Mindfulness

Mindfulness

"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."

In an exclusive interview released by the Olympics, Italian alpine skier and two-time medalist Sofia Goggia shared that quieting the mind is an essential part of her approach to training as well as life. "Meditation is a moment of centering, being here and now, and observing thoughts as they pass through my mind without any judgement," she explains in her native Italian."I think meditation gives you...an inner sense of balance."

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.

For most of my life, I assumed that arriving was the point. Like many people, I believed adulthood would eventually deliver a clear role, a measure of security, and a sense of belonging I could point to and say, This is it. This is who I am. I trusted that if I worked honestly, followed what mattered, and stayed true to my values, that moment would come.

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 I turned 60, I decided to run a little experiment on myself. For six months, I tracked everything that genuinely lifted my mood... not what I thought should make me happy, but what actually did. I'd been reading about happiness research for years, writing about it, even teaching others about it. But something shifted when I hit this milestone. Maybe it was becoming a father to my daughter recently,

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.

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.

Why would you do that? It's a way to remove distraction, calm your nervous system and practise mindfulness. And get clean. Yes, you also get clean. But this is more about finding those small, intentional moments that release you from the cares of your day. It sounds like an accident waiting to happen. You don't have to shower in complete darkness just in dim light, even by candlelight.

As AI takes on more analytical and operational decision-making, the leaders who will stand out are those who can do what machines can't: read emotional cues, build trust, and inspire teams to act. In this new landscape, emotional intelligence is more than a soft skill. It's becoming the core differentiator of effective leadership. I once advised a CEO whose metrics looked flawless. Revenue was rising, costs were under control, and the company was steadily gaining market share.

While goals can create structure in your life, give you something to strive for, and even inspire you, reaching the goal itself is a result of what you do to get there. The actions you take are the process-how you're actually filling the time that is your life. Sometimes, if you're lucky, what you do is fulfilling; it brings out the best in you-your talents, interests, and skills.

We've become professional overthinkers, analyzing every interaction, second-guessing our decisions, and living everywhere except right here, right now. The constant mental chatter is exhausting. Trust me, as someone who once spent an entire weekend mentally rewriting a two-sentence email I'd already sent, I get it. But here's what I've learned: staying present isn't about emptying your mind or achieving some zen-like state of perpetual calm.

When I visited flourishing groups, I noticed that being with them felt different. They possessed a vibrancy, a switched-on responsiveness that showed up in their bodies. Their posture, in general, was relaxed; their heads were up and their interactions were fluid. Aliveness was the word I kept writing in my notebook: a feeling of being carried along in a river of energy that was headed somewhere good.

Last week, I tried to watch a movie without doing anything else. Just watching. No phone, no laptop, no second screen. I made it exactly 12 minutes before my hand started twitching toward my pocket like some kind of digital zombie. And that's when it hit me. This isn't about being lazy or unmotivated. This constant restlessness, this inability to truly relax, it's something else entirely.

Sometimes the lessons we were raised with, whether passed down from family or society, may not be for us later in life.

On social media, television, and wellness apps, mindfulness is often shown as one simple thing-staying calm and paying attention to the moment. Large companies like Google use mindfulness programs to help employees stay focused and less stressed. Hospitals use it to help people manage pain and improve mental health. Millions of people now use mindfulness apps that promise everything from lowering stress to sleeping better.

If you've ever felt a twinge of guilt or wondered if something's wrong with you for preferring Netflix to nightclubs, I've got news for you: You're actually part of a growing tribe of people who've figured out something others are still searching for. The truth is, those of us who choose quiet nights in over loud nights out often possess qualities that others secretly admire. These are strengths that lead to deeper fulfillment, better relationships, and surprisingly, more success in life.

They are known, as it were, from the neck up. The cellular memory of facts and experiences, however, connects mind and body: My body recalls that showing my true feelings in childhood led to a put-down. A slammed door meant that Dad was home and drunk. The specific fact/event may be forgotten, but the bodily reaction remains: Any slamming noise may induce terror.

Then I tracked my actual output for a month. The real work. The stuff that actually moved the needle on my business. I was getting about 60% of the work done that I used to accomplish before I became so "responsive." Being constantly available had turned me into a human notification center instead of someone who actually created value. Experts backs this up, too. According to the folks at the APA, multitasking can reduce productivity by up to 40%.

Each decade of life comes with its share of pluses and minuses, but there's something special about being in your 40s. You're wiser and more mature than you were in your youth, more comfortable in your skin and you know what you like. Sure, you may not have quite as much energy as you once did. But you're still having a whole lot of fun - it's just that your definition of fun has changed over time.