Paying attention to the gentle, natural flow of our breath can help us witness the chatter of the mind without judgment.
By becoming more aware of our inhales and exhales, we gradually bring calm to our mind and our nervous system. We’re giving ourselves permission to slow down for a few minutes. And as we breathe, we can also witness the active chatter of our mind without being swept away, and the thoughts about the past or worries about the future.
Mindfulness practice reveals how our thoughts and emotions are constantly changing, and this simple, relaxing meditation gives us a chance to release expectations and judgments. A state of mind awareness is strengthened each time we notice the mind wandering and choose to come back to the sensations of the breath moving in and out of our body.
A Guided Meditation to Slow Your Breathing and Your Mind
First, get yourself ready. You can sit in a comfortable position, in a chair, on a traditional meditation cushion, or on the floor. If you’re sitting, try to sit up tall, working for that dignified spine. Or, maybe you want to take this lying down.
Let’s start by finding our breath. Empty the breath all the way out, and let it go. Then take a big breath into your belly, then let it go out the mouth nice and easy. Keep breathing like this: really big inhales, slow the breath out. See if you can deepen the breath on each round.
Become aware of the flow of the breath. Instead of thinking about your breathing, just be curious about it. Curiosity is so nice, because you can step back and just observe the sensations of the breath, allowing it to help slow things down.
Bring a hand onto your belly, or maybe both hands onto your belly, or right hand in your belly, left hand on your chest. Use the hands to feel more of that breath flowing in and out and focusing just on the simple flow of the breath. By deepening this breath and becoming more aware of the breath, we naturally begin to slow our neurological processes down. We begin to naturally slow the biology down, the heart rate, the blood pressure. We begin to naturally, cognitively slow down the mind.
Now, let the breath rest in its natural state. It doesn’t have to be as big as the first few minutes. Using the breath as the focusing tool, stay with the flow of the breath as it inflates and then expands the belly and also deflates and contracts the belly. If you’re only breathing into your chest at this point, try to invite the breath down deep into the belly. It’s okay if you’re not breathing this way right now, but just be with the breath as it is, where it is, and be aware without judgment.
By focusing in this way, you’re going to be able to see the cleverness of the mind, trying to pull you somewhere into the future or drag you into the past. Notice that you’re thinking. You can even label it: That’s thinking. Then come back to the awareness, the simple awareness of your breath as it fills and spills. Be with the mind and the body as they are. The mind is made to be distracted. It always has a sense of alertness to it, but we don’t have to attach to the mind.
Be curious with the subtleties of each passing breath. Be aware emotionally, as well. Are you beating yourself up when you get attached to a thought? Or swept up in an emotion? Just let that go, too, and come back to the breath.
Notice, too, where you are holding expectations, and gently let them go. Maybe you came to your practice with the sense of, Oh, I should feel more peaceful right now. I should be experiencing this. I was hoping today that my meditation would yield this. Let it all go. No expectations, no attachment. Being with things as they are inside and outside: inside, just following the breath as it is; outside, letting the world around you be as it is.
Remember, it doesn’t matter if you need to come back 1,000 times to one breath. That’s the practice. It’s not about getting it right or being perfect. It’s about showing up, doing the best you can with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally in this moment.
Take a moment and thank yourself for taking the time today to honor your practice and honor your commitment to this course. Thank you for practicing. We’ll see you back here again tomorrow. Have a fantastic day. Way to show up.
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How often have you rushed out the door and into your day without even thinking about how you’d like things to go? Before you know it, something or someone has rubbed you the wrong way, and you’ve reacted automatically with frustration, impatience, or rage—in other words, you’ve found yourself acting in a way you never intended.
You don’t have to be stuck in these patterns. Pausing to practice mindfulness for just a few minutes at different times during the day can help your days be better, more in line with how you’d like them to be.
Explore these five simple mindfulness practices for daily life:
Marta Locklear/Stocksy
1) Mindful Wakeup: Start with a Purpose
Intention refers to the underlying motivation for everything we think, say, or do. From the brain’s perspective, when we act in unintended ways, there’s a disconnect between the faster, unconscious impulses of the lower brain centers and the slower, conscious, wiser abilities of the higher centers like the pre-frontal cortex.
Given that the unconscious brain is in charge of most of our decision-making and behaviors, this practice can help you align your conscious thinking with a primal emotional drive that the lower centers care about. Beyond safety, these include motivations like reward, connection, purpose, self-identity and core values.
Setting an intention—keeping those primal motivations in mind—helps strengthen this connection between the lower and higher centers. Doing so can change your day, making it more likely that your words, actions and responses— especially during moments of difficulty—will be more mindful and compassionate.
This mindfulness exercise is best done first thing in the morning, before checking phones or email.
1. On waking, sit in your bed or a chair in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and connect with the sensations of your seated body. Make sure your spine is straight, but not rigid.
2. Take three long, deep, nourishing breaths—breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Then let your breath settle into its own rhythm, as you simply follow it in and out, noticing the rise and fall of your chest and belly as you breathe. If you find that you have a wandering mind or negative thoughts, simply return to the breath.
3. Ask yourself: “What is my intention for today?” Use these prompts to help answer that question, as you think about the people and activities you will face. Ask yourself:
How might I show up today to have the best impact?
What quality of mind do I want to strengthen and develop?
What do I need to take better care of myself?
During difficult moments, how might I be more compassionate to others and myself?
How might I feel more connected and fulfilled?
4. Set your intention for the day. For example, “Today, I will be kind to myself; be patient with others; give generously; stay grounded; persevere; have fun; eat well,” or anything else you feel is important.
