Mindfulness

Exercises & Practices

Is This Me?

These questions aren't a test. Just notice your internal response — the recognition, the resistance, the "yeah, that's me."

• Do you regularly lie awake at night with your mind racing through tomorrow's problems or yesterday's conversations?
• When an anxious thought fires, do you grab it and run — spinning through worst-case scenarios before you even realize what happened?
• Do you avoid certain situations not because of what might actually happen, but because of how you might feel?
• When someone says something that bothers you, do you fire back immediately — and then wish you hadn't?
• Do you carry a constant background hum of stress or worry that you've stopped even noticing because it just feels normal?
• Do you judge yourself for feeling anxious or afraid — piling "I shouldn't feel this way" on top of the original feeling?
• When difficult emotions arise, is your first instinct to distract, numb, analyze, or argue with them rather than just letting them be there?
• Do people close to you ever say you seem distant or "somewhere else" even when you're physically present?
• Do you spend more time replaying the past or rehearsing the future than actually being in the moment you're living right now?

Questions Worth Sitting With

These don't have quick answers. Let them sit with you for a few days. See what surfaces.

• What would be different about your life if anxious thoughts still came but no longer controlled your decisions?
• When someone is angry with you, what happens inside your body? What do you feel the urge to do — and what does that urge tell you about what's really driving you?
• What are the "boats" you always get into — the recurring thoughts you can never seem to just watch float by?
• Where in your life are you tolerating a constant state of low-grade anxiety because you've forgotten what calm feels like?
• If you treated yourself with the same compassion you'd show a struggling friend, what would you say differently to yourself in anxious moments?
• What do you believe about yourself when anxiety shows up? That you're weak? Faithless? Broken? Where did that belief come from?
• What would it cost you to pause before responding to the next thing that triggers you — and what might you gain?
• When was the last time you were fully present in a moment — not planning, not worrying, not performing — just there?

Growth Practices

Pick one. Try it this week. Notice what happens.

Week 1: Notice. This week, practice catching yourself in the act of not being present. Set three alarms throughout the day — random times. When the alarm goes off, pause and answer three questions: Where is my mind right now? What am I feeling in my body? Am I here or somewhere else? Don't try to change anything. Just notice. By the end of the week, you'll start to see your patterns — when you drift, where you go, and what pulls you away from now.

Week 2: Breathe. Commit to five minutes of breath awareness each day. Sit somewhere quiet. Close your eyes. Watch your breath go in and out. When thoughts come — and they will — notice them without grabbing them. Let them float by. Come back to your breath. Every time you notice you've drifted and return, that's the rep. That's the workout. Your mind will wander dozens of times in five minutes. That's not failure — that's the practice working.

Week 3: Feel it, ignore it, move on. Pick one situation this week where anxiety normally drives your behavior — a conversation you avoid, a decision you defer, a place that makes you uncomfortable. When the anxious feeling arises, try Dr. Cloud's formula: Feel it (notice where it is in your body, let it be there). Ignore it (don't obsess, don't analyze, don't let it become the center of your universe). Move on (do the thing you were going to do anyway, with the feeling present but not in charge).

Week 4: The ten-second rule. This week, in every conversation where you feel yourself getting triggered — defensive, hurt, annoyed, reactive — pause for ten seconds before you respond. Just ten seconds. Feel the heat start to dissipate. Notice what choices appear that weren't there a moment ago. You don't have to have the perfect response. You just have to have a chosen one instead of an automatic one.

Week 5: Sleep on it. Choose one situation this week where you would normally respond immediately — an email that bothers you, a comment that stings, a decision that feels urgent. Don't respond for 24 hours. Write your response if you need to, but don't send it. Come back to it the next day. Notice how different it reads. Notice what your brain has access to after the cortisol has cleared.

Scenario Cards

Scenario 1: The 3am spiral You wake up at 2:30am and your mind immediately starts running through everything you didn't finish yesterday and everything that could go wrong tomorrow. Your chest tightens. Your heart rate picks up. You can feel the anxiety building, and part of you knows that fighting it will make it worse — but part of you feels like you should be solving these problems right now.

What would you do? What's your instinct — and what would it look like to try something different?

Scenario 2: The sarcastic greeting You walk in the door after a long day and your spouse says, "Oh, nice of you to show up." You can feel the heat rise immediately. You have about two seconds before words come out of your mouth.

What's your automatic reaction? What would a response — as opposed to a reaction — look like? What do you need internally to find that pause?

Scenario 3: The anxious avoidance Your friend invites you to a social event. You immediately feel anxiety — not about anything specific, just a general dread. You start composing the excuse text in your head. You know that if you skip it, the relief will feel good for about ten minutes and then the shame will set in. But right now, the avoidance feels like the only option.

What would "feel it, ignore it, move on" look like in this moment? What's the hardest part of that formula for you?

Journaling & Reflection

Looking Back

• Describe a recent moment when anxiety took the wheel. What happened in your body? What thoughts grabbed you? Looking back, where in the chain did you have a choice you didn't see at the time?
• Think about the "toddlers" — the recurring thoughts that tend to rattle you. Which ones cause the most chaos? Which ones do you chase? What would it look like to be the calm parent in the room instead?

Looking Inward

• What is your typical response when difficult feelings arise — do you fight, distract, analyze, numb, or judge yourself? Where did you learn that response?
• What happens inside you when someone is angry with you? Do you freeze, appease, fight back, or shut down? What does that pattern reveal about what you're really afraid of?

Looking Forward

• Imagine yourself six months into a daily mindfulness practice. Not perfect — just consistent. What's different about how you move through your day? How do you handle the thing that normally sends you spiraling?
• Write a letter to yourself from a place of compassion — the way you'd write to a close friend who struggles with the same anxiety you do. What would you want them to know about their worth, their struggle, and their capacity to grow?