Health Journal Online

Category: Mental Health

  • Self-Care Is an Act of Resistance

    Self-Care Is an Act of Resistance

    Grass-roots meditation activist Shelly Tygielski offers 3 ways to practice self-care so we can recharge, refresh, and rewire for action.

    This article was originally published in November, 2018.

    The day after the 2018 US midterms, after a bitter election season with hard-fought victories, severely-close losses, and some horrific violence in its wake, I found myself thinking back to a program I put together for the Women’s Convention the previous October in Detroit for thousands of impassioned, powerful women. We were all embarking on a journey we knew would be long and hard.

    I called my talk Self-Care Is an Act of Resistance: Shifting the Fight-or-Flight Response to Empathy-or-Action Response and here’s why.

    The main idea is that neither “fighting” nor “fleeing” are sustainable. More than that, they are responses we can move away from, we can evolve beyond. We often hear that our brains are hard-wired for fight-or-flight, that “we evolved this way,” but we know now that we continue to evolve. Our brains can be rewired.

    How can we evolve beyond fight-or-flight? By choosing to move towards two new responses: empathy and action. And I believe this starts with self-care.

    The Power of Empathy and Action

    I woke up the morning after the election to find over 100 messages in my inbox and via text with such a tone of despair. We had all worked hard, but so much more work remains.

    I started to respond, one by one, to the messages reminding everyone that they have PERMISSION to feel this way. It is okay to cry. To be sad. Disappointed. Tired. And in order to not add a secondary layer of emotion to everything we’re feeling— namely, guilt—we all have permission to pause, to reset, to breathe.

    It may feel inappropriate to take time to rest, or to seek out pleasure, or even indulge in some positivity in the midst of our heated social, political, and environmental climate. But I want you all to know that it’s crucial for us to acknowledge the importance of our own self-care and to act upon it. Self-care is not frivolous; self-care is a radical act of love.

    Yes, there is still work to be done. A lot of work to be done. But we don’t need to do it today. Today we can rest. Tomorrow we can rest. And then the next day and the next. We can pre-game for the holidays and think about all that we have to be grateful for, personally, and collectively. And then, those who are ready can rise up, dust off, unravel and lift up the rest of us.

    Self-care is a movement in and of itself.

    It’s a movement of love amidst defeat, of kindness in the face of loss as well as victory. It’s declaring yourself as self-deserving of emotional agency. Self-care is an act of resistance.

    Here are 3 ways to practice self-care today:

    1. Allow yourself to (finally) unplug from the news and social media for a few days. Turn off your alerts and push motivations, turn off the TV and don’t access social media. If you must access it for work or otherwise, limit your time and do not engage or comment on posts. It’s not forever—it’s a few days of peace and being off the grid. 
    2. Recognize when you are in need of self-care and then respond to that need. Sometimes taking time for self-care may impact the lives of those around you (for example, you need to take the day off from work or ask for someone to watch the kids). Inform those around you that you are responding to a personal need but do not feel the need to ask for permission. 
    3.  Have a self-care checklist ready that has dozens of options tailored just for you.  These self-care options can range from scheduling a mid-day call with a friend to drawing a bubble bath. Having this list ready is important because when you are on the verge of burnout, you may not have the capacity to come up with the options in that moment.



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  • A 12-Minute Meditation to Meet Difficult Emotions With Compassion

    A 12-Minute Meditation to Meet Difficult Emotions With Compassion

    This guided meditation is a simple practice to help us navigate the ups and downs of everyday life challenges with a kind and open heart.

    Often when we’re struggling with challenging situations or emotions, the things that feel the most supportive aren’t complex techniques, but just simple, down-to-earth practices.

    In this podcast episode, teacher and leadership trainer Carley Hauck introduces a practice for working with difficult emotions that’s all about noticing the body and visualizing the support, care, and wisdom to stay present to the right-now experience. In a world that feels increasingly complex and uncertain, Carley’s guidance is like a gentle hand on the back, encouraging us to slow down and find calm amidst the chaos. She shows us how to face life’s challenges with a kind and open heart, reminding us that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed sometimes.

    A Guided Meditation for Working With Difficult Emotions

    1. For this meditation, allow yourself to come into a comfortable sitting position. Feel your feet firmly planted on the floor. Notice your posture as you’re sitting. Allow your shoulders and your upper back to relax. 
    2. Begin to notice the rhythm of your breath as you breathe in and out. It may even be helpful to place one hand on your lower abdomen. And as you breathe in, you feel the stomach rise. And as you breathe out, you feel the stomach fall. 
    3. Start to notice the slowing down of your heart rate, of your blood pressure, allowing you to fully be here in this present moment. 
    4. Bring to mind a situation that occurred recently where you felt sadness or disappointment. It doesn’t need to be the most difficult experience, but just something moderately difficult so that you can practice. It may even be something that hasn’t happened yet, but that you are feeling sad, disappointed, or anxious about. 
    5. Turn your attention to the physical body. As you’re reflecting on this situation of sadness, what do you feel in the body right now? Is there tightness or tension behind the eyes? Is there a heaviness in the shoulders or your head? What are you aware of right now?
    6. With a compassionate curiosity, turn towards your experience. Everything is welcome right now. 
    7. If you find it difficult to be with what’s arising, that’s okay. Use the breath as a stabilizer, helping you to fully be here to whatever is arising and passing in the mind and the body and the heart. It might also help to name the feelings that are here for you, like sadness, loss, or disappointment. 
    8. If this feels comfortable for you, allow yourself to imagine a wise and loving figure who is cradling you. They have enveloped you with strong and loving arms. And they’re stroking your head and repeating, “It’s okay. I am here for you.” Let yourself take that in. Receive the support.
    9. If there’s anything else that you need to hear to really feel supported right now, allow that to come into your awareness. What words or gestures would feel most comforting and helpful? 
    10. Notice what’s happening in your physical body as you receive this support. Is there heaviness? Is there peace? Acceptance?
    11. When you’re feeling ready, you can thank this loving figure for its support and presence. You are centered, strong, resilient. And you are ready to meet the day. 
    12. When you feel ready, allow yourself to slowly transition back into your day—slowly open your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, notice your surroundings. Thank you for your practice today.

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  • 5 Guided Meditations to Investigate Panic and Anxiety

    5 Guided Meditations to Investigate Panic and Anxiety

    Explore these five guided meditations for softening feelings of anxiousness and calming panic.

    Unprecedented, uncertain—these are terms we’ve heard used in excess over the past few years. But no matter how tiring uncertainty may be, one thing remains true: We’ve all had to adapt to changing circumstances the best we can and as fast as we can. One thing we know is that mindfulness can help. If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed, here are five guided meditations worth following to ease anxiety and calm panic. 

