Forest Therapy Articles - the restorative power of nature
https://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20190611/forest-bathing-nature-time-hot-health-advice
https://www.doseofnature.org.uk/the-science
https://www.theforestlibrary.com/forest-bathing-online-articles
Article content: Managing Yourself by Susan David and Christina Congleton
Sixteen thousand—that’s how many words we speak, on average, each day. So imagine how many unspoken ones course through our minds. Most of them are not facts but evaluations and judgments entwined with emotions—some positive and helpful (I’ve worked hard and I can ace this presentation; This issue is worth speaking up about; The new VP seems approachable), others negative and less so (He’s purposely ignoring me; I’m going to make a fool of myself; I’m a fake).
The prevailing wisdom says that difficult thoughts and feelings have no place at the office: Executives, and particularly leaders, should be either stoic or cheerful; they must project confidence and damp down any negativity bubbling up inside them. But that goes against basic biology. All healthy human beings have an inner stream of thoughts and feelings that include criticism, doubt, and fear. That’s just our minds doing the job they were designed to do: trying to anticipate and solve problems and avoid potential pitfalls.
In our people-strategy consulting practice advising companies around the world, we see leaders stumble not because they have undesirable thoughts and feelings—that’s inevitable—but because they get hooked by them, like fish caught on a line. This happens in one of two ways. They buy into the thoughts, treating them like facts (It was the same in my last job…I’ve been a failure my whole career), and avoid situations that evoke them (I’m not going to take on that new challenge). Or, usually at the behest of their supporters, they challenge the existence of the thoughts and try to rationalize them away (I shouldn’t have thoughts like this…I know I’m not a total failure), and perhaps force themselves into similar situations, even when those go against their core values and goals (Take on that new assignment—you’ve got to get over this). In either case, they are paying too much attention to their internal chatter and allowing it to sap important cognitive resources that could be put to better use.
This is a common problem, often perpetuated by popular self-management strategies. We regularly see executives with recurring emotional challenges at work—anxiety about priorities, jealousy of others’ success, fear of rejection, distress over perceived slights—who have devised techniques to “fix” them: positive affirmations, prioritized to-do lists, immersion in certain tasks. But when we ask how long the challenges have persisted, the answer might be 10 years, 20 years, or since childhood.
Clearly, those techniques don’t work—in fact, ample research shows that attempting to minimize or ignore thoughts and emotions serves only to amplify them. In a famous study led by the late Daniel Wegner, a Harvard professor, participants who were told to avoid thinking about white bears had trouble doing so; later, when the ban was lifted, they thought about white bears much more than the control group did. Anyone who has dreamed of chocolate cake and french fries while following a strict diet understands this phenomenon.
Effective leaders don’t buy into or try to suppress their inner experiences. Instead they approach them in a mindful, values-driven, and productive way—developing what we call emotional agility. In our complex, fast-changing knowledge economy, this ability to manage one’s thoughts and feelings is essential to business success. Numerous studies, from the University of London professor Frank Bond and others, show that emotional agility can help people alleviate stress, reduce errors, become more innovative, and improve job performance.
We’ve worked with leaders in various industries to build this critical skill, and here we offer four practices—adapted from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), originally developed by the University of Nevada psychologist Steven C. Hayes—that are designed to help you do the same: Recognize your patterns; label your thoughts and emotions; accept them; and act on your values.
Fish on a Line
Let’s start with two case studies. Cynthia is a senior corporate lawyer with two young children. She used to feel intense guilt about missed opportunities—both at the office, where her peers worked 80 hours a week while she worked 50, and at home, where she was often too distracted or tired to fully engage with her husband and children. One nagging voice in her head told her she’d have to be a better employee or risk career failure; another told her to be a better mother or risk neglecting her family. Cynthia wished that at least one of the voices would shut up. But neither would, and in response she failed to put up her hand for exciting new prospects at the office and compulsively checked messages on her phone during family dinners.
Jeffrey, a rising-star executive at a leading consumer goods company, had a different problem. Intelligent, talented, and ambitious, he was often angry—at bosses who disregarded his views, subordinates who didn’t follow orders, or colleagues who didn’t pull their weight. He had lost his temper several times at work and been warned to get it under control. But when he tried, he felt that he was shutting off a core part of his personality, and he became even angrier and more upset.
