Health Journal Online

Category: Mental Health

  • Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Summary:

    • Researchers who study mindfulness and autism have found that, for neurodiverse communities, mindfulness may have unexpected and adverse effects that are different from neurotypical people.
    • While mindfulness teachings are slowly becoming more inclusive, people with autism and other kinds of neurodiversity are often left behind.
    • We can learn to teach mindful practices in an accessible, inclusive way that considers each person’s unique brain wiring.

    “When I’m told to focus on sensations of my breath, I feel like there is a noose wrapped around my neck, getting tighter and tighter as I keep paying attention.”

    This comment comes from a brilliant young autistic woman who was told by her doctor that mindfulness would be good for her anxiety. She said it did the opposite: Mindfulness worsened her anxiety. In fact, it was a very negative experience that left her feeling like a failure.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs.

    Unfortunately, I hear things like this often. I am part of a mindfulness research program at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, where in the course of the research, a large number of neurodiverse people have told me they are mindfulness “drop-outs.” In neurodiverse communities, people report having a range of sensory experiences that can produce different, and often adverse responses to common mindfulness techniques such as the body scan, breath practices, and loving-kindness. People with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism, ADHD, or cerebral palsy confide that they’ve tried it and “failed” at it. Similarly, in the education system, some teachers have told me that they can’t use the term mindfulness with students because, from prior experiences, some students already feel like they have failed at it.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs. Accessibility and neurodiversity are rarely discussed in the mindfulness world, but this discussion holds huge potential for both neurodiverse communities and mindfulness. As a mindfulness teacher, I want to ensure that all people can access mindfulness teachings in a way that works for them.

    What is Neurodiversity?

    As author Jenna Nuremberg shares in her 2020 book Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You, neurodiversity means “recognizing and celebrating the diversity of brain makeups instead of pathologizing some as normal and others as abnormal.” Similarly, the Autism Awareness Centre defines it as “the concept that humans don’t come in a one-size-fits-all neurologically ‘normal’ package,” and that all variations of human neurological function are worthy of respect. Not so differently, mindfulness encourages us to recognize what is going on inside of us—observing our inner world and experience with nonjudgment and acceptance.

    As mindfulness teachers, if we are not accepting and celebrating ALL brain makeups in our teaching, then we are not making mindfulness accessible. The story above—with the experience of the noose tightening—is one example of the mindfulness experience of an autistic person (autism being just one example of a neurodiverse mind).

    Autism occurs in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, and 1 in 42 males, and 1 in 165 females were diagnosed with autism in 2018. Autism is not the only kind of neurodiverse brain that is often invisibly present in mindfulness groups. Dyslexia, ADHD, mild cerebral palsy, and mild intellectual disability may be unseen. All of these neurodevelopmental disabilities are often undiagnosed, and many people who come to mindfulness for the first time may not realize there is a reason why they are not connecting with the practices in the way they are being taught. This makes it really important for teachers to be aware of how inclusive their teaching practices are.

    What Makes Mindfulness Inaccessible

    Why is it so challenging for mindfulness teachers to adopt truly accessible practices?  One important reason is that the way of teaching most of us are taught to deliver was designed for the neurotypical population.

    Developed in the 1970s at the Centre for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the helm, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) introduced mindfulness to much of the healthcare community. However, the program was designed primarily without modifications for neurodiverse folks. This has significant consequences today: Many mindfulness teachers, though they may be highly trained and capable in MBSR and other mindfulness-based therapies, have usually not been trained to recognize neurodiversity among their students.

    Fortunately, mindfulness research and teaching is beginning to evolve—one instance is the embrace of trauma-sensitive practices, aided by David Treleaven’s work. Yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    Mindfulness research is beginning to evolve, yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    For example: The concept of interoception—an area of science that is being written about in literature related to neurodiversity—is the act of really feeling the physical sensations in the body. Knowing that feeling of when you are hungry, or need to go to the bathroom, are examples of interoceptive processing; being able to discriminate between different feelings in the body connected with emotions is another. Mindfulness can play a key role in developing interoceptive skills—for example, when we practice noticing the movement of our inhale and exhale at our nostrils or in the belly. However, interoception is not a universal ability. Some brains are wired to feel physical sensations, while some are wired to visualize easily.

    Still others don’t really visualize: Aphantasia (phantasia being Greek for fantasy) refers to the inability to picture those images in one’s mind. Research conducted at the University of Exeter Medical School found that 2% of the population are non-visual thinkers. That doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong if you can’t picture your loved one in front of you when practicing loving-kindness, it just means you need a modified technique. These different ways that the brain is wired are key when it comes to understanding our experience of mindfulness practice.

    In the last ten years, the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at CAMH has been studying how mindfulness can better serve the autism community. I’ve been involved as a lead mindfulness facilitator in this research, both leading the groups with advisors and developing modifications to MBSR practices to make them accessible. Importantly, autistic people hold advisory roles in this work as a central part of the research. Mindfulness for the caregivers of neurodiverse people is also being studied by Azrieli’s neurodevelopmental disability community.

    Dr. Yona Lunsky, Director of the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has been leading teams to research mindfulness in this community for almost a decade. “The best way for us to adapt our approach when it comes to mindfulness is to work in partnership, and use our mindfulness skills when we do: Approach how we teach with presence to what is happening, with curiosity, without judgment, and with loving-kindness,” Dr. Lunsky says. “Being open to changing our approach is fundamental to developing something meaningful. It takes time and it evolves. And that is what makes it so exciting.” 

    Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.

    Bringing mindfulness to neurodiverse communities inspires me to dig deep into my mindfulness training and get creative, so that I can offer traditional mindfulness teachings in ways that are helpful for a wide diversity of brains. As a teacher, it’s my job to teach in a way that is going to help the person in front of me. If I’m stuck to a script, or clinging to delivering mindfulness in a certain way, I risk not being accessible to the unique person’s mind. I need to be rooted enough in the teachings to be able to share them in a customized way.

    Daniel Share-Strom, an autistic man and champion of mindfulness meditation, is an advisor in our mindfulness research program at CAMH. Daniel’s popular TED Talk “Dear Society…Signed, Autism” shares Daniel’s humorous style of sharing his experience living as an autistic man on communication, learning, and interaction with the environment. Here are some thoughts Daniel has shared with me on mindfulness:

    • “In my own mental health journey I discovered mindfulness, and it was one of the first things that ever really helped me with anxiety. …I think it’s so important to adapt mindfulness from its original ways of being taught for neurodiverse groups. There are certain things autistic people bring to the table that aren’t compatible with the ways mindfulness is being presented. Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.
    • Autistic people experience high rates of mental health challenges–from feeling anxiousness to having an adult suicide rate up to nine times the rate of the typical population. That is simply a result of growing up in a world that wasn’t designed for us—in a lot of ways. From the sensory world, to social protocols that neurotypical people developed that we didn’t really get much say in. That can all cause a lot of challenges. Mindfulness is an amazing tool to help autistic people cope with all of that. People just need to understand how to adapt it so it’s effective.”

    The work and feedback of Daniel and others makes it clear that we need to explore new ways of teaching mindfulness that honor neurodiversity, and that truly individualize mindfulness for each person.

    Lessons for Teaching Mindfulness Inclusively

    When people ask me how mindfulness can help autistic adults, I say we need to invert the question to “How can autism help mindfulness?” In my experience, it took many, many neurodiverse people patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) giving feedback on how I was teaching mindfulness before I started landing at more inclusive and accessible methods. Getting to know how autistic people connect best with mindfulness has helped me completely re-examine how I teach. It’s taught me to remain open to the vast differences of those in front of us, and explore with them ways for mindfulness to be useful. When we individualize the practice, the path truly belongs to each person.

    Mindfulness has something to offer the world. Neurodiversity has something to offer mindfulness. Let’s imagine together how a more inclusive mindfulness culture can contribute to a more inclusive world, one that can be truly accessible and beneficial to all.



