In this short practice we connect with our aspiration to live from love, and then bring a caring presence to our own vulnerability, to a dear one, and to all beings everywhere.
Listen to the full talk at: Sheltering In Love (Part 1)
The post Meditation: Embracing Life with an Open Heart (11:54 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
For several weeks—or even longer, depending where you are in the world—we’ve been finding ourselves trying to gain footing and get used to our new realities, which present differently for each person. As the pandemic continues to unfold, a few universal truths are reaffirming themselves to me: First, in almost all but extreme cases, we have a choice about how we want to respond to what is happening. Second, the cliché and often-time overused metaphor of putting the oxygen mask on ourselves first so that we can help others has never been truer, whether we are on the front lines providing an essential service or finding ourselves at home. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, love and compassion are more viral than COVID-19.
Two weekends ago, as the state where I live was finally waking up to the realization that preparation was in order and that we wouldn’t be spared, my husband and I made a trip to the supermarket to stock up on supplies and essentials. Now you have to understand that I live in a state that is under a threat of hurricanes almost annually at this point, and that what I saw was beyond the frenzy we experience when we are in the “cone of uncertainty” and being told to brace for impact. All around us, people were frantically loading their carts with toilet paper, jugs of bleach, and bottled water. The panic in the air was infectious; we humans are not immune to panic.
I found myself on a mission to not only get as much as I could on my grocery list but also to not panic. For the first week, my husband took up a new hobby as the town crier only instead of announcing the time each hour, he would report the numbers of infected individuals and worse, the number of deaths. On one particular day, my mother called me to report that five people in her synagogue tested positive and that another had passed away the night before. Things were getting real, real fast. After hanging up with my mom, frustrated that I could not properly console her over our video call, I went outside to our backyard, sat on a deck chair and just lost it.
I realized that this virus had me feeling sad—yes—but it also sent me into a tailspin and everything about my schedule, my hours of sleep, and my regular routine was completely out of control.
In the midst of crying inconsolably, I realized that this virus had me feeling sad—yes—but it also sent me into a tailspin and everything about my schedule, my hours of sleep, and my regular routine was completely out of control.
Taking a deep breath, reminding myself that I have tools to use, I wrapped up my crying, and began to feel like the clouds had parted. I could see clearly and I knew what I needed to do: Rewrite a new Self-Care Plan. The world had changed in a matter of days but my formalized plan had not—and so it was clear to me that, just as I needed to be adaptable, the plan needed to be, too. Adjusting my Self-Care Plan to meet this new normal was this shift that allowed me to launch the Pandemic of Love initiative (more on that later).
A Self-Care Plan is an intervention tool that keeps you from being completely sucked into the vortex, saving you when you find yourself standing on the precipice gazing into the dark abyss. It’s a fail-safe, created by you, and filled with your favorite self-care activities, important reminders, and ways to activate your self-care community—even virtually.
Here are my top three reasons to get on top of this plan, as early as you can (don’t put it off!):
1) Customizing a Self-Care Plan is a preventative measure. By designing a roadmap that is unique to you, in moments when you’re NOT in crisis, you’re directing your best self to reflect on what you may need (and have access to) in your most challenging moments. The reality is that only YOU know how intense your stress levels can get and what resources are available to you. Write that sh*t down.
2) Having a plan takes the guesswork out of what to do and where to turn in moments of crisis. From a mindfulness point of view, it helps you respond instead of react to the situation at hand. When you have a plan in place, you’ll feel more in control of your circumstances and life won’t feel quite as chaotic. (It also makes it easier to ask for help from those you share your plan with.)
3) A Self-Care Plan helps you stay the course. You’ll find it far easier to stick to your personal care strategy and avoid falling into the trap of making excuses. Having a plan helps you establish a routine, ensuring that you and your self-care partners don’t wind up in isolation, but rather check in with each other (even if it’s virtually these days), hold each other accountable, and share the responsibility to support one another.
To read more about Self-Care Plans, you can check out an in-depth article that I wrote for Mindful.org last February.
Besides disinfecting and washing my hands, I made a list of the best ways I could take care of my heart and spirit in these times, putting that proverbial oxygen mask on first before I tend to my family, my community, and the world.
Here are eight things that are on my extensive list:
1. Stick with my normal, daily meditation practice. It’s easy to lose track of time when the days blend into one another, but now more than ever, my twice daily meditation practice (20 minutes at a time) is so important. Also, I no longer have the excuse “I don’t have time” these days—all I seem to have is time, I just need to remain disciplined.
2. Maintain contact virtually by creating a schedule. Now is a great time to make sure that we check on the ones who matter to us, and those who we rarely get to see in person because they are so far away. However, it’s very easy to lose track of time—especially across time zones—so having a set schedule of times to check in, hang out and even eat “dinner” together can help to restore some social structure to the day.
