On Knowing You Can Bear It (In the Time of Coronavirus)

There is a story in Jack Kornfield’s wonderful book, The Wise Heart, that reminds us of what kindness and compassion can do for us in the immediacy of illness, uncertainty and fear,  as individuals and collectively as a human family:

JK: On one occasion I was sick with what was probably malaria, lying in my hut, feverish and wretched.  I had received medicine but it was slow in taking effect. Ajahn Chah came to visit me.  “Sick and feverish, huh?” he asked.  “Yes,” I replied weakly.  “It’s painful all over, isn’t it?” I nodded.  “Yes, it’s suffering alright.”  He paused.  “Here. This is where we have to practice.  Not just sitting in the meditation hall.  It’s hard. All the body and mind torments.” He waited for a while, then he looked at me with the warmth of a kind grandfather.  “You can bear it, you know.  You can do it.”  I felt that he was fully there with me, that he knew my pain from his own hard struggles.  It took some time for the sickness to pass, but his simple kindness made the situation bearable.  His compassion gave me courage and helped me find my own freedom in the midst of hardship.

Much of my own teaching centers around guided meditations, the application of mindfulness, practices of personal development, all towards the aims of optimal well-being, increased focus and performance at work and reducing our day to day stress. These are all honorable and important intentions for the quality of our lives.  I feel privileged to be able to do it.

AND what drew me to mindfulness so very long ago was its powerful antidote to fear and suffering and trauma, moments like these- when any escape is a mirage and avoiding reality for something more palatable is not only dangerous but sometimes lethal.

Mindfulness as part of an overarching philosophy of our human suffering and how to ease that suffering has its underpinnings in the teaching of compassion as our very human nature. Mindfulness without embodied kindness  lacks the power to sustain our spirit when it tires.

As the poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes: “Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things/feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.  What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the the regions of kindness…then it is only kindness that makes sense any more.

The answer say the sages and those who have fought the hard fight (as Paulo Coehlo likes to call it) is kindness. Kindness is a tender quality of being with unbreakable roots. You can bear it. You are being held in your own heart, cared for by the stranger who is here to make you well and sharing the fear among us with friends and family, dividing it up and breaking it into more manageable bites.

Kindness is the ‘com’ part of compassion.  Being with the suffering- your own and that of others, with gentleness and a sincere desire to help reminds us of our resilient nature and the indomitability of the human spirit.

What it Means to Live Authentically


Leading an Authentic Life 
doesn’t mean spouting your ‘truth’ every time there appears an opening. It’s not the wisest move to be habitually giving your opinions at work or anywhere else for that matter. Yes, honesty matters. And what we are thinking may or may not be the arbiter of truth-ours or anyone else’s.  Living with authenticity is different than this. It means to live a life that is genuine and principled.

Consider the following characteristics of living genuinely:

 

  • Being open to your moment to moment experience without distortions, denial, or  invalidating yourself in some way or another.
  • Enjoying a sense of dynamism and not feeling stuck or stagnant.
  • Having a deep trust in your own intuition and ability to self-direct your own course in life.
  • Knowing the responsibility and the freedom in responding to life with our full attention, rather than reacting impulsively or habitually to people or events as they occur.
  • Adopting a creative approach to life, demonstrating flexibility rather than rigidity and closed-mindedness.


Of course, we may possess more of certain qualities than others. Embodying these qualities are certainly fluid on any given day. What’s vital is that they all can be cultivated by practicing these 5 suggestions:

  1. Be deliberate.  Roy Baumeister, PhD (Univ. of Florida), states that “authenticity consists in being aware that you have choices and consciously choosing what you do.” A large part of living an authentic life involves being aware of your ability to chart your own course, choosing wisely the activities of your day to mirror your intentions and goals. While many things happen each day that we cannot control- we can choose our actions.
  2. Don’t be too deliberate.  Without this seeming like a completely contradictory message, consider how you can be intentional in your behaviors without over analyzing and over thinking everything. Too much opinion polling and second guessing in our lives is sometimes called “analysis paralysis.” Deep down, there is an intuitive understanding of who you are as a person.  Trust yourself.
    Often good decisions are made when we don’t think about them too intensely.  Go with your gut.  Authenticity resides, in part, at the gut level.

