📿 Three Life-Changing Meditation Practices for Busy People

Meditation For When Life is Full

New author photo. Make up by Ruby Rinzler and Mia Bolognesi.

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First off, apologies to everyone who missed The Laundry last week. We took a brief break because our plate was full in very delightful ways. Our daughter Ruby turned three, and instead of writing, Adreanna and I were busy pulling off what I can confidently say was the best kitty-cat-themed children’s birthday party I’ve attended all year.

The funny thing is that I’ve been thinking a lot about busyness lately.

Ruby is now in daycare full-time, so logic would suggest that Adreanna and I suddenly have all these extra hours to luxuriate in meditation, study, reading, gardening, and long lunches uninterrupted by a small voice shouting, “No talking!”

And yet life still feels full.

Not in a bad way. Not even in a stressful way. Actually in a rich, wholesome way.

I am practicing meditation a good amount, but I’ve noticed something interesting: during the first three years of Ruby’s life, I developed a whole collection of “on-the-spot” meditation practices. Out of necessity, I learned how to weave mindfulness and compassion into the cracks of an already overflowing schedule.

With that in mind, here are three life-changing meditation practices for busy people.

(How’s that for clickbait, Substack?)

Gratitude Meditation

Last year I wrote about the role gratitude practice plays in my life:

“Gratitude is not an escape. It’s a homecoming. It’s the recognition that even when the world feels like it’s on fire, there are still moments that are occurring, that don’t make the front page news, that are good and worth celebrating.”

Every morning, before I get out of bed, I spend thirty to sixty seconds remembering what I’m grateful for.

The list changes, but it often includes:

• my kind, lovely wife sleeping beside me

• that my child is happy and healthy

• the sweet company of both of our dogs

• the time we shared with our now deceased cats

• that my mother has the support she needs in her later years

• our safe and comfortable home

• our wide community of friends and neighbors

These are simple things. Some, like remembering our cats, are tinged with sorrow. But gratitude is there all the same.

The practice couldn’t be easier. You turn off your alarm and ask yourself: What am I grateful for today?

Notice what arises. Acknowledge it. Then ask again and see what else comes to mind.

That’s it.

Then go make your coffee.

I suspect you will do it a little less anxious and a lot more content than you would otherwise.

The Roadkill Compassion Practice

We live in a rural area, so almost every drive confronts me with the reality of death: squirrels, birds, raccoons, and other creatures lying still by the side of the road.

Whenever I see one, I let my heart open for a moment.

I make the aspiration that wherever this being goes next, it finds peace. That it experiences safety. That its suffering comes to an end.

All while I keep driving.

I find myself doing a variation of this practice whenever a police car, ambulance, or fire truck races past with its lights flashing. In those moments, I simply wish for everyone involved to be healthy, safe, and free from harm.

Does this help anyone?

I honestly don’t know.

Part of me believes in the unseen. Part of me believes that when we invoke compassion—whether through prayer, mantra, or aspiration—it matters.

But even if nothing metaphysical is happening, I know this much: it is good for me to remain tender-hearted. It is good to stay connected to the suffering that exists all around us rather than hardening against it.

Compassion, after all, is also something we practice for the benefit of our own hearts.

Boyscout Meditation

There’s an old Boy Scout motto: Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it.

Many of us embrace this as a philosophy for life. We want to leave the world a little better than it was when we arrived.

The challenge is translating that aspiration into ordinary moments.

For me, I’ve turned it into a tiny daily practice.

Whenever I enter a room—the kitchen, for example—I try not only to clean up after myself but to do one thing that leaves the room slightly better than I found it.

Maybe I wash a dish that isn’t mine.

Maybe I put away the coffee supplies from that morning.

Maybe I sort a pile of mail.

Whatever it is, it usually takes less than a minute.

And almost every time, I walk away feeling more energized than before.

In Buddhist terms this is a “transcendental action” known as exertion. It’s the principle that when we exert ourselves for the greater good, we ultimately feel uplifted and better for it. We’re not only helping the world (even in small ways) but helping ourselves grow spiritually.

Of course, we first have to overcome the small voice that says, “Someone else can do it.”

But once we do, something shifts.

For decades now I’ve heard from people that they are too busy to meditate. I could write an entire book about that (and I think I have? Maybe Sit Like a Buddha?).

Yet now, somehow, at one of the busiest periods of my life, I find myself more committed than ever—not only to formal meditation practice, but also to these small moments of post-meditation practice woven throughout the day.

Because increasingly, I’ve come to believe that spiritual practice isn’t just what happens when we sit down on the cushion.

It’s also what happens in the minute before we get out of bed, in the moment we pass a dead squirrel on the road, and in the thirty seconds it takes to wash someone else’s dish.