Rick Hanson's Blog, page 5

Being Well Podcast: Impermanence Anxiety – How to Live While Letting Go

The only constant in life is change. Moments come and go, people enter and leave our lives, and we ourselves grow, change, and eventually pass away. While this is an obvious fact of life, we usually let it blend into the background, and coming face-to-face with it can fill us with understandable feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and even dread.

In this episode of the Being Well Podcast, Forrest and Dr. Rick explore impermanence anxiety: the fears we ha...

Meditation + Talk: Opening to the Unconditioned Love of the Absolute

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 45-minute meditation, a 48-minute talk, and a discussion about Opening to the Unconditioned Love of the Absolute.

Guest teacher Stephen Doetsu Snyder began practicing meditation in 1976. He has studied Buddhism extensively, including Zen, Tibetan, Theravada, and Western non-dual traditions. He was authorized to teach in the Theravada tradition in 2007 and the Zen schools of Soto and Rinzai in 2022. He is a senior student of Roshi Mark Sando Min...

Water Your Fruit Tree

What would bear lots of fruit?

The Practice:
Water your fruit tree.

Why?

My wife and kids tease me that the title of this practice is corny – and it is. Still, I like it. If you don’t nourish the things that nourish you, they wither away like a plant in dry stony ground.

Looking to the year ahead for you – a year that can begin whenever you want – what’s one key thing that will bear lots of fruit for you if you take care of it?

There is usually one thing – or two or three – that you kno...

Being Well Podcast: Metabolism, Brain Energy, and Mental Health with Dr. Chris Palmer

Dr. Chris Palmer, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, joins Forrest to discuss the relationship between metabolic function and mental illness. 

They discuss Dr. Palmer’s work with patients suffering from severe conditions like schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, psychiatry’s current challenges with treatment-resistant conditions, and the important distinction between difficult psychological states and brain-based disord...

Meditation + Talk: Cultivating Belonging

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 22-minute meditation, a 47-minute talk, and a discussion about Cultivating Belonging.

Tonight our guest teacher will be Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith a child clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma and issues of race. She is a senior fellow of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and is both a professor and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wright Institute. She provides consultation and training to bay area non-prof...

Being Well Podcast: Emotional Intelligence: Improving Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Empathy

Emotional intelligence is considered an essential trait for everything from being a desirable romantic partner to having a successful career. But what do we really mean when we say “emotional intelligence,” and how can we become emotionally intelligent over time? 

In today’s episode Dr. Rick and Forrest explore emotional intelligence, including what’s “in” it, balancing emotional closeness and distance, and how we can become more self-aware, self-regul...

Meditation + Talk: You Are Whole and Complete, and There Is Nothing to Add

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 34-minute meditation, a 51-minute talk, and a discussion about You Are Whole and Complete, and There Is Nothing to Add.

I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcome to join my free Wednesday Meditations – which are open to everyone!

Meditation: You Are Whole and Complete, and There Is Nothing to Add

Download the Audio of this Meditation

Talk: You Are Whole and...

Being Well Podcast: Neuroplasticity Tools to Change Your (and your kid’s) Brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf

Our thoughts, emotions, and experiences can reshape the very structure of our brains, allowing it to adapt and change over time. This is known as neuroplasticity, and while it’s present throughout our lives the younger we are the more powerful it is.

On today’s episode, Dr. Caroline Leaf joins Rick and Forrest to explore how we can harness the power of neuroplasticity to clean up our mental mess…and teach our children to do the same. They detail Dr. L...

Meditation + Talk: The Good News in the Four Ennobling Truths

This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 34-minute meditation, a 48-minute talk, and a discussion about The Good News in the Four Ennobling Truths.

I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcome to join my free Wednesday Meditations – which are open to everyone!

Meditation: The Good News in the Four Ennobling Truths

Download the Audio of this Meditation

Talk: The Good News in the Four Ennobling Truths...

Being Well Podcast: So You Want to Be a Therapist?

Over the last 10 years interest in therapy has boomed, and with the greater demand for therapists more people than ever are considering pursuing a career in mental health. On today’s episode Forrest speaks to five therapists and therapists-in-training to learn the lessons they wish they’d known when they started.

About our Guests: Rick Hanson is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, New York Times best-selling aut...