The upheaval happening here in the United States, which is reverberating around the world, is unrelenting and far-reaching. The pace of change is exhausting and disorienting. It feels as though we are in permanent white water.

How do leaders navigate the realities of whitewater? How do they keep themselves and others in the raft as the rapids churn up continuous change and chaos?

Peter B. Vaill, management consultant, author, and organizational change theorist, coined the term permanent whitewater in his book Learning as a Way of Being. Though he worked and taught mostly in the 1980s and 1990s, his keen observations regarding leadership and change still resonate today.

“It has been my experience that you never get out of the rapids — the feeling is one of continuous upset and chaos.”                                                                                                          Peter B. Vaill

Facing Reality

My favorite dictionary definitions of reality come from the Advanced Oxford Learners Dictionary:  

1. 1. the true situation and the problems that actually exist in life, in contrast to how you would like life to be
   2. a thing that is actually experienced or seen, in contrast to what people might imagine

Mindful Leaders navigate whitewater by facing the reality the rocks and swirling water of our current world are real (true situations). They keep calm and maintain their balance in the boat. They do not soften or sugarcoat the things they are seeing and experiencing by imagining things are different than they are. Instead, they acknowledge and communicate to others the dangers, risks, and opportunities of being in permanent whitewater.

Our present circumstances have left more than half the United States population (poll averages) feeling frustrated, angry, fearful, and powerless. The reality is also just under half of us approve of current government policies and direction. This disconnect in our families, communities, and companies is the whitewater we are all experiencing. The changes have motivated and excited some and shocked and angered others, depending on our values and worldview.

Fear and hope are co-existing right now; every human emotion is bubbling up in the permanent whitewater. As Mindful Leaders, we need to understand the reactivity of our inner reality is not necessarily the reactivity and inner reality of others. To best lead others in our present times, we must see and appreciate the different rafts people are riding in, all being carried by the currents of the same river. We need to create psychological safety for everyone and create a collective and appreciative space for differing perspectives and values even if they differ from our own.

Reflective Practice: (This practice can help unearth unconscious biases and create connection with others.)

• Be aware of your values.
  • Where and how would I take a stand to defend them?
• Be aware of how your values may differ from others.
  • How can I openly listen to others without judging them (I am right, they are wrong) or tuning them out?
• Stay rooted in your values.
  • How will I create the necessary boundaries with others to stay true to my values and show up authentically in all contexts?

We often hear “perception is reality,” which can be useful in keeping alert and aware of the rocks in the river which represent people’s personal reality, which becomes their truth. This can be the case with individuals, groups, and even countries. These perceptions are not real in and of themselves; however, we imagine and wish them to be real.

Mindful Leaders ask direct questions and test how others are facing into reality because they know it is not the reality of the current situation (tariffs and federal layoffs, for example) that will cause the raft to overturn in the rapids, but how people react to these changes.

Leading others through change means first facing the changes, our common reality. From this starting place, leaders can support others in navigating their feelings and thoughts (what is inside) about the policy shifts we are all experiencing (what is outside). Staying curious and open so we can move beyond right and wrong and good and bad broadens perspective and helps us take in the realities of each moment.

Mindful Leaders take on the responsibility of challenging teams and organizations to see things as they are and not as they would like them to be. Helping others face reality is a leader’s core responsibility, such as when a team member or the entire team states views that are overly positive or negative about the team’s and/or company’s performance. To keep the team grounded in reality the leader can open a dialogue to surface how the team’s view of reality (perceptions) formed and then level set reality with data and professional experience.

Here is what I am confident enough to write about regarding how to face reality from my experience with it, and without it:

Reality is… Life is stressful. If you haven’t noticed, and not just now in early 2025, the stress and suffering we create and perpetuate for ourselves and others is rooted in wanting and expecting people and things to be different than they are. In other words, we too often deny and avoid reality.

Reflective Practice – When you become aware of being stressed, take note of your thoughts and feelings and ask yourself, “What do I expect to be different about this person or situation?” And, what would it be like if I accepted things right now as they are and not as I expect them to be? Remember, accepting means the reality of the external situation and your internal reactivity.

Reality is… Only in the present. I am stating the obvious here; however, we often live in some version of the near-past or near or far-future and call it reality based.

Reflective Practice – Watch how your mind slips backward and forward in time and set the intention to face reality as it is in each moment.