 

  1. Practice mindfulness. (Of course) Deep attention creates moments of happiness not contingent on outcomes or external factors or manipulation of the environment.  Mindfulness meditation enables you to become a curious, accepting, and nonjudgmental observer of your own experience.  When you are truly connected to the present moment, there is less attachment to needing certain outcomes or trying to control the way things are. It puts things in perspective and increases connection with the whole of life.

 

4. Cultivating Solitude.  Peter Kramer, a researcher at Brown University notes that “quiet and time for the self are a big plus.  If you’re worried about inauthenticity, there’s nothing like shutting the door.” While people differ on their individual needs for more or less quiet time to relax and recharge, there are significant benefits to taking a bit of quiet reflective time on a regular basis.

5. But Stay Connected. While it is always wise to check inwardly with ourselves, we can be positively informed and inspired by external factors and forces in our life too. Relationships are a vital part of living genuinely. We humans need each other. You can learn a great deal about yourself and your strengths through examining your interactions. Try noticing how you show up in relationship with others.The idea is to find the right balance between reflective solitude and connection with others that is healthy for you.

 

 

 

As Shakespeare penned in Hamlet:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man (or woman or person).”

 

 

 

 

 

5 PIECES OF ADVICE

Today’s Post is the kind of wisdom you want to tape to your fridge, have folded in your wallet so you see it everyday.  You might want to safety-pin it  to your jacket.  You get the picture. It’s short, sweet and oh so good for you.

The 5 Pieces of Advice by Amercian Buddhist nun rockstar Pema Chodron are reminders to help us stay on the path of growth and vitality:

  1. The mundane details of our life eat us up. Therefore it is important to keep asking ourselves again and again: What is the most important thing? Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing? Let that perspective be your guide.

 

  1. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. At the gut level, you might want to go for the most comfortable thing. Always go for the stretch. Sometimes the stretch is to stay, sometimes to go. Sometimes to say, Yes, sometimes to say, No. You don’t always know. The key is to be willing to go through the shedding and unmasking process.

  1.  Rest in the insecurity. Remember that when we lose ground we habitually panic and look for something solid to hold onto: that’s a description of samsara. Go at your own pace. And don’t push it. But continue to train in resting with insecurity.

 

 

4. Don’t believe everything you think. If you can follow this advice, you will be in good shape.

 

  1. And take exactly what appears as your path.

 

 

 

 

 

One Essential for Cultivating Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman’s seminal work, Emotional Intelligence has made universally recognizable the acronyms EI and EQ (referring to Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Quotient). We all seem to have an intuitive grasp of what these terms mean. When referring to a coworker, boss, or a potential employ, we nod our heads approvingly when someone tells us, “She is one of those people with a high EQ” or shake them in sympathy when we hear, “It’s just that he is completely un self-aware, you know, low EQ.” This capacity of individuals to recognize their own, and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use that emotional information to guide thinking and behavior is at the core of leadership competency. 

 Today’s inspiration explores the four competencies of EI: self-awareness, emotional self-regulation, social awareness, and relationship management, and their connection with the role of mindfulness:

By consistently practicing mindfulnessnot only do individuals develop deeper self-awareness, one of the major tenets of EI, they also develop greater insight into others, into human nature and along with an easing of ego-based concerns, mindfulness encourages a more compassionate concern for others.” Dr. Richie Davidson, neuroscientist, author of The Emotional Life of your Brain and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at UWISC- Madison.

The creator of Google’s Search Inside Yourself program, Chade-Meng Tan, also makes strong the link between EI and mindfulness. Tan wanted to help people find a way to align mindfulness practice with what they wanted to achieve in life, so they can create peace and happiness in themselves, and at the same time create world peace.”  This was predicated on the belief that all empathy and kindness come from cultivating a sense of inner calm, which can be achieved through mindfulness. For Tan the key moment came while reading Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence“I had found my vehicle for aligning meditation with real life, and that vehicle is emotional intelligence. A very good way (and I suspect the only way) to truly develop EI is with contemplative practices starting with Mindfulness Meditation.”

