How to Be With Stress Rather Than Avoid It

Dr. Nate Klemp and Eric Langshur provide an interesting perspective on stress management in their article, Being With Stressful Moments Rather Than Avoiding Them. They contend that if we use mindfulness to do away with or avoid stress, we are not being mindful – we are not being with what is. They contend that our beliefs about stress frequently impede our capacity to deal with stress in our lives – our beliefs serve as a disabler rather than an enabler. Nate and Eric suggest a process that enables us to be with the stress rather than avoid it.

Stressors take many forms

There are many stressors that can occur in life through adverse situations, damaging relationships or one-off conversations. What is a stressor for one person may not be for another, partly because of the self-stories that we perpetuate. Our experience of stress varies over time – in one period of our lives, we can be relatively stress-free, while in another we can experience a range of stressors that build up and make us lose our patience and equilibrium.

Stress can arise at home through the suffering of a daughter or son, through conflict in intimate relationships or financial problems impacting our quality of life. Stress can arise at work through job overload, role conflict or ambiguity, conflict with colleagues or dealing with an unskilled manager. Stress is cumulative over time with each form of stress adding to another.

Our limiting beliefs about stress

Nate and Eric identify two primary beliefs that impede our capacity to deal with stress and lead us to try to avoid stress – which is an ever-present reality in our daily lives:

  1. The belief that we should get rid of stress from our lives – that we should always be in a state of ease and wellness. This belief can lead us to use mindfulness meditation to avoid stress rather than engage it as it is happening. The authors suggest that denying or trying to remove stress is not being mindful because mindfulness involves being “with whatever is arising, pleasurable, painful, comfortable, or uncomfortable” – not denying what is happening in our thoughts, feelings and bodily experience.
  2. The belief that stress is bad – that is should be avoided at all costs. Research shows that our “stress mindset” can change our experience of stress and that stress, provided it is not chronic, can be good for us because it promotes personal growth, both mentally and physically. Kelly McGonigal suggests ways to make stress our friend.

The combination of these beliefs can aggravate our experience of stress because it can lead us to feel resentful or angry that our sense of ease has been disturbed or destroyed.

Being with stress

Nate and Eric, who are the authors of the book Start Here: Master the Lifelong Habit of Well-Being, offer a process to enable us to be with stress rather than avoid it. They describe this process as Notice-Shift-Rewire:

  • Notice – in common with other meditation practices, their process involves noticing what is. This requires us to be with our full experience – our feelings, our bodily sensations and our thoughts. They particularly focus on the thoughts/mindset relating to “stress aversion” – the desire to be free of all stress.
  • Shift – this requires shifting from judging the experience of stress as “bad” and acknowledging, non-judgmentally, the way we are experiencing the stress.
  • Rewire – staying with what we are experiencing in all its manifestations while letting go of attempts to avoid the stress.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation practices that help us to be with what is, we can develop our capacity to deal with stress, rather than avoid or deny it. The Notice-Shift-Rewire process can help us to be really present to what we are experiencing, more effectively “navigate stress” and build our resilience.

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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.

Resilience and Positive Psychology

Louis Alloro, co-founder and faculty member for the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) at The Flourishing Center, recently presented a webinar on The Science of Resilience. In his presentation, he described resilience as the ability to persist in the face of adversity or setbacks in the pursuit of one’s goals. This approach focuses on perseverance when encountering blockages – a view that emphasizes the ongoing nature of resilience, rather than the espisodic view which describes resilience as “bouncing back” from some major adversity.

Positive Psychology and resilience

Positive Psychology has its foundations in the work of Dr. David Seligman, author of the books, Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. David highlighted our capacity to live an optimally fulfilling life through training ourselves to think positively rather than indulge in negative or pessimistic thinking. Positive thinking keeps us open to possibilities, while pessimistic thinking focuses on barriers to achievement. Resilience builds through positive thinking, while pessimistic thinking leads us “to give up”.

In David’s view, “authentic happiness” is achieved by putting the spotlight on our strengths, not our deficiencies. This positive perspective enables us to develop what is best in ourselves, rather than being obsessed with where we “fall short” or where we deem ourselves to be “not good enough”. Focus on the positive aspects of ourselves enables the achievement of sustainable contentment or equanimity and releases the energy to build a better world. It shifts the emphasis from avoiding “mental illness” to developing “wellness”.

