Sunday 31 March 2019
Friday 29 March 2019
The Four Remembrances
When we attune to the reality of impermanence and death, we remember what most matters to us. But in daily life we can lose precious swaths of time in a reactive trance, on our way somewhere else, and lost in problem solving, judgment and worry. This talk reflects on four remembrances or practices – Pausing, Yes to life, Turning toward love, and Resting in awareness – that help us awaken from trance and live true to the loving presence that is our essence.
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Mindful Books to Refresh and Renew this Spring
AnthropoceneEdward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, and Nicholas de Pencier • Goose Lane Editions
It’s a museum exhibit, a movie, a podcast, and a book—all in service of a bold notion that shakes you into an appreciation for just what human life on this planet means. The Anthropocene, so the hypothesis goes, is our current geologic age, wherein the largest effects are not a result of natural events (such as volcanism or glaciation) but rather the outgrowth of human habitation, and it is the current passion of master photographer Edward Burtynsky and his colleagues. The book and the movie depict stunning landscapes and tell poignant stories that let us know the depth of the effect we’ve been having during our short history on this rock. It’s one thing to read about it. It’s another to see pictures that put you in places you never would choose to go.
The book and the movie depict stunning landscapes and tell poignant stories that let us know the depth of the effect we’ve been having during our short history on this rock.
In 2017, the Garrison Institute honored Burtynsky as a contemplative—in the sense that his work causes you to pause and reflect. His enormous, sweeping, detail-rich pictures of “global industrial landscape”—mines, factory farms, and manufacturing plants, to name a few—convey a strange beauty, which is part of their allure. As in his acclaimed film and book Manufactured Landscapes, he invites us to linger on images not easily described as beautiful or ugly. They are simply striking. He is not a scold, telling us all that we’ve done wrong. He’s an artist and reporter, showing us the full spectrum of life on earth. If we admire the fine things the earth brings us, we ought also to appreciate what havoc may be wrought in places normally hidden. As Burtynsky’s colleague and collaborator Nicholas de Pencier said, “It is my responsibility to use my camera as a mirror, not a hammer: to invite viewers to witness these places and react in their own individual fashion.”
Anxiety, Stress, and Mindfulness: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to WellnessAndrew Safer • 2nd Tier Publishing
Mindfulness is often popularly characterized as focusing on a kind of bliss-filled, exultant present moment, as if life were an endless series of stunning Instagram posts. Andrew Safer knows differently. He himself has known hardship, and he’s worked with lots of people in difficult circumstances: youth in crisis, prisoners, addicts, people struggling with mental illness. He teaches mindfulness in Newfoundland, a very earthy place, so he imbues Anxiety, Stress, and Mindfulness with a lot of heart and a celebration of the fact that mindfulness shines brightest when it helps us through our darkest hours.
A Sloth’s Guide to Mindfulness Ton Mak • Chronicle Books
“Some days, everything is annoying,” observes author Ton Mak, a Shanghai-based artist and meditation enthusiast. “We forget the small happy things. Happy things that are already within us and around us.” Just such a small happy thing is the star of this book, a sloth—the most adorably lethargic critter out there—who in his “philoslothical” (arrrgh) relaxation represents a counterpoint to our hurried and harried lives. The sloth illustrates basic methods for mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises, and guided visualization, while reflecting lightheartedly on how they help us move through life. Nothing comprehensive—but then, sometimes all we need is a gentle reminder to take it slow.
The Secret Wisdom of Nature: Trees, Animals, and the Extraordinary Balance of All Living ThingsPeter Wohlleben • Greystone
First with The Hidden Life of Trees, then The Inner Life of Animals, followed by The Weather Detective, and now The Secret Wisdom of Nature, Peter Wohlleben is on a roll. In each of these little books, released in rapid succession, Wohlleben presents scientific evidence with the exuberant wonder of your favorite high school teacher, the one who loved nothing better than a field trip to the woods.
The Secret Wisdom of Nature seeks to increase our empathy for the living things that surround us, including our fellow humans, and to take time to appreciate how important our home is—not the home that has walls, doors, windows, and a roof, but rather our bigger home. How easy it is to forget something so simple as the beauty and necessity of light, its life-giving power. When we see how vital the cycles of light and darkness are to the balance of nature, we can come to appreciate the consequences of our predilection to bathe the whole world in artificial light.
How easy it is to forget something so simple as the beauty and necessity of light, its life-giving power.
Wohlleben has been accused by fellow scientists of straying too far from science, of being too emotional, making trees and animals and even the weather seem human. In the epilogue, he defends his approach, asking whether “a language stripped of emotion” can “even be called a human language.” For Wohlleben, so long as we treat our natural world as just another machine, we will lack the empathy required to care for it as we would a beloved family member.
