It was not only the flower. It was the way the flower sat among the leaves, surrounded by green, as though the garden had arranged the whole scene and then waited for someone to notice.

I took a few pictures, but not enough.

I was walking with a friend, and I had already stopped more than once. Photographing a flower is not a quick thing for me. I move closer. I step back. I try another angle. I notice the leaves, the light, and everything surrounding the thing that first caught my attention.

My friend had not complained. She had not asked me to hurry.

But I did not want to burden her with my constant stopping.

So I took a few photographs and told myself I would come back alone. I could bring my camera, take my time, and photograph it properly without making anyone wait for me. It was a small decision. I barely noticed myself making it.

How long can I pause before my noticing becomes inconvenient to someone else?

I think I have been answering that question without asking it for much of my life.

This morning, I went back.

It was raining. Not quite pouring, but more than a drizzle. By the time I arrived, my sweatshirt was already beginning to soak through. The garden was supposed to open at eight. At 8:01, I was standing outside a locked gate, looking through the bars at the wet paths and the flowers beyond them.

I waited.

I saw a golf cart. Then a person. Then the golf cart moved in my direction, which felt promising.

It turned out I was standing at the wrong gate.

The gate had a lock and looked very much like a gate a person might use, but apparently it does not open. The main entrance was already open somewhere else.

Eventually, I got in.

Then I went looking for the dahlia.

I tried to retrace yesterday’s path. I looked for the leaves I remembered. I looked for the angle, the surrounding flowers, anything that might lead me back to it.

I could not find it.

Maybe I walked past it. Maybe everything looked different in the rain. Maybe I remembered the location incorrectly. Whatever the reason, the moment I had returned for was gone.

I was sad.

Not because the garden was no longer beautiful. It was. But today’s beauty did not replace the particular thing I had loved yesterday.

A new beautiful thing does not cancel the loss of another one.

Still, the garden kept offering itself. I found bronze women dancing in a fountain, their dresses lifted as though the rain had joined them. I found a purple water lily rising from dark water among green pads and fallen autumn leaves. I found a robin standing alone on the wet pavement.

None of them were the dahlia.

They were not supposed to be.

There is a Japanese concept, ichi-go ichi-e, often translated as “one time, one meeting.” It asks us to recognize that an encounter will never happen again in precisely the same way.

Even if we return to the same place, we do not return to the same moment. The light has changed. The rain has come. The flower has opened or fallen. We have changed too.

I do not think this means we have to document every second or move through life frightened that something will disappear. It means that when something asks us to stop, we should stop.

When beauty catches us, we should let ourselves be caught.

I am not sorry I spent yesterday walking with my friend. I am sorry that I decided, without asking her, that my joy might take too long.

Sometimes we hurry ourselves because we do not want our delight to become somebody else’s inconvenience.

I went back for yesterday’s dahlia and could not find it. I came home soaked, carrying an entirely different garden in my phone.

I am glad I went back.

I am still sorry I did not take more pictures yesterday.

Both are true.

The garden did not repeat itself for me. It was never going to.

So this is the lesson I am keeping:

Take the picture when you see it.

Not a vague ache, not somewhere in there. A spot the size of a coin, same place every time, for a year. Four offices. Nothing, then probably her period, then probably stress, then, in the fourth room, probably anxiety, which is the one they keep for girls.

She was fourteen. They were wrong. The surgery the following spring found it exactly where she had been pointing the whole time.

Nobody apologized, and I still do not know why I expected that.

For a long time I thought we had simply hit a bad run of doctors.

We had not. We had hit the ordinary experience of being female in a room where somebody else decides what you are feeling. I only understood that later. I started listening properly to other women, and heard our year described back to me in different accents.

Her condition takes about seven years to diagnose. That is the average, from the first symptom. In one American sample the wait ran past eleven. Seven years is not a run of bad luck. Seven years has a shape.

But the numbers are not the part I want to talk about.

I want to talk about what it does to a body to be disbelieved for a long time. That damage is real. Nobody measures it. It does not stop when somebody finally believes you.

The first thing that happens is that you learn a voice.

There is a channel about an inch wide that a woman is permitted to describe her own body in. Too flat and it cannot be that bad. Too much and she is dramatic. Or anxious. Or difficult, which is what they use when the other two run out. Every woman I know over fifty can find that channel instantly. Even, unhurried, slightly underplayed. Dates prepared. No crying, because crying gets you the anxiety sentence.

We call it advocating for yourself. It is closer to a performance you rehearse in the car.

The second thing takes longer and costs more.

You begin to argue with your own sensation.

Something happens in your body and the first move is a small internal hearing. Is this real. Is it enough. Would a reasonable person mention it. You run the evidence. You assess whether you would be believed. By the time you finish you have talked yourself out of it, because the standard of proof you are using was set by four strangers who were wrong.

That is the injury. Not the wait, not the pain, not even the year.

It is that being disbelieved by enough people teaches you to do it yourself, for free, at home, forever.

Then the third thing, which is the dangerous one. You stop reporting.

I should be honest about my own version, because it is not a story about a symptom I sat on for six months.

I do not go.

Once a year, bloodwork, and that is the whole of it. I can tell you every medication my daughter has ever taken, in order, with dosages. I could not tell you the last time a doctor looked at anything I raised myself, because I have not raised anything.

None of it happened to me. That is the part I keep having to explain to people. I was never the patient. I was the woman in the chair by the door for ten years, taking notes, being reasonable, and somewhere in there the rooms stopped being places that exist for me at all.

I do not experience that as avoidance. That is the tell. I experience it as efficiency.

I am at the age now where everything a woman brings in is probably hormones, or probably stress, or probably just where she is in life, said kindly, by somebody with a hand already on the door. I know exactly what that room does. I have watched it work on a fourteen-year-old.

So I have the voice. Of course I have the voice. Even, unhurried, dates prepared, no crying.

I have simply never once used it on my own behalf.

The thing I had wanted for years was finalized on a Tuesday, and I made chicken.

That is the whole scene. There is no better version of it. I read the confirmation standing at the counter, and I put the phone face down, and I took the chicken out of the refrigerator, because it was five o’clock and that is what was happening at five o’clock.

I kept waiting to feel it on the drive to nowhere I took afterward.

I did not take a drive. I am inventing the drive because it would be a better story. What I did was make dinner and watch something with my daughter and go to bed at a reasonable hour, and the only unusual thing about the entire evening is that I remember all of it, which is how I know it mattered.

I had pictured that day for years.

Not in detail. I am not a woman who pictures things in detail; I am a woman who makes lists. But there had been an assumption underneath everything, unexamined, that when it was finally over there would be a moment. A door closing with a sound. Something to mark the difference between before and after so I would know which one I was in.

There was no sound.

I told one person. She said congratulations, and I said thank you, and I could hear both of us being slightly careful, because neither of us could locate the emotion the occasion called for.

And then, having received the thing I had wanted more than almost anything, I went back to living exactly the way I had lived while I did not have it.

Woke at five. Checked the phone before my feet were down. Braced through December for an inspection that no longer existed.

Here is what I have worked out since, and I offer it with no confidence that it is the whole answer.

I think I had confused the end of the problem with the end of the response to the problem. Those are two entirely different events, and only the first one has a date. The second has no ceremony attached to it at all. It just erodes, quietly, over a span of months, while you go on assuming nothing is happening because nothing feels like it is happening.

It took about a year.

I did not notice it arriving. I noticed evidence. I was sleeping differently. I had stopped rehearsing conversations in the shower with people who were not going to have those conversations with me. One afternoon I got to about four o’clock and understood that I had not checked anything all day, and that I had not decided not to, which was the part that stopped me.

That was the moment, as far as I can tell. Not the Tuesday. A Thursday, eleven months later, standing in a room by myself realizing I had gone quiet without being told to.

I would like to report that I have stayed that way.

I have not entirely. There are weeks the old posture comes back with no provocation whatsoever, and I still find my jaw doing things at red lights, and last month I braced for something for four days before establishing that it had already been resolved by somebody else without my involvement.

But I know what it is now. That is not nothing. It used to be my personality and now it is a habit with a history, and a habit with a history can at least be looked at.

I still make chicken on Tuesdays.

I have no idea whether that is a joke or the actual point.

There is one piece of the house I want to make clear from the beginning.

Samantha Rosen — Sam — is my author identity.

The stories I write are real. The experiences behind them are real. But they are not mine alone. They involve people I love, people who did not choose to become characters simply because their lives intersected with mine.

Writing as Sam gives me a little room between the life I live and the stories I tell. It lets me write honestly while protecting some of the people who appear in those stories.

It isn’t about pretending to be someone else. Sam is me. She is simply the name I have chosen for my life as an author.

