Discover the transformative power of resilience as we take you into the depths of personal growth and unearth the tools and strategies essential for navigating life's hurdles with grace and tenacity. Shalini Bahl, researcher, mindfulness-based stress reduction coach, and speaker, shares insights on the significance of rest and reflection in building a resilient spirit.
Mindfulness is a beacon in this conversation, guiding us through the murky waters of our own biases and judgments. With the help of specific skills, we can interrupt our automatic responses to stimuli and foster a new way of engaging with the world that's infused with awareness and empathy. From the simple yet profound mantra of "return, listen, begin," Shalini lays out a blueprint for maintaining mindfulness amid chaos, a challening and rewarding practice. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to bolster their resilience and mindfulness skills—in life and within their organizations.
Shalini Bahl, Ph.D., is an award-winning researcher, a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Search Inside Yourself consultant and teacher, and Town Councilor. Based on 15 years of research and professional training in mindfulness, Dr. Bahl offers evidence-based solutions to business, education, and political clients to disrupt unproductive habits, become more resilient to life’s obstacles, and live with empowered choice for personal and collective fulfillment that contributes to a better, brighter world for all.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
Discover the transformative power of resilience as we take you into the depths of personal growth and unearth the tools and strategies essential for navigating life's hurdles with grace and tenacity. Shalini Bahl, researcher, mindfulness-based stress reduction coach, and speaker, shares insights on the significance of rest and reflection in building a resilient spirit.
Mindfulness is a beacon in this conversation, guiding us through the murky waters of our own biases and judgments. With the help of specific skills, we can interrupt our automatic responses to stimuli and foster a new way of engaging with the world that's infused with awareness and empathy. From the simple yet profound mantra of "return, listen, begin," Shalini lays out a blueprint for maintaining mindfulness amid chaos, a challening and rewarding practice. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to bolster their resilience and mindfulness skills—in life and within their organizations.
Shalini Bahl, Ph.D., is an award-winning researcher, a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Search Inside Yourself consultant and teacher, and Town Councilor. Based on 15 years of research and professional training in mindfulness, Dr. Bahl offers evidence-based solutions to business, education, and political clients to disrupt unproductive habits, become more resilient to life’s obstacles, and live with empowered choice for personal and collective fulfillment that contributes to a better, brighter world for all.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
Most of life is, it's not a solo sport. We need to be in community. The way I like to think of it is I'm talking again from the perspective of mindfulness as a practice, as a way of living, as a way of life, and it's not based on any religion or anything. It's just like surrounding ourselves with people or making sure that we have enough friendships that are going to support us on this journey and who are the truth speakers, because we need people to help us see our blind spots.
Manya Chylinski:
Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Shalini Bahl. She is a certified mindfulness-based stress reduction consultant and teacher. She's a town counselor, she has three TEDx talks and she's the author of the book Return to Mindfulness Disrupting Default Habits for Personal Fulfillment, effective Leadership and Global Impact. She and I spoke today about building a resiliency toolkit. What are some of the things we can put in there to help us on a regular day or when we're dealing with something difficult? Thanks so much for listening.
Manya Chylinski:
I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. If you like the episode, please sign up and follow us on Apple Podcasts and leave a review, and you know what? I'm really curious. Would you recommend this show to a friend? I love learning more about what my listeners want. If you would recommend it, that's great. Please do. But if not, would you be willing to let me know why? Maybe you could send me an email right now at manya@manyachylinski. com and tell me what is stopping you from recommending this podcast. What could I do to make it the kind of show that you would recommend for your friends? And there's also a link to a Google form you can fill out and share that information with me as well. I would love that. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. Hi Shalini, I'm so excited that you and I are talking today.
Shalini Bahl:
Thank you for inviting me. I'm super excited to be here with you.
Manya Chylinski:
Yeah, thanks. Now, before we dig into the topic at hand, which is spoiler alert everybody resilience. I want to know if you could have dinner with any historical figure. Who would it be, and why?
Shalini Bahl:
It would definitely have to be the Buddha.
