There may be no simple answers but Victor Frankl a psychiatrist and holocaust survivor taught us that between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Whenever I think about creating moments of space to respond when feeling under pressure, I think of sport. The greatest seem to be able to slow down time and gain perspective around setbacks to remain present in key moments.

However, in recent years it has also become clear that the sporting world, from national to international and amateur to professional level, has its own struggles and a journey towards greater mental wellbeing and healthier support systems may also be required. To master one’s sport, one also must master self, according to Michael Gervais coach of the Seahawks. The dilemma we face across society is how do we support or train the whole person to reach their potential and not just their physicality or technical abilities but their inner world, to be a guardian of their minds?

The forced pause.

I reached out to Gary Keegan High-performance consultant to explore his experience of lockdown and reflections from sport and what may help live with and navigate Covid.

We shared similar experiences of the fragility of our face-to-face working, which was put on hold almost overnight, initial struggles to find a structure and routine, yet wanting to take this moment as an opportunity to re-evaluate our priorities and be improved both personally and professionally coming out the other side.

Gary Keegan High-Performance Consultant

Gary shared some early realisations “I learned with some degree of disappointment that I was less present than I hoped I was, I’m good at serving others, I feel the responsibility, I love responsibility but I needed to stop taking responsibility for things I could not control”. “There was a need for a refresh button to be pressed, and I have used that”. The pause has created some space for positive changes, Gary adds “it allowed us the opportunity to look at what we were tolerating and allowed us to enhance our family and relationships. That was the biggest news story for me coming out of this, but you also need to protect that to sustain the gains”.

The research highlights those skills developed through Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based approaches greatly improve our ability to cope with uncertainty as they target the two psychological processes at the core of human suffering. The first is cognitive fusion e.g. getting caught up or entangled in our thoughts and the second is experiential avoidance, which is the ongoing struggle to avoid, suppress or get rid of unwanted thoughts, feelings, memories. If our default strategy is to avoid, control or suppress then Covid makes life even tougher at the moment.

Through practice, we learn to develop psychological flexibility, which means having awareness and acceptance of our inner experiences, whilst shifting our attention and actions towards what is important and within our control. This builds inner space and life skills off the pitch and enhances performance skills on it.

Sporting organisations such as the Seattle Seahawks, Chicago bulls and Southampton FC have embraced Mindfulness and Acceptance based approaches to cope better with the stress of high stakes and competitive world of sport. The mental aspect of being a sportsperson, high performer or coping well in uncertainty appears to share a lot of common ground.

Gary is very curious about the potential impact “Mindfulness or Meditation practice has a longer history than sport as we know it and the evidence to support its benefits is growing”. However similar to our personal lives or in the workplace, we can tick a box or go deeper and integrate into our lives “There are very few big game-changers that are going to appear on the scene, however, the capacity of the mind to develop and gain greater control over performance may be beyond measure”.

Vulnerability

We have seen across the world that this is a time of leadership, and to lead into the unknown, we need to acknowledge our limits and vulnerability. This is an area Gary is deeply passionate about “I haven’t yet met a leader that hasn’t experienced vulnerability in their role, and yet many see it as a weakness and therefore ignore or hide it from their teams. The aspects and elements of vulnerability do not go away and there is a missed opportunity to learn”. We all have our Covid story to tell, which connects us through our shared humanity and vulnerability. By not sharing our lessons or struggles, Gary believes “we miss out and may become less than who we could be for not exploring it”. If a leader connects that we are all vulnerable, they can embrace it to promote change and growth within their teams. “Leaders open these doors or keep them closed”.

From pain to purpose.

What positive change can come from the sacrifice, struggle, and loss of the last months? To bring something we have learned, enjoyed, or noticed in our future. As we all know sustaining change is challenging, Gary advises “I heard it described recently that real change happens in three stages, first there is transformation”. However, people can make transformations and slip back to where they were” For me when I am emotionally connected to why I am pursuing the change often helps keep me on track. The next stage Gary explains is “transmutation, something is happening within our biology and our brain that is starving the old habits and starting to enrich and feed new habits” During this stage, I often notice a resistance between new and old habits and there can be some anxiety or discomfort, however, if we look around us, we see that transmutation happens in nature, ideas and people, something changes forms and grows. The last stage is transcendence, you have stuck at it, grown through the difficulty and become the change you sought in yourself.

