When encountering difficult thoughts or emotions like sadness or fear, instead of pushing them away, embrace and feel them as transient waves that are part of your fundamental nature, allowing them to pass rather than fighting against them.
Integrate a sense of play into your mindfulness practice, exercise, and daily life to foster a state of ‘flow’ and presence, rather than approaching these activities with rigidity or as scheduled tasks to achieve a goal.
Actively seek and engage in human connection with other people who take mindfulness or meditation seriously, as this social interaction is a powerful form of practice that can help reduce suffering.
Use meditation to connect with your emotions and allow yourself to fully feel them, even sadness, as this complete experience can be cathartic and even surprisingly pleasant, rather than something to avoid.
Instead of seeking contained environments for practice, actively use the challenges and experiences of daily life to broaden and deepen your meditation or mindfulness practice.
Acknowledge and confront suffering, as it can be a powerful catalyst for wanting to engage in practices like meditation.
Engage in ‘meditative cross-training’ by learning and applying different types of meditation practices (e.g., Vipassana, Zen, compassion meditation) to suit various scenarios, phases of life, and types of suffering, rather than sticking to just one.
To loosen up about getting stuck in thinking, identify and name recurring inner neurotic thought patterns (e.g., ‘anger’ after a person), which can create inner congeniality and distance from the thoughts.
View meditation as ‘widening the bowl’ to be okay with all thoughts and emotions, understanding that thoughts are the practice of the mind, and the goal is to not identify so closely with them rather than to eliminate them.
Adopt the mindset of ‘very sad, no problem’ to allow yourself to fully feel sadness and other difficult emotions without trying to escape them, recognizing that it’s possible to hold both sadness and a sense of well-being simultaneously.
When recalling past disappointments or traumas, discussing them in a positive or reflective context (e.g., with a friend or therapist) can restructure and heal the associated brain memories, rather than compounding negative self-stories.
Spend time in or near water, such as staring at waves or immersing yourself, as it provides rejuvenating ‘soft focus’ brain stimulation without engaging the planning or obsessive mind, offering renewal even in short periods.
Engage in activities that naturally remove distractions like cell phones and immerse you in a dynamic environment, fostering solitude and presence, thereby creating a contemplative space.
When unsure which practice to do or feeling overwhelmed by choices, return to the basic mindfulness of breathing as a reliable and ever-present anchor for your meditation practice.
For longer meditation sessions (e.g., 1-1.5 hours), begin with slow, deliberate body scans, then focus on the sensation of breath at the nose, transition to open awareness by noting arising consciousness, and conclude by inquiring into ‘what is knowing’ or ‘who is taking it all in.’
Use short windows of time, like a 25-minute taxi ride, to practice open awareness by noting whatever arises (hearing, feeling, moving) and occasionally inquiring into ‘who is taking all this in.’