    5 Guided Meditations for Panic and Anxiety

    1. A Meditation for Investigating Panic Attacks

    1. First, congratulate yourself that you are dedicating some precious time for meditation.
    2. Become aware of your body and mind and whatever you are carrying within you. Perhaps there are feelings from the day’s events or whatever has been going on recently.
    3. May you simply allow and acknowledge whatever is within you and let it be, without any form of analysis.
    4. Gradually, shift the focus of awareness to the breath, breathing normally and naturally. As you breathe in, be aware of breathing in, and as you breathe out, be aware of breathing out.
    5. Awareness can be focused at either the tip of the nose or the abdomen, depending on your preference. If focusing at the tip of the nose, feel the touch of the air as you breathe in and out… If focusing on the abdomen, feel the belly expanding on an inhalation and contracting on an exhalation.
    6. Breathing in, breathing out, experiencing each breath appearing and disappearing. Just breathing. And now gently withdraw awareness from the breath and shift to mindful inquiry.
    7. Mindful inquiry is an investigation into emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations that are driving your panic, anxieties, and fears, often beneath the surface of your awareness. There is a special and unique way of doing this practice that can foster the potential for deep understanding and insight.
    8. When you practice mindful inquiry, gently direct your attention into the bodily feeling of panic or fear itself. Allow yourself to bring nonjudgmental awareness into the experience of it, acknowledging whatever it feels like in the body and mind and letting it be.
    9. To begin this exploration you need to first check in with yourself and determine whether it feels safe or not. If you don’t feel safe, perhaps it is better to wait and try another time, and just stay with your breathing for now.
    10. If you are feeling safe, then bring awareness into the body and mind and allow yourself to acknowledge any physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts. Then, just let them be…without trying to analyze or figure them out.
    11. You may discover that within these feelings there’s a multitude of thoughts, emotions, or old memories that are fueling your fears. When you begin to acknowledge what has not been acknowledged, the pathway of insight and understanding may arise. As you turn toward your emotions, they may show you what you are panicked, worried, mad, sad, or bewildered about.
    12. You may learn that the very resistance to unacknowledged emotions often causes more panic or fear and that learning to go with it, rather than fighting it, often diminishes them. When we say “go with it,” we mean that you allow and acknowledge whatever is within the mind and body. Just letting the waves of emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations go wherever they need to go just like the sky makes room for any weather.
    13. Now gently return to the breath, being mindful of breathing in and out…riding the waves of the breath.
    14. As you come to the end of this meditation, take a moment to congratulate yourself and take a moment to appreciate the safety and ease you may be feeling right now that you can bring into your day. By acknowledging your fears, you may open the possibility for deeper understanding, compassion, and peace. Before you get up, gently wiggle your fingers and toes and gradually open your eyes, being fully aware here and now.
    15. Send some loving-kindness your way. May I dwell in peace. May all beings dwell in peace.

    2. A Meditation to Create Space Between You and Your Anxiety

    1. When you’re ready, come into a comfortable seated position. Let’s take some breaths here. Find your ground by feeling your feet on the floor beneath you. Feel your body touching the chair or cushion you’re on. Really allow yourself to settle into this: Feel gravity, and release your weight toward gravity. Let’s take a few deeper breaths now. If you are already feeling anxious, it can be helpful to really extend the exhale. Take a nice, long inhale, then very much emphasize the exhale.
    2. Explore how you’re feeling right now. If you’re feeling anxious right now, it’s a great opportunity to practice. But if not, bring to mind a time recently when you felt some kind of fear, anxiety, worry, or agitation. Recall the situation or conversation. Just remember that event, and as you do, you might start to notice anxious thoughts emerging in your mind. You might also start to notice some related sensations in your body.
    3. Open your attention wide. Before we turn toward the anxiety more fully, let’s first open our attention wide. Here’s where we can use A.W.E. (And What Else?) Just notice. You may be feeling anxiety right now, but let’s direct our attention away from that and actively explore our senses.
    4. Open your eyes and look around. If your eyes are closed, I invite you to open them to look around the space you’re in. Simply orient yourself. And now notice three things that you see in the space around you. They can be very neutral or even pleasant things—flowers, an image. Simply describe them to yourself in your mind: the colours, shapes, forms.
    5. Turn your attention to the sounds around you. Once you’ve noticed three things visually and described them to yourself, turn your attention to hearing. Allow your attention to settle on the sounds around you. Listen for three different sounds; they can be near or far. Emphasize pleasant or neutral sounds. And, again, describe them to yourself: notice the vibration, the tone, how they arise and then pass. 
    6. Now, let’s turn our attention to taste. This might be a little more challenging, but just notice: Can you detect any flavour in your mouth? Maybe something you ate before starting this practice? Toothpaste? Just notice what it’s like to taste.
    7. Now, turn your attention to your sense of smell. You might take in a deeper breath here. Just notice: Can you detect any scent in the space around you? Notice how they can shift and change with each breath.
    8. And finally, let’s move to the sense of touch. Beginning on the outer surface of our skin, feel the contact with the chair or the ground. If your hands are touching or resting against your body, just feel that sensation. It’s very simple: What do you notice when you turn your attention toward your hands touching? Feel the contact of your clothes with your body. Feel the temperature of the air on your skin. What can you notice?
    9. If you have the energy and some space now, turn your attention toward the felt sense of anxiety. If you feel the need for more space at any time, simply keep turning your attention outward: the sounds, the sights—wherever it feels calming and grounding for you to attend in your senses. When you do feel ready to explore, turn your attention to the felt sense: How do you notice anxiety? Where do you feel it in your body? Take a breath and notice where you feel it. Maybe it’s in your belly? See if you can notice the details, too: Is it throbbing or tingling? What’s the energy like? Within the sensation of anxiety, does it feel like there’s a lot of movement? Does it shift and change as you pay attention to it?
    10. Can you gently relax around the feeling of anxiety or fear? Think of the rest of your body holding this feeling with a lot of care. Pay close attention, explore, be curious: How does anxiety show up? How is it shifting? If at any point it becomes overwhelming or you get lost in thinking and find you’re unable to stay with the sensations, simply go to And What Else: Notice the sights around you. Notice the sounds. Feel the ground.
    11. If you are able to pay attention to this sense of anxiety, simply noticing it, let’s drop in a question. Staying with the felt sense of this fear, anxiety, worry, or agitation, just ask: What do you need? What do you want me to know? What are you trying to offer me? Just see what answers, images, words arise here. We’re asking ourselves here: What do I need?
    12. As we close out the meditation, see if you can commit to doing something to address that need you’ve identified. Alternatively, simply remember the information that has arisen for you during this practice. And now, if you’re ready, take a few deeper breaths. Soften your body slightly. Feel the seat under you, the ground under you.

