Tami Simon – Grow Mindfulness

Reframing Menopause: Making Sense of the Transition

Maria Shriver, creator of the Radically Reframing Aging Summit, identified aspects of our life that need reframing such as the aging narrative, retirement, life transitions and death and dying. She also mentioned explicitly the negative narrative around menopause and the need to reframe it as “a different stage of life” leading to blossoming, rather than decline. This theme of post-menopausal empowerment is taken up in Susan Willson’s book, Making Sense of Menopause: Harnessing the Power and Potency of Your Wisdom Years. In a podcastinterview with Tami Simon, Susan spoke energetically and insightfully about the disempowerment of the current narrative about menopause.

Salient messages in Making Sense of Menopause

In her interview, Susan covered many aspects of menopause including the physical, psychological and cultural dimensions. Some of the key messages introduced in her interview podcast and detailed in her book are identified below.

The negative narrative – the prevailing narrative around menopause focuses on what can be lost, e.g. looks, sexual drive and physical prowess. This narrative can be disempowering so that some women view menopause as a period of decline rather than the transition to a new phase of life that can be enriching, rewarding and a source of creativity and shared wisdom. She sees her role as helping women to change the narrative and to see menopause in a new lights that leads to proactive action and empowerment.
Physical changes – Susan stresses that the body is forever working in the best interests of the individual, by integrating its functions, accessing its intelligence and continuously adapting to its environment. She argues that women need to understand what the body is trying to achieve and to work with it rather than against it. She suggests that women can move beyond the symptomatic level and their conditioning arising through being “marinated” in the pharmaceutical solution to everything. Susan explains too that part of the hormonal changes occurring in menopause actually “trigger the creative centers of the brain”.
The sharing of wisdom – Susan argues that what is needed is a new narrative about menopause that recognises it as a time for “thriving” and for women to access their creativity and wisdom. She identifies the post-menopausal wise woman as someone who has worked on their “inner landscape” so that she “really knows who she is” and is comfortable enough in herself to own her self-identity without being dependent on the opinions of others. The wise woman too, in her view, who takes the “long view” – being present in the moment but not captured by it, and being able to see beyond limiting ideologies, narrow worldviews and short-term time horizons. The long view includes consciousness of community and a desire to make a contribution drawing on a woman’s innate gifts and wisdom accumulated through life experiences.
Role models of the wise woman – Susan suggested that there are increasing examples of the post-menopausal wise women, some of whom will be presenting at the Radically Reframing Aging Summit. She also mentioned Hazel McCallion as a model of a wise women – a woman who became a Mayor in Ontario in her 60’s and retired at 95, after focusing on building community and the welfare of people she served. Another example that comes to mind is Edith Eger who at 92 wrote The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life– a reflection on lessons learned in her time in Auschwitz and, subsequently, as a world-renowned and highly accredited trauma counsellor.
Need for ritual – Susan maintains that there is a need for ritual “to bring menopause to a conscious place”. In the podcast and her book, she describes her own ritual for menopause as a point of transition to a new and fulfilling phase in her life. She makes the point that in Western Society, unlike many other cultures, we do not have established rituals to celebrate rites of passage such as puberty and menopause. Susan strongly suggests that women can use their creativity to design their own ”cloning ceremony” that celebrates their post-menopausal transition to a “Wise Woman”. She explains that such a ritual has four key elements – acknowledging what has been left behind, acknowledging the gifts brought forward, a commitment to a new phase of life through engaging creativity and sharing wisdom and a number of witnesses drawn from friends or the broader community (that makes the commitment public). She suggests that women need to overcome the reticence experienced in the West to talk about life transitions affecting them and engage friends and family in conversation about what is happening for them.
Lifestyle choices – Susan suggests that women need to develop a ritual around eating, sleeping and exercising. This establishes a “body rhythm” and enables the body to provide the necessary amount of energy when required. She notes that many women live on adrenaline pushing themselves to the limit and causing their body to be in a continuous state of fight or flight – which runs down energy and causes the adrenals to continuously make adjustments to manage blood sugar levels.
Intimate relationships – Susan notes that while some women report that their sex drive diminishes with menopause, other women report that their post-menopausal stage represents “the best years ever in terms of sex”. She contends that a key factor in these differences is a woman’s sense of connection with their partner – a feeling of connection enhanced through communication about present moment feelings and bodily disposition, as well as about shared future goals.

Susan provides further ideas and resources to help women navigate the menopausal life transition through her website, Making Sense of Menopause – where she provides further podcast interviews she has been involved in (or will be in the future) and also her blog posts.

Reflection

Menopause, like other life transitions, impact women on multiple levels – physical, psychological, cultural and emotional levels. Susan and Maria both strongly support the idea of changing the narrative about menopause from one of loss and depletion to one of women gaining empowerment. They stress the gift of menopause lies in greater access to creativity and wisdom for women and the positive energy and sense of achievement that comes from creatively sharing their wisdom with others in the form of teaching, managing, writing, performing, painting, counselling or any other endeavour that utilises their knowledge, skills and life experience.

As women grow in mindfulness and self-awareness, they are better able to make the transition to post-menopausal life. They develop a deeper sense of who they are, what they are capable of, and how they can contribute to the quality of life for other people.

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Image by silviarita 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.

