values – Page 2 – Grow Mindfulness

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)

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Gratitude – a Reflection

In my last post I wrote about simple gratitude exercises. There was one in particular that resonated with me – reflecting on your day. As a result, I reflected on a specific event that occurred the day before. It was a cafe meeting I had with two of my colleagues. Reflecting on this event brought home to me how much I take for granted in my life. I will share my reflections about my gratitude for this interaction in the following post.

Gratitude for colleague 1 – occasional colleague

I last worked with this colleague about six months ago. Despite this elapsed time, I found we virtually took up the conversation “where we left off”. I often marvel at how this occurs – when you are with real friends, you seem to be able to resume “where you left off” even after 6 months, a year or even many years – it’s almost as if you communicate in the ether over time, even when you are going your separate ways.

Underlying this ease of conversation, is a common value system and belief about the inherent goodness of people. In our case, it also relates to an approach to organisational consulting which sets a lot of value on respecting people and seeking to create positive, productive and mentally healthy organisations. It is a rich source of support when you have a colleague, however occasional, that you can relate to so easily and share a common paradigm about people and organisations. I am very grateful for this rich relationship, developed more than three years ago, which has provided me with such professional support.

Gratitude for colleague 2 – weekly collaborator

Over more than a decade now, I have worked weekly with a colleague with whom I collaborate on manager/executive development and organisational reviews and development. While we may not be working specifically with a manager or organisation all the time, we are regularly sharing resources, planning workshops or interventions, reflecting on our activities and following up with clients.

We have in common a shared set of values which among other things encompasses working continuously to develop mentally healthy organisations. We do this through the Confident People Management Program (CPM), a longitudinal, action learning program we conduct with managers and executives in Government agencies throughout the State. In all, we have worked with over 2,000 managers in the past decade or so.

Additionally, we have undertaken organisational interventions at the request of clients who want to increase leadership effectiveness, undertake collaborative strategic planning, develop a positive and productive culture, heal divisions or act on aspects of organisational life identified by managers and/or staff as unsatisfactory.

My colleague has the contacts, the persistence and energy to generate this work – and I regularly express appreciation for this collaborative work and the rich experience and learning that this provides (not to mention the revenue involved also).

I appreciate her courageous commitment to her values and willingness to challenge others when their words and actions do not align with their stated values. Associated with this is the readiness to question her own words and actions through ongoing reflection. This personal commitment to continuous improvement in herself and others is foundational to the success we experience in engaging managers and organisations. It is underpinned by her absolute commitment to meet the needs of our clients, whether they are individuals, groups or organisations as a whole.

There is also an underlying courage and willingness to “have a go” and try something different which is both refreshing and encouraging and has taken us into consulting realms and activities that I thought would not eventuate. This is the inherent developmental aspect of our professional relationship, as we stretch our boundaries to meet the needs of our clients – managers and organisations.

I appreciate too that my colleague does not have “ego” investment in any of the processes we plan for our manager development or organisational intervention activities. This makes it so much easier to plan, explore alternative options, experiment and change course mid-action. It also facilitates the ability for collaborative reflection on action as well as in-action.

I am grateful that our relationship has been built on complementary skills – with my colleague contributing a unique depth of understanding of our public sector clients and their history as well as endless contacts. My contribution focuses on process design and our collaboration has developed my process design skills and provided the support/opportunity to explore new processes and embed different processes into our manager development activities and organisational interventions. We also share a common understanding of group and organisational dynamics and a commitment to action learning and the values that underpin this approach to manager and organisational development.

Underlying all this however, is a common set of values around respecting and valuing people and seeking to facilitate the development of mentally healthy organisations where executives, managers and staff can develop themselves and their organisations. We often describe our work as “enabling organisational participants/groups to have the conversations they should be having”- whether that is managing upwards, sharing values, planning together, resolving conflicts or building each other’s capacity and capability.

I have worked with many colleagues over more than forty years of educating and consulting, and it is rare indeed to have a colleague who brings so much to a professional relationship, who values the relationship above self-interest and is willing to collaborate in the very real sense of the word. My reflection on this cafe meeting brought home to me how much I value this ongoing professional relationship and all that it has enabled me to undertake and achieve. For this, I am very grateful, but I realise how much of this richness I take for granted. Reflecting on various professional experiences with my colleague is a catalyst for this expression of gratitude.

