Archives for February 2017

Is It Mindfulness or Mindfulness Meditation?

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I was listening to a CBC radio science show recently called Quirks + Quarks which featured a deep dive into Mindfulness.

The host had on Dr. David Cox, the medical consultant to the creators of the popular meditation app “Headspace”.  Headspace is a practical and popular meditation app that is free and a good starting place for many. I really loved Dr. Cox’s simple and clear explanation of the difference between mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. It has also since provided me with renewed motivation to keep up my practice of mindfulness meditation. Here’s how he described the difference between the two:

Mindfulness (Being Mindful) – This is a state of mind and how you are “being.” Being mindful is when you notice things inside yourself and outside of yourself.  You are aware of various aspects of the present moment you are in. In particular, you are able to acknowledge your thoughts and emotions – without feeling compelled to act on them or to turn them off.  By recognizing your thoughts and emotions, and labeling them as such, you are distancing yourself from the emotions and thoughts so they are less likely to control you.  This heightened sense of self-awareness and awareness of what is truly happening around you (vs what your thoughts or emotions are causing you to distort around you) is the ultimate relaxed state.  When we are mindful, we are open, relaxed, clear.  You know the state (we all do) and can access it in the moment.  Just stop right now.  Notice your breath.  How about your body (any aches and pains?  Been sitting too long?).  What are you thinking about what you are reading?  What’s the lighting like where you are?  The sounds around you?  Music or not?  There is much to notice in the present moment and yet even the noticing is from a place of calm and centeredness.  How do we get to this place with ease and frequency?

Mindfulness Meditation (Doing Mindfulness Meditation) – This is a skill you do and practice. One purpose of practicing this skill is to build up your ability to be mindful, to enact and be in a mindful state with greater ease and frequency. Practicing mindfulness meditation is, says Dr. Cox, like using the weight machines that build up your ability to do an activity (like playing tennis). The whole point of meditation according to Cox, is to do meditation “cycles.”  Every cycle is one repetition – like a rep in the gym.  Each cycle has four parts to it:

  1. Focus on something happening right now (eg: focus on your breath but it could be focusing on your feet as you walk).
  2. After a little while (it could be a few seconds or minutes) you will be distracted and your mind will wander.
  3. After a little while of your mind wandering, you will realize you have forgotten to notice your breath (or whatever present moment object you chose to focus on).
  4. After you notice, you bring your attention back to the present moment object (your breath, your feet) – again.

These four steps are one “cycle.” This “cycle” will happen many times during the time you sit – whether it’s 5 minutes or 15 minutes.   Doing these cycles strengthen your capacity to be mindful.

Many of the clients I work with don’t come to me to learn about how to be mindful or how to do mindfulness meditation.  Most are busy supervisors, managers, leaders who want support and learning for how to cut through conflict in the workplace stressing them out.   However, the more I have studied the links between stress, conflict and the brain, the more I have come to see the clear connection between an agitated brain state and a diminished capacity to deal with the everyday (and not so everyday) conflicts.

In fact, I’ve started to ask my leadership/conflict coaching clients about their meditation and mindfulness practices.  Some are opting to increase how they incorporate little moments throughout the day to sit for a moment or two in mindfulness. Others are choosing to add a quiet 3 minute sit to the start of their day (before the coffee is even brewed!).

These practices for being more mindful won’t take away the fact that an employee might be disgruntled, or that they have a work relationship to repair.  However, being more mindful will give leaders the resources and capacity to stay with conflict and to engage it well – because that is what conflict requires of us.

Everyone’s a Mediator!

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I had a vision this month: Everyone’s a mediator! This vision has been growing for a while, as issues, causes and people are becoming increasingly polarized.

My daughter recently wrote a paper for one of her University classes about “ingroups” vs “outgroups.”  An outgroup is any group you don’t belong to, while an ingroup is a group you associate yourself with. It is commonly acknowledged in social psychology that the social group we identify with (our ingroup) is quick to denigrate others who don’t fit into our group. We tend to see members of our own ingroup as capable of having differences (called ingroup heterogeneity) yet when we look at an outgroup – we see them all as similar (called outgroup homogeneity).

So, from a basic human animal point of view, it makes sense that we are becoming more polarized as stress increases through realities such as global and environmental issues increase.  Climate change is making a real impact in all our lives and is cited as the root cause of some of our global mass migrations.  There are diminishing resources generally as our populations continue to increase. We have the deterioration of the middle class as more wealth concentrates in the hands of a few.  All these issues (and more) are painful and cause us to want to band together in our ingroup.

It will take the outliers in each of our ingroups to challenge our thinking and to reach out to the other – the outgroups.  The outliers, or mediators, will be the ones to remind our own group that the “other” is not a demon, not evil to the core, not out with only nefarious intentions.  These are our peacebuilders.  They remind our “side” that there is another “side” – in fact these peacebuilders are our “third side.”

Let’s “arm up” the world with peacebuilders. It starts with an intention – the intention to be a peacebuilder – the intention to notice the nuances and differences that also exist in the outgroup.  Not everyone in the outgroup thinks in one clump.  They are distinct as we are distinct.

How can you reach out from your own ingroup to be that peacemaker?  I heard of a story last week where a few people in a New York subway train took the initiative to remove hate graffiti off the subway they were in.  One person suggested it, another acted on it, a third and fourth and fifth joined in.  In about 5 mintues, they’d wiped away all the graffiti with a collection of hand sanitizers.

Negotiate Like Friends

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I was listening to a short video recently about the “science of persuasion” – which is something I think we are going to need more of in the “Age of Trump.”  We will need to be more on our “A” game in dealing with “red” energy. In the face of assertion and aggression, one needs to respond more fully, more robustly and with more presence.

The video shared the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, an Arizona State University researcher in negotiation and influence. One of his key principles of influence and persuasion was the “Liking” principle.  This principle says people prefer to say yes to those they like and that we like people who:

  1. give us compliments;
  2. cooperate with us towards mutually perceived goals;
  3. seem similar in some way to us.

What I found most interesting was one study cited to back up this principle. There was a series of negotiation studies with two groups of MBA students. One group was told that “Time is money” and to, therefore, get down to business and start negotiating. Those groups achieved 55% agreements. The second group was told:  “Before you begin negotiating, exchange some personal information with each other – identify a similarity you share in common – then begin negotiating.” In this group, 90% came to agreements and typically with agreements that were worth 18% more to both parties.

Yet, when I work with people to help them prepare for a difficult workplace conversation, most people start a practice conversation by getting right down to the issue at hand.  Whereas, the “liking” principle states that it’s the relationship that is most important.

As if to confirm this principle, I then heard a retired Canadian Forces Lieutenant-General (and Member of Parliament) on CBC radio’s As It Happens.  Andrew Leslie spoke about the new Trump administration, repeating what both countries had in common and how they were working in the same direction.  Then, he ended the interview by saying:

“It is so much easier to solve complex problems when you are talking with a friend.” … Andrew Leslie