A Year of Self-Care Practices to Help You Grow

Just as our outer environment inevitably changes with the seasons, so does our inner landscape. Throughout the course of a year, some moments will call for savoring and reflection, others for a deep breath and a new direction. The beauty of a mindfulness practice is it grows and changes with us. It can meet our needs and offer reliable support as we flow through the various seasons of life. This practice guide offers a curated selection of meditations from some of today’s expert teachers to help you meet whatever this year may bring.

SPRING

Plant Your Roots

In the springtime, as the world wakes up from the sleepiness of winter, new light brings new growth. We can mirror the world around us by engaging with our inner and outer lives through a lens of curiosity, asking, What’s changed? What’s the same? What do I need and what do I not need? We can listen deeply and look honestly at what is. From there, we’re primed to make our next steps intentional and kind. These two meditations guide us to turn inward and take stock so we can sow seeds and plant deep roots, knowing that later, they’ll yield the sweet fruits of the practice.

Honor Yourself As You Are with Sue Hutton

We’re all wired with unique minds and bodies. This practice is about honoring our neurodiversity and finding the right approach to breathing meditation for you. We’ll try three meditation anchors—notice which feels the best for you! If you experience discomfort, simply pause and come back to another way of practicing.

1. Come into a comfortable posture and allow your body to relax.
2. First, we’ll try sound breathing. Hold a hand up in front of your mouth and exhale onto your palm hard enough that you can feel it on your hand and hear your exhale. Now continue to breathe in and out, but with your mouth closed. Keep the same volume so the sound can be an anchor. Breathing in and out, focus on the sound of your breath through your nose.
3. Next is a kinesthetic approach, which I call “lotus breathing.” Take one or both hands and bring your fingers to just touch each other. Now open your fingers like a flower. Breathing in, the hands open; breathing out, they close. Continue, synchronizing your breath with your hand movement.
4. Last, let’s try a movement-focused breath. Place a hand on the belly and a hand on the chest. Feel how the hands rise when you breathe in and fall on the exhale. Or pay attention to the breath inside the body and the sensation of the belly rising and falling.
5. Experiment with what works best for you today. Be gentle. Be compassionate with yourself. You are perfect as you are, and finding the tools that most help you to come into the present moment is your own personal journey.

Find Inner Balance with Susan Kaiser Greenland

With equanimity, there’s a feeling of ease and allowing as we ride the waves of change. We can be present to both suffering and joy. It combines an understanding mind with a compassionate heart. It doesn’t mean we’re indifferent; it means we allow life to unfold without attachments to an outcome or taking things personally. It lets us ease into each moment with care and gentleness.

1. Settle into a comfortable posture. Close your eyes or lower your gaze. Bring awareness to your body. Notice your breath move through your body. Set an intention for the practice. Perhaps it’s to feel a sense of inner balance and ease.
2. Take in the following phrases and quietly repeat them to yourself: Things are just as they are. I’m safe in this moment. My happiness and suffering depend on my thoughts and actions, not simply upon my wishes coming true. May I feel joy and ease. Now, notice whatever is present for you right now. Rest in a feeling of OK-ness in this moment, just as it is.
3. Bring to mind someone you care about and who may be going through a hard time. Extend these phrases or their meaning to this person: I care for you yet cannot keep you from suffering. I love you yet cannot control your happiness. Your happiness and suffering depend on your thoughts and actions and not my wishes for you. May you feel joy and ease. Notice how you feel. Sit with it, just letting it be.
4. Once again, bring awareness to the body and the breath. Feel the ease of simply being and breathing.

SUMMER

Expand and Savor

In the summer, we can sometimes fall into a cycle of rushing to relax—cramming in plans for connection and calm, trying to maximize our ease before the days get shorter and the air gets chilly. Yet science tells us that resting in the present moment and intentionally noticing the details of life can help time feel as though it’s passing more slowly because we can later remember more of what’s happened. These two meditations are tools we can come back to in order to carve out space, expanding and savoring the present moment.

Grow Your Awareness with Nate Klemp

Amishi Jha, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Miami, talks about two modes of awareness: the flashlight and the floodlight. The flashlight is the capacity to focus intently on a single thing. The floodlight is the open, wider scope of awareness that allows us to see the bigger picture. Floodlight awareness is important for being creative, coming up with new ideas and innovative solutions. This practice is about learning to widen that beam, cultivating an open mind, meta-awareness, and an approach of acceptance.