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  • How a Meditation Teacher Can Level Up Your Practice

    How a Meditation Teacher Can Level Up Your Practice

    Summary:

    • Having a qualified meditation teacher can help you learn both the mental and physical aspects of meditation, and help overcome obstacles in your practice.
    • Meditation teachers come in many forms, including in-person teachers, authors, apps, podcasts, and more.
    • Meditation teachers support us on 3 key levels: They often provide fellowship, mentorship, and leadership.
    • We recommend these 5 mindful organizations if you want to find a meditation teacher, take a mindfulness class, or consider a retreat.

    In my college days, a thousand years ago, I used to hang out in part of the library that contained a large multivolume work: Pokorny’s Indo-European Etymological Dictionary. I would idle away hours looking up the derivations of words and tracing their meanings as they wended their way through many languages and cultures. It instilled in me a spirit of looking beneath the surface of a word to find the depth and breadth that lay within.

    When I first discovered that the word “education” derives from an ancient root roughly meaning to draw out, to lead out, it lit up my mind. At that point, education had seemed mainly to be a process of having information and ideas poured into you, or wisdom bestowed on you from on high. This deeper sense of education conveyed both something being drawn out from within as well as the prospect of being led on a journey of discovery. It was a revelation, and an inspiration.

    Even if I was overthinking the etymology—we can’t really know what people thousands of years ago meant when they used a word; the great Julius Pokorny was only making educated guesses—I came to find teachers who met this deeper standard of education. They were teachers who elicited something within that was ready to be brought out. For sure, they led me to new information, but with a spirit of inquiry and examination, rather than indoctrination. Many of them taught me mindfulness.

    Patiently Planting Seeds

    When it comes to learning meditation, having teachers who guide you in this facilitative way is vitally important. Meditation lies somewhere between an intellectual pursuit and skills training of the kind that athletes, martial artists, and musicians, among others, rely on. It involves techniques that have physical aspects, and it is indeed a bit like building up a muscle—at first the “attention muscle”—so some coaching and coaxing are integral aspects of real teaching.

    Nowadays a lot of resources are readily available to get us started and help us along the way. Instructions for how to practice mindfulness and related practices abound—in books, magazines, apps, podcasts, and in video and audio form. The practice itself, as any number of teachers have said, couldn’t be simpler. In fact, it seems too simple. “That’s it? That’s all there is to it?” (One of the reasons it’s nice to have teachers around is to help us navigate that paradox.)

    If you think you need a teacher, chances are you already have one—or many, for that matter.

    In addition, authors regularly offer insightful commentary on the sorts of things that occur when one practices meditation. If you can afford it (or get financial aid), you can go to conferences and meditation programs to learn more and deepen your practice. Some of these ways of getting instruction can feel pretty intimate: Listening to a teacher on an app or podcast can make you feel as if you’re being spoken to directly, and in videos teachers can instruct with a lot of gesture and expression. When you’re reading, you can return again and again to a passage that speaks to you especially.

    All of these supports actually are a form of having a teacher, or many teachers. So, if you think you need a teacher, chances are you already have one—or many, for that matter. It’s helpful to have some gratitude for that fact. Countless people in the world do not have the leisure or opportunity to access a wealth of meditation teachings.

    Patience also pays off. Desperately rushing to find “the teacher” who solves it all results mostly in frustration. As Jessica Morey, cofounder and lead teacher at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, says, “Meditation practice can lead you to become striving-oriented, obsessed with trying to get somewhere, to gain experiences.” Being a gardener, patiently planting seeds and allowing nature to take its course, rewards better than being a driver speeding to get to an appointment.

    Eventually, however, no matter how patient we are, obstacles and challenges arise that ruffle our feathers. Mindfulness, awareness, kindness, and compassion practices do not simply work in a linear fashion: x amount of time and effort yields y results. They involve ongoing exploration of how we see ourselves, the world around us, and our relationships. They challenge preconceived views and fixations. They turn us toward life’s ups and downs, rather than away from them. They take us to difficult places.

    Supporting Each Other

    This is where support from someone outside yourself who can hear you and what’s going on in your mind—not a generic mind—can make a difference. This is where a teacher can provide true education: drawing out what’s inside us and leading us on a journey, not a journey that is prepackaged in a book or on an app, but a journey we cocreate. It’s not a paved road. It’s a trail that we must blaze—with help.

    As longtime meditation teacher and author of You Belong: A Call for Connection, Sebene Selassie, says, while some people are “natural self-teachers, most of us benefit from guidance and instruction… We’re not practicing to become super-meditators. We’re practicing to gain some insight and wisdom. So, I’ve found it’s definitely helpful to have some insightful and wise people around.”

    Such wise and insightful people come in various forms. They can simply be fellow practitioners with whom we have common cause and a developing bond of trust. They may be in a local group (formal or informal) or online, perhaps supported by an occasional gathering at a group program or retreat.

    Finding human beings to support our practice, either as fellow travelers or teachers, may not be an easy prospect. It depends to a certain degree on the availability of teachers and practitioners who are compatible with the kind of path you would like to follow. For most of the history of meditation practice, it has been transmitted largely through religious organizations. The methods of teaching and supporting practitioners varied from tradition to tradition, but they have included everything from simple fellowship to intense forms of followership, with students taking very explicit directions from teachers in the form of commands, supported by vows on the part of students. As these religious traditions undergo many changes in the modern era, non-religious ways of teaching and practicing mindfulness and related practices have broken through. The expansion of these forms of practice is the reason that Mindful and mindful.org were founded.

    Secular forms of practice have been happening explicitly for about 40 years, so while there are a fair number of teachers, this movement has not developed to the point that there are many secular places to go on retreat with an optimal ratio of teachers at varying levels of ability to students, which would allow for widespread, ongoing individual attention. The supply of teachers is growing, but nowhere near as fast as the number of people interested in taking up meditation. And someone doesn’t become a teacher overnight. Think of wine—it can take decades for a vintage to become finely aged, and not every wine is up to the task. Still, many are very drinkable on the way to becoming fine. Teachers are like that—mastery may be decades off, but many have wisdom and insights to share even at early stages.

    Support from someone outside yourself who can hear you and what’s going on in your mind—not a generic mind—can make a difference. This is where a teacher can provide true education: drawing out what’s inside us and leading us on a journey.

    As many teachers have noted, people often come to a weekend program, go on a retreat, or take a mindfulness-based course such as MBSR, and then drift away, without finding the ongoing support—and human interaction—they need to truly integrate mindfulness into their lives. Mark Leonard of Mindfulness Connected, who played a key role in establishing the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, believes that the lack of ongoing connection with others, in favor of a kind of private mindfulness, cuts us off from more profound effects at both the personal and societal level. Presenting at the 2020 Mindful Society conference, he emphasized that “well-being is a social function, it’s not a psychological process.”

    I look at the guidance we receive from others on the path of meditation as coming at three different levels, with each a bit more intimate and intensified, and placing more trust in the teacher: fellowship, mentorship, leadership. The lines between them are not hard and fast, and one is not better than another. They work together.

    3 Levels of Mindful Guidance

    1. Fellowship

    As I mentioned above, we already have a teacher—in fact, many teachers—in the form of resources full of instruction and insightful guidance available via so many channels. But one of the principal elements we need is something that keeps us coming back to meditation regularly, and in this case, fellow meditators can make a great difference. As we get trapped in old habit patterns or fall into ruts, lose our inspiration to keep going, or start to feel we’re the only one who has difficulties, connection with meditating friends—in person, online, or both—can make all the difference.

    It’s not that we’re all leaning on each other so that we’ll all fall down together. Rather, we help each other stand on our own two feet, as it were. We may do retreats together or find ways to integrate practice in other areas of life, such as starting a mindfulness program in a local school or hospital. There is great power in learning together.

