Share “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.”— Archimedes “I love this quote from the Greek mathematician Archimedes two millennia ago, because I believe that when we take a stand for something, we can move the world and change the course of history. Taking a stand comes from the deepest part of you — the very heart of who you are. Living your stand gives you clarity and power as well as the capacity to engage people and institutions to literally move the Earth. A stand is something that is uplifting and enhances life....

Share “Transformation is taking place everywhere on earth in micro and macro ways. These small and large breakthroughs are underreported and sometimes invisible. However, conscious and committed human beings everywhere are generating new possibilities and profound new ways of being that are at the cutting edge of an evolutionary leap.”— Lynne Twist Lynne Twist is a global visionary and activist dedicated to creating a future that is environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just. Over the past forty years, she has worked...

If you find yourself struggling to start or keep up a meditation practice, you’re not alone. Although meditation instructions are usually simple (for example, to maintain a gentle focus on the breath), that doesn’t mean meditating itself is always easy. Research suggests that new and experienced meditators alike face barriers to practice. For instance, a study I published with colleagues in 2020 found that new meditators often question whether meditation will in fact be beneficial, doubt whether they’re meditating correctly, struggle to find sp...

On his first day working in an acute care unit, Philip, a nursing student completing a placement in Toronto, Canada, watched as his preceptor (a registered nurse acting as a mentor for new nurses) walked off the job. “She was so stressed she quit on the spot, leaving me without a preceptor. That showed me just how bad it was,” said Philip, who didn’t want his name or hospital noted.  The “it” that Philip is referencing is burnout. Specifically, the burnout that is rampant among nursing staff and is forcing hospitals to close emergency rooms, ca...

Before I taught scores of body scan meditations, I too had to learn it for the first time. And my first reaction was: no, thank you! This is what happened: The woman at the front of the room is saying that over the next eight weeks we would be “learning to reconnect to our bodies by doing a number of body scan meditations.” Huh? Reconnect with my own body? Nuts to that, lady! Not that it’s any of your business, but my disconnected body and I like it that way. As far as I can tell, I mean, we haven’t spoken in years. Then she tells us to lay dow...

Share Not only a book for parents and educators, this work is authored by a psychologist and scientist who demonstrates that truthfulness is the best strategy. The core of the book is in Part Two called “Teaching Honesty to Children,” and the strategies offered are suitable for people of any age. Truthfulness is a problem throughout our lives and communities — in politics and work situations and our everyday conversations — making these strategies vital. For example, in chapter 6, “Talk to Children about Honesty,” the advice is practical and ap...

Share “We lie for a variety of reasons. Our lies can be motivated by more than one reason, and the motivations can overlap. For instance, a teenager who lies about where they were after school may be motivated to lie to prevent negative consequences, such as getting into trouble with their parent, but also to avoid their parents’ disappointment or disapproval. The lie could also be motivated by impression management concerns and the desire to appear 'good' in their parents’ eyes. A child who lies about cheating on a test may fear both punishmen...

Share If you have been reading in the news lately about banned books, please know that this will probably be one of them, which would be a badge of honor. It is fiercely honest about the history of people ripped from their African homelands to work far across the Atlantic Ocean under brutal conditions with no pay. It does not hesitate to speak of the terror and horror of that experience, yet it also relays hope, courage, and resilience. The way that this extremely difficult thread of history is made bearable for young people is by asking the ve...

Share Kangaroo Valley is located in New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the only closed valleys in the world — a landscape of rolling farmland set against stunning cliffs with a river running through it. As its name implies, it is home to thousands of Eastern grey kangaroos. This documentary directed by Kylie Scott and narrated by Sarah Snook tells the coming-of-age story of Mala, a female joey who at the beginning of the film is just ready to leave her mother’s pouch and face the challenges of the outside world. Although the valley seems ...

To connect more deeply with others, we must face the one person that we keep on the shortest leash: ourselves. We often reject other people’s care or attention when we believe we don’t deserve it—but there’s nothing special you must do to deserve love. As Sharon Salzberg reminds us, it is simply because you exist. Follow this fifteen-minute guided meditation to open your heart toward giving and receiving love. — The Mindful Editors 1) Imagine you’re encircled by people who love you. Sit comfortably, eyes open or closed, and imagine yourself in ...

