8 Ways to Let Go of Anger and Stay Calm in Frustrating Situations

There it is again.

Anger has once again reared its head- in the form of daily frustrations or even deep-seated resentment.

Whatever you did- whether you snapped at your spouse, child, or another loved one, had a bit of road rage, flipped off your boss from the safe seat of your bathroom stall after they flipped your schedule on its head, or just gotten frustrated over the world as a whole not "doing what you wanted it to"- you've become angry, and often done something as a result that left you less-than-pleased with yourself.

I know how this feels as well as anyone. As anyone else with kids can (and will) attest to, kids test the limits of your patience from day 1, and they only get better at the "game" as the years go on (my oldest is 4 and I doubt he's at his peak).

Each and every one of us is familiar with the possessive quality of anger. It affects each one of us the same way (but some of us more than others). When we get angry, we can "become another person" so to speak.

The emotion of anger is like a huge wave hitting a rock, it smashes into the rock uncontrollably and the water from the wave continues to cover the rock for some time afterward.

It can often seem as though anger is this uncontrollable force which takes over us and is altogether unpreventable.

But anger isn't an unpreventable or even uncontrollable force, it's an emotion which we can develop the ability to handle skillfully. By skillfully, I mean we can develop the ability the manage it, overcome it, and let it go without causing ourselves the same level of pain and headache as it once caused us.

8 Ways to Let Go of Anger and Stay Calm in Frustrating Situations

So how do we overcome our anger skillfully? There are many ways to go about handling anger more skillfully, but none of them have to do with running from it or "cooling off" in some unhealthy way.

I want to make sure to mention before we get into this list that there are two very unhealthy ways of dealing with anger:

1. Stepping away from it- This doesn't work because we only end up coming back to the same situation and having the same reaction to it- anger. In order to handle anger more skillfully we need to transform our relationship with it at the source (leaning in to it).
2. "Blowing off steam"- The very saying to "blow off steam" is a perfect example of why this doesn't work effectively- blow off steam now and there will just be more steam later to be blown off. Not to mention, blowing off steam means to take out that anger and frustration on something else, something generally less "harmful" (like a punching bag). But this breeds a bad tendency altogether: that to handle your anger and frustration you believe you need to damage something else.

Below are 8 ways to overcome anger skillfully (effectively) and in a healthy way, let it go, and prevent it from arising in the first place (developing the ability to stay calm in frustrating situations).

As I mentioned in the introduction, anger is something which affects all of us (albeit at varying degrees). To whatever extent anger affects your own life, I hope these points can be of use to you.

1. Identify the expectation & let it go

This is one of the single most powerful techniques for handling anger skillfully.

We don't notice it, but most of the things we get angry about on a day-to-day basis are the result of the many expectations we live with.

We expect to get to work by a certain time, we expect to get home by a certain time, we expect to have fun on the weekend, we expect to have an enjoyable night after we get off of work, we expect our kids to behave, we expect this and that and that and this...

It's pretty irrational, but if you take the time to think about it, we live our entire lives with all kinds of irrational expectations. And it's when the world doesn't align with these expectations that we most often get angry.

In this case, the very knowledge of that truth is often all that's needed to begin creating healing.

Know that the expectations you have can be the cause of a great amount of anger on a daily basis, and that letting go of these expectations (one-by-one, as you notice them arise), is the answer to releasing ourselves from so much of the anger we feel in our day-to-day lives.

When you notice anger begin to arise, do this simple exercise:

1. Acknowledge the anger mindfully ("that guy just cut me off...").
2. See what you're trying to "make happen" in that moment. That's a sign of your expectation (I'm trying to get home from a long day at work...).
3. Realize the expectation ("I expect to get home by 5:00 P.M." or "I expect to get home from work smoothly, without interruptions or traffic or added frustrations after the already long day I've had").
4. Let go of the expectation ("I'll get home whenever I get home"). This is accepting the present moment fully "as it is", however that is.

Ultimately, this exercise has the ability to teach you that these expectations are very much resistance of the present moment, or reality itself. We try to change the world around us constantly to fit what we want (that's what it's all about for so many of us), and when it doesn't conform, we get angry.

Learn to let go of these expectations and see how transformative it can be.

2. Live openly (living without these expectations, moving on further from the last point)

Moving on from the last point, live "openly" in a way that you don't hold as many expectations to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place.

How do you do this? After some time of noticing the various expectations you hold, or groups of expectations, you can begin to identify patterns.

And it's through this that you can start releasing yourself from these patterns of expectation in the first place and rid yourself of their "hold" altogether.

Continue to follow the exercise in point #1 and you'll eventually develop the ability to stop these expectations at the gate, instead of only dealing with them after they arise.

This can take time, but it's very liberating.

3. Pay attention to your body

Without practice, it can be difficult to notice just how closely interconnected our bodies are to our minds.

Through meditation practice, especially something like mindful breathing, we can become closely connected with our bodies and realize that when we experience emotions there's often an accompanied physical reaction.

Your reaction might not be the same from mine or someone else's, but we all have them: heat in your head or throughout the rest of your body, a churning feeling in your stomach, a shaky feeling throughout your body, the clenching of your fists (especially if you're apt to be physical, but not necessarily), or tenseness in your facial muscles.

By working to become mindful of your body (through a meditation practice like mindfulness of body, or mindfulness practice in general), you can actually identify the anger as it arises and handle it more skillfully before it even becomes a problem.

This might mean taking care of the physical sensation (releasing the tension in your hands, face, or another part of your body) or simply using the physical sensation as an indicator and doing something else to calm yourself (breathing, acknowledging the anger mindfully).

Whatever it is, paying close attention to your body can help you learn to let go of anger and manage yourself far better in frustrating situations.

4. Observe and contemplate on those around you

This is all about dealing with anger when you get into a mutual argument.

See that both you and the other person are angry, and that the anger has essentially taken control of both of you (to some extent).

See that the anger is not only natural, but that without developing the ability to handle it skillfully you're essentially at its whim, and so both you and the other person could have both said and done things you really didn't mean to do.

If you can see this simple idea clearly in your mind at the moment of the argument, it can help relieve frustration and give you the ability to put the anger "under the microscope" so to speak to bring clarity to the entire situation.

