Uncategorized – Page 14 – Grow Mindfulness

Cultivating Inclusive Leadership

Leadership in the future world of work presents many challenges, not the least of these being managing the diversity that will confront leaders. Diversity takes many forms – diversity of markets, of customers/clients, of technologies and of the workforce.

As countries around the world become more strongly interdependent, connected through international trade agreements and treaties, the diversity of issues will expand exponentially. This is reflected in complex market relationships involving very significant differences in economic, cultural, political and logistical make-up. Marketing channels differ radically by country and are constantly evolving.

The growing diversity of customers/clients has forced companies and government agencies to become more customer/client-focused in terms of communications, systems, structures and procedures. Underpinning this responsiveness, is the need for leaders to develop a new mindset that puts the customer at the centre of considerations of policy, strategy, organisational culture, staff training and organisational access.

The emergence of new technologies, such as robots and artificial intelligence, demands that leaders are open to new ideas and ways of doing things and are creative and innovative in the way they create and deliver products and services.

The complex shift in the mix of employees versus contractors and part-time versus fulltime, creates new challenges in terms of workforce management. Added to this shifting complexity is the need to provide flexible working arrangements, a development accelerated by the availability of emerging technologies. The growth in an increasingly educated population, with ready access to information globally, also means that leaders will be increasingly dependent on the knowledge and skills of their workforce. This will demand robust self-esteem and increasing capacity to connect and collaborate. Concurrent with these challenges is the need to manage increasing generational diversity in the workforce and the related inter-generational relationships and conflicts.

Taking these macro changes into account will demand that leaders develop the capacity for inclusive leadership – the ability to manage the complexity, uncertainty and disruption of the diversity that is growing on every front.

Traits of inclusive leadership

Juliet Bourke and Bernadette Dillon produced an article published by Deloitte titled, The six signature traits of inclusive leadership: Thriving in a diverse new world. I will discuss each of these six traits and relate them to the diversity issues identified above.

Commitment– according to Bourke and Dillon, research shows that inclusive leadership is more sustainable when it involves a personal commitment to the underlying values of “fairness” and “equity”. While acknowledgement of the business case for inclusion can encourage leaders to be more inclusive, a commitment of heart and mind is necessary to sustain the desired behaviour.

Courage – it takes courage to challenge prevailing norms, structures and policies in the defence of inclusion. Going against non-inclusive thinking and behaviour can lead to isolation and conflict and requires a courageous stance over a sustained period. It also implies vulnerability and readiness to acknowledge our own mistakes and weaknesses.

Cognizance of bias – we all suffer from unconscious bias in our perception of others whether the bias is based on age, sexual preference, culture, economic position or employment status. Bias leads to words and behaviour that undermine inclusion. Unconscious bias creates blind spots resulting from a lack of awareness of the hurt we cause through our non-inclusive perceptions, words and actions. Inclusive leadership thus demands both self-awareness and self-management to prevent bias creeping into our actions and decisions. It also entails understanding of, and support for, people who are experiencing mental illness.

Curiosity – inclusive leadership entails openness to, and curiosity about, other ideas and perspectives. It involves not just recognising differences but also valuing them and learning from them. Curiosity fuels life-long learning – an essential requirement for inclusive leadership. Bourke and Dillon argue from their research that inclusive leaders deepened their understanding of diverse perspectives by “asking curious questions and actively listening“.

Culturally intelligent – cultural intelligence has emerged as a critical leadership trait because of the global mobility of the workforce. Now termed “CQ“, cultural intelligence involves “the capability to relate and work effectively in culturally diverse situations”. It goes beyond cultural sensitivity and entails sustained interest in cultural diversity, a willingness to learn and adapt in culturally diverse situations and ability to plan for associated inclusive behaviour.

Collaborative – as the world of work changes with considerable rapidity and in unpredictable ways, the need to collaborate is paramount for effective and inclusive leadership. This involves creating space and opportunities for sharing of ideas and different perspectives by diverse groups and personalities. Synergy can result from such connections and collaborative efforts. My own research reinforces the fact that collaboration is motivational and engenders engagement, energy and creativity.

