Emotional Intelligence explores how thoughts create feelings.  Here’s a deceptively simple tool.  When I’m caught in a worry cycle, I can use this flowchart as a good reminder.  I can examine my situation and take action.  One action is changing my thoughts –which will change my feelings.

One of the fundamental choices we each make in each moment is to live in that state of fight or in the state of flow.  As I’ve written before (in this article and in At the Heart of Leadership):

• FIGHT is characterized by power where the goal is the be right OVER another; emotions such as anger are signals of power and sorrow are signals of weakness.
• In FLOW being right or wrong are less important; the goal is to connect in a purposeful, significant way.

The film Avatar illustrates this choice on several levels.  Perhaps the most vivid moment is when protagonists Jake Sully and Neytiri meet.   Sully is in danger on an alien world and, as night falls, he makes a torch/spear and attacks the threatening wildlife.  Forest savant Neytiri saves him and throws his torch into a puddle, plunging them into darkness.  At first Sully is… not thrilled… by this “help.”  But eventually he sees differently.

In the darkness, Sully finds something else — the luminescent beauty of the world is revealed.  While he’s in the FIGHT mode he’s cut off from the world around him, literally blinded by his own weaponry. Forced to give that up, he begins a journey to encounter the world a different way.

We all do this — when we’re in FIGHT we tell ourselves that’s the only way, and we’re fighting for our survival.  Often actually creating more peril, but it’s all we can see.  It takes a leap of faith (or a push from someone else) to drop into FLOW.  There’s a huge AHA! as we see that where there used to be one option, now there’s the liberty of choice.

Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman, handed this article to me several years ago. It’s stuck with me as a powerful set of guidelines for being impeccable with words. The children, Patty and I have discussed the “three gatekeepers” often over the last years; we started when the kids were 4 and 6 years old and have carried it forward. I highly recommend you put this one into practice!
- Josh

Because we can’t see them, we throw words around without much consideration for their effect. But words leave lasting impressions. Dr. Wilder Penfield, the great Canadian neurosurgeon, describes vividly the experiments that demonstrated how easily words we thought were long forgotten can be revived by electric stimulation of the brain. It’s all still there, recorded deep in consciousness – emotional depth charges ready to explode when they are triggered.

That is why the Buddha considered Right Speech to be as important as Right Action. I think he would have liked the Arab proverb that everything we say should pass three gatekeepers: “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”

Any little remark that fails these tests – a joke, a wisecrack, thoughtless gossip, an unverified “fact” or tightly-clenched opinion – can wreck a relationship, destroy trust, even cost a job. But the most glaring violation of Right Speech is the everyday quarrel. We just don’t seem to know how to disagree without being disagreeable.

It starts simply enough: someone says something we disagree with, and for some reason we get angry. (Why? I have never seen the connection.) Or, of course, we say something they disagree with and they get angry. Either way, after just a few words, tempers fray and language starts deteriorating.

How many times have I heard even educated people begin an emotionally charged dialogue with the best of intentions: “We won’t quarrel. Let us confine ourselves to the subject at hand.” Within five minutes one is saying, “That’s not what you told me last Saturday in front of the Wide World of Shoes!” And the other replies – see the absurdity of it! – “That wasn’t in front of the Wide World of Shoes. It was the Narrow World of Shoes.”

Anything to quarrel, anything to contradict.

After that, the quarrel has nothing to do with the subject. It is mostly “You must have done this even as a child” and “I’ve heard stories about the way you behaved in high school.” We may know we are being foolish, but by then we are caught; we can’t escape. All of us have been in arguments like this.

I used to ask my teacher, my grandmother, “Granny, if you found yourself in a situation like this, what would you do?” It took years for me to understand her simple answer: “Son, I wouldn’t get into a situation like that.”

This is very practical advice. Even if somebody is being rude to you or unkind, it doesn’t help to be unkind in return. It doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help you. The more unkind you are, the more angry the other person is going to be – and then the more angry you are going to be, until two people have ceased to be human beings and have gone back to a previous stage of evolution.

Out of control
If we could see what happens in the mind at times like these, we would be embarrassed. The mind simply slips out of control, like a speeding car that careens all over the road. Only when we have some say in where our attention goes can we keep our hands on the wheel.