Our thinking shapes our emotions and behaviour

In his presentation, Louis discussed the ABC Model underpinning authentic happiness. “A” stands for the activating event (or stimulus), “B” for beliefs or thoughts about the event and “C” for consequences expressed in terms of emotions and behaviour. So, when something happens, we can view it positively or negatively and, depending on our beliefs or thoughts about the situation, we will experience emotions (positive or negative) which, in turn, leads to our behaviour. One of the easiest ways to view this cycle (optimistic or pessimistic) is to consider the possible range of responses to “being ignored by a colleague at work”.

Louis reminds us of the words of Viktor Frankl that there is a gap between stimulus and response, and that choice and consequent freedom lie in the gap. We can choose how we use the “gap” to shape our thinking about a situation and that choice determines our resilience and happiness. A fundamental way to do this is to bring mindful awareness to our intention (why we are doing what we are doing), to our attention (consciously paying attention) and to our attitude (one of accepting what is, openness to possibilities and curiosity about our inner and outer world).

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can progressively overcome our innate negative bias and build a positive orientation that develops our resilience, releases energy and opens the way for creative actions to deepen our wellness and happiness and contribute to a better world. Developing mindful awareness of what we bring to each situation – our intention, attention and attitude – enables us to be truly resilient in the face of difficulties and blockages (real or imagined).

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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.

Resilience is Not Endurance or Acceptance of a Toxic Situation

Resilience is very much about “bouncing back” from adversity or setbacks. Richard Davidson in his research has shown that resilience can be measured in terms of the rapidity with which the body returns to its “baseline” – measured in terms of level of cortisol and the level of activation of the amygdala. He maintains that resilience is not acceptance or endurance of a toxic environment that is unjust or inappropriate.

Resilience can be built through developing life skills that enable you to move beyond significant adverse life events. Richard and his colleagues have identified conscious ways to build resilience by using meditation and mindfulness practices focused on developing bodily awareness, social connection, personal insight and life purpose.

Resilience does not lead to acceptance of a toxic situation but rather builds motivation and skill to address the situation effectively. Mindfulness practices designed to build resilience also strengthen your capacity to manage stresses experienced within a toxic situation by increasing self-awareness, enhancing self-regulation, improving clarity and calmness and releasing creativity.

Resilience and compassion: building motivation and capacity for action

In the previous post, I discussed social connection as one way to build resilience and compassion meditation (loving-kindness meditation) as a way to develop social connection. Professor David DeSteno, renowned psychologist and author of The Truth About Trust, maintains that the ability to build social connections through compassion (through assisting those in need) makes us more resilient over the longer term. 

Kelly McGonigal, in her presentation on The Science of Compassion during the Mindful Healthcare Summit, maintained that compassion benefits everyone in a system – the person who shows compassion, the recipient, colleagues and witnesses (e.g. the hundreds of thousands of people who have witnessed the compassionate action by Mo Cheeks).

Kelly’s research and that of her colleagues suggests that people who undertake training in compassion (such as Compassion Cultivation Training [CCT] offered by Stanford University) become strong and resilient advocates for system change where people are suffering. She maintains that participants in CCT are more able to effectively change a toxic situation through their hope, courage, renewed energy and strong social connection. She suggests that this “very work of change is a form of compassion”. On reflection, compassion appeared to be the driver in an earlier reported case where participants used action learning to redress a toxic work environment.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditations designed to build resilience, we can increase our motivation and capacity to act effectively to change a toxic situation that is causing suffering for people. By building social connections through compassion, we not only strengthen our resilience, but also enhance our capacity to act effectively with hope and energy to address the suffering experienced within the toxic system.

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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.

Shaping Our Brains to Build Resilience

Richard Davidson, Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, recently addressed the Mindful Healthcare Summit on the topic The Science of Resilience. Richard, an internationally renowned neuroscientist, stated that his research and that of his colleagues has convinced him that we can shape our brains in a way that builds resilience and helps us to flourish rather than be tossed around “like a sailboat without a rudder on a turbulent sea”. Richard is the co-author with Daniel Goleman of the book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body.

