Lesson 1
Wake Up To Joy
Living a more mindful life can begin the moment we open our eyes in the morning. We begin our journey at home, starting with waking up. In this lesson, we learn about our evolutionary biology and how we are designed to worry as part of our survival brain. We learn how to shift from worry and anxiety to gratitude and joy with embodied practices that build upon the breath and body awareness.
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Lesson 2
Start The Day In Stillness
Yesterday we learned to wake up by bringing attention to breathing, the body and thoughts of gratitude, to start the day with joy. Today we take that mindset into a mindful breathing meditation so you can begin focusing the mind for calm abiding. Daily morning meditation provides a calm refuge for the mind and body to recharge and we'll learn the foundational method to practice mindfulness meditation in the morning.
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Lesson 3
Strengthen A Positive Outlook
We move from cultivating a calm mind to working with the mind to offset our brain's tendency to focus and retain the negative. In this lesson, we balance the brain's negativity bias with science-backed practices to cultivate a mind that becomes wired for positivity. Using positive, purposeful neuroplasticity, we use practices to generate positive states, and ultimately traits.
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Lesson 4
Set Intentions To Guide Your Day
Marcus Aurelius said, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” In this lesson, we will work with how to guide the mind as you move through the day by setting conscious intentions. We’ll learn how to use the framework of seeing, being and doing and experience a guided intention setting practice which can be used each morning to consciously steer the moments of your day and the quality of your heart.
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Lesson 5
Begin With Morning Journaling
A powerful practice for self-awareness, insight, and clarity in the morning is journaling. Just the act of moving your pen across paper becomes a meditative act, bringing you into the moment that is right here. Journaling helps you gain perspective and deepen self-awareness—revealing your thoughts, habits, strengths, and ways of interpreting the world.
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Lesson 6
Wisdom Of The Moving Body
Our body is a source of deep wisdom. By engaging in movement and exercise in a way that is present, tuned in and aware you can turn these activities into a moving meditation. In doing so, you strengthen your ability to listen to the messages and wisdom your body has for you. We’ll practice ways to use exercise to train awareness, attention and unleash joy.
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Lesson 7
Shower With Your Senses
Elevate a routine activity by incorporating sense awareness, pleasure, and joy. Now we enjoy another embodied practice- showering as a way to use the senses to cultivate presence. With mindfulness, you can make shower time a mindful retreat: A few simple steps can turn this daily activity into more than a routine and engage all of your senses in a way that enlivens you.
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Lesson 8
Tune In To Nature
As we practice ways to begin the day at home with presence, intention and a positive mind, on Day 8 we step outside and use our senses and the vibrant sounds in nature to ground us in our bodies, train open awareness and generate positive emotions.
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Lesson 9
Connect At Breakfast
Building on our practices of attention and awareness, today we will explore intentional structures for connection, belonging and setting your day up for well-being. Breakfast time can be even more important than the fuel we get from food. In this lesson you will learn to strengthen a beginner’s mind and share intentions for the day.
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Lesson 10
Create A Morning Routine
Today we pull forward the first 9 days into a morning routine to establish and sustain a mindfulness practice. And like all of the lessons and practices in this course, the key is to adapt the ideas and make them your own. As you work with these meditations and exercises, and test and adapt practices and habits, you come up with routines that work for you – with your lifestyle, values, conditions and commitments. Routines are structure and promote freedom.
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Lesson 11
Elevate Your Commute
Now we will transition from the realm of home into the realm of work. Meditation helps us with “clear seeing” – and this heightened clarity and awareness is immediately applicable when we get down to the workplace. Even if your daily schedule is packed, when commuting from one place to another you have a great space in your day for practice. We’ll learn ways to transform your commute both plugged and unplugged by training the mind with open awareness.
