What If You Were Already ______ ?

“When we feel unseen, all we want is to be seen. When we feel seen, all we want is to serve.”

-Sarita Chawla, Faculty, New Ventures West, and Master Certified Coach

Nearly every weekend I awaken with a wash of glee at the free time before me, before a pall of worry descends: What if I don’t spend my time wisely? What if I don’t make the right decisions? …And mis-use this precious allotment of open, malleable hours? This weekly tussle with self-doubt puts me nose-to-nose with the more existential aspects of my personality. I’m afraid something bad would happen if I made the wrong choice. I can’t tell you what that bad thing would be. But my inner doubt reminds me that it’s out there, waiting to strike.

This Sunday morning, during a typical bout of ruminating about how to micro-manage the day’s unfolding, a radical question occurred to me: “What if you were already good?” In other words, what if none of the choices before me — from taking care of family members, to working extra hard to research a career question, to finally polishing off my spring cleaning — had any impact on my goodness? What if I knew now that I were a good person? How would that change things?

For one thing, I wouldn’t make decisions from a place of insufficiency. I wouldn’t choose based on needing to prove something to myself. Instead, I could make choices from a place of contact with deeper desires. With my actions, I wouldn’t be swatting away self-doubt. I’d be living my values.  I’d be able to trust my own judgment, rather than suspect I was liable to go astray at any moment.

A sense of wonder and serenity filled me. What if I am good? I asked. I felt it could be true. And I made my decisions from that heartfelt sense of goodness for the rest of the day. I felt calmer than I had in months. I just kept wondering to myself, “What if you already are good?”

This is not a situation unique to me. People often be act from a place of proving something to themselves. Perhaps they want to prove that they are smart, attractive, unique, powerful, flexible, kind, or loyal. The system of understanding personalities known as the Enneagram suggests that there are nine basic messages that people pursue in the world, depending on their persona. They act in such a way to get the world to give them these messages, or, in effect, to “prove it.” See if any of these messages rings true for you:

  • “You are good.”  (Related to the desire to have integrity)
  • “You are wanted.” (Related to the desire to be loved)
  • “You are loved for yourself.” (Related to the desire to be valuable)
  • “You are seen for who you are.” (Related to the desire to be oneself)
  • “Your needs are not a problem.” (Related to the desire to be competent)
  • “You are safe.” (Related to the desire to be secure)
  • “You will be taken care of.” (Related to the desire to be happy)
  • “You will not be betrayed.” (Related to the desire to protect onself)
  • “Your presence matters.” (Related to the desire to be at peace.)

–Adapted from “The Wisdom of the Enneagram” by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, (New York: Bantam, 1999) pp. 33-34

Of course, our desire to have the world give us this message doesn’t mean we are out of touch with other values and self-expression; often they come mixed. For example, when I help my family, part of me does it to prove to myself I’m good, and part of me does it because I love them and want to take of them. The strands are woven together.

Yet when I am more strongly in touch with a sense that I am sufficient, and can act from that place, it feels very different than when I take action with a thread of self-doubt.

This shows up at work all the time, of course. Who among us has not felt utterly awful when a supervisor seemed to demean or critique or simply not value us? We are striving to get a certain message, and when we don’t get it, we feel deflated, sad, angry, or other forms of rejection.

Another way this shows up is transferring our hopes of validation to the task at hand, and therefore becoming intensely results-obsessed. Soren Gordhamer discusses this striving on the job in his book “Wisdom 2.0.” He described the habit of “futuring,” or fixating on a future time when everything has turned out as we hoped for, at the expense of being fully engaged with and alive in the present moment.

He offers an exercise where we imagine that we already have what we’re aiming for. Then we notice how that feels, and act in our work from a place of wholeness, rather than insufficiency. We will be more creative and effective from the sense of completeness, he suggests. Eugene Gendlin, who wrote “Focusing,” a seminal work about addressing inner conflict through gentle attention to the body, offers a similar technique. When working with a problem in the focusing practice, one skillful technique can be to imagine that the problem is already resolved, and then to notice what shifts in the body as a result.

So, what about you?

What is the message you need to hear?

And…

What if it is already true?

Practice: Being Whole
Find a quiet moment when you have some privacy. Craft your own version of the “already” question. It may help to contact your own existential itch — that feeling you avoid, or the one you feel yourself straining against in a familiar way, time and again. You will know you’ve hit upon wording that resonates with you when merely asking the question suddenly shifts or opens something for you. You will feel yourself responding to it from some inner place.

Now, create a practice where you regularly ask yourself this question three times a day: morning, midday, and evening. You don’t have to answer it when you ask. Just sit with it for 30 to 60 seconds, and feel what happens when you ask it. Notice what unfolds, arises, or reveals itself.

Resources:

“Focusing,” by Eugene Gendlin, (New York: Bantam Dell, 1981), pp. 122-124.

“The Wisdom of the Enneagram,” by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, (New York: Bantam, 1999) pp. 33-34.

“Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the creative and constantly connected,” by Soren Gordhamer (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), pp. 149-153.

No Comments
by on May 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Change the Bargain, More Joy, Practices, Stress Relief
Posted by workisyourdojo on May 7, 2012

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=208

Shaping Our Possibilities: The Practice Of Creative Conversations

Why Conversations Matter

Speaking with another person can be one of the most creative acts in our human repertoire, when we are open to the possibilities that may unfold. As I told participants in a recent workshop, what is possible for our lives is defined by what we perceive to be possible. And what shapes our perception? The conversations we are having. The opportunities we find and create are fueled by the different meetings with others that we have had. In fact, a human being is in some sense the sum of 1,000 conversations, from a mother’s initial cooing to a first job offer to a marriage proposal to a product brainstorm.

A fundamental source of support for creativity and openness in conversation is our body and nervous system. We can pro-actively prime our bodies to be more present and available for connecting with others, and the natural creativity that arises when this connection is established. This was a revelation to some participants in the workshop, who reported being more accustomed to approaching conversation as an analytical exercise. This was particularly the case as the workshop focused on “networking,” a particular genre of conversation that causes anxiety and mental churn, as people worry about managing precisely how conversations will unfold and which outcomes will arise. This worrying blocks our natural creativity, and our natural wisdom about our connection to other beings. So while the below practices can be used to support any conversation as being what I’m calling “a creative conversation” where new possibilities unfold, they are especially useful for conversations that provoke anxiety, such as networking.

The Three Practices

The Three Practices that support the unfolding of creative conversations are Center, Soften, and Connect.

1.       Center

 

Explanation: Becoming physically centered calms our sympathetic nervous system, which controls fight-or-flight reactions, and activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which soothes us and lets the brain know everything is okay. In turn, numerous studies show that being calm and unafraid allows greater access to creativity and supports a stronger ability to listen to the other person and genuinely resonate with them. Finally, centering literally gives us a center to stand in. When we are centered in conversation, we are less likely to be thrown off course by external events, or to get reactive to what is said. We can rest in ourselves, and respond to what happens from a place of contact with ourselves (rather than judgment or alienation.) So, we start the foundation for creative conversations by centering:

Instructions: Sit quietly with your feet touching the ground. Close your eyes or cast them downwards. Feel where your body is making contact with what is supporting you: your feet on the ground, your rear on the chair, your hands in your lap. Notice the solidity there for a moment. Now take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Repeat. Feel yourself relaxing, like a big block of ice melting in the noon sun. Everything softening and melting. Rest your attention on the breath, without controlling it, just experiencing the sensations of breathing. You may feel the breath in your nose, throat, or stomach. Just notice it coming and going. Breathe and relax.

 2.       Soften

Explanation: Again, with this step we are priming ourselves to be in open and receptive state of mind, by activating circuitry associated with love and attachment, and thereby dampening the influence of residual anxiety or strain. This step softens our minds and heart, allowing us to be impressionable, to let others make an impression on us and touch us. We can experience the actions of others with less fear or aversion. We are also prepping ourselves to appreciate others, a huge support in entering conversations with genuine warmth and curiosity.