What is resilience?

Richard defines resilience as “the rapidity with which you can recover from adversity”. Linda Graham described this trait as “bouncing back“. Richard stated that neuroscience can actually measure the rapidity of recovery by exploring (through brain imaging) two key aspects of the brain that feature in dealing with stress or adverse situations, (1) the level of cortisol released by the brain and (2) the degree to which the amygdala is activated.

He highlighted the brain’s plasticity as proof that we can train our minds and take more responsibility for shaping our brains and determining the direction of our brain plasticity – which most of the time occurs unwittingly through forces external and internal to ourselves. The key is to understand how our brain develops resilience and to make a commitment to shape our brain in a way that builds wellbeing rather than diminishes it.

How to shape our brain to build resilience

Richard suggests that to actively build resilience we need to develop in four key areas through focused meditations and aligned action:

  1. Awareness – he describes this as attention to our own bodies and the tension within. Mindful breathing and body scan can help to develop this awareness and related ability to be grounded in our bodies. Calmness and clarity emerge from this aspect of shaping our minds.
  2. Connection – having and nurturing harmonious and supportive relationships that provide an effective buffer for us when we are feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Meditations that can help build social connection are the loving kindness and gratitude meditations. Positivity, expressions of appreciation and empathy can nurture these relationships.
  3. Insight – an in-depth knowledge of our personal narrative/self-story that generates negative self-evaluation and false beliefs that contribute to a lack of resilience and depression. We have to recognise these self-beliefs as merely thoughts, not reality. Meditations such as the R.A.I.N. meditation, S.B.N.R.R. process and reflections on resentment can help us shift this narrative from negative thoughts generating self-defeating emotions to a positive narrative that is enabling and builds resilience in the face of setbacks or adversity.
  4. Purpose – clarity about life purpose, and alignment of words and actions with this purpose, enable us to surf the waves of daily life and to manage the vicissitudes that inevitably disturb our equilibrium. Bill George describes your purpose as your True North and offers ways to discover it. In a previous post I offered a series of questions to help find your unique purpose and a path of action to pursue that purpose.

Developing a permeable self

Richard stated that the aspect of “insight” mentioned above is a key component of resilience. We tend to develop a fixed and stable view of our self which causes us problems in conflicted situations. It is this “fixed identity” that becomes challenged when our emotions overflow, especially when they “bleed” from one adverse interaction into another encounter. We need to be able to “shake loose the rigidity” by making our sense of self more permeable – open to new experiences, insights and feedback.

As we grow in mindfulness through exploring different forms of meditation on a consistent basis, we can develop a more balanced and permeable view of our self. We can build our resilience and wellbeing through developing awareness, connection, insight and purpose.

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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.

Practical Mindfulness for Profound Effects

In the recent online Mindful Healthcare Summit, Jon Kabat-Zinn spoke about the profound effects of practical mindfulness. While the context he spoke about was the healthcare arena – doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and related roles – his comments have universal application because they relate to us as human beings and are built on the latest neuroscience findings.

Getting out of our heads

Jon describes us as “perpetually self-distracting” – we continuously distract ourselves from the task at hand through our thoughts which are incessantly active. Disruptive advertising in social media aid and abet this self-distraction to the point where mobile devices are now described as “weapons of mass distraction“.

Jon encourages us to be awake to the world around us – to the people and nature that surround us. He suggests we need to move out of the “thought realm” into the “awake realm”. He comments that when we are in the shower in the morning, we are more likely to be mentally at a meeting rather than aware of the sensation of the water on our skin. When we arrive at work, we are likely to be thinking about, and talking about, the traffic we encountered on the way.

He suggests that a very simple practical exercise when we wake up is to be consciously aware of our body – to “really wake up” and feel the sensation in our legs, our feet, our arms. He urges us not to start the day by getting lost in thought but to start by inhabiting our own body. When we do so, we open ourselves to the profound effects of being present in the moment, of being open to our capacity for focus and inner creativity.

Listening to others

Jon maintains that “listening is a huge part of mindfulness practice”. To truly listen, you need to be present to the other person – not lost in your own thoughts. When you attend to the other person through active listening, they “feel met, seen and encountered”. Jon draws on the work of Dr. Ron Epstein to support this assertion. Ron, the author of Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness and Humanity, established through his research and medical practice that “attending” achieved improved health outcomes for both the patient and the doctor.

