MAX Mindfulness – Page 6

MAX Mindfulness: Our Thoughts Create Our Experience

By Dave Wine

Each of us has exactly the same number of hours in a day – no exceptions! All of us are busy – no exceptions! All of us have challenges, upsets, appointments, work, family, and a myriad of ongoing tasks to complete – no exceptions! Then you throw in life’s “surprises” – illness, emergencies, car breakdowns, home repairs- and sometimes it really feels as if life is pressing on you from all sides. Remember, we all face these issues in our life –no exceptions. You may feel you are unique in this but I can assure you no one escapes. Some of us may have to deal with more of one thing over the other but just being human, we are tasked with many challenges.

But here’s the thing. We can choose how we are going to react to life and life’s challenges. It is never the “thing” or the “situation” that bothers us or upsets us. Read that again! It is our THOUGHTS ABOUT the thing or situation that affect us. This is so important in our work lives. It is easy to think that our work loads, our tasks, our situations and contexts, etc. are the cause of our feelings. Not true. It is our thoughts that go along with those situations that cause our feelings, not the other way around. This is one of the hardest yet most valuable lessons we can ever learn! That is why some people seem to live life more effortless than others. They have learned to control their thoughts – mindfulness – and simply allow life to flow through them rather than fighting against the currents of life!

So it is not our “to do” lists, or our tasks, or the amount of work we have to do, or the situations we find ourselves in that are really the cause of our feelings. It is our thoughts about all of that which create either angst or acceptance, either upset or allowance, either fear or love, either panic or calm. St. Francis of Assisi found God in peeling potatoes! Why? Because as he wrote it was the best time to think with God. The mundane task, that most of us would complain about, became holy simply because of his thoughts. We can make any part of our lives holy in the same way. We literally control life through our thoughts. We are that powerful.

David Wine

David is the President and CEO of the MAX enterprise, having served in that capacity since its formation in 2001. He has forty plus years of leadership experience in the business and faith-based worlds, being an ordained minister, having been elected to the highest position in his denomination, and receiving numerous awards and recognition for his leadership in the insurance industry. He currently serves on numerous boards in the church and insurance sectors. His hobbies include hiking, biking, skiing and snowshoeing as well as being an avid reader. David and his wife, Sharon, have three daughters, a son, and six grandchildren.

MAX Mindfulness: The “Shoulds” of Life

By Dave Wine

You may have seen an REI ad that talked about the voices we hear throughout our lives – you know, the “shoulds and oughts”: You should be careful. You should be nice. You should be happy. You should smile more. You should just play nice. You should set a good example. You should be in better shape. You should take care of it. You should take care of them. You should do something more with your life. You should be grateful. You should not worry. You should lose weight. You should know your place. You should play by the rules. You should be less sensitive. You should be more sensitive. You should be more nurturing. You should set a good example. You should fit in. You should put forth more effort. You should not be alone. You should settle down. You should grow up. And on and on it goes. Those voices in our heads that tell us we are not OK the way we are! The ad then ends with “These are the voices we have heard our whole lives. But they get harder to hear the farther we go outside.”

I’d like to change that to also read, “they get harder to hear the further we go inside.” Meaning, it is when we practice mindfulness, going inside ourselves, observing those voices in our head, quieting our minds, that we can begin to remember that these don’t have to be our voices – we get to choose which voices we hear and which have meaning for us. Most of the voices that give us our ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ are not necessarily true for us. Most of them come from a long line of others telling us how we should be and most are also fear-based – if we don’t do this, then this will happen. When we practice mindfulness, we can begin to sort through all those voices, keeping the ones that nurture us and letting the others go. It is in living what is true for us (listening within) that there is harmony and when there is harmony there is wholeness. And that leads us right back to MAX – creating and sustaining wholeness – not just in others but in ourselves as well.

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Our Thoughts Are Not Facts

By Dave Wine

I’ve written on this key area before but it is so important. One of the greatest learnings (and one I have to keep re-learning!) is that our stories about us and others are not facts about life! Another way to say that is our thoughts are not facts! Our brains are wired to create thoughts! Thousands a day! And most of these thoughts are perceptions and feelings, not factual statements about what is really occurring in our life. That is why we can be in a good mood and ten minutes later we notice that we are not joyful any longer – the culprit? Probably something that has entered our thoughts that might even be years and years old! Something we read, something someone said, someone walking by, something that happened that felt like a lot like something else that happened, a certain smell and so on might have triggered a long ago memory, reminded us of something unpleasant, caused us to think differently. That is really why mindfulness is so important – when we take time to notice we can sort through what is real and what is not real – what is factual and what is not.

