For reflection:

What does your inner voice say to you when others give you feedback?

When have you been a sponge with others’ feedback?

What might it look like to be a strainer with others’ feedback?

For reflection: 

Eurich states that 95% of people believe they are self-aware while only 10-15% actually meet the criteria. She suggests that we are probably "doing introspection wrong" by asking ourselves "why" instead of "what." Thinking of a problem you are stuck on, how might your view of this problem change by asking "what" rather than "why?"

How might you increase your self-awareness by requesting feedback from trusted colleagues? 

Want to find out how self-aware you are? Take the free "Insight Quiz" - a small subset of Dr. Eurich's 70-question assessment tool. 

For reflection:

What does “leaning into loneliness” look like for you?

What connections are even more valuable to you now that they are more difficult to maintain?

The Z.B.A. Manifesto

1. It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to be vulnerable. No one has all the answers. We value and learn from the questions and the asking.

2. We are learning to appreciate the mystery and sacredness of our lives and the mystery and sacredness of life.

3. Life is short. There is no escape from old age, sickness and death. Death is a great teacher. Recognizing the shortness of our lives provides motivation to live fully in each day and in each moment.

4. We understand the importance of taking regular quiet time for ourselves. Through reflection and by slowing down we develop an appreciation for life and we increase our capacity for understanding.

5. We are learning to trust our inner wisdom. Our bodies and minds are amazing, unexplainable and unfathomable.

6. It’s okay to be uneasy, to be uncomfortable, to grieve, to feel pain. Recognizing when something is off, feeling the depth of loss and experiencing pain are the first steps toward change and growth.

7. Practice active listening — listening deeply to yourself and to others. Listen to others without formulating your own ideas. Listen to yourself before speaking.

8. We all seek balance in our lives — balancing work and family, balancing our inner and outer lives, balancing what we want to do and what we must do.

9. We are learning that we can be fully ourselves in all situations — at work, as parents, as children, as friends, as lovers.

10. Being ourselves at work is vital to our health and happiness. Our time is too valuable to sell, at any price.

11. Each moment is precious. In every moment we have an opportunity to discover, to grow, to speak the truth.

12. Each moment is ordinary. In every moment we can realize we are fine, just as we are. Nothing else is needed.

13. We appreciate what is paradoxical. What may at first seem contradictory or beyond our understanding may be true. After all, who is it that is breathing? Who is it that dreams? How is it that these hands effortlessly glide along this keyboard?

14. Age is a state of mind. We have the opportunity to grow to be more like ourselves every day.

15. Developing intimate relationships is a vital part of our lives and our development. Intimacy requires openness, honesty and vulnerability.

16. Real, honest open communication is highly valued — and takes real skill and effort.

17. When we slow down and learn to trust ourselves, joy arises naturally.

18. When we slow down and learn to trust ourselves, creativity arises naturally.

19. Self-knowledge and understanding require persistence and perseverance. Developing awareness and balance is an ongoing, unending process.

20. Self-knowledge and understanding require discipline. Whatever path we take requires structure, guidelines and feedback.

21. Self-knowledge and understanding require courage.

22. Diversity is essential. Our differences enrich our lives. There is no “other,” just as our right hand is not a stranger to our left hand.

23. A simple rule to follow is do good, avoid harm. Of course, this is not simple or easy.

24. There are many paths and many practices toward developing awareness and personal growth.

25. Our everyday lives and activities provide fertile ground for developing growth and understanding.

26. We can learn to appreciate the gifts we’ve received from our parents and to forgive them. We understand on a deep level all we have received from the generations that have come before us.

27. We feel a deep responsibility for our children and for the generations that will come after us.

28. We can all act as change agents. We can choose to take action in improving and healing our environment and our society. There is no shortage of issues to address, of healing to take place.

29. We are all change agents on a personal level — we either create healing amongst those we live and work with or we create stress.

30. We can choose to act as change agents in relation to our communities.

31. We can choose to act as change agents in relation to our society or on a global level.

32. Everything we hold as dear will one day change and disappear. Every business that now exists will one day cease. Every person now alive will one day die.

33. At a deep level, we realize that we are neither in control nor not in control. Our task is to paddle the boat, with awareness and integrity. The flow of the river is outside our doing.

34. We all have the power to find peace and happiness in the midst of change and impermanence.

35. We have the power to heal ourselves, our communities and our planet.

For reflection alone or together:

What would you include in your personal manifesto? 

Write down at least two statements that would show up on your manifesto. 

Next week: Defusing from thoughts

For reflection:

Which feedback trigger (truth, relationship, or identity) do you react to most?

What’s one thing you could change about how you receive feedback?

For reflection alone or together: 

How are/aren't emotions displayed at your work?  

How do/don't people care for each other at your workplace? 

What might foster a culture of "companionate love" at your workplace? 

Next week: Strengthening your compassion muscle - part 1

In her book, Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert offers the following insight about the necessity of ritual:

“We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you are craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet.”

Many hospice and palliative care teams use rituals to remember patient’s who have died or to honor team-member life transitions.

Another opportunity for ritual appears when we welcome a new team member into our team. Rather than only focusing on credentialing or onboarding, pausing to recognize this moment of transition, for both the new team member and the current team, is a way to further clarify and fortify our team raison d’etre.

The following is one way to ritualize a new team member’s arrival:

Welcoming Ritual for a New Team Member

Team history

Begin by having each member of the current team describe how they came to this work and specifically to this team. 