1. Choose a comfortable posture. Keeping your eyes open, orient yourself toward something that’s visually interesting to you. Begin by counting each breath. When you inhale, count one. When you exhale, count two. And so on, until 20. 
2. Shift your attention toward the sensations of breath. Let the breath serve as an anchor to the present moment. Stay with that for 30 seconds or so. 
3. Drop a little bit of this focused attention. Bring your attention to allowing everything that’s happening—the sounds, the sights, the sensations, the emotions. Continue this gentle process, imagining that you’re trading focus for letting go. Feel how your mind is slowly widening its scope. 
4. Let go almost entirely of any effort to concentrate or focus your mind. Allow yourself to be relaxed, gazing at whatever is before you. You can apply this sense of allowing to all sensations. Stay in this place for as long as you like. 
5. Now, slowly come back to where you already are. Notice any changes in your mind or your body.

Savor the Joy with Diana Hill

There’s a U2 song called “Running to Stand Still,” and that’s how many of us experience life—running to get to a point when we can finally enjoy it. Yet when we run from the thoughts, feelings, experiences that we don’t want to feel, we soon find that a whole other set of problems awaits us, because avoidance only causes more challenges. In the meantime, we miss out on the joy that’s right here. 

1. Find a comfortable position that’s alert and relaxed. Bring the quality of savoring to the breath. Every breath is different. Luxuriate in this opportunity to breathe in a way that’s nourishing and soothing. Enjoy it and savor the life you have right here, right now. 
2. Savor the good in your life. What are the opportunities, the people, the aspects of your body that you want to savor? Notice the feeling of gratitude in your body and let yourself be filled by it. It won’t always be there, but right now it is. 
3. Bask in your accomplishments, the hard work you’ve done. What do you feel proud of? Breathe that in and savor it. Savor the awareness of being alive, of the world around you, and of the wisdom you’ve gained or inherited from your ancestors. Notice where that wisdom resides in your body. 
4. Savor it all. We can feel grateful for this opportunity, the good things in life, the feeling of accomplishment that we’ve made it here, the aliveness of it all, and we can enjoy the wisdom that savoring allows. 
5. Set an intention to bring savoring into your day-to-day life. Knowing your body will change, this planet will change, your most important relationships will change, what do you want to savor?

FALL 

Lean In To Your Wisdom

Autumn’s cool breezes and chilly rains begin to gently nudge us indoors and into routines. We hone our focus, check items off our lists, and turn inward as the sun starts to set in the early evening. These two meditations invite us to do the same; to turn toward our inner lives with care and compassion; to get cozy with our emotions, meeting whatever arises; and to lean in to our inherent wisdom, of which we have more than we may think.

Meet Each Moment with Kimberly Brown

Wisdom arises out of our mind’s capacity to be aware—which is not the same as thinking. Wisdom allows us to know what’s happening in each moment and respond appropriately with our words, actions, and thoughts. Sometimes responding appropriately means not doing anything at all, simply meeting each moment as it comes. Wisdom is a moment-to-moment awareness of what’s arising internally and externally. 

1. Find a comfortable posture, and close your eyes or keep them open with a low gaze. Use your wisdom to find what feels right. Notice that you’re here and that you’re getting information from all your senses—sound, taste, smell, light, the weight of your body, the air on your skin. You’re also getting information from your mind’s senses—thoughts and emotions. Everything is arising and everything is dissolving. It all comes and goes. 
2. Turn your attention to the breath. Your breath is always with you, so it’s a reliable object for focus. Place one hand on your belly to feel the rise and fall and count your breaths from one to five, then begin again, and repeat this a few times. 
3. Choose to open up and notice everything that’s arising. Allow yourself to be with whatever arises without clinging, pushing against it, or ignoring it as it changes. One way is to anchor to your breath like a ship at anchor. It doesn’t go far away; we don’t have to chase it. Be here for two minutes. 
4. Use this quality of awareness to notice: Where is your attention? Let yourself experience this moment as it is, as it arises, and as it changes. 
5. Let go of any technique. You don’t have to meditate or not meditate. Allow yourself to be still and aware. Where is your attention now? Use it to recognize that your practice is valuable. Take a moment to recognize and appreciate your efforts.

Create Space for Your Emotions with Shalini Bahl

It’s not only emotions like anxiety and sadness that deplete our energy—states like excitement and elation can be draining too. However, the takeaway is not that we should never experience high-intensity emotions. The invitation is to turn toward our emotions, so we can choose how to channel them in a way that helps us meet our goals without burning out. 