5. Throughout the day, check in with yourself. Pause, take a breath, and revisit your intention. Simply observe, as you become more and more conscious of your intentions for each day, how the quality of your communications, relationships, and mood shifts.
PlainPicture/Lubitz+Dorner
2) Mindful Eating: Enjoy Every Mouthful
It’s easy enough to reduce eating to a sensation of bite, chew, and swallow. Who hasn’t eaten a plateful of food without noticing what they’re doing? Yet eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences we engage in as human beings, and doing it mindfully can turn eating into a far richer experience, satisfying not just the need for nutrition, but more subtle senses and needs. When we bring our full attention to our bodies and what we are truly hungry for, we can nourish all our hungers. Try this:
1. Breathe before eating. We often move from one task right to the other without pausing or taking a breath. By pausing, we slow down and allow for a more calm transition to our meals. Bring your attention inward by closing your eyes, and begin to breathe slowly in and out of your belly for eight to 10 deep breaths before you start your meal.
2. Listen to your body. After breathing, bring your awareness to the physical sensations in your belly. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you don’t feel any physical sensation of hunger and 10 being that you feel very hungry, ask yourself “How hungry am I?” Pay attention to what bodily sensations tell you that you are hungry or not hungry (emptiness in stomach, shakiness, no desire to eat, stomach growling, etc.). Try not to think about when you last ate or what time it is, and really listen to your body, not your thoughts.
3. Eat according to your hunger. Now that you are more in touch with how hungry you are, you can more mindfully choose what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. This simple practice of self awareness can help you tune in to your real needs.
4. Practice peaceful eating. At your next meal, slow down and continue to breathe deeply as you eat. It’s not easy to digest or savor your food if you aren’t relaxed.
5. If you don’t love it, don’t eat it. Take your first three bites mindfully, experience the taste, flavors, textures, and how much enjoyment you are receiving from a certain food. Make a mindful choice about what to eat based on what you really enjoy.
PlainPicture/Mira
3) Mindful Pause: Rewire Your Brain
It’s estimated that 95% of our behavior runs on autopilot—something I call “fast brain.” That’s because neural networks underlie all of our habits, reducing our millions of sensory inputs per second into manageable shortcuts so we can function in this crazy world. These default brain signals are like signaling superhighways, so efficient that they often cause us to relapse into old behaviors before we remember what we meant to do instead.
Mindfulness is the exact opposite of these processes; it’s slow brain. It’s executive control rather than autopilot, and enables intentional actions, willpower, and decisions. But that takes some practice. The more we activate the slow brain, the stronger it gets. Every time we do something deliberate and new, we stimulate neuroplasticity, activating our grey matter, which is full of newly sprouted neurons that have not yet been groomed for the fast brain.
But here’s the problem. While my slow brain knows what is best for me, my fast brain is causing me to shortcut my way through life. So how can we trigger ourselves to be mindful when we need it most? This is where the notion of “behavior design” comes in. It’s a way to put your slow brain in the driver’s seat. There are two ways to do that—first, slowing down the fast brain by putting obstacles in its way, and second, removing obstacles in the path of the slow brain, so it can gain control.
Shifting the balance to give your slow brain more power takes some work, though. Here are some ways to get started and cultivate more mindfulness.
1. Trip over what you want to do. If you intend to do some yoga or to meditate, put your yoga mat or your meditation cushion in the middle of your floor so you can’t miss it as you walk by.
2. Refresh your triggers regularly. Say you decide to use sticky notes to remind yourself of a new intention. That might work for about a week, but then your fast brain and old habits take over again. Try writing new notes to yourself; add variety or make them funny so they stick with you longer.
3. Create new patterns. You could try a series of “If this, then that” messages to create easy reminders to shift into slow brain. For instance, you might come up with, “If office door, then deep breath,” as a way to shift into mindfulness as you are about to start your workday. Or, “If phone rings, take a breath before answering.” Each intentional action to shift into mindfulness will strengthen your slow brain.
Female athlete tying her shoes. Shot from above in sunset light. Shot in 50 megapixel resolution.
4) Mindful Workout: Activate Your Mind and Your Muscles
Riding a bike, lifting weights, sweating it out on a treadmill—what do such exercises have in common? For one thing, each can be a mindfulness practice. Whatever the physical activity—dancing the Tango, taking a swim—instead of simply working out to burn calories, master a skill, or improve condition, you can move and breathe in a way that not only gets your blood pumping and invigorates every cell in your body, but also shifts you from feeling busy and distracted to feeling strong and capable.
Ready? The following steps, good for any activity, will help you synchronize body, mind, and nervous system. As you do, you will strengthen your capacity to bring all of your energy to the task at hand and reduce stress.
1. Be clear about your aim. As you tie your laces or pull on your gardening gloves, bring purpose to your activity by consciously envisioning how you want your guide your session. As you climb on your bike you might say, “I am going to breathe deeply and notice the sensation of the breeze and the sun and the passing scenery.” As you enter the pool, you might say, “I’m going to pay attention to each stroke, and the sound and feel of the water surrounding me.”
2. Warm up (5 minutes). Try any simple moves—jumping jacks, stretching—and concentrate on matching the rhythm of your breath to your movement. By moving rhythmically in this quick exercise, your brain activity, heart rate, and nervous system begin to align and stabilize.
3. Settle into a rhythm (10 to 15 minutes). Pick up the intensity, but continue to coordinate your breath and movement. If you have trouble doing this, then simply focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Eventually you’ll find your groove.
4. Challenge yourself (10 to 15 minutes). Try faster speed, more repetitions, or heavier weights, depending on what you are doing. Notice how alert and alive you feel when pushing yourself.