Shalini Bahl:
Oh and so, for people who don't know who the Buddha is or have certain ideas of him, he was a king in India 2,500 years ago, who left his kingdom in search of knowledge that would free not only him but all people of suffering, and he did manage to do that in his lifetime, which has led to this whole explosion of research into mindfulness.
Shalini Bahl:
Fast forward 2,500 years later and we're studying that his understanding of the mind and how it works can really benefit us, even in the modern world, to build more awareness, to build more skills that allow us to really flourish as human beings, not only individually, but collectively. So, that being said, the reason I would love to have dinner with him and actually even invite Biden and Netanyahu and all other political leaders to the dinner party, would be so that he can really he was able to cut through our own biases and conditioning and allow us to see things as they are, see the big picture, see our interconnectedness and maybe facilitate a conversation. Wherever there's conflict, how can we show up with more compassion, understanding, and what are some steps we can take forward to create more conditions for peace and progress?
Manya Chylinski:
Wow, I love that. First of all, what a great guest idea. But I also really love that you've expanded the invitation list. You already know the big names you want at that table. I think we would all benefit from you guys having a meal like that. So thank you for sharing that. So, Shalini, today we're going to be talking about some practical strategies for building resilience in everyday life for our personal resilience, our resilience as leaders in the workplace, and how we can navigate both our personal resilience and how we relate to the broader society and societal resilience. So this is kind of going to be I want us to build a resiliency toolkit so by the end of the episode, people will have some practical strategies to think about if they want to be working on their resilience. So, as we get started, I want to know how do you define resilience?
Shalini Bahl:
So resilience to me is our ability to move through challenges, obstacles in life, towards our goals and that could be personal goals, our relationship goals, our workplace goals and to continue to show up in alignment with our intentions and values. And I think it would be helpful to also understand what resilience is not, because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that resilience just means that we have to just keep going, just keep going, going, going and never stop, and that is a big mistake, right? So to me, resilience is about giving our best, working really hard and then taking time to stop, rest, reflect on the causes and conditions for stress and our strategies, our actions. Are they aligned with our intentions or are we just, you know, because we're wired to keep going and solving problems and fixing things and we sometimes don't make enough room to step back and look at what is causing the stress, what is causing these obstacles to show up and what is the most skillful way to move forward.
Manya Chylinski:
I like the thought of the alignment with our values. So, like you said, it's not just powering through or bouncing back, it's a really thoughtful process. Now, when someone is dealing with something very difficult, they may not be thinking about the concept of resilience. I share that, because I remember back when I was a survivor of the bombing, the concept of resilience didn't seem like it applied to me and when I heard it I thought, oh, other people are resilient, I'm not heard it. I thought, oh, other people are resilient, I'm not. So when someone doesn't even recognize their own resilience, how do we still draw on that?
Shalini Bahl:
That's a very interesting question. I think it's great that you're hosting this podcast, firstly for people out there who don't think resilience is something they can draw upon, and I think, if you're listening to this, resilience is something they can draw upon. And I think, if you're listening to this, then the first step is the awareness of what is our internal struggle. Where are we still holding on to? And trauma has its own impact on the brain, our physiology, our psychology, and so I'm not an expert in trauma, so I will not go there. However, I will speak to the basic challenges that we all deal with.
Shalini Bahl:
And the first step you may be burned out or feeling challenged. So awareness with when you bring awareness meta-awareness is the concept we use in mindfulness, which is awareness of your thinking and the processes, how you process information. So, as we're bringing awareness to our inner dialogue, to our emotions, we can then see what is showing up in terms of what are the causes and conditions for me to feel stuck, and then we can figure out what are the causes and conditions for me to feel stuck, and then we can figure out what are the solutions for that. Do I need help externally? Do I need more internal work, do I need to be out in nature? So the solution will depend upon what we discover, the causes and conditions for our stress.
Manya Chylinski:
Okay, thank you very much. Now you mentioned mindfulness, and what's the relationship between mindfulness and resiliency?
