Being Present at Work

BUDDHISM PRINCIPLES AT WORK (LITERALLY, AT YOUR WORK)

There are 168 hours in a 7 day week.  Americans spend a full third of that working.  People have a tendency to separate work from the rest of their lives, and become the “work” version of themselves.  Whereas at home with family and friends, your playful, lazy, and your spiritual side can come out, at work typically people want to bring out their business-y, competent side and actually don’t equate mindfulness with business. But it does have a real relevant place in the workplace.

According to Carolyn Gregoire with the Huffington Post reports: “Many corporations and employees are realizing that the benefits of mindfulness practices can be dramatic. In addition to supporting overall health and well-being, mindfulness has been linked to improved cognitive functioning and lower stress levels.”

I actively take time to meditate and practice breathing exercises at work to make sure I am always making decisions from a calm, centered place.  Below I have listed some books that speak to the practice of mindfulness and meditation at work.

Offering meditation challenges, one that is a seven day meditation challenge and one that is just a weekend meditation challenge, Susan Piver helps you get over the hump of getting started, all in an irreverent down-to-earth way. My favorite quote may be “Now I don’t want to be all Mindfulness Bitch here, but it is important to actually follow the posture instructions quite precisely.” A woman who meditates, is spiritually active and thirsty and who swears like a sailor is right up my alley. This book is geared towards creating a personal road map that helps you with your own practice.

Mindfulness Work by David Gelles looks at mindfulness and meditation at work from the company’s perspective. Citing studies done by large companies such as Google, Target, General Mills and Ford, Gelles makes the case for bringing meditation into the workplace to help increase employee satisfaction, productivity and morale.  He quotes Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert “Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that have happened in the past, will happen in the future, or might never happen.”  (Personally, worrying about what has happened or could happen is my favorite 3 a.m. activity.) This is a great read for discovering benefits and practical applications which supplies a basis for bringing this culture to your workplace.

Another book centered around practical applications of mindfulness in the workplace. Sharon Salzberg in her book Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace explores workplace satisfaction and how to improve yours.  Not only changing your perception and bringing that change to work, she discusses changing communication tactics so that you are able to spread that attitude and make it contagious.

Complete with exercises, check-ins and instructions, she does a great job describing the why’s behind the how’s.  Her Q&A’s offer other perspectives and thoughts as well.  It can’t just be about being ,more serene or thoughtful about the ups and the downs, it also has to do with being more successful and achieving the goals that will make you happy.  Let’s face it, excelling at work makes us feel better about ourselves overall.

So, your not a Buddhist. All good. That is not what meditation is about.  This book, written by Rick Heller, talks about just that.  The Humanist Community at Harvard meets once a week and has mediation sessions. What this book highlights are the different types of paths to follow, exercises, and snippets from different perspective. You don’t need to be searching for more happiness at work to get a lot out of this book, but you do have to be open to examining your habits. What I found to be my favorite is the highlighting of various types of meditation and well as the focus on real world examples and applications. Parking lot rage? Got it. Can’t relate to Eastern examples, that’s okay. We even touch on our country’s forefathers.

One thing it does not have is spiritual explanations for benefits or affects, this is purely secular.