Health Journal Online

Category: Mental Health

  • Looking Honestly at the Challenges of Mindfulness Practices

    Looking Honestly at the Challenges of Mindfulness Practices

    While the challenges of mindfulness practices are real, research confirms that mindfulness can also be helpful in preventing relapses into depression and reduce healthcare visits.

    Willoughby Britton, a psychiatrist and mindfulness practitioner, has researched what he terms the “difficult or challenging mind states” among advanced meditators and scholars that can occur as a result of intense meditation practice.

    The challenges of mindfulness are real. The truth is, meditation is not all calm and peace. Mental material can come up that can be uncomfortable or need to be addressed.

    Britton spoke generally with Mindful about how mindfulness has been marketed in this country as a “warm bath,” when in actuality, you have to deal with whatever comes up in the mind.

    “A lot of psychological material is going to come up and be processed. Old resentments, wounds, that kind of thing,” says Britton, “But also some traumatic material if people have a trauma history, it can come up and need additional support or even therapy.”

    Halliwell asks: “Does something beneficial have to be delivered perfectly—and to bring about a perfect world—before we will accept it as worthwhile?”

    Ed Halliwell, mindfulness teacher and author of The Mindful Manifesto, admits that meditation can be an emotional rollercoaster. “Mindfulness has a great many benefits,” Halliwell writes, but he takes issue with mindfulness being touted as a cure-all. At the same time, there’s an all-or-nothing mentality brewing around the adoption of mindfulness practices, and Halliwell asks: “Does something beneficial have to be delivered perfectly—and to bring about a perfect world—before we will accept it as worthwhile?”

    Elisha Goldstein, clinical psychologist and mindfulness teacher, noted that it’s not a question of whether mindfulness is harmful or not. When we’re assessing the challenges of mindfulness practices, the better question is where you’re getting that mindfulness training from. “It comes down to an education on mindfulness (and a variety of factors that it represents) and finding an experienced teacher as a guide to meet the practitioner where they are at.”

    Research is ongoing

    Research on mindfulness and depression is still preliminary, but there are promising indicators.

    Scientific American surveyed findings and some of the key controversies regarding the application of mindfulness for depression and anxiety, and concluded:

    When it comes to treating diagnosed mental disorders, the evidence that mindfulness helps is mixed, with the strongest data pointing toward its ability to reduce clinical depression and prevent relapses.

    In particular, new research has emerged indicating that an 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program might reduce the risk of relapses into depression. Study authors identified that mindfulness helped in the following ways:

    • MBCT allowed people to be more intentionally aware of the present moment, which gave them space to pause before reacting automatically to others.
    • Bringing mindful awareness to uncomfortable experiences helped people to approach situations that they would previously avoid, which fostered self-confidence and assertiveness.
    • Study participants also described having more energy, feeling less overwhelmed by negative emotion, and being in a better position to cope with and support others.

    Another piece of research reported that frequent health service users who received MBCT therapy showed a significant reduction in non-mental health care visits over a one-year period.

    “We speculate that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy has elements that could help people who are high health-care utilizers manage their distress without needing to go to a doctor,” says Dr. Paul Kurdyak, lead author and Director of Health Systems Research at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Lead of the Mental Health and Addictions Research Program at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).



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  • A Meditation For When the Suffering In the World Feels Heavy

    A Meditation For When the Suffering In the World Feels Heavy

    If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the pain, uncertainty, and suffering in the world right now, here is a practice to find courage, peace, acceptance, and connection.

    Many of us are carrying the weight of the world’s suffering right now. How can we acknowledge the immense suffering in the world, including our own—and still tend to our hearts, minds, and bodies in a way that keeps us grounded and able to take compassionate action?

    This week, mindfulness teacher and author Wendy O’Leary shares a guided practice that offers refuge and reminds us of our real and loving connection to one another.

    There are three main parts of the practice. First, stabilizing or grounding. Second, settling back, softening, and soothing. And third, the one for me, one for you practice, which is based on the giving and receiving compassion practice from the Mindful Self-Compassion Program.

    A Meditation For When the Suffering In the World Feels Heavy

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

    1. I invite you to get into a comfortable seated position. You can close your eyes or gently look down and soften your gaze. Whatever works best for you.
    2. Begin by directing your attention into your body, allowing it to gently move in and drift down as it drops all the way down to your feeling the connection of your feet on the floor. If your feet aren’t on the floor, simply notice wherever the feet are connected. That experience of contact and pressure. Or you might feel the contact and pressure of the backs of your legs on the chair or cushion. Connecting with this felt experience of being grounded and rooted, supported and held here on earth. As you feel the somatic experience of those contact points, the feet or the seat. Rooted, grounded, steady and stable. Connected and supported by the earth.
    3. From this place of steadiness and stability, bring to mind someone you know who’s having a hard time. It could be someone you know personally or more generally someone or a group of people you are aware of who are struggling at this time. On a scale of one to 10, choose an example of someone who is somewhere in the middle. So not the most difficult situation.
    4. As you allow them to more fully enter your awareness, check in with your body. Often, when we’re focused on difficulty, ours or others’, there can be a habitual tendency to contract, to tighten, and to even lean forward. Check it out to see if this is true for you. Counteract this tendency. I invite you to gently lean back, physically or even energetically, just a little. Settle back.
    5. Now, invite the body to soften and even widen, creating space to hold whatever is there. So we aren’t forcing anything here. It’s a very gentle invitation to settle back and soften. If it feels supportive for you, you can place your hand on your heart center as a way to care for and soothe the body, heart, and mind. Settle back, soften, soothe.
    6. Now begin to gently direct your attention to rest with the breath, feeling the flow of the breath moving in and out of the body. Just this in-breath. And just this out breath. Connecting with this experience of the breath, moving through the body like a wave moves through the ocean. And bringing back to mind this person or group of people whom you know are suffering.
    7. Check in with yourself to see what would best support you in being with their struggles. So that could be, for example, patience or calm, strength, acceptance. Whatever you feel would best support you. On the in-breath, offering that to yourself, and then gently releasing on the out-breath. If no word comes to mind, that’s totally fine. You can simply think to yourself, one for me on the inhale, and gently release on the exhale. One for me, and gently release.
    8. If it feels right for you, you can now consider what it is that they most need. It may be the same thing you need, or it could be something different. And again, if a word doesn’t come to you, you could think, one for you.
    9. Continue to take in for yourself what you need on the inhale, and offer them what they need on the exhale. Taking in one for me on the in-breath and one for you on the out-breath. One for me. And one for you.
    10. As you feel ready, open your eyes or look up as we close this practice. As we practice this more formally, it becomes accessible to us in our daily life, more available for us to use these practices when we come in contact with suffering in our lives. 

