Health Journal Online

Category: Mental Health

A Meditation to Help Build Your Capacity to Navigate Difficulty
Hello, I’m Rich, and this is our fourth module on the theme of living with meaning, purpose and resilience.

Resilience, simply defined, is being able to bounce back from adversity (though it should be noted that “bouncing back” doesn’t necessarily mean going back to exactly who we were before the challenge arose, since adversity can significantly change us as people). It’s our ability to meet the challenges that arise, return to our center, find our footing, and navigate effectively. It’s not about stopping all challenges in life because that would be impossible. Stress and difficulties arise in our lives all the time. It’s a question of how we meet those challenges, how we navigate through them and work with them.

So I’d like to offer some tools and a meditation around this. And again, this is part of a larger series on defining meaning, purpose, and, now, resilience. I like to offer resilience as the last piece because in the course of this journey to being our best, to living with purpose and meaning, we will encounter difficulties. We all do. We’re human. So I’m certain that, without a doubt, every single one of you will experience failure. I have.

In fact, I can say I’ve experienced failure quite continuously throughout my life. Now, what’s really important here are the words we use and the way we think about failure. I said just now that you will experience failure. I didn’t say you are a failure. I didn’t define it that way. And that’s really the critical pivot point of resilience: doing what’s called moving from an existential trait to an experiential state around the experience of difficulties.

So if that seems abstract, let me explain a bit further. Often when we meet challenges it’s very easy to fall into a narrative about guess who? About yourself. And very often, when we experience failure or adversity, that narrative can be negative. Those stories we tell ourselves can be as simple as, “I’m a failure,” “I’m unworthy,” “I’m inadequate,” “I’m incompetent—what’s wrong with me?” It’s a lot of self-criticism, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

Outsmarting Our Negativity Bias

In fact, our brains are actually wired for something called the negativity bias. It’s an evolutionary phenomenon whereby we attune to danger and threats and negative stimuli in our environment much more than positive ones. Some research says it’s roughly a rate of 3 to 1 that we pay more attention to the negative than the positive. And that is then magnified when we experience challenges and difficulties. It’s really important, then, to be aware and to work counter to that negativity bias.

That’s where this shift from existential trait to experiential state helps. It’s something I do a lot, so let me give you an example from my own experience. As you know, I run a non-profit, and there have been periods where we’re not meeting our key performance indicators, our core metrics, for example. In those instances, as the leader of this organization, I’ve found myself at times asking, “What’s wrong with you, Rich? This quarter was terrible.” And I feel inadequate and begin doubting my abilities. It’s almost as though I’m categorizing myself in this trait-like fashion as if I’m not competent. When in reality, our organization simply experienced a difficult quarter: there were difficult conditions in the market and the ecosystem in which we work. And as a leader I faced challenges around how to right the ship, how to pivot and consider different solutions with my team.

I remember there was a moment where I thought, “I’m just a failure. I’m failing at this quarter.” Then I actually paused and thought about it: We experienced the failure. I experienced a setback and a shortcoming. I experienced a failure. I had the experience of failure. That’s it. And that’s very different from framing things as, “I am a failure.”

Tap into the Liberating Shift

So that’s the critical shift. It’s what we at Search Inside Yourself like to call the liberating shift—from existential to experiential. And I want to invite you to join in a meditation on that liberating shift today because for me, that’s the key factor in resilience: the shifting from existential to experiential.

Before we get started, though, I want to encourage you to really inhabit the perspective of experiencing something. Nothing more—it’s just an experience. Take emotions or feelings, for example: they are actually physiological processes in the body. They come; they arise; we feel them; and then they go. So it’s actually a process that plays out in our bodies. When we’re triggered and have difficult experiences and feel difficult emotions, those are also just physiological processes. They’re not facts. They’re not sentences or indictments. And they’re certainly not traits. Again, we know from physiological science that emotion is a process. So the encouragement for this practice, if difficult emotion arises—whether it’s stress, anxiety, fear, sadness, whatever it might be—is to see it arise and to see it as a process, not as a trait.

Let’s now try a meditation that allows us to experience this firsthand.

A Meditation to Help Build Your Capacity to Navigate Difficulty

Watch the video:

Listen to the audio

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. I invite you to sit in a way that is alert but relaxed at the same time—whatever that means for you. Close your eyes, if you’d like. Or just soften the visual field by gazing downward. Take a moment as we begin to collect our attention.
2. Now, bring awareness to your body—the felt experience of your body wherever you find yourself. Bring firm but gentle attention to your breath; the in breaths and the out breaths. Just collect your attention for a moment here, taking a minute to arrive, with your mind and your heart and your body all in this moment, whatever this means to you.
3. Now I’d like to invite you, just as you are, to this meditation on resilience. I invite you to consider a difficult situation or person—nothing traumatic—just something that was difficult for you, or a person who was difficult for you, perhaps over the past week or another period of time. Calling this situation or person to mind, and noting what feeling or emotion arises when you reflect on this. What sensations are you feeling in your body as you consider this situation or person? It could be something like: I am experiencing stress. Or, with regard to a person: I am experiencing anger or frustration. Whatever it is you’re experiencing, just noting it: “I am experiencing ….”
4. Now just as you are, note how different that is from saying “I am stressed” or “I am frustrated.” Instead, “I am experiencing” emphasizes the process. And emotion is a process. It is a state you are aware of. Name it to know it. And note how it may change as you name it and take note. With this we’re taking that small step back to gain perspective on the experience of difficulty. I encourage you to take the “I” out of it. Instead: “There is the experience of frustration. Because who is the “I”? Just bringing a kind, loving awareness to “There is the experience of stress; there is the experience of frustration in the body.”
5. Notice how that feels to adopt that broader perspective. This is the liberating shift between I am stressed or frustrated to there is the experience of stress or frustration currently in my body. Whatever that emotion is for you, bring this quality of awareness—the experience of—and fill in the blank. Just see how that feels in the body. And then whatever arises next for you: experiences and emotions are rising and moving and changing in the body frequently.
6. As we wrap up this meditation on resilience, take a few last breaths at your own pace, reconnecting with your breathing. And when you’re ready, open your eyes and rejoin.
It’s really important to bring this capacity to shift into our lives. We all have the capability to expand our perspective, and even subtract ourselves from the equation. Stress is real; difficult emotions are real. I don’t suggest we suppress or deny or push any of that away, but I am suggesting that we be in wise relationship with them, as one of my teachers Jon Kabat-Zinn likes to say. So, wise relationship with our difficulties is that liberating shift that will affect resilience.

I hope this has been useful for you. This concludes the four-module series of meditations for living with meaning, purpose and resilience. I’d like to end with a poem that brings all of this together. It really brings the idea of attuning to what’s alive within you and standing in that place with strength and resilience. I’ve written this poem myself. It’s called

“The Quiet Invitation”
In the vividness of the journey from
Being to becoming,
Amidst the flickering dance between action and reflection,
Alignment emerges,
A close knowing, a path glowing faintly in the mists of imagination.
Not so much chosen as revealed
Even as you stand blinking in fear or wonder.
There comes the still, quiet voice at the center of things—that sweet, gentle calling that whispers This is true.
This is good.
This is alive now.
You are called an invitation to wholeness
In this everyday arc of your life.