3. Get outdoors. If you are blessed to live in a place where there are parks or waterfronts (that are not closed during the pandemic) and you can access them with walks, runs, and bikes, it’s a blessing that should not be squandered. Each day I commit to getting outdoors and moving for at least an hour, plus taking a barefoot walk on grass.
4. Give myself permission to cry. This is actually a point on my usual Self-Care Plan, which seemed appropriate to migrate over in these times. I know that I will inevitably feel sad, disheartened, or downright hopeless at times, but I also know that giving myself permission to feel these emotions fully and turn towards my suffering will help me release any pain or tension and help me see the sun through the clouds once again.
I know that I will inevitably feel sad, disheartened, or downright hopeless at times, but I also know that giving myself permission to feel these emotions fully and turn towards my suffering will help me release any pain.
5. Create a venting-hour. Just like some families have adopted a “happy hour,” we’ve adopted a “venting hour.” It sometimes only lasts five minutes but being that we are all stuck together in close quarters for the next few weeks or months, we make sure that there is an “airing of grievances,” (just like in Seinfeld’s fictitious holiday, Festivus), so that nobody keeps anything inside. I found that it reduces the build-up of tension and makes sure that there is no resentment, which is possible for even the kindest amongst us.
6. Limit how often and through what means I access the news and information. I have personally noticed how I feel when I watch the news or hear certain people speak, so now, I limit myself to 30 minutes of news per day on the television with a news anchor and station I trust. Otherwise, I mostly get my news online by reading articles and transcripts of press conferences. I also make sure to not watch the news before I go to bed, because it can get me all worked up, which is counterproductive.
7. Be of service to others without depleting myself. Within a few days of people in my community being laid off, I started to get emails and see posts on social media from my friends and community members who were scared about having their basic needs met—food, medicines, and other essentials. I realized that because I did not share those concerns, I am in a position of privilege to help others and that I can use my platform to help neighbors, community members and even strangers. I put my grass-roots activism skills to work and launched the Pandemic of Love project, a mutual aid community that has connected more than 10,000 families in need with patrons who can offer help.
What skills can you bring to this moment in order to be of service? As always, it’s important to recognize and hold the boundaries that are safe for you. This is why your Self-Care Plan is so important. Offering help to others can give you meaning during this time of uncertainty. I know it has helped me stay on the side of hope, even when things seem hopeless.
8. When all else fails, ask myself: “What do I need in this moment?” This is my default question—the one I immediately ask myself when I sense that I am not feeling right, physically or mentally. I just pause, take a long, slow deep breath and ask myself this question. In this space between, I almost always find the answer.
Each day, invariably, I find myself looking at this list. It provides me with a measure of comfort, reminds me that I am in control, and that in times of crisis, I have the choice to either be my own worst enemy, or my best ally. I choose the latter.
How to navigate your way around a black hole of hopelessness—Hint: you have to stare down the despair. Read More 
Three reasons to map out your self-care needs and how to create your own unique plan. Plus, how to get yourself back on track when you falter. Read More
The post Rethinking Our Self-Care During the Pandemic appeared first on Mindful.
For many of us, the world seems pretty dark and hopeless right now. We are glued to our screens, hoping for good news, but more often than not we end up reading reports that fill us with anger, fear, or a sense of helplessness.
Still, countless acts of goodness, kindness, and heroism are taking place all over as the world battles COVID-19. Of course, much of it is going on behind the closed doors of hospitals and homes, anonymous and unsung. But some of it is happening for all of the world to see. We’ve rounded up some of the good news as a reminder that, amid the darkness, people are still out there loving and caring for each other.
Grassroots groups are springing up where people can offer and ask for help from their neighbors. This list includes groups by state in the U.S., as well as several in Canada, Britain, and Germany. In my own community in Toronto, we’re calling it “care-mongering” and people are giving away food, offering to foster animals, and picking up medication for others. Meanwhile, in the U.K., a woman designed a postcard that you can drop off with neighbors who are self-isolating, offering your help with shopping or a friendly phone call.
In countries across the world, including Iceland, Australia, the U.S., and Canada, grocery stores and pharmacies are designating certain opening hours specifically for at-risk shoppers. That way, people like the elderly and immune-compromised are less likely to face massive crowds and long lines.
Last Thursday, medical experts from China landed in Rome with a supply of masks, respirators, and other supplies to help fight COVID-19. The flight was organized by the Chinese Red Cross and brought around 30 tons of equipment to Italy. Besides China, where new cases now seem to be declining, Italy is the worst-hit country in the world.
Amid a lockdown, Italians across the country took to their balconies to sing together last week, closing the distance between them with music. Communal singing also brought people together in Lebanon and Israel. Over in Spain, people in one apartment complex even joined together for a group fitness class at a distance, squatting and doing jumping jacks from their balconies.
In another display of solidarity-from-balconies, Spanish people emerged at 10 p.m. one evening to give a roaring applause to the heroic work of health care workers during COVID-19. The same also happened in Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
NBA games have been suspended for 30 days, which means no work for arena employees like ticket takers, food vendors, and performers. But at some arenas, players and team owners are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to make up their wages.