So when you see Samantha Rosen on a book published by Sage Lotus Press, there is no hidden person behind either name.

There is me.

And the stories are real.

Sage Lotus Press is a small independent house

.

It publishes narrative nonfiction, Japanese philosophy, practical guides for the second half, and the occasional book that exists only because nobody had written the one I needed.

The name is two things.

The lotus, which does not grow in spite of the mud.

And sage, the thread that runs through everything I make.

What sits underneath all of it is a refusal to overstate.

There is a lot of writing for women in hard seasons that explains the body with more confidence than anybody actually has, and promises more than a book can deliver.

I would rather publish something narrower that holds.

If the research is thin, I want to say that.

If something is useful but we don’t fully understand why, I want to say that too.

And if an idea helped me personally, that does not automatically make it a prescription for someone else’s life.

That distinction matters to me.

Sage Lotus Press sits at the intersection of what we know, what we have lived, and what we are still trying to understand.

Some of what I publish is practical.

Some is reflective.

Some of it comes through Japanese ideas that gave me language for experiences I already knew but didn’t yet know how to name.

And some of it simply says: this is what happened, this is what I learned from it, and perhaps there is something here that belongs to you too.

The line beneath Sage Lotus Press is:

Empowering Wisdom, Transforming Lives.

I mean it literally rather than decoratively.

Not transformation as reinvention overnight.

Not empowerment as pretending difficult things aren’t difficult.

Wisdom that gives you a little more language, a little more context, or a slightly different place to stand.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll show you more of what lives inside Sage Lotus Press: the four series that each do a different job, the standalone books, the practical guides, and the work still taking shape.

But I wanted to begin with the house itself.

Because everything else comes from here.

Sage Lotus Press

Calm down” is an instruction delivered to a system that is not currently taking instructions in that language.

Most of us have experienced this.

Your mind knows the situation is manageable. You know what you need to do. You may even be telling yourself, quite reasonably, that everything is fine.

And your body is having none of it.

Your jaw is tight. Your shoulders have crept upward. Your heart is beating faster. Your stomach has joined the conversation. Maybe you cannot sit still. Maybe you cannot think clearly.

Then someone says, calm down.

The problem isn’t necessarily the advice. It’s the timing.

Your thinking mind and your body’s stress response don’t always operate on the same clock.

The thinking mind can update quickly. It can receive new information and say, Okay. We’re safe. The problem is over.

The body can take longer.

Once a stress response is underway, understanding that you are safe doesn’t necessarily switch it off immediately. Your system may still need time—and sometimes movement, sensation, breathing, orientation, or simply a little less demand—to catch up with what your mind already knows.

That distinction matters because otherwise we can turn a perfectly ordinary stress response into another reason to criticize ourselves.

Why can’t I just relax?

I know everything is fine. What’s wrong with me?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe one part of you has already received the message while another part is still arriving.

The goal isn’t to become better at ordering yourself to calm down.

It is to learn how to notice which clock you’re listening to—and what that part of you actually needs.

I wrote more about this in Why You Feel Stress in Your Body First at Sage Lotus Press.

Dr. Samantha Rosen
Sage Lotus Press

For a period of my life, my daughter was not in it. Not because she ran away or because I sent her away or because of any of the narratives that people automatically assign when they hear that a mother and daughter were separated. She was removed from my life through a process that has a clinical name but no adequate description: parental alienation.

I will not tell the full story here. That story lives in a novel I am writing, where it belongs, refracted through fiction because some truths can only be told at a slight angle. But I will tell you what the absence felt like and what the return taught me.

• • •

The absence felt like a phantom limb.

My daughter existed in the world. She was alive, growing, becoming. And I could not reach her. The phone did not ring. The holidays passed in a silence so loud it drowned out everything else. I would see mothers and daughters in restaurants and feel a pain so specific it had a location in my body: center of the chest, slightly left, a tightness that never fully released.

People who have not experienced parental alienation often ask: “But could you not just call? Could you not just show up?” As if the barrier were logistical. It was not. The barrier was psychological, relational, and systemic. It was an invisible wall constructed by someone else that my daughter could not see from her side and I could not breach from mine.

What I carried during that time was not anger. Anger would have been easier. What I carried was a grief that had no endpoint. A mother grieving a living child. A loss that no one around me fully understood because the child was alive, so how bad could it really be?

It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

And then it changed.

Share

• • •

I will not dramatize the reconciliation because it was not dramatic. It was slow. Tentative. Full of silences that were not comfortable and conversations that circled around the hardest things without quite landing on them.

My daughter came back into my life the way dawn arrives. Not all at once. In gradations. A text. A phone call that lasted longer than the last one. A visit that felt more like a beginning than an ending.

And the thing I was not prepared for, the thing no one tells you about reconciliation, is that the mother who gets her child back is not the same mother who lost her.

I had changed. She had changed. The relationship we had before the separation did not exist anymore. It could not. You cannot unbreak a thing and pretend the break never happened. You can only repair it with something stronger than what was there before.

Gold, maybe. If we are following the kintsugi metaphor.

I did not get my daughter back. I got something I was not expecting: a new relationship with a woman I had to learn to know all over again.

What I thought I knew about motherhood was this: you protect your child, you provide for your child, you sacrifice for your child, and in return, your child knows they are loved. That equation worked when she was small.

What I learned when she came back is that motherhood after alienation requires a completely different skill set. You cannot mother from the script you used before. The script is gone. The child who left is not the child who returned. She is an adult with her own pain, her own version of the story, her own wounds that you may or may not have contributed to in ways you cannot see clearly.

You have to become a new kind of mother. One who listens more than she advises. One who holds space without controlling it. One who is honest about her own failures without collapsing into them.

This is, without question, the hardest and most rewarding work I have ever done.

• • •

Today, my daughter and I live in the same city. We are not just reconciled. We are collaborators. We are building creative work together. We laugh together in a way that I once thought I would never hear again.

And some days, in the middle of an ordinary conversation about what to have for dinner or which subway to take, I feel it: the phantom limb, the ghost of the absence, the echo of a pain that my body has not fully forgotten even though my life has moved so far past it.

I do not push the feeling away. I let it pass through.

The lotus remembers the mud. That is part of what makes the bloom so extraordinary.

If you have experienced parental alienation, estrangement, or the complicated grief of a fractured family, I see you. This is one of the topics I will return to in The Lotus Chronicles because it is one of the least spoken-about and most devastating experiences a parent can endure. You are not alone. Subscribe to stay connected.

That diagram does not come from Japan. It was created by a Western author and grafted onto a Japanese concept that means something much simpler and much more radical.

In Okinawa, where the concept originates and where people live longer than almost anywhere on earth, ikigai simply means: the thing that makes you get out of bed in the morning.

Not your passion. Not your monetizable skill. Not the intersection of purpose and profit.

The thing that makes you willing to start another day.

• • •

For some Okinawan elders, their ikigai is their garden. For others, it is the morning walk to the market. For others, it is the grandchild who visits on Sundays.

None of these are productive in the way the Western world demands productivity. They are not scalable. They are not monetizable. They are not impressive at a dinner party. They are small, quiet, daily reasons to keep showing up.

I think about this often, because the Western version of ikigai has done real damage to women over 50.

It tells us that our reason for being must be a career, a calling, a “purpose” with a capital P. That if we cannot articulate our grand mission in an elevator pitch, we are wasting our potential. That retirement without a project is laziness. That a Tuesday without measurable accomplishment is a Tuesday wasted.

This is exhausting. And it is wrong.

• • •

Share

When I first moved to New York City, people kept asking me what my plan was. What was my big goal? What was I going to build? And I would answer with my list: the teaching, the business, the books, the Substack. Because I had internalized the idea that my value was my output.

But the truth is, my ikigai most mornings is not any of those things.

My ikigai is coffee by the window while the city wakes up. It is the sound of my daughter laughing in the next room. It is the walk to the subway when the air is cold and sharp and I am fully aware that I am alive in a place I chose to be.

Those are not accomplishments. They are not products. They are not scalable or monetizable. They are the actual reason I get out of bed. Everything else, the books, the teaching, the writing, grows from that soil. But the soil itself is quiet. It is just a woman drinking coffee and being glad to be here.

Your reason for being does not need to be impressive. It needs to be true.

If you are over 50 and feeling the pressure to find your “purpose,” I want to offer you a different starting point.

Do not ask: “What is my grand calling?” That question paralyzes most people. It is too big, too abstract, too weighted with expectation.

Ask instead: “What made me willing to start today?”

Maybe it was the cat who needed feeding. Maybe it was curiosity about what would happen next in the novel you are reading. Maybe it was the smell of rain or the promise of lunch with a friend or the stubborn refusal to let a hard season have the last word.

Whatever it was, that is your ikigai. Today. Right now.

