Lydia on Leadership

Senses of the Heart

I consider myself both a head and heart person.  I’m always continually searching for a balance between facts and feelings, theory and intuition, details and my inner knowing.  What is hardest for me is to let go with abandon and just follow my heart, and yet when I do, it results in the best things in my life.  Can you ever really have a head/heart discussion about whether or not you’re going to have children?  I followed my heart and I have four, and motherhood has been the most rewarding experience of my life.  When I first met my husband, I tried to do the “head-walk,” which kept us dating for many years.  Once I gave over to my heart, we bought a house together.  When I started my business, I followed every correct business rule and successfully got it started.  When I let go and gave over to my heart, the business exploded, quadrupling in revenue and attracting my ideal clients.  My purpose was suddenly clearer to everyone, including myself. 

Are you interested in entering and finding a place of your heart? 

Some suggestions or ideas to think about:

1. Remember your way: Think back to three times where you went with your heart.  What did it take?  How did you do it?  And where did it get you?

2. Listen with both your ears: Hear the inner voices.  What are they trying to tell you?  Listen, for once.

3. Set your sightline: Say goodbye to checking into seeing what everybody else is doing and ask your heart what it would LOVE to do. 

4. Go for a Heart Walk: Where does your heart naturally take you?  What makes you feel at home?  If you had all the free time in the world, where would you go?  Trust that this is your heart speaking.

5. What smells good to you?: Remember that one of our most powerful senses is your sense of smell.  What are the smells that excite you?  Is it a BBQ?  Is it the smell of a certain cologne or perfume?  Your sense of smell will connect you to the things that are important to your heart; the things that you love and enjoy, and the things that bring you fond memories.

     
"I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance."

—Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist and conductor – 1876-1973

Learning From The Heart

The importance of the heart is apparent to everyone.  The heart is what keeps us alive, it pumps oxygen through our bodies and any malfunction can cause life-threatening problems.  Heart disease is one of the top killers in our nation today and society has begun to realize how important it is to take care of our most precious organ through exercise and eating right.

What else do we know about our hearts? They are the symbol of human emotion.  Hearts stand for love, compassion, heartache, and heartbreak.  But when we say we feel with our hearts, do we mean it literally?  Usually this connection between our hearts and our emotions is just a metaphoric one.  Do our hearts actually harbor our emotions? 

People often speak of being torn between their brain (rational thought) and their heart (emotion).  Do I make a decision based on what I think or how I feel?  We know that our thoughts originate in our brain, but the same cannot yet be said about our emotions and our hearts.  This is where HeartMath comes in. 

The mission of the Institute of HeartMath, founded in 1991, is “to help establish heart-based living and global coherence by inspiring people to connect with the intelligence and guidance of their own hearts.”  Dr. Rollin McCraty from the Institute of HeartMath has discovered that our heart sends more information to our brain than the brain sends to our heart.  The heart, he believes, is more than just a metaphor for love and compassion and plays an important role in developing our emotional experience. 

So what does it mean for you to connect to the intelligence and guidance of your own heart?  When you have been most connected to your heart, what was the impact for you?  What is the power that your heart gives you that no one can take away?

Practical Self-Compassion

In my past blogs, I’ve talked a lot about compassion and why it’s important to practice it towards yourself.  But what are the most important aspects of self-compassion and how can we actually help ourselves practice it?   

 

Self-compassion means being kind to yourself, understanding your own inadequacies and not judging yourself for them.  As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  What this quote says to me is that it is important to love yourself and believe in yourself, even if you fail.  Recognize that being imperfect and experiencing difficulties is inevitable.  Learn to accept yourself and your situations and make the best of what life gives you.  Mistakes or hard times can be a learning experience. 

 

The Self-Compassion website (http://www.self-compassion.org/) helps you find out just how self-compassionate you are.  Below are some great practical tips from the website that will help you be more compassionate towards yourself.    

 

 

 Self-Kindness: Ask yourself "What would a caring friend say to you in this situation?"  "What is a kind and constructive way to think about how I can rectify this mistake or do better next time?" 

Self-judgment: "Who ever said human beings are supposed to be perfect?"  "Would a caring mother say this to her child if she wanted the child to grow and develop?"  "How will I learn if it's not okay to make mistakes?"