Even if you don't do this at the moment the argument happens, this can still be very beneficial later on as something to meditate on for a future resolution. And the more you practice it, the better you get at it.

5. Cultivate understanding

At the heart of anger is a lack of understanding.

So it makes sense that through cultivating a deeper understanding of a particular person or event we can learn to let go of our anger towards it entirely.

How do you do this? There are many ways this can be done, but one way I've used repeatedly (to much success), is a simple technique I call "Healing through Understanding".

This is a simple technique I use ALL the time to help me relieve anger, stress, and frustration and let go of expectations. And it can be done by anyone with just a little imagination.

How do you practice it? The idea is to take the person or event and brainstorm as many possibilities as you can for their behavior/its occurrence. You don't even need to know why they actually did it, just brainstorm (think of possibilities).

By doing so you'll begin to gain clarity, loosen the stranglehold of anger and frustration, and can often let go of the expectation and the anger altogether.

To get more detailed instruction on this meditation you can pick up my free guide, "5 Ways I Use Mindfulness Meditation Every Day to Live More Fully, Freely, and Peacefully in the Present Moment".

6. Cultivate compassion

It's hard to stay angry at someone you love, isn't it?

That's because (at least usually...), while they might annoy, anger, and frustrate you from time to time, you have love and compassion for them, and when you gain your head back from the episode of anger your compassion and understanding often takes over and begins to "cool" the anger down from there. However, that doesn't keep you from lashing out in anger. Doing so leads to an apology after you've done something.

You can be more proactive than that by meditating on love and compassion either during or right after a difficult situation.

This is the practice of loving-kindness meditation (or rather, a sort of modified or "shortened" version of it), and it can be used throughout your day to help transform feelings of anger towards another person into feelings of love, compassion, and kindness.

The idea's simple: think of someone you love dearly and imagine the feelings of love you have for that person swelling up as high as they will go.

Next, imagine yourself transferring these feelings of love and compassion to the person you've become angry at. If you were partly at fault as well you can start by sending feelings of love to yourself first, then imagining the person you love, and then lastly the person you've become angry with.

This isn't necessarily an instant solution, but it is useful for two reasons: 1) with practice you can completely transform the anger and, 2) done even once the exercise can create a great healing and help to begin cooling the anger.

7. Sit with it

One of the most effective things you can do is simply to sit in meditation and be mindful of the emotion.

To do this, sit down and begin following your breath mindfully.

Don't search out the anger, let it arise naturally and recognize it when it does (you can recognize it a few times, say 3-6, or sit with it for a certain period of time).

This will not only help ease the anger but it will help you discover the true source of it if it's hidden from view so to speak.

Through gaining this sort of deep clarity you can transform your very relationship with the source of the anger, instead of simply cooling the anger temporarily.

You can check out this guide to begin your home meditation practice and start sitting in meditation.

Use these meditation instructions to develop the ability to notice thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise in you and eventually be able to identify the anger with great clarity (with practice).

8. Cultivate forgiveness (when the anger is deep)

Sometimes, the anger originates from something deeper than our day-to-day activity.

Most often, this is the result of what someone did to us further in the past.

This sort of anger is very dangerous because it stays with us. It often turns into resentment as time goes on because we see how this anger has made us suffer, and resent the person for the way they've made us suffer all this time.

Oddly enough, this once again has to do with our expectations (our expectations about the person), but in this case, it can be difficult to notice this before the situation occurs, so the way we need to deal with it is often entirely different.

To deal with this sort of deep-seated resentment or anger, meditate on forgiveness.

To meditate on forgiveness, conjure an image of the person in your mind. Make this image as clear as can be.

Next, conjure up the event or events which led to these feelings of anger.

There are a few ways to do this meditation, but for the sake of the example, you'll be focusing on forgiving the person in question when you notice those feelings of anger and resentment arise.

This version of the meditation is very similar to meditating on love and compassion, but with a focus on forgiving a specific person usually for a specific event (but it can be their general behavior as well).

In a similar light, the "Healing through Understanding" exercise can also be a powerful meditation to use to cultivate forgiveness.

This isn't a necessarily easy meditation to do, and it can take time to cultivate true forgiveness, but if the wound is deep the healing often must also be so to counterbalance it.

Let Go of the Coal

No matter how you choose to handle your anger, understand that you need to have the courage to face it head-on and deal with it from the source to truly overcome it.

Live mindfully, meditate on the source of your anger, and learn to release the expectations you live with in your day-to-day life and you'll master anger once and for all.

In what types of situations do you find yourself most susceptible to anger? Which of these techniques do you think can help you the most? I'd love to hear from you. :)

8 Pieces of Wisdom from 8 of the Greatest Living Sages

It's hard for me to think back to the way my life was before the internet. I know a lot of people can relate with that.

I don't just say this because of Buddhaimonia, I say this mostly because of my own spiritual path.

It wasn't through getting some special education, or special training, at a monastery with a long and ancient history.

It was through the internet that I met these wise sages.

And you know what? I'm far from alone. And so happy it happened that way because it means I can relate.

Nowadays, more people are introduced to just about everything in the world through the internet than they are through other more traditional (directly verbal or printed) means, and this includes spirituality, meditation, and anything included within that.

There was a time when I wanted to shy away from that when I didn't really like the fact that all I had was the internet to learn from.

But it's been a while since then, and my practice has developed (and so has the internet evolved), and with that, I've learned that the internet has been, and will continue to be, one of the greatest gifts we've ever received.

It's something which will allow many of us to develop a mindfulness, meditation, or general spiritual practice of some kind when otherwise we'd have no access to reputable teachers to do so.

And that is a beautiful thing.

8 Pieces of Wisdom from 8 of the Greatest Living Sages

Some time ago, I wrote a post titled 8 Pieces of Wisdom from 8 Enlightened Sages.

You guys really enjoyed that post and got a lot from it. But the one problem with the post was, while there's so much to get from past teachers, none of them are alive any longer.

That's not all bad, we can still learn so much from them through the writing and teachings they left behind.

But, that does hold us back for two reasons:

1. Modern life brings its own specific challenges, challenges that a teacher who is alive today can help teach us how to overcome.
2. We can only learn so much from those no longer alive. Those teachers who are alive today we can continue to learn from day after day, as they give lectures, write books, and connect with and teach their followers in various ways.