So, with that my friends. Thank you so much. I wish you all well. Take good care.

About The Author

Rich Fernandez

Rich Fernandez is the former CEO of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI). He was previously the director of executive education and people development at Google, where he was also one of the first SIY teachers. Rich previously co-founded Wisdom Labs and has also served in senior roles at eBay, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America.

About The Author

Rich Fernandez

Rich Fernandez is the former CEO of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI). He was previously the director of executive education and people development at Google, where he was also one of the first SIY teachers. Rich previously co-founded Wisdom Labs and has also served in senior roles at eBay, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America.
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August 12, 2026
Befriend Vulnerability With A 12-Minute Meditation
Learning to tune in to our own vulnerability is an act of courage that allows us to form deeper, more genuine relationships.
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.

A Practice to Begin Healing
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?
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.
A Guided Meditation to Befriend Vulnerability
1. To begin, find a comfortable place in your home where you can sit or lie down and just listen to this meditation free of distractions, where you can just be for a few moments. Positioning yourself comfortably, allow yourself to take an in-breath through the nose. Exhaling through the mouth. Another breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Just continuing to breathe in this manner.
2. In your mind’s eye, allow yourself to really observe that part of you that yearns to be seen, yearns to be noticed, that yearns to be forgiven, that yearns to be loved. And as you encounter this part of you, allow it to really be enhanced. Really notice the qualities of what it would mean to be seen, to be loved, to be healed.
3. This is your gift. A gift to give to someone you trust. Reflecting now on this gift: Who in your life deserves to see, to know, to forgive, to love this part of you? Bring their face into your mind’s eye. Noticing the qualities that tell you this person is trustworthy, is deserving of your vulnerability.
4. Allow yourself to see, as well, the potential for your own life and sharing this gift with this person. What would it mean to you to bring this part of you into this relationship now? Really notice them loving you. Forgiving you, healing you by witnessing you and your vulnerability.
5. As you do so, make a commitment to yourself of what it is that needs to be said and shared with this person who has shown you that they are trustworthy.
A 12-Minute Meditation to Cultivate an Open Heart

During times of crisis and uncertainty, touching into your groundedness while remaining open can help you find calm—and inspire others to do the same. Meena Srinivasan offers a guided practice for staying both rooted and open. Read More

Meena Srinivasan

July 19, 2022
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August 8, 2026
Before Fidget Toys, There Were Beads: The Latest Craze is Part of a Long Tradition of Keeping Your Hands Busy

In 2005, I spent a semester in India on a Buddhist Studies program. For my independent study project, I researched the ritual circumambulation of Tibetan Buddhists, and spent three weeks observing practitioners walking clockwise around holy sites while muttering mantras and thereby improving their karma.

One interesting note was that almost no practitioner circumambulated empty handed. Whether they were turning a mala (the sanskrit word for meditation beads), or spinning a prayer wheel, almost everyone was keeping their hands occupied. The explicit point of such handiwork is to act as a karma amplifier—in this tradition, it’s understood that just as walking around a holy site provides beneficial karma, so does turning a sacred object clockwise while circumambulating.

But it is also indicative of the fact that, more than any other creature, humans like keeping their hands occupied.

Occupying one’s hands with something repetitive, whether it’s rotating a mala, knitting, or coloring, seems to provide a sensory anchor and act as a reliable antidote to racing thoughts.

A Brief History of “Busy Hands, Quiet Mind”

There is evidence of humans stringing beads over 120,000 years ago. Meditation beads first appeared in Hindu texts in the 8th century BCE. Prayer beads have also been used for centuries in both Christian and Islamic practices.

There is a reason the phrase “busy hands, quiet mind” is part of the lexicon. Occupying one’s hands with something repetitive, whether it’s rotating a mala, knitting, or coloring, seems to provide a sensory anchor and act as a reliable antidote to racing thoughts.

Recently I experienced this first hand (pun intended). At a faculty meeting, the school counselor was occupying his hands by cleaning some of the fidgets he gives out to middle schoolers, and he tossed me one. I played with it throughout a very dry presentation on benefits, and to my surprise, I was locked in. I’ve never considered myself someone with attentional issues, yet having an object with which to offload my excess energy helped my stay surprisingly present.

What strikes me about the fidget craze isn’t that we are selling out of squishy, kneadable toys, but that it took us so long to realize that the sensory anchors that adults have been using for millenia might also be useful for kids.

The experience reminded me of my own middle school days, when, much to the chagrin of our teachers, everyone tried to learn pencil tricks, twirling them and spinning them repetitively, resulting in the incessant clattering of writing utensils on tile floors. In those days, fidgets were not part of the attentional arsenal, so perhaps we were all simply improvising. Now fidgets are so popular there has even been a shortage of one popular brand.

What strikes me about the fidget craze isn’t that we are selling out of squishy, kneadable toys, but that it took us so long to realize that the sensory anchors that adults have been using for millenia might also be useful for kids.

Attentional Aids for Different Learners

The first fidget spinner was invented by Catherine Hettinger in 1993, but it didn’t attract much interest at the time. Then, in the spring of 2017, aided by social media, fidget spinners took off. Innovations followed, with sensory cubes, stress balls, and silicone popping toys helping the industry become a $9 billion dollar global behemoth.

Of course, much of the appeal of fidgets is that they are fun, colorful, cute, and collectible. Yet therapists, counselors, and educators also noticed how valuable these items could be for neurodiverse learners with autism, anxiety, and ADHD.

“The repetitive movement and sensory input is soothing for the nervous system as it discharges energy,” explained Dr. Corinne Buchanan, a licensed mental health counselor, mindfulness teacher, and instructor at the University of Florida. “In turn, this can help provide ‘noisy’ minds with enough sensory input to allow the brain to better focus on other stimuli, such as a less stimulating class lecture.”

These benefits have been confirmed by research. One study found that students with ADHD were able to stay on task better when using fidget spinners. Another study showed that allowing students to fidget boosted creativity.

There is a critical distinction professionals make in identifying fidgets as tools, not toys.

Help In Therapeutic Settings, As Well

Fidgets have also proved to be useful tools in clinical settings. Dr. Katharine Evarts, a licensed clinical psychologist and Director of Student Affairs at Antioch University, noted, “As therapists, it’s very important for us to have a number of examples of ‘grounding techniques’—such as tactile sensory experiences that draw one’s attention to the current moment—on hand whenever working with clients experiencing panic, anxiety attacks, trauma triggers, and even, frankly, intense emotions of any kind.”

Yet there is a critical distinction these professionals make in identifying fidgets as tools, not toys. As Josh Sussman, the counselor at my school (and the person who tossed me a fidget at our faculty meeting) wrote in a newsletter to our community on the subject, “The tool is supposed to help one’s eyes stay on the world in front of them and one’s brain to focus on the task at hand. If it starts to be used as a toy, it is time to revisit the purpose of the fidget and make adjustments to when it might be appropriate to use it.”

As these objects for settling the nervous system and grounding attention become more popular, they have normalized the idea that being seated and still is not always the most optimal way for students to learn or process emotions.

As these objects for settling the nervous system and grounding attention become more popular, they have normalized the idea that being seated and still is not always the most optimal way for students to learn or process emotions. By helping our bodies and minds be in the same place at the same time, they also helped bridge the gap between our external and internal worlds, a task mindfulness practitioners have been engaging in for a long time.