That is what meditation is for. Then, when we see the mind beginning to break loose, we can brake a little, check the words that are about to burst forth, and choose speech that is kind, constructive, and respectful instead.

If we were to ask the Buddha why we lose control at times like these, he would give a precise diagnosis. First, he would say, the mind never was really in our control. The very nature of the mind is to be fickle, distractable, constantly in motion – in a word, to do whatever it likes. For it to behave the way we like, we have to train it through meditation.

But the real problem, he would say, is self-will: the fierce attachment to our little personal self, our opinions, our ego, that insists on having its way whatever the consequences to others. We just can’t bear to be contradicted, so we get angry and lash out with hurtful words. Most of us would be chagrined to see the underlying message: “You aren’t worth my respect. My ideas are superior; you don’t count.”

Bear with others
To break this cycle, we have to learn to be patient under provocation. “Suffer hard words,” the Buddha says, “as the elephant suffers arrows in battle. People are people, most of them ill-natured.”

There you get the Buddha, who really knows human nature. He doesn’t try to idealize. He doesn’t say, “Everybody is beautiful. Everybody is divine.” He says, “Factually speaking, most people lack courtesy.” This is the characteristic touch of the Buddha, standing firmly on the ground and then trying slowly to help us rise until our heads touch the stars.

For an Indian audience, the elephant is a familiar illustration. The elephant is the mightiest creature on earth, so tremendous in strength and endurance that in battle he ignores his wounds and goes forward gallantly even when his body is bristling with arrows. But he is also a very gentle creature. If you offer him a peanut on the palm of your hand, he will take it without even touching you.

The Buddha’s audience would have grasped the message immediately. Shrug off the daily darts and arrows that life sends, he is telling us, but never shoot such arrows at others. Never upset people, never be unkind to them, never hurt their feelings or treat them with lack of respect, how-ever they might behave themselves.

“In other words,” he says, “in personal relationships, be prepared for a certain amount of impoliteness and discourtesy – not because people are bad, but because they have self-will and can’t control it, just like you.”

This is one of the curious fallacies of self-will. We expect others to show courtesy to us, but we also expect them to bear with us if we happen to be a little unkind. We expect to have our way, but why should others have theirs?

It’s good, I think, not to get upset if you find somebody not showing respect to you, for the simple reason that you may well not be showing enough respect yourself.

Here the Buddha asks a simple question: If you get displeased when others are unkind to you, why don’t you get equally displeased when you are not kind to others? In other words, there is no mystery about these things. You don’t like anyone to be unkind to you. Why don’t you remember that the other person is just like you? Like you, he doesn’t like unkind words. Like you, she appreciates courtesy and respect.

Oddly enough, the person who usually gets upset is the man who expects extreme courtesy for himself, the woman who finds it easy to be discourteous to others. The realist is the mystic, who says, “Well, the world is like that. It takes all sorts.”

In The Imitation of Christ – a marvelous book of spiritual inspiration for any religion – we often come across this same counsel: “Bear with people. Don’t answer back.”

Believe me, for those of us who have lived in the world of education and had our intellect sharpened to be sarcastic, it’s very difficult to restrain oneself. At a meeting when you’re being criticized or attacked, it’s considered part of your academic responsibility to answer back with compound interest.

I, too, was in the habit of doing that, until I began to understand that if somebody attacked me, there was no need for me to get exasperated. After all, most people are capable of using their judgment. So I started just repeating my mantram silently – Rama, Rama, Rama – and keeping quiet.

It was not at all easy. To make things worse, it was sometimes misinterpreted. Somebody who used to keep quiet would think I was at a loss for an answer and join the others in jumping on me. It was difficult training, but very soon I began to see that I was getting detached – not from my colleagues, but from my own opinions. When they were criticizing somebody, they weren’t criticizing me. They were criticizing a statue they had sculpted and set up in the corner. Why should I be bothered if they threw darts at a statue they themselves had made?