Being fully present

Jon maintains that while meditation and other mindfulness practices build your awareness, the essence of mindfulness is to be fully present whatever you are doing. He argues that “the kindest thing you can do to yourself is to be present in the moment”. Jon reminds us that “tomorrow is uncertain, yesterday is over” so to live in the past or the future is self-defeating, disabling and potentially harmful to our health and well-being. He encourages us to meet each day (which is all that we have) with a clear intention – a commitment to make a positive and caring contribution to whatever is our life/work endeavour. This will have the profound effect of enhancing our own mental health and resilience, while creating an environment that is mentally healthy for others.

Tapping into our inner resources

Sometimes we can be so focused on the needs (or expectations) of others that we overlook the need for self-caring in the face of the stresses of life and work. He challenges us to befriend our self by tapping into our deep inner resources and “boundaryless awareness“. He contends from his own research and practice in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) that our bodies are “intrinsically and genetically self-healing” and that we are our own “deepest resource for health and well-being”. We need to access these healing inner resources through the practice of mindfulness in our daily life and work.

As we grow in mindfulness through mindful action in our life and work and mindfulness practices, we can tap our limitless inner resources, become increasingly self-healing, develop mentally healthy environments for others and achieve a higher level of fulfillment and happiness.

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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.

Making Meaning for Well-Being

Viktor Frankl, a survivor of four years in German concentration camps, wrote a landmark book, Man’s Search for Meaning. In the book he argues that our most fundamental drive is a search for meaning rather than a search for pleasure. He demonstrated in his life in the concentration camp and through his research, that while suffering is an integral part of life, we can find meaning in it. Subsequent research has confirmed that searching for meaning and pursuing meaningful actions develops personal well-being.

Joaquín García-Alandete, writing in The European Journal of Counselling Psychology (2015), reported the results of his research that demonstrated that the relationship between meaning in life and psychological well-being was significant. Michael Steger and colleagues found in their research that the search for meaning is present in all stages of life and that realising meaning in life contributed to well-being. Conversely, the absence of meaning in the latter stages of life contributed to a reduced sense of well-being.

Dr. Paul Wong maintains that meaning contributes to well-being by enhancing positive feelings, reducing depression and building hope and resilience in the face of adverse and stressful circumstances. Michael Steger and Joo Yeon Shin argue that happiness and meaning become more imperative in our technological age characterised by an anxiety epidemic, choice overload, constant demand for adaption and an ever-increasing pace of life.

Making meaning- aligning our actions with what is meaningful for us

The search for meaning alone does not guarantee well-being. Dr. Pninit Russo-Netzer found in her research that the key to well-being was prioritizing meaning within our lives. This ultimately means doing things that align with our purpose in life and that give meaning to our life.

Achieving insight into our life’s purpose and realising alignment through our actions is a lifetime pursuit that is aided by mindfulness. Pninit suggests that as we develop self-awareness, we can reflect on our action choices and test them for alignment with our values and their impact on our well-being … and make appropriate adjustments.

Pninit argues that our simple everyday actions can be the pathway to well-being because they enable us to cultivate meaning in our lives on a daily basis. We can effectively build meaning into our lives by giving priority to aligning our choices with our values and life purpose. Just the simple, conscious act of building a collage of meaningful photos can reinforce what matters to us, build a renewed sense of purpose and increase our energy for prioritizing meaning in our lives.

Dr. Paul Wong maintains that it is not enough to believe our life is meaningful and then indulge in a lifestyle that does not contribute value to society in a way that is unique to ourselves, to our core knowledge and skills. A life that consists solely in the individual pursuit of pleasure and or power is wasteful and is devoid of meaning – a reality that is born out daily in the lives of celebrities in the fields of sport, cinema and music.

As we grow in mindfulness through a focus on our purpose and what is meaningful in our life, we can achieve a sense of well-being that assists us to live more fully and to deal with the ups and downs of life. Mindfulness meditation and reflection enable us to assess the alignment between what we value and what we do – to determine how well we are prioritizing meaning in our life. These mindful activities help us to deepen our sense of meaning – and consequent well-being – through our everyday activities.

