Deconstructing Yourself

By Jessica Graham In mindfulness meditation we observe and explore our experience without trying to control, manipulate, or change it. One the first big insights for many of us is how much we try to control every aspect of our life. Everything from our relationships (and the people we have them with), to our bodily [...]

I remember as a teenager, feeling that the Monty Python joke “my brain hurts” was talking about me. It was clear to me that my biggest problem in life was my own mind. I was very anxious, sometimes experiencing paralyzing anxiety attacks. Have yo ever been so afraid you couldn’t move? But most of all [...]

by Jessica Graham Part One My meditation practice has helped me with all kinds of things. I don’t lose my keys as often. I don’t have meaningless sex with strangers. I don’t wake up with bits of teeth in my mouth from grinding them. My sisters enjoy my company. I usually don’t eat foods that [...]

By Jessica Graham Pressure above the eyes and in the middle of my chest. An almost tickle in the center of my stomach. Squeezing around the shoulders. Acidic tastes rising from my throat and a choppy fuzzy undercurrent of mental talk. Some of the talk makes it to the surface: “I’m a Fake”, “I’m Undisciplined”, [...]

by Michael W. Taft In the last three articles, I wrote about concentration as an iterative process, the activity of listening, and the skill of breaking things down into smaller, manageable pieces. In other articles we also looked at how multitasking is multi-failing, and ways to reduce distraction. At this point you probably get the [...]

by Michael W. Taft You’re having complex feelings about the things that happened with your partner yesterday. You feel upset and confused, there’s so much going on. You meet your friend at a coffee shop, hoping to talk about some of this. But as soon as you start, she digs out her iPhone and starts [...]