To keep us all entertained while we hunker down at home, companies ranging from Internet providers to orchestras are offering their goods and services for free. The Metropolitan Opera in New York City, for example, is streaming operas each night until they reopen.
It may not be an act of heroism, but it’s certainly making people smile: The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is letting some of its rockhopper penguins roam free and take a tour of the place, just like humans normally do. The lucky penguins include a fellow named Wellington and the bonded pair Edward and Annie.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.
Cooling the fires of reactivity by cultivating equanimity so we can find steadier ground on which we can stand to meet the challenges of the day. Read More
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The post An Outpouring of Kindness Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak appeared first on Mindful.
During this season of suffering it is crucial to find pathways to feeling connected with our inner life and each other. This will allow us to meet whatever arises with presence and courage, intelligence and care.
In this 2-part talk, Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach explore practices and teachings that can open us to loving awareness, and contribute to the healing of our world.
The post A Steady Heart in Time of Coronavirus ~ with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach appeared first on Tara Brach.
A great meditation teacher once described the frightening scene in the refugee boats floating adrift after the end of the Vietnam war. Overcrowded with children and elderly people, rich and poor, and everyone in between, it soon became clear that if one person in the boat began to panic, everyone would sink. But if one person remained calm, the whole group could remain calm, and everyone could survive.
So many cultures, spiritual traditions, and even social and neuroscience tell us that our emotions, positive or negative, are contagious. Sometimes, we are called to be the calm one in the storm buffeting humanity, as COVID-19 has done in this lifeboat we call planet earth.
For me that call first came a few years ago, in the midst of practicing a loving-kindness meditation at a very challenging job, where I worked alongside many difficult people. I realized that perhaps I would be the “benefactor” in someone else’s life. This became even more clear to me when I read up on the research about resilience and discovered that one of the best predictors of resilience and thriving in young people who have grown up with multiple traumatic events known as ACEs or Adverse Childhood Events, is the presence of one caring, compassionate and consistent adult in their lives. Adults can provide this for each other, too, of course, and so can kids with their peers.
The old saying goes that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. These days consider that not just who you’re with physically as you shelter in place, but who you’re hanging out with on social media as well.
Within families, we find that when one person practices mindfulness, it impacts others. Parents who practice mindfulness, even if their partners or their kids roll their eyes, make the whole family happier, with better communication and fewer accidents in the home. Parents of special needs kids who practice seem to have kids whose worrisome behavior decreased, and social skills and mood seemed to get better, helping siblings too. When one spouse practices, both appear to be happier with the relationship, which itself is often less reactive and conflict driven.
Another more recent study enrolled college students who had roommates, romantic partners, friends and family members with whom they interacted daily, and who didn’t know what the study was about. The students meditated fifteen minutes a day for several weeks, two weeks on, and two weeks off. Their moods were measured every day. The weeks the students spent meditating, their partners reported fewer negative emotions than the weeks the students didn’t meditate. This offers good evidence that you really can help the mood of the people around you by simply practicing meditation yourself, extending good vibes to your friends, family, and loved ones during this challenging time.
But it doesn’t stop with the people in our home. Positive psychology finds an even larger ripple effect. All kinds of positive emotions seem to spread between people, perhaps bouncing off our mirror neurons in what researchers like Daniel Siegel call “Interpersonal Neurobiology.” According to James Fowler and Nick Christakis, who study emotions and behaviors in networks, happiness impacts others four degrees of separation away, and even just witnessing an act of kindness can lead to more kindness three degrees away.
The best meme I saw last week as COVID-19 swept the globe is that this represents a once in a lifetime chance to save the world by sitting on the couch in our pajamas and not leaving the house. Spending some time on our meditation cushion might help too.
Tune in to the Mindful.org Facebook page on Monday, March 30 at 3 p.m. ET for a live guided meditation with Christopher Willard.
Cooling the fires of reactivity by cultivating equanimity so we can find steadier ground on which we can stand to meet the challenges of the day. Read More
Whether you’re looking for live guided meditations connecting you to others, a quick practice to help you find your ground, or a free course on how to meditate, here’s how the Mindful community is coming together to serve in the days and weeks ahead. Read More
The post How You Can Help Others by Practicing Mindfulness appeared first on Mindful.
During this time of pandemic, we need, more than ever, to feel our connectedness—true belonging with our own being, each other and all life. These talks explore the bodhisattva path – practices of an awakening being dedicated to living from love. The invitation is to let this season of close-in and global suffering deepen our collective commitment to creating a more compassionate world.
The post Sheltering In Love (Part 1) appeared first on Tara Brach.
This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go. The meditation ends with a beautiful verse from poet Philip Booth.
As you float now, where I held you
Poem: “First Lesson,” by Philip Booth from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999 (Viking).
