Mindfulness
Going In to Find Out
As you read this, I will be heading into a 5-day silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a time of deep reflection and perhaps even deeper understanding of the mysterious, imponderable Source of the meaning of all the being-ness and doing-ness that occupies the attention and activities of all of my days. The […]
What We See…and What We Don’t See
Going through books to donate to the library, deciding to look through some of the large format glossy color wilderness books again before letting them go. An image and story from Galen Rowell: A Retrospective knocked my socks off and led to this post on perception– what we see and what we don’t see. [And […]
“I Have the Power to Make Wise Choices”
5-year old Darien had already learned the mindfulness exercise of “I have the power to make wise choices” through the Inner Explorer program at his school. One day, frustrated by another student and angry, he picked up a box of toys to throw it at the other child. His teacher watched him as he scrunched […]
The Body Dies – The Wisdom of the Life Lives On
“Death ends a life; it doesn’t end a relationship,” said Morrie Schwartz in the chronicle of his last weeks of life in Tuesdays with Morrie. Morrie was speaking of his long relationship with his wife Charlotte, knowing he was dying soon of ALS. Similar to the sentiment in a song I loved from the women’s […]
Taking Care of Things that Happen Inside of You…and Around You
“To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.” — Thich Nhat Hanh The mindfulness we practice on our cushion in the morning is the same mindfulness we […]
The Privilege of Teaching Mindfulness to Kids
When 4th-grader Leo teaches his friend Nessa (who’s so mad because her parents made her clean up her room before she could watch TV) to hold her thumb up and take a deep breath in like when she smells cookies in the oven, and then to hold her thumb down as she breathes out slowly, […]
Mindfulness Doesn’t Make Our Problems Smaller; It Does Makes Us Stronger in Facing Them
In this interview with Dr. Chris Willard, offering ourselves mindful self-care can be a crucial practice in recovering our resilience. Here’s an exercise from Resilience to offer ourselves that mindful self-care. Exercise: Giving Yourself a Self-Compassion Break At times when any emotional upset or distress is still reasonably manageable, taking a self-compassion break helps […]
Resilience: Noticing Everything that is Going More than All Right
As we learned in this interview with James Baraz, we can shift out of feeling stuck or overwhelmed by radically shifting our perspective. Here’s an exercise from Resilience in “What Story Am I Believing Now?” that helps us create exactly that shift. Exercise: What Story Am I Believing Now? In addition to tracking the […]
Mindfulness Helps Cultivate the Perspective “We’ll See”
As we learned in this interview with Susan Kaiser Greenland, practicing a gratitude walk can be very helpful for people of all ages to re-frame difficult emotions or experiences and hold both the difficult and the good with balance and equanimity. Here’s an exercise from Resilience that explores our gratitude beyond the personal to the larger […]
Why Some People Bounce Back Quickly, Even Heroically
As we learned in this interview with Ron Siegel, steadying our awareness can help us bounce back by moving out of anger and blame and not taking things so personally. Here’s a practice for steadying awareness from the book Resilience. Steadying Awareness 1. Focus on the breath, flowing in, flowing out. Focus on sounds, […]