Manifestation: The Real Deal

a man riding a zip line in the middle of a forest.

There’s a lot of talk these days, especially in spiritual circles, about manifestation. And that’s a beautiful thing. It means—on some level, at least— that people are becoming aware of how our thoughts, beliefs, and general mindset influence our experience. That’s essentially what the concept of manifestation is all about: focusing on what you desire, and attracting it through what you think, say, and do. Here’s the thing, though. That last part, the do part, is the most important element of the manifestation process—and it’s the one that tends to be emphasized the least.

Many discussions about manifestation make it appear as though you simply have to think positive thoughts, and all of your deepest desires will be fulfilled. But this is a narrow view of the concept. First, it implicitly suggests that what happens to us in life is exclusively a matter of choice; by extension, then, people who suffer great misfortunes—like those born into poverty, those with terrible diseases, or those subjected to violence, for example—somehow brought it upon themselves through negative thinking or a lack of intention. This is faulty and problematic reasoning, of course; things simply don’t work that way. However, though we can’t determine everything that happens to us in life, most of us, no matter our circumstances, have the creative capacity to bring about changes based on what we choose to think and believe. There are countless examples of people who, even in the most wretched of conditions, chose to interpret their circumstances in positive and uplifting ways, and subsequently moved their lives onto a more promising path. Dr. Viktor Frankl, who lost his wife, parents, and other family members in the Holocaust, is one such example. His famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, offers an inspiring testimony to the power of the mind, the endurance of the human spirit, and the true nature of manifestation.

There’s another major challenge with misinterpreting manifestation as simply a matter of closing your eyes, wishing for what you want, and opening them again to find it there in front of you. As I mentioned earlier, many conversations about manifestation heavily emphasize the thinking and feeling aspects and barely mention the doing. But it’s in the doing that the real magic of manifestation exists.

Any of us can easily conjure thoughts and fantasies about what we desire. For some of us it’s a hefty pay raise, a dream job, or a fancy house; for others it’s the ideal romantic partner or a picture-perfect family. Whatever the dream entails, the dreaming part is easy. And if we think of manifestation as simply dreaming the dream and waiting for it to materialize, we’re bound to be disappointed. But this doesn’t mean we need to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Instead, we should guide our attention to the most significant aspect of manifestation, the one with the greatest likelihood of turning our dreams into reality: committed action.

Many successful people will tell you they’ve gotten to where they have by dreaming big, keeping that dream alive for themselves, and doing whatever it takes to get there. Their path to success offers the rest of us a step-by-step guide to manifestation. Step 1: Create a vision; Step 2: Keep your mind filled with positive thoughts related to that vision, imagining it as if it’s already come true; Step 3: Do everything possible to achieve what you desire; Step 4: Watch your vision become reality. Put this way, manifestation isn’t such a far-out, new-age concept. It’s not nearly as glamorous or easy to sell, but it’s much more likely to yield results.

Once you start getting the step-by-step of manifestation down, you’re likely to notice that things you desire start showing up in your life. You’ve set your mind to the right frequency and taken committed action accordingly: Why wouldn’t you get what you want? But here’s where you’ve got to be extra careful. Remember the saying, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it”? Well, it rings with real truth when it comes to manifestation. Because, you see, it’s one thing to want something we don’t yet have, and quite another to receive and hold onto that something. I’ve worked with more than a few people who learned everything they could about manifestation in order to attract the perfect partner, only to find that when that person actually did appear in their lives, they didn’t know what to do next.

One of my former clients spent years envisioning the man she believed would give her the happily-ever-after she’d always wanted. During a casual night out with friends, when she didn’t expect to meet anyone at all, she came face-to-face with a guy who seemed to be everything she’d been calling forth through her manifestation efforts. But a month or two into dating him, my client felt completely defeated. What she came to realize was that her attempts at manifesting the ideal partner were completely outwardly focused. She was so caught up in dreaming up what the other person would be like that she didn’t once stop to consider who she would want or need to be in order to maintain a healthy and harmonious relationship with that person. She was intent on manifesting a “responsible guy who’s focused on his career and his future;” but once she started dating him, she realized she hadn’t given much thought to what it would actually be like to have such a partner. His strict weekly routine of work, workouts, and early nights clashed with her happy hour circuit with girlfriends, and his future-focused attitude didn’t really jibe with her tendency to live in the moment and worry about the details later. In short, she asked for more than she was ready to receive, and rather than getting to enjoy what she had manifested, she wound up feeling as though she was “self-sabotaging” it.

