Mindful Leadership For Dummies

Chapter 12

Week 5: Turning Towards Difficulties

IN THIS CHAPTER

Discovering how to approach and face difficulties

Deciding which battles to fight

Exploring Workplace MT exercises for Week 5

All your WorkplaceMT training to date has been leading you to this point. We certainly wouldn’t invite you to try out this week’s formal mindfulness exercise any earlier in the programme. As you work through this chapter, try to treat yourself kindly, and cut yourself some slack. Approaching difficulty can be difficult, but the rewards you’ll gain could literally change your life. This chapter starts with a true story:

• At 8:50 a.m. on 7 July 2005, 37-year-old Australian Dr Gill Hicks was travelling on the London Underground on her way to work. Seated close by in the tightly packed Tube carriage was 19-year-old terrorist Jermaine Lindsay. He detonated a suicide bomb, killing 26 people and injuring hundreds more.
• Gill was the last person to be pulled alive from the train wreckage. She lost both legs below the knee and 75 per cent of her blood. Her injuries were so severe that she was initially not expected to live. To this day, she still feels discomfort and pain every day at the point where her legs now end. It would be easy for her to feel bitter, angry, and to give up on life. Instead, she has become a major force for good in society.
• Gill is the founder of the London-based not-for-profit M.A.D. for Peace organisation and is also a motivational speaker and author. She is determined to do all ...