Tomorrow it might be different. That is allowed. Ikigai is not a life sentence. It is a daily practice. A small, honest answer to the smallest, most important question: why bother?

Because the coffee is good. Because the daughter laughed. Because the city is waking up and you are part of it.

That is enough. It has always been enough.

Ikigai is one of thirty concepts explored in Where the Lotus Grows. If the Western productivity framework has left you feeling behind, the Japanese alternative might feel like coming home.

Subscribe now

But there is another kind of grief that gets nothing. No casserole. No card. No socially recognized mourning period.

It is the grief of losing a version of yourself that is not dead. Just gone.

• • •

I know this grief. I have lived inside it for years, sometimes without recognizing it.

It showed up when my daughter left. Not left as in moved out. Left as in was taken, slowly and deliberately, by a process I later learned has a clinical name. Parental alienation. The grief of that was not the grief of death. It was the grief of a living absence. A child who existed in the world but was not in yours. A phone that did not ring. A holiday that passed without the only voice that could have made it matter.

It showed up again when I left Florida. Not because Florida was home in any meaningful sense. But because leaving meant admitting that the life I had tried to build there was over. The marriage, the community, the version of myself who thought she would grow old in a particular house, in a particular town, with a particular future. That woman was not dead. She was just no longer possible.

And it showed up in smaller ways too. The grief of turning fifty and realizing your body has its own plans now. The grief of watching your parents age and knowing you are next. The grief of looking at your career and wondering if the best years are behind you. The grief of being needed less and wanting more.

This grief has no funeral. But it is real. And it deserves your attention.

Here is what I have learned about the grief that has no casserole: it disguises itself. It does not always feel like sadness. Sometimes it feels like restlessness. Sometimes it feels like irritability, the kind where everything annoys you and you do not know why. Sometimes it feels like numbness, going through the motions of a life that looks fine on paper but feels hollow in your body. And sometimes it feels like nothing at all, just a low hum that you have gotten so used to you forgot it was there.

If you asked most women over 50 what they are grieving, they would say “nothing.” Not because they are not grieving. Because the losses they are carrying do not have names.

The loss of being needed in a particular way. The loss of a future you once imagined. The loss of the body that used to cooperate. The loss of a relationship that is technically intact but emotionally hollow. The loss of time you cannot get back.

None of these come with a casserole. But every one of them changes the architecture of your daily life.

Share

I am not writing this to make you sad. I am writing this to make you honest.

Because here is the thing about unnamed grief: it does not go away. It just goes underground. And underground grief is the most corrosive force in a woman’s life after 50. It is the reason you cannot sleep at 3 AM but cannot explain why. It is the reason you snap at people you love and then feel guilty for the rest of the day. It is the reason you keep buying self-help books and never finishing them, because the real issue is not that you need more information. It is that you need to name the thing you are carrying.

So I am going to ask you a question. And I would like you to answer it honestly, even if only to yourself:

What have you lost, or what are you in the process of losing, that you have not fully acknowledged yet?

You do not need to solve it. You do not need to fix it. You just need to say it. Out loud, on paper, in a text to a friend. Grief that gets named becomes navigable. Grief that stays nameless becomes the weather of your entire life.

• • •

The lotus grows in mud. But it does not pretend the mud is not there.

That is the first step. Not transcendence. Not transformation. Not a five-step plan for moving on. Just the willingness to look at the mud you are standing in and call it what it is.

The casserole is not coming.

But the bloom is. It always is.

It just starts here, in the naming.

If this essay moved something in you, it is a sign that the naming work matters. Where the Lotus Begins, the guided journal for paid annual subscribers, starts with exactly this: Module 1, “The Unraveling.” It gives you the prompts and the privacy to name what no one else has asked you to name.

The Instagram version of wabi-sabi looks like a perfectly imperfect handmade ceramic bowl on a linen tablecloth next to a minimalist flower arrangement. Curated imperfection. Styled rusticity. It is beautiful to look at and has almost nothing to do with the actual philosophy.

Real wabi-sabi is harder than that. It is three words:

Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect.

Sit with those for a moment. Not as an aesthetic. As a truth.

• • •

Nothing lasts. The body you had at 35 does not last. The marriage you thought would last forever may not last. The career you built for 25 years may not last. Your parents do not last. The version of yourself that you knew how to be, the mother of young children, the wife, the employee, the woman who had it figured out, she does not last either.

Nothing is finished. You are not done becoming who you are. Your story is not complete. The chapter you are in right now is not the final one, even if it feels like an ending. Your relationship with your body is not finished evolving. Your understanding of love is not finished deepening. You are, at sixty, at fifty-five, at seventy, still a work in progress. That is not a failure. That is the design.

Nothing is perfect. Your life does not look like the brochure. Neither does anyone else’s, no matter what their Instagram suggests. Your choices were imperfect. Your timing was imperfect. Your body is imperfect. And all of that imperfection is not something to fix or hide. It is something to inhabit. Fully. Without apology.

• • •

I discovered wabi-sabi during a period when I was actively trying to fix everything about my life. I was in Florida. My marriage had ended. My relationship with my daughter was fractured in ways that felt permanent. My career was in transition. My body was doing things I did not understand and my doctor was not explaining.

I was reading everything I could get my hands on, looking for the framework that would make it all make sense. And I found this one. Three sentences that stopped me cold.

Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect.

My first reaction was despair. If nothing lasts, what is the point? If nothing is finished, when do I get to rest? If nothing is perfect, why keep trying?

My second reaction, the one that came days later, was relief. Because if nothing is supposed to be permanent, then the hard thing I was in was not permanent either. If nothing is finished, then I was not behind. I was in process. And if nothing is perfect, then I could finally stop performing a version of my life that never existed and start living the real one.

Wabi-sabi is not about loving your flaws. It is about recognizing that flawlessness was never the goal.

Here is where it applies to you, right now, wherever you are reading this:

Your body has changed. Wabi-sabi says: of course it has. Nothing lasts. The question is not how to get the old body back. The question is how to inhabit this one with presence and care.

Your life is messy. Wabi-sabi says: of course it is. Nothing is perfect. The question is not how to clean it up. The question is whether you can find something beautiful in the mess. Not in spite of it. Inside it.

You feel unfinished. Wabi-sabi says: of course you do. Nothing is finished. You are not supposed to feel complete. You are supposed to feel alive. And alive means still becoming.

Share

This is the first of thirty Japanese concepts I will explore in The Lotus Chronicles. They come from a book I have been writing called Where the Lotus Grows, which is a philosophical companion for women navigating difficulty, transition, and the slow, complicated work of blooming in mud.

I chose to start with wabi-sabi because it does the thing that matters most first: it gives you permission to stop pretending your life was supposed to look different.

It looks exactly the way it looks. Imperfect. Unfinished. Impermanent.

And within all of that, there is a beauty that the curated version could never touch.

I still have the journal I was keeping in Florida when I found this. The handwriting is tight and urgent, the way writing gets when you are trying to outrun something. I read it sometimes and I do not recognize the woman who was trying so hard to fix everything. I understand her. But I am not her anymore.

That is wabi-sabi too. She did not last. And I am not finished.

If this landed, subscribe. There is more where this came from.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

If you are a targeted parent, someone has said it to you. Maybe a well-meaning friend over coffee. Maybe a therapist who doesn’t quite understand. Maybe a family member who is tired of watching you suffer.

“You just need to let it go.”

Five words that land like a slap. Five words that reveal how deeply misunderstood parental alienation remains. Because letting go implies you are holding on to something optional. A grudge. A preference. A past version of your life that no longer serves you.

But you are not holding on to a grudge. You are holding on to your child.

And no amount of deep breathing is going to make that feel optional.

The Problem With “Let It Go” Culture

We live in a culture saturated with wellness language. Detach from what no longer serves you. Release what you cannot control. Choose peace. These ideas have value in certain contexts. If you are ruminating over a rude comment from a coworker or replaying an argument that happened three years ago, then yes, the practice of releasing and returning to the present moment is healthy and appropriate.

But parental alienation is not a rude comment. It is the ongoing psychological abuse of your child and the systematic destruction of your family. Telling a targeted parent to “let it go” is like telling someone whose house is on fire to stop worrying about the flames.

The house is still burning. Your child is still inside.

Mindfulness was never meant to be a tool for passivity. Somewhere along the way, Western wellness culture flattened a rich and ancient tradition into a bumper sticker. Real mindfulness, the kind rooted in thousands of years of practice, does not ask you to stop caring. It does not ask you to abandon the people you love. It does not ask you to make peace with injustice.

It asks you to be present. Fully, honestly, painfully present.

And that is a very different thing.

