Exercises / Practices

By The Mindful Leader Team

The Benefits of Breathing Exercises

Practicing breathing exercises offers several benefits for both physical and mental well-being. First and foremost, conscious breathing helps to regulate the body's stress response, which can reduce feelings of anxiety and promote relaxation. Deep, slow breaths activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which counteracts the "fight-or-flight" response and induces a state of calm. Additionally, focused breathing increases oxygen s…

By The Mindful Leader Team

In our prior exploration, "Dialectic Thinking: The Secret to Exceptional Mindful Leadership," we explored the fascinating intricacies of dialectic thinking. We examined its impact on leadership, revealing the tug-of-war between binary and nuanced thinking in our society, politics, and personal decisions. Delving into neuroscience, we discussed how the prefrontal cortex overpowers our instinctual, primitive binary thinking. Importantly, we explored the paradox of accep…

By The Mindful Leader Team

What is Awe?

Awe is a complex and elusive emotion that can be challenging to define. Unlike most emotions, it can evoke both positive and negative feelings and can arise from various sources. For example, it can inspire feelings of wonder and fascination, but also overwhelm and disorientation. Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt proposed a conceptual approach to understanding awe in a seminal 2003 paper. They identified two key components of awe experienc…

By The Mindful Leader Team

Have you ever felt resentful toward someone in the workplace? Maybe you felt like you weren't being treated fairly, or that your hard work wasn't being recognized. Perhaps you were frustrated by poor communication or an uncooperative team member. These feelings of resentment can be all too common in the workplace and can have serious consequences for both individuals and organizations.

When left unchecked, resentment can lead to tension, decreased productivity, and e…

By The Mindful Leader Team

Spring is around the corner and during this time of year nature is coming back to life, it's a time of renewal, rebirth, and self-reflection. For many cultures, spring is the start of the new year and an opportunity for resolutions and commitments. We often use these times of year to aspire to become a better version of ourselves and one of the things that can get in the way is self-sabotage. Self-sabotage refers to the intentional or unintentional behavior, thoughts,…

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West, Guest Contributor

Boundaries

If you are on a developmental path of any kind it’s likely that at some point you’ve had to look at boundaries: saying no to requests, putting a hard stop on the workday, not taking on other peoples’ “stuff.” 

Boundaries are an essential aspect of wellbeing in that they help us delineate where we end and the rest of the world begins, determine what is our business and what is others’, reserve our energy for what is important to …

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West, guest contributor

“Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.”
- Jack Kornfield

Improvement projects

A few days into the new year I began seeing articles and memes along the theme of, “Well, by now you’ve likely abandoned your new year’s resolutions, so now what?” It made me giggle, of course, but it also made me glad. It seems to point to acceptance of—o…

By John J. Murphy, Guest Contributor

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein 

Last month I shared an article on Reflection and I introduced a model called The Cycle for Ongoing Improvement Reflection: A Key Element of Mindful Leadership - Mindful Leader. This model highlights the value of taking time to examine our past experiences and it reminds us to look forward, exercising Vision as well. Otherwise, we can easily fall into The Experien…

By Joy Reichart, New Ventures West, Guest Contributor

Life has asked a lot of us over the last couple of years. Much has happened in our individual and collective worlds that in many cases defies imagining, and in many others is long overdue. We’d like to invite you into an exploration of all that has become integrated in you along the way.

One way integration happens

For an example of how integration happens, let’s look at the pandemic, since there is hardly anyone on the planet that it hasn…

By John J. Murphy, Guest Contributor

As I write this article, I am reflecting on a two-day executive workshop I recently delivered in Denver on mindful leadership and operational excellence. I do this every time I engage in any important activity. I take time to contemplate what I planned to do, what I did, what worked well, and what didn’t work so well. The military refers to these disciplined moments of reflection as AAR’s – After Action Reviews. The idea is to step back and mindfully evaluat…