if I were giving this talk about 20
years ago and I asked an audience of the
size how many people had heard of
mindfulness I wouldn’t have been
surprised if nobody raised their hands
now however I suspect that some of you
have heard of mindfulness and I can tell
by your dogs that’s true and that’s
because mindfulness has been increasing
a lot over the last two decades
companies like Google and Facebook and
other businesses in trainings to their
employees and mindfulness the military
uses mindfulness professional sports
teams use mindfulness it’s used in
medicine education you could choose
almost any facet of society and probably
find somebody who’s using mindfulness in
some shape or form and I started to
infuse mindfulness in the teaching of
communication at the college level about
20 years ago back when most people in
mainstream society had never heard it
and over that time I’ve seen people’s
lives change constantly semester after
semester after semester and so I’ve been
extremely excited to see the evolution
of mindfulness happening
however I’ve also noticed that with that
increased awareness of the fact that it
exists comes an increase in the number
of people with misperceptions about it
and so my main goal in today’s talk is
to try to clear up some of those
misconceptions before I get into exactly
what those misconceptions are I want to
show you a list of benefits of
mindfulness according to a range of
that’s quite a range of skills and
abilities and I think that we would all
agree that the world would benefit more
people possessed those and so that’s why
I believe in it so strongly and why I’m
a bit nervous about the misconceptions
that exist about mindfulness mindfulness
has the ability to help us with many of
the challenges that we were facing in
the world today we’ve heard about some
of those during the talks but increased
political strife depression addiction
anxiety workplace stressors and the
beautiful thing about mindfulness is
that it doesn’t just help us in ways
that improve things like the bottom line
or improved ability to function well in
teams and that kind of thing but it
helps us to be more fulfilled people and
live more satisfying lives and if we
have a tool that can work at both of
those levels personal and professional
then it’s something that we don’t want
to squander as a society as a world
growing worldwide so at this point you
might be wondering some some of you may
be what what is mindfulness or how is he
thinking about it and what are these
misconceptions that he’s been referring
to the definition of mindfulness that I
liked the most is ami saltzman’s and she
says that mindfulness of the ability to
be fully present which sounds easier
than it is with kindness and curiosity
so we’re more aware of the moments of
our lives that we’re experiencing and we
approach them with kindness and
curiosity toward ourselves and toward
other people the misconception goes
something like this people hear the word
mindfulness and they automatically think
meditation although that you are often
combined they’re not one in the same
they’re not
and then it goes on so people think okay
mindfulness meditation meditation
something I do when I’m stressed out and
it will relax me and if it doesn’t relax
me that I’m either doing it wrong or
it’s not for me and that’s where the
misconception is pretty huge because
meditation is not something you do in an
effort to reduce stress in that moment
right it’s not effortful in that way and
I’ll say more about that as time goes on
but I want to clarify also there are a
lot of different types of meditation out
there and there are a lot of different
ways people use the term mindfulness
where I’m coming from with that is a
form of mindfulness and meditation
that’s called mindfulness based and it
comes from the lineage of the Center for
mindfulness at UMass Medical School
which was founded by John kabat-zinn
about 40 years ago and that’s the type
of mindfulness that’s how the huge
impact on the evolution of mindfulness
that’s happening right now and Jon
kabat-zinn says if you meditate often
enough you will come into contact with
the full range of being human so
there’ll be times when you meditate that
you feel relaxed joyful because that’s
part of the human experience but there
will also be times when you meditate
when you feel angry impatient frustrated
or jealous annoyed and that’s part of a
human it’s not that you’re doing it
wrong because no matter what you’re
experiencing when you meditate the basic
instructions are the same that you’ve
notice it without fixating on it without
pursuing it without trying to push it
away you experience it for what it is in
that moment you notice it and you let it
go and throw in a lot of information out
of you and to get a better sense of what
that means and to move along in that
line of logic I’d like to lead you
through two-minute meditation if you
don’t want to do it you don’t have to do
it so you can stay in your chairs
and if you’d like you can close your
eyes if you would rather not close your
eyes then please don’t look around the
room you know that kind of spying on
everybody
don’t stare at me because that kind of
