Leadership as Resonance

Ginny Whitelaw, biophysicist and global leadership coach, understandably frames leadership in terms of energy and resonance.  She explains that as humans we are made up of matter and energy – matter in the form of blood, skin, bones and energy in the form of our mind.  Ginny notes that the leadership function entails concentrating energy, your own and that of your followers, to create an organisational vision (capturing emotional as well as intellectual energy); develop the culture of a team (through energy alignment); and promote innovation (turning creative energy into new products, services and structures).  She explains that energy is always on the move, in constant transformation and continuously vibrating.  Her new book, Resonate, to be released in 2020 explores these concepts in depth and their many leadership applications.

Resonance – synchronous vibration

One way to define resonance is synchronous vibration.  For example, a room or a musical instrument is described as resonant when it amplifies sound vibrations and extends them by vibrating at the same time.  Ginny provides the example of making a loud sound over an open grand piano and noticing that some strings vibrate, and others do not – the strings that vibrate match the vibrations in your voice.  When things operate synchronously, we say that they are “in synch”.  So, in Ginny’s perspective, leadership is about creating real change and making a difference by achieving synchronisation of energy, our own and that of our followers – in other words, generating resonance.  She describes a leader as an “energy concentrator”.

Blocks to leadership resonance

Through her study of biophysics and martial arts (5th degree Aikido black belt), Ginny came to realise the very close connection between mind and body and the role vibration and energy play in human consciousness (the resonance theory of consciousness).  Her role as a senior leader in NASA, coordinating the 40 groups that supported the International Space Station, enabled her to understand that coordination involved energy alignment and resonance (vibrating “in synch”).

Ginny’s experience with martial arts and Zen philosophy heightened her awareness of the mind-body connection.  For example, she explains that fear holds back our achievements as leaders because it distorts our resonance – blocks our energy emission and reception.  She suggests that as leaders we need to go beyond our triggers that create fear in our mind and body.  The fears may have their origin in adverse childhood experiences or the negative self-stories that arise through our inner critic.

Ginny likens the effect of fear to the dampening of resonance created when several socks are placed inside a bell.  Even a bell designed especially for resonance will sound dull and clunky when the socks are inside it.  The socks are metaphors for our mental and physical blockages – the things that stop our personal resonance.  Our challenge as leaders is to remove the blockages – so that our voice is “as clear as a bell”.

Removing the blocks to leadership resonance

Ginny discovered through the impact of deep breathing on her asthma that clearing blockages requires being still, mindful breathing, and other mindfulness practices such as meditation, Tai Chi and yoga.  Reconnecting with nature and the multiple sources of energy in the environment also help to rebuild personal resonance.  Ginny explores relevant practices and exercises in her book The Zen Leader.

When you can achieve a level of integration between your thoughts, emotions and body you free up yourself to become your more “resonant self’.  Ginny explains that by achieving this integration we can emit a “clear signal” and “bring our one clear note to achieve our purpose” as a leader.

Reflection

I can relate fully to the concept of leadership as resonance having been involved in many minor and major change endeavours as a leader in organisations and in community.  The concept of energy emission and reception resonates strongly with me.  I also find that as I grow in mindfulness, I am better able to tap into my creative energy, enhance my ability to tune into others’ focus and energy and contribute to a purpose that is greater than myself.  Removing the personal blockages to my “one clear note” is a lifetime pursuit – a journey into mindfulness through meditation, Tai Chi and other mindfulness practices.

____________________________________________

Image by Valiphotos from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Dealing with the Inner Critic through Self-Compassion

Clare Bowditch – singer, storyteller and actor – recently released a biography titled, Your Own Kind of Girl.   In the book, which she had been attempting to write since she was 21, Clare discusses how she dealt with her inner critic which was all encompassing and destructive.  Clare writes that the book is “about the stories we tell ourselves, and what happens when we believe them”.  She lived in hope that someone would tell her that she was “more than” her grief, her failures and the negative stories about herself that she constantly carried in her head.  Clare explained that the title of the book is drawn from a song she wrote in 2008 and, to this day, she is immensely moved by the lyrics in the second verse, including the words, “You are fine, you’re more than enough”.  The book is about her painful journey to come to this realisation – a journey that is a common story for many people, particularly women.

