Welcome back to Radio Headspace.
It's Dora, and I'm so glad you're here.
A few months ago, I was mentoring a student in my mindfulness teacher training program.
She was passionate, committed, and wildly creative.
But every time we met, she would start with, I don't know what I'm doing."
And then list 17 ideas she had, four she had already scrapped,
two new ones she started that morning, and how none of them felt quite right.
She'd laugh at herself and say, I'm restless.
I know.
I just want to get this right.
And that's when I knew we weren't just dealing with perfectionism.
She was bumping up against a very familiar obstacle,
restlessness and worry, one of the five hindrances in meditation.
Restlessness and worry show up when our minds can't sit still,
when it's jumping from one thought to another,
convince something's wrong or that we're missing something.
It can look like anxiety, fidgeting, overthinking, even guilt.
But beneath it, there's often a deep desire to feel safe or in control.
This hindrance isn't here to punish us, it's here to show us how we relate to uncertainty.
and how he might return to steadiness one breath at a time.