Stop! Look! Go!

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

—Victor Frankl

The saying goes that "You reap what you sow," but we are not always aware of the seeds we scatter about. Taking a mindfulness approach to our leadership means that we are taking responsibility for how we influence others. Responsibility is often understood as a duty. Instead, what I am implying by the word responsibility is the ability to respond in any given situation. When we are able to respond, we can choose which seeds we would like to plant and which ones we won’t. Do we want to create a wave of anxiety throughout the workplace because we aren’t close to meeting our year-end numbers, or do we want to motivate with excitement by creating a challenge that causes those around us to step-up?

Having the ability to respond allows us to put mental time and space between a stimulus and an action. Because we think what we feel instead of feeling what we think, from a neurobiological perspective, this space of mind enables the range of possibilities to be considered. Having the ability to respond affords us the choice to be our "wisest self" possible in a given circumstance we find ourselves in, whether it is charged with emotional intensity or not.

I want to share a useful three-step formula from Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk known for interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science. He came up with a three-part “Recipe for Grateful Living: Stop! Look! Go!” that he shares in this TED Talk. Brother David designed these steps as a down and dirty gratefulness practice, but it works equally as a practice of engaged mindfulness, of being present enough to achieve a high degree of "respond-ability" in any situation.

Stop!

For Brother David, stopping is about pausing for “the gift this moment offers you.” From the perspective of mindfulness, we stop to come back to the here and now. It is only in the present moment where we can effect change, and we miss it when we move non-stop. We don’t often take a break out of our unceasing momentum, except when we sleep. We tend to run in an automatic, unceasing momentum, thanks to caffeine and the high value our culture places on productivity. Stopping can be particularly difficult, especially when someone hands us a hot potato and we are sent into a fit of rage, or we are asked to make a decision but are not sure how to respond. The only place, though, where we have the power to create, to generate something new, something appropriate is in the present moment.

Developing the knack for breaking motion can be very powerful, as it stimulates the middle prefrontal cortex, the portion of the brain that allows us to move through the world with wisdom, foresight, and level-headedness. Stopping does not require that we always halt for hours or even minutes. A stop can be as short as a moment. It need only be long enough to:

1. Note how does the situation affect the depth and speed of our breath? 2. Note the emotional charge in our body by quickly: a. Locating it b. Labeling the emotion(s) c. Noting sensations

As an example, it comes to our attention that a new employee has mismanaged a longstanding customer relationship, and we notice that we’re triggered: our faces are red-hot and our breath is shallow and rapid.

The more we become habituated to pausing, the less reactive we are. An interesting neuroimaging study by researcher, Julie Brefcyznski-Lewis and her colleagues revealed that when long-term meditators were subjected to negative sounds, like a woman screaming, they showed less amygdala activation compared to novice meditators. The more hours one meditated, the lower the activation. Simply by practicing mindfulness meditation, we develop an innate capacity to pause before we act, especially when we feel strong negative emotion. That way we are not trapped by our autopilot-like ingrained behaviors.

Look!

Once we’ve stopped, that middle prefrontal cortex is stimulated. It will naturally dampen whatever amydgala hijack might be taking place. It will also help us to use the time and space we’ve created to see, as Brother David puts it, “the opportunity available now.” From the standpoint of mindfulness, before we react, we:

1. Look at the circumstances we find ourselves. 2. Consider results we want to create 3. Formulate a response that bridges the gap between our desired impact and the situation we are attempting to effect.

By pausing and looking, we can distinguish between the emotions we feel and the outcomes we want to have. As a result we can tailor a response that meets the latter rather than the former, or we can figure out a way to have both expressed in a way that has positive impact.

In the example above of the employee who has mismanaged a customer relationship, we might initially be angry or frustrated, but by stopping, as we did before, we will become less triggered and cannot help but see that the employee is a novice. It is likely that he or she is not aware of his mistake. So we might consider this breakdown as a training opportunity for the employee.