I know my clients aren’t the only ones who have discovered that manifestation comes with some strings attached. In my own life, I’ve had to do my fair share of recalibrating when the things I was so focused on manifesting finally appeared. It all serves as a healthy and important reminder that life isn’t perfect, and that if we dare to ask for certain things to come our way, we’ve got to be ready to receive them. I, for one, continue to believe wholeheartedly in our collective creative capacity and the power we have to manifest our deepest desires. So, let’s keep dreaming big and weaving those dreams into reality. And while we’re on that journey of aligning our intentions, thoughts, emotions, and actions to bring forth what we’re seeking, let’s aim to keep it all in healthy perspective.

Communicate More Mindfully

two people sitting on a bench in front of a cage.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that mindfulness practice offers a broad array of benefits for the willing and dedicated practitioner. When we open ourselves to this practice, we create the potential for our lives to be transformed in ways that might seem subtle, but truly make a world of difference. Though many of the benefits of mindfulness are personal and internal—improved concentration, expanded sense of awareness, increased patience, and enduring states of tranquility, to name a few—some important aspects of the practice can positively affect our external experience as well. Take communication, for example. Using mindfulness in our communication with others can improve our relationships and help us navigate even the most difficult conversations.

If you already have a practice of cultivating mindfulness, a little intention is all you’ll need to start applying it to your communication. If you haven’t yet developed a practice of mindfulness, that’s a good place to start. In case the concept isn’t clear, mindfulness is essentially a practice of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, with a spirit of awareness, acceptance, and nonjudgment. Mindfulness can be cultivated through formal meditation practice, or on its own throughout the course of your day. By focusing your attention on what you’re experiencing in the moment, and letting thoughts drift into and out of your awareness instead of pulling you away, you start to flex a mental muscle that can help you create radical transformations in your life.

When it comes to communication, there are five simple steps you can follow to bring about more mindfulness and match the words you say with the meaning you want to convey.

1. Set a Clear Commitment. When we communicate with others—especially if that communication includes differences of opinion or requires some vulnerability—it can be easy to lose sight of our intention. That’s why it’s so important to make a clear commitment to yourself that can anchor your attention and help you stay focused as you navigate the conversation. Ask yourself, “What am I committed to creating in this conversation?” Then, whatever your response is—“connection,” “clarity,” “understanding,” etc.—make sure your words are aligned with that particular commitment.

2.  Choose Your Words Carefully. It’s easy to get so caught up in our desire to be heard that we lose sight of what we really want to say. Talking mindlessly in this way can steer us away from what we truly want to express, or cause others to tune us out. Intention, one of the cornerstones of mindfulness, goes a long way when we’re communicating. Once you’re clear about the message you want to get across, use great care to choose words that directly convey that message—no more, no less. Mahatma Gandhi is known for saying, “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.” This is a helpful reminder to keep your message straight and to the point. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t be afraid of silence. Sometimes those pauses are exactly what the other person needs to process what you’ve said and respond mindfully in return.

3. Listen With All You’ve Got. No matter how eloquent we might be, our ability to communicate is only as good as our ability to listen. It’s in the listening, in fact, that mindfulness becomes most meaningful and impactful. Often, when someone’s speaking to us, we drift into our minds and start preparing our response. But there’s no way we can be fully present to what’s being said to us if we’re busy thinking about what we’ll say next. Treat the act of listening as a true mindfulness practice. Allow your attention to rest completely on the words being said to you; and any time your thoughts threaten to pull you away, gently return to the act of listening and center your awareness there again.

4. Let Connection Be Your Guide. Communication is about much more than the words being exchanged between two or more people; it includes body language, tone of voice, timing, and much more. Keeping this in mind can help us bring all of our presence and awareness to our conversations, enabling us to communicate clearly and be grounded, graceful recipients of what others communicate to us. As you engage in the act of communication, practice attuning yourself to the other person. Eliminate distractions, and allow yourself to fully connect. Doing this will help you respond more effectively to what’s really being expressed.

