Middle Way Management and Finding Your Refuge

In my last post, I discussed how viewing stress from the perspective of creative tension is a great way to enhance your Middle Way Management™ practice. By morphing stress into creative tension, you increase your ability to manage with compassion, empathy, patience, kindness, and sympathy, all necessary aspects of your Middle Way Management daily walk. In this post, I present ideas about how to find and then take refuge from a sometimes chaotic organizational environment.

Finding Your Refuge
Refuge in the context of Middle Way Management can be real or metaphorical. Either way, your refuge should be a place where you go to reconnect and sort things out. Of course, you can, and probably should, have more than one refuge space upon which you rely. Your refuge can be at your place of work or somewhere outside (e.g., walking path around the office building). Your refuge can be purely imaginary--a "happy place" you go to when things are spinning around you. As a Middle Way Manager™, you will seek real or metaphorical refuge depending on immediate circumstances.

For instance, it's probably not appropriate to excuse yourself to take a walk during an important meeting because you want to exit a negative situation and feel the sun on your face. It's also imperative that you remain "here, now." I've certainly let my mind wander to more pleasant scenes during a meeting or two over the years. Invariably, someone then asks me for my opinion on a matter to which I've paid virtually no attention. Because it's one of the primary responsibilities of the Middle Way Manager to be present at all times, you should guard against this and take refuge when and where appropriate.

Taking Refuge
In an earlier post, I recommended taking time out of your busy schedule to engage in reflective thought. Hopefully, you are able to accomplish this in your own office with some privacy or in a room set aside by the organization for rest and relaxation. This is a case of real refuge, one that you can count on (remember to schedule out the time as a meeting) to recharge and rejuvenate, especially if your day has been hectic. I know that I eagerly anticipate my self-sanctioned "timeouts" as a way to collect my thoughts and plan for future events.

Other forms of real refuge can be spending quality time with sympathetic colleagues during work hours or after work. You can schedule lunches with friends or family and even skip lunch altogether in the interest of simply getting away from the workplace for a little while. I once read an article by a guy who espoused using a toilet stall as a form of refuge to take a quick nap. While I don't think lurking in the restroom is a great idea, I do believe his point that a place of refuge should include some solitary time to recharge your managerial batteries is a good one.

On the metaphorical, or imaginary, side, refuge can simply be a way to calm your mind, even briefly. In an earlier post, I suggested reflective thought and breathing exercises as ways to settle your busy mind. Bringing yourself into awareness through concentration on your breathing is a great way to keep yourself in the present and focus your energies. In fact, breathing in awareness may be the best approach because it helps you focus intently on the present, preventing the wandering of mind that is so easy to slip into when refocusing.

The Purpose of Refuge
The purpose of taking refuge is to help you calm yourself in the midst of the storm. As an active manager in an American-style organization, you will typically reside in the eye of that storm when you take refuge. Remember, though, that the storm is always moving. Eventually, it will wash over you once again and you will be right back in the thick of things. By calming yourself in the midst of the storm, you allow yourself to re-energize your daily Middle Way Management practice. Only when you are calm and composed will you be able to manage with compassion, empathy, sympathy, understanding, and kindness.

In my next post, I will consider how practicing Middle Way Management requires you to be vulnerable in the face of egoistic and aggressive forces that are part and parcel of American-style organizational management. Only by acknowledging and embracing our vulnerability can we practice the level of compassion necessary to relieve suffering at all levels of the organization.

Copyright © 2009, Darin R. Molnar, PhD. All rights reserved.