Meditation.. how to..

Many clients recognise that meditation is a way to increase balance, happiness, well-being, productivity, health etc.. but are not quite sure how to proceed.  Here are a few suggestions to get started:

These are things you can do anywhere (including office)

1. Breathe:  Sit or lie comfortably, and focus on your breathing. Perhaps use some words like "Breathe in, breathe out" to accompany the breathing. At work, just taking a few moments when one is ultra stressed, getting angry etc. to focus on this can be a real help!
2. Go to You Tube and find a relaxing video with ocean waves or other sounds / visuals.  Watch for 5-10 minutes. Also- focus on breathing at the same time.
3. Do an "appreciation exericse":  You think about (and feel) the gratitude you have for (a) all that you have, (b) all that you are, (c) all that is, (d) all that will be.

There are a million opportunities to learn about meditation... 

• Buy a book!  There are lots of books on meditation and how to do.  
• Buy a CD!  This can be just music (look up music that mentions Deep Alpha for example) or it can be an actual meditation/relaxation excericse like "Deep Alpha Relaxation Cycle" by Robert Kendall.
• Go to You Tube and type in "Meditation".  There are lots and lots of examples, training, guided meditation in all sorts of languages. 

If you have a favourite support for effective meditation, please do share! 

How to flourish!

4 main categories of Mental Health

According to a report created by NEF (www.neweconomics.org), the general population's mental health is broken into 4 categories:

1. Flourishing
2. Moderate Mental Health
3. Languishing
4. Mental Disorder 

There are 5 steps to move from languishing up to flourishing and to maintain a flourishing state:

1. Connect: With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.
2. Be Active:  Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and that suits your level of mobility and fitness.
3. Take notice: Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.
4. Keep Learning:  Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun.
5. Give:  Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.

Exercise:

Look back at your last week.  On a scale of 1-5 (1= did little or nothing, 5=did tons in this area, would be almost impossible to do more), evaluate how much time you spent doing each of the actions above. Choose one area (with a clear action) to improve for next week.  Be very clear what action you will take, when, and what you need to make it successful). 

How might you incorporate this into your 10 daily habits?

Meetings - a time saver?

I have been reading "Death by Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni. 3 key learnings came of out this book for me.

1. Enterprises are social organisations. (I know... this seems obvious..but..)
2. Purposefully plan different types of meetings, which are run differently
3. Well run meetings are actually a time saver!

1. Enterprises are social organisations. In management, we get things done through people. This means, people need to communicate with people! What better way than to have everybody in the same room/meeting. Meetings are / should be - how we get things done! So, it really behoves all of us to make them as useful as possible! So, seeing meetings as the heart of getting things done, could change your approach to meetings.

2. Depending on the purpose of the meeting, it should have a different format and be run differently and all of this should be part of the company culture. I always knew there should be different types of meetings, but I ran them all in more or less the same way: Strict agenda, timed discussion, end on time, as little conflict as possible (ie. steam roller people into agreeing with me). So, here the key learning for me is two fold: (a) generate conflict in meetings to get thoughts out on the table and (b) run different types of meeting differently (the agenda is not king!).

3. Meetings are a time saver: Think about how much time you spend after a meeting following up on things that happened or were discussed/not discussed but should have been in the meeitng, to get alignment, clarity, action. If we could organise the meetings better, all that time spent following up, resolving differences - could be saved!

Interesting approach -challenging us to change our attitude to meetings!

Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Which path leads to happiness?

Which path have you taken and which would you like to take?

There are 3 key ways to answer the question "why am I here", according to Gill Edwards in her book "Life is a gift". The answer you have chosen (conciously or most likely unconsiously) determines much your life's journey

The 3 answers (or 3 paths):

1. Be good (Life is a trial)

2. Be safe (Life is an accident)

3. Be happy (Life is a gift)

"Be good" has had a strong influence on my life. It has always about being loved, accepted, better, more perfect. The good side of this is that I have accomplished a lot! The bad side of this is that I am never good enough.. so constantly have to fight agains this feeling about not being good enough, what I did wrong etc.. What a lot of energy has gone (and continues to go) to that fight!

"Be safe" has also had an influence on my life. The universe was created in a big bang and life evolved totally accidentily. All is accidental, unpredictable. When I look back at my accomplishments and all I have to be grateful for, I most often think "Boy, was I lucky". Where is the self responsibility in that? I give luck the thank you for all the good that has happened to me, since obviously, it could not have been me that made it happen since I am not perfect enough, good enough... (see how these three approaches become interdependent?). And, since the future is totally unpredicable, I need to make sure I do all I can to be safe (money in the bank, food in the house, insurance here and there, agonizing over big decisions.. etc., etc.). Again... a lot of energy gets burned off here!

"Be happy" is where I am moving to... Life is here for us to have fun, life is a playground. It is full of enjoying the moment, appreciating what ever happens, knowing that there are no wrong choices, no judgement, finding the good in all that happens, unconditional love. The more I live along this path, the more I feel relaxed, happy, confident. A lot of energy still goes into panicking about not being good enough or not having enough money in the bank but the more energy I focus on the "be happy" answer to "why am I here", the happier I am!.

Think about your approach to the question "Why am I here?". How would putting more energy and focus towards the "Be happy" answer to why we are here, have an impact on your life and happiness?

Enjoy!