    3. A Meditation for Working with Anxiety

    1. To begin, sit in a way that is relaxed, and take a moment to adjust your posture on your seat to one that’s more comfortable. Feel your body in contact with the surface beneath you. 
    2. Allow yourself to experience whatever is present right now. Whatever bodily feelings, mood, emotions, mind states, and thoughts are present. You might take a few deeper breaths to invite the body and the mind to relax and settle. Take a nice full deep in-breath, relaxing, releasing, and letting go on the out-breath. Breathe in, and fill the chest and the lungs with the in-breath. Release and let go on the out-breath. 
    3. As you breathe in, you might invite in a quality of calm. You could repeat the word calm silently to yourself as you breathe in, and then again as you breathe out. Breathe in, calm the body, breathe out, calm the mind. 
    4. When you’re ready, let the breath settle into its natural rhythm, allowing it to be just as it is. Breathe in, breathe out. 
    5. You might invite a smile to the corners of your eyes and the corners of your mouth; a smile sends a message to our brain and to our nervous system that we’re safe and don’t have to be hyper-vigilant. Smiling invites us to relax, and be at ease.
    6. While sitting in a way that is relaxed and alert, you might bring to your mind a situation that is a source of anxiety or stress for you. It might be a work situation, family, health, finances, or it might be a combination of factors. Allow yourself to take in all the feelings, sensations, and emotions, and the overall sense of this situation, in the body and in the mind. Choose not to follow scenarios in your mind about what might happen or things that might go badly, and simply observe your thoughts and let them go. Be open to whatever bodily sensations are present with kindness and acceptance. There might be contraction, heat, tightness, tingling, or pulsing. Whatever is present, say yes to what you’re feeling. Be open to these feelings and let them come and go. Bring a kind awareness to whatever emotions are present, and allow yourself to feel them fully; they might be fear, worry, anxiety, or sadness, to name a few. Let these feelings be as big as they want to be, and say yes to all that you’re feeling. Let your awareness and kind attention hold whatever is present, whatever is arising for you in the body, heart, and mind. Bring interest to the changing flow of experience, letting everything stay for a period of time, and then pass on their own time. Meet it all with kindness, acceptance, and interest. 
    7. If anxious thoughts arise like, “This will never go away” or, “I’ll never be able to do everything I have to do,” meet these thoughts with kindness and care. Without identifying with them or treating them as true, let the thoughts come and go. Continue to open to your experience in this way, meeting your experience with kindness and care. If it’s challenging, acknowledge that it is difficult. You could put a hand on your heart and wish yourself well, if this is helpful. 
    8. Think to yourself, “May I be happy, and may I live with ease.” Take a nice deep full in-breath, letting go on the out-breath. Hold your experience with kindness and with care. 
    9. Bring awareness to any emotion that may be present, perhaps underneath the feelings. Maybe there’s fear that the sadness, grief, or worry will continue. See if you can say yes to the emotion. Meet your emotions with kindness and care, and notice how they too shift and change if you can open to them. 
    10. If a sensation or an emotion gives rise to an urge or an impulse to do something negative, like eat something unhealthy, take a drink, or take a drug, see if you can stay with that energy. See that this too comes and stays for a while, and then passes. If it’s helpful you could imagine it as like a wave coming along. Maybe there’s a strong energy, and the wave crests. But if you stay with it with awareness and with kindness, perhaps those feelings pass for a while, and then there’s calm. Be open to the thoughts or narratives that come up in your mind; they might be “This is too much,” or “I need to do something to deal with this pain or difficult feeling,” and invite yourself to stay with the direct experience. 
    11. If the pain, discomfort, difficult emotion, or difficult feeling seems like it’s too intense, see if you can bring your awareness to another part of your experience. Perhaps an area of your body that feels more neutral, such as your hands, or your feet, or your seat, or something in your life that you’re happy about or grateful for. Let your awareness rest on a more pleasant or neutral experience for a time. When you feel ready, let your attention move back to the bodily feelings, and be open again to your experience, riding whatever waves arise. 
    12. Stay as close to your direct experience as you can, and bring a kind awareness to the thoughts and stories that surround the pain, stress, or difficult emotion. Choose not to identify with the thoughts but just acknowledge them as thoughts. Let them come and go in their own time with kindness. 
    13. Sit quietly for a couple of minutes, and be open to the changing flow of experience, recognizing how mindfulness can help us open up to and untangle ourselves from painful thoughts, stress, worry, anxiety, and the patterns of behavior that tend to go with those feelings, emotions, and mental states.

    4. A Meditation to Sit With Difficult Emotions

    1. Come into a comfortable sitting position. Imagine something difficult that you are going through. It doesn’t have to be the most difficult, but something moderately difficult. We want to practice with moderation before we move into the most difficult. Now, recognize your desire to push away the difficulty, to reach toward something that would soothe the difficulty in the moment (reaching out to someone, chocolate, distracting with technology, etc.), or denying that this difficulty is actually happening.
    2. Now turn toward it. Breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth a few times. Now invite into your awareness a large figure of compassion and strength who envelops you in a blanket of love, acceptance, and security. It can be a big cloud of compassion, a large grandmotherly figure, anything that feels loving and kind. Now, imagine this figure is holding you.
    3. Turn fully toward your difficulty. Face it, head on. There is no need to be scared. Feel this wise being enveloping you and speaking kindly to you: “It will be okay, you are okay, you are lovable, you are enough, you are not alone, and we will get through this together.” Let yourself offer and receive loving and kind statements as many times as you need until your mind and body can soothe and slow down.
    4. Each time, you notice yourself reaching for the old familiar way of turning away from discomfort, try gently turning toward it. The more you train the mind to acknowledge and name whatever difficulty is here, it won’t feel so challenging. In addition, your limbic system and specifically your amygdala will send a signal to your sympathetic nervous system that you can physiologically relax.

