intention – Grow Mindfulness

Breathing with Intention

In our October Creative Meetup we focused on the theme of “breath” catalyzed, in part, by James Nestor’s book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. In our discussion, various poems about “breath” were highlighted. These included Mary Oliver’s poem, I Am Breathing and Rumi’s poem Only Breath where he notes, “first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing ”. The poems and James’ book reinforce the essential nature of breathing for human existence – at every moment that we are alive, we are breathing.

We consciously “hold our breath” for many reasons. It may be to swim under water, to steady ourselves before playing a tennis shot or as part of a mindful breathing exercise. However, we often hold our breath unconsciously when we experience fear, anxiety, anger or shock. This was made clear by an exercise we undertook as part of the Creative Meetup. We were asked to think of a time when we held our breath and explore what happened at the time in terms of bodily sensations and emotions.

What immediately came to mind for me was a car accident that I experienced when I was 12 years old. I was travelling with my family and my father was driving us home. At one moment, I looked out the side window of my passenger seat to observe a large car approaching on the left (we were in a small car on a main road). It was as if time stood still as I realised that the oncoming car was going to crash into us and instinctively I held my breath waiting for the impact. We were hit on my mother’s passenger side and ended up upside down at the foot of a four metre embankment. I can’t remember when I exhaled but I was aware that my breathing was erratic and I was in shock.

Learning to breathe with intention

James Nestor recounts how he undertook research with free divers in Greece. These divers were able to dive to incredible depths (up to 300 feet) while holding their breath (not assisted by any breathing apparatus). They could dive to depths that scientists thought were not possible for human beings. What James learned was that these divers considered breathing a conscious act (not unconscious as most of us breathe in our daily lives). For the divers, breathing is a mechanism to achieve depth in diving and they intentionally “coax their lungs to work harder” so that they are able “to tap the pulmonary capabilities that the rest of us ignore”. The divers suggested that anyone who is healthy can achieve what they achieve if they put in the time and energy “to master the art of breathing”.

In talking to a range of divers, James learned that there are multiple ways to breathe and that different ways to breathe “will affect our bodies differently”. The divers explained that various breathing methods can enhance our brains, lengthen our life span or improve our physical and mental health. Other ways we breathe can have the opposite effects. James discovered that the secret to nourishing our brains and enhancing our health is to breathe with intention.

James expanded his personal interview research with divers by exploring the published literature on breathing including books on regulating breathing that were 400 years old. As James points out, many cultures over the centuries have focused on the art of breathing and its benefits, e.g. Buddhists use conscious breathing to reach higher levels of awareness and to achieve longevity. The scientific literature reinforces the view that how we breathe can affect the systems of the body, e.g. our immune and digestive systems. Some of the research, for example, showed that “asthma, anxiety and even hypertension, and psoriasis” could be reversed or reduced by changing the way we breathe.

James’ conclusion from all his research is that we can use conscious breathing “to hack into our nervous system and control our immune response and restore health”. In his book , he sets about providing exercises to enable us to learn to breathe with intention so that we can reach our potential in terms of our mental and physical health.

Reflection

As I listened to the audiobook version of James’ book, Breath, I began to realise that intentional breathing as promoted by him could help me alleviate my MCAS difficulties – which are fundamentally a result of an over-reactive immune system. Calming my immune system through the breathing exercises contained in each chapter of James’ book could enable me to expand my food options, which at the moment are severely limited because of my food sensitivity responses (such as rash, hives, headaches, and nausea).

Many mindfulness teachers demonstrate that we can grow in mindfulness through conscious breathing which enables us to become grounded, calm the mind and body, expand our lung capacity and increase our focus and clarity of thinking.

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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.

Living at the Edge: Empathy

Joan Halifax author, Buddhist teacher, anthropologist and Zen priest has written a profound book on what she calls the “Edge States” – “five internal and interpersonal states” that she maintains are the foundation of compassionate action and living a courageous life. They are described by her as “Edge States” because they can lead to positive living and constructive social contribution or become harmful and cause damage to others. Joan describes the Edge States in her book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet. Her book covers each of the five edge states in detail – altruism, respect, integrity, engagement and empathy. In this blog post, I will address Joan’s views on empathy as an Edge State.

Empathy vs Compassion

Joan contends that empathy is not compassion. In her words, empathy is “feeling into” another – experiencing their pain and suffering. Compassion, on the other hand, is not only “feeling for” another but aspiring to take some form of action that will be of benefit to the person you are feeling for – this can be any form of compassionate action. Empathy underpins compassion and is a necessary internal state if we are to avoid becoming totally self-absorbed, small-minded or even narcissistic.

Three forms of empathy – somatic, emotional and cognitive

Joan describes three forms of empathy and illustrates them from her own life experience. The first of these is somatic empathy – where resonance with another’s suffering or pain is felt in some form of bodily manifestation. It can take the form of a strong physical sensation such as feeling punched in the stomach, feeling faint or being unsteady. Joan mentions that somatic empathy can occur on a regular basis between people who are close or in frequent contact. She mentions, for example, the uncanny ability of her mountain guide/minder in the Himalayas who became so “physically attuned” to her that he could sense if she was about to fall over and catch her to prevent it happening. Joan indicated that some people are hypersensitive to the somatic experience of others and she mentioned Dr. Joel Salinas who has what is called “mirror-touch synesthesia” – an extreme form of somatic identification that he has to consciously manage for his own preservation and the benefit of his patients.

Emotional empathy, the second form of empathy described by Joan, involves sharing the emotions being experienced by another person – becoming “inhabited by another’s feelings”. When emotional empathy is at a healthy level, it can help us to be more caring, more conscious of connectedness to others and more willing to take compassionate action. However, if we become too closely identified with the emotions of others we can tip over the edge into personal distress, burnout and “blunting” (a state where we no longer “feel for” others as a way to protect ourselves).

