I’d love a meditation for people with chronic illnesses whose bodies hurt and they are unable to move much. Is there anything beyond one breath after another?!
Yes, I am overdue to offer something on chronic pain. I appreciate the suggestion Carole, hope you’re getting some relief. Stay tuned.
In terms of what I can offer right now, the two broad strategies are focus towards, and focus away (As my old teacher Shinzen used to put it.) Focus towards is the counter intuitive move of getting ever-clearer about the very centre of the pain and its edges and developing enough equanimity and clarity with it that the pain is less of a problem. Much to say about that, and it’s not a very practical option for most people. Focus away, well there are many strategies for this, different ways you can take care of yourself by putting your attention elsewhere. From self compassion phrases to different sorts of home base. Can also be hard to do in chronic pain conditions, so all of this needs to be approached with a realistic mindset and a willingness for things to be imperfect.
I’ll write up post laying it all out and offering some options.
Thnx Carole for asking this question. I have chronic pain and waiting for another surgery the 28th. My situation is burdensome on my family and that’s a source of anxiety for me.
I have been loving your content for years since i discovered you on the calm app in 2020! One experience I struggle with as a parent to 3 young kids (one on autism spectrum) is feeling like I’ve forgotten how to relax, like in every moment feeling like I need to be doing something. The running to do list for everyone around me. I also have ADHD and have really loved hearing you speak about your experience—one of daughters was recently diagnosed and I’d love to find more content for kids to help with the distracted mind! She is 9.
I so relate. While I don’t have young kids (I now have a 17 year old—how did that happen???) I relate to the running to-do list. I often feel if I’m not doing, I should be doing and then spend a lot of time feeling crappy about myself for not doing. I also have ADHD and know that for me, I have learned to mask by doing. In other words, I tell the world that there’s nothing to see here—see how busy I am? I must be worthy and normal and just like the rest of the work because I am doing.
Love both of these reports, I can definitely try to make something. I’ve noticed that with my ADHD, I have this fixation on doing whatever the thing is in front of me, because I worry that otherwise I’ll forget what I’m supposed to do . You know what I mean? It’s like this desperate holding onto a task in what might otherwise be a fog of distracted forgetfulness. And then under that, fear that I’m not gonna be OK, this constant attempt through my actions to somehow existentially secure myself, like I’m trying to build a pathway through life in wide open air
Hi Jeff. Thank you for all your original meditations. You are my go to on the Happier App. I’d love a mediation focussing on fear and trepidation of change. I’m going through some major life changes and am excited about my new path but I’m still leaving behind things I care for and a person I thought was my forever. A meditation about trust and acceptance and the fact that we mostly don’t control anything in life and that’s ok would be nice. With maybe some of your brilliant insights about the nature of life and consciousness to really put things in perspective 😜.
Hi Cyn - the one I did before my surgery a few weeks ago touched on some of that, but I could definitely make something more explicit about the themes of change and impermanence and the very natural fear of those things. I have definitely become more aware of both sides of that in myself.
Cyn - I agree that this would be a really useful focus for a meditation. A sort of related direction is a fear of taking risks that are necessary to embrace change. I know that this has held me back at different times in my life - the fears kept me stuck in situations I wanted to leave. Tamar
Thanks, Jeff. This one will help me a lot. I am wired very strangely and deal with sensory overwhelm frequently. It can be hard for me to go out because the world is too loud, too bright, and smells too strongly for me sometimes (this seems to be part of my bipolar disorder – my senses go to 11 at times). But I’m sure a lot of us deal with sensory overwhelm in other ways. Any chance you would write a meditation for that?
Yes, I actually have one in the pipeline for this Kris, I’ll speed it along! Interestingly, I was just listening to a podcast the other day on the difference between sensory processing sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder. Two different things that often get confused for each other – might be worth you googling to get some extra context. Not that the labels matter, what matters is understanding our own quirky lived experience and how to work with it.
I hear you on this Kris. I second a meditation on this. I consider myself to be a mostly slow, controlled and level headed person. However, I tend to get completely overwhelmed by my sensory experience and am left wondering why. I can’t understand. But for some reason, it’s there. I wish it weren’t, but it is. I wish you the best with this. You’re not the only one.