    Thank you for practicing with me and may our practice benefit all beings.



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  • Rewire Your Food Cravings and Triggers

    Rewire Your Food Cravings and Triggers

    This is part of a four-part mini-workshop called Train Your Brain to Break Bad Habits. You can find links to all four sessions in this series here.

    Last session we learned how to map the mechanics of our habit loops. This session, we’re using those skills to look specifically at any habits we’ve formed around food and eating.

    As a recap: our brains learn through a process that has three components: trigger, behavior, reward. There’s a trigger (perhaps stress) that moves you to behave in a certain way (maybe leaving your desk at work and going out for a cigarette); and there’s a result or reward (having that cigarette gets the initial feelings of stress to drop a bit for a short period of time). According to the brain, that’s a successful pattern that deserves to be repeated.

    Since last session, did you discover any habit loops in your life? If you didn’t get an opportunity to practice, you could pause right now to see if you can identify one or two habit loops in your own experience.

    This session we’re examining habit loops with regards to food in particular. And eating is an extremely interesting example. That’s because the habit-loop structure of getting hungry, finding food, and testing and eating that food, is designed to do something else: to aid us in locating that food again.

    Imagine being out in a wilderness: when hungry and looking for food in that sort of environment, our brains aim to record our successes because we need to eat to stay alive. We spot some bright berries (trigger); we bring that food to our mouths to test it—we eat a berry or two (behavior); and if we find that the berries don’t harm us, but instead provide us fuel in the form of calories and even taste good, we’ve set the groundwork for the habit loop that will propel us to eat those berries again whenever we find them (a reward that encourages us to not only look for that food again, but gather and store it or eat it whenever we do). Essentially, the stomach has sent a dopamine signal to the brain that says, “Remember what you ate and where you found it.”

    But most of us do not live in a wilderness anymore—unless you count coffee shops on every corner, copious numbers of fast-food joints, restaurants, and grocery stores as a new kind of wilderness. Point being, our brains don’t necessarily need this reward-based learning system to help us remember where food is anymore. In fact, though, that system is still at play—only now it operates with other types of triggers and foods. For example, if we get into the habit of reaching for ice cream every time we get stressed out, our brain starts to learn to eat when we’re stressed. Because when we do, like the person who smokes, we feel some stress relief (albeit brief) while we’re digging into that container of vanilla bean gelato.

    And triggers don’t always need to be bad to set up the potential for a habit loop to form. Maybe, like so many of us, you associate food with celebrations, whether it’s a birthday, Thanksgiving or another holiday: it’s easy to begin to associate fun social times with the array of food we get to enjoy.

    Regardless, whether it’s celebratory, stress-based or even boredom or sadness that triggers us to eat, once our brains make a habit loop that includes eating food as a go-to behavior in response to a particular trigger, and when eating makes us feel a little bit better in the moment, our brains set the tracks: “That was good; I feel a bit better; let’s do it again.” And so we do.

    So this is the focus of our practice: any types of habits we may have formed around eating. Let’s begin.

    Rewire Your Food Cravings and Triggers

    Watch the video:

    1. Get settled into a comfortable position, whether sitting, standing or lying down.Just like we did last week, anchor your awareness in your body—in the breath and the body, in your direct experience in the moment What do these physical sensations feel like? Introduce some curiosity. And go ahead and think of this as anchoring: that aware connection will serve as the point that will keep your boat from floating off. If your attention drifts away, that anchor catches so that you can come back. This helps to orient us around our mind—because if our mind is drifting off this way or that, it’s very difficult to identify, observe and map out our habit loops. We need that steady awareness, too, to map the different types of rewards that we get from those habits. Let’s focus on what’s actually happening for us in the first part of the equation: trigger and behavior.
    2. Bring to mind your favorite food. Resting in awareness in the breath and body, now simply bring to mind your favorite comfort food. You may imagine what it smells and tastes like. Take it further: what are the qualities of the sensations of that food on your tongue, in your mouth? Is it cool? Soft and delicate? Crunchy? Spend some time with these sensations.
    3. Notice the type of reaction that your body has simply by bringing up the memory of this food. What are you experiencing in your body? Maybe you notice you now have a craving for that food, even if you’ve just eaten, even if you’re not hungry at all. If you do find yourself in the midst of a craving, what does that feel like in your body and mind? Are there physical sensations associated with it? Invite curiosity into this.
    4. Try to notice any changes to the sensations associated with your craving. Is there a predominant sensation in your body right now? Are you finding tightness? Does that tightness change? Is there a sensation of heat? Does that heat move? Are you noticing any other sensations? And what happens as you bring your awareness fully to those sensations?
    5. Come back to the breath. Gently bring your attention away from your craving, and simply bring your awareness back to your body or your breath.

    Perhaps you noticed that simply bringing a memory of a food item to mind can arouse cravings. I’m hoping you noticed something else, too: that bringing awareness to the craving itself can change our relationship to it—we can be with that craving rather than be caught up in it. We can feel the trigger and pause before the behavior. If we are caught up in a craving it’s just like being on autopilot. But if we’re aware of that craving, we’re in the driver’s seat, in first gear.

    Try to notice any types of food cravings you have. And when they strike, try to drop into your body, even if it’s just for a few moments. The goal here is to really explore what that craving feels like in your body and mind. Then bring your awareness to whether or not that craving changes from moment to moment to moment.

    You might go ahead and eat the food you have in mind, and you might not. But simply start by exploring, getting comfortable and really familiar with what that craving feels like. Take a good, long, curious look at the beginning of that habit loop: from trigger to the urge to act to just before you act, and then whether you act or not. Notice that behavior and then the results of whatever that behavior is.

    Unhook From Your Phone Addiction 

    Our phones are masterfully designed weapons of mass distraction, and it’s so easy to get sucked into that distraction—Here’s how we can regain control of our attention. Read More 

    • Judson Brewer
    • April 2, 2019



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  • Addiction, Trauma, and the Problem of Being Present

    Addiction, Trauma, and the Problem of Being Present

    The Power of Then

    I remember one day in rehab, after a particularly gruelling day of group therapy, the facilitator decided to end with a mindfulness meditation. Feeling exhausted and overstimulated, I welcomed the chance to close my eyes and shut out the world for a little while.

    But as she guided our awareness through the body, I became painfully aware of what was happening inside mine—the tightness in my jaw and throat, my heart pounding, the knot of fear twisting in my stomach. My body didn’t feel like a safe place to be; it felt like a war zone.

