evidence: The renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said in his seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. With mindfulness practices, we open up that space between stimulus and response. By tuning into our present moment experience with mindfulness, we create distance from the painful stories playing out in our minds. We empower ourselves to pause, to find peace, even beauty, in the chaos. Within a mindful pause, there is room for compassion (including self-compassion). We can choose how we respond instead of blindly reacting. That’s the power of mindfulness. When we are bound by reactivity, we lose our freedom; we lose agency over our actions and our own well-being. Our negative emotions run rampant, our stressors balloon, and our mental health decreases. We easily become lost in self-defeating loops of anger, overwhelm and despair.