Thanks, James. Always nice to know that I’m not alone in this. My jacked up senses can make life difficult, and I’m sorry to hear you’re in the same boat. Controlling reactions isn’t very helpful, so maybe there’s a better path through acceptance.
Thanks as always, Jeff, for normalizing the messy (and annoying!) parts of being human (the waxy build up returns!). I am a very impatient person, but it's something I'm continuing to work on (P.S. - I know you and your Daily Trp are a fave for many on the Calm app! I manage the Daily Calm Community Facebook group and SO many find you relatable - so thanks for doing what you do!
That’s amazing to hear Caitlin! Would love to connect with you about how we can get some of the Daily Trip fans over to Home Base. Would you please send me a DM and we can swap ideas?
Hi Lilli! Sure! We'll, I can make a post in the DCC (it's what we call the FB group) and mention Home Base and hopefully that'll send some Calm Jeff fans over this way! 🥰
I do a weekly Mindfulness Question of the week in the group on Sundays so I can post it today!
Nice to be hanging out with you, my fellow, impatient person! I have had many insights mining the deep aqualifiers of my impatience and discovering all that fear under there
Let me think about it, Nancy. I can imagine that being scary and disorienting. It’s already happening a little bit for me in my mid 50s. I chat with my parents - exactly your age - about this theme all the time.
Nancy- thank you for bringing up this topic. The physical challenges as we age are accompanied by emotional responses that can be self-destructive. Although I’m in my early 70s and relatively fit, I’m aware that new physical problems crop up more frequently and then seem to settle in. My initial response is to be angry and then unrealistically try to push through them.
I think a meditation about aging and self-acceptance would be very helpful.
Wishing you many moments reflecting on the joys of having reached 83, despite its challenges.
Thanks, Jeff. Yet again you provided the exact meditation exactly when I needed it! I would be grateful for a meditation focusing on finding peace, equanimity as a highly sensitive person with an emotional whirlwind going on around me. Something to help me feel like I'm not getting sucked into a vortex of craziness!! I suppose that's just life, but something to help step back and find a balance would be great. Thanks!!
Oh yeah, I’m happy to do this - write something specifically for sensitive folks, because finding that common the storm is considerably trickier than for non-sensitive folks. Some of what I offered in this meditation is definitely relevant. I’ll ponder and make something !
Jeff, I wonder if your meditation might help me listen to my own heart and voice. I have since birth dismissed my own life to follow the many, many voices attached to me. I have been intending to live from my own heart yet the practice I have described flies in my face and I see that I have betrayed my lovely self once again. I can find so many thoughts that might judge harshly what I have just asked help with. I express thanks for your response. Open and hoping, Mary
You’re not alone in the desire to trust your own intuitions and instincts. My friend Sebene has helped me a lot with this, you might like the episode we did together on the Mind Bod pod all about intuition and the different ways it emerges in the senses. I find even though I’m more clear about it sometimes, I still too often locate authority for - say, my health, or money decisions - I locate that authority outside of myself
Thank you, lovely Jeff. Yes, how wise we are when we realize we are not alone. A comfort and a healing hug. I will search for this and hope I will find it. I later came to hear from within for me to lean in to my heart space and as you encourage, welcome all. This morning I saw my thoughts moving in and out like clouds..another Jeff gift. Thank you. As Charlie Mackesy wrote, " We all are winging it." I hope I quoted him correctly. With light and laughter blessing you for always, Mary
Thank you for sharing your human struggle and wisdom with us. Caregiving and growing old would be areas that are full special challenges that would be great to have meditations surrounding. Thanks for asking.
Loving your work, Jeff! I'd love a meditation on estrangement - especially estrangement from loved ones, like children and grandchildren who cut off all communication. (In my case, it was definitely my behavior that prompted their decision. I seek to wish them well, and I'm genuinely pleased that they are thriving. I don't want to control them. I love them dearly and I don't see a lot of resentment in my thoughts or feelings about them.)
Interesting request Richard. I’ve been thinking a bit about this too, the inevitability of a certain amount of estrangement, even the kind that overlaps with healthy space and separation and individuation.
Impatience is just the ego’s way of demanding the universe run on its clock. Sit with it long enough and you start to see the joke. You’re not late, you’re just early for the lesson you didn’t want.
