The decision to choose anger over happiness is based on one factor, and that one factor is judgment. Does this person meet my expectations or not? Does this situation please me or not? Does this event conform to my morally correct and spiritually advanced view of the world or not? We basically organize our lives into two giant categories: people and things we like and people and things we don't like.
- By Nora Caron
Señora Labotta stared deep into Lucina’s eyes. “You are not the only soul who has suffered in love. There is a saying I like very much. Boethius said this; ‘Commit your boat to the winds and you must sail whichever way they blow, not just where you want’.
- By Liz Entman
A small shift in the presentation of an assignment can reduce racial inequality within the group working on it and lead to better outcomes, according to a new study.
Take the following scenario. You are nearing the end of a busy day at work, when a comment from your boss diminishes what’s left of your dwindling patience. You turn, red-faced, towards the source of your indignation. It is then that you stop, reflect, and choose not to voice your displeasure. After all, the shift is nearly over.
As a clinical psychologist and educator, I am often asked to recommend a psychotherapist for people in need. These requests come with a sense of urgency to find the best possible therapist. Many people are at a loss over what to look for.
A yawn consists of an extended gaping of the mouth followed by a more rapid closure. In mammals and birds, a long intake of breath and shorter exhale follows the gaping of the mouth, but in other species such as fish, amphibians and snakes there is no intake of breath.
Since I started writing about and researching emotional intelligence in business, I found that data in support of it has only gotten stronger. I saw recently a study, this surprised me, engineers, software coders and so on were evaluated by their peers, people who work with them day-to-day on how successful they were at what they do.
The film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind pitched an interesting premise: what if we could erase unwanted memories that lead to sadness, despair, depression, or anxiety? Might this someday be possible, and do we know enough about how distressing memories are formed, stored, and retrieved to make such a therapy possible?
- By Lisa Lazard
Why didn’t these women speak up sooner? This was asked time and time again during the recent public furore around sexual harassment, violence and abuse. Underlying the question is a persistent uncertainty about the credibility of victims – a concern with identifying what is true and what is false.
Healing the emotional body in the fourth chakra is by far one of the most important things you can do for your health. With years of experience in Ayurvedic lifestyle counseling, I am convinced that heart health is directly linked to our emotional state.
After years of unsuccessful efforts to diminish, expel, eradicate, and overcome the pain in my body, I wondered if the pain sensations might be a voice for not only the body but other levels of the self as well. I understood that, while pain felt strong and overbearing and it absolutely dominated my attention, it was not necessarily an adversarial power. It was a reaction.
In America’s children, we often see hope for a better future, especially when it comes to reducing racism. Each new generation of white people, the thinking goes, will naturally and inevitably be more open-minded and tolerant than previous ones.
All day every day we experience things: physical sensations, emotions, and thought patterns. Most of our experience we fail to observe. While having an experience we don’t notice it. While this is well and good when it comes to sensation in our feet or many other aspects of living, failure to observe certain parts of our physical, emotional, and cognitive experience...
Less parental warmth and more harshness at home can affect how aggressive children become and whether they lack empathy and a moral compass, according to a new study.
Research suggests that around 70% of people will experience an illogical sense of being a phony at work at some point in their careers. It’s called the impostor phenomenon (also known, erroneously, as a syndrome).
Hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires have tested our resolve as individuals, communities and societies. Along with social crises such as political- and war-induced migration, these events provide stark illustrations of our ability to adapt, help and trust one another through informal social networks and formal social institutions.
Friends, children, romantic partners, family members – many of us exchange hugs with others on a regular basis. New research from the United States, published today in PLOS, now shows hugs can help us to cope with conflict in our daily life.
One of the great things about computer games is that anything is possible in the almost endless array of situations on offer, whether they are realistic or fantasy worlds. But it has been reported that gamers are boycotting Total War: Rome II on the grounds of historical accuracy after developers introduced women generals, apparently to please “feminists”.
Alcoholics Anonymous was established as a form of benign anarchy. Members have to want to help themselves—and one another. While a great number of people see value in the mutual aid of Alcoholics Anonymous, many of them would be surprised to discover that the concept of mutual aid was popularized in the 20th century by the Russian anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) with his 1902 book Mutual Aid.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”--Rabindranath Tagore. Babaji encouraged people to serve others on a daily, even hourly basis. He also taught that no act of service is beneath a person. Just because a person has an advanced degree or a very important job, they can still do the smallest act of service like digging ditches, washing dishes, scrubbing floors.
- By Alan Cohen
When composer George Gershwin was developing his career, he contacted his esteemed role model Maurice Ravel and asked if Ravel would take him on as a student. Ravel, familiar with Gershwin’s work, rejected him, replying, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?”
The recent allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have further divided the nation. Among the questions the case raises are some important ethical ones.
- By Jamie Khoo
Gravely misinformed ideas about health, beauty and body image still dominate, as derogatory reactions to plus size model Tess Holliday’s October Cosmopolitan UK magazine cover prove. TV presenter Piers Morgan, for example, posted a photo of the cover on Instagram with a caption that called out this “step forward for body positivity” as “a load of old baloney”.