Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

trust is all too frequently a missing ingredient in
medicine. We call it "mobilizing the inner resources of
the patient" for healing, or for just coping better, for
seeing a little more clearly, for being a little more
assertive, for asking more questions, for getting by
more skillfully. It's not a replacement for expert
medical care, but it is a necessary complement to it if
you hope to live a truly healthy life - especially in the
face of disease, disability, health challenges, and a
frequently alienating, intimidating, insensitive, and
sometimes iatrogenic health-care system.
Developing such an attitude means authoring one's
own life and, therefore, assuming some measure of
authority oneself. It requires believing in oneself.
Deep down, sadly, a lot of us don't.
Mindful inquiry can heal low self-esteem, for the
simple reason that a low self-estimation is really a
wrong calculation, a misperception of reality. You can
see this very clearly when you start to observe your
own body or even just your breathing in meditation.
You quickly come to see that even your body is
miraculous. It performs amazing feats by the moment
with no conscious effort. Our esteem problems stem
in large part from our thinking, colored by past
experiences. We see only our shortcomings and blow
them out of all proportion. At the same time, we take