Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo
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© 2025 Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo
Description
Practical, trauma‑sensitive mindfulness for everyday life — and for the people who teach it. Expect grounded guided meditations, evidence‑informed tools, and candid conversations with leading voices in the field.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — former Buddhist monk, founder of MindfulnessExercises.com, and a certified Search Inside Yourself instructor—each episode blends compassion, clarity, and real‑world application for practitioners, therapists, coaches, educators, and wellness professionals.
What you’ll find:
• Guided practices: breath awareness, body scans, self‑compassion, sleep, and nervous‑system regulation
• Teacher tools: trauma‑sensitive language, sequencing, and ethical foundations for safe, inclusive mindfulness
• Expert interviews with renowned teachers and researchers (e.g., Sharon Salzberg, Gabor Maté, Byron Katie, Rick Hanson, Ellen Langer, Judson Brewer)
• Clear takeaways you can use today—in sessions, classrooms, workplaces, and at home
Updated 2-3x weekly. Follow the show, try this week’s practice, and share one insight in a review to help others discover the podcast.
Explore more resources and training at MindfulnessExercises.com and the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification.
221 Episodes
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Happiness often feels slippery—too abstract to hold, too dependent on luck or perfect circumstances. We take a different path and lay out a grounded map you can actually use. The conversation with Austin Hill Shaw centers on three core human needs that, together, create a durable sense of wellbeing: connection, contribution, and meaning. Rather than chasing a mood, we practice a rhythm that returns us to what makes life feel alive. Austin's website: AustinHillShaw.com We start with connectio...
The holidays can be dazzling and demanding at the same time—lights and laughter on the outside, pressure and mixed emotions on the inside. We tackle that paradox head-on with simple, compassionate mindfulness tools you can use in real time to steady your nervous system and protect what matters most. We start with family dynamics, where old patterns and sensitive topics often intensify stress. You’ll learn mindful listening that lowers reactivity, silent loving-kindness that shields your hear...
Perfectionism says mindfulness must be done “right.” We flip that script. In this conversation, we share an everyday approach to mindfulness designed for overwhelmed and neurodivergent brains—one that starts with safety, honors choice, and turns presence into something you can actually enjoy. We begin by grounding in self-compassion and a simple reframe: rather than labeling thoughts and feelings as right or wrong, notice whether they feel pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. That shift softens...
Start at the only place that never lies: the body. We open with a simple grounding—seat, feet, contact with the earth—and follow a thread of curiosity through head, chest, and belly to discover what the moment actually needs. Instead of forcing a schedule or chasing a perfect state, we let the felt sense choose the next step, whether that’s steadying with the breath, offering loving-kindness, or naming a few real things to be grateful for. Across the conversation, we get practical about work...
Healing isn’t a checkbox; it’s a way of relating to what hurts. We sit down with Insight Meditation teacher and author Justin Michelson to explore a grounded path through stress, pain, and trauma that begins with self-compassion and widens into nature, lineage, and something larger than ourselves. Justin's website: JustinMichelsonDharma.com Justin's book: The Dharma of Healing From his first teen meditation class to hard-won lessons with overwhelming energies, Justin shares how he moved...
Ever notice how your day turns into one long, uninterrupted scroll? We leave work on a call, weave through traffic still mid-story, and step into the kitchen without ever really arriving. We wanted to break that blur, so we dug into a simple framework: use the day’s natural hinge points—dawn, noon, midafternoon, dusk, and night—as scheduled pauses to reset attention and rebuild a sense of home. This is an excerpt of an interview with Austin Hill Shaw: AustinHillShaw.com Together we explore h...
You can feel when a class lands: the room gets quiet, the body softens, and attention holds steady even as movement continues. That shift is not magic; it’s method. We sat down with senior teacher and writer Sara-Mai Conway to unpack a practical, human way to make yoga and meditation one continuous experience rather than two separate boxes on a schedule. Sara-Mai's website: https://www.iwriteaboutwellness.com/ We start by redefining yoga as skillful energy movement using both outer and inner...
We turn a slow line into a short mindfulness practice that eases tension and reshapes impatience into patience and kindness. We ground in breath, relax the body, and extend compassion to strangers and staff who share the same wish to be happy. • naming impatience as normal and common • breath work with nose inhales and mouth exhales • scanning and softening jaw, shoulders and belly • grounding through feet, posture and relaxed face • wishing yourself ease, patience and kindness • sensing oth...
When does being “nice” start hurting your health? We explore the surprising science that links suppressed emotions—especially healthy anger and buried grief—to immune function, inflammation, and long-term disease risk. Drawing on affective neuroscience, we break down the core mammalian systems wired for rage, fear, panic and grief, care, seeking, and play, and explain why these circuits exist to protect boundaries and connection, not to create chaos. Gabor Maté's website: https://drgabormate....
