Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo

Healing isn’t a checkbox; it’s a way of relating to what hurts. We sit down with Insight Meditation teacher and author Justin Michelson to explore a grounded path through stress, pain, and trauma that begins with self-compassion and widens into nature, lineage, and something larger than ourselves. 

Justin's website: JustinMichelsonDharma.com

Justin's book: The Dharma of Healing

From his first teen meditation class to hard-wo...

Ever notice how your day turns into one long, uninterrupted scroll? We leave work on a call, weave through traffic still mid-story, and step into the kitchen without ever really arriving. We wanted to break that blur, so we dug into a simple framework: use the day’s natural hinge points—dawn, noon, midafternoon, dusk, and night—as scheduled pauses to reset attention and rebuild a sense of home.

This is an excerpt of an interview wit...

You can feel when a class lands: the room gets quiet, the body softens, and attention holds steady even as movement continues. That shift is not magic; it’s method. We sat down with senior teacher and writer Sara-Mai Conway to unpack a practical, human way to make yoga and meditation one continuous experience rather than two separate boxes on a schedule.

Sara-Mai's website: https://www.iwriteaboutwellness.com/

We start...

We turn a slow line into a short mindfulness practice that eases tension and reshapes impatience into patience and kindness. We ground in breath, relax the body, and extend compassion to strangers and staff who share the same wish to be happy.

• naming impatience as normal and common
• breath work with nose inhales and mouth exhales
• scanning and softening jaw, shoulders and belly
• grounding through feet, pos...

When does being “nice” start hurting your health? We explore the surprising science that links suppressed emotions—especially healthy anger and buried grief—to immune function, inflammation, and long-term disease risk. Drawing on affective neuroscience, we break down the core mammalian systems wired for rage, fear, panic and grief, care, seeking, and play, and explain why these circuits exist to protect boundaries and connection, n...

We map a three-stage approach to using mindfulness for PTSD: immediate self-soothing, reconnecting with emotions, and long-term integration. A short guided practice shows how breath, grounding, and softening cues can create ease while we set clear safety guardrails.

• framing mindfulness for PTSD and its stages
• self-soothing practices for the immediate aftermath
• reconnecting with emotions with courage and choic...

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
• ...