By Lindsay Leimbach www.CenteredMoment.com

Here are 6 basic tips on creating a happy long-term mindful relationship:

1. Explore and maintain shared beliefs. Common belief systems are humankind’s chief bonding tools. Relationships survive where there are basic awareness and agreements as to ultimate values and matters of belief.
2. Know you are the maker and the keeper of the rules. You define and are responsible for the rules of your work and home. You can try the rules that society imposes, but if they don’t fit then change the rules not your authentic selves.
3. Be honest and genuine about what you need of each other. Never second-guess what the other person wants; you are not a mind reader. Awareness of your own needs is the first step. Awareness that your partner may have different needs in a non-judging way is the second.
4. Develop mindful relationship rituals. Mindful rituals are things you do by mutual agreement and with awareness. These are different from habits, which you may not even consciously know you’re doing and can be divisive. Mindful rituals renew your sense of being a tribe and your commitment to each other. They strengthen the feeling that you support each other; that you are in it together.
5. Work out mutually agreed roles. Often relationships fail because roles are not agreed or given respect. Awareness and gratitude of each other’s role will negate feelings of being dismissed, taken for granted, or under appreciated. Awareness and gratitude will foster happiness and growth. “Thank you” goes a long way to building a loving relationship.
6. Maintain a nexus of friends outside of the core relationship. One of the common traps into which couples fall into is not having the time, inclination or mutual trust to go out and make external friendships. Friends are a way we develop support, fresh ideas and company. The feeling of being part of a community builds internal strength and reduces stress.

Mindfully Working with an Angry Brain

By Lindsay Leimbach

Do I have an angry brain? At times I sure do, I have a brain
that will blow up like a volcano. I do not have an angry brain all the time,
just some of the time. It can happen when my teenage boys forget to do the
chores, even when I have left a reminder note on the kitchen table. Or when my cell
phone bill is twice as high as usual and no one can explain how it
happened.You know the irritating life
stuff that we all face.

Anger is a normal response of the brain when a situation
appears threatening. It is a primary emotion that is well established at birth.
Yes, it is actually a good thing. It is our internal radar that screams “life
threatening situation! Be prepared to fight, defend, and conquer”. It serves
all animals well in protecting their lives, families, and territory. However,
the issue is that this emotion can be triggered over chores not being completed
or a phone bill. I do not need the flight/ fight response to be activated to conquer
my teenage children or the cell phone service representative.

Actually I have found that I make things worse when trying
to solve an issue with an angry brain. I evaluate incoming information
incorrectly, I cannot truly understand another’s point of view, I over react,
and often say something off topic that just escalates the anger. I also have found
that my angry brain is contagious. It seems that when I let it leak out, others
catch it and it multiplies. Then I don’t just have one angry brain but an epidemic
of angry brains on my hands. The epidemic creates misery for everyone. I have chosen to make sure that the epidemic of
angry brains will not start with me. I know anger is a normal emotion that I
will continue to have. I am okay with this. Through Mindful Living I have learned
how to work with my angry brain instead of fighting it. I am able to listen to
the warning signs that my brain is telling me, and still not feel like a need
to fight and conquer my family or the service representative.

Mindful Living has made me aware that stuff happens, good
stuff and bad stuff. Things are always happening. It is what life’s about. Things
change every moment. I have realized that if I want to be a positive influence
on my own life, I need to start living my life in the present moment. To notice
what is happening in my own thinking, moment by moment. I used to be frantic in
my thinking. I was completely caught up in worry of past or anxiety of the
future. I was not even aware that I was becoming angry until my volcano blew.
Those around me were often as shocked as I was to the amount of anger that possessed
me. I have learned through Mindful Awareness of my feelings and thoughts what causes
and promotes my anger: mostly when I am over tired, stressed, frustrated or overwhelmed.
I have learned there are other common causes that promote anger: physical or
emotional trauma, chemical or biological issues with the brain, alcohol and
drug abuse, and learned behaviors through families and cultures.

