Liudmyla Herasymenko, an associate professor at the Ukrainian State Flight Academy in Kropyvnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Ukraine, is one of the millions of educators carrying the invisible weight of supporting her students’ social and emotional well-being despite the turmoil that surrounds them every day.

“Because of the existing threat, which is hanging, you cannot plan your day in advance,” Herasymenko says. “You can have some plans, but everything can be changed in one second, and you need to adapt to be flexible about it. We have alerts, so that means we need to go to the shelter, then schedules of electricity, which means you need to find power and Wi-Fi. So, it’s a lot of stress that we are experiencing.”

Herasymenko is not alone—a rising number of children and educators are currently facing unprecedented disruption and stress due to living in conflict-affected areas. More than 473 million children live in or are fleeing settings of conflict and crisis around the world, and approximately 204 million people worldwide live in areas controlled or contested by armed groups.

Educators in these spaces are navigating burnout, secondary trauma, and constant uncertainty, while they simultaneously hold space for students’ fear, grief, and hope. In these conditions, the question is not whether teachers and students need support, but rather what kinds of support are actually feasible, sustainable, and relevant to them.

Small practices that make the day possible

Despite years of disruption, Ukrainian educators have found creative ways to help students stay connected and engaged. They adapt lesson plans around air raid alerts, maintain routines that foster belonging, and cultivate community across distance and displacement. Social-emotional learning (SEL) practices have become one more tool in that effort, helping educators strengthen the care and support they were already providing.

According to a recent journal article, SEL Kernels—short activities and strategies that are used to support the growth and development of social and emotional skills and competencies—helped support teachers and students in wartime Ukraine. These include games, routines, and activities that target specific skills like emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and building relationships.

When SEL practices are not adjusted to be responsive and relevant to a particular culture, they’re less likely to have benefits. These SEL Kernels, developed by Harvard University’s Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning Laboratory, were modified to fit the evolving needs of educators and teachers in Ukraine. How? Rebecca Bailey and her colleagues started with landscape research to identify what challenges students and educators in Ukraine were actually facing.

“Building on these findings, we engaged in a collaborative co-design process with Ukrainian teachers and a team of LEGO Foundation Ukraine Master Trainers to adapt and refine the Kernels for local relevance and usability,” they write.

They conducted a survey and organized focus groups for teachers to discuss their concerns about student well-being and mental health. Teachers identified areas where additional support could strengthen the work they were already doing, including helping students regulate emotions during air raid alerts, rebuild social connections, and navigate prolonged uncertainty.

Based on the survey and focus group discussions, the researchers identified five priorities for the Ukraine Kernels materials, including cooperation, mindfulness, cognitive skills, emotional intelligence, and teacher well-being.

“Finally, we piloted the adapted Kernels materials in diverse classroom settings, gathering data on implementation, feasibility, and relevance,” they write.

After the final revision of materials and rollout of the Kernels, Bailey and her colleagues found that teachers viewed the SEL Kernels as beneficial for both their own and students’ well-being. Teachers reported that the activities helped support emotional and psychological health, made learning more engaging and meaningful for children, and provided practical tools that eased the demands of teaching.

For example, Herasymenko has found that short mindful moments help ground both her and her students. Having students name their rose, thorn, and bud for the day—having them reflect on something positive, naming a challenge, and looking ahead to something they’re excited for—have helped them hold on to hope.

Additionally, she leads a five senses grounding practice with students to reconnect the mind and body without taking up a large amount of time during the learning day. In high-stress environments, practices like these work because they are small enough to hold, even on hard days.

“I cannot imagine my teaching being the same as it was before the war,” Herasymenko says. “Everything is different now. So, I prioritize my students’ well-being more than their academic achievements. I think that now it’s more important for them to be OK and to be without stress in my classes. This is my priority now.”

The impact of Ukrainian conflict in neighboring countries

Data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre show that internal displacements—people who have been forced to flee or leave their homeland to avoid the effects of armed conflict, violence, or violations of human rights—increased from 20 million in 2024 to 32 million in 2025.

Schools in Poland have been significantly shaped by the conflict in Ukraine, and many educators are experiencing new emotional and practical challenges while supporting students. Małgorzata Lidacka, an educator in Kraków who works with displaced Ukrainian students ages seven to 10, has had to approach teaching in a much different way to help her students acclimate to the new environment—often slowing down and reminding herself not to rush to solutions while navigating both lesson plans and emotional responsibilities.

“When you’re a subject teacher, no one tells you that you will then have to be a coach, or some kind of therapist,” Lidacka says. “You can make a mistake and then it can influence these kids. So I feel this burden that it’s a lot for one person to combine those roles.”

The cultural barriers have also made it difficult for her to connect with parents, and some students have fallen behind because they refused to learn Polish when they first arrived, thinking that the stay in a new country would have been over much faster. The anger, fear, and hopelessness that her students are experiencing make it increasingly difficult to focus on academics, and Lidacka empathizes.

To support herself and her students while carrying this increased mental load, Lidacka turned to social-emotional learning strategies. She now routinely advocates for play to promote shared joy beyond language barriers and encourages small acts of kindness—like lending a pencil or a book to a classmate. Additionally, when working with parents, she began asking open-ended questions and practicing mindful listening, which she found made a huge difference in connecting and finding common ground.

“During the workshops with parents, I just listen,” Lidacka says. “And they are creating such great ideas about the future—for them and for their families.”

Despite the challenges Lidacka has faced with her students, she has also seen how remarkably adaptable they are. Many have learned to transition between online and in-person learning at a moment’s notice, they support classmates navigating similar disruptions, and most really dove headfirst into learning the new language and culture.

“The best part is small acts of kindness on a daily basis, and also a huge determination from Ukrainian kids to learn Polish,” Lidacka says. “They really wanted to learn very fast. And we have some pupils in the first grade that are fluent in Polish, even though their parents aren’t. So I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ Of course, it was a requirement, but not everyone succeeds.”

Supporting the supporters: Teacher well-being in real time

While searching for additional support and resources for her classroom and her own well-being, Lidacka found the Greater Good Educators Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP offered a space for educators across the globe to connect with one another and learn science-based practices focused on purpose, awe, self-compassion, gratitude, and kindness and compassion for others.

For educators like Lidacka, who had already experimented with small, bite-sized SEL practices, the Greater Good Educators CoP created a space to expand on what she already knew. The practices emphasized that teacher sustainability begins with teacher well-being, and the community conversations helped her see she was not alone.

“After these three years, I see among my peers that we are exhausted,” Lidacka says. “More and more often, we are searching for places to debrief or to just sit and talk about how difficult it still is to manage this.”

Alongside learning SEL practices like mindful listening and self-compassion, the educators who joined the CoP were encouraged to practice the shared community invitations of curiosity, compassion, and respect with each other. These invitations helped create a supportive environment where teachers could connect across experiences and process challenges together.

Herasymenko is one of the many educators Lidacka was able to virtually connect with, and she shared similar sentiments about the importance of having an outlet to support her own mental well-being.

“It’s great to have some kind of community of teachers during all these hardships,” Herasymenko says. “Before the war, I didn’t pay so much attention to my well-being, and now I understand that this is an important part of a teacher’s job. To think about taking breaks, to think about how to recharge yourself.”

Educators like Lidacka and Herasymenko are not waiting for ideal conditions to create caring learning environments. They have continued teaching, adapting, and building community through years of uncertainty. SEL initiatives are not a one-size-fits-all cure for the challenges they face, but they offer additional support for work they are already doing. By investing in educators’ well-being, we help sustain the people who make learning, connection, and hope possible—even in the most difficult circumstances.

My interest in the science of disappointment began more than 15 years ago as a workplace consultant. I was struck by how often clients described episodes that left them feeling disappointed as deeply personal and unsettling experiences—and by how little research there was to help me respond meaningfully. That prompted me to do a Ph.D. on the subject.

Disappointment often reflects a gap between expectation and reality. It can involve grieving a future we had already begun to live in our minds.

My subsequent research with colleagues revealed a telling pattern. In the workplace, disappointment is frequently generated at a systemic level by unrealistic targets—yet lands on individuals as a sense of personal failure.

In many walks of life, it is commonly dismissed as an unwanted and unhelpful emotion. But our research tells a different story. Disappointment can be an important fuel for creativity. It surfaces what we truly desire, clarifies what matters to us, and points us toward what we are not yet willing to accept.

Whether in our professional or personal lives, disappointment is a signal worth learning to read. Here are some ideas for when you next come up against it.

1. Don’t get ahead of yourself

When we are waiting on a significant decision—a job offer, test result, or relationship turning point—our emotional response is prepared long before the answer arrives. The same outcome can feel entirely different depending on what we anticipated would happen. The wider the gap between expectation and reality, the greater the disappointment.

In the workplace, severe disappointment in not getting a job or missing out on a promotion can stem from the loss of a working future we had already begun to imagine. If that future does not materialize, we grieve it—even if it never fully existed.