Perfect topic for me, just the other day I had an opportunity to practice patience while standing in a ridiculous long line waiting to be served by an understaffed pharmacy. The line barely moved in 20 minutes at one point 😵💫 What normally would have took 15 minutes ended up being an hour wait. I couldnt leave though, I was catching a ferry the next morning and needed my script. Interesting how many emotions I worked thru in that hour, trying very hard to be present to them all. Phew 😮💨
Thanks, Jeff. I’ve been noticing a lot of impatience lately—but the impatience is more often an impatience with self, not others (though that certainly happens too). I’m impatient that at 54, I’m still here. Still uncertain. Still confused. Still running from thing to thing to thing (I have “next shiny object-ism” ima big big way). So this is a helpful meditation.
I’d love a meditation on next-shiny-object-ism too. As I mentioned to another listener, I don’t know how to sit still or just be. I find I’m actively looking for the next shiny object…and the next one and the next one. Like somehow if I take just the right course, or the right vitamin, or follow the right diet or do the right thing (whatever that is) that this is the missing piece and somehow all will be good and I’ll know exactly who I am and what I’m “supposed” to do in life. Ugh. I think in Buddhism this might be what they call the “greedy” type. I feel like Ms Pac-Man just gobbling and gobbling along—every once in awhile I eat one of those blinking circles and everything moves fast and it’s equal parts exciting and too much at the same time. But I don’t know how to stop the game.
I’m often impatient about my impatience! Even though I know that I might break things by rushing, it often takes me a brief period of frenzied activity before I remember to pause. This meditation offered me some much needed space to s l o w d o w n. Thank you Jeff.
I’d love a meditation for people with chronic illnesses whose bodies hurt and they are unable to move much. Is there anything beyond one breath after another?!
Yes, I am overdue to offer something on chronic pain. I appreciate the suggestion Carole, hope you’re getting some relief. Stay tuned.
In terms of what I can offer right now, the two broad strategies are focus towards, and focus away (As my old teacher Shinzen used to put it.) Focus towards is the counter intuitive move of getting ever-clearer about the very centre of the pain and its edges and developing enough equanimity and clarity with it that the pain is less of a problem. Much to say about that, and it’s not a very practical option for most people. Focus away, well there are many strategies for this, different ways you can take care of yourself by putting your attention elsewhere. From self compassion phrases to different sorts of home base. Can also be hard to do in chronic pain conditions, so all of this needs to be approached with a realistic mindset and a willingness for things to be imperfect.
I’ll write up post laying it all out and offering some options.
Thank you so much Jeff.
Thnx Carole for asking this question. I have chronic pain and waiting for another surgery the 28th. My situation is burdensome on my family and that’s a source of anxiety for me.
I have been loving your content for years since i discovered you on the calm app in 2020! One experience I struggle with as a parent to 3 young kids (one on autism spectrum) is feeling like I’ve forgotten how to relax, like in every moment feeling like I need to be doing something. The running to do list for everyone around me. I also have ADHD and have really loved hearing you speak about your experience—one of daughters was recently diagnosed and I’d love to find more content for kids to help with the distracted mind! She is 9.
I so relate. While I don’t have young kids (I now have a 17 year old—how did that happen???) I relate to the running to-do list. I often feel if I’m not doing, I should be doing and then spend a lot of time feeling crappy about myself for not doing. I also have ADHD and know that for me, I have learned to mask by doing. In other words, I tell the world that there’s nothing to see here—see how busy I am? I must be worthy and normal and just like the rest of the work because I am doing.
Love both of these reports, I can definitely try to make something. I’ve noticed that with my ADHD, I have this fixation on doing whatever the thing is in front of me, because I worry that otherwise I’ll forget what I’m supposed to do . You know what I mean? It’s like this desperate holding onto a task in what might otherwise be a fog of distracted forgetfulness. And then under that, fear that I’m not gonna be OK, this constant attempt through my actions to somehow existentially secure myself, like I’m trying to build a pathway through life in wide open air
I so relate to this experience.