Reality is… Constant Change. Everything we experience in our lives in always in flux. The transient nature of reality is reality itself. Everything is temporary, including our lives. Even permanent white water is not permanent; it is a set of changing water conditions.

Reflective Practice – Notice the changes happening over the course of years, weeks, and day-to-day in people, nature, and most of all in yourself.

Reality is… Interdependence. The myth of making it in the world as an independent person has caused immense suffering over the course of human existence up to our present time. Science has long established how interconnected humans are with each other, and recent research shows how interconnected we are with nature. Our future hope as a species depends on how we care for each other and work together to solve our most challenging common problems.

Reflective Practice – 1. Set an intention to connect more frequently with the ones you care about and want to be closer to. 2. Set an intention to make eye contact and connect with everyone you interact with every day, no matter how briefly, for a week or month. Notice what happens within yourself and in your relationships with others as a result of connecting.                      

It can be said, with certainty, that reality is more, and less, than it seems. Mindful Leaders face the reality of permanent white water as it is and not as they or anyone wish it to be. They navigate the changing and chaotic current with calm confidence and support others to open, curious, and accepting of our shared, current reality.

Since our whitewater is a permanent state, we will explore how mindful leaders navigate our current environment in future posts.

The post Mindful Leaders… Face Reality appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

Without reflection coaches miss turning their experiences with clients into learning and growth. They also miss the opportunity, and, in my view, responsibility, for modeling for the leaders they coach what reflection looks and feels like. Leaders in our current environment are dealing with levels of complexity never before seen in the modern era as AI strategies quicken what was already a breakneck speed of change.

What these leaders are hungry for is a pause in the action to collect their thoughts and reflect on what just happened and is happening now before being swept back up by the urgency of the day. Coaches can slow things down with questions that help leaders step back into an observer mode versus simply staying in action mode.

Coaches are also in need of reflection, and an increasing number are consistently using reflective practice by working 1:1 or in groups with qualified coach supervisors to fortify their coaching work.

Investing in a reflective practice is not “nice to have,” it is the ground from which effective leadership grows. As the organizational consultant Margaret Wheatly notes, “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way creating more unintended consequences and failing to achieve anything useful.”

What is reflective practice?

Here is an adapted definition from Donald Schon’s book The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action.

Reflective practice is a critical and deliberate inquiry into professional practice in order to gain a deeper understanding of oneself, others, systems, and the meaning shared among individuals. This inquiry can happen during practice/work (mindful in action) and after the fact (on action) and can be done alone or with others.

We reflect to learn from experience; we learn to adapt and change for the betterment of ourselves, others, and organizations.

As executives need to reflect more and react less to meet the challenges of these times, so do the coaches who support them. As coaches (I use the term broadly to include internal coaches, HRBPs, and external coaches), we need to polish our own mirror to be “fit for practice” in our work with leaders and their organizations.

Supervision has become the key vehicle for reflective practice for coaching professionals. Coaches engaging in all the various coaching modalities—one-on-one, team, and group—have benefited from reflecting on all aspects of their coaching practices through the lenses of their relationships with themselves, their clients, and the systems in which they do their coaching.

Group and team coaches more especially, from my experience, find safe havens in reflective practice with other coaches (aka group supervision). Reflective practice groups create an environment where coaches can share challenges from their work freely and learn from each other’s experiences with clients. I often hear from the groups I lead that coaches also feel more settled and confident after reflecting together with their coach colleagues. They know and feel they are not alone.

Here are the three reasons to invest in a reflective practice (one-on-one or in groups), which are also historically called the “functions” of supervision:

1. 1. Well-Being – coach well-being and resilience building
   2. Learning and Growth– coach competence and capacity building
   3. Flourishing (Qualitative) – coach quality control, including contracting and ethics

Well-Being

In general, and especially in our current challenging environment, it is emotional support a coach needs most from reflective practice. In a group supervision session I led during the pandemic one coach presented a challenging client case. As the group and I listened, the coach expressed doubts about their approach; the coach questioned if they were “good enough” for this client. In addition, the coach was also fatigued from their home-schooling role as a parent.

Feelings of being depleted and overwhelmed due to Covid stressors were overshadowing the coaching work. The supervision dialogue and reflection shifted to support the coach’s present experience with the group providing empathy, understanding, and emotional support. The group acknowledged and normalized the coach’s experience as we were all feeling exhausted to some extent with all that life had thrown our way.

