Mindfulness – Frantic Shanti

Coming to My Senses: A Whiff of “Fragrantica”

(Title image: Photo by Andres Molina on Unsplash)

This is one of those “just because” posts…

One of my favorite meditations is sinking into the sensations around me, whether it’s a body scan, opening up to the sounds around me or getting lost in a beautiful scene.

But I am particularly intrigued by scents. Much like fine wine or dark chocolate, fragrances can be very complex and multi-layered, evoking a range of emotions. While my meditations generally don’t allow for experiencing many scents (unless I’m specifically in an environment conducive to it), I find that I’ve very affected by the ones that I encounter during my day, particularly when they strike a chord with me.

I know what I like when I smell it…but I’m not great at being able to pick apart exactly what it is that I’m enjoying so much and naming it. So I’m delving into this more deeply and paying closer attention.

I got a tip from a fragrance counter attendant to visit a website called Fragrantica to search for notes that I enjoy in the hopes of finding perfumes that speak to my senses.

I love this website! It has a free, massive library of fragrances and fragrance elements. Searching for a note (a single, individual smell)—using the citrus fruit bergamot as an example (see images below)—brings to you a page with a listing of known perfumes that contain it. When you select a perfume, you get a listing of the different accords (blends of different fragrance notes) of which it is comprised and can search for suggestions for other fragrances that contain similar scents, in addition to user reviews.

I have also been captivated by the vocabulary of perfumery. Words like sillage, drydown and heart notes to describe elements of a perfume, and unusual notes like petrichor (the aroma of the earth when it rains) and dew drop (which I imagine smelling like an early morning garden) and black diamond (maybe “minerally”? Your guess is as good as mine). These terms describe unique qualities and raw materials, and I love that there’s a language for it.

Some fragrances connect me with emotional states. There’s nothing like getting hit with a scent from the past and being transported back to a different time.

Additionally, some perfume bottles are works of art on their own, intricate and beautiful…and, yes, perhaps exorbitantly priced. Arguably, a museum-worthy piece if not out of reach for most of us.

An example of an exclusive perfume in an ultra-luxurious bottle, Arcanum by AMAFFI, $5,500.
(https://amaffi.com/us/products/arcanum-for-women)

Fragrantica is such a unique website. If you enjoy scents, take a look at it. It has already set me on a scent-discovery journey, it might do the same for you.

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As a reminder, these are simply things that I enjoy. No affiliate links or paid advertisements. After swearing off jumping into another stressful certification this year, I’m taking time to explore the pleasures in my life.

Dancing with Distractions

^{(Title image: Photo by Anuj Yadav on Unsplash)}

Lately, I’ve been at odds with my attention. While I used to sit and meditate quietly, I am going through a period where I’m getting frustrated by stillness and crave movement while being mindful.

So because I don’t have patience to sit still today, I am going to toss this little meditation tool into my blog. Hope it helps!

This is what I do when I’m fighting distractions and feel like I’m losing. Instead of giving up on meditating, I give myself some slack.

First, the pause. I bring attention to myself, noticing what it feels like to be a body, whether sitting, standing or lying down. No matter where I am and what’s going on around me. What is the sensation of having a human skeleton with human muscles and organs and blood pumping through everything?

Next, I reach out and find my breath. There it is, in the center of my chest. What are the sensations that I feel when I inhale and exhale?

And I stay there with my breathing. For as long as I can.

Lately that hasn’t been very long. And before I know it, my attention has gotten stuck on some distraction and been pulled away. Maybe a sound, another sensation, even a wayward thought. No problem. I give the interloper an audience and then gently swing back to the breath.

Swinging between distrac– oh, I can see my house from up here!!!
(Photo by Jasmin Chew on Unsplash)

And again, I stay there until inevitably my attention gets tangled up in something else and swings away, towards the enticing distraction. And once again, I realize I’m elsewhere and note what that feels like, and then swing my attention back to what’s going on with my breath.

It helps to understand what it is about that distraction that made it so alluring, kind of like allowing myself to get a fill of it before moving away and sweeping back to the breath.

