Mindfulness can awaken what is known as the witnessing or observing self, a facet of your consciousness that observes what you’re experiencing. There is the self who is immersed in the intensity of feeling an emotion and the experience you are having (such as a verbal argument), but there is also the mindful self that is noticing the event unfold and how your anger or frustration feels in your body. This mindful self can create a space between you and your emotions when you are feeling overwhelmed.

In my book Core Creativity:The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self I encourage readers to take their emotional pulse with a mindful pause at intervals throughout the day, in order to observe what they’re experiencing. Mindful pauses let you tune into what’s important and what’s not, making it easier for you to remember to let go of what is unimportant—or unwholesome. In Buddhism, we talk about wholesome, neutral, and unwholesome thoughts (“wholesome” means “supporting well-being”). If you’re not aware of your mind’s internal chatter, you might not realize how many of your thoughts are, at best, neutral and too often, damaging to your sense of well-being. Taking mindful pauses can help you become conscious of the quality of your thoughts, giving you the opportunity to consciously replace them with ones that are conducive to feeling equanimity, tranquility, and optimism.

You might even want to set aside a day to practice taking mindful pauses: Set a timer to go off every hour to remind you to tune into what you’re doing rather than letting your mind wander. Or, use sticky notes to post reminders to yourself to take a mindful pause: Affix them to spots in your home or office that you come into contact with often such as light switches, windows, and doors. Whenever you encounter them during your day, stop and take a mindful pause. Notice what’s happening, and ask yourself:

If the answer to the last question is “yes,” take a mindful breath and savor the experience. If not, ask yourself, “Where does my attention and awareness need to be refocused for me to feel that I am in a zone of calm and openness to creative flow?”

Mindfully redirecting your awareness provides you with the opportunity to reset your compass. Let’s say you’re in a conflict with someone. If your observing self is active, you might notice tightness in your muscles and a desire to forcefully voice your opinion even as the other person is talking. At the same time, your witnessing self is able to silently say, “I’m frustrated.” Then, you’ll find yourself thinking about what you want to do next. Being aware of your emotions and not trying to repress them allows you to tolerate them for a time before they shift—or before you consciously do something to change them.

For example, you might envision them taking form and then seeing this form grow smaller and smaller until your emotion feels manageable. Think of a sailboat sailing away from you toward the horizon, growing smaller and smaller, or a ball of anger or anxiety that begins to shrink until it is small enough for you to throw into the distance.

Because it activates the witnessing self, mindfulness practice can train your brain to alter any habitual resistance to feeling your emotions, making it easier for you to experience them and observe as they transform, naturally flowing and shifting like the currents of a river. And over time, being able to access your witnessing self when you’re upset develops your ability to be less emotionally reactive and have less intense reactions as well. That allows you to be more adventurous and creative, more open to experiences that might not be pleasant but could be valuable.

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The world is changing rapidly and people and workplaces need true innovation ideas. Trying to “figure out” what to do can waste valuable time because in an ordinary state of consciousness, you end up relying on outdated formulas and patterns. When we’re in this state, it’s as if our mind’s Wi-Fi signal is too weak for the really big ideas to load. That’s when we need the strongest creative force there is, which is what I call core creativity.

Core creativity is the creativity that comes from the very center of your being – the unconscious mind. You are accessing this deep, core creativity when the ideas are flowing and you feel as if they aren’t even coming from you but from a source that is infinitely abundant. When your mind opens the portal, core creativity can download like the ultimate software program for achieving ground-breaking creative ideas.

I’ve been coaching clients and executives, treating individual patients in my Los Angeles institute, and doing workshops and presentations to the public and organizations for decades. Recently, I was speaking about mindfulness and creativity to a hundred staffers at a tech company, and I asked, “How many of you are here because you want to become more creative?” Almost everyone raised his or her hand. Then I asked, “How many of you are here so you can learn to concentrate and focus your mind?” About half raised their hand. What good is focus and concentration if you don’t know where to aim it—if you have no creative vision?

We were been taught to think that creativity is only for the chosen few—“creative types” with “an artistic temperament.” Well-meaning adults in our lives taught us to shut down our imagination and get serious about our futures very early on so we could conform to systems that were created long ago. Now those systems are changing dramatically. We’ve got people microdosing, taking very small doses of hallucinogenics to jumpstart their creativity at work.