5. Don’t Forget to Breathe! In our mindfulness practice, our breath is one of our most powerful tools. It helps us get out of our heads and into our experience; it moves us past impulsivity into intentionality. When you communicate with others, make it a point to connect with your breath, and use it as a way to support you in carrying out the previous four steps. You’ll be amazed at how much more grounded and clear minded you can be on the other side of just one deep, intentional breath.

 

 

The Practice is the Purpose

a woman doing yoga on the beach in front of the ocean.

In an effort to invite more consistency and discipline into my routine, I’ve recently developed a morning ritual to propel me into the day. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never been one to consistently follow rituals or routines. I tend to start out strong—swearing to myself that I’ll stick to it no matter what—only to flake off when things start to feel redundant. But this time, I’m approaching things a little differently, guided by the wisdom of something I learned from one of my meditation teachers several years ago.

When I first attempted meditation, I was a self-proclaimed “stress ball.” It was hard for me to sit still for even a few minutes, and my mind felt like it was always racing a mile a minute. No matter how much I tried to slow down or calm down, it never seemed possible. Yoga, which I had been practicing for many years by the time I found my way to sitting meditation, was the closest I could get to stillness—and even that felt like a fairly excruciating challenge. During my initial conversations with the meditation teacher I mentioned, we’d talk about the fundamentals of meditation and address my curiosities and reservations. I explained to him that as much as I wanted to develop a practice of meditation, I just wasn’t the Zen type. “My mind is too busy,” I told him. “Plus, I’m prone to anxiety, so it’s really hard for me to slow down my thoughts and just breathe in the moment.” Part of me wanted him to teach me how to overcome these apparent obstacles; but if I’m being honest, the bigger part of me hoped he’d buy my excuses and exempt me from the difficult practice altogether. He did neither of these. All he did was flash his playful, patient smile and insist, in one way or another, that I keep coming back to my cushion each day. “Just keep sitting,” he’d say. “And remember, the practice is the purpose.”

These words confounded me every time I heard them. They struck me like some sort of complex riddle that I couldn’t quite solve. At once simple and profound, the phrase was clearly supposed to be encouraging; but at that time in my life, all it did was make my head spin. Nonetheless, I heeded his advice and kept returning to my cushion every day, eager to get to the other side of my struggle and reach some sort of clearing, where my mind would become silent, and enlightenment would be mine.

When I look back at these times and remember the thinking that guided me through them, I can’t help but smile. I had no idea what my teacher was talking about, but boy, is it clear to me now. You see, it’s been years since I started meditating, and I can tell you without the slightest bit of hesitation that I’m nowhere near enlightenment. And there hasn’t been a single meditation session that’s led me to a completely silent mind. But I can also tell you that meditation has profoundly and radically transformed my life. No matter what I feel, how resistant I might be, or how much my sessions challenge me, I return to my cushion—over, and over, and over again. And each time I do, I learn and I grow. Each time I do, I realize how right my teacher was: the purpose has always been the practice.

Neuroscience research supports that we can change our brains—and, thus, change our lives—through committed and consistent practice. But we don’t need science to tell us that; it’s evident everywhere we look. How do professional athletes get so good at their game? Practice. How do long-term, successful couples quickly resolve issues in their relationship and reestablish harmony? Practice. How does anyone who’s exceptional at anything get to that point? Yep, you guessed it: they practice, with purpose, repeatedly and consistently. They keep coming back, no matter how difficult or mundane the task may be. And it’s important for us to remember that we all have that capacity. Over time, our brains and bodies reward our practice, yielding positive results that, if we let them, can reinforce our efforts.

Now that I understand what it means for the practice to be the purpose, I challenge people not to count themselves out of meditation because their minds are too busy. And I talk back to my own narratives about not being consistent enough to stick to a morning ritual. There’s beauty in devotion and discipline. Even when it seems like nothing is happening, practice works some pretty brilliant magic—the kind that can change our lives and evolve us into the best versions of ourselves.

So, what practice can you commit to? And who might you become through your purposeful dedication to it?

I Don’t Know Any Crazy People

Since becoming a therapist, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked, “What’s it like to spend your day listening to crazy people?” Over time, I’ve learned to be grateful for this question, in spite of the initial reaction it always invites in me. I now see it as a valuable opportunity to share my perspective about my work and what it means to me. The response I give—which never lacks in sincerity, no matter how often I repeat it—is always the same: “Actually, I don’t know any crazy people.”