    When the meditation ended, she reminded us of how important it is in recovery “to live in the now.” And that left me with a burning question that I didn’t dare ask: What if my now feels unbearable?

    When the meditation ended, she reminded us of how important it is in recovery “to live in the now.” And that left me with a burning question that I didn’t dare ask: What if my now feels unbearable?

    For many people in recovery, being in the body can feel like stepping onto enemy territory. It’s where we hold the emotional pain, unresolved trauma, and survival responses we’ve spent years trying not to feel. Mindfulness invites us to tune in—to become aware of our bodies and minds, to sit with our emotions and thoughts. 

    To many people, this is a neutral concept. However, for the addict in recovery, it’s also being asked to return to the danger our addiction once protected us from.

    I once heard someone say, “You can’t feel the power of now until you’ve healed the power of then.” That statement really stuck with me. 

    When the nervous system is carrying trauma—when we’re dysregulated, overwhelmed, or trapped in a state of fight/flight/freeze—mindfulness doesn’t always feel supportive. Sometimes it simply heightens our awareness of the pain and discomfort within, without giving us the resources to cope.

    The Root of Addiction

    Many experts in the trauma and addiction field believe trauma sits at the root of addiction. Gabor Mate, one of the most influential voices in this work, invites us to shift the question from, Why the addiction? to, Why the pain? 

    Many of us are working from an outdated idea of what trauma actually is. Trauma isn’t defined by the event. It’s defined by what happens inside of us as a result of the event, the imprint it leaves on our body and mind.

    That reframing, turning the attention toward the suffering beneath the behavior, was one of the most powerful turning points in my recovery.

    You might be reading this and thinking, “This doesn’t apply to me. I don’t have trauma.” Yet many of us are working from an outdated idea of what trauma actually is. Trauma isn’t defined by the event. It’s defined by what happens inside of us as a result of the event, the imprint it leaves on our body and mind.

    Trauma expert Pat Ogden describes trauma as “any threatening, overwhelming experience that we cannot integrate.” When understood this way, it becomes more relatable. It’s not limited to catastrophic events; it also includes the undigested life experiences most of us carry in varying degrees—the moments that shape how safe we feel in the world, in our relationships, and in our own bodies.

    If substances became a way to soothe, regulate, or find relief from the imprint of those experiences, that is the link between trauma and addiction. Addiction doesn’t manifest without reason. It’s your body and nervous system attempting to restore balance—to escape an unbearable now—when nothing else seems to work.

    The Challenges Mindfulness Presents

    Mindfulness isn’t inherently problematic for everyone living with trauma; for some, it’s deeply supportive. The difficulty for some people living with symptoms of trauma is that mindfulness can sometimes intensify those symptoms, and in some cases even cause re-traumatisation.

    Mindfulness eventually became one of my greatest resources. But in the early days, before I was trauma informed, I often pushed through discomfort, believing that was part of the practice. I remember one meditation in particular where I forced myself to sit with an increasingly uncomfortable sensation in the pit of my stomach. I was convinced that if I just stayed with it long enough, I’d eventually reach some blissful state of transcendence. Instead, it sent me into an intense dissociative state which lasted for weeks—something I later learned is not uncommon for trauma survivors. 

    This is why it’s important to understand the potential challenges of mindfulness for some—so that if you do encounter problems, you know it’s not a sign of failure. It’s simply a signal from your nervous system that more safety is needed.

    Here are some primary signals to pay attention to: 

    Focusing on the body or breath can be activating

    Trauma lives in the body as physical sensations, constriction, tension, and survival responses. When we bring awareness to the breath, or to areas that hold this survival energy—the chest, throat, belly—these sensations can feel overwhelming.

    Mindfulness can trigger traumatic memories or flashbacks

    Turning inward creates space for memories, images, or emotions that were previously suppressed to rise to the surface. When they do, the body and mind may react as if the past is happening again. In other words, we start experiencing the power of then.

    Stillness can feel threatening to a dysregulated nervous system.

    For someone who is used to living in a state of fight, flight, or chronic hypervigilance, stillness can feel unfamiliar and unsafe. Even the feeling of calm can feel threatening when the body is used to scanning for danger.

    Self-observation can activate shame or self-judgement

    Turning attention inward can make self-critical thoughts louder, especially for someone whose trauma involved blame, guilt, or a loss of self-worth.

    None of this means mindfulness should be avoided. Far from it. It simply means the practice may need to be approached differently: with more pacing, choice, and with safety at its core.

    Practising Mindfulness Safely

    Safety is the foundation of trauma recovery and one of the cornerstones of trauma-informed mindfulness. David Treleaven, founder of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, emphasises that mindfulness for trauma survivors must be flexible, and adapted to suit an individual’s nervous system and needs. Instead of pushing through discomfort, this approach supports choice, regulation, and autonomy.

    Here are some adjustments you can make to your mindfulness practice when you start to feel activated: 

    1. Start outward. For many people, beginning with external anchors feels more supportive than turning the attention inward. Noticing sounds, feeling your feet on the floor, or gently orienting to your surroundings can help settle the nervous system.
    2. Switch it up. Once a sense of grounding is established, you can then gently approach your inner experience. It can help to move between inner and outer awareness, so that if anything becomes too intense, you can shift your focus back outward, adjust your posture or pause completely. Having a reliable anchor, something that feels supportive to return to, can be especially helpful.
    3. Get mobile. Movement can also be a powerful bridge to presence. Walking, stretching, or gentle swaying may feel more accessible when stillness feels too threatening. You don’t have to sit motionless in a lotus position to be mindful. 
    4. Open your eyes. For some people, closing their eyes means they can’t scan for danger. As people are learning to find safety, practising with eyes open, or with a soft gaze, can also reduce the vulnerability that may come with closing the eyes.
    5. Be gentle with a noisy mind. It’s also worth noting that the mind—even when busy or critical—can feel safer than the body. Understanding this can help reduce frustration when the mind doesn’t quieten in the way we might expect.

    One of the most important things to remember with trauma-sensitive mindfulness is that you have choice and autonomy. Treleaven says, “We want them to know that in every moment of practice they are in control.” So, if things become too much, return to what feels safe. Stay within your window of tolerance, which allows for some discomfort, but not to where it’s overwhelming.

    When practiced with care, mindfulness can be one of the greatest tools for trauma healing and addiction recovery. For me, the benefits were profound, so much so that I wrote a book about it. But the greatest benefit was reconnecting with that part of myself that addiction and trauma never touched: the part that was always there, quietly watching, peaceful and still. My true self!

