of bananas outside his shop with a note that reads “If you’re hungry, take it for free.

Do not waste.”

Muthupandi says he’s simply trying to make life easier for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

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top of mind

Research News

by B. GRACE BULLOCK

Research gathered from Ryerson University, Brown University, and others.

SEEKING ATTENTION Researchers at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, analyzed data from 87 published studies with healthy adults to better understand which attentional behaviors are impacted by meditation. They focused on general attention, as well as specific aspects of executive function such as orienting toward an object, shifting focus, or inhibiting a response. Meditation practices were categorized as either open monitoring or focused attention practices.

Open monitoring emphasizes the ability to stay

in the present moment while paying attention to one’s experience without getting lost in thought. Focused attention meditation involves being able to sustain attention on a particular object. Overall, results showed that both types of practices were associated with improvements in attention and executive function. Meditators were better able to maintain their focus, pay attention to many objects, and became less distracted than non-meditators.

There were no significant differences for orienting or shifting attention between those who do or do not meditate.

More studies are needed to better understand these effects.

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TEEN ANGST Parents can often find aggressive behavior of their children and teens to be challenging.

Although there are a number of studies examining whether mindfulnessbased interventions (MBIs) can help curb aggressive youth behavior, the research is in its early stages. Scientists in China examined 18 studies of 1,223 young people to better understand the impact of MBIs on youth aggression.

Studies included 3 randomized controlled trials, 7 experimental studies, and 8 studies

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that looked at changes in a few individuals over time. The research found that interventions like paying attention to the breath, body, thoughts, and feelings, to shifting attention and mindful eating lowered aggression levels. Intervention lengths varied from 15 days to more than 40 weeks.

The majority of studies found that MBIs worked particularly for those

HELP OR HARM? Although mindfulness practices like meditation are helpful for many, not everyone may benefit, according to a new study.

Researchers at Brown University asked 96 adults who had

ILLUSTRATION BY SPENCER CREELMAN

When asked open-ended questions in a public setting, participants were reluctant to share negative experiences resulting from meditation practice. with higher levels of aggression. In light of the variability of intervention strategies used, and low quality of some of the studies reviewed, further research is needed to understand which aspects of these MBIs most impact aggressive behavior.

completed eight weeks of a mindfulness-based program to complete a 44-item survey about their experience.

Notably, 83% of attendees reported experiencing at least one negative meditation-related side-effect. When asked openended questions in a public

setting, however, participants were generally reluctant to share their negative experiences resulting from meditation practice. These findings are consistent with earlier research, which found that anxiety, fear, depression, re-experiencing trauma, and stress reactions can all be part of people’s reactions to meditation.

It’s important to note that benefits and negative side effects aren’t mutually exclusive—sometimes people experience both.

Results from the new study are important in that they recognize that negative side effects of meditation practice can be common, and those who experience them are not unusual or alone. This information adds to the research that allows those interested in a mindfulness practice to make informed decisions about which approaches might be most beneficial for them.

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PEOPLE TO WATCH • DR. GIO IACONO

“

Queer youth matter and mindfulness may be a very important component of improving mental health and health for queer youth. We can’t leave these youth behind.”

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Dr. Gio Iacono remembers what it was like, as a queer teenager in Toronto in the mid-’90s, to have questions he didn’t know how to find answers for. “I didn’t know that you could be queer and be OK, or you could be trans and be OK and a fully deserving human being,” he says. He didn’t have support to help him understand LGBTQ+ experience and struggled with social anxiety that stayed with him into adulthood. He doesn’t want young people today to feel like he did.

He pursued a career in social work and psychotherapy, hoping to both help individuals and to inform mental health policy and approaches for young LGBTQ+ people. He was working on the topic of self-kindness with a client when he was introduced to mindfulness by reading Kristin Neff’s book, SelfCompassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. “I finally realized there’s a way to practice the age-old wisdom of loving yourself,” he says. The ideas of awareness and lovingkindness resonated on a deep level that helped him fully accept himself.

Now, he practices mindfulness moment-to-moment and wants to help young LGBTQ+ people tap into the benefits of mindfulness with practices that explicitly name sources of stress for queer folks, like prejudice, stigma, and oppression.

Iacono recently received a grant from the Mind and Life Institute to develop mindfulness-based programming that is accessible, safe, and supportive for young people of sexual and gender minorities.

He’s currently researching and developing Tuned In!—A Mindfulness-Based Affirmative Program for LGBTQIA Youth. Tuned in! is an eight-week online group intervention program that includes breathing meditations, lovingkindness, and awareness practices. It’s not a static program though—Iacono adapts each exercise based on feedback from the young people he works with.

“Queer youth matter and mindfulness may be a very important component of improving mental health and health for queer youth,” he says. “We can’t leave these youth behind.”

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY DR. GIO IACONO

Self-Acceptance For All

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With Dr. Judson Brewer I’ve been struggling with my habits—trying to break some unhealthy ones, and make some healthier ones.

I need some help staying the course though—why is this so hard?

ILLUSTRATION BY NAKI-SAMA / VECTEEZY, VISUAL GENERATION / ADOBESTOCK

Dr. Judson Brewer is a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and thought leader on habit change. His most recent book is Unwinding Anxiety (Penguin, 2021).

Let’s look at how the mind actually works when it comes to forming (and maintaining) habits. They have a simple, consistent formula: there’s a trigger, there’s an accompanying behavior, and there’s a result or reward.

Being in habit mode is like being on autopilot. So, first gear is recognizing what our habits are.

Paying attention is second gear—exploring and understanding the rewards that come from our behaviors.

If we’re constantly checking our phones, for instance, we might compare the rewards of that behavior to how our live interactions with people feel. When we notice how our

NAME IT to TAME IT

“SUNDAY SCARIES” A feeling of anxiety, stress, or dread about the impending work or school week that tends to rise late in the day as the weekend dwindles.

Try This Instead: Take three full breaths. On the first breath, bring your full

attention to breathing. On the second, relax the body, drop your shoulders. On the third, ask yourself: What’s important right now? The answer might be “go for a walk,” “call a friend,” or “make sure I have clean clothes to wear tomorrow.” Stay in the moment.

phones can pull our attention away from where we actually are, we might also notice that the reward value of checking our phones (say, every five minutes) diminishes further.

This is where mindfulness can help. So, what feels better? Responding to my phone?

Or staying with the conversation I’m already in with this person sitting across from me?

Once we start to examine relative rewards, we naturally begin to recalibrate and change our behavior. And it’s not from forcing ourselves to change. It emerges from bringing kind, curious awareness to what we’re experiencing to alter our relationship to these all-too-human experiences.

CIVIC Minded

What happens in our local jurisdictions often has the greatest impact on our daily lives.

Parking tickets, potholes, and playgrounds are some of the expected responsibilities of our cities. Less expected, perhaps, is a focus on mental health. Here’s a look at how some municipalities are getting mindful.

UPLIFTING LEADERS A nonprofit in Jackson Hole, WY, is strengthening resilience, one leader at a time. With the guidance of neuroscientist Amishi Jha, Becoming Jackson Whole delivers Mindfulness-Based Attention Training (MBAT) to local leaders in health care, education, law enforcement, and more. Many leaders are also learning how to deliver the training themselves. Starting in late 2021, MBAT will be open to anyone in the city.

BJW founder Sara Flitner says, “It will always be affordable or free.” Results of a study led by Jha showed the participants improved on measures like mind-wandering, attentional performance, mood, anxiety, and work enjoyment.

Jackson Hole, WY

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FIND YOUR PATH Since May 2021, pedestrians in Dayton, OH, can enjoy four “Mindfulness Walks” throughout municipal nature areas. Signage along the pathways encourages people to pause and engage in exercises such as “connecting to your five senses, practicing mindful breathing, and listing the things that bring you gratitude,” according to MetroParks director of outdoor connections Amy Dingle.

MINDFULLY SPEAKING Inspired by Jewish teachings against derogatory speech, and seeking to heal contemporary divisions, the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and local partners invited all citizens to join the Clean Speech Minnesota challenge. April 2021 became “one month of mindful speech for the betterment of humankind.” The organizers shared daily video lessons through Facebook, such as exploring seven questions we can ask ourselves to help cultivate kind, honest, and mindful speech.

Minneapolis, MN

ILLUSTRATION BY HURCA! / ADOBESTOCK

Dayton, OH

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MINDFUL OR MINDLESS? Our take on who’s paying attention and who’s not

by AMBER TUCKER

Noor Shaik, a medical student in Philadelphia, started Breath for Humanity to fundraise for medical supplies for COVID-19 relief efforts in India. At press time she had sent three shipments of PPE, oxygen concentrators, and more.

MINDFUL

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This year Owen J. Hurcum became both the youngest mayor in Wales’ history, and the first openly nonbinary mayor in the world. The 23-year-old already has 5 years’ experience in local government, and they’ve long used their role to stand up for trans rights.

The Pride flag is flying higher than ever in Cleveland, OH, where a gay couple was alarmed when their flag vanished from their porch. The couple, their neighbors, and dog eventually tracked down the rainbow banner, high in a tree—along with the raccoon that took it.

The holy grail of female clothing is the inclusion of pockets.

Fed up with missing pockets, first-grader Karyn Gardner addressed this offense in a letter to Old Navy asking for jeans “with front pockets that are not fake.” The clothing company sent her some free pocketed jeans—a fine first step. More pockets, please!

A Belgian farmer committed a faux pas by moving a large stone on his property by 7.5 feet to make room for his tractor—a stone that’s been a border marker between France and Belgium since 1819. Authorities say, as long as it’s moved back, “We should be able to avoid a new border war.” ●

MINDLESS

ILLUSTRATION BY SPENCER CREELMAN

Can googly eyes save lives? A modified buoy—with a large pair of “eyes” attached—is being tested to scare seabirds away from fishing areas, where birds often get tangled in nets and drown.

Researchers say these simple glaring eyes mounted on a pole may reduce local bird traffic by up to 30%.

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mindful living

How taking the time to appreciate little moments of beauty and connection transformed author Jane Anne Staw’s life—and her relationship with the world, one small encounter at a time.

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By Jane Anne Staw

PHOTOGRAPH BY UTA SCHOLL / UNSPLASH

mindful living

It was an ordinary day.

Midafternoon, I took my dog for her usual walk around the block, mind on remedies for the writing class I was to teach that evening. While I was known for the community that usually formed in my classes, this semester was an exception.

I had already tried several strategies for bringing the students together, but so far nothing had worked.

In those days—before mindfulness was mainstream—I was always worried about something: my teaching, an essay I was writing, my granddaughters, my garden, a recent conversation with a friend. It didn’t take much to turn the anxiety faucet on, and once flowing, it could pull most areas of my life into its current.

About halfway around the block that afternoon, I happened to glance down and notice a dried sycamore leaf curled gracefully on the pavement. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dried sycamore leaf. Giant sycamores line the verges of our Berkeley neighborhood.

But that afternoon, instead of just noticing, I stopped to appreciate. The leaf looked so beautiful, poised in its balletic position, curled gracefully upward, its stem extending for several

inches, rooting it on the sidewalk. I stood for several minutes noticing the leaf’s fragility, its crispness, its delicacy. Then I continued my walk around the block.

When I arrived home 10 minutes later, I realized that the happiness that had infused me as I gazed at the sycamore leaf was still with me. I had stopped worrying about my class—and nothing else to feel anxious about had taken its place. This is quite amazing, I thought. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Something so small sustaining my happiness. In an instant, I realized that I might inadvertently have discovered something important. Transformative!

