Carl Jerome, longtime mindfulness teacher and director of True Mind + Body, explains what mindfulness is—and what it’s not. He emphasizes attention over relaxation, clarity over calm, and presence over performance.

Why sit in silence? In this conversation, Carl describes how unguided meditation builds internal confidence. Without someone leading you, you begin to trust yourself to sit, stay, and return to the present.

Carl walks through what actually happens during a 30-minute meditation. The goal isn’t to achieve peace—it’s to stay with the practice, observe the mind, and return again and again.

What if we could step back from our thoughts and observe them? Carl describes how mindfulness cultivates metacognition—the ability to notice thoughts as mental events—and how this practice creates space between stimulus and response.