The debilitating effects of the inner critic

In an earlier blog post, I spoke about the negative self-stories that we perpetuate, partly because our brain has a negative bias but also because of social pressures and the materialistic values that are propagated on an hourly basis through intrusive advertising and image making in videos and films.  Our self-stories can undermine our self-esteem, entrap us in a sense of helplessness and create a negative spiral leading to anxiety and depression.  These stories, often based on irrational fears, can become deeply ingrained and extremely difficult to shift.  They can blind us to creative options, block the realisation of our potential and harm our interpersonal relations.

Self-compassion to overcome the inner critic and negative self-stories

Tara Brach recently released a book titled Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and the World with the practice of R.A.I.N.  This meditation practice involves four basic steps – recognise, accept, investigate and nurture.  Tara provides a brief example of this process in a 9-minute, guided meditation, Reflection: Healing Self-Blame.   Below are some of the key points in this meditation that is based on the R.A.I.N. approach:

  • The starting point is to recognise some aspect of your life where your inner critic is active.  It does not have to be a major example of self-denigration – it could be some relatively minor self-critique, e.g. focusing on your failure sometimes to really listen to someone or diverting a conversation to establish your credentials.   The important thing is to have a focus for this meditation.  More complete self-awareness can grow out of recognising even a small aspect of the inner critic in our life – this can puncture a hole in the wall of self-protection that blocks our self-realisation. 
  • As we progress in the meditation, we come to a point of self-acceptance. This involves acknowledging what we say and do but also accepting that we have an innate goodness and that we are not defined by our thoughts – that we are “more than” our negative self-evaluation.  In Clare’s words, “You are fine, you’re more than enough”.
  • Our investigation of the impacts of our inner critic extends to recognising bodily sensations as well as feelings that flow from the inroads that negative self-stories make on our sense of self-worth.  We can experience tension in our muscles, pain (e.g. in our arms, neck and back), headaches or a nervous twitch when our inner critic is running rampant in our thoughts.  A body scan and progressive tension release can help here.  The key thing is to experience the impact of our negative self-story in a holistic way – this builds awareness and increases our understanding of the negative impacts of our inner critic.
  • Lastly, we reach the stage of self-nurturing in the meditation process.  This can be expressed physically by placing your hand on your heart or mentally through naming the self-criticism and countering with expression of self-forgiveness, acknowledgement of your positive contributions and achievements and gratitude for all that you have in life – opening yourself to what is good in you and what is wonderful in the world around you.

Reflection

Our inner critic is deeply entrenched and can be very damaging to our self personally, and to our relations, both at work and at home.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and especially the R.A.I.N. meditation, we can become more aware of our inner critic (negative self-stories), understand its impacts physically and mentally and develop strategies to counter its inroads into our sense of self-worth.  As both Clare and Tara point out, dealing with the inner critic can create a new sense of freedom and realisation of our true potential.

____________________________________________

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

How to Maintain Your Blogging Momentum

Darren Rowse recently published a blog post titled, How to Rekindle Your Blogging Enthusiasm, in which he provided several ways to reenergise your blogging and regain your momentum.  Darren is eminently equipped to offer advice to bloggers having started a personal blog in 2002, a professional blog for bloggers called Problogger in 2004 and a very profitable blog on digital photography in 2006.  Darren also provides an extensive podcast archive on blogging, a book titled Problogger (for those who want a career in blogging or to earn extra income from their blogging efforts), and a course on how to develop a profitable blogging business titled 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Maintaining your blogging momentum

Darren’s suggestions on how to rekindle your blog when your enthusiasm and/or energy wanes are very practical and relatively easy to implement.  However, they will often involve changing habits (including avoidance) that have grown up over time (in some cases, over many years).  Here are his suggestions:

  • Take time off from writing your blog – sometimes we go stale and lose enthusiasm.  A break can rekindle enthusiasm, develop insight into new ways to approach your blog and provide the opportunity to regain momentum.  The break from blogging could involve taking a vacation in a different environment; doing research for your blog content; undertaking a course on blogging or attending a conference on your content area; developing a blogging calendar; or doing some speed writing/brain dump around several topic areas.  Ash Barty, current World Number 1 tennis player, took a year off from tennis and played cricket instead – this enabled her to regain her enthusiasm and accelerated her tennis career to the top.
  • Revisit why you are writing your blog – to tap into your motivation and energy source.  Over time, we can easily lose sight of what motivated us to write our blog in the first place.  I found this strategy of reconnecting with my purpose a very useful and sustaining approach. To this end, I recently revisited the benefits of writing my blog on mindfulness in a blog post. In that post, I also explained the benefits of changing my blogging frequency from daily to three or four times a week – something that I did on the advice of my mentor (and another strategy that Darren recommends).
  • Check the alignment of your blogging focus and approach with your overall goals – this includes ensuring that you are in the right content area (in terms of personal interest, potential audience and growth potential) and that your language, target audience and topic choice align with your fundamental purpose in writing.  I have found that mindfulness as a topic choice for my blog assists my personal and professional development, enables me to keep abreast of the latest neuroscience findings, stimulates my thinking and engages me in a growth area (with endless articles and video resources and applications in multiple arenas such as mental health, education, leadership, workplaces and community development).
  • Overcome pride and seek help – there are numerous resources available such as Problogger and Yaro Starak’s blog and his engaging podcast interviews as well as related social media groups.  Darren also offers ways to find writers to assist with the challenge of writing your blog on a regular basis.