The third form of empathy described by Joan is cognitive empathy. This is explained in terms of “perspective taking” – in other words inhabiting the mindset or mind view of another, often described as “standing in another’s shoes”. Again this form of empathy can be enabling for ourselves as well as others or lead to our being captured by another’s way of seeing the world (as in cults or the experience of the German people at the time of Hitler). People’s propensity to adopt another’s world view can be used as a form of manipulation. However, when employed positively it involves attunement to another leading to a form of resonance. Joan illustrates this in describing an experience of being confronted by an angry Algerian soldier at the Algeria-Mali border when she was on an archaeological trip by herself. Her ability to take on his perspective, instead of “othering” him and viewing herself as a victim, enabled her to gain safe passage. Joan also recounts the story of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes and his instructions to his troops in Iraq near the holy Imam Ali Mosque to “take a knee” (and point their rifles to the ground) as a form of successful perspective taking that saved many lives when the troops were confronted by an angry crowd (who misunderstood the American’s intentions).

Over the edge – empathic distress

Empathic distress occurs when we become too identified – somatically, emotionally and/or cognitively – with another person’s suffering or pain. We lose the capacity to separate ourselves from the other person’s experience and in the process become disoriented and unbalanced. Joan describes a number of situations where she was on the edge of empathic distress but was able to recognise her response for what it was and pull back from the edge.

In one situation, involving a young girl with severe burns who had been carried by her father to the Upaya Nomads Medical Clinic in Nepal, Joan found that her own heart rate was racing and dropping, her breath was “shallow and rapid” and her skin became “cold and clammy”. She was momentarily overwhelmed with her perception of the little girl’s suffering and pain. Joan indicated that at the time her “hyper-attunement ” with the child was causing her to spiral out of control and into deep distress physically (almost fainting) and emotionally. Fortunately, through her social engagement activities (including being with the dying), she was able to draw on a process to help her restore her balance and control.

Moving away from the empathic edge – overcoming empathic distress

Joan was able to draw on a process she had developed to help people move from empathy to compassion, to move away from the edge represented by empathic distress. Her process involves the mnemonic, GRACE. This stands for:

G – gathering our attention by refocusing on our breath or our feet on the ground (restoring our groundedness)
R – recalling (bringing to mind again) our intention for being with the other person in their situation
A – attuning to ourself and the other – being fully aware of our own bodily sensations and what the other person is demonstrating (in the case of the little girl, this was resilience).
C – considering how we can serve in the situation without taking control over others or pursuing our own needs
E – engagement and disengagement –adopting an appropriate means of engagement (e.g. engaging in a loving-kindness meditation focused on the other’s wellbeing) and being able to end the interaction when desirable to do so.

Joan makes the point that if we learn to identify empathic distress, we will be better able to manage our responses and restore our balance instead of experiencing burnout, with its physical, emotional and moral degradation. She likens empathic distress to vicarious suffering and highlights the fact that people in the helping professions and caregivers are prone to experiencing this depleted state.

Developing empathy

Joan describes four practices that support the development of empathy – attuning to our bodily sensations, (e.g., body scan), deep listening, stewarding empathy and “rehumanization”. Her description of deep listening is especially insightful and demonstrates her willingness to be with another person fully. She maintains that “really hearing another person requires us to listen with body, heart and mind” while being aware of how our personal experiences and recollections can act as filters, thus distorting the message of the other person. By stewarding empathy, Joan means that we have to be able to cope with the dilemma of our life – that we are both connected to everyone and, at the same time, separate – we cannot become totally identified with the other or we lose ourselves in the process. This requires practice and the GRACE approach is one way to develop this capacity. Lastly, rehumanization according to the work of John Paul Lederach, involves adopting a moral stance “to see the other as a person first, to see ourselves in others, and to recognise our common humanity”.

Reflection

I have experienced empathic distress on a number of occasions. In one particular instance, I was driving across the Story Bridge in Brisbane when I heard a woman on the radio talking about her suffering and grief. I can’t recall the detail of the story but I became more and more strongly identified with her emotions. I can clearly recall my somatic empathy in the form of a sense of dizziness and disorientation while driving. Fortunately, I intuitively knew to turn off the radio and refocus my attention on the act of driving the car and paying attention to the road and traffic.

On other occasions, I have experienced hyper-attunement to someone who is suffering extreme stress from working for a narcissistic manager. Because I have been involved in directly helping a manager and their unit in such a situation, I have great difficulty stopping myself from taking on another’s distress and suffering when they are in a similar situation.

Joan’s GRACE model will be particularly helpful for me in the future. As I grow in mindfulness through mindfulness meditation, reflection and mantra meditations, I can increase my self-awareness of when I am experiencing empathic distress and have the insight and courage to adopt the GRACE model so that I do not fall over the empathic edge.

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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 and the resources to support the blog.

Pathways to Gratitude and Joy

Neuroscience research has demonstrated that gratitude is a source of wellness and joy if we choose to practise it on a regular basis. Louie Schwartzberg in his latest film, Gratitude Revealed, identifies a number of pathways that can develop gratitude and appreciation in our lives and lead to health, happiness and lasting joy. Louie – time-lapse photographer, director and producer – takes us on a journey through nature, the eyes of children and lives of insightful people. He comments in a subsequent panel Q & A video that the Gratitude Revealed film contains many wise “one-liners” from inspiring people as well as some stunning cinematography. The music for the film is provided by Lisbeth Scott – singer, songwriter and composer – who Louie interviewed as part of his podcast series.