2. Beware the success trap

Success can quietly raise the bar for future failure. One of our respondents illustrated this dynamic neatly. Exceed your work target by 10% one year, they observed, and your manager is unlikely to reward you with a lighter load the next. Rather, the target is raised again, making falling short more likely—and the disappointment more acute because of your past success.

The same pattern can play out in social situations. Think of a friend who often picks up the bill. Over time, a generous gesture becomes expected behavior. Then, on the one occasion they don’t pay, this becomes a moment of disappointment that people notice and remember. That disappointment is not proportionate to what actually happened, but to the gap with what was expected.

3. Try not to blame yourself (or anyone else)

People rarely experience disappointment in a neutral way. Rather, they tend to interpret it through one of two familiar patterns.

The first is internal: “I am the problem.” This assumes they did not try hard enough or were simply not good enough. Disappointment is treated as a sign they are a flawed or bad person.

The second interpretation is external. The fault is with others who did not recognize the person’s value and did not live up to expectations. The instinct is to blame and get angry with them.

Our research on disappointment in organizations shows both responses miss the point. Blaming ourselves or others can be a way of avoiding something harder to confront: that expectations are unrealistic or based on inaccurate assumptions.

4. The Ikea effect

Environments shape expectations. In workplaces, many people are encouraged to aim high and improve continuously. Organizations often promote ideals of progress, achievement, and fulfillment.

These ideals can be motivating, but they can also create a perfect scenario that reality struggles to match. From this perspective, disappointment can be a structural feature of systems that rely on high expectations and idealized outcomes.

But there’s a personal aspect, too. Research on what psychologists call “the Ikea effect” shows the more effort we invest in something, the more we value it—rather like a flatpack piece of furniture that we have built ourselves. At work, we routinely pour time, energy, and identity into projects, roles, and relationships. So, when things don’t go as hoped, we are losing something very personal.

And because failure at work is often witnessed by colleagues and managers, the stakes feel higher. The loss can become entangled with how others see us, and how we see ourselves.

Left unexamined, such feelings can calcify into something more damaging than the original disappointment: a diminished appetite for risk, a reluctance to invest fully in what comes next, and a growing suspicion that doing so is simply not worth it.

5. Be realistic, not idealistic

Moving from trying to eliminate disappointment to tolerating it can make it less destabilizing and more informative. As a manager, this might mean developing the habit of noting, at the outset of a project, what a realistic rather than an ideal result would look like.

Similar patterns can appear in relationships too, where expecting things to feel perfect all the time can make an otherwise good relationship seem lacking.

Research consistently shows that naming difficult emotions reduces their intensity, and that workplaces where disappointment can be discussed honestly tend to be psychologically safer, more creative, and better at learning from setbacks than those where such feelings are expected to be quietly moved past.

6. Accept disappointment, don’t dismiss it

Disappointment is uncomfortable because it confronts us with limits: to what we can control, to what organizations can deliver, or to what relationships can provide. An understandable instinct is to try to move past this quickly.

But a more constructive approach is to reflect on where our expectations come from, how they are formed, and whether they can be moderated in ways that benefit us. If disappointment is a signal that our expectations and reality are out of alignment, then understanding this may be one of the most important forms of resilience we can develop.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Buddy the dog and Snuggles the bunny are two of the five resilience habit animals that children at a Milwaukee school are learning to help themselves thrive. Buddy reminds kids they are not alone, and Snuggles represents kindness.

A violence prevention grant brought me into kindergarten through third-grade classrooms in early 2025 to help children use mindfulness and self-compassion practices to self-regulate, and we just wrapped up our time together. In my work as a teacher, I found myself learning just as much from them as they did from me about how these skills take root.

If you are a parent, teacher, or clinician, you might wonder how to translate abstract concepts like mindfulness and self-compassion into something a seven year old can actually use. Over a decade of teaching these skills in classrooms and with families, I’ve found that playful animal characters, when practiced in relationship, can become a voice children can carry inside to help them face hard moments with kindness.

Identifying your animal character

When I teach a lesson, I observe what causes children to lean in, and what makes them push back or disengage. One major thing I’ve observed is that kids love learning from animal characters and other kids. A group of children helped me create the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids, which features animal characters and real kids sharing their experiences throughout the two-volume series. Children also taught me that they enjoy activities that are playful and authentic.

This has been true across different contexts, including the Milwaukee school I’m working in, where 97% of students live in poverty and 1 in 5 have a special education plan. In my first year in the school, there was a large second-grade classroom that had a lot of self-regulation challenges and diverse reading abilities. Nonetheless, when I shared images from the workbook of animals or real kids talking about their feelings, students’ hands would soar in the air to read their quotes and share their own experiences on the interactive whiteboard.

We started our lessons each school year with an animal quiz. Our first year, kids did the Feelings Habit Animal quiz to uncover their habits around feelings. During our lesson time together, kids learn about five different patterns: Bear explodes with feelings, Beaver obsesses about feelings, Chameleon hides feelings, Deer feels ashamed of feelings, and Flame the dragon has a mix of these habits. The feelings habit animals offer children the opportunity to observe their patterns around feelings without judgment.

Sometimes at the beginning of a lesson, we play games of charades to playfully act out the animal habits. Kids feel affection toward the feelings animals, and they also know that each animal represents feelings habits of themselves and their classmates. Observing their own behaviors through an animal lens provides cognitive distance that can pave the way for wiser choices over time.

Once children have a way to notice what they are experiencing, the next step is learning how to respond. Our second year, students took the Resilience Habit Animal quiz to identify the animal habits that felt helpful when they struggle. Kristin Neff describes self-compassion as having three core components: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. In my work with kids, these components come to life through three resilience habit animals: Spots the giraffe helps kids notice their feelings, body sensations, and five senses; Buddy the dog reminds kids they are not alone; and Snuggles the bunny represents kindness.

Play is the language of children, and this is especially true for self-compassion. While kids are generally uninterested in practicing self-compassion when it’s called self-compassion, they are often eager to try the “Spots habit” or the “Buddy habit.” Not only are kids more engaged in the practices, but some kids report imagining the animals’ voices in their minds when they are struggling. This is true both in the classrooms I teach in as well as in research on the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Children and Caregivers program, which I developed as an adaptation of Neff and Christopher Germer’s Mindful Self-Compassion program.

Each year, I saw students eagerly engage with the quiz to find out which animals they had an affinity toward. Once they did, they felt more curious about the animals’ habits, and especially connected to “their” animals. While I didn’t know it at the time, there’s research that suggests that using animals to teach children can help them acquire social-emotional skills at an early age.

Animal stories, role plays, and songs

Modeling and practice between sessions are essential for building these habits, but without time for educator training, I had to get creative about helping kids practice more during our time together. I partnered with Brienne Barrows-Gallardo, a gifted early education teacher who works with preschoolers with autism, to help me develop engaging materials kids could use to practice.

We wrote a story for each resilience habit animal so kids could see the helpful habits in action. Then my own children helped me create story videos and songs, which aided kids in internalizing the resilience animals’ voices. I also made role-play kits with different phrases each animal could say.

For example, in one story, Flame the dragon was feeling upset, and Buddy reminded her that everyone feels upset sometimes. Because Flame can have multiple feelings habits, kids were able to choose how she responded using the choices in the role-play kit.

The children also had a picture of Buddy the dog to decorate or color, along with phrases that Buddy might say to soothe them.

As kids colored, the classroom teacher and I moved about the room engaging in role plays with them. One of my favorite moments was hearing the teacher pretend to be Flame with big Bear feelings, and a kindergartner responded, “Ms. B., it’s OK to feel like this. Everyone gets upset sometimes.”

Another week, after talking about how Bear has big feelings, the kids and I did a group role play on the carpet helping Bear with the Snuggles habit. Then the kids had the opportunity to decorate Snuggles the bunny while we rotated around to practice. A child who often has big feelings didn’t like how she was coloring her page, so she ripped her paper in half and threw it on the floor. I walked over to her desk, and acknowledged that she was having big feelings. She looked up at me, and her eyes flashed with recognition. She was having the Bear habit! Instead of spiraling, as she often does, she picked up her paper, and we taped it back together. This is the power of awareness.

The feelings habit animals not only help kids with awareness (the Spots habit), they also help kids to feel less alone with big feelings. Kids know that other kids share their feelings habits, and, in this way, common humanity (the Buddy habit) is linked with the animal.

Barrows-Gallardo also created social stories that could be used with the children with autism in her classroom. Research suggests that using animal characters can help children on the autism spectrum learn social-emotional skills. In the classrooms, I noticed that a number of neurodivergent children were highly engaged in learning about the resilience and feelings habit animals. One child astutely observed that we didn’t need to practice the feelings animal habits because they are already “built in.”

Children also loved embodying the action-oriented resilience animals, like Super Snuggles and Doodles the dolphin. Doodles encourages kids to take helpful actions like moving their body and trying their best.

When they step into these animal roles, children aren’t just learning the habits; they are becoming them. Research has found a similar effect: When children imagine themselves as strong or capable characters like Batman, they are more likely to persist through challenges.