Common Humanity: Think about all the other people who have made similar mistakes, gone through similar situations, and so on.  "This is the human condition - all humans are vulnerable, flawed, make mistakes, have things happen that are difficult and painful"  "How does this situation give me more insight into and compassion for the human experience?"  Self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience - something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. 

Isolation: "I am not the only one going through such difficult times, all people experience things like this at some point in their lives."  Many aspects of ourselves and the circumstances of our lives are not of our choosing, but instead stem from innumerable factors (genetic and/or environmental) that we have little control over.  By recognizing our essential interdependence, failings and life difficulties do not have to be taken so personally, but can be acknowledged with non-judgmental compassion and understanding.

Mindfulness: Take several deep slow breaths and try to be with your pain exactly as it is. Let yourself feel the pain without suppressing, resisting, or avoiding it.  "I fully accept this moment and these emotions as they are." Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are.  We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. 

Over-identification: Try not to get lost in the drama or storyline of your situation, feel the feelings as they are, without running away with them.  Can you feel the emotions in your body without getting lost in the storyline behind the feelings?  "These difficult emotions do not define me, such feelings will inevitably change and pass away."  "Don’t take your emotions so personally."

These are practical steps and strategies to help you deal with mistakes or hard times.  What I do want to say is that we are only human and most often we do the best we can.  I want to acknowledge the fact that as much as these are practical strategies, they do require self-discipline and a deep inner trust in the strength of who we are.

Speaking From The Heart

I’d like to look at what it means to speak from your heart and how it can help you become more accepting of and compassionate towards yourself.

 

When I think of speaking from my heart, I think of talking as if nothing is taboo.  I must come from a place with no worry of judgment in order to communicate to others exactly how I feel.  In order to not be intimidated by or scared of other people’s opinions, I have to be in a place where I accept and love myself.  I have to understand and support how I feel so I can be proud enough to share it with others without fear of ridicule or embarrassment.  This can be a tough thing to do.  What helps me when I am faced with a situation where I really feel like I need to let someone know how I feel, I think of my favourite Dr. Seuss quote:

 

“Be who you are and say what you feel because

those who mind don’t matter

and those who matter don’t mind.”

 

Speaking from your heart means not worrying about how it will be received by others because the most important thing for you is to be true to yourself.  This quote also helps me realize that those who truly love and accept me will love and accept what is coming from my heart.  On the other hand, those who judge me for it should not be important to me because they are not willing to accept the real me; who I really am and how I really feel. 

 

In the book Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chodron explores the possibility of making your actions, speech, and thoughts “inseparable from the yearning to communicate from the heart.”  This possibility comes from the idea of being gentle with yourself.  “Gentleness,” she writes, “goes along with not judging but rather looking gently and honestly at yourself.  You just see what you do as clearly and as compassionately as you can and then go on.”  Be honest with yourself about how you feel, believe in the importance of those feelings and you will find that you are able to speak freely and truthfully about what matters most to you.  I’ll leave you now with my favourite Shakespeare quote:

 

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow,

as the night the day,

thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Simple Joy

The word “joy” is used everywhere, especially during the holidays.  But what does it mean to experience joy?  Does being joyful just mean that you’re really really happy?  Or is it something else?

 

The dictionary defines joy as being an intense happiness.  For me, it means having a complete sense of abandon.  When I think of joyful moments in my life, I remember a feeling of freedom, a lack of inhibition, where everything inside of me comes bubbling to the surface.  For most people, joy doesn’t happen as often as happiness does.  At least for me, it’s usually a fleeting moment that only happens once in awhile.  But could there be a way to make your joy last?  A way to hang onto it and feel it at every moment of your life? 

 

Many people believe that meditation can help you find your inner peace and joy.  The feeling of being at one with the universe gives us the capacity to feel love and compassion for all living things.  And don’t love and joy go hand and hand?  In the article “The Benefits of Meditation,” Tejvan Pettinger writes that meditation takes us to the source of our happiness, which is to be found in our own peace of mind.  Without this peace of mind, we are constantly attacked by negative thoughts and happiness and joy will remain elusive no matter how successful we are on an outer plane.  Meditation, however, can show us that happiness is not dependent on outer circumstances, but on our inner attitude.

