A letter from Mindful Magazine’s 2026 Editor, Amber Tucker.
I read a quote recently that spoke to me, and to a key idea in this edition of Mindful: “We do not have to live as if we are alone.” (That’s writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry, quoted in writer and teacher Sebene Selassie’s Substack newsletter, Remind Me to Love.) I know I’m not the only person who feels alone, sometimes, in long hours hunkered over a desk, grasping for a sense of gosh-darn interconnectedness.
At the same time, making a magazine is an inherently (and at the best of times, a joyfully) collaborative endeavor. Countless tiny yet critical steps involving dozens, even hundreds of people around the world, all counting on one another’s skills, knowledge, and dedication. Having worked at Mindful for more than seven years, I remain in awe of the ecosystem that brought into being the Trust Yourself issue you’re reading now.
Like a healthy relationship, a meaningful project requires trust in others, and trust in ourselves. There’s a generative power in that. Trust that we’re more resilient than the sore back or disgruntled thoughts or horrific headlines or aching heart that may, right now, be overwhelming. Remember that we’re in this together, our feet planted firmly. As meditation teacher and author Kimberly Brown says, in Stephanie Domet’s article: “It does take time to become intimate with your body and your mind and become friendly with it. But when you can let yourself become familiar, then you can also start to trust.”
The stories in these pages explore trust from numerous angles. Sue Hutton shares science-backed strategies to honor your unique brain wiring, while Misty Pratt investigates why the brain craves certainty and how to lessen anxiety about the unknown. Mara Gulens reckons with the grief of a changing body—maybe an unexpected path to wholeness. Sharon Ross extols the art of a simple invitation to help us break through loneliness and nurture community. And if you’re ready for a fresh start with mindfulness (at any age or experience level), turn to page 12 for a week’s worth of audio meditations, and to page 75 for a guide to your own daily practice: essential to becoming more familiar and friendly with you.
I hope this issue of Mindful adds tools to your kit for this lifelong adventure of returning to ourselves and to one another. Amidst the chaos and pain and love of being alive, we are all we truly have. May we all find our way to trust in that.
Step away from the noise and return to what matters. The 2026 Mindful Retreat Guide curates a thoughtful selection of mindfulness retreats from around the world, chosen for their depth, integrity, and respect for both inner practice and place. Whether you’re seeking silence, nature, community, or renewal, this guide is designed to help you find a retreat experience that truly supports reflection, restoration, and meaningful time offline.
This week, mindfulness teacher Vanessa Hutchinson-Szekely shares a tender meditation for those in the middle of pain.
Sometimes seasons of intense suffering show up in our lives—no warning, no easy answers.
This week, mindfulness teacher Vanessa Hutchinson-Szekely shares a tender meditation for those experiencing pain. Based on her own experience with an extended episode of chronic back pain, she offers a moment of reprieve and caring attention to release tension and open to the possibility of joy.
A Meditation for Easing Pain and Inviting Joy
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Take a moment to settle in wherever you are. You might be lying down, sitting comfortably, or even supported by pillows or blankets. Allow your body to find stillness. Allow your mind to arrive.
Take a deep breath in through your nose. And a long exhale through your mouth. Inhale slowly, feeling your body expand. Exhale, letting go of anything you’ve been holding on to today. A space to soften, to breathe, to be with yourself in kindness. Continue at your own pace to take a couple more deep breaths in through your nose, and then to exhale slowly through your mouth.
Notice how your body feels right now without judgment, without needing to fix anything. Maybe there’s a place that feels tight, inflamed or achy. Maybe you feel tired or heavy. Whatever it is, let it be here. We’re not fighting the pain, we’re meeting it with awareness.
Now with each inhale, imagine you’re breathing in a soft golden light. And with each exhale, you’re releasing tension like a mist gently leaving your body. Continue to breathe, picturing that golden light coming in and washing all over you, and with each breath out more and more tension is released. Now feel that golden light travel through your body. From the top of your head across your face, softening your eyes, your jaw, your neck. Let your shoulders drop away from your ears. Unclench the muscles across your back.
Now let the light move down your arms through your elbows, wrists, hands, and fingertips. Breathe into your chest. Feel your ribs expand, your heart open. Let your belly rise and fall gently, your breath like waves at the shore. Let that golden light move through your hips and down your legs through your knees, your calves, your ankles, and all the way to your toes. Your whole body is bathed in light, breathing, releasing, softening.
Now bring your attention to the area that’s been calling for care where the pain lives most strongly. Breathe gently into that space. Imagine the air reaching every cell that needs relief. You’re not trying to push the pain away, you’re surrounding it with love, with breath, with presence. Visualize a soft light, perhaps golden, perhaps warm rose or calming blue, cradling that part of your body. You might even whisper quietly to yourself, I’m here with you. You are safe. You are healing.
Now let’s shift our focus to sensations that bring joy. Think of something that makes your heart feel light. Maybe it’s a favorite place—the ocean, a mountain trail, a cafe, your cozy bed. Maybe it’s a sound—laughter, birds, a song that always lifts you up. Or perhaps it’s a taste, like warm bread, ripe berries, tea with honey.
Let one joyful image take center stage. See it clearly, feel it in your body, notice any warmth in your chest, a softening in your shoulders, a hint of a smile forming. That is joy. That’s your body remembering wellness. Now send that joy throughout your body to the places that feel good and the places that need healing. Let joy move through you like sunlight melting through ice. Repeat softly in your mind, I send love and light throughout my body. I am more than my pain. I am whole.
