Health Journal Online

Tag: difficult emotions

  • Walking Grief Home: Six Companions for Living With Loss

    Walking Grief Home: Six Companions for Living With Loss

    When someone we love dies, the world doesn’t end, but it does lose its shape. The familiar becomes strange. Time stretches and collapses. Movements feel halting, as if the body has forgotten how to belong to itself. In these early days, when the heart feels unmoored and the ground unreliable, we long for something steady enough to walk beside us—not to fix the unfixable, but to accompany us as we learn to live inside a world that has changed.

    After decades as a clinical psychologist and later as a bereavement volunteer, I’ve come to understand grief not as a problem to solve but as a relationship to tend. Mindfulness offers a way to do that. It helps us meet life moment by moment without abandoning ourselves, and it cultivates qualities that soften our experience of whatever is here.

    Mindfulness, in its deepest sense, is not about calm. It is about capacity.

    Mindfulness, in its deepest sense, is not about calm. It is about capacity—the capacity to stay close to what is true, even when what is true is painful. It does not guide us toward “getting over” grief. Instead, it teaches us how to walk with grief. And as we walk, six companions begin to emerge as lived experiences shaping how we meet our loss.

    These companions—Presence, Grace, Memory, Becoming, Belonging, and Trust—form a relational model of healing. They do not arrive in order. They circle, overlap, and return. Together, they help us stay close to ourselves as we navigate a world reshaped by loss.

    Presence: Allowing What Is

    Presence is not passive. It is a wholehearted “yes” to the reality of the moment, even when that reality is painful. Presence asks only one thing of us: to allow what is here to be here.

    Grief is not a single emotion but a gathering of states—sorrow, anger, confusion, numbness, longing, exhaustion. Presence invites each one to be recognized.

    Grief is not a single emotion but a gathering of states—sorrow, anger, confusion, numbness, longing, exhaustion. Presence invites each one to be recognized. This is simple to understand but difficult to practice. Most of us try to manage grief the way we manage everything else: by tightening, organizing, or trying to stay in control. But grief is not something the mind can manage. It is a visitation—an unmistakable presence that arrives with its own timing.

    The first gesture of presence is permission. Permission to feel everything—not because it will fix anything, but because it is honest. To feel everything can leave us feeling lost, but as E.L. Doctorow wrote, “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Presence accompanies us, breath by breath, until we begin to regain our footing.

    Grace: Life’s Quiet Movement Toward Us

    If presence is how we meet life, grace is how life meets us back. Grace is not dramatic. It is the easing that comes when we stop bracing against what is true.

    We do not manufacture grace; we receive it.

    We do not manufacture grace; we receive it. It often appears in small, almost imperceptible ways: a friend’s steady companionship, a loosening of the chest, a stranger’s kindness, the relief of a deep exhale.

    These moments do not erase the pain, but they remind us that we are not entirely alone within it. Grace opens a small space inside the ache. Over time, it helps us weave the loss into the fabric of our lives—not as something to overcome, but as something that deepens us, widens us, and makes us more tender.

    Memory: The Waves That Carry Love Forward

    Grief moves in waves—not the predictable rhythms of tides but the wild, irregular surges of the ocean in winter. A scent, a song, a phrase, a slant of evening light can break over us with startling force. These waves are not mistakes or punishments. They are the movements of love trying to find its way in a world that has changed shape.

    Love does not end when a life ends, but it does change form.

    Memory is also a doorway into the continuing bond that remains. Love does not end when a life ends, but it does change form. As presence steadies us and grace softens us, memories begin to shift. What once shattered us may eventually bring warmth when the heart remembers not only the pain of loss but the depth of love that made the loss so devastating.

    We begin to speak to our loved ones in quiet moments, carry their gestures, and seek their wisdom. Memory becomes a companion, not an adversary, as we learn to carry the bittersweetness of a life that has loved deeply and lost profoundly.

    Becoming: Letting the Loss Shape Who We Are

    At some point—often so subtly we don’t notice it—something inside begins to shift. Not because the sorrow has lessened, but because the heart has begun to make room for the loss. This is the arising of Becoming, the slow integration of grief into our sense of self.

    Becoming does not ask us to forget; it asks us to remember differently.

    Becoming does not ask us to forget; it asks us to remember differently. To remember in a way that honors love as well as loss. Becoming is not a stage, nor does it unfold in a straight line. There will be days when the heart feels spacious and days when the ache returns with full force. Becoming honors both clarity and confusion. It is the work of letting the loss shape us without letting it define us.

    Becoming is not the end of grief—it is the beginning of a new relationship with our loss.

    Belonging: Finding Our Place in a Changed World

    Loss shakes our sense of belonging. The world feels unfamiliar, and we feel unfamiliar within it. Yet belonging is not lost; it is changing.

    As we adapt to this new way of being, we come to realize that belonging isn’t something others give us. Instead, it’s a consciousness that we are present—alive, supported by the earth beneath us.

    As we adapt to this new way of being, we come to realize that belonging isn’t something others give us. Instead, it’s a consciousness that we are present—alive, supported by the earth beneath us. This feeling grows from how we engage with ourselves and our surroundings. When we stop neglecting ourselves, a new sense of belonging gradually develops as the world continues to embrace us: the warmth of sunlight, the simple pleasure of a cup of tea, the scent of a forest, the welcoming signs of growing more comfortable, and the quiet resilience of standing in the shadow of mountains.

    The continuing bond with the person who has died becomes part of this belonging. Their presence lives in our choices, our gestures, our ways of seeing. We discover that we are still part of the living world, still part of a story that continues to unfold.

    Trust: The Quiet Confidence That We Can Live With This

    Grief asks us to trust what we cannot yet see. Trust grows when we begin to sense that the heart is larger than the loss. Not because the loss is small, but because the heart is vast. It can hold sorrow and love at the same time. It can hold the one who is gone and the one we are becoming.

    Trust is not the absence of pain. It is the recognition that pain is not the only thing present. Over time, trust reveals an inner sturdiness—a kind of Kintsugi of the heart, where the broken places are reconstructed and highlighted with gold.

    Trust is not the absence of pain. It is the recognition that pain is not the only thing present. Over time, trust reveals an inner sturdiness—a kind of Kintsugi of the heart, where the broken places are reconstructed and highlighted with gold. The loss becomes part of our strength, not because it stops hurting, but because it has been integrated into who we are.

    A Relational Model, Not a Linear One

    Walking grief home is not a series of stages or steps. These six companions move in all directions. Some days one leads; other days another rises first. They circle, overlap, and return, each shaping and being shaped by the others.

    Walking grief home teaches us something profound: that we can belong to our own lives again.

    Presence steadies us. Grace meets us. Memory connects us. Becoming reshapes us. Belonging roots us. Trust holds us.

    Walking grief home is not about waiting to arrive somewhere new. It is about learning to live here and now with a more spacious heart—one capable of holding the full complexity of love and loss. It teaches us something profound: that we can belong to our own lives again. Not the life we expected. Not the life we planned. But the life that is here—the life that is still unfolding, still calling to us, still offering moments of beauty, tenderness, and meaning.

    A Simple Practice for the Next Wave

    When the next wave of grief arrives, try this:

    Pause. Feel your feet on the ground. Let one breath be exactly what it is. Name what is here—sadness, longing, numbness, love. Place a hand on your heart. Say quietly, “This belongs.”

    Not because it is easy, but because it is true.



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  • 10 Subtle Micromovements That Reveal Anxiety’s Early Indicators in Adults

    10 Subtle Micromovements That Reveal Anxiety’s Early Indicators in Adults

    You’re sitting in the waiting room to go into your first big interview or give the presentation you’ve been working on for weeks. Maybe your foot starts tapping quicker and quicker, or you start twirling your hair. Why is your body doing this, and what can these small movements tell you? 

    Micromovements serve as the body’s way to signal rising anxiety.  

    Learning to recognize early tension triggers can help build emotional resilience and maintain calm through the day.

    When you hone awareness, you can use mindful techniques to respond, which can help you preserve well-being and maintain focus in work and play. Plus, learning to recognize early tension triggers can also help build emotional resilience and maintain calm through the day.

    Here are 10 common signals your body might be sending you. 