As we grow in mindfulness, we learn to take less for granted and grow in appreciation for the many people and things that enrich our lives. Reflection really aids the development of this sense of gratitude. Through reflection we come to see what others have contributed to our wellness, growth, mental health, sense of accomplishment and happiness. In relationships we can become who we are capable of being. Ongoing reflection helps relationships, professional and otherwise, to develop and grow richer. There is so much about reflection that underpins gratitude. Being mindful helps us to reflect, just as reflection contributes to our development of mindfulness and the associated internal and external awareness.

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

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Cultivating Inclusive Leadership

Leadership in the future world of work presents many challenges, not the least of these being managing the diversity that will confront leaders. Diversity takes many forms – diversity of markets, of customers/clients, of technologies and of the workforce.

As countries around the world become more strongly interdependent, connected through international trade agreements and treaties, the diversity of issues will expand exponentially. This is reflected in complex market relationships involving very significant differences in economic, cultural, political and logistical make-up. Marketing channels differ radically by country and are constantly evolving.

The growing diversity of customers/clients has forced companies and government agencies to become more customer/client-focused in terms of communications, systems, structures and procedures. Underpinning this responsiveness, is the need for leaders to develop a new mindset that puts the customer at the centre of considerations of policy, strategy, organisational culture, staff training and organisational access.

The emergence of new technologies, such as robots and artificial intelligence, demands that leaders are open to new ideas and ways of doing things and are creative and innovative in the way they create and deliver products and services.

The complex shift in the mix of employees versus contractors and part-time versus fulltime, creates new challenges in terms of workforce management. Added to this shifting complexity is the need to provide flexible working arrangements, a development accelerated by the availability of emerging technologies. The growth in an increasingly educated population, with ready access to information globally, also means that leaders will be increasingly dependent on the knowledge and skills of their workforce. This will demand robust self-esteem and increasing capacity to connect and collaborate. Concurrent with these challenges is the need to manage increasing generational diversity in the workforce and the related inter-generational relationships and conflicts.

Taking these macro changes into account will demand that leaders develop the capacity for inclusive leadership – the ability to manage the complexity, uncertainty and disruption of the diversity that is growing on every front.

Traits of inclusive leadership

Juliet Bourke and Bernadette Dillon produced an article published by Deloitte titled, The six signature traits of inclusive leadership: Thriving in a diverse new world. I will discuss each of these six traits and relate them to the diversity issues identified above.

Commitment– according to Bourke and Dillon, research shows that inclusive leadership is more sustainable when it involves a personal commitment to the underlying values of “fairness” and “equity”. While acknowledgement of the business case for inclusion can encourage leaders to be more inclusive, a commitment of heart and mind is necessary to sustain the desired behaviour.

Courage – it takes courage to challenge prevailing norms, structures and policies in the defence of inclusion. Going against non-inclusive thinking and behaviour can lead to isolation and conflict and requires a courageous stance over a sustained period. It also implies vulnerability and readiness to acknowledge our own mistakes and weaknesses.

Cognizance of bias – we all suffer from unconscious bias in our perception of others whether the bias is based on age, sexual preference, culture, economic position or employment status. Bias leads to words and behaviour that undermine inclusion. Unconscious bias creates blind spots resulting from a lack of awareness of the hurt we cause through our non-inclusive perceptions, words and actions. Inclusive leadership thus demands both self-awareness and self-management to prevent bias creeping into our actions and decisions. It also entails understanding of, and support for, people who are experiencing mental illness.

Curiosity – inclusive leadership entails openness to, and curiosity about, other ideas and perspectives. It involves not just recognising differences but also valuing them and learning from them. Curiosity fuels life-long learning – an essential requirement for inclusive leadership. Bourke and Dillon argue from their research that inclusive leaders deepened their understanding of diverse perspectives by “asking curious questions and actively listening“.

Culturally intelligent – cultural intelligence has emerged as a critical leadership trait because of the global mobility of the workforce. Now termed “CQ“, cultural intelligence involves “the capability to relate and work effectively in culturally diverse situations”. It goes beyond cultural sensitivity and entails sustained interest in cultural diversity, a willingness to learn and adapt in culturally diverse situations and ability to plan for associated inclusive behaviour.