The Beatles and Steve Jobs both took LSD, but they stopped after recognizing there were safer, more accessible pathways to the deepest creativity and this portal is within. One of those pathways is core creativity, which reconnects you with your creative self and can lead to profound, radical transformation.

The three-part core-creativity process is like an Internet connection far superior to any that has yet been experienced. Core creativity allows you to progress far beyond surface-level tinkering that comes from the limited resources of the everyday mind. The three states of this process are Open Mind, Absorbing Mind, and Generating Mind, and to access core creativity, you progress from one zone to the next.

We first access core creativity through Open Mind. This is a state of consciousness that can be thought of as the room where core creativity appears, and ideas and insights are downloaded into your consciousness. However, the big, breakthrough “aha!” doesn’t necessarily come to you the first few times you go into open mind consciousness and download core creativity. It takes a little practice and patience, but then a sense of expansiveness and vitality arises.

After entering the state of Open Mind consciousness you then transition into Absorbing Mind – a mind state of receptivity in which images, words, and ideas come to you. To be in a state of absorbing mind the self needs to be receptive to all the phenomena they are aware of during the day as well as to look, study, and analyze their dreams. For example Paul McCartney was asleep when his unconscious mind received the melody for the hit song “Yesterday” from his Absorbing Mind. To understand the creative messages from the dream state write down the dream and then free associate by journaling the feeling, texture, and/or color of it that immediately comes to your mind.

Once you have absorbed the ideas you then transition into Generating Mind. Here you’re not just “playing around with ideas” but instead enter a flow state of generating ideas and insights that seem to be channeled directly from a consciousness much wiser and a source more creative than your own. When we enter into Generating Mind we can access states of core creativity and bring forth new and original concepts or ideas.

All three of these states can be accessed through a mindfulness practice—sitting meditation and other forms of meditation such as walking meditation in nature, mantra meditation, chanting, and tai chi. They can all lead to a download, and in pouring of core creativity. For more strategies read my article 6 Steps to Ignite Your Core Creativity.

This formula for creative innovation can be adapted by anyone—whether or not they consider themselves “the creative type.” I have seen single mothers of limited means use the core creativity process to reinvent their lives. As well I’ve seen my clients through the core creativity process breathe new life into old ideas, renew success, and even go far beyond the original benchmarks that they figured could never be recreated much less surpassed.

Excerpt from “Core Creativity: The Mindful Path to Unlock Your Creative Self” by Ronald A Alexander, PhD (copyright 2022)

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Slowing down your activities and becoming quiet, cultivating a state of listening, and gaining access to the interior sanctum of the soul’s creative self are part of most religious traditions. In Buddhist monasteries, monks go for weeks or even months without speaking. Jesus was said to have spent forty days in the desert praying and meditating. I’ve also known creative artists who spend several hours sitting in a room, surrounded by their painting supplies, staring at a canvas, as Jackson Pollock regularly did, remaining in silence and waiting for the flow of ideas. A world-class drummer once took me inside his music room, slowly moved his hand across the drum kit, and said, “Sometimes I sit here for hours in the silence and quietly wait for the drums to tell me what to write and play.” As he spoke, I realized his ability to patiently wait and remain in an open, listening state was a key element in his ability to create amazing music.

But in a world that operates at a faster pace each year, we feel pressured to stay on our toes, thinking and planning, running from one activity to the next. We’ve lost the ability to completely immerse ourselves in a process of wonder and discovery. As children, we lost track of time while playing. Now, many schedule their lives in fifteen-minute intervals. Disruptions and distractions are everywhere, from our “smartphones” hounding us with text messages throughout the day to our e-mail demanding that we sign the latest petition.

What’s more, a long retreat or vacation is unavailable to many, given the demands on their time. Yet the Buddha taught that it’s the act of slowing down, becoming quiet, and opening up that’s most important, not the amount of time spent on a meditation cushion. Ten to twenty minutes, twice a day, spent in quiet awareness, resting the anxious activity of the monkey mind, tones us creatively.