    5. A Meditation to Explore Anxious Feelings

    1. Begin with a brief mindful check-in, taking a few minutes to acknowledge how you’re currently feeling in your body and mind…being mindful of whatever is in your awareness and letting it all be. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed, analyzed, or solved. Just allow your experience and let it be. Being present.
    2. Now gently shift your attention to the breath, becoming mindful of breathing in and out. Bring awareness to wherever you feel the breath most prominently and distinctly, perhaps at your nose, in your chest, or in your belly, or perhaps somewhere else. There’s no other place you need to go…nothing else you need to do…just being mindful of your breath flowing in and out. If your mind wanders away from the breath, just acknowledge wherever it went, then return to being mindful of breathing in and out.
    3. Reflect on a specific experience of anxiety, perhaps something recent so you can remember it more clearly. It doesn’t have to be an extreme experience of anxiety, perhaps something that you’d rate at 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Recall the experience in detail, as vividly as you can, invoking some of that anxiety now, in the present moment.
    4. As you imagine the experience and sense into it, be mindful of how the anxiety feels in your body and stay present with the sensations. Your only job right now is to feel and acknowledge whatever physical sensations you’re experiencing in your body and let them be. There’s no need to change them. Let the sensations run their course, just like a ripple on a lake is gradually assimilated into the entirety of the body of water.
    5. Now feel into any emotions that emerge…anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, confusion…whatever you may feel. As with physical sensations, just acknowledge how these emotions feel and let them be. There’s no need to analyze them or figure them out
    6. If strong emotions don’t arise, this doesn’t mean you aren’t doing this meditation correctly. The practice is simply to acknowledge whatever is in your direct experience and let it be. Whatever comes up in the practice is the practice.
    7. Bringing awareness to your anxiety may sometimes amplify your anxious feelings. This is normal, and the intensity will subside as you open to and acknowledge what you’re experiencing and give it space to simply be.
    8. Continue feeling into the anxiety, just allowing any feelings in the body and mind and letting them be, cultivating balance and the fortitude to be with things as they are. The very fact that you’re acknowledging anxiety rather than turning away from it is healing.
    9. As you continue to acknowledge your physical sensations and emotions, they may begin to reveal a host of memories, thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences that may have created limiting definitions of who you think you are. You may begin to see more clearly into how these old patterns of conditioning have driven your anxiety. This understanding can set you free—freer than you ever felt possible.
    10. Now gradually transition back to the breath, breathing mindfully in and out… Next, slowly shift your awareness from your breath to sensing into your heart. Take some time to open into your heart with self-compassion, acknowledging your courage in engaging with your anxiety. In this way, your anxiety can become your teacher, helping you open your heart to greater wisdom, compassion, and ease within your being.
    11. As you’re ready to end this meditation, congratulate yourself for taking this time to meditate and heal yourself. Then gradually open your eyes and return to being present in the environment around you. May we all find the gateways into our hearts and be free.



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  • Find Stability Amid Change With A 12-Minute Meditation

    Find Stability Amid Change With A 12-Minute Meditation

    In this meditation on impermanence, Aden Van Noppen reminds us that when the outside world feels overwhelming, we can often find inner calm by coming back to the breath.

    We live in a world of constant change and this week, Aden Van Noppen invites us to find what roots us. Aden is the founder and executive director of Mobius, a collaboration between leading neuroscientists, meditation teachers, and technologists to work toward the creation of digital technology that enhances our individual and collective well-being. Aden is also one of the 10 powerful women of the mindfulness movement 2022, and here she guides a meditation on impermanence. 

    A 12-Minute Meditation to Find Stability Amid Change

    1. Let’s begin with a little grounding. Gently move your attention to the place where you are most rooted to the Earth. Whether that’s the bottom of your feet or where your body rests on a chair or a cushion, take a moment to just rest your attention there. Feeling the rootedness. Feeling the ground, the floor, the chair, the cushion holding you, holding your weight, grounding you. 
    2. Gently move your attention toward your breath. Take a relaxed breath, feeling the in- and out-breath like a wave. A wave of breath in and the wave as it moves out with your breath out. And just like the quality of a wave, it’s washing over you and through you. You don’t have to control it. In and out, without controlling it. 
    3. And just like a wave, no two breaths are the same. And just like every moment, no two moments are the same. Let this breath be a reminder of impermanence. As you breathe in, you can gently say to yourself, “This breath.” Each moment, each breath is a chance to begin again. “This breath.” Just like a wave. 
    4. As you take in your next breath, imagine the feeling of soaking up the nutrients of that breath, the life force of that breath, and with your out-breath, letting go. In—”Soaking up.” Out—”Letting go.” “Soaking up. Letting go.” Just as we do over and over in our lives. “Soaking up. Letting go. “ And combining them: “This breath. Letting go.” 
    5. As we transition to close this meditation, gently move your attention away from the wave of your breath and back to the rootedness of your seat, of your feet, wherever your weight is held most by the ground. 
    6. Even with the constant change, the moving in, the moving out, we always have this rootedness. It is always available to us, to remind us that we are held amid the change in our lives moment to moment. 
    7. When you’re ready, you can bring your attention back into the room and gently open your eyes. Thank you for sitting with me.  

    Never Miss a Meditation

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    The Power of Sustainable Self-Care 

    Shelly Tygielski explores how consistently showing up for yourself first lays the foundation for our life’s purpose—showing up for others—and how to create your own self-care practice.
    Read More 

    • Shelly Tygielski
    • June 17, 2022

    10 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement: 2022 

    In our fourth annual focus on women leaders of the mindfulness movement, ten women share what they’ve learned about living a life of meaning and purpose and how cultivating happiness fits into the equation.
    Read More 

    • Amber Tucker, Ava Whitney-Coulter, Kylee Ross, Oyinda Lagunju, and Stephanie Domet
    • July 16, 2022



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  • A 12-Minute Meditation for Honoring Our Connection to Ourselves and Others

    A 12-Minute Meditation for Honoring Our Connection to Ourselves and Others

    A guided meditation to begin making space for healing political polarization, racial strife, and social disconnect.

    This racial healing meditation emphasizes interconnection, honoring our connection to self in order to honor our connection to others. Acknowledging our interconnection, we can create space for healing political polarization, racial strife, and really any kind of disconnection in our lives.

    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.” This is the interrelated structure of reality. Let us just be with that for a moment. This is such an interconnected reliance.

    “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.”

    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    Many people feel like the answer to a more equitable and inclusive society is to be kind and treat everyone the same. As you consider your own journey of racial healing and interconnection, hopefully you come to realize kindness and awareness are important, but not enough. There is inner work that is essential. 

    The journey of racial healing gently opens your eyes to the initial work, the work of self-transformation as key to becoming a culturally inclusive and connected person. In our time together today, we begin to take the first steps to embracing interconnection.

    A Guided Meditation for Interconnection

    1. I invite you to sit comfortably yet with reverent alertness, lengthening the spine if you choose. The body is not trying too hard. We’re just sitting like a majestic mountain. A formed presence, but not working hard at it. I invite you to gaze down or close your eyes.

    2. And now I like to give this signal to my body and mind. Now that I’ve settled in, I’m about to do this. What we’re about to open up to is more of ourselves in this moment, with full curiosity, non-judgment, and deep self-compassion. I do this by taking three deep breaths. Please take three deep breaths at a pace that feels good for you. And then just settle into breathing at a pace that feels good and supportive. Finding your own rhythm of your in-breaths and your out-breaths. Let us just be here for about one minute of silence, staying anchored and aware of our breath.

    3. Now, I invite you to imagine a world where every being is connected to love. And because of this connection, not a single being would ever hurt another. And let us recognize that this world begins with us. With our willingness to connect and see, recognize value, and honor our interconnection. Continue to imagine for a moment what it would be like to live in a world where everyone freely and equally shared a deep connection to one another. Let us begin to create this, starting with ourselves. Let us just take a moment to continue to anchor to our own breath and the imagining of a world where we are connected to everyone.

