living with awareness and compassion

Be Kind to Your Body

Cyndi Lee on gentle yoga

stop, wait, Go
The traffic light technique for
better communication

Mind over Money

See through your financial hangups

Jon Kabat-Zinn Answers

Your Questions
The Mindful Brain
What neuroscience tells us

Do More with Less Stress

Mindful Classrooms

Mindfulness in Everyday Life work • health • home • relationships

mindful mindful.org 41
42 mindful mindful.org
 contents 20 28

24

features
12 24 departments
Stop, Wait, Go Finding the
Susan Chapman Space to Lead 3
suggests a path to better Mindfulness helps Welcome to Mindful
communication leaders decide without
5
overreacting, says Janice
Mindful now
15 Marturano
3 Practices to Shift Wisdom 2.0
Your Relationship 28 Mindful Brain
with Time Mind and Body: Emotional Intelligence
Awareness techniques Why Can’t They Inner City Teachers
from Marc Lesser to do Just Get Along? iPhone App
more with less stress Yoga teacher Cyndi Lee
shows us how to loosen up 9
16 FAQs
Letting 30 Jon Kabat-Zinn
Ourselves Heal Mind over Money answers your questions
c ove r ph oto © S e an Ju st i c e / D i g i ta l V i si on / g e t t y i m ag e s

Saki Santorelli explores Kristi Nelson on getting

the soft spots that are the past our hangups about 36
key to self-healing dollars and cents Reviews
Urban Pantry: Tips &
20 34
Recipes for a Thrifty,
Mouthfuls of Look Who’s
Sustainable & Seasonal
Mindfulness Practicing
Kitchen, by Amy
How to eat healthy, enjoy Mindfulness
Pennington. Reviewed
it, and satisfy your appetite, People whose lives are
by Sharon Hunt
by Jan Chozen Bays enriched by mindfulness

40
Books on the Mind
23
Ed Brown’s The Once by Barry Boyce
Luscious Lentil Soup and Future Me
Kelly McGonigal

mindful mindful.org 1
2 mindful mindful.org

Barry Campbell Boyce , Editor
Jessica von Handorf , Art Director
James Gimian , Publisher
Melvin McLeod , Editor-in-chief
Eric L. Ross , Advertising
Robin Johnston , Distribution
Editorial & Central
Business Office
1660 Hollis St., Suite 701, Halifax,
Nova Scotia B3J 1V7 Canada
Tel: (902) 422-8404, Fax: (902) 423-2701
U. S. O ffice : 1426 Pearl St., Suite 420,
Boulder, CO 80302-5340
Email: mindful@mindful.org
To see, hear, and read more, go to
www.mindful.org
The news-you-can-use website
devoted exclusively to mindfulness and
awareness practices for mind and body.
Published by the
Shambhala Sun Foundation,
an independent, nonprofit corporation.
Share Mindful
with Others
If your group, organization, or
business would like free copies of
this one-time special publication
to share with members,
colleagues, students, clients, or
customers, please contact
copies@mindful.org
or call 1-877-422-8404, ext 16
Welcome to Mindful
L ike many teenagers, I was scared and confused at 17—and deathly
afraid to admit to anyone just how much. So when the opportunity
to practice mindfulness meditation arose, I was highly motivated. It was
not easy at first. I was quite restless, but eventually I got the hang of it.
And it helped me—in college, in my career as a writer and journalist, in
my family life, and in so many other ways.
Mindfulness and related practices that help us to synchronize our
minds and bodies—and that also generate awareness and compassion—
have meant so much to me that I’ve always looked for ways to share
their benefits with others. Now, almost 40 years since I first meditated,
a mindfulness revolution has started and is reaching a full head of
steam. So, being editor of this special publication—Mindful: Living with
Awareness and Compassion—and its companion website, Mindful.org,
fulfills a lifelong aspiration.
In Mindful and Mindful.org, we’ll be sharing with you the beneficial
effects of many different kinds of mind and body practices. Mindful-
ness meditation is prominent among them, so most of the pieces in this
magazine are about how adding a dose of mindfulness can enhance your
joy and appreciation of everyday life—and help you to deal with some of
life’s toughest challenges when they arise.
Each of the writers, teachers, and trainers in Mindful provides their
own unique viewpoint on how mindfulness and awareness practice can
help us. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pioneering founder of Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction, offers pithy, insightful answers to questions submit-
ted by people trying to integrate mindfulness into their lives. Kristi
Nelson helps us use mindfulness to understand why we spend and save
the way we do. Susan Chapman offers an easy-to-remember technique
to spark attention in difficult communication situations. Entrepreneur
Marc Lesser teaches us three awareness practices to help us use our
time more wisely, and business executive Janice Marturano offers ad-
vice on how we can lead better by letting space infiltrate our calendars.
Psychologist Kelly McGonigal has a good laugh about her desire to
craft the perfect “future-me.”
These are just a few of the riches to be found in this special free is-
sue of Mindful, and on the web at Mindful.org. We’re also going to tell
you—on our website and in future issues of Mindful—how mindful-
ness is making inroads in schools, hospitals, offices, campuses, and
even firehouses and police stations. We’ll offer you lots of companion-
ship and a place to share your own journey with others. The practices
and techniques you will learn about in our pages are for everybody.
No religion, belief, or political inclination is required. There’s no need
to sign on anyone’s dotted line. Everyone is born with mindfulness,
awareness, and compassion. Ultimately, these are not practices we do.
They express who we really are as human beings. Please join us in
celebrating that magnificent fact of life.
— B a r r y B o yc e , Ed i t o r
mindful mindful.org 3
4 mindful mindful.org
 mindful now

Wisdom 2.0
started in garages
T h e I n t e r n e t r e vo l u t i o n
and dorm rooms where geeks pulled all-nighters fueled
by junk food and caffeine. Now a group of techies
ph otos courtes y of www. w isd om 2 s um m it.co m a n d ro ss hill

from Silicon Valley wants to foster a new kind of tech

culture, one inspired by mindfulness. In February, for
the third time in ten months, industry professionals
from firms such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, and
eBay will gather with meditation
teachers and neuroscientists to
explore ways of bringing wisdom
into the tech world.
The inaugural Wisdom 2.0
Summit was held last May, when
500 tech-savvy professionals and a similar gathering in Boulder, Colorado,
entrepreneurs met at the Com- in early November. The 2011 Wisdom 2.0
puter History Museum in Moun- conference will be held February 25-27 in
tain View, California. “Exploring Mountain View and feature mindfulness
Living with Awareness, Wisdom, teachers Jon Kabat-Zinn and Jack Korn-
and Compassion in the Technol- field, as well as Wisdom 2.0 creator Soren
ogy Age” offered three days of Gordhammer. Participant Natalie Villalobos
teachings, discussions, and prac- says these conferences are about creating a
tices for people who want to be wired and tuned in working atmosphere where “technology and wisdom
but still grounded and mindful. It was followed by go hand in hand.”

dalai lama boosts brain research

T h e Da l a i L a m ais donating money to sup-
port scientific research into “healthy qualities
of mind like kindness and compassion.” The
Dalai Lama’s personal trust has given $50,000
ph oto © i s to c k ph oto.c o m / luc ato
The Center for Inves-
tigating Healthy Minds is
America’s leading lab study-
ing the effects of meditation

to the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, di-
rected by professor of psychology and psychia-
try Richie Davidson. The center uses state-of-
the-art tools from neuroscience and biology to
observe how the brain and body changes when
we express positive emotions. Recent research
at the center continues to support the idea that
the brain and its functions are plastic (adapt-
able and changeable) throughout life.
on the brain. Davidson says
that studying people who
do systematic mental train-
ing like meditation helps
neuroscientists learn more
about what the human mind is capable of. One
of the things the laboratory is studying is how
mindfulness can increase the brain’s powers of
attention and its ability to respond more flex-
ibly to stressful events.

mindful mindful.org 5
6 mindful mindful.org
 Business Leaders
Benefit From
Emotional Intelligence
There’s a strong connection between the
ph oto © Hill S treet S tu dio s / blen d
ability to lead and emotional intelligence. That’s
the conclusion of a new study by Professor Ste-
phane Cote of the Rotman School of Management
in Toronto, published in Leadership Quarterly. The
findings are drawn from two studies of business
students who were each given an emotional ability
test before completing a group project. When the
project was over, participants rated the best lead-
ers. There was a strong correlation between those
ranked as good leaders and those who scored high
on the emotional ability scale.
“Traditionally, we’ve assumed that leaders have
high IQs, are gregarious, and have dominant per-
sonalities,” Cote says. But his study indicates that
“being able to process other people’s emotions”
may be just as important. Aspiring leaders, Cote
suggests, would do well to foster the abilities that
make up emotional intelligence. According to
ph oto © i s to c k ph oto. c o m / s h i ro no s ov
author Daniel Goleman, who coined the term in
his bestseller of the same name, emotional intel-
ligence means the ability to perceive, use, under-
stand, and regulate emotions. The Rotman School
of Management teaches emotional intelligence
as a fourth-year elective course and in its MBA
program. Courses based on EI are offered in many
corporate settings. Google started teaching an EI-
based course, Search Inside Yourself, at its head-
quarters in 2007. This year SIY is being offered at
Google campuses around the world.
A Lifeline for
Inner City Teachers
M i n df u l n e ss has
become a lifeline for some
stressed-out inner city
teachers. In a federally
funded two-year study of
mindfulness and emo-
tion-skills training for
K-12 teachers, the CARE
program is teaching
mindfulness techniques
to two groups of Penn-
sylvania teachers—one in the affluent community
of State College and the other in the much poorer
city of Harrisburg. Preliminary findings indicate
the inner city teachers are deriving the most ben-
efit. According to Dr. Tish Jennings of the Garrison
Institute, which developed CARE (Cultivating
Awareness and Resilience in Education), “Both
groups have clearly benefited from the mindfulness
and emotion training, but for Harrisburg teachers
it’s already become a lifeline, an essential skill, that
may be keeping them in their jobs.” While nearly
half of all teachers quit during their first five years,
Jennings notes that attrition rates in poorer urban
areas are another 50 percent higher. 
nuts about meditation
W h o k n e w t h at Mr. Peanut
keeps a meditation cushion
stashed in his closet? When some
savvy software developers at the
National Peanut Board developed
the “Peanuts: Energy for the Good
Life” iPhone app, they decided
to augment food preparation
suggestions with a five-minute
mindfulness exercise. The free app
encourages you to take healthy
breaks in your day for activities
like snacking on peanuts, making peanut shrimp
chowder or peanut pumpkin muffins—and
meditating. Stephan Bodian, author of Meditation
for Dummies, created the mindfulness exercise.
mindful mindful.org 7
 more mindful every day at

Mindful.org has the latest information

on bringing mindfulness, awareness, and
compassion into your life, updated every
day with fresh stories and news.

