Hi Friends,

 Greetings to you.

 As we ring out the old and ring in the new year, it is new goals, enhanced ambition for some, focus for some, new dreams for some, on that note,  let me take the opportunity to share with you the simple concept of mindfulness and how to become a mindful leader.

 The information that I share with you as part of a mindfulness trilogy are the learnings over the last three decades from different mentors, Guru's, and my own experiments on the subject:

 Much has been talked and is still being talked about mindfulness and mindful leadership . So I have penned down few differences of what is mind talk and what is mindfulness.

 Mind Talk and  Mindfulness

 The mind has two basic activities or operating systems.

 The first is “mind talk”.

The second is what we will call "mindfulness".

 These two activities of the mind, mind-talk, and mindfulness, cannot occur simultaneously. Only one remains active at any moment.

 Mind-talk is the usual mental chatter. It is the predominant automatic activity of the mind. when your mind talks, you will find it difficult to listen to others. 

 Mind talk is the result of the interaction of our sensory system with outer world. The sensory system, a specialized part of the brain, records and transmits to awareness the experience of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It is the intermediary between everything and ourselves outside of us, making it possible for us to experience and know the outer world.

 Mind talk relies on stored information. It is always a recollection from the past.

 Fortunately, the mind has another activity: Mindfulness.

 Mindfulness is a chosen and self-initiated activity of the mind. It does not happen automatically or naturally. It requires conscious effort. Highly effective leaders are mindful when they listen and engage with their team.

 We are so much absorbed in mind talk that we do not pay attention to the present and now. When we shift from an absorption in mind-talk to an attention to the present, we begin to remember where we are, who we are, and what is happening now. And this transition leads us to mindfulness.

Mindfulness has the following  aspects, characteristics and sources:

Aspects:

• Attention
• Concentration
• Meditation

 Characteristics:

 Focused awareness

• Quite mind
• Still body

 Sources:

 Present moment

 Whereas mind talk has the following aspects, characteristics and sources:

 Aspects:

 Thinking

• Sensing
• Imaging
• Feeling

 Characteristics

• Scattered thinking
• Restless mind
• Activated body

Sources

• Memory
• Current events

To summarise, the process wherein the unknown, activity of the mind that can wake us from our "sleep" and allow us to experience and participate in the pulsating, ever changing, sensuous vitality of the here and now is "mindfulness".

Await my next post on the "application of mindfulness" in leadership.

 Wishing you and your dear ones the very best for 2016 and beyond................