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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.

A Meditation Practice for Taming Feelings of Shame

Meditation can help us tame our strong emotions by helping us to isolate the source of the related feelings and identify our automatic response, which is often inappropriate or unhelpful. Shame is one such emotion that generates strong feelings that can lead to anger, envy, devaluing self, depression, passivity or inability to cope.

Mary C. Lamia, a clinical psychologist, explains that shame occurs when we perceive ourselves to be inadequate, unworthy, dishonourable or failing to live up to our own or other’s expectations. For example, shame experienced in not living up to the expectations of others as a new or accomplished author, is a central theme of John Boyne’s book, A Ladder to the Sky. His book also starkly illustrates Mary Lamia’s description of shame as a “concealed, contagious and dangerous emotion“. Mary’s in-depth discussion of shame and how it manifests is illuminating and helps us to understand how shame can induce our own dysfunctional behaviour and that of bullies and narcissistic people.

A meditation to tame feelings of shame

Patricia Rockman provides a meditation designed to tame feelings of shame. Her 10-minute, guided meditation podcast provides a way to uncover this often-concealed emotion, explore its manifestation in bodily sensations and denigrating thoughts, and eventually to get in touch with how we contaminate our relationships through feelings of shame.

The starting point for the meditation is to clearly form the intention to address the feelings of shame, rather than push them away or hide from them. This may take a concerted effort over time with repetition of this guided meditation. Feelings of shame may be deeply embedded in our bodies and minds and we can feel resistance to dealing with these uncomfortable emotions and feelings. Over time, we may have become practised at concealing shame or projecting our sense of shame onto others.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditating on our feelings of shame 
we can learn to tame our shame and its impact by naming our feelings and facing the discomfort that shame elicits in us bodily and mentally. This growth in self-awareness, a progressive unveiling of ourselves, can replace shame with kind attention, and build resilience.

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Image source: courtesy of Skitterphoto on 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 the “Spaciousness Within” through Mindfulness

Often, we are at our “wit’s end” trying to solve problems, overcome challenges or address conflicts. Deborah Eden Tull reminds us that through meditation and mindfulness practice, we can access what she calls the “spaciousness within” – wherein lies peace, calmness, creativity and well-being. In a meditation podcast for the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), Deborah provides two guided meditations and commentary to help us to access this spaciousness while listening to her and to continue to do so beyond the specific meditations.

Initial brief meditation – arriving at the present moment

At the beginning of her podcast, Deborah provides a way for you to transfer your attention from what you have been doing to arriving at being present in-the-moment. This assumes that you still have some level of involvement in your previous activity despite changing your location or attempting to change your focus.

As part of the process of becoming grounded, Deborah suggests that you make yourself comfortable in the first instance through a conscious, restful posture and then begin with a few conscious breaths to help you to become centred. The next part of this centring meditation involves a progressive process of getting in touch with your thoughts, then feelings and finally the bodily sensations that have accompanied you to your meditation exercise.

Following the development of this inner awareness, she suggests that you get in touch with your personal motivation for undertaking the meditation or listening to her podcast – what is it that you are hoping to achieve for yourself? This initial brief meditation closes with taking a deep, full-body breath to open yourself to the experience of listening to her commentary and undertaking the subsequent meditation practice.

Reflection – observing people texting while walking

As part of her commentary on accessing our inner spaciousness, Deborah reflected on observing people on the university campus texting while they were walking between buildings/ classes. She observed that this practice actually builds our habit of busyness – the antithesis of developing the spaciousness within. This multi-tasking activity strengthens our conditioning to be always busy – thinking, planning, evaluating, dramatizing, revisiting the past (depression), anticipating the future (anxiety) – and builds on our overall penchant for distraction.

We can choose to cultivate a life of serenity, ease, calmness and resilience through developing present moment awareness or opt for a life that intensifies restlessness, dis-ease, agitation and fragility. Deborah reminds us that the quality of our life experience is determined by the focus of our attention.   

Her second meditation (beginning at the 14-minute mark) helps you to cultivate the spaciousness within through a focus on your breathing and exploration of the imagery of the ocean.