Conscious Aging: Reframing for Health and Happiness

Maria Shriver – author, journalist and activist for healthy aging – recently spoke to Tami Simon about the Radically Reframing Aging Summit that they are collaborating on to promote a balanced view of aging. Maria is the founder of Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) which she established after her mother died of Alzheimer’s and following her awareness that two thirds of people living with Alzheimer’s or Dementia in America are women and the same percentage of carers for these sufferers are also women. Maria was conscious that there was a lack of research and education about women’s Alzheimer’s and she set out to address this deficiency by funding research and education about Alzheimer’s management and prevention through the Movement which also engages in advocacy.

In the interview podcast with Tami Simon, Maria discussed several topics that will be covered in the Summit and explained some of the background to bringing together a range of “groundbreakers” drawn from many fields including performers, neuroscientists, medical professionals, psychologists, and entrepreneurs – all of whom have broken through the mythical “age barrier” to achieve outstanding results in work and life in their later years.

Fundamental to the Summit is the realisation that there are lots of myths about aging and unhelpful “narratives” that disempower people from achieving a healthy and productive life as they grow old. While numerous narratives exist for early life up to and including age 40 (e.g. establishing a career, getting married and having children), there is very little in terms of positive narratives about aging and the later years of life. One of Maria’s goals is to establish new “aging narratives” through the words and example of “groundbreakers”, some of whom are presenters at the Summit.

Some lessons from the groundbreakers

In the course of the podcast interview, Maria highlighted some of the key insights and lessons gleaned from the groundbreakers and she identified Tami Simon as one of them [Tami established her multimedia company Sounds True in 1985 to promote mindfulness, mental health and spirituality in business and now has over 600 podcast interviews with leaders in these fields]. The insights and lessons cover areas such as the following:

Reframing the aging narrative – the problem with the mainstream aging narrative is that it induces fear and prevents proactive actions to live later years in a meaningful, healthful and optimum way. The focus on deterioration with aging, instead of potentiality, induces fear about the future and the possibility of chronic ill-health, Alzheimer’s and loneliness. People become fixed in their ways, lacking initiative in dealing with their health and happiness. Maria is determined to promote positive stories about aging and change the dominant narrative. She points out that the groundbreakers presenting in the Summit proactively work on their mind, their body and their overall frame of mind. They age consciously – reframing aging so that they experience health and happiness. They work to achieve a designer future.
Reframing retirement – the old narrative about retirement involved finishing a career and engaging in some hobbies while leading a relatively sedentary life. Reframing the retirement narrative involves a change in mindset that views the best years of life ahead, rather than behind. Groundbreakers live a life that inspires themselves and others. They choose to work on what matters to them (something that they are passionate about); what “speaks to them” at the time (given their life experience, skill set and lessons learned); and what brings them joy, happiness and fulfillment. They are able to flourish, enrich their life and deepen their life experience. Pursuing a purpose that energizes them and enables them to tap into their creativity. My brother Pat was an example of this when in his early 70’s (until he was 81), he started “virtual walking” (covering more than 25,000 kilometres) to raise funds for his aged care centre, Sinnamon Village. Maria also shares the story of a woman who was retired by her law firm (because she was 60!) and went on to become a full-time art instructor at an Art School (a long-held dream of hers). We are able to rewire and, like super-agers, pursue a life energised by a purpose and mission, access our creativity by challenging ourselves and adopt a mindset that sees ourselves as active and healthy. The principle of changing the retirement narrative is also captured in Bob Bradshaw’s book, Don’t Retire to Expire: “Once you wake up, everything else is optional”.
Alzheimer’s prevention – given her family history, Maria was very determined to prevent Alzheimer’s, not only for herself, but also for the wider community through her Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM). She recognised that the presence of Alzheimer’s in your parents is not a major determinant of whether you will experience Alzheimer’s or not – there are other factors such as the way you live that have a greater influence. The Harvard Medical School in their report, Alzheimer’s Disease: A guide to diagnosis, treatment and caregiving, confirms the view that the major determinant of Alzheimer’s is lifestyle, not family history. In the podcast, Maria shared what she does personally to ward off Alzheimer’s in line with current research into Alzheimer’s prevention and what is beneficial for a healthy brain and heart. She explained, for example, that she exercises, tries to get adequate and quality sleep, reduces stress in her life (where possible), sets about learning new things and watches her diet and nutrition (no longer for weight-loss reasons but for the health of her mind and body).
Reframing life transitions – Maria highlighted the constant need for adaption in life as we experience periods of transition, e.g. marriage breakup, loss of a job, children leaving home, extended marriages or establishing a new relationship in later life. Many of these transitions involve reframing one’s identity (e.g., identity changes because you are no longer a carer, paid employee of an organisation, or a provider of a home for your own children). There can be a feeling of loneliness with the “empty nest” or a sense that you are “not needed anymore”. The feelings of loneliness can be compounded by the death of a partner, close relative or friend. Maria suggests that to make the transition we need to respect our feelings and face them while trying progressively to figure out a way forward for ourself. She maintains that grief is a real challenge as we age because we lose people and, as a result, grief is an inevitable accompaniment of the aging process. Jenée Johnson provides some sound advice on coping with grief.
Reframing death and dying – as we age and get closer to our death,it is natural to fear dying and to avoid conversations about this inevitable experience. However, many mindfulness experts encourage meditating on death as a preparation for dying. Maria informs herself about the dying process through her journalistic stories on near death experiences and the Hospice Movement. She maintains that it is an ongoing challenge for all of us to work out “how to live well and how to die well”. Maria contends that regrets are normal when we die and that we should die with as few regrets as possible through feeling that we have made the most of our life and used our gifts to enhance our own life and that of others. Franks Ostaseski, an expert in the process of dying and death, suggests that we go one step further when thinking about past regrets. He argues that we should replace regret with remorse so that we are motivated to do, and say things, differently when we reflect on what we have done or said, or failed to do or say.

