Letting go of fear can bring a greater sense of peace and freedom. Fear is a normal and healthy response that can protect us from danger. The problem is that we are at risk for automatically reacting to our fear and allowing it to immobilize us even when there is no real danger. When you […]
Mindfulness of feelings practice can help us to be aware and connected with our feelings in a way that allows us to be grounded and not overwhelmed. Feeling tones of experience are either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Much has been written about how we tend to cling to pleasant experience and crave more, which creates […]
Mindful travel is a practice that brings mindfulness practice into local or global travel experiences for greater awareness and presence. When we travel with mindfulness, we are able to be more present in our moment to moment experience. In being more present, we can observe the details of a place and our internal landscape in […]
In exploring how to be happy, we can experience more happiness by cultivating positive mental and emotional states through mindfulness and meditation practice. It really is true that whatever we rest our attention on grows. If we wake up and focus our attention on the difficulty in our lives, we will cultivate a state of […]
When dealing with the unexpected, we can experience greater ease by bringing mindfulness to the situation. Each moment brings uncertainty, and sometimes, unexpected events arise. When dealing with the unexpected, if we judge the events as positive, we say we’re lucky. When we judge the unexpected events as unpleasant, we say we’ve encountered unfortunate circumstances. […]
Dealing with difficult thoughts by approaching our inner experience with mindfulness, with kindness and curiosity, can support our wellbeing. Difficult thoughts can lead to difficult mental states — anger, hatred, resentment –and take us out of the present moment. How many moments have we all struggled with difficult thoughts that lead us to get entangled […]
Intention is fueled by awareness, and action is fueled by intention. Last week one of my students arrived at the realization that joy wasn’t just going to fall into her lap. We laughed together in a shared recognition of the human habit of assuming that whatever we want will arrive in our laps simply by […]
Mindfulness in nature can help us to feel more peace and a greater sense of connection with ourselves and the planet. We can practice mindfulness in nature by being fully present in the moment when we are in nature. Try choosing a place outdoors that you can be still for a few moments. You might […]
Embracing change with mindfulness and meditation supports us in cultivating more acceptance and less resistance. We cling to the transitions that we love, and we resist or fight against the changes that we dislike, and this creates suffering. Mindfulness encourages us to turn toward whatever is here in the present moment with an attitude of […]
Shadow work involves embracing the aspects of ourselves that remain in shadow, unexpressed, or hidden. Our shadow includes aspects of our personality that are unconscious and can include both positive aspects as well as the darker aspects. When our shadow remains unconscious, we may be ruled by it, and this can keep us from living […]