grow mindfulness – Page 8 – Grow Mindfulness

9 Strategies for Managing Cynicism and Negativity in Your Work Team

Negativity and cynicism can develop in a team and become contagious leading to a toxic work environment. Rollin McCraty, PhD, in his online Heart Science Course maintains that attitudes such as cynicism and negativity, along with challenging emotions like anger, resentment and anxiety, deplete energy – they drain energy and lead to loss of motivation and productivity.

Rollin explains that neuroscience has demonstrated that these challenging emotions have a direct negative impact on people’s physiology – impacting heart rate, the nervous system, blood pressure and overall performance. In contrast, research in relation to positive emotions such as appreciation, gratitude and compassion shows clear physiological and psychological benefits.

There can be many factors that contribute to the development of negativity or cynicism in a work team. An individual who is constantly complaining can affect the attitudes of those around them, even sucking the manager into their negativity. Individuals can express negativity because of adverse prior experiences in an organisation or because of a current personal problem that is pervading their thinking and perspective on life. A team may become negative when they have experienced a series of unbroken promises on the part of a manager and be increasing cynical when they have been “over-sold” on the benefits of an organisational or system change.

It is worth noting, however, that some degree of scepticism can be good for a team – so that a team does not just accept what they are told without some evaluation or critique. However, individuals who constantly play the “devil’s advocate”, are cynical or negative can drain the energy of the team and frustrate the manager. People who complain endlessly or engage in passive aggressive behaviour whenever change is proposed can become a contagious negative force if their negativity and/or cynicism is left unaddressed.

Strategies to address negativity and cynicism in a team

Managers often feel powerless in the face of negativity and cynicism or when confronted with team members who are constantly pessimistic. Doing nothing is not an option as these kinds of behaviours only become more pervasive and disruptive without proactive intervention by the manager. However, there are strategies that can be employed to address the negative impacts of such behaviour.

1.Set expectations collaboratively

Managers can engage staff in the process of defining values and identifying the behaviours that give effect to the desired values. This collaborative process builds a sense of agency and lays the foundation for a strong, positive culture. A manager can include “positivity” as a desired value of a team and introduce “unwritten rules” or norms that give expression to this value.

2.Call the behaviour

If an individual persists in behaving negatively and obstructively, it is critical to address their behaviour directly and privately in a one-on-one conversation. This should be up-front, stating exactly what behaviours are inappropriate as well as their negative impact on the team. It should also be done at a time when the manager is calm and in control, not when they have developed a “head of steam” as a result of allowing their frustration to reach boiling point before they act. Early intervention is important once the manager has laid out the team’s groundrules and explained behavioural expectations of team members. During the feedback session, it is important for the manager to engage in empathetic listening once the inappropriate behaviour is addressed.

3.Avoid negativity or cynicism in your own words and actions

Managers need to monitor their own behaviour and avoid expressing negativity or cynicism in relation to what is going on in an organisation such as system or structural change, appointment of senior management or changes in policy or direction. Staff continually observe a manager’s words and actions and take their cue from what the manager says and does. A manager who continually expresses negativity or cynicism, will generate a negative environment and then have to deal with a toxic culture that undermines their efforts to develop a productive and mentally healthy workp0lace.

4.Monitor your language

It is so easy to fall into the habit of making statements like, “I wish it was Friday” or “I can’t wait till the weekend” – everybody does it. However, these statements communicate dissatisfaction with the present moment and the immediate work environment. They unconsciously give staff messages that the workplace is not enjoyable or that the manager resents being there. They can contribute to a negative environment, rather than one that is positive and based on appreciation of what is good about being employed in the particular workplace. Jake Bailey who was diagnosed with cancer in his final year of High School reminds us that we often overlook the potentiality of the present moment because we are focused on the future. In his Senior Monitor’s speech at his school’s prize night, he commented, I was dying for weekends, I was dying for school holidays,. Before I knew it , I was dying. His speech challenges you to ask the question, “Are you dying for tomorrow or living today?’

5.Be open to solutions

Managers often think that they are the one who has to have the solutions to all workplace problems. Being open to suggestions by staff and being prepared to experiment with alternative ways of doing things, can develop positivity in a team. It also contributes to staff’s sense of agency – their ability to influence their work environment and the way their work is done – all of which contributes to positive attitudes.

6.Provide positive feedback

Staff can become very negative if they feel they are taken for granted and their contribution is not valued. Positive feedback is one of the best motivators of people because it involves recognition and appreciation. If it is given in a way that is sincere, specific and timely, positive feedback can deepen relationships, build team cohesion and trust, and develop positive feelings. It can also become pervasive and an integral part of team culture as staff observe a manager’s appreciative behaviour and model themselves on what they hear and see.

7.Be congruent

Ensure that your actions line up with your words. This requires constant personal monitoring and reflection. If you say something is important (e.g. innovation), and don’t spend time, energy or resources on developing it, staff will become cynical and develop the attitude that you “do not mean what you say”. Congruence builds trust, respect and a willingness to contribute.

8.Use de Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats

The six thinking hats (represented by six different colours) provide ways of viewing an issue or change from a variety of perspectives, some of which are optimistic and creative while others are more pessimistic and tempered by realism and critique. A manager can use the thinking hats approach to enable staff to explore their reactions to an issue or change and move from a negative/cynical perspective to one that is positive and energising. The manager can start with “black hat thinking” to surface and publicly record staff’s reservations, concerns and anxieties about an issue or change. This can be followed by exploring feelings (red hat) and, then, exploring potential benefits (yellow hat) as well as creative possibilities (green hat).

9.Explore gratitude reflections

Often negativity, cynicism or resentment flows from a focus by individuals in a team on what they do not have which can also be a source of envy. A manager can develop a ritual of appreciation and expression of gratitude as a group and/or individual process. This has proven psychological benefits for individuals and teams and can lead to displacing negativity with positivity.

Reflection

Many factors both personal and organisational can impact individual and team attitudes and contribute to the development of negativity and cynicism in a team. As a manager grows in mindfulness through reflection, self-monitoring and observation, they can increase their capacity to recognise the signs of negativity and proactively implement strategies to address this enervating orientation to help develop and maintain a positive and mentally healthy team culture.

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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.

The Final Stages of the Hero’s Journey for the Frontline Midwife

In a previous post, I discussed the story of Anna Kent as a midwife volunteering in South Sudan in terms of the first 8 stages of the Hero’s Journey. What I will discuss now is her Sudan story expressed in terms of the final stages of the hero’s journey (Stage 9-12). I’ll be drawing again on her book, Frontline Midwife: My Story of Survival and Keeping Others Safe, in which she tells her story in graphic detail.

