Innehållsförteckning för February 2022 från Mindful

Lately, I’ve been practicing what I call “active non-doing.” It’s a liminal way of being where I observe the things I’m “supposed” to do—as a mother, a wife, the caretaker of my dying father, a manager, an editor, a friend, a homemaker, even a musician. I notice all the deeply ingrained ways I believe I’m supposed to show up. And rather than immediately acting on my inclinations, I’ve been just not doing anything for a little while and seeing what happens. This practice doesn’t come naturally to me. By nature, I’m a doer. For me, the pull to act is a whole-body sensation: tension in my chest, flush cheeks, hot hands, as well as a rush to judgment and immeditate problem-solving. My whole being doesn’t just scream “do something”; it…

LABOR OF LOVE The Heighton family of six, plus three pets, lost their home when their rental house in the small town of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, was sold. Due to the area’s housing crisis, the family couldn’t find affordable housing so local people and businesses donated time, labor, and money to build the family a home before the weather got cold. HEART OF GOLD Tijana Kawashima Stojkovic, a volunteer at the Tokyo Olympics paid for a taxi to help track athlete Hansle Parchment get to his event after he took the wrong bus. After Hansle won gold, he thanked Stojkovic in his speech, reconnected with her to repay her, and the Jamaican Minister of Tourism invited Tijana to Jamaica as a gesture of thanks for her generosity. PLAY TOGETHER High…

“For Jones, mindfulness and music are streams that flow to the same river. Grant Jones knows first hand the healing potential of Black music. When he was growing up in Boston in the ’90s, pop divas, rap, and R&B ruled the American radio waves. He would imitate Usher, Lauryn Hill, and Aaliyah, and now credits these artists as some of his first vocal teachers who introduced him to his own voice and to Black music. “It’s the first contemplative practice that I ever knew.” Today, Jones is working on an album with Black music culture at its heart and mindfulness instruction on the track list. With guidance from Grammy Award winning jazz bassist, singer, songwriter, and composer Esperanza Spalding and contemplative thought leader Lama Rod Owens, the project is part…

In the days following the death of my mother almost 14 years ago, I was desperate for words to describe the chasm that had opened beneath me. So when a friend who’d recently lost her own mother insisted I read C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, I got the book and opened to the first words of the first chapter: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” If you’re familiar with the five stages of grief as famously characterized by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, you’ll know that among the well-known DABDA (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) framework, there is no F for fear. It’s an omission that grief therapist Claire Bidwell Smith has thought a lot about. The author of Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief, she had…

As the roller coaster accelerated up the impossibly steep incline, I remembered, with very poor timing, that I am terrified of both speed and heights, and that a rather flimsy seatbelt was the only thing keeping me from flying off into a messy death. Even worse, I had talked my poor, dear old mother into coming along—for fun. As I heard my own whimpering screams begging for a swift end to this trip through hell, I could also hear my mother’s voice squealing with joyous abandon, “Wheeeee, this is so fun. Let’s go again!” We all want to feel good; we all want to feel safe. And if we could, we’d probably all love to have as much fun as my mom. The challenge is that what makes you feel…

First, find a quiet, comfortable place where you won’t be distracted. You can be sitting, lying down, or even standing up. Recall your most recent run-in with a habitual pattern. See if you can remember the scene and focus in on the habitual behavior itself. What did you feel when you were about to act it out? What did that urge to go ahead and “do it” feel like? Now check in with your body. What sensation can you feel most strongly right now? Pick only one from this list, the one you feel most strongly: • Tightness• Pressure• Contraction• Restlessness• Shallow breath• Burning• Tension• Clenching• Heat• Pit in stomach• Buzzing/vibration Is it more on the right side or the left? In the front, middle, or back of your body?…

Starting off, find a posture that feels comfortable for you in this moment. Begin to notice and feel your body here and present—not trying to fix or change anything about the body, inviting your body to just rest naturally. Take a few moments to feel what it means to be alive in your body right now. Allow this aliveness to be what you sense into in this moment. This is my body and I’m grateful for my body. Now, allow your attention to lightly rest on the sensations associated with the body touching whatever is supporting it. Feel the aliveness of the body touching and being supported by whatever is under you. This is my body resting, supported, and I’m grateful for this body and for this support and this…

COMPASSION FOR SUFFERING AN EVENING CONTEMPLATION At night when I'm scared or I'm confused, or worried that I won't recover, I lie in bed and I think about all of the people who might be alone, frightened, or suffering. And this evokes in me a certain kind of compassion, a deep wish to relieve their suffering. I'm not very good at self-compassion. I've never been good at it. But when I invoke my compassion for others it spills over to me because I can't have it for others and not include myself. People often say you have to be compassionate toward yourself before you can be compassionate to others. I don't agree. When I awaken my compassion for others, it has to include me. Even if I wanted to hold…

