All Entries in the "Featured" Category
Things I Have Learned From Having A Child With Special Needs
Let me start by telling you a bit about myself before I had my daughter. I was your classic, Type-A overachiever who desperately wanted everyone around her to be pleased with her at all times. (In fact, I’m pretty sure I went to law school to make other people happy. Not the brightest idea, to [...]
Can You Imagine An Education System That Is Academically Rigorous While Emotionally And Socially Supportive? Susan Kaiser Greenland
Our education system is in crisis. A crisis that is so severe it’s tough to imagine a way out. Just ask anyone working in the trenches and they’ll tell you how difficult it is to picture a system of education that is academically rigorous while emotionally and socially supportive. But one thing we know for sure, if that’s the educational system that we dream of, we won’t be able to create it unless we can envision it first.
Article in Publico regarding Inner Kids Training in Guadalajara, Mexico
Susan Kaiser Greenland / Fundadora de la Asociación Inner Kids
Meditación a temprana edad
En 2001 inició su proyecto a través del cual ella ha dado clases de sobre “Plena atención o conciencia atenta” en programas escolares y comunitarios en California. El objetivo es mejorar las relaciones de los menores con su mundo. Click here for full article.
Education’s Emphasis on Delivery Rather than Teaching
Taking us back to consider the big question - “what is education for?” - may seem like an academic frippery compared to the day-to-day hard questions about the curriculum and testing.
How Passover night is not so different from any other night. — Susan Kaiser Greenland
Each year around the Passover holiday we pause, set aside all the to-ing and fro-ing for a moment, and rest.
How mindful awareness can help kids find emotional stability in an increasingly crazy world - Susan Kaiser Greenland
A new paradigm for children and families is within reach by connecting the wisdom derived from a more reflective and introspective way of being with the insights provided by education, psychology and neuroscience.
Ten Suggestions for Having a Regular Daily Meditation Practice Even if You Would Rather Be Thrown into a Shark-Infested Ocean - Diana Winston
Look familiar?
Your unforgiving alarm rings for all it’s worth. It’s 7AM. You crash out of bed, slamming your toe on your bedside table. You fumble for your zafu in the dark. “It’s over here somewhere,” you mumble. Hearing you awaken from the dead, your cat runs screeching. You are about to plant your still-zombiefied-self on [...]
More reflections on the passage of time - Anushka Fernandopulle
Another new year …..Is it 2009 already?!? How did that happen?!? What happened to 2008?!?
Wait, isn’t there some deja vu with this whole new year experience (what happened to ‘07, ‘97, ‘87 ‘77, insert year here)?
Reflecting on the passage of time (including aging and death) is considered a positive tonic for your spiritual life in [...]
Women on the Web; Good News and Bad
The Good News:I WANT MEDIAs leading “media people of the year” are women. They are Arianna Huffington followed by Tina Fey and Rachel Maddow. The remaining seven leaders are men. http://www.iwantmedia.com/personoftheyear/08.html
The Bad News: Take a look at leweb’s lineup of speakers and sponsors. The ratio is about 6 men for every woman speaker.
What is your pace of life? — Sue Smalley
Children and adults with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are often moving at a different pace than those around them, and that can be a source of difficulty. Recognizing your pace (and ranges of comfort and discomfort) can be an important part in discovering how to sync with the world around you.
MINDFUL IN THE CHAOS — Seth Greenland
But what about when a storm does hit, what then Mr. Mindful? To that I would say this: When a storm hits, do everything you can to keep safe and dry. And keep clearly in mind that the storm will exhaust itself, pass on, and blue skies will literally return. When in the middle of a giant upset, this is the thing to focus on.
Why I can’t wait for the new Hand-Held Wireless Telephone: Prohibited Use – Vehicle Code 23123 to go into effect. — Diana Winston
I can’t wait for the new law to go into effect because my mindfulness has been seriously at risk thanks to using my cell phone in my car.
A Mindful Instant Message — Amy Spies and her daughter Paris
Here’s an IM between me and my daughter.
Amy(8:05:54 PM): Hi there.
Amy (8:07:39 PM): I though t we could chat a bit about what it means to be a mindful mom. I know you’ve been exposed to this world through myself and Susan Kaiser Greenland and helping her and Trudy Goodman teach meditative arts to kids when [...]
Four Steps Towards Peace — Sue Smalley
So what can we do to address our varying levels of ignorance and create a more peaceful and compassionate world? I believe there are four steps we each can take everyday to promote a more compassionate world.
There’s a lot less honesty going around than people are willing to admit to. — Kelley McCabe
And, in that one moment, I thought I understood the meaning of the word “freedom”. I didn’t have to let my previous upset impact my interaction with my son. It was a new moment, all its own, and I was completely free to experience it independently of any other moment (or set of moments).