What Mindfulness Actually Offers Targeted Parents

When I first began applying my mindfulness practice to my experience as a targeted parent, I made every mistake. I tried to meditate my way out of grief. I tried to use yoga as an escape hatch. I tried to breathe through the panic of another unanswered phone call as if calm breathing could fix what was broken.

It couldn’t. And that failure nearly made me abandon the practice altogether.

What brought me back was a shift in understanding. Mindfulness is not a cure for parental alienation. Nothing short of systemic change and legal intervention will cure it. But mindfulness can do something that is desperately needed in the life of a targeted parent: it can keep you from being consumed.

Parental alienation is designed to destroy you. The alienator wants you destabilized, reactive, broken. Every ignored text, every false allegation, every cruel word from your child’s mouth is engineered to provoke a response that makes you look unhinged. And here is the devastating part: it works. The system rewards the calm parent and punishes the desperate one, even when the desperate one is desperate for good reason.

Mindfulness does not make the pain smaller. It makes you bigger than the pain.

Redefining the Practice

For targeted parents, I believe mindfulness needs to be reframed entirely. Here is what it looks like in practice, not on a meditation cushion in a quiet room, but in the trenches of alienation.

Mindfulness is noticing without drowning. Your child posted a photo with the alienator, smiling, on a trip you were never told about. The wave of grief hits. Mindfulness is the ability to say, “I see this. I feel this. This is devastating.” And then to not let that wave pull you under for the rest of the day. You feel it fully. You do not pretend it doesn’t hurt. But you also do not let it become the entire ocean.

Mindfulness is strategic patience, not passive acceptance. There is a difference between giving up and choosing your battles wisely. Mindfulness helps you distinguish between the moments that require immediate action and the moments that require stillness. Not every provocation needs a response. Not every silence needs to be filled. Sometimes the most powerful thing a targeted parent can do is wait with intention.

Mindfulness is preserving your credibility. Family courts are watching. Evaluators are watching. Your children, even from a distance, are watching. When you respond to the alienator’s chaos with groundedness, you are not “letting it go.” You are building a record of stability that will matter when it matters most. Mindfulness becomes a form of evidence.

Mindfulness is staying connected to the parent you are. Alienation tries to rewrite your identity. You begin to see yourself through the alienator’s distorted lens. You forget who you were before this. A mindfulness practice, even five minutes a day, is an act of returning to yourself. It is a reminder that you are more than this fight, even as the fight demands everything you have.

The Hardest Practice

I will not pretend any of this is easy. Sitting with the grief of alienation is one of the hardest things a human being can do. There are days when the meditation cushion feels like a torture device because stillness brings the pain rushing in. There are days when every mindful breath feels like a lie because nothing about this situation is okay.

On those days, I offer this: mindfulness does not require you to be okay. It only requires you to be here.

You are still here. That is not nothing. That is everything.

And when someone tells you to let it go, you can smile and nod if you want to. Or you can tell them the truth: “I am not holding on to pain. I am holding on to my child. And I will never let that go.”

What I will let go of is the shame. The self-blame. The belief that I caused this. The isolation that the alienator carefully constructed around me.

That, I can release.

My child? Never.

Share

This is the first post in a series on mindfulness and resilience for targeted parents. If you are living through parental alienation, I see you. Follow along for more, and feel free to reach out. You are not alone in this.

I used to think mindfulness was just about feeling calm. Sit quietly, breathe deeply, maybe light a candle—basically just a way to relax. And yeah, it does help you relax. But what I didn’t understand is that mindfulness literally changes how your brain works. Not metaphorically. Not in some vague spiritual sense. It physically restructures the neural pathways in your brain, changes your stress hormones, and transforms how you respond to everything life throws at you.

This isn’t just about feeling better in the moment. Mindfulness rewires the actual circuitry between your thinking brain and your emotional brain, fundamentally changing how you experience stress and anxiety.

Your Brain on Stress: The Default Setting

Let’s start with what’s happening in your brain when you’re stressed or anxious. Your amygdala—this almond-shaped structure deep in your brain—acts like your personal alarm system. It’s constantly scanning for threats, and when it detects danger (or what it thinks might be danger), it triggers your fight-or-flight response.

Your body floods with cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart races. Your breathing quickens. Blood rushes to your muscles. Your prefrontal cortex—the thinking, reasoning part of your brain—basically goes offline. This made perfect sense when our ancestors were running from predators. The last thing you need when facing a tiger is to stop and analyze the situation. You need to run.

The problem? Your amygdala can’t tell the difference between a tiger and an angry email from your boss. Or a social situation that makes you uncomfortable. Or just general worry about the future. So you’re walking around with this alarm system that’s constantly going off, flooding your body with stress hormones, shutting down your ability to think clearly, and creating this feedback loop where stress creates more stress.

And here’s the kicker: the more this happens, the stronger these pathways become. Your brain literally gets better at being anxious. The neural pathways between your amygdala and your stress response get reinforced every single time they fire. It’s like walking the same path through a forest over and over until it becomes a well-worn trail.

Enter Mindfulness: Pressing Pause on the Panic

Mindfulness does something radical: it interrupts this automatic process.

When you practice mindfulness, you’re training yourself to notice what’s happening without immediately reacting to it. You observe your thoughts and feelings like you’re watching clouds pass by. “There’s anxiety. There’s that racing heart. There’s that thought that something bad is going to happen.” You’re not trying to stop these things or push them away. You’re just noticing them.

This sounds simple, but it’s revolutionary. Because in that moment of observation—that tiny gap between stimulus and response—you’re doing something your brain doesn’t usually do: you’re engaging your prefrontal cortex (your thinking brain) while your amygdala is trying to sound the alarm.

Normally, when your amygdala activates, your prefrontal cortex shuts down. It’s one or the other. But mindfulness trains you to keep your prefrontal cortex online even when your emotional brain is activated. You’re essentially teaching these two parts of your brain to communicate better instead of working against each other.

The Physical Changes: It’s Not Just in Your Head

Here’s where it gets really interesting. Regular mindfulness practice creates actual structural changes in your brain. Studies using brain imaging have shown that people who meditate regularly have:

A smaller, less reactive amygdala. Your alarm system literally shrinks and becomes less sensitive. It doesn’t fire off at every little thing anymore.

A thicker prefrontal cortex. The part of your brain responsible for rational thinking, emotional regulation, and decision-making gets stronger. It’s like building muscle, except it’s brain tissue.

Reduced cortisol levels. Your baseline stress hormone levels drop. You’re not constantly marinating in stress chemicals, which means your body can finally relax and repair itself.

Changes in the connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. The pathway between your emotional brain and thinking brain gets rewired. Instead of your amygdala hijacking your whole system, your prefrontal cortex can step in and modulate the response.

This isn’t immediate—you’re not going to meditate once and have a different brain. But over weeks and months of consistent practice, these changes accumulate. You’re literally building new neural pathways and weakening old ones.

Breaking the Fight-or-Flight Loop

The fight-or-flight response was designed to be temporary. See threat, respond to threat, threat passes, system returns to normal. But when you’re chronically stressed or anxious, your nervous system gets stuck in that activated state. You’re constantly primed for danger, even when you’re just sitting at your desk or lying in bed.

Mindfulness helps you shift from the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) to the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest). When you slow down your breathing, bring your attention to the present moment, and observe without judgment, you’re sending signals to your body that it’s safe. Your heart rate slows. Your blood pressure drops. Cortisol levels decrease. Your digestive system starts working properly again.

And here’s the beautiful part: the more you do this, the easier it becomes for your body to return to this calm state. You’re training your nervous system to have a different default setting. Instead of defaulting to “everything is a threat,” you start defaulting to “I’m okay, I can handle this.”

Transforming Your Relationship with Thoughts

One of the most profound changes mindfulness creates is in how you relate to your thoughts. Most of us are completely fused with our thoughts. A thought pops up—”I’m going to fail” or “Everyone thinks I’m awkward” or “Something bad is going to happen”—and we immediately believe it. We think that thought is reality, or at minimum, that it’s important and needs our attention.

Mindfulness teaches you something different: thoughts are just mental events. They’re not facts. They’re not orders. They’re just... thoughts. They come and go like weather patterns.

When you practice observing your thoughts without getting caught up in them, you create what psychologists call “metacognitive awareness”—the ability to think about your thinking. You start to notice patterns. “Oh, there’s my brain doing that catastrophizing thing again.” “There’s that familiar anxiety thought.” You’re not identifying with the thought; you’re observing it.

This changes everything. Because when you can observe a thought without believing it, it loses its power over you. That anxious thought that used to send you into a spiral? Now it’s just “my brain doing its anxious thing.” You notice it, acknowledge it, and then... it passes. You don’t have to fight it or fix it or do anything about it.