Hi Jeff. Thank you for all your original meditations. You are my go to on the Happier App. I’d love a mediation focussing on fear and trepidation of change. I’m going through some major life changes and am excited about my new path but I’m still leaving behind things I care for and a person I thought was my forever. A meditation about trust and acceptance and the fact that we mostly don’t control anything in life and that’s ok would be nice. With maybe some of your brilliant insights about the nature of life and consciousness to really put things in perspective 😜.
Thanks Jeff!!!
Hi Cyn - the one I did before my surgery a few weeks ago touched on some of that, but I could definitely make something more explicit about the themes of change and impermanence and the very natural fear of those things. I have definitely become more aware of both sides of that in myself.
Cyn - I agree that this would be a really useful focus for a meditation. A sort of related direction is a fear of taking risks that are necessary to embrace change. I know that this has held me back at different times in my life - the fears kept me stuck in situations I wanted to leave. Tamar
Oh, this is a great focus Tamar, the fear of taking risks. Thank you.
Thanks, Jeff. This one will help me a lot. I am wired very strangely and deal with sensory overwhelm frequently. It can be hard for me to go out because the world is too loud, too bright, and smells too strongly for me sometimes (this seems to be part of my bipolar disorder – my senses go to 11 at times). But I’m sure a lot of us deal with sensory overwhelm in other ways. Any chance you would write a meditation for that?
Yes, I actually have one in the pipeline for this Kris, I’ll speed it along! Interestingly, I was just listening to a podcast the other day on the difference between sensory processing sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder. Two different things that often get confused for each other – might be worth you googling to get some extra context. Not that the labels matter, what matters is understanding our own quirky lived experience and how to work with it.
Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate your help living with my janky, overenthusiastic nervous system.
I hear you on this Kris. I second a meditation on this. I consider myself to be a mostly slow, controlled and level headed person. However, I tend to get completely overwhelmed by my sensory experience and am left wondering why. I can’t understand. But for some reason, it’s there. I wish it weren’t, but it is. I wish you the best with this. You’re not the only one.
Thanks, James. Always nice to know that I’m not alone in this. My jacked up senses can make life difficult, and I’m sorry to hear you’re in the same boat. Controlling reactions isn’t very helpful, so maybe there’s a better path through acceptance.
Best of luck to you in your future, Kris.
You too, James! I think we’re on a good path.
Thanks as always, Jeff, for normalizing the messy (and annoying!) parts of being human (the waxy build up returns!). I am a very impatient person, but it's something I'm continuing to work on (P.S. - I know you and your Daily Trp are a fave for many on the Calm app! I manage the Daily Calm Community Facebook group and SO many find you relatable - so thanks for doing what you do!
That’s amazing to hear Caitlin! Would love to connect with you about how we can get some of the Daily Trip fans over to Home Base. Would you please send me a DM and we can swap ideas?
Hi Lilli! Sure! We'll, I can make a post in the DCC (it's what we call the FB group) and mention Home Base and hopefully that'll send some Calm Jeff fans over this way! 🥰
I do a weekly Mindfulness Question of the week in the group on Sundays so I can post it today!
Nice to be hanging out with you, my fellow, impatient person! I have had many insights mining the deep aqualifiers of my impatience and discovering all that fear under there
I’m 83 and beginning to see my body letting me down a bit- feeling h frightened of the future being an old limited physically person Any ideas? Nancy.
Let me think about it, Nancy. I can imagine that being scary and disorienting. It’s already happening a little bit for me in my mid 50s. I chat with my parents - exactly your age - about this theme all the time.
Nancy- thank you for bringing up this topic. The physical challenges as we age are accompanied by emotional responses that can be self-destructive. Although I’m in my early 70s and relatively fit, I’m aware that new physical problems crop up more frequently and then seem to settle in. My initial response is to be angry and then unrealistically try to push through them.
I think a meditation about aging and self-acceptance would be very helpful.
Wishing you many moments reflecting on the joys of having reached 83, despite its challenges.
Once again Tamar, I love your clarity. This helps me. I’ll see what I can do friends
Thanks, Jeff. Yet again you provided the exact meditation exactly when I needed it! I would be grateful for a meditation focusing on finding peace, equanimity as a highly sensitive person with an emotional whirlwind going on around me. Something to help me feel like I'm not getting sucked into a vortex of craziness!! I suppose that's just life, but something to help step back and find a balance would be great. Thanks!!
