Over the past week, several events have made me take stock of what we publish here.

First, Waylon’s article about whether elephant is becoming too fluffy. It’s true. We’ve had more than our fair share of positivity spiritual-lite articles lately. And relationship stuff, well, it’s important. How we connect to each other is important, if we are talking about it in a genuine, meaningful way. Not if we are a glorified version of Cosmo for yogis.

Second, I started thinking about an argument I had with a friend who didn’t want to listen to the news. “Too sad. Don’t want to ruin my whole day.” Yikes. Is this what we’ve come to? Feeling warm and fuzzy is better than knowing what’s going on? We’ll take the illusion of things being okay over the truth?

And then, today, one of our editors asked if it was okay to publish a news story about a difficult, heart-breaking event today, since it was Valentine’s Day.

What the hell kind of show are we running here if instead of keeping our hearts broken open and looking at the difficult things, we run for cover under platitudes and happy Instagram pictures? A mindful life isn’t one that only looks at the parts that make us feel good. If our mission, as an organization, is truly to benefit our readers and inspire them to live more mindfully, our “candy” articles should be the lesser five percent of what we are publishing.

Here is what we are about:

We are about increasing our readers’ awareness of what is going on in the world.

We are about giving our readers tools, genuine tools, to sit with the present moment whether it is beautiful or heart-achingly painful.

We are about people—of every background, every walk of life—who want to live a more mindful like and be of benefit to the world around them.

And we don’t get there by publishing bullshit articles that make you feel better about how your vagina looks or 10 more ways to feel “happy.” We get there by looking at all of it—the parts that inspire us and the parts that make us cry.

If we are going to make a difference, sometimes it means talking about things that sadden us or anger us. What we do next is what’s important. We don’t share articles about sad or difficult issues to make people fearful; we do it to inspire people to do something. The inspiring, uplifting articles aren’t meant to make us feel better sitting in our nice warm houses watching television. They are meant to make us want to share that light inside with others. When we share with each other in an authentic way, we skip the fluff and offer our true selves. When we start a conversation about the things that are broken, we begin to work together to fix them.

So, we are quitting the candy business.

Share your heart, share what’s true, write what is setting you on fire and you can’t keep in. You deserve to read more than candy, and we are here to give it to you.

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