Mindful.org offers mindfulness-based

approaches to all the important issues
of life today, from health, emotional well-
being, relationships, and family life, to
work, creativity, activism, and the science
that’s proving the benefits. You’ll find
blogs, commentary, audio, video, social
networking, and much more. Make
friends and share your journey with fellow
mindfulness practitioners.

We’d love to hear what you think of Mindful.

Tell us at Mindful.org.

8 mindful mindful.org
 FAQs
A Way of Being
Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-
Based Stress Reduction, answers your
questions about mindfulness in daily life.
➤ My partner is very stressed out from his work and
also has some annoying habits (computer gambling,
for one). When I mention mindfulness, he says, “Yeah,
yeah. I will,” but he never has. I don’t want to prosely-
tize, but I think it would help our relationship.
Proselytizing would be mistake number one. When
you get into something like mindfulness, you may
suddenly feel that those closest to you should also
practice, but this is very delicate and dangerous ter-
ritory. It’s always better to practice yourself and em-
body mindfulness in your life, and let that speak to
those around you.
In this case, his “annoying habits” may be much
more than that. They may in fact signal serious ad-
dictions, in which case, sooner or later they inevitably
lead to habitual patterns of behavior that are not
healthy for anybody involved. Trying to use mindful-
ness to fix things is not a wise way to sort out a rela-
tionship—don’t let mindfulness become a dime-store
solution to your challenging problems. Mindfulness
is not about fixing anything, but about seeing things
as they actually are and then being in wise relation-
ship to them, even if it is difficult or painful. While
“fixing” is not an option in such a situation, healing
is, perhaps, through bringing wisdom and compas-
sion to them without trying to force an outcome that
you are attached to.
ph oto b y l i za m at t h ews
You can never change another person. They have
to be willing to go through their own process of
change. I would suggest not trying to convince your
partner of anything. Just trust in your own com-
mitment to the practice, and hold your partner and
yourself in awareness with as much loving-kindness
as you can, with no goal or agenda other than that.
➤ Mindfulness has completely changed how I work. I
am less stressed out, I work smarter, and my blood pres-
sure has gone down! How can I encourage mindfulness
around my workplace?
The best way is to embody mindfulness in your
workplace yourself and then trust your instincts. It’s
not necessarily a good idea to take on the responsibil-
ity of teaching others yourself, or advising them. It’s
fine with a friend here or there to share your enthu-
siasm and even try out a little practice together, but
particularly in the workplace, it could become messy
and backfire. Do you want to be seen as the mindful-
ness proselytizer in your place of work?
I’d suggest inviting somebody well versed in
mindfulness practice to give a talk on mindfulness
in the workplace and in everyday life, and include a
short guided meditation for those who are interested.
These talks may stimulate further interest which
could take various forms, including perhaps an early
morning sitting and discussion group.
➤ I just completed an MBSR course. What should I
do next?
Practice! If you’ve taken MBSR, you’ve accumulated
eight weeks of momentum. Keep nurturing that
momentum because it can peter out, and then mind-
fulness just becomes a sweet memory or a nice idea.
You need to figure out how long and how frequently,
based on your life circumstances, and be flexible. One
thing you can do to support practice is reading books
about MBSR and books by people with strong prac-
tice experience. But read judiciously. Reading doesn’t
replace mindfulness practice. It complements it. The
mindful mindful.org 9
 idea that you have to do a lot of reading to get your-
self inspired before you practice is a myth.
Another support can be to find a meditation group
near you and go and sit with them at times when they
have public meditation practice. Eventually, when
you feel ready, find a place like the Insight Meditation
Society and do a meditation retreat. That kind of im-
mersion will make a big difference.
But the real meditation practice is your life. It’s not
about 45 minutes each day and the job is done. It’s
about letting the practice spill over into every waking
moment of your life—cultivating a kind of love affair
with the present moment without making it a big
chore. It doesn’t take any energy to remember you’re
breathing, seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching.
Sensing your body and your connection with nature,
with your colleagues at work, with your family mem-
bers, with your own heart—that is what builds the
foundation of mindfulness that supports your formal
practice. You’re no longer practicing a technique. It
becomes a way of being.
➤ I have three children (two, five, and seven). I started
practicing mindfulness before they were born, but I
don’t do it much now. I was thinking of picking it back
up again. Do you have any advice?
If you find yourself thinking of picking it up, trust
that impulse and start practicing. Of course, with all
you’ve got going on, the question is, “When?”
The answer to that is two-fold. You have opportu-
nities for formal practice, and for cultivating mind-
fulness “informally” throughout the day—mindful
parenting, mindfulness with your family, etc. In terms
of formal practice, everyone arrives at a routine based
on their own situation. When we had small children
in the house, I used to wake up long before they
would so I could practice. Sometimes it worked out,
sometimes it didn’t.
That said, you’re not likely to have all that much
time for formal practice. The real practice, when you
have a two-year-old, a five-year-old, and a seven-year-
old is being with them fully. Mindfulness deepens
just by consistently being in relationship to them and
to yourself with awareness, no matter what is hap-
pening. It’s interesting, for instance, to watch how
quickly a child’s emotions can shift. It’s also helpful
to observe how much you might want to force a situ-
ation to be different, because you don’t like what’s
10 mindful mindful.org
happening. All sorts of challenging situations and
insights will come into your awareness. It’s a very rich
and fruitful time.
When you’re putting the children to bed or getting
them up in the morning, those are fabulous times to
really be present, to not be in a hurry to get on with
your life, because this is your life, every moment of
it. It’s high quality practice to just watch your own
reactivity and short-temperedness at times, perhaps
around bedtime or waking kids up in the morning
—and to do it with tremendous kindness and com-
passion toward yourself. You couldn’t pay a person
enough money to teach you those lessons, and your
children are going to give them to you for free wheth-
er you want them to or not.
You might also take a few moments at times to really
“take in” your children as they are and notice whatever
feelings arise. This itself is a radical act of love.
➤ My four-year-old won’t listen. I often get short with
him right before I leave for work and I sit at work all
day feeling awful—but I still need my child to listen, to
prevent him from doing harmful things, like projecting
himself out of his high chair.
Of course, we want to insure the safety of our children
more than anything else. But often our fears get the
better of us in just these kinds of situations. We’ve
all done something like this many times. A fear in
the form of a thought (“My child will hurt himself ”)
arises. You are short with him because of it. Then
you feel awful later, when you think about it. Then
you rationalize it by saying, “But I have to prevent
him from hurting himself.”
The lack of awareness of your own fear and the
thought behind it usually triggers a reaction and limits
your ability to see that you have a lot of options in that
moment. One possibility would be to change the condi-
tions by gently taking him out of his high chair, rather
than trying to teach him a lesson he may not be ready to
learn in that moment. After all, he is only four. There are
many creative possibilities in such situations, but only
you can come up with them, based on your willingness
to be more aware in the present moment. Awareness is
always the key. This episode is already motivating you to
look more deeply at what happened and come to some
understanding that may inform how you will see and
respond to whatever the next challenge of the moment
will be. That’s the beauty of this practice.
mindful mindful.org 11
 in Communication

Stop
Wait
go
The hardest part of communicating well is

I
knowing when to speak, when to be quiet,
n National Geo- and when to wait and see. Communication
graphic many years
ago there was a trainer Susan Chapman shows us how
photo of a polar mindfulness can help.
bear and a dog playing
together. A dog named
Churchill was tied up to a stake in the ice. His owner As the bear lumbered towards him, Churchill
spotted a starving bear, just out of hibernation, crouched down and wagged his tail. In spite of his
through the window of his cabin. He watched in hor- ravenous hunger, the bear responded to the signal
ror as the bear approached his dog. Feeling powerless and switched from predator to playmate. One of the
to protect his pet from certain death, he grabbed his photos shows Churchill and the bear embraced in an
camera and snapped pictures of the scene unfolding affectionate hug as they tumbled and rolled around
before his eyes. But to his amazement, what he wit- the ice. Then the huge polar bear turned and ambled
nessed was how Churchill saved his own life. away. Over the next few days, the bear returned to the
site several times to play with his new friend.
These photos came into my life at the right moment.
Susan Chapman is a marriage and family therapist who presents
training programs applying mindfulness principles to conversations, I was preparing to teach a series of workshops on mind-
relationships, and communities. She is the author of a forthcoming book ful communication, where students would learn practi-
on mindful communication from Shambhala Publications. cal skills in bringing awareness, insight, compassion,

12 mindful mindful.org
 and choice to their communications. In preparation, I
was paying close attention to my own interactions, es-
pecially with the difficult people in my life.
From Predator to Playmate
When I first saw the National Geographic photos, I
was observing the defensive strategies I used with the
hungry bears in my life. Would Robert, the bully co-
worker coming down the hallway, turn into a teddy
bear if I adjusted the signals I was sending? Not likely.
But I decided to give tail wagging a try anyway.
In some ways, Robert fit the image of a starving
polar bear, as he stalked the office commanding at-
tention and emotionally devouring the rest of us with
his crude jokes and predictable opinions. Normally,
when he walked into the room I cringed and put
on my mask, which only locked the two of us into
another episode of our predator–prey relationship.
But when I realized I could arouse a feeling
of friendliness rather than cower,
Traffic Lights
Bringing awareness to the way we communicate with
others has both practical and profound applications.
During an important business meeting, or in the
middle of a painful argument with our partner, we
can train ourselves to recognize when the channel of
communication has shut down. We can train our-
selves to remain silent instead of blurting out some-
thing we’ll later regret. We can notice when we’re
over-reacting and take a time-out.
We begin practicing mindful communication by
simply paying attention to how we open up when we
feel emotionally safe, and how we shut down when
we feel afraid. Just noticing these patterns without
judging them starts to cultivate mindfulness in our
communications. Noticing how we open and close
puts us in greater control of our conversations.
In my mindful communication workshops, the
metaphor we use is the changing traffic light. We
imagine that when the channel of communication

Practicing Mindful Communication

I felt a wave of con-
fidence. Over the fol-
lowing days and weeks, Red Light Yellow Light Green Light
I discovered that I could Notice when you’ve become Pay attention to the limbo When your state of mind
interrupt my defensive defensive and closed off. Be between open and closed. is open, feel free to explore
reactions to Robert by careful. Communicating in Relax with the uncertainty. your connection with others.
i m ag e s © i s to c kph oto.c om / g ra fi ss i m o / nats m i t h 1

bringing up the mental this zone can lead to difficult Pause, reflect, linger there, Share. Learn. Change.
image of Churchill and and painful reactions. and let possibilities emerge. Expand.
the polar bear. This inter-
ruption in my defensive-
ness allowed me to relax
for a moment.
As Robert came more into focus for me, positive closes down, the light has turned red. When commu-
details about him started to emerge. I appreciated the nication feels open again, we say the light has turned
fact that he was always on time for work, even though green. When communication feels in-between, or on
his eyes looked tired and swollen, as if he’d been up too the verge of closing down, we say the light has turned
late the night before. I noticed that he had good taste yellow. The changing traffic light imagery helps us to
in clothes and that his shirts were always clean and identify our various states of communication, and to
ironed. Gradually, I formed a more respectful image recognize the consequences of each.
of Robert and my fear of him lessened significantly.