To better engage with their clients, the coach needed to devote more attention to their well-being so they could tap into and reinforce a resilient mindset and behaviors. The coach became aware they needed to practice self-compassion to mitigate their self-judgment. They ended with “I am a good enough and also tired coach.”

A coach’s well-being and resilience is the ground from which all good work happens, because well-being leads to well-doing.

Learning and Growth

Generally, coaches know their learning is not done when they graduate from a coach training program. We know developing our coaching competence, confidence, and capacity requires practice and continuous learning. As we reflect on coaching cases in supervision, we follow the advice of the poet Walt Whitman, to “be curious and not judgmental.”

One area I am always curious about in my coaching practice and the practices of my supervisees is the influence of our self-stories. These stories (or scripts) originate in our childhood, and we all carry them forward in our coaching work in different ways. For example, one coach realized they were enacting parental behaviors with a client by being overly protective–unconsciously treating the client like a child. A supervision conversation helped the coach stay aware of keeping the coaching conversations adult-to-adult and to begin to unlearn their parent/child relational pattern with clients. Reflection helps us become more conscious in the moment so we can steer clear of our conditioned patterns from our past.

A coach’s commitment to their continuous learning keeps them on a developmental edge, always deepening and widening their competence and capacity and unlocking potential.

Flourishing (Qualitative)

Flourishing for coaches means being mindful of their presence while leveraging all aspects of their practice to foster continuous growth for clients and themselves. The integrity of a coach’s work depends on delivering the highest quality coaching to their clients and organizations. Quality control is essential and encompasses how we contract with clients and organizations and how we establish professional boundaries as well as ethical standards.

In one of my supervision cases, an internal coach/HR Business Partner was struggling to navigate the escalating tensions between their senior vice president business partner and vice president from another division. The vice president was supported by a different HR Business Partner, a colleague of my supervisee. The trouble here was the Business Partners also had a difficult relationship, which compounded, rather than alleviated, the escalating tensions.

Complications can arise for internal coaches (as with the two above) because they work within the corporate system they are coaching in, which means swimming in the same waters where the coach and coaching client know the same people and experience the same company politics.

In our supervision conversation, we explored the initial coaching contract and reflected together on when to know how to push back and challenge the executives they supported and when to let go. We also looked at how the tensions between the senior executives might be paralleled, or played out, between the HRB’s and its impact on their coaching work.

Supervision research suggests supervisors find half of the issues brought to them by coaches are related to original contracting, and this case supported the findings. In the end, the insight from reflective practice was to revisit the original contracting with the executives and HBP colleague and re-contract and restructure the coaching work accordingly.

As the coaching field grows, so does the need for mindful reflective practice, aka supervision. Leaders are not reflecting enough, especially during these trying times. They are not learning at the pace they need to so they can keep up with the changes in the business environment. It is our job as coaches to model a reflective approach. The emerging research shows coaches who attend to their well-being, continuously develop their competence and capacity, and focus on quality control are the coaches most fit for purpose.

The post The Necessity of Reflective Practice for Coaches appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

An executive complains their team is underperforming. A leader is struggling to collaborate with a peer, who they say is refusing to collaborate with them. Coworkers quietly and defiantly avoid interacting with each other.

We have all had grievances at one time or another, large and small. They are a reality of our workplace experiences and general lives. A grievance, by definition, is “a real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or protest, especially unfair treatment.” We experience grievance at an emotional level as “feelings of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair.”

(This article is about personal grievances, not those escalated into the legal realm as in a filed grievance against a company.)

When something doesn’t go our way, or someone doesn’t agree with us, we become aggrieved—the root word of grievance is to grieve. We mentally and emotionally carry whatever “real or imagined” thing that happened as a burden. We replay it in our minds and find ourselves feeling frustrated, angry, and/or resentful. We somehow can’t let it be or let it go. There seems to be some satisfaction in complaining about our unfair treatment, about how we’ve been let down by ourselves, others, our families, or companies.

The list of complaints can be long for those of us who are aggrieved. And, sadly, this way of thinking and emotional reactivity can become habitual and create a drag on our energy. Holding a grudge affects our bodies and our minds. This is because grievances keep us stuck in the past, and we re-live them and project them into the future. A downward spiral of negativity is created and fed by our anger and resentment, and the burden saps our energy, distracting us from the vitality of the present moment. We harm ourselves by carrying our grievances. Research suggests chronic complaining increases the stress hormone cortisol and bathing our brains in reinforced patterns of negativity can impact our memory.

