Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes but is not contracted by currents of fear.
Life’s water flows from darkness.
Search the darkness don’t run from it.
Night travelers are full of light,
and you are, too; don’t leave this companionship. ~ Rumi
Being kind to yourself doesn’t always come naturally. The phrase “you are your own worst critic” rings true for a reason. In this animation from the Greater Good Science Center, psychiatrist Elizabeth Guinto takes a self-compassion break with these easy steps.
A Mindfulness Practice: Be Kinder to Yourself
1. Think of a situation in your life that is difficult and causing you stress.
This might mean a difficult relationship, a challenge at work or school, concern you’re feeling for the pain of a loved one, or anything else that comes to mind. It’s usually best to go with the first thing your thoughts land on.
2. With the situation in mind, recognize if you feel the stress in your body.
This can be different for everyone. Check a few of the common areas where stress and emotional discomfort are felt in the body. According to the American Institute of Stress, this includes headache, neck ache, back pain, muscle spasm, and jaw tension.
3. Say to yourself, “This is a moment of suffering.”
Take this moment to notice how you feel without judgment. There’s no need to label your experience as good or bad. Instead, simply let yourself acknowledge pain or stress.
4. Say to yourself, “Suffering is a part of life.”
Remember that, unpleasant as it is right now, navigating difficult situations is a common experience that connects you to the rest of humanity. You can also choose to say, “Other people feel this way,” “I’m not alone,” or “We all struggle in our lives.”
5. Put your hands over your heart and say, “May I be kind to myself.”
Be aware of the warmth of your hands on your chest and tune in to the feeling of self-kindness. You might also try saying one of the phrases below to start. Then, feel free to change the phrase to whatever you need to hear right now.
“May I give myself the compassion that I need.”
“May I learn to accept myself as I am.”
“May I forgive myself”
“May I be strong.”
You can flow through these five steps any time you are carrying difficult emotions, and this practice will remind you that you are worthy of compassion no matter how you’re feeling. To read more about being kind to yourself, check out this excerpt from Radical Compassion by Tara Brach.
Founding Editor Barry Boyce muses on the messiness of communicating, and how finding the deeper meanings of words may require some inner searching. Read More
This meditation begins with a body scan, and then we practice opening to and relaxing with our changing experience. The sitting closes with a beautiful poem by Danna Faulds, “Just for Now.”
Just for Now,
Without asking how, let yourself sink into stillness.
Just for now, lay down the weight
You so patiently bear upon your shoulders.
Feel the earth receive you,
And the infinite expanse of the sky grow even wider,
as your awareness reaches up to meet it.
Just for now,
Allow a wave of breath to enliven your experience.
Breathe out whatever blocks you from the truth.
Just for now,
Be boundless, free,
with awakened energy tingling in your hands and feet.
Drink in the possibility
Of being who and what you really are —
So fully alive that the world looks different,
Newly born and vibrant, just for now. ~ Danna Faulds, “Just for Now.”
A growing body of research finds that mindful people tend to be happier and feel less stressed. We’re not entirely sure why this happens. One possible explanation is that mindful individuals have an easier time taking life’s challenges in stride, and are more flexible in the ways they deal with difficulties. This, in turn, may improve their health and well-being.
To find out if this might be true, researchers asked 157 undergraduate students at the University of Connecticut to fill out an online mindfulness questionnaire at the beginning of the school year. The following month, students completed a daily online questionnaire at the end of each day for seven days.
The daily survey included a list of 17 potential stressors. Students indicated which of those stressors they’d experienced that day, then rated which event was the “worst or most bothersome.” They then answered questions about the “worst” event that day, such as how stressful it was and how much control they felt. Next, they were given a list of possible coping strategies like acceptance, positive reappraisal, self-blame, or giving up, and asked which of these they’d used to deal with their “worst” stressor of the day. Lastly, they rated their mood using a list of emotions like inspired, active, determined, afraid, upset, or ashamed.
How mindfulness helps you cope with stress
Similar to prior studies, results revealed that people who rated themselves as being more mindful rated their experiences as less stressful, and were less likely to fall into a negative mood when facing difficulties. This suggests that being mindful of one’s immediate situation may impact how stressful it is perceived to be, creating a buffer from negative emotions like shame, anxiety, or fear. Notably, the current study found that more mindful people didn’t necessarily feel more positive. They just felt less negative.
Being mindful of one’s immediate situation may impact how stressful it is perceived to be, creating a buffer from negative emotions.
In terms of how they coped, more mindful people reported using less self-blame and being better able to accept situations that they couldn’t change. Mindfulness, the authors suggest, “predisposes individuals to increase their use of acceptance coping versus problem-focused coping in relatively uncontrollable situations, with greater increases in problem-focused approaches when a stressor is appraised as more controllable.” In other words, mindful people work to fix problems when they can, but are inclined to accept circumstances they can’t change.
In general, findings of the study suggest that being mindful of life’s ups and downs and how much we can control them may bolster our resilience to stress. This, in turn, may lead to more intentional and flexible coping strategies and prevent us getting stuck in negative mood states.
When I hear the word “resilient” I often think of these skinny little baby trees that are planted around New York City. They tend to have these braces to hold them to the earth to stay rooted and they don’t get blown around. When I think resiliency and young people… Read More
We begin with a body scan, open to sounds and to listening to and feeling the moment. From spacious awareness the practice is simply to recognize and allow the changing flow of life. The meditation ends with the poem, “Hokusai Says” by Roger Keyes.
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love….
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Spring is an ideal time to nourish your mindfulness practice. With the change in seasons, boost of fresh air, and longer hours of daylight as inspiration, you can consciously invite in greater simplicity, love, and compassion, and clear those habits that no longer serve you. With that in mind, we designed this three-day practice routine to help you fit moments of mindfulness into your daily life—giving you a boost of calm, focused, natural energy and awakening your inner spark as you launch into spring.
Day 1: Connect with Your natural awareness with Barry Boyce
Like any good spring cleaning, let’s get right down to the basics of mindfulness and meditation. One of the most foundational aspects of mindfulness is the ability to calm and focus the mind using your breath. By bringing your attention back to the breath each time you feel your mind wander during meditation, you can strengthen your brain’s natural ability to focus over time. Cultivate greater attention with these short meditation practices.
In the Morning •Tune In to Your Natural Awareness (5 minutes)
In mindfulness practice, you might often hear the term “natural awareness.” By natural awareness, we mean the awareness that simply comes with being a human being. It’s free from judging and characterizing—it’s just noticing and sensing the world.
