Meditation for the 99%

Mindfulness continues to blow up, so much that the rich and powerful have caught on. A recent Forbes column argues that “mindful leadership” leads to an “improved bottom line and more fulfilled employees.” Researchers have found that meditation “significantly enhances the performance” of elite US special forces.

But forget the hype. Let’s get down a working definition of mindfulness, one that is relevant to what matters most in our lives: work, love, fun, friends, and family.

Read my original blog post: jeremymohler.blog/what-being-mindful-really-means-and-why-you-should-try-to-be-it/

Sign up for my weekly emails on meditation and bringing mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics: jeremymohler.blog/signup

Meditation teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s phrase is an antidote to our habit of trying to escape the emotions we don’t want to feel.

In this episode you'll hear about one time I was in the Dominican Republic and I was freaking out about how fast the teenager driving the van was driving, another story about a bridge made of glass, and how meditation can help you get in touch with your emotions instead of constantly trying to escape them, like most of us do.

Read more: jeremymohler.blog/how-the-phrase-real-but-not-true-can-help-you-understand-your-emotions-and-even-racism/

Sign up for my emails: jeremymohler.blog/signup

As I’ve written and talked about, meditation is most powerful when practiced daily. But doing anything other than fulfilling our basic needs—eating, sleeping, drinking water—each and every single day is hard work. And the last thing we need in this society is more work that we don’t get paid for.

So, if your 2019 resolutions and goals include meditating more—or finally meditating for the first time—I’ve got some tips.

Read more here: jeremymohler.blog/some-tips-for-finally-getting-around-to-meditating-daily/

Reading about meditation is a tempting distraction from the practice itself, which is more about revealing wisdom you already have than gathering knowledge. But reading can inspire you to practice, especially in the beginning, before you’ve been convinced of what meditation can do for you off the cushion, in your everyday life.

Books have been crucial to inspiring and deepening my practice, so I’d like to share three that will help you along “on the path,” as they say.

Read the original blog post.

Sign up for my weekly emails on bringing mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics.

This episode is about a trick to lessening social anxiety. You’ll hear a little about my own social anxiety, a powerful quote from meditation teacher Pema Chödrön, and an easy to remember way to start to chip away at connecting more with other people.

I gave it away in the title. You’d be surprised by how many people are walking around dying to be asked about the most important parts of their lives.

Read the original blog post: jeremymohler.blog/social-anxiety-cheat-code-ask-dumb-questions

Sign up for my weekly emails on bringing mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics: jeremymohler.blog/signup

Life is hard, especially in a capitalist society. The vast majority of us are only valued for our time and energy — our labor — and not for our creativity and passion. And even that doesn’t buy us the stability, community, and free time we all yearn for. Markets crash, the rent keeps going up, and we feel further and further behind.

So, why meditate? Why waste the little free time you have on something that at times can feel like work?

Read the original blog post: jeremymohler.blog/why-meditate-if-its-difficult/

Sign up for my weekly emails on bringing mindfulness to work, relationships, and politics: jeremymohler.blog/signup

Despite the Republican Party’s insistence that anyone who struggles to pay the bills must be lazy, Americans like to hustle. The story of the ancient Indian whose journey led to the creation of Buddhism shows how striving, especially for perfection, only leads to more suffering.

Read the original blog post: http://jeremymohler.blog/what-the-buddhas-near-death-experience-teaches-us-about-hustling-too-hard/

The trick to being around family during the holidays is, counterintuitively, going easy on yourself.

Self-compassion won’t convince your uncle that his support for Trump is support for white supremacy or stop your grandmother from judging you for not going to church. But it will give you a little bit more freedom to choose how to engage with those who trigger you back into parts of yourself much smaller, narrower, and younger than who you’ve become and who you really are.

Read my original blog post with more detail here: https://liberationnotes.com/how-to-be-mindful-with-family-this-thanksgiving-d479998d3aac

I'm a believer in the power of daily meditation. While I’m not a believer in “shoulds,” you should meditate every day, because mindfulness — calmness, clarity, the ability to pay attention — mostly fades away during sleep.

If that sounds like work, like one more task on a never-ending to-do list, here’s a shortcut: try a meditation retreat.

Read the original blog post for this, here: https://liberationnotes.com/want-to-start-meditating-every-day-try-a-meditation-retreat-to-get-inspired-6bd32538eab7

There’s a well-known metaphor that likens mindfulness, the product of meditation, to the sun. Openness and clear thinking are always available to us, yet they’re obscured by clouds of thoughts and emotions.

But I think the moon is the more useful comparison. The moon metaphor will help you open—to others, to love, to life —whether our openness is received or not.

Read the original blog post on this, here: https://liberationnotes.com/mindfulness-is-like-the-moon-its-there-whether-you-see-it-or-not-ccd7caf7a9f6