One of TED.com's most viewed video: The Power of Vulnerability. It sounds heavy but it is pretty funny and TRUE!

Brene Brown is hilarious. And has a real gift of getting a point across. She is a social researcher and a story teller. She has written a book called 'Daring Greatly' (see other posts) following her TED talk which was watched by 11 million people have watched. TED - stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and it brings together people from all over the world to share ideas, insights and experiences and then shares the most innovative, engaging, funny, creative, moving talks on their website (for free). And it seems a lot of us are relating greatly to what Brene Brown has discovered through her research about what vulnerability, shame and connection is.

This video has inspired me to be more honest and talk to close friends about what I feel 'shame' about and what makes me vulnerable (which - by the way - has made me feel better and stronger). So I share it with you now.

So let me summarise her talk and some of the points she makes - but please - watch the video (19 mins) because she makes these points in a poignant, hilarious, engaging way that I am absolutely not going to do justice to:

• The difference between those people that have a sense of worthiness, and a strong sense of belonging and those that don't is that the former believe that they are worthy of love and belonging. That feeling of 'belief' is the only thing that separates the two groups.

• The one thing that keeps us from 'connecting' with others is our fear that we are not worthy of connection. That we are not enough.

• We spend a lot of time feeling that we 'are not ________ enough' (fill in the blank). She calls this 'scarcity'. And the way we deal with scarcity - is often to try and numb these feelings or avoid them by eating, medicating, buying things, using our phones...

• The challenge is that we cannot selectively numb. When we numb anxiety, sadness, fear - e also numb happiness, joy and gratitude. 

• In order to connect, we have to be authentic - be ourselves - even if it makes us feel vulnerable. We have to embrace that vulnerability and not push it away. It can lead to creativity, happiness, feeling balanced, feeling connected. 

• We can embrace imperfection. We live in a world now that wants to have perfect children. They are hard wired for challenges because they aren't perfect and instead we need to be helping them deal with things not being perfect. We need to teach them how to deal with challenges, vulnerability, fear, not succeeding. Getting through them is a really valuable skill.

Being mindful - which this blog is all about - is very much about being honest, being 'you', being 'enough', leaning into unpleasant feelings rather than rejecting them. Brene Brown reminds us what vulnerability is, how it shows itself and what it can lead to - and the answer isn't always negative as we imagine - it's tough but it is also the key to connecting to others, to creativity, to authenticity, to courage, to dealing with change and pain.

I have recently spoken several times to close friends about the things that I feel really vulnerable about and about what makes me feel most 'shame'. For years, pretty much forever, I hadn't talked about it and that as Brene Brown says, is how shame derives its power - by being unspeakable. It wasn't as easy as just coming out with it and it has taken one year of engaging in mindfulness (both the practice and the theory) to build up to talking about those things - but once you do - you realise you are not alone, you realise it is liberaing to be honest, and it has left me feeling stronger.

She does a follow up video on 'shame' too. Well worth a watch. For more on her, and vulnerability - see my other blog posts about her book which is also referenced on the 'Resources for You' page.

Being Happier at Work - It's not what you think

When we don't want to do something at work - our tendency may be to do it quickly and pay as little attention as possible, or to do two things at once to tolerate doing the one thing we don't want to do.

Dr Stephen McKenzie challenges this saying that focusing more on what we are doing and only doing that one thing - even if we don't like - can help us to feel more connected to it, see new things we didn't before and we may even enjoy it. You might feel ready to 'gag' at this and dismiss this as wishy washy psychobabble but what if I change the situation and turned it into us needing to do something with a child that we didn't want to do, or with our partner - it's the same principle.

Let's return to the work situation and take an example of making a phone call we don't want to make. Personally, I usually delay it as long as possible and sometimes, it drops off the list for a few days (usually making the situation worse, and me dread it more!). Sometimes I  have to say hard things, and potentially then hear hard things or I know that a call will sometimes lead to a load of work for me to do which I don't feel like or don't enjoy doing. If only work was filled with just the things I like doing!

The point Dr McKenzie makes, which is made by all mindfulness teachers, is that actually deciding to give something 100% of your pay attention can change the experience. Imagine you dial the number and you start thinking - 'I don't want to be doing this', 'don't answer', 'this is going to create me so much work' etc. Your thoughts start jumping from one negative statement to the next. You start checking other emails while dialling to distract you from these negative thoughts. The phone answers. You rush through what you have to say and then dreading the response, you don't fully listen and the whole experience feels stressful. They are bound to have picked up on this too.

What is the alternative? One option would be to commit to just doing that task. Pick up the phone and dial. As negative thoughts come into your head as they are bound to - you just observe that they are there and draw your attention back to the fingers dialling the number (i.e. don't get on that train). You hear it ring. You listen to it ring. You feel the pen in your hand as you prepare to take notes. Your mind wanders to negative thoughts and you bring your mind back to the sound of the dial tone. The person answers. You speak - without rushing - just saying what you inevitably have to say. You then listen to each word the person says back to you. You may hear things that you don't want to hear but you also may hear things you didn't realise before, you may sense something in their tone, you may find ideas, thoughts, conclusions come to you which hadn't come to you before. Either way, the way you approached the call can shift the whole experience. And paying more attention can be better overall than paying less.

