Table of contents for Kindfulness in Kindfulness

Dr. Ferretti has been practicing as a neuropsychologist and exploring mindfulness for 20 years For audio versions of many of the meditations found in the following pages, head over to PresentHeart.com My parents were scientists in the field of chemistry who emigrated from Italy to the United States in the 1950s. My sister and I were raised in the Catholic faith, and I was quite devout despite my father’s skepticism. In school, I was a dedicated science nerd, but my curiosity about the human side eventually led me to studies in clinical psychology and research in developmental neuroscience. Over the past 20 years, I’ve practiced as a neuropsychologist serving children with brain-based challenges. It was in graduate school that I had my first taste of mindfulness. Those years of being…

Have you ever had the experience of wanting to offer care to someone else and finding your heart closed so tightly that you were simply unable? Perhaps that person wronged you or perhaps the hurt that closed your heart came from another source. Whatever the cause, when you went to draw on your heart to offer care to another, you found it curled up in a ball, hard as a rock. It felt like a well that had gone dry. That’s the state described by the phrase “hard-hearted.” And while we often use that phrase to make an unfavorable assessment of another, it’s also true that the state of being hard-hearted hurts. We know why our heart hardens over time—we have all been hurt in life, and it’s natural that…

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness”—Desmond Tutu When feeling something like this: No matter what I do or how hard I try, I feel like things just never get better in my life. I’ve struggled for so long, and I’ve seen so many good people around me suffer that all I feel now is despair. Explore the feeling like this: You are deeply discouraged about your situation, and your thoughts are telling you to abandon hope, that you have no power to make a real change in life. But these thoughts leave something out. There is a loving presence available to you that is much larger than any thought. As you remember that this love is always available to you, you will wake…

Cristina Rood smiled as her 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and her young boy, Kayden, rocked and bounced to a TV commercial jingle. They love to move, Cristina thought with a smile. They get that from me. She’d been a high school and college cheerleader and had even cheered for a semipro football team. But as happy memories resurfaced, suddenly the Nampa, Idaho, mom’s heart twinged wishing her kids could be part of a cheerleading team. But Charlotte had developmental delays, and 1-year-old Kayden was born with mild cerebral palsy (CP) and wore leg braces. Cristina knew many organized activities were happy to include kids with special needs, but she couldn’t trust that her kids would actually participate. It would make her upset and angry when special-needs children were put in the…

When feeling something like this: I’ve been wronged by someone and can’t shake my red-hot anger. Honestly, I don’t know if I even want to. Feeling this rage comforts me in some strange way. Explore the feeling like this: There are times in every life when we are harmed by another. Sometimes the person meant to harm us, and other times the harm was committed accidentally. Either way, being wronged triggers a feeling of being out of control, which in turn fuels rage. Some people have trouble giving themselves permission to feel anger—it goes “underground,” reappearing in a different disguise, such as depression or free-floating anxiety. Others have a hard time letting go of anger: They feed it because it helps them feel more in control and distracts them from the…

When feeling something like this: After months of feeling overwhelmed and worried, I don’t know what I feel anymore. I don’t feel anxious, but I don’t feel joyful either. I just feel numb, which I’m beginning to believe is better than constant fear and suffering. Explore the feeling like this: When stressful aspects of life bring forth difficult feelings, you may go into a state of suppressing and avoiding all feelings. Many people learn early on—from our families, our schooling and, later, the workplace—to see strong emotions as unacceptable. It’s common to avoid or suppress difficult feelings, but this has consequences. When you close yourself off to feelings, there’s a corresponding tightening in the body, which cuts you off from the wholeness of your being. When you become disconnected from…

When feeling something like this: I feel stuck in this awful limbo with no sense of direction. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can hold on to for a sense of security. I feel like I have no control over my life, and I’m afraid of how it will play out. I’m jumpy and antsy. I just don’t know how to be or what to do. I find myself jumping from task to task. I only know that I want things to be different than how they are right now. Explore the feeling like this: A strong desire to recover a sense of control is under-standable. You are responding in a very human way to your circumstances. When we face difficulty, our physical body registers distress and our mind starts…