The Ripple Effect: From Brain to Life

As these neural pathways change, as cortisol drops, as your amygdala calms down and your prefrontal cortex strengthens, you start to notice changes in your daily life.

Situations that used to trigger immediate anxiety become more manageable. You have a moment to pause before reacting. You can feel your stress response starting to activate, but instead of being swept away by it, you can observe it and choose how to respond.

You sleep better because your body isn’t constantly on high alert. You make better decisions because your thinking brain isn’t being overridden by your emotional brain. Your relationships improve because you’re not reacting from a place of fear or defensiveness. You have more energy because you’re not burning it all on stress responses.

The physical symptoms of anxiety—the racing heart, the tight chest, the shallow breathing—become less frequent and less intense. When they do show up, they don’t spiral out of control because you’ve trained your brain to respond differently.

How to Actually Do This

The good news is that mindfulness doesn’t require hours of meditation or a perfect practice. Even a few minutes a day starts creating these changes. Here’s what actually matters:

Consistency beats perfection. Five minutes every day is better than an hour once a week. You’re building new neural pathways, and that requires repetition.

Start with the breath. Just notice your breathing. When your mind wanders (and it will, constantly), gently bring it back to the breath. That moment of noticing you’ve wandered and bringing yourself back? That’s the exercise. You’re strengthening your prefrontal cortex every single time.

Practice throughout the day. Mindfulness isn’t just sitting meditation. It’s washing dishes and actually noticing the water and soap. It’s eating and tasting your food. It’s waiting in line and feeling your feet on the ground instead of checking your phone. Every moment of present-moment awareness is rewiring your brain.

Be patient with yourself. Your brain has been practicing anxiety for a long time. Those pathways are well-worn. Building new ones takes time. But every time you practice, you’re making it a little bit easier.

The Bottom Line

Mindfulness isn’t just a relaxation technique. It’s a method for fundamentally changing how your brain processes stress and emotion. By repeatedly engaging your prefrontal cortex while observing emotional activation without getting swept away by it, you’re literally rewiring the connection between your thinking brain and your emotional brain.

You’re reducing cortisol, calming your fight-or-flight response, shrinking your amygdala, strengthening your prefrontal cortex, and creating new neural pathways that support calm, clarity, and resilience instead of anxiety and reactivity.

The pathway between your brain and your emotional self isn’t fixed. It’s plastic, changeable, responsive to practice. Every moment of mindfulness is a moment of rewiring. Every time you observe a thought without believing it, every time you notice your breath instead of following your anxiety, every time you pause before reacting—you’re building a different brain.

And that different brain? It creates a different life. Not perfect, not without challenges, but one where you have more choice, more space, more freedom. Where anxiety doesn’t run the show. Where stress is something that happens, not something that defines you.

That’s not just feeling better. That’s being different. And it starts with learning to pay attention.

In my last essay, we talked about how everything psychological is also biological—how emotions come from both your body’s sensations and your mind’s interpretation. But here’s the thing: if your body affects your mind, then you can use your body to change your mental state. This isn’t just theory. It’s practical, it’s powerful, and honestly, it’s something humans have known instinctively forever.

When Your Mind Won’t Listen, Talk to Your Body

We’ve all been there. You’re anxious, or depressed, or completely overwhelmed, and you try to think your way out of it. You analyze, you rationalize, you try to logic yourself into feeling better. Sometimes it works. But sometimes your mind feels like a hamster wheel—just spinning the same thoughts over and over, getting nowhere.

That’s when your body can be the way in.

Remember the Schachter-Singer theory? Emotions need both physical arousal and mental interpretation. So if you change your physical state, you’re literally changing the raw material your mind has to work with. Calm your body down, and your mind has fewer panic signals to interpret as anxiety. Get your body moving, and you create the biological foundation for energy and motivation.

Your body isn’t just along for the ride. It’s a tool you can use.

Movement: The Drug You Don’t Need a Prescription For

Exercise might be the most powerful mental health tool we have, and we treat it like it’s optional. When you move your body—really move it, whether you’re running or dancing or lifting weights—you trigger a whole cascade of changes. Endorphins flood in (natural pain relief and that “runner’s high”). Your brain starts producing more BDNF, which is like fertilizer for your neurons. Serotonin and dopamine levels go up—the exact chemicals that antidepressants try to boost.

But it’s more than just chemistry. When you’re depressed, everything feels impossible. You feel powerless. But then you finish a hard workout, or you climb a hill, or you finally nail that move you’ve been practicing—and your body gives you undeniable proof that you can do hard things. That feeling doesn’t stay confined to the gym. It starts to shift how you think about yourself in general.

There’s also something almost meditative about rhythmic movement. Walking, running, swimming—when you find that rhythm, your mind quiets down. Thoughts that were stuck suddenly start flowing. Problems you couldn’t solve suddenly have solutions. Sometimes the best therapy isn’t sitting still; it’s moving.

Breathing: Your Emergency Reset Button

Your breath is this weird thing that happens automatically but that you can also control. And that makes it perfect for linking body and mind.

When you’re anxious, your breathing gets fast and shallow. But here’s the crucial part: you can interrupt that loop. When you deliberately slow down your breath—especially when you make your exhales longer than your inhales—you’re literally telling your nervous system that everything’s okay. Your body receives those signals and starts to calm down. Then your mind, reading those calmer signals, starts to reinterpret the situation.

I’ve used this countless times when anxiety hits. Box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, or just counting my breaths—it sounds too simple to work, but it does. Your breath is always with you, which means you always have access to this tool.

Sleep: The Non-Negotiable

Want to understand how connected body and mind are? Try skipping sleep for a few days. Everything falls apart. Your emotions are all over the place, you can’t make decisions, your mood tanks, anxiety spikes. The thing is, it’s not that lack of sleep makes you mentally unhealthy—lack of sleep creates a physical state that is mental unhealth.

While you sleep, your brain is processing emotions, consolidating memories, clearing out waste, restoring chemical balance. Chronic sleep deprivation looks identical to depression on a biological level: low serotonin, high cortisol, impaired executive function.

Every mental health strategy becomes ten times harder without enough sleep. It’s not a luxury. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.

Food: You’re Feeding Your Brain, Not Just Your Body

Here’s something that blew my mind when I learned it: your gut produces about 90% of your body’s serotonin. The bacteria in your digestive system are literally talking to your brain, affecting neurotransmitter production. What you eat doesn’t just fuel your body—it becomes your brain.

Omega-3s support brain function. B vitamins help make neurotransmitters. Protein gives you amino acids like tryptophan, which your body uses to make serotonin. Meanwhile, processed foods, too much sugar, inflammatory ingredients—all of that creates physical states that show up as brain fog, irritability, low mood, anxiety.

I’m not saying you have to eat perfectly. I’m saying that what you eat matters for your mental health, not just your physical health. They’re the same thing.

Touch: The Missing Piece

We don’t talk about this enough: humans need physical touch. Hugs, massage, even petting a dog—all of that triggers oxytocin release, which reduces stress and creates feelings of safety and connection. The absence of touch? That creates a stress state that shows up as loneliness, anxiety, depression.

What we think of as emotional needs for connection are also biological needs for specific hormonal states that touch provides. Sometimes the cure for feeling isolated isn’t just talking about it—it’s getting a hug.

Bringing It All Together

Look, the path to feeling better mentally doesn’t just run through your thoughts. Sometimes you need to go through your body—move it, breathe with it, rest it, feed it, connect with others through it.

These aren’t just nice additions to “real” mental health work. They’re essential parts of it, because your mind and body are one system.

When your thoughts are spiraling and meditation feels impossible and therapy isn’t enough—go for a run. Practice breathing. Get some actual sleep. Eat real food. Hug someone. These aren’t substitutes for mental health care. They’re part of it.

The ancient Greeks knew this—they trained both body and mind. Indigenous healing traditions have always integrated physical practices into emotional and spiritual healing. Now modern science is catching up to what people have always known from experience: if you want to heal your mind, you have to work with your body.

They’re not separate, and they never were.

For the longest time, philosophers argued about whether the mind and body were separate things. Descartes famously called this dualism—the idea that your thoughts exist in some realm completely apart from your physical body. But here’s what we know now: that’s not how it works at all. Everything psychological is also biological. Your thoughts, your emotions, your memories—none of these are floating around independently. They’re all happening in your brain, in your body, right now.

Think about it. When you’re anxious, you can feel it—your heart races, your palms sweat, cortisol floods your system. When you fall in love, your brain lights up the same way it does when someone’s addicted to drugs. Depression isn’t just feeling sad; it often involves actual changes in serotonin levels. Your mind and body aren’t separate entities that occasionally communicate. They’re one integrated system, constantly influencing each other.

Your Body IS Your Mind

Every single thought you have is electrochemical activity in your brain. It’s not just that thoughts cause brain activity—they are brain activity. You literally cannot separate them.

