Mindfulness | equilibrium9

By Gary Jaffer

I was shocked a week or so ago to learn of the child that had been left in a car all day after the father “forgot” to drop it off at a child care facility. My heart went out to the father, what a terrible thing with which to live. At the time both TV and newspaper reports were quoting similar occurrences in Australia and overseas, with similar outcomes. Then, just today, I read a report of a mother running late for a doctor appointment, inadvertently left her child in the capsule in the car for about an hour – thankfully the child was rescued, but unfortunately the mother was charged and fined.

What is happening here? There seems to be so much demand around us today – all these electronic devices that are meant to make life easier seem to be demanding attention, our work, pressures at home and our general busyness all just seem to take up so much of our head time. The question is; “If we are becoming so pre-occupied with our thoughts that we are missing what truly must be important stuff, then what else are we missing, that is important too, but does not carry the same tragic outcome?”

If ever there was an example for the need to cultivate mindfulness then these two recent events must surely be the ones.

We are so familiar with the term “be mindful” yet we don’t realise that it actually needs to be cultivated, practiced and quite purposeful, for it to have any meaning or effect. In the past few months as I have moved around some business circles and talked about mindfulness, I have regularly got that all knowing look, the one that says, “yeah, that stuff sounds interesting but is a bit hokey pokey and cosmic and not really suited to the general work environment and certainly not here.” Yet, here, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen dramatic and tragic results of inadvertentness. Don’t get me wrong, there is no blame or judgment here, I believe this sort of thing can happen to most people and in fact does, but not with the same tragedy. I got out of the car at the supermarket the other day, deep in thought, and got all the way into the shopping centre before I remembered I had left my shopping bags in the boot of the car – same inadvertentness, nowhere near the same degree of outcome.

Practicing mindfulness is for everybody! It is not something to be shrugged off as something a bit “out there” or “eastern” but something that is incredibly useful in our everyday living. It improves productivity at work and at home, it can reduce stress, increase memory and improve relationships just to name a few benefits. The best part is that it can take just a few minutes of practice every day and some exercises can be done as you go about your normal activities.

What part of your life are you inadvertently missing?

By Gary Jaffer

Thank goodness Harvard professors are teaching and expounding mindfulness with special regard to leadership and business management.

I recently read this article and I commend it for your consideration. It talks about some of the recent corporate experience with the introduction of mindfulness practices into the workplace and especially into leadership.

http://www.mindfulnessinleadership.com/resources/Trisoglio_Mindful_Leadership_Mobius_130218.pdf

The summary of the Google, Genentech and US Marine Corps programs is fascinating reading and is a wonderful example of what can happen when mindfulness programs are supported in the work environment.

One of the areas that resounded with me was with regard to the “observer” view of things when in a leadership role. This is the ability to not get swept up in the flow of events, but to step back from the heat of the battle as it were and take an “observer” view, including yourself. The leader in this situation is enabled to step back into the fray with a broader view of the entire field of action and a consequent greater ability to act in a way that is of benefit to all those parties involved.

Contemporary leadership science talks a lot about authenticity, resilience and focus. These three can all be improved through mindfulness practises. Authentic leaders are seen as self aware and genuine, mission and results driven, leading with their heart and are in it all for the long term. Self awareness comes about when we examine what is happening in our lives and we need to be present to actually do that – mindfulness. Resilience is often described as “mental buoyancy” meaning that the mind is buoyed above the machinations of the chattering mind and has capacity to consider circumstances, as they are – mindfulness. Focus is obvious. The ability to lend our attention to whatever or whoever is before us is surely the practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a practice I was first introduced to back in the late 80’s and frankly I’m not sure how I would have ended up without it over the years. So often I found that both formal and informal mindful practicing, during my work day, gave me the emotional strength to keep at the grind. Beyond this emotional strength, there has been a clear reduction in the tendency to judge and greater acceptance of the current circumstances that has enabled greater clarity in decision making.

One of our original goals when we established equilibrium9 was to bring mindfulness programs to the business community as well as the public arena, in fact it was this aim that helped us create our name. I’m pleased to say that work on these programs is well underway and we envisage launching them within the next couple of months – we’ll keep you posted!

Tag Archives: mindfulness

Tragic outcomes of inadvertentness

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