Mindful

Returning to the breath, again and again, when the mind has wandered—that's how we train our attention. A 5-minute breathing practice from Mark Bertin. 

Take a break from the challenges of your day with this guided meditation. Wind down, come back to your body, and open yourself up to the happiness and compassion around you. Your brain will thank you. Show notes: Meditation by Tim Desmond. Tim Desmond is a mindfulness teacher, therapist, Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Antioch University, and co-founder of Morning Sun Mindfulness Center.

This guided meditation helps to find the similarities among us all. We are asked to look at each other with compassion and see how we all relate. This practice can be done while you think of a friend or a difficult person in your life. Alternatively, it can be done with a partner sitting across from you. Show notes: Meditation by Mirabai Bush Mirabai Bush is a senior fellow at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. She has led mindfulness training for lawyers, judges, educators, environmental leaders, activists, students, and the army, and was a key developer of Search Inside Yourself at Google.

Get some quality shut-eye with this three-minute mindfulness practice. 

Anxiety can bring a lot of other feelings with it including feelings of isolation and separation. Bob Stahl says reconciliation helps you make peace with yourself and the world. In this guided meditation, you will go through the three steps to reconciliation: with yourself, people you have hurt, and those who have hurt you.  Show notes: adapted from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety by Bob Stahl PhD, Florence Meleo-Meyer MS, MA, and Lynn Koerbel MPH. Bob Stahl, PhD, has founded eight Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs in medical centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently offering programs at Dominican Hospital and El Camino Hospitals in Los Gatos and Mt. View.

In this podcast, Patricia Rockman, director of education and clinical services for the Center for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, and Mindful columnist Elaine Smookler, both cancer survivors, talk about how mindfulness factors into the cancer experience. Full transcript here: https://www.mindful.org/how-to-show-up-when-you-have-cancer/

Life isn’t predictable and with unpredictability comes unexpected changes and at times difficult emotions. Soothe your stress and work through the emotions with this guided meditation. Give yourself the chance to respond with curiosity and the space you need to process.  Show notes: Meditation by Zindel Segal.  Zindel Segal, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto. He has pioneered the use of mindfulness meditation for promoting wellness in the area of mood disorders and has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the past 15 years.

This 5-minute mindfulness practice cultivates gratitude for life's small delights as you move through the senses.

This guided meditation offers the opportunity to turn toward your difficult emotions. It can be uncomfortable to manage uncertainty and let go of the need to control but by doing so we can instead find compassion and kindness.  Show notes: Meditation by Carley Hauck. Carley Hauck is the founder of Leading from Wholeness, a Bay Area consultancy specializing in leadership, training, and executive coaching. Carley has supported mission driven leaders and companies in tech, finance, and high growth startups, such as: Bank of the West, Linkedin, Pixar, Genentech, Clif Bar, Asana.

Elisha Goldstein says stress isn’t the problem. It’s how we relate to it. This guided meditation tames reactivity and helps you unwind from a hectic day. Once you stop and let go, you can return to the present and go about the rest of your day.  Show notes: Meditation by Elisha Goldstein.  Elisha Goldstein, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and conducts a private practice in West Los Angeles. He is founder of the Mindful Living Collective.

Explore this 10-minute guided practice to bring attention to your body. 

Resist trying to force yourself into peaceful sleep, and instead turn your attention to letting go of judgmental thoughts. It’s okay to have thoughts come up before bed, just let them melt away. Hopefully, by doing this, your body will calm and you will drift off to sleep in the process.  Show notes: Meditation by Mark Bertin.  Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics.

Take a guided walk to help savor your day. This walking practice isn’t about where you go or how fast you go. It’s about staying consistently in the present moment and embracing mindfulness with each step.  Show notes: This meditation is adapted from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 3, available here. These guided meditations are designed to accompany Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Meditation is Not What You Think and the other three volumes based on Coming to Our Senses. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as well as the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

This guided meditation cultivates the ability to calm and focus the mind with mindfulness. There’s no need to panic if your thoughts are racing, that’s natural. Instead, Rich Fernandez asks you to focus your attention on a single object.  Show notes: Meditation by Rich Fernandez.  Rich Fernandez is the CEO of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI). He was previously the director of executive education and people development at Google, where he was also one of the first SIY teachers.

Take a break and boost your mood with this 10-minute walking meditation.

This guided meditation helps open your heart to both giving and receiving love. You’ll begin by imagining yourself surrounded by a circle loving beings. Offer love and goodwill to them and they’ll do the same for you.  Show notes: Meditation by Sharon Salzberg Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher and New York Times best-selling author. She is also the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society.

This practice uses counting breaths to cultivate mindful awareness. This practice can be done before bedtime, activity changes such as homework time or whenever it’s needed  Show notes: Adapted from Mindful Parenting for ADHD by Mark Bertin.  Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics.

You can be mindful even when life gets noisy. Bring mindfulness to the soundscape around you including the most annoying ones you encounter daily. This guided meditation helps your awareness switch from aversion to curiosity which lessens the negative impact you feel when you hear irritating sounds.  Show notes: Adapted from MBSR Every Day by Bob Stahl PhD and Elisha  Goldstein.Bob Stahl, PhD, has founded eight Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs in medical centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently offering programs at Dominican Hospital and El Camino Hospitals in Los Gatos and Mt. View.

Take some time out of your day to send kindness to yourself and others. This nurturing guided meditation helps you breathe compassion in and out. You’ll end the practice by soaking up all the compassion you’ve brought into your space.  Show notes: Adapted from The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. Kristin Neff, PhD is an associate professor in Human Development and Culture in the Educational Psychology Department, at the University of Texas at Austin.