Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon, I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools, such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, vetera... posted on Dec 12 2020 (5,839 reads)

a personality type, too, and I fall into that sometimes. Somehow, that feels like you’re controlling it, like I am gonna bear down and think this through, and if I worry about it, the worst thing won’t happen. You say that that’s one of these inclinations we have that is counterproductive but feels so natural. Runyan:[laughs] Yes. We want to have control. That’s why the uncertainty, the unpredictable nature of this is so hard for us, physiologically. And as a mindfulness teacher and practitioner, I really work at this intersection, too, of metabolizing the reality that there is no control. [laughs] And it’s one thing to know that at an intellectual l... posted on Mar 30 2021 (13,960 reads)

Humans used to have a 12 second attention span but we're now at 8 seconds! Our minds are full. Instead of being mindful, we’re totally overloaded. Today's New York Times has more content than we would encounter in our entire lifespan in 17th century England. What all that content does is over-stimulates our nervous system. That over-stimulation totally leaves us feeling exhausted and dissatisfied. There are many different ways in which we can build our attention capital, and mindfulness meditation is certainly one of them. Megan Cowan is a friend who decided to build this capacity in schools. She set up a curriculum and she’d go classroom to classroom doing various ... posted on Apr 19 2016 (51,389 reads)

prey. It was a crazy, “Hail Mary” line by any standards, but it hit Ferraro like an uppercut. He was unable to continue the beating. That exchange on a wintry night in 1982 is one that Ferraro continues to relive. But these days, as the Teacher Training Director of the Mind Body Awareness Project, it’s Ferraro who is looking into angry young eyes until he finds a glimpse of compassion. Based in Oakland, California, the MBA Project is a nonprofit organization that uses mindfulness and emotional intelligence exercises to equip disadvantaged and underserved youth with the tools to make better decisions and to consider more skillful options than violence, self-harm, dr... posted on Feb 2 2012 (16,360 reads)

energetic, enthusiastic, excited, interested, joyful, and strong, compared to individuals who kept a journal on daily hassles or ways in which one was better off than others (downward social comparison). In addition, individuals who maintained daily gratitude journals were more likely to offer emotional support to others and help someone with a problem7. Contemplative interventions, born from the collaboration of meditation traditions and emotion science, have centered on developing mindfulness to enhance compassion and happiness in the lives of individuals. One recent study provided an 8-week training program in secular meditation to female schoolteachers and measured their resp... posted on Apr 23 2012 (144,780 reads)

wire together, even to the point of being observably thicker. This has also been found among meditators: People who maintain some kind of regular meditative practice actually have measurably thicker brains in certain key regions. One of those regions is the insula, which is involved in what’s called “interoception”—tuning into the state of your body, as well as your deep feelings. This should be no surprise: A lot of what they’re doing is practicing mindfulness of breathing, staying really present with what’s going on inside themselves; no wonder they’re using, and therefore building, the insula. Another region is the frontal regi... posted on Sep 15 2012 (148,172 reads)

published in American Scientist.) Last July the first-ever conference on "The Science of Compassion" was held in Telluride, Colo. The notion of studying compassion scientifically may rub some people the wrong way. Is there anything to be gained by reducing humanism to numbers? Our studies indicate there very well might be. By understanding the conditions that bring out the best in people, we may be able to create more compassionate environments. For more on mindfulness, visit this link. For more by Project Compassion Stanford, click here.... posted on Sep 18 2012 (18,142 reads)

science we cover here on Greater Good—aka, “the science of a meaningful life”—has exploded over the past 10 years, with many more studies published each year on gratitude, mindfulness, and our other core themes than we saw a decade ago. 2012 was no exception. In fact, in the year just past, new findings added nuance, depth, and even some caveats to our understanding of the science of a meaningful life. Here are 10 of the scientific insights that made the biggest impression on us in 2012—the findings most likely to resonate in scientific journals and the public consciousness in the years to come, listed in roughly the order in which they were publ... posted on Mar 13 2013 (19,425 reads)

in whatever forms it takes, doing so with moral courage linked to righteous integrity. Let the most valued private virtues of compassion and empathy be your guiding light, but let readiness to engage in everyday heroic action be your daily goal and your most respected civic virtue. Develop a personal code of honor that you are willing to share with others. Heroism can be developed, can be taught, and can be trained, like other vital individual characteristics, such as assertiveness and mindfulness. Heroism is acting on behalf of others in need or in defense of a moral cause despite potential risks and costs. Thus, it requires a socio-centric orientation rather than an egocentric one... posted on Jul 25 2013 (120,084 reads)

this training to be particularly effective, it should be done in the context of strengthening and expanding our capacity to lead. In the past several years, new leadership training has emerged, one steeped in the knowledge that leaders have the capacity to strongly influence others and our world, for better or worse. It also recognizes that the vast majority of people in leadership roles have strong minds, deep expertise and good hearts. This training is based on the mental discipline of mindfulness practice. It cultivates the mind’s innate ability to be present, and it applies this learning to everyday life. The research results have been startling—both in what people alr... posted on Aug 9 2013 (34,703 reads)