The key is to put space between our thoughts and our reactions. Thoughts will come – again thousands of them in a day. Our skill in noticing those thoughts and giving space between them and our feelings/reactions are what will allow us to find the ‘truth’ in our thoughts. Especially when we find ourselves struggling with negative thoughts/feelings, ask yourself these questions:

Is it true? It might be but just asking this question provides that space we need before we react.
Is it absolutely true? This question adds additional space. This means, is it 100% true what I’m thinking? Is there another way to look at this?
How does thinking this thought make me feel? We are so good at creating stories and headlines about things. Note what thinking this thought makes you feel like – such as sad, angry, jealous, hurt, fearful, etc.
What would it be like if I let this thought/belief go? Imagine that thought leaving you and your body/mind. How would it change how you feel?

The bottom line is thoughts aren’t facts – a few are, but even they are usually subject to interpretation and perception, but most are not and are made up by our minds thinking in the past or fearing the future. They are not usually related to what is NOW! So giving ourselves some space with the questions above provides that opportunity to investigate our thoughts and feelings and leaves us in much more control of our emotions (and therefore, our lives) than we might have thought possible.

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Open Hands

By Dave Wine

I invite you to think about the difference between open hands and closed fists. There have been some interesting medical studies that indicate some pretty major differences in our heart rates; blood pressure; and cortisol (stress) levels during experiments using these two dynamics. As you may have guessed, open extended hands lowered heart rates, lowered blood pressure and lowered cortisol. Closed fists raised the same measurements.

I’ve thought about this in more than just physical terms. When I’m “open” I’m more receptive to others input and opinions, I’m freer to express myself, I feel more spacious, I’m more loving, I feel better, I’m more relaxed. When I’m “closed” I tend towards being uptight, limited in my thinking, more stubborn, more judging, and feel smaller. And… you can mindfully watch and feel your body and know what is happening in your mind! Not only your fists, but is your body tense, tight, closed? Or it is open, relaxed and inviting? Your physical health will be optimized when you are open. And equally important, you will be a better listener, thinker, and doer when open and relaxed as well. As your body frees itself, so goes your mind and vice versa. We are intimately connected physically and mentally and our bodies follow our mind.

You can mindfully ask yourself at different points during the day….Am I open? Am I closed off? Even just opening your hands wide, even when feeling closed, can help open your body and mind to greater health. Try it. Make a fist and then open your hands and see which feels more spacious, open, loving, and helpful?

David Wine

MAX Mindfulness: Creating our Tomorrows

By Dave Wine

Here is one of the most powerful statements we could ever internalize: “What we think about today creates our tomorrows!” We quite literally feed our minds, and, when mindless, our egoic minds tend to fill themselves with thoughts of fear, jealousies, limitedness, and judgments. That is where the great power of being mindful comes into play. We can affect our tomorrows in a huge way by what we feed our minds with today. Do you want more love and peace in your life? Begin today to think thoughts of love and peace! Do you want more trust and goodwill? Fill your mind with those thoughts now. The world we live in is heavily invested with fear and victimhood. Turn on the news, read a newspaper, look at social media and just note how many of the headlines and topics are about fear and what the world and others might do to us. Why? Because, as I write often, our egoic parts of our minds are taught to look out for fear and bad tidings, make judgments, and look for hidden dangers. So our media knows that sells! It is our more primitive mind bent. So again, it takes great effort and focus to feed out minds with thoughts of love, peace and optimism – you can only do it practicing mindfulness –watching what you are feeding your mind.

And feeding our minds is not just a personal, individual focus, but also one that affects us as a company – a community of individuals. For example, the more we as a MAX team feed our minds with wholesome, abundant, loving, supportive thoughts, the more MAX will thrive! Look at sports teams as another example. Over and over it is not the team with the ‘best’ athletes that win championships. It is most often the teams that have a common focus, vision and inclusive type thoughts that rally around and support one another in special ways. It works the same with MAX. Think of what 52 team members can accomplish when we are feeding our minds today with thoughts of a productive, fun, loving, whole, expansive, limitless tomorrow! A huge part of creating and sustaining wholeness begins in our mind! I invite all of us to think seriously about what we are feeding our minds today so that we can create what we most want tomorrow – both for you personally and for MAX!

Remember: What we think about today creates our tomorrows!

David Wine