Reflection

Sometimes we do things that naturally rekindle our enthusiasm for blogging (such as participating in webinars or online conferences).  At other times, the drain on our momentum is too much because of other commitments that consume our energy and creative capacity – these are times when we could seek and heed the advice of professional bloggers such as Darren and Yaro.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can become more aware of our thoughts and feelings that may be impeding our progress in writing, identify creative solutions and regain our alignment, enthusiasm and momentum.

____________________________________________

Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Self-Compassion for Healthy Eating

Marsha Hudnall, President and Co-owner of Green Mountain at Fox Run (a whole-body wellness retreat), offers an interesting perspective on how to develop healthy eating – whether that involves avoiding overeating, under-eating or eating foods that we know cause inflammation through allergy or intolerance.  Marsha in her article on this topic suggests that self-compassion is the missing factor in enabling us to persist with healthy eating. 

Often when we stray from the ideal approach to healthy eating that meets our specific needs, we berate ourselves for our failure to stick to the right path.  Marsha has been a pioneer in the field of non-diet and alternative approaches to healthy eating through her writing, teaching and her work as a board member of the Center for Mindful Eating.   She explains her personal experience and perspective on mindful eating in a Mindful Dietician podcast.  Marsha offers advice too for people who are on dietary restrictions as a result of a health condition – available in a paid webinar titled, When the Doctor Says No.

Self-Compassion for healthy eating

Self-compassion has been the life pursuit of Kristin Neff who stresses the importance of self-kindness to overcome negative thinking in the face of set-backs or temporary defeats.  Kristin reinforces the need to recognise that we share a common humanity and part of our life experience is larger than ourselves (we are not the only one encountering life challenges).  She stresses the role of mindfulness in dealing with thoughts and feelings that damage our self-image and using mindful approaches to grow self-awareness and self-regulation.

In her podcast interview mentioned above, Marsha identifies two key barriers to effective self-compassion – the social and personal obsession with body image (and related materialistic values) and the relentless pursuit of perfectionism.  In relation to perfectionism, she argues that we need to acknowledge that we cannot be perfect – we will make mistakes and poor choices.  This acceptance opens the way to new learning, new habits and thoughtful responses to life crises.  This fundamental realisation was a real breakthrough for tennis player Ash Barty who became Number 1 in the world in 2019.

Mindfulness and mindful eating

Marsha stated that her introduction to mindful eating occurred when Jon Kabat-Zinn visited the Green Mountain retreat center.  She came to understand that mindfulness was essentially about awareness and understanding of the influences shaping our responses and the potentiality of making different choices – choosing between a range of options rather than being locked into a single way of doing things, e.g. mindful eating instead of dieting.  Marsha alluded to the perspective of her mother-in-law, Thelma (Founder of Green Mountain), who talked about “the plank of choice” versus the “diet tightrope”. 

Marsha broadens our perspective on mindful eating when she offers suggestions in her article on ways to bring self-compassion to the process of eating:

  • Give up a fixed way of thinking – what Marsha calls “black and white thinking”.  She suggests, for example, that pizza should not always be branded as bad for you – it may be the best choice when celebrating an achievement with friends. You can be mindful of others, the occasion and the flexibility you have on that occasion – rather than adopting a fixed position that leads to subsequent dissatisfaction for not having “participated” fully in the celebration. In her podcast interview, Marsha argues that we need to adopt a “middle-ground” instead of pursuing unattainable perfection.
  • Become aware of your negative self-talk when eating – Marsha suggests that you write down these thoughts, and also have prepared responses that you can adopt when the debilitating self-critique starts up.
  • Practice giving yourself kind responses – do this whenever a negative thought enters your mind during the day.  The more you do it, the easier it gets and it quickly becomes a default way of thinking – just as awareness practice while waiting can replace the default mode of grabbing your mobile phone to fill the gap.