The final four stages of the hero’s journey – stages 9 to 12

The final four stages of her hero’s journey in South Sudan were deeply formative and life-changing and enabled Anna to develop a new perspective, skills and determination to help others in need wherever they were in the world:

9. Reward – there is no doubt that Anna emerged a stronger person as a result of overcoming personal challenges, including self-doubts and questioning of her obsession with volunteering. The reward, too, that she experienced involved saving the lives of mothers, children and babies. However, she had to deal with the sense of guilt she felt for the death of baby Mariam. James tried to reassure her that she was not responsible for the death of the baby – in his words, “it was everyone in the world’s fault”. She accepted intellectually that “every aid worker has a patient they carry in their conscience”. Emotionally, though it was a continuous challenge to overcome the sense of guilt which pervaded her nightmares as she relived the traumatic event. Unfortunately, our brains carry a negative bias – we see the negative much more strongly than the positive. For a time, Anna found that her negative thoughts overwhelmed her rewarding thoughts – her personal satisfaction that she had saved many lives who otherwise would have died without her skilled and brave intervention.

10. The Road Back – this is both a physical journey and a metaphorical one. On the physical level, it involves returning to her “ordinary world” – life with her boyfriend Jack in their comfy home in Nottingham. The metaphorical aspect relates to being comfortable with her new self in an environment that is starkly different on every dimension to the one she was leaving in South Sudan. It also meant dealing with the grief of leaving her mentor, James, her colleagues and the Sudanese people who she grew to love and admire for their courage, gentleness and stoicism. Her short recreation spells during her volunteering in South Sudan forewarned her of the pending difficulty of the “road back”. She found on her brief recreation trips that she could not share with Jack the horrors and traumas she had experienced and realised that she was totally lacking in libido. Friends would ask about the exciting bits of her story but all she could share were her stories about snakes, not the reality of the poverty, harshness, and deprivation of the basic rights of women in South Sudan. She found that she and Jack had so little to talk about, and their time together involved lots of silence as Anna tried to come to grips with crossing the threshold back into her former life.

11. Resurrection – on her return home Anna broke off her relationship with Jack and moved to her parent’s home. This created significant stress for her as she was unable to talk to her parents about her Sudan experiences or her reasons for breaking up with Jack – both these topics were too raw and traumatic. In speaking with James her mentor, she shared her angst and he informed her that he had experienced similar dislocation and disorientation on his return from volunteering abroad. James suggested that he made the mistake of “trying to be the person I once was when that person has gone”. Anna recognised that everything changes with overseas service in a different culture and land where deprivation is rife – your values and perspectives change and you see “luxuries” and waste with new, intolerant eyes. The way home for her involved a dying to the old person she once was and becoming a new, stronger, values-driven person.

12. Return with the Elixir – another phase in Anna’s transition to her new persona began with entering a share house with two other nurses. What she found was the ability to party together and share their experiences in a way that was cathartic. Out of this period came a very strong resolution by Anna to build on her newly acquired midwife capabilities. She enrolled in a midwifery degree at Nottingham University and had a very rewarding and enlightening work experience in Ethiopia as a student midwife. She felt stronger and better prepared for subsequent volunteering missions involving Haiti following the earthquake in 2010 and Bangladesh working with Rohingya refugees – and these experiences entailed different journeys with new challenges and companions (as discussed in her book).

Reflection

Throughout her hero’s journey in Sudan and beyond, Anna had to face her traumas which had “many heads” and in the process develop her resilience. An experienced volunteer nurse, Anita, had told her “you’re gonna have to work out how to sit with these painful feelings without reacting to them”. Like James, Anita suggested that meditation would be helpful as well as focusing on what has been achieved, not what her inner critic perceived as a “failure”. James even suggested that Anna meditate for “an hour every day” and often encouraged her to be in the moment and experience what was before her – e.g., children playing with kites made from sticks, and the earth glowing from the setting sun.

Anna demonstrated that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation (no matter how difficult we find it) and other mindfulness practices such as being in the moment, we can learn to regulate our emotions, deepen our self-awareness and develop resilience.

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Image by Steve Buissinne 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.

Mindfulness on the Path of a Hero’s Journey

Anna Kent has provided a thought-provoking memoir in her book, Frontline Midwife: My Story of Survival and Keeping Others Safe. The “frontline” theme of her memoir enriches our understanding of this concept. Anna’s story recounts how she undertook nine months service with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) in South Sudan – where the population had suffered civil war for fifty years, with ongoing outbreaks of conflict despite a peace settlement.

Anna whose background was as a nurse in a hospital Emergency Department (ED) in the UK found herself as an accidental midwife. There was no one else available to do the task because there were no trained midwives in South Sudan at the time because of the civil war and its impacts. As I read her “heart-wrenching tale”, I recalled Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero’s Journey.

Anna’s story is told with unassumed humility, raw emotion, and acknowledgement of her fears, frailties and vulnerability. As nurses tend to do, she provides graphic descriptions of the medical challenges she confronts and provides a warning at the front of the book in terms of potential triggers for people who have experienced birth-related injuries, maternal death, loss of a baby or gender-based violence.

The first eight stages of the hero’s journey – a structured view

As you read Anna’s memoir, you can begin to map Joseph Campbell’s twelve stages of the hero’s journey throughout her account. I have attempted to link her story to the first eight stages in this blog post:

Ordinary world – Before her journey, Anna enjoyed a comfortable life with her kind and musically talented boyfriend, Jack, and a home in Nottingham which included “an airy, high-ceilinged bedroom”. Her normal professional world was that of a highly qualified ED nurse at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, where she coordinated a major trauma unit. To prepare herself for her work in South Sudan, she undertook a number of voluntary shifts in the maternity unit while on leave, completed a diploma in tropical nursing and volunteered for a brief placement at a Zambian Hospital in a rural district. Additionally, she completed a pre-departure course conducted in Germany by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Call to adventure: Ever since an early age in her childhood, Anna felt the call to do something about the suffering and pain she saw every day on TV and in the newspapers. She felt a strong urge to help alleviate the overwhelming suffering she observed, especially that experienced by children like herself. As an adult, she experienced “complicated reasons” for wanting to volunteer and help those in need of relief from pain and suffering.
Refusal of the call: As she was packing for her trip, Anna was almost overcome by her fears and uncertainty. She felt ill-prepared for what lay ahead and concerned about leaving her boyfriend and all the comforts of her everyday existence. She could acutely feel the tug to stay and not take the perilous journey involved in work in South Sudan. She also wondered about her comfy life, “Why isn’t this enough for me?”
Meeting the mentor: At Loki, in north-west Kenya, Anna underwent a week-long training that included how to survive a kidnapping, emergency evacuation, and working in isolation. She was informed that there was no internet access because computers melted in the heat and was warned about landmines, poisonous snakes and scorpions. She was told about her onsite mentor who she would meet on arrival in Tam, South Sudan. All she knew about him was that he was over sixty years old and “eccentric”.
Crossing the threshold: Anna crossed the threshold in more ways than one. She flew to Tam in a rambling, old aid plane which was the main transport for people and supplies to this remote area of South Sudan. The flight itself involved being thrown into the reality of war-torn Sudan with bandaged passengers and a woman covered in a bundle of rags lying on a stretcher on the floor of the plane. She was dying and had an IV line connected to her arm and attached via string to the seat’s edge. The French nurse attending to her indicated that the woman would be delivered to the MSF Hospital in Leer, the State’s capital. Anna was very aware that back in the UK, this woman would have had the best of care including drips and monitors and would not have had to suffer the indignity of travelling on the floor’s plane. She was informed that Tam itself suffers from a drastic shortage of pain relievers, antibiotics and other medical necessities. After offloading the dying woman and other passengers in need of urgent medical attention, the plane flew onto Tam where Anna would be working. Her plane eventually lands roughly on the mud landing strip that reflected the terrain – hot, barren and forbidding.
Tests, Allies, Enemies: The heat and oppressive conditions are the enemy. Anna meets her mentor, James, a very experienced nurse and she took an immediate dislike to him. His joviality in the face of unmitigated horrors does not ring true and she can’t make him out. This uncertain relationship with someone whom she will have to depend on, added to her discomfiture. She identified an ally in another female nurse who supports her in the early days of her volunteer work in Tam. However, she is horrified by her sleeping conditions – she is in a tent with James nearby in another tent, both located within the dirt compound that is also traversed by poisonous snakes and scorpions. On top of this are the conditions for patients, many of whom walk many miles to attend the clinic even when seriously ill. The waiting room is effectively the “Waiting Tree” where patients huddle under the limited protection provided by a tree within the dirt compound. The stream of patients is endless (Anna and James treat 1,000 patients in a month) and the diversity and complexity of illnesses is scarry. The makeshift wards are overrun with some patients having to lie on mattresses in the dirt compound. There are continuous life and death decisions determining who will be airlifted to the hospital in Leer, given the restricted availability and limited capacity of the aid plane, and the resources at the hospital itself.
Approach to the inmost cave: The death of a young boy became a crisis point for Anna. Her inner conflict intensified, doubts about her own capability in such trying conditions resurfaced, and she experienced emotional turmoil and overwhelm at the sight of unmitigated suffering, pain and death. She was tense about what further trauma lay ahead. Her salvation came in the form of lengthy, tent-to-tent conversations at night with James , her mentor. Unburdening herself with him and talking through what she was experiencing in an open and honest way changed their relationship. It helped her deal with her emotional crisis These conversations enabled her to reflect on her challenging experiences as they occurred and voice her worst fears. He offered her reassurance and emotional support. James introduced her to the power of mindfulness for dealing with turbulent emotions. Anna came to value his advice, his philosophy of life and his positive psychology.
Ordeal: The ultimate ordeal for Anna and the medical team arrived in the form a 16 year old pregnant girl who was in deep distress and agonising pain. Anna played a major role in successfully delivering premature triplets and helping to save the young girl’s life as she was in acute danger of dying from excessive bleeding resulting from “postpartum haemorrhage”. This experience gave Anna the ultimate high so that she felt like a “hero” and suddenly understood why she had volunteered for such physically and emotionally draining work. She believed at the time that the high from this event would enable her to ride out the lows. The image of the young mother walking home with her triplets in a basket on her head reminded Anna of what was possible in saving others and to value her own contribution.

Reflection

Anna’s story lends itself to mindful reading which according to Mirabai Bush “moves the reader into a calm awareness, allowing for a profound experience and understanding”. It requires full attention, avoidance of distractions and openness to thoughts and feelings as they emerge throughout the reading process. This story is rich in self-disclosure, replete with expression of emotions and immersive in its description of the context and physical environment. Anna encourages us to join her on her hero’s journey into the challenging unknown and land of profound suffering.

Her efforts to grow in mindfulness through micro-practices increased her self-awareness and emotional regulation and enabled her to deal more effectively with the challenges that she had to meet on a daily basis.

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Image by Eszter Hornyai 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.

Accessing Doorways to the Present Moment

Vy Le, international meditation teacher, provided a guided meditation podcast on Doorways to the Present Moment as part of the weekly meditation series offered by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. Vy is the Founder and Managing Director of the In Wave Group dedicated to developing a culture of well-being and resilience in organisations through mindfulness practices.

In her MARC guided meditation Vy mentioned that she had qualifications in maths and computers and was heavily engaged in left-brain activities until she realised that she was “not really embodying her experiences” – being engaged in mental activity and not being aware of the present moment and all that it communicated. She reinforced Diane Winston’s definition of mindfulness as paying attention in the present moment not only with curiosity and openness but also with acceptance of what is.

Vy explained that our breath, five senses and our body provide ready access and the doorway to the present moment – if only we pay attention to them. We are so trained from our school days to pay attention to external sources, at the expense of “listening to ourselves”. We need to tune into what is going on in our inner landscape – incorporating our sensescape, bodyscape, heartscape and breathscape. Jon Kabat-Zinn in his book Coming to Our Senses teaches us ways to access our senses.

Vy makes the point that at any moment we are breathing, experiencing the world through our senses, having bodily sensations, and feeling emotions. If we just stop and focus on one of these doorways we can gain access to the numerous benefits of mindfulness, including calmness, ease and equanimity.

Guided meditation – exploring the doorways to the present moment

Through her guided meditation, Vy introduces us to each of the doorways to the present moment – breath, senses, bodily sensations and feelings:

Breath – Vy begins with encouraging us to take a number of deep breaths and release our breath and related bodily tension through extended out-breaths. During the meditation, she explains how to tap into our breathing by focusing on the undulations in our chest or abdomen or consciously experiencing our in-breath and out-breath through our nose. She notes that at anytime or anywhere, we can access the natural flow of our breath through our body – always occurring in the present moment.
Senses – as the meditation progresses, Vy encourages us first to tune into her voice then the sounds in our room and external sounds (our soundscape). She moves on progressively to focusing on our sense of smell, sight, touch and taste – the latter may involve sensing the taste of a recent coffee or elements of a meal. We so often overlook the sense of taste when we are eating – fixated as we often are on our thoughts and plans. Mindful eating can be one way to utilise the sense of taste to stay in the present moment rather than focus on the past or future.
Bodily sensations – Vy encourages us to feel the sensations in our feet such as warmth, connectedness to the floor or earth, or a sense of solidity/security through groundedness. She then has us explore sensations in our own bodies – in our arms and legs (including the pressure of the chair on the back of our thighs), our chest and abdomen, and our face and forehead (releasing any frown or tightness). She suggests that we note any areas of tension or ease as we go. Vy also points out that by joining our fingers together we can sense the aliveness in our bodies through the resultant warmth, tingling and vibrations. This practice can also help us to tune into our breath simultaneously and assist us to increase our awareness at times of waiting (for example, when waiting for traffic lights).
Heartscape – towards the end of the guided meditation, Vy encourages us to focus on our feelings, what is going on inside us. We may become aware of sadness, joy, disappointment, gratitude, resentment and even grief – emotions that have become clouded by the flurry of everyday life.