I now realize that I have some well-established habits that
I slide right into when I get angry. I am trained to a response just like
Pavlov’s dog that starts to salivate when he hears the dinner bell. For example,
when I feel my family is taking me for granted, then the angry bell rings. I am
not salivating, I am fuming. This negative reaction does nothing to make the
situation better, and I never feel better. My fuming actually makes things worse.
I found that “what you think about you bring about”. As I feel angry and taken
for granted, I am connecting neurons in my mind by thinking to myself “I am angry”,
“no one cares”, “I am forgotten”. The pathways become deeper in my thinking and
are reinforced by strong emotion. Then my brain looks for outside events that support
these negative pathways. I find myself
on the “poor me” angry loop that I cannot jump off. The good news is that I
have learned the brain has neuroplasticity. In short, the brain is always
changing: neural networks are building and reinforced with what you think about
and other neural networks are falling apart when they are not being used. I now
realize I can be the master builder of my own brain!

Mindfulness has taught me that I can jump off the loop of
past angry behaviors and responses anytime I choose through awareness in the
present moment. It sounds easy. It is easy to say, but it takes practice,
practice, practice to execute. Mindful Living is not one skill. Rather, it is a
way of being. It requires numerous skills and techniques to live mindfully.
These aids help you stay in the present moment without judgment.Two Mindful Living tools that have worked for
me when dealing with my angry brain are:

1. Event Happens + Being Aware of Thinking
   +Skillful Response = Positive Outcome

Events happen, I am not surprised. Some of these events
bring forth the emotion of anger. That is okay. I am listening to myself; I can
sit with my anger. I know that feeling the anger won’t hurt me and in time I
always calm down. I know that when I calm down, I can clearly judge how angry I
am. I often rate my anger on a scale 1 to 10. This gives my brain some objectivity
about how intensely I should react to the event. Now that I am calmer, I am
ready to make a skillful response. My response is what I want the world to know
and hear. I might be doing a skillfully planned battle cry as a response or
maybe I need to skillfully just let it
go and know stuff happens. Whatever I choose, I recognize that I am reinforcing
my outlook on the situation in my mind and in the minds of others. I will mindfully implement a skillful plan of
action to achieve a positive outcome. I am ending any angry brain epidemics
that could have started from me.

1. Breathing 4x4x4:

When I am aware that anger is arising, I breathe in for the
count of 4, breathe out for the count of 4, and do this for 4 times. Breathing
should not be a big surprise. We instinctually tell others that are upset
“catch your breath, breath, breath, breath”. Breathing at a slower rate calms
the body and the brain down. The brain is able to shift out of a flight/flight
response and have greater impulse control and planning ability. Being aware of
what you’re thinking and feeling cannot happen if you feel your head is going
to explode. Breathing slower and more deliberately will decrease your blood
pressure and clear your tunnel vision.With a calmer state of mind you can achieve, “Event Happens + Being Aware of Thinking + Skillful Response = Positive
Outcome”.

For other guided
meditations that can help reduce anger and blogs about Mindful Living please
visit my website CenteredMoment.com.

“Letting Go” of negatively charged emotions is liberating to your body, mind, and spirit. Here are 5 important points that will help you “Let Go” with greater ease:

1. You are normal – You are normal if you need to “Let Go”. Everyone experiences negatively charged emotions attached to a past situation. This is completely normal. It is actually how you mind is protecting you from future poor decisions. The problem is that the mind does not know when enough is an enough and often holds on to the negatively charged emotions too long. This is when everyone has to practice the skill of “Letting Go”. “Letting Go” helps your mind to be calmer, happier, and have better clarity to make healthy choices.

2. “Letting Go” does not mean forgetting – Trying to forget something that has emotional charges such as anger, frustration, sadness, regret, guilt, and/or frustration is almost impossible. You can try to forget but this is called denial. The emotions will always be under the surface ready to rear their heads as soon as something triggers them once again. “Letting Go” is about no longer having the negatively charged emotions attached to the memory of the situation that produced them.

3. A Lesson has been learned – Having the ability to “Let Go” first means that you accept that a lesson has been learned that will have a positive influence on your life. The lesson can be as simple as “I won’t do that again”, “I will react differently next time”, or “I cannot hold on to things I cannot change”. Being able to formulate a positive lesson helps your mind “Let Go” of the negatively charged emotions which to it is clinging. This is a huge big step because it means that you are taking responsibility and control for your thinking.

