Flourishing as a Practice
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I often remind myself of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s insight: “When we understand that life is the curriculum, life itself becomes the meditation.” Still, until recently, I only understood half the sentiment. Initially, I internalized it in a responsive manner. When life presented an opportunity to practice mindfulness, especially a challenge, I would respond in kind. It wasn’t until reading and new book, , that the quote finally landed. Jon’s invitation isn’t solely to respond with compassionate presence. It is to intend it in each moment. This is one of the central...
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How to Prime Your Brain For Joy—with Dr.Wendy Suzuki
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Take a moment to recall one of your most joyful memories. Now, close your eyes and relive it. Where were you? Who were you with? How did you feel? Focus on your senses. What did you see and hear? Smell and taste? Spend a few minutes reliving this memory. How did this mini-meditation make you feel? This is a practice called Joy Conditioning, created by Since learning it, I’ve started my morning meditation by from the day prior. This simple ritual transformed my energy; Inspiring feelings of awe, abundance, and appreciation to start the day. Dr....
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An Activist’s Journey Leading the Clean Living Movement
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After graduated from college, she was seeking a job in the environmental non-profit space. Despite being passionate about climate change, she landed a role in consumer safety. Soon after, she was invited to meet with one of the top environmental organizations in Minnesota. They hoped she’d support their advocacy efforts to remove toxic chemicals from baby products. Kids weren't on Lindsay’s radar. Still, she said ‘yes’ and returned to her office for a late night of research. Her discoveries changed the course of her life—and yours. Lindsay’s research revealed that toxic...
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Letting Go as an Act of Self-Compassion—with Sharon Salzberg
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When was teaching at a meditation retreat, a student asked her: Has anyone ever died of restlessness in meditation? Sharon said: Not from one moment at a time of it. “We have physical pain, disappointment, restlessness, and anxiety,” Sharon shared. “Whatever it is, we tend to compound it, not only: This is what I'm feeling right now. But, this is what I'm going to feel like next year. Everything congeals and feels permanent and heavy. But, when we realize that it's one moment at a time of it. Then, we can explore. What we see is that even though something may last over time,...
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How to Live with Ease—with Dr.Thema Bryant
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While preparing for my interview with , I was struck by an exercise she shared. During a podcast, she invited listeners to fill out the prompt: “I miss me who…” I was surprised by how quickly a simple prompt awakened dormant longings; And, eager to learn how to rediscover the lost parts of ourselves. In reflecting on her journey, she shared: “In healing, I return to the truth of myself.” Her sentiment captures why the prompt stood out to me: Too often, we wait too long to embody our essence—or never do it at all. In our conversation, Dr.Thema leads us on our path back...
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In Stillness, What You Need Finds You—with Pico Iyer
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The first time I read my favorite poem, On Prayer, this stanza stood out to me… For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in...
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Revitalizing Our Attention with Katherine May
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Before my interview with , a Mary Oliver quote resurfaced that felt representative of Katherine’s work: “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” Katherine’s books, most recently and , are testaments that the quality of our attention transforms the quality of our lives. “I firmly believe that the depth of attention we crave can only happen if we let ourselves slow down," she says. "Most of the time, we are speeding so far past everything that we don't have a chance to engage with it....
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Awakening to Our Blessings
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was on her way to lead her community, —a Jewish community she founded 20 years ago with a new vision of how faith can center and connect us—in the sacred ceremony of Tashlikh, when she stopped to buy index cards and sharpies. It was an unexpected stop, given the day’s holiness: Every year between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the two holiest days of the year, the Jewish community visits a body of water to release their sins, or anything they don’t want to carry into the new year, into the water. Still, Rabbi Brous was reflecting on the dying wishes of her dear friend and community...
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Anne Lamott on the Love that Holds Us Invisibly
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“When we are paying attention, we see how much love holds us invisibly.” This is the line that stayed with me most from Anne Lamott’s new, and 20th book, I read it during a stressful weekend and it illuminated the beauty of my family and friends’ care. As Anne says, “humanity is another synonym for God.” Anne’s gift is her rare ability to combine spiritual wisdom and laugh out loud humor into an operating manual for life, even, and especially, amidst its imperfection. In our conversation, we explore our ongoing journey to find our center and cultivate the sense of peace we...
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Learned Excellence
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once said “I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent. I want to really test it out and say, ‘Okay, you’re not that good. You just reached the level here.’ I don’t ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate.” This bold and farsighted perspective is a key ingredient that Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle highlight in their work with and observation of a wide-ranging group of elite performers across business, extreme sports, and the militarily. In their book - Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the...
info_outlineI often remind myself of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s insight: “When we understand that life is the curriculum, life itself becomes the meditation.”
Still, until recently, I only understood half the sentiment. Initially, I internalized it in a responsive manner. When life presented an opportunity to practice mindfulness, especially a challenge, I would respond in kind.
It wasn’t until reading Dr.Richard J. Davidson and Dr.Cortland Dahl’s new book, Born to Flourish, that the quote finally landed. Jon’s invitation isn’t solely to respond with compassionate presence. It is to intend it in each moment.
This is one of the central revelations Dr.Davidson and Dr.Dahl inspire (and my favorite line in the book)…
“Flourishing is not a destination, but a practice.”
As Dr.Dahl illuminates, we often have elaborate visions of what it means to flourish. Still, each moment is an opportunity to practice the four skills in their framework: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose.
To start, they encourage you to reflect on your daily routines and identify opportunities to infuse them with intention. It can be as simple as practicing gratitude while walking your dog or reflecting on our sense of interdependence before eating a meal. While these micro-practices may seem simple, compounded over time, they lead to neuro-plastic changes (causing the behaviors to unfold spontaneously) and elevate your baseline.
Since reading Born to Flourish, I truly have come to see life as the meditation. As if with new eyes, I now see every interaction as an opportunity to practice. I move through my day with a deeper sense of joy and expansiveness; More attuned to the kindness of others and the goodness in the world.
Two of my most revered teachers, Dr.Davidson and Dr.Dahl make a transformative difference in my life. They’ve devoted their life’s work to studying the neuroscience of flourishing at The Center for Healthy Minds at The University of Wisconsin-Madison—where they conducted the first studies on advanced meditators’ brains—as well as at their non-profit Humin.
We explore their pioneering research and practices to wire your brain to flourish. To become the “architect of your inner experience,” we learn how meditation alters the way that your brain responds to pain, how (and when) to shape the encoding of your memories, and why our subjective experience can be more impactful than our objective one, as well as how to relate to it. I hope our discussion will elevate your vitality as it did mine.