sustainable practice Archives

Dec 8 2025

Reflection & Moving Forward: Completing Week 8 | Men’s MINDFULNESS Series

10 minutes of reading

2018. I burned out. Big time. Couldn’t get out of bed. Felt low, depressed, worthless, suicidal.

I started exploring self-improvement not expecting anything would change. I just wanted my life to be different. To be alive. To cope. To be with my family.

Small changes: resting, cutting back alcohol (took years), eating better, finding mindfulness.

None of this has been linear. Three or four times since 2018 I’ve approached burnout again—but not to the same extent. This past year: weight gain, milder burnout, paranoia, unreliability. But I could see it this time. That’s the difference.

Week 8 of our series: You’ve built real skills—noticing, returning, allowing, pausing, self-compassion. These aren’t meditation skills. They’re life skills.

The question now: What practice will you continue? Not should—will. Because the practice that continues is the practice you actually do.

This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.

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Informal Practice: Bringing Mindfulness Into Daily Life | Week 7

When I first started using mindfulness, I used Headspace—5 minutes each morning before my 12-hour GP shifts. Most of the time I’d press start, then realize 5 minutes later I’d been thinking about work the entire time. But I kept going. And eventually, a small gap appeared that wasn’t there before.

A year later, the Mindfulness in a Frantic World app had me walk around my neighborhood just noticing. Intricate decorations on houses. Animals watching me back. Life, but with awareness.

Now it shows up everywhere: running, traffic jams, patient consultations, playing piano with my kids. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not. But I’m moving toward a better state.

Week 7 of our series: You don’t need meditation time. You need to be present for the time you already have. Learn the three anchor activities and transition pauses that close the gap between practice and life.