(Self-)transform!

There is really no alternative if we want to feel and be better

We have all grown up with a red brain and a preference for using focused attention when responding to both people and events.  For our own wellbeing, and our effectiveness in engaging fully in our work whilst continually improving it, we need to act.

We need to re-balance our attention so that we use focused attention on tasks and problems and use sustained attention with people and in responding to unexpected events.  It is the practice of mindfulness that is the key means to achieve this re-balancing, we can only practice mindfulness using sustained attention, vigilance or alertness. The three forms of global attention.

This re-balancing gives us a measure of control over our red brain when it begins to trigger.  A second step is to use mindfulness in the presence of red brain triggers to initiate the brain process that extinguishes the triggers (pulls up the memory, replaces the negative emotion with a neutral or positive one and puts the memory back).

Once we are no longer triggered, or we can reliably control the triggering, the third step is the practice of agape, “the love that forms a person”, which is the practice of paying full attention to another free of judgement or comparison and always responding with kindness and compassion no matter what the other person says or does.

It is this last practice that causes our red brain to fade away.

At the heart of the whitepaper that I introduced last week is the connection between a person’s self-transforming behaviours – re-balancing attention, managing and shrinking the red brain – and the engagement in, and continual improvement of, practice and relationships.  This connection can be seen in the graphic.

These self-transforming behaviours give us access to deeper levels of knowing – perspectival and participatory knowing – which increase our capacities even further and afford a greater integration of the self, increasing our wellbeing.

For these practices to be sustained, they need to be supported.

You can download a copy of the whitepaper here.

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

• To purchase a copy of Red Brain Blue Brain, Student Feedback or Why We Teach go here