And it goes deeper than just brain chemistry. Your gut bacteria affect your mood through something called the gut-brain axis. When you don’t sleep enough, you’re not just physically tired—your emotional regulation falls apart, and you make worse decisions. Chronic inflammation has been linked to depression. Even something as simple as your posture changes how you feel. Stand up straight and you might actually feel more confident. Slump over and you might reinforce sadness.

Your body isn’t just carrying your mind around. Your body and mind are the same thing, experienced from different angles.

The Two-Factor Theory: Why Context Changes Everything

This is where things get really interesting. Back in 1962, psychologists Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer came up with the Two-Factor Theory of Emotion (Schachter & Singer, 1962). It’s brilliant because it shows exactly how the mind-body connection works in real time.

Here’s the idea: emotions need two things to exist—physiological arousal (your body doing something) and cognitive interpretation (your brain making sense of what’s happening). You need both. Neither one alone creates a full emotion.

Let me give you an example. Imagine your heart suddenly starts racing. What are you feeling? Well... you don’t actually know yet. That racing heart is ambiguous. It could be fear, excitement, anger, or even attraction—the physical sensation is identical for all of them. Your brain has to look around and figure out what’s happening. If you’re on a rollercoaster, you interpret it as excitement or fear. If you’re in an argument, it’s anger. If you just locked eyes with someone attractive, it’s romantic interest.

Same physical feeling, completely different emotions, depending on context.

Schachter and Singer tested this in a really clever way. They injected people with epinephrine—which makes your heart race and gives you that jittery feeling. But they told different people different things about what to expect. Some were told the truth about the injection’s effects. Others were given no explanation or were misinformed.

Then they put these people in a room with an actor who was pretending to be another participant. Sometimes the actor acted really happy and excited. Other times they acted angry and hostile.

The results were fascinating. The people who didn’t know why their hearts were racing and their hands were shaking looked to the actor to figure out what they were feeling. If the actor was happy, they felt happy. If the actor was angry, they felt angry. But the people who knew their symptoms came from the injection? They were way less influenced by the actor because they already had an explanation for their physical state.

This tells us something profound: emotions aren’t just biological reactions, and they’re not just thoughts either. They’re both, happening simultaneously. Your body provides the raw sensation, but your mind decides what it means.

Taking Control

If emotions come from how we interpret physical sensations, then we have more power than we might think. To control your emotions, you need to learn to control your mind. And I don’t mean suppressing your feelings or pretending everything’s fine. I mean recognizing that you have a choice in how you interpret what’s happening in your body.

This is where meditation comes in. Meditation doesn’t stop difficult emotions from showing up. What it does is train you to notice what’s happening without immediately reacting. When your heart starts racing, instead of immediately thinking “Oh no, I’m anxious, something’s wrong,” meditation teaches you to just observe: “My heart is racing.” That’s it. Just a fact.

That tiny gap between sensation and interpretation—that moment where you’re just noticing instead of reacting—that’s where your freedom lives.

I’ve found that with practice, you start to see your thoughts as just thoughts, not necessarily truths. That racing heart? Could be anxiety. Could also just be too much coffee. That tightness in your shoulders? Maybe stress, maybe just bad posture. When you stop automatically believing your first interpretation, you take back control.

And here’s the thing—meditation actually changes your brain. Regular practice reduces cortisol, strengthens your prefrontal cortex (the part that helps regulate emotions), and even changes the structure of your amygdala (your brain’s alarm system). When you change your mind, you literally reshape your brain, which changes how your body responds to stress.

The Bottom Line

The mind-body connection isn’t some abstract concept—it’s the fundamental reality of being human. Schachter and Singer showed us that emotions emerge from both biological arousal and psychological interpretation working together. You can’t have one without the other.

This is actually good news. While we can’t always control what happens to us or how our bodies initially react, we can learn to guide our interpretations. Through practices like meditation, we develop the mental clarity to observe our experiences without being controlled by them.

The path to emotional freedom isn’t about controlling your body or escaping your mind. It’s about understanding that they’re one integrated system. When you master your mind through awareness and practice, you’re not transcending your biology—you’re working with it, creating a better partnership between all the parts of yourself.

Reference

Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379-399.

I used to think I was broken beyond repair. Bulimia had stolen years of my life, and a marriage to a narcissist had nearly taken everything else, including my daughter. But here’s what I know now: you can come back from the darkest places. You can rebuild. You can thrive. And mindfulness was the key that unlocked my healing.

Let me be clear. This isn’t a story about sitting cross-legged and chanting until my problems disappeared. This is about learning to be present in my own body again after years of being at war with it. It’s about reclaiming my mind after someone tried to convince me I was losing it. Mindfulness didn’t erase my trauma. It gave me the tools to process it, move through it, and ultimately transform it into wisdom.

When you’ve had bulimia, your relationship with your body becomes a battlefield. Every meal is a negotiation. Every mirror is an enemy. Mindfulness taught me something revolutionary: I could simply observe these thoughts without acting on them. I could sit with discomfort without trying to purge it away. In those quiet moments of sitting practice, just breathing and noticing, I started to recognize the difference between my thoughts and my truth. My thoughts said I was worthless. My truth, the one I found in stillness, said I deserved to heal.

The custody battle was its own special hell. Fighting to keep my daughter while someone who claimed to love me tried to paint me as unfit tested every bit of progress I’d made. The anxiety was crushing. But I had my practices. Every morning, I would sit. Just sit. Ground myself in the present moment. Feel my feet on the floor. Notice my breath moving in and out. Remind myself that in this moment, right now, I was okay.

Nature became my sanctuary. Walking through parks and trails, I practiced mindful observation. The way sunlight filtered through leaves. The sound of birds. The feeling of earth beneath my feet. These walks weren’t escapes from reality. They were returns to it. They reminded me that life was still beautiful, still worth fighting for, still full of moments that mattered.

And then she came home. My daughter came back to me. The relief was overwhelming, but so was the responsibility of showing her what healthy looks like. That’s when my mindfulness practice became even more important. She needed to see me grounded, present, and whole. She needed to know that healing is possible.

Today, we’re thriving. Not because everything is perfect, but because I know how to stay present with what is. When old patterns try to resurface, I notice them. When anxiety creeps in, I breathe through it. When memories of that marriage haunt me, I remind myself: that was then, this is now.

Mindfulness isn’t just a practice. It’s a complete transformation of how you relate to yourself and your life. It gave me back my body, my mind, my daughter, and my future. It taught me that presence is power, that awareness is freedom, and that you can build something beautiful from broken pieces.

If you’re struggling, know this: you have everything you need inside you already. Mindfulness just helps you find it.

As a teacher and a holistic coach with a PhD in Psychology, I’ve spent years studying human behavior and well-being. Yet the most profound lesson I’ve learned didn’t come from a textbook or research paper, it came from a simple daily practice that has transformed my life: talking to one stranger every day.

We’re living in unprecedented times. News cycles overflow with division, social media amplifies outrage, and it’s easy to feel like the world is fracturing into hostile camps. The climate of hate can feel suffocating, leaving many of us retreating into our bubbles, avoiding eye contact, and treating public spaces as obstacle courses to navigate rather than communities to engage with. But I’ve discovered something powerful: when we really connect with each other, person to person, it changes everything.

My practice is incredibily simple. Each day, I make it a point to truly see someone I don’t know and start a conversation. I often begin with a genuine compliment: “I love your jacket,” “Your smile just brightened this whole coffee shop,” or “You have the kindest eyes.” These aren’t empty flattery, I’ve trained myself to notice the beautiful, interesting details about people that usually go unacknowledged. The response is almost always the same: surprise, followed by genuine warmth, followed by connection.

What began as an experiment in applied positive psychology has become my greatest source of daily joy. These micro-moments of human connection create ripples that extend far beyond the initial exchange. That barista who seemed exhausted suddenly stands a little taller after being told their patience with a difficult customer was admirable. The elderly person at the bus stop whose face lights up when someone asks about the book they’re reading. The young parent struggling with a stroller who needed just one person to say, “You’re doing a great job.”

Being mindful of who is in your daily orbit is key, not just in a passive, observational way, but in an active, engaged way. We share space with dozens, sometimes hundreds of people each day, yet we’ve normalized treating each other as background noise. This disconnection feeds the very climate of hate we’re trying to escape. When we stop seeing individuals and start seeing categories, stereotypes, or threats, we lose our humanity and our capacity for empathy.

The beautiful paradox I’ve discovered is that in making others feel seen, I feel more alive. In sharing happiness, I multiply it. Each conversation is a small act of resistance against the forces that want us divided and afraid. It’s applied mindfulness in its truest form, being fully present with another human being, recognizing their inherent worth, and creating a moment of genuine connection.