Being with people who are openly carrying and sharing their grievances can be challenging. The negativity of their resentment can be contagious and infect us with a skewed perspective on what is a real or imagined hurt. Chronic complainers are loud about their discontent about others and their organization without being proactive in engaging in the change they want to see. Even more corrosive is the person who silently harbors their grievances. These individuals hold their grudges close, yet still exhibit a grumpiness that can cause others to ask themselves, “what did I do to get on the bad side of her/him?” We harm others and our relationships by carrying our grievances. And, by sharing them indiscriminately, we can harm entire departments or organizations.

Yet, grievances are not good nor bad, and some complaints are warranted and healthy if geared toward important changes that benefit oneself, others, and wider systems. Venting what is unfair to key influencers in ways that lead to addressing a wrong or solving a problem can be an empowering experience and lead to increased confidence and improved mental health. If the executive who complained about their team’s ineffectiveness follows up by providing feedback to their group and engaging them in a team development process, then positive, generative results can occur.

It can be helpful if we consider grievances as a range of feelings, the lower end as feelings of being let down, put off, or slighted, and the higher end as feelings of being disregarded, put down, or even betrayed. When it comes to grievances, it matters less, or not at all, whether the wrong done to us is real or imagined. What matters most is how we react to the wrong or unfair treatment. We choose to be aggrieved and to complain; no one puts us up to it. It is our choice to become more aware and learn from our own grievances and others’ and move beyond them. Otherwise, our grievances keep us stuck in disruptive emotions and a string of unproductive and potentially damaging behaviors. When things don’t go our way, we can either perpetuate a cycle of grievance or break through to a new way of seeing and acting.

Practices To Deal with Grievances

• Cultivate Mindful Reflection – Grievances need to be worked through from the inside out. By closely examining how we think and feel about being treated unfairly, we increase our awareness and pick up insights that result in shifts in our approaches to grievances. Being mindful reduces the chance we’ll become reactive when a perceived wrong occurs. It also lessens the contagion of negativity spawned by complaining. For example, when your peer doesn’t recognize your contribution to a project, you can practice noticing how your mind starts to spin with projections about the peer’s intention in ignoring you. By noticing the workings of our minds and our emotional reactivity, we can build in a buffer that slows, then stops, the grievance from taking hold of us.
• Foster Equanimity – As the Zen teacher, Suzuki Roshi put it, “Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind.” Equanimity is the reminder everything is constantly changing, which helps us to detach and care less about unfair treatment. This practice of detachment and perspective allows us to be mentally calm when we feel like we’ve been given the short end of the stick. We have the choice to pause, breathe, and steady our minds in the face of grievances.
• Adopt Active Acceptance – Waiting for another person, culture, or system to change can be a fool’s errand. It’s best to focus our attention and energy on changing what we can change in ourselves. When it comes to others and organizations, practicing active acceptance can strengthen our relationships. To accept actively means letting go of a perceived wrong or letting it be. Time is not what heals our wounds or our grievances. It is changing our relationship with our wounds and grievances in the present that allows for healing over time.
• Set Clear Boundaries – I once brought a complaint to a wise coach. It was about my manager. They listened quietly for a bit and said, “I’m here to support you, but I will not wallow with you in your stuck-ness.” My coach then proceeded to challenge my thinking to lift me out of my self-imposed misery. I’ve learned to watch out for the tendency to commiserate with those who come to us with a grievance. It is rarely what they need. Listening empathically is always a good starting point when someone comes to us with a grievance; however, making their grievance our grievance can feed a negativity loop and victimhood and spread across a team or organization. Set clear boundaries with others’ grievances, letting them know how you view chronic complaining as disempowering for them and you. Model and encourage mindful reflection and other practices for dealing with grievances.
• Generate Gratitude – Being appreciative and thankful on a consistent basis can lift us out of our state of grievance. Studies have shown expressing gratitude brings mental and physical benefits, like an improved mood and more positive feelings about ourselves and others. Practice gratitude daily by noticing what is positive around us and capturing, mentally or in writing, the things we are thankful for. Gratitude insulates us from victimhood.
• Be Compassionate with Yourself and Others – Grievances produce unhealthy relationships. They can cause negative feelings and self-criticism and distance between us and others. Compassion is the antidote. By having compassion for ourselves when we are aggrieved, we acknowledge and tolerate our disappointment and resentment in being wronged. We normalize our feelings and do not let them consume us or define us. Being compassionate toward those who have ignited our grievance means listening, stepping back from judgement, and staying engaged with an open mind and an open heart. Being compassionate means forgiving and letting go of our grudges.

