Soul

Developing a meditation practice always seems to be a challenge for my clients. Everyone wants (or believes) they should meditate, but after a short period of time, most give up. It seems impossible to quiet "the monkey mind" - the mind that keeps moving from thought to thought like a monkey swinging from one tree branch to another. I have to confess, it's been a real challenge for me as well. While I aspire to be one of those enlightened monks who seem to be able quiet their mind (and breath) while at the same time handle repeated blows to the back with a bamboo stick, it just doesn't happen. However I have found that even taking five minutes in the morning to just follow my breath with no other agenda, can really make a difference in my attitude throughout the entire day.

5 Lessons from the Square Watermelon

You may have seen the press last week on the new square watermelon that is making it's debut in Japan. It's a fascinating story about ingenuity and in this case, how "thinking inside the box" can help you see things in a different way and enable you to explore some new solutions to life's problems. I found a great summary of the story on a web blog -

Anger!

We’ve all felt it at various times and from both sides of the equation – giver and receiver alike!

According to the American Psychological Association, “anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion”.

It’s when we don’t control our anger and when it quite possibly turns destructive, that we experience problems in all aspects of our life. The worst part, is often the increasing feeling of “being out of control” as our anger gets the best of us. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems—problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. And it can make you feel as though you're at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.

A quick reflection on the whole idea of "normal".

I'm working with a client whose organization provides housing services for thousands of homeless people in the City of San Francisco. As we met today for the first time to discuss some team development work for her director staff, I had a chance to walk with her through her "hood" as she called it. It struck me how we are surrounded by so many people that lead very different lives than us and who we don't often even take notice of most of the time. While the homeless people we saw were in many respects different than my client, she didn't see them as "not normal". They were just the people her organization helps on a daily basis.

Everday Retreats

To go on a retreat usually conjures up images of remote, sometimes exotic, locations for anywhere from a weekend to a month. When we can’t afford the time away, or the cost, we can still derive some of the benefit by finding ways in our everyday lives to retreat and renew. Here are just a few ideas:

Use It and Get More of It!

I just attended a conference on Brain Health Across the Lifespan. You’ve heard the old adage “use it or lose it”. Well when it comes to keeping your brain healthy, it’s really “use it and get more of it”. The field of neuroscience is shattering the age old myth that once you hit your late teens, you’ve got about as many brain cells as you will ever have. Remember when you were warned that “drinking” was going to kill all of those brain cells and you’d never get them back? While it’s true that excess alcohol consumption doesn’t do your brain cells any favors, but you actually can create new brain cells and even improve your memory and cognition with age.

Did you know?

• The US spends more per person on health care than any other country, yet ranks 37th for overall quality (WHO Survey, 2000, USA Today, June 21, 2000)

• In America alone, 2.9 billion prescriptions are written per year. Many of these drugs treat symptoms and don't resolve the actual cause.

They’re everywhere, these Top 10 lists, filling our desire for bite-sized, digestible morsels of learning or humor. They give us tips on housework or investment practices, satire on current events or political issues, and ideas for consideration on personal growth.

With this Top 10, however, you are the writer. Use these Top 10 lists (and any others you may create) to remind yourself of what’s good and shining about you and your life. Use them to become more aware of what you know and what you can do to affect your world. Use them to reconnect with your dreams, to remember what you want deep inside. Enjoy!

Got Gratitude?

I just got back from Sedona Arizona where I presented at the first annual Positive Psychology Forum. It was an enlightening and powerful event. Positive psychology is an emerging science that is basically the study of what is going “right” and why “it’s good to feel good”. Sounds refreshing doesn’t it? Certainly more fun than studying Freud!

Train Your Brain to Be Happier

Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer at Harvard University. He currently teaches the largest course at Harvard on "Positive Psychology" and is author of the book “Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment”.

Dr. Ben-Shahar suggests that "the question should not be whether you are happy but what you can do to become happier". While this may sound quite straight forward, the idea of positive psychology is a relatively new concept in psychology circles. A recent post on Sharp Brains (www.sharpbrains.com) does a great job of explaining some of the key concepts of how Dr. Ben-Shahar believes you can become happier.