I found it inspiring to consider this process of change on a micro and macro level, to hold on to hope that some longer-term positives for society will materialise. It will not be easy and plenty of challenging times still lie ahead. However, every day we can build our own inner space to focus on what we can control and choose actions that move us towards the future that we want to be part of, whatever stimulus we choose to respond to. Time never waits for us, COVID has created space, commit to it, use it to reflect upon what you value most and use this time to translate your learning into personal growth for yourself and your relationships.

The post Being psychologically flexible, the skill for uncertain times appeared first on FITMINDS.

Activities can more than just a hobby or an interest they can be our teacher, one that stands out for me is the Martial Art of Aikido. It provides an embodied way of training our Mind and has many lessons for coping with difficult moments and relationships in life.
Aikido focuses on managing conflict well and using appropriate action through accepting, blending, or working with the energy of an attack, instead of trying to block or countering the attack. The goal is to restore harmony for all parties.

A Balance point

I spoke with Quentin Cooke one of the UK’s most senior Aikido teachers. To be skillful, Quentin encourages students to develop their awareness & mind body connection, “so if you are overly aggressive you are not going to find a great deal of harmony and if you are overly fearful you aren’t going to be able to deal with aggression, so it is all about finding a balance point and coming up with appropriate responses for any situation”. Aikido could be considered physical, verbal, and mental in how we respond to inner and outer conflict. Do you overreact, avoid or shut down during a potential conflict?

Acceptance & engagement.

In Aikido we blend instead of blocking, trying to stop something stronger can cause injury or use too much energy. This involves being close enough to feel the energy & move with it but not become entangled or fused with the idea or energy. This mirrors key skills in Mindful and Acceptance based approaches, meeting, and making space for difficult thoughts & feelings we have, whilst redirecting our attention to the present and staying connected to what truly matters in any moment. For example, I can be anxious and still do what I want to do e.g. have that conversation or give that talk.
Although we cannot always stop difficult situations from occurring, we can improve how we relate and respond both physically and mentally. Quentin adds “If someone is having a go at you, you can’t say I’m not dealing with this, it is better to hear what they have to say, you don’t have to agree with them, but once you know everything about why it is they are cross then perhaps you can do something that may reassure them. Be respectful to what is happening. You might not like it but there is a reason this is happening, see if you can get in their perspective of the other person”.
I imagine for most of us this move towards acceptance will feel uncomfortable; however, if we avoid these interactions, we never build our capacity to stay in the moment & will get overwhelmed and lose our clarity. So, start small, with mini disagreements, and see if you can remain grounded, present, and listen to the other person. Some of us may never have seen arguments role modelled in this way and only criticising, stone walling or heated exchanges ending in conflict.
Quentin adds “You might be able to resolve the situation by adding some extra information”, or recognise, accept & apologise for making a mistake”.
The goal Quentin states is to “create an ambience where both parties can be respectful of each other”. I really like Quentin’s idea of creating a space for respectful conversation even if we don’t agree with the other person. Sometimes it is our attachment to being right or being seen in a particular way, that gets in the way of really listening and staying open when in conversation.
In all other cases using appropriate action could also mean removing or defending yourself. Once you decide to apply your solution, do so with confidence.

Mental Aikido with our inner advisor/critic.

We can also practice Mental Aikido with our own self talk moving the energy from a critical monologue to an open dialogue.
We refer to the advisor as our ability to advise, predict, judge, compare, it is our self-talk and wired for survival and avoiding making mistakes. Thinking of it as a character creates distance to support us get less tangled up in the content of the mind.
Recall a conversation with your advisor. What are they saying to you? Or what kind of things have they said in the past.
My advisor often comments about my own performance e.g. level of organisation or focus or things that other people haven’t done.
Thank your advisor for their concern. You can accept and try to acknowledge their perspective, reflect to them that you have understood without agreeing with them.
Our common ground with the advisor is often safety and not making mistakes and their role in life is to keep you safe from harm, even if misguided or more critical than supportive.
Example: many thanks advisor for your feedback/ concerns. Yes, I agree it was not my finest moment, I felt disappointed, yet I learned a lot & aim to use that learning next time. What would you recommend I do differently?

Surprise your Advisor

Relate to the perspective of your advisor and speak to them as a friend instead of an enemy. I call my advisor Bob. They want to keep me safe and to not make mistakes. Sometimes this advice is good and other times it is misguided and could cause me to miss out on different experiences & learning.
Example: Bob, wow you are particularly good at spotting problems and things that I have not done so well.
You are like my very own 1970’s Olympic coach Thank you for always trying to make me better & keep me safe. You have been by my side watching and remember all the scary & painful moments.