When you’re in crisis, your body’s immune system may weaken to the point where you become ill and are forced to slow down and be quiet. You become acutely aware of your physical discomfort. You sleep more, accessing the world of your dreams. Rather than wait until your body forces you to retreat, you can actively choose to be in charge of this process of becoming quiet. If you do, you’ll gradually open yourself to the possibility of fully experiencing your core creativity.

Your self-insight and psychological awareness give the experience of core creativity its context. Someone who has very little self-awareness and suddenly opens the doors of perception won’t necessarily be able to use that experience to inform his understanding of himself or his life. A slow approach toward the threshold, achieved by working to become creatively toned and using the rational mind to make sense of your experiences, prepares you to do more than merely marvel at the rush of awareness that comes as a result of accessing an open-mind state. As a result of your reverie and your conscious mind’s understanding that, indeed, you were responsible for turning on this creative flow and you can do it again, you’re forever transformed. You’ll never forget your ability to break through to the deepest state of creativity.

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Yoga in Sanskrit means union or to yoke. It is the balance between the (Ra) sun energy and the (Ma) moon energy or in Chinese medicine the yin and yang. The application of mindfulness meditation with yoga allows one to bring these energies into a deeper state of balance. It also enables one to access what I call a state of “Open Mind,” that gives us direct access into the core creativity of our inner subconscious. This state of Open Mind is the space that all innovative artists use to bring forth their new creative works.

Mindfulness meditation also enables us to experience a deeper level of wisdom or “Wise Mind.” Here our egoic self or small mind drops away and we open into a vast and infinite expansive state of luminosity. In this expansive state the small mind no longer ceases to exist. We evolve our practice into the Wise Mind and Big Heart. Below are four ways mindfulness meditation can enhance your yoga practice that I discuss in deeper detail in my book “Wise Mind. Open Mind”.

How Mindfulness Meditation Can Improve Your Yoga Practice:

• A mindfulness meditation sitting before asana practice will assist you to become more focused in your physical movements as well as your breathing.
• You will learn to move in and out of each posture by applying a focus of breath, attention to movement and focus with your eyes.
• When we practice mindfulness meditation we learn to become more attentive and concentrated both during our yoga practice as well as when we are going about our day. With each and every action and movement there follows an increased quality of awareness.
• After a yoga practice mindfulness sitting will not only assist you to deepen your concentration skills but also enable you to penetrate deeper levels of concentrated absorption. The first level of enhanced absorption is called a Jhanna state. The first Jhanna is wisdom or samadhi a state of heightened peace, bliss or joy.

Mindfulness and yoga practice are excellent upaya’s (meaning “methods” in Sanskrit) to help us to overcome in-balances in our moods whether they be anxiety, depression or painful afflictive mind states that work their way into the body to create symptoms of pain, stress and dis-ease. Together they enable us to navigate our way through the muddy and murky waters of the egoic mind’s daily moods, fears and anxieties and deliver us to the other shore of balance, joy and bliss.

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change” (New Harbinger Publications, 2009).

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Mark and Selena, a couple I treated a few years ago are a remarkable example of how they dealt with a devastating loss and transformed their lives. They came to me shortly after their two young children had been killed in a car crash when they were with their teenage babysitter who had somehow survived. Mark and Selena were overwhelmed with guilt, anger, and feelings of loss. They could barely function and couldn’t begin to imagine how they could go on without their children or why they would want to. I discussed various treatment options and we agreed upon a method outlined in my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind that combines a mindfulness practice with positive psychology and creative thinking to help one let go of the past, tune into the present and their core creativity and finally move forward with the future. While we were working with the tuning in stage, I was concerned that due to the depth of their sadness it could take several years before they would be ready to move out of their grief and begin to envision a new life.

I decided to meditate on their situation, and what came to me was the visual image of the subcontinent of India. “That’s curious,” I thought, but decided to sit with it and soon, as if a voice had spoken to me, I had an inner knowing that I needed to suggest to Mark and Selena, who had conveyed an openness to the idea of traveling, to take some time off from their jobs and travel to the city of Varanasi in India. Varanasi is known as a holy place where the dying go to prepare for death and where bodies are prepared for the traditional cremation and return to the sacred Ganges River.