As we grow in mindfulness we can develop our emotional commitment to the value of fairness, strengthen our courage and resilience to pursue this commitment, cultivate self-awareness and curiosity and enhance our capacity to collaborate. Mindfulness then will support our efforts to cultivate inclusive leadership in our own thoughts, words and actions and those of others.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Developing Leadership Capacity for the Digital Age

In the previous post, I discussed the challenges posed by the digital age and shared Sky Jarrett’s perspective on how mindfulness can enable a leader to thrive in the new world of work. Rich Fernandez, in his presentation during the Mindful Leadership Online Conference, provided a complementary perspective on what leaders need to do to cultivate “future-ready” leadership capacity. Rich was formerly Director of Executive Education at Google, a Master Teacher for SIYLI and founder of Wisdom Labs .

Rich described future-ready leadership as “having the mental and emotional clarity and balance to meet all of life’s challenges, situations and people that you might encounter”. His presentation focused on how to develop these leadership characteristics.

Developing mental and emotional clarity and balance

Rich identified the following ways to develop these core leadership characteristics for the digital age:

Mindful listening – being present enough to focus on what the other person is saying and sufficiently open to understand their message and be influenced by it so that common ground can be developed. Rich suggested that the American Senator John McCain was an exemplar of mindful listening because he sought “constructive bipartisan dialogue” and enabled continual conversation to reach that elusive middle ground. Mindful listening requires a preparedness to avoid reacting mindlessly, prematurely offering a solution or pursuing an agenda.

Response flexibility – to engage in mindful listening you also need to have what Rich calls “response flexibility”- which is the agility to be able to respond appropriately and in respectful way to the other person’s communication. I have discussed a way to develop response ability in an earlier post.

Values alignment – ensuring that your behaviour actually reflects your personal values. Rich mentioned that Marc Benioff – founder, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce – is an exemplar of values alignment and puts service to the community ahead of profit. For example, he has built meditation rooms on every floor in the new, towering Salesforce building. His organisation practises business consciously so that “stakeholder management” is top of mind and is discussed as often as shareholder management – placing the needs of consumers on a least an equal footing with the wants and needs of shareholders. Rich shared a series of questions that can help a leader check their values alignment – “What are your values?”, “Why are they important to you?”, “To what extent are your words and actions aligned with your values?” [poetic licence used here].

Personal vision – this flows naturally from a consideration of values alignment. So, this is about a vision for oneself as a leader, not the organisational vision (although it is ideal that there is a strong alignment between the two). Rich poses some relevant questions from the Search Inside Yourself Program to help clarify a personal vision, “What is your vision for yourself and your life?”, “What will your legacy be – your personal contribution to the world?”, “If your life exceeded your wildest expectations, what would it look like – what is happening and what are you contributing? [some poetic licence here too]. I previously discussed Goldie Hawn as an exemplar of someone who is committed to a personal vision and has aligned her words and actions in pursuit of this vision.

As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop the desired leadership characteristics to meet the challenges of the digital age. With persistent mindfulness practice, we can develop mental and emotional clarity, achieve balance in our life, progressively expand our response flexibility, and build alignment between our words and actions and our values/personal vision.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Mindfulness for Leadership in the Digital Age

Many of the presentations during the Mindful Leadership Online Conference, 17-26 October 2018, focus on what it means to be a leader in the digital age. Sky Jarrett, for example, discussed Thriving As a Leader in the Digital Age, and highlighted the role of mindfulness in achieving this goal. Her presentation drew on her experience with Accenture – a global consulting firm – where she is an Executive Coach and Mindfulness Instructor.

As the digital age continues to advance relentlessly with the advent of artificial intelligence and robotics, leaders are faced with new and demanding challenges and the uncertainty that derives from continuous technological, ecological and economic disruption. Life and work are becoming more complex with the generational shift and the growth in mental illness in the home and the workplace.

