Out of my decade of studying and practicing meditation intensively in a wide variety of traditions with many different teachers, one of...

I sometimes refer to myself as a recovering smiler, as I used to smile a lot in moments when it was inauthentic for me to smile. It was a symptom of something deeper; it was part of an unconscious ‘nice guy’ persona that I was upholding. I was already for years on my journey of shadow work before I found out I was doing this and that it was inauthentic; a mask. Most of the time, I wasn’t smiling to give love, or because I felt like smiling. I was putting on a smile to be like

Ancient, time-tested traditions like Tantra, Taoism, Buddhism, and Yoga consistently emphasize the importance of some version of ‘right...