    Tara Healey, program director for mindfulness-based learning at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, is a strong believer in the efficacy of ongoing small doses of support, because as she says, “Mindfulness is self-correcting. As we go off course, it will guide us, as will our fellow meditators and friends. The ability to appreciate the quiet and listen to how you’re being guided gets clearer and clearer the more you practice. The practice itself serves you the life lessons you need.”

    Fellowship, being in community with others, becomes an important foundation for going forward on the path of meditation, because it gradually encourages us to think less of mindfulness as a personal pursuit and more as collective pursuit, the social well-being that Mark Leonard talks about.

    Caverly Morgan, who founded Peace in Schools in Portland, Oregon, and established the groundbreaking for-credit Mindful Studies course in the high schools there, is committed to encouraging students to find how the personal expands into a greater whole, how mutual awareness leads to mutual understanding:

    In the same way a teen experiences a sense of empowerment by discovering that she, he, or they can direct their attention to the moment versus a conditioned internal story, we have the capacity to do so collectively. The result: collective empowerment. When we are practiced at seeing where and how our attention moves personally, internally, in the privacy of our own minds, it becomes easy to see how our attention moves and is directed collectively. In our communities. In our culture. In our world.

    2. Mentorship

    At the level of mentorship, there is much more personal give-and-take with a teacher. It may also occur in a group, but is also often enhanced by one-on-one time. Many of us have experienced an inspiring talk by a teacher, perhaps to a crowd of hundreds or even thousands—what some people call “the sage on the stage.” That’s OK for getting an inspirational boost, but a mentor comes down off the stage and sits down with you at eye level, for extended periods.

    The way that meditation mentors lead people is probably best described as facilitation. It can happen at an individual level, but quite often it occurs in small group programs, such as MBSR or MBCT or any meditation class, really, where personal instruction and group work combine. Facilitating is the act of making it possible for students to find their way. While in fellowship, there is a danger of incestuousness and group think, mentors can cut through that, since part of their role is to draw our habit patterns out into the light, to be examined with care in a safe space.

    The skillful means that effective mentors use to facilitate learning are too many to enumerate. They’re inexhaustible, in fact, since they often emerge creatively in the moment, so the marks of effective mentorship are often spontaneity, humor, and a sense of play. While mindfulness involves work, a good mentor conveys that it is definitely not drudgery.

    While the skillful methods are endless, two examples—inquiry and stewardship—may help to convey what these kinds of skills are about.

    Patricia Rockman, MD—senior director of education and clinical services at the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, and co-author of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Embodied Presence and Inquiry in Practice—is one of the foremost articulators of the power of inquiry, which she describes as “an interactive process, a reflective process, on an experience that has just occurred.” She goes on to say that “what we’re trying to do… is enhance people’s ability to be with their direct experience versus what we normally do, which is to immediately have interpretations, ideas, conclusions, judgments about our experience.” In addition, she says that inquiry enhances people’s “capacity to reflect on the unfolding nature of experience and learn to track that experience without running off into storytelling or narrative or other ideas and conclusions.”

    Rockman also points out that encouraging people to inquire about what’s happening moment to moment in their minds helps them “develop a language of experience, a vocabulary of experience—whether that’s describing their sensations, being able to describe their thoughts versus analyzing them, being able to name emotions in an attempt to manage them better and make them less overwhelming, and to begin to see how the body is a source of information” and the place where the sensory correlates of emotion (such as a tightening chest, when we are anxious) reside.

    The marks of effective mentorship are often spontaneity, humor, and a sense of play. While mindfulness involves work, a good mentor conveys that it is definitely not drudgery.

    Don McCown, co-author of Teaching Mindfulness: A Practical Guide for Clinicians and Educators, has written extensively about the process of teaching mindfulness, particularly in small groups. In a chapter in Resources for Teaching Mindfulness: An International Handbook, he talks about how, in his view, the primary skill of a mindfulness teacher mentoring small groups is to be a steward who tends to the atmosphere of the class.

    While McCown acknowledges the atmosphere in a room may seem like a vague notion, still, he says, “We all walk into the room and know, through body sensation and affect, that the atmosphere is tense, or friendly, or calm, or maybe a little sad.” In fact, he goes on to say that “a group can agree on, and even engage in dialogue about, what it is like in the room at a particular moment.”

    A skilled teacher of mindfulness-based programs is the steward of this quality of atmosphere, “tracking the unfolding of a class session moment by moment,” paying mindful attention to something that is “evident not only to teachers but also to participants, making it a valuable and valid measure for the relational state of the group.” In this way, the quality of a mindfulness group is something the teacher and the group give rise to together.

    In stewardship, McCown points out, the teacher uses all the care at their disposal to pay attention to the setting, how people relate to each other, the interplay between silence and talking, maintaining ethical behavior, and a number of other elements. In this way, he says, “Atmosphere not only teaches participants, it teaches the teacher.”

    3. Leadership

    The ultimate—and the most intimate—level of teaching is when the teacher transmits, rather than simply teaches. Transmitting is embodying and sharing, most often by example, whatever understanding a teacher has. It’s not a highfalutin idea. In fact, quite the opposite. We see transmission happening in the most mundane of places. In describing a French baker he studied with, Bill Buford wrote in the New Yorker recently:

    For Bob, farms were the “heart of Frenchness.” His grandfather had been a farmer. Every one of the friends he would eventually introduce me to were also the grandchildren of farmers. They felt connected to the rhythm of plows and seasons, and were beneficiaries of a knowledge that had been in their families for generations. When Bob described it, he used the word transmettre, with its sense of “to hand over”—something passed between eras.

    A teacher committed to transmission cares little about their own stature as a teacher. Like the master baker, they care only about the results, the quality of the bread. They long to see students bake bread even better than they could bake. They don’t seek acolytes, a kind of permanent one-upmanship. They seek colleagues. They wish not merely to teach students but to learn together with them.

    In so doing, like a good martial arts master, they will challenge the student to find the way by themselves. They also pay close attention to what’s going on with you, always alert to teachable moments, to turning points and possibilities for opening. It’s like the Deacon says in Season 4 of the HBO series The Wire: “A good church man is always up in everybody’s shit. It’s how we do.”

    Their main tool is rarely the simple answer and more often the hanging question. Steve Hickman, executive director of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion and a longtime mindfulness teacher, spoke with me recently about how the most powerful teaching involves highly attentive listening and probing: “Students benefit the most not from simply having their questions answered,” he said, “but from seeing the example of your ongoing warmth, curiosity, and attention, as you listen and inquire, so they find handholds and pathways of their own. Then, they are empowered, not just taught.”

    The mark of the teacher’s work succeeding is that the world itself and your circumstances become the teacher. When you have a setback, such as a financial loss or the death of a friend, there may be less discursive mental drama surrounding the event. It becomes more a message to you of how to let go further of the story of what you have to have, to find more simplicity. If in the midst of being isolated in a pandemic, your partner tells you, “I wish you would clean up more after yourself,” you may skip the steps of resisting or beating up on yourself, and simply see the opportunity for attention and mindfulness and kindness to reach into more areas of your life.

    You yourself may begin to become a teacher, even simply because of your example. You may become a great source of fellowship to others, and even a mentor and leader. Your interactions with your teachers, your friends, even strangers—the grocery clerk or a fellow passenger on the subway—and yes, those you fiercely oppose, have a tendency to draw you out of your shell of self-cherishing. You are more vulnerable and yet more resilient and confident. Every day brings discoveries, as if you’ve baked a fresh loaf of aromatic bread to share with the world. These messages from the outside are really messages from the inside, what you’ve internalized from your teachers, your friends, and your experiences. The inherent brilliance of your natural state of being is drawn out.

    That is real education.