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
The post Meditation: Touching Peace (22:51 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
Mindful breathing often serves as the foundation for meditation practices because your breath is always with you, wherever you are, and it can be used as an anchor to the present moment. In essence, all that’s involved is simply being mindful when you breathe in and out. There is no need to analyze, count, visualize, or manipulate the breath in any way. Just breathe normally and naturally and be aware of breathing in and out. There are a few methods you can use to focus on your breath. You can be mindful of your breath in your nose, chest, belly, or even your entire body as it breathes in and out.
With any of these practices, the deepest healing occurs when you come to terms with the way things are.
For dealing with the challenges of stress and anxiety, we sometimes recommend abdominal breathing—breathing from the belly, rather than only into the chest—as this can be very calming. However, if another location is preferable, please listen to your own wisdom. Generally speaking, abdominal or belly breathing is the way we all naturally breathe, especially when we’re lying down. To determine if you’re breathing from your abdomen, place your hand on your belly and feel whether it expands as you inhale and contracts as you exhale. If it doesn’t, turn your attention to breathing more deeply and feeling your belly expand and contract with your breath.
An important benefit of abdominal or belly breathing is that it helps moderate irregular breathing patterns, which often arise due to stress or irritation. Anxiety can lead to shallow, rapid, or sporadic breathing and even hyperventilation, and a full-blown panic attack can cause increased shortness of breath, thoughts of losing control, and pains in the chest. By bringing the breath back into the belly, you can help the body return to balance. So when anxiety arises, first acknowledge the feeling, then gently bring attention to the abdomen and practice mindful belly breathing.
Before we begin, we have one final bit of advice: With any of these practices, the deepest healing occurs when you come to terms with the way things are. This might mean simply noticing and acknowledging stress or anxiety rather than falling into old patterns of running away from it. You may discover that by embracing your fear you find your heart.
Do this practice in a relaxing environment without distractions, such as the phone. You can do it either lying down or sitting up, but if you lie down and find yourself falling asleep, try a more upright posture. Bring your full, undivided attention to this practice as you listen or read the following meditation, pausing after each paragraph. You can practice anytime throughout the day, combining this practice with the mindful check-in if you like.
This practice excerpted from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, by Bob Stahl and Elisha Goldstein. New Harbinger Publications
Whether you’re looking for live guided meditations connecting you to others, a quick practice to help you find your ground, or a free course on how to meditate, here’s how the Mindful community is coming together to serve in the days and weeks ahead. Read More
In her new book, Tara Brach helps break a trail through the dense forest of anxiety with the practice of RAIN. Read More
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The spread of COVID-19 around the world is being more than matched by the spread of information. Words that we had never or rarely encountered have become mainstream— “coronavirus, social distancing, self-isolation, pandemic.” Other words are increasingly encountered everywhere, “unprecedented, uncertain, scary, worry and anxiety.”
Cultivating good health education by understanding the very real threats we face is very important for preventing the virus’ spread. But as we educate ourselves we’re also creating understandable fear, worry, and anxiety. This is a double-edged sword that on the one side creates an appropriate call to action and on the other can create panic, reactivity and additional problems.
Clearly we need an international coordinated public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But we also need another type of response at the level of our psychological well-being.
Both modern psychology and ancient wisdom traditions emphasize the importance of equanimity: a quality of inner balance and steadiness that is imbued with awareness, care, and compassion. Equanimity is neither detached nor idealized. Rather it is a very real engagement with what we’re facing, but in a way that enables us to see clearly the changing weather patterns of our minds and the dynamic changes in the world as the pandemic runs its course.
Equanimity helps us understand that when we recognize and allow difficult thoughts, worries and feelings—when we don’t over-identify with them or cling to them—they will change and pass. We begin to understand that difficult moods and thoughts last longer when we fight them or over-identify with them. This is not about clever words or ideas. It is about an attitude of mind, and more than this, an attitude of mind that we can train and cultivate.
Cultivating equanimity is a resource that can help us navigate our way through life, with all its unpredictability and uncertainty, without losing our balance or becoming lost.
Equanimity is not a quality reserved for our inner life. Our external lives, especially just now, provide much grist for the mill. The news cycle is not unfolding as we want, people aren’t acting the way that we think they should, each day requires more change than we feel we can manage, we want to know what will happen next week, next month, next year, but no one knows. Cultivating equanimity is a resource that can help us navigate our way through life, with all its unpredictability and uncertainty, without losing our balance or becoming lost. Compassion enables us to do this with care both for ourselves and others.
Of course, we urgently need a vaccine and treatment for COVID-19 and our best scientists will develop them. But we also need a response at the level of the human head and heart. Words matter. As well as words such as “uncertainty, worry and social distancing” I have also noticed other words and phrases being used increasingly: “creativity, courage, care, kindness, ingenuity, appreciation, connection and values.” In the same way that reducing our carbon footprint is essential to slowing climate change, cooling the fires of reactivity in these challenging times supports our well-being and the well-being of those around us. Equanimity is not a surrender of innovation or action—rather, it is a wholehearted responsiveness that values human health and human well-being. It is the steadier ground on which we can stand and meet the challenges in our lives.