Instructions: After a minute or so of centering, when some calm has been established, call to mind an act of kindness someone has performed for you recently, or something kind you have done for another. It doesn’t need to be monumental. It can be a smile from a stranger, or someone who held the door, or a nice phone call you made to loved one. Or it can be a deep sacrifice. Whatever arises is fine.

When something has come to mind, breathe as though you are breathing into your heart. Envision the air entering your body at the heart center, as you contemplate this kind action. You may sense the kind action, or an image of it, around your heart. If warmth arises in the recollection, let a small smile play across your face. Connect to the goodness of this action, and know that this is an expression of the true nature of kindness in all people. Enjoy any warmth and softness arising in your heart area, as you continue to focus there.

3.       Connect

This is the final step. We connect with our own inner intention, our best wish for this conversation. I find that my inner intention is often, “May I listen deeply.” Play with wording to find your deepest, most heartfelt intention. After softening, find your sense of this intention and repeat it gently to yourself. Then look up and, while maintaining contact with your felt sense of centering and softening, move into a creative conversation with another person.

A note on process: one workshop participant recently asked, “How do you do this when you walk into a crowded room?”

Excellent question. The key to this three-step process is to practice at home a few times, until the steps are part of your body’s muscle memory. Try with a partner, and notice the way conversation unfolds after practicing these three steps. And while it is possible to dwell in the steps, enjoying them so they last several minutes or more, it is also possible to practice them until they are embodied enough that the entire process can take about 30 seconds.

My advice for walking into a crowded, public setting is to find a restroom where you can duck in and center, soften, and connect.

If that’s not possible, try this: take your phone out and look down at the screen held near your waist about a foot in front of your body, keeping a steady, soft gaze. It will look as though you are checking your phone. But you’re not. Don’t bother lighting up the screen.

Now, with a downcast gaze, simply center, feeling your feet on the floor, finding your breath…then call to mind an act of kindness and let it warm your heart…then connect with your intention. This can be done without “looking weird” or seeming socially unacceptable. If you have practiced at home, you will find that your nervous system is conditioned to remember and can support you in going through the steps, even when you don’t have a peaceful setting, or even if it feels a bit strange.

As with every physical activity, the more you practice, the more your body will learn to do these steps, and the more facility you’ll feel.

May you enjoy your future conversations!

 

1 Comment
by on April 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Learning Orientation, Practices, Set & Recall Intentions, Stress Relief
Posted by workisyourdojo on April 24, 2012

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=196

How To Catch Onto The Labeling Habit That Could Be Tripping You Up

What a great gift to give to the people we love: to allow them to be a mystery.

–Wendy Palmer, “The Intuitive Body”

I recently spent a week meditating with 90 other people without talking. We ate, slept, walked and sat next to each other, the whole time in silence and avoiding eye contact, like peaceful zombies. I had very little information about these people. But by the week’s end, they each had a persona and a story in my head. The cast of characters included:

  • “Interesting-purple-clothes lady” — what purple item will she wear next?!
  • “The Dude.” He had the long hair and general dude-ly aura of Jeff Lebowski from the movie The Big Lebowski. No word on whether he bowled, though.
  • “Coughdrops.” You know how unwrapping candy in crinkly plastic is incredibly loud in a quiet space, like at the theater or opera? And how each little rustle noise seems to reverberate? And how unwrapping it slowly makes it worse, somehow? So do I, thanks to Mr. Coughdrops!
  • “The Really Good Meditator.” She seemed so peaceful, the whole time…

This experience showed me how naturally the human brain engages in labeling, even without our intending it. The brain takes a teeny amount of information — purple clothes, cough drops — and creates labels and stories. It needs neither real data, nor our conscious direction. Labels are as automatic as breathing.

Given this tendency, labels are endemic to human interaction. Just ask any “oldest child,” “middle kid,” “baby” or “only child.” Or watch political news. And then there’s world of work-related labels:

“He’s a control freak.”

“She’s a workaholic.”

 ”The tech team is…you know…introverted…[said slooowly].”

“The new intern is pretty cute.”

“Our CEO is a genius.”

Using labels is easy, can be useful, and can seem harmless. But labels have drawbacks: they can keep us from performing to our top potential on the job.

  • We may stop or slow our learning
  • We are more likely to be wrong
  • AND! We miss something really beautiful: A Mysterious Human Being

Let’s look at these one at a time.   Learning: How Labels Gum Up The Works I will never forget the simple moment of relief that came after I heatedly described an office interaction to a colleague once. “How could he act this way? I mean, I just don’t get it,” I said in frustration. “Arden, because he’s a control freak,” the colleague replied. Oh–that’s it?! That’s the answer? I felt relief wash over me. Suddenly, I didn’t have to worry about how I had contributed to the situation, nor did I have to seek to understand the other person’s point of view. He was a “control freak” — and that explained everything. But, of course, it didn’t. In the longer run, viewing him as a control freak only made our interactions more strained, and the label also made me suspicious of his motives. I started seeing his actions as moves to gain control, rather than seeking to understand how he was contributing to our division’s bottom line. Ultimately, the label couldn’t even fix my problem of not understanding him: just “wanting to be in control” was too broad and blunt an explanation to account for his attitude overall. But while I was using it as a crutch, it certainly prevented me from asking questions and looking at the situation differently. As this example shows, it’s pretty tempting to use labels, because name-calling  instantly justifies how we feel, so we don’t need to explore our own feelings of discomfort, rejection, fear, or whatever. When my colleague was dubbed a “control freak,” I no longer needed to explore just why I was so upset. It was someone else’s fault: if they weren’t a control freak, I wouldn’t be riled up. QED, right? Nor did I need to understand how my behavior had contributed to the situation– I had shunted off causality onto someone else’s personality. Their controlling nature created the problem. I didn’t need to take any responsibility. In this way, name-calling is a self-protective move as much as it is an attack on others. In sum: labels are tempting because they both excuse us from taking responsibility and also offer simple explanations that relieve us of the need to investigate further. But, We Are More Likely To Be Wrong Even positive labels can mislead us. I could assume an intellectually brilliant colleague — a “genius” — is simply socially awkward by the coffee machine, instead of asking her what’s wrong and discovering there’s a problem that affects a project I’m working on. Using a label can numb the part of us that is curious and empathetic. We stop asking what concerns people have because we already “know” them. So we don’t learn. And we stop wondering about how we’re co-creating the situation, so we don’t grow. Why are labels so misleading? Harvard researcher Daniel Gilbert, among many others, has shown in his research that our brain sees what we expect to see. We form an expectation, and then we banana it. See? You already had an idea of which word I was going to use–or else the word “banana” wouldn’t seem weird. If we look at people as labels, even positive or neutral labels, we’re missing how they actually show up, because our brain interprets according to what it already “knows.” So we don’t get the full story. We Miss The Beauty of MysteryThe alternative to labels is to be curious about the unfolding situation. It is to let people be the mysterious, dynamic beings that they are. In her masterwork “The Wisdom of Conscious Embodiment,” Aikido master Wendy Palmer describes the value of letting people be mysterious:

What a wonderful gift we could give our loved ones, friends, students, clients and teachers, if we could look at them with interest and a genuine curiosity. Instead, our perception of them is usually obscured by a huge bundle of knowledge and information we think we have about them. By expecting people to behave in a certain way, we tend to hold them to that way of being. For the most part we expect no surprises and we get none. We live in a world of projection, described by Plato as shadows on the wall of a cave. We mistake these shadows for the real thing that includes many textures with the intensity and poignancy of each moment. If we view the elements, situations, and people in our lives as unknown and mysterious, anything is possible.

Palmer describes talking to a happily married couple. She asks what their secret is. And the husband replies that his wife is a mystery to him, every day, and he loves learning about her. After years of marriage. Wow. So, here are some ideas for how to work with labels, and how to let in the mystery. Because the problem is not labels. The labels themselves are like hunger pangs or daydreams or anything else the body-mind just does: they’re a product of being human. It’s how we relate to the labels that matters. Do you believe your own instinctive labels? Do you think you just went on a meditation retreat with Jeff Lebowski? Practice: The Mysterious Human Being Pick someone who is frustrating you and with whom you have to interact on a regular basis. Take on the practice of asking yourself these questions, once a day: What is [this person] teaching me? What is more mysterious to me about this person today? OR Pick a loved one you know very, very well. Ask the same questions. Jot down notes. Once a week, ask yourself: what actions will I take, based on what I’m learning? Try this out for two months.

