SUSTAINABLE RESILIENCE

22 ways to shed stress

2010-07-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

A few great ideas for destressing on the cheap! Click here.

Excerpt from Steve Seater's newsletter

2010-05-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

By Steve Seater, MA, CN, CNC, CPT
Total Wellness: What is it? How do you get it?

Have heart burn? Maybe you are low on Prilosec. Your cholesterol is high. Well it's probably because you aren't on a statin drug like Lipitor or Mevacor. But the truth is if you aren't feeling well or if you are showing signs of having health problems it very likely has nothing at all to do with a lack of pharmaceuticals and everything to do with the lifestyle you've chosen.

Actually our bodies have a tremendous capacity to heal and to maintain an optimal state of health without taking powerful prescription drugs. This is not to say that pharmaceuticals are not effective in treating disease, but rather that they are used far too much and often do not get at the real causes of disease conditions, not to mention the fact that they can be quite dangerous. For instance, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that between 100,000 and 125,000 people die annually from reactions to properly prescribed FDA approved drugs. This is about four times the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam War.

The health care practiced in the US today is actually symptom relief medicine when it should really be preventive or wellness medicine. Most physicians actually practice sick care, which is fine for those of us who are sick. Our aim, however, should be not to get sick.

...A diet of whole foods such as raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, whole grain breads and cereals that is low in sweets, and products made from white flour such as pasta is best. Red meat and poultry should be kept to a minimum, unless it is free ranging and organic, and fish should replace them as much as possible. Alcohol must be kept to about an ounce and a half per day if one must drink at all and smoking should be avoided completely.

An hour of vigorous exercise a day is about right for most people. Exercise should be mostly aerobic in nature and can be as simple as a brisk walk.

Stress can elevate corticosteroid and epinephrine levels which often lead to an immunosuppressed state, leaving a person susceptible to disease. Exercise is one good way to cope with high stress levels.

Relaxation techniques such as yoga and meditation are other ways to deal with stress. ...
It has also been shown that people who feel a sense of accomplishment through the work they do are also healthier and more likely to have long lives than those who hate their work and feel that what they do is futile.

www.totalwellnessconcepts.com
steve_seater@yahoo.com
Steve Seater, CPT, CNC, CN, is a life long fitness enthusiast with a strong interest in holistic nutrition and wellness. He is a certified nutritionist (CN), and a certified nutrition consultant (CNC), a certified personal trainer (CPT) and a certified spinning instructor.

Seattle Proclaims Itself Compassionate!

2010-04-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

Check out the "Proclamation!"

Twenty Ways to Get Happier

2010-02-04T07:33:00.001-08:00

This little article has twenty tips to lift your mood during winter!

self-care = vitality = resilience

2010-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

More great tips from Sandy Davis!

Great self-care is the source of bountiful vitality. And vitality is the wellspring of personal resilience.

The sequence goes like this: Great self-care generates vitality, and vitality generates greater resilience. Vitality, therefore, is the causal link between self-care and increased resilience. You can’t get from the first to the last without going through the middle.

What this implies is that exceptional resilience is a by-product of having an abundance of vitality. If you want to increase your resilience, what you need to focus on is finding daily ways to increase and sustain your own vitality.

If you want to increase your vitality, you cannot sit still and simply think your way to having more energy and stamina. You have to take action. You have to start to actually take great care of yourself in a committed and ongoing manner.

When you intentionally start to take great care of your body, your mind, and your spirit, you will start to increase your vitality in delightful and rewarding ways. The predictable by-product of this positive shift is that you will also become more resilient. You will become more adept at meeting challenges, handling disruptions, and minimizing stress. And you will learn to handle whatever comes your way with more power, creativity, and grace.

To subscribe to Sandy's free monthly e-newsletter, send an e-mail to Subscribe@ResilienceWorks.com.

Quotes from King

2010-01-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

Rev. King went from being listed as "public enemy number one" in the 1960's-as an outspoken voice for human rights and against the war in South East Asia-- to becoming a national hero with a holiday dedicated to him in the 1980's. In Dec. of 1999, a jury in Memphis, Tennessee found local, state, and federal "government agencies" guilty of planning the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society."
--Excerpted from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence at Riverside Church 4 April 1967

"In a real sense all life is inter-related. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny... I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."
--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Legit Ways to Donate to Haitian Quake Victims

2010-01-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

Reliable ways to donate to Haiti can be found here.

Sustaining CONFIDENCE while building a business!

2009-12-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

This is a great blog post from Rhonda Hess about how to sustain confidence. I especially like it because it criticizes "The Secret," a movie I found facile, dishonest and frankly creepy in that it dispensed so completely with altruism. (Of course we all love it when someone dislikes the same things we dislike, right? I had the good fortune to see that movie with some close friends who all had the same reaction.)
Rhonda breaks it down here- how the universe does provide, but, as the saying goes, "helps those who help themselves!"
Happy reading!

Looking for a way to make the world better?

2009-12-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

I met this guy Don, and I think he is doing really solid work, mostly
financed out of his own money. If you are looking for a worthy
Christmas donation spot - I recommend this.
You can contact Karen at karen@karenschachtermsw.com

The note from Karen:

A number of you have expressed a wish to donate, or to know more about
Village Empowerment, so I wanted to follow up and invite all of you to
check out his website, www.VillageEmpowerment.com
. If you’d like to know more
about what he’s doing, be sure to sign up for his newsletter list and
you’ll get occasional updates. (They are sure to inspireJ)

Don’s work has been very meaningful to
me, primarily because I have seen, first-hand, his passion, his
commitment and his contribution.
I feel pulled to do more and to help him toward his goal of supporting the 200 villages throughout Africa
who are requesting his help to become self-sustaining.
Our family also plans to take a trip to Malawi later this year, if possible, to
see Don, and his work, in action, and to participate ourselves in the
change he is creating.

If you would like to contribute to Village Empowerment, and
specifically to our family’s goal of raising enough money to help
create self-sufficiency in a village ($10,000), please contact me.
I would like to send the gift to Don by the end of next week if possible. I am very grateful for your
generous support.
Any amount helps – Noah donated $38 of his
allowance, which is enough to feed a family of 4 for a month! Hannah
donated $10 which will buy clothes for 2 children!
So if you can give $10 or $20 or whatever your budget allows, that can do a world of
good in these communities!

theater methodologies for helping traumatized youth

2009-11-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

I found this paper on the use of drama techniques for helping young people affected by trauma and violence.
There has been some discussion in the interim about how to use these methods safely, with professionals like Van der Kolk feeling they may re-expose and re-trigger if not done properly.

Keeping it Simple

2009-10-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Top Ten from Sandy Davis

Here are 10 tips that will help you keep your self-care activities simple and effective:

(1) Because you cannot give what you do not have, make it a daily habit to pay yourself first. Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to pay others generously, compassionately, and continuously.

(2) To ensure that you pay yourself first, you may need to invert your priorities. As much as possible, make your daily self-care your first priority, and then schedule everything else in your day around that sacrosanct priority.

(3) As much as possible, turn your ongoing self-care activities into consistent daily routines. Make them unfailing habits.

(4) Make sure you set up self-care structures for yourself that are ecological and that work well for you. If you find a particular structure to be causing you more stress than it is relieving, redesign that structure.

(5) Chunk down your daily practices until they are manageable ongoing commitments—and then do them without fail. It’s better to aim just high enough to hit the target right in the center, than to aim way too high and miss the target completely.

(6) Remember to embrace your failures with honesty and humility. If something is broken, fix it.

(7) Remember also to joyfully celebrate all your successes—big, small, and even miniscule. Small successes beget big ones.

(8) Keep your sense of humor about you. A little bit of laughter goes a long way.

(9) Dare to imagine outrageously wonderful adventures and successes, and then pursue them with abiding courage, patience, and faith.

(10) Practice, practice, and practice some more.

Sandy Davis | (207) 563-7263
Sandy@ResilienceWorks.com | http://www.ResilienceCircle.com

Wrongly Pathologizing Populations

2009-10-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Vanessa Pupavac's article "Pathologizing Populations and Colonizing Minds: International Psychosocial Programs in Kosovo" appeared in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 27, 2002.

It is worth a read: http://tr.im/BXxh

Pupavac correctly cautions against superimposing Western notions of how whole populations (e.g. refugees) get traumatized because it interferes with self-government potential (among other things).

"Superbrain yoga"

2009-09-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

Click here to view a news clip on "superbrain yoga."

Better Health Care Depends on a Stronger Democracy

2009-08-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

A Statement from Everyday Democracy, AmericaSpeaks, Demos, and Professor Archon
Fung of Harvard’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation
August 13, 2009

excerpts:
A key founding principle of our democracy is that the voice of the people should have an influence on public policy, at elections and in between them.
Beyond simply having a voice, people should have a chance to be informed, to hear each other, to work through tough decisions with each other and their elected officials, and to use democratic processes to figure out how to solve the problems that face us.
At a bare minimum, efforts to spread misinformation and to insult people who have different views and concerns harm our social fabric and weaken our democracy. We must find ways to move beyond stereotyping and preconceived notions of what “the others” believe and care about.
As critical as this is, we need to go further than encouraging more civil behavior. What we urgently need is a vibrant, inclusive democracy where people from different views and backgrounds can routinely meet, hear each other out in productive ways, and find ways to move forward.

22 ways to de-stress

2009-08-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Although it is annoying to have to click anew for each one, a very fragmenting reading experience, these 22 tips are great!

Developing resilience intentionally

2009-07-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

(The following is Copyright © 2009 Alexander M. (Sandy) Davis. To find out more about Sandy Davis and the resilience-related manuals, programs, services, and newsletter he offers, visit http://www.resilienceworks.com.)

Developing Resilience-Readiness via Ongoing “Micro-Preparation”
The process of continually meeting small daily challenges that you intentionally set for yourself [i.e., handling well-chosen micro-disruptions] amounts to “micro-preparation.” It is akin to lifting weights.

If you want to strengthen your muscles, all you need to do is to start working with weights in such a way as to stress your muscles repeatedly, in small daily ways. At first, you won’t see much change. But as you methodically develop an ability to lift heavier weights and increase your repetitions, you can both strengthen your muscles and increase your overall physical power. The results of stressing your muscles in this slow, steady, and deliberate manner are predictable, and, indeed, they are all but inexorable.

In a similar way, you can strengthen your figurative resilience-readiness “muscles.” Instead of lifting physical weights that stress your body’s actual muscles, you can use intentional micro-disruptions to gently stress your whole self in whatever worthy ways you choose.

Once you make the process of enhancing your resilience-readiness through micro-preparation a longstanding daily habit, when “the big one” (i.e., a full-scale catastrophe) finally comes along, you will find yourself to be well-practiced and fully prepared to handle just about any disruption with surprising ease. Your resilience-readiness “muscles” will be strong.

Why Choose Self-Care Challenges?

If you decide you would like to use this process of micro-preparation to strengthen your resilience-readiness, the most effective and rewarding small challenges to practice on are those that pertain directly to your own daily self-care.

When it comes to taking good care of ourselves, most of us tend to cut corners. Because we tend to assume that we are virtually invulnerable, we imagine we can afford to neglect the very things that are most central to leading a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. We are prone to overlook the importance of making ongoing investments in our health, our well-being, and our natural creativity. This oversight can land us in big trouble.

When you fail to take good care of your own “power plant,” you can expect to live a life in which you will likely face major setbacks such as significant health challenges, a chronic lack of energy and stamina, a discouraging lack of engagement with your work, debilitating boredom, depression, and/or a near-total lack of personal fulfillment. In other words, you will most likely be neither healthy nor happy.

The good news is that all of the above personal setbacks are largely avoidable. By making small daily investments in your own self-care, you can safeguard yourself from being set back by these and other personal misfortunes. Moreover, you can do so relatively quickly, painlessly, and in a manner that is easy to sustain. (If you are already experiencing any of the above misfortunes, sustained improvements in your self-care can greatly accelerate your recuperation.)

The bad news (or at least it may appear to you at first to be bad news) is that you first have to choose worthwhile self-care “practice” challenges, and then you have to actually do the work required to meet those micro-challenges successfully. When you do, how you experience your own life will start to shift in positive ways—more often than not both quickly and dramatically. And you will be pleased.

"Disruptions are inherently stressful. They seed change.
Intentional disruptions seed intentional change."

– Sandy Davis

Vicarious Trauma -- Video Explanation

2009-06-17T13:16:00.001-07:00

Dear viewers,

Do let me know if this video's language and flow work for you. Also, let me know what else you would like to know in future videos.