Like stopping, looking can take time, but not a great deal of time is needed. We may not have endless time to get a subtle read on the internal sensations or mull over lots of options. Sometimes we are so triggered that any answer will be one of reaction. In that case, we are not ready to choose, and so we may respectfully ask for more time. If clarity of action isn’t forthcoming in the time that is allotted, a quick rule-of-thumb is to pause long enough to allow our emotional reactivity to diminish enough so that we can see options that are non-defensive or aggressive. The quality of our mind has a strong impact on the outcome. If we have made a choice from a place of clarity, we will experience more clarity. If we make a choice from a place of unrest, the results will often lead to more unrest.

Go!

But when we are clear, we go. And this is what makes Brother David’s recipe distinct from most contemplative practices. Instead of endlessly staying in the cave of stop and look for the next 20 years, Brother David is encouraging us, “To do something with this precious opportunity!” And when we engage, we give ourselves complete permission to follow the clarity that emerged in the look phase. Mindful action does not mean that we always speak in soft, whispering, pseudo-meditator-like tones. When we are engaged in a mindful way, we bring whatever energy is needed for a given situation. If intensity is needed, we bring that. Whatever the course of action, we do so whole-heartedly. We don’t hold back.

Sometimes we must take strong and forceful action. Maybe someone is being aggressive toward a weaker person. If that is the case, we might sense an obligation to stop him or her. In the case of the employee who does not recognize the mistake, we might previously have paused before reacting and offered our respect by attempting to see his or her perspective. We might even have attempted in mild ways to let them know that we do not agree with them or that they’ve disappointed us. If he or she continues to disregard us, it can be useful to take hard action.

What makes the orientation of Stop! Look! Go! unique is that we do what needs to be done in a given situation, but we do so without losing the balance of our minds. When we must take strong action, we Stop! and Look! By doing so, we notice the quality of our emotions and thoughts. If we are agitated and act from this place, we will only be planting seeds of agitation. If, on the other hand, we are centered and even-minded, the quality of seeds we will plant will most likely result in a positive outcome.

Burn Out & The Mind-Body Connection

Western science and philosophy have artificially divided the mind and body as if they were two distinct domains. We have almost altogether denied the mind’s influence on the body and vice versa. Think heart attacks, stress-related illnesses. This reductionism didn’t always exist for humans.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors relied heavily on their senses. They did so to sense where their next meal could be found, where dangers lurked and to identify healing plants. Then ten thousand years ago, human lives shifted dramatically. They began cultivating grains such as wheat and rice. As their lifestyle changed, so did their awareness. In agrarian societies, humans had to become more predictive of the seasons. They had to get more cunning about how they managed their land and resources. The sensitive bodily awareness needed when they were hunter-gatherers weakened and was replaced by a sort of mental deliberation.

While the senses, feeling, and intuition all have their roles to play for the agricultural person, the primary function through which this kind of management is achieved is the thinking function— conceptualizing what needs to be controlled, making plans, convincing others to align themselves with projects, evaluating what worked and didn’t work, keeping track of assets, and so on. You can’t really grow crops in a sustainable way without a lot of thinking and planning. (1)

The distinction between mind and body has become increasingly exaggerated since the industrial revolution. Human body's were regarded as cogs in a big machine supervised by the all-knowing minds of the managers and bosses. And now in the information age, the mind and body are even more divided. We have become like "brains on a stick" trying to take in evermore information. The body is increasingly becoming an obstruction to our addiction to knowing.

We don't want to feel anything. If we do, we need to find a remedy for it. Advertisements promote this mindset with slogans for pain-relieving pills like, "I haven't got time for the pain." So we mask any discomfort we feel with pills, alcohol, pornography, binge-watching series or whatever it is that will dull the pain we feel inside.

