Because in any given scenario, you may not always have food, water, a first-aid kit, and other tools on hand. You never know how far you are away from help so the only thing you have to fall back on is your training.

You have to know how to improvise, adapt, and overcome. -Bear Grylls, according to the internet

For most of us, we don’t have to get lost in the woods to feel like we are fighting to survive. We experience a lot of pressure from things in our daily lives at our office, with our family, and in our own heads that make us want to reach out for a life-line. Luckily, a solid mindfulness practice like meditation is a good place to begin the transformation from an oblivious city-slicker to a knowledgeable explorer. What exactly do I mean by this?

Some people see meditation as an antidote where in the same way that you take something to counteract or neutralize a poison, meditation is supposed to turn you right around in the moment preventing you from going down a path of negative emotions.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really the case.

Instead, having a dedicated meditation practice is like being a knowledgeable explorer. You learn from experience what situations to avoid and over time you build up a tolerance to your environment.

It’s like the difference between eating a poisonous mushroom and taking an antidote vs knowing which mushrooms to eat and in the event that you stumble upon one that poisons you, you will have a playbook on how to react to it and even have the fortitude to handle the poison in a controllable way.

In the case of experiencing stress, for instance, the explorer in meditation will have the knowledge of what stressful situations to avoid or control. When they are confronted with negative emotions, they will have built up a mental fortitude through daily practice to be aware of their emotions, experience them fully, but let them pass by controlling their own perception and reaction to it.

This post would be a mile long if I were to really dive into all of the details of how meditation builds mindfulness and awareness and how they can be directly applied to any given situation, but I will save that for additional posts. For a nice, bite-sized, overview, make sure to check out the FAQ. Also, don’t forget to sign up to get the beta, more information about Guide, and other good stuff.