...circumstances don't determine happiness...

2009-06-08T16:03:00.001-07:00

From a piece called The Joy of Less by Pico Iyer

“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner miracles.” The young Dutchwoman Etty Hillesum wrote that in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later. Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen,” though by then he had already lost his father when he was 7, his first wife when she was 20 and his first son, aged 5. In Japan, the late 18th-century poet Issa is celebrated for his delighted, almost child-like celebrations of the natural world. Issa saw four children die in infancy, his wife die in childbirth, and his own body partially paralyzed.

Finding Stillness

2009-05-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

A voice coach on Robert Frost's poem re being in the woods:

http://www.judyringer.com/media/StoppingByWoods.mp3 *

*Copyright © 2009 by Judy Ringer
From: Sandy Davis | Sandy@ResilienceWorks.com | 207-563-7263
Author | Speaker | Authority on Zillience/Resilience | Resilience Trainer
ResilienceWorks LLC | P.O. Box 1011, Damariscotta, ME 04543-1011
http://www.ResilienceWorks.com | http://www.ResilienceCircle.com

Surrender

2009-05-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere.
Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within.
Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the Universe.
Surrendering to emptiness, I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me,
and becomes itself transformed into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so; who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is pure delight.
To honor its form, true devotion.

Jennifer Wellwood

only the real can free you

2009-05-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. One is not interested in what can be, what should be, what ought to be. One is not interested! One is only interested in that which is, because only the real can free you, only the reality can become liberation.
Bhagwan S. Rajneesh Yoga: The science of the soul (Rajneeshpuram, OR: Rajneesh Foundation International, 1976), pp. 6-7.

On the Use of Torture

2009-04-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

April 23, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor for the New York Times

My Tortured Decision

By ALI SOUFAN

FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.

It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.

The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).

My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)

As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.

Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.

Seven Simple Self-Care Structures from Sandy Davis

2009-04-24T10:39:00.001-07:00

About Simple Self-Care Structures

If you want to increase your resilience-readiness, the best thing you can do is to take great care of your mind, your body, and your spirit. Below are seven proven structures you can use to tune up your own self-care. Each is readily accessible, affordable, portable, and highly effective. All you have to do to take on one or more them, and then hold yourself accountable to abide by your chosen structures every single day. They work. You just have to execute them with commitment and unrelenting consistency.

Three Foundational Daily Self-Care Habits

1. Make it a habit to Keep All Your Agreements. Don’t make any agreements you don’t fully intend to keep, and keep the ones you do make. If you break an agreement, clean up the mess you have created quickly and completely. Point of Accountability: Track whether you are keeping your agreements to do your chosen daily self-care practices in an accountability log.

2. Make it a habit to Eat Well. Choose nutritious foods. Avoid junk food. Discipline yourself to maintain sensible control over the size of your portions. Eat what you like, and enjoy what you eat—but in modest quantities. Point of Accountability: Weigh yourself every day and log your weight. Whether you eat poorly or wisely, your average body weight will reflect your eating habits.

3. Make it a habit to Sleep Well. Make sure that you regularly get the measure of sound sleep you need to in order to sustain your energy and go full speed ahead all day long. Point of Accountability: Log how much sleep you get each night.

Plus Three Daily Self-Care Practices

4. Daily Centering Practice: Every day, spend at least 15 minutes doing a centering practice that enables you to come back to your senses, to slow down, and to attain a point of physical, mental, and emotional stillness. Think of this practice as nourishment primarily for your mind. Point of Accountability: Keep track of how many minutes you spend doing your daily centering practice, and log those minutes in your daily accountability log.

5. Regular Aerobic Exercise: Spend at least 15 minutes every day (or 30 minutes every other day) doing vigorous aerobic exercise. (Exercise becomes aerobic when you first exert yourself hard enough and long enough to get your heart beating up in your “aerobic zone,” and then sustain that level of effort for as long as you wish.) Think of this practice as nourishment primarily for your body. Point of Accountability: Keep track of how many minutes you exercise aerobically, and log those minutes in your daily accountability log.

6. Daily Creative Practice: Spend at least 15 minutes every day (or 30 minutes every other day) doing a creative practice. That’s an activity that normally falls outside the realm of your work, and that connects you in some enjoyable way to your deepest passions. It reliably tantalizes you to create something new for yourself. Think of this practice as nourishment primarily for your spirit. Point of Accountability: Keep track of how many minutes you spend doing your daily creative practice, and log those minutes in your daily accountability log.

And One Daily Meta-Structure

7. A meta-structure is one that sits “above” your other structures and serves to pull them all together. The meta-structure that holds all of the above habits and daily practices together is Keeping a Daily Accountability Log. When you do this faithfully and honestly, you will have nowhere to hide. You will be in a position to bear witness to the unvarnished results you are creating for yourself. Consequently, you will be able to make insightful course corrections. When you sustain all of the above self-care activities AND log them every day, you will open a door to personal transformation that most individuals never find, much less walk through. That is where the real fun begins. Point of Accountability: Be sure to make all the daily entries in your log that you committed to making.

Pulling the Seven Self-Care Structures All Together

When you start to take your own self-care seriously and start to methodically pay yourself first, you can start to increase your resilience-readiness both quickly and sustainably. You can begin to develop a deep-seated confidence that you will have whatever you need in order to successfully meet whatever challenges come your way, whether they be small or big. This makes life ever so much more enjoyable and peaceful.

The rest is up to you. Self-care is, by definition, a gift that only you can give to yourself. Optimal self-care does require you to continuously invest a relatively small amount of your time, attention, and energy in your own well-being. Over time, the payoff on this small daily investment can be spectacular. It’s one of those gifts that keeps on giving.

So when you’re ready, go for it. Just remember: One simple change in your daily self-care practices has the power to change everything—even your destiny. On the other hand, without deliberate, ongoing practice, nothing changes. You get to choose.
______________________________________________________

Copyright © 2009 Alexander M. (Sandy) Davis. To find out more about Sandy Davis and the resilience-related products and services he offers, visit http://www.ResilienceWorks.com. To subscribe to his free monthly e-newsletter, send an e-mail to Subscribe@ResilienceWorks.com. To reach Sandy directly, send an e-mail to Sandy@ResilenceWorks.com. FYI, he’s “The Resilience Guy.”

Nine ways to get happy in the next thirty minutes

2009-04-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Check out the following article at "Shine" on Yahoo.

Nine ways to get happy in the next thirty minutes

In the next half hour, tackle as many of the following suggestions as possible. Not only will these tasks themselves increase your happiness, but the mere fact that you've achieved some concrete goals will boost your mood.

1. Raise your activity level to pump up your energy. If you're on the phone, stand up and pace. Walk to a coworker's office instead of sending an e-mail. Put more energy into your voice. Take a brisk 10-minute walk. Even better...

2. Take a walk outside. Research suggests that light stimulates brain chemicals that improve mood. For an extra boost, get your sunlight first thing in the morning. Find the best walking workout for your exercise style.

3. Reach out. Send an e-mail to a friend you haven't seen in a while, or reach out to someone new. Having close bonds with other people is one of the most important keys to happiness. When you act in a friendly way, not only will others feel more friendly toward you, but you'll also strengthen your feelings of friendliness for other people.

4. Rid yourself of a nagging task. Deal with that insurance problem, purchase something you need, or make that long-postponed appointment with the dentist. Crossing an irksome chore off your to-do list will give you a rush of elation.

5. Create a more serene environment. Outer order contributes to inner peace, so spend some time organizing bills and tackling the piles in the kitchen. A large stack of little tasks can feel overwhelming, but often just a few minutes of work can make a sizable dent. Set the timer for 10 minutes and see what you can do. In that time, take a quick look around the house and see how to get organized using everyday items.

6. Do a good deed. Introduce two people by e-mail, take a minute to pass along useful information, or deliver some gratifying praise. In fact, you can also...

7. Save someone's life. Sign up to be an organ donor, and remember to tell your family about your decision. Do good, feel good―it really works!

8. Act happy. Fake it 'til you feel it. Research shows that even an artificially induced smile boosts your mood. And if you're smiling, other people will perceive you as being friendlier and more approachable. There's no need to walk around in a constant state of worry. After all, what's the worst that can happen if you bounce a check or leave wet clothes in the dryer?

9. Learn something new. Think of a subject that you wish you knew more about and spend 15 minutes on the Internet reading about it, or go to a bookstore and buy a book about it. But be honest! Pick a topic that really interests you, not something you think you "should" or "need to" learn about.

HANDBOOK 2009

2009-03-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

[source unknown]

Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2008...
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or worry about things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons y ou learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy
39. Don’t block your own blessings…don’t get in your way!

"the lost generation"

2009-03-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

Perspective is everything. This video shows the same words, seen from two angles...

stress management group forming in DC area

2009-03-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

To join an action methods group on stress management, contact Marsha at marshastein2003@verizon.net

Smart Power

2009-02-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

For an article on Smart Power, click here.
Its a start.

A poem written for these times by Alice Walker

2009-01-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

The World Has Changed
A poem written for these times by Alice Walker

The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don't let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.
--By Alice Walker for the Inauguration

poem on how to be

2009-01-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

Having Confessed
by Patrick Kavanagh

Having confessed he feels
That he should go down on his knees and pray
For forgiveness for his pride, for having
Dared to view his soul from the outside.
Lie at the heart of the emotion, time
Has its own work to do. We must not anticipate
Or awaken for a moment. God cannot catch us
Unless we stay in the unconscious room
Of our hearts. We must be nothing,
Nothing that God may make us something.
We must not touch the immortal material
We must not daydream to-morrow's judgment—
God must be allowed to surprise us.
We have sinned, sinned like Lucifer
By this anticipation. Let us lie down again
Deep in anonymous humility and God
May find us worthy material for His hand.

"Having Confessed" by Patrick Kavanagh, from Collected Poems.

Quote relevant to today's news

2009-01-04T14:06:00.001-08:00

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."
George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796

Working in Mumbai with Psychosocial Resilience

2008-12-16T18:48:00.000-08:00

We in Greenleaf Integrative Strategies are currently in the process of organizing technical assistance in Mumbai to psychosocial and mental health workers responding to the recent terror attacks. The Government of India’s National Disaster Management Authority has deemed there to be a major shortage in professionally-trained, disaster-prepared practitioners.

Greenleaf's programs include Professional Development and Continuing Education that work best in the late acute or post acute periods of mass disaster. We will play a supportive role to practitioners (therapists, spiritual care providers & health care workers) in order to enhance the sustainability of disaster response.

It is of the utmost importance that practitioners do not prematurely burnout or develop trauma themselves in the process of working in the midst of terrorized people. Supervisors and organizations can learn how to manage practitioners’ stress levels with self-care and other methodologies in order to mitigate vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue.

This is Your Brain on Bliss

2008-12-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

by Matthieu Ricard
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3046

Matthieu Ricard quit his career as a cellular geneticist nearly 40 years ago to study Buddhism. He is the French translator for the Dalai Lama.

What is happiness, and how can we achieve it?
Happiness can't be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world-a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks.

The paths we take in search of happiness often lead us to frustration and suffering instead. We try to create outer conditions that we believe will make us happy. But it is the mind itself that translates outer conditions into happiness or suffering. This is why we can be deeply unhappy even though we "have it all"-wealth, power, health, a good family, etc.-and, conversely, we can remain strong and serene in the face of hardship.

Authentic happiness is a way of being and a skill to be cultivated. When we first begin, the mind is vulnerable and untamed, like that of a monkey or a restless child. It takes practice to gain inner peace, inner strength, altruistic love, forbearance, and other qualities that lead to authentic happiness.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama often teaches that, while there are limitations to how much information one can learn and to our physical performance, compassion can be developed boundlessly.

Practicing Happiness
It is not difficult to begin. You just have to sit from time to time, turn your mind within, and let your thoughts calm down. Focus your attention on a chosen object. It can be an object in your room, your breath, or your own mind. Inevitably, your mind will wander as you do this. Each time it does, gently bring it back to the object of concentration, like a butterfly that returns again and again to a flower.

In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, future is not yet born, and-if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom-disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.

Pure consciousness without content is something all those who meditate regularly and seriously have experienced-it is not just some sort of Buddhist theory. And anyone who takes the trouble to stabilize and clarify his or her mind will be able to experience it, too. It is through this unconditioned aspect of consciousness that we can transform the content of mind through training.