Not only can the body not hurt, but it also must look pretty or fit, depending on our gender orientation. We then starve ourselves or over-exercise to fit some external images we believe we need to achieve. When we don't, we seek out plastic surgeons. We have come to regard the body as an object that needs to fit into some abstract form. When it does not, we wage war on it and as a result, on ourselves.  

How the Body Speaks To Us

This long term war takes a toll on our lives. The more we objectify the body, the more disconnected we feel from ourselves. As we ignore and stop heeding its messages, we can’t help but sense a dullness, a malaise alternating with a vague and sometimes overwhelming sense of anxiety. The more we ignore what we feel, the more the body will try to break through, to scream at us to let us know that it won’t be ignored.

Burnout is on the rise. The corporations we work for hold us to dehumanizing metrics. In the same way that we treat our bodies as objects, the corporations we work for treat us like objects. Their hunger from profitability demands we perform at a pace that is beyond our capacity.

When I began working with Bob, he was experiencing panic that kept him up throughout the night. He was on a mission, not only to be financially successful but to do good things for our environment, and he worked tirelessly to achieve his goals and aspirations. He’d been using sedatives to get to bed and amphetamines to keep himself focused throughout the day. Like many hard-driving, young professionals these days, Bob was on his way to burning out. His doctor prescribed a cocktail that initially worked, but by the time he had reached out to work with me, it had stopped working.

The body can withstand this demand for only so long. It demands a modicum of rest to repair itself, but because we’ve learned to ignore its signals, it eventually gives way. We may initially sense fatigue. We might mask that fatigue with caffeine. One cup of coffee in the morning gives way to another cup around the 3 PM dip and maybe another cup of coffee before coming home so that we can stay present enough with the kids.

The added caffeine so late in the day makes it hard to fall asleep, so we start taking a sleeping pill. And because the sleeping pill only sedates us, we don’t wake up feeling rested. So the first cup of coffee is replaced by the double-shot of espresso. And because the body gets habituated to stimulants, that double-shot will have to give way to something stronger. The same is true of that sleeping pill.

At some point, the body cannot sustain what we are demanding of it, so it gives way. We might experience one or more of the following symptoms associated with burnout: worthlessness, helplessness, exhaustion, irritability, pessimism, apathy, frustration, disillusionment, difficulty focusing, sleeplessness, abdominal pain, etc. And then we wonder why we aren’t as effective as we used to be.

It’s because we have created a false expectation of what the body “should be able to sustain.” We should be able to make poor food choices, to barely exercise, to give ourselves no time for rest and repair, to not need time for solitude or reflection. We should dictate what our body feels and not the other way around.

How We Listen to the Body

Even though we may not always be able to decipher everything it says or remedy what ails us, we can learn to listen to it. It's speaking to us all the time. To create the "mind-body connection," we have to tune in, to bring a curious and open quality of awareness to what we feel.For most of us, that means descending from our head downward to the rest of our bodies.

Many of us identify ourselves as this entity somewhere behind the eyes, and we have this appendage down below us called “my body.” The body is just a thing, a slab of meat and bones, not who we are. As I said above, that’s a natural response to living in and working in a time in history where our cognition is highly valued over our manual dexterity. For most of us, that means dropping our attention downward to include the rest of our bodies. If we are honest with ourselves, most of us identify as this entity that resides somewhere behind the eyes, and we have this appendage down below us.

If we let ourselves feel what's happening in our bodies, we can sense a plethora of information in the form of feelings and sensations: tingling in the fingers, rumblings in the gut, pressure in the chest, coldness in the toes, a thrum of excitement throughout the body. By attuning to these felt experiences, we begin to intuit or sense another quality of knowing than the one we are used to.