    4. And now I invite you to picture someone who is racially different than you. And we know that race is a socialized construct, yet it is also one that we are working to heal from. So imagine someone who was racially different than you. Whether you feel connected to this person or not, whether you know them personally or not. Just picture someone who is racially different than you. 

    5. And as you picture them, I invite you to repeat these words to yourself, silently or out loud, whichever feels comfortable to you. These phrases are inspired by fellow meditator Melanie Cerdan. We will have some moments of silence in between the phrases, to allow the feelings to settle into our consciousness and our bodies. And let’s just take a moment. Connecting with this person who we’re visualizing. We offer the phrases: “I am open to connect with you. And I am grateful for your openness to connect with me. May the love in me connect with the love in you. I am present and I honor your presence. I am light and I honor your light. I am a unique human being and I honor that you are a unique human being. I am grateful and I honor that you are grateful.”

    6. Thank this person for exchanging this connection with you. Notice how you’re feeling in this moment. What emotions are present? What does it feel like in your body to have connected in this way? Just noticing. Not marking any feelings, emotions, thoughts as right or wrong, just simply being in the open awareness of what is present for you in this moment. 

    7. As we close, let us anchor to a powerful quote by Dr. Harriet Lerner. “Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.” May we see all others as being happy and connected. As we send this wish out into the world, may we appreciate it coming back to us. 

    8. I invite you to bring your attention back into your body. Back into your current location. Bringing our full awareness to being interconnected. May we move about being connected to others and every living being. Thank you for practicing with me today.



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  • A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    Skip the resolutions this year. Set a different tone by cultivating your intentions for the new year with this mindful practice.

    While many of us take stock at the end of a year, set goals, or make new plans for the upcoming year, that sense of letting go of what we’re caught up in and the habits we’ve been living through are a part of our everyday mindfulness practice. Each time we sit for a few minutes, there’s an opportunity to let go of wherever our minds, attention, and awareness have gotten caught up in, come back, and realign ourselves with our best intentions and efforts. 

    It might be a sense of bringing full awareness and attention to our experience, to the people around us, to a conversation with our children. It might be a sense of letting go of reactivity and coming back to resolve with more patience and clarity. It might also be balancing the tendency most of us have to get caught up in stress and giving more attention to gratefulness, positive moments, and things we enjoy. Or it might be a sense of wanting to bring more kindness and compassion to how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, or even how we treat the people we find difficult in our lives. All of that can be cultivated, sustained, and developed through any amount of time we spend in our mindfulness practice. 

    A Guided Meditation to Set Your Intentions for the New Year

    1. Find a comfortable posture. Dropping your gaze or shutting your eyes, notice the physical movement your body makes with each breath. You might notice your belly, your chest, or perhaps the air moving in and out of your nose and mouth. 
    2. Check in with your effort and intention. What is it you’d like to bring to the practice today? Perhaps it’s an opportunity to settle and gather your attention or a sense of resolve and strength. Of course, you might have the intention to simply show up to this practice without adding any sense of stress or strain. 
    3. Bring that sense of intention and awareness to your practice today. One way to do that can be within each in-breath, developing a sense of open awareness. 
    4. With each out-breath, come up with a word that captures your intentions for yourself. Breathe in with awareness and maybe picture something or feel gratitude toward whatever feels appropriate to you right now. Breathe out with your intentions for this moment. 
    5. You might lose touch with your intentions throughout the practice and in life—you can come back again. If you lose touch with the practice and your mind gets caught up in distraction or reactivity or some sense of discomfort, that’s normal. That’s all part of the practice. Try coming back to the same practice with awareness. 
    6. As the practice ends, pause for a moment with intention, and choose when to move on with your day. 
      Whatever you’re facing in life, all we indirectly influence is how we choose to relate to that. Reactivity and anger so often lead to more reactivity and anger. You can get caught up in self-criticism and in criticism of others. You can develop a more balanced sense of awareness, preciseness, and clarity through mindfulness practice. At any moment, you can catch yourself and realign yourself with your best intentions, recognizing that you may lose touch again and then come back when you do. 
    Why You Need a Self-Care Plan 

    Shelly Tygielski offers a three-step exercise to help you get started with your own self-care plan—no bubble bath required.
    Read More 

    • Shelly Tygielski
    • January 3, 2023



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  • How to Build Mindful Social Media Habits in the Age of TikTok—for You and Your Kids

    How to Build Mindful Social Media Habits in the Age of TikTok—for You and Your Kids

    A few years back, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed when I came across an image of Miranda, my childhood best friend. She was on a beautiful white-sand tropical beach, tan and radiant, contorted into an incredible yoga pose. In contrast, I was sitting in my living room, pasty white and deeply bundled against the frigid Maine temps, nearly comatose from tech use. And I noticed something. As I stared at the pic, my throat clenched slightly. My shoulders rose up just a hair. And my stomach dropped. I had a wisp of a thought: Ugh. I wish that was me. This was followed by a cascade of reasons that I was better than her, in a desperate attempt to make myself feel better. 

    What makes this moment notable, even though this yucky feeling had happened a bajillion times while looking at Insta, was a recognition of how that image impacted me. If I think about my technology consumption like a diet, what I just ate left me feeling bloated and heavy—perhaps the equivalent of eating an entire bag of Cheetos. In the past, I might have scrolled on for thirty minutes, continuing with my day and feeling some unnamed uneasiness, but not really noticing or connecting my feelings to anything in particular. This time, though, it was clear as day. This time helped me wake up and ask myself, “Is scrolling through social media healthy for me?” The answer was a resounding no.

    So then I deleted all the apps and never got on social media again. 

    Yeah, right. 

    What is true is that this was the beginning of a long process of really waking up to how my technology use was impacting me. I was able to start noticing when my face felt hot and my muscles clenched because an email triggered me before shooting off a fiery response. I recognized that if I woke up and looked at the news on my phone first thing in the morning, I was extra grouchy toward my family as I got ready to teach school that day.

    Mindfulness basically asks us to take off our judgy pants for a second and really look at our experiences, especially the ones we think we already know.

    On the flip side, my awareness of some of the ways tech really served me grew as well. I was able to notice that I felt empowered by calls to action posted by friends who were promoting social justice. I was grateful for the electronic calendar that reminded me of a forgotten appointment I was supposed to go to in thirty minutes. And especially as we braved the COVID-19 pandemic, I deeply appreciated being able to connect with my students, family, and friends over Zoom.

    Listen, I have an obvious bias here. I believe it is really easy for us as humans to get sucked into mindless technology use, and I think that sometimes makes us feel like crap. I believe there are forces at work that make it hard to put the phone or video controller or computer screen down. And I believe that we do have control over ourselves and our choices, but only if we are paying enough attention to notice what’s going on. 