Reflection

Vy’s guided meditation offers practical ways to access the present moment through the doorways provided by our breath, senses, bodily sensations and feelings. We can grow in mindfulness by daily accessing these doorways to the present moment. This will require developing a mindset about the value and benefits of mindfulness and engaging in micro-practices on a regular basis so that we can develop the habit of being fully present to our experiences.

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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.

Preventing and Reversing Alzheimer’s – Dr. Kat Toups

Dr. Dale Bredesen, author of The End of Alzheimer’s, in an interview podcast with Kirkland Newman, indicated that he was the theoretician oversighting the work of his team engaged in clinical trials to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s. He also introduced Dr. Kat Toups as the practitioner and Principal Researcher for the clinical trials. Kat specialises in functional medicine psychiatry and in 2009 was awarded the honour of Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the highest honour bestowed by the APA. After researching Alzheimer’s for 20 years and working with Dementia patients in her clinic, she found in 2010 that she herself was a Dementia sufferer. She spent the next three years researching and treating herself to the point where she was able to return to her practice after a period of incapacitation.

Kat was 50 years old at the time of her self-diagnosis of Dementia and she was acutely aware that such early onset Alzheimer’s tends to develop more rapidly than for people who are 65 years or older. Kat described development of her symptoms as a progressive deterioration of her cognitive abilities:

Commencing with her inability to remember two sets of three words that she had used for 20 years in undertaking memory tests with her patients (she had to write them down to access them)
She found she was unable to reverse park or parallel park her car because these involved fairly complex cognitive steps
Her memory of how to work on her computer declined – she could not remember how to operate this primary research tool and its particular functions; she found that her husband would get annoyed at her because she could not remember his instructions or that he had actually reminded her of the processes involved
Kat found she had difficulty remember phone numbers, and even worse, needed multiple attempts to dial a phone number
She found during a conversation at a friend’s place that she lost track of the conversation and was unable to understand what was being said in normal conversation (her cognitive ability had declined to the point where she had developed auditory processing problems)
She continued to deteriorate and eventually she suffered extreme fatigue, had difficulty getting out of a chair (for a year) and could not work.

Kat was very conscious of her concurrent problems including an auto-immune disease, Lyme disease, chemical sensitivity, allergy to multiple things resulting in hives and rashes all over her body and brain fog (resulting from exposure to chemicals in stores). Because of her awareness of the many factors impacting cognitive ability – such as toxins, nutrient deficiency, lack of hormones, lifestyle challenges and stresses, inflammation and infections, and diet – she was motivated to undertake a battery of tests to determine and treat the specific factors impacting her cognitive health. She indicated that in her clinical trials she does the same thing – isolate personal factors that can then become “treatment targets” for reversing the impact of Dementia (including Alzheimer’s).

Kat was eventually able to return to work and resume her clinical practice with the added benefit, because of her personal experience, of being able to treat her patients faster than she had treated herself. She explains the thoroughness of her self-testing and treatment in her podcast interview with Kylene Terhune, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) practitioner.

In her interview with Kirkland mentioned previously, Kat discussed a case study that demonstrated reversal of Dementia. She spoke about a patient who had been tested elsewhere at the age of 60 and found to have a delayed memory score of 19, a score that should have been “way over 50”, given his education and obvious intelligence. When he presented for a Dementia trial with Kat at age 63 (after doing nothing in the intervening period on the basis of the medical advice he had received), his cognitive test result was 7 (a decline of more than 50%). Kat stated that she and her team were able to reverse this result after the patient spent 9 months in the clinical trial – resulting in a score of 92 at the end of that time.

Ways to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s and other forms of Dementia

Kat provides a free e-book, Decoding Dementia, in which she explains the causes of decline in memory and cognitive ability, discusses different treatment options, proposes diet and lifestyle changes and ways to test for and identify underlying causes of Dementia, including toxins (especially mould), inflammation, lack of hormones, and stress.

Kat provides what she terms a Basic Dementia Protocol which includes:

Identifying and correcting any underlying causes likely to contribute to cognitive problems
Observing her guidelines on exercise, diet and sleep
Brain training e.g. Brain-HQ
Correcting vision and hearing through testing and taking remedial action
Overcoming deficiencies in nutrients (e.g. Vitamin D)
Reducing stress by using mindfulness practices
Restoring hormones to the right levels and balance.

Kat is particularly conscious of the need to remove mould from homes and correct sleep apnea:

Mould – Kat explains that certain types of mould “can result in inflammation and destruction of the neurons” if left unattended over a reasonable period. She advocates strongly for mold testing using home kits and external professional assessment. Kat provides detailed instructions on how to go about dust collection and assessment (pgs. 10-11 of Decoding Dementia).
Sleep Apnea – Kat encourages testing and correcting Sleep Apnea where frequent snoring occurs as this condition causes a continuous loss of oxygen to both the brain and the heart. In her words, if left untreated, “Sleep Apnea can lead to both Dementia and Congenital Heart Disease”.

In her free e-book, Decoding Dementia, Kat offers more details in relation to each of the elements of her Basic Dementia Protocol. On mindfulness, she states that any mindfulness practice will be beneficial provided it is done on a daily basis and, ideally, for at least 20 minutes. Kat recommends using a mindfulness practice that suits you personally and your commitments. She encourages the use of guided meditations such as those provided by the Mindful Awareness Research Centre (MARC), UCLA. Other options Kat proposes include Tai Chi, Gratitude practices including journalling, Meditation apps such as HeadSpace, and HeartMath Technology (focused on inner balance and stress reduction).

Reflection

We can each think of someone who could make use of the information and options provide by Kat. The challenge is to apply her experience and research insights to ourself and undertake the testing, lifestyle changes and treatments (where necessary) that she proposes. I find that guided mediations, mantra meditations and Tai Chi (meditation-in-action) are my favourite mindfulness practices. Through these practices, I hope to grow in mindfulness so that I can increase my self-awareness, develop and support my brain (through improved attention and concentration) and build better understanding and compassion. I hope to cultivate and savour my subconscious and gain greater access to my innate creativity.

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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.

Note: The Content of this post is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Preventing Alzheimer’s – It’s Not What You Think

Kirkland Newman, researcher, writer and philanthropist, has established the MindHealth360 website to make free resources and solutions available to anyone who wants to access information on mental health issues. She shares her vision of an integrative approach to mental health through her advocacy of functional medicine psychiatry – an approach that does not just look at symptoms but explores root causes of illnesses. Foundational to her approach is the recognition of the need to integrate our inner life, biochemical elements and lifestyle/behavioural approaches. Her revolutionary approach to integrative mental health derives from family and personal experiences of disintegrated and injurious pharmaceutical treatments for postnatal depression. Kirkland discovered the lasting benefits of integrative medicine (also called functional medicine) 11 years after suffering severe postnatal depression and has dedicated herself to sharing the benefit of this approach with others.