    Where to Find a Meditation Teacher

    ACCESS MBCT is an international listing of mental health professionals who are committed to excellence in the delivery, training, and dissemination of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

    The International Mindfulness Teachers Association is a certification and accrediting body and membership organization that includes a member directory of Certified Mindfulness Teachers and Accredited Mindfulness Teacher Training Programs.

    Mindful Directory Ltd—a collaboration with mindful.org—is a platform where mindfulness teachers and other professionals register their credentials and list their events.

    The Mindfulness Center at Brown University maintains a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher Recognition List, which includes teachers who have provided appropriate documentation of their teaching credentials.

    Mindful Leader offers an MBSR Certified Teacher Directory provided to the organization by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, which has verified the credentials of the teachers listed.

    Your Guide to Finding the Best Mindfulness Teacher 

    The next step toward deepening your mindfulness practice may be finding a teacher that can offer you new insights. In our easy-to-use guide, we’ve outlined what to look for in a mindfulness teacher, and how to find the right one for you.
    Read More 

    • Mindful Staff
    • September 21, 2020

    How Mindfulness Teachers Can Build Brave Space 

    Mindful self-compassion teacher Steve Hickman offers advice for his fellow teachers to lovingly acknowledge the turbulence of their own hearts, and those of their students, during times where compassionate presence and action are needed more than ever.
    Read More 

    • Steven Hickman
    • July 8, 2020



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  • A Meditation for Finding a Middle Way When We Are In Pain

    A Meditation for Finding a Middle Way When We Are In Pain

    In this guided meditation, longtime meditation teacher and pain expert Vidyamala Burch offers a tender practice to help us be with our whole selves with openness and kindness, even when we are experiencing pain.

    Being in pain makes being present extra challenging.

    On a physical level, being in the present moment while our body is in pain is often extremely unpleasant. There is a part of us, understandably, that wishes we could escape from it entirely.

    At the same time, the experience of pain itself can be overwhelming—to our senses, our thoughts, our emotions. It can feel like drowning, when what we long for is just a moment of peace to rest in.

    In today’s guided meditation, longtime meditation teacher and pain expert Vidyamala Burch offers a tender practice to find a middle way—one that doesn’t veer into denial or give in to overwhelm, but rather allows all that is happening to be gently met, as Vidyamala says, with “wholeness, integration, and kindliness.”

    A Meditation for Finding a Middle Way When We Are In Pain

    Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.

    1. Start by establishing a meditation posture. You can do it sitting; you can do it lying down. The main thing is to choose a position where you can be as relaxed as possible and yet alert. Once you’ve chosen your position, begin to settle. Allow the weight of the body to rest down into the support beneath you. If you’re sitting, it’ll be through the bottom, into the chair, through the feet, into the floor. For lying down, it’ll be through the back of the body, into the bed or the floor, and then the head resting into the pillow or cushion. 
    2. See if you can cultivate a sense of rest, allowing the body to be held. Let go of gripping. Receive the support of whatever’s beneath you. To help this, you could take a few deep breaths and then on each outbreath release a little bit more, letting the next in-breath flow back in in its own time. 
    3. With each in-breath, breathe in freshness and vitality. With each out-breath, let go of gripping. When you’re ready, allow your breathing to find its own natural rhythm. Allow your awareness to pour out of the head, where it so often seems to be located, and feel the body resting inside the movements and sensations of breathing.  
    4. Allow your awareness to fill in the body a little bit more. Let it pour down through the torso, through the hips, feet, and legs. We’re not looking in from the outside or thinking about the legs and the feet as a concept or an object. Rather, we’re resting inside sensations of contact with the floor, with the chair, or the bed. Maybe there’s a sense of tingling, buzzing energy. Maybe there’s dullness or numbness. Whatever our experience is, allowing awareness to fill the feet and the legs. If there’s pain or discomfort, see if we can meet this with an attitude of kindliness and care, softening automatic habits of resistance and tension. Allow awareness to come to the buttocks, letting the buttocks be soft, resting into the chair, into the bed.   
    5. Allow awareness to fill the whole torso—including the belly, the chest, the front and the whole back of the body and the back, the whole spine. Have a sense of the torso opening a little bit in all directions on the in-breath and subsiding on the outbreath. Be careful not to force or strain. Receive on an in-breath, letting go on the outbreath. Again, if you’ve got pain or discomfort anywhere in the back or the front of the whole torso, see if you can allow it into awareness with an attitude of care and kindliness. Let it be part of our experience, softening the resistance and the automatic tension that can so quickly arise. 
    6. Now bring awareness to the shoulders, arms, and hands. Let your hands be supported, resting on the legs or in the lap if sitting. Rest them at the sides of the body, palm upwards (if lying down) or on the legs, palm downwards (if sitting). Let go of gripping in the arms with tension, just letting them rest into gravity. Let the shoulders fall away from the midline of the body into gravity. Allow shoulders, arms, and hands to be full of awareness. This might show up as discomfort, tingling, heat. It could be sensing the contact with clothes, contact with the surface the hands are resting on. Receive all this into awareness with kindliness. 
    7. Now come up through the arms and up to the neck and the head. If you’re sitting, let the head be poised on the top of the spine, maybe tucking the chin in just a tiny bit, so there’s a release through the base of the skull and yet openness in the throat. If you’re lying down, see if you can let the weight of the head be fully held by the pillow or the cushion. Let go of holding on, gripping in the head, letting it rest. Let the jaw be soft, the lips and tongue be soft so the wind of the breath can flow freely through the back of the throat on the way into the body and then back out again on the way out of the body. Let the cheeks be soft, eyes soft, forehead soft. We could imagine the brain resting inside the head softly. 
    8. See if you can feel into the physicality of the head. So often the head can feel split off from the body. The head is just a thought factory, and then the body’s just this kind of thing that we drag through life. But the head is a limb of the body, just like the arms and the legs. Sense the feelings, the sensations in the head. Temperature, tingling, buzzing, softness, maybe even contact with the air brushing against the skin.  
    9. See if you can have a sense of wholeness in the legs, torso, arms, neck, and face. This experience of embodiment, moment by moment by moment, the flow of sensations in the whole body arising and passing, arising and passing.  
    10. If you’ve got pain or discomfort right now, let’s attend to that part of the body. Take your awareness to that part of the body and notice if it’s surrounded by resistance or hardness. Let’s see if we can find this sweet spot between denial on the one hand and overwhelm on the other. Denial will be a kind of turning away, a hardening and not wanting, a pushing away. Maybe there’s a little bit of breath holding. Maybe there’s tension in the head, tension in the bottom. If you notice that, then see if you can turn a little bit more towards the experience, metaphorically speaking, adding it into awareness a little bit more, very gently and tenderly, breath by breath. Let it be part of this flow of experience in the whole body. Breathe into that area and imagine that the breath is bathed in kindliness.  
    11. If, on the other hand, you’re feeling overwhelmed, the only thing in experience is the pain or the difficulty. The practice here is to broaden. Feel the bottom on the chair or the bed. Feel the support beneath us. Feel breath in the whole body. Feel the whole range of sensations in the whole body. The pain is just one aspect of this multifaceted experience of being alive right now. If you notice yourself hardening up again, tensing, turning away, suppressing, denying, blocking—use awareness to interrupt that process and soften. Relax the palms. Relax the hands. Come closer. Breathe kindly. 
    12. This is a training in wholeness, integration, and kindliness. We’re able to be with all of our experience with presence and kindliness. If we have a wound, we broaden. If we’re blocking off, we come closer. That is the practice. Our awareness is dynamic, subtle, receptive, fluid. 
    13. You can keep on practicing if you’d like to, but I’ll bring this guided meditation to a close. Let’s bring the weight of the body to the foreground of awareness, feeling, resting into the support beneath us. Feel breathing in the whole body. Broaden awareness to be aware of sounds around your environment. Open the eyes if they’ve been closed. Bring a tiny bit of movement into the body, maybe the fingers and the toes or some other part of the body. Notice any tendency to immediately halt the breath and immediately start pushing and rushing. Stay inside this subtle movement with a soft brow. And when you’re ready, come into bigger movement. In your own time, reengage with the activities of the day.