Reflection

Maria points out tha t different cultures (such as African Americans) have a much more positive view of aging than Western society and respect the wisdom of their elders and, accordingly, treat older people with much deference and a wholesome respect. I found even in Italy, for example, that older people were highly respected (to my surprise, having men and women of all ages offering their seat to me on a tram, even when they were sitting further away from me on the tram – I was in my early 70’s at the time).

Maria suggests that it is critical that we have the conversation in public about aging and its attendant challenges and opportunities. People in Western society have suffered in silence in the past and been subjected to the limiting, prevailing mindset about aging. For example, Maria’s interviewer, Tami, mentioned the challenge of going grey as a woman and the pressures to die her hair a different colour (which she resisted, being a groundbreaker in lots of ways). Maria also encourages us to write about our fears, to get them outside our head and onto paper. She has found that this serves to reduce the fear and related stress and enables her to take appropriate action.

People in chronic pain have additional challenges as they age. Maria expressed empathy and compassion for people in this situation. She stressed the need to express gratitude at each stage of life for what we have and are able to do. In being grateful for our current capabilities, both mental and physical, we are more likely to care for them and develop them, rather than take them for granted. We are also more likely to be compassionate towards others who lack our capabilities because of some form of disability.

Maria shares her own life experiences, lessons and meditation practices in her book, I’ve Been Thinking…:Reflections, Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life. She also expands on the book’s insights through a regular podcast, Meaningful Conversations, where she interviews people she admires and explores life’s challenges and the “art of self-invention”.

As we grow in mindfulness through listening to podcasts, reflecting on our own life and engaging in meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can become more aware of our limiting narratives, be more proactive as we age and tap into our creative energy to pursue a meaningful and fulfilling life purpose.

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Image by annayozman 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.

Calmfidence: Developing Calm Confidence to Face Life’s Challenges

In the interview podcast with Tami Simon of Sounds True, Patricia Stark discussed some of the exercises and tools covered in her book that provide ways to develop Calmfidence – calm confidence in the face of life’s challenges. Patricia’s book Calmfidence addresses barriers to confidence including personal past history, perfectionism and the issue of negative self-talk (or the “inner critic” as she calls it).

Her book tracks her own journey to achieving calm confidence as well as provides very practical approaches to creating Calmfidence in our own life. The focus of her book is on situations where we are placed in the limelight such as public speaking, presentations, being interviewed for a job or performing in a public arena. While these situations are the primary catalyst for her book, the principles and practices she shares are relevant to challenges in everyday life. Fundamentally, in her view, you cannot have genuine and sustainable confidence without inner calm.

Exercises and tools to develop calm confidence

Patricia discussed several exercises and practices that could be used in a variety of situations to be able to approach the inherent challenges with calm confidence. Some of these are:

Managing nerves – Patricia like many other authors and commentators contends that nerves help you be more aware and to prepare properly so as to reduce (but not eliminate) the unknown and unpredictable. Nerves indicate that you care and care enough to be worried about the outcome for the people you are helping. When we are not nervous, we may have stopped caring which may be the result of ”compassion fatigue”. Even highly accomplished professionals become nervous before an event. Alfie Langer, an Australian Rugby League legend, used to become quite nervous and nauseous before a match, even in his latter playing days.

So the challenge Is to manage your nerves, not eliminate them altogether. Patricia recounts the comment of a professional performer who told her that “our job is to get the butterflies flying in formation”, not to do away with them. Patricia maintains that what is necessary is to have the courage to reflect on the uncomfortable feelings and what they say to you and about you. She suggests that failure to address the fear and discomfort will “work against you”. In her words, you have to “start to feel the butterflies” which can help you to become “desensitised” to their presence.

Simultaneously, with facing your nervousness and its bodily manifestation, it is important to reaffirm why you are undertaking the public activity and what people can gain from it. You can reinforce this positive thinking by being grateful for the experience of helping others through utilising your unique mix of experiences, acquired skills and resources.

Snow Globe exercise – during the podcast, Patricia led listeners in this exercise. Basically it involves envisaging your mind as a snow globe and viewing your troubled thoughts as the snow flakes descending slowly to the bottom so that they appear as “fallen snow”. This can be accompanied by taking a deep breath and holding it briefly and releasing it in time with the falling snow and the settling of your troubled thoughts. Patricia asserts from her own experience, that this exercise can clear your mind and slow your heart rate so that you can “think straight” and respond to challenges more appropriately.

Visualising Success – this is not success in materialistic terms but with regard to achieving what you set out to do in terms of helping people. Patricia suggests that you start with deep breathing and as you breathe in envisage absorbing calmness and confidence and as you breathe out envisage letting go anxiety and stress. The next step is to visualise your public activity going really well and people providing feedback that is very positive and affirming. She suggests too that you envisage our voluntary audience as ”allies” who are “eager to learn” rather than uninvolved critics with nothing better to do than critique your offering and/or performance.

Sack of potatoes exercise – with this exercise you envisage your body as a “sack of potatoes” with each lumpy potato (uncomfortable feeling) confined by the sack (the mind) that holds them together and contains them. The next step is to envisage taking a pair of scissors and cutting open the lower part of the sack so that the potatoes (uncomfortable feelings) fall out “one by one”. Then you can envisage the sack of potatoes crumpled in a corner, empty of its ingredients. Tami from Sounds True reinforced the value of this exercise by sharing her own experience of undertaking the “sack of potatoes” practice.