It's for these two reasons that I wanted to highlight some of the greatest living teachers today. These are the teachers I've most associated with on my path, along with an important insight I've received from each of them, and I hope that they can be of help to you in your path as well.

1. Everything is "interbeing" in every moment - Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most well-known Buddhist figures in the world (one of the most well-known spiritual figures of any kind at that), and someone whom I have a deep appreciation for.

Thich Nhat Hanh has taught me a lot, but few things as powerful as "interbeing".

Interbeing is the true nature of all things. It's in a way the opposite "aspect" of the Buddhist emptiness (but explaining the same principle), and for those that aren't familiar with Buddhist terminology is a far more welcoming word ("emptiness" sounds bad in the West, and the term has often been misunderstood).

Interbeing is our nature in every moment. In every moment, we're not only interconnected but altogether interdependent.

There is no separating you and me, you and the clouds, the rain, the trees, and the ocean.

When you look deeply, you can see that everything is interbeing in every moment.

This is a deep teaching that can take a lifetime to fully realize, but you can begin realizing this principle in your daily life right now.

When you finish reading this article, take a moment to look around you and think deeply about the way that all things co-exist.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says:

"If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.

Interbeing" is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix "inter" with the verb "to be", we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist."

You can discover Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings here and check out his (many, many...) books here.

2. Transforming ourselves will transform the world - Eckhart Tolle

In Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth, he envisions what is essentially an "enlightened society".

This isn't a new idea by any means, but in his book he offers valuable advice for making this a reality.

The overarching idea is that to transform the world, we must first transform ourselves. This is a principle I've talked about several times before.

In fact, it's in the very transforming of ourselves that the world is transformed.

To cultivate greater compassion and love for ourselves is in fact to cultivate greater compassion and love for others.

And in doing so, we change the very way we interact with every single person we ever meet. It's these kinds of "exponential" effects that working from within create in the world outside.

And Tolle says this is done through a shift in consciousness, by living with a greater awareness of the present moment (surprise).

You can check out Eckhart Tolle's work here.

3. Questions are powerful and enlightening - Byron Katie

"I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment."

Byron Katie is someone I've really fallen in love with over the past 2 years.

I must have read 100,000 Byron Katie quotes on Twitter before ever looking her up, always thinking, "Amazing!", "Wow!", "Who is this person? So wise..."

I'm so glad I eventually did.

Byron Katie is a master of using questions to create shifts in consciousness, to borrow the phrase from Tolle. "The Work" is a set of questions put together by Katie for that very purpose.

I've seen her in action, and she has an amazing ability to help others unlock a new way of seeing things that create real and significant change.

"The Work" is all online and completely free. You can check it out here.

4. Overcoming difficult challenges is possible through compassion and kindness - Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron is easily the most well-known Buddhist teacher of Western origin to date, has been featured on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, and is most noted for her teachings on dealing with life's most difficult challenges effectively with compassion and kindness.

Pema Chodron echoes the beauty of her Tibetan Buddhist tradition- that we can realize peace through facing ourselves, as well as others, with compassion and kindness.

It's by doing this that we let go of criticizing ourselves over these various perceived flaws and shortcomings and accept ourselves fully as we are, in doing so realizing a great level of healing.

So many of us run from our problems, from the things we're ashamed of or the things we think we "messed up". But this only creates more pain.

By facing ourselves with courage, opening up to ourselves with absolute honesty, and greeting what we find with kindness and compassion, we can transform our pain into peace.

You can learn more about Pema's teachings here.

5. Wisdom is subtle, and perfectly imperfect - Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield is someone I read on a regular basis, through his blog at JackKornfield.com. I've learned a lot from him, but an important point that he illustrated well in a recent spotlight, and one that's always worth mentioning (correction: clearing up), is just how, well...human wisdom appears as compared to how so many of us imagine it.

Wisdom, greater enlightenment, isn't about floating above the clouds, becoming a god, or transcending the world. We still seem as very much "normal" people, the outside world just affects us differently. Our vision has become clearer, really.

We often imagine that through spiritual practice we will, or should, become God-like or superhuman, and that's just not how it is. The "benefit" of spiritual practice is in teaching us how to skillfully deal with our challenges and difficulties, therein transforming our relationship with them and allowing us to realize greater peace and happiness.

This recent interview on Jack Kornfield at Lion'sRoar.com provided a great example. You can check out the full interview here, but here's a snippet:

Your favorite virtue?

Joy. I love being with those who have a joyful heart even though they have considered the facts.

Your chief characteristic?

Looking for synergy. I like to see how all the pieces of life fit together in a mandala.

Your principal poison(s)?

Greed and sentimentality.

Your idea of happiness?

An easy schedule, beloved friends, making a difference, and a peaceful heart.

Your idea of misery?

A non-peaceful heart.

If not yourself, who would you be?

A physician working for Doctors Without Borders, or an activist working for social justice.

The natural talent you’d most like to have?

The laugh of the Dalai Lama.

Your favorite current TV show?

I don’t have a TV.

What’s for dinner?

Hamburger? Salmon? Caesar salad? Chocolate ice cream?

A motto that represents you?

The collective is wiser than the individual.

Guilty pleasure?

Oh, the hamburger for sure.

You can learn more about Jack Kornfield at his official website here.

6. Embrace your mud - Ajahn Brahm

"We all know that shit is incredible fertilizer."

Ajahn Brahm is a Buddhist monk of the Forest Thai Theravada tradition originating in Thailand and the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia (where he resides when he's not traveling), on top of heading many other organizations mostly located in Australia.

Embracing your mud, "mud" a term used sometimes in Buddhism referring to our challenges and difficulties, is so important that I dedicated a section of Journey to the Present Moment to teaching this valuable lesson.

As I touched on in the last point, it's in learning how to skillfully handle our challenges and difficulties that we discover greater peace and happiness and a very important aspect of that is in embracing them as opposed to running from them.

This video speaks for itself, and it's as humorous as it is insightful, so I'd highly suggest checking it out (click on the top left video of the 4): Ajahn Brahm on Lion's Roar.

You can learn more about Ajahn Brahm here at his official website, check out his books here, and I'd highly suggest checking out the plethora of YouTube videos on his lectures/Dharma talks here.

