I am really baffled by how often I hear my students mention that their boss could use Mindfulness At Work training and when I ask, "Why don't you tell them?" They respond, "Oh no, she doesn't care. She just wants to get things done and done them her own way. She'd never go for it." Or say, "They don't care about AWARENESS, they just want us to do more using the same strategies that don't work."

Sitting at our regular Tuesday night sitting group my entire body felt in alignment with my mind in a space of deep concentration and alertness. As I sat in meditation all parts of my body were locked-in together like a very solid building structure. I felt no urge for movement, no pain or discomfort in the body meant anything. Even when the teacher rang the bell and it was time to get out of meditation, my mind and body completely at ease, alert and stable did not wish to stop meditating. I think I sat there for the rest of the night with my eyes closed and without much movement. It just felt right. I was alert, I heard every word of the dharma talk and every word that our sitters had shared. I wasn't tuned out. I was right there, stable, present and solid.

Breaking the Fear Barrier is a book by Tom Rieger published by Gallop. The article printed on Gallup Management Journal on Aug 18, 2011 explains "The biggest threat to an organization's success: the fear that lives within its own walls."

Mindfulness is one of those skills that is both difficult and extremely rewarding to learn. It is simply difficult because we've lived unskillfully in the area of awareness all our lives and now we try to learn it. So, be patient, allow yourself to fail and expect it to be difficult, but every moment you notice how difficult it is to be in the present moment, that's the moment you realize how your mind has ran the show so far.

Scratching An Itch

Today, I spoke to my Mindfulness at Work students about a concept I've developed around the mindfulness of “Scratching Problems Away Like An Itch.” What is so important about an itch or scratching it? Well, many of us react to many aspects of our lives including our work in the same way we react to an itch. When problems arise suddenly, when we don't like what we hear or read in an email, or when things don't go our way, we often react as if its an annoying itch that needs to be scratched away. And of course, often we find out that it wasn't as simple as an itch. This sort of spontaneous and impulsive reaction springs from our mind's habitual ways of dealing with unwanted situations.

There is another side to scratching an itch,.....

Hello everyone,

Hope you are doing well. I thought I share a moment of joy, peace and awareness that I experienced this morning as an example of what mindfulness might look and feel like as we practice our meditation.