Take a deep breath in exhale fully. Now bring to mind one thing you feel grateful for today, big or small. Maybe your breath, maybe a friend, maybe the courage to press play on this meditation. As you breathe, let that gratitude expand, filling your body from the inside out. Feel that gratitude travel beyond your body, radiating out like ripples in a pond to your loved ones, your community, the world, and quietly repeat, May I be well. May others who are suffering find ease. May peace grow in me.
Now imagine your whole body surrounded by shimmering light, a cocoon of healing energy that holds you in safety. This light is gentle yet powerful. It’s recalibrating every part of your mind, body and heart. You are safe. You are loved, you are whole. Let your body soften into this knowing. Let yourself rest here for a few breaths.
As we close, take one final deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Inhale love. Exhale gratitude. Inhale peace. Exhale tension. Inhale light. Exhale release. As you slowly bring your awareness back to the room, remember you are not your pain. You are the light that shines beneath it, and that light is always there, ready to guide you back to joy. Thank you for showing up for yourself today. May your body rest, may your heart be light. And may you walk forward in peace.
In June 2023 New York Mayor Eric Adams announced a new policy that would go into effect that fall. Every morning every public school student would engage in two to five minutes of mindful breathing unless they chose to opt out. At a time when the youth mental health crisis was a major news story, this seemed like a win. Research had suggested that mindfulness could have a beneficial impact on adolescent anxiety and depression. Now the more than one million students in NYC public schools would be getting a daily dose of it.
Yet to those in the mindfulness world, the reaction was nuanced. While mindfulness can be a powerful tool, it is one that is typically taught by experienced practitioners. Asking overwhelmed teachers to add another lesson to their plate on a topic they might not have familiarity with had the potential to backfire. Programming that is implemented by burnt out educators going through the motions with bored students is not usually a recipe for success.
Asking overwhelmed teachers to add another lesson to their plate on a topic they might not have familiarity with had the potential to backfire.
Weighing Positives and Negatives
As a PE teacher and Mindfulness Director at a PK-8 school in Massachusetts, I had my concerns from afar. I’m well aware of my own skills and limitations. If, for example, research revealed the benefits of singing, and there were a mandate to practice if for a few minutes at the start of every class, my lack of expertise would result in some seriously out of tune kiddos. There is a reason people are encouraged to teach to their strengths.
Kimberly Daniels, a School Counselor and Mindfulness Director at The Greenwich Village School in Manhattan, saw the mandate as a positive step at first. Both Daniels and I worked with WholeSchool Mindfulness to integrate the position of Mindfulness Director at our respective schools. I wanted to get her take as someone who understands the benefits of bringing mindfulness to schools and as an expert on the thoughtful, research-backed implementation of these practices.
“Initially, I was like, that’s actually really good,” said Daniels. “It’s being seen as something all schools should be doing. It’s a strange thing to mandate, but if it’s bringing awareness to all New York City public schools, that could be a good thing.”
Asking More of Already-Overwhelmed Teachers
The reaction among teachers, however, was more of a mixed bag. “I think a lot of teachers were rolling their eyes because it was one more thing they were being mandated to do,” said Daniels.
Once the program got underway, Daniels was able to be a thought partner with teachers at her school and provide resources and ideas. “When it first rolled out, I talked about it at a professional development session at my school,” recalled Daniels. “We were able to come up with different things that teachers could do in the classroom. A lot of teachers really loved the idea of mindful coloring.” However, her position is a rarity in the public school system, and other schools lacked the support of an educator trained in the discipline.
Is There Needed Support?
The other major issue was the overall lack of accountability and support from the Department of Education. It is one thing to announce a mandate and then provide training, resources, and professional development on the subject, as might happen with the introduction of a new math curriculum. It is quite another to issue a mandate without any plan for following through and supporting teachers.
Such a mandate may serve more as a form of wellness washing: allowing the powers-that-be to gain positive press and check a box without actually creating effectual change. Is it a coincidence that Mayor Adams’ federal corruption investigation came to light only a few months after this announcement? In the end, this kind of empty mandate only serves to promote the interests of the administrators and politicians who can claim such initiatives as feathers in their cap while a generation of students becomes alienated by half-hearted wellness measures.
Such a mandate may serve more as a form of wellness washing: allowing the powers-that-be to gain positive press and check a box without actually creating effectual change.
Additionally, unsupported initiatives like these don’t take into account the potential pitfalls of mindfulness practice in environments not suited to it, such as unintended trauma responses. There is evidence that mindfulness practices can trigger trauma, and a classroom teacher who is forced to teach it might not have the requisite training or experience to recognize and respond to students who are in distress because of practice.
In addition, if a teacher is not bought into mindfulness programming but has to introduce it anyways, they might do so in a way that stokes apathy in the practice rather than interest. As a basketball coach, I certainly wouldn’t want people who don’t have a passion for the game to be tasked with introducing to students, but that is precisely the case with mindfulness. Students who first encounter practice in a classroom setting where it is being rolled out without enthusiasm or knowledge might sour on it pretty quickly.
What Now?
So what would be a better approach? Daniels believes a much more lasting impact would come from the adoption of an Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum with a focus on mindfulness. An SEL curriculum includes programs and lessons designed to help students develop “soft” skills that are actually essential for healthy functioning in relationships and in the world—things like managing emotions, setting goals, showing empathy, building positive relationships, and making responsible decisions.
