In this practice, teacher Shalini Bahl reminds us that in its simplest form, mindfulness is just about stopping—stopping to notice, to breathe, to gently interrupt our engrained habits of thought with our quiet presence.
We often think of mindfulness and meditation as a drawn-out, sustained exercise—when in reality, they’re just a collection of micro-moments of stopping, breathing, really noticing our own bodies and our own lives, getting distracted, and then coming back again. Over and over.
As this week’s teacher Shalini Bahl puts it, today’s guided practice is about the art of stopping: letting go of our regular habits of the mind—the pushing, pulling, running in circles— and instead just being for a moment.
This is an extended practice, but as a bonus, we’re also sharing a micro-practice version below that you can take into busy days.
And don’t miss Shalini’s article on Mindful.org that’s all about the power of micro-practices to affect our daily choices.
A Meditation on the Art of Stopping
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Start by coming to a comfortable posture where you feel supported. If you need more cushions or something to support your back so you feel the elongation along the back of your spine and rolling your shoulders up, back, and down. Rest your hands facing palms up or palms down. When you feel ready, lower or close your eyes.
Receive the sound of the bells as an invitation to the mind to be fully present. To this body, to this breath. Notice the fact that you’re breathing. There’s no need to change your breath in any way. If it’s shallow, let it be shallow, if it’s deep, let it be deep. Just rest your awareness in this breath, entering your body, following it as far as it wants to go. Notice the slight pause when the in-breath changes to out-breath. Then rest in the awareness of that exhale until the out-breath fully leaves your body. And then the pause, resting in that pause before the breath enters the body.
Follow this cycle of breathing at your own pace, resting in awareness. You’re not thinking about your breath, you’re really starting to sense the breath, the coolness, the touch of the breath as soon as it enters your nostrils. Feel it move in your body, the expansion, as you breathe in, in your lungs, in your chest, in the belly, wherever you feel it. As you inhale, breathe in and then exhale, really sensing that contraction, the letting go.
Every time your mind wanders, which it will, just notice that with kindness. Let go of that thought for now, knowing you can always return to the plans, to your thoughts, after the practice. For now, just let go of those thoughts and return back to this awareness of the breath.
Just for these few moments, let go of any rushing, of any judging, of expectations. Allow yourself to breathe just the way you are, as you are. Give your full care and attention to every inhale. To every exhale. And the spaces in between.
When you’re ready, find one place in your body where you can really feel the direct sensations of breathing. It could be the touch of the breath in the nostrils or the upper lip region where you feel the coolness of the new breath entering the nose, the tingling in your nostrils, or the warmth as you exhale, touching your upper lip.
If it feels more natural for you, you can turn your attention to feel your breath in the region of your chest or your belly. Find that one place where you can feel the direct experience of breathing. For the next few minutes, stay there with the direct sensations of breathing. Again, keep it effortless, just a very gentle resting in that awareness of the breath.
If it feels dull, you can open your eyes a little bit. Make your inhale more conscious. If your mind is really active, give more attention to the exhale, the slowing down of your exhale.
What we are practicing here is the art of stopping and letting go—letting go of our distractions, of our regular habits of the mind, of pushing, pulling, running in circles. We’re just being here, fully present to your breath, allowing yourself to feel your breath directly.
Notice your expectations of what’s next, of how things should be, even how this practice should be. Notice how your attachments can get in the way of your experience of inner calm in this moment. Soften the grip of those attachments and just return to your direct experience of the breath. Just this one breath.
Now, expand your awareness of this breath, of the feeling of this breathing in your whole body. You can stay either focused on that one place or you can expand the awareness of this breath moving through your body. Feel your whole body breathing in, breathing out. Notice those micro-moments of letting go of distractions and staying present.
Before we end this practice, take a few moments to listen within to what’s present. Just listen, taking a few moments to listen as your mind and body are a little calmer. Maybe there’s clarity of way you can bring in more of this practice of inner calm in your life, whether it’s in your relationships, with yourself, in your work. Just listen within to where this practice of inner calm can be most skillful, most beneficial to you and your loved ones. May we carry forward these qualities of inner and outer calm in all our actions and interactions.
Chronic, complex medical conditions rarely have easy answers—but as meditation teacher Juliana Sloane reminds us in this soothing practice, we can always meet our suffering with creativity, gentleness, and compassion.
Learning to live with pain and illness is challenging, arduous work. Often, people can go for months or even years without sufficient answers. Life gets turned completely upside down. The body you thought you had suddenly becomes something you don’t recognize or know how to work with.
This week, meditation teacher and hypnotherapist Juliana Sloane offers an imaginative meditation that invites softness and self-compassion in the midst of discomfort.
A Meditation to Bring Comfort and Kindness to Pain and Illness
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
In this meditation, we’ll be using some imaginative and mindfulness-based practices to work with discomfort or illness or pain in the body. These practices have been shown to be very supportive for symptom management, as well as finding ways to meet challenging health situations with more patience, more kindness, and more space.
Begin by getting comfortable, allowing yourself to find a place seated or lying down where you can really relax. Close your eyes if that feels comfortable, or soften your gaze.
Imagine that right now, any place in your body where you rest your attention could begin to soften and relax and get more comfortable. Begin by resting your attention on the muscles around your mouth. Invite those muscles around your mouth to move into relaxation, ease, comfort, letting those muscles just let go.
Now notice the space inside your mouth. The surface area of the roof of your mouth, the sides of your cheek. Rest your attention on the back of your tongue. And allowing the back of your tongue to begin to relax. Let that tongue come down maybe from the roof of the mouth or allow it to just soften or loosen or come into resting.