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Lesson 12
Be Present In Complexity
In this session, we learn to center in the middle of complexity. At the heart of presence is the capacity to stay open to the fullness of ourselves and the world around us. Developing the internal resources enables us to thrive in the middle of our full life, and yields deep levels of well-being. We practice an aikido-based somatic way of centering, to expand our dignity, sense of belonging and lean into our rich experience and wisdom.
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Lesson 13
Focus Your Mind
Increase your ability to harness one of your greatest resources: your attention. In this session, we continue practicing mindfulness at work by building the fundamental skill of directing attention on demand. Focusing at work involves the skills of attention and awareness that come from training your mind to concentrate. You’ll practice focused attention meditation to increase your capacity to direct and sustain attention.
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Lesson 14
Design A Life Of Purpose
Purpose provides direction and energy for focused action. Purpose is what you aspire to; it gives you a vision of a best possible future and pulls you toward it, infusing your life with meaning and aligning your everyday choices with something bigger than yourself. Purpose guides choices, attitudes, behaviors and how you align the moments in your workday to meaning. You’ll learn how to get clear on values and use envisioning to clarify a purposeful life.
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Lesson 15
Listen Mindfully
How we show up with others, our capacity for attending to another with empathy and nonjudgment directly impacts our ability to influence, perform and have meaningful relationships. Today’s lesson is about generous, mindful listening. Listening with empathy and presence, without an agenda, is a gift to both people in the exchange.
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Lesson 16
From Conflict To Connection
Even as we listen mindfully, working together requires navigating intense emotions at times. Today we will explore how the quality of compassion allows us to deepen our connection with others, even when there is conflict. When we have the intention to understand others by being curious about basic human needs of love, safety and belonging that might be motivating their behavior, we can open up to empathic connection.
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Lesson 17
Compassion At Work
Bringing forward yesterday’s practice of seeing similarities and understanding needs, we deepen our capacity for compassion at work. Compassion builds on the mindfulness skills of seeing clearly, empathy and acceptance. Compassion is not about being nice, it involves leading in the midst of what is difficult, what is challenging, what is hard - and having the capacity to be attentive and sense what will serve here. You’ll learn how to strengthen compassion through guided practice.
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Lesson 18
Email Mindfully
Today we build on our capacity for focus, self-awareness, and empathy by looking at how to skillfully use digital communication. Mindful awareness helps here—not only with your self-awareness in what triggers you at work and in how you react, but in how you manage your workflow, energy, and emails in general. We learn the SCARF model, understand the “amygdala hijack” and how to use the STOP practice with high-stakes emailing.
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Lesson 19
Unleash An Open Mind
A curious, receptive mind is the birthplace of ideas, innovation, and collaboration. Today we will look at how we can develop a mind open to creativity and new possibilities although we are trained to be knowledgeable experts. Shunryu Suzuki said “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few." We’ll integrate a Beginners Mind with Otto Scharmer’s presencing strategy of quieting the Voices of Judgment, Concern and Cynicism to cultivate greater presence and awareness.
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Lesson 20
From Multitasking To Flow
Today we are continuing in the realm of work, moving into that space of deep work, and flow, and removing what gets in the way. “Anyone who can drive and kiss a girl is not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” One of the biggest blocks to the joy of deep work is when we do multiple things at once. We’ll learn the brain science of multitasking and practical strategies to get into focus, deepen attention and create conditions for flow.
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Lesson 21
Face Difficult Emotions
Yesterday you practiced strengthening focus and attention, which you will use today in attending and befriending emotions. In today’s lesson, we share the science of emotions so you can increase your ability to be aware of and shift how you relate to them. You’ll see emotions as separate from you, look deeply, and meet them with kind attention using the RAIN practice.
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Lesson 22
Create Space When Overwhelmed
Yesterday, you explored embracing strong emotions with the practice of recognizing, allowing, investigating and nurturing. Today we’ll explore the causes and conditions of overwhelm and how awareness leads to choice and freedom. You’ll apply the STOP practice in this situation as a tool for creating space when you feel like you have none at all, so you can shift from anxiety into the focused, alive energy of possibility.