“If you don’t have your own mindfulness practice and it’s not something you’ve ever been interested in, I think it can be daunting for teachers,” said Daniels. “But if it were an actual curriculum that you’re properly trained in, that would have way more of an impact than than two to five minutes of mindfulness per day.”
Mindfulness is an incredible tool for stoking awareness. Yet it can’t be just a means of wellness washing, and requires the same pedagogical mastery as any other discipline, whether it be art, chemistry, or social studies. All of those disciplines are taught by educators trained in a specific philosophy or curriculum.
Despite the potential benefits of mindfulness being more accessible and widely disseminated, the reach may not be worth the risk without follow up, support, and training for teachers. In the end, to be most effective, mindfulness practice must be implemented thoughtfully by those with experience in the discipline. In other words, we need to be mindful about mindfulness programming.
Have you noticed that we are writing by hand less and less these days? Sometimes it’s just a signature with a blunt stylus at the grocery store, or your finger signing crudely on a credit card pay screen. Handwriting certainly looks like a dying form, as we type away merrily on our keyboards, responding to emails that fly off in all directions.
Is this withering away of handwriting a problem? Or is it the inevitable unfolding of language forms evolving over the centuries, from oral to written to printed, and now electronic? Before we dash headlong forward, let’s slow down for a moment and consider the role that writing by hand plays.
An Art Form Worth Reviving
I believe that handwriting still serves a deep purpose in our lives and that letting it fade away will be a loss to our spirit. Precisely because it is no longer essential for communication, handwriting can now be free to express its true nature as an embodied practice of creative expression, a synchronization of mind and body. Handwriting need not fold up and die. It can rise again as the original artistic act, unique to each of us, available to all, and really close at hand.
Before writing, humans made marks. They were drawn in the sand, painted on cave walls, carved on rocks. The making of these marks grew out of a deep desire to connect with the power of the world. By drawing the tree, the bison, the moon, an understanding occurred, an energy touched. (Anyone who draws is familiar with this.)
Our alphabet evolved out of these drawings—of an ox, a fish, a hand, a hook, a house, a cave. These forms were passed along, the original images becoming simplified in the handling. By 1200 BCE, an alphabet of 22 letters emerged with the Phoenician traders and evolved over time into the Roman letters. This syllabic system was efficient for commerce. It also remained a magical portal linking the inner voice with the outer world, bringing thoughts into form through the movement of the hand and stylus on the page.
Our Brains Like It When We Write By Hand
A recent article in the New York Times (“What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades”) described a study at Indiana University where children who had not yet learned to read or write were asked to draw a letter freehand, then trace it from a dotted outline, and then press the correct key on the computer. The researchers were amazed to see that the brain activity from the freehand drawing action was stronger, firing off in three different areas, while the tracing and typing motions barely stimulated the brain at all.
The article went on say that apparently children who handwrite are able to generate ideas more easily, and that older students seem to retain information better when they take lecture notes by hand. There is something about the messiness of writing, its variable nature, that wakes us up, fires the synapses, brings us to the task at hand. That ancient way of understanding the world through drawing is still at work in the process of writing by hand. It turns out it’s the imperfection and changeableness of how we write that sparks our creative flow.
Writing By Hand as a Mindfulness Practice
Whether you enjoy your handwriting, or are embarrassed and uncomfortable with it, getting on the page each day with some “slow writing” can open your channels of creativity and keep them humming.
This is a practice of seeing ourselves through how we write, allowing our handwriting, and ourselves, to be unique, quirky, imperfect—and appreciated.
This is not about improving your handwriting, anymore than meditation is about improving your character (though both may happen as a side benefit!). It’s a practice of seeing ourselves through how we write, allowing our handwriting, and ourselves, to be unique, quirky, imperfect—and appreciated.
When I write by hand, I come under the spell of the forms and the magic and mystery of who I am and how I show up in this world—the confused, shaky self, the graceful easy moments, or the part that doesn’t know what to say next. The letters are the marks left behind, the tracks of my inner journey through this life.
When I write by hand, the familiar shapes tumble out and make new combinations. But it is something about the physical act—the holding of the hand and pen—that is meditative, bringing me into the present. The body sensations are the foundation—the ache, the touch, the softness of the paper. The moving line is the breath that keeps flowing along. And the words that show up on the page are the thoughts taking shape, the weather appearing on the horizon.
It is this physical aspect of writing—the sitting down and listening through the body, the hand, the pen—that can bring forth something substantial and true. Each shape, each word, is an expression of how the world is living in me. When I write by hand, I keep going all the way to the end of the page, enjoying the sensual touch of it all, the way the letters link and dance and skip along, my fingers waiting expectantly for the next pulse, the next wave, the next thought showing up, ready to be described. Handwriting is the reporter, giving form to it all, grounded in the past, amazed and present to this moment.
Embracing Both Old and New
I’m not suggesting we abandon our computers and return to pen and paper. (Though taking the time to write a thoughtful handwritten letter can be a really nourishing activity.) I’m as involved as anyone with the ever-expanding world of online information.
What I am proposing is that handwriting can become a contemplative practice, a generator of insight, a deepening down activity that counterbalances the vast, rapidly moving electronic world we’re bathed in. Handwriting is a powerfully simple way to bring natural creativity and connection back into our lives. It is an act of wholeness.
Practice: Put Pen to Paper
Sit down with a couple sheets of paper in front of you and a pen that you like to write with. Feel your body, your fingers holding the pen, your hand resting on the paper, your arm ready to guide, your feet on the floor or your back resting on the seat.