Bring your awareness to the cheeks and jaw and just let that jaw, those cheeks loosen and soften. You might feel the mouth open slightly as you do, or you might feel those cheeks just get heavier and looser.
Bring your attention now to the muscles around and behind the eyes. Let those muscles around the eyes relax.
Move your attention up to the forehead, letting those muscles in the forehead soften and relax. Notice the top of your head and imagine that as you rest your attention there on the top of the head, you could even allow the scalp to relax.
Now slide your attention down the back of your head, almost like that relaxation could just flow down the back of your head. Down your neck and shoulders, letting those shoulders loosen and soften and relax.
Notice the space between your shoulder blades, and breathe that sense of softening and relaxation into that space. Let your attention flow down to your arms and hands, inviting every muscle in those arms and hands to begin to relax and soften, as if those arms and hands could just get heavy, as if they’re saturated with that comfort, that ease, that relaxation.
Let that same softness flow down into your chest and belly. Down into your legs and your feet.
Now, choose a sensation that doesn’t feel too overwhelming. It might be a specific symptom or a place where there’s pain in the body. Rest your attention there on that place where the symptom has been, or the place where you’re experiencing discomfort. Get a little closer to it with a sense of curiosity and creativity and even resourcefulness.
Now imagine: if this sensation had a color, what color would it be? You might notice the specific color, whether it’s dark or light. Notice how big that color is, how much space it takes up. Imagine what qualities, what resources this color might need—for example, maybe it needs kindness. Maybe it needs patience. Maybe it needs more understanding.
Sense into what might support this color here in the body. When you land on that, allow yourself to imagine if that resource, if that supportive quality had a color, what color would that be? Once you have that supportive, beautiful quality in its colo, imagine that you could take this resource, this support, this other helpful color, and you could wrap it around that first color. And as you do, you can imagine that now this supportive color is moving into that space and changing the color of the entire area, filling it with that supportive, resourcing energy of that color. You might imagine this almost like you were wrapping that area with color and that color had a healing balm or a medicinal quality to it as you infuse the space with that color, bringing that kindness or that patience or that understanding.
Imagine that that supportive, beautiful color could begin to move outward. It could fill the body so that you could rest in this color.
Spend some quiet time with this image. Notice what’s different. Know that right now, you can send that color that’s so supportive, so soothing into any place it’s needed. Let’s rest in that color for one more moment. Then, gently come back into the room, stretching and opening your eyes.
There is a moment so small you almost never notice it.
The moment before you click. Before you reply. Before you reach for what’s easy.
These moments shape your life.
And they’re the ones most meditations never touch.
The Belief I Never Paused to Question
I’ve meditated for over two decades—Vipassana retreats, MBSR certification, thousands of hours on the cushion. I’m also a mindful marketing professor who teaches conscious marketing and consumer behavior, a former town councilor, and a mindfulness teacher. I care deeply about this work.
So when I say I ordered from Amazon for over ten years, I want to be clear: I was not unaware. I knew about the working conditions. I watched local bookstores close. I taught my students about values-aligned consumption. When I could, I shopped local.
Underneath all of it was a quiet belief I had never paused to examine. But the assumption I had built my consumer life around was simply not true.
But life was full—raising a family, teaching, serving on council, writing, offering free community classes. Amazon was convenient. Books, audiobooks, protein bars, gifts—it was one-click easy, and I was doing good in so many other ways.
Underneath all of it was a quiet belief I had never paused to examine: There is no real alternative to Amazon. Not an articulated belief. Just an assumption so woven into my decision-making that it felt like fact.
Then I learned that Amazon was actively funding politics that conflicted with everything I teach and stand for. That was the moment I felt compelled to confront my belief—and visible beliefs can be questioned.
I paused. I looked for alternatives and almost immediately found Thrive Market. It had been there the whole time. So had a local food cooperative. Some items were actually cheaper in the alternative stores. The assumption I had built my consumer life around was simply not true.
This is about something deeper: whether mindfulness can change how we actually think and make decisions—beyond the cushion, in our lives.
I want to be clear: this isn’t about judging anyone who shops at Amazon. It’s about pausing long enough to ask whether my choices are aligned with my values—and discovering that when I finally asked, the answer had been waiting for me all along.
Three qualities of mind that I had cultivated in meditation for twenty years seldom showed up at checkout—Curiosity, Compassion, and Inner Calm. They’re three of eight mindfulness skills that disrupt the default habits running our decisions. We’ll meet the others as we go.
The evidence that mindfulness reduces stress is well established. That’s not what this article is about. This is about something deeper: whether mindfulness can change how we actually think and make decisions—beyond the cushion, in our lives.
Reducing stress and changing decisions are not the same thing. A person can feel calmer and continue making the same unconscious choices—choices that may perpetuate the very conditions that create stress in the first place.
We don’t have one unified self making all these decisions. We have different selves that take turns being in charge depending on context. Each runs on its own defaults. And the mindfulness your morning self cultivated does not automatically transfer to the decision the consumer self is about to make.
The deeper question is whether mindfulness can reach the place where our decisions are actually formed. The emerging evidence says yes.
Researchers Maymin and Langer presented participants with 22 classic cognitive biases—the endowment effect, overconfidence, anchoring, loss aversion, confirmation bias, and seventeen others. Half received a brief induction in active noticing—instructions to look for what’s new and unfamiliar in their environment. On 19 of the 22 biases, those induced into this curious, attentive state were significantly less likely to show the bias. Not through years of meditation. Through a brief shift into the kind of active noticing that disrupts our habitual ways of categorizing and assuming—what I call Curiosity.