This doesn’t mean making a doormat of yourself. Just the opposite. It is training. You are getting your mind under control. First you learn to break the connection between stimulus and response. Once you have a measure of detachment, you can reply to criticism without identifying yourself with your opinions or the other person with hers. Then you are free to choose words that are kind, respectful, and to the point.

The more self-willed and insensitive the other person is, the more reason for you to alert your mind to be calm and compassionate – and, if necessary, to face opposition firmly but tenderly.

We aren’t helping self-willed people when we give in to their demands or let them walk all over us. It only feeds self-will to let them have their way. We have to learn to show respect by opposing them – tenderly, nonviolently, but firmly.

This is a lesson all of us need to learn, and it’s not at all easy. Particularly in personal relationships where people are insecure, they will feel resentment but they will not try to oppose tenderly. When self-will gets inflated, you look upon others as part of your own ego – a kind of ego-annex. This is very common today, especially between parents and children. In such cases it is particularly painful – and all the more necessary – to learn to oppose tenderly, with detachment and respect.

The mental attitude
Criticism, of course, can be useful only when it is constructive. Comments can be useful only when they are friendly. Persuasion can be useful only when it is loving. Even from the point of effectiveness, then, unkind comments only add to the problem. Disrespectful criticism makes the situation worse.

Often, of course, it is necessary to make a constructive comment or suggestion. It is the mental attitude – the tone, the respect, the loving concern – with which we put forward ideas op-posed to others that makes the contribution effective.

I would suggest that whenever you feel you have to make a suggestion opposed to someone else’s, take time to get a little detached from the situation by repeating the mantram silently. Then, when your mind is calm, offer your suggestion in a friendly, warmhearted manner with great respect for the other person. This takes practice, but you will find that it works. It is effective.

Here it helps to remember the Buddha’s observation: most of our problems arise from inflated self-will. And one of the surest signs of inflated self-will is in an inability to see the person’s point of view. It is not that we have to accept the other person’s point of view, but under no circumstances should we refuse to acknowledge that the other person has a point of view – one that deserves to be listened to with respect and evaluated with detachment.

Everyone acknowledges this in principle, but in practice it is all too rare. On campuses I have found even the best-educated scholars sometimes unable to concede that others have a cogent point of view.

This is the intellectual climate I was trained in. It took years of retraining my mind through the practice of meditation to learn to listen with respect to utterly opposite points of view and yet retain my own.

When you are able to do this – to be completely loyal to your ideals and yet not reflect on other people’s integrity – often the other person begins to respond. What matters is the friendliness you show, the lack of ill will – and, more than anything else, the complete absence of any sense of superiority. The more spiritual you become, the less superior you feel to others because the less separate you feel from others. The superiority complex is most rampant where separateness is inflamed.

Right Speech
By making Right Speech part of his Eightfold Path, the Buddha is giving us a precious clue. Right Speech is not just a nice way to behave. It is a spiritual discipline, part of a very skillfully designed path for self-realization.

Once we grasp this, every disagreement becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Facing anger, for example – your own or others’ – is one of life’s best opportunities for training. It’s very much like learning to lift weights. You start by lifting chairs, then tables, then a desk, and after a while you’re lifting a VW Bug. You can pick up a thousand pounds, raise it over your head – what do they call it? “clean and jerk” – and then drop it onto the mat with a lot of noise.

It is the same with anger. You start with those absurd little quarrels about the Wide World of Shoes. As you learn to be patient, you get confidence. Next time, when a bigger outburst comes, instead of retaliating, being unkind, making sarcastic remarks, you use the incident for training the muscles of your mind by repeating the mantram.

Just as we admire people who can lift a thousand pounds, we all benefit by being with somebody who can be patient under attack, kind when opposed, and detached enough to see the situation clearly and compassionately. This is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.

Daily review
Athletes, I understand, often keep a daily record of their training. In the same spirit, I take a few minutes every evening to get a bird’s-eye view of training my mind and see where I can improve the quality of my daily behavior.

This is not a negative survey. You are not finding fault with yourself. You are asking, “Where can I be a little more patient? Can I be a little more loving toward Amelia tomorrow? Can I be a little more helpful to John?” These are the positive ways in which we can improve the quality of our daily living tomorrow in the light of what we have done today.