At the top of the page write the words, “When I write by hand,” and then notice what shows up in your mind next. It could be a memory from childhood of learning to write—or an aching in your fingers in this moment—or something about the sound of the pen touching, pausing, moving along on the page. Describe whatever it is, following the associations until you come to a pause in your thoughts.
Write the prompt again, “When I write by hand . . . ” and head off, letting the words tumble out, not concerned with making full sentences or perfect punctuation or spelling. Sit stable. Let your writing slow down. See how the forms change with this shift of speed. Notice how you’re feeling.
Fill up two sheets of paper, or write for 10 minutes, then read what has come through. Where did you start? Where did you end up? You’re involved in an age-old act of bringing the loftiness of thought—what the ancient Chinese called “heaven”—down to the practicality of “earth.” Joining “heaven and earth” through human expression is the essence of art.
I’ll never forget a holiday moment a few years ago, when I found myself in a negotiation with my younger daughter over her gift list. In theory, I’ve never wanted my kids to make lists of things they want for Christmas and Hanukkah. But we did “go see Santa” when they were younger, and they did prepare to ask him for a gift, so I’ve never really put my money where my mouth is.
Anyway, my daughter was in the back of the car rattling off all the things she wanted for Christmas, excitedly, as though it were a done deal and she would soon be receiving everything she ever hoped for.
And I was anxiously trying to do damage control. I explained that Santa only brings one toy (“Nah-ah, Mom, he brought Ella THREE last year!”). Santa can’t bring live animals (she passionately wanted a live llama). And if your grandparents get you Uggs instead of Payless knock-offs, you won’t get any other presents from them (economic logic lost on a seven-year-old).
I thought I was going to lose my mind. I’d been trying to create special holiday traditions that foster positive emotions like gratitude and altruism—traditions that would bring meaning, connection, and positive memories. And it all seemed to be falling on deaf ears. My children had wish-lists longer than they were tall. Even my parents were fighting me on going to church Christmas Eve, because they thought it would cut into the gift exchange.
I know I’m not alone; nearly all of my coaching clients have expressed similar dismay. So if we don’t want our children to be whipped into a consumer frenzy, and we value other things, why does this happen, year after year?
One answer, of course, is that on some level our society has come to believe that our economy depends on a gift giving extravaganza, and that the holidays wouldn’t be fun without all the gifts. I’ve been reflecting on this, and on the other forces at work this time of year. Here’s why I think we want, want, want so much stuff come the holidays.
Why Holidays Are About “Wanting” Stuff
1. We systematically confuse gratification, which is fleeting, with real joy or lasting happiness.
It’s a complex concept for a seven-year-old (and sometimes, for a 37-year-old): We can feel gratified when we get something new—we might even get a hit of pleasure—but that gratification isn’t really the same thing as happiness.
Think of how gratitude feels—or compassion, inspiration, or awe. Think of how you feel when you are madly in love with your new baby, or amorous towards your longtime spouse. Those are deep positive emotions—and to me, they’re the positive emotions that are at the foundation of a happy life.
Gratification still feels good. It is central to our brain’s reward and motivation systems. But when we confuse it with actual happiness, we think that we can’t really be happy—or that our kids won’t be happy—without all the gifts and shopping.
2. Our brains are hardwired to pursue rewards. Happiness is a reward. It’s not that we aren’t built to pursue happiness, because we are.
But the key word here is pursue: Our brain’s built-in reward system motivates us toward all the carrots, large and small, that are dangling out there. We’ll pursue anything that seems like a reward, and our kids will, too.
When our brain identifies a possible reward, it releases a powerful neurotransmitter called dopamine. That dopamine rush propels us toward the reward. Dopamine creates a very real desire for the carrot dangled in front of us.
It makes us more susceptible to other temptations as well, which is why when we decide that we want a cashmere sweater, that cookie over there suddenly looks pretty good, and so do those cute Pottery Barn dishes. High dopamine levels amplify the appeal of immediate gratification (which is why you suddenly can’t stop checking your email), and makes us less concerned about long-term consequences (like your credit card bill).
Unfortunately, our brain doesn’t distinguish between rewards that actually will make us happier and the things that won’t. Dopamine just motivates us to chase them all. In that way, we are wired to want all kinds of things.
3. All the carrots being dangled out there are dizzying.
They don’t call it neuro-marketing for nothing—believe me, the advertisers know how to stimulate that dopamine rush in our children.
And how does a kid pursue a reward in December? They put it on their wish-list, then endlessly nag us until we break down and concede that, yes, sometimes Santa does bring more than one gift. Or that every night of Hanukkah can bring a “little something.”
So when our kids seem greedy or materialistic at this time of year, it doesn’t mean that we’ve failed to instill good values in them, or that they are spoiled and bratty. It means that they are human, and that they are under the siege of a marketing-induced dopamine rush.
What’s the wisdom in the wanting?
This is an important lesson for our kids to learn! Here’s how we can help: We can teach them to recognize what makes them want, want, want. We can teach them to realize when they are being manipulated by advertisers.
This is hard, but I’ve seen that it’s possible: The other day, my older daughter was barely watching a distant TV in a Thai restaurant, and she said, “Wow, I know that commercial was meant to make me want those pants, and it WORKED. I really want those pants. I feel like I might be happier if I had THOSE PANTS.” She still wanted the pants, of course, but at least she was gaining some insight into her desire. She couldn’t prevent the dopamine rush, but she could respond to it.