Shalini Bahl:
So mindfulness, very simply defined, is our ability to see things clearly without letting our emotions and our conditioning hijack our experience. And so the opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, and there's a lot of research showing that up to 95% of our daily decisions are made on autopilot. So think about it as individuals, and then collectively is another issue, but just as individuals. Let's say we were in a situation of the pandemic and that's a huge change and a huge impact it had on so many people. But even just looking in the small ways that we were required to change, we had to move to Zoom format, and just even a small example of shifting now to working on Zoom new technology, new ways of communicating, connecting through the small boxes, and with that change, what was our automatic reaction to that? So, awareness of our defaults to change, what are our default reactions to obstacles, and that is the first step of awareness of our default reaction to change and obstacles. And then we can see, because we are wired as human beings to resist change, right. So we want to say that just to us means safety and we are conserving our resources when things are going same old, same old. So that's why the brain is automating our responses, our reactions, our decisions, to the extent possible. However, that worked in the jungles, where it was all about the tiger and the apple. So as soon as you hear a rustling, and you don't need to think about it, you just react, and that kind of thinking is not really relevant and helpful, productive in the modern world. So once we can see what our defaults are, to that we can notice our resistance to change.
Shalini Bahl:
Oh, I have to now learn a new technology, so that resistance to change is also further depleting our resources and we feel more tired, more stressed, more anxious. So just recognizing that resistance to change is one aspect of then. Okay, let's put that aside. And now, what do I need to do to learn this new technology? Who can I talk to? What can I do? So? It just creates the space and the resources for us to focus on what is important to navigate this change skillfully.
Manya Chylinski:
Right, excellent, oh, thank you. What role do things like habits and routine play in building resilience and helping us be resilient? And you know what are your favorite or most effective habits Great, question, since I have just written a book.
Shalini Bahl:
It's called Return to Mindfulness and the whole idea is based on building habits of the mind so that when we're in the real world, when shit happens, we are able to disrupt our default habits, biases and able to return to that place of clear seeing, connection, imagination, possibilities. So this framework that I offer is based on the original mindfulness discourse in the books and texts, but I looked at it from perspective of neuroscience and psychology and what I learned was that there is a disconnect even within people who are practicing mindfulness. And I've been practicing mindfulness for now about 15, 20 years and I've been researching I do research on mindfulness. So, even despite this very robust practice, when I got elected as town councillor in a very divisive town at the time, I was hoping to bring in my mindfulness skills, bring in my research and I'll be this mindful leader. And I found in. As soon as there was questions or there was difficult conversations and trauma and all kinds of things happening, I found myself reverting to my old habits of justifying, needing to please people, and then the next day I would sit in meditation to reflect what happened. I'm like whoa, where was my curiosity? Where was my compassion and understanding, seeking to understand of those perspectives. So that made me further look at the book I was writing and I paused the book that I had already started writing and realized that we have habits of the mind that have been wired because of our education, maybe our culture we've grown up a certain way gender, all of these things impact how we are responding to difficult situations. So we have these defaults. And now, if we want to be mindful in the real world not when we're meditating, not when we're just in nature hanging out having this great conversation right now, but let's say I was in the middle of very difficult, challenging, grief, trauma conversations how can I still stay connected with my own needs and awareness and also connect with empathy with other people? Because we have a confirmation bias, which is I'm going to naturally tune into information that confirms what I know. I have an automatic tendency of judging. So as soon as people are saying something, I'm judging them. Oh, I don't believe that, or that's true, or that's an exaggeration. So automatically my brain is reacting and, in the absence of awareness, those default habits are dictating what I see and, by definition, they're narrowing what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, and therefore I'm reacting with limited information, limited possibilities and from a place of reaction. So what I offer in the book and it's based on research we did last year. We got it published is that we can have a mindful mindset, so just like we have a growth mindset. The mindfulness mindset is basically comprising eight mindfulness skills and each skill is disrupting a default habit. Oh, okay, yeah, and so we can cultivate these mindfulness skills in our daily practice, not just as a meditation, but out in the world.