5. Cool down (5 minutes). Steadily slow down your pace until you come to a standstill. Notice the way your body feels. Drink in your surroundings.
6. Rest (5 minutes). Quietly recognize the symphony of sensations flowing in and around you. Practice naming what you feel and sense. Chances are you’ll feel awake and alive from head to toe.
Plainpicture/Johner/Peter Carlsson
5) Mindful Driving: Drive Yourself Calm, Not Crazy
There’s nothing like heavy traffic and impatient drivers to trigger the “fight or flight” response. That’s why road rage erupts and stress levels soar, while reason is overrun. The worse the traffic, the worse the stress. Los Angeles, where I live, has some of the worst traffic around, and some of the most unserene drivers. Emotions run high, tempers flare, tires squeal.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact, the snarliest traffic jam can provide an excellent opportunity to build your mindfulness muscle, increase your sense of connection to others, and restore some balance and perspective.
Here are the steps to a simple behind-the-wheel practice I’ve been doing for a while. I’ve found it can work wonders.
1. First, take a deep breath. This simple, yet profound advice helps bring more oxygen into your body and widens the space between the stimulus of the traffic and your heightened stress reaction. In this space lies perspective and choice.
2. Ask yourself what you need. It may be in that moment that you need to feel safe, at ease or you just need some relief. Understanding what you need will bring balance.
3. Give yourself what you need. If ease is what you need, you can scan your body for any tension (not a bad thing to do while driving in any case) and soften any tension or adjust your body as needed. You can sprinkle in some phrases of self-compassion, such as, “May I be at ease, may I feel safe, may I be happy.” If your mind wanders, simply come back to the practice.
4. Look around and recognize that all the other drivers are just like you. Everyone on the road wants the same thing you do—to feel safe, have a sense of ease, and to be happy. Chances are you’ll see a number of fellow drivers who look a bit agitated, but you might also catch that one who is singing or actually smiling, and this will dissipate some of your own stress immediately. You can apply to all of them what you just offered to yourself, saying, “May you be at ease, may you feel safe, may you be happy.”
5. Take another deep breath. In 15 seconds or less, you can turn around your mood by applying these simple tips. When you feel the frustration of traffic rising, choose whatever you need to work on, and offer that condition to others. If you need to feel safe, say, “May I be safe, may you be safe, may we all be safe.” Breathe in, breathe out, you’ve sowed a seed of happiness.
Gently let go of attachment to your thoughts with a technique called “cognitive defusion” from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
In this practice, you’ll explore how to allow your thoughts to come and go without feeling the need to hold onto them or push them away. This technique, called “cognitive defusion,” is part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and it uses the visualization of thoughts as clouds to guide you through this process in a soothing and mindful way.
A Guided Meditation to Visualize Your Thoughts As Clouds In the Sky
You can do this exercise with your eyes open or your eyes closed, either in a seated position or lying down. Just choose a posture that’s most comfortable for you.
Take a couple of gentle, long breaths. Let your breath ground you in your body and in the present moment.
Notice yourself sitting or lying here. Notice the sensations that are on your skin. Notice what it’s like inside your body—any places of tension are holding, any emotions that might be present for you right now.
Now, imagine that you are lying in a vast, spacious field, looking up at the sky. Imagine what it would feel like to lie here, letting yourself sink into the ground below. Bring your attention and your awareness to looking up at the sky, being present in the field, watching the clouds.
As you lie here, you may begin to notice that thoughts come into your awareness. Each time you notice the thought, imagine placing it on one of the clouds, and letting it float on by in the sky. You can place your thoughts on these clouds, whether they’re positive thoughts or negative thoughts, pleasant thoughts or unpleasant thoughts. Your job is just to be aware of the sky, noticing the clouds.
If there is space between your thoughts, notice that space as you would notice the space between the clouds, like the blue sky that lies behind it all.
You might have thoughts about doing this exercise. You might think something like This is boring or It’s not working or I don’t like this or When is it going to end? That’s normal, and you can place those thoughts on clouds as well, allowing them to pass on through.
If a thought gets stuck, you don’t have to force it to go away. You can allow it to be stuck there. Make space for it. Let it settle on its cloud. Let it hang around, for a little while. All you’re doing is just observing your experience. There’s no need to force the thought to go away.
If you notice some feelings like boredom or impatience, that’s okay. You can say to yourself, Here is a feeling of boredom. Here is a feeling of impatience. And you can pick it up and put it on a cloud as well.
It’s normal and natural to lose track during this exercise. When that happens, just catch yourself and bring yourself back to lying in this field, looking up at the sky and placing thoughts. You are becoming an observer of your own mind. You are not your thought. Thoughts are coming and going like the clouds in the sky. Some are slow. Some are fast. And you are observing it all.
Now, allow the image to begin to dissolve. Bring your awareness back into your body, feeling your breath inside your body. Notice sensations on your skin, the temperature of the air, your body touching the ground. Feel yourself fully present back in your body.
When you’re ready, open your eyes and you can bring yourself fully back into the room. Thank you for practicing with me. I hope that you can bring this practice into your day to day and that it’s helpful for you.
Releasing anger and frustration can actually help you regain control over a hectic day or win back productivity after feeling frazzled. But you have to do it with awareness.
On the surface, these three people live worlds apart:
Stefan works as a family practice nurse practitioner/manager in a busy urban clinic in the American Midwest.
Angelique turned her talent for design into a thriving business using recycled textiles to create clothing she markets throughout southeast Asia.
Avery directs a large non-profit organization focused on improving access to nutritious food in poor communities in northern England.
Beneath the surface, they’re closer than you’d think:
Stefan’s grief about his marriage ending distracts him, making him less available to his patients and coworkers.