    The 10 Subtle Micromovements

    1. The Brow Furrow or Knit

    We often knit our eyebrows together when looking at a computer screen or reading a dense email. While in some cases, this might be due to awkward positioning at your desk or a need to make adjustments to your screen, worry or mental strain can trigger this tiny contraction of the forehead muscles. The brain signals these muscles to tighten as it tries to process a difficult problem, mirroring the internal effort to solve a stressful situation.

    2. Jaw Clenching or Grinding

    Do you ever catch yourself clenching your jaw in a stressful moment, like when you’re driving through heavy traffic or working under a tight deadline? Awake bruxism, another term for grinding, is common, affecting up to 23% of adults. A tense jaw is part of your body’s physical defense system: it’s preparing to stabilize your head and neck in the presence of physical threat.

    3. The Shallow Breath

    During a stressful meeting, you might notice your chest rising and falling rapidly while your stomach remains perfectly still. Internal tension disrupts normal breathing, leading to a shift to rapid, shallow chest breathing. The autonomic nervous system enters a sympathetic response, treating minor mental strain the same way it treats actual physical danger.

    4. Finger Tapping or Cuticle Picking

    When we’re anxious, we might repeatedly taps a desk or pick at the skin around our fingernails during a long pause in conversation. The nervous system drives these small, rhythmic movements when it contains too much restless energy. The motor system generates repetitive actions to help discharge that excess stimulation and restore internal balance.

    It’s common to curl our toes tightly inside our shoes or bounce a heel rapidly against the floor. This lower-body tension shows that stress has traveled down the musculoskeletal system. The body prepares its legs and feet for sudden action, keeping you in a constant state of hyper-vigilance.

    6. Lip Biting or Chewing

    Sometimes we trap our bottom lip between our teeth or chew on the inside of our cheek. The lower lip bite is the classic signal of I’m thinking that over or I’m trying to decide—moments that often come with some anxiety or uncertainty. It might seem strange, but this self-regulating behavior increases physical sensations in the mouth. The nervous system uses this sensory input to distract you from emotional discomfort.

    7. Subtle Neck and Shoulder Tensing

    Here’s one to notice: when a difficult email arrives, see if you shrug your shoulders up toward your ears without realizing it. This posture mimics a protective instinct to guard the neck from a sudden blow. Muscles in the upper back tighten to prepare you for a perceived threat.

    8. Hair Twirling or Touching

    Do you tend to wrap a strand of hair around your finger or stroke your head during a challenging presentation. This form of fidgeting is a pacifying behavior. The gentle, repetitive touch provides comfort to an overstimulated brain, helping to soothe rising internal agitation.

    9. Eyelid Fluttering or Rapid Blinking

    In many situations, people blink rapidly when answering a stressful question. Rapid blinking is an important facial expression that indicates heightened anxiety and fatigue. The accelerated blink rate reflects a sudden spike in adrenaline and stress hormones within the nervous system.

    10. The Freezing Response

    Sometimes a sudden loud noise or receiving unexpected news can cause a lock in posture. We stop moving for a few seconds. This momentary pause represents the primal freeze response. The brain temporarily halts all motor functions to evaluate its surroundings before choosing an action.

    The autonomic nervous system is a network of nerves that regulates involuntary body processes, like heart rate and blood pressure. 

    This system relies on the sympathetic and parasympathetic networks. The sympathetic nervous system drives the “fight or flight” response, accelerating heart rate and muscle readiness during perceived danger. The parasympathetic nervous system manages the “rest and digest” system, lowering heart rate and encouraging recovery when the threat passes.

    You might notice that many of these micromovements are a primal body-response to perceived physical threat—even when no such immediate threat is present. Micromovements are the physical spillover of this intense internal activation; they often serve as unconscious attempts at self-regulation, as the motor system discharges excess nervous energy.

    Micromovements prove that the body actively communicates a specific need—and often, that need is simply rest.

    Anxiety signals a chronically overactive sympathetic nervous system. When this stress response remains active, the adrenal glands flood the bloodstream with stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.

    It’s easy to miss early nervous system warning signs when our attention is fractured. Micromovements prove that the body actively communicates a specific need—and often, that need is simply rest. Recognizing these micromovements is the first step toward altering behavioral responses and proactive stress management.

    Mindfulness as a Solution

    Mindfulness offers a way to keep our awareness in the present moment. This practice trains interoception, which is our ability to  accurately perceive internal bodily signals. 

    One way that mindfulness can help us build better interoception is through practices like the body scan, a structured exercise in which individuals monitor physical sensations from head to toe. As you scan your body, assess how each part feels. This can help determine where an emotional reaction took place and where it sits. For example, you may experience tension in your stomach, and can intentionally breathe into the belly to relax that tension.

    Mindfulness training strengthens structural connectivity within the brain’s interoceptive networks, supporting emotional well-being. Mindful practices put you back in the driver’s seat: when you experience yourself as the observer of your thoughts, you have more say in how you respond. This more objective stance de-escalates the anxiety cycle, rewiring neural pathways to foster better emotional regulation. 

    In addition, focused sensory attention gently steers the mind away from anxious and negative thought loops. It involves focusing on the world around you by using all five senses. This practice establishes a supportive relationship between the mind and body.

    Need Some Practice? Start here. 

    You can build bodily awareness through simple daily routines. 

    • Set a recurring phone reminder for a daily check-in—for example, a 60-second exercise to pause and scan the body for physical indicators of stress. Alternatively, detecting a micromovement could also trigger the mindful pause. This is when you would start doing a body scan.
    • Expand this routine with the 4-7-8 breathing technique to regulate heart rate. This involves breathing through the nose for four seconds, holding the breath for seven seconds and exhaling through pursed lips for eight seconds. A study from the National Institutes of Health shows that structured slow-breathing exercises significantly lower blood pressure and reduce stress responses.
    • A micromovement journal can reveal your personal patterns, and writing about your stress can also help to understand and alleviate emotional hooks. 
    • For deeper exploration, the RAIN method guides you to recognize, allow, investigate and nurture internal sensations. This four-step mindfulness technique helps to process difficult emotions and break reactive habit loops.

    Focusing on just one type of micromovement per week keeps the practice manageable. This supportive practice emphasizes personal compassion over perfection, empowering you to reclaim agency over your daily lives.

    Bring Personal Awareness Into Daily Life

    Anxiety often begins with quiet physical signals. Mindfulness provides the tools to listen to these subtle bodily signs. This clear awareness transforms you from a passive reactor into a conscious, proactive manager of your inner state. Recognizing early bodily shifts allows professionals and practitioners to build greater emotional stability.

    This post comes to us from Lola Marks, Senior Editor at Body+Mind.



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  • Embodied Compassion for Difficult Emotions

    Embodied Compassion for Difficult Emotions

    When you’re overwhelmed and feeling the urge to resist or repress painful, confusing, or distressing emotions, use this meditation from recovery coach Emily Jane to practice staying present with courage and compassion.

    One of the core principles of mindfulness practice that can be a challenge for people is the notion that it actually makes more sense to accept our emotions rather than resist them. Especially when it comes to painful, confusing, or frightening emotions, this move towards ourselves in compassion can feel incredibly counterintuitive. 

    This week, author and recovery coach Emily Jane guides us through a practice you can use anytime you need support bringing curiosity, courage, and compassion to difficult experiences.

    Embodied Compassion for Difficult Emotions

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

     When we experience difficult emotions, our natural tendency is to repress or resist them, and yet it is often this very resistance that creates even more stress and suffering. In this meditation, we will begin to gently shift our relationship by creating space for our uncomfortable emotions. We will invite them in and sit with them with compassion, like an old friend.

    We will start the meditation with some mindful awareness, then turn towards the emotions, sensations, and parts of ourselves that we might usually avoid or wish we didn’t have to feel. 

