“Most successful executives are well aware of meditation and the secret power of it, and that it has a competitive advantage because it can change the way they’re thinking, access more levels of creativity and intuition,” says Kara Goodwin, a meditation expert and Tom Fox’s guest on the latest episode of Innovation In Compliance. Kara and Tom discuss the transformative power of meditation, the benefits it offers to individuals and companies, and how it can help people find balance and purpose in their lives. She also talks about how meditation can change your brain, reduce anxiety and depression, and unlock your creativity and intuition.
Kara Goodwin is a certified meditation teacher, and the host of The Meditation Conversation Podcast. With a corporate background in IT and sales, Kara’s journey into meditation began when she moved to Italy and discovered the transformative power of this practice. Since then, she has been helping people develop their meditation practice through coaching, retreats, and online courses. Through her work, she seeks to help individuals and organizations find balance, purpose, and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives.
You’ll hear Kara and Tom discuss:
- Meditation means something different to every person, but to Kara it’s existing in a state that’s beyond – beyond thoughts, beyond the body, beyond time and beyond space. Meditation is getting to a state of higher consciousness, where the cycle of daily thoughts does not exist.
- Developing a meditation practice changes the brain and the nervous system. It can also translate to a person’s state outside of meditation where they can have a higher perspective about things. It allows them to slow down and not get caught up in the minutiae of the day.
- Being able to tell when you’re off balance is simply taking mental stock of yourself. “It’s just what’s showing up for you in your world… It’s becoming aware of how we feel and really even having a perspective that has a distance between what we feel and noticing what we feel,” Kara says.
- You can’t solve problems when you’re operating in the same mindset they were created in. “When we’re in problem oriented consciousness we’re not necessarily going to find the solution for that problem in the same level of consciousness where the problem is,” Kara remarks. “It’s by raising ourselves into a higher level of consciousness that we can have access to more creative solutions, more holistic solutions, more win scenarios.”
- Meditation is becoming an important component of mental health for businesses and companies. Kara uses the example of the NFL using meditation tactics to keep themselves calm in the high stress environment they deal with. In addition, employers caring for their employees can also do more to create better working conditions. Caring for their employees in more holistic ways and seeing them as fully formed human beings, will impact the quality of their work.
- Meditation helps nurture whole brain thinking. Nurturing whole brain thinking and allowing yourself space allows for higher consciousness, which promotes productivity and activity.
KEY QUOTES
“When we’re in problem oriented consciousness we’re not necessarily going to find the solution for that problem in the same level of consciousness where the problem is.” – Kara Goodwin
“[Meditation] is really getting into that state of a higher mind where we’re not so focused on the little ins and outs and details of the day and the cycles of our thoughts.” – Kara Goodwin
“Most successful executives are well aware of meditation and the secret power of it, and that it has a competitive advantage because it can change the way they’re thinking, access more levels of creativity and intuition.” – Kara Goodwin
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