Pathways to gratitude

Throughout Gratitude Revealed Louie explores different pathways to gratitude with his guests and provides illuminating comments about each pathway, some of which I explore in the following:

Curiosity – is a basic human attribute that leads us to explore the world around us, the people in our lives and the concepts we encounter in our reading, discussions and games. How often have we seen a toddler pick up a leaf or a stone and examine it, look underneath some branches to see what lies beneath, gaze into pools of water at the seaside to see if there are any living creatures there, or feel the texture of the grass or the ground to judge its softness or hardness? Unfortunately, as we grow older we can lose the art of being inquisitive and curious about things. However, if we can cultivate curiosity, we open ourselves to marvel at the intricacies of things in our environment, the power of our subconscious, the expansiveness of knowledge and the inexhaustible complexity of the human body (including the emerging understanding of the “brain-gut connection” and the heart’s intelligence). Curiosity leads us to explore the ineffable, to seek to understand the mystery of life and to explore relationships with people we encounter. Ultimately, curiosity leads us to appreciate what is and to be grateful for our discoveries as well as our capacity for exploration. Albert Einstein was a strong advocate for curiosity and acknowledged that it lay at the root of his knowledge and wisdom – “The important thing is to never stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity”.
Nature – is a source of wonder and awe which leads us to be grateful that we can perceive its beauty, complexity and interconnectedness through our five senses – what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes in his book, Coming to Our Senses, as our sightscape, soundscape, touchscape, smellscape, and tastescape. Louie encourages us to develop an intimate relationship with nature because nature, and nature imagery, can be incredibly healing and can develop a deep appreciation and gratitude for our interconnectedness and interdependence. Louie’s Wonder and Awe Podcastexplores the intersection of science and art (the “why” of art and the ”how” of science). There are multiple ways to engage with nature including gardening, walking in a rainforest or on a beach and mindful photography – we just have to form the intention to make the most of our natural environment that surrounds us daily.
Music – cultivates wonder and awe, healing and creativity. Louie highlighted the power of music to transport us beyond the present moment concerns and anxieties and to still the mind. Music taps into our positive emotions and stimulates gratitude for the beauty, variety and nuances of sound. Sound therapy can heal us from trauma and depression and help us to appreciate what we have that is positive in our lives. Mantra meditations can promote calm, peace and stillness of mind and, in the process, open our hearts and minds to the power and energy of the present moment. Music deepens our spirit and helps us to value our lives while expressing gratitude for all that we have.
Mindfulness – by definition, it involves being fully in the present moment and paying attention to something or someone with openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is. Michael Beckwith reminds us in the movie that we should be “grateful for the challenges in our life” because they help us to realise our potential and develop resilience. Louie suggests that mindfulness “is being present like the film itself” – open to wonder and able to “relish the mysteries of life” that are revealed by paying focused attention in the “now”.

Reflection

None of the pathways I discussed above are discrete – they are overlapping, reinforcing and compounding in nature. Together, these pathways engender appreciation and gratitude and stimulate happiness and joy. Louie and his presenters on Gratitude Revealed highlight the fact that “busyness” in our lives can create a block to gratitude and blind us to what is happening within and around us. In contrast, gratitude blocks out envy and self-absorption. As Louie comments, “Focusing on what we do have, leaves little in your heart for what we don’t have”.

In the film, Brother David Steindl-Rast, developer of gratefulness.org, distinguishes between appreciation and gratitude. He states that appreciation is an in-the-moment experience while gratitude is “what we remember that opens our hearts”. Interestingly, when I am playing tennis, I often internally express appreciation for being able to participate and play a good shot or two. However, after watching Gratitude Revealed, I experienced a real sense of gratitude based on my memory of all the events and experiences that enable me to play social tennis at the age of 76.

In particular, I am grateful for:

the opportunity to be coached in my teens by a tennis player who had been selected for the Australian Davis Cup Team
having practised tennis drills and played games of tennis with my brothers and my niece
having played competitive tennis over 5 years with a team drawn from members of my extended family
being trained as a sprinter in a GPS school (improved my capacity to move around the tennis court)
the opportunity to play tennis for my school, for Brisbane ((against Gympie) and for the Queensland Tax Office (in the annual Taxation Intestate Tennis Carnivals)
being able to play social tennis with a closed group of six quality players over a period in excess of 10 years
the opportunity to play tennis on different surfaces including bitumen, ant-bed, grass, clay and flexipave
being able to play socially in Port Moresby, Auckland, Lake Annecy (France) and Boroughbridge (Yorkshire, UK)
developing a wide range of shots through tennis coaching, practice and competitions, e.g., slice, topspin, back spin, under spin, side spin (out-swinger & in-swinger), volley, one-handed and two-handed backhand, half volley, drive volley, drop shot, lob, smash and, recently, half-volley drop shot
being able to play social tennis with an open group in my 50’s, 60’s and 70’s (now)
discovering the benefits of Tai Chi and how it improves my tennis game.

As we grow in mindfulness and gratitude, we enrich our lives, deepen our happiness and joy and build our resilience and capacity for creative endeavour. Music and nature can inspire us if we are fully present to experiencing them and our natural curiosity can open our hearts to appreciating whatever we experience.

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Image by allPhoto Bangkok 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.

Simple Steps for Self-Care

These are challenging times that place stress on every aspect of our lives. The natural human tendency is to go with the flow and try to keep up with all kinds of commitments – family, community and work. We can succumb to the pace of modern life and the expectations of achievement that we place on ourselves and that we think others expect of us. However, there are real physical and mental costs associated with engaging life at an unnatural pace. Psychologists, for example, warn of ‘emotional inflammation’ resulting from the pandemic and, more recently, from the war in Ukraine. Self-care is now more important than ever.

In these times of endless challenge, self-care becomes critical for our mental and physical welfare. The Self-Care Summit (May 10-16) sought to identify the issues involved, the personal and social barriers and ways to achieve self-care in everyday life. The first speaker at the Summit, Renée Trudeau, provided a solid foundation and strong motivation for self-care. After more than 20 years working with individuals and organisations on self-care approaches, she was able to distil the wisdom of her research, of workshop participants and of her own practice, into simple steps for self -care. Some of her suggestions are discussed in this blog post.

