Positive Perspectives

Meditation as Noticing

Noticing is a meditation technique in which we simply acknowledge an occurrence, such as "standing up" or "pleasure." Noticing can be used for both external events and internal events (e.g., thoughts and emotions). This technique is a means of focusing our attention and achieving an objective viewpoint. Noticing is similar to the Gurdjieff's technique of "self-remembering."

Benefits of Noticing

1. It helps us to be attentive to our activities (external or internal); for example, when we think the word, "pleasure," we are reinforcing our mindfulness of the state. However, noting might be considered an intrusion of abstract thinking if we prefer to experience the state non-verbally.
2. We can create an impersonal, non-judgmental state in which we are less attached to the action; for example, we are observing the "pleasure" rather than experiencing an identification with it (i.e., "I am feeling pleasure"). Thus, we can disengage from unwanted states more easily. But we do not try to change whatever we are noting; we merely recognize it.
3. 3. We become more conscious of the ever-changing flow of phenomena, thoughts, and moods. For example, a minute ago, we noted that we were "worried" but now we note that we are "happy." With this perception (and our verbal affirming of the perception), we dismantle the limiting concept that we are any particular type of person ("happy" or "worried"); thus, we are free to acknowledge more aspects of ourselves.

The Techniques of Noticing

1. We can notice during any activity. For example, while washing dishes, we would say, "washing." At other times, we might notice listening, or typing, or relaxing, or chewing, or cutting, or other activities.
2. We can say the word once, or we can repeat it constantly during the activity, e.g., "washing washing washing washing washing" and so on.
3. We can use additional words. Instead of simply saying "pleasure" (for example), we might say a phrase, e.g., "Pleasure is happening again."
4. We can use noticing meditation with other forms of meditation. Other authors have mentioned noticing in its application to mindfulness meditation, thought meditation, moving meditation, walking meditation, and breathing exercises.
5. We can be more explicit. For example, instead of "washing," we might define the various stages of washing, e.g., "scrubbing" or "rinsing." Similarly, in our noticing of emotions, we might go from a vague "sadness" to a more-specific "disappointment." And instead of noticing "thinking," we might note "worrying." However, our attempt to be more precise might require too much mental analysis; for example, while we are wondering whether an emotion should be noted as "fear" or "anxiety," we are not being attentive to the emotion itself.

excerpt from James Harvey Stout's Human Handbook - used with permission

Dog Cat Radio.com

If you've left the television or radio on to keep your pet company while you're out you  are not alone. Now you have the choice of tuning to an internet radio station www.DogCatRadio.com founded by Adrian Martinez, for a playlist and conversation geared to your furry friends that hopes to banish your pet's separation anxiety. You have a pet that only understands Spanish?  No problem -  "Spanish Hour,"  is from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time daily. Your pet the only one on the block with an iPod? Download the recorded podcast outside of the live radio hours from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time.

Balancing Time: Work Life Balance

Seventy percent of working adults say they don’t have a healthy balance between their work life and their personal life. (TrueCareers 2002).

What is work life balance?

Work life balance is a personally defined approach to managing your priorities that allows you to co-ordinate multiple competing personal and professional commitments and results in physical and emotional well-being. Work life balance is affected by your stage in life: from student to your first job to family life. Work life balance is not only for people with families;it is as important for a single person as it is for a retiree.

Being chronically out of balance – either at work or at home – can leave you feeling exhausted, cynical, and out of control of your own life. The idea of control is a crucial aspect of health and well-being when discussing work life balance. When you manage your time in such a way that you are able to work, relax, spend time with friends, play a game of golf, or read to your children, you have a sense of control over your life and are less likely to feel angry, anxious, and guilty that you should be doing something else.

Your sense that something is missing in your quality of life may be the first indication that you need to divide your time more equitably.

Before you being your work life balance journey it might be helpful for you to describe what work life balance means to you. It is also important to identify if there are any obstacles in your way: perhaps an employer, or a profession, or you are unclear on how you are actually spending your time.

Some Suggestions
Once you have an idea of what you what to achieve and the obstacles you need to overcome, here are some ways to put it into practice.