    1. Begin by finding a position that feels comfortable, either sitting in a chair, on your bed or the floor, or lying down. When you’re ready, you can close your eyes or lower your gaze. Allow your shoulders to relax down, your jaw to soften, maybe opening and closing the jaw a couple of times, creating a little movement and inviting some release. Let all the little muscles around the eyes, the forehead, the cheeks to soften as best they can. 
    2. Now bring awareness to the surface beneath you. Feel into that support, how it holds you. If your feet are touching the floor, feel into that connection between your feet and the ground, feeling into the support that is already here.
    3. Notice the temperature of your body and of the temperature of the air around you. Notice the weight of your body and the gentle pull of gravity holding you.
    4. Now bring your awareness to the natural rhythm of your breath. Follow the pathway of the breath through the body. Noticing how it enters the body, where the breath lands in the body—perhaps the chest, the belly, the ribs. And notice how it leaves the body. Just take a moment to feel one full breath from beginning to end, and then the next.
    5. Now take a slightly deeper inhale through the nose, allow the breath to flow down into the belly and then exhale with a sigh. And again, breathing in through the nose and exhaling slowly with a sigh.
    6. Now bring awareness to your body as a whole. Notice what it feels like to be you in this moment, in this body. See if you can approach your experience with curiosity and a sense of compassion.
    7. Become aware of any sensations, noting any emotions that are present or areas of tension, discomfort, or heaviness. Whatever is here, see if you can just allow it to be here and just gently make space for it.
    8. Now, become aware of that part of you that is aware. The part of you aware of the breath, the body, the sensations and emotions. See if you can lean into the awareness itself, this observing presence, and notice its qualities. Perhaps there is calm here, a stillness, or a sense of peace and compassion.
    9. Rest for a moment in this compassionate awareness. If it feels supportive, place one hand on your heart. Feel the warmth of your hands, the gentle pressure, just offering the body care and support.
    10. Now bring to mind a difficult emotion, memory, or situation. Nothing too intense, just something you’ve been finding a bit challenging. Perhaps something that’s been worrying you lately, an interaction that’s upset or annoyed you, or just a feeling that you’ve been carrying.
    11. As you bring this to mind, notice what happens in your body. Maybe sensations begin to emerge, restlessness, tightness, heaviness, or a sinking feeling. Maybe you notice an emotion. Just feel into whatever arises and name the emotion. Describe any sensations. 
    12. See if you can simply observe the sensation, just being a compassionate witness to the discomfort or pain and allowing the experience to be here without immediately pushing it away. Remember: you don’t have to pretend it’s all okay, and you don’t have to like it. But see if you can welcome it, making space for it, letting it be exactly as it is. And if this feels challenging, that’s okay. It’s in our human nature to resist discomfort, so if there’s resistance, just notice that too without judgment. 
    13. As you sit with this emotion or sensation, notice that there is space around it. Space inside the body, space around the body. The support beneath you is still there. The breath is still moving, and this emotion, this sensation, is only one part of your experience. It’s a part of you, but it’s not all of you.
    14. Now just move a little closer towards the emotion and gently place your hand over the area where you feel the emotion or sensation most strongly. Through your hand offer these words, “I see you. I’m here with you. I offer you space, compassion, and love.” Notice what happens when you say these words. Maybe this part of you responds to the words. Maybe you experience less resistance towards it. Perhaps there’s a softening or you even find peace in the discomfort or pain. Perhaps nothing changes at all. Whatever happens is okay. There’s no right way to experience this. 
    15. Just spend a few more moments being with this emotion, with this sensation. Then return your awareness to the breath, and as you inhale, imagine breathing compassion into the body. Let it flow into the center of the emotion, and as you exhale, allow it to expand into the space around you. Breathing in compassion, breathing out compassion. And as you breathe, allow this emotion to integrate into the fullness of your being. 
    16. Now begin to sense the body as a whole. The support beneath you, the ground holding you, feeling the support of gravity. Remind yourself gently with these words, “I can be with difficult emotions when I create a compassionate space for them.”
    17. Now gently bring your awareness back to the space around you. Notice any sounds in the room, the temperature of the air. Invite some gentle movement into the body. Maybe a gentle sway or gently just shaking the arms. Take one final deep breath into the belly and exhale fully. When you’re ready, you can open your eyes, returning in your own time.



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  • Are Shame and Guilt Bad—Or Do We Just Need a Different Relationship With Them?

    Are Shame and Guilt Bad—Or Do We Just Need a Different Relationship With Them?

    In the new Apple TV series, Margo Has Money Problems, Michelle Pfeiffer, in a comeback performance, plays a mom, Shyanne, who got pregnant after a one-night stand with a married man. Now her daughter, Margo, whom she raised on her own, has herself given birth to a child with a married man who’s not in the picture.

    At one point, in a parking lot outside the chain restaurant where Margo works, Shyanne has a total breakdown. Having failed at her first stint babysitting her grandchild, she hands over the boy to Margo and shouts that she is a horrible grandmother just as she was a horrible mother: “I wish I could be a better person, but I’m not!…and I will not be judged, by him or anyone else.”

    As much as we may recoil from shame and guilt, these emotions are a part of being human. Yet so many of us, maybe most of us, handle them very poorly.

    This is a classic shame spiral. We start feeling bad about something we’ve done or are unable to do, then leap straight to the appraisal—not of our wrongdoing or inability, but of ourselves: We are bad and we want to hide away because of it, lest we be judged even more.

    Guilt and shame are dirty words, painful words. As much as we may recoil from them, though, these emotions are a part of being human. Yet so many of us, maybe most of us, handle them very poorly. We beat ourselves up psychologically. We beat others up verbally (and in extreme cases physically) in an effort to inflict guilt and shame and retribution for wrongdoing. At a global level, wars are fought and people die out of vengeance—simply because we have so much trouble dealing with how to respond when we do something wrong or are wronged.

    Taking a Closer Look at Guilt and Shame

    Yes, these are tricky emotions, and this is likely not the first time you’ve considered them, but it never hurts to contemplate the thornier sides of life with a fresh mind. If you meditate, you spend your life doing that. Each time, hopefully, with a more open mind.

    To begin, it helps to distinguish guilt and shame.

    Meditation teacher Caverly Morgan expresses the difference succinctly in her book The Heart of Who We Are: “When you feel guilty, there’s a judgment that something you’ve done is wrong. When you feel shame, you believe that your whole self is wrong.”

    Is it realistic to think that an emotion that’s been around as long as anyone can imagine is just going to be removed from the human toolbox?

    Brené Brown, author of the groundbreaking book on human vulnerability, Daring Greatly, says on her website that while guilt is “adaptive and helpful” and can spur accountability for our actions, shame, “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging” is neither helpful or productive. She goes on to “call for an end to shame as a tool for change.”

    I’m a huge Brené Brown fan, so I get where she’s going. Shame is so damaging. It ruins whole lives and families (witness Shyanne’s breakdown in the parking lot). And it is quite often wildly ineffective in bringing about change. I’m sure we’ve all tried to shame someone into better behavior only to have it backfire.

    Yet, is it realistic to think that an emotion that’s been around as long as anyone can imagine is just going to be removed from the human toolbox?

    If They’re Not Going Anywhere…How Do We Learn to Live With Them?

    Other researchers are not quite as ready to completely eliminate shame from the spectrum of human responses. Rather, they simply caution us to notice the ways our responses are so very often maladaptive.

    In his recent book, The Power of Guilt, developmental psychologist Chris Moore says we have guilt in the first place to motivate us to repair harms and heal relationships. Shame, he goes on to say, by contrast, tends to make people shy away from interacting with others, leaving a relationship damaged, perhaps permanently. This tendency to descend into a deep dark place makes shame into a dangerous drug.

    Psychologist June Tangney, co-author of Shame and Guilt, however, admits to being shame-prone herself and counsels that it’s possible to be resilient in the midst of shame and divert ourselves from spiraling. In other words, we might be better off accepting that shame is going to emerge and figure out how to work with it more effectively.

    Our problem with shame, then, may not be that as a group we have no need for it, but rather we have a bad habit of taking it way too far.

    Evolutionary psychologists like Dacher Keltner see shame as part of a family of human responses known as the self-conscious emotions—guilt, shame, pride, and embarrassment—that all play a role in regulating social behavior. According to these students of human behavior, “…shame serves the important function of appeasing observers of social transgressions, a function which reestablishes social harmony.” In other words, publicly blushing when you’ve done something wrong signals to others that you know you’ve made a mistake and you care. To say, for example, that someone “has no shame,” means they don’t care what others think about their behavior. Think of certain world leaders who seem to do and say whatever they want, regardless of how immoral or illegal it is, and without concern for the harm those actions cause.

    Our problem with shame, then, may not be that as a group we have no need for it, but rather we have a bad habit of taking it way too far. A very little bit of shame can go a long way. Even a little bit too much can be destructive. The lesson then, seems to be: Shame is likely to be a part of life, respond appropriately and in proportion to that feeling, and focus entirely on action in the future.

