What You Practice Grows Stronger
Stress, Videos, Work & Leadership

What You Practice Grows Stronger

Ready to make positive changes in your life? The power of mindfulness taught by Dr. Shauna Shapiro, practice to let go of any burden & become happier.

How do we change? In this pioneering talk, Dr. Shauna Shapiro draws on modern neuroscience and ancient wisdom to demonstrate how mindfulness can help us make positive changes in our brains and our lives.

Edited by Kevin Raman and Preston Yeung.

SHAUNA SHAPIRO, Ph.D., is a professor at Santa Clara University, a clinical psychologist, and an internationally recognized expert in mindfulness. Dr. Shapiro is the recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies teaching award, acknowledging her outstanding contributions to education; and is a fellow of the Mind and Life Institute co-founded by the Dalai Lama. Dr. Shapiro lectures and leads mindfulness programs internationally serves on the Advisory Board of Axialent a leader on Conscious Business and has brought mindfulness to pioneering companies including Cisco Systems and Google. She has published over 150 articles and book chapters and is a co-author of The Art and Science of Mindfulness and Mindful Discipline: A loving approach to raising an emotionally intelligent child. drshaunashapiro.com

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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Mindful leader
eBooks, Work & Leadership

The Mindful Leader

The Mindful Leader: Developing the capacity for resilience and collaboration in complex times through mindfulness practice. An Ebook by Hult Research.

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Many advocates of mindfulness training suggest that it can help leaders to be effective in the complex, dynamic and fast-paced context of the 21st century. Others deride the approach as a fad, pointing to a lack of evidence for its use in organizational and leadership contexts.

Certainly there has been, until now, scant robust research examining what the actual impact of mindfulness training with organizational leaders is, and we have been left with little idea about whether, why and how mindfulness practice might impact leadership effectiveness.

This report details the initial fi ndings of a multi-methods wait-list controlled study conducted with senior leaders who undertook an eight-week ‘Mindful Leader’ program using mindfulness training and practice, along with other elements of leadership development, to foster the capacities of collaboration, resilience and leading in complexity.

Our evidence suggests that the program was effective in developing these capacities and, crucially, our data shows that this effect was reliant on the extent of home practice undertaken. For example, those who practiced more experienced improved agility, perspective taking, emotional control and key measures of empathy. More specifi cally, those who practiced formal mindfulness meditations for ten minutes or more per day over the eight-week period that the program ran were signifi cantly more likely to experience an increase in their resilience and their overall mindfulness.

We also, however, established that finding even ten minutes to practice every day can be experienced as challenging by busy senior executives.

Based on our course-participant reports, we have formulated the beginnings of a theory on how to be a mindful leader. We suggest that there are three fundamental, higher-order ‘meta-capacities’. They are: improved metacognitive capability (the ability to observe one’s thoughts, feelings and sensations in the moment) and the attitudes of allowing and curiosity. Between them, they create a ‘space’ which allows more mindful leaders to respond – as opposed to react – to events. This space, in turn, enables a range of cognitive and emotional skills such as focus, emotional regulation, empathy, adaptability and perspective taking, which are vital for successful leadership today. Applying these skills then results in improvements in capacities for resilience, collaboration and leading in complexity.

Our findings suggest that mindfulness practice should be considered an important and effective intervention in developing leadership capacity for the 21st century. But one should be under no illusion that it offers a ‘quick win’: sustained mindfulness practice of around ten minutes per day over eight weeks seems to be fundamental in achieving the desired results. This has signifi cant implications for those who are designing, delivering and participating in mindfulness training programs.

Material on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

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SIY 103.4 Empathy
Videos, Work & Leadership

SIY 103.4 Empathy

Sean Fargo offers this Search Inside Yourself course for leaders and companies of all sizes around the world.

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SIY 103.3 Motivation
Videos, Work & Leadership

SIY 103.3 Motivation

Sean Fargo offers this Search Inside Yourself course for leaders and companies of all sizes around the world.

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SIY 103.2 Self Regulation
Videos, Work & Leadership

SIY 103.2 Self Regulation

SIY 103.2 Self Regulation: Showing emotions is not always the best response. Master the basics of self-regulation through mindfulness training and practice.

Sean Fargo offers this Search Inside Yourself course for leaders and companies of all sizes around the world.

Daniel Goleman wrote a very influential book called, Emotional Intelligence, in which he summarized lots of research and he summarized it in a way that came up with five interrelated domains of emotional intelligence, sometimes called Five Emotional Intelligence Competencies. These are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Five interrelated domains of emotional intelligence training and skills.

Howard Gardner, a very important researcher from Harvard University, wrote a book that was very influential as well called, Frames of Mind, in which he made a very clear point that IQ or intellectual intelligence is not the only domain but in fact that there are multiple forms of intelligence that are important to develop.

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SIY 103.1 Self Awareness
Videos, Work & Leadership

SIY 103.1 Self Awareness

Awareness is one of the basic principles of mindfulness. According to Daniel Goleman in his book Working with Emotional Intelligence, it means knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions. SIY 103.1: Search Inside Yourself course elaborates on the concept of self-awareness in detail.

Sean Fargo offers this Search Inside Yourself course for leaders and companies of all sizes around the world. Take advantage of this course to provide better clarity in your self-assessment so that you may lead your team, company, and even family to greater heights.

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SIY 102 Day of Mindfulness
Videos, Work & Leadership

SIY 102 Day of Mindfulness

Module 102 – Day of Mindfulness of the SIY course combines theoretical spiritual concepts with neuroscientific explanations of the Mindfulness concept.

Sean Fargo offers this Day of Mindfulness from Search Inside Yourself course for leaders and companies of all sizes around the world.

The World Needs More Certified Mindfulness TeachersMillions of people are struggling with increased levels of stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, addiction, grief and trauma. Attention spans are decreasing, while judgments are rising.Fortunately, mindfulness is entering the mainstream of our culture, but people don’t know how to find certified teachers. We’re lacking certified mindfulness teachers to share these powerful practices in companies, healthcare facilities, yoga studios, coaching environments, schools, online programs, and a growing list of places around the world.

Professional Mindfulness Solutions For Performance, Well-Being and Resilience

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330MindfulnessWorksheets

Step-by-step guidance for developing mindfulness for your health, relationships, career, meditation and more!

50% OFF

  • Safely download them all to your own computer
  • Nicely designed PDF’s with writable fields to add your reflections, answers and journal entries
  • Expertly designed for both beginners and advanced mindfulness practitioners
  • Organized into separate folders, based on health, relationships, career, self-discovery, purpose, formal meditation, and more
  • Evidence-based practices for increasing a sense of peace, calm, clarity, care and confidence
  • 100% Money-Back Guarantee

Learn More

200+ GUIDED Meditation Scripts

Discover the world’s most popular mindfulness meditation scripts that make a positive impact on people’s well-being.

50% OFF

  • Safely download them all to your own computer
  • Elegantly formatted for you to read easily and confidently at your own pace
  • Learn how to do many new mindfulness meditations , while deepening your experiential understanding of the one’s you’re practiced
  • Evidence-based meditations for cultivating calm, self-compassion, embodied presence and resilience
  • Guide these meditations for others to make a positive impact on the qualify of their day-to-day lives
  • 100% Money-Back Guarantee

Learn More

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Get Some Headspace by Andy Puddicombe
Videos, Work & Leadership

Get Some Headspace

Get more headspace by making meditation part of your daily routine. Listen to Andy Puddicombe about different meditation styles to try out.

Meditation only works if we do it. We can talk about it, read about it and think about it, but only when we take the time to sit and practice will we experience meaningful and lasting change, for both ourselves and those around us. So find out how to make it part of your routine, learn how to overcome common obstacles, experiment with new techniques, and make a commitment to a happier, healthier and more enjoyable way of life.

Andy Puddicombe is a former Tibetan Buddhist monk and the co-founder of Headspace. He is also a graduate of the Conservatoire of Dance and Drama with a degree in Circus Arts. Teacher, Author and TED Talker, Andy is the voice of all things Headspace.

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Mark Higbie How Ford Fosters Mindfulness at Work
Videos, Work & Leadership

How Ford Fosters Mindfulness at Work

Mark Higbie shares how Ford fosters mindfulness at work and how this has been greatly beneficial to its employees. They encourage mindfulness in workplace.

Mark Higbie, senior advisor to Ford Motor Company, explains how the auto company began introducing mindfulness in the workplace.

Ford Motor Company: Mindfulness At Work

Do you currently maintain a mindfulness practice? If so, how did you get started with it? Maybe you read a book, watched an inspiring lecture, or listened to a podcast that prompted you to begin meditating. Or, perhaps your practice doesn’t involve meditation per se. Some people opt to build mindfulness into their daily lives by choosing to slow down, be more present and acknowledge the present moment rather than focusing on the past and future.

Either way, it’s easy to develop a tendency to think of mindfulness as a thing that we go and do somewhere else. If you’re at a busy grocery store, you might tell yourself that you’ll work on your mindfulness later, when you’re at home and with fewer distractions. Even more commonly, people often convince themselves that they don’t have much of a place for mindfulness at work. After all, there are high expectations being placed upon them by their boss and co-workers, and they have to keep up. Where is there room for mindfulness in such a scenario?

Encouraging Mindfulness In the Workplace

In fact, the workplace is one of the environments that stands the benefit the most from mindfulness training and practice. There are a lot of things that are stressful about the average work environment almost by definition. You have deadlines to stick to, key performance indicators to evaluate, and numbers that you have to hit on a quarterly, monthly, or even weekly basis. That’s a lot of pressure, and it’s easy to get caught up in regretting past mistakes and worrying about the future.

In this video, Mark Higbie discusses the ways in which Ford Motor Company actively works to foster mindfulness in the workplace. Introducing such practices can be beneficial for employees at all levels of just about any company.

Instance 1

330MindfulnessWorksheets

Step-by-step guidance for developing mindfulness for your health, relationships, career, meditation and more!

50% OFF

  • Safely download them all to your own computer
  • Nicely designed PDF’s with writable fields to add your reflections, answers and journal entries
  • Expertly designed for both beginners and advanced mindfulness practitioners
  • Organized into separate folders, based on health, relationships, career, self-discovery, purpose, formal meditation, and more
  • Evidence-based practices for increasing a sense of peace, calm, clarity, care and confidence
  • 100% Money-Back Guarantee

Learn More

200+ GUIDED Meditation Scripts

Discover the world’s most popular mindfulness meditation scripts that make a positive impact on people’s well-being.