I mean it.

When I first got on the path toward becoming a therapist, I’ll admit that I believed I was signing on to spend my working hours keeping company with sick and crazy people in need of my help. I believed that with the knowledge I was gaining in school, I was going to have all the answers to teach, guide, and treat the people I encountered in my clinical practice. But as soon as I started working with actual clients, all the thinking that was guiding me got turned on its head. I realized very quickly that the people I was working with had much more to teach me than they could ever learn from me. Above all, the great lesson I learned in that early part of my career was that there’s really no such thing as a crazy person.

For all our many differences, we, humans, are having a shared existential experience; we’re all in this weird and wondrous adventure called life together. Sometimes that adventure gets terrifying; sometimes it’s more painful than we can handle; sometimes we get confused and can’t find our way; sometimes we struggle to connect; sometimes we get tired and need support to keep us going. What I’m getting at is that the stuff we tend to call “sick” and “crazy” is merely a reflection of the struggles inherent in our human existence.

Now, when I sit across from a client, I know that I’m sitting across from an equal. A companion. A teacher. A friend. I know that what they’re sharing—no matter how extreme it might appear from the limited perspective of others—is an expression of something that also lives in me. I acknowledge their pain, see their confusion, make contact with their fear; and as I do, I know that I’m witnessing the realities of life—no more, no less. No matter what my clients share with me, even when it’s radically atypical or marginal by our society’s standards, I hold the space and keep my mind and heart open. Because they aren’t sharing their crazy with me, they’re sharing their world with me. And their world matters. Their perspective matters. Their truth matters. Their lives matter.

My clients are my greatest teachers, and I’m more grateful for them than I can ever express. They show me how to stay curious, stay open, and keeping challenging my certainties. They inspire me to keep leaning in, no matter how scary or painful it can be to witness someone else’s story unfolding. They remind me that truth is always relative, and just because we believe something doesn’t make it true. If these people are crazy, I don’t want to be sane.

What I sometimes add to the response I offer when asked about what it’s like to spend my days with crazy people is that “I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.” And this is really, wholeheartedly my truth. I’ve learned more, expanded more, and challenged myself more through my encounters with clients than through any other experience I’ve had in my life. I’m regularly humbled and consistently awestruck by the work I get to do, and to call it work seems ridiculous, because it’s more of a gift than anything else. I feel fortunate to be in the presence of such giants on a regular basis. Through their vulnerability, their courage, their wisdom, and their grace, my clients teach me how to live. I only wish that everyone could see them, and each other, this way.

If what I’m saying resonates with you in any way, know that don’t have to be a therapist to access the spirit of what I’m sharing. All you have to do is hold space for the people around you, and regard them with curiosity rather than certainty. Challenge your perspectives, and question everything you feel right about. Ask questions, and be present to the answers. Know that everyone on the planet knows at least one thing you don’t. Don’t settle for surface understandings. And never, ever let your heart close.

Let’s Bring YOLO Back—This Time With Feeling

a woman holding an umbrella in the dark.

Remember YOLO? The once-common acronym that stands for “you only live once” has fallen out of our common vernacular in recent years. But in its heyday, YOLO was the kind of thing people would throw around often—particularly before doing something crazy. In fact, the interjection made its way into the Oxford dictionary in 2016 and is defined there as an informal expression that’s “often used as a rationale for impulsive or reckless behavior.” I remember hearing YOLO used to preempt excessive drinking or other potentially dangerous activity and thinking what a shame it was to waste such a clever acronym (it sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) on something so contradictory. If we get only one life to live, I wondered, why would we squander or compromise it? Why would we invoke the phrase to celebrate reckless choices?

Thankfully, YOLO went the way of most other trendy phrases and is seldom heard these days. And I think we’re all okay with that. But I’ve been thinking . . . what if we bring it back?

I’ll let you finish your eye roll before I go on . . .

Okay, so here’s what I mean. When you think about it, the acronym stands in the place of a powerful statement reflecting a profound existential truth: we only live once. These words are a reminder of the brevity of life—and like most things that happen only once, that life is pretty special. But how often do we pause to remind ourselves of this? How present are we to the reality that this will all come to an end?

