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  • Summer Meditation Retreat: 6 Mindfulness Practices for Self-Care

    Summer Meditation Retreat: 6 Mindfulness Practices for Self-Care

    Summary

    • During the summer mindfulness can become an invitation to savor things more completely.
    • Rather than only appreciating the best experiences, savoring every aspect of life allows us to discover the gifts that often hide within unwelcome or challenging moments.
    • Savor the summer with a free collection of 6 guided meditations from expert mindfulness teachers.

    The word “savoring” crops up a lot in instructions for mindful eating, but why stop there? Inspired by that notion, I decided to challenge myself to a week of savoring things. As I started out, I began to see that I was automatically leaving lots of things out—things that were, well, unsavory—so the challenge had to undergo some immediate reengineering. It would have to become about savoring everything. Yikes.

    If I was going to savor the unsavory I would have to be thankful somehow for whatever came my way.

    That immediately led me to the understanding that if I was going to savor the unsavory I would have to be thankful somehow for whatever came my way. I would have to embrace the artificially sweetened (but still valuable) “attitude of gratitude.” It was a bit of a revelation. What I was prepared for was taking time to really enjoy things, in the present moment. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much it would challenge underlying attitudes and assumptions. When the week was over, I came to some conclusions about how savoring can reach into every area of life.

    6 Ways to Savor the Moment

    By Barry Boyce

    1) When things are good…savor the joy

    When things are good, it should be easy to savor them. But it took more effort to savor something I already appreciated than I would have imagined. Joy came in the sudden realization that the body is always in the present, no matter where my thoughts take me, and I can always return to that.

    2) When it’s every kind of bad…savor the resilience

    I can glimpse the fact that pain, whether physical or emotional, is something that lets us know we are alive. And as we try to manage it as best we can, we are humbled, we are vulnerable, we seek help. We find a way. We bounce back. And, as we savor the equanimity, we learn to take the good and the bad.

    3) When it’s boring…savor the freedom

    As we all keep discovering in meditation, we don’t really need to keep ourselves occupied with extra thoughts. It’s peaceful to take a break from that. My savoring challenge helped me learn (once again) to savor the freedom from the need to entertain myself every minute of the day.

    4) When it’s unwieldy…savor the laughter

    When things go haywire, the same tendency we have with hassles—to indulge in some “why me?” time—can easily take over. But, I’m starting to really appreciate the antidote that a meditation teacher friend of mine told me about: Just say “Why not me?”

    5) When you’re alone…savor the space

    In the right doses, being by ourselves can be deeply restorative. It can help us discover a deep reservoir of contentment that does not need to be chased after. That kind of space—a space of awe and wonder and simplicity—is well worth savoring. It may be the most savory treat of all.

    6) When you’re with others…savor the companionship

    The sheer joy of a shared laugh. The moments of listening when you need to be heard. The shoulder to cry on. Someone to share ups and downs, without caring which it is. I’m blessed with friends all over the world, people I can connect with within minutes no matter how long it’s been. Other human beings…what’s not to savor?

    Summer Meditation Retreat: 6 Mindfulness Practices for Self-Care

    Day 1: Connect With Presence

    By Sharon Salzberg

    If we can practice savoring the present moment when we’re sitting in formal meditation, we can also practice while standing in line at the grocery store, sitting anxiously in a doctor’s waiting room, or sitting down for a meal in good company. A portable exercise in meditation is focusing on the sensations of the in- and out-breath. If the breath is not a comfortable place for you, choose another object of attention like the sensation of your hands touching your knees.

    A 10-Minute Breathing Meditation

    This variation of breath meditation can be especially supportive if you feel restless or bored. Savor the freedom to simply let your mind be. It doesn’t matter how many times your attention wanders or how long you may dwell in distraction during this summer meditation. The practice is gently letting go and, with kindness toward yourself, beginning again.

    1. Sit comfortably and relax. Let your attention settle on the feeling of the breath at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen. As you breathe in make the silent mental note “in,” and as you breathe out you can count “one.” This becomes inhale “in,” exhale “one,” inhale “in,” exhale “two,” all the way up to ten. When you get to ten you can begin again.
    2. If your mind becomes distracted, and you lose touch with the breath—that’s OK. You can begin again. Stay connected to the rhythm of the breath with the mental note and the number.
    3. See if your awareness of the breath can be full and complete. Your attention is wholehearted with “in, five,” “in, six,” “in, seven,” all the way through to ten. Each breath is full and complete on its own—with the counting there to support you.
    4. When you feel ready, you can move into the rest of your day.

    A 7-Minute Meditation to Rest Your Attention

    Our habitual tendency is to grasp a thought or a feeling, to build an entire world around it, or push it away and struggle against it. It can be helpful to instead note what is painful, pleasant, or otherwise. Here we stay even, balanced, and calm, as we recognize what arises and bring our attention back, one breath at a time.

    1. Sit comfortably or lie down. Settle in to a comfortable position.
    2. Center your attention on the sensations of the in- and out-breath, at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen. As you feel the sensations of the breath, you can make a mental note of “breath” with the in-breath and then again with the out-breath.
    3. When a thought or feeling arises that’s strong enough to take your attention away from the breath, note it silently as “not breath.” You don’t have to judge yourself; you don’t have to get lost in a thought or elaborate it. Recognize that it’s simply not the breath.
    4. Bring your attention back to the sensations of the breath. Some of your thoughts or feelings may be tender, caring, cruel, or hurtful, but they’re not the breath. You can recognize them, let them go, and bring your attention back to the sensations of the breath.
    5. When you feel ready, come back to your surroundings.

    Day 2: Connect With Yourself

    By Sebene Selassie

    Belonging is the sense of ease and joy we can savor when we are truly present. Often we don’t feel like we belong because we’re caught in feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and doubt. Feelings of not belonging are learned over time and lead us to think that there’s something wrong with us, that we’re not enough, that we don’t belong—but we do. By the very nature of our existence, we belong. Mindfulness helps us remember this by allowing us to experience belonging in any moment.

    A 9-Minute Meditation to Listen to Your Body

    Meditation can help us be more present to life, and mindfulness of body and breath help ground that presence. It’s only when we’re present with each moment that we can savor our experience. This summer meditation invites you to try grounding yourself throughout the day, feeling the body and using the inquiry, “What’s happening in my body right now?”

    1. Find a comfortable posture. You don’t have to do anything special, just make sure that you’re relaxed and alert. Lower your gaze and give yourself the opportunity to go inward.
    2. Bring awareness to the sensations you notice while sitting. It can take some time and practice to feel sensations in the body rather than think about them. Is there a sensation in the body that’s particularly strong or clamoring for attention? It’s OK if you don’t notice anything. Just recognize your experience as it is and see if you can bring a sense of curiosity to it. You can ask yourself, “What’s happening in my body right now?”
    3. Whatever is happening, continue this inquiry. Notice the sensations that are present. When the mind starts to wander, gently bring your awareness back to the body. Again, ask yourself, “What’s happening in my body right now?”
    4. Bring the same curiosity to your breath. If the breath is not a comfortable place for you, continue grounding in sensations of the body. Otherwise, take a moment to connect to the natural rhythm of your breath. Notice your belly rising and falling. You can always ask yourself, “What’s happening in my body right now?”
    5. Know that you can come back to the body at any moment, as you come back to the space around you.

    A 7-Minute Meditation to Welcome Open Awareness

    Open awareness meditation is often associated with the metaphor of the mind being like an open sky. We can observe thoughts, sensations, sounds, but they simply pass like clouds in the sky, or they can flow like a river savor the space between you and what drifts past. The sky is not bothered, the river is not changed, everything is carried by the current of awareness.

    1. Find a comfortable posture. If you like you can gaze down softly at a point in front of you. Allow your body to soften and rest. Feel the connection between your body and the floor or the chair beneath you.
    2. Bring your awareness to the sensations of being right here, right now. Begin to listen to the play of sounds around you. You can notice sounds that are loud or soft, far or near—just listening. You don’t need to name the sound, or follow the sound, just listen in a relaxed and open way. Notice how all sounds arise and vanish as you listen.
    3. Sense that your awareness is expanding to be like the sky—open, clear, vast. Allow your awareness to extend in every direction. Sounds come and go, moving through the sky of your awareness, appearing and disappearing as you rest in this open awareness. You might notice that thoughts and images also arise and vanish. You can let them come and go without resistance or grasping.
    4. Allow the breath or sensations in the body to move like a breeze in this open sky of awareness. Notice that this awareness is naturally clear and spacious. Allow all sounds, thoughts, and sensations, feeling that spaciousness.
    5. As you lift your gaze, pause for a moment to reorient to the space around you.

    Day 3: Connect With Everything

    By Jessica Morey

    We tend to focus our minds on what is wrong or threatening or what could harm us so that we might be better protected through the vagaries of life. But if we allow that bias to run rampant, we risk missing out on what’s beautiful, joyful, and nourishing in our lives. Not to mention, we grow less equipped to cultivate beauty and joy and nourishment in ourselves.

    A 14-Minute Summer Meditation to Appreciate Joy

    Perhaps it seems strange to investigate what we consider to be a positive emotion, but we often miss joy. We don’t pay a lot of attention to it and let it slip by without much notice. The good news is, there are practices to cultivate joy. It can be sparked by something enjoyable, or we can attend to and support joy in our felt experience. One of the great ways to do that is to savor—really stop and savor—what’s beautiful and good in life.