50% OFF

  • Safely download them all to your own computer
  • Elegantly formatted for you to read easily and confidently at your own pace
  • Learn how to do many new mindfulness meditations , while deepening your experiential understanding of the one’s you’re practiced
  • Evidence-based meditations for cultivating calm, self-compassion, embodied presence and resilience
  • Guide these meditations for others to make a positive impact on the qualify of their day-to-day lives
  • 100% Money-Back Guarantee

Learn More

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10 Tips for Starting Mindfulness Program at Work
Videos, Work & Leadership

10 Tips for Starting Mindfulness Program at Work

In this video, Kelley McCabe, founder and CEO of eMindful, explores ten tips for incorporating mindfulness at work. Her insights come at an important time as more people than ever are feeling the effects of workplace stress and unease. Because of this, both employees and employers are becoming increasingly interested in understanding how to use mindfulness in the workplace.

The Benefits of Mindfulness at Work

Before we incorporate mindfulness into the workplace, we may be curious about what its benefits are in this type of setting. After all, many of us consider mindfulness to be something that supports personal wellbeing but not so evidently professional life. However, contrary to what we may assume, there is much reason to welcome these teachings into corporate settings as well.

Mindfulness exercises can help to cultivate a wide variety of skills that are important for both employee and organizational wellbeing. These teachings can help to improve leadership skills, emotional regulation, communication skills, focus, attention, cognition, and innovation. In addition, mindfulness at work can increase job satisfaction and motivation.

There are a variety of specific techniques that can be used in the workplace, such as gratitude practice, 10-minute breathing breaks, and compassionate communication exercises. Both individual and group practice are of great benefit to the whole.

Three Tips for Incorporating Mindfulness at Work

To highlight a few of McCabe’s lessons, the following are three tips for bringing mindfulness into the workplace:

1. Make mindfulness a part of the culture. Mindfulness must be at the heart of the organization rather than a one-time conversation.

2. Support from and involvement by middle managers. Get middle managers onboard so that then can authentically understand the practices and encourage their teams to take part.

3. Support and encourage ongoing engagement. Rather than making mindfulness something that is experienced as a one-off event, consider how you might continue to offer it to your employees.

Check out the full video for all 10 tips McCabe offers for incorporating mindfulness at the workplace.

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six questions for greater accomplishment
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Six Questions For Greater Accomplishment

Just Below Is A Sample Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

...That Was Just The First Few Pages Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

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Inner Strength Techniques to Improve Your Willpower and Self Control
Blog, Work & Leadership

Inner Strength: Techniques to Improve Your Willpower and Self Control

A positive self-talk is a powerful tool for increasing willpower and self-control. Improve your inner strength by paying attention to your inner voice.

Willpower and self-control are already within you—it’s just tapping those strengths and nurturing them that makes all the difference. If you feel like you just don’t have “good willpower,” you’re actively working against yourself. You have to dispel thoughts of negativity in order to cognitively recondition your mindset and your life. Whether it’s through spoken daily affirmations, vision boards, or another strategy, all of these techniques are a means of changing self-talk.

How we speak to ourselves matters because our brain’s biggest job is making what we think a reality. It’s why athletes envision themselves winning, and science has backed up that this works. Unfortunately, many of us have adopted a negative inner voice. We would never speak so terribly to another person as we do to ourselves. Like all habits, we’ve probably been doing this for a long time, and it’s become second-nature.

The first step is being aware of your inner-voice. Pay attention to it, especially in times of struggle or challenges. If you’re uneasy taking a test, how do you speak to yourself beforehand? “You’re just going to fail anyway,” or “You’ve got this” are two very common and different inner voice patterns. Most of us fall into the former.

Once you’ve identified your inner voice, actively change it. This won’t happen overnight. Consider yourself as a bit of a “separate” person from your inner voice. How would you talk to a child, your best friend, or your partner? You would support them completely and use encouraging language. The same can and should be done for yourself. This will take practice, and you’ll probably catch yourself going back to your old voice—and that’s okay. Acknowledge when this happens and take note of what sparked it. This can help you identify situations where you’re especially tough on yourself.

When that negative voice is acknowledged, you can thank it for the lesson or reminder and let it go. Correct it by following up with a positive affirmation. These can be aloud or simply inside your head. Some people benefit greatly from talking to a mirror, while others prefer to write out positive self-talk in a journal. You may want to try a variety of techniques to see what resonates with you.

A great tool for everyone is to build a relationship with a mental health therapist, like a counselor or psychiatrist. They can help keep you on track and offer different avenues for changing self-speak. They also provide an unbiased outlet where you can share your concerns without judgment. These professionals have built a career out of helping others achieve better mental health. They can even suggest other treatment tools if you feel like you are in an increasingly worsening state. At the core of so many woes are how we talk to ourselves and how that manifests. Since our brains are working overtime to make sure our inner voice is right, we need to just as actively re-direct it.

Positive self-talk is more than making yourself feel good. It’s backed by science and the most powerful tool you have to increase willpower and self-control. However, overachievers can go overboard (which can lead to disorders such as orthorexia). That’s part of what makes a mental health therapist so helpful.

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the art of generous learning
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

The Art of Generous Learning

Just Below Is A Sample Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

...That Was Just The First Few Pages Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

This mindfulness worksheet is an exercise that can facilitate the development of mindfulness in the workplace. It is a series of suggestions and reflection questions that encourage us to become a more mindful leader or department head. It encourages generous learning, which is a willingness to learn from anyone - regardless of who they are or what position they hold. We all have things to learn and to teach.

What is Mindful Leadership?

Mindful leadership means many things. It includes leading with a sense of connectedness to the whole, honoring and being open to differing ideas and feelings, and communicating in ways that are uplifting and respectful. Part of being a mindful leader includes realizing that we all have something to offer, regardless of what role we play in the company or organization. Mindful leadership honors the voices of all.

We often yearn for more mindfulness in the workplace, and yet we have to realize that the openness, presence, and honesty that is required for mindfulness needs to be practiced at all levels within the organization. A mindful leader can be an emblem of this by practicing open listening, compassionate communication, and curiosity.

Generous Learning

How can we practice generous learning? As outlined in this worksheet, some of the notions we might consider and adopt include:

  • Create conditions for team members to discover what they can teach or offer
  • Set an example by asking questions with curiosity and openness
  • Remember that no one is all-knowing
  • Ask questions about things you are genuinely interested in and no little about

Generous learning requires us to set aside our own perceptions and to be willing to hear the viewpoints of another without judgment or assumption. This does not mean we must agree with what another person says, but we must be willing to consider what truth rests in it. When we are all open to listening with curiosity, it becomes easier to find common ground and to discover new ideas.

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Time Management
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Time Management

Just Below Is A Sample Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

...That Was Just The First Few Pages Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

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Mindfulness An Effective Way to Stay Calm and Productive
Blog, Work & Leadership

Mindfulness: An Effective Way to Stay Calm and Productive

Stress, the common enemy of hardworking people might probably found its rival: Calmness. Study reveals that mindfulness, a condition of the mind that exemplifies a person’s consciousness on the present events while staying calm even feelings and thoughts are running in her mind, is a method that strengthens a person’s ability to be productive by changing the condition of the brain.

Previous studies showed how exercising mindfulness has an impact in a person’s mind. From one study conducted, experts discovered that from the eight regions of the brain, there are two that are significant to a person in which mindfulness plays a vital role. When mindfulness meditation is utilized, the brain movement and the density of brain tissue can be regulated.

One of the two important brain divisions is the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC).

According to the Journal of Neuropsychiatry, ACC is located in a peculiar spot inside the brain associated with “emotional” limbic system and the “cognitive” prefrontal cortex. It plays a significant part in the organization of processes in the nervous system and neuronal circuitry. It is also a unique region in psychopathology. The ACC’s main function is self-discipline. It allows a person to withstand interruptions and to stay undistracted in making good choices.

The second region, Hippocampus, is associated with long-term memory. A person with Alzheimer’s disease more likely has this part of the brain damaged. Resilience is one of the traits attributed to hippocampus.

Mindfulness meditation helps in gaining strength to manage uncontrollable thoughts and attitude. Results of previous studies prove that a person practicing mindfulness as a form of meditation is more aware of her situation and concentrated. It is an effective way to release stress gained through the whole day’s work. It also provides aid to a person to stay calm and work effectively throughout the day.

Source: http://www.foodworldnews.com/articles/51826/20151109/mindfulness-effective-way-stay-calm-productive.htm

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Identifying Strengths & Strengths Journal
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Identifying Strengths

Just Below Is A Sample Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

...That Was Just The First Few Pages Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

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Savoring Success Past Present and Future
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Acknowledging Success

Just Below Is A Sample Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

...That Was Just The First Few Pages Of The “” Mindfulness Worksheet...

...If You'd Like to Download This Entire Mindfulness Worksheet For FREE, Just Enter Your First Name and Email Address Here:

Acknowledging success, whether big or small, is an integral part in our wholesome growth as a complete being. This worksheet will help you to realize how important this is through three key steps - honoring the past, savoring the present, and embracing the future. We all know that we are our own worst critic. Hopefully, by the end of this worksheet, you can reflect on your victories and see that no matter how tiny they are or how far back in the past they were, they can help you to achieve peace and self-acceptance in the future.

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Are You Aware of Your Mindful Leadership
Blog, Work & Leadership

Are You Aware of Your Mindful Leadership?

There are those who are seemingly meant to lead.  Born leaders we call them.  Rushing in like proverbial knights in shining armor ready to save the day.

For the struggling leader,  there is no sense of knighthood, but rather the feeling of being the court jester, relying on antics to somehow bring calm to a sense of brewing hostility and angst.

What makes one different from the other?  In simple terms, doing things on purpose.  Mindful leadership.  It is leading with the idea that things be done with a purpose and for a purpose.

In order to lead in a mindful manner, understanding how to reach that purpose must first be understood.  Ask these questions:

  • What is the goal?
  • Who are the players?
  • What are the obstacles?

These three questions help establish the route, who the travelers might be, and what it is that might get in the way.  The answers will aid in establishing a clearly laid out plan, one empowering the leader to systematically reach their intended purpose or goal.

  • It is being aware there are steps to reaching a goal.
  • It is understanding how to direct those working with the same goal in mind.
  • It is being ready when challenges arise.

One can haphazardly lead and perhaps, by happenstance, somehow manage to achieve something.  There is no benefit to such a leader, or the people they lead.  There are no lessons, only accidental success.  This is the juggling jester, hoping to invoke a laugh in order to save his own head.

It is the great knight who, through training, through camaraderie and fierce battle, manages to ride in with his battalion and save the day.  It is no accident.  It is great preparation and awareness of executing his preparation that allows him to save the day.

Mindful leadership is that awareness.  It is purposeful preparation, purposeful connection, and purposeful execution.  There are no born leaders, only leaders who have come to the awareness of their ability.  It is the awareness of their own inner determination, the strength of their external relationships, and the willingness to face a challenge.  The response to this awareness will determine how mindful the leaders will be.

