Health Journal Online

Category: Mental Health

A 12-Minute Meditation for Awareness and Release of Self-Sabotage
This week, Angela Stubbs gently guides us inward, helping us explore self-sabotaging patterns with compassion and kindness.
Most of us know what it feels like to be our own toughest critic—caught in patterns of self-doubt or self-sabotage that keep us from fully embracing who we are. When these moments arise, we may feel tension or even resistance within ourselves.

In this meditation, Angela Stubbs gently guides us inward, helping us explore these patterns with compassion and kindness. Through six stages, she invites us to bring awareness to these feelings, accepting ourselves without judgment and affirming our worth.

Notice that the patterns and the thoughts and behaviors around self-sabotage are just ways that we’ve learned to cope with things in our lives, ways that we’ve learned to respond to stimuli in our lives.

With each stage, we cultivate a sense of warmth and resilience, creating space to move beyond self-doubt and reconnect with our inner strength. This practice offers us a chance to release the hold of self-criticism, embracing a more gentle, patient approach toward ourselves.

A Guided Meditation for Awareness and Release of Self-Sabotage
1. Today, we’re going to see if we might meet ourselves with some tenderness around the ways in which self-sabotaging patterns and moments show up in our lives. We’re going to see how we might work with them. That’s going to look different for everybody.
2. First, find a comfortable posture or position, either seated or lying down. Gently close your eyes. Or if it feels better for you, lower your gaze and take a nice deep breath in. Feel your chest expand and the belly expand with the breath. Pause for a moment at the top of that breath and slowly release it, allowing your body to settle. Continue to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and allow yourself to notice the sensations of the breath. Give yourself this moment to relax and be here without thinking you should be anywhere else or be doing anything else.
3. Now, bring your attention inward, noticing any sensations in your body. Feel the weight of your body, supported by the ground or chair, releasing any tension you may notice. That tension lives in different places for all of us, so notice where that is for you. See if you can find that center of gravity by rocking side to side gently, just to remind yourself that you’re sitting. And as you notice the sensations in the body and where you might be feeling tightness or tension, allow yourself to be here and fully connected to the experience of sitting and being.
4. Next, bring some gentle awareness to any patterns you might be aware of that you would consider to be self sabotage in your life. You don’t need to deeply dive into what that is for you. We’re not looking at ways to judge ourselves for the ways that we notice self-sabotage or patterns of behavior that don’t serve us to be a part of an ongoing narrative that we’re helping to make bigger and worse for ourselves. Rather, we’re taking inventory and just noticing: How might that show up for you?
5. Remember, it’s going to look different for everyone. We’re just trying to recognize. Does that look like people pleasing for you? Maybe it looks like putting people’s needs ahead of your own, or it might show up as not speaking up when you have something to say. Maybe you have a habit of holding back. Or just maybe it’s that harsh inner critic that never shuts up. We all have one. We’re just noticing those spaces in your life where those narratives might be more prevalent.
6. Now, let’s shift the way that we think about those stories. Notice that the patterns and the thoughts and behaviors around self-sabotage are just ways that we’ve learned to cope with things in our lives, ways that we’ve learned to respond to stimuli in our lives. All we’re doing is seeing if we can observe those patterns and those behaviors with some kindness. The goal here is not to beat ourselves up about the fact that these things exist, but rather embrace them with some kindness and a little tenderness.
7. Pay attention to how difficult it may or may not be for you to offer some compassion to those parts of yourself. One way that this gets a little easier is when we envision extending the warmth and the tenderness and the care that we would give to a friend or to someone that we care about.
8. Envision drawing in that compassion for yourself, placing a hand on your heart. Place your right hand on your heart and then put your left hand on top of it, and hold that space there in the heart for yourself. As you breathe in and out, let go of any self-criticism you might have around these patterns.
9. As you do this, just observe your thoughts: What are your thoughts around this topic? We like to attach a lot of meanings to the thoughts as they arise. The goal here today is just allowing them to be here, noticing that they’re here and not needing to do anything about it. You’re not justifying to yourself or to anyone else why it’s here or how you feel about it. So whether you’re thinking of something and you feel self-doubt, or frustration, or that fun inner critic decides to pay a visit—see if you can observe it without engaging it or pushing it away.
10. If it helps, give yourself an inner mantra, something that reminds you that you are worthy of kindness. You’re good enough as you are. Think of something that feels right for you to repeat in your own mind for the next minute. If self-sabotaging thoughts arise, greet them with compassion and remind yourselves of your wholeness, your capacity for change.
11. Take a final deep breath and fill yourself with compassion. Exhale slowly, releasing any remaining tension. When you feel ready, gently open your eyes and bring the sense of mindful self-compassion with you as you reenter your day.
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November 17, 2024
How to Meditate through Exercise
Meditating through exercise isn’t complicated: You can train the mind and body with the breath as part of any exercise that you already do.
“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”
—John Keats, poet

The revelation that mindfulness can happen with movement is often profound for people—especially those who have resisted meditation because they don’t like to sit still. If you’re committed to morning workout sessions and enjoy the boost that physical movement can bring, you can try turning your activity into a mindfulness meditation.

