The seasons of life call for silence. Mindfulness brings us back to what matters each week with gentle attention and intention.
What I recommend (and why): Internal Forest School
I am filled with gratitude this week Gillian Florence Sangerwho has spent the last eight years as the lead mindfulness teacher for the Mindfulness Exercises community. Her wisdom, kindness, and integrity touched countless lives—teachers and students alike.
As it embarks on its next chapter, we are honored to celebrate its release Inner Forest Schoolyour new home for teaching and transformation.
If you are a coach, facilitator, or wellness expert, I especially recommend exploring Gillian’s Directed Imaging Teacher Certification Program — professional training that enables you to lead healing inner paths with confidence and care.
Gillian, thank you for your radiant presence and the seeds of mindfulness you have planted around the world.
What I’m Watching: You must be bored—here’s why
What if boredom is not a problem to be solved, but a gateway to creativity?
In a fascinating presentation, Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks examines how boredom gives the brain space to rest, recharge and imagine. When we let the mind wander, it activates the default mode networka part of the brain associated with insight, innovation, and emotional balance.
Boredom, it turns out, is one of the most underrated mindfulness practices—it’s a reminder that you don’t have to fill every moment.
Check it out here → You must be bored. Here’s why.
What we just shared: Mindfulness in higher education
In our latest podcast episode, the Dr. Steve Haberlin integrating mindfulness into the world of higher education—an environment where anxiety, distraction, and overwhelm are increasingly common.
🎧 Listen to Our Website / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
Dr. Haberlin shares practical ways to introduce mindfulness into the classroom through breathing exercises, box breathing, and loving-kindness meditation. His research highlights how these simple tools can help students manage stress, improve concentration and build resilience.
Whether you’re an educator, parent, or lifelong learner, this episode provides insightful insight into how mindfulness supports learning and emotional well-being.
What I’m Reading: Three Ways to Cope with Grief and Loss – Dr. Rick Hanson
Sorrow one of our most human teachers – and Dr. Rick Hanson‘s work provides a tender framework for encountering mindfulness.
It’s his worksheet on grief and loss It combines practical tools with neuroscience, showing how to balance grief with nurturing experiences that promote positive neuroplasticity and resilience. Using his “capture the good” approach, Rick asks us to subtly transform pain into presence.
This is a beautiful resource for personal reflection or for therapeutic and group use.
Explore the worksheet here → Three ways to experience grief and loss
A poem I love: Hafiz: Watching Watch
Few poems speak of the quiet grace of vigilance like this one from Hafiz, a reminder that the presence of love is always close at hand—even when we forget to look.
Morning
When I started to wake up
It happened again
The feeling that you, my dear,
He stood over me all night
careful,
That feeling
That as soon as I started stirring
You put your lips on my forehead
And lit a Holy Lamp
In my heart.
This verse calls us to awaken to the sacredness of simple awareness—the quiet, radiant love that has watched over us all this time.
Final reflection
From guided imagery to grief, from creative boredom to divine presence, all of your themes this week point back to the same truth: awareness is a homecoming. A gentle return to life unfolding here and now, one breath, one poem, one awareness at a time.