Alignment of Body and Mind

Thanks in part to Descartes, who gave primacy to our mental experience with his dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” we in the West have typically conceived of body and mind as separate.

Yet this distinction is one that is increasingly eroding as we understand more about the brain. It is also a distinction that does not occur as much in Eastern traditions, where mindfulness practice has had a lasting influence.

“Not all belief systems treat these realms as separate,” said Buchanan. “And in fact, as a somatic therapist, I would argue we have many examples of how our mental states impact our physical states and our physical states can impact our mental states in turn.”

For many mindfulness practitioners, beads act as a means of making this connection more apparent when it feels foggy. As a Zen practitioner, I have been taught to align the turning of my mala with the rising and falling of my breath to provide an anchor when discursive thoughts feel intractable.

Tuning into sensation is very different from the tuning out we might do when engaging with screens: Tactile engagement triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and leads to a physical calming, rather than dissociation.

Evarts described how this kind of tuning into sensation is very different from the tuning out we might do when engaging with screens: “Tactile engagement triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and leads to a physical calming, rather than dissociation. Rather than erasing the rest of ourselves in favor of immersion in a television show or fast-paced short video digestion, hands-on engagement facilitates a fuller embodiment of ourselves through mindfully focusing on all of our senses and the present moment.”

In an era in which dissociation is increasingly available, having a countermeasure to help align body and mind might be a meaningful arrow in the attentional quiver. Despite the flashy colors and whizzbang delights of modern fidgets, they are rooted in a tradition of sensory grounding implements that dates back millenia. Making them available as a tool isn’t a distraction but a way to combat the rampant tendency for distraction in a world full of it. The days of incessant pencil clattering might finally be over.

About The Author

Alex Tzelnic

Alex Tzelnic (he/him) is a Mindfulness Director and Physical Education teacher at Belmont Day School in Belmont, MA. Alex grew up in Concord, MA. As an avid athlete, he took an early interest in Zen practice, appreciating the way it stoked his curiosity by engaging both body and mind in asking the big questions. At Skidmore College he studied philosophy, religion, and Asian studies, spending a semester living in a Buddhist Monastery in India and deepening his study of mindfulness.
After college Alex pursued his passion for play by becoming a PE teacher. He also continued to explore his interest in practice by writing about mindfulness for publications like Tricycle Magazine. His thirst for insight and connection eventually led to an MA in Mindfulness Studies at Lesley University.

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August 6, 2026
Why Imagination—Not Resilience—Might Help You Heal From Heartbreak
One of the words most bandied about during challenges, even before these upside-down pandemic times, is resilience. We hear a lot about our collective need for strength, or our individual cultivation of effort in the face of adversity.

Notable books have connoted resilience with Grit, or climbing The Second Mountain, or Bouncing Back. The Oxford English Dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Alternatively, Merriam Webster likens resilience to a form of rubbery elasticity, or the ability “to adjust easily to misfortune.” The takeaway being that to survive crisis, we must quickly and easily adopt the quality of sand that gets in your teeth—or, like rubber, we must reflect a type of unchanging, indestructible goo.

Even social scientists, who take a nuanced view of resilience as “a stable trajectory of healthy functioning after a highly adverse event,” require levels of stability and health that are difficult to maintain for even the most seasoned mindfulness practitioners.

Who we were before cannot be resurrected; grief and trauma aren’t about stretching and then regaining our original shape, they are about being reformed into what some grief experts call the dynamic shift from Life One to Life Two.

Cultivating resilience during times of adversity is exhausting. Many people feel weak when faced with a crisis and it is dissonant to suggest they be physically or mentally tough. As an end of life doula, I regularly see this response. A hospice patient, a woman of deep spiritual grounding, with years of contemplative practice, recently said to me, “I’m not tough. I am scared. I am tired. I am so ordinary.” To suggest that she develop resilience feels out of sync with her reality. In my experience, if a concept doesn’t provide comfort in death, it is ill formed to support us in life. This means resilience, despite its popularity and positive intent, does not necessarily encourage effective coping.

“Bouncing Back” from Grief

Another challenge with resilience is the implication of elasticity. As anyone who has faced profound loss or suffering can attest, a person cannot take the same shape afterward as they had before. “Bouncing back” suggests that it is possible to go back to a prior pre-crisis life, that the past is inherently more desirable than the present.

It may feel true in a time of suffering that yesterday was better than today, but functionally there is only this moment. Looking constantly backward leads to the belief that an imaginary past self is required to survive a crisis. This is false. Who we were before cannot be resurrected; grief and trauma aren’t about stretching and then regaining our original shape. They are about being reformed into what some grief experts call the dynamic shift from Life One to Life Two.

How Imagination Helps

What then should we make of this obsession with resilience as a way to survive through suffering? What if instead of resilience, there was an alternative, one that allowed for the mysterious potentiality of an unwritten future?

What if we met hardship not with resilience but with imagination? Imagination is about curiosity, openness, and adaptability. It encourages us to perceive the darkest moments of struggle as neither fixed, nor inflexible, but subject to change. Imagination is about expansive potential.

The familiar phrase “not in my wildest imagination” conjures up worst-case scenarios and magical thinking, but that is not the only type of imagination you can call on. Alternatively, there is the pragmatic imagination required to address adversity. Researchers from the University of Colorado and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai studied people’s brains after asking them to imagine ways to adapt to various types of threats. They concluded that imagination “reduces neural and physiological conditioned threat responses,” particularly by stimulating the pre-frontal cortex, the part of our brain that oversees decision making, logic, and executive function.

One example of this is extinction theory, an imagination practice in behavioral psychology where a person reimagines an event from the past to neutralize its negative effects. But imagination is not just for working with past trauma. Instead it is a form of cognitive flexibility that we can practice both in non-crisis situations as well as in the middle of life’s most challenging moments.

Start With What Matters Most

How do we ignite the power of imagination in times of suffering? First, we must start by understanding our priorities. Begin by asking: What matters most to me right now? What must I hold on to or protect? From there, it is a matter of operationalizing our priorities into manageable, reasonable next steps. What is possible in this moment? Possible is different than desirable; it is not tied to outcomes but to one’s inner ability to choose. What choices do I have right now? How do my choices tie to what matters most? Sounds simple, but from the depths of suffering even the smallest choices feel monumental.

I remember after the sudden death of my sister when I was in my 20s, lying in bed paralyzed by grief. Deep within I prioritized finding meaning and making it through the experience intact, but more broadly I couldn’t imagine where my life would go, how I could live without my best friend.

During even the darkest times there are surprising glimmers of light that one can use to ignite imagination and ease the overwhelming grief. The momentary glimmers are proof points for imagination, reminders that there is something other than the pain.

So, I started imagining small things; putting on my shoes, going to class, taking a walk by the lake. Gradually, I pictured more expansive parts of my life—getting an internship, applying for a job, finding ways to give back. These things helped me focus and I held on to them. It wasn’t a heroically resilient process. I had very little rubbery strength. It was tiny moments of imagination that slowly helped me fill in the shape of Life Two.

