But I don’t subscribe to that theory any longer. No, I’ve come to see that resilience is the opposite. It requires mental suppleness, flexibility, and a raw vulnerability that allow us to dive deeply into our psyche—especially the broken places—and see ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, our beauty and longings, hurts and wounds, shadows, worst delusions and misdeeds, and to hold all of that with compassion, curiosity, and loving care....
Every fall and spring, I teach on the topic of mindful nourishment at Stanford University. I developed this curriculum nine years ago and have researched it, taught it at worksites, online, and in academia. Within this class, I teach the foundations of mindfulness—to live a fully nourished life at work and at home. The class encourages practices that enable students to focus on how they are nurturing their minds, bodies, relationships, and hearts....
In this TED talk, Ingrid Fetell Lee, designer and author of Joyful: the Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness,describes her 10-year journey to understand how an intangible concept like joy could manifest in the tangible, physical world. The short answer? Joy can be found in the simple things you’ve most likely written off as being too old for. Here are four takeaways from her talk: Joy is hard to explain Even scientists don’t always agree on what joy is, and often use the words joy, happiness, and positivity interchangeably....
Amid challenges, however, it is difficult to be fully present. We are easily distracted. It can be hard to slow down when we have so much to do. And even when we are able to be “in the moment,” we can get caught up in our own stories and projections about what is happening. We can be influenced by our biases or driven by our ego. This is why cultivating a mindful leadership style includes becoming more aware of how our ego’s self-serving tendencies can undermine our best intentions....
Simon wanted to show how entrenched thinking—reinforced within the organizations created by that thinking—makes creative approaches almost impossible, because they are literally unthinkable. At a critical moment in the show, the police commander meets with his top officers. They tell him that his approach, while noble, just won’t work. Harsh, violent enforcement—war—will be the best policy. “You mean the same old thing?” he asks. His most loyal sergeant replies, “Yeah, boss, the same old thing—but better....
The most successful people are those who, faced with their own inadequacy, move forward anyway. They’re not blessed with special talents, they’re just people who keep going despite all the reasons not to. You grow into yourself as a leader when you learn to stop pretending to have all the answers and instead are willing to be yourself—warts and all—and step into the immense uncertainty of leadership. Scared, absolutely. But undeterred....
A Q&A will follow, and you can put your questions to Mirabai using Twitter and the hashtag #workingwithmindfulness. For more information, including a sign-up and a full agenda for the event, click here. 10/01/12
While this may seem a lengthy tip to recall in the midst of uh-oh moments, the power of active breathing—voluntarily inhaling and exhaling to control our breathing rhythm—has been known and used throughout history. Even today, in tactical situations by soldiers, or in extreme cold conditions by the Ice Man, we know that slow, deep breathing can calm the nervous system by reducing our heart rate and activating the parasympathetic (calming) nervous system....
A 6-Minute Loving-Kindness Meditation for Your Loved Ones Relationships are complicated. Conflicts can arise in ways that make it difficult to express love to those we care about the most, or perhaps to those we care about who are no longer with us. In this practice, we focus on sending love to the people we hold dear in a way that is nonjudgmental, non-discriminatory, and honest. In this way, we tap into the love we already have around us and practice sending our dear ones love....
4 Reasons to Try Mindful Singing Sometimes you need to break the rules. “I gave permission to break the rules a little bit. And during the practice of formal mindfulness, I wondered what it would be like if I just let myself vocalize. I think the interesting thing about this is that it’s really a process of exploration, giving one’s self permission to explore. It’s still mindfulness practice—It’s grounded in experiencing directly the sensations of present moments without judgment or interpretation....
But that doesn’t mean the slump has to keep you down. Clear away the haze with a few body-and-brain-boosting tricks—none of which involve pumping yourself full of caffeine or sugar—so you can go forth into the world with a fresh mind. 1. Stretch Stretching for even 20 seconds can have a huge effect on your energy levels—particularly if you’ve been sitting at a desk for hours. Stand up and reach down to touch your toes; bring your hands together and reach above your head; imagine yourself as a cat to deepen your stretch....
It might be a sense of bringing full awareness and attention to our experience, to the people around us, to a conversation with our children. It might be a sense of letting go of reactivity and coming back to resolve with more patience and clarity. It might also be balancing the tendency most of us have to get caught up in stress and giving more attention to gratefulness, positive moments, and things we enjoy....
In addition to the successful fundraising, we also surpassed our year-end goal of adding 1,000 new subscriptions just through this campaign alone. Welcome aboard to all of our new readers. It is indeed humbling that you have chosen to support our work, especially in light of how many worthy causes there are in the world. We take your vote of confidence to heart; it will invigorate our efforts. As a mission-driven non-profit, your support enables us to do more of what we do best—highlight the work of our mindful community, present helpful mindfulness practices, tell engaging stories, promote collaboration between thought leaders, and inspire more people to explore mindfulness so they can lead healthier lives, develop richer relationships, and contribute to a kinder more compassionate, and effective society....
This story can’t be found in your regular science textbook, but maybe it should be: According to a new study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, reading stories about the struggles of famous scientists is more beneficial for students’ grades than reading about their achievements. The way we currently teach science—by focusing on great feats of knowledge by larger-than-life geniuses—may not be the best way to encourage students to pursue scientific careers....
The first person I think of is Menahem Pressler, whom I studied with for two years at Indiana University. He has amazing ears for color and sound – an extraordinary sensitivity to musical poetry and nuance. He got me to listen like I had never listened before, and he also taught me how to touch the piano keys; he transmitted that by his example. The piano is a living thing in his hands, and he transmitted his exceptional passion for piano sound....
Making friends with any difficult emotion is at the heart of the handshake method, which is explained in detail in the forthcoming book Why We Meditate, co-authored by psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman with teacher and author Tsoknyi Rinpoche. The Handshake Practice As the name suggests, the aim of the handshake method is to meet and make friends with upsetting feelings, to know them rather than avoid or fix them....
Based on this theoretical foundation, the researchers of this study set out to determine whether there was a difference in the level of mind-body coherence between people trained in Vipassana meditation or dance – two types of training that emphasize a connection to the body. For the study 21 Vipassana meditators, 21 dancers, and 21 control participants were collected and each individually were made to watch a series of films designed to induce varying degrees of positive and negative emotions for a 90-minute period....
A recent study, published in the journal Mindfulness, zeroes in on the question of whether mindfulness can boost compassion or altruism, the intention to increase the welfare of another, even at a cost to oneself. In the experiment, researchers in Sweden randomly assigned 42 adults to one of two groups: One attended nine 75-minute mindfulness meditation training sessions over an eight-week period; the other group sat on a wait list for those eight weeks....
We’ve seen rising interest in the impact of cultivating moment-to-moment awareness in the workplace. Most research has focused on benefits for employees who practice meditation or who possess high mindfulness traits or skills, like accepting feelings without judgment. Yet, very little work has been done to examine how someone’s mindfulness influences other people in a workplace setting. Is it possible that your mindfulness practice could influence your colleagues? In two studies published in the journal Mindfulness, researchers sought to examine the effect of supervisors’ mindful traits on various aspects of employee well-being and performance....