weirds me out so look forward and down
if you have your eyes open and then try
not to really focus on anything in
particular and you can then bring your
awareness to physical sensations of the
breath or if you prefer physical
sensations at the soles of your feet if
you’re focusing on physical sensations
at the soles of your feet you might
notice sensations such as temperature
moisture may be tingling or maybe not
and you’re not trying to manufacture
sensations you’re just noticing whatever
is this for you in that moment if you’re
focusing on physical sensations of the
breath you might notice it as it touches
following through as the breath makes
maybe noticing the moment that it
changes from an in-breath to an out
breath that power following the exhale
noticing the next breath begin without
if at some point you notice that your
mind wanders not judging yourself for
having a wandering mind but gently
bringing awareness back to sensations of
okay so we’ll end the meditation at that
point that was a very brief meditation
and some of you may have found it to be
relaxing you may now feel calmer or
focused maybe more alert more awake
other people maybe weren’t able to focus
on physical sensations for more than a
tenth of a second at a time when your
mind is just going all over the place
and maybe you feel a little restless
bored whatever the case may be again it
doesn’t mean you were doing it wrong if
that was not relaxing for you so it’s a
pretty simple process but there are many
benefits that come from it and I’ll just
walk you through a few of them anytime
you notice that your mind has wandered
and you bring it back to the center the
focus of your attention you’re that much
more aware of your thoughts of your
inner monologue our thoughts influence
our behavior often unconsciously and
often unproductively so the more where
we are of our thoughts the better we
might notice a big insight that we have
for instance be more aware of that and
that was helpful but chances are better
then you’ll notice an unproductive
thought because studies suggest that
most of our thoughts upwards of 80% are
negative and so when you notice the
negative thought you can that let it go
again
easier said than done but it’s easier to
let it go if you’ve actually noticed it
so you’re developing that ability
through the practice of meditation
you’re also deceivingly developing the
ability of resilience so at one level
when you sit down to meditate and let’s
say you’re focusing on your breath
that’s your anger and your mind goes off
somewhere else that could be seen as
well that’s not what I wanted right
didn’t go the way I wanted it to but
getting caught up in judging yourself or
judging the experience you refocus on
the breath that’s a form of resilience
you’re overcoming a setback perceived a
setback and you’re not judging yourself
in that moment for having the wandering
mind right or at least that’s part of
the work and developing that ability of
not judging yourself is huge because
most of us are really good at judging
ourselves unproductively and it becomes
a downward spiral that influences all
kinds of facets of our lives
so we can get better at not berating
ourselves that’s huge and it also
happens to spill over into not berating
others we’re not judging others get it
going back to the kindness and curiosity
component of the definition if you do
enough of meditation you’re also
becoming more and more aware of your
emotions
and I don’t know maybe you tap into that
bit in a two-minute meditation that we
just did maybe not but it does it does
happen and then you get into the worlds
of emotional intelligence and emotion
regulation and so I’d like to share with
you a study that we did the the
curriculum I developed is called
communicated monthly it’s of course and
we study the results of this a number of
years ago so what we did is we asked
students to volunteer to participate we
had 124 who did they took three and
post-tests and so at the beginning of
the semester they answered a series of
questions the end of the semester the
answer the same series of questions and
then we compared to see if there was a
difference we chose instruments that
measured mindfulness communication
skills emotional intelligence and
emotional regulation the students
increased in all of those areas still
statistically significantly so and then
we got carriers to look at is there any
correlation between
their increase in mindfulness and their
increase in emotion regulation in
particular and we found yes there was
the top row are the items for the
mindfulness instrument that we used so
non-reacting is non reactivity often we
have a knee-jerk emotional reaction to
situations that’s not necessarily
productive and it keeps us from seeing
things accurately students became more
less likely to react at the end of the
course than they were at the beginning
by observing is a key part of
mindfulness being fully present in the
moment noticing things as they are and
so students got better at doing that as
a result of that kind of clear of
observation they also got better at
describing right they’re more aware of
it so they can describe it better
non-judgment we’ve already talked about
