Is meditation part of your life?
April 1, 2010
We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves. -Dalai Lama
For many years, I heard about how adding meditation to your day could significantly increase your happiness, satisfaction and health as well as reduce stress.
At first, I wasn’t convinced. I just didn’t get it. I thought to myself, “I have no time to waste on meditation! I can’t sit still and do nothing for 30 minutes!!! And what is meditation anyway and how do I do it??”
Over time, when things started to get stressful at work and in my personal life, I began looking for a way to get through it. I slowly became open to the idea of meditation and began to learn about different techniques and try them out.
Although I’m not yet disciplined to have a daily meditation practice, my experience over the past several years has shown me how beneficial it can be. I have gone from frantic states to a sense of calm and inner peace. In my work and in my personal life, I have seen how finding calmness in my inner world allows me to manage my external world. My moods are more even, I am able to refresh and energize myself without caffeine, and I am able to be more efficient in my work.
For instance, this past week, the gray skies and constant rain were getting to me. Congestion and a sore throat had me tired and foggy-headed. Stress started to increase and focus started to decrease. I knew I couldn’t get through the rest of my day until I did something to change the course I was on.
So instead of listening to that old voice that said meditation was a waste of time and that I needed to just sit there until I got my work done, I stepped away from my desk for 45 valuable minutes. I listened to my CD, Your Present: A Half-Hour of Peace by Susie Mantell. And I followed it with 15 minutes of stretching and using my Back Buddy to release tension in my neck and shoulders.
Forty-five minutes later, my perspective had shifted. My neck pain and tension melted away. I got back to my desk and there in my inbox were a few emails I had been waiting for and all contained good news. And I knocked off several items that had been lingering on my to-do list all week. Plus I had enough energy to entertain the members of my book club that were coming over that night.
I know I have a long way to go to improve my meditation practice, but I suspect it will always be in my life. I guess that’s why they call it a practice. It takes dedication to incorporate into your life and years to increase your skill and ability. I thank all of you who encouraged me to try meditation and hope to inspire others to give it a try.
Do you meditate?
What are your favorite techniques? Do you have any favorite CDs or DVDs?
How has meditation made a positive difference in your life?
What inspirational stories do you have to give others out there reason to give it a try?
Or have you thought about meditation but were afraid to try?
“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” - Buddha
What’s life got to do with it? – Extraordinary Foundation
January 13, 2010
This post originally ran on July 30, 2009 on the blog, Less Ordinary Living.
Has this ever happened to you? You had an unfocused, unproductive week at work and you couldn’t understand why!
That’s what happened to me last week. I thought I had everything in place – a 3-year business vision, annual goals, monthly revenue projections, a marketing strategy, monthly goals, daily and weekly action steps, two weekly calls with my accountability partner Phil…Yet I still couldn’t get out of my own way. I couldn’t manage to sit down and accomplish much. My attention wandered, I was distracted by email, doing laundry and waiting for the next post to pop up on Facebook. I was having trouble sleeping and was exhausted most of the day.
What was up? What kind of coach and role model was I being? I followed all the rules, implemented all the systems for success and still nothing could break me out of my unproductive funk.
Disturbed, I pulled out my journal and began to write down any thought that came into my head. Surprisingly, not many of them were work related. Here’s what came out on the page – I’ve been struggling with the chronic illness of a family member, worried about my husband and concerned how much longer he can endure working at his unfulfilling job while managing a job search in this economy, feeling guilty because I’ve been busy and out of touch with friend and family, worried about money, and frustrated that I haven’t finished my home office renovations yet.
My guess is a few of these ring true for you as well. So many of us push through the daily tasks of our work telling ourselves that we’ll get to our personal lives later, when we’re done with work. Yet work never quite seems to end and later keeps getting pushed off. And if you’re like me, when I don’t take time to focus on my personal life, honor what’s important to me and process my emotions, I feel like I’m on shaky ground, carrying a bag of rocks around with me through dense fog. And boy does it wipe me out trying to work while I’m carrying those rocks through the fog! Whether we’re conscious of it or not, our personal life is with us during our workday. The unresolved issues and unprocessed emotions take space in your brain; they mentally (and physically) wear you out and keep you from doing your best work.