1. Come to a comfortable posture, lower or close your eyes, and bring your attention to your body. There’s no agenda, and you’re not trying to fix anything, just learning to be with and listen to your emotions. 
2. Become aware of your breath. No need to change it, just follow its natural rhythm, giving your full care and attention to every in-breath, to every out-breath, and the spaces in between. With each in-breath, welcome spaciousness and with each exhale, soften. If at any point you feel discomfort, acknowledge the sensation and return to your breath. 
3. When your mind and body are stabilized, turn to your emotions. Without judgment, notice if you can label what’s present—excitement, boredom, anger, inner calm. Use your in-breath to create spaciousness and your exhale to soften whatever’s rigid in your body, making room for your emotion to move, to be. See what this emotion wants to offer, without grasping or judgment. 
4. Emotions give us information about our inner and outer landscape. If you’re noting anxiety or stress, turn to that emotion with kindness and ask, “What do you want to tell me, dear emotion?” If nothing comes up, that’s OK. If anxiety and fear remain, maybe make a note of a person to reach out to for support. 
5. Take a few moments to notice if you were able to turn to your emotions with kindness, with curiosity. If not, that’s OK. This is a practice. What does your emotional energy need today? Maybe you need to be with friends who can uplift you, or maybe you need some time alone.

WINTER

Settle In

Sometimes the long nights of winter have a way of forcing us to pause and feel what’s been sitting under the surface: emotions we haven’t been ready to let in, new hopes and a call for shifting our course, or even just an appreciation for what is. With our mindfulness practice, we can tend to those emotions and thoughts with kindness and care, notice how they evolve or dissipate, and listen for new or forgotten information. These meditations offer moments to come back to the basics, and come back to ourselves.

Take a Deep Breath with Shamash Alidina

Deep belly breathing can trigger a relaxation response in the nervous system that tells your mind and body to be at ease. When you breathe in deeply, your diaphragm at the base of your lungs pushes your belly out, and as you exhale, your belly contracts. This is belly breathing and is a natural way to breathe—babies do it all the time! If this doesn’t come naturally to you, you can gently push your belly in with your hand until you get more familiar with this practice.

1. Find a quiet place to sit or lie down. Place one palm gently on your belly and the other on your chest. Breathe normally and note the movement of your hands. If the hand on your chest is moving, but not the hand on your belly, your breathing is shallow. By learning belly breathing, you’re likely to feel more relaxed and have more energy. 
2. Imagine there’s a balloon in your belly. When you breathe in, it inflates. When you breathe out, it deflates. Breathe in and fill the imaginary balloon. Hold your breath for about two seconds then breathe out slowly and smoothly, as if blowing through a straw. Now let your breath return to normal. 
3. Next, breathe in deeply, expanding your belly as you count to four. Hold for a count of two. Slowly exhale as you count to six. Now breathe normally. Notice how you feel. Let the warmth of your hand against your belly represent friendly, caring support. 
4. When you’re ready, try four belly breaths in a row using a pace that feels right for you. Then notice how you feel. Are you more or less relaxed than when you started? If you’re less relaxed, don’t worry, you’re just starting to learn this new technique. As you continue practicing belly breaths, over time it may help you feel calmer.

Come Home to Your Body with Barry Boyce

This meditation is about mindfulness of embodied experience, because whatever is happening isn’t happening in an abstract way, it’s happening here—in our bodies. We return home, back to square one, back to the body.

1. Take a moment to notice the colors, shapes, and forms around you in your immediate environment, whether it’s closed in a room or you have a vista beyond. Notice what you’re hearing in the immediate area, then beyond. Feel the temperature of the air on your skin. If you like, you can close your eyes. Notice your sense of taste and the sense of smell. Sense the environment around you. Pay attention to just three breaths. You don’t need to manipulate your breath in any particular way. 
2. Now that we’ve dropped in, appreciate the warmth in your body. In Fahrenheit, it’s 98.6 degrees. That would be a very hot day in the outer world. You have a lot of warmth in your body. Direct that warmth toward yourself, in your mind. If you have thoughts fighting against you, they can be reduced through warmth. Like when somebody is in distress, you give them a hug and you share your warmth with them. Embody the warmth in your body, and the warmth in your mind. It’s very kind. It’s very soft. At the same time, you are attentive. 
3. Imagine that warmth radiating out. Think of someone who’s going through a difficult time. Just let them into your mind’s eye, and let them feel that warmth because it radiates out from you. We all know this experience. When you approach somebody and they project warmth onto you, you can feel it. This is actually possible because of your vulnerability. Our vulnerability is what connects us to what’s around us and those around us. Let your warmth radiate.