Interestingly enough, this makes every day new. Tomorrow is never the same old day. There is always something more to be done: one or two more steps to take on the path upward, some greater care to avoid the mistakes that all of us make in some small way. Instead of repining over mistakes or being resentful over them, I would suggest taking every possible care not to repeat those mistakes tomorrow and make at least a little improvement in your daily behavior.

This is why we have been given the competitive instinct: not to compete with others, but to compete with ourselves. Every evening you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “You did a pretty good job today, I agree. But watch out! Tomorrow I’m going to outdo you.”

Original goodness
When you refrain from unkindness, you are uncovering your real nature. That is the real meaning of the Buddha’s word nirvana: the removal of every shred of the selfish conditioning and self-will that brings such sorrow to us and others.

When we have removed all anger, what remains is compassion. When we have removed all selfishness, what remains is selflessness. When we have removed all hatred, what remains is love.

This is the glory of the mystical tradition: We don’t have to make ourselves loving; we have only to remove hatred from our hearts. Those who have learned to be kind even when others are unkind move in the world with freedom. Their love flows to all around without any question of “Is he being nice to me? Is she being kind?”

Life holds us hostage with such questions. But when we are free – when we attain the stage where there is no possibility of my dancing to your tune or making you dance to mine – all sorrows come to an end.

“You cannot add to the joy of such a man,” the Upanishads say. “You cannot add to such a woman’s security. Whatever life gives, whatever life takes, they are always full.”

Three different people told me the same story last week:

I’m too busy keeping my head above water to make progress on my real goals.

On one hand, that’s a practical and realistic way of coping.  Look, we’ve all experienced that some days we can barely tread water fast enough… and some days we sink… and on those days it’s “impossible” to put time and energy into the future.  How can you invest when you can’t put bread on the table?

All three had practical, legitimate reasons for “treading water,” they were not making weak excuses.  There just has not been time.

So that’s the “practical reality.” What about the “emotional reality”?  What I noticed in all three conversations was a loss of energy and momentum.  There’s an emotional cost to postponing your future, and when you’re calculating the choices of your day and week, this needs to be factored in. I suspect that when you factor in the emotional cost (in the extreme, dying a little more each day), the equation might change?

You’ve likely seen this framework that Stephen Covey offers in First Things First:

Covey points out that we need to avoid QIII and QIV, and shift more time to QII if we want to build the future.  Good!  Let’s do it!!!  How? Well… that’s a problem.  It’s a fabulous model, though most of us already know that we need to stop fighting unimportant fires and getting sucked into distractions… but we still do that.  We’re choosing to put time in QI, QIII, and QIV, and shortchanging QII.  Why?

Because we’re not driven by “what we know.”  We’re driven by what we feel.

There’s some set of feelings boiling around this pattern of behavior pushing and pulling us.  There are feelings before the choice (to shortchange QII).  Then there are feelings the come immediately when we do what we’re doing instead… then there are still more feelings when we end the day saying, “*(@_!_)# another day with no time for QII.”

If I can indulge in a bit of prognostication, I suspect that if your pattern is “do QI &III but miss QII” you’re feeling a mix of stressed, overwhelmed, impatient, excited, and focused (even driven). If you’re getting sucked into QIV then your feelings are likely to be bored, uncertain, distracted, lonely, or lost.

Then, despite the knowledge that QII is the only way out, you still go to another quadrant, and, for the moment it feels good.  If you’re QI and QIII focused, you probably get great feedback, maybe overhearing, “He’s so reliable….”  “You can count on her….”  If you’re escaping into QIII, you get a bit of relief.  In any case, there’s a feeling payoff — an emotional benefit.  What is yours?

The first, and perhaps most important step, to getting out of the pattern is to recognize the emotional drivers.  What’s triggering your pattern, and what payoff are you getting from it?  Knowing that is not enough – you need to DO something with those feelings.  That’s another article… but I’d love to hear your ideas (post a comment!)

I also noticed that in these conversations, and many others – including many in my own head, there’s a refrain about being busy:  “I can’t do this unless I can devote a block of time…”  Many a project have lingered on my “to do” list because I told myself I didn’t have the six hours or three days or whatever to complete it.  Consider this:

If you had a month you could devote completely to your future, what would you do with that month?