We are creating opportunities to find new ways of thinking & responding flexibly and breaking out of habitual ways of thinking and acting. In Physical Aikido this may cause to knock our opponent off balance as they were not expecting that response.

Move your perspective into discovery
Let us keep our mind flexible and open to new possibilities, ask yourself the following questions.
What could I do differently that might help?
What is another perspective to looking at this situation? For example, what are different ways of looking a relationship breaking up, the rain, missing out on a work promotion, failing at something?
Instead of battling with negative energy, you can work with it and transform it into something new. Turn a critical thought into a rhyming couplet, a song, a piece of Art, or take it as a lesson to transform and improve what you are doing.

Conclusion
When starting Mental Aikido start small, gently, and gradually train with low- hanging fruit not your biggest Mental Grizzly bears or triggers.
Start with smaller everyday judgements, negative thoughts, assumptions, or opinions, accept & see a wider perspective. This all helps raise our level of awareness.

In moments beyond my Mental Aikido training, I usually take cover, stay safe & seek support. However, during most days there is an abundance of opportunities to train and do something surprising, take least action, blend, switch direction, flip our perspective and redirect energy towards a more harmonious outcome.

The post Mental Aikido appeared first on FITMINDS.

Perhaps Mental Health needs a rebrand? although crucial and something we all have, as a term it seems jaded.

Over the last years when asked to define mental health, I have noticed workshop participants often associate its meaning with being unwell, struggling and not thriving. Words and language are important, they have their history and context and change over time. So, could we replace it with something else, like fitness?

My working definition of Mental Fitness is psychological strength,flexibility & recovery.

Now I do not know about you, but I never learned how to think in school or university or got to know my mind in a helpful way. I studied to pass exams and learned by remembering information, I knew more about math’s than I did my own mind, or what made we tick, or why I thought the way I did.
My mind was a stranger and something I tried to suppress, ignore, and numb. Growing up I did not understand why I compared and judged myself and others harshly. My mind was like an interfering gossip which fuelled my own sense of doubt, lack of focus and criticism.

One of my mentors Michael Gervais said as humans we can train three things in life, our body, our craft, and our mind. However, breaking that down into practical steps has only become clearer in the last decade through advances in Neuroscience and research from Mindfulness and Acceptance-based training, despite the stoics writing about this centuries ago.

“You have power of your Mind, not outside events, realise this and you will find strength” Marcus Aurelius

To be holistic Mental Fitness needs to include both the mind and brain, particularly our Executive function system (within the frontal lobe), these are the brain skills of getting things done. All our brains are wired differently, and there is diversity in the thresholds & preferences for how people best process and retain information, emotionally regulate, solve problems and are able to do the things they need to do efficently and effectively.

Modern work places a lot of load on the Executive Functioning system yet in my experience very few managers even know of its existence and the role it plays in our daily life. Its symptoms can include under achieving, things taking longer than estimated and poor lifestyle balance. We will come back to Executive Functioning in later blogs.

Neuroplasticity research has highlighted that our brains are not fixed but continue to be shaped by our experiences, what we do and how we do it, and how we interpret these events. The mind fires, and the brain wires. Research now supports that wellbeing is a skill and what and how we practice and repeatedly do, grows stronger as it is activated within the brain.

In 1890 American Psychologist William James gave some helpful suggestions in terms of where to start and what to practice for our minds “the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very route of judgement, character and will. An education that will improve this faculty would be the education par excellence”.

Think about training your mind like sets & reps in the gym. A rep lasts 16 seconds. A set is 10 reps. The below exercises are for attention & re connecting to the present moment and physical world.

•    Feel your feet in contact with the ground. See if you can keep your attention just on your feet.
•    Notice your breath using your physical sense (feel it in the tummy, chest or nostrils/mouth) or hearing sense (listen to its sounds).
•    Notice and describe any sensations from your belly button to your throat.

William James felt the skill of bringing our attention back to the present moment was the indispensable skill that enabled people to take control of their lives and achieve their potential. A hundred years later research from Mindfulness and neuroscience support his theory.

Training our attention to flexibly return to the present moment is like press ups for our mind, it gets stronger, and we can build a base to self-regulate and focus our power in the present, whether in the classroom, football pitch or board room.

However, to be a meaningful term Mental Fitness needs more than just enduring hardship, grit or suppressing distress, fitness can be about being flexible, asking for help, feeling your feelings, being kind and finding a way to remain open in difficult moments.
In a world that is changing and uncertain, the key to thriving will be using these mental muscles like attention. We will be covering the other muscles in future articles.

The post Mental Fitness for modern times appeared first on FITMINDS.