Angelique can barely suppress feelings of rage whenever she sees email messages from a former supplier who is suing her.
Avery’s intense anxiety about upcoming funding cuts leaks out as overly critical interactions with staff members.
In different industries, on different continents, these three leaders have this in common: their inability to manage distressing emotions hurts their effectiveness at work. They each lack emotional self-control, one of twelve core competencies in our model of emotional and social intelligence.
What is Emotional Self-Control?
Emotional self-control is the ability to manage disturbing emotions and remain effective, even in stressful situations. Notice that I said “manage,” which is different from suppressing emotions. We need our positive feelings—that’s what makes life rich. But we also need to allow ourselves the space and time to process difficult emotions, but context matters. It’s one thing to do it in a heartfelt conversation with a good friend, and entirely another to release your anger or frustration at work. With emotional self-control, you can manage destabilizing emotions, staying calm and clear-headed.
Why Does Emotional Self-Control Matter?
To understand the importance of emotional self-control, it helps to know what’s going on in our brain when we’re not in control. In my book, The Brain and Emotional Intelligence, I explained:
“The amygdala is the brain’s radar for threat. Our brain was designed as a tool for survival. In the brain’s blueprint the amygdala holds a privileged position. If the amygdala detects a threat, in an instant it can take over the rest of the brain—particularly the prefrontal cortex—and we have what’s called an amygdala hijack.
During a hijack, we can’t learn, and we rely on over-learned habits, ways we’ve behaved time and time again. We can’t innovate or be flexible during a hijack.
The hijack captures our attention, beaming it in on the threat at hand. If you’re at work when you have an amygdala hijack, you can’t focus on what your job demands—you can only think about what’s troubling you. Our memory shuffles, too, so that we remember most readily what’s relevant to the threat—but can’t remember other things so well. During a hijack, we can’t learn, and we rely on over-learned habits, ways we’ve behaved time and time again. We can’t innovate or be flexible during a hijack.
… the amygdala often makes mistakes…. while the amygdala gets its data on what we see and hear in a single neuron from the eye and ear—that’s super-fast in brain time—it only receives a small fraction of the signals those senses receive. The vast majority goes to other parts of the brain that take longer to analyze these inputs—and get a more accurate reading. The amygdala, in contrast, gets a sloppy picture and has to react instantly. It often makes mistakes, particularly in modern life, where the ‘dangers’ are symbolic, not physical threats. So, we overreact in ways we often regret later.”
The Impact of Distressed Leaders
Research across the world and many industries confirms the importance of leaders managing their emotions. Australian researchers found that leaders who manage emotions well had better business outcomes. Other research shows that employees remember most vividly negative encounters they’ve had with a boss. And, after negative interactions, they felt demoralized and didn’t want to have anything more to do with that boss.
How to Develop Emotional Self-Control
How can we minimize emotional hijacks? First, we need to use another emotional intelligence competency, emotional self-awareness. That starts with paying attention to our inner signals—an application of mindfulness, which lets us see our destructive emotions as they start to build, not just when our amygdala hijacks us.
If you can recognize familiar sensations that a hijack is beginning—your shoulders tense up or your stomach churns—it is easier to stop it.
If you don’t notice your amygdala has hijacked the more rational part of your brain, it’s hard to regain emotional equilibrium until the hijack runs its course. It’s better to stop it before it gets too far. To end a hijack, start with mindfulness, monitoring what’s going on in your mind. Notice “I’m really upset now” or “I’m starting to get upset.” If you can recognize familiar sensations that a hijack is beginning—your shoulders tense up or your stomach churns—it is easier to stop it.
Then, you can try a cognitive approach: talk yourself out of it, reason with yourself. Or you can intervene biologically. Meditation or relaxation techniques that calm your body and mind—such as deep belly breathing—are very helpful. As with mindfulness, these work best during the hijack when you have practiced them regularly. Unless these methods have become a strong habit of the mind, you can’t invoke them out of the blue.
When we allow our mind to float freely, says Jenée Johnson, our body releases stress and tension, so that we can truly restore ourselves.
Relaxation is a practice, like any other. Stress, trauma, and tension can hamper our ability to rest and relax, so we can do “relaxation drills” to get in the habit of full, deep relaxation. Try taking 20 minutes once or twice daily to deeply relax and notice how it effects you during the rest of the day. Just remember not to be hard on yourself if you don’t feel a sense of ease right away. The best tools you can use during meditation are patience, self-kindness, and a comfortable place to sit.
Relaxation meditation can help us move through our days with more calm, clarity, and awareness. From this place of peacefulness, we’re better equipped to handle challenging situations, to make thoughtful and informed decisions, communicate well, come up with creative ideas, and more.
A 10-Minute Deep Relaxation Meditation
Start by sitting upright and comfortably, dropping your gaze. Don’t force yourself to relax, but simply sit quietly and allow your mind to float freely until it settles down.
When we simply sit and breathe, we activate the body’s calming response. It allows the brain to display the calm, smooth, harmonious waves called alpha brain waves—like the waves of the ocean, coming in to the shore and rolling back out. Coming in and going out. Breathing in and breathing out. Relax.
Drop your shoulders, relax the jaw, and unfurl your brow. Allow your mind to float freely until it settles down. Let thoughts come and go as they please.
Bring your attention back gently to your breath. Don’t exert yourself trying to block thoughts. Just remain passive and remind your body that we’re sitting now, we’re breathing now, we’re relaxing now. Sit quietly, stay with your breath. Like the waves of the ocean, breathing in, breathing out. Let thoughts fade into the background. Relax. To be still, to be quiet, to be at ease. This is the gift of relaxation.