Settle into your seat. Begin by taking a seat, or if necessary, standing. The important thing is to feel where your body is touching the seat and touching the ground.
Scan the body. Sense where your bottom is touching the seat. Sit up straight or stand straight but not stiff. Make sure your feet are completely touching the ground, connecting you to the earth. Your eyes are open, so take in the surroundings of where you are. Lower your gaze slightly.
Connect with the breath. Pay light attention to your breath as it goes out. Breathe in naturally.
Follow the out-breath. At the end of each out-breath, let there be a gap while the in-breath is happening. And in that gap you have natural awareness: It’s there already, you don’t have to create it. So, follow the breath out, and take a moment to rest in your natural awareness before the in-breath. As thoughts arise, treat them as you would anything else you encounter: Notice them, and use that noticing to bring you back to the out-breath and ride it out.
In the evening • Tune In to Your Meta-Awareness (5 minutes)
The moment of noticing a thought is a very powerful moment. It’s really where the meditation occurs. That’s because there’s a spark of insight at that point, what in technical terms is called meta-awareness: You’re aware of your thought process, not just caught up in it. Now at that moment, there are lots of possibilities.
You can touch that thought and gently bounce back to attention on the breath and your body. But you might also say “Oh damn, there I go thinking again, I just can’t get away from this.”
One of the wonderful things about meditation is the fact that it allows for such a monumental amount of failure. Failure is just fine. So, if you’re sitting in meditation for 10 minutes and you don’t notice your thought until the bell rings at the end, that’s what that session was about. You learn from it. There will be another one. No big deal.
First, feel your bottom on the seat, and your feet on the floor or the ground, flat, touching the earth. Your eyes can be open or closed, head tilted slightly down. Your shoulders are relaxed, your hands are resting on your thighs, and your upper arms are parallel to your torso. Just take a moment to feel that posture.
Now we’re going to use the breath as an anchor for our attention. We don’t concern ourselves with trying to adjust the rate of the breath, we just come with whatever breath we have.
Notice that your mind is like a waterfall of thoughts.As we try to pay attention to the breath coming in and out, our mind is filled with thoughts. And in mindfulness practice, just notice the thought. Touch it, and go back to the breath.
Let your thoughts go. No matter what’s been going on during the session, you don’t need to evaluate it, just let it go. Open your eyes, and enjoy what’s coming next.
Day 2: Connect with Your Compassion with Sharon Salzberg
To connect more deeply with others, we must face the one person that we keep on the shortest leash: ourselves. We often reject other people’s care or attention when we believe we don’t deserve it—but there’s nothing special you must do to deserve love. It is simply because you exist. Follow this guided meditation to open your heart toward giving and receiving love.
In the Morning • Open Your Heart
(10 minutes)
This meditation begins by imagining yourself surrounded by a circle of the most loving beings, making generous offerings of love and goodwill to you. Sit comfortably, eyes open or closed.
Imagine you’re encircled by people who love you. You, in the center of a circle, made up of the most loving beings you’ve met. Maybe they exist now or they’ve existed historically, or even mythically.
Receive the love of those who love you. Experience yourself as the recipient of the energy, attention, care, and regard of all of these beings in your circle of love. Silently repeat phrases of tender love and care for yourself, not just for today but in an enduring way. Phrases that are big and open, like May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I live with ease of heart.
Notice how you feel when you receive love. You may feel gratitude and awe, or you might feel kind of shy. Whatever emotions arise, just let them wash through you. Repeat your phrases of tender care: May I be safe. May I be happy…
Open yourself up to receiving love. Imagine that your skin is porous and this warm, loving energy is coming in. Imagine yourself receiving love simply because you exist.
Send loving care to the people in your circle. Allow that quality of loving-kindness and compassion and care you feel coming toward you to flow right back out to the circle of loved ones and then toward all beings everywhere, so that what you receive, you transform into giving. When you feel ready you can open your eyes or lift your gaze to end the session.
In the evening • Remember Your Goodness (10 minutes)
If you find yourself ruminating on the things you regret or mistakes you’ve made, try letting go of those habits with this exercise. It will help you redirect your attention and remember goodness within. The point is not to deny your mistakes, but if you keep rehearsing them, analyzing them, creating stories around them, you’re simply reinforcing the pain and alienation they’ve already caused you. When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring. Sit comfortably in a relaxed, easy posture and close your eyes.
Bring to mind one thing you have done or said recently that you feel was kind or good. Maybe you smiled at someone or listened to their story; maybe you let go of your annoyance at a slow checkout clerk; maybe you were generous; maybe you sat down to meditate. It’s not conceit or arrogance to consider these things. It’s nourishing and replenishing to take delight in the good that moves through us.
Think of one of your qualities or skills that you like or appreciate. Perhaps you are enthused about helping others learn or committed to practicing patience toward your irascible neighbor.
Recognize that you want to be happy. If you still find yourself caught up in self-criticism, turn your attention to the mere fact that you have an urge toward happiness. There is kindness and beauty in that. Recall that all beings everywhere want to be happy, everybody wants to be happy.
Don’t feel ashamed of your longing for happiness. Recall that happiness is your birthright. Seeking happiness is not a problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves and others. When we support the urge toward happiness with mindfulness, it can become like a homing instinct or a compass pointing us toward freedom.
Allow any impatience or judgments to emerge during this meditation. Don’t feel as though you have failed if you start judging yourself. This is entirely natural. Simply allow the negative reaction to ebb as a wave on the beach, and see if you can return to the positive contemplation without self-criticism.
Day 3: Connect with Your Resilience with Mark Bertin
You cannot will yourself into particular feelings toward yourself or the world around you. Rather, you can simply remind yourself that you deserve happiness and ease—no more and no less than anyone else. The same goes for your child, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and everyone else in the world. Everyone is driven by an inner desire to avoid suffering and find a measure of peace and ease.
In the Morning • Tame Your Inner Critic
(10 minutes)
The inner critic is like the two old guys on The Muppet Show endlessly deriding whatever is unfolding on your life’s stage. Attempting to reason with your inner tyrant only validates it, as if it deserves your attention. It’s really just an unhelpful pattern of thinking most of us pick up along the way. And while the push to be perfect can be exhausting, we can invite more ease into our lives with practice.