Runner Ashley Hicks described it to Krista Tippett in a July 2017 On Being podcast this way: “I don’t run with music, headphones, anything—I call myself a true minimalist runner. Literally, it’s just me and my running clothes . . . it’s just the idea of allowing myself to settle into the run, settle in and to feel the road beneath your feet, settle in and really acknowledge your surroundings. When I run, it’s this idea of really being present and acknowledging where I am and what I’m doing and the purpose.”

For devoted and aspiring exercisers, here is some good news. Research suggests that those who intentionally focus on the feeling of moving and deliberately take in their surroundings enjoy exercise more. After tracking how much people exercised, how mindful they were while doing it, and how satisfied they were with their workouts overall, scientists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands suggest “mindfulness may amplify satisfaction, because one is satisfied when positive experiences with physical activity become prominent.” What that means for your daily routine is that being mindful can support your exercising habits, and vice versa.

What exactly does mindful exercise involve? You’re paying attention to your body: your muscles, pace, breathing, resistance, and tension. How does it feel to get out of your comfort zone and twist and stretch beyond your usual seated or standing positions? How do you feel emotionally? Are you energized and determined, or are you feeling depleted, maybe needing a minute to refresh? Listen to your needs, and push or protect yourself accordingly. Be mindful of your thoughts too. Do you have a drill sergeant in your head? Are you comparing yourself to the person doing yoga next to you, or do you bring a curious, kind attention to how your workout is going?

When you meditate through exercise, you’re also taking time to notice what’s around—whether it’s the rhythms of the gym or the changing scenery of an outdoor jog. Although music can be a great motivator, and the built-in TV screen on the elliptical machine is nice entertainment, try unplugging for at least part of your workout to truly meditate.

Harmonizing your mind and body is powerful. You’re making strides—figuratively and literally—for your physical and mental health.

Any activity can work for mindful meditation, and you can find anchors for your attention in the motions: Maybe it’s the point when your right hand enters the water while you swim (my go-to), or the contact of your feet on the pavement as you run. Weight lifters might use the up-and-down repetition of a barbell. Or, you could stick with the one anchor that is always available to you: your breath, in and out. Notice as it quickens or slows, and return to it whenever you find your mind drifting to a thought about that text message you forgot to answer, or the milk you accidentally left on the countertop.

Harmonizing your mind and body is powerful. You’re making strides—figuratively and literally—for your physical and mental health. And, if the research holds, you’re enjoying it more. With that reward potential, a sweaty mindfulness session might be easier to put permanently on the calendar.

8 Ways to Meditate Through Your Exercise Routine
1. Pause and consider your purpose. Remember why you want to meditate. Is it to train your mind to focus and sustain attention? To learn to navigate emotions? Consider your intention for exercise, too. Is it to live longer, lose weight, or have more energy for your kids? This twofold motivation can help get you up and out, and keep you going.
2. Unplug. To meditate through exercise, don’t listen to your favorite playlist, talk on the phone, read a magazine, or watch TV. Be fully present where you are: in the woods, on the sidewalk, or on the treadmill.
3. Tap into body sensations. Bring your attention to your physical experience. Are there any parts of your body that are working extra hard? Does your body feel different today than it did yesterday? When I swim, I focus on the water gliding over my body, the muscles in my arms, and the sensation of my torso rotating with each breath.
4. Use your breath as a cue to challenge yourself more or ease up as necessary. As you learned with mindful breathing, your inhale or exhale can be an anchor of attention while exercising. If your mind wanders, noticing a new “For Sale” sign in the neighborhood while you run or recalling an email you forgot to return, just notice the thought and reconnect with your breath. Observe the tempo of your breath as you work harder and as you cool down.
5. Play with different anchors of attention. Experiment with attentional focal points other than your breath: each full rotation of your bike pedals, the up and down of a lunge. You can switch anchors as you vary your exercise, but stay focused on the rhythm of your anchor, returning to it when your mind wanders.
6. Note your surroundings. There are two aspects of directing attention—focused attention and open awareness—and you can practice both while exercising. To tap into the latter, check out what’s around you. How is the air? Temperature? What are you hearing?
7. Renew your resolve — burning hamstrings and all. One of the attitudes of mindfulness is acceptance—not wishing the present moment to be different than it is. A brilliant time to practice this is when you’re meditating through exercise. Do you notice any resistance to the workout experience—perhaps wishing you were almost done, or that the pain in your right foot would go away? Commit to your workout time, remember your reasons for being there, and try to stay present from start to finish.
8. Exercise kindness. Notice the quality of your thinking during workouts: Can you appreciate your current ability, speed, and endurance just as they are? If you work out in a group, can you let go of the “comparing mind” and instead thank yourself for showing up for this healthy activity, and then go at the pace that’s just right for you?
Excerpt adapted from The Mindful Day by Laurie J. Cameron, © 2018. Reprinted by arrangement with National Geographic Partners, LLC.
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November 15, 2024
Meet Uncertainty with Compassion With Walking Meditation
Life is inherently changeable and uncertain, and our resilience relies on how we relate to that fact. Mindfulness doesn’t mean everything’s fine or that we’re calm all the time. We aim for patience, clarity, and then—when it’s time—skillful action.

