Tending Your Greenhouse

It’s well known that ideas can come to us at the strangest moments.  Taking a bath or shower, driving the car or in the gym seem to be favourites.  I'm fairly new to the Buddhist chanting meditation practice ‘Nam-myoho-renge-kyo’ butthis has become a favourite time for ideas to bubble up from my sub-conscious.  It’s generally agreed that it’s easier to ‘listen’ to your intuition when your conscious thoughts aren't competing too fiercely for your attention.

If you are doing something practical when an idea comes to you, it might not be convenient to give it much attention and sometimes ideas can be lost.  That’s where the metaphorical greenhouse comes in.  It’s a place to put and grow seedling ideas.  It could be a physical place like a file, book, vision board or jar or it could just be a place in your mind where you visualise the ideas growing.

I was introduced to the concept of the Greenhouse some years ago by the ‘What if?’ consultancy.  They made the point that, like oil and water, creativity and judgements don’t mix.  Have you ever tried brainstorming when someone in the meeting is criticising every contribution?  To be their most creative, our minds need freedom to roam, to make connections between seemingly random events, to go wildly out of boxes and be outrageous.  Rational evaluation and criticism during this process, limits and sometimes stifles our creativity.

This is partly due to the difference between the linear, rational, judgemental thought processes and the more chaotic creative ones and the impossibility of doing both simultaneously.  It is also because of the emotions most of us associate with criticism.  Criticism is often associated with lowering self-esteem and feeling not good enough or ‘small’.  The behaviour that goes with this is self-protection, holding back and not taking risks.  This doesn't help our creative thinking.  Enthusiasm is the energy that encourages us to develop ideas further. If we are encouraged to see problems with our idea too early, our enthusiasm is squashed and we may never give the idea the energy it needs to develop.

Often, the first idea that pops up isn't the one you eventually take forward.  There is a period of evolution during which the idea develops and grows and this is where your greenhouse comes in.  Protecting your ideas in a safe greenhouse means you keep them protected from criticism until they are robust enough to take it.  You nurture them, revisit them and consider their possibilities, you might share them with others who are in creative, non-judgemental mode.  When you feel they are strong and well formed, you will need to evaluate them and see if they will make it in the ‘real world’, until then, keep them cosy in your greenhouse.

The Victim, The Survivor and The Thriver

One of the many things I enjoy about coaching conversations is learning the different maxims we live by.  A recent coachee had experienced abuse as a young woman and for many this would have defined a lifetime of angst, therapy and relationship problems.  However she had been able to walk away and live fully and freely.  She put this down to defining herself as a survivor rather than a victim. 

Throughout her life, she has noticed this in others as well.  If someone considers themselves a victim, they think about how they were mistreated and feel sad and powerless. Even though technically they can be described as a victim, it is more beneficial for their healing if they regard themselves as a survivor.  The mentality of a survivor is much more empowering.  They might still be might hurt and angry but they are in a position to use this as a force for change.

After the conversation, I thought how we could all do with treating life this way.  Whether we’re facing large or small challenges, mishaps or disasters, our mindset is vital.  Once we can change our outlook from victim to survivor, why not take a step further to ‘thriver’?    A thriver is someone who tackles challenges in such a way that they use the experience to grow and progress.  So in overcoming the challenge, we gain in some way that would have been impossible had the challenge not taken place.

5 Ways to be More Mindful at the Office

My last post was about working mindfully and I was interested to learn how many people are aiming to be mindful at work.  It is easy to see how you can apply the principle of being ‘continuously present with the experience’ with manual working but how about applying this to the office?  Here are some ideas….

1.      Engage your observer

Mindfulness involves awareness, a part of you that observes your mind (and sees when it wanders off), your sensations and your environment.  The part of you that observes is worth engaging with and getting to know.  It has a different perspective than your day to day thinking and this can produce some useful insights.