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Lesson 23
Don't Go It Alone
Today’s lesson is about the importance of connection for thriving at work. We bring forward the skills of presence and self-awareness to look at how beliefs and ways of relating foster loneliness. You’ll learn strategies to offset our biologically wired way of withdrawing when things are tough, and learn ways to become mindful, conscious beings at work, to purposefully ask for help and nourish communities of belonging.
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Lesson 24
Take A Wider Perspective
If you can open up to the difficulty as a fundamental part of life and realize that it’s okay, you can explore it with less resistance and, therefore, less suffering. We learn strategies for changing how we interpret stressful events.
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Lesson 25
Practice Self-Compassion
In the realm of our work, we’ve been practicing working with what’s here, and we’ll continue that today by practicing a powerful, compassionate way to meet life’s challenges. Self-compassion is about recognizing hard moments in life, connecting to our common humanity, and meeting those moments with inner-directed kindness. We’ll learn a model for growing and practicing an embodied way of using self-compassion in any situation.
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Lesson 26
End The Workday With Ease
Today, we will take a final look at mindfulness and compassion at work. You can complete your workday with awareness and intention, or you can end it by multitasking and bolting through the doorway. Self-awareness deepens as you practice inquiring about your work habits and common distractions. Establish a mindful routine for closing the day with acceptance, letting go, and gratitude.
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Lesson 27
Focus On Photography
With this lesson, we transition from mindfulness at work to bringing mindfulness into how we experience our leisure time – how we play. Bringing the skills and qualities of attention, self-awareness, acceptance, impermanence, beginner’s mind, and joy into the things we do outside of work is a powerful time to deepen our practice- and to get more out of our lives. Today’s lesson is about mindful photography. Your camera can be a tool to deepen presence, focus, connect with others, and appreciate the moment in front of you.
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Lesson 28
Connect With Music
Yesterday we used our camera as a way to deepen presence, and today we will bring the skills we’ve been honing into the world of music. Music can train attention and awareness, shift your mood, create connection and unleash joy. The mindfulness skills of concentration and open awareness can also heighten your direct experience with music.
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Lesson 29
Walk And Kiss The Earth
The practice of walking meditation is mindfulness in motion . Walking meditation, or mindful walking, is a joyful way to practice mindfulness with movement, and an antidote to the frenetic pace that so many of us are used to these days. And it’s perhaps one of the simplest ways to play. It is about arriving, again and again, in each moment, by bringing your attention to your breath and to your foot touching the ground. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it “kissing the earth with each step.” We’ll learn walking meditation, and experience a guided meditation that supports us in this beautiful practice.
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Lesson 30
Unleash Your Artist
From seeing through our camera’s lens to walking on our beloved earth, practicing mindfulness in our free time is about so much more than sitting still on a cushion. Today, on Day 30, we’ll explore how the act of creating can pull us right into the present moment and generate flow. We’ll talk about how mindfulness can help create conditions for flow and bring it to life in a guided meditation.
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Lesson 31
Find Joy In Nature
Yesterday we were immersed in making – because creating brings us right into the present moment. Today, we’ll unplug and immerse in nature to rejuvenate and access wonder. Nature unifies our senses, minds, and bodies. It can be breathtaking to tune in to the interconnection of all things in the natural world. We’ll look at the science of how nature affects our mind and bodies, and experience a guided meditation to cultivate awareness, presence and joy while outside.
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Lesson 32
Be Mindful In The Museum
Soaking up good art can be an act of mindful presence, wonder, and awe. In today’s lesson, we will practice our skills of attention, perspective taking and presence to an institution you can find in most parts of the world- a museum. Museums call forth the part of you that wants to see, connect, and attend. In a museum, you move slowly, breathe deeply, and tune in to your surroundings. We’ll learn from research about the effects of looking at art on our state of being, and practice a walking meditation with open awareness to use while in museums.
