“Right, mindfulness. That’s that thing where you eat raisins one by one and you're supposed to be nice to everyone and pretend that everything is OK. Not for me.” Maybe you’ve had a couple of these thoughts. Understandable.
However, that magazine cover image of mindfulness isn’t an accurate picture of what this practice is. Mindfulness awareness practice is more about understanding what makes some situations not at all “OK." It’s not a way to shut out reality and escape to some “happy place”, but instead a way to work with even tough experiences in real time.
Rather than being a personality we adopt, mindfulness is a capability we develop. Mindfulness allows the mind to know itself, to self-monitor. Rather than get pushed around by every difficult event, with mindfulness we can take a perspective that enables us to hold our seat and respond intelligently.
Have you ever been in a stressful situation when you couldn’t think of the right things to say, only to have all those "right things" pop into your head later as you’re driving home? Some recent research shines on a light on this dynamic, including how mindfulness re-engages the parts of the brain where our reasoning resides. So right in the moment when we feel hooked, we can regain access to our creativity and wisdom by tapping into this powerful resource.
This doesn’t mean all your difficulties will magically evaporate. But I know I’d rather have all my neurons accessible when I’m, say, facing a room full of skeptical opposition, or having to fire someone, or trying to placate an angry client, or attempting to absorb an unexpected bit of “developmental” feedback. Why would I leave it to the prehistoric programming of my nervous system to navigate the complexities of executive leadership, when I have the ability to update that programming in a way that increases my chances of success and happiness?
So, how do we develop this capability? Traditionally, one of the most direct methods is through a daily mindfulness meditation practice. Although a meditation session itself can be restorative and provide important insights, the bigger picture is that meditation is training the mind to tap into this resource when we most need it: in everyday life.
A second, and possibly more accessible way for some people to develop mindfulness, is to work with a coach. Even if the coach is not explicitly offering advice about mindfulness, a foundational aspect of any effective coaching is to help the client develop self-awareness. The client is able to do that by, in fact, engaging this capacity of the mind to monitor itself. Using these two methods in combination can be especially powerful.
If you’d like to take a first step in exploring mindfulness and how it can impact your professional and personal life, you can try this free introductory guided Awareness Workout. Enjoy!