Take a few moments to steady your attention on your breath, anchoring and stabilizing your attention. Take up a posture that communicates a sense of wakefulness and dignity.
Once your attention is stable, bring to mind a mountain you know well, its base, its flanks, the way it rises up from its solid base.
Have a sense of yourself as a mountain, with a solid base where you’re in contact with the ground, your body stable, and your head supported on the top of your body. Like a mountain through each day, through each of the seasons, through the years, having a sense of yourself sitting with dignity and wakefulness, your breath as your anchor, as experiences come and go, the mountain steady through it all.
As weather patterns move through, so your body and mind are steady, like a mountain as thoughts, images, bodily sensations, impulses, and emotions come and go. Open to the sense of the steadiness and enduring nature of the mountain.
During the day, bring awareness to moments of the day, as best you can, meeting everything with a recognition and allowing that is poised and balanced. Bring this same attitude, as best you can, to experiences, whether they are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Recognize, allow, and embrace caring for each moment of your waking day.
Rhonda Magee takes us through this simple portable mindfulness practice she uses to find calm when difficult moments arise. Read More
We can support each during this health crisis by connecting with our essential goodness and compassion. Read More
The post Keeping a Cool Head and Warm Heart in Challenging Times appeared first on Mindful.
Even in the best of times, traveling can be stressful. There may be delays, unforeseen expenses, or just bad weather. Before I left on a four-month backpacking trip, I took all the necessary precautions—but I never predicted a pandemic would break out.
In the face of this global crisis—and a sudden, desperate need to get back to my home in Canada—I found myself relying more and more on practicing mindfulness. So, while I wait to hear if I get to go back home soon, I thought I’d share the five mindfulness lessons I learned recently while traveling during a pandemic.
My boyfriend and I were in a small town in Peru when the Peruvian government announced all borders out of the country would be shut in 24 hours. We were four hours from the nearest airport, our flights home weren’t for another month, and suddenly everyone we knew was texting us to ask if we were safe.
I knew we couldn’t let panic take over—instead, we came up with a plan. First we had to get on a bus. Then we had to buy a plane ticket. Finally, we had to get on a plane. Getting home was a huge task, but when we broke it into pieces, it felt a lot more manageable.
Once we arrived at the airport in Lima, we were met with chaos. Flights were being canceled constantly and the line to buy tickets wrapped around itself three times. There were only a handful of employees behind each airline desk. No one we asked had any answers for us. People were cutting in line. And despite the serious and very contagious illness sending us all home, most of us were crowded shoulder to shoulder.
I wanted to yell: “Where are all your agents? Why isn’t there anyone to help us? We’ve been waiting here forever! Can I at least have a face mask?!”
Instead, I stopped and took a moment to reflect on all the customer service positions I have worked in my life, all the times customers blamed me for things I had no control over, the one time a particularly sharp-tongued man made me cry. I realized these airport employees probably had fewer answers than we did. They were just trying their best on what was, almost certainly, the worst shift they’d ever worked.
When I finally spoke to an agent after nine hours in line, she told me there were no international flights left. She looked as tired as I felt. I didn’t yell like I wanted to—instead, I thanked her.
As flights sold out and ticket prices skyrocketed, it became increasingly clear we weren’t making it home. It would have been easy to dwell on everything going wrong. In all honesty, there was a moment or two when I felt close to tears. But then I noticed that, amongst all the chaos and frustration, there was still kindness. People saved strangers’ spots in line while they ran off to the bathroom, or to get food. A man with a case of clean water offered to refill the bottles of those around him. When we finally had to leave the airport and our phones were dead, a fellow traveler called us an Uber.
Even in the darkest moments, there is good to be found if you take the time to look for it.
As we tried to get home, my mom sent me endless texts begging me to book a $6000 flight she had found. My dad sent me texts saying it was no big deal and I was better off to go back to the hostel. My boyfriend was constantly looking up news alerts, running his hands through his hair, suggesting we try this airline or that one.
Everyone handles stress differently, and at this uncertain time, it’s more important than ever to be patient with friends and family who care deeply about your well-being.
The conflicting advice and barrage of opinions were driving me crazy, but I realized how fortunate I was that so many people were worried about me. Everyone handles stress differently, and at this uncertain time, it’s more important than ever to be patient with friends and family who care deeply about your well-being.
For now, my boyfriend and I are stuck in Peru. It’s hard not to be crushed by it all—the end of our dream trip, which was the culmination of months and months of planning, the inability to get home after trying so hard, the sudden lack of security in the world.
And yet, the truth is that we are lucky. We are privileged. We have a place to stay and food to eat. No one we know is sick. We had a chance to see the world before it shut down. Instead of dwelling on what could happen next or feeling sad, I’ve decided to just focus on this moment—to accept the hard truths and feel grateful for the positive ones. There is sun outside my window, there is music on the radio, there are jokes my sister sends me over Facebook. When life becomes chaotic, the best thing we can do is connect to the present moment, as it is.
