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Welcome to the Eastwesticism podcast where our host Todd Perelmuter shares the lessons he's learned spending eight years living with gurus, monks, lamas, and shamans across 35 countries and five continents. Join in the journey as he brings the best scientifically proven methods for living your best life from the east and the west, straight to you. The path to peace, love, health and happiness starts here.

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Hello, and welcome to path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. I'm your host, Todd Perelmuter. And today, I'm going to be talking about how we can practice mindfulness at work. According to a statistic I just made up 80% of all stress in our lives is from work.

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I don't know that it's true, but it feels true, doesn't it? The thing is, all of that stress is not necessary. And we have a incredible tool at our disposal to overcome it. And just completely get rid of it. And that is mindfulness. 

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Mindfulness is a way of looking at all of our mental processes, our thoughts, our emotions, and being aware of them, so that we don't get consumed by them, and lost in them. And meditation is a great tool for helping us become mindful, because it's just that time to sit and observe your thoughts, your emotions, your bodily sensations, this the physical manifestations of stress, we also need to apply this mindfulness to our daily life. 

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And really nowhere is that more important than in the workplace, from bosses who don't like your work, or co worker gossip, there's just so many things that can trigger this stress response that mindfulness can help us with in the office. And since you can't always leave work and go meditate for 20 minutes. 

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There are some very simple practical things we can do in the office to help us be more mindful and help us see situations in a different perspective, so that we are not suffering internally and struggling with whatever we have to do that day. 

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There's really five ways to practice mindfulness at work.

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Number one, is to be aware of the physical manifestations of stress that are happening in your body as they start to arise. And this can be a reminder to us to take a breath, take a pause.

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Just cool down for a second. And these physical manifestations are tension in our face, shoulders, neck, back, anywhere. They are also very shallow, short, quick, irregular breathing. Sometimes we even hold our breath and we just tense up in our throat, our blood pressure rises, our heart rate rises, our literally our temperature rises.

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Some people start to shake, or maybe they close their fist. These are all the physical manifestations of stress. And as soon as we recognize that, we can control our breath, we can relax our shoulders, we can take deep, slow, long breaths as soon as we notice soon as we catch ourselves. And so instead of lashing out at a co worker, we can call ourselves and think rationally again.

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Another thing we can do is instead of paying attention to the story in our mind about what's happening, we can just pay attention to what is happening. The story in our mind is how could this person say this? Does this person know anything? Gotta hate this person? Where do they get the nerve?

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All fictions the reality of the situation is as this person is saying something that perhaps my ego doesn't want to hear that maybe they shouldn't be saying. But if you look at the situation deeper, you can see the situation from their perspective, you can start to focus on their energy behind what they're saying, where they're coming from. 

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And as we get out of our own head, we can see the situation from not just our perspective or their perspective, but we can really see a true reality forming, which is, maybe this person had a bad morning, maybe that person lost someone or is going through something really difficult. Maybe they are justified in saying what they're saying. But they're saying it poorly, because they are not being mindful. 

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And maybe your reaction is from your ego and your pride being hurt. And feeling like they don't have the right to talk to you that way. In reality, it's just two people talking. And these are just sound waves bouncing off your ear, becoming electriss electrical signals in your brain, and interpreted by the mind. And it's this interpretation, where the truth gets lost. 

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And our perspective becomes small. And we fixate on this one thing we don't like. So it's very important to expand our awareness to beyond just the one thing that's driving us crazy, because that's, that's what happens is we become fixated and obsessed. And all we can see is this one aspect of a infinitely rich experience, which is always the present moment. And we focus on this one thing that drives us crazy.

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Another super important thing we can do is notice our desire and our expectations for things to be a certain way, and to let that go. Because unless you're an all powerful dictator, you do not have the power to control things exactly the way you wish. 

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So it is very important that we accept the present moment, whatever it is, and this is a continual practice we can do throughout our lives that says, I accept this moment, I'll deal with this moment, exactly as it is, I won't wish for it to be something else, because that would be delusion. 

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And I will respond accordingly to this moment. In this way we make the right decisions, because we're reacting to the present moment, and not some imagined present moment or something we wish would be in this moment. And we're not. 

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There's no conflict, there's only wisdom, patience, clarity. And this is how we make the best decisions. This doesn't mean we accept the present moment, and we don't try to change things or we don't reach for goals or we don't.

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You know, accepting the present moment doesn't mean we just roll over and die. You know, we don't just let whatever happens happens and just say, well, that's what the universe wants. What it means is, we try to change things. We try to fix things. improve things, set goals and reach goals. But we do it with no tension, no stress, no attachment to an outcome, no disappointment, if it doesn't go our way. 

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But we, in doing so are operating from this higher intelligence, this, it's not a forced effort we are letting the present moment be we're honoring that moment. And we are responding, a greater sense of peace and calm so that our whole lives no matter what happens, we have peace and calm in our lives, we change things, we fix things, we deal with things, soberly, and without fear, without anger, or resistance. In a sense, we're letting the universe flow through us. 

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Another way we can be mindful at work is to simply observe our ego.

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And the reason we get hurt is because the ego is saying, how can they treat me like this, the ego is trying to fool us into believing it is us. That's why it says me when it means the ego, but we think it is who we are.