Whilst we want to be totally involved in the action we’re taking, for mindfulness, we also need to be conscious.  So ‘being lost’ completely and unaware of time and our surroundings isn’t the aim.  To keep our awareness, we need our internal observer on board.

This is also helpful when our work involves thinking, we are capable of both rational thinking and observing the thought process.

2.     Feel feelings

Being mindful involves staying present with current feelings.  So we notice when we’re experiencing different emotions, we are aware of the sensations of the feelings in our body- where they are and how they move.  However we don’t get into stories about the emotions, stories from the past or projections into the future.  

We welcome our feelings rather than judging them as good or bad.  Being mindful involves not reacting to emotions and, using our observer, we are able to respond in a balanced way whatever situation we face.

3.      Practice and build

To practice mindfulness, set an intention to make a gentle effort to be continuously present with a particular task for a set amount of time (you may want to use a timer).  You might find it easier to start with an activity involving movement like filing, data inputting/copy typing / repetitive processes.  Then engage with your internal observer and note the sensations that accompany the movements your making, where you touch other materials and how that feels, what’s happening around you etc.  And when your mind wanders off- perhaps thinking about something you’re filing or contemplating the tea break to come, gently bring it back to the task in hand. 

To develop the practice, you can increase the time periods and/or the complexity of the tasks involved.

4.     Be kind

When your mind wanders or you get distracted, gently being yourself back to the here and now.  Be kind with yourself, adding layers of anger, guilt or shame is not helpful and will take you even further from your intention to be mindful.  This means dropping judgements and criticisms.  What is just is.

This is a great way of minimising stress.

5.     Reflect

Setting particular times to be especially mindful or special prompts to check your mindfulness can help to keep you on track.  At the end of your designated mindful period or perhaps at the end of your day, review how it’s gone.  When did you find it easiest to be mindful?  Are there easier times of day, activities, environments?  How long were you able to sustain this?  How was this different to yesterday?  When did you find it most difficult?  Were there particular prompts that took you off track?  Is there anything you can do differently next time to support your mindfulness?  What benefits are you seeing from working mindfully?

Bringing Mindfulness to Work

During my recent time away from blogging, I visited an eco-project in rural Tenerife www.manantialdetara.es.   The project’s creator, Guillermo, has had a rich background which included living as a monk and being part of the Findhorn Community.  In setting up the project in harmony with nature , Guillermo also aims to facilitate the personal growth of those who stay there and he advocates working mindfully.

Most would think of mindfulness as a Buddhist mediation method.  Mindfulness has been described as 'the gentle effort to be continuously present with experience’.  And by Jon Kabat-Zinn as "paying attention in a particular way;
On purpose,
in the present moment, and
nonjudgmentally.”

So we deliberately notice the sensations we are experiencing in the moment and our responses to those sensations. And when the mind wanders, we purposefully and kindly bring our attention back.

You might have practiced this with your attention on the breath or on walking.  And, at the project, the gardening, cleaning and cooking all leant themselves to mindfulness too.

Working this way feels great.  Being fully connected with the task in the now.  As it’s not about being focused on the end result, it’s not as time driven as we’re used to, yet generally things still get done in time.  It’s not the same as day dreaming or going on 'automatic pilot' so time isn’t wasted in distractions.  It means doing one thing at a time with full commitment.

There’s much evidence of how this approach helps us in life, mindfulnet.org says,

“As humans we are often "not present" in our own lives.  We often fail to notice the good things about our lives, fail to hear what our bodies are telling us, or poison ourselves with toxic self criticism.”

Mindfulness brings us back to our own experience of being human.

So if you’ve practiced mindful mediation and would like to experiment or find it difficult to sit still, why not try bringing mindfulness to everyday tasks like preparing food, eating, housework etc.?  I'd love to hear if you've applied this approach to other areas like art.  It's certainly a feature of 5 Rhythms Dance.  More from me soon on applying this to an office environment.