Begin by focusing on your breathing. Notice the physical sensation of breathing in, and then breathing out. Find yourself a posture of ease and strength. When your attention wanders, simply come back to breathing in and breathing out.
Notice your judgy mind at work. For many of us, simply attempting to focus on the breath is enough to bring a lot of self-judgment to mind. You may immediately start thinking “I’m not very good at this” or “I should do this more often.” But for this brief practice, consciously reflect on somewhere else in your life where you feel judged. At school, at work, as a parent, or as a child?
Notice how judgment is more than a single thought. Judgment affects how you feel, bringing tension or unease to your body. It may influence your emotional state as well. Notice where your thoughts go when experiencing this kind of self-criticism. What patterns do you fall into under this kind of stress?
Practice leaving that voice of judgment, that inner critic, alone. Stop wrestling with it or appeasing it, or pushing it away. Label it if you want, or even give it a funny name if you prefer. Recognize what it feels like to you, and then let it be.
Breathe in, notice. Breathe out, let go. On each in-breath, acknowledge whatever you’re experiencing right now in your body. What are your emotions? Your thoughts? There’s nothing to fix or change, this is what’s going on right now. Then, on each out-breath, offer yourself relief. Wish yourself what you would a close friend with the same doubts. Wish yourself relief or strength or humor or joy or anything else that feels appropriate. Breathing in, this is how things are; breathing out, focusing on ease or whatever else comes to mind.
Wish yourself well, not because you deserve it more than anyone else, but because you deserve it as much as anyone else.
In the evening • Ease Into Sleep
(no time limit)
Neither sleep routines nor mindfulness practice respond well to a heavy hand. If you set out to force yourself into sleep, you’re less likely to sleep. If you strain for some picture-perfect mindset when meditating, you’ll create more stress and uncertainty. If you set yourself up with clear-sighted planning and patient resolve— intentionally but unforced—sleep and mindfulness are both more likely to follow.
Begin while lying down,and bringing your attention to the physical movement related to breathing, such as your belly rising and falling. Or, if you prefer, focus your attention more closely on the air moving in and out of your nose and mouth.
Observe your thoughts. Your mind rehashes the day or gets caught up in worrying about tomorrow. Recognize those habits, and then practice letting them be. Label whatever grabs your attention, and come back again to noticing the sensations of the breath. Breathing in… and breathing out.
Notice if you get caught up in effort, or frustration, or fear—with compassion for yourself. Catch thoughts of self-criticism or frustration, and come back to just one breath, one more time. Breathing in…breathing out. There’s nothing you need to fix or change right now in this moment. Notice where your thoughts go, and label them “thoughts.” Come back to one next breath, over, and over again.
Shift attention to sensations in your body. Start by moving your awareness to physical sensations in your feet. Just notice them — the temperature or the pressure of your heel against the blanket.
From your feet, move your attention up into your lower legs, and then your abdomen, noticing in each area of your body whatever there is to notice. Letting go of a sense of effort or needing to make anything happen. If you feel any sense of stress or tension, relax, breathe, and let go.
Move your attention from the belly into the chest and the back. Note each time your mind gets caught up in thoughts of discomfort or distraction or you feel any tension. Relax your muscles, gently and with patience.
Shift your attention into your hands and lower arms,again without actively needing to move or change anything, simply observing, and then letting go.
Then move your attention through your neck and into the muscles of your face, perhaps noticing any locations of tightness or pinching, and then with gentleness, as best as you’re able, relaxing those muscles. And then for a few moments, have a general awareness of physical sensations throughout your body.
And then (if you’re still awake) bring your attention back to the breath. Each time the mind wanders, or you get stuck thinking, bring your attention to the sensation of your body breathing.
In a world driven by competition and comparison, Sharon Salzberg contends shifting our definition of love might be the key to reconnecting to what matters most. Read More
Depression is a classic example of what’s referred to today as an invisible illness. When you’re depressed, you may find yourself expending precious energy just so you can appear to the world as if nothing at all is troubling you.
This “it’s-work-to-seem-fine” coping mechanism illustrates just one way in which depression complicates your life. Not only are you exhausting yourself pretending to be OK, you may find it hard to rally support from friends, family, and coworkers who only see how well you seem to be functioning.
While there is rapidly growing recognition of the very real difficulty and damage caused by depression, the stigma of past decades and centuries lingers. We often still hear the familiar notion that you can just “pull yourself together and get on with it,” as though keeping a “stiff upper lip” should be enough to defeat depression. But strong neurochemical, social, and environmental factors contribute to this very real, physical illness, and successful treatment requires more than maintaining an “upbeat attitude.”
Depression Is a Chameleon
Our ability to recognize and effectively treat depression—which 1 in 14 people will experience in their lifetime—is complicated by the fact that it manifests differently in everyone affected, according to the National Institutes of Health. Anything—your age, your gender, or the stage of your depression—can change what the illness looks like for you, meaning it’s not necessarily simple to get a diagnosis, or even recognize symptoms of depression, whether in yourself or in other people.
For women, depression is more likely to appear as sadness, worthlessness, and guilt. Hormonal and life cycle-related changes, as in postpartum depression, can make women more susceptible to developing the illness. In fact, women are statistically more likely than men to experience depression.
For men, depression often looks like exhaustion, irritability, and sleeping problems. They also lose interest in things they once enjoyed. Men are also more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol, experiment with reckless activity, or become intensely devoted to work in order to distract themselves from their illness.
For teens and tweens, depression can look like extended and severe periods of sulking, getting into trouble at school, prolonged irritability, and an intense feeling of being misunderstood.
These are by no means the only ways depression can appear. Some people experience short, intense periods of depression, while others feel it as an unmoving cloud over their awareness; for some, it’s linked to difficult life events, while for others it doesn’t go away even when their outward circumstances seem fine.
Mindfulness and Mood
Various treatment options for depression exist, including drug regimens and talk therapies. However, the jury continues to be out on how effective antidepressants are for treating depression. A comprehensive 2018 study conducted by an international research team examined 522 studies, including 116,477 patients, to learn about the effectiveness of 21 antidepressant medications. The researchers discovered that, although nearly all of the drugs were more effective than placebos, their effects were still “modest” in most cases.
Complicating treatment is the fact that depression is often a chronic condition that tends to relapse, even with medication and talk therapy. According to research, relapse rates range from 50% to as high as 80%.