Ignite Your Imagination

While we can’t imagine suffering away, we can imagine space within suffering for other occurrences—laughter, connection, compassion. Many recently bereaved families describe unexpectedly meaningful conversations with perfect strangers, or feelings of gratitude at an outpouring of support from a friend, or momentary peace when a ray of sunshine hit their face. During even the darkest times there are surprising glimmers of light that one can use to ignite imagination and ease the overwhelming grief. The momentary glimmers are proof points for imagination, reminders that there is something other than the pain.

One of the most powerful ways we utilize imagination is through choice. Pain can create a tunnel vision that limits our ability to see a wider picture. Imagining there are choices can help us cope. Imagining choices is different than positive thinking. Positivity assumes outcomes, it often relies on a belief that “things will all work out.” But there is no guarantee of a positive outcome in every situation—as bereaved people well know.

Imagination suggests that even in hopeless situations we have a choice to show kindness, to accept help, to experience more than just one way of being. For example, dying people commonly feel pain and fear; asking them to imagine something meaningful offers the possibility to feel something alongside the pain, even if only for a moment. Imagination applies equally to end of life as to everyday life.

People try to survive trauma and suffering with strength, grit, or resilience all the time—by hardening. But the point of a mindfulness practice is not merely hardened survival. There is space between the suffering where mystery lives, where we can soften and be curious, where the uncertainty isn’t one of dread, but of wide vistas and joyous laughter. If we cannot accept suffering, we cannot free ourselves from the fear of it, and we cannot find the spacious repose without imagination. That’s the mystery.

A Mindfulness Practice to Help Face Crisis and Trauma

Try this imagination exercise as a structured process for facing crisis and trauma.
1. Using a breath or a mantra, acknowledge “Who I was before this time of suffering cannot be resurrected.”
1. Choose an aspirational word, something you would like to experience in the midst of this hardship—peace, growth, connection, surprise, reconciliation.
1. Using your aspirational word as an anchor, imagine what it would feel like, for example to be at peace. Do not look far into the future but consider where you might choose peace in this moment.
1. Sometimes in acute crisis imagination feels impossible. But it is a pragmatic skill that develops with practice. The simple act of imagining moves us from the bleak stuckness of suffering into the unwritten potential of the future.
How to Mend a Broken Heart

When love falls apart, embracing your life as it is—agony, misfortune, and all—can help you heal. Try this three-step mindfulness practice to help you find stability and a little bit of ease. Read More

Elaine Smookler

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About The Author

Meredith Parfet

Meredith Parfet is the founder and CEO of Ravenyard Group, a crisis management consultancy focused on the wellbeing of leaders and teams. She received an MBA from Northwestern University, a Masters in Spiritual Care from the Iliff School of Theology, is an End of Life Doula and a hospice chaplain. www.ravenyard.com
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August 4, 2026
Resting in the Flow With A Guided Meditation
Stress reduction, helping with depression, coping with illness and adversity, improved relational skills, and an ability to make better, less bias-prone decisions—all of these benefits can flow from mindfulness training. But they might all be seen like by-products of travelling along a path to deeper awakening, which flows from the recognition that nothing in life, including ourselves, is stuck in the way we habitually think.

In mindfulness practice, we train in letting go of our stories about stress and pain, learn that thoughts are not facts, and watch sensations change from moment to moment. We notice that experience is ﬂuid, and can be perceived without taking it so personally. We learn that pain, stress, thoughts and everything else that occurs in the mind and body are not “me.”

Why “Me” Always Changes

So what kind of “me” is there? When we ask ourselves this question, most of us will come up with a list of identities—perhaps a name, a profession, a family role, a nationality. Already there are problems with this—as Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it, your name is “just a sound that your parents gave to you when you were born.” It may be applied consistently, for convenience, throughout a lifetime, but what it refers to certainly shifts over the years. I am not the same “me” who had my name as a baby.

The composition of our bodies is in continual flux. Over the last few weeks, your epidermis (the layer of skin that covers your body) has completely regenerated. Cells in the stomach are replaced after about five days, while our livers regenerate every year. Our entire skeleton is replaced every ten years. The brain changes all the time, too. Over the last fifteen years, researchers have learned that neural shifts occur as a consequence of events in the mind, body, and life. An experienced taxi driver will develop an unusually large hippocampus (a part of the brain associated with learning, memory, and spatial processing), while a skilled musician’s fine motor cortex will reﬂect their years of practice. Even learning to juggle over the course of a week produces observable neural changes in the brain. Many people believe that the core of their “self” resides in the brain, but if we never have the same brain from one moment to the next, how could there be such a core?

What Makes Up “Me”?

The evidence from neuroscience research suggests that what feels like “me” is in fact an infinite number of changing aspects of mind, brain and body, working in harmony to produce a sense of coherence and agency from the events of life. The experience of being “me” is a projection—a bit like when a film appears on a screen from the projection of different colours. This projected “me” assumes responsibility for actions that actually occur as a ﬂuid interchange of indefinable aspects of mind,
body, brain, and environment.

There are heavy costs to this assumption. You don’t have to get depressed to witness how close identification with thoughts, emotions, and sensations creates suffering. Every time we turn a thought into a fact in our minds by calling it “mine,” we become blinded to the reality that it is influenced (and often biased) by myriad causes and conditions in our past and present. When we identify with a thought, it becomes difficult to see its biases, and we become trapped in a virtual version of life, doomed to self-righteousness, paranoia, negativity, or other patterns of distorted thinking. Similarly, when we identify with an emotion, we become prisoners of our moods. And when we get caught up with our bodies, we feel at their mercy, struggling with a journey through life that inevitably proceeds towards infirmity and breakdown.

Why Losing Control Can Make You Happier

Relief is attainable by shifting perception and letting go of the falsehood that we are in complete control. By recognizing the conditioning that deeply affects our lives, we can start to give ourselves—and others—a break. At the same time, realizing we are multi-faceted beings that change from moment to moment, in ﬂow with an ever-shifting biological, psychological, social, and environmental context, we can start to practice riding with the changes. We can hold our beliefs and opinions lightly, rather than construct blindingly fixed identities from them.

As soon as we are aware of thoughts and sensations arising in experience, rather than getting caught in attempts to grasp or reject them, a glimmer of space emerges between the events of our lives and our reactions to them.

As soon as we are aware of thoughts and sensations arising in experience, rather than getting caught in attempts to grasp or reject them, a glimmer of space emerges between the events of our lives and our reactions to them. In this space, reactions can become responses, and tension and resistance can fall away, along with the stress they generate. Life becomes a dance with the world, rather than a war against it; a ﬂow, rather than a struggle. By dropping our tight identification with what comes up in our minds, bodies and lives, we can start to feel better. As a famous meditation teacher once put it: “If you let go a little, you will get a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will get a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy.”

You can watch a video of me speaking for Action For Happiness about this and other mindfulness-related themes here. And below is a practice you can try to train in resting in the changing flow of moment-to-moment experience.

Resting in the Flow of Experience

Being human is like flowing as a river—many moving droplets make up the stream. The river changes all the time, yet there is continuity as it follows well-worn grooves through the landscape. A river cannot suddenly shift its direction, just as we humans tend to follow a course set by past events and patterns. Yet, the more we become aware of how the ﬂow occurs and the grooves are followed, the more we can relax into the ride. As we see more clearly, we also become more able to steer our way skilfully through the current. A good way to begin is to practice resting in the ﬂow, as in this meditation.