When we hangout only in our heads, we listen only to the surface layer of the mind, its wants and desires, its reactions and frustrations. By hanging out at this layer of the mind, we only see the surface layer of things. It’s like seeing broken reflections on the surface of choppy water. We see all sorts of problems and confusions, but we don’t understand or can’t make sense of how apparently disparate frustrating phenomena fit into a cohesive whole. When we hang out in our heads, we only see problems needing to be fixed. From this point of view, the challenges we see appear like a great chaotic mess. When we sense from the body, we access a deeper layer of knowing. Going back to the case study above:

I taught Bob how to contact and find language for his inner feelings by dropping down into the body. By doing so, he could access a kind of knowledge associated with the struggles he was feeling about the stress and anxiety keeping him up at night. It wasn't a pleasant experience for him, but what fascinated him was that the feelings he was contacting had been with him since he was a teenager. 

When he was seventeen years old, he had reached out to his father to share a happy moment. The high school basketball team he'd captained had become state champions. Instead of his father rejoicing in his son's success, Bob's dad shot back, "That's 'child's play." His father's put down made him feel that his accomplishment was not good enough to win his father's respect, something he deeply longed for.

From that point on, Bob felt a searing almost maniacal drive to be worthy of his dad's admiration. The pain of never being enough in his father's eyes compelled him to seek achievements where he overrode his body's limits. For him to find a new relationship with his work and sleep, he would have to learn to heal his need for his father's approval. 

If we can penetrate through the apparent reality to a sensual, more direct way of knowing, we can begin to weave together a more cohesive grasp of what’s taking place. We can then make choices that heal and support our well-being.

Why What We Feel Matters So Much

In 1997 neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux discovered that all data entering the brain from outside had two neural pathways, an upper and a lower pathway. The lower pathway was shorter and more primitive than the upper pathway. In other words, it took less time for data entering the lower pathway than the upper one. That data first went to less evolved structures in the brain, structures that mount fight-or-flight reactions. By the time those brain structures kicked into gear, the data would enter structures with higher cognitive functioning. These structures enable us to orchestrate tailored responses based on our goals. 

What makes LeDoux’s discoveries significant is that we feel or sense things before we even comprehend them. Feelings precede thoughts. That’s why we reflexively jump first and then afterward distinguish whether what we are avoiding is a snake or a stick. In spite of the fact that this is the case, culturally speaking we have given preeminence to our thinking nature and have disregarded our feeling or sensing nature. 

Corporations, generally speaking, don’t hold feelings in high regard, and yet feelings are what motivate us. It’s not thoughts or concepts that cause us to move mountains. It’s feelings like exhilaration, inspiration, excitement, and interest that motivate us. Even feelings like regret, guilt and fear can be great motivators. The problem with these latter feelings is that they’re fuel is short-lived compared to the former. We can only run on fear for so long. Eventually, we fatigue. Nevertheless, the more our culture glorifies higher thinking centers of the head and either disregards or condemns the feeling experience’re going to have to learn how to motivate the heart and gut in addition to the head.

What the Body Knows

In some ways, the notion of the heart and gut are metaphors. We all connect the heart to poetic ideas of love and connection and the gut to instinct. Biologically speaking, these are not merely artistic notions. More than a simple pump for blood, the heart is a brain unto itself. It has somewhere between 40,000 and 120,000 neurons. The heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. Like the brain, the heart is neuroplastic; it can grow and change. It continues to create new neuronal connections as our emotional and empathetic capacities continue to expand.

We now have scientific evidence that the anatomical heart sends us emotional and intuitive signals to help govern our lives. It does so through several different hormones, the primary one being oxytocin—the hormone associated with labor and maternal bonding, and is also involved in relational bonding, emotion, passion and values. The heart produces equal amounts of this hormone as the brain itself.

Our gut is known as the second brain. It consists of more than 500 million neurons, about the same amount as in a cat's brain. Our bowel produces over 95% of our total serotonin, the neurotransmitter that regulates our feelings of happiness. The gut is quite distinct from the thinking mind in that it speaks in declarative tones via sensations. It says things like, "Yuck," "Yum," "Ow!" "Mmm," "No way!" "Yes!" and "No!" Unlike the thinking mind, the mind in our gut doesn't second-guess. It merely calls out what it senses.