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Lesson 33
Travel With Curiosity And Wonder
We are looking at how being aware and intentional elevates play – and in today’s lesson, we explore how travel can be a way to strengthen our ability to be present, open, and curious, and find our way back to our true home no matter where we are. Travel is inevitably a journey of ups and downs. But if you activate the mindset of acceptance over resistance and access compassion instead of judgment, you can observe your body’s responses and witness the power of your physiology when it mobilizes you into action instead of feeling stressed. With mindfulness, you can cultivate an inner witness that is present, open, and inquisitive.
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Lesson 34
Welcome One Another
As we’ve moved through the dimensions of a mindful day—at home, work, and play—I’ve shared practices and integrated qualities to optimize your moment-to-moment experience. Now we come to love. Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield says, “The point of mindfulness is not to perfect yourself; it is to perfect your love.” I’ll share concrete ways that you can strengthen your connection with your family, your friends, and most of all, yourself. In this lesson, we’ll turn the everyday activity of greeting each other into a meditation on interbeing and connection.
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Lesson 35
Learn To Love Yourself
We are here in the exploration of deepening our capacity for love. In yesterday’s session, we practiced greeting those we love by remembering the joy from knowing we are both here, alive, together. Today, we’ll talk about turning that beam of love around in a U-turn, towards ourselves. Mindfulness skills give you the capacity to embrace all of who you are- the shadows, the strengths, the vulnerabilities, the beauty - with kind awareness and compassion. You’ll learn practices to cultivate self-acceptance, self-love and self-compassion and be guided in how to deepen your love.
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Lesson 36
See Your Loved Ones With Fresh Eyes
Today, we cultivate more presence so we can love more deeply and skillfully, by practicing how we can see others more clearly, openly, and closely. Intimacy can be scary, because it brings us closer to our more tender, vulnerable side. Yet everyone longs to be seen, to be recognized, to be known by other human beings—especially those we care about. We’ll explore cultivating a Beginner’s Mind, and practicing Looking Deeply at one another, to expand our way of seeing those closest to us.
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Lesson 37
Forgive With Compassion
Yesterday we worked with bringing a beginner’s mind to how we see one another, to deepen understanding and connection. Forgiveness means freedom from carrying around the endless ruminations, blame, resentments, anger, and even rage. And that freedom opens the way to understanding—something that Thich Nhat Hanh sees as central to love. He believes that “understanding is love’s other name.” In this lesson, you’ll explore acceptance, empathy and intention in a practice of forgiveness.
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Lesson 38
Awaken Your Generous Heart
As we continue exploring how mindfulness deepens our capacity for love, we move into generosity. Generosity as a formidable strategy for transforming how you relate to others, to yourself, and to the world. And the truth is that generosity is a superpower: It can reach into your core and loosen the grip of fear or override feelings of weakness or inadequacy. We practice experiencing an awakened, generous heart.
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Lesson 39
Touch With Presence
Welcome back to our course on turning our life into a series of present, connected moments in our day. “Humans need touch to thrive, yet many of us are starved for it—not only because we don’t touch enough, but also because we don’t bring an alert, mindful presence to the interaction." In today’s lesson, we’ll bring awareness to the power of nurturing love by tuning in to your direct experience of touch, and make touching a mindfulness practice of intention, presence and focus.
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Lesson 40
Nourish With Sangha
Continuing in the realm of love, in this lesson we explore how sangha, cultivating a community of friends, is a powerful source of loving connection. In the Buddhist tradition, a sangha is a community of friends who gather to meditate, to share their joys and difficulties, and to encourage each other on the path of practice. In this lesson, learn two community practices from the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition to nourish and deepen relationships in a community.