Thriving as a leader in the digital age through mindfulness

Sky identified how mindfulness can assist leaders to not only survive the digital era but to thrive and achieve greatness in their chosen arena of activity:

Calmness – mindfulness is necessary to develop calmness and equanimity in the face of organisational and community turbulence. Sky likens the calmness developed through mindfulness meditation to the calm of the “eye of the storm”. She suggests that the incorporation of mindfulness practice in the life of an executive is an “imperative” like the change from analogue to digital. It is critical for a leader to be grounded and not unsettled by digital turbulence if they are going to lead effectively.
Trust – Sky points to the fact that we are operating in a trust economy as part of the macro environment of the digital age. Trust underpins relationships which are the lifeblood of an organisation or community. Trust is built through integrity and consistency. Increasingly, followers look to leaders for guidance, transparency, support and reliability. Mindfulness builds self-awareness and self-management which are foundational to integrity and the development of trust.
Connection and collaboration – the digital age is the era of connectivity. Individuals, groups, organisations and communities are collaborating locally and globally – even competitors are collaborating to achieve common goals. The complexity and speed of change means that leaders can no longer be isolates steeped in knowledge and relevant experience – they will become increasingly dependent on collaboration with others as change outpaces their ability “to keep up-to-date”. Mindfulness helps a leader to experience, understand and value connectedness to themselves, others and the world around them. It also enables them to build the capacity for collaboration and enlightened action in the world.
Self-improvement – for many years now, we have focused on externalities including the continuous improvement cycle in organisations. The time has come for leaders to focus consistently on self-improvement, to take themselves as the the improvement project. This will require developing emotional awareness through mindfulness and reflection on their thoughts and actions so that a leader can enhance their response ability.
Bodily intelligence – Sky suggests that leaders will need a greater connection to their bodies in the digital era. Bodily intelligence, also termed kinaesthetic intelligence, will enable leaders to sense bodily when things are not right and to take constructive action. Somatic meditation will assist leaders to enhance their bodily intelligence and to develop the leader’s capacity to trust their body’s intuition (“gut feeling”).
Being present – as we have reiterated in this blog, the capacity to be present is an essential skill of leadership, no matter what the era. However, the digital era places greater demands on leaders to be genuinely present to others when interacting. The challenge to being present in a digital era characterised by incessant “noise” and disruptive communication, is potentially overwhelming. Mindfulness builds the capacity to shut our the noise and to fully focus on the person and task at hand.

There are many demands on leaders in the digital age, but as we grow in mindfulness we can bring calmness and equanimity to any situation, build trust and connectedness, focus on improving ourselves through reflection, more readily access our bodily intelligence and become more fully present in our daily interactions.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Cultivating Awareness of Others through Mindfulness

In the previous post, I mentioned the triad of awareness – awareness of self, awareness of others and awareness of the world around us. In this post, I want to focus on awareness of others.

It is very difficult to be aware of others and thoughtful towards them in the busyness of our daily lives and the incessant distractions posed by disruptive marketing. Our attention is continuously pulled away from inner awareness and awareness of others.

Our lack of awareness of others is often displayed in our blind spots – we are impervious to the effects of our words and actions on others. It takes a conscious effort to get in touch with our core blind spot which may be blinding us to the needs of others in particular situations – whether at work, at home, or in the community.

Awareness of others requires that we move away from self-absorption. We can become so immersed in our own feelings – pain, anxiety, sadness, boredom – that we are not aware of the feelings and pain of others. We can also be so lost in our thoughts – planning, analysing, critiquing – that there is no room for thoughts of others.

Mindfulness to cultivate awareness of others

Mindfulness meditation is a way to break out of the trap of self-absorption – what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes as thinking that we are the centre of the world. With conscious and consistent meditation practice, we can increase our awareness of, and empathy towards, others around us.

Loving kindness meditation, for example, enables us to think about others and express the desire for them to experience wellness and happiness. It takes us outside our self to thoughts about others and their needs and desires.