Whatever we face, we can meet uncertainty with compassion. This might look like carving out a moment to settle before deciding what comes next. Instead of remaining caught up in reactivity, anger, and fear, it takes effort and training to find a balance between accepting what we cannot change and seeking out where to actively put our effort.

The heart of mindfulness means doing our best to navigate our experience, even our crises, with both precision and compassion.

Take a moment when you’re able to explore that balance. The heart of mindfulness means doing our best to navigate our experience, even our crises, with both precision and compassion.

A Mindful Walking Practice to Meet Uncertainty with Compassion

1. So as you start, focus on what it feels like to walk. Notice the physical sensation of each step. Notice your foot rising, the shift of weight in your body, and then your foot returning to the ground.

2. You might label each step as step. Or you might count small runs of steps, perhaps up to 10, and then start again.

3. Note your mind’s tendency to add on to your experience, often in ways that complicate even the most challenging moments. Your mind may already be wandering into the future or the past. When you catch yourself lost in thoughts like that, come back again to one step.

4. And now, if you’d like, expand your awareness. Notice sounds around you. With a sense of unforced and balanced effort, notice smells, touch, and sights.

5. With a sense of strength and perhaps appreciation, immerse yourself in the physical sensation of the walk that you’re taking.

6. If a thought or a feeling holds your awareness or becomes a distraction, see if you’re able to practice letting go a little. Notice that sense of getting hooked or tied up in your thoughts and then come back again to that immediate physical sensation of each step.

7. Noticing those thoughts, return your attention again to the physical sensation of taking your walk.

8. For the last few minutes of the practice, if you’d like, focus on a sense of kindness and compassion. You’re not alone right now. Everyone around the world is struggling to get by.

You’re not alone right now. Everyone around the world is struggling to get by.

9. So as you walk, taking in your reality, remind yourself: This is what is right now for me. This is where I am—observing my emotional state, my state of mind, and thoughts.

10. And then as you walk, wish yourself whatever you would wish for your closest friends right now.

May I be happy and at ease.

May I recover my sense of resolve and strength.

11. If it feels comfortable, you might also expand that. Picture your family and friends in the same way.

May we all find our sense of resolve and ease.

May we all stay healthy and safe.

12. And if, while you’re walking, you encounter other people or even pass other houses, you may take a moment to offer those strangers the same wishes. Whoever they are, whatever their life experience, everyone has their struggles. So as you pass these other people, or their homes, wish them well.

May you find health and happiness.

13. As we end the formal mindfulness practice, expand your awareness to all beings everywhere—even the ones you find most difficult and challenging. Everyone in some way is driven by a motivation to be free of suffering, to be free of stress, to be healthy, to be happy.

May everyone everywhere throughout the world find a sense of resilience, stay healthy, and find happiness.
An Election Day Meditation

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

November 5, 2024
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November 13, 2024
Mindfulness for Panic Attacks
Through mindfulness practice we can change the relationship we have with the anxious thoughts and feelings that surface during a panic attack.
My relationship with anxiety began as I neared the end of law school. There was so much pressure to “succeed,” to find a good job and validate the investment of three years of my life.

The panic attacks would come like waves. They would start slowly and then build momentum until I was completely overtaken. I would experience physical symptoms, like blurred or tunnel vision, and would feel like the ground had disappeared beneath my feet. I had a hard time catching my breath.

At the time I was not familiar with mindfulness and meditation and the significant benefits that could result from consistent practice. I started trying out mindfulness for panic attacks and other emotionally charged moments. Eventually I learned how to change my relationship to my anxious thoughts and feelings through mindfulness practice, and in the process, found ways to curb the anxiety that used to overwhelm me.

Through mindfulness training we acknowledge that our thoughts and feelings are always changing, and learn to accommodate them with a sense of gentleness and acceptance.

Research has shown that mindfulness meditation is an effective way to reduce anxiety. Through mindfulness training we acknowledge that our thoughts and feelings are always changing, and learn to accommodate them with a sense of gentleness and acceptance. Through the process of focusing non-judgmental awareness thoughts, feelings, and sensations, we strengthen our ability to observe them without identifying with or being defined by them.

After many years of mindfulness practice, the panic attacks still come, but they arrive with much less frequency and intensity. When they do, I use a handful of methods to help me deal with them on the spot.

How to Curb a Panic Attack

1) Investigate
When I am in the grip of a particular fear, worry, or anxiety, I ask myself two questions:
- Is it really true? I try to remember that my thoughts aren’t facts, and that they are transient. They are like the weather, passing through and changing all the time, so I don’t have to take them so seriously, or become attached to them.
- Am I OK right now? Often my anxiety has to do with worry about the future, so it’s helpful to deliberately focus on what’s happening right now, in the present.
2) Shift into taking deep, relaxed breaths
When I am caught up in a swirl of anxious thoughts, I’ll switch my attention to something physical, like deep relaxing breaths, shifting myself out of the mental loop that perpetuates the anxious feelings and calming my nerves. For a few minutes, focus on taking deep, calming breaths. Intentionally breathe slowly and deeply into your belly as you expand your lungs. Then without any effort, exhale naturally. Many people feel relief from anxiety after just a few minutes.