mindful mindful.org 13
 The Red Light:
Defensive Reactions
When I let Robert intimidate me, my red light came
on. I became defensive and closed down. When we
react to fear by shutting down the channel of com-
munication, we’ve put up a defensive barrier dividing we let go of our opinions and enter a larger mind,
us from the world. We justify our defensiveness by
holding on to unexamined opinions about how right
we are. We tell ourselves that relationships are not
that important. We undervalue other people and put
tion patterns helps us realize the value of openness.
Generally, we associate open people as trustworthy,
as in touch with themselves and others. But openness
also has the magic ingredient that enables us to fall in
love, to feel empathy and courage. When we’re open,
which gives us the power to trust our instincts, like
Churchill trusted his instincts to wag his tail.
When we’re open, we don’t see our individual
needs opposing the needs of others. We experience
a we-first state of mind, be-
cause we appreciate that our
personal survival depends

We’re born with sensitive receptors on the well-being of our

relationships. We express
this connectedness to oth-
in our body, heart, and mind that keep us tuned into ers through open com-
the flow of energy and life going on around us and within us. munication patterns. Open
communication tunes us
in to whatever is going on
our self-interest first. In short, our values shift to me- in the present moment, whether comfortable or not.
first. Closed communication patterns are controlling Openness is heartfelt, willing to share the joy and
and mistrustful. Others become static objects only pain of others. Because we’re not blocked by our own
important to us if they meet our needs. opinions, our conversations with others explore new
To make matters worse, when we’re closed and worlds of experience. We learn, change, and expand.
defensive, we feel emotionally hungry. We look to
others to rescue us from aloneness. We might try to The Yellow Light: In-Between
manipulate and control them to get what we need.
Because these strategies never really work, we inevita- When my defensive reactions to Robert became so
bly become disappointed with people. We suffer, and painful that I began to be curious about them, my yel-
we cause others to suffer. low light came on. In practicing mindful communica-
We’re all born with sensitive receptors in our body, tion, eventually we ask ourselves: What exactly causes
heart, and mind that keep us tuned into the flow of me to switch from open to closed and then open again?
energy and life going on around us and within us. We begin to discover the state of mind that exists in-
This natural communication system feeds us infor- between open and closed—symbolized by the yellow
mation all the time. When we close down and be- light. In-between is a place we normally don’t want to
come defensive—for a few minutes, a few days, a few enter. We find ourselves there when the ground falls
months, or even a lifetime—we’re cutting ourselves out from beneath our feet, when we feel surprised,
off not only from others, but also from our natural embarrassed, disappointed—on the verge of shutting
ability to communicate. Mindful communication down. We might feel a sudden loss of trust, an unex-
trains us to notice when we’ve stopped using our in- pected flash of self-consciousness. Learning to hold
nate communication wisdom—the red light. steady and be curious at this juncture is critical to the
practice of mindful conversation. Horseback riding
instructors call it “holding your seat.”
The Green Light: Openness
A yellow-light transition can appear any time. We
When I could open up and reconnect with my own can switch from closed to open via the yellow light,
resources, and to Robert as a playmate, my green if we’re willing to enter into curiosity, or accepting
light came on. Paying attention to our communica- that we don’t know the answer. For instance, one day,

14 mindful mindful.org
 3
in time management

practices to shift your

during an argument with my husband,
relationship with time
I stormed out the door and was halfway
around the block when, out of nowhere, by marc lesser
I asked myself: Why am I doing this?

1
I didn’t know the answer and despite
my pain, I was curious. Suddenly, I was

Arrive early 
outside the defensive security of my red
light, open to any and all possibilities.
The in-between state of mind is a
For the next seven days, see if you can be early for scheduled
critical time for bringing peace into our
appointments. Notice how this impacts your state of mind.
homes and workplaces. Small acts of
Do meetings feel more spacious? Do you feel more relaxed
kindness that are either shared or with-
and better prepared? Do you feel that more is actually
held when the yellow light is flashing can
accomplished? Sub-rule to Practice 1: If you are late, relax.
make or break a relationship. Once we’re
Just be late. Don’t punish yourself.
in the red zone, it’s too late to engage in

2
acts of kindness—we’re too mistrustful.
I’ve seen this over and again working
with couples—they reach a critical point
when they can save their relationship
by switching from me-first to we-first
thinking. They can think about their
children, pets, or anything that brings a
larger picture to mind. Acts of kindness
at this point shift them into a temporary
mood of gratitude. Feeling gratitude
makes them more interested in moving
forward.
The yellow light points to those mi-
Focus on strengths
We often waste time focusing on what isn’t working, which
spills over into time required to deal with bruised feelings. If
you’re looking for what isn’t working, you may notice a lot, but
you’ll limit what you can learn and use. Look for strengths, in
yourself and others, as a conscious practice, and you will find
how much more energy—and time—you have to accomplish
things. Notice your state of mind during this practice. What
supports you in this practice, and what gets in the way?

3
raculous moments when we can open
up, wag our tails, and play. We break Take a break
the spell of our own personal agendas
and awaken to genuine relationship. for a breakthrough
Such abrupt shifts seem to come out of
Take a few minutes each day to step out of conventional clock
nowhere in the middle of our most ego-
time. Taking this break may lead to a breakthrough, since many
crunching experiences—such as admit-
of our best ideas arise when we let our minds relax and wander.
ting that we’ve made a mistake.
By relaxing our focus, we can be open to creative impulses,
When I think back to the early years
surprising questions, and, at times, robust answers. Each day,
and the arguments I’d have with my
for the next seven days, spend ten minutes on not focusing.
husband, I realize that the timeline of
Just let your mind wander; get up, move to a different space.
our 21-year marriage has been a series of
Be aware of your breath, your body, your walking; notice your
turning points. At these turning points
surroundings as though seeing things through fresh eyes. Bring
the path of our relationship could have
a heightened sense of awareness to sensations of sight, sound,
led toward heaven or hell. Our happiness
smell, and touch.
is the result of thousands of small flashes
of the yellow light, where we were able
to transform disappointments and argu- Marc Lesser is CEO of ZBA Associates, an executive coaching and consulting
ments into opportunities for unmasking, company. He is a developer and instructor for the Search Inside Yourself program
intimacy, and joy. at Google and author of Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less.

mindful mindful.org 15
 in health

Letting Ourselves Heal

Saki Santorelli, director of the stress reduction program at
the University of Massachusetts Medical School, says that
healing begins when we uncover our vulnerable places.

I n the interdependent domains of personal health and the

health care professions, mindfulness—our capacity to pay at-
tention, moment to moment, on purpose—is an immediately
accessible ally. For those in pain as well as those serving to allevi-
ate it, such careful attentiveness is one of the most vital elements
of the healing process. On a daily basis, health practitioners find
themselves face-to-face with the “bandaged place,” the place where
a wound lies behind a protective covering. This tends to arrive in
the guise of another person’s pain. Yet so often it seems as if all
of those whom we call patients have concealed and brought with
them, into our unknowing presence, an empty mirror. Then, when
we glimpse “their” torn and wounded places, we behold, quite un-
expectedly, reflections of ourselves.
Likewise, when as patients we are confronted with illness, with the
unexpected, and on the receiving end of powerful suggestions from
health practitioners about our future, it is easy to turn away from
ourselves, losing all sense of direction, no longer trusting our innate
wisdom and navigational sensitivities. But if, in these moments, we
learn to stop and be present, we have a chance to learn a lot.
In these moments, no matter what our role, so much seems
to be at stake, so much of our identity ripe for loss, uncertainty,
or displacement. And so we often turn quietly away. This is our
ph oto © Jac k H ol li n g swo rt h / COR B I S

Saki F. Santorelli, Ed.D, MA, is

associate professor of medicine, executive
director of the Center for Mindfulness in
Medicine, Health Care, and Society, and
director of the Stress Reduction Program
at the University of Massachusetts
Medical School. He is the author of Heal
Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine
(Three Rivers Press).

16 mindful mindful.org
mindful mindful.org 17
 Mindfulness isn’t about focused thinking, introspection, self-
analysis, or mental gymnastics. It’s simply about bringing full
attention—not thinking—to whatever occurs.
common habit. It is understandable, because none
of us wishes to be hurt. Yet because this tendency is
so pervasive, our intention, our continually renewing
vow to practice being present to the full range of our
unfolding lives, is an enormous resource. My own ex-
perience suggests that the willingness to stop and be
present leads to seeing and relating to circumstances
and events with more clarity and directness. Out of
this directness seems to emerge deeper understanding
or insight into the life unfolding within and before
us. Such insight allows us the possibility of choosing
the responses most called for by the situation, rather
than those reactively driven by fear, habit, or long-
standing training.
By virtue of being human, each one of us is on in-
timate terms with not being present. Because of this,
our intimacy with this felt absence is a powerful ally.
This is the terrain of mindfulness practice. Each time
we awaken to no longer being present to ourselves
or to another person, it is, paradoxically, a moment
of presence. If we are willing to see the whole of our
lives as practice, our awareness of the moments when
we are not present, coupled with our intention to
awaken, brings us into the present. Given our pen-
chant for absence, opportunities for practicing pres-
ence are abundant.
Meditation on the
Awareness of Breathing
Meditation practice requires a disciplined, sustained
effort. Yet at heart, mindfulness meditation is about
care, about a willingness to come up close to our dis-
comfort and pain without judgment, striving, manip-
ulation, or pretense. This gentle, open, nonjudgmental
approach is both merciful and relentless, asking of us
more than we might ever have expected. To practice
in such a way, awareness of the breath is an effective,
ever-available means for cultivating presence.
Find a comfortable place to sit down. Sitting on
the floor or in a straight-backed chair is fine. If you
are in a chair, see whether you can ease off the back of
the chair and support yourself (unless you have back
18 mindful mindful.org
trouble), sitting upright yet at ease, placing your feet
firmly on the floor, allowing the knees and feet to be
about hip-width apart. Find a comfortable place for
your hands, resting them in your lap. Try folding them
together or turning the palms up or down. If you are
on the floor, placing a cushion or two under your but-
tocks can be helpful. This will encourage your pelvis
to tilt forward and your knees to touch the floor,
thereby providing a strong, stable base of support.
Again, find a comfortable place for your hands.
Now you’ve taken your seat.
Allow yourself to simply be with the feeling of
sitting upright, solid, dignified, without pretense…
settling into your seat, becoming aware of the flow
of your breathing, sensing the rhythm of inhalation
and exhalation, the feel of the breath coming into and
leaving the body. Become aware of the rise and fall of
the belly or the feeling of the breath at the tip of the
nostrils or the sense of the whole breath coming in
and going out. Rather than thinking about the breath,
allow yourself to feel the breath—the actual physi-
cal sensations of breathing—as the breath comes in
and goes out. There’s no place to get to, nothing to
change. Simply be aware of the breath in the body,
coming and going, in and out. Each time you notice
that the mind has wandered away from the awareness
of breathing, gently and firmly return to the feeling of
breathing, to the tide of inhalation or exhalation.
This wandering away might happen fifty times in
the next five minutes. This is normal. Still, each time
you notice that the mind has wandered, gently and
firmly return to the feel of the breath. No need to
scold yourself, no need to hold on to whatever enters
the mind. Breathing. Riding the waves of inhalation
and exhalation. Just this breath…and this breath…
and this breath. Simply dwelling in the flow of the
breath. Coming home, returning, through the aware-
ness of the breath, to your wholeness, your complete-
ness. Right here, right now.
Try working with this practice for five to thirty
minutes several times during the next week. If you’d
like, try gradually increasing the length of time you
devote to “formal” mindfulness practice.