A simple related exercise is to recall a situation that has occurred that has caused pain and suffering for someone else or a group of people and place yourself in their situation – “What would they be feeling if they have just lost their child through an accident?” As you engage in empathetic consideration of the people involved – family, friends, colleagues – you can extend the desire for them to manage their grief and to eventually experience equanimity. If you were to do this daily, this could help to cultivate awareness of others.

Forgiveness meditation is a way to take ourselves beyond focus on our own pain and hurt from an interaction with someone else, to thinking about and feeling for the other person in the interaction. It takes considerable awareness to move beyond our own sense of pain and righteousness to reflect on what happened for the other person. Forgiveness meditation is a powerful way to move beyond self-absorption to awareness of others.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can cultivate awareness of others – awareness of their pain, thoughts and needs. We can move beyond being self-absorbed to being thoughtful of, and considerate towards, others.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Identifying Our Blind Spots through Mindfulness

One of the realities of human existence is that we all have blind spots – what others see in our words and action but we can’t see ourselves. Our blind spots may be obvious to other people who can see patterns in our behaviour. The problem is that we can never eradicate our blind spots completely but we can learn to identify them and learn to better manage our responses – to effectively reduce the hurt to others and to ourselves.

Kelly Boys, author of The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You, suggests that our blind spots have a number of dimensions:

Visual– we actually have a physical blind spot in our eyes. You can check out your physical blind spot in each of your eyes through this link.
Attentional – we can suffer from an attentional blind spot because of our lack of ability to truly focus. Daniel Goleman suggests that the capacity to focus involves the triad of awareness – focus on ourselves, focus on others and focus on the wider context.
Cognitive – these are the fixed thoughts we carry about the world and ourselves in the world – “I’m not good enough”, “The world is not safe”. These may have worked for us over time but will lead us to diminish ourselves and devalue the energy and support of others. Cognitive blind spots can cut us off from experiencing the world as it is and limit our opportunities.
Behavioural– we may be totally oblivious to persistent patterns in our behaviour that are very obvious to others. It may be the way we respond to criticism or attempt to please others all the time -what Harriet Braiker calls, The Disease to Please.

Identifying the core blind spot

Kelly, in her interview with Tami Simon, offered a simple exercise to help people identify their core blind spot – “the way we hold our perception of ourselves and the world around us together”. Identifying the core, which often relates to a sense of separateness, can lead to a major transformation in our lives.

Kelly suggests that being still and open to the present moment is a key way to access our blind spots and to understand the underlying pattern in our perceptual, cognitive and behavioural responses. In the exercise she led during the interview she encouraged people to become grounded; be open to, and aware of, their senses (sound, sight, breath) and to notice any tension, tightness or contraction in their body. Staying with this bodily feeling is a way into understanding the underlying blind spot – “Where does this tension come from?’ “What am I saying to myself about my looks or capacity?’ “How am I perceiving the world or the actions of others?” “How am I planning to respond – why?”

As we persist with this kind of exercise, where we use our bodily awareness as the gateway to our blind spots, we can delve deeper into our core blind spot and open up the way to respond very differently – we can better understand our reactivity in certain situations and increase our response ability. This self-awareness and self-regulation are key outcomes of mindfulness practice.

As we grow in mindfulness we begin to recognise patterns in our thoughts and behaviour and what we pay attention to. If we persist in the relevant mindfulness exercise, we will come to understand our core blind spot. This growing realisation opens up new possibilities for us as we free ourselves from the limitations in our perceptions and responsiveness that arise through our blind spots.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Overcome Reactivity through Mindfulness

Throughout the day we are often on automatic pilot, reacting to events and to others in an unconscious way. It may be that we react to something someone said or did – like hearing a perceived criticism or being cut off in traffic. Our automatic response is to be angry or annoyed and to lash out at the other person either in word or action (or by sending that angry email response).