This is not stress reduction. This is the quality of thinking itself changing.
My own research adds another layer. We don’t have one unified self making all these decisions. We have multiple I-positions—different selves that take turns being in charge depending on context. Your morning self sets intentions on the cushion. Your consumer self shops. Your work self navigates meetings. Each runs on its own defaults. And the mindfulness your morning self cultivated does not automatically transfer to the decision the consumer self is about to make.
Longer meditation matters enormously. It builds the nervous system’s capacity to stay present with difficulty. It deepens the reservoir that micro-practices draw from.
What Meditation Builds, What Micro-Practices Reach
Let me be clear: longer meditation matters enormously. When we settle the mind over twenty, forty, or sixty minutes, patterns rise to the surface that are invisible in the rush of ordinary life—the conditioning we inherited, the beliefs we absorbed without choosing them, the default ways of thinking that shape our decisions before we’re aware a decision is being made. Formal practice is where we discover them. It builds the nervous system’s capacity to stay present with difficulty. It deepens the reservoir that micro-practices draw from.
Even though the research suggests we don’t need decades of meditation to begin shifting decisions, the ability to calm the mind enough to see deeper interconnections and patterns comes from taking time for that—whether in mindful walking, a sitting practice, or any practice dedicated to sharpening our attention and perceptions.
But calm alone is not enough. Wagner and colleagues demonstrated why in their 2025 study published in Communications Psychology. Simply repeating a choice in a given context—independent of any reward—biases us toward making that choice again. Each repetition increases our valuation of the option and decreases our uncertainty about it. We become more confident in choices we’ve merely repeated—mistaking familiarity for wisdom.
Longer meditation is like going to the gym—it builds capacity, strengthens attention, and uncovers the deeper patterns running our decisions. Micro-practices are like taking the stairs instead of the elevator—small, repeated choices woven into the day that change how we actually move through our lives.
This repetition bias operates at the checkout, in the meeting, at the dinner table—deepening every time we make the same choice without awareness intervening. A morning meditation may bring calm and clarity, but it is often not enough to offset a bias that has been compounding with repeated decisions throughout the day over time. To disrupt repetition bias, we need micro-practices that meet the moment and invite the right skills to disrupt and transform the defaults.
Longer meditation is like going to the gym—it builds capacity, strengthens attention, and uncovers the deeper patterns running our decisions. Micro-practices are like taking the stairs instead of the elevator—small, repeated choices woven into the day that change how we actually move through our lives.
And unlike a longer meditation, micro-practices don’t require separate time. They happen inside what you’re already doing—in the pause between activities, the breath before you speak, the moment before you reach for your phone. Saying we’re too busy for micro-practices is like saying we’re too busy to breathe.
What makes them powerful is that they meet the nervous system and mind in context, where change is actually possible. And the more we practice in non-critical moments—with the morning coffee, the commute, the routine checkout—the more available these skills become in critical ones. Over time, we gradually shift from our old default reactions to making mindfulness itself our new default.
We need both. The gym builds the strength. The stairs put it to use. One without the other leaves a gap—a gap our defaults will happily fill.
Eight Defaults, Eight Skills
Through my research—studying original contemplative texts alongside modern psychology and neuroscience, and testing this framework with hundreds of practitioners and students—I’ve identified eight default habits that consistently run our decisions and eight innate qualities of mind that disrupt them.
We’ve already met several. Curiosity disrupted confirmation bias. Compassion disrupted the judging mind. Inner Calm disrupted attachment. Awareness made autopilot visible.
My research published in the Journal of Consumer Affairs found that these eight skills relate differently to stress and life satisfaction—confirming that we need different skills in different situations. A one-size-fits-all approach to mindfulness misses this.
Figure: Eight Mindfulness Skills to Disrupt Default Habits, from Return to Mindfulness
The question is not, “Which skills do I need to learn?” but “How do I get them to show up in the pause before the click, the reply, the reaction?” That is the work of a micro-practice.
These skills are not new qualities we need to acquire. Every human being has experienced moments of compassion, curiosity, and calm. The problem has never been their absence. It has been their absence at the moment they are most needed.
The question is not Which skills do I need to learn? but How do I get them to show up in the pause before the click, the reply, the reaction?
That is the work of a micro-practice. And it has a specific architecture.
Three Steps to Meet the Moment: Return–Listen–Begin
Knowing that our defaults run faster than conscious thought still leaves a practical question: what do I actually do in the pause? Return–Listen–Begin is a three-step framework—simple enough to use in a single breath, deep enough to draw on the full architecture of the eight skills.
Step 1: Return
Return is a deliberate redirection of attention from the automatic pattern to present-moment experience. The body is the most reliable anchor—feeling the breath, the heartbeat, sensations of touch.
In my Amazon moment, Return was the pause itself—the instant before the click when something said wait. Awareness made the autopilot visible. Inner Calm softened my attachment to convenience long enough for a question to arise.
If restlessness, attachment, or resistance arises, that is not an obstacle to the practice—it is the practice. The hindrance becomes the path.
Return is not about pushing past whatever is in the way. If restlessness, attachment, or resistance arises, that is not an obstacle to the practice—it is the practice. The hindrance becomes the path. We invite the relevant skill to meet what’s blocking our presence, and in doing so, we learn what we need to return to our inner knowing.