And I decided to try to replicate my experience.

I was so excited that in a flash I had a name for what I had done, and made a commitment to practicing small for an entire year. And since I’m a writer, I decided to write about my experiences. That was the beginning: an ordinary day on a routine walk that suddenly morphed into the portal to a new way of living my life.

I began my practice by tuning in whenever I noticed something beautiful. I quickly realized that it wasn’t spectacular beauty that made me the happiest.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jane Anne Staw is a writer and lifelong teacher. Small: The Little We Need for Happiness (Shanti Arts Publishers, 2017) is her most recent book. Practicing Small: A Thirty-Day Workbook is forthcoming from Shanti Arts Publishing. She is currently working on a new book: My Year of Loving Kindness: Reflections on Meditation.

Instead, it was the small moments of unexpected beauty that sent a rush of happiness through me. Moments that I discovered on my own and that I might have previously rushed past. It might be a bit of rust on a pipe, a smudge on the sidewalk, a flower petal cradled in a leaf, raised grain on a piece of weathered wood, the graceful drape of a curtain in a living room, the gentle curve of a ceramic bowl.

Turn Toward Beauty I had certainly never been blind to the beauty of small moments. And I had most definitely savored them before. But the afternoon I noticed the dried sycamore leaf, and stopped to admire it, turning away from the subject of my anxiety towards this tiny object of beauty right in front of me, something shifted. I was able to take in fully what I was seeing. Gazing at the leaf, it was as if I had sipped a happiness elixir that spread throughout me.

From small moments of physical beauty, I expanded my practice to small moments of experience. First, I decided that instead of several Thanksgiving dishes in one evening, I would concentrate on the cranberry sauce, taking time to notice everything I could about the cranberries themselves and then about the cooking process. I wasn’t disappointed.

From all the shades of the

berries—pink, red, mauve, apple, claret, scarlet—and the variations of round and oblong, to the way the berries morphed from hard, tight fruit, popping open from the heat, to a thick, deeply colored sauce that bubbled in the pot, by the time the sauce was prepared, I had experienced a high mass of sound, smell, color, texture, and taste.

I discovered one of my richest sources of joyful experience in moments of contact with other people.

It wasn’t long conversations with close friends that filled me with happiness, though of course I enjoyed those.

Instead, it was fleeting and unexpected connections.

One day, as I was headed →

m VIDEO COURSE Reclaim Joy and Well-Being Embrace clarity, calm, and well-being in this four-part mini course led by Jenée Johnson. mindful.org/ joy

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RADICAL SELF-CARE

Reclaiming Your Practice and Learning How to Use it in Real Life BRAND NEW COURSE + book from author, mindfulness teacher and CNN Hero Shelly Tygielski

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mindful.org/radical

mindful living

down the block to the local greengrocer, a woman coming toward me on the sidewalk stopped and said, “I love the colors you’re wearing today.” Another day, a man invited me in line ahead of him in the supermarket.

“You shouldn’t have to wait for me. I have much more in my cart than you do.”

By this time, I knew how to pay attention to the sense of well-being that burbled up within me, giving myself time to absorb these moments so they diffused their good vibrations throughout my mind, body, and spirit.

I’d even realized that I could call up these experiences throughout the day to enhance my mood or help me over a rough spot. In fact, over the months, I began practicing small to keep myself from falling into the familiar pits of anger, loneliness, and depression. Now, if somebody hurt my feelings, I knew to conjure up a small moment from a day or two earlier to transmute those very negative feelings into something else. If during a phone call, my mother criticized me unfairly, for example, instead of choosing to dive into my usual quagmire of sadness and loneliness, I’d choose instead to think back to the past week, recall a moment of joy, and sink into that. If I got a rejection from a magazine where I had submitted some writing, rather than choosing to begin my litany of self-criticism, I chose instead to conjure up my last success and hold on to that for several minutes, letting the positive feelings— not the darkness—take up my inner space.

At some point—I don’t recall when—I realized that practicing small had allowed me to become a much happier person. The technique I had discovered quite by chance was having a profound effect on my life.

First, I had a strategy for navigating the pull of my former negative feelings.

And even more astonishing, those negative feelings arose much less frequently. What had been a way of being for me trailed further and further behind in my past, while the present in which I lived was more and more filled with light.

About a year after my practice of small began, I spotted a book one day in my acupuncturist’s waiting room: Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. Hmmm, I thought, maybe that’s what I’ve been doing. I picked the book up and began reading, excited that neuroscience revealed the mechanisms behind my practice. The brain is plastic, and we can rewire our neural pathways.

By practicing small, I was generating the moments the brain needs to rewire itself.

Even better, I thought, I was proactive in my own rewiring. I didn’t have to wait for something good to happen; I could create the good on my own. Best of all, I felt more connected to people— those I knew and those I encountered fleetingly—than I had ever thought possible.

And in those moments of beauty, connection, uplift, and pleasure, my relationship with the world was altered for the better. ●

PRACTICE THE FINE

ART OF SMALL Jane Anne Staw offers two ways to find a little joy in your day.

1 Savor the Ordinary

As you go about your day, be on the lookout for small moments of beauty, outdoors or in your home. You might notice, for example, a tiny leaf on the pavement, a sinuous crack in a stucco wall or on the sidewalk, one petal of a blossom, or the graceful sweep of a window curtain, the invitingly round shape of your favorite bowl, a moment in a photograph hanging on the wall. Once you discover your small moment of beauty, gaze at it for several minutes, noticing the feelings and sensations it awakens within you—joy, calm, excitement, fluttering, a gentle vibration—and allow that response to spread throughout your body and spirit.

Acknowledge 2Moments of Kindness During the course of your day, notice any pleasant interaction or encounter the day offers you. It might be a “hello” from a passer-by, a compliment from a friend or acquaintance, having the person ahead of you hold the door open, a tender moment you observe between a father and his child, or a toddler squatting down to pet a dog. Once you notice this interaction, pay attention to the reaction it elicits within you, allowing the feelings and sensations to penetrate deep within your mind and body. This takes only a moment, but the rewards can last the entire day.

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mental health

What Happens

IN VAGUS...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Caren Osten Gerszberg is a writer, certified positive psychology life coach, and mindfulness teacher. She helps clients find balance, resilience, and positivity during challenges. Also a contributor to the New York Times and Psychology Today, Caren writes about health and well-being, mindfulness, and education.

Toward the end of a yoga class or during a guided meditation, it’s likely you’ve heard some version of: “Let’s take a few slow, deep breaths, allowing the body to relax as you gently exhale.”

These are simple instructions intended to slow down your heart rate. But what you may not realize is that these slow, deep breaths—and exhalations, in particular—are stimulating your vagus nerve, which signals to the body that it is in a state of calm. It can now rest and digest, tend and befriend.

In Latin, the word “vagus” means wandering, a fitting description for this meandering nerve that stretches from the brain stem down to the colon, connecting to the middle ear, vocal

22 mindful October 2021

cords, heart, lungs, and intestines along the way.

The longest and most complicated of the body’s 12 cranial nerves—each connects the brain to other parts of the body—the vagus nerve plays many roles, affecting our emotional states, heart rate, inflammation levels, blood pressure, and digestion. It interacts with our autonomic nervous system (or ANS—a part of the nervous system that has three branches responsible for unconscious processes, such as digestion and breathing). In particular, it’s an advocate for the parasympathetic nervous system—the branch of the ANS that stimulates the body to “rest and digest.” The vagus nerve thus has a profound impact on our sense of safety and connection.

By Caren Osten Gerszberg

PHOTOGRAPH BY MOTOKI TONN / UNSPLASH

What is the vagus nerve, and how does it connect to our breathing and emotions? Caren Osten Gerszberg demystifies the science around this key messenger of the nervous system.

mental health

What’s the Message?

“The vagus nerve is like the highway of information for the parasympathetic nervous system,” says Dr. Brendan Kelley, professor and clinical vice-chair in the Department of Neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The vagus nerve carries signals—neurotransmitters—between the emotional center of the brain and organs like the heart, lungs, and stomach. These signals instruct specific organs to respond and function according to three states: safe and social, fight and flight, or freeze and immobilize. As deep breaths slow your heart rate, for example, your vagus nerve recognizes the cues of safety and sends that information to parts of the body so they can turn off their defenses, such as those that arise from a sense of anxiety or threat.

“The brain is reading and regulating your body through this nerve,” says Dr. Stephen Porges, a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University and creator of the polyvagal theory, an understanding of the nervous system and how the tone (that is, the activity) of the vagus nerve directly affects our well-being. “The body won’t function optimally,” he adds, “unless it picks up cues of safety.”

Working with mind–body tools, especially the breath, helps to moderate the communication between the sympathetic (another branch of the ANS that stimulates the fight-or-flight response) and parasympathetic nervous systems. “The breath can be used as a gas pedal and as our brakes,” says Arielle Schwartz, PhD, a clinical psychologist and certified yoga instructor. “If I’m feeling shut down and need more alertness, I can bring in some breath of fire; or if I’m feeling anxious and panicky and I want to tap the brakes, I’ll emphasize long, slow exhales and deep belly breathing.”

Safe and Social In social interactions, we tend to focus on behavior—both ours and the person with whom we’re interacting. But Porges’ theory suggests that sociability is not only about voluntary behavior, but rather is rooted in neurobiology.

The vagus nerve is involved in how we respond to people around us, notes Kelley, whether it’s a loving, caring interaction, or one involving fear and anxiety. How the vagus nerve will respond— whether it activates or deactivates—comes down to what the particular situation calls for.

“When you get rid of the threat reaction, you become calm and more present.

The body can then solve problems on a neurophysiological level.”

STEPHEN PORGES, DISTINGUISHED UNIVERSITY SCIENTIST, INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Porges offers the example of a mother’s role to calm a child with a facial expression, a touch, a soothing voice—which activates the vagus nerve—and how the resulting state of calm allows the child’s body to regulate, and if necessary, to heal. “When you get rid of the threat reaction, you become calm and more present,” says Porges. “The body can then solve problems on a neurophysiological level, optimizing how the visceral organs function.”

Sometimes, your vagus nerve needs to deactivate to allow you to access your threat (fight-or-flight) response. For example, hearing sounds such as a dog barking aggressively or a loud clap of thunder will cue the vagus nerve to deactivate, so you can react accordingly and protect yourself. “If we get anxious, we can’t breathe correctly and we turn off the mechanism through which the vagus nerve will calm us down,” says Porges.

This deactivating response can also arise through nonthreatening and even enjoyable situations, Kelley explains. Picture players in a soccer game: When the body needs blood to run fast, it can’t also direct resources to a task like digesting our last meal. According to Kelley, “The sympathetic nervous system really narrows our attention to focus on the matter at hand” —a side benefit of the fight-or-flight response.

A Signal for Compassion In social settings, the vagus nerve encourages what Porges calls the “compassionate witness,” a physiological state where a person is not throwing out cues of anger, threat, or hurt, but is there as a peaceful and supportive observer. “The co-regulation helps the nervous system of the person who’s been hurt to feel safe enough without being defensive, to feel calm and validated,” says Porges. →

m AUDIO Breath Practice Andres Gonzalez leads a practice to activate the vagus nerve. mindful.org/ vagus-nerve

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While further research is needed to illuminate how specific emotions relate to vagal tone, a 2015 paper published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that feeling compassion, “when encountering the suffering of others, leads to markedly greater vagal activity compared with neutral or other emotional states,” according to the researchers. Four studies compared undergraduate participants’ RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a common measure of cardiac vagal function) during different positive emotional states. Results showed the participants’ RSA was greater while they were feeling compassionate than while they were experiencing either pride or inspiration.