No Comments
by on March 1, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Change the Bargain, Learning Orientation
Posted by workisyourdojo on March 1, 2012

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=119

Five Ways To Improve Work Relationships

The Habit: Other vs. Another

I’ll never forget when my family and I walked out of a movie theater in New York City a few years ago and saw a disheveled man cursing someone out at the curb. I was already subtly moving away and assessing his mental health when, as he turned from the argument, muttering expletives, he looked up and spotted my sister and dad. He broke into a grin.

“Hey Mitch, Gene!” he said. “What’s happening?”

“Hey Mike! How’s it going, man?” My sister high-fived him and Dad patted him on the back. “See you Saturday, alright?”

Mike kept going up the block. I turned to my family. “How do you guys know him?”

“That’s Mike. He plays basketball with us on in the playground. Good defensive player,” Mitchell said.

And in that moment, a homeless man in a sidewalk shouting match transformed in my eyes from being an Other into Another. The typical signals of difference – income, race, social behavioral norms – became subdued to the obvious on that evening: this guys likes hoops, just like us. He’s Another basketball player.

This anecdote illustrates a social habit so common as to be reflexive among human beings:”Other-ing,” or the speedy and often unconscious assessment of whether someone is “not like me,” or an Other, or whether some is “like me,” or Another one of me/us.

Much has been written about other-ing in fields as diverse as neuroscience to sociology. What I’m interested in for the purposes of this post is: How can we work with other-ing to get more skillful at our jobs?

Other-ing Influences Our Professional Success

How and how much we “other” hugely impacts how we feel about our office, and our sense of what is possible for us in our roles and our careers. Working with this habit of “other-ing on the job” can:

  • Make us more skillful in relating to colleagues, including direct reports and supervisors
  • Enable us to authentically show up as ourselves rather than using force or fear to push ourselves to be a certain way (which usually backfires at some point)
  • Inspire us to take on leadership positions and achieve more than we had previously imagined

If you’re a reader using WIYD methodology, use this post to help develop a Learning Orientation. Otherwise, simply read on.

Others vs. Anothers

As the Mike anecdote shows, when people are Other, we are more likely to distrust them, just as I began to withdraw from Mike. When they’re Another, we cut them some slack, just as my sister high-fived her occasional team-mate without a second thought. We find it easier to bond with Anothers, to work together, to empathize, and to help. I found out my father had given Mike a little money for dinner, something he would have been unlikely to do if a different angry homeless man came up and asked for money.

Perhaps in your own life you’ve seen clearly for yourself how this move from Other to Another can transform how you relate to people. The above example is dramatic, but this subtle shift is common: You learn that someone grew up near you, shares your alma mater, likes the same TV show, or also has twin sons, and suddenly — suddenly! — the two of you are feeling a lot more comfortable around one another. It’s not quite black and white — there’s a spectrum of options between “worst person ever” and “soul mate” — but there’s certainly a tangible, felt difference as we come to view people as similar to ourselves.

And it’s the bedrock of how modern workplaces are constructed: a bunch of strangers who might perceive themselves as Others join together in a common organization and become Anothers, working towards similar aims or at least in the same office culture and environment.

When this works well, it’s awesome to witness: the stories about teams driving to create an incredible product with a deep sense of togetherness and shared purpose, or the compassion of employees who agree to take furloughs during economic difficulty so that no one has to be laid off. When it fails, you have office dysfunction: cultures of anxiety, fear, distrust, and anger. And within an office, it’s often uneven, leaving us to feel close to some people, different from others.

Spotting Other-ing In Your Office

Name-calling: When people are “control freaks,” or “workaholics,” or even “geniuses,” or “news junkies,” our language turns them from complex individuals into concepts. It’s hard to be curious about or relate to a paper-thin concept. Instead, we can fill in the blanks with our expectations and what we “already know” about such people. This can cause us to be blind to the ways others may be effective teammates or potential resources. This is so common as to seem harmless, and people may not realize the negative downside of this behavior.

People as obstacles: Many of us have seen the unfortunate results of what happens when a manager views her/his team as an obstacle to achieving a goal, a mass of people that need to be prodded and threatened and co-erced into hitting the quarterly target: “Your jobs depend on making these numbers. … Here’s what I need from you this week. … These people are idiots.” The result is low morale, toxic competition, and employees’ focus on avoiding punishment from management, rather than on thinking big about potential team abilities.

We Have a Lot of Leverage Here, Luckily

Interestingly, we can shape just how Other we feel, and how much we turn our co-workers into Others. If we focus on ways that people are different — for example through name-calling, seeing others as obstacles, or simply declining to engage in empathetic thinking — we train ourselves to feel separate and non-aligned. In contrast, by engaging in behaviors that provide a felt sense of shared identity and interest, we can learn to view others with more respect, warmth, and curiosity.

We are able to get more skillful in this area: to increase our ability to understand, empathize with, feel comfortable around, and genuinely collaborate with our peers.

A quick note for managers: working with “othering” does not mean that we become wishy-washy and hesitant to critique the work of direct reports, or to speak plainly about problems. On the contrary, we become more skillful at doing so in ways that our team can truly listen and respond to, because we are able to speak and act without anyone doubting the underlying respect we have for them. This allows your team or division to become less resistant to truthfully owning their mistakes, and to be more willing to self-correct, grow, and develop excellence. As well, learning to communicate and relate better is crucial for any cross-functional project manager or executive working across with multiple teams and divisions.

How Will You Explore This?

What more might be possible you felt more aligned with the people in your team, division, company? This is a tricky thought experiment: we literally might not be able to imagine how it would feel to have a different set of ideas and concepts, because we’re using the old set of ideas to try to imagine it.

So, rather than try to imagine it, here are ways to jump right into exploring the role that Othering plays for you:

  • Perform a week-long “Othering Audit.” Twice a day at work, pause to reflect on: what sorts of labels and explanations did I use to understand others today, or did I hear others using around me? When did I feel different or alienated, and in what circumstances? When did I feel aligned with others, and in what circumstances? When did I notice commonalities? When did I want to help others? You may want to jot notes. After a week, reflect on: What will I do about what I have learned?
  • Parallel play: Sign yourself up for a class or volunteer activity that lasts at least two months, where you will be working alongside people whose backgrounds are unlike yours. One way to expand our notion of Anothers is to take on a new activity with people who may seem very different from us. It’s a truism that people are all the same deep inside; it’s quite another feeling altogether to experience this for yourself in your own life, in a way that can have a lasting impact.
  •  Practice: What do people care about? For the next two months, take on the practice of having one conversation per week with a co-worker where you learn about something they care about, whether it’s a hobby, their family, or a work project that’s important to them. Focus simply on learning in each 10-15 minute conversation.
  • Reflection for Executives: What sorts of programs does your company or division have in place to create a common bond and mutual respect or affection among employees? What grounding is used assess whether they are effective? How do you measure camaraderie, mutual respect, affection, and other measures of Another-ness in the workplace? How might these qualities improve the way your business works and positively impact your bottom line?
  • Reflection for Managers: In interactions with direct reports, are you aware of what concerns and insights they may bring to the conversation, or are you mainly focused on what you need them to do for you? Do you learn from your subordinates? Does your team function with a sense of mutual respect? If not, how would you be able to tell? What steps could you take to increase Another-ness? What actions will you take based on this reflection?

 

No Comments
by on January 1, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Learning Orientation, Practices, Stress Relief
Posted by workisyourdojo on January 1, 2012

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=112

Coping With Job Anguish

Recently I’ve been thinking about how many of us live in a state of anguish with respect to our jobs. Encarta defines anguish as “extreme anxiety or emotional torment.” That sounds about right, huh? A friend described working with a difficult manager once by saying:

“As soon as I enter the lobby every day, I have to take a deep breath. I know I could either start crying, or go in there and smile and try to get through it.”