Why can’t all children have what we do? Trudy Goodman
I had seen raggedy five year olds taking care of skinny babies and blind babies and begging children crippled from polio and moms with TB and, and, and…
You Can’t Handle the Truth - Sue Smalley
James Carse in his new book, The Religious Case against Belief, writes of various types of ignorance differing in the degree of effort present with each. As the flip side of ignorance is awareness, it also comes with various shades of effort. It does take effort to direct my eyesight inward and see the 1000+ regions of mind (good and evil) and to realize that perhaps the greatest purpose in in life is the discovery process.
The Meaning of Moments — Kelley McCabe
What I’ve thought about lately are the big moments I do remember. The moments that were unbelievably exciting and noteworthy at the time and now seem impossible… or worse: a waste of time.
Mother of Thousands - Trudy Goodman
Mindfulness is about balance: being aware of one’s own experience while being sensitive and attuned to our impact on others. In our lives, we are continually falling out of balance. . .
Not so fit - Lisa Dinsmore
What keeps me going back for more? I can’t stand “losing” to a machine. I realize this is a competition only in my mind, but since it’s keeping track of my fitness “progress” I’m compelled to make it change its’ tune and am scared every time I step on the board. I guess anything that gets the heart rate up is a good thing, right?
Alice and Rebecca Walker Clash: Do Feminist Mothers Have to Choose Between Dreams and Diapers?
What I take issue with, and I am not alone, is Rebecca’s black and white take on mothering — there is her mother, the selfish careerist, and then there is her, the new mom who argues that all that should matter to a young woman with children is “a happy family.” What happened to the self-preserving and child-loving in between?
Do the best you can - Susan Sawyers
With just days to go before the school year comes to an end and all of the celebrations, birthdays, ceremonies, not to mention day-to-day routines, I need to remind myself of the quality time we have together. It’s not quantity. The right thing is to love my boy all up. It’s the best I can do.
When a work ethic conflicts with fun - Sue Smalley
Scientists are showing that play is important for health and well-being, having fun makes us live happier and healthier lives. So what stops us from having fun?
Just the facts m’am . . . . .
• By 12th grade, our children score lower on math and science tests than most other kids in the world.
• We now have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation.
• Six million students are reading below their grade level.
The New Elitism In Education Reform - Susan Kaiser Greenland
Obama again offered a nuanced approach. . . for those watching education he did something very interesting. He took the national stage to support a specific philosophy of learning – an integrative curriculum.
Why are women still NOT running for office?
When you get a chance, check out this Brookings Institute Report: Extensive research shows that when women run for office, they perform just as well as men. Yet women remain severely under-represented in our political institutions. In this report, we argue that the fundamental reason for women’s under-representation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don’t.
NY Times Article on Mindfulness and Therapy
The NY Times published a well-balanced article by Benedict Carey in today’s newspaper entitled Lotus Therapy about the integration of mindfulness meditation into psychology. For those interested in the area it is worth a look.
God and the Man in the White House. Seth Greenland
Today on Huffington Post, Seth writes that: there was a time when a politician’s relationship with the universe was a private matter about which he or she could choose to reflect deeply, or not. But now religion is just another signifier, like lapel pins, an item to be checked off when we’re evaluating would-be presidents. Allow me to quote Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Supermom Kelley McCabe
I can no longer protect them from the results of their folly, regardless of who is to blame. I cannot fix all their problems. It’s unlikely I will be able to do much to change their basic outlook on life. I have not been a perfect mother and we all must live with the consequences.
Post-Zionism in a diaspora world. Tom Teicholz
In Israel itself, 60 years of existential peril have created a sense of living in the moment — currently there is a surprising sense of well-being among certain strata of the Israeli population that comes from focusing on family, on work and on materialistic concerns divorced from national and political concerns. When you live in the moment, you can live anywhere:
Can Teens Meditate? Diana Winston
In this Teen Day of Mindfulness, one boy said, “I have been really upset since my girlfriend broke up with me this week. I noticed that if I just focused on my breath, I didn’t have to think about her. Every time my thoughts went there, I just returned to my breath. I felt less messed up than I have all week. That’s amazing.”
Who knew the Pope and Chubby Checker had so much in common? Seth Greenland
Not long ago a group of Vatican theological advisors recommended eliminating the concept of limbo and Pope Benedict XVI signed off on it. This troubles me deeply. Although I am not a Catholic, I have great admiration for that religion. Their art collection is unsurpassed, their clergy know how to put on an excellent show, [...]
The Ritual Tribal Abandonment of Mothers - Jeanne Denney
Yes, it is about tribal fear of touching into this need and sometimes this pain. Yes, it is about feeling alone with a task that feels impossible to do well alone. Yes, the tribe has resigned from its role in the life of my children and from its needed and necessary role in supporting me.
Handling a Moment of Peace - Diana Winston
A few years ago our center piloted a small study on mindfulness and ADD and found mindfulness to be remarkably helpful for those struggling with attention issues. So by phone, I recommended she start on a basic program to meditate daily, beginning with just five minutes a day.
There is absolutely nothing interesting about me. Seth Greenland
I have been stymied in my efforts to craft a memoir. Here is my problem: there is absolutely nothing interesting about me.