Finally, by creating meaningful traditions, we can teach our kids what truly will bring them lasting happiness during the holidays—like starting a gratitude tradition or helping others. Those are the things that they really will remember.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. To view the original article, click here. GGSC’s coverage of gratitude is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation as part of the Expanding Gratitude project.
This year, for the first time in my life, I experienced intense chronic pain that turned everything upside down and lasted nearly four months. As someone who loves movement and lives a very active life, waking up one day with back pain that kept getting worse to the point where I couldn’t do simple daily tasks was one of the hardest experiences I’ve ever had.
Fortunately, I did get better. And from this horrible experience, I’m sharing four lessons I hope I’ll return to if something like this ever happens again.
How It Started
It all started in mid-January. One day I woke up feeling great, taught a yoga class, then taught my middle school PE students. The next morning, I woke up with strange discomfort and an inability to bend forward. Literally. I could not bend more than one inch. Try washing your face without bending forward and you’ll understand how disorienting it was. I assumed it was a minor strain that would disappear in a day or two. I’d never had back issues before.
But the pain didn’t go away. It got worse. Soon I couldn’t sleep in my bed. I moved to the floor. Then to my daughter’s room, thinking a firmer surface would help. When getting up caused violent back spasms that lasted 15 minutes or longer, I tried sleeping on a massage table so I could “slide off” and avoid spasms due to standing, but the narrow surface only led to more pain and sleep anxiety that I would somehow fall off. At one point I placed a folding table on top of my bed so I could sleep higher up on a wider surface. That didn’t work either.
Sleeping was terrible. Sitting was unbearable. Lying down on the couch was impossible. Every position triggered more pain instead of relief. I even tried wearing adult diapers one night so I wouldn’t have to get up to pee. Did it work? Absolutely not. Nothing was working.
I tried walking, because everyone says movement helps, but even that made little difference. I was taking Tylenol around the clock—1,000 mg every four hours, well above the recommended dose—because I didn’t know what else to do.
I saw doctors and specialists and even agreed to pay $4,800 to a chiropractor who confidently said he could fix me in a few months. When you are desperate, you will try almost anything. But that, like almost everything else, just led to more spasms, more pain, and eventually… depression.
Chronic pain isn’t just physical. It strips down your sense of self and disconnects you from the world around you.
After three to four months of hell, I did improve. I can move again. I can sleep in my own bed again. I’m off all pain meds. I got my life back. And now that I’m finally on the other side, here are the four biggest takeaways I want to remember, and offer to anyone else navigating something similar.
1. Meditation: A Lifeline in the Darkest Tunnel
I kept meditating throughout the whole experience. Looking back, I probably should have meditated even more. The science on meditation as a tool for pain management and healing is strong, but when you’re in the middle of pain and fear, it’s easy to forget that.
My mind was constantly spinning:
Will this ever stop?
Will I ever move normally again?
What if this is permanent?
That stress response only made things worse. When the body is in a near-constant state of fear, cortisol rises, inflammation rises, and the pain cycle deepens.
Meditation didn’t magically erase the pain, but it did give me something crucial: a sense of agency and grounding. It gave my nervous system micro-moments of rest when nothing else could. It helped me separate the physical sensation from the emotional storm on top of it, the fear, the frustration, the grief. Even when nothing else worked, meditation was something I could still do, and that alone gave me a small sense of power in a situation that felt completely out of my control.
I could not have gone through this alone. I needed help getting dressed. Putting on socks became the hardest task of the day. I couldn’t wash dishes, cook, or do basic errands. I had to lean on friends and family in ways that felt very vulnerable.
One of my coworkers started sticking medicated patches on my back every morning before class and hugging me while I cried. We had met only one month prior so this was truly something I’ll never forget. I didn’t expect that kind of intimacy or kindness, but I needed it.
Chronic pain is isolating. The world keeps spinning around you while you feel frozen in suffering. And even when people ask how you are, it can feel easier to say “I’m fine” than to repeat the pain story again. I worried I was unloading too much on people, or repeating myself, or boring them, or even boring myself. But pain takes over everything. It becomes the soundtrack of your life. Pretending you’re okay makes it worse.
Chronic pain is isolating. The world keeps spinning around you while you feel frozen in suffering.
Let people in. Accept help even if it feels uncomfortable. If someone you love were going through this, you would want to support them. Let others do the same for you.
3. Advocate Relentlessly for Yourself
I went into this experience genuinely trusting that the medical system would help me. It was eye-opening to realize how many times I was offered narcotics within minutes, while no one seemed that interested in actually diagnosing the cause of my pain.
I saw multiple doctors, but no one was connecting the dots. I had to push for every referral, every test, every possibility. In the end, I now strongly suspect there was a connection between my ulcerative colitis and this sudden, severe back pain. But no one suggested that. I had to piece it together myself. And it still isn’t officially confirmed, which leaves me with lingering anxiety that it could return.
Our medical system is often set up to treat symptoms, not root causes. If I hadn’t kept questioning, kept insisting, kept searching, I might still be stuck in that pain. You know your body better than anyone. So my encouragement is to keep asking. Keep digging. Keep pushing.
4. Treat Yourself
Managing pain can drain the joy from daily life, but that’s exactly when it becomes most important to find small and big ways to bring joy back in. It might be as simple as stocking your shower with your favorite soap (Jason’s Rose body wash for example!), listening to a beloved album (“Dehd” on repeat), or ordering Thai three nights in a row because it’s the only thing that brings comfort (giant garlicky noodles please!).