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  • 4 Ways Mindfulness Helps Us Find Our Way Through the Dark

    4 Ways Mindfulness Helps Us Find Our Way Through the Dark

    No matter what your political persuasion is, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that we’re living in a time of chaos, pain, and carnage—with many people saying it’s a “dark” time that has made them feel anxious and helpless. Many of us feel we want to do something, but we don’t know what to do on the larger stage and we’re not sure what to do for ourselves and those around us. Many people have raised the question of whether and how meditation, mindfulness, and awareness can help us right now. It can seem almost puny against such massive forces.

    If it couldn’t help us now, though, what good would it be?

    Before helping us with what to do, though, mindfulness first helps us with how to be. And it seems that’s where we need to start. When times are tough, we need to go back to square one.

    Before helping us with what to do, mindfulness first helps us with how to be. That’s where we need to start.

    4 Ways Mindfulness Can Help Us Right Now

    1. Be in the Body

    One of the first facets of mindfulness meditation practice to appreciate, especially in times of great stress and fear, is that it grounds us in our body. When we take in difficult news, either near at hand (a loved one dying of cancer) or from afar (such as news of war over the internet or on TV), our connection to our body can weaken. It can even feel like we leave our body. In such a condition, freed from the gravitational pull, our mind begins to race. We’re more influenced by what our mind projects than by our immediate perception of our surroundings. When our mind is galloping off, even just a little close attention to our breathing while feeling the weight of our body pulling us to earth can bring our mind back home.

    One of the phenomena that takes us away so easily, of course, is media. It’s worthwhile (as many of you probably already do) to go on a news diet. Oliver Burkeman, author of Meditations for Mortals—who explores the relationship between how we spend our time and our well-being—counsels us to pay close attention to the time we spend digesting “news.” News, often in the guise of social media nowadays, is designed to activate our emotions more than inform us of need-to-know information. When we start to leave our body in response to “news,” it’s worthwhile to return to the perception of our body, and to appreciate our surroundings. As we notice a bird alighting on a branch, we can absorb a different sense of time: the tree and the bird are not part of the next news cycle. In terms of keeping up with things, Burkeman counsels being “news-resilient” by returning the news to a place where it’s just something you dip into rather than wallow in, and keeping up with what’s going right as well as what’s going wrong. I would add to engage in mindful reading: searching out reading, listening, and viewing that is reflective and thoughtful, that can generate insight, not just fear and panic.

    2. Rest in Choiceless Awareness

    The grounding quality of mindfulness—noticing the details inside and out—opens us up to our innate awareness, a more panoramic view that’s not caught up in chasing down every stray thought. As a result, we can be less reactive, and take a bigger view of space and a longer view of time. This deep kind of awareness is said to be choiceless: we couldn’t be rid of it if we tried.

    Awareness sees our anxiety but is not itself anxious. It manifests a mountain-like settledness, as well as confidence or courage that knows that no matter what happens, awareness goes on. We can rest in it.

    Being grounded in awareness is not about being detached, unfeeling, and uncaring. In fact, it’s awareness that allows us to truly feel—to have a natural reaction to something unpleasant or off-putting, such as a raving egomaniac talking about taking chain saws or wood chippers to things that help vulnerable people—and yet have space and sense of humor around the feeling. Awareness sees our anxiety but is not itself anxious. It manifests a mountain-like settledness, as well as confidence or courage that knows that no matter what happens, awareness goes on. We can rest in it.

    3. Feel the Wonder of Not Knowing

    When we’re sure that we know something, our awareness becomes clouded. Fresh perceptions are filtered through our fixed knowledge. Instead, like the great Zen masters, artist Maira Kalman, one-time Mindful contributor and author most recently of Still Life with Remorse, abides in “not knowing.” It is the source of her artistic practice. As she said to me in an interview, “At the end of the day or the end of a life, everybody ends up saying, ‘I don’t know what I know.’” Rather than responding to “the noise we’re bombarded with every day by those who are trying to unnerve us for our money, forcing us to form reactions and opinions,” we can rest in not knowing. When we allow ourselves to question what we know, and shy away from clinging to fixed opinions, the inquisitive quality of our awareness takes over and we perceive the world more freshly. We can be awestruck by the world’s magic.

    4. Cultivate Compassion and Community

    We can also be awestruck by the world’s pain and horror, and this is where the doing part comes in. Precisely what we do and how we do it naturally varies greatly depending on circumstances. Just as awareness is inherent, so is the basic warmth of compassion, our fellow feeling. It can be obscured, but it’s there for us all.

    Just as awareness is inherent, so is the basic warmth of compassion, our fellow feeling. It can be obscured, but it’s there for us all.

    As we become grounded in our body and rest in awareness, touching in with that warmth can guide us to what we can actually do, where we might have some agency. Not knowing brings with it a humbleness that tells us we can’t fix everything. Since we can’t be sure how things will turn out, we don’t cling to certain outcomes. The great heroes who have championed the causes of the oppressed tend to come from this stance, willing to plant seeds in a garden whose harvest they may never see and committed to—as the popular African-American expression goes—Making a Way Out of No Way.

    Whatever we do, one thing we do know in the deep fiber of our being is that we’re connected unavoidably to others, so finding community is never a bad place to start.



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  • A Meditation for Creating an Anchor of Inner Strength

    A Meditation for Creating an Anchor of Inner Strength

    In this guided practice, we focus on qualities of inner strength that we can return to in times of uncertainty.

    What does it feel like to experience ourselves—in our own minds and bodies—as a reliable place we can come home to in order to feel grateful, calm, and resilient?

    In this week’s guided meditation, Melli O’Brien walks us through a practice we can return to in times of uncertainty or challenge to remind us of our own inner strength.

    A Meditation for Creating an Anchor of Inner Strength

    Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.