Collaborative – as the world of work changes with considerable rapidity and in unpredictable ways, the need to collaborate is paramount for effective and inclusive leadership. This involves creating space and opportunities for sharing of ideas and different perspectives by diverse groups and personalities. Synergy can result from such connections and collaborative efforts. My own research reinforces the fact that collaboration is motivational and engenders engagement, energy and creativity.

As we grow in mindfulness we can develop our emotional commitment to the value of fairness, strengthen our courage and resilience to pursue this commitment, cultivate self-awareness and curiosity and enhance our capacity to collaborate. Mindfulness then will support our efforts to cultivate inclusive leadership in our own thoughts, words and actions and those of others.

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

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Developing Leadership Capacity for the Digital Age

In the previous post, I discussed the challenges posed by the digital age and shared Sky Jarrett’s perspective on how mindfulness can enable a leader to thrive in the new world of work. Rich Fernandez, in his presentation during the Mindful Leadership Online Conference, provided a complementary perspective on what leaders need to do to cultivate “future-ready” leadership capacity. Rich was formerly Director of Executive Education at Google, a Master Teacher for SIYLI and founder of Wisdom Labs .

Rich described future-ready leadership as “having the mental and emotional clarity and balance to meet all of life’s challenges, situations and people that you might encounter”. His presentation focused on how to develop these leadership characteristics.

Developing mental and emotional clarity and balance

Rich identified the following ways to develop these core leadership characteristics for the digital age:

Mindful listening – being present enough to focus on what the other person is saying and sufficiently open to understand their message and be influenced by it so that common ground can be developed. Rich suggested that the American Senator John McCain was an exemplar of mindful listening because he sought “constructive bipartisan dialogue” and enabled continual conversation to reach that elusive middle ground. Mindful listening requires a preparedness to avoid reacting mindlessly, prematurely offering a solution or pursuing an agenda.

Response flexibility – to engage in mindful listening you also need to have what Rich calls “response flexibility”- which is the agility to be able to respond appropriately and in respectful way to the other person’s communication. I have discussed a way to develop response ability in an earlier post.

Values alignment – ensuring that your behaviour actually reflects your personal values. Rich mentioned that Marc Benioff – founder, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce – is an exemplar of values alignment and puts service to the community ahead of profit. For example, he has built meditation rooms on every floor in the new, towering Salesforce building. His organisation practises business consciously so that “stakeholder management” is top of mind and is discussed as often as shareholder management – placing the needs of consumers on a least an equal footing with the wants and needs of shareholders. Rich shared a series of questions that can help a leader check their values alignment – “What are your values?”, “Why are they important to you?”, “To what extent are your words and actions aligned with your values?” [poetic licence used here].

Personal vision – this flows naturally from a consideration of values alignment. So, this is about a vision for oneself as a leader, not the organisational vision (although it is ideal that there is a strong alignment between the two). Rich poses some relevant questions from the Search Inside Yourself Program to help clarify a personal vision, “What is your vision for yourself and your life?”, “What will your legacy be – your personal contribution to the world?”, “If your life exceeded your wildest expectations, what would it look like – what is happening and what are you contributing? [some poetic licence here too]. I previously discussed Goldie Hawn as an exemplar of someone who is committed to a personal vision and has aligned her words and actions in pursuit of this vision.

As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop the desired leadership characteristics to meet the challenges of the digital age. With persistent mindfulness practice, we can develop mental and emotional clarity, achieve balance in our life, progressively expand our response flexibility, and build alignment between our words and actions and our values/personal vision.

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

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Action Learning Challenges the Values of Narcissistic Managers

In a previous post, I highlighted the role that self-awareness and agency (control over one’s work environment) play in developing and sustaining mental health in the workplace. Narcissistic managers undermine self-awareness and block the achievement of agency by managers and staff.

The negative impact of narcissistic managers on self-awareness and agency in the workplace

Narcissistic managers through their distorted self-belief, words and behaviour undermine genuine self-awareness of subordinates by modelling an inflated view of themselves, seeking scapegoats to assign blame even when it is not warranted (and they are to blame) and causing subordinates to doubt their own competence and sanity.

Narcissistic managers also block the development of agency amongst subordinate managers and staff by their micromanagement, unpredictability, unrealistic and unreasonable workplace demands and dishonesty.

