Living in More Than One World

Last week I wrote a guest post for LexisNexis Government Info Pro, Creating Your Total Life List for 2012. Much has been written at the end of last year and the beginning of this one about new beginnings. But as we get deeper into January, it’s easy for the fresh feeling to wear off. No matter how many systems you use to better your life, having handy reminders for self-improvement are always helpful:
1. Time management and productivity: Jason Womack, whose book Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More, will be released next month, is interviewed by Meridith Levinson for CIO.com, in Time Management: 6 Ways to Improve Your Productivity. (Meridith  interviewed me in 2009, for Peter Drucker as Life Coach: Book Shares His Wisdom.) What’s valuable about Jason’s advice is that it is work-specific, and we can never get enough good tips in this realm.
2. Happiness: This a topic gets hotter every year. For evidence see the January-February 2012 Harvard Business Review, with a number of happiness-themed articles, including Shawn Achor’s Positive Intelligence. Shawn wrote a terrific book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, in 2010. Also check out The Happiness Advantage: An Interview with Shawn Achor, on the World of Psychology blog.
3.  Mindfulness and Stress Reduction: The British duo of Danny Penman and Mark Williams, authors of Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, have a guest piece for CNN.com, Destress your life in 10 easy steps. Also have a look at their recent posts for Psychology Today. For a personal account of the benefits of mindfulness meditation, see Newsweek’s Mindfulness Meditation Is Rediscovered, by Amy Gross, the former editor in chief of O, the Oprah Magazine.
4. Lifelong Learning: Opportunities abound, from taking classes (both in person and online) to self-directed learning from books and articles in print and online. For quick, painless tips and idea-starters, check out Newsweek’s 31 Ways to Get Smarter in 2012.
Obviously there are many other categories, strategies and techniques for improving your life this year. But any one of the four above would be a great place to start.

Many of us are pursuing goals, aspirations or resolutions for the current year, and probably on an ongoing basis. We need all the inner tools and resources we can get; techniques and methods that cut across boundaries and can be applied in different areas of life. Several recent articles and posts about mindfulness remind us that it can be a helpful tool for personal development, if applied well. They also demonstrate that it comes in many different forms: meditation, as part of therapy and as a way of approaching life. Mindfulness meditation is covered by Mark Vernon’s post in the Guardian, How to meditate: An introduction. Be sure to see the sidebar, How to meditate in 10 easy steps, which combines brief text and great graphics. The mindfulness in therapy angle, complete with reports of encouraging scientific studies, is covered in Dave McGinn’s Stressed out? Try mindfulness meditation, in the Globe and Mail, Melinda Beck’s Conquering Fear in the Wall Street Journal and Chris Woolston’s Mindfulness therapy is no fad, experts say in the Los Angeles Times. Nomi Morris’ story from the same source last October, Fully experiencing the present: a practice for everyone, religious or not, is an interview with the super-articulate Jon Kabat-Zinn, a major authority on mindfulness, and author of the classic Wherever You Go, There You Are. In 1998, I took a helpful and memorable day-long, interactive introduction to mindfulness and yoga workshop, with hundreds of other people, led by Kabat-Zinn, who gave a lecture the night before. Finally, and especially for business people and leaders, I recommend a book I reviewed in 2005 for USA TODAY, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee’s Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion. Mindfulness is not the only focus, but it gives succinct descriptions, such as this: “Living mindfully means,” the authors write, “that we are constantly and consciously in tune with ourselves – listening carefully to our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits. The best among us consciously develop the capacity for deep self-awareness, noting and building on our understanding of our inner experiences.” In that sense, mindful living looks like a worthy aspiration on its own.

Sally Blount, Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, recently wrote about the benefits of going on a retreat. Hers was silent, a focused time to contemplate, especially useful for major changes in life. This fit her situation well as the new dean of the school. I’ve been on somewhat similar retreats and found them valuable, but last week I attended a different type of retreat, of the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative. It was my second, and both were remarkable experiences. Here are four reasons why I think it’s a great idea for knowledge workers to make time for retreats: 1. Meeting new people and renewing friendships. Although some of the attendees at the BK retreat were people I met in 2009, I also made new friends. Some were Facebook friends that I had not yet met in person. There were three communal meals a day that provided added opportunities for getting to know people better. 2.  Education. I learned a lot from the writing/marketing/publishing sessions run by my fellow BK authors, or members of the BK management team. 3. Personal renewal. There are major benefits to getting out of your routine for a few days. Many retreats, as this one did, have built-in time that can be used for contemplation, reading and being in nature. In the mornings before breakfast, if you chose, there was also time for group yoga and meditation. 4. New Activities. The BK retreat had a nonjudgmental atmosphere of acceptance. Some of this came from structured activities of trust, sharing and bonding. One night there was a campfire, and another night a talent show. Before the latter, we had a brief art therapy session. Although I went into it mentally kicking-and-screaming, I really enjoyed it and found commonalities with writing and editing. This is an intentionally short list. I’m interested in hearing about other benefits from retreats you’ve taken.

Tony Dobrowolski of The Berkshire Eagle reports in his article Workshop addresses job-loss stress on an intriguing three day program in June at the Kripalu center for yoga & health, in Stockbridge, Mass. It’s called Transformation: From Surviving Job Loss to Thriving, and will be focused on the kinds of thinking and mind-body awareness skills that are crucial to dealing properly with the loss of a job. These skills are also important for the transition into the unknown territory of deciding what to do with the rest of your life. And of course the latter represents only one step, as big and important as it is, as this decision will have to be balanced against reality. It will be interesting to see if the blend of yoga, meditation, life coaching and other techniques can be a model for others who are on, or will soon be on, this difficult life journey.

There can be fascinating results when two seemingly disparate worlds combine in the same person. A case in point is Kate Linthicum’s feature story in the Los Angeles Times, In the stillness, space for a rebellious spirit, about Noah Levine, who teaches Buddhist meditation infused with punk rock values. He’s the leader of the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, and author of the 2003 book Dharma Punx. The latter is the name of the Society’s members, and there are meditation groups across the USA and Canada. Levine appears to be an intriguing embodiment of living in more than one world, as a psychologist (which, according to the article, is how he earns his living), teacher, organization leader, author and family man. But it took him a long time of  suffering and searching to get to his current place in life, all detailed well by Linthicum.  Levine’s father is the poet and author Stephen Levine.