Interestingly, when mindfulness is added to the standard depression treatment protocols, relapse rates decline. But it’s unlikely that simply practicing basic mindfulness meditation will ease your depression symptoms. In fact, such an attempt could be supremely unhelpful, notes Julienne Bower, PhD, professor of health psychology at UCLA.
She tells us that the research showing that mindfulness meditation improves symptoms of depression is, at best, vague. She also notes that it’s really hard to meditate on your own when you’re depressed.
Zindel Segal, PhD, concurs. The Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto, Dr. Segal has pioneered the use of mindfulness meditation for promoting wellness in the area of mood disorders. He was also one of the team who developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a research-backed mindfulness protocol for depressive disorders.
Chronic Unhappiness?
“When we talk about depression, and where mindfulness is strong and less strong as a treatment, we have to know what type of depression you have,” says Segal.
“Don’t consider mindfulness a treatment when you’re dealing with acute depression,” he advises. Depression “shuts down your concentration and disrupts your executive network ability,” which makes practicing mindfulness difficult, says Dr. Segal. Instead, for acute depression, consider seeing a mental health professional for treatment with antidepressants, cognitive behavior therapy, or both. Mindfulness can bolster those treatments, but not replace them.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, however, was specifically designed to help people who are depressed or chronically unhappy. MBCT is a therapeutic protocol that combines cognitive therapy, which helps people interrupt the disturbing behavior or thought patterns that interfere with their lives, with mindfulness practices that help you learn to develop a healthier relationship to unhelpful thought patterns.
“Our research looked at specific ways that MBCT helps people work with rumination and worry in ways that are more generous and compassionate,” says Dr. Segal. “This therapy helps you learn to ‘de-center’ and allows you to see your thoughts unfold moment to moment. It helps you to not listen to the messages that depression is sending you.”
How MBCT Helps
The goal of MBCT is to help you become familiar with the ways your mind and your thinking patterns contribute to depression, which helps you to develop a new relationship to your depression.
According to Dr. Segal, many people describe leaving the MBCT training with these two major insights:
1) Thoughts are not facts.
2) Depression is not me.
At first, these points may seem overly simplistic—but when we pay attention to how we are thinking and feeling, over time we become better at spotting the buildup of difficult emotions and thoughts. In that way, we can deal with them more skillfully, instead of just reacting in ways that might not be good for us.
“Mindfulness practices—focusing on the breath and body, as well as mindful movement and developing greater mindful attention to everyday activities—help us learn to recognize the feelings and patterns of thinking that cause unhappiness,” says Willem Kuyken, PhD, the Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science at the University of Oxford. “We learn that thoughts are just thoughts. They are not facts, and we can choose whether to give them power over our minds and hearts. In time they can even help us savor and enjoy all the things that give us pleasure and a sense of accomplishment,” adds Kuyken.
When it comes to depression that relapses after treatment, he suggests that MBCT has proven to be particularly helpful, if you adhere to the program. The program consists of eight weeks of classes, as well as at-home practices you do on your own for about an hour a day. “Many people [with depression] are trying to turn around very long-standing and ingrained habits of thinking and behaving, and that will take time and effort,” says Dr. Kuyken. He notes that a recent study by Dr. Segal showed that the more a person practices MBCT over time, the greater the benefits for easing depression.
To find a therapist who has been trained and certified in practicing MBCT, visit accessmbct.com
If You Need Help
If you or someone you care for is having suicidal thoughts, these helplines in the US, Canada, and UK offer free, confidential prevention, crisis resources, and support 24/7/365.
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Talking about race isn’t easy for anyone—and teaching about race can be a minefield. One of my own most difficult moments teaching about race happened when I encountered intentionally provocative behavior from one of my students, Dan, an Asian-American cis-gendered man.
Dan was in his last semester of law school, and this was his third course with me—it was a course on contemporary issues of race and law.
A major component of the course was a research paper and the students each took turns discussing their thoughts on their projects. When we came to Dan, he said, “I want to do a paper on the Rodney King beating.” His likely “thesis,” he announced, was that the beating King received at the hands of police “was deserved.”
Even as I write this now, I can feel a blip of reactivity. I can see the policemen in that grainy video that we’ve all seen, appearing to let loose with as much force as they could muster on Mr. King, raining strikes with their batons on the head and torso of a man already on the ground beneath them. And I can feel the empathetic pain, sadness, and anger coming up for me as a result.
So, when Dan made this announcement to our small seminar-style class sitting around an oblong table, I could sense the tense silence that fell across the whole room. And I could feel my mouth go dry with fear and a bit of intimidation.
I felt my temperature involuntarily rise, the blood seemingly rushing to my head. “This is what anger feels like,” I knew enough to admit to myself silently. And I certainly felt viscerally and immediately the sense of energy of judgmental thoughts arising in my own mind (“You are wrong!”) and indignation (“How dare you?”). This was what confusion, anger, and dismay all mixed up together felt like. And it was what deep concern and compassion for my other students felt like—several of them were black and brown, and had felt the direct impact of nationwide patterns of overpolicing of black men. Finally, on top of all of this, my own ego was on the line—I’d been tasked with facilitating this conversation and guiding it productively, and this moment certainly wasn’t feeling like success.
Navigating Reactivity Around Race
There are times when the best way to handle strong emotion is to give yourself a time-out, to give yourself space to figure out the best way to address a difficult situation. This felt like one of those times. In the throes of reactivity, my first strategy was to notice my distress and to take steps to find my centered self.
As best I could, I stayed as centered as possible in the full-on experience of reactivity and judgment.
“Dan, I want to remind you that this is a legal research paper and not an opinion paper,” I said, feeling supported by the structure, in this case, of a law school course and its stated objectives. “So as you think through your topic and thesis, be sure to keep that in mind.
“And,” I continued, “we should discuss your thinking about this project, and about this particular topic, one-on-one.”
And so, we did. During the first of several one-on-one conversations with Dan, I invited him to sit down with me and talk this through. We had both enjoyed our interactions over the course of the other two classes he’d taken with me, so in preparation, I did what I could to refocus us both on the positive history between us. After a bit of small talk, I told him I appreciated his interest in this topic. “I am always curious about what draws students into one topic or another,” I said. “What is it that draws you to this particular topic? Has it been an interest of yours for some time?”
In the throes of reactivity, my first strategy was to notice my distress and to take steps to find my centered self.
It didn’t take long for me to uncover a prior, related trauma Dan had experienced. And herein, another lesson: Beneath every aggression or effort to attack is a wounded human being.