and all of those things play into
awareness and once you have that
awareness you can act on it so acting
with our awareness is part of the
mindfulness instrument as you can see by
the blue X’s there were a lot of
correlations between these mindfulness
abilities and the emotion regulation
abilities which are listed on the left
the emotion regulation is talking about
how do people handle situations that
they view as being the threatening or
stressful often we don’t handle those
moments well and our lives consist of
quite a few of them have various degrees
often we don’t accept them we may be
denying try to deny that they’re
happening or we become reactive to them
or people for them great it happens at
home happens at work
it’s all over the place and so the
students at the end of the course were
more likely to accept those kinds of
situations when things didn’t go the way
they predicted or the way they wanted to
they accept it okay but that is what
happen I think that’s what I’m dealing
with and that allows them to then
positively refocus so it’s not what I
planned but what’s going on now that
then plays into an ability to make plans
and then the positive reappraisal is
kind of wider than that recognizing that
when unexpected unpleasant things happen
they might actually have positive
results that otherwise wouldn’t that
happen right so the students became more
dick decreased in what’s called
rumination and catastrophizing which is
sort of all of the thinking that we
often get caught up in when again things
don’t go the way we wanted to so
something like I can’t believe that
happened why did he even do that in the
first place and now I’m going to lose my
job and then I’m not going to be a
mortgage rate all these places that our
minds are so good at taking us that are
unproductive and often inaccurate
students decreased in their tendency
toward rumination and catastrophizing
also they decreased in the tendency to
blame either others or themselves which
is often again a knee-jerk reaction
right oh it’s not my fault this happened
it’s his or I can’t believe I did that
I’m such a loser right we can get caught
up in those kinds of things that are
unproductive so students were less
likely to do that was whether if you
stop and consider how many times in our
lives we encountered these kinds of
events that we view as threatening and
or stressful the way we handle those the
way we manage those has a huge impact on
how we feel about ourselves how we treat
other people whether we succeed
personally or and professional
and so this is where I think it’s
extremely important that people have a
more full understanding of what
mindfulness and meditation are if you
would just is something I do when I’m
stressed out but not relaxing then
forget it
they’re missing out and not only are
Davison up as individuals but we’re
missing out as a society we have a huge
opportunity right now to make use of
mindfulness and all of these facets of
life so I think that we’re at a real
tipping point with mindfulness that if
the misperceptions grow mindfulness
might fade as a fad
if the misperceptions don’t grow when
people learn more about it to apply it
in a deeper way it has an ability to
fulfill its promise to us and just as an
example in closing I’d like to read you
an email that I received from a student
just a couple of days after the course
he expresses things here that a lot of
students express hide and he says I just
wanted to let you know that I thoroughly
enjoyed your class
it gave me an outlook on life that I
completely looked by and I’m so much
happier than I was before is it usual
that some students love the class so
much they want to take it again and
ironically the day before one of his
students had come and said can I take
that it happens I mean this class has
put more of a positive impact on my life
than anything I’ve ever done
and it’s no joke I have literally told
all my closest family and friends that I
already missed the class dearly
sincerely Matt and he gave me permission
to use his full name is Matt Bowden and
so we’ve stayed in touch a little bit
every now and then we’ll exchange
messages and I asked him a couple of
years after the course if he was still
practicing the skills that he learned in
the course and he wrote still practicing
mindfulness every day like its second
nature now I realized how lost I was
before the class and finally found
serenity because of it so I think you
can sense the kind of depth the kind of
impact that mindfulness can have on
people that goes beyond again just a
simple thing that you do when you’re
stressed out and that’s the main message
that I wanted to get across to you today
so if you’re not involved with
mindfulness already and you’re a little
bit curious about it then I strongly
encourage you to to check it out if you
have misconceptions about it then I
encourage you to you know question those
a little bit sit with them learn a bit
more if you’re if you’re interested and
so so and thank you for the opportunity
because obviously this is something that
I believe in strongly and I really do
feel like mine and this has a lot to
offer
and the world other thank you [Applause]
