Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo

Clarity gets practical when you treat attention like a craft. We open the pages of Joseph Goldstein’s The Experience of Insight and translate retreat-honed wisdom into tools you can actually use: breath you don’t control, movement you feel from the inside, and the quiet power of seeing intention before action. No mystique, no shortcuts—just a clean method for meeting each moment without the usual tug of wanting and resisting.

Joseph...

A stressful morning, a deep tissue reset, and a simple lesson that changes how we teach: relevance beats routine. Sean shares how tuning into the body can open the door to smarter, kinder mindfulness instruction, especially when life is messy and attention is thin. We walk through a practical approach to choosing what to teach by asking short, respectful questions, listening for needs, and then adapting practices so they fit real p...

Sean Fargo guides a grounded mindfulness meditation and explores how gentle awareness helps us return from rumination, meet difficult emotions, and carry presence into daily life. 

If your mind keeps sprinting ahead or replaying the past, this conversation offers a practical way home. We open with a gentle guided practice to help you feel the room, find your seat, and meet your breath without force, then expand into a clear map of h...

We break happiness into three sturdy pillars—connection, contribution, and meaning—and explore how each one shows up in daily life. Along the way, we unpack mental “time travel,” awe, and the small acts that make joy more likely.

Austin Hill Shaw's website: https://austinhillshaw.com/

• defining happiness through human needs
• the many forms of connection including self, people, and nature
• distraction, memory...

Ever feel like life is a full catastrophe—email pings, family needs, calendar jams—and your attention never gets to land? We slow everything down with a clear, zero-fluff mindfulness practice you can use anywhere: arrive in your body, breathe, and know it. No special gear, no perfect posture; just a reliable way to reset the nervous system and sharpen presence when it matters most.

George Mumford's website: GeorgeMumford.com

A single breath can reset your whole day. We explore how to build steady attention by feeling one complete cycle of breathing—inhale, pause, exhale, pause—while softening the shoulders, easing the jaw, and letting judgment fall away. The practice is short, portable, and honest: no special gear, no perfect posture, just a relaxed yet alert stance and a willingness to notice what’s already happening in your body.

We start by...

What if narrowing your attention could make your daily life feel wider, calmer, and more vivid? We dive into the practical craft of concentration and show how a single, steady focus becomes the quiet engine behind reliable mindfulness. Rather than forcing the mind, we build a friendly runway—gladdening the mind with gratitude and warmth—so attention settles without strain and the nervous system knows it is safe to rest.

We...

A quiet room, a slower week, and a simple question that matters: what truly makes someone ready to teach mindfulness? While recovering from COVID, I took time to reflect on the difference between healthy hesitation and unhelpful overconfidence—and why the best teachers often start from humility rather than hype.

We walk through a practical rule of thumb shared by senior mindfulness teachers: when invited to teach, thoughtf...

Pressure doesn’t have to crush you; it can refine you. George Mumford—renowned mindfulness teacher to championship teams and communities far from the spotlight—joins us for a deeply practical journey through presence, performance, and the courage to be yourself. We open with a simple “arriving” practice that resets the nervous system, then build on the five superpowers that underpin lasting change: right effort, concentration, insi...

We share simple, grounded ways to feel anger, sadness, depression, and fear without judgment, then channel that energy into healing and meaningful action. We also invite you to a live online retreat with practices, Q&A, and resources to support resilience.

• naming natural emotions after a public tragedy
• why feeling is essential for healing
• mindful steps for anger, sadness, depression, fear
• opening wi...

Your mind drifts the moment you sit to breathe, and that’s not a problem to fix—it’s the raw material of practice. We unpack why a healthy brain loves to roam, how the default mode network fuels both distraction and creativity, and why chasing an empty mind sets you up for frustration. Instead of fighting thoughts, we show you how to work with them using a simple cycle: notice, note, and return.

We walk through grounded me...

Anne Cushman explores how mindfulness and creativity feed each other through guided practices, research insights, and lived stories. We trade perfection for presence, play with color and movement, and learn to follow the thread of aliveness into honest work.

• opening space through breath and softening
• honoring life as inherently creative
• reconciling the teacher and the artist selves
• lessons from Spirit R...

We explore a nuanced look at mindfulness: its benefits, the ethics behind how it is taught, and the critiques around commercialization and depoliticisation. William Edelglass helps us test the line between personal practice and social change with clear questions, research, and examples.

• Angela Davis’s question about mindfulness and injustice
• critiques of commodification and the mindfulness industrial complex
• ...

The ground keeps moving, but our old habits try to pretend nothing has changed. In this mini episode, James Baraz talks honestly about what this moment is saying to us: we’re not separate, our choices echo, and we can learn to respond with more care than fear. 

James Baraz's website: https://www.awakeningjoy.info/

Starting with a simple practice—paying attention—we trace how mindfulness exposes the threads that bind our lives to...

We explore mindful self-discipline as a blueprint for freedom, not a joyless grind. Through aspiration, awareness, and action, we show how to beat engineered distraction, strengthen willpower, and make steady progress without shame.

https://mindfulnessexercises.com/podcast

• self-discipline linked to higher happiness and smoother daily life
• attention economy pressures and engineered distraction
• definitions of se...

Former Buddhist monk and Mindfulness Exercises founder Sean Fargo explores what full acceptance really means in mindfulness and meditation—meeting fear, anxiety, judgment, and resistance with embodied awareness and self-compassion.

Drawing on years of teaching across prisons, hospitals, classrooms, and companies, Sean translates Buddhist psychology, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and practical nervous system regulation into simple mo...

Former Buddhist monk and Mindfulness Exercises founder Sean Fargo lays out a clear, compassionate roadmap for teaching mindfulness and meditation — with confidence, credibility, and heart.

Drawing from his journey (from cloistered practice to prisons, clinics, classrooms, and companies), Sean distills what actually works so you can help others be more present, resilient, and self‑compassionate—without overcomplicating the practice.

I...

When I first started teaching mindfulness, I thought I had to sound wise, calm, and enlightened — like a “real” teacher.

But one unexpected moment — in a tiny community room in Berkeley — changed everything I thought I knew about guiding others in mindfulness.

In this episode, I share the hidden truth I discovered after years living as a Buddhist monk in Thailand and training more than 30,000 mindfulness teachers around the world:tha...

In this Mindfulness Exercises Podcast episode, Sean Fargo sits down with Mark Walsh, founder of Embodiment Unlimited, to explore the profound connection between mindfulness, embodiment, and trauma-informed coaching.

Mark is a leading voice in embodied mindfulness, known for blending humor, honesty, and heart-centered awareness into the worlds of coaching, somatic psychology, and body-based transformation.Together, Sean and Mark dive...