Mindfulness in the workplace - three links

Mindfulness in the Workplace

Scroll to the bottom of this Mindfulnet.org webpage to find lots of downloadable pdfs on the subject. 

Is mindfulness good for business? 

Jeremy Hunter blogged this article from Mindful magazine.

The mindbusiness 

An article on mindfulness in the Financial Times? Yes!

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Teaching mindfulness to schoolchildren - three links from Ireland, the UK and the US

1. The Dharma Primary School in Brighton provides an education based on mindfulness and Buddhist principles.

2. Mindfulness Matters teaches mindfulness in schools in Ireland and also runs mindfulness courses for teachers.

3. This Scientific American article includes a short video showing schoolchildren practising the "raisin" exercise, in which they eat a raising mindfully.

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Mindfulness of thinking and observing the observer

I like mindfulness of thinking because I like thinking and because I want to find out the ways my thinking is leading me by the nose, so to speak. 

I was interested this morning to notice three layers of thinking: first, the picutres and sounds that make up images, fantasies and so on; second, the sort of thought that says, 'Oh, there's not much going on there' or 'Theres a lot of distraction going on there' which is a sort of judging form of thinking, one step back from the images and sounds; third, there's the thought that says 'Oh, here I am observing my judging mind and the images and sounds my judging mind is judging: what a clever boy am I." That's the observing form of thinking, I guess. 

Mindfulness of thinking can be endlessly fascinating - so long as I realise that the judgement that it's endlessly fascinating is thinking also!

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Drink from the well of the pause

Paying attention to your breathing is an easy and valuable mindfulness practice. You can do this in many ways, for instance by by checking in with the quality of your breathing from time to time (is the breath long, short, rough or smooth?) or by sitting still and focusing on your breathing for a while. 

In her book "Living Well With Pain and Illness," mindfulness practitioner and teacher Vidyamala Burch recommends that when doing this we should pay attention to that micro-moment between the end of the out-breath and the start of the in-breath. She calls this "drinking from the well of the pause". This, she writes, is "a point of balance when the out-breath naturally exhausts its momentum and fades into stillness. Then comes a moment of hovering anticipation, a vibration that gathers into the next in-breath." 

She suggests a corresponding image that may be helpful: When a wave flows down the beach towards the sea the water pauses before becoming a new wave that flows back up the beach. "A wave drinks from the ocean just as a new breath drinks from the air." 

It can be difficult sometimes to maintain attention on the breath but focussing on a point such as that pause between out-breath and in-breath can be a great help. Remember the idea is not to lengthen the pause but simply to be aware of it. Noticing your breathing can take you into mindfulness straightaway and is well worth practising as your primary gateway to mindfulness. My Wildmind review of Vidyamala Burch's book is here.

A wandering mind is not a happy mind

We spend almost half our time thinking about something other than what we are doing, according to the Track Your Happiness project which used an iPhone app to track people's happiness levels and to connect these with what they were doing at the time.

The researchers, at Harvard, concluded that mind-wandering lowers happiness levels. This seems to be because the mind wanders towards the negative as well as the positive even if you are doing something enjoyable.

For more, see this New York Times article or this summary on mindful.org

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My happiness does not depend on this: Old teaching, new words

How a new realisation on non-attachment came to me in a traffic jam. From the Wildmind blog.
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Peace now

"Peace can only exist in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say,
'Wait until I finish this, then I will be free to live in
peace.'....If you think that way, peace will never come. There is
always another 'this' that will follow the present one." Thich Nhat
Hanh, "The Sun My Heart."

Mindfulness Journal: Writing down worries

In mindfulness we are advised to be careful about what we entertain in  our minds so when I noticed various worries rattling around my mind this morning I began to use an old technique which requires a degree of mindfulness and detachment. Whenever a new worry occurred to me I jotted it down on a list (a maximum of two words per worry!). This allowed me to proceed without having these particular worries occupying "head space." And, no, I didn't ignore them - I actually resoved a couple and some of the others don't look like worries at all at this stage of the day. Writing the worries down also helped me to be mindful of what I was seeing, hearing and so on. As I said, it's an old technique but one that works well with mindfulness.

The out-breath and thought labelling

Awareness of the out-breath accompanied by labelling of thoughts can be a valuable mindfulness practice, especially if you can set aside 15 minutes a day or more for the purpose. Sit still and notice the out-breath without trying to breathe in any special way. When thoughts come into your mind, just silently say 'thinking' and return to the breath. Pema Chödrön, in an article on the shambala.org website, suggests the following approach:

"The key thing here is, try not to watch the breath, but try feeling it go in and out, so you feel one with the breath. Just see if from the beginning you can minimize that sense of heavy-duty watching it, and just feel the breath going in and out."

"Then start to emphasize the outwardness and the space that the breath goes into, and emphasize that more and more. And then just see if you can let that sense of outwardness and space begin to pervade the whole practice more and more."