But meditation also means to cultivate basic human qualities, such as attention and compassion, and new ways of experiencing the world. What really matters is that a person gradually changes. Over months and years, we become less impatient, less prone to anger, less torn between hopes and fears. It becomes inconceivable to willingly harm another person. We develop a propensity toward altruistic behavior and the cluster of qualities that give us the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.

The point here is that you can look at your thoughts, including strong emotions, with a pure mindfulness that is not associated with the contents of the thoughts.

Take the example of malevolent anger. We usually identify with anger. Anger can fill our mental landscape and project its distorted reality on people and events. When we are overwhelmed by anger, we cannot dissociate from it. We perpetuate a vicious circle of affliction by rekindling anger each time we see or remember the person who makes us angry. We become addicted to the cause of suffering.

But if we dissociate from anger and look at it with mindfulness, that which is aware of anger is not angry, and we can see that anger is just a bunch of thoughts. Anger doesn't cut like a knife, burn like a fire, or crush like a rock; it is nothing more than a product of our mind. Instead of "being" the anger, we understand that we are not the anger, in the same way that clouds are not the sky.

So, to deal with anger, we avoid letting our mind jump again and again to the trigger for our anger. Then we look at anger itself and keep our attention upon it. If we stop adding wood to a fire and just watch, the fire will die out. Likewise, anger will vanish away, without being forcibly repressed or allowed to explode.

There is no question of not experiencing emotions; it's a question of not being enslaved by them. Let emotions arise, but let them be freed from their afflictive components: distortion of reality, mental confusion, clinging, and suffering for oneself and others.

There is great virtue in resting from time to time in pure awareness of the present moment, and being able to refer to this state when afflictive emotions arise so that we do not identify with them and are not swayed by them.

It is difficult in the beginning, but becomes quite natural as you become increasingly familiar with such an approach. Whenever anger arises, you learn to recognize it right away. If you know someone to be a pickpocket, even if he mingles in a crowd, you will spot him right away and keep a careful eye on him.

Interdependence
Just as you can learn to deal with afflictive thoughts, you can learn to cultivate and enhance wholesome ones. To be filled with love and kindness brings about an optimal way of being. It is a win-win situation: you will enjoy lasting well-being for yourself, you'll act in altruistic ways towards others, and you'll be perceived as a good human being.

If altruistic love is based on an understanding of the interdependence of all beings and of their natural aspiration to happiness, and if this love extends impartially to all beings, then it is a source of genuine happiness. Acts of overflowing love, of pure, disinterested generosity-as when you make a child happy or help someone in need, even if nobody knows what you have done-generate a deep and heartwarming fulfillment.

The Habits of Happiness

TED TALK: Listen to Matthieu Ricard answer the questions: What is Happiness, and How Can We All Get Some?

Human qualities often come in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, strength, freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of a nourishing fruit. Likewise, selfishness, animosity, and fear grow together. So, while helping others may not always be "pleasant," it leads the mind to a sense of inner peace, courage, and harmony with the interdependence of all things and beings.

Afflictive mental states, on the other hand, begin with self-centeredness, with an increase in the gap between self and others. These states are related to excessive self-importance and self-cherishing associated with fear or resentment towards others, and grasping for outer things as part of a hopeless pursuit of selfish happiness. A selfish pursuit of happiness is a lose-lose situation: you make yourself miserable and make others miserable as well.

Inner conflicts are often linked with excessive rumination on the past and anticipation of the future. You are not truly paying attention to the present moment, but are engrossed in your thoughts, going on and on in a vicious circle, feeding your ego and self-centeredness.

This is the opposite of bare attention. To turn your attention inside means to look at pure awareness itself and dwell without distraction, yet effortlessly, in the present moment.

If you cultivate these mental skills, after a while you won't need to apply contrived efforts anymore. You can deal with mental perturbations like the eagles I see from the window of my hermitage in the Himalayas deal with crows. The crows often attack them, diving at the eagles from above. But, instead of doing all kinds of acrobatics, the eagle simply retracts one wing at the last moment, lets the diving crow pass, and then extends its wing again. The whole thing requires minimal effort and causes little disturbance.

Being experienced in dealing with the sudden arising of emotions in the mind works in a similar way.

I have been exposed to the world of humanitarian activities for a number of years since I decided to dedicate the entire royalties of my books to 30 projects on education and health in Tibet, Nepal, and India, with a group of dedicated volunteers and generous philanthropists. It is easy to see how corruption, clashes of ego, weak empathy, discouragement can plague the humanitarian world. All this stems from a lack of maturity. So the advantages of spending time to develop human altruism and compassionate courage are obvious.

The Fragrance of Peace
The most important time to meditate or do other types of spiritual practices is early in the morning. You set the tone for the day and the "fragrance" of the meditation will remain and give a particular perfume to the whole day. Another important time is before falling asleep. If you clearly generate a positive state of mind, filled with compassion or altruism, this will give a different quality to the whole night.

When people experience "moments of grace", or "magical moments" in daily life, while walking in the snow under the stars or spending a beautiful moment with dear friends by the seaside, what is really happening? All of a sudden, they have left their burden of inner conflicts behind. They feel in harmony with others, with themselves, with the world. It is wonderful to fully enjoy such magical moments, but it is also revealing to understand why they feel so good: pacification of inner conflicts; a better sense of interdependence with everything rather than fragmenting reality; and a respite from the mental toxins of aggression and obsession. All these qualities can be cultivated through developing wisdom and inner freedom. This will lead not just to a few moments of grace but to a lasting state of well-being that we may call genuine happiness.

In this state, feelings of insecurity gradually give way to a deep confidence that you can deal with life's ups and downs. Your equanimity will spare you from being swayed like mountain grass in the wind by every possible praise and blame, gain and loss, comfort and discomfort. You can always draw on deep inner peace, and the waves at the surface will not appear as threatening.

Matthieu Ricard wrote this article as part of Sustainable Happiness, the Winter 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Matthieu has authored seven books, including Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill. He lives at the Shechen monastery in Nepal, travels the world for Karuna-shechen (www.karuna-shechen.org) and does an annual solitary retreat in the Himalayas.

From Lynne Gilliland: 10 Things to Do to Increase Your Happiness

2008-12-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

1. Friends: Spend time with your friends. Get friends if you are low on them.

2. Good health: Take action to stay as healthy as possible .

3. Socializing: Spend time being with people in a nonwork setting.

4. Experiential activities: Travel, exercise. Doing something new makes us happier (tango? scuba diving? cross country bike ride?)

5. Having a job we really like makes us happier than a big paycheck: Consider what is within your realm of responsibility to make your job one you really like. You can change your job, you can change your attitude, you can change how you work with people at your job.

6. Spend time in nature every day.

7. Express your gratitude and respect for the things you experience: Being thankful makes you happy.

8. Take time out: The ability to pause, mentally as well as physically, is important. Taking breaks is a prerequisite for happiness.

9. Accept that there will be unpleasant things in life: At some point every day, you will face hinderances. You'll be late, make a mistake, say something stupid, be less than perfect. This is part of life. Accept it and move on.

10. Open your eyes and look around you. There are more opportunities for happiness than you think. Embrace the moments. Enjoy them. Remember them.

Happiness is a practice. Get started.

-www.gillilandjud.com

Mohawk Thanksgiving Prayer

2008-12-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

~*~ The People ~*~

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been
given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living
things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and
thanks to each other as People.

Now our minds are one.

~*~ The Earth Mother ~*~

We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for
life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she
continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we
send greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one

***

~*~ The Waters ~*~

We give thanks to all the Waters of the world for quenching our thirst and
providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms--
waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send
greetings and thanks to the spirit Water.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Fish ~*~

We turn our minds to all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to
cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are
grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the fish and send our
greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

~*~ The Plants ~*~

Now we turn towards the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the
Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our
minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for
many generations to come.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Food Plants ~*~

With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from
the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans and berries
have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them
too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting and
thanks.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Medicine Herbs ~*~

Now we turn to all the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning, they
were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal
us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to
use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the
Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines

Now our minds are one.

~*~ The Animals ~*~

We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life
in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We see them near our
homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it
will always be so.

Now our minds are one

*****

~*~ The Trees ~*~

We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who
have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade,
other with fruit, beauty and other useful things. Many peoples of the world use a
Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the
tree of life.

Now our minds are one

~*~ The Birds ~*~

We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly
about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they
remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To
all the Birds-- from the smallest to the largest--we send our joyful greetings and
thanks.

Now our minds are one

*****

~*~ The Four Winds ~*~

We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their
voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They
help to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing
us messengers and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and
thanks to the Four Winds.

Now our minds are one

*****

~*~ The Thunders ~*~

Now we turn to the west where our Grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With
lightening and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life.
We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our
Grandfathers, the Thunders.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Sun ~*~

We now send the greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day
without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day.
He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and
thanks to our Brother, the Sun.

Now our minds are one.

~*~ Grandmother Moon ~*~

We put our minds together and give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the
Moon, who lights the nighttime sky. She is the leader of women all over the world,
and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we
measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on
Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the
Moon.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Stars ~*~

We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see
them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the
gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With
our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to all the Stars.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Enlightened Teachers ~*~

We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come
to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind
us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind, we send
greetings and thanks to these caring Teachers.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ The Creator ~*~

We turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and
thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here
on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds
together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the
Creator.

Now our minds are one.

*****

~*~ Closing Words ~*~

We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we
have named, it was not our intent to leave anything out. If something was
forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their
own way.

Now our minds are one.

**************
CREDITS
English version: John Stokes and Kanawahienton
(David Benedict, Turtle Clan/Mohawk)

Mohawk Version: Rokwaho
(Dan Thompson, Wolf Clan/Mohawk)

Original Inspiration: Tekaronianekon
(Jake Swamp, Wolf Clan/Mohawk)
Copyright © 1993 Six Nations Indian Museum and The Tracking Project.

Kindness at work and the bottom line

2008-11-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

This article talks about the difference between being kind and being "soft," and the benefits of kindness and civility for productivity!

Alice Walker Advises Obama on Sustaining Resilience...

2008-11-05T06:31:00.001-08:00

An Open Letter to Barack Obama - By Alice Walker | TheRoot.com

http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

President-Elect Barack Obama

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

Your Explanatory Style

2008-10-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

For a great summary of Martin Seligman's description of how we create our world, see Stephen Sheild's article here.

psychological hardiness

2008-10-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

From Stephen Shields' blog. See the full article.

A leader must possess or develop “psychological hardiness.” Psychologists Suzanne C. Kobasa and Salvatore R. Maddi studied individuals in business who although in the midst of highly stressful situations nevertheless experienced low degrees of illness. By studying executives at Illinois Bell during the deregulation of AT&T and the Baby Bells, Kobasa and Maddi were able to identify certain characteristics that healthy individuals shared in distinction from those who were unhealthy in stressful situations. They discovered that individuals with psychological hardiness

1 – believed that they had an influence on their environment and acted consistently with that belief;
2 – consistently considered how to change situations for advantage and never accepted events at face value;
3 – regarded change as part of the normal course of events;
4 – viewed change as a helpful path to positive development; and
5 - were committed to learning and personal transformation.

In contrast, individuals who did not thrive physically in stressful environments held very different attitudes. They

1 – were bored with life;
2 – found life to be meaningless;
3 – considered change to be threatening;
4 – believed themselves to be at the mercy of their circumstances;
5 – prepared for the worst; and
6 – considered the status quo to be normal and viewed change as unusual.

Your Intangible Vital Capital

2008-09-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

From Sandy Davis' "Zillience" Newsletter:

(1) Building up “Vital Capital” for Retirement

In my view, the “retirement equation” has two major components. The first is your tangible wealth (i.e., your financial capital), and the second is your intangible wealth (i.e., what I’m going to define as your “vital capital” or your overall well-being).

What concerns me is how few of us are paying close attention the intangible half of the equation: the importance of building up your “vital capital.” I think of “vital capital” as the sum of the intangible assets you need to live a healthy, productive, and enjoyable life. When these assets are well managed, upon retirement you will be healthy enough and you will have enough stamina to take full advantage of whatever financial capital you have accumulated.

Because these intangible assets fall outside of their expertise, most financial planners tend to take your health and stamina for granted. They can afford to consider this “none of their business.” Unfortunately, even most doctors and health care providers are now required to focus so singularly on illness and disease that they also can end up taking your overall health and stamina largely for granted. They no longer are afforded time to focus on “the long view.” You, however, cannot afford to overlook your health and stamina. Remember that no one else has as big a stake as you do in sustaining your own well-being.