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Settle into a posture for sitting meditation, feeling the connection of your body to the ﬂoor, cushion, or seat. At any time during this practice, especially if you feel disconnected or disembodied, come back to this sense of groundedness, anchoring your experience.
2. Begin paying attention to breathing, noticing how each breath—indeed, each moment of each breath—is a unique experience, not the same as the previous one or the next. Notice how the breath happens without you controlling it—your breath is happening within you; “you” are not choosing to breathe. Know, too, that all of the automatic processes of the body—oxygenation of the cells, blood ﬂow, heartbeat, and so on—are happening in the same way. As best you can, relax into this experience.
3. Open awareness now to the whole body. As sensations rise into consciousness and pass through, recognize that they are all impermanent, continually transforming in intensity, location, and quality. Let them be experienced, moment by moment, and allow them to pass through, as best you can, without attachment or rejection. Recognize too that the physical constituents of your body are in ﬂux—skin is being shed, cells are growing and dying, some neural connections are strengthening, others are weakening.
4. Now bring awareness to thoughts. With a friendly interest, observe the patterns of thinking that are running through the mind, like clouds passing across the sky of the mind, making up its weather. Like the weather, these patterns are always changing, depending on atmospheric conditions. Realize that the thoughts you had a year ago, five years ago, a decade ago—each of which may have seemed extremely important back then—are now merely memories, and that thoughts appearing in the mind right now will share that fate.
5. Finally, open up your mindfulness to every aspect of conscious experience—sensations, sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and thoughts. Let go into the space within and around you, remaining alert and present to whatever comes. Allow the play of experience to happen by itself, resting in the ﬂow, moment by moment. When you notice attention wandering to a particular place, acknowledge the wandering and open out to the whole panorama of experience once more.
This post was adapted from Into The Heart of Mindfulness, by Ed Halliwell, published by Piatkus. Download a set of 14 guided audio meditation practices from Ed’s books here.
An Election Day Meditation

Follow along as Rhonda Magee guides us through a S.T.O.P. practice for focused awareness. The invitation is to be kind to yourself, take a conscious breath, and gently relate to thoughts, emotions, and sensations that arise. Read More

Rhonda Magee

November 5, 2024
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July 29, 2026
Focus Your Busy Mind With A Grounding Practice
We’re going to be exploring today a series of different ways to cultivate mindful attention. It’s a particularly helpful practice when the mind is busy, when we’re finding it hard to be present, when we’re triggered by something, or when it’s just really hard to settle. Of course, this might sound like any day of the week. But there are times in particular when we’re so busy thinking, planning, worrying, stressing that it’s really hard to focus on the breath or the body, or whatever particular meditation object we’re using.

Attending to Attention

This practice is a really useful technique or tool that supports the attention that is grounded in our physical sensory experience. So I’m going to instruct you to move your attention from being aware of seeing, to hearing, to sensing your body.

And when I say, “be mindful of seeing,” that means I’m going to invite you to lower your gaze, like I’m doing right now, and sit with a soft, focused attention: relaxed eyes, soft gaze, and just being aware of the visual stimuli—color, light, form, shape. You’re not looking at any particular thing or observing or studying anything closely, just being aware of receiving the visual field in the same way we listen—which will be the next thing we shift our attention to. We will go from seeing to hearing.

And with hearing, again, you’re just opening up your attention and allowing the full auditory landscape to be known—hearing the ambient sounds, the distant sounds, the nearer sounds, the sound of my voice. This also includes sounds in the room where you are, or the sounds of nature, mechanical sounds—the general panorama of sounds.

So, we’ll do that for a few moments, and then we’ll shift our attention to sensing our physical experience. That is, sensing our posture, and in particular, feeling the contact of the body with the ground or whatever you’re sitting on. The focus will be on feeling your sitz bones, your legs, your feet. We’ll also steer toward some awareness of our breath. Then, we’ll rotate through those three primary experiences: seeing, hearing and sensing. And we’ll do this rotation several times as a way to really ground the attention.

Another benefit: each time we move the attention in this manner, it lights up our curiosity. And when we’re curious, it allows our attention to engage, allows us to abide more strongly in the present.

A Grounding Practice to Focus Your Busy Mind

Watch the video:

Listen to the Audio:

Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Begin by finding a comfortable posture where you can sit upright and relaxed. Just take a moment to sense your physical experience. Ideally, your eyes are closed, or, if not, the gaze is lowered a little. Sense your body settling. Feel the contact of your body with the ground or the chair. Be aware of your posture, aware of the movement of breath and the sensations. In the body.
2. Now, from this experience of sensing the body, I invite you to open your eyes and just gaze in front of you. Lower the gaze maybe a few feet—aim for relaxed, soft eyes, a soft gaze. And just be mindful that you’re seeing, receiving through the eyes color, light, form, shape, movement.
3. Now, closing your eyes, lowering your gaze more, and shifting your attention to hearing. Be aware of sound. Be aware of silence. Be aware of the whole variety of the soundscape.
4. And then shifting awareness to sensing your body again. Sensing your posture, contact, touching, breathing. And open the eyes: now we’re seeing. Aim for a soft gaze. Think of saving through the eyes. There’s no need to make any particular effort. This is just simple mindfulness of seeing.
5. Closing the eyes now and be aware of hearing. No need to think about the sounds or the source of the sounds, just resting in the simple experience of hearing, of listening.
6. And now shifting attention to sensing the body again. Be curious about whatever it is you notice: temperature, breath, the experience of contact and touching, other physical sensations.
7. And moving to awareness of seeing again, so, opening the eyes. Move the eyes down a little, have a soft gaze. Be aware of the experience of knowing that you’re sitting here: sitting, seeing, hearing. There may be all kinds of noise going on in your mind—thoughts, planning, worrying—and yet this attunement to seeing and hearing and sensing allows you to stay grounded here.
8. Now we’re going to move our attention a little more quickly among these three spheres of our experience. So, let’s close the eyes, shifting awareness to hearing and sensing the sensations of your body. And now to seeing: opening the eyes. Now, again to hearing. Sensing your body. And lastly, opening the eyes and seeing.
9. As we bring the meditation to a close, be aware of all three of these areas of experience: seeing, and hearing, and sensing. Notice how this practice allows you to stay grounded and present.
No matter what might be going on in your life, whether it’s a busy mind, challenges in your body, or whatever else is pulling you away from the present moment, we can use this simple practice. Seeing, hearing, sensing: it’s a way to stay grounded, present, open. And it’s a way to support yourself in staying really grounded in your immediate experience.

You can practice this anywhere: in your office, at home, in a park. Pay particular attention to the contrast between doing this practice indoors versus having the support of the sensory experience outside. See if that makes a difference. And remember you can draw on this practice at any time—particularly when it feels hard to get present or concentrate or focus.

About The Author
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July 27, 2026
The Wellness Trap: What Mindfulness Can’t Fix

If you’re a human living in 2026, you likely have a laundry list of things you’d like to have fixed. Your list might look something like: affordable housing, the global economy, cost of groceries, your headache, your backache, an aging body, the cost of gas, the price of groceries, global warming, and maybe something to deal with occasional self-doubt or chronic busyness.