Podcast ReviewCBC RadioEpisode: Wearables go beyond fitness tracking to help people with chronic health conditions
Rapidly evolving technologies are revolutionizing health science, a prime example being wearable health trackers—think the FitBit, but capable of feats like tracking the blood glucose of diabetics, or monitoring blood pressure, via a tiny patch on the skin. For people with chronic illness, this may take the constant vigilance and guesswork out of maintaining health. But for healthy people, these devices—like self-driving cars that “remember” the route for us—may tempt us to ignore the feedback we’re always getting from our body, rather than growing to better understand that feedback.
On Being with Krista TippettEpisode: The Magic Shop of the Brain, with Dr. James Doty
Most people don’t appreciate “the power of their intention to change everything,” says James Doty, a neurosurgeon who also directs Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. He’s talking about the scarcely understood potential of the human brain, but also about the equally miraculous power of compassion arising from it. Doty—for whom learning present-moment awareness as a teenager was transformative—considers our brains’ suppleness (that is, neuroplasticity) to hold the key to creating “an environment where we ultimately can flourish, and give those around us the opportunity to flourish.”
Freakonomics RadioEpisode: Think Like a Winner
When we say we’re “off our game,” it’s understood that there is a psychic aspect involved—a preoccupation, a case of the “blahs,” a nagging self-doubt. Whatever we’re seeking to improve at in life, being able to get back on our game is a crucial skill. In this episode, some well-known athletes describe how their mental game impacts their competitive edge. For many professional athletes, for example, game prep includes affirmative self-talk and visualization. If that sounds a bit woo-woo, just take it from baseball legend Bob Tewksbury: “Confidence is a choice. A lot of people think it’s a feeling. But if you wait for that feeling, it may never come.”
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Thursday 28 March 2019
Meditation: Saying “Yes” to Reality (17:38 min.)
Our suffering comes from tensing and resisting the life that’s here. This meditation guides us to relax and awaken our body and senses, and resting in presence, allow life to be as it is. As our “Yes” to the changing flow becomes full, we discover the freedom of awake awareness itself.
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Monday 25 March 2019
Friday 22 March 2019
Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 2
This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness.
Includes a meditation to guide us in working with pain.
Life is a garden, not a road. We enter and exit through the same gate wandering, where we go matters less than what we notice ~ Bokonon
The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.”
Listen to Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 1 here.
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Thursday 21 March 2019
Meditation: Being Here (with community OM’s) (20:43 min.)
We miss many moments of this precious life drifting in a virtual thought world. This meditation helps us collect and calm ourselves with the breath; relax through our bodies; and then include the changing dance of sounds, sensations and feeling in open awareness. Our practice is to recognize the quality of Hereness, and when we drift, return again to this open presence, relaxing with the changing flow of life.
“…learning to relax with the flow of life… to be fully here.”
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Meditating on the Beauty and the Devastation of our Natural World
As I sit by the ocean, I can revel in the silky surface of the water, the light catching the crest of waves, and be mesmerized by its restless beauty and vast power. Yet I also can’t help thinking of the creatures that lie within it: the diminishing shoals of tuna and dwindling populations of porpoises.
Whenever my heart feels torn in this way, I remember that where we habitually place our heart and mind becomes our natural inclination. What we focus on determines to some degree our sense of well-being. We can’t ignore the ecological crisis. We are here because society has refused to look squarely at this complex problem. However, does it serve the greater good to dwell only on the catalog of data about climate change? Such single-pointed focus can lead to despair, hopelessness, and worse.
On my walk I can dwell on the smoke, the acrid smell, the diminished visibility, and the destruction those fires bring. Or I can shift my attention to what is not burning up. To the Indian paintbrush flowers at my feet on my walk, or to the wave of pelicans who fly in exquisite formation along the coast. I can take in the elegant trees that reach their limbs skyward and the beautiful eucalyptus bark that peels like skin, while their leaves cast a dreamy, shadowy light upon the lush undergrowth.
Mindfulness teachings point us to meet the present moment as it is: We behold both the beauty of nature and the devastation that is occurring. We see the folly of overly romanticizing the past or drowning in doomsday scenarios of what’s to come. We hold predictions about the future lightly, however certain they’ll appear, as we can never know for sure what may unfold.
The question I hear from many people is: How do we hold the pain of the earth at this time? My answer is simply to grieve. To let yourself feel the depth of the pain and let the tears flow.
In learning the power of inclining our mind, we can also turn our attention to the tremendous number of constructive solutions that millions of people around the planet are working on. Organizations around the world are figuring out how to remove plastics from the ocean, draw carbon from the air, restore habitat for tigers in Nepal, and clean up the Ganges river. The list of businesses, municipalities, and nonprofits crafting creative solutions to the climate crisis is vast and increases every day.
