Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo

Healing isn’t a checkbox; it’s a way of relating to what hurts. We sit down with Insight Meditation teacher and author Justin Michelson to explore a grounded path through stress, pain, and trauma that begins with self-compassion and widens into nature, lineage, and something larger than ourselves. Justin's website: JustinMichelsonDharma.comJustin's book: The Dharma of HealingFrom his first teen meditation class to hard-won lessons with overwhelming energies, Justin shares how he moved from striving to surrender—trading the warrior stance for a bow that restores safety and connection.We dive into a powerful framework he calls the four turnings of the wheel of healing: surface compassion for daily frictions, depth compassion for buried fear and grief, collective compassion for what family and culture seeded in us, and universal compassion that lets us rest in a benevolent field. Along the way, we unpack his striking metaphor of self-aversion as psychological autoimmunity—how our ancient impulse to pull away from pain turns inward and keeps wounds stuck—and how kind attention unwinds that loop. For listeners far from forests, Justin offers simple, sensory ways to let nature be a teacher: a patch of sun, a street tree, the feel of wind as a reminder that we’re held by more than our thoughts.Justin also opens a window into his Native Foods Nursery, where tending edible native plants becomes a living practice of reciprocity and belonging. Teaching, for him, is shared practice—not perfection—where the goal is to help people remember their own inner wisdom and build resilience that can meet a turbulent world. If you’ve been craving practices that are practical, humane, and spacious enough for real life, this conversation offers a map and the companionship to walk it.If the episode resonates, share it with a friend who could use a gentler path forward, and leave a review so more people can find these practices. Subscribe for future conversations on mindfulness, compassion, and healing.Support the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

Ever notice how your day turns into one long, uninterrupted scroll? We leave work on a call, weave through traffic still mid-story, and step into the kitchen without ever really arriving. We wanted to break that blur, so we dug into a simple framework: use the day’s natural hinge points—dawn, noon, midafternoon, dusk, and night—as scheduled pauses to reset attention and rebuild a sense of home.Together we explore how technology stretches a single narrative across every context and what it does to the nervous system. Then we offer small, repeatable rituals that mark thresholds with care: end the call before you park, pause at the door with one conscious breath, remove your shoes as a deliberate handoff from “out there” to “in here,” and place your keys down with attention. We talk about how these gestures turn rooms into relationships and why nothing is inherently sacred until we treat it that way. That shift—treating space as worthy of care—changes how your home holds you, softens reactivity, and lets the next hour unfold with less friction.We also lean into gratitude as the quiet engine of a grounded day. Not performative positivity, but a steady appreciation for heat and chill, ease and challenge, the small textures that prove we are alive and participating. By pairing gratitude with time anchors, you create clear chapter breaks that help the body settle and the mind reset. Start with one anchor—two minutes at dusk or a doorway pause—and notice how meals taste richer, conversations feel cleaner, and sleep lands sooner.If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who lives on their phone, and leave a quick review telling us which daily anchor you’re claiming next.Support the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

You can feel when a class lands: the room gets quiet, the body softens, and attention holds steady even as movement continues. That shift is not magic; it’s method. We sat down with senior teacher and writer Sara-Mai Conway to unpack a practical, human way to make yoga and meditation one continuous experience rather than two separate boxes on a schedule.Sara-Mai's website: https://www.iwriteaboutwellness.com/We start by redefining yoga as skillful energy movement using both outer and inner methods. Ethics calm mental noise, asana prepares the body for stillness, pranayama bridges body and mind, and focused attention matures into insight and, at times, a taste of samadhi. From there, we build a class like a guided sit: set a clear intention, select poses that serve it, and let every cue point back to the thread. Breath-focused flows become fluid and repetitive to highlight inhale and exhale. Gratitude takes shape in bows and forward folds. Grounding becomes literal through contact with the earth. Working with non-harming or self-compassion invites challenge while naming the inner talk that shows up.Silence becomes a teacher rather than an absence. We share how to frame quiet as safe and time-bound, when to place formal meditation inside a flow, and how to ask simple, embodied questions that turn effort into awareness. Savasana shifts from background music to true stillness, and closing with a brief dedication helps wire benefits into daily life. Along the way, we talk about teaching with authenticity, trusting students with depth, and avoiding the “spiritual sandwich” where mindfulness appears only at the beginning and end.If you’ve ever wondered how to keep presence alive between the opening sit and the final rest, this conversation offers a clear structure, real-world cues, and permission to do less so students can feel more. Subscribe, share with a fellow teacher, and leave a review telling us the intention you’re bringing to your next class.Support the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

We turn a slow line into a short mindfulness practice that eases tension and reshapes impatience into patience and kindness. We ground in breath, relax the body, and extend compassion to strangers and staff who share the same wish to be happy.• naming impatience as normal and common• breath work with nose inhales and mouth exhales• scanning and softening jaw, shoulders and belly• grounding through feet, posture and relaxed face• wishing yourself ease, patience and kindness• sensing others’ shared purpose and humanity• extending compassion to staff doing their bestSupport the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