Shalini Bahl:
How can we continue to practice and play within the form of rituals, in the form of reminders, daily mantras, whatever you want to call it? I like to think of it like going to the gym. Right, to be strong, to be agile, to have stamina, you go and do different exercises. You don't go and just go and bike in the gym, and if you do well, maybe you need to add weights or maybe you need a little stretching like yoga. So we need these different exercises to make our body strong and capable to handle different life situations.
Shalini Bahl:
Same way with our minds and our brains, we need to cultivate these different qualities of the mind, like awareness is the first one that, instead of going on autopilot, which is our habit. We can learn to build this meta-awareness. Instead of, once you have awareness, we're automatically going to judge. Instead of judging, we can bring in compassion, which is seeking to understand, which then brings us to curiosity, which is about not just seeing information that agrees to what we know, but getting out of our echo chambers and looking at different, diverse points of view, and so it goes on. Each mindfulness skill that way is disrupting our default habit, that or pattern of responding, and, in its place, inviting a more open spaces, mindful, curious way of responding. Oh, wow, that's a lot.
Manya Chylinski:
That's a lot, but it's it's so important and you know, one of the things I really appreciate that you said is you're someone who has practiced mindfulness for years and you are trained, and this is something you think about a lot and you still will find yourself in situations where that isn't necessarily the default response and you really need to stop yourself.
Manya Chylinski:
That isn't necessarily the default response and you really need to stop yourself. I think it's so important for folks to recognize that it's a journey and it's a work in progress. Yes, and I want to say you said something else that really got to me. I have started.
Manya Chylinski:
a little while ago was in a meeting and I very much was aware that a lot of what was going to be said was going to be upsetting to me and that I was going to want to shut them down and make them listen to my point of view. But that was not my role in the meeting. So I found myself somebody would start talking and my first response was oh, are you kidding me or you know? Along those lines. And then I would say to myself you know, not out loud in my head, I would say listen, listen, that's your only job right now, and I don't know where that came from. It just started in this meeting one time. And that is part of what I do. When I get in a situation where I'm upset about something or I'm upset about the way someone's talking about something, I just stop and like no, I actually need to listen to this before I have any kind of response. If I do have a response.
Shalini Bahl:
Thank you for saying that, because the book actually uses very accessible language, like listen, to help us return to that place of clarity. So in the book I talk about the three steps and which I encourage everyone to find their own three words or, if you like, these, because in the middle of a difficult meeting or if you think you're going into a situation where you're going to be triggered, so you can put a reminder for yourself ahead of time. It could be a little note thing or on your computer you can have a sticky note and the three words are return, listen and begin, and so the return is like before we listen. Also, the return is like as soon as you find yourself in your body, starting to get triggered. We can use simple techniques like breathing, because that helps to disrupt our sympathetic nervous system and allows us to come back to a place of homeostasis or balance. So just breathing. So return to your body, return to your breath. If it's really difficult, you can return to maybe senses, like just feeling, the sense of your clothes or something, something to disrupt that hijack, that emotional hijack or the amygdala hijack in the brain. So any of these techniques will allow you to return to that present moment and then, once you feel your mind is stabilized and you're breathing deeply, your breath never lies. So you can check in with your breath Am I breathing deeply easily or is it shallow and fast? So just by deepening our breath, we are coming to a place of stability and presence.
Shalini Bahl:
From there, then, the next step is to listen, and you can listen to others fully, be aware of your judgments. Those judgments are going to happen automatically, no matter what. Here she goes again, here they go again, or here I go again. We judge ourselves too, like what do I say, what do I do, and I always do so. We may have self-judgment as well, and so in that moment listening to other people, listening to yourself, putting the judgments aside, and then seeing what mindfulness skill is needed or what habit is needed Do I need more compassion in this situation, or empathy, which is about understanding the lived experiences of people who are there, because I'm automatically judging what they're saying based on my lived experiences.