This is the way that it goes, like a dance. A waltz of sorts. I try to keep the movement smooth, without irritation or judgement. This is just how it is. Befriending my wandering, waltzing mind makes the entire meditation process calmer and more soothing.

It doesn’t matter if I’m sitting on a meditation cushion or mindfully walking home from the trolley station, this method works in all situations. Making peace with my propensity to follow distractions means that I’m free of one more distraction: that nagging feeling that “this isn’t working”.

Give this a try and see if it resonates with you. Then let me know!

Aching for an Injury

^{(Title image: Photo by Alex Bertha on Unsplash)}

My life was recently interrupted by a back strain. I was moving a side table to vacuum under it and stupidly bent at the waist instead of using my legs, pulling the table towards me.

And suddenly I felt an electric jolt of warmth and pain in my back from hip to hip.

This, my friends, is not my first rodeo. I’ve been having back issues since college, when I slipped on ice and thudded down on my lumbar spine. However, first swimming and then strength training reinforced my back muscles and made me less susceptible to injuries like this.

Less susceptible, but not impervious. I was reminded of this in early 2025 when I felt a serious twinge rowing on my erg but stubbornly refused to stop because there were only four minutes left in my workout and I’m a stupid ass. That little stunt required a recovery period of about a month.

Yup, right THERE.
(Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash)

This time was a teensy bit different. The back strain was manageable. It happened on a Saturday, but I was still able to carry laundry, and then I worked out CAREFULLY on Sunday. Yeah, it hurt a bit but nothing I couldn’t handle.

Then came Monday morning and I decided to do a modified version of my high intensity interval training. Sounds crazy, I know, but it was modified. However…towards the end, I started having more discomfort, but again, I figured I could finish it before I did anything really bad to myself. Yeahyeahyeah IknowIknowIknow.

It wasn’t a great workout, but I was moving gingerly and seemed to be holding together. But afterwards, in an effort to “protect” my back, I knelt at my computer (I’ve got my setup adjusted so I can do that when sitting doesn’t feel good) and started my workday.

Maybe it was the fact that I kept tightening my glute muscles to take pressure off my back, and there were adjacent hip muscles that got irritated, but by the time my Monday morning Zoom meeting came around I was having intense back spasms, basically whenever I moved.

Even deeper breaths set them off. I was having trouble staying upright.

Eventually I capitulated and crawled off to bed, resorting to my laptop to get any work done, which was minimal.

So all of that might sound bad, but as far as I’m concerned, here’s the REAL issue. While I managed a few hours of work every day, most of the time I was forced to lie on my back. This should be a horrible thing, not being able to move without pain.

How do I stop feeling guilty about taking a break?
(Photo by Abishek Subba on Unsplash)

Instead, it felt like a relief. My bosses and co-workers knew my situation and didn’t expect much. I didn’t push myself and considered this an obligatory rest week from workouts. And it was phenomenal.

My back gradually improved and by the end of that week I noted, somewhat ruefully, that I was almost back to normal.

It made me sad. I had really needed the break, needed the release of expectations that I would be productive. And that week I had my excuse. It was like a hall pass that allowed me to shirk all my other responsibilities.

This was exactly how I’d felt during my chemo infusions. The after-effects of chemotherapy were miserable and I could not wait to be done with them. But in the background, there was a glimmer of relief that I was allowed to actually rest without anyone expecting anything of me.

And here I am going through those feelings again.

So, I know this is a problem. If getting injured or sick is the only thing that gives me permission to recover from my life, then clearly I need to reevaluate my priorities and maybe make some time for that.

Even after almost a decade of practicing mindfulness and meditation, I am sorely lacking in this aspect of self-care and self-compassion. I know I am. But it’s so hard to stop pushing myself.

So I don’t know now. Am I really being mindful if I’m driving myself to burnout?

Swinging My Hips

^{(Title image: Photo by Jessie Shaw on Unsplash)}

It’s been over nine years since my cancer diagnosis and treatment. That’s almost a decade, which is hard to believe! But here I am.

