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Mindfulness in Action On the cover is Shelly Tygielski (with her amazing boots). Shelly is a mindfulness teacher, grassroots, self-care activist who is “planting the seeds” of mindfulness to help people discover the power of pausing, breathing and holding space for themselves and others. You may recognize Shelly from her Self-Care series and Facebook meditations. I love Shelly’s story because it shows the impact that mindfulness can make on a community, bringing people together—and bringing out their best—even in times of terrible trauma....

As I write this, hanging out is discouraged and even outlawed during the pandemic, and we’ve relied on technological substitutes. Nevertheless, no virus can remove the human propensity to gather. Community is essential to life. And yet, our pull to community requires continual examination, because the very glue we use to hold ourselves together in community can fester into in-groupiness, where the key defining feature of the group is who is excluded....

Do you all remember the How Do I Love Thee craft post we did?? Tara did an amazing job with it! Well if you have ever run into problems while trying to recreate an idea, you will totally relate to this post! One of our creative readers, Sarah, sent us in this idea… in case the same thing happens to you! 😉 Sarah started with the intent to make the muffin tin project....

Other possibilities: listening to music, turning off your phone, getting a massage, loving-kindness meditation, walking on the beach, and reading a book. Slightly less common ideas? Horseback riding and playing backgammon. Do you feel relaxed when meditating? Do you feel relaxed when meditating? A sense of relaxation can be a nice side effect of meditating, but it’s not a requirement. 55% say they usually feel “chill” when they meditate. For 39% meditation can be relaxing sometimes....

Not to say that all stress is bad, says Emma Seppälä, Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford. But if you’re running on high-octane all the time, you can easily become a candidate for burnout. “We know that short-term stress can be great. It can really help you get through a deadline and mobilize you,” says Seppälä in a recent video for Big Think, “However, if you depend on that day after day after day you’ll find that your body becomes worn out, your immune system is impacted and even your mind, your attention and your memory are impaired through that long-term chronic stress....