Kirkland’s MindHealth360 website provides a comprehensive discussion of factors that could, in combination, be contributing uniquely to an individual’s mental health issues – these potential contributors have been categorised under the three main areas of lifestyle/behavioural, psycho-spiritual and biochemical factors. Her documentation of these contributors is enriched by video podcasts of her interviews with leading experts on integrative mental health. In this post, I want to explore one interview that covers the groundbreaking work of Dr. Dale Bredesen and Dr. Kat Toups on preventing and reversing Dementia (including Alzheimer’s – the most prevalent form of Dementia). Dale is the author of The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Programme to Prevent and Reverse the Decline of Dementia and The Practical Plan to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline at Any Age.

Misconceptions about the nature of Alzheimer’s

Dale, who is a world-famous neurologist, was at pains to point out that the medical profession has completely misconstrued Alzheimer’s and led people astray into believing that it cannot be prevented or reversed. His fundamental proposition aligns with Kirkland’s integrative medicine approach. He contends, for example, that the medical profession is treating Alzheimer’s as a simple disease rather than a complex one – he likens this perspective to treating Alzheimer’s like playing checkers instead of playing the more complex game of chess. He argues that even the latest approved FDA Alzheimer’s drug will only slow the symptoms of Alzheimer’s but does not provide improvement. He suggests that this disintegrated pharmaceutical approach is like fixing one hole in a ceiling riddled with more than 36 holes.

He argues, based on successful clinical trials with his team, that there are four major areas that contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s:

Inflammation (which can result from multiple different sources such as poor dental care)
Toxins (including air pollution and household mould)
Energetics (a technical term covering aspects such as blood flow, level of oxygen and presence of ketones)
Nerve growth and neuron support (called “trophic support”, the presence of molecules that help neurons to develop and sustain necessary connections) – this includes hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, as well as nutrients such as Vitamin D.

Success in terms of Dale’s team means actually preventing and/or reversing the progress of Alzheimer’s. The clinical trials of his team provide considerable proof that Alzheimer’s is reversible if you adopt an integrative approach which includes a battery of tests covering the four areas mentioned above and other aspects such as measurement of cognitive impairment (using MRI procedures and the MoCA Cognitive Assessment Test). Added to these more quantitative approaches is discussion with a patient’s partner to discover whether they have observed any noticeable change in the person being assessed.

Dale argues for this more integrated “cognoscopy” approach and maintains that anyone over 45 years of age should seek out such comprehensive assessment of cognitive impairment. He maintains that the term “Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)” is, in fact, misleading as this condition constitutes an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s (not an early stage as the name suggests). Dale explains that his team has identified four stages in the development of Alzheimer’s:

Phase 1 – No symptoms but impairment detectable on a PET Scan (can occur 20 years prior to assessment of MCI)
Phase 2 – Subjective assessment – you know something is wrong but impairment is not detected by standard tests
Phase 3 – Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) as measured on tests such as the MoCA mentioned above.
Phase 4 – Final stage of advanced symptoms that are adversely impacting your daily activities.

Preventing and reversing Alzheimer’s

Dale contends, based on the improvements in Alzheimer’s patients during clinical trials, that Alzheimer’s is reversible particularly if cognitive impairment is identified and addressed in its early stages. In the trials, the researchers chose people who were assessed as having Mild Cognitive Impairment (that is, with MoCA scores of 19 or less, but not including those in the zero to 5 range). The results show that 84% of the patients actually improved their cognitive assessment, despite the intervention of the pandemic (a summary of the results is provided at 23.48 mins in the video podcast).

Dale states that a “one size fits all approach” to treatment is totally inadequate because of the considerable variability amongst individuals in relation to the four major areas discussed previously (inflammation, toxins, energetics and nerve/neuron support). In concert with Dr. Kat Toups, he states that Alzheimer’s is also preventable if we look to maintain our health holistically having regard to the key lessons identified from their personal experience, research and clinical practice.

Reflection

These insights on Alzheimer’s, developed through evidence-based trials, remind us of the need to access the wisdom of the body and to consciously adopt a self-care plan. It also means that it is desirable to be proactive in obtaining professional assessments of our physical and mental health. Kirkland reminds us that we need to attend to our “inner life”, especially negative thoughts and beliefs that over time can result in the release of stress hormones that “can cause further hormone and neurotransmitter imbalances”. She argues for the use of meditation and mindfulness to manage our thought patterns and beliefs, as these improve self-awareness and self-regulation.

We can explore our inner landscape as we grow in mindfulness through Tai Chi, mantra meditation, yoga or other mindfulness practices. Kirkland contends that mindfulness can help us to develop emotional regulation as we become aware of our thought-feelings patterns and learn to break the habit loop.

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Image by Mirosław i Joanna Bucholc 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.

Life Shaping Events and People: Finding Our Way Home

In an earlier post, I explored the concept of authenticity and ways to develop it – after listening to a presentation by Jeff Brown at the Surrender Summit. This exposure to Jeff and his thinking stimulated my reading of his early book, Soulshaping, A Journey of Self-Creation – a revealing memoir that tracks his outer and inner journey. As a result of the heartfelt responses to this book, Jeff came to understand that he was not alone in experiencing life’s challenges and exploring the inner journey to seek out peace, happiness and fulfillment. He comments that he came to realise that “so many of us have walked the same trauma trails and endured hardships”.

Jeff contends that his disenchantment with his early adult life was a result of following the “false-path”, instead of the “true-path” – alignment with his unique, profound life purpose. He points out that the world we live in values external achievements not inner progress and constantly distracts us from our life purpose with false rewards and endless enticements designed to capture our attention and cultivate our obsessions.

His personal story captured in Soulshaping describes how he started on his journey to authenticity by listening to his “inner voice” (which he calls “Little Missy”) and exploring his true-path with its multiple challenges and turning points. He argues that the inner voice is “the little voice that knows”, is persistent and unrelenting and contains what he describes as “the karmic blueprint for our destiny”. The challenge is to allow this inner voice to reach our consciousness and influence our words and actions and, ultimately, shape our life choices.

However, the journey to authenticity – alignment with our life purpose – requires what Jeff describes as “gut wrenching, self-admission” because it is only when we expose what is really inside of us that we are able to “liberate our own voice”. Admitting “who we are”, and not persisting with our social disguises (the face we present to the world), is essential for our liberation to a life of joy, profound realisation of our connectedness and experience of the well of ease with its inherent peace and tranquility – a stark contrast to the hurly-burly world we normally inhabit with its unceasing expectations.