When does being “nice” start hurting your health? We explore the surprising science that links suppressed emotions—especially healthy anger and buried grief—to immune function, inflammation, and long-term disease risk. Drawing on affective neuroscience, we break down the core mammalian systems wired for rage, fear, panic and grief, care, seeking, and play, and explain why these circuits exist to protect boundaries and connection, not to create chaos.Gabor Maté's website: https://drgabormate.com/I share how anger operates as a boundary-setting signal that says something vital: this is not okay. When that signal gets muted to keep relationships intact, the immune system can mirror the shutdown. You’ll hear clear, practical language for telling the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, plus simple steps to honor your limits without escalating conflict—naming the feeling, identifying the crossed boundary, and choosing proportionate action. We also unpack how childhood survival strategies, like staying quiet to preserve attachment, can turn into adult patterns of chronic niceness, migraines, flares, and burnout.We look at striking research: longer survival among people with ALS who expressed anger, and a large study of women showing higher mortality when marital unhappiness stayed unspoken. The takeaway is not to explode; it’s to listen to the body’s early alarms and speak plain truths before stress hardens into illness. If you’ve ever wondered why “the good die young,” this conversation reframes goodness as self-respect, not self-erasure.If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs better boundaries, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find these tools. Your story matters—what boundary will you protect today?Support the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

We map a three-stage approach to using mindfulness for PTSD: immediate self-soothing, reconnecting with emotions, and long-term integration. A short guided practice shows how breath, grounding, and softening cues can create ease while we set clear safety guardrails.• framing mindfulness for PTSD and its stages• self-soothing practices for the immediate aftermath• reconnecting with emotions with courage and choice• integrating trauma healing over the long term• simple guided breathing and body softening• safety boundaries, when to pause, and support options• rebuilding confidence, self-esteem, and relationshipsIf you experience a psychiatric emergency, please call your doctor and call 911 to get some supportSupport the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

Explore the transformative power of mindfulness as practical tools are revealed. Discover how to use breath as a non-controlling anchor and develop bare attention through observation. Learn to create a choice gap by catching intentions before actions. The discussion delves into the Noble Eightfold Path and the concept of impermanence, reshaping identity into a fluid process. Strategies to tackle common hindrances like desire and doubt are shared, emphasizing clarity and patience as essential warrior qualities for deepening practice.

A stressful morning, a deep tissue reset, and a simple lesson that changes how we teach: relevance beats routine. Sean shares how tuning into the body can open the door to smarter, kinder mindfulness instruction, especially when life is messy and attention is thin. We walk through a practical approach to choosing what to teach by asking short, respectful questions, listening for needs, and then adapting practices so they fit real people and real constraints.You’ll hear why a trauma‑informed stance matters, how to phrase cues that feel human rather than clinical, and where short, concrete practices outperform long, abstract scripts. We unpack ways to tailor mindfulness for healthcare workers, corporate teams, caregivers, and teens, adjusting length, tone, and focus so the work actually helps. Along the way, Sean introduces a plug‑and‑teach curriculum: 900 minutes of modular lessons with hundreds of slides, teacher deep dives for nuance, guidebooks to scaffold delivery, and student handbooks to support learning beyond the session. It’s flexible by design, so you can brand it, adapt it, and bring it to groups without starting from scratch.If you’re a new or seasoned teacher who’s ever wondered, “What should I teach this group, right now?” this conversation offers a clear path: assess, adapt, and keep it practical. Expect tangible prompts, language tweaks, and ideas you can use today to create safer, more relevant experiences. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more teachers can find these tools—and tell us: which audience are you tailoring for next?Support the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

Sean Fargo guides a grounded mindfulness meditation and explores how gentle awareness helps us return from rumination, meet difficult emotions, and carry presence into daily life. If your mind keeps sprinting ahead or replaying the past, this conversation offers a practical way home. We open with a gentle guided practice to help you feel the room, find your seat, and meet your breath without force, then expand into a clear map of how mindfulness works—and how it differs from concentration and visualization. The aim isn’t to chase calm; it’s to contact what’s true right now with honesty, softness, and a touch of courage.We break down the core moves that make mindfulness usable in daily life: noticing when you’ve slipped into rumination, shifting attention to physical anchors like feet, hands, and breath, and using simple self-soothing gestures to remind the nervous system that it’s safe to settle. You’ll hear why numbing with food, alcohol, or screens feels tempting and how it quietly shrinks awareness. Instead, we practice naming unpleasantness without judgment and letting acceptance open the door to movement, choice, and care. Along the way, we talk posture, micro-movements, and the subtle cues that reveal where you’re bracing and where you can soften.Join us, practice with us, and if this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend who could use a mindful reset, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. What small anchor will you use to return to the present today?• intention to support presence, healing, and growth• brief guided body and breath practice• sensing the room, contact, and posture• differentiating mindfulness, concentration, visualization• returning from rumination to sensory anchors• self-soothing through touch and breath• meeting depression, fear, and sadness with acceptance• avoiding numbing and overconsumption• carrying mindfulness into daily activities• resilience and acceptance as forms of loveSupport the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com

We break happiness into three sturdy pillars—connection, contribution, and meaning—and explore how each one shows up in daily life. Along the way, we unpack mental “time travel,” awe, and the small acts that make joy more likely.Austin Hill Shaw's website: https://austinhillshaw.com/• defining happiness through human needs• the many forms of connection including self, people, and nature• distraction, memory, and future thinking as barriers to presence• contribution as usefulness matched to talent and values• meaning as both a guiding framework and ineffable experience• awe, grief, and beauty as forces that reshape our maps• a simple weekly check to spot gaps across the three needsSupport the showAdd your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us. Free Mindfulness Exercises: MindfulnessExercises.com Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com Work with Sean Fargo: Sean.mindfulnessexercises.com/ Reduce Chronic Pain: Pain.MindfulnessExercises.com Email: Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com