These times require our mindfulness practice to hold a wide view. It asks that we hold the harsh reality of the eco-crisis, the beauty of what is still here and thriving, and simultaneously the uprising of ordinary people working all over the planet to steward, protect, and preserve the earth in sustainable ways. I have walked through scorched forests. I can look at the blackened trunks and feel a tender grief. And I can also focus on the emerald green shoots that rise out of the ashes. Both are true. Both demand our attention.
To be awake today is to learn how to hold paradox in your mind and to dwell in ambiguity. Indeed, the question I hear from many people is: How do we hold the pain of the earth at this time? My answer is simply to grieve. To let yourself feel the depth of the pain and let the tears flow. Allowing grief to move through allows movement and a responsiveness to rise out of those tear-stained ashes. It helps melt the frozen numbness that thwarts effective action.
This is an excerpt from the feature Grieving For and Loving Our Planet. Read the whole story in the April issue of Mindful Magazine.
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Wednesday 20 March 2019
Tuesday 19 March 2019
Five Ways to Practice Mindfulness When You’re Busy
There are days when life just doesn’t make it easy to stop and take time for a longer period of meditation. But why let that stop you from injecting mindfulness into your life in small does throughout the day? Being mindful throughout the day isn’t about doing everything as if you were handling a delicate porcelain vase. It’s more about taking short breaks from the momentum of persistent thoughts that can lead to needless stress.
Here are five suggestions for quick doses of refreshing mini-breaks spread across your day:
1. Start your day with a pause
When you go to wash up in the morning, as you look in the mirror, use it as a chance to take three conscious breaths before you start your mental engines. Then, as you brush your teeth, go slow and pay attention, using the sensation to bring your attention back to the moment, despite the pull to start revving up your thoughts about the day ahead.
2. Savor your morning coffee
When you’re drinking your favorite morning beverage, you’ll taste it more and enjoy it better if you sip it, occasionally taking pauses to experience the full sensation of what your doing. This little act can help to set the tone for the day: use your senses to bring you back into your body.
This little act can help to set the tone for the day: use your senses to bring you back into your body.
3. Take a mindful walk
At some point every day, take a short walk—even if it’s only around your house or office—paying full attention to each step as your foot hits the ground, and the other foot lifts, swings, and lands. If you can make the walk slightly longer, you’ll get some exercise while also getting out of your head and into your body for a few minutes. If the walk is on the way to yoga, an exercise class, or a swim, so much the better!
4. Practice eating with gratitude
At your evening meal, take a moment to be thankful that you have good nourishing food and give some thought to all the people needed to make it possible. This little moment of gratitude can shift your attitude to enjoying a little feast rather than just getting the meal over with. If you’re eating with others, see if you can enlist them into pausing at the beginning and taking a break from devices.
5. Slow down before you sleep
Take a moment with your feet on the floor before you get completely into bed. Just take 3 to 5 minutes to follow your breath as it goes out, noticing thoughts, and letting them dissolve, returning to the breath. Now, get some rest.
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Why Compassion Leads to Greater Success at Work
Have you ever seen compassion listed as a required skill in a job description? Likely not, because most workplaces don’t consider compassion a skill—let alone a desired attribute of employees. What does it mean to be compassionate at work? It can be as simple as assuming others have good intentions even when a situation (for whatever reason) doesn’t go as planned, rather than defaulting to blame or confrontation. Despite the many tensions and errors that often arise at work, most people don’t wake up actively planning to act like a jerk or make others uncomfortable.
“For too many people, their workplace is an interruption from their time off, a form of paid suffering,” says Jon Ramer, founder of Compassion Games, a global organization dedicated to creating compassionate thinking and compassionate action in everyday life. “If more workplaces built their culture on a foundation of compassion, people would be more satisfied and dignified at work. They would see a connection between their deepest human values and the way they’re treating others—and are being treated—at work.”
“If more workplaces built their culture on a foundation of compassion, people would be more satisfied and dignified at work.”
Getting business leaders to care about compassion can be difficult because, as Ramer explains, “measuring the impact of compassion and how it translates to the bottom line is a new concept, making it hard to justify resources to build this skill at work.” But without it, employees burn out, managers become fatigued, and customers can feel it in the quality of experience.
What are some benefits of creating caring workplaces? “When businesses commit to developing compassion, they benefit by demonstrating a genuine concern about the culture in which their business operates. This impacts the quality of customer service as well as how employees interact with each other and with vendors,” Ramer says. “Compassion can build camaraderie among staff and directly impact the loyalty and retention of employees as well as customers.”
For many, compassion isn’t easy, especially at work. That’s because, as modern humans, we have created a work culture that generally doesn’t support failure and humility. At work, we seek recognition in the form of “getting credit.” When, for whatever reason, we aren’t given credit, it has become a habit to blame others rather than practice self-compassion (through self-reflection, self-accountability, and acceptance of our own imperfections). Being compassionate means being vulnerable, which means not being “perfect.” In a world often fixated on perfection and recognition, vulnerability can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. But compassion is a worthwhile risk to take, and it’s started gaining workplace acceptance, supported by the works of Brene Brown, author of Daring Greatly, and Marshall Rosenberg, author of Non-Violent Communication.