 

Feeling joyful is something I think everyone strives for in their lives.  It is the reason we make certain choices in our lives; we want to be happy, either immediately or in the future.  We want to feel a sense of fulfillment.  We want to be able to look around at the life we’ve built for ourselves and feel…. Joy.  So where do we look?  Everyone experiences joy differently and for different reasons.  What are some of the things that bring you joy in your life?  When I posed this question to myself, I realized I had never really asked it before.  Writing down all of the things that bring me joy helped me realize that I should be cultivating these things and making them more prominent in my life.  If I feel joy when I’m playing a musical instrument, I should be doing that as much as possible. 

 

Sometimes joy is as simple as making a list.  I learned from Julia Cameron this weekend that all I needed to ask myself is what one small, simple thing would give me joy right now?  She told me to name ten. 

Some examples of the small things I wrote down that would give me joy:

1. finding the karaoke channel on the TV and singing along
2. changing my shower curtain
3. buying a candle
4. finding a great pair of pants
5. smelling the lilac bushes
6. watching American Idol and having my favourite David win

I encourage you to make your own list.  It will help you realize that it’s the simplest things that bring you joy.    

Your Meditating Brain

I’ve been talking a lot about meditation in a few of my latest blogs; the different types, how to do it, my personal experience with it, and why it’s important to meditate on compassion. As the benefits of meditation become more apparent and the practice becomes more popular, researchers are becoming more interested in the scientific aspects of meditation.

New research is showing that meditation can train the mind and actually has the power to reshape the brain. Scientists have been tracking the effects meditation has on the brain through specialized equipment and by running tests that use the most sophisticated imaging techniques.

For one study, practicing meditators were hooked up to an fMRI machine. Even though there was a decrease in their overall blood flow, there was a real increase in the blood flow to their limbic system, which is the part of the brain that generates emotions and memories and regulates heart rate, respiratory rate and metabolism. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to control your emotions, your heart beat and how quickly you digest your food? The capability to manage your thoughts and your bodily functions will bring you a feeling of inner trust as well as a better sense of self. This will help you to have more confidence and to believe in your abilities and in the power you have to create the life you desire.

People who meditate on a regular basis have been found to be happier and healthier. In an article entitled “The Benefits of Meditation,” Collin Allen discusses how neuroscientists have found that meditators have the ability to shift their brain activity to different areas of their cortex, which can affect their disposition. People who are right-prefrontal oriented tend to have a negative disposition, while left-prefrontals have more interests, relax more and tend to be happier. At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Richard Davidson has used brain imaging to show that meditation shifts brain wave activity in the prefrontal cortex from the stress-prone right hemisphere to the calmer left.

This shift can decrease the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety. Most visits to the doctor are due to stress-related illnesses, whether anxiety is giving you high blood pressure or insomnia. Meditation can help you change the way you think and feel. Not only is this good for your mental and physical health, it can also help you in the workplace. Meditating and learning how to control your brain patterns gives you the tools you need to increase your creativity and your ability to solve problems.

Introduction to Meditation

Every Tuesday night from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, I go to a Zen Meditation class.  I sit in a room with a group of people, stare at a wall, and try not to fall asleep while I count each breath.  At first the class was simply relaxing, a place where I could go to get away from the stress of work, kids, etc.  I always forgot to do my homework (practice meditating for 10 minutes every day), and when I did remember to do it, I usually fell asleep after two minutes.  But slowly, I now am beginning to see and feel some real effects meditation has on my mind and body.  I have come to look forward to the time I spend in meditation every day, and as soon as I walk into my Zen class on Tuesday nights, I can feel a change inside myself.  It’s a lot like physical exercise: if you don’t do it on a consistent basis, it won’t have any effect.  And it can be hard to get into the habit, but once you do, it becomes something you crave.  The final goal is to learn how to be totally aware of the moment, to focus on the present over the past and the future, and to transcend reality by fully accepting it.

There are many different types of meditation.  After all, the practice has been around for about 5,000 years, ever since it began as a spiritual component of yoga.  As meditation continues to grow in popularity, people are practicing it in so many different ways it can be hard to keep track of them all. 