The word hustle has evolved from a shady way to make money, a funky song from the ’70s and is now being embraced as an approach to living your best life. Its glossy makeover has become very much blended with work, standing out and taking action.

However, hustle culture has been increasingly critcised as selling a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable and promotes overworking. Have charismatic gurus rebranded overworking as sexy? The phrase ‘hustle harder’ appears in neon signs in co-working spaces and is celebrated widely on Instagram. Yet a worrying trend I’m seeing with some clients is around their level of busyness, driven nature who are constantly pushing themselves.
They consume podcasts for breakfast that echo a language that is big on expectation, self-improvement but short on self-compassion and acceptance. It taps into underlying anxiety of not being enough and the fear of not reaching our full potential.
One concern is what happens when your mental health starts to suffer and you can’t get your hustle on because you have no energy. You feel more guilty especially if you put on another video telling you to crush it, grind and stop being mediocre. Hustle needs heart and reflection to truly make it a force for good and not another way to market busyness and over-identification with work.

Can hustle be a force for good?

I spoke with Carlos Saba co-founder of the Happy Startup School. They run an online school and host off-grid gatherings for purpose-driven entrepreneurs and leaders that strive to balance money with meaning. We explored different aspects of hustle culture.
Carlos shares “I think it’s a double-edged sword, on a more productive side, ‘hustle’ is about making things happen, getting off your butt and finding out what’s going on. If you are starting a business, you gotta talk to people about what they need and understand what challenges they have”.
The negative connotations are when it’s a constant and lacking balance. “When you’re always hustling, without an end, for me, that’s a lack of focus and clarity. Eventually, you hit a break wall and it can become meaningless, draining and destructive, you are hustling too hard.”
Carlos and Laurence of the Happy Startup School

Why are you doing what you’re doing? 

One of the lessons I’ve learned from Carlos has been to be much more clear around my intention; who I want to work with and what their challenges and needs are. This takes time, a need to reflect, and empathy much more than constantly selling my ideas and services. However, planning & reflecting don’t get you clients so action is needed.
The hustle factor can include creative ways to test ideas that provide feedback and learning and reduce the risk of building products no one really wants.
Carlos advises on the importance of having clarity of your motivation & agenda: “The term hustle can be a culture and if your unconscious about the culture that you’re entering, you’re chasing another person’s measurement of success and using their language. This is where young people are misled, and driven to work really hard for something they don’t fully understand”.

Hustle with yourself

The spirit of hustle, at its best, is to create, improve, and change the way something is done. However, it needs balance and focus, and the intention needs to be guided by our own values.

A grey area can emerge without questioning and understanding the actions of ourselves or others which can take us down the path of burnout, deception or manipulation.
For me, it’s my mind that I hustle with the most, the sense of not feeling enough or ready or struggling with imposter syndrome. I was in a leadership workshop recently and many participants shared similar doubts. These are tricks of the mind to keep us comfortable and safe.
On the other hand, we also desire challenge, meaning and to be understood and in many ways that also makes us vulnerable to be hustled.

The post Hustle with Heart appeared first on FITMINDS.

Imagination and its role in innovation & wellbeing.

Aoife Raleigh a Circus Performer & Peter Connolly an Occupational Therapist walk into a board room with a box of tricks and no PowerPoint. Although none of the participants have been in a workshop like this before, 15 minutes later the atmosphere feels light, with laughter and a creative buzz in the air.

Both facilitators share over Twenty years’ experience in supporting people of all ages, use their imagination for creativity in work and for their wellbeing. Peter has developed well-being programs in mental health hospitals in Dublin & London.

Whilst Aoife’s background has been working in Community Circus and with Clowns Without Borders working with children and families in crisis, both in Ireland & internationally. Both areas of work use imagination & creativity as a route to process, learn and express ourselves, which is fundamental to mental wellbeing & resilience.

What is imagination?

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that forms new ideas, associations, and see’s new possibilities. It is an under-appreciated yet critical element of creativity and innovation. Several areas of the brain are involved such as the visual & auditory cortex, hippocampus and executive functioning system. Imagination has incredible power and impact over our lives as our minds are always making associations, filling in gaps and playing the what if game. The shadow side of imagination can be one of distraction or anxiety if not managed, yet how many of us have ever been taught to use this superpower to its full potential?

Learning to innovate

Aoife recalls her own early creative experiences” I have a vivid memory of being in primary school and deciding that I was not creative. We were painting swans and mine was an ugly duckling, I looked at it and decided that art and creativity was not my thing”. Our imagination is not related to how good at Art we are or how funny or wacky our ideas are. Imagination starts with being an observer and thinker of possibilities, gaps and new ways of doing something. You could apply Imagination to any Occupation in life without ever lifting a paintbrush.