I’m a firm believer that death does a better job than anyone or anything at teaching us how to live. Knowing that our time will run out can infuse deep meaning into every moment; but it’s easy to lose sight of this. It’s easy to waste the moments by rushing through them or staying numb—in other words, by doing the kinds of things YOLO was once used to justify. But assuming we only live once—in this particular incarnation, at least—why not make the most out of each and every moment? Why not fill our lives with meaning and connect with our experience, knowing that it will one day come to an end?

What I mean by suggesting we bring YOLO back is that it’s a good time to return to the truth of our mortality and stay connected to it in devoted commitment to making each moment matter. While we might not revive the trend and throw YOLO around like we once did, let’s write the spirit of it into our hearts and carry it with us everywhere we go. Let’s breathe a little more deeply, love a little more freely. Let’s take time to make peace with time. Let’s hold space for the presence of life and death, allowing ourselves to learn all the lessons we can in this singular, brief, and wondrous existence.

And now I’ll leave you to ponder these words as I sip my oolong tea and marvel at the birds soaring past my open window . . . because YOLO!

Meditation and Mental Health—Part 5

a man sitting in a field watching the sunset.

It’s time for the fifth and final installment of this series on meditation’s role in mental health—and I’m honored to share it with you. I’ve talked so far about the many ways in which meditation can support and expand our lives in terms of our thoughts, our emotions, our relationships, and our physical health; but the benefits don’t stop there. The last domain of mental health supported by meditation and mindfulness is one of the most significant. In this way, perhaps, you might say I’ve saved the best for last.

It’s no secret that people who feel good about themselves, live with integrity, and see their values reflected in their choices tend to be pretty healthy when it comes to their mental and emotional experience. This way of living allows them to develop a strong sense of purpose and conviction about the lives they lead, which is all but guaranteed to improve their quality of life. It’s also not much of a secret that many people who maintain a regular meditation and mindfulness practice live in precisely this way.

That’s because the process of witnessing what’s unfolding inside us and what’s happening around us—which meditation and mindfulness are all about—makes us more familiar with who we are, what we value, and what we desire. We grow tremendously when we realize that we are responsible for creating our lives through the choices we make and the stories we tell ourselves. By paying attention to what’s happening in our lives, from moment to moment, we improve our ability to interpret and respond in ways that align with our core values and support our mental health. We learn to step into the power we possess to choose our own way, no matter what circumstances might befall us.

Self-esteem, integrity, and purpose are important aspects of mental health that we can cultivate by learning what we want. But this is one of those things that’s much easier said than done. The question, “What do you want?” is one that most people have no idea how to answer. And the reason it tends to be so elusive is that we aren’t practiced in asking the question and then going inside to wait for the answer. Instead of determining what we really want, we go with what we’ve been told we should want or what other people seem to want. We don’t do the work of finding and owning our authentic, legitimate answers. To do this takes courage; it requires practice. But the more we do it, the more familiar we become with ourselves. We grow to learn what makes us tick, what inspires us, what opens our hearts. We learn to access and honor our internal reservoir of yeses and nos.

Becoming familiar with who we are and what we want fortifies our self-esteem and enables us to feel confident about what we have to offer and what mark we want to leave on the world. It allows us to deliberately and intentionally create lives of integrity; it helps us align our actions with our values. All of this can generate a profound sense of fulfillment—the kind that boosts our mental health and dramatically improves our quality of life. And meditation is one of the foundational practices that can support us in generating these kinds of outcomes and this kind of purpose-driven life.

It’s astonishing to think that sitting in silence and connecting with ourselves in the moment can hold such potent, transformative potential. But this is what meditation has to offer—if only we’re willing to commit ourselves to it. The more we practice, the more purposeful our lives become. We transform our relationship with our thoughts and emotions. We create deeper and more meaningful relationships with other people. We experience greater vitality in our physical bodies. We get closer to living a life of integrity that brings contentment and makes us proud.

It’s been an honor to write this series, and I’d like to conclude it with an offering of the hopes I guard in my heart for all of you. I hope you come away from reading this with new ways to think about the ancient practices of meditation and mindfulness. I hope their many benefits are apparent to you. I hope the information I shared will inspire you to adopt a practice of your own. And finally, I hope you feel confident and excited about the contributions your practice will make to your mental health, your life, your future, your relationships, and the world in general.