Self-care in everyday life

Renée asserts that self-care is “not about self-improvement or self-indulgence” but “meeting yourself where you are” at the moment by “pausing, tuning in and asking, What do I need ?”. It entails having the courage to break out of the expectation bind that locks you into unhealthy pursuits and giving yourself “what you most need” at the time. So, for Renée, self-care is a moment by moment endeavour, not a ritualised practice developed by someone who is peddling self-care products. Renée is the author of two books including Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. In her books, blog, workshops and presentations, she offers many simple steps for self-care that you can undertake at any time in the midst of everyday life. Some of her suggestions include the following:

Monitoring your self-talk: we often talk harshly to ourselves when we make a mistake or fail to realise an outcome. We can denigrate ourselves in an uncaring and unkind way. Negative self-talk includes the harsh tone of voice we use when we speak to ourselves about our shortfalls. Renée maintains that we would not talk like that to a 3-year old child. She suggests having a picture of yourself when you were between the ages of 3-5 years and think about how you would talk to your young self in the picture. Being conscious of our inner dialogue is very important for self-care – kindness begins at home! Self-care includes not putting yourself down.
Cultivating a desired way of showing up: Renée alluded to Michael Phelps’ rigorous routine before starting a swimming race at the Olympics. His established routine included eating a set breakfast, stretching, mix-style swimming and listening to music – all designed to enable him to show up for his race in his very best condition and frame of mind. Renée suggests that you could establish a morning routine so that you can “cultivate a state of being to show up the way you want to” – in other words, having the presence of mind, focus and calmness to be the best you can be for your day’s endeavours. Your routine may entail mindfulness practices such as yoga, Tai Chi, meditation or mindful walking. Whatever you choose needs to be practised consistently to achieve the desired benefits. Interestingly, I have adopted the practice of Tai Chi as a preparation routine before I play social tennis so that I show up in the right frame of mind and with my body and mind attuned to concentration, bending, balance and conscious breathing.
Starting your day intentionally: forming a clear intention for the day can shape your words and actions and have very positive effects on your outcomes. The catalyst for this intention-shaping can be a prayer, inspirational reading, mindfulness practice or gratitude journalling (so you turn up from a place of appreciation). The practice of intention-shaping can extend to your work by forming a clear intention before a meeting – How do I want to show up for this meeting?; Should I go out of my way to include a team member who always seems excluded?; Can I relate to the person I tend to ignore?; Can I consciously practice active listening during the meeting?.
Giving and receiving morning hugs: Renée also suggests that giving and receiving hugs in the morning with your partner, other family members or your favourite pet, can have a very positive benefit for your wellbeing. This tends to reaffirm to yourself that you are lovable and loving. The hugs with family members can be accompanied by words of endearment, encouragement or well-wishes for the forthcoming day.
Early morning body scan: Renée indicated that she undertakes a body scan before getting out of bed of a morning. A body scan enables you to locate points of tension in the body and release them through consciously paying attention to them. The process increases body awareness by identifying how your body is manifesting any felt stress or challenge. This practice can enable you to start the day in a state of calm rather than being uptight from anticipatory stress.
In-the-moment journalling: Renée describes this as “quickie journalling”. The idea is to tap into your feelings, needs and wants at any moment of time, particularly if you are feeling stressed, out of balance or upset. She suggests that you ask yourself the following three questions to get you going with your self-insight journalling and then choose one thing to work with:
How do I feel?
What do I need?
What do I want?
Really listen to your body: You may often notice when other people are stressed when they sigh, loudly exclaim something like “Damn!” or throw something down heavily on the desk. But how often do you monitor your own bodily signs of stress? Renée encourages you to really “listen to your body”. She stated that sighing is a signal for her to attend to her needs to de-stress and recover her calmness.
Monthly intention: At the start of each month, Renée reviews her physical, emotional and spiritual needs at the time to identify one simple thing to do for the month to act out of self-care. The process involves tuning into yourself and identifying “what is calling you to do” for your own self-care. One of her decisions was “to do less” which resulted in an “expanse of unscheduled time” and more time for self-care.
Personal Planning Retreat: Every 90 days, Renée takes a full 9 to 5 day to step away, move to a different environment and identify what is draining her. She offers hints on how to undertake such a personal retreat in a place that you find inspiring and energising.

Reflection

It is so easy to be captured by the to-do list, work and family pressures and the social “shoulds”. Taking time out for self-care is essential for our wellbeing. As Renée points out, the way forward does not require big steps or expensive options, but simple steps for personal self-care, taken in the moment.

A nutritionist recently advised a member of our family that they are not digesting their food properly and need to chew each mouthful of solid food up to 30 times to aid digestion. I have started to adopt this practice as a form of mindful eating and nutritional self-care. I’m finding I am more conscious of the different textures and flavours of the food I eat when I adopt this practice.

As we grow in mindfulness through consciously exploring self-care we can enrich our self-awareness, expand our response options, regulate our stress and emotions and increase our calm, confidence and courage.

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Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay

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

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

Cultivating Curiosity and Openness

Frank Ostaseski in his presentations during the Healing Healthcare Summit focused on openness and curiosity. In the process, he revisited two of the key lessons of living and dying that he had previously written about – (1) welcome everything, push nothing away and (2) cultivate a don’t know mind.

Openness – welcome everything

Frank suggests that we need to be able to meet whatever our life circumstances bring our way and do so in a way that we are open to the full range of thoughts and emotions involved. He reminds us that life is a series of constant changes, e.g. loss of a job, death of a close family member, change In financial circumstances or location. He encourages us to meet these changes as if welcoming a familiar person at our front door. He draws on James Baldwin’s insightful comment for his rationale – “Nothing can be changed, if it is not first faced”.

Frank reminds us that denial or ignoring unpleasant experiences does not create freedom, only servitude. He encourages “fearless receptivity” – awareness of fear without imprisonment by it. He maintains that mindfulness involves moment to moment awareness of everything we are experiencing – bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions. In this openness lies true freedom – because we are fully aware of what is happening to us and conscious of our habituated responses and yet able to regulate our emotions and explore alternative ways of responding.