Compassion in the workplace is not unlike compassion in any other place. It starts with a simple choice. A choice to be open to feel what others are feeling, or at the very least acknowledge that people don’t show up with the intention to be mean, difficult, or rude. It’s possible your colleagues are facing struggles: single parenting, health issues, divorce, deaths, disabilities, etc. We really don’t know another’s experience before we come together in our common workplace. So next time you’re at work and things don’t go your way, take a deep breath and assume your colleagues have positive intentions.
This article also appeared in the February 2016 issue of Mindful magazine.
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Monday 18 March 2019
How to Cultivate Meaning and Well-Being Through Simple, Everyday Actions
Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl suggested that the search for meaning is the primary motivation in human beings. It is an essential part of our existence, from young children asking “why” questions to make sense of the world to adults seeking more meaning at work or amid a midlife crisis.
Throughout history and across cultures, other social scientists, philosophers, religious scholars, poets, and laypeople alike have grappled with the all-important issue of meaning. Today, more and more research underscores that experiencing meaning may improve our well-being and help us cope and thrive. And the modern explosion of knowledge, abundance of choice, and fast pace of technology only make existential questions about meaning and purpose more pressing.
But meaning is hard to put our fingers on. The meaning of life—or even the meaning of our life—can feel like a big abstract question without any clear answer, no matter how much we ponder it.
Frankl argued that “what matters is not the meaning in life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” In other words, meaning manifests in what we actively and consciously choose to do with our lives. Experiencing meaning in life is a concrete question that has everything to do with our priorities, with how we spend our time—at work or at play, with others or alone, in competition or in service.
Experiencing meaning in life is a concrete question that has everything to do with our priorities, with how we spend our time—at work or at play, with others or alone, in competition or in service.
Was Frankl right? I decided to conduct a study to begin to investigate if we could cultivate more meaning and well-being through such simple, everyday actions.
I developed a survey measuring how much individuals seek out meaningful experiences in everyday life—a concept I named “prioritizing meaning.” People who prioritize meaning would agree with statements like, “The manner in which I organize my day reflects values that are meaningful to me” or “I choose to include in my life activities that are meaningful to me, even if they often require effort.” For example, they might spend time writing a book, supporting someone in need, or volunteering for a valued cause such as an animal shelter.
The respondents also answered questions about how much they were searching for meaning in life and their overall well-being.
My research, recently published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, indicates that people who prioritize meaning through their actions do tend to have a greater sense of meaning in life, and in turn they experience less negative emotion and more positive emotion, gratitude, coherence (a sense of optimism and control), happiness, and life satisfaction. In addition, people who are searching for meaning have a higher sense of meaning and well-being when they are actually prioritizing meaning in their daily lives.
That means that if we’re wishing for a more meaningful life but not actively doing anything about it, we probably won’t fare very well. Rather than hoping we will discover or figure out the meaning of our lives someday in the future, it may be possible for us to take ownership of cultivating and experiencing a meaningful life on a day-to-day basis.
Prioritizing meaning vs. positivity
My concept of prioritizing meaning was partly inspired by the idea of “prioritizing positivity,” developed by researcher Lahnna Catalino and her colleagues in 2014. They observed that many people pursue happiness by trying to feel good all the time, which can backfire. Instead, another approach is to prioritize positivity, or seek out and schedule your day around pleasant experiences. Their research found that this strategy—trying to control your actions rather than your feelings—is a more effective way to enhance well-being than obsessing about happiness.
My study suggests that prioritizing meaning is similarly beneficial—but how do the two differ?
Through my analysis, I discovered that they were both related to many of the same benefits, although there were some differences. It was only people who tended to prioritize meaning who had a greater sense of meaning and gratitude, while those who tended to prioritize positivity were less depressed.
Combining both strategies of prioritizing positivity and meaning may be the best approach. It could lead to short-term benefits, like happiness and positive feelings, as well as long-term benefits, like an overall sense of coherence in life.
How to prioritize meaning in your life
Although our understanding of prioritizing meaning is still evolving, these findings do offer a few practical takeaways to help us pursue a meaningful life.
It may not be enough to simply have an intellectual understanding of your personal values or the sources of meaning in your life. For example, if you value family but don’t translate that into action by spending more time with your children, that value may not benefit your well-being. As Tagore suggests, we often get too occupied with “preparing our instruments” to take the next step and actually use them to “sing our song.” We may know what is meaningful to us, yet we don’t necessarily translate these intentions into everyday living.
