Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo

Your meditation practice might be giving you a clue you keep missing: it can be felt in the head. Sean Fargo sits down with Liam McClintock, founder of FitMind and author of “FitMind: Four Steps to Lasting Bliss”, to talk about a surprisingly concrete way to track craving, distraction, and ease through subtle sensations in the forehead, face, and skull. We dig into how the body works like a biofeedback device, and why “release” is less about controlling thoughts and more about relaxing the system so awareness can open again. 

From there, we go straight at a popular debate: mindfulness vs loving-kindness. Liam shares why, in lived practice, metta and mindfulness become hard to separate, and how a genuinely loving state naturally carries clarity, meta-awareness, and stability. We also connect this to core Buddhist training, including the Eightfold Path, right effort, and why over-efforting can quietly turn meditation into another achievement project. 

We close with real-world integration after monastic life: the shock of stimulation, the value of boundaries, and the “mental diet” idea of curating what you feed the mind each day. If you care about mindfulness, meditation, neuroscience, jhana, and building a resilient mental fitness practice that actually holds up off the cushion, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stressed, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Pain is inevitable, but the brain’s “this is unbearable” reaction is more flexible than most of us realize. 

Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Sara Lazar joins us to unpack the neural correlates of equanimity and to answer a question many meditators quietly carry: does mindfulness meditation actually protect us from pain and fear, or does it just change the story we tell ourselves? 

We dig into what equanimity really means, why it is not indifference, and how an open heart can coexist with calm, clear discernment. 

We walk through compelling mindfulness neuroscience from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), including evidence that just eight weeks of practice can be associated with measurable brain changes. 

We talk about the default mode network and what it has to do with rumination and mind wandering, plus why decreased stress and increased well-being may rely on different brain systems. Then we get specific about pain: mindfulness does not necessarily “turn pain off.” 

Instead, experienced practitioners can show more sensory processing alongside less evaluative resistance, which lines up with a major real-world takeaway: intensity and unpleasantness are not the same thing. 

From there, we move into fear of pain and anxiety, comparing mindfulness training with a structured exercise and stress education program. Both can reduce stress, but mindfulness shows a unique edge for anxiety and emotion regulation, tied to practice time and to learning processes like extinction and memory for safety. 

We end by guiding a body scan you can use as an off-ramp from spiraling thoughts into grounded body awareness. If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

We talk with Dr Elisha Goldstein about how tiny internal shifts can calm chronic stress, change our choices and strengthen emotional longevity. We break down the 4R method and explore why peace can feel like simply being with what is here. 

• introducing Dr Elisha Goldstein and Tiny Shifts 
• chronic stress as the background “water” we stop noticing 
• the 4R method: recognise, release, refocus, reinforce 
• release as lowering physiological load and conserving energy 
• refocus as choosing responses that support sleep, nutrition and exercise 
• emotional longevity as emotional health for the long run and a driver of healthspan 
• connection as biological protection and a lever for wellbeing 
• peace as curiosity, allowing and ending the inner battle 
• reinforce as encoding small wins into memory with body awareness and mental snapshots 
• free starter bundle available at elishagoldstein.com 

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Jennifer Moffitt guides a short mindfulness practice that begins with movement and ends with a calmer, clearer connection to breath and body.

 We focus on permission, presence, and a gentle way to return when the mind wanders.
 
• settling into breath and body awareness as a quick reset 
• letting the body wiggle or stretch before stillness 
• taking “no permission needed” seriously as a somatic cue 
• feeling contact points to ground attention 
• using the breath as an anchor in the present moment 
• noticing pauses and cycles without changing the breath 
• responding to distraction with kindness and returning again 
• recognising daily patterns of shallow breathing and rushing 

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Birth has a way of destroying our best-laid plans, and that’s not a personal failure, it’s reality. 

We sit down with Jennifer Moffitt, a midwife who’s attended over a thousand births and now serves as Director of Community Partnerships and senior faculty at Mindful Birthing, to talk about what actually helps when control slips away: mindfulness, embodiment, and self-compassion you can practice before labor ever begins.

https://www.eomega.org/people/jennifer-averill-moffitt

We explore Mindful Birthing (also known as Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting, MBCP), a nine-week mindfulness-based childbirth education program rooted in the evidence base of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. 