Can You “Improve” Vagal Tone?

While the tone of the vagus nerve directly affects our well-being—specifically, our capacity to self-regulate and to connect with others—Kelley adds an important nuance: Although we can measure vagal tone, it’s not a general indicator of how well a person manages stress. When we’re relaxing, our vagal tone will naturally be higher; when we’re active or under pressure, the nerve is not needed and effectively “shuts down.” “Our ability to handle stress is tied up in our brain and emotional world. Vagal tone is just a reflection of that point in time,” Kelley summarizes.

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mental health

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4 Ways to Calm Your Whole Body Breathe deeply. Deep, slow breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and lowers the heart rate, and this can be amplified through the rhythmic rising and falling of the belly during abdominal breathing. Try making your exhalations longer than your inhalations.

take your seat.

PHOTOGRAPH BY HUBIS3D / ADOBESTOCK

Smile and be kind. The vagus nerve, Kelley says, is like a two-way street: “Emotions can affect vagal tone, but there is also communication coming back.” Prosocial behaviors, such as being friendly, compassionate, and grateful, can strengthen vagal tone.

Gently massage your face and neck. “All the vagal pathways in the face relate to how we connect with others—our eyes, smile, voice,” says Schwartz. Gently massage tender spots around the eyes, ears, jaw, and neck to stimulate the vagus nerve. If you try self-massage, take care—Kelly notes it may cause your blood pressure to drop, potentially making you pass out.

Laugh it out. A good laugh stimulates diaphragmatic breathing, activating the vagus nerve. You don’t even have to wait for a good joke to get the benefits: A 2016 study found “simulated laughter” (going through the motions of laughing, without a humorous cause for it) improved health outcomes among older adults. ●

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inner wisdom

Start With a

SINGLE STEP

There’s lots in this world to make us feel small and unimportant. Corporations grow bigger and bigger.

Governments may make decisions we don’t agree with. We feel impotent.

And there’s just no reasoning with a global pandemic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 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.

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But are we actually powerless?

Ultimately, there is great power in how we choose to handle the precious moments of our lives.

The dream that you have, to make a meaningful impact with your life, is in your hands. It is in your choices. There is nothing unimportant about how you choose to use your energy, your time, your money. Surprisingly, you do have power beyond anything you might imagine. Honey, the world has been waiting for you to be bold and play your hand.

Who is to say that you don’t have greatness encoded in your DNA? Maybe you have a cure for loneliness

brewing in your mind, or maybe you are a compassionate teacher who will ease the suffering of one or many.

Maybe you have the gift of being in the right place at the right time. There are countless ways to bring joy, health, and healing to our planet. You might be the agent of change we’ve been waiting for. Why you? Why not you?

A LITTLE ACTION When Reddit’s overnight GameStop bazinga temporarily set Wall Street on its ear earlier this year, it sent a thrill

By Elaine Smookler

PHOTOGRAPH BY VIKAS GURJAR / UNSPLASH

Do you ever feel too small to succeed?

A mindful approach can help you see that you are never powerless when it comes to changing the world.

inner wisdom

3 WAYS TO BRING VITALITY AND PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE

1 There are countless ways to bring joy, health, and healing to our planet. You might be the agent of change we’ve been waiting for. Why you?

Why not you?

through the air. Fascinated, we watched entrenched power brokers get flipped on their collective heinies, by a bunch of everybodies, who just jumped in.

When not-yet-famous-rich-orpowerful 15-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg grew alarmed at the predicament of the imperiled planet, she took it upon herself to jolt world leaders into a can’t-lookaway conversation at the UN. Fuelled solely by her own determination to be informed and be heard, she made it impossible for them not to pay attention to the red-hot urgency of the climate crisis. But who the heck was Greta Thunberg, and how on earth did she manage to make that happen?

She broke the rules. Things don’t work that way. Or maybe they do, or can.

On one level, Greta’s secret for success was that she went for it. She didn’t merely think about it. She armed herself with facts, and learned how to communicate those facts clearly and succinctly. She saw the need and, presumably, she decided Why not me?

She endured whatever was required to follow through on her quest. ●

COMMIT TO YOUR OWN VISION It’s easy to imagine that our voices don’t count. That we don’t matter, that nothing will change. Who knows what might be possible if we began to matter to ourselves? It’s so easy to feel that reaching up, reaching out, or reaching in is not worth the effort. Recognize that these ideas are mind traps. Rise up!

David and Goliath is a story of how one young man, with pluck, good aim, and timing discovered a DIY, low-cost method to use an Etsy-worthy slingshot to slay a giant. Mindfulness practice is how we develop pluck, good aim, and timing to aid in our springing up and overcoming the giants with gusto!

One of my personal life mottos is that if anything can stop you, you will be stopped. Recalling this idea has supported me in difficult moments when I have thought, Is this challenge going to be the one that stops me? No!

2 PUZZLE OUT YOUR PROBLEMS For most of us, the giant that we need to slay, or at least form an alliance with, is the giant habit of passivity.

It is very easy to be lulled

into the grayness of disengagement when Netflix and TikTok are so tantalizingly easy to digest.

It takes grit to engage with our lives. Ideally, as part of early childhood development, we would have had many opportunities to meet challenging situations and learn the joy of puzzling things out for ourselves. We fall down, we get back up again. When kids do this, there’s usually a lot of laughter involved, often followed by them wanting to climb or run or dare again. Let yourself go for it! And fail, and go for it again.

3 NOTICE EVERYDAY SYNCHRONICITIES When you feel ignited and connected to your life, other people notice. You’re on fire! It’s very attractive to see someone switched on. Watch for auspicious coincidences, sometimes known as serendipity. These are the seemingly random happenings that show up to support your journey.

They’re everywhere! Notice what’s coming your way.

The big takeaway is: To succeed at life, show up for your life. That is fully your choice. Engage with the ups and downs, the scrapes and breaks, the moments of genius and moments spent hiding under the kitchen table.

Just show up. It’ll change the world for all of us.

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brain science

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By Lisa Feldman Barrett • Illustrations by Edmon de Haro

brain science

Your Brain Secretly Works WITH OTHER BRAINS

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains how your brain is (unconsciously) constantly being shaped by interactions with other people.

We humans are a social species. We live in groups. We take care of one another. Part of being a social species, it turns out, is that we regulate one another’s body budgets. Your body budget is your brain’s accounting of the bodily resources (like water, salt, glucose, and so on) it has to spend and save. Each action that spends resources, such as swimming or running, is like a withdrawal from your account.

Actions that replenish your resources, such as eating and sleeping, are like deposits. Your brain tries to predict and meet your biological needs before they arise, to balance your body budget proactively.

The people around you influence your body budget and even rewire your brain. Your brain changes its own wiring after new experiences, a process called plasticity. For example,

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, has received numerous scientific awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in neuroscience and an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. She is a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also the author of the bestselling book How Emotions Are Made (2017) and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020).

microscopic parts of your neurons, called dendrites, become bushier, and their associated neural connections become more efficient. This remodeling job requires energy from your body budget, so your brain needs a good reason to splurge. And a great reason is that the neural connections are used frequently to deal with the people around you. Little by little, your brain tunes itself as you interact with others.

Our Brains Are Like Dance Partners Mutual body budgeting has measurable effects.

Changes in one person’s body often prompt changes in another person’s body, whether the two are romantically involved, just friends, or strangers meeting for the first time. When you’re with someone you care about, your breathing can synchronize, as can the beating of your hearts, whether you’re in casual conversation or a heated argument. This sort of physical connection happens between infants and their caregivers, between therapists and their clients, and among people taking a yoga class or singing in a choir together. We often mirror each other’s movements in a dance that neither of us is aware of and that is choreographed by our brains. →

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brain science

We also adjust each other’s body budgets by our actions. If you raise your voice, or even your eyebrow, you can affect what goes on inside other people’s bodies, such as their heart rate or the chemicals carried in their bloodstream.

If your loved one is in pain, you can lessen her suffering merely by holding her hand.

It may seem obvious that loving relationships are good for us, but studies show that the benefits go beyond what common sense would suggest. If you and your partner feel that your relationship is intimate and caring, that you’re responsive to each other’s needs, and that life seems easy and enjoyable when you’re together, both of you are less likely to get sick. If you’re already sick with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart disease, you’re more likely to get better. These studies were conducted on married couples, but the results appear to hold for close friendships too, and even for pet owners.

However, our social nature also carries some disadvantages. We also get sick and die earlier when we persistently feel lonely—possibly years earlier, based on the data. Without someone else helping to regulate our body budgets, we bear an extra burden.

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m RESOURCE Strengthen Your Connections Find our best tips and practices to nurture your relationships with mindfulness. mindful.org/ relationships

brain science

COMING TO TERMS WITH THE FULL CATASTROPHE A 5-Day Residential Retreat

The best thing for your nervous system is another human. The worst thing for your nervous system is also another human.

With Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction September 19-24, 2021

A surprising disadvantage of shared body budgeting is its impact on empathy. When you have empathy for people who are familiar to you, your brain efficiently predicts their inner struggles. But when people are less familiar to you, it can be harder to empathize. You might have to learn more about the person, meaning more withdrawals from your body budget, which can feel unpleasant. This may be one reason why people sometimes fail to empathize with those who look different or believe different things than they do, and why it can feel uncomfortable to try.

A Manner of Speaking We also regulate each other with words. A kind word may calm you, as when a friend gives you a compliment at the end of a hard day. A hateful word from a bully may cause your brain to predict threat and flood your bloodstream with hormones, squandering precious resources from your body budget. Right now, I can text the words “I love you” from the United States to my close friend in Belgium, and even though she cannot hear my voice or see my face, I will change her heart rate, her breathing, and her metabolism. Or someone could text something ambiguous to you like, “Is your door locked?” and odds are that it would affect your nervous system in an unpleasant way. These effects might not last long, but research shows that we all can tweak one another’s nervous systems quickly with mere words.

In my research lab, for example, we ask participants to lie still in a brain scanner and listen to short descriptions of situations, like this one: You are driving home after staying out drinking all night. The long stretch of road in front of you →

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Explore growing more deeply into yourself in ways that can allow you to live your life as if the dignity, well-being, and agency of each and every one of us really mattered.

Because it does.

Newcomers as well as longtime practitioners of mindfulness are welcome.

To learn more and to register, visit eOmega.org/kabat-zinn or call 800.944.1001.

Rhinebeck, New York Located just 90 miles north of New York City

brain science

seems to go on forever. You close your eyes for a moment. The car begins to skid. You jerk awake.

You feel the steering wheel slip in your hands.

As our participants listen to these words, we see increased activity in regions of their brain that are involved in movement even though their bodies are lying still. We see other activity in regions involved in vision, even though their eyes are closed. And here’s the coolest part: There’s also increased activity in the brain system that controls heart rate, breathing, metabolism, the immune system, hormones, and other internal gunk and junk…all from processing the meanings of words!

Why do the words you encounter have such wide-ranging effects inside you? Because many brain regions that process language also control the insides of your body, including major organs and systems that manage your body budget.

These brain regions, which are contained in what scientists call the “language network,” guide your heart rate up and down. They adjust the glucose entering your bloodstream to fuel your cells. They change the flow of chemicals that support your immune system. The power of words is not a metaphor. It’s in your brain wiring.