Step 2: Listen
Listen is turning toward what lies beneath the surface of what is immediately observable—within ourselves and between ourselves and others. This is not an analytical process. It is heartfelt. We listen for the underlying causes and conditions of the situation—the needs, fears, assumptions, and patterns that aren’t visible in the immediate reaction but are driving it. We listen to our own deeper knowing and also seek to understand others’ experiences and perspectives. We open to possibilities we couldn’t see when the default was running.
In my Amazon moment, Listen was the question beneath the question—not just Is there an alternative? but What do I actually value here, and who is affected by my choice?
When Confirmation Bias is present, we invite Curiosity to question assumptions.
When the Judging Mind is present, we invite Compassion—for others and for ourselves.
When Negativity Bias is present, we invite Appreciative Joy to stay open to what might actually be possible.
Trust that you will know what you need to know. Be patient and kind to yourself.
Step 3: Begin
Begin is taking the clarity gained from listening into skillful action. But here is an important truth: profound insights don’t automatically translate into action. Our deep-seated habits may impede our ability to act on what we’ve seen. We may need to invite the skills again:
Energy to move past Status Quo Bias
Focus to gather the Distracted Mind
Equanimity to steady us against Impulsivity
Begin wasn’t just the act of closing Amazon that day—it was choosing, in every subsequent moment of temptation, to pause again rather than let the old groove pull me back.
Before acting, we can ask: Are my thoughts, speech, and actions aligned with my intentions? Are they promoting well-being for me and others, or are they causing harm?
And in moments when there isn’t time for a full pause—when a response is needed now—three questions can serve as a compass:
What’s present?
What’s important?
What’s possible?
In a culture that has turned mindfulness into a billion-dollar commodity, the difference between true micro-practices and what gets marketed as “mindfulness in five minutes” is easy to miss.
What Makes Micro-Practices More Than a Hack
Ron Purser coined the term “McMindfulness” to describe what happens when mindfulness is stripped of its ethical roots and sold as a quick fix for busy people—a do-it-yourself technique for stress reduction that leaves the systems producing the stress completely unexamined. His critique is worth taking seriously, because in a culture that has turned mindfulness into a billion-dollar commodity, the difference between what I’m describing and what gets marketed as “mindfulness in five minutes” is easy to miss.
On the surface, these look like micro-practices. Both are brief. Both fit into a busy day. But the difference runs deep—and it starts with intention. The intention shapes what the practice holds and what it leaves out.
A hack privatizes the problem. It treats difficulty as an individual deficiency—you’re stressed, you’re distracted, you’re reactive—and offers a personal fix. Breathe for five minutes. Sharpen your focus. Calm your nerves before the presentation. These effects are real. But the hack never asks whether the meeting itself needs examining, whether the system that produced the stress needs changing, or who else is affected by how you move through the situation. It adjusts the person to fit the system. The system stays intact.
A micro-practice situates the person inside the larger picture. It starts not with a goal but with what is actually present—the causes and conditions for this moment to arise, not just in the last five minutes but in the patterns and systems we’ve been participating in. It asks: What default is running? What does this moment need—not just for me but for everyone involved? Are my actions promoting well-being or perpetuating harm?
A hack draws on one dimension—typically cognitive—to produce one outcome: improved individual performance. A micro-practice draws on the full range of our intelligences—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual—not to force our way into being present but to realign with what is genuinely important: our values, our intentions, the others we are present with, and the systems our choices help sustain or disrupt.
In Thich Nhat Hahn’s concept of interbeing, we do not exist as separate selves improving in isolation. When I pause before a purchase, I am not practicing consumer discipline. I am reconnecting with the people and communities my choice affects.
The same five-minute practice can carry either orientation. A breathing exercise before a meeting can be a tool for sharper performance—or it can be a return to awareness that includes the people in the room, the conversation, the values we want our next words to reflect. We can be effective and aligned with what matters most. The technique is identical. What it holds is not.
Thich Nhat Hanh called this interbeing—the understanding that we do not exist as separate selves improving in isolation. When I pause before a purchase, I am not practicing consumer discipline. I am reconnecting with the people and communities my choice affects. Our awareness—or our autopilot—shapes not only our own experience but the experience of everyone our lives touch.
The question is not, How do I feel after five minutes of breathing? The question is, What kind of person am I becoming through the way I practice—and what kind of world am I participating in through the choices that practice shapes?
The Invitation
This week, try both.
Practice a longer meditation—whatever length and tradition is yours. Let the mind settle. Let the deeper patterns surface. This is the foundation.
Then, practice the Art of Stopping at transition points and decision points in your day—before a purchase, before hitting send, before reaching for what’s easy, between meetings, during the commute, in the pause before you speak. When you feel the pull of a habit, stop and return to the three steps.
Return. Simply stop. Without judgment, observe the momentum of your thoughts, strivings, or emotions. Take three deliberate, deep breaths and exhale slowly, releasing any tension in the body.
Listen. Once you find stillness, listen within. Notice your ingrained habits of rushing and reacting. What are your actual needs and intentions? What are the causes and conditions that brought you here?
Begin. Once you soften the grip of your habitual reactions, begin your response with inner calm and clarity. Let your next action arise from awareness rather than autopilot.
This practice might be five or six minutes—a guided meditation before a difficult conversation or while waiting in line. It might be sixty seconds—pausing before opening your laptop to check in with your intention. Or it might be a single conscious breath—the space between the impulse to add to cart and the click that completes the purchase.
At the end of the week, notice what’s different. Not whether you feel calmer—though you might. Notice whether any decisions changed. Whether a belief you hadn’t questioned became visible. Whether a habit you thought was fixed turned out to be a choice you’d simply been making on autopilot.There is a moment so small you almost never notice it.
