How Do Mindfulness Offerings Support Inner–Outer Sustainability Progress? A Sustainability Assessment of Online Mindfulness Interventions

Abstract

While there is growing optimism for inner transformations to catalyse systemic shifts towards more sustainable ways of being, no study so far has attempted to assess how well current interventions for inner development address core requirements for collective wellbeing. In this article, we apply a novel assessment framework to examine how mindfulness-based interventions address inner and outer sustainability criteria during a global health emergency. This inquiry informs a growing field of study concerned with leveraging inner transformations for systemic shifts towards sustainability progress. Using three prominent online mindfulness-based offerings as a case study, we demonstrate that mindfulness-based interventions have a broad range of potential desirable to detrimental implications for social and biophysical systems. We conclude by discussing how normative conceptions of inner interventions might be contextualised anew to effectively support more viable, just, and inclusive transformations towards long-term viability.

A Novel Framework for Inner-Outer Sustainability Assessment

“…Because the framework is intended to be adapted on a case-by-case basis, it represents a practical model that can be applied to interventions at any stage. The framework has already demonstrated its suitability for evaluating mindfulness-based case studies [138]. As such, we recommend that testing expand to other offerings concerned with inner development.…”

“…The framework presented here identifies criteria, categories, and guiding considerations for assessing the effects of inner transformation interventions on sustainability progress. Initial application of the model [138] demonstrated its utility for identifying cumulative effects and trade-offs. While there are inherent risks associated with the distillation of rich social and ecological interactions into separate boxes, the proposed matrix offers a loosely structured approach to explore emergent questions and summarise key findings.…”

“…For illustration, at the onset of COVID-19, mindfulness demonstrated benefits for reducing stress and anxiety of health care workers but not for transforming the systemic causes of moral injury and burnout that undermined clinician, and by extension, patient wellbeing [136,137]. These and similar tensions are further described in a case study in which we used the framework to evaluate the sustainability contributions of online mindfulness offerings during the pandemic [138].…”

“…Applications of this framework would help to inform recommendations for planning, decision making, and applications for future interventions and assessment tools [138,139]. These applications would also identify needs for new capacities, and further initiatives-for example, to foster the resurgence of traditional practices and knowledge that could support epistemically and ontologically diverse, accessible, ethical, and inclusive inner dimensions conducive to sustainability progress [22,27,29,48,[140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148].…”

Cultivating Pearls of Wisdom: Creating Protected Niche Spaces for Inner Transformations amidst the Metacrisis

“…Instead, we argue that the benefits of "best practices" for the metacrisis are limited when compared to "wise practices". Moreover, without a more transsystemic understanding of the different interventions in this space, including their motivations, incentivization, design, and delivery, the pursuit of wellbeing can paradoxically lead to ill-being [112,113]. For these reasons, we suggest a shift towards wise practices rooted in reciprocity and respect for "all my relations" [114,115].…”