Essays
Personal essays on mindfulness and meditation in ordinary life, newest first.
- Something Sacred
February 28, 2025 A young cellist’s advice becomes an essay on taking what matters seriously and turning ordinary work, from making beds to music practice, into something sacred.
- Washing Dishes Meditation
February 13, 2025 A short guided meditation for the kitchen sink: noticing resistance, warm water, textures and breath, and turning an everyday chore into mindful practice.
- Feeling Numb? 4 Mindfulness Tips to Help
January 31, 2025 An essay on the strange experience of feeling numb, why it can happen, four gentle mindfulness tips, and when to reach out to a doctor for more support.
- Grounded Feet
November 19, 2024 Fight or flight lives in the toes, calm lives in grounded feet: a short essay and grounding practice for settling the body by connecting feet with the earth.
- Coming Home
January 30, 2024 An essay on missing a family Christmas, a secret plan called coming home, and what it means to practice coming home to ourselves with comfort and familiarity.
- Seven Tips for Sleep Training as Adults
January 10, 2024 A personal essay on insomnia and meditation with seven tips for retraining the mind for sleep: rituals, audio cues, daytime practice and gentler expectations.
- Hygge, anyone?
November 10, 2023 What the Danish idea of hygge can teach about rest without guilt: making space for coziness, contentment and simple comforts as the winter months arrive.
- The Path to Awe
October 24, 2023 Drawing on Dacher Keltner’s research on awe, an essay on where people find wonder, from music and nature to other people, and how to make a personal map to awe.
- Wedding Report
September 19, 2023 Lessons learned while helping adult children prepare for a wedding: expectations, letting go, and using mindfulness skills when we feel ourselves collapse.
- 3 Lessons From the Garden
July 25, 2023 A container garden on a gravel patch becomes a lesson in patience, care and growth: three mindful lessons from tending vegetables and waiting for them to grow.
- Avoid the Pinball Effect
July 7, 2023 Bouncing from one chore to the next like a pinball: an essay on finding the middle path between rushing and rigid focus through small, intentional choices.
- Walking the Labyrinth, Part 2
June 7, 2023 From forest bathing in Oregon to a desert labyrinth: how to walk slowly, match breath to footsteps and use the senses in a mindful walking practice.
- Walk the Labyrinth, Part 1
May 30, 2023 Walking a small neighborhood labyrinth in the early morning: an essay on self-consciousness, practicing with purpose, and finding stillness inside and out.
- Just One More Thing to Do
April 18, 2023 Why we cram one more task in before leaving the house, and how to make the transition from home to the world calmer, more present and more intentional.
- Extracting Happiness
April 7, 2023 Getting through the long grey end of winter by noticing and savoring small good moments, and a short breathing practice for extracting happiness from them.
- Progress is Non-Linear
April 7, 2023 Two steps forward, one step back: an essay on why growth never follows a straight line and how to meet setbacks with patience instead of discouragement.