To help you deepen your mindfulness practice (or get started), we’ve rounded up a list of guided meditations that have resonated most with our readers over the past year. Read More
This article is independently researched and written by the Mindful editors. However, we may earn revenue or commission if you purchase via links included.
Even today, the idea of loving ourselves often gets a bad rap. Won’t that make me egotistical? we might think, or, Shouldn’t I spend my time and energy caring for others first? Or, we seek love and acceptance exclusively from other people, forgetting that we can always find them within ourselves.
Both mindfulness teaching and scientific studies show that, far from leading to self-indulgence, a daily practice of self-compassion can have powerful benefits that extend beyond ourselves. As leading Mindful Self-Compassion researcher Kristin Neff writes, “We can learn to embrace ourselves and our lives, despite inner and outer imperfections, and provide ourselves with the strength needed to thrive.”
Benefits of Self-Love
With inspiration from our community of mindfulness teachers and experts, we’re sharing five reasons for everyone to cultivate self-love.
1. Loving yourself supports improved mental health and well-being, as well as positive habit change. Many of us were brought up to think that being kind to ourselves is equivalent to being complacent or lacking the drive to “better” ourselves. Whole sections of the self-help industry have made millions off this assumption that we need “tough love” to force ourselves to change. Fortunately, current research shows that the reverse is true.
As clinical psychologist and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy trainer Diana Hill shares, “Self-criticism lowers your self-confidence and increases anxiety and depression, undermining your ability to take steps toward change. In contrast, self-compassion motivates you to make healthier decisions and care for yourself.”
2. Self-love is part of healing from hurt and trauma. Once thought to be a result of living through catastrophic events such as wars or natural disasters, trauma is now more broadly understood by researchers as “normal reactions to abnormal circumstances.” Whether or not a person experiences trauma after going through something difficult depends on a complex set of factors, including available coping mechanisms, access to the resources needed to bounce back, and community response.
While it is important that anyone seeking to heal from trauma be supported by a mental health professional, beginning to cultivate self-love is one powerful tool for a healing journey. When we offer ourselves care and compassion, this helps create a sense of inner safety and acceptance, instead of (in many cases) blaming ourselves for something that happened to us. Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez, who work with youth in disadvantaged communities in West Baltimore, summarize this by saying: “Trauma closes all of our hearts. Self-love practices can open them.”
3. Self-love creates more thoughtful, resilient leaders. All types of leaders risk burning out, whether they are responsible for a committee, a company, or a classroom. Leaders often care so much about the work itself—and about the people they are leading—that they neglect their own well-being. While genuine care for others is a leadership asset, it isn’t sustainable if we never take the time to fill our own cup.
CEO and leadership consultant Georgina Miranda suggests several ways that we can incorporate small habits of self-love and self-care into our leadership style: “When the world feels heavy and overwhelming, we can take a pause and ask ourselves: What would actually be helpful in this moment?”
4. Self-compassion makes us braver, more mindful communicators. Most of us prefer to avoid what Mitch Abblett calls “the muck of difficult interactions—the blame, shame, resentment, and anxiety,” if we have the option. Even if we are willing to talk about the problem, humans are neurologically wired to slip into reactive habits such as blaming, bias, or defensiveness.
When the time comes for a tough conversation, a foundation of self-love is our ally. Self-compassion practice allows us to stay grounded and present in the moment, so even if things start to get heated, we are able to engage with respect and consideration for all involved. Abblett says, “Bringing more flexible awareness to discomfort seems to open pathways to communication, even when it’s quite challenging.”
5. Last but not least, loving yourself affirms that you are already enough. One reason we often seek love from others instead of ourselves is that we want someone else’s approval and acceptance–things we often don’t feel we can give to ourselves. We may spend years chasing accomplishments and accolades, and yet still feel unfulfilled. External “wins” are wonderful, but if we can’t accept ourselves as we are, it will never feel like enough.
Jenée Johnson offers this reminder that self-compassion empowers us to release perfectionism and realize that we are already worthy of acceptance and love: “You are a unique and perfect expression of life. No one before you and no one after you, is like you. Your journey is composed of experiences and the things you think, do, and pay attention to with consistency. You are enough.”
Practice Self-Love With Mindful Affirmations
Meet the Self-Love Affirmations Deck: A collaboration between Mindful and Mindfulness.com that reminds us all to fuel our heart and mind with the deepest kindness.
Each of the 52 cards in this brand-new deck draws on the time-honored wisdom of mindfulness teachers and traditions, whispering notes of self-love, optimism, and inner courage and strength, so you can take on whatever comes your way.
Guiding your journey on this path, each card is also embedded with a QR code. Simply scan it with your phone’s camera to access a special collection of 25 guided meditations from beloved teachers, curated specifically to enhance self-kindness and self-care.
These cards are perfect for those of us who want:
Increased self-esteem: Choosing to love yourself, no matter what, can boost your self-worth and confidence, enabling you to approach life’s challenges with a positive and resilient mindset.
Reduced anxiety and improved mental well-being: Having a self-compassionate perspective helps in managing stress and anxiety, promoting a sense of inner peace and calm and nurturing emotional balance.
Self-care for all: Using Self-Love Affirmations makes it easy to bring mindfulness and self-compassion into your daily life, wherever you are on your journey.
Beautiful practice tools: The Self-Love Affirmations cards are created to last and, most importantly, to be enjoyed. Featuring a matte finish, silky smooth texture, and sturdy cardstock, you’ll want to bring them everywhere you go.
Versatility in our practice: Ideal for personal reflection or as a meaningful gift, the cards can be used in various settings, including personal meditation, family bonding time, or group activities in educational or professional environments.
