Ep. 150: Kristen Manieri — Trading Safety and Comfort for Being Fully Alive

My guest this week is Kristen Manieri, author of the new book Better Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact (affiliate link). This was a really interesting conversation that went some directions I hadn’t expected—especially on the topic of mindfulness—that I found really clarifying. One intriguing question we considered together: Should it be relaxing to practice mindfulness and meditation? As Kristen described, it’s not necessarily a comfortable or safe process to fully wake up, and yet it’s the only way to be fully alive. We also explored the importance of connecting with ourselves and our bodies, and how we can use physical symptoms as signals for things we need to attend to.

Other topics we discussed included:

• What it means to be mindful
• The simplicity in mindfulness
• Some of the big benefits of being more present and aware
• Creating conditions or opportunities to have mindful moments
• Why it’s often so hard to remember to be present and open to our experience
• Unconscious habits and defaults as the brain’s way of saving resources
• Directed attention vs. choiceless awareness as types of mindful presence
• Slowing down when we notice we’re scattered and getting ahead of ourselves
• The body as a “flare” that clues us in to our mental and emotional state
• The ego’s resistance to mindful presence
• The relative safety and predictability in staying in default mindless mode
• Mindful presence as a return to ourselves and to something within us that is true
• Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul
• The Observer self within us that witnesses all of our experience
• Living in a constant state of stress
• Digital distraction as anesthesia for the unpleasant effects of stress
• What it means to “preload your fork,” and how and why to stop

Kristen Manieri is a certified habits coach and a certified mindfulness teacher through the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.

She hosts the 60 Mindful Minutes podcast, which is an Apple top 100 social science podcast.

In addition to her Better Daily Mindfulness Habits, she is also the author of the Mindfulness Journal Daily Check-in. Her writing has been featured in Huffington Post, Your Tango, and other outlets.

And we didn’t talk about it in this episode, but Kristen practices kung fu and tai chi.

She shares her life with two daughters, her husband, and their three cats.

Find Kristen online at her website (where you can sign up for her free course) and on Instagram and Facebook.