    1. Take a seat or lie down if you’re in a place where you can do that. Take a few deep breaths, lengthening your inhale and your exhale. During these opening breaths, notice how you’re feeling. If you’re feeling tired or drowsy, emphasize the inhale. If you’re feeling agitated or restless, emphasize the exhale. Then allow your breath to come to its natural rhythm.
    2. Now bring to mind recent joyful moments. Alternatively, you could reflect on things you’re grateful for in your life. Choose a few moments of joy and gratitude to focus on.
    3. Reflect on receiving the joy of these experiences. Bring your attention into your body. Notice how you experience joy in this moment. Where do you feel it in your body? The chest, the belly, the throat, the face? What do you notice? Is there a temperature to the joy? Is there a flow or movement to the energy of joy in your body?
    4. If you lose that felt sense of connection, just recall the images, people, or situations that bring you joy. Then return to savoring the felt sense of joy in your body. Breathe into it.
    5. Take a moment to reflect on the people, places, or situations that bring you joy. What were the things that really inspired a felt sense of joy for you? How can you bring more of that into your life?
    6. When you’re ready, bring your attention back to your environment. Take a deep breath. Orient yourself to the space around you and notice how you feel right now.

    A 14-Minute Meditation to Explore What’s True

    Longing is a vulnerable emotion, but it’s also very important. It directs us toward what we want in the world—where we want to go, what we value, what we want to create. When we can stay with the emotion and get to know it on a deeper level, there’s a great deal of wisdom at our disposal. If we can feel into it, be with it, and notice what’s underneath and inside of it, we can then better decide how we want to respond next.

    1. Settle into a comfortable position. You may be seated, or you’re welcome to lie down. Wherever you are, take a few deep breaths. You can cast your gaze down and ahead.
    2. Feel into your body and ask yourself: Is there anything I need right now? Is there anything I’m longing for in this moment? You may want something to be different, or you may be longing for a particular experience. Ask yourself: What do I want? What do I need?
    3. If nothing is emerging for you, bring to mind a recent experience when you really wanted something. Maybe you wanted to be seen or acknowledged; maybe you wanted to connect with a certain person, or you wanted someone to call you or attend to you. Identify a recent experience you had of longing and consider the situation, the people, the place.
    4. Turn your attention toward the felt sense of the wanting. Hold this feeling of wanting, and as you do, see if you can identify what it is that you want—below the particularities. What universal need are you touching upon? Maybe you want respect, ease, joy, or connection.
    5. Consider this question: How could I meet this need? Take a few moments to explore the creative ways this need could be met.
    6. Take a few deep breaths. Feel your body on the chair or on the ground. When you’re ready, lift your gaze.



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  • A 10 Minute Body Scan That You Can Practice

    A 10 Minute Body Scan That You Can Practice

    Explore this guided practice to calm your mind, notice sensations in the body, and bring awareness to the present moment.

    We’re practicing mindfulness each time that we bring attention to a body part and are aware that we are doing so. Practicing mindfulness through this 10-minute body scan involves moving attention through various parts of the body. You will notice sensations that are present in your feet or hands or legs such as tingling, tightness, temperature, or you might notice a lack of sensation; simply be aware of it.

    We’re practicing mindfulness each time that we bring attention to a body part and are aware that we are doing so.

    We typically do the body scan by lying down on the floor or a soft surface, but if that’s not possible for you, you can certainly do the body scan while sitting in a chair.

    A 10-Minute Body Scan Practice

    As we begin this 10-minute body scan, we’ll be slowly and systematically moving attention through the various regions of the body, from the feet to the top of the head, noting any physical sensations as we go along.

    1. As you are lying on whatever surface you’re on, notice what it feels like to be lying there. Noticing the sensations present in this moment, noticing temperature, noticing points of contact with the body and the surface, noticing the rise and the fall of the abdomen. Allowing the body to rest in this position and noticing sensations as you breathe in and as you breathe out.
    2. Left foot and leg: Feeling the air move in and out of your body, let’s begin by bringing attention to the toes of your left foot. With the in-breath, noticing the sensations present or lack of sensation. And then with an out-breath, letting go of the toes and move your attention to the bottom of the left foot, including the heel touching the floor. Noticing all the sensations present in that region of the body, also notice how lack of sensation is something the mind can be aware of. Move on to the top of your left foot and ankle, noticing sensation. Now moving to the lower leg, knee, thigh, and hip on the left side of the body.
    3. Right foot and leg: Moving awareness, now, to the toes of the right foot, the bottom of the right foot, including the heel touching the floor. Bringing awareness to the sensations present in that part of the body. Moving on to the top of your right foot and ankle and scanning that region with awareness, noticing sensations present or lack of sensation. Now move into the lower leg, knee, thigh, and hip on the right side of the body.
    4. Pelvis: Bringing awareness now to the pelvic region, noticing sensations present or lack of sensation.
    5. Lower back and abdomen: Bringing awareness to the lower back and abdomen, aware of what’s there, without judgment or assessment, simply noticing with awareness.
    6. Upper back, ribs, and chest: Continuing to scan the back, the rib cage, and chest.
    7. Shoulders: Moving now to the shoulder blades and shoulders, noticing what is present in those regions of the body.
    8. Fingers and hands: From here, go to the fingers and the hands, the left and right together. Tuning into the fingers, thumbs, palms, back of the hands, wrists, noticing what’s there, noticing sensations present in the hands and the fingers.
    9. Wrists and arms: Now moving awareness to the wrists, forearms, elbows, upper arms, and shoulders, and noticing what sensations are present in those regions of the body. On an out-breath, let go of the whole of the arms and the hands.
    10. Neck and throat: Moving now to the neck and the throat, noticing what is there or not there.
    11. Head: Moving on to the head and face, and scanning with awareness the jaw, and the chin, the lips, the teeth, and gums, roof of the mouth, tongue, the back of the throat, the cheeks, and the nose. Feeling the air moving in and out of the nose. Then bringing awareness to the ears, the eyes, the eyelids, eyebrows, forehead, temples, and scalp, holding the whole of that region with awareness.
    12. Now, notice the breath: Stay in the present moment with the breath flowing in and out of the body, simply awake to whatever arises and predominates in your field of awareness at any given moment. And this may include thoughts or feelings, sensations, sounds, the breath, stillness, and silence. Be with whatever comes up in the same way you were with the scan.
    13. Notice how you may tend to react to impulses, thoughts, memories, and worries: Let yourself purposefully observe them without rejecting or pursuing. Practice simply seeing and letting go, seeing and letting go. No agenda other than to be present and awake.
    14. Closing:  In a moment, you’ll hear the sound of the chimes and move the awareness from the body to the sound. And as you follow the last sound to the end, gradually wiggle the toes and move the feet and stretch in whatever way you like. Coming back into the room, fully awake and fully present.

    As we bring this 10-minute body scan practice to a close, may we be peaceful and at ease, may our hearts be soft and open, may we be safe and protected, and our bodies healthy and strong. And for all of those known and unknown to us, may they be peaceful and at ease, may their hearts be soft and open, may they be safe and protected and their bodies healthy and strong. May the merit of this practice be for the benefit of all beings.

    Introduction text adapted from Harvard Pilgrim. This practice was originally published on Mindful.org in October 2018.



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  • The Science and Practice of Staying Present Through Difficult Times

    The Science and Practice of Staying Present Through Difficult Times

    Research suggests that when we turn towards pain and discomfort, we can experience less of it. Plus, Ed Halliwell offers a guided meditation for being mindful when things get tough.

    Research into mindfulness has shown the benefits of staying present, and of gently turning towards difficulty. Mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) trains people with addictive habits to manage their cravings mindfully by staying present to the sensations of craving, rather than trying to distract from them, avoid them or defeat them.

    The Science of Staying Present

    In a large trial of MBRP, mindfulness-trained patients drank and used drugs significantly less than those who were treated with cognitive-behavioural approaches, and a control group who attended twelve-step and psycho-education groups. The authors of the study conclude that mindfulness was the most successful approach, especially over the longer term, because it enabled patients to “monitor and skilfully cope with discomfort associated with craving or negative affect.” A similar study with smokers found that mindfulness training was more than five times as effective as a standard smoking cessation programme, as measured by abstinence from cigarettes after four months (31 per cent compared to 6 per cent). Another study has suggested that mindful people are more able to tolerate their own distress, rather than react in harmful ways.

    There are benefits to staying present with physical, as well as emotional, discomfort. Fadel Zeidan and colleagues suggest that meditation practice is associated with brain changes that indicate and reflect shifts in people’s experience of, and relationship with, pain. Meditators show decreased activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (an area of the brain involved in registering pain) and increased activity in three areas involved in the regulation of pain—the anterior insula, the anterior cingulate cortex and the pre-frontal cortex. When gently turning towards pain, people report that they experience less of it, and their resistance usually decreases. They may not get so caught up in the negative stories and evasive reactions that tend to accompany pain but do nothing to stop it (and, indeed, may increase the mind’s perception of it). This may be why people with chronic conditions have reported reductions in pain after training in mindfulness, even though they still suffer from the illness.

    When gently turning towards pain, people report that they experience less of it, and their resistance usually decreases.

    As far back as 1971, Robert Wallace and Herbert Benson found that meditation reduced activity in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the “fight or flight” reaction. More recently, attending a mindfulness course has been shown to reduce activity and grey matter volume in the amygdala—a key indicator of how strongly this reaction is triggered. With mindfulness training also comes a thickening in parts of the pre-frontal cortex—the region directly behind the forehead—which may be connected to a strengthening of the body’s capacity to regulate stress. Connections between the amygdala and other parts of the brain weaken after mindfulness training.

