Building Women Leaders – One Breath At A Time
Why women? Why mindfulness? These are two questions I probably get asked the most in our work to help build women leaders using the power of mindfulness. Instead of answering each of these questions individually because enough has been written and said about both topics separately, let me instead talk about the powerful intersection of mindful leadership and women’s leadership, and why it works.
There are three key benefits that mindfulness holds for women, that are supported by research, as well as the anecdotal evidence we have seen in our experience of now working with thousands of women in their journey to live and lead more mindfully, or as we say, lead from within.
Know Thyself
Do you know how many thoughts we have on any given day? It turns out we have an average of 60,000 thoughts. That number may not be particularly striking. What is striking is that, for most of us, 90% of those thoughts are the same! Not only that, given the inherent negativity bias of the brain, a majority of those thoughts lean more towards the negative – thoughts of anxiety, stress, worry etc. Why is this significant? Because most of us want some form of positive change in our lives, and in ourselves. However, there is little hope of that change if we continue to function on autopilot, thinking the same thoughts, and doing the same things, over and over again.
For any kind of change to happen in our lives, we need to first bring a level of awareness to our thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, if we refuse to entertain the thoughts that don’t serve us, and consciously choose the thoughts that do, it can create a domino effect that sets into motion a cascade of other positive thoughts and actions that lead to the results we do want in our lives. You change one thought, you can change an entire day. You change one day, and do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, you can potentially change a life.
One of the biggest and most powerful benefits of mindfulness – the ability to direct our attention to the present moment without judgment – is that it helps us become more self-aware. Meditation has, in fact, been proven to grow new neurons in regions of the brain that are responsible for self-control and self-regulation. Once you become more aware of your thoughts, you can mindfully change your thoughts. You change your thoughts, you change your brain (a la neuroplasticity). You change your brain, you change how you respond (and not just react) to the circumstances of your life, and so begins a virtuous cycle.
Coming back to women, with mindfulness meditation as an anchor, and combining that with a host of other powerful mindfulness tools, we create a space where women can bring greater awareness to much larger and deeper questions – Who am I? What do I truly value? What do I want to accomplish in the world? What do I want the world to see me as? And, how do I bring moment-to-moment awareness to how I am showing up in the world? As you get more and more clarity around these questions, what emerges is a greater sense of meaning and intention behind shaping oneself and one’s career path more consciously.
One of the biggest reasons why women drop out of the workforce, or ostensibly lack sufficient enthusiasm to get on a leadership path, is not because women inherently lack ambition or that we don’t value making a professional contribution, but something more fundamental than that – a failure to derive a sense of meaning from one’s work. When who we are and what we value is fundamentally aligned with the work we bring to the world, our work automatically becomes more meaningful. It doesn’t become easy, but it does fuel greater enthusiasm in us to overcome all manner of obstacles and challenges to keep going.
The act of bringing one’s work into alignment with who we are, what we value, and what we are most aspiring towards is a conscious act that requires reflection, introspection, and most of all, self-awareness. And that is what mindfulness helps to foster.
Psychological Well-being
As women and men, we have developed different coping mechanisms for dealing with the things that trigger us in a negative way. Women will tend to ruminate and fixate on the cause of stress, whereas men would typically turn to distraction. This translates into greater rates of anxiety and depression for women, and for men can mean greater conduct disorder and substance-use disorder, according to Rohil Rojiani, author of a study looking at the differential effects of mindfulness on men versus women. Though, much of this difference is conditioning more than biology – boys are encouraged to play outside to deal with stress, and girls to journal in a diary or talk it out with a friend.
Mindfulness helps us develop our mental capacity for focusing on the present moment more and more, which means we then spend much less time ruminating about something that happened in the past, or being anxious about the future. Mindfulness, therefore, reduces the negative emotions commonly experienced by women when our minds are in a wandering state, and in so doing, has a host of positive benefits for our overall psychological well-being from making us happier, calmer, and more focused, to making us more resilient.
Self-Compassion
Mindfulness is not just about paying attention to the present moment, but about paying attention to the present moment in an open and accepting way. Paying attention to both internal and external stimuli without judgment helps one detach from one’s thoughts and process those thoughts without taking everything too seriously or personally.
As women, we are conditioned to be quite hard on ourselves. We set a high bar for perfection for ourselves, and whenever we don’t meet our unrealistic standards of how we should be, we get plagued with a number of negative emotions ranging from shame (“I am not good enough”) to self-pity (“Why is this happening to me?”). Neither of those emotions is healthy or constructive. In fact, whenever we are overly critical of ourselves, the brain registers that as a form of attack, and proceeds to then go into survival or ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, and essentially shuts down higher order functions like creativity, learning and growth.
How can we do our best work if we are spending a greater part of our energy fighting ourselves? Mindfulness allows us to turn towards ourselves with kindness and compassion. Only when we come from a place of greater self-acceptance can we create the conditions for tapping into our highest potential as individuals, as professionals, and as leaders.
The ancient practice of mindfulness is not just supported by the wisdom of the ages, but also by a growing body of scientifically validated studies. While the research on mindfulness and women in particular is still emerging, the results so far clearly point to myriad benefits for women. By helping us become more self-aware, strengthening our psychological well-being, and allowing us to foster greater self-compassion and kindness towards ourselves, mindfulness creates a strong foundation for building women leaders, one breath at a time.
This article was originally published on HerStory.