To mention a few among the many: Zen techniques involve sitting for hours in certain positions; Vipassana begins by focusing on your breath; walking meditation requires you to walk really, really slowly and be hyperaware of each step; Dzogchen helps to cultivate a clear but even-keeled awareness; and trance dance has people spinning with a blindfold on for an hour to dance music.

One of the most well-known types of meditation is known as TM.  Transcendental meditation (TM) was started in the 1950’s by the Indian ascetic Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  It involves sitting comfortably with your eyes closed and repeating a specific mantra for 15-20 minutes.  The most popular mantra is, of course, “Om.”  This word is suggestive of God and the repetition of it is meant to enable us to maintain mental and emotional calmness and to overcome obstacles.  According to actress Heather Graham, transcendental meditation “reminds you that it’s how you feel inside that’s important.”

Another popular technique is mindfulness meditation, which plays a central role in the teachings of Buddha.  Mindfulness meditation is meant to bring you to an awareness of your thoughts, actions and motivations.  With mindfulness comes the realization that "thoughts are just thoughts” and may not be concrete reality or absolute truth.  Again, you sit comfortably for a certain amount of time (however long you feel necessary) and focus on your breathing.  This helps to bring you back from the past or the future and into the present moment.  As a beginner, the key is to not let yourself be influenced by the thoughts, emotions and sensations that will inevitably come into your head and to keep bringing your attention back onto your breathing.

How to Meditate: In an article in New View magazine, Shippensburg University’s Dr. C. George Boeree describes the basics of Buddhist meditation.

1. Sit or kneel comfortably.

2. The hands are loose and open with the palms up, one atop the other and thumbs lightly touching.

3. Head is upright. Eyes may be closed or open. If open they should focus on your hands or a spot nearby.

4. Beginning meditators should count upwards to ten on each exhale. Breathe in a relaxed and natural way. Then begin again at one and repeat. Continue to breathe naturally.

5. Continue for 15 minutes.

Kindness From the Inside Out

Do you think you’re a kind person?  Even if you do, would you like to be kinder?  It takes practice to be able to put yourself and your own needs aside in order to think about someone else.  Many people struggle with controlling their ego; even more don’t realize their ego exists.  The ego according to Dyer is the part of us that believes: I am what I have, I am what I do, I am what others think of me.  This creates a problem because what happens when you no longer do what you do, or no longer have what you have?  You will lose all of your self-value.  The ego is an illusion that is often at odds with universal laws and principles.  It wants you to feel special and different than others when the reality is that we share more in common than we have differences. 

Throughout your life, you will meet many people who have different backgrounds, personalities, and beliefs than you.  This does not mean that they do not deserve all of your respect and kindness.  Remember that anytime you exclude or judge someone else, you are not defining them but instead are defining yourself as someone who needs to judge others. When you encounter someone who is irritating, rude, or destructive, try to stop yourself from getting frustrated.  This angry, nasty or rude behaviour is usually simply a plea to be loved.  Dr. Dyer suggests this: “Ask that surly waiter or harried airline clerk something about themselves or express empathy.  Anything to let a person know that, in that moment, I'm thinking more about them than about myself. And you know what happens? Instantly you see a smile.” If you feel offended by another person, get your ego out of the way so you will be able to stop taking yourself so seriously and connect back to kindness. 

To keep the ego at bay, he encourages us to focus on radical humility and respect for ourselves and others.  Meditation is a great way to solve these problems and help you to achieve inner peace. One of the best ways to center yourself is to quiet your mind to and get to a place of "no where.”  One of the most important lessons that Dr. Wayne Dyer teaches is something I have been writing about in my blogs, and that is learning how to cultivate kindness, love and empathy within and for yourself.  You can only give others what you have inside of you.  He uses the metaphor of squeezing an orange. If you ask someone what comes out when you squeeze it, most people answer, "orange juice." Why? Because that is what is inside. “When humans are squeezed,” Dyer explains “what comes out of them is what they harbor inside of themselves. Harbor love, acceptance, joy, confidence, peace and harmony towards yourself so that you can radiate it towards others.”

It makes sense, then, that in order to show love, kindness, or respect for others, you must first show it for yourself.