Frank suggests that sometimes mindfulness practices involving “precise attention” to a single thing, e.g. a word or our breathing can create something of a struggle or tension in our minds and somewhat defeat the purpose of the practice. He contends that the practice of “open boundless awareness”, sometimes called “natural awareness”, can be more liberating when we feel constrained by a focused meditation practice. He offers awareness of the sky and its vastness as an example. He also provides a mini-practice that can help to engender this sense of boundlessness.

In the mini-practice, Frank encourages us first to become grounded and relaxed so that we can focus on the meditation. He then encourages us to take in the space above us, to our left, then to our right, followed by the space below and in front of us. An alternative to this, is to focus on the sounds that surround us, progressively shifting our focus onto the soundscape in the directions that Frank mentions above. Frank suggests that we treat distracting thoughts like birds flying past, not landing or hovering above.

Becoming more curious and less critical

This topic was the theme of his second presentation during the Summit and aligns with his exhortation to “cultivate a don’t know mind”. Frank argues that mindfulness is not about searching for some future enlightenment goal but becoming “up close and personal” with ourselves. He contends that our aim is to become “intimate” with ourselves and every aspect of our lives, pleasant and unpleasant. He explains that this is the path to true liberation and reinforces the view that “the path is right beneath your feet”.

In cultivating intimacy with ourselves we will become aware of parts of ourselves that we do not like. In Frank’s view, the inherent challenge is to be able to “tolerate intimacy” – be able to fully face up to who we are really, warts and all. In his podcast interview with Whit Missildine, Frank addressed the question, “What if you witnessed a thousand deaths?” – a question that was based on his personal experience as End-of-Life Teacher, Founding Director of the Zen Hospice Project and Director of the Metta Institute. Frank maintained that the ways we define ourselves will be stripped away in the process of dying and death. He contends that throughout life we live a delusion about ourselves – we project an image that is not our real self, but our imagined or idealised self. He has witnessed numerous people expressing regret as they lay dying – regrets about what they have done of failed to do. In dying, we are confronted with who we really are.

Frank maintains that when people are dying they have no interest in, or energy for, maintaining an illusion of who they are and cease to be concerned about what others think about them. He suggests that it behoves us during life to express remorse rather than regret – because remorse confronts the unpleasant side of ourselves and motivates us to avoid similar actions or omissions in the future. As we grow in intimacy with ourselves through meditation, we can progressively strip away the illusions about who we are through a process of loving kindness and forgiveness towards ourselves, avoiding harsh self-criticism.

Frank argues that In developing intimacy with ourselves, we become acutely aware that we are not separate but connected to everyone. He maintains that in this deep learning about ourselves, we develop a “deep sense of belonging” – an acute recognition of our interdependence and a strong desire to move beyond our limiting self-centredness. He suggests that a simple practice is to just “pause” throughout our day, taking a break from the busyness of life, and to focus on our experience as it is occurring. Frank contends that “mindfulness emerges from a relaxed heart and mind”.

Reflection

Frank has learned so much through observing the process of dying and death and willingly shares the lessons he has learned. He explains that he learns from the dying as they learn from him – there is a reciprocity about his engagement with them. He is humbled and amazed by what he learns and yet he recognises that he still harbours a fear of death because of its uncertainty. Frank has detailed his lessons learned in his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

Regrets are a natural response in the event of someone dying who is close to us (or not as close as they should have been). I can certainly acknowledge that I had regrets on the recent death of my brother Pat. However, as Frank suggests, remorse is a better option. With remorse we can revisit what we have said and done or failed to say and do, give ourselves forgiveness and express the intention to do better in the future. We can reflect on our individual regrets and ask ourselves:

What will I do more of in the future?
What will I do less of?
What will I stop doing?
What will I start doing?

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can develop intimacy with ourselves, recognise our connectedness, deepen our connection with others and learn the profound lessons from death and dying.

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Image by Tommy_Rau 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.

Reflecting on Our Past Year and Planning Our Future

Allyson Pimentel, meditation teacher with UCLA’s mindfulness education and research center, offered a guided meditation podcast on the theme, Mindfulness and End of Year Reflections, as part of the weekly meditation podcasts conducted in collaboration with the Hammer Museum. In the podcast, Allyson drew on the work of Amanda Gorman, appointed the first US National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017.

Amanda also wrote and delivered the Presidential inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb, for the inauguration of President Joe Biden. In her poem, Amanda encourages us to acknowledge the past – the pains, divisions and the victories over challenges. At the same time, she exhorts us to see the light in our past difficulties – despite the grief, hurt and tiredness – and to recognize the growth, the hope and persistence we displayed. In looking to the future, Amanda encourages us to “rebuild, reconcile and recover” and reminds us that “to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside”.

In the introduction to her guided meditation, Allyson draws on Amanda’s latest book of poems, Call Us What We Carry, to inspire reflection and forward planning. In particular, she focuses on the poem, What We Carry, which in Allyson’s words “captures the essence of mindfulness”. The poem grounds us in the dampness of the earth and reminds us that even what is grimy, mired and marred can be a gift and a source of wonder (a perspective we experienced as children sitting on the ground or the grass or playing on the river’s edge). Amanda reassures us that even if we are not clear about “what we have left behind”, we are enough “for what we have left” in our life.

Guided meditation as an end of year reflection

At the outset, Allyson encourages us to become grounded in the present moment – being conscious of whatever we bring to the meditation including our aches and pains, reticence or excitement, readiness or unease. She acknowledges at the outset that there are times when stability of presence and its associated calm and quietness are not readily accessible – but still encourages us to try to relax and focus.