Grievances are a normal part of our personal and professional lives. It is inevitable people and life’s circumstances will let us down. In these moments, we have the choice to either carry the burden forward, allowing a grievance to take root and then grow by our complaints, or we can nip it in the bud through mindful reflection and other practices. The more we practice dealing with grievances mindfully, the more we’ll see life as neither unfair nor fair, and people, as neither good nor bad.

The post How to Deal with Grievances appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this post are used in a fictitious manner, with the intent of providing a learning experience.

Death is an unexpected topic for any conversation. It can be especially unnerving in a professional setting. So, when my executive coaching client, Alex, a C-Suite leader for a global company, started out his biweekly session with, “I want to talk about death,” my mind raced. Is Alex terminally ill? Is he contemplating suicide? Is he mentally ill? What is my ethical responsibility here? Who do I tell in his organization that he’s bringing death up in coaching? Or do I need to?

I take pride in having trained myself over 22 years of coaching to keep calm and centered during coaching sessions. I keep my face relaxed and hold a welcoming, listening posture when my clients exhibit edgy emotions, share unexpected news, or, my favorite, test me to see how I’ll react. My approach mostly works well.

Was Alex testing me, and why would he? We’ve been working together for almost a year. Our relationship is solid, a true working partnership, with the right level of intimacy to unearth and shape what he needs as a leader.

I steadied my mind and felt the tension in my body rise up and knot right below my Adam’s apple. I asked Alex, “Where is this desire to talk about death coming from?”

Alex: Well, first Ken, it’s clear this topic surprised you and makes you uncomfortable. I noticed how you swallowed hard twice and shifted in your chair. Funny thing that your coaching on how to be observant of others’ body language can turn against you.

Ken: Thanks, Alex, for being so observant. Well-played. Back to my question about where this interest in death is coming from.

Alex: I just turned 53 and don’t buy this middle age crap. I highly doubt I’ll live until I’m 106. So, while there is time, I want to take a closer look at my life and prepare for my death and what might come after.

Ken: I’d like to pause before we dive deeper into this conversation, because I’m compelled and ethically bound to ask a few questions.

Alex: Fire away.

Ken: What has changed recently that makes talking about death important to you?

Alex: I’m not terminally ill if that’s where you’re going. In fact, I’m healthier than I’ve been in years.

Ken: Good to know you are healthy. Have you talked to others about death, including a therapist?

Alex: Yes, I’ve talked to my wife, who says I’m morbid and need to be more positive. I told her I am being positive by not avoiding talking about death. I got nowhere; she won’t engage me on the topic. I spoke with my daughter, who is away at college, and she said I’m going through an existential crisis, and that she’s been there herself. She recommended a French novel by Camus, I think, and promised to discuss it all during her semester break. Also, as you know, I paused my therapy a few months back with the therapist’s blessing, and, yes, we talked about death and my death in particular. He said to process the fact of our death is healthy, but to obsess could be a sign of not wanting to be here. We agreed I want to be alive.

Ken: Thanks. Sounds like you’ve been busy exploring what death means to you at this point in your life. How did I make it onto your list to discuss this topic?

Alex: You’re a good listener, and the closest thing I have right now to a therapist.

Ken: Thanks for the compliment and for distinguishing me from a therapist. As we agreed at the beginning of our work together, I’m here as a coach to focus on the here and now, and how you are evolving into the future as a person and developing as a leader within your organization. We look at the past for insight and understanding as to why you think and act like you do but don’t stay there. Therapists explore in depth what has already happened and why.

Now you mentioned preparing for death and what comes after it. Did I hear that right?

Alex: I’m not thinking about death because I’m worried about some afterlife.

Ken: So, you are not worried about an afterlife. What are you worried about?

Alex: I’ll get to my worries in a minute. First, I want to know what you believe about an afterlife.