Because of this blind spot, when we’re planning our retirements, most of us have been taught to put financial capital way out ahead of vital capital. This priority, however, amounts to a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. Why? Because without adequate vitality, when you stop working you might end up being unable to enjoy the fruits of your well-earned retirement funds. Indeed, if your health should fail you before your planned retirement, you might find yourself prematurely disabled and facing an early “forced retirement,” way ahead of your reaching the security of attaining all the financial capital you had planned to amass.

Either way, once you chronically lack vitality, you will no longer be able to fully enjoy doing the very things you may have been deferring until retirement. Your “glory days” might end up being behind you, and you could be left with far less to look forward to than you ever imagined. Particularly if you lack good health, even if you were to have all the money in the world, your ability to enjoy your wealth can end up being severely constrained. Indeed, it might also be short-lived.

Financial Capital Is Not Enough

So having plenty of financial capital is, in and of itself, not enough. You also need to have a wealth of “vital capital.” This includes excellent health, great personal stamina, an agile mind capable of cogent thinking, an exuberant outlook on life, and a strong confidence in your ability to continue to make valuable contributions to the world around you, ones that are creative, generative, and fulfilling.

In what follows, I invite you to look carefully at this intangible half of the retirement equation. I encourage you to be sure to do at least as much “portfolio management” around building your future “vital capital” as you do around building your future “financial capital.”

As I mentioned earlier, the critical goal that most of us tend to overlook is our need to amass enough vital capital to ensure that we will be in a position to enjoy whatever financial capital we are amassing for ourselves. In other words, each of us needs to strike a balance between our investments in these two different types of assets: those that are tangible and those that are intangible.

If you were to come up short with one or the other, I suggest that your vital capital is, in the long run, at least as important and as valuable as your financial capital. Maybe even more so. After all, without your health, it’s hard to do just about everything. You can’t leave home for long without it.

“Vital Capital Planning”

By way of analogy, let’s apply a simple financial planning model to the task of “vital capital planning.” Think of your vital capital as something you can build up and save for the future—just as you would save money. Then let’s compartmentalize what you need to save for retirement and make a plan to deposit your intangible assets it into six different bank accounts.

Three of these accounts will be interest-bearing savings accounts in which you continuously make deposits and then let what you have saved grow and compound over time. For the most part, you will rarely make big withdrawals from these accounts. They hold investments you make now with the long term clearly in mind. You have faith that what you save now will be extremely valuable to you in the future—especially if and when you decide to retire.

The other three accounts are more akin to checking accounts. They are more suitable for holding “faster moving” assets. As with your savings accounts, you want to cultivate a habit of making regular deposits into these accounts. Because of the unpredictability of life, you also may need to make occasional—or even frequent—withdrawals. Whenever you need to spend some the vital capital you have invested in these accounts, you can do so quickly and even massively. All you have to do is write a check and cash it.

The more you save and invest in all six of these accounts, the more vital capital you will have at your disposal, and the more degrees of freedom you will have day-to-day. Your accumulated “intangible assets” will provide you with a strong foundation for living your life in a continuous state of abundant zillience. This is true right now, today. It also will be true going forward, not just when you retire, but long thereafter, as well.

Let’s differentiate the six accounts further.

The Three Savings Accounts

You can use your three savings accounts as “holding vessels” for the virtual capital that you create through the three “background generators” of zillience (Footnote 1). The first account is for deposits of the positive energy you generate each and every time you successfully make and keep an agreement. The second account is for deposits of the positive energy you generate when you take care to eat well. This is a matter of choosing to eat only nourishing foods and only in modest amounts. The third account is for deposits of positive energy that you generate by taking care to sleep well. By making it your habit to get enough quality sleep each night, you can not only keep your energy strong and steady, but you can also bank the dividends from being well-rested into this third saving account.

As you make continuous small deposits in these three savings accounts, you will start to “bank” a significant measure of vital capital.

The Three Checking Accounts

The three checking accounts hold the virtual capital that you create through your “foreground generators” of zillience (Footnote 1). These are the three developmental practices in which you make intentional small investments every single day in order to be sure that you are continuously paying yourself first.

The first checking account holds the virtual capital that comes to you by dint of having a daily centering practice. You might think of this as “mind capital.” It includes your having a well-developed ability to re-center your thoughts and emotions quickly, and a related ability to maintain your “centeredness” through thick and thin. Ironically, you develop these abilities by practicing “getting out of your mind” and spending short periods of time in a restorative place of deep inner stillness.

The second checking account holds the vital capital that flows from exercising vigorously every day or every other day. You can think of this as “body capital.” It includes great health, abundant stamina, a high degree of fitness, corresponding physical agility and flexibility, and the ability to move your body through space both powerfully and gracefully.

The third checking account holds the deposits you are able to make when you invest in a daily creative practice. You can think of this as “spiritual capital.” It includes your ability to stay connected with your own true passions, to be fully authentic, to be ceaselessly creative, to be expansive emotionally, and, all the while, to be continually at peace with just what is. It also includes having a great and reliable sense of humor.

Your Portfolio of Virtual Capital

All six of these bank accounts make up your “portfolio” of investments in your own virtual capital. The distinction between what goes into each account is likely to gradually dissolve over time. In the end, every “dollar” invested is a “dollar” you can spend. It’s yours to put to good use when you need it, regardless of when or how you earned it.

So however young or old you are today, and however far away your retirement appears to be, remember that there is more to amassing wealth than just accumulating financial capital. At least as important is having a wealth of vital capital. Amassing this latter type of capital is entirely up to you. No one else can do it for you.

Just remember that the act of developing vital capital requires clear intentions, sharp attention, and a continuous and systematic amount of effort. Alas, there are no shortcuts. On the other hand, the rewards can be immeasurable, life sustaining, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Call to Action

To start the process of building up your “vital capital,” all you have to do is open up one bank account. Which of the six accounts above appeals to you the most? What would it take to start making some daily deposits in that account? To what do you need to pay attention? What specific actions would be valuable for you to take every day? Once you start making deposits, how fast can you grow the intangible wealth in your account(s)? How will this benefit you? When will you have enough to start sharing your intangible wealth with others? What do you want to contribute? To whom? To what cause? For what heartfelt reason?

Once you have answers to these questions and start to take action accordingly, you’ll most likely find yourself moving along your own true path. You’ll be headed “homeward” in the very best sense of the word.

Resilience for Leaders workshop

2008-08-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

What do I mean, "for leaders?"
I assume a unique definition of leadership: A leader is someone who says to themselves "I am going to be the one to take responsibility to make sure things around me go well for everyone." So it could easily mean you, and everyone you work with!

What do I mean by Resilience?
Resilience is the quality that allows us to be our best self, even in situations that are not to our liking. How can leaders and other "stressed-out" professionals prepare themselves to demonstrate grace under fire?

Resilient people have many traits and habits.
...the capacity to access spontaneity and creativity to address problems, positive interpretations in thought and conversation, internal grounding and fullness, the capacity to find and use social support, and so on. The cultivation of these habits and capacities also enhances the quality of individual and organizational life.

Call to set up a workshop in your workplace: 202 550 5462
In this first session, we will begin the journey toward a resilient workplace! We will explore our own stories of resilience, offer support to peers, set or reaffirm personal goals for the ongoing cultivation of resilience, and use action methods to work with a couple of stories.

Three Doors to Resilience

2008-08-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

From Sandy Davis' newsletter:

In order to generate lots of “zillience,” I recommend that you have at your disposal three different ways to “come back to your senses.” That way, no matter what challenges you face, you will have not one, but a choice of three different steadying practices on which to lean. You can rely on any one, two, or all three to sustain your personal energy in a state of zesty coherence.

The Front Door

The first zillience-generating practice I recommend to everyone is a daily centering practice. This is the most straightforward way for you to slow down and calm yourself. When you take time do whatever centering practice works best for you, you intentionally let everything around you fall away so that you can create an inner place of centered stillness.

With practice, you teach yourself to turn off the incessant “chatter” in your mind for short periods of time so that you can just “be.” In doing so, you can gain a huge amount of control over your ongoing emotional states. Using techniques as simple (and infinitely portable) as deep breathing, you can open up new choices about how to handle upsetting circumstances effectively and gracefully.

In a sense, your centering practice is the “front door” to re-energizing yourself. It’s the closest and easiest door to walk through, and it arguably provides the most “bang for the buck.” You can do most centering practices anytime and anywhere. Even better, doing them needn’t cost you a penny. After you spend time in the state of intentional inner stillness that you become skilled at creating for yourself, your mind and spirit will normally feel well refreshed and re-energized.

The Side Door

The second zillience-generating daily practice I recommend to everyone is regular aerobic (i.e., vigorous) physical exercise. By exerting yourself physically either every day or every other day, you can strengthen your heart, revitalize every cell in your body, and, over time, you can develop great physical stamina. An abundance of scientific research has established that regular exercise also serves to strengthen your immune system, prevent all sorts of life-threatening diseases (including various forms of cancer), generate new neurons in your brain, contribute to your emotional stability, help you control your body weight, forestall the onset of dementia (including Alzheimer’s Disease) and, when all is said and done, lengthen your life measurably.

You can think of exercising as a “side door” to re-energizing yourself and building up your zillience. It’s a door that may be a bit less obvious than the “front door.” For many, choosing to walk (or run or cycle or swim) through this door it is more of a challenge. Strenuous exercise requires significantly more physical effort than centering practices that focus on stillness.

As a way to “come back to center,” however, physical exercise can be just as effective as doing a “pure” centering practice. When you are moving continuously and are at one with the cadence of your stride, the rhythm of your stroke, and/or the meditative quality of your repetitive movements, you can experience the paradox of being physically in full motion while simultaneously being totally focused and still inside. Athletes refer to this delicious state as “being in the flow.” Attaining this state is a second reliable way to “come back to your senses” and dwell in a restorative place of centered stillness.

Exercise offers an additional benefit for those of us who sometimes feel stuck and/or depressed. Just as it is impossible to keep your eyes open when you sneeze heartily, when you are physically moving through space by dint of your own willful exertion, it’s impossible to feel stuck. For the duration of your exercise session, “stuckness” falls away, and you benefit from experiencing the opposite of being stuck. You have an irrefutable experience of “being in motion.” This experience is “priceless” because positive (physical) experiences trump negative (mental) thoughts.

The Back Door

If centering practices are the front door to developing more zillience, and regular vigorous exercise is the side door, the “back door” can take the form of a daily creative practice.

I define a creative daily practice as an intentional creative activity that normally falls outside of the domain of whatever it is you do for a living. You want your creative practice to be a genuinely refreshing and re-vitalizing counterpoint to everything else that you are obligated to do. You want it to provide you with a surefire way to re-connect you to your deepest passions. You also want it to be focused on developing something new, whether it be a new personal experience, a gratifying new result, or even an enjoyable new identity fragment such as: “I’m an artist.”

When you zero in on an activity that meets these criteria and then give yourself permission to purse some aspect of it every day for an average of at least 15 minutes, you will begin to systematically develop your own creativity in ways that cannot otherwise be done. You will also likely rediscover how inspiring it is to become entranced repeatedly by an enjoyable activity that tantalizes you to grow and be more at one with your own authentic self. This, in turn, can lead to your reconnecting with the joy of expressing your deepest values ever more fully and ever more creatively.

You will also likely experience the encouraging sensation of “not being dead yet.” Your creative practice can supply you with repeated compelling evidence that you are still alive, still capable of self-discovery, and still capable of learning “new tricks.” (You can teach old dogs new tricks; old dogs just have to practice with sharper attention.)

In the process of getting entranced with whatever creative practice you choose for yourself, you can become so singularly focused that you lose track of time and of all your other concerns. Just as when you are doing your centering practice or exercising vigorously, everything else can fall away, thereby paradoxically enabling you to reach a similar place of centered stillness.

By way of distinctions, note that your creative practice usually requires you to do some form of “not doing anything.” In contrast, your creative practice works only when you are actually doing something. Thus, your daily creative practice is somewhat of an inversion of your centering practice, and hence it has an inherent “back door” quality.

Who do you think you are?

2008-08-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

"I am not what happened to me,
I am what I choose to become."
-C.G. Jung

The difference between stress and burnout

2008-08-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Stress, by and large, involves too much: too many pressures that demand too much of you physically and psychologically. Stressed people can still imagine, though, that if they can just get everything under control, they’ll feel better.

