Susan Kaiser Greenland is an author, meditation teacher, and the founder of the Inner Kids Foundation, which is devoted to bringing the lessons of mindfulness to children. Her books include The Mindful Child and Mindful Games. With Sounds True, Susan has created Mindful Parent, Mindful Child, a 30-day training program for integrating mindfulness into your family’s everyday life. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Susan about her efforts to fold mindfulness into basic childhood education, as well as how she came to this work after 20 years as a corporate lawyer. Susan outlines some of the practices that are ideal for children and why parents should have their own mindfulness routine. Susan and Tami discuss mindfulness-based games and the steps to making common practices (such as a body scan) more fun and engaging. Finally, they consider how to balance the ideal of non-striving with motivated work, as well as what the future of children’s mindfulness education might look like. (62 minutes)
When we talk about what secure attachment looks like, it’s not
unusual for people to give themselves a hard time. It seems like such a high
bar, and when we look at it that way, it’s easy to feel not quite up to snuff.
I can relate to that feeling, and I think it’s quite normal for everyone to
feel that way from time to time.
We all have emotional reactions we’re
not proud of, and most of us contribute our fair share to arguments and
unnecessarily difficult conversations. And many of us simply aren’t as present
as we’d like to be. We don’t feel quite here enough—either we’re distracted by
one thing or another, or we’re not as attentive as we think we should be.
Again, all of this is normal. Most of these things happen regularly—at least
they do for me! The main point is to care enough to notice when things are less
than ideal. That means having enough presence to know that things are a little
off and enough compassion to want to do a retake, to make things better.
There’s more wiggle room than you’d think. It’s okay to goof up, make mistakes,
and be less than our perfect self. The attachment system is a forgiving system,
and it makes a world of difference to register when we miss each other and mend
when things go awry as soon as possible.
We can all do a better job, of
course, and that’s where practice comes in. I want to offer you ways to
practice fostering secure attachment in yourself and others. These are methods
for boosting your secure attachment skills. The idea isn’t to ace every one of
these, but pick out one or two that you feel called to work on and practice
these the best you can. Hopefully, there are secure attachment skills here for
everyone—skills you can offer others in your life, skills to practice mutually
in your relationships, and skills to encourage secure attachment in yourself.
Secure Attachment Skill #1: Listen Deeply
Let’s start with one of the more obvious skills. We all know
the value of listening, but most of us haven’t actually taken the time to
develop our listening skills in any ongoing way. When we listen deeply, reflect
back to the other person, and ask questions that help us understand them, we
allow the other person to inform us of what’s going on with them—not in a superficial
way, but in a manner that empowers them to really dive in, feel their feelings,
and express them to us until we truly get them. We’re not simply listening
until they take a breath so that we can jump into the conversation and say
what’s on our mind. Listening deeply means that we respond with considerate
questions meant to foster and convey understanding, and we always give space
before explaining our perspective.
It’s important to note that when we
listen to another person, we don’t have to believe or agree with what they are
saying. Really listening to someone means that we don’t immediately respond to
what they’re saying with denial or criticism. Instead of negating their concern
or getting into an argument about it, we just listen. That’s it. And we can
open up the contingency space even further by trying to resonate with them. “I
understand why you’d be upset about that, and I can see that really hurt you,”
for example. In other words, listening in this way means you’re offering to
hold—to contain—whatever it is that they’re dealing with and be present with
them, regardless of their emotional responses and reactions.
I think most of us have this in
common: more than we want to be convinced otherwise or placated, we just really
want to be heard on a deep level. That can be hard at times, of course, because
relationships can bring up a lot of stuff for us, and it’s natural to have
challenges when dealing with other people, especially those closest to us. But
if we can do our best to listen, we can make the best of difficult situations,
and we’ll have a much better chance of closing the gap between us and the
person we’re listening to.
Secure Attachment Skill #2: Practice Presence
Listening is one of the ways we can show presence, which is one of the most important gifts we can give ourselves and others in relationships. Presence isn’t a static thing; it’s a way of being. Presence means showing up, paying attention, and letting the other person know that we’re there for them with whatever’s going on. It means we do our best to put aside our own worries and concerns and be with them in an undistracted way. This can be hard in today’s world when it’s common to be on our devices so much of the time, but I highly recommend setting your phone or tablet aside when you want to show someone else that you’re truly present for them. Of course, this is impossible to do perfectly all the time, but there are certain things we can do to practice presence in order to become more available to others, as well as to ourselves.
Committing to remain undistracted with another person in a world that is so full of distractions is a powerful and fulfilling practice.Try it at dinner sometime: put everyone’s silenced cell phone in a basket while you’re enjoying the meal together and see what a difference it makes in your ability to connect. Attention is an extremely valuable commodity, and I recommend as much device-free, face-to-face time as you can manage. People know if you’re fully present or not, and it matters to them. Try being present when you’re on the phone sometime. Instead of doing something else—like surfing the Internet or washing the dishes—sit down and try to be as present and attentive as you possibly can. Give undistracted time to the people who are important to you and watch how that transforms your relationships.
