Mindfulness Exercises, with Sean Fargo

What if fear, grief, anger, and old hurts didn’t run the show anymore? We share a gentle way to build real emotional capacity without white-knuckling your way through pain. Instead of diving into the deep end, we map a clear, safe progression—starting with mild memories, grounding in the body, and adding just enough mindfulness to feel what’s there without getting swept away.

We begin by setting the container: a quiet space, a stable seat, and a few minutes connecting to breath and body. From there we invite a small, manageable memory to surface—a minor disappointment, a touch of frustration, a flicker of sadness—and practice staying with it. You’ll hear how to shift from fixing the feeling to feeling it, track sensations like tightness, warmth, or shakiness, and notice judgments or stories without letting them take the wheel. That simple arc—evoke, feel, notice, soften—becomes a repeatable flow you can trust.

To make progress visible, we build an emotion inventory that spans both unpleasant and pleasant experiences. We rate intensity from 1 to 10, sort the list, and train at the lower levels until our nervous system learns, I can be with this. Over time, we advance thoughtfully to midrange emotions. When the material touches deeper trauma or profound grief, we talk about making a wise plan: what stays in solo practice and what deserves the steady presence of a therapist, guide, or healer. Along the way, we challenge the habit of avoiding joy, showing how the same mindful skills help us receive good feelings fully.

By the end, you’ll have a practical framework for emotional resilience: a safe setting, a stepwise method, and a roadmap for when to seek support. If this approach helps, follow the show, share it with a friend who could use steadier ground, and leave a quick review to help others find these tools.
Support the show
Add your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us.
Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: [email protected]

About the Podcast
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix of:
Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
Conversations with respected teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change
Rather than chasing peak experiences or spiritual bypassing, this podcast emphasizes embodied practice, ethical teaching, and mindfulness that meets people where they are—messy, human, and alive.
If you’re interested in:
Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
Trauma-sensitive and co...

What if the safest place you can find is the breath you’re already taking? We sit down with Anthony Abbagnano — founder of Alchemy of Breath and author of Outer Chaos, Inner Calm — to explore how conscious breathing can shift anxiety, resolve trauma responses, and restore a sense of agency in everyday life. His story arcs from a startling early awakening at boarding school to months of stillness during a life-threatening illness, revealing the quiet power of will on the inhale and surrender on the exhale.
Visit Anthony's Website: Alchemy of Breath

Anthony breaks down the mechanics behind different methods with rare clarity. We unpack why hyperventilation isn’t a DIY strategy, how Conscious Connected Breathing works without pauses, and when vigorous diaphragmatic cycles can prime you for a high-stakes talk. Most importantly, we get practical: the four-in, long-out exhale sequence becomes a dependable reset for the nervous system, helping listeners interrupt spirals of panic, ground attention, and return to a steadier baseline. Along the way, Anthony’s “octave” metaphor reframes coping versus resolution, showing how breath can complete the unfinished note of suspense and bring closure to states that keep us stuck.

This conversation is a toolkit for teachers, caregivers, and anyone who wants to feel safer in their own body. You’ll learn how to catalog your breath across emotions—anger, love, fear, focus—and rehearse patterns you can recall under pressure. The result is a subtle but profound shift from reactivity to response, from back-foot survival to front-foot presence. If you’re ready to meet uncertainty with curiosity and calm, press play, breathe with us, and build your own breath catalog.

Enjoyed the conversation? Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who could use a longer exhale today.
Support the show
Add your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us.
Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: [email protected]

About the Podcast
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix of:
Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
Conversations with respected teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change
Rather than chasing peak experiences or spiritual bypassing, this podcast emphasizes embodied practice, ethical teaching, and mindfulness that meets people where they are—messy, human, and alive.
If you’re interested in:
Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
Trauma-sensitive and co...

What if discipline wasn’t something we do to students, but a skill we help them build? We sit down with Nicholas Bradford, founder of the National Center for Restorative Justice, to unpack how mindfulness and restorative practices turn everyday conflicts into opportunities for growth, dignity, and repair. 
Visit his website: National Center For Restorative Justice

From pre-K name calling to serious incidents that rock a school community, we break down a concrete sequence for accountability without shaming kids or abandoning boundaries.

We begin by reframing conflict as the gap between expectation and reality—a lens that invites mindfulness into the heat of the moment. Nicholas explains why staying longer with “what happened?” helps students recognize impact, and how “what were you trying to accomplish?” reveals legitimate needs that can be validated without excusing harm. Then we move to “who was impacted and how?” to build empathy, status, and ownership. For significant harms, we explore active, meaningful repair—community work, mentoring, and contributions that let students rebuild trust and rewrite their self-story from problem to participant.

