6 Mindfulness Practices That Changed My Life

Mental health isn’t a goal, it’s a practice. Something we could all benefit from doing daily, like moving and eating well. The brain consumes about 20% of the body’s energy, we can either guide that energy in a direction that serves us, or leave it to ruminating thought patterns that control us. In the past few years, I’ve tested out a number of practices. Many either didn’t do much for me or didn’t stick, but a few did and have had a profound impact on my life.

Why is this important? Our minds have evolved to work, to think question imagine speculate worry, to make sense of the world and who we are in it. Our brains will use 20% of our energy whether we like it or not. When left unattended, this often results in mental loops that don’t serve us.

I was a victim of this. A classic type-A—incessantly scrutinizing with an ever-present voice behind my eyes telling me what I ‘should’ be doing. Sometimes I was aware of the voice, other times I just listened to it blindly, began to associate it with my self-narratives and identity. Of course I’m a hyper-productive, formidable badass that doesn’t have feelings! Nope. The misalignment slowly caught up to me, and thankfully my 20s have been a steady stream of self-discoveries that have brought me closer to clarity in what actually makes me thrive and feel good. But it took some time and trial and error to get here.

I can attribute these discoveries to either a momentous experience (breakup, move, death, career change, high-dose trip etc) or a mindfulness practice that stuck. I’d prefer to not have a momentous experience every day or week so I’ve put more energy into finding those practices that are both impactful and sustainable. Here they are,

Meditating

Ah what a cliche I know I know but if you listen to nothing else, if you take nothing else from this please take this. I swear I started with the exact same mindset you’re likely feeling now. I saw it as another ‘have-to’ to fit into my day. The pressure was everywhere—I couldn’t listen to a podcast without the recommendation coming up or walk the streets of SF without seeing a Calm ad. I kept hearing about how great meditating was, but I told myself I couldn’t make time for it. The reality, like with most things, was that I made the choice not to because I wasn’t getting any immediate reward. I didn’t experience what everyone else was telling me I would. I spent many minutes sitting on a chair with my eyes closed wondering what the hell I was doing and when the magic everyone talked about would happen, as I thought about what email I needed to send or groceries I needed to order. This is the reality of starting to meditate. All I can tell you is pick the right style and keep doing it, and do it for real. The fact that Headspace and Calm have 5 or even 10-minute options is absurd, I’m still thinking about what I’m going to eat for breakfast at 5 minutes. You don’t hit meditation zone until at least 15 minutes, I’d argue 25-30 minutes but I know that’s unreasonable to ask people for just getting started.

My practice is with Tara Brach every morning immediately after I wake up. I don’t look at my phone, I just get out of bed, brush my teeth, get my coffee going, and sit down cross-legged with Bose noise-canceling headphones and meditate for 30 minutes using one of her guided podcast episodes. At night, I do 20-30 minutes of somatic meditation. It gives me a space between my day and sleep, and provides a much-needed check-in and centering after a day of running around. I love Reggie Ray’s Somatic Descent.

Two years ago, I’d be shocked if you told me I’d ever spend an hour or more meditating every day but I honestly can’t imagine life without it now, I get this itchy sense that I’m disconnected from myself and my body if I go too long without it. It’s developed a deeper sense of awareness and connection to myself and others.

Breathing

I love this one because it’s so simple—you don’t need a cushion, incense, quiet room, or even 15 minutes. It can be done in a meeting, on a call, during a workout, before sleep, anytime anywhere, for just a few seconds. All it takes is pausing and taking a deep breath. Then another. Then another. Done. So good. I started doing this after using Spire for a couple of weeks—a wearable that buzzes when your breath is short or tense, indicating a higher stress level. I realized how often I was holding my breath in conversations, when reading, walking, etc and started intentionally taking a few deep ones when I notice I am. It immediately calms and brings awareness back to now. I’ve also experimented with some Holotropic Breathwork, which I also recommend exploring, but I haven’t adopted it as a regular practice.

Moving

This wasn’t any revelation, I’ve always been a workout fiend. Movement is my go-to release. But before it was an obsession with fitness, now it’s a form of therapy. I don’t need to get into all the health benefits we all know those. What might be surprising though is the minimal effective dose that makes a difference, just a short walk around the block can do it. On rest days, when I don’t have a workout planned, I still make sure to break up long periods of sitting with movement. 3 pm is a good time, at the afternoon lull when I realize I’ve been sitting at my computer for a few hours. Get up, stretch and walk, listen to music, a podcast or take a call, walk home. I usually return refreshed and clear-headed.

Rituals

This is my newest practice and one I’ve found especially fulfilling. Have a simple ritual daily or weekly with another person or persons, that acts as a pillar in your life. Something that you can look forward to, a small dose of social connectivity in the form of a steady and unspoken agreement like having coffee with your partner every morning, Sunday FaceTime with your mom, or Wednesday yoga with a friend. Rituals provide a level of certainty, consistency, and control in our stress-filled modern lives where things often feel out of our control or in a state of constant flux. For me, it’s been walking my pup with my roommate to a nearby cafe every weekday morning.