    In other words: Do not beat yourself up. Meet the feeling, but don’t build a home there.

    Focusing on Repair

    Knowing how guilt and shame tear at the heart and sever the bonds that hold communities together, spiritual traditions developed forms of atonement—honest acknowledgment of harm, repairing the harm if possible, and vowing not to repeat it.

    Catholics have the confessional and the season of Lent. Judaism has Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. In Islam, tawba, repentance, is practiced continuously, but especially in the last ten days of Ramadan. Twelve-step programs devote several steps to atonement and making amends. While the place of confession in Buddhism is little known, the ancient code of monastic discipline calls for regular acknowledgement of wrongdoing, including in some traditions the collective wrongdoing that has occurred “since beginningless time.”

    It’s not necessary to engage in one of these traditions to develop a healthy relationship with guilt and shame—but it can certainly help to examine our own experience to see how we might be easier on ourselves and on others while still addressing the feelings that emerge when things go wrong.

    Guilt—that uneasy feeling about doing something wrong or not fully showing up—can be a motivator. But as all the researchers, teachers, and commentators here note, it too can gnaw away at us and morph into shame. Fortunately, a practice like mindfulness can help interrupt the descent into needless shame and help us focus on our future actions. In mindfulness practice, we can begin to see what’s happening more clearly and as the ancient prayer goes, forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.



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  • Mindfulness and Hypnosis: Tools for Navigating Chronic Illness

    Mindfulness and Hypnosis: Tools for Navigating Chronic Illness

    Several years ago, I experienced what at the time I did not realize was the beginning of a life-changing journey into chronic illness. 

    It started with noticing shortness of breath when I bent over to pick something up off the floor, and rapidly snowballed. It felt as if I had stepped into an alternate reality, where I went from being a healthy person whose life was punctuated with hiking, dancing, and travel, to someone whose body would no longer cooperate with life. At my worst, my heart rate spiked throughout the day and night to levels that would send healthy friends running to the ER. I was exhausted and at times too weak to walk.

    Already a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in treating a complex medical condition and learning how to live a meaningful life inside a body that had fundamentally changed.

    This was the beginning of a complex condition involving almost every system in my body, eventually traced back to my time living in a small cottage that unknowingly housed an uninvited tenant: black mold. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined how profoundly this experience would change my body, my life, and my work.

    Already a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in treating a complex medical condition and learning how to live a meaningful life inside a body that had fundamentally changed. 

    Over the years that followed, I worked to carve out spaces of healing, resilience, and joy, rebuilding a life that in many ways felt happier and more free than the one I had lost. I also found myself supporting more clients navigating complex illnesses themselves. Again and again, I saw how mindfulness and hypnosis could help people feel a renewed sense of hope, agency, and capacity to relate to their lives and bodies differently.

    A Nervous System Mobilizing Against Threat

    When we live with chronic illness or pain, it can often feel like we are stuck on high alert—and with good reason. The body is designed to detect danger and mobilize quickly against threat. We have survived across generations of human evolution because of this finely honed system. It’s an incredible gift—until it’s not.

    Pain, stress, illness, and other issues can send signals throughout our body communicating that something is profoundly wrong. It’s our system’s way of saying, “Hey! Stop! Please take care of me.” 

    “Maladaptive neuroplasticity” happens when the body and mind begin to reorganize in order to address the ongoing threat that is occurring. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us long-term or feels particularly good. To our brain and body, it’s about one thing and one thing alone: our survival. 

    But in chronic conditions occurring over time, this repeated activation can make our nervous system extra sensitive to threat. Our body’s warning system begins to fire over and over, responding to even small changes in posture, environment, or life conditions as if they were a five alarm fire. This is part of why hypnosis and meditation have been shown to be highly supportive for chronic illness and pain, when used in complement with appropriate medical care.

    You’ve probably heard the term “neurons that fire together wire together,” meaning that when we repeat anything over and over, we build strong neural pathways that operate automatically. This trait is fantastic in so many situations: we effortlessly remember how to drive a car, we see the face of someone we love and a feeling of warmth washes over us, we wake up and go to our meditation cushion because it’s a habitual part of our routine.

    Our brains are incredibly efficient. They want to save energy, so they create shortcuts to do so. This is often helpful, but when it comes to chronic pain and illness, this can result in heightened sensitivity, and what some researchers call maladaptive neuroplasticity. 

    What does that mean for us? Essentially, the body and mind begin to reorganize in order to address the ongoing threat that is occurring. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us long-term or feels particularly good. To our brain and body, it’s about one thing and one thing alone: our survival.

    Over time, an inner algorithm is created in the brain, body, and nervous system: We get exposed to a trigger or feel the beginning of the symptom and automatically, a cascade of chemical, physiological, and emotional responses fire up within a fraction of a second. Emotions are heightened, thought loops start spinning, discomfort worsens, and the neural pathways connecting things like fear, grief, hopelessness, frustration, and physical symptoms grow stronger. 

    The wonderful thing about neuroplasticity is that you have agency over more of this process than you might imagine, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and reactions, distress, and overwhelm.

    Neuroplasticity Means You Have More Power Than You Know

    It’s understandable that these processes can feel big, automatic, and beyond our control, but that’s not the full picture. The wonderful thing about neuroplasticity is that you have agency over more of this process than you might imagine, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and reactions, distress, and overwhelm.

    This is where mindfulness and hypnosis can offer real support. Both practices help you notice when the alarm bells start going off, so that you can interrupt the cascade of reactivity and learn to steer it in a different direction. Through relaxation, breath, focused attention, visualization, and active work with the subconscious mind, you can begin to support the nervous system and create space where triggers, symptoms, and recurring attitudes and thoughts can be met and worked with. 

    The more you practice cultivating and resting in qualities like safety, compassion, kindness, and relaxation, the more hardwired and automatic they become. Just like you’ve strengthened the muscles of stress and overwhelm, you can strengthen the muscles of ease, trust, and permission to rest and take care of yourself.

    One of my clients has described this process as being able to access her “own little sanctuary”—a place where even in the midst of years-long, complex illness, she is able to rest, remember her wholeness, and feel relief. With that, her sleep has significantly improved along with her overall sense of hope, personal power, and wellbeing.

    Addressing the Whole Person

    Of course, this does not mean thinking we can just “meditate away” a condition that needs treatment. These practices are best done in conjunction with medical care, because they allow us to navigate the full spectrum of our experience—from stress around doctor’s appointments and treatment protocols, to changes in our relationships and career, to celebrating the wins and progress when they do come. Living with pain and illness touches our bodies but also our identities, spirituality, and outlook on the world. These practices can allow us to show up for all parts of it. 

    Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic illness care regimen can reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to interrupt familiar thought loops, to create moments of relief and inner safety, and even to reshape the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with chronic illness feel harder than it already is.

    Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic illness care regimen can reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to interrupt familiar thought loops, to create moments of relief and inner safety, and even to reshape the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with chronic illness feel harder than it already is.

    This is so powerful because in the type of mind states available through meditation and hypnosis, the mind becomes more flexible, creative, and adaptive. In fact, early research suggests that mind-body practices like meditation and hypnosis may influence brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule linked to neuroplasticity, learning, pain modulation, and the nervous system’s capacity to adapt in response to stress. 

    When we add these practices to our toolbox, we are partnering with the subconscious mind so that we can remodel our relationship to illness from the inside out.



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  • A Meditation on Working With Our Fear And Parenting From Love

    A Meditation on Working With Our Fear And Parenting From Love

    Experiencing a season of struggle with your kid? You’re not alone. This gentle practice can help reconnect you with steadiness so you can keep parenting from love.

    In our concern for our children, sometimes we respond from a place of fear and worry. From time to time, we can even lose touch with the love that lies beneath that concern. 

    Reconnecting with the ground of our love and the wish for our children to be happy and well, especially in moments of difficulty, can be incredibly beneficial. 

    This practice from Wendy O’Leary offers a pause of support and encouragement that can bring you back to that core of compassionate wisdom—and you can return to it anytime you need help parenting from love.

