Mindfulness

Mindfulness

There is a particular form of blindness that afflicts the fortunate-a blindness to the quiet miracles of ordinary existence. We walk through our days surrounded by what a patient once called "unexperienced happiness," moving through gifts we no longer recognize as gifts, breathing blessings we've forgotten are blessings. It often takes a brush with loss to restore our sight. This is a meditation that can perhaps grant us more mindfulness than hundreds of seminars. It's about the obvious that we sometimes simply no longer see.

You know that person at the coffee shop who somehow commands the entire room without saying much? Last week, I watched someone transform a chaotic situation at my local café into a moment of calm efficiency. The espresso machine had broken, the line was growing, and tensions were rising. This woman, dressed in simple jeans and a plain white shirt, quietly helped reorganize the queue, offered her spot to someone in a rush, and had everyone feeling better within minutes.

Usually, my handbag is a medley of digital devices and life essentials my phone, iPad, chargers, keys, tampons. But lately, you're likely to also find a half-done newspaper crossword, a ton of stationery, the book I've restarted three times, and whatever scraps and trinkets I've picked up throughout the day to put in my scrapbook. Analog is back, and it feels like we need it more than ever.

I used to save my favorite clothes for a version of my life that never showed up. The blazer stayed in my closet because it felt "too professional" for a normal day. The heels were waiting for a dinner I'd yet to be invited to. The earrings were longing for an occasion that felt important enough to justify wearing them. Meanwhile, I wore the same outfits on repeat - to work, to run errands, to all the places where my actual life was happening.

The coffee tastes the same at 7 AM on a Tuesday as it does on a Saturday. I learned this my second week of retirement. I was trying to convince myself that there was magic in unstructured mornings-no rush, no agenda, just me and the coffee and some vague sense of possibility. But magic requires you to be present, and I was doing everything I could not to be.

On Sunday, the first snowfall of December covers the Convent of St. Birgitta in a blanket of pure white. "The world is cloaked in beauty today," Father David Blanchfield says as he begins delivering morning mass to a dozen or so churchgoers bundled up in puffy parkas and thick scarves. Sitting inside feels spiritually counterproductive. Snow, to me, has always felt holy. The purity of it, delivered straight from the heavens. The way it elongates shadows and sparkles in the sun.

The particular Camino that I chose to follow-colloquially known as the Camino Frances, or French Way, since it starts at the base of the Pyrenees, the border between France and Spain-is the most famous of all the Caminos. Walking, on average, six to seven hours and 30 kilometers a day, I passed from the south of France into the north of Spain, walking westward through cities that included Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, and Ponferrada, along with numerous small towns and villages.

We're experiencing chronic stress, which blocks our ability to hope. Here's why: the amygdala, the brain's alarm center, reacts with fight, flight, or freeze (Akil & Nestler, 2023; LeDoux, 1996). This reaction can save our lives in an emergency. When we're in a crosswalk and see a car speeding toward us, we can react by stopping or jumping out of the way.

Some years ago, I was talking to my husband on the phone. He sounded annoyed about something to do with his work, but I noticed an intense emotional reaction in myself. Immediately, my heart contracted and my stomach lurched. I could feel a runaway train of emotions activate within me. My whole body was awash with nausea, and I felt so very uncomfortable.

For years, I'd used these journals as a kind of inner courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. Every page held evidence of failures, proof of my profoundly advanced ability to gaslight myself. I could shrink or morph into whatever was requested for another person's comfort. Small flowered booklets documenting all the ways I couldn't get "it" right.

My goal was to only pay bills. I didn't want to buy anything extra, but I knew things always come up, like my son needing something for school. I told myself ahead of time that I could "break the freeze" for absolute necessities only. Over the 30 days, copays for doctor's appointments and prescription costs were the only unexpected purchases I made.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." ~Lao Tzu For many years, I was deeply involved in spiritual communities-satsangs, meditation centers, ashrams, and groups focused on positivity, service, and personal growth. These places gave me comfort, community, and a sense of purpose. But they also shaped something inside me that I didn't fully recognize until much later: I had built my self-worth around being a "good person."

When two third-grade girls began trading insults while lined up for the bus, Shelby Rideout, an educator in Tennessee, stepped in before the argument could escalate. Within minutes, the tension had dissolved, the girls were chatting easily, and what had threatened to become a hallway standoff ended on a distinctly kumbaya-like note. Rideout shared her disarmingly simple approach in a TikTok video: if you go looking for a problem, you will almost always find one; look instead for common ground, and conflict often loosens its grip.

