A 12-Minute Meditation to Rewire Your Brain for Optimism

What do you do when you've made a plan, you've done everything you can to make it work…and things still don't turn out the way you hoped? In frustration and disappointment, it's easy to focus on what's wrong. 

This exercise—adapted from Start Here: Master the Lifelong Habit of Wellbeing by Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp, and led by mindfulness coach Priti Patel—offers a quick way to realign toward what is working, which can help us settle and give us clarity.  

Nate Klemp, PhD, is coauthor of Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World. He is a former philosophy professor and a founding partner at Mindful. He is also coauthor of The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship and Start Here, a New York Times bestselling guide to mindfulness in the real world. Nate received his BA and MA from Stanford University, and his PhD from Princeton University.  

The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week. 

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Show Notes

Find more from Nate Klemp here.

Go Deeper

Gratitude is a game-changer. It's so much more than just trying to scare up happy feelings—it's actually a practice that can rewire our brains, shift our neurochemistry, and improve our relationships over time. For more info on this small-but-mighty skill, check out these resources from Mindful.org:

• How to Practice Gratitude 

• Gratitude for the Lousy Ingrate 

• The Power of Gratitude (with a Healthy Dose of Cynicism) 

• The Science of Gratitude 

For more practice, here's A 12-Minute Meditation for Cultivating Daily Gratitude you can try. 

And more from Mindful here:

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