Discovery

By Gus Castellanos

I practiced Neurology and Sleep Medicine for 25 years before retiring. I came to MBSR in 1998 while still practicing medicine. So, when a colleague brought MBSR to the Medical Center we were working at, he asked me to refer patients, “We have this new program called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction - MBSR. Please send your chronic pain patients, insomniacs, caregivers that are burning out - anyone who is stressed,” he said to me.

I balked, not knowing what...

By Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader President and Chief Community Organizer

Recently, it seems everywhere I turn marketing is taking a bit more of a mindful-esque approach. Organizations are flaunting their social consciousness, tech companies are sending me robo messages that they love me, and kindness is now a campaign slogan. Whether you are in a leadership position trying to convene a compelling message, trying to share the benefits of mindfulness within your organization, or a vendor of...

By Bryan Cadel

Much has been written in the popular press about mindfulness, including one of its primary tools - meditation. We can’t go far without seeing yet another article extolling the virtues of the practice, or the beginning of the inevitable backlash that stems from its burgeoning popularity. While far from universal, a great number of self-help books, monthly subscription online apps, mindfulness magazines, and expensive retreat courses explicitly or implicitly make a promise:...

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West

When folks are considering Integral Coach training, they often bring very reasonable questions like: 

• Can I leave early on the last day? 
• Can I duck out for an hour to join a work meeting? 
• Can I miss a day of Session Three to attend a socially distant wedding/company event/graduation? 

These are all perfectly understandable scenarios, which is why it can be surprising to learn that our answer to each of these questions is...

By Steven Cohen

Like many Americans, I have spent a great deal of time recently engaging with work colleagues, family, and friends in conversations regarding race and racial inequality. Doing a lot of listening. Doing a lot of reading about systemic racial injustice and potential remedies. I know that I have a lot more to learn. I have started to acknowledge my white privilege and the advantages that has afforded me. I have meditated.

As meditators, we learn to observe with full attention in...

By Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader Chief Community Organizer

Recently, we were invited to help share the premiere of a film - Infinite Potential, the story of David Bohm. It's a fascinating film, available free on YouTube here. It explores the life and work of physicist David Bohm, who Einstein called his spiritual son and the Dalia Lama his science guru. The film explores quantum mechanics and one experiment, in particular, continues to intrigue me - the double slit. Essentially, when...

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West

A couple of weeks ago I participated in the certification process for a cohort of students finishing the Professional Coaching Course. A phrase I heard used in celebration again and again was, “you are onto yourself.” It’s a concept that comes up a lot in Integral Coaching, as it is one of the biggest indicators of deepening development.

What does it mean to be onto ourselves? 

Most fundamentally, it means just what it sounds like:...

By Due Quach

As cries for ending racial injustice and police brutality continuously resound across the country, people are making clear that it is time for the changes demanded by the Civil Rights Movement for over 60 years to finally become reality. Tragically, the pace of structural and legislative reform to address systemic racism has been slowed by how mindlessness, inertia, and complacency preserve the status quo. Because the cost and suffering from waiting are too great, what is...

By Mo Edjlali, Mindful Leader Chief Community Organizer

Our mission is to enable people to foster mindfulness and compassion in the workplace and we often talk about kindness. Until recently I never really looked at the act of kindness as a privilege.  The experience that I had a few months ago gave me an entirely new perspective. 

One night, heading home after work I caught an Uber and I started a conversation with my driver. He was a tall, handsome black man with a rugby player's...

Resources from the mindfulness community:

Leading Social Transformation: The Inner Work of Racial Justice with Rhonda Magee
SIYLI

Anti-Racist Resources from Greater Good
Greater Good

The Untold - What White People Can do with Privilege
Ruth King

An Open Letter to Humanity
Michelle L. Maldonado

Think meditation could help cope with microaggressions? There’s an app for that.
Washington Post

Anti-racism in your company:

How to build an actively anti-racist company
Quartz

Talking about racial...