The next stage of the guided meditation involves focusing on the sounds both within us and around us. Within us, it could be the sound of our outbreath, ringing in our ears, or the rumbling of a hungry stomach or upset microbiome. The sounds surrounding us could be traffic noise, birds singing, the rustling of trees, the cough of a family member, music from our neighbour or footsteps on the stairs to our meditation place. Allyson encourages us to tune into the sounds without interpretation or any effort to control or edit them.

Next, we are encouraged to place an upturned palm on our lap – symbolic of openness to all that we have experienced in the past year. Allyson draws on the words of Amanda’s poem to suggest that our palms are “open but unemptied”. We can focus on the past year with its achievements, challenges and set-backs – looking clearly at the things we have done that we are proud of and those we wished we hadn’t been engaged in. We are challenged to look at both our successes and failures, our compassion towards others as well as our unkind words and actions.

As we reflect over our past words and actions, Allyson encourages us to turn our palm downwards on our lap and draw on the warmth and reassurance of our body. This is symbolic of receiving self-love and kindness towards ourself as well as forgiveness. We can tune into the bodily sensations flowing from this sensory experience of acceptance and support.

Finally, Allyson encourages us to think about “how we wish to walk into tomorrow” – to decide how we are going to turn up in the world. This decision can be informed by what we were dissatisfied in relation to our words and actions in the past.

Reflection

At the outset of the podcast, Alyson reminds us that mindfulness and the Hammer Museum have a common goal “to bring the light of awareness” to every aspect of our lives, including our experiences of art, poetry, music, disillusionment, joy, relationships, inspiration and wonder. She expresses the hope that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can live with more justice, a sense of openness and spaciousness, and a feeling of being strongly grounded and in control of our emotions, however difficult.

Amanda Gorman offers both enlightenment and hope and the firm belief that we can rise to the occasion of positively shaping the future for the generations to come – a future that is not built on division but on our connectedness and interdependence. Diana Winston encourages us to bring intention to our New Year resolution, while Leo Babauta suggests that focusing on a single resolve, such as daily mindfulness practice, can have flow-on effects to many facets of our lives.

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Image by Sasin Tipchai 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 and Creativity in Our Life’s Work

In a recent presentation for The Contemplative Care Summit, Seth Godin spoke about, Mindfulness & Creativity at Work. He stressed the importance of being mindful about self-talk and taking intentional action if we are to be creative in our life’s work. Seth writes a daily post for his creative blog which he has been writing for more than a decade. He is the author of 20 world-wide best-selling books such as The Practice which is about creative work. He is also the initiator of many creative projects. You can find his videos on YouTube, including his five TED Talks.

Self-talk: a barrier to creativity

Seth has previously written about what he calls “the lizard brain” – the amygdala, the part of the brain driven by fear. He maintains that this is behind our negative self-talk and can be disabling if we let it control our thoughts. He challenges the myth of “writer’s block” and suggests that it is a blockage in our thinking created by our fear and perpetuated by self-stories. He suggests, like one of my early mentors, that a way forward is to write, write, write. Eventually, our not-so-good writing becomes good and then great – especially if we have a constructive, critical friend who is commenting on our writing out of understanding, comprehension, and good will, not out of ignorance or inanity.

Creative people such as Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, speak extensively about how fear and self-talk can block our creative genius. Clare Bowditch – singer, songwriter, and author of Your Own Kind of Girl – describes in detail (in this autobiography), the power and pervasiveness of our inner critic. Worrying about whether our creation, our work, our project, our song/performance or our presentation will be “good enough” sets in train a series of self-stories that can lead to procrastination. Tara Brach offers the R.A.I.N. meditation – incorporating the steps of recognise, accept, investigate and nurture – as a compassionate way to deal with our self-generated critic.

Seth talks extensively about a specific fear, the “fear of failure”. We tend to catastrophize the outcomes if something “goes wrong” or “does not work out”. He points out, however, that we do not have control over the outcomes and focusing solely on them leads to inertia and stifling of creative endeavour. Seth maintains that “failure” and creativity go hand-in-hand and he talks about his many failures. He argues that if you are doing something that you have never done before or that has not been done by anyone else, then the chances of failure are always present – this uncertainty about outcomes defines the essence of creativity and we capture this in our language, “going out on a limb”, “going outside our comfort zone”, “leaping into the unknown” or “exploring new terrain”.

Seth suggests that we need to stay in the present moment and enjoy the process of creating something new – of bringing our creation into the world for the benefit of others. Focusing on process in a mindful way creates freedom from fear, space to explore and openness to new ideas. He also argues that we can overcome the nagging concern that we are an “imposter” (posing as a good writer, performer or facilitator) by accepting that you will act as an imposter if you are being creative – you are taking action with uncertain outcomes, you cannot guarantee success, and you are hoping that it will “turn our well” without any “iron-clad guarantee” that it will do so.

Intentional action

Intention provides the impetus to initiate and sustain creative action. Diana Winston offers a meditation process to help us to bring mindfulness to our motivations and intentions so that we can achieve clarity of purpose, align our energy and strengthen our motivation in the face of obstacles. Leo Babauta offers a three-step process, incorporating clarifying intentions, that we can use to start doing the meaningful work that we have been avoiding. He also offers a daily practice to overcome the avoidance that we experience when confronted with difficult tasks.

Ricardo Semler, entrepreneur and author provides a more fundamental approach to access our underlying intentions. He suggests that we ask our selves “why” three times to get to the fundamental question, “What am I doing this for?” Unfortunately, our busyness becomes the greatest impediment to accessing our creativity and opening our selves to wisdom, clarity, and fulfillment. Taking time to be still and revisit our intentions can enable us to achieve alignment with our overall life purpose and access the resonance that this alignment brings. We can then begin to experience inspiration and intuition – the seeds of creativity.

Reflection

To fully access our creativity, we need to be aware of our negative self-stories, our fear of failure, and our imposter concerns. By not facing up to the self-critic and the “lizard brain”, we can numb ourselves into inaction and procrastination. As we grow in mindfulness, through meditation, reflection, and reframing, we can increase our self-awareness, develop self-compassion to deal with our negative thoughts and bring intention and alignment to our creative actions. The stillness and silence of mindfulness meditation acts an “incubator” for creativity and innovation.

