In the bustling echo chambers of the corporate world, many of us find ourselves wedded not just to our roles but to the immediate outcomes they yield—be it a successful project or a missed opportunity. Our worth gets tangled up in the web of professional milestones. Mindfulness, then, comes to us like a whispering sage, nudging us to see that we are not our work, that our essence is untouchable by external successes or failures.
As more of us turn toward the still point of mindfulness within the revolving chaos of boardrooms and deadlines, something wonderful occurs. Our mental and emotional real estate starts to clear up, and we find ourselves journeying inward, wanting to drink deeper from the well of spiritual wisdom. So, we start reading spiritually rich literature and enrolling in courses—commendable steps toward self-discovery.
Yet, here’s a soft warning:
Could you be walking the path of spiritual practice with the same corporate shoes, so to speak? Do you find yourself setting spiritual KPIs, treating your sacred practices like just another project that needs to be “successfully” completed?
Our minds are habitually geared toward making meaning, setting goals, measuring distances. The mind treats spiritual practice as another domain to excel in.
And so we carry this mental luggage with us as we sit down to meditate:
- An idea of the ‘destination’
- Expectations of what our meditation ‘should yield’
- And a preconceived notion of what the ‘experience’ should feel like.
If our meditation mat becomes just another boardroom, how can we expect our practice to deepen or our lives to change?
The meditation we engage in must be free of these conditions to truly serve us. What if we approached our meditation cushion with a heart as open and agenda-free as the sky? It’s not about divorcing your work life or belittling its importance, but about cultivating a practice that lets you dive into your tasks with creativity and compassion, without them defining your essence or dictating your internal state.
So today, I invite you to sit in meditation without goals, without preconceptions, and without attachments. Let’s allow the moment to be as it is, because in that unadorned ‘now,’ both our work and our spiritual practice can find their right place.
Is your corporate meditation practice reinforcing an unconscious habit? Speak to you corporate mindfulness specialist, Ed Niembro