Vidyamala Burch guides us through a calming body scan meditation that focuses on bringing light and ease into the body.
This guided body scan for filling the body with light invites you to imagine a soft, soothing sensation radiating throughout your body, helping to ease any tension and cultivate a sense of relaxation. As you move through this meditation, you’ll have the opportunity to release stress and connect deeply with a feeling of inner peace, bringing lightness into your body and mind.
A Guided Meditation for Filling the Body with Light
Begin by lying down. If this is uncomfortable for any reason, then of course, adopt another posture.
Allow your awareness to settle down into the body. Take a deep breath in and then on the outbreath, give the weight up to gravity. Drop awareness into the points of contact between the body and the surface it’s resting upon.
Allow the breathing to settle and to find its own natural rhythm. Sense the swelling on the in breath and subsiding on the out breath in the whole body.
Let your awareness flow down through the body, down through the legs all the way into the toes, feeling any sensations in the toes. If you can’t feel anything for any reason, that’s fine. Just see if you can be aware of the toes of inhabiting the toes with awareness.
Imagine that the toes are filled with light, with spaciousness, with ease. Let the sense flow down into the feet, the tops, the ankles. Imagine the feet drenched in light, drenched in radiance, drenched and open in their softness.
Next, allow the sense to pour up through the ankles into the lower legs. Let this quality of light of radiance overflow and pour into the knees, filling into the shape of the knees, whatever position they’re in. Visualize it pulling up and saturating the thighs, the big muscles of the thighs, the bones, the thighs full of this radiant awareness.
If you’ve got any discomfort anywhere in the legs of the feet, see if it can be soothed and softened by this quality of light and radiance. Next, envision it pouring up through the hips and the buttocks. Let the buttocks be soft, whether you’re lying down or sitting. Full of life, full of radiance.
Next, allow this quality to pour up and to fill the abdomen, the belly. Feel it deep inside the body, noticing the way the abdomen swells a little bit on the end breath and subsides on the outbreath, being careful not to force or strain, letting this be the natural breath with receptive awareness. Now allow this quality of light to pour up into the whole chest area, the ribs and the lungs filled with the rhythm of breathing.
Feel the breath expanding the face on the in breath and subsiding the face on the outbreath. Be aware of the whole front of the torso, the abdomen and the chest full of light. Allow awareness to rest in the rhythm of breathing. Expanding. Subsiding. Expanding. Subsiding.
Now allow your awareness to flow all the way down to the buttocks and the back of the body. Let this quality of light pour up into the lower back. Can you feel breathing expressing itself in the lower back in any way? Perhaps an expanding and a subsiding. Maybe the angle or the shape is changing a little bit with each in and out breath. If there’s any discomfort, see if you can let it be soothed and softened by this quality of light, radiance, and the rhythm of breathing.
Now imagine this quality pouring up through the whole back of the body, the middle back and the upper back, the length of the spine, the breadth of the back. Notice the rhythm of breathing, expressing itself in the whole back of the body. Opening, subsiding, opening, subsiding, filling the whole torso, the front, the back, the sides, the inside, the surface. Feel the soothing, gentle lights and the rhythm of breathing and the whole torso soothing any hard edges, softening any contraction.
Let this quality pour through the shoulders, all the way down to the very tips of the fingers. Envision the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the fingers all becoming drenched and saturated and light. Feel the gentle, soothing quality, letting the hands rest in gravity. Let the shoulders fall away from the midline of the body as the arms rest in gravity.
Now allow your awareness to flow up into the neck and the head. If you’re lying down, make sure you’re giving the weight of the head up to the pillow with the cushion fully. If you’re sitting, have the head poised on the top of the neck as best you can. Allow this quality of light and radiance to completely saturate the whole head, even the brain. Even the brain can rest in this quality of brightness! Feel it moving through your whole face: forehead, eyes, cheeks, nose, lips, jaw, tongue, mouth. Imagine them all full of softness, full of light.
Finally, let’s expand awareness to the whole body: the legs, the torso, the arms, neck, head, face. Rest your awareness very deeply inside this quality of the whole body being filled with light, filled with ease, or the possibility of ease, and breathing. Any hard edges, any contraction soothed and eased by breath by light, by this quality of resting here moment by moment.
As we begin to prepare to bring this meditation to a close, see how it feels to form an intention to take this quality with you into your day, if you’re doing this during the day, or into your sleep, if you’re doing it in the evening. This quality of rest is light, brightness, and softness. When it comes time to move, do it gently and carefully as you prepare to engage with whatever you’re going to do next. Thank you so much for practicing with me today.
How much trust does your organization experience? That’s the first question I ask when I do a culture assessment with the businesses I serve. Trust is the essential ingredient and foundation for all relationships and businesses. Unless leaders build trust, they can’t build anything that will succeed for the long term, and any kind of organizational change will be seriously challenged.
Organizational scholars define trust as our willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others because we believe they have good intentions and will behave well toward us. In other words, we let others have power over us because we don’t think they’ll hurt us; we think they’ll help us and have our backs. When the trust level is high within coworker relationships, it corresponds to trusting the company that employs us, and we feel confident it won’t deceive us or abuse its relationship with us.
But what are the mechanics of this? How do we trust? In order to trust someone, especially someone who is unfamiliar to us—which means we haven’t had the opportunity to develop trust yet—our brains build a model of what the person is likely to do and why. And there’s a lot going on beneath the surface; we use both mindfulness and empathy during every collaborative endeavor. This means both people in an interaction are always assessing, Should I trust you? How much do you trust me? Some of us are innately trusting, naturally seeking positive intent and putting we, before me. But in my experience, trust is earned. This is why it matters that we as leaders build trust with those we lead. It is not wise to trust someone blindly until you have vetted that they are, in fact, trustworthy.