Nicole Smith had learned early on that life could be cruel and unfair. Her parents had divorced when she was 6, and when she was just 9 years old, she was sexually abused by her older brother’s friend, whom she’d trusted like family…and it happened again by two men during her teenage years. I feel so dirty, guilty and ashamed, Nicole would think, burying her secret deeper and deeper in her heart, terrified to tell anyone. They were older guys. Who will ever believe me? She tortured herself about why it had happened and what she had done to cause it, the questions haunting her every day. Being from a faithful family, she thought about praying…but what could God do? He’d probably be ashamed of me too, she thought. Carrying…

Do you remember a time when you found yourself so entranced by some simple natural happening—the purposeful procession of a team of ants, the rustle of leaves before a storm, the beautiful to and fro of the surf—that all other thoughts and worries just fell away? If you’re like a lot of us, you might have to go quite far back in your memory to a time when you were much younger and life seemed much simpler. For all the “fancy talk” that currently surrounds mindfulness, that’s all it is. Losing yourself in the moment. Simply paying attention to what’s right here, right now, without telling a story about it and without paying attention to the other stories running in the background of your awareness. When we are mindful, we…

I can’t quiet my mind—will this help me? Q: I’ve tried meditation before, but I end up frustrated and feeling like I’ve failed miserably when I can’t still my mind…which makes me more stressed than I was before. If I just can’t shut off my busy brain, can this still help me? A: With all of our responsibilities, worries and to-do’s, it can feel impossible to escape the tornado of thoughts that swirl through our mind. The good news? You don’t have to! Sharon Salzberg, a pioneer in the practice of mindfulness and loving kindness meditation and author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and Real Change, explains that completely quieting our thoughts during mindfulness not only works against the true goal of the practice, it’s actually impossible to do.…

When feeling something like this: No matter what I do, joy feels completely out of reach—maybe I’m not capable of feeling joy anymore. I don’t get excited by the things I used to love. I only feel empty…like something’s missing, but I don’t know what. Explore the feeling like this: The mind has an amazing ability to see problems and to analyze and solve them. This ability gave humans an edge for survival, but the mind’s automatic tendency to focus on what seems to be missing or wrong in this life can be a major block to joy. With mindfulness, it is possible to see these automatic negative tendencies and intentionally shift your attention in ways that gladden and brighten the mind and heart. In fact, where your attention goes is…

When feeling something like this: Seeing all the ways we’re degenerating as a society makes me feel helpless. Things seem more disconnected and vicious, and I’m starting to believe the world is a just a bad, cruel place. Explore the feeling like this: The changes you’re witnessing in society that seem to trend toward disconnection and a lack of care are extremely painful. They can make you feel cut off from a sense of goodness in the world. While it may be difficult to impact the state of the world in ways you can readily see and understand, you are the master of your own heart. And by changing your heart, you not only discover a peaceful refuge, you may be changing the world in ways that we can’t quite…

When feeling something like this: Everyone and everything is aggravating me right now. I’m filled with mean-spirited thoughts, and anger spews out of me at every small inconvenience: when someone takes too long to move their car at a green light, when the printer jams at work, when someone gets my order wrong. I can’t hold my irritation in…and I just snap. But with every outburst, I feel worse about myself. Explore the feeling like this: Although irritability can seem like a surface emotion, it is truly a small sign of a large and deeply painful place. The tendency to snap over a minor inconvenience is the tip of an iceberg that extends down into a hard, cracked place formed from a long and brutal history of self-blame. There are so…

“Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right”—Glennon Doyle When feeling something like this: I constantly feel like everything wrong in my life is my fault. If I were only smarter, more disciplined, more caring, more…everything, life would be better for me and for everyone I love. I can’t stop focusing on my failings. I can’t stop condemning myself for the bad that I’ve done and the good that I have left undone. Explore the feeling like this: Everyone lives with a version of that inner judging voice—that inner critic—and it can be relentless and truly brutal at times. When your inner judge comes to dominate your moment-to-moment experience, it signals the need for mindful investigation. Your “mind moments” are being colored—tainted—by something…