Shalini Bahl:
However, I need to first listen and maybe ask questions. Maybe they're also speaking from a place of judgment, without sharing their life experience, because that's their experience, they already know it but by becoming curious. So curiosity is a very important mindfulness habit and skill and that is about asking questions to gain understanding. So it's not asking questions to prove yourself right. Generally, when we're curious, we have an agenda to show the flaws in the other person's argument or what am I going to say next once you know? Got you, kind of thing. But mindful curiosity is about asking questions to gain understanding of the situation. So what is going on for them, tell us more. So all of that and that's listening, listening within. What are my intentions for this situation, like what would I like to see happen here, and then begin. So the begin is like beginning our speech, beginning our actions with that connection Right to awareness and intention.
Manya Chylinski:
I didn't even know that and I, you were doing that Somehow figured it out, that's amazing what you just said.
Shalini Bahl:
you were already doing that, and that's the whole book that. Why it's called return to mindfulness is because we already have this knowingness. We already know, as humans, how to connect with the heart, with the mind, and see the big picture, to connect with each other. We know how to do that. However, our default habits and biases get in the way. So when you stop, you can then return to that place.
Manya Chylinski:
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up. This is something that we all have in us and we know how to do. And one thing I want to get to before too long is the role of our support networks in support and resiliency, and I guess you know what. What is that role and how can people make sure to maintain strong relationships as part of being resilient?
Shalini Bahl:
part of being resilient. Yes, mindfulness and life and most of life is it's not a solo sport. We need to be in community. The way I like to think of it is I'm talking again from the perspective of mindfulness as a practice, as a way of living, as a way of life, and it's not based on any religion or anything. It's just like surrounding ourselves with people or making sure that we have enough friendships that are going to support us on this journey and who are the truth speakers, because we need people to help us see our blind spots. So you know, sometimes you have friends who are like oh, that is so terrible, oh, my God, how awful that happened to you, and they're showing empathy or sympathy. However, they're not helping me see where I'm stuck, how I'm contributing to that situation. So it's like Gloria Steinem, I think. She said the truth will set you free, but at first it'll piss you off. So I like friends who will tell me the truth, even though in that moment it may mean that I don't like what they're saying, because it's showing me a mirror of how I am, or even if it's not my fault, but it's helping me to see how can I be honest with myself and with others, and what can I do now about it? So one is that.
Shalini Bahl:
The second thing I think of in terms of mindfulness practice, because it is hard to practice alone. There's such a culture of moving at such a fast pace, so we want to be part of groups and even at home, the way the book is written is inviting people to practice with your families, practice with your partners, because it's like exercise. You know, I don't like running at all and my husband is a marathon runner, so he has helped me cultivate this habit of running. In days when I don't feel like running, you know, he's there to encourage me. Hey, let's just go. And till now this has become a habit for me. So I know that it doesn't feel good, but it will feel good later. And same way with mindfulness. I brought in meditation for him, which wasn't really natural for him, but I'd be like, okay, let's go out and do some mindful walking or let's do yoga today.
Manya Chylinski:
So there are different ways we can practice, but doing it together in community is really helpful, excellent, oh, thank you for sharing, because you know, we know, relationships are important and they can be protective. So I like thinking about how to continue to grow those relationships. And, shalini, we are so close to the end and I want to talk to you more, but as we wrap up, what are the top few activities or behaviors that our listeners can kind of put together in a toolkit to help their resiliency?
