I’ve heard it said that the farthest distance that a person must travel is the twelve inches between their head and their heart.
The internet has conflicting opinions about who originated that quote, but from my side of things, it doesn’t really matter.
It could have been my Grandma, or your Grandma or some well-regarded scholar.
The relevance of the distance -- and the process of that journey-- remains the same to me.

A few weeks ago I had a session with one of my private meditation students who is in the honeymoon phase of his meditation practice.
Maybe you know the feeling — you’ve been practicing for a few weeks or months and the benefits are revealing themselves in profoundly mundane ways: Who knew that the light catching the hardwood floor in the morning could be so immensely satisfying?!
Glorious.

Naturally, this student is very excited about mindfulness; not just as a concept but as a lived experience and his enthusiasm is translating into every area of his life.

On this particular day he was excited to tell me about a speaker that he had just seen at a TEDx style conference who he described as the “epitome of mindfulness”.
Direct, clear, engaged with the audience, precise in his speech.
As he was describing the speaker — who I also promised to Google — the one thought that was rolling through my mind was:

Yes... But is he kind?

Because, to be clear, that isn’t a guarantee.
Thieves need mindfulness to be good at their jobs.
Being ‘mindful’ may make you more generous with loved ones, patient with strangers, and invested in the well-being of our society.
Or... not.
I know a longtime practitioner who snaps her fingers at waiters in restaurants in order to get their attention.
(Albeit, very mindfully, I'm sure.)

Kindness is a detail that can be overlooked in our current cultural enthusiasm for mindfulness.

Which, from my perspective, is where the “Heart” practices of meditation come in.
Expansion, inclusion, empathy, understanding. These are qualities that we all have access to. And for many of us, are the ways that we would describe feeling when we engage as the best of ourselves.

What do we do with the awareness that we develop?
Who do become when we use our actions in service of the heart?
Where does our gentleness get compromised?
What does love look like right now?

Because lord knows, if all that we're reaching for is “Precise as a Public Speaker” carved across our gravestones, we might have missed something here.

*steps down from soapbox*

Also, Hi. You're wonderful.
Cheers to your 12 inch journey.