Resources
The Tyranny of Expectations
The Tyranny of Expectations Sarah (not her real name) began by relating her good news: “Well, I landed that new job [...]
Practicing Nonviolence Toward Self
Practicing Nonviolence Toward Self Some years ago people used to wear a T-shirt printed with the slogan, “Life is difficult, and then you die.” [...]
Balancing Priorities
One of the primary ways values and intentions manifest in life is through priorities. Knowing your priorities, remembering them under pressure, and acting from them are essential skills for living authentically.
Cultivating an Attitude of “As Best I Am Able”
You can enhance the degree of well-being you experience in your life by committing to and cultivating an attitude that focuses on your effort rather than on the results of that effort. We call this "as best I am able" practice.
Emotional Chaos to Clarity
In this book, Phillip Moffitt offers practical tools to use to live a less stressful and more purposeful, meaningful, and enjoyable life. He focuses on how mindfulness and intention can lead us to respond skillfully to challenging situations in our daily lives and thereby feel a greater sense of well-being.
Living Skillfully with the Difficult
Here’s an excerpt from Phillip Moffitt’s book Emotional Chaos to Clarity about how to relate to difficulty in your life such that you relieve yourself of unnecessary suffering and even find a sense of well-being during times of challenge.
Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering
Even in the best of times, life is challenging, and often it is difficult. In this book, Phillip Moffitt explores the core Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Truths. He uses these principles to guide readers to a more meaningful relationship to the inevitable suffering of life and shows how to find joy and peace regardless of your circumstances.
Recognizing the Suffering in Your Own Life
An excerpt from Phillip Moffitt’s book Dancing with Life.
Making Major Life Changes
Bringing mindfulness to the longings and impulses that lead you to make major life changes provides a method for consciously and skillfully working with the complexity of moving in new directions in your life.
Making Skillful Changes: A Personal Reflection Exercise
Here is a personal assessment designed to develop your capacity for making skillful change. The more you understand your habits and beliefs about change, the more you will be empowered during times of change.
What Is Mindfulness?
Practicing mindfulness can bring more clarity into your life and diminish the amount of suffering you experience. In this one-minute video, Phillip Moffitt gives a very clear explanation of what mindfulness is and how you will benefit from it.
Starting a Mindfulness Meditation Practice
Mindfulness meditation builds your capacity to be mindful in daily life. As you practice mindfulness meditation, you develop the habit of being [...]
Arriving in the Room Guided Meditation
A five-minute guided meditation to help you come into the present moment.
Ten Values Associated with Well-Being
Just as we have outer priorities in our lives that guide us in our decision-making and setting goals, we have inner priorities, too. The values that we live by can be considered our inner priorities and they guide us in how we implement our outer priorities. These are ten values particularly beneficial to developing an enduring sense of well-being.
Differentiating Goals, Intentions, and Values
Many people lack clarity about their goals, values, and intentions. As we live out the chaos of our lives, it is inevitable that our goals, values, and intentions become enmeshed. However, they are essential reference points for staying true to ourselves and bringing clarity to confusing situations in daily life.
Core Values and Essential Intentions Worksheet
Identifying your core values and then creating a few essential intentions that you are mindful of moment-to-moment in the midst of the chaos of daily life can help you stay in balance and clear-minded. Here is a worksheet we use with clients and in workshops that you can download and fill out to identify your own values and intentions.
Preventing Pressure from Becoming Stress
Understanding the difference between pressure and stress can create a greater sense of ease and well-being in your life.
The Difference Between Pressure and Stress
When your responsibilities are bearing down on you, understanding the difference between pressure and stress can create a greater sense of ease and well-being in your life.
Knowing What’s Really Happening: Experience vs. Interpretation
A crucial skill for minimizing emotional chaos and sustaining clarity in your life is the ability to distinguish between your experience and your interpretation of your experience.
Experience vs. Interpretation
A crucial skill for minimizing emotional chaos and sustaining clarity in your life is the ability to distinguish between your experience and your interpretation of your experience.
Discovering the Clarity of a Responsive Mind
For most people, learning to move from a reactive mind state to a responsive mind state is the single most helpful tool to reduce suffering and increase well-being. See if this practice can make a difference in your life.
Making Skillful Decisions
Applying mindfulness to decision making leads to clearer thinking and to staying connected to your core values, which is crucial to your peace of mind. Mindful decision-making enables you to go beneath the surface level of your moment-to-moment life experience, which is clouded with emotions, to see the truth of what is happening.
Five Kinds of Decisions
Naming the type of decision you’re trying to make will help bring clarity to the process.
Freedom from Fear
It is difficult living in a time of fear, but here you are, and the challenge becomes finding a way not to be consumed by it. This is best accomplished by first observing your responses to the culture of fear that surrounds you. You can then use this knowledge to work with your personal fears.
Self-Soothing during Difficult Times
Through the skillful application of mindfulness we can learn to self-soothe whenever life delivers us a blow and soon regain our balance. Here is a three-step approach for calming yourself and regaining balance when life delivers you a blow.
Self-Soothing Reflection for Difficult Times
The need to self-soothe is not a weakness. It is a sign of maturity to be able to acknowledge this basic human need and have tools to respond skillfully. Here are instructions for a meditation to practice during hard times.
How Suffering Got a Bad Name
Many people are uneasy with the fact that their lives contain suffering; therefore, they are ineffective in coping with whatever difficulties and disappointments arise. It is possible to learn to relate to your suffering in such a way that it is easier to bear.
Three Kinds of Happiness
When you practice being mindful of happiness, you can increase your capacity for well-being.
Happiness Here and Now: A Personal Reflection Exercise
Having a deeper understanding of your relationship with happiness can increase your capacity for well-being. Here is a personal reflection exercise to help you get started with practicing being mindful of happiness.