Retreating when you hit a rough patch – Patricia describes a period during the pandemic where she was feeling overwhelmed by the book commitments/deadlines and the need to “protect herself and her family”. She decided that she would “have to retreat” in order to “keep her head above water”. She consciously made the choice to give herself some slack and “do nothing”. Patricia was then able to emerge from this period with renewed energy and heightened insight.

Reflection

I have found in the past that what helped me to calm my nerves before a public activity such as a presentation or a workshop, was to revisit a successful prior event and recapture the positive feelings and audience response and use that as an anchor for a forthcoming event. This taps into your sense of self-efficacy – your belief, based on experience, that you are capable of competently undertaking a specific task.

I also found when I was writing my PhD dissertation that I needed to take a break from it in the latter stages. I achieved this by going away to Stradbroke Island with my family for a few weeks. It was while I was sitting on the bank of Brown Lake, watching the boys play in the water, that I gained new insights in to a model that would effectively integrate the focus and findings of my doctoral research. There are times when we need to take a break, change our focus (from self-absorption to other-focused) and absorb the calmness and healing power of nature.

Patricia’s book contains many personal stories of how “Calmfidence” has played out in her life and offers other exercises and tools besides those mentioned here. If you access her book’s sales page, you can view and download the first 10 pages of her book (in PDF format) where she explains six “Calmfidence Boosters” to help you develop the calm confidence needed to manage life’s challenges.

As we grow in mindfulness through nature, meditation, reflection or other mindfulness practices, we can achieve a calm confidence, gain increased understanding and insight and manage life’s challenges more effectively.

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Image by Ana_J 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.

Barriers to Communicating with Confidence

In a Sounds True interview podcast, Tami Simon interviewed Patricia Stark about confidence in public communication situations such as speeches, presentations, workshops, job interviews and various forms of artistic performance. Patricia is an acclaimed executive coach and an expert in body language as well as having substantial experience as a presenter and producer on radio and TV. She spoke extensively about her book, Calmfidence: How to Trust Yourself, Tame Your Inner Critic, and Shine in Any Spotlight.

Patricia explained that she coined the word Calmfidence to highlight what her experience in communicating in the public arena has taught her – you cannot have confidence without inner calm. She argues that an external show of confidence is not enough – you can be disarmed if something does not go the way you expect. Under the pressure of the moment, you can easily lose track of what you want to say or experience an inability to “think straight”. Physiologically, you can experience the shakes, blanking out, headaches or pain in various parts of your body. Inner calm enables you to manage both your psychological and physical response. It facilitates emotional regulation and provides ways to dampen your physiological response.

Patricia explained that calmness underpinned confidence and involved trusting yourself and having a very clear idea of who you are and want to be. This enables you to develop less reactivity in situations that do not turn out as you expect and to communicate with genuineness and authenticity.

Barriers to confidence

We each have barriers that prevent us from communicating confidently and these barriers are highly individual in origin and intensity. Some of these barriers relate to past experiences while others are generated by the circumstances arising at the time of communicating publicly:

Past history – we each bring to a situation our experiences from the past that can create issues for us in terms of our confidence. We could have been bullied at school or work, made fun of by our peers face-to-face or on social media, made embarrassing mistakes or observed someone experiencing vicarious trauma during a confronting workshop. These negative experiences can make us prone to fearing an unsuccessful outcome when undertaking a public speaking endeavour and can even cause us to freeze during a job interview. I recall interviewing a manager for a job and at one stage he was unable to speak and actually had difficulty breathing. Through pacing, I was able to help him begin to breathe slowly and deeply and settle down for the rest of the interview. Patricia suggests that these past bad experiences need to be explored through “inner work” to bring them more into consciousness so that you can be aware of how they are playing out in your public interactions. She also suggests that you remind yourself why you are communicating with others and what benefit can accrue for them.

Perfectionism – can prevent us from even starting a public communication endeavour for fear of making mistakes. We will always be waiting for the right time which may never occur. Perfectionism can cause us to question what we have done in a public communication situation and generate a continuous cycle of “shoulds” and “what if’s”, e.g. “I should have started another way”, “What if I had given more examples?” We can beat up on ourselves for mistakes or alternatively see them as an opportunity to grow and develop our public speaking skills. Patricia suggests that we adopt a “growth mindset” which involves seeking continuous self-improvement in our practice while viewing mistakes as a learning experience on the path to personal improvement. She suggests that it is unrealistic to expect not to make mistakes because of our human limitations and noted that in the public media arena it is a given that you will sometimes make mistakes. In her view, often “good enough” is what is required and perfectionism can cause us to “freeze”, prevent flexibility and impede our ability to get in the zone and experience “flow”. Like Seth Godin, Patricia suggests that it is better to “start small” to develop the confidence and calmness required to communicate publicly than to not engage in public communication because the task we set ourselves is too big a challenge.

Negative self-talk – these are the thoughts that we are not good enough or that we have no right to put ourselves “out there”. Tina Turner explained that these thoughts can prevent you from making your unique contribution to the world and to positive experiences of other people. Tina actively developed her “inner landscape” through chanting and meditation and this enabled her to move beyond her “comfort zone” and realise her potential in performing for thousands of people. She was able to see the growth potential and “hidden treasures” that lie in life’s challenges, including public communication and performances. Tina recognised that we are not our negative thoughts but have the capacity to let them go and replace them with positive thoughts and expectations of success.