    One part of the pre-frontal cortex associated with stress regulation is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Poor ACC function tends to correlate with impulsive behaviour and mental inflexibility—which are both common among people who are under stress. Experienced meditators display more activity in the ACC, and better stress regulation. The capacity to self- manage during difficult situations may be trainable at a very young age. One study that tracked a group of pre-school children who attended a mindfulness programme over six months found that they were less impulsive (more able to regulate) than a group of children who did not receive the training.

    The Benefits of Leaning Into Discomfort

    Just the act of describing unpleasant experiences mindfully can have a positive effect on stress levels. In one study, people with a fear of spiders were asked to walk towards and try to touch a live tarantula. Some were invited to reassure themselves as they approached the spider, while others were advised to distract themselves from what they were trying to do. A third group was encouraged to acknowledge and turn towards their fear, saying something like: “I am frightened by the big ugly spider.” The members of this third group—those who openly stayed present to their fear— got closest to the tarantula, felt least upset by the experience, and had the least sweaty palms.

    Staying present to difficulties seems to have a significant impact on well-being. In Matt Killingsworth’s studies of wandering minds, he has found that people are less happy when their minds are distracted, even when they are engaged in an activity that we would usually describe as unpleasant. So, for instance, even though most people are not keen on commuting, they tend to be happier if their minds turn towards the experience of the journey rather than wander away from it. Other studies have suggested that setting oneself the goal of avoiding stress increases the long-term risk of depression. By contrast, if we view stress as a normal, helpful indicator—something we can handle and from which we can learn—rather than as something to eliminate, we are more likely to experience good health and emotional well-being.

    Try This 15-Minute Guided Mindfulness Meditation

    When you’ve established a stable foundation with mindfulness of breath and body you can experiment with turning towards difficulty.

    Sometimes our experience is painful and difficult. And there may be little or nothing we can do about the arising of the pain or difficulty. In these cases, we may be able to work with what’s happening skillfully by exploring our relationship to it. Most of us have a habitual pattern of turning away from problems or trying to get rid of unpleasant events. Unfortunately this often seems to increase our sense of stress, because if pain is already present, you can’t get rid of it by trying to run away from it. In mindfulness practice we gently experiment with reversing this habit by turning gently towards difficult experiences that come up in our meditation.

    This practice is usually best done in small doses at first. Preferably working with difficulties that aren’t likely to be overwhelming. It’s important to remember that you’re in charge of how you undertake this experiment. You can return to mindfulness of breathing as an anchor at any time or let go of this practice for a while if you need to, being kind to yourself.

    Note that this practice includes longer pauses of complete silence for reflection and presence. If you want more time, feel free to pause the recording as you go.

    1. Begin by settling into a dignified sitting posture. Upright, steady, grounded. Feeling the feet on the floor, bottom on the chair, spine erect shoulders dropped. Feel a sense of openness at the chest, muscles un-tensed, centered, feeling the breath in the belly. Attuning attention to sensations of the breath as it moves in and out. Being with the breath. Being in the body.
    2. And now expanding awareness to experience throughout the body. Being in the present moment with the body. Noticing what you find and allowing what’s here to be here. Especially noticing sensations in the body that are more unpleasant and difficult to be with. Maybe there’s an aching, throbbing, churning, or a tightening somewhere. There may be a physical or a more emotional tone to the sensations. If it feels helpful to label this for yourself, you could mentally say some words describing the experience: anger, pain, or restlessness, for example. Perhaps also noticing where in the body you’re feeling these tones of sensation and emotion.
    3. Now inviting you to experiment with gently taking your attention towards a region of more intense sensation. Turning towards the intensity. Being interested in the qualities of and changes in sensation from moment to moment. What increases or decreases in intensity are there? What shifts in location or texture? As best you can, staying with the direct experience of sensation and letting any thoughts about what’s happening or urges and impulses to react be held in kindly awareness in the background of the mind. Letting go of any need to try and get any kind of result here or for anything to have to change. Just gently turning towards what’s going on. And noticing what happens without an agenda. Riding the waves of experience, moment by moment.
    4. If you like you could offer a sense of breathing with the sensations, feeling them together with the rising and falling of the breath. Breathing in with sensations, breathing out with sensations.
    5. Noticing: are there any impulses to resist or pull away? Perhaps you find your attention drawn into thoughts. Rumination maybe or distraction. Maybe you find your thoughts trying to make sense of the difficulty or problem solving it or judge the success or failure of the practice by whether the intensity decreases or changes. As best you can, seeing if you can include these reactions in your noticing, allowing space for them to be experienced along with the sensations themselves—without having to buy into them or reject them.
    6. If it feels too much to be doing this it’s always okay to continue with or return to mindfulness of breathing or body or to stop practicing for a time. Gentleness is paramount here and there are no right or wrong things to happen when you try this. Just being interested in what does happen when you take your attention into a region of difficulty, moving towards it, letting the experience be observed and awareness without needing to do anything else.
    7. And experimenting now if this feels okay for you with breathing into the region of intensity. Opening further to the sensations on the in-breath and having a sense of softening on the out-breath, of letting go. This isn’t to try and change what’s happening but rather to offer a skillful relationship to it. Flowing with it. Offering space to it, allowing it. Breathing into the sensations on the in-breath, breathing out from them on the out-breath, softening, letting be, allowing.
    8. Staying present with the intensity only for as long as feels manageable for you right now. If you like you can gently move your attention away from and then back towards the intensity noticing what happens each time you work with redirecting your attention in and out. Inviting you to be like a scientist undertaking a laboratory experiment. Being interested in what happens rather than seeking a particular outcome. Coming back to mindfulness of breath or body as and when that feels right for you.
    This post was adapted from Into The Heart of Mindfulness, by Ed Halliwell, published by Piatkus). Download a set of 14 guided audio meditation practices from Ed’s books here.



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  • Healthy Sleep Can’t Be Forced. Try this Sleep Meditation, Instead

    Healthy Sleep Can’t Be Forced. Try this Sleep Meditation, Instead

    Are you getting enough healthy sleep? If you’re like many of us, your answer is no. All day it’s go, go, go, then at night, when we mean to shut down, it’s not so easy. Eventually, the paradox of sleep worry kicks in: Thinking about sleep gets in the way of sleep. And not getting the rest we crave can be quite painful and can exacerbate other health problems.

    As with pretty much anything health-related, we may know better, but we don’t stick to what we’d tell our best friend: Keep to a regular bedtime and a consistent routine, and avoid whatever disrupts sleep, like caffeine, alcohol, and screens. Not that complicated, but what’s often hardest is what’s frustratingly out of our full control. Even following solid advice, sometimes we suffer through rotten nights, feeling anxious or struggling to settle ourselves.

    We have nothing but empathy for a friend with insomnia, yet as we lie awake in the dark we may not give ourselves the same degree of care. A good place to start, then, might be an adapted version of Kristin Neff’s self-compassion practice: Breathing in, say to yourself, My trouble falling asleep is a moment of suffering. Breathing out, All people have moments of suffering. And then, This is how things are right now. May I find peace and ease and a night’s rest.

    Since staying awake while we’re meditating is often a big challenge, it’s no surprise that mindfulness has been shown to promote healthy sleep.

    Since staying awake while we’re meditating is often a big challenge, it’s no surprise that mindfulness has been shown to promote healthy sleep. It’s not all that exciting to sit quietly and breathe. It can be downright boring, not to mention calming. But that’s not the whole story. Mindfulness practice encourages nonjudgmental awareness—seeing things exactly as they are, with openness and curiosity. If we accept the basic facts outlined above about what tends to lead to healthy sleep, and it contradicts how we live, it might be time to patiently explore what stands between us and change. With sleep, as with meditation practice, intentions are easier said than done. Here’s a little reflection and inventory list that may help.

    4 Sleep Routine Questions to Ask Yourself:

    1) Objectively consider your pre-bedtime routine—anything to change?
    A consistent bedtime, a quiet room, and a focus on settling down go a long way toward better sleep.

    2) Is it time to see a doctor?
    It may be unsettling visiting a doctor to find out if you have a sleep disorder, but it’s a good idea. For example, any amount of chronic snoring can disrupt sleep. Aging affects sleep too, which may be worth discussing with your physician.

    3) Are there routines other than bedtime that may help you settle? Notice your habits with screens, alcohol, or caffeine. How do you manage stress? How consistently do you exercise? Remember to have self-compassion: Don’t judge yourself for your habits, but take firm action when ready.

    4) Are you pushing yourself too hard and taking that into bed? Consider practicing non-striving while in bed. By not trying to sleep, sleep quite often arrives. Focus on the breath or the body. Notice the thoughts swirling: It’s happening again; if I don’t fall asleep soon I’ll be so tired tomorrow. Notice it all, and breathe. Maybe there’s nothing at all to do tonight except that, and to gently let go of thinking about (the) rest.

    Neither sleep routines nor mindfulness practice responds well to a heavy hand. If you set out to force yourself into sleep, you’re less likely to get a healthy sleep. If you strain for some picture-perfect mindset when meditating, you’ll create more stress and uncertainty. If you set yourself up with clear-sighted planning and patient resolve— intentionally but unforced—healthy sleep and mindfulness are both more to likely follow.

