Rick Hanson's Blog, page 73
September 6, 2017
Be Home
What’s your deepest nature?
The Practice:
Be home.
Why?
Throughout history, people have wondered about human nature. Deep down, are we basically good or bad?
Recently, science is beginning to offer a persuasive answer. When the body is not disturbed by hunger, thirst, pain, or illness, and when the mind is not disturbed by threat, frustration, or rejection, then most people settle into their resting state, a sustainable equilibrium in which the body refuels and repairs itself and the mind fee...
September 1, 2017
A Non-Profit Provides Books & Essentials to Those In Need
Rick’s Picks is a series of posts highlighting the very best content online.
First Book is a nonprofit enterprise that provides books and learning materials to children in need. Believe it or not, more than 80 percent of preschool and after-school programs for children from low-income families have no age-appropriate books for the kids they serve. Another amazing fact about First Book is that their recipients participate in community-based mentoring, tutoring, and family literacy programs.
August 29, 2017
Lower the Pressure
Is it truly urgent?
The Practice:
Lower the pressure.
Why?
Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, push push push PUSH.
On top of these external pressures, we deal with internal ones as well. These include all the inner “shoulds,” “musts,”...
August 25, 2017
7 Buildings That Incorporate Nature
Rick’s Picks is a series of posts highlighting the very best content online.
Check out these amazing buildings that have incorporated existing nature into it’s architecture. Rather than removing it, these designers have built around it, making these buildings beautiful and enjoyable!
View more of these amazing buildings here.
The post 7 Buildings That Incorporate Nature appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson.
August 22, 2017
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 all be...
August 18, 2017
What Changes When Schools Embrace Mindfulness?
Rick’s Picks is a series of posts highlighting the very best content online.
An amazing story about a school who experienced trauma with a fire and how they incorporated mindfulness as a way to heal and decrease stress levels amongst their students!
Read the full story here.
The post What Changes When Schools Embrace Mindfulness? appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson.
August 15, 2017
Give Over to Good
What is living you?
The Practice:
Give over to good.
Why?
In every moment, you and I and everyone and everything else – from quantum foam to fleeting thoughts, intimate relationships, rainforest ecosystems, and the stars themselves – are each a kind of standing wave, like the ever-changing though persistent pattern of water rising above a boulder in a river.
We are the result of multiple causes flowing through us. As Buckminster Fuller famously said, “I seem to be a verb.”
This fact is amazi...
August 11, 2017
Blind Man Uses Bionic Eye To See Wife
Rick’s Picks is a series of posts highlighting the very best content online.
What was once just an idea years ago, has become a reality in science. Mayo Clinic shares a video of a patient using the bionic eye to see his wife for the first time.
The post Blind Man Uses Bionic Eye To See Wife appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson.
Blind Mine Uses Bionic Eye To See Wife
Rick’s Picks is a series of posts highlighting the very best content online.
What was once just an idea years ago, has become a reality in science. Mayo Clinic shares a video of a patient using the bionic eye to see his wife for the first time.
The post Blind Mine Uses Bionic Eye To See Wife appeared first on Dr. Rick Hanson.
August 9, 2017
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Are you hard on yourself?
The Practice:
Don’t beat up yourself.
Why?
The 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 their 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 more ski...
