Stay Calm!

Meditation – Mindfulness – Meeting

I see these three activities as being on a spectrum, each of them designed to shift our brain’s resources (glucose and oxygen) away from our red zones and to more useful areas.

There is clearly overlap within this range but broadly each activity has a specific function.

Meditation, in its most basic form of focusing attention onto a particular object (or mantra) – breathing is a common one –shifts our brain’s resources away from the impulsive, primitive parts of the brain and shifts these resources to support our local world view (nominally centred in the left hemisphere). With this practice we are able to focus better. 

Mindfulness (again in its basic form) shifts our resources towards contemplation of our feelings and the present moment. The right hemisphere is deeply connected into the body so mindfulness has the effect of activating the right hemisphere’s global world view, just directed internally.

Meeting (and cognitive coaching is an example of this) is characterised by shifting our attention outwards to other people and an outer world (a world outside of us). This shifts our resources towards the right hemisphere and an external global world view.

So, local view (which we need to do our work), internal global view (so that we can keep a proper perspective, grounded in the moment) and external global view (which allows the building of self-acceptance and courage).

Collectively, they create the ability to live in the blue zone.