AT THE OFFICE

When I say ‘at the office’, I really mean wherever you spend your day – at a desk, behind a counter, in a class room or on a ward. Wherever and however you make a living, there are plenty of ways to create great opportunities for yourself by being open to new ways of working.

One way to start is by taking a close look at your thoughts and your working habits. This will help you to spot areas ripe for innovation. Try to also open your arms to new ways of thinking and new people. Perhaps there is someone you know who goes about life in a different way to you – what can you learn from them by simply listening to them or watching the way that they work?

TIP: Read the poem ‘The Vintage Man’ by Hafiz.

Create an Inspired Workspace

(5 minutes)

For a Day at Your Desk

You’ll need:

• A tea pot with herbal teas aplenty. Try fresh chocolate mint for focus and chamomile flowers for calm.
• A note book for ideas so you can stay on task while retaining your wonderful ideas.
• A small poetry anthology to dip into for a new perspective.
• A beautiful indoor plant to accompany you at your desk. Lemon balm has a great scent and works well in full shade or sunlight.
• A healthy lunchbox.
• Cosy socks you can pop on for those moments when you want to meditate at your desk. Having special socks for the occasion can help bring that ‘at home’ feeling to the office.
• A natural room fragrance to help your workspace smell like an aromatherapy haven.

TIP: As you spritz your room fragrance around your desk, and perhaps beyond, set the intention that you have for the day. For example, it might be: ‘Today, I’m creating a space for creativity, focus and collaboration.’

For A Day Working On the Go

You’ll need:

• To be organised. Arrange your day bag, making sure you have all the things you need, while clearing out unnecessary clutter and papers.
• A small bottle of essential oil. Try lavender for relaxation and eucalyptus for energy and focus.
• A note book for the inspiration you’ll find on your travels.
• A healthy packed lunch and a small container with green juice powder in it, ready to dilute with water and drink for a healthy, energising pick-me-up.
• Headphones for listening to guided meditations or playlist music.

Meditation: Finding a Solution

(A few moments)

Sometimes when we need a solution we can try as we might to use our rational mind to solve the problem, but with no luck. Then perhaps we are out shopping one afternoon, minding our own business, and – bam! – the solution appears in an instant. Which is how a lot of understanding occurs. Do plenty of shopping!

Only joking … Just let yourself be in the moment and see what arises. Or try a completely fresh approach, and a different activity, such as painting or dancing.

Listen to what comes into you in unguarded moments and then if necessary acquire the skills to bring those insights into fruition. The more you fulfil these impersonal wishes the better you will get at bringing them into fruition and the more readily they will appear. The cup of creativity is one that magically refills itself and never runs out.

The ‘Gap’ Meditation Set

The ‘Gap’ is what I like to refer to as the crack in the wall where the light can get in.

Leave lots of little empty spaces in your work. Space abhors a vacuum and wonderful things will emerge out of that wide, spacious gap. For example, when you are preparing a work presentation you make sure you learn all the facts and figures, and perhaps even practise beforehand; however, leaving a Gap means leaving room within the delivery of the presentation for spontaneity and for sudden inspiration to appear and keep your work fresh and of the moment.

The Gap Meditation

(5 minutes)

Keeping what we’ve learned about the Gap in mind, let’s try a little something together. It takes just five minutes and it’s perfect for those moments where we might find ourselves feeling confused, or at a loss for what to do next …

• There is usually a brief gap between one task coming to completion and a new task starting up. See if you can spot this tiny pause and stay with it for a moment.
• Close your eyes and spend a moment exploring what it is like to be in this state of needlessness.
• Where do you feel this phenomenon in your body?
• When a new motivation or need arises, you’ll become aware of the next task you wish to complete. Notice where this begins in the body. Does this new impetus have an accompanying sensation?
• Take a moment to consider the moment and marshal your troops. Then take informed action, embarking on the next task – whatever that may be for you.