Drawing on her own personal experience and awareness of research findings, Marsha maintains that mindfulness can help us to contribute more positively and successfully to our own family, work and professional arena.  She observed that as you practice mindfulness, you become more aware of the subtleties of being mindful and its impacts in every arena of your life.  Marsha noted, too, that exploring neuroscience and an understanding of the brain, better equips us to deal with our daily challenges.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become more aware of the thoughts and feelings that drive us to unhealthy eating and related practices and build the resilience to achieve self-regulation in our eating habits.  Mindful eating involves more than just eating slowly, it also extends to identifying and managing our negative self-talk that can occur while we are eating and other times throughout the day.

____________________________________________

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Kindness and Meditation

Gloria Kamler recently presented a MARC meditation podcast titled, Body and Breath.  Gloria teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs as a faculty member of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC).  She draws on more than 20 years’ experience educating people in mindfulness meditation.

In her podcast, Gloria emphasised the benefits of mindfulness for everyday living.  She stressed the importance of mindfulness in difficult times.  From her perspective, mindfulness is fundamentally training our ability to focus and pay attention while meditation is the gym where we build our “mental biceps” – where we develop the part of our brain that enables us to deal with difficulties other than by the auto-pilot mode of fight, flight or freeze. In Gloria’s view, mindfulness builds our capacity for self-regulation, to make considered decisions, to follow through with our intentions and agreements and to deal more skilfully with the waves of life with their undulating calm and turbulence.   She argues that mindfulness enables us to “fire on all cylinders” when confronted with difficulties, rather than become locked into what she calls, “the cycle of reactivity”.  

Kindness and meditation

Gloria maintains that, in essence, mindfulness is about kindness and caring – for ourselves and others.  Being mindful requires non-judgment of ourselves in the first instance and extending this stance to others – this sometimes requires forgiveness on our part.

Part of self-kindness is noticing what we are experiencing and accepting what is.  It also means being able to appreciate and savour the pleasant things that are happening in our lives, even at the simplest level.

In the guided meditation that Gloria offers as a part of her podcast (at the 15-minute mark), she leads us in a progressive body scan and breath meditation.  She stresses the role of noticing and naming distractions and returning to our focus as a way of building our “mental biceps” and our “awareness muscle”. 

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we become more aware of what is happening for us – our thoughts, feelings, interactions, and automatic responses (borne of prior conditioning and/or adverse childhood experiences).  Through development of our “mental biceps” in meditation, we can build our capacity to regulate our emotions, make sound decisions and translate our good intentions into action.  As we develop our personal mindfulness anchors in meditation, we can return to the calmness and equanimity afforded by mindfulness and provide kindness to our self and others.

____________________________________________

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Healing the Impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Childhood Trauma

The classic study on Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) conducted by CDC-Kaiser Permanente with more than 17,000 members of a health organisation found that two thirds had suffered at least one ACE and more than 20% reported suffering three or more adverse experiences in childhood.  Adverse childhood experiences cover the whole gamut of experiences resulting in immediate and long-term effects on a child – the experiences cover aspects such as physical, psychological or sexual abuse, violence in the home, mental illness of carers, separation from parents at an early age, divorce or suicide within the family.  ACEs occur irrespective of gender, culture, context or economic status – although, children in poverty situations are more likely to experience ACEs.  The range of adverse childhood experiences is extensive, their incidence is extremely high, and their impacts are long-lasting.

The impacts of adverse childhood experiences

This is an area that has been extensively researched and documented.  CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) summarises the long-terms effects of ACEs in terms of their physiological, mental, relationship and behavioural impacts.  The impacts are far-reaching and long-lasting.  Nadine Burke Harris found in her research that toxic stress arising from adverse childhood experiences changes a person’s biological and neurological make-up and can result in an over-active stress response.  

Nadine was inspired by the ACE study mentioned above and undertook extensive reading of research results and conducted her own research.  In a TED talk, she shared her conclusions that early childhood experiences and related trauma impacted every area of a developing mind and body:

High doses of adversity [in childhood] not only affect our brain structure and function, they affect the developing immune system, developing hormonal systems and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed.

Preventing and healing the impacts of adverse childhood experiences

Nadine has dedicated her life and work to redressing the impacts of adverse childhood experiences and related childhood trauma. In 2007, she founded, as medical director, the Bayview Child Health Center (BCHC) which is not only focused on individual child health and wellness but also activism, education and community development.