Reflection

Patricia indicated that she had a “painfully shy childhood” – she experienced panic at school, had other people take her place in the line at the shop to buy her lunch and would be shaking whenever she had to do a public presentation at school or college. She has developed many exercises and tools to develop a calm confidence which has helped her in her worklife and enabled her to help over 2,000 clients who have sought her assistance and guidance. She provides these tools and exercises in her book which offers very practical approaches to overcoming fear and anxiety around public communication.

Most people experience fear and anxiety around public communication, even seasoned performers. such as Tina Turner. As we grow in mindfulness through deep reflection, meditation and other mindfulness activities we can gain the self-awareness, courage and emotional regulation to enable us to achieve “Calmfidence” when engaging in public communications. Mindfulness activities assist us to expand our response ability.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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

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

Growth through Mindfulness in the Moment

n a recent interview podcast, Tami Simon of Sounds True interviewed Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul Guided Journal: Writing Practices to Journey Beyond Yourself and The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life’s Perfection. Michael made his teachings available in the form of a series of podcasts covering his perspective on spirituality and being in the moment. The podcast I want to focus on in this post is one Michael titled, Giving Meaning to the Time Between Your Birth and Your Death. Michael offers several insights that can enable us to experience the moment, live life fully and joyfully and realise what he terms “spiritual growth”. His insights revolve around our “acquisitions”, our conditional “okay inside” mindset and our tendency to be “bothering” about life instead of experiencing it.

Our tendency to want to acquire

Michael’s salient point here is that whatever we acquire with our short life on this planet, we cannot take with us at our death – whether it be our house, money, car, marriage, status or personal looks. Yet we spend so much of our lives trying to acquire more. We look to have a bigger house in a better location with more comforts; to make more money to be able to purchase the things that we desire to own; to have a newer car with more comforts and features. As Michael points out, these desired “acquisitions” do little to resolve the issue that we are “not okay inside” – they do not provide lasting satisfaction or happiness. The reality is that we spend much of our life in fruitless pursuit of what we want to acquire – none of which we can take with us when we inevitably die.

Our conditional “okay inside” mindset

Often we believe that we will be “okay inside” if our life was different to what it is. If we were someone who was brighter, more educated, better looking or married to someone who was eminently flexible and available. We are not okay because we cannot accept “what is”. He points out that we carry a lot of “garbage inside” that impacts our experience of the world. Some of this is related to our expectations and our perception of the expectations of others. Part of it relates to a false belief about what brings happiness and fulfillment. He makes the humbling point that we are fortunate to live on earth with all its richness in nature, people, places and beauty– even though it is a speck of dust in a vast universe that is mind-boggling in its magnitude.

Being “bothered” by life instead of experiencing it

Michael maintains that a lot of our ”not-okayness” relates to the fact that we let a lot of life “bother us”. We are bothered by the slowness of the car in front of us, by the lack of our favourite dessert in the supermarket, by the annoying habits of our partner, by the lack of comfort of a chair, by the fact that a restaurant meal did not turn out as well as expected, by… Because of our “bothered” frame of mind, we do experience life as it is. Michael maintains that each experience has personal growth potential – we can learn and grow through every experience, no matter how small.

We just need to “work on ourself” and recognise that we are bringing to each situation a pre-set idea of how it should be. We seek to have others be like we want them to be so we don’t have to change the way we are. We become locked into our way of doing things and stay like we are, unwilling to evolve and be what we are capable of being.

Experience, according to Michael, is a teacher but often we do not want to learn the lesson that experience brings. He argues that “every moment is designed for our growth” and part of the meaning of life is to realise this growth by “getting rid of why we are not okay”. Often current experience can be a catalyst for memories of past bad experiences that we linger over and sometimes build resentment about. Michael argues that these can leave a “scar” unless we learn to let them go – so much of what he suggested related to “letting go”. If we can let go of the “garbage inside”, we can truly experience joy in the moment and free ourselves to feel the beauty that surrounds us and our own openness to life and living.

Reflection

Michael’s podcasts offer real insights into the ways that we block our own happiness and the realisation of our true growth and potential. He offers an online course through Sounds True that inculcates his teachings and cultivates the mindset and habits that enable us to be “okay inside” so that we can experience the world as a place of growth and joy. His course, Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action, incorporates video sessions and journalling for self-reflection.

Throughout his podcast, Michael illustrated his points by making frequent reference to tennis, my favourite sport. He suggested that the experience of playing tennis has growth potential embedded in it. If we make a mistake and hit the ball into the net, we could rail against the wind, the court conditions, the unpredictability of our opponent’s game or the tension of our racquet strings or become bothered by what others might think of us and our competence as a tennis player.

Alternatively, we could experience gratitude for the opportunity to play tennis (which millions of people in the world do not have); appreciation that we can run and hit the ball (which many people in the world can’t do); acceptance that mistakes are an integral part of playing tennis (despite how competent we are at tennis); wonder at the capacity of the human mind to rapidly process all the information required to execute a tennis shot; and learning from what we did wrong in trying to play the shot (positioning, stroke choice, speed and direction of our tennis shot).

As we grow in mindfulness by working on ourselves through meditation, self-reflection and insight courses, we can be more open to experience and less bothered when things don’t turn out as we expect them to. We can feel joy instead of disappointment, gratitude instead of envy and wonder instead of feeling uninspired.

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Image by Antonio López from Pixabay

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

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

How to Set Boundaries for Mental Health and Freedom

Tami Simon of Sounds True interviewed Terri Cole about the nature of personal boundaries, their importance and how to establish and maintain them. Terri is the author of the book, Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (finally) Live Free. In writing the book Terri drew on her own personal experiences, especially as a child, and her work with clients as a psychotherapist. She found that her own “need to please” created “dysfunctional boundaries” and observed that many of her client’s problems stemmed from the inability to establish “healthy boundaries”.