Try this guided breathing practice:

3) Connect to the senses
To create some distance from anxious, repetitive thoughts I’ll bring my attention to each of the senses, grounding myself in the present. Wherever you are, take a few slow, deep breaths, and focus your awareness on your surroundings. Look around, and take notice of what you see. Just observe the variety of colors, shapes and textures of what you see, without necessarily forming an opinion. Then focus your awareness on sound. As you listen, notice what you hear in your environment.

Try listening to the quietest sound you hear, or the loudest sound you hear. See if you can listen without applying any labels to your hearing. Next, focus your awareness on your sense of smell. What do you smell? How many different scents can you detect? Finally, bring your awareness on your sense of touch. Reach down and touch the ground beneath you with your fingertips. Notice how many different sensations you feel. See if you can describe them without thinking about whether you like or dislike the sensations.

Try this guided audio meditation to practice engaging your senses:

4) Visualize the release of anxious feelings as a cloud floating away in the sky
Take a moment to pause. Feel the weight of your body and your feet firmly rooted to the ground. See if you can find where the sensation of anxiety is located in your body, such as in your stomach, chest, or head. Slowly and gently allow yourself to feel the sensation there. Then imagine that the uneasy sensation of anxiety has gathered in that location in the form of a dark cloud. Picture it all puffy and grey.

Take a deep breath, and as you exhale, imagine that the dark cloud is expelled from your body with your outgoing breath. See the dark cloud hanging in front of you a couple of feet away, and then watch as the cloud floats away slowly like a balloon. Keep watching the dark cloud float away until it completely disappears. Try this animation to visualize letting go of negative thoughts.

It may feel challenging at first, and that’s OK! Try to be patient and gentle with yourself. With practice, turning to mindfulness for panic attacks—both as a preventive tool and an in-the-moment form of self care—becomes second nature.
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November 11, 2024
3 Gift-Giving Tips to Shift From Holiday Fear to Holiday Cheer
Selecting, buying, and giving gifts to people we care about is one of the most important aspects of many holiday celebrations. But here’s the open secret of this holiday season: For many of us, trying to find the “perfect” gift is an exercise in frustration and uncertainty.

This time of year comes with oodles of pressure to get our shopping done in time for all manner of holiday gatherings. At its worst, we can unintentionally get caught up in a kind of competitive gift-giving, hell-bent on outdoing or out-spending everyone else (#festive?!). On the other hand, we may decide to opt out entirely in the name of anti-consumerism—and forgo the potential delight of these gifting rituals our ancestors dreamed up and passed down.

So how do we find a balance? How can we truly relish this season of generosity? Here are three gift-giving tips, based on mindful qualities that help reduce stress and add to the joy.

3 Gift-Giving Tips for a More Mindful Holiday Season

1. Enhance Empathy: When it comes to figuring out what to buy for that hard-to-buy-for person—we all know one!—an empathic approach may help. According to Greater Good Magazine editor and writer Jill Suttie, parts of our brain have evolved “to enable emotional connection with others and the motivation to care,” and we can cultivate empathy through tiny, intentional shifts in daily life.

These days, the word empathy is often associated with feeling others’ pain or difficult emotions like our own. Yet in its broader, evolutionary form, empathy helps us understand different perspectives—to take a little walk in someone else’s shoes. This not only leads us toward other helpful qualities such as loving-kindness, it also gives us a break from our more self-focused motivations (“I don’t want to be the only one showing up to the party without gifts!” or “I’m worried someone will think badly of me if I give the wrong thing”).

2. Offer Appreciation: Consciously thinking about the reasons you appreciate someone is another great way to shift into a more relaxed, flexible mindset around gift-giving. What’s one quality, talent, or goal this person possesses that you admire about them: Their sense of humor? Their love of learning? The ways they support their community? Their courageous attempts to veganize French cuisine? Again, this makes the process less about you and more about your relationship to the recipient.

A mindful approach to gifting places less emphasis on the price tag or the “wow” factor and instead draws on a sense of connection and thoughtfulness.

A mindful approach to gifting also places less emphasis on the price tag or the “wow” factor and instead draws on a sense of connection and thoughtfulness. As Mike Rucker writes, “A gift tends to be more beneficial when it is in true alignment with the recipient’s identity and values.” We don’t have to empty the bank account in order to show someone that they’re important to us.

3. Nurture Self-Compassion: Anyone who has ever wandered the mall (or scrolled through online stores) for hours on end knows that overthinking is the enemy of a happy holiday. Mental habits like second-guessing, demanding perfection, or thinking up worst-case scenarios can take us from overthinking to full-blown anxiety. Choosing to be kind to ourselves can take the edge off some of that tension and overthinking.