Jennifer breaks down the five intentions of the curriculum, why “don’t know mind” belongs in every birth plan, and how mindful awareness can help parents relate differently to fear, uncertainty, and intense sensation. You’ll also hear a brief guided breath and body practice you can return to anytime you feel spun up or disconnected. 

We go deeper into the public health side too: perinatal outcomes in the United States, maternal health disparities, the chronic stress of racism, and the growing research linking stress physiology to preterm birth. Then we unpack one of the most practical reframes for labor and life: pain in labor as transformational pain, and how mindfulness can decouple pain from suffering so you don’t miss the breaks between contractions. 

If you find this helpful, subscribe, share with a friend who’s preparing for birth, and leave a review so more parents and clinicians can find the show. What’s one moment you want to meet with more presence this week?

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Jhana gets talked about like a remote mountaintop experience, but Liam McClintock argues it can be trained with a surprisingly human doorway: love. I sit down with Liam, founder of FitMind and author of “FitMind: Four Steps to Lasting Bliss,” to dig into how metta (loving-kindness meditation) can unify the mind, stabilize attention, and reveal the subtle mechanics of craving and the sense of self. If you’ve ever felt like meditation turns into effort, strain, or self-criticism, this conversation offers a different route. 

We unpack what jhana means in Liam’s tradition and why the term can be controversial in Buddhist circles. Rather than “bearing down” on a tiny target like the breath at the nostrils, Liam describes a softer, open-hearted concentration where joy becomes the fuel. He shares why this approach can be especially effective for Western meditators, how it relates to neuroscience and markers like heart rate variability, and why these altered states of consciousness are not about escapism but insight into suffering and its cessation. 

Then we get concrete. Liam walks through what metta practice looks like, from sparking the feeling with a memory, to sending kindness to yourself first, to expanding outward until the phrases and images fade and the felt quality of care becomes the anchor. We also break down his Four Rs for distractions, Recognize, Release, Relish, Remain, a simple framework for coming back without tightening your attention or blaming yourself. 

If you want a practical mindfulness meditation method you can use on the cushion and in daily life, press play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the practice.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

If this conversation stirred something in you, Master Mingtong Gu’s book Coming Home to Embodied Awakening is a beautiful next step. 

Order at mingtonggu.com/book and receive a free bonus collection of video teachings.

• Website: mingtonggu.com
• Book: mingtonggu.com/book
• Instagram: @chicenter
• Facebook: Wisdom Healing Qigong
• YouTube: @WisdomHealingQigong
• LinkedIn: Mingtong Gu

For a free chapter of Master Mingtong Gu's book, "Coming Home to Embodied Awakening,” click here:

https://chicenter.pages.ontraport.net/t?orid=282356&opid=2

If you’ve ever felt like you’re living from the neck up, grinding through life while your body trails behind, this conversation is a reset. 

We sit down with Master Ming Tong Gu, Wisdom Healing Qigong teacher and author of Coming Home to Embodied Awakening, to talk about a truth that sounds simple but changes everything: your body isn’t a problem to solve, it’s the place you come home to.

We go deep into what “exile from the body” actually looks like, from Ming Tong’s own story of growing up in rural China with decades of asthma, scoliosis, and chronic pain, to the way many of us chase happiness through external achievement, relationships, and constant self-improvement. 

From there, we name what’s making disconnection worse right now: post-pandemic isolation, screen addiction, and the rising existential pressure of AI. 

If machines can process information faster than we can, what makes being human meaningful? Ming Tong’s answer is grounded in embodied awakening: the human body lets us directly feel life, including joy, grief, love, discomfort, and the mystery of being here.

You’ll also get a short guided initiation meditation (hand on heart) you can do immediately, plus practical frameworks for somatic healing and mindfulness: a reframe of suffering as disconnection and liberation as return, and the “Three A’s” for working with pain, stress, and emotional overwhelm: acceptance, activation, and appreciation. 