Balancing the Heart-Mind
Sometimes people confuse mind in the word mind-
fulness as having to do with thinking about or con-
fining attention to cognition, imagining that we are
being asked to engage in some form of introspection,
discursive self-analysis, or mental gymnastics. Simply
put, mindfulness is bringing a fullness of attention to
whatever is occurring, and attention is not the same
as thinking.
The Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “The
mind is the surface of the heart, the heart the depth
of the mind.” Indeed, the language of many contem-
plative traditions suggests that the words for “mind”
and “heart” are not different. Likewise, the artist and
calligrapher Kazuaki Tanahashi describes the Japanese
character for mindfulness as being composed of two
interactive figures. One represents mind and the other,
heart. Heart and mind are not imagined as separate.
From this perspective Tanahashi translates mindful-
ness as “bringing the heart-mind to this moment.”
Whether giving or receiving care, maintaining this
heart-mind balance is not easy. All too often we ride
the extremes—either we become lost in sympathy
and the suffering of another or we find ourselves
coolly observing, at a distance, aloof and uninvolved.
The qualities of the quiet mind are spaciousness
and clarity, the source of our capacity for discerning
wisdom. The open heart is tender, warm, and flow-
ing. Together, these attributes allow us to feel deeply
and to act wisely. Even when acting means doing
nothing. Perhaps compassion, in the fullest sense, is
the delicate balancing of a quiet mind and an open
heart. There is abundant opportunity in the healing
i m ag e © i s to c k ph oto.c o m / ni bb13
relationship for the cultivation of such a quality of
presence. But what does “a quiet mind and an open
heart” mean? What does this actually feel like? Even
though I cannot know how this feels to you, my sense
is that we have all tasted this way of being. It is elu-
sive, yet it is not something we have to get; rather, it is
something to be revealed. Something we can cultivate
through paying attention. Something to be alert to,
both in its presence and in its absence.
practice
Befriending Self
Mindfulness is an act of hospitality. A way of learn-
ing to treat ourselves with kindness and care that
slowly begins to percolate into the deepest recesses
of our being while gradually offering us the pos-
sibility of relating to others in the same manner.
Working with whatever is present is enough. There
is no need to condemn ourselves for not feeling
loving or kind. Rather, the process simply asks us
to entertain the possibility of offering hospitality to
ourselves no matter what we are feeling or think-
ing. This has nothing to do with denial or self-
justification for unkind or undesirable actions, but
it has everything to do with self-compassion when
facing the rough, shadowy, difficult, or uncooked
aspects of our lives.
This week try taking some time to explore the
possibility of sitting with yourself as if you were
your own best friend. Dwelling in the awareness
of the breath, allowing thoughts and feelings to
come and go, experiment with the possibility of
embracing yourself as you would embrace another
person who is dear to you and needs to be held. If
you like, try silently repeating a phase on your own
behalf. You might offer yourself one or more of the
following:
May I be safe.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be peaceful.
Find the words that are right for you in this mo-
ment of your life. This may feel awkward, foreign,
or lacking in authenticity. None of these feelings
need be denied. Nevertheless, if this act of intra-
psychic hospitality appeals to you, give yourself the
room to work with this practice as a way of caring
for yourself. Such a way of working with ourselves
is not meant to foster egocentricity or selfishness. It
is just asking us to step back into the circle of caring
and include ourselves.
mindful mindful.org 19
 in eating

Mouthfuls
of Mindfulness
Whether you overeat, undereat, or just feel conflicted
about how you eat, mindfulness practice, says
physician Jan Chozen Bays, can help you rediscover
a healthy and joyful relationship with food.

M
indful eating is not directed by charts, tables, pyra-
mids, or scales. It is not dictated by an expert. It is
directed by your own inner experiences, moment by
moment. Your experience is unique. Therefore you
are the expert. In the process of learning to eat mindfully, we replace
self-criticism with self-nurturing, anxiety with curiosity, and shame
with respect for your own inner wisdom.
Let’s take a typical experience. On the way home from work Sally
thinks with dread about the talk she needs to work on for a big

20 mindful mindful.org
 Jan Chozen Bays is a pediatrician, mother, wife,
and longtime meditation teacher. She is the author
of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and
Joyful Relationship with Food (Shambhala Publications).
conference. Before starting to work on the speech,
however, she decides to relax and watch a few min-
utes of TV. She sits down with a bag of chips. At first
she eats only a few, but as the show gets more dra-
matic, she eats faster and faster. When the show ends
she looks down and realizes she’s eaten the entire
bag. She scolds herself for wasting time and for eat-
ph otos © i s to c kph oto.c o m / j oa n e k / l lo r e t
ing junk food. “Too much salt and fat! No dinner for
you!” Engrossed in the drama on the screen, covering
up her anxiety about procrastinating, she ignored
what was happening in her mind, heart, mouth, and
stomach. She ate unconsciously. She ate to go uncon-
scious. She goes to bed unnourished in body or heart
and with her mind still anxious about the talk.
The next time this happens she decides to eat chips
but to try eating them mindfully. First she checks in
with her mind. She finds her mind is worried about
an article she promised to write. Her mind says she
needs to get started on it tonight. She checks in with
her heart and finds she is feeling a little lonely be-
cause her husband is out of town. She checks in with
her stomach and body and discovers she is both hun-
gry and tired. She needs some nurturing. The only
one at home to do it is herself.
Throwing a Small Party
She decides to treat herself to a small chip party.
(Remember, mindful eating gives us permission to
play with our food.) She takes twenty chips out of the
bag and arranges them on a plate. She looks at their
color and shape. She eats one chip, savoring its flavor.
She pauses, then eats another. There is no judgment,
no right or wrong. She is simply seeing the shades
of tan and brown on each curved surface, tasting the
tang of salt, hearing the crunch of each bite, feeling
the crisp texture melt into softness. She ponders how
these chips arrived on her plate, aware of the sun, the
mindful mindful.org 21
 soil, the rain, the potato farmer, the workers at the
chip factory, the delivery truck driver, the grocer who
stocked the shelves and sold them to her.
With little pauses between each chip, it takes ten
minutes for the chip party. When she finishes, she
checks in with her body to find out if any part of it is
still hungry.
She finds her mouth and cells are thirsty, so she
gets a drink of orange juice. Her body is also saying
it needs some protein and something green, so she
makes a cheese omelet and a spinach salad. After
eating she checks in again with her mind, body,
and heart. The heart and body feel nourished but
the mind is still tired. She decides to go to bed and
work on the talk first thing in the morning, when
the mind and body will be rested. She is still feeling
lonely, although less so within the awareness of all
the beings whose life energy brought her the chips,
eggs, cheese, and greens. She decides to call her hus-
band to say good night. She goes to bed with body,
mind, and heart at ease and sleeps soundly.
Mindful eating is a way to rediscover one of the
most pleasurable things we do as human beings. It
also is a path to uncovering many wonderful activities
going on right under our noses and within our own
bodies. Mindful eating has the unexpected benefit of
helping us tap into our body’s natural wisdom and
our heart’s natural capacity for openness and grati-
tude. We ask ourselves questions like:
Am I hungry?
Where do I feel hunger?
What part of me is hungry?
What do I really crave?
What am I tasting just now?
These are very simple questions, but we seldom
pose them.
Mindfulness Is
the Best Flavoring
As I write this I am eating a lemon tart that a friend
gave to me. After writing for a few hours I’m ready
to reward myself with a tart. The first bite is deli-
cious. Creamy, sweet-sour, melting. When I take the
second bite, I think about what to write next. The
flavor in my mouth decreases. I take another bite
and get up to sharpen a pencil. As I walk, I notice
I am chewing, but there is almost no lemon flavor
22 mindful mindful.org
in this third bite. I sit down, get to work, and wait a
few minutes.
Then I take a fourth bite, fully focused on the
smells, tastes, and touch sensations in my mouth.
Delicious, again! I discover, all over again (I’m a slow
Ask yourself: What am
I tasting right now?
learner) that the only way to keep that “first bite”
experience, to honor the gift my friend gave me, is
to eat slowly, with long pauses between bites. If I do
anything else while I’m eating—if I talk, walk, write,
or even think—the flavor diminishes or disappears.
The life is drained from my beautiful tart. I could be
eating the cardboard box.
Here’s the humorous part. I stopped tasting the
lemon tart because I was thinking. About what? Mind-
ful eating! Discovering that, I grin. To be a human being
is both pitiful and funny.
Why can’t I think, walk, and be aware of the taste
of the tart at the same time? I can’t do all these at once
because the mind has two distinct functions, thinking
and awareness. When the thinking is turned up, the
awareness is turned down. When the thinking function
is going full throttle, we can eat an entire meal, an entire
cake, an entire carton of ice cream, and not taste more
than a bite or two. When we don’t taste, we can end up
stuffed to the gills but feeling completely unsatisfied.
This is because the mind and mouth weren’t present,
weren’t tasting or enjoying, as we ate. The stomach be-
came full but the mind and mouth were unfulfilled and
continued calling for us to eat.
If we don’t feel satisfied, we’ll begin to look
around for something more or something different
to eat. Everyone has had the experience of roaming
the kitchen, opening cupboards and doors, look-
ing vainly for something, anything, to satisfy. The
only thing that will cure this, a fundamental kind of
hunger, is to sit down and be, even for a few minutes,
wholly present.
If we eat and stay connected with our experience and
with the people who grew and cooked the food, who
served the food, and who eat alongside us, we will feel
most satisfied, even with a meager meal. This is the gift
of mindful eating, to restore our sense of satisfaction no
matter what we are or are not eating.
 in cooking
Feeling
your way along
Slow down in the kitchen, says renowned
chef and meditator Edward Espe Brown.
Finding out how to cook or how to work with others is some-
thing that comes with doing it, feeling your way along. And the
more you master your craft, the more you know that the way
is to keep finding out the way, not by just doing what you are
already good at, but by going off into the darkness.
My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, once emphasized this point during
a week of intensive meditation.
“Zen,” he said, “is to feel your way along in the dark, not know-
ph otos © i s to c kph oto.c om / Foto g ra fi a Ba s i c a
ing what you will meet, not already knowing what to do. Most of us
don’t like going so slowly, and we would like to think it is possible
to figure everything out ahead of time, but if you go too fast or are
not careful enough, you will bump into things. So just feel your way
along in the dark, slowly and carefully,” and he gestured with his
hand out in front of him, feeling this way and that in the empty air.
“When you do things with this spirit, you don’t know what
the results will be, but because you carefully feel your way
along, the results will be okay. You can trust what will happen.”
Edward Espe Brown is author of The Tassajara Bread Book, Tassajara
Cooking, The Complete Tassajara Cookbook: Recipes, Techniques, and Reflections
from the Famed Zen Kitchen, and Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings.
Lentil Soup with Cumin,
Coriander and Lemon
I made this soup at a cooking class once, along with
pimento pizza and pear crisp. Several students thought
it was the best part of the dinner. Lentils are like
that—ordinary yet winsome. See what you think. The
instructions also give you the option of sautéing the
vegetables or simply adding them directly to the soup.
You can make the soup especially appealing if you
grind the seasonings freshly (in a spice grinder or cof-
fee mill), and use a good lemon (organic, if possible,
or from your yard).
This is also a fine soup for getting to know the in-
gredients by tasting carefully before and after adding
each one: tasting the lentils, then lentils with vegeta-
bles and garlic, then with cumin, with coriander, with
lemon, and finally with parsley.
SERVES 4 TO 6 PEOPLE
1 cup lentils
8 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil (optional)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 stalks of celery, diced
2 carrots
1 teaspoon cumin seed, freshly ground
2 teaspoons coriander seed, freshly ground
Peel of ½ lemon
Salt (optional)
A few sprigs flat-leaved parsley,
minced for garnish
Sort through the lentils for stones or other debris.
Place in a large pot, add water and bay leaf and bring
to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, un-
til the lentils are soft. The lentils could also be pressure
cooked. Once they are soft, see what they taste like.
If you want the soup to be ready soon, sauté the
onion in the olive oil for several minutes, until it is
translucent. Then add the garlic, celery, and carrot.
Sauté a couple more minutes, then add a bit of water.
Cover, reduce the heat and cook until tender. Add to
the cooked lentils. Season with the cumin, coriander,
and lemon peel. Salt may be needed.
For a more leisurely soup, do not sauté; simply add
the onion, garlic, celery, carrots, cumin, and coriander
to the lentils after they are tender. Continue cooking
30 to 40 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the
lemon peel. Before serving, check the seasoning and
garnish with the parsley.
mindful mindful.org 23
in leadership