Burnout, on the other hand, is about not enough. Being burned out means feeling empty, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People experiencing burnout often don’t see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress is like drowning in responsibilities, burnout is being all dried up.

Read more about preventing burnout here

List of Ways Life Coaching Builds Resilience

2008-08-03T13:00:00.001-07:00

* Self-discovery
* Fuller understanding of self
* Harnessing your spirituality
* Finding vision
* Establishing purpose
* Setting meaningful goals
* Designing your career path
* Sustaining joy
* Attracting only good
* Re-creating mindset
* Achieving balance
* Embracing intentions
* Maintaining focus
* Raising expectations to a higher level
* Reaching peak performance
* Identifying potential
* Grabbing hold of possibilities

Resilience: imagining that what is can be better

2008-08-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

If you approach circumstances with the mindset that you have the wisdom, fortitude and arsenal of choices on which to draw, there is no end to the variety and magnitude of the solutions you will arrive at. If you doubt this, talk to a colleague or coach who favors this approach. In addition, the stress, pain and anxiety will concomitantly be far less than if your approach were to succumb to self-pity, fear, doubt, anxiety or hopelessness. Before facing any new threatening situation, such as that of losing your job too soon, practice with less disastrous tests in your life. With this creative mindset rehearsed you will surely become a master over time, since all of modern life is made up of transitions.
-Hyacinth E. Gooden-Bailey, M.A., Life Transitions Coach

Special August rate on life coaching!

2008-07-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

This month, Usoni.com is offering a reduced fee on life coaching!
Contact atieno@usoni.com

Five Tips for August Renewal

2008-07-30T06:48:00.001-07:00

From: Pamela McLean

1. Make a list of activities you loved when you were under the age of 25, post your list in a visible place for a few days -- then pick one activity to resurrect and try it on for the month.

2. Take a mini-vacation that requires only a little planning -- make it within driving distance of home and somewhere you haven't been.

3. Take a day long silent retreat in you home -- no email, no phones, no television, just YOU.

4. Scan 2008, looking back and looking at the months ahead -- create two columns on a blank page -- one side for what's working and the other for what needs adjusting -- brainstorm on ways to make small adjustments.

5. Make time for dreaming big dreams without any requirements to act on them --- just allow a bit of space to wander in unknown territory! Who knows where you might lead yourself!

Small successes “radiate out” into all domains of your life...

2008-07-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

From Sandy Davis' latest newsletter:

When you become highly successful at keeping your agreements to do whatever daily practices you take on, you are likely to become successful at keeping all your other agreements, as well. Just start by taking great care of yourself and your own personal energy. Faithfully do your simple daily practices as a way to pay yourself first. Then let your successes with your daily practices “ripple out” to all the other domains in your life. They normally do.

What is uplifting is having the feeling that you are constantly “at choice.” When you willingly choose the particular challenges you’d like to face and then face them successfully, you gain a measure of personal sovereignty. You develop a sense that you are in charge of your own life and that you are capable of being as resourceful as you need to be to “make ends meet.”
From: Sandy Davis | sandy@coachmehome.com | 207-563-7263

Going for your best life

2008-07-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." -- Mark Twain, 1835-1910, Author and Humorist

“Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right.' Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” -- Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, Author

(Contact atieno@usoni.com for a special August rate on life coaching!)

Learning to love reality as it is

2008-07-30T06:42:00.001-07:00

“I was asking myself why I was having these obstacles in my life ... then I suddenly became aware that these obstacles were my life, and I began to enjoy them.” -- John Kanary, Author of "Breaking Through Limitations"

“What is required is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are friendly forces, the hands that work on us.” -- Rainer Maria Rilke, Poet and Writer

Refugee Mental Health

2008-07-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

Center For Mental Health Services
An Annotated Bibliography on Refugee Mental Health

You will find islands of vulnerability and resilience in this SAMHSA.gov resource. There are paragraph synopses that follow the citations here, so this is a very enhanced, content-rich bibliography.

Interview with Joan Wangler - The Power of Groups to Change Business Culture

2008-06-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

As you know from previous posts, I have been wondering if anyone has used the power of groups to change organizational culture. Yes they have, with simple protocols that have proven effective!

Joan Wangler has been building resilience into the fabric of society in a little corner near Washington – the Goddard Space Center. For 8 years, she has been leading creative learning groups and coaching young leaders. She since began the Civility Collaborative, which meets regularly at Goddard and has improved the business culture from the inside out.

"We share observations about our own civility, make recommendations about what we are reading on civility, we reach out to the schools and other government agencies. There is a whole movement afoot in Howard County on raising civility – there are even bumper stickers.”

“When we meet, we have speakers – like P.M. Forni, who has a book called Choosing Civility. His message is that civility is a form of gracious goodness and benevolent awareness. When we are civil and exercise restraint and
respect, we have a whole different appreciation of life."

"So what has been happening in the Collaborative is that we are supporting each other in getting more emotionally intelligent. Social intelligence is a more accurate predictor of being successful in life than your intellectual competence. So this is a focus on relational competence, from a different point of view. This is a whole other way of appreciating diversity."

"In the Collaborative, we structure learning conversations around the topic of civility. First, someone tells their story, something they captured from their life in their little notebook, and no one interrupts. At first we were talking more about road rage types of stories, but now we are talking more about our encounters with people at work and how we have chosen to be more civil or requested a way of moving forward that is civil.”

“Then we have a speaker – last week we had someone from Alternative Dispute Resolution who talked about how civility would avoid conflict. Then we also discuss Forni's book. He has a number of rules of civility, and stories to illustrate each. So in the group someone will take responsibility to lead the discussion on that particular chapter, and take it way beyond."

"We run the Collaborative like a "World Café" – a red and white checkered table cloth, food, and people who are willing to talk about what matters. We do a lot of coaching, and we use the ‘feed forward’ process."

"Marshall Goldsmith has a book about feed forward. In feed forward, someone shares a story about an issue they want to accomplish something on. They tell the story. Then we stand up. They say what they want to achieve, and different people popcorn ideas. The person just says ‘thank you’ not ‘that won't work.’ People come back the next time and say here's what I tried. People have had breakthroughs in their relationships as a result of this process."

"I always feel a lot of love and appreciation in that group." There are plenty of bottom-line financial reasons to implement this brand of leadership development, but the other bottom line is just as important. Joan is authentically committed to bringing civility not only to one organization, but beyond, to the world. The social technologies that have worked at Goddard can be applied elsewhere to foster resilient communities. The word is civility, but the secret mission I hear is "love and appreciation." Who wouldn't want to show up to work in that kind of environment?

Tips from athletes and sports psychology

2008-06-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

One of the fascinating things that has happened in the area of stress reduction is that doers, rather than thinkers, have come up with the best methods. Excellence in athletics has led to some of the most useful "best practices" for reducing stress.
Read some of these tips here.

Return to your core values for strength.

2008-06-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

In the name of self-care, I googled "inspirational stories" and came up with this very cheesy one. Blatantly sappy, but on reflection I think it reminds or invokes a return to a core value - generosity and kindness.
Core values are one of the most important sources of resilence.

re-entry... adjusting to the unacceptable

2008-06-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

For a beatuiful taste of what it is like to return from a humanitarian context to the safety bubble of the West read the Saturday, May 31, 2008
"re-engaging with the clamor of the west while residing in the gap between misery and enlightenment" entry of Gwen's SalusWorld blog.
An excerpt:
What I have realized is that traveling and working abroad in areas of need of humanitarian action makes one modest - you are forced to see what a tiny place you occupy in the world and what a crap-shoot it actually is that you just happened to be lucky enough to be born to a privileged family in a privileged country devoid of horrifying events in your immediate environment. Seeing the world also reminds you that the horrifying events – the poverty, and war and trauma is the real global REALITY and what we’ve got here is layers upon layers of denial and dissociation. How is it that we can be at war and I (nor any of my closest friends) have been immediately affected? And, how it is that things like genocide, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, violent repression of political rights, the release of toxins into pristine environments, discrimination and the conscription of child soldiers all over the globe occurs constantly and we don’t stand up and swallow up such brazenness in one gulp?

Book on the effects of war

2008-05-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

For a comprehensive catalogue of all the ways war can affect vets and their families, see _Back from the Front: Combat Trauma, Love, and the Family_
by Aphrodite Matsakis

The case for organizations to use peer networks to foster resilience

2008-05-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Exhibit A
From A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century by Ben Shephard:
"military psychiatry is often done best not by psychiatrists but by doctors, officers, or soldiers who understand the principles of group psychology and use the defenses in culture to help people through traumatic situations."
In other words, the members of a given culture can be the best ones to tap into it to foster resilience, using the values, beliefs, rewards, and reframing concepts that are the norms within it. Culture makes sense of reality, and trauma often ruptures that sense, leaving people feeling exposed in a crisis of meaning. Who better to help repair that rupture than a peer who knows the nature of what has been lost, and perhaps even the way back? Who better to call on the resources that community uses to provide extra support where needed than someone who knows exactly what those resources are?
PEER NETWORKS RULE!

Debrief, exit interviews, follow-up and peer support networks for humanitarian staff – making the business case to management

2008-05-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

When humanitarian aid workers exit an organization to their next assignment, a little extra and relatively inexpensive attention from the organization can make a big difference. The difference for the departing staff member or consultant can be between a debilitating stress reaction or a smooth transition. The difference for the organization can be between a loyal recruiting pool, and reduced legal risk of liability cases on one hand and a faltering reputation on the other.

Management therefore has a stake in making the time, even in a busy and overstretched resource environment, for conducting psychological debriefs for staff returning from the field, giving exit interviews that glean lessons learned, and following up at six weeks and six months to establish that staff have found adequate resources for coping with any adverse reactions to the stress they experienced in the field.

Another simple and cheap way to provide support to exiting staff is the provision of peer networks in the form of listserves or informal virtual introductions among alumni of the organization. Events, newsletters, and other community maintenance services can supplement to good effect, but the basic facilitation of connection can provide ample opportunity for forming supportive ties with others who can provide empathy, due to their own similar experiences, as well as outlets for sharing ideas, mentoring, and stimulating positive social change.

Social support, as provided by management in the form of exit protocols and by peers through social networking, is important for several reasons. Recent studies show that “traditional social networks play a surprisingly powerful and underrecognized role in influencing how people behave.”1 A World Vision study2 showed that “individual resilience factors only accounted for some 7% of the variance between those who develop stress and trauma reactions and those who do not. … the degree and type of social support an individual is experiencing… accounted for up to 30% variance.”

Sharing these facts may convince, but in order to win real commitment by management for actual implementation, decision-makers will understand the need for providing exit services when they have experienced the bite of a stress reaction for themselves. Field visits, stories, and simulations can be useful in communicating, at a visceral level, the impact of stress in absence of a supportive environment.

1. Social Networks' Sway May Be Underestimated By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer
2. Conference session on Stress and Trauma Effects on National Staff: How Best to Use the Resources (Tuesday, 16th November, 2004; 3.50pm) by Janelle Richards, Human Resources Manager, World Vision, Australia, Janelle.richards@worldvision.com.au, Supplementary analysis was conducted by staff at the Headington Program at Fuller Seminary.
The key findings were:
• The relationship between a manager and their staff is critical for the mental health of all groups whether exposed to trauma or not.
• Those with compromised Social Support are 10 times as likely to be experiencing trauma following an event during service with WV as those with non compromised Social Support.
• Staff exposed to trauma who have compromised social support are 2.6 times as likely to experience moderate to severe anxiety as staff exposed to trauma who have good levels of social support.
• Social support within the organisation is a good a predictor of health with the most potent social support being the team leader.
• There is a threefold higher risk of experiencing anxiety if staff social support is compromised than if it is not.

Vicarious resilience

2008-05-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

This piece points up the idea that, instead of suffering vicarious trauma, therapists may gain from the resilience of survivors!

The abstract reads:
This study explores the formulation of a new concept: vicarious resilience. It addresses the question of how psychotherapists who work with survivors of political violence or kidnapping are affected by their clients' stories of resilience. It focuses on the psychotherapists' interpretations of their clients' stories, and how they make sense of the impact that these stories have had on their lives. In semistructured interviews, 12 psychotherapists who work with victims of political violence and kidnapping were interviewed about their perceptions of their clients' overcoming of adversity. A phenomenological analysis of the transcripts was used to describe the themes that speak about the effects of witnessing how clients cope constructively with adversity. These themes are discussed to advance the concept of vicarious resilience and how it can contribute to sustaining and empowering trauma therapists.