My logical, rational mind said, “Ron, that’s crazy. Why would you send two grieving and suffering parents who have no spiritual connection to India, and who are Lutherans from the Midwest, to Varanasi, where they know no one and would see death and suffering all around them?”

I discussed it with several of my colleagues who agreed it was a terrible idea but every morning when I meditated and connected to my intuition it kept telling me the same thing. Finally, one of my old teachers and mentors, Ram Dass, told me, “I think you may be on to something. They need to immerse themselves in their grief instead of denying it. Where better to do that than India?” When I mentioned it to Mark and Selena they weren’t sure how they would benefit from a trip to Varanasi, but meditated on it and told me that taking the trip felt “right” to them.

In India, Mark and Selena connected with their grief as they observed the dead and dying, but at the same time, they started to feel a sense of connection to other people and to a world in which suffering is inevitable. While there they spent time working with a committed humanitarian in her facility for the poor. She did not try to explain to Mark and Selena how they might handle their loss but instead invited them to join her in her everyday work of attending to the sick and dying.

When they returned to the States, Mark and Selena told me they had finally begun to heal. The deep compassion that had been awakened in them had eased their grief, and they felt they’d transformed from suffering parents who had lost their children to people who reached out to other suffering parents. They said they no longer felt quite so alone.

Over the next few months, Mark and Selena continued their mindfulness meditation practice and began to move forward with their lives. Selena, who loved music returned to school to earn a master’s degree and began working with children as a music therapist. Mark went back to his work as an electrician, but he now approached it in a very different way. When he consulted with clients, he suggested bold changes they hadn’t considered and had more patience and compassion with them. In time, Mark and Selena adopted two special-needs children and had another child of their own. They continued to talk about their children who died and kept photographs of them in their home, but they were able to creatively transform their tragedy into a new life with meaning and purpose.

For those of us who are unable to take such radical steps here are six strategies from my book, Wise Mind, Open Mind to help you mindfully recover from a loss.

Six Mindful Strategies to Recover from Trauma, Loss & Change

• Reach out for Support: Don’t try to bear your trauma alone. Ask for assistance from your friends, spiritual leaders, support groups and professionals.
• Sit Quietly and Reflect: No matter the severity of your trauma, sit quietly and ask yourself, “Historically have I experienced other challenges in my life and how did I navigate through them?” Now use these past experiences to tap into your internal courage and strength and explore if you can implement the same strategies again.
• Trust Your Inner Resources: Once you realize that you survived other traumas before now trust in yourself to know that you have the ability to get through your present challenge.
• Learn to Keep Yourself Centered through the Unbearable Feelings of Grief: When the waves of sadness and helplessness wash over you initially feel the emotion and it’s depth but then start to breathe through the grief with slow deep breaths. This will help you stay grounded and bring you back to the present.
• Start Imagining a New Life: Even though you are experiencing immense grief start to imagine and invent in your mind’s eye a new future for yourself.
• Practice Mindfulness: While doing grounding practices such as meditation, yoga, or even walks in nature remember that your loss is cyclical like the seasons. Even when we are in the depths of winter, we know that eventually it will become more manageable with advent of summer. Learn to tolerate and pace yourself through the most severe times.

Many of us admire people like Al Gore, who found his road to the White House suddenly blocked and chose to focus on educating people about global warming, and Christopher Reeve, who left acting behind after becoming a quadriplegic and went on to become a film director and advocate for those suffering from spinal cord injuries because they were able to let go of the past and transform their lives. You too have the ability to tap into your inner courage, move forward with your life and even reinvent yourself.

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change”

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Meditation, prayer, or contemplation are effective methods to break the negative cycles of thought, feelings and sensations that when left unchecked leech the mind of the more healthy and positive neurons in your brain, whose job it is to bring balance, harmony and equanimity to your immune system. To break this reclusive loop, we first need to identify the negative, unwholesome patterns. We can then interrupt them through mindfulness meditation by flooding the brain with wholesome emotions and thoughts.

Recent advances in neuro science understand that meditation supports a healthy brain and balance mind. Twenty minutes once or twice a day can turn on the production of millions of healthy new neurons in the brain, including the region responsible for infusing your immune system with positive molecular cell configuration. Permeating your brain with wholesome neurons leads to changes in your mind as well as your physical and energetic (spiritual) bodies.