1. Ask your employer for a more flexible work schedule. Sometimes arriving or leaving work a half hour earlier or later can make a huge difference in your qualify of life. Offer to make up the time or take a reduction in pay. If you have an employer who is completely rigid, you might want to look for a new employer where work life balance is company policy.
2. Job sharing is another flexible work option that might just work for you, especially if you have small children and don’t want to work full-time. After parental leave some parents negotiate the sharing of one job with another parent in a similar situation.
3. Be organized. When you are organized at home and at work you will save yourself time and aggravation. Knowing where your keys are or being able to find that important file with your medical information will give you a sense of control and free up time better spent on more important things.
4. Maintain clear boundaries between your work life and your personal life. Turn off the cell phone, stop checking your email, and create some space where you can actually have a life outside of work. If you have a home office, the simple act of closing your office door sets up a physical boundary between your work space and the rest of your home. Very few of us have work life that actually requires us to be connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 
5. Take a disciplined approach. When you are at work do you best to focus on the task at hand and when you are at home focus on your home life. Say no when your mind drifts to a problem at the office when you are listening to your partner describe their day or when you are going for a walk.
6. Block off time that is sacrosanct and don’t trifle with it. Perhaps you would like Friday evenings to be spent relaxing with your family. Be bold and schedule that time in ink! Don’t let anything interfere with this time. Leave a message on your mobile phone and office phone telling people you are spending time with your family and let them know when you will be checking messages and returning phone calls.

It is important to remember that while you are striving for balance, life happens. Work life balance is like a teeter-totter – it is up and down. You may need to take care of a sick parent, or return to university while you still have young children, or perhaps you are starting a new business. You know that for a certain period of time things are not going to be as balanced as you would like.  Find support through family and friends knowing that you will find the balance when you can.

Are you a workaholic?

Being a workaholic is a socially acceptable addiction – no one looks down on a hard worker.  Being a hard worker is applauded and encouraged.  There is nothing wrong with being a hard worker, with loving your work, feeling satisfied when you have put in a long day, and going the extra mile to make sure a project is completed on time. 

Hard worker or workaholic?

The difference between a hard worker and a workaholic is control.  The hard worker is in control of how hard and when they work and there is a balance between work and the rest of their lives. The workaholic, on the other hand, feels anxious when not working, finds it almost impossible to relax, and sometimes resents the time spent with family and friends. The key indicator that the workaholic is out of control is the negative impact on personal relationships.  Spouse and children often suffer because there workaholic is spending so little time at home that the relationships deteriorate. Children of a workaholic parent often complain about the lack of time spent together and workaholism can be an important factor in divorce.

Workaholics in every profession
Workaholics can be found in virtually every profession and work setting; doctors, lawyers, carpenters, teachers, social workers, managers – no occupation is exempt.  Professions that use hourly billing, corporate culture that rewards those who work extra long hours, the self-employed and entrepreneurs are especially at risk.

Workaholics pay the price
Work addiction extracts a physical and mental toll. Stress caused by burning the candle at both ends can be the cause of a myriad of symptoms: high blood pressure, anxiety, skin rashes, an ineffective immune system, insomnia, bouts of anger, impatience, nausea, and back and joint pain.  If the workaholic does not slow down and learn to enjoy time away from work, they are at risk for burnout.

Although burnout is not a medical term the burnout experience is very real. 

Burnout
Burnout that is related to work addiction can be conceptualized as a type of depression that develops as a response to work-related stress - in this case, spending too much time at work.  Burnout develops over years and is characterized by physical exhaustion, sadness or depression, taking longer and longer to complete work responsibilities, shame that you can’t work as hard as you used to, poor concentration, and inability to make decisions.  Most workaholics wait until their symptom are debilitating and are often physically unable to work.  At that point, rest and recovery are required. Burnout often forces us to re-assess who we are in relation to work, why we do that particular kind of work, and what needs to change in order to find a middle ground between work and the rest of our lives. A graduated re-entry to work, with a renewed sense of purpose and willingness to work differently, will ensure that we can be happy and healthy.