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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.

Becoming Grounded to Strengthen Your Intention

We have all experienced being “knocked off centre” and becoming “ungrounded” in the challenging times of the past year (2020). Now, as we look forward to the new year (2021), it might be helpful to restore our groundedness and reset our intentions. Diana Winston of MARC UCLA offers a meditation podcast to enable us to achieve these goals. Her guided meditation, Getting Grounded and Setting Intentions, offers a timely process.

Guided meditation for groundedness

Diana suggests that you begin by taking a couple of deep breaths and as you are exhaling to release the tension and anxiety that you have experienced in being able to arrive at this point. She then focuses heavily on posture as a means to achieve groundedness. You are encouraged to have your feet flat on the floor; to adopt an upright, relaxed position for your back; to find a comfortable position for your hands; and to either close your eyes or look downwards to reduce distractions.

To begin with, the primary focus is on your feet. By focusing on your feet, you can feel the bodily sensations of being supported. You might feel the firmness of the floor beneath the softness of the carpet or the hardness of floor tiles. Diana encourages you too to envisage beyond the floor to the walls supporting the floor and the ground that is always there, in turn, supporting the walls themselves. As you focus on the sensations in your feet, you may feel a sense of support, strength, and earthly energy. You might feel as though your feet are becoming thicker and drawing in warmth and energy – a sense that your support base is expanding.

Diana also offers other choices that can supplement or replace the focus on sensations in your feet (as an anchor to return to when distractions inevitably intervene):

Breath – you can focus in on your breath in its natural state without any attempt to control it. You pay attention to wherever you can sense your breathing and become conscious of the rise and fall of your abdomen or chest or, alternatively, the sensation of air passing in and out of your nose.
Room tone/sounds – here you pay attention to sounds in the room firstly and then to external sounds. This requires you to avoid interpreting the sounds or identifying their origins or your assessment of them as good or bad. For some people, opening up their attention to sounds can itself be a distraction and may make it very difficult for them to sustain their focus.
Hands – you can join your fingers together and pay attention to the sensations from the connection. You may feel warmth, tingling, softness or firmness. If you persist with this focus, you might experience soreness that is present in your wrist or arm – you can be open to this sensation and focus on self-healing.

Diana has an extended session of silence in this meditation to enable you to really focus in on bodily sensations and the feeling of support that is readily available to you at any time – the more you practise this meditation by setting time aside, the easier it will be to access the sense of support in times when you are feeling really challenged by restrictions, loss, isolation, or disconnection.

Setting intentions

Diana further invites you to revisit the past year and all the challenges that it involved – What did you feel? What did you lose? What was most challenging for you? She suggests applying a “light touch” to these reflections, not getting lost in the challenging emotions involved.

She then suggests that you recall what inspired you during these challenging times – the selflessness of frontline health professionals caring for COVID-19 patients in ICU and elsewhere, the generosity of individuals, the sense of reconnection with loved ones (even though it might have been virtually), the dedication of emergency personnel (ambulance, police, border officers, paramedics) and the resilience of people who experienced grief and trauma and yet continued to assist others.

In the light of these latter inspiring and energizing reflections, Diana encourages you to revisit your New Year’s resolutions or to set new resolutions. She particularly encourages you to draw on the lessons you have learned through experiencing the past year and what they signal as a way forward for you. You might envisage a different world where empathy, compassion, kindness, and consideration replace racial discrimination, self-centredness, violence and hatred.

This consideration of what might be could be the catalyst for you to strengthen your intention to make a positive contribution to your family, your community and the world at large. Through your interconnectedness, how you are in the world influences those around you and beyond. It might be that you firm up your intention of providing more emotional and practical support to someone close to you who is experiencing difficulties; it could be becoming more patient with someone at your work who is slow and/or annoying; or resolving to truly listen to people, especially when they are expressing a personal need.

Reflection

We have at our disposal a ready means to feel grounded and deepen our resolve to pursue our best intentions so that they translate into positive actions. This will enable us to make better choices and not indulge in habituated responses that can have negative impacts. As we grow in mindfulness, through meditations focused on becoming grounded and setting our intentions, we can be a positive force in the lives of others, both those who are close and others who are distant. Diana’s meditation podcast is one way to enable us to move from self-absorption to embracing people in need, locally and globally.

You can change the negative tenor of social media around a topic by adopting a positive approach. For instance, the arrival in Melbourne of professional tennis players for the Australian Open has created a real stir. On the one hand, some players have complained that they are locked up in a quarantine hotel room for two weeks because someone on their plane has the COVID-19 virus. Some Australians stuck overseas are expressing bitterness that they are unable to return home because of the global situation while the Australian Open tennis players arrive from all around the world on chartered flights. People living in Melbourne have expressed the view that the players are “spoilt brats” because they themselves have experienced one of the most stringent lockdowns anywhere in the world and for an extended period.

The voice of reason and compassion in all this turmoil was that of Australian Olympic swimmer, Cate Campbell. She suggested publicly that expressing bitterness, envy and resentment is only making a difficult situation worse. She encouraged all Australians to show empathy towards the tennis players and to truly understand what loss they are experiencing by their enforced confinement before one of the world’s major tennis tournaments. As an elite sports person, she knows only too well what deprivation of practice before a very significant event means for other professionals.

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Image by marijana1 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.

Reflective Practices to Facilitate Managerial Mindfulness

In the previous post I discussed managerial mindfulness as an outcome of the Confident People Management (CPM) Program. This form of mindfulness translates into conscious awareness about the type of team culture the manager is developing through their words, actions, inactions, and time allocation. The cultural framework developed for the CPM program provides the catalyst for reflective practices incorporated in the program.