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Lesson 41
Be Open To Grief
Here in our last session of exploring mindfulness and love, we’ll go into grief and loss. Mindfulness is foundational to expanding our capacity to be with it all- all of what life brings, including the pain of loss. By allowing you to notice the sensations present in your body—the emotions, the thoughts—you can then transform them into acceptance, letting go, and finally, peace. You’ll experience a powerful grief meditation that integrates skills of recognizing, allowing, and accepting, with resourcing connection and loving awareness.
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Lesson 42
Transition Peacefully From Work To Home
Today we move from the realm of play, back into being home at the end of the day. We’ll explore the ways in which how we show up impacts our own state of presence and ripples out to those around us. A mindful evening has more to do with your state of “being” than with what you’re actually “doing.” Thich Nhat Hanh says, “I have arrived, I am home.” He reminds us to come home to ourselves, when out in the busy world. We also come home to our physical space.
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Lesson 43
Clear Your Home For Calm And Joy
In today’s lesson, we’ll talk about the power of environment in shaping our quality of presence, and how to create a home that nurtures you. Does your space nourish and ground you, or does it feel cluttered and suffocating? The attitudes of mindfulness—impermanence, letting go, gratitude, and generosity—guide us in curating our environment so we have a sanctuary for thriving.
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Lesson 44
Cultivate Hygge At Home
In our exploration of conscious living at home, today we bring a mindful attention and purposeful action to creating conditions for warmth, coziness, and togetherness, strengthening a core component well-being and happiness. We’ll look to the Danes for guidance to talk about how to value making your surroundings conducive to feeling cared for and promoting connection.
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Lesson 45
Cook With The Senses
Today we will turn the daily act of preparing food into an opportunity to train in mindfulness and increase joy. You can elevate your own cooking experience with the skills and qualities of mindfulness. Slowing down to fully appreciate the ingredients, time, and effort that goes into your meal can pull you out of autopilot and into the rich experience that food offers.
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Lesson 46
Savor Eating
While eating is something we do throughout the day, in today’s lesson we bring awareness and joy to this fundamental part of being human and living mindfully. As we discovered in cooking with the senses, mindfulness can shift an experience from ordinary to revelatory. Food can be one of life’s deepest pleasures if you approach it with all of your senses as you nourish yourself with not just what you eat but how you eat.
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Lesson 47
Sip Evening Tea
We continue to wind down the day at home, and look at how to transform your moments in your evening into mindful meditations. In today’s lesson, we will experience how a tea ceremony can be a cherished “tea meditation” that brings you home to yourself after a busy day. I’ll take you with me to Beijing into a tea ceremony, and then we’ll sit with Thich Nhat Hanh and learn how he teaches us to see interbeing, stillness, and joy as we sip our tea.
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Lesson 48
Create A Bedtime Routine
In today’s lesson, we bring mindfulness, self-awareness and intentionality to create structures and rituals at the end of the day to calm and ground ourselves before sleep. Similar to how we pulled together the practices and habits from early in the day into a morning routine to get us in a positive state for the day, you can do the same in the evening. You condition yourself to let go of the day, relax the body and cue your mind and body to wind down for sleep.
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Lesson 49
Ease Into Sleep
We arrive together at the end of our mindful day, ready to tuck in and drift off. We know that sleep is a time of renewal, repair, and healing. We need it to flourish the next day, yet for many, it is hard to do. In this lesson, we'll explore mindsets that shift how you relate to going to sleep, and you'll join me in a beautiful guided meditation that settles the body, quiets the mind and opens the heart so you can ease into deep and nourishing sleep.
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Lesson 50
Living Your Own Mindful Day
In the final day together in our 50-day course, you ground in knowing that you have all that you need to meet life’s challenges and live from a center of love. Through Home, Work, Love, Play and Home again, you are prepared with the practices to engage with life just as it is. You know how to come home to your true nature, at any time, to create a mindful life. You are ready. And I’m with you as you adapt our journey into your own routines and practice for living mindfully- your way.
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