We map a three-stage approach to using mindfulness for PTSD: immediate self-soothing, reconnecting with emotions, and long-term integration. A short guided practice shows how breath, grounding, and softening cues can create ease while we set clear safety guardrails. • framing mindfulness for PTSD and its stages • self-soothing practices for the immediate aftermath • reconnecting with emotions with courage and choice • integrating trauma healing over the long term • simple guided breathing an...
Clarity gets practical when you treat attention like a craft. We open the pages of Joseph Goldstein’s The Experience of Insight and translate retreat-honed wisdom into tools you can actually use: breath you don’t control, movement you feel from the inside, and the quiet power of seeing intention before action. No mystique, no shortcuts—just a clean method for meeting each moment without the usual tug of wanting and resisting. Joseph's book: https://a.co/d/bsVOXoU We start with the mental fra...
A stressful morning, a deep tissue reset, and a simple lesson that changes how we teach: relevance beats routine. Sean shares how tuning into the body can open the door to smarter, kinder mindfulness instruction, especially when life is messy and attention is thin. We walk through a practical approach to choosing what to teach by asking short, respectful questions, listening for needs, and then adapting practices so they fit real people and real constraints. You’ll hear why a trauma‑informed...
Sean Fargo guides a grounded mindfulness meditation and explores how gentle awareness helps us return from rumination, meet difficult emotions, and carry presence into daily life. If your mind keeps sprinting ahead or replaying the past, this conversation offers a practical way home. We open with a gentle guided practice to help you feel the room, find your seat, and meet your breath without force, then expand into a clear map of how mindfulness works—and how it differs from concentrati...
We break happiness into three sturdy pillars—connection, contribution, and meaning—and explore how each one shows up in daily life. Along the way, we unpack mental “time travel,” awe, and the small acts that make joy more likely. Austin Hill Shaw's website: https://austinhillshaw.com/ • defining happiness through human needs • the many forms of connection including self, people, and nature • distraction, memory, and future thinking as barriers to presence • contribution as usefulness matched...
Ever feel like life is a full catastrophe—email pings, family needs, calendar jams—and your attention never gets to land? We slow everything down with a clear, zero-fluff mindfulness practice you can use anywhere: arrive in your body, breathe, and know it. No special gear, no perfect posture; just a reliable way to reset the nervous system and sharpen presence when it matters most. George Mumford's website: GeorgeMumford.com We start with the simple ethos of teaching and practicing whether o...
A single breath can reset your whole day. We explore how to build steady attention by feeling one complete cycle of breathing—inhale, pause, exhale, pause—while softening the shoulders, easing the jaw, and letting judgment fall away. The practice is short, portable, and honest: no special gear, no perfect posture, just a relaxed yet alert stance and a willingness to notice what’s already happening in your body. We start by setting up a supportive posture and tuning into contact points—feet o...
What if narrowing your attention could make your daily life feel wider, calmer, and more vivid? We dive into the practical craft of concentration and show how a single, steady focus becomes the quiet engine behind reliable mindfulness. Rather than forcing the mind, we build a friendly runway—gladdening the mind with gratitude and warmth—so attention settles without strain and the nervous system knows it is safe to rest. We walk through concrete anchors that meet different temperaments: count...
A quiet room, a slower week, and a simple question that matters: what truly makes someone ready to teach mindfulness? While recovering from COVID, I took time to reflect on the difference between healthy hesitation and unhelpful overconfidence—and why the best teachers often start from humility rather than hype. We walk through a practical rule of thumb shared by senior mindfulness teachers: when invited to teach, thoughtful caution can signal integrity, while quick certainty can reveal a mi...
Pressure doesn’t have to crush you; it can refine you. George Mumford—renowned mindfulness teacher to championship teams and communities far from the spotlight—joins us for a deeply practical journey through presence, performance, and the courage to be yourself. We open with a simple “arriving” practice that resets the nervous system, then build on the five superpowers that underpin lasting change: right effort, concentration, insight, trust, and mindfulness. George is clear-eyed about motiva...
We share simple, grounded ways to feel anger, sadness, depression, and fear without judgment, then channel that energy into healing and meaningful action. We also invite you to a live online retreat with practices, Q&A, and resources to support resilience. • naming natural emotions after a public tragedy • why feeling is essential for healing • mindful steps for anger, sadness, depression, fear • opening within your window of tolerance • resources from Sharon Salzberg, Gabor Maté, Rick H...
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