Tag: insights

Creating a Meaningful Story for Your Life

Tami Simon, CEO of Sounds True, interviewed Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond as part of her Insights at the Edge podcast series.  Rebecca and Lily are the authors of the newly published (January 2021) book, What’s Your Story? : A Journal for Everyday Evolution. The book provides deeply personal insights into what constitutes a meaningful life as a well as interactive, reflective questions designed to help the reader to revisit and rewrite the story of their own life.  Both authors are accomplished writers and activists with quite diverse backgrounds. Their collaborative writing over the past ten years to produce the book is a profound endeavour in its own right.  They share a common and very strong belief that in writing our own story with honesty, fearlessness, and persistence, we can rewrite our past and reshape our future so that we live a more meaningful life.

An opening reflective question

During the podcast interview, Tami asked Rebecca and Lily about the first question in their book which is, What is your first memory?  This question is penetrating in that it requires the reader to identify a memory that they really experienced and own.  It means unravelling the self-stories from what has been communicated by parents, society at large, national culture, workplace culture or formal education.  It means getting to the heart of what we actually believe and practice.  For Lily, the catalyst for the question was the experience of her mother dying from cancer; for Rebecca, the catalytic event was the divorce of her parents.  In both cases they were faced with the fundamental question of What story have I been telling myself about my life?  Which leads to the question, How limiting or empowering is my self-story?

A closing reflective question

The interview discussing the book – What’s My Story? – gravitated to the final reflective question How do I define a life well lived?  This question is designed to be proactive – to stimulate not only reflection but future action.  The question is intended to have us look back from our future deathbed and review how we have spent our life and how we had wished to spend it.  It means, in Rebecca’s terms, what would enable me to die peacefully when reviewing my life’s contribution and legacy?  The question for both authors revolved around, What is a meaningful life? How can I now live my life in a way that is congruent with what gives my life meaning, satisfaction and a sense of positive contribution to my relationships, my community, and the world at large?

Lily and Rebecca talked about how these questions and their personal responses are influencing the way they live now – even at the micro-level.  Throughout their book they ask the reader to reflect on what was meaningful in their past, what is meaningful in their present life and what would give meaning to the rest of their life – a potential catalyst for rewriting our own stories.  What could be useful in this personal pursuit of “a life well-lived” are the lessons from death and dying provided by Frank Ostaseski.

The science of a meaningful life

Several authors for the Greater Good Magazine collaborated on an article titled, The Top 10 Insights from “The Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2020.  The magazine itself is a production of the Greater Good Science Center, The University of California, Berkeley.  The authors drew on the work of multiple researchers in their network and  viewed the identified elements as a source of hope in these challenging times when the pandemic has led to many people experiencing conflict, loneliness, illness, and grief.

The authors draw on the concept of a “psychologically rich life” as a framework for their suggestions for a meaningful life:

  • Collaborating in learning with others
  • Connecting with other people by phone rather than text or social media
  • Expressing kindness and gratitude to others (which are contagious)
  • Being more extroverted in engagement with others (especially beneficial for introverts)
  • Engaging with diverse cultures that can serve to challenge our stereotypes
  • Seeking out challenging and varied experiences
  • Working in organisations that consciously pursue social justice both within and without
  • Exploring ways to be more motivated to express empathy.

Reflection

It is a sobering exercise to ask ourselves these reflective questions that represent the lived experiences of the authors.  What is also relevant to this reflection are the lessons from death and dying advanced by Frank Ostaseski.  The challenge is to work out how we define a “life well lived”.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can gain greater clarity about what a meaningful life is for us and have the courage and resilience to pursue it in our chosen field of endeavour.

___________________________________________

Image by Marcel S. 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.

Strength and Sensitivity to Pursue Your Life Purpose

In a recent podcast interview, Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True and Sibyl Chavis, her Chief Business Officer (B2C Division), discussed Combining Strength and Sensitivity to become a sustainable force for good in the world.  The interview was conducted by Richard Taubinger, CEO of Conscious Marketer.

The conversation focused on finding your purpose in life through intuitive sensing of the needs of others and the emergent energy for change, and aligning the pursuit of that purpose with your unique life experience, skill set and ever-deepening and expanding knowledge base.  The pursuit of your life purpose is then undertaken with “deep care” (sensitivity) and the strength of a resilience that can overcome obstacles and adapt to a constantly changing environment.   Tami spoke for instance of her skill in asking questions which has led to Insights at the Edge podcast series – interviews with the world’s leading teachers including mindfulness expert, Jon Kabat-Zinn.  A recent addition to the podcasts is a 3-Part Series titled, Healing Racism, with Dr. Tiffany Jana.

