COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mindfulness is a word people speak of more often as we enter year two of a global pandemic and COVID-19. By definition, mindfulness is the “state or quality of being mindful or aware of something.”
So how do you do it?
Wake Up CBUS spoke with experts from Modern Elder Academy, a world-renowned mindfulness school based in Baja, Mexico. It’s the first midlife wisdom school dedicated to transforming aging. Thousands of people around the world have learned life skills by attending workshops in Baja and online.
All this week on 10TV, join the Wake Up CBUS team as they learn different ways to reach mindfulness and the steps you can take to find your purpose. Watch our Facebook Live at 8:30 a.m. Monday through Friday with Kari Henley, Director of MEA Online and Founder of Community Without Borders.
Listed below are all the mindfulness topics you can learn about this week on Wake Up CBUS:
Monday: Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
You’ve heard the saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” That’s what experts call a “fixed mindset.”
“Sometimes as we get older, we feel so comfortable with certain things, we feel more nervous to try something new,” Henley said.
“When we were little kids, no one ever worried about walking, even though we fell a bunch of times there is this idea that when we were young, we had a growth mindset that everything new was exciting,” she explained.
Henley said the key to shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is learning to let go. Watch the clip from MEA founder Chip Conley who is also the Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership for Airbnb.
Tuesday: Mindfulness and Breath
There is power in how you breathe. A technique that goes beyond how breathing in and out of your nose.
“Focus on the breath,” Henley said.“It is incredibly calming to your nervous system to actually just bring your awareness to your body, and to think of your body as this grounding force."
Henley said learning the proper breathing technique can have a huge shift in how you feel.
To practice a breathing technique with Teddi Dean, Chief Mindfulness Officer CMO for Modern Elder Academy, you can go to his Facebook page.
Wednesday: Managing transitions
Do you ever feel “stuck” in your life? Maybe it’s your job or a personal relationship that has you asking yourself “what am I doing?”
It’s what the Modern Elder Academy calls “the messy middle.” Transitioning out of this phase is not easy nor does it happen overnight.
“Usually, a transition begins when something ends,” Henley said. “Transitions can go in these endings, messy middles, new beginnings, all different times in your life. And you may have had a lot of other transitions happening on top of this big one. So just being aware of them and having language we like to call it a road map.”
Jeff Hamaoui is the Chief Education and Innovation Officer for MEA and one of its co-founders. He joined the team after attending a test phase of MEA and subsequently quit his San Francisco Bay-area job.
Thursday: Searching for Awe
The emotion of awe. Is that such a thing?
“It's considered one of the highest and healthiest and most productive emotions that we can have,” Henley said. “It has huge physical benefits to experience awe.”
She explained how moments of awe can happen in the most unexpected of times such as when you hear a song that moves you to tears or when you find a connection with a stranger that inspires you.
“So, a simple little trick for this week is to take an awe walk, which is not when you're trying to get your kids on the bus and the dog is pulling on you and the neighbor talking to you,” she said. “Ideally, you could go take a short walk on your own, not talking on the phone to anybody, but you actually just go out and you look around your neighborhood or your favorite walk with new eyes.”
Friday: Why we gather
“As human beings, we are tribal creatures. We thrive when we are together,” Henley said on why humans are meant to be together in gatherings, even if it is happening through Zoom.
“It’s an important part of how we thrive,” she added “We have a term in Modern Elder Academy that I developed called Digital Intimacy, which means we can gather, even if we're not together, and have a rich experience."
Below is more from MEA founder Chip Conley on why we gather.