Meditation and Mental Health—Part 4

It’s time for part four of the five-part series I’ve been exploring on meditation and mental health. So far, I’ve made the case for how meditation can support us by influencing how we relate to our thoughts, our emotions, and the people in our lives. This time, I want to examine the role that meditation plays in supporting our physical health. You see, a healthy body is associated with a healthy mind. That’s because our minds and our bodies are connected; the health of one influences and is influenced by the health of the other. Through our meditation practice, we come to understand and access the mind-body connection in ways that foster and expand our mental health.

One way to define meditation is as a committed practice of transforming the mind and connecting with the body. Through the practice, we learn to consciously follow the bridge of our breath, guiding our attention into the body and connecting with ourselves. Every time we find ourselves getting distracted or lost in our thoughts, we come back into our bodies and anchor our attention in the present moment. This not only serves us during our formal practice, it also aids us in every other area of our lives. Because the more practiced we are at bridging the connection between mind and body, the more aware of our physical selves we become.

With the awareness of meditation practice comes the capacity to mindfully choose how we treat our physical bodies. We start to think more carefully and be more intentional about the foods we eat, the beverages we drink, and the products we put into or onto our bodies. When our bodies are fueled and fortified in ways that support our physical health, we think more clearly, engage in higher levels of productivity, attend to our needs more efficiently, sustain higher levels of energy, and feel more alive. Improved mental health, in this way, becomes a natural byproduct of physical health—and meditation is one way to get us there.

The mindfulness we cultivate through a regular meditation practice gives us the ability to keep an ongoing awareness of our physical bodies. It enables us to be in contact with our hunger cues, so we know when it’s time to eat. It encourages us to eat and drink slowly, so we enjoy the process and realize when we’ve had enough. It let us tune into our intrinsic wisdom, choosing to eat what our bodies need instead of what our minds crave. All of this serves to reinforce the mind-body connection, thereby increasing our self-awareness, self-care, physical wellness, and mental health.

When we learn to connect with the breath and the body, we start to expand what’s physically possible for us. This is something yogis have known for centuries, which is no surprise, considering yoga is ultimately a moving form of meditation. Not only can we reach new levels of physical fitness through the foundations of meditation, we can also become highly intuitive about how we move our bodies. We can listen to the messages our bodies are sending, so we know when it’s time to be active and when it’s time to rest. We know when it’s a good idea to roll on some lavender oil and take an Epsom salt bath, or when a good old doctor’s visit is in order. To be this aware, this connected, requires ongoing attention. It’s a skill that we develop through practice, over time.

One of the coolest things about meditation is that there are endless ways we can use it to support our bodies and sharpen our minds. For example, many swimmers, basketball players, gymnasts, and runners regularly engage in visualization meditation to improve their performance. That’s because studies have shown that athletes who use visualization meditation to imagine themselves performing a certain physical activity improve as much as—or, in some cases, more than—athletes who practice actually performing the activity. How’s that for a testament to the mind-body connection?

Whether your physical health goals include losing weight, overcoming panic attacks, expanding your yoga practice, changing your physique, adopting a cleaner diet, cutting back your alcohol consumption, improving your athletic performance, reducing the intensity of chronic aches and pains, or just generally feeling more connected to your body, meditation practice can support you—and you get to enjoy the fun bonus prize of enhanced mental health!

As long as we’re enjoying this human experience, we’ll do so within the vessels of our beautiful, remarkable, wise, and resilient bodies. It’s a worthy activity, then, to connect with those bodies and treat them with love and respect. Meditation, which gives us entry to the present moment and guides our awareness within, is a gift we give ourselves in the service of our health. I invite you to begin exploring your mind-body connection through meditation, yoga, and any other practices that call to you. And I look forward to coming back to you soon with the final installment of this series!

Meditation and Mental Health – Part 2

a person sitting in a pile of hay.

Hi, everyone. I’m back for the second installment of this five-article series I’ve developed to uncover some of the most valuable ways that meditation can support our mental health. In the last installment, I described how meditation supports the way we relate to our thoughts. (If you missed that article, you can check it out here.) Next, I’ll explore the unique relationship between meditation and emotional health.

As it turns out, meditation and mindfulness can valuably aid us in developing an enhanced relationship with our emotions. They do this in two particular ways. First, they help us learn how to identify rather than identify with our emotions. Second, they help us more effectively regulate our emotions and self-soothe. These are critical skills that, when practiced regularly, can have a meaningful—even life-changing—impact on our emotional health. And it all starts with the fine-tuned awareness that mindfulness and meditation help us cultivate.