    Mindfulness doesn’t rewrite the past, but when we can embody a sense of safety, it helps us to hold it differently. So that the power of then no longer overshadows the power of now.



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  • A Meditation on Endings – Mindful

    A Meditation on Endings – Mindful

    By drawing our attention to endings and our developed habits about the way we meet endings, we can learn how to step fully into our lives with appreciation and gratitude, says Frank Ostaseski.

    How Do You Meet Endings?

    I want to draw our attention to endings: the end of a day, the end of a meal, the end of something precious and rare, the end of this sentence. 

    How do you meet endings? I mean, most of us have some developed habits about the way in which we meet endings. Are you aware of your habits? Without any judgment or criticality, let’s just take a look to see what our relationship to endings are. Like, when you go to a party, or you go to a conference: Do you have a tendency to leave emotionally or mentally before the conference is over or before the party’s over? Or maybe you’re the one in the parking lot waving goodbye to everybody as they depart. Or maybe you find some way of cocooning yourself, isolating in some way, pulling back into a kind of protective stance. Or perhaps you become ambivalent or indifferent about endings—maybe endings are very emotional for you. Maybe you get sad or scared. Let’s just take a look.

    When you end a relationship, how do you do it? Do you try to shift it into some other form of relationship so that it will continue? Do you end it with a text? How do you say goodbye in the afternoon when you leave your work—do you say goodbye to your colleagues? When a friend is sick and dying, do you go visit them? How do you meet endings? What are your patterns? Are you happy with the way you meet endings? You don’t have to be wedded to your old way of doing it. You have the freedom to change it, right here, right now. 

    When an ending comes, what happens in your body? Do you get tight, contracted? What’s the emotional experience? Does it bring about anxiety, fear, sadness? And what happens in your mind when endings come? Do you have remembering thoughts or planning thoughts? How do you meet this experience? 

    Exploring Endings and Beginnings

    The way that we end something shapes the way the next thing begins. When we hang on to the past, it limits our capacity to welcome the new. A lot of times we hang on because we’re still demanding something of the past, wanting it to give us more of what we’d hoped to get from that situation—more success, more love. The more comfortable we are with endings, the more we can welcome the new and release the old.

    The way that we end something shapes the way the next thing begins. When we hang on to the past, it limits our capacity to welcome the new.

    I used to run a preschool with a friend of mine, and we had these three- to five-year-olds that we would take into the outdoors. There, we would give them the task of collecting dead things, and the kids loved this. They’d go out into the woods and collect an old stick or fallen leaf or a rusty old car part, or sometimes the bones of a bird or a small animal. And then we’d bring them together and we’d lay out all of their discoveries on a blue tarp and in a grove of fir trees. And then we had a kind of show and tell. And the kids had no fear—they were full of curiosity. And sometimes when they presented the item they found, they would weave a great story about it, like how this rusty old car part had fallen from a spaceship. Or this leaf was being used by a mouse—to keep him warm until summer came. They had no fear. I remember one little girl said to me, I think the trees are very kind that they allow the leaves to fall from them so that new ones can grow. It would be really sad if the tree couldn’t grow new leaves.

    We know that birth will end in death. And reflecting on this might imbue our lives with more appreciation and gratitude. We know that the coming together of things inevitably means their dispersion, and reflecting on this may cause us to live a life of simplicity, to really cherish and care for what we have. 

    We know that everyone we love will one day die. Reflecting on this may cause us to think about how we want to care for them now. The way we meet in ending shapes the way the next moment arises. The study of endings is a beautiful way to step fully into our lives. 

    Learning From the Breath

    And the breath can help us restore; it can revitalize our life. The breath helps us to unhook from the daily frenzy. It brings balance to the instinctive drive to fight, take flight or freeze. Breath offers us an extraordinary opportunity to look at our relationship to endings. 

    1. Let the belly be soft; let the shoulders relax. Bring your attention to the breath, to the direct experience of breathing in and breathing out. 
    2. Be aware of the sensations in the body: the large, gross sensations and the subtler sensations of tingling or pulsing. Just let yourself settle into the rhythm of the breath however it is. There’s no need to control it or shape it in any way. 
    3. See if you can become aware of the very beginning of the inhale, the middle, and the end of the inhale. Do the same with the exhale: note the very beginning, the middle, and end of each exhale.
    4. See if you can become aware of that moment of transformation when the inhale becomes the exhale, when the exhale becomes the inhale. Relax. Let the breath breathe itself. Then you might notice that little gap, that pause, at the end of the exhale—maybe it’s just a nanosecond. Bring your attention fully and completely there. What happens in the gap? Were there physical sensations? Is there an emotional response? Do you find yourself anxious or feeling a sigh of relief? What happens in the mind? Is there a tendency to want to control the breath, to micromanage it in some way?
    5. Just let yourself rest in the gap. Rest in the pause. This pause: it’s a moment of faith or fear. Do you trust that the next breath will emerge? Can you relax with things just as they are? Breath is a microcosm of our whole life: coming and going, appearing and disappearing. 
    6. As we settle, we begin to feel like the breath is breathing us. Relinquish your control of the breath and let it breathe you. Settle back into the constant change—the coming and going, the beginning and ending of all experience. 

    Thank you for your practice.



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  • Let Them Lead – Mindful

    Let Them Lead – Mindful

    Many of us strive to show up skillfully for the young people in our lives, whether it’s as their parent or relative, as an educator, coach, or mentor. Yet knowing just what they need to fuel their growth and leadership is not always easy. While facing all the challenges of growing up, youth today are also deeply aware of conflict and uncertainty in the world around them, and many come from families and communities impacted by systemic inequality. However, their experiences and voices are key to their ability to create change—something I recently witnessed firsthand through a youth leadership program.   

    Nuestra Juventud: Creating Communities of Hope was founded on the principle that healing communities means centering youth voices and fostering a deep sense of trust in their own wisdom. Launched in 2023, the fellowship gently nurtures youth leadership, voice, and vision in the heart of Southern New Mexico, a region that has often been overlooked and under-resourced. The program, designed to cultivate philanthropy, leadership, and collective care, invites youth to act with intention and generosity in service of their communities. Serving as the Project Coordinator for Nuestra Juventud, I learned just as much from the first youth cohort as I hoped to offer them. 

    Learning to Lead 

    Developed in partnership with Ivy Child International and Aprendamos Family of Services, Nuestra Juventud—“Our Youth”—is a six-month fellowship that brings together high school and middle school students, primarily those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color from underserved communities. Participants gather monthly to engage in leadership workshops, community exploration, and intergenerational dialogue. 