as a core foundation upon which other aspects of mental control are based, such as the control of emotions. What is the evidence that we can learn to control our attention?  Here the technologies provided by the meditative traditions which fundamentally concern the training of attention, are noteworthy.  Hard-nosed behavioral and neuroscientific research over the past 5 years has clearly established the possibility of training different aspects of attention through simple mindfulness meditation practices.  These practices generalize to standard tasks for assessing subcomponents of attention and they are associated with alterations in brain function.  One exam... posted on Aug 15 2013 (61,536 reads)

that's currently levitating my rear end sufficiently so that I can speak into the microphone can be carefully rearranged. Just very gently rearranged and have a few added molecules, and become sensate, which is really an amazing miracle in front of us, right? That the stuff of the universe appropriately organized can turn into you and me. That the stuff cannot just become sensate but mindful in that in the process a kind of deep commandment emerges, which is the commandment to amplify the mindfulness of that stuff. That really drives both gratitude, mindfulness, and service. So those have been kind of central convictions of most systems of faith. Ms. Tippett: Right, right. M... posted on Dec 5 2013 (22,808 reads)

world differently than they do. From these early forms of empathy, research suggests we can develop more complex forms that go a long way toward improving our relationships and the world around us. Here are some of the best research-based practices for nurturing empathy in ourselves and others. Focus your attention outwards: Being mindfully aware of your surroundings, especially the behaviors and expressions of other people, is crucial for empathy. Indeed, research suggests practicing mindfulness helps us take the perspectives of other people yet not feel overwhelmed when we encounter their negative emotions. Get out of your own head: Research shows we can increase our own level... posted on Feb 5 2014 (58,543 reads)

One says to the other, “Have you forgiven your captors yet?” And the second says “No, never.” And the first one then says “Well, they still have you in prison, don’t they?” Similarly, I remember sitting with the Dalai Lama and some Tibetan nuns who had survived years of imprisonment and torture. We were part of a meeting that I was running of ex-prisoners from all across the United States who’d been using meditation, contemplative practices, mindfulness, compassion, and so forth to change their lives. With us were guys who had just been released after 25 years in Texas state prison or 18 years in Ohio in a maximum security prison... posted on Mar 15 2014 (62,678 reads)

Garfield draws on decades of experience to explore how to create the conditions for a good death. Some years ago, I helped tend to a friend of mine who was dying of cancer. Near the end of his life, he had reached a place of equanimity around dying. But instead of honoring his wishes for a peaceful death, his doctors ordered aggressive chemotherapy treatment, which did nothing to halt his cancer. The treatments caused him immense suffering, rendering him unable to sleep, eat, or converse with family and friends as he was dying. Unfortunately, deaths like my friend’s are not that rare. Though more than 70 percent of Americans surveyed say they want to die in their o... posted on Jun 24 2014 (84,881 reads)

other thing about stimulants? If a brain really does struggle with ADHD, the medication tends to work. If someone with a neurotypical brain takes stimulants, he or she is likely to feel jittery and wired. But a relatively brief trial of medication (half the time on stimulants and half on a placebo) can quickly achieve results. For 80% of people who truly have the disorder, the current forms of medication work well when prescribed by an experienced and sensitive physician. 7. Model mindfulness: Play with your kids. The pace of modern life has given us enormous gifts but also requires us to consciously tune out the world’s external stimuli if we want to truly “tune... posted on Apr 14 2015 (30,394 reads)

my birthday. I’m on vacation. You only live once. I have to take advantage of this or lose out forever. We’re so ingenious at coming up with strategies of justification. Those are just a few. Mogilner: You say that through implementing good habits, it takes the thought out of behavior, so we’re not constantly saddled with these choices, where we have to exert self-control. If the goal is to make so much of our life mindless, does that potentially come at the cost of mindfulness? Maybe we stop noticing the joys in life or savoring the joys. For instance, as my husband and I are saying goodbye on our way to work, if I implement a habit [where] we give each other a ... posted on Sep 6 2015 (20,052 reads)

2011, “The Neurobiology of We.”) He now travels all over the world telling everyone, including the king of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, how the mind can change the brain. His many books include Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, in which he details how relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are, and The Mindful Brain, which Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield calls “a brilliant and visionary wedding of mindfulness and neurobiology.” But if what he says is true, I wonder, then why aren’t we different, improved, and always at our best? As if reading my mind, he explains that “the ... posted on Dec 10 2015 (25,436 reads)

they generate is not learning from them. And, that can make you stuck in maladaptive patterns of behavior, like lashing out at others, blaming them for your pain. “Blame…is simply a quick, broad-brush way to off-load anger, fear, shame, or discomfort,” writes Brown. “We think we’ll feel better after pointing a finger at someone or something, but nothing changes.” To pay attention and “rumble” with our stories, Brown suggests things like mindfulness meditation, for increasing awareness and nonjudgmental attitudes toward your thoughts and emotions, or free writing/journaling, to help you get in touch with your experience. By learning t... posted on Dec 26 2015 (17,731 reads)

as a result, there had to be these very, very powerful pathways that bonded us with our offspring. So these neuropathways result in us feeling good when we connect, and making our physiology work better. And, in fact, a number of studies have been done where people have been put in isolation or have been alone for periods of time, and their world completely falls apart. I give a talk about the difference between what I call “transformation,” which oftentimes we get with just a mindfulness practice of attention and focus, but you cannot have “transcendence,” which is this sense of meaning in your life, unless you take this journey outward, and this is a journey o... posted on Apr 17 2016 (31,262 reads)