Perhaps you recognize your own past experience in that description. I do.

This post will talk about anguish and end with actionable steps to cope and change. I’m still learning about this important topic –much has been written and researched — and I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. To start, here are some ways I’ve seen anguish showing up:

Disengagement. Muted affect. Zoning out. There –But Not Really There.

Two friends visited me the other night. One made an effort to be cheerful and talk of topical matters — the weather, sports, the holiday — while the other sat and stared into space (or, as much space as one can stare into in a Manhattan apartment). As he sat mutely on the sofa with drooping shoulders, he reminded me of a child whose mother had brought him along somewhere: compliant yet disinterested, waiting for it to end.

Finally, when he left to use the bathroom, my other friend leaned in and whispered: “He’s so depressed about his job. It’s really hard.”

Lightbulb! No wonder he’s been, to put it kindly, a bit quiet. He’s exhausted. He’s drained. And, when I finally do ask him about work, he is brimming with frustration and misery.

He works at a bank. They’re short-staffed. And because of recent legislation, every interaction must be logged once, twice, three times, in three ways. His boss works 15-hour days and expects his subordinates to do the same. After hearing the report of over-work and exhaustion, senior management responded by telling his team to work smarter, faster, and warned them not to expect raises or bonuses. He has begun working weekends and nights, and still always feels behind.

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. What effect does it have on you? It is draining my friend, quite visibly, of vitality. At a later dinner, after silently nursing a drink while others gamely tried to make smalltalk, this friend apologized. He’s so wrapped up in work and he knows it’s affecting his social behavior, he said. Which brings us to another aspect of anguish:

Obsessing. Fixating. Ruminating. Psychologically Drowning.

My friend’s mind is constantly spinning around the central problem of his life: the elimination of his quality of life. This is so upsetting and threatening  that his conscious and unconscious brain are always at work trying to solve it. In those rare moments when he’s not working, he’s so tired and frazzled by the experience that his mind is still “at work,” going over the particulars of the scenario again and again. Trying to fix it, but unable to fix it.

I have had the same problem. That’s how I can spot it so readily. I would wake up to a sunny Saturday morning, light pouring in the curtains, sparrows chirping in the locust trees, and notice that in the middle of seeming peace, my first thoughts were literally “in the office” — reviewing the conflict there. The manager who didn’t like me, who ignored my emails, who undercut my ability to perform, etc.

For the first time in a while, I caught myself hiding from my own mind. Perhaps you’ve done this too: you sense the agitation and disappointment and anguish lurking, and you realize how nice it would be to watch that episode of Modern Family that you DVR’d last night. Or you start to fantasize about the chocolate bar in the fridge. Or you grab that magazine whose headlines suddenly seem fascinating. 

In addition to hiding from yourself, another way to spot this obsessing state of mind is to notice whether discussing your problem ever brings relief. If you tend to feel that others just don’t understand how bad it is, no matter how much you talk about it, then you’re right–they don’t. To them, it looks like what it is: some problems on the job. But to you — as it was for me — this isn’t just mere workplace quabbles. This is deeply troubling, on a core level — this is anguish.  

So What Is To Be Done?

I’m not going to say, “it’s all in your head.” (Tautologically, this is so: all of our conscious experience is translated to our awareness through particular brain regions and nervous-system functions. But I don’t find that to be a particularly helpful insight here.)

The anguish is indeed fed by your current reality. And there are a lot of people, including those who may supervise you or run your division, whose behavior qualifies them as what Stanford University professor Bob Sutton tastefully calls “assholes.” His book, The No-Asshole Rule, is a primer on bad behavior in the workplace, and its very popularity is testament to the fact that too many companies today consider misbehavior simply the cost of doing business.

Be that as it may, there may be something else happening that is causing such a state of anguish: a psychological state of being triggered.

To be “triggered” means whatever problems you are having have awakened some challenge buried in your unique personality — maybe your issue is loyalty, control, performance, fear, anger, or maybe even all of them, if you’re lucky! — and this experience is triggering a deep reaction far beyond the scope of the actual issue.

Usually this kind of triggering relates to deeper, earlier problems in life. It brings with it feelings of dread, panic, frustration, rage and self-rejection that may usually be buried or untouched. It can even bring up fear of annihilation, or of being worthless. For example, when I stopped my distraction to actually feel what was bothering me, I found myself beating that very same floral sofa with both fists, shouting “NO!” That was my subtle hint that the work situation was tapping into a serious store of anger that pre-dated that job. And my sofa can vouch for it.

In sum: my prior boss was indeed difficult. But my utter rage and fixation were not necessarily helping me feel better about the whole thing, and they certainly weren’t in line with the rather banal reality that my boyfriend described: “So your boss is a jerk. Many bosses are jerks. People start to treat other people poorly when they get powerful. It’s a known phenomenon.” (And Professor Sutton agrees.)

Strangely, seeing the discrepancy between my reaction and the unfortunate-but-common reality helped me feel better. So, that’s a first step:

1. Acknowledge when you are triggered, and that the anguish has roots that pre-date the current reality.

Not sure if you are triggered? To re-cap, here are some signs:

  •  You’re muted, you’re zoning, you’re unable to engage, or don’t notice you’re not engaged until others point it out
  • You’re fixating on the issue, with your mind obsessively returning to it, rehearsing it, trying to fix it, etc.
  • You’re distracting yourself to avoid feeling the constant strain, including busying yourself with TV, movies or magazines, staying up late in a zonked-out state surfing the Web, or frantically avoiding being alone with yourself
  • No one else seems to understand the depth of your anguish, even your most well-meaning and patient supporters
  • You are aware of feeling existentially threatened. Note: this may be a queasy, vague feeling deep in your gut and body– a core physical unease that you can’t shake

Something that’s important to remember: This happens to everyone at some point or another. Every human being on earth. There’s nothing shameful in it. It’s how the brain is built: to store and record past grievances, so alarm bells can go off that steer us away from injury once again. This just happens to backfire when the alarm bells are constantly ringing and we can’t figure out why or how to “fix” it.

So, when you’re feeling triggered, see if you can take a deep breath and acknowledge that to yourself. “I’m triggered. This is natural. It means that even though I feel awful, the situation may not be as bad as it feels. It probably feels worse than it is. I can handle it.”

And here’s another idea: see if some part of you is willing to forgive yourself for feeling this way, the way you’d forgive someone you care about. “Everyone feels this way sometimes. It’s okay. Being triggered like this is part of being human. I forgive myself for feeling this way.”

So, you’ve realized you’re triggered, you’ve taken a breath and reflected that the situation is not life-threatening, despite the emotions that are arising, and that you can handle it. And you’ve forgiven yourself for feeling however you feel.

What next?

2. Ask for help from people who love you.

Why this? Because asking people for help reminds you of how lovable you are, and how much more there is outside your job. What kind of help can they give you? Not a new boss, not a new team. Probably not a new job. But maybe some emotional support.

Note: talking about the issue(s) may not be the kind of help you need. If you’ve tried talking it through, and  you both find it to be like running in a hamster-wheel of impotent frustration and sorrow, and not particularly helpful, then try this: Ask this person instead to tell you one thing they appreciate about you every time you talk for the next two weeks. OR come up with a similar request that feels right to you. And don’t worry about burdening others with such a request. Being kind feels good, and your loved one may surprise you with her/his creativity in responding.

3. At some time when you are not feeling triggered, sit down, breathe deeply, and think about solutions.

It’s important to do this when you’re not feeling utterly horrible about the entire situation. Your instinct may be to not “ruin” a good mood by thinking of your problems, but you may discover that bringing them to a mind that’s more at ease and peaceful is a better support for sensing what alternatives you may have. Whether solutions involve conversations to be attempted, new jobs to be searched for, inner or personal work you might undertake to work through the source of your triggering, or even just simply accepting the current reality for a little while until more information is available, you may find some clarity and calm in being able to look at them.