Mindfulness isn't anything extraordinary - it's just showing up, paying attention, acknowledging how our minds work and making a choice of whether to focus on their sometimes unhelpful trains of thought or whether to pay attention to other things happening in that moment like the touch of something, the sound, the message someone is trying to get across, the way our body is reacting etc.

Sometimes it feels like 'I don't like to do this and I'm not going to enjoy it and that's just the way it is' but believe it or not there are some choices here - we might not look forward to something but we can more pay attention to thing itself than to our minds telling us that we don't like it or suggesting ways to 'avoid' it - and that might change the way we experience it - it might even take the edge off it or surprise us. Given the alternative, isn't it worth a shot?

For the article follow this link:

http://m.afr.com/p/national/work_space/how_being_mindful_makes_for_happier_PDnauj8loTfGFp6J1c1BNK



 

New Perspective: The 'Importance' of Money

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper; which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy". 

Douglas Adams

Learning about attachment from the best teacher: nature

Around the middle of the 10 day meditation course, we were taught about non-attachment. This is a concept that I really struggle to get my head around - why would I want to not be attached?

                                  
The idea is that we often attach ourselves to external things - to people, things, events - a plan - to make ourselves happy - but in doing so we often end up suffering more. The reason is that everything changes, nothing is permanent and so relying on something external to determine our mood, our happiness, our level of contentment, our sense of balance is bound to make us yo-yo since these external things change. Pure happiness comes from within us not from without. This is probably something we have all read before but 'non-attachment' still seems cold and inhumane. There must be more to it...

The teacher talked about how we make things 'mine' - my watch, my car - and if we lose it - tragedy!! But we are not a watch - it doesn't define who we are and so why let the loss of it cause us so much pain. The concept of 'mine' is instilled in us since birth and in most cultures - it drives the economy. I therefore left the meditation hall feeling like this was one Buddhist concept that I partially understood but didn't embrace.

The next day I went for my regular morning walk and watched the red ants crawling around dominating the ground. I had spent many hours watching their habits. Watching them march endlessly to their 'nest' like homes carrying whatever they had found - be it leaf or fellow insect. 

Later that morning I saw a maggot dangling head height seemingly in the middle of nowhere (the nearest trees were about two meters away on either side). It was struggling to release itself from a single thread of spiders web to no avail. I pondered whether to save it but felt that I would then be meddling with the natural course of things and denying a spider it's meal. 

After lunch the same day, I was washing my dishes outside in one of the communal sinks when a beautiful baby butterfly flew into the sink and got drenched. I quickly turned off the tap saying 'oh no'. I put the butterfly on my hand and blew its wings which had stuck together. I did this for a few minutes and then decided I'd put it down - back in nature so that it could dry off and fly away. I placed it delicately on a leaf of a tree and watched it crawl away. I smiled contently.

Having gone back inside, placed my dishes on my table and made myself a coffee ready for another walk, I went back outside and as I walked past the tree I decided to check on how my little butterfly was getting on. I looked up the tree in the direction it had been traveling through the big green leaves to the trunk. 

Argh - argh - stop stop!!!!! 

Red ants were attacking my butterfly!! There were so many of them. I felt overwhelmed with sadness and shock - adrenaline was pumping as I desperately tried to free the butterfly. I flicked off a couple of ants but when they realised their meal was threatened they fought hard to keep it and swarmed around. Knowing if I tried too hard I'd risk damaging the butterfly I burst into tears and walked away - head in hands. 'How could this happen? Horrible ants! They killed it!!'

Okay - maybe a slightly dramatic reaction but I had helped that butterfly, it was a baby one, it was beautiful and I didn't want to see it killed my those pesky red ants. 

As I walked away, it didn't take long for the teachers words to come to mind. 'Mine'. I had made the butterfly mine. Not the maggot of course - wriggly, white, gross thing. But the butterfly. I had attached myself to it and suffered when it didn't turn out the way I planned. I was learning about attachment. 

I dried the tears and felt a sense of calm. Partly because I knew this was nature's way - just as per the maggot - and also because I saw the role I had played in feeling this sadness - by making the butterfly 'mine' when it was no more or less mine than the ants, spiders or trees.

I'm not saying that I completely understand the concept of non-attachment now or embrace it fully - but the butterfly and maggot made the nature of my mind to attach to things much clearer. Still lots to learn.

Mindfulness in Bangkok: Three men serendipity, the seduction of money and maggots

With one day of getting used to my deafness, I decided to go for it and continue my trip (travelling around Thailand on sabbatical) as planned rather than hide out and wait til I could hear again. Great idea! Fortunately I met two really nice women from French Canada. We travelled to Bangkok and met three men. 

