Navigation

28-Day Meditation Challenge 2018

The 2018 REAL HAPPINESS Meditation Challenge had over 23,000 participants! The eighth year of this 28-day challenge followed the program outlined in Sharon’s New York Times bestseller: Real Happiness. Participants pledged to sit and meditate each day for the entire month of February, followed guided meditations from Sharon

The 2018 challenge has concluded but you can participate in 2019!

Sign up for the 2019 Challenge

In 2018 we had over 300 participants blogged about their experience through the month. These posts offer an honest look into what the cultivation of a regular home practice is really like, and some of the common experiences we all have when we practice.

Search the 2018 Community Blog Posts

  • February 28 Meditation on Daily Activities: Raking Reflections by

    Today, I raked a small section of the front yard as a reflective exercise, while listening to the guided meditation. I like to keep parts of the yard natural and un-raked and I don’t rake daily. But, it is a Read More
  • February 28 Sending Compassion to Anger and Pain by

    Feeling the pain that lies inside the difficult emotion of anger opens up the experience. I think anger is feared and judged in many cultures, and it is natural for many of us to have internalized those reactions. For me, Read More
  • February 26 Meta Effects by

    Today’s #RealHappiness challenge day 26, Sharon Salzberg really went into depth about the Meta (loving kindness) meditation, and broadened it’s scope. I never thought of expanding it to beings in the earth, sea, or air. Which makes sense when thinking Read More
  • February 26 May all beings… by

    Three days left in this 28-day meditation retreat to be so imperfect, so flawed, so incapable. So totally unlearned in anything that’s being taught. Today’s meditation is about sending kind thoughts to all beings. May all beings be happy, safe, Read More
  • February 24 Lost Dog by

    We took the dogs to the woods this afternoon. Kai, our little “who rescued whom” guy, bounded gleefully out of the van into the snow. Seven minutes later, he stopped circling back to say check in. We’d meant to be Read More
  • February 22 No hop, skipping, or jumping by

    Man, was this hard today! When Sharon started talking about not moving ahead to the future, guess where I was… 🙄 I was already there. I had to reign myself back in multiple times. Ah well, tomorrow is another day.
  • February 22 Impermanence by

    Noticing what I am feeling during meditation and allowing it to be a “feeling” rather than a weighted, permanent part of my being is incredibly informative. I am loving my willingness today to change my perspective about what emotions are. Read More
  • February 22 Week Four of the 2018 Challenge by

    Welcome to our final week together! In contrast to our usual ways of thinking which might regard love or lovingkindness or compassion as gifts we can do nothing to cultivate, or immediate emotional reactions we enjoy but can’t stabilize, these Read More
  • February 20 Falling into it or pushing it away by

    Day 19 is pretty packed. I am going to have to listen to it again, and before I sleep. The two things that emerged for me this morning was that when we are neither “falling into it or pushing it Read More
  • February 19 Earthquake by

    On Friday night, a news alert flashed onto my screen that a magnitude 7.2 earthquake was rocking Oaxaca, Mexico. Lizzie, my “twin sister from another mother,” is vacationing there. After a single, blinding white flash of raw fear – the Read More
  • February 19 Mama Bear Attacks Mama Bear, Anger As A Trigger For Compassion by

    I took Dr. Kristen Neff’s Lifeclass course with Brené Brown on Self Compassion. Kristen has written books on compassion, and part of Kristen’s deep well of self compassion springs from raising her son who has autism. One of Kristen’s stories Read More
  • February 16 Who Knows That I Am A Childless Mother, Woman Hold My Hand -Sweet Honey In The Rock by

    My friend’s birthday is today and she doesn’t want to celebrate it. I kept suggesting we go ice skating with friends, and she’d say “No thank you.” Finally she told me she doesn’t want to do anything for her birthday Read More
  • February 16 Make a note by

    This meditation is an easy one. I try to use the phrases in and out to help keep me focused. To be honest, the coming week is usually difficult for me. I find it hard to bring up it think Read More
  • February 15 Chicken or Egg? by

    Mindfulness seems to expand our awareness to deeper levels and scope, yet one is aware of being mindful. I was trying to contemplate the difference between mindfulness and awareness and decided they are intimate lovers, inseperable, and nurturing.
  • February 15 Bah Humbug! To Valentines by

    My friend who’s gay and single and kinda lonely posted an anti Valentines Instagram that had Candy Hearts the read “Meh” “You Suck” and “Get Lost.” This holiday is not a happy one for many single not necessarily by choice Read More
  • February 15 Week Three of the 2018 Challenge by

    Welcome to week three! This week we are going to focus on mindfulness of the mind: thoughts and emotions. These objects of mindfulness can be more subtle and fleeting, as is especially the case with thoughts. Whether thoughts or emotions, Read More
  • February 14 Tea time by

    I love doing this meditation in the morning. It so enjoyable to take my time with a cup of tea, savoring it.
  • February 14 Maya Doesn’t Wanna Be The Letter C, And I Can’t Be The Catcher In The Rye by

    The first six years after medical school I spent in Pediatrics before I switched to adult Internal Medicine. Adult medicine is infinitely easier psychologically for me. When an adult dies it’s sad and hard, but when a child dies it’s Read More
  • February 14 When washing cups wash cups by

    While the benefits of mindfulness may sometimes seem elusive, the effects of distraction can be quite clear. When washing a heavy ceramic mug my attention turned to something else consequently smashing the cup against the sink. It’s just a cup, Read More
  • February 13 Body Awareness: A Teacher and Her Class of Children by

    During a body scan, with voices from many internal locations, my body seems to ask, “Did you know that you live here? As a former teacher, it then occurs to me that the choir of bodily sensations is much like Read More