Dance therapy for torture survivors

2008-05-26T16:19:00.001-07:00

Amber Gray uses movement therapy to work with survivors of atrocities. Learn more here. Restorative Resources Training and Consulting, LLC, provides individual, family, group and community-based psychotherapy; training and education; consultation related to clinical practice, organizational structure and management; and program development, implementation and evaluation, nationally and internationally, to people and organizations who serve survivors of extreme interpersonal trauma.

Soldiers against war

2008-05-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Military and their families come together and speak out to end violence: Veterans Against the Iraq War, Veterans for Peace, and Iraq Veterans Against the War

help for veterans suffering war stress

2008-05-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

The National Veterans Foundation can be reached at 1-888-777-4443 and offers help and advocacy to veterans and their families.

2004 program on supporting humanitarian workers

2008-05-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

This summary of a 2004 event is a useful overview of issues involved in providing adequate support to humanitarian aid workers.

http://www.groups.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/cross_cultural_conf_pres_summary.pdf

one woman show on haiti (in dc)

2008-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

If you are passionate about art connected to social
change, Kathleen Gonzales, whose work delves into Haitian
folklore, interviews with Haitians & Haitian-Americans, and also her
own experience growing up in Haiti as she saw violence seize her
country, will be presenting her beautiful and courageous story this coming week -- with 2 pay-what-you-can (free!) sneak preview shows Tuesday & Wednesday.

The Bridge of Bodies
A one-woman show

Written and Performed by Kathleen Gonzales
Directed by Patrick Crowley

May 29th - June 15th
Thursday–Saturday, 8pm, Sundays, 3pm
Pay-What-You-Can Previews Tuesday May 27 & Wednesday May 28
Flashpoint 916 G Street NW
Washington, DC 20007

Tickets: $20, $10 for students with valid student ID.
$10 per person for groups of 8 or more.
For reservations call: 202.315.1340 or email
tickets@bridgeofbodies.com

Marie-Therese immigrated to the United States carrying little
recollection of who she was and why she left. With her silent mother
as the only link to her past, Marie-Therese realizes that she must
return to her native Haiti to understand her true identity. Along her
journey, Marie-Therese encounters walls that eavesdrop on
conversations, strangers who recognize her from long ago and a ritual
cleansing from deep blue pools of water. She meets many characters who
each hold a piece to the puzzle of who she is. Will she be able to fit
the pieces together and remember what happened?

Haitian-born Kathleen Gonzales draws from her own experience and
interviews with Haitians and Haitian-Americans in this intimate
tapestry capturing the sights and sounds of Haiti's troubled past, as
well as the rich cultural landscape of today.

Proceeds from this production will benefit The Eyes of Haiti, a non-
profit organization, teaching peace and sustainability to the youth of
Haiti.

Part of the 2007-2008 Mead Theatre Lab Program at Flashpoint, a
Cultural Development Corporation project. Funded in part bythe D.C.
Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by
National Endowment for the Arts.

The Mead Theatre Lab Program at Flashpoint, a Cultural Development
Corporation project, is made possible by the generous support of the
Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts &
Humanities, the Max & Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, the Aaron & Cecile
Goldman Foundation, the Jovid Foundation, Mary & Daniel Loughran
Foundation, the MARPAT Foundation, Jaylee & the late Gilbert Mead, the
Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Prince Charitable Trusts, Jon and
NoraLee Sedmak and many other sponsors. Hotel Helix is Flashpoint's
2007-2008 Hotel Partner. Barefoot Wine is Flashpoint's 2007-2008 Wine
Partner.

Invisible Wounds of War

2008-05-19T18:49:00.000-07:00

A report released this week by the RAND Corporation, focusing on the rates of PTSD, major depression, and traumatic brain injury in Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans. Researchers also conducted focus groups with military families and spouses about these issues and a model of the economic impact of these conditions.

The authors of the report recommend that effective programs incorporating evidence-based care must be developed to treat veterans experiencing problems such as PTSD and major depression, and suggest that such programs would actually have a negligible or even net positive cost due to their mitigation of the negative economic impact associated with these events.

There is a summary and free download of report results here:
RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research (2008). Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation.

Tips for donating to cyclone relief

2008-05-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

A note from Simon Billenness, co-chair of the board of directors of the U.S. Campaign for Burma: http://uscampaignforburma.org/ follows:

I've been working on this almost full-time since the cyclone struck. It's been a crash course for me in humanitarian relief in Burma. Here is what I've learned.

1. It is best to give donation to small NGOs. The big NGOs (Red Cross, World Vision, etc.) have big publicity machines and are likely not hurting for donations. We should give our "smart money" to the most effective small NGOs who devote their money solely for relief and spend little to no money on fundraising overhead.

2. It is best to give to NGOs who were on the ground prior to the cyclone. They are experienced with Burma, already have a network of Burmese partners, and know how to best bypass the regime's stealing and corruption.

3. Donate to political action as well as relief. The problem is not that there is insufficient aid. Aid is already piling up on the borders. The real problems is that the Burmese military regime is taking control of aid deliveries and diverting it to feed the army. (The regime is scared that their own troops are hungry and have weapons. The generals fear mutinies and even a large-scale insurrection.) The regime is also refusing access to the affected regions by aid workers and journalists. It will take political pressure on the regime to force them to let in the aid. That requires funding the organizations that are organizing the most effective political pressure.

Regarding aid, I do recommend Thirst Aid, which was inside Burma pre-cyclone and has already been delivering water purification tablets. (Thirst Aid is a small NGO run by a couple of experienced Burma aid activists in Oregon and has very little overhead.) www.thirst-aid.org

Foundation for the People of Burma was established by Hal Nathan, a San Francisco money manager and, I believe, Buddhist. This group has worked through monasteries inside Burma for several years. http://www.foundationburma.org/

Avaaz.org has raised a lot of money. Big kudos to them. But Avaaz does not have the contacts inside in Burma so they are distributing their money to the smaller groups that have.

Other organizations that I know and personally vouch for:

Burma Lifeline: http://www.burmalifeline.org/

Burma Border Projects: http://www.burmaborderprojects.org

Disclaimer: I am Co-chair of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Campaign for Burma.

The U.S. Campaign for Burma is raising money that people can earmark for relief. These funds are being passed though 100%. I cannot go into detail about the groups inside Burma to which we are directly sending the money. If the regime learned that we were giving money to those organizations, they would very likely steal the money and put the people in prison.

I would also recommend donations for the political work of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, Burma Campaign UK, and Canadian Friends of Burma. These do the most effective work in lobbying the United Nations, U.S. government and Congress as well as the European Union and its member governments.

http://www.uscampaignforburma.org
http://www.cfob.org
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/

Manage your energy, not your time

2008-05-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

"The science of stamina has advanced to the point where individuals, teams, and whole organizations can, with some straightforward interventions, significantly increase their capacity to get things done."

The following is an excerpt from an article by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy, featured in the Harvard Business Review, October 2007

Steve Wanner is a highly respected 37-year-old partner at Ernst & Young, married with four young children. When we met him a year ago, he was working 12- to 14-hour days, felt perpetually exhausted, and found it difficult to fully engage with his family in the evenings, which left him feeling guilty and dissatisfied. He slept poorly, made no time to exercise, and seldom ate healthy meals, instead grabbing a bite to eat on the run or while working at his desk.

Wanner’s experience is not uncommon. Most of us respond to rising demands in the workplace by putting in longer hours, which inevitably take a toll on us physically, mentally, and emotionally. That leads to declining levels of engagement, increasing levels of distraction, high turnover rates, and soaring medical costs among employees. We at the Energy Project have worked with thousands of leaders and managers in the course of doing consulting and coaching at large organizations during the past five years. With remarkable consistency, these executives tell us they’re pushing themselves harder than ever to keep up and increasingly feel they are at a breaking point.

The core problem with working longer hours is that time is a finite resource. Energy is a different story. Defined in physics as the capacity to work, energy comes from four main wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. In each, energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals—behaviors that are intentionally practiced and precisely scheduled, with the goal of making them unconscious and automatic as quickly as possible.

To effectively reenergize their workforces, organizations need to shift their emphasis from getting more out of people to investing more in them, so they are motivated—and able—to bring more of themselves to work every day. To recharge themselves, individuals need to recognize the costs of energy-depleting behaviors and then take responsibility for changing them, regardless of the circumstances they’re facing.

The rituals and behaviors Wanner established to better manage his energy transformed his life. He set an earlier bedtime and gave up drinking, which had disrupted his sleep. As a consequence, when he woke up he felt more rested and more motivated to exercise, which he now does almost every morning. In less than two months he lost 15 pounds. After working out he now sits down with his family for breakfast. Wanner still puts in long hours on the job, but he renews himself regularly along the way. He leaves his desk for lunch and usually takes a morning and an afternoon walk outside. When he arrives at home in the evening, he’s more relaxed and better able to connect with his wife and children.

Establishing simple rituals like these can lead to striking results across organizations. At Wachovia Bank, we took a group of employees through a pilot energy management program and then measured their performance against that of a control group. The participants outperformed the controls on a series of financial metrics, such as the value of loans they generated. They also reported substantial improvements in their customer relationships, their engagement with work, and their personal satisfaction.

Interview with Sandy Davis: "My daily resilience practices have actually saved my life a bunch of times."

2008-05-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

Interview of Sandy Davis by Atieno Fisher on April 21, 2008

Excerpt: I realized that the daily practices I was doing served to generate a vital inner energy that served to amplify and extend my own ability to be resilient. In other words, I discovered the “proactive” side of resilience. I realized that before you can be optimally resilient, you first have to become “zillient.” Then, when adversity or change challenges you, you will be primed to be “re-zillient” or resilient.

Sandy Davis holds a PCC Certificate (Professional Certified Coach) from the International Coach Federation and has been a full-time professional coach for over 12 years. For decades, he has been experimenting with various ways to develop personal resilience. He has self-published two instructional manuals on this subject, the most recent of which is entitled: “Zillience! How to Succeed in Business without Really Frying.”

In April, I had the opportunity to interview Sandy about his work and his thinking on the subject of personal resilience. I was reminded again that the people we often consider extraordinary and elevate as somehow different (more heroic or saintly) than ourselves are actually people just like the rest of us, who make choices that are just as open to each of us. In the transcript of that interview that follows is a description of Sandy's story and how he came to evolve the three resilience-sustaining practices he now teaches others.

AF: How did you become interested in developing personal resilience?

SD: At the age of six, I stumbled on the need to develop my own resilience experientially, long before I knew the word “resilience” existed. After the sudden and unexpected break-up of my parents’ marriage, I found myself in circumstances that I didn't like. The world around me abruptly transformed from being safe and predictable to unknown and unpredictable. Suddenly life became threatening. This was a big shock, one that traumatized me in subtle and lasting ways. It let me to feel a need to constantly be “en garde.”

I remember wanting to find a way to make the uninvited adversities that had befallen us go away. I had an intuition that there had to be some way to offset them, to play through the adversities, and to come out the other side of them. I wanted to be more in control of my situation. But no one offered me any help or instruction in how to do this. Back then, I found myself trapped in my own private existential distress.

AF: What were some of the lessons you learned way back then?

SD: The set-up for one of the first lessons I learned about how to “play through adversity” began a year later, when I was in the second grade. I had been labeled as “musically talented,” and was in my second year of private piano lessons. I had a great aural memory and could play melodies back upon just hearing them once. It was also easy for me to improvise around those melodies. I would happily spend hours “noodling” away on the family piano.

Unfortunately, however, I was dyslexic (which was not yet diagnosable back then). My brain was wired up in such a way that reading music was next to impossible. Written notes made no sense to me whatsoever. So I taught myself to compensate for this inability by taking the fullest possible advantage of my auditory memory. After each lesson, I would ask my mother to sight-read my newly assigned pieces for me. Then I would reconstruct what she had played by ear and commit the piece to memory. That was how I bluffed my way through the first two years of piano lessons.

My relationship with my piano teacher became increasingly adversarial. I though of her as “Mrs. Witch” and to this day remember her only by that made-up name. She was determined to have all her students to play every note exactly as it was written. She had no interest in my playing in the assigned pieces in an “approximate” way, and she was even less interested in my improvising those melodies in order to decorate and “improve” them.