TURNING POINTS: NAVIGATING MENTAL HEALTH Episode: “Turning Toward Mindfulness” “I can fall apart, I can feel everything fully, and I will be okay.” That’s how Deborah Johnson describes the deeply personal lesson she learned from her mindfulness practice. Host Frantzces Lys speaks to Johnson about healing from trauma and explores how mindfulness teachers can safely use trauma-informed practices with their students. Lys enlists the help of neuroscientist Jud Brewer and meditation teacher Tara Healey in this intimate conversation about mindfulness and mental health. Mindfulness “helps us relate to and engage with all of our lives,” Healey says. “It really gives us a way to work with our resistance to what is happening.” – KR YOU’RE GOING TO DIE: THE PODCAST Episode: “Our Tears Water a Heart That’s Been Too Dry”…

EASING TEEN ANGST Can mindfulness help teens to ruminate less? Led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, a new study tested whether 80 adolescents would use and benefit from a smartphone-based mindfulness app. Teens were asked to complete surveys on their mental health, including tendency to ruminate. Those who noted a moderate tendency were provided a mindfulness phone app and taught how to use it. For three weeks, they received random reminders to engage with the app based on their availability, and had a greater likelihood of being asked to complete an exercise if they reported a worse mood on the initial survey. Mindfulness instruction lasted 1—12 minutes, and included focused attention on the breath, sounds, or bodily sensations. After each session, teens rated their level of rumination and emotional…

A HAPPY ENDING A magic-infused game about death and saying goodbye? In Spiritfarer, you play as Stella, a ferry driver who transports friendly spirits to the afterlife, granting their final wishes along the way—like a colorful, compassionate spin on the Greek myth of Charon and the River Styx. Stella also learns to care for herself, during a scene where a snake spirit named Summer teaches her a sort of open-awareness mindfulness practice. “Meditation, Stella, is an affair of wholeness. Wholeness, and oneness,” says Summer. A CALMING QUEST Popular among educators, Minecraft provides endless possibilities for creativity and learning. In “The Mindful Knight,” designed for ages 8-13, a wizard teaches players to “cast a spell” by focusing on breathing and not getting distracted by thoughts. Sound familiar? There are further exercises…

1. Lean in to what is meaningful for you. You may ask, as Bowler did, “Is there some place of service or gift or job that gives me purpose and momentum right now?” 2. See what is possible today. Gently recognize that, even with finite choices, there are, nonetheless, choices. In Bowler’s words: “Somewhere between the idea of nothing is possible and everything is possible, we are able to ask, ‘What is possible today? What is mine to do?’” 3. Let go of the need to fix other people’s grief. “If you don’t think someone’s life is a problem to be solved or a tragedy to be fixed, you’ll feel less scared about being around them," says Bowler. “They will take great comfort in knowing that they are not alone.…

1. LISTEN Let yourself be the center of a living soundscape. Without trying to figure out what you’re hearing, can you allow yourself to just listen and be curious as you follow sounds in the room, your body, and the world around you? When you’re bringing your fullest attention to sound, what do you notice? 2. LOOK Find something you can explore visually: a chair, a light, a rock, even your own hand. Let yourself be absorbed by the details. Is the surface smooth or rough? Are there many colors or just one? Are there patterns or textures to investigate? Let your curiosity guide you as you discover everything you can about what you see. When you’re bringing your fullest attention to sight, what do you notice? 3. FOCUS Intentionally…

Let your body relax and soften. Close your eyes or soften your gaze. Taking a long, slow, deep inhale, remind yourself of your body’s inherent awareness, ease, and vitality. Begin by directing your attention to the top of your head, and as thoughts arise, just let them be. Be aware of any tension in your scalp, and on your next inhalation, pause and breathe out gratitude. Place the palms of your hands over your eyes gently. As you breathe in, see if you can soften your eyes. As you breathe out, let go of all the tightness around your eyes. On your next inhalation, bring your awareness to the place in your nostrils where you can feel the air entering and going out. Let your concentration deepen. Continue moving down…

To welcome something doesn't mean we have to like it, and it doesn't mean we have to agree with it; it just means we have to be willing to meet it. We temporarily suspend our rush to judgment and are simply open to what's occurring. With welcoming comes the ability to work with what is present and what is unpleasant. To be open means to embrace paradox and contradiction; it’s about keeping our minds and hearts available to new information, letting ourselves be informed by life. At the deepest level, this is an invitation to fearless receptivity. To welcome everything and push away nothing can’t be done as an act of will. This is an act of love. Mostly, we think of mindfulness as bringing a very precise attention to…