Tara Brach, in her meditation podcast, defines this reactivity as “reacting out of our habitual patterns without consciousness”. All day and every day we will find ourselves in a reactive pattern, being totally unaware of where we are operating from. Viktor Frankl reminds us that there is a space between stimulus and response and that we have the choice of whether we use the space to manage our response. He suggests that in the space lies freedom and choice – the opportunity to break free from reactive responses and to exercise conscious choice in how we respond.

People are becoming increasingly reactive because we are fast losing the capacity to be in the present moment – to respond to life with full awareness. The growth in the incidence and violence of “road rage” is evidence that people are reacting mindlessly when they experience some delay in traffic or are frustrated by the actions of another driver. We can act out of impatience rather than being patient and understanding that we are traffic too.

If we practice reflection on our daily activities, we can begin to notice how reactive we often are. It is a useful exercise to think about a single event where we were reactive and to capture the moment – thinking about what happened, how we felt both bodily and emotionally and how we responded. We can then focus on what we could have done differently to avoid being reactive.

When we are in the midst of a situation that is stimulating a negative response in us, we can use the S.T.O.P. practice to create some space for ourselves and better manage our response. Meditation practice can help us to more frequently access this process to pause and stop ourselves from being overly reactive.

Tara suggests that one of the easiest practices during meditation to become grounded in the present is to listen to the sounds that surround us – in a way that is neither interpreting or evaluating the sound. For example, you might be fortunate enough to tune into the sound of rain as it falls, noticing the ever-changing pattern and different impacts as it hits the ground or buildings.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation practice and reflection, we can become more self-aware, more aware of our reactive responses and better able to consciously manage our response to life and the varying stimuli we encounter throughout the day and night.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Recognition of the Signs of Mental Illness and How to Intervene

In the previous post, I discussed being mindful of mental health in the workplace. This involves not only awareness and being present to staff and colleagues, but also being able to recognise the early warning signs of mental illness and having the courage and competence to intervene.

The early warning signs of mental illness in the workplace

Recognition of the early warning signs of mental illness enables early intervention to prevent deterioration in a person’s mental health. Without such an intervention, issues can build up for the individual, making it more difficult for them to manage their stress and/or stressors.

The Mentally Healthy Workplaces Toolkit introduced in the earlier post provides a list of possible early warning signs of mental illness and lists them under five categories:

Physical – such as constant tiredness, continuous ill health, major changes in appearance and/or weight, complaints about ongoing health concerns
Emotional – such as irritability, loss of a sense of humour or of confidence, increased cynicism, nervousness, overly sensitive to perceived or real criticism
Cognitive – overall performance decline through lots of mistakes, lack of concentration and/or inability to make decisions (constant procrastinating)
Behavioural – behaving out of character by becoming more introverted or extroverted, withdrawing from group activities, lateness to work, not taking scheduled breaks (such as lunches) but taking unofficial time off
In the business – inability to meet deadlines, declining motivation, frequent absences, working long hours unproductively.

There may be multiple causes for one or more of these early signs to occur. So, it becomes important to check in with the person involved as to how they are going and whether you can be of assistance.

Checking in – having the conversation

Often managers and colleagues are reluctant to say anything to the person showing early sings of mental illness and the person involved is often unwilling to raise the issue for fear of being seen as “not coping” or “being weak”. Part of the problem is that they really need support and care and genuine concern for their welfare. They can be experiencing a strong sense of isolation, lack of support and associated depression. Extending a helping hand can often work wonders. But how do you start the conversation?

People in the workplace are very ready to ask someone about a physical injury such as a broken wrist but when it comes to a mental illness they are often fearful or uncertain – yet the person with the early signs really needs someone to show care and concern. So, we can have a situation where the two parties – the manager/colleague and the person experiencing mental illness – are compounding the problem by not engaging in the conversation- a form of mutual withdrawal.

The recognised format for the initial conversation where someone is displaying the early signs of mental illness is called AYOK – “Are you okay?” The Mentally Healthy Workplaces Toolkit offers four steps for starting the conversation:

Ask R U OK?
Listen without judgment
Encourage action
Check in

It is useful to preface this conversation with the observation, “I have noticed that…and I am concerned for your welfare.” In other words, communicate what you have observed (shows you are interested in the person) and express care and concern.