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But the ego, and the thinking mind is a part of our body, it's a part of our brain function, just like our hands are, and we don't get mad at the hand for being a hand, because we don't identify as a hand. And yet we identify as the ego. And this is why when the ego gets hurt, we feel hurt. 

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But what you can do when you recognize this hurt, pride, hurt ego, feeling like someone shouldn't be allowed to talk to you this way, or having your work criticized and feeling.

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You know this, this hurt pride and ego. By simply recognizing that we are creating a distance between us in the thing that is hurt. And in distance.

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We have a peace and a calmness. It's like that experience we all have when we look back on something terrible. And we laugh about it because of how silly it was, but how how much it felt like a huge, terrible thing at the moment. 

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And we all say You know, one day we'll look back and laugh. But when you have that's because of distance. So when you have that distance, at the very beginning of whenever a terrible thing happens. You don't have to wait a decade to

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come to peace with it. And you can have that in that moment. Because really, anything that happens at work is a silly little thing like nothing at work should get us worked up. And the more we observe the ego.

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The more we notice the ego being the ego, the more we decided to dis identify with it. And the more little skirmishes, little inconveniences at work cease to create any stress in our life.

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The ego was a phenomenal evolutionary advantage. Back when humans lived in the wild and needed to perceive immediate threats. And it needed we needed it to look out for us. But considering today workplaces, especially offices are relatively super safe.

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We don't need that defensiveness anymore. And so by being aware of this mental activity that happens, being aware that it unconsciously is generating this needless suffering.

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Then, once we bring about this conscious awareness to an unconscious reaction, then the unconscious reaction can no longer happen because we are conscious of it.

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And consciously we would not lash out at work we would not lose our temper we would not stuffed down This stress and anger and resentment, we would let it go, we would forgive, we would be patient with others who may be doing things at work we don't think they should be doing.

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This stuff that seems so big to the ego can now with distance seem very small. And the last thing that is just super helpful when we're, we feel our blood boiling and our blood pressure rising, is just to simply ask yourself, what is the best way for me to respond? 

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What is the best course of action to get what I want? And this is again, part of that curiosity that diminishes this stream of thought of negativity and judgment. And just ask yourself, what is the best way for me to respond at work, anger, or jealousy, kindness, or patience. 

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And we all know that it never serves us to lose our temper, it always makes you look bad.

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It never even serves us to hold grudges. And it doesn't mean you have to seek out the person you hate the most at work. But you can let go of all of that negative triggering trauma response so that no one, no thing can bring you down at work. 

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So that is the way that mindfulness can really help at work. But something that is equally important is how can we remember to be mindful when things start to get heated? While mindfulness is very easy, we it is a practice. And the more we do it, the better we get at it. 

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And so practicing is essential makes it a habit. And here are six ways that can help your mind yourself, to be mindful.

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When you feel yourself, you're about ready to lose it or your your blood pressure is starting to rise. When something's not going right, how can you remember to be mindful in that moment. 

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So number one, know what kind of typical situations trigger your emotions to run hot. And before you enter those situations, you know, maybe it's when a boss reviews your work. Or maybe it's when you know, you're going to be in a meeting with a co worker who you have some conflicts with. 

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Take a minute before you go into that meeting. Take a few conscious breaths, check out your body for any tension, let it go.

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You know, you can control your breathing and your breath controls your body so you can slow down your breathing, you can take deep breaths into your belly, you can be very conscious of your breath. 

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And this will raise your level of consciousness and mindfulness before you go into that situation. So when you know you're going to be in a situation that's particularly triggering, take a few moments. And just bring some mindfulness to your little mindfulness checkup. 

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Number two, three throughout the day, do the same thing. Check your body, check your breath and make a habit of it. You know, if you do it 1020 30 times a day. 

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The more you just take a conscious breath every single day, the more this becomes second nature, super important. Number three, when you do start to feel your heart rate elevating one of those you know your breath shortening, that is a reminder. 

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Let that be a reminder to take some deep breaths. become present. Observe your body, your reaction, your thoughts, your ego. And let these eventually the subtler and subtler reaction you have can be your reminder so that you're getting less and less triggered each time. And eventually you'll just you'll know before it even happens, and that's, that's where the real beauty happens.

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And to just you know, have a moment to just get out of your head and into your body into your space. And if a lot of this happens while you're away from your desk, a lot of these work situations and you want another reminder, you can keep a rock or a crystal or maybe it's a necklace, you wear some any kind of reminder. 

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And you can just touch it, put your hand in your pocket, anything like that. And then lastly, there's a lot of different hand poses for meditation. And these can be very powerful for reminding yourself to be present and mindful. And one simple thing you can do is just tapping your forefinger to your thumb, as like a reminder to be present something that's very subtle, no one will notice. 

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And each time you do it, you can just you know, it'll create a automatic response of, of bring yourself present conscious. Taking your attention out of your mind story and putting your attention into your fingertips. That's it's a great, great simple practice that you can just do and will just instantly take you out of whatever kind of stressful situations going on. 

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So that is the secret to how to use mindfulness at work, and how to remember to be mindful at particularly stressful times.

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 If you have any questions you can reach out on social media, Instagram, Twitter, at @toddperel, you can check us out on YouTube or Facebook. Thank you so much for listening. This has been path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. Have a great day. You were listening to the Eastwesticism podcast. Be sure to visit us at Eastwesticism.org to join the conversation and receive enlightening emails. Until next time,