years ago and I asked an audience of the
size how many people had heard of
mindfulness I wouldn’t have been
surprised if nobody raised their hands
now however I suspect that some of you
have heard of mindfulness and I can tell
by your dogs that’s true and that’s
because mindfulness has been increasing
a lot over the last two decades
companies like Google and Facebook and
other businesses in trainings to their
employees and mindfulness the military
uses mindfulness professional sports
teams use mindfulness it’s used in
medicine education you could choose
almost any facet of society and probably
find somebody who’s using mindfulness in
some shape or form and I started to
infuse mindfulness in the teaching of
communication at the college level about
20 years ago back when most people in
mainstream society had never heard it
and over that time I’ve seen people’s
lives change constantly semester after
semester after semester and so I’ve been
extremely excited to see the evolution
of mindfulness happening
however I’ve also noticed that with that
increased awareness of the fact that it
exists comes an increase in the number
of people with misperceptions about it
and so my main goal in today’s talk is
to try to clear up some of those
misconceptions before I get into exactly
what those misconceptions are I want to
show you a list of benefits of
mindfulness according to a range of
that’s quite a range of skills and
abilities and I think that we would all
agree that the world would benefit more
people possessed those and so that’s why
I believe in it so strongly and why I’m
a bit nervous about the misconceptions
that exist about mindfulness mindfulness
has the ability to help us with many of
the challenges that we were facing in
the world today we’ve heard about some
of those during the talks but increased
political strife depression addiction
anxiety workplace stressors and the
beautiful thing about mindfulness is
that it doesn’t just help us in ways
that improve things like the bottom line
or improved ability to function well in
teams and that kind of thing but it
helps us to be more fulfilled people and
live more satisfying lives and if we
have a tool that can work at both of
those levels personal and professional
then it’s something that we don’t want
to squander as a society as a world
growing worldwide so at this point you
might be wondering some some of you may
be what what is mindfulness or how is he
thinking about it and what are these
misconceptions that he’s been referring
to the definition of mindfulness that I
liked the most is ami saltzman’s and she
says that mindfulness of the ability to
be fully present which sounds easier
than it is with kindness and curiosity
so we’re more aware of the moments of
our lives that we’re experiencing and we
approach them with kindness and
curiosity toward ourselves and toward
other people the misconception goes
something like this people hear the word
mindfulness and they automatically think
meditation although that you are often
combined they’re not one in the same
they’re not
and then it goes on so people think okay
mindfulness meditation meditation
something I do when I’m stressed out and
it will relax me and if it doesn’t relax
me that I’m either doing it wrong or
it’s not for me and that’s where the
misconception is pretty huge because
meditation is not something you do in an
effort to reduce stress in that moment
right it’s not effortful in that way and
I’ll say more about that as time goes on
but I want to clarify also there are a
lot of different types of meditation out
there and there are a lot of different
ways people use the term mindfulness
where I’m coming from with that is a
form of mindfulness and meditation
that’s called mindfulness based and it
comes from the lineage of the Center for
mindfulness at UMass Medical School
which was founded by John kabat-zinn
about 40 years ago and that’s the type
of mindfulness that’s how the huge
impact on the evolution of mindfulness
that’s happening right now and Jon
kabat-zinn says if you meditate often
enough you will come into contact with
the full range of being human so
there’ll be times when you meditate that
you feel relaxed joyful because that’s
part of the human experience but there
will also be times when you meditate
when you feel angry impatient frustrated
or jealous annoyed and that’s part of a
human it’s not that you’re doing it
wrong because no matter what you’re
experiencing when you meditate the basic
instructions are the same that you’ve
notice it without fixating on it without
pursuing it without trying to push it
away you experience it for what it is in
that moment you notice it and you let it
go and throw in a lot of information out
of you and to get a better sense of what
that means and to move along in that
line of logic I’d like to lead you
through two-minute meditation if you
don’t want to do it you don’t have to do
it so you can stay in your chairs
and if you’d like you can close your
eyes if you would rather not close your
eyes then please don’t look around the
room you know that kind of spying on
everybody
don’t stare at me because that kind of
weirds me out so look forward and down