7. "My religion is kindness." - The Dalai Lama

Easily the most well-known person on this list, the Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work as a peace activist.

I've spoken before about the universality of certain principles (or universal truths), and the above quote from the Dalai Lama sums that idea up.

There are universal truths which can be found within all "wisdom" traditions across the world, and we should live by those principles no matter what tradition we come from or whether we come from any tradition or not.

What are those principles? First and foremost, as the Dalai Lama teaches: love, compassion, and kindness.

Take some time to look around, every tradition in the world preaches these principles. This is the universal language, and it's the language of peace.

You can learn more about the Dalai Lama at his official website here and check out his books here.

8. The truth is found in all things - You & I

In certain sects of Buddhism (Mahayana, specifically), Bodhisattva's are "symbols" which embody important qualities such as wisdom, compassion, and love.

But these Bodhisattva's aren't Gods or literal beings, they're the manifestation of that quality. It's in these Bodhisattva's, expressed in human forms, that we can see how we ourselves also have these various qualities in us as well and seek to express them.

If you meet someone who expresses a deep level of compassion for another person, in that moment it's the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (the Bodhisattva of compassion) being "manifested" (being exemplified, or expressed).

In this way, we can discover how to learn from all beings, not just those that express the highest level of these qualities the most often.

We've all at times shown great compassion, great wisdom, or great love. And those around us have as well. Those around us also do the opposite and express great anger, fear, or delusion. By identifying when these arise in others we can learn from them.

And in that way, our greatest teacher becomes everyone around us.

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Image Credits:

1. Thich Nhat Hanh - Plumvillage.org
2. Eckhart Tolle - Eckharttolle.com
3. Byron Katie - Thework.com
4. Pema Chodron - Pemachodronfoundation.org by Robin Holland
5. The Dalai Lama - www.yogawellbeing.co.uk

7 Buddhist Teachings That Will Help You Overcome Life's Most Difficult Challenges and Find Peace

Growing up in the U.S. (California), almost all of my friends were either Christian or Catholic. My family wasn't.

My parents were "religious drop-outs". In no way do I say that to suggest it was bad or good, it was really just the resulting combination of U.S. freedom and hundreds of year's worth of effort to push specific beliefs off on to the rest of the world.

And don't think I'm knocking Christianity. It's not Jesus' teachings that are to blame, but rather well-intentioned but misguided individuals. Those living today that are still pushing their beliefs off on to others simply do it because that's what they were taught. This began a very long time ago, and unfortunately, has influenced many good people.

I can't speak for elsewhere, but in the U.S. that led to a pretty big "backlash" of sorts. Still, today, "religion" as a whole (whatever that word means) is on the decline in the U.S., which in the U.S. really means Christianity/Catholicism.

So, that created an effect (along with certain groups "resisting" scientific discovery, which didn't help). It was the mass "dropping out" of children from the religion(s) their parents and ancestors devoted their lives to, because as we all know we can't see ourselves very clearly (unless we practice), but others can see us with clarity.

Many saw something they didn't like and decided they didn't want to affiliate themselves with it.

Fast-forward, this led me to grow up utterly dumbfounded about religion in just about every aspect. But I have to say, I'm so glad for that, because when it came time that I began studying it I was able to come at it from a much-removed point of view.

I think it's because of this that I've been able to notice the beauty in all the various wisdom traditions of the world, including Christianity, and for that, I'm very grateful.

I can see clearly how Christianity, Islam, and of course Hinduism (among others) are directly connected to Buddhism, and in that I feel rooted to them just as much as I do Buddhism.

At the end of the day, we're all just trying to find peace. And fighting each other isn't going to help us do that.

So whether you're Christian, Catholic, agnostic, atheistic, or something else altogether, consider this a friendly invitation to allow Buddhism to enhance your own life & tradition in a peaceful and harmonious way.

Here's to an enlightened society.

7 Buddhist Teachings That Will Help You Overcome Life's Most Difficult Challenges and Find Peace

We all essentially suffer from at least one of the below challenges, if not more than one, which is why I feel that connecting with Buddhist wisdom, whether directly or through the lens of your own tradition (if you have one) is so powerful.

Whatever it is you're working to overcome, I hope this list can be of help to you.

Here are 7 Buddhist teachings that will help you overcome life's most difficult challenges and find peace:

1. Cultivating understanding + compassion allows us to cool anger

At the heart of Buddhism is the practice of realizing a greater understanding of yourself and the world around you.

What many of us don't realize is that it's this very lack of understanding ourselves and the world around us which causes us to suffer so much.

And one of the ways this can manifest is in a deep anger or resentment towards others.

Buddhism teaches us to handle our anger "skillfully" (a word used often in Buddhism), which means many things, most notably leaning in to our anger mindfully simply with the power of our awareness or "presence", which allows us to "step away" from it and view it more clearly so that we can identify its source and then release it.

This leads to understanding, and understanding leads to the cultivation of compassion, the quality of being able to "feel" what others feel and in so being compelled to send our love to them.

Anger is one of two emotions which leads to aggression and war. Most Middle Eastern warfare is based mostly on anger, anger towards the "opposition" because they defy their own beliefs.

But this anger could never survive under the right understanding. It would be cooled like water hitting a flame.

2. We can transcend fear by discovering its source

Much of what we fear stems from our impermanence and the impermanence of all things.

We're afraid of our own death (so much so that it's the greatest fear of all), afraid of losing our loved ones, afraid of losing our possessions, and afraid of our current life being turned upside down by the loss of a job, special position, or war. We're also afraid that we'll fail and afraid that we just aren't good enough.

Whether it stems from an awareness of the impermanence of all things, or our inner dialogue, we can transcend this fear by learning where it comes from (its source).

This is done through following the path of self-inquiry, or introspection- the practice of looking within until we find the source of our suffering.

Fear is the second of the two emotions which leads to acts of war, this one oftentimes leading to dangerous and irrational acts of self-protection without much cause due to paranoia.

Most "1st world" warfare in the modern era has been and is based on fear more than anything else.

Oftentimes, it's the pain that fear makes us feel which makes us want to run from it (the fear of our own death makes us run from it and want to postpone it at all cost). But if we were to look just a bit deeper, and be honest with ourselves, we'd realize that everything isn't what it at first seems to be.