During my back ordeal, at one of the lowest points when I truly wondered if I’d ever feel like myself again, I made a promise: if I could move freely again, I would get my first tattoo. The design would be the mountain in the French Alps that my family’s home faces. I love that mountain with all my heart. Now it lives on my upper arm, and every time I see it, I’m reminded that I went through something hard, and grew because of it.
The author with her promised tattoo
The Road to Healing
My journey lasted almost 12 weeks. What a wild beginning to 2025 that was! I came out the other side with a deeper understanding of what it means to live inside a body in pain, and how to fight your way back. Now that I am pain-free, I am overflowing with gratitude for something I once took for granted: simply being able to move.
If you’re in your own battle with chronic pain, here is what I most want you to know:
Anchor yourself to something that brings even a moment of relief: meditation, breathwork, visualization, prayer, music.
Do not isolate. Let your people love you.
Be loud in the medical world. Keep pushing until someone listens.
Invite more sensorial pleasure into your daily rituals.
Pain can take so much from you. It can strip away identity, joy, confidence. But it can’t take away your ability to keep moving toward healing, even if that movement is invisible from the outside. One of my close friends offered me a metaphor that really shifted my perspective. She told me to imagine I was a diamond miner, digging and digging, exhausted, convinced I was still far from treasure. But in reality, the diamond might be just inches away, even if it feels miles out of reach. Her reminder was simple: don’t give up. Breakthroughs can happen suddenly, and everything can change for the better, even when it looks like nothing is working.
Pain can take so much from you. It can strip away identity, joy, confidence. But it can’t take away your ability to keep moving toward healing, even if that movement is invisible from the outside.
You are still here. Even in your darkest moment, there is still a way forward. So line that yellow brick path that is your life with treasure chests of joy-bursts along the way.
A Practice for When Pain Is Present
When back pain is flaring, or any kind of tension or ache feels alive in the body, this gentle meditation can help ease discomfort and open the door to reconnecting with joy.
Last spring, I struggled to finish my most recent book, Happy Relationships: 25 Buddhist Practices to Transform Your Connection with Your Partner, Family, and Friends. I missed two deadlines and spent many anxious nights lying awake, worried I might not finish the book at all—or that I would ruin it completely. Even though I was working hard, I constantly felt I wasn’t writing fast enough or well enough. I doubted my talent, questioned my worth, and procrastinated, all while criticizing myself harshly.
In the past, I’d pushed myself through projects using force, pressure and fear. But this time, that approach wasn’t working. I knew I needed something different to genuinely be productive—something kinder and softer. So I turned to the tools and teachings of my Buddhist training: mindfulness, lovingkindness, and wisdom. As I began practicing them, my relationship to my work quickly shifted, and I felt less overwhelmed and more at ease, and it became easier and felt more natural to write. In a few weeks, I finally finished my book.
Mindful Care Makes It Easier to Be Productive
You can use these same practices to support your own work. They’re simple and accessible, and all they require is that you bring gentle attention to your body, mind, and heart. You don’t need to use every tool or follow them in a specific order. Just start with Mindful Listening, and then turn to the others as needed. The more you use them, the easier they become—and the more they can help steady, encourage, and support you and your work.
Start with Mindful Listening
When you feel overwhelmed or stuck, pause. Sit quietly and listen inwardly. Notice your body. Observe your thoughts. Acknowledge your emotions without trying to fix or judge them. You might realize that your procrastination isn’t due to laziness, but to something deeper—perhaps fear or a sense of being overwhelmed. Underneath your procrastination is often a tender part of you that needs care, not pressure.
This practice of listening is the foundation of wise action. It helps you respond with understanding instead of reactivity. It reminds you that you can begin again, not by changing yourself, but by meeting yourself with compassion.
Reconnect with Joyful Effort
One of the most useful qualities you can cultivate is what Buddhists call “virya”—a Sanskrit term translated as energy, diligence, or effort. “Virya” doesn’t mean pushing or grinding – rather it refers to our wholehearted, joyful energy that we can direct toward what is beneficial, useful, and good.
If you’ve been treating your work like a burden or obligation, pause and reconnect with your original intention. Your work—whatever it is—can be a meaningful offering, an expression of your values. When you remember why it matters, you can let it guide you, and use virya instead of force to create the words, the progress, or the result. You’ll be surprised at the power of gentleness and sincerity to drive your process instead.
If you’ve been treating your work like a burden or obligation, pause and reconnect with your original intention.
Build Confidence Through Wisdom
Buddhism understands that it’s wise to understand the result of past actions, so recall other difficult tasks or projects that you’ve completed. Remember that you’ve met deadlines, kept commitments, and followed through even when it was hard. Buddhist wisdom teaches that confidence doesn’t come from perfection—it comes from recognizing and respecting your own experience. Keeping this in mind helps you know that you’ll complete this, too—not because you’re perfect, but because you’re reliable, trustworthy, and consistent.
Cultivate Gratitude
Throughout your work day, practice gratitude—not just for your own effort, but for the countless visible and invisible beings that make your life and work possible. Thank yourself for showing up. Remember your friends, mentors, loved ones, and even the workers who make sure you have electricity, water, food, and shelter. This sense of interconnection can help ground you in appreciation. It reminds you that you’re not alone—and that your work can benefit others, too.
Work in Small, Steady Steps
Rather than aiming for long hours or big breakthroughs, create a steady, manageable routine. If possible, try working for an hour or two each morning and then take a break. Let go of the need to hit a word count or finish a full chapter. Just begin.