You feel an unpleasant sensation - like a sinking feeling of anxiety in your stomach as the game begins, and you think, "I'm anxious. Here we go again. I'm about to blow it." You feel your pain increasing, and the thoughts churn: "Great. I'll probably miss a whole week of work." Imagined catastrophes fill your mind. Manage these thoughts with the 3 C's: Catch it, Check it, and Change it.

We live in a fast-paced world that glorifies productivity. That often means prioritizing work ahead of your mental health or even your personal life. There's a constant push to do more, achieve more, and get it done more quickly - and the clock starts ticking the moment you wake up. It's hard to break free from this mindset and put yourself first, often leading to burnout. Enter morning journaling.

The Functionality of Boredom To answer this, we need to give voice to the functionality of boredom. Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron, but even the driest, dullest, most yawn-inducing moments have a purpose. First, boredom is a signal. It tells us when our current activities, lifestyle, relationships, or decisions no longer satisfy us-when our attention is unstimulated, or our curiosity is not adequately piqued.

Host Michael Taft is interviewed by Pranab Sachidanandan about Michael's Stack Model for deconstructing sensory experience, his "adapter kit" for accessing nondual Vajrayana methods without years of preliminaries, why mantra and visualization are legitimate samadhi tools, how depth of practice maps across the sense gates, a chronic pain patient on a morphine pump who found relief through meditation, the humanities as qualia training, why the "Buddha industrial complex" leaves out people who don't fit a single tradition, and the power of building sangha outside it.

When Michael Pollan traveled to a cave in New Mexico to try to understand consciousness, he learned what good meditation is really made of. "The recipe was simpler (and much less appetizing) than I would have imagined," he writes: " To transcend the self, force yourself to be alone with it long enough to get so bored and exhausted that you are happy to let it go. "

Do you savor moments of joy? Or do you postpone it until easier times? When the world feels gray and shaky, joy might seem almost offensive-something for other people, something for other times. That real or imagined voice says, "What are you smiling about?" Or else, we are just too busy multitasking, keeping up, side-hustling; we don't have the time to smell the proverbial roses.

A few years ago, I climbed over a gate and found myself gazing down at a valley. After I'd been walking for a few minutes, looking at the fields and the sky, there was a shift in my perception. Everything around me became intensely real. The fields and the bushes and trees and the clouds seemed more vivid, more intricate and beautiful.

In fact, there are science-backed practices we can adopt to improve our adaptability, and the benefits go far beyond our careers. In practical terms, adaptability is being able to regulate and adjust your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors amid changing circumstances while staying aligned with your values and long‑term goals. True adaptability is not passive compliance: it's conscious ongoing calibration. Research links adaptability with higher life satisfaction and lower stress, especially when you add a sense of agency and social support.

Fear of loneliness - which goes by a surprising number of names: autophobia, isolophobia, eremophobia, monophobia - is distinct from loneliness itself. It's the sense that no matter where you are (out in public, or within the comfort of your own home), you should take pains to make sure you don't end up alone. After all, that's when the dread begins to pump in: the anxiety, the feelings of inadequacy, the scrutinizing.

Instead, they practice something called "friluftsliv" - literally "free air life" - and in February, when winter feels endless, this practice becomes almost sacred. It's their secret weapon against the darkness, and after trying it myself during a particularly rough winter, I can tell you it works better than any supplement I've ever taken. The word itself sounds complicated, but friluftsliv is beautifully simple. It means spending time outdoors, regardless of weather conditions. Not despite the cold and darkness, but because of it.

I've reached a boiling point. I don't want to live my life and see others live their lives through phones. I'm sick of watching AI slop (AI-generated images and short videos that dumb us down) and news that is upsetting, exhausting, and hopeless. And, simultaneously, I'm scrolling through Instagram and mindlessly comparing myself to strangers, consuming content from a toxic algorithm, shaping what I see. Social media, for me, has become overwhelming;

Well, I'm here to tell you that sometimes conventional wisdom is dead wrong. Three years ago, fresh off a painful breakup, I met someone who was supposed to be a temporary distraction. A way to forget. A classic rebound. Today, she's my wife, the mother of my daughter, and the person who taught me what a truly healthy relationship looks like.