One parent whose son did the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids told me that her son, who also had the Bear habit, had to do vision therapy. He had a little stuffed bear that represented the bear from the workbook that had big feelings. When he felt frustrated with his vision therapy, he would look at his bear, and it would comfort him. For him, seeing his bear feelings animal helped him remember “I am not alone” and “I can handle this.”

The role of the caregiver

As beautiful as it is to see children practicing self-compassion with the animal characters, I know it’s not enough for the practice to fully take root. The work we started through the violence prevention grant will only go deeper if the teachers understand, practice, and reinforce self-compassion next school year. The principal of the school and I are trying to arrange inservices for the teachers next year to help them grow their own self-compassion practice and support students with continued practice. This is because my relational four-step framework for helping kids grow self-compassion begins with the caregiver.

As parents, teachers, and caregivers, the best place to begin is with our own mindfulness and self-compassion practice. We can do this alongside a child, or on our own. When we model being mindful of struggles, it helps kids remember that everyone struggles sometimes. And when we model self-kindness, it helps kids learn to do the same. Children learn from watching us say, “I feel upset, and I know that everyone gets upset sometimes. I’m going to be OK.”

Kids also internalize how caregivers speak to them. We want to be the voices of Buddy and Snuggles, reminding kids, “You’re not alone. I care about you.” There are many ways to help kids grow self-compassion in daily life, and our presence is just as important as our words.

Self-compassion takes root through supportive relationships and playful animals that bring it to life. From Sesame Street to Daniel Tiger to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, children have always learned emotional skills through the characters they love. Over time, these characters can become something even more powerful: a compassionate inner voice that children carry with them for life.

This is what’s known as “anticipatory grief”—a reaction to loss that hasn’t yet occurred. While it’s fairly common to experience it for a loved one facing a terminal illness, you can also experience it in other potential loss situations, like retiring from a fulfilling career, a child going away to college, or divorce. It often involves a liminal state of being, like what I experienced, that can wreak havoc with your well-being and interfere with your ability to be present.

While similar to after-loss grief, anticipatory grief has its own issues and trajectories that can make it hard to manage, says Alan Wolfelt, director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and an expert on the topic. While you may lean toward ignoring or pushing away these complex emotions, denying your grief and suffering silently will probably not help you or your loved ones cope better.

“Too often, people are trying to be happy at times when they should be sad, and that inhibits their ability to fully integrate a life transition into their world,” says Wolfelt. “We can better cope with realities we face by acknowledging them.”

Anticipatory grief, like after-loss grief, can be painful. But by understanding what it’s like and giving yourself permission to explore its many facets, you might be able to mitigate some of the pain and move through it with more intention.

Similar and different from regular grief

Like grief after a loss, anticipated grief can involve strong and varied emotions. You may feel happy, sad, angry, confused, worried, relieved, guilty, and more, and the feelings may arise at seemingly random moments, sometimes overwhelming you. Your feelings can be hard to explain even to yourself, let alone others.

For example, imagine your teenage son is applying to colleges. Suddenly, you’re hit with the reality that he’ll be leaving home soon and your life will change dramatically. You may feel sad anticipating losing your son’s everyday presence, look forward to a new, freer chapter in your life, or both. You may feel pride and joy for his bright future, but fear losing your close relationship and your role as his parent.

These myriad emotions can be disorienting—but it’s important to honor them, however they show up, says Wolfelt.

“The more open acknowledgement you can have of what your genuine, authentic emotions are, the better,” he says.

While grieving a death may seem natural and expected, anticipatory grief may come with some resistance, like telling yourself (or other people telling you) there’s no reason to feel what you’re feeling. However, according to Wolfelt, denying your pain only adds to it, negatively affecting your everyday well-being. A better way to handle anticipatory grief is to own it and process it through mourning.

“Grief is the internal response, the thoughts and feelings inside,” he says. “In contrast, mourning is the shared social response or grief gone public; it’s taking your grief and putting it into action. That creates change or movement.”

The importance of mourning

There are known, socially acceptable ways to mourn someone who’s died, like funerals, sitting Shiva, Dia de los Muertos, and other rituals. While there may be fewer structured ways to manage anticipatory grief, we can help ourselves through the experience by understanding the importance of mourning in processing grief.

“Mourning helps you integrate loss and be transformed by your grief,” says Wolfelt. “You get stuck if you grieve but don’t mourn.”

The very nature of anticipatory grief (or any grief) is that it can feel different from one moment to the next, and from one person to another. That means our mourning needs may change over time. No one needs to follow a specific pattern, says Wolfelt, but we all need to pay attention and take our grief seriously.

This may be easier or harder, depending on several factors. How close you were to a person, your cultural or spiritual beliefs, and differences in your personality and gender can all influence how you mourn and how effective you are at managing grief versus staying stuck in it.

“If you have low social support, a history of anxiety, a history of a [strongly] dependent relationship with the person (for example, you haven’t expanded your social support system beyond the person who’s dying); those are risk factors that research clearly shows can make it more challenging for you,” he says.

A healthier way to mourn

While no one needs to mourn in the same way, Wolfelt suggests in his guidebook on the topic that people try to meet six specific needs to get through the experience:

1. Acknowledge that you are grieving and the reality of your loss. You may feel it’s too hard to acknowledge the impending loss, but denial doesn’t help. Instead, acknowledging all emotions is a better path toward well-being, even in the midst of grief. Facing your reality more squarely can help you figure out what you need.

“Thinking of yourself in this way will help you be both self-compassionate and honest about how challenging your current circumstances are,” he writes.

2. Embrace all of your emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. Anticipatory grief is marked by changing, intense emotions. Naming them can help to tame them, making them less overwhelming. You can also try reframing the meaning of your feelings to make them less problematic, such as recognizing grief as a facet of loving someone deeply.

If you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed by grief, Wolfelt recommends dosing it—meaning, letting yourself fully experience your emotions, but limiting how long you do that. When not focusing on your grief, it’s fine to distract yourself, evade thoughts, or do whatever you want to keep your grief from being so dominant, he adds.

“There’s a balance to be had between doing the work of anticipating loss and in balancing that with the ability to stay present in the here and now,” he says.

This may be especially important when taking care of someone you will be losing, as caregiving often requires a more outward than inward focus. Having a way to care for your emotional needs outside of that role can be helpful.

3. Explore memories of the love or attachment you’re losing. This may seem like a step to avoid, but Wolfelt says it’s important for managing anticipatory grief. Reviewing past memories allows you to create a narrative around what is happening, something humans need to help make sense of their lives and feel congruency. Research suggests that allowing ourselves to feel nostalgia for the past has many benefits, including putting us in touch with our authentic selves and what matters in life.

“The more time and attention you devote to exploring memories and sharing and discussing them with others, the more your sense of peace will grow,” writes Wolfelt.

4. Develop a new self-identity. Often our relationships are part of our identity—we are a partner, a mother, a daughter, or a colleague. Our impending loss may make us question who we are in the world. It’s important to recognize that and address it.

For example, if you’re losing your wife of many years, through divorce or death, your friendships may be affected and your social circle may shrink; once-shared activities may no longer appeal or be possible. While you may grieve this transition and the changes it brings, it also opens up possibilities to embrace new roles in life.

“Change is often both a loss and an opportunity, even if it’s an opportunity you would never willingly have chosen,” writes Wolfelt.

5. Search for meaning in the experience. When facing loss, many of us begin to question the meaning of our lives. “It’s important to focus on meaning and purpose, both in the attachment that is ending and in your continued living,” writes Wolfelt. This might take you into spiritual territory, stimulating questions about why you exist, what it all means, and how you can go on.

Seeking meaning from your experience can help one cope in the present with difficult future losses as well as later on, after the loss has occurred. To help explore that, Wolfelt suggests reading inspiring texts, meditating or praying, talking with spiritual advisors, journaling, or spending more time in nature. Whatever puts you closer to your own sense of meaning will help you find peace, and more reasons to get up in the morning if you are feeling dragged down.

6. Reach out to others for support. As mourning is an outward experience of inner pain, finding other people who can listen as you grapple with your emotions, memories, and questions about life’s meaning can be soothing and helpful.

“You might feel undeserving of attention because the ultimate loss hasn’t really happened yet. But I’m here to tell you that your current grief is completely real, valid, and necessary. And there are others who will understand,” he writes.

Look for someone who can listen empathically without trying to guide you (or bully you) into feeling better, he says. No one experiencing anticipatory grief should ever be pushed into something that doesn’t feel right or given pat phrases that discount their pain.

“Cliches can be very painful to somebody who’s experiencing grief—trite comments like, ‘You’re holding up so well, time heals all wounds, think of what you still have to be thankful for,’” he says. “While well intended, they’re often misinformed and are a projection from the outside in.”

Choosing whom exactly to share with can be tricky. But you can look to family and close friends, support groups experiencing the same types of anticipated loss, spiritual advisors, or professional counselors, writes Wolfelt.

“Find people that can walk into the metaphorical wilderness of grief and honor that you’re in a liminal space, without feeling the need to pull you to the left or right or to pull you out,” he says. “Those are the genuine, compassionate people that we need in our lives.”

