Mindfulness in the Workplace

Mindfulness will be like the introduction of seat belts in cars; at first no one thought they were important and now they are a safety requirement. Mindfulness may become the seat belt of mental health and one day it will be taught in schools for all people to practice.

-Diana Winston, Director, Mindful Awareness ResearchCenter, UCLA

Dhiman, S. (2009). Mindfulness in Life and Leadership: An Exploratory Survey. Interbeing, 3(1), 55-80.

Mind Your Emotions

...emotions evolved as signaling systems that need to be sensitive to environmental contingencies. Failure to switch off emotion is due to the activation of mental representations of present, past, and future that are created independently of external contingencies. Mindfulness training can be seen as one way to teach people to discriminate such “simulations” from objects and contingencies as they actually are.

Source:
Williams, J. (2010). Mindfulness and psychological process. Emotion, 10(1), 1-7.

Duality

At some point you will play both the hero and the villain keep your heart.

[regiadams.com ]

Love

Love drives achievement.

[regiadams.com ]

Created

Limitations to achievement are shaped by our dominant thoughts and reinforced by our emotions.

[regiadams.com ]

Context is King

The manner in how we view life experiences is everything. Our views can either confine us or free us.

[regiadams.com ]

Lessons

There is nothing wrong with falling short of a goal. Everything is a means through bringing about creative action. The challenge is in not letting resistance and denial restrict the flow.

[regiadams.com ]

Self Talk

In learning new things internal criticism or negative self talk will diminish the quality of execution.

[regiadams.com ]

Limitation

Fear limits creative action and restricts the possibilities of personal expression.

[regiadams.com ]

Question

What do you love more than your own comfort?

[regiadams.com ]

Produce but do not possess.
Advance without dominating.
These are called Subtle Powers.

Tao Te Ching no. 10

No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves.


Rudyard Kipling

Practice

Abhyasa is unconditional. It is the dedicated, unswavering application to what you believe in...I do believe Abhyasa is not something we earn or achieve through force of will; rather it is an innate human capacity that we awaken through practice, through our willingness.

Rolf Gates (Meditations from the Mat)

[regiadams.com ]

Bold Action

In Harvard professor John Kotter’s book, A Sense of Urgency, he contends that a “winning strategy combines analytically sound, ambitious but logical goals with methods that help people experience new, often very ambitious goals, as exciting, meaningful, and uplifting—creating a deeply felt determination to move, make it happen, and win, now.” In other words, not all change strategies are created equal. And a good change strategy is not good enough if it isn’t supported by those whom it affects.

Source:
Astd.org

[regiadams.com ]

Sometimes

Sometimes what's needed is to sit in silence and seperate from self.

[regiadams.com ]

My vision

My ultimate goal is to create learning engagements from which people can create professional and personal success. Educational experiences that challenge people in a holistic way, touching upon all areas of human competency is critical for creating lasting success. What good is it to learn how to be a leader without also learning how to be a better person? How well can I truly manage others if I cannot first manage myself? The compartmentalization of life is an illusion that compromises goal attainment if not addressed. What one does, in one area of life can and will influence how one performs in another. The only solution is to challenge oneself to grow in all areas of life.

Emotion is the seed of decision

It is 9:46 PM on a Saturday night and I am working on a paper on self-reflection. ESPN highlights flash in the background as I am just trying to make sense of this panorama of stimuli. Something I found to be interesting in my research was that true reflection touches upon elements of emotion. Contemplating upon the direction of our lives and even the premise upon which we create our worlds is characteristic of deep thought. How we feel about the many aspects of life are the bricks and mortar of our reality. I have never really contemplated how my emotions either facilitated my growth or imprisoned me to limiting circumstances. I have issued a challenge to myself to begin this process.

A Carl Rogers Insight

I want to talk about learning. But not the lifeless, sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the poor helpless individual tied into his seat by ironclad bonds  of conformity! I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his 'cruiser'. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: "No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!" Carl Rogers 1983: 18-19

The Catalyst

Education is a tool, a catalyst upon which a learner can evolve capability and vision into higher levels of effectiveness. "Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively" (Senge, 2000, pg. 17). Learning curriculum, which emphasizes holistic growth, through a focus on the development of subjective understandings and interpersonal interaction, is most effective in accomplishing this end. Education is a mirror by which one can reflect upon the internal and external worlds in which one is immersed. Learning curriculum should encourage a balance between all parts of a learner's experience, as development in one area nurtures the growth in another.

Motives for learning

'Ideally', Jerome Bruner writes, interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning, rather than such external goals as grades or later competitive advantage' (ibid.: 14). In an age of increasing spectatorship, 'motives for learning must be kept from going passive... they must be based as much as possible upon the arousal of interest in what there is be learned, and they must be kept broad and diverse in expression' (ibid.: 80).

Source:
http://infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm

[regiadams.com ]