would get it out about every three months and carefully check up on the statements made and the events as they unfold. It is a revelation.”
A MODERN DAY SUCCESS WITH THIS POSITIVE HABIT
Most mornings when Ron headed to work, he felt like he was headed into a war zone. Things were tough at his company, a large telecommunications business with thousands of employees overall and more than seven hundred at the facility where he worked as human resources manager. The company was in flux, having just purchased and merged with another firm, and there was considerable pressure on Ron and his team to effect many personnel changes. Staying centered had become an elusive feature in his life.
If things at home had been a little more stable, it might have been easier for Ron to stay connected to his inner resources. It wasn’t that anything was particularly wrong with his family life, but everything there seemed to be in the midst of change, too. His wife had just started a new job and there were the expected stresses of adapting to a different set of work colleagues and duties. One of their children was just off to college, and both parents felt a continuing obligation to stay in touch with him and be supportive as he learned a new lifestyle away from home. And their thirteen-year-old daughter was showing some normal but occasionally annoying behavior of a new teenager.
After a particularly rough day at work—one that involved breaking the news to five employees that their jobs would soon be phased out—he came home in need of a little refuge and rejuvenation. Driving home he had thought about resources available to him to keep his life on track, especially during this challenging transition time at the office, which was sure to last at least two more months. One option seemed to be a recommitment to daily meditation. It was something he had learned and even practiced regularly when he was in his twenties, but for the last ten years or so he had been very sporadic with the discipline. As he pulled into his driveway that evening, his enthusiasm for the idea of regular meditation had grown to the point that he wanted to have his first session right away.
However, as soon as he walked into house he realized that it wasn’t going to happen soon. His daughter announced that Ron’s boss had called ten minutes earlier and needed a call back as soon as possible. What’s more his daughter needed a ride to a friend’s house in half an hour, and with his wife having to work late at her new job, Ron would have to be the chauffeur.
The interrupted plan repeated the same pattern each day for the rest of the week, and before long Ron realized that he had to come up with a new approach. By a fortunate and serendipitous event, he came across an article about meditation that mentioned the way in which positive benefits could come from even brief periods of focused attention. The idea was a novelty to him because he had always imagined that it took at least thirty minutes to have a meaningful meditation session. But given the demands of his life at the time, this concept of miniature meditation times seemed too good to pass up.
He started the new habit that very day, first with a three-minute meditation just before dinnertime. He wasn’t sure that much came from that initial try, largely because he spent most of the three minutes mentally fighting off self-doubts that he could really do it right. Ron persisted, though. He experimented with different times of day to try his mini-meditation. Mornings on the one hand seemed easiest to get himself centered and focused in a short amount of time. But the very best results came from the time and place that he would have least expected to be successful—right there at his office.
Ron had never considered doing a spiritual practice like meditation in his office. It would be embarrassing if someone walked in on him sitting in his chair with eyes closed and no evidence that he was doing anything productive. What’s more, everything about his office had associations for him that are linked to stresses in his life: His telephone that is constantly ringing with people’s problems, his computer on which he frequently works and reworks salary budgets, stacks of personnel files with employees’ performance appraisals. This was hardly a “sacred space” for him.
Surprisingly, however, he was quickly able to establish a powerful daily habit of three-minute meditations in the early afternoon. He shed his anxiety about someone discovering him in the midst of a meditation period. There was an easy and truthful answer should that situation ever arise. He was taking time for some creative thinking. The feared interruption by another employee never took place, and within a week of regular practice he had discovered a dramatic change in how the rest of his day would unfold.
Of course, there were still the issues and problems that beset any human resources manager of a company in transition. If anything, the difficulties and challenges actually got a little worse soon after he started the positive habit of mini-meditations. The dramatic change for him personally was the ability to stay calm and clearheaded in the midst of it all. Something about those short, meditative moments would reconnect him with the best within himself.
When an employee came into his office with angry, demanding words, Ron found it considerably easier to be tolerant and patient. When his boss required yet another reworking of the budget, Ron felt himself a little more quickly able to accept the task graciously. Of course, there were instances when the stresses got to him, and he became frustrated or discouraged. The three-minute meditations didn’t make him a saint. But something was now different, and that “something” was clearly the result of this new positive habit.
APPLYING THIS POSITIVE HABIT TO YOUR LIFE
If you don’t already have a regular meditation discipline, this is the chance to get a positive habit started with short periods each day. If, on the other hand, you already have a steady pattern of regular meditation sessions, then keep that in place while you add three-minute meditations daily as a supplement.
Try different times of day and different situations to experiment with these mini-meditations. Perhaps early in the morning, if you are somewhat rushed to get out of the house, you could still find time to devote three minutes to this activity. Or, maybe midmorning at work when everyone else is taking a coffee break. Perhaps you’ll get good results by having a short meditation in the very late afternoon before starting to get ready for the evening meal and the remainder of the day. Just play with various possibilities and see what works best for you.
As you practice three-minute meditation sessions, keep in mind that what really counts isn’t quantity but quality. Those few moments, sincerely and enthusiastically approached, can be just as powerful as any more lengthy devotional time. Let yourself experience how, in the timelessness of your soul life, spiritual centering can take place whenever you have a mind and a will for it.
Positive Habit #3
The Inner Witness: Practicing Self-Observation
The person who is living a spiritually centered life has the sense of two sides of the self and has found a creative way to coordinate them. These two aspects can be called the personality and the individuality, and the positive habit of loving, objective self-observation is the key to how they best relate to each other.
The purpose of self-observation is to remember our best selves, our true selves. In the effort to put our best selves at the forefront, we must filter through the debris of our automatic, unconscious habits, the traits that keep us stuck in life. Through the self-observation process we step back and see the personality, with all its positive and negative facets, and ultimately come to the core of our being—our individuality. The individuality is one’s ideal personified.
Let’s consider more carefully these two sides to everyone’s being, a topic introduced in the first chapter. Personality is the outside shell, that which we show to most of the world, not because it is the best indication of who we are, but simply by routine.