Nothing is Missing

Practising the Gap meditation can remind us of how much we stand to gain from those moments of stillness: we can use them to replenish our energy, inspire our creativity and provide ourselves with a great platform from which to pick the best course of action to take next.

By noticing this pause, or Gap, you will become familiar with recognising what it feels like to just be, without any momentum.

The task that has just been completed has addressed the old need, and a new need has yet to appear in your mind to demand your attention. In those few blissful moments, you are content and nothing is missing. Ah … heaven!

Things that Make Gaps More Likely

• Regular meditation.
• Making flexible plans and being spontaneous.
• Practising stream-of-consciousness writing.
• Exploring the arts of spoken word poetry, improv theatre and street art. Anything that makes you more familiar with the spirit of spontaneity.

Make Things with Love

It’s really wonderful to see how pausing to be present can make such a big difference to your subsequent actions. Fully attentive, you’re now in a great place to make things from this place of calm.

Things carry the vibe of their maker. That includes kisses, emails, hot dinners, websites and dresses.

Do things with love and enjoy the process. Do your best and do it for its own sake. Then, if your project isn’t as well received as you’d have liked, you can still say that you enjoyed making it.

Have Confidence in Your Work

The fear surrounding creative works often comes from taking personal ownership of the things that are created. Making it all about you …

If you want to be the best dancer, the best joiner, the best public speaker or fashion PR guru, then remove yourself from the equation and give all your love and attention to delivering the best work possible for the benefit of the whole.

Meditation: Elevenses

(10 minutes)

1. Make a mid-morning cup of fresh herbal tea and nip outside. Take a poetry anthology or your journal with you.
2. Take an Easy Seat and follow your Easy Breath for a few minutes. Try breathing through your nose for this activity.
3. Divide your next out-breath into four sections so that it comes out as four little pumps.
4. Do the same with the next in-breath, splitting the inhale into four equal sections like gasps.
5. Take this breathing pattern for six breaths so long as it feels good and comfortable.
6. It can sometimes help you to focus if you pop a hand over your stomach as you do this.
7. Let your breathing return to a very natural and normal pace.
8. Pick a poem at random from your anthology or journal to savour. You’ll come back to your desk inspired with a refreshed perspective.

TIP: Read ‘The Door’, a beautiful poem by Miroslav Holub.

Meeting Remarkable People

Roles are useful because they shape the boundaries for our interactions with others – but they aren’t the be-all and end-all. Becoming aware of our tacit assumptions around roles and hierarchies at work can help liberate us from any old patterns that shape our feelings and relationships with others.

Quite often we interface with our mental concepts of each other, rather than with the real deal. It’s not surprising that so many miscommunications arise.

You could imagine that our mental concepts form a kind of plastic ball around us. The plastic ball in this analogy reminds me of the 90s TV show The Gladiators. In the show, competitors had to navigate an obstacle course while rolling around inside their giant plastic gladiator ball. There would never be any actual contact between two gladiators, because as soon as they were close enough to one another their balls would collide.

Meditation: The Gladiator

(5 minutes)

• Approach your co-worker at the water cooler.
• Notice the mental labels you have dressed that person up in: rich, skinny, healthy, French, rude, clever, etc.
• Some of those layers of perception may be contributing to your feelings of fear, enjoyment or discomfort in your co-worker’s company.
• Peel away these ideas one by one until you see your co-worker purely and simply as he or she appears now. (For further guidance on this, use my Undressed Banana Meditation in Part Three.)

Your co-worker is just another person like you and perhaps you have more in common than you first thought. Now you’ve seen behind the curtain, so to speak. You know who your colleague really is and you can relax and enjoy a natural interaction with them without fear or intimidation.

Conflict Resolution

‘There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.’

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), ‘A Misfortune’

We may all have done things that were a bit rude. Been late for meetings, upset our colleagues and broken the trust of people we care about.