We finally came to blows. At the end of my second year of lessons, Mrs. Witch declared to my mother (in front of me) that I was “unmusical and uneducable.” She told my mother that she would do better to spend her money on giving me riding lessons. A week later, I was sitting on top of a horse. I felt wounded, double-crossed, and betrayed. It was as though I had been summarily thrown out of the promise land. My most favorite pastime had been ripped out from underneath me.

AF: Was that the end of your pursuit of music?

SD: No, eight years later, when I was 15, I finally discovered a way to forever heal that wound. I stumbled into the world of traditional folk music. I discovered the recordings of Pete Seeger, the Weavers, the Kingston Trio, and other folk musicians. Here was a world where songs and tunes were learned primarily by ear and then passed along by ear from musician to musician and from generation to generation. This was my idea of heaven on earth.

I jumped headlong into this vibrant world. I knew this time around that no one would ever be able to take my music away from me again. It was mine now. I have continued to thrive in this world of music ever since. I still play traditional dance tunes every day, and this act of making music still reliably nourishes my spirit.

Perhaps more than anything else, it was this formative learning experience that marked the beginning of my figuring out how to bounce back from adversity. It was my first memorable success in reclaiming what I wanted, what I needed, and what I loved. In the process, I discovered the value of daily practice (in this case, playing my five-string banjo every day) and it led me to a first taste of what a delight it is to master something. It also gave me a very positive new identity fragment: “I’m a musician. I play the banjo.”

Having this new identity gave my self-confidence a huge boost. More importantly, it encouraged me to believe that no matter what the setback, it is possible to find a way through it. After having my favorite pastime painfully stripped away when I was seven, I later found my own way to reclaim it. Because I refused to give it up, the wounded part of me finally started to feel whole again.

AF: Were there other lessons in resilience that date back to when you were young?

SD: Yes, I think the roots of my long-standing interest in resilience go squarely back to my formative years. For example, another lesson in dealing with adversity came about through some physical challenges I faced as an adolescent.

When I was 14, I was stricken with rheumatic fever and ended up with scarred heart valves and a residual heart murmur. I was told back then that I would never be able to exercise vigorously. Through high school and college, I was not allowed to play competitive sports. I missed out on the rewarding experience of becoming an athlete.

When I was 23, I took it upon myself to disobey the long-standing advice of my doctors. I was fed up with being so out of condition that I was unable to walk up four flights of stairs without becoming winded and red in the face. Without anyone’s permission, I went out and bought myself a pair of sneakers and a sweat suit and just started running.

At first, jogging a distance of one mile just about killed me. But I liked the payoff of feeling better about myself after I had worked up a good sweat. So I continued to run. Over three months, I gradually worked my way up to running three miles every other day. At that point, I had developed enough stamina to run up four flights of stairs without becoming winded. That was a thrill. And I was reminded again that practice always pays off.

AF: What did you take from this lesson?

SD: I was so impressed by this demonstration of the power of daily practice that I have never stopped exercising vigorously for at least half an hour ever other day. For the past 40 years, I have continuously run 5K every other day, year ’round, or rowed a distance of 7.5K.

AF: That’s an impressive demonstration of persistence. After all those miles, how are your knees?

SD: Up until a few months ago, there were in fabulous condition. Then, unfortunately, in February of this year, I was in a near-fatal car accident in which my right knee was permanently injured. I suddenly had to stop my long-standing practice of running, and it appears now that I may never be able to run again. My injured right knee can no longer tolerate the “concussions” of the running stride. I am grateful, however, that I can still ride a bicycle and I can still row my racing shell. My new goal is to continue doing one or the other of those two sports every other day for the next thirty-plus years, year ’round, until I am 100 years old.

I remain fully committed to exercising regularly because that’s what has continuously strengthened my heart and, in spite of my shaky start as an invalid, that daily habit has enabled me to run a total distance of well over 24,900 miles (which is the circumference of the earth at the equator).

AF: You mentioned to me earlier that you’ve had some recent setbacks. What are those?

SD: When I was 61, my history with rheumatic fever caught up with me. After 40 years of running, my heart finally needed some assistance. Over a period of several decades, my resting pulse had become progressively lower. It finally got too low and I developed symptoms of heart block. Fortunately, I was alert to my symptoms and, on the day when my heart finally needed help, I was fortunate to have a pacemaker hastily implanted in my chest.

The good news is that the pacemaker was implanted just in time, and it fully corrected the heart block problem. In short order, I was able to resume my routine of exercising vigorously for at least half an hour every other day. The bad news is that at the same time I received my pacemaker, a staph infection was also accidentally implanted in me.

That infection “colonized,” and eight months later, it unexpectedly “came back to life” and all but killed me. As a consequence, I had to spend three weeks in two different hospitals. In addition to treating the systemic staph infection, I had to have having two more pacemaker surgeries, one to “extract” my first pacemaker install a temporary replacement, and then a second surgery to implant a new pacemaker and remove the temporary one.

On top of that, I had to endure six weeks of continuous intravenous infusions of antibiotics. More than anything else, the toxic antibiotics nearly killed me. What saved my life were the daily resilience practices I have been doing faithfully for the past several decades. Even as I was in the hospital, they gave me the stamina I needed to “play through adversity” once again.

AF: I know you speak of “doing your daily resilience practices as though your life depends on them.” It sounds like that has proven to be true for you. Is that so?

SD: Yes. My daily resilience practices have actually saved my life a bunch of times. I think it’s fair to say that without them, I wouldn’t be here today. They have pulled me through emotional adversities (such as depression, personal losses, etc.), medical challenges (such as various sports injuries and occasional illnesses), and my fair share of major life upsets (such as divorce, getting laid off from work, failing in business, etc.).

AF: How was it that you started to incorporate these daily resilience practices into your work with your coaching clients?

SD: Based on how valuable these daily practices have proven to be for myself, about 10 years ago I started experimenting with teaching these practices to my coaching clients. The practices proved to be extremely effective in helping them meet the challenges they were facing. I then set about inventing ways to reach more people. Four years ago, I started piloting several group programs. Today I offer both live workshops, and several ongoing phone-based group programs. All of these programs focus on teaching you how to take on and sustain these simple daily resilience practices. I’ve also authored two instructional manuals on this topic.

AF: You’ve clearly spent a long time putting the pieces of this puzzle together. You started way back when you were a teenager. Take us from back then to the present moment.

SD: As a teenager, my experiments in becoming resilient were somewhat haphazard. Fortunately, a few of them produced great results. Over the past 50 years, I have gone on to consciously experiment with all sorts of daily developmental practices. I have sought out ones that had the promise of helping me reach the long-desired state of being prepared to handle whatever challenges and adversities were bound to be on my path. I have tested many different practices. In almost all cases, I have experimented with a given practice for at least five continuous years or longer.

About eight years ago, I reached a point where it felt like I had finally “cracked the code.” I had been searching for a combination of daily practices that would ensure a consistent high degree of personal resilience. I wanted to discover the best, most effective, most affordable, and minimum set of simple daily practices.

Along the way, I came to understand that “resilience” is fundamentally a reactive phenomenon. Only in the moment of facing adversity, do you actually put forward responses that are what we call “resilient.” The question I asked myself was, “In between those moments of making resilient responses, what’s going on?”

That was when I realized that the daily practices I was doing served to generate a vital inner energy that served to amplify and extend my own ability to be resilient. In other words, I discovered the “proactive” side of resilience. I realized that before you can be optimally resilient, you first have to become “zillient.” Then, when adversity or change challenges you, you will be primed to be “re-zillient” or resilient.

AF: So what are the daily practices that generate this energy you call “zillience?”

SD: What I have discovered works best is a combination of three simple daily practices. All three require you to “come back to your senses.” One is focused on developing your mind. The second focuses on developing your body. And the third focuses on developing your spirit.

All three of these practices are what I call “non-cognitive” practices. They are not about thinking. In fact, they are all designed to help you regularly “get out of your cerebral cortex.” They all involve learning “experientially” rather than “cognitively.”

Here’s the magic combination of daily practices that I have found will reliably amplify and extend your natural resilience:

1. The first is a pure centering practice for the mind. It entails learning to shut down the “CPU” (Central Processing Unit) of the thinking brain and focus momentarily on just being without thinking. One simple way to do this is to focus your attention singularly on your breathing. Doing this for just 15 minutes a day is enough to produce desirable changes (such as lowing the level of the stress hormone, cortisol, in your blood, and strengthening your immune system). By teaching yourself how to let go of your thoughts and be completely present in the moment, you can gain a remarkable degree of control over your inner emotional world. For example, you can learn to quickly let go of negative emotional states and induce positive emotional states at will.

2. The second daily practice entails exercising vigorously for an average of 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes every other day. When you regularly exercise “aerobically,” you not only strengthen your heart as a muscle. You also keep the inner workings of your whole body “toned up.” Indeed, regular exercise turns out to be particularly beneficial for your brain.

Without regular exercise, our bodies slowly start to degenerate. With regular exercise, it’s possible to “hold even” as we age. Indeed, at any given moment, no matter how old we are, we can develop our bodies to be stronger, healthier, and more agile. In some truly remarkable ways, regular exercise can actually reverse the normal aging process.

3. The third daily practice is what I call a daily creative practice. Each of us can benefit hugely from having a restorative developmental activity that we pursue every day in some small but continuous ways. You want to choose a creative activity that falls outside the domain of your work, one that tantalizes you to keep on developing your creative self. You want to choose an activity with which you feel a deep and passionate connection. You want it to be something so dear to you that when you take time to pursue it, you can become completely entranced by it. You want it to have the power to bring you back to center you by pulling you far away from everything else in your life that is stressing you. By having such a practice and by doing it for at least 15 minutes each day, you can greatly refresh your spirit.
AF: How long have you been doing these three daily practices?
SD: I’ve been doing a daily creative practice off an on for almost 50 years. I’ve been exercising vigorously for half an hour every other day for over 40 years. And I’ve been doing a daily centering practice for the past 15 years. For the past six years, I have also kept an accountability log in which I record every day how many minutes I spend doing each of these practices.
Based on these logs, I know that on April 1st of this year, I completed 2,100 consecutive days during which time I did not miss my daily centering practice a single time, and during which time I missed my every-other-day aerobic exercise only on a few instances when I was injured or sick. Over the span of the past 69 consecutive months, I have averaged over an hour a day doing my daily creative practice (which happens still to be playing traditional music).
AF: You speak of doing these daily practices as though your life depends on them. How is that so?
SD: These practices have saved my life multiple times. For example, as I was being wheeled into the operating room to receive my pacemaker (and months later when I had to have it extricated surgically), my centering practice really helped to be able to remain calm and receptive. Furthermore, the only way I could survive the painful staph infection I had was to continuously do my centering practice.
Because my creative thinking was all tuned up when I was admitted to the hospital, I was able to maintain the thought clarity and self-confidence required to catch a number of potentially fatal medical mistakes that were made. I was able to stay tuned into my body and trusted that I knew at least as much, and in some cases more, than my doctors knew. Without this confidence in my own processing capabilities and the resulting courage to speak out, I would be dead today. These are some examples of how these daily practices have saved my life.
AF: How about an example of how these practices have helped others in similar ways?
SD: I have seen these practices help others tremendously. For example, several years ago I coached a President and CEO of a manufacturing company over a period of about 18 months. When I started working with him, his life was pretty messed up both professionally and personally. He was on the cusp of getting fired. He was also overweight, out of shape, and highly distractible. His father had died in his 40’s of a heart attack, and it appeared that my client was on track to follow in his father’s footsteps.
By teaching my client how and why to take on a individualized version of these three daily resilience practices, he moved quickly from a place of feeling beleaguered and stressed out, to a place of leading with a genuine warmth of spirit and a new-found agility. He became visibly much more “zillient.”
Three years later, over the Christmas holidays, I unexpectedly received a card from him in which he wrote longhand: “Sandy, thank you for saving my life.”
AF: How is it that you, yourself, have consistently chosen to respond to adversities with such a positive attitude?
SD: Most of my own learning about resilience stems from my wanting to find effective ways to move away from discomfort. I have always believed that if I could learn to self-regulate my own emotions, my own beliefs, and my own actions, I would be able to create a kind of “personal sovereignty.” I would be able to remain free, no matter what my circumstances. I would be able to stay “at choice.” For my whole life, I have been a student of how to create this kind of personal sovereignty.
What I have discovered is that these simple daily practices have the power to change your destiny. Where you end up in life depends on what you practice. If you choose to practice negative behaviors, you will get better and better at them, until they finally influence your destiny. By the same token, if you practice positive behaviors, ones that benefit your health and well-being, you will also get better and better at them, and they will influence your destiny in positive ways.
What we tend to forget is that either course takes about the same amount of work and commitment. So when there’s no difference in “price,” why not treat yourself to the positive outcomes?
It is not that the positive choices are easy. More often than not, they are hard. But choosing a positive path and taking committed action accordingly is what moves you from surviving to thriving.
For example, in February when I suddenly couldn't run anymore, I was deeply discouraged by my personal loss. At that point, I had a choice. I could sit there and continue to practice feeling sorry for myself. Or I could re-orient my thinking in some positive manner and practice a different choice. I chose this latter course. I decided to view my knee injury not as the end of my running, but as the beginning of my cycling. I went out and bought myself a bicycle and never looked back.
AF: Please say a bit more about how these practices can change your destiny.
SD: Your destiny derives in large part from what you practice every day ––consciously or otherwise. If you are depressed, it is because you have been practicing hanging out in that emotional state. If you keep on practicing being depressed, it is predictable that you will get even better at it. If you decide that you want to stop being depressed, you have to start practicing something else.
A proven medical intervention that works to decrease depression entails increasing your body’s production of serotonin. This can be done via prescriptive medications. In almost all cases, it can be done equally well by exercising regularly. So if you want to break your habit of being depressed, a great place to start is to take on a daily practice of vigorous exercise. What I have found is that when you are physically in motion, it’s impossible to feel stuck. Once you start to exercise regularly and continuously, a predictable result is that you will start to feel “not depressed.”
What’s critical is that you get to a point where you understand you have the option to change your practices in order to create different results. Then all you have to do is take action––repeatedly and continuously. This requires commitment and work. In the long run, nothing else produces sustainable results.