Mindful breathing and ocean imagery

Deborah’s second guided meditation focuses on breathing. She reminds us that this meditation process should be free of the everyday habit of striving or seeking to change ourselves for the better. It is very much about being rather than doing.

In focussing on your breathing in this meditation exercise, you learn to develop awareness about your breathing in the moment – whether your breathing is deep or shallow, fast or slow, even or choppy. You are encouraged to rest in your breathing and accept it the way it is – not trying to force a desired pattern on your breathing.

Following this focus on breathing, Deborah asks you to imagine an ocean – the turbulence of the waves above and the stillness and vastness of the water below. She encourages you to envisage the calm waters below the waves as the mirror of your “spaciousness within”.

Accessing the spaciousness within

You can choose to develop awareness of the spaciousness within through formal meditation or through informal practices such as mindful eating, mindful walking or stopping/ pausing in the midst of a situation to ground yourself in the present moment.

As we develop mindfulness through formal meditation and other mindful practices, we can access the spaciousness within and experience calmness, resilience, creativity, ease and well-being to improve the quality of our lives.

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

Image source: courtesy of Pexels 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.

Naomi Osaka – Mindfulness in Action

Naomi Osaka won the Women’s Singles Championship at the 2019 Australian Open on Saturday 26th January, beating Petra Kvitová (winner of two Grand Slam titles). In winning the championship, Naomi became the first Japanese tennis player to win the Australian Open and the first Japanese player to become No.1 in the world. In reflecting on her mindful approach to her recent matches and her achievements, I have become very conscious of the level of mindfulness she has attained at such a young age (21 at this tournament). Her advanced level of mindfulness is reflected in her resilience, capacity to handle negative thoughts and emotions and her strong sense of gratitude which enables her to stay grounded.

Resilience – capacity to bounce back in the face of setbacks or adversity

Naomi was serving for the match at 5-3 in the second set, having won the first set. Despite three match points in that game, she was unable to win the second set. Her disappointment was palpable – she left the court after the set with a towel over her head to hide her tears. However, she was able to settle herself in the break before the third set and to to resume the match with a new resolve and focus that enabled her to lift her game and go on to win the match and the Championship.

In overcoming the setback when she served-for-the-match at the end of the second set, Naomi had to deal with two conflicting challenges that beset the best champions in these circumstances – (1) anticipating the result (she so wanted to be No. 1 in the world that she could almost see and feel what it would be like) and (2) her negative thoughts and emotions resulting from missing her opportunity to close out the second set.

Her capacity to bounce back shows her resilience when having to deal with disappointment following a setback. This resilience was also in evidence when she was able to win the US Open five months earlier, despite the bad behaviour of her tennis idol and opponent, Sarina Williams – behaviour which was both unsettling and distracted attention from Naomi’s wonderful achievement.

Overcoming negative thoughts and emotions

Naomi was distressed at not being able to serve out the match at the end of the second set. It would have been easy to continue to entertain the negative thoughts that were going through her head, “I was so close and missed my opportunity”; “Why did I serve so poorly?”; and “I’m not going to win now or be No.1 in the world”.

Naomi took time to get centred again and to control her negative thoughts and emotions. She reminded herself that she had come back from being behind and that she could regain her ascendency (building on a very strong sense of self-efficacy).

It is so easy to entertain negative thoughts and emotions to a point where they disable us. However, Naomi reported that in the third set she put her emotions aside (self-regulation) and focused on playing each point. Even when she made mistakes in the third set, she used one of her anchors to shake free of her negative thoughts and emotions – she could be observed shaking her head from side to side, taking a temporary pause or a few deep breaths.

Naomi revealed in an earlier interview that she is an avid online gamer, a passion she enjoys with her sister. She described gaming not only as an alternative pursuit for up to four hours a day, but also as a way to reframe her tennis matches. She describes this unique anchor as follows:

I just feel like I know [tennis] is sort of my job and, like, if I were to say it, like, in a gaming term, then it’s sort of a mission that I have to complete. Um, so yeah. I just sort of tune everything out and just try my best to complete the mission.

Naomi demonstrated what it takes to be a mindful tennis champion through her demeanour, her self-awareness and self-regulation and her capacity to manage her inner dialogue. Her sense of gratitude is another trait that belies her youthful age and demonstrates her advanced level of mindfulness.

