Launching ABG on the Cushion: A Meditation for Busy (and Anxious) Wine Professionals
During a conference call earlier this week, before anyone else joined, a wine colleague commented on how she deals with external communications around COVID-19 all day long and then comes home and can’t sleep at night. The alarms buzzing inside her head don’t stop just because she’s left the office.
Sound familiar?
That scenario just about sums up what so many of us are feeling right now. Anxiety, yes, and frayed nerves that we can’t seem to smooth out or “turn off.”
“How are you dealing with it?” my colleague asked on the phone.
Before I even realized I was saying it, the answer was out of my mouth.
“Meditation helps.”
I didn’t have the chance then to explain but, as I thought about it later, I began to see how meditation is helping to manage the anxiety and uncertainty that’s so predominant today. Meditation isn’t making those things go away, but it is helping to manage them.
For me meditation these past few weeks has been about cultivating patience, especially as we steel ourselves for the restrictions and limitations that are grounding so many of us in the industry.
It’s been about getting curious around the irony of an unwanted slow down of business, even as “slowing down” is what we always say we crave. I’m curious about that linguistic and emotional contradiction.
It’s been about noticing the relationship between “quarantine” and “solitude,” and being comfortable in my own company.
And it’s been about developing a mindset of responding rather than reacting, especially around triggering or gut-wrenching news about lost jobs and closed or endangered businesses.
It’s a lot, right now.
That’s exactly why we feel like this is a good time to revisit an idea we’d mentioned here on A Balanced Glass a few months ago: ABG on the Cushion - A Meditation for Busy Wine Professionals. We’re now ready to launch a four-week online video learning series designed especially for this community to teach some principles of meditation, and hopefully help you navigate these unsettling times.
Teaching the series is a requirement of a two-year course I’ve been doing, with master teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, and it would help me tremendously if you’d sign up for our series.
Here are a few details.
The sessions will be held via video conference. Though initially the idea was for the sessions to be held in person, Tara and Jack have eased up on that requirement given the recommended guidelines around the coronavirus.
There will be four sessions of 60 minutes each. We can go up to 90 minutes if you have questions or if you’d like more content.
You can join by video or audio. I’ll be using both from my home computer.
Proposed dates are March 22 and 29 and April 5 and 19.
Beck suggested holding the sessions on Sundays. We’ll do them at 11 am EST / 8am PST and 8 pm EST / 5pm PST, and I’ll deliver the same content twice each Sunday. That’s in order to cover as many time zones as possible for this community, which is based largely on the East Coast and West Coast in the US; Europe; and Australia.
Sessions will be recorded so if you miss one week, you can complete the session prior to the next week’s session.
We will be using Zoom.us as the video platform, so all you need is wi-fi. (Camera is optional, and you can join simply by audio if you’d like.)
General Overview of the Content
Week One: Mindfulness, Body Scanning
Week Two: Our Storytelling Minds, Mindfulness of Breath
Week Three: Metta/Lovingkindness, the Practice of RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Inquire, Nurture)
Week Four: Spaciousness
How does this sound to you?
If you’re interested, please sign up here. We need a total of six participants to make it work, though of course I’d be happy for many more to join.
I’m looking forward to sharing this practice and this tool with you.
Namaste,
Cathy
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What We're Reading:
There's no shortage of wine stories and media inundating our IN Boxes. Here's what has piqued our interest this week.
Bring These Guided Meditations Outside with You – Mindful.com
Explore these mindfulness practices you can do in a park, on a walk, or sitting in your own backyard.
Wine in the Time of Coronavirus – Robert Joseph for Meininger’s Wine Business International.com
Trade fairs postponed, flights cancelled, tastings shuttered. Robert Joseph asks if now is a good time to re-think the way the wine trade does business.
Meet the Community!
Our community is only as strong as the company we keep, and here we meet some of the folks who make our profession so dynamic.
Brett Anderson, Director of Culture and Communications for the Harlan Family of Napa Valley (California USA)
Years in the Industry:
20 (first as a journalist and editor creating wine content and, most recently, as a professional working inside the industry)
My Biggest Challenge to Wellness:
For me, the greatest obstacle to be overcome with respect to health has always been self-discipline. I seem to do everything one is not supposed to do—not deliberately, but by force of habit. I am a voracious reader, so rather than go to bed at a reasonable hour, I generally read late into the night. And because I worked for so many years for international media companies, traveling almost constantly and working with colleagues in as many as 18 countries, I formed a daily pattern whereby I wake up at 4 a.m. to deal with the correspondence in my inbox before I start the day. As a result of these things, I have never slept regular hours, a situation for which I compensate by drinking too much coffee (but only truly excellent coffee) to stay awake and drink wine to enjoy and to relax—usually a bottle a day. On top of this, I never eat breakfast. I come from a family obsessed with food and food culture, and breakfast always seemed to me a throwaway meal. In short, my daily regimen breaks most practical advice for a healthy lifestyle.
How I Keep Together and Stay Well:
Although I eat and drink too much and generally sleep too little, I have exercised my whole life. I was a swimmer and water-polo player in high school, and then a swimmer still in college, and for most of my adult life (with only a few lapses), I have exercised at least two hours a day—another reason why I get up at 4 a.m. I have found that, during the early morning, my thoughts are more focused than at night, which, I suppose, is why I do much of my own thinking at the start of the day, and I absorb the thoughts of others while reading before I go to bed. The uninterrupted and relatively calming time in the early hours centers me: solutions can be found, and ideas flow freely.
During workouts I always seek a balance between resistance training, cardiovascular conditioning, and stretching. I tend do go into a zone, listening to my favorite music—depending on the activity, everything from classic jazz to classic rock or alternative. New Order, Joy Division, or Smashing Pumpkins for cardio; Roxy Music or Steely Dan for weights; and Coleman Hawkins or Chet Baker for stretching. Music has a tremendous power to restore the body and the mind. I listen to classical—Brahms, Bach, Corelli, or Scarlatti—in the evenings, and Blues—Etta James or B.B. King—before I leave the house for the day.
As far as diet is concerned, the only thing I can say in my defense is that I like a wide variety of different foods, and I never eat anything processed—not because it’s a rule I’ve formulated, but because, to me, fast food just doesn’t taste good. I believe that, if you’re going to eat, eat only the best—something fresh and made with care. Although I like a lot of heavy dishes, my favorites tend toward strong flavors in simple combinations—chilis and herbs; olive oils, fresh fish, and cheeses; citrus and crispy vegetables. And really outstanding bread and butter is as good as the table gets.
You can connect with Brett online on Facebook or LinkedIn.