How about if you had one week?

What could you do if you had one day?

How about if you had five minutes?

We all have time, but for most of us it’s fractured — five minutes here, and hour there.  While it’s extremely challenging, somehow we have to reclaim those dribs and drabs of time and turn them into a worthy contribution.  As usual, I would suggest the challenge lies not so much in the technical achievement of this end, but in the emotional transition we must undertake in order to bring the A game to these momentary matches.

Survive or Thrive

To conclude, here is powerful reminder from Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman:

If you focus on survival, then your survival is at question; if you focus on thriving, then your survival is assured – and more is possible.

Each week you have but a few discretionary hours to cash in:  Will you spend or invest?

♥

I have been thinking about New Year’s Eve for many days. My husband, Bob, and I joined his parents at a lovely gathering with friends in North Carolina. Laughter, great food, and dominoes were all part of the agenda of the celebration of the new year’s birth. However, what really punctuated the evening was an emaciated, tired, hunting dog who came upon their property. Seemingly “out of the blue” this dog lumbered onto the property with sad eyes and even sadder physique. He was in need of much attention. Who knew how long he had been lost? By the looks of this kind and gentle dog time and the elements had worn him down to a pitiful sight.

Now I must confess that I do not feel confident enough about my dominoes game playing so that might have had something to do with the fact that I had to retreat to the front porch where the dog was residing. I noticed he was shaking and so I asked for a towel or blanket to cover him. This needy dog needed someone who cared to sit with him and watch him sleep. Intermittently, I rejoined the party and many people asked about how the dog was doing. The owner of the house called the numbers on the dog’s collar to let the owners know that their dog had wandered off and the people at those numbers did not seem to have the appropriate response. We wondered if they had been drinking too much that evening as they had slurred words. The police, an animal control organization was called, etc. What I noticed throughout the evening was that the empathy for the dog was growing—-people expressing disbelief that the owner did not want to immediately retrieve their dog, the police did not want to take the dog and so on. The attendees at the party were conversing about how they felt about this poor unfortunate dog. What I was so taken with was that the gentleman who owned the house, my parents-in-laws dear friend, continued his quest to find a safe place for the dog. He could have easily turned away from that responsibility. He truly cared about that dog—his empathy “shining through.” Also my father-in-law checked in with the dog and me as we were sitting on the porch.

Someone mentioned about this “gift” of the dog that evening. Yes, I feel that the dog was gift. It was a check-in for all of us to live our values. When we see a child, adult, animal, etc., who is in need it is all part of our collective culture of values that we care for each other. Just so you know the outcome of this story… on the road back to Houston we got a call from my father-in-law saying that the owners came the next morning to pick up their dog. I hope when they look in those sad and gentle eyes of their dog they soon realize that their dog is and was truly a gift for the new year.

I love this poem.  It succinctly explains the work of Emotional Intelligence.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS
by Portia Nelson

I
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place but, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in … it’s a habit. my eyes are open I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

V
I walk down another street.

You have a tremendous power to heal others.

Listen to them.

Without interrupting.

Watch what happens!

Does your company use assessments such as the Myers Briggs tool?  Many of my clients use these measurements to build empathy.  Through them, employees learn that their different styles of communication are all acceptable and “normal.”

Lately, I’ve realized that differences in our emotional reactions can also be seen as a “style” issue.  Some of us naturally want to “fight” if we feel threatened while others withdraw in “flight.”  In the workplace, both fight and flight can be very subtle:  a look, a few words, or a tone of voice.  But if we are honest with ourselves, we can discover the hidden impulse of fight or flight in some of our reactions.

Fighters (my own tendency) can see themselves as passionate and feel that those who withdraw “don’t care.”  Flee-ers want to keep the atmosphere pleasant and may see Fighters as destructive and out of control.  Today I’m feeling more empathy for a co-worker who withdraws.  I had thought he “didn’t care.”  What a relief to realize that we show our care in different ways.

The daily work of EI never ends….

What is your experience of fight or flight at work or home?