    Listen to Your Kids

    I want to be clear: This is not just a concern for young people. Though the specifics of the challenges around tech use may be generational, the modern struggle for balance and wellness affects all ages.

    I am a mother of two young kiddos (ages one and four at the time of publication), which means I am grappling with how to best support them in developing their own healthy relationships with technology.

    For now, it is easy because I can just turn off the iPad after one episode or take away the phone after the timer dings. But at some point, I need to transfer that power to them so they can start noticing and making their own choices about the impact their tech use has on them. Of course, they will make mistakes. Of course, I will make mistakes. But I’m hoping, much as I do with my students, that we can figure it out together.

    I encourage you to be vulnerable with the young people in your life. Model owning your struggles. Invite them to share theirs. Sit on the same side of the table and problem-solve together rather than fight. We all want less fighting. Be open to the possibility that you are in this together.

    You can learn a lot just by listening to kids. The world is different from the one we grew up in. I didn’t have a mobile phone or social media until college and a smartphone came well after that. I had an entire childhood before modern tech became a reality. I can’t fully comprehend what it would be like to grow up in a world where my relationships were mediated by technology. The closest I can come is simply listening to young people. One piece of advice that has really stuck with me came from Jeremy, a teen from Virginia, who said, “One of the biggest mistakes I see parents make is they try to relate too much. While both generations have issues, it’s not the same and they don’t fully understand. Parents should just acknowledge the generation gap, and be open to listening and understanding.” 

    So, I encourage you to be vulnerable with the young people in your life. Model owning your struggles. Invite them to share theirs. Sit on the same side of the table and problem-solve together rather than fight. We all want less fighting. Be open to the possibility that you are in this together.

    Create Social Media Habits That Serve You

    Mindfulness basically asks us to take off our judgy pants for a second and really look at our experiences, especially the ones we think we already know. When we fully pay attention, defenses down, hearts open, we can be amazed by how much more there is to learn. By hearts open, I mean we can do this work with care. We can do it because we care . . . about ourselves, about our families and friends, and about the larger community. Acknowledging that we truly do want what is best for all can help us make moves that might not feel easy. Perhaps we create a social justice post to highlight the ways we can better care for one another and this world. Perhaps we put our phones down to really show care to the people we love.

    Close your eyes. Okay, I guess you have to read through this first, but then come back and close your eyes and walk yourself through this exercise.

    1. Imagine yourself waking up on your most perfect day. What does it feel like to be in bed? How do you soak in that moment? Do you stay there for a while to enjoy the restfulness? Are you someone who loves to jump right up and throw on some upbeat music? Whatever those first few moments in your ideal day look like, imagine them.
    1. Afternoon rolls around. What now? Do you go out for a walk? Take a catnap in a sunny patch on the couch? Hit the beach or slopes?
    1. How will you wind down from your day? Watch a movie with your family? Read a book curled up in your beanbag chair? Take a short walk around the block?
    1. When you are ready, come back to the present.

    This is an idealizing exercise. Obviously, we don’t usually have this much control over every moment of the day. We must consider other people’s needs. And we do things—work, errands, exercise, and so on—that may not feel gratifying in the moment but may ultimately serve us. Some life circumstances simply do not allow for us to do all that we wish. But it can be really helpful to know in our bodies what it feels like to live a beautiful day, as well as what factors help create those feelings.

    This exercise is meant to highlight the fact that how you spend your time matters. What you fill your mind with—experiences, content, images—matters. It may be the most important thing to consider. The way we spend each moment ultimately adds up to our lives. If we really want to start being clear about how our tech can best serve us, we need to be very clear about what we want it to serve. Many people grapple with this big question their whole lives: What work, activities, causes, and ways of being in the world make me feel most alive, most connected, and most authentically myself? There will not be a final answer to this question. It will be a lifelong inquiry, and your response will undoubtedly shift as you grow and have new priorities.

    Finding meaning in our lives won’t come just from what we do, but how we show up.

    Finding meaning in our lives won’t come just from what we do, but how we show up. Are we all the way there for those experiences? Or are we distracted? Can we find meaning and contentment even in moments that are not exciting, awe-inspiring, or fun? Our tech habits do not exist in isolation. Sometimes they are a result of some unmet need in our lives. Sometimes our habits result in an unmet need. It helps to figure out what things nourish us and help us to feel most alive. Only then can we really understand how our tech use can support that. 

    You Can Always Begin Again

    The truth is, at least momentarily, it is easier not to try. It is easier not to notice. It is easier to just hop in our tech inner tube and let the tech companies’ brilliant neuroscientists and psychologists whisk us away on a “happy,” tech-fueled river float. It’s easier to let our habits and patterns whisk us away than it is to look at those habits and ask them, “Are you getting me where I want to go? Are you creating the life I want to live?” Sometimes just asking ourselves to pause can feel Herculean. We aren’t used to it. Our habits push us to stick with what we know. Knowing this, perhaps you ask yourself, Can I love the dance? Can I love my humanness? Can I love myself when my actions create sleep deprivation, jealousy, work backlogs, or sadness? Can I fuel my desire to keep coming back with love and care instead of shame?

    If we go into the practice of examining our tech habits by criticizing ourselves, and criticizing others, for not living up to our ideals, we won’t want to keep trying. Lead with love.

    Maybe we notice we have been scrolling for over an hour one day, only to miss noticing the same behavior a week later. Maybe we choose to set a timer when we play video games one day and hop up after thirty minutes to go get some fresh air, only to hole up for a whole weekend playing games a month later. Still, we can begin again.

    And still, we can value ourselves as we fall. We can value ourselves enough to try again. 

    Attention Hijacked: Using Mindfulness to Reclaim Your Brain from Tech by Erica B. Marcus. Text copyright © 2022 by Erica B. Marcus. Reprinted with the permission of Zest Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this text excerpt may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

    Can We Have Compassionate Tech? 

    Aden Van Noppen, founder of compassionate tech company Mobius, answers our questions about how technology hijacks attention and how we can foster a healthier relationship with our screens.
    Read More 

    • Ava Whitney-Coulter
    • August 16, 2022

    You Can Change Your Life by Loving Yourself 

    Learning to take care of your heart, to accept the pain that comes with seeing the people you love suffer, and to be okay with suffering yourself, is the true work of self-love—and it begins with the breath.
    Read More 

    • Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez
    • June 10, 2024



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  • How a Mindfulness Retreat for BIPOC Helped Me Find Hope

    How a Mindfulness Retreat for BIPOC Helped Me Find Hope

    When youth worker Troy Landrum struggled with burnout and imposter syndrome, a mindfulness retreat for educators that are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color helped him find his way back to himself and his community.

