Jeremy Mohler

Writer and meditation teacher

Making morning meditation my “keystone habit” is transforming my days

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Do you have a keystone habit, one that sparks “chain reactions that help other good habits take hold,” as Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit? You know, like how regular exercise makes you want to eat less junk food?

A keystone is the wedge-shaped stone at the top of an arch, like those in the Roman Colosseum. It’s the final piece placed during construction and locks the other stones into position, allowing the arch to bear weight.

My keystone habit is, you guessed it, mindfulness meditation.

I often feel like I’m behind and need to catch up. Behind who or what? I don’t know.

This story—that I need to hustle or something bad might happen—appears first thing when I wake up in the morning. It tells me that I need to get to work on something, anything, right now. Only recently have I learned to channel the worry it causes me into a healthy morning routine.

The first thing in that routine after making my bed and a little half-assed stretching? Meditation.

Before I look at my phone, before I talk to anyone, before I eat breakfast or start working, I sit and listen—to my mind, to the silence, to what’s going on my body, to the birds and cars outside. I slow down and get out of my head. I release the tension in my shoulders, face, and ab muscles. I notice my mind thinking, let the thoughts go, and open to the present moment, over and over again.

I used to carry a sense of unfinished business with me all day long—and I still do if I wait to meditate later in the day. I had trouble truly resting. I was rarely present with others, almost always leaning toward the future to get to the next thing on my to-do list.

During my last semester of college, I even had three jobs. Most days, I’d go to classes near Washington, D.C., drive an hour into Maryland for a shift at a public library, and then head to Northern Virginia where I’d work through the night at a hotel front desk. On weekends, I’d edit documents for a tech company and play shows with my band.

At times, I thought I was living the American Dream, taking pride in my work ethic and plotting my future. But mostly, I felt like I was on autopilot, chasing some future moment when all the hard effort would end and I’d be showered with praise and attention.

It took me a long time (and lots of therapy and meditation) to realize that moment will never come. I’ve also noticed my chronic restlessness has a tragic twist: it makes me procrastinate.

While one part of me is saying, do, do, do, another part just wants to scroll through Instagram or binge watch Succession. That hustling part of me then judges the part of me that wants to chill. My mind is scattered and I end up doing nothing but worry about all the work I should be doing.

But after meditating, I’m not all that interested in Instagram. Social media seems superficial, an approximation of life. I’d rather grab a book or write or go for a run or enjoy making breakfast. I’d rather live, which is starting to mean just being myself and doing all the things I really want to do.

Sometimes I want to chill, and that’s fine too.

Sure, meditation hasn’t solved all my problems. I still have trouble taking breaks and being present with others.

But attending to the present moment over and over again—which is what mindfulness boils down to—creates a wider, deeper sense of awareness, in which my thoughts about hustling and constantly working seem uninteresting and, even, boring.

In fact, not all thoughts are useful—neuroscientific research has revealed most to be repetitive and negative.

Why not have a little more say in whether I keep working into the night if I don’t technically have to? Why not embrace the moment for what’s actually happening rather than what I think should be happening?

In other words, meditation creates a seed of an inner freedom that has all kinds of downstream benefits during the rest of my day. It’s the keystone that locks everything else I do in place, allowing me to bear the weight of just being myself.

Free meditation cheat sheet

I’ve come up with a cheat sheet to help you start and stick with a regular meditation practice. Get it for free here.

Listen to my podcast Meditation for the 99%

On Meditation for the 99%, I take meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and Corporate America, and bring it to work, relationships, and, especially, politics. Listen everywhere podcasts are available.

How to work with fear, anxiety, and other difficult emotions

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In his book In Love with the World, the Nepalese Buddhist monk Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche writes about “adding wood to the fire”:

“Generally, people go through life taking note of those experiences that recurrently enflame our anger or anxiety or fear—and then we try to avoid them, telling ourselves things like, I can’t watch scary movies. I cannot be in big crowds. I have a terrible fear of heights, or of flying, or of dogs, or the dark.

But the causes that provoke these responses do not go away; and when we find ourselves in these situations, our reactions can overwhelm us. Using our inner resources to work with these issues is our only true protection, because external circumstances change all the time and are therefore not reliable.

Adding wood to the fire deliberately brings difficult situations to the forefront so we can work with them directly.”

In other words, we can’t escape painful feelings, so we might as well try to work with them when they appear. We might as well move in their direction rather than resist them. We might even want to try to put ourselves in situations where they’re bound to come up.

Back in 2012, as the Occupy movement was fizzling out, I went to the first meeting of the Washington, D.C., reading group for the socialist magazine Jacobin. I walked in with a big ego, thinking I knew a bit about the problems with capitalism.  