Now you know it’s there. The practice is learning to meet it— both in meditation and in the moments that shape your life.
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.
Get into a comfortable seated position. You can close your eyes or gently look down and soften your gaze, whatever works best for you.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Take a restorative moment to release tension and feel deeply into gratitude for your hard-working body.
Taking a moment to pause with the intention to simply allow our bodies to rest in awareness can bring about a great sense of restoration and renewal to the heart. Our bodies are so overworked and often ignored. This guided awareness practice will allow us to feel a sense of gratitude for our body, in all of its beauty and mystery.
A 12-Minute Meditation to Rest Your Body in Gratitude
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Starting off, find the posture that feels comfortable for you in this moment. There are many different postures that we can choose from. Check in with your body to sense into what posture is best for me right now?
Take a few moments to feel what it means to be alive in your body right now. With attention resting lightly on the body, just notice: How is my body expressing its aliveness in this moment? Maybe that’s with lots of sensation, maybe the body just feels relaxed and at ease, or maybe there’s energy moving through some of our bodies. Whatever is true for your body right now, allow this aliveness to be what you sense into in this moment. This is my body and I’m grateful for my body.
Now, allow your attention to lightly rest on the sensations associated with the body touching whatever is supporting it. Maybe it’s the floor or a cushion, or a bed or couch. Allowing your attention to lightly rest, feel the liveness of the body touching and being supported by whatever is under you. This is my body resting, supported by what’s under me at this moment and I’m grateful for this body and for this support and this moment to rest. Resting just like a newborn rests in the arms of a parent or caregiver. Allow your body to rest, letting the support, the stability, and the comfort of having something holding you really infuse your body and your awareness. In this moment, I’m being held and supported and this support is stable, and unconditional, and I am grateful. Continue to feel the connection and the support of whatever is holding you in this moment, remaining connected to that experience.
We’re going to begin to invite our bodies to rest in the feeling of the space around the body. So, we’re really just allowing our attention to rest on the skin of the body. And with each exhale, let your attention begin to relax and expand out beyond the skin, just going out a few inches around the skin, resting in this space. Rather than focusing entirely on the physicality of the body, now we’re inviting the energy in the body—the tingling, the sensations—to actually rest in the space around us. You might use your imagination a little bit to imagine that, with every exhalation, you begin to sense your body being held by the vastness of the space surrounding the body.
It may be helpful to start with your back, inviting the back to rest. Just let go into the space behind you. And shifting to one side of the body, feeling that side, feeling the skin, and then inviting that side of the body to just let go. To relax into the space around that side of the body. And then going to the front of the body: feeling the skin, the body sensations, and the aliveness, and just allowing the front of the body to be held and to rest into the space in front. And lastly, arriving at the other side of the body, sensing the skin of the body, then letting your attention relax into the space around that side of the body.
For a few moments, as you’re breathing in and out naturally, allow your attention to rest as the body is resting, in the space around the body. The body can let go now. Breathing in, feeling the body held in our awareness. Breathing out, we’re grateful for the space around the body. It allows the body to relax.
As we bring this practice to a close, the invitation is for you to place a hand on your heart, feeling a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the body, the space around the body, and this moment of resting. And remember that gratitude for the body is a way that we can always reconnect with this sense of rest, presence, and ease.
Our breathing often becomes shallow, tense, or restricted during the day, and we don’t even notice it. Try this Light, Slow, Deep breathing technique to soften, relax, and expand again.
Thanks to our autonomic nervous system, life-sustaining processes like our heartbeat, digestion, and breathing all happen without us even having to pay attention. But our environments, stress levels, and other factors can definitely affect the health and efficiency of these processes.
For example, sitting hunched at our desks and staring at screens often means that our breathing gets shallow and irregular—which of course affects things like focus, energy, cognition, and attention.
This week, Shamash Alidina leads a guided breathing exercise called Light, Slow, Deep (or LSD), designed to re-set the breath in a way that opens the chest, relaxes tension, and calms the nervous system.
Most of us breathe backwards: too hard, too fast, and too much. We grip the breath without realizing it. LSD breathing is an invitation to do the opposite.
Light means breathing with softness, a gentleness, as if the breath is barely disturbing the air around you.
Slow means extending each breath, giving your nervous system time to settle like a pendulum that’s swinging wildly gradually finding its still point.
Deep means breathing low in your lower abdomen, not in your chest, but down where the lungs are roomiest and most efficient.
Together, these three qualities activate your parasympathetic nervous system—the calm, rest-and-digest part of you that so often gets crowded out by the noise of the day. Think of it like turning down volume on a radio that’s been playing too loud. You’re not switching it off, you’re just bringing it to a gentler, more natural level.
A Light, Slow, Deep (LSD) Breathing Meditation
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Begin by finding a comfortable position. You could be on a chair, cross legged on the floor, lying down. You could even be standing and just gently moving. Whatever allows your body to feel supported and at ease.
The breath pattern we’ll use today is simple. Inhale for four counts, a gentle pause, and then exhale for six counts. A slightly longer exhale is key. Longer exhalations directly stimulate the vagus nerve, signaling to the whole system that you’re safe. So you don’t need to force anything, you just allow.
Let’s begin. Take one natural breath first. No need to change anything yet.
Now place one hand on your lower abdomen, just below your navel. This is your anchor and as you inhale you’re aiming to feel that hand rise like a tide coming in. As you exhale, the hand falls, the tide going out.
