We spent the New Year’s weekend at Esalen Institute, a retreat center located on the Big Sur coast in California, one of the most beautiful places in the world.

We attended a mindfulness and meditation workshop conducted by a Stanford professor and researcher who led us through a series of sitting and walking mindfulness exercises. Although I’ve meditated in the past, I was surprised at how easily I was able to sustain the practice of mindfulness during the elongated weekend sessions.

Between sessions, our teacher shared about the science of mindfulness and described how the calming effect of the exercises shifts our thinking from the automatic response of the stress reaction to one in which we can stop and consider how we want to deal with challenging situations.

People often ask me what is the most direct way to address stress and build resilience and the simple answer is to change the way we think and experience these events. The silver bullet is what they are looking for and developing a mindful life is the path to get there.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2017