It’s a word we’ve been hearing a lot of recently and you’re probably wondering… What’s all the fuss about? How does this apply to my functions as a manager or a team leader or a parent?
Think back to a moment when you were caught up in the rush of the day, striving for the next deadline and suddenly out of nowhere your team has a melt down and you didn’t see it coming! When we are stuck in the past or caught up in the possibilities of the future we are not present and we miss so many of the moments that make up our perception of the day. The truth is, there were lots of signs that your team was approaching melt down but your didn’t even notice them.
Here are THE ATTITUDINAL FOUNDATIONS OF MINDFULNESS (Adapted from Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn) . This is the short version to think about how you function in your day.
1. Non-Judging • Taking the stance of an impartial witness to your own experience.
2. Patience • Letting things unfold in their own time
3. Beginner’s Mind • Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we ‘know’ stop us from seeing things as they really are.
4. Trust • Developing a basic trust in yourself and your feelings.
5. Non-Striving • Paying attention to how you are right now – however that it is. Just watch.
6. Acceptance • Seeing things as they actually are in the present. If you have a headache, accept you have a headache. We often waste a lot of time and energy denying what is fact.
7. Letting Go • Letting go is a way of letting things be, of accepting things as they are.