Trust and Safety Requires Nurturing
The level of trust in an organization is influenced by how much psychological safety exists. Do people feel safe voicing their honest opinions? Do they believe that any criticism aimed their way will be fair and that their response to it will be heard? Teams that enjoy high trust levels have been shown to be more creative and to come to decisions faster. They’re higher performing teams because they’re willing to admit mistakes and to call out problems and challenges and ask for help. If two teams are equally smart, why would a more trusting team be more productive than a less trusting one? Because they iterate faster. They learn faster. And why do they do that? Because they trust each other to be honest and point out the things they’re discovering in real time. A foundation of safety helps these team members understand and develop those discoveries quickly, collaborate smoothly, and cocreate with flow.
In the workplace, trust is highly influenced by leadership because leaders model the behaviors others will follow. When leaders lead with fear and dominance, trust and safety suffer in the long run. A boss who berates, threatens, or punishes you will affect your performance and ability to speak up authentically as you focus your attention on self-protection. This leads to feelings of “learned helplessness” as employees avoid the boss and/or remain as invisible as they can by doing the minimum. And face it: this kind of leadership behavior hurts, to the point of inflicting trauma.
Humans experience social rejection and social pain in the brain’s pain matrix for longer than they experience physical pain. Research in neuroscience has shown this. We are wired to connect and belong. If we lack the trust and safety that are essential to belonging, we feel that our very survival is threatened, which prolongs our suffering. To turn this around, we can consciously and actively work to create greater belonging using conscious leadership techniques at work and in the world. Belonging means belonging to yourself, as well as being connected to a purpose larger than yourself.
Authenticity In Action
Being authentic is one of the fastest ways to create psychological safety in the workplace.
Psychological safety is the sense that we can share our feelings, beliefs, and experiences openly with others at work without fear of reprimand, losing status, or punishment. Studies on psychological safety conducted in collaboration between Google and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found it to be one of the most important factors in creating successful teams and thus high performing, innovative organizations. This insight is the result of almost 30 years of research by Amy Edmondson. Psychological safety supports moderate risk taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and most importantly trust. In my work with teams and senior leaders, I assess the psychological safety of the individual leader, the team and the culture first.
Before leaders build trust through being courageous in our interactions with others, we need the courage to understand ourselves and what’s important to us. Try out this practice that focuses on cultivating this understanding.
A Mindful Practice to Deepen Your Inner Trust
Find a quiet space if you can and take out a journal. Take a minute or two to breathe and tap into your center. Now think of a recent experience you had with a partner, friend, family member, or coworker where you wanted to be authentic, but weren’t. Imagine pausing at the height of this interaction and asking yourself the following questions:
What am I afraid would happen if I shared my thoughts and feelings with this person right now?
How will I feel if I don’t share them?
If I weren’t afraid, what would I most want to say to this person right now?
How can I be even more open and vulnerable?
Cultivating Trust with Your Teams at Work
As leaders and managers, it’s important that we’re the first ones to model how to be authentic in the workplace. Josh Tetrick, cofounder and CEO of Eat Just, Inc., and I talked about his process of hiring for resilience and developing a resilient culture by leading with authenticity. First and foremost, Josh makes it clear in his communications what he cares about most. Eat Just’s mission is to increase the consumption of plant-based foods, to reduce animal maltreatment and forest degradation. Josh has found that the more confident he is in his mission and who he is, the more vulnerable and humble he can be when he makes mistakes.
He now recognizes that when Eat Just was just starting, he projected more self-assurance—to the point of arrogance—than he really felt because he wanted to sound more confident than he really was. But as he’s stepped into leading, he’s learned that he’s good at some things and not so good at others, and he knows and accepts that. This frees him from feeling the need to overcompensate and allows him to be his authentic self.
Josh let me in on some of the things he says when interviewing new hires: “This is the kind of company we are—this is the mission. If you gave me a 100% chance to get bought by an investor or a 20% chance to stay in the ring and get closer to achieving our mission, I’d choose the 20% probability.”
Then he tells potential new hires he wants them to ask themselves if they’re willing to get gritty, step into the unknown, and stay focused on that mission for the long haul. Sharing his truth upfront in this way weeds out people who aren’t the greatest fit for the culture. Josh takes the same approach with investors.
Josh also asks job candidates questions that are designed to assess their resilience, because he’s found that those who are the best fit for his company are inherently resilient. Josh offers a great example of how leaders build trust by cultivating a strong inner game of authenticity and sharing your truth and confidence as a leader on the outside.
Leading from authenticity sometimes means leading from vulnerability. According to Brené Brown, vulnerability entails uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. As a leader, you have the opportunity to create conditions that support naming the fears that come up around being vulnerable. Once they’re named, you can get past fear to the place where courage arises and encourage more confidence, teamwork, and connection.
When we fear that we can’t think and act as we truly are, we put parts of ourselves on hold. Here’s how we can begin to let go of expectations and pressures and tend to our wants and needs with kindness. Read More
Dr. Michael Gervais speaks with author and researcher Dr. Brené Brown about the relationship between vulnerability and courage, and what it takes to show up even when you can’t control the outcome. Read More
Explore this mediation inspired by the Japanese concept of ma, which refers to “the spaces between everything.”
Today’s practice offers a unique approach to training our attention and invites us to explore the empty spaces that exist all around us and inside us.
For instance, we might think of the space between the plants in the garden, or between the notes in a song. It can also be emotional space, like the silences in a conversation. Or the little gaps between our thoughts and emotions.