As I’ve already mentioned, meditation and mindfulness help us learn how to identify our emotions, rather than identifying with them. This happens as a function of our ability to notice what we’re experiencing in the moment. When we practice meditation and mindfulness, we connect to our experience in the here-and-now, noticing what’s bubbling up within us. We experience our emotions in real time, witnessing their arrival and watching them move through us. This turns out to be a really useful skill—one that can change the way we relate to emotionally charged experiences. You see, research shows that people who can identify their emotions are more capable of coping with them than people who aren’t aware of what they’re feeling. The more understanding we have of our emotional experience, the more effectively we can manage it. When we know what we’re feeling, we’re more capable of being with that feeling and responding to it in ways that support our mental health.

This experience of identifying our emotions is quite different from the experience of identifying with our emotions—something that’s painfully familiar to most of us. Let me use an example to clarify the distinction. Imagine that you’re driving along the highway on your way to work, and another vehicle cuts in front of you unexpectedly. You have to slam on your brakes to avoid a collision, and your treasured morning coffee takes a spill as a result. Instinctively and immediately, anger arises within you. It courses through your body and stirs up a stream of anger-inspired thoughts. You become angry. You are angry. There’s no distinction between the anger and you; you’re identified with the emotion, and it’s taken over your experience. In that moment, your identification with anger might have you react in particular ways. You might curse loudly, scream obscenities, decide that your day is now ruined, or even attempt to seek revenge against the offending driver. With anger in the driver’s seat of your experience, you might say or do a number of things that you might later regret.

When we’re identified with and consumed by an emotion, our thinking is clouded and our actions are limited. We’re in full-on reaction mode, without much consideration for consequences. This is where identifying with our emotions can get dicey—dangerous, even. Where meditation and mindfulness step in and support us is by allowing us to experience our emotions without becoming consumed by them. When we’re present to our in-the-moment experience (a skill we develop through committed and consistent practice), we can lengthen the space between action and reaction. We can deliberately respond to our experiences with a sense of clarity, instead of emotionally reacting based on impulse. When we learn to identify our emotions through meditation and mindfulness, we can notice what we’re feeling, let ourselves experience it, and then intentionally settle ourselves before responding. This challenging practice is remarkably empowering; it can allow us to more masterfully navigate through our lives and manage everything that comes at us.

Meditation and mindfulness have another significant impact on our emotional health: they improve our capacity to manage and regulate what we’re feeling. There’s a common phrase among therapists that you’ve got to feel it to heal it, and there’s a lot of wisdom in that. Denying, resisting, and suppressing emotions is a recipe for disaster. When we refuse to face our emotions, we wreak havoc on our mental, emotional, and physical health. But as I stated earlier, allowing our emotions to consume us is equally unproductive and unhealthy. So how do develop a relationship with our emotions that allows us to feel them without becoming attached to them? Well, that’s where mindfulness and meditation come in. You see, these practices expand our ability to manage our emotions, regulate their expression, and soothe ourselves when we become distressed. But how do they do it?

When we practice meditation and mindfulness, we get present to our experience in the moment. We notice our emotions as they’re coming up, and we allow ourselves to feel them without impulsively reacting to them. We get familiar with the sensations in our bodies associated with certain emotions, and we learn to sit with the discomfort of feeling what we’d rather not feel. This is a remarkably useful practice—one that allows us to more capably manage our emotions. The capacity to self-soothe—in other words, to work through our own difficult emotions and calm ourselves down instead of relying on outside sources (other people, food, substances, etc.) to do it for us—is an important marker of mental health. The more we practice it, the better we become at it; and the better we are at self-soothing, the more capable we are of managing ourselves under even the most difficult of circumstances.

We humans are extraordinarily complex emotional creatures, and our ability to understand what we’re feeling is one of our most adaptive and advantageous features. As you journey through your own meditation and mindfulness practice, consider how you can increase your emotional attunement, thus improving your ability to identify your emotions and self-soothe. Though practice may never make perfect, in this case, it will most certainly boost your mental health and allow you to move through life with more mastery and grace.

I’ll be back soon with the next installment of this five-part series. Be well until then!