4. Your mind will test you – Understanding that once you have decided to “Let Go”, you will not be surprised that the negatively charged emotions may again appear in your mind. Your mind will test you – it will ask you “Are you sure that you have “Let Go” of this anger, frustration, and/or disappointment?” This is where the true power of “Letting Go” materializes. Declare to yourself “I have Let Go, I have learned my lesson, I have moved on!” Then redirect your thinking away from the negative to a positive productive thought. The good news is the mind, in time, will stop testing you and you will actually have “Let Go” of the negatively charged emotions, while learning a valuable life lesson.

5. Visualize “Letting Go” –

a. Close your eyes and take three deep breathes, relax.

b. Envision you are at a beautiful park. There is a picnic table in front of you. On this bench is a sign with a word that represent the situation that has caused the negatively charge emotions. There is also an open suitcase on the picnic table.

c. Now feel the emotions that are caused by being confronted by the sign. Allow yourself to feel the discomfort. Are you feeling anger, sadness, despair, revenge, or hatred? Allow all the feelings to rise to the surface. Take a deep breath and envision yourself naming each feeling while placing that energy into to the suitcase. Place the anger in the suitcase, Place the hatred into the suitcase. If the feeling does not want to go into the suitcase, take a deep breath and try to place it in the suitcase again. You have control. Now check your body. If you have tension in your jaw, shoulders, hands, or anywhere else, place these physical feelings into the suitcase as well.

d. Close the suitcase. There is a lock on top. Lock the suitcase. There is also a handle on top. Place the handle facing up to the sky. Take a deep cleansing breath and step away from the picnic table, the suitcase, and the sign.

e. High above you, you see a beautiful hawk. This hawk sweeps down and with ease lift the suitcase and begins to fly off with it. You watch it disappear into the distance. You now look at the sign and you say the lesson learned without the negatively charged emotion attached.

f. Feeling light, free, and at peace, you turn away and say “I have “Let Go” and now I am moving on for the better.” Envision yourself walking away for ten steps while taking ten deep breaths and then open your eyes.

g. Remember your mind will test you, but you are ready to pass the test.
You have the control.

Do you find yourself regularly eating at your desk? If you are part of the 67% of office workers that do so, then you need to be aware of the consequences of this unhealthy habit.

Some people see food, as just a functional aspect of their lives. Mindless eating extends beyond the office desk, I see it all the time….people in the morning gulping down a piece of dry toast or pastry and a cup of coffee on the way to work, or eating a quick bite on the way to a meeting. It appears that for quite a few us, eating just gets “on the way” of seemingly more important things.

Although eating is necessary for the correct functioning of our body, food plays a significant role in our physical and professional wellbeing and how we perform throughout the day, way beyond the concept of weight.

Eating at your desk will most likely lead you to overeating since your brain is unable to properly process the amount of food you are consuming.  Also, according to some studies, most people make poor food choices when eating at their desk since they are more prone to consume fattening foods throughout the day. The heavier you are, the duller you will feel, and this dullness will be reflected in your interactions with people and the work that you do.

Furthermore, research conducted at Stanford University indicates that when you eat at your desk, you miss the opportunity of giving your brain the chance to briefly disconnect from work.  Detaching yourself from whatever you are trying to create, resolve or get done is an intrinsic part of the creative process. Taking a walk to get some lunch or dinner will trigger your creative juices, so leaving your desk will actuality contribute to the quality of your work.

No evidence has contradicted a simple guideline: If you want to feel sharp, alert, vibrant, light and energised at work, when the time comes to have a meal, leave your desk and walk to a place where you can eat fresh, whole foods, that tend strongly toward a vegetarian diet, whilst eliminating excessive intake of, fat, red meat, salt, and sugar.

The food we eat, and how we eat it, has a profound effect on our health, on our daily experiences, our productivity, creativity and how long we will live. Eating healthy foods away from your desk can help you be more productive, creative, will make you feel better throughout the day and will do wonders for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as your performance at work.