    1. Start by finding your way into a comfortable position. Sit in a comfortable way, with the spine more upright rather than slouching. When you’re ready, gently close the eyes, if that’s comfortable for you. Otherwise, you can just have them downcast with a soft gaze. When you’re ready, take three deep, slow, full breaths.  
    2. As you exhale, allow your physical body to soften. Relax a little, feeling the softening through the jaw, shoulders, belly, and hands. Again, another breath in, and out. Let go of anything that’s on the mind. To-do lists, worries, ruminations—allow yourself to arrive right here, right now, in this time, this place, this moment. 
    3. As you let the breath settle back into its own natural rhythm, continue to feel the flow of sensations of that breath moving in your body. Breathe naturally, feeling the sensations of the breath as it enters the body and leaves the body. Rest awareness on the feeling and the flow of the natural breath, allowing the breath to anchor you in the present moment. 
    4. Now bring to mind a feeling of gratitude. What does gratitude feel like in your body? You might like to take a moment to dwell on thoughts of what you’re grateful for. The food in the cupboards or water from the taps. The fact that you are safe right now and that you have this time to take care of your mental well-being. Maybe you’re  thinking about the acts of kindness you’ve received in your life, from the smile of a stranger to bigger gestures of support. Maybe you’re remembering the people who’ve loved you, supported you, forgiven you, encouraged you. What else can you be grateful for? Maybe the miracle that you’re alive at all. 
    5. Allow these feelings of gratitude flood through every fiber of your being, filling you up like golden light. That feeling of inner strength, when you notice that you have enough, that you’re supported by life, a feeling of relaxing and feeling abundant—intensify that feeling. What does it feel like in your body? How do you breathe? How do you hold yourself when you feel grateful? Bathe in that feeling. Feel the goodness of it, the strength of it. What do you say to yourself when you feel grateful? 
    6. Now squeeze your right fist gently as you feel that feeling of gratitude. Make an intention right now that you’re taking this gratitude forward with you in your life, maybe mentally saying to yourself, Thank you, this gratitude is with me now. 
    7. Now bring to mind the feeling of calm. Maybe you can remember times when you felt calm. Like when you were standing at the ocean’s edge watching a sunset or sunrise. Or you can just conjure up this feeling, maybe imagining a calm scene. Let  calm wash through you. Let it come alive in you. What does calm feel like? Let it move through you, soothe you, and ground you. Bring the feeling of calm to mind when you feel fully at ease, when you can be totally yourself. You’re safe, comfortable, and relaxed. Notice how you feel when you’re calm. How do you breathe? How do you hold your body? Feel the peace, the serenity, and the ease. Bathe in that feeling. 
    8. Feel the goodness of calm, the strength of it, and then gently squeeze your right fist as you feel that feeling. Mentally say to yourself, This calm is with me now. Making an intention to take the calm forward in your life. 
    9. Now bring to mind a feeling of grit. What does it feel like when you have grit? You know that inner strength when you know you could never be stuck because you always find the way forward. You always find the way through. You’re not stuck in problems, you’re thinking about solutions and creative ways forward. You’re resourceful, determined, and even playful when it comes to facing difficulty and challenges. What would grit feel like? Imagine it, remember it, let it fill your body and flow through you. How do you breathe when you have grit? How do you move? When you’re empowered, you’re focused on where you’re going, and what matters deep in your heart, your purpose, your truth, nothing’s going to stand in your way. Intensify the feeling, that feeling of grit.
    10. Feel the goodness of it, the strength of it. Squeeze your right fist as you’re feeling that feeling and make an intention that you’re now taking grit forward with you in your life, mentally saying to yourself, Thank you, this grit is with me now. Feel it become a part of you. 
    11. Now bring to mind the feeling of love. Maybe you’re remembering times when you opened your heart, when you gave love freely, when you gave someone the benefit of the doubt. Or a time when you forgave, showed compassion, kindness. Imagine or remember love: what it’s like to feel love, embody love, give love. Connect with it now and let it wash through your body and your being. Maybe even place your hands on your heart. What does love feel like in your body? Bathe in that feeling—the goodness of it, the strength of it, letting love wash through every fiber of your being, every cell of your body. 
    12. As you feel that love, gently squeeze your right fist. Mentally say to yourself, This love is with me now. Feel it become a part of you. 
    13. Now bring to mind another quality that you want to develop. Take a moment to remember what that feeling, what that quality feels like. Connect with it, remember it, conjure it up, and let it wash through you. Let it come alive in you now. What does it feel like in your body, in your mind, in your heart? See if you can intensify that feeling as if it was filling all the cells of your body, flowing through every inch of skin and bone and being within you. How do you breathe when you feel that feeling? What do you say to yourself? How do you hold your body? 
    14. Bathe in that feeling. Feel the goodness of it, the strength of it. And then squeeze your right fist as you feel that inner strength and make an intention that you’re taking this quality with you forward from this day in your life. Mentally saying to yourself, Well, this quality is with me now. Feel it become a part of you. 
    15. Now you can drop awareness back into your breathing. Just breathe naturally. Ride the waves of the breaths as the body breathes in and as the body breathes out, just feeling strong. As you breathe out, wriggle the fingers and the toes, and notice how you’re feeling after taking this time out for meditation. When you’re ready, open your eyes. 



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  • Dual Anchor: A Neurodiversity-Informed Meditation for Wandering Attention

    Dual Anchor: A Neurodiversity-Informed Meditation for Wandering Attention

    In this guided practice, Sue Hutton offers an approach to meditation that marshalls sensory awareness as a way to sharpen focus.

    Traditional meditation practices can sometimes be frustrating and alienating for those who are neurodivergent. Bodily discomfort or intense mental restlessness can make even the most mindfulness-curious person feel like classic meditation techniques might not be for them.

    Sue Hutton believes that mindfulness can be for anyone, and she’s dedicated her work to making mindfulness practices like meditation accessible for neurodiverse communities. In this practice, she guides us through what she calls “Dual Anchor,” a kind of meditation that engages the senses to help gently steer attention. 

    Dual Anchor: A Neurodiversity-Informed Meditation for Wandering Attention

    1. This is a neurodiversity informed, guided meditation called Dual Anchor. It can be really useful to help bring a mind that wanders excessively and struggles to pay attention, to concentrate on two anchors at the same time with our senses. This practice utilizes our vision and our breath together at the same time. 
    2. Many of us carry a lot of overwhelm inside the body, so we don’t want to exacerbate that when we do our meditation practice. We come to this path seeking to cultivate calm stillness inside. I encourage you to bring a spirit of compassion to everything that you do in your meditation path, along with a sense of gentle curiosity. Try the practice best you can, but don’t push herself if anything is overwhelming or bringing up any kind of sensory overwhelm. 
    3. Let’s start off with concentrating using your vision on an object in front of you. A candle can be a very useful object to focus on the tip of the flame. But any object will do, allowing your posture to be upright and observing something in front of you with all of your attention visually. 
    4. Feel yourself concentrating on the center of that object. Notice the body softening as you concentrate on vision. The same way a film director zooms in, focus very clearly on an object. Allow your mind to sharpen, letting everything else fall to the background, holding full command of your gaze on this object. 
    5. Soften the brow, soften the jaw. Allow the body to be soft as you engage in observing this object very, very closely. Can you get a sense of the color, the texture, the shape? Just observe. Your vision is very focused. 
    6. Now let’s include awareness of the breath. Begin with closing your eyes just for a moment while you tune into the breath. As you close the eyes, just allow them to soften as though the eyelids just rest on the eyeballs, like gentle blankets, giving you a calm, quiet space inside. 
    7. Now, feel the breath in the way that works for you. You can observe the breath through sound, breathing in so loud that you can hear the sound of your breath like an ocean tide flowing in and out, observing the sound of the breathing, with full awareness of the sound on the inhale and exhale. You can also try experiencing the breath by just observing the gentle flow in and out of the body in a way that works for you. You can have your hand resting on the belly and the chest and just feel the sensations wherever it’s comfortable, either on this surface, feeling the hand’s rising and falling with the breath, or from inside the body. If it’s comfortable for you, you can try to feel where inside the body you notice that mechanism of breathing in and breathing out. 
    8. All the while, we’re bringing a sense of deep compassion and love for ourselves as we do this. You may even feel some warmth of compassion flowing into your body through your hands. So there’s a loving touch, compassion for ourselves as we breathe in and out. Remember, every outbreath is an opportunity to give yourself permission to relax and soften. This is a space for you to cultivate and calm within. 
    9. Now open your eyes once again and focus on that object, and let’s combine vision and breath. Focus deeply, all your concentration visually on this object: sharp concentration, unwavering, steady focus. Soften the brow and jaw. 
    10. Now, combine the rhythm of the breath in the way that works for you. Allow yourself to feel yourself right at the center of this deep concentration, sharp, focused vision and unwavering connection with the experience of the breath, vision and breath. Allow there to be a soft calm inside the body. 
    11. As you experience this compassionate rhythm of the breath, using this focused alertness with your vision. And allow the next exhalation to be one that lets go even more. What else can you relax and release on the next breath? 
    12. There is a clarity as we concentrate on these two objects at the same time. See for the next few moments if you can go even a little bit more committed to being in the center, staying focused on the breath and your vision, full concentration, and allow there to be even more softening and letting go of the whole body from the top of the head all the way down to the toes, releasing and relaxing, sharpening that concentration, vision, and breath. 
    13. You can now allow the eyes to close as you stay connected with the breath. Again, just resting like soft blankets over the eyes. Feel that letting go and softening of the whole face. You may observe it’s not pitch black under the closed eyelids, but there may be some shape, some light, amorphous, moving, perhaps softening you even more and observing what you can witness underneath these closed eyelids in this calm, relaxed space, feeling that compassionate rhythm of the breath. 
    14. If it’s comfortable, allow your eyes to gently open. Let the eyes just look around the room at different objects, observing how you can engage in vision as a grounding tool. Look at another random object and focus on that, observing the texture, the quality, the color. You can name the object, too—just one word, not description. 
    15. This is our dual anchor meditation practice for today using vision and breath. You can use that practice any time of the day. There are more practices like this on my website at SueHuttonMindfulness.com. Please come and visit. Explore other ways of engaging in neurodiversity and mindfulness. May you continue to find incredible ways of bringing mindfulness to your life in the unique ways that you can benefit from the most. Thank you for meditating with me.