When feeling something like this: I’m furious at the people who are taking more than they need from those who are truly struggling. They make an already difficult life even harder and add nothing good to the human race. I think we’d be better off without them, and in my darkest moments, I wish that they’d be gone forever. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I just…hate them. Explore the feeling like this: Right now, people are greatly divided in how they view important issues that impact both our individual and collective lives in society. With so much uncertainty, fear and conflict, it’s only natural to be experiencing a greater intensity of emotion than usual…even to the point of hating an entire group of people. And while this hating…

When feeling something like this: I’m terrified that someone I hold dear will stop loving me because of a disagreement, so I’m constantly holding my tongue and walking on eggshells. It’s exhausting. Explore the feeling like this: For many of us, relationships bring life’s greatest joys and sorrows. Though they may be enduring and strong, relationships are also vulnerable and fragile. A difficult life circumstance or even a small misjudgment can create a break. You see how delicate are the threads that bind you in a relationship, and you take a protective stance by avoiding conflict. This is understandable. But you must also remember there are deep wells of inner strength in you and in others. Rather than taking the stance that seeks to control what happens, why not let this…

When feeling something like this: It feels like everywhere I turn, there’s potential for an attack or some impending danger awaiting me: harm from a stranger, a new storm or an excruciating illness. I find myself isolating from the world, physically, emotionally, even spiritually. I don’t want to live a half-life, but I feel so exposed. Explore the feeling like this: There are times in life when fear takes hold and distressing thoughts start to dominate your mind: Something bad is going to happen. I won’t be able to handle it. But it’s important to appreciate that these thoughts dramatically limit your world, fuel your fear and keep you in this painful place of isolation. When you are caught up in thoughts, you are living from a small, contracted place within…

When feeling something like this: I’m always picking apart other people on social media and looking for ways my life is better than theirs. I don’t want to be a judgmental person but it feels automatic…and feels good! Explore the feeling like this: The process of comparing and judging is a critical capacity of the human brain built into every one of us. Our ancestors relied on it to manage physical threats, secure safe food, choose a promising mate; survival of the human species rested on it. Nowadays, humans are less focused on physical survival and more concerned with a kind of psychological survival. The judging mind tells us how things are supposed to be—it asks, Am I better or worse than this one? Am I doing it right? Many…

“Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or fable, it is true”—Thomas Merton “The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper”—Eden Phillpotts “When we put down ideas of what life should be like, we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to our life as it is”—Tara Brach “Courage is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway”—Joyce Meyer “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes”—Marcel Proust…

When feeling something like this: So many of the things that I was looking forward to this year have been canceled, and now I feel like if I make plans or look forward to anything I’ll just be let down. Explore the feeling like this: When you anticipate connection, pleasure and satisfaction and it doesn’t happen, you can feel disappointed, even heartbroken. It’s easy to link happiness to specific circumstances, but consider that there may be a quality of happiness that isn’t dependent on anything, that has no cause or requirement. This happiness comes from a place of freedom within you. When we are not actively engaged in a task, the default tendency of the mind is toward thoughts of the future or thoughts of the past, orienting us in time…

Mary Davis blinked back tears as she drove through Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. I don’t know what to do, she thought, her heart sinking. Just a couple of months earlier, she’d been effervescently happy and expecting a new baby. But after suffering a miscarriage, she felt so…empty. Two years earlier, the Atlanta native had moved to Los Angeles, met her husband, Ari, and excitedly set out to fulfill her two biggest callings in life: helping the homeless and becoming a mother. She’d begun by volunteering at the Union Rescue Mission, the only shelter in the area that welcomed both adults and children to stay. But as one dream began, the other had ended in heartache, tears and a sadness that Mary had never imagined for her life. Parking…

A my Wolff’s eyes widened in shock as she asked her friend to repeat the statistic she’d just shared with their group. “That’s right,” her friend, a local teacher, nodded. “In Newberg alone, we’ve lost two current students and four former students to suicide just this year.” Amy’s head spun. So many people in pain in the world, she thought, tears welling in her eyes. Amy was fortunate to have a loving husband, two daughters and a caring group of friends, but she couldn’t bear to think that so many others were deeply suffering. And there’s nothing I can do, the Oregon native thought sadly. After all, she was a public speaking coach, not a therapist…how could she ease the pain of the world? But as days passed, Amy couldn’t…