Also, as a founding member and CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness, Nadine has contributed substantially on a global basis to the development and implementation of strategies to prevent and heal the impacts of adverse childhood experiences in individuals, communities and society generally.  Some of the strategies developed by the Center and other activists in the area include:

  • Parental education in childhood development, sources of stress, the impacts of adverse childhood experiences and positive parenting
  • Multidisciplinary health care teams for children and youth
  • Screening for adverse childhood experiences by primary medical health practitioners and paediatricians
  • Community development to create social support systems and collaborative caring environments
  • Interventions in schools and political systems to raise awareness, support policies and action plans
  • Dissemination of the latest research into the nature and impacts of adverse childhood experiences.
  • Carer support centres
  • Early detection, intervention and home visitations for identified at-risk situations for children
  • Enabling reconnection with others through social prescribing and encouraging reconnection with nature
  • Adopting the guidelines and principles of trauma-informed mindfulness.

Nadine has documented her research and work in the area through her recent book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity.  Together with other concerned professionals, parents and community members from the Center for Youth Wellness, Nadine has contributed to the development of the Stress Health website designed to help carers and parents to develop the basic components of a child’s life that will protect them, or help to heal them, from toxic stress.  The website provides an ACE quiz based on the original ACE study to help you identify for yourself or your child the level of toxic stress experienced in childhood.  On completing the quiz, you are given access to several suggested strategies for stress reduction, including mindfulness.

Reflection

Many of us have experienced one or more adverse childhood events.  The care and concern of a loving friend or relative may have been instrumental in helping us to overcome or, at least, reduce the impacts of these experiences in our life, work and relationships.  Other formative experiences such as personal study, community engagement or personal development may have helped also.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop a deepened self-awareness and understanding of the impacts of adverse childhood experiences in our own lives, and increase our capacity for self-regulation to reduce those impacts.

____________________________________________

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Ways to Develop Gratitude

In a previous post I offered a specific gratitude meditation presented by Diana Winston through the MARC weekly meditation podcasts.  I also mentioned the practice of developing personal reminders to appreciate some aspect of your life – I mentioned in my case using mistakes in tennis (of which there are many) to savour the capacity to run, hit the ball and engage in social activity with friends.  Here I would like to discuss different forms of meditation and mindfulness practices that can also assist in developing a deeper sense of gratitude that can increase our enjoyment of life and improve our relationships.

Gratitude meditations and mindfulness practices

Some of these meditations or practices can become part of your daily life or employed on a one-off basis.  The important thing is to incorporate some form of gratitude practice on a regular basis because as Jon Kabat-Zin reminds us, “we become what we pay attention to”. So, focusing on gratitude makes us grateful.  Here are some relevant meditations/practices:

  • Loving-kindness meditation – this form of meditation can enable us to appreciate ourselves as we are (rather than wishing we were different) and the people who positively impact our lives.  Jon Kabat-Zin provides an all-embracing loving-kindness meditation that extends also to people who may have hurt us and to whoever in the world is in need.   Expressing kindness to others engenders appreciation for what we have.
  • Journalling – there are many forms of gratitude journal that can be used as part of your mindfulness practice.  Jason Marsh provides some sound, research-based tips for keeping a gratitude journal – including the benefit of regular, rather daily gratitude journalling.  Ryder Carroll in his Bullet Journal Method (pp. 185-187) identifies ways to incorporate gratitude in his approach to journalling.  Rick Hanson suggests that a gratitude journal can focus on three simple aspects of your life – things that I am grateful for, people that I appreciate and events that I value.  Our journalling can also cover the people in our lives who have imparted their knowledge and experience as mentors, guides, parents, carers or coaches – in Aboriginal terms, it involves expressing appreciation for a Goondeen, a wise person who is a source of wisdom and understanding.
  • Sharing your gratitude – Tara Brach suggests engaging a gratitude buddy to support your practice of expressing gratitude.  She recommends developing the practice of regularly sharing your expressions of gratitude with one other person, e.g. by email or text.  Your buddy can support your positive intentions through regular contact.
  • Appreciating the moment – Nicole Bayes-Fleming offers meditations for “resting in the flow” (19 minutes) and savouring the moment through your senses (5 minutes).  These gratitude practices help to displace harmful thoughts and to build appreciation for the simple things in life.  Chris Walsh encourages the practice of mindful check-in, particularly during transitions in life, as a way to tap into the benefits of being grateful (including cultivating resilience).
  • Developing sympathetic joy – this process replaces envy with valuing and rejoicing in the success of others.  Johann Hari describes a form of loving-kindness meditation that can develop sympathetic joy by savouring the achievements of others as well your own.
  • Somatic meditation – developing awareness of your body and bodily sensations.  There are various forms of somatic meditation, e.g. lower-belly breathing and body scan.  Somatic meditation has proven to be particularly powerful in developing gratitude in times of difficulty.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become aware of the many people and things in our life that we can be grateful for.  Focusing regularly on these positive aspects of our daily life can displace negative thoughts and engender the many proven benefits of gratitude. 

