Just Start Mindfulness Meditation Sessions
Welcome!
Thank you for visiting Worldwide Stew’s Mindfulness Meditations page.
I retired in December 2023 from my work as a hospital chaplain with Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Hospital. I specialized in cardiovascular care (don’t worry about the religion part you might associate with being a chaplain. IF you’re worried, skip down to the last section, then come back here!). Since then, I’ve been refreshing my life work, helping people with mindfulness and positive psychology. In the hospital where I worked before my retirement, I called the mindfulness sessions A Mindful Break. Since then, though, I think the bigger mission isn’t taking a mindful break but getting people to feel they should just start taking a mindful break.
Wouldn’t it be better to Just Start?
Starting is the thing. We always seem to stop short of doing something really important for ourselves. We are obsessed with the need to always be doing for work, for our family, and for our friends. These are all worthy causes, of course. Mindfulness meditation can be like water: if we don’t ever slow down to drink, we get dehydrated. If we nevere slow down to examine our values, to fine simple pleasures in life, and to mend our bodies, minds, and souls, we’ll miss the nurtients we need.
The hardest part of doing something new is starting. We are all always starting. Even if we have an active meditation practice, our minds wander. If we’re meditating and get distracted, we realize, Hey, I got distracted. When you notice your distraction, you return to where you were at. So, Just Start back where you were. This is The Practice. No blame. No problem. It’s what cultures have been doing for millennia and what we’ve become too smart to do.
That’s the focus of what I’m doing right now. Does this practice fit into your life right now? Just Start!
Why do I do this work?
I’ve spent over thirty years as a healthcare chaplain. During the pandemic, I saw the incredible suffering of patients, families, and hospital staff. My big questions during those dark pandemic days were: Can anything really help people through this? If so, what is it? Is there any objective evidence that it works? This program - and my education since then - has focused on what I learned during those times.
I’m Mike Davis, a Certified Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator with Mindful Leader and a Board Certified Chaplain through the Spiritual Care Association. I have taken Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction several times and one advanced MBSR class. I’ve been practicing mindfulness meditation for about six years. It’s indispensable to my enjoyment of life. I’m working on a program in positive psychology (very interesting!).
I’m enrolled in the Positive Psychology Certificate Program through at the University of Pennsylvania, which Martin Seligman and his team developed.
Why am I doing this? My life’s fuse is burning. It’s well over two-thirds of the way used up (a back of the envelope calculation!). I’ve always tried to care for people. My life flourishes when I’m helping people. So, I want to work while I can!
Why this program? Is happiness even a real possibility?
I’m a little dubious about the promise (and premise) of constant happiness. For many years, I curated a library of articles about health, people, and systems. After the beginning of the pandemic, I vowed to learn much more. I wanted to know the answer to this question: What things reliably support human wellness and health? As it turned out, there are things that can reliably boost our ability to enjoy life and make us happier without the saccharine quality of modern, sappiness. Happiness according to the modern mentality (dancing all the time) is an impossible psychological stretch by my measure.
There are more realistic targets than happiness.
There are other words that describe what is possible: wisdom, flourishing, resilient, grateful, cheerful, kind, caring, and confident. There are other words, too!
The target is more positivity and reduced suffering
Mostly, a more satisfying life comes down to finding things that help you feel better and doing more of those things. My belief promotes spiritual values and traditions, positive psychology (start with the good that already lives in you), mindfulness meditation practice, community, and simple, science-based interventions you can do. The idea - as psychologist Barbara Fredricksen suggested - is to broaden and build on your strengths and resilience.
Life is hard. Don’t tell me to be happy.
You’re right. We won’t. I am not peddling quick fixes, happiness (in its modern sense), or forced smiles. I cringe when I see happiness being hyped and marketed like petroleum: put this in your emotional gas tank and go. Though the term happiness is often used in the field of positive psychology, I’m not happy with it. The Greeks have better words for it. Even English has some words that get closer: flourishing, resilience (though I’m not happy with the common use of this term, either), joy, etc. But no English words really capture it. I’m advocating this idea: Most of the time it can be better than it is.
We’re all in the human mess
Most of us—me included—have spent our lives with little understanding of who we are and what we really want. We have few regular connections with people who support us and little consolation or joy in our daily lives. In short, a lot of our lives are spent in unneeded suffering. I want to spend the remaining years of my work offering some relief.
Goals for our Just Start mindfulness sessions
- This is a mindfulness meditation mentoring group. It is not a support group (though you will hopefully feel supported).It’s not a long lecture (though, as described in the next point, there will be some educational segments). The goal is to create a safe, trusted, and equitable community of mindful practice.
- The second goal is to provide a place to learn new science-supported skills that promote well-being and may reduce suffering.
Oh, and about religion. Don’t stress.
Though I am a chaplain, I’m not selling religion in any way, shape, or form. I want my work to be accessible to people of all belief systems and those of none. My programs are not religious, and these sessions won’t promote religion. To highlight this, two of my most essential life mentors are atheists.
However, I want to set reasonable and transparent expectations. First, I believe it’s possible to be an atheist and still be spiritual. Spirituality isn’t about believing in God as much as deriving meaning from something greater than oneself. I’ve cared for atheists who were deeply spiritual in their own way (which is all that matters). I had no agenda with them (or with anyone). In fact, I’m sure I’d learn from anyone who chose to join our program.
One more note about religion and spirituality. I will refer to and be transparent about our sources and give them credit. These practices derive from multiple religious and philosopical histories and traditions. Mindfulness meditation has been strongly influenced by Buddhist tradition. I will occasionally reference religious, non-religious, philosophical, and psychological writings, ideas, illustrative stories, and beliefs. These sessions are not an attempt to promote or proselytize. I hope you’ll give it a try. It may be for you!
Want to join?
If you’d like to participate, please complete this Registration.
I look forward to our shared exploration of mindful awareness, community, meaning, and hope.
Mike