These smart, successful leaders were hooked by their negative thoughts and emotions. Cynthia was absorbed by guilt; Jeffrey was exploding with anger. Cynthia told the voices to go away; Jeffrey bottled his frustration. Both were trying to avoid the discomfort they felt. They were being controlled by their inner experience, attempting to control it, or switching between the two.
Getting Unhooked
Fortunately, both Cynthia and Jeffrey realized that they couldn’t go on—at least not successfully and happily—without more-effective inner strategies. We coached them to adopt the four practices:
Practice 1 - Recognize your patterns.
The first step in developing emotional agility is to notice when you’ve been hooked by your thoughts and feelings. That’s hard to do, but there are certain telltale signs. One is that your thinking becomes rigid and repetitive. For example, Cynthia began to see that her self-recriminations played like a broken record, repeating the same messages over and over again. Another is that the story your mind is telling seems old, like a rerun of some past experience. Jeffrey noticed that his attitude toward certain colleagues (He’s incompetent; There’s no way I’m letting anyone speak to me like that) was quite familiar. In fact, he had experienced something similar in his previous job—and in the one before that. The source of trouble was not just Jeffrey’s environment but his own patterns of thought and feeling. You have to realize that you’re stuck before you can initiate change.
Leaders stumble when they are paying too much attention to their internal chatter and allowing it to sap important cognitive resources that could be put to better use.
Practice 2 - Label your thoughts and emotions.
When you’re hooked, the attention you give your thoughts and feelings crowds your mind; there’s no room to examine them. One strategy that may help you consider your situation more objectively is the simple act of labeling. Just as you call a spade a spade, call a thought a thought and an emotion an emotion. I’m not doing enough at work or at home becomes I’m having the thought that I’m not doing enough at work or at home. Similarly, My coworker is wrong—he makes me so angry becomes I’m having the thought that my coworker is wrong, and I’m feeling anger. Labeling allows you to see your thoughts and feelings for what they are: transient sources of data that may or may not prove helpful. Humans are psychologically able to take this helicopter view of private experiences, and mounting scientific evidence shows that simple, straightforward mindfulness practice like this not only improves behavior and well-being but also promotes beneficial biological changes in the brain and at the cellular level. As Cynthia started to slow down and label her thoughts, the criticisms that had once pressed in on her like a dense fog became more like clouds passing through a blue sky.
Practice 3 - Accept them.
The opposite of control is acceptance—not acting on every thought or resigning yourself to negativity but responding to your ideas and emotions with an open attitude, paying attention to them and letting yourself experience them. Take 10 deep breaths and notice what’s happening in the moment. This can bring relief, but it won’t necessarily make you feel good. In fact, you may realize just how upset you really are. The important thing is to show yourself (and others) some compassion and examine the reality of the situation. What’s going on—both internally and externally? When Jeffrey acknowledged and made room for his feelings of frustration and anger rather than rejecting them, quashing them, or taking them out on others, he began to notice their energetic quality. They were a signal that something important was at stake and that he needed to take productive action. Instead of yelling at people, he could make a clear request of a colleague or move swiftly on a pressing issue. The more Jeffrey accepted his anger and brought his curiosity to it, the more it seemed to support rather than undermine his leadership.
Practice 4 - Act with a focus on your values.
When you unhook yourself from your difficult thoughts and emotions, you expand your choices. You can decide to act in a way that aligns with your values.
We encourage leaders to focus on the concept of workability:
Is your response going to serve you and your organization in the long term as well as the short term?
Will it help you steer others in a direction that furthers your collective purpose?
Are you taking a step toward being the leader you most want to be and living the life you most want to live?
The mind’s thought stream flows endlessly, and emotions change like the weather, but values can be called on at any time, in any situation.
When Cynthia considered her values, she recognized how deeply committed she was to both her family and her work; she loved being with her children, but she also cared passionately about the pursuit of justice. Unhooked from her distracting and discouraging feelings of guilt, she resolved to be guided by her principles. She recognized how important it was to get home for dinner with her family every evening and to resist work interruptions during that time. But she also undertook to make a number of important business trips, some of which coincided with school events that she would have preferred to attend. Confident that her values, not solely her emotions, were guiding her, Cynthia finally found peace and fulfillment. It’s impossible to block out difficult thoughts and emotions. Effective leaders are mindful of their inner experiences but not caught in them. They know how to free up their internal resources and commit to actions that align with their values. Developing emotional agility is no quick fix—even those who, like Cynthia and Jeffrey, regularly practice the steps we’ve outlined here will often find themselves hooked. But over time, leaders who become increasingly adept at it are the ones most likely to thrive.