And that’s just the top of the list.

In our collective overwhelm and longing to find peace or respite from the current landscape we find ourselves in, anywhere but “here” feels good, even if for a moment.

Some of us have turned to spirituality, looking for answers. Some of us have tried distracting ourselves with activities and to-do lists. And for others, we’ve taken an even deeper dive into wellness practices, supplements, and workout programs that promise us ways that we can “be well.”

In our collective overwhelm and longing to find peace or respite from the current landscape we find ourselves in, anywhere but “here” feels good, even if for a moment.

Enter Mindfulness.

When Practice Becomes a Commodity

For decades, teachers like Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein helped introduce Insight Meditation (Vipassana) to Western audiences. They made a contemplative practice that had existed for centuries more accessible to people searching for a different relationship to stress, suffering, and the mind itself.

Over time, mindfulness moved beyond meditation centers and into schools, workplaces, therapist offices, and hospitals—and later, the larger wellness industry as a whole.

In essence, mindfulness has become the new “superfood.”

Somewhere along the way, however, mindfulness became more than a practice. It became a prefix. Today, when we encounter words like mindful eating, mindful communications, mindful parenting, mindful productivity—the adjective itself lends an air of credibility to what follows.

In essence, mindfulness has become the new “superfood.” The label itself is imbued with authority over what follows it, encouraging us to believe that simply adding the word “mindful” to an activity somehow lends it to being the wiser, more educated, or healthier choice in the room, when the reality is much more nuanced.

Have We Lost the Plot?

In my quest to find some answers, I picked up a copy of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living. Kabat-Zinn is credited with translating mindfulness into a clinical context known today as MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction), where practitioners in healthcare and hospitals have incorporated these practices.

The title comes from a line in Zorba the Greek, where the “full catastrophe” refers to the messiness of life (stress, work, uncertainty, insecurity, love, joy, illness, loss) and all that comes with it. The book’s basic premise is that we cannot control what happens to us in this life, but we can change our relationship to what happens.

Mindfulness, when applied to myriad life situations, has a helpful outcome: it helps regulate our emotions, cultivate self-awareness, and support our mental well-being.

The issue has never been, Does mindfulness help?—but rather what we now expect it to help with.

And yet, as mindfulness has grown more popular, so too have our expectations of it. In some cases, the word “mindful” has become a linguistic indicator for wellness all by itself.

The issue has never been, Does mindfulness help?—but rather what we now expect it to help with.

Labels Come with a Price

Part of mindfulness’s appeal is that it offers something many of us desperately need: a way to meet our lives with more balance, greater awareness, and less reactivity.

But as more people have recognized this desperate need, and perhaps tried more than a few things that haven’t worked to meet it, mindfulness has begun carrying responsibilities far beyond its original scope.

We want the feeling of relief more than the skill of being with discomfort that might not have any easy answers.

In some instances, expectations around mindfulness can morph into what some contemplative teachers might describe as a form of spiritual bypassing, where, more often than not, people look to the practice itself to be the solution instead of being part of a much larger process that involves our participation. In other words, we want the feeling of relief more than the skill of being with discomfort that might not have any easy answers.

Marketing has played a large part in helping so many of us become more aware of mindfulness, but to what end? We may attend more mindfulness workshops or participate in corporate mindfulness retreats, but I think we should consider whether we’re asking mindfulness to carry the weight of responsibilities that fall outside of the practice.

Mindfulness was never meant to fix the “full catastrophe” of living, but rather to give us the tools to meet ourselves where we are.

Confusing the Path for the Destination

The wellness trap begins when we mistake any one practice or form of healing for the solution itself. Mindfulness was never meant to fix the “full catastrophe” of living, but rather to give us the tools to meet ourselves where we are.

Yes, mindfulness practice can help improve things like attention, focus, communication—which can have the effect of making work places better and more efficient. But when did mindfulness become responsible for making workplaces healthier? Or more productive? When did it become responsible for helping us have better leaders or helping us address burnout? None of these are inherently bad uses of mindfulness, of course; but when we attribute the success or failure of such endeavors to a practice like mindfulness, we fail to see the process accurately.

Mindfulness is a tool for cultivation, not the solution itself. Put another way: mindfulness is one way of relating to experience of any kind. This, however, is very different from being a solution for eliminating the experiences we don’t want.

Coming Back to the Foundation

So, what does mindfulness really offer? And why do we keep expecting mindfulness to “fix” whatever feels out of alignment in our lives?

Jon Kabat-Zinn has repeatedly emphasized that mindfulness is not simply a technique but “a way of being in wise relationship to experience as you find it.” That distinction matters.

Jon Kabat-Zinn has repeatedly emphasized that mindfulness is not simply a technique but “a way of being in wise relationship to experience as you find it.” That distinction matters.

Most of us avoid unpleasant emotions, conversations, and uncertainty whenever we can. This is a deeply human tendency. We fall into the Wellness Trap when we start looking for something or someone to make that unpleasant feeling go away for us. We “outsource” our agency when we assign those unwanted experiences to be dealt with by our meditation app, retreat, self-help book, or supplement.

We live in a time where so many offers for relief are available to us. Our trap isn’t what to use; it is expecting whatever we engage with (however it comes) to do the work that belongs to each of us.

When we mistake a practice as a “cure-all,” we are effectively giving away our agency to be part of the solution to what ails us.

Buddhist teachings make the argument that while we cannot prevent pain and suffering, we do have some influence over our circumstances. What this means for most of us, as Kabat-Zinn suggests, is that life is the catastrophe: joy, fear, illness, love, uncertainty, all of it.

Mindfulness invites us to learn how to live with those experiences. The goal is to help us be present with our discomfort instead of avoiding it altogether.

Cultivating a mindfulness practice is not a substitute for healthcare, community, rest, boundaries, meaningful work, or structural change.

The wellness trap emerges when mindfulness is expected to carry more than it was ever designed to hold. Cultivating a mindfulness practice is not a substitute for healthcare, community, rest, boundaries, meaningful work, or structural change. It shines a light on things that we need to see more clearly, helps us understand where limits are and why they look the way they do.

And hopefully, it helps us each see that our issues (as we identify them in each of our lives) are less about our capacity to endure and more about the causes and conditions of our circumstances than anything else. Perhaps most importantly, mindfulness can help us discern the difference between what needs our compassionate acceptance and what needs our compassionate acceptance combined with thoughtful action.

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July 25, 2026
6 Ways to Enjoy Mindful Walking
Whatever the season, spending time in nature happily coincides with one of my favorite mindfulness practices: outdoor walking meditation, or mindful walking. Focusing while our body remains still presents a challenge for many of us, from the easily triggered to the anxious to the attention deficient, which is why contemplative movement—be it ritual dance, sport, martial arts, or something else—exists in so many cultures. In fact, mindful walking practice is often what people describe as their favorite practice after they’ve taken a mindfulness course, and the one they are most likely to continue to practice. It’s the best reminder that mindfulness does not have to be a still, solitary, indoor activity.