    A Guided Meditation for Healthy Sleep

    To allow you to fully experience this meditation, we recommend that you listen to the audio version. However, you can also simply read the text below. If you choose to do so, read through the entire script first to familiarize yourself with the practice, then do the practice, referring back to the text as needed and pausing briefly after each paragraph. Take about twenty minutes for the practice. You can do this practice in a seated position.

    In considering any meditation related to sleep, recognize that there’s nothing to force, and nothing to make happen.  Since striving makes healthy sleep more challenging, set out to practice without specific expectations or goals. We cannot make ourselves sleep, but perhaps, by aiming to stay settled and getting less caught up in our thoughts, we fall asleep anyway.

    For the meditation that follows, there will be no ending bell or instruction. At the end, continue to practice if you like, or hopefully enjoy a good night’s rest instead.

    1. Start while lying down, allowing your legs to rest in a comfortable posture, hip-width apart. You can place your arms by your side or your hands on your belly.
    2. Begin by noticing your breath.  Pay attention, as best as you’re able to the physical movement related to breathing, such as your belly rising and falling. Or, if you prefer, focus your attention more closely on the air moving in and out of your nose and mouth.
    3. It’s normal, expected even, to have thoughts — lots of them.  Your mind rehashes the day or gets caught up in worrying about tomorrow. Recognize those habits, and then practice letting them be. Label whatever grabs your attention, and come back again to noticing the breath. Breathing in… and breathing out.
    4. Notice if you get caught up in effort, or frustration, or fear, with compassion for yourself. Catch thoughts of self-criticism or frustration, and come back to just one breath, one more time. Thoughts are only thoughts. Breathing in… breathing out. There’s nothing you need to fix or change right now in this moment. Notice where your thoughts go, and label them “thoughts.” Come back to one next breath, over, and over again.
    5. Shift attention to sensations in your body. Start by moving your awareness to physical sensations in your feet. You don’t need to wiggle your toes or move your feet, just notice them — the temperature or the pressure of your heel against the blanket or the mat beneath you.
    6. From your feet, move your attention into your lower legs, noticing whatever there is to see. Letting go of a sense of effort or needing to make anything happen. And then from your lower legs, through your knees, and into your upper legs. If you feel any sense of stress or tension, aim to relax and let go.
    7. Then through your buttocks and pelvis, and into your belly and abdomen. You might notice a sense of your breath moving up and down, or other physical sensations, or sometimes even reflection of emotion (perhaps an emotion like fear or anger reflects in the stomach in the form of tension or tightness). And as you move from your belly and now into your chest, note each time your mind gets caught up in thoughts of discomfort or distraction. And then gently and with patience, guiding it back one more time.
    8. Move around into your back, certainly a place many of us hold tension in different ways, relaxing your muscles as best as you’re able, lowering your shoulders from your ears. If you feel a need to make an adjustment, allow that to happen with intention, pausing and choosing your next action. Shift your attention into your hands and lower arms, again without actively needing to move or change anything, observing and letting go.
    9. Then moving through your neck and into the muscles of your face, perhaps noticing any locations of tightness or pinching, and then with gentleness, as best as you’re able, relaxing those muscles. And then for a few moments, have a general awareness of physical sensations throughout your body.
    10. And now, if you’re still awake, bring your attention back to the breath, each time the mind wanders into the past or into the future, or wherever it chooses to go. If it’s a useful anchor for your attention, you can count breaths, breathing in, one, breathing out, one, breathing in, two, breathing out, two… When you reach ten, start at one again.
    11. If counting becomes a distraction, then just stay with the sensation of breathing — wherever you feel the breath entering or leaving your body, or the rising or falling of your belly and chest. Continue on your own now, counting breaths up to ten, patiently returning your attention whenever you become distracted. If you lose track of counting, that’s fine. Start over wherever you last remember.
    The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness for Sleep 

    Sufficient sleep heals our bodies and minds, but for many reasons sleep doesn’t always come easily. Mindfulness practices and habits can help us fall asleep and stay asleep. Consult our guide to find tips for meditation, movement, and mindfulness practices to ease into sleep.
    Read More 

    • Mindful Staff
    • July 13, 2023



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  • Let It Go: How to Practice Forgiveness

    Let It Go: How to Practice Forgiveness

    When you’ve been hurt by someone, it’s not always easy to let it go. But holding on to a grudge will only make you feel worse—and not just emotionally. Resentment can cause your blood pressure to spike and trigger the release of stress chemicals that can make you physically sick. And the truth is: It doesn’t really do any good anyway. As the saying goes: “Not forgiving is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

    The paradox is, when you’ve been wronged, forgiveness is the only thing that provides relief from the pain. Sound like a bitter pill to swallow? Read on to learn how to practice forgiveness of others (and yourself), helping you release the heavy burden of resentment and experience more freedom.

    1. Understand forgiveness

    Before you attempt to force forgiveness on your most tender hurts, consider what it is you’re asking of yourself: Forgiving doesn’t mean that you condone what happened or that the perpetrator is blameless. It is making the conscious choice to release yourself from the burden, pain, and stress of holding on to resentment.

    Forgiving doesn’t mean that you condone what happened or that the perpetrator is blameless. It is making the conscious choice to release yourself from the burden, pain, and stress of holding on to resentment.

    2. Feel your pain

    Hurts can run deep, even if at first glance they don’t seem to make a big impact. It’s important to give yourself permission to acknowledge and honor the pain that’s very real for you. Notice where you feel it in your body and ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” Maybe you need to feel supported, take more time, or do something kind for yourself. Allowing space for the pain in this way can help you know whether you’re ready to release it from your heart and mind.

    3. Name it

    Whether you’ve hurt yourself or have been hurt by another, allow yourself to be honest and simply name the feelings that are there. They might include guilt, grief, shame, sorrow, confusion, or anger. As you consider the act of forgiveness, any of these feelings can arise. A study at UCLA found that when you name your emotional experience it turns the volume down on your amygdala, the emotion center of the brain, and brings resources back to your pre-frontal cortex, the rational part of your brain. So, by naming the feeling you can create space and not get overwhelmed.

    4. Let it out

    Keeping hurt feelings bottled up only causes additional stress to your mind and body. Even if the memory is difficult to confront, see if you can share how you’re feeling. You can write about it in a journal or talk about it with a friend or a professional counselor. Sharing helps you expand your perspective, and perhaps even see what happened through a different lens.

    5. Flip your focus

    If possible, see if you can flip your focus from being the victim to putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. For example, consider the life the person lived that led them to this hurtful action. This is difficult to do, but remember, you’re not condoning any action. This exercise is just about trying to see that, as humans, we are deeply impacted by our own traumas and life experiences, which greatly inform how we show up and act in the world. If you are able to do this, compassion naturally tends to flow from this more understanding perspective.

    6. Take action (start small)

    Whether you are forgiving yourself or another person, taking action can help to facilitate healing and make you feel more empowered. It’s best to start with smaller misdeeds to get into practice and feel what’s possible. Writing a letter or having an uncomfortable conversation can be difficult and even scary, but often a sense of empowerment emerges from the self-compassionate action of listening to yourself and doing something that supports you.

    7. Remember, you’re not the first or last

    When you’ve been hurt, it’s common to feel like you’re the only one who has ever been wronged in this way. In fact, it’s likely that this transgression (or something similar to it) has been made many, maybe even millions of times before throughout human history. Making mistakes is part of our shared human experience. Remembering you are not alone in experiencing this kind of pain can help to loosen your grip on your resentment.

    8. Have patience; forgiveness is a practice

    Forgiveness isn’t a quick-fix solution. It’s a process, so be patient with yourself. With smaller transgressions, forgiveness can happen pretty quickly, but with the larger ones, it can take years. As you begin with the smaller misdeeds and then move onto the harder ones, be kind to yourself, take deep breaths, and continue on.

    9. Stop blaming

    We all know it can feel good now and again to complain to a friend—misery loves company, right? Well, not exactly. Researcher Brené Brown, author of Rising Strong, says, “Blaming is a way to discharge pain and discomfort.” It gives us a false sense of control but inevitably keeps the negativity kicking around in our minds, increasing our stress and eroding our relationships.

    10. Practice more mindfulness

    A recent study surveyed 94 adults who had been cheated on by their partners, and found a correlation between traits of mindfulness and forgiveness. In other words, it can be said that the more you practice mindfulness, the more you strengthen your capacity for forgiveness.

    11. Find meaning and strength through your pain

    As you practice working with the pain that’s there, you grow key strengths of self-compassion, courage, and empathy that inevitably make you stronger in every way. As psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, even in the most horrific and painful circumstances, we have the freedom to create meaning in life, which is a powerful healing agent.

    How to Practice Forgiveness: A Mini-Meditation

    Try this short practice once a day and feel your forgiveness muscles growing.

    1. Think of someone who has caused you pain (to start, maybe not the person who has hurt you most) and you’re holding a grudge against. Visualize the time you were hurt by this person and feel the pain you still carry. Hold tightly to your unwillingness to forgive.
    2. Now, observe what emotion is present. Is it anger, resentment, sadness? Use your body as a barometer and notice physically what you feel. Are you tense anywhere, or do you feel heavy? Next, bring awareness to your thoughts; are they hateful, spiteful, or something else?
    3. Really feel this burden associated with the hurt that lives inside you, and ask yourself:
      “Who is suffering?
      Have I carried this burden long enough?
      Am I willing to forgive?”
      If the answer is no, that’s OK. Some wounds need more time than others to heal.
    4. If you are ready to let it go now, silently repeat these phrases: “Breathing in, I acknowledge the pain. Breathing out, I am forgiving and releasing this burden from my heart and mind.”
    5. Continue this process for as long as it feels supportive to you.