Ken: What I believe is neither here nor there. It’s what you believe, or worry about, that I believe could be a good focus for our coaching conversation.

Alex: Humor me. What do you believe?

Ken: When you die, everyone you’ve ever loved who has passed on ahead of you will be waiting to greet you with hugs and kindness. They will show you around because things will be very different on the other side of this life, in the next life.

Alex: That’s what you believe?

Ken: That’s what we told our five-year-old niece when her grandmother died. It settled her, and now that I hear myself say it, I’m settled. So, yes, right now that’s what I believe. Let’s get back to you and your worries about death.

Alex: Thanks for sharing that story. I’m sorry about your niece’s grandmother – your sister?

Ken: Thank you. No, my wife’s sister. You said you’d get back to your worries.

Alex: I’m not really worried about the way I’ll die, and I’m not worried about an afterlife. My worries are more about how I’m living life before I die.

Ken: How would you like to live your life?

Alex: The first thing that comes to mind is I’d like to spend more time with my son. I’d also like to re-engage with my team and use you to coach us as you did earlier this year. I want to vision forward what needs to be done for the business. We need a breakthrough.

Ken: Worthy goals. You know, Alex, I’m sensing there is something nagging at you that is bringing up this focus on death. Perhaps some fear or a need to let go of something. Just my hunch. How does that land with you?

Alex hung his head and went quiet. When he looked up and started speaking, I could see tears welling in his eyes.

Alex: I’ve talked with you a little bit about my son and for untold hours with my therapist. He tried to kill himself again last week.

Alex again hung his head, and this time he stayed quiet for several minutes. When he looked up, I surprised myself by breaking the silence and talking first.

Ken: This must be hard for you right now. How is he doing?

Alex: He’s stable and in good hands.

Ken: Glad to hear. Please contact your therapist to process all this. It’s a lot to carry. Will you make a commitment to do that?

Alex: Yes, yes, it’s a good idea.

Ken: How are you doing right now? I know you have another meeting shortly.

Alex: I’m struggling to focus and be present, but I’m ok. He’s alive, and that’s what matters the most. When he almost died, it was my life that flashed before my eyes. Hard to understand. I feel there is so much more I must do.

Ken: I wonder if what you said earlier about spending more time with your son is enough to do for now.

Alex: Yes, of course it is. I have to let go of the idea that all will be well when it’s not. My therapist calls it surrendering to life because we can’t control what happens.

Ken: Letting go and surrendering are hard to do for all of us. The poet Stanley Kunitz talked about letting go by saying we experience “little deaths” everyday as we realize life will often not be what we expect or want. To him, these little deaths prepare us to give birth to what’s next in our lives.

Alex: I like the idea of little deaths leading to something new versus pressuring myself to fulfill bucket list items before I die. With all that’s going on with my son and here at work, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Ken: Sounds like you are feeling lighter. Where are you now with your upfront desire to talk about death?

Alex: I feel like I’ve released some of my fear about death, especially the death of my son. So, I’m letting go I guess, which means I can also say I died a little today. The question is still what’s next?

Ken: What’s next is a good question to end on, ok?

Alex: Yes, ok. Thank you.

After Alex exited the room, I felt a release of tension. I realized in that moment that the most important thing I could do as a coach was to simply listen deeply and be there with him in the space as a caring presence. Our conversation about death also surfaced for me the need to be mindful of my own fears and to manage them in real time when coaching clients bring up the unexpected. Navigating any coaching conversation, to me, means letting go of what I think needs to happen in service of what wants to happen from the client’s perspective. I’m struck by the fact that Alex and I were both afraid at the start of the session, and by the end of our time together we were both more at ease and open to what’s next.

The post Leaders Die, Too appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

We always need to be doing something. Activity is how we measure our worth in large part and how corporations determine productivity. We know all this activity, connected with pace of today’s business world is taking a toll on workers. The future workplace, many agree, will be more holistic, with a focus on well-being. Studies show that workers who have a healthy dose of “being” are better at “doing.”

Meditation is on most lists as a wellness practice to facilitate well-being, and this week I am meditating, a lot.

I am on a silent retreat. This week I will only be doing what it takes to foster the conditions to Be. This means mostly nothing but sitting and walking in silence. This is not a new experience for me. I have been practicing mindful reflection for over 25 years, which includes formal sitting meditation every day. Retreats are a more recent way for me to “build confidence in our everyday mindfulness practice,” as one mindfulness teacher puts it.