____________________________________________

Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Gratitude through Meditation

Diana Winston recently conducted a meditation podcast on the theme of Gratitude, prompted by the imminent celebration of Thanksgiving in the USA.  Diana, Director of Mindfulness Education at MARC, observed that as people grow in mindfulness, they become more appreciative of different aspects of their life and work.  Often, we operate on autopilot and as a result so much of our life passes us by – we are not conscious of what is happening for us or how we got to where we arrived.  There is so much of our life that we take for granted, especially the simplest things like being able to breathe, walk, listen and converse.  Through meditation we can become more focused on, and appreciative of, the present moment.

The benefits of gratitude

The benefits of gratitude are so great that it is well worthwhile consciously building appreciation as an integral part of your life.  Research in this area consistently shows that gratitude contributes substantially to the development of positive emotions such as happiness, resilience, and joy as well as the displacement of negative or “toxic emotions” such as resentment and anger that can gradually erode your sense of equanimity and contentment. 

Developing gratitude through a personal reminder

It Is usually when we lose something that we begin to really appreciate what we have.  For instance, one of the discs in my back collapsed in 1997, so for 18 months I was in extreme pain from sciatica – having difficulty standing and walking (and being unable to play my favourite sport of tennis).  Now when I am playing social tennis, I try to appreciate the fact that I can run, hit the ball and participate in rallies.  I am trying to make each mistake that I make a prompt or reminder to appreciate what I can do, rather than focus on what I did wrong when attempting to hit the ball.  Developing a relevant, personal reminder (based on your life experience) is one way to build gratitude and appreciation into your daily life.

Developing gratitude through meditation

Another way to consciously develop gratitude is to practice a gratitude meditation.  Diana offers one way to approach this in her meditation podcast.  The steps involved are:

  • Grounding yourself in your body through being conscious of your posture (the pressure of your body on the chair and your feet on the floor), and undertaking a body scan exploring points of tightness and releasing any tension that exists in places like your shoulders, jaw or arms.  The grounding can be strengthened by closing your eyes or looking down and/or touching your fingers together and feeling the sensation of your bodily energy flow.
  • Establishing an anchor for your meditation – this can be the experience of your natural breathing process wherever it is readily felt by you (in your chest or abdomen or through your nose), listening to sounds in your room or focusing on a particular body sensation (such as your fingers touching or your feet on the ground).
  • Appreciating the present moment – Diana introduces a 15-minute period of stillness and silence in this next stage of the meditation.  The basic approach is to focus on your anchor, appreciate that you can experience the positive benefits of your personal anchor (breathing, listening or feeling) and naming any distraction (e.g. “thinking”, “avoiding”, “wandering”, “complaining”) before restoring your focus to your anchor. Instead of beating up on yourself for being distracted (a normal part of the human condition), you can appreciate your capacity to be aware that you have lost your focus, that you have developed an anchor to return to, that you have the capacity to restore your focus and that, in the process, you are building your awareness muscle.  [I began to appreciate my capacity to focus on an anchor after I conducted a mindfulness session in my manager development course. One of the course participants commented that the meditation component did nothing for her because her mind was so agitated that she could not still her mind at all.  This person suffered from severe anxiety as a result of post-traumatic stress.  Fortunately, in line with the guidelines for trauma-sensitive mindfulness, I had offered everyone the choice of not participating in the exercise if they did not want to or were unable to for whatever reason.]
  • Free association – Diana suggests that you let your mind focus on something or someone that you appreciate in the present moment.  If you are in an intimate relationship, you could appreciate, or be grateful for, the opportunities to share your successes or failures, the times of quietness spent comfortably together, the chance to go walking  together in a pleasant environment, being able to enjoy a movie or a special location with each other, the pleasant feelings of friendship, sharing ideas and plans or the sense of support and unconditional love. 