if you have your eyes open and then try
not to really focus on anything in
particular and you can then bring your
awareness to physical sensations of the
breath or if you prefer physical
sensations at the soles of your feet if
you’re focusing on physical sensations
at the soles of your feet you might
notice sensations such as temperature
moisture may be tingling or maybe not
and you’re not trying to manufacture
sensations you’re just noticing whatever
is this for you in that moment if you’re
focusing on physical sensations of the
breath you might notice it as it touches
following through as the breath makes
maybe noticing the moment that it
changes from an in-breath to an out
breath that power following the exhale
noticing the next breath begin without
if at some point you notice that your
mind wanders not judging yourself for
having a wandering mind but gently
bringing awareness back to sensations of
okay so we’ll end the meditation at that
point that was a very brief meditation
and some of you may have found it to be
relaxing you may now feel calmer or
focused maybe more alert more awake
other people maybe weren’t able to focus
on physical sensations for more than a
tenth of a second at a time when your
mind is just going all over the place
and maybe you feel a little restless
bored whatever the case may be again it
doesn’t mean you were doing it wrong if
that was not relaxing for you so it’s a
pretty simple process but there are many
benefits that come from it and I’ll just
walk you through a few of them anytime
you notice that your mind has wandered
and you bring it back to the center the
focus of your attention you’re that much
more aware of your thoughts of your
inner monologue our thoughts influence
our behavior often unconsciously and
often unproductively so the more where
we are of our thoughts the better we
might notice a big insight that we have
for instance be more aware of that and
that was helpful but chances are better
then you’ll notice an unproductive
thought because studies suggest that
most of our thoughts upwards of 80% are
negative and so when you notice the
negative thought you can that let it go
again
easier said than done but it’s easier to
let it go if you’ve actually noticed it
so you’re developing that ability
through the practice of meditation
you’re also deceivingly developing the
ability of resilience so at one level
when you sit down to meditate and let’s
say you’re focusing on your breath
that’s your anger and your mind goes off
somewhere else that could be seen as
well that’s not what I wanted right
didn’t go the way I wanted it to but
getting caught up in judging yourself or
judging the experience you refocus on
the breath that’s a form of resilience
you’re overcoming a setback perceived a
setback and you’re not judging yourself
in that moment for having the wandering
mind right or at least that’s part of
the work and developing that ability of
not judging yourself is huge because
most of us are really good at judging
ourselves unproductively and it becomes
a downward spiral that influences all
kinds of facets of our lives
so we can get better at not berating
ourselves that’s huge and it also
happens to spill over into not berating
others we’re not judging others get it
going back to the kindness and curiosity
component of the definition if you do
enough of meditation you’re also
becoming more and more aware of your
emotions
and I don’t know maybe you tap into that
bit in a two-minute meditation that we
just did maybe not but it does it does
happen and then you get into the worlds
of emotional intelligence and emotion
regulation and so I’d like to share with
you a study that we did the the
curriculum I developed is called
communicated monthly it’s of course and
we study the results of this a number of
years ago so what we did is we asked
students to volunteer to participate we
had 124 who did they took three and
post-tests and so at the beginning of
the semester they answered a series of
questions the end of the semester the
answer the same series of questions and
then we compared to see if there was a
difference we chose instruments that
measured mindfulness communication
skills emotional intelligence and
emotional regulation the students
increased in all of those areas still
statistically significantly so and then
we got carriers to look at is there any
correlation between
their increase in mindfulness and their
increase in emotion regulation in
particular and we found yes there was
the top row are the items for the
mindfulness instrument that we used so
non-reacting is non reactivity often we
have a knee-jerk emotional reaction to
situations that’s not necessarily
productive and it keeps us from seeing
things accurately students became more
less likely to react at the end of the
course than they were at the beginning
by observing is a key part of
mindfulness being fully present in the
moment noticing things as they are and
so students got better at doing that as
a result of that kind of clear of
observation they also got better at
describing right they’re more aware of
it so they can describe it better
non-judgment we’ve already talked about
and all of those things play into
