In his book, Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence and Purpose in The Middle of It All, Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D. writes about applying mindfulness to your daily life experiences. His book is divided into sections about where you might practice mindfulness, such as “At Home,” “At Play,” and “At Work.”

Emotionally sensitive people often find noise, crowds, strangers, lack of space or privacy, and clutter dysregulating. Yet all these experiences are often part of life, particularly  in an urban area. Turning to mindfulness may not seem natural as a way to cope in these situations. Kaplan’s book offers ways to apply mindfulness to everyday life.

If you are working on developing new coping skills, you may find that understanding the skills and how they work is much easier than actually using the skills. You may be able to tell someone else about the skill, write out the steps involved, and answer questions about it but find you do not use it in your life. You may find that you keep going back to familiar ways of dealing with emotions and stress, even when those old ways are not good for you in the long run.

Soon large crowds will gather in hotel rooms and toast the New Year. Others will party in Times Square and still others will ring in 2013 with a small group of friends. New Year’s Eve is generally viewed  as a time for celebrating with friends and can be a particularly lonely time for those who struggle with relationships.

Your survey responses show that for some people loneliness (which is different from being alone) can be static and chronic, a heaviness that doesn’t lift. For others, loneliness varies in intensity and is triggered by certain situations, such as holidays, can make the aloneness worse. When others are making plans with friends or family and you are not, you may feel left out. Television shows emphasizing activities for families and friends can remind you of what you wish for and don’t have.

Optimism bias, according to researcher Tali Sharot, is the belief that the future will probably be much better than the past and present. It is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of good events happening to us in the future and underestimate the likelihood that bad events will occur. Most people hugely underestimate the odds of their getting cancer or losing their jobs. Though newlyweds know the discouraging statistics about divorce, they often believe their chances of getting divorced are low. Our view of ourselves is often influenced by this optimism bias. Most of us see ourselves as significantly better than average drivers, more modest than most, and way above the average in getting along with others.

Jessica has a great memory for details and enjoyed sharing adventures with her husband. She was shocked when he asked for a divorce–she had no idea how unhappy he was. Only after he filed the papers did she understand that there was no big event that changed their relationship, but a series of small episodes. For example, when out with friends, her husband enjoyed sharing stories about the trips he and Jessica had taken. Jessica often corrected the small mistakes he made and she was usually right. When he complained,  she explained she was just helping him get it right. She didn’t see that as a problem.

Many thanks to the over 750 people who responded to the survey on loneliness. One of the questions was about what emotionally sensitive people see as the reason for their loneliness. Fear was mentioned by many of you: Fear of rejection, judgments, vulnerability, and of not being perfect. Some were afraid of their reactions to other people.

One day in second grade I raised my hand to read aloud certain paragraphs of a story. I loved to read. I skimmed ahead and found a dramatic section that would allow for varying voice tones. The teacher selected a different section for me to read. I protested that I wanted to read the section I had chosen. She skipped me and I didn’t get to read at all. I was being willful.

We may think of willful behavior as typical of children. Picture the child in the store who is having a temper tantrum, refusing to leave without a wanted toy. That is willfulness.  Another example would be when a young child is chosen by a team he didn’t want to play on. Going home or sitting by the sidelines refusing to play was most likely not effective behavior. It probably didn’t solve the problem and in addition he didn’t get to play a game he enjoyed. Even the child who doesn’t want the bubbles he blew to float away is showing willfulness. While we tend to think of children exhibiting such behaviors, adults can be just as willful.

Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. includes dialectical thinking as part of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. One component of dialectical thinking is to find the middle path. When you think or feel in extremes, that usually leads to misery.

In The Mindful Child, Susan Greenland tells a fable about an old man who lived with his son on a farm near a tiny village.  One day the farmer’s horse ran away.  The neighbors told him how sorry they were to hear about his misfortune. The farmer said, “We’ll see.”

The next day the farmer’s horse came home, accompanied by two strong, wild horses. The neighbors said, “How wonderful!”  The farmer again said, “We’ll see.”

In The Mindful Child, Susan Kaiser Greenland gives an example of mindfulness as being like a cylinder of clear water.  You can look through the cylinder and see the other side. If you pour a cup of baking soda into the water and shake or stir it, the soda clouds the water and obscures your vision. Just like the baking soda in water, thought and emotions can create uproar in our heads and cloud our minds. When you let it rest and don’t take action, the soda settles and the water becomes clear again. The longer you rest in steady breathing and mindfulness, the more your thoughts and emotions settle and the clearer your mind.

We often don’t know the reasons why we do what we do, feel what we feel, or make the choices we make, but apparently we are very good at creating reasons that seem quite logical and that reflect favorably on us. For example, we may believe that cheating and lying are wrong. Yet, according to Dan Ariely (2012) most of us lie. He’s not talking about the big lies that cause major damage to others. He says we lie only to the extent we can still see ourselves as good people. We tell ourselves stories to justify our actions, like everyone cheats on their taxes or it’s only an extra dollar in change the clerk gave me and the company owes me more than that for all the times I’ve overpaid.

If we’re annoyed with the person we are interacting with, we are more likely to cheat or steal, believing we are justified. We may tell ourselves that we are simply restoring karma and crusading for justice.