5 Sojourners of a Meditation Journey

For years, I dallied with meditation, starting and stopping many times, struggling to build a habit.  At one point, I even tried my first attempt with a Meditation Teacher Training to kick-start my practice.  But, for a variety of reasons, that was a bust too. 

It wasn’t until I set a goal to develop a consistent meditation practice, with more determination than before, and with a little help from a device called Muse. Muse is a brain-sensing headband, designed to provide biofeedback to the meditator about their brain activity.  When the brain is calm, the meditator is rewarded with the chirp of a bird, letting the meditator know, whatever they are doing (or not doing) is working and the brain is getting calmer.  When the brain is active, background sounds selected in advance get louder and louder, letting the meditator know that they are headed off track. (I like the beach background and the rainforest backgrounds best).

The feedback provided by Muse made me curious about what was occurring within me during meditation and how that was affecting my brain.  I started journaling after each meditative session, indulging my curiosity, hypothesizing about what aspects of my internal experience were arising to impact my brain activity.   That’s when I began to discern distinct parts of me.

Over time, I noticed that five unique aspects of myself were showing up consistently on my meditation journey and they each had a different impact on my brain activity.  I began to refer to them as the Five Sojourners.

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Posted in: Coaching|Mindfulness & Meditation

4 Ways You Can Practice Meditation

For most of us, when someone tells us to meditate, the first thing that comes to mind is sitting in stillness, legs crossed and our hands in Chin Mudra (your index finger connected with your thumb, forming a “seal” or circle). Meditation is actually a broader concept and can be done in a number of ways. 

Meditation is a practice of creating a state of self that is aware and calm and allows you to be present and mindful of what is.  Once you have an understanding of this broader concept you can consider doing almost anything from a meditative state. 

As I’ve learned more and more about this broader concept of meditation, I realized that one way I meditate is by taking a walk every morning. I wake up early in the morning before my kids are up and I walk my dog. I love feeling the cool morning breeze and looking at the different colors created by the sunrise against the clouds. This moment gives me a state of calm and awareness and it’s a daily practice.

You may already be doing things that are a form of meditation practice or maybe you haven’t found an activity that gives you that state of calm and awareness yet. Here four ways you can practice meditation:

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Posted in: Mindfulness & Meditation

FREE Podinar: Mindfulness Coaching: The New MBA – Mastering Being and Awareness

APRIL PODINAR: MINDFULNESS COACHING – THE NEW MBA – MASTERING BEING AND AWARENESS

Learning in Action’s Live Monthly Podinar Championing Transformative Change

FRI. APRIL 26, 2019. 800-9:00 am PT / 11:00-12:00 noon ET

MINDFULNESS COACHING:
with guest Dr. Steve Romano
Executive Coach, Managing Director of Olistica and the Center for Sustainable Leadership

Join Steve Romano and Alison Whitmire, president of Learning in Action, for discussion and Q&A around mindfulness coaching, and how a proven methodology for this expansive way of operating is critical for 21st century leaders and coaches.

This podinar (interactive podcast+webinar) will cover topics like these:
– What Being and Awareness is, and the outcomes or results they produce
– The 5 components of Being: breath, energy, investigate, navigate, generate.
– The Triple Loop Listening Model
– The Six-Point Transformational Coaching Model

You will leave with tools and new ideas of how you can use Mindfulness Coaching to help your coachees to experience a new level of leadership that leads to deeper, more transformative change.

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How Do I Connect With My Heady Client?

As coaches, connecting with our clients is a natural thing. We support and advocate for our clients, so why don’t we always connect with them?

I don’t know about you, but I have found that some of my clients are more difficult to connect with than others.  I’ve had clients that were what I call heady, operating mainly from their heads (their thinking dimension). I’ve been challenged to feel deeply, truly connected with them.

A few years ago, a close coaching colleague keenly articulated for me the challenge of connecting with heady people. We were in Rio de Janeiro attending TEDGlobal, having dinner in a loud, traditional Brazilian restaurant. We talked fluidly over a dinner of wine and LOTS of meat and enjoyed a lovely conversation. Then, we happened to see another colleague from the conference, and he sat down to join us.

As we chatted with him, I realized my coach friend, who is legally deaf, could not hear him. She often asked him to repeat himself. When he left, I asked her, “Why is it that you can hear me and you couldn’t hear him?” And she replied, “Because he speaks from his head!”  Remarkable.
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