Discover how to strengthen your resilience
You probably have it down to a T.
You arrive to work on time, get your tasks done, maybe you shut down around 5 p.m. and go home.
Mission accomplished.
Do you believe that's your job? To show up on time, take notes with a smile on your face and do the work that's assigned?
I don't.
Bear with me and I'll explain.....
Have you ever considered giving yourself a whack over the head?
Sometimes that's what it takes to put things in perspective. To see things differently. To change your life for the better.
Some people have an ability to see the writing on the wall. They are blessed with a built-in radar that helps them navigate potential disaster, to avoid hitting......
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a leading authority on positive psychology.
A good friend of mine living in Singapore asked me recently if I'm finding 'a flow' with all I'm learning and doing - as a side note - I recently transitioned from a 19 year career in marketing and branding to move into the business of emotional resilience.
I digress, back to flow.............
I LOVE that she asked that question.
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to own way fewer things?
Imagine for a moment what that might mean to you... maybe fewer clothes, fewer games and magazines, fewer devices and chargers, less beauty products, fewer batteries and light bulbs... maybe it would be a smaller home or fewer cars, or maybe no car? I could go on, but you get the point.
A few years ago, my husband and I came to a startling realization...
In the few minutes it will take to read this post, it's highly likely you will pause to answer a text, check your phone, glance at a status update, or perhaps your mind will wander into things you have to do today.
#1 47% of the time, our minds are in a state of 'partial attention'. When this occurs we are not focused on what we are doing and we are less happy.
#2 The average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds. Meanwhile, goldfish
It's easy to think of happiness as a goal or something that is dependent on material things. Many of us say, "Once I'm making this or that income, then I'll be happy" or, "Once I'm ten pounds lighter, then I'll be happy", or "When I retire and can do what I want, then I'll be happy."
While the conditions of our lives may contribute to part of our happiness, I think it's likely that happiness is also highly dependent upon our ability to live in the present moment. About how we relate to ourselves and others. About how we choose to walk through life.
I'll be the first to admit...
Constant worrying takes a heavy toll.
It can keep us up at night and make us edgy during the day. We agonize about matters that often never occur. So why is it so difficult to stop worrying?
Worrying is a built-in feature of our brain's safety processing. It's part of our fight or flight response system which is never turned off. It puts us into a state of heightened awareness so we're prepared for...
Listening well can be one of the most important skills we have. How well we listen has a profound impact on our life and work and on the quality of our relationships with others.
Here are ten lessons I've learned from mindful listening that have helped me to better understand the difference between only hearing someone rather than deeply listening to them.
Pay attention to the urge to speak or offer input too soon. Hold that feeling in your awareness and continue to listen rather than respond too quickly.
While judging can be a helpful way to evaluate, maintaining a non-judging, curious attitude can encourage the speaker to relax and be more...
I think time is an illusion.
The more we fill our lives with time-saving devices the more rushed we are. While the possibilities of information technology are potentially endless, they also put us under more pressure than ever to get more done, in less time.
At some points we may feel there is never enough time to do what we need to do and time passes too quickly. At other times...
I didn't know what I was doing there, in that room full of strangers.
Not just strangers, but people who had experienced some of life's greatest challenges. I felt like an outsider, as if I was somehow misplaced among these suffering people. What on earth was I doing there with all of them?
What I was doing with them, was attending a 12-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Interpersonal Neurobiology course.
The truth is, I've led and participated in dozens of executive workshops, but never one in which...
Don't just do something. Sit there.
It sounds completely counterintuitive and jarring.
Yet it says a lot in just a few words.
We spend much of our time "doing" things in our day as opposed to "being" in our day.
Being in our day requires some silence and stillness, observing, listening, letting things be. Getting out of our own way. Holding our thoughts, emotions, fears and sensations in our awareness, as opposed to acting on them.
Let's be clear, I'm not suggesting that we abandon 'doing things'...
Breathe.
In our breath, lies a completely overlooked source of power that can transform life. Yet we take it for granted much of the time. There are a couple of reasons why.
It's automatic. Like the sun rising and setting every day. It just happens. We don't have to consciously make ourselves breathe. Our body does it for us.
It's instinctive. From the moment we are born to the moment we die, we breathe. We didn't have to take classes to teach us how to breathe. It's just part of...
Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote, "Make sure you weave your parachute every day, rather than leave it to the time you have to jump out of the plane."
Excellent advice for skydivers and pilots. Is it also good advice for those of us who remain earthbound?
I was sitting in a room with 12 strangers, taking part in a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, when I first heard about...
It was an ordinary day. I was at work. My phone rang.
When I looked at the screen it said it was my doctor. I answered it and she asked, "Where are you?" I said I was at work. "Can you find somewhere private to go... right now?" I found a small room and shut the door. "I don't know how to tell you this... but you have a rare, aggressive and advanced cancer."
In so few words, everything changed...
I struggled to find work-life balance, both as a single person and a married mum with young kids. I worked hard, didn't look after myself particularly well, got too few hours sleep, didn't spend enough time with my family and spent a lot of money on things I didn't need. Oh and I also happened to eat 3-4 tubs of Haagen-Dazs every week.
I became vaguely aware over the years, of a slight nagging...
