mindfulness – Page 2 – Welcome to MAX

MAX Mindfulness: Fundamental Attribution Errors – What?!!

by Dave Wine, President & CEO

I want to move a bit from mindfulness directly, and talk about an interesting human tendency (which does take mindfulness to acknowledge). This is what is called the Fundamental Attribution Error. Quite the label, but boiled down it simply refers to our tendency as humans to attribute the negative or frustrating behaviors of our friends, family and colleagues to their intentions and personalities while attributing our own negative or frustrating behaviors to environmental factors. In other words, we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and find ways to project our behavior onto other things. But we tend to assume the worst about others and think their behavior is a major personal defect.

As an example, you might notice someone in a store yelling at their kids. And you make a quick judgment that they are not a good parent. And you go home and yell at your kids but say to yourself, “I’m at least doing it out of love and besides, they deserved it – the kids in the store weren’t doing anything that bad.” Or someone makes a mistake and you think, “why can’t they ever get it right?” Yet you make a mistake and it is due to there being so many things you are responsible for in this job/life- of course you are going to make a mistake. I share this not to judge or condemn any of us, but to invite each of us to recognize ways we might do this. I know I do it! The sins of another are just ‘mistakes’ when I do them.

There is also the Reverse Fundamental Attribution Error when we assume the best about others and blame ourselves more than them for the same things. And I’ve done this, too. I’ve made my mistakes sins when I’ve just labeled them mistakes when others do them. Neither of these approaches are helpful. That’s where mindfulness comes in – to have the self-awareness and self-honesty to discover ways we are doing this and realize how alike we all are in most things and then have the grace to allow them and us to be affirmed and forgiven together for our humanness and imperfections.

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: Gratitude – The Medicine for our Mind!

I saw this quote recently and just had to mention it. Here it is: FEAR HAS THE VOLUME CONTROL ON OUR THOUGHTS!

As I’ve shared before, the reptilian part of our brains is wired to look out for danger. That is a generally a good thing – it keeps us alive in traffic, watching out for our kids and loved ones, and out of many potential dangers. Equally true, however, is that it generally goes overboard so that we start to note things like, “Why did that person give me that look?”, “What did they mean by that remark?”, or creating our focus on all the bad that can happen. It also keeps us from being our best selves by introducing fear into our lives so that we too often ask, ‘What if…’ questions. What if he/she doesn’t like me? What if I make a mistake? What if this doesn’t work?

So mindfulness, paying attention to our thoughts is key. And another really simple thing that will do more to conquer this fear than any other single thing is learning to express gratitude. There have been many exhaustive studies that show the positive effects of being thankful and grateful. I’m listing some of them here:

Physical Benefits of Gratitude:

Stronger immune systems
Less bothered by aches and pains
Lower blood pressure
More physical movement and better care of health
People sleep longer and better

Psychological Benefits of Gratitude:

Higher levels of positive emotions
More alert, alive and awake
More joy and pleasure in life
More optimism and happiness

Social Benefits of Gratitude:

More helpful, giving and compassionate
More forgiving
Less lonely and isolated feelings
More outgoing

There are literal changes that occur in our brains when we practice gratitude. Dopamine (the feel good hormone) is released. And Serotonin is released (too little of this leads to depression). Now here’s the really good news. It doesn’t take much effort to create these benefits in our lives! What is the secret? Journal! Grab a notebook (or there are phone apps for this) and each night before you retire, write down three things that went well for you that day and why they were good for you. Or three things that you are really thankful for that showed up in your life that day. Keep doing it as often as possible, preferably daily, and you will literally change the chemistry of your brain. It’s hard to believe but the studies show it is that simple! It is literally taking medicine for our mind!

David Wine

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: 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