Blog
Emotional Comfort and Resiliancy
Emotions: Energy in Motion How often do you take time to explore your inner emotional landscape? Even if it’s a pleasurable emotion, like compassion or connection, we’re often in such a rush that we blow right by the emotional experience itself. When it comes to negative emotions like fear, vulnerability and shame, it seems the usual inclination is the …
Mindful Burnout Prevention
Burnout Prevention, Attention and Intention I’ve had two people in last two hours describe me as a “striver”. I guess that explains why I’m so reliant on the skills I teach; without a constant level of mindfulness about energy going out and nurturance coming in, I’d have burned out long ago! One of the most intriguing presenters at the …
Happiness and Employee Retention
Who’s Happy Now? The pink elephant in the room A survey out this week from Forbes Magazine reports only 19% of employees are happy in their jobs. That’s a pretty sad statistic. Not only as a bottom line concern for the employee asset pool, but for health care costs as well. Scientific research from Barbara Fredrickson at the Psychology, Emotion …
Happiness and Presence
Happiness and Presence: The Price of a Wandering Mind Is anybody home in there? Happiness and Being Present How many times have I looked out at the gray and rainy Portland landscape wishing for a vacation someplace sunny? Today, I’m reminding myself that I’m actually happier if I just enjoy the moment in all its drizzling glory. Harvard psychologist Dr. …
Mixing Meditation and Religion
Religion, Personal Inquiry, “Time In” and the “G” word One of the favorite concepts I picked up at the Wisdom 2.0 Summit was from Daniel Siegel MD, author and founder of The Mindsight Institute. Dr. Siegel talked about “Time Out”, time spent in outward focus on people, places and things, and “Time In”, time spent getting to know our own …
Many Roads up the Mindfulness Mountain
MBSR, MBCT and the reality of Mindfulness I’m highly mindful that my blog posts are not yet regular as clockwork; I’m also mindful of my promise to pass along some of my favorite quotes from the Wisdom 2.0 Summit. And in that mindful state, I’ve decided that the best I can do is share one quote at a time – …
A Mindful Moment from the Wisdom 2.0 Summit
Mindfulness and Technology I’m just back from the Wisdom 2.0 Summit, where mindfulness and technology professionals mingled to explore the impact of mindfulness in the workplace. Only the third time the conference has gathered, there were over 600 participants and 39 speakers, and talk of an even bigger gathering next year (at which point I will surely be ready to …
Stress Reduction by the Numbers
I’ve been having a great time this week sharing the Optimal Mindset message about stress reduction with various professionals in traditionally stressful work environments. Although Accounting, Law, and Financial Investment professionals are well known for coping with a cyclically stressful work environment, there is now added pressure to reset the corporate balance sheet by operating with a leaner staff. More work to …
Apples and Oranges
With the January roll out of my Optimal Mindset curriculum, I’ve fielded quite a few questions about other mindfulness practices, particularly Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR. So what’s the difference between an MBSR course and the OM course? Well, for starters the MBSR folks have a huge head start. The MBSR protocol was introduced in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, …
Is Optimal Mindset for Me?
As I approach my business launch event tomorrow, I’ve fielded some questions about Optimal Mindset training based on the look and feel of my website. First impressions seem to be that Optimal Mindset is just for high-end executives and big corporations. Not so! Yes, one of my personal passions is to bring mind-body tools into the boardroom. The typical corporate …