We begin training emotional intelligence by training attention…a strong, stable and perceptive attention affords you calmness and clarity, the foundation on which emotional intelligence is built. Mindfulness is a quality of awareness that is strong both in clarity and stability.  This allows us to perceive emotion with high vividness and resolution.  We can then begin to respond, in the best possible way, to ourselves, to other people and the changing situations of our lives. Being aware and deliberate sure beats reacting in ways that are habitual but don’t really serve us much. In fact, developing emotional intelligence is an ultimately practical endeavor.

And the research is compelling. Research at Harvard and Northeastern have shown that participants in mindfulness training are better able to articulate their emotions and score higher on overall empathy scales than the placebo.  Their conclusion: people who regularly practice mindful meditation can more easily develop the ability to detect and understand the emotions of others. And this greater empathy is circular. The continually flowing loop is from self to others back to self. Knowing yourself lies at the core of EQ, and that the best mental app for this can be found in the mind-training method called mindfulness and meditations that strengthen it.

To enhance your EQ, start with a link to a Three Minute Breathing Space Practice with Zindel Segal, PhD, co-founder of MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy):

 

https://youtu.be/amX1IuYFv8A

 

 

 

Living Authentically: The Genuine You

It is the unique combination of talents, personality and experience that make each of us vital to the whole. We sometimes cover up the “real” us; maybe someone once said we were “a bit too much” when we were little or we’re worried that we won’t be accepted if we show up fully ourselves. Of course, these are just notions that don’t serve any good purpose for us or the world. And while it’s true, that we can’t just let it “all hang out” during a workday, we can show up for work with our most authentic self in place. Read more

SIX STEPS FOR EVERYDAY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”- John Dewey

1.Leadership is not simply a title given to those with a supervisory role or hold a job title that sounds leader-like. Leadership is about influencing people and processes in service of accomplishing a collective aim or goal. Such influence can be performed by any member of a group or organization. This notion of leadership is a fundamental state that we can enter and exit when called upon. It’s about focusing on collective needs and goals and influencing the group towards results that benefit the whole. Read more

Minding the Questions

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Much of skillful leadership involves asking great questions…and really wanting to know the answer. Today’s question involves a disciplined awareness and an inquisitiveness on your part:

What’s Needed Most Right Now, at a Time like This?

This is a worthwhile question; worthy of bringing your attention to- a refrain to ask yourself with curiosity from time to time throughout each day. You could choose to even make it a practice. Read more

“Er”, “Um”, “Like”: Mindful vs. Mindless Speech

 

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I stumbled across a creative and innovative practice this morning that is worth sharing. It incorporates mindfulness into our daily lives in a way that forces us to actually think about what we are saying and how we are saying it. This simple but challenging instruction brings an immediate and positive shift to how we are in the world. Read more

EASING OUT OF COMPULSION, EASING IN TO CHOICE

brainThere are lots of ways in which we as human beings can get caught under the vast net of stress in our lives. We oftentimes find ourselves feeling trapped by difficult circumstances and the attending feelings and thoughts that arise from them. All of this can create a sense of being overwhelmed and life at times can appear unmanageable. We then struggle and we suffer. Often times the root cause no longer exists but our coping strategies themselves have become problematic. Read more

10 Simple Ways to Invite Mindfulness into the Present Moment

apples_editMindfulness is not reserved for only those times when you are “formally practicing.” While taking the time to close your eyes and follow your breath, or taking a mindful walk can be enormously helpful,  we can build our awareness by bringing our full attention to our everyday daily activities. These are the tasks that have been so ingrained by repetition , so habitual that they are often times performed on autopilot. It can almost be like we are sleepwalking.  We sometimes don’t even remember doing them! Read more