Rob was a sexy British vagabond, and my time with him was short and educational in the way my flaming teenage libido longed for. But it turned out the charms of an eager amateur had limited appeal next to the hot-blooded worldliness of an older, beautiful sister. They met when Rob dropped me off at home just before I got on a plane and left town for Christmas break. When I returned, Rob and my sister picked me up at the airport…together....
The app includes two audio tracks, five daily activities and a stress assessment, among other things. Take a Chill is being offered at an introductory price of 99 cents. The price is expected to increase in March. For more information, click here.
Kate Bermingham: What possessions do you still own? Fumio Sasaki: I have about 20 pieces of clothing, including underwear. My electronic devices like MacBook Air and Kindle are incredibly useful. My new home came preinstalled with most of the furniture and electronics I need, so I was able to let go of most of my own items in that category. On the other hand, there are some things I now have more of....
As a culture, we’re scared to talk about money. It’s primal. Money means survival. Without it, we may die. Talking about money can threaten our sense of inner worthiness (“I don’t have enough” or “I have too much and should be sharing it more”), and that can trigger our ancestral fight-or-flight response. It’s that fight-or-flight response or fear that keeps us from talking about or mindfully engaging with money. But, will that path of avoidance or reactivity bring you freedom and spaciousness?...
It is not easy to be a human being. We have sensitive and often reactive nervous systems that are easily agitated by the constant ups and downs of life. Among the joys and sorrows, and the pleasure and pain, we are often faced with discomfort and uncertainty. When life gives us lemons, we can often push ourselves too hard, be overly critical, and distract ourselves with negative habits that leave us depleted instead of nourished....
But then what? For some, the quagmire drags us down as we find that resolving to do anything takes guts, energy, and determination. It takes grit. Even worse, it may require going gently or slowing things down. And it takes courage to let yourself see how you resist or run from things that make you uncomfortable. True resolve means feeling restless and uneasy and bringing effort and energy anyway. Let’s back up for a moment: What is a resolution?...
As someone who studies both stress and empathy, I get asked about this research a lot. Does it mean that empathy is a liability, increasing your risk of exhaustion, depression, or burnout? If you are highly empathic, are you doomed to become a reservoir for other people’s pain and suffering? As an example, the news story described a study showing that participants had an empathic physiological stress response when they observed another person struggling....
We’re under this delusion of separateness that we are islands walking around, and everyone else is separate from us when the reality is we’re all interconnected. A Mindfulness Practice to Generate Change From the Inside Out Look at your community of people you most interact with. Ask yourself this question for each person. Does this person inspire? Give me energy. Did they remind me to live the change I want to see in my life?...
From Scientific American: The researchers also suggested that hunger had an impact on shopping habits. The team stopped people exiting a department store, rating their hunger on a ten-point scale against their receipts. People with more nonfood items tended to be the hungrier ones. While the lead author, Alison Xu, stressed to Sayo Turner that more evidence was needed, it probably wouldn’t hurt to make sure your stomach is full before your next shopping trip....
Think of any recent picture in the media of someone doing yoga. A person, lithe yet muscular, sits contorted, ankles somewhere by their shoulders, smiling serenely all the while. It’s unrealistic, to say the least. Yoga lover Jonah Sargent wants to change that with his photo project, Faces of Yoga. Sargent was motivated to start the project in large part by his time working as a cleaner at a large yoga studio in Minnesota....
Barry: And I’m Barry Boyce. I’m the founding editor of Mindful Magazine and mindful.org. And I write the regular column Point of View. Stephanie: And this is the Point of View podcast. Welcome to a special, pandemic edition of Point of View. As we record this—me in my home, and Barry in his—many places around the world are locked down, quarantining, self-isolating, social or physical distancing—whatever you want to call it, we are doing it....
“I had a rush of emotions,” he says. “And, obviously, I don’t know what was happening. Maybe she forgot something.” He pauses, then adds, “but I don’t think so.” As a young man he would have been angry—at the situation and the woman. “But now, I was sad,” he says. “And, at the same time, I knew it was complicated—I could feel what she must be going through, to be afraid of a tall black man....
Adopting a minimalist approach is applauded by some children’s health professionals as well. In his book, The Good Life, psychotherapist Graham Music asserts that although kids are smarter today than ever before, their capacity for empathy and compassion has reached new lows, thanks to growing consumerism. If you’re about to become a parent and are considering a minimalist approach, you may want to reflect on these tips from author and co-founder of the Inner Kids Foundation, Susan Kaiser Greenland:...
“Your turn to get up,” you say, nudging your partner. So he does, drowsily leaving the room only to return a few minutes later—followed, not surprisingly, by your two kids. As they happily bounce on the bed, you grumpily try to convince them to go play on their own. It’s no use. While your partner snuggles back under the covers, you drag yourself out of bed. Later that morning you find a moment to talk with your partner....
Eat, Pray, Love—and Marry: Eat Pray Love’s author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the business of falling madly in love and what it takes to maintain a marriage. Engaged for Life: Yoga practice can be like a microcosm for what you’re experiencing in life, says yoga teacher Meredith Bailey. She explains how, when change makes her world new and foreign, sometimes it helps to look at it upside down. The Perfect Love We Seek, the Imperfect Love We Live: Love is what we long to receive and to give, yet our intimate relationships are conflicted and often painful....
2. PICK A PILLAR Psychologist and The Power of Meaning author Emily Esfahani Smith spent five years researching what constitutes a meaningful life. Strengthening even one of the resulting “four pillars” will support the quest for greater meaning in anyone’s life, she says. Belonging: This comes from our relationships, from feeling valued for who we are and from valuing others. “It’s a choice—you can choose to cultivate belonging with others.” Purpose: Without something worthwhile to do, we flounder, Esfahani Smith writes....
Richard Goerling is a certified mindfulness trainer and former police lieutenant, who specializes in teaching resilience and performance skills to first responders. In this interview, he explores the biases that exist in policing—and explains how mindfulness can foster a more compassionate police force. The Two Types of Change Policing Needs “One of the greatest failures of police leadership is the failure to lead a culture—or maybe, more specifically—the failure to lead an ethos that is grounded in humanity, rather than grounded in tactics or grounded in equipment, or grounded in the good old boy network,” Goerling says....
Using brain imaging data from a previous investigation of the impact of meditation on cortical thickness, this new study examined whether the estimated brain composition of meditators aged 50 and beyond differed from that of non-meditators. To answer this question, researchers compared brain images of a matched sample of 50 meditators and 50 non-meditating controls ranging in age from 24 to 77 years. Both groups included 22 women and 28 men, and had a mean age of 51....