It was not until Aoife left college that she realised how much imagination and creativity there is in problem solving. “I had a job to design and test plans to aid the development of hardware and software, I basically had to break the product that was in development, root out the bugs and replicate how I had caused the system to crash, I loved it. I realized that I was creative”.

Sadly, our educational systems do not fully celebrate creative thinking or imagination. So, we abandon our Art or dreams of being an astronaut in favor of logic, rote learning and fall into the trap of judging. Einstein said Logic will take you from A to B, whilst Imagination will take you everywhere.

Covid & the Spirit of reinvention.

In Charles Bukowski’s poem No leaders please, the poet challenges people to “reinvent yourself because you must” this may sound harsh and exhausting if taken literally however I wonder if it was to warn us of getting stuck in rigid ways of thinking and being in the world that sets us up for difficulty.

Never was a truer word spoken during Covid 19, for many businesses they had to change the way they were thinking and operating. Their physical environments were adapted, and their occupations often changed e.g. a coffee shop became a grocer, Gin distillery started making hand sanitiser, Therapy sessions were on Microsoft teams. Invention starts with imagination.

So, what does an imagination workshop look like?

Just like in an exercise class, there is a warmup to prepare & mobiles the right muscles, we use several games to quieten our inner editor and stretch & flex our mind muscles. We experience how our minds can come up with ideas & associations &use tools like Rory’s stories cubes and oblique strategies. It is important to be sensitive to diversity in how we process and come up with ideas differently, however structure, movement, time restrictions and visual cues really help. We also cover tips for running creative meetings or sprints.

A key skill & overlap between mental health and coming up with creative ideas is developing psychological flexibility, which involves holding our thoughts & judgements lightly whilst moving towards our values. Aoife views “the lesson of our imagination is not to censor yourself, allow the ideas to spring forward, if we judge ourselves for bad ideas then we put our filter up and we lose the good ideas as well”. To feel comfortable doing this at work, we need to create & feel psychologically safe, a culture of sharing & celebrating the early rough ideas as a bridge to the hidden treasure.

If innovation, agility & creative leadership is the vehicle to get our country started again, then imagination will be its engine. Leaders need to demonstrate and lead by example, individuals & companies that embrace imagination & psychological safety will see their ability to innovate and find a way through Covid 19 greatly improve.

If you would like to find out more about our Imagination for creativity & innovation workshops please get in touch with peter@lifestyleawareness.ie

Twenty five percent of the funds raised by these workshops will go to community projects.

The post Imagination workshops appeared first on FITMINDS.

Being psychologically flexible, the skill for uncertain times.

How do we best live in these uncertain times? There may be no simple answers but Victor Frankl a psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, taught us that between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Whenever I think about creating moments of space to respond when feeling under pressure, I think of sport. The greatest seem to be able to slow down time and gain perspective around setbacks to remain present in key moments.

However, in recent years it has also become clear that the sporting world, from national to international and amateur to professional level, has its own struggles and a journey towards greater mental wellbeing and healthier support systems may also be required. To master one’s sport, one also must master self, according to Michael Gervais coach of the Seahawks. The dilemma we face across society is how do we support or train the whole person to reach their potential and not just their physicality or technical abilities but their inner world, to be guardian of their minds?

The forced pause.

I reached out to Gary Keegan High performance consultant to explore his experience of lockdown and reflections  from sport and what may be helpful in living with and navigating Covid.

We shared similar experiences of the fragility of our face to face working, which was put on hold almost overnight, initial struggles to find a structure and routine, yet wanting to take this moment as an opportunity to reevaluate our priorities and be improved both personally and professionally coming out the other side.

Gary shared some early realisations“ I learned with some degree of disappointment that I was less present than I hoped I was, I’m good at serving others, I feel the responsibility, I love responsibility but I needed to stop taking responsibility for things I could not control”. “There was a need for a refresh button to be pressed, and I have used that”. The pause has created some space for positive changes, Gary adds “it allowed us the opportunity to look at what we were tolerating and allowed us to enhance our family and relationships. That was the biggest news story for me coming out of this, but you also need to protect that to sustain the gains”.