This isn’t naive optimism or toxic positivity. I’m not suggesting we ignore real problems or pretend everything is fine. Rather, I’m proposing that we counterbalance the hate with intentional acts of recognition and kindness. We change the climate one interaction at a time, one genuine compliment at a time, one moment of truly seeing another person at a time.

The stranger you talk to today might be the highlight of their week. And in giving that gift, you receive one in return: the profound satisfaction of living fully, connecting deeply, and choosing love over fear.

The idea of “having it all” is a seductive narrative, one that promises the perfect blend of career success, family harmony, and personal fulfillment. But let me be honest: it’s a myth. A deeply ingrained, culturally reinforced myth that often leaves working mothers feeling like they’re falling short. I know this because I’ve felt it too—the guilt of missing a school event because of a faculty meeting, the exhaustion of staying up late to finish a research paper after putting the kids to bed, the nagging sense that I’m not doing enough in either role. But here’s what I’ve come to realize, both through my professional training and my personal journey: balance isn’t about having it all. It’s about redefining what “all” means and creating a life that aligns with your values, your priorities, and your humanity.

From a psychological perspective, the myth of “having it all” is rooted in societal expectations and cognitive distortions. We’re bombarded with images of “supermoms” who effortlessly excel in their careers while raising happy, well-adjusted children and maintaining a spotless home. These images create unrealistic standards that can lead to feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and burnout. Cognitive behavioral theory tells us that our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviors. When we buy into the myth of “having it all,” we set ourselves up for a cycle of negative thinking. Thoughts like, “I’m failing as a mother,” or “I’m not successful enough in my career,” can trigger feelings of shame and anxiety, which in turn make it harder to function effectively in either role.

But here’s the good news: we have the power to challenge these thoughts and rewrite the narrative. Mindfulness, a practice I’ve come to rely on both personally and professionally, teaches us to observe our thoughts without judgment. When I notice myself falling into the trap of “I should be doing more,” I pause and remind myself: “I am enough. I am doing my best.”

So, what does balance look like when we let go of the myth of “having it all”? For me, it’s about embracing imperfection and prioritizing what truly matters. It’s about recognizing that some days, my work will take center stage, and other days, my family will. And that’s okay.

One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned as a working mother is that balance isn’t a static state—it’s a dynamic process. It’s about making intentional choices and being willing to adjust as circumstances change. For example, there are weeks when my research demands more of my time, and I have to lean on others to help. And there are other weeks when I intentionally scale back on work commitments to be fully present for my daughter’s milestones or simply to recharge.

Mindfulness has been a game-changer in this process. By practicing mindfulness, I’ve learned to tune into my own needs and values, rather than being driven by external expectations. When I feel overwhelmed, I take a few moments to breathe and ask myself: “What is most important right now?” Sometimes the answer is finishing a grant proposal. Other times, it’s hanging out with my child. And sometimes, it’s simply taking a moment to rest and replenish my own energy.

Practical Strategies for Redefining Balance

If you’re a working mother struggling with the myth of “having it all,” here are a few strategies that have helped me redefine balance in my own life:

1. Clarify Your Values: Take time to reflect on what truly matters to you. Is it advancing in your career? Being present for your children? Cultivating your own well-being? Once you’re clear on your values, it becomes easier to make decisions that align with them.

2. Set Boundaries: Learn to say no to commitments that don’t align with your priorities. This might mean declining a work project that would require too much time away from your family or setting limits on how often you check email at home.

3. Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a friend. When things don’t go as planned, remind yourself that you’re human and doing the best you can.

4. Embrace Imperfection: Let go of the idea that you need to be perfect in every role. Some days, you’ll be an amazing professor but a tired mom. Other days, you’ll be a present, loving parent but a bit behind on work. And that’s okay.

5. Create Mindful Moments: Integrate mindfulness into your daily routine. Whether it’s a few minutes of mindful breathing in the morning, a mindful walk during lunch, or a gratitude practice before bed, these small moments can help you stay grounded and present.

As a psychology professional, I know that the pursuit of “having it all” is a setup for disappointment. But as a working mother, I also know that letting go of this myth can be incredibly liberating. When we redefine balance on our own terms, we create space for what truly matters: meaningful work, loving relationships, and a sense of inner peace.For me, “having it all” no longer means excelling in every area of life simultaneously. It means showing up as my authentic self, embracing the messiness of life, and finding joy in the small, imperfect moments. It means knowing that I am enough, just as I am.

We have some amazing reporters on this app, and I commend them all for keeping us informed and up to date on the madness that is America, but I would like to offer something else, and that is help for the stress and anxiety we are all feeling. My series on Mindfulness for Working Mothers, came out of my Dissertation. I will continue to write more about working mothers, cause that’s what I am, but much of the information can really apply to ALL HUMANS. So join me and find out what Mindfulness can do for you!

From a psychological perspective, mindfulness is the practice of intentionally paying attention to the present moment without judgment. It’s about cultivating awareness of our thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations as they arise, rather than getting swept away by them. For working mothers, this skill is invaluable. Research shows that mindfulness can reduce stress, enhance emotional regulation, and improve focus—all of which are critical for managing the dual demands of career and family.

Neurologically, mindfulness has been shown to produce measurable changes in the brain. Studies using neuroimaging techniques have found that regular mindfulness practice can increase the density of gray matter in brain regions associated with attention, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. For example, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive functions like decision-making and impulse control, becomes more active and efficient with mindfulness practice. At the same time, the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, tends to shrink, leading to reduced reactivity to stress.

For working mothers, these changes can translate into tangible benefits. Imagine being able to stay calm during a toddler’s meltdown while simultaneously preparing for an important meeting. Or finding the mental clarity to prioritize tasks effectively, even when your to-do list feels endless. Mindfulness helps us access these capacities by training the brain to respond rather than react.

Stress is an inevitable part of life, especially for working mothers who often feel pulled in multiple directions. However, chronic stress can take a toll on both mental and physical health, leading to burnout, anxiety, and even physical illness. This is where mindfulness shines. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a well-researched program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, has been shown to significantly reduce stress levels. By bringing awareness to the present moment, mindfulness helps us break free from the cycle of rumination and worry that often exacerbates stress. Instead of getting caught up in thoughts like, “I’ll never get everything done,” or “I’m failing at both work and parenting,” mindfulness allows us to observe these thoughts with curiosity and compassion, creating space to choose a more balanced response.

For me, this has meant using mindfulness to pause and breathe when I feel overwhelmed. Even a few moments of mindful breathing can shift my nervous system from a state of fight-or-flight to one of calm and clarity. Over time, these small pauses add up, creating a greater sense of resilience and ease.

One of the most profound benefits of mindfulness is its ability to enhance emotional regulation. As a working mother, I’ve experienced firsthand how emotions like guilt, frustration, and self-doubt can arise in both my professional and personal life. Mindfulness helps me recognize these emotions without being consumed by them.

For example, when I feel guilty about missing a school event due to work commitments, mindfulness allows me to acknowledge the guilt without letting it define me. I can remind myself that I’m doing my best, and that imperfection is part of being human. This shift in perspective is rooted in self-compassion, a key component of mindfulness. Research by Dr. Kristin Neff has shown that self-compassion—treating ourselves with the same kindness we would offer a friend—can reduce stress and increase emotional well-being.

Practical Mindfulness Tools for Working Mothers

So, how can working mothers incorporate mindfulness into their busy lives? The good news is that mindfulness doesn’t require hours of meditation or a complete lifestyle overhaul. Even small, consistent practices can make a big difference. Here are a few tools I’ve found particularly helpful:

1. Mindful Breathing: Take a few moments each day to focus on your breath. Notice the sensation of the air entering and leaving your body. This simple practice can help ground you in the present moment and calm your nervous system.

2. Body Scan: Set aside 5-10 minutes to mentally scan your body from head to toe, noticing any areas of tension or discomfort. This practice can help you reconnect with your body and release physical stress.

3. Mindful Transitions: Use the moments between activities—such as commuting, switching tasks at work, or putting your children to bed—as opportunities to pause and breathe. These small transitions can become mini mindfulness breaks throughout the day.

4. Loving-Kindness Meditation: Spend a few minutes sending wishes of love and compassion to yourself, your children, and others. This practice can help cultivate a sense of connection and reduce feelings of isolation.

Mindfulness works for working mothers because it meets us where we are. It doesn’t ask us to add more to our plates or strive for perfection. Instead, it invites us to slow down, tune in, and care for ourselves in the midst of life’s demands. By doing so, we not only enhance our own well-being but also create a ripple effect that benefits our families, our workplaces, and our communities.