“Well . . . yes,” he said. His voice slowed as his gaze turned inward. “Actually, I tried to write a paper about this a long time ago, and . . . it did not go well. In fact, it was the worst experience I’ve had in school. Ever.”
Dan told me that years ago, in a class on multiculturalism—the only other class he’d ever had with a black female professor, in fact—he’d sought to make the same argument about Rodney King. According to Dan, that professor had reacted with what felt to him like fury. Flooded with anger, she had shouted him down for what to him had seemed like an eternity. She’d dismissed his proposal and whatever thought or experience went with it in a way that left him shaking and undone.
Not surprisingly, as a result, he had not written the paper he’d proposed. Instead, he had withdrawn into his own feelings of anger and shame. From that day on, he held something against this teacher, this particular black woman. And, as he came eventually, slowly, to see, maybe all black women.
Sitting with Compassion
Years of sitting and breathing and noticing what arose allowed me to stay present to my own racing heart and fluttering stomach without investing it with a story of what had to be done next. Somehow, despite my original impulse to run away, I remained right there with him, my eyes on him with openness. I maintained awareness of my own breathing, in and out, and feeling the ground beneath my feet and the chair supporting me at my core. I remained grounded, even as I felt my own emotions arise and subside as the words tumbled forth from this student sitting across from me. And I kept coming back, again and again, to the intention of listening to Dan—my student. And listening to him, I began to actually put myself in his shoes. Empathy and compassion naturally opened my heart.
Years of practicing mindfulness, says Rhonda Magee, has “allowed me to stay present to my own racing heart and fluttering stomach without investing it with a story of what had to be done next.”
Here again, my meditation practice helped. Years of simple mindfulness meditation practice—which helps you recognize more readily when you need to take a moment, as well as the STOP practice—which helps you develop the emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility required for greater mastery over the challenging moments when you engage in difficult conversations.
As I listened to Dan, I intentionally sought not only to hear his voice and story, but to listen as deeply as I could to what he wanted me to hear. It wasn’t easy. When my own reactions arose, I noticed them. Relying on my practice, I sensed the ground beneath my feet. I came back to the sense of my role as professor and guide. Sitting with him, I returned my focus to his words and the sense of the feelings beneath them.
I listened to him in a way intended to help him feel safe enough to share deeply about his experience. Knowing that he had truly suffered over this, I wanted to alleviate his suffering by truly listening to him—in a way that would enable him to feel a sense of my caring for him, while at the same time staying in touch with my own feelings and guarding against any emotional reactivity that could get in the way.
As I listened to Dan, I intentionally sought not only to hear his voice and story, but to listen as deeply as I could to what he wanted me to hear. It wasn’t easy.
I realized that I wanted him to sense that my concern for him would not be disrupted by what he had to say. Doing so required more than intent or will; it required the support of a nervous system whose capacity for just this had been built up through the regular practice of mindfulness.
So, with awareness of what was happening, but as little judgment about it as I could muster, I could guard against my own reactivity enough to actually hear Dan’s words.
I could see and feel the complex set of emotions running through him as a result of what he had experienced in that classroom so long ago: anger, fear, confusion, and the most toxic feeling of all—humiliation. I could see the suffering he still carried with him.
Sitting with Dan, with a desire for him to experience relief from his suffering, was not easy for me. The Rodney King video had shaken me to my core. Watching that instance of police brutality left me fearful of police for years and years to come. Despite my reactivity, however, I understood that my role as teacher in that setting was not so much about me. It was about creating a space in which Dan’s truth could be uncovered, unpacked, and given a chance to be met with other truths that would allow learning, healing, and potential transformation to take place.
Walking the Walk of Mindful Racial Justice
As Dan and I took the time to have a series of difficult talks together, outside the spotlight and group dynamics of the classroom setting, I learned that in that very first moment when I decided to pause, to respond rather than to react, and then to take a time-out before meeting with him again, I’d not only reconnected with my own center but had also taken the first steps in helping Dan find healing. And by the end of the semester, he’d come to realize it too.
In the final week of the class, after giving a presentation in which he sought to make an argument that hewed closely to his original premise, Dan told the class, “I realize I have been holding on to some of my own pain around this incident. And it’s something I have to let go.” He wasn’t necessarily a completely changed man. But he could see a glimpse of a way forward that no longer involved painful, unnecessarily provocative confrontations with others whose looks just happened to remind him of his earlier trauma.
So much of what we know as reactivity begins as an emotional charge in response to what we see, hear, read, think about, and otherwise experience in life. That charge leads us to act in ways that may appear to be fully rational, but on reflection, often are not rational at all.
As I think back on my experience with Dan, I realize that dealing with this very triggering moment and relying on my own mindfulness practice over the course of that entire semester many years ago is what solidified my decision to bring mindfulness and compassion practices directly to bear on teaching and facilitating conversations about race and law. I realize that what had been my own, personal strategy for dealing with difficulty around these issues—compassion-based mindfulness practices—needed to come out of the closet and into the center of my work.
Now, in my work as a law professor at the University of San Francisco, and as a facilitator of restorative, trauma-sensitive MBSR, I can see the power of working through race issues with the support of awareness and compassion practices. Each time I sit with others in their pain and vulnerability, listening with compassion, I’m reminded of something my grandmother (GranNan) used to tell me: We are all one family who have forgotten who we are. Through mindfulness practices, we can begin to infuse our experience of ourselves in culture, community, and context with a sense of the valid, often painful experiences of others.
Many years ago, the five-year-old son of a friend of mine came rushing into his father’s workshop talking rapidly in a rush of insight and pointing to a tool on the bench: “Daddy, this isn’t a screwdriver; that’s just what we call it, and a rock isn’t a rock; we just call it that; that’s not grass; that’s just our word for it…” He went on for a while, then summed up his realization by saying something like, “These are just names we give to things. They’re not the things themselves.”
I was studying rhetoric and semantics around that time and something called mindful speech, and I remember thinking how valuable it could be to carry that kind of childlike mind with us, so we might better understand the fuzzy and squiggly relationship between words and meaning and our intentions.
Our labels, names, words, and concepts can shed light, but they can also obscure. Like windows, they can be opaque, fuzzily translucent, or transparent. They can be used to elucidate or they can be weaponized. Consider even the word mindful. It refers to a positive quality, but when used to shame—You weren’t very mindful!—the tone of contempt and calling-out obliterates the positive connotations of the word, resulting in blunt force trauma.