To enable others to pursue their life purpose with strength and sensitivity, Tami and her team, in collaboration with her global network of experts, has developed the Inner MBA – a nine-month intensive program with more than 30 world leaders (including experienced and successful CEOs and experts in neuroscience, mindfulness, conscious marketing and practices for gaining insight and wisdom). 

The Inner MBA program incorporates monthly video/audio training, facilitated online learning pods, a virtual curriculum for at-home learning and modelling of “practice skills”.   This is a crowning achievement built in collaboration with LinkedIn, Wisdom2.0©, and New York University and addresses the gap in traditional MBAs by focusing on inner development as well as the knowledge and skills to succeed in business in today’s turbulent world.

Finding your true purpose in life

During the interview podcast, both Tami and Sibyl shared their life experiences and the influences that brought clarity about their life purpose and led them to the roles they play today in bringing conscious living and mindfulness to the world at large.  Tami contrasted what is available through the Inner MBA with the lack of mentors when she established Sounds True in 1985 in her early 20’s.  There were very few business founders/CEOs who were genuinely socially conscious and spirituality oriented, and of those that were, women were very much in the minority.  

Tami had to forge her own way without today’s mentors and to learn “to listen, attune and lead” to create the global, multimedia company that is Sounds True today – bringing mindfulness and spirituality to businesses and the lives of millions of people.  She pointed out that developing the requisite sensitivity and strength required a lot of “inner work” and the willingness to explore the depths of her heart and mind.

Sibyl’s career started as a corporate attorney, a profession she had in common with her husband, until one day they asked themselves “Is there more to life than what we have here?” A catalyst for changing Sibyl’s career and life direction was a sign in a hotel which read, “Life is about creating yourself”.  Both she and her husband quit their jobs on the same day.  Her husband became a film director and TV writer and Sibyl established Ripple Agency, “a full service digital marketing and creative agency”, and became a writer through her blog, The Possibility of Today.  Ripple strives to assist businesses to “engage in purpose driven initiatives to give back to their target customer’s communities”.  The Possibility of Today blog aims to help people overcome their negative self-stories, pay attention to the potentiality of the present moment, find more clarity about their life purpose and “to take action on things they always wanted to do” – thus transforming their lives.

Sibyl had developed her digital marketing skills through her experience in corporate America and had been a consumer of the digital products produced by Sounds True.  Her journey to find her true home as Chief Business Officer for Sounds True required persistent self-questioning and tapping into her intuition through mindfulness practices.  She came to realise that her knowledge base, skill set, work experience and life orientation were very much in alignment with the mission of Sounds True. 

Sibyl’s life journey reinforces the fact that the inner journey creates the outer reality – persistence and tuning into intuition are necessary ingredients.  The self-exploration is necessary to unearth our self-protection mechanisms and self-sabotaging behaviours.

Reflection

Unearthing our life purpose and having the courage to bring our work and life into alignment with it, require persistence and resilience and the pursuit of congruence (alignment of words and actions).  Meditation, reflection and self-questioning can help us to grow in mindfulness and build our self-awareness, self-regulation and connection to our intuition and creative capacities.

Too often we become discouraged with our lack of progress in identifying our life goal and how to achieve alignment.  We can easily give up and settle for something that is less than the best we can be.  Mindfulness practices can help us maintain our pursuit and overcome the obstacles we encounter on the way.   For example, Lulu & Mischka through their mantra meditation, Jaya Ganesha, can help us to appreciate the mystery and potentiality of each day.

__________________________________________

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.

Insights from Mindfulness

Matthew Brensilver teaches about the relationship between mindfulness and mental health based on his many years of research into treatments for addiction and resultant behaviours.  In one MARC meditation podcast he offers two key insights that derive from mindfulness.

In the podcast, he suggests that meditation practice itself is a form of training that opens us up to the potentiality of mindfulness.  It enables us to pay attention to our everyday experiences, getting in touch with our sensations and thoughts.  Matthew describes mindfulness as accepting our human condition in all its facets with openness and equanimity.  He maintains that this mindful stance generates two key insights.

Insight 1 – the difficulty of being human

If we learn through meditation to accept whatever comes our way, taking things as they are, we come to realise how difficult it is to be truly human.  This openness to experience from one moment to the next means accepting what is with equanimity – even if this involves challenges to our sense of self, career disappointment, interpersonal conflict or ill health.