While the physical side effects of the cancer treatment itself are mainly gone, I am still dealing with some weird psychological ones. One of the most unexpected effects for me was that I lost a chunk of my self-identity.

I’ve written in the past about difficulty of dealing with this change in my sense of self. Part of it was hormonal, brought on by endocrine therapy. I had been pre-/peri-menopausal when I started treatment so I wasn’t ready for menopause. There was so much anxiety associated with surviving cancer, chemo and radiation, the thought of also dealing with one of the biggest changes in a woman’s life hadn’t even occurred to me. I had not seen that far into the future because I was afraid that I’d never get there.

Ah, the joys of letting your body guide how you move through the world.
(Photo by Liberty Ann on Unsplash)

All of this is a long-winded way of getting to the actual point of this post…

So in the aftermath of cancer and this semi-identity crisis, while in yoga teacher training, someone made a comment that stuck with me.

I had bumped into one of the other teacher trainees outside a shopping mall, who said she recognized me from far away. She explained, “I could tell it was you from your walk.”

I didn’t ask for elaboration, but it seemed like an odd comment and made me wonder, what exactly did she see in my walk that made it look so distinct? Some time later, someone else said the same thing! So I started to pay attention.

I realized I wasn’t walking the way I used to.

My walk had become a very quick-paced, tight-strided gait. When I considered myself from the side, my movement looked uncomfortable and self-conscious, as if I were trying to be invisible and not take up space, no mean feat for a nearly six-foot-tall woman.

My flowing saunter had been replaced with something that I can only describe as “getting from point A to point B with my tail tucked between my legs.”

I didn’t feel like a woman. I felt like a survivor, which in itself is not a bad thing. But I defined myself as one, and it had become an all-encompassing definition. Yes, I had survived, but now what?

Moving smoothly, gracefully…
(Photo by Akshaya Jayaprakash on Unsplash)

It wasn’t until I found myself in a completely new environment with calmer surroundings that whatever I was clenching started to unclench and I found myself breathing with more ease. And that’s when I remembered the comments about my walk.

So I reintroduced a playful, natural swing in my hips. Releasing the tension that had built up. Back before I had kids I’d taken several years of belly dancing classes, and I drew on the sensual feelings from that dance form.

I started to roll. It was a fluid motion that felt so right in my body. After years of squats, deadlifts, rows and presses, it was nice to let go of the tightness and return to something that was decidedly more feminine.

This brought with it a mindfulness of where I am in space, and how I move through it. The simple act of allowing my hips to move in their natural arc has reopened a door that I thought was closed forever.

It’s nice to be back.

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Lately there have been a lot of ups and downs in my life. Certainly, this isn’t very different from what usually happens, as my life is rarely predictable.

However, the difference has been for me in how I have been reacting. Some of the “downs”: my mind is more jumbled and focusing is harder. Sleep is disrupted, which is never a good thing, and I’ve been waking earlier, unable to fall back asleep.

On the other hand, there are pleasant “ups” too. My workouts have been stronger and recovery time has shortened. I’m making noticible fitness progress at a time when I thought losing strength was my new reality. And I’ve experienced a renewed interest in intimacy, something I didn’t expect to happen, even in the midst of the whirlwind of uncertainties.

So the pendulum swings have felt wider. The good news is that I come back to center…but the bad news is that I usually don’t stay there.

The way I have started dealing with this is kind of funny. Instead of forcing myself to sit in meditation for longer, something that feels like wrestling eels, I have been practicing releasing expectations of what meditation should look like.

Lately, I have been making myself transparent.

Quietly fading and receding, allowing all my worries to pass me by.
(Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash)

Instead of grounding myself, I allow things to keep moving. I’m not anchored in the earth. I am floating above the tumult. I’m working towards a neutrality to stimuli. My edges are smooth, troubling thoughts don’t take hold, they simply slide off me and around me.

And then, I fade. Deep breaths help move strong emotions through me, not getting stuck along the way. Just passing by as my form becomes invisible.

This is a relief.

There is relatively little effort in this process, which is part of the point. Letting go lightens me. And that’s when I realize that holding on to all the stressors takes more energy and work than releasing them.