If approaching someone with your grief feels too daunting, you can still help yourself by just being around people more generally. We all need social connection for our health and happiness, and having a fun night out with friends, small interactions with neighbors, or a coffee at the local café can make you feel less alone, even if you don’t explicitly talk to anyone about your grief.

Dealing well with grief is a life skill

We will all face loss at some point in our lives—but we’ll only anticipate grief when the loss involves someone we love. Love and grief go hand in hand, says Wolfelt, making it central to a life well-lived.

“The capacity to give and receive love means we will likely mourn someday,” he says. But living in a “mourning-avoidant, emotion-phobic” culture, he adds, we don’t always have the right tools handy for guiding ourselves or others through it.

To be better prepared, it’s wise for us all to cultivate the skills that will serve us well in times of grief and loss. Having greater emotional intelligence, mindful attention, meaning and purpose, social connection, and hope can all help, says Wolfelt. Fortunately, these can all be deliberately practiced long before a loss comes along, helping us lead healthier, happier lives overall.

“These are central needs. The more you can befriend those needs, the more you integrate loss into your life,” he says.

A multitude of studies have linked spending time in nature with different aspects of mental health and wellness. For example, immersing oneself in outdoor natural spaces seems to lift depression and influence brain activity patterns. The effect may be especially relevant in children. But most research on this question has looked at people living in so-called WEIRD societies—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

As environmental psychologists based in the U.S. and in Germany, we were part of a team of more than 100 researchers who set out to examine this phenomenon on a global scale and determine how consistent it is around the world.

Across countries as diverse as Brazil, Japan, Nigeria, Germany, and Indonesia, we saw a clear pattern: People who felt more connected to nature also reported higher well-being.

Worldwide oneness with nature

Researchers who study people’s relationship with the natural world often use the term “nature connectedness.” This phrase doesn’t simply mean going hiking or visiting a park. Nature connectedness refers to the extent to which people see nature as part of who they are—whether they feel an emotional bond with the natural world and experience a sense of oneness with it.

Someone who has a high degree of nature connectedness might agree with statements like “My relationship to nature is an important part of who I am.” It reflects identity and meaning, not just exposure.

We drew on data collected between 2020 and 2022 from more than 38,000 participants through a large international collaboration that was established to gauge how people responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants came from 75 countries and were on average in their teens, 20s, or 30s. They completed questionnaires that explored the link between people’s bond with nature and several aspects of well-being.

The questionnaires probed people’s sense of purpose in life; their feelings of hope, life satisfaction, and optimism; their sense of resilience; and their ability to cope with stress they felt; as well as whether they practice mindfulness as they go through their everyday life.

Across this large international sample, we found that people who felt more connected to nature consistently reported higher levels of well-being and mindfulness. This was true not just for feeling satisfied with life but also for deeper aspects of flourishing, such as having a sense of direction and meaning. And these associations held even when accounting for age and gender.

Does national context matter?

We also explored whether specific characteristics of a country strengthen the benefits of feeling connected with nature.

For example, we looked at things such as how well countries take care of their air, and water systems and ecosystems, as well as whether citizens have equal access to education, democratic participation, and other key social and financial resources, and whether cultures tend to prioritize collective well-being over individual priorities. There were some differences, but the main takeaway was pretty clear: A connection with nature and well-being shows up across a wide range of economic, cultural, and environmental contexts.

In other words, the psychological benefits of feeling connected to nature do not appear to be limited to wealthy Western nations or specific cultural worldviews.

Why might connection matter?

One reason why feeling a connection with nature may be linked to well-being is that nature connectedness fosters mindfulness—the ability to be present and attentive.

In our data, people who had a stronger sense of nature connectedness tended to have a higher degree of mindfulness, which is itself strongly linked to mental health.

Another possibility is that bonding with nature may also make people more resilient. People who feel connected to something larger than themselves may find it easier to cope with stress and uncertainty. A sense of belonging—even to the natural world—can provide psychological grounding in a world characterized by stressors. There may also be a feedback loop: Feeling better may encourage people to engage more deeply with nature, strengthening the bond over time.

Implications for policy and everyday life

These findings matter beyond academic debates. Around the world, policymakers are increasingly recognizing the links between human health and environmental sustainability. International agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, a landmark treaty signed by 196 countries in 1992, emphasize the importance of restoring humanity’s relationship with nature.

These policy actions seek to protect Earth’s ecosystems, but our results suggest they may also benefit people’s psychological well-being. Similarly, designing cities with accessible green spaces, incorporating nature-based experiences into schools, and supporting community engagement with local environments may do more than beautify neighborhoods—they may also help people flourish.

Across cultures, languages, and economic systems, feeling connected to the natural world is consistently linked to living a more hopeful, purposeful, and resilient life. At a time when mental health challenges are rising globally, reconnecting with nature is not a luxury but a fundamental—and widely shared—human need.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You’d think, given my professional focus and personal interests, that I would fall into that 12% of self-aware people. But in some areas of my life, I’m not. For example, I think of myself as a healthy eater. But when I wear a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which gives me clear data on how my body responds to sleep, stress, and food, I behave differently than when I’m not wearing one.

It’s not that I don’t know that a blackberry cream scone is going to shoot my blood sugar out of range; I do. But if I’m not wearing a CGM, I don’t think about it. I keep that truth conveniently outside of my awareness. If I am wearing a CGM, however, I know I won’t be able to avoid the alarm signaling that my blood sugar is too high, and, therefore, I won’t be able to avoid the truth. I will be aware of what is going on within me, and that awareness will motivate me to skip the scone—rather than avoid the truth.

For all our self-focus, it can be genuinely hard to keep reality in our range of vision. But when we do, we’re much more likely to follow through with our habits for health and happiness.

What self-awareness is not

Self-awareness requires more than navel-gazing. Psychologists draw a sharp line between helpful inward-looking and two unhealthy modes of self-focus. One is rumination—when we replay our failures, rehearse anxieties, and return repeatedly to the same bruising thoughts. Another is closer to narcissism: a preoccupation with our self-image that is mistaken for self-insight. Both feel like self-knowledge, but neither improves our health, habits, or happiness. (To the contrary, both increase depression and anxiety.)

Self-awareness is the capacity to non-judgmentally observe ourselves: what we’re doing, feeling, and thinking. Rumination is a loop of distress; self-awareness asks What is happening for me right now? What am I doing? What am I feeling? Reflective, curious, non-judgmental self-examination predicts personal growth, while rumination and self-consciousness actively undermine it.

There are many reasons we don’t turn inward to mindfully observe ourselves. The demands on our attention from the outside world are loud. It can be painful to look closely at ourselves, our lives, and our habits. We become so practiced at managing the external world that our internal worlds quietly go unexamined. This is unfortunate because people high in self-awareness tend to be happier, have higher self-esteem, and are more resilient.

Self-awareness is a superpower

When we want to get into a new habit, most of us approach it as a willpower problem, willing ourselves to change through sheer force. A more effective path starts with self-awareness. Here’s why:

Self-awareness can help you catch triggers before they catch you. Two-thirds of our daily behaviors happen on autopilot—like mindless snacking, sitting too long, and reaching for our phones. Self-monitoring (a direct application of self-awareness) can bring those automatic behaviors into conscious view. You can’t interrupt a pattern you can’t see, and so a critical first step in changing unwanted behavior is recognizing what sets it off.

As you notice patterns in your thoughts and emotions, you’ll better understand when and why you do certain things. Understanding that you reach for unhealthy snacks when you’re bored versus when you’re anxious opens the door to different solutions. Similarly, understanding that you are more likely to exercise when you do it with a friend can help you follow through more often.

It motivates you. Heightened self-awareness leads people to be more conscious of the gap between where they are and where they want to be—and more motivated to close that gap. This type of noticing isn’t about self-criticism; it’s about being clear-eyed.

Also, research consistently shows that intrinsic motivation—doing something because it aligns with your own values and interests, not because someone else told you to—produces more lasting change. Self-awareness is how you access that intrinsic drive, because you have to understand yourself to know what you genuinely care about.

It rewires your brain’s reward system. When self-awareness allows us to align our behaviors with our deeper values, those behaviors actually feel better to the brain. When a new behavior is encoded as more rewarding, we start doing it more effortlessly.

How to be more self-aware

Measure the behaviors and outcomes you care about. Like me with my CGM, in studies of people trying to change their eating habits, participants who tracked their food reported genuine surprise about their eating patterns, which motivated them to change. Simply tracking what you’re doing is one of the most consistently effective tools for behavior change we have. Wearables like Oura Rings allow us to see and improve dozens of behaviors within our control, and when we pair what we learn from a wearable with self-reflection about how we feel after doing something good for us, we give the brain the information it needs to update its reward system—making healthy choices feel better and easier to repeat.

Practice self-compassion when you fall short. One of the most surprising bridges to genuine self-awareness is self-compassion. BetterUp research shows that it is the single best predictor of a person’s ability to manage stress, with people high in self-compassion showing 26% lower stress, 33% more resilience, and 24% lower burnout. Why? Self-compassion lowers the psychological threat of looking honestly at yourself.