This morning my boyfriend said to me, “I can’t believe how calm you are in all this.” Maybe it’s just my personality. Or, maybe, it’s mindfulness.
Elaine Smookler didn’t expect to find herself fighting the urge to panic-buy while shopping this week. Here’s how mindfulness helped her to slow down and remember kindness. Read More
Whether you’re looking for live guided meditations connecting you to others, a quick practice to help you find your ground, or a free course on how to meditate, here’s how the Mindful community is coming together to serve in the days and weeks ahead. Read More
The post Five Mindfulness Lessons I Learned While Traveling During a Pandemic appeared first on Mindful.
This “portable” mindfulness practice can support you as difficult moments arise at any point in your day. The four steps of the STOP practice can take as little as a few seconds to a few minutes to complete. Try it out and see how long you prefer doing each step.
To begin, the “S” stands simply for stop. Literally. Just stop what you’re doing, whether it is typing or rushing out the door. Give yourself a moment to come to rest, pause, and collect yourself.
The “T” stands for take a conscious breath. Now that you’ve paused, take a deeper breath, or two, allowing yourself to feel the expansion of the belly as you breathe deeply. Notice the sensations of being here, now. As you do so, it may help to bring your attention to the sensations of your feet meeting the floor. Feel the support of the ground and of your own relaxing breath as you do so.
The “O,” stands for observe what’s arising in you, including any thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations (such as tension, butterflies, tightness in the jawline). Broaden your awareness to take in the circumstances. Notice how you can be in this situation without being ruled by it. For added support, offer self-compassion as you release tension and stressful thoughts. As you calm down, open to the choices you have in terms of how best to move forward from here.
Finally, the “P” reminds you to simply proceed with intentionality, taking the next step in your day from this place of strength, wisdom, and presence.
The STOP practice can help whenever you’re feeling distress, creating space to observe and tame your feelings, and to access the deeper resources within you. It helps you develop the emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility required for greater mastery over the challenging moments.
There will be days when the STOP practice saves you. It is especially helpful if you need support to move through intense feelings so that you can note them and set them aside for the moment, with the intention of reflecting on them more deeply later. During a recent interview, I guided the questioner through the practice after I found myself sharing with her a recent incident of racial violence that she had not yet heard about. Afterward, we both got back on track with greater groundedness.
As we practice the STOP with others, we look deeply within while allowing space to be present with the other. We listen without becoming triggered by holding on to words tightly. We learn to be present to emotions, in ourselves and in others, without reactive judgment. With this practice, we remain close to our experience as we stay engaged. We get granular and we move from one moment to the next with awareness. We breathe in and out of that awareness, and after completing the practice, invite reflection on the incident as a whole, which can promote even further growth.
Reactivity is part of what it means to be a human being. The question is this: How do we meet our reactivity without judgment, and with the intention of transforming it into effective responsiveness in our everyday lives?
We do it by practicing mindfulness as if our very lives depended on it, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says. Because in a very real sense, they do. More and more, our lives depend on our capacity for deep engagement with socially distant others. Engaging in conversations like these is difficult. The capacity to be lovingly engaged but not attached to particular outcomes, to keep coming back for more, to see the wholeness that can handle this moment of illusory disconnect, that one, and the next, is a complete and deep mindfulness practice in and of itself.
The post The S.T.O.P. Practice: Creating Space Around Automatic Reactions appeared first on Mindful.
In this practice we explore how the mindfulness and compassion of RAIN can free us from the grip of fear. This is an excerpt from the full talk: Facing Pandemic Fears with an Awake Heart.
NOTE: meditation in audio starts at 3:19.
Photo credits: Re Guillemin
The post Short Talk and Guided Meditation: Bringing RAIN to Fear (13:32 min.) appeared first on Tara Brach.
I could see the last bag of 2% milk lying on its side, still untouched in the supermarket dairy section. I tried to stay calm as I motored quietly towards it, hoping no one else had noticed. I moved my eye-line so it would look like I was perhaps interested in chocolate milk, or maybe skim—there was still lots of that. The pandemic was upon us, and I wasn’t going to make it without 2% milk!
A dear mindfulness colleague called me an hour before that moment in the grocery store, with urgency in her tone. “Have you gone shopping? You have to go shopping, right now, I’m not kidding. We are all about to go on lockdown, go get food right now!” My colleague is a doctor, her husband is a doctor, I thought they would be the first ones to laugh this whole thing off as some kind of social media mind-madness.
That phone call felt like a turning-point moment. Until then, I had been warmly hugging and hand-shaking all those who still wished to. I was pretty sure that this was all way over the top, and I was not planning to go and buy a case of toilet paper, or bottled water, or even one canned good. I wasn’t worried about a thing. It was all very curious, though. Then, exponentially the whole world seemed to go pop and suddenly almost ten billion of us were all pretty focused on one thing—the zombie apocalypse was here, and my friend was right. I definitely needed 2% milk.