    This article appeared in the April 2017 issue of Mindful magazine.



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  • Help Curb the Habit of Gossiping With A 10-Minute Practice

    Help Curb the Habit of Gossiping With A 10-Minute Practice

    Summary:

    • “Fake news” is now a common phrase, but we can understand gossip as frequently-fake news on a personal level.
    • If you want to challenge your habit of gossiping, it is helpful to cultivate awareness both of how you speak and of how you listen.
    • In this 10-minute audio meditation, you’ll practice shifting from an in-the-moment urge to gossip toward a state of appreciation and gratitude.

    We live in a political moment where we don’t just disagree about matters of policy—we disagree about reality. To some degree, this has always been the case.

    Writing in 1922, the American philosopher Walter Lippmann, described the modern human condition as one of living in “pseudo-environments”—mental worlds that define our values, beliefs, and opinions. As a result, he observed that citizens “live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones.”

    More than 100 years later, we are experiencing this kind of polarization like never before. 24-hour cable news, Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and the fracturing of media have made it so that we can each filter our news, entertainment, and social interactions to reinforce our existing beliefs and shield ourselves from oppositional views—not to mention the fake news out there deliberately trying to separate us.

    This catchphrase has come to define the modern moment—“fake news.” Anything that doesn’t fit with our reality is now seen as unreal, make-believe, and at the same time, some of the news in our feeds is actually made up. These are crazy days.

    There is a serious conversation to be had around how to restructure the media and political institutions to mitigate this problem.

    Gossip is rarely based on fact, it’s more of an expression of the stories we make up in our heads about other people.

    In the meantime, we wanted to explore a different landscape of “fake news.” Sure, there are many people out there consciously spreading “fake news.” But it’s also interesting to look at how we might be doing it every day without really recognizing it.

    That’s right, we’re talking about gossip—our ordinary habit of talking about others behind their back. Gossip is rarely based on fact, it’s more of an expression of the stories we make up in our heads about other people.

    What is Gossip?

    The habit of gossiping can be defined in any number of ways. Webster’s defines it as “rumor or report of an intimate nature.” In the book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, the authors define gossip as: “any statement about another that the speaker would be unwilling to share in exactly the same way if that person were in the same room.”

    This definition points to the contextual nature of gossip. If I tell my co-worker Gena that “Dave’s feedback on my presentation today was incredibly disrespectful,” it may or may not be gossip. If I don’t share this feedback with Dave, then it’s a clear case of gossip. But if I do share it with Dave, with the same emotional tone, then it is not gossip.

    Why bring greater awareness to your gossip habit? After all, it’s often entertaining, even pleasurable, to talk about the faults of celebrities, political leaders, or that person in your social circle who drives you crazy.

    The first reason is that a habit of gossiping almost always arises from stories in our mind, which may or may not be true. So one reason to refrain from gossip is to do your part to curb the spread of “fake news.”

    Another reason is that gossip often involves a subtle breach of integrity. In the language of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, when we gossip about someone, we’re treating them as a “mere means” to our own sense of pleasure or superiority. If I tell a humiliating story about someone, I’m using their misfortune as a way to generate laughter, titillate my audience, or make myself feel like I’m better than them.

    And while it may be pleasurable in the moment, it almost always leaves a moral stain. For the speaker of gossip, there’s a subtle feeling of guilt that arises. For the people listening, there’s a sense of distrust that follows in the wake of gossip. “If he talks that way about others when they’re not in the room,” they are left thinking, “how does he talk about me when I’m not in the room?”

    Need proof? Conduct a quick experiment. In your next interaction with a friend or colleague, dish out some juicy negative tidbit about a mutual colleague or acquaintance. Then check in to see how you feel. If they respond in kind, notice how you feel about their trustworthiness and the strength of your relationship.

    2 Key Ways to Shift the Habit of Gossiping

    So how can we become more aware of our gossip habit? The key is mindfulness–training the skill of Notice-Shift-Rewire each time we’re tempted to gossip or each time others begin gossiping. This awareness takes two forms: awareness of speech and awareness of listening.

    1) Awareness of Speech

    The practice here is simple. Notice when you feel the urge to say something negative about another person – a friend, a co-worker, or even a political figure. And when you notice, pay attention to the physical sensations of gossip. We have found that the urge to gossip often corresponds to an energetic state–a subtle pattern of sensations in the body.

    In fact, the urge to gossip is, in many ways, similar to the urge to read about gossip in the form of celebrity tabloids or political chatter. In both cases, we’re drawn to the momentary burst of pleasure that arises from speaking or hearing gossip. And yet it’s a behavior that is always unsatisfying, leaving us with the desire for more.

    Noticing the urge to gossip opens the space to Shift your speech. This could be as simple as not saying anything at all or reframing your statement to something you would be willing to share with the other person, were they in the room.

    The Shift might also be to follow through on the urge to gossip but to do it with awareness – to gossip consciously. This sounds strange but you may find that it’s impossible and, at times, undesirable to get rid of all gossip. In conversations with your spouse or partner, for instance, saying things about others that you wouldn’t share with them in the room might play an essential role in building trust and intimacy with your partner. Talking through a difficult situation with another family member or a problem at work, for example, may require talking candidly about others in ways that you would not were this other person in the room. In these cases, the goal might not be to end gossip but to simply be more aware and mindful of it.

    The final move is to Rewire. Savor the experience of bringing greater awareness to this ordinary habit of gossip.

    2) Awareness of Listening

    Even if we refrain from gossip, we will undoubtedly encounter it in the speech of others. Whether it’s neighbors, co-workers, or family members, the habit of gossip is so common that it’s impossible to avoid. Awareness of listening is the practice of noticing gossip whenever it arises in conversations with others.

    Of course, this leads to an important question: when we notice the person we’re talking to gossiping, what are we to do? How are we to respond?

    The authors of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership liken this situation to a game of ping-pong: “the speaker and the listener each hold a paddle. If a listener says he doesn’t want to listen and symbolically puts down his paddle, the game is over.”

    This is sound advice. And yet it requires discernment and skillful means to figure out how to put down your paddle without shaming the other person. It might involve injecting a positive comment into the conversation, changing the subject, or, at times, making the outright request to not gossip.

    A 10-Minute Practice on Gossip Awareness

    1. To begin, find a comfortable seat. Sitting, if possible, with a straight spine. Close your eyes and begin by relaxing. Feel how the chair supports the weight of your body. Feel your feet as they rest against the support of the floor. Notice how you’re supported by each inhale and exhale. Allow yourself to breathe. Allow yourself to be. Let your breath move in and out effortlessly and without any attempt to control it. The goal of this practice is to create more awareness around the effect of gossip.
    2. With that in mind, as you relax deeply, see if you can bring to mind a moment in the past. A moment when you heard something about a friend or a coworker, another parent at school, a neighbor. Or when you dished it out to someone else. I know it’s not the most glamorous thing, but we’ve all had those moments when we had that juicy piece of gossip. So, see if you can just travel back in time to a moment like that, you can go back to childhood if nothing is coming up from adulthood.
    3. Observe any feelings or sensations that arise as you go back to that moment in time when you offered that juicy tidbit of gossip. You might notice a mixture of emotions. Excitement. Shame. Fear. Curiosity.
    4. Now, let’s imagine we had the opportunity to go back in time and experience this very same moment. With a slight twist. This time, I want you to think of a statement of gratitude for this person. Rather than a juicy piece of gossip about them, think of what you would say. If you were forced to tell someone why you appreciate this person or why you’re grateful for them.
    5. Now, imagine saying a word of appreciation instead of a piece of gossip. I appreciate Hank for always being there on time and for the intensity he brings to each conversation. I appreciate my mother-in-law, for how passionate she is about bringing us all together.
    6. Notice again, with this statement of gratitude, what are the emotions that arise in your body? See if you can pay close attention to any differences between the impact of gossip and gratitude for you in your experience. See if you can keep this experience and remain aware of the difference in your emotional state between gossip and gratitude and mind? And see if you can bring this midst of everyday life.
    7. Notice moments when you hold that juicy piece of gossip and there’s a part of you that wants to tell someone and dish it out. In those moments, see what happens when you shift to appreciation or gratitude instead
    8. To close this practice on the habit of gossiping, take a few more breaths. Bring your attention back to each inhale and exhale sensation of breath. And then when you feel ready, slowly open up your eyes. Coming back into the room. And see what happens when you bring this spirit of gratitude with you. Throughout the rest of your day.

    The 24-Hour Gossip Challenge:

    To experience this first hand, see what happens when you bring greater awareness to gossip over the next 24 hours. Pay special attention to your speech and the speech of those around you. See if you can go an entire day without the habit of gossiping.

    You may find that it’s an almost impossible task to eliminate the habit of gossiping entirely. But that’s not really the goal of this experiment. The goal is to bring awareness to the urge to gossip – to notice where you are contributing to the spread of “fake news.” This simple sense of awareness may not lead you to stop gossiping altogether. But it will help you bring greater compassion, care, and awareness into even the most ordinary conversations.

    Share your experiences in the comments below.

    This article was originally published on Mindful.org in March 2018.



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  • The 4 Qualities of a Good Listener

    The 4 Qualities of a Good Listener

    A good listener not only focuses on your words, but what’s on your mind. Do you have the following qualities of a good listener?

    When we’re constantly fixated on what we’re going to say next, or how people have interpreted what we’ve already said, we forget that honing the qualities of a good listener is equally important to the conversation. This video from The London School of Life reminds us how a good listener inspires quietly instead of nagging endlessly.