Bridging that gap is crucial. Each new day is an opportunity to do the things that truly matter to us to live a full, meaningful life, a life that is worth living. When we plan our days, we can choose to schedule activities that are in congruence with the things that matter to us, that hold import and value for us. Which meaningful activities or interactions should you prioritize in the next 24 hours, and which activities should be removed or modified? What is the alignment between your current to-do list or daily routine and your personal values? How did you spend your last 24 hours? Your week? Your year?
Self-awareness can help you understand your personal values, align your daily activities with them, and refine your choices over time as you observe how they affect your sense of meaning.
Self-awareness can help you understand your personal values, align your daily activities with them, and refine your choices over time as you observe how they affect your sense of meaning. Pausing the rat race and allowing yourself to mindfully pay attention to your meaningful moments, dreams, and wishes is vital in calibrating your compass.
For example, if personal growth and self-development are meaningful for you, translating these values into action may include daily activities such as listening to inspiring talks or cultivating a new skill or interest. And when you’re faced with actions that may be less pleasant in the moment, such as taking care of a child or elderly parent, you can remember to ask yourself, “Why is this important to me?”
Albert Camus once said, “Life is a sum of all your choices,” and Annie Dillard adds, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” We build our well-being through the things we repeatedly do every day; it doesn’t just happen to us. When we take responsibility for our interactions, choices, and actions in day-to-day life, we can spend more time on the things that really matter to us and use our instruments to play our unique song.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.
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Friday 15 March 2019
Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 1
This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness.
Be The Energy
Trust the energy that courses
through you. Trust – then take
surrender even deeper.
Be the energy.Don’t push anything away.
Follow each sensation back to
its source and focus your awareness
there.Be the ecstasy…
Be unafraid of consummate wonder.
Emerge so new, so vulnerable,
that you don’t know
who you are.Be the energy,
and paradoxically,
be at peace.
Dare to be your own illumination,And blaze a trail across
the clear night sky…..Danna Faulds
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Thursday 14 March 2019
Meditation: Entering Heartspace with the “Smile-Down” (18:29 min.)
The practice of visualizing and feeling a smile spreading through the body helps us access the natural tenderness and openness of our being. This meditation guides us in the smile-down, and then invites a full opening and resting in openhearted presence. We close by bringing that awake heart to an area of difficulty in our life.
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Wednesday 13 March 2019
Tuesday 12 March 2019
Teens Win When Parents Practice Mindfulness
Raising children is the ultimate mindfulness practice. And now researchers are trying to figure out whether mindful parenting may affect teen behavior. A recent study looked at if mindfulness instruction might lead to changes in parenting strategies, parent-teen relationships, and problem behaviors like aggression.
Researchers had a group of parents participate in the Mindfulness-Enhanced Strengthening Families Program as part of a longitudinal, randomized-controlled trial published in Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. After training, parents were more positive and shared better relationships with their teens. Additionally, the researchers made an interesting observation: adolescents of mindful fathers were also less aggressive.
“Changes in positive parenting strategies can enhance relationships at a time when parent-child interactions typically increase in conflict,” said the study’s lead author, Doug Coatsworth, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Applied Developmental Science Program at Colorado State University. “Mindful parenting is a set of skills and ways of approaching parenting tasks that changes over time—meaning that interventions that effectively target these skills can influence the way that parents parent with attention, acceptance, emotional attunement, and compassion.”
Mindful parenting programs—those designed to incorporate mindfulness-based principles and practices with traditional parenting skills—are increasing in popularity, but we know little about their effectiveness compared to typical parenting instruction for navigating an evolving parent-teen relationship during this period of life.
Mindful Moms and Dads Score Differently
In this study, the authors wanted to see if parents would become more mindful over time, whether mothers and fathers parented differently, and if parenting practices were related to better teen adjustment. The researchers asked 432 families of 6th and 7th grade students to attend either a mindful parenting program (the Mindfulness-Enhanced Strengthening Families Program), typical parenting instruction (the Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14), or to read two parenting booklets.
The Mindfulness-Enhanced Strengthening Families Program is based on the Strengthening Families Program. For both, parents and youths attend different groups where they focus on how to improve communication and strengthen parent-teen relationships. They then join up and learn skills together. The mindfulness-enhanced version emphasizes listening with full attention and learning to avoid knee-jerk reactions to unpleasant behaviors.
There are very few studies that explore mom’s and dad’s parenting skills separately. Since moms and dads play unique roles in children’s lives, researchers also wanted to see if changes in mom’s and dad’s behavior impacted kids differently.
Fathers who received mindful parenting instruction showed an increase in their emotional awareness of their children over time, whereas those without mindfulness instruction did not.
Strong links were found between mindful parenting, positive parenting practices, and positive parent-teen relationships for both mothers and fathers. This means more mindful moms and dads parented more positively and had better relationships with their teenagers. But there were several interesting differences.