Feeling

Yep that's about it, I now take time to feel. I invite feelings to be felt. An odd thing to try and intentionally do, but this was an important shift for me. For years, I wasn’t good at letting myself feel. My narrative around that was that I’m strong, unemotional. But the truth was there were a lot of things I was unwilling to feel, so I’d simply quiet or ignore them instead. I learned that doing so didn’t get rid of any of the feelings, it shoved them into a dirty pile that would overflow eventually, and at times of extra stress or adversity when I’d least want to deal with them.

Now, when I feel a new emotion wave, I look at it as an objective observer. I acknowledge it, I think what’s that? What’s going on there? Once it’s clear what it is, I give it a name Iike ‘anxiety’ or ‘fear’ and invite it in rather than push it away, listen to what it’s trying to tell me.

I got this from Tara Brach, she uses the acronym RAIN: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. Do this with your feelings as they come along. It’s not ideal at first, sometimes really difficult and uncomfortable, but it’s better than smothering because I promise you they find its way to the surface in some way shape or form down the line.

Writing

Writing acts as both a release and a tool for me. A release to freely and privately braindump all my thoughts and feelings on paper and a tool to find clarity in them. It’s fascinating how I can sit down with an overwhelming amalgam of thoughts floating around in my head, start writing, and things just start to become crystal clear. It’s like pulling a single string out of a tangled knot. I don’t have a rigid practice around it, I just get this feeling of build-up when I go too long without it—as if the thoughts pile like weights in my head and writing takes the load off. I keep a journal in the Bear app, an entry for every day. Sometimes I go a few days without writing, but I always go back and write about previous days in addition to current thoughts. Sometimes it’s just a few sentences about what I did that day, other times it’s a spew of introspecting, venting, or reveling.

We need to be mindful about our mindfulness—develop habits that act as guiding lights that keep us on track. On track to growth and fulfillment, away from negative mental loops and self-flagellation.

These practices are simple habits that have helped me, I share them here as ideas but everyone’s unique, every life has its own set of priorities and time commitments. Find what feels good, what fits, don’t force it. It isn’t homework, it’s your life.

My First Psychedelic Experience

I remember my first psychedelic experience. I was at Burning Man, my first one. I thought I knew what the week would be like. I knew people did drugs, wore minimal clothing and returned with an insatiable desire to hug everything in sight and tell others they wouldn’t understand, they had to be there. They were right.

At the time, drugs to me was an umbrella term—heroine, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, acid—they all sat in one place in my brain. Right next to convicts, addicts, and burnouts.

To be clear, I was by no means an angel child. I started smoking weed and drinking at 15, partied plenty in high school, mostly got it out of my system then but continued a bit in college, even dabbled cluelessly with Molly when EDM became a thing in DC. But I was very close-minded to what my brain considered ‘hard drugs’. Psychedelics, for whatever reason, fell in that category.

I remember my first experience. It started sitting with a guy in my camp, a new friend through an old friend. I didn’t know him but I trusted him. I remember my muscles relaxing in his presence, like I didn’t know they were tense until I sat with him, saw the ease in his slow careful movements between stillness and felt my body try to mirror it.

He wore a shawl, tan with holes that showed his sunburnt skin, a ridiculously large sombrero drew a shadow over his eyes I remember seeing only a slight smile on chapped lips as he motioned to a ziplock bag in his hands, a question. I nodded, he pulled the beige caps out and handed them to me. I put them on my tongue, slowly, watching his chapped smile. Chewed, swallowed. Dry and grainy, exactly how I’d imagine a tree root would taste.

We ventured out, danced and danced the build up was slow then fast my chin tilted up to the sky, arms wide open I spun and danced felt so happy and full, connected and free. It was intense but familiar in that it was emotions I knew, just stronger. I expected hallucinations and kaleidoscope vision. Instead I felt an openness, like my conscious was de-robed, bare and accessible, boundless. With it came a sense of connection to myself and every living thing, like nothing stood between us. I felt a shedding, melting of walls that shielded vulnerabilities. Walls that were so molded into me I didn’t know they were there until I was free of them, I felt light. For the first time since I was a child, I wasn’t thinking about who I was, I just was.

After, we biked back to camp for dinner. I slowly came back to earth, back to my baseline. Again, it was an ease then a jolt. My body and mind and heart calibrated, then went the other direction. Plummeted. I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness, anxiety, I ran from the group like they were suddenly a threat. I hid in isolation, hid my tears, hid my feelings. At the time I wasn’t good at feeling feelings, was worse at showing them, an act of protection I’ve since learned to soften. Emotions were for me and me alone, my self narrative was strong everyone needed to know me as strong. I felt very not strong in that moment, so I hid and waited in the plummeting darkness that was confusing and unsettling after the utter contrast an hour before.

