Philosophies as broad as Buddhism to Stoicism separate experience from interpretation. For example, you may experience someone looking at you, and you may interpret that look to mean attraction, or hatred, or nothing at all. Though we often share interpretation, the separation from experience emphasizes choice: we choose how we interpret our experiences.

In turn, our interpretation creates another experience. Depending on how you interpreted the look from the previous example, you would feel and act differently. This forms a loose cycle between experience and interpretation.

Some experiences draw such strong, intrinsic emotion that I would count that emotion as part of the experience. Grief, for instance, comes uncontrollably from losing a close friend or family member. In those cases, perhaps with great difficulty, we can choose to interpret our strong emotions to our benefit.

Practicing meditation and presence helped me deal with the experience of potentially losing my job, and my coworker losing theirs.¹ In this way and many others, mindfulness has strengthened me against the inevitable stresses of life.