To help you regain your wholesome emotions here’s a short meditation from my book “Wise Mind, Open Mind.

Recapture Wholesome Emotions

Take a comfortable seat and begin to mindfully breathe. In your mind’s eye, return to a location where you had very positive experiences. It may be a place you associate with being comfortable, enthusiastic and eager, appreciated and loved, or successful. It could be a place from your past: the park where you ate your brown-bag lunch every day when you were beginning your career, or a library where you spent countless hours as a child lost in the world of ideas and books. Any place with positive associations for you will work in this exercise.

Allow yourself to experience the wholesome emotions and sensations that arise for you. Let your observing mind label them as you bask in these energizing feelings (for example, acceptance, harmony, enthusiasm, and contentment).

Feel a sense of belonging. Be mindful and fully present with all that’s around you. Don’t allow your thoughts to take you elsewhere. Remember how you used to feel when you were there, and experience those emotions right now, in the moment.

After luxuriating in these enriching emotions, note what you’ve just experienced. Then ask yourself:

• Which of these emotions can help me right now?
• In what way can these emotions serve me?
• What have I discovered about myself? Have I discovered a forgotten ability? (For instance, had you forgotten that you could feel a particular emotion?)

You may wish to write your answers in a mindfulness journal. You might also want to repeat this exercise several times, mindfully journeying to different locations.

Wholesome resolve and awe at the mystery provides a steadiness far more satisfying than the false security of pessimism and cynicism. To sit and look at the vastness of an ocean, the lushness of a mountainside covered with fir trees, or the swaths of stars in the night sky can help you to appreciate that you can never explain or explore every nook in the mystery of existence. Immersed in curiosity, you begin the art of creative transformation.

In short, if you want to energize your immune system “Worry Less / Meditate More.”

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change”

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Even the relatively new science of quantum physics has discovered that our thoughts and words have energy and motion so that everything we think and speak emanates from us in waves. This is one reason why wise speech is so important as our negative words can literally attack and drain someone on an energetic level. This also applies to our consciousness. It too has the ability to expand or contract on a personal and spiritual level. Many believe one of the reasons we are here upon this planet is to learn certain life lessons thereby expanding our consciousness.

An individual is not a body. An individual has a body. An individual just IS. There have been many names to describe this phenomena – the human soul, the spirit, consciousness, and the variety of other names attributed throughout the ages.

There are several pathways that help us enhance our awareness but one very effective way is through Mindfulness Meditation, which may seem paradoxical as it emphasizes sitting in stillness. But when you look at the effect that meditation has on the brain it too is subtlety in motion. Our brains have been referred to as a system of neuronal pathways exchanging information and energy flow. Mindfulness meditation creates new neuronal tracks in both the prefrontal cortex as well as the mid-insular regions of the brain. This means that as we learn to sit quietly and to meditate we engage billions of brain cells to fire, and when Neurons fire (learn new activities) they wire together. So you can if you meditate and desire change in effect teach an old dog new tricks. Thus the axiom Change Your Mind Change Your Brain gives new meaning to the activity called Mindfulness.

Through mindfulness meditation you can tune in and listen to the wisdom of your soul or unconscious, the state in which core creativity takes place, beyond the limitations of the mind’s thought processes. Whenever you reconnect to this core, authentic self through open mind, the temporary circumstances of life stop distracting you. You’re able to trust that the creative process will produce opportunities and possibilities in due time. Meditation is essentially the action of becoming what you already are. It is the action of remembering the total stillness, silence, and the energetic state that all beings truly are.

Mindful leadership at home and work incorporates meditation as daily practices to not only improve one’s spiritual capabilities but also to become more aware of the world in which we live. The more one meditates, the more one has access to the innate wisdom within. That wisdom, which springs from the silence of meditation, allows you to connect with the entity that is most definitely you.

As one goes through life and begins to identify with the world they perceive on a daily basis, it is incredibly easy to forget one’s essence. The world is fast, hard, and often times rough. But you are not the world. You are you. You are the perceiver of the world. So, believing that you are just too busy to take time to sit still, go inside and receive from within is also just a perception or an excuse.
Meditation and mindfulness are so essential at this critical time in the evolution of our species. The educators, parents, managers, captains of industry, and future leaders of the world not only need to meditate~ they must. Or where will the next great idea, vision, image or discovery emerge?