Gratitude – a way to stay grounded

Naomi mentioned in one of her interviews that she had visited Haiti, the homeland of her father. This visit had a significant effect on her, not so much for her treatment as a hero and a publicly acclaimed sports ambassador for Haiti, but more for the profound sense of gratitude she experienced after seeing the abject poverty of the Haitian people.

This strong sense of the deprivation of others in her father’s homeland, made her appreciate how much she herself had – not only her natural talent as a tennis player and the opportunity to develop it, but also having the basic things in her life (a home, loving and supportive family, food to eat and water on tap).

Naomi reported that her sense of gratitude helped to ground her and enable her to stay in-the-moment, to really appreciate everything she had and to be able to absorb losses. She indicated in an interview that her sense of gratitude helped her to deal with the disappointment of losing the second set. She reminded herself that she was playing a final against a champion tennis player in Petra Kvitová and told herself:

I can’t let myself act immature in a way. I should be grateful to be here and that is what I tried to be.

As we grow in mindfulness, through developing self-awareness and self-regulation, we can build the resilience to handle the stresses in our life, manage our negative thoughts and emotions and be truly grateful for what we have in life. Having simple mindfulness anchors can help us to be more in-the-moment and less controlled by our emotions that can sometimes blind and disable us.

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

Image source: courtesy of johnhain 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.

Some Simple Gratitude Exercises

The expression of gratitude does not have to be confined to extended gratitude meditations.  In fact, the more often you can find simple ways to express gratitude, the more readily will you achieve a brain makeover from negative thoughts to a positive outlook and impact positively on those you interact with.  It is a two-way street though – an extended gratitude meditation can deepen your overall sense of gratitude while regular expressions of gratitude can keep this positive emotion top of mind and impact your behaviour on an ongoing basis.

Simple gratitude exercises

If you have a suite of simple gratitude exercises, you are more likely to practise them and extend your expression of gratitude throughout the day as different gratitude prompts occur.  Here are some gratitude exercises to get you started:

Making your “thank you” a conscious act

Stephanie Domet suggests that we can improve the quality of our daily expression of gratitude to others by being really present when we say “thank you”.  We can often be distracted, mouth the words as a matter of course without real feeling behind them or become focused on our next action without being really present to the person we are “communicating” with.  The person receiving the communication can sense whether you mean what you say or are just going through the motions.  If you are not present when you say the words, your positive intent is lost as are the benefits for yourself and the other person.

Savour the moment through your senses

Elaine Smookler provides a comprehensive explanation of a 5-minute exercise that involves progressively engaging each of your senses in-the-moment.  She maintains that this practice builds personal resilience when the waves of life wash over you – when things don’t turn out as you expected.  Elaine also provides a guided meditation podcast within her article.  This approach helps to switch your brain from a deficit mentality to one of appreciating life’s small blessings.

Reflecting on your day with gratitude

Towards the end of each day, it pays to look back on the day and reflect on what you have appreciated about your day – the people you have interacted with and the friendships involved, the opportunities that have come your way, the ease of conversation, the chance to achieve something worthwhile, acquiring new skills or knowledge (or enhancing existing knowledge/skills), gaining insights, growing in awareness (both internal and external).  The list of things to be grateful for goes on endlessly once you set your mind to it.  This simple exercise of appreciating the small things in life on a daily basis helps us to break free of self-doubt or negative thoughts and builds our confidence and potentiality.

Building gratitude into your daily life – choosing a simple or extended gratitude exercise

You can build your appreciation and sense of gratitude very quickly through these exercises and deepen your gratitude with more extended meditation practice.  The secret is to head down this path of appreciation and its attendant benefits by choosing something, a simple or extended practice, that you can build into your daily life.  It needs to be something that suits your lifestyle so that you can sustain it over time and make it an integral part of your life.  One gratitude practice will then lead to another and change your outlook on life as well as your interactions.

As you grow in mindfulness through simple gratitude exercises and/or extended gratitude meditation, you will build your awareness of the positive aspects of your life, develop greater resilience and strengthen your relationships.  Time spent reflecting on the things you appreciate each day will bring a rich reward.

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

Image source: courtesy of TheDigitalArtist on Pixabay

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