When feeling something like this: I’ve been betrayed and taken advantage of, and it makes me furious. Now it’s hard for me to trust anyone. I’ve become more defensive, and I feel my heart hardening toward others. Explore the feeling like this: Anger is a part of your experience that is necessary and important. When someone takes advantage of you or attacks something you care about, it tells you that something precious is being harmed, some basic need is not being met. It may be the need for fairness or for safety, or to be seen and valued. Often the tendency with anger is to react quickly, to become caught up in blaming and defensiveness. But if you engage in these automatic response patterns, it only creates more suffering and more…

As nurse Lori Wood arrived for her shift at Piedmont Newnan Hospital in Newnan, Georgia, a colleague asked her to take special care of a young man named Jonathan Pickard. “His situation is so sad,” the woman sighed. Lori agreed, and when she pulled up his chart, her own heart instantly dropped. Jonathan, 26, had been admitted with low blood sugar due to a medication he was taking. But he had a much more serious problem: He’d collapsed at work months earlier with unexpected heart failure. He’d been put on medication but ultimately needed a transplant. The problem was, he couldn’t be put on the list for a donor because he has autism, and though high-functioning, he needed to have someone willing to support him through and after the procedure.…

Settling into her airplane seat, 51-year-old Tammy Griffin’s heart flooded with excitement. I can’t believe this is finally happening, the Portland, Oregon, native thought, adjusting her oxygen tank beside her. Tammy had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 9 months old, but now, her lungs had gotten so bad that she used oxygen constantly and barely had the energy to shower. Feeling helpless, Tammy didn’t know where to turn until a call came in from Stanford University Hospital in California that changed everything. After two years of being on the list for a lung transplant, they’d found a donor. But as the plane took off, Tammy’s mind swam with anxious anticipation… she wasn’t just about to get her second chance at life—she was about to save another’s life too. A…

Rachael Blatnik stared down at the tile floor in the Providence Portland Medical Center, her face burning with embarrassment. The 18-year-old had just graduated from high school, but instead of heading off to college to play basketball, as she’d always dreamed, she was about to give birth to her first baby. Since learning that she was pregnant, the Portland, Oregon, teen had been filled with shame and fear, intensified by the averted or judgmental gazes of classmates and adults alike. As much as she loved her baby, Rachael couldn’t help but worry that her life was over. As contractions set in and her new husband and father of her baby, 21-year-old Larry, took her hand, a voice suddenly broke through Rachael’s reverie. “I’m the nurse who will be watching over…

Webb Weiman stood in the doorway of his father Dink’s bedroom, his heart breaking as he watched his once lively and adventurous dad rocking back and forth in his chair. In the months since Webb’s mother, Maxine, had passed away, his dad had been consumed by sadness. Webb, a successful TV producer, visited as often as he could, and each time, he found Dink sitting alone, lost in his memories, grief and fear as he withdrew from the world. Mom wouldn’t have wanted this, then-25-year-old Webb thought sadly. And although the California native also missed his mother, he knew his dad deserved to still live a life full of joy. I have to help him, Webb resolved, and digging out his mom’s address book, he began calling old friends, hoping…

When feeling something like this: I’m deeply ashamed of things that happened in my past. I find myself overeating, over-drinking, over-spending to escape my pain… and that just makes me more ashamed. Explore the feeling like this: Life carries its measure of joy and pain for every person. And while there may be an understanding that difficult times are unavoidable, there is a strong human tendency to resist painful experiences. The destructive behaviors you’re engaging in are likely your way of resisting acknowledging underlying pain. While the behavior may momentarily allow you to avoid the pain, in the end it provides fuel for the harmful habits that prolong the pain. It is an unhappy irony that the more we resist acknowledging pain, the more suffering we end up experiencing. You might…

“Above all else, guard your heart. For everything you do flows from it”—Proverbs 4:23 When feeling something like this: I often find myself feeling disgusted by other people’s behavior, and certain “groups” tend to be the worst. I don’t understand why they have to argue about everything, and I’m fed up with watching them tear my country, my community and my values apart. Explore the feeling like this: It can be frustrating when we disagree with others over fundamental aspects of our community life. But when you let judgment take over your heart, you end up cheating yourself. Over time, a judging heart will become hardened. This hardness can make it almost impossible to receive the love, joy and peace that are freely available to you. To experience all the goodness that…