The result of this frustration of agency and the underpinning self-awareness, is a toxic workplace that is injurious to the mental health of subordinates and the narcissistic managers themselves. Action learning interventions challenge the values of narcissistic managers and work to reduce their negative impact on the mental health of subordinate managers and staff in a workplace.

Action learning: a challenge to the values of narcissistic managers

Action learning interventions in toxic work environments can help to reduce the negative impact of narcissistic managers through the development of self-awareness amongst subordinate managers and staff and the growth of managerial and employee agency within the organizational unit involved. I have previously described an action learning intervention, undertaken by Rod Waddington in an educational institution, designed to reduce the negative impacts of a toxic work environment.

If we examine the characteristics of narcissistic managers, we can readily see that the underpinning values of such a manager are in direct opposition to those of action learning – the former involves destruction of agency, abuse, divisiveness, exclusiveness, resistance to ideas from managers and staff and an autocratic style of management. Action learning, in contrast, involves increased agency, mutual respect, collaboration, inclusiveness, openness to ideas from managers and staff and a participative style of management.

While the narcissistic manager creates divisiveness through blaming, favouritism and exclusiveness, action learning overcomes this ‘divide and conquer’ approach through the power of collaboration built through mutual respect and inclusiveness. The contrast in values described above reinforces the need to undertake an organization intervention designed to embed a new set of values where a toxic work environment exists. In Rod’s action learning intervention, the participant managers undertook a “values advocacy campaign” – designed to replace the existing demeaning value set with values that enrich the working environment and nurture engagement, creativity and commitment.

When you enable agency through action learning, managers must take up the responsibility that goes with it, including the need to let go of control and create opportunities for staff growth and development through delegation of authority. This grows the manager’sown positive influence while contributing to the sense of agency of staff and the mental health of all concerned.

As people develop self-awareness and agency in their workplace through action learning, they grow in mindfulness and the capacity to act constructively on their environment in the present moment, rather than being focused on the uncertainty, doubt and instability that arises in a toxic work environment.

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

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The Last Lecture – Mindful Living

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

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

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

Lessons on mindfulness from Randy Pausch

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

Show Gratitude

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

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

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

Seeking forgiveness genuinely

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

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

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

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

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

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The 4P’s of Mindfulness in the Workplace

Caroline Welch, Co-founder with Dan Siegel of the Mindsight Institute, presented at the Mindfulness at Work Summit on the topic of the 4P’s of mindfulness at work. The 4P’s are covered at length in her book, The Gift of Presence: A Mindfulness Guide for Women, published in 2020. Caroline’s aim with the book is to encourage and support women to develop the confidence to handle life’s many challenges.

The 4P’s represent ways of bringing mindfulness to the workplace despite the busyness of our lives. The challenge of being mindful at work is made more difficult for women because of the many roles they play and the challenging questions such as, “When should I go back to work after the birth of my child?”, “Can I maintain a career if I take time off?” “How do I overcome the guilt of leaving my child in childcare during the day?” The difficulty, and associated stress, is aggravated by the Type E Woman who attempts to be “everything to everybody”.

Caroline identified the 4P’s as Presence, Pacing, Prioritizing and Pivoting:

Presence – this is foundational and it means being-in-the-moment, realizing that things in life are transitory, consciously being present to people when communicating with them and developing open awareness to appreciate what life provides. Presence is cultivated by mindfulness practice – a daily routine that develops awareness as a habit that will sustain “presence” at work or in the home. Given the challenge of “finding the time” to practice, Caroline suggests adopting a “ruthless” commitment to a single practice that is adopted for whatever time you have available, even one minute or “one breath at a time” – attaching the practice to something you already do can assist to make the practice both easily remembered and sustainable.
Pacing – this is dealing with the “impatience of youth”. Increasingly we want to achieve all at once, particularly in our 20’s or 30’s. Caroline suggests that we should think in broader timespans than just the immediate day, month or year. It means accepting that you cannot achieve everything in life at once, that life is very much about phases with each phase enabling the following phase. It also means accepting the fact that people are living longer nowadays – so everything does not have to be achieved now.
Prioritizing – means being conscious of our values (and those of the organisation) while working through the endless priorities that confront us in the workplace. This also implies letting go of things and delegating to others, or not doing things that are relatively meaningless. With this comes the realization that yesterday’s priorities are today’s waste bin submissions. We need to ask ourselves, “What really matters?
Pivoting – this entails being able to pay attention to the relevant data that confronts us daily and being able to make decisions on that data. This focused attention may mean that you have to leave a job, change career direction, or take on a part-tine or a full-time role, depending on your circumstances.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation practice with “ruthless” commitment to a daily practice we can gradually realize the 4P’s of being mindful at work with less stress, more satisfying achievements and a healthier life.