Fascinating and fun little article from the British Psychological Society on the worlds leading psychologists and what they say they still don’t understand about themselves…

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/10/one-nagging-thing-you-still-dont_05.html

Also, the link to the boingboing blog post about it today (searchable if you are there at a future date):

http://www.boingboing.net/

This was sent to me from a friend and illustrates the ‘everyday-ness’ of EQ in action which, sometimes, is the best kind!

From a Six Seconds Network member (with a fabulous sense of humor, by the way!):

“My daughter and I walked into Peet’s coffee on a Saturday morning.  We had trouble approaching the front door because of the massive group of runners gathered just in front of it, and all over the sidewalk.  When we made our way in, I said something witty to the woman behind the counter, Barbara (who I know because it’s my neighborhood Peet’s) about having to serve all those people and what the lines must have looked like and why in the world anyone let the running club know that this Peet’s was open on a Saturday, etc.  The crowd had clearly already been inside; the coffee house itself was almost empty by the time we were in there.  When she handed me my coffee, she said it was “on her”.  When I looked surprised, she said (something like) it was because I had a sense of humor and could look around and appreciate what it must have been like to have been deluged with all those customers, that I could see she had worked hard..

So that’s it.  I was just being myself…sort of witty and empathetic and appreciative (on a good day, anyway), and it so blessed another person that she wanted to give me a free cup of Peet’s (which is like gold, in my book). As I reflected on the whole wonderful exchange, I felt like it was empathy in action, aided and abetted by humor, which is almost always a great combo, if delivered sensitively.  The principle seemed to be that we all need to have our reality, our hard work, our moment of affliction, our success, our effort, our “little life that we’re living” ACKNOWLEDGED from time to time.  It blessed her to have someone recognize what she had just endured, and help her laugh off the stress of it all.  Don’t we all need that?  Wouldn’t the world be better if we could all do that for each other more often, more easily?!”

Do you have EQ moments every day? How do the competencies play a role in everything we do?

We honor writers and musicians who bare their souls. We gravitate toward speakers or colleagues who share their deepest selves, warts and all. So why, after decades of self-disclosure, is it so hard for me to trust that I won’t be judged for what I reveal?

It isn’t that I don’t disclose. I do. I reveal my inner world to friends and colleagues, as a blogger, and in my training seminars. I’ve always been emotionally literate and have valued sharing my “true” self. When I discovered the field of EI, I felt immediately at home. But…. I’m aware enough to sense my desire to hold back details. And lately, I’ve sensed a slight inner queasiness after self-disclosure. Is this because I’ve moved from the realm of fiction (my work as playwright where I could hide behind characters) to nonfiction (myself as the canvas).

What do you think about self-disclosure?

The inner world is incredible, wondrous, and mysterious, isn’t it? Suddenly tonight (after taking some vital R & R) I finally see the connection between my striving and my deep loneliness. (How’s that for self-disclosure? I’ll probably feel unsettled about that one tomorrow).

You may suggest that my discomfort illustrates I’m sharing too much. Maybe…. But I’m not naïve enough to want to share everything. I understand healthy boundaries. Perhap I’m learning to trust more. Maybe I’m suffering as an athlete does and I’m building stamina and trust. Perhaps there is no way around this psychological vertigo (at least for my own psychology).

What are your rules about self-disclosure?

Just finished listening to a great interview on Shrink Rap Radio with Psychologist Elisha Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein’s work focuses on the power of mindfulness meditations to help us combat stress, addictions, and other psychological maladies. Did you know that regular meditation can actually change the brain? Dr. Goldstein shared research from Sara Lazar, Ph.D.

Using MRI brain scans, she (Sara Lazar, Ph.D.) found thicker regions of frontal cortex, regions responsible for reasoning and decision making, in those who had a consistent mindfulness practice compared to those who did not. Additionally, she found a thicker insula, considered to be the central switchboard of the brain that helps us coordinate our thoughts and emotions. (for the entire article read here)

But how do we find time to meditate? Dr. Goldstein offered two choices: “formal,” (sitting down for a specific time) and “informal” practices. The latter focuses on noticing the present moment. A person showering would direct their attention away from future thinking (worries or plans about the day ahead) and to the present moment—the feel of the water or soap on their skin. Dr. Goldstein described a busy mother who used this informal method. She practiced being present with her children, slowing down to look them in the eyes and really listen to their responses. She savored their breakfast time together, noticing each element. This slowing down and meeting each moment is a form of meditation that even busy people can integrate into their lives.