“Mindfulness can become an ally, fostering a compassionate relationship with our thoughts and allowing mental clarity,” writes Ashley Fletcher. If you tend to overthink your gift-shopping (or anything else), take a deep breath, acknowledge that things are tough right now, and perhaps offer yourself some grace, the same way you’d support a stressed-out friend.

However you relate to traditions of gift-giving, this season is a fruitful time to shift our habits. Cultivating a spirit of self-compassion along with empathy and appreciation for others makes it easier for us to truly savor the most meaningful gifts: connection, laughter, and gratitude.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these mindful gift-giving tips. For even more inspiration, explore our 2024 Holiday Gift Guide—where mindfulness meets heartfelt gifting.

With this year’s Mindful Holiday Gift Guide, we’re offering countless ways to share more mindful giving and joyful living this year. Discover unique, curated gift bundles, and exclusive collaborations!

Plus, enter below for a chance to win a special prize bundle of our most beloved mindful products!

Enter the Mindful Holiday Sweepstakes!

Between November 1 and December 31, simply submit your email to be entered for a chance to win a premium Mindful gift bundle that includes:
1 Mindful Affirmations card deck

1 Mindful Premium Membership

1 Mindfulness Plus+ Annual Subscription
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November 9, 2024
A 12-Minute Meditation for Sending Compassion to a Difficult Person
When we dislike someone, it’s much harder to recognize their humanity. This guided meditation supports us in releasing tension in the body and cultivating compassion, even for a difficult person.
No matter whether we seek to get along with everyone, or have been known to cherish a grudge or two, we all know of a person whom we disagree with or who challenges us in some way. When you bring this person to mind, what do you notice? You may feel physical tension, anxiety, or other unpleasant sensations in the body.

In this meditation, Anu Gupta guides us in simple phrases of compassion and loving-kindness that allow us to remember: Just like me, this person is also human. Just like me, they have their own joys, desires, and struggles. Offering kind wishes to someone difficult is a powerful way to expand our circle of compassion. We don’t have to like them, but we can cultivate compassion for them by softening our resistance and acknowledging their humanity.

A Guided Meditation for Sending Compassion to a Difficult Person
1. Begin by settling into a comfortable seated posture, either on a cushion or a chair. Rest your feet on the ground below you. Place your hands on your knees or in your lap. Let your shoulders relax, your spine straight and relaxed, keep your chin parallel to the ground below you, and bring your eyes to a gentle close.
2. Bring your attention to your breath. Notice your inhales and your exhales. The breath is oftentimes a reflection of the mind. It’s just bringing awareness to the breath to settle the mind.
3. Notice if you’re holding any tension in any part of the body. Bring that to awareness and gently ask that body part to relax. Whether it’s your tongue, your shoulders, or your feet. Relax. Relax. Relax.
4. As you breathe in and you breathe out, bring to mind a person you’ve had some difficulty with. It doesn’t have to be the worst person you know, or someone who’s caused you a lot of harm, but someone you dislike. Someone who’s challenging. Someone that brings up some sort of resistance in your body. It could be a public figure. It could be someone you know.
5. Let yourself feel what it’s like to be in that person’s presence. Bring to attention any tension, dislike, or disgust that may arise because you’ve brought this person’s image in your mind. Just notice it, noticing these unpleasant sensations. But also remember that just like you, this person is also a human. Just like you, this person was also a baby at some point. Just like you, this person is also subject to sickness, to old age and to death.
6. Now, imagine this person as a baby. And now offer this difficult person some words of kindness. Just like me, you’re human. May you be safe. May you be peaceful. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. May you be safe. May you be peaceful. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. May you be safe. May you be peaceful. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.
7. Repeat these phrases of compassion for this difficult person over and over again. Notice the discomfort if it arises. Notice the resistance. And then say to the resistance, Just like me, you’re human. Just like me, you’re human. May you be safe. May you be peaceful. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. Keep repeating these phrases for as long as you like.
8. After your next exhale, bring your chin to your chest, stretching the back of your neck. Thank you for your practice today.
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November 7, 2024
Election Day Meditation – Mindful

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

If we’ve been practicing mindfulness and other awareness practices, we know that even on difficult days like election day we’re just a moment of awareness away from a sense of greater ease and greater capacity to be with what is.

The acronym S.T.O.P. encapsulates how mindfulness practice can support us in making the most of opportunities for engagement in the world most especially during election day. Like all mindfulness practices, it has many different applications. For one, it is a simple tool that can support us in being here in a much more lively way with ourselves, opening up to what is coming up for us, right here, right now.

Stop and Take a Conscious Breath

S stands for Stop

Stop what you are doing and if possible, perhaps take a seat. If standing, just pause where you are standing. It’s really about standing in your dignity or sitting in your dignity, to support bringing mindfulness to this moment. As you settle in, breathe in and out, allowing attention to rest on the feeling of the breath as it flows into the body, and out. Feel the nourishment of taking a moment to pause. This first step can be as short as just an instant, or as long as you like.