So right now, take five minutes from your busy schedule to close your eyes, focus on your breath by breathing in for a count of 3, hold your breath for 3 and breathe out for 3 letting all stress and distractions dissolve around you and enjoy this moment of relaxation and stillness. To be free means to risk the known and venture into the unknown domain of quiet and stillness the fertile void. As we expand our consciousness, we are open to dreaming big, we are aware of the dream we are weaving the tapestry for creative enfoldment.

In the words of Bob Dylan, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change” (New Harbinger Publications, 2009) plus a contribution from Brian Culkin B.A.

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A mindful leader leads from a position of mindful awareness, or what I call mindstrength, by knowing how to respond with awareness instead of reaction and how to make everyone on their team feel recognized, affirmed and valued.  Mindfulness provides you with clarity and calm in a crisis, protecting you from the temptation to panic and jump from one bad situation to another, or blame others for the crisis and avoid looking at your role in it; plus it gives you the power to change it. Mindful communication is an extraordinary tool for problem solving.  It allows you to tolerate the discomfort of confrontation with others and the embarrassment of discovering how you might have contributed to the problem. Mindfulness also allows you to find your creativity and resourcefulness, so that you can approach the situation differently and perhaps transform it. It helps you to easily tap into your core creativity to solve problems and achieve goals.

Most of us were taught that creativity comes from the thoughts and emotions of the mind. The greatest singers, dancers, painters, writers, and filmmakers recognize that the most original, and even transformative, ideas actually come from the core of our being. Core creativity emerges when we’re in a state of open-mind consciousness, which evolves from a state of consciousness called mindful inquiry.

It isn’t difficult to become a mindful leader if you are willing to make an effort to develop some type of mindfulness practice and be open to the process.  The ideal practice is to cultivate a mindfulness meditation that is done twenty minutes once or twice a day. But it’s better to start doing ten minutes once a day than aiming for the overall goal and then feeling overwhelmed by it and falling short.

Other ways to becoming a mindful leader is to develop your own type of meditation practice. Meditation allows us to listen and pay attention to what we might otherwise overlook—whether it’s a fresh idea or a new way of perceiving a situation—enhancing our creativity and letting go of our obstacles to innovation.  I encourage my clients to take a five to ten minute break in the middle of their day to mediate so they can clear their head and tap into their core creativity.  You can also access this creativity by exploring the arts, walking in nature and through mindful movement such as martial arts, tai chi and yoga.  Some of the most creative thinkers spent a great deal of unstructured time in nature in their formative years. It appears that many artists, philosophers, leaders, and thinkers throughout time have intuitively used mindful awareness to further their inner development.

As one learns to build their mindfulness practice, and applies the principal of developing a witnessing mind over time a more effective mindful leader.  A leader with strong mindstrength is one that can put into daily practice the principles of responsibility meaning the ability to respond with clarity and awareness and accountability, the capacity to take care of what needs to be done and to report to others with self Reflexivity.  With a little effort one can quickly learn to focus, harness and direct the unruly and untamed aspects of the mind and learn to direct them with clarity, order and positivity.

Excerpts from the Wise & Mindful Leader Presentation at Inside Edge Business Meeting

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP (Somatic Experiencing Practitioner) is a psychotherapist, leadership coach, and clinical trainer in the fields of Somatic Trauma Healing Therapies, Mindfulness Meditation, Transformational Leadership and Core Creativity. As the Executive Director of the OpenMind Training® Institute he draws upon his extensive, pioneering background in Holistic Health, Behavioral Medicine, Positive and Self Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Ericksonian Mind-Body Healing Therapies and Eastern Wisdom Traditions. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book Wise Mind, Open Mind that provides practical and innovative applications to help us through today’s challenging times plus two meditation CDs. Alexander has been conducting national & international workshops and professional clinical trainings that support strategies of personal, clinical and corporate excellence in the USA, Europe, Canada, Russia, Asia & Australia since 1972.

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To discover if you’ve mined true inner wisdom, use the following steps from my book Wise Mind, Open Mind for mindful exploration. Bring an attitude of curiosity and openness to each step. Remember, no one’s perfect, so don’t be ashamed of any unwholesome qualities that come forth as a result of making these inquiries.