Writing our way to our inner home

Jeff suggests that one way to access our true-path and the attendant inner sense of contentment and aliveness, is to begin writing to remove our “emotional debris” and uncover our inner voice. To this end, I have enrolled in his online writing course, Writing Your Way Home, and I have set out on my own writing journey while concurrently exploring Jeff’s journey through reading Soulshaping and his latter book, Grounded Spirituality. My core writing project will be a reflective memoir focused on acknowledging the people who have shaped, or are shaping, my life.

In a moment of synchronicity, I recently listened to an interview with Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, as he was discussing the fact that his life at the time involved parallel endeavours – his writings on emotional and social intelligence and his exploration of meditation through research and long-standing meditation practice. He disclosed that he was pursuing these endeavours on two fronts simultaneously by writing another book about emotional intelligence and writing what he called a “spiritual memoir”. He indicated that this latter inner journey was about the people who influenced him over his life and enabled him to be the person he is (and the person he is becoming). Daniel indicated that he was thoroughly enjoying his memoir endeavour and that he was initially writing it for himself, not necessarily for publication.

Jeff indicated that we each have events and interactions with people in our life that shape us and our way of life. Sometimes these events are traumatic and/or the people we encounter seek to turn us from our path through belittlement, envy or active discouragement. Others seek to support us to be the best we can be and assist us to explore, and stay on, our true path. As we are often reminded, “it is not what we experience in life (including traumas) that matters, but how we respond to life shaping events and people”. In reading about Jeff’s “journey into self-creation”, I came to see some parallels in my life with events and people that were life shaping for him.

Life shaping events and people

Jeff describes a number of key events and people who influenced the direction of his life and his pursuit of a writing path as a manifestation of his profound life purpose. As I read about his life, I experienced flashbacks to my own life as well as an intense motivation to begin writing my reflective memoir. I am strongly convinced that the simultaneous pursuit of his writing course and his life story will provide the fuel to energise my memoir writing and help to sustain me in this endeavour. Already, I have found the following parallels in life shaping events and people:

Adverse childhood experiences

In common with Jeff (and many other people), I had a number of adverse childhood experiences. Jeff describes having a father who wished Jeff had not been born (he wanted a girl, not a boy) and who was violent and abusive towards him, always seeking to diminish him and his achievements. He also had a mother who lived a life of “poverty trauma” and resorted to a world of fantasy as a way to cope with life’s harshness. She “closed her heart” to protect herself. Jeff experienced a life that was tumultuous and destructive as a result of the overflow of his parents’ challenging emotions and the constant state of conflict between them.

I had a similar upbringing with an alcoholic father who was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his imprisonment for three years in the Changi Prisoner of War Camp. He sought to drown his pain through alcohol and, while not physically abusive towards me, he would physically attack my mother and, on at least one occasion, put her in hospital with broken ribs. I can relate strongly to what Jeff describes as the verbal assaults of his mother which drove his father “deeper into darkness”. I can hear my mother berating my father about his drinking and wasting our family income, and the resultant shouting and escalating conflict. None of us, including my father who had no psychological or government support (apart from a miserly pension), had any idea of the impact of PTSD on a person’s life and family.

In contrast to Jeff’s mother, my mother lived in the real world but experienced a life punctuated by illness and grief (her four month old son died of a brain tumour when I was 4 years old). She found her life purpose in raising her other five children, including me, and continually sacrificed herself for our physical, emotional and intellectual welfare (professional support for our emotional welfare was unachievable). She worked endlessly at the local Woolworths to sustain us and provide for our private school education. She had high hopes for each of us and encouraged us in whatever we wanted to pursue in our sport, study or work. Unlike Jeff’s mother, she opened her heart to anyone in need and, in turn, accepted food packages from Vinnies to enable us to live from week to week.

Career misfit

Jeff describes his very successful entry into a high-powered career as a defence lawyer. it was only as his Bar Admission Exams approached that he began to have doubts about whether this was a false path or a true path for him even though it involved defence of innocent people who had been subjected to a miscarriage of justice. His inner voice (Little Missy) created some cognitive dissonance for him by suggesting that he was only pursuing the external accoutrements of being a lawyer – fame, visibility, high income and social standing. Ironically, it was when he was trying on a new suit for Court appearances (a clothing accoutrement) that he heard that persistent inner voice yet again, “Who are you really?”

Immediately after I finished high school, I entered a novitiate in Sydney (about 1,000 kilometres from my home in Brisbane) and became an inductee into the life of Catholic priesthood as a contemplative monk. After completing my first year and confirmation in the religious Order, I moved to Whitefriars Seminary in Melbourne (a further 800 kilometres from home) to complete my studies and training before ordination. However, after four years there, I decided that this was not the career for me and returned home with $100 and the suit on my back. I had previously committed to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as part of my confirmation. The decision to leave required formal approval from Rome to release me from my vows.

He arrived at a crossroads when he was due to sign a lease for a legal office to share with potential law partners. At the time, he was pulled by the Warrior in him and his survival instinct to sign up to an externally rewarding life as a defence lawyer in partnership with supportive colleagues. He described this period of sleeplessness, agitation and hellish indecision as being caught “between direction and exploration”, where he was unable to surrender to the joy of the unknown nor to experience the relief and certainty that came from “knowing where I am headed”. It was when he was in Santorini in Greece that he began to write a journal which led ultimately to his “calling” and true path of being a writer. He refused to sign the lease because his life as a defence lawyer seemed to him to be “living in disguise”, not living his real, unique self.

While I was studying in Melbourne, I consistently scored 90% in the annual oral exams for my various studies in philosophy and theology. It was suggested that I was earmarked to complete a doctorate in theology in Rome because of my academic ability and “model” behaviour as a monk dedicated to daily silence, meditation and study. However, I suffered from severe migraines and constant anxiety about my home situation where the conflict and domestic violence was relentless. I came to think that I had undertaken the vocation as a priest as an escape from my distressful home situation and to win the approval of my mother who was very religious. In some sense I was living my mother’s desire for my career – which filled a deep-seated need on her part. Like Jeff, I was torn between “direction and exploration”.

I had all the accoutrements of success – a sense of doing something worthwhile, high standing in the community and amongst my tutors and colleagues, a very balanced lifestyle and enjoyment of the journey. However, my inner voice caused me to be dissatisfied and I left the Order as I approached ordination as a priest. I had experienced an overwhelming sense of responsibility to the community generally and to my parents in particular. As it turned out, sometime after I returned home, I took my mother away from my father for her own safety (but this is another story). Both my parents blossomed when they were separated and I went on to pursue marriage and a career in the public service.