The research highlights that skills developed through Mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based approaches greatly improve our ability to cope with uncertainty as they target the two psychological processes at the core of human suffering. The first is cognitive fusion e.g. getting caught up or entangled in our thoughts and the second is experiential avoidance, which is the ongoing struggle to avoid, suppress or get rid of unwanted thoughts, feelings, memories. If our default strategy is to avoid, control or suppress then Covid makes life even tougher at the moment.

Through practice we learn to develop psychological flexibility, which means having awareness and acceptance of our inner experiences, whilst shifting our attention and actions towards what is important and within our control. This builds inner space and life skills off the pitch and enhances performance skills on it.

Sporting organizations such as the Seattle Seahawks, Chicago bulls and Southampton FC have embraced Mindfulness and Acceptance based approaches to cope better with the stress of high stakes and competitive world of sport. The mental aspect of being a sportsperson, high performer or coping well in uncertainty appears to share a lot of common ground.

Gary is very curious about the potential impact “Mindfulness or Meditation practice has a longer history than sport as we know it and the evidence to support its benefits is growing”.  However similar to our personal lives or in the workplace, we can tick a box or go deeper and integrate into our lives “There are very few big game changers that are going to appear on the scene, however the capacity of the mind to develop and gain greater control over a performance may be beyond measure”.

Vulnerability

We have seen across the world that this is a time of leadership, and to lead in to the unknown, we need to acknowledge our limits and vulnerability. This is an area Gary is deeply passionate about “I haven’t yet met a leader that hasn’t experienced vulnerability in their role, and yet many see it as a weakness and therefore ignore or hide it from their teams. The aspects and elements of vulnerability do not go away and there is a missed opportunity to learn”. We all have our Covid story to tell, which connects us through our shared humanity and vulnerability. By not sharing our lessons or struggles, Gary believes “we miss out and may become less than who we could be for not exploring it”. If a leader connects that we are all vulnerable, they can embrace it to promote change and growth within their teams. “leaders open these doors or keep them closed”.

From pain to purpose.

What positive change can come from the sacrifice, struggle, and loss of the last months? To bring something we have learned, enjoyed, or noticed into our future. As we all know sustaining change is challenging, Gary advises “I heard it described recently that real change happens in three stages, first there is transformation”. ” however people can make transformations and slip back to where they were”  For me when I am emotionally connected to why I am pursuing the change often helps keep me on track. The next stage Gary explains is “ transmutation, something is happening within our biology and our brain that is starving the old habits and starting to enrich and feed new habits” During this stage I often notice a resistance between new and old habits and there can be some anxiety or discomfort, however if we look around us, we see that transmutation happens in nature, ideas and people, something changes forms and grows. The last stage is transcendence, you have stuck at it, grown through the difficulty and become the change you sought in yourself.

I found it inspiring to consider this process of change on a micro and macro level, to hold on to hope that some longer-term positives for society will materialise. It will not be easy and plenty of challenging times still lie ahead. However, every day we can build our own inner space to focus on what we can control and choose actions that move us towards the future that we want to be part of, whatever stimulus we choose to respond to. Time never waits for us, COVID has created space, commit to it, use it to reflect upon what you value most and use this time to translate your learning into personal growth for yourself and your relationships.

Connect with Gary Keegan (CEO) www.uppercut.ie

Connect with Peter Connolly (Occupational Therapist) www.fitminds.ie

The post Flexibility the skill for life appeared first on FITMINDS.

We are all struggling to juggling.

However within the chaos there is always a space, however brief.

Look for the tiny spaces.

To breathe

Pause.

Feel your feet to ground in a wobbly moment.

Pause.

Steady yourself.

Tune into your 5 senses.

Breathe again.

Let out a sigh.

Switch from Art teacher to zoom meeting to explaining about dinosaurs.

Look for the tiny spaces to transition, breathe & recover some space.

The post We are all struggling to juggle appeared first on FITMINDS.

The Mind Room, your own inner retreat or holiday.

Imagine being able to go on retreat for a few minutes every day, a place of sanctuary and nourishment that cost you nothing but minutes. You always had full access to the retreat and did not have to book or go on a waiting list.

This is a room that is built for you by you, in your own imagination. You design and furnish it as you like using your 5 senses. Your imagination is the architect, carpenter and builder, soft furnishings consultant, lighting director, even DJ.

You can write, draw or imagine with your eyes closed, whatever works for you today.

A reminder from the Stoics.

“Men seek retreats for themselves: houses int the country, seashores and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than in his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself”

Marcus Aurelius.

Mind Room

The Mind Room exists within you and works as a mental and emotional decompression chamber. It dissolves the tension, worry, pressures, stresses, and strain, refreshes you and enables you to return to your life better prepared to cope with more space between the stimulus and response.