Keep going with that easy breath. Inhaling softly through the nose, feeling the lower abdomen expand. In two, three, four, pause. And exhale slowly. Two, three, four, five, six. And then pause. In, two, three, four, and out two, three, four, five, six
Inhale light and steady like warming mists rising from still water. Exhale, the breath dissolving. Body softening.
If there is any tendency to grip or control as you’re breathing right now, see if you can loosen your hold on the breath by just a few percent. Inhaling, the lower abdomen is rising. Your chest is barely moving, your shoulders are down.
Remember to keep exhaling longer than the inhale. All the way to the end. As you inhale, receive the breath rather than taking it in. Exhale and release. Not pushing, just allowing the air to naturally leave.
Now let the breath find its own natural rhythm. Your job is to simply notice it now as the witness, not as the controller. If thoughts arise, and they will, treat them like clouds passing through the still sky. The sky doesn’t chase the clouds, it doesn’t argue with them, it simply holds them. Allows them to be there, and they pass.
Feel how each complete breath cycle leaves you a little more still, a littlemore at ease. Like sediment settling slowly to the bottom of a glass of water. The water doesn’t try to clear itself, it just rests. And some clarity naturally comes. Breathing in, slow, light, low. Exhaling slowly. There’s nothing to achieve and nowhere to get to. The breath is simply happening—as it has, without effort, your whole life, long before any thought about it.
One way to breathe lightly is to breathe quietly. See if you can breathe so quietly that you can hardly hear your own breath. As you do this, you may sense a tiny amount of air hunger, a tiny urge to breathe more. And that’s quite natural. In fact, that’s a good sign. You’re rebalancing your oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body. More oxygen is getting into your cells and into your brain when you breathe lightly.
When you don’t force yourself too much, you may be able to notice a bit more saliva in your mouth, a bit more warmth in your hands and feet perhaps. This is the sign of the relaxation response engaging, a sign that you’re going in the right direction.
As we move towards the end of the practice, start noticing the quality of your mind right now. Is it quieter than when we started? Is it more spacious? LSD breathing doesn’t create this stillness, it reveals it. The stillness was always there underneath the movement. The breath simply clears the way. Inhaling light, slow, deep. And exhale, releasing any last effort.
Remember you can return to this breath at any point in your day—on the train, at your desk, before a difficult conversation. Doesn’t need any special equipment. Just a few moments.
When you’re ready, slowly allow your eyes to open if they’ve been closed. Take the outside world back into you, and carry this quality into your day. Well done, you’ve given yourself 12 minutes of genuine rest. Thank you for joining me.
This guided walking meditation from Kazumi Igus offers an opportunity to slow down and notice the wonder of the natural world in our urban environments.
City life can often feel frantic, loud, and cut off from natural beauty. It’s not often we slow down and take in all there is to experience. But even in urban areas, if you pay attention, you can hear the call of a bird, notice your favorite color in shop windows, and look up at the vast sky above.
In this guided meditation, we slow our roll and take in the beauty of our surroundings, no matter where we find ourselves.
A Guided Walking Meditation to Notice the Beauty Around Us—Even in the City
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Let’s start with taking three deep breaths.
As we begin, I want to bring your attention to how you are moving if you’re walking through the city or trying to get from one place to another. How fast are you moving? How are you walking? What’s your pace? Do you have a destination and a timeframe? Or do you have some space? Wherever you are, slow it down just a little bit. If you can afford to walk really slow and won’t hold up traffic, you’re welcome to. And if you’re not walking and you’re in a wheelchair, you’re welcome to slow down. If you really need to be somewhere, try to relax into this space, whatever it is. Slow and steady, but maybe not too slow depending on where you are.
Bring your attention to how you are walking—your balance. Are you taking a step? Start to notice the small changes, the muscles involved. And whatever you’re thinking, all of it is OK. You’re just noticing where you are in this space right now.
Then, acknowledging that our minds sometimes race and we have a lot of things going on in our lives, just take a deep breath and bring your attention back to each step. Start to settle into a rhythm. Notice every muscle that’s involved with creating this locomotion to propel you forward and shift your weight. Maybe if you’re in a wheelchair, you’re using your arms. How are the hands involved? Are you holding something? Maybe a backpack, bag, or someone’s hand. Focus on really being present with your physical space, your physical body. Take a deep breath. As we move through our urban environment, we start to notice other things outside of ourselves.
The first thing I want you to bring your attention to is the smell around you. Depending on where you are, that can be pleasant or unpleasant. Breathing in, can you identify a particular smell? Maybe you’re getting a lot of smells all at once. Maybe you notice the change in smells as you move past different areas. And as you experience these smells, notice what you’re thinking. Are you creating a story? Are you finding yourself wanting to be near a pleasant smell or maybe pushing away, trying to avoid an unpleasant smell? If that’s the case, that’s all right. All of it is normal. Just experience the smell and label it as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. See if you can identify pizza, poop, grass, or whatever it is.
Then take a deep breath and shift your attention to sights. What can you see? Start by focusing on a color that brings you joy. If it’s a bright color you might notice it in wrappers from candy or chips, maybe in ads, signs, storefront windows that have lots of flyers. If it’s something more earthy, like green or brown, you might start to notice it in nature—the trees and plants. Just pick your color and start noticing it on your journey. Even if the color is on a man-made object like clothing, hats, backpacks, signs, and things like that, that’s a part of the urban environment. If it’s flowers, trees, plants, we’re just noticing the natural portions of the urban environment. Both are necessary.