When worry arises, meet it with mindful attention. Don’t try to silence it or push it away, but don’t follow it into catastrophic thinking, either. Let the thoughts come and go. Remind yourself that fear doesn’t need to be conquered—it needs to be met with patience, kindness, and presence.
Rest When You Need To
As deadlines approach, you might notice old habits returning—the urge to push harder, to avoid rest. When that happens, pause. Close your laptop, put your hand on your heart, and take a few slow breaths. You may notice a long-held belief that resting is dangerous or irresponsible. Notice your own stories around what it means to “be productive.” Gently acknowledge this, then place a hand on your heart and say to yourself, “I’m here for you.” Repeat this lovingkindness meditation to yourself for at least a few minutes. Offer yourself your whole-hearted presence, right here in the midst of your stress. You may find—like I did—that rest doesn’t slow you down at all. In fact, it usually restores your heart and mind and enables you to return to your work with better focus and more clarity.
Need Help Practicing? Try This Meditation.
Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed and need a break, try this calming meditation. You might be surprised how just a simple pause can return you to yourself and help you be productive in a way that feels much more aligned and natural.
You’ve probably heard that mindfulness reduces stress levels. But how does it help? Shamash Alidina shares the research—plus, a meditation you can turn to anytime.
Mounting scientific evidence from hundreds of universities—including dedicated centers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom—strongly suggests that mindfulness gently builds an inner strength, so that future stressors have less impact on our happiness and physical well-being.
Here are nine ways mindfulness can help you manage stress, plus a guided meditation to start experiencing the natural calm that mindfulness can bring:
Nine Ways Mindfulness Reduces Stress
You become more aware of your thoughts. You can then step back from them and not take them so literally. That way, your stress response is not initiated in the first place.
You don’t immediately react to a situation. Instead, you have a moment to pause and then use your “wise mind” to come up with the best solution. Mindfulness helps you do this through the mindful exercises.
Mindfulness switches on your “being” mode of mind, which is associated with relaxation. Your “doing” mode of mind is associated with action and the stress response.
You are more aware and sensitive to the needs of your body. You may notice pains earlier and can then take appropriate action.
You are more aware of the emotions of others. As your emotional intelligence rises, you are less likely to get into conflict.
Your level of care and compassion for yourself and others rises. This compassionate mind soothes you and inhibits your stress response.
Mindfulness practice reduces activity in the part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is central to switching on your stress response, so effectively, your background level of stress is reduced.
You are better able to focus. So you complete your work more efficiently, you have a greater sense of well-being, and this reduces the stress response. You are more likely to get into “the zone” or “flow,” as it’s termed in psychology by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
You can switch your attitude to the stress. Rather than just seeing the negative consequences of feeling stressed, mindfulness offers you the space to think differently about the stress itself. Observing how the increased pressure helps energize you has a positive effect on your body and mind.
Try It Yourself—Stress SOS: A Quick Practice When You Need It Most
Bring to mind a current challenge in your life that is the cause of some stress. A situation that you’re willing to work with at the moment. Not your biggest challenge but not so small that it causes no stress at all. A 3 on a scale of 1–10 is a good guide.
Bring the situation vividly to mind. Imagine being in the situation and all the difficulties associated with it.
Notice whether you can feel the stress in your body. Physical tension, faster heart rate, a little bit of sweating, butterflies in your stomach, tightness in the back or shoulders or jaw, perhaps. Look out for your stress signals.
Tune in to your emotions. Notice how you feel. Label that emotion if you can, and be aware of where you feel the emotion, exactly, in your body. Just try to spot it as best you can. The more precisely you can locate the emotion and the more you notice about the sensation, the better. With time and experience, you’ll keep getting better at this.
Bring mindful attitudes to the emotion. These include curiosity, friendliness, and acceptance.
Try placing your hand on the location of the sensation—a friendly hand representing kindness. Do it the way you would place your hand on the injured knee of a child, with care and affection.
Feel the sensation together with your breathing. This can promote a present-moment awareness and mindful attitudes to your experience.
When you’re ready, bring this meditation to a close.
A guided meditation to get familiar with our self-judging voice and how we relate to our flaws, so that we can cultivate compassion and recognize our own worthiness.
Mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. Mindfulness is about paying attention to the present moment with openness to things as they really are, as opposed to how we want them to be or how they could be, or wishing that they were different, which we do quite a bit. This includes our uncomfortable experiences—like being with our fear, grief, regret, and that self-judging voice that sometimes makes us feel so small.
Self-compassion is the idea that even with all of our flaws, we can still care about ourselves.
Self-Compassion vs. Self-Esteem
I want to talk about the concept of self-compassion. Self-compassion is different from self-esteem. There seems to be this epidemic of self-judgment in the world, where people are often self-critical and have a lot of self-hating voices in their heads. Self-compassion is not the build up of self-esteem, because the build up of self-esteem tends to lead people to needing a lot of external validation to feel ok. Instead, self-compassion is the idea that even with all of our flaws, we can still care about ourselves, that we can make mistakes, that we can screw up, that we can have problems, but we’re still fundamentally a good human being. We can connect with that understanding and have compassion for ourselves, even with the flaws that we have.
What’s so amazing about mindfulness practice is we can use mindfulness to be aware when we have those self-critical voices, and we can label that voice as “judging”. We can notice when we have those judging voices because we have a mindfulness practice that allows us to have quite a bit more self-awareness, more ability to regulate emotions, and all of the positive things that come with the mindfulness practice. When these thoughts come we can be on top of them and not get so caught up.