    Nuestra Juventud is guided by six key objectives:

    • Educate and Engage: Youth explore systems of collective impact and have opportunities to visit and learn about nonprofits in their communities.
    • Personal Development: Fellows reflect on their own identities, values, and growth.
    • Cultivate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy: Through learning the “Three T’s” of giving—time, talent, and treasure—youth can see themselves as active contributors.
    • Enhance Collaboration: Intergenerational dialogue and teamwork teach youth how to build with others.
    • Empowerment: Youth discover their voices and the impact they can have.
    • Leadership Skills: Training sessions focus on  SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s five practices of leadership, and leadership qualities.

    A cornerstone of the fellowship is the opportunity for each young person to develop their personal mission statement and select a local nonprofit organization that aligns with their values to support with a mini-grant, made possible through the generosity of the Covarrubias–Aprendamos Foundation. Through this process, youth learn not only about the mechanics of philanthropy but also about the importance of aligning one’s actions with deeply held beliefs or values. 

    In the first iteration of the program, our youth chose to award mini-grants to a range of nonprofits spanning services for families and youth, a domestic violence shelter, a community health center, a local arts council, a community faith center, an animal shelter, a children’s literacy group, an immigrant and migrant hospitality and advocacy center, and others. A special highlight for the youth was the opportunity to develop a logo with symbolic meaning to the inaugural group. This logo will be used for the program moving forward.

    Follow the Wisdom of Young Leaders

    From the very first session, youth began discovering their voices and connection to one another. One of the most powerful moments came when several fellows spoke on a youth panel at a regional conference for educators and social workers. Their stories and insights became the highlight of the event, offering powerful reminders of what becomes possible when we trust young people. These reflections speak to the lasting ripple effects of this work. But it wasn’t just the fellows who transformed—mentors, family members, and nonprofit partners shared with me that they’d come to see youth not just as recipients, but as collaborators and visionaries. That shift in perception may be one of the most meaningful outcomes of all. With the permission of the fellows (some of whom prefer to remain anonymous), I share some of their remarks here.

    Youth are not empty vessels waiting to be filled—they’re full of insight born from lived experience. Whether it’s navigating systems, caring for siblings, or advocating for peers, their wisdom is real and necessary.

    1. Trust Young People as Experts of Their Experience

    Youth are not empty vessels waiting to be filled—they’re full of insight born from lived experience. Whether it’s navigating systems, caring for siblings, or advocating for peers, their wisdom is real and necessary.

    Through the first iteration of the program, youth discovered new ways to not only trust their own wisdom, but also put it into action: “I learned that I am not the only one who feels I can do more for our community and the meaningfulness of philanthropy and acts of kindness,” said one participant. Another fellow, Alex, shared, “It takes courage to stand up when you see something wrong. A good leader encourages the heart.”

    2. Recognize Different Kinds of Leadership

    Alexa reminded her peers to “Stay true to what you believe in.” Encouraging youth to lead from who they are, rather than who others expect them to be, is a vital way to nurture their convictions, skills, and dreams.

    One of the greatest lessons from Nuestra Juventud is that leadership doesn’t always look like standing at a podium. Sometimes it’s quiet listening. Sometimes it’s creating space for others. Sometimes it’s saying, “I don’t know, but I want to learn.” As Avery offered, “A leader is someone who is good at listening to others and is understanding of others’ perspectives”—a reminder that authentic leadership is rooted in humility and care.

    3. Celebrate Cultural Identity as a Source of Power

    By centering the cultural backgrounds of participants—Chicana, Indigenous, Afro-Latinx, and more—Nuestra Juventud affirms that cultural knowledge is a leadership asset. Youth reflect on their ancestors, their languages, their lived experiences, and the land itself as sources of strength. As Anelise put it, “I want to lead with my abuelita in my heart.”

    When youth deepen their connection to their own identity, they also gain more confidence to help them understand and communicate across cultures and backgrounds. “I learned how to get out of my comfort zone and talk to new people,” another participant said.

    4. Create Space for Healing

    Many fellows come into the program holding the weight of family challenges, racism, and intergenerational trauma. Through peer circles, storytelling,  mentorship, and opportunities for creativity, they find space to heal. And in healing, they find clarity, courage, and connection.

    Many expressed the desire to continue helping their community after the program ended. Anelise reflected, “A good leader demonstrates compassion with the people they lead.” And in the words of another fellow: “I didn’t know how to be a leader and never considered myself a leader. Now I know I am a leader and can make a difference.” 

    5. Know That We All Have a Role to Play

    Youth benefit from experiencing intergenerational connection and support. As one fellow put it, “I learned how to collaborate with people of all ages and how to share a space with others.” Others shared that they enjoyed having a mentor.

    “Leadership begins with love—for our people, our places, our future generations and the futures we imagine together.” — Manny, youth fellow

    The success of Nuestra Juventud isn’t just about the youth; it’s also about the adults who listen, step back, and support. Community members, mentors, funders, and facilitators show that transformation is collective work.

    As youth fellow Manny said, “My mission is to make my community a better place to live.” It’s a reminder that leadership begins with love—for our people, our places, our future generations and the futures we imagine together.

    5 Ways to Uplift the Next Generation 

    Nuestra Juventud is not just cultivating philanthropy and social responsibility for the future—it’s nurturing the leaders of now and creating communities of hope in Southern New Mexico. Each of these youth fellows is a testament to what’s possible when we trust our youth.

    The wisdom shared by Nuestra Juventud participants makes one thing clear: Young people are ready to lead, but they need us—the adults in their lives—to show up with presence and corazón (a word often used in Chicanx expressions of care and leadership) differently. Here are a few ways we can all support our youth and honor their leadership:

    • Listen With Respect and Curiosity: Create space for youth to speak openly, and listen to them with the intent to understand, not to respond.
    • Mentor Without Controlling: Offer guidance and presence, but let youth lead and make decisions.
    • Invite Youth Into Real Decision-Making: Include them meaningfully in program design, community efforts, and leadership roles.
    • Celebrate Identity, Don’t Erase It: Acknowledge and affirm the cultural backgrounds and lived experiences of our youth.
    • Invest in Youth—Financially and Emotionally: Support programs like Nuestra Juventud and believe in the vision youth hold for their communities. Our collective work is needed for our youth to lead with corazón, culture, and courage.



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  • How to Set an Intention for Your Future

    How to Set an Intention for Your Future

    When we use our imaginations to envision the future life we most hope, we can bring ourselves one step closer to that actual life. This mindfulness practice is called “imagine if.” 