Complementary medicine advocate Deepak Chopra used to tell the story of an interview he had with the late co-founder of Sony Corporation, Masaru Ibuka, who liked to "swallow" a deal before he signed it. If Ibuka had a vital choice to make, he would do his due diligence: consult with key people, review market data and research sales reports. But he didn't stop there.  

He’d have his assistant prepare a Japanese tea ceremony, which is actually a type of meditation. Once the tea was prepared, he’d hold a “yes” or “no” question” in his mind. He would then take a sip of tea and listen, carefully observing how his body responded to how the tea felt in the stomach. If it felt good, he interpreted that as a “yes;” if it didn’t, it was a “no.” 

“I trust my gut and I know how it works,” he said. “My mind is not that smart, but my body is.” 

As a culture, we have attempted to disconnect the mind and the body, but they are intricately connected. If the body’s subtle power is tapped, it can become a sensitive antenna for tuning in, whether into others to motivate and inward as a way to generate creative breakthroughs. The body has the potential to be a master teacher. If we listen, not only can we learn to be healthier, more vital, more balanced, but also wiser, more compassionate and more relatable.

Centered Body Centered Mind

One way we can strengthen the mind-body connection is to bring attention to the way we stand. By standing erectly, we stimulate hormones, such as testosterone, that give us a sense of confidence. This confidence is conveyed throughout all of our interactions and helps us feel more aligned in our head, heart and gut.

Plenty of us, however, stand with our heads jutted forward. This posture puts our heads in a primary position and, at the same time, closes the heart's wisdom, putting us out of touch with our ability to connect and to be connectable. Some of us stand weakly. Metaphorically speaking, we don't know what we stand for. We're unwilling to stand up for what's important. Many of us stand in an unbalanced way. We either stand too far forward or we stand too far back. By standing back, we are seen and, in fact, experience ourselves as timid or holding back in some way.

As mentioned earlier, many of us believe that the center of our gravity lies somewhere behind the eyes when, in fact, biomechanically speaking, the center of our gravity is about two to three inches below the navel. Yogis and martial artists have known this fact for thousands of years. They cultivate balanced and centered postures and movements, not for the sole purpose of being able to either defend themselves, throw their opponents or twist into acrobatic positions. They recognize that by cultivating equipoise in their bodies that it translates into mental, interpersonal and spiritual equipoise. Through practices that strengthen the mind-body connection, the body becomes the metaphor for how the practitioner thinks and acts in the world. All subsequent actions in the world are influenced by focusing on harmonious centering in the body. When through years of practice, equipoise becomes our natural state, we can easily sense what decisions will throw us off center, how an interaction needs to go in order to achieve our goals and when not to insert ourselves because to do so would needlessly sap our energy.

An embodied approach to life is intuitive rather than proscribed. The truth of the matter is that there are not enough tips and tricks that can get any of us through the crises and catastrophes we face. All prescriptions tend to come up short, and when they do or when they eventually fail us, we tend to revert to what we know. But if we cultivate our mind-body connection, if we learn to listen and sense when we are off-center, we can equally sense what will bring us back to our center. The expert is not outside of ourselves, it is with us always, if only we will tune in.

Partner Exercise

1. Have your partner stand behind you. 

2. Stand with your feet hips width apart. 

3. Ask your partner to gently push you forward two separate times. 

   • In the first time, place your attention behind your eyes, keeping all your awareness in your head. 

   • On the second time, place you awareness 2-3 inches below your navel. 

4. Notice how your stability shifted as your awareness moved from your head to your biomechanical center. 

Footnote:

(1) Ray, Reginald. Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body. Sounds True. Boulder, CO. 2008

A Powerful Antidote to the Inner Critic

There is a powerful antidote to the Inner Critic, but you will need to learn how to cultivate it: self-compassion.