The person involved may be unwilling to talk initially but it is important to undertake the occasional check-in. An experienced practitioner at the 19th International Mental Health Conference mentioned that on one occasion he had the initial AYOK conversation and the person involved said they were okay…and yet, some months later they came up to the practitioner and said, “I’m not okay, my daughter committed suicide three months ago – can you help me?” Having had the initial conversation opened the way for the subsequent voluntary disclosure. To avoid the conversation compounds the sense of isolation of the individual involved – they feel that they can’t help themselves and that no one else is willing to help them.

It is important to prepare for the conversation beforehand – know what you are going to say, allow time for the interaction and choose an appropriate time and place. You need to ensure that you are prepared to listen and be mindful during the conversation.

You can provide support by suggesting they use the Employee Assistance Program, visit their doctor (who can initiate a formal Mental Health Care Plan) or discuss options for making reasonable adjustments to their work situation. The important thing is that you take compassionate action, not letting the situation deteriorate.

It is vitally important to maintain confidentiality about any information disclosed to protect the privacy of the person involved. You will need the explicit consent of the individual to disclose the information to co-workers, for example. The information conveyed to you can only be used for the purpose intended by the disclosure – e.g. to enable a reasonable adjustment to their workload or pattern of work.

The exception would be where the person discloses that they are experiencing suicidal thoughts or feelings. In this case, you will need to seek professional support. Beyond Blue has some very sound and detailed guidelines for the conversation in these situations, including what language to use. ConNetica, in their blog post Chats for life APP, also provides an App (with practical conversation tips) which has been designed by young people for young people experiencing mental health problems, and possibly suicidal thoughts and feelings.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can become more aware of the early signs of mental illness, have the courage and confidence to have the AYOK conversation and a willingness to take compassionate action.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Being Mindful of Mental Health in the Workplace

There are at least five pieces of legislation in Australia that require directors, executives and managers to be mindful of mental health in the workplace. These pieces of legislation highlight the duty of care responsibility of organisation office holders and managers to be mindful and proactive in developing a mentally healthy workplace.

The Portner Press publication, Mental Health at Work Guide 2018, identifies the following pieces of legislation that are relevant and reinforcing of this responsibility:

Fair Work Act
Common Law
Workplace Health & Safety legislation
Anti-discrimination legislation
Worker’s Compensation legislation

Despite this legislative responsibility very few managers are adequately trained to be aware of mental health in the workplace or to know how to take appropriate, compassionate action. The Heads Up organisation, a mentally healthy workplace alliance, identifies awareness and responsiveness of managers and staff as one of the nine attributes of a mentally healthy workplace:

Ensure that managers and staff are responsive to employees’ mental health conditions, regardless of cause and that adjustments to work and counselling support are available.

There are numerous video resources available to help managers and staff become more aware of, and responsive to, mental health issues in the workplace. One such resource is the video of the webinar conducted by Belinda Winter, partner of law firm Cooper Grace Ward, where she explores managing mental illness in the workplace.

A toolkit for a mentally healthy workplace

WorkSafe Queensland provides a superb and comprehensive Mentally Healthy Workplaces Toolkit which is accessible online to help managers exercise their responsibility to be mindful of mental health in the workplace. The toolkit is built around the four pillars of awareness and responsiveness, namely:

Promote positive mental health at work
Prevent psychological harm
Intervene early
Support recovery

Each of these steps requires managers and staff to be mindful about the state of mental health in the workplace and to be proactive in pursuing processes, policies, systems, leadership style and an organisational culture that are conducive to positive mental health.

Mindfulness training supports managers in their duty of care

Mindfulness training, along with appropriate action learning interventions, can help build the requisite culture and assist managers and staff in exercising their duty of care and maintaining their own self-care.