What Are Your Values?
This list of values below is from the Personal Values Card Sort (2001), developed by W.R. Miller, J. C’de Baca, D.B. Matthews, and P.L. Wilbourne, of the University of New Mexico. You can use it to quickly identify the values you hold that might inform a challenging situation at work. When you next make a decision, ask yourself whether it is consistent with these values.
Exercise - Evaluate Your Emotional Agility
Choose a challenging situation in your work life—for example, “Receiving negative feedback from my boss” or “Asking my boss for a raise.”
Identify a thought that “hooks” you in that situation, such as “My boss has no confidence in me” or “My contribution isn’t as valuable as my teammates’.”
Ask yourself: “To what extent do I avoid this thought, trying to make it go away?” A lot, somewhat, not at all?
“To what extent do I buy into it, letting it overwhelm me?”
Identify a feeling that this situation evokes. Is it anger, sadness, fear, shame, disgust, or something else?
Ask yourself: “To what extent do I avoid or try to ignore this feeling?” and “To what extent do I buy into it?”
Follow through advice
If you primarily avoid your thoughts and feelings, try to acknowledge them instead. Notice thoughts as they arise and check your emotional state several times a day so that you can identify the useful information your mind is sending you.
If you primarily buy into your thoughts and feelings, find your ground. Take 10 deep breaths, notice your environment, and label—rather than being swept up in—them.
If you alternate, learn your patterns. Pay attention to which thoughts and feelings you avoid and which you buy into so that you can respond with one of the strategies we describe.
The next step is to take action that aligns with your values. ( Identify which ones you want to apply in the context of the challenging situation you’ve described.
Susan David is a founder of the Harvard/McLean Institute of Coaching, is on faculty at Harvard Medical School and is recognized as one of the world’s leading management thinkers. She is author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller Emotional Agility (Avery) based on the concept named by HBR as a Management Idea of the Year. An in-demand speaker and advisor, David has worked with the senior leadership of hundreds of major organizations, including the United Nations, Ernst & Young, and the World Economic Forum. You can receive her free Emotional Agility assessment here. .
Christina Congleton is a leadership and change consultant at Axon Coaching, and researches stress and the brain at the University of Denver. She holds a master’s in human development and psychology from Harvard University.
GRATITUDE PRACTICE
Morning journaling questions - a 30 day practice for centering oneself
1. What are three simple things I am grateful for as I start this day?
2. What positive quality of mine do I want to express today?
3. What learning edge capacity of mine do I want to cultivate through thoughts, feelings and/or actions today?
Journal these at the start of each day as feasible or at a minimum take 15 minutes to quietly sit with the learning reflection and questions in your mind.
Remember please to bring a stance of curiosity and self compassion to this practice (see practices book recommended below by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer). Set aside self or other judgment and fixed/fixer mindset (from Carol Dweck’s work contrasting the impact of a Growth Mindset and a Fixed Mindset).
From day 2 forward, first reflect on what there is for you to learn from yesterday's answer to these 3 questions and your capacity to hold the intentions of questions 2 and 3.
INTENTION SETTING EXERCISES
START OF A NEW YEAR INTENTION SETTING - GETTING CLEARER ON THE RECENT PAST AND ONE’S WHOLISTICALLY OUTLINED PRIORITIES
This Intention Setting handout combines a number of different exercises (each appealing to a different form of intelligence within us) that you can use in your own time to refine your sense of focus for the future. Without a clear picture of where we have been and where we are, it is difficult to determine how to forge a path forward. :-)
THE POWER OF SELF REGULATION
EMPHASIS: Noticing and shifting our Internal Weather (self-regulation as a key capacity of leadership, eepsciallly in times of change/pressure)
A very simple but powerful process is to have an Internal Weather checkin with oneself at the start of each day.
Step 1 - pause and breathe gently for 2 to 3 breaths. Now bring your attention inward to your internal mood, emotions, felt sense. Ask yourself: “What is my Internal Weather right now?”. Notice if it is stormy, sad, joyous, anxious, sunny, foggy, undecided, etc. Whatever it is, apply some self-compassion to yourself and let it be as it is for the moment. Just notice. Do not judge yourself one way or the other. You are simply taking a reading.
