One might experience a contemplative state of mind through any number of disciplines intensely practiced—sports, the arts, craftsmanship—or even in the midst of a life-threatening experience. In our seminars we offer sitting meditation practice as a gateway. Mindfulness meditation helps break the grip of the internal narrative, the endless process of building our “story” that shields us from seeing what is. The experience of a gap in our story line fosters a direct perception of the world as interconnected, interdependent, and constantly in flux....

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) are two of the most widely used clinical approaches for treating depression, anxiety, and stress. The first, MBCT, is based on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and includes meditation, breath work, yoga, body scans, and practices to explore thoughts and increase mindfulness. On the other hand, CFT focuses on building compassion by incorporating practices for compassion and self-compassion, along with mindfulness exercises. Since both therapies are widely used, researchers wanted to learn whether CFT’s explicit instruction in compassion and self-compassion might yield different results for people experiencing depression, anxiety and stress compared to a mindfulness-based approach alone—although the researchers noted that nonjudgmental acceptance, which is part of the most widely-adopted definition of mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, “can be taken as indicating that compassion toward self and others and mindfulness are intrinsically linked....

With mindfulness we take a moment to slow down and stop what we’re doing in order to reconnect with ourselves, with each other and with the world around us. A good place to begin is by choosing a time each day to make mindfulness your family’s top priority. Here are just a few of countless opportunities available daily to slow down and experience mindfulness together. We slow down and enjoy being together as we play close attention to the tastes, smells, sights, sounds and sensations of eating and drinking healthy snacks....

In the coming months, Kaiser Greenland will be giving public talks about mindful education for children at a number of different venues. Check her schedule to see if she’ll be speaking at a location near you.

As a parent in the digital era, I snap pictures like crazy. I send one image after another to my husband, documenting my day with the children in fragments that he can piece together remotely. Each image sent to him seems to stamp the moment with more value, and yet, ask me two days later what those snapshots were and why, and it’s likely I’ll just look at you with a blank stare before changing the subject....

The Best Podcast Episodes of 2019 1) The Ezra Klein Show Episode: “Your attention is being hijacked. Chris Bailey can help” Productivity, for many, means trying to wring every last drop of work out of ourselves, day after day. And this desperate need to “keep busy” can also prevent us from mindfully directing our attention. But that’s precisely Chris Bailey’s mission: The author of Hyperfocus is on a mission to shift productivity culture toward, instead, “doing the right things…deliberately and with intention....

Often when we think about creativity, we worry that we must produce something of value—a painting, a written work, even the perfect rendition of Julia Child’s Coq au Vin recipe. But, says Katie Hendricks, this perception misses the point. True creativity is a whole mind, whole body approach to life that is playful and joyful—a way of relating with openness and curiosity to ourselves, the people we love, and the world around us....

For half a century psychologists have wrestled with what they call the bystander effect. Although the phenomenon is almost certainly timeless, as a subject of scholarly study it took off after an infamous 1964 episode, also in New York, in which at least half a dozen people witnessed the fatal nighttime stabbing of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese. The research reveals a simple alarming occurrence: The greater the number of people who witness a stranger in peril (or simply need), the smaller the likelihood that any will come to her aid....

When I was in the Army, I was taught from day one of Ranger training to “Put your own boots on first.” In fact, looking after ourselves before others is not selfish. It is necessary to be ready to lead. Radical self-care is ultimately a selfless practice that ensures we are ready and recharged before giving our full attention to the people who depend on us for motivation, vision, and inspiration....

After starting as a pilot program with 150 children in Toronto, Canada 15 years ago, Roots of Empathy has now spread across Canada and around the world. More than 47,000 children participated in Canada in the past school year. There are programs in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, and Germany. Roots of Empathy is just now taking off in the United States, with a program in Seattle and new ones launching in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area in the fall....

Conflict among colleagues is inevitable, and—left unheeded—associated with significant stress, health problems (both mental and physical), and poor productivity. Researchers set out to explore the role of forgiveness in ameliorating these negative impacts. The participants—more than 200 employees working in office jobs in Washington, DC, or manufacturing jobs in the Midwest—responded to questionnaires about their levels of forgiveness, productivity, and well-being. The first survey asked respondents to focus on a specific offense, and how they believed it affected them....

Self-care can feel like a burden. We can get lost in the gap between where we are and where we think we should be. So, when you’re too tired for self-care, try the three-minute breathing space. First, check in with where you are, what is here for you right now in thoughts, emotions, the body. Just get to know your current experience, wanted or unwanted. Then narrow the attention to the sensation of breathing, the rising and falling of the abdomen with each in-breath and out-breath....

Lots of judges have participated in mindfulness programs, some of them specifically targeted for lawyers and judges, which is a little ironic, since the first principle they may encounter is that the practice of mindfulness involves “nonjudgmental” awareness. How exactly does that work? The nonjudgmental part of mindfulness practice has to do with the very fact that the act of judging is stressful. The world is an uncertain place. We’re rarely totally sure....

Jen: There is a myth that positive emotions are obviously good emotions and difficult emotions are bad and we should avoid them. Is this true and is it even possible to avoid difficult emotions? Susan: I think there could be nothing further than the truth. [The idea that] Good emotions are about joy and happiness, and bad emotions are somehow about anger or anxiety, frustration, and they should be pushed aside....

The best-known program in high tech for promoting wisdom practices is Google’s Search Inside Yourself (Read Google Searches here on Mindful.org), which was spearheaded by Chade-Meng Tan. Meng, as he is known, is already a veteran spokesperson for the Wisdom 2.0 movement. His core belief is that if you can reach people at their workplace, you can change how they are, and ultimately change the world. It’s becoming a kind of article of faith for the Wisdom 2....

Our faces are windows into our most intimate feelings. Yet we’re apt to treat them as strangers, reserving for them our harshest criticism. We’re surrounded by mirrors that show us our faces. But how often do we really take the time to look at our faces, as opposed to concentrating on ways to conceal what we consider to be their less than agreeable qualities? The onslaught of internal commentary is probably familiar to us all....

All of our lives have been turned upside down in ways we never could have imagined. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were signing our kids up for spring activities and making travel arrangements for spring and summer breaks, and at the same time, it feels like a lifetime ago. Even now, it still seems hard to believe that we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that has cost us, our families, and our communities so much....