Mindful as a soldier, or perhaps a clown.

Contact us for more about Mindful Leadership.

Find more exercises related to mindfulness at work here

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Mindfulness at Work How to Approach Workday Challenges Mindfully
Blog, Work & Leadership

Mindfulness at Work: How to Approach Workday Challenges Mindfully

Getting into the habit of meditation before and after work can be great for your home life, but the chaos of a workday can make it difficult to practice mindfulness at work. However, being mindful throughout your workday can ease challenges and stresses that come up, which can make your workday and workplace calmer and easier to manage. Here are a few common workday challenges and suggestions for how to approach them mindfully:

Challenge 1: Constant distractions

Imagine how productive you would be if you could just lock yourself in your office all day long without interruption. Unfortunately, the reality of most workplaces necessitates that you must work with others, and that means interruptions and distractions. Your distraction might be the sound of phones ringing, or it could be the all-day hum of people chattering all around you. If you are easily annoyed and thrown off by distractions, try this. Focus on something you can control, like your breath. Zeroing in on your breathing will help you focus on the task at hand rather than zeroing in on the distractions around you.

Challenge 2: An annoying co-worker

If you’re lucky, you get along with everyone at your office and rarely have problems dealing with them. If you’re like most people, though, there’s at least one co-worker you wish would just go away and quit distracting you with gossip or office politics. Instead of engaging with your annoying co-worker, try just listening to the person and think about why s/he acts this way. Turning your focus from your annoyance to figuring out the reason behind the person’s actions will make you less judgmental and less annoyed.

Challenge 3: Lacking a solution

Figuring out a solution to a problem can be infuriating, especially when you are on a timeline and/or you know your boss is counting on you to solve the problem at hand. But getting frustrated doesn’t help you figure out a solution any quicker and may actually get in the way of your creative process. So the next time you are faced with finding a solution to a difficult problem, try this. Give yourself five minutes to just sit quietly and think about something besides the problem. If you can, find a calming piece of music to play during this time and just let your mind wander. Then, when time is up, come back to the problem as if it were the first time you encountered it. This break will give you a chance to recharge, and looking at the problem with fresh eyes will keep you from ruling out any ideas. You may find that a solution you had previously thrown out is actually the right way to go.

Being mindful is about more than meditating for a few minutes everyday. It is a way for you to approach your life, including your worklife, so that you can be aware of what is going on around you and why you feel the way you do. Try these meditation techniques the next time you start to feel overwhelmed at work. For more ideas on how to practice mindfulness throughout your workday, contact us.

Find more exercises related to mindfulness at work here.

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Minding Our Business Mindfulness at Work
Blog, Work & Leadership

Minding Our Business: Mindfulness at Work

No matter what we do for a living, most of us require complete concentration to do a good job. That is why it is beneficial to practice being mindful at work. Our thoughts become clearer and we can better organize each task.

The core principle of work awareness is knowing that what we do matters. Whether it is brain surgery or washing pans, we tell ourselves daily that we are going to do our best. Of course, it is easy to get side-tracked; but we gently bring our thinking back to what we are doing. With each step of our duties, we are aware of our surroundings and do things purposely and with kindness.

We can find harmony in even the most mundane chores. While it is good to have goals for the end results, we can focus on the moment and what we are doing now. This helps with concentration and makes us more creative and less likely to make mistakes.

It is easy to feel stressed when we have deadlines or when our working atmosphere is less than optimal. These are the times that mindful working are the most important. We realize that we are responsible for ourselves and our own attitude will dictate how we feel about our jobs.

We can improve our attitude by surrounding ourselves with positive things at work. We can hang a pretty picture or put something in our work space that evokes peacefulness in our minds. We also need some downtime during the day to recharge and to be kind to ourselves. Mindful working makes the job more enjoyable. Contact us to find out more ways to be fully aware at work.

Find more exercises related to mindfulness at work here.

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Mindful Leadership in the Workplace
Blog, Work & Leadership

Mindful Leadership in the Workplace

Just what is mindful leadership? It is the ability to anchor mindfulness into the complex and challenging situations presented to us by the workplace. See, without mindful leadership, unconscious patterns tend to continue on without being solved by insight and conscious awareness. These unconscious patterns have the potential to erode relationships and create disharmony, which is why it is important to tackle them head-on! Here are three ways to bring mindful leadership into your workplace. Are you up for the challenge?

1. The Importance of Concentration

When you sit in meditation, you aspire to remain fixed and firm–like a rock–amidst the rushing river of thoughts and mental impressions. This is only possible through concentration. The same applies to the situations of the workplace. Ongoing challenges present you with the opportunity to deepen your mindfulness practice by remaining focused and poised. In his new book, Focus, Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence says that, “One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.” It is only through concentration and awareness that we can turn the tide on these distractions. Which brings us to our next tip…

2. Get to the Truth

One of the biggest downfalls of man is the tendency to jump to conclusions and make assumptions without adequate evidence. When something goes wrong, most of us experience an inner storm of emotion which causes us to seek someone to blame. In the midst of this storm, we lose our ability to reason and we can quickly succumb to the whim of ignorance and uninformed actions. Because of this, it is important to weather the storm by remaining mindful. Know that it will pass and that if you resist hasty action, clarity will come in its wake.

3. Eliminate Communication Roadblocks

In Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Robert Fisher and William Ury describe a major problem many managers and aspiring leaders are likely to face on numerous occasions–communication roadblocks. These are unconscious reactions that most of us have in response to difficult situations or disagreements with others. One example of a communication roadblock is projecting a problematic situation on a person through labeling. For example, instead of saying “this is a difficult situation,” you may say “why are you so difficult?” This is usually done in frustration. Another example is arguing from a firmly established position, rather than seeking to find common interests. As Gandhi said, “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” Try to find common ground with those you disagree with; you will be impressed how much it helps!

It Takes Work!

Do not be discouraged if you find it difficult to remain mindful in difficult situations. Incorporating mindfulness into your daily life is an ongoing process–a lifetime’s work. The journey matters more than the destination, and the process of development in and of itself is the joy of being. Please contact us if you have any questions or comments on developing mindful leadership, or bringing increased mindfulness into the workplace.

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3 Simple & Effective Mindfulness Exercises for Professionals
Blog, Work & Leadership

3 Simple & Effective Mindfulness Exercises for Professionals

Here are a few mindfulness exercises for professionals that will help you to take charge of your mood, no matter what kind of day you’re having:

As a professional, you may have realized that it’s very easy for your mind to get scattered.  Most people have a number of chores on their desks.  On a good day, you’re going to get the majority of them done.  On a bad day, you might hit a snag and get stuck on one.  But no matter how your work is going, you can still remain calm within yourself.  You don’t have to let what’s outside you influence the inside.

Keep the big picture in mind: is your life generally moving in the direction that you want?  If so, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t keep feeling good.  And even if you feel that your life is not moving in the direction that you want, letting yourself get bogged down and feeling bad about it isn’t going to make things better.  Here are a few mindfulness exercises for professionals that will help you to take charge of your mood, no matter what kind of day you’re having:

  1. Smile.  Changing your outside can help you to change your inside.  If you smile and make an effort to continue working normally even while you’re feeling disappointed or anxious about something, this might actually help you to come back to normal.  Just smiling once may not have a long-lasting effect but it will at least give you a few moments away from whatever’s bringing you down.
  2. Take deep breaths.  You’ve probably heard this so many times before, as a palliative for anger, anxiety and other emotional issues.  As human beings, the one thing we do without even thinking about it is breathe.  However, when you’re in the grip of an emotion, you might start breathing shallowly without realizing it.  So take a few minutes to give your body some oxygen.  This works even better if  you’re standing under a tree or in a patch of green because plants give out oxygen.
  3. Write it all down.  If you’re feeling upset about something, it can help to write down whatever’s going through your head.  Don’t stop to think about what you’re writing, just write for half a page or a full page, letting your pen flow across without censoring yourself.  It doesn’t matter if you’re repetitive, whiny or irritating.  No one’s going to read what you write except yourself.  And this will help you to get it all out, just like a therapy session would.  Sometimes, you might even find solutions to your problems coming up in your writing.

Contact us for more great mindfulness exercises for professionals.

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How to Incorporate Mindfulness at Work
Blog, Work & Leadership

How to Incorporate Mindfulness at Work

The work place is full of stressors. From deadlines to demanding bosses, it can be hard getting through the work day without wanting to pull your hair out. However, if you can learn to incorporate mindfulness at work, you’ll be able to get so much more out of your workday.

Focus on Your Breathing

On any given day at work, you’re likely to encounter plenty of distressing conversations. Your boss might reprimand you for something out of your control and co-workers might try to gossip behind your back. When such distressing conversations take place around you, it’s easy to have your blood pressure start to rise as a result of your emotions. However, it’s not in any way productive to your work, and it’s also bad for your health to react negatively to such conversations. So instead, rely on mindfulness meditation to focus on your breathing instead of the things that distraught you.

Stop Multitasking All the Time

As a hard worker, you probably often feel the pressure to multitask. But believe it or not, multitasking can actually be bad for your work output. That’s because when you’re multitasking it becomes impossible to truly focus on any particular task. Hence, consider unitasking instead. You might or might not get things done more quickly, but you’ll definitely get them done more properly the first time around. Plus, you’ll endure less stress in the process.

Go Outside During Your Breaks

Make the most of your breaks at work. Go outside to breathe in some fresh air; it will help to reenergize you enough to make it through the rest of your day. If the weather is bad, try to find a quiet spot within the building to close your eyes for a bit and meditate. Doing so will allow you to come back to work refreshed and ready to focus on whatever tasks you have before you.

Leave Personal Problems at Home

Once you walk into your place of work, make sure you leave all of your personal problems at home. Wait until later to resolve personal issues. After all, there’s not much that can be done about personal problems while at work. So it’s best to just focus on your job while you’re there.

Contact us for more tips on staying mindful at work.

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Focus by Daniel Goleman
Videos, Work & Leadership

“Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence” [Video]

Published on Dec 6, 2013

In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the #1 international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today’s scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention.

Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world.

Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on Smart Practices—mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not.

Transcript:

My dear friend, Daniel Goleman, is one of the world’s most recognized experts on topics relating to emotion intelligence. He is also an amazing author. He has written more than ten books, and his book “Emotion Intelligence,” that one book alone, sold more than 5 Million copies. He has received many awards, and he has been nominated twice for the ___ prize.

