Innehållsförteckning för Mindful Annual 2025 - The Compassion Issue från Mindful

1 SAVORING SUNDAY AFFIRM I give myself permission to slow down and be fully present. PRACTICE Notice the Beauty Around Us, with Kazumi Igus 2 MEDITATION MONDAY AFFIRM By breathing deeply, I can find calm amidst chaos. PRACTICE A Breathing Meditation, with Renda Dionne Madrigal 3 TASTEFUL TUESDAY AFFIRM I nourish my body with healthy food and loving thoughts. PRACTICE 4 Ways to Savor the Dance of Cooking, with Lynn Rossy 4 WISDOM WEDNESDAY AFFIRM My journey begins right now, right here. PRACTICE Expanding Our Hearts, with Shelly Tygielski 5 THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY AFFIRM My potential is infinite; I can do anything. PRACTICE Understand Your Expansive Mind, with Nate Klemp 6 FOCUS FRIDAY AFFIRM I allow myself to focus on completing one step at a time. PRACTICE Focus the Mind by Tuning Into the Present…

The dreams came in quick succession. In each one I fell asleep at the wheel. One put me in the driver’s seat during a snowstorm while my daughter was a passenger in the back seat. As I squinted to peer through the falling snowflakes, my eyes closed in slumber. In another, I was driving up a hill and drifted off to sleep as my then-husband toppled out the back of the car onto the road. I worried I was causing him irreparable harm. The most terrifying one showed me driving along a stretch of highway next to an 18-wheeler. Just as the truck and my car turned a corner together, the truck drifted into my lane as my car tumbled under its wheels. I thought, I’m not ready to go.…

During the pandemic, when most of my work life was moved to Zoom, I noticed myself becoming more aware and self-conscious about the wrinkles in my face. How long has that deep crease on my left cheek been there? When did I get so many crow’s feet around my eyes? Looking at my face all day long (even in a thumbnail) made me more insecure about how my face looked. Friends reported the same. We were not alone in these side effects of navigating life on-camera. Since 2020 there has been a significant increase in facial cosmetic procedures, leading with Botox, lip fillers, and other fillers. One reason is that increased social-media use adds to our being unhappy with our body, which increases our stress levels and activates the fight-or-flight…

1 Start by making yourself as comfortable as possible. Sit in a chair with back support, or lie down if you like. 2 Place a comforting hand somewhere on your body. This could be over your heart area, or on your belly or your cheek. It could even be your knees or feet. Find what feels good and lights you up. 3 Give yourself permission to shine. If you are up for exploring, you could also try kickstarting your thoughts with some intentions for being more radiant, like: Breathing in, I invite the light Breathing out, I shine 4 Imagine a blazing sun, radiating from within you. Pause and notice how this makes you feel. Is there any strength or confidence or ease that comes from choosing this lightness?…

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Shelly Harrell PSYCHOLOGIST, MINDFULNESS TEACHER, FOUNDER OF THE SOULFULNESS CENTER Motown was the soundtrack of Shelly Harrell’s childhood in the '60s in Detroit. Earth, Wind & Fire’s That’s the Way of the World and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life played on repeat. “In those songs, compassion is so central, care for humanity is so central,” she says. She credits music as her first ever mindfulness teacher, dance as her first form of meditation, “a place I could come home to.” When she was a teenager, her father passed away and “all I could think to do was dance,” she says. “I started to trust coming back to my body and coming into presence with my inner life.” Today, Harrell’s personal and professional growth are guided in part…

Melli O’Brien MINDFULNESS EDUCATOR, ENTREPRENEUR, MENTAL HEALTH COACH As a teenager, Melli O’Brien went to her public school library and pulled every book she could find on mental health and happiness. At the time, her days were defined by deep depression and an eating disorder fueled by a belief that she wasn’t enough. Meanwhile, the Iraq war raged on and she struggled to make sense of world leaders taking actions that harmed so many. She saw only two paths ahead: One would lead to taking her own life and the other would mean trying to heal, build inner strength, and maybe be part of the change she wanted to see in the world. “If I believed all those voices and if I didn’t transform them, I don’t think I would…

Vidyamala Burch MINDFULNESS TEACHER, WRITER, FOUNDER OF BREATHWORKS After 50 years of living with chronic pain and 40 years of meditation, Vidyamala Burch says, “I laugh much, much more than I used to.” She smiles. “I love telling people that because it’s so surprising.” “I think one of the fruits of long-term practice is an ability to hold life lightly. Take it seriously, because it is a very serious business, but hold it lightly.” Burch is the founder of Breathworks, a charity based in the UK that teaches people living with chronic pain, illness, and stress how to live a fuller life with the help of mindfulness. Her approach comes from her own lived experience of pain. As a child, she lived an active, outdoorsy life in New Zealand and…