Finding the space

to Lead
Mindfulness helps leaders see, hear, and think with
greater clarity, according to Janice Marturano, who
teaches mindfulness to leaders in corporate settings.

Janice L. Marturano is vice president, public

responsibility, and deputy general counsel for General Mills,
and director of leadership education, Center for Mindfulness.
 “I
t really worked!” announced one of
the corporate leaders as she arrived
early for a mindful leadership practice
session. Susan (as we’ll call her) was
visibly happy and excited, an unusual response for
4:00 p.m. on a workday. When I asked her what was
up, she told me she had just come from a meeting
where a major change in corporate direction was an-
nounced that would result in months spent rework-
ing something that was well underway. Normally
such an event would have made Susan so upset she
would need to be, in her own words, “scraped off
the ceiling.” But this time, she said, she drew on the
mindfulness training she had been practicing over the
past several weeks and discovered she had the capa-
city to respond in a different, more skillful way. First,
she recognized the arising of a familiar form of reac-
tivity, and then, in a momentary pause, noticed the
possibility of meeting the situation differently.
As I listened to Susan, I was struck by the sense
that her joy reflected a much deeper discovery: that a
spaciousness and freedom from reactive, auto-pilot
ph oto ©T i m Dav i s / CORB I S
leadership can be accessed by cultivating mindful-
ness. Leaders remember something fundamental
about being a human being as they recognize that
there is a way to meet each moment of their lives
without reactivity, judging, and storytelling. These
are not only unnecessary but also cloud their ability
to see clearly what is actually there and respond with
greater wisdom. In these times, can leaders afford to
do otherwise?
The mindful leadership curricula we have been
presenting combine some of the latest neuroscience
discoveries with established mental disciplines drawn
from the meditative tradition. Mindful leadership
training is not about relaxation. It offers the intensive
mental discipline training of mindfulness medita-
tion in a context that recognizes the unprecedented
challenges and opportunities facing leaders today. It
invites leaders to explore for themselves the possibil-
ity of bringing all of their mind’s capacities to each
moment of their lives.
Mindfulness training teaches leaders to rely not
just on analytical resources and strengths, but to
intentionally cultivate and strengthen the mind’s
capacity to be fully present. In so doing, leaders
begin to see and hear and think with greater clarity,
and perhaps to expand the repertoire of possibili-
ties and responses in their lives.
The journey to develop the mindful leadership curri-
cula began in 2005 during a discussion among colleagues
at the University of Massachusetts’ Center for Mindful-
ness. We were talking about how, despite the increas-
ing spread of mindfulness throughout many aspects
of society, a comprehensive methodology to bring
mindfulness to organizations seemed notably absent.
Although there had been many attempts, none had
the sustained impact I sensed might be possible.
mindful mindful.org 25
 It seemed clear that the way to have the greatest
impact on any organization was to bring mindful-
ness training to its leaders. But offering Mindful-
ness-Based Stress Reduction to leaders was not the
solution. The classic MBSR format focuses on stress,
and many leaders simply would not invest the time
needed to experience and understand the potential
of mindfulness training if the benefit were merely
stress reduction. Mindful leadership training would
need to explore benefits far beyond stress reduc-
tion. The journey would not be about bringing
mindfulness training to leaders; it would be about
cultivating leadership presence. Ideally, the mind-
ful leadership program would bring together the
mental training of mindfulness meditation with an
understanding—from the inside out—of the chal-
lenges, complexities, opportunities, and responsi-
bilities of today’s leaders.
There was no road map to follow in developing
this new approach, and it would depend on ongoing
dialogue with the participants. A daunting challenge,
but thankfully one that I began with an extraordinary
partner: Saki Santorelli, executive director of the
University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness.
Together, we began this journey with a pilot group of
thirteen leaders and a newly developed curriculum
entitled Cultivating Leadership Presence through
Mindfulness.
Four years and more than 350 graduates later,
a unique exploration of mindful leadership has
emerged. This exploration takes place in a labora-
tory that can take the form of a multi-day residential
retreat or a series of consecutive weekly classes. Each
How Leaders Responded to Mindfulness Training
Cultivating Leadership Presence through Mindfulness Mindful Leadership@Work
A 4 ½-day retreat, 80 respondents A 7-week course, 40+ respondents
• Please rate how much change, if any, has occurred for you • I am able to be fully attentive to a conversation.
in the following attitudes and behaviors as a result of your Pre-course: 26%, Post-course: 77%
participation in mindfulness (retreat and practice).
• I am able to make time on most days to prioritize my work.
Percent reporting positive change: Pre-course: 17%, Post- course: 54%
93% Taking time to reflect…space for discovery/innovation
89% Enhanced listening…to self and others • I am able to notice when my attention has been pulled
88% Exhibiting patience…with self and others away and redirect it to the present.
80% Making better decisions…clarity Pre-course: 23%, Post-course: 67%
Cultivating Leadership Presence through Mindfulness and Mindful Leadership@Work are © 2010 Janice L. Marturano.
26 mindful mindful.org
leader becomes the experimenter and collects his
or her own data. Some of the data is familiar; some
is newly discovered and holds the promise of more
deeply understanding ourselves and bringing our true
and complete self to leadership.
Over the last twenty years as a leader in for-profit
and non-profit organizations, I have noticed a few
common qualities among the most influential lead-
ers: pursuit of excellence, open curiosity, integrity,
and respect and caring for others. My experience with
mindful leadership further reinforces this observa-
tion. Leaders who attend mindful leadership retreats
are often taking a leap of faith into an area they know
little about, and yet their inquisitive nature encourages
them to explore mindfulness just as they would any
other new territory. The retreats are intense, yet the
leaders are willing to work hard to meet that intensity.
In fact, the physical and mental challenge of mindful
leadership training aligns with their belief in pursu-
ing excellence. Rather than being a hurdle, it keeps
leaders in the game. The training also draws out their
integrity and caring for others when they take a pause
from the constant busyness that can infect us all and
begin to reflect on what really is at the core of their
authentic leadership. They notice the potential to lead
with greater clarity, with more transparency, and with
less storytelling about the future and the past.
When I speak with leaders about attending the
retreats, I am frequently asked, “What do you know
about the impact of this training on leaders?” To an-
swer this question, we started collecting qualitative
responses at the first retreat. This group was made
up of leaders from General Mills, where I work, and
I knew firsthand that they had access to some of the
best leadership training available. I was pleasantly
surprised, then, when
the most commonly
used word among all of
the feedback responses
was “transformative.”
To take our research
on impacts further, we
wondered if there would
be value in asking about
specific leadership qual-
ities, such as strategic
thinking, decision mak-
ing, listening deeply,
increasing productivity,
and decreasing reac-
tivity. So in 2009, we
undertook two studies.
Since leaders were not
 A Mindful Calendar
O
nce leaders understand and practice the
basics of formal mindfulness meditation,
we invite them to take the training into
everyday life through informal practices. Some of the
richest explorations of mindfulness come from sim-
ply paying attention to the daily calendar.
In this practice, leaders are asked to notice the sen-
sations in their body as they review a single calendar
page from their schedules. Almost instantly, when
leaders pause long enough, they notice that their chest
or stomach has tightened or their neck has tensed up.
They begin to become curious about those messages
from the body. They begin to question the status quo.
For many of us, a calendar of meeting after meet-
ing seems inevitable. We have to do it!
But is the schedule that’s been laid down for us—
often by a variety of other people—carved in stone?
Do we believe that if someone thinks we are needed
in a meeting, we can’t turn it down? After all, we are
leaders, so we must be needed, right?
With a pause that opens us to the present—that
allows us to notice how the body is meeting the be-
ginning of the day—we can become more reflective
about our choices. What is the best use of our time?
How many meetings do we attend even when others
on our team are in attendance? Do we attend because
we work in a culture where everyone needs to know
everything? Do we live in an environment that is so
competitive that there is a sense that constant visibil-
ity is necessary to ensure advancement? How many
meetings are a complete waste of time? In a global
economy with increasingly scarce resources, is this
how leaders should be meeting the day?
Calendar practice also raises questions about culti-
vating space for the teams we lead to grow, about the
barriers to innovation that arise from a simple lack
of space in the day, and about the allure of reacting to
situations simply to get something off the to-do list.
These and many other discoveries all begin with the
simple act of intentionally pausing to practice mindful-
ness for a few moments. In that small opening, the pos-
sibility emerges of meeting the day with more openness
and flexibility in our chest, stomach, and neck, and a
corresponding spaciousness of mind that allows us to
lead ourselves and others more effectively through the
chaos and complexity of our day. — janice marturano
mindful mindful.org 27
 in body
so interested in whether the training would help
them handle stress, we didn’t do typical mindfulness
research, which measures biological and psychologi-