Increases in mindful parenting were tied to less teen aggression, but only for dads. Fathers also showed greater gains in mindful parenting scores regardless of which parenting group they attended, but mothers did not. “This might mean that fathers benefit most by learning about an accepting, emotionally aware, and attuned approach to parenting,” says Coatsworth.
An important part of the study is that changes in mindful and positive parenting were looked at over the span of a year. This allowed researchers to gauge which impacts of the trainings persisted. They found that fathers who received mindful parenting instruction showed an increase in their emotional awareness of their children over time, whereas those without mindfulness instruction did not. Once again, these changes were not observed for mothers.
Other studies have also found that, in general, mothers tend to report more mindful parenting than fathers. Authors of the present study suggest that this may be because mothers may have a greater tendency to connect with their children in the present moment and be more emotionally attuned than fathers.
Parenting with Presence
There have been studies in that past suggesting that mindful parents tend toward more positive parenting strategies like using clear instructions, praising good behaviors, showing affection and warmth, and communicating effectively. Mindful parents also demonstrate fewer signs of negative parenting such as being angry, hostile, coercive, and intrusive. They also share more positive parent-child relationships, healthier interactions, and better child adjustment.
“The biggest thing that a parent can do to be more mindful is to pay careful attention to what their child is saying and doing, but also to their own reactions. Careful attention often stops parent’s automatic reactions, allows them a moment to calm themselves physiologically and mentally, and to be more present for their child.”—Doug Coatsworth, Ph.D., lead study author
This study’s authors say it’s a parent’s ability to notice their own reactions to what their child is saying and doing—and avoid knee-jerk emotional reaction that is key.
“The biggest thing that a parent can do to be more mindful is to pay careful attention to what their child is saying and doing, but also to their own reactions,” Coatsworth said. “Careful attention often stops parent’s automatic reactions, allows them a moment to calm themselves physiologically and mentally, and to be more present for their child.”
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How to Have Tough Conversations at Work
I’ve developed a theory that the biggest driver of mindlessness at work comes from lack of communication. Most times, this is connected to the conversations we’re not having about our values, or the boundaries we set (or don’t set) around how we live, honor, and uphold these values at work.
You know the type of non-conversation I am talking about: the really uncomfortable one, where you know what you need to say is going to be awkward and might disappoint another person. Think about it—have you ever edited a response because you felt uncomfortable revealing your thoughts concerning a certain topic?
This might look like:
- Not sharing that you don’t agree that the redesign plan is the best choice.
- Going along with the excitement around a new initiative even though you have serious doubts about its viability.
- Keeping silent about how uncomfortable it makes you that your boss brings her dog to the office every day—and it ends up in your space most of the time even though you really don’t like dogs.
So we halfway share, putting off the conversation we know is coming at some point. And, of course, the longer we avoid having it, the more uncomfortable the conversation can become.
3 Mindful Tips for Tough Conversations
Each day we encounter situations where we halfway communicate what we want to express, request, or need. In many cases, we do this because we fear being judged. Here are three way to navigate awkward conversations:
1. Offer context
It isn’t just about assigning blame. It is about creating dialogue around toxic and disruptive issues, so all involved can feel heard and choose to create a different reality. Offer context as to what the issue is, and, ideally, why it’s actually an issue for you. Done in a nonjudgmental way, this kind of sharing builds compassion and allows everyone to get on the same page. It’s when we don’t offer context that the discomfort grows.
2. Invite options
If someone is making a request that isn’t possible, say so and invite a conversation about what is possible. It’s important to ask how that might work for the person making the request. Explaining, offering another solution, and inviting dialogue increases the sense of sharing and collaboration.
Explaining, offering another solution, and inviting dialogue increases the sense of sharing and collaboration.
3. Be sincere
Say what you mean with grace, respect, and as much authenticity as possible. When you speak from the heart, even if others don’t like or agree with the message, the energy behind the intention comes through. Odds are strong that your honesty will help things to shift.
Transforming Communication
The collective impact from having uncomfortable conversations can be truly transformational. Its effect goes beyond communication in the workplace; it can transform communication in every situation.
The path to navigating this territory with ease starts with awareness. Begin to notice when you are withholding, closing down, or not speaking up. Write about it in a private journal if that’s helpful. Then, with that awareness, begin to experiment with expressing your thoughts, needs, and desires one conversation at a time using the following tips to push through the discomfort.
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Monday 11 March 2019
Three Research-Backed Ways to Help Your Child Value Honesty
When I leave birthday cakes to cool on the counter, I often come back to find craters in the layers—and my preschooler standing nearby with an ear-to-ear grin and crumbs around his mouth. I don’t need to ask him what happened, but I can’t help myself. “I don’t know! What in the world!,” he replies.