Recovering from Workaholism: Steps to Making A Comeback
The road back from workaholism and burnout can sometimes feel painful and slow, but it is imminently do-able.  These suggestions will help to get you started and stay the course.

1. Let go of the guilt and anxiety of not working 24/7. Remind yourself that you are a better employer/colleague/entrepreneur/student, if you take time to relax and rejuvenate.  You will be more efficient, creative, and productive.


2. Assemble a personal advisory board.  Ask three or four people, some from your business life, some from your personal life, to be part of your advisory board.  Consider people that you respect and admire; who have the kind of balanced life that you want to create.  Have an initial meeting and discuss your concerns about working too much and how you would like to change.  Ask them to give you suggestions about how to work less and still be productive. Remind them that you will call upon them on a need-to basis when you are feeling anxious or frustrated.  Invite them to check up with you periodically to see how you are doing.


3. Learn to delegate.  Relieve yourself of some of the work load by delegating chores to a trust employee. Practice trusting others to do the job as well as you would.  If you don’t have an employee, consider hiring someone to do those tasks which can give free up some of your time.


4. Give the important people in your life a chunk of your prime time.  Stop giving your family and friends your left over time at the end of the day or your spare time when not working on the weekends and give them some time when you know you are feeling happy and energetic.  Schedule some fun time on a Saturday morning when you would normally go to work. Set up (and keep) a date night once a month with your partner or with friends.


5. Take time to take care of your physical health.  Being in good physical shape has many well-known benefits but for the workaholic there is an additional one: it requires taking time away from work.  Schedule time to run, go to the gym, use exercise equipment at home; whatever you can do to help you get and stay in shape.  Exercise helps to manage anxiety and stress and produces mood-enhancing endorphins.  Exercising with others, like your children or friends will give you an added bonus of re-building your relationships.


6. As you incorporate changes into your work routine and working less hours, be aware that you may experience withdrawal symptoms.  You might find yourself feeling down, especially if you liked the adrenaline rush associated with a fast-paced, all-consuming work life. You might also feel agitated and impatient.  These feelings are normal and common when lessening the grip of the amount of time and energy you work consumes.

Excerpt from Lucy MacDonald's book Learn to Manage Your Time, available at Amazon.ca, Chapters, Amazon.com

Directed Imagination

What is directed imagination?

It is the use of our imagination to implant particular images into our archetypal fields. Later, when we are in those archetypal situations, we will tend to "act out" the images. The images could be those of a healthy body, or objects which we want to own, or activities (such as sports) which we want to master, or psychological qualities which we want to cultivate. (Directed imagination is similar to "visualization.")

Using your imagination
We use our imagination frequently throughout the day. We use it in our story-like fantasies and daydreams, and in our recall of memories, and in the mental pictures which we create to help us to understand concepts, and in the scenarios which we might use to plan a future activity (e.g., a vacation, for which we design our agenda by envisioning the places which we will visit). For some people, the "thinking" process is composed primarily of words; other people "think" primarily in pictures. (Albert Einstein, whose imagination helped to create the theories of relativity, said that very little of his thought process involved words.)

Directed imagination has been used successfully by many people.

1. It has been used by athletes. For example, ice skater Elizabeth Manley, and diver Greg Louganis, said that imagery helped them to win their olympic medals.
2. It has been used to treat medical disorders. Imagery has helped people who have migraine headaches, obesity, high blood pressure, and other ailments. (Please do not use directed imagination in lieu of medical treatments; we can visit a doctor and we can also use directed imagination.)

Techniques of directed imagination.

Self-talk statements.
We can associate a self-talk statement with an image. For example, while we say, "I am relaxed when speaking in front of groups," we imagine ourselves standing confidently at a podium.

Instead of saying words, we can visualize words which have meaning to us. For example, we can see the word "love" in large white letters. Try different words, different colors, different styles of lettering (e.g., script type, or all capital letters), different backgrounds (e.g., a blue sky, or a chalkboard). One variation of this exercise is to see the word (e.g., "love"), and experience its corresponding state -- and then allow the word to disappear while we maintain the state.