T stands for Take a conscious breath

Now, taking one, very slow and conscious breath in, and a full complete breath out, really notice what it’s like to allow your attention to rest on these sensations of breathing. Continuing to take a few very conscious, very intentional breaths. Simply allow yourself to feature the breathing aspect of the experience of this moment, one breath at a time.

O stands for Observe

What is coming up for you in this moment? The shorthand T.E.S.—thoughts, emotions, sensations—can remind you of what you might gently scan for as you observe your experience.

What kind of thoughts might be arising? Imagine thoughts as being like clouds, moving through the sky of your consciousness, and just note the thoughts as they come up for you.

Then, what emotions or feelings are present? Is there some discomfort? Some feeling of opening to joy? Whatever is arising is perfectly OK. There is no right or wrong way to feel. Mindfulness is about rolling out this welcome mat, allowing yourself to feel what’s here right now.

Then, notice sensations: You might feel a tightness around the shoulders, or a sinking feeling in the belly. Whatever is prominent, invite a reflection on the sensations that are coming up for you. The intention is just to create a spacious way of holding the sensations. Yes, these sensations are here right now.

P stands for Proceed

Finally, when you’re ready, notice the opportunity presented in this moment to proceed, to choose how to move from this place of reflective awareness into engagement. Proceed with presence, all the while holding your experience with kindness, friendliness, and self-compassionate for your experience in this moment.

Notice the opportunity presented in this moment to proceed, to choose how to move from this place of reflective awareness into engagement.

When you are ready, transition out of this practice. Feel what it was like, and any way in which that moment of practice may have shifted your experience. Bring awareness to that shift, to help you see just how mindfulness practice is for you. Many teachers use the term “YOU-ru” as opposed to “guru,” which means you can take full ownership of the great opportunity that being alive presents: to deepen your ability to meet whatever is coming up, with more steadfastness, more stamina, more resilience, and more intentionality about how you want to be during election day.

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November 5, 2024
Let Curiosity Lead the Way With A 12-Minute Meditation
When we allow what is to simply be, we relieve ourselves of the suffering that can get heaped on top of our moments of difficulty. Frank Ostaseski leads this meditation to let curiosity lead the way.
A lot of times we use languages like enlightenment or liberation or awakening. These terms feel far off and distant to me, like we’re trying to achieve something supernatural or transformative in our lives. I think meditation practice is about learning to become intimate—intimate with ourselves, with every aspect of life. Then we can bring the healing power of loving awareness to what scares us, what’s sad for us, and what feels raw for us. I prefer the word intimacy because it expresses a wish to come closer—to know that we already belong, that we’re not separate.

To me, intimacy expresses what liberation actually feels like: relaxed, easeful, ordinary, in a way. Liberation isn’t found someplace else. It’s found right here. That’s why one teaching says the path is right beneath your feet. When we look into the mind’s conditioning, in a close and personal way, we begin to understand the ways that we cause ourselves suffering—and that’s the real freedom of meditation. It isn’t about helping us to transcend or get out of our experience. It’s about learning to know our experiences intimately.

When we look into the mind’s conditioning, in a close and personal way, we begin to understand the ways that we cause ourselves suffering—and that’s the real freedom of meditation.

To love the past is simply a memory, and to love the future is just a fantasy. The only place we can love, the only place we can really be aware, is right here, in this present moment. Intimacy connects us with each other with a deep sense of belonging. And with this belonging, we know that we’re not separate anymore. And this helps us to move beyond our small story of a limited sense of self.

Meditation, like love, is intimate, and this intimacy is the condition of deepest learning. Mindfulness and compassion are the least expensive, most available, and most appropriate tool we can use in just about every situation in our lives. But sadly, often they’re viewed as inappropriate or even shelved for some other time. And I think, as a result, a lot of us live and work in a great deal of fear and distress. And I think we can do something about that.

A 12-Minute Meditation to Let Curiosity Lead the Way
1. Let’s begin really simply: Just pause. A pause is an opportunity not to be swept away by the habit of our lives. A pause is an opportunity to remember who we actually are. A pause is a way of bringing our mind, heart, and body, collecting it all into the present moment. So let’s just pause. No hurry.
2. Now, relax. See how little effort is required just to hear the sound of my voice. Relaxing body, heart, and mind—mindfulness emerges much more easily in a relaxed mind, heart, and body. So, pause. And relax.
3. Now, open. A Characteristic of an open mind is spaciousness infused with interest. Open. You’ll be open for just a moment, liberating yourself from any limiting ideas about who you are and what you think is possible. Can your curiosity be greater than your criticality? Open. So, again and again: Pause. Relax. Open.
4. And now, allow. Allowing takes us beyond accepting and rejecting altogether—beyond hope and fear. Just rest in a moment of allowing. There’s no one special to be, nothing special to do, no place special to go. It’s resting in allowing, again and again: Pause. Relax. Open. And allow.
5. And now, become intimate. This is a kind of communion with your experience, or willingness to enter the immediacy of your life. It’s a kind of fearless receptivity—a willingness to welcome everything and push away nothing—nothing between you and your experience: no subject and object; no I and other. Just intimacy. So, again and again: Pause. Relax. Open. Allow. Become intimate.
6. Pause. Relax. Open. Allow. Become intimate.
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November 3, 2024
Ease Election Anxiety with 7 Mindful Strategies
When we feel anxious we become reactive and are more likely to oversimplify life through a narrow lens. Here are 7 mindfulness techniques to combat the negative political rhetoric.
Presidential elections in the past have been negative and hard fought, but the 2016 election was the first one in memory to have produced a recognized psychological condition. A therapist in suburban DC even coined a name for it—Election Stress Disorder—while a 2016 online survey from the American Psychological Association (APA) found that more than half of all Americans felt stressed about the election.