As both a psychology professor and a mother, I’ve seen the transformative power of mindfulness in my own life and in the lives of those I work with. It’s not a magic solution to all of life’s challenges, but it is a powerful tool for navigating them with greater ease and grace. And in the busy, beautiful chaos of being a working mother, that’s something worth cultivating.

For working mothers, time to themselves is often rare and precious. The practice of formal sitting meditation in a quiet area can provide a time when one doesn’t have to do anything or take care of anyone. There are three key aspects of mindfulness: first is self-regulation of attention; second is adopting a particular orientation toward the present moment which is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance; and third is the attitude with which the first two are carried out: that is, intention has to do with letting go, and is nonjudgmental. Our goal in being mindful is to stop the automatic or default mode we are so often in. This can be done by focusing on what we are doing while we are doing it. The three aspects of mindfulness are something that can occur and be extremely useful in everyday life, and in turn, relieve the stress of working mothers. Self-regulation of attention can help you find ways to keep a watchful eye on your children without feeling stressed and constantly nagging. Changing the attitude of an experience to curiosity and openness is easy to relate to and can improve the quality of our daily experiences.

Now, mindfulness is in danger of being reduced to a self-help tool or a technical fix for psychological problems. We have to keep in mind that mindfulness is not about fixing anything or implanting something that is not already right. It is a way of being with ourselves, a way of befriending and taking care of ourselves. Since we are considering mindfulness as a way to relieve the stress and tension working mothers in particular feel, this definition of mindfulness is important to keep in mind. We are not trying to improve, but simply be in touch with being human. As we learn more about being in the moment, we learn more about how to be more fulfilled and happy with our lives.

The Japanese word for mindfulness is “nen” which means now/mind cultivation. Although mindfulness practice is a part of all Buddhist traditions, it is the Zen tradition that most clearly encompasses it. This is due to the special teachings of the Buddha’s immediate followers preserved and passed down.

Here are some mindful techniques for working mothers:

Three-minute breathing space:

Step 1: To begin with, take a comfortable seat in a quiet place and close your eyes. You can set your timer to 3 minutes or gauge the time.

Step 2: Adopt an erect and dignified posture, whether sitting or standing. If possible, close your eyes.

Step 3: Ask: What is my experience right now? Becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. Noticing the state of mind, or what is the tenor of the mind right now.

Step 4: Gather your awareness by taking a few fuller breaths to center yourself. Let go of any tightness or tension in the body as best you can.

Step 5: Then gently redirect full attention to breathing, to the experience of the in-breath as it moves into the body and the experience of the out-breath as the air leaves the body. Follow the breath in and out. Use the breath as an anchor to tether the awareness in the present.

Step 6: Now expand the field of your awareness so that it includes a sense of the body as a whole, your posture, and facial expression. Ask: How am I?

Step 7: Notice whether your experience is one of automatic pilot, with little sense of the moment; or else one of being driven or striving to achieve something. See if you can bring a quality of gentle acceptance to whatever you find.

Step 8: Practice the breathing space informally at first, three times a day. Use it to punctuate transitions between various activities — as a way of coming back to the center before you plunge into the next thing on your agenda. After a few days of this, pause and reflect on the effects of the practice on the quality of your presence and participation in daily activities.

Guided Meditation

Step 1: Find a time and quiet place where you will not be disturbed.

Step 2: Sit down, close your eyes, and put your attention on your breath or the sensation on the body sitting.

Step 3: Listen to the guided meditation. (There are many guided meditations on YouTube, Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. Calm and Breathe are great apps too!)

Step 4: Once the guided meditation is over, spend a few moments paying attention to the breath before returning to your daily activities.

The Daily Calm (https://www.youtube.com/@calm) This guided mindfulness meditation can be a steadying support for mothers who are juggling multiple roles at home and at work. Each day, you can receive an email from the Daily Calm, which offers a link to that day’s meditation. Most meditations run from 10–20 minutes, some are longer. You can use this as a guide to practice as well as refer to it when you have a few moments and need to return to a mindfulness practice of your own.

Breathing space: Throughout the day, you may find that life is a constant shuffle of things to do and places to be. In all the rush, it’s easy to fall into the routine of feeling rushed, multitasking through one event and onto the next. During periods of stress, this exercise offers a mini-vacation — one in which you can take to stop and retreat for a few moments no matter where you are.

Incorporating mindfulness into daily life. I sometimes start my day by mindfully making and drinking a cup of coffee. I find using the senses in this way, even if just for a short few minutes, can help set a calm tone for the day ahead. Similar practices might include savoring a piece of fruit, or mindfully touching your child’s cheek as they eat breakfast. Household chores can be integrated into mindfulness practice very easily. It’s best approached using informal meditation. All this involves is bringing full attention to the experience of the activity. So if you are vacuuming, feel the sensation fully with each step — the noise under your feet, the movement of your arm back and forth. When you become aware that your mind has wandered, gently bring it back to the movement and sound of the cleaner. This will also help increase your concentration. Lunchtime can be another good opportunity for mindfulness practice, particularly during the working day. If you usually eat at your desk while working, try taking a break and savoring your food. Note the sights, smells, textures, and taste of the food. This kind of presence is known to be beneficial to the digestive process and can also be rewarding to the cook! Coming home and doing this when your children eat can also be an enriching experience for both you and them. Mindfulness can help in those tricky moments with children when you are just about to pull out your hair! Taking a moment or two to just stop and breathe can be remarkably calming. Also, children have a natural ability to be mindful, and you may have noticed that they can be engrossed in an activity for long periods when they’re enjoying it. You can use your mindfulness practice to join them in this, and it can become a precious shared experience between you. One more thing to mention is that mindfulness is about moving towards a less goal-oriented state while still being fully engaged in the present. So it’s not about trying to get every task done as quickly as possible so you can sit down and do some mindfulness practice! But mindfulness can increase your awareness of when it’s time to take a break, and an ability to make better judgment calls about what needs doing right now and what can wait until later.

If this can be done successfully and consistently, I strongly agree that one day when your children grow up, you will not regret the moments you lost when your children need you. Mindfulness can also be a complex path that includes behavioral change and acceptance of self and others. Remembering this will help keep peace of mind for you. Provided with a clear set of instructions to follow and active participation, parents can experience all the benefits of mindfulness for kids. Remember to provide a loving kind tone to parenting and never judge yourself as a bad parent. Everyone makes mistakes. Mindfulness is not about being perfect; it is about becoming aware of our inner state and developing a conscious way of living

.

My days are filled with diverse roles — an educator with a Ph.D in psychology, a high school teacher, a yoga instructor, and a mindful educator. But the most demanding and fulfilling role of all? That of a mother. Balancing the demands of a career in education, guiding others on their paths to well-being, and nurturing young minds while tending to a chronically ill child can be overwhelming at times. It’s a beautiful chaos, one that constantly challenges me to cultivate mindfulness as both a professional and personal practice.

Mindfulness, rooted in ancient traditions and now supported by modern psychological science, is my compass through the choppy waters of stress and busyness. It is not about escaping the chaos of life but rather about finding peace within it. This is a lesson I’ve learned not just from my studies but also from my own journey as a mother, a teacher, and yoga practitioner. Mindfulness, at its core, is about presence — being fully engaged in the here and now. For a working mother, this means savouring the simple joys of a shared meal with my family, feeling the warmth of a hug from my children after a long day, or even relishing the brief moments of solitude in a busy day. One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned is that I don’t need to wait for the perfect, quiet moment to practice mindfulness. It’s about weaving it into the tapestry of my daily life, whether I’m in a boardroom meeting, cooking dinner, or leading a yoga class. By anchoring myself in the present moment, I’m able to respond to the challenges of the day with clarity and compassion.

As a psychologist, I often emphasize the importance of self-compassion with my students. Yet, as a mother, I’ve found that extending this compassion to myself can be a daily practice in itself. There are days when the to-do list seems never-ending, when I miss an event due to work commitments, or when I simply feel stretched too thin. Mindfulness has taught me to embrace these moments of imperfection with kindness rather than criticism. It’s about acknowledging that I am doing the best I can with the resources I have, and that it’s okay to ask for help when needed. This shift in perspective has been transformative, allowing me to let go of the guilt and unrealistic expectations that often accompany motherhood.

For fellow working mothers (and all individuals navigating the complexities of modern life), I invite you to explore mindfulness in its many forms. It doesn’t require hours of meditation or a silent retreat (although those can be wonderful experiences). It’s about finding moments of stillness amidst the chaos, anchoring ourselves in the present, and approaching ourselves and others with kindness and compassion. In the chaos of our busy lives, let mindfulness be the gentle force that guides us back to ourselves. As a working mother, teacher, and yoga instructor, I can attest that the journey is worth it — cultivating a heart full of presence, a mind full of peace, and a life full of love.