Skeptical about restorative justice? Nicholas shows why experience beats data. He walks through reentry circles for suspended or expelled students—spaces where youth share what they did, how they’re thinking differently, and what amends they’re committed to. Parents, teachers, and peers often leave transformed, seeing justice as public love: truth, boundaries, and compassion working together. We also talk implementation: why adults go first, how leaders model circles with staff, and what training pathways—three-day intensives, facilitation add-ons, and graduate-credit courses—help teams build durable systems.

If you care about school culture, educator wellbeing, youth agency, and practical tools that work under pressure, this conversation offers clear language and steps you can use tomorrow. Listen, share with a colleague, and tell us: where do expectations get in your way, and what repair would move your community forward? Subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on to someone who needs a more human way to handle conflict.
Support the show
Add your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us.
Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: [email protected]

About the Podcast
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix of:
Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
Conversations with respected teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change
Rather than chasing peak experiences or spiritual bypassing, this podcast emphasizes embodied practice, ethical teaching, and mindfulness that meets people where they are—messy, human, and alive.
If you’re interested in:
Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
Trauma-sensitive and co...

When life speeds up and practice slips, it’s easy to believe mindfulness stopped working or was never yours to begin with. We challenge that story by centering a quieter truth: capability. Not a slogan, not toxic positivity—just the lived sense that you can meet what’s here, one breath at a time, without needing to fix or flee. From the first moments of reflection to the closing invitation, we explore how a small reminder can create a big shift.

We trace the arc from losing momentum to remembering benefits, then move into the territory people avoid: sensations that feel too intense, emotions that seem bottomless, even joy that feels unsafe. Instead of pushing through, we show how to widen experience with care and keep within a workable window. Along the way, we put courage beside capability and share why beginners and seasoned meditators alike need both. If you’ve ever said “my mind is a race car” or “I have too much baggage,” you’ll hear practical ways to test those predictions with gentle, doable actions that rebuild trust.

We also touch on the neuroscience of agency and why feeling able changes how the brain appraises threat and opens the door to compassion. When experience isn’t an enemy, the heart can respond rather than defend. You’ll leave with a simple cue—I can meet this—that works in daily life and formal practice, from traffic stress to tender grief. Try the reminder, notice the small wins, and let capability become a friend you can reach for anytime.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs the reminder, and leave a quick review telling us what moment you’re ready to meet next.
Support the show
Add your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us.
Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: [email protected]

About the Podcast
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix of:
Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
Conversations with respected teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change
Rather than chasing peak experiences or spiritual bypassing, this podcast emphasizes embodied practice, ethical teaching, and mindfulness that meets people where they are—messy, human, and alive.
If you’re interested in:
Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
Trauma-sensitive and co...

What if your mind isn’t confined to your skull but lives in the space between us? We dig into interpersonal neurobiology to show how mind, brain, and relationships form a single, living system—and why integration is the hidden thread behind resilience, clarity, and connection. Rather than a tug-of-war between nature and nurture, you’ll hear how epigenetics turns experience into gene expression, and how neuroplasticity keeps your brain open to change across a lifetime.
Dr. Dan Siegel's website: https://drdansiegel.com/
We break down the mind as a regulatory process that patterns energy and information, then track how communication literally couples nervous systems. Emotion takes center stage as the primary integrator that assigns value and steers attention, while the middle prefrontal cortex acts as a convergence zone linking body states, social insight, and flexible action. When integration falters, systems lurch into chaos or rigidity—think fight-or-flight surges or shutdown—and the “window of tolerance” narrows. You’ll learn why trauma often erases the narrative while preserving bodily alarms, and how implicit and explicit memory build (or blur) the story of who you are.

Repair is possible. Attunement—feeling felt—powers co-regulation and lays the groundwork for self-regulation. Narrative coherence in adults predicts secure attachment in kids, demonstrating how relationships author identity. We offer a practical tool, the Wheel of Awareness, to differentiate and link sensation, interoception, thoughts and feelings, and connection with others, strengthening integrative circuits and expanding choice. By the end, the self looks less like a fixed noun and more like a plural verb: a dynamic process shaped by the people you choose and the attention you train.

If this conversation sparks something, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with one insight you’re taking into your week.
Support the show
Add your 5‑star review — this really helps others find us.
Certify To Teach Mindfulness: Certify.MindfulnessExercises.com
Email: [email protected]

About the Podcast
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix of:
Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
Conversations with respected teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change
Rather than chasing peak experiences or spiritual bypassing, this podcast emphasizes embodied practice, ethical teaching, and mindfulness that meets people where they are—messy, human, and alive.
If you’re interested in:
Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
Trauma-sensitive and co...