This article was written by Daniel Hope,

an Educator and Spiritual Director at Seton Cove Spirituality Center

I had just stepped out of the mindfulness training program I was attending in San Francisco when I immediately had the opportunity to put my training into practice. After boarding the nearby bus that would take me back into San Francisco where I was visiting, I was abruptly told that my pass had expired. “No problem”, I thought, I would just pay with cash, only I had used the last of my cash earlier that morning. I stepped off the bus cast down but not defeated. After much searching I located an ATM which was located inside a bank that had closed just minutes before I got there. If plan A was the bus, then plan B was Uber.  But as I pulled up the app, to my dismay the screen faded as my phone battery died before my eyes.

I took a deep breath and remembered our mindfulness exercise.  I observed my thoughts without judgment.  One of the slides that was used depicted a flag labeled ‘The Mind’ flapping wildly in the wind, tethered securely to a flagpole labeled ‘Mindfulness’.  I took a breath, sat down on a bench and looked at the panoramic beauty around me. This training took place in the Presidio and from where I sat there was a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay.  I was able to take in this natural beauty and also discern the bigger picture of how fortunate I was to be there. If this series of seemingly unfortunate events had not taken place I might never have had this opportunity. I then pulled out my tiny tourist map and began a semi-urban hike that was so pleasant that even after spotting an ATM, I opted to continue the rest of the way on foot.

The training program I attended was at Google’s Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.  Most of the students there that week had come to learn how to bring Google’s blend of mindfulness, neuroscience and Emotional Intelligence back to their own organizations which ranged from pharmaceuticals to automotive manufacturing.  The popularity of this program demonstrated to me just how far we have come in our cultural consciousness for a concept like mindfulness to be so widely accepted in the workplace. Because I am fortunate enough to teach concepts like mindfulness in my daily work at Seton Cove, I am always looking for answers to the question: “What business does spirituality have in the workplace?”

So often when we think about the concept of spirituality we think about it as something that we practice in church or experience in nature but rarely do we think about it as something that we should be bringing into our work — and not just the more interesting or inspired aspects of our work but also the boring and mundane. Spirituality is also something that can keep us in the present moment when things go wrong in our work and it feels like everything is falling apart. It can also help us find meaning in the work that we do and better understand ourselves.  Who is the person facing an inbox of unanswered email or who is the person whose program’s budget was just cut? That person is you and when we better understand the person doing the work, we are better able to understand what we need to do to bring our whole selves into that work. When we are truly present in the moment we are able to live more purposefully, work more skillfully and, in my case, hike more mindfully toward our destination.