When we approach our struggles, failures, and blind spots with kindness rather than judgment, we no longer need to protect ourselves from our own criticism or embarrassment; a willingness to look without flinching makes hard truths bearable enough to learn from.

Ask yourself “what” questions, not “why” questions. When we want to understand ourselves better, the instinct is to ask why: Why did I do that? Why do I feel this way? But “why” is surprisingly ineffective as a self-awareness question. “Why” questions tend to produce stories and justifications rather than genuine insight, and often send us straight into rumination. “What” questions work differently. Instead of Why am I so stressed?, try What situations are making me feel stressed, and what do they have in common? Instead of Why can’t I stick to this habit?, try What is getting in the way, and what would make it easier? “What” keeps us curious, specific, and forward-facing—which is the posture self-awareness requires.

Ask a coach or trusted friend what they see. The path to self-knowledge is often interpersonal: Feedback from people who know us well and have our best interests at heart can reveal aspects of ourselves that introspection alone cannot. We all have blind spots, and no amount of looking inward will show us what we can’t see. Seeking honest observations from others is a reliable way to close the gap between how we see ourselves and how we actually are. It can be as simple as asking a friend or a spouse after a hard week: What do you notice about me right now that I might not be seeing?

Try meditation. Meditation has many cognitive benefits and can lead to brain changes that increase self-awareness. Even a few minutes of sitting quietly, noticing what you’re thinking and feeling without trying to change or suppress it, trains the helpful kind of inward attention needed to truly “know thyself.”

Self-awareness is a skill that improves with practice. But we don’t need to overhaul our lives or spend hours in meditation to develop it. We just need to be curious and nonjudgmental about what we’re doing, feeling, and thinking in any given moment.

In a world that rewards busyness and performance, turning inward can feel indulgent or even risky. But self-awareness isn’t a detour from your best life; it’s the fastest route to it.

The realization that dating can be a valuable activity in and of itself, rather than a zero-sum game where a “bad” date means a waste of time, led me to become a dating coach in 2020. I became a different kind of dating coach. Not one who says, “let’s figure out how to manipulate someone into wanting you,” but rather someone who cheers you into viewing every single dating interaction as an opportunity for empowerment. And fun, too, because that’s an essential part of dating successfully. If the goal is to create a fun and fulfilling relationship with another human, the process should reflect it!

But in a world where humans often treat each other as objects of entertainment, disposable ego-boosts, or “needs-fulfilling machines,” what does it actually look like to date with integrity and meaning? Are there steps and principles for creating a hopeful paradigm of dating? Taking things a step further—can dating be used for the greater good?

As a scholar and a coach, the most satisfying thing in the world (at least, to my brain) is to create frameworks that bridge theory with practice. To take big problems, and to be able to say, “I’ve got a framework for that.”

Enter my framework: The six pillars of mindful dating.

In this context, mindful refers to one’s commitment to awareness and integrity, versus the outdated rulebooks, automatic responses, and bad behaviors that often prevail in the dating sphere.

Practicing mindful dating is about letting go of old scripts around love, seduction, and roles, and instead, using the entire process of dating—online and offline—as a playground for developing the authentic presence and relational skills you need to love well in each moment.

Mindful dating actually lays the ground for relationships that are based on truth rather than performance, and true intimacy rather than transactionality. It is particularly resonant for people who practice mindfulness elsewhere in their lives—but might feel at a loss when it comes to dating with integrity rather than self-abandonment.

Deep visioning: owning your WHY

Hiroko came into my virtual office declaring she was ready to get married. She wanted to find her person, and to live the dream of a wedded life—yesterday. She had decided to recruit a dating coach to help her locate her future husband.

Her dating life had been a self-proclaimed disaster so far. She went on many dates, but they never progressed into any kind of commitment. I started asking questions about her deeper motivations: “Why do you want to get married?” Hiroko responded emphatically, “Because it’s that time of life! All my friends are getting married, and I want it too. The wedding, the dress, the Instagram pictures… It seems like the right thing to do. I’m 30 years old!” I further inquired: “What kind of relationship would you like to have? How do you feel about living with someone under the same roof and sharing the mundane parts of daily life?”

The response was illuminating. She expressed that she was dreading the daily realities of partnered life. Part of her was afraid of feeling stuck with the same person, of entering a “boring, sedate life.” She also wanted a life of inspiration, the freedom to focus on her art, and the freedom, potentially, to have more than one partner. At the same time, she craved the social advantages of traditional marriage.

Hiroko wanted two things at once: the social approval, validation, and status that would come with marriage as a major marker of “success” at her stage of life. Another part of her wanted to retain her autonomy, be free, and live alone.

The first step in developing a mindful dating approach with Hiroko was to come to terms with what she wanted from a deeper place—and getting clear on her personal and relational values. After a few sessions, she owned a deeper truth: she wanted the perks of marriage, but not the reality of it. She would redirect her dating efforts towards finding romantic partners with whom she could embody her values of freedom and independence, rather than attempting to fit herself into the traditional mold.

Owning our truest WHY for dating is the first step in creating an aligned dating life. If you are dating on auto-pilot and feeling disappointing results, ask yourself: Why am I dating? What does love and intimacy really mean to me in the spectrum of my life’s purpose? What am I hoping to experience? What are my socially conditioned values, versus my chosen values? Would dating with more integrity require disrupting a social script, and if so, am I willing to do so?

There are no right or wrong answers here, but a sincere inquiry into these questions leads to deeper intentionality with dating, and more aligned results.

Cultivating an empowered self-concept

A big part of dating, online and offline, is deciding how to communicate about oneself. Research shows that how we conceptualize ourselves, and particularly, with what degree of clarity, directly impacts our chances of selecting a compatible mate. Two retrospective studies by McGill University graduate students in experimental psychology found that people with lower self-concept clarity experienced more challenges making dating decisions and were more likely to date incompatible people.

Of course, what we believe about ourselves is going to deeply influence our communication. Many of us have learned to conceal our tender and vulnerable sides in order to be accepted by others, so we show up on the dating scene hiding our true selves. While that’s completely understandable, too much hiding means that no one can truly see you—making it nearly impossible to generate vibrant emotional intimacy.

Mindful dating is an opportunity to practice empowered self-expression, beginning with adopting an empowered self-narrative.

For example, one of my dating coaching clients was an exceptionally funny, bubbly, and spiritually engaged gay man who practiced meditation regularly. When I initially looked at his dating profile, I was shocked to see overly generic statements. It read something like this:

“I’m an accountant, financially stable. I like walks on the beach and travel, and I’m looking for a long-term relationship.”

Also, he was wearing sunglasses in all his pictures—making it impossible to see the brilliant spark in his eyes. When I pointed out he seemed to be hiding his true self from potential suitors, he revealed that he had repeatedly been rejected and mocked for his spirituality and humor—both by his family of origin and by previous partners. He realized that he was now preventing folks who would honor and adore these qualities in him from finding and recognizing him. He then courageously took steps to show the broader range of his true self—adding clear photos of him meditating, being goofy, and reading books, and disclosing his wide array of interests and passions within the profile. Almost instantly, the quality of matches and connections he experienced on the app started to rise!

Learning to embrace and express an empowered self-concept is not arrogance. It’s about leading with your gifts—and what Ken Page would call core gifts in his book, Deeper Dating. According to Page, core gifts are those precious parts of us that we often learn to repress during childhood, to make people around us comfortable—for example, our thirst for love, our sensitivity, our empathy, or our exuberance—but these are the parts that constitute our deepest spark, and are foundational to our ability to experience true intimacy.

Removing the veil from one’s wholesome expression is a healing journey that begins with self-reclamation, and leads to much more compatible dates. Sharing one’s gifts in dating can be vulnerable, but it can be a definitive movement away from old patterns of self-repression, and towards a commitment to authenticity.

Developing an authentic dating strategy

The third pillar is all about action! As you clarify your dating why and develop an empowered self-concept and narrative, the next question becomes: How do I integrate dating into my life in a way that is congruent with my values, interests, and lifestyle?

Forgive the financial analogy—but my recommendation is to develop an aligned dating portfolio. This is about selecting an assortment of ways you can meet new people, so that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket (just like stocks!)

This will most likely include online and offline components.

For example, one of my dating coaching clients decided to attend two in-person events per week, prioritizing dating events—and to use a dating app for 10 minutes per day. He also reached out to his community to ask for introductions to single friends they would vouch for and match his criteria. That way, he would avoid focusing entirely on online dating, and would try out different events where he could also meet new people locally—art openings, volunteer days, dinner clubs, hiking meetups, and singles’ nights. He would use this time not only to scan the room for possible love interests (although that was definitely part of it), he also utilized these opportunities to practice communication skills like asking powerful questions and listening more deeply.

As you might guess, this client built a rich social life and met lots of single women, with common interests, both online and offline. By not over-relying on dating apps, he kept dating fun, vibrant, and alive.

