August 11, 2015

Vulnerability is our Common Bond

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”  Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times   The problem is – we suffer alone. There isn’t a human being that does […]
June 11, 2015

Workplace Relationships – You Have to Care

“The question in an imperfect competitive reality is: how do we move forward together?              Kevin Roberts, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi  This post is written out of concern. I’m alarmed by the amount of people in the workplace who admit (some without a hint of regret) that they just “don’t care” about many of the people they […]
February 26, 2015

Building Resiliency through Emotional Awareness

  Resiliency. The ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity. A return to balance. Emotional Buoyancy. Flexibility. Are we what we feel? While that may be a rhetorical question, there is truth behind it.  Because advancing emotional understanding is a central theme in my work, these pages have often explored many facets of expanding emotional awareness.  First […]
February 25, 2015

The Neurobiology of Mindfulness – Reshaping Your Brain

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed it also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day.”   Sara Lazar, PhD, MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program There’s now significant research showing that in just eight weeks of daily meditation you can change the part of your brain […]
January 24, 2015

We Need New Models for Workplace Relationships – Part 1

I used to facilitate a three-day seminar I had co-developed for the American Management Association on conflict management. From San Francisco to New York, I heard an endless array of workplace “war stories” over five years.  One woman’s experience remains with me today.  (Sara) was distressed and sought out my advice at the end of the first day of the […]
January 15, 2015

The World Needs More Beauty

When did the world stop needing deeper and more beautiful things? When did we stop believing it was important to create beauty?  Perhaps, “beauty” is the wrong word necessary to focus our highly distracted attention.  Maybe the right word is transcendence? “Transcendence,”  existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.   You know, the kind of experience that stays with […]
January 8, 2015

Start with 5 Minutes of Meditation a Day to Change the Way You Work

How about 5 minutes a day of deep rest? 10 minutes of peace? 15 minutes of renewal? 20 minutes of rejuvenation? Yes, you can. Meditation can change the way you work – and change the way you feel about life in the process. Knowledge about the benefits of meditation isn’t new. Pioneers like Jon Kabat-Zinn began to mainstream meditation into […]
January 3, 2015

Living in the 4 Rooms of Wellness

This post was inspired by the simple, enduring work by the late author, Rumer Godden whose work has touched many lives with its wisdom. More than ever we understand that life is more than the endless to-do lists and bucket lists we create and then relentlessly pursue to achieve “success.”  As the poet Yeats said, “Life is not a problem to be […]
January 2, 2015

The 7 Day Mental Cleanse Diet

The one thing I do know is that most of what I am in control of is my thinking. Everything flows from it. How you approach the mental cleanse is important. In the spirit of lightening up and being easier on yourself, think of the mental cleanse as a vehicle to release persistent unhelpful thoughts especially those that tend towards […]