Often, we don’t even notice these empty spaces—but bringing our awareness to them can reveal new meaning and beauty. By exploring the space in-between through this mindfulness practice, we also enhance our creativity, noticing skills, and awareness.
A Guided Meditation for Noticing What’s Present and What Isn’t
This practice is inspired by the Japanese notion of Ma, the idea of examining that space that exists between everything that’s not actually empty, but is full of potential.
Start by finding a comfortable posture. When you’re ready, you can simply begin to lower or close your eyes, whichever is most comfortable for you.
Now, bring awareness to your breath. Watch and feel the rise and fall of the inhale and exhale. Then, tune also to the spaces between. What is the moment when the exhale finishes before it turns into the inhale? Or the inhale turns into the exhale? Allow your awareness to rest in the stillness between your breaths.
Next, turn your attention to your heartbeat, your pulse. See if you can find that in your body, the sensations or sounds of your heartbeat, and the spaces between each heartbeat.
Whether you’re sitting or laying down, notice now spaces where your body makes contact with the world. What’s behind or underneath you? Feel where your skin makes contact with your clothing, and tune your awareness to these sensations and the spaces between.
Scanning through your body, notice sensations as you might in a body scan, deeper in your body. See if you can pick up on the spaces between, where you notice almost no sensation, or between sensations in space or in time.
Shifting to your other senses now, just listen and notice the sounds around you. Near or far, left or right. Notice all the sounds, and the sounds even within sounds, as well as the spaces and the silences between the sounds. Tune into smells and tastes as you breathe, noticing where these land and the spaces between.
Allow your eyes to open and be aware of when they go from closed to open. Holding your eyes steady, just notice what you see around you and within your field of vision. Furniture or other objects in the space around you. The shapes of all the objects in your field of vision, as well as shapes and sizes of the spaces in between. Beyond the objects, see the walls, the corners where walls come together. Rooms and the spaces between them. Is there perhaps something new you’ve never noticed before? When does light become shadow? Colors and hues—when does one color become the next? Continue to notice these and other spaces between in the physical space around you.
You can also explore your own mind, your own experience of the space between thoughts, emotions, memories in your mind. Rest there when you find it. Explore what’s happening, what could be happening, the potential in all of these spaces between. Continue here for the next few moments.
As you continue with the rest of your day, keep staying attuned to spaces between. Between inside and outside. The shapes between the clouds or the stars in the night sky. The lull between the waves of the ocean. Stillness between the raindrops. Space between you and other people, physical and emotional. Between a joke and a laugh, a question and an answer. Between waking and opening your eyes. Continue to seek out, explore, and rest in all of these spaces between and see if your perspective doesn’t slowly begin to shift on the world around you, and the world inside of you.
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This week, Carley Hauck invites us to look within ourselves to affirm what it is that we love most, and to align with our values.
By connecting with our heart and remembering who and what we love, we also get to connect with our inner caring, protective instinct. This compassionate part of ourselves provides the motivation to choose beneficial actions, not just one time but over the days, weeks, and months of our lives.
This beautiful practice offers the start of a journey toward living our compassionate values in a deeper way, serving both ourselves and others in the process. We ask: When I love what I love, how might that support the greater good?
A Guided Meditation to Connect with What Matters Most to You
Begin by sitting comfortably. Notice your feet on the floor, and sit up tall, yet in a gentle posture. Bring your shoulders back and down, moving your neck side to side so that you can really allow yourself to let go of tension, or tightness, and come back into the body.
Breathe gently in and out of your heart. If it feels comfortable for you, you can place a hand on your heart. Or simply just notice the sensation of energy around your heart as you breathe in, as you breathe out.
Feeling this connection to your heart, start to name silently to yourself things that you love. It might sound like this: I love, I love, I love. Notice what flows easily when you think of things that you love. Continue this process, noticing all the things that arise and pass.
Out of all of these things that you love, what do you love so deeply that you would fight to protect it? There may be many things, but for this exercise right now, just choose one. Notice how that answer feels in your body. Is there this strong inner knowing, and where does that live in your body? Maybe it’s in your heart. Or your belly. Or your hands. Or your feet. Or it could even just be this coursing all through your body, this very strong sense of, “Yes, this is what really matters to me.”
Now begin to feel these physical sensations extend outwards into love and compassion, with your commitment to protect what you love. See if you can feel that energy extending out from your body, almost as if there is a light that is emanating from this commitment, the deeper knowing.
Now, how could you align greater action around what you love in your life? Take a moment and notice what arises, letting go of any judgmentsHow could I put more action into my life around what I really love?
Now allow yourself to envision: What does this look like to engage in this action on a monthly basis?A weekly basis? This isn’t some extra thing on your to do list. This is coming from a deeper sense of what matters, a deeper sense of motivation. What can you commit to today as your first step? How might you loving what you love support the greater good? How does this benefit others?
As the first step towards aligning and acting on your heartfelt commitment, it is important to name what your commitment is. Try saying, “I am committing to…” and see what arises. Think of it on a monthly basis, a weekly basis, a daily basis. What action steps are you committing to that align with this deeper truth of what really matters?
Now, I invite you to share these commitments with two other people in your life. Who are these people? Notice who comes to mind that you feel excited to share this with. When we are witnessed in our commitments, we have a sense of support and accountability to follow through on our actions.
Open your eyes when you feel ready. Start to wiggle fingers and toes, doing some movement in your chair. Before moving into your next activity, take a couple of minutes, maybe even ten, and write down what arose in this exercise. What are you committing to? What action steps are you taking? Who are you sharing your commitments with? Be the light and shine the light.
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