Secure Attachment Skill #3: Attune
Attunement can mean a lot of things, but in this case it means becoming curious about another person’s experience and working to understand what they’re all about, discovering them in new ways and trying to resonate with them. How do they see the world? How do they experience their own feelings? And whatever emotions or situations arise, attunement also means that we do our best to connect with other people and let them know we’re there. Attunement is what enables that sense of contingency to arise. It lets the other person know that we really get them—that we’re by their side. This is an invaluable experience to receive and to offer another person.
Being dedicated to attunement also keeps us in touch with when we fall out of attunement with others, which is crucial knowledge to have in relationships. We’re oriented toward connection, but we’re also aware when that connection isn’t quite as we’d like it to be. If you feel you are not quite in sync with someone or are concerned that you don’t fully understand their situation or their feelings, ask the person to tell you more about what they are trying to share. Ask caring and clarifying questions.
Secure Attachment Skill #4: Engage in Joint Attention
Joint attention means mutually being there for each other, no
matter what you’re doing: meditating together, dancing to your favorite song,
telling jokes, making meals, or exercising. Any activity can serve to foster
more secure attachment with your partner, child, family member, or friend when
enacted with joint attention. You could be watching a movie on the flat-screen
from your couch and still practice joint attention (for example, occasionally
making eye contact with each other, laughing together, or having a conversation
later about the film).
Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D., is an established expert in
the field of Child and Adult Attachment Theory and Models, trauma resolution,
and integrative healing techniques. Diane developed her own signature series on
Adult Attachment called DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience) also
known as SATe (Somatic Attachment Training experience). Dr. Heller began her
work with Dr. Peter Levine, founder of SETI (Somatic Experiencing® Trauma
Institute) in 1989. As Senior Faculty for SETI, she taught Somatic
Experiencing® trauma work internationally for over 25 years. As a dynamic
speaker and teacher, Diane has been featured at prestigious international
events and conferences. She is the author of numerous articles in the field.
Her book Crash
Course, on auto accident trauma resolution, is used worldwide as a resource
for healing a variety of overwhelming life events. Her film, Surviving Columbine, produced with
Cherokee Studios, aired on CNN and supported community healing in the aftermath
of the school shootings. Sounds True recently published Dr. Heller’s audiobook Healing Your Attachment Wounds: How to
Create Deep and Lasting Relationships, and her book, The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate
Relationships.
As developer of DARe and
president of Trauma Solutions, a psychotherapy training organization, Dr.
Heller supports the helping community through an array of specialized topics.
She maintains a limited private practice in Louisville, Colorado.
When we learn to practice these five skills, we strengthen our resilience in exactly the way the brain learns best—small experiences repeated many times. We can develop new ways to respond to pressures and tragedies quickly, adaptively, effectively.
I am honored to have this opportunity to share with you a topic that is very dear to me: work. We spend nearly half of our waking hours at work. Because of this, many of us seek a workplace that supports our personal/spiritual aspirations. This generally translates into searching for a job that is “people friendly.” Regardless of where you work, however, there are going to be situations that don’t align with your concepts, views, and preferences. When that happens, some people think it’s time to move on and find an environment that better suits them.
The Untethered Soul at Work presents a real paradigm shift from this way of thinking. Spiritual growth is always about change and transformation, but this does not mean changing the outside—it means changing the inside. A truly spiritual approach to our time at work is to see it as a phenomenal opportunity to go through the changes we need to go through to become more open and accepting. In the end, peace doesn’t mean finding a limited, controlled environment that does not hit our “stuff”—it means using our everyday environment to let go of our stuff so that we can be unconditionally peaceful.
When we approach work as an opportunity to express ourselves as well as to remove the inner blockages that keep us bound, we truly make work a holy place. The Untethered Soul at Work guides us and encourages us to view the challenges in the workplace as opportunities to grow spiritually. Many examples are given of how to face everyday situations so you come out the other side a more liberated person. When at the end of every workday you are a greater person than you were in the morning—you have used your day well. When you have reached the state where you are enthused to come to work every day for the challenge of letting go of your blockages—work becomes a win-win situation. You cannot lose—every experience is for your spiritual transformation.
We cannot always change our environment, but we can change how we interact with it. True mindfulness means staying centered and clear enough to use every moment life presents you to free yourself from yourself. Work is always a spiritual place—if you learn to use it that way.
Michael A. Singer is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. In 1971, while pursuing his doctoral work in economics, he experienced a deep inner awakening and went into seclusion to focus on yoga and meditation. In 1975, he founded Temple of the Universe, a yoga and meditation center where people of any religion or set of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace. Through the years, he has made major contributions in the areas of business, the arts, education, healthcare, and environmental protection. For more information about The Untethered Soul®, please visit untetheredsoul.com.
Listen to The Untethered Soul At Work wherever you buy your audiobooks!
Diana Winston is is the director of mindfulness education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, a member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and a pioneer in mindfulness education for children. With Sounds True, she has released The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Diana about “natural awareness”—an always-available, foundational flow state distinguishable from deliberate mindfulness practice. They share “glimpse practices” designed to open up perception and embodiment of natural awareness, commenting on how each can be practiced in day-to-day life. Diana and Tami discuss the value of going on retreat, the spectrum of different awareness practices, and common misconceptions about what it takes to become a mindfulness teacher. Finally, Diana explains why it’s important not to become a “bliss-ninny” as well as the difference between natural awareness and spacing out. (64 minutes)