Shalini Bahl:
Absolutely so. It starts with awareness and for that I recommend, even if it's just taking five minutes every day it could be in the beginning of the day, before you start your work just taking a few moments to breathe, to check in with the quality of your mind and your emotions, and then setting your intentions. What is most important, because most of us are so overwhelmed, being stretched in different ways. So writing down the list of priorities for today, whether it's in relationships or that's work and then prioritizing you may not get through all of it. So what is a priority right? And awareness also can bring up like where we are struggling, where our energy is low. So this is where I've created an assessment tool, which is part of the book, but it's available for free on my website, where you can take a brief assessment to see where you are on the eight mindfulness skills. So you can then detect what are my default ways. Am I resisting what's happening or am I really stuck in my echo chamber? So, based on a recognition of your own default ways, you can then focus on the mindfulness skills or mindfulness habits, habits of the mind that you can cultivate right. So that's awareness. The second part is that reflection of, okay, what is needed, and that's the listening, so taking opportunities throughout the day, not just during the morning, the five minutes, but creating reminders, maybe that you put sticky notes or so whatever skill you're working on. So I have created an app and I just want to quickly read one, so we're going to pick up. The app has basically these reminders based on the book. So the book has six exercises and, even if you'd never, ever read the book, the idea is that if you're looking to bring more curiosity in your life or you're looking to bring more appreciative joy which is very important for resilience also, especially for people who are working hard so whatever mindful habit you're hoping to bring in your day, you can create multiple ways to practice and play with them throughout the day. So mindfulness doesn't have to be just for when things are challenging, right. In fact, I invite people to practice and play with it in non-critical situations so that you already have that habit to be curious, to be joyful, to return to your place of inner calm when you actually need it most. And so you can either create those reminders, because we forget, and so just making it more visible, you can invite your teams, or you can have processes created in your workplace so that, collectively, you're reminding yourselves that, okay, we're going to take time, maybe before a meeting, so that everyone's coming rushed and, instead of operating in a rushed way, maybe the process you create at work is of stopping before starting a meeting. It could be just taking a few breaths together, it could be going around checking in, like, maybe let's talk about, you know, can everyone share one thing that you're grateful for? Today? That happened. So, depending on the culture, depending on the context, you can create shared rituals at workplace. And then the last thing, of course, is we want to cultivate, before you begin any project, before you're going to a meeting, again returning to your place of connection, returning to your intentions, what is most important, so just remembering these and continuing to build these habits throughout the day.
Shalini Bahl:
And so I just want to mention the app. Yes, please, yeah, so it's Return to Mindfulness and it's available on deckable, and I was going to just pull one card, for example, right now. Oh, it's beautiful, it's the compassion card and it says I see me. And so this can be. You can have these reminders that you can just randomly pull out. Or, if you're building compassion throughout the day, you can just keep repeating the compassion cards. So the compassion throughout the day, you can just keep repeating the compassion cards.
Shalini Bahl:
So the I see me card, basically, is something I used, for example, in the middle of council meetings where I was feeling triggered and I would see this and it would. And so the card is a reminder that, rather than trying to fix yourself, make time to meet yourself without an agenda and take a conscious, nourishing breath, place a hand on your chest and, like a good friend, ask yourself how am I really feeling? Listen deeply, without trying to change anything, what needs tending to, what gifts want to be shared? So just that idea. So as a practice you can do. I see me, especially for women and in leaders leadership. I've seen where we're very naturally empathetic towards other people but we forget to pay attention to our needs, to our gifts that want to be shared. So I see me as a beautiful practice where we can do it. But if you were to do this in the middle of a meeting, all this is reminding us is that, okay, don't forget your own internal needs, what are your emotions telling you and what are your intentions?
Manya Chylinski:
Oh wonderful, chalani. We are at the end of our time and I'm so glad you brought up your app. Can you tell us how else can our listeners reach you? Where can they find you on social and your websit?
Shalini Bahl:
My website is knowyourmind. training and the book is called Return to Mindfulness. You can find more information on my website and also the assessment that I talked about that people can go and take as a contemplative tool. It's a free assessment, takes a few minutes. I'm available. Also, I love to be connecting with people on LinkedIn, on Instagram, twitter and mostly on Instagram and LinkedIn, I think at this point, with a little bit on Facebook and my handle everywhere, Shalini Bahl.
Manya Chylinski:
Excellent, Shalini, thank you so much and I'm going to put links to all of that stuff in the show notes to make it easier for folks to get in touch with you and just I'm so thrilled to have talked to you today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about mindfulness and resiliency and helping our listeners build a toolkit for their resiliency.
Shalini Bahl:
Thank you, Manya, for inviting me Such a pleasure.
Manya Chylinski:
Bye everyone. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did, so if you'd like to learn more about me, manya Chilinski, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn of resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about, visit my website, www. manyachylinskicom, or email me at manya@ manyachylinski. com, or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.