Compassion means “to suffer with.” When you see a small child break an arm, you naturally feel moved to offer kindness and comfort. You may not be able to stop the pain, but just being there to hold a hand and say reassuring things can soothe some of the suffering. Your presence has a calming and encouraging effect. 

Both giving and receiving kindness releases oxytocin, a.k.a. “the love hormone,” which makes us feel warm, safe and connected. It’s an incredibly powerful hormone that gives mothers overwhelming love for their infants even after the pain of childbirth. 

Self-compassion is about keeping good company with yourself when you are suffering. If you can learn to flood your brain with oxytocin, your emotional pain—acute, chronic and deeply buried traumas—can heal and shift. The more warmth you can give yourself, the less the Inner Critic needs to take over.

Few of us were taught to consider relating to ourselves at all, much less compassionately. You may believe that compassion needs to come from others, not yourself. This idea is due in part to the Inner Critic’s fear that if you are too kind to yourself, you will succumb to your weaknesses.

But self-compassion isn’t self-pity or self-indulgence. It’s not getting wound so tight around your problems that you lose sight that others are suffering, too. It’s not chowing down a pint of ice cream. It’s not giving yourself permission to lash out at others or letting yourself off the hook.   

Compassion isn’t something that you need to earn for being good enough. The child with a broken arm didn’t do anything to deserve your compassion. You deserve to feel compassion for yourself because all human beings deserve compassion. You are a child of the sun. It shines on you with as much warmth as it shines on every other living thing. And why shouldn’t it? 

Self-compassion is your antidote that can be applied no matter what you’ve done or haven’t done. It will heal the knotty parts of yourself that have never been adequately acknowledged or cared for. Demanding that these parts shut up, stop whining or get it together doesn’t make them go away, does it? Self-compassion has a way of melting the knots.  

Tool: Loving-kindness Meditation

A kind and loving approach to self may be antithetical to the way you have been raised. If that’s the case, it’s helpful to develop a practice of self-compassion. I’m partial to Loving-Kindness (a.k.a. Metta) Meditation. It comes from the Mindfulness tradition and is designed to develop warm feelings for ourselves and all beings. 

1. Loving-Kindness to Yourself

With an open, loving heart, breathe gently, and recite the following traditional phrases directed toward your own well-being. 

• May you be happy.

• May you be safe

• May you be well

• May you be free from suffering.

For most of us, offering ourselves love is foreign. Be aware that this may feel awkward or irritating at first. If that happens, it’s especially important to be patient and kind with yourself.  It may help to visualize yourself as a young child.

Alternatively, you might find it easier to bring to mind a friend or loved one—living or non-living—or an animal that loves you as you are. Someone who wants you to be happy, who when you think of them brings a sense of warmth to your heart. Envision this being sending you your good wishes in the four phrases above. 

When you receive loving-kindness from another, it will fill you with positive feelings of abundance and goodwill. It can help to repeat the phrases multiple times, paying particular attention to the intention behind them.

2. Loving-Kindness to Those You Care About.

After you connect to the preciousness of being loved unconditionally, you take this overflowing abundance of love and goodwill and direct your attention to a person or animal beyond yourself, a friend, a loved one and someone in need. Holding them in your mind’s eye, you send the same wishes:

• May you be happy.

• May you be safe

• May you be well

• May you be free from suffering.

3. Loving-Kindness to Toward All Beings

Often at this point in the meditation you will begin to feel a kind of opening of the heart, a sense of inclusivity. In this step, you expand your loving-kindness to those in distant places that you may never come in contact with. 

We might imagine everyone in your city, state or country. You might include everyone in the world or in a particular place.

• May you be happy.

• May you be safe

• May you be well

• May you be free from suffering.

You might also bring to mind someone who could really use loving-kindness, such as an infant in a far away land just being born, someone dying, or someone caring for a sick parent saying internally to ourselves.

You might also include non-humans, too. You might visualize all animals and plants, a particular animal or even a single celled amoeba, bacteria or virus.