It takes real courage to face the reality of our lives with full awareness, not hiding in denial or diverted by resentment.  Life often turns out to be very different to what we imagined or hoped for. Matthew states that mindfulness demands that we “make peace with the human condition” and live our lives with genuine acceptance moment to moment.  This is hard to do, even if we are able in the midst of things to express gratitude for what we do have or for the positive experiences we have had in our lives.

Insight 2 – we underestimate the capacity of our hearts and minds

Matthew suggests that our innate capacity is often obscured by aversion to difficulties, striving for “success” or the negative emotions generated by the everyday challenges of work and life.  Fear, for instance, can stop us from being creative and pursuing opportunities for personal growth and development.

Matthew argues that “sustained intention and attention” that develops with mindfulness enables us to tap into our real potential, including the ability to offer unconditional love and appreciation.  If we are able to maintain “continuity of awareness” we are able to access our full potentiality.

For Matthew, mindfulness involves not only being aware of our thoughts and emotions from moment to moment but also the ability to “pour awareness into our body” so that we are in touch with our bodily sensations as well.  He suggests that meditation helps to build this awareness because it offers the opportunity to “experience the dignity of upright posture” while, at the same time, feeling “the pull of gravity” on the rest of our body.

As we grow in mindfulness, we come to realise the difficulty of facing our human condition with equanimity, while at the same time experiencing the depth and breadth of our human potentiality.  Meditation practice helps us to accept what is and to more readily realise our full potential.

 

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

Image source: courtesy of ernestoeslava on Pixabay

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 Last Lecture – Mindful Living

Randy Pausch, the author of The Last Lecture, was a Professor  of Computer Science at the Carnegie Mellon University specialising in the design of Virtual Reality.  He died from pancreatic cancer on 25 July 2008 after being diagnosed with the disease in the summer of 2006.

Randy’s book traces his life, his medical experience, giving his last lecture and his life’s lessons and achievements.  His Last Lecture, given on the 18th September 2007, was videotaped and is available here.   The lecture has been viewed by millions of people who admire Randy’s inspiration, insight, humour, intelligence and wisdom.

Randy, even though he was obviously dying from cancer at the time, wanted to leave a legacy for his three young children in terms of the lessons he had learned in life – often the hard way by making mistakes.  Some of his insights into the way to live your life are pertinent to developing mindfulness.

Lessons on mindfulness from Randy Pausch

I can’t recall Randy talking about mindfulness in his book or his lecture, but he did have some insights and values that I think are particularly relevant to mindfulness:

Show Gratitude

Being grateful for what you have and what people have done for you is important, because it is part of growing in self-awareness and understanding how you came to achieve what you have achieved.  Randy also talks about the “lost art of the thank-you note” as a timely way to express appreciation.

He went even further and decided to take his 15-member research team (working on virtual reality) to a week-long visit to Disney World in Florida.  Besides enjoying the entertainment, they were also able to take in some educational activities relevant to their studies and research.  He provided this expensive trip as a way to “pay it forward” his gratitude for the mentoring he received from Any van Dam.

Gratitude requires being present to notice what people have done for you and developing an appreciation mindset through gratitude meditation. Often, we are grateful, but fail to express it.   Through this form of meditation, we become more aware of the opportunities to show gratitude and ways to express it.

Seeking forgiveness genuinely

There are many times when we are hurt by the words and actions of others – it is part of being human on both sides of the hurt dyad.  We hurt others and they hurt us.  We can’t avoid this, although as we grow in mindfulness we become more aware of their feelings and what effect our words and actions have on them.

Randy stresses the importance of seeking forgiveness genuinely – in his own words, “A bad apology is worse than no apology”.  He argues that we should not apologise in such a way that we are not genuineor in a way that is designed only to obtain an apology from the other person.   While hurt can be a two-way street, it does not rectify the situation to actively seek an apology from the other party – they may apologise in their own due time.  If you want someone to change their behaviour, you are more likely to achieve this if you change your own behaviour first.

Forgiveness meditation helps us to develop the readiness and willingness to apologise for the hurt we cause others.  In the process of this meditation, we can ask for forgiveness from others – which makes us acutely aware of the reality that we are not the only one hurting.  Associated with this, is the need to also practise self-forgiveness meditation.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and learning from the inspiration of others such as Randy Pausch, we can develop the awareness and mindset that makes us willing and able to show gratitude and to genuinely seek forgiveness.

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

Image source: courtesy of dimitrisvetsikas1969 on Pixabay

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.