On the personal level, Dan is also the person most responsible for me becoming an author. So, back in 2007, Dan and I ___ a bunch of distinguished ___, such as Inside Yourself, which became a very popular curriculum in Google and ___. And I remember in 2009, Dan and I were taking a walk right there. I remember that exact place and exact time. We were talking a walk. I was trying to convince him to write a book on such as Inside Yourself. And then he told me, he said, I’d love to do it. I just don’t have the time. And then he looked at me. He pointed his finger at me, and say, “Ming, why don’t you write a book?” I was like, “Me? I’m an engineer, not a doctor.” Damage him. Eventually, because of Dan’s support and his confidence on me, I did end up writing up a book.

I’m really excited about Dan’s new book, “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence.” Skillfulness over attention is the foundation of all higher cognitive and emotional abilities. Attention creates the condition for personal excellence. Attention is so important, that as such inside yourself. It is the first thing we train. The first thing we train is attention. Yet, I think the subject of attention itself is not getting enough attention, ironically. And I cannot think of anybody better to write a book on important topic as Dan.

So, my dear friends, my dear friend, Danny, I’m delighted that you wrote this book, and I’m delighted that you didn’t ask me to write the book. My friends, please welcome my friend, and Google’s friend, Dan Goleman.

Thank you. I’m always happy to come to Google.

2007- that reminded me of something. In 2007, there was a short ___ in Time Magazine, and it said, there’s a new word in the English language. The word is “pissled”—it’s a combination of puzzled and pissed off, and it describes how you feel when the person you’re with takes out their Blackberry and starts talking to someone else. Think about that. Both things have died—that word and Blackberry. Two. Things change quickly. That says something. I remember when I went around to publishers and said, I’d like to write a book about attention. One of them said, that’s great! Keep it short.

Because I think attention is a capacity, a vital capacity as Ming was hinting. That’s really ___ today. I’m most worried about our kids ___, but I think we all are kind of victims. Here’s something rather provocative, Herbert Simon, Nobel prize winner said, “What information consumes is the attention of its recipients, hints a wealth of information, creates a poverty of attention.” To the extent that you understand that there are two (2) kinds of attention—there’s the attention that we voluntarily direct, and there’s the attention that seduces us. There are actually different systems in the brain—one is the top-down system, from the pre-frontal area, this is when we decide to concentrate on our work. We’re applying that kind of attention. But then there are the little seductions, the endless seductions, and there are more, and more, and more of them. I get, you know, I’m writing away on my book, I get a little popup—you got an email! That’s a seduction. That’s an intrusion on sustained focus. And because of the excellence of our technology and the cleverness of people who design technology. Some of ___ in this room might just realize, our attention needs to be paid more attention to if we’re going to maintain or even increase our capacity for it. This also, the fact that attention is threatened along with the fact that, in the last two or three years, there’s been explosion of neuroscience finding about the ___ circuitry, which has vast implications for us. This is really, since I’m a Science journalist, enticed me to write the book that Ming refused to write. Perhaps, luckily, ___.

And as I got into it, I had to rethink emotion intelligence. You didn’t mention that Harvard Business review? Yeah, the next issue of the Harvard Business review, which will be out next week has a cover article by me on the leader’s focus. The kind of focus, attentional capacities that anyone who’s a leader needs, and we’re actually all leaders. I think of leaders as anyone with a sphere of influence, not people on the chart necessarily.

But to the extent of we all need to get more control over attention and yet it makes good at the things that matter in performance these days. It’s, let me de-revise emotion intelligence, what I’m thinking about, I’ll share that with you. There’s an effect called, in statistics, many of you are probably familiar of the floor effect. It occurs in a place like Google, it occurs in Ivy League College, it occurs anywhere for example that there’s a premium put for admission on IQ. And it’s an interesting phenomena, because it’s rather paradoxical. What it means is that IQ, which is a fantastic predictor of the level of cognitive complexity that you can manage, and that you can understand, and therefore sorts people into jobs, roles, and so on abilities. Once you get selected for IQ, then excellence becomes defined largely by things other than IQ, and it’s because of the floor effect. Are you all familiar with the floor effect?

So, a little statistic—so if you were to plot, say, IQ and Emotional Intelligence, do a scatter plot, you get a fairly random distribution, because those are largely independent aspects of ability and they partake a different part of the brain largely.

To donate to Daniel Goleman directly, visit http://www.danielgoleman.info/

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Wise Livelihood & Redemption
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

Wise Livelihood [Audio]

John Goldstein talks about the Wise Livelihood in the context of the Satipatthana Sutta. It is a part of the Noble Eight-fold Path.

Wise Livelihood, by Joseph Goldstein:


[ai_playlist id=”195746″]

About Joseph Goldstein:

I have two main aims in teaching. The first is to spread the dharma as widely as possible, offering it to as many different people as I can. The second is to teach a smaller number of people over sustained periods of time. This in-depth teaching engages my tremendous love for intensive, long-term meditation practice, where people can immerse themselves in the retreat experience and see how it transforms their understanding.

Transcript:

This evening, we’ll conclude the ___ section of the ___ path. Discussing the next steps of right action and right livelihood. As with right speech, we cultivate the steps not only for the harmonizing influence in our lives, but as an essential means for awakening. It’s impossible to separate meditative wisdom from the moral understanding of the next ___. Knowing the Buddha express this integrated path in one well known verse of the Dhammapada were he said, “Avoid what is unskillful. Do what is good, and purify the mind.” So especially in times like these where there are great cultural changes and there’s ___ a useful questioning, you know, of cultural norms and values, the importance of personal integrity and responsibility needs to be continually re-articulated. So we don’t simply get lost in the confusion of our own desires and impulses. It said that what most moved the Buddha to teach after his enlightenment was that he surveyed the world with his eye of wisdom. He saw people seeking happiness, wanting happiness, and yet doing the very things that cause suffering. Knowing ___, he expressed this so well. He said, ___ senseless children who shrink from suffering, but loved its causes. So we need to really rearticulate and examine, and explore the moral foundation that makes happiness possible.

So allow these three steps of right speech, right action, and right livelihood all revolve around abstinence from doing unskillful things. Each one also contains its own positive expression that is doing what is good. So the right action is cultivating that clarity and strength of mind to abstain from the actions of the body, which cause harm to oneself or to others. So this is how the Buddha explained it. And what is right action? Abstaining from taking life. Abstaining from stealing. Abstaining from sexual misconduct.

Now, so much of what the Buddha taught seem so obvious. It’s almost as if he is speaking to children. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t harm others. It seems so clear, and so obvious that this is the proper way to live. Still, as we try to apply and practice these ___ in our lives, we can really come to the ___ edge of our understanding of them and our commitment to them. And this edge is a challenging place to be.

Now, one teacher commented: That if practicing the precepts doesn’t make us uncomfortable, there’s probably room to grow. And I really appreciate that, because it points to these steps in the path as actual practice. Things to understand, things to investigate, to explore in our lives rather than taking it for granted that we’re basically good people and then looking no further.

So the first part of right action is abstaining from killing, or physically harming other beings or ourselves. And this includes, obviously, people not killing people, not killing animals particularly for sport or pleasure, not killing things because we don’t like the way they look. I have a striking example of this in my early days in India. I was living up in the mountains during the hot summer months in a quite primitive cottage. There was no running water, no plumbing, nothing like that. And that was pretty ___ to living beings and there were these huge spiders, big hairy spiders that just live on the ceiling of my bedroom. They were pretty big. I am trying to get the right, to not, to have the right speech, right demonstration, but they were pretty big. And at first I looked at them, Oh, my God, am I going to be sleeping with these things? But there was really not much to do. You know, I didn’t want to kill him. And I wasn’t going to him. And I didn’t see any way of putting them outside in such a way that they wouldn’t come back in. And what happened is I learned to find why they were there. You know, they were on the ceiling and that was their home and I was hanging around on the floor, on the bed, and that was my home. And there was no need to, you know, to do what we so often do in the West, is you know, that’s something we don’t like, we don’t like the way it looks—we take out our spray can of Raid, you know, and just kill it. We can refrain from that. When we’re killing things, or harming. It creates the ultimate alienation and separation from other beings. You know, we really have this intent to harm. And so this part of the path is learning how to relate to other forms of life as fellow living beings. You know, each one with a desire to continue their life.

There’s a wonderful book, which I read years ago. It’s called Kinship with all Life by J. Allen Boone, and it’s just a wonderful story of this man who had just a great empathetic, telepathic communication with animals in the stories he told of the communication, both between animals and between himself, and animals. And there are a lot of stories about this one particularly dog ___, which you know, it’s not so hard to relate to, but he also told this incredible story about this telepathic connection with a fly. And he could call the fly to land on his finger—just through mind-to-mind connection. I don’t exactly know how he knew it was the same fly each time, but whenever he did that a fly landed anyway.

It’s just a very moving book. You know, it highlighted the fact that in some fundamental way, we all share life in common. So again, this are the Buddha’s word on right action—here, someone avoids the taking of life and abstains from it without stick or sword, conscientious, full of sympathy, one is desirous of the welfare of all sentient beings. So there are important consequences as we practice this aspect of the path. You know, when we’re conscientious.

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://www.dharma.org/joseph-goldstein

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Donald-Rothberg
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

Right Livelihood And Vocation [Audio]

Right Livelihood And Vocation, by Donald Rothberg. He talks about how to find a deepen your own vocation and live a life of integrity.

Right Livelihood And Vocation, by Donald Rothberg:

 

[ai_playlist id=”194287″]

About Donald Rothberg:

Donald Rothberg, PhD, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice and the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Formerly on the faculties of the University of Kentucky, Kenyon College, and Saybrook Graduate School, he currently writes and teaches classes, groups and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, spirituality and psychology, and socially engaged Buddhism. An organizer, teacher, and former board member for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Donald has helped to guide three six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality through Buddhist Peace Fellowship (the BASE Program), Saybrook (the Socially Engaged Spirituality Program), and Spirit Rock (the Path of Engagement Program). He is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers.

So this morning, I wanted to continue to what ___ explored last week. Last week, he explored right livelihood. I talked to some—how many people were there? Do you like him? Was it good? He’s a very sweet man, and deep experienced. And I wanted to continue—so, how many people were not here last time? Okay, so that’s a big chunk. So, I was going to continue with the theme of right livelihood, but take a little further, particularly into a very deep question of “How do I find and deepen my own, personal vocation?” as to “How I live with integrity in this life?” A small question. And so, I wanted to continue with some of the material on right livelihood.

And I’ll do a little bit more on than I was intending to do, because of people’s background. And I’m doing this partly in honor of—yesterday was international worker’s day. And I want to acknowledge that and really honor that deepening of reflection on our own work or own vocation that is so much a part of our Dharma path or Dharma practice.

So before I say anything, I’d like to just invite, for each of us, a quiet reflection right now. So, just be yourself.

So I’d like you to ask yourself a few questions. You know, just say them. Maybe just say them right at the beginning so you can just take your time with them. We’ll take a few minutes to reflect.