Our “boundary blueprint”

Terri maintains that we each have a “boundary blueprint”, imprinted by the key influencers in our life, including our parents. She suggests that over time we model ourselves on the behaviour and responses of our parents and key influencers, so that we can end up with an approach to setting boundaries that is ineffectual and even mentally harmful. Once we have been able to master the skill of establishing boundaries, we can free ourselves from the hold of habituated responses – which are often designed to avoid conflict, gain approval or maintain the “peace”. As Terri points out, our habituated responses typically involve not being truthful about our own desires and needs.

Becoming a “boundary boss”

The concept of “boundary boss” is not a harsh or unkind approach as the name might suggest but essentially entails being kind to ourselves and others through telling the truth (while leaving room to negotiate about desires and needs). Terri maintains that we all have a “boundary bill of rights” but often fail to understand those rights or know how to assert them. She makes herself incredibly vulnerable by telling stories about her own experience and dysfunctional boundaries, including her failure to assert her wishes with clinicians when diagnosed with cancer.

Terri maintains that becoming a “boundary boss” rests on five key pillars – (1) self-awareness, (2) self-knowledge, (3) self-acceptance, (4) self-compassion, and (5) self-mastery (incorporating self-love as well as “self-celebration”). Throughout her book, she offers exercises and powerful reflections to help the reader build these pillars and move progressively towards “speaking their truth”. Terri cautions, though, that the transformation involves one step at a time, not quantum leaps. It initially involves a very honest exploration of the boundaries we have in place in our relationships – and an understanding of where are boundaries are “loose or “rigid”. Her book is very much about self-exploration to determine a better way to respond to our interpersonal challenges.

Speaking truthfully

At the heart of establishing and enforcing boundaries is speaking truthfully from an enlightened self-knowledge. It means having the courage to present ourselves as we are, not as we think people want us to be. Terri stresses that it also entails having the courage to acknowledge other people’s rights and their right to decline or say “no”, as well as developing the skill to say “no” ourselves in appropriate circumstances. She even offers very clear guidelines on how to say “no” and how to modify your response depending on the interpersonal context (e.g., interacting with a stranger versus with an intimate partner).

Terri suggests that many of the occasions where we do not speak our truth result in resentment or anger, e.g., where we feel that some things in our relationship are not equitable, or that we are being taken for granted or where our emotional needs are not being met. These strong emotions can be indicative of our failure to establish our boundaries. Terri suggests that if we want to look at improving our relationships, we need first to look at ourselves-in-relationship and how we are presenting ourselves. As she asserts, “change begins with us’, with understanding our inner landscape and acting on our insights.

Reflection

Terri’s book is penetrating and exposing – it exposes our behaviour patterns and our behaviour drivers. She does this kindly by first sharing her own transparency and vulnerability. However, Terri does not leave us exposed but offers ways to develop the skills to understand ourselves and assert our desires and needs in a kind and compassionate way.

She offers practical, conversational starters to help us move beyond our habituated behaviour. It is difficult to hear her speak or read her book without feeling exposed but, at the same time, feeling highly supported to begin the journey of personal transformation by becoming our own “boundary boss”.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection, and self-knowledge exercises, we can progressively develop the necessary self-awareness, self-mastery, self-acceptance, self-compassion and self-forgiveness, to establish our boundaries and have the courage to assert them in a mindful and kind way.

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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.

Creating a Meaningful Story for Your Life

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

An opening reflective question

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

A closing reflective question

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

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

The science of a meaningful life

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

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

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

Reflection

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

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Image by Marcel S. from Pixabay

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

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

Domestic Violence: A Catalyst for Pursuing Life Purpose

The challenge we are confronted with during various stages of our life is to decide what is our purpose in life. Finding that unique purpose can lead to a singular focus, total commitment and “unified action”, where your contribution to community – utilising your unique knowledge, skills, experiences, insights, and connections – becomes your unifying focus. Trent Dalton, journalist and author of All Our Shimmering Skies, tells the story of how domestic and family violence became the catalyst for Nicolle Edwards and husband Gareth to identify and pursue their life purpose in the form of RizeUp Australia, a registered charity providing concrete support to women and families fleeing domestic violence.

Trent’s story, Hands & Hearts in the Australian Weekend Magazine (12-13 December 2020), describes the practical help that RizeUp provides in terms of furnishing a house for domestic and family violence refugees. With the help of a large social media following and a very large group of volunteers, Nicolle and Gareth provide home-making support for DV refugees when they move out of a Women’s Shelter to often-unfurnished, emergency accommodation. The list of furniture and accessories provided at no cost (or fuss), including bedding and basic appliances, is extensive and very impressive – all provided and set up for free through donations of goods and money and the donation of time and effort by volunteers in the RizeUp network. Nicolle comments in the article that the “sigh of relief” of the recipient mother is motivation enough for her to dedicate herself to this life purpose.

Nicole realised that she could help domestic violence refugees and their children when she turned to social media to provide help to a DV refugee very early on (before RizeUp was created in 2015). She was amazed at the response and with Gareth created the RizeUp network, which has now set up more than 980 homes for DV refugees and their families. The RizeUp Facebook page provides many photos showing volunteers at work and the kind of practical home support provided by the network. Nicole and Gareth demonstrate the strength and sensitivity required to pursue your life purpose.