If you know someone who can calmly and helpfully discuss this matter with you, who both has the intelligence and knowledge to think of solutions, and also the ability to avoid becoming emotionally charged –even and especially if it’s to get worked up about how victimized you are — then this person is a valuable resource.

4. Think of other resources, too.

As you consider solutions, it may occur to you that others have insight to offer here, too. Friends who’ve tackled the same challenges, professors who’ve written books about a particular management issue, or spiritual teachers who have written extensively about the particular flavor of difficulty you find yourself encountering. Consider the resources you may be able to find.

5. Finally, remember that this, too, shall pass.

One source of super-duper-enormo resistance to the current reality, of fighting and kicking and screaming and resisting the situation, is the secret belief that it will never change. But it will. Everything changes. Even when it appears the same over time, it’s changing, and your experience will, too..

So, when you’re really feeling despairing about all the anguish, try remembering: this, too, shall pass.

That’s all I’ve got, for now.

I’m learning more about work anguish all the time. Many of our reactions are so personal that it’s difficult write about the topic without straying into territory that may not be applicable to all. In coaching, I work with people on the very specific ways anguish is showing up for them as individuals, and the unique approaches that may work for each individual client. I would love to hear from you. What’s worked for you?

No Comments
by on December 27, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Learning Orientation, Stress Relief
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 27, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=94

The Secret to KEEPING Your New Year’s Resolution

New Year’s Resolutions: Tough, Huh?

As we hurtle towards New Year’s Eve — the earth is zipping forth at about 29.78 kilometers per second, last time I checked – the tradition of New Year’s resolutions has sprung up on the horizon. The prospect of eating healthier, being kinder to ourselves, being a better this, a better that, a fully superior being: it’s all lying in wait for us.

So why is it so hard to keep and follow resolutions? Isn’t it enough to vow to be more of whatever we need to be more of,  to intend with all our might? Apparently not, as many of us have learned. Change takes many ingredients that occur outside our ideas about change, including forms of external support in our relationships and environment.

This post is about one important aspect that we overlook: Time. More precisely, letting things take the time they need. And they often need more time than we think.

This post was originally conceived of as an answer to a reader’s question: “Why do you always recommend six months for each practice? That seems like a long time.” So, really, this post is about that question:

Why Does Change Take So Long? Why Would These Practices Take Six Months?

First of all, let’s look at this question itself: Why do things take so long? Part of the reason is that as we set resolutions and undertake the actions necessary to see them through, we can’t help but bring the conditioning of speed, efficiency, and results that we’ve learned elsewhere in our culture, particularly at work. Who among us hasn’t had the experience of finishing an important project, only to discover there’s no time to rest and reflect because it’s time to race breathlessly onto the next project?

We are not conditioned to let things take time to unfold, because typically we are punished for not being fast. We are told more is required, sooner. In fact, the entire financial structure of a second-by-second stock market and quarterly earnings has conditioned companies, divisions, managers, supervisors, and employees, to be focused on short-term gains.

A senior executive at a privately-held conglomerate recently explained to me about how empowering it is work on 1, 3, and 5-year plans. Public companies don’t get to have 5-year plans with potential ups and downs–the danger of reporting a quarterly loss to shareholders is too great, he said. Whereas he gets to make long-term plans that include some loss and setback along the way.

So, change takes “a long time” because our yardstick for “a long time” is pretty short. For some perspective on timing, I like to reflect on the fact that it took one man four years  to paint a single room. (How many of us have two or three jobs alone in that period?!) That man is Michelangelo Buonarotti and that room is the Sistine Chapel, widely viewed as one of the world’s greatest masterpieces.

Another reason that things take longer than we think they will is really simple. Because things take longer than we think. Put another way, “thing” takes longer than “think.” The human brain is an incredible thought machine. We produce billions of those guys, easily. It takes a micro-second for a new thought to arise, remind us of something else, and then another thought to form, and so on.  Harvard scientist Daniel Gilbert says our species’ brain is distinguished from other species largely by its superiority at “nexting” : the incredible ability to imagine what happens next. In other words, the brain’s predictive capacity is immense.

So our prefrontal cortex, that clever thought-producer extraordinaire, can conceive of change much faster than change can ever take place. On the one hand, this is excellent. We can imagine better futures and work towards them. On the other hand, it’s a tricky scenario. Combined with our cultural conditioning, it leads us to expect change to happen very quickly.

And Here’s The Rub

But we don’t realize we’re bringing an expectation of speed that’s not in line with the rate that change processes may naturally take. We simply approach change with the speediness that our brain and culture have created as an unconscious background to most things we do.

That’s one reason it’s so hard to keep a resolution. Unaccustomed to having things take time to unfold, we’re surprised when change isn’t quickly forthcoming. We don’t allow for fits and starts. With resolutions, we fail to nail the results we want in the allotted time frame, feel defeated, decide we can’t do it or it’s not worth doing, and throw in the towel.

If it’s not happening fast enough, it must not be happening, we conclude. This is unfortunate. Because change is a process that takes — everyone together now! — time. 

So, How To Get Around This?

Fortunately we have the capacity to catch onto ourselves. In other words, if I hadn’t failed to:

  • Avoid sweets // not have hang-ups about sweets
  • Improve at yoga
  • Manage family conflict better
  • And some other resolutions I’ll just leave unsaid for now…

at hyper-warp speed, I wouldn’t have caught onto my own expectations. (And for the record, I have improved at yoga after a year of practice; my family conflict skills are slowly but surely getting honed; and I still have hang-ups about eating too many sweets around the holidays, but I’m much more familiar with them and less likely to be uncomfortable as a result.)

And you can catch onto yourself too, and allow your resolution to take the time it needs. And to fail or encounter setbacks, but come back to it. Here’s an exercise to help you in shaping an attitude towards time that can support you in your goals.

Exercise: The New Year’s Resolution and Timing
Duration: 20 -30 minutes
Frequency: As needed 

As you begin to think about a New Year’s resolution, reflect on the following:

What are your expectations for how long this will take? Where do those expectations come from? What is your grounding for the assessment of how long it may take to feel or observe progress?

What kind of attitude would you like to have with respect to setbacks, slower-than-expected progress, or challenges?

Incorporate the intention to cultivate such an attitude into your resolution.

Who can support you in this process? How? How will you ask for their support? How often?

BONUS! Practice: Learning Time And Patience

Of course, it’s not as simple as just thinking to ourselves, “Okay, I’ll accept that things take time.” That’s helpful, but it’s not all. our nervous systems are still conditioned to be as speedy as they were before, despite our new thinking about time. How to help slow things down? I have a few ideas for physical practices that may help your body learn patience. Feel free to take on your own or comment below with others.

  • A short daily meditation, of 10-15 minutes. Much material is available on different types. For setting the nervous system to a place more tolerant of letting things unfold, “mindfulness” or “mindfulness of breathing” meditation is very helpful.
  • Origami with small paper. There’s literally no way to “rush” it — it takes forever to slowly, slowly fold those two-inch pieces of paper into tiny, exquisite cranes (or frogs or cups or whathaveyou). A coach assigned this practice to me to teach me patience. I’ll be forever grateful to him for inviting me to learn, in a way both embodied and aesthetic: some things can’t be rushed.
  • After each workout, either add a cool-down stretching session, or lengthen your current one. Stay with the experience of sensing your body, without following any thoughts your mind may create about what happens next or the upcoming activities. Just let go of everything else, however many times you need, and come back to muscles being stretched. See if you can notice when you’re pushing too hard, and let yourself simply stretch to your capacity, without straining for more than is natural.
No Comments
by on December 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Learning Orientation, Set & Recall Intentions, Uncategorized
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 25, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=79

Here’s How To Get What You REALLY Want From Your Job

I. Four-Star And Broke 

A few years ago I was staying in luxury suite at a five-star hotel in Manhattan, with a spacious view overlooking Central Park and a marble bathroom. A client had paid for the suite. But I could barely fall asleep on those 1000-thread count sheets: the same client hadn’t paid me in nearly a month. I worried the company was going broke, and I wasn’t sure where the next check would come from.