I sometimes talk about getting on the train – when you have a really powerful thought and you start thinking about it, and suddenly twenty minutes later you realize you’ve been on this train and were not in the present moment at all. However, the moment you recognize this, you can get off the train. Or, you can recognize this initially and not get on the train in the first place. You can stay at the platform and just let the thoughts go.
A Meditation for Working With Our Self-Judging Voice
Find your seat. Let’s begin by settling back into our comfortable posture, with your body upright but not too rigid or tight. Put your feet on the floor, hands resting on your lap, and your eyes can be closed. Most of us do this practice with our eyes closed but you don’t have to. You can keep them open but not looking all around, just looking downward.
Begin to notice your breathing. Begin with a few deep breaths letting you relax a little bit more. Invite in the possibility of relaxation with each deep breath. For this next period of time, you don’t have all of the worries and concerns. You’ve left them at the door, I hope. They may pop up into your mind but you can remind yourself that you don’t have to get on that train, and just come in to the present moment, feeling, or breath, while being present.
Focus on where you feel the breath most. Bring your attention to your stomach and notice if it’s tight or contracted. Take a deep breath if it is and just let it go. Notice your hands softening, and relax them. Notice your shoulders, jaw, throat, and face, and sense everything that’s obvious to you, maybe on the surface of the skin and maybe more internal. Do this with curiosity and with an eye out to relaxing a little bit.
Let yourself be here right now, in this moment, and see if you can bring your attention to your breathing and to your breath in your body, wherever you feel your breath the clearest within your body. You might notice your abdomen rising and falling, or your chest rising and falling, expanding, and contracting with the breath. You might notice the tingling at your nostrils as air enters and exits. Some people notice the whole torso breathing with the air moving through their body, and that’s fine too.
Shift attention to sounds. Now turn your attention to the sounds around you, just listen to sounds one after the next. Both the sound of silence, and the sounds that come and go. Don’t be lost in a story about the sounds, but just simply listen to them.
Find an object to anchor your attention. Find a focus for your meditation today. It could be your breath in your abdomen, or chest, or nose, or the full body breathing, or it could be listening to the sounds—any of those things work fine. Go to whichever one seems the most interesting to you, there’s no right way to do. If you can’t decide then just pick one, it doesn’t matter too much.
Notice the body breathing. Notice your abdomen moving up and down, chest expanding and contracting, air moving through your nose with each breath, full body breathing, or the sounds around you.
Stay with the sensations of breathing. We begin this mindfulness practice by attending to breath after breath, or sound after sound, staying with it to the best of our abilities, feeling the breath.
When the mind wanders, label your thoughts. At a certain point your attention will wander, and thoughts will come into your consciousness. When you notice that you’re lost in a thought, you can say a soft word like “thinking” or “wondering”, and come back to your main focus. Keep doing that again and again. This is emphasized for today’s practice because we are talking about how mindfulness can help us with self-judgment, and recognizing that you can notice the type of thought you’re having and give it a label.
You can keep an eye out for judging thoughts, and every time you judge you can say in your mind a soft word like “judging”, or “self-judgment”, or “criticism”, or you can find the word that makes sense to you. It will help you to see the way in which the judgments arise. It’s not personal by the way; you didn’t set out to make yourself feel bad. It just happens. “That person is a better meditator than I am”, or “I’ll never get this right”, or “Why did I do that thing yesterday, it was so foolish”. These are the kind of voices that come into our mind for some of us frequently. For others they may be rare; that’s fine too.
Notice self-critical thoughts as they arise. Use mindfulness practice to not judge yourself, to not judge yourself for being judgmental, and just notice judging. If you want to count the occurrences you can; for example “judging 1, judging 2… judging 20.” While you’re noticing these thoughts, you might get drawn to other types of thoughts. If so, you can use other labels like “planning”, “remembering”, “imagining”, and so forth.
Invite self-compassion. As you do this practice, please keep a quality of kindness towards yourself. Be curious. Notice how interesting your mind is without judging yourself. Maintain the spirit of kindness and investigation.
Reflect on the quality of your meditation. For the last few minutes of this meditation, just notice how you are doing with this awareness practice, with the mindfulness of breath, and with mindfulness of the way your thoughts operate. You can ask yourself, “Did I get on the train?”, “Did I get off the train?”, or “Did I stay at the platform maybe once or twice?”
Did you notice many judging thoughts? I’m hoping you brought a kind attitude to yourself for the judging thoughts, if they were present.
Close with kindness. We will do a little bit of kindness meditation to conclude. Notice how you’re feeling, and see if you can also bring to mind someone you love, someone who makes you happy. It could be a dear friend, a child, a pet cat or dog. If you can’t think of anyone, it can be someone you’ve read about who you admire.
Repeat kind phrases. Say these phrases, and repeat them in your mind (or you can come up with your own). May you be safe and protected. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. May you be at ease.
Send kind phrases to loved ones. Send these words and heartfelt feeling out to this loved one. Notice how it feels inside to make those wishes for them. Imagine that they send it back to you. May you be safe and protected. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. May you accept yourself, just as you are.
See if you can “take” the kindness. Imagine the kindness moving through your body, wherever you are. Can you bring compassion to yourself exactly where you are, for whatever is happening right now? May I hold this with kindness. May I hold myself with compassion. Take a breath and notice if this is possible, to bring kindness to the best of your abilities wherever you are, however it makes sense to you. May I be with myself exactly as I am.
Open your eyes. When you’re ready you can open your eyes, but take your time.