We’re likely to attribute our own faux pas to the circumstances surrounding our misdeeds. Whereas, with other people, we are more likely to make assumptions and attribute it to a deadly flaw in their character: ‘Look at him driving so fast, the lunatic!’

A cornerstone of the mindful pathway is non-judgement. We tend to be less judgemental when we understand the circumstances that surround someone’s behaviour. Now, that isn’t to say that we aren’t discerning or that we condone unthoughtful behaviour, but it helps to appreciate that people don’t do things in a vacuum. Their choices are influenced by a whole culture, including society, the cosmos, their lineage, what they had for breakfast and what was on TV that morning.

What’s more, with every puddle we ourselves step into, we are likely to become less and less judgemental of those who have done the same. We become gentler with ourselves and gentler with the world.

Reaching a Resolution: Go For the Third Way

(5 to 10 minutes)

One way of navigating conflict at work is to put aside, just for a moment, any ideas we may have about who is right and who is wrong. With these to one side, we can work towards developing a nonbiased understanding of the situation.

• Start by examining your own viewpoint and the case you are putting forward.
• Then, in any way that seems appropriate, put yourself in the other person’s shoes, as though you were going to defend their side of the story. Arguing the other person’s side can take a bit of getting used to, especially if you are quite fixed in your own position. But do persevere, it’s well worth it!
• Next consider the impersonal third-person perspective. I like to think of that perspective as a really wise old grandparent who sees all sides of the story as though from above, who understands fully, doesn’t take sides and who offers objective, loving guidance to all involved. This grandparent doesn’t have a personal agenda so it’s easier for them to see the situation as a whole and how it might be resolved in a way that is in line with the greater good – as opposed to the personal good i.e.: what I want to have happened.
• Try to see the bigger picture of what has taken place and imagine how that wise grandparent might advise you.

After seeing things from all three perspectives, you might still fail to agree on things, but, in prioritising understanding over proving who is right or wrong, you could gain a fresh and balanced appreciation of the situation, which hopefully means it won’t happen again.

TIP: There may even be another perspective from which to view the situation … can you think of one?

Meditation and Mindful Movements: The Chess Board

(5 minutes)

Try this movement sequence to cultivate a sense of energy, confidence and presence. Start by standing up straight, with your arms by your sides, your eyes open and relaxed.

1. Tense the feet, and then tense the legs, the thighs, buttocks, and tense the stomach and shoulders, the neck and head. Now release the head, the neck, the shoulders, the chest, and work right down through the body, through the hips, the buttocks, the thighs, the shins and the feet; letting go of all and any tension.
2. On your next exhale, bring your hands up to your chest area and then take your arms straight out in front of you, palms uppermost as if you are making an offering or giving something away. Then sweep them out to the sides and back up to your heart again. (This looks a little like doing the breaststroke while swimming.) As you breathe out, give away the weight of the day; on each exhale, give it back to life to be washed, cleansed and otherwise carried away. After three or four outward motions, let your arms come to your sides and rest for a moment. How does it feel, now you are free of that weight?
3. Perform the opposite motion with your arms, over the course of the next four in-breaths. Take the arms out to the sides at right angles to your body and sweep them out in front of you, before bringing them inwards towards you. It’s almost as though you’re welcoming someone in for a hug. As you inhale, imagine that you are taking in all the nourishment, ideas, and inspiration around you. After three or four inward motions let your arms come to your sides. Feel yourself charged, tall and standing and strong.
4. With your feet hip-width apart, take a little jump to the right, making a firm stomp as you plant your feet on the ground. As you plant them, affirm, ‘I am here, and I’m ready.’ Now jump back to where you were, and from here affirm, ‘Now I’m here, and I’m ready.’ Then you might choose to jump forward or backward, left or right, like the Queen on a chess board. Take your time with each move you make, and feel yourself as being grounded and Ready from any position.

TIP: Remember to go steady and gentle, always breathing at your own pace. If you prefer, you can sit in a comfortable, high-backed chair for this sequence.