Step 2 - Once you are ready, then ask yourself: “What is one simplest thing I could do, to shift my Internal Weather in a way that is more helpful to me and to others?”. Do that thing within the next hour. Possibilities: hug a loved one, notice the beauty of a park on the way to work, remind yourself of something that you are grateful for in life, listen to a favorite piece of music, take 10 minutes to do some yoga or other exercise that uplifts you, call a friend while commuting to work, consider what one thing you really want to accomplish at the office, plan a lovely outing for the weekend, etc etc But remember the next simplest thing. Even if the weather just improves by a small amount, it is ok.
Step 3. Repeat daily for at least 2 weeks to start to notice what impact this simple practice of self (and other) compassion is having.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Sarah Rozenthuler’s book on Purpose is a great recent resource - filled with research and with practical advice on how to go about integrating purpose-guided practices into one’s personal and organizational leadership focus set.
I recommend Susan David’s for a scholarly but practical approach to self-regulation and emotional resilience.
Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer’s workbook is foundational to strengthen one’s capacity to bring self-compassion to oneself so as to soothe the threat brain response to triggering events, as well as grow one’s capacity to accept and even delight in the foibles and misteps of others (by noticing the challenge of our common humanity, we can get out of the habit of projecting our inner criticisms outward onto others that remind us in some conscious or even unconscious ways of traits we fear we have ourselves).
April 2021
Some resources:
Field of the Future Journaling Practice (a practice from the Presencing Institute)
Purpose
Guided journaling leads you through a process of self-reflection. This process allows you to step into a deeper level of reflection than in an un-guided journaling process, and identify concrete action steps. Journaling practices can be used in all phases of the Presencing Institute’s U-process of change especially during the sensing and presencing steps.
Principles
Journaling is a personal process.
Journaling means that you write to find out what you think, rather than thinking, reflecting and then writing.
Uses & Outcomes
Access deeper levels of self-reflection & knowledge
Learn how to use Journaling as a reflective tool
Connect self-reflection to concrete action steps
Time
A minimum of 45 minutes is required. Depending on the context this process can take up to 60-90 min.
Sequence
Step 1: Preparation
Prepare a quiet space that allows you to enter into a process of self-reflection without distractions.
Step 2: Guided Journaling Questions
Read one question at a time; then journal, guided by the respective question. Go one by one through the questions. Move to the next question when you sense that you are done with the current question you are journaling in response to. Take your time but don’t spend too much time on a question (you can always go through the journaling again). It is important to get into a flow and not to think too much.
A 16-Step Journaling Practice for Stepping into The Field of the Future
1. Being born I: Over the past days and weeks, what did you notice about your emerging self and what is wanting to be born?
2. Being born II: What did you notice about what is wanting to be born in your context or community?
3. Frustration: What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates you the most?
4. Happiness: What about your current work and life inspires and energizes you the most?
5. Helicopter I: Watch yourself from above (as if in a helicopter). What are you doing? What are you trying to do in this stage of your professional and personal journey?
6. Helicopter II: Watch your collective journey from above. What are you trying to do collectively in the present stage of your collective journey?
7. Your younger self: Look at your current situation from the viewpoint of you as a young person, at the beginning of your journey: What does that young person have to say to you?
8. Footprint: Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your life, when it is time for you to pass on. Now look back on your life’s journey as a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you want to leave behind on the planet?
9. From that future point of view: What advice have you given to your current self?
10. Now return again to the present and crystallize what it is that you want to create: your vision and intention for the next 3-5 years. What vision and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are some essential core elements of the future that you want to create in your personal, professional, and social life? Describe or draw as concretely as possible the images and elements that occur to you.
11. Feel the connection of our global Action Learning Lab community that is present across the planet at this moment: What is our collective highest future possibility? What could we be an instrument for? What could we collectively create within the next 3-5 years?
12. Letting-go: What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What is the old skin (behaviors, assumptions, etc.) that you need to shed?
13. Letting-come: Where do you find the seeds of tomorrow in your context and environment NOW?
14. Prototyping: Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the future in which you could discover “the new” by doing something, what would that prototype look like?
15. People: Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality? Who might be your core helpers and partners?
16. Action: If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 days?
Gross National Happiness Institute Handout
(with thanks to Julia Kim of the Gross National Happiness Institute https://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/ )