But it’s D.C. Everyone was not only brilliant but also well-versed in socialist history and all the various tendencies of Marxist thought. There were a handful of experienced organizers and even PhDs in the room.

I didn’t say a single word and left feeling horrible—so small, uninformed, and insignificant. Part of me wanted to give up the whole politics thing and stay with what I’d spent the last decade doing, singing in a rock band.

Yet, another part of me sensed that, yes, this is exactly what I need. This is the only way to grow.

Eventually, I got in politics doing what I love, writing. Countless moments of letting my ego get gut punched no doubt helped me get there.

The Zen priest angel Kyodo williams calls this becoming undone: “We’re not trying to become something; we’re trying to un-become. We’re trying to undo ourselves.”

Usually we do the opposite by ignoring fear, anxiety, grief, and other painful feelings. We try to appear a certain way to others. We numb ourselves with Netflix or Facebook or drinking.

Psychologist Sheryl Paul writes, “You can resist the call and numb the pain, or you can walk through the center of the fear-storm and surrender to the most transformational ride of your life.”

Now, sometimes the pain is too strong, and it overwhelms us. We might need help from other people, like a close friend or therapist, especially when working with trauma. 

But we can learn to be with many of our feelings by practicing mindfulness meditation.

We’re sitting and we notice a tenderness in the middle of our chest or a lump in our throat. We feel its raw sensations. We notice that our mind is telling stories about it, trying to figure out why we feel the way we do.

Following the practice’s directions, we then let go of the thoughts and bring our mind’s attention to the tenderness, to its raw sensations. We let it just be there, even if it grows and fills our whole body. Eventually, like all feelings, it goes away.

What we’re learning is the priceless skill of adding wood to the fire, of allowing rather than resisting the substance of our life.

Free meditation cheat sheet

I’ve come up with a cheat sheet to help you start and stick with a regular meditation practice. Get it for free here.

Listen to my podcast Meditation for the 99%

On Meditation for the 99%, I take meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and Corporate America, and bring it to work, relationships, and, especially, politics. Listen everywhere podcasts are available.

I used to think gratitude was a flowery, New Age gesture

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A friend just reminded me of my gratitude for having found mindfulness meditation, this practice that’s transformed my life.

After reading a draft of the book I’m writing, she asked, “Who’s your teacher?” This made me realize that I’ve done the typical “white” person thing: nowhere do I mention who taught me to meditate, as if I invented the practice myself.

I’ll blame capitalism and its devil’s bargain, that being “unique” and “innovative” is more important than being part of a community.

The truth is, I’ve learned from Tara Brach, Hugh Byrne, Natalie Goldberg, Jonathan Foust, Kaira Jewel Lingo, Cynthia Wilcox, Jerry Webster, and many other brilliant people.

But really, that any of us are meditating in 2019 is unbelievable.

Let’s take stock of what it took for meditation to find its way from the ancient Indian prince who developed what we now call Buddhism to the modern mindfulness movement.

The Buddha nearly starved to death trying to become enlightened. A peasant woman happened to see him dying beside by a river and nursed him to health just because she thought he was a ghost to whom the local village made offerings.

That’s the myth, at least.

Buddhism was first brought to the U.S. by Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. It was then popularized in the 1960s and 70s by teachers like Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Pema Chödrön, but also lesser known figures like Suzuki Roshi, Chögyam Trungpa, and Katagiri Roshi.

Then there’s whoever turned you on to meditation, and the books, podcasts, group meditations, friends, and teachers that keep you going.

Then there’s the fact that mindfulness is just one of many Buddhist teachings, and not even a primary one.

The Buddha first taught his disciples to contemplate a human corpse during meditation. Only after monks began committing suicide did he substitute meditation on the breath as the standard practice.

Think about that. The odds against you ever hearing about meditation are staggering.

If you’re unconvinced, just know that gratitude has nothing to do with other people or even anything outside of you. It’s not a flowery, New Age gesture. It’s not about relieving your guilt or being a nice person.

Feeling grateful changes what’s going on inside of you. In the words of Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, it “helps us realize that we are sufficient.”

Gratitude is about waking up to the fact that this moment, right here, right now, is precious. It only comes once and couldn’t be any other way. And meditation is literally step-by-step instructions for how to remember that.

Free meditation cheat sheet

I’ve come up with a cheat sheet to help you start and stick with a regular meditation practice. Get it for free here.

Listen to my podcast Meditation for the 99%

On Meditation for the 99%, I take meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and Corporate America, and bring it to work, relationships, and, especially, politics. Listen everywhere podcasts are available.