Practicing mindful swiping

I get it: Online dating can feel soul-sucking and dehumanizing. Algorithms gamify dating and make us feel as if we are products on a shelf, rather than whole, complex human beings with intrinsic values. Psychology researchers have even coined a word for this transactional mentality: Relationshopping. Adding the prevalence of dating app burnout to the mix, it is fair to say that dating technologies have an uncanny ability to throw us into swirls of negativity and powerlessness.

That said, most couples do meet online nowadays—and, remarkably, some research shows that relationships originating from online dating are more successful than those that started offline. In a nationally representative sample of 19,131 respondents, the late social psychologist John T. Cacioppo and colleagues found that marriages that began online were slightly less likely to result in a breakup, and reported slightly higher marital satisfaction than their offline counterparts. Perhaps a reason to not ditch dating apps just yet?

I argue that it is crucial to develop a mindful approach to social technologies—and this pillar can help you do just that. Even if you do not select online dating as part of your “dating portfolio,” you may use the principles of mindful swiping to bring mindfulness and digital hygiene into any technology use, particularly social media.

Mindful Swiping is a framework to help us use online dating as a mindfulness practice. I have created an entire workshop and blog on this, but here are the Cliffs notes.

Ritualize your use of the apps. Stop swiping “mindlessly” (dopamine-seeking, addiction-like, or angry swiping)—and create a ritual time and space around your use of the apps. I recommend turning off notifications, so that you are in charge of when and where you swipe. Every time you use the apps (and I suggest no more than 15 minutes per day), breathe deeply; be aware of your somatic state and physical posture, and reconnect with your intentions.

Creating an authentic and empowered profile. Your profile is your canvas! Use the process of profile creation as an act of genuine and truthful self-expression. Pick photos that feel like the real you, and tell a visual story. In the writeup, communicate unique qualities, interests, and values that convey the breadth and range of who you are.

Practice discernment while swiping. When swiping, use your rational mind AND your embodied intuition. What types of emotions, character, and values do they convey? Do these align with yours? Observe yourself and why you tend to swipe right or left. Remind yourself what you’re looking for.

Practice loving-kindness. Online dating is an opportunity to practice loving-kindness—a Buddhist meditation focused on sending goodwill to oneself and to others. It can rehumanize online dating by helping us remember there is a three-dimensional human on the other side of the app—a soul, a heart, a body that’s longing to be loved, just like you.

Communicating to connect

Communication in early dating can be tricky. When a connection is new, it is naturally precarious, and ripe for misunderstandings. The fact that most people rely on texting to connect with new love interests means the non-verbal elements of early interactions easily get lost. That’s why learning to communicate with clarity, authenticity, and deep curiosity is one of the most crucial skills in developing trust and intimacy.

Before you can communicate truthfully, you have to discern what it is you really feel, want, and need—not imagining and complying with what other people expect you to say. In psychological terms, that ability is called differentiation of self: It is at the core of having a sense of agency and empowerment, and is vital to building healthy partnerships and relationships of all kinds.

Once you identify your needs and feelings, you must gather the courage to express them directly (and kindly, of course). Stating your real desires means you might hear “no” for an answer, which can be terrifying. Many people do not communicate clearly because they are sensitive to rejection. On the other hand, hearing “yes” might be just as terrifying—but oh, so exciting!—because that means actual intimacy, and being seen in your truth, is within reach.

In any case, communicating with clarity is an act of kindness—to yourself, and to the other. It is a crucial part of laying a path for success no matter the outcome!

Navigating challenging emotions and integrating learning

Dating has a way of bringing up challenging emotions: Rejection, comparison, loneliness, shame, disappointment, envy, jealousy, judgment, anger, hopelessness. There is no way to completely avoid challenging feelings while keeping one’s heart open.

However, what we can do is change our relationship to those feelings. We can learn to embrace these emotions, and utilize them to grow, learn, and transform, rather than hide away and judge ourselves. In Buddhism, there is the idea that life unavoidably brings pain, in the form of loss, disappointment, or other challenging experiences: That’s the first arrow. But when we judge and condemn ourselves for feeling these emotions, that is the second arrow—the suffering we inflict upon ourselves. The first arrow is inevitable; but the second is optional.

In dating, we cannot avoid challenging emotions altogether—but we can be kind and compassionate to ourselves, and learn to become better friends with ourselves while doing it.

I always invite my clients and workshop attendees to practice positive defiance. That means choosing to keep an open heart and to practice love, kindness, and self-compassion in the face of emotional challenges and negative self-talk. It’s choosing to approach life from a lens of acceptance, growth, and liberation—rather than constantly evaluating whether we got the short or long end of the stick.

What truly supports folks in that realm is to create a love-filled life with abundant friendships, community, activities, mutual care, and passions. When one is engaged with love, generosity, and kindness on a daily basis, romantic disappointments still hurt—but they take a much softer landing, and do not feel like existential loss.

In sum, dating doesn’t have to feel like a means to an end: It can literally become an art form when you leave the old beliefs and patterns behind, and learn to act from a deeper source of self-expression, authenticity, and self-love.

Minor annoyances like this happen all of the time in life. We’re on a long hold with a customer service rep, forget our wallet at the store, stub our toe on an uneven surface, or find ourselves in a traffic jam. Whatever the cause—ourselves or someone else—these small hassles upset our peace of mind.

While we can’t avoid daily nuisances, we can change how we respond to them—and evidence suggests we should. The way we react to annoyances can be more important than how many we actually face. If we don’t know how to lessen the impacts, it hurts our personal well-being in the moment and it can affect our long-term health and relationships.

“It’s surprising, but research shows that [daily hassles] have as much, and sometimes more, effects than major life events on our well-being,” says Melanie Greenberg, clinical psychologist and author of the book The Stress-Proof Brain.

The likely reason for this is that major life events, like a divorce or death, are rare, while minor hassles can occur every day. Learning how to let go of our annoyance more easily is good for us and for others. Indeed, letting go can be an act of kindness to the people we love.

How daily hassles affect us

There’s no such thing as a stress-free life—and that’s a good thing. Moderate amounts of short-lived stress can help us to perform better and become more resilient.

But if we characteristically react poorly to minor annoyances—if we let them get the best of us—it can it affect our physical, mental, and social well-being.

Feeling irritated sets off the release of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that prepare our bodies to respond to danger. While not problematic in itself, a stress response than happens too frequently or doesn’t dissipate quickly can cause wear and tear on our bodies and exhaust us. That’s why daily annoyances may harm our well-being, lead to depression, worsen our long-term health, and decrease our overall life satisfaction.

Less direct, but no less consequential, is how feelings of irritation can spill over into our relationships. If we’re stressed out by minor things, we may react badly, says Greenberg, by “saying the wrong thing or taking things the wrong way.”

“If we’re not calming to be around, people may not feel as close to us,” she says, which could lessen the kind of social support we need for good health. Lashing out at others when we’re annoyed is more likely to backfire than help make an irritating situation better. It can even be dangerous, like when our inability to curb our frustration over a reckless driver turns into road rage.

Not taking out our frustration directly on other people can have social consequences, too, though. For example, wallowing in a bad mood, muttering to ourselves, or slamming a door in frustration is bound to put the people around us on edge. Even those folks we don’t interact with much—like the barista at your coffee shop—may read our tense body language and behave differently, says Greenberg.

“We [humans] react to the way others respond to us. So, if we emanate a more chronically stressed-out vibe, I think we’ll get more stressed out or negative responses in return,” says Greenberg.

Trying to keep our irritation bottled up and letting it simmer isn’t the answer, either. Repressing our feelings stops us from recognizing what we need in the moment and can lead us to disconnect from others—or, worse, result in outward aggression.

Luckily, there are better ways to handle everyday annoyances that protect us and the people around us from harm.

How to handle annoyances more wisely

It’s important to note that we can’t always control how much we will experience hassles in life or how we’ll respond to them. Individual differences in our age, gender, education, environment, genetics, and past experiences may all contribute to how many everyday annoyances we’ll face and how we’ll react in the moment.

But even when our individual characteristics or experiences make annoyances harder to handle, there are tools we can use to soothe irritation before it creates more problems. Here are four suggestions for doing that.

1. Practice mindful acceptance. Mindful acceptance entails recognizing present thoughts and feelings and accepting them as they are. If we can mindfully tune into our bodies when faced with minor stressors, it can help us relax and manage the hard feelings better.

“At the first sign of going into an activated, stressed-out state, you can pause and do a mindful check-in—ground yourself, feel your feet on the ground, slow your breathing,” says Greenberg. “The earlier you catch yourself, the easier it is to do something about it.”

Research suggests that people who practice mindful awareness may be less triggered by everyday frustrations and better able to let them go. This can help our interpersonal interactions.

“When we’re mindful, when we’re present, we can soothe each other and connect. When we’re in a state of stress, it’s much harder to do that,” says Greenberg.