“In order, for you to get to that next level. The one thing you need to do. To go where you’ve never gone before. Is to change the way you think”

Practical exercise

A ten-minute nourishment of the imagination.

Close your eyes, feel the contact with the body and whatever is supporting it, notice any unnecessary tension and as best you can soften and let go.

Take ten in breaths and out breaths.

Starting to picture or think about choose to go upstairs or downstairs that take you towards a room.

Walk into the room.

Notice the feeling of relaxation and ease as you walk into it and leave the activity of the day behind you.

Furnish this room with whatever is most restful and refreshing to you, perhaps you like beautiful landscapes, if you like paintings, your favorite flowers.

The colors of the wall are your own pleasant colors, perhaps a blue, light green, yellow or gold. The room is plainly and simply furnished, there are no distracting elements. It is truly clear, calm and everything is in order. Simplicity, quietness, beauty are its key features. It contains your favorite chair.

Take as much care in building this room in your imagination as you would building an actual room. Be thoroughly familiar with every detail.

Our imagination is like a dormant superpower that we have access to but it may feel it takes time to fully connect with. However, some people may struggle with imagery and feel like giving up, so here is an alternative think of it like a couch to 5 km for your imagination.

Alternatives

If you cannot see it in your mind and thinking about it does not help, you can draw it or paint first or write about it. Then open and close your eyes and picture it again and build up your vision in your imagination.

The post Cultivating a Mind Room appeared first on FITMINDS.

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that forms new ideas, associations, and see’s possibilities. It is an under-appreciated yet critical element of creativity and innovation. Many writers and psychologists have championed its superpowers over the last century from Napoleon hill to Albert Einstein. It is the beating heart of invention, change and building a life of meaning and purpose, yet how many of us have ever been taught to use this superpower to its full potential?

Our brains.
Several areas of the brain are involved in Imagination such as the visual & auditory cortex, hippocampus, and executive functioning system. Imagination has incredible influence over our lives as our minds are constantly making associations, filling in gaps and playing the what if game. In terms of uncertainty the shadow side of imagination can be one of anxiety if not managed. Our negative bias can cloud how we first see an event; however, the other side of this lens is what if things go well or what possibility I am yet to see.
Learning to innovate
Sadly, our educational systems do not fully celebrate creative thinking or imagination. Creative guru Ken Robinson who just recently died had called on school systems to foster different ways of learning to inspire students to access their creativity. His Ted Talks are inspiring.

As a result, many of us label ourselves as lacking imagination and feel more logical or analytical in nature. Aoife recalls her own early creative experiences “I have a vivid memory of being in primary school and deciding that I was not creative. We were painting swans and mine was an ugly duckling, I looked at it and decided that art and creativity was not my thing”. So, we abandon our Art or dreams of being an astronaut in favor of logic, reason, and rote learning. Einstein said Logic will take you from A to B, whilst Imagination will take you everywhere.

Our imagination is not related to how good at Art we are or how funny or wacky our ideas are. Imagination starts with being an observer and thinker of possibilities, gaps before our eyes and new ways of doing something. If we allow space in our day to process our experiences, we will begin to see the mind naturally starts to create and see connections. You could apply Imagination to any Occupation in life without ever lifting a paintbrush, it is seeing and thinking of new possibilities which are key ingredients of innovation and agility.

It was not until Aoife left college that she realised how much imagination and creativity there is in problem solving. “I had a job to design and test plans to aid the development of hardware and software, I basically had to break the product that was in development, root out the bugs and replicate how I had caused the system to crash, I loved it. I realized that I was creative”.
I think of imagination as an inner muscle that can be trained, and with practice will grow stronger. There are cognitive and improvisation games we can play to warm up these muscles just like going to the gym for your mind. Poet Laureate Jason Reynolds facilitates fun & supportive brain yoga sessions live on Instagram for young people as examples of what is possible.

Covid & the Spirit of reinvention.
Before podcasts and the self hep industry, we sought our solace and understanding of the human condition within the Arts & literature. Reading fiction encourages us to fill in the gaps, make interpretations and picture a world beyond our own. I returned to poetry of Mary Oliver and John O Donohue during Lockdown and found it so nourishing for my imagination. In Charles Bukowski’s poem No leaders please, the poet challenges people to “reinvent yourself because you must” this may sound harsh and exhausting if taken literally, however I wonder if it was to warn us of getting stuck in rigid ways of thinking and being in the world that sets us up for difficulty.
Covid has taught us that we can change & find new ways of doing things, particularly when we have no choice. Necessity is the mother of all invention after all, many businesses had to change the way they were thinking and operating to survive. Their physical environments were transformed, occupations adapted e.g. a coffee shop became a grocer, Gin distillery started making hand sanitiser, Therapy sessions were delivered on Microsoft teams. This ability to reinvent starts with imagination.