Sticks and Stones How far can these effects go? For example, can words be harmful to your health? In small doses, not really. When someone says things you don’t like or insults you or even threatens your physical safety, you might feel awful as your body budget is taxed in that moment, but there’s no physical damage to your brain or body.

But if you are stressed over and over and over again, without much opportunity to recover, the effects can be far graver. Chronic stress does more than just make you miserable in the moment. Over time, anything that contributes to chronic stress can gradually eat away at your brain and cause illness in your body.

This includes physical abuse, verbal aggression, social rejection, severe neglect, and the countless other creative ways we social animals torment one another.

Simply put, a long period of chronic stress can harm a human brain. Scientific studies are absolutely clear on this point. When you’re on the receiving end of sustained verbal aggression, for example, studies show that you’re more likely to get sick. These studies of verbal aggression

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brain science

When you have empathy for people who are familiar to you, your brain efficiently predicts their inner struggles. But when people are less familiar to you, it can be harder to empathize.

tested average people across the political spectrum, left, right, and center. If people insult you, their words won’t hurt your brain the first time, or the second, or maybe even the twentieth. But if you’re exposed to verbal aggression continually for months and months, or if you live in an environment that persistently and relentlessly taxes your body budget, words can indeed physically injure your brain. Not because you’re weak, but because you’re a human. Your nervous system is bound up with the behavior of other humans, for better or for worse.

This situation leads us to a fundamental dilemma of the human condition. The best thing for your nervous system is another human. The worst thing for your nervous system is also another human. How, then, can we best respect each other as individuals (who often disagree) when we are social animals who regulate one another’s nervous systems to survive? I think it comes down to this: Freedom always comes with responsibility. We are free to speak and act, but we are not free from the consequences of what we say and do. We might not care about those consequences, or we might not agree that those consequences are justified, but they nonetheless have costs that we all pay. It’s up to each of us to choose to be the kind of person who makes more deposits into other people’s body budgets than withdrawals. ●

Excerpted from Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Copyright (c) 2020 by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Published and reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

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exhale

“Self-care is not selfish.

It’s actually one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and others because we cannot give from an empty well.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCO GOVEL / STOCKSY

MICHELLE MALDONADO

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October 2021 mindful 35

36 mindful October 2021

resilience

THE POWER OF S U S TA I N A B L E SELF-CARE It’s not selfish to prioritize your own needs. In fact, consistently showing up for yourself first lays the foundation for our life’s purpose: showing up for others.

Here’s how to get started.

By Shelly Tygielski • Illustrations by Carole Hénaff

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resilience

I have come to believe that caring for myself is not selfindulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.

AUDRE LORDE

H

ave you ever pruned or cut back a tree or a plant, then been shocked at how barren it looks? Only to then watch with amazement as each branch explodes with new life? I used to be reluctant to cut back any plant until someone told me that it is actually good for plants.

It goes against everything that we think is “healthy.” How could inflicting such trauma and stress help plants grow and, yes, even thrive?

This is just a simple example of nature’s fight for survival. When we prune the plant or tree, it then puts even greater energy into growing more. Having been hacked to pieces, plants and trees could decide to give in, to just shrivel up and die. But they don’t. The same is true for us.

When things get tough, we can choose: to give in or to give more, to get bitter or to get better.

We can choose to mirror nature and face our problems rather than run from them. We can choose to meet the stressors we are facing and use them to help us expand our capacity for resilience, and perhaps even thrive as a result.

One morning, during a particularly difficult time in my life, I was lying on the floor, scared about the future, and I thought about the blessings of this challenge. I thought about the line in Mary Oliver’s poem “The Uses of Sorrow”: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shelly Tygielski is the author of Sit Down to Rise Up and founder of the global grassroots mutual aid organization Pandemic of Love.

A trauma-mindfulness teacher and a Garrison Institute Fellow, she teaches self-care and resilience at organizations around the world.

Visit her online at shellytygielski.com.

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darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” At that time, in my box full of darkness were the fossilized remains of a failed marriage, but I also had my son. My physical body was failing me, but it was also asking me to take note and remember to appreciate my health. My mental condition was frightening me, but it also presented an opportunity for me to step into courage. My life had been dictated for so long by other people and forces—my parents, my husband, my religion, societal norms—and now I was free to make my own decisions. This was my reckoning to choose, and I was consciously going to lean in to it. I knew that change is one of the only certain things in our lives, and so I had that choice to make. I wanted to get better, and I knew that required me to give more.

I wanted to try and accept this box of darkness and see it as a positive thing, a gift, as much as possible. What got me through this turbulent time was writing my own self-care list.

WHY SELF-CARE FEELS SELFISH Self-care means we commit to taking an active role in safeguarding our mental and physical wellness, proactively and (especially) in times of duress.

By definition, self-care means doing what is good for us—increasing our emotional and physical stamina, improving our self-esteem, and building resilience. Maintaining good self-care ensures that we stay compassionate, impassioned, and engaged. It means doing important work in one area without sacrificing other parts of our life. It means maintaining a positive attitude in spite of personal challenges and the larger injustices in the world. Self-care activities create daily improvement in our lives and have beneficial long-term effects. That said, these activities are not always fun. Sometimes they even border on boring.

We might feel guilty about self-care because it can go against what we’ve been taught, which is that to be a good friend, parent, spouse or

PHOTOGRAPH BY DARINA KOPCOK / STOCKSY

Self-care means doing what is good for us—increasing our emotional and physical stamina, improving our self-esteem, and building resilience. partner, coworker, and community member we have to put others first. Self-care means putting ourselves first, and we’re often conditioned to believe this is wrong. It’s rude. It isn’t consistent with how so many inspirational leaders throughout history are portrayed, such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and Margaret Sanger.

We admire these individuals because they endured suffering and hardship, while practicing self-sacrifice. Proper nutrition, healthy relationships, and exercise are secondary, if not frivolous. They didn’t have time for yoga!

Two problems contribute to a negative view of self-care. The first is what I mention above, that self-care is often considered self-centered. It can imply caring that extends only to ourselves as individuals. But we can expand our definition of self to extend beyond the individual and include our family, community, the natural world, and

all sentient beings. Self-care actually means caring for the entire community of which we are a part; it encompasses and protects this larger order. Self-care is not about being virtuous. In a way, it means living and working in ways that are consistent with and model how we want the world to work.

Additionally, the concept of self-care has been hijacked by corporations to create a profitable industrial wellness complex, one that focuses on beauty, happiness, and comfort in the name of self-love and self-compassion. In Western society, this is mostly geared toward white women of means, but it can include anyone. The main goal of this industry is to sell goods and services that provide only a superficial appearance of self-care, one that is often, in fact, indulgent and frivolous precisely because it’s a temporary quick fix that only aims to make the individual feel better about themselves. →

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We can expand our definition of self to extend beyond the individual and include our family, community, the natural world, and all sentient beings.

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The reality is that authentic self-care is unsexy, hard work—which isn’t an attractive marketing pitch for corporations or brands. The way the term is broadly used today has very little to do with the healthy choices that reflect true self-love and self-compassion. It certainly has nothing to do with the struggle to survive in the face of political and structural oppression.

For communities that are under attack by their own government, and for individuals with little access to health care, fresh food, clean water, and safe housing, self-care is a radical act of self-preservation.

WHAT IS AUTHENTIC SELF-CARE? Authentic self-care is for everyone. It’s what we all need and deserve, but it can be hard because it’s not a quick fix. Ironically, neither is our own inner journey, or something as lofty as social justice work. Seen this way, wellness is one aspect of social justice, and like social justice, wellness doesn’t happen overnight.

This is another reason that self-care has gotten such a bad name: It is much easier to practice “self-care” in easy ways that feel good right now than it is to develop the discipline of a healthy lifestyle that often sucks in the moment but feels really great later. Authentic self-care is not self-indulgence. Self-indulgence is unrestrained gratification of our desires and whims, behav-

iors meant only to alter our mood and provide a temporary escape from pain and grief.

How can we tell the difference between self-indulgence and true acts of self-care? First, ask if what you’re doing is a temporary quick fix or something that is meant to yield long-term benefits. Sometimes, self-care is best expressed by setting limits in ways that prioritize what’s most important. This takes discipline. Some everyday examples might include watching only one episode of a TV show, not bingeing a whole season, so you get to bed at a decent hour and experience a full night’s rest. It might be not having a glass of wine with dinner, or only having one; saying no when you don’t want to do something; or waking up early so you have extra time to meditate, journal, or exercise before work.

The morning when I wrote my own self-care list, which was my response to true despair and a will to survive, I felt an instinctual inner knowing that I had to give up most of my vices in order to truly dedicate myself to self-care, to my healing, and to my overall wellness. If the work we do in the world is larger than ourselves—and for me at that moment being a mother to my son was just that—then selfcare means defining clear boundaries that help ensure our long-term physical, mental, and spiritual health. But I didn’t give up all my vices. I knew there were healthy indulgences I could still enjoy, ones that provided important moments of joy and happiness. For me, these were defined by even the smallest of actions that helped me restore balance during one of the most imbalanced periods in my life. This included things like spending an evening →

m VIDEO COURSE Show up with Self-Care Learn how to include yourself in your circle of care with this video course led by Shelly Tygielski. mindful.org/ selfcare

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reading a good book with a mud mask on my face, shutting down my phone and not responding to texts or emails for a few hours of solitude, and having a meal with a friend while engaging in meaningful conversation. I didn’t consider any of these things frivolous.

My point is this: Self-care is not one-sizefits-all. We each must decide what’s right for ourselves. The biggest challenge I needed to overcome was the guilt and ingrained belief that taking any time for myself was selfish. In the end, what I learned from this experience is that tending to myself is a way to reaffirm that I value myself, and because I do, I must also honor myself. Taking that time to reaffirm in writing that “I am not broken” set me on my path and positioned me front and center as my own cheerleader and self-advocate. Yet I can also proclaim irrefutably that authentic self-care is a truly selfless act—one that made me into a healthier being, a more engaged mother, and eventually, an impassioned self-care activist.

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WHAT DOES A SUSTAINABLE SELF-CARE REGIMEN LOOK LIKE? It doesn’t look like a list of New Year’s resolutions. Most of those never get kept. Just because I wrote down a list of things that I knew should be the cornerstone of my “self-care plan” didn’t mean I suddenly enacted everything without fail from then on. I failed miserably, in fact. Following through was incredibly difficult. There were days I didn’t seek support or get exercise; days when I ate and drank things I knew would increase my inflammation. I didn’t always create healthy boundaries with others. Oftentimes I took on more than I should have. My lingering guilt over being a single mom and my need to please people in order to amplify my self-worth

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didn’t vanish. Eventually, though, by not beating myself up for these infractions and by giving myself permission to begin anew each day— coupled with putting in place the most critical component of all, a community of care—I was able to develop a self-care rhythm.

Through this trial and error, I learned that, to be sustainable, a self-care plan needs to be gentle enough to work. It has to be incremental and composed of a lot of little things. Self-care might start as a set of promises we make to ourselves, but to enact them, we need to find a rhythm we can live with. Like a musical rhythm, a self-care rhythm is a regular, repeated pattern of actions that helps maintain the song of our life. That is, this rhythm is integrated into and supports whatever we are already doing on a daily basis.

It’s not a disruption. Rather, it enhances our life.

There are actually four self-care rhythms we can focus on: daily, weekly, seasonally, and annually.

Getting into a new self-care groove wasn’t easy at first. Like most people, I have a hard time

creating and maintaining a balance between work, social life, family, and other obligations. Every evening and on the weekends, I would take my work home with me, whether it was task-related work (such as paperwork or answering emails) or emotional work (bearing the burdens of my community or clients). Of course, I couldn’t entirely stop bringing work home at times (who can?), but I needed to establish a more formal separation between work and my personal space.