That was my first psychedelic experience. Thankfully, it didn’t deter me from trying again later (multiple months later) and having experiences that would teach me more than all my meditation, therapy, stoicism, books, etc combined had tried to teach me for years.

Psychedelics can be powerful. They can rip you open in a way you’ve never imagined possible. They can show you what you won’t allow yourself to see, or don’t know how to see. They’re honest but ruthless, you don’t always choose the doors that they open. And when they open, there’s often no closing them.

Psychedelics melt rigidities, crumble concrete walls in our minds that our thoughts and actions move through. Walls that were built overtime, walls that provide certainty, comfort, they protect us from what’s beyond. What’s beyond is what gave reason for the walls—darkness, pain, fear, trauma, loss. Things we learned to quiet, smother, or ignore.

The walls are built to help us, but they limit us. They constrict us, keep us in place. They separate us, people only get as close as our walls let them. They’re created from fear, with it they bring more fear.

I was surrounded with walls. Layers and layers of walls. I lived by the directions paved from a walled mind. Psychedelics ended that for me. At first it was painful. All the vulnerabilities, fears, anxieties flowed, tension familiar in my body loosened to show me its origin. Released after years of confinement.

My first psychedelic experience was the gate, all that hidden stuff flooded out for air. It took time, processing, more experiences, more processing, it slowly started to feel good. Like a release. Like a weight was let go. Like I was becoming more of myself as pieces of a false me that I gripped so tightly were let go. They didn’t serve me, they weren’t me.

It took time to process on my own, trying to make sense of the flood, to understand it, accept it, integrate it. I’m overly introspective so this felt natural, thinking about thinking. What was difficult was understanding the wordless sensations and emotions. Those I just had to feel and invite in.

What I learned from two years of discovery in this world, from that day of plummeting darkness to a transcendent depth that’s redirected my life and how I live in it, was the importance of guidance in psychedelics. Guidance from yourself, your environment, and another person before, during, and after an experience.

Getting the most out of a psychedelic experience, without having to spiral into plunging terror and confusion alone, starts with having an appreciation for the power of the medicine and not treating it as a party drug, especially not at high doses and double especially if you’ve never tried them before.

Preparation. Create a space between your world and the experience you’re about to have. Educate yourself, meditate, fast, write. Seek a calm open blank slate state of mind and being. Work with someone who’s experienced, someone you trust to help with this.

Environment. Where you are, what you see hear taste, who you’re with—this may matter more than anything else.

Intention. Set an intention for what you hope to learn. I promise you’ll likely learn more than you asked for, but an intention can act as a guiding light in the darkness when you’re deep in an experience.

Reflection. As you ease out, acknowledge every emotion you’re feeling and feel it, lean into it, meditate on it, write about it. I write right after and then days later. Release what you wish to release to your sitter, feel, share, record. Know that realizations may continue to flow for days even months.

Integration. This is where you take what you learned and apply it to your daily life. Psychedelic experiences are an anomaly, an enigma. They take your consciousness to a place so foreign to your day-to-day mindset that it can be off-balancing. Entering a new dimension then being expected to return and live the mundane low-level realities of life like taking out the trash can feel super weird and unnerving. It’s important to acknowledge that the experience is just that, an experience you had like a fabulous vacation or rollercoaster ride, time to get back to ground. The fleeting nature of it doesn’t make it any less powerful, what we learn can often change us forever. That’s why it’s imperative to take time to both ground yourself after a trip and integrate what you’ve learned. The best way to do this is to work with an experienced sitter or therapist.

I don’t regret the path I took to get here but I want to take what I learned to help others still at the beginning. There are ways to do this that lead to lasting growth and fulfillment, sooner than later.

Thankfully, there is an increasing number of options to help you do so. Ketamine centers in the US and Canada legally provide high-dose experiences in a controlled environment, and in our case in combination with psychotherapy to help you fully prepare for and integrate the experience.

While Ketamine isn’t well-known as a psychedelic, at a certain dose the experience is very much a psychedelic one, often described as an out-of-body, dreamlike sensation. Ketamine’s been used in clinical trials for treating depression and PTSD with phenomenal results. And it’s the only legal psychedelic to date, so it’s a good place to start if you don’t have access to experienced underground contacts.

Although other psychedelics are still Schedule 1, clinical trials from organizations like Johns Hopkins, MAPS and Compass Pathways are in progress to study the effect of psychedelics on mental illnesses and overall wellbeing. Last year, the FDA granted ‘breakthrough therapy’ status for psilocybin in studying its effect on treatment-resistant depression. An action meant to accelerate the process of drug approval for public use.

Exciting times, I just hope that when they become more accessible, the startups that inevitably arise to seize the opportunity will include the support and guidance we need to truly benefit.