Taking another deep breath, we shift to looking at nature. Starting with animals. And for this, let’s maybe not focus on people and their pets. Let’s look for the animals that exist in this environment without being owned by a person. You might notice lizards depending on where you are in the world, cats that don’t have owners, squirrels, insects.
I’d like to bring your attention to the birds. Birds are what we call an indicator species. They tell you if your environment is healthy. So look up. Look around. Listen. You might even need to stop for a moment. If you can hear birds, start to listen for the variations in their calls, maybe even a different species. If you have mockingbirds, sometimes it’s the same bird making a bunch of different calls. Really stop to listen to it as though they’re telling you something. If the sound of traffic muffles some of the calls, it’s OK. The urban environment is complex. It has both manmade and natural things. If you can see the birds, notice their behaviors, the coloration, and any other details that might pop out at you. And notice your thoughts while seeing or hearing the birds. You might be able to see or hear seagulls if you’re near a coast, rock doves, a.k.a. pigeons, finches, sparrows, chickadees. Notice if you can identify any of these species by site or by call. Take a deep breath, noticing where the birds are. Probably in plants, trees, bushes, or on grass.
Those of us who live in urban environments often have plant blindness and don’t notice the plants. Take a moment to notice leaves and if you can see any patterns in how those plants are growing. Are there any flowers? Maybe you can recognize a specific species. Can you name it? Take a deep breath. Experience being around plants and animals in nature.
And as you continue moving keep noticing your color, new plants, new animals. Notice what you’re thinking and if you’re telling yourself a story or if you’re asking a lot of questions. And if you are, take a deep breath and then focus back on the details of the experience—the shape of the leaves, the color of the feathers. As humans, we cannot survive without the natural parts of the environment. So it’s very important for us to be mindful of how our movement through the world affects the nature around us and how the nature around us can affect our experience. Take another deep breath. If there’s a big tree or a squirrel that’s standing there looking at you, or a plant that’s intriguing, take a moment to stop.
Be grateful for its part of this urban environment. Expressing some gratitude that you are even able to experience it today. Taking a deep breath. Finding your walking rhythm. Slow but steady, or whatever works for you. Continuing to notice your color, plants, the animals. And continuing to take deep breaths.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction instructor Cheryl Jones leads us in a practice to foster self-acceptance in any life circumstance.
Mindfulness meditation involves a willingness to be with ourselves as we are. It offers a way of learning to work with ourselves, and not on ourselves, especially if you are healing from perfectionism.
So what does it look like to simply meet yourself, regardless of what’s going on or how you’re feeling?
In this guided practice with Cheryl Jones, we can start to notice whatever is happening within us and around us with curiosity and kindness. Mindfulness reminds us that not everything has to be “fixed”—and very often, our movement back to wellness starts when we stop trying to change ourselves and simply accept where we are with care and attention.
A Meditation to Meet Yourself Where You Are—No Matter What
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
Find your way to an upright and dignified posture. Close your eyes or lower your eyes in a soft gaze. Place your feet on the ground and relax your arms at your sides. Rest your hands in your lap. Draw your shoulder blades subtly toward each other, allowing the chin to be parallel with the floor. Lift the crown of your head toward the sky. Perhaps soften the belly and the jaw.
Notice what it feels like to stop. Notice what it feels like to be sitting in this purposeful posture in this moment, in this space. And perhaps now take a moment to welcome yourself to your practice, acknowledging your willingness to be here for yourself in this way.
Notice that you are breathing. There’s no need to change or manipulate the breath in any way. Allow the breath to be just as it is right here, right now. Simply follow the breath in and follow the breath out.
Notice where you feel the sensations of the breath. Perhaps you’re aware of the air moving in and out at the nostrils and the upper lip. You could possibly be sensing the gentle expanding and contracting of the chest and ribs. Maybe you feel the abdomen rising and sinking. Allow your attention to rest on the sensations of the breath as it flows in and out of the body.
As you’re sitting here with the attention on the breath, just meet yourself. You may notice thoughts going through the mind. There’s no need to block thoughts out. Rather, see if it is possible to allow thoughts to pass through the mind one by one. Let go of any need to label thoughts as positive or negative. Good or bad. Find a neutral way to be with your thoughts. See if it’s possible to be aware of thoughts without grasping or clinging to any one thought. And also without rejecting or denying any particular thought.
Shift your attention now to any feelings that may be present in this moment. Breathing in and breathing out. Acknowledge any feeling just as it is. Sometimes we have feelings about our feelings. We may feel that one feeling is OK or acceptable while another is not. All feelings are acceptable.
Now, bring your awareness to sensations within the body. Warmth. Coolness. Tingling. Tightness. Pulsation. Relaxation. Hunger. Fullness. Notice what’s happening within the body in this moment. Do this with patience and kindness. Explore sensations both strong and subtle with curiosity.
As you breathe in and breathe out, notice if your posture has shifted. And then make any adjustments, if you’d like. Allow yourself to tune in to the body just as it is.
Center your attention on only the breath now. And as we near the end of this practice, follow three more full cycles of breathing. Be as present as possible for each one. Remember this place of awareness is always available to you because it’s within you.
As you feel ready, allow your eyes to open gently if they were closed. Get reacquainted with your surroundings and prepare to reengage with the day. Perhaps set an intention to bring awareness to all that you do and into each interaction.
On some level, many of us are healing from perfectionism, but with mindfulness we can learn to embrace our flaws. Cheryl Jones, founder of The Mindful Path, shares a guided practice to be with ourselves as we are. Read More
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.
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.
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 feeljoyand ease.
Notice whatever is present for you right now. Resting in a feeling of OK-ness in this moment, just as it is.
