Halloween is now firmly part of the seasonal and consumer calendar – but, unlike other celebrations that promote gift-giving, family, love and friendship, Halloween involves disruption, transgression and an open engagement with darker emotions and fears.
One of the tools that I have used since its discovery in the first year after Pete’s death, is my image of my heart as a vast ocean, unable to be broken. Since its discovery, my heart is like water. If you come into my life, you’re enveloped completely, like a hand submerged in water. If you leave, the water goes back to complete, perhaps losing a drop. This idea...
- By Alan Cohen
A woman Zen master named Sono taught one very simple method of enlightenment. She advised everyone who came to her to adopt an affirmation to be said many times a day, under all conditions. The affirmation was, 'Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.'
When it comes to offering your expertise, it’s better to keep it to yourself or wait until you’re asked, according to new research. Building upon previous findings that showed how helping colleagues slows one’s success, management professor Russell Johnson looked more closely at the different kinds of help in which people engage at work—and how that help was received.
- By Carol Clark
A new article offers a potential explanation as to why we take pleasure from the misfortune of other people, a feeling known as schadenfreude.
I find myself thinking on occasion, "I hate it when...." We use the word hate easily... We hate a certain kind of ice cream, we hate tofu, we hate hurting ourselves, we hate being late, we hate... This is where I realized that anything that we profess to "hate" is simply a preference on our part.
There are numerous things that make our life "work" for us. Some of these are things we learned along the way. And of course, there are things that make our life "not work so well". One thing that has worked for me is persistence.
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.