they contemplate a question and think and feel their thoughts and
emotions.
Other related research from the fields of emotional intelligence
and positive psychology has found that a positive mood stimulates
optimism and increases ability to make decisions and solve problems
with insight, compared with people in negative moods. These findings
support the importance of coaches’ engendering optimism by creating
a positive working relationship with clients and using mindfulness and
ocher techniques to help quiet clients’ minds and help them focus. 28
Mindful Awareness
Mindful awareness improves the capacity
to regulate emotions, enhance patterns of
thinking and reduce negativity.
Mindfulness refers co being aware in che moment of what we are experiencing.
It has been described as “an experience rather than a
precisely defined abstract construct,” the key outcomes being “awareness
of the present, non-judgment and acceptance.” 29 Mindfulness has
also been characterized as “dispassionate, non-evaluative and sustained
moment to moment awareness of perceptible mental strategy and
process”30 and as comprising three elements: attention, purpose and
non-judgmenr.-” 1 Another definition refers co mindfulness as “the state
of awareness in which we are conscious of our feelings, thoughts and
habits of mind and able to let unhelpful ones go so chat they no longer
limit us.””2 Social psychologist Ellen Langer contrasts mindfulness to
the mindless state, in which we have rigid perspectives. In a mindful
state, one conscancly creates new categories, welcomes new information
and is open to different points of view or perspectives.-“-“A ll these
and many other descriptions of mindfulness are relevant to helping
clients develop a reflective mind that enables chem to focus and to
make their way through their conflicts.
One of the reported ways to embed new neural circuits is through
mindful meditation. According to neuropsychologist Marsha Lucas,
when we practice meditation, we notice our thoughts but do not let
them get “tangled up.” Rather, our brains “get better at making sense
of incoming emotional information without jumping to conclusions,
reacting out of old habits, or getting stuck in emotional dead-ends like
worry or grudges. It does the right stuff with that incoming information,
helping you to wisely tell the difference between what’s happening
in the moment, and what’s your ‘old stuff’ pulling your strings like
some predictable marionette.” Lucas adds chat “[y] our better-wired
brain can then allow you to perceive and respond to others in balanced,
mindful ways that support solid, healthy relationships.” 34
Also significant for coaches in this regard is the work of Daniel
Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the
Cultivation of Well Being. Siegel describes this form of mindful awareness
as a way of enabling us to develop an attuned relationship with
ourselves and with others.-~5 He explains the concept of “attunement”
as focusing our attention on another and on our relationship with chat
person so that we can “harness neural circuitry that enables two people
‘to feel felt’ by each other.”.%
To help clients become attuned this way is an integral part of
coaching people through conflict. New awareness often evolves for
clients when coaches help them to bring some objectivity to their situation
and notice the nature of their thoughts and feelings.
Similar to the notion of mindfulness and the idea of observing
what is going on without being attached to it, coaches work with
clients to facilitate their ability to articulate the current reality of their
thinking, and also to step back and think about their thinking. This
approach gives people the opportunity to consider what is happening
for them in less reactive and more reflective ways.
With concentrated effort, then, there is significant potential for
facilitating the development of new, neural circuitry and for selfcorrecting
old habits. How mindfulness techniques may be integrated
into coaching is an ongoing dialogue among coaches and others who