As we become more trauma aware in our society, whether it’s in the wake of the pandemic, a growing awareness of racial, gender, or identity based trauma, a deeper understanding of the nervous system, or an awareness of adverse childhood events, many practitioners and facilitators of mindfulness have grown more nervous about teaching, fearful that they may trigger students. As a therapist and mindfulness teacher, I’ve been studying the science of mindfulness, and the practice of it, with clients and students, and want to offer some guidance and ...

It’s not a stretch to say that anxiety helps to keep you alive. The emotion of fear developed in humans as a response to threats to our safety. In the face of imminent danger, our body redistributes blood to the muscles and pumps up our heart rate, all in an effort to face the threat and fight, or high tail it out of there. But for over 300 million people worldwide, anxiety can sometimes be misplaced. When a nervous system perceives threats that are not life-or-death, people can fall into a difficult pattern of chronic fear and stress. The good...

Share "Byzantine art, with its spiritual focus on the afterlife and the eternal, not the present, had more in common with ancient Egypt than with ancient Rome. Whereas Roman art sought to represent a three-dimensional, lifelike illusion of the present, the art of the early Christians and Byzantines deliberately departed from this art form toward a more abstract and two-dimensional design. While the Egyptians used this form to display their own expected life in the eternal as gods themselves, the Christian artists adapted the Egyptian formula to...

Share This book is designed for people who enjoy art museums but might feel baffled or nonplussed by all the Christian iconography and symbols. New Yorker and author Stephen Auth takes the reader on a tour of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, identifying major themes that can be found in most any art museum in the western hemisphere. A former Wall Street executive, Auth tells the reader that he’s mostly self-taught. Perhaps for that reason, his book is quite readable and engaging, ideal for the rest of us who love art but aren’t experts. Auth poi...

Share Hirokazu Kore-eda is a master of highlighting the aching humanity bubbling beneath the layered depths of complicated societal situations. Broker, his latest offering and his first to explore tensions in South Korea instead of his usual Japan (after a 2019 sojourn to France for The Truth), shows how beautifully Kore-eda’s approach translates across cultures. Different countries may have different realities, systems, and problems, but Broker reveals that the human desires to belong, to connect, and to thrive know no borders. Kore-eda begins...

Share As women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive rights continue to make headlines, Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane arrives carrying a story with huge implications packed inside a relatively small-feeling film. With its disarmingly light approach, Call Jane takes a hot button justice issue and coolly focuses its lens on very specific people making very specific choices, allowing the political to become deeply personal. It’s 1968 and pregnant Chicago housewife Joy (Elizabeth Banks) is enjoying life with her successful husband (Chris Messina) and teena...

Share Irish author Marianne McShane loves to tell folktales and fairy tales from her native land. Here she creates one of her own, inspired by a tiny island off the coast of County Down. "Some days the island glitters like a jewel in the Irish Sea. Some days it hides like a shadow behind the mist," she tells us. That island inspiration got its missing ingredient when McShane discovered that "fog catchers" in Morocco catch mist in fine mesh nets to produce water. In McShane's story, the Fog Catcher's daughter, Eily, is one year away from accompa...

Share “There must be a disruption of everyday life in order to make a change. Many people did not realize how much of a problem police violence was until the protests went on a couple of days longer than expected. When that happens, people are forced to listen in ways they couldn’t have before. “There are many in this country whose lives are intolerable, and in order to bring attention to their struggles they must make others experience a glimpse of intolerability. When that happens, people are exposed to all the ways we tolerate the intolerabl...

Share This is a would-be activist’s book, written by an activist. Former pastor Damon Garcia begins by talking about the moment in 2017 when he realized he needed to quit his job because his coworkers in ministry did not see what he saw: radical inequalities of income, police brutality toward people of color, white supremacists and white nationalists who claimed to be Christians, and many other reasons not to sit still. Garcia, a Mexican-American who grew up Christian, writes: “I left the church…. But leaving that church didn’t feel like I was ...

Share Henri J.M. Nouwen, the prolific Christian spiritual writer, psychologist, and theologian was born on this day in 1932 in Nijkerk, Holland. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1957. Nouwen taught at Notre Dame (1966 - 1968) before becoming a professor at Yale Divinity School from 1971 - 1981. During this period of his life, he spent seven months at a Trappist monastery where he deepened his prayer life. In 1981, he went to Latin America to live for a year with the poor; there he developed a spirituality of social involvement. Then he r...