Dishonesty is common among children (and adults) and begins as early as age three. Apart from lying to cover up a misdeed, children also commonly tell lies to be polite. In some ways, lie-telling is evidence that kids have reached important developmental milestones because it requires both cognitive and social maturity—understanding that others can have different beliefs from your own, being able to flexibly maneuver conflicting information in the mind, and recognizing societal expectations of when to be truthful and when to tell a lie.
While my son’s stealthy taste tests make me chuckle, I do want him to learn honesty as he grows. Being trustworthy helps strengthen relationships, especially children’s relationships with their family, teachers, and friends. But dishonesty—such as lying to parents or cheating in games with friends or on tests at school—can lead to conflicts and sometimes reflects larger problems.
Parents play an important role in helping their children value honesty, and recent research offers some suggestions for how to do this.
1. Praise process, not intelligence
Parents give praise to show their children that they noticed something positive. But does the incentive of praise ever motivate kids to be dishonest?
Researcher Li Zhao and her colleagues studied cheating among 300 three- to six-year-old children in China. They randomly assigned the children into three groups to compare how frequently they peeked during a guessing game. Children in the first group were praised for their ability: “You’re so smart.” Researchers praised children in the second group for their performance: “You did very well this time.” In the final group, researchers did not offer any kind of praise.
Regardless of age, children who received praise for being smart were more likely to peek (60 percent) compared to children who received performance praise (41 percent) or no praise (40 percent). “Ability praise may have motivated children to cheat in order to uphold . . . the reputation of being smart,” explain Zhao and her colleagues.
These findings are in line with another study by Zhao and her colleagues. They found that children who were told they had a reputation for being smart—“I know teachers and kids in your class and they told me you are a smart kid”—were more likely to peek during a card guessing game compared to children told they had a reputation for being clean or not told anything about their reputation.
Rather than encouraging a “fixed” mindset by commenting on children’s intelligence, encourage a growth mindset by giving praise for their efforts to persist in the face of a challenge.
Rather than encouraging a “fixed” mindset by commenting on children’s intelligence, encourage a growth mindset by giving praise for their efforts to persist in the face of a challenge. For example, you can praise children’s process by saying, “I noticed that you stuck with that game even when it got tricky until you figured out a strategy that worked!”
2. Beware of the downsides of rewards
Rewards like sweet treats or small toys are sometimes part of the parent toolbox to help get children to do things they might not be highly motivated to do, like clean up their toys or brush their teeth. But rewards like this may have unintended consequences for children’s honesty.
Researcher Hüseyin Kotaman explored this in a study of 77 four to six year olds in Turkey. The children were asked to complete a labyrinth puzzle to help a girl find her way home; some were told they’d be given a lollipop reward for correctly solving the puzzle, while others were not. Children working for a lollipop reward were almost twice as likely to peek at the solution when the researcher stepped out of the room compared to the other children (51 percent versus 26 percent).
“When the reward was offered for the labyrinth puzzle, children’s primary aim was to obtain the reward, not to solve the labyrinth. Therefore, the task has little or no internal value for the child,” Kotaman explains. “An external reward may be the most valuable thing to be obtained from a task, leading the child to focus on the reward.”
In other words, rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation. If children are already really interested in something—in this case, doing a fun puzzle—then introducing a reward undercuts that interest and their motivation shifts to getting that reward. In everyday situations, parents can be on the lookout for their kids’ natural curiosity about the world to nurture their love for learning and problem-solving—and save stickers or candy rewards for more mundane tasks, like getting a dental checkup or a flu shot.
3. Ask kids to make a commitment
Angela Evans and her colleagues found that children—like adults—are more honest after making a commitment to be.
Children—like adults—are more honest after making a commitment to be.
Ninety-nine Canadian children, ages three to five, played a guessing game and were told not to peek when the researcher stepped out of the room. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Researchers told the children in the first group not to peek. Children in the remaining two groups were also told not to peek and either said “OK” in agreement or repeated, “I will not turn around and peek at the toy.”
The findings? Overall, 74 percent of children peeked. Children who repeated the full verbal commitment were less likely to peek compared to the other two groups; simply saying “OK” didn’t seem to promote honesty. What’s more, children who repeated the verbal commitment, yet still peeked, took longer to do so—suggesting that they were more aware of the tension between wanting to peek and wanting to make good on their word.
Evans and her colleagues explain, “Considering our words are acts within themselves that can impact reality, we believe that verbalizing the commitment increased children’s obligation to fulfill their commitment.”
What does this finding mean for parents? Talk with your kids about your expectations for them to be honest and, rather than just seeking agreement, ask them to explain how they will be truthful. For example, before you walk away from a checkers game to take a phone call, invite your children to say they will leave the pieces just as they are until you come back so that you can finish the game fairly.
Our next family birthday is a week away. I plan to bake the birthday cake and—armed with these new strategies to cultivate honesty—perhaps this one will be spared from a covert early indulgence by my preschooler.