My story – my experience of domestic and family violence

I experienced domestic and family violence as a child because my father, who was suffering from PTSD, had become an alcoholic. I heard the many shouting fights between my mother and father because he was spending so much of our income on alcohol. I do recall our family at one stage living off food donations from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. I also recall the times when my mother ended up in hospital after particularly violent arguments.

I left home immediately after Grade 12 to study in Victoria and when I returned five years later the situation had not improved. So, one day when my father was at work, I helped my mother pack her things and moved the both of us to a small house at the back of a shop. The strangely happy part of the story is that after my parents divorced, my father remarried, gave up alcohol and walked every day for an hour for his physical and mental health. He also used to drive my mother to church each Sunday after the separation.

It is only as I grew older that I realised how little support there was for my father whose nerves were shattered after serving in the Australian Army in Singapore in the Second World War. He had been a prisoner-of-war in Changi prison for 18 months following the capture of Singapore by the Japanese. Stephen Wynn describes life after The Surrender of Singapore as “three years of hell”. Not long after my father’s release from Changi, he was deployed as part of the Allied Occupation Forces in Japan.

On reflecting on these early life experiences of domestic violence, I believe that they have unconsciously motivated me to work towards developing mentally healthy workplaces and communities both in my consulting and writing. In my organisational consulting work, I have particularly worked with managers to build managerial mindfulness – consciousness about the impact that their words and actions have on the development of a productive and mentally healthy workplace. In writing this blog, I have focused on mindfulness, mental health, trauma, and leadership as my contribution to providing individuals in the community and managers with resources, practices, and processes to create a mentally healthy life.

What is your story?

Recently, Tami Simon from Sounds True introduced a new publication written by Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond who took ten years to develop and refine the reflective processes incorporated in their book. The transformative and interactive journal, titled What’s Your Story: A Journal for Everyday Evolution, provides a series of strategic questions to help you reflect on your life story (by theme and/or area of your life). The deeply penetrating questions are designed to challenge self-limiting beliefs and throw light on a possible path forward. The authors hope to enable you “to begin living your most authentic, creative, and meaningful life”.

Reflection

Sometimes the search for our life purpose is confounding and confusing – it seems to go around in circles before achieving some degree of clarity. Our life purpose might prove illusive because it can be changing over time. As we gain greater personal insight and experience different catalytic events, we may find that what was truly purposeful and meaningful at one point in our life, is no longer adequate or energizing. As we grow in mindfulness through journalling, meditation and reflection, we can develop an expanded view of what we are capable of, build the courage to pursue our unique purpose, and positively impact others and ourselves. It is in achieving alignment with our life purpose that we find meaning and happiness.

Another useful resource is an eight-week course, Your True Calling, which is available online at Sounds True. The author Stephen Cope, wrote the book, The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling.

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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.

Mindfulness: A Pathway to Wisdom

Recently Tami Simon of Sounds True interviewed Dr. Dilip Jeste, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, on the theme of wisdom and how to be wiser, faster. Dilip’s research interests are aging and the neurobiological basis of wisdom. His exploration of wisdom and the related personality trait of compassion is presented in his book, Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion, and What Makes Us Good.

During the podcast interview, Dilip focused on his obvious passion, the neurobiological basis of wisdom. While stating that the research is in the early stages in terms of completeness and application, he did suggest that people who are wise are guided by the neocortex part of their brain (our logical, analytical capacity), while those who are unwise are more driven by their amygdala (responsible for the fight/flight/freeze response).

In the interview, Dilip explained that to undertake research into wisdom he had to first establish the measurable components of wisdom. His research led him to identify the common elements in multiple published definitions of wisdom in scientific journals. This enabled him to isolate six of the more commonly used components of wisdom. What I wanted to do here is explore how mindfulness can help to develop each of these components – thus serving as a pathway to wisdom. By way of corollary, I would suggest that the journey towards mindfulness is a journey into wisdom and its many components.

Mindfulness and the components of wisdom

Dilip made the point that wisdom is not a single trait but a collection of of traits – like the personality trait of emotional intelligence, it has several components. In the section below, I will explore the relationship between mindfulness and each of the six components of wisdom identified by Dilip.