Walking is a movement we do every day, and like breathing, is usually something we do without much thought. Getting outside to walk deliberately in nature can open our eyes, offering new perspectives different from those we encounter indoors or inside our digital devices. Author Richard Louv, among others, writes about “nature-deficit disorder” and how it affects our physical and emotional well-being, suggesting even just a little exposure to green spaces boosts happiness and attention. The Japanese practice of “forest bathing,” with its research-backed benefits to the mind and body, has been trending around the world. Trends aside, many of us have experienced the power of nature, be it mountains or beaches, forests or gardens, to soothe our most turbulent emotions. The natural world is full of lessons to be learned and metaphors to be explored.

Getting outside to walk deliberately in nature can open our eyes, offering new perspectives different from those we encounter indoors or inside our digital devices.

Integrating mindfulness into movement has the added benefit of combining mental exercise with physical exercise. Studies abound showing that light walking for 20 minutes can help mild depression, anxiety, and attention, not to mention our physical wellness. Getting outside and taking care of our mental health is always important, especially if we’re having a stressful day.

With that in mind, here are six ways to get the most out of your next walk.

How to Get Started with Mindful Walking Outdoors

1. Basic Mindful Walking Meditation

A basic mindful walking meditation is pretty simple. All you need to do is notice yourself walking as you walk, making your body sensations the anchor of the meditation. To break out of the autopilot we are often in, you might ask yourself, “How do I know I am walking?” and then check in with your senses.

It also may help to bring awareness to certain aspects of walking. For example, you can bring mindfulness to your body as you notice the sensation of your feet on the ground or the movement of your muscles, especially as you encounter different surfaces beneath you. Notice not just what your legs are doing, but also your arms, torsos, spine, and head as you walk. You might be able to detect subtle shifts in your pulse, body temperature, or breathing rate before, during, and after you begin moving. You can also focus on the gentle rocking motion of your weight shifting.

Sometimes in sitting practice we use our breath as our anchor and focus on the point between the in-breath and the out-breath, where there is a moment of stillness. Likewise, in mindful walking practice, we can notice the points of stillness where the right step becomes the left step and the left step becomes the right step.

2. Adding Words or Phrases

One simple way to focus your attention is to bring words or phrases to your steps. For one, you can count in rhythm with your steps. Whenever your mind wanders off and you lose count, simply notice where your mind has wandered, and return the count to one again. The key is to do this without judging yourself, and your wandering mind.

It may also help to have something to say along with the movements. You can, for example, say thank you and send gratitude or compassion to your feet and body as you move—a practice from Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff’s program Mindful Self-Compassion. Or, you can quietly or internally repeat reminder phrases to yourself.

You might enjoy repeating the following phrases, suggested by mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, with each step:

I have arrived, I am home, in the here, in the now.

I also heard some other wonderful phrases once from a friend, saying for each footstep:

Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. No one to be.

Experiment with any or all of these on your next walk, or come up with your own phrases that resonate for you next time you are out.

3. Sensory Walking

This adaptation for the mindful walking meditation is simple, and just involves really tuning into our five senses as we move through space. As we get into the moment with our senses, we can really savor the precious moments we do have to be outside and moving, and all that is around us. Our senses keep us grounded in the moment while our thoughts drift to the past or future.
- First, walk while keeping your eyes still and watching the view change as shapes and objects shift in and out of your line of vision.
- Next, focus just on the soles of your feet, aware of different sensations there as the surface changes.
- Then, focus on sounds. Those of your own footsteps, as well as the changing sounds in the world around you as you move.
- Lastly, focus on smells and tastes in the air, and how they change depending on where you are.
4. Body Awareness Walking

Another practice I’ve been playing with recently is walking as I focus my awareness on parts of the body, almost like a body scan in motion.
- As you walk, begin by just resting your awareness in your feet, bringing attention to the soles of your feet.
- After about twenty steps, or maybe one block or 5 minutes, shift your awareness to your ankles and calves.
- After a few minutes of your attention there, just rest attention on the bending of your knees.
- Then focus your awareness on the sensations and movement of your hips.
- After some time focused on your hips, shift awareness to your hands and arms, falling naturally or swinging at your sides.
- You might then shift to awareness of sensations in your torso, including inside your body with your heart and lungs, maybe seeing if they’ve changed.
- After a few moments of attention in your torso, turn your attention to your neck and shoulders.
- Lastly, notice your head, as it shifts and moves slightly up and down with each footstep.
Continue to scan your body as you walk, noting how sensations change over the course of your walk.

5. Appreciative Walking

Bringing attention to the beauty of our surroundings is another way to bring deliberate awareness to mindful walking, and to actually shift our perception of the world out of the “negativity bias” or inherent pessimism wired into us, toward the positive and beautiful. Various experiments have found that focusing on the beauty around us as we walk tends to have a lasting effect on our mood long after we rest, similar to the way other gratitude and appreciation practices work.

This research is the inspiration for another mindful walking practice: to simply notice the beauty in the world around us as we walk. It may be a tree beginning to blossom, a particularly beautiful shaft of light, a house or car painted a favorite color. On your walk, make a regular practice of noticing one positive thing—something beautiful, something funny, or perhaps even an act of kindness—along the way. Note these to yourself in a journal or share them with family when you return, or share with others online.

You might also, if you take the same route each day, choose to focus on the changes that you encounter. Notice each day as the seasons gradually change, how the sights, sensations and even smells and sounds also change. What’s one new thing that you find, each day on your walk? How about at different times of day, or weekends compared to weekdays?

6. Observational Walking

You can also bring awareness to your own emotional experience of walking. Notice your emotional reactions to everything (and everyone) around you, especially as people and things get close to your personal space. This might bring up small feelings of self-consciousness as you pass others, or a slight pleasure when you step into sunshine, followed by a slight dread as a small hill approaches.

The inverse way to explore our emotions is by noticing how our emotions affect our walking and observations, and vice versa. How does your emotional state change your movement, what you see, or how you respond, depending on whether you are happy or sad, calm or anxious, frustrated or relaxed?

You can even do this on purpose: Change gears and try walking like you are fearful or anxious. Then walk as if loaded down by shame, or as if you are distracted. Try walking confidently after that, and then shifting back into your own rhythm and gait, if you can still find it. Reflect on all of these, noticing where on the spectrum of moods and emotions your regular pace of walking takes you.

You might notice that how you walked affected how you perceived the environment around you. When you walked with sadness, for example, you likely saw less as your eyes were downcast. Or perhaps you noticed that when you walked with confidence, you actually felt more confident, which you probably did if you know about the research of Amy Cuddy and the science of “power poses”.

Through mindful walking, we can take time to deepen our intimacy with our homes and neighborhoods. Mindfulness is about the here and now, and the state of the world presents a great opportunity to explore and appreciate the outdoors as social distancing continues. Plus, getting outside presents an opportunity to care for our mental health and perspective. If you need a few more ways to bring more awareness to your route, I hope I’ve offered you a few for the coming months.

Happy walking!
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July 23, 2026
Reprogramming The Panic: Choosing Conscious Response Over Avoidance
Our nervous systems are made to keep us safe from danger—but what happens when they’re responding to threats that no longer exist? Writer Catherine Swett explores how we can meet these disruptive moments with sovereignty over avoidance, and over time teach our nervous system how to respond to discomfort and anxious moments.
The Trap of Avoidance

People often say, “I have anxiety. I cannot do crowds.” For a long time, I believed that was my whole story. But looking back, it was not just anxiety. It was avoidance. Every time I avoided, I quietly reinforced the fear.