My thoughts and feelings were in tumult as I counselled myself not to panic-buy while feeling the strong desire to back a truck up and just start shoving anything I could get my hands on into an army of carts.
I took a breath. I felt my feet connecting with the floor in front of the mozzarella. It would be OK if there was only medium cheddar left. I had faith that I could regulate myself enough to handle it. Even as I heard that thought cloud waft by, I wasn’t sure I believed it. I was certainly seeing just how many things I want. I could feel myself clinging to feeling I needed to have cheesy comforts to keep me warm and safe during a pandemic.
I keep waiting to find out that this is actually some kind of theatrical event and that I am part of a flash mob made up of everyone on planet earth. Maybe, in six months, we will all receive video footage of who we are under pressure. Can’t wait. Here’s what I have already noticed about myself:
I am happy to say that I did, in fact, check in with some people older than I to see if they might need me to bring them some food. I also watched myself hesitate from clearing the shelf of all the gluten-free corn cakes, (because I just don’t want to be at an apocalypse where I can’t have a corn cake!). I wanted to, but I didn’t take them all. Yay, me. However, I did notice myself feeling quite focused on the needs of my household, first and foremost. Although this makes sense, sort of, when many friends and neighbors contacted me to see if I needed anything, I wondered whether I might be more self-absorbed than I’d realized. Hmmm. You see, the pandemic was already leading to new awareness.
I went outside to quietly contemplate what felt like a science fiction movie. I could hear a dog barking loudly, nearby. Normally, this might irritate me, but as I could feel my shoulders go up I reminded myself that we were all on lockdown, and as Scottish author, Ian McLaren suggested, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
And just what is that battle? In a way, it’s the battle of self-interest versus the greater good. We really are all in this together. You might not be susceptible, but your cavalier relationship to being exposed could bring harm to another, perhaps even someone you love and care about. Our interconnection is inescapable: rich, poor, tall, short, quick or slow—if we breathe, we are part of what is occurring. When we are kind to ourselves and each other, when we remember that ultimately none of us will get out of here alive anyway, when we can allow this experience of a global pause to give us a moment of space, a moment of grace, a moment to reach out, while you are still alive, and send warm hearts, loving thoughts, and acts of kindness great and small. Let us welcome an epidemic of kindness and care, for ourselves for each other. And don’t forget to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.
Whether you’re looking for live guided meditations connecting you to others, a quick practice to help you find your ground, or a free course on how to meditate, here’s how the Mindful community is coming together to serve in the days and weeks ahead. Read More
Mindful’s Content Director Anne Alexander reminds us that we have the innate ability to practice mindfulness, work co-operatively, and live in community in the truest sense of the word. Read More
Mindful’s Content Director Anne Alexander talks with neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and mindfulness expert Dr. Judson Brewer. Read More
The post What I Learned About Myself at the Grocery Store: Mindfulness Lessons from COVID-19 appeared first on Mindful.
While it’s natural to feel fear during times of great collective crisis, our challenge is that fear easily takes over our lives. This talk explores how the mindfulness and compassion of the RAIN meditation can help us find an inner refuge in the face of fear, and deepen our loving connection with each other.
The post Facing Pandemic Fears with an Awake Heart appeared first on Tara Brach.
Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, we hope you are finding a way to plug into compassion, kindness, and care during these challenging days. In order to support everyone in our community and beyond, we’re gathering essential mindfulness resources for calm and resilience for everyone. Here’s how the Mindful community is coming together to serve in the days ahead so we can all tap into community, connection, and love.
First, we’re kicking off Mindful@Home. Beginning Thursday, March 19th we’ll be serving live guided meditations on our social channels with experts in the field, including Sharon Salzberg, Mirabai Bush, Rhonda Magee, Bob Stahl, Elaine Smookler, Cara Bradley, Mitch Abblett, Mark Bertin, Anne Alexander, and more. Look for Mindful@Home meditations Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 3pm ET on our Facebook page.
We’re also offering free access to our premium mindfulness course, Find Calm and Nourish Resilience.
We hope these expert-guided mindfulness resources can help you and your community find calm, navigate anxiety, and tap into a sense of well-being even as we all engage openly with the challenges of the day. Please freely share access to this premium course with your friends, family, colleagues, friends, followers, and networks.
This course features Zindel Segal on calming your mind, Jessica Morey on nourishing emotional resilience, Judson Brewer on training your brain to break unhealthy habits, Vinny Ferraro on cultivating compassion, Rhonda Magee on being conscious in community, Cara Bradley on mindful movement, and the Holistic Life Foundation crew, Andre Gonzalez, Atman Smith, and Ali Smith, on loving-kindness.
May this course provide a peaceful foundation for you and your community as we all navigate the days and weeks ahead.
Keep these mindfulness practices at hand for the stressful and challenging days and weeks ahead.
