Because of recent global financial upheavals, people are more aware than ever of their need to feel that the ground beneath them won’t open up and swallow them whole. Even those who know they can count on friends, family, and community to support them in a time of crisis long to...
Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago won the Nobel Prize for his extraordinary, world-transforming work in behavioral economics. Thaler demonstrated how nudging – or influencing people while fully maintaining freedom of choice – “may help people exercise better self-control when saving for a pension, as well in other contexts.”
- By Anne Tucker
Part of your life isn’t working. The part of your life I’m talking about is wherever dissatisfaction and doubt are making you spin in circles, feeling dissatisfied with whatever you have, or stuck in doubt about what you should do. Where in your life do you feel that way?
Get mad when you read the news these days? It's more than just what you're reading. When you perceives unfairness or inequality, says Molly Crockett, the brain receives it more-so as an attack on identity.
I feel fear exactly as you do. I’m certainly no daredevil, despite what you might expect of a member of The Hollywood Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame! Nor am I an “adrenaline junkie,” despite the Guinness World Records I hold.
The giant global photographic agency, Getty Images, has announced it plans to ban retouching of images of models “to make them look thinner or larger”.
- By Meg Beeler
Almost everyone carries accumulations of old emotional pain, what Eckhart Tolle calls the “pain-body.” This pain-body feeds on what has happened in the past, and feeds on negative thinking and drama in relationships. Your joy-body stores family, ancestral, and collective joy. It feeds on positive, transporting experience.
Child abuse and other traumatic childhood experiences may alter the brain, making the effects of trauma last into adulthood.
Living with anxiety and fear creates unhappiness and despair in all our relationships. However, most of us suffer from too much anxiety and fear primarily because our communications provoke these destructive emotions through criticism, accusation, punishment and humiliation. So reducing the anxiety and fear caused by...
Recently, Alice Campbell and I revealed the demographic traits associated with people expressing support for equal rights for same-sex couples
Fox squirrels are a lot more organized than we thought—storing their stashes of nuts by variety, quality, and possibly even by preference. A new study is the first to show evidence that squirrels arrange their bounty—at least 3,000 to 10,000 nuts a year—using “chunking”...
- By Alan Cohen
When an event sobers us, it dashes cold water on our face to extricate us from the drunkenness of the meaningless activities we often engage in. We are awakened from the addictive behaviors we use to distract ourselves from our pain.
Almost in disbelief we were confronted by Barry’s diagnosis of throat and thyroid cancer, which within weeks lead to many medical consultations, pathology tests, ultrasounds and on to surgery. As his partner and then caregiver, the challenge of supporting him through that journey was daunting.
Can you recall the last time you complimented your spouse? What if compliments aren’t flowing in your relationship? If that’s true, expressing appreciation may feel awkward at first. Accept the feeling and do it anyway!
Look at the people in other cars in front of you, behind you, passing around you, and recognize that each one of them is just like you: They want happiness and they want to be free from suffering. To each person you focus on say or think something like...
Imagine for a moment all the things you say or don’t say, and all the things you do or don’t do in one day because of what others might say about you. If you wrote out a list, it might take a long time. Do you realize how much power you give to other people’s opinions? What if you could recover that power?
For the most part, I live happily in a large life, with my energies and joys in so many areas of my personal and professional lives, yet I have worked for decades, non-stop, both through my own inner exploration and my formal academic education, to create my current inner and outer worlds.
- By M.J. Ryan
The practice of giving thanks for your body is particularly difficult for women, because our relationships with our bodies are fraught with so much difficulty and dissatisfaction. The media reinforces such an impossible and singular image for young girls and women to live up to, and places so much emphasis on appearance, that virtually none of us—even if we happen to match the ideal—comes out unscathed.
From the Talmud we have the adage, “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” Lacking this awareness, we can easily fall into the deception of regarding any particular worldview as the correct version of reality and defend it—sometimes with great hostility—by dismissing or denouncing the perspective of others. History is replete with examples of wars and other tragic tales caused by the collision of worldviews.
Some activists believe we must be constantly aggrieved to set right the injustices of the world—that good anger corrects bad anger. But an enlightened activism respectfully acknowledges all anger and sorrow while demonstrating the superior strategy of mercy...
A past experience is stored in your memory like a video with a separate 'feelings' track, which releases these feelings whenever the memory-box is opened. This feelings track can be re-recorded, replacing the original. To do this, you simply go back to the time the event began and rerun...
Immediately after a natural disaster, it’s normal to experience fear, anxiety, sadness or shock. However, if these symptoms continue for weeks to months following the event, they may indicate a more serious psychological issue.
Blame is a series of actions and reactions. They all work together to generate the Blame Syndrome. The three parts are: The Blame Attack (the initial criticism — no matter how minor); The Emotional Impact (negative feelings caused by being blamed); The Reactive Response (blame is fired back).