Just as they approach me, so they move through me and out.

It takes a little bit to get used to the rhythm: breathing through it and and feeling lighter. Not allowing the irritation, frustration, fear to take root but watching calmly as they fly by, as if ignoring me and looking for another victim.

Eventually I’ll get back on the cushion and root myself again, but not now. At this moment, I appreciate the freedom to float above the fray and quietly fade from sight. At least out of the view of my worries.

Being Where You Are Now

^{(Title image: Photo by Shantanu Kulkarni on Unsplash)}

Following up on last week’s post where I wrote about the gradual effects of practicing mindfulness and meditation, I wanted to briefly focus on one aspect of this.

It has to do with the process of insulating yourself from situational stressors and the anxiety that accompanies them. These types of stressors have plagued me for a large part of my life.

I’m talking about dealing with, say, bad news that could affect my future. It used to be that an uneasy feeing would overtake me, starting in my gut. Nausea was the most prominent symptom and it would wash over me, with anxiety bulding a nest in my head. From there, my brain would promptly resuscitate the anxiety if it started to fade, like some maniacal defibrillator.

Feeling better? Too bad, time for another jolt of anxiety!
(Photo by César Badilla Miranda on Unsplash)

It was an uncomfortably electric feeling, like getting zapped over and over again.

Now, it’s a little different, and it has to do with the practice I’ve had staying present. Yes, I experience the initial jolt of anxiety, as one would expect. But as the day passes, the absolute intensity of these feelings fades more quickly. And they’re less likely to recur as strongly.

Focusing on the present moment means that your thoughts stay here. And in doing so, it’s easier to compartmentalize the feelings, keeping them further away from your face. They are still around—we are not going to make them suddenly disappear—but they are manageable and somewhat muted.

This presence in the now helps you realize that where you are in this very moment is safe. This one point in time keeps you up and out of potential future and past fears that you might otherwise get lost in. You can perch on this point like you would on the head of a pin (admittedly, this might take some imagination). And so you can hop, moment to moment, noting that things are still okay.

Again, those worries continue to circulate in the background, but they are there and not here now. And all of this gives you space to breathe.

Staying in the present is like perching on the head of a pin, a single moment in time.
(Photo by Sarah Dao on Unsplash)

Interestingly enough, one suggestion for people who are habitual ruminators is setting aside about 10 minutes every day for “worry time”. This is time that you allow yourself to go through all the concerns that you have with the understanding that once your time is up, you set aside the worries until the next day’s session.

I have personally never tried it as I’m not sure it would work with my tendencies, but it is considered an effective strategy for many.

For now, I am consistently returning to the present and compartmentalizing effectively, even bringing in some soothing stories when I need a more dramatic focus shift. Of course, this is not meant to “fool” me into thinking everything is peachy. I’m simply allowing the space I need to keep anxious thoughts from taking over.

“Worth the Wait”: Fruits of Mindfulness

^{(Title image: Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash)}

No matter how long you’ve been practicing meditation, there generally comes a time when you begin to question whether it’s actually doing anything.

For me, it was when I was going through cancer treatment. Granted, I had only started meditating following my diagnosis, but even knowing that it wasn’t like a pill you took to calm yourself, I was kind of expecting “something”.

And I did get “something”, usually with breathwork, which was more distracting myself than anything else, but also tapping ever-so-slightly into the relaxation response.

Take a breath and notice how it feels to breathe. Then take another one. Notice. And keep going like that.
(Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash)

But the rest of the stuff? Where you focus on sensations in your body? I don’t think it really clicked for me at that time.

It wasn’t until later. And exactly how much “later” it was, I don’t know. Probably long enough that it would be hard to get someone enthusiastic about beginning a meditation practice. To really feel something definite about how my body was reacting differently? Yeah, I would say years of daily meditation. That’s not a great selling point although it does drive home the importance in consistency in practice.

But fast forward to somewhere around now. Over nine years of meditation, some days very calm and focused, other days, well, kind of a struggle to rein in my thoughts. There are a lot of stressors these days, some going as far as disrupting our hopes for the future.