Stress itself is not a problem. It’s how we relate to stress. The stress response is critical to our survival. It can save our lives or enable a firefighter to carry a 300-pound man down 20 flights of stairs. Of course, most of us don’t encounter a life-or-death threat all that often. We usually experience stress reactions in response to thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations.
If we’re actively worried about whether we can put food on the table, presto: the stress reaction activates. And if the bodily systems involved in stress don’t slow down and normalize, the effects can be severe. Over time, we can succumb to, among other things, high blood pressure, muscle tension, anxiety, insomnia, gastro/digestive complaints, and a suppressed immune system.
Stress itself is not the problem. It’s how we relate to stress.
Creating space in the day to stop, come down from the worried mind, and get back into the present moment has been shown to be enormously helpful in mitigating the negative effects of our stress response. When we drop into the present, we’re more likely to gain perspective and see that we have the power to regulate our response to pressure.
Here’s a short practice you can weave into your day to step into that space between stimulus and response.
From Elisha Goldstein
Stop what you’re doing right now, get in a comfortable position, either seated or lying down.
Take a few deep breaths. Maybe in through the nose initially, and then out through the mouth. With each exhalation allow your body to soften a bit more. As long as you’re here with the breath right now, allow your body to settle into its natural rhythm of breathing. Breathe in and sense the breath coming in. Breath out and sense the breath going out. Allow your body to take the breath it needs in its natural rhythm of being alive.
Begin to observe your body, noticing if there’s any tension or tightness anywhere, including the face. If you do notice any of that just allow it to soften, or just mindfully adjust your body as it feels like it needs to. Be aware of how you’re feeling emotionally right now. If there’s a sense of calm or ease, maybe some restlessness or irritation, or maybe even sadness. Or you could be feeling neutral. Whatever’s there, see if you can be aware of it and notice how it feels physically in the body. Continue to observe yourself physically and emotionally in this moment, just letting things be. Be aware of and observe your mind right now, noticing if it seems distracted or cluttered or if it seems like it’s settling into being here. Either way, it’s OK—the “o” of observe is just to allow us to be aware of our experience in the moment; physically, emotionally, and mentally. The moment we notice that our mind is off is a moment we’re present. Settle in, be aware of the fullness of your experience physically, emotionally, and mentally, and just let be.
Proceed is just dropping the question of: “What’s most important for me to pay attention to right now?” or “What am I needing right now?” Allow whatever answer is there to simply percolate and arise. Proceed with that in this next moment. Always remember to acknowledge yourself for taking this time. This is a great act of self-care; take the final moment to acknowledge yourself for taking this time.
Albert Einstein, who was known for his wisdom as well as his scientific genius, speaks of the interconnectedness of existence in an excerpt from one of his letters, published in the New York Post (November 28, 1972):
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Most of us have already tasted or had glimpses of this interconnectedness to “the web of life” but may have not fully recognized that it was happening because we were so absorbed in the experience itself. Here are some examples: a time you spent watching a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or out on a beautiful walk in nature, or having an intimate moment with someone you love that made you feel so connected that everything felt just perfect. In such moments, most likely any sense of anxiety was gone and you had a sense that you were part of a big and beautiful universe and that everything was not just okay, but exquisite. Mindfulness practices that cultivate connectedness, like loving-kindness practice and the “web of life” meditation, can help you experience more of these moments.
This meditation will help you develop a deeper sense of connection—both to the present moment and those around you. 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. Set aside about twenty minutes for this practice. Find a comfortable position on a cushion or chair or lying on a bed or the floor. Turn off your phone or other devices so you can remain undisturbed.
The “web of life” meditation helps dissolve the illusion of that we are all separate by cultivating feelings of safety, compassion, and love. Over time, this practice will increase your feelings of connection not only to yourself, but also to your family, friends, work associates, and fellow living beings, the world around you, and the universe.
From Bob Stahl
This meditation will help you develop a deeper sense of connection—both to the present moment and those around you. 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. Set aside about twenty minutes for this practice. Find a comfortable position on a cushion or chair or lying on a bed or the floor. Turn off your phone or other devices so you can remain undisturbed.
The present moment isn’t always a place of rest. Meditation can put us in touch with our stress and anxiety, and that’s why it can be so helpful. Explore how mindfulness and meditation can help soften feelings of anxiousness, reduce stress, and calm a panic attack in our new mindful guide to meditation for anxiety. Read More
Discover three mindfulness exercises—supported by science—that you can turn to when the world becomes too much. Read More
We can support each during this health crisis by connecting with our essential goodness and compassion. Read More
Mindful’s Content Director Anne Alexander talks with neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and mindfulness expert Dr. Judson Brewer. Read More
Your mindfulness practice can help you mitigate not only the fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, but can even help you quit touching your face all day. Read More
The post Free Mindfulness Resources to Find Calm and Nourish Resilience During the COVID Outbreak appeared first on Mindful.
