“Hugs. Lots of hugs!” @ishta_izlitu “By being fully present, giving them my full attention when together, and listening deeply.” @selfcarespecialist “Sending homemade cards.”@kira119 “I say thank you to them. I help them when they need help.”@imaginativecreativeyou If you could tell one person you appreciate them, who would it be, and why? “My two childhood friends, because they are always there.”@thankious “My little sister and mom. I’m never able to tell them how much they help and support me because of my anxiety....

A dose of mindfulness for election night: MindfulVOTES has a few ideas about how mindfulness can be integrated into the election. We take a look at what they’re offering this election night that you can get started in your own home. The Place Beyond Hope and Fear: In difficult times it takes effort to stay grounded in the present, but it is only there, says Margaret Wheatley, that we will find a place unclouded by hope and fear....

Established by the Oasis Counselling Center, the clinic is being funded through Pobal with the support of the National Office for Suicide Prevention, the Department of Community, Equality and Family Affairs and the Department of Health and Children. The clinic will provide free services to its clients and participants. They will offer workshops in mindfulness-based self-care and develop outreach programs in education, social care, health and research. Oasis Counselling will also provide 8-week trainings in MBSR for anxiety, stress, panic and chronic pain, MBCT for depression and MBRP for recovery from addiction....

For this practice, you can close your eyes or lower your gaze while you listen and then continue to meditate, reflecting on the offering. The invitation is to take a deep breath, settle into your body, and listen. Mindfulness Practice: A Song for Restoration I am here. I am well. I am worthy. I am enough. You are here. You are well. You are worthy. You are enough. We are here....

There are many different ways I struggle to retain my sanity in the midst of insanity. I hate to say it but I do not turn on the TV or watch the news. The news I do get I get by word-of-mouth, from alternative publications, things online, The Nation magazine. Something that keeps me balanced about myself and my work is to not read any reviews or anything ever written about me....

A Real Change Q&A with Sharon Salzberg Could you talk a little bit about what “real change” means to you, versus change that may be more shallow or not really addressing the root? What does real change mean in addressing the transformative aspect of life and of society? Sharon Salzberg: Somebody quoted me (which is always an odd experience) and he said, “I remember the time that I was interviewing you for something, and I asked you what you do in meditation....

Steven Czifra: The day started with me waking up and deciding I wasn’t going to go to school. I went and found my friend who also never went to school and we were trying to figure out ways to get money for drugs. So I went with him to the Hollywood Hills to find a Becker, Becker pull-out car stereo. We climbed into this Mercedes and it didn’t have a Becker but we were just looking for something we could steal....

We all tend to make unconscious judgments about people based on their social identities and the cultural stereotypes that cling to them. But bias can be disastrous for its targets, affecting their health, success, and happiness. In her new book, The End of Bias, science journalist Jessica Nordell explains the many ways that bias—particularly, unconscious bias—plays a role in our lives. By sharing research findings at a granular level, as well as stories of individuals affected by bias, she shows readers why we discriminate, how harmful bias is, and what we can do to help eliminate it....

While many of us are familiar with this sort of frustration, Torgovnick finds resolve in a recent Ted Talk by Andy Puddicombe, cofounder of Headspace. She also finds resolve in recent studies about the benefits of a meditation practice. To watch Puddicombe’s Ted Talk and to view a summary of recent studies connecting meditation, health, and creativity, read the Ted Talk blog post. 

Through a scholarship program recently announced by Spirit Rock Meditation Center, six such teachers will have the opportunity to nourish their own yoga and meditation practice—and bring the benefits of mindfulness training back to the communities they serve. Spirit Rock’s Yoga Service Scholarship provides full tuition, room, and board for the year-long Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training that begins in October 2014 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. The Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training consists of three 10-day retreats (and a between-retreat curriculum) that combine yoga asana and pranayama, insight meditation, and classic texts from the yoga tradition....

The only discordant note (setting aside, for the moment, my mind) was the hard-boiled eggs. Served each morning, they appeared antagonistic toward the peeling process, perhaps in opposition to having had their incubation aborted. The problem was the membranes. They stuck to the white rather than separating with the shell, making the eggs hard to peel. I normally eat hard-boiled eggs several times a week (despite my cholesterol count) and consider myself sufficiently skilled at peeling....

As a passionate mindfulness teacher, this is encouraging and exciting — however, it comes at a cost. As with the wide-spread adoption of any new technology or idea, critical elements and insights can become lost or diluted, and as a result, so does its impact. While I applaud that mindfulness is being adopted on such a large scale, and its benefits are becoming more accessible to more people, I also see how misconceptions about what the practice is have affected what is offered in the name of “mindfulness....

Make a list of your strengths, your coping skills, and the resources available to you. Sometimes the best solution is just to focus on what you can control; that may be as simple as your breathing. Fear is excitement, only deprived of breath. Get in touch with how the anxiety feels in your body. Gain some control over your breathing, then shift to how you can influence your thinking. As you build some momentum in seeing your ability to cope with a widening sphere of influence, you’ll build your sense of confidence so that you can handle what life is throwing at you....

Probably not, says Benjamin Hardy, bestselling author of Willpower Doesn’t Work. In this video from BigThink, he explains how experiencing hardships can actually help you succeed in the long run. While it may seem obvious to assume that experiencing positive emotions lead to positive outcomes, Hardy says that usually isn’t the case. “Sometimes, actually, negative experiences, negative emotions, produce some of the best outcomes,” he says. “And so, avoiding negative, challenging, difficult emotions is probably on one of the worst things a person can do....

For many, voting is a civic duty. However, in the United States, there is a large contingent of people who don’t vote, even in presidential elections. Voting can be particularly low in midterm elections—where the number of nonvoters often exceeds voters. Political psychology researchers have been studying what encourages voting behavior, hoping to create interventions that might increase voting in the general public. “Because voting is a prosocial behavior, the kinds of things that should stimulate other types of prosocial behavior should have similar impacts on voting,” says Costas Panagopoulos of Northeastern University....

I’m thinking of a friend who still recalls a very colorful meatless burger she ordered in San Francisco. Its patty was tinged through and through with the staining purplish-red of beet juice. Bleeding, she said. She told me this while carving into a juicy slab of prime rib the size of a hubcap. There was a lot to unpack in that moment—about the futility of meat substitutes and the distance we knowingly place between us and our food—but what stuck with me was the simple fact that my hungry friend felt squeamish abouta vegetable....