There is a fairly simple explanation as to why over 80% of workers around the world feel disengaged in their jobs. Most of them are not using their strengths at work. 

If your current role doesn’t play to your strengths, it is very likely that at some point you will become disengaged. Disengagement not only leads to boredom, but also could have harmful effects on your health and life expectancy. Disengagement quite often manifests its presence in our mind-body system as depression, stress, anxiety, migraines, blurred vision, digestive problems, physical pain and dozens of other conditions, so disengagement is something that you have to take seriously.

The key to success, and to really enjoy your work, is to make sure that you get to use your strengths and talents in whatever you decide to do. But what is the difference between strengths, talents and skills in the first place? Let’s shed some light on this:

A strength is the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific activity. A strength can be learned.

Knowledge is the factual and experiential knowledge that you need to acquire for that specific activity. Knowledge can be acquired.

A skill is the ability to do something that comes from training or practice and brings structure to the experiential knowledge. A skill can be learned and developed.

Talent is a special natural ability that manifests as naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behaviour that can be productively applied. Talents are innate and unique to the individual — they can’t be learned or acquired, only refined.

The key then to building a strength is to identify your dominant talents, then complement them by acquiring knowledge and skills pertinent to the activity. So the strength formula looks something like this: S = T + K + S

Strength = Talent + Knowledge + Skill

Therefore talents, knowledge, and skills — along with the time spent practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base — combine to create your strengths. To better illustrate this, let’s review an example. For someone that claims that teaching is a strength, then she must have:

The knowledge of the course she is teaching (whether it is geography, maths or physics)

The skill of how to run a class (i.e. how to manage a group of students, how to structure a lesson, strategies on how to deal with fast and slow learners in the same group, etc.)

The talent to be able to emotionally connect with students at level that they dearly care about the subject being taught and that ignites their passion for learning.  This special ability (talent) was not learnt — she was born with it and it is imprinted in every cell of her body — she just channels it naturally.

Although talents, skills, and knowledge are each important for building a strength, talent is always the most important. The reason is that your talents are innate and cannot be acquired, unlike skills and knowledge.

If you haven’t got a specific type of talent, then I’m afraid you can’t create it, but if you do have a specific talent, you can refine it.  All of us have talents, and if you think you don’t have a specific talent, you simply haven’t come to identify what those talents are.

According to the latests studies if you use your strengths, you could work up to 60 hours a week without even noticing it. Also, you are 3 times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life and you are 6 times as likely to be motivated and engaged at work. Most people who do not use their strengths at work feel exhausted and burned out after only 20 hours of work.

It is therefore important that you know yourself.  The wisdom traditions of the East have been saying it all along. Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher and poet of ancient China said it 2,500 years ago: “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”

Whenever you use your strengths in your main occupation or activity, your will keep learning a great deal, your contributions will be very evident and you will feel that everything seems to flow seamlessly. How do you know if you are using your strengths at work; time comes to a standstill when you are engaged in your main activity.

This is practically medical advise: look after yourself by finding a project, role, job or main activity that plays to your strengths.  Do it for your health’s sake.

César Gamio, Master Educator, Chopra Center University

According to the latest “Time-Use studies,” which provide information about how people spend their time, who they spend it with and how they feel at various points throughout the day, one major finding from this research is that, for most people, the person they least enjoy being around is their boss! According to the study, most people actually prefer doing menial chores and cleaning the house than to spend time with their boss.

Most people overlook the massive influence that the boss-subordinate relationship has on our engagement at work, our physical, mental and emotional health and overall wellbeing.

The most common traits shown by bad leaders include stubbornness, self-oriented, overly demanding, impulsiveness, interrupting and tantrum-throwing. Having this type of leadership in an organisation unsurprisingly leads to increased employee turnover, absenteeism and decreased productivity, commitment and performance — that’s pretty obvious.

However, there is increasing evidence that there is a clear link between bad leaders and employee health problems. To put it simply, bad bosses can make you sick.