Man one told us the temples were closed in the morning and to do a boat trip. 'Only pay Thai price!' he said. Arriving at the boat yard, Thai price was tourist price so we bailed and decided to walk to other temples nearby and go with the flow. At this moment, we met man two uwho told us it was indeed a special day in Bangkok and tuk tuks were just $1 all day and that the temple with the 'lucky Buddha' - normally not seen by tourists was open today. Only day in the year! On our cheap as chips tuk tuk we go to see the lucky Buddha (which was really cool) where we meet man three. 

Man three is surprised to see tourists and in talking, he tells us he has just been to something called 'Thai expo' where for this week only you can buy previous jewels tax free. He spent a lot (!) of money and is taking his family to Australia to sell them for a profit and pay for their holiday.So off we trot in our tuk tuk to an exclusive jewellery shop where the seduction of money starts. To buy or not to buy? More on that later. 

My new friend decides to buy herself a very nice ring and then monsoon starts. Rain, more rain, more rain. The jewellery store realising we just have a tuk tuk, then offers us a complimentary luxury private mini van and our own tour guide to take us to all of the remaining sites in Bangkok!!! Then on top of that, they take us to the main sites of Bangkok. Score!

So - about the seduction of money. When presented with the possibility of making a completely legal fast buck, I realised later just how seduced by money I had been. I didn't buy but couldnt get the idea out of my head about the possibility of making some money. You know when you just can't stop thinking about something...round and round in your head it goes. 

This got me thinking about thinking about something I read that said - saying to yourself 'stop thinking about it' - is actually another thought about it. To get out of the loop - when the thought comes, just watch it come and let go of it. You could focus on your breath for example and this helps the incessant thinking to lose its grip. And if you think of it again, again let it go - as many times as it takes. This takes some getting used to and I find sometimes that a dollop of rationale can help in tough cases of mind looping. 

My rationale for not buying was that it could potentially ruin my trip to carry something so valuable. What sense would it make to try and make money but then decrease the 'value' (pleasure, joy, experience) of the money I was currently spending on this trip. Sure - I might make some money to cover the cost of this trip but the experience of the trip would have been worsened as I am sure I would have felt paranoid about losing the stone. How often in life are we presented with this choice? You often hear of people changing jobs to make more money despite longer hours or more travel time. They are less happy each day but have more money. How much of our enjoyment of our 'present moment' are we willing to sacrifice - for more money that is supposed to contribute to increasing our happiness of our 'present moments'? It's madness.

As I realised that I wasn't paying as much attention to the temples as I wanted to be I chuckled to myself about the irony. If I made more money, what would I do? For sure, I would travel to somewhere like Thailand to check out the temples! Upon realising how ridiculous it was to be seduced by money which I would spend only to have the experience that I was currently paying to have - my incessant thinking about making money ended. And the temples were amazing! 

And then the next morning I ate my favourite lychees only to find maggots in them. Not sure that relates to any of the above - only in that 'paying full attention' to what you are doing is not just good for getting the most out of temples- it's also a good idea in a country where there's the possibility of there being maggots in your food! :)

Some videos on Happiness (TED)

Dan Gilbert gives an interesting explanation of how little we understand about happiness!

Matthieu Ricard gives a wonderful simple and clear explanation of what happiness is.

Inspiration from Steve Jobs - a Zen Buddhist

This morning I watched Steve Job's commencement address at Stanford. Never has a 15 minute speech resonated with me so much. He tells us - 'Don't settle!', find what you are passionate about, don't let other's opinion drown out your inner voice, follow your heart and intuition.

Many have said things like this before, but the reality is that this is hard to do. It takes heaps of courage. Inner strength. Confidence. Balls.

It doesn't surprise me that Steve Jobs is Buddhist. Or that he felt strongly about incorporating mindfulness and meditation into Apple. He believed in investing in people - and investing in their mental health.

We easily spend time and money on our bodies, our appearance, exterior things. But the strength to follow our passions, our hearts, our intuition and not settle for anything less - can only come from investing in our minds.

It is an inspiring 15 minutes.

Happiness distilled in a sentence

"Authentic happiness is not linked to an activity; it is a state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions." 

Matthieu Ricard

I understand this to mean that happiness is not actually about 'doing' or 'having'. Of course, the feeling of happiness can arise when we do things - eat ice cream, win a proposal or make a sale at work, have a glass of wine (no coincidence that I choose these!). It certainly feels good to buy things our selves. The difference is that this type of happiness is fleeting - it comes and goes. If we observe the feeling as we experience, we notice that it often changes over time, maybe the feeling becomes less strong, maybe it is followed by a dip or another consequence (feeling sick after too much ice cream or drinking too much wine).

So - if true happiness is in our 'being' - what does that mean? This is the type of happiness which doesn't come from anything external. In fact, it doesn't even come from our thinking. It is a deeper acceptance of who we are - without needing the bells and whistles of a nice car, phone or an event to make us feel better, or important.