A participant in one of Sean Fargo’s live sessions asks how to coach people in everyday mindfulness, sprinkling it into the routine, when they are overwhelmed, and especially when they are neurodivergent and build a wall of perfection or obsession in order to do it right.
Sean answers that safety comes first for people who feel overwhelmed, who are neurodivergent, or who are perfectionists. He would start with self-compassion practices, and with reframing judgments of good or bad, right or wrong, as sensations that are pleasant or unpleasant.
He then describes mindful walking and standing, breath awareness, offering people a choice of practices, and playful sensory exercises such as tasting different chocolates or waters. He ends by pointing to the trauma sensitivity course offered through Mindfulness Exercises.
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Episode Overview:
Key Themes:
- Perfectionism, and the fear underneath judging
- Self-compassion as the place to start
- Safety first for people who are overwhelmed or neurodivergent
- Choice-based, playful micro-practices
- Sensing the feet, the breath and the senses
Practices Mentioned:
- Pleasant / unpleasant reframe
- Mindful walking and standing
- Breath awareness while walking, talking and sitting
- Five things you can see, five colors, five things you can smell
- Tasting different chocolates or waters
Core Takeaway: Sean’s answer is to start with safety and self-compassion, give people a choice of practices, and keep the practices pleasant and interesting.
Show Notes:
Perfectionism vs. Presence
Sean says mindfulness is not about judging things to be good or bad, right or wrong. When we notice those judgments, we can feel the harshness of judgment itself: a sense of tightness or disconnection.
He suggests asking what the sensations of right or wrong are, such as tightness or disconnection, and what the fear underneath is, because there is usually a fear that leads us to judging.
A Gentle Reframe: Pleasant or Unpleasant
Sean says that instead of good or bad, right or wrong, we can reframe in terms of pleasant or unpleasant. His question: “Can I reframe it into like sensations of judging being pleasant or unpleasant?”
He describes mindfulness as self-compassion in the sense that we are tending to ourselves with gentle care. If we are feeling stress, tightness or control, he says, mindful self-compassion can help us soften.
Grounding the Body Before the Mind
For people who feel overwhelmed, who are neurodivergent or who are perfectionists, Sean says safety is really important.
Mindful Walking
Sean calls mindful walking a very valid form of meditation. We sense into the bottoms of the feet touching the ground, heel, arch, toes, and connect with the felt sensations as we walk. His questions:
- Can I feel the socks, the padding of the shoes, the gravel, the mud?
- Can I feel the pressure? Am I walking on the outside or the inside of the foot?
- Am I up on the toes or the heels? Is it a pounding or a soft, fluid walk?
- Am I upright or leaning? How is my breathing compared with each footstep?
He says mindful walking is usually a great way to integrate mindfulness into daily life.
Mindful Standing
The same goes for mindful standing, again connecting with the breath.
Breath Awareness
“Usually can’t go wrong with the breath,” Sean says. He suggests sensing into how we are breathing as we walk, as we talk and as we sit.
The Power of Choice and Play
Sean recommends giving people a choice: here are five practices, which one feels juicy, exciting, interesting, your favorite? People usually like choices, he says, and like practices that are pleasant. His examples:
- Five things you can see: notice five colors
- Five things you can smell
- Taste awareness: three pieces of different kinds of chocolate, or still, sparkling and fancy water
He suggests a variety of practices, some somatic, some heart-based, some based on hearing, smell or taste.
Starting With Self-Compassion Practices
Sean says he would start with a variety of self-compassion practices to help people soften a little bit. He notes that self-compassion practice can be a little unpleasant, because the premise is that there is some form of suffering to be compassionate for, even though it is based in care. It can also be interesting at the same time.
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Matters
Sean encourages a lot of trauma sensitivity with these populations. He points to the trauma sensitivity course offered through Mindfulness Exercises, co-taught by David Treleaven, author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness; Christopher Germer, co-founder of the Mindful Self-Compassion program; and Willoughby Britton, a researcher at Brown University who studies the adverse effects of mindfulness on certain populations.
A Flexible Menu, Not a Rigid Rulebook
Sean’s answer is a menu rather than a single method: a variety of practices that help us cultivate present-moment awareness, chosen by the person doing them.
Additional Resources:
- Free Training with Sean Fargo: How to Teach Mindfulness With Confidence & Credibility
- Certification: Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification
- Blog: Boredom, Grief, and the Light of Presence
- Blog: Self-Esteem vs. Self-Compassion: Understanding the Difference