And simply discovering the truth is healing in itself. All we need to do is observe with our mindfulness, to be fully present for the feelings, to transform ourselves.

3. We're perfectly "whole"

The feeling of a "void"- the feeling that something's missing- like there's supposed to be "more" to life, is universal.

Many of us interpret the feeling differently, but we all feel it- we feel like we're missing a piece, like we're one half of a whole (thinking we need "the one" to complete us), like we need to acquire something to be happy, like we're a part of something greater and need to come in contact with that, like we're a shadow of our potential and need to work hard to become the "greatest version" of ourselves or something else altogether.

Ultimately, this is all one and the same thing: it's the feeling that we're less than "whole".

This is unfortunate but arises naturally without any doing of our own, so there's no use kicking yourself over it.

We can, though, do something about it. The reality is we're not missing anything at all, and so the funny thing is any effort that attempts to "fill" this void is bound for failure right from the start.

In order to "fix" this (nothing needs fixing, we just need to realize why it doesn't need fixing), we need to discover the source of the feeling.

Buddhist wisdom teaches us that everything is as it's supposed to be, it's just difficult to grasp because the world isn't at first what it seems to be.

As opposed to static, solid, and separate as it seems to us, upon deep meditation and observation we realize that everything is much more like a giant organism- impermanent (constantly dying, being born, or interchanged), ever-flowing, ungraspable, and without any real "separate" pieces because everything is interconnected and interdependent on itself like a huge woven tapestry all at the same time.

This obviously makes us feel nuts unless we realize deeply that everything is as it's supposed to be in every moment because this means the world is altogether out of our control, not solid, constantly changing, and through that much fear, confusion, paranoia, and discontent arises.

But if we can work to realize this, the feeling that something is missing- or that "something" needs to be there for us to hold on to in the first place- disappears.

And through that, we realize what I call our "natural wholeness". Because we were "perfect" (just as we were supposed to be) all along.

4. Our mind is a monkey! And mindful meditation can help us catch it.

Stress and anxiety is a great challenge for many people in today's society.

30% Percent of U.S. adults say stress strongly impacts their physical health; 33 percent say it strongly impacts their mental health*

That's kind of alarming, right? Considering that the Buddha termed the phrase "monkey mind" (presumably, no way to know for sure) over 2,500 years ago, and he never once saw an iPhone, iPad, desktop computer, laptop, T.V., or the 1st world work ethic, I'd say "monkey" might be a bit tame for us.

But whether we have a monkey mind, or a steroid-enhanced sugar-injected monkey, it's all the same: we have a crazy, active mind that bounces around like a manic monkey, and the first step before we can discover any greater level of well-being is to bring it to rest.

You might not show your monkey mind how to place chess right away, but with relatively little work you can create a huge transformation within your mind through meditating.

Before the birth of my first son stress started to get really bad for me. Every day I'd feel like I was running, racing, even just going about my daily life doing nothing special. I had so much to do, there was so much coming up, and I had so many "problems" I had to figure out a solution to.

It was meditation, mindfulness of breath, which allowed me to calm my mind and eventually bring it to "rest", removing essentially all feelings of stress and anxiety.

We may still feel some stress from time to time (it's natural), but through meditation and our efforts to calm the monkey mind and gain a clear mind with which to receive insight, we also end up gaining an important tool for maintaining our general mental well-being, not only removing stress when it creeps up but creating an environment in our minds that oftentimes keeps it from ever arriving in the first place.

I have a free, simple guide if you're interested in learning how to practice mindfulness meditation. You can get it by clicking here.

5. We are the continuation of our loved ones (they're in us)

The loss of a loved one will never be "easy", and we won't ever arrive at a state of mind where we're totally unaffected by it, but Buddhism has much wisdom that can help us skillfully manage the sadness and sorrow that overtake us when we lose someone we care about.

In a very real way, much of our loved ones for us existed in our idea of them. Within this idea exists certain qualities that we particularly loved about them.

Think of something you really loved about the person, specifically something you know you inherited from them.

If you can begin to notice these qualities in others, particularly yourself, you can feel some level of healing and connection with the person.

It's in this way that we realize that the person never truly left us. This is how all things are. Their personality, their physical body, and their presence. It's all there, you just have to look a little differently. More deeply at the world around you.

It's there, and you can come in contact with it.

6. We're intrinsically interconnected in the most intimate way (so we don't have to feel lonely)

Many of us feel loneliness, but we don't all feel it the same way. Maybe a good friend or family member passed away, maybe we're rather secluded and without any friends/much family, or maybe we just don't feel like we have anyone around us that we can relate with.

Whatever it is, Buddhist wisdom on our interconnected nature can teach us that we can feel connected to the world around us whether we're around other people (directly) or not.

Simply being alive, you're connected to millions of other "beings"- humans, animals, insects, and other organisms as well as the clouds, the sun, and the trees.

"Insects don't keep me from feeling lonely". I get it, really, but there's more to it than that. We as human beings are all interconnected in a very real way.

The largest and most unifying way? The fact that we all suffer in exactly the same ways, and simply knowing that can bring us together more than anything else.

In fact, it's really our suffering which allows for loneliness to be present in the first place. If you're feeling awesome one day, even if you're by yourself, you don't particularly feel lonely, do you? Even if you're alone you don't, because you feel great.

In this way, we can understand loneliness as simply the result of feeling that we suffer by ourselves.

But we never do, even if we're alone in a physical sense. And now, more than ever, we have ways to reach out to and connect with others who are experiencing our same pain. This in itself can be very healing.

Even sitting and meditating on this knowledge can be liberating. Sit, breathe mindfully, and know that thousands, if not millions, of other people all around the world are going through what you're going through (or something similar) right now in this very moment.

Imagine yourself touching them on the shoulder, and expressing your love and compassion to them. Breathe in knowing that you're not alone. You're in this together, whether they (whoever the other people are out there) know it or not.

7. You are not your inner dialogue

Atop everything else exists the highest teaching, the teaching on the ego- our sense of a separate self.

But before really tackling the ego, another issue confronts us. The ego results in what's often called our "inner dialogue". It's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and it's where our negative self-talk lives.