Whether at work or at home, taking time to practice formal or informal “mindfulness” will have powerful effects. Research suggests that even 5 minutes of daily meditations can help us be healthier, happier and more productive, creative, and resilient.

Tidbit from my physical therapist:  When you’ve experienced a lot of pain, for example from a ruptured tendon, when you go to try to use that muscle again your brain says, “NO!”  Not because it hurts now, but because your brain “knows” that activity will be painful.

I’ve certainly experienced this in physical therapy with my knees… but also elsewhere in my life.  Before my dad died, for example, there were things I wanted to tell him, but I way afraid — not because it would hurt now, I suspect, but because by brain “knew” that activity would be painful.

So often we “protect” against the old and imagined hurts, and we don’t experience that we’ve grown past the memory of pain.

To get past it in physical injury, I have to risk, trust, hope, have an ally — and commit.  I suspect the same is true with the emotional injuries.

I have always loved little boxes, they’re all around our house and I have a collection near my desk.

I’ve decided to make one a Dream Box in an attempt to stay hopeful.

I’d like to say I’m not afraid to talk about this, but the truth is I am.  I’m afraid that you will judge me because while I’m “supposed” to be tough, to be a “real man” and have that “executive presence,” in fact I’m uncertain and lonely.  I often doubt myself and question the value of my work.  I suspect this is true for a lot of people — I suspect it’s especially true for people who are attempting to lead and venture into new lands.

When work is relatively easy, the voice of doubt is quiet — or at least shouted down by all the excitement.  But in times like these when economic pressures mount and work and life become more challenging, the doubts get louder and more pervasive.  Apparently it’s not just an economic depression.  I go from doubting my direction, into doubting my vision, and then the doubt spreads to my very identity and I feel depressed.

Sadly, I know just what to say to myself to cut myself down, and on “bad days” I overwhelm myself –  I tell myself I’m not making a difference, that I’m wasting the best years of my life, that I’m sacrificing for nothing.  I tell myself it would be so much easier to just work for someone else and let them worry, to go to some well worn conventional path rather than tilting at endless windmills – and that while it’s sad that I’d make more money doing meaningless work, the evidence is that’s more valuable.  In our society the messages are pervasive money equates to value and success… and with so much economic uncertainty and fear abounding, that message becomes more potent.

Another part of me tries to stand up and challenge the doubter, but it’s all too easy to find evidence that the doubts are right.  Especially when the phone isn’t ringing.

Yet somehow that other optimistic voice just won’t give up — and there are a lot of “good days” — and that’s why I want the dream box.

A few months ago someone emailed thanking me for an article and said, “never doubt that you are making a difference.”  As I’ve thought about this post, those words keep running through my head.  I don’t want to doubt — yet I do.  So I’m going to go find that email and put those words in the dream box.  Just yesterday someone name Kaye emailed about the EQ Certification training and wrote, “it is still the single most powerful professional development that I have done” — Kaye’s words are going in the Dream Box.  Often after workshops people give me notes — they’re going in too.

Because even in the worst of these moments when almost all of me wants to give up, I try to imagine what I’d do instead, and I keep coming back to the foundation of our vision at Six Seconds.  Yes, maybe it’s irrational and maybe even hopeless, but somehow we – humans – have to find a way out off the self-destructive treadmill we’ve created.  We need to find value in ourselves and each other more than in money and things.  We need new visions and new skills to learn to love more deeply, to genuinely care for ourselves, each others, and our world — and no, my contribution won’t make this change, but what if I could make just a small inroad?  And if not me, then who?  And then I see messages like Kaye’s and I think maybe we are — not fixing it, but leaning the right direction.  Though the road is long and the path is steep, just a few steps might make a vast difference in a few people’s lives.

So I’ll take the reminders and put them in my dream box.  Then when the doubts start shouting, that other voice will have some backup.