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  • Calming Hands: A Mindfulness Practice for Kids to Ease Difficult Emotions

    Calming Hands: A Mindfulness Practice for Kids to Ease Difficult Emotions

    Try this creative, calming mindfulness practice for kids and families, designed to help ease difficult emotions and manage stress.

    Key Points:

    • When children feel anxious or overwhelmed, mindful breathing and counting can help them feel safe and calm.
    • Engaging in mindful activities together as a family strengthens connections and boosts emotional resilience.
    • Try this Calming Hands activity to help your child soothe strong emotions through breathing, counting, and making handprint art.

    Mindfulness can be fun, simple, and hands-on—literally! The Calming Hands practice, created and shared by Rose Felix Cratsley at Ivy Child International, introduces young children to mindful breathing through art and counting. This activity is perfect for caregivers and educators who want to help kids cultivate calm and focus playfully.

    Exploring this practice helps us connect with our bodies, our breath, and the calming energy of our hands. When we feel anxious, stressed, upset or overwhelmed, our hands can be a tool for bringing peace and relaxation. This practice can help you feel safe and calm, no matter what you’re going through.

    Scroll down to follow along with the guided audio of this practice!

    How to Adapt for Kids with Sensory Needs

    Children are encouraged to explore different textures such as soft fabric, smooth stones etc. while practicing the calming hands technique, allowing them to engage with their senses.

    Parental Hack

    This practice is most effective when caregivers model by practicing alongside children, reinforcing the idea that mindfulness is a family activity and ritual. This can help both kids and parents bond while building emotional resilience and their psychological immune system, together.

    Highlights and Benefits:

    • Introduction: Guides children to notice the sensations in their hands and introduces the concept of hands as calming tools.
    • Breathing Practice: Uses finger-by-finger breathing, teaching kids to inhale and exhale deeply while counting from 1 to 10.
    • Reflection: Encourages kids to observe how their hands and bodies feel after the practice, reinforcing self-awareness and relaxation.

    Calm and Creative: Make Art With Your Handprint

    The Calming Hands practice is best paired with an engaging art activity where kids trace or do handprints, decorate, and personalize their calming hands. By integrating creativity with this simple and engaging mindfulness practice, this activity becomes a lasting tool for emotional regulation and relaxation.

    What You’ll Need:

    • Paper (large enough for a handprint)
    • Non-toxic markers, crayons, or paint

    How to Practice Calming Hands:

    1. Make the Handprint: Invite your child to trace their hand onto the paper or create a painted handprint. Let them have fun choosing colors or decorating their hand outline—it’s part of the creative mindfulness process!
    2. Number the Fingers: Together, write numbers from 1 to 10 on the fingers, starting at the thumb and moving outward.
    3. Begin Mindful Breathing:
      • Encourage the child to place their real hand on top of their handprint.
      • Start at the thumb (1) and breathe in deeply, then exhale as you count out loud.
      • Move to the next finger (2), breathing in and out again.
      • Continue until all 10 fingers are complete.
    4. Repeat if Needed: If the child enjoys the exercise, they can trace back through the numbers or start again.

    Children and families can turn this mindfulness practice into a creative keepsake by tracing their hands, numbering their fingers, and decorating the artwork. This hands-on activity teaches kids to ease difficult emotions by providing a visual and tactile reminder of the breathing practice, making it easy for them to return to in stressful moments. Calming hands can be mounted on the fridge, bedroom door or even in the car as a tool to remind us all to count and breathe.

    Audio Practice: Use Your Hands to Explore Mindful Breathing

    By Rose Felix Cratsley

    Before starting the practice, find a blank piece of paper and something to draw with, like a marker or pencil.

    1. Step 1: Get Comfortable. Find a comfortable seat, either on the floor or in a chair, and sit tall like a strong tree. You can rest your hands gently on your lap, or place them in front of you. Let your shoulders relax, and your body feel soft. You are in a safe place.
    2. Step 2: Notice Your Hands. Take a moment to notice your hands. How do they feel? Are they warm or cool? Do they feel heavy or light? If you’re feeling nervous or anxious, that’s okay—just notice what’s happening in your hands without judgment. If you feel tense, give your hands a little shake and let the tension fall away.
    3. Step 3: Trace Your Hands. Now, we’re going to trace our hands to create a picture of calm. Place your hand on a piece of paper and trace around it with a pencil or marker. While you trace, feel your fingers, the palm of your hand, and the space between your fingers. Let each stroke of the marker be a reminder that you are safe and in control.

      As you trace your hands, know that you’re building something special. Your hands are your own calming tool, always available when you need to relax and feel grounded.

    4. Step 4: Breathe with Your Hands. Now that your hands are traced, we’re going to use them to help us breathe deeply. Each finger will guide us through one breath. We will count from 1 to 10, one number for each finger. With each number, we’ll take a slow, deep breath in and out.

      Start with your pinky and breathe in as you count “1.” Feel your chest and belly rise. Now, breathe out as you count “2.” Let the air flow out slowly and feel your body soften. Keep breathing slowly, one number for each finger. As you breathe in, feel your hands fill with calm. As you breathe out, feel your hands and body relax even more.

    5. Step 5: Focus on the Sensation. As you go through each number, pay close attention to how your hands feel. Do they feel warm, soft, or tingly? Notice any changes as you breathe. Imagine your breath flowing through your hands, bringing calmness to every part of your body.

      As your mind wanders, simply bring your attention back to your hands and your breath. Take your time, enjoying each breath as an opportunity to slow down and find peace.

    6. Step 6: Feel Grounded and Safe. Take a moment to reflect on how your body feels now. Does your body feel more relaxed? Do your hands feel more calm and steady? Remember, this practice helps us feel grounded—like our feet are firmly planted in the earth, and we are in control of our breath and emotions. Your hands can always be a source of calm. If you ever feel anxious or upset, you can come back to this practice, take a deep breath, and find peace through your hands.
    7. When you feel ready, come back to your day.  Take one more deep breath in, and gently breathe out. Slowly bring your awareness back to the space around you. You are calm, centered, and ready to face whatever comes next. You can always return to your calming hands whenever you need them.



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  • A Meditation for Allowing the Possibility of Possible In Deep Grief

    A Meditation for Allowing the Possibility of Possible In Deep Grief

    In this guided practice, Brenda K. Mitchell offers an invitation to anyone who might be struggling to see a way forward through grief.

    When we are adrift in the wide sea of grief, it can be difficult to imagine any world other than the world of our intense sorrow and loss. Things like going back to our normal daily tasks, or having fun again, or being able to think of our loved one without crying—these can seem so far out of reach that they might as well be impossible.

    In this guided meditation, Brenda Mitchell offers one tiny heart-opening invitation: simply allowing what she calls “the possibility of possible.” There isn’t an expectation that you have answers, or lots of hope, or a clear path forward. Rather, this is a tender way to be with the many difficult emotions that accompany losses in our lives, while opening the door just a bit to what might lie ahead.