The as-if principle.
Whenever we act "as if," we can use directed imagination to affirm the action which we are performing; for example, if we are acting as if we are peaceful, we can create images of a relaxing place (e.g., a quiet riverbank).

Energy toning.
We can use energy toning (i.e., emotions and feelings) while we do directed imagination.
We add the corresponding energy tone. For example, if we are visualizing ourselves in a peaceful setting, we generate the energy tone of happiness. If we are visualizing a desired object or a condition (e.g., a healthy body), we implant the tone of enthusiasm and gratitude.

Use personal images.
We are more likely to evoke an energy tone if we imagine a scene with which we have a personal affiliation; for example, to evoke serenity, we would imagine our favorite beach instead of a fabricated scene of a generic beach.

• We enjoy the natural feeling of joy which arises when we use a pleasant image. The joy occurs because the image increases the flow of life-energy.
  We use the image with various energy tones. We are most likely to remember the images which we implanted when we were in an emotional state resembling our current state; for example, when we are depressed, we tend to refer to the same constellation (of thoughts, images, energy tones, and images) which we traditionally use when we are depressed. Therefore, we need to implant our images with a variety of energy tones, so that those images will be the dominant constellation in any mood which might occur in the future.
• We generally refrain from creating images of unwanted conditions. For example, instead of visualizing ourselves winning a battle against an intruder, we can create a positive image of ourselves resting securely within the walls of an impregnable fortress. (If we visualized the battle, we would be reinforcing that imagery within our a-fields.)

We can use our body's physical energy.
The body's vitality is added to the image-element if we use directed imagination while we walk, dance, exercise, clean our home, or perform other movements.

This is an excerpt, with minor changes, to James Harvey Stout's The Human Handbook. Used with permission.

Time Urgency and Hurry Sickness

photo by FABIOLA MEDEIROS   

Hurry Sickness

Everyone, it seems, is in a hurry. Every where we go we can witness the effects of “hurry sickness”: impatient people getting upset because they have to wait in line, drivers honking horns and flashing lights because the driver in front of them is not going fast enough. You might succumb to “hurry sickness” if you regularly complain that you are short of time; you have too many things to do so you try to get things done as quickly as possible; and, you get upset if you have to deal with a delay of any kind.

In the 1950s, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, coined the term “hurry sickness”, while studying personality types.  As a result, they developed the Type A personality which is characterized by time urgency/impatience, hostility, competitiveness, tenseness, and aggressiveness. 

Chronic Stress
Living in a state of chronic time stress has an adverse effect on your health.  Feeling constantly pressured for time can weaken your immune system, cause muscle pain, insomnia, headaches, and increase your risk for depression and anxiety.  Stress as a result time urgency and hostility can decrease the supply of blood to the muscles of the heart and studies have shown that these time pressure episodes can be a precursor to a heart attack.

As with many of our problems, the problem of time urgency can be modified and managed.  Are you unsure if you operate in a chronic hurried mode?  Ask a friend, family member of co-worker for their feedback.

Take and Make Time
Take time to do activities that require you to slow down. Visit an art gallery, listen to someone without interrupting them, do only one thing at a time, or take up meditation.  Practice patience when waiting in line – the proverbial “count to ten” is a quick and easy trick to use in those situations.  Of course, it is important to make sure that you leave yourself enough time to get your errands done in the first place.  Estimate how long each task will take you and factor in some time for any delays, like traffic or lineups.  Walk whenever possible, instead of driving; walking is good for you and it will help you to slow down.

Abdominal Breathing
Abdominal breathing using your diaphragm is another great way to slow down. In order to get a sense of abdominal breathing try it this way first: Place your right hand on your abdomen and your left hand on your chest. Inhale slowly through your nose, allowing your abdomen to expand first. Your right hand should move outward as you breath in and your left hand should stay relatively still.  Now practice it without using your hands.  This is an excellent way for you to reduce stress in almost any situation.  You might want to practice this the next time you have to wait in line. This is also a wonderful relaxation technique that children can use.

We all have the same 24 hours in the daily time bank.  Time is the constant so what needs to change are the choices that we make about how we use our time.