By Dr. Ron Passfield
In her presentation for the Mindfulness & Meditation Summit, Kelly McGonigal discussed The Neuroscience of Compassion. Kelly is the author of The Science of Compassion and The Upside of Stress. Kelly maintains that for compassion to be realised and sustained, the following six conditions must be present: awareness and recognition of suffering feeling of concern for, … Continue reading “Compassion and Neuroscience”
Albert Flynn DeSilver has written a book titled, Awakening through Writing: The Space Between the Words, as a wake-up call to the power of writing as a means for exploring our inner landscape. In an interview with Tami Simon, Albert identified some of the key messages in his book and I want to reflect on … Continue reading “Writing: A Pathway to Mindfulness”
We all experience physical degeneration of the brain through ageing. However, the impact of this degeneration varies from person to person. There are genetic factors that come to play but also life experiences and lifestyle. Professor Michael Ridding of the University of Adelaide argues that “cognitive reserve” explains to some extent how some people can … Continue reading “Dementia, Ageing and Mindfulness”
In a recent McKinsey Quarterly article, the authors challenged what they call “neuromyths” – basically, misunderstandings arising from misguided interpretations of neuroscience findings. They argued that many leadership development programs are based on these “neuromyths” and result in considerable waste of financial resources and employee time. One of the myths that the authors challenge is … Continue reading “Creating a Workplace Culture of Well-Being Through Mindfulness”
In an earlier post, I discussed how mindfulness meditation can help the management of chronic pain. In this post, I will focus on the beneficial effects of mindful meditation for the management of psoriasis. Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition that can last for weeks, months and even years and can recur at anytime. This skin … Continue reading “Mindful Meditation to Reduce the Symptoms of Psoriasis”
In their book, Organizational Change by Choice, Dexter Dunphy and Bob Dick quote an anonymous author who provides a very simple, behavioural description of the way we learn: To look is one thing To see what you look at is another To understand what you see is a third To learn from what you understand … Continue reading “Lifelong Learning Through Mindfulness”
Western society is strong on thinking and we have developed so many words to describe the act of thinking. Here’s just a few: analyze summarize categorize synthesize realize Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that we have become so engrossed in thinking all the time that we have lost the art of just being. We have lost touch with … Continue reading “Mindful Breathing – Being, not Thinking”
Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his book, “Coming to Our Senses”, suggests that his call to awareness has to be interpreted both literally (being conscious of the senses of the body) and metaphorically (behaving sensibly). He describes each of the senses as a terrain and discusses mindful eating in a section of his book called “tastescape” (“touch”, for example, … Continue reading “Mindful Eating”
Tai Chi is described as “poetry in motion” and is a popular pathway to the development of mindfulness. It builds the connection between body, mind and spirit. I first encountered Tai Chi practice when, as a manager in the public service in the 1980s, I engaged a Tai Chi instructor to conduct training for myself and … Continue reading “Tai Chi – A Pathway to Mindfulness”
