Discovery

By Mary Beth Stern  

It’s a beautiful fall morning as I look at my calendar. I smile at the utilitarian efficiency of the google calendar, emblematic of the great shift. I fondly recall the handwritten notes to self and the inspirational quotations on my perfectly sized, 7 1/2 inch square calendar, big enough to be clearly visible on the desk in my office and easily tucked away in my tote when on the run. Jolted by the arrival of the month of October, my mind is whisked away, like an old-fashio…

By Jamie Bristow and Rosie Bell

To mindful leaders, practice means more than just wellbeing. A new account of mindfulness training explores its crucial role in developing agency.

If you’re involved in mindful leadership, you likely know that the benefit of mindfulness goes further than simple wellbeing – but this value isn’t always easy to articulate. After six years at the leading edge of contemplative practices in public policy, we’re offering a new “why” for mindfulness training. Our recent…

By Patrick Briody

As mindfulness teachers, how can we best create a sense of trust and community in our online mindfulness classes? One tool I’m very grateful for learning in my Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training is the practice of sharing guidelines for engagement with the group. As a closet anarchist, I initially felt some resistance to explicit guidelines, but over time I learned how important this can be in creating trust and safety. Not to mention focus and flow.

E…

By Mo Edjlali and Meditate Together Volunteer Facilitators

It’s hard with all the chaos, injustice, death, and suffering we are collectively witnessing to celebrate much... and, more then ever, we need to celebrate the things that inspire us and remind us of our vast potential for compassion towards one another. 

About 6 months ago as the gravity and impact of COVID-19 hit, I thought to myself: What can I do? What can Mindful Leader do?  Then I thought to myself... I’m not alone. I’m not the o…

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 MBSR was or how …

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 mindfuln…

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: if only…

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 “no.” We require students to …

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 the…

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 you observe t…