Knowing the difference between managing something or solving something is critical to the resilience of a leader. Is it a problem needing a root cause solution? Is it a necessary tension required in achieving excellence and at times needing to be managed? There are some tensions we want to keep active because it helps us as…
Asking for help is a strength and not a weakness. Normalizing asking for help, can support individuals in getting the help them need when they need it. Waiting to ask for help rarely results in improving a situation. If you feel you need help, acknowledge it and reach out to someone so they can support…
In week 7 of MBSR, we begin with a mindfulness practice. This time without guidance from the teacher. We talk about how the experience of not being guided differs or the same. We then spend time talking about the all-day retreat. Opening it up to participants for them to talk about what came up for…
The “All Day” retreat can bring some anxiety to new participants. It also brings confusion to some participants’ family members. I remember my husband’s confusion as he thought about me spending the entire day in our guest room, with my class, not speaking…and paying money to do this. Don’t knock it until you try it. …
Scheduling a meeting and showing up for it doesn’t seem to be high on the list of items one would consider to be difficult. However, what if the meeting is scheduled with yourself? Time management is something to revisit at least every time one changes jobs or is promoted. One of the times I revisited…
In week 6 of the MBSR course, we continue our focus on awareness, specifically around identifying our attitudes accurately and noticing our behaviors. Participants share what came up for them in the previous week as we continued our mindfulness practices. We talk about the difficult conversation assignment. The discussion is around key questions we were…
Last night I was reminded of this quote by Bob Sharples: “Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself; rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship to yourself. In this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement, for the endless guilt…
Week 5 marks the halfway point in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course. We begin the class with a mindfulness sitting practice. We move then to mindfulness movement with our standing yoga sequence, again being reminded we are always in choice and honoring our bodies is part of the mindfulness practice. We talk about the…