If I had to describe my own vocation or quality type of work in the world that expresses my deeper intentions, what is it? What is that vocation? And then, some of us may know that quite clearly, others may be lost clear, but just into that question, I’d like to have us ask a question and reflect on it—what, right now, is the way to deepen that sense of vocation? What deepens my sense of my own calling? My own way of working on the world? What takes it further right now?

So as I explore the theme of right livelihood, and vocation, and calling, I’d like to invite you to connect the themes that come up with your own reflection, then we’ll have a chance to talk together. I’ll try to give a little more time than usual, so we can explore this together. And so, I want to primarily talk about two themes. The first, being right livelihood, and the second being the sense of vocation in which we touch and express our own deep, personal intentions, but also in a way, touch the universal. I think vocation has this quality of both, of something very personal and also something universal. We’ll come back to that.

So, ___ explored some last time, the theme of right livelihood. And as you know, it’s one of the eight factors on the ___ path, this roadmap as it were, for development. And again, it’s kind of interesting that right livelihood made it to the ___ path, even though we sometimes think that the path, when it was designed, was primarily for monks and nuns. So what do they have to worry about? ___ about? You know, don’t they go, their livelihood and as kind of, taking care of them, and just go and you know, and the community basically supports them with food and with shelter and so forth. So I think it’s very significant that we have these aspects of the path, ___ livelihood and right speech as well. Sometimes, we think—why do we have to silent ___ guidance for? But we certainly do. And as also, I think that right livelihood actually doesn’t get as much attention as the others? And I think, I would say, in our community. So, it’s a good one to look at. And it comes in the ___ path under the __ of three factors that are more ethical in nature. Remember the ___ path has two that have to do with wisdom, right understanding and what could be called right aspiration. And we’ll actually come back to that with—and so I can talk about ___. And that sense of right. I think that’s, as I’ve said sometimes, that’s a Victorian translation of the word ___, and the—I think a better translation would be more mature or developed. ___ has the same root, etymologically, as words as summary. Summation. ___. So, it has that connotation of something that’s developed, mature, reached a good level. So, that’s, so we could say, so we’re really talking about a way of working a sense of livelihood and work when we’re mature, or when we’ve been developing this question of what is my vocation, or what is my work.

And so, the three ethical aspects of the ___ path are— I call it ___ speech, ___ action or right action, ___ action, and then livelihood. And then there are three aspects of the ___ that are connected more with meditation—right effort and right mindfulness and right concentration. So livelihood is on the script of three, and it connects with ethics. And it’s primarily how right livelihood is framed by the Buddha. He talks about right livelihood as particularly in the text having to deal with earning a living while refraining from those kinds of work, which go against the ethical guidelines. That’s pretty much the nature of it. And remember the core ethical guidelines are about non-harming. There are not harming physical, not taking which is not given, and then being very careful with the energy of speech, sexuality and intoxicants. And so, this gets translated into the understanding of the livelihood. And so, there was a kind of provision for Buddhist practitioners of dealing in arms or weapons. In other words, that which that contributes to harming others in the ___ trade. And also, actually, in killing animals—being a butcher, selling meat, actually was on this list of types of livelihood, which are practicing Buddhist would not follow.

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://donaldrothberg.com/

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Overcoming Challenges Through Mindfulness At Work
Blog, Work & Leadership

Overcoming Challenges Through Mindfulness At Work

Overcoming-Challenges-Through-Mindfulness-At-WorkChallenges in life are a given–it is how you deal with those challenges that determines how successful you are, especially in your professional life. One important factor in overcoming a challenge is mindfulness at work. Determination and support are essential for developing mindfulness in the face of challenges in the workplace or in your career.

One of the challenges anyone has in trying to be successful is how to stick with a plan in the face of adversity. When things get hard, it is natural to consider giving up. A successful person, however, develops determination through mindfulness.

To be determined through mindfulness means seeing obstacles as a stumbling block rather than a brick wall. A challenge becomes an opportunity for growth and creativity. To develop mindfulness in business means cultivating your determination.

One exercise to help develop determination through mindfulness at work is to recognize when challenges make you feel anxious. According to Susan Orsillo in her book “The Mindful Way Through Anxiety,” being mindful to our bodily response to a situation is the first step to embracing and accepting challenging moments. For example, taking time to meditate and focus on your body’s response before a big meeting or presentation can help you use mindfulness to build a sense of determination in the face of challenge.

Another way to maintain and develop mindfulness at work is by surrounding yourself with supportive and successful people. In terms of support, you want to have people around you who believe in your goals and ability to achieve them. You don’t want to have people tear you down or believe what you are doing is unworthy. According to Richard Fields in “Awakening to Mindfulness: 10 Steps for Positive Change,” a strong support system is what powers success. Relying on that support system is essential for addressing challenges at work through mindfulness.

Similarly, finding mindful people who are successful at what they do is essential for developing mindfulness at work. How do they live in the moment and with purpose? Research shows that mindful people have certain outlooks on life that lead to specific strategies they use in their personal and professional lives. We need role-models in life to help us decide what paths to take. Having people around you who achieve success through mindfulness inspires success in your own life and helps you face challenges.

If you want to learn more ways to overcome challenges with mindfulness, contact us.

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How to Increase Focus
Blog, Focus, Work & Leadership

How to Increase Focus

We are told from childhood to focus. We grow up and go to work, where we are told to focus on the job. We get married, have kids, and are told to focus on our parenthood skills. We are exhorted to pay attention, concentrate, sharpen our minds, all of which are the definition of the word. What no one tells us is how to do so. Lack of such focus allows other people and situations to cause us stress, which makes us ill. That’s where mindfulness comes in. This is an awareness therapy teaching people how to keep what is outside our consciousness outside and only what is good and nurturing inside.

 

One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us“. (Daniel Goleman)

Alternative medicine has a good solution to the problem. Its method of learning how to increase focus is to concentrate on the letters of the word:

  • Five More. If you’re trying to keep the mind on a task, force the mind to do five more of something. Five more minutes, five more pages of a report, five more answers to a question. This keeps the mind on its subject instead of wandering off.
  • One Day at a Time. Thinking of past or future situations related to the one you’re in at present keeps the mind from paying attention to the present situation. Gently nudge the mind into considering the present situation and keep it there.
  • Clear Away the Unwanted. You’ll do anything to get out of working out, finishing the presentation, hosting a sleep-over party. This just makes what you should be concentrating on all the harder to do.
  • Use Sunglasses. Blocking the light keeps the eyes from being dazzled by sparkling pond water, for example, or glare from snow. This puts the mind in thoughts of blazing light from diamonds, for instance, which reminds you of a baseball game to which the kids need transportation, and that puts you in mind of the oil change for the car, but the garage is closed today, and we’re sure you get the idea. Close off the distractions.
  • Save it for Later. Doing five things at once guarantees something won’t get done thoroughly. Put aside the distractions for another hour. Concentrate on the task before you, so it will be done thoroughly. Move on to the other twenty things later and do them thoroughly.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life”. (Eckhart Tolle)

Mindfulness isn’t about the secret to wealth and happiness. It’s about being totally in the moment, aware and primed for action. It is, however, the secret to ditching the depression, anxiety, stress and pain from daily life. It can be done anywhere anytime. For example:

  • Notice your body. What gives it a headache? What makes its stomach tighten up? What makes its tired? Alternatively, what makes your body feel good? What makes its head sharp, its heart dance and its stomach feel good?
  • Now notice other people. Are their voices sharp or harsh? Do they seem threatening? Do they make demands upon your time? Do they stay on you for some reason? Are these people bosses or in some other position of authority? How do these things affect your mind and body?
  • Since you are acutely aware of your mind and body, what situations put them into a tizzy? Is bumper to bumper traffic a reason for tension? Do unpleasant customers or clients cause your stomach to drop into your shoes?
  • Look closely at these situations and persons. Are their actions vehement and their voices harsh because someone is on their case? Is traffic due to something outside your control like an accident? Do these situations and persons have anything to do with you?
  • If the answer to that last question was no, then your body and mind should be perfectly serene. If the answer was yes, are you capable of realizing that they don’t mean to come down on you?

Increasing focus is a simple matter of becoming aware of outside influences on your mind and body. It is a matter of putting these influences in their proper place.  Deal with them on your own terms at a time of your choosing. Concentrate on the job at hand, placing distractions in their proper place and time. Realize that you are not the cause of the stresses and distractions of current situations. Gently concentrate on your breathing, walking, listening and eating. When you can concentrate on how your body reacts to stimuli like the above, then you will have learned focus. Please contact us for more information on mindfulness and focus. We’ll be glad to help.

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Increasing Personal Mindfulness Through Coaching
Blog, Confidence

Increasing Personal Mindfulness Through Coaching

The world moves fast-paced and it is easily swept along its currents. The constant advancements of technology means that we carry the load of a thousand cares with us via our phones. Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, news articles, work emails–all constantly clamor for our attention. Gone are the days when we sit still and enjoy the gentle breeze or focus entirely on living in the moment.

But those days do not have to be gone. Through mindfulness meditation we are able to live in the moment without the worries of the past or future weighing us down. However, despite our best intentions the clamoring world makes it difficult to make and keep the transition into mindfulness. And so I offer my services as a personal mindfulness coach.

As a coach I can help you achieve and retain mindfulness.

Accountability. Let’s face it:  when you have another person to report your success (or possible missteps) to, then you are more likely to follow through with your commitment to attaining personal mindfulness.

Expertise. For 2 years I trained as a Buddhist monk learning numerous techniques and the art to mindfulness. Since then I have led thousands of mindfulness classes and retreats and published Mindfulness Exercises: What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming A Buddhist Monk.

Encouragement. Personal mindfulness is a hard change, but it is worth it. Using me as a personal coach is just what you need to see it through the end as I work as your personal cheerleader and support group.

Discipline. Increasing personal mindfulness takes time and dedication. This cannot be done overnight or instantaneously as it is a full body and mentality change. Through our consultations, I will help with your transition into personal mindfulness.

Personalized Attention. Everyone has different circumstances and struggles. Let me help you figure out who you want to be with personal mindfulness, where you need to start, and what techniques will best help you get there.

The world is fast-paced but personal mindfulness will pull you out of the world and help you live your life to its greatest potential of peace and joy. Contact me so that I can help you on your journey to personal mindfulness.

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Intention, Motivation and Purpose [Audio]
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

Intention, Motivation and Purpose [Audio]

Intention, Motivation and Purpose is a talk by Andrea Fella. She talks about how our thoughts & intentions affect the body and vice versa.

[ai_playlist id=”201180″]

Intention, Motivation and Purpose by Andrea Fella:

A familiar with just how much the mind and body influence each other. We certainly see this when we start to meditate, but I think many of us even who before we meditated, we’re kind of aware that, you know, when a strong emotion arose, like anger or something, that it impacts the body, and when, you know, calm or happiness comes up, it also gives this different sense to the body.

