You have multiple selves (most don't meditate)

Discover 8 mindfulness skills that work across every version of you (Sama Circle 2)

You know that feeling? 7 AM yoga left you centered. Your mindfulness practice is on track. You journal, you breathe, you feel ready.

Then 3 PM hits. Someone questions your work. A triggering email lands. Family chaos erupts.

And suddenly, you're responding like a completely different person. The calm morning you? Gone. In their place: someone reactive, defensive, exhausted by patterns you thought you'd outgrown.

Here's what's happening - and why it's not your fault.

The Science Behind Your Struggle

Twenty-two years ago, my dissertation committee at the business school in UMass said I was proposing "the worst dissertation they'd ever seen." My research on multiple selves - how we navigate the world through different I-positions, each with its own patterns - seemed too radical.

That research got published in a premier marketing journal anyway.

What I discovered: We don't have one unified self making all our decisions. We have multiple "I-positions" - different versions of ourselves that take turns being in charge depending on the situation. Your work self, family self, stressed self - each one has its own voice, its own patterns, its own way of seeing the world. These aren't personality disorders - this is how normal humans operate. Each self is shaped by different experiences and relationships, and each makes decisions based on its own conditioning.

Fast forward to 2019, sitting in an Amherst Town Council meeting (and many more after that), I started to understand why this matters. Despite years of meditation practice, my political self was making decisions based on immigrant anxiety and people-pleasing. I was breathing calmly while operating from decades-old patterns.

When stress hits at work, you haven't lost the benefits from your morning practice. It's just that your morning self isn't the one dealing with the stress. Your work self takes over - and sure, they might remember to breathe, not react, stay calm. Check, check, check. But they're still making decisions based on their own decades of conditioning, not from your morning clarity.

What 127 of You Revealed

Look at what happened when I asked: "What's one moment when you wish you could stay mindful but usually can't?"

Word cloud based on responses by 127 change makers to the question: What's one moment when you wish you could stay mindful but usually can't?

Work. Family. News. Confrontation. Stress.

These aren't random moments of failure. The most frequent words - Work, Family, News - reveal different selves, each with its own wiring. Your Work Self facing deadlines isn't your Morning Practice Self. Your Family Self managing bedtime chaos isn't your Yoga Self. Your Citizen Self obsessively checking news isn't the Intentional Self from morning yoga.

Different selves. Different defaults. Same human.

The Missing Piece

After diving into 2,500-year-old mindfulness teachings, I found what the secular approaches to mindfulness often leave out: 8 specific qualities of mind that need to become defaults across ALL our selves. Not just awareness, but compassion, curiosity, energy, joy, focus, inner calm, and equanimity.

Combined with my research on multiple selves, this became a system for real transformation.

In Sama Life Circle 1, we explored Return-Listen-Begin - a practice framework that can be used for longer meditations OR as quick micropractices throughout your day. We clarified the differences between meditations and micropractices and discovered that a brief micropractice can shift our default reactions right in the moment of stress or resistance.

Circle 2 (Wednesday, August 27, 7 PM EST): We'll identify which of your selves struggles most, what default patterns keep them stuck, and how the 8 skills can create new defaults - not only in meditation, but in real moments where you need them.

Why Micro-Practices Change Everything

When we practice micro-skills throughout the day - 3 seconds here, 10 seconds there - we're not just reinforcing new patterns. We're literally training different selves in real-time.

Your Work Self gets to practice focus while actually in a meeting. Your Family Self learns compassion while actually dealing with chaos. Your Citizen Self builds discernment when to engage and when to turn off the news.

Not in perfect meditation conditions. In the mess. Where change actually happens.

Join the Real-World Mindfulness Movement

Here's what I know: We can't meditation-app our way out of systemic patterns. We can't breathe through structural inequities. We can't be calm while still operating from outdated paradigms.

But we CAN change our defaults. All of them. Across all our selves. And we can have fun doing it.

I've opened Sama Life subscriptions - a systematic yet playful way to work with all your selves, not against them.

Everyone who signed up for circles: You're already in! One month free, no credit card needed, no automatic charges. After September, you decide if $17/month is worth continuing.

Everyone else: Join us now, same deal. Experience what systematic practice across all your selves feels like before you commit.

What you get:

• Biweekly circles where we practice with all versions of you

• The 8-skill system backed by research and ancient wisdom

• 48 micro-practices that work in seconds when you need them

• Direct support for YOUR specific challenges

• A community of changemakers doing this work together

Take a moment to pause, breathe, and check in if this resonates with what you need right now.

Ready?

Whether you subscribe or stay with free content, you're part of this movement. But if you want to systematically transform your work self, family self, exhausted self - not just read about it - we begin Wednesday.

Here’s the link to join Sama Life Circle 2 on August 27, 7:00 pm EST (Recording available if you can't make it live)

With fierce compassion for all our selves,

Shalini

P.S. That "worst dissertation ever"? It explains why millions meditate but nothing really changes - in ourselves or our systems. Different selves need different tools. Now we're building those tools together.