In a case like that, the co part of communication is lost. The invitation to dialogue and listening that’s the power of mindful speech disappears, and we’re left with finger wagging and pointing. At the core of mindful speech is understanding words as tools we use to achieve a desired result. We need to pay attention to whether that result is achieved—and also to other consequences, such as unintended meanings or possibly harmful distortions.
Real truth is not owned by those of us who stand on a pulpit, dais, or soapbox (real or virtual) and bestow truth on others. It’s found in the middle, in the mix.
If I tell someone, for example, that mindfulness will make them calm, what happens when it freaks them out? If I say it’s about being nonjudgmental, what happens when they think that means being passive and making no distinction between right and wrong? Saying something, writing something, tweeting something, is only half the story. We need to take some responsibility for how it lands in minds and hearts. And we need to vigorously seek dialogue. Real truth is not owned by those of us who stand on a pulpit, dais, or soapbox (real or virtual) and bestow truth on others. It’s found in the middle, in the mix.
A final example. From time to time in our pages and in our other media, we talk about privilege. It can be a highly loaded word. A white person in a large number of contexts enjoys privileged treatment that people of color do not. In simple terms, that’s the meaning of “white privilege.” While we may be created equal, we are not treated as equal. Many white people, though, bristle at the term, saying they’re not necessarily privileged. That’s latching onto the word and not probing to the intention. We’ve arrived back where my friend’s young son landed. A word is simply a marker, a stab at shared understanding. Easy enough with grass and rock, not so easy with intricate concepts and words that can shed both light and darkness. In those cases, to get to real meaning, you need a dialogue, a back-and-forth.
In dialogue with each other, we have a chance to get to deeper meaning, to probe together, to dig beneath the surface of the words and labels we may be slinging about; but if we don’t find enough opportunities for real dialogue together, our words may do more harm than good. We might be better off silent.
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This “portable” mindfulness practice can support you as difficult moments arise at any point in your day. The four steps of the STOP practice can take as little as a few seconds to a few minutes to complete. Try it out and see how long you prefer doing each step.
S
To begin, the “S” stands simply for stop. Literally. Just stop what you’re doing, whether it is typing or rushing out the door. Give yourself a moment to come to rest, pause, and collect yourself.
T
The “T” stands for take a conscious breath. Now that you’ve paused, take a deeper breath, or two, allowing yourself to feel the expansion of the belly as you breathe deeply. Notice the sensations of being here, now. As you do so, it may help to bring your attention to the sensations of your feet meeting the floor. Feel the support of the ground and of your own relaxing breath as you do so.
O
The “O,” stands for observe what’s arising in you, including any thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations (such as tension, butterflies, tightness in the jawline). Broaden your awareness to take in the circumstances. Notice how you can be in this situation without being ruled by it. For added support, offer self-compassion as you release tension and stressful thoughts. As you calm down, open to the choices you have in terms of how best to move forward from here.
P
Finally, the “P” reminds you to simply proceed with intentionality, taking the next step in your day from this place of strength, wisdom, and presence.
Master the Moment
The STOP practice can help whenever you’re feeling distress, creating space to observe and tame your feelings, and to access the deeper resources within you. It helps you develop the emotional intelligence and psychological flexibility required for greater mastery over the challenging moments.
There will be days when the STOP practice saves you. It is especially helpful if you need support to move through intense feelings so that you can note them and set them aside for the moment, with the intention of reflecting on them more deeply later. During a recent interview, I guided the questioner through the practice after I found myself sharing with her a recent incident of racial violence that she had not yet heard about. Afterward, we both got back on track with greater groundedness.
As we practice the STOP with others, we look deeply within while allowing space to be present with the other. We listen without becoming triggered by holding on to words tightly. We learn to be present to emotions, in ourselves and in others, without reactive judgment. With this practice, we remain close to our experience as we stay engaged. We get granular and we move from one moment to the next with awareness. We breathe in and out of that awareness, and after completing the practice, invite reflection on the incident as a whole, which can promote even further growth.
Reactivity is part of what it means to be a human being. The question is this: How do we meet our reactivity without judgment, and with the intention of transforming it into effective responsiveness in our everyday lives?
We do it by practicing mindfulness as if our very lives depended on it, as Jon Kabat-Zinn says. Because in a very real sense, they do. More and more, our lives depend on our capacity for deep engagement with socially distant others. Engaging in conversations like these is difficult. The capacity to be lovingly engaged but not attached to particular outcomes, to keep coming back for more, to see the wholeness that can handle this moment of illusory disconnect, that one, and the next, is a complete and deep mindfulness practice in and of itself.
How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage
Kelly McGonigal, PhD • Avery
McGonigal’s thesis is simple—as humans, we are hardwired for movement. She builds her case through a wide-ranging survey of scientific studies, interviews with movers of all kinds, and her own personal experiences as a group-fitness leader and enthusiast.
McGonigal’s writing is personal, hospitable, and engaging, and her deep love of the subject is evident on every page.
She starts with the “runner’s high,” which lights up the same reward center in the brain as cocaine and other addictive drugs do. But since addictive drugs don’t seem to serve any evolutionary purpose, McGonigal digs into studies that reveal the runner’s high may be connected not only to our hunting-and-gathering past, but also to the kind of cooperation that saw us sharing the spoils of our endeavors, and thus surviving together. From there, McGonigal’s off and running. Along the way she investigates links between synchronized movement and empathy; the euphoric self-transcendence known as “collective effervescence” that results from moving with a group, and how that can help build and strengthen communities; and what intense physical challenges can teach us about our own resilience. She interviews marathoners, dancers, a woman who rows with a crew of over-50s, a gym-owner whose focus is on people who are working with physical disabilities, and a guy who designs obstacles for Tough Mudder races.
McGonigal’s writing is personal, hospitable, and engaging, and her deep love of the subject is evident on every page. Peppered with personal stories that touch on hope, courage, resilience, and yes, joy, The Joy of Movement will have you turning pages faster—if only to get to the part where you put the book down, lace up your sneakers, and head out to claim your birthright as a human, moving.