Reflection

There are so many things to appreciate in our lives and to be truly grateful for – many of which we take for granted.  For instance, we can savour friendship, our achievements and rewards, the development of our children or, counterintuitively, savour being alone or experiencing boredom.  As we grow in mindfulness through daily personal reminders or formal gratitude meditations, we can develop an ever-present sense of appreciation and accrue the desirable benefits of being grateful.

____________________________________________

Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Cultivating Healthy Confidence

Rick Hanson, in his podcast interview – Confidence or Narcissism? – reinforced the concept of a narcissism spectrum.  He indicated, from his clinical experience, that the extreme end of the spectrum – narcissistic personality disorder – is rare (less than 1% of the population).  However, narcissistic tendencies exist in all of us to a greater or lesser degree.  Rick provides examples, for instance, of what a 70% level of narcissistic tendencies in a person would look like behaviourally, compared to a level of 20%.  He suggests that at the 70% level, a defining characteristic is self-absorption to the point of harming others; while at the 20-30% level, a sense of entitlement is involved that results in others feeling subtly devalued.

Rick reinforced the view that there are ways to cultivate a healthy confidence to address our narcissistic tendencies.  In the previous post, I highlighted Ash Barty as an excellent role model to aspire to in developing the necessary traits.

Why do we need to develop a healthy confidence?

According to Rick, a healthy confidence involves acknowledging that you are “basically a good person with desirable traits”.  Fundamentally, the development of a healthy confidence requires “having and taking in positive experiences” (in contrast to experiencing childhood trauma in its many forms and playing out the trauma in narcissistic tendencies).   Rick suggests that deprivation in terms of normal “narcissistic supplies” in childhood, can lead to deficiencies in behaviour as an adult (including attempts to fill the void from childhood).  Normal “narcissistic supplies” take the form of physical and emotional availability by carers, accurate reading of signals and needs of a child and a genuine desire to respond in such a way as to cater for, not dismiss, the fundamental needs of the child – the needs for “comfort, soothing and affection” and to have a “sense that they are special”.

How do we cultivate healthy confidence?

Rick reinforced the importance of valuing and fully (mentally and bodily) feeling positive experiences whenever they occur throughout the day.  These can take the form of positive “narcissistic supplies” such as:

  • experiencing active listening (that affirms your worth as a person)
  • receiving an expression of gratitude for what you have done to help someone
  • being acknowledged for one of your own special traits such as wisdom, calmness, flexibility
  • experiencing sensitive understanding and appreciation of what you are feeling in a difficult personal situation (such as a relative who has a mental health issue).

Rick suggests that we should really savour these experiences, dwell on them and “replay the movie of a [positive] conversation” – and do so multiple times a day (as he did to redress his own narcissistic tendencies). 

Rick’s interviewer, Forrest Hanson – creator of the Eusophi (Good Knowledge) website – suggests that another way to develop healthy confidence is to work backwards from self-observation – observation of our own narcissistic tendencies at play, e.g. the need to gain others’ attention all the time.  He maintains that being aware of these tendencies and their negative impacts (e.g. people choosing to avoid us) can serve as a motivator for us to change.  Forrest’s mental frame on healthy confidence versus narcissistic tendencies is his suggestion that the former involves valuing oneself “from the inside out”, while the latter involves valuing oneself “from the outside in” – needing external validation to affirm your own worth.

Reflection

Most of us have experienced some form of deprivation of healthy “narcissistic supplies” in our childhood.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop the self-awareness and honesty to recognise and acknowledge how these deficits play out in our adult lives. By constantly savouring positive experiences, we can redress the balance and build towards a healthy confidence that can be a more effective guide of how to behave in our daily lives, in a work context and within our intimate/family relationships.

____________________________________________

Image by Евгения Кец from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Healthy Confidence or Superior Conceit?

In a previous post I discussed how mindfulness can be an effective antidote to narcissism, both in curbing our own narcissistic tendencies and managing the aftermath of a relationship with a narcissistic boss or intimate partner.  I also highlighted the work of Rick Hanson who promotes healthy confidence to achieve an effective balance between needing to be seen as superior and developing a grounded but strong sense of self.  Rick pursues this dilemma in his podcast titled, Confidence or Narcissism?  One of our challenges in developing healthy confidence is to find effective role models  – many of our leaders in government, business and sport have failed to resolve this dilemma in their public lives.