Kindness From the Inside Out

In my last blog I talked about integrity and how having integrity means that there is an alignment between what's inside of you and what you project on the outside.  There will be no difference in how you feel about yourself and how you show yourself to those around you when you're being real to your values.  To have integrity within yourself and to be seen as a person with integrity goes hand in hand, and the same goes for other qualities such as kindness, compassion and love.  You have to be kind to yourself, compassionate towards yourself, and you have to love yourself before you can give these things to others.   

Working to become a more compassionate person is not just a helpful leadership skill.  It’s also a way to ensure you’re living a healthy and happy lifestyle.  As I mentioned in my last blog, there have been studies that show the development of compassion can produce an increase in DHEA, which is a hormone that counteracts the aging process, and a decrease in cortisol, the “stress hormone.”  On top of this, there have also been studies that link compassion and kindness to the serotonin levels found in our bodies.  Serotonin is the hormone our body produces to create a feeling of well-being and happiness.  When someone is the recipient of a random act of kindness, it has been found that their serotonin levels increase, which causes them to be happier.  This idea isn’t surprising.  Think about how good you feel when someone is kind to you and you can guess for yourself what is happening chemically inside your brain.  What is surprising, however, is that the serotonin levels of the provider of the random act of kindness as well as an observer of this act were found to increase the same amount as the recipient.  Dr. Wayne Dyer summarizes the findings of this study when he says, “An interesting physical phenomenon occurs when you are kind to someone. Both you and the person you are kind to end up with a good feeling, a real increased level of serotonin, the calming, feeling-good hormone. Even better, the witnesses to this act of kindness also feel good, and their serotonin levels increase as well.” 

When an act of kindness occurs, everyone involved, even someone who has merely watched it happen, is affected in a positive way.  Dr. Dyer, like me, is an optimist.  If people can begin to grasp the idea that everything they do affects everything and everyone around them, including themselves, hopefully they will “start practicing acts of kindness and acts of love and eventually, inch by inch, the world [will be] a better place."

The Value of Integrity (Pt. 2)

Stephen L. Carter provided a solid definition of integrity in an Atlantic Monthly essay a few years ago. His three steps to determining real integrity are:

1. Use principles to discern what is right and wrong: there must be a set of core values that fit the organization and culture, and that people understand and accept. Leadership means ensuring these values are in place and modeling and teaching them.

2. Act on what has been discerned to be right, even at personal or business cost.

3. Say openly that you are acting on what you understand to be right versus wrong: values and ethics issues need to become part of the regular communications that leadership has with the troops.

Let me leave you with a great example of leading with integrity. This story about Ghandi shows us what it means to lead by example.

A mother once brought her child to Ghandi, asking him to tell the young boy not to eat sugar, because it was not good for his diet or his developing teeth. Gandhi replied, "I cannot tell him that. But you may bring him back in a month." The mother was angry as Gandhi moved on, brushing her aside. One month later she returned, not knowing what to expect. The great Gandhi took the small child's hands into his own, knelt before him, and tenderly communicated, "Do not eat sugar, my child. It is not good for you." Then he embraced him and returned the boy to his mother. The mother, grateful but perplexed, queried, "Why didn't you say that a month ago?" "Well," said Gandhi, "a month ago, I was still eating sugar."

Suggestions for Building Leadership Integrity

• Organizational integrity starts with a Board of Directors which develops a statement of ethical practices and demands adherence. Anyone guilty of violating these practices must be publicly “beheaded".

• Senior leaders insure that these practices flow easily throughout the culture and are embedded in the formal and informal company practices.

• When hiring people for leadership positions, use new approaches, reviews and assessments that are designed to bring integrity issues to the surface.

• Put Integrity components in your compensation and incentives programs for all.

• Communication between leaders and people in the organization has deteriorated. Tell stories about authentic leaders at company meetings; publish these stories in company newsletters.

• Make sure the first course or seminar includes Integrity in Leadership development programs.

• Be seen by the people in your company. Let them see you and talk with you in a relaxed place.

• Show how to delegate and let people in your group really show their stuff.

• Establish a “safe haven” approach that permits employees to report integrity problems without fearing retribution.

• Tough decisions will always be a challenge to Integrity. At such times, it takes courage to do the right thing. Leadership with integrity acknowledges accountability and responsibility.

• Get rid of the “Yes" men and women around you. Instead, surround yourself with a trusted team of people with diverse viewpoints who will tell you what they really think about your ideas.