Close your eyes.
Sit in your favorite meditation pose.
Take a deep breath. What do you experience?
Darkness? An onslaught of worries? Fast-paced thoughts that lead you here and there; everywhere but to the place that you are in and the time that is now?
Or do you experience light? Increased inner peace? Reduced stress. A pathway to high values and your best self that you can use again and again, and deepen over time.
What if you could draw from a universal source of internal energy that amplified without limit? What if you could connect to inner purpose that supports the people in your community, takes you out of your self-focus, and into a place of high values?
Welcome to the practice of mindfulness.
The ancient practices of meditation, which have empowered gurus and seers for millennia, are now becoming an increasingly prominent focus in leadership, education, business, and people’s personal lives around the globe.
Broad research now suggests that meditation and mindfulness enhance creativity and intelligence, counteract health issues from arthritis to infertility, improve emotional regulation, reduce stress and improve attention and sensory processing.
So what’s not to like?
First, like any new skill, it’s hard. Mindfulness and meditation require a leap of faith, like kayaking down a river, painting a picture, or developing software. These disciplines move you out of your comfort zone. You need to develop skills and capacity.
Some people report having a difficult time developing mindfulness, so they stop—as do people learning to play the violin or to speak French, so don't stop if you are motivated to develop mindfulness!
Mindfulness is a skill and a set of inner muscles that need developing. It is hard. But seers have reported for millennia that the inner journey through mindfulness can bring wellsprings of joy and energy that the human race is just beginning to understand and to tap.
Hope Collaborative believes that mindfulness is an essential part of developing leaders.
And we are pleased to report that our new Mindfulness module is ready to deploy. We look forward to working with our partners to bring it alive for kids and young adults in a variety of settings facing different opportunities and challenges. We will let you know how it goes.
There are table setting questions we will be asking participants to get them oriented:
As leaders, mindfulness helps ground us, keep us focused, and stay connected to ourselves and the rest of the world. If we can identify our thoughts and emotions as they arise, we are better able to respond to difficult circumstances and make good decisions. Mindful focus can help us develop patience, kindness, courage, and other qualities necessary for positive relationships.
One traditional method of developing mindfulness is meditation. We are illustrating this in the classroom with a famous scene from The Karate Kid: Part II where the wise Mr. Miyagi teaches his young student Danny the value of focus and emotional calm before action. Take a look:
Sit in your favorite meditation pose.
Take a deep breath. What do you experience?
Darkness? An onslaught of worries? Fast-paced thoughts that lead you here and there; everywhere but to the place that you are in and the time that is now?
Or do you experience light? Increased inner peace? Reduced stress. A pathway to high values and your best self that you can use again and again, and deepen over time.
What if you could draw from a universal source of internal energy that amplified without limit? What if you could connect to inner purpose that supports the people in your community, takes you out of your self-focus, and into a place of high values?
Welcome to the practice of mindfulness.
The ancient practices of meditation, which have empowered gurus and seers for millennia, are now becoming an increasingly prominent focus in leadership, education, business, and people’s personal lives around the globe.
Broad research now suggests that meditation and mindfulness enhance creativity and intelligence, counteract health issues from arthritis to infertility, improve emotional regulation, reduce stress and improve attention and sensory processing.
So what’s not to like?
First, like any new skill, it’s hard. Mindfulness and meditation require a leap of faith, like kayaking down a river, painting a picture, or developing software. These disciplines move you out of your comfort zone. You need to develop skills and capacity.
Some people report having a difficult time developing mindfulness, so they stop—as do people learning to play the violin or to speak French, so don't stop if you are motivated to develop mindfulness!
Mindfulness is a skill and a set of inner muscles that need developing. It is hard. But seers have reported for millennia that the inner journey through mindfulness can bring wellsprings of joy and energy that the human race is just beginning to understand and to tap.
Hope Collaborative believes that mindfulness is an essential part of developing leaders.
And we are pleased to report that our new Mindfulness module is ready to deploy. We look forward to working with our partners to bring it alive for kids and young adults in a variety of settings facing different opportunities and challenges. We will let you know how it goes.
There are table setting questions we will be asking participants to get them oriented:
- How often in your everyday life do you feel fully present in the moment?
- How often are you able to withhold judgment—especially about yourself—in order to accept the present with curiosity and compassion?
As leaders, mindfulness helps ground us, keep us focused, and stay connected to ourselves and the rest of the world. If we can identify our thoughts and emotions as they arise, we are better able to respond to difficult circumstances and make good decisions. Mindful focus can help us develop patience, kindness, courage, and other qualities necessary for positive relationships.
One traditional method of developing mindfulness is meditation. We are illustrating this in the classroom with a famous scene from The Karate Kid: Part II where the wise Mr. Miyagi teaches his young student Danny the value of focus and emotional calm before action. Take a look:
You will see in this scene that Danny's emotional distress has real physical effects on his body, leading to the difficulty he has in hammering in a nail. Mindful breathing not only calms Danny's emotions, but actually helps to realign his body as well, so that he can work to his full potential.
For a wider lens on the benefits of mindfulness, and a different cultural perspective on the same concepts, Hope is featuring this Happify animation narrated by meditation instructor Sharon Salzburg, which provides a great summary for viewers of all ages:
In the parable, thoughts and feelings are represented as wolves at war within a human being. One wolf stands for negative or destructive thoughts and emotions, while the other stands for the positive. The act of feeding the positive wolf—consciously choosing to strive for good—is an act of mindfulness.
It is also important to recognize that the destructive wolf, who is just as much a part of us as the constructive, is shown compassion rather than getting attacked. Mindfulness teaches us to embrace and accept the totality of our experience in order to make skillful decisions about how to act.
It is a practice and a lifelong journey.
It can be as fun and joyous as skiing or sculpting, but it’s hard too. As with self-awareness, we believe that no one starts too early—or too late!
Keep mindfulness in mind, and let’s Hope!
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