    Discovering the Possibility of Possible In Deep Grief

    1. Let’s begin by closing our eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Inhale. One, two, three. And exhale. One, two, and three. 
    2. If you’d like, place one hand over the other on your heart. Remove everything that you may have brought in here with you—the tension and the anxieties that may be present in the moment, in the room, or in your neck. See if you can open up and loosen everything that you may have brought with you. Let’s breathe one more time. 
    3. Now, do a quick body scan and allow for more movement within the structures and the internal parts of our body. Let’s get comfortable—like a couch potato, like Netflix comfortable. Feel that release down into the neck as we open up to receive enlightenment and the divinity of nature and the wonderfulness that is our very own body system. 
    4. Let that comfort flow down through your shoulders and down through your hands. Shake your hands just a little bit to know that you’re in control and you’re operating and let that flow go through the center region of your body. Blowing up and down through your hips, your thighs, your legs. Allow your feet to feel planted on the solid ground beneath you today.  
    5. If you are facing deep grief in this moment, I invite you to make room for those feelings. You might notice that sometimes in our fragility, brokenness, and disappointments, we stop imagining that anything good can ever be possible again. There is a block there, a hopelessness. We can’t see a way forward at all. 
    6. For this moment, I invite you to embrace the possibility of possible. That’s it. You don’t have to have answers, or lots of hope, or a clear path forward. This is just about opening the door and allowing the possibility of possible. 
    7. See if you can gently settle onto a vision of yourself embracing possibility. What does that look like for you? Where are you? Are you indoors? Are you out? Is there anyone with you? Do you see the colors and the possibility of the dreams that we dream that can go dormant in grief? Maybe you can feel the warmth and the beauty of the sky. What does it mean for you to accept the hurt and pains of what was, while also moving toward the possibility of possible? 
    8. I invite you to open your eyes as you are ready, and return back to my voice. There’s a poem that I’d like to share with you that has allowed me to imagine a  future version of myself who could open up to what is and embrace the possibility of possible. It is written by Gilda Radner and it states, I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s called Delicious Ambiguity. Thank you for your practice. 



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  • A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling

    A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling

    In this guided meditation, Caverly Morgan invites us to move beyond “positive thinking” in difficult moments and instead tap into a deep well of unconditional love for ourselves

    When we’re wrestling with experiences that challenge our identities or our confidence—like failures at work, relationship struggles, or letting go of old belief systems—it can be tempting to reach for positive self-talk that pushes back against the difficult feelings we might be having.

    In today’s guided practice, Caverly Morgan offers something much sturdier, what she calls unconditional reassurances.

    In this practice, we’re not just saying the opposite of what we’re feeling, hoping that it will be true. Rather, it’s about anchoring into a deep-down sense of worthiness and compassion that’s always present, regardless of how well things are going for us or how great we feel about ourselves in any given moment. It’s the difference between saying, Don’t feel bad! You’re the best! and saying, Whether you succeed or you don’t, I love you no matter what.  

    A Meditation for Unconditional Love When You’re Struggling

    Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.

    1. I invite you to begin this meditation with three of the longest and deepest inhalations and exhalations you’ve taken yet today. So often we take the breath for granted. Give yourself permission right now to simply enjoy breathing. 
    2. Picture a moment in your life in which you are struggling. If the scale is one to ten, ten being the greatest struggle you’ve ever known, pick something in the middle. Think of some time, perhaps in your recent past, when you were resisting what is, or seeking a different experience. 
    3. Notice what you were saying to yourself as you were struggling. Or to be even more accurate, what “the judge” was asserting, maybe commanding. Maybe for you there wasn’t any negative self-talk present, or perhaps the voice of the inner critic wasn’t alive in that moment. But for most of us, in moments of struggle the judge is somewhere on the scene. For this contemplation, see if you can get a sense of what’s being said. 
    4. Now see yourself as the one who’s listening to the judge. Really play with this in your imagination. Maybe you even see a young part of you that’s taking this message in. You might even let yourself feel, consciously identifying with this young part of you feeling what they feel. 
    5. From this space, ask, What do I need to hear? What do I need to know? If it’s not this, what is it? 
    6. Now in this struggle, take on the feeling as though you’re drowning, flailing your limbs around. See someone sitting on a dock nearby. Someone that really loves you, knows you, sees you. It might not be a real person in your life. It might be a kind stranger that is walking by the lake and doesn’t want to see you drown. See this person? With a bright, shiny, brand new life preserver in their hand, see them tossing it to you as your arms flail. Let yourself grab on to it. 
    7. If there were messages inscribed on this life preserver, what would the messages be? Perhaps it’s really simple. Like, I’m here. You don’t need to flail around any longer. You can hang on to me. I’ve got you. What phrases light up for you? What sentiments? Touch that unmet need. There’s no right or wrong here. 
    8. What is important is that the sentiments are unconditional. If they were to come in the form of phrases, they’re phrases that have no opposite. For example, they wouldn’t be something like, You’re a winner! Rather, they would be things like, I love you no matter what. 
    9. Take a moment now to say these phrases to yourself. Offer this part of you who’s been struggling unconditional Love. It’s not transactional or based on performance. Offer that now. Really see the part of you that needs to hear these things, needs to know these things. 
    10. If it feels difficult to access unconditional Love in this moment, that is absolutely fine. It’s just not the right moment to touch it. A part of you might be blocking the love. That’s always in the backdrop of our experience, but they can often feel out of reach. See if you can touch this love, this recognition that you are worthy.  
    11. Next, play with the image of releasing the life preserver. Just breathing and floating in the sea of presence. You don’t need to strive. Floating isn’t the byproduct of your hard work and your effort to do this “right.” It is your nature to float, just as it is your nature to love. If you meditate to be a better person, you’ll always be busy trying to be a better person. If you meditate because you’re in love, resting in your own luminous, infinite being in this sea of love, you’ll always be in love. 
    12. For one more full minute, let yourself rest in love. I’ll stop talking now. And if you wish to rest in this way for longer than a minute, I invite you to do so. If you need to move into your day, just give yourself one more minute before doing so. Resting in love. Letting yourself float. Thank you.



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  • Brighten Your Day: Learn Mindfulness From First Graders

    Brighten Your Day: Learn Mindfulness From First Graders

    Students Elijah and Romir share what they’ve learned about the practice of mindfulness via their school program run by the nonprofit Space Between.

    There are myriad benefits of mindfulness being taught in schools. To name just a few, it supports students and teachers in managing stress, trauma, overwhelm, and more. But one of the cutest upsides has to be kids teaching meditation.

    The Seattle-based nonprofit Space Between has been teaching trauma-informed mindfulness practices in school communities since 2016, supporting the mental health and well-being of both teachers and students.

    Learn the Zig-Zag Breath With Romir

    According to Romir, a first grader in the Space Between program, the Zig-Zag Breath involves just two simple steps:

    1. Move your head in a zig-zag shape.
    2. Breathe out calmly.

    Romir says that this practice can not only help you feel warmer, but makes you feel better if you get hurt.

    Thanks, Romir! We’ll be keeping this quick and easy practice in our toolkit should we get chilly or need a pick-me-up.

    Practice Square Breathing With Elijah

    1. Point your finger and close your eyes, if you feel comfortable. Get ready to imagine you’re drawing the shape of a square with the tip of your finger.
    2. Breathe in through your nose and move your finger in a line, drawing the first side of the square in the air in front of you.
    3. Breathe out through your mouth, drawing the next side of the square.
    4. Breathe in through your nose and draw the third side of the square. 
    5. Breathe out through your mouth and complete the square.
    6. Repeat this three times.

    We know that deep, intentional breathing calms our nervous system and focuses our minds. This easy-to-remember practice is a great way to tap into the power of the breath any time, anywhere. Thanks for the lesson, Elijah!

    Mindfulness Practices for Kids

    If you’d like to explore mindfulness meditation with the school-aged children in your life, there are many ways to go about it. Over the years, we’ve gathered a number of wonderful guided practices for young children and teenagers, created by renowned meditation teachers. Here are just a few of our most popular articles to help you get started:



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