So, there’s a connection between the mind and the body. We’re very familiar with the way our emotions kind of impact our body. But also our body impacts our mind as well. When, for instance, we – our toe, which I did just yesterday. You know, that painful sensation that comes can create stuff in the mind. It can create reactivity, frustration or self-criticism.

So, the body also. So, this is, it’s a two-way ___. The mind influences the body. The body influences the mind.

And not just emotions influence the body. I mean, like, even thoughts, even the simplicity of the thought can impact the body. Sometimes, you just think about, as an example, maybe in your meditation, a thought came up about something you were doing last week, or, you know, something came up in your mind. And all that was, was an arising of a thought about something you remembered.

But sometimes, and I’m sure you’re familiar with this experience, sometimes, when thoughts come up in the mind, they come along with the emotional terrain or content that was present when that experience happened. So, the memory arose just as a thought in the mind, and that memory kind of brings with it a whole emotional embodily interaction.

So, this two street between body and mind. There’s so much connection between the two. And then the teachings of the Buddha, he particularly highlighted a quality of mind that, that works just like point of connection between body and mind happen. It’s a factor in the mind that he called intention or delusion.

Delusion, intention is just a little urge in a mental urge. It’s a mental urge that impels us to act. Every single action that we do- of body, of speech, even of our minds has this impulse that precedes it. In the guided meditation, I suggested that you see if you could remain still not with the sense of holding yourself still, but just to have that sense of relaxing ___. And notice if you might noticed an urge to move.

You might have felt an itch, or just a little bit of discomfort in the body and a little bit of an urge to move. So, did any of you noticed that urge before you move? Did any of you noticed that? A couple of you.

So, this urge that happens if possible to see it in this kind of exercise can highlight it. If you’re interested in playing this with home, you can explore in your sitting meditation one time. When you have a time that you don’t have a particular constraint on the end of the sitting to sit until there’s a strong impulse to get up. So, don’t set a timer for the sitting. So, sit until the strong impulse to finish the sitting comes up.

But then, don’t get up. Sit through it. Watch the urge. What it feels like to have that urge to move, and you will pass. It won’t actually take that long.

You know, probably within a minute. Less than a minute, even. Might even take 15 seconds. So, watch that urge pass.

And then, the second time it happens, do it again, watch that urge arise and pass. The third time it happens, get up. (people laughs)

So, that gives you a little bit of flavor of this impulse. It might give you a taste of what I’m talking about. This impulse to move before we move. So, it’s possible to see this impulse.

It’s possible to recognize it. It’s possible to know we’re going to move our body before we move it. It’s possible when we’re going to speak before we speak. It’s possible even before when we’re going to think before we think. That one is more subtle, not easy to see, but it is possible to see that.

It’s possible to see the mind kind of headed towards an emotion before that emotions comes up. So, this place of intention itself is just a little like impulse. Sense of about to. When you have a sense of, what that is, about to get up, about to move, about to speak.

So, that kind of little urge in the mind pointing us to or having us to recognize that something is about to happen. That can be seen. That can be known.

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/2/

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Chas Dicapua
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

Understanding Judgment and Discernment [Audio]

Understanding judgment and discernment by Chas DiCapua:

The theme I want to talk about tonight is I believe a really important one and certainly has been in my practice, and that is kind of learning the difference between discernment and judgment in our practice.

A guy may have mentioned at some point earlier in our retreat that we bring ourselves to the practice, like our personalities, who we are, how the patterns in our heart and mind, that’s what we show up with.

Now, I think many of us I can’t say for certain, for you, like I have my own kind of cultural perspective. I’m sure, on things, but I think it’s somewhat general that when we’re brought up, we get a lot of training on what’s right and wrong, yeah? What’s good and bad. And, it’s not that these things are useful in some way. I think right and wrong really can go a long way and kind of allowing us to inhabit this planet together.

We are completely killing each other. We kind of all agree on generally on what’s right and wrong. And then, we can have some sense of ease, some sense of chaos, and again, living together in this world. So, I’m not saying there’s not a place for this kind of judgment. I want to explore maybe some of its limitations and compare it to discernment.

So, judgment is based in duality, this and that. Right? It split things up. Right and wrong. Good and bod. And it artificially puts them in boxes, in categories.

In reality, there are no categories, we make up categories. All the categories of anything, we’ve made up. You know, when the astronauts first out into, was it moon? Anyway, when they got a good look back on the earth, what they commented on, almost to the person was, “Oh, my. There’s no lines. There are no lines. We made this up. We drew the lines on the earth. We made the division between countries.

When you look at it, you just look at reality, they’re not there. We are the constructors of all divisions, of all categories. And we do this kind of often based on particular likes and dislikes of individuals or a collection of individuals. We start dividing things up politically, religiously, socially and we’re into those, in my box, or in my camp are right, and the others are wrong. Now, individually, or collectively, we may judge something as right or wrong, and another person or another collection of individuals might judge them differently, like the opposite.

And much difficult, you can stem from conflicting judgments and we just have to look around the world, and we see the manifestations of that.

Certain things we quite agree on. So, collectively, we kind of judge harming another human being as wrong, and abstaining from doing that is right. When it comes to other life forms, say, we’re not so much on the same page, generally. But when it comes to each other, you known, we kind of all agree on that, whether we actually abide by as another story, but in terms of judging in categories, that is we collectively agree.

Judging is about right and wrong, good and bad, better or worse, clean and dirty, smart and not smart, etc. Judgments are about structures of how things should be on our own mind. Because remember, we’re the one who make up the judgments, who make up the boxes. When something falls outside of that structure that we deem appropriate or acceptable, we judge it harshly, when it falls within that arbitrary, shifting circle of acceptability, we judge it positively. And I say shifting because, right where these things move, where these lines are of what’s right and wrong move.

It’s like talking with someone, you know, about if we have a view of something, and if it’s in this box, it’s right, and if it’s outside, it’s wrong, it’s talking to someone about the relationship to their parents, and how they were starting to see in their view, in their judgment they had—to relate to your parents in a certain way was wrong. I think this was, if I remember, being angry at them, having anger at your parents, they had a judgment about that. Being angry at your parents, they had a judgment about that. Being angry at your parents was clearly inside the wrong box for them. But they were angry at them, and so, they were suffering, because this shouldn’t be. Well, here it is.

The other thing that judgments does is it supports the sense of self. When we are in the mode of judging, the sense of self tends to be solidified, and pretty strong. There’s a self that is doing the judging. And then there’s a self that the judging maybe trying to protect, support, compensate for, etc.

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://imcnewburyport.com/teacher-chas

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Dan Siegel
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

How To Increase Awareness [Audio]

A talk on increasing awareness by Dan Siegel:

First, he’s become a really good friend, kind of kindred spirits for the last number of years. We’ve been teaching together and collaborating. And when I first met Dan, we were talking about the overlaps between Buddhist Psychology and Buddhist forms of mindfulness training, and many of the things that he’d been both learning and writing about as a neuro-scientist.

And to say one small thing, interpersonal neurobiology, which is the field that he’s one of the founders of, is the study of neuroscience, but not just of our own nervous system, but the interaction between human nervous systems in the environment, which is actually the way that it works. It turns out interdependences. One might find to describe in Buddhist Psychology, there’s now increasing and remarkable scientific evidence about the way our nervous system interacts with one another and the environment that affects everything from inter-trainings of meditation, which he’ll talk about, too– education, parenting, medicine, politics and all that kind of stuff.

And, he’s a professor in the Medical School at UCLA, with the two things I want to say particularly about Dan is that when I met him, I had the sense that he wasn’t just a scientist and a physician. That there’s some other thing that he understood. And after we talked for quite a few hours, I kind of asked him, I said, “You know, there’s other way, you know, that you understand something about what we’re talking about.” And he described being working in a clinic in Mexico as a young medical student or whatever, and having an accident where he fell of a horse and was in a certain way, kind of unconscious, but not unconscious conscious, but lost his whole identity and sense of himself for a time while he was at the effect of this terrible accident. And then he began to see how identity, self and all that came back into consciousness, while he was able to be aware of all these whole thing.

You know at one point, I think I said, “You know, people meditate for years to have an experience like that and you had it.” I can’t say for free. It was very painful, but there is some understanding he had about self and selflessness and the construction of who we think we are and the way we actually are in the world in the deeper sense that’s very much in line with the deep teachings of Buddhist meditation training.

And the other thing, to say, is he went back not so long ago- he was invited to give a lecture at Harvard Medical School where he graduated. And he said he went in and he was going to talk about personal neurobiology and looked around and at the back, were the old deans and professors from his era in his day, and he stopped and he couldn’t give that lecture. He had to tell them why he dropped out of medical school. He didn’t went back to finish it. He dropped out, because partway through second year, or third year, whatever it was, he was doing his rotations and some patient that he was very close to him, patient’s family he’s been tending and caring for a number of months had just died and the family was there, and grieving.

Some nurse, or somebody came in and told him, he got out of the room and went to visit and see the patient who just died, and family. And he came back and he got terribly chewed out by the attending ground physician who he was supposed to be listening— “You missed the important things I had to say. And if you want to be a real doctor, and not a social worker, you know, forget those emotions. That person’s dead. You pay attention to the patient in front of you and to what the professors have to tell you,” and several those kind of things happened.

And so, he got to stand up and tell the story to all the deans there. Yes, exactly.

Anyway, we’ve got a lot of great connection through our work and through our history now over sometime, and our interests. And I’m very glad he can be here. He just finished a couple of books on the theme of interpersonal neurobiology mindsight, which is his own version of understanding of inter-mental training and mindful therapist and so forth. And so, with great pleasure, I welcome you— thank you for coming up.

Thank you for that beautiful introduction. And thank you all for coming tonight. Now, in the tradition of the Monday night meeting you begin with the practice, is that right? Is that how you usually do it?

So, what we could do is to continue with that tradition and I’ll introduce you to a practice that I’ve been developing that comes from an experience I had that actually, in Insight Meditation Society, which Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein founded in Massachusetts, which is my first introduction in the field so maybe we would just begin with the practice and then we’ll explore what that practice might entail in terms of the science of it. Is that something that might be good? Okay, so I’m going to assume this is new for everyone who’s even been meditating for a long time, because this is something I just made up. (people laughs)

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://www.drdansiegel.com/contact/

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Sharon Salzberg
Audio Talks, Work & Leadership

How To Be Mindful at Work [Audio]

How To Be Mindful at Work by Sharon Salzberg talks about how happiness can be attained in the workplace practicing mindfulness & appreciating each moment.

