Show Notes
Trying harder can feel like the only option until it stops working. We sit down with Solala Towler, a longtime teacher of Qigong, Taoist meditation, and the Way of Tea, to explore a different approach: alignment over strain, flow over force, and practice that meets you where you are. Solala shares his personal path into Eastern philosophy, the early hunger for something more grounded than words, and the moment Taoist teachings clicked with a sense of “coming home.” From there, the conversati...
More from Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo
We talk with Dr. Sara Lazar about why mindfulness meditation can feel life-changing beyond lower stress and how that shift maps onto stages of ego development and perspective taking. We connect equanimity to measurable changes in meaning making and to brain regions tied to the narrative self, compassion, and self-referential processing. • why stress and anxiety scores miss the deeper “new perspective” change • Piaget-style stage shifts as a model for psychological growth&n...
We guide a simple hand-on-chest meditation with Master Ming Tong Gu that helps us feel the truth of our own existence beyond stories and labels. We leave with a deeper sense of gratitude, wholeness, and reconnection to the body as the place where life is actually experienced. • welcoming Master Ming Tong Gu and naming healing beyond the physical • setting up a safe, simple posture for practice • repeating three truths that anchor embodied mindfulness • feeling sensatio...
Your meditation practice might be giving you a clue you keep missing: it can be felt in the head. Sean Fargo sits down with Liam McClintock, founder of FitMind and author of “FitMind: Four Steps to Lasting Bliss”, to talk about a surprisingly concrete way to track craving, distraction, and ease through subtle sensations in the forehead, face, and skull. We dig into how the body works like a biofeedback device, and why “release” is less about controlling thoughts and more about relaxing the sy...
Pain is inevitable, but the brain’s “this is unbearable” reaction is more flexible than most of us realize. Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Sara Lazar joins us to unpack the neural correlates of equanimity and to answer a question many meditators quietly carry: does mindfulness meditation actually protect us from pain and fear, or does it just change the story we tell ourselves? We dig into what equanimity really means, why it is not indifference, and how an open heart can coexist with...
We talk with Dr Elisha Goldstein about how tiny internal shifts can calm chronic stress, change our choices and strengthen emotional longevity. We break down the 4R method and explore why peace can feel like simply being with what is here. • introducing Dr Elisha Goldstein and Tiny Shifts • chronic stress as the background “water” we stop noticing • the 4R method: recognise, release, refocus, reinforce • release as lowering physiological load and conserving energy&nbs...