Everyone is already training their attention. It's just that most of us don't realize that we're reinforcing our capacity for internal friction. 

Mindfulness meditation has a lot in common with practicing the piano. Both require clear instruction, consistent effort, and falling in love with the process instead of obsessing over the results. They are also both about finding tangible ways to navigate the abstract murkiness of time.

How to adapt focus strategies people use every day to concentrate on what they’re doing.

Instead of trying to stop thinking, try listening differently.

Practice calling off the battle with what hurts temporarily.

Let your thoughts and feelings help you practice being more present sometimes.

Trying not to think never works. Try practicing this instead.

Life can seem richer when we’re able to switch off cruise control sometimes.

Try breaking a mindfulness exercise down into a series of shorter segments.

How to give it room to breathe and grow instead.

Knowing what skills you’re aiming for helps you pick exercises to develop them.

Habitually prioritizing the care of others over your own isn’t sustainable. If we don’t work on treating ourselves the way we treat the people we care about, we’ll inevitably get bogged down by resentment, burnout, and bitterness.

A year of streaming my weekday morning meditation practice during the pandemic.

When you begin a walking or running program, there are several details you can track as evidence of improvement. Your step count. The length of your stride. Your pace. The amount of time it takes your heart to return to its recover its baseline resting rate. But how will you know when you’re getting better at noticing perceptions? 

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

Dan Harris

What keeps us holding out for these perfect, comfortable lives that we imagine? And how can training your attention help address these habits?

What makes it so difficult for us to pay attention at any given moment? It seems like it should be easy.

If your strategy for trying to live in the present more doesn't acknowledge that the present often sucks, you will find yourself frequently convinced that you have failed instead of realizing that your expectations are unrealistic.

A mindfulness teacher needs to sell you on the possible outcomes of consistent practice but also has to steer you back again and again to the slippery path that leads to them.

Our attention is habitually drawn to problems. However, we can train ourselves to notice rest and relaxation hiding within our regular routine. Setting aside some time to get more acquainted with what rest feels like in the body can support this exploration.