If you care about mindfulness, nervous system regulation, Qigong, trauma healing, and genuine connection in the age of technology, this is for you.

Check out Mingtong’s book and explore his teachings, then subscribe, share this with a friend who feels disconnected, and leave a review so more people can find the path back home to their bodies.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Mindfulness can calm you down, but what if that’s only the entry point? I’m joined by Melvin McLeod, longtime editor at Lion’s Roar and a co-founder of Mindful Magazine, to talk about the side of mindfulness most people don’t hear about: the part that refuses to flatter us. Melvin shares the moment he was a young police reporter in Montreal, opened a Buddhist book, read a single paragraph, and felt a deep recognition. What he sensed wasn’t escapism. It was integrity, a promise that genuine practice would tell the truth and give us what we need, not what we want.

Melvin's new book: With A Single Breath

From there, we zoom out to the bigger question of impact. Melvin explains why “Capital B” Buddhism, as an Asian religion in the modern West, may remain limited in reach even when its teachings are profound. We talk about the secular mindfulness movement associated with Jon Kabat-Zinn, and why evidence-based mindfulness meditation has become a powerful, modern contemplative tradition that millions will actually try. Along the way we explore how mindfulness connects to universal human longings: awareness, compassion, and insight that improve mental health, relationships, and the way we show up in society.

The heart of our conversation is a challenge and an invitation. Instead of treating mindfulness as a stress tool or focus hack, Melvin argues it’s time for the mindfulness movement to take a “next step” and offer a complete path of transformation, including the depth people used to seek in religion, without the baggage that turns so many away. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find these conversations.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Turn off the lights and the mind gets loud fast. Sean Fargo sits down with Scott Berman, founder of Sky Cave Retreats, to explore what happens when you spend days in complete darkness with no phone, no screens, no books, and none of the usual ways we keep ourselves busy. Sky Cave’s earth-sheltered cabins in southern Oregon are built to be fully blacked out and almost totally soundproof, creating a rare form of solitude that can feel nurturing, confronting, or both.

Scott shares why he does not frame darkness retreats as a heroic endurance test or a guaranteed “healing experience.” Instead, he focuses on the quality of the container: how the retreat is presented, how safety is supported, and how much permission people have to be exactly as they are. We dig into disorientation and why losing normal time and place cues can be unsettling, even when you are physically safe. Scott also breaks down how the autonomic nervous system can interpret being alone in the dark as a survival threat, and why normalizing fear, sadness, anger, or restlessness can be more helpful than trying to transcend them.

We also explore a subtle but powerful idea: belonging often feels more urgent than authenticity. When we expect to do a retreat “the right way,” we can unconsciously hide the parts of our experience that do not match the story. This conversation is for anyone curious about darkness retreats, sensory deprivation, mindfulness practice, somatic awareness, nervous system regulation, and what real integration can look like after intense stillness.

If this resonates, subscribe to the podcast, share it with a friend who’s retreat-curious, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

The fastest way to burn out in helping work is also the most socially praised: chronic self-sacrifice. 

We sit down with Dr. John Demartini, world-renowned human behavior expert and creator of the Demartini Method, to untangle the guilt-ridden “shoulds” that many mindfulness teachers, coaches, and caregivers carry and replace them with a practical principle: sustainable fair exchange. 

Service is real, but reward is not a moral failure. When giving and receiving are balanced, purpose becomes energizing, relationships stabilize, and your work stops feeling like a slow leak.

From there, we move into a toolkit for building meaning through action. Dr. Demartini shares the seven questions he used to design his own path, from naming what you would love to do to planning for obstacles and extracting value from whatever happens each day. 

We also explore “holy curiosity”, information theory, entropy, and how asking better questions can reduce bias and help you see a fuller truth rather than getting stuck in polarised opinions.

Finally, we connect mindfulness and meditation to the nervous system: seeking and avoiding can drive intrusive thoughts, fear loops, and even insomnia. 

Dr. Demartini explains mindfulness as loving awareness, not romance or infatuation, but the capacity to hold both sides at once and integrate what you’ve disowned. 

If you want a clearer mind, steadier emotions, and a more sustainable relationship with purpose, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s overgiving, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...