This practice is inspired by the South African greeting Sawubona, which means, “We see you.” It’s consistent with the intent of the African American saying, “I feel you,” and invites us to resist dehumanization and othering, to see and feel interconnection, and to live in alignment. 1 Take a centering breath, in haling to clear space, sweeping clutter from your mind. Exhale, settling into yourself and full presence. 2 Bring to mind a person, group, or community you care about that may be experiencing difficulty, may feel unseen and unheard. Compassion begins with a willingness to really see, hear, and feel another person. Compassionate action is energized by love and infused with the truth of another’s lived and embodied experience. 3 Imagine encountering them. Greet them with Sawubona and the intentions of its…

Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life by Matthew Brensilver April 16 - 20, 2025 Big Bear Retreat Center Big Bear Lake, CA + Online (hybrid retreat) We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirrors for our inquiry into ourselves? Peace, Relaxation, and Happiness All Year Long WEEKLY The Art of Living Retreat Center 637 Whispering Hills Road, Boone, NC USA The Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina, offers more than 300 opportunities a…

We are dedicated to inspiring and guiding anyone who wants to explore mindfulness to enjoy better health, more caring relationships, and a more compassionate society. By reading Mindful and sharing it with others, you’re helping to bring mindfulness practices into the world where the benefits can be enjoyed by all. Thank you! Print magazine & mindfulness products 30-Day Mindfulness Challenge Well-being for modern workplaces Mindfulness video courses Visit online at mindful.org Get More Mindful…

PAY IT FURWARD When a lost puppy hopped on the Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare Colleague Bus Shuttle a week before Christmas, he had no idea he was stepping into a whole new future. When no one claimed him, hospital colleagues saw something special in this lost critter. An Animal Therapy volunteer adopted Teddy, and he’s on his way to helping others as a therapy dog! HAPPY BIRTH-TREE Climate activist Leah Namugerwa replaced her 15th birthday party with planting 200 trees. But that’s not all: Determined to counteract deforestation in Uganda, she then launched the Birthday Trees Project. Now a UN Youth Advisory Board Member, Namugerwa gives away seedlings for others to plant on their birthdays, showing that no action is too small to make a difference. THIS TEEN’S AN ACE When…

We know that playing in the dirt and connecting with nature can feel deeply restorative, and science shows the presence of nature in our spaces offers wide-ranging benefits from stress reduction to increasing prosocial behavior. So why limit our gardening to just a couple months of the year? Here are some ways to tend to the plant babies in and around your home—and reap the benefits of connecting with nature—year-round. Spring Start some seedlings and nurture them as they grow. Peas and beans are some of the easiest to grow. Fall Bring tropical potted plants indoors and slowly reduce watering. Summer Move your plants outdoors and harvest the fruits of your labor when they’re ripe. Winter Tend to your houseplants and start planning next summer’s garden!…

Mossbridge, a researcher who founded The Institute for Love and Time, is an affiliate professor at the University of San Diego Physics and Biophysics department. Much of her research focuses on time-travel narratives—the stories we tell ourselves about our past, present, and future selves, and how we perceive and react to these stories. She’s found that having “a balanced time perspective” leads to greater well-being, and she aims to help people achieve this balance as the founder and project director of the website timemachine.love. She names three components of a balanced time perspective: 1 A positive perspective of the past: Your story about the past is focused on growth and development. 2 A positive relationship with the present: You can be present in your body and connected to this moment,…

Whether we want to share an idea or innovation, push back against a strategy we’re convinced won’t work, or have a hard conversation with a friend, speaking up can be costly. When deciding whether to speak up, we need to figure out whether and how to say something. Most of us are also anticipating and calculating the emotional and relational impacts the comment will have on the other person, ourselves, and the systems in which we live and work. In a decade of consulting with professionals to handle difficult conversations, I’ve noticed a particular dynamic. Very few people are as clear or direct as they think they are. In fact, 45% of Americans—myself included—regularly self-censor for fear that expressing their view will isolate and alienate them from others. What we…

Caverly Morgan FOUNDER OF PEACE IN SCHOOLS, TEACHER, AUTHOR Before Caverly Morgan found mindfulness, she had no idea that she had any negative self-talk at all. On her first retreat, she thought the people who were talking about this were a little loopy. “To me, it wasn’t negative self-talk. These were just facts about myself. So there was this voice that was always driving the car, and I didn’t even know it.” Her mindfulness practice started as a way to learn how to be in a different kind of relationship to this voice. Once we realize the presence of that Inner Critic, she says, we’re conditioned to make the logical leap that there’s something we have to fix. We have to overcome the voice, learn more practices, and build more…

