A brief 1-hour introduction to mindfulness meditation, created by Sean Fargo. * Mindfulness Consultant * Mindfulness Teacher Trainer - MindfulnessExercises.com/Mindfulness-Teacher-Training * Former Buddhist Monk of 2 Years * Certified Instructor for Search Inside Yourself (the mindfulness program developed at Google) Sean@MindfulnessExercises.com http://www.MindfulnessExercises.com Sean Fargo has been teaching mindfulness and creating guided meditation programs for many years in the USA, China, Thailand and Singapore. He is a certified instructor for Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute and has guided workshops for corporations such as Reddit, PG&E, DocuSign and Singtel. He is the Founder of Mindfulness Exercises, offering more than 1,500 free mindfulness talks, meditations, worksheets and more. Sean runs an online mindfulness teacher certification program, training mindfulness teachers on deepening their meditation, emotional intelligence, and formal offerings. Practiced as a Buddhist monk for 2 years and trained by pre-eminent meditation leaders, Sean carries forth his lineage by adapting timeless meditative traditions to contemporary life challenges. Sean’s trainings are experiential, fun and engaging. He eloquently presents techniques that are practical, down to earth and innovative. Drawing from a range of mindfulness and meditation methods, he’s responsive to his audience and tailors each offering to their needs. “Sean has keen insight into helping balance intense work situations and transitions with mindfulness, to help guide with different coaching techniques and tools. Sean’s thoughtfulness in asking the right questions and thought starters to develop the right program to fit specific needs is extremely helpful.” - Diane Neal, CEO, Sur la Table "Sean is a wonderful teacher, well practiced in the teachings of mindfulness and compassion, dedicated and thoughtful." - Jack Kornfield, Bestselling Author of 'A Path With Heart' & Founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center

1. MINDFULNESS
INTRODUCTION TO

2. 2 Minutes of Mindfulness

3. Mindful Nation UK Report
“Mindfulness means
paying attention to
what’s happening in
the present moment
in the mind, body and
external environment,
with an attitude of
curiosity and
kindness.”

4. Awareness of your experience

5. right now

6. without judgment.

7. Mindfulness Research Publications (source: PubMed)

8. • Enhanced self-awareness
• Cognitive flexibility
• Emotion regulation
• Decreased stress and anxiety
• Enhanced focus
• Greater insight and innovation
• Increased working memory and attention
• Clearer perception and cognition
• Better decision making
• Empathy and compassion
• Better overall health and wellbeing
Evidence-based benefits

9. Mindfulness practice: Decreased
stress and amygdala thickness
Holzel et al., 2010
Participants’ decreased stress correlated with
grey matter change
Right basolateral amygdala
(side view)

10. Neuroplasticity:
Changes in cortical thickness
Lazar, 2005

11. Meta-analysis:
Change in brain regions
Tang et al., 2015
Attentional Control1
2
3
Emotion Regulation
Self-Awareness

12. “Mindfulness should no longer be
considered a ‘nice-to-have’ for
professionals. It’s 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.”
Congleton, Hölzel, & Lazar, 2015

13. “The main business case for
meditation is that if you are fully
present on the job, you will be more
effective as a leader, you will make
better decisions and you will work
better with other people.”
Bill George
Harvard Business School
former CEO of Medtronic

14. From Dan Harris, ABC News

15. 1. Awareness of your experience: senses + thoughts

16. Example 1: Sights

17. • Colors, textures, shades, movements, shapes
• NOT: concepts or thoughts like car, Mary, or cloud

19. Example 2: Physical sensations

20. Movement of belly
emotional associations
feet touching ground
touch of clothing on skin
phone in hand
weight of body
internal/external temperature
soft, dense, heat,
tingling, bent, throbbing, dense

21. Nummenmaa et al.2013

23. Salovey and Mayer, 1990
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
“The ability to monitor one’s own
and others’ feelings and emotions,
to discriminate among them and to
use this information to guide one's
thinking and actions.”

24. EXISTENTIAL
“I am angry”

25. PHYSIOLOGICAL
“I experience
anger in my body”

26. Example 3: Thoughts

27. Noting distractions
types of thoughts
noting of future/present/past
worry/rumination
analyzing
confusion
(not:
getting caught up in a story
taking things too personally)

28. 2. Right now

29. Mind Wandering Distraction
Awareness
Reorientation of
Attention
Sustaining
Attention
Hasenkamp et al. Neuroimage (2012) 59:750-760
Ricard et al. Scientific American (2014) 311:38-45

30. In-the-moment:
“integrated”
At the gym:
“dedicated”

31. Improved Attention
Slagter et al. 2007

33. 3. Without judgment

34. Noticing and withholding judgments of what’s happening
“bad”
“wrong”
“should” be different

35. Sounds distract you during meditation.
Someone criticizes you.
Your spouse is late for dinner.

36. Automatic, reactive judgments close us off from
- insights into nuanced causes
- receiving additional real-time data
- empathy, compassion and kindness
- our resilience to bounce back with sustainable solutions

37. • Pause, breathe, open to your full objective experience.
• Be curious about your physical and mental reaction.
• Reflect on possible objective causes, everyone’s wish to
be happy, and an appropriate response.

38. Brefczynski-Lewis et al. 2007
# hrs.
mindfulness
meditation
Emotional
Reactivity
(Amygdala)

39. Foundational Mindfulness Practices:
Sensations of breathing
Body scan/Physical sensations
Listening
Walking
Standing
Eating
Noting types of distractions, thoughts and emotions

40. *Two important peripheral categories:
a.) concentration - staying with 1 thing, excluding all else
(fuel for mindfulness)
b.) heart cultivation - calling up a sense of care,
then intensifying and staying with it
40

41. Advanced Mindfulness Practices:
Leadership Values
Difficult Conversations
Parenting & Hospice
Death
Trauma
Addiction
Identity of Self & Other

43. Sample Applications

44. Insomnia
Excess mental energy/heat → Embodiment
Mindfulness Practice: Body scan

45. Anxiety
Future proliferation → Coming back to present
Body, heart; Self-compassion; Soft belly; Gratitude

46. Leadership
Cultivating larger purpose; Humility
Identifying core values
Drive; Eliminate distractions
Circle of influence

47. Overwhelm with news (Heart closes) → Compassion
Just like me (empathy)
+
Wishing well (compassion)

48. Pain
Attention towards pain with courage
Self-compassion
“I am not my pain”

49. Distraction
Staying with 1 meditation object, excluding all else

50. Feeling a lack of competency, worth, acceptance
Identifying all sources and contributions of:
- appreciation
- affection
- attention
- allowance
- acceptance

51. THANK YOU
MindfulnessExercises.com