There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life. ~Tara Brach
Do you listen to what your mind tells you? Or do you step back and observe it cooly, knowing that you aren’t what you think?
Because, there is a world of difference between those two positions. If we are to trust what many of the great meditation teachers have told us through the ages, one leads to a life of insight, understanding, and happiness, while the other leads in the opposite direction.
In today’s interview with author and mindfulness facilitator Jennifer Howd, we explore the practice of mindfulness meditation and how it teaches you that you are much more than what you think.
Three Lesson From Mindfulness
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ~Viktor Frankl
One of the greatest things I’ve learned from twenty years of meditation is how to observe my mind. It’s not something you get overnight. With patient practice, you start to build a little space between you and the stream of thought that runs like a shimmering stream through your head.
Cultivating that space has helped me understand many things about life and about myself. Here are three important ones.
- First, I learned that I am not what I think. I am infinitely more.
- Second, I learned that without that space between me and my mind, it’s easy to live life hypnotized by the thought stream and mistaking it for myself.
- And third, it taught me that I always have a choice in how to respond to life.
Sure, I can have strong reactions to things. Happens every day. I get stressed about time. I get upset at drivers while I’m walking the streets of Boston. I feel deflated and defeated when my new blog post or podcast doesn’t attract attention.
But I always know that I have a choice in response to these reactions. I can dwell on them and fight them or I can accept them, observe them, and keep moving.
You see, if you merely react to the many narratives in your mind, they will dictate how you live. The problem is that those narratives are mostly habitual and conditioned responses to life. More often than not, they are shaped by our deep fears, desires, and traumas.
When we blithely listen those voices, we start to believe them. Then slowly but surely, they eclipse the natural expanse of who we are and what’s possible in this life.
In contrast, mindfulness meditation helps you reverse that process and live a more conscious life.
The Mindfulness Diaries
Healing comes from letting there be room for all of “this” to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. ~Pema Chodron
In today’s episode, we explore the practice of mindfulness meditation with Jennifer Howd, the author of The Mindfulness Diaries: How I Survived My First 9-Day Silent Retreat. In her book and in her work, Jennifer uses the power of story to help illuminate the depth and subtlety of mindfulness practice.
You see, mindfulness isn’t merely a practice you do sitting on a cushion in the quiet hours of the morning.
As Jennifer says again and again, mindfulness is a way of life. It’s a way of looking at oneself and the world that’s deeply awake and profoundly present.
I invited Jennifer Howd to the OneMind Meditation Podcast so she could share her expertise, her stories, and her passion for mindfulness meditation. I think you’re going to love it.
In this episode of The OneMind Meditation Podcast, Jennifer Howd and I discuss:
- The dramatic story and events that led to Jennifer embracing meditation
- How she started her daily meditation practice
- Her experience training at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center
- Why she was more comfortable learning, practicing, and facilitating a secular based approach to mindfulness
- The role that meditation played in helping her shed old patterns of reactive behavior and belief
- How she learned that what she thought was not who she was
- How to practice mindfulness based meditation
- How to deal with the inner critic
- How mindfulness helps you know the difference between pain and suffering
- Why meditation teacher Shinzen Young says that pain + resistance = suffering
- How mindfulness helped Jenn overcome her fear of performing on stage at the Fringe Festival
- Jennifer’s advice for new and aspiring meditators
Show Notes
- Buy The Mindfulness Diaries
- Read The Mindfulness Diaries Blog
- Connect with Jennifer Howd directly
- Learn about The UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center
>If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like our Meditation for Life Mini Course
>Learn more about our free awareness meditation course, How To Free Your Mind & Discover Deep Peace
>Take a self-paced orientation to Meditation and explore the How To Meditate Core Training Program
Mindful living lives in the moments of life, the here and now, it is the only true reality within the expression of life, creation unfolds collapsing time distilled in a single moment or the here & now realized which actually fells timeless.
I feel your presence here is a positive influence for those who seek an awakening to deeper experiences, meaningful expressions within their own actions in life, their own understanding or insights that are defining the moments of life’s experience. This is innately available to us at ALL times, it is our ground state veiled through the conditioning of our lives. Meditation is a practice of awakening what is innately who we are, the true self, within the collective consciousness.
Keep up the good work! Adventure has its rewards in discovery. The knowledge of wisdom is the path to our awakening and ultimate recovery. I realized this through the disciplines of meditation, mindful intentions and a belief in the omnipresence of Spirit, the collective, universal consciousness of life itself.
Dear William,
Thank you for your thoughtful, kind, and full response. It sounds like you have a very rich practice. Thank you so much for sharing your insights. I resonate with much of what you’ve written here. All my best, Morgan
I enjoy your audio meditation, I use them daily to help me just be quiet and still, I still find it somewhat difficult but I set aside time each day to listen to your audio tapes. Thanks regards Gwen
Dear Gwen,
Thank you. I really appreciate your comment. I think the consistent time and energy you are investing in meditation is really going to pay off over time. Meditation is challenging. There’s no doubt about it. I used to fall asleep every session for several years before I stabilized in my own practice. I think that might be a somewhat extreme example, but my point is that it can be hard and so it’s important to go easy on ourselves and not be too critical, because with consistency and patience, it’s going to get easier and the benefits will keep increasing.
Do you have more audio meditation tapes that I might be able to access, I find the audio meditation extremely helpful, being a senior pensioner I am unable to purchase some of the meditation that are available, so I use the mini course daily. Thanks for your help
Regards
Gwen