One of the ways that helped me create a better work-life balance was to identify the mudrooms in my life, so to speak. Just like a home’s entryway, I developed formal transition rituals or practices that allowed me to shift from my public self to my personal self. Over time, these micro-practices became healthy habits that contributed to my overall self-care. For example, on my commute home, I practiced mindful driving in silence instead of taking phone calls or listening to talk radio. →

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PRACTICE

E X PA N D I N G OUR HEARTS Sustainable self-care requires us to build community.

Just as we offer support to others, we can open to accepting it for ourselves.

This practice is steeped in the connection we need when we are practicing self-care. As you take the time for self-observation, connect with your creativity, your selfexpression, your compassion, and see what arises for you.

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m VIDEO Self-Care Practice Shelly Tygielski guides us to offer ourselves the kindness we deserve. mindful.org/ expanding

Find a space where you can give this time to yourself without distractions. As you close your eyes or soften your gaze, whichever feels more natural, get into a comfortable position.

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Take a cleansing breath. A long, slow, deep inhale through the nose.

Exhale through the mouth and repeat that one more time.

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Recall a situation in your life that is challenging or difficult and causing you to feel hurt or stressed. See if you can bring this situation to mind.

Feel the struggle, the distress, the emotional discomfort as it arises in your body.

Where do you feel it? Become aware that this is a moment of struggle or discomfort. You may acknowledge that this moment hurts. You can even say this out loud: “Ouch,” or “This hurts,” or “I am in pain,” or “I’m stressed.”

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4

Recognize that stress and struggle are parts of life that link you to your humanity but don’t have to overwhelm you. Remember in this moment that you are not alone.

All people struggle in their lives.

5

Show yourself some kindness. With your eyes still closed or your gaze still lowered, place one hand or two hands over your heart, if it feels right in this moment.

Take a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, relaxing any tension that you’re holding in your body. And each time you exhale, feel that stress disperse and leave your body. Feel the gentle touch and the warmth of your hands resting on your chest.

And feel a warm, comforting, kind light building in your hands and spreading to your heart.

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Allow this gentle healing energy to flow from you and to you, spreading through your whole body and bringing calm where it is needed.

And as you begin to rest in this place of calm and self-compassion, ask yourself: What do I need to hear and feel right now to give kindness to myself?

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And now say to yourself: May I be kind to myself. Use the phrases that feel most aligned with your particular situation, such as: May I forgive myself. May I be strong. May I be compassionate to myself. May I learn from my experiences. May I accept myself as I am in this moment. May I be patient. May I give myself the kindness and compassion that I need.

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Breathe. Take a moment to lean in to those kindness phrases and let them permeate every cell in your body. Allow this practice to clear away any blocks and open your heart to the experience of more love, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. Open to building community. Open to supporting others, but also open to receiving support from others.

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Take one more long, slow, deep breath in through the nose and exhale through the mouth. Wiggle your toes and your fingers, widen your gaze, or open your eyes.

—Shelly Tygielski

As soon as I got home from work, I took a walk around the block—with the dog and without my phone! After arriving somewhere, I sat in my parked car for a few moments and took the time to do a quick breathing exercise, then set an intention before rushing into the house or into my son’s preschool. These seemingly small things allowed me to let go of the stressors from work and to show up more fully present in the other areas of my life. Like a mudroom, they helped me wash off the proverbial mud from my shoes, so I could move into the next activity without tracking emotional dirt from my previous activity. These became integral parts of my daily self-care practice.

To achieve a weekly rhythm, I wanted to balance my activities between four different areas that I identified: work, family and relationships, “me time,” and my cultural traditions. Every week, I tried to be conscious about making sure that each of these areas was getting enough of my time and that they were balanced in ways that provided me energy and nourishment. Then, I looked at longer stretches of time and considered each season and each year and asked: Was I providing for all my needs on a regular, ongoing basis? This took careful scrutiny and constant adjustment. Not every day, week, season, or year is the same, and I never found a perfect balance or formula that worked all the time.

MAKING ROOM FOR SELF-CARE Consider the rhythms of your daily life—what would qualify as your mudrooms? What physical spaces or natural pauses already exist that would allow you to transition more elegantly from one demand or obligation to another? What about the weekly balance of your activities? Are some areas of your life being overrun or overwhelmed by others? You are the architect of your life, so consider your whole house and how to change things so that you can function at your best.

As you do this, one thing you might realize is that your home might be nice and fulfilling to live in if it wasn’t so full of clutter, if it wasn’t in such disarray. Every home has a junk drawer or two, along with a hallway closet or room where we →

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shove things when guests come over to hide our clutter. We may fool our guests, but the clutter remains once they leave, and it inevitably spills over and grows. Mudrooms are like magnets for clutter—full of carelessly strewn shoes and boots, rain jackets and winter coats, single gloves without a matching pair, duffel bags filled with equipment and uniforms, and even bags of new but unused items that, despite our good intentions, are still waiting to be returned to the store even after months and months. The problem with this chaotic scene is that the mayhem eventually becomes an obstacle, a literal physical boundary preventing us from entering or exiting our home. Before leaving the house, we waste time pawing through this minefield looking for the “other” shoe or that matching glove.

What can undo this madness? A team effort, of course. We need to take a community approach to the common cause of self-care.

Despite my efforts and best-laid plans—writing down and chunking my self-care activities, focusing on mudrooms and building smaller habits—I still consistently fell short of my goals.

I couldn’t adhere to my self-care plan because I was constantly tripping over my own clutter.

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CREATING A COMMUNITY OF CARE Eventually, all the women in my life who had become my support system were the ones who helped me get this mess in order. These women were friends who became sisters; some were only acquaintances when I was married but became my safety net once I was a single mom.

Ultimately, this group of individuals became my formal “community of care,” and they were exactly what I needed in order to fulfill my obligations to myself.

My friend Helen helped me realize this epiphany one day as I was venting to her about how I had no time or energy left at the end of every night to take care of even one thing on the list. She asked me a simple, direct question: “What do you need right now in order to get one thing done?” That question stopped me in my tracks because I couldn’t remember the last time anybody had asked me what I needed. Helen, a savvy and sharp business executive and fellow mom whom I had befriended through our sons’ after-school karate classes, cut through my dumbstruck silence and asked again: “What do you need right now to get to one thing on your list on a regular basis? Be specific.”

“I need more time in the mornings. I need someone to take Liam to school some mornings.

That would give me time to do yoga, exercise, journal, or even meal plan,” I responded.

“Great. That’s perfect.” Helen sprang into action, as she normally did. She told me not to worry, that she was “handling” things, and within hours, she had arranged for a school-morning carpool plan with her, her nextdoor neighbor, and me. Suddenly, after loading Liam into the car with his backpack and lunch box, I had close to a full hour available to me

Sign up for Mindful’s video course with Shelly at mindful.org/selfcare by 10/31 and receive a free copy of her book!

twice a week. For a single mom with chronic health issues, this was a huge gift. Years later, I was able to return the favor and do the same for another single mom.

After this intervention from Helen, I spent one of my treasured hours reflecting on my self-care list again. I rewrote the list, dedicating a single page to each self-care category. I created three columns on each page; in one column I listed each activity in that category, and in the second column I wrote down obstacles. I identified each shoe and piece of clutter in my mudrooms. I asked what was getting in the way of partaking in each activity, writing down things like time, finances, and skills. Then, in the third column, I strategized ways to remove these barriers, listing things either I could do or someone else might do for me.

Three key things emerged for me during this process: First, I realized that I needed the support of a friend or community to be able to remove many of these obstacles. Second, I understood that there were self-care items where I was, in fact, the only obstacle, since they involved issues like motivation, discipline, and

self-esteem, to name a few. For these, by taking a realistic look at myself, I realized that I needed someone to hold me accountable when I would not hold myself accountable. Lastly, I realized that some of the items on my list were too ambitious and unrealistic for where I was, and I gave myself permission to remove those items or to leave my plan open for adjustment over time. My self-care plan was not written in stone. It was a living, breathing document that would change over time, as my life and demands changed. It was a document that depended on the support of an entire community.

Not only that, I soon helped everyone in that community formulate their own self-care plans.

In time, we would weave together a mutually beneficial safety net of care and support that ensured we could all obtain what we needed, ask for help without guilt, remove obstacles from our path of self-preservation, and hold one another accountable with love and with kindsight. Ultimately, consistently showing up for ourselves lays the foundation for our life’s purpose: showing up for others. ●

Adapted from the book Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World. Copyright ©2021 by Shelly Tygielski. Printed with permission from New World Library—www. newworldlibrary.com

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ACTIVATE

HOW TO C R E AT E A SELF-CARE PLAN Your self-care plan is a roadmap that you can carry in your back pocket. It’s there to help you find balance by providing a clearly defined route back home if you find yourself off track.

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Make Self-Care Work for You 1

Create an activity list organized around different parts of your life. I’ve found that the easiest way to start is by breaking up this daunting task into several categories, for example: work, physical fitness, emotional life, relationships and community.

For each area above, write down the activities or strategies that you can call on, that are authentic to you and contribute to your well-being.

Some examples include spending time with friends, being active, meditating, and finding the confidence to create healthy boundaries. Have fun, be creative, and most importantly, be real with yourself about what works for you and what doesn’t.

2

Note any barriers that may be in your way and how to shift them. As you write down each activity, ask yourself what barriers might get in the way of you being able to accomplish it. Then, try to strategize ways that you might be able to shift these barriers (This works even better when you do so with a friend, partner, or community!). If you find that you can’t shift the barriers, feel free to adjust the activities. Your self-care plan is meant to be a living guide that adapts as circumstances and demands change.

3

Share your plan with your closest friends.

Don’t forget to rely on your community of care.

Share a copy of your self-care plan with them and ask them to hold you accountable. Encourage them to create their own plan and share it with you so you can do the same for them. —Shelly Tygielski

YOU WANT TO…

BUT…

SHIFT IT…

Develop friendships that are supportive.

Your friendships are not equal in “give and take.”

Define expectations with your closest friends.

Don’t assume your friends know what you need from them.

Write down three good things that you do each day.

You’re in the habit of negative self-talk.

Every time you catch yourself saying something negative to yourself, say the exact opposite to yourself.

Do something that brings you joy (go to the movies, sit in a café, hit the beach, or set off on a hike).

You don’t have a babysitter or the ability to get away for the evening.

Activate your selfcare community.

Regularly meet with your social group/community of care.

Your friends or self-care network don’t have time to meet.

Set up a meet-up in advance and regularly. Create a monthly calendar.

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gather wild beauty Chelsea Fuss explores how the art of gathering wildflowers lets us embrace openness, presence, and imagination, all while feeling more at home in our corner of the world.

Photographs by Chelsea Fuss

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T

he idea of foraging— whether for flowers, dye plants, or just decorative ones—has had a resurgence in recent years.

But what is it? Isn’t it just a funny excuse for stealing your neighbor’s flowers?

Foraging is, at its essence, about searching. Searching for herbs, berries, blossoms, and fruit for decorating or eating.

Perhaps it is the search that makes this practice so intriguing in our modern world, forcing us to slow down and notice every nook and cranny as we scour the landscape for ingredients.

