How to Get a New Lease On Life: A Teen’s Revelation
It was all from a single leaf.
“I had no idea,” she said. “I thought I knew exactly what they felt like, I was shocked. When I think about it, I realize now how reactive I am to things around me. I think I know exactly who this person is or whether I’ll like a certain experience or not. When a test comes my brain interprets it as something to be feared when maybe it isn’t. Wow, amazing.” This 17 year old girl was talking about an experience she had on a mindful hike that my wife and I lead as part of a mindful teen retreat.
What can we gain by stripping our preconceived notions of things and engaging life with fresh eyes?
Maybe a renewed lease on life.


You may have seen the video and maybe it touched you in a way that brought you to tears. A forensic artist sat down and asked the woman sitting on the couch next to him to tell him about her face. He opens with the question, “Tell me about your hair?” and then, “Tell me about your chin. After one woman thinks about it she says, “It protrudes a bit especially when I smile.” He continues, “What about your jaw?” Another woman answers, “My mom always told me I had a big jaw.” He then asks, “What’s your most prominent feature?” Taking a moment, she answers “Kind of a fat rounder face” or “I would say I have a pretty big forehead.” After he got his sketch he said thank you very much and left.

Picture this:
We don’t have to look further than B.F. Skinner to see that most of us have developed a habit of being overly obsessed with our Smartphones. We all get incoming messages that hint at a potential reward, most of the time it’s not a reward, but sometimes it is and this is what gets us. It’s called intermittent reinforcement and it’s how Skinner made his rats keep pressing the lever hoping for more pellets of food. When it comes to our Smartphone most of us wake up with it and go to sleep with it. When it calls for us during the day we come running. If you’re interested in getting a bit of freedom from it, read this quick story of how philosopher and teacher Krishnamurti helped a student become free of irritation. You’ll see the connection.
Whether you’re new or old to mindfulness, you’ve likely heard the definition that it is a “intentional non-judgmental awareness of the present moment.” There’s a lot of confusion around the term non-judgment. Years ago, before I began being more intentional with a mindfulness practice I had a friend practicing meditation and he told me that he was practicing being completely detached from everything in a non-judgmental way. That didn’t seem too fun to me. Today, many of us can still be confused by this term, so what does it really mean?
A wise man once said, “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your unguarded thoughts.”
I recently led a workshop focused on helping us develop a wiser relationship to our technology (Smartphones, IPads, computers, television, etc.). In the beginning of the workshop I explained how as much as we feel that technology is a part of our lives, historically, we’re really just becoming acquainted with it. We talked about how in many ways, the people who came to the group were like “Digital Warriors,” at the frontier of optimizing this new wiser relationship to technology.


