by Sunada Takagi | Nov 10, 2011 | Everyday mindfulness, Personal change
I really appreciated this perspective from Locana, who wrote about a recent negotiation she was in over buying a new car. Negotiation doesn’t have to be a hard-ball, combative situation. By treating the salesman with empathy and understanding, she ended up...
by Sunada Takagi | Oct 7, 2011 | Meditation, Personal change
I remember feeling very frustrated – and frankly a little baffled – when I was first learning the metta bhavana practice. Especially around the fourth stage, the difficult person. How was I supposed to feel warmth and affection for somebody I admitted not...
by Sunada Takagi | Aug 31, 2011 | Everyday mindfulness, Personal change
I’ve been working on getting a daily yoga practice going. I thought it might improve my overall energy levels, and help with the chronic tension in my back and shoulders. But it’s been a “two steps forward, one step backward” sort of path....
by Sunada Takagi | Aug 9, 2011 | Everyday mindfulness, Meditation, Personal change
This past spring, I attended professional training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) — a program started by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass Medical Center. Basically, MBSR is a way of presenting meditation in a secular context — for health,...
by Sunada Takagi | Jul 22, 2011 | Everyday mindfulness, Personal change
I have a long history of depression. And though it’s thankfully not a constant companion anymore, it still drops by for a visit now and then. This past week was one of them. Being in it again gave me another opportunity for practice. But it also showed me how far I’ve...
by Sunada Takagi | Jun 27, 2011 | Meditation, Personal change
One of my clients — I’ll call him Mark — took up meditation to help with his lifelong anxiety. He was all too aware of his tendency to over-analyze and worry about everything. He’d been meditating on and off for two years, gone on retreats, read tons of dharma books,...