Reflection

Jeff recalls that as he set out to write a book that “talked about spirituality through the vehicle of my own journey”, he became caught up in self-deprecation. He was “riddled with shame and doubt”, questioning whether anyone would want to read about his “miserable journey”. While he recognised that the process of exploring his historical inner landscape through writing was therapeutic for himself, he doubted whether anyone else would benefit from it. His experience after publishing his book certainly put paid to these doubts about the beneficial effects of his writing for others who read his Soulshaping book.

Jeff encourages each of us to explore our life story and share it with others. His writing course provides the psychological support and technical knowhow, including insights into how to get published. He offers Soulshaping as a flexible template to assist us on our writing journey. His hope is that some of the themes he has written about will resonate with the reader/writer and provide the encouragement to follow our own true path.

Like Jeff, I have had considerable self-doubts about the benefit of writing my own memoir. However, I am encouraged by his experience and support and the resonance I have already experienced with some of the themes in his recorded journey. I am continuously flooded with recollections, insights and ideas now that I have chosen my reflective memoir as my core writing project. I am excited by the prospect of researching aspects of my life and recording my growing self-awareness. I am also flooded with feelings of gratitude towards the people who have helped shape and enrich my life. I can already envision my memoir as an e-book, illustrated with historical images from significant events in my life.

As I continue to grow in mindfulness through my regular practice of meditation, Tai Chi and reflection (including writing this blog), I look forward to exploring further my inner landscape, gaining in self-awareness and emotional regulation and experiencing the joy of creative writing grounded in lived experience.

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Image by Robert C 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.

Savouring the Wins of Others

I have been reflecting on Jeff Brown’s comments about the journey into authenticity and particularly what he had to say about savouring the accomplishments and wins of others. He comments for example, “I love it when people accomplish something they have set out to do”. My reflection helped me realise that I have been pursuing a path of authenticity in how I turn up for, and play, social tennis (although I have not previously framed it that way). Like when playing competitive tennis, the inner game of social tennis is challenging but influences how you approach successes and failures.

I realise that the journey into authenticity while playing social tennis has a number of dimensions for me and while I have started the journey, I have a fair way to go. The journey entails confronting inner challenges that impact the way I relate to others on the court, both partners and opponents (I only play doubles tennis at my age due to exercise asthma – I turned 76 today!). Some of the inner battles I have been addressing include the following:

Expectations: I have had to adjust my expectations. I am no longer a 30-year old A-Grade tennis player playing competitive tennis in tennis fixture competitions. I have had to realise emotionally, as well as cognitively, that I no longer have the speed, mobility, strength or endurance that I had when I was half my present age. This means that I have to control my emotional response when I am not able to execute tennis shots that I have been able to achieve previously. This has led me to accept my situation without being captured by negative emotions.
Blind Spots: By watching competitive tennis and reflecting on my own social tennis game, I came to realise some of my blind spots, both behavioural and cognitive. On a behavioural level, after I had some lessons (at age 75) on playing a two-handed backhand, I had to rethink how I held the racquet when I waited for a serve. On a cognitive level, I had to reacquaint myself with my “slice shot” (both forehand and backhand) which I had “put away” because I thought that it was not a “real shot”. My thoughts about this shot changed after observing Ash Barty achieve Number One world ranking in tennis.
Making Mistakes: Because I still carry “video-tapes” in my head of shots I have played competently over many years, I would often get upset when I made a mistake. However mistakes in tennis are part and parcel of the game …and it took me quite a while to acknowledge this emotionally. I had to deal with negative self-evaluation and find ways to develop emotional equilibrium even when making basic mistakes. To assist this journey into authenticity, I try to savour the present moment – the opportunity to play, the capacity to run and hit the ball and my developed tennis competence.
Savouring the wins of others: This is still my greatest authenticity challenge when playing social tennis. I can fairly readily acknowledge and savour the good shots of my tennis partner. However, to do the same for my opponents is a different matter. Because of my conditioning over many years of playing competitive tennis, I want to win every point in a tennis game (although this is not physically possible). After a long rally where I have hit a lot of shots, run a considerable distance and displayed some tennis competence, I get annoyed if my opponents ends up winning the rally. It means effectively that I am not authentically focusing on the process but worrying about the outcome. This is a considerable challenge because it involves rewiring – overcoming my competitive conditioning. It is my current focus in trying to achieve authenticity when playing social tennis on a weekly basis.

Reflection

The journey to authenticity in playing social tennis is a continuing challenge. For one thing, I have to explore why I become annoyed when my opponent wins a rally and learn to savour the wins of others on the tennis court. As I grow in mindfulness through reflection, Tai Chi and meditation, I can learn to better accept my physical limitations, admire the achievements of others (even if they are at my expense) and manage my expectations and associated emotions. This will require a major change in my mindset and help me achieve authentic transformation.

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Image by mohamed Hassan 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 Develop Authenticity

Jeff Brown spoke recently at the Surrender Summit on the topic, The Power of Authenticity. Jeff is an author, expert in personal transformation and a lifetime seeker of his own authenticity. He does not only talk about authenticity; he pursues it relentlessly and tirelessly in his own life and work. Jeff experienced adverse childhood experiences but has explored his inner landscape mainly through writing to enable him to take his place in the world and to pursue his unfolding life purpose. He maintains that writing is therapeutic and a tool for developing authenticity.

To this end, Jeff has created his online writing course to make his personal lessons and insights available to anyone. The course, Writing Your Way Home: Answering the Soul’s Call, is available as a six-week audio course that incorporates inspiration and encouragement along with practical writing and publishing tips. Jeff describes this course and its intent to help the participant find their “deepest and truest expression” in his short video where he encourages others to undertake the “transformative journey” of writing.

In his book, Love it Forward, he recounts how he had a turning point in his life when he stopped to give some money to a homeless person in the street. He realised that this was a token action so he found out the contact details of the homeless person involved and arranged to send payments to him each week. This felt more authentic and heartfelt

In an earlier book, Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation, he explored the traumas and successes of his life in search of his inner authenticity – what he describes as alignment with his “soul purpose”. He was able to set aside external achievements such as becoming a criminal lawyer and move towards his life calling as a writer. He established the Soulshaping Institute: A Center for Authentic Transformation to assist others to make this personal journey to authenticity – to identify and pursue their life purpose.