"... the other part of our meditation instruction is to label any thoughts we have as thinking and just let go of them and come back to the outbreath. That instruction encourages us to interrupt the constant barrage of talking to ourselves."

In doing this practice I am always amused at how my thoughts go off on adventures when I'm supposed to be maintaining awareness of breathing and at how effectively labelling them simply as "thinking" calls a halt - until the next time!

If you can't manage 15 minutes, start with five minutes and gradually work your way up.

Mindfulness Journal: One continuous breath

When checking in on my breathing to maintain mindfulness during the day, I like to remind myself that the world has seen continuous breathing since the first living being drew breath and that this breathing will continue without interruption until the last living being draws breath. This gives me a sense of connection with life past, present and future. Sometimes I say to myself, 'I breathe in the moment' with the sense that this moment includes an acknowledge of all those other moments of the past, present and future.

Mindfulness Journal: Broadening the field of experience

When my day was visited by various challenges - a non-functioning gas fire, an unexpected traffic jam and an unscheduled school run, I found it helpful to see these events as part of a whole field of experience. The field also included sunshine lighting up trees along the canal, cups of tea, pleasant exchanges by email and other realities. I didn't deny the existence of the unpleasant realities - I couldn't - but pulling the camera back, so to speak, to see these as part of a wider view was helpful, prevented obsessing and allowed me to see what was positive in my field of experience. Once or twice I even found it helpful to imagine the unpleasant things as happening far away on tiny black and white TV screens scattered around the field!

Mindfulness Experience Day, Dublin, 12th November

If you'd like a day of mindfulness, whether you're a beginner or a seasoned practitioner, come to my Mindfulness Experience Day in the Wisdom Centre, Dublin on Saturday, 12th November. Details in the panel to the right.

Cut! A mindfulness trick - but not out loud...

During a (hopefully) minor spat with computer repair guys - when they screw up should they come to me or should I go to them yada yada) I find my mind wants to keep running scenarios and dialogues and phone conversations through my head. I know from experience that this is a total waste of time and energy so I've borrowed a cliché from the movies and mentally call Cut! whenever I notice another scene has started up in my head. It doesn't work one hundred per cent of course because the pull to resolving problems in fantasy is so strong but it has worked often enough to greatly reduce mental and emotional wear and tear. Worth another try the next time I'm having a war - I just need to remember not to shout Cut! out loud!

Mindfulness and negative mood

The mind's urge to keep repeating negative thoughts is especially apparent on days like today when the weather inside my head is as gloomy and potentially stormy as that outside my window. Using a mindful approach to watch this repetition, a thought "struck" me: my negativity has nothing useful to say to me today. So that's what I've been saying to myself whenever I spot another gloomy/irritable thought starting to repeat itself for the umpteenth time. It doesn't change facts of course: traffic is still heavy, financial commitments still loom large (as with so many other people in Ireland, not to mention Greece, Spain, Portugal, USA etc etc)  and there's still more to do today than I can possibly get around to doing.

But all my negative thoughts can do is add to the burden. They had nothing to contribute to the drive to the school (oddly enough we got there early despite the heavy traffic) or to the shopping in the supermarket. So that's what I'm practising with today and for that to work I need to stay mindful of what's going through my head and to remember that, no matter how unpleasant the objective facts may be, my negativity has nothing useful to say to me right now.

Feelings as thunderclouds

Yesterday I wrote about paying attention to good feelings when they
arrive, often unexpectedly. I find that attending to a good mood seems
to prolong it though it's important not to desperately grasp onto it -
otherwise you take the "good" out of the good mood. A few times
yesterday I spotted myself about to step into a poor-me mindset, not
for any compelling reason but simply as a habit. Because I was being
mindful of my mood, I spotted this and the move into negativity simply
vanished. This morning my mood was darker - I likened it to a dark
thundercloud with flashes of lightening, fuelled by the relentless
arrival of bills, a daunting to-do list for the next couple of days
and so on. By simply being mindful of the thundercloud - located in my
stomach! - I seemed to keep it in its place, neither too much nor too
little. Now, following a supervision session with a very warm, genuine
client the good mood has slipped back in and the thundercloud has
become a few white clouds dotted across a blue sky. Without
mindfulness of this morning's negative feelings - mindfulness meaning
being aware of the feelings without getting into a story in my head
about them - I might well have thought myself into a bad mood which
even the supervision session could not have penetrated. I hope the
good mood sticks around for a while but what really matters is that
it's here right now.

Attending to good feelings

Woke up in a bad mood this morning but got on with getting things
done, which took quite an effort. Then something worked out really
well and the mood turned positive.

One lesson mindfulness practice has taught me is to pay as much
attention to my good moods as I do to the negative. Remembering I'm in
a good mood helps me get the most out of it while the mood lasts.

