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This election night, MindfulVOTES has prepared a debate watch resource guide complete with alternative places to watch the debates and report card templates to help orient your thoughts around what each candidate has presented thus far. MindfulVOTES has also provided a space on their website where people can organize their own Mindful Circle of a small group of individuals who want to get together and discuss the issues. MindfulVOTES sent a small team to both national conventions in order to teach mindfulness practices....

What if during multiple moments of the day you had a mini-moment practice where you brought your mind to the present moment and checked in with yourself. What would change? In the middle of eating breakfast and you’re thinking about the plans for the day, you bring your mind to the present and simply spend a few moments tasting your food. While talking to a friend you guide your mind back from thinking of the next brilliant counterargument and simply begin to listen....

Then she tells us to lay down, saying we might want to put a pillow under our knees and maybe even cover ourselves with the nursery school blankets she handed us. The lights are dimmed and my inner child begins snoring. But the rest of me feels like a feral cat trapped in a dark alley looking for any way out. The suspiciously calm-voiced lady relentlessly offers us something she calls, “silence” (it burns, it burns!...

David Marshall is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker who followed the hospice class for two years. In his documentary, Beginning with the End, the question Marshall seeks to answer is: Can empathy be taught? The documentary will premiere at South By Southwest in March. Watch the trailer below. The Harley School’s hospice class and Marshall’s documentary were featured in the February 2014 issue of Mindful magazine in an article titled, “A Matter of Death and Life....

As you scroll through the instruction, you can see that it is spaced out to allow you to take in the instruction, just as a meditation teacher would have pauses in their instruction. The short and sweet instructions are paired with simple illustrations that give you a clear idea of what to do. This guided meditation is a simple way to bring mindfulness into your day, whether you do it for 30 minutes or 3 minutes....

Approximately 100 million American adults experience chronic pain, according to 2008 survey conducted by the Medical Expenditure Panel. An article in The Journal of Pain estimates this cause and effect costs the US government up to $635 billion each year in expenses such as medical charges and patients’ inability to work. In The Atlantic, Brian Steiner, a pediatrics resident, discusses the shortcomings of prescription medication in treating chronic pain. He argues these drugs are among the most likely to result in addiction and tend to leave patients with a clouded mind....

“I thought they should be teaching this to kids, they should be teaching this to the military,” said Ryan, whose book advocates just that. “There’s a ton of neuroscience behind it. The literature is growing exponentially.” For more information about the upcoming book, and to pre-order, click here. To watch Congressman Ryan’s inspiring presentation at the recent Creating a Mindful Society conference in New York, click here (registration is free)....

Feel the Body Begin by feeling your body, connecting with both feet, your legs, your seat, hips, tailbone. Sensing your spine, straight and upright, relax the shoulders down and allow your awareness to travel down through both arms and to the palms of the hands and fingers. Bring the awareness into the belly, the chest, the throat, and then resting your awareness on your face, release any tension in your jaw, eyes, forehead....

Then, when she saw me cringe at the chaotic disarray that is her living space, she hollered that she SHOULDN’T have to clean her room because her best friend told her to always follow her heart and her heart was saying she SHOULDN’T have to clean her room! She completed her declaration by slamming the door with such force that my insides tightened. The baby started crying. I had attempted to dutifully interject, to quell some of the heat between each of her fiery sentences....

These kinds of negative thoughts are becoming more common in our homes and schools. Teens are experiencing increased anxiety, and studies indicate that college students in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are becoming more perfectionistic over time, measuring themselves against unrealistic standards. Why is this happening? We can’t say for sure—but we do know there are steps teens can take to improve their mental health. A 2018 study of early adolescents suggests that self-concept (your perception of self) plays a central role in emotional well-being....

The flavor of green beans is so quintessentially végétal, like eating the earth itself. And there are so many ways to prepare them: cooked lightly and tossed into a bright summer salad, baked into a toasty warm, melt- in-your-mouth casserole, pickled in a savory brine with garlic and herbs for a year-round snack. And you can blanch and freeze them when they’re in season and eat them even in the heart of winter....

“Don’t Flip Yo’ Lid” delves into how it’s difficult not to react when we’ve been triggered by stressful situations. Scott discusses how negative talk and cruel people can activate our fight or flight response, raise cortisol levels, and how different networks in the brain raise alarm bells (or go offline) when we’re flipping out. It all comes back to why it’s important to come back to our breath—and take a few when the mind is racing....

The night sky. Always. The dark, inky, borderless sky. All those stars. How you can’t see it all at once, can’t take it all in at once. Looking up at the night sky requires pausing and breathing deeply—and lying down so you can look as long as you want without hurting your neck (mindfully pragmatic).—@jewellofawriter (Instagram) The magical relationship I have with my sister. Recovery from anorexia—deciding to live outside the cage....

That we are often bureaucratic, siloed, that people are demoralized, that we are not trustworthy, and that it can be a very mean place to work. And because of that, we have gone on a mission to move from being trauma-inducing to a trauma-informed, and ultimately a healing organization, and organization that is trustworthy and has at its core compassion and empathy, and is thoughtful about the way we deliver services....

An Evening Contemplation: Compassion for Suffering At night when I’m scared or I’m confused, or worried that I won’t recover, I lie in bed and I think about all of the people who might be alone, frightened, or suffering. And this evokes in me a certain kind of compassion, a deep wish to relieve their suffering. I’m not very good at self-compassion. I’ve never been good at it. But when I invoke my compassion for others it spills over to me because I can’t have it for others and not include myself....

Lindsay Van Driel, a manager in Oregon, co-founded the program with the help of a leadership consultant and other mindfulness instructors. The Guardian reported on Tuesday: (They) created a program that met the needs of a company mainly comprised of scientists and engineers, and one that cultivated the Intel values of innovation, candor, possibility thinking, risk taking and moving quickly and decisively. The curriculum was developed in three months. So far, 1,500 Intel employees have participated in the nine-week program....