    If you joined me for Module 1, or even if you haven’t, let’s just recap: we’ve explored how to uncover the meaning in our lives, how to touch in with our core values. So, today, I want to build on that and really think about how to set an intention based on the things that are important to us. In order to do that, I always like to begin by taking a moment to arrive. As you’re listening to this, you may be just starting your day or arriving from a busy day. Whatever the circumstances, I always find it really nourishing to just take a moment to allow our mind and heart and body to catch up with one another—inviting all parts of us into the same moment and taking a moment to arrive here.

    How to Set an Intention for Your Future

    Watch the video:

    Listen to the audio:

    Read the practice:

    1. If you’re comfortable, I invite you to close your eyes or simply direct your gaze downward, softening the visual field. Sit or find a comfortable position for your body. Allow your attention to settle. 

    2. Collect your attention and become aware of your body. Feel the places where your feet make contact with the ground or the chair. Tune into the felt sense of your body wherever you find yourself—perhaps sitting in a way that’s alert but relaxed at the same time; sitting in a way that embodies this quality of alertness, of clarity, that we will be practicing today. 

    3. Now gently but firmly gather your attention and direct it towards the sensation of breathing. Note the sense of the air moving in and out of your body. Bring your full, undivided attention in a firm but gentle way to this experience of breathing. 

    4. And just as you are, let’s continue this meditation on intention by considering something you hope for in your life. More specifically, what you may hope your life will look like at some future date and time. It could be near-term: the next six months or a year; or longer-term: three years, five years, 10 years. Choose whatever time horizon is useful for you at this moment.

    5. Now, really consider what you envision for your life, with vividness and clarity. I invite you to imagine you living your best life. And to take this further, I’d like you to imagine you living your best life in a way as though it’s already happened. So, what are you hoping for? Imagine it’s five years from now, or 10, and you’re living your best life. What does that look like? Let’s pause here and really envision what this future life looks like. Who are you? What are you doing? Who is there with you? What conditions exist, what circumstances? 

    6. Continuing now, call into your mind and heart and sense in your body what it feels like to be living this future life that you most hope for. The easiest way to envision this is to simply imagine what it would feel like. What would it feel like to be living this future life? 

    7. As we end this meditation I invite you to take a few deeper breaths at your own pace. And then rejoin: Open your eyes, if you have your eyes closed. 

    Reflecting on your intention practice:

    So, this is really an exercise in “imagine if.” And again, this is part of an intention-setting exercise. And the reason I’m inviting you to envision a future life that you most hope for is because imagining it, and thinking and acting as though we’ve already experienced it, we can bring ourselves one step closer to that actual life. If that doesn’t seem clear, here’s another simple prompt you can either use as a meditation or reflection, or you can write or journal about. It’s a kind of fill-in-the-blank: I am living my best life, and I am ….

    If there’s something that you’re hoping for—a change, a difference in your life—begin with that. An example of this reflection would be: It is three years from now, and I’m living my best life, and I am …. I invite you to fill in that blank. 

    It’s 10 years from now, I am living my best life, and I am writing and teaching—that would be mine. And I am a published author of three books.

    So I invite you to try this out for yourself: imagine your future life because this is the intention-setting exercise at the heart of this module. 

    I invite those who aren’t writing to just meditate on that prompt. And if you’re comfortable writing, please go ahead and take a minute or so and write this out: I’m living my best life and I am …. Fill in the blank. 

    Continue that reflection by considering how you feel. What does it feel like in this future place? Write that down, or inhabit that feeling. What are you doing? How do you feel? What’s happening in this best version of your life?

    Just remember this vision, this felt sense, as we end the reflection. If you’re doing this as a meditation, take a couple of deep breaths at your own pace and then rejoin us. 

    Thank you for that thought exercise, that meditation. This is intention-setting: imagining the way forward and setting the intention around it. I specifically wanted to invite you to reflect on your own life, perhaps your life and work, and then consider how all of this would look in the best life you could hope for—and then, write it down. Or you can really get clear on the qualities of that best life and then live your way forward into that life. That is the intention-setting invitation. Have a great day.



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  • 7 Creative Family Gratitude Practices That Make Appreciation Meaningful and Accessible

    7 Creative Family Gratitude Practices That Make Appreciation Meaningful and Accessible

    You’re sitting around the dinner table with your family after a long day. Homework is scattered across one end, someone’s still chewing the last bite of dinner, and you ask the question… 

    “What are you grateful for today?”

    Without even looking up, your oldest mumbles something about video games. Your youngest shrugs. The silence stretches just long enough to feel awkward before someone asks to be excused.

    Children need to see gratitude in action to really grasp the idea. They need to experience it with us. Only then does gratitude become real for our kids—when we live it together.

    We can’t expect our children to understand gratitude just because we ask them about it. The question itself falls flat because it’s abstract and repetitive. Kids end up saying the same things over and over (“my family,” “our house,” and “my dog”), and what could be a meaningful practice becomes just another item to check off before leaving the table. 

    Children need to see gratitude in action to really grasp the idea. They need to experience it with us. Only then does gratitude become real for our kids—when we live it together.

    Why Starting Family Gratitude Practices Early Matters

    There’s something powerful about introducing gratitude when children are young. Their minds are like sponges, absorbing everything around them—the good, the challenging, and everything in between. When we weave gratitude into their early years, we’re creating neural pathways that support resilience and emotional well-being throughout their lives.

    Early gratitude practice can shape how children see the world. It teaches them to notice the good alongside the hard, to appreciate the helpers in their lives, and to find joy in small moments. Research shows that gratitude contributes substantially to individual well-being, strengthens relationships, and helps people navigate adversity with greater resilience.

    And children are naturally receptive to new practices. While adults might struggle to shift ingrained patterns of thinking, kids can more easily develop habits that become second nature, especially when those activities are  fun, engaging, and done together as a family.

    The Power of Practicing Gratitude Together

    Kids learn by watching us. When we model appreciation (not just talking about it but actually living it) our children see what gratitude looks like in real life. Practicing gratitude together means actively engaging with each other, noticing the good in our lives, and celebrating it as a family. 

    By doing so, we’re building individual resilience in each family member while simultaneously deepening our relationships with one another. We develop a shared language of appreciation that helps our family navigate challenges, stress, and uncertainty as a team.

    The good news? This change doesn’t require hours of practice or complicated strategies. It just requires showing up together with intention and a willingness to notice the good.

    7 Creative Family Gratitude Practices

    So how do we move beyond the abstract question of “What are you grateful for?” and into practices that actually resonate with kids? The key is making gratitude something families do together rather than just talk about.