That’s the way careers go. One minute we get just what we want. The next, we’re facing challenges we hadn’t anticipated.

We all know this, but of course it doesn’t keep us from continually to hoping to get what we want from our jobs. Whether that’s satisfaction from a project going well, our boss praising us, our direct reports impressing everyone with their initiative, free chocolates in a little dish, creative expression, travel to new places and a cozy hotel room with those over-stuffed pillows — such a the list could go on indefinitely.

And most of those things do indeed feel pretty yummy. I recall when I first changed jobs from journalism to conference programming, and overnight went from agonizing over whether I could afford a $7 sandwich for lunch — not bringing in a homemade PB & J to the office was the height of decadence on my budget — to staying in a seaside suite at the Ritz Carlton. As I opened cream-painted shutters and listened to waves break in the crisp darkness beyond, I did what many a young person suddenly confronted with unfathomable professional indulgence would do: I called my parents.

“I’m calling from the Ritz Carlton!” I squealed. “I can hear the ocean!”

Only a year later, I was staying at a similarly swanky suite in New York City — the kind with those over-stuffed pillows — except the same company was in a cash crunch. They’d pre-booked the room and needed to use it regardless, so I was lodged in luxury while I waited to get paid. I hadn’t been paid in a month and my savings were running out. I was so stressed I couldn’t sleep, and at 3 a.m., stomach growling, I gave into hunger pangs and wandered through the spacious suite over to the mini-bar. When I saw the prices, my heart sank: I couldn’t afford the $7 granola bar. Or, I could, but it seemed highly imprudent to pay $2 per ounce of food, a price more in line with foie gras than stale oats. I was in a four-star suite and feeling broke. The sense of irony of the situation and betrayal that I experienced couldn’t have been more different than that initial seaside euphoria.

This happens to everyone. We get a lot of pleasure and a dash of pain. Or it’s all good and then suddenly it’s not: we change jobs or our team is restructured or the market tanks, and we’re left day-dreaming about the perks, the good times, the highlights.

II. The Upgrade: Lasting Satisfaction

So what gives? How do we find a sort of satisfaction that’s more lasting, regardless of the mercurial world? How do we develop an “income” of positive resources that’s not tied to variable cash flows?

There may be many answers here. A good one I know is: figure out what you REALLY want from your job and use what happens to help you get there. If you’re a WIYD reader and you’ve digested the Mini-festo or manifesto, this is familiar to you. What you’re about to read correspond to Steps 1 and 2: Change the Bargain and Develop a Learning Orientation. If you haven’t read more than this post, no worries: the below practice works just the same.

So, what do you REALLY want? (Clearly, part of my answer is a well-functioning Caps Lock key.) For the purposes of this post, we’re going to look at this question as another question: What is a personal quality or strength that you value highly and would like to see more of in yourself?

This is a quality you admire and respect. One that feels right to you. Importantly, it’s one that you know will benefit you not just in the long-run, but immediately. Some examples may be:

Flexibility
Strength
Empathy
Insight
Eloquence
Patience
Courage

Take a minute to figure it out. Ask yourself: What would having more of this quality make possible for me? Envision, as fully as you can, the positive outcomes that would result, from your relationships to your professional abilities and beyond. See yourself in your mind’s eye evincing this quality and experiencing the resultant good effects. (You may not settle on the proper quality right away, but you can always tweak later, switching from “courage” to “patience,” say, or from “kindness” to “strength.”)

Okay….

Got the quality?

Great! Because I want to tell you about something really cool.

To put it briefly: scientists have discovered that the brain can change itself. This is called neuroplasticity, and it happens when new connections form between neurons. This allows us to learn new skills and new outlooks, to become more skillful, and to change the way we respond to things. This is great news, because it was once thought that brains stopped changing much after around age 25. Now we know that’s baloney, to say it politely. (For more on changes in brain structure, see my reading list at the bottom of this post!)

What’s more, the brain is a quantum environment, meaning that the simple act of sustained and repeated attention affects brain behavior, literally changing our minds. Or, as physicist Henry Stapp and Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz of UCLA put it in their ground-breaking 2006 article, “The Neuroscience of Leadership” (italics are mine):

“Applied to neuroscience, the [Quantum Zeno Effect] states that the mental act of focusing attention stabilizes the associated brain circuits. Concentrating attention on your mental experience, whether a thought, an insight, a picture in your mind’s eye, or a fear, maintains the brain state arising in association with that experience. Over time, paying enough attention to any specific brain connection keeps the relevant circuitry open and dynamically alive. These circuits can then eventually become not just chemical links but stable, physical changes in the brain’s structure. … We now also know that the brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his or her attention. The power is in the focus.”

I’d like to invite you to change your brain by taking on a daily act of self-observation. With this tool, you can cultivate the quality that is meaningful to you while at work. A quick “how-to” note: Observe yourself like a scientist or a naturalist; you’re not so much creating a scorecard as you are learning about yourself and your environment, and training your brain through repeated focus.

Self-Observation: Cultivating Your Quality On The Job
Duration: 6 months
Frequency: Twice a day
Twice, a day, stop and reflect on the following:

In this period of time, when did you observe this quality in yourself? What were the circumstances?

When did you observe this quality in the actions of others?

What gets in the way of expressing this quality?

What would support developing and expressing this quality?

Once a month, please reflect: what am I learning? What will I do with what I’m learning? What new actions will I take? Who will support me in taking them? Over what time frame?

III. Appendix: How The Brain Changes

There are many good reads out there, and I hope to get to more in time, but meanwhile here are a couple of my favorite neuro-nonfiction reads:

  • “Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness” by Dr. Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius
    No Buddhism is required to enjoy this highly user-friendly description of the human brain’s inherent biases — including why we remember negative events more than positive ones, and what to do about it — and its simple exercises for building more joy, contentment, and resilience.
  • “Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation” by Dr. Dan Siegel
    A treatise on how brain functioning can change and improve, from mitigating trauma to increasing emotional awareness, with case studies from the UCLA psychologist’s research. A bit dry at times, but, importantly for some readers, Siegel describes basic meditative techniques in purely clinical terms.
  • “Being a Brainwise Therapist: A Practical Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology” by Dr. Bonnie Badenoch
    More clinical descriptions of how the brain encodes experience, both positive and negative, and how mental-health professionals (and others working in human development) can use these insights to foster health and healing in clients. A go-to for understanding how relationships impact brain functioning.
1 Comment
by on December 19, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Change the Bargain, Learning Orientation, Self-observation
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 19, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=65

Here Are Four Ways To Make Your Work Day Better

In an earlier post, I discussed the importance of having contact with beauty in your work day. Not just for beauty’s sake, which is enjoyable enough, but also because beauty can trigger creativity, refresh the mind, and help us perform better. Seeking some pretty?

Try these tactics, both time-honored and discovered by top researchers:

1. Take A Hike
Unless you work in a certain landscape — or as a park ranger — you can’t literally go hiking on your lunch break. But try spending ten minutes outside every day, in as green a space as you can find. This can be as simple as strolling to a part of your parking lots that is quiet and tree-lined. Or, if you’re lucky, perhaps there are pockets of landscaping you can appreciate, or a nearby park. Regardless, find some natural spot and take a few minutes to enjoy it. (I can even find green(ish) islands in Manhattan’s granite canyons, so I promise it can be done.)

Note: I talk about “enjoying nature” as if it were as obvious as “checking email.” But it’s not for everyone. (Admittedly, not many people hang out with trees in their parking lot.) Stumped on where to start? Try the process at the bottom of this post for scanning your senses and taking in the scenery.

2. Savor Art
Rustle up a few images that you find beautiful and frame them: museum postcards in drug-store frames, magazine pictures in Ikea’s finest, or tear sheets from art books (if you can bear to rip ‘em up) in a thrift-store find. Place one on your desk and one in a drawer. Take a moment to look at and truly appreciate the desktop image at least once a day.

