Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine, who also meditates and listens to dharma talks. She described how workplace drama still takes up so much space in her head. I reminded her that meditation trains us to push those thoughts away. She replied, “I know… the thing is: when you are in the heat of the moment, how can you differ your mind from it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a meditation retreat this summer at Bhavana Society<\/a>, I picked up a business card of one of the monks. A monk with a business card? Well, this is quite an inspiring monk<\/a>. What’s on the business card of a Buddhist monk? His contact information, of course. And, when you turn the card over, the phrase: “Remember to breathe, you always have a choice”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During meditation, we always have thoughts that appear from nowhere. At a meditation retreat last week, I had the hardest time settling my mind because I kept thinking about work. During meditation all sorts of thoughts come to mind. Rather than getting too drawn into those and falling into the rabbit hole of angst, I bring my mind back to my breath and remember that those thoughts are just that: thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We can choose whether to dwell on all sorts of things or choose to breathe and put our efforts on productive matters. Meditation never clicked with me until I realized that meditation is a practice<\/strong>, a way of training my mind for responding to the complexities of living. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Three deep breaths, while visualizing the breath at the base of my nose<\/strong>. For me, that’s transformative and can be done silently while sitting in a meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If focusing on three deep breaths doesn’t clear my mind, then Tara Brach’s RAIN<\/a> approach provides a method of self-compassion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n R: recognize what is happening Self-care is an important part of our daily living. The 4 questions posed by Byron Katie<\/a> also prove instructive when battling negative emotions, when trying to push away those thoughts that might drive us to make wrong decisions or to do negative actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (By this point, some people may think there’s way too much woo hoo<\/em> self-improvement, fake spirituality going on. That’s your choice to think that, and my choice not to worry that you think that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Katie Byron’s 4 questions are particularly useful when dealing with my own thoughts about other people and situations. I might think I fully understand something, but these questions force a deeper reflection that reveals my thoughts may simply be a story that I’m imagining, speculative thoughts that are unraveling and potentially impacting my attitude and behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Think about a specific situation that was stressful. (Not very hard, is it.) Ask yourself the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most often, I don’t actually know the real truth of a stressful situation. I know my emotional perception, but is that based in reality or formed through a lot of emotional baggage that’s coloring my interpretation of events. Or, maybe the emotional perceptions of my colleagues are impacting my own understanding. Seldom, can we absolutely know that a conflict in an organization is absolutely true since we seldom (if ever) have full insights into the emotional dynamics of our colleagues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking some deep breaths and stepping back to think about the situation is so simply powerful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I still feel stressed about a situation, I resort back to Viktor Frankl’s experience<\/a> as a prisoner in Auschwitz and how he survived<\/a> the NAZI concentration camp:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Remember to breathe, you always have a choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine, who also meditates and listens to dharma talks. She described how workplace drama still takes up so much space in her head. I reminded her that meditation trains us to push those thoughts away. She replied, “I know… the thing is: when you are in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1607,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions\/1607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/endlesshybrids.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}3 deep breaths<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
RAIN<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A: allow the experience to be there, just as it is
I: investigate with interest and care
N: nurture with self-compassion<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe 4 questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Man’s search for meaning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n