awareness and once you have that
awareness you can act on it so acting
with our awareness is part of the
mindfulness instrument as you can see by
the blue X’s there were a lot of
correlations between these mindfulness
abilities and the emotion regulation
abilities which are listed on the left
the emotion regulation is talking about
how do people handle situations that
they view as being the threatening or
stressful often we don’t handle those
moments well and our lives consist of
quite a few of them have various degrees
often we don’t accept them we may be
denying try to deny that they’re
happening or we become reactive to them
or people for them great it happens at
home happens at work
it’s all over the place and so the
students at the end of the course were
more likely to accept those kinds of
situations when things didn’t go the way
they predicted or the way they wanted to
they accept it okay but that is what
happen I think that’s what I’m dealing
with and that allows them to then
positively refocus so it’s not what I
planned but what’s going on now that
then plays into an ability to make plans
and then the positive reappraisal is
kind of wider than that recognizing that
when unexpected unpleasant things happen
they might actually have positive
results that otherwise wouldn’t that
happen right so the students became more
dick decreased in what’s called
rumination and catastrophizing which is
sort of all of the thinking that we
often get caught up in when again things
don’t go the way we wanted to so
something like I can’t believe that
happened why did he even do that in the
first place and now I’m going to lose my
job and then I’m not going to be a
mortgage rate all these places that our
minds are so good at taking us that are
unproductive and often inaccurate
students decreased in their tendency
toward rumination and catastrophizing
also they decreased in the tendency to
blame either others or themselves which
is often again a knee-jerk reaction
right oh it’s not my fault this happened
it’s his or I can’t believe I did that
I’m such a loser right we can get caught
up in those kinds of things that are
unproductive so students were less
likely to do that was whether if you
stop and consider how many times in our
lives we encountered these kinds of
events that we view as threatening and
or stressful the way we handle those the
way we manage those has a huge impact on
how we feel about ourselves how we treat
other people whether we succeed
personally or and professional
and so this is where I think it’s
extremely important that people have a
more full understanding of what
mindfulness and meditation are if you
would just is something I do when I’m
stressed out but not relaxing then
forget it
they’re missing out and not only are
Davison up as individuals but we’re
missing out as a society we have a huge
opportunity right now to make use of
mindfulness and all of these facets of
life so I think that we’re at a real
tipping point with mindfulness that if
the misperceptions grow mindfulness
might fade as a fad
if the misperceptions don’t grow when
people learn more about it to apply it
in a deeper way it has an ability to
fulfill its promise to us and just as an
example in closing I’d like to read you
an email that I received from a student
just a couple of days after the course
he expresses things here that a lot of
students express hide and he says I just
wanted to let you know that I thoroughly
enjoyed your class
it gave me an outlook on life that I
completely looked by and I’m so much
happier than I was before is it usual
that some students love the class so
much they want to take it again and
ironically the day before one of his
students had come and said can I take
that it happens I mean this class has
put more of a positive impact on my life
than anything I’ve ever done
and it’s no joke I have literally told
all my closest family and friends that I
already missed the class dearly
sincerely Matt and he gave me permission
to use his full name is Matt Bowden and
so we’ve stayed in touch a little bit
every now and then we’ll exchange
messages and I asked him a couple of
years after the course if he was still
practicing the skills that he learned in
the course and he wrote still practicing
mindfulness every day like its second
nature now I realized how lost I was
before the class and finally found
serenity because of it so I think you
can sense the kind of depth the kind of
impact that mindfulness can have on
people that goes beyond again just a
simple thing that you do when you’re
stressed out and that’s the main message
that I wanted to get across to you today
so if you’re not involved with
mindfulness already and you’re a little
bit curious about it then I strongly
encourage you to to check it out if you
have misconceptions about it then I
encourage you to you know question those
a little bit sit with them learn a bit
more if you’re if you’re interested and
so so and thank you for the opportunity
because obviously this is something that
I believe in strongly and I really do
feel like mine and this has a lot to
offer
and the world other thank you [Applause]
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