Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

This is why taking productive action is particularly helpful when you are feeling down, unmotivated, or apathetic—when your brain’s SADNESS pathway is dominant. You can give yourself permission to feel those feelings but not dwell on them or take them as destiny. Instead, you shift the focus to taking just one action, bringing your feelings, whatev

We simply notice it with bare attention and keep returning to the present moment by focusing on our breath, what is real right now. In mindfulness, we are so attentive to our thoughts and reactions that we see precisely where they lead and how they do or do not produce suffering for ourselves and others.

There are times when doing this will feel enjoyable and peaceful. It can feel like a huge release to let go of something you’ve been ruminating on. On the other hand, we aren’t doing this to eliminate thoughts or to make anything go away. We are doing it to become clearer and more authentic about what is actually happening in a given moment.

How do you keep going in your efforts toward change, when immediate success is not in sight, when you’re awfully tired, when you’re frustrated? Do you have a refuge in something bigger than the current circumstance? Where can we connect to something larger than what’s in our immediate experience, larger than the small-minded views the world may be