Breakthrough
Newsletter
VOLUME XV ISSUE NO. 2 | February 2023
Breakthrough
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden) understanding of a complex situation." Free Dictionary

Pop the bubble of conditioned thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.

Then, there can be innovation, adaptation and optimal performance.
Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.  

Mindful:  consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
Body Awareness to Promote Wellness
By George Pitagorsky
Body awareness promotes wellness, responsiveness, and resilience.
 
Many people experience unnecessary tension, physical limitations, and pain caused by poor posture, emotional reactivity, and poor maintenance. With body awareness, using simple breathing and imagery techniques, anyone can experience improved wellness, regardless of current physical condition.
 
You can use your mind and breath to tune your body to cultivate greater ease, grace, attentiveness, and alignment, whether you are an exerciser, a dancer, physically challenged, an elder, couch potato, or a 25-year-old athlete. 
 
Body awareness is our ability to fully feel our physical condition and observe it objectively. It is being mindfully aware of body and breath, while sitting, standing, lying down, and in motion. It promotes optimal performance, wellness, responsiveness, and resilience. It addresses movement, balance, alignment, strength, energy, nutrition, sleep, relaxation, immune support, pain and pleasure, coordination, digestion, and all the rest of the things that we consciously and unconsciously experience physically. 

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Self-Aware Living - Mindfulness, Meditation, Self-Awareness

We provide online courses, workshops, podcasts and other web content to individuals, organizations, and consultants with a focus on mindfulness, self-awareness, and process thinking. Our content is based on George Pitagorsky's personal...

Read more
self-awareliving.com
Aware of the body, you get its messages, for example, ‘posture needs adjustment’, ‘emotions are arising’, ‘the stove is hot’, and you can respond. Sometimes these messages may be unsettling. The intention is to be relaxed under any circumstances, whether in action or still, so you can adapt and respond.
 
Body Work
Body awareness and bodywork techniques give you the power to make the best of your current physical condition, if you are willing to experience the discomfort that comes when changing unhealthy physical habits like, slouching, holding tension in the shoulders, grinding teeth, etc. 
 
Bodywork includes any form of exercise and therapies like massage, acupuncture, nutrition, and chiropractic adjustments. Its purpose is to promote the pleasure of physical wellness. Effective bodywork gives you the power to make the best of your current condition by connecting body, breath, and mind in dynamic balance.
 
Exercise: Comfortably Aligned
Structural alignment is essential for any effective bodywork system. The foundation for bodywork is cultivating a comfortably aligned posture and the ability to sense when you are in or out of alignment, no matter what you are doing. Structural alignment promotes ease, grace, alertness, healing.
 
This exercise works with the posture to improve the flow of energy, promote health, cultivate focused attention, and bring body awareness into daily life. It trains the body to be comfortably aligned, and the mind to accept and let go.
 
Try the exercise below as a formal practice or as a moment-to-moment technique during the day, for a moment, whenever you think of it – waiting on line, at a meeting, anywhere. The intention is to use mindful attention and breath to cultivate as healthy a posture as possible and to use posture awareness to increase mindfulness.
 
Be kind to your body and patient. Learn the difference between healthy discomfort and harmful pain. Be persistent, gentle, and firm.
 
Make It Work for You
Start with a duration that feels comfortable while gently “pushing the edge,” working with the mind and breath to soften whatever you are feeling while fully experiencing it. Step back and observe physical sensations so you don’t identify with them and let them drive you.
 
Increase the time until being comfortably erect becomes natural, effortless.
 
Find a posture that works for you. If your physical condition doesn't permit an erect or aligned posture, it is Ok. Visualize or imagine the posture and let your physical body come into it as best it can. The attention and intention are enough to change your energy and relieve unnecessary tension.
 
Be kind to your body. Be patient. Don’t force it. Guide it and let the body take the posture. Breathe. Accept healthy discomfort so you can change habits and experience greater healthy wellbeing.
 
Experience
Following are instructions for a posture alignment meditation exercise. It can be practiced standing, sitting, or lying.
Readiness: Being Present
  • Bring your attention to the physical sensations of your body.
  • Without thinking about or labeling, just feel weight against the chair, feet on the ground, the air against your skin.
  • Drop your attention into feeling your posture and the sensations of breathing and how it expands and contracts the body.
  • Take a few conscious breaths, inhale to be present, exhale to release unnecessary tension.
  • Notice: Are you thinking about your sensations? About other things?
  • Gently but firmly bring attention back to just experiencing the sensations themselves.
  • Accept and let go.
 