    A year ago, exhaustion decorated my bones like a graffiti-tattered wall. For 10 years I had worked in youth development and education, specifically focused on young people who were incarcerated or marginalized in another way. I had struggled with bouts of secondhand trauma, survivor’s guilt, and hopelessness for the future of our young folks. I had seen the struggles of these young people as they tried to survive a justice system and various institutions that are not made to meet their needs. All of this work had led to deep emotional wear and tear as I sacrificed myself to the point of burnout. 

    During that time, I advocated and supported young people and their families through the legal system, employment, education, and mentored them through hardship. At the time, I wasn’t ready to recognize that, just as their motivation and hope had to come from within them, my motivation and hope had to come from within me. That sense of hope moves us to seek out the help and support that we need, to be honest with others and ourselves about our personal struggles, to believe in the sense of community that will bring about healing, and to act on our plans for our futures. I knew my job was to remind young people that they are the captains of their ships and the writers of their own stories. It was vital for them to be surrounded by a village that would support them to believe this about themselves and help them live into that belief. I wasn’t ready to see that the same was true for me.

    I knew my job was to remind young people that they are the captains of their ships and the writers of their own stories. It was vital for them to be surrounded by a village that would support them to believe this about themselves and help them live into that belief. I wasn’t ready to see that the same was true for me.

    Then I went to my first meditation retreat for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) educators with the non-profit Space Between, which supports schoolchildren by integrating mindfulness practices into school communities.

    Taking My Place at the Retreat

    As I prepared myself for the retreat and a full day of reconnecting to my body, I hoped I’d find a sense of optimism I’d lost to feel better prepared to continue the work of educating young people. At first, I questioned my right to take up space in a place for educators, a role that I felt to be sacred.

    I grew up in a family full of teachers and principals, so I understand the commitment of these roles. To me, an educator meant a teacher, professor, or an administrator—someone committed to specifically educating youth and preparing them for higher education. As a youth worker who went in and out of these young people’s lives—staying just long enough to get them out of trouble or to complete an internship—I felt like an imposter. From the stories I had heard from my mother and grandmother after full days in the classroom, I felt that my work didn’t compare. I was exhausted, but they had it worse.

    It was a place that I could instantly lay down whatever heaviness I had brought with me on the yoga mats and bean bags. I felt an instant peace.

    It was a Saturday morning when I walked into the retreat and was greeted by the smell of coffee and the smiles of some familiar faces. I felt a warmth that I think only BIPOC people could recognize, a silent language that gives a nod of recognition that we are in a similar fight to be seen as fully human in society. It was a place that I could instantly lay down whatever heaviness I had brought with me on the yoga mats and bean bags. I felt an instant peace.

    The facilitators gave us time to eat snacks, connect with other folks, and get situated for a day of connection with fellow sojourners, to ourselves, and to the present moment. We sat down in a big circle of about 10 people from all across the state of Washington and took turns introducing ourselves. I went last. As everyone presented their occupations, their exhaustion, their burdens,  the imposter syndrome rolled off of me like beads of sweat in a sauna.

    Reconnect With Love

    The time we spent together was a meditative rest for our souls, between the sweet rhythmic sounds of singing bowls, meditative walks, the connectedness of our weary voices through profound conversations. It turned out to be a place for those who self-identified or wanted to identify as lights in dark tunnels for others. Here, I understood that there are so many different contacts with young people, so many different ways of connecting oneself to education, so many ways of defining “educator.” The retreat wasn’t exclusionary; it was a place for those who needed to be reminded of the light that they had inside them.

    We had all come to the retreat exhausted, no matter our occupations or connection to educating young people. I’d worn that exhaustion like a badge of honor. Maybe it was to prove that I belonged, or maybe it was a symptom of the myriad injustices society has placed on BIPOC folks, to live our lives as the burden bearers of a system we never created. 

    What this time brought to me was revolutionary to my mind, body, and soul. That day whispered into my ears and said, “Rest and bring all of who you are, no matter who you are. Live out this day and the rest of your days loving yourself, nurturing yourself, listening to yourself so that you may love others just as you love yourself and serve as a reminder of that love for those around you.”



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  • Build Healthy Habits in the New Year With 3 Science-Backed Strategies

    Build Healthy Habits in the New Year With 3 Science-Backed Strategies

    Our habits create our lives. 

    They are the basis for most of our positive outcomes in life. They determine how often we practice mindfulness, our exercise patterns, our ability to place our full attention on our work. They bolster our capacity to interact with the people around us from a sense of compassion and full presence.

    Our habits also create most of the problems we encounter in life. They keep us stuck in self-defeating patterns like eating that full pint of ice cream, getting lost for hours on social media, or “checking out” instead of being present for the people we love.

    As you begin this New Year, it’s easy to get caught-up thinking only about goals, outcomes, and New Year’s resolutions. These are important. But we think it’s even more important to consider the underlying habits that either keep you stuck or allow you to experience profound changes.  

    How do you nourish healthy habits? Here are three proven steps:

    3 Science-Backed Strategies to Build Healthy Habits in the New Year

    Step 1: Take an Inventory of Your Current Habit System

    Edward Deming, one of America’s leading management scientists in the 20th century, declared, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” Allow that to sink in for a moment. 

    The idea here is that your current system of habits is “perfectly designed” to produce the negative, self-defeating, patterns you wish you could change. If you struggle to exercise, it’s because your current habit system is perfectly designed to keep you from working out. If you can’t find time to meditate, it’s because your current habit system is perfectly designed to prevent you from training your mind.

    Which existing habits are standing in your way? Which new habits will allow you to make the changes you would like to see?

    And that raises an important question: what results do you wish you were getting? For instance, do you want to be more mindful, less distracted? Do you want to be kinder, less agitated? Do you want to spend more time exploring the things that matter most to you, less time binge-watching shows on Netflix? These are the outcomes you want to change.

    Next, look one level deeper, at changes in habits that will help you achieve these outcomes. And this begs a second question: Which existing habits are standing in your way? Which new habits will allow you to make the changes you would like to see?

    Step 2: Build New Habits By Stacking Them on Habits You Already Have

    By now, you should have a few new habits in mind that will help you achieve the changes you’d like to make. The question then becomes: how do you build these new habits?

    In our work with high performers and executives, we’ve found that the best way to build new habits is to, in the words of habit expert James Clear, “stack” them on top of existing habits.

    For example, let’s say you want to build the habit of spending less time distracted by your phone. You could try to build this habit from scratch by saying, “I am not going to look at my phone at all in the evening.”

    Stacking this new habit on top of an existing habit is a much more effective strategy. For example, you can say: “After I walk through my front door and take off my jacket in the evening, I’m going to put my phone on Do Not Disturb mode.” This approach increases your likelihood of building the habit not only by tying it to an existing habit (taking off your coat as you walk in the door) but it also includes a specific action, which the research says is another important strategy for making habits stick. Instead, saying vaguely, “I’m going to try to look at my phone less,” it’s based on a tangible action, “switching my phone to Do Not Disturb.”