Questions for a new team member

Invite the new team member to answer the following questions. Share the questions with the new team member prior to the welcoming ritual so they have time to reflect on their responses.

Current team member asks: What brings you to this work?

Current team member asks: What brings you to this team?

Current team member asks: What are you hoping for?

Current team member asks: What are your dreams?

Team vision

The team leader(s) describe the team’s vision including the team’s values (what is most important at the end of the day), the team’s philosophy (why they do the work the way they do it), and goals for the future (where they hope to be one, two, five years from now).

Reading

Current team members take turns reading the following poem in parts.

How to Tell the Truth by Paul Williams

Current team member:

When you just have to talk,
try being silent.

When you feel reluctant to say anything,
make the effort
to put what you’re feeling into words.

This is a place to begin.

Current team member:

Pushing gently
against the current
of your own impulses
is an effective technique
for dislodging
and discovering
your truth.

Current team member:

How to tell the truth?
Taste it
and remember the taste in your heart.
Risk it
from the bottom of your love.
Take the risk
of telling the truth
about what you’re feeling
Take the risk
of telling your loved one
your secrets.

Current team member:

It’s true
you might be misunderstood.
Look and see
if you’re willing to trust
yourselves
to misunderstand each other
and go on from there.

Current team member:

When someone speaks to you
and you feel yourself not wanting to hear it
try letting it in.
You don’t have to agree that they’re right.
Just take the risk
of listening as if they could possibly be speaking
some truth—
and see what happens.

Current team member:

Listen as if.
Listen as if you can’t always tell
what the truth is.
Listen as if you might be wrong,
especially when you know you’re right.
Listen as if
you were willing to take the risk
of growing beyond
your righteousness. 

All:

Listen as if
love mattered.

Closing blessing 

Current team member: May you be blessed with the courage to be silent

Current team member: May you be blessed with the strength to dislodge your own truth

Current team member: May you be blessed with the stamina to tell the truth with love 

(Add additional blessings to make sure each current team member is included)

All: Welcome to this work, welcome to this team.

For reflection alone or together: 

What image did you choose and what drew you to it? 

How might embracing this image of healing change the way you approach your work?

Next week: Unbroken

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

Judy Brown, from The Sea Accepts All Rivers

For reflection alone or together:

What words or phrases call out to you from this poem?

When in the past have you piled on too many logs?

When has too much of a good thing not been a good thing?

What does it look like for you to create sufficient spaces in this season of your life?

What fire might emerge if you allow more space between the logs?

For reflection alone or together:

Achor summarizes a common belief about work: “If I work harder, I'll be more successful. And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier” and suggests that this may be backwards.

How much does the above statement reflect your view?

Achor suggests several research informed practices for increasing happiness:

• Writing down three new things you are grateful for every day for 21 days

• Journaling

• Exercise

• Meditation

• Conscious acts of kindness

Which of these do you currently practice? Which would you like to try?

For reflection alone or together:

When do I feel best in my body? 

What might I add to feel even better?

For reflection alone or together:

If blame is a way to avoid our own pain and disappointment, and accountability is the alternative to blame -- where might you need to practice less blame and more accountability? 

Is blame corroding any of your relationships?

For reflection alone or together:

What daily rituals give your life meaning?

What rituals connect you to your family, friends, and community?

Which of your current possessions would you want to be remembered by?

For reflection alone or together:

When and where have there been smooth flowing waters and times of ease in your life?

What have been some of the bends and turns in your life? How did they affect your perspective?

Are there times when your life flowed purposefully and other times when there seemed to be only a trickle of purpose or meaning?

What has most shaped you?

For reflection alone or together: 

"I know this is a tough time for you," "We are in this together," and "I will be here for you," are phrases that Trzeciak calls "40 seconds of compassion." How do you express compassion toward those you care for? 

How do you express meaningful compassion toward yourself? 

How do you find human connection in your work?

For reflection alone or together:

According to Margaret Heffernan, Alice and George's conflict set the stage for a great scientific breakthrough. How do you approach conflict? 

Do you have mostly "echo chambers" or people who actively disagree with you in your life? What do you notice about how this effects your growth and creativity?

How might you promote healthy disagreement in your team or organization? 

Michael Kearney is a palliative care physician and the author of three books Mortally Wounded: Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing, A Place of Healing:  Working with Nature and Soul at the End of Life, and most recently The Nest in the Stream all of which are explorations in the role of healing in medicine. Dr. Kearney and his wife Radhule Weininger teach mindfulness meditation together. Find a quiet place to listen to this short meditation.

For reflection:

What did you notice about the pain that is present within you?

What did you notice when you let go of the pain with each exhale?

More meditations from Dr. Kearney

For reflection:

Roshi Joan offers the following phrases in the meditation:

May I accept my sadness, knowing that I am not my sadness

May I forgive myself for not meeting my loved one’s needs

May I forgive myself for mistakes made and things left undone

May I be open with others and with myself about my experience of loss

May I be open to receive the kindness of others as they support me in this journey of grief

May I and all beings learn from and transform sorrow

What arose for you in this meditation?

Which of the phrases most resonates with you?

For reflection alone or together: 

How was this practice for you? What did you notice in your body, your thoughts, and your emotions?

What other practices help you find rest in the middle of things? 

For reflection alone or together: 

What does "vulnerability based trust" mean to you? 

In your experience, how do you know when it is safe to be vulnerable with others or with your team? 

What are some cues that another person or a team might not be a safe? 

How can you create a safety for yourself and be vulnerable?