Buddhist wisdom teaches us that if we can come to a place where we can observe this inner dialogue with clarity, through developing greater self-awareness (with our mindfulness practice), that we can embrace it and transform it into fertilizer to grow spiritually.

In the most real sense, this inner dialogue is not us. It exists thanks to the ego, and it's been constructed as a result of the ego coming in contact with our various life experiences. This inner dialogue is nothing more than a story, it's not your "true self".

If we can work to develop greater self-awareness, we can eventually identify this inner dialogue and see a glimpse of our true selves- the enlightened nature in all of us.

Sources:

1. *Popular Science, March 2015: http://www.popsci.com/chronic-stress-it-could-be-killing-you

5 Steps to Making Meditation a Daily Habit

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More than any other, the most common question I get via email is this:

"How do I make meditation into a daily habit?"

In my book, Zen for Everyday Life, I cover everything from A-Z about creating your own daily mindfulness meditation practice.

I cover more than 2 dozen exercises and meditations, how to practice mindfulness in daily life, the skills needed to develop a strong daily meditation practice, and my best tips for further enhancing and supporting your practice, all as simply and as clearly as possible with detailed instruction for each exercise.

But one thing that wasn't included were my best tips for making meditation a daily habit. I covered the important principles, and qualities, for making a daily habit, but didn't cover the important principles for getting off the ground running so to speak. This post is intended to correct that!

So consider this an accompaniment to Zen for Everyday Life, together creating a full-proof resource for developing a daily meditation practice at home with minimal headache.

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5 Steps to Making Meditation a Daily Habit

When my first son Malik was born I had a very hard time sticking with a consistent meditation practice. I was a night owl and still had the tendency to want to jump head-first into things and tackle them all at once, so the patience required in meditation really didn't sit well with me at first.

Becoming an early riser definitely helped my daily meditation practice, but what helped me more than anything else was a simple bit of insight that has to do with utilizing our natural patterns of behavior.

When thinking about habits and positive daily rituals, what comes to mind as the most important thing? That is, the most important aspect that you should focus on?

It's the action.

Sounds kind of "duh", right? But let me explain. If you wanted to make working out a daily habit, do you want to know the easiest way to do it? Put on your shoes, get dressed in your workout clothes, and walk to your car for a couple of weeks straight. You don't even have to work out.

Sounds kind of funny, but I'm serious! Why does this work? It's called the path of least resistance, and it's our natural pattern of behavior as humans.

We have the natural tendency to gravitate towards that which takes the least amount of energy, that thing which is the easiest thing to do. And those things which you're used to doing are easier because you're used to doing them. You don't even have to do the actual action because the real obstacle is just getting yourself going.

I've developed 5 steps, most of them utilizing the path of least resistance (when possible) in various ways, that make it crystal clear and super easy to develop meditation into a daily habit.

Understand that it will still take hard work and dedication on your end, but with that in place, these 5 steps can help you easily make meditation into a daily habit.

1. Decide on, and stick to, a consistent meditation schedule

If you don't schedule the time in advance, you'll just keep coming up with excuses as to why you can put off your meditation session.

And after putting your practice off a couple times, finally, you'll quit on it altogether. This is the way anything works, so don't knock yourself over it. I ran into a lot of problems myself developing meditation into a daily habit, and this step, as well as the others, are all about keeping you from having to go through the same headaches.

This also helps develop it as a habit because you're doing it at the same time each day, so you grow accustomed to and comfortable with it.

And anything that helps you increase the comfort level (the idea in your mind) you have connected with your practice will help you make it a habit.

My suggestion? Start meditating once a day in the morning, no matter what time you wake up. Meditation is a great thing to start your day with.

Once you set your daily meditation schedule, whatever you decide that to be, dedicate yourself to it. Don't miss it no matter what.

And if something comes up that absolutely has to interrupt a particular day's session, reschedule your session for a different time so you still get your session in for that day.

2. Create a dedicated meditation space

Utilizing the path of least resistance, create a meditation space not only perfectly suited to making meditation a daily habit but also the perfect place to find quiet and peace each day.

What does this look like? This is the typical set of steps:

• Get a meditation pillow (this is the one I use). Place it down in a newly dedicated area. Place nothing in and around this space ever unless it enhances your practice. Anything obstructing you from sitting (whether mental or physical) is to be removed.
• Set it in a permanent place in the room with the LEAST amount of distractions (this includes a T.V., computer, windows, etc.).
• Next, remove any remaining distractions/temptations (TV controller, smartphone, tablets, and anything else "tempting" should all be far from arms reach if not in the other room).

The point of this isn't just to keep from becoming distracted. The path of least resistance is about understanding our natural tendencies.

What that means is, we generally do the thing which is most easy to do in any given situation. So instead of working out, we pick up the T.V. controller because it's sitting right there, and our workout clothes are in a closet in the other room.

Another example would be working as opposed to taking your smartphone out and checking Facebook. If you make Facebook easy to open up, you're going to do it. Even if you just delete the app and block the website on your work computer, even though you can go on your smartphone's browser and log in still, you'll find yourself logging in to Facebook WAY less often because you've added a few extra steps (a little more "resistance") to doing so.

It's how we behave naturally, so use it to your advantage instead of being controlled by it.

3. Keep it simple (mindfulness of breath)

There are various forms of meditation you can practice, but to put it simply, you should start with mindful breathing.

I say this for two reasons:

1. It calms the monkey mind and helps you gain clarity - Mindful breathing is the fundamental meditation technique in essentially all meditation traditions as it helps to calm the mind and gain clarity, so it works as a great meditation to build the foundation of your meditation practice.

2. It's super easy. It can be difficult to sit through your crazy, thoughts racing, monkey mind in the beginning. But for the most part, it's the easiest beginner practice there is. In a matter of minutes, you could be sitting in meditation, following your breath.

3. It makes it as easy as possible to expand your practice beyond the cushion. This is a great first meditation to use "off the cushion" so to speak, to bring meditation into your daily life (which I'll talk about in Step 5). So having already been practicing this meditation means it becomes even easier to bring it into your daily life.

4. The 60 Second Jump-Start

When starting out, use the path of least resistance again, this time with regards to more "mental" roadblocks.

How do you do this? Meditate for just 60 seconds. Yep, you heard that right. Meditate for just 60 seconds.