It won't last forever and it's important not to desperately cling on
to it - if that worked I'd be happy all the time. But appreciating it
while it's here makes sense especially as I don't enjoy being
miserable. Odd thing is it's very easy to forget I'm in a good mood,
to take it for granted, and to "think" my way out of it.

This is a case in which attention and awareness win hands down over thinking.

Mindfulness of breathing - guidance from Pema Chödrön

I have been exploring mindfulness of breathing and my search brought me to an article called What is True Mindfulness? on Pema Chödrön' shambala.org website and I thoroughly recommend it to anybody interested in this practice. Here are three instructions from the article and between them they contain what you need to know about mindfulness of breathing:

"The key thing here is, try not to watch the breath, but try feeling it go in and out, so you feel one with the breath. Just see if from the beginning you can minimize that sense of heavy-duty watching it, and just feel the breath going in and out."

"Then start to emphasize the outwardness and the space that the breath goes into, and emphasize that more and more. And then just see if you can let that sense of outwardness and space begin to pervade the whole practice more and more."

"... the other part of our meditation instruction is to label any thoughts we have as thinking and just let go of them and come back to the outbreath. That instruction encourages us to interrupt the constant barrage of talking to ourselves."

(In the first two paragraphs she is reporting the words of Trungpa Rinpoche.)

There are a lot of other good things in the article  which I would recommend to anybody interested in mindfulness to read at this link.

How mindfulness helps Sunada to work through depression

"And when I’m like that, I try not to take my thoughts too seriously. And I don’t let them string me along. If I start thinking I’m hopeless and nobody cares about me, well … I can remind myself it’s my depression talking, not the real me. These moods are like thick masks that are temporarily covering my face and eyes. Even though everything I see looks bleak, I know the “me” underlying it is just fine."

So writes Sunada Takagi in a fine post on how mindfulness helps her with depression. More here on the Wildmind blog.

It's all vanishing now - impermanence and mindfulness

Almost everything you experience today will be forgotten by the time you get up tomorrow morning. This, I hope you will agree, makes a compelling argument for  the practice of mindfuless. Almost all your experience belongs to the here and now - nowhere else. How many experiences did you have yesterday? Probably many thousands if you include everything that impinged on your consciousness. How many do you  remember? Probably no more than two or three. That concert you enjoyed so much - how long would it take you to run through the memories that remain of it? A few minutes?

We look at a person with dementia and think how tragic. The difference may be less than you think.

This phenomenon of the memory of experiences running away from us almost as soon as they have happened is one form of impermanence. Next time you are really enjoying an event or other experience, remind yourself that 'Almost all of this will vanish as soon as it is over' and encourage yourself to maintain mindfulness so as to get the most out of it.

Another form of impermanence that is central to the practice of mindfulness is the impermanence of emotions. Good emotions rise and fall and so do bad emotions or negative emotions. Mindfulness helps you to spot the good emotions when they come and to enjoy them. But when they are replaced by negative emotions you know that these also will fade - no need for a big drama about it, no need to fret because good emotions pass or negative emotions come. This mindful approach, of accepting and noticing the rise and fall of emotions, can spare you a great deal of upset.

But impermanence is inherent in our very existence and in all we do. Empires, great cities, great works of art, great philosophies, you and I, all are impermanent and are already changing sometimes obviously - as a glance in the mirror tells me - sometimes microscopically.

In the practice of mindfulness I become aware of this impermanence and I learn to accept it, appreciating ordinary experiences in a way that simply would not happen if I thought that everything around me on this earth was going to last forever.


(You might also like this piece on impermanence by Edmund O'Reilly from the Buddhist Geeks blog. The picture above is from the blog.)

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Vary your mindfulness practice

In mindfulness practice, we often try to set up a daily routine which we will follow come hell or high water - but that's a mistake.

Human beings need variety. I've been reading Sonja Lyubomirsky's The how of happiness and the importance of variety is among the strongest themes of the book.

I'm an old hand at reading self-help books (I've written a couple as well) and I'm impressed by her friendly, research-based, no-bullshit approach.

The book convinces me that the adage, "variety is the spice of life", has got it right, as so many adages actually have without benefit of laboratory research.

As human beings, we can get used to anything - even to winning the lottery - and variety is a key to keeping our experiences fresh and enjoyable.

So in practising mindfulness we would be wise to vary our practices. Luckily there are many, many mindfulness practices to draw on. Today you might practice mindfulness of sounds, tomorrow mindfulness of walking, next day mindfulness of breathing and so on. I know of mindfulness practitioners who drop all mindfulness practices for six or seven days every month or six weeks so as to keep the experience fresh.

Where to find a variety of mindfulness practices? You'll find them on this blog, in my book or in my free newsletter (email me at pomorain@gmx.com and I'll put you on the mailing list).

So if you've been finding mindfulness practice a little stale lately, try introducing some variety from the sources mentioned here.