Growing up in the US as the child of Indian immigrants, Taranath, a professor at the University of Washington, felt she never quite fit the image of an American. Nor was she fully at home when studying in India. She describes “the familiar patterns of shame and guilt that lure me in like a comfortable sofa.” Beyond Guilt Trips arose from her conviction that, to bridge social and cultural differences, we must get in touch with global inequality and our discomfort in facing it. Only then, she says, can we “know that our differences might not be everything.” Enlivened by her travel stories—at once tense, challenging, and brightly beautiful—Taranath’s book may become required reading for those who wander, and those who want to.
Skills for Staying Positive and Living Your Best Life
Gina Biegel • Shambhala
This new journal and guidebook is not only incredibly fun-looking, with its distinctive yellow-and-gray theme, playful fonts, and encouraging cartoons; it’s also written by a psychotherapist and author who’s delivered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to teens (and their families and communities) for over a decade. In this book, Biegel zeroes in on helping teens understand neuroplasticity, the process by which our brain changes in response to our experiences—and how directing our attention to the positive, i.e. “taking in the good,” trains our brain to be happy and resilient. There’s plenty to read in here, plus lots of prompts to write, move, and try out a variety of skills for emotional health. Really, it’s all good.
Over the past few decades, a growing body of literature has tried to explore why we do what we do: study what we study, buy what we buy, practice what we practice, marry who we marry. So-called “classical economics”—which has dominated throughout the modern era—posits a person most of us believe to be utterly unreal: the rational actor. Can you honestly say that all, or even most, of the choices you make in life are based on a rational weighing of the pros and cons of the available choices?
In response to this silliness, behavioral economics has grown, landing more of our decision-making in the realm of urges, needs, desires, biases. Some contemplative practitioners have been attracted to behavioral economics because it speaks to the need to navigate our emotions, rather than simply sharpen our reasoning power. It’s no small thing, since our collective choices add up to a world—and all its attendant problems.
Can you honestly say that all, or even most, of the choices you make in life are based on a rational weighing of the pros and cons of the available choices?
Columbia University professor and investment firm CEO Richard Robb now enters the fray with Willful, his attempt to provide a way of thinking about choice that covers the territory ruled by both rational choice and behavioral drives. In brief, he distinguishes actions resulting from choices based on purpose (achieving an end), and actions we take simply for their own good. In the former we make comparisons; in the latter, the choices are made unconditionally. It’s a short book that takes us on an intriguing ride, asking us to explore some age-old questions freshly.
As part of a series known as Buddhist Foundations, Sarah Shaw, a lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, does a thorough job of tracing the history of mindfulness within Buddhism, dissecting all the strands associated with the word and the practices it represents. Shaw is noticeably astute in how she discusses the English word mindfulness. She demonstrates the understanding that once an existing word in a language acquires new meaning when used to translate a word in another language, a whole new life has begun. And words, just like offspring, cannot be controlled.
Appreciating this fact, Shaw eschews the doctrinaire. “Words do not need to be institutionalized or static,” she writes. “The word mindfulness is, one hopes, always ongoing, always susceptible to new interpretation and new enactment in literary forms and teaching methods.” In so saying, Shaw admirably places herself in the company of those for whom actual experience in mind training is of paramount importance when it comes to describing events of the mind and ascribing meaning to them. Nevertheless, she could easily still make a blanket statement that Mindfulness is Buddhist. End of story.
“The word mindfulness is, one hopes, always ongoing, always susceptible to new interpretation and new enactment in literary forms and teaching methods.”
Instead, she shows herself to be more ecumenical, declaring that her approach to mindfulness “does not, however, suggest that any one tradition, even Buddhism itself, owns the franchise on it, or is the only one that gets it right.” While many mindfulness practitioners promoting secular versions similarly don’t believe the practice to be owned by Buddhism, few would argue that Buddhism has not made the largest contribution to this form of contemplative practice.
Shaw’s excellent survey of mindfulness from its earliest days to the present is well worth the trip. Sadly, it may be used by some as a stick to brandish in defense of mindfulness practice as valid only within the one true faith of Buddhism. That would be a shame. It would do a disservice to a top-notch treatment that has much more to offer than paranoiac polemics.
Many “spiritual” writings give only incidental mention of the social and material struggles people face. They imply, “Inequality, marginalization? That’s an out-there problem. Ignore it and meditate.” Having reckoned with homophobia, personal trauma, and stress rooted in poverty and domestic violence, Justin Michael Williams has no time for that: “You need a different type of meditation. One that doesn’t pretend the struggle doesn’t exist.” He demonstrates real strength through the honesty and vulnerability of his first book. With “Freedom Meditation,” he offers you 10 steps to create a meditation (and life) practice that’s about fearlessly embracing all of who you are, to explore both your inner and outer worlds: “Meditation is not about relaxing. Meditation is about becoming more alive.”
30 Fun Ways for Kids to Chill Out, Tune In, and Open Up
With exquisite illustrations by Alexander Vidal, this pack of 30 cards mixes many images: We find weather (rainbow, gentle breeze, hurricane), natural features (tree, mountain, rushing river), and anthropomorphized animals (cranky crab, burrowing bunny, loyal dog) on one side, and simple, playful meditation practices on the other side. The result is a stunning variety of short, insightful practices that can be, according to the accompanying guide, “a source of invention and play, a safe way to reflect on difficult topics, and a form of nourishment and support for children navigating an increasingly complex world.” The instructions are very clearly expressed, and (best of all) the teachings embodied here avoid the extreme earnestness that can ruin meditation for people of all ages.
It’s a rare thing for our true self, with all of our struggles, to be seen and lovingly accepted. Especially when we’re mired in a major illness or loss, being honest enough to share that pain with others often clashes with the expectation that we should be “over it” already. How do you leave space for someone’s pain, send the message, I see you? Psychologist and author Susan David recalls a series of unconventional “love letters”—“human to human, full of heart and compassion”—that she exchanged with her English teacher, Mrs. F., while in high school and grieving her father’s death. By offering David the chance to write about her intense emotions and get an open, compassionate response, Mrs. F. helped David find peace with those emotions. Those unassuming letters were her first steps toward healing. As on all episodes of Meditative Story, podcast host Rohan Gunatillake pops in every few minutes to inject some guided meditation into the narrative: Check in with yourself, he says, and notice how the story is resonating. This is part of a “correspondence with our own heart,” as David says: “When we are truly able to see ourselves, we are more able to see others, too.”