S. Helen Ma CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, MINDFULNESS RESEARCHER, TEACHER TRAINER In 1998, S. Helen Ma traveled from Hong Kong to the US for mindfulness training with Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She told him, “I know mindfulness helps, but I want to know how it helps.” At that time, Ma had spent much of her career working in Hong Kong and Australia hospitals with people experiencing clinical depression. While she saw healing, she also saw relapse. Empathy and compassion fatigue threatened to take over—until a colleague introduced her to mindfulness. “For psychology we would be very interested in people’s stories—what’s happened before now,” she says. But in mindfulness, “You don’t need to be concerned about the stories at all… Everything comes and everything goes. It’s so liberating.” She learned…

Shalini Bahl MINDFULNESS TEACHER, RESEARCHER, CONSULTANT, AUTHOR Shalini Bahl feels that trees were her first mindfulness teachers. Years ago, after getting divorced and then moving with her son from India to Amherst, Massachusetts—leaving behind family, friends, and culture—she would sit among the trees, “contemplating my life,” she says. “I’d have all these questions: Why me? What happened? Then I would get this sense or thought in my mind: Just breathe first, and you will get the answers.” This reflective experience sparked her mindfulness journey, and she pursued training with luminaries including Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mirabai Bush. In her academic career, she began sharing the practice with her marketing students. Eventually she redirected her full-time work toward mindfulness, not only teaching, but offering organizational consulting as well as leading research on…

Just as our outer environment inevitably changes with the seasons, so does our inner landscape. Throughout the course of a year, some moments will call for savoring and reflection, others for a deep breath and a new direction. The beauty of a mindfulness practice is it grows and changes with us. It can meet our needs and offer reliable support as we flow through the various seasons of life. This practice guide offers a curated selection of meditations from some of today’s expert teachers to help you meet whatever this year may bring. SPRING PLANT YOUR ROOTS In the springtime, as the world wakes up from the sleepiness of winter, new light brings new growth. We can mirror the world around us by engaging with our inner and outer lives…

MINDFUL OF RACE Transforming Racism From the Inside Out Ruth King • Sounds True, 2018 While Mindful of Race was published in 2018, King wrote it in 2016, when social conversation and coverage was ablaze with racial reckoning, climate anxiety, and protest—a description that can be just as easily applied today as it was nearly a decade ago. Similarly, just as the tools, teachings, and stories offered in this book were revolutionary and deeply needed then, the same is true now. “The world’s heart is on fire, and race is at its core,” she writes. “Racism is a heart disease… If we cannot think clearly and respond wisely, we will continue to damage the world’s heart.” What King offers in Mindful of Race is an invitation and instruction manual to excavate…

How do you practice self-compassion? Journaling, which I curiously resisted for years but ultimately found to be genuinely helpful and often revealing. Keep learning, keep growing. reticent.grace Slowing down, stepping away, and taking some deep slow breaths when I feel stressed or overwhelmed. Never fails to regulate my nervous system. womenandbalance Learning to say "no." If it’s going to stress me out, affect my health, mess with my calm, I have learned it’s ok to say "no," and if people can't understand that, then I probably don't need them in my life. Sharon P. Taking naps and not criticizing myself when I fall asleep. Kathleen M. Spending quality time with people I love. Angie T. When was the last time someone extended compassion to you? An acquaintance reached out during…

Q What’s an area of mindfulness research, learning, or teaching that feels urgent to you in this moment? A We’re living in a world that’s really devoid of wisdom right now. We’re deploying all kinds of emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence skills to try and solve problems, but the lack of wisdom is really hurting us. We need to develop that capacity and be much more clear that wisdom is not just an awareness or a blank state, but that it actually has its own intelligence. We need a way of reconnecting with that intelligence, and also making sure it is integrated with the other skills we need to navigate the world. There is an argument that the state of awareness in mindfulness is ethically neutral, a blank state. In my…

As psychedelics emerge as a potentially useful method to treat some of the most stubborn mental health issues, research shows that incorporating mindfulness may not only make tripping safer, but more effective. Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer Katherine Ellison explores the history, science, and controversies surrounding this combo in our age of “psychedelic renaissance.” Seeking insights into a difficult relationship with her partner, Patricia Rockman inhaled a large dose of ketamine, a sedative with hallucinogenic effects. In her altered state, she experienced something that might have disturbed someone who was less well-prepared. She felt she had turned into an ancient stone wall. For a moment, she considered that she might never stop feeling that way. But then another thought occurred: That first thought was merely a thought. “It wasn’t scary for me,” Rockman…

When you’re tasting something delicious, or laughing at adorable animals doing funny things, or having a moment of kindness or connection with a friend or stranger, do you notice how good it feels? how these experiences kind of light you up? Well, it might just be me, but lately that inner spark of light has felt like it is under attack. And let’s face it, there are so many reasons to feel that our light is being engulfed by darkness. While searching for a solution, perhaps you’ve heard that mindfulness might be just the thing to help you reignite your spark. How exciting…tell me more! But wait! Doesn’t this mindfulness thing involve… sitting in silence? Eek! What if being left in silence just leaves you with even louder thoughts, which…