Ways to develop authenticity

In Love it Forward, Jeff provides a series of quotes and insights into what authenticity means in daily life. His book is a call to authenticity through overcoming any “emotional debris” and setting out on the path to our “soul purpose”. His written words identify ways to be authentic in our actions and interactions:

Learn to live in the present moment – not the future or the past
Have the courage to break the hold of our “comfort zone” which prevents us from realising our true potential – we tend to avoid new beginnings for fear of the pain of endings
Avoid connecting with people who diminish us, distract us from our path, or try to dissuade us from realizing our potential
Savour life, love, breathing, being-in-relationship, and the ability to see, talk, walk and run
Acknowledge that giving in service to others is reciprocal – they are giving in return by accepting our generosity and enabling us to honour our life purpose (it is not a one-way street)
Accept that chaos precedes clarity and that without confusion there is no movement forward beyond the present understanding
Recognize that when we actualize our gifts to serve others in need, we are paying-it-forward and backward (to the people before us who have not had the skills or opportunity to serve others or those who come behind who can walk in our footsteps).
Don’t take things personally – create a mental boundary between ourselves and the behaviour of others (it is not about us)
Let love blossom as we age – open our heart to everything and everyone (we will no longer have time for avoidance or envy).
Express gratitude for our mentors and elders who have helped us realize our potential and our calling
Acknowledge that sometimes people have to experience and express victimhood to be able to move to well-being
Develop a self-care plan that acknowledges our intrinsic value and worth
Measure our success not in terms of externalities but inner victories over unresolved traumas and our “inner critic”
Treat negative self-talk as a culturally-induced, false story
Maintain a vision of our purpose and its realisation so that we actualize it “when the time is right”
Value the success of others (avoid envy of other’s achievements).

Reflection

Jeff reinforces the fact that personal transformation cannot be rushed and that the journey to authenticity is paved with setbacks (lows), as well as joy (highs). There is excitement and exhilaration in the journey of unfolding and realizing our uniqueness and potential.

Meditation and other practices can enable us to grow in mindfulness, be fully present and have the courage and resilience to embark on our own journey to authenticity.

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Image by Ke Hugo 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.

Managing Conflict

Recently the First Person Plural: EI and Beyond podcast featured Professor George Hohlrieser (Lausanne, Switzerland) discussing, How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict. The podcast series involving collaboration between Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence), his son Hanuman Goleman and Emotional Intelligence (EI) coach Elizabeth Solomon, is designed to raise listeners’ awareness through stories provided on interview by inspiring people. The hope is that listeners can grow in mindfulness and resilience in living proactively within the systems that surround them – within their personal, social, natural and global systems.

George works with multiple Fortune 500 companies as a clinical and organisational consultant. He recounts during the podcast the story of how he became an accidental hostage negotiator while working for the police. He has continued working in hostage negotiation (sometimes at considerable personal risk), as well as working with people who are suicidal. George is an internationally renowned speaker and best-selling author. His widely acclaimed book, Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance, is undergoing revision and updating and will be published on 30 November 2022. In the book, he recounts compelling stories of real hostage situations and draws out the psychological principles that enable hostage negotiators to be successful.

Conflict management principles

During the podcast, George explained some of the principles that underpin his approach to conflict resolution and how they can apply to leaders who are attempting to influence others and develop high performance teams:

Don’t be a hostage: people can be a hostage to others – their children, parents, teachers, bosses, clients, suppliers or employees. A hostage thinks they are powerless and the pandemic generated feelings of helplessness in a lot of people. Not thinking like a hostage involves, among other things, thinking clearly about a desired outcome and establishing a positive mindset about that outcome. It also involves establishing a secure personal base, not being hostage to your own emotions.
Become a secure base: manage your own fight/flight/freeze response so that you are not caught up in what Daniel Goleman describes as the “amygdala hijack”. Develop calmness so that you “see opportunities not threats”. George mentioned that in his leadership development programs he does not use the traditional Harvard case studies but tells participants that the case study is “you” – building self-awareness, developing insight and courage and tapping into personal intuition and creativity. Being calm and secure builds trust – an essential element for conflict resolution and management.
Tell it like it is: George argues that you should not “sugar coat” the unsatisfactory situation, e.g. poor performance or inappropriate behaviour. He gives the example of telling someone that “you are too aggressive with clients – that needs to change”.
Address the conflict directly: George uses the analogy, “put the fish on the table” – drawing from his experience working with fishermen in Sicily who were scaling and cleaning fish on a table, removing the bloody, smelly bits and preparing the fish for the “great fish dinner a the end of the day” The analogy means addressing the conflict not ignoring it (“not putting the fish under the table”), dealing up front with the messiness of the issues and looking forward to a positive resolution.
The person is not the problem: George maintains that you should not “write off” the person(s) involved, e.g. “they are just argumentative, nasty or thoughtless”. He argues that there is a real problem underlying a conflict situation, e.g. the person may feel slighted or disrespected; they may feel taken for granted when passed over for a promotion or project; or they could be experiencing distress in a home situation. He illustrated this principle by telling the story about a father involved in a hostage situation – it was not that he was a “naturally violent person” but that he had been prevented from seeing his child (locked out by unreasonable access rules). The core problem in this situation was the inability of the father to see his child and the solution lay in finding a way for the father to gain access to his child.
Identify the “pain point”: George argued that you make little progress in managing conflict if you focus on “selling points” versus “pain points”. This requires active listening, not trying to persuade. The pain point is often related to a loss – past, present, future or anticipated. He mentioned Warren Bennis’ idea of “hidden grief” – that leaders are often blind to their own underlying sense of grief and can be grieving over things that happened many years earlier. George illustrated this point by recounting the stories of two CEO’s who committed suicide out of a sense of grief over some situation – economic or workplace related.
Be caring: listen for understanding and be willing to be empathetic. Express the desire for their wellbeing and demonstrate a caring attitude. George suggests that this creates a bond even with people you might consider your “enemy”. Bonding helps to dissolve conflict.
Be daring: learning a new skill such as conflict management takes you outside your “comfort zone”. Be willing to dare yourself as any new talent you desire to develop requires daring on your part – facing the fear, acknowledging the challenge and preparing yourself. Daring your employees by presenting them with challenging work or projects, develops and motivates them.
Ask questions: George suggests that asking questions empowers the other person, even in a situation where a person is suicidal. Curiosity can communicate care and concern. Questioning can help to explore the “pain point(s)” and to work towards a solution that they can accept.
Provide choice: avoid a “command and control” approach as this damages bonding and trust. The command and control approach does not motivate – it disempowers and disables people. It can lead to compliance, but not sustainable change. Provide choice wherever possible so that the person feels a sense of agency in relation to the underlying issue.

Reflection

George’s approach to conflict resolution has been developed through his experiences as a hostage negotiator and working with people who have suicidal intentions. He has also refined his approach through working with organisational leaders around the world to help them implement the fundamental conflict management principles he has developed. He emphasises that conflict management involves both caring and daring – it challenges us to move outside our comfort zone to achieve a resolution. It requires us to avoid relying on positional power and instead employ the personal power associated with integrity, humility and compassion.

His approach requires us to grow in mindfulness so that we gain the necessary self-awareness and insight into our inner landscape to operate from a calm and secure place. Mindfulness helps us to achieve the emotional regulation involved in dealing with conflictual situations and working to de-escalate the emotional tension involved. Reflection on our own resentment(s) can assist us to achieve calm, caring and daring.

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Image by iqbal nuril anwar 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.