Now, two elections later, 77% of U.S. adults say that “the future of our nation” constitutes a significant source of stress in their lives, according to the APA’s 2024 Stress in America survey. Are there ways of dealing with an anxious electorate short of putting Valium in the water supply?

A collective effort to help each other lower our political anxiety is important for reasons that reach well beyond the day of the election. When people feel anxious they move into a reactive mode. Anxious people tend to be less flexible and less open to new experiences and points of view. They’re more likely to oversimplify what’s upsetting them and view life through a binary lens. In an election year that means voters will grab on to narrow, inflexible beliefs around issues and candidates as if they were life rafts: She’s smart but he’s not; he’s authentic but she’s inauthentic; they’ll run this country into the ground but we’ll build it up. Fear-based, constricted perspectives like these fuel the vitriol we see on TV and in social media.

When people feel anxious they move into a reactive mode. As a result anxious people tend to be less flexible and less open to new experiences and points of view. They’re more likely to oversimplify what’s upsetting them and view life through a binary lens.

Mindful Strategies to Ease Election Anxiety

Mindfulness techniques can help quiet our fear and anxiety, which allows the nervous system to settle down. Then our perspectives can broaden and we are more likely to look at the issues and candidates with an open mind. Major magazines and newspapers have been asking therapists to weigh in on this issue and it’s no surprise that many of them recommend mindfulness to turn this vicious cycle around. To cope with election-related angst experts suggest a few mindful practices like:

Basic Mindfulness Strategies to Quiet the Noise

Had someone told me a couple of decades ago that I should use mindfulness to ease my election worry I would have seen it as naïve at best. I was a pragmatic corporate lawyer just learning to meditate and I didn’t yet understand the importance of teaching people to view interpersonal experiences through the lens of the nervous system.

But the relentless negativity and divisive discourse of this election drives this point home, even to skeptics: We need to teach people basic strategies to quiet the noise in their heads so that we can actually listen to each other. Meditation can jumpstart the process but it’s not the only way to achieve this goal.

There are mindfulness-based strategies that beat back overwhelming emotions and broaden people’s perspectives that require no meditation at all. For example:
- If someone makes you mad, think of three things the two of you have in common.
- If something upsets you, remember there’s good in your life too and name three good things.
- If you’re stressed by this election, remember this: In the end, too much worry can be a prison. It hijacks the mind and limits its bandwidth.
You can’t think as clearly or respond as flexibly when your mind is agitated as when it is calm. So what’s the key that will unlock the door? Look outside of yourself and towards the world. Get out there and do something. Read stories about people who inspire you. If you’ve got the time, volunteer. If you’re busy, help an elderly person cross the street. Connect and participate. But most important, vote!
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November 1, 2024
Is Mindfulness a Treatment for Depression?
Depression is a classic example of what’s referred to today as an invisible illness. When you’re depressed, you may find yourself expending precious energy just so you can appear to the world as if nothing at all is troubling you.

This “it’s-work-to-seem-fine” coping mechanism illustrates just one way in which depression complicates your life. Not only are you exhausting yourself pretending to be OK, you may find it hard to rally support from friends, family, and coworkers who only see how well you seem to be functioning.

While there is rapidly growing recognition of the very real difficulty and damage caused by depression, the stigma of past decades and centuries lingers. We often still hear the familiar notion that you can just “pull yourself together and get on with it,” as though keeping a “stiff upper lip” should be enough to defeat depression. But strong neurochemical, social, and environmental factors contribute to this very real, physical illness, and successful treatment requires more than maintaining an “upbeat attitude.”

Depression Is a Chameleon

Our ability to recognize and effectively treat depression—which 1 in 14 people will experience in their lifetime—is complicated by the fact that it manifests differently in everyone affected, according to the National Institutes of Health. Anything—your age, your gender, or the stage of your depression—can change what the illness looks like for you, meaning it’s not necessarily simple to get a diagnosis, or even recognize symptoms of depression, whether in yourself or in other people.

For women, depression is more likely to appear as sadness, worthlessness, and guilt. Hormonal and life cycle-related changes, as in postpartum depression, can make women more susceptible to developing the illness. In fact, women are statistically more likely than men to experience depression.

For men, depression often looks like exhaustion, irritability, and sleeping problems. They also lose interest in things they once enjoyed. Men are also more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol, experiment with reckless activity, or become intensely devoted to work in order to distract themselves from their illness.