Searching was exactly what I was doing when I left a settled life in the United States to traipse around Europe with a backpack, working on organic farms for 10 months. Looking back, I remember searching for flowers and plants all along my travel route, among all the other things I seemed to be searching for involving every cliché of home, community, love, and self. I gathered bouquets wherever I went, whether

it was saving rose blossoms from the compost on a Brittany farm, scouring a Gotland forest for autumn berries, or clipping olive branches on the outskirts of Beja, Portugal.

I turned to flowers for meditation, play, and a sense of grounding while so far from home. Though I’ve worked with flowers as a florist and stylist for over twenty years, this relationship with flowers was different.

Foraging for wild stems offered the healing that I’d been craving during that time.

Once I found the cadence of the landscape and seasons in my small village, everything else I’d made before felt a bit contrived, and the new floral creations began to flow in an effortless sort of way. I am convinced anyone can find the pulse of their local landscape and culture to create flower arrangements that grow literally and visually from their surroundings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I prefer to think of flower arranging as taking a small sampling of nature inside; a few blooms from the corner of a pasture, a pocket of →

Chelsea Fuss is a writer, instructor, and Oregon native. She has styled florals for Kinfolk, New Balance, Schoolhouse Electric, and Bon Appétit. Fuss lives in Portugal.

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LET THE FLOWERS LEAD THE WAY

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PRACTICE

Vast Awareness Bring mindfulness to your sensory experience by exploring your visual field.

For many of us, meditation is done with our eyes closed. Yet when we’re outside in nature, and just in our life, our eyes are open. Meditation teacher Mark Coleman, author of Awake In the Wild, shares this practice to help you cultivate a sense of presence and awareness that you can take with you anywhere, whether sitting at your desk, sitting in a room, or gazing over a vast landscape of sky, ocean, mountains.

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Sit comfortably and tune in to the sounds around you. Lowering your gaze or closing your eyes, begin by finding a comfortable posture. Sit with a sense of ease, relaxation, feeling that connection of your body with the ground. Take a few mindful breaths, and be aware of the soundscape that’s all around you.

Shift from the lowered-gaze position to looking straight ahead. Notice how that changes your experience. The more we lift the eyes, the more energizing the practice.

Sense your body sitting, note your breathing, observe without judgment what it is you’re seeing. Then shift your gaze again, so you’re looking upward at the sky, at the canopy, at the ceiling, the stars. Again, notice how that changes the energy, your attention.

Allow yourself to rest your eyes. If you find in this practice that your eyes are getting tired, or you’re getting distracted by the visual field, then take a moment to close your eyes. Feel your breath. Sense your body, wherever your body is touching the ground.

2 Open your eyes softly, slowly, gently. Direct your soft gaze down, maybe four or five feet in front of you. Cultivate a sense of receiving through the eyes without judgment, while keeping a wide-angle view, so you’re seeing peripherally and everything in between.

Feel the sense of your body sitting; note the sensations and sounds of your breath. Become aware of what it is you’re seeing: color, light, shape, form.

4 Let your gaze rest wherever is most comfortable, which is often just below the horizon: looking straight ahead, but a little down.

As we lower the gaze, it relaxes the eyes, it relaxes the nervous system; it supports a little more concentration.

6 In your own time, open your eyes again to a soft gaze. Relaxed.

Seeing and aware of seeing. As you do this, be aware of how the visual field affects you, touches you—the color, the light, the forms—how it can support staying really connected and tethered to the present moment.

As you begin to transition back into your day, just notice the impact or the influence of this practice.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARINAVORONA / ADOBE STOCK

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weeds, or an overhanging vine found on a walk adds life and vibrancy to any room.

There are no right or wrong ways to arrange flowers if you work as instinctively as possible, tune in to yourself, and gather the ingredients that speak to you. I think flowers should be playful and fun and never too serious.

Rarely planning out an arrangement from start to finish, rather—much like how one might shop the farmers market for produce in the summer—I let myself be inspired by what is in season. And when creating a composition, I don’t always set out with an expected shape or color scheme; instead I follow the curve of a vine and nature’s color palette of the moment. I err on the side of unruly and primitive, as opposed to symmetrical and manicured. I like to capture the essence of a freestyle flower meadow in a vase by seeking out flowers that are soft and blowsy, even when shopping at a grocery store.

Forget everything you think a flower arrangement should look like.

Don’t be afraid for flowers to overlap as they do in nature, to wilt, to dry, or to change, embracing their wild state. Find out what your local landscape produces best, as well as the specialties of your local markets and shops.

Go your own way, with the materials around you.

ADD COLOR AND DEPTH I like to focus on how the blooms add to the existing story of a room instead of making them the center of attention in a grand way.

Formal flowers that call attention to themselves are perfectly beautiful in the right context, but in most of our homes they would feel like museum pieces that can’t be touched.

Instead, finding ways to include bits of imperfection in our everyday world feels more natural.

A pitcher of summer wildflowers, gathered at all stages of life, adds depth to a corner of a room, creating a dynamic element in the interior landscape.

When flowers are nestled organically into the design of the room, they feel like an essential element of the household.

CONSIDER CONTEXT In addition to starting with local flora, context is a key element of a floral arrangement and the foundation from which every other element will naturally grow. Let your current home, tastes, and local →

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Excerpted from Field, Flower, Vase: Arranging and Crafting with Seasonal and Wild Blooms by Chelsea Fuss, Abrams Books, 2021.

specialties inspire the style and composition of your arrangements. Each flower has its own personality and mood; find what is right for your space. Take cues from the wall colors, furniture, and collections you already own, and consider that most likely the best flowers for your space are the ones you can find within a short walk from home.

Once I tried to use storebought ranunculus in my country cottage, but they felt too domesticated for my rustic space. It turns out, the best flowers for me to use in my plaster-walled, crooked-floored house were the ones I grew or could find right in my neighborhood.

Use containers that are already in your space— drinking glasses, cereal bowls, grandma’s tea jar, ceramics that you already love—and fill them with the flowers that you are drawn to. Even a single stem of grass can make a difference to the energy of a room.

I also think about context in terms of how I’ve seen flowers used. And this can be very personal. You will have your own associations for flowers. For instance, alstroemeria is a flower that I grew up seeing at the wholesale market and at grocery stores, covered in plastic sleeves and beloved for its long vase life. For me, it will always symbolize a grocery store, and I just can’t get beyond it. On the other hand, a branch of lilac will always remind me of my childhood gardens in New

Hampshire, where I instinctively gathered branches in the rain for youthful, unconsidered bouquets. But for you, these flowers might have a different association.

EMBRACE LIFESPAN I like to experience the full lifespan of flowers as much as possible. To me, flowers are what pets are to some other people—they keep me company, changing every day and bringing a dynamic piece of life to my space. Because of this, I like the idea of embracing their changing forms over a long vase life.

I recently made a small arrangement with a morning glory vine, a plant many consider to be invasive and problematic in their gardens. (I see it growing in parking lots and nearly covering abandoned buildings, so for me, it is a reminder of nature overtaking an urban landscape.)

Since morning glory flowers only last a day, I plucked each blossom off the vine once it was spent, and each morning a new one appeared. In total the vine lasted only about three days in a warm room, but the experience was interactive, full of life, change, and death. What a great reminder to adjust our expectations of cut flowers and accept flowers as they naturally are. ●

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Gentle Men THE HEALING POWER OF VULNERABILITY

BY CHRIS PERARO

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PHOTOGRAPH BY KIRSTIN MCKEE / STOCKSY

The old-fashioned view of what it means to “be a man” is limiting and even harmful. With mindfulness, men can show up as their full selves—for themselves, their relationships, and their communities.

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nce in a while, during a typical hectic day in our household, my wife will turn to me wearing a pretend-astonished smile and say: “Chris, did you know that we have three boys?” Although it seems like she’s just playfully stating the obvious, I hear her words like the ringing of a generations-old mission bell, a reminder of what’s most important to me. Each time, I’m struck by the responsibility of raising our boys in an era when masculinity, in the way that it’s long been defined, is being called to expand.

Growing up, I was taught that traditional male attributes are things like toughness, emotional reserve, strength, power, and staunch individualism. This image of a “traditional man” feeds into once-clear-cut roles like winner and provider. Edward M. Adams and Ed Frauenheim suggest that this version of masculinity is confined: both limited and limiting. In their 2020 book, Reinventing Masculinity, Adams and Frauenheim write, “Confined masculinity focuses more on a man’s sense of separateness rather than his sense of belonging. For example, many believe they should keep their emotions to themselves, be self-sufficient and show no vulnerability.” (Read more about their work on page 66.) By accepting that these qualities are somehow inherent to masculinity, and essential for success as defined by our cultural power structures, we create the space for a society that frequently and casually pardons even abusive behaviors from men. “The phrase ‘boys will be boys’ is designed to make us think that boys are naturally more aggressive and competitive and less emotional, empathic, or in need of close same-sex friendships than girls,” says Niobe Way, professor of developmental psychology and

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Chris Peraro is an engaged father of three boys and a committed husband to his wife, Deborah. He loves being alive with them in Boulder, CO. Chris also works as a coach, therapist, and writer to channel his desire for creative relational transformation.

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the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity at New York University. She notes that frequently used phrases like “boys will be boys” or “no homo” (a phrase frequently used by straight men to emphasize their sexual orientation when making what might seem like emotional or vulnerable comments) perpetuate the idea that the human need for close, caring relationships have a sex (female) and a sexuality (gay), and thus are discouraged for those who are neither. “The problem is not the nature of boys, but the culture in which they, and we, live,” Way says.

The patterns of the confined-masculine stereotype have caused me to reject parts of myself—of my own vulnerability—inflicting deep wounds. I was conditioned to keep quiet about my inner strife. And I’m not alone. Research from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that about six million American men suffer from depression every year. And they’ve been documenting how the traditional male role, “which restricts emotional expression and encourages a preoccupation with success, power, and competition,” is associated with negative physical and psychological consequences, such as depression, anxiety, and relationship problems. Men are less likely to receive treatment for mental illness, and in the US, men are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide than women. This disconnection from our emotional lives can be isolating. It contributes to men having a higher rate of alcohol abuse—and being about two times more likely to misuse other drugs—than women. And it’s a sobering metaphor for how confined masculinity plays out that men represent 93% of the people in prison.

Ashanti Branch, founder of The Ever Forward Club, says, “The problem is either that a high percentage of men are bad—or it’s that the things we’re teaching our boys become the reasons why, once they grow up, they can’t live among the free.” Branch’s Million Mask Movement encourages young men to embrace who they are, and let people see more than the “mask” they believe is safe to show the world.

It has served me (and I believe it would serve all of us) to find an expansive understanding of masculinity, by first grieving the ways in which we’ve been harmed by confined masculinity.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MCNAIR EVANS

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“I hope for a world where young men and boys learn that they can feel, that feelings are human. They don’t have to pretend to not have feelings because it’s not manly, it’s not tough, it’s not strong.”

A SHANTI BR ANCH Learn how to be mindful of the masks we wear in Mindful’s mini course led by Ashanti Branch. mindful.org/true-self

Freeing Ourselves Through Mindfulness Bringing healing to masculinity is not a menonly project, but I believe it can be led by men willing to engage in the process with a sense of hope, generativity, and “beginner’s mind”—an attitude of openness, willingness, and nonjudgment that is nurtured through meditation and mindfulness practices. For me, this awareness dawned 20 years ago when I was given mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The Miracle of Mindfulness as a gift. In the first chapter, he tells a story about a father named Allen, who is able to reframe his loss of personal time (as a result of having a family) through cultivating a beginner’s mind. Allen learns to shift from a poverty mindset, where self-reliance and separateness prevail, to a mindset of abundance, collaboration, and connectedness. This story opened me to new ways of seeing my embodiment of masculinity: I remember noticing →

ASHANTI BRANCH Founder of The Ever Forward Club

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PRACTICE

Remember How to Trust

BY DR. STACEE REICHERZER

If you’re someone who grew up being told that tears are a sign of weakness, or that you should never show fear lest you be exploited, you understand how very difficult it is to communicate complex emotions like jealousy, resentment, or sorrow. You protect these experiences, holding them close to your chest like a dislocated arm in a sling. Just as extending the injured arm would create a risk of further injury, keeping parts of yourself out of intimate relationships prevents emotional hurt and exploitation.