When you are ready, continue with the posture meditation exercise.
 
Posture Meditation Exercise[1]
When you are calm, present, and ready, follow each instruction first with your imagination and then let your physical body follow. Consciously breath in and out after each instruction.
  • Imagine a string gently lifting you from the crown of your head so the centers of the head, chest, and lower abdomen are aligned.
  • Chin is slightly tucked and back of the head is pulled gently back to straighten the neck,
  • Let the skull, face, neck, and shoulders relax.
  • Let the tongue rest comfortably touching the upper palate just behind the teeth.
  • Sense the center line from the top of your head down through the body.
  • Let the shoulders roll gently back and down as you straighten the spine
  • Arms resting comfortably. Hands open, fingers relaxed.
  • Let the chest lift and the mid back become active as the shoulders relax back and down.
  • Let the lower abdomen, hips, and pelvis relax.
  • Tuck the tail bone gently forward as you gently elongate your upper body.
  • If standing, let the weight of your body fall through the hips to the thighs, behind the unlocked knees, ankles, and through the center of the feet. Feel your feet against the ground.
  • Breathe naturally.
  • Let the body adjust itself into a comfortably erect posture – relaxed and energized.
  • If you feel yourself slipping out of the posture, adjust and continue.
  • When you notice yourself being caught up in thinking, bring your attention back to the sensations of your body.

Take It Home
Make practicing body awareness an enjoyable experience throughout your day.
 
Just noticing your posture and your breath will bring you back to the present moment. Then you have the choice to adjust your posture to be alert, energized, strong, balanced, and ready for whatever comes next.
 
Body awareness is one part of the path to optimal living. The full path brings together body awareness, mindset, and mindfulness to create the conditions for living as best you can to experience wellness.


Emotional Support for Ukraine  
       
To support people experiencing the horrors taking place in Ukraine, we have published and wish to distribute freely

"How to Manage Difficult Emotions and How to Support Others"

in English and Ukrainian. Please pass the toolkit on to anyone who can benefit from it or can distribute it further.


Emotional Support for Ukraine is a small ad hoc group of coaches seeking to help relieve the suffering of those under fire, refugees, and helpers across the world. 
How to be Happy Even When You Are Sad, Mad or Scared:

How to be happy...How to be Happy Even When You Are Sad, Mad or Scared is available on Amazon.com. It is a book for children of all ages (including those in adult bodies). Buy it for the children in your life so they can be better able to “feel and deal” - feel and accept their emotions and deal with them in a way that avoids being driven by them. You can order the book at https://www.amazon.com/How-Happy-Even-When-Scared/dp/1072233363
Performance and Open-minded Mindfulness
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty. 
 
Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
By George Pitagorsky

Success is measured in how well and how regularly you meet expectations. But what exactly are expectations, and how do you effectively manage them when multiple priorities and personalities are involved?
Using the case study of a Project Manager coordinating an organizational transition, this Managing Expectations book explores how to apply a mindful, compassionate, and practical approach to satisfying expectations in any situation. George Pitagorsky describes how to make sure expectations are rational, mutually understood, and accepted by all those with a stake in the project. This process relies on blending a crisp analytical approach with the interpersonal skills needed to negotiate win-win understandings of what is supposed to be delivered, by when, for how much, by who, and under what conditions.
Managing Conflict in Projects
By George Pitagorsky

Managing Conflict in Projects: Applying Mindfulness and Analysis for Optimal Results by George Pitagorsky charts a course for identifying and dealing with conflict in a project context.

Pitagorsky states up front that conflict management is not a cookbook solution to disagreement-a set of prescribed actions to be applied in all situations. His overall approach seeks to balance two aspects of conflict management: analysis based on a codified process and people-centered behavioral skills.

The book differentiates conflict resolution and conflict management. Management goes beyond resolution to include relationship building that may serve to avoid conflict or facilitate resolution if it occurs.
 
The Zen Approach to Project Management 
By George Pitagorsky

Projects are often more complex and stressful than they need to be. Far too many of them fail to meet expectations. There are far too many conflicts. There are too few moments of joy and too much anxiety. But there is hope. It is possible to remove the unnecessary stress and complexity. This book is about how to do just that. It links the essential principles and techniques of managing projects to a "wisdom" approach for working with complex, people-based activities.