A study found that the more workers feel that their bosses are incompetent, the more the workers’ risk for heart attacks, heart disease, angina (which is a type of chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart muscle) and other serious heart related issues. This risk increases the longer one works in the same stressful environment. For instance for those who had worked for that manager for more than four years, the risk increases from 24% to 39%.

Not surprisingly, some studies have shown that bad bosses can affect how your whole family relates to one another. A study found that the stress and tension caused by an incompetent  and negative boss at work also filters through to an employee’s personal relationships and ultimately the whole family. When people reported having an incompetent and negative boss, their significant other was more likely to report increased relationship tension and family conflict at home.

So if you are looking for a new role, a new project or a new job, make sure you really understand whom you will be reporting to. This is as important, or even more so, than your job title, the benefits and perks and even the company’s reputation. Don’t ever forget that your boss affects your health.

For your health’s sake, try to have a professional and pleasant relationship with your boss. Your boss is too much of an integral part of your daily live at work for an uncomfortable relationship. Remember that you don’t need to be friends with your boss but you need to have a relationship.

If you feel you have tried your best to make the relationship work and/or your boss keeps displaying the traits of a bad leader I mentioned earlier, then don’t wait for him or her to be weeded out of the organisation. Make your move before your health and personal relationships become compromised.

César Gamio
Master Educator, Chopra Center University

Who doesn’t want to be at his or her best. Whether you are trying to persuade a prospect, convince your manager, or trying to get your point across to colleagues or business partners, if you lack the required energy for these interactions, most likely you will come across as dull, monotonous and uninspiring.  The way people perceive you has a lot to do with your energy levels. No doubt about that. 

In order to have the energy required to be at your best, it is important that you eat nutritious food and a balanced diet — this is something that I’m sure you are quite aware of by now. But in addition to getting the right amounts of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and vitamins, there is also a very important element that we need to be aware of, that plays a massive role in our energy levels and overall physical wellbeing.

And this is your sense of taste.

Although taste is a big part of the EXPERIENCE of eating, you should start paying attention also to the PRACTICAL and FUNCTIONAL aspects of your sense of taste. Let me explain.

When you are hungry, your brain sends you a signal to indicate that it is time for you to satisfy the energy and information demands of your body. One way that we inform our brain that we have provided our body with all the major food groups and nutrients that we need, is through our sense of taste.

Because the nutritional content of the food we eat is coded in the taste of the food itself, our taste buds, send messages to the brain, informing it of the type of food that we are ingesting, even before the biochemical elements of the food are released into our bloodstream.

There are six tastes, that inform our nervous system of a meal’s nutritional content, and these are the following:

Sweet.- Brings about satisfaction, builds body mass and it also has soothing effect on the body

Sour.- Stimulates the appetite and aids digestion

Salty.- Enhances the appetite and makes other tastes more delicious

Pungent.- Promotes sweating and clears the sinus passages

Bitter.- Helps to detoxify our body

Astringent.- Has a Balancing effect

If by the end of a meal, our nervous system doesn’t register all six tastes, the brain is not satisfied and continues to send signals to eat more. This may result, in us taking in, too many of the incorrect calories. If you overeat, you will drain your energy levels and you can kiss good-bye the sharpness and brightness that will make you stand out.

So to be at your best, make sure that the 6 tastes are present at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Here is a quick reference guide to help you along the way:

Sweet Category: Grains, pasta, rice, bread, fish, starchy vegetables, dairy, meat, sugar, honey molasses.

Sour Category: Citrus fruits, berries, tomatoes, alcohol, salad dressing, pickle foods.

Salty Category: Table salt, soy sauce, fish, salted meat, seafood.

Pungent Category: Peppers, chillies, onions, garlic, cayenne, black pepper, cloves, ginger, mustard, salsa.

Bitter Category: Green leafy vegetables, kale, green and yellow vegetables, celery, beets, broccoli, sprouts.

Astringent Category: Lentils, dried beans, green apples, grape skins, tea, cauliflower, pomegranate.

Try including the 6 tastes in your next few meals and pay attention to how you feel. You’ll be surprised…

Please share this article and help someone benefit from this information.

César Gamio

Master Educator, Chopra Center University

Senior Advisor to the Global Center for Conscious Leadership