You know how this looks for you.

Maybe you become stoic and isolate yourself. Perhaps you bury yourself in work or your hobbies. If you’re in a fragile state, you might displace your anger and rage against someone innocent, or who’s an easy target. None of these things feel good, and it’s easy to feel ashamed if your actions have pushed people away.

This limiting mindset doesn’t have to be a defining feature, however. Vulnerability can be learned. In fact, anyone can learn how to be vulnerable with themselves.

m AUDIO Practice Dr. Stacee Reicherzer leads a practice to explore the power of vulnerability and identity. mindful.org/ vulnerability

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PHOTOGRAPH BY RIALTO IMAGES / STOCKSY

Dr. Stacee Reicherzer is the Chicago-based transgender author of The Healing Otherness Handbook: Overcome the Trauma of Identity-Based Bullying and Find Power in Your Difference. She serves as clinical faculty of counseling at Southern New Hampshire University, where she received the distinguished faculty award in 2018.

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Deepen Trust Through Vulnerability 1

To begin, find a quiet place to reflect on these questions in silence. If you prefer, there’s also the option to write down your answers.

2

What has been your relationship with vulnerability?

3

Reflect on a time that turned out favorably when you made a decision to be vulnerable with someone you trust. It can be anything, even something small.

Reflecting on that now, how did it feel to allow this person to witness you in your need? What did it perhaps do for your relationship?

4

Keeping that positive experience of vulnerability in mind, is there a part of you that’s been hidden, and that you’re now needing to acknowledge? Consider a difficult emotion, like loneliness, that’s been hard to name, and the impact of just letting it be present without registering it.

5

What would it be like to bring your experience to someone you trust? Consider the positive outcome you had in step three, in which you overcame your reluctance around vulnerability and brought your issue forward.

If this were once again possible, is there something you would now need to address with someone trustworthy?

“

When I choose to care, in the face of my old wariness, anger, and grief, I can see an evolutionary unwinding taking place.

6

Finally, reflect on what might be gained from this exercise in vulnerability: the ability to let someone else recognize and possibly help you carry a struggle, the opportunity to strengthen the bond of your relationship, the deepening of trust in addressing other vulnerable parts of your life that may show up in the future.

Find a review of Dr. Stacee Reicherzer’s new book on page 70.

that the metaphorical “man cave” I inhabited suddenly seemed brighter, more spacious, and more nuanced with color. I no longer felt like an abandoned prisoner in that cave. Instead, I could see myself as an empowered creator of my own life, within a community of care.

Soon after receiving this book, I met my best friend, Rob. It didn’t take long for his extraordinary style of putting his heart first to dismantle the “tough man” stereotype I had built my life around. Since our early days of friendship, Rob’s ended every one of our times together by saying “I love you.” He not only says it, he means it, and he’s backed it up with years of steadfast loyalty to our friendship. His kindness and brave vulnerability allowed me to see (and emerge from) that man cave I had confined myself to.

Perhaps the most liberating moment of my friendship with Rob came when we were both pursuing our master’s degrees in transpersonal psychology. During a class, Rob and I (already having forged a strong friendship) volunteered to offer a therapeutic “working” to the class—a teaching tool where, typically, one person acts as therapist and another acts as client, in a “fishbowl” situation. I took on the client role, with Rob as the therapist. Rather unexpectedly, though, this quickly put me in contact with a deep inner wound I carried: the pain and distrust accumulated from all the times I’d felt hurt and betrayed by other men. →

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Standing metaphorically naked in front of my classmates, I uncovered a place of deep mistrust and profound despair. My instinct was to push Rob away, as I had done with other untrustworthy men in my life. My body trembling, I forcefully told Rob, “Go away!” And when that had no effect, my defenses bristling, I bellowed in shame, “Get the fuck out of here, now!” All I wanted was to return to my cave, to get away, triggering my deep-seated impulse to swallow the pain, to avoid vulnerability at all cost, to push on alone like a soldier.

But Rob just sat there. Looking into my eyes, with disarming compassion, his face beamed the words I’m here, Chris, and I’m staying.

His kind presence, full of empathy and accountability, finally broke through my defenses. When I realized the repetition of this painful pattern, and that there was nothing I could do to make Rob leave, I surrendered to the unrelenting wave of grief that overcame me.

And yet I knew, in that moment, that a new light was dawning.

Discovering such a genuine relationship after decades of pushing them away was, for me, the most painful aspect of growing beyond my confined masculinity. The masculine status quo trained me to not exhibit signs of caring—or even, really, to care deeply. For much of my life, I had risked very little emotionally in relationships with men, in order to preserve the hardened indifference of the view of masculinity I inherited. I know I’m not alone in grieving this loss.

Yet, Rob’s unconditional acceptance of me in my wounded state allowed me to see my tears not as “weakness,” but as my own emerging strength.

Learning to Embrace Vulnerability With the newfound spaciousness of a beginner’s mind approach, and the experience of deep friendship, I became committed to working with the pain and suffering of confined masculinity.

Decades later, and now as a father of three boys, I find plenty of opportunities to engage this mission. One such moment arose last winter as I was leading home a pack of face-masked boys

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(my sons and two of their friends), in subfreezing temperatures, on a bike ride from the local park.

Two minutes into the ride, my youngest boy, Kienan, stopped and cried out for me, “Poppa, poppa, my legs hurt!” Unthinkingly, I yelled back, “We’re almost home; you need to keep pushing it!” With a judgment so immediate I missed it, I pedaled harder, prioritizing the victory of getting home (out of the cold) over attending to Kienan’s need. Denying his perceived “weakness” was counterproductive, though, as his cries grew louder: “Poppa, Poppa, it hurts! I can’t do it anymore.” My son’s predicament, finding himself up against his own limitations, activated my own fear of inadequacy. And, as often happens from a state of fear and denial, I nearly turned to anger.

Thankfully, before a string of expletives could escape my mouth, my mindfulness practice helped me pause. Years of practice tapping into compassionate awareness helped me recognize that I needed to stop, or else risk damaging Kienan’s relationship to his own vulnerability.

So, with my own fire of inadequacy still burning in my body, I turned around, got off my bike, faced him, and got curious about his condition.

It turned out Kienan’s legs were so cold they were literally “freezing up” and he did not have the strength to push his fixed-gear bicycle up the hill. He was deeply afraid of being left behind. When I finally got this at the emotional level, I was able to shift from trying to override his vulnerability (and my own anger) to supporting him with patience and love.

“Kienan, what will help you to get home safely?” I asked. Over the next few minutes, we collaborated with the other boys to find a way for him to make it home. One of the older boys offered Kienan his scooter, knowing it would be easier to propel up the hill. Kienan accepted, and within moments his tears had dried and a glow of confidence returned to his beautiful face. All he had needed was for his struggle to be validated and included within the community of boys. My irritability transformed into deep gratification.

Later that evening, while at the dinner table, our family reviewed the events of the bike trip.

Kienan was still noticeably tender from the episode. His brothers pounced with put-downs and harsh critiques of his “inability” to complete →

PHOTOGRAPH BY DEJAN RISTOVSKI / STOCKSY

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INTERVIEW

Liberating Masculinity Edward M. Adams and Ed Frauenheim are coauthors of Reinventing Masculinity: The Liberating Power of Compassion and Connection. Here, they share perspectives on shifting the narrative around masculinity toward one that welcomes men to live from the fullness of who they are.

INTERVIEW Reinventing Masculinity Read our full conversation with Edward M. Adams and Ed Frauenheim. mindful.org/ masculinity

ADAMS: Both Ed and I decided early on we really don’t like that term, because it seems to implicate all men, and shame men for being men. The issue isn’t toxic masculinity. The issue is how our idea of what it means to be a man is so limited. I remember going to the Philadelphia Zoo and

PHOTOGRAPH PHOTOGRAPH

BY TK BY/ KARA STOCKSY RILEY / STOCKSY

m

MINDFUL: To start right at the beginning, can you explain a little bit about the origins of the term “confined masculinity” and why you chose that word to use in your book, instead of “toxic masculinity”?

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watching a lion just pacing back and forth in this small cage, and how it evoked in me a sense of dread or anger. It’s like, poor thing, you know? It can’t go anywhere.

FRAUENHEIM: We’re borrowing the term “confined” from a psychologist named Morita who talked about the “confined self” and how that tends to be an unhealthy self. A lot of unhealthy behaviors can develop. It also captures this way in which we think we’re so separate from each other in Western culture, especially, I think, this idea that we have to be a “selfmade man,” like an island or a rock. We landed on the term “liberating masculinity” as a way to say, “let’s break out of that confinement.”

MINDFUL: Unlike “toxic masculinity,” it seems like “confined masculinity” doesn’t blame individual men for the ways that they’ve been socialized to be.

ADAMS: The idea of confined also allows us to appreciate the traditional roles that men have played, like protector and provider. Those roles have enormous value, but they have been too confined, too limiting—leading men to perceive “protecting” as

something like “I’ll protect my family, I have a 357 Magnum right next to the bed, and god forbid somebody enters this house.” Then, to provide is typically looked at as having an economic fluidness. And again, there’s value in that.But providing is also providing emotional warmth, availability, being present with people you love, and taking care of your community and the earth. Protecting has something to do with being able to protect yourself and your immediate family from emotional distress or traumas.

So our goal was to take those traditional roles and ask, “Why are they being perceived in a way that’s so narrow?”

FRAUENHEIM: The COVID pandemic has made everyone realize that it’s OK not to be OK! We’re all kind of wrestling with our emotional well-being when we’re stuck in our houses for over a year.

Ed’s wife, Marilee Adams, says, “Soft skills are success skills today.” And these soft skills are really what this new liberating masculinity is incorporating into the male ethos.

Things like compassion, connectivity, vulnerability, mindfulness, really letting yourself become more mindful, aware of what you’re feeling and who you are in the world.

the ride. This reached its apex with my oldest son firing the long-standing admonishment, “You don’t need to cry about it!” I recognized, once again, that the “tough” masculine motif had already affected my boys.

Instead of losing it, I paused, intentionally dropping into a space of nonjudgmental awareness. From this space, I said to them, “Crying actually signals masculine character and strength.” I reinforced the point by reminding my older boys of recent moments in which they, too, had found themselves in tears. It was this kind of seeing that finally opened the path to understanding—an opening, at least, to shine a light of truth on all the programming they receive from a culture steeped in confined masculine stereotypes. My oldest apologized, and we all shared a moment of collective softening.

Choosing Wholeness I was so close that day to shutting down my son’s vulnerability. In my childhood, even the slightest sign of vulnerability meant risking censure and rejection, so I learned that I had to “be strong” if I wanted to belong—even if both the strength and the belonging were fragile, built on limiting and untrue notions. When I choose to care, in the face of my old wariness, anger, and grief, I can see an evolutionary unwinding taking place, as it did with Kienan.

We must ensure that this keeps happening so our boys know they can choose how they want to be in the world.