Oh, that uncomfortable “WHOOSH”…that drags you away from the present.
(Photo by Daniel Dan on Unsplash)

If you’ve dealt with anxiety yourself, you may be familiar with that “whoooosh” feeling in your head, when a wave of anxiety hits you. In addition to a chill in my gut, I feel a disconnectedness, like my brain is trying to protect me by taking me out of the situation. I don’t know what to say because I’m not thinking clearly.

Recently, it hit me, however, that I don’t have that experience anymore. As a matter of fact, during a recent heavy conversation that I had been dreading, in the midst of it, I felt remarkably grounded. My words were there and accessible. My sentences were clear and meaningful. I was processing the information in real time. Not rushed, not taken by the wind.

Sure, it was stressful. I was worried about how things would turn out. But the panicky out-of-control feeling was no longer there.

I have no idea when everything changed, but likely it was bit by bit, over the weeks and months and years of practicing breathing through everything.

Experience showed me that even the worst situations can have positive outcomes. Perspective matters.

So, if you’ve ever questioned whether setting time aside every day for quiet contemplation was worth it, I can assure you, yes, it is. It might not be apparent outwardly, but be confident that behind the scenes, things are changing for the better.

Checking-In via Mindful Moments

After writing the last two weeks about things that I am not doing—such as attributing what I perceived as my own shortcomings to cancer treatment side effects or pushing myself into experiences/responsibilities that end up causing distress—I wanted to write about what I am doing.

Lately, I’ve been breaking meditation sessions into shorter, more frequent mindful chunks. Instead of a prolonged sit, I stop what I’m doing and sink into where I am, as a sort of check-in for a few minutes.

This works best for where I am now, with some anxieties about the future rising and others ebbing. There has been a lot of change. It feels like the swirling tides of the Bay of Fundy, putting me in a state where the best work I can do is to remain at an even keel while moods lift and fall all around me.

Tides rise and fall, try to bob with them.
(Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash)

This is how it goes: when I notice the mental waters rushing in, I pause and look around. Am I safe? Yes. Am I healthy? Yes, or if I’m fighting an illness, I check to see if I have what I need on hand. Have I been fed and watered? Yes. Is there unrest in my body? Perhaps, and I locate a point if one exists, then slowly release that tension if possible. Do I have everything I need to do my work or complete an errand? Do I know what I’m doing next? Perhaps I should jot some notes? All of this gentle questioning gives me an opportunity to settle and refocus on what is going on right now.

I stretch, as this helps me expand my chest, take a deep breath and feel what it’s like to take up space. Many of us spend our days hunched over our work, contracting inward. That’s tough on our bodies and tough on our minds. I find it really helps to reverse that body posture, which reminds us to open up and reset our perspective.

Finally, I take a moment for stillness, feeling into my entire body at once. Noticing how everything is interconnected and how I blend into my environment. Then recognizing how the ground is solid beneath my feet and how smooth everything feels: flowing time, movements of my body, thoughts in my mind.

This check-in allows me to manage upsetting thoughts and bring my attention back to where I am. Because it’s short, I can intersperse these little sessions into my day, so I’m never too far from one. If you’re feeling too restless to sit for a longer meditation, try this out and see whether it suits you.

A Trolley Meditation

^{(Photo by miguel pela-yo_ou_voce on Unsplash)}

To be clear, this doesn’t have to be a mediation specifically for a trolley ride. It would work on a train, bus, car or any other moving vehicle. I take the trolley regularly and love how meditative the ride can be, so that’s where I use it.

While I work remotely for the majority of the week, some days I commute to my office, now further away due to our recent move. I get a ride in, but coming home means an hour on trolleys in addition to a long walk from the station.

At the time that I leave for home, the afternoon commute is in full swing. I often don’t get a seat on the first leg of my trip, so I stand, holding on to the bars interspersed throughout the car.

My height gives me a good view of the window. Now, if I allow my gaze to fuzz a bit, staring straight out into the distance, the passing landscape becomes a blur.