As I’ve moved through my career, I’ve noticed my tolerance for pushing off my personal life has decreased as the impact it has on my professional success increases. I now see self-care as a top priority not only in having a high quality of life but also in my career success. If I don’t have the solid foundation of my personal life, no matter how hard I try, I cannot be fully present and successful in running my business.
So when it hit me last week that life was getting in the way of business, I took swift action. I made time for some self-care, I got in touch with friends and family, I talked to my coach, did some financial planning and finally got my home office together.
The energy shift was amazing! Not only do I feel good about the attention I paid to my personal life but in less than a week’s time, I’ve gotten many tasks off the work to-do list and several doors have opened to exciting and unexpected opportunities.
I am taking away a powerful lesson from this experience; a critical key to career success is making your personal life a priority. Taking time to care for yourself, process your emotions and nourish your relationships not only frees you from carrying that bag of rocks through fog, it also is a vital source of energy to accomplish nothing less than the extraordinary in your business and career!
What’s standing the way of your career success? What needs handling in your personal life? What support do you need to move forward?
Look for Potential, Not Problems
January 11, 2010
This post originally ran on May 29, 2009 on the blog, Less Ordinary Living.
I’ve come to notice that in work and in life, we are often focused on solving problems. That’s what people are asking for when they come to us for advice and it’s how we feel we help them. Yet have you ever noticed how you can help someone resolve an issue only to have it come back over and over again? Or that someone comes asking for help with a problem only to react that that don’t like being ‘told what to do’.
What if we were to do something out of the ordinary? Change our approach? Go one step further, and give the people coming to us something bigger than they knew possible? Shift our perspective towards looking for potential vs. looking for problems? It would be a powerful new way to add value.
Let’s start with some definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary
Problem: Any question or matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. Difficult to deal with or control.
Potential: Possible, as opposed to actual; the inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being. Something possessing the capacity for growth or development.
Here are two simple ways two can begin looking for potential:
1. Giving An A
In the book, The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander share a simple way to shift perceptions that’s borrowed from the life lessons of grading students in class. What if everyone was an A student? How would you view them and shift your expectations of them?
In doing this you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves. It gives others a possibility to live into versus an expectation to live up to. The freely given A expresses a vision of partnership, teamwork and relationship. Remember, you can’t change people, but you have the power to change the relationship between you.
TO DO: Every time you interact with people start off by giving them an A in your mind – set aside past interactions and any judgments you might have and credit them with the best intentions.
2. Listen for and point out the special gifts or talents others bring to their challenging situation.
Most of us just listen for what we need from others. Or we’re waiting for the opportunity to solve the problem and move on. This often leads us into seeing others as problems and puts them in a box – they’re wrong, we’re right; they’re broken and we have to fix them.
On the surface, it feels like solving their problem is what they want, what you should do. But if you dig deeper you will find that you have robbed them of knowing their power and their gifts.
TO DO: First, listen for the strengths the individual brings to the table. (For example, someone brings a very detailed and thorough approach to their work.)
Then point out these strengths to the person. (“Wow, it sounds like you have really done your homework and gathered a vast amount details around making this decision.”)
Lastly, reinforce their strengths and empower them to take action on their own. (“What do you know to be true based on all that you’ve gathered? What do you think is the best path to choose? What more, if anything, do you need to consider?”)
The people around us are creative and resourceful. Help them to know this and you will affect them profoundly in that moment and for much time to come. They will start to see themselves as potential and not problems. They will know their value and will become empowered to take ownership.
Your Call To Action: Shift your perspective from problems to potential; Grant an A to everyone you encounter. Look for and acknowledge their potential and watch what happens!