I'm not a snob about contemplative practice. I see zero shame in scrolling through Instagram during moments like these. I'm not trying to maintain monastic levels of composure throughout the day.

I just decided to explore what would happen if I fell back on what has proved paradoxically comforting in the past when waiting for potentially terrible news.

“Mindfulness is about stepping outside yourself, looking at yourself, and knowing that it’s going to be okay.”

Dr. Jeffrey Smith

Mindfulness doesn’t provide some kind of magical exemption from discomfort. Not at all. It's actually the opposite. It means when practiced consistently—with or without meditation—we can sometimes change the degree to which we fight against some present discomfort.

“A little broken, a little new.
we are the impact and the glue.
Capable more than we know
to call this fixer-upper home.”

Sleeping at Last

It wasn’t until I stumbled clumsily toward a daily mindfulness practice in my mid-thirties that I discovered that there were ways I could get better at feeling my feelings.

Before intentionally working on my attentional skills, I had no idea how often I escalated my unpleasant feelings and zipped past the pleasant and subtler ones.

The kind of self-awareness that mindfulness exercise develops has helped me become more objective about my subjective experiences.

When remembering to notice that we're alive becomes a habit, we begin to erode the internal friction that obscures our view of the richness we're swimming in every day.

Any perception you can observe directly in real time can be used to train a variety of attention-related skills.

I like to make a game out of turning ordinary activities into opportunities for practice.

There are a number of exercises I use when watching a film — whether it’s one I enjoy, dislike, or have seen before.  

"You don't have to analyze it. You just have to feel it." 

Dan Harris

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

Dorothy Walters

"Although emotional sensations can arise anywhere in the body, they are much more likely to arise in the belly, chest, throat, or face. These are the emotional hotspots in the body, the regions where emotional sensations can get huge. That means that other areas are much less likely to host gigantic emotional sensations, which turns out to be a useful and convenient thing."

Michael Taft

Thinking your way through unpleasant emotions takes time while a single repetition of any mindfulness exercise only takes a few seconds. The skills of attention strengthened by mindfulness practice enhance both the resolving of unpleasant emotions and the acceptance of them.  

One of the things I’ve found so remarkable about the approach to mindfulness I practice and teach, is the way it has gradually, yet significantly changed the way I relate to the physicality of my emotions—including the unpleasant ones.

yù yī - 玉衣

n. the desire to see with fresh eyes, and feel things just as intensely as you did when you were younger—before expectations, before memory, before words.

Confusion is a natural emotional aspect of the learning cycle. It's easy to allow this emotional discomfort to convince us that we lack the capacity to understand concepts and master skills. Steering away from the temporary experience of vulnerability can become habitual.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about mindfulness strategies is the way some core internal obstacles can be unraveled without necessarily needing to solve a related narrative puzzle.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. 

Here's a great strategy from Phillip Moffitt for working with unpleasant emotions .

“When a difficult situation or memory arises, it is essential that you be able to self-soothe in order to respond skillfully.”

Phillip Moffitt

“Happiness is not a large enough word for the deeper satisfactions that human beings are searching for and will search for and have searched for through recorded time.”

David Whyte

It makes me feel alone
to answer to a name
I've never used.