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Archive for February, 2012
Mindfulness Part 2: The CORE™ Method and the Brain
Thursday, I learned of some research that, to my mind, clearly supports how the CORE Method can evoke integrative processes in the brain and thereby strengthen neural integration and stimulate the growth of the middle pre-frontal structures in the brain. Neural integration is what is necessary for us to be more adaptable, balance our emotions, attune to others, have a greater sense of morality and empathy, regulate the body, eliminate fear, gain insights into oneself and more. So how did I make this link?
Mind, Relationships, and the Brain
I wasn’t able to attend the Wisdom2.0 conference this week, but I did catch some of the live streaming and am very grateful for being able to experience Dan Siegel’s talk on Mindfulness and the Brain. Dr. Siegel is a psychiatrist who studied “family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative.” His current field of research is interpersonal neurobiology, a term he coined in The Developing Mind, 1999. It is an “interdisciplinary field, which seeks to understand the mind and mental health.” He also coined the term, Mindsight, which is what led me to see a connection between HOW we introduce type lenses and increasing our health and well-being.
Dr. Siegel said that when we see another person’s mind, honor differences, and promote linkages we have an integrative relationship. When relationships are integrative, it stimulates growth of integrative processes in the middle pre-frontal cortex. (a nearly exact quote). He contends that relationships and the brain interact to create ‘mind.’ The mind is not the same thing as the activity of the brain. Mind is not defined clearly in psychology or psychiatry. His definition is,“Mind is an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.” It emerges as a self-organizing emergent property of a complex system (a system capable of open and chaotic behavior). Mind is the internal subjective self, our feelings, thoughts, memories, dreams, hopes and more.
CORE Lenses and Method
It seems to me that the typologies of the CORE Method give us a map of the territory of the mind. Type doesn’t exist just in the brain or in our behaviors. It is also in the subjective sense of self—our minds. Understanding type lenses helps us surface the meanings we tend to make of things and therefore our thoughts and feelings around those things. While we have evidence that the cognitive processes outlined by Jung show up in the brain in certain patterns and that temperament and Interaction Styles related behaviors show up in the body movements as well as the brain, until we can name the patterns and identify the organizing principles behind them we cannot be as mindful as we need to be to develop the integrative awareness required to operate in this complex world of today. And it will be harder to develop the compassion and empathy needed to keep us from going down the very destructive path we seem to be on at this time.
Dan Siegel describes mindfulness as attention to the present moment, suspending any prejudgment. Our type preferences and temperamental predispositions give us prejudgments. It is easier to let these go when we are aware of what they are and they are ‘just’ our type biases. So why is the ‘Method’ so important? It is not just about getting a type label so we can better master ourselves or communicate with others. It is about . . .
- Holding the models lightly so we can step outside them when they are not useful.
- Presenting the patterns as maps, not the territory so we can shift our perspectives into territories different than our own to truly ‘see’ another person.
- Seeing the processes as dynamic, not as ‘fixed’ types so we can flex our behavior and better manage the polarities of human interaction.
- Understanding that we grow and develop within our type so that we transcend the narrow view of our innate preferences and develop capacities in the non-preferences.
This is a mindful and integral approach to type. The goal is not the type models or even type identification. We don’t want an obsession with the models even though that often happens at first. We want the understanding of self and others to lead to more mindfulness in our relationships. The CORE Method is an integrative approach that helps develop integrative relationships by helping us truly see the minds of others, honor those differences by making space for them and shifting to take their perspectives—my definition of truly integrative relationships.
While I’ve shared here some of my insights and connections here, I recommend you watch the video. The raw video is posted now on the livestream.com website. It is the first 30 minutes of the video that was live streamed. (Hint: when it comes on, slide the audio slider over a tiny bit so you get right into the presentation. There is a long pause before it starts.)
Stay tuned for more about what I learned from Wisdome2.0 live streamed sessions. In the meantime, I’d love your thoughts and reactions.
Mindfulness Part 1: What’s Type Got to Do With It?
There is a fair amount of interest in Mindfulness these days. Large corporations such as Genentech have mindfulness programs. There are five LinkedIn groups with Mindfulness in their name and the largest one has over 5000 members. The Wisdom 2.0 Conference where mindfulness is explored in relation to technology was sold out in its second year and again this year at a larger venue. So what is mindfulness and why did I title a leadership workshop, Mindfully You: Leading from the CORE? This is the first in a series of posts exploring mindfulness and type. I hope you join me in the discussion.
Mindfulness is often equated with meditation. The dictionary defines it as keeping aware or being heedful. Mindfulness is not just meditation, but also a way of being open to the experience of the moment. Some describe it as awareness, others as being intentional about our choices.
There is a great deal of research linking mindfulness to stress reduction and lowering blood pressure to mention just a few of the benefits. Last year at Wisdom 2.0, I was struck by what seemed to be a rather specific definition of mindfulness that linked it to meditation and tuning in to one’s environment. It occurred to me that different types might experience mindfulness in different ways. I agree that meditation and increased awareness of one’s body and physical surroundings are good things. I just wonder if there aren’t other ways we need to become mindful.
When I took yoga classes we were taught different meditation practices each week. The goal was to try each of them and then use the ones that worked the best for us so I know there is allowance for individual differences in meditation practices.
It occurs to me that given that different personality types have different preferences for attending to different sources and kinds of information, we likely limit our awareness by automatically accessing and paying attention to one or two of these different kinds of information. Can we use our understanding of type differences to expand our awareness and become more mindful?
Just focusing for the moment on the Jungian model of psychological type, we can identify four perceiving processes:
- extraverted Sensing—tuning in to the immediate tangible context and experiencing what is there right now
- introverted Sensing—reviewing information from the past and the stored images and experiences we have had and comparing our current state with the past state
- extraverted iNtuiting—inferring meanings and interpreting between-the-lines information that isn’t expressed and seeing possibilities and links to other contexts
- introverted iNtuiting—imaging a likely future or different view that often presents itself as a whole
Many meditation practices ask us to focus on our breathing and when thoughts come up to just observe them and let them go. Others guide us through a body awareness so we tune into the tensions that we need to let go of and there are more methods than we can go into here.
As I think of my own development and the ways of becoming mindful, I can identify how different experiences helped me when it came to meditating as well as being more mindful in general. The first one came before I was type aware. Prepared childbirth required me to become hyper aware of what was going on in my body and consciously relaxing parts of it while tensing other parts. The practice I had to do for this served me long since in helping me balance my tendency of being so much in my head. I found that meditation practices that direct my attention to different areas of my body work well for me. Those that ask me to focus on an image or ‘nothingness’ don’t work for me. Is there a type preference? I think so. As an INTP, I prefer exraverted iNtuiting and can spend hours with random, seemingly unrelated thoughts going through my head. Sometimes I get so many ideas, I overwhelm myself. I need to calm my mind by focusing on the changing state of my body. This seems to me to be more of an introverted Sensing experience rather than an extraverted Sensing experience.
I’m curious if people of other types would say something different? What has helped you be mindful and how does that relate to your type preferences?
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