Mind and
cal indicators of stress. What we wanted to know
was whether the training would affect how well they
would lead, and to our delight the answers were con-
sistently strong, as the sample data in the box shows.
We also did a pre- and post-course survey of mid-
level managers who participated in a seven-week,
two-hour-per-week, Mindful Leadership@Work The most important part of any body
course. All 19 categories we looked at showed statis- discipline, says well-known yoga
tically significant positive change. In addition, we’ve teacher Cyndi Lee, is noticing how
noticed interest in the program going viral: col-
our mind and body affect each other.
leagues of leaders who have participated in the pro-
grams routinely tell others about the changes they

have noticed in the leaders who have taken part, and
of course the leaders themselves speak about their
experiences.
One of our key assumptions in this work has
been that if leaders embody mindful leadership, the
impact on their organizations would be significant
whether or not their teams were trained in mindful-
ness. If, for example, they use the calendar exercise
on the preceding page, what kind of ripple effect
does that have? What if the leader begins to question
the volume of meetings, perhaps delegating more,
or being more intentional about leaving space in
the day for connecting with colleagues and direct
reports? What is the impact on the organization
and the community if a leader routinely has enough
space in their day to ask if there are better ways to do
things—ones that are more productive, more profit-
able, more compassionate, more socially responsible?
The work that began with the four-and-half-day
Cultivating Leadership Presence through Mindfulness
retreat has unfolded to include many other offerings
under the mindful leadership umbrella, including a
seven-week course for all levels of an organization, an
annual Mindful Leaders Alumni Retreat, a Mindful-
ness Meditations for Leaders CD and a wide variety
of weekly, bi-monthly, and internet meditation prac-
tice supports.
All of these emerged in response to leaders asking
for something more to support their exploration.
Leaders lead, so once they were touched by mindful
leadership, they had plenty of ideas about where else
mindfulness might be brought into their organiza-
tions. So, the mindful leadership work has spread
quickly to leaders from more than 30 organizations,
because leaders tell other leaders about their experi-
ences—particularly when they help them find better
ways to lead in the face of change and uncertainty.
S
ince he was wearing such a charming smile,
I wasn’t particularly alarmed when a strange
guy on the street grabbed my arm and said,
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Turns out he was
wrong about that. I remembered Axel very well. It
took me only a second to recognize this open-faced,
snappily dressed man as the young tough guy who
used to attend my morning yoga classes ten years ago.
Back then Axel didn’t look so friendly. Along with
a shaved head and many tats, his numerous pierc-
ings gave off an aggressive vibe that seemed to say,
“Don’t even think of bothering me.” He kept to himself
but he also kept coming back to yoga class. He paid
good attention and was energetic and determined in
class—maybe too determined. He reminded me of a
hard-boiled egg, all his youthful energy and heat turned
inward and covered with a thin but unyielding shell.
So I was surprised the day he raised his hand to ask
a question. We’d been working on exercises to open the
shoulders and chest muscles in preparation for doing a
big backbend, one that was not available to Axel yet. All
the students went quiet. He asked, “Is the reason I can’t
do a backbend because my heart is closed?”
Cyndi Lee is one of America’s leading teachers at the
intersection of yoga and meditation. She is the founder
of OM yoga center in New York City and teaches
retreats and workshops internationally.

28 mindful mindful.org
Body Why can’t they just get along?
Axel tended to put too much effort in to his physi-
cal yoga practice. Unless he was hammering away—
grabbing for his toes in forward bends, pounding
the wall in handstand kicks, squeezing everything in
standing balances—he literally couldn’t feel anything.
Many of us have the same habit, pushing and pull-
ing as hard as we can. This creates a response loop
that causes us to lose the ability to be sensitive to the
subtle unfolding of our mind and body.
But when Axel asked that question it was obvious
to everyone but him that he had changed. His con-
sistent yoga practice had begun eroding his aggres-
sive attitude in the same way that rain wears down
rock. The sharp edges soften and the stone hollows,
becoming a cup that receives water and turns it into
refreshment. The only problem was that even though
Axel was softening inside, his habitual way of relating
to himself as a tough guy hadn’t changed.
Just as my parents didn’t treat me like an adult
until I was about 45-years-old, we don’t always no-
ph oto © Tom a s Rod rig uez / CORBI S
tice as we, or our loved ones, evolve, soften, harden,
expand, and contract. As I write this, I am sitting at
the bedside of my sick, elderly mother. At 85, she has
changed a lot. Her mind is too loose and she can’t
hold thoughts and words together very well. As I
hold her soft, little hands, bruised from so many IVs,
but still sporting girly pink nail polish, I am grate-
ful for my yoga practice. I’ve trained myself to move
mindfully—sensitively feeling the texture of my yoga
mat with each downward dog pose; noticing my
thoughts without judgment in each detoxifying deep-
twist; softening into a stretch rather than straining. As
I stroke my mom’s hair and spoon-feed her tiny bites
of applesauce, I realize these delicate moments are
what I’ve been practicing for over all those years.
Axel’s question was like a crack in the eggshell,
letting out a little bit of his natural goodness. As the
teacher, it was my job to mirror that back to him.
“Axel, your heart isn’t closed. It’s just that the muscles
of your chest and shoulders are tight, and that’s no
big deal. We can easily work on that.”
A lot of what we normally think, say, and do is
habitual, so it may seem ironic that when we practice
yoga we also engage in repetitive activity. We do sun
salutations day in and day out, but what makes it
yoga as opposed to unconscious habit is awareness.
This is the most important part of the practice. Yoga
is not just about the doing; it’s also how we are do-
ing what we are doing that makes it yoga. Drip, drip,
drip, the practice eventually balances our mind and
body and we find that we have changed in a good
way, become more functional and connected to our-
self and others.
Axel didn’t have a lot of time to chat. He’s busy
these days with his wife and new baby. He mostly
practices yoga at home since his business has taken
off. As he walked away with a little wave, the sun re-
flected off his beautiful bald egghead.
mindful mindful.org 29
 Kristi Nelson is a trainer and consultant with the Center for
Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and The
Soul of Money Institute. She is currently writing a workbook on
values-aligned fundraising. www.mindfulmoney.net

30 mindful mindful.org
 in money

Mind over

Kristi Nelson shows us how awareness of our

innermost thoughts about money can ease tension
and bring more creativity to our financial affairs

M
oney is a loaded subject. No matter where we currently sit on the con-
tinuum of “enough,” our relationship to money is often burdensome.
And for those of us committed to living mindfully, it is no less so.
Mindfulness helps us cultivate qualities of attention so that we can
more fully greet and be available for what unfolds in our lives. And yet, when we come
face to face with pivotal financial moments—a depleted checkbook, an investment deci-
sion, asking for a loan, coveting something we cannot afford, or riding the stock market
ph otos © i s to c k ph oto.c o m / pe d e r k

rollercoaster—mindful attitudes we embody so seamlessly in other moments can disap-

pear. At these times, we can be prone to unconscious emotions and behaviors that lead
to suffering.
Fortunately, to the same degree that money is an area of our lives fraught with chal-
lenges or neglect, it’s also a pathway that can lead us to greater insight, agency, and ease.
In the 25 years I have guided organizations and individuals toward a more fulfilling and
effective relationship to money, I have learned that despite the vast differences between
us, we have much in common in terms of why we struggle with money, and how we can
experience greater peace about it.
Here is a three-part practice you can use to improve your relationship with money.