Oh yeah, I’m happy to do this - write something specifically for sensitive folks, because finding that common the storm is considerably trickier than for non-sensitive folks. Some of what I offered in this meditation is definitely relevant. I’ll ponder and make something !
Thanks, Jeff!! I know whatever you create will be helpful - it always is!
Jeff, I wonder if your meditation might help me listen to my own heart and voice. I have since birth dismissed my own life to follow the many, many voices attached to me. I have been intending to live from my own heart yet the practice I have described flies in my face and I see that I have betrayed my lovely self once again. I can find so many thoughts that might judge harshly what I have just asked help with. I express thanks for your response. Open and hoping, Mary
You’re not alone in the desire to trust your own intuitions and instincts. My friend Sebene has helped me a lot with this, you might like the episode we did together on the Mind Bod pod all about intuition and the different ways it emerges in the senses. I find even though I’m more clear about it sometimes, I still too often locate authority for - say, my health, or money decisions - I locate that authority outside of myself
Thank you, lovely Jeff. Yes, how wise we are when we realize we are not alone. A comfort and a healing hug. I will search for this and hope I will find it. I later came to hear from within for me to lean in to my heart space and as you encourage, welcome all. This morning I saw my thoughts moving in and out like clouds..another Jeff gift. Thank you. As Charlie Mackesy wrote, " We all are winging it." I hope I quoted him correctly. With light and laughter blessing you for always, Mary
This was better than a long cool glass of water on a warm muggy day! Grateful thanks Jeff.
So perfect and just what I needed while dealing with my massively delayed train this morning!!
Thank you for sharing your human struggle and wisdom with us. Caregiving and growing old would be areas that are full special challenges that would be great to have meditations surrounding. Thanks for asking.
Loving your work, Jeff! I'd love a meditation on estrangement - especially estrangement from loved ones, like children and grandchildren who cut off all communication. (In my case, it was definitely my behavior that prompted their decision. I seek to wish them well, and I'm genuinely pleased that they are thriving. I don't want to control them. I love them dearly and I don't see a lot of resentment in my thoughts or feelings about them.)
Interesting request Richard. I’ve been thinking a bit about this too, the inevitability of a certain amount of estrangement, even the kind that overlaps with healthy space and separation and individuation.
Impatience is just the ego’s way of demanding the universe run on its clock. Sit with it long enough and you start to see the joke. You’re not late, you’re just early for the lesson you didn’t want.
Exactly
Perfect topic for me, just the other day I had an opportunity to practice patience while standing in a ridiculous long line waiting to be served by an understaffed pharmacy. The line barely moved in 20 minutes at one point 😵💫 What normally would have took 15 minutes ended up being an hour wait. I couldnt leave though, I was catching a ferry the next morning and needed my script. Interesting how many emotions I worked thru in that hour, trying very hard to be present to them all. Phew 😮💨
So relatable
Thanks, Jeff. I’ve been noticing a lot of impatience lately—but the impatience is more often an impatience with self, not others (though that certainly happens too). I’m impatient that at 54, I’m still here. Still uncertain. Still confused. Still running from thing to thing to thing (I have “next shiny object-ism” ima big big way). So this is a helpful meditation.
I’d love a meditation on next-shiny-object-ism too. As I mentioned to another listener, I don’t know how to sit still or just be. I find I’m actively looking for the next shiny object…and the next one and the next one. Like somehow if I take just the right course, or the right vitamin, or follow the right diet or do the right thing (whatever that is) that this is the missing piece and somehow all will be good and I’ll know exactly who I am and what I’m “supposed” to do in life. Ugh. I think in Buddhism this might be what they call the “greedy” type. I feel like Ms Pac-Man just gobbling and gobbling along—every once in awhile I eat one of those blinking circles and everything moves fast and it’s equal parts exciting and too much at the same time. But I don’t know how to stop the game.
You get it, right?
I live it.
I love your clarity Melissa. This is great context. I can definitely write something about this.
Thank you so much!
I’m often impatient about my impatience! Even though I know that I might break things by rushing, it often takes me a brief period of frenzied activity before I remember to pause. This meditation offered me some much needed space to s l o w d o w n. Thank you Jeff.
❤️