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

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Meditate with Intention

In the previous post, Replacing Shame with Kind Attention, I introduced the IAA model of mindfulness developed by Shauna Shapiro and colleagues. The model depicts a process incorporating intention, awareness and attitude, with each element reinforcing the other two. In that post, I focused on “attitude” and explored the fundamental stance of “kind intention”, that Shauna relates to caring, gentleness, trust and compassion towards ourselves. Thus “attitude” in this model relates to the “how” we need to meditate to develop mindfulness and realise its benefits.

In the current post, I want to focus on the “intention” component of the IAA model. Shauna describes this as foundational to the Model. In a video presentation about the model, she quotes the definition of mindfulness that she developed with Linda Carlson in 2006:

The awareness that arises out of intentionally paying attention in an open, kind and discerning way.

Meditating with intention is basically being conscious of the “why” – the intent or purpose for your meditation. She describes “intention” as “setting the compass” of the heart – not a destination but a direction.

Jon Kabat-Zinn reinforces the importance of intention when he states that “your intentions set the stage for what is possible”. He explains that he initially thought that the act of meditating was sufficient in itself, but soon came to learn that for personal growth and change to occur, we need to have some aspiration or vision that provides the purpose for meditation practice. Shauna Shapiro, in her own 1992 research, found that intention moves along a “continuum from self-regulation, to self-exploration and finally, to self-liberation” (which, in turn, leads to “compassionate action”).

Shauna’s study confirmed that intention determined the outcomes of meditation, so that if your focus is self-regulation that is what you will achieve. Hence, we need to meditate-with-intent, so that our personal vision and underlying values can be manifested in our words and actions. This then enables us to “rest in the moment” and have stability and clarity about our life. We meditate to realise our personal aspirations in our day-to-day lives, from moment to moment.

As we grow in mindfulness, we sharpen our intention in meditation which progressively becomes an evolving, dynamic motivation for a desired way of life. The more we develop mindfulness, the more we can consciously pursue what we value and realise it our life.

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

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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): A Specialised Mindfulness Approach

In this blog I have been discussing different approaches to mindfulness and mindfulness meditation that are self-initiated and self-directed in the main. Some of the approaches to mindfulness discussed entailed the involvement of a teacher or mentor to guide the participant through various forms of meditation.

One such approach is provided by the Power of Awareness Mindfulness Training conducted online by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Even in this course, led by teachers and mentors, there is ample scope for participants to pick and choose what types of meditations and mindfulness practices they will focus on – the choices are not individually focused or directed.

What is different about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT as the name suggests is an approach that provides therapists with a structured approach to mindfulness development for their clients. This approach is therapist-led with a defined sequence of exercises designed to enable clients to move from the entrapment of destructive thinking to taking effective action guided by their values (committed action). Colleagues vouch for the fact that ACT often achieves the desired results in therapeutic situations.

ACT aims to enable clients to experience a full, rich and meaningful life that is built on internal and external awareness. The approach actively discourages ineffective avoidance strategies and encourages acceptance of pain as a natural part of a life that is lived fully. Just as mindfulness trainers are exhorted to deepen their mindfulness practice, so too ACT therapists are encouraged to practise the ACT approach and exercises to be able to act more consciously and effectively in therapy sessions.

The ACT approach to mindfulness

Mindfulness in the context of ACT is defined by Russ Harris, author of ACT Made Simple, in terms of the quality of paying attention:

Mindfulness means paying attention with flexibility, openness and curiosity.

In this definition, mindfulness is explained in terms of three key elements – awareness through paying attention, an open attitude and flexible attention enabling a narrow or wider focus or a focus on the internal or the external.