A talk on mindfulness at work by Sharon Salzberg:

So, my book, Real Happiness At Work, came out on January 1st and I’m sure it was here a couple of years ago. My book, Real Happiness, came out, and talk about how that particular title wasn’t something I’ve chosen. It was something that the publisher had given to me out of a series of circumstances. The book was going to be called “something else.” And then, I got an advanced copy of a friend’s book with that “something else” as the title.

And, so, we quickly had to find another title and I came up with Real Happiness, which I felt some ambivalence about.

And on one hand, I think it’s what we all actually want. And it strikes a chord. We want something that’s around inner sustenance, resource fullness, a sense of wholeness that isn’t going to be so dependent on circumstances, isn’t going to shatter and break as things shift, and we don’t get want we want, or someone disappoints us, or we get afraid, even, you know, there can still be something that is, like, a resource for us. I think that’s what we actually want. And on the other hand, I thought, well, that’s going to be difficult, and I was right.

In the first interview I had, the very first question was something like, “Are you trying to tell me that the kind of happiness I feel when I’m having lovely dinner with my wife isn’t real?” And I said, “Of course, I think it’s real.” And I think, if anything, if we paid more attention, and we’re more appreciative, and more grateful, we will enjoy it a whole lot more, and we also know how joyful and wondrous are those experiences are, but they’re not forever. They come and they go. And I said to him, “What about the night you don’t like your dinner all that much?”

And I thought, but didn’t say, “What about the night you don’t like your wife all that much?” Because that happens, right?

So, it’s not to put down or disdain those experiences, but I know we can have a much deeper, more refined, more sustainable sense of happiness so we enjoy the pleasure fully when it comes and we don’t feel so defeated and so defined by the difficulty when it comes. So, I went through with that book and it was really very funny, because people were not very happy with what they’re happy, or happiness. You know, so often, seems like something happy-go-lucky and superficial, and just the endless pleasure seeking which we’re used to and people say, well, that’s where I start to practice, to unhook from that.

You know, what is this happiness obsession? And, I kept trying to redefine the word so that it didn’t mean just pleasure, it certainly didn’t mean something selfish. Because, like when I would go on tour, people would say to me, town after town, have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says “If you’re not depressed, you’re not paying attention.” And I’d say, “Well, I actually have seen it.” And I understand the sentiment and what about when we’re depressed, and we’re exhausted?

And we feel depleted, and we feel overcome, we feel overwhelmed. There’s not a whole lot in us that we feel we can give to somebody else.

And it reminds me a lot of the teachings about generosity where they say that the best kind of generosity actually comes from a sense of inner abundance. It’s not dependent on how much you have externally, and we know that right? Because we probably all know people who might have very little, materially, externally, but they’re very generous, and perhaps, you know people who have a huge amount more, externally, but don’t ever seem to have the internal feeling that ever have enough. And so, it’s so much harder to give and to share. It’s not just about material generosity. It’s about generosity of the spirit.

When I teach loving kindness meditation, one of the categories that we offer loving kindness to is that someone is a benefactor, someone who has helped us, maybe they’ve helped us directly, they helped pick up us when we fallen down. Maybe not, maybe we’ve never met them, but they’ve inspired us. They embody the sense of possibility of love and kindness for us, and so, many times, people, given instructions, okay, now, it’s time to offer love and kindness to benefactor, and afterwards, somebody will come up to me and say, you know, I chose the ___ as my benefactor, and things were going fine, and then suddenly, I thought, wait a minute, he’s the ___, what did he ___ for? And I find that interesting. First of all, how do we know that, right?

For all we know, every single day was life, he’s sustained by the prayers and well-wishing and loving kindness of others, and what an interesting assumption— what I have to give is so nothing, is so negligible, couldn’t count, couldn’t possibly ever, ever make a difference. So, from that state, we don’t have love and generosity, because we don’t have a lot of that sense of inner abundance to feed it, to be the wellspring. We can’t even pay that much attention to somebody else. It feels like an intrusion, because we feel so impoverished within. And so, when I say happiness, I don’t mean, you know, just like endless delight and enjoying yourself, but more that sense of that wellspring and being able to access it.

If you liked this recording and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/contact/

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You Can Achieve Mindfulness at Work
Work & Leadership

You Can Achieve Mindfulness at Work

Thinking of today’s hectic, fast-paced job world doesn’t typically bring about a peaceful vision of mindfulness. Quite the opposite right? You’re multi-tasking, moving from one thing to the other in a hurry and frequently trying to remember what you were doing just a moment before the latest distraction popped in. Though it sounds counter-intuitive, you can achieve mindfulness at work. You just need to set yourself up for success.

Here’s how:

1. Eliminate distractions. Turn off the notifications on your smartphone. Turn off your email notifications on your computer. Put your office phone on do not disturb. Minimizing distractions is the first step to remaining focused.

2. Plan your workflow. Write your task list in order of priority. Don’t let your day run you; run your day. Decide what’s most important and commit to getting it done.

3. Do your work mindfully by doing one thing at a time. Start with the first thing on your task list and stay with it until it is done. If it is a large project, break it into smaller tasks and take breaks as needed. But during your work time, don’t check your email, Facebook or apps on your smartphone. Though it may feel that you are less busy because you are only doing one thing, you are likely to be much more productive.

Set scheduled times for emails and social media breaks and take control of your day.

4. If you find yourself feeling distracted, refocus. Take a few minutes to sit up straight and concentrate on your breathing. If this isn’t enough, you could try one of our many Business and Career mindfulness exercises to help you regain your focus. With a simple click, we can get you back on track – anytime, anywhere.

5. Practice mindfulness daily. Practicing mindfulness outside of work can help you maintain your focus and awareness on the job. Incorporate an evening meditation into your day or take time for some mindful breathing. Train your mind to work at its best.

For more information on how mindfulness can improve all areas of your life, contact us! We have exercises for each time of day and life situation to help you achieve peace, happiness and your best you.

Find more exercises related to mindfulness at work here

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Clarity and calm
eBooks, Work & Leadership

Clarity and Calm – For Busy People

Clarity and Calm - For Busy People is an essential aspect of the spiritual path. These meditation techniques can increase one's ability to feel and respond.

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Here Is Your Free Ebook:

 

Relax the muscles … Widen your perspective … Float the question: ’What’s happening for me now?’

Acknowledge that for a moment you’re watching or listening to what the question brought to light rather than engaging in what you’re thinking or feeling. Avoid judging your thoughts or moods. The main thing is that you have shifted to watching your mind. And with that you can sense what’s happening for you from outside the experience rather than by being engaged or immersed in it.

Once the shift has happened, check in with whatever your question ‘what’s happening for me now?’ reveals, give it a simple label and give yourself a few moments to feel ‘ busy’ or ‘eager’ or ‘irritable’ without doing anything about it. Remember to stay in touch with and try to keep your attention spread over the whole of your body – this will help you to stay balanced. Don’t act or react.

By avoiding actions and reactions, you will allow a fuller and more helpful response to your moods as they arise. You may sense calm, clarity or acceptance about what’s happening to you. This shift into awareness is important; it gives you a chance to get an overview of what you’re feeling or doing, to change direction or to let things pass.

Listen to what the question brings to light …

Don’t act or react … allow a response to arise.

The main thing with Pause and Ask is to do it often. To achieve that calm and clarity, you could try ten or more times a day: when you wake up, before you get up, when you’re washed and dressed and before you get going, when you’ve finished breakfast, when you’re about to start the car, about to switch on the TV…

You could set a timer on your phone to go off occasionally to get you to Pause throughout the day. Above all, Pause and Ask is a useful exercise in situations such as the following: at the flashpoints of conflict; when you feel emotionally uncomfortable or furtive; or when there’s the itch to switch something on or munch or otherwise distract. Pausing at these moments can save you a lot of trouble. It gives you a chance to see things differently and to not get stuck in blind habits.

The limitations of Pause and Ask are that it is brief. You can’t sustain it without some other tools. In fact if you pause too long, you’ll probably find that you’ve moved into another gear and your mind is wandering. But if you find the practice beneficial, you may want to spend three to five or more minutes to Connect and Strengthen. These form the next cluster of exercises.

Connect and Strengthen

Recommended time: Three to five minutes. More if you like.

In these exercises, we’re going to connect to three sources (or channels) of awareness. I say ‘awareness’ rather than ‘mind’ because we may assume that the mind is in the head and is the organ that thinks. Actually as well as having a thinking source, awareness draws from a bodily source and a heart source – the bases that we’ve touched on in Pause and Ask. It’s through simply connecting and staying with each of these bases and being more conscious of them that awareness strengthens and becomes more fluent.

1 Connect to the body

The body is more than just meat and bone, and exercising it is easier than lifting weights or jogging. Your body can provide groundedness, balance and vitality quite naturally – all that you have to do is to connect to awareness. Through staying connected you get to feel balanced and toned up.

And if you lose an aware connection to your body – as in getting absorbed in taking a photo when you’re leaning over the edge of a canyon or conversing on your phone while you’re driving – the results can be fatal. More often, we lose our body-awareness in the hurry of the day and that makes us careless and stressed. But when we learn to maintain an aware connection to the body, we realize that the mind is in sympathy with the body and that bodily composure facilitates mental clarity and calm.

You can connect to the body through walking, sitting or reclining – but for now let’s start with standing.

Stand with your legs coming straight down from your hips. Soften your knees so that these joints aren’t locked. Then relax your buttocks so that you are letting the weight of your body be carried by your feet and the planet beneath you rather than resting your upper body on your hips. Let your arms come slightly away from the sides of your body (just enough to sense some space around your chest) and hang loosely beside you. Keep the arm-muscles relaxed so that the arms are in a very gentle curve rather than straight.

Similarly with the hands and fingers. Relax your shoulders as if you’re slipping a coat off your back; soften your jaw and your gaze. You may need to flex your knees and take a few deep out-breaths to get the fidgeting out of your system.

Tune in to balance

As you touch into that balanced state (and return to it over the course of the next few minutes) look towards widening your awareness to cover the whole body as if you’re about to dive or you’re modelling clothes. This is ‘gathering the entire body within awareness’; you acknowledge where in your body you feel most located (normally your face) and then spread your attention over your shoulders and down your body. Get down to your feet if you can. Aim towards sensing the whole posture and then towards finding and maintaining balance. As you widen to get the whole body in focus, you may feel sensations and energies. Your fingers may tingle as well as your feet. Acknowledge all that but don’t focus on any particular sensation. Instead, can you pick up the repeated series of sensations and energies that tell you you’re breathing?

