A Practice to Remember That We Belong to Each Other read more Amber Tucker, Ava Whitney-Coulter, Heather Hurlock, Kylee Ross, Oyinda Lagunju, and Stephanie Domet June 22, 2021 Shalini Bahl-Milne February 24, 2021 Tita Angangco April 12, 2021

Part of the goal of meditation is to create more ease, and more of a gentle and open heart—gentle to ourselves and gentle to others. So when we practice meditation, we can have a very light touch with our thoughts. When we let them go and we’re not grasping or judging them, they become more transparent. With the following meditation, we can take this idea beyond the traditional mindfulness practice with contemplation and inquiry....

Remember: To live mindfully, the breath is the key. Breathe in, breathe out release the stress and let it all out. As we being the practice of mindful breathing, focus awareness on the breath. And if you get distracted, just gently, without any judgement, come right back into the breath. Repeat to yourself, “I’ve got my feet on the floor, I’ve got my spine in a line, I’ve got my hands in my lap, I’ve got my heart to the sky....

“I’ve failed once again,” arises, leading to a sense of sluggishness and the next thought, “What’s the point?” There’s another way. It’s important to set goals for ourselves and create plans to reach those goals; this is the underpinning of cultivating hope. Hope is our greatest antidepressant. Three Steps to a Resilient New Year Expect to stray: This is just a fact of life that sometimes we refuse to own up to....

The Mindfulness Room is one of many mindful spaces popping up across college campuses—you can check out offerings in your area on Mindful’s resources page. Bentleigh Secondary College in Melbourne, Australia, took things up a notch last year when they designed a meditation center on campus. Regular classes on meditation, indigenous culture, and environmental sustainability are taught at the center. The inside is designed to be conducive to meditation, “using calming forms and materials” such as rounded columns of polished wood, says Nick Cini, the center’s designer....

The acronym, HALT, is meant to mindfully check in with our simple biological and emotional needs that, if not addressed, will get in the way of making healthy choices. A Simple Strategy for HALT-ing Old Habits: The next time you’re feeling like it’s okay to skip a mediation session, or eat that second (or third) Girl Scout cookie, ask yourself if you’re feeling any of these four biological and emotional barriers to change:...

How to do it There’s no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal, but here are some general instructions as you get started. Write down up to five things for which you feel grateful. The physical record is important—don’t just do this exercise in your head. The things you list can be relatively small in importance (“The tasty sandwich I had for lunch today.”) or relatively large (“My sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy....

But what if I told you the pioneer of mindfulness himself regarded an inquisitive brain that followed its natural instincts not as the enemy of mindfulness, but as another form of practicing awareness? It’s practiced as part of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) curriculum as a technique called choiceless awareness, which roughly translates into being open to what unfolds in front of you, what emerges in your mind. Aimless wandering is also one of those practices....

No matter where I’ve traveled, I’ve received valuable teachings along the way. I’ve learned how nature allows for mindfulness to develop effortlessly and spontaneously. I’ve witnessed in myself and others how contact with the natural world brings a sense of peace, greater perspective, profound joy and wonder, and a deeper connection with life in all its forms. Being in nature in a contemplative way, especially when we are alone, provides the perfect arena to explore our mind and our interrelationship with the world....

Barry Boyce: You know, just the other day I was having a small hang out with people and I was griping about something and my friend completely changed my perspective just by basically kind of calling into question like, “Really?!” And it was a nice hang. SD: That’s Barry Boyce, he is the founding editor of Mindful and Mindful.org, and in every issue of the magazine, he writes the back page column, Point Of View....

As a PhD student, she studied hormones and behavior in Alzheimer’s patients and healthy older people. By her internship year, she had found her calling in psychosocial oncology and mindfulness. Today, she is a full professor in the departments of oncology and psychology at the University of Calgary and a clinical psychologist and director of research at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. Over 2,000 people have been through the yoga and meditation program at the centre, in groups of 15 to 20 at a time....

Many of the findings have solid scientific support. Lately, however, studies on the epigenetic effects of meditation have been popping up like dandelions in April, making claims that, unfortunately, rest on shaky science—the shark is well and truly jumped. “The science just isn’t as strong as some people are making it out to be,” said neuroscientist Cliff Saron of the University of California, Davis. Saron is hardly a meditation basher: He co-led a study showing possible epigenetic effects from mindfulness meditation....

In the spirit of the occasion, Wisdom has created a Mindfulness Day Facebook page to inspire people to create space in their lives for meditation. Friends are also encouraged to share how mindfulness has impacted their lives, and post their plans for celebrating the day. How does one celebrate Mindfulness Day? Tim McNeill, president and publisher of Wisdom Publications, offers that having a mindful celebration means reconnecting with family, the community and the self in a spirit of quiet contemplation....

Emerging scientific understanding of the effects of meditation on biomarkers of stress How meditation is linked to neural correlates of mind, emotions, and indices of biological aging How research-practictioners of meditation are probing mind and consciousness Commonalities and differences between meditation practices from different traditions How meditation is being applied in diverse clinical contexts and the future direction of the filed to address the challenges of healthcare It all takes place at the New York Academy of Sciences at the World Trade Center....

The first word to come to mind for most people who’ve eaten radicchio is bitter. Take a bite of raw radicchio on its own, and it’s guaranteed to wake up your taste buds—though not every- one will enjoy the sensation. My general approach is to tame the vegetable, balancing out its strong flavor with equally strong ingredients so subtle flavors can emerge. Sautéing radicchio immediately mellows the bitterness, and ingredients like Parmesan, fresh basil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar lend a balance of sweet, salty, and fragrant flavor....

That’s the idea behind author Byron Katie’s process to reduce stress. Katie is founder of The Work, a method of inquiry for identifying and working with stressful thoughts. She advocates that a yes or no question helps us get to the core of what’s bothering us so we can understand and relieve anxieties. Katie suggests looking at a stressor with this question in mind: Is it true? In this video from Big Think, she shares a three-step process for working with this question so that you can change your relationship to stress....

Find a way of expressing yourself. For some people (right brainers), expressing themselves is cathartic because it means letting go of emotions. For others (left brainers), the process of communicating about a difficult experience may create some logic or rationale for why all this is happening. Whichever you are, you can transcend your suffering and get in touch with its meaning by developing a narrative, story, or theme that helps you see how, in the long run, this experience was a serendipitous match for you on your life’s path....