ACT incorporates six core processes as part of its therapeutic approach:

Being here now – consciously focusing on the here-and-now, including our inner and outer worlds. Fundamentally, it is about being present in the moment, rather than lost in thought.
Watch what you are thinking – this involves standing back from your thoughts and observing them in a detached way. It means not entertaining them and being caught up in them as if they are reality. Mindfulness expert, Kabat-Zinn suggests that we view our thoughts as bubbles in boiling water floating to the surface and bursting. He provides the liberating idea that “we are not our thoughts” nor should we be captured by the “narratives” in our head. In ACT, the process of observing our thinking is called “cognitive defusion”.
Accepting and being open to painfulness – Russ Harris describes this process as “making room for painful feelings, sensations, urges, and emotions”. ACT provides exercises to develop this acceptance. In our mindfulness discussions, we have offered mindfulness practices such as forgiveness meditation to address this pain and suffering.
Observing yourself – ACT encourages awareness through getting in touch with the “observing self” rather than the “thinking self”. Russ Harris describes the former as “the aspect of us that is aware of whatever we’re thinking, feeling, sensing or doing in any moment”. Mindfulness practitioners encourage meditation practices like somatic meditation to develop this awareness.
Knowing what matters – getting in touch with the way we want to be in the world (our values). Values guide behaviour, give meaning to our lives and facilitate decision making. Consciousness about our values can enable us to lead our lives with energy and vitality and provide mindful leadership for others.
Doing what it takes – this involves doing what it takes, despite pain and discomfort, to live out our values in daily life (described as “committed action” in ACT). It requires congruence between our words and actions and a readiness to commit to “valued living”.

ACT is a therapeutic approach that aims to help clients grow in mindfulness in order to lead a life that is richer and more meaningful, while reducing the impact of harmful thoughts and narratives and pain-avoidance.

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Remember the R.A.I.N.

R.A.I.N. is a meditation process designed to help you when you have a situation where you experience strong negative feelings towards another person. The process was recently introduced by Tara Brach as part of the Power of Awareness Course.

The acronym stands for Recognise, Accept, Investigate and Nurture. Each of these steps can be undertaken during a meditation following an interaction with another person – partner, colleague, child, boss- that disturbs your equilibrium or, if you have the presence of mind at the time, during the disturbing interaction itself. Let’s have a look at what these steps involve.

Recognise your emotions

After adopting an introductory grounding meditation practice, you need to reflect on the upsetting interaction and try to recognise your feelings at the time. As we mentioned previously, identifying and naming your feelings, enables you to tame them. Sometimes, this can be a complicated mix of feelings and other times involve feelings reflecting two different orientations – feelings about the other person and feelings about yourself. For example, you might feel frustration and anger towards the other person (especially, if their behaviour that has an adverse effect on you is repeated often). You might also be anxious that the resulting conflict, and your own inappropriate response at the time, puts your relationship in jeopardy.

Accept the interaction and the contributing factors

Life is not simple – nor is it free from stress and conflict – we are all unique and have different ideas, values, preferences, behaviours and idiosyncrasies. Accepting the reality of the adverse interaction is an important part of moving on. You can wallow in your hurt feelings and maintain your resentment, but this will be detrimental to yourself and the other person. Your anger will pervade your thoughts and distort your perception of the other person and also manifest itself in your behaviour towards them and others. The way ahead is to process your residual feelings, accept what has happened and move onto the investigation step.

Investigate your feelings that occurred during the interaction

This is not a conceptual exercise, where you stay just with your thoughts and objective analysis. It entails being fully embodied – noting where in your body the pain and hurt associated with the feelings resides. What do the feelings do to your body? Are the negative thoughts and feelings expressed as tension in your forehead, tightness in your shoulders, an ache in your back or other physical manifestation? Focusing on the areas of pain and aching, enables you to release the physical unease and the associated thoughts and feelings.

Nurture yourself through the process

It is important to treat yourself with kindness, not scorn or derision. The latter approach leads to low self-esteem and the belief that you are unable to do anything about the relationship because you “lost it” or were inept in the interaction. Caring for yourself is critical, otherwise distress about the other person’s words and actions can lead to distress about what you said and did. This only exacerbates an unsettling experience.

As you emerge from the R.A.I.N. meditation, you will have a strong sense of freedom and the basis for a new relationship with the other person. As you grow in mindfulness, you will be better able to undertake these steps during the interaction itself, rather than afterwards. So the R.A.I.N. meditation can also help you with future interactions with the same person.

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

Image source: courtesy of Curriculum_Photografia 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.