    A Meditation on Working With Our Fear And Parenting From Love

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

    1. 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. As we settle in here, bring your attention to your breath or feel the sensations of your body as it connects with the earth. Feet on the floor, backs of the legs on a chair or a cushion. Invite the attention to settle in a bit. Arrive in this moment by dropping into the body with the breath and the sensations of the contact points of the body. Gently settle in. 
    3. Now, I invite you to shift your attention to think about your child, maybe even picturing them in your imagination, calling to mind a time when you felt warm and loving feelings towards them. Notice what they were doing and remember how you felt in that moment. You might even imagine that someone has asked you, What do you love about your child? What words, phrases, images, or descriptions come to mind? 
    4. Gently check in and notice how you feel in your body, mind, and heart as you recall what you love about your child. You could even invite that feeling of love and connection to grow and expand in your body, gently resting here in this felt sense of love for your child. Let yourself marinate in this feeling of love and warmth and care. 
    5. Now, think of the time when your child was struggling. You don’t need to think of the most difficult struggle—instead, go with something that is a three or a four on a one to 10 scale. 
    6. As you allow the situation to more fully enter your awareness, check in again with your body. Often, when we are focused on a difficulty, especially when it’s related to our child, there can be a habitual tendency to contract and lean forward. Check it out and see if that’s true for you. To counteract this tendency, gently lean back just a little. This can be a physical leaning back or even an energetic settling back. Settle back and now invite the body to soften, even widen, creating space to hold whatever is there. We aren’t forcing anything here, it’s just a very gentle invitation to settle back and soften. Gently softening around the edges of any emotions we’re experiencing. 
    7. Now intentionally invite back that sense of love, holding the challenge in a spacious field of loving care and awareness. To help you do this, you might once again remind yourself of all the things you love about your child. You could even offer them some wishes of well-being and happiness as you picture them in your mind. May you be happy. May you well. May you safe. Or any wishes that feel true for you in this moment. 
    8. If the situation you’re calling to mind requires some response from you in some way, you might ask yourself, How would this love respond? You can also offer yourself a bit of care, because if your child is struggling, you are, too. So maybe place a gentle hand on the heart, or take a moment to remind yourself of our common humanity. You might say something to yourself like, Every parent struggles with their children sometimes. Every parent worries about their child at times. Or another phrase that might fit your situation. You could even say to yourself, This is hard, and I’m here for you, honey.  
    9. As you’re ready, you can open your eyes to close our formal practice. This practice can be a powerful way of reconnecting with feelings of love and cut through the worry and fears that we often experience as parents. It can be helpful to do the first part, remembering the love and care as a brief daily practice for a while, so you can more easily call up those feelings of love and connection in the midst of a challenging moment when you need the most help parenting from love. We want to acknowledge the hard stuff and not lose sight of the good and love that is underneath our worries and sometimes even our difficulties with our children. With my very best wishes, may you be happy and peaceful and move through life with ease and equanimity. Thank you for practicing with me.



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  • When Insight Isn’t Enough: An Interview with Juliana Sloane on Imagination, Hypnotherapy, and Deeper Transformation

    When Insight Isn’t Enough: An Interview with Juliana Sloane on Imagination, Hypnotherapy, and Deeper Transformation

    Meditation practice can bring remarkable clarity. Over time, practitioners often become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, and recurring patterns. But awareness alone does not always translate into change. Many meditators can clearly recognize habits of mind such as anxiety, self-criticism, or people-pleasing and still find themselves repeating the same patterns.

    Maybe it is the same relationship dynamic that keeps returning. Or the same inner voice of doubt that appears again and again during practice.

    What happens when recognizing a pattern still does not shift it?

    So what happens when recognizing a pattern still does not shift it?

    Juliana Sloane, a meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, works with practices that explore how deeper, subconscious layers of the mind and nervous system shape our behavior. In this conversation with Mindful, she discusses why understanding our patterns does not always lead to transformation, how imagination and altered states can open new pathways for change, and how mindfulness practitioners might recognize when something arising in practice is asking for deeper attention.

    Angela Stubbs: The topic I originally pitched for this conversation was “when insight isn’t enough.” Many people can recognize their patterns or understand why certain behaviors repeat in their lives. But insight alone does not always lead to real change. From your perspective, why is that?

    Most of the people who come to work with me already have a great deal of self-awareness. But despite that awareness, they still feel stuck. They cannot stop the anxiety. They cannot stop holding themselves to impossible standards. They keep entering relationships that are not right for them.

    Juliana Sloane: There are certainly situations where insight alone can be enough. Someone has an “aha” moment, something shifts internally, and the pattern loosens. But honestly, that is a fairly small percentage of cases I see, especially when it comes to deeply entrenched patterns and habits.

    Most of the people who come to work with me already have a great deal of self-awareness. They often have meditation practices, they have been to therapy, and they are interested in personal growth. They can clearly articulate what their patterns are.

    But despite that awareness, they still feel stuck. They cannot stop the anxiety. They cannot stop holding themselves to impossible standards. They keep entering relationships that are not right for them.

    These kinds of patterns are not just intellectual. They are deeply embedded habits of the mind and nervous system. People have often been repeating them for years, sometimes their entire lives. Over time those repetitions form very strong neural pathways that steer someone back into the same familiar pattern.

    Understanding the pattern can be helpful, but we also need ways to work with the deeper conditioning that keeps recreating it.

    A very common thing I hear is, “I have done a lot of work on this issue. I understand it intellectually. But something still feels stuck.”

    Angela Stubbs: How do people begin to recognize when something might need deeper exploration rather than continued observation or reflection?

    Juliana Sloane: Usually, by the time someone comes to see me, they already have a sense that something deeper is going on. A very common thing I hear is, “I have done a lot of work on this issue. I understand it intellectually. But something still feels stuck.”

    The feeling that there is ‘something deeper’ to explore is often a good sign someone might benefit from working with these layers of knowing and experience that lie further beneath the surface.

    The biggest time someone might not be ready is when they are hoping for a quick fix that doesn’t require their active participation. We’re not waving a magic wand, we’re actively engaging with the mind, body, and nervous system to create the change that’s needed.

    The work I do is about helping people develop tools to navigate their own inner worlds and access their own resources, insight, and wisdom. Ultimately, the goal is for people to feel more empowered in their own process and to realize that many of the answers they are looking for are already within them.

    Angela Stubbs: If many of these patterns live outside conscious awareness, what is happening beneath the level of the thinking mind?

    We tend to think that if we understand something intellectually we should be able to change it. But most of our behaviors and emotional responses are shaped by processes happening beyond the level of conscious thought.

    Juliana Sloane: A lot of the patterns people struggle with are operating outside conscious awareness. We tend to think that if we understand something intellectually we should be able to change it. But most of our behaviors and emotional responses are shaped by processes happening beyond the level of conscious thought.

    Over time repeated experiences form strong patterns in the mind and nervous system. Those patterns can become automatic, even to the extent that they begin to simply feel like part of who we are. Even when someone understands the pattern, they can still find themselves pulled back into it again and again.

    Awareness can help us recognize what is happening, but the deeper conditioning that drives those patterns may still be operating underneath.

    In many ways the conscious mind is only a small part of what is shaping our experience. If we are only working at that level, we are leaving a lot of the mind untouched.

    Angela Stubbs: You often use the word trance in your work. For readers who may not be familiar with that idea, what do you mean by trance?

    Juliana Sloane: When people hear the word trance, they often imagine something unusual or mysterious. And it certainly can feel magical, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible. Trance is actually a very natural state of consciousness that people move in and out of all the time.

    People’s ideas about hypnosis typically come from stage shows or older models where someone appears to ‘take control’ of another person’s mind. But that is not really how modern hypnotherapeutic work functions. Hypnosis is much more collaborative and empowering than people often imagine. The person entering trance remains aware and engaged in the process the entire time.

    For example, when you are completely absorbed in a movie or a book and lose track of time, that is a kind of trance state. Your attention becomes focused and the usual analytical thinking mind quiets down.

    In those moments the mind becomes more open to imagery, emotion, intuition, and deeper layers of experience. In trance-based practices we are intentionally working with that state of focused awareness so people can explore those deeper layers of their own inner experience.

    Angela Stubbs: There are a lot of misconceptions about hypnosis. What do people often misunderstand about it?

    Juliana Sloane: People’s ideas about hypnosis typically come from stage shows or older models where someone appears to ‘take control’ of another person’s mind.