    Look for practices that are:

    • Part of daily life: Focus on real people, moments, and experiences that fill your days.
    • Concrete and tangible: Kids can see, touch, or create something related to their gratitude.
    • Fun and engaging: When practices feel playful, children (and parents!) want to do them.
    • Quick and simple: Keep it to five minutes or less, because who has endless time?
    • Varied and interesting: Different practices keep gratitude fresh and exciting.

    Each of the following seven practices focus on a different aspect of appreciation, from celebrating the people in our lives to noticing everyday comforts we often overlook. Try one that resonates with your family or rotate through them to mix things up!

    1. Family Appreciation Photo Walk

    Take a brief weekly walk together where each family member takes “mental photos” of things that remind them of someone they love. Maybe a certain flower reminds your daughter of Grandma’s garden, or a basketball hoop makes your son think of his best friend. As you walk, use your hands like a camera viewfinder and say, “Click!” to capture the moment in your mind. When you return home or gather for dinner, share your mental photos and explain the connections.

    Tip: Want to extend the practice? Bring a real camera along so you can capture and share actual photos later, talking about why each image reminded you of someone special.

    2. Helper Hero Cards

    Invite your kids to create simple thank-you cards for people who helped them during the week. These might be teachers, bus drivers, siblings, neighbors, or anyone who lent a hand. Include drawings, stickers, or just a few heartfelt words. Then deliver them together. This practice makes gratitude tangible and teaches children to notice helpful actions in their daily lives. 

    Tip: Keep a stack of blank cards or paper readily available so kids can create these spontaneously in the moment when a feeling of gratitude strikes.

    3. Mirror Moments

    This thirty-second daily practice is simple but powerful. Have your child look in the mirror and say one thing they’re proud of about themselves. It might be, “I was kind to my sister today” or, “I tried really hard in soccer practice.” The key? Parents should model this, too. Kids love (and need) to see adults appreciate themselves. This builds self-compassion, self-esteem, and confidence—for the whole family. 

    Tip: Make it part of your family’s routine by doing it right before or after everyone brushes their teeth in the morning or at bedtime.

    4. Memory Jar Magic

    Keep a jar in a common area of your home along with small pieces of paper and pens. Encourage family members to write down a favorite moment and drop it in the jar each day. These might be big moments (“Dad came to my recital!”) or tiny ones (“The dog made a funny face”). On tough weeks or at the end of each month, read them together and re-live the joy. This creates anticipation for good moments and helps families hold on to happiness during stressful times. 

    Tip: Decorate your jar together to make it special or use different colored papers for each family member.

    Make it a family practice to genuinely acknowledge and thank the community helpers you encounter during your regular routines. When you’re out running errands together, pause to thank the grocery store cashier, wave to the mail carrier, or say good morning to the crossing guard. The key is doing this together as a family so kids see you modeling appreciation and learn that gratitude can be woven into everyday moments. At dinner, share who you thanked that day and why their work matters.

    Tip: Challenge younger kids to remember one helper they want to thank on your next outing. Make it a game to spot and appreciate people who make your community work.

    6. Nature Gratitude Ritual

    Step outside together into your backyard or a nearby park, or even just look out a window. Each person should try to find one thing in nature they appreciate right now. Maybe it’s the way sunlight filters through leaves, a bird’s song, or the smell of fresh air. Share your discoveries without phones or distractions. Stay fully present with each other and the natural world. This practice works in any season and any weather! 

    Tip: Younger children might enjoy collecting their gratitude finds (a special rock, interesting leaf, or pinecone) to keep as a reminder of their appreciation for nature.

    7. Gratitude Detective Game

    Turn gratitude into a playful detective game where everyone searches for everyday things we usually overlook. Challenge your family: “I spy with my grateful eye… something that keeps us warm!” (blankets, the heater, or cozy sweaters). Take turns being the detective who gives clues about everyday comforts while others guess. Play during dinner, car rides, or before bed. This helps families appreciate the invisible infrastructure of daily life, such as running water, electricity, safe roads, and working appliances—in a fun, engaging way.

    Tip: Keep score if your kids are competitive or make it collaborative by seeing how many “gratitude clues” your family can come up with together in five minutes.

    Starting Your Family’s Gratitude Journey 

    Building gratitude practices when children are young gives them tools for lifelong resilience and emotional well-being. It shows them how to notice goodness even during challenging times, how to appreciate the people and moments that make life rich, and how to stay connected to what matters most.

    When families practice gratitude together, we create shared experiences that strengthen our bonds and help us navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs as a team. Remember, the goal here is connection, not perfection. You don’t need to do all seven practices, or even multiple practices. Even one practice done regularly makes a real difference. 

    Start with whichever one resonates most with your family right now. Try it for a week or two and see what happens! Through this simple act of practicing gratitude together, you’re shaping how your children see the world. That perspective will serve them throughout their entire lives!

    And that’s worth celebrating.



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  • What’s Good About Being You: How Mindfulness Helps You Get to Know Yourself

    What’s Good About Being You: How Mindfulness Helps You Get to Know Yourself

    The Connection Between Presence and Knowing

    The sitting practice of meditation is a powerful means to get to know yourself, to introduce yourself to yourself. Meditation is a discipline, a technique to transcend technique. You sit down on a cushion or a chair and simply experience yourself: your body, your breath, and your thoughts. You just be there, very simply.

    There are several aspects to meditation that are part of establishing friendship with yourself. One is mindfulness. Mindfulness is keeping track, or keeping a pulse, of being here, in a nonjudgmental way. There is no good or bad. Everything is allowed to be. Among other things, mindfulness is a stabilizing or pacifying influence. The panic of everyday life and every expectation laid on life can subside. This is a huge relief. It is called the discovery of peace.

    Awareness is being in a bigger space, recognizing that there is always an environment around our thoughts and feelings. When you begin to sense that atmosphere, there is both intelligence, or sharpness, and relaxation.

    Finding peace in the practice of meditation involves slowing down. Physically, you call a halt. You park your body somewhere, and you stay put. Your mind may continue to race for a while, maybe for a long time, but you become aware of the mind racing. Awareness is being in a bigger space, recognizing that there is always an environment around our thoughts and feelings. When you begin to sense that atmosphere, there is both intelligence, or sharpness, and relaxation. You begin to see things much more precisely and your native intelligence begins to awaken.

    The Courage to Be Aware

    Becoming more aware is a very courageous thing to do. You allow yourself to look honestly at your experience. And that solid sense of self—of who you are—is revealed as being not so solid. You begin to experience gaps, holes in your suit of armor. You realize that you are really more like Swiss cheese than Cheddar.

    When you are there, just there, without trying to hold everything solidly together, you also begin to find that you don’t need to sustain a storyline about yourself and your life. Who is it for anyway?