    The path to changing your life is more about the process of building the habit than the specific habit itself.

    There are numerous ways to enact this strategy in everyday life.  You could use your walk into the office as a time for practicing present moment awareness, use slowing down in your car at stop signs or stop lights as a cue to take one or two mindful breaths, or use beginning meals as a cue for expressing one thing you are grateful for. 

    The possibilities here are endless with this simple strategy: Stack the new habit you wish to create on top of an existing habit so that it becomes integrated into the midst of your everyday life.

    Step 3: Build and Sustain Your New Habits Using the Four C’s

    The final step uses what we call the Four C’s of habit formation to weave these new habits deep into the fabric of your everyday life.

    1. Commence Small. This first critical tip builds on Stanford professor BJ Fogg’s research, which suggests you start with a goal you can realistically achieve. For example, it’s better to start with 5 minutes of meditation each day than to set yourself up for disappointment by trying to meditate for an hour. Be careful of setting unrealistic New Year’s goals that risk failing in mere days because they are too big. Remember, the path to changing your life is more about the process of building the habit than the specific habit itself.
    2. Commit.  Make a 100% commitment to building your new habit.  It turns out that it’s actually easier to commit to building a new habit 100% of the time than 99%. That 1%, after all, can make you miserable.  It fuels that voice in your head that says, “I’ll skip it just this once.” But by making a 100% commitment to a tiny habit, you end this mental argument. We have seen over and over again with thousands of people that this is really the key tip for creating new habits.
    3. Create a consistent Cue. Going back to the idea of habit stacking, where creating a “cue” helps you remember to act. Use one of your existing habits as your cue, as a trigger that helps you remember to build the new habit.  If you want to spend less time mind wandering and more time noticing the sights, sounds, and sensations of the present moment, for instance, come up with a regularly repeating cue that reminds you to practice, a cue like waking up, going to bed, walking upstairs, stopping at stoplights, riding in elevators, or standing in line at the store. 
    4. Celebrate. All you have to do to celebrate is savor the experience for just a few seconds. Savor the exquisite feeling of connecting to your breath. Savor the feeling of pleasure that you derive from doing the activity you made a 100% commitment to carry out.

    So, while the world hammers on about goals, outcomes, and New Year’s resolutions over the next few weeks, remember that real change and progress only happens when we carefully construct a system of habits that make new outcomes possible.



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  • 7 Mindful Prompts for Reading Poetry

    7 Mindful Prompts for Reading Poetry

    Poetry can seem intimidating, but all it really asks us to do is slow down, get curious, and notice. It’s a lot like meditation! Here are seven mindful prompts to help you discover the nurturing practice of reading poetry.

    Poetry is a quiet sanctuary for the mind. Its rhythm and vivid imagery invite us to immerse ourselves. By exploring the depths of a poem, we embark on a journey of self-discovery, connecting with emotions, sensations, and the underlying wisdom within the words. This exploration can be a profound practice in mindfulness, cultivating peace, clarity, and a deeper appreciation for life’s complexities.

    Reading poetry isn’t just an intellectual pursuit. We encounter poetry in our everyday lives, whether on a meditation retreat, in quotes or videos on social media, and sometimes in everyday interactions with others. So, how does poetry differ from anything else we read, and why does it deserve special consideration? 

    While poetry may seem intimidating, all it really asks of you is to be curious, present, and open to listening to your intuition so you may connect with the words on the page.

    Poetry has a more challenging job than a novel that is typically linear in its construction. Most poems compress meaning into various poetic structures while using tone and literary devices to express ideas and emotions. When we pay attention to these details, we can better unpack a poem and the multifaceted meanings that exist in it. The sometimes more abstract language of poetry also engages our intuition in a unique way, tapping into our emotions. Poetry also allows for ambiguity and uncertainty about its meaning, making more space for each reader’s individual experience.

    While poetry may seem intimidating, all it really asks of you is to be curious, present, and open to listening to your intuition so you may connect with the words on the page. There’s no right or wrong way to read or experience poetry, much like there’s no right or wrong way to experience meditation.

    Mindful Prompts for Poetry Reading

    When you read a poem, try asking yourself the following questions to gain deeper understanding of both the poem and how it affects you:  

    • What mood does this poem evoke?
    • What emotions are coming up for me?
    • What is this poem describing?

    These questions can serve as helpful entry points for any poem. Checking in with our emotions can be an easy way to notice a poem’s effect on us.

    Next, you might ask yourself: 

    • What stands out immediately?

    Or, as Allen Ginsberg used to say, “Notice what you notice.” You may notice a repeated text pattern or a specific description of an object, a shift in tone, or a point of view. Simply identify something specific that sticks out to you.

    Last, ask yourself:

    • Who is speaking in this poem?
    • Who or what is the poem addressing?
    • What questions do I have after finishing the poem?

    When you’re done, consider what these prompts bring to light. Did you gain some kind of understanding? Explore your beliefs? Something else?

    Explore Your Experience

    Now that we’ve explored the prompts to help us better understand poetry’s qualities, we can put them into practice by taking a closer look at the following excerpt from poet Catherine Barnett’s “Critique of Pure Reason” from her collection Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space.

    Inspired by the work of philosopher Immanuel Kant, this poem helps explore the existential. Barnett typically asks deep, abstract questions about the quotidian parts of our lives while keeping an intellectual curiosity about human existence and our habits and behaviors. Barnett’s poems often invite a sense of internal dialogue or philosophical rumination. Considering the addressee in her poetry opens a conversation about intimacy, self-awareness, and uncertainty. Let’s take a closer look at an excerpt from the poem:

    With him pressed so close beside her,
    she couldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was his skin,
    or the rain. It kept raining.

    She lay there trying to remember
    exactly how many thoughts she could have.
    Was it 30,000 or 70,000? Per hour?

    Or was it per minute?
    She’d heard from someone
    who’d heard from someone

    who listened to the number, whatever it was,
    from an HVAC specialist.

    Take out a notebook and pen or open a word document and reflect on this poem with the help of the prompts:

    1. What mood does this poem evoke?
    2. What emotions are coming up for me?
    3. What is this poem describing? 
    4. What stands out immediately?
    5. Who is speaking in this poem?
    6. Who or what is the poem addressing?
    7. What questions do I have after finishing the poem?

    Meditation and poetry ask us to use the same tools:

    • Slowing down
    • Being a curious observer of our experience
    • Connecting our body and mind

    By reading poetry mindfully, we can gain a deeper understanding of both the poem and our inner landscape. Approaching poetry with curiosity and mindfulness opens the door to deeper understanding and richer engagement. Next time you read a poem, try using these prompts to discover what resonates for you.



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