    4 Qualities of a Good Listener

    1) A good listener asks: “What’s on your mind?”

    When we’re trying to make tough decisions, a good listener uses gentle encouragement to help tease out what’s really at the heart of our anxieties.

    It’s not always easy for us to know what’s bothering us—a gentle and constructive push with a good question can encourage us to explore what’s on our minds, and help clarify what might be causing us trouble.

    2) Good listeners go beyond anecdotes

    It’s hard to find the root of where our feelings comes from, but easy to simply mention that something is lovely or terrible, nice or annoying.

    A good listener can help us clarify it.

    They look for the bigger picture by taking your piecemeal thought or complaint and turning it into solid ideas by connecting it with your broader history, bringing anecdotal thoughts up against underlying issues.

    3) The good listener is acutely aware of how unique we all are

    Good listeners allow us to be vulnerable—they don’t invite us to open up and then immediately reject us for our follies.

    Instead, their skillful and useful small feedback can make tense moments of dialogue easier. For example, the little positive strategic sounds, like “MMMMMM……” that delicately signals sympathy without intruding on what we’re trying to say.

    Good listeners allow us to be vulnerable—they don’t invite us to open up and then immediately reject us for our follies.

    Without judgement and criticism, we can feel free and safe to express our feelings without worrying about losing our dignity—or a friendship.

    4) Good listeners separate disagreement from criticism

    A friend who possesses the qualities of a good listener is willing to build a safe environment for you and help you to be yourself. You don’t need to be afraid losing them if you have any disagreement with them—they make it clear that their company is not dependent upon an unattainable state of perfection.



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  • Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Mindfulness and Autism: Learning to Celebrate Neurodiversity

    Summary:

    • Researchers who study mindfulness and autism have found that, for neurodiverse communities, mindfulness may have unexpected and adverse effects that are different from neurotypical people.
    • While mindfulness teachings are slowly becoming more inclusive, people with autism and other kinds of neurodiversity are often left behind.
    • We can learn to teach mindful practices in an accessible, inclusive way that considers each person’s unique brain wiring.

    “When I’m told to focus on sensations of my breath, I feel like there is a noose wrapped around my neck, getting tighter and tighter as I keep paying attention.”

    This comment comes from a brilliant young autistic woman who was told by her doctor that mindfulness would be good for her anxiety. She said it did the opposite: Mindfulness worsened her anxiety. In fact, it was a very negative experience that left her feeling like a failure.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs.

    Unfortunately, I hear things like this often. I am part of a mindfulness research program at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, where in the course of the research, a large number of neurodiverse people have told me they are mindfulness “drop-outs.” In neurodiverse communities, people report having a range of sensory experiences that can produce different, and often adverse responses to common mindfulness techniques such as the body scan, breath practices, and loving-kindness. People with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism, ADHD, or cerebral palsy confide that they’ve tried it and “failed” at it. Similarly, in the education system, some teachers have told me that they can’t use the term mindfulness with students because, from prior experiences, some students already feel like they have failed at it.

    It’s never anyone’s fault when mindfulness doesn’t work for them. They were just not taught mindfulness in an accessible, inclusive way that considers any unique needs. Accessibility and neurodiversity are rarely discussed in the mindfulness world, but this discussion holds huge potential for both neurodiverse communities and mindfulness. As a mindfulness teacher, I want to ensure that all people can access mindfulness teachings in a way that works for them.

    What is Neurodiversity?

    As author Jenna Nuremberg shares in her 2020 book Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You, neurodiversity means “recognizing and celebrating the diversity of brain makeups instead of pathologizing some as normal and others as abnormal.” Similarly, the Autism Awareness Centre defines it as “the concept that humans don’t come in a one-size-fits-all neurologically ‘normal’ package,” and that all variations of human neurological function are worthy of respect. Not so differently, mindfulness encourages us to recognize what is going on inside of us—observing our inner world and experience with nonjudgment and acceptance.

    As mindfulness teachers, if we are not accepting and celebrating ALL brain makeups in our teaching, then we are not making mindfulness accessible. The story above—with the experience of the noose tightening—is one example of the mindfulness experience of an autistic person (autism being just one example of a neurodiverse mind).

    Autism occurs in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, and 1 in 42 males, and 1 in 165 females were diagnosed with autism in 2018. Autism is not the only kind of neurodiverse brain that is often invisibly present in mindfulness groups. Dyslexia, ADHD, mild cerebral palsy, and mild intellectual disability may be unseen. All of these neurodevelopmental disabilities are often undiagnosed, and many people who come to mindfulness for the first time may not realize there is a reason why they are not connecting with the practices in the way they are being taught. This makes it really important for teachers to be aware of how inclusive their teaching practices are.

    What Makes Mindfulness Inaccessible

    Why is it so challenging for mindfulness teachers to adopt truly accessible practices?  One important reason is that the way of teaching most of us are taught to deliver was designed for the neurotypical population.

    Developed in the 1970s at the Centre for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the helm, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) introduced mindfulness to much of the healthcare community. However, the program was designed primarily without modifications for neurodiverse folks. This has significant consequences today: Many mindfulness teachers, though they may be highly trained and capable in MBSR and other mindfulness-based therapies, have usually not been trained to recognize neurodiversity among their students.

    Fortunately, mindfulness research and teaching is beginning to evolve—one instance is the embrace of trauma-sensitive practices, aided by David Treleaven’s work. Yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    Mindfulness research is beginning to evolve, yet we still fall short when it comes to inclusive practices that truly provide accessible forms of mindfulness.

    For example: The concept of interoception—an area of science that is being written about in literature related to neurodiversity—is the act of really feeling the physical sensations in the body. Knowing that feeling of when you are hungry, or need to go to the bathroom, are examples of interoceptive processing; being able to discriminate between different feelings in the body connected with emotions is another. Mindfulness can play a key role in developing interoceptive skills—for example, when we practice noticing the movement of our inhale and exhale at our nostrils or in the belly. However, interoception is not a universal ability. Some brains are wired to feel physical sensations, while some are wired to visualize easily.

    Still others don’t really visualize: Aphantasia (phantasia being Greek for fantasy) refers to the inability to picture those images in one’s mind. Research conducted at the University of Exeter Medical School found that 2% of the population are non-visual thinkers. That doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong if you can’t picture your loved one in front of you when practicing loving-kindness, it just means you need a modified technique. These different ways that the brain is wired are key when it comes to understanding our experience of mindfulness practice.

    In the last ten years, the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at CAMH has been studying how mindfulness can better serve the autism community. I’ve been involved as a lead mindfulness facilitator in this research, both leading the groups with advisors and developing modifications to MBSR practices to make them accessible. Importantly, autistic people hold advisory roles in this work as a central part of the research. Mindfulness for the caregivers of neurodiverse people is also being studied by Azrieli’s neurodevelopmental disability community.

    Dr. Yona Lunsky, Director of the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has been leading teams to research mindfulness in this community for almost a decade. “The best way for us to adapt our approach when it comes to mindfulness is to work in partnership, and use our mindfulness skills when we do: Approach how we teach with presence to what is happening, with curiosity, without judgment, and with loving-kindness,” Dr. Lunsky says. “Being open to changing our approach is fundamental to developing something meaningful. It takes time and it evolves. And that is what makes it so exciting.” 

    Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.

    Bringing mindfulness to neurodiverse communities inspires me to dig deep into my mindfulness training and get creative, so that I can offer traditional mindfulness teachings in ways that are helpful for a wide diversity of brains. As a teacher, it’s my job to teach in a way that is going to help the person in front of me. If I’m stuck to a script, or clinging to delivering mindfulness in a certain way, I risk not being accessible to the unique person’s mind. I need to be rooted enough in the teachings to be able to share them in a customized way.

    Daniel Share-Strom, an autistic man and champion of mindfulness meditation, is an advisor in our mindfulness research program at CAMH. Daniel’s popular TED Talk “Dear Society…Signed, Autism” shares Daniel’s humorous style of sharing his experience living as an autistic man on communication, learning, and interaction with the environment. Here are some thoughts Daniel has shared with me on mindfulness:

    • “In my own mental health journey I discovered mindfulness, and it was one of the first things that ever really helped me with anxiety. …I think it’s so important to adapt mindfulness from its original ways of being taught for neurodiverse groups. There are certain things autistic people bring to the table that aren’t compatible with the ways mindfulness is being presented. Mindfulness teachers use a lot of metaphors and abstract language that some autistic people struggle with. Some of the sensory exercises pose huge problems for autistic people.
    • Autistic people experience high rates of mental health challenges–from feeling anxiousness to having an adult suicide rate up to nine times the rate of the typical population. That is simply a result of growing up in a world that wasn’t designed for us—in a lot of ways. From the sensory world, to social protocols that neurotypical people developed that we didn’t really get much say in. That can all cause a lot of challenges. Mindfulness is an amazing tool to help autistic people cope with all of that. People just need to understand how to adapt it so it’s effective.”

    The work and feedback of Daniel and others makes it clear that we need to explore new ways of teaching mindfulness that honor neurodiversity, and that truly individualize mindfulness for each person.

    Lessons for Teaching Mindfulness Inclusively

    When people ask me how mindfulness can help autistic adults, I say we need to invert the question to “How can autism help mindfulness?” In my experience, it took many, many neurodiverse people patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) giving feedback on how I was teaching mindfulness before I started landing at more inclusive and accessible methods. Getting to know how autistic people connect best with mindfulness has helped me completely re-examine how I teach. It’s taught me to remain open to the vast differences of those in front of us, and explore with them ways for mindfulness to be useful. When we individualize the practice, the path truly belongs to each person.

