Embrace your Journey #26

"We are so consumed by our need to do things right, that we lose sight of the larger meaning for what we do and are blind to the regeneration that loss makes possible." ~ Dr. Lisa Miller, PhD*

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kawaanza**, all these special occasions are celebrated around this time of year making spirituality come to mind. No matter what your beliefs are, there is a calling in the air to spend time with your loved ones, to love one another, to share meals, gifts, traditions, and intentions for the New Year that is dawning.

This calling in the air also has to do with the importance of integrating different parts of the brain for a more balanced approach to life and consequently for well-being, as science is unveiling.

Science? Yes, you got it. But what does science and spirituality have to do with one another? Haven't you heard of "the new science of spirituality" or "psychological health"? How about "quantum entanglement" and "synchronicity? Ok. Let's look at it from the following perspective.

We are going through very special times, with challenges all around us. As Dr. Lisa Miller reminds us with the quote above, we may not be able to see the opportunities so clearly. And yet, they are there!

Synchronicities***, which are coincidental occurrences of events that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality, may offer a path to healing! How cool is that?

A new cycle of opportunities is opening up. So what is it going to be? Are you going to get tangled by whatever happens to you that takes you down? Or are you going to look for ways to find a path to resilience and renewal with the interplay between your achieving awareness and your awakened awareness as Dr. Miller so well guides us to in her studies?

Not sure how to get started? Continue to read through this newsletter for further insights, stay curious and tuned to what we post at the?Briyah Institute's page on LinkedIn ?and?Happy Leadership Journey throughout the New Year!

Cheers,

Adriana Machado

Founder at Briyah Institute

Back in 2021, when Dr. Lisa Miller's book "The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life" was first published, it was considered quite provocative and innovative, and it still is.

Her physiological findings based on the rigor of scientific research demonstrated that "depression and spirituality appeared to be two sides of the same coin", and, in other words, that "some types of depression might be a symptom of a person's craving for spirituality and a call for the spiritual self to awaken." They led her to find where spirituality lives in our brain and to offer us insights on how to activate our spirituality and engage its protective power in our lives.

She explains in her book that "we all have two modes of awareness available to us at all times: achieving awareness and awakened awareness." When overused, or exclusively used, as she points out, achieving awareness, which is "the perception that our purpose is to organize and control our lives", the ability to have "the focused attention and commitment necessary to attain goals and enable us to direct our attention and energy into a particular task", "changes the structure of our brains, carving pathways of depression, anxiety, stress, and craving."

On the other hand, when we engage our awakened awareness, "we see more, integrating information from multiple sources of perception." And, according to her, the key to tuning into a more inspired way of thinking, feeling and walking in the world is to integrate both achieving and awakened awareness.

Ready to start your quest and allow more creativity and innovation to drive your decision making in 2023? Here is a video on Dr. Miller’s groundbreaking research on the neuroscience of spirituality and its protective benefits to mental health.

As we close 2022 and consider best practices to conserve in 2023, how about getting inspired by those practices that enable us to better understand problems and consequently improve our decision making skills? Here are four great practices for you to keep in mind and explore more of in your leadership journey.

Start with innovation inspired by nature, also known as Biomimicry . According to Janine Benyus , this is a great practice to allow us to live more gracefully on this planet while solving human challenges, mainly those related to design.

Another excellent practice has to do with the economy and having a compass for human prosperity in the 21st century that allows us to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. This is what Kate Raworth 's concept of the Doughnut?Economics is all about.

It proposes an economic mindset, "a way of thinking to bring about the regenerative and distributive dynamics that this century calls for." It draws on insights from diverse schools of economic thought - including ecological, feminist, institutional, behavioural and complexity economics - and it proposes that we change the goal from endless GDP growth to thriving within the limits of the Doughnut.

When the focus is innovation, make sure you are promoting market creating innovation to foster prosperity! The concept was created by the late Harvard Business School Prof. Clayton Christensen , and continues to be encouraged by the Christensen Institute and specially by Efosa Ojomo .

Last but not least, learn and practice to see systems everywhere! Why? Because we are systems, our companies are systems, our countries are systems, and so much more!

When we apply systems thinking to life, we move from a linear way of interpreting the situations we are in, to a more integrated and less fragmented way. We are able to see emergence and we have better chances of enabling change that will actually promote the desired outcomes.

Here is a video created by Alex Nixon for Science Sauce that explains what a systems approach is.

For further insights on systems thinking, check the Academy for Systems Change or stay tuned to the upcoming newsletters and posts from the Briyah Institute.

Purpose drives many successful endeavors. Yunus Social Business , which was founded in Germany in 2011 by Prof. Muhammad Yunus , Saskia Bruysten and Sophie Eisemann to expand on the success of social business from Bangladesh and ignite it around the world, has just celebrated its 10-year anniversary serving over 17 million people with essential products and services and creating higher incomes for 1.5M people in poverty in India, East Africa and Latin America.

It has innovated in terms of business model and has helped spread the practice of social entrepreneurship, social business, impact investing and ESG around the world.

Here is a glimpse of their celebration and reflection for the next 10 years with good insights for you to reflect upon as you lead your own journey wherever you are.

Leaders must learn how to listen to others and to self. Lifelong learning can be fun! We hope you have enjoyed this edition and look forward to your comments.

"The problem is within. And so is the solution." ~ Dr. Lisa Miller, PhD*

Looking for further insights on how to apply systems thinking to work and life while interacting with other leaders from around the world???Join us for the CEO Meet & Master Program .?Registrations for the January cohort are open!

We look forward to seeing you there!

At?Briyah Institute? we bridge innovation, practice and purpose to ignite leaders to transform organizations co-creating an impact economy -- that which pursues financial returns alongside positive impact for people and planet.

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*?Lisa Miller , Ph.D. is the author of?The Spiritual Child ?and?The Awakened Brain , as well as a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is the leading psychologist of her generation on the benefits of religion and spirituality, and a consummate scientist who refuses to accept one of our culture’s most pervasive and damaging assumptions: that science and spirituality are at odds.

**According to Wikipedia, Christmas -- is an annual festival commemorating?the birth ?of?Jesus Christ , observed primarily on December 25th as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people?around the world ; Hanukkah is a?Jewish festival ?commemorating the recovery of?Jerusalem ?and subsequent rededication of the?Second Temple ?at the beginning of the?Maccabean Revolt ?against the?Seleucid Empire ?in the 2nd century BCE; and Kawaanza is an annual celebration of?African-American culture ?from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called?Karamu, usually on the sixth day. It was created by activist?Maulana Karenga , based on African harvest festival traditions from various parts of?West ?and?Southeast Africa . Kwanzaa was first celebrated in 1966. A 2015 survey found that 1.9% of those polled planned to celebrate Kwanzaa – about six million people in the United States.

***According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary , the definition of synchronicity is (1) the quality or fact of being?synchronous ; and (2)?the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality??—used especially in the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. On page 93 of the book "The Awakened Brain", Dr. Lisa Miller defines synchronicity as "when two apparently disparate events are joined at the level of meaning or consciousness."