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.
Notice how you feel. Notice the raw feeling of whatever is present for you. Sit with it. Just letting it be, right now.
Once again, bring awareness to the body, and the breath. Feel the ease of simply being and breathing.
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
We can find strength and resilience in familiarity—and use those feelings to explore the unfamiliar.
At the beginning of every meditation practice that I teach, I offer up a little bit of instruction for the posture, so that you can experience this practice as being as supportive as possible to your body.
A Meditation to Approach the World With a “Don’t-Know Mind”
I would like to invite you to come to a place that is truly comfortable and supportive to your practice. For some of you, this may mean a seated position on a chair, on a sofa, or even on some cushions on the floor. This might mean standing up, if that’s more supportive to your back and your posture. And for some of you, this may mean lying down on the ground. Please take a moment to come to whatever place is going to feel most compassionate to your body.
Some of you may want to fully close your eyes for this meditation practice. And others may want to employ what I like to call a “soft gaze,” which is looking down at the ground about two inches in front of the knees or the feet.
When you’ve settled into a comfortable position, I would love to invite you to take three deep breaths with me. As you’re taking those three deep breaths, you may notice that your body may begin to relax naturally. You may start to feel a little bit more deeply connected to whatever place makes contact with the earth. For some of you that’s going to be your feet, and for others that may be your back. Notice whatever place comes into contact with the earth in this moment.
Begin to draw your attention and awareness to the connection between your body and the earth. It might feel beneficial at this point to take another deep inhale and exhale here. When you’re finished, return your breath back to a natural cadence and rhythm.
You may notice the quality of the sound in the room that you’re in. Maybe there are some ambient noises that are coming from inside of wherever you are, whatever building you’re in. Or maybe there are sounds that are coming from outside. Please feel free to make these a part of your practice.
Begin to draw your awareness to the bottoms of your feet, wherever they are landing on the earth. What do you notice? Does the right foot or the left foot feel slightly heavier than the other? As you notice the difference between the right and the left foot, perhaps you might also become aware of other micro-adjustments inside of your body.
You may notice that the mind continues to produce thoughts, and that’s OK. The point of a meditation practice is not necessarily to stop thinking the thoughts that you are thinking, but rather to just be aware of the thoughts as they flow through the body and the mind. As you draw your awareness to your thoughts, you can also bring your awareness to the rhythm of your breath as it flows in and out of your body.
I would like to invite you to bring your attention to the muscles of the belly and notice if they’ve been drawn in a little bit tightly towards the spine. Is it possible to invite a sense of relaxation, and even vulnerability, to the muscles of the belly by allowing them to be soft? Don’t worry, no one is watching. How does it feel when you invite a sense of softness and relaxation to the belly? How does the rest of the body respond?
While your attention is here, you might begin to imagine a person, place, animal, or object that is deeply familiar to you. Perhaps this animal, person, place, or object reminds you of what it feels like to be home. Can you bring them into the room with you right now?
Notice if that invitation has an impact on your breath, as it rises and falls from your chest. You might even feel a bit more safe in the space of this practice as you invite the image of what reminds you of being home, of being held.
What is familiar to you, deeply familiar, about this person, animal, place, or object, that makes you feel as though you really know them? What is the feeling of knowing? What is the feeling of familiarity, and how does it land inside of the body? The invitation is to bring your attention back to the breath anytime that you notice yourself getting caught up in the story.
Now, bring to mind an image of something that reminds you of what it means to be strong and resilient. Maybe there’s someone who you really look up to, or a place you’ve been that made you feel truly strong and resilient when you were there. Can you bring into your mind’s awareness the embodied sensations of being strong and resilient? Does your body make slight changes and shifts as you recall how this feels?
Now we’re going to do a little bit of experimenting. Hopefully this will be fun. There’s a term called “don’t know mind” that is sometimes used in meditation to invoke a sense of curiosity.
What is it like to approach the world with a “don’t know mind?” You may find that this is a bit of a contrast to the feeling of familiarity that we began to explore in the beginning of this practice. The feeling of familiarity is the feeling of, “Oh yes, I know. I know this person. I know this place. I know this animal or this object. They are deeply familiar to me.” Perhaps the way we view things, which are seemingly familiar to us, can begin to shift and change ever so slightly when we apply the pure curiosity of “don’t know mind.” How does that land in the body? This exploration of not knowing, of not being quite certain?
At this point in your practice, you may notice if there are places in the body that begin to contract when we explore the feeling of “don’t know mind,” and that’s OK. This is the body’s intelligence. Can we unite this exploration of “don’t know mind” with those same sensations of strength and resilience, so that we know that no matter what, when we encounter moments of uncertainty and not-knowing that we have all the strength and resilience inside of our body to meet with that moment? What does it feel like to meet strength and resilience with not-knowing? Can we be truly curious about what arises in our awareness with this practice? Let’s take just a few moments in silence together now and explore the way that this feels.
When you’re ready please bring your entire body into your mind’s eye and notice the difference between the way the body feels now and the way the body felt when you first entered into this space of practice. Take the time to notice the way the feet feel slightly different in the way they connect to the earth.
Let’s all take one more deep breath in here.
When you’re ready, at your own pace and rhythm, please begin to, ever so slowly and gently, open up the eyes, without staring at anything in particular. Allow color and texture to flood back into your mind’s awareness.
From here we can begin the process of reorienting to the room that we’re in. Gently begin to turn and rotate the head and the neck, and take in the colors and textures of the space you are in. Notice if there’s anything new or different or alive in the space. What has changed since you started this practice?
