Bettina Clark, January 2013
Let me start with one of my favorite quotes: “#Mindfulness is #awareness of present experience with acceptance, allowing you to see the big picture, recognize patterns and enhance #performance, #creativity, and #innovation.” (Barbara Fredrickson, 2010).
Noticing the reactive mind, it enables us to ‘recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others’ (Goleman, 2001), is eminent for social learning and growing.
It is an Awareness process in itself: ‘using emotions to facilitate and prioritize thinking’ (Goleman, ibid).
In other words: Mindfulness is the ability to see things as they really are, without the veils of (negative) feelings and reactions, judgments (prejudice), or even moods and an important tool in coaching. As my colleague Brian Sullivan puts it: “the coach has a responsibility to facilitate attunement. By being as present as possible to oneself and feeling into the presence of the other a special shared something gets established…. one way a coach does this is by helping the client note what is going on for him/her in the moment.” Our cohort member Geoffrey Soloway adds to that: “Mindfulness includes a quality of #compassion, #kindness, #ethics.”
As practice within this practice I have found and committed to a specific tool: to maintain a sense of #gratitude and deep #humility while accessing true self #love; “humility is the essence of #connectedness. You have to know who you are and who you aren’t.” (Many M. in Gallup StrengthFinder 2.0). On her homepage, Marlena Field points to the practice of centering, in being present, as it quiets the mind and assists to be more patient and calm; it brings balance and stillness. In working with my Peers during my studies, I got a sense of shifting from Doing to Being to Centering - not always a familiar place for me!
Comments