2. Reframe the little things. The second major technique is to reframe annoyances. Part of the reason a minor hassle can become more upsetting is that we overlay it with harmful interpretations. For example, if I take my husband’s lapse as a sign that he doesn’t care about my feelings, I may become more upset than if I put it down to something innocuous, like fatigue and distraction. Not every annoyance, however it feels, is a personal affront.

“A lot of the stuff [couples] argue about is just stupid stuff,” like replacing the toilet paper roll or how to load the dishwasher, says Greenberg. “But it takes on this huge significance because of how they’re seeing it as evidence that person doesn’t care about them or they’re not being heard.”

Reframing is similar to a technique used in cognitive-behavioral therapy, where patients are taught to question their negative interpretation of events and consider alternate explanations. While reframing won’t change the annoying situation itself, it can help negative feelings dissipate more quickly.

Another way we can reframe our experience is by seeing an annoyance as just an unavoidable facet of life or small in the face of other concerns, says Greenberg. When triggered, she suggests asking ourselves, What’s the big picture here? How important is this, really, especially compared to everything going on in my life? Is this something I even have control over? Asking questions like these helps us see our situation more objectively, as a small blip that doesn’t need to hijack our mood.

“Trying to take a step back and broaden our view can help us be like a fly on the wall, giving us a more distanced [perspective],” says Greenberg.

3. Practice self-compassion and empathy. When things go wrong, we can sometimes be overly critical of ourselves. Greenberg warns about the problems with being perfectionistic and assuming the world will always run smoothly when that’s just not realistic.

“Sometimes we’re stressed out by the small stuff because we are being hard on ourselves,” she says. “Instead, taking a step back and telling yourself that you don’t have to do it all perfectly, that you’re doing a pretty good job given all that you’re facing, can calm the nervous system.”

Practicing self-compassion—being mindfully kind to ourselves and recognizing our common humanity, where no one is perfect—can help us let go of perfectionism and manage our everyday hassles better, keeping us happier, too.

Similarly, we should remember that other people are also imperfect and need our empathy.

For example, if a customer service person is keeping you on a long hold and you feel your frustration rising, you can try to think of the situation from their point of view: Maybe they’re trying to solve your problem and it’s taking more time than they thought. Perspective taking can go a long way toward diminishing our negative feelings in an annoying situation.

4. Don’t forget the good and practice gratitude. Coping with hassles is always easier if we can keep in mind that there is also good happening around us. Yes, I picked the longest checkout line at the grocery store, but look at the amazing produce I’m buying. Yes, I stubbed my toe on the bed frame, but at least it’s not broken and I can still walk. Opening the lens of our experience and seeing what we can be grateful for can help take the sting out of common annoyances.

If this seems too Pollyanna or trite—or just too difficult to do in a moment of agitation—try practicing gratitude in the rest of your life. Having a grateful attitude can lessen the effect of daily hassles on our life satisfaction and improve your mood. This is likely because the positive feelings gratitude engenders help us broaden and build our personal resources for coping with common stressors when they arise.

Letting go for the good of everyone

Of course, there are other ways we can manage our minor upsets better besides these. Taking good care of our bodies (by eating right and getting enough exercise and sleep), heading out into nature when we can, practicing awe, and spending time with supportive people can all help keep our nervous system calmer and in better shape for managing daily stressors.

Some tactics might work better than others for you, and that’s fine. The key isn’t perfection, but intent. The next time you’re annoyed, try calming yourself rather than cursing for missing a tennis shot, or tailing a slow driver, or stewing over your friend being late. Doing your best to let it go, using whatever tools work for you, is an act of love that others will appreciate.

“We’re living in such very stressful times—antagonistic, hostile times—and people are under a lot of stress,” says Greenberg. “We need to try to think of ways, even just in your own network, to help people feel better.”

If we could all do that, think of how much kinder and more loving our world could be.

At the time, I was a mindfulness educator and was adapting the Mindful Self-Compassion course, developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, into a class for parents and children. Lessons in the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Children and Caregivers course include kid-friendly messages and practices centering on anger. The program, along with the two-volume Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbooks for Kids that I wrote, helps children and caregivers notice anger, understand its messages, and use it as a bridge to connection rather than division.

I’ve since begun teaching Neff’s Fierce Self-Compassion program, which helps people transform emotions like anger into courage, strength, and protection. Fierce self-compassion invites us not only to comfort ourselves when we suffer, but also to stand up for ourselves and others in the face of harm and injustice. The energy that empowers adults to act with integrity can also help children to channel anger into clarity and caring force.

Through teaching mindfulness and self-compassion programs to caregivers and youth over the years, I’ve helped thousands of kids learn how to understand and work with anger. Here are five steps that can help kids (and us) channel the power of anger wisely.

1. Help kids understand that anger is human

Many children, especially girls, are socialized to believe that it’s not OK to express anger with peers and adults outside of the home. Chronic suppression of anger can lead to negative health outcomes for all genders, though for girls and women, suppression can sometimes turn inward as self-blame or sadness.

To help children open to the emotion of anger, it can be helpful to remind them that anger is neither good nor bad, but rather evidence of being human. While there are more and less helpful ways of expressing anger (we’ll touch on that more in later sections), the emotion itself is wired into humans. Remembering that others sometimes feel like us is part of practicing self-compassion, and this acceptance can help with emotional regulation.

Graduates of my parent-child mindfulness and self-compassion course have shared how remembering that challenging situations and emotions are human helped them feel calmer in the presence of anger. “I noticed I didn’t get so mad like I used to get,” said one child. “You’re not alone. I notice myself sometimes saying that in my brain.” Another child blew up less frequently at a sibling by remembering that “other people also have sisters who make them mad.”

Helping kids understand that everyone gets angry is critical in developing a healthy relationship with anger.

2. Notice how anger feels in the body

To respond to anger skillfully, kids first need to notice it arising. Paying attention to how anger feels in the body helps children recognize early signs of frustration.

We can start children on this path by modeling mindfulness of anger—sometimes easier said than done! We can share our own experiences with anger, not in the heat of the moment, but at other times that invite reflection. For example, a parent might say, “I felt angry earlier today when someone cut me off in traffic. My shoulders got tight and my heart was racing, so I took a few breaths before responding. Everyone feels angry sometimes.”

Our modeling can help kids learn to accept their anger and also be mindful of their sensations. In my workbook for kids, I invite children to share about how anger feels in their body. “[When I’m angry] my face gets tight and hot,” said River, age nine. “And my breath feels suffocating.”

Aarya, age 10, shared this story: “My sister messed with my game, and my hands tightened into fists.”

It can be challenging for kids to hold anger sensations in awareness during the heat of the moment. It usually works best to practice mindfulness of anger sensations during neutral times, intentionally calling up a frustration and helping kids narrate how the body responds.

We can also help kids notice neutral sensations, like feeling the soles of their feet. Drawing awareness into the feet can help us stay grounded in the presence of strong emotions. With repeated practice, mindfulness of these sensations can help create a pause between an angry impulse and a reaction.

3. Regulate the intensity of anger

Anger is a powerful emotion, and when it surges through the body, it can overwhelm kids whose prefrontal cortex is still developing. As Khalil, age eight, puts it: “When I get angry, my whole body gets tight and I feel red. Like a bomb that could explode.”

In volume 2 of my workbook, children decode this message: “Anger is like fire. Use it with care.” Kids intuitively understand this metaphor. Out-of-control anger can burn down houses and villages. But when tended wisely, the flame of anger can warm, protect, and even light the way for justice.

Anger can be a force for good or cause damage depending on our ability to regulate and channel it. When anger feels too intense to navigate skillfully, it can sometimes be helpful to move, distract ourselves, or breathe deeply.

For Josie, a child in my parent-child class, movement was helpful. “My favorite thing I learned was 7 Shakes.” she said. “It taught me how to shake away my anger.”

For other kids, stillness serves them better. Marcos offered this reflection:

If you let [anger] get too out of control, it gets bigger and then you can’t control it. . . . My breath gets quick but weak. My hands get really warm, and my body gets really tight. . . . I don’t think it would be helpful to shake it off because it will be too out of control.

Some studies suggest that males are more prone to aggression with anger than females, and physically releasing anger may be more helpful for some than others, regardless of gender. Rather than teaching kids a single “right” way to calm down, we can invite them to notice what helps them stay steady. Sometimes that’s movement—running, shaking, or scribbling hard with crayons. Other times it’s stillness, like feeling their feet on the ground or taking a slow breath. Another helpful strategy is a squeeze and release exercise, guided playfully in the book The Angry Octopus.

In the context of empowerment, the goal isn’t to get rid of anger but to let its intensity move through the body without causing harm. When kids learn how to regulate anger’s intensity, they begin to experience anger not as something to fear or fight, but rather as a power they can learn to use with wisdom.

4. Look under anger for softer feelings and needs

Expressing anger can be complicated for children of all genders, though the impacts can sometimes be different. When children aren’t taught how to work with anger skillfully, the emotion can explode outward, creating interpersonal conflict, or turn inward as self-criticism. Both anger expression and anger suppression have been linked to depression, especially in females.