mindful mindful.org 31
➤ Look Inside
Each of us has a unique money story we carry around
and express to the world in countless ways. These
stories—our money baggage—can become the un-
examined default settings that control our financial
lives. Becoming mindful about money means, first,
deconstructing the sources of the stories we tell
ourselves. We cannot transcend what we cannot see.
Consider the role of these influences:
• Your “Inheritance”
We are products of our ancestors and immediate
families, as well as our cultural and class back-
grounds. Messages, maxims, and myths about money
are overtly and subtly conveyed to us. Are there
stories and messages you heard repeatedly growing
up? What were you told is “true” about money? How
much was “enough” in your family? What attitudes
about money or class did you inherit? What were you
taught about people from other classes? How might
you still be paying allegiance to this history?
• Your Driven Self
We all have early beliefs about money that we unwit-
tingly adopted. These beliefs can drive our behavior,
filtering what we are able to see. A scarcity mentality
keeps us from noticing sufficiency in our lives. Feel-
ings of insatiability make us vulnerable to intoxicat-
ing dreams and promises of abundance. Deprivation
can result in closeted forms of gluttony. How have
desire and aversion played out in your relationship
with money? Have you mistaken some of your drivers
as your identity?
• Your Hidden Self
What are you hiding in relation to money? What
judgment do you fear? Wealthy people often hide
their riches, just as those who struggle with money
hide their debt. When we hide what is true, we be-
come “class impostors.” How, in both small and large
ways, might you misrepresent the truth about money
in your life? How does this keep you from having au-
thentic relationships?
Our money stories are powerful; they can either
keep us arrested in illusion or direct us to insight. Let
these unconscious places percolate up to your aware-
ness. Once you understand the factors influencing
you, you can begin to act with greater discernment.
Wonder gently. We all sometimes mistake our story
for who we are. Stories are meant to be convincing.
➤ Look Outside
Our internal conditions create vulnerabilities that
Western societies have set themselves up to “solve.”
It’s hard not to be susceptible to the myriad financial
remedies and prescriptions that bombard us from the
outside. But these “solutions” can narrowly define us
and reinforce the status quo rather than encourage us
to question the assumptions behind them.
• Your Plans
Traditional money mavens counsel us to set ambi-
tious goals, create elaborate budgets, and develop
long-term financial plans. Their guidance is heavily
weighted toward trading away the present moment
to prepare for—and protect against—an unknown
future, and is based in assumptions: We must all
want to be wealthy, retire early, and have lots of
luxuries…with no taxes. To be mature means having
a long list of goals focused on “more.” Ends trump
means. Security is measured as purely financial. Even
some of the most “enlightened” advice owes its roots
to these assumptions.
• Your Spending
In our culture, few habits are as deeply ingrained as
the desire to acquire, and few delights rival having
scored a bargain, indulged successfully, or invested
wisely. Our identities and pleasures become inextri-
cably linked with where we put our money and what
this says about us. We develop tastes that need to be
expressed and fulfilled, and we reveal our unique fin-
gerprint to the world through the choices we make,
including our investments. Even yoga, meditation,
and simplicity have been commercialized. We need to
stay very mindful; consumerism is a favored domain
of mindlessness.
• Your Earning
We are not what we earn. Just because we can charge
$100 per hour doesn’t mean we should, and just
because it might be difficult for us to charge $100
an hour doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. If asked by a
prospective employer for our required salary range,
where do we place the bottom? Doesn’t a range imply
a ceiling? Do you have a ceiling of “enough?” Money
 has become falsely bound up with success, worth, and
entitlement. From this entangled place, we can rarely
think clearly about what we truly need and value.
It takes very focused work to untangle the places
where our thinking and behavior related to money
have become convoluted. We may know, intellectu-
ally, that security is not “material,” that we are not
what we own, and that our lives are not equal to
what we earn. But this conditioning goes deep and
is reinforced almost everywhere. We are under the
weight of tremendous social pressures about money,
and getting free requires an equally tremendous
commitment.
➤ Look at the Whole Picture
Time, energy, and love are forms of currency, as is
money. What we do with these precious resources
tells the hard truth about who we are and what mat-
ters to us. We claim and re-claim ourselves in the al-
location of our currencies. Our clear intentions can
form a touchstone for our financial freedom, just as
the breath moving in and out of our bodies can be
the touchstone for mindfulness practice.
• Your Values
Much as our bodies align around the spine,
our financial lives need to align with the
template of our values. We must consistently
ph otos © i sto c k ph oto. com / j im la rk in
explore, define, and check our values.
What do you truly stand for? What prin-
ciples and beliefs do you want to express with
your life? What commitments do you want to
advance? How much is your enough point?
What difference do you want to make? What
is the real cost of more/less than enough to
your life, relationships, and the world?
Articulating our core values is not an idle
exercise. It is powerful and humbling, and
plants us on the cushion of self-responsibility
and accountability. The work of our values is
to be alive—how we do and don’t bring our
values to life is our work.
• Your Money
Choose to look very clearly at how money comes
into your life and where it goes. The raw truth of our
money trail tells an important story. Details matter.
Hold every allocation against your values template
and examine the degree to which it contradicts or
advances what matters to you. How do your values
show up in your income? How don’t they? Do you
hold onto money out of fear? Do you give away more
than you can truly afford? Do you have more than
you need? Less than you need? Notice. Honestly.
Ultimately, the antidote to being susceptible to the
pull of our internal stories and the lure of society’s
money messages may rest in unequivocally knowing
what we stand for, and aspiring to embody that in every
single financial decision we make. As Cheri Huber, au-
thor of Transform Your Life: A Year of Awareness Practice,
says, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Everything is a chance at freedom.
• Your Choice
Prominently display some of your values: Write them
on your checkbook, computer screen, wallet, and
credit cards. Remind yourself what you stand for. Try
bringing balance to your checkbook every month. Be
generous—give something meaningful away. Start a
sufficiency conversation every day. Express gratitude
for all the ways you are rich. Be transparent with a
friend. Nourish community. Express compassion by
making a thoughtful donation. What else can you do
to start a mindful money movement in your life?
If we commit to a mindful relationship to money
as a portal to learning, we can befriend what we have
been ignoring, release myths we’ve been harboring,
and live more fully the life we want—and the world
needs. Allowing money to be front and center in our
attention, we can take a deep breath each time we
face a pivotal financial moment, and explore new
possibilities for having money illustrate what we truly
want to embody in our lives.
mindful mindful.org 33
 Look Who’s Practicing
Mindfulness and Awareness
Mindfulness lessens the anxiety that can paralyze my
life and has, with professional help, enabled me to give
up antidepressant medication after 20 years.
Linda York, wellness program developer
Mindfulness is a journey that helps me
cope with the unique stressors of police
work and being in the military reserves. It
has great application for first responders
who suffer from compassion fatigue and
vicarious trauma. It offers age-old coping
mechanisms that we are just beginning to
understand scientifically. Richard Goerling,
police officer and Coast Guard reservist
34 mindful mindful.org
Mindfulness has broadened the way I
look at life’s circumstances. It’s given
me a larger container in which to
handle the discomforts of my chronic
illness. I avoid creating stories that
steal the moment and undermine
life’s happiness. Cynthia Taberner,
homelessness case worker
Mindfulness affects
how I walk from my
car to the classroom, If I dash around until the last second,
how I greet each stu- I often feel scattered and self-centered
dent as they enter the when I arrive at my classroom. If I give
room, the methods myself breathing space between pre-
I use when offering paring for the school day and entering
Bach’s great music. my classroom, I’m much more gener-
Mindfulness reminds ous and calm. Nicole Pitman, teacher
me why I love being a
teacher. Jane Corbin,
music teacher, public
high school
 In our nine-week class, we explored the potential to
stay present and embrace mindfulness as a way to
powerfully experience the birth of our children and to Walking down the street now, I’ll
enter parenting. Of ten couples, nine have continued as a stop and notice flowers on a tree. In
parenting group over the past four years. Koichi Naruishi the shower, I’ll pause and notice the
and Lisa Griffin, parents water on my body and how my mind
wants to plan instead of experience. I
judge less and embrace more.
Harriet Stein, trainer at a global
health care organization

Instead of being a person whose

thoughts have her, I am now a
person who is having thoughts. I am
I’ve become friendlier with my own
watching myself have thoughts and
thoughts and more aware of my
they can’t blindside me. They can
own bodily sensations and mental
be examined and either rejected or
processes. While I still struggle with
Mindfulness smoothes accepted. Jennifer Cheyne, mother
previous traumas and future expec-
out the side effects of and college student
tations, I’m more aware that I float
my cancer therapies
between yesterdays and tomorrows.
(depression, stress,
Chaz Southard, psychotherapy student
anxiety, body pain,
etc.). It allows me to
do rather than react.
Erik Marrero, retiree
and yoga teacher Mindfulness enabled me to put full attention into com-
plex challenges and remain positive throughout a long,
hard year as the only civilian development advisor inside
our military headquarters in Iraq. Robert Birkenes, foreign
service officer, USAID
To share your mindfulness experiences: write to profiles@
mindful.org and we’ll send you a short questionnaire.
mindful mindful.org 35
reviews
Small is Bountiful
Urban Pantry
Tips & Recipes for a Thrifty,
Sustainable & Seasonal Kitchen
By Amy Pennington
Skipstone, 2010; 176 pp., $19.95 (paper)
Reviewed by Sharon Hunt
I
n my thirties, I ate out more often than I ate at home. I justi-
fied this because I worked sixty-hour weeks at a corporate
job, where going to lunch was a given, as was returning with
something for dinner at my desk. Eating out was not only a neces-
sity, but it was also my reward for working all the time. During
one particularly busy work week—from Monday morning to Sat-
urday night—I didn’t wash any dishes. My kitchen sink held one
teaspoon, two juice glasses, and three coffee mugs.
When I decided to change my life, I moved to another city
and took up work in the world of food. I worked in a great
restaurant and its winter cooking school, quickly falling in love
with the food culture I’d become a part of. The chefs’ passion
for great food became my passion too. Although I was never
going to become a professional chef, I knew I would devote
a lot of my life to getting back in touch with real food and its
importance for the health of individuals and communities.
My kitchen, once packed with processed meals requiring just
the opening of a microwave oven, began filling with seasonal
fruits and vegetables and local cheeses and meats, all of which
required care and gratitude in the preparation.
Now I cook every day and bake a few times a week. The
36 mindful mindful.org
serenity I feel in the kitchen can’t be duplicated. Preparing
food has become a meditation practice, clearing my mind of
everything but the task at hand. This same meditative quality
permeates Amy Pennington’s new book, Urban Pantry: Tips &
Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable & Seasonal Kitchen.
It is clear Pennington loves food. In addition to being a food
writer, she is also a gardener. Her business (GoGo Green Gar-
den) plants and tends gardens for people living in cities, and
her website (UrbanGardenShare.org) matches gardeners with
gardening space. Her book’s dedication lets you know how she
feels about food: “May you be playful in life, confident in the
kitchen, and surrounded by friends and good food, always.”
Her confidence in the kitchen comes, in part, from a well-
stocked pantry. As she writes in the first chapter, “If I were to be
snowed in for weeks on end, I would not go hungry. In fact, I’d be
eating pretty well (and so would my neighbors).” Such generosity
in sharing food is a trait of food lovers, whether chefs in high-end
restaurants or volunteers in local food kitchens. People need to
share food; they nourish themselves when they nourish others.
Pennington’s devotion to sharing and growing a food commu-
nity is detailed in many ways in the book. For example, she started
a “canning society” with her friends that gathers weekly to pre-
serve in-season produce for the coming winter. The Stockpilers, as
they call themselves, remind me of the women’s auxiliary groups
associated with churches. Both my grandmothers belonged to
one of those. Having raised families during the Depression, they
understood how important it was to the health of a community to
gather, cook, and share the food they produced.
The book’s subtitle contains three words that have come to
mean a lot in my food education: thrifty, sustainable, and sea-
ph oto s © i s to c kph oto.c o m / F oto g ra fi a Ba s i c a / b e d o
sonal. Pennington provides solid tips for each of these. Some are
familiar, but worth reading again, such as buying whole food
items in bulk to save money, while buying smaller amounts to
ensure the food doesn’t go bad and have to be thrown out. She
also gives a great tip to cut down on food waste, asking readers
“to be mindful of little food scraps that are sometimes left be-
hind and easily disposed of as waste. Ask yourself, ‘Will I be able
to use this in the future?’ before throwing it out. More often
than not, the answer will be yes.”
Pennington sets out a good staples list that includes flours, sug-
ars, oils, vegetables, and herbs. Throughout Urban Pantry there are
other helpful lists, like the one for spices that ensures you have a
formidable range of flavor combinations at your fingertips.
The first recipe in the book is “Whole Grain Bread,” a fitting
beginning since bread is the foundation of most food cultures.
A nice mixture of vegetarian and meat-based dishes follows,
none of them requiring great expense or too many ingredients.
Pennington understands that the best cooking is often created
with a few items. Her cooking instructions are easy to follow
and preparation times are short, an important consideration for
those who insist they can’t fit cooking into their busy lives.
Many recipes can be used in various ways, from garnishes
to side dishes to main courses. My favorites include Cucumber
Quick Pickles, Spiced Kibbe (a Middle Eastern meat-based
dish), Vegetable Scrap Stock, and Tomato and Cinnamon
Chickpeas. Each recipe has a pantry note to help you store the
ingredients to elicit their maximum flavor, and additional tips
to ensure that the dish turns out the best it can. The fact that
there aren’t many photos is a plus, as far as I’m concerned:
you’re not pitting yourself against a glossy and perfect-looking
finished dish. Cooking is best when it isn’t a competition.
One of the best parts of this excellent book, and an appropri-
ate conclusion to Pennington’s food-sharing philosophy, is the
last chapter. About pantry gardens, she writes:
Small kitchen gardens are an incomparable extension to a
well-stocked pantry… Equally important are the sheer eco-
nomics involved in growing food at home. A cluster of fresh
herbs may cost three to five dollars at the grocery store…
One plant start costs about the same… Seed swapping is
truly the best deal of all. Sharing a packet of seeds among Become the leader the world needs now.
friends allows you to split the cost and sort through others’
seed stocks for inspiration.
This is so familiar to me, having grown up with a father who
Authentic Leadership
planted a vegetable garden every spring, and spent the summer Certificate Program
and fall months cooking, canning, and sharing the tomatoes,
zucchinis, potatoes, beet, carrots, and green peas that thrived Authentic Leadership is a sixteen-week certificate
in his care. He also gathered seeds for the following year and program that offers you a transformative learning
shared them with other urban gardeners. experience integrating the best of Western
Urban Pantry is a small book. It fits nicely in your hands for leadership practices with the wisdom of Eastern
reading, unlike some food tomes being published today. It won’t contemplative traditions.
intimidate you and it doesn’t require a science degree to under-
stand. It’s about the food many of us remember from growing January 10–May 8, 2011, online
January 24–28 & April 11–15, 2011, onsite
up. And now that the vital connection between healthy food
and healthy communities is becoming more and more clear, this
book about simple, everyday food has arrived right on time. Visit naropa.edu/authentic