This episode is about “raising” a therapy chatbot: an artificial intelligence that talks to users via text message, and can deliver therapies like CBT. Yes, treating a chatbot like a human friend is unconventional, to say the least. It may sound like a very bad idea—we’re more online than ever, but also leery (for good reason) about the ways our personal data is used and misused. But researcher Shaila Chavarria wondered what could develop if she communicated with Devendra, her therapy bot, as she would with her son: through daily exchanges, asking it lots of probing questions, and watching it become more sophisticated through their “talks.” Her experiment probes what we understand about AI learning, companionship, and unconditional love. It’s reminiscent of Black Mirror, but far more optimistic.
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Greyston Bakery makes more than great-tasting brownies. Greyston, New York’s first registered Benefit Corporation, is making an impact on the community, society, and the environment. At the very heart of Greyston’s operations are the tenets of nonjudgment, embracing uncertainty, and loving action. It’s a philosophy that extends beyond the bakery floor into the offices of the executive leadership team and the board of directors meeting room.
“It’s imperative that business leaders think about their communities. This is our time,” says Greyston’s President and CEO Mike Brady. “How are we ever going to close this income inequality gap if we’re not progressive?”
The commercial brownie bakery pioneered Open Hiring, a system that guarantees a job to anyone willing and able to work. By answering two questions about their legal status and physical ability, an applicant’s name is added to a first-come-first-serve hiring list. When a position opens, the next person on the list joins a 6- to 10-month paid apprenticeship where they learn the skills to work in a commercial kitchen. If they complete the program successfully, they’ll earn a permanent position.
Greyston has created more than 3,500 job opportunities and employed as many people over its 38-year history, including former prisoners who struggle to find work once they finish their sentences. Almost half of ex-prisoners have no reported earnings in the first years after incarceration, and of those who do find work, half earn less than minimum wage, according to a 2018 report by the Brookings Institute.
Out of the bakery’s 100 current employees, 70 came through open hiring, says Brady. “We trust that everyone can be successful on a job, and we invest in that trust,” he says. “Everyone gets a chance.”
The model has certainly proved successful for the business. Sales have doubled over the past five years, from $10 million to $21 million.
It also provides a compelling story to other companies getting “woke” to their role in society.
Compassionate Roots
In the early 1980s, Zen Buddhist teachers Bernie Glassman and Sandra Jishu Holmes started a bakery named after their teaching center and home, Greyston Mansion, as a way to employ their students. Inspired by the concept of right livelihood, or an ethical path to success that does not cause harm, Glassman also envisioned it as an opportunity to support the surrounding community, especially those struggling with homelessness or other barriers to employment.
“We trust that everyone can be successful on a job, and we invest in that trust,” says Brady. “Everyone gets a chance.”
The mayor of Yonkers caught wind of the idea, and asked Glassman if he’d consider launching his community development experiment there. Homelessness was at the time widespread in the city, among other social issues. Glassman sold the mansion and closed the bakery, and moved operations a few miles up the Hudson River into an abandoned lasagna factory. A few years later and funded by the bakery’s success, he and Holmes launched a nonprofit community development organization to address needs beyond employment that keep people from thriving, including housing, childcare, social services, and more. Today this work is supported by the Greyston Foundation, which distributes bakery profits back into the community.
By the time Brady joined the team, first as a volunteer, then getting involved with the board, and then taking over operations for the bakery before moving into his current position, Greyston had long enjoyed the support of conscious capitalism vanguard Ben & Jerry’s, providing the key ingredient for its popular Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. But while attending a Social Venture Circle conference, Brady realized how far Greyston’s story had traveled. “I was blown away by the reception of others when I told them where I worked,” he recalls. “I didn’t appreciate how highly regarded it was.”
He also realized that “there were a lot of business assets that were being under-realized.”
Today Greyston is the official brownie vendor to Delta Airlines, and has developed a line of products, including vegan brownies and blondies, for Whole Foods, among other clients. Some 35,000 pounds of brownies are baked each day at the Yonkers facility—that’s 6.5 million brownies annually.
Brady also often heard from business leaders intrigued by Greyston’s hiring model but unsure how it might work in their companies. “I saw that there was a lot more opportunity to make impact,” he says.
In June 2018 the Greyston Foundation launched the Center for Open Hiring to develop best practices and advise other businesses on how to extend their definition of who is employable. The goal, says Brady, is to “make Open Hiring a common practice throughout the world.” The center has already partnered with a similar foundation in the Netherlands, which is facing its own issues around refugee and senior employment discrimination.
Brady says that companies there are hungry for solutions to remedy social inequality, but American businesses tend to be more cautious. And while more and more have embraced corporate philanthropy and social benefit initiatives, Brady believes these efforts only go so far. “That volunteer day is great,” he says, “but it doesn’t change people’s lives.”
Instead, he wants to flip the narrative about who is employable on its head, and create pathways for more people to enter and thrive in the workforce. “I want to inspire every business in the country to hire 10 people who need a break. To say ‘Let’s take a chance to hire someone who doesn’t fit,’” he says. “Now I’m solving some real problems around income inequality and poverty and criminal justice.”
Mindfulness in Action
“Mindfulness is, for lack of a better term, fully baked into the business,” Brady says.
Brady explains the organization’s foundational belief in the concept of PathMaking, or that everyone is on their own individual life journey. If an employee is struggling in any area outside of work, such as with housing or childcare, the company is invested in trying to support them. Greyston works closely with social-service providers in the community, to make sure that employees get the help they need—something that hearkens back to Bernie Glassman’s original vision.
Brady acknowledges that this level of involvement in an employee’s life might seem like more than what many companies are willing to do, but he’s pragmatic. “We need our business to be successful,” he says. “I want this team member to overcome this issue so they can be successful in life, but also so they can come to work. If someone is concerned about childcare, are they going to be mindful on the line? The answer is no.”
On the other side of this human-to-human support, Brady says, “What I get is a team member, for as long as they’re at Greyston, they’re committed. They’re working hard.” He notes that retention levels at the bakery are higher than the industry average.
Not everyone who comes through the program ends up working for or staying at the bakery. “We take people in without judgment; we also let people go without judgment,” Brady says. The company will even connect employees to other types of job training if they’re ready to move on. “We often say the success isn’t when we give someone a job in Greyston. The success is when they leave Greyston for another job,” he adds.
Retaining or losing employees, especially ones that you’ve invested so much time in, is a concern Brady hears often from business leaders. “There’s a lot of discussion about ‘churn’ at organizations,” he says. “But, if you think that you’ve given someone job skills, what a great thing to celebrate.”
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