    But that is not really how modern hypnotherapeutic work functions. Hypnosis is much more collaborative and empowering than people often imagine. The person entering trance remains aware and engaged in the process the entire time.

    What happens is that the analytical thinking mind begins to relax a little. We start to get out of our own way, which allows deeper layers of the mind and our own awareness to become more available.

    Rather than controlling someone, the practitioner is helping create conditions where a person can explore their own inner experience in a different way and become an active agent of change in their own subconscious mind.

    In many modern contexts we think of imagination as something childish or unserious. But imagination is actually one of the most potent ways the mind communicates.

    Angela Stubbs: You speak about the role of imagination in this work. That can be surprising for people who tend to think of imagination as something unreal.

    Juliana Sloane: In many modern contexts we think of imagination as something childish or unserious. But imagination is actually one of the most potent ways the mind communicates.

    During a focused meditative or hypnotic process, things like imagery, metaphor, and archetype are often steeped in meaning. They’re not just ‘our imagination’ running wild, rather, they are symbols encoded with our beliefs, experiences, world view, memory, and so much more. In our day to day life, we often gloss over the power this holds. When people go into a hypnotic or trance-like state, those hidden metaphors, somatic experiences, and images naturally emerge for us to actively work with them. 

    Rather than dismissing those experiences as “just imagination,” we can begin to see them as powerful tools. Sometimes these experiences point us to deeper emotional patterns and allow us to process and integrate our experiences more fully. Sometimes they allow us agency to experience what it’s like to overcome obstacles or respond differently to things that used to trigger anxiety, self-doubt, or fear. For example, professional athletes do this all the time when they mentally rehearse breaking a record or performing at their best. Your brain doesn’t actually discriminate all that much whether you’re shooting the basket or envisioning shooting the basket– it takes that information and it runs with it. So when you’re working with a hypnotherapist, you’re using these tools to help your mind, body, and nervous system explore and integrate new options and ways of being. 

    Angela Stubbs: How do you see this work relating to mindfulness practice?

    Juliana Sloane: I don’t see this work as replacing mindfulness practice. In fact, I think mindfulness creates the foundation for this to be possible in the first place.

    Meditation helps people develop awareness of their thoughts, embodied experience, emotions, and patterns. That awareness is incredibly valuable because you cannot work with something if you don’t notice it.

    What often happens is that when people develop a meditation practice, they begin to clearly notice patterns in their thinking, reactions, and the way they approach their world. They find they can observe those patterns clearly, but it does not necessarily shift things in their day-to-day life.

    Practices that engage deeper layers of the mind can allow people to explore what might be underneath those patterns in a different way. Rather than replacing mindfulness, this kind of work can deepen the process that mindfulness begins.

    Practices that engage deeper layers of the mind can allow people to explore what might be underneath those patterns in a different way. Rather than replacing mindfulness, this kind of work can deepen the process that mindfulness begins.

    Angela Stubbs: Are there signs that something arising in practice might be inviting deeper exploration?

    Juliana Sloane: Often it is when a pattern—for example, anxiety, or self-criticism, or a repeated issue with work, relationships, or life—continues to show up again and again, even when someone is very aware of it.

    A person might recognize the pattern in meditation or in therapy. They understand where it comes from and they can see it happening in real time. But despite that awareness, it keeps repeating.

    That can sometimes be a signal that the pattern is rooted in deeper layers of the mind or nervous system.

    Those moments can become invitations to explore the pattern in a different way and to approach it with curiosity rather than trying to force it to change through understanding alone.

    Editor’s note:

    In a forthcoming article for Mindful, Juliana Sloane explores how meditation and hypnosis practices can support people living with chronic illness, including ways these approaches may help individuals relate differently to pain, fatigue, and the emotional challenges of long-term health conditions. Keep an eye on our homepage.



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  • 5 Lessons on Vanity: An Invitation to Awareness and Letting Go

    5 Lessons on Vanity: An Invitation to Awareness and Letting Go

    I was once considered beautiful. Perhaps, by some, I still am.

    At fourteen years old, I took a modeling course with two of my girlfriends. The ultimate in turning the body into an object to be adored. After three weeks of learning how to walk, sashay, and twirl, we sat down to paint our faces. The palate consisted of endless brushes and shadows—pinks, browns, golds, and glimmering sparkles. 

    Now, I think of it as war paint. We were being trained in the art of disguise, heightening our beauty, to use sexuality as an enticing weapon, and as a means of power. But at the time, it was playing dress up, like a six-year-old getting into mum’s make up and smearing it all over her face, making garish designs that can look cute on children. I didn’t understand the implications. 

    As part of this evolution, thin eyebrows were a necessary part of the mask: pull out all those unsightly and unwanted hairs to create a narrow arch of both surprise and slight disdain, to disarm with a slight tilt of the head, gazing upward and flirtatious.

    One of the instructors, Mary-Anne, was moon-faced, large lipped, and fish-eyed, with long lashes. She came at me with relish, gleeful, saying, “I’ve been waiting for weeks to get at you.” 

    As she carefully tugged out each hair my eye muscles contracted into an excruciating spasm. The tears poured out of my tortured left eye while I endured this in the pursuit of iconic beauty. 

    Lesson One: Vanity Is Costly and Finite

    This was the first indication, although I didn’t get the message, that vanity has a price. 

    This attachment to the body, the idealizing of our skin bag, ultimately comes at great cost. 

    Women so often are defined by, and get their power from, physical characteristics that have a built-in expiry date. But at fourteen we can’t fully know this. It is impossible to feel what will become inevitable; we understand it as happening  to others but not to us. 

    Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me. 

    So, I sat very still, passive, while my eye cried, fascinated that this eye had a mind of its own. Finally, the teacher finished. She examined her creation and was proud. Smiling, she handed me a mirror. I looked and saw that I was a little more hidden—that what I thought of as me, was not really me. 

    Lesson Two: Desire Leads to Suffering

    When I was fifteen, Judy Welch, a diva of the modelling scene, and the owner of an agency, entered me in the Miss Chin Bikini contest that took place annually on Centre Island in Toronto. 

    We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued. 

    It was 1971, and I wore a white crocheted bikini with daisy-like nipple coverings and brown platform strappy sandals. The contestants lined up before the judges in a back room behind the stage. We were twenty-two heads of cattle going up for the beauty auction. While uncomfortable, I was still too young to know what I was feeling. I still didn’t fully realize that we were up for scrutiny and judgment. Each of us was an object of comparison, to see who would be most valued in this competition of the female form. 

    Following this inspection, we swished along the runway in that contrived, lithe and pseudo-sexual manner to catcalls and Italian exclamations, and it was finally dawning on me that I am an object. It felt a little dangerous. I came in third place. Not the most beautiful, but still in the running. I won a bottle of Baby Duck that I was too young to drink, and my picture was in the Toronto Sun showing me walking, ash blonde hair, sharp jawed, bikini clad. I was a success.

    Obscene breathy phone calls followed this win, until they stopped. Some version of me was wanted. I was repulsed and afraid, but clearly also wishing to be seen. It was confusing to do what was being asked of me  and then putting myself at risk. 

    Thankfully, even then, the news was short-lived. Everything passes. This was the second lesson on vanity: As we attach, so do others, and this grasping is problematic. 

    Lesson Three: The Need for an Inner Life

    The third lesson came when I went to see a photographer to create my modelling portfolio. 

    Every model needs a book of photos to display her various looks to potential employers. These are her wares.

    Derek told me to go into the bathroom and ice my nipples and then put my tight black, ribbed cardigan back on. He directed me to partially undo my sweater. Dutifully, I complied. Already, I knew to do what men tell me. I was fifteen years old. The photographic image conveyed something unrecognizably coquettish in black and white: long hair, head tilted and mouth in a pouty kiss. 

    I see now how quickly we get lost in the appearance of things, hooked by the illusion of sex for sale, reinforcing the manufactured desire of the viewer. 

    It became important to cultivate an internal life so that when I ultimately arrived at the invisibility of middle age and beyond, there would be something more than the loss seen in the mirror. But this was a slow and painful learning.     

    My very brief modeling career soon ended after that experience. I didn’t have what it took to pretend in this way, to completely buy into the dream. 

