Discovery

By The Mindful Leader Team

Last week, we asked our readers to share their favorite quotes with us on social media and they delivered. Here are some of those quotes, including the one we shared last week as a favorite of the team.

(This quote is from Mother Teresa)

By Becky Greiner, guest contributor

What is Coronavirus?

Of all the newsworthy events that have happened so far in the new year, there’s one word that has stayed consistent in the media and is now at the center of a lot of daily coverage – Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. While Coronaviruses are actually a large family of viruses that can range from the common cold to more severe diseases, this one in particular has been getting a lot of attention because it’s a novel virus, meaning it’s a…

By Ted Meissner, guest contributor

Recent developments in our global community have shown just how small the world has become. Just last week, the World Health Organization designated the COVID-19 infection as a pandemic (1). Countries update their response daily, and the Center for Disease Control has issued informational fact pages about the virus (2).  And unfortunately, misinformation is also making the rounds (3), as well-intentioned people share what they've heard without critical thinkin…

By Breon Michel, guest contributor

Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us, we may bend with the wind… but we won’t break. – Mr. Rogers

My favorite professor in the U Penn Positive Psychology program, the late, Christopher Peterson, closed his lecture by saying, “If we were to distill the research on happiness into one phrase, it would be: other people matter.” I can still remember the way he leaned t…

By Nate Klemp, guest contributor

I’ve come to a sobering realization when it comes to my meditation practice: I will never be an elite meditator.  

And that has led me to rethink the basic nature of mindfulness practice.

Here’s the context. In Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson’s latest book Altered Traits, which brings together the most cutting edge scientific research on the benefits of meditation, they conclude that the benefits of meditation are a function of the amount of time you spend…

By Rhonda Magee, guest contributor

What we call the self is shaped by the cultures in which we live. And because race is a cultural feature of societies built on racism, notions of self include notions of race. The racialized self is produced by and helps reproduce racism in our cultures. Mindfulness helps us understand and expand our notions of race. And yet, talking about race and racism and examining these through the lens of mindfulness is uncommon. This is not to say that it is not being d…

By Mark Mitchnick, guest contributor

Long before any of the neuroscience was known, Winston Churchill said, “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” Although he didn’t know it, Mr. Churchill was actually describing the two separate yet conjoined systems operating in our heads. 

Over the past 15 years, what these two systems look like and how they function has been described in both scientific and general publications. Together, they inform the understanding of our decision-making process a…

By David Treleaven, guest contributor

A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice.

A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before.

“Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems t…

By Karlie Kramer, guest contributor

Have you ever felt mentally drained after a long meeting or taxing workday? That’s because you’ve probably made anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 decisions, switching tasks over 300 times during the workday — and your brain is exhausted. This is called decision fatigue, and it’s responsible for the decline in focus and willpower that affects millions of Americans daily.

 The phenomenon was first discovered by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, and states th…

By Ginny Whitelaw, guest contributor

Imagine you’re opening a large, cardboard box. Those of you who remember Wylie Coyote from vintage Road Runner cartoons can see ACME written on the side. This box contains a magnificent contraption: a Universal Energy Concentrator.  As advertised, it can turn vision into reality, ideas into actions; YES, it can actually turn energy into things that matter. You can’t wait to try it out, but you can’t figure out how to get it working. You see a few broken part…