We want our children to learn constructive ways to express their anger interpersonally. Non-Violent Communication (NVC) is an effective approach for teaching kids to express anger in healthy ways. One great resource, Giraffe Juice, takes children on a playful adventure while they learn the steps of NVC, which include communicating feelings and identifying unmet needs.

When I teach caregivers and kids mindful self-compassion, I explain that anger is a hard emotion that often hides softer feelings and needs. Learning to identify the feelings and needs under anger helps kids view anger as a helpful messenger. In volume 2 of my workbook, a wise chick helps children explore the layers under anger. In the comic below, a child who feels furious is invited to look beneath the surface and notice softer feelings and needs.

On the surface, the child was angry because his friend won’t work with him, but underneath he felt sad and wished for belonging. When children learn to look beneath anger, they discover that it’s often pointing to what they value most: friendship, fairness, belonging, or care. Helping kids identify and express these underlying needs is one of the most powerful ways to transform conflict into connection.

5. Teach repair and empowered action

Even with preparation and the best of intentions, anger can sometimes lead us to do and say hurtful things. This is why, in addition to teaching our children to express anger constructively, we can also help them learn to repair. Modeling is one way we can help kids learn to own anger mishaps.

While I was writing this article, my older daughter came into the office with a huge request that completely derailed my focus. I blew up and yelled, practicing destructive rather than constructive anger. I saw that my behavior impacted my daughter negatively, and I went for a walk to cool down.

As I walked, I thought about both my daughter’s and my own needs. I saw my daughter’s need for help with a big task, and I saw my own need for focusing on a project that I wanted to complete. Both mattered. While my anger expression was unskillful and required an apology, the need for boundaries was real. This is how anger’s energy can be helpful: It can motivate us to protect or provide for ourselves and set boundaries when needed.

When I came back from my walk, I sincerely apologized for my anger outburst. I also let my daughter know that I needed more time to work on this task before I helped her. I assured her that I genuinely cared, and we both agreed that in the future, she would ask if the timing was right before unpacking a big project.

When we as caregivers cause damage with our anger, we can model owning our mistake, reestablish connection, and also communicate about feelings and needs. Children need caregivers who model both tender care as well as confidence and strength.

When children mess up and their anger leads to hurtful words or actions, we can guide them towards making things right. We can also help them be curious about what their anger was trying to tell them. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean the anger was wrong; it means they’re learning to use it wisely.

As caregivers of children, we can help children understand that anger’s energy empowers us to…

• Notice what is not OK;
• Say no to bullying;
• Be motivated to stop harmful behavior;
• Set boundaries; and
• Learn about what we value.

When anger shows us what matters, it becomes a compass for positive action. Kids can learn to speak up, set boundaries, or advocate for themselves and others. We can let children know that we believe in their strength and will support them in using their anger wisely. This builds a foundation for them to rise and stand up for themselves and others.

My younger daughter Anjali, now 13 years old, is already using her anger to stand up to injustice. She does this through collective social action, as well as advocating for others who are being mistreated. Last year, when a friend of hers was being bullied, she stood up—unafraid of being displeasing—and the bullying stopped. This is what I had wished for Anjali, and it is what I wish for all children: the ability to turn fierce anger into strength, clarity, and a force for good.

It seems like enlightenment might be slightly more attainable without the daily annoyances of traffic, parking tickets, taxes, and endless commercials. For most of us, however, the realities of living in a society will naturally disrupt our peace and our responsibilities come with real burdens. Thus, mindfulness and other contemplative practices must exist within the context of others—of a society.

However, the way mindfulness is taught and described today often seems to reinforce an individualistic and secular conception of contemplative practices. This makes sense when clinicians like me hope to empower the individual to see the profound agency in their lives to make healthier choices. If you want to control anxiety, it might be easier to teach an individual to practice mindfulness to promote adaptive responding, rather than try to control the endless variables that can cause anxious spiraling or hope for some far-off social transformation that will make inner peace inevitable. But is the point of mindfulness and other contemplative practices (as we teach them in medicine) really to benefit yourself only?

This question has ignited healthy debate across various disciplines. Even within psychology, the way we study and measure mindfulness tends to reduce it down to facets such as observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging and a non-reactivity of one’s own experiences. Notably, the five most popular mindfulness scales don’t exactly include compassion or other-orientation as a facet. But if mindfulness in the scientific-medical context is derived from the Buddhist philosophies, how did the scientists so clearly miss the relational aspects of mindfulness?

For instance, does it matter if an individual practices mindfulness but is a racist, xenophobe, or sexist? Is it possible to have a mindful society that hates its neighbors, chooses war over peace, and division over unity? The science of contemplative research has recently turned more toward exploring these kinds of questions about the relational aspects of mindfulness and other contemplative practices. The timing couldn’t be more important as society feels the intense burden of social division and an undeniable rise of authoritarianism.

Previous studies have shown that those who score high in social dominance orientation also have favorable views towards authoritarianism, sexism, racism, and xenophobia—to name a few—and less favorable views of traits like empathy. Indeed, empathy is an increasingly important societal topic and has even entered mainstream political discourse. For example, Charlie Kirk, an American conservative figure, once famously argued that “empathy is a made-up, New Age term that does a lot of damage.”

What is the relationship between these practices, traits, and orientations? Previous studies have routinely found that mindfulness and self-compassion appeared to be positively related to empathy. It seems intuitive that these intrapersonal practices could broaden to interpersonal attitudes. Could contemplative practices such as mindfulness or self-compassion not only affect empathy, but also broader social orientations?

This question motivated our latest study recently released in the journal of Mindfulness. Along with my talented collaborator Polina Beloboradova from the Virginia Commonwealth University, our exploratory study aimed to understand whether individualistic contemplative practices such as self-compassion were related to interpersonal or broader social attitudes, such as empathy and egalitarianism, or its opposite, authoritarianism.

Empathy and social dominance

Our exploratory study gathered two large groups of participants and asked them questions related to self-compassion, empathy, and a construct known as social dominance orientation, which measures the generalized belief that people are either equal or that some groups are inherently more dominant.

We understood the critical shortcomings of only studying mindfulness for its relational aspects, so we focused on self-compassion as a trait, which has only recently become a fascinating subject of psychology. More than “self-love,” self-compassion considers the relationship toward oneself. It includes aspects of mindfulness and self-kindness, as well as common humanity: the belief that experiencing suffering is normal in the human condition.

We used a statistical method known as network analysis. Think of a map that shows how major airports connect to smaller airports and how disruptions in one airport might affect the network of connections. The study grouped and visualized the variables based on the strengths of those associations. By doing so, we were able to reveal the complex network of influence of these variables. We ran the analysis across two samples, one before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the other after. We leveraged the once-in-a-lifetime unplanned timing of the pandemic to investigate whether the profound social disruption of COVID affected social beliefs. A strong body of evidence supports how threats and societal distress tends to negatively affect social attitudes.

Despite the differences of social contexts, our results indicated the same pattern where self-compassion was related to social dominance orientation, but only through empathy. Of the two components of empathy we studied, emotional concern appeared to have a stronger relationship to social dominance orientation than the cognitive component. The amount of emotional concern was a stronger predictor of how you perceive and care about other groups of people. The study found that higher levels of self-compassion and empathy predicted lower levels of authoritarianism, whereas low self-compassion and empathy predicted higher levels of authoritarianism.

Compassion and egalitarianism

These novel findings give theoretical support to how intrapersonal traits such as self-compassion are linked to broader social attitudes through empathy. Simply said, there is some relationship between the amount of self-compassion, empathy, and egalitarianism or belief that people are deserving of equality. Importantly, the study was unable to determine the direction of these influences, so it would be premature to claim that self-compassion definitively affects authoritarianism through empathy.

Our hope is that these insights inspire other researchers to test whether self-compassion interventions, such as the Mindful Self-Compassion program which teaches individuals to develop their capacity for self-compassion over an eight-week course, could be a fundamental aspect of social-emotional learning that could make individuals more tolerant to all groups of people. Researchers could examine whether self-compassion interventions incidentally affect empathy and egalitarian views over the course by including these measures before, during, and following the intervention. 

The potential impact of those follow-up studies could be profound. If self-compassion could be improved as a core element of therapy or social-emotional learning in schools, not only would the individual have increased self-compassion, which would mitigate the risk of some mental health challenges and promote well-being, but they might also develop greater empathy and egalitarian beliefs, effectively widening their aperture of concern for others.

By shifting toward a perspective that other people from different backgrounds are worthy of similar compassion and empathy as ourselves, we might be able to effectively address many of society’s ills such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, and the multiple forms of social division. As such, self-compassion as a focus may hold promise for fields like clinical and social psychology that support human flourishing across individual, interpersonal, and societal levels.

The Dalai Lama may have well understood this when he said in The Book of Joy, “It is clear that the only way to truly change our world is through teaching compassion. Our society is lacking an adequate sense of compassion, sense of kindness, and genuine regard for others’ well-being. So now many, many, people who seriously think about humanity all have the same view. We must promote basic human values, the inner values that lie at the heart of who we are as humans.”

This idea just might be something to sit with…not necessarily in a cave.