1. Think about your current situation and note the quality of the emotions and thoughts you’re experiencing. If what you’re feeling doesn’t support a sense of well-being, what seems to be intuition may actually be a reaction to your hidden emotions.
2. As you think about the decision you’re making and your instincts, notice any feelings of urgency and anxiousness and any rigid, heavy, contracted sensations in your body. Ask yourself, “Where is this feeling or sensation coming from?” Be still and listen to the answer. Be open to what you may discover.
3. Ask yourself, “If I were acting out of disempowering feelings and thoughts, such as fear, jealousy, unworthiness, or vindictiveness, what would I say and do? Is that how I’m behaving now? And how would I react if someone confronted me about my behavior?
4. List three reasons why you might feel angry, scared, insecure, etc. Then ask yourself what you’re feeling right now.

If you discover that what you’re experiencing might be fool’s gold, but you’re not sure, you can explore it further by gathering evidence that it is or isn’t true. Let’s say that you think your partner’s angry with you, although she denies it. Ask her to explain why she behaved in a way that made you think she was angry (for example, she slammed a door or spoke in a sharp tone of voice). If she responds that you’ve interpreted her behavior incorrectly and she has a plausible excuse, be mindful of how you feel as she issues her denial. Do you feel confident that your intuition was wrong and you misinterpreted the situation, or do you still feel a sense of danger, threat, uneasiness, or discomfort? Trust this reaction, even if you can’t justify it rationally. You may not be able to gather any more information immediately, but you can make note of what you’ve felt and experienced, and use it to inform you in the future.

As you allow your hidden emotions to rise up into your awareness, know that any suffering they cause you will soon disappear and you’ll have cleared the way for your genuine intuition, the real gold of your inner wisdom, to reveal itself.

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Mindfulness is a process of linking awareness with attention in order to develop, expand, and enhance both. It results in more focused and heightened concentration: You observe your thoughts and feelings rather than become immersed in them. You become aware that you have two selves, the self that’s having the experience and the self that is witnessing it and is separate from it.
When we’re experiencing a challenging situation the more we engage in the egoic mind or false self, the harder it is to handle it. The ego must move out of the way if we’re to immerse ourselves in the creative transformation necessary to emerge from the crisis. In the state of open mind, the ego’s voice is but a whisper, drowned out by the call of our soul.

To prevent the false self from taking charge, spiritual teacher Ram Dass suggests the dramatic step of an advanced practice he calls “going into nobody training” (Dass 2007). “Becoming nobody” means letting go of your preconceived notions about your roles and practicing open mind, allowing yourself to discover what’s beyond those roles that the false self fiercely clings to, because even the most positive role can limit us and hold us back.

The more you cultivate meditation and enter into the state of open mind, the easier it is to stop running away from difficult feelings; to make the choice to break out of denial, stagnation, and suffering; and to act with mindful intention. To help you mindfully achieve a witnessing state, follow these tips from my book Wise Mind, Open Mind.

First, you allow this witnessing self to emerge in your consciousness. Then, instead of thinking about, analyzing, and building upon a sensation or feeling, such a sense of panic or sadness, you simply observe it as it arises. Then you catalog it as “not worthy of further exploration” or “something to contemplate later to see what I can learn from it,” and let it drift out of your awareness.

As you meditate and allow the witnessing mind to sort through what arises, you’ll find that most of what it generates has little significance. The more you experience this process, the easier it will be to avoid jumping onto your thoughts or feelings and riding them like a wild horse wherever they take you. Peacefulness and joy can arise in you as you let that wild horse ride off into the distance.

The dual awareness that arises when you allow the witnessing mind to come in fosters the courage to fully experience even the most painful emotions, beliefs, and memories, and tolerate any accompanying physical sensations. The witnessing mind knows that you’re separate from your circumstances, so you feel safer than if your awareness were completely absorbed in those thoughts and feelings. Remain present in your suffering until it passes, and it will.

The great opportunity in any crisis is that it can awaken you to your desire for meaning, for living more authentically, more vibrantly.

Adapted from Ronald Alexander’s book “Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change” (New Harbinger Publications, 2009).

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