The Quiet Transformative Power of Mindfulness Coaching

Mindfulness, according to Jon Kabat Zinn, who popularized Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction in North America, is “knowing what you are doing when you are doing it,” a state of active awareness.  Reflection, before, during and after action, is a mindfulness practice that helps the practitioner develop self-awareness, making it a valuable resource for coaching. The Mindfulness Cycle provides us with a framework that gives coaches and their coaching clients feedback on multiple levels of being, enabling insight, creating awareness that leads to direct knowledge and facilitates the development of informed intention.

Balancing Personal Energy Inputs and Outputs

The journey towards empowerment and balance is a process of transformation that begins when we learn to balance our personal energy inputs and outputs, releasing stress (by products of living) and creating an inner space or sanctuary for reflection and visualization, where we can renew ourselves by reconnecting to our values, acknowledging what’s working, reaffirming our purpose and generating a new intention. Reflective practice is at the heart of a process of continuous improvement and self-authentication.

Resistance brings tension, fear, self-hatred and conflict while love is the energy of acceptance and allowing. Tension shrinks us, makes us feel small while love and acceptance makes us feel open and expansive. There’s no simpler indicator to help us make choices that empower. The greater our love, acceptance and compassion, the more energy we have to respond creatively to the situation, at hand.  Mindfulness in action, when effectively embodied, harmonizes attitude, intention and attention within the context of the situation, to help us realize and navigate the situation, to the best of our abilities.

Seven Attitudes of Mindfulness

1. Observing, without Judgment or Commentary
   • When judgment dominates our minds, it hampers our ability to perceive clearly, creates tension and inner conflict. Managing stress effectively requires that we become aware of prejudices and fears. 
2. Attending / Accepting
   • To attend to something is to be open, caring, alert and awake to each moment.  Accepting what is, in its fullness, recognizing that things unfold in their own time. 
3. Openness
   • When we open our mind and explore how our perceptions are affected by our beliefs and values, we bear witness to ourselves and our experience. 
4. Trust
   • Trusting in our own insight and experience develops acceptance and self-knowledge. Our ability to trust others is a direct reflection of our ability to trust ourselves.
5. Unattached to outcome
   • We can clarify our intention, know the results we want and focus on the process, knowing the outcome is beyond our control. We can effect the results by how we manage our effort, allowing the process to unfold organically, attending to it one step at a time.
6. Practice non-attachment.
   • Releasing thoughts, beliefs and things that no longer serve you, we create breathing space – room for what we need and want in this moment.
7. Cultivate Presence
   • Staying centered and responding, with loving kindness, to whatever presents in the moment gives us a sense of autonomy and empowerment. The present is our one and only moment of choice. Thinking about the past or day dreaming about the future takes our attention and energy away from the present.

Acting from these seven attitudes of mindfulness is to embody them. Embodying them gives rise to a new level of thinking and perceiving that leads to a deepening sense of being, fostering the inner conditions for self-acceptance and the realization that fulfillment and success, are a natural outcome of purposeful daily living.

As a coach, I introduce these mindfulness concepts to my clients at the outset of a coaching journey. The mindfulness cycle offers a simple model to help us share a common framework and stay alert and present to our experience. The rewards of doing so are exponential. Learn more about our 12 Steps to Becoming an Authentic, Mindful Leader.

This article was first published in the April 2013 edition of Worldwide Coaching Magazine