Sharon Hunt is a freelance writer living in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Her passion for great, and simple, food was rekindled while working at
the Stratford Chefs School in Stratford, Ontario.

mindful mindful.org 37
Books on the Mind
By Barry Boyce

W ith each passing publishing season more and more

books worth reading are coming out about mindfulness,
awareness, and compassion. Here’s a sampling of some I’ve
world in finely honed frameworks that tell us what to see. She
reports on Richie Davidson’s work on the power of medita-
tors to alter brain function and Richard Nisbett’s studies of
added to my shelf in the past year. how culture alters perception, and also visits a Jon Kabat-Zinn
Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness mindfulness program.
(Da Capo), by Susan L. Smalley and Diana Winston, seamlessly A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (New
combines easy-to-read reports on scientific research with first- Harbinger), by Bob Stahl and Elisha Goldstein, provides graded,
person accounts and practice instructions. It’s a lively read that guided instruction and inquiry supplemented with audio
led me to stop and reflect many times. The last two chapters, instructions. It grew out of work Stahl and Goldstein did on
where Smalley and Winston focus more on awareness, are par- providing stress-reduction training through distance learning.
ticularly helpful. Awareness is not just attention. It is deep in- Users of the workbook are encouraged to engage in the read-
sight into how we are as human beings, why we do what we do, ings and practices according to a timeline and to connect with
and how we can creatively change that. Mindfulness practice, others doing the same through the mbsrworkbook.com web-
they tell us, can lead us to a deep awareness of ourselves and site. The authors see the workbook as a “technology” that goes
our surroundings from which wisdom and compassion emerge beyond the traditional book: readers are regarded as users and
naturally—and our actions speak for themselves. students who can become part of a loose community organized
Many future choices are shaped by our early experiences in through the website and social networking tools like Facebook.
school, and teachers know only too well that the classroom can The book reaches out to people who are, in Stahl’s words, in
be a dumping ground for negativity suppressed at home. Debo- “pain, stress, and difficulty, as I have been.” Rather than a static
rah Schoeberlein spent twenty years teaching in grades five read, it’s a guidebook for a journey.
through twelve. Her Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindful- The words “mindful” or “mindfulness” appear more than fifty
ness: A Guide for Anyone who Teaches Anything (Wisdom) times in the pages of Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era
makes a helpful contribution to a growing body of literature of Mindful Spending (Palgrave MacMillan), but no mention is
and curricula on how to bring mind and body practices, in- made of meditation or stress-reduction. Andrew Benett and Ann
cluding cultivating kindness, into school systems. It’s replete O’Reilly use these terms in the same way as Harvard psycholo-
with techniques teachers can use to help students enjoy being gist Ellen J. Langer (author of Mindfulness) does: to refer to the
at school, learn better, and get along well with others, and ways opposite of non-thinking, automatic behavior. In this case, the
that teachers can ground themselves amid the chaos and ten-
sion of the classroom.
In The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage
Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compas-
sionate (Free Press), Susan Kaiser Greenland offers dozens
of practices that help small children appreciate their natural
attentiveness and awareness. Trying to introduce any kind of
mind–body awareness practice to children can quickly de-
generate into a controlling, “sit down and be quiet” approach.
And children just love that! Instead, Greenland’s exercises are
child-friendly and fun, such as rocking a stuffed animal to
sleep with your breathing or stretching like a starfish. They
invite youngsters to notice mindfulness, rather than teaching
them how to do it right.
In Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life (Penguin Press),
Winifred Gallagher explores the differences between bottom-
up attending, responding to immediate stimuli that literally
“grab our attention,” and top-down attending, organizing the

38 mindful mindful.org
authors argue that in the wake of the Great Recession, there is
a movement away from mindless excess and consumption, and
toward “mindful being” instead of mindless buying. In caution-
ing business leaders to think more about helping consumers
make better choices than tricking them into mindless buying,
it echoes points being made by many mindfulness meditation
advocates, such as Daniel Goleman and Stephanie Kaza. While
mindful consumption needn’t be tied to meditation, it certainly
couldn’t hurt.
Daniel J. Siegel’s Mindsight: The New Science of Personal
Transformation (Bantam) explores how we can be aware of
our mental processes but not controlled by them. The first
third of the book discusses the working of the brain, with
Siegel’s theoretical views woven in (such as the “triangle”
of mind, body, and relationships that determines our well-
being). Although he suggests this section may be skimmed
or skipped, I found it one of the most lucid treatments of the
workings of the brain I’ve read. In the rest of the book, Siegel
uses personal stories to illustrate ways we lose “mindsight”—
through various styles of attachment, for example. Through-
out, he celebrates not just the power of the brain—an organ—
but the power of the mind—a wondrous process—to see itself
and to see through itself.
Recently, evolutionary scientists and psychologists have taken
a much greater interest in exploring cooperation, empathy,
compassion, and altruism as highly adaptive traits. In Born to
Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, Dacher Keltner
introduces us to Darwin’s work on human emotion and what
Keltner calls “survival of the kindest.” He shares the dishearten-
ing news of rapid declines in social well-being (e.g., the propor-
tion of Americans who trust their fellow citizens has dropped
15 percentage points in 15 years). In this very thoughtful book,
Keltner shows us how the self-seeking homo economicus is a
myth we must shatter for our own well-being.
Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global
Consciousness in a World in Crisis (Tarcher) tells a convincing
story of how empathy—“the mental process by which one person
enters into another’s being and comes to know how they feel and
think”—will (actually must) become the hallmark trait of the next
phase of human evolution. Rifkin celebrates the discovery of mir-
ror neurons—which fire both when you have an experience your-
self and when you see someone else have the same experience.
This innate ability to empathize is a key to how we can interrelate
to create a prosperous world together. By suppressing it, Rifkin
says, we threaten to bring our planet to extinction.

mindful mindful.org 39
 The Once and Future Me
Meditation and yoga teacher Kelly McGonigal discovers how the
future we imagine never arrives, but now is not so bad after all.
T he receptionist gave my fiancé a funny look. “Are you sure
she took the pills?”
Apparently, most sedated patients don’t jump up and dance
when Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” comes on the office radio. My
fiancé assured her that, yes, I had taken the sedative my den-
tist had promised would help me ignore, perhaps even sleep
through, the violent separation of my wisdom teeth from my
body. In truth, I had taken only half of one pill—just enough to
release my inner Shakira, but not enough to render me uncon-
scious. I had been waiting a long time to have this done, and I
wanted to be awake for it.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m no masochist, and I’m definitely
not fearless. Why do you think those wisdom teeth were still
in my jaw fourteen years after dentists started telling me they
should come out? “The longer you wait,” they all said, “the
worse it will be.” This was a bargain I was willing to strike.
The teeth could come out one day, in the future, when fu-
ture-me would be the one going through it. Future-me would
be better equipped to handle the anxiety, pain, and swelling.
Future-me could face the possibility of infections, perma-
nent nerve damage, and phantom wisdom tooth syndrome.
(Here’s some hard-earned wisdom for you: do not under any
circumstance Google “wisdom tooth horror stories” the night
before the procedure.)
Yes, future-me was definitely the right person to have the
surgery. As I’ve always told myself, future-me is so much more
courageous than plain old me. And also taller and better orga-
nized. This is why future-me gets a lot of assignments: the taxes,
the diet, the laundry. Future-me is a very busy person, and it’s
tough to fit it all in her schedule. But she’s so much more pre-
pared for the challenges of life.
Or so I thought—until I got introduced to an even better
version of myself. You can call her present-me.
I met present-me in the basement of a hospital during the
first class of an eight-week course in mindfulness. The teacher
sat us in a circle and told us to close our eyes. He told us to
feel the body, watch the breath. When our minds wandered, he
taught us how to bring our attention back, again and again, to
the present moment. Hello, present-me. How are you doing?
The more I sat with present-me, the more I started to ques-
tion the part of me that kept putting things off. “Don’t do it
now,” the voice would say. “You’ll be so much stronger, so much
smarter, and have so much more energy later.” But this voice,
40 mindful mindful.org
who spoke so highly of future-me, had remarkably little faith in
present-me. And she didn’t seem to have a whole lot of enthu-
siasm for anything other than shopping, sleeping, and making
lists of things that future-me should do.
I started to see this voice for the scared trickster she was. The
magic time known as not-now was never going to arrive—and
neither was future-me.
That realization is how I eventually landed in the dentist’s
chair, telling myself, “You can do this. This is just like sitting
meditation.” Present-me coached my mind through the whole
surgery. Feel the long needle slide into the gum behind your last
molar. Follow the burning sensation of lidocaine as it spreads
through your jaw. Stay present with the discomfort as it turns
into numbness. Now feel your breath.
“You won’t feel pain exactly, just a lot of pressure,” the den-
tist told me as the pulling began. So I watched the sensations:
This is what pressure feels like. This is what a lot of pressure
feels like. This is what an insane amount of pressure feels like.
I even listened to the sound of bone cracking as he broke the
most stubborn tooth into pieces. Feel your breath. Feel your
feet. Feel your hands. Feel your face. Oh, right, you can’t feel
your face. Feel your breath. The whole experience was an ex-
ercise in not freaking out—one that mindfulness practice had
prepared me well for. I have since had many other opportuni-
ties to practice staying present when my mind would rather
freak out. To my delight, present-me has been up to the chal-
lenge, even without the assistance of 0.125 mg of triazolam.
Present-me has been a good friend on turbulent flights,
when my imagination threatens me with visions of the plane
falling out of the sky. Present-me has been a voice of reason at
going-out-of-business sales, when my primitive brain tries to
convince me that hoarding discounted merchandise will give
me some kind of survival advantage. Even in some bona fide
emergencies, present-me has remembered to stay present. It
turns out she’s a lot better under pressure than that voice in my
head would have predicted.
As for future-me, we still haven’t met. I hear she’s a heck of a
gal, but it’s OK if she never arrives. I’ve discovered that present-
me, when I trust her, is exactly the right person for now.
Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is the author of Yoga for Pain Relief and
teaches psychology, yoga, and meditation at Stanford University.
www.kellymcgonigal.com
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