For me, mindfulness practice has been the net that catches me before I’m jettisoned into the rabbit hole of denial. It has shortened how long I spend swept up in these old patterns and supplied me with critical strength to charge a new path forward—one that heals by validating and honoring vulnerability. It’s painful to see and wholeheartedly feel the damage inflicted by confined masculinity. But in doing so, there’s an opportunity to redefine masculine strength, to let it encompass our inner struggles, our fears, our loves. We get to choose to change the story by putting our vulnerability first. This is masculinity’s most dignified birthright, and it’s the kind of victory we’ve been waiting for. ●

October 2021 mindful 67

BOOKMARK THIS read…listen…stream

by AMBER TUCKER, AVA WHITNEY-COULTER, BARRY BOYCE, KYLEE ROSS, OYINDA LAGUNJU, and STEPHANIE DOMET

SELF-COMPASSION FOR DUMMIES Steven Hickman, PsyD • Wiley

Is there an oxymoron in the title? To be sure. But, as Steve Hickman observes, “Being willing to purchase a book called Self-Compassion For Dummies means that you are humble and receptive to change, which is actually exactly where you need to be to get the most out of this book.” All humble and receptive readers will discover “a veritable self-compassion buffet” in this new title, which leaves no stone unturned in the service of informing and guiding us to be kinder to ourselves.

While each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the practice, a key theme throughout is that self-compassion ultimately means asking ourselves one question: “What do I need?” Easier said than done. Hickman—a longtime teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion, and Founding Director of the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness—leads us in his witty and reassuring way, starting with defining self-compassion and its three components of mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness.

He briefs us on the science of self-compassion, followed by sections like “How Kindness Transforms in the Fire of Life,” and “Dancing with the Inner Critic and Making Change.” We unpack myths about self-compassion: that it’s “soft” or “feminine,” or that it’ll make you lose your edge— in fact self-compassion (like mindfulness) is more likely to up your purpose, motivation, and clarity.

At the same time, it does ask us to be less hard on ourselves: “​​Moments of self-compassion are actually moments of ease, comfort, and encouragement, not striving, forcing, or berating,” Hickman reminds us. Self-compassion isn’t a mechanism to push through or ignore difficult emotions. Rather, it’s “a means of encountering these feelings, not to control them but to change your relationship with them”—and this book will do as much as any book can to teach you how. – AT

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SAVOR EVERY BITE Mindful Ways to Eat, Love Your Body, and Live with Joy Lynn Rossy • New Harbinger

The relationship a person has with food is an intimate one.

As a toddler, you might look at food as a plaything—but as we grow older our relationship with food can become complicated, as it begins to influence how we view ourselves and our self-worth.

Lynn Rossy’s Savor Every Bite is a compassionate response to a culture with extremely strict beauty standards, a

culture that often makes a lot of us feel like outsiders. It’s a book that attempts to cut through the external noise and invites us to simply listen to our body and heart. Rossy breaks down a journey of self-love and discovery into five chapters including short mindful practices, with a clear and distinct goal: to love your whole self, rather than picking it apart. – OL

MINDFULNESS FOR TEEN ANXIETY 2ND EDITION Christopher Willard, PsyD • New Harbinger

In the seven years since the first edition of this practical, approachable workbook, the number of teens who report living with anxiety has doubled, from one in six to one in three. So this revised and updated edition is welcome, with new material on social media, school anxiety, bullying, and more. Christopher Willard brings years of experience with young people to bear in this clear, simple,

deep but never clinical examination of what anxiety is and feels like, what might trigger it, and how mindfulness can help ease it. The workbook is addressed directly to teens and it takes them seriously, neither trying to seem cool, nor talking down to them.

The workbook exercises are thorough and helpful, without being overwhelming, and additional resources are available for download. – SD

PODCAST

New From

reviews T IM E L E S S • AU T HE N T I C • T R A NSF OR M AT I ONA L

WALKING EACH OTHER HOME Episode: “The Importance of Narrative in Social Justice, with Rhonda v. Magee” Old friends and mindfulness experts Mirabai Bush and Rhonda Magee engage in a rich conversation about how narrative—listening to others’ stories and experiences— helps extend our empathy and understanding. Magee draws a direct line between mindfulness and antiracism work as “a way in which to fully engage our practice…

to move from the cushion into the world, supported and informed by our practice. Mindfulness is a perfect technology for working with racism and other isms.”

Magee notes that being inclusive with our language, and imbuing it with love and kindness, is vital if we are going to hear each other’s stories and learn from them. – SD

60 all-new writing prompts to inspire your daily writing practice from bestselling author of Writing Down the Bones and acclaimed writing instructor Natalie Goldberg.

LAUGH4APURPOSE Episode: “Mindfulness” In this open conversation with Laugh4apurpose host “Big Kev,” Jason Gant, Athletic Mental Skills Coach at VillageTribe and Behavioral Health Educator at Kaiser Permanente, discusses FAQs about mindfulness. Most answers touch on a guiding concept: Mindfulness is something that we all naturally possess. “Anyone listening to this, anyone

MEN TALKING MINDFULNESS Episode: “Stop Complaining???”

Hosts Jon Macaskill, a retired Navy SEAL Commander, and “hippie meditation teacher” Will Schneider give us a lot to appreciate in this podcast: starting each episode with a grounding practice; honestly sharing what’s going on in their lives; and interpreting topics through their experience and growth points. Here, they talk about engaging

Reinvigorate your yoga practice, connect with The Yoga Sutras, and take the wisdom of yoga off the mat and into your daily life with this 54card practice deck.

here today, they are life practitioners of mindfulness,” Gant says. He furthers his point with examples of how mindfulness shows up in everyday life (stopping to look both ways before crossing a street, or savoring the suds and warm water in the shower). And he affirms that through practice, we can bring that level of awareness to each moment. – KR

mindfulness when patience is in short supply—what’s getting fired up in your body and mind at times of inconvenience or delayed gratification? “You can’t practice patience if you’re not mindful,” says Macaskill. “When you’re attempting to remain calm and not reacting, that is you being patient, and being mindful, one and the same.” – AT

October 2021 mindful 69

A step-bystep guide to reconnecting to your true sense of joy and pleasure and releasing any barriers to finding happiness and connection in life through embodiment practices.

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TEACHER BURNOUT TURNAROUND Strategies for Empowered Educators Patricia A. Jennings • Norton

It took a global pandemic to highlight the burden essential workers carry for us, and when children had to be taught remotely, the plight of teachers literally came home to us. Tish Jennings— a true education pioneer who is cofounder of CARE, a well-researched mindfulnessbased professional development program, and codeveloper of The Compassionate Schools Project—traces the sources of teacher burnout to a “factory farm model… designed to produce uniform students, assessed by

a standard that stigmatizes, rather than celebrates, differences,” where teachers are asked to “teach twenty-first century skills in a nineteenth century system.” Part 1 expands on this diagnosis.

Part 2 explores thinking differently about schools, using systems and design thinking, less linear approaches to achieving big aims. Part 3 provides a path forward, where students take charge of their learning and teachers find the resilience and renewal needed to lead a life devoted to fostering others’ discoveries. – BB

THE HEALING OTHERNESS HANDBOOK Overcome the Trauma of Identity-Based Bullying and Find Power in Your Difference Dr. Stacee Reicherzer • New Harbinger

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW, ON SALE 10/19/2021

Dr. Stacee Reicherzer takes the reader’s hand on a journey of healing to help us see where the pain of being “othered” (cast out or separate from the crowd) is showing up in our lives in a limiting way.

Then, she equips the reader with practical (and joyful) tools to move forward. The tools? Clarity, compassion, creativity, and sass. That last one is essential—to have the audacity to find empowerment and move on, even when some believe you should stay stuck. She writes,

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“Sass is the bold, resilient, spirited essence of our nature that yearns to be free.”

Dr. Stacee opens the book with a visceral account of her experience of otherness as a transgender woman and uses her own story, as well as others’, to debunk myths we tell ourselves about why we should be satisfied or even grateful with less than we deserve. Mindfulness practices throughout the book help us put these truths into action. (Find a practice with Dr. Stacee on page 62.) – AWC ●

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point of view

IN AWE OF ALL OUR RELATIONS

by BARRY BOYCE, FOUNDING EDITOR

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feels too complicated to capture the intimate relationship between people and environs displayed there. Each of the peoples’ way of ordering the world—the four directions, colors, animals, plant life, seasons, elements— is captured in a holistic diagram, a medicine wheel, that evokes the kind of big idea Keltner talks about: Our environment and the events therein are larger than any person can control, so rather than seek control, best to seek

shared stewardship. After reading this, I had to sit down, take some deep breaths, and contemplate. Five hundred years later, with the earth groaning under so much ownership, we could use some kinship and stewardship.

Finally, I went one floor down to “Americans,” a sprawling exhibit that tells of wars, removal, “civilization,” and the incorporation of Native American symbology into all corners of American popular culture. The

Five hundred years later, with the earth groaning under so much ownership, we could use some kinship and stewardship. to live in sync with and take care of the world we’re given. I was awestruck by the feeling of seeing the world in that ancient, larger framework.

Crossing the hall, I entered “Nation to Nation,” recounting the treaty process at the time of colonization.

This tale of clashing worldviews unfolding disastrously for Indigenous peoples is as sad as the cosmologies are uplifting. Indigenous peoples had engaged in treaties for millennia, based on oral tradition and ceremony. While the “European powers that sought to exploit the lands and resources of North America were hierarchical, command-driven monarchies,” the tribes operated based on kinship ties.

The Europeans saw treaties largely as static documents establishing ownership rights. In general, the tribes viewed the treaties as rites of friendship that needed ongoing renewal and a mutual understanding not so much of “ownership,” but rather

high, long walls of a cathedral-like space are saturated with Indianthemed logos, packaging, products, and ads for cigarettes, motorcycles, butter, flour, sports teams, TV shows, vegetables, guns, and on and on. As I wandered, awe-drunk, out of this exhibit, it saddened me to see the legacy of Indigenous peoples reduced to consumerist cartoon images, when the real lessons of forging sacred relationships to the land and each other is what we need now more than ever. ● Note: some of the exhibits were scheduled to change in late 2021. Because of the pandemic, the timing is now not certain. Ample resources for discovering these exhibits exist online.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 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.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM BACHTELL

Awe—it’s one of our most profound emotions. According to evolutionary psychologist Dacher Keltner, founder of the Greater Good Science Center, it happens when something vast stretches the limits of our frame of reference. Big vistas induce awe. So do big ideas: ones that reveal interconnections and reorient what we think we know, reframing our way of looking at the world. Keltner helped develop the Awe Walk, where we intentionally expose ourselves to awe-inspiring environments.

I took a big awe walk in December 2019, to the National Mall to visit the two newest buildings in the Smithsonian Institution’s 19 museums: the anachronistically named National Museum of the American Indian (opened 2004) and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016).

I recounted my visit to the latter museum in the Winter issue, and now I pick up the story as I traveled southeast across the mall to visit an area dedicated to celebrating the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

A wetland garden embraces the ever-curving golden-colored limestone surface of the building itself. It feels organic, rising out of the earth and yet part of it. Inside, the fluidity continues as sculpted walls, free of sharp corners, and an atrium stretching to the sky connect earth to the heavens on every floor.

In the African American museum, the experience begins deep in a subbasement depicting the claustrophobia of the middle passage. Here, you begin on the top floor, “Our Universes,” a walk through the cosmologies of eight different peoples. But “cosmologies”

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