Self-reflection – this covers the ability to explore your inner landscape and analyse your behaviour in terms of responses to stimuli. There are many mindfulness practices that cultivate this capacity, especially those that encourage exploration of thought patterns, including harmful negative self-stories. Another example is the process of reducing resentment through reflection that I described in detail in an earlier post. Additionally, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a highly developed mindfulness approach designed to guide self-reflection. Dr. Russ Harris, a prominent practitioner and proponent of this approach, has made ACT accessible to individuals who are experiencing self-doubts and negative self-evaluation. His humorous illustrated book, The Happiness Trap Pocketbook, provides a range of exercises that makes self-reflection accessible to anybody.
Prosocial behaviour – where the focus of attention is on the needs of others rather than being totally self-absorbed. This component of wisdom is manifested in displaying empathy and/or taking compassionate action. Listening mindfully to the stories of others can be a form of compassionate action. As we grow in mindfulness, we can become more aware of how our mindfulness positively impacts others, leading to a realisation that we are also engaging in mindfulness for others. Loving-kindness meditation is another form of mindfulness practice that enables us to reach out to the needs of others. More recently compassionate leadership has emerged as a prominent trend in leadership development, driven by the global pervasiveness of mindfulness practices.
Emotional regulation – being able to control your emotions. One of the more consistent outcomes identified in mindfulness research is self-regulation. In their book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson highlighted the traits that are altered and sustained through meditation practices. These included not only self-awareness and social awareness (leading to empathy and compassion) but also what they call “self-management” (another term for emotional regulation). Mindfulness practice can help us overcome our habituated behaviour and our typical response to negative stimuli.
Acceptance – being able to cope with uncertainty, ambiguity, and differing perspectives. Acceptance according to some schools is a defining characteristic of mindfulness, e.g. Diana Winston in her meditation podcasts for MARC UCLA explains that mindfulness involves “paying attention to our present moment experiences with openness and curiosity and a willingness to be with what is”. Mindfulness meditation has been used to reduce anxiety in times of uncertainty. Through mindfulness practice we can also unearth assumptions about differences in perspectives that create walls between us and other people we encounter in our daily lives.
Decisiveness – making decisions despite uncertainties and adversity. Mindfulness meditation can help us to address procrastination. It can also improve our decision-making capacity by highlighting the thoughts and emotions behind our decision-making, exposing our negative thoughts and helping us to maintain focus and achieve clarity. The Mindful Nation UK report states that one of the benefits of mindfulness in the workplace is “improved comprehension and decision-making”.
Spirituality – defined as “continuous connectedness” with something or someone. The focus of connection could be the Bhagavad Gita, Buddha, God, nature, or soul. Connectedness to nature and other people can be enhanced through mindfulness meditation. Allyson Pimentel offers a mindfulness meditation designed to overcome the sense of separateness and strengthen connectedness. Christine Jackman, in her book Turning Down the Noise: The Quiet Power of Silence in a Busy World, offers the view of a Benedictine monk that prayer itself is a form of meditation – by praying you are connecting with God or some other deity through mindfulness (p.72).

Reflection

This discussion highlights some of the ways that mindfulness can provide a pathway to wisdom – approaches to developing the components of wisdom. As we explore each of these components within our mindfulness practice, we can move closer to wisdom. We could focus on a single component to overcome a deficiency – e.g. Dilip stated that he was working on strengthening his “prosocial behaviour”, specifically compassion. Alternatively, we can aim to grow in mindfulness and wisdom more broadly by adopting different mindfulness practices. The research by Davidson and Goleman confirm that mindfulness meditation can alter our brains, our minds, and our bodies.

Dilip’s research confirmed that some people grow in wisdom with age through the recently identified facility of neuroplasticity. He maintained that people who are active as they age – combined with an openness to new experiences and making changes in their life – can grow in wisdom. In speaking of activity in this context, he referred to being “active physically, psychologically, socially, and cognitively”. As we use different forms of mindfulness practices – e.g. mindful walking, mindful listening, mantra meditations, Tai Chi or yoga, journalling, loving-kindness meditation and mindfulness research – we can increase our level of activity across the dimensions that Dilip identified.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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

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

Insights Into Meditation Practice

Tami Simon from Sounds True interviewed world-renowned meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, about the nature of meditation. The interview podcast titled, Beginning Anew, provided some valuable insights into meditation practice and its outcomes. By way of illustration of the many applications of meditation, Sharon spoke of her meditation work with the Garrison Institute helping to develop a “culture of wellness” amongst domestic violence health care workers. She also mentioned her meditation work with nurses and international refugee workers who experience vicarious trauma because of the trauma of others that they experience every day and feel isolated because of their inability to talk about the truly disturbing things they encounter. Some of the insights into meditation practice from her interview are summarised below.

Insights into how we can become renewed through meditation practice

Sharon’s interview podcast provided considerable insight into the nature of meditation and its personal impacts – the longer and more consistently we practise meditation, the more profoundly we will experience these impacts:

Seeing possibilities – when we are caught up in our difficult emotions and seemingly trapped, we tend to experience “tunnel vision”. In the face of disruptive change, which is ever-present, we tend to focus on the “endings” rather than the “new beginnings”. We can also become obsessed with projecting an adverse future onto our mind’s screen. We become locked in, unable to see possibilities and the potential for new beginnings – the ability to “begin anew”. Meditation stills the mind and enables us to identify creative options – it releases our creativity in times of change and challenge.
Gaining understanding – Sharon highlights this dimensionof meditationby focusing on the difference between guilt and remorse. Guilt in her words is a form of “lacerating self-hatred” where we beat up on ourselves for our mistakes, deficiencies and harmful behaviour. We convince ourselves that we will never change but will continue to be hurtful towards others. Remorse, on the other hand, is genuine sorrow for causing hurt to others together with the ability for self-forgiveness. Understanding, developed through meditation, releases us from being “mired in the pain and exhaustion of guilt” and enables us to have the energy, motivation and will to change. Sharon describes understanding as “a tremendous tool”.
Changing our perspective – if we focus only on the things that are wrong or missing in our lives, we will miss the things in front of us that generate well-being and possibilities. If we get locked into a pattern of negativity, we will lack the ability to “see clearly” – we will not be in a position to “serve ourselves or others”. Research at the HeartMath® Institute demonstrates that negative emotions creates chaos in our nervous system while positive emotions “can increase the brain’s ability to make good decisions”. Sharon points out that focusing on the negative in any situation disables us while insight gained through meditation can “create change and the context for change”.

Reflection

We can become trapped in a created, negative reality with the perception of no way forward, and become trapped in guilt about our past words and actions. Sharon maintains that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we can open our eyes to possibilities, gain a real understanding of the difference between disabling guilt and enabling remorse and develop a perspective on change that enables us to move from negativity to positivity and sound decision making. Sharon’s Insight Meditation Kit, developed with Joseph Goldstein, provides the tools and resources to help us remove hindrances to personal growth and develop the energy for personal change.

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Image by Ioannis Ioannidis 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.