Climate change. Inflation. Carbon tax. Gun control. My guess is you have opinions about them, whether for or against. My guess is also that your friends and family have opinions about them. Strong ones. We’re in a moment where strong opinions are not only felt, but also expressed. Frequently online. And the ways we express them are almost always polarizing. The types of cultural conversations that seem to never stop churning around these and other issues give the illusion that there are only ever two options to choose from—and only one right answer. They don’t leave much room for uncertainty or flexibility. As documentary-filmmaker Ken Burns said in a recent podcast, “We are in an age where everyone is certain about something.” Your Brain on Binaries Sometimes referred to as…

I LOVE CELEBRATING OUR DIFFERENCES AND GETTING TO KNOW PEOPLE’S INDIVIDUAL WAYS OF BEING AND HELPING CELEBRATE WHO THEY ARE.SUE HUTTON Sue Hutton SOCIAL WORKER, MINDFULNESS TEACHER, DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCATE Sue Hutton has been working with neuro-developmentally disabled adults, as well as their families and caregivers, since her 20s—and practicing mindfulness for even longer. These communities offer a beautiful place to practice, she says. “I love celebrating our differences and getting to know people’s individual ways of being and helping celebrate who they are.” Compassion has always motivated her. As a child, her mother’s suicide attempts awakened her desire to help ease suffering. “My experiences of being an outsider or alienated rested within me and really strengthened my interest in validating other people and never wanting anyone to feel like…

Nanea Reeves FOUNDER AND CEO OF TRIPP Nanea Reeves learned to meditate, she says, before mindfulness “was even a thing.” Her mother struggled with mental illness and addiction, and 15-year-old Nanea (whose name is Hawaiian for peacefulness and serenity) found herself in hospital, experiencing a crisis. A hospital therapist taught her a breathing technique to connect to the present moment. “I believe it was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given,” she says. After her younger sister, Vicki, died from a drug overdose, Reeves deepened her commitment to helping others access the healing tools meditation can offer. A vision began to take shape while she was working in the video game industry. Today her award-winning company, TRIPP, offers virtual reality- and AI-powered guided meditations. “There are many paths…

Yuria Celidwen SCHOLAR, RESEARCHER, TEACHER, INDIGENOUS NAHUA AND MAYA When Yuria Celidwen talks about contemplative practice, she’s describing something much more expansive than solely what’s going on in the mind. “From the Mesoamerican tradition specifically, but generally in many Indigenous practices, it’s also about the emotional state, the heart that is involved with the body that informs the mind processes that end up revealing…that animating principle of life.” As a child, she already possessed this rich awareness of complexity. From her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, she says, “I learned a lot about how to really be with the landscape, be part of the landscape of a larger community.” Then, starting in elementary school, she faced racist discrimination. Inhabiting these conflicting worlds led her to the study of identity, consciousness, and…

In 1976, researchers Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin conducted an experiment, giving houseplants to two groups of nursing home residents. They told half of these elderly people that the plants were theirs to care for: They had to pay close attention to their plants’ needs for water and sunlight, and they had to respond carefully to those needs. The researchers told the other half of the residents that their plants were theirs to enjoy, but that they did not have to take care of them; the nursing staff would care for the plants. At the end of a year, the researchers compared the two groups of elders. The residents who had been asked to care for their plants were living longer than the norm, were much healthier, and were more…

WHO’S AT THE HELM CCARE was founded in 2008 by neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, and New York Times bestselling author James R. Doty, who currently directs the center. HOW THEY DO IT Part of Stanford University’s School of Medicine, CCARE’s mission is to foster compassion through research, education, and scientific partnerships. Anyone interested in developing skills of compassion can begin with the eightweek, online course Cultivate a Compassionate Heart, designed to provide evidence-based practices in compassion, awareness, meditation, and reflection. CCARE also offers an 11-month program called Applied Compassion Training (ACT). To graduate, participants must create and deliver an Applied Compassion Capstone project in a workplace, classroom, or community setting. With its Global Directory of Compassionate Teachers, CCARE trains and certifies compassion teachers who lead workshops around the world. REAL-WORLD IMPACT After…

When it became possible, in the early ’80s, to migrate from writing on a typewriter to word processing, it was a revelation. Prior to that, if correcting a mistake carried a line over to the next page, you retyped the whole thing! I can’t believe that’s how we worked. I was not an early cell phone adopter, but before long it made business and social arrangements unavoidably more convenient. In the past, if you were late and needed to let someone know, you had to find a pay phone, dig around for the right change, find the number of the place you expected them to be, and hope the line wasn’t busy and the person answering could find your friend. Now, a quick text and presto. Thumbs up emoji. In…