Discovery

By Nate Klemp, guest contributor

I’ve come to a sobering realization when it comes to my meditation practice: I will never be an elite meditator.  

And that has led me to rethink the basic nature of mindfulness practice.

Here’s the context. In Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson’s latest book Altered Traits, which brings together the most cutting edge scientific research on the benefits of meditation, they conclude that the benefits of meditation are a function of the amount of time you spend…

By Rhonda Magee, guest contributor

What we call the self is shaped by the cultures in which we live. And because race is a cultural feature of societies built on racism, notions of self include notions of race. The racialized self is produced by and helps reproduce racism in our cultures. Mindfulness helps us understand and expand our notions of race. And yet, talking about race and racism and examining these through the lens of mindfulness is uncommon. This is not to say that it is not being d…

By Mark Mitchnick, guest contributor

Long before any of the neuroscience was known, Winston Churchill said, “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” Although he didn’t know it, Mr. Churchill was actually describing the two separate yet conjoined systems operating in our heads. 

Over the past 15 years, what these two systems look like and how they function has been described in both scientific and general publications. Together, they inform the understanding of our decision-making process a…

By David Treleaven, guest contributor

A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice.

A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before.

“Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems t…

By Karlie Kramer, guest contributor

Have you ever felt mentally drained after a long meeting or taxing workday? That’s because you’ve probably made anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 decisions, switching tasks over 300 times during the workday — and your brain is exhausted. This is called decision fatigue, and it’s responsible for the decline in focus and willpower that affects millions of Americans daily.

 The phenomenon was first discovered by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, and states th…

By Ginny Whitelaw, guest contributor

Imagine you’re opening a large, cardboard box. Those of you who remember Wylie Coyote from vintage Road Runner cartoons can see ACME written on the side. This box contains a magnificent contraption: a Universal Energy Concentrator.  As advertised, it can turn vision into reality, ideas into actions; YES, it can actually turn energy into things that matter. You can’t wait to try it out, but you can’t figure out how to get it working. You see a few broken part…

By Regina Leeds, guest contributor

You can ignore your physical space, but you can’t hide the story it tells. Like a friend with loose lips, your environment reveals all. Some people try and fake it. The public rooms, for example, present a story of perfection only to be betrayed by total chaos in the bedroom. Others hide their detritus behind closet doors, under beds, and in drawers already bursting at the seams.  The greater the chaos, the deeper the emotional wound. A college student whose par…

By Diana Winston, guest contributor

Awareness is a capacity of the human mind. Awareness is the ability to directly know and to perceive, sense, feel, or be cognizant of experience. We might think of awareness simply as the state of being conscious of something.

Every living being is aware. We usually don’t think much about awareness, but in order to function, humans have to be aware. Not only do humans have the capacity to be aware, but they also have the ability to be aware of awareness, or …

By Larissa Hall Carlson, guest contributor

You're a fairly healthy eater, right?  Fresh produce, organic grains, and dark chocolate are at home in your kitchen--and you regularly snack on fruit and take trips to the farmers market. This is fabulous.

Establishing healthy habits is hard work, indeed, and despite life's fast tempo and the ongoing intensity of work, you've succeeded in making important strides toward a healthier diet over the years.

So how is it then, that with all those healthy …