How Mindful Communication can build the bridges you need to succeed.

Some may think mindfulness is sitting still in a cross-legged position and contemplating life, not so. Mindfulness allows you to approach life and communication with an open mind, a curious attitude and the ability to make better choices with ease. This is especially true when you find yourself in tense situations like a difficult conversation or speaking in public. Managing your mind mindfully allows you to engage with more empathy and peace of mind. 

Mindful communication brings this mindful approach of awareness and empathy into the conversations we have every day. Mindfulness at its core means practising the cultivation of seven core principles: 

Beginner's mind, Non-judging, trust, patience, acceptance, non-striving, and letting go. Whether you are new to the practice or already maintaining a daily mindful communication routine, understanding and embracing these foundational attitudes of mindfulness is your power to unlock the gifts of connecting with more meaning and depth right when you need it, in the present moment. Let's take the tour through the seven principles of mindfulness inspired by Jon kabat-Zinn.

1. Beginner’s Mind

Too often we let our opinions and beliefs of what we know blind us from seeing things just as they are. Mark Twain said quote "it is not what we know that get's us into trouble. It is what we know for sure that just ain't so"unquote. In mindfulness, we cultivate a “beginner’s mind,” in which we see things and situations as if for the first time, without any preconceived ideas or expectations. Try it out, your new perspectives may lead to new beginnings.

2. Non-judging

Our minds judge and assess endlessly. It’s a vital part of our evolutionary growth and necessary for us to detect risks or threats. With too much stress on our mental capacity, some judgments may become repetitive and toxic and may lead to a perception of self of not being good enough.

Non-judging is about moving into a state of observation of our own thoughts, sensations and experiences by moulding an awareness of how we perceive the world and the stories we tell ourselves. In mindfulness practices, we pay careful attention from a more or less neutral point of view. We cultivate curiosity and let the judgments be guideposts, not facts!

3. Trust

Developing basic trust in yourself and your feelings is integral to mindfulness training. Instead of feeling anxious and waiting for external sources to take action, it’s better to trust your own intuition. Even if you make some mistakes along the way, you can notice and remidy the situation next time around.  

Be open and receptive to what you can learn from other sources, but ultimately, the intention is to understand and connect with your own wisdom from within, and to trust in that unfolding. This may sound like a spiritual wish-wash but if you do not trust and listen to yourself, who will?

4. Patience

Patience is the act of accepting that things will unfold in their own time without additional pressure. You probably have realised yourself that adding pressure often gets us nowhere fast, especially when we deal with other people. It’s about giving yourself permission to take the time and space necessary for mindful awareness and the needs that motivate us all, without concrete attachment to any particular way of doing things, and to see what unfolds in time.

5. Acceptance or Acknowledgement

Acceptance means seeing reality as it is in the present moment and not as we like it to be. 

Whatever your present physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual state, if you don’t want to remain stuck in a frustrating, vicious cycle of wanting and rejecting, you might realize that this is the only time you can connect with and accept yourself. 

Remember, the present moment is the only time you ever have to do anything. An important caveat to acceptance is that it does not mean that you have to like or agree with everything, or that you have to take a passive attitude and abandon your principles. It is simply the cultivation of willingness to see reality as it is right now. Be open to whatever you are thinking, feeling, or seeing, and accept it because that is the key to making change and sustainable growth.

6. Non-Striving

Though present attention training takes a certain type of effort and energy, essentially it is a state of non-doing. We may say to ourselves, “if only I could relax in tense situations I'd be a better communicator then I would be ok.” Suggesting an idea of how we should be implies that “right now, I’m not okay just as I am.”

Non-striving is not the same as no conscious effort. It’s more about being present with the situation and your intention while letting go of the fixed outcome. This is the most difficult mindfulness attitude to embrace because almost everything we do, we do with purpose or a goal in mind, especially in business.

In mindful communication, however, goals are more effectively gained by easing off from ego driven striving and focusing more carefully on seeing and accepting things as they are and moving forward with intent and ease.

7. Letting Go – Letting Be

As we start paying attention to our inner and outer experiences equally, we discover a pattern of certain thoughts, feelings, or past experiences that the mind seems to want to run on repeat. If they are pleasant, we try to prolong and stretch them out, running them again, again, and again in our mind's eye. If they are unpleasant, we may try to ignore them ot get rid of them altogether. The ego will protect itself from those negative sensations by pushing them away - again, again, and again and you remain stuck in the avoidance loop.

In mindful communication, we put aside our tendency to elevate the good aspects of our experience and reject the not so good aspects. But we become aware of the mind’s impulses to dwell, grasp, or push away. We recognize them in us and in others and choose not to engage or inflame them any further. We just observe and let go, moving forward with what is truly important, and let all other things be. Imagine what some aspects of life would be like if you could let go or let things be?

It's a practice that can be learned, right here with us whenever you are ready to say yes to better things to come.