To further that, if you find yourself getting mental push-back about it, just tell yourself to sit down for 10 seconds for the first week.

To "complete" this step, make a firm dedication to do this for 15 days straight.

Why do I say that? We all know it's best to do something for more days because then you're more likely to make something a habit. But there's real evidence of this significantly improving your ability to make meditation a daily habit.

Coach.me, the goal-tracking app, reviewed data from users who participated in a meditation course and found that meditators who practiced for just 11 days were over 90% more likely to continue in their practice from the 12th day and on.

So that's it! Sounds crazy, but this will begin to get you accustomed to sitting down on the meditation pillow, and in a very short period of time, you'll find yourself more and more willing to sit and actually meditate for longer periods.

5. Practice mindfulness in your daily life, not just in sitting meditation

More than anything else, this step helped me develop sitting meditation into a daily habit (on top of being critically important in cultivating the strongest meditation practice possible, as well as to finding true peace and happiness).

Any effort to practice mindfulness in your daily life will support your daily practice of sitting meditation. There's a number of very simple and low-friction (easy and within what you already do every day) ways to do this:

• Practice walking meditation each time you walk down your hall, from your home to your car, or your car into work, etc.
• Practice driving meditation once or twice a day, to or from work or both.
• Eat with mindfulness one or more meals a day.

As I mentioned, this more than anything helped me make sitting meditation a daily habit. Why?

The more often you're exposed to something, the more often and more clearly it stays in your mind. If you practice mindfulness (make the effort to, however small) at any point in your daily life, it helps further support your daily practice of sitting meditation by reminding you of it regularly.

It's really as simple as that. But remember, as I said, this helped me more than anything else.

BONUS: Sit twice a day instead of once

BONUS ROUND. Sorry, felt like saying that.

This step is simple, yet effective.

Developing meditation into a daily habit is one thing, but increasing your session length, even if done naturally, can eventually lead you to the feeling of "ugh, I don't want to sit down for a whole 30 minutes".

It sounds counter-intuitive because you're doing something that makes you feel great by nourishing your mind + body, but your mind can be very irrational- don't forget that.

If you're trying to increase your meditation length (time meditating) and are finding it difficult to convince yourself to sit down for, say, 30 minutes at a time, do this:

Split your session into 2 different daily sessions of 15 minutes.

Sounds weird, but it's super effective. Of course, sitting down for 30 minutes at a time and sitting for 15 minutes two different times on a given day aren't the same thing, but there's not much difference (it might even be more effective) and it leads to a stronger practice overall.

Most importantly, this will help you expand your practice. Also, with time you'll be able to break the rut and expand into greater lengths of meditation.

Get 2 Free Chapters of Zen for Everyday Life

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If you'd like to get 2 free chapters, plus my free email course, enter your name and email below, click the yellow button, and you’ll get the download link sent straight to your inbox:

7 Ways to Live More Mindfully in the Busy, Fast-Paced, and Plugged In Modern World

Practicing mindfulness and developing a daily meditation practice in our modern fast-paced and plugged-in world can be pretty difficult.

I struggled with this for a long time, trying to figure out ways to be mindful throughout more of my day and stop the habitual rushing around I had done for years.

There's the complexity of modern life, the habitual patterns we're trying to get ourselves out of, and the constant distractions that try to pull us away.

Even if you see amazing results from your mindfulness meditation practice, it can still be difficult to resist these forces. I went through this myself repeatedly and often got so frustrated I just felt like stopping.

I knew it didn't make sense, I'd discovered a sense of peace and happiness from my practice that I hadn't felt by doing anything else in my life, but I just couldn't get myself to practice consistently.

I knew there had to be a way to make it work. It took a while to figure it out, and while it's difficult no matter what you do, I've figured out many different tips and tricks that can help you get there with way less effort and fuss than I had to go through.

7 Ways to Live More Mindfully in the Busy, Fast-Paced, and Plugged In Modern World

When it comes to making meditation, and being mindful in your daily life, a habit, there's various factors you have to consider. Don't ever think you've tried everything because there's so much you can do to improve your practice and deepen the sense of peace and harmony within you, even if you run a typical 9-5 and have loads of responsibility.

Here's 7 tips and tricks you can use to live more mindfully in the present moment within our crazy and complicated modern world:

1. Make driving a time for meditation

If there's one place we'd almost never think of being present, it's driving. I don't mean you don't pay attention (even then a lot of us drive half-awake...), I mean more driving without being present of your own mind and body.

Driving meditation is a really great practice that can help transform something we usually only do to get from place to place (or one event in our life to the next) into something you look forward to and find peace and joy in doing. It's a great way to put a "stop" to your day (while you're going?...) and become present again.

It's pretty difficult to give yourself the excuse that you can't practice mindful driving, because no matter how fast the car is going, you can still be mindful of your foot pressing and releasing the pedal and your hands turning the steering wheel.

And that's exactly how you practice:

1. Allow your awareness to remain relatively "open" - While you're driving, there will be multiple objects that will "pull" your attention away. Know that this is just how it is, and allow your awareness to "open up" and accept these various things into your field of awareness (the street signs, traffic) on a regular basis, acknowledging them and then shifting back to your object of meditation.

2. Concentrate on your hands or feet - While driving, you can shift between being mindful of your hands on the steering wheel, making little "micro" turns to keep the car centered, as well as of your foot on the pedal, moving up and down constantly.

Each are constant movements, which make them great targets to use as anchors while being mindful (just as you use your breathing while practicing mindful breathing, or your steps during mindful walking).

3. Acknowledge openly - As always, you're being mindful, so acknowledge anything that arises within your mind while being mindful nonjudgmentally. Just be, and watch silently for what arises.

It's so easy to practice driving meditation, and when you're driving, what better to do?

2. Give yourself more time to get from place to place

Most of us are accustomed to rushing around, and that environment makes it difficult to practice mindfulness throughout your daily life.

From now on, leave between 5-20 minutes early (depending on the distance of the destination) so that you can take your time and drive, walk, and do anything you have to do more mindfully.

To take it a step further, give yourself more time to get ready as well if there's any prep needed before you leave.

Now you might be saying, "Well that doesn't work, that will take more of my time." If that's your answer, I'd suggest reanalyzing your priorities altogether.