But this view can also serve as a beautiful way to drop into the ‘here and now’, and also train yourself to let go of the past. As the landscape passes before me, I mentally drop a “plumb line” into it, fixing my gaze every second or so on an object in the passing view, so that for a blink of an eye, my focus is maintained and follows it. Then I let it go, dropping another imaginary plumb, and I fix my gaze onto another spot on the fleeting landscape, again staying with it for about a second before releasing it and focusing on yet another point.

In the blur of constant movement, focus on the present moment.
(Photo by hannah cauhepe on Unsplash)

If the scenery very close to the trolley moves too quickly and I tire of the rapid changes, I can cast my gaze a little further away from the trolley where things are passing less frenetically.

Sometimes I switch between points closer by and those further away.

The idea is to allow yourself to let go of the point that you’re looking at, to not get captured by it. The moving vehicle, certainly, prevents that from happening to a great extent, but we also train ourselves to break the gaze and move on.

Why Is This Important?

Imagine that your day is like this: lots of stress, perhaps a lot of work, frustrating interactions with others, so much brain clutter. Can you take a big step back to observe the flow of life, understanding that annoyances comes and go, allowing them to pass by? Just as on the moving vehicle, everything passes and new views appear, so do our emotions and situations. This simple practice reminds us that when times are difficult, we can find solance in knowing that it won’t be forever.

I love this meditation. It combines a return to the present moment with letting go and moving on. What could be better?

Getting Deep: Harvard’s Meditation Research Program

^{(Title image: Photo by TONG KBP on Unsplash)}

I was delighted to learn that there is a Meditation Research Program at Mass General Hospital, associated with Harvard Medical School. I’m sharing the link to their research in this post because it seems pretty amazing

The program is run by Dr. Matthew Sacchet, an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Recall that Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, at the UMass Medical School, brought mindfulness to the clinical mainstream with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which initially was designed to help patients deal with the pain and stress of illness. At Harvard/Mass General, Sacchet takes this work further by focusing on a scientific study of advanced meditative states.

My meditation takes place in informal spaces.
(Photo by bahareh moradian on Unsplash)

So, just to be clear: I am a simple meditator, with a focus on mindfulness. I revel in the grounding that it gives me when life gets stressful. It offers a sense of confidence that I can, in fact, handle the stuff that comes my way as long as I allow it to, something that hasn’t always been the case. Meditation has given me a self-awareness that slows down the world around me and makes things feel less out-of-control.

However, after almost a decade of meditation, I would not call myself an “advanced” meditator. And, yes, I’m anal enough to have never skipped a day, which, it could be argued, kind of misses the point of mindfulness. I am confident in my abilities to sit quietly but possibly need to lighten up about giving myself the grace to miss a session (trust me, I won’t).

Still, I love being able to sit in my room and feel a connection to all the other human beings around the world who are meditating at the same time. I am also acutely interested in the way that deeper states of meditation can positively affect us.

But I’m no meditating monk; my average day’s meditation generally ranges from about 10 minutes to an hour and a half, max.

On the other hand, Dr. Sacchet is studying ‘master meditators’, such as the monks in question, in an effort to explore advanced meditation, which he defines as (from the program website) “deeper engagement with meditative practices that with time and mastery, produce refined states of mind and awareness…bliss states, insights into the mind, altruistic/compassionate mindsets and ultimately, enduring transformation.“

That’s quite an impressive list. At a time when I’m clawing my way back to longer meditation sessions after a stressful year of struggling with intrusive brain noise, this provides motivation to stay on the cushion for a little longer.

Interested in more?

Here’s a link to a short quiz that appeared in the Harvard Gazette that might surprise you about what researchers like Dr. Sacchet are learning about meditation.

Below is more about Dr. Sacchet and his work from MGH Psychiatry News:

Matthew Sacchet, PhD: Advanced Meditation Alters Consciousness and Our Basic Sense of Self (Scientific American)

And here’s the link to the Scientific American article that the above site references:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/advanced-meditation-alters-consciousness-and-our-basic-sense-of-self/