Seeing Clearly in Uncertain Times: Mindfulness Tools to Help

Find your Balance

Robert Lurye

InsightLA

robertlurye@insightla.org

Long Beach Meditation

Elliott Law

Mindful USC

elaw@usc.edu

InsightLA

elliott@insightla.org

Settling into the present

Mind Wandering

• Ruminating about past events

• Worrying about future events

Snow Globe Mind

Stop

Take a breath

Observe

Proceed

What is mindfulness?

• Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

• Mindfulness is synonymous with Heartfulness

• Heartfulness builds community

What is meditation?

• Meditation is the practice of focusing your attention, either narrowly or broadly.

• It can involve focusing on the breath, on bodily sensations, or on a word or phrase.

• These are called the "object" of meditation.

So when you meditate, you are practicing being mindful.

No Crazy Positions Required!

Mindfulness is h0t!

It has entered mainstream culture

The Den Meditation Studio

Wanderlust Los Angeles

The Dome New York

Sampling of Organizations with Mindfulness Programs for Employees

UCLA

UC San Diego

Aetna

General Mills

Salesforce

Google

United States Marine Corps

Seattle Seahawks

Intel

USC

Mindful USC

“The idea is to make people here at USC more present, less stressed out, less anxious.”

- Allen Weiss, Co-chair Mindful USC

"We want to create a culture of mindfulness for the Trojan Family"

- Varun Suni, Co-chair Mindful USC

Mindful USC

Offerings:

• ongoing training

• practice groups

• faculty workshops

• media resources

• research

• special events

Mindful USC

Training is open to faculty, staff, and students and consists of classes and practice groups

• Classes - beginner and intermediate level

• Practice groups - drop-in, run by staff

Building a mindful community

Why do we need mindfulness?

Stress!

Signs of our times

• America set new record for stress in 2017

• Polarized politics

• Increased pace of change

• Changes in federal policies

• Uncertainty of impacts on funding and clients

Negativity bias

• Taking in the negative is automatic

• Taking in the positive needs effort

• Natural survival mechanism

“The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positives ones.” -Dr. Rick Hanson

Healthy vs. Unhealthy Stress

• High and chronic levels are damaging to health and can lead to dis-ease of the body and mind.

How do you balance the scale?

Mindfulness Practices!

• Formal Practices

• Meditation

• Yoga

• Informal Practices

• Daily activities

Seeing Clearly | Finding Balance

Let's practice being mindful...

3 Minute

Breathing

Space

How was that?

Benefits of mindfulness practice

• Stress reduction

• Improved focus

• Emotional intelligence

• Fostering of compassion and goodwill

• Integrate the mind and body

• Greater resiliency

Perception

What does the research say?

Research is growing exponentially

Research findings fall into 3 categories

• Improvements in symptoms

• Improvements in biological markers

• Changes in the brain

Improvement in symptoms

• reduced stress, anxiety, depression

• better sleep, mood, focus

Improvements in biological markers

• lower cortisol levels

• reduced cellular aging (telomeres)

Changes in the brain (neuroplasticity)

• increased gray matter in the prefrontal cortex

• decreased amygdala size

To realize the benefits,it takes practice

Thoughts

EmotionsBody

Sensations

Why would they say that? They don't like me.

I have such a headache. I'm so mad!

Triangle of Awareness

R.A.I.N.

Recognize

Allow

Investigate

Non-identify

Responding vs. Reacting

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that

space is our power to choose our response.

- Viktor Frankl

One more practice - Deep listening

What does community mean to you?

• 2 minutes per partner

• Person with shortest hair goes first

• Speakers - Do not preplan what you will say. Feel into your body and speak from your heart.

• Listeners - Listen with your mind, body and full attention with intent to understand. Do not plan your talk.

• 2 minutes to share back and forth

Supports Community Building!

• Mindfulness practice helps you connect to yourself with kindness and compassion

• Developing self-compassion and emotional intelligence, helps build empathy and compassion for others

Bringing to your organization

• Start with yourself, develop a regular practice

• Educate your staff - benefits, science

• Have a kick-off "try it out" training event

• Allocate space for practice

• Recruit champions

• Encourage people to practice together with weekly drop-in practice groups

• Start meetings with a mindful minute

Mindfulness Training ResourcesFor Your Organization (and You)

• InsightLA - insightla.org

• Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute -SIYLI - siyli.org

• Headspace - headspace.org

• The Relational Center Leadership Institute -relationalcenter.org

• Long Beach Meditation -longbeachmeditation.org

Mindfulness Resources

Apps

• Insight Timer

• Mindfulness Bell

• Headspace

• Calm

• Stop, Breath & Think

Mindfulness Resources

Web

• Mindful - mindful.org

• The One You Feed - oneyoufeed.net

• Greater Good - greatergood.berkeley.edu

• American Mindfulness Research Association -goamra.org

• Self-Compasion - self-compassion.org

• Center for Mindfulness - cfmhome.org

Mindfulness Resources

Print

• Mindfulness for Beginners - Jon Kabat-Zinn

• Search Inside Yourself - Chade-Meng Tan

• Mindsight - Dan Siegel, MD

• Real Happiness at Work - Sharon Salzberg

Review - Tools to Try

• S.T.O.P.

• R.A.I.N.

• 3 Minute Breathing

Space

• Insight Timer

• Mindfulness Bell

Seeing Clearly

~

Finding Balance

Mindful USC

InsightLA

For more information, contact:

elaw@usc.edurobertlurye@insightla.org

This presentation will be available at cnmsocal.org/501conference