For teens and tweens, depression can look like extended and severe periods of sulking, getting into trouble at school, prolonged irritability, and an intense feeling of being misunderstood.

These are by no means the only ways depression can appear. Some people experience short, intense periods of depression, while others feel it as an unmoving cloud over their awareness; for some, it’s linked to difficult life events, while for others it doesn’t go away even when their outward circumstances seem fine.

Should You Try Mindfulness for Depression?

Various treatment options for depression exist, including drug regimens and talk therapies. However, the jury continues to be out on how effective antidepressants are for treating depression. A comprehensive 2018 study conducted by an international research team examined 522 studies, including 116,477 patients, to learn about the effectiveness of 21 antidepressant medications. The researchers discovered that, although nearly all of the drugs were more effective than placebos, their effects were still “modest” in most cases.

Complicating treatment is the fact that depression is often a chronic condition that tends to relapse, even with medication and talk therapy. According to research, relapse rates range from 50% to as high as 80%.

Interestingly, when mindfulness is added to the standard depression treatment protocols, relapse rates decline. But it’s unlikely that simply practicing basic mindfulness meditation will ease your depression symptoms. In fact, such an attempt could be supremely unhelpful, notes Julienne Bower, PhD, professor of health psychology at UCLA.

She tells us that the research showing that mindfulness meditation improves symptoms of depression is, at best, vague. She also notes that it’s really hard to meditate on your own when you’re depressed.

Zindel Segal, PhD, concurs. The Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto, Dr. Segal has pioneered the use of mindfulness meditation for promoting wellness in the area of mood disorders. He was also one of the team who developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a research-backed mindfulness protocol for depressive disorders.

Chronic Unhappiness?

“When we talk about depression, and where mindfulness is strong and less strong as a treatment, we have to know what type of depression you have,” says Segal.

“Don’t consider mindfulness a treatment when you’re dealing with acute depression,” he advises. Depression “shuts down your concentration and disrupts your executive network ability,” which makes practicing mindfulness difficult, says Dr. Segal. Instead, for acute depression, consider seeing a mental health professional for treatment with antidepressants, cognitive behavior therapy, or both. Mindfulness can bolster those treatments, but not replace them.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, however, was specifically designed to help people who are depressed or chronically unhappy. MBCT is a therapeutic protocol that combines cognitive therapy, which helps people interrupt the disturbing behavior or thought patterns that interfere with their lives, with mindfulness practices that help you learn to develop a healthier relationship to unhelpful thought patterns.

“Our research looked at specific ways that MBCT helps people work with rumination and worry in ways that are more generous and compassionate,” says Dr. Segal. “This therapy helps you learn to ‘de-center’ and allows you to see your thoughts unfold moment to moment. It helps you to not listen to the messages that depression is sending you.”

How MBCT Helps

The goal of MBCT is to help you become familiar with the ways your mind and your thinking patterns contribute to depression, which helps you to develop a new relationship to your depression.

According to Dr. Segal, many people describe leaving the MBCT training with these two major insights:

1) Thoughts are not facts.

2) Depression is not me.

At first, these points may seem overly simplistic—but when we pay attention to how we are thinking and feeling, over time we become better at spotting the buildup of difficult emotions and thoughts. In that way, we can deal with them more skillfully, instead of just reacting in ways that might not be good for us.

“Mindfulness practices—focusing on the breath and body, as well as mindful movement and developing greater mindful attention to everyday activities—help us learn to recognize the feelings and patterns of thinking that cause unhappiness,” says Willem Kuyken, PhD, the Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science at the University of Oxford. “We learn that thoughts are just thoughts. They are not facts, and we can choose whether to give them power over our minds and hearts. In time they can even help us savor and enjoy all the things that give us pleasure and a sense of accomplishment,” adds Kuyken.

When it comes to depression that relapses after treatment, he suggests that MBCT has proven to be particularly helpful, if you adhere to the program. The program consists of eight weeks of classes, as well as at-home practices you do on your own for about an hour a day. “Many people [with depression] are trying to turn around very long-standing and ingrained habits of thinking and behaving, and that will take time and effort,” says Dr. Kuyken. He notes that a recent study by Dr. Segal showed that the more a person practices MBCT over time, the greater the benefits for easing depression.

To find a therapist who has been trained and certified in practicing MBCT, visit accessmbct.com

If You Need Help

If you or someone you care for is having suicidal thoughts, these helplines in the US, Canada, and UK offer free, confidential prevention, crisis resources, and support 24/7/365.

US: Dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
988lifeline.org

Canada: Dial 988 to reach the Suicide Crisis Helpline.
988.ca

UK: Dial 116-123 to reach Samaritans.
samaritans.org

This article was first published in the April 2020 issue of Mindful magazine.
The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Sleep

Sufficient sleep heals our bodies and minds, but for many reasons sleep doesn’t always come easily. Mindfulness practices and habits can help us fall asleep and stay asleep. Consult our guide to find tips for meditation, movement, and mindfulness practices to ease into sleep. Read More

Mindful Staff

July 13, 2023
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October 30, 2024