Rick Hanson's Blog, page 20
August 1, 2022
Being Well Podcast: Relating to Death, and Living a Better Life
The median life expectancy for a man living in the United States is roughly 80 years. That works out to 960 months, 4,160 weeks, or about 29,000 days. I’m sneaking up on 70 years old, which means, on average, I’ve got about 10 years – or 520 weeks – left. On this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Forrest and I talk about coming to terms with mortality, the reality of our limited time, and how we can use that knowledge to refine our focus and live a more fulfilling li...
Being Well Podcast: Changing Your Relationship to Shame
Shame is one of the most complex and difficult emotions we experience on a regular basis, and one that can have seriously negative impacts on our sense of self-worth and ability to experience healthy connection with others.
LISTEN
On this episode of Being Well, Forrest and I take a deep dive into what shame is, how it develops, what distinguishe...
July 28, 2022
Meditation + Talk: Compassion in Society: Embodying the Changes We Want to See
This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 21-minute meditation and a 68-minute talk with guest teacher Lakiba Pittman.
Lakiba Pittman — a Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) teacher certified by Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) in 2014. Working with the Compassion Institute, Lakiba develops and delivers public workshops, including culturally relevant specialized workshops for a range of clients. Lakiba is a Senior Adjunct Professor at Menlo...
July 22, 2022
Being Well Podcast: The Grieving Brain with Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor
There’s a lot of loss in the world these days, both in our individual lives and in our broader communities, and with those losses comes grief. Grief is one of the most challenging emotions to be with, and it can be difficult to offer generalized advice because everyone’s experience of grief is profoundly unique.
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On today’s episode of Bei...
July 21, 2022
Meditation + Talk: Presence Infused with Heart
This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 36-minute meditation and a 49-minute talk with guest teacher Caverly Morgan.
Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher, author, nonprofit leader, and visionary. She is the founder of Presence Collective, a non-profit dedicated to igniting personal and collective awakening. She is also the founder and Lead Contemplative of Peace in Schools — a nonprofit which created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools.
Caverly blen...
July 19, 2022
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Are you hard on yourself?
The Practice:
Don’t beat yourself up.
Why?
A previous JOT – admit fault and move on – was about our relationship with other people. This JOT applies the same practice to ourselves.
Most people know they are less than wonderful qualities, such as too much ambition (or too little), a weakness for wine or cookies, something of a temper, or an annoying tendency to rattle on about pet interests. We usually know when we make mistakes, get the facts wrong, could be m...
July 14, 2022
Meditation + Talk: Cultivating a Wholehearted Practice
This Wednesday Night Meditation included a -minute talk plus meditation and a -minute discussion with guest teacher Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison.
Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, is an author, Zen teacher, and Jungian psychotherapist. Koshin co‐founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, a nonprofit center offering contemplative approaches to care through education, care partnering, and Zen practice.
I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcom...
July 12, 2022
Be Benevolent
What are your intentions toward others?
The Practice:
Be benevolent.
Why?
Benevolence is a fancy word that means something simple: good intentions toward living beings, including oneself.
This goodwill is present in warmth, friendliness, compassion, ordinary decency, fair play, kindness, altruism, generosity, and love. The benevolent heart leans toward others; it is not neutral or indifferent. Benevolence is the opposite of ill will, coldness, prejudice, cruelty, and aggression. We’ve ...
July 7, 2022
Talk + Meditation + Discussion: Equanimity and Letting Go
This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 45-minute talk plus meditation and a 46-minute discussion, with guest teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo.
Kaira Jewel Lingo — Dharma teacher who has a life-long interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. At the age of twenty-five, she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received the lamp transmission from Thich ...
July 6, 2022
Being Well Podcast: Understanding Borderline Personality Tendencies
One of the most important and challenging skills we can develop is learning to regulate our strong emotions. While it’s very natural to have fluctuations in how we feel about others and ourselves, for some, struggles with impulsivity and overly strong reactions to those fluctuations may manifest in symptoms relating to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
LISTEN
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