    I realized early that my moment as a focus of male attention, and the power this gave, was time limited. It became important to cultivate an internal life so that when I ultimately arrived at the invisibility of middle age and beyond, there would be something more than the loss seen in the mirror. But this was a slow and painful learning.      

    At 28 and 34 years old I was pregnant, becoming a woman of substance, gaining 65 and 45 pounds respectively. I stopped traffic in the street when crossing, because I believed I was indestructible. 

    It was a fascinating time. My body was not mine. It did what it wanted and there was freedom in this choicelessness. The body was morphing while these creatures grew inside. I was a temporary accommodation for them. We were symbiotic while they were both inside and out, until they started running away. 

    Mindfulness and parenting are wonderful ways to develop an inner life. You come to know your experience inside and out.

    Lesson Four: Learn to Let Go

    Motherhood is a continual process of letting go. It is unfortunate that I didn’t let go of my attachment to my body and its changing appearance when I had that first opportunity. 

    Varicosities abounded as a result of pregnancy. I had one long, wriggling and twisting vein that traversed my lower leg removed for an obscene price. 

    In my forties, I started running long and fast away from the Grim Reaper, following my husband who is five years younger than I am, trying to hang on to a youth that was already gone. 

    I ran four marathons, culminating in Boston in a 90-degree Fahrenheit heat wave. I finished. So many do not. I have perseverance and pacing. I managed to develop a bleeding gut, from dehydration, and a bacteria called campylobacter picked up a month before in Guatemala. It turned my body into a vomiting, excretive, bloody mess. When this healed, I got pelvic cramping whenever I ran more than five kilometers.    

    Many years have been devoted to the mirror. I sometimes now think of hanging a black cloth over it so I can stop the compulsion to look and mourn the loss of my good looks. 

    I asked an esthetician friend of mine what she thinks are the best anti-aging products or techniques. She says, “Honey, hold back the hands of time and stop them before they start moving.” 

    Every day I examine myself through the looking glass and take in each tiny detail—the fine lines around the mouth, the darkening under the eyes, the fat herniation in my eye lids, and the gentle sagging of the jaw. 

    I asked an esthetician friend of mine what she thinks are the best anti-aging products or techniques. She says, “Honey, hold back the hands of time and stop them before they start moving.” 

    We could also consider accepting the inevitable. Just let go of hanging on to what is already gone. But we revere our youth and beauty, as do others, for so many reasons. If females need protection, it is much more likely we will get it if we are young, gorgeous, and reproductively viable. We can avoid presenting the reality of sickness, aging and death that we desperately want to ignore. Our culture, unlike some, hates aging and the aged. They are a frightening reminder of our end. We push away what we don’t like. We behave in defiance, avoiding the unavoidable truth: that we are mortal. 

    We push away what we don’t like. We behave in defiance, avoiding the unavoidable truth: that we are mortal. 

    I note every wrinkle that has begun to engrave its way into my face and see the effects of gravity over time. I see the development of the estrogen pouch as my waistline thickens. The varicosities increase, and my skin thins. Sunspots creep over my hands. Red dots pop up on my chest and belly. Thank medicine for liquid nitrogen. We can burn a lot away. Hairs sprout from my face.

    I make a pact with my friend that she will pull those hairs out of my chin if I am dying in a hospital bed. Why stop then? I see my nails thicken, skin dry, my hair grey, my libido decline. 

    Lesson Five: Acceptance Is More Helpful Than Resistance 

    I look good for my age. In that sentence there is the gripping on to that which is passing before my eyes, the need to look makes me feel good. I never tell people to guess my age. What if they are right? 

    Unable to let go, I hang on with hair colour, tweezing, exercise, vitamins, estrogen, testosterone, vein removal, facials, botox, and filler. I am careful not to cross the line into looking freakish. No duck lips or chipmunk cheeks for me. I want to look natural. To pretend on top of pretending. 

    A lack of willingness to embrace the impermanence and decline of the body is an expensive practice. Acceptance would be far more skillful than resistance, and this absurd continuous re-modelling of an aging bag. I am still chained to this body and an idea of who I think I am or who I think I should be. 

    What is acceptance if not resignation? I don’t understand it is not a battle.

    Three of my friends are turning fifty. I have three gifts for them. A care kit for the future. These are: a magnifying mirror, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Larry Rosenberg’s Breath by Breath. 

    The mirror is such an interesting companion on this journey, and avoidance of its reflection is as much an act of hanging on to your view of self as is the gazing at and manipulation of your image. It can also prevent eye trickery if one can see clearly. The books have two functions. One is for lightening attachment to the body with humour, and the other is an instruction for working with the truth that change can be a friend, rather than the enemy. 

    I have understood this lesson in acceptance, but there is still the looking glass, and I remain bound to its glitter and my image.

    This futile attempt to freeze the march of time on my face and body is the cause of suffering. Intellectually, I know this, but the idea of giving up on my body is currently aversive. The cosmetic surgery business is booming. Women in their 20s and 30s are taking the plunge into myriad injections, surgical removals and implants, spawning a generation of females who are more like Barbie than Barbie herself, with their immobile faces, large eyes, and protruding lips. If only the body were perfect, we would be happy—and yet another part of me knows this is not true. 

    I have understood this lesson in acceptance, but there is still the looking glass, and I remain bound to its glitter and my image.

    I am in my 60s now, still measuring myself against my cohort. I see these bulges of back fat, falling biceps, and increasing fatigue. My bones and muscles, however, carry me lithely and my sight and hearing are still almost perfect. I await the time when I can no longer keep up with the maintenance and am completely unseen. It would be a good time for a second career as a spy.

    Alternatively, as an 80-year old woman I knew once said, I could let it all go, “…wake up every morning, look in the mirror and laugh, shake my head, and say, How did I get here?”



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  • On the Other Side of Sadness: Teaching Our Kids (and Ourselves) That It’s Okay to Feel Anything

    On the Other Side of Sadness: Teaching Our Kids (and Ourselves) That It’s Okay to Feel Anything

    My six-year-old daughter, Opal, wants nothing more than to go to the Humane Society to visit the dogs that “need the most love.” So we leave right from a half-day of school to do just that, eating almond butter and jelly sandwiches on the way.

    The entryway of the Boulder Valley Humane Society smells like wood chips. There is a stack of hamster cages by the front door, placed like intended impulse purchases, like Chapstick and breath mints at Target.

    “May I help you?” The pleasant lady behind the counter says with a mouth that is more gums than teeth.  I tell her we’d like to visit a dog or two that are especially in need of love.

    “Hmmm,” she says, thinking, with a close-mouthed smile. “Yes, Leo could use a visit. He’s big, that ok?”

    We have an 85-pound lab at home. I assure her we are accustomed to Big.

    We find Leo asleep on a bed in a very large crate with a bone-shaped sign marked “Sweetie pie.”  He is a five-year-old pit bull with a face as wide as a loaf of bread and fur the shade of sand. We return to the front room where we wait for a staff person to bring him out.

    I notice as we walk through the halls, many—but not all—of the dogs have the same bone-shaped signs hanging from their cages, but with all different descriptions: “Playful!” “Timid.” It occurs to me that the ones without the signs must not be as forthcoming in their nameable characteristics. In my mind I imagine hosting a party in the New Year where I’ll have each guest wear a little sign around their neck that states one of their prominent qualities: People pleaser. Observer. Perfectionist.

    Leo busts through the swinging doors, pulling a staff member behind him on a pink leash. This should be an indication of what we’re in for, but I grab the leash anyway and out the front doors we go. Walking this dog is essentially like walking a linebacker who is heading in the opposite direction. I desperately try to keep my footing while he pulls me down a muddy decline and we leave Opal behind, yelling MOM!

    Giving this dog love is proving to be an arduous task. So we start to head back towards the building where we came from.

    As we walk, I notice the fur is missing from the tops of both of Leo’s ears and there are chalky mushroom-shaped lumps on his skin where the hair should be growing. Same on the backs of his legs. There are pin stripes in his short fur where the hair doesn’t grow, much more subtle than the scars that would have come from the mouth or claws of another animals.

    Opal says, “Why does he look like that?”

    I tell her it looks like he’s been in a fight with another dog. Harmless enough—animals fight. I don’t say that it looks like he has probably been in dogfights. That he was likely rescued from a rough situation with either an abusive owner or an owner who condoned violence. The kind of scenario that gives pit bulls a bad name. He is horrid on a leash—left both of my hands red and burned from the yanking—but he doesn’t seem to have any fear of or aggression towards people. This, to me, is a marvel.

