Beyond that knee-jerk reaction to the idea of children meditating, there are other criticisms—mainly, that there isn’t the time or resources to do this kind of work. Vicki Zakrzewski at Greater Good explains: We hear from many teachers in low-income schools that social-emotional learning (SEL) is considered an “add-on”—something that can happen after students have proven their academic merit. If that’s the case, does that mean social-emotional learning is a luxury only for wealthy children, whose schools perform better academically and can afford to invest time and money in SEL programs?...

Siegler, who has been a general practitioner for more than 40 years and is also a leading medical ethicist, still makes house calls. His business card also lists his personal cell and home phone numbers. Studies show that a good rapport between doctors and patients correlates with positive health outcomes. Though many medical schools teach the importance of showing empathy, this new institute will put compassion and empathy “on the same pedestal as science and technology,” said Siegler in the article....

Marturano talks about bringing mindfulness to General Mills, where she was Deputy General Counsel. She also talks about why we go into autopilot mode during the work day, and how we can create “Purposeful Pauses” in our day to slow things down and get back on track. Here’s Marturano talking about becoming mindful at work: We have an innate capacity of our minds to be present, so we’re not talking about some outside tool or technique....

This is how much of my clinical work has seemed over the years—like playing Plinko. You start out with a general sense of where you’d like to end up with a client, but somehow, things bounce around, and the actual end point of treatment is in a completely different (and sometimes very surprising) direction. There’s a Plinko quality to parenting as well—we, as parents, set our sights on specific goals and outcomes for our kids, and then…reality says otherwise....

In a CBC Radio program titled Metamorphosis, Michaelis talks about falling in with a white supremacist group, and violent rampages with his skinhead crew, fueled by alcohol and hate. He talks about one incident where he and his friends beat up a long-haired, hippy-looking white man, kicking him with their steel-toed boots: “I felt like a machine hitting this guy, and he had at this point just gone limp. At that point I had a sensation that if I kept doing this, this guy was going to die....

Four schools in Madison, Wisconsin are now putting his research into practice. About 200 students are using breathing techniques to help train their brains to improve their ability to focus. “It’s so widely popular and successful, the district wants us to scale it up the entire [Madison] school system,” said Davidson in a Vancouver Sun article yesterday. To read the entire article, click here. For more about mindfulness in education, see Mindful....

The results showed gradual but moderate increase in child compliance during the mother’s training period. Compliance then increased more rapidly when the children began their own mindfulness training. The study states that “mothers mentioned that the mindfulness training was especially helpful in teaching them to really listen to their children, without premature judgments.” The April 2010 edition of the Journal of Child and Family Studies was dedicated to mindfulness research in the context of children and families....

The more I practiced meditation, however, the more I began to explore this resistance to “Mindful Movement.” What did I actually feel when I allowed myself to move slowly? When I took my mind into my body at these times, I discovered restlessness, impatience, irritation, and boredom. I wanted either to stop or to go faster. Hmm, interesting. Wasn’t this a pattern that I had also identified with my mental experience—that I habitually approached life at breakneck speed, and then flopped or fell into an exhausted torpor?...

For more information, visit the JCC website post. 09/19/12

“You’re moving your body in a sensual way, and you can end up feeling a bit vulnerable,” says Kylee Sallak, owner of City Pole. “A lot of emotions can come up.” Sallak, a former dancer, wanted an alternative to the competitive atmosphere she encountered while working at other pole fitness studios in Manhattan. So she opened City Pole, a wellness-focussed pole studio that encourages its members to exercise “from the inside out....

When you consider the number of people involved in educating and being educated in kindergarten through twelfth grade in America it’s hard to take the state of our schools for granted. After health care, education is the most significant domestic policy concern. Each day in the U.S. and Canada, the equivalent of the entire population of Italy (approximately 60 million) attends school in K-12, and they are taught by a cadre of teachers equal to the population of Ireland (4 million)....

We can be terribly hard on ourselves. For many of us, an inner critic sits on our shoulders mocking us, pointing out every misspoken word, every moment of irritation, anger, or impatience, every wandering thought or expression of greed or desire. The critic loves nothing more than to play on our feelings of shame, doubt, and regret. It can be hard to resist the critic’s screeching accusations. But mindfulness meditation offers a remarkably easy tool you can use to calm yourself and mute the noise....

I love the rich colors and taste of all types of chocolate—from alabaster white to the deep earth tone of dark chocolate. It’s amazing how just a little bit can be so satisfying and intense. So for this issue, I decided to create a chocolate cake and a cookie recipe not only because I adore chocolate (the dark variety especially), but also because February brings Valentine’s Day and it’s a lovely tradition to give loved ones a chocolate treat....

I know you’re overloaded at work, but think about how lucky you are to have a job. That was a harsh thing to say, but he is under a lot of stress these days. You didn’t blow your diet…holiday parties don’t count! The Role of Cognitive Reappraisal Called “cognitive reappraisal,” this emotion-regulation strategy is one we often use inside our own heads. When something makes us feel bad, we might try to re-tell the story to ourselves in a way that isn’t quite so painful....

I was sitting quietly, meditating with about 30 other people during a group retreat when the thing I dreaded the most happened. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Can you keep time for a little while?” By keeping time, she meant could I get up, walk to the front of the room, take my seat on the cushion facing everyone, and ring the imposing cauldron-sized gong at the end of the meditation session?...

Intention refers to the underlying motivation for everything we think, say, or do. From the brain’s perspective, when we act in unintended ways, there’s a disconnect between the faster, unconscious impulses of the lower brain centers and the slower, conscious, wiser abilities of the higher centers like the pre-frontal cortex. Given that the unconscious brain is in charge of most of our decision-making and behaviors, this practice can help you align your conscious thinking with a primal emotional drive that the lower centers care about....

King was a prophetic witness. Able to convert listeners, he not only made it possible for them to hear sacred teachings, he invited them to open their hearts and be transformed. One of King’s favorite scriptures, taken from the Book of Romans, admonished believers, telling them: “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may know what the will of God is....