The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die: and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread. (William Stafford, Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems)
Looking back, I can see how the threads of my life weave together. A book found by chance. A quiet room that felt like coming home. Ancient teachings that resonated with surprising immediacy. The Buddha’s wisdom of dependent co-arising reminds me that these moments didn’t occur in isolation; each was nourished by countless conditions before them, and they continue to shape me. When podcast hosts recently asked how I came to mindfulness coaching, I found myself tracing a pattern that wasn’t visible in the moment, but now seems undeniable.
I could mark the beginning as that Glasgow summer when I stumbled on a Buddhist book the title of which I have since forgotten, but whose message remains etched in my being: we are not our thoughts. For someone who had spent years caught in self-critical spirals—convinced that each passing thought defined my worth—this simple distinction between thinker and thought was a revelation. Yet those transformative words would not have landed so powerfully had they not fallen on carefully prepared ground. To understand why this particular message resonated, I must follow the thread further back—to the Swiss mountains of my childhood, where the first conditions for this awareness took root.
There, amid forests and rivers, my sensitive nature first emerged. I felt everything deeply: a friend’s hidden sadness, the prickling energy of crowded rooms, even the quiet resilience of alpine flowers. Like many highly sensitive children, I was told I was “too much”—too emotional, too reactive, too easily overwhelmed. Bullying, from peers and adults alike, reinforced this message until I learned to treat my sensitivity like a shameful flaw to be hidden. By the time I reached university in Glasgow—thrilled at the opportunity, but exhausted by the effort of constant self-regulation—I had mastered the art of pushing through while privately battling poor self-esteem, anxiety, and insomnia.
That Buddhist book might have remained just another passing interest if not for what happened next. Drawn by some invisible pull, I found myself standing before the local Buddhist center. The moment I stepped inside—inhaling fragrances of tea and incense, feeling the carpet beneath my feet, watching light filter through spacious windows—something in me released for the first time in years. There, through Ratnadevi’s Living Mindfulness teachings, I discovered that practice wasn’t about achieving some perfect state of calm, but about meeting myself exactly as I was: messy, sensitive, wonderfully imperfect. It wasn’t tranquility I found in that quiet room, but something far more precious: permission.
This deepening sense of permission eventually carried me to Hong Kong for my master’s degree in Buddhist Studies, where I sat in classrooms with monastics and lay scholars who spoke of the Dharma as both ancient tradition and living practice. Through my program, I received training in trauma-sensitive mindfulness approaches that honored the body’s innate wisdom. Meanwhile, writing for BDG introduced me to Buddhism’s astonishing diversity: its rich Asian roots, its calls for engaged compassion, its dialogue with modern psychology and neuroscience.
When I returned to Glasgow, I began what would become 12 years of dual vocations: by day, working as an advocate for marginalized communities (a path that would eventually lead me to Los Angeles), and by evening, sharing mindfulness in private homes. There was something beautiful about teaching these ancient practices in humble settings, such as an old tenement building in Glasgow’s West End or a sunny living room in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood. People came not to learn one “right” way to practice, but to discover tools that fit their actual lives: a student seeking respite amid exam season, an artist learning to work with creative overwhelm, a survivor rebuilding their relationship with the present moment. My training had prepared me to help each person find the practices that resonated with their unique sensitivity.
Last year, after more than a decade of this balancing act, I finally gathered these threads into a single tapestry. I left behind my advocacy work to focus fully on mindfulness coaching, while integrating everything I had learned about trauma, neurodiversity, and the very real challenges of being sensitive in an overwhelming world. Now, when clients tell me they’ve been advised to “just breathe” through panic attacks or to “sit with” traumatic memories, I understand both the limitations of such advice and the frustration behind their stories. Traditional mindfulness often assumes a baseline of safety that simply does not exist for many sensitive nervous systems. My work has become about bridging that gap: honoring the Buddha’s timeless wisdom while recognizing that wisdom must meet us where we actually are: sometimes lost, often overwhelmed, always perfectly imperfect.
The thread, I see now, was always there: in the alpine air of my childhood, in Glasgow’s drizzly afternoons, in the way certain teachings resonated before I fully understood why. It’s here now in my work, as I help others discover what took me decades to learn: that sensitivity is not a flaw to overcome, but a thread to follow home—back to the courage of being fully, unapologetically, ourselves.
Nina Müller is a Mindfulness Teacher who offers online mindfulness coaching sessions. If you would like to find out more, please visit The Mindful Practice to book a complimentary consultation.
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