January 1, 2018
When was the last time you experienced joy? To answer the question it helps to remember what joy feels like in your body. Like all other emotions, joy has its own unique biological signature. We memorize emotions in our bodies. With those emotions we experience less often, we may have to work a little harder to recall how they felt. […]
December 12, 2017
Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash The Intentional Workplace blog began with this post. What could be more basic than to understand the nature of communication? But more important, how we communicate and why. The message was simple but seems to grow more important every day – everything comes down to how we communicate. All the things that we want and need start […]
March 11, 2017
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver’s haunting question should become a mantra for life in the 21st century. Seemingly inured to stress, too many of us speed through each day without taking the time to stop and ask – what have I traded a day of my life for today? Jumping on the mindfulness bandwagon dozens of articles still ask, “Can […]
January 21, 2017
Through the tragic events and natural disasters of the past decades we’ve seen extraordinary outpourings of help and compassion for neighbors – and most important, strangers. Tragic events seem to galvanize our empathy and evoke great acts of kindness in response. In the past decade we have also been the beneficiaries of valuable findings from research to better understand the motives […]
January 1, 2017
The ancients knew there were many times of the year – and in our lives, that signaled a time to slow down. These were the hours and days for quiet reflection. Clearly, those days are over in “modern times.” The reality of life today is the amount of time reserved for rest has diminished dramatically. Another “casualty” of modern life […]
December 1, 2016
“People who are in touch with their needs do not make good slaves.” Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D Needs are basic to life. Everything we feel and do is in service to our needs. In the moment to moment biological imperative to meet our needs we make choices – thousands of choices. Every choice we make is an attempt to satisfy […]
November 24, 2016
“The publication of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, marked a turning point in popular culture. Finally, emotions were deemed critical to human intelligence. Ironically, the book presents a model of emotional intelligence that is founded in the subordination of emotions to reason.” Miriam Greenspan, Healing Through the Dark Emotions Wine Connoisseurs know that there is a vast array of wines […]
October 17, 2016
There’s lots of compelling information emerging from neuroscience about compassion. That’s good news because, frankly, we need it. You see, the really good news is that we’re hard-wired for compassion. Speaking at a conference in Telluride, Colorado, The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures and Interventions, sponsored by Stanford University Medical School’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research, Stephen Porges, Ph.D. presented the following […]
September 11, 2016
Before I worked from home and was able to control my workspace, I had a long history of “redecorating” every single office space I ever worked in. Regardless of the size or circumstances, office environment was so important to me that I simply could not work comfortably without personalizing my space. Even in the most cramped and undesirable […]