There is only one aspiration for a silent retreat, and that is to be fully present and aware. By doing nothing in silence, without the usual distractions of our complicated lives, we can allow everything to be experienced fully—thoughts, emotions, and sensations—in the moments we sit, walk, eat, or hike in the woods.

Though I will be taking a week off from work to do nothing, my mind, renegade that it is, will continue to do as much as possible. The thing about a silent environment without cell phones, reading, and writing, is that our minds do not like it at all, at least not at first.

As at past retreats, my mind will carry me back in time to hurts that I thought I was over and thrust me forward to a future I desire but may not be able to realize. As my mind goes so does my body, so I will feel the pain and hurts and burning desires as if they are real. If I can muster the awareness, I will come to understand that none of it is real unless I want it to be. As a Zen teacher once said, “if you let go a little, you will experience a little peace and freedom; if you let go a lot you will realize greater peace and freedom.”

With some easeful effort, I have built the capacity to create enough awareness and space to watch my mind being itself and feel my emotions more fully as they course through my body. These are the ways of being attentive and present within myself, and real way I am living my Tri-Lens Mindful Reflection Model.

I have come to learn from my mindfulness practice to work with my mind and be in a different relationship with myself. Being more at ease with myself and less wanting to be in control has helped with how I see myself, others, and the world. In short, all my relationships have shifted and continue to change for the better.

Silent retreats are not for everyone and not the only way to deepen a mindfulness practice. For me, being away from my day-to-day activities in deep reflection and contemplation is a way to understand that there is no dividing line between activity and doing nothing. With a growing awareness, we come to see that we are always being and doing at the same time in a constant flow of ever-changing moments. Whatever you find yourself doing in the coming days, may it be done with mindful awareness. For me, I will be away this week doing nothing.

The post Doing Nothing for a Week appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

2022 was like many years when looked through the long lens of history. War erupted in Europe and raged in Africa. The United States continued to grapple with what the word “united” means. A mental health crisis was declared and addiction continued to devastate our communities. And, the devastation of the Covid pandemic appeared to have receded into the background.

2022 also brought great courage and kindness in response to global and local crises. Individuals and communities came together to support those among us who are most vulnerable and in need. After all, we are all connected in the uncertainty of life; our peace and ease today can turn into disruption and tragedy tomorrow.

The end of the calendar year, which coincides with winter in the northern hemisphere, is a natural time for reflection. With the holidays concluding, things slow down, activity lessens, and a quiet emerges. Silence is here.

I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me. – Einstein

Silence brings reflection; reflection brings silence. Silence allows us to ask ourselves deeper questions about what matters most, like:

Who am I? Who do I want to be? What will I do with my life?

Big questions. Take your time and hold them in reflection. Allow silence to teach you how to answer them. And do not work too hard thinking on these questions. In fact, thinking may be counterproductive. Studies have shown that periods of silence generate cell development in the memory and learning center of the brain and help us encrypt information.

Einstein, genius that he was, intuited this pre-neuroscience in his quote, above. Talking and thinking are overrated and silence underappreciated. In our loud world, many fight to be heard and talk louder. And, for many of us, the loudest noise we experience comes from inside our own heads. Our discursive thoughts, the ongoing chatter in our minds can be incessant. Silence is an antidote for our overworked minds. It creates a refuge of quiet and the space for feelings and sensations to enter. Being fully human is to listen to our minds and our bodies.

Silence is both practical and profound. We find it and create it. According to Artic explorer and author of  “Silence: In the Age of Noise,” Erling Kagge, silence is “the new luxury,” which enriches our lives.

By pausing and inserting silence into our conversations, for example, we help ourselves slow to gather our thoughts and help others to better understand us. Deeper listening is a benefit of being quiet. As the poet Rumi notes, “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” Silence makes us more effective communicators.

Silence also gives us insight into the “Why” behind our behaviors. In quiet, we can ask ourselves, “Are my behaviors aligned with my values and intentions? Are some of my actions habits that once served me and should now be released?”