Regarding the image you’re keeping out of sight: Barry Schwartz, the Swarthmore researcher who wrote the lovely book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less,” explains that human brains are remarkably adept at getting used to good stuff. Scientifically, it’s called “hedonic adaptation,” and it’s been widely studied. It explains why lottery winners generally get used to being filthy, stinking rich after a while and report they’re no happier than they were before. Or why brownies are delicious at first bite, yummy at third, somewhat neutral at 11th, and downright boring by the second portion. Novelty causes a pleasure spike. Repeated exposure blunts the spike into, well, a nub. If that. So check out the second image only a few times a week.. That way you won’t get used to it, at least not too much.  (Put reminders on your calendar if you’re afraid it’ll get lost in the black hole of a messy drawer).

3. One Word: Poetry
Grab a book and carve out ten minutes per day to enjoy some poems. And be patient: the bliss of poetry can build over time, or pop up later in the day, when you notice your brain is more thoughtful, agile, or observant.  (Poetry tickles the right brain, the side that is intuitive, non-linear, and can help us cook up those “Eureka!” moments on connection between seemingly unrelated matters.) So enjoy the ten minutes, but don’t necessarily expect fireworks.  Regarding which book to choose, ask friends for recommendations if you’re unsure, or do some Web research. I like anthologies edited by Garrison Keillor and Billy Collins and collections by Robert Haas, Wislawa Szymborska and Charles Simic.

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.
There’s a privacy I love in this snowy night.
Driving around, I will waste more time. –Robert Bly

4. Appreciate Your Food

We eat a lot of delicious stuff each day without noticing or feeling particularly jazzed about it. To wit: coffee, cereal, sandwiches. Each of these, when prepared the way you like it, is sublimely satisfying. (Honey-nut cheerios doused in 2% milk with a sprinkle of cinnamon, anyone?) But, because of our old friend hedonic adaptation, and the warp-speed we’re usually sprinting through meals to get back to work, we tend not to notice.

 

So start noticing: don’t do anything else but eat. Don’t check email, read news online, fiddle with your iPhone, people-watch, call your friend, or anything else. Spend a lunch period savoring your food. Go ahead: Talk to yourself! “Crunchy, salty, pork, yum. I love Thai food.” (Sorry, veggie lovers.) In some circles, this is called “mindful eating,” and it’s believed to foster healthy eating habits and positive relationships with food. Bonus!

Also! And this is important: it’s not just about taste: the sight and origin of food may also be beautiful to contemplate. So try looking at your at your food. Tilt your head down and look at it as you eat. Keep looking. No need to glance around, people-watch, stare into the distance. Instead, maintain eye contact with your pasta! This is so rare that it will feel a little weird. But you’ll notice food is actually pretty beautiful. Don’t believe me? Look closely at an apple and the colors of the skin. You’ll be surprised.

While taking in the aesthetic of food, contemplating its origin is also a source of satisfaction. (Haggis lovers, feel free to skip this paragraph.) Where does it come from? Granted, not everyone has a fancypants organic farmers’ market selling handmade sandwiches and the like, but simply just reflecting on the simple particulars can be delightful: the fact that a farm or landscape, in combination with sun and water and many sets of dedicated and perhaps loving hands, made your lunch possible.

5. Bonus: Think of Your Own
Reflect on the following: What do I find beautiful and aesthetically uplifting? How can I make that part of my work day? If not every day, is there space for it every so often, or once a week?

Practice: Nature Scan
Duration: 10 minutes
Once a day, spend time minutes exploring and enjoying a outside space near your office. If possible, find a green space with trees and plants, the quieter and leafier, the better. Draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. Do you smell anything? What’s the temperature? Can you feel the sun or the breeze? Bring attention to your eyes. What do you see? What kind of trees and plants? At what stage of growth? What patterns, colors, textures, catch your eye? Is there a particular plant or visual pocket that you’d like to come back and check out again? What sounds can you hear? Birds? Bugs? Cars? Wind? Rain? Reach and out and touch something natural. What’s the texture? What’s it like to hold a leaf or run your hand along a tree trunk? Now walk about a bit, noticing your feet hit the ground. Feel the solidity there. What’s it like to feel the soles of your feet? Enjoy!

1 Comment
by on December 15, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in More Joy, Practices
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 15, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=57

Here’s A Crucial Key to Happiness And Success That You May Not Have Noticed Is Missing

You either own an iPhone or an iPad — or you’re reading about them everywhere and being told you need to get an iThing by iAddicts. Or perhaps both.

It’s not just that these devices are well-designed. So are Velcro and electric toothbrushes, and no one raves about them. It’s that they’re beautiful. Here’s how a writer in The Economist described the magic of beauty:

[Steve Jobs] add[ed] a dash of elegance to the lives of consumers by selling them gorgeously refined devices at a premium. …. [He] offered the mass market dazzling technical progress…

Or, as James Flaherty, the founder of my coaching school, New Ventures West, and a coach to major executives such as Sun Microsystems co-founder and former CEO Scott McNealy, told me once: “Humans need beauty the way plants need sunlight. We wither and wilt without it.”

Exposure to beauty does something important for the human soul, something the rational, language-centered left-brain is hard-pressed to describe. That’s why humans have invented music, art and other forms of expression. Because a logical blog post just ain’t getting at transcendence. (There, I just excused my own tongue-tied typing!)

But it would be unfair to shove the left-brain into a beauty-free box. A physicist at the University of Chicago told me recently that the incredible elegance of advanced physics, particularly in math and equations, has inspired him to faith in a larger power. The utter beauty of physics simply can’t be an accident, he said. Albert Einstein believed in God, famously noting the incredible web of laws that underlies the physical world is not a happenstance occurrence: “God does not play dice.”

The physicists, in other words, interact with beauty as a fundamental motivator for them to continue to explore and do excellent work. And, in fact, this is a big reason why beauty matters: Beauty helps us do our jobs better. Much better. Have you ever tried to work in an ugly, unpleasant environment? What effect does it have on you? Have you felt drained and tired, only to take a walk outside, appreciate the weather or the nearby park, and then return to the task at hand with renewed energy?

And you can see this understanding of the importance of beauty as an inherent principle in the way most lives are structured. Why do we care for our homes and furnishings? Why do we select tasteful, attractive outfits? Why do we read great literature at school? Why do we spend our free times — and some of us, our careers — pursuing aesthetic experiences at museums or concert halls or 100 other places?

Beause beauty matters. It makes us feel good, helps us perform better, and replenishes our spirit and energy. So here’s another question: When it comes to the workplace, are you remembering beauty?

Or are you “checking it at the door” and accepting that work is a place of email, meetings, powerpoints, and productivity — but certainly not aesthetics? Some jobs are steeped in aesthetics. My core job functions have never seemed to involve beauty, so I’ve had to remember to bring it in myself.

Below is a practice to help you bring beauty back. I invite you to take this on for a month, and see what effect it has on your stress level, your inspiration, and your ability to handle challenges on the job. Part of this practice is adapted from findings by a leading, Stanford-trained positive psychology research, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky. So if you try this, you’ll join a community of happiness guinea pigs who have tried out this method in the name of science — and found themselves happier as a result.

Practice: Experiencing Beauty At Work
Duration: One month at least; preferably, oh, say, forever
Instructions:
1. Please add 5-15 minutes to your daily routine at work wherein you experience beauty. Calendar this if it’s difficult to fit it in otherwise. Some ideas for experiencing beauty include: taking a walk in nature, listening to transcendent music, enjoying a piece of artwork or architecture, reading poetry. See this posting for more ideas.
2. As you experience the beauty, allow it to touch you to the extent possible. This may mean leaving your desk for a conference room or bench outside where you can be undistracted. If you enjoy the experience, or feel affected by it, allow that sensation to linger.
3. Later in the day, reflect at least once on your encounter with beauty and what it was like.
4. Once a week, replay the scenes of beauty in your head, like a movie reel. Reminisce and pause to savor any feelings that arise with the memory and connection with beauty.