Anxiety is not a monster outside of me. It is my body and brain sounding alarms. The problem is the software is outdated. It is coded from times when my body truly could not escape real threats.

Anxiety is not a monster outside of me. It is my body and brain sounding alarms. Heart racing, tunnel vision, fight or flight, doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect me from danger. The problem is the software is outdated. It is coded from times when my body truly could not escape real threats.

Reprogramming in Real Time

Of course, this does not mean every internal alarm is false. Sometimes our bodies are alerting us to genuine danger, and those protective instincts deserve our attention. The real work is learning to discern when to trust the alarm and when to question it.

When I walk into a crowd—a situation that might feel overwhelming, but that is actually not dangerous for me—and I feel panic rise, I have two choices. I can avoid it and confirm the fear, or I can walk through it and teach my body something new. I choose the latter. Each time I navigate what my nervous system warns is unsafe, I show it that I am safe.

This is not “just anxiety.” It is real-time nervous system reprogramming. I had to walk through crowds until I proved to my system that I was no longer its prisoner.

There is a line most people are never taught to notice. Avoidance often comes from fear, the kind where you spend your life running and the thing you fear keeps chasing you.

Recognizing the Line Between Fear and Choice

There is a line most people are never taught to notice. Avoidance often comes from fear, the kind where you spend your life running and the thing you fear keeps chasing you. That eventually catches up.

But there is another place. A place where you understand yourself. You recognize the environments, dynamics, and stimuli that activate your nervous system in unsafe ways. And you also know this: if you need to walk through it, you can. You are capable. You are conscious. You are not trapped.

You do not need to constantly expose yourself to triggers to prove resilience.

The difference is that you do not need to constantly expose yourself to triggers to prove resilience. Once you face the root of what makes something destabilizing, you gain the ability to choose if and when that exposure belongs in your life. That is not avoidance. That is conscious choice.

Lessons from Monks: Discipline, Not Detachment

I have thought about this in the context of monks. I used to assume they were peaceful because they were detached, above it all. That was ignorance. Monks feel, think, and experience frustration, desire, and disturbance, just like anyone else.

Healing is not about becoming untriggerable. It is not about enduring everything life throws at you. It is about understanding yourself deeply enough to respond consciously.

The difference is what they choose to subject themselves to. They do not abstain out of fear. They abstain with discipline, because they understand their minds. Peace is not passive. It is actively protected. That protection requires internal work, not constant exposure.

Healing is Sovereignty

Healing is not about becoming untriggerable. It is not about enduring everything life throws at you. It is about understanding yourself deeply enough to respond consciously. Thoughts rise. Reactions flare. Old patterns knock, and that is okay.

A life of avoidance with no self-work is fear in disguise.

A life of avoidance with no self-work is fear in disguise. A life of conscious choice, rooted in understanding, is sovereignty. By locating your perception, observing your nervous system, and noticing patterns in real time, you gain the ability to respond instead of react.

Growth Looks Like This

We know that healing is not linear. There will be ups and downs, and that’s normal. But in general, here are grounding statements that reflect the growth process:
- I do not rush to correct my feelings
- I delay decisions until my nervous system settles
- I let context and awareness arrive before action
By treating perception and reactivity as interfaces, not flaws, urgency becomes information instead of command.

By treating perception and reactivity as interfaces, not flaws, urgency becomes information instead of command. Intensity becomes data instead of danger. Insight alone does not stop the spiral, but noticing the system in motion gives me room to respond instead of react.

By seeing perception this way, I can engage with reality as it is. I can separate the present from the echoes of the past and act with awareness instead of just reacting.
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July 17, 2026
Play, SoulPancake, and Building Your Anti-Depressant Brain

When it comes to happiness, says Elisha Goldstein, there’s a simple but important tool we often forget about: play.

For years now, I’ve been studying what helps create more resilience and happiness within us. I’ve looked at my own life, the life of my clients and students, and the psychological and neuroscience research. What I’ve found is that within each and every one of us are a core set of natural anti-depressants. When we intentionally tap into these resources, it shifts our brain activity in ways that can lend itself to shaping an anti-depressant brain. One of the natural anti-depressants that I’ve come to find that helps break a bad mood and create positive neural activity is Play!

In Uncovering Happiness: Overcoming Depression with Mindfulness and Self-Compassion I describe play as “a flexible state of mind in which you are presently engaged in some freely chosen and potentially purposeless activity that you find interesting, enjoyable, and satisfying.”

Here’s a great video that shows adults playing and the results. Take a look and see what you notice.

When adults were put in an enriched environment where the cues elicited play, they became more engaged, open, and most seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves.

Research from Marion Diamond out of UC Berkeley shows that rats who had a more enriched environment with toys and playmates showed growth in their cerebral cortex. This is the part of the brain that’s involved with cognitive processing and those rats actually ran mazes quicker than others who had less enriched environments. This type of research has been repeated over and over again with similar results. (Note: Rats that had a depleting environment absent of toys and playmates showed a reduction in the thickness of their cerebral cortex).

The reality is engaging play reduces stress, promotes creativity, productivity, openness, and revitalizes our sense of aliveness. It is literally a natural anti-depressant.

The question for us is how can we create more enriching environments?

One answer lies in understanding how our brain responds to cues. Most of the time our brain is automatically making decisions beneath our consciousness and the cues in our environments are influencing those decisions. If we’re often alone and there’s a lack or nourishing things and people in our environment it’s more likely to lead to depression and anxiety. On the other hand, if our environments are more engaging and we have access to more playmates it creates more resiliency. So we have to consider: Do the environments we currently live in, at home and at work, elicit cues of play?

If so, it’s a good practice to be conscious of those cues. If not, how can you create more cues in your environment that elicit a more playful neural response?

Encourage play at home and at work

Many companies are starting to create more enriching environments because the research is clear that it leads to happier, less stressed, more loyal and productive employees. If your workplace doesn’t you can take it into your own hands, create a joke board, or take mini-breaks where you intentionally watch a short video like the one above or hang out with nourishing people as a source of connection.

At home you can consider what play means to you? This is usually something that you have been thinking of doing that your mind said was unimportant. Maybe you want to pick up the camera more, reconnect with old friends, read a pleasurable book, or take a 2-hour date with yourself weekly and do something out of your routine that feeds you. That’s how I got started.

In our culture we see this as a luxury because we prize working over playing and our minds often say that “playing is unproductive.” This is one the biggest lies our brain tells us. The research is clear, those that integrate play into their lives are more likely to run the mazes faster and more efficiently.

There are other tricks to uncovering a more playful life and even to finding playmates, but the first step is looking to your cues and starting to create more enriching playful environments. Then we need to actively create this for ourselves even in the face of the voices in our heads that say “I don’t deserve it” or “There are more important things to do.” In Uncovering Happiness, I call these “Negative Unconscious Thoughts” or NUTs as we often feel nuts when they’re around.

The message here is:

Being mindful of play and engaging it in your life can act as a natural anti-depressant, creating positive neural shifts that when practiced and repeated can contribute to an anti-depressant brain.

Take a moment and share, what does play mean to you? How do you bring it into your life? Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Adapted from Mindfulness & Psychotherapy

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July 13, 2026