Silence is the only universal language known to all life. Trees, crows, foxes, and people all share and connect in silence. Without silence, speech, music, or any sound loses its coherence and meaning. The quiet or pause between sound, a rest in music, allows us to take in and to make sense of what is being communicated or performed. This was clear to Mozart, who said, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”

We can find silence anywhere, even in the loudest places, because we carry it within us. Meditation in any form cultivates this silence, and its companion stillness, by settling our thoughts and creating a spacious presence. Being in nature is another way to be silent; it is our connection to all life. Trees are exemplars of silent living, only making noise when the wind rustles their leaves and creaks their branches. To add meaning to the sounds of your life, find and create your own silence.

We can be stunned into silence. These are times when words are left behind, not needed and even useless for providing meaning for what we are experiencing. This is beautifully captured by the poet Billy Collins in his poem Silence:

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

“Let silence be the art you practice.” –Rumi

As we end a year, let us pause and allow silence, which is always present within us and around us, to make a home in our noisy lives. Let us be grateful for the gift of quietude.

And, let us take a moment of…

Silence for the oldest among us – May you stay steady and strong as you walk into your future transitions and model for the rest of us the grace of older age.

Silence for all refugees and all those impacted by war – May you find safe havens to be free to return to your homes, or to be embraced by your newfound communities.

Silence for the mentally ill – May you find the care and support to carry through your troubles, and may your vulnerability become your strength.

Silence for all who have experienced being othered and marginalized – May you be welcomed as You wherever you go. You belong.

Silence for all who have died – You were born from the womb of silence and have now transitioned into eternal silence.

Silence for all who have lost someone – May we be comforted in our grief. “Everybody you have ever loved is a part of the fabric of your being now.”  –Ram Dass

Silence for the natural world – May all life of the earth and sky be sustained and thrive, and teach us true silence.

Silence for all children – May you create a future that respects and loves all of you, others, the world, and all the silence in between.

The post Ending a Year. 2022. In Silence. appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

Wendy Palmer, author, aikido master, and teacher to leaders and coaches worldwide, passed last week. She is now an ancestor to her community and all those who will discover her legacy of Leadership Embodiment. Through her books, particularly Leadership Embodiment, and leadership courses, Wendy’s pioneering work of bringing presence, confidence, and compassion into corporations changed how we think about leadership. Leveraging her practice of aikido and mindfulness, she taught us to live and lead from an embodied place of unified life energy.

I was fortunate to meet with Wendy virtually this past August to explore running a Leadership Embodiment Course on the East Coast. She spoke with excitement about reuniting with her students from Boston to Washington DC. I was struck by her energy, passion, and caring attention to my learning needs around embodied coaching and leadership. That training never came together; however, I was able to experience her teachings and wisdom by one of her long-time certified teachers, Paul Ciske.

In my time with Wendy, it was clear that she lived her principles and teachings of how to be a noble, awesome, and shiny human being. Here is the link to a video of one of her presentations, A Touch of Grace.

Here is what I learned from Wendy and Paul:

• it’s important to be conscious and fully awake in our bodies – leadership is not simply a thinking activity, it’s full embodiment
• our leadership presence is intimately connected to our embodied energy
• we can intentionally expand our presence through mindful, embodied practices
• we build our confidence by being fully present and conscious in our bodies
• effective leaders combine strength and intention with warmth and compassion

Wendy’s embodiment practices include “think of something or someone that makes you smile.” Thank you, Wendy. I’m smiling thinking of you.

The post Noble, Awesome, Shiny appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

“Timing is Everything” is a proverb used in all walks of life. It is often associated with comedians telling jokes in such a way that they are well received and have the maximum effect. Though most successful leaders are not comedians (the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is an exception), in my 22 years of coaching, I can say some leaders have had better timing than others.

The leaders with the best timing are the most situationally aware around when and how they communicate, for example, so their message will be “well received and have maximum effect.” This is especially important when communicating what can be perceived as bad news. Exhibiting the right timing is less about skill than about growing our awareness and our attunement with those around us and the environment we co-inhabit.

We need to ask ourselves – What is the readiness of the audience for what I plan to communicate? What can I anticipate in terms of individual and group reactivity to the message? Is patience needed, or do I need to get ahead of the situation and act now?

There is no perfect timing. Every situation is different and playing out in a web of interconnectivity. Timing is everything, and everything is happening in the present. The greater our presence in each moment, the better our timing.

The post Timing is Everything appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

The post Pace Awareness in Leadership appeared first on Mindful Leadership.

The post Ethical Maturity appeared first on Mindful Leadership.