Lição 1
Why Mindfulness And Compassion In The Workplace?
Today we’ll talk about why self-development, including mindfulness and compassion is so important in the workplace. We spend most of our waking time at our workplace or in school. Our days are filled with challenges - trying to do more with less, difficult customers or coworkers, a demanding boss or teacher. When we develop mindfulness, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence, we’re able to increase our resilience. We enhance our growth mindset and become better versions of ourselves. We can take that upgraded version of ourselves into our relationships with others. This is where compassion comes in. When we move from a self-centric way of being to one that includes others, some interesting things happen. We’re able to better serve, but we also tend to be happier and more fulfilled.
Lição 2
The Power Of Being Present
We know that being present makes us happier. It improves the quality of our relationships and the quality of the work we do. It increases our ability to be productive. And… the challenge is that we’re surrounded by distractions. Today’s practice will focus on getting clarity of the mind and just being present.
Lição 3
Awareness Of Self
We’re often just reacting to life, like a leaf floating down the river. When we start to become aware, we open our world to more choices. In this lesson, we’ll talk about some of the things that get in the way. We’ll practice deepening our understanding of our inner landscape, and becoming a spectator to our own thoughts. We’ll do a practice to hone our awareness of our bodies. Awareness gives us choice. Choice helps give us freedom.
Lição 4
Choosing Joy
Outside influences can impact our ability to feel joy. With practice, we can learn how to choose our emotions and be a stronger driver of our own lives. In this lesson, we’ll explore our mindset around emotions. We’ll experience a practice designed to increase joy. We’ll smile. And... we might even laugh.
Lição 5
Becoming Your Best Self
We’ve all had a day, or a moment, when we were at our best. Maybe it’s when we were doing something we were born to do. Maybe it was a time when we had all our resources available to us and we “stood in the fire” when a situation was difficult. We’ve been there before. In today’s lesson we’ll talk about how to purposely return to that “Best Self” state of being. We’ll do an exercise to tap into that highest part of ourselves.
Lição 6
Growth Mindset – Being Grateful For The Lesson
Moving from a pessimistic mindset to an optimistic mindset is challenging, but it’s also a key superpower in creating a life of meaning. The reality is that we tend to learn more when the lessons are hard. With the benefit of time, we are usually able to look back on our lives and have gratitude for the tough thing we went through many years ago. From that vantage point we can clearly see the benefit of the experience. When we can learn to be grateful for the challenges that are happening to us right now, we build a really important muscle, speeding our development, and increasing our capacity for growth. Today, we’ll do a practice that builds our capability for gratitude.
Lição 7
Self Compassion
Sometimes our inner talk track is not very helpful. When we learn to be compassionate to ourselves, we open up to a larger world of possibilities. We strengthen our ability to love, we increase our resilience, and we build our capacity to provide compassion to others. Something simple, like putting our hands on our hearts and saying “I love you”, can have a powerful impact. Today’s practice will focus on turning our inner critic into our inner champion.
Lição 8
Changing Your Mind About Happiness
Much of our happiness depends on where we place our reference points. How we compare to our friends, our co-workers, or even to strangers on social media, greatly impacts our personal happiness. Our healing path starts by recognizing who we’re comparing ourselves to and why. We’ll practice having appreciative joy for others and learning to revel in their success in a way that builds up our own capacity for joy.
Lição 9
Dealing With Challenging People
We are programmed to feel compassion for those that are most like us. We often struggle with those that are different. They might have different political or social views. They might come from a different culture. Or sometimes we just get in a situation where we’re coming from different perspectives. When we’re able to focus on our similarities instead of our differences, we build our capacity for compassion. We’re able to see the goodness in others and how we’re connected. From this vantage point, we’re able to create together in a much more productive way. Today’s practice will strengthen our capability for compassion.
Lição 10
Taking Action - Putting It All Together
Today is about action. In this ten day course, we’ve covered many important topics. We may have good intentions to put these new practices and ideas to use, but it’s the systems and structure we put in place that will really help us make that happen. In today’s lesson we’ll talk about specific systems we can put in place that will help us take action. Today’s practice will build on the lessons we’ve covered and summarize our learning so far.