    When you are there, just there, without trying to hold everything solidly together, you also begin to find that you don’t need to sustain a storyline about yourself and your life. Who is it for anyway? You can afford to relax with yourself, get to know yourself. You don’t have to put on makeup for yourself; you don’t have to put on a smile. You can leave the mental toupee on the shelf and like yourself just as you are.

    There is something genuinely good about being you. You may not like every little thing about yourself, but overall you have an honest heart and you can connect with it through the practice of meditation. You have the courage to face yourself. From that connection with yourself and from actually liking yourself without conditions, you begin to see how brilliant and available life can be when it is without preconceptions or adornments.

    As you open yourself to yourself, you become more aware of the world you’re living in. The development of awareness here is a bit like having cataracts removed, or getting a hearing aid: you didn’t know your vision was so obscured until you finally see a brilliant yellow daffodil in the field. You couldn’t hear the first bird of spring singing in the meadow. You couldn’t taste the bitter onion flavor of chives by the stream. You didn’t see the face of your beloved, until you ran right into him. Then suddenly you begin to feel your world. You begin to understand love in an entirely new way.

    Noticing the Hall of Mirrors

    At that point, as you become more open, you also may begin to see where you’re stuck, how you’re often living in a hall of mirrors that you create for yourself. You see your speed and how that has produced panic. We may actually recognize and experience ourselves as the monkey bouncing off the walls in our house of mirrors. What you’re bouncing off of is often simply the reflections that you project. When you bounce off yourself, this can take the form of self-hatred or it can be twisted into some kind of false arrogance and pride. Unfortunately, your dearest friends, lovers, relatives, and partners are often the mirrors you project your reflections onto most intensely.

    We demand a lot from intimacy, often more than it can possibly deliver. We ask ourselves and our closest friends to confirm us by reflecting some things and not others. Essentially, we ask, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” And we expect the answer, “You, my love!” This a burden to others and to us, and ultimately it doesn’t work. The mirrors crack.

    If you want to live in a hall of mirrors, this is a disaster. If you’re willing to find a true relationship with yourself and others, this is welcome relief from your self-imposed isolation. It reveals the tremendous space that is there when the myth of satisfaction is seen to be a fraud.

    Facing reality is not creating something new. It’s allowing a barrier to dissolve.

    Over the course of time, if we are committed to meditation as an ongoing practice, then it can provide us with this honest feedback. Although we might try to filter information, if we sit long enough, reality wells up in us and breaks through. This is inevitable, because it is just discovering what is there and we can’t block what is there forever. Facing reality is not creating something new. It’s allowing a barrier to dissolve. It unlocks in us the power of loving-kindness and is the beginning of real warmth toward ourselves and others.



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  • Setting Intentions and How to Manifest Your Deepest Desires

    Setting Intentions and How to Manifest Your Deepest Desires

    If you want to be successful at anything, whether it’s being a more relaxed parent, quitting smoking, or running a marathon, setting an intention—and then concentrating on it mindfully—will give you the focus to help turn your dream into reality. Our culture often uses the terms goal and intention interchangeably. But they actually aren’t the same. In reality, intentions are the things that should be leading the way, and that’s why it’s essential that when you’re setting intentions, you’re aligned with your deepest, truest self.

    Intentions help you stay oriented toward your goal when strong emotions, exhaustion, boredom, or distraction threaten to throw you off course. Intentions connect deeply to your true heart’s desire, to what really matters to you, and use that rudder to set your course forward. 

    An intention isn’t a wish or a fantasy. It isn’t a proclamation of who or how you think you should be. It comes from truly listening to what’s important for you to feel most alive and, well, yourself. 

    Not an intention: I want to lose 25 pounds and fit into my old jeans. 

    Intention: I am listening deeply to my body’s desire to be healthy and active, and my heart’s desire to feel vibrant and whole. 

    We offer ourselves the greatest potential for easing our own suffering.

    Here’s where mindfulness plays an essential role. When we take the time to tune into ourselves, to learn our inner landscape, it’s easier to discern our truth from fantasy. It’s like when you investigate a sudden craving. Is it that your body needs chips right this minute to function, or are you looking for a distraction (a crunchy, salty, flavor-bomb of one) while you nervously await word from your publisher about your manuscript?

    Perhaps what you really want is to have fulfilling, creative, intellectually stimulating work, own a home you love, where friends and family will come to visit and where you have a place to garden, or learn to manage your stress better, and feel more grounded and happy. 

    From this place of deep knowing, you can craft a plan to achieve what you’ve identified. And when you veer off track—you’re tempted by the mind-numbing job because you’re scared no one else will hire you; you contemplate spending all your savings on a trip to Paris; or find yourself (again) stress-eating at 9 p.m.—you have something real and true to anchor you.  

    Saying Yes to Commitment

    Change isn’t easy. But it’s often exactly what’s needed. Knowing what really matters to us, and setting an intention that helps create the circumstances for that desire to flourish, also makes it far easier to commit to changing behavior or habits that keep us from our goal. 

    After mindfully reflecting on my experience with my stepdaughter, I realized that my deepest desire was to have a warmer relationship with her. I set the intention to be loving and warm toward her, as I am with other people I care deeply for. On a recent visit, when I felt myself becoming cranky and brittle, I recalled my intention. In an instant, I saw the extraneous stuff that wasn’t contributing to greater love or warmth but instead lessening my resolve to keep my intention. I recommitted to what I really wanted, not to the random thoughts and feelings that were triggered by, say, my low blood sugar or my petulance. And because it mattered—this is how I want to live—that commitment felt invigorating, and was easy. The rest of the day went beautifully.  

    Two things here speak to the power of intention: When you know what’s important to you, and you intend to honor that, your intention is an alarm that goes off when you forget what really matters. Then you can choose to chart a different way forward.  

    Saying No to Resolutions

    You may want to lose weight, get your real estate license, or be a better listener—but if you don’t know why you want this, you will quickly lose motivation and fall back into your old habits. However, discomfort and resistance are no longer insurmountable obstacles when we know what we really want and recommit to it again and again.

    I’ve never been able to diet. But I have managed to control my diabetes by setting the intention to stay alive through changing the way I eat. I tell people, “I’m not on a diet. I just don’t want to die-yet.” Once I focused on my intention of staying alive, eating healthfully was a breeze. 

    Intention can also, simply, help you align your values with the way you live your life, in ways big and small. Without it, life can feel a bit like a pinball machine, slinging you about, miserable, confused, never satisfied with what you have because you don’t know what you really want. In this way, intention becomes less about making wishes come true; it’s really about honoring who you are. 



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