The manager’s role in shaping team culture

At the outset of our process of consciousness-raising within the CPM program, we reinforce the view that the immediate manager is the most influential person in shaping the team culture. We say to our participant managers, “What you say and how you say it; what you do and how you do it; what you omit to do; and what you spend your time on; is shaping your team culture hour by hour, day by day.” We acknowledge to participants that it is a harsh reality that “they get the team culture they deserve” – that their team culture is a direct result of what they choose to say and do and what they spend their time on.

However, we also explain to the participant managers that they have a set of tools at their disposal which enable them to shape team culture – the tools include congruent behaviour, active listening, setting expectations, positive feedback, and corrective feedback. We then work with the managers through a series of experiential exercises and reflective practices that enable them to progressively build their awareness of how they are currently shaping their team culture and how they might proceed differently to improve both the productivity of their team and the mental health of their team members.

The cultural framework as a catalyst for developing managerial mindfulness

The CPM program is conducted over four to six workshop days, with the first two workshop days being adjacent and the remaining workshops separated by a month to facilitate practice on-the-job of the acquired skills. Participant managers also conduct a workplace project (individually or in a team) to implement their learning from the program and gain greater personal insight and self-awareness. The presentation of the results of their project to co-participants and their managers occurs on the final day of the Program.

The CPM Program offers many opportunities to develop managerial mindfulness through the following reflective practices:

Reflection on past experience: Participant managers are asked to reflect individually and in small groups on their experience of being managed by other supervisors/managers. They then share in the small groups and the plenary group not only about their manager’s behaviour but also the impact that their manager’s words, actions, inaction, and time allocation had on them – on their feelings and their motivation. This typically leads to a discussion about how workplace culture is shaped by managers – increasing awareness of the impact on team culture of their own managerial behaviour.
Exploring intention: Being conscious of your intention in any endeavour is a key element of mindfulness. The centrepiece of the team culture model is congruence – aligning words and actions. Participants reflect individually in writing on what kind of culture they are intending to create and how congruent their words, actions, inaction, and time allocation are with this intention.
Debriefing experiential exercises: During the workshops, participant managers undertake experiential exercises focused on the elements of the team culture model – setting expectations, active listening, positive feedback, and corrective feedback. They then reflect on the exercise in their group and share insights with the plenary group. This process facilitates the development of reflection-on-action.
Reflection on workplace practice: At the end of each workshop, participant managers are asked to consciously practise several skills in their workplace with their intact team during the intervening period between workshops. Each new workshop begins with a small group-based reflection exercise. The results of their reflection-on-action is shared with the larger group. This often stimulates vicarious learning amongst the broader group.
Presentation of action learning project: Participants are asked during their presentations to share what they set out to do, what outcomes they achieved (intended and unintended) and what they learnt through the program and their project. This reflective process helps individual participants to make explicit their implicit learning.

Reflection

My co-facilitator and I have observed that the frequent practice of reflection-on-action during the CPM Program tends to cultivate the capacity to reflect-in-action, a process that involves being fully present on purpose. As participant managers undertake reflective practices within the Program, they progressively develop the insights and skills of managerial mindfulness, awareness of how they are shaping team culture in the moment through their words, actions, inaction, and time allocation. As they grow in mindfulness, the managers are more in tune with their staff, better able to be present when interacting and more open to influence and the development of staff agency. This, in turn, contributes to the development of a productive and mentally healthy culture.

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Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay

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

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

Developing Intentional Imagination

Mitra Manesh introduced the concept and practice of intentional imagination in a guided meditation podcast produced by MARC, UCLA. Mitra has been practising and teaching meditation for 35 years and combines Eastern and Western approaches to meditation particularly for application within the corporate world. She has developed the Inner Map app to enable people in the workplace and elsewhere to readily access and practise meditation and mindfulness. Mitra also provides mindfulness approaches in her brief videos on Vimeo©. In an earlier podcast, she provided an insightful meditation on the meaning of love.

Mitra points out at the outset that we all have and use imagination all the time. The very act of worrying involves imagining an undesirable future. In our dreams, our imagination holds sway and is not censored by the light of day. Everything that we see around us – the buildings, bridges, tables, computers – were firstly imagined by somebody. Imagination is what exists beyond our senses and yet it can create the reality that we see, feel, taste, hear and smell. The power of imagination, then, is that it can make things happen. As Napoleon Hill is quoted as saying, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”. Intention, focus, and imagination together can create a new reality in your life.

Intentional imagination meditation

Mitra introduces her intentional imagination meditation by combining sensation with imagination. After becoming grounded you are encouraged to feel the sensation of your feet on the floor or ground and then imagine drawing the energy of earth up through your feet, through your legs to your belly. While resting in this sensation of strength, you can engage in conscious breathing, noticing the movement in and out as your belly expands and contracts with each breath. You can return to your feet again at any time, imaging that you are drawing up more energy into your belly and drawing on the connection and support that surround you.

After a period of silent and restful meditation, Mitra encourages you to envisage some current difficulty (that is relatively small) that you have in your life. You then imagine placing it in the corner of a very large room – thus reinforcing your perception of it as small and insignificant. Now imagine moving to another spacious corner and sensing the feeling of resolution of that difficulty. You can even smile if that helps you to tap into the sensation of resolution, success and achievement.

Imagination can free us from false beliefs, enable us to see possibilities and enhance the power of mindfulness practices such as Tai Chi. We can integrate imagination in many forms of meditation, e.g. in mantra meditations. Imagination can take us outside of ourselves and help us to develop loving kindness and compassionate abiding.

Reflection

We so often overlook the power of imagination to create a better life – we let it control our thoughts by imagining a harmful future. Particularly in these challenging times, we need to draw on our imagination to create new possibilities that are adaptive and life-enriching. As we grow in mindfulness through mindfulness practices, intentional imagination meditation and reflection, we can access our creativity and build a better future for ourselves and those we interact with.

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Image by Bronisław Dróżka 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.