    Mindfulness has something to offer the world. Neurodiversity has something to offer mindfulness. Let’s imagine together how a more inclusive mindfulness culture can contribute to a more inclusive world, one that can be truly accessible and beneficial to all.



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  • How a Meditation Teacher Can Level Up Your Practice

    How a Meditation Teacher Can Level Up Your Practice

    Summary:

    • Having a qualified meditation teacher can help you learn both the mental and physical aspects of meditation, and help overcome obstacles in your practice.
    • Meditation teachers come in many forms, including in-person teachers, authors, apps, podcasts, and more.
    • Meditation teachers support us on 3 key levels: They often provide fellowship, mentorship, and leadership.
    • We recommend these 5 mindful organizations if you want to find a meditation teacher, take a mindfulness class, or consider a retreat.

    In my college days, a thousand years ago, I used to hang out in part of the library that contained a large multivolume work: Pokorny’s Indo-European Etymological Dictionary. I would idle away hours looking up the derivations of words and tracing their meanings as they wended their way through many languages and cultures. It instilled in me a spirit of looking beneath the surface of a word to find the depth and breadth that lay within.

    When I first discovered that the word “education” derives from an ancient root roughly meaning to draw out, to lead out, it lit up my mind. At that point, education had seemed mainly to be a process of having information and ideas poured into you, or wisdom bestowed on you from on high. This deeper sense of education conveyed both something being drawn out from within as well as the prospect of being led on a journey of discovery. It was a revelation, and an inspiration.

    Even if I was overthinking the etymology—we can’t really know what people thousands of years ago meant when they used a word; the great Julius Pokorny was only making educated guesses—I came to find teachers who met this deeper standard of education. They were teachers who elicited something within that was ready to be brought out. For sure, they led me to new information, but with a spirit of inquiry and examination, rather than indoctrination. Many of them taught me mindfulness.

    Patiently Planting Seeds

    When it comes to learning meditation, having teachers who guide you in this facilitative way is vitally important. Meditation lies somewhere between an intellectual pursuit and skills training of the kind that athletes, martial artists, and musicians, among others, rely on. It involves techniques that have physical aspects, and it is indeed a bit like building up a muscle—at first the “attention muscle”—so some coaching and coaxing are integral aspects of real teaching.

    Nowadays a lot of resources are readily available to get us started and help us along the way. Instructions for how to practice mindfulness and related practices abound—in books, magazines, apps, podcasts, and in video and audio form. The practice itself, as any number of teachers have said, couldn’t be simpler. In fact, it seems too simple. “That’s it? That’s all there is to it?” (One of the reasons it’s nice to have teachers around is to help us navigate that paradox.)

    If you think you need a teacher, chances are you already have one—or many, for that matter.

    In addition, authors regularly offer insightful commentary on the sorts of things that occur when one practices meditation. If you can afford it (or get financial aid), you can go to conferences and meditation programs to learn more and deepen your practice. Some of these ways of getting instruction can feel pretty intimate: Listening to a teacher on an app or podcast can make you feel as if you’re being spoken to directly, and in videos teachers can instruct with a lot of gesture and expression. When you’re reading, you can return again and again to a passage that speaks to you especially.

    All of these supports actually are a form of having a teacher, or many teachers. So, if you think you need a teacher, chances are you already have one—or many, for that matter. It’s helpful to have some gratitude for that fact. Countless people in the world do not have the leisure or opportunity to access a wealth of meditation teachings.

    Patience also pays off. Desperately rushing to find “the teacher” who solves it all results mostly in frustration. As Jessica Morey, cofounder and lead teacher at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, says, “Meditation practice can lead you to become striving-oriented, obsessed with trying to get somewhere, to gain experiences.” Being a gardener, patiently planting seeds and allowing nature to take its course, rewards better than being a driver speeding to get to an appointment.

    Eventually, however, no matter how patient we are, obstacles and challenges arise that ruffle our feathers. Mindfulness, awareness, kindness, and compassion practices do not simply work in a linear fashion: x amount of time and effort yields y results. They involve ongoing exploration of how we see ourselves, the world around us, and our relationships. They challenge preconceived views and fixations. They turn us toward life’s ups and downs, rather than away from them. They take us to difficult places.

    Supporting Each Other

    This is where support from someone outside yourself who can hear you and what’s going on in your mind—not a generic mind—can make a difference. This is where a teacher can provide true education: drawing out what’s inside us and leading us on a journey, not a journey that is prepackaged in a book or on an app, but a journey we cocreate. It’s not a paved road. It’s a trail that we must blaze—with help.

    As longtime meditation teacher and author of You Belong: A Call for Connection, Sebene Selassie, says, while some people are “natural self-teachers, most of us benefit from guidance and instruction… We’re not practicing to become super-meditators. We’re practicing to gain some insight and wisdom. So, I’ve found it’s definitely helpful to have some insightful and wise people around.”

    Such wise and insightful people come in various forms. They can simply be fellow practitioners with whom we have common cause and a developing bond of trust. They may be in a local group (formal or informal) or online, perhaps supported by an occasional gathering at a group program or retreat.

    Finding human beings to support our practice, either as fellow travelers or teachers, may not be an easy prospect. It depends to a certain degree on the availability of teachers and practitioners who are compatible with the kind of path you would like to follow. For most of the history of meditation practice, it has been transmitted largely through religious organizations. The methods of teaching and supporting practitioners varied from tradition to tradition, but they have included everything from simple fellowship to intense forms of followership, with students taking very explicit directions from teachers in the form of commands, supported by vows on the part of students. As these religious traditions undergo many changes in the modern era, non-religious ways of teaching and practicing mindfulness and related practices have broken through. The expansion of these forms of practice is the reason that Mindful and mindful.org were founded.

    Secular forms of practice have been happening explicitly for about 40 years, so while there are a fair number of teachers, this movement has not developed to the point that there are many secular places to go on retreat with an optimal ratio of teachers at varying levels of ability to students, which would allow for widespread, ongoing individual attention. The supply of teachers is growing, but nowhere near as fast as the number of people interested in taking up meditation. And someone doesn’t become a teacher overnight. Think of wine—it can take decades for a vintage to become finely aged, and not every wine is up to the task. Still, many are very drinkable on the way to becoming fine. Teachers are like that—mastery may be decades off, but many have wisdom and insights to share even at early stages.

    Support from someone outside yourself who can hear you and what’s going on in your mind—not a generic mind—can make a difference. This is where a teacher can provide true education: drawing out what’s inside us and leading us on a journey.

    As many teachers have noted, people often come to a weekend program, go on a retreat, or take a mindfulness-based course such as MBSR, and then drift away, without finding the ongoing support—and human interaction—they need to truly integrate mindfulness into their lives. Mark Leonard of Mindfulness Connected, who played a key role in establishing the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, believes that the lack of ongoing connection with others, in favor of a kind of private mindfulness, cuts us off from more profound effects at both the personal and societal level. Presenting at the 2020 Mindful Society conference, he emphasized that “well-being is a social function, it’s not a psychological process.”

    I look at the guidance we receive from others on the path of meditation as coming at three different levels, with each a bit more intimate and intensified, and placing more trust in the teacher: fellowship, mentorship, leadership. The lines between them are not hard and fast, and one is not better than another. They work together.

    3 Levels of Mindful Guidance

    1. Fellowship

    As I mentioned above, we already have a teacher—in fact, many teachers—in the form of resources full of instruction and insightful guidance available via so many channels. But one of the principal elements we need is something that keeps us coming back to meditation regularly, and in this case, fellow meditators can make a great difference. As we get trapped in old habit patterns or fall into ruts, lose our inspiration to keep going, or start to feel we’re the only one who has difficulties, connection with meditating friends—in person, online, or both—can make all the difference.

    It’s not that we’re all leaning on each other so that we’ll all fall down together. Rather, we help each other stand on our own two feet, as it were. We may do retreats together or find ways to integrate practice in other areas of life, such as starting a mindfulness program in a local school or hospital. There is great power in learning together.

    Tara Healey, program director for mindfulness-based learning at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, is a strong believer in the efficacy of ongoing small doses of support, because as she says, “Mindfulness is self-correcting. As we go off course, it will guide us, as will our fellow meditators and friends. The ability to appreciate the quiet and listen to how you’re being guided gets clearer and clearer the more you practice. The practice itself serves you the life lessons you need.”

    Fellowship, being in community with others, becomes an important foundation for going forward on the path of meditation, because it gradually encourages us to think less of mindfulness as a personal pursuit and more as collective pursuit, the social well-being that Mark Leonard talks about.

    Caverly Morgan, who founded Peace in Schools in Portland, Oregon, and established the groundbreaking for-credit Mindful Studies course in the high schools there, is committed to encouraging students to find how the personal expands into a greater whole, how mutual awareness leads to mutual understanding:

    In the same way a teen experiences a sense of empowerment by discovering that she, he, or they can direct their attention to the moment versus a conditioned internal story, we have the capacity to do so collectively. The result: collective empowerment. When we are practiced at seeing where and how our attention moves personally, internally, in the privacy of our own minds, it becomes easy to see how our attention moves and is directed collectively. In our communities. In our culture. In our world.