Of course, this won't always be possible, but most of the time it's no problem to do so. I do a lot each day and, provided I plan accordingly, I'm almost never in a position where I have to rush around to get everything done.

It's just a mindset, something we convince ourselves is necessary, but really isn't.

Give yourself more time to prep and travel and find more time to breathe and be mindful.

3. Reduce intentional distractions

This might not directly seem like the kind of thing that will help you live more mindfully, but it leads to great benefits in your mindfulness meditation practice as well as throughout your entire life.

Why? Distractions keep your mind wandering when out of practice, which can make it more difficult to remember to practice in the first place. These distractions will only hurt your practice.

And because your mind will offer enough distractions to your concentration on your object of meditation (your breath, steps, etc.) you really don't need more distractions clouding your mind.

There are many different kinds of distractions, but what's most important to focus on here are those intentional distractions which will pull your mind away such as T.V., social networks (Facebook, Twitter namely), etc. By intentional, I mean those things which can distract us that we intentionally keep around because we enjoy them.

A lot of times you'll see it comes down to evaluating your priorities, and this is just the same. Reduce distractions, remember to be mindful more often, and find greater peace.

A lot of times, we know what the right thing to do is but we just don't make any effort to do it. It's really about making the choice to nourish your mind and body or to keep on trying to "fill" yourself with temporary pleasures that will damage you in the long run.

4. Place reminders EVERYWHERE

On the other side of reducing distractions and keeping the mind clear of negative influences are cold hard reminders.

In the beginning of your mindfulness meditation practice, you'll find it very difficult to remember to be mindful throughout any given day because of how much we fill our heads up with, so simple reminders work like a charm.

These can come in many forms, probably the easiest and most accessible being phone reminders. I'd suggest using a unique sound for the reminder that you don't use for anything else, that way you begin to associate the sound specifically with remembering to be mindful throughout your day.

Set the reminder to go off every 1-2 hours at first, later reducing the time in between if you'd like. It's simply a reminder: be mindful. You don't even have to practice mindful breathing or anything. don't make it seem any more difficult in your mind than you need to.

If you make it a simple reminder, you'll naturally be led in the direction of being mindful for a minute or two at least after the reminder goes off. Doing so will help establish your practice and make mindfulness a habit.

5. Arrive, wherever you go

Arriving is a technique where you become present as you're about to enter a new area and allow your mind to fully "arrive" at that location once you've entered.

The reason arriving can help you live more mindfully is because it's not a lengthy or continuous practice you have to do, it's simply the quick and habitual act of becoming fully present as you leave one area and enter another.

And by doing so each time you enter a new place (whether that's inside work, home, the store, or even when walking outside from somewhere else), you'll not only remind yourself constantly throughout the day to be mindful (and if you've practiced for some time you know simply remembering to be mindful throughout your busy day is one of the greatest challenges) but by reminding yourself throughout each day you'll naturally end up actually being mindful more often. It's always two-fold with mindfulness and reminders.

When you arrive somewhere fully with body and mind you become present, and you'll then often continue to be mindful for at least a few minutes after that.

Then, on top of that, simply reminding yourself more often throughout each day means you stay aware of your practice more often and remember to practice at other random times outside of when you're "arriving".

To practice arriving:

1. Leave - As you walk up to a door or entry way, become present to the fact that you're leaving this area that you're walking in.

2. Enter - Now be mindful as you place your hands on the door knob/handle and open the door/walk through the doorway. Know that you're leaving this area and entering the other.

3. Arrive - Once you've stepped in, be mindful of the fact that you've just left the previous area and are now fully in this new area. Know that you've arrived and are present for whatever may come.

Arriving is a great practice because it makes sure that each new place you step into you arrive in a mindful state, and that's a great foundation for any mindfulness practice and your life.

6. Be mindful when you connect with others

I've gotten a lot of questions from people with regards to how they can continue their mindfulness meditation practice when at work, especially after going on a meditation retreat or taking a vacation to meditate and "be with" themselves to reflect on their life and really wanting to make some big changes. This is one of my best tips for doing just that.

Communicating mindfully isn't an easy task, and it takes some work in your mindfulness practice first, but I have a quick tip that will help you bring your mindfulness practice into your workspace, especially if you constantly communicate with others in person (as most of us do).

It's simply this: when you're having a conversation with another person, become mindful of the feelings arising in your body.

Be mindful as you walk up to them/they walk up to you, as they're talking, and as you're talking to them.

See if there's tenseness, if your heart races, if you feel excitement, or if you have a heavy sinking feeling in your heart or stomach.

We've built up ideas about the certain people we communicate with regularly in our lives (as well as certain types of people- prejudices, biases, etc.), and focusing in on that with your mindfulness can not only help improve your practice while being at work, it can help uncover hidden bias and attitudes you have for another so that you can transform them.

We all develop biases, prejudices, and certain attitudes naturally because of feedback and ideas we've been fed in the modern world and throughout our specific life experiences, so it's nothing to kick yourself over. And through your mindfulness practice, you can change that.

Adopting this practice can make work seem like play, because now you know there's a way for you to be able to practice while at work.

There's so much more you can do, but start with this and see how it deepens your practice!

7. Get the Mindfulness Bell app

For ANYONE that sits at a computer for a large part of their day working, this app is AWESOME.

Seriously, I use it every day and it's a great way to bring mindful breathing into your day, pause your work to collect yourself and to reunite mind and body as one. This is essentially another form of reminder but one so especially important for those of us who sit at computers for work that I felt compelled to separate it. Plus, it's about practicing mindful breathing in itself, so it's more than just a reminder.

You can set the timer to go off however often you want. I have it set to go off every 30 minutes, but I suggest starting at every 1-2 hours. No need to rush, the most important thing is to establish it as a habit first.

Another important tip: each time the bell sounds, PRACTICE. Don't get into the habit of letting the bell sound and then saying to yourself, "in just a minute, after I do this last thing".

This is an easy excuse to make, one I've made for myself many times before, so make sure to be sincere in your practice from the get-go and bring your attention inward to your breath, for what lasts about 30 seconds, until the last bell goes quiet.

You can get the mindfulness bell app for desktop free here (Google Chrome Extension and Firefox Add-On. There's also an Android app download on the same page).

You can get a different, but still effective, mindfulness bell app from the Apple App Store here.