Superior conceit displayed by sports stars – defective role models

In the earlier blog post, I shared Bonnie Duran’s perspective on narcissism where she relates it to the Buddhist concept of superior conceit – the need to be “better than” or “superior to”.  Bonnie explains superior conceit in one of her podcast talks titled, Conceit and Latent Torments.

There are many instances of elite sportsmen and sportswomen displaying superior conceit and related narcissistic behaviour.  For example, narcissistic behaviours have been exhibited by international tennis stars who:

  • Abuse chair umpires and line umpires
  • Throw their racquets in disgust or anger and/or throw tantrums on the tennis court if things don’t go their way
  • Demonstrate a total lack of empathy or concern for the feelings of others
  • Boast about how much they have earned from tennis and their total asset worth (as if their financial resources are a measure of their personal worth)
  • Show a lack of respect for their opponents and/or tennis fans
  • Seek to win at any cost, even if this means cheating or bullying others.

Ash Barty – an effective role model for healthy confidence

Ash Barty has achieved more in one year (2019) than most tennis players (male or female) achieve in a lifetime.  She reached World Number 1 ranking in June 2019 (and held it at the end of the year) and won the French Open, the Birmingham Classic, the Miami Open, and the WTA Women’s Finals – Shenzhen (after being runner-up at the China Open).  Ash was the winner of a tour-topping 52 matches. 

On top of these achievements, she has been awarded (in 2019) the Don Award (by Sport Australia Hall of Fame), the Women’s Health Sportswoman of the Year, and the ITP Fed Cup Heart Award (for outstanding courage and distinctive representation & commitment).   The individual Don Award is for an Australian athlete “who, by their achievements and example over the last 12 months, are considered to have the capacity to most inspire the nation”.   These awards recognise that in so many ways Ash is a role model, not only for sportspeople but all of us who aspire to achieve “healthy confidence” and its attendant rewards.  Her status as a role model for other Indigenous women had been recognised in 2018 when she was named Australia’s first National Indigenous Tennis Ambassador.

Ash demonstrates healthy confidence through the following traits:

  • Resilience in the face of adversity and setbacks
  • Recognition of the need to take time out to achieve a better balance in her life and master self-management (she spent 18 months playing state-level cricket)
  • Respect for tennis opponents, officials and fans (a trait that is widely acknowledged and appreciated)
  • Empathy and compassion for others
  • Authenticity and humility
  • Amazing capacity to focus and sustain her concentration
  • Valuing and publicly recognising her support team.

Ash readily acknowledges the profound contribution of her mentor and mindset coach, Ben Crowe, in shaping her outstanding success.  Ben observed that, in addition to the abovementioned traits, Ash demonstrates the following characteristics:

  • Acknowledges that there is strength in vulnerability, rather than needing to claim or pursue perfection
  • Recognises that she can “write her own story”, not accept habituated, negative self-stories
  • Has the ability to let go of the things she cannot control while maintaining focus on what is under her control
  • Does not let tennis define who she is, but pursues her true self and values depth of character
  • Is prepared to put in the hard work to achieve continuous self-improvement and excellence.

His insightful and revealing explanation of the underlying philosophy that he has been able to impart to Ash explains why she is an exemplar of healthy confidence. 

One of the problems for us in trying to develop our own healthy confidence is that bad behaviour has dominated the attention of mainstream media, whereas Ash’s exemplary behaviour has been buried under the controversy associated with narcissistic behaviour displayed by some international tennis players.  Kate O’Halloran, writing for the ABC, expressed the hope that Ash’s French Open win will turn the spotlight more on “an exemplary sportswoman whose respected demeanour and success” has failed to attract the media attention that it deserves.

Reflection

There are some very profound lessons for us in the philosophy and behaviour of Ash Barty and some ideas about how we might develop our own healthy confidence.  However, we should be careful of joining the chorus to criticise the narcissistic behaviour of individual international sports stars while indulging in narcissistic tendencies ourselves. 

We can ask ourselves when the last time was that we made a point of highlighting our qualifications or the nature and breadth of our experience when meeting someone for the first time? When did we attempt to outdo someone else’s story (about the drama we experienced, the places we have seen or the achievements we have realised)? How often do we interrupt others’ conversations to focus attention on ourselves? When have we thought that our car/house/dress attire is better than that of someone else’s?  Do we ever measure our personal worth in terms of the assets we have or the importance of our job?  As we grow in mindfulness, we can become progressively more aware of our own narcissistic tendencies and begin to develop a healthy confidence and deep sense of our real self.

____________________________________________

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

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

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.