Note: If you’re following the Work Is Your Dojo Three Step process, this posting corresponds to Step 3, setting and recalling intentions. It’s tough to be committed to a learning orientation, and your soul needs nourishment and support. If you’re just a reader of WIYD, no problem. Everyone’s soul will appreciate a boost from exposure to beauty.

BONUS: Here’s how to turbo-charge your interaction with beauty to get even more out of it!

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky received a Stanford psychology doctorate, teaches at UC-Riverside, and is considered a leader in the field of positive psychology, or, put simply, the study of what makes people happy. She decribes how to draw even more happiness and satisfaction from exposure to beauty in her excellent book, The How of Happiness:

Be open to beauty and excellence. This strategy involves allowing yourself to truly admire an object of beauty or a display of talent, genius or virtue. Strive even to feel reverence and awe. Positive psychologists suggest that people who open themselves to the beauty and excellence around them are more likely to find joy, meaning, and profound connections in their lives. It may appear immensely challenging to experience awe in response to mundane daily life — reading the sports pages, watching a movie, walking through the park — but it’s an ability well worth cultivating. Don’t go through life wearing blinders to everything that is touching, beautiful, virtuous, and magnificent. Consider the example of the poet Walt Whitman, whose ‘favorite activity was to stroll outdoors by himself, admiring trees, flowers, the sky, and the shifting light of the day, listening to birds, crickets, and other natural sounds.’–pp. 197

This approach is called “savoring,” and it consists of actively noticing how excellent or beautiful something is. I’ve built “savoring” into the description above in the practice, but you could really go hog-wild with this, as Walt Whitman clearly did. Why not savor all the time, as often as you can remember? There are indeed so many excellent moments in life.

I have a pet theory about this. (Surprise!) I think we don’t trust our own capacity for joy. It seems to sneaky to be delighted by the simple yumminess of a peanut butter sandwich, the comfort of a friend’s phone call, the glimpse of flowers from the window of the bus. But, of course, that is a topic for another post.

What do you think? Are you savoring enough? And if not, why?

1 Comment
by on December 7, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Practices, Set & Recall Intentions
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 7, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=49

You Don’t Have To Do Anything You Don’t Want To Do

One way to alleviate your stress is to realize you don’t “have to do” all the stressful stuff you think you “have to do.”  This is a liberating, wonderful realization. Stanford University researchers have expounded it and discovered ways of helping it work for stressed-out people. I’ll explain more, but first provide an example:

Recently I was preparing for a major conference that would be packed with influential leaders and entrepreneurs from media and technology, such as Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and Vivian Schiller, the head of digital at NBC News, and Adam Bain, the CRO of Twitter, and, and, and!

A lot of people would say, “Cool! Neat opportunity!” And they’d be right. But instead of appreciating that, I was feeling pretty grumpy in the few days leading up to the event.

Let’s just get the excuses out of the way: I was working through the Thanksgiving holidays — “turkey be damned, I’m checking email!” — and worrying about things like finding a new suit, given that I’d worn the same one for the prior six events and it was getting, er, stale.

I was grumpy because I “had” to work to through Thanksgiving. And I “had” to go buy a new suit. And I “had” to do my homework on all the speakers. And I “had” to do rehearsals with the presenters late on a Sunday night. And I “had” to make sure all the participants got the practical specs. And, and, and!

But when I stopped to think about it, I realized I didn’t “have to” do these things. I was choosing to do them. Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the father of the Nonviolent Communication movement — which has spread to Fortune 500 corporations, inner city schools, family workshops, and beyond — illustrates this choice beautifully:

…When I was consulting for a school district, a teacher remarked, “I hate giving grades. I don’t think they are helpful and they create a lot of anxiety on the part of the students. But I have to give grades: it’s the district policy.” We had just been practicing how to introduce language in the classroom that heightens consciousness of responsibility for one’s actions. I suggested that the teacher translate the statement “I have to give grades because it’s district policy” to “I choose to give grades because I want…” She answered without hesitation, “I choose to give grades because I want to keep my job,” while hastening to add, “But I don’t like saying it that way. It makes me feel so responsible for what I’m doing.”

“That’s why I want you to do it that way,” I replied.

–Marshall Rosenberg, “Nonviolent Communication: A Language Of Life” (California: Puddledancer, 2003), p. 17, emphasis added.

So sometime as the moon was rising high on Sunday and I was still cranking away at my inbox, I paused my internal pity party and tried to answer Dr. Rosenberg’s invitation to be honest about my choice. I came up with an internal monolog that went something like this:”I choose to prepare exhaustively because I want to do a good job. I want do a good job because it feels good. And because I want others to have a good experience. And, frankly, doing good work helps me keep my own job. And my job allows me to pay the rent in this ridiculously expensive little sliver of the world (Manhattan) so that I can be near my family and spend time with them. Doing this well therefore allows me to experience what I most cherish.”

Hey, how about that! In that moment, I started to feel the stress of “I have to” melt away. It was replaced with: “I choose to — because, among other reasons, I love my family.” This realization didn’t make it more pleasant to be sending emails when I would rather be watching brainless TV with that very same family. But–but! it alleviated the tension. I knew I was working for the right reasons, and I felt more relaxed, less self-pitying, less resentful, and generally more satisfied with the evening.Dr. Fred Luskin, a researcher and teacher at Stanford University, has discovered that people who reflect on their true motivations cope much better with stressful situations. In his book “Stress Free for Good,” co-authored with Dr. Kenneth Pelletier, he describes the importance of recalling why we choose to do things:

Learning to see the care, love and affection in our daily actions and the actions of others is a critical ingredient in manifesting our optimal performance…Underneath the busyness and stress of your life there’s a bounty of loving intentions that go uncultivated and unnoticed. (151).

Luskin and Pelletier cite many examples, including:

“Janet was a single parent who struggled to balance the relentness demands on her time. She got her kids up early and put them to bed late. In between she worked full-time, ran the family errands…She rarely, if ever took the time to experience the power of the love she showed her children. Nor did she contemplate how intense that love must be as it manifested itself in the relentless energy she put out on their behalf. Janet thought she worked so hard because she had to. We knew better: we knew she worked so hard and cared so much because of her deep and abiding love.” (153.)

In other words, Janet could have let her kids get on with less, her family function more poorly, and the household economy suffer financially. It may sound dramatic, but we all know stories — and some of us have lived through them — of adults who act precisely that way. Instead, Janet chose to take on a host of difficult duties, as an expression of her deep caring.

And when we remind ourselves of the intention and commitments behind what we’re doing, we can ease our stress and experience a qualitatively better life, according to Luskin and Pelletier’s research.  In particular, they describe the salutary effects of smiling while recalling good intentions. Smiling affects mental and physical health, they describe, by triggering a part of the brain to produce endorphins, a.k.a. “happy chemicals.” You can literally make yourself happier by smiling.

To summarize, it’s useful to ask yourself, in the middle of your next exhausting day, when the strain of “getting it all done” is frazzling your nerves: Do you have to do the things that stress you out? Or are you choosing to do them? And if so, why are you choosing to do them? Can you appreciate your own good intentions?

(The above examples happen to both be about family, but yours needn’t be. Perhaps you’re making tough choices so you can train for a career you care about, or help people who matter to you, or create art that is meaningful, or, or, or!)

If you’re worn thin by all the things you “have to do,” I invite you to take on the below practice for at least a week and see what happens.

Practice: Recalling Your Freedom To Choose and Your Deep Caring
Duration: 5 -10 minutes, once a day
Instructions:
1. Once a day, stop to consider the following: In this period of time, when did I feel overloaded by all that I “had” to do?

Fill in the sentence: “I am stressed because I have to….”

Now fill in the sentence: “I choose to do these things because I want…”

2. When you discover that at least some of your motivation is due to your caring for yourself and others, smile to yourself.

Bring to mind the people you care for. Smile again.

Feel the caring and smiling warm your heart–and smile again.

-Adapted in part from Luskin and Pelletier.

No Comments
by on December 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in More Joy, Set & Recall Intentions, Stress Relief
Posted by workisyourdojo on December 3, 2011

http://workisyourdojo.com/?p=28

« Older Posts