Maintaining Mindfulness

Maintaining Mindfulness—Being Present over the Long Term

Mindfulness is a wonderful practice with a host of benefits. When we engage in mindfulness, the world can seem like a different place—colors are more vivid, relationships more dynamic, and we are more focused on what we’re doing. It can seem like we’re more alive. However, many people who are committed to being mindful struggle with making it a consistent part of their everyday mindset. It’s easy to be mindful if we’ve just participated in a workshop or read a book about mindfulness, but our discipline may wane over time, and we can find ourselves distracted, worried about the future, and in firm control of the monkey mind.

How can we make mindfulness practices a consistent part of who we are? How can we build mindfulness into our psyche so that we don’t have to be on the see-saw between mindfulness and distraction? It can be difficult, but it’s not complicated. Like any habit, it comes down to creating a regular routine and sticking to it. It involves making mindfulness as much a part of your life as eating, working, or anything else you do every day without having to remind yourself.

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Lashing out

What Makes People Lash Out?

Do you believe in the inherent goodness of human nature? If your only contact with people were face-to-face in calm, nonstressful situations, you might conclude that people are generally friendly, polite, and generous. But when certain social dynamics enter the picture, you might come to a very different conclusion. Under particular circumstances, people can seem to lose their empathy, emotional intelligence, and ability to regulate themselves. They lash out. They become harsh, insulting, or even cruel. Why does this happen? How does a person who is normally kind and polite suddenly act like a bully?

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I have to

When “I Have To” Isn’t Enough

Do what you love, and you’ll lead a happy life, right? Well, it’s not always that simple. No one does only what makes them happy. There will always be parts of life we would rather avoid: certain duties at work, housework, commuting, social obligations, and even activities we may feel uneasy about doing. Responsibilities are part of life. But if we look more closely at the things we do because we feel we “have to,” we may discover that some are not as burdensome as we assumed, while others may not truly be required of us at all.

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People-balance. Alone in a crowd

People Balance—Solitude and the Need for Human Connection

Some people lead solitary lives—some by choice, others not. Most of us desire a certain level of human contact in our lives. When we don’t have it, we experience a growing yearning, which can become quite urgent if our solitude goes on for too long. The forced solitude experienced by many during the pandemic[1] is resulting in many people feeling this sense of urgency and with no outlet. Days continue to stream by. They may have a periodic video call for work or with family, but ultimately, they’re alone, and they’ve been alone. When we’re faced with solitude, we look for opportunities for any human connection. A quick chat with a server at a restaurant, passing the time with a fellow shopper while standing in line, or some small talk in passing with a neighbor can all be lifelines when we’re feeling truly alone. But we can also feel overwhelmed when we are faced with too much interaction—we feel a need for some solitude. Like anything else in life, balance is key.

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Wizard of Cause

Wizard of Cause: A Review

If I didn’t know anything about The Wizard of Cause, and I had only read the poem in the preface, A Path to Remembering Your Wholeness, I would already be hooked. What a beautiful and enticing way to introduce the book and quietly signal its themes. The introduction of the main character, Avery, draws the […]

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