    Upon our return, we catch sight of a man playing with a pit bull puppy, smiling and laughing as the pup climbs into his lap then flops over the side. I can see that Opal wants that experience, so we give Leo a final head-scratch and then ask to trade him in for a puppy.

    The Discomfort, the Squirming Away, the Return to Presence

    We take one of seven pit bull puppies to a fenced-in area outside. The fresh air and the puppy-energy feel like a relief. He’s as small as a football and slick-black except for his belly and the tips of his paws, which are pure white. Watching him teeter and fumble from point A to point B is pure comedy. Opal is beside herself with delight.

    Then she asks the inevitable question: “Can we take him home?”

    I tell her no.  A puppy is way too much work. They poop and chew on everything. But we can come visit him next week.

    “What if he’s gone by then?”

    Opal doesn’t say much on the way home. “Blackbird” by the Beatles is playing on the radio—Take these broken wings and learn to fly. I can see her in the rear-view mirror gazing out the window with a million-mile stare.

    I tell her that if he’s gone, that would mean a good family adopted him. These puppies would probably get adopted really fast.

    Opal doesn’t say much on the way home. “Blackbird” by the Beatles is playing on the radio—Take these broken wings and learn to fly. I can see her in the rear-view mirror gazing out the window with a million-mile stare.

    At home, Opal drapes her body over my lap as we sit on the couch. Our huge lab is snoring at my feet. Opal is sniffling and periodically wipes her nose on her sleeve. I caress her hair.

    She says, “What if nobody wants to adopt Leo?” Plump little tears pool in the corners of her eyes.

    I tell Opal that maybe we shouldn’t return to the Humane Society if it’s just going to break her heart. But that only upsets her more and I quickly realize those words are counter to everything we’ve been teaching her.

    We—the Grimes family—have spent the better part of a year as a foster family. And we frequently talk about how we never need to shy away from big emotions, especially when they come as a repercussion of helping others. But it’s such a habit to either tense-up or cower in the face of unhappiness, and to want to shield others from the pain of being human.

    “Honey, the Humane Society will find a good home for Leo. And for the little puppy and all his brothers and sisters.”

    “But what if the man who adopts them is mean?”

    I know there are no shortcuts to getting to the other side of sadness aside from going through it.

    “Oh honey,” I say. I am constantly at odds with how much truth to share with her about this crazy, uncertain, often-terrifying-but-also-beautiful-and-miraculous world. I swing back and forth between feeling like I say too much, and not knowing what else to say.

    So I return to simply paying attention—to my own thoughts, my own discomfort, my own shallow breath, my own want to talk about happier things—because I know there are no shortcuts to getting to the other side of sadness aside from going through it.

    I ask, “Can you take a deep breath with me?”

    “Uh-huh.” She is looking up at me now as we inhale and exhale. Choppy, partial breaths at first, then calm and deep.

    “Hey, it’s okay to feel sadness, sweetie. Fact is, there is a lot of sadness in the world. We just keep doing what we can. And you did good today, giving love like you did.”

    It in that moment, she stands up, gathers herself, and flashes me a tiny but genuine smile as she moves on with her day.

    Realizing: It’s Okay to Feel My Own Sadness, Too

    Two days later, we take a trip to visit our beloved foster baby of nearly a year who returned to live with her parents three weeks earlier. This baby, we’ll call her Little Blue Eyes.

    I’m so pleased to find her looking happy and healthy, very connected to her mother. She has an adorable room with quilts on the walls, loads of toys and books. Their pit bull strangely resembles the one from the humane society, though he is exponentially more calm and civilized.

    I didn’t realize it, but many of my feelings of loss had been shuffled in with the hubbub of the holidays and travel. The grief is immediately present when I rest my gaze on her face and hear her say OpalOpalOpal.

    All good news. And yet, in spite of the fact that we will likely see her again, it feels as if this visit is a good-bye. Little Blue Eyes went home days before Christmas and I didn’t realize it, but many of my feelings of loss had been shuffled in with the hubbub of the holidays and travel. The grief is immediately present when I rest my gaze on her face and hear her say OpalOpalOpal.

    The sorrow feels like fatigue at first, then grumpy over-sensitivity during dinner. Then, later, after Opal is asleep, a torrent of tears comes like a valve has burst behind my eyes. I can’t stop it, though my first inclination is to do just that. My mindful self is telling me that crying is a natural and healthy reaction, and that I can relax with my sadness. But my body—bones and muscles—wants to make the discomfort go away. I am aware of all of this.

    I make my way into our bedroom where Jesse is watching TV. He sees my face and says, “Little Blue Eyes?”

    I think of how intense these emotions feel to me, a “big strong grown-up,” and I can only imagine how the same vast emotions must feel to my daughter, on the planet only six years and with much less experience in seeing her feelings through to the other side. It’s up to us to show her that emotions are fluid, always in flux.

    I nod and lie down next to him. I put my head on his chest the way Opal did with me a few days earlier. His heart is in my ear like a distant drum against my shifting breath. I think of how intense these emotions feel to me, a “big strong grown-up,” and I can only imagine how the same vast emotions must feel to my daughter, on the planet only six years and with much less experience in seeing her feelings through to the other side. It’s up to us to show her that emotions are fluid, always in flux.

    “It’s okay to feel sad,” Jesse says to me. “I feel sad, too.”

    These are the same words I spoke to Opal when we were on the couch, the same compassionate tone. I sit up and stretch my arms high and to the sides, the sound of inner-movement like a soft rumble deep in the canals of my ears. Some life re-enters my bones.

    Those words, “It’s okay to feel sad,” open a window in the tiny, claustrophobic room of emotion I am crouched in. And it isn’t so stifling anymore. This is what happens when I am mindful of not trying to manipulate, hide, or wrestle with my sadness. I can let it roam more freely until, naturally and eventually, it simply dissolves on the back of an unsuspecting outbreath.



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  • Create Inner Balance With A 12-Minute Meditation

    Create Inner Balance With A 12-Minute Meditation

    Life is never constant. And it can be difficult to remain balanced in the midst of change. Susan Bauer-Wu shares a guided meditation to ground us in the present moment and cultivate equanimity.

    With equanimity, we can feel the possibility of balance in our hearts in the midst of life’s ups and downs. It’s a quality that’s both receptive and stable. In short, it’s the opposite of the reactive mind. With equanimity, there’s a feeling of ease and allowing as we ride the waves of change and different experiences. It allows us to be present to suffering and present to joy. It combines an understanding mind together with a compassionate heart. It doesn’t mean we are indifferent or that we don’t care or that we care less, it means we allow life to unfold without any attachments to an outcome or taking things personally. And finally, equanimity is opening to easing into each moment with care and gentleness. 

    A Meditation to Create Inner Balance in the Face of Change

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

    1. Settle into a comfortable posture. You can close your eyes or simply lower your gaze. Bring awareness toward your body. Notice your breath move through your body, feeling the chest or belly expand with your breath.
    2. Take a moment to set an intention for the practice. Perhaps it’s to feel a sense of inner balance and ease. Take in the following phrases or the meaning of the phrases and quietly repeat to yourself: Things are just as they are. I’m safe in this moment. My happiness and suffering depend on my thoughts and actions, not simply upon my wishes. May I feel joy and ease.
    3. Notice whatever is present for you right now. Resting in a feeling of OK-ness in this moment, just as it is.
    4. Bring to mind someone who you care about and who may be going through a hard time. Extend these phrases or the meaning of the phrases to this person. I care for you yet cannot keep you from suffering. I love you yet cannot control your happiness. Your happiness and suffering depend on your thoughts and actions and not my wishes for you. May you feel joy and ease.
    5. Notice how you feel. Notice the raw feeling of whatever is present for you. Sit with it. Just letting it be, right now.
    6. Once again, bring awareness to the body, and the breath. Feel the ease of simply being and breathing. 
    Interested in Meditation? Here Are the Basics 

    Meditation is a core mindfulness practice that you can customize to meet you where you are, bring your attention to the present moment, and engage in more compassion and connection. Here’s what you need to know to get started. Read More 

    • Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp
    • May 21, 2021



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