As managers and staff grow in mindfulness through meditation practice and training they can become more mindful of mental health issues in the workplace and more responsive to the needs of individuals. The managers will be better equipped to exercise their duty of care and related responsibility for creating a mentally healthy workplace.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Bringing Mindfulness to Your Daily Life

Mindfulness is developed through meditation which can take many forms. When you become adept at meditation, you can access mindfulness at any time of the day in the midst of undertaking any form of daily activity – walking, eating, talking, or driving.

You can develop the art of bringing mindful awareness to anything you do so that you can learn to be more fully in the present moment. Mindfulness stops you from becoming lost either in the past or the future.

If you can access mindful awareness during your daily life, it can be a place of ease, wellbeing and peace – undisturbed by the waves of life’s vicissitudes. Mindfulness is a lost art but with meditation practice it becomes more accessible, even easy. However, the difficulty lies in remembering to access mindful awareness when you are caught up with your daily activity.

Tara Brach, in a meditation podcast, introduces a process called S.T.O.P. to increase your capacity to remember to engage mindfully in whatever you are doing. This process can be undertaken in a short or very brief form or in a longer, more expanded way.

The S.T.O.P. practice

This practice can be undertaken at any time, particularly when you find yourself agitated or anxious. The basic practice involves:

Stop – pause what you are doing or about to do
Take a breath – breathe in deeply and let out the tension with your out-breath
Observe – notice what is going on for you emotionally and physically (e.g. anger, tightness in the chest)
Proceed – respond with greater awareness and self-management.

This is a practice that can be undertaken at any time during the day in the midst of any activity. You can stop yourself from your automatic fight or flight response and be more conscious of what is going on for you while also controlling your response. With the S.T.O.P. practice you can gain more appropriate responsiveness to your daily life and progressively build your response ability.

Tara demonstrates both the short version and long form in her meditation podcast where she introduces the S.T.O.P. practice. She states that most people seem to find the short version extremely helpful – with some people even using the practice just before a potentially stressful meeting. Tara suggests that the practice enables you to “intercept reactivity” and to respond with mindful awareness.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and practices such as S.T.O.P., we can more readily access self-awareness and self-management. We can learn to observe what is going on for us so that we do not react compulsively, but with a mindful awareness that enables us to more readily experience equanimity.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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Living the Present Moment

The present moment is all we have – this very moment is our life. Yet we spend so much time being someplace else. We are thinking about what we have to do or wishing that our life was different. We can be caught up in the emotions of envy, disappointment or regret and overlook what is happening now.

So often we look forward to an activity with a friend or colleague and yet when the moment arrives, we are thinking of something else – our focus is elsewhere other than the present moment. When we can be really in the present moment we can savour being alone, being with someone we value and appreciate, experiencing the joy of our child’s development and happiness, or the beauty of the nature that surrounds us.

The role of meditation practice – bringing us back to the present moment

In one of her many meditation podcasts, Tara Brach coaxes us to show up fully for our life experiences, instead of being absorbed by our busyness. She encourages us to be with our mind and our body in the moment.

Meditation practice trains us to bring our attention back to the present moment again and again. It helps us to develop the discipline to stop our minds wandering or entertaining thoughts that take us away from the moment that we are experiencing, whatever form it takes.

If we can maintain meditation practice over a sustained period with a degree of frequency, we can begin to find that we tend to stop ourselves in the course of some experience and remind ourselves to savour the moment. This present-mindedness can grow and develop and embrace more of our life and our interactions with others. We can learn progressively to be truly present to ourselves and others.

As Tara points out the starting point is often getting in touch with our own bodies and our bodily sensations – whether it is the sensation of warmth or cold, tightness or softening, retracting or expanding. What we develop through being in the present moment is gratitude and appreciation and we can experience joy and happiness through the process. Tara describes what we develop through meditation practice in these words:

The art of appreciation and showing up for our life and living with more connection and gratitude.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we can appreciate each moment and savour more of our life, instead of letting the present moment continuously pass us by. Through regular and persistent meditation, we develop the art of bringing ourselves back to what we are experiencing in the moment.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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