Psychological flexibility
A key skill & overlap between mental health and coming up with creative ideas is developing psychological flexibility, which involves holding our thoughts & judgements lightly whilst moving towards our values. Aoife views “the lesson of our imagination is not to censor yourself, allow the ideas to spring forward, if we judge ourselves for bad ideas then we put our filter up and we lose the good ideas as well”. To feel comfortable doing this at work, we need to create & feel psychologically safe, a culture of trust and sharing & celebrating the early rough ideas is required to build a bridge to the hidden treasure.
If innovation, agility & creative leadership is the vehicle to get our country started again, then imagination will be its engine. Leaders need to demonstrate and lead by example, individuals & companies that embrace imagination & psychological safety will see their ability to innovate and find a way through Covid 19 greatly improve.

Aoife is a circus skills teacher &performer. To connect circussoitis@gmail.com

The post Imagination for wellbeing & innovation appeared first on FITMINDS.

What if curiosity never really killed the cat? And, instead, it is a superpower that can transform the quality of our lives, relationships and resilience to stress?

I shared some tea with Maureen Levy, an integrative counselling psychotherapist with a strong background in creativity having studied Fine Art and taught improvisation, to discuss its benefits.

The benefits of a curious mind
Being curious is how we discover new things, adapt in uncertain times and remain open to alternative points of view. In her client work, Maureen encounters the challenges people often face. She says: “Life happens to people, that’s an inevitability. You could be living your best life and you could be dealt a complete blow which can throw you off track.

“One of the most helpful things I’ve come to learn is, if you can be more flexible in your thinking and learn to roll with the waves, your life is a lot easier than if you’re a very rigid black and white thinker. What can often help us roll with the waves is allowing more curiosity to be more present and functioning and play with ideas more”.

The ‘what if’ game?
Curiosity supports us to soften that inner voice or narrative of how we should be living and what we should be doing. Our mind likes to play the ‘what if’ game a lot, however, its default is to only play its negative side, which fuels worry.

Maureen has found “lots of people are afraid of appearing silly, being judged or seen in a certain way”, and being accepted within our social groups is one of our biggest concerns.

However, we can also bring a sense of curiosity to the positive aspects of the ‘what if’ game. What if I try this and I learn something? What if it’s a funny story? What if something amazing happens? Maureen encourages people in her workshops to “allow your mind to go on an adventure, you start to develop a muscle that opens the drop-down menu, not of all the bad things that could happen but of all the curious or interesting things that could happen”.

The antidote to a too-quiet life
As we age our relationships with occupations change, as we are shaped by environments with rules, grades and expectations, so we blend in and close off an aspect of our creative self. Making art, using your imagination and playing games is reserved for children. Any dreams of being an astronaut are silly, so work hard, conform and become your career or status instead.

Maureen feels we need to reconnect to this part of ourselves. “I always think as adults, we are just large children in big grown-up suits. We forget that part of our inner child. We have to get in touch with this part of ourselves. It can be lifesaving to learn how to play and if you didn’t have that experience as a child, or it can be really liberating to do so as an adult”.

One of the underpinning tenets of Occupational Therapy is the importance of finding balance in our lives, between work, rest and play. This sustains our wellbeing, roles, and functioning. However, this balance isn’t just about time in our week, it’s having a different attitude, approach and experience in the different occupations we do.

As adults, we need to counter the trap of ‘how I do one thing is how I do everything’. Curiosity is the starting point in reconnecting to our creative and playful self and bring that approach into the occupations that we do.

Starting to be curious.
Time to get curious? Try new things, Maureen suggests. “That could be joining an improv class. I highly recommend it, not to perform but to discover who you are and push your own boundaries a bit”. If that’s too scary, start by varying aspects of your routine, experiment with different activities, even create a curiosity bucket list.

What did you enjoy growing up, can you reconnect with it? Visit new and familiar places, sit there and observe, what do you notice? You can be curious anywhere, park your screens of seduction and bring a beginner’s mind to what’s around you.

Curiosity at its best is empathetic, not knowing, awakening and seeking to understand. Yes, it makes for more hiccups, awkward conversations but also adds more flexibility, serendipitous moments and beauty to our lives.

The post Your Inner Child appeared first on FITMINDS.