If you liked this free mindfulness ebook and would like to make a direct financial contribution to this teacher, please contact them here: http://ajahnsucitto.org/

Material on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

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Strengths Exploration
Confidence, Worksheets

Strengths Exploration

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Goal Planning
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Goal Planning

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Dissolving Our Barriers to Power
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Dissolving Our Barriers to Power

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what is important to do today
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

What is Important to do Today

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the sources of your distraction
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

The Sources of Your Distraction

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mindfulness of your relationship with technology
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Mindfulness of Your Relationship with Technology

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facilitating your learning
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Facilitating your Learning

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Doing What You Want
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Doing What You Want

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best use of your time
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Best Use of Your Time

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how to set realistic expectations
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

How to Set Realistic Expectations

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optimizing your requests
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Optimizing Your Requests

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making successful requests
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Making Successful Requests

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learning how to challenge what is said
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Learning How to Challenge What is Said

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building true power
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Building True Power

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How to Build True Power with Mindfulness

Mindfulness empowers us to develop our inner strength and true sense of power. How? Because the more aware we become of our perceptions and habits, the more readily we are able to instill mindful habits and beliefs that uplift us. Mindfulness enhances self-knowledge – and that is empowering.

If you’re curious about how to feel empowered, mindfulness is one tool that will help to unveil the journey. Since empowerment is indeed a feeling, it involves shifting the perceptions we have about ourselves and the world around us. 

How to Feel Empowered

Developing a sense of personal empowerment does not happen overnight. Slowly but surely, through self-awareness and inner growth, we might find ourselves becoming more empowered in daily life. One key notion to keep in mind if you want to feel more empowered is to remember that empowerment, like all things, is not something we can attain forever and be done with it. We can only feel empowered in the present moment – so focus only on the here and now and let the journey build strength from there.

One way to begin this journey is to cultivate a toolbox of mindful habits. These habits involve being aware of our thoughts, feelings, and actions and supporting ourselves in finding the inner strength that is present beneath the layers of conditioning.

5 Mindful Habits for Inner Strength

Cultivating inner strength and a sense of personal empowerment is a journey that looks different for everyone. However, there are some general mindful habits we can work on embodying in order to support our empowerment goals:

  1. 1
    Gratitude practice – What traits, skills, or qualities are you grateful to embody?
  2. 2
    Mindfulness of your beliefs – What beliefs stand in the way of you feeling truly empowered? What are you willing to let go of, even if only in this moment?
  3. 3
    Positive affirmations – What positive statements can you repeat to yourself before sleep or during meditation to cultivate the beliefs that will empower you?
  4. 4
    Solar plexus meditation – The solar plexus is the chakra located in the navel, connected with willpower, confidence, courage, and self-empowerment. This meditation can help us to strengthen or balance this chakra.
  5. 5
    Building True Power worksheet – This worksheet is designed to increase self-awareness and help us to come up with new ways of connecting with our innate power.
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assessing your decision making skills
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Assessing Your Decision-Making Skills

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Decision making is not always easy. However, if you are wondering how to make the best decision for yourself, mindfulness is worthy of exploration. Mindful decision making is the practice of becoming more aware of the factors that impact the choices we make. Since we often make decisions based on habits, mindfulness can help us to pause, reflect, and contemplate wisely before jumping to our usual response.

How to Make the Best Decision for Yourself

This mindfulness worksheet on decision making is one way of assessing how and why we make decisions. It is something we can use after a decision has been made.

Yet how might we make the best decision for ourselves in the moment when it is required? While there is no right or wrong way to make our final choice, the following mindfulness practices can help us to quiet the mind and become more balanced in our thought processes:

  • Deep belly breathing to ease stress and calm the mind
  • Body awareness to help ourselves assess how different decisions resonate with us on a physical level
  • Taking pause before jumping to an assumption or decision
  • Being aware of our own biases and the data we might be ignoring
  • Sharing our difficulties in making a particular decision with a loved one

These won’t necessarily lead us immediately to the best answer for ourselves; sometimes it takes time for decisions to come to us. However, these simple practices can help us to broaden our perspective and ease the racing mind that can’t decide.

Mindfulness Exercises for Decision Making

Mindful decision making might be made a bit easier as we explore various perspectives and practices that can facilitate this process. For additional mindfulness exercises to help make decision making easier, you might consider:

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appreciating how you contribute
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Appreciating How You Contribute

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How often do we take pause to recognize how we contribute to the world? Many of us wonder how to contribute to society, and yet we don’t often take the time to look at what we are already offering. When we take the time to recognize all the different ways we support ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities, we reaffirm those helpful behaviors. In addition, we become more aware of where our thoughts and actions are less than supportive, a finding that empowers us to contribute in more meaningful ways.

Noticing What We Have to Offer

Appreciating our contributions begins with recognizing all the different gifts we have to offer. Many people consider ‘contributions’ to be the large offerings; however, even the small offerings we make send powerful, healing ripples into the world. We can start by recognizing these small contributions, some of which might include:

  • Offering a stranger a warm smile or kind word
  • Supporting a friend who is having a tough day
  • Taking the time to tend to our needs through self-care
  • The patience we offer to our loved ones
  • The ways in which we inspire those around us

This is a wonderful mindfulness exercise for groups as, when explored together, it can help us to become more aware of the unique gifts and talents of each individual. Reflected upon and written individually, the reflections can then be shared with others in the team or group we are a part of.

How to Contribute to Society

The truth of it is this: there is no single way to contribute to society. Everything we do that arises from love, compassion, understanding, patience, and/or happiness will have a positive effect on the society we are a part of. If you are wondering how to contribute to society in a more meaningful way, consider what brings you and your loved one’s true peace, joy, and contentment. And remember not to overlook the small actions that help to build a better world!

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Work & Leadership, Worksheets

How to Optimize Your Marketing Efforts

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how to stick to a plan
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

How to Stick to a Plan

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how to make important career changes
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

How to Make Important Career Changes

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discovering the concerns of your team
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Discovering the Concerns of Your Team

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defining your meaning of success
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Defining Your Meaning of Success

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dealing with busy schedules
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Dealing With Busy Schedules

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appraising my career values
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Appraising My Career Values

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Appraising our career values is an important step towards ensuring that we are doing work in alignment with who we are. Often, we become so caught up in our busy day-to-day routines that we forget to check in to make this inquiry. We forget to ask ourselves, “How well does this work that I’m doing correlate with my personal values?” Career value appraisal is one way of answering this question. It can help to deepen our sense of self-awareness and workplace awareness, while also acting as a stepping stone to exploring mindfulness at work.

Career Values in the Mindful Workplace

Regardless of the industry or profession that we are in, it is important to assess how well we are able to embody our values in the workplace. In a mindful workplace, where the culture of the organization is rooted in mindfulness practices and principles, it is likely that our values are being supported. However, this is not always the case. For this reason, it is important that we routinely check in.

This worksheet invites us to ask questions including (but not limited to):

  • Regarding your profession, what are your values?
  • When have your values been most severely tested?
  • What values are most difficult for you to maintain and why?

These questions aren’t always easy to ask ourselves. Sometimes, they leave us with decisions we need to make. If we are not presently feeling that our work is aligned with our values, tough conversations will need to be had – whether with ourselves, our co-workers, our bosses, or all of the above. Perhaps we will uncover ways that we can collaboratively help to build a more mindful workplace that upholds the values of those within the organization.

Mindfulness at Work

Bringing mindfulness into the workplace is not as difficult as it might appear to be. Nowadays, more and more organizations are using mindfulness to increase the wellbeing of employees individually and of the company as a whole. To explore mindfulness at work, consider this list of 10 mindfulness exercises for work and purpose. 

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refining how you speak up
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Refining How You Speak Up

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gauging external contributions
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Gauging External Contributions

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evaluating how wisely you spend your time
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Evaluating How Wisely You Spend Your Time

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assessing contributions to your team
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Assessing Contributions To Your Team

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It is often said that “teamwork makes the dream work.” One way to facilitate teamwork is to assess how well we contribute to the team we are a part of. When we take the time to mindfully reflect upon how we contribute to those we work with, we begin to develop a stronger sense how each individual action plays into the results achieved by the whole. This mindfulness exercise is one tool we can use to effectively explore mindfulness in the workplace.

The Benefits of Working as a Team

When we allow our actions to be guided by a yearning to support the whole, great things can be accomplished. All of a sudden, we naturally begin aligning our efforts in a way that is beneficial for all. Some of the benefits of working mindfully as a team (and of exploring mindfulness in the workplace) include:

  • Increased diversity of ideas
  • Improved openness and receptivity to others
  • Improved communication skills
  • Greater fluidity amongst departments
  • Increased clarity of collective goals

It is important to note that these benefits do not arise overnight. Even when we intellectually understand the benefits of working together, it takes time for us to fully adopt this more mindful way of relating and working. Patience is key to exploring this effectively. When challenges arise in the workplace, explore them with compassion and curiosity.

Mindfulness for the Workplace

There are numerous mindfulness exercises we can use to explore how to engage more mindfully in professional settings. Often, we consider mindfulness to be something that is primarily internal; in reality, mindfulness can be applied to every facet of our lives. 

Mindfulness for the workplace includes practices of compassionate communication, intention setting, navigating differences of opinions, and mindfulness of emotions. It also includes broadening our understanding of our connectedness as we come to realize that our individual success is intertwined with the success of the whole.

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appreciating your accomplishments
Work & Leadership, Worksheets

Appreciating Your Accomplishments

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Acknowledging our accomplishments is not something that comes easy to most of us. Often, we are taught that to acknowledge what we are good at is contrary to humility. However, in order to truly appreciate who we are and what we have to offer, it is important that we are able to honor our gifts and to recognize our successes - both small and large. This mindfulness worksheet on appreciating our accomplishments is a wonderful tool to explore mindfulness in the workplace. It can be used in a group setting or as an individualized and private exercise.

How to Appreciate Our Accomplishments

This mindfulness worksheet invites us to mindfully reflect upon the day’s accomplishments. It encourages us to become conscious of where we succeed and what goes well in our work lives (though it can be applied to any facet of life). We can appreciate our accomplishments through a variety of practices, including but not limited to:

  • Completing this reflective exercise after a day of work, individually or as a team
  • Journaling each night about what we succeeded at during the day
  • Exploring guided meditations for confidence and self-love
  • Reflecting upon our definition of success and considering how we can broaden that definition

Appreciating our accomplishments is not about boasting or putting our successes above those of others. It is simply about recognizing what we have to offer, what we succeed at, and where there may be room to grow.

Mindfulness in the Workplace

Bringing our accomplishments to light, as well as the accomplishments of others, is one way of exploring mindfulness for the workplace. The more we are able to mindfully uplift ourselves and to uplift others, the more harmonious our work environment becomes. This mindfulness worksheet is a simple and effective tool to help employees recognize how they positively contribute to the corporate culture at large. This mindfulness practice can be incorporated into team meetings and group reviews

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