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.
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Friday 8 March 2019
Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 2
This series of talks offers guidance in transforming conflict into a portal for awakening your understanding, flexibility and compassion. We look at how to heal our own unmet needs and not be dependent on others changing; and how to engage with another person when both are dedicated to mindful communication. We also extend our exploration to societal conflict. The talks are accompanied by reflections and meditations that can directly enhance your capacity to respond to conflict from the most wise and caring part of your being.
Be Ground
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.
You’ve been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.
― Jalaluddin Rumi
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from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8196908 https://www.tarabrach.com/navigating-conflict-part2/
Thursday 7 March 2019
Meditation: Relaxing with Life (22:57 min.)
This meditation includes a mindful body scan and guidance in relaxing with the changing waves of experience. When we say “Yes” to the moment, we open to the sea of awareness that can include, with care, whatever arises.
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Wednesday 6 March 2019
Tuesday 5 March 2019
Five Ways to Be More Confident at Work
It’s one thing to practice mindfulness on the cushion, but bringing the practice alive on the job—handling conflict, managing tasks, expressing our creativity and much more—that’s where the fun begins.
Here are five simple approaches for applying mindfulness at work:
1. Stabilize your attention
Too often on the job we find ourselves distracted, unfocused, even frenzied—which can prove distressing for ourselves and others. In mindfulness training, we learn to bring our attention to our immediate experience— showing up fully engaged and available. By permitting our attention to rest in the present moment, we can learn to attend to our work rather than speed past it.
Try it:
In your next meeting, observe and make note of how often your attention wanders. Then, in a future meeting, try to escort your attention to the present moment and remain vigilantly alert. Take note of how it affects the meeting: What was different? How did your colleagues respond?
2. Express “natural confidence”
Mindfulness training teaches many things, but one of the very first discoveries is how uncomfortable we can be just sitting still. While such discomfort may appear problematic, in fact, the discomfort is an invitation to consider a fundamental question: Can we be comfortable in our own skin? Exploring this discomfort is key to mindfulness practice, revealing how we can be at ease with ourselves—cultivating a natural confidence in being who we are, where we are completely.
Try it:
Write down two or three things you find irritating. They can be as simple as waiting in line for a cup of coffee or more demanding like dealing with an annoying vendor. Explore being deliberately at ease during these moments. What gets in the way? What becomes apparent? What’s the root of the irritation?
Exploring the discomfort we feel just sitting still allows us to cultivate confidence in everything we do.
3. Use mindsets as lenses
People frame the workplace from many perspectives: The financial vantage point of a CFO; the customer’s need for prompt service; the sales manager’s passion for closing a deal. Too often such perspectives can become rigid mindsets, and we find ourselves “arguing” with our work and pushing a point, rather than offering insight. The agility of mindfulness permits us to explore various viewpoints, so we can shift, arrange, and blend views in order to get a complete picture and skillfully shape workplace circumstances.
Try it:
When approaching a difficult workplace conversation, first make a case for your opponent’s view: Write down their perspectives, arguments, and goals. Make this exercise a routine of knowing and listening to your colleagues’ points of view before resolving conflicts and problems.
4. Strengthen emotional regulation
With sustained practice, mindfulness has been shown to offer effective levers for regulating emotions, and to help build an array of social intelligence skills like empathetic accuracy, social attunement, and agile listening—all important for maintaining healthy interpersonal dynamics at work.
Try it:
When debriefing an emotionally charged workplace experience—whether rewarding or discouraging—describe in writing each party’s emotional stance. Describe how these emotions impacted others. What were you and others seeking emotionally?
5. Foster well-being
We all want well-being at work—both for ourselves and our colleagues—but it can often appear out of reach. Too often “toxicity” poses as “standard operating procedure.” Nourishing trust, candor, openness, respect, and a range of other healthy human values can be a simple matter of noticing workplace health and affiliating with it.
Try it:
Describe where you feel your workplace and colleagues are demonstrating healthy and inspiring work practices. Agree on what is distinguishing such health and who is responsible. Map out a plan, in writing, for more deliberately supporting these colleagues and practices.
The post Five Ways to Be More Confident at Work appeared first on Mindful.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8196908 https://www.mindful.org/on-the-job-confidence/
Monday 4 March 2019
Saturday 2 March 2019
Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 1
This series of talks offers guidance in transforming conflict into a portal for awakening your understanding, flexibility and compassion. We look at how to heal our own unmet needs and not be dependent on others changing; and how to engage with another person when both are dedicated to mindful communication. We also extend our exploration to societal conflict. The talks are accompanied by reflections and meditations that can directly enhance your capacity to respond to conflict from the most wise and caring part of your being.
The post Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 1 appeared first on Tara Brach.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8196908 https://www.tarabrach.com/navigating-conflict-part1/