    2. Mentorship

    At the level of mentorship, there is much more personal give-and-take with a teacher. It may also occur in a group, but is also often enhanced by one-on-one time. Many of us have experienced an inspiring talk by a teacher, perhaps to a crowd of hundreds or even thousands—what some people call “the sage on the stage.” That’s OK for getting an inspirational boost, but a mentor comes down off the stage and sits down with you at eye level, for extended periods.

    The way that meditation mentors lead people is probably best described as facilitation. It can happen at an individual level, but quite often it occurs in small group programs, such as MBSR or MBCT or any meditation class, really, where personal instruction and group work combine. Facilitating is the act of making it possible for students to find their way. While in fellowship, there is a danger of incestuousness and group think, mentors can cut through that, since part of their role is to draw our habit patterns out into the light, to be examined with care in a safe space.

    The skillful means that effective mentors use to facilitate learning are too many to enumerate. They’re inexhaustible, in fact, since they often emerge creatively in the moment, so the marks of effective mentorship are often spontaneity, humor, and a sense of play. While mindfulness involves work, a good mentor conveys that it is definitely not drudgery.

    While the skillful methods are endless, two examples—inquiry and stewardship—may help to convey what these kinds of skills are about.

    Patricia Rockman, MD—senior director of education and clinical services at the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, and co-author of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Embodied Presence and Inquiry in Practice—is one of the foremost articulators of the power of inquiry, which she describes as “an interactive process, a reflective process, on an experience that has just occurred.” She goes on to say that “what we’re trying to do… is enhance people’s ability to be with their direct experience versus what we normally do, which is to immediately have interpretations, ideas, conclusions, judgments about our experience.” In addition, she says that inquiry enhances people’s “capacity to reflect on the unfolding nature of experience and learn to track that experience without running off into storytelling or narrative or other ideas and conclusions.”

    Rockman also points out that encouraging people to inquire about what’s happening moment to moment in their minds helps them “develop a language of experience, a vocabulary of experience—whether that’s describing their sensations, being able to describe their thoughts versus analyzing them, being able to name emotions in an attempt to manage them better and make them less overwhelming, and to begin to see how the body is a source of information” and the place where the sensory correlates of emotion (such as a tightening chest, when we are anxious) reside.

    The marks of effective mentorship are often spontaneity, humor, and a sense of play. While mindfulness involves work, a good mentor conveys that it is definitely not drudgery.

    Don McCown, co-author of Teaching Mindfulness: A Practical Guide for Clinicians and Educators, has written extensively about the process of teaching mindfulness, particularly in small groups. In a chapter in Resources for Teaching Mindfulness: An International Handbook, he talks about how, in his view, the primary skill of a mindfulness teacher mentoring small groups is to be a steward who tends to the atmosphere of the class.

    While McCown acknowledges the atmosphere in a room may seem like a vague notion, still, he says, “We all walk into the room and know, through body sensation and affect, that the atmosphere is tense, or friendly, or calm, or maybe a little sad.” In fact, he goes on to say that “a group can agree on, and even engage in dialogue about, what it is like in the room at a particular moment.”

    A skilled teacher of mindfulness-based programs is the steward of this quality of atmosphere, “tracking the unfolding of a class session moment by moment,” paying mindful attention to something that is “evident not only to teachers but also to participants, making it a valuable and valid measure for the relational state of the group.” In this way, the quality of a mindfulness group is something the teacher and the group give rise to together.

    In stewardship, McCown points out, the teacher uses all the care at their disposal to pay attention to the setting, how people relate to each other, the interplay between silence and talking, maintaining ethical behavior, and a number of other elements. In this way, he says, “Atmosphere not only teaches participants, it teaches the teacher.”

    3. Leadership

    The ultimate—and the most intimate—level of teaching is when the teacher transmits, rather than simply teaches. Transmitting is embodying and sharing, most often by example, whatever understanding a teacher has. It’s not a highfalutin idea. In fact, quite the opposite. We see transmission happening in the most mundane of places. In describing a French baker he studied with, Bill Buford wrote in the New Yorker recently:

    For Bob, farms were the “heart of Frenchness.” His grandfather had been a farmer. Every one of the friends he would eventually introduce me to were also the grandchildren of farmers. They felt connected to the rhythm of plows and seasons, and were beneficiaries of a knowledge that had been in their families for generations. When Bob described it, he used the word transmettre, with its sense of “to hand over”—something passed between eras.

    A teacher committed to transmission cares little about their own stature as a teacher. Like the master baker, they care only about the results, the quality of the bread. They long to see students bake bread even better than they could bake. They don’t seek acolytes, a kind of permanent one-upmanship. They seek colleagues. They wish not merely to teach students but to learn together with them.

    In so doing, like a good martial arts master, they will challenge the student to find the way by themselves. They also pay close attention to what’s going on with you, always alert to teachable moments, to turning points and possibilities for opening. It’s like the Deacon says in Season 4 of the HBO series The Wire: “A good church man is always up in everybody’s shit. It’s how we do.”

    Their main tool is rarely the simple answer and more often the hanging question. Steve Hickman, executive director of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion and a longtime mindfulness teacher, spoke with me recently about how the most powerful teaching involves highly attentive listening and probing: “Students benefit the most not from simply having their questions answered,” he said, “but from seeing the example of your ongoing warmth, curiosity, and attention, as you listen and inquire, so they find handholds and pathways of their own. Then, they are empowered, not just taught.”

    The mark of the teacher’s work succeeding is that the world itself and your circumstances become the teacher. When you have a setback, such as a financial loss or the death of a friend, there may be less discursive mental drama surrounding the event. It becomes more a message to you of how to let go further of the story of what you have to have, to find more simplicity. If in the midst of being isolated in a pandemic, your partner tells you, “I wish you would clean up more after yourself,” you may skip the steps of resisting or beating up on yourself, and simply see the opportunity for attention and mindfulness and kindness to reach into more areas of your life.

    You yourself may begin to become a teacher, even simply because of your example. You may become a great source of fellowship to others, and even a mentor and leader. Your interactions with your teachers, your friends, even strangers—the grocery clerk or a fellow passenger on the subway—and yes, those you fiercely oppose, have a tendency to draw you out of your shell of self-cherishing. You are more vulnerable and yet more resilient and confident. Every day brings discoveries, as if you’ve baked a fresh loaf of aromatic bread to share with the world. These messages from the outside are really messages from the inside, what you’ve internalized from your teachers, your friends, and your experiences. The inherent brilliance of your natural state of being is drawn out.

    That is real education.

    Where to Find a Meditation Teacher

    ACCESS MBCT is an international listing of mental health professionals who are committed to excellence in the delivery, training, and dissemination of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

    The International Mindfulness Teachers Association is a certification and accrediting body and membership organization that includes a member directory of Certified Mindfulness Teachers and Accredited Mindfulness Teacher Training Programs.

    Mindful Directory Ltd—a collaboration with mindful.org—is a platform where mindfulness teachers and other professionals register their credentials and list their events.

    The Mindfulness Center at Brown University maintains a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher Recognition List, which includes teachers who have provided appropriate documentation of their teaching credentials.

    Mindful Leader offers an MBSR Certified Teacher Directory provided to the organization by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, which has verified the credentials of the teachers listed.

    Your Guide to Finding the Best Mindfulness Teacher 

    The next step toward deepening your mindfulness practice may be finding a teacher that can offer you new insights. In our easy-to-use guide, we’ve outlined what to look for in a mindfulness teacher, and how to find the right one for you.
    Read More 

    • Mindful Staff
    • September 21, 2020

    How Mindfulness Teachers Can Build Brave Space 

    Mindful self-compassion teacher Steve Hickman offers advice for his fellow teachers to lovingly acknowledge the turbulence of their own hearts, and those of their students, during times where compassionate presence and action are needed more than ever.
    Read More 

    • Steven Hickman
    • July 8, 2020



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  • Terms and Conditions – Mindful

    Terms and Conditions – Mindful

    NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.

    By entering this promotion, participants agree to abide by these Terms and Conditions and the decisions of Mindfulness United Pty Ltd, which are final and binding in all respects.

    1. Promotion Period

    The Deep Resilience Book Giveaway (the “Giveaway”) begins on March 16, 2025, at 12:00 AM [local time], and ends on April 16, 2025, at 11:59 PM [local time] (the “Promotion Period”).

    2. Eligibility

    This Giveaway is open to legal residents of jurisdictions where such giveaways are legally permitted, who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. It is void where prohibited or restricted by law. Employees of Mindfulness United Pty Ltd, and its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies, and their immediate family members and/or those living in the same household are not eligible to participate.

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    To enter, visit [https://signups.mindful.org/book-giveaway-deep-resilience-by-melli-obrien/] during the Promotion Period and complete the entry form with a valid email address. Limit one (1) entry per person. Any attempt by a participant to submit multiple entries by using multiple/different email addresses or identities will result in disqualification.

    4. Prize

    Three (3) winners will each receive one (1) copy of Deep Resilience: A Four-Step Journey to Unshakable Inner Strength by Melli O’Brien. Approximate Retail Value (ARV) of each prize: $25.99 USD. Total ARV of all prizes: $259.90 USD.

    5. Winner Selection and Notification

    Winners will be selected in a random drawing conducted by Mindfulness United Pty Ltd on or about April 18, 2025, from all eligible entries received during the Promotion Period. Winners will be notified by email within five (5) business days following the draw. If a selected winner does not respond within seven (7) days of notification, an alternate winner may be selected.

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    This Giveaway is governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any disputes shall be resolved in the courts located in New South Wales.



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