The road was slick from the rain. I did not want to complain because the Bay Area needs to fill up its rivers and reservoirs as fast as possible. None the less, when a car swerved just a bit too close for comfort I shouted out from that place inside that activates stress “Watch out you jerk.”
My nine year old granddaughter said simply, “Grand-mom that was not very mindful. When we get home I’ll do some of the mindful meditations we learn in school with you.”
And we did.
We began by showing compassion for all things great and small. We studied an orange and appreciated its beauty and smell and the good health it brings us. We looked at a flower, we ran our fingers over a book and on and on.
I know from all my research in leadership development that when stress hits the hot button we all revert to patterns from childhood to keep us safe. When our buttons get pushed we all tend to react in a less than excellent way.
Well, the holidays are upon us and everyone I talk with says their stress meter is at the top.
I want to give you all a holiday gift of a TED Talk by my friend Meng who is a semi-retired engineer at Google. Meng invited me to speak about my book, ‘Don’t Bring It to Work’ at Google and when we finally met in person I knew I had come across an extraordinary human being.
He doesn’t just talk about compassion and mindfulness, he lives it. He was interviewed on 60 minutes that was recently aired. Enjoy Meng and take compassion with you into this robust holiday season. Click here for the video.
What does the happiest man in the world look like?
