Search inside yourself

I have attended an online webinar with Six Seconds that explained the meaning of searching inside oneself. Main points discussed were mindfulness, self awareness and emotional intelligence.

Search inside yourself is a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence program for leaders. This program was worked out by the founder of search inside yourself Chade-Meg Tan.

Mindfulness studies have been embedded in many universities. The aim behind this program is to help people to optimize emotional competencies to be more happy.

Chade-Meg Tan says that mindfulness should no longer be considered a 'nice-to-have' for executives. Its a 'must-have': a way to keep our brains healthy, to support self-regulation and effective decision-making capabilities, and to protect ourselves from toxic stress.

Moreover Jon Kabat-Zinn says that mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.

The presenter Robert Chender  mentioned evidence-based benefits of mindfulness training such as: enhanced self awareness, cognitive flexibility, emotion regulation, decreased stress and anxiety, enhanced focus, greater insight and innovation, empathy and compassion, increased working memory and attention, clearer perception, better decision making and better overall health and well being.

He also summarized what Salovey and Mayer say about emotional intelligence, its the ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.

Robert Chender mentioned 5 different levels or kinds of emotional intelligence:

1- Self-awareness;knowing oneself emotions

2- Self- management(self-regulation);ability to manage one internal stage

3- Motivation

4- Empathy; awareness of others emotions

5- Leadership(social skills)

Then he mentioned the benefits of developing emotional intelligence:

1- Performance;who monitors his feelings and emotions is able to perform more.

2- Outstanding leadership; who understands others emotions are more effective.

3- Happiness; who controls his emotions is usually happy.

So both mindfulness and emotional intelligence includes self- awareness and the speaker said that self-awareness is a skill that can be developed and he said that its very important to have it, since it is a part of our emotional intelligence and being mindful.

The process of mindfulness practice:

The speaker also mentioned practices that someone can do in order to help their brains stay healthy, increase their self-regulation and decision-making capabilities, and to protect themselves from toxic stress.

1- One daily activity in mindfulness:walking to work, brushing teeth, eating( practice the mindfulness process in such tasks)

2- Practice 10 minutes each morning

3- Pause, pay attention,reflect

4- Attention at meetings, e-mail, conversation

5- Mindful practice