Our feelings and emotions influence all our decisions. Meditation and awareness connect with our hearts and souls. A decision that stems from our heart is ten times more lasting and powerful than decisions formed only by searching through our busy minds and using our logical, analytical minds.
Spending time in our heart space cultivating qualities such as love, empathy, compassion, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence is the stepping stone for grounded and well-balanced leaders.
Weaving the energy of kindness, authenticity, and acceptance into their work helps leaders establish healthier and more compassionate relationships.
We can all do that because we all embody the most amazing hearts! Once we shift our attention from the head into the heart space, we enter a different realm. Meditation helps us to feel the powerful energy of our hearts.
Society has been imbued with millions of distractions coming to us left, right and centre. Most people find it hard to disconnect from what’s happening around them and connect with their inner world.
Meditation, no matter how hard and impossible it feels for many, has the power to connect you with the intelligence of your heart and the voice of your Spirit. Meditation takes you to places you have never been before and shows how the magic unfolds when you allow silence and stillness to dominate your body and mind.
Many leaders chose to adopt meditation as one of their non-negotiable practice.
Bill Gates, when asked about meditation, said: “For me, it has nothing to do with faith or mysticism. It’s about taking a few minutes out of my day, learning how to pay attention to the thoughts in my head, and gaining a little bit of distance from them.”
I know you think that it’s easy for others; however, the reality you are perceiving is that you don’t have time to do it and that your mind is too busy, and it won’t stop. I’ve heard this many times before. The ego mind is perfect like that, convincing us to ignore our mental health and focus our attention on ourselves.
Russell Simmons, co-founder of Def Jam records, said: “You have to learn to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Sometimes if you’re lucky you get a chance to change your life.”
You don’t need special skills to meditate; only choosing to practice meditation by setting an intention for it is enough.
That’s right!
Is that simple!
Start by becoming mindful of yourself and your environment. Enjoy going outside in the rain and allowing the rain droplets to land on your face, feeling their power and aliveness; switching from the “doing” mindset to the “being” mindset by feeling in and being present with every experience.
Your true essence lies in your heart, and meditation will take you there. You will discover that you are not your thoughts or your body. There is something more profound than that, and it goes beyond the logical mind. Meditation teaches us to focus our attention and effort on our inner world and let go of anxiety, anger, resentment, hurt, pain, jealousy, and hatred. Instead, focus on self-compassion, self-love, loving-kindness, gratitude, empathy, authenticity, and peace.
If time is a rare commodity for you, begin by focusing on your breathing every time you remember and inhaling/exhaling consciously to get in touch with your Spirit. Even if you don’t consider yourself a spiritual person, here is what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
The mind will find this exercise of breathing consciously dull, and it will begin to showcase a long list of “urgent” distractions that need your attention immediately. The mind will come with detailed reasons why you need to let go of your conscious breathing and step into focusing your attention outward.
What you need to do in those moments is to remember your intention and why you have decided to take up the meditation practice in the first place.
The first meditation practices will feel the hardest. I remember when I began to meditate four years ago, I would set my alarm for 15 minutes, and after 5 minutes, which felt like a lifetime, I decided to look at the time. When I saw that I still had 10 minutes left to “be with myself”, I was very disheartened.
My meditation teacher emphasized the importance of meditating every day, even just for a few minutes. I took that information to heart and stuck with it. I’m so grateful that I did because as time passes, I’m noticing an increased awareness of my intuition that leads me to places and people incomprehensible by my logical mind.
Cultivating heart-based leadership through meditation is a journey that requires dedication, discipline and self-awareness. As a leader, taking up meditation will significantly improve your ability to lead with compassion, authenticity, and a deep connection to the hearts of those you lead.
