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Mindfulness for the Mainstream
My quest is simple, yet daunting — raise the consciousness of leadership, and consequently raise everyone else up as they become increasingly aware of how all of our actions and inactions affect the greater good, not only today but into the future.
I am at once frequently surprised, mildly disappointed, and wildly optimistic about how many of us in the West initially respond to meditation or mindfulness. We seem to make it out to be something quite mysterious and esoteric, making the regular practice of it seem difficult, if not downright impossible. In fact, some of my clients refer to it as a profound waste of their valuable time to just sit there and become more aware of their thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and environment, afraid that they might actually miss something, not realizing that in their present state of frenetic thinking and activity, they are missing most everything.
“A wandering mind punches holes in comprehension. The antidote for mind wandering is meta-awareness, attention to attention itself, as in the ability to notice that you are not noticing what you should and correcting your focus.”
Daniel Goleman — author of “Emotional Intelligence”
For instance: What are you noticing now? Where has your mind wandered? How did you refocus your attention on this article? Or did you?
Mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and surrounding environment. It is not about “contemplating one’s belly button,” but providing us with the opportunity to keep from getting swept away in the swirl of thoughts, worries, and activities that engulf us on a regular basis. It provides us with a sense of context for what is occurring in our inner world, others’ worlds, and the world around us.
Why bother? Well, how about some of the following documented benefits derived from a regular mindfulness practice? Many of these come from Jon Kabat-Zinn and his mindfulness- based stress reduction program that was launched in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts.
- It helps our minds by both increasing positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions.
- It is good for our bodies and actually boosts the immune system’s ability to fight off illness.
- “Some of the biggest effects found in mindfulness are biological.”— Richie Davidson
- It helps us concentrate and focus, which in turn improves our memory and our ability to pay attention.
- It changes and strengthens our brains, which contributes to more whole brain thinking.
Getting started. Most of us get stuck “getting ready to get ready” and sometimes make any new practice or habit more complicated than it needs to be. The following are some of the more common ways to cultivate a regular mindfulness practice.
Focus on one thing — often we can start our practice of mindfulness by just paying close attention to our breathing, while also noticing how our breathing changes when we are feeling intense emotions.
We can turn into our body’s physical sensations by just noticing how our physical body interacts with the outside environment. Just notice how the outside temperature feels on your skin or how your foot feels when it comes in contact with the ground. A more deliberate body scan can be performed where you focus your attention from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, noticing whatever you sense in these areas without trying to change them.
You can focus on a word or mantra, building off of the work done by Herbert Benson at Harvard when he developed what is known as the “Relaxation Response.” In this practice, you choose a meaningful word or phrase that you can focus on with each out-breath.
You can practice mindful eating, by slowing down your chewing and noticing the texture and the taste of everything that you consume during your day.
Mindfulness and its importance to leadership. The many distractions caused by our 24/7/365 interconnected lifestyles make it very challenging for individuals — let alone leaders — to focus on what is truly important. Or as Stephen Covey, founder of the Covey Leadership Center, put it, “The urgency addiction of our western society has created the illusion of importance and tempts many leaders to take their eye off the ball of what really matters most.”
Mindfulness helps create leadership “presence” — the space required for leaders to be able to check in with them- selves, with others, and with the outer environment in which they operate. This presence provides focus, clarity, empathy, and compassion for serving others and for making decisions that are for the greater good.
Mindfulness helps us become more aware of how often our attention is split and our focus compromised.
So what are you waiting for? Don’t just do something — sit. Sit and become more keenly aware of what is going on inside, outside, and all around.
Ralph L. Simone is founder of Emergent (formerly Productivity Leadership Systems) in Baldwinsville
Originally appeared in Central New York Business Journal February 7th 2014