MANAGING UNCERTAINTY IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE Jose Silveira, MD, and Patricia Rockman, MD • Oxford University Press This is an extraordinarily honest book about one of the hardest challenges we face: assessing and treating mental health problems and addictions. We’d like them reduced to a checklist of symptoms, diseases, and treatments. Hard enough with bones, organs, and blood vessels, but the mind is so intangible and perplexingly varied, determining what needs to be treated and how is a challenge of the highest order of complexity. Silveira and Rockman evince compassion from the first page, writing of patients “drowning in their distress…who sometimes draw others down with them.” They stress that clinicians treat not diagnoses but individuals, each of whom “experiences a unique journey that shapes their brain and mind into…

When a change in my father’s employment necessitated a move from the outskirts of New York City to a small town in rural Pennsylvania, my whole family became fish out of water. We adapted over time—some of us better than others—but moving from a huge ethnic mosaic to a small, pretty homogenous place left me with an enduring sense of how many-faceted this huge place called America is, and how many different types of humans it houses. There are layers to the human onion: the surface presented to the world, the layer just below for friends and family, and the deeper parts we rarely talk about. To find those deeper parts, it helps to sit at a table with someone, for a while. Otherwise, they’ll likely remain the stereotype you…

Q Sometimes I’m just too tired to run through my self-care things and I know it’s a bad cycle, but I work as a nurse and some days, I just can’t do it. Self-care can feel like a burden. We can get lost in the gap between where we are and where we think we should be. So, when you’re too tired for self-care, try the three-minute breathing space. A First, check in with where you are, what is here for you right now in thoughts, emotions, the body. Just get to know your current experience, wanted or unwanted. Then narrow your attention to the sensation of breathing, the rising and falling of the abdomen with each in-breath and out-breath. And finally, widen your attention to the entire body around…

Can toilet-training cows help save the planet? Researchers have a new system to control ammonia emissions from cows’ waste that contribute to greenhouse gases—by providing a “latrine” and rewarding cows when they use it. The bovines’ “toileting” abilities, studies show, are similar to those of young children. In Thailand, many taxi drivers are out of work due to COVID-19. Some are raising awareness of their situation, and helping to feed their families, by growing vegetables in an unexpected place: in tiny plots on the roofs of their taxis. 14 football fields’ worth of “blankets” cover the slopes at Swiss ski site Mount Titlis. In recent years, ski resort workers spread these huge polyester sheets over the glacier’s slopes to stave off melting due to warming temperatures. Let them eat cake,…

Sit or lie down on the floor in a relaxed, comfortable posture. Your eyes can be open or closed. Now bring to mind a pleasurable experience you had recently, one that carries a positive emotion such as happiness, joy, comfort, contentment, or gratitude. If you can’t think of a positive experience, be aware of giving yourself the gift of time to do this practice now. Be present to what arises. Mindfulness does not depend on what is happening, but is about how we relate to what is happening. That’s why we say that mindfulness and gratitude can go anywhere. While focusing your attention on this pleasant memory, allow yourself to be present with all the related thoughts and emotions that might bubble up, whether enjoyable or not. All of this…

Frank Ostaseski is a well-known and much-loved teacher of meditation, mindfulness, and compassionate service. The author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, Ostaseski cofounded the Zen Hospice Project, and has helped more than a thousand people on their way to dying. In July 2019 a serious stroke affected his brain’s capacity. In the ensuing two months he had four more strokes, and as many aspects of daily life became more difficult, Ostaseski found strength and refuge in love, compassion, and curiosity. He also found his practice still very much alive through the whole experience—and his ability to communicate the nuance of what we discover when we welcome everything remains intact. Here, he shares some of what he learned and leaned on with his…

Visit mindful.org for featured meditations from Rashid Hughes, Elaine Smookler, and Steve Hickman 3 MINDFUL PRACTICES TO HELP YOU LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE 1 Rest Your Body in Gratitude with Rashid Hughes Since we’re usually on the go and constantly checking things off our to-do list, we sometimes find it difficult to pause and pay attention to how our body is feeling. Taking a moment to pause and rest can bring about a greater sense of awareness and allow us to see what we have to be grateful for. Join Rashid Hughes in a guided meditation to help you slow down and smell the roses. 2 Savor the Moment with Elaine Smookler Gratitude doesn’t shield us from challenges, but it does help us expand our perspective to notice that…