AF: Before we finish, I’d like to ask you what’s going to be next for you? How is your work evolving now?

SD: What’s calling me next is to find ways to teach these practices to seniors in high schools and to incoming college freshmen. I would love to help kids discover the power of these practices sooner than later. If I had known how to systematically put them to work at that age, my life might have tracked quite differently.

Right now I work mostly with adults in their forties and fifties. Before they come to me, they have had to finally conclude on their own that they don’t “know it all,” that what they have been doing isn’t producing the results they want, and that they are ready to make a commitment to changing some behaviors in order to get different results. They need to be willing to do something to “get out of their head,” to come back to their senses, and to explore the power of simple experiential learning.

What excites me now is to reach out to younger individuals. I’m looking forward to figuring out how to connect with them in order to make a positive difference not just for “fully-grown” adults, but also for as many young adults as possible.

AF: I like your observation that we are all free to choose between fragility and resilience by cultivating greatness of spirit bit by bit.Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences, Sandy!

To find out more about Sandy Davis, the services he offers, and the instruction manuals he has published, visit www.homecomingcoaching.com. To order a copy of Sandy’s instruction manual on developing zillience, visit www.zillience.com. To reach Sandy or to subscribe to his free monthly e-newsletter, send an e-mail to sandy@wayofresilience.com. (As a bonus for new subscribers, Sandy will send you a free 22-page introductory excerpt from his instructional manual on developing zillience through simple daily practices.)

Good Practice Notes

2008-05-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

The following is a short list of resoruces on good practice in the psychosocial aspects of emergency aid delivery.

Headington Foundation report for InterAction- NGO Staff Wellbeing in the
Darfur Region of Sudan & Eastern Chad (attached)
The aim of this assessment report and recommendations is to provide
information that will strengthen the ability of InterAction members to meet
the psychosocial needs of national and international staff working in Sudan
and Eastern Chad.

Idealist.org/Psychosocial report from the first Helper's Fire conference-
Tending the Helper's Fire: Mitigating Trauma and Stress in International
Staff and Volunteers
http://www.idealist.org/psychosocial/conferences/docs/conferenceReport.pdf
Action Without Borders and The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International
Peace Studies at Notre Dame University organized this innovative conference
on Mitigating Trauma and Stress in International Staff and Volunteers. This
event brought together human resources professionals, researchers, program
directors, and international humanitarian aid staff to examine how
organizations provide psychosocial support to their expatriate and local
staff and volunteers working overseas. The objective of this conference was
to provide a platform where professionals can share information, learn from
expert perspectives, and pool resources for future collaboration.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on Mental Health and
Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings (chapter 4.4)
(http://www.who.int/mental_health/emergencies/guidelines_iasc_mental_health_
psychosocial_june_2007.pdf )
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) issues these Guidelines to enable
humanitarian actors to plan, establish and coordinate a set of minimum
multi-sectoral responses to protect and improve people's mental health and
psychosocial well-being in the midst of an emergency. The Guidelines offer
essential advice on how to facilitate an integrated approach to address the
most urgent mental health and psychosocial issues in emergency situations.

The People In Aid Code of Good Practice
(http://www.peopleinaid.org/code/online.aspx) is an internationally
recognized management tool that helps agencies to enhance the quality of
their human resources management. The Code is the result of years of
international collaboration by a wide range of NGOs, international
organizations, public bodies and private sector firms. As a management
framework, it is also an important part of agencies' efforts to improve
standards, accountability and transparency amid the challenges of disaster,
conflict and poverty.

Crisis in Non-Profit Leadership

2008-05-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Meyer Foundation supports capable, community-based organizations that foster the well-being of all people in the Washington DC region.

According to Meyer Foundation's national survey of nearly 6,000 next generation leaders. a skilled, committed, and diverse pool of next generation leaders would like to be nonprofit executive directors in the future, However, the survey also finds that there are significant barriers: work-life balance, insufficient life-long earning potential, lack of mentorship...

Grants available on women's rights

2008-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

The International Women’s Program is interested in supporting innovative initiatives that link women’s rights strategies with other rights strategies, raising awareness about cases of women’s extreme marginalization. To learn more about the call for proposals click here.

Sound as Energy Medicine

2008-05-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sat, May. 10 - Sound of the Soul
intuitive toning is the art of listening to yourself on a spirit level for soul resonance. Sound has the power to soothe, rile you up, and the power to move you into other dimensions. First class in May 10 @ 11 AM to 12:30 PM at Seekers Church in Takoma Park, Washington- Please pre-register at divinityiseternalonline.com. Donation $7.00

Playback Theater for Change in (west) Philadelphia

2008-05-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

Playback for Change presents Peace and Justice: Finding Our Way Together

What's in your heart when you consider peace and justice? What's your vision for what's possible for our city and neighborhoods? What does peace mean to you? How have you been impacted by peace and/or violence? What are the seeds you are sowing?

Improvisational theatre based on personal stories, told by audience members
in the moment...come tell, listen, and watch!!

The Rotunda, 4012 Walnut St in West Philly, 19104
SUNDAY MAY 18, 2008
7 pm
For more information call 215-844-7566 or email sarahhalley@gmail.com

Suggested Cost: $12, $6 seniors & students; no one turned away for lack of
funds

A portion of the money raised from this show will go to support a series of
playback theatre trainings in June 2008 in Serbia and Bosnia.

Pentecost 2008 Training for Change

2008-05-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

June 13-15 in DC there will be a gathering of Christian-based antipoverty activists. Read more here.

nonresistance strengthens

2008-05-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Aikido is based on the philosophy of creating harmony by mastering oneself and respecting another's energy. Translated literally, Aikido means "the way [do] of harmony [ai] with the life force [ki]"

Unlike many fighting techniques that focus on defense while disabling the opponent, Aikido focuses on finding unity. The intent of Aikido is not acquiescence, but to establish a relationship of peace in the face of conflict. It requires a keen awareness of oneself and the environment. Rather than assuming a fighting posture and reducing the amount of exposure to the opponent, Aikido teaches us to face the opponent openly.

Standing with confidence, the Aikido master (Sensei) makes eye contact with the opponent, and gets ready to move with the opponents' energy, rather than countering his moves. As the Sensei respects the other person's power, they move together in ways that result in both people facing in the same direction. With each blow, more energy is spent by the attacker than by the Sensei, leaving the Sensei with increased power, and the other person exhausted. Watching the practice of Aikido looks more like a graceful dance than a fight.

This page applies aikido principles to coaching.

illuminating mission of reconciliation

2008-05-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

May 9, 10, 11, Swiss lighting artist Gerry Hofstetter brings his artistry to Washington National Cathedral for a spectacular exterior illumination of the south and west sides, in celebration of the Cathedral's centennial. Numerous vivid images will be projected directly on the Cathedral sunset to midnight, illustrating its mission of reconciliation, spotlighting its role as a spiritual beacon for the nation, and proclaiming hope for humankind.

Saturday MAY 10 there will be live music 7-9 so meet on the grounds with a picnic. Crowds will be big so get there early. Check out full details.

PTSD and rape as a weapon of war in Congo

2008-05-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

Listen online to this radio spot from NPR's Diane Rehm Show, Monday April 28th.

This link refers to a Rand corporation study called "Invisible Wounds," which documents that 20% of Iraq/Afghan vets have PTSD/depression.

There are also other useful links on the page on both topics.

500,000 children working with armed groups around the world -- detailed report from Psychology Beyond Borders

2008-05-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

These children serve in a variety of different capacities: as cooks, as quartermasters, as sexual slaves and as combat troops. Their experiences can result in high exposure to profoundly traumatic events, placing them at extreme risk for the development of serious emotional disorders. Psychosocial services targeting former child soldiers are required to help these children transition from their roles as members of armed forces back into a healthy and stable civilian life.

Brief Summary with link to the 100+ page report

Are disasters the new normal?

2008-04-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, argues that global climate change has created a situation where natural disasters are the "new normal," not something unusual. He calls for the world to adapt to this new normal by preparing for these disasters so that a natural disaster is not necessarily a human catastrophe.

Combating PTSD with an identity based on compassion and forgiveness

2008-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Soldier's Heart Intensive Training

Led by Dr. Ed Tick and Kate Dahlstedt

June 18-22^nd, 2008

Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, Craryville, NY

Through study and experience, participants will gain a deeper understanding of Dr. Tick's healing strategies as found in his book, WAR AND THE SOUL. Understanding PTSD as an identity disorder, and discovering ways to nurture a positive identity based on compassion and forgiveness will help those attending discover practical ways of integrating these methodologies into their own relationships and practices.

Please note: This is not a regular Soldier's Heart Healing Retreat. Rather, it is designed for veterans' who have experienced significant healing, as well as families, civilians, clergy and therapists willing to invest in understanding the truth about the effects of war and the process of the warrior's journey home.

EVENT DETAILS

COST? $795 includes tuition, room and board

WHEN? Registration begins at 3 PM, Wed. June 18, opening ceremony at 7 PM

WHERE? Beautiful Pumpkin Hollow Retreat Center, Craryville, NY

Arriving by car - directions on Pumpkin Hollow website www.pumpkinhollow.org

By plane - fly into Albany International Airport, volunteers will transport to and from Pumpkin Hollow, which is just over an hour from the airport.

HOW TO REGISTER? Directly on the Soldier's Heart web site www.soldiersheart.net or by requesting a registration form from paula@soldiersheart.net

Capacity is limited to 35, we encourage you to register soon!

For more information contact kate@soldiersheart.net, or paula@soldiersheart.net
or call 518-274-0501.

Institutional vs. Community-based Child Fostering

2008-04-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Post-conflict child fostering in Sierra Leone

There is growing agreement that separated children are best cared for in community settings, rather than in institutions. However, even in a community setting, there is a need for standards of care that allow for monitoring of children’s well-being. This is particularly important in countries such as Sierra Leone which is recovering from a brutal civil war and suffering from poverty, malnutrition, and limited access to adequate medical care. Since the civil war ended in Sierra Leone, child fostering—whether informal or facilitated by humanitarian agencies and the government—has become the preferred solution for the estimated 800,000+ orphaned, abandoned, and vulnerable children.

Interviews with care-givers, foster children, humanitarian agencies, and government officials paint a picture of a formal foster care system that lacks common standards or functioning monitoring mechanisms. These gaps in child protection are also apparent in the kind of informal fostering arrangements found throughout West Africa. This study evaluates the current state of child fostering in Sierra Leone and poses questions for future research which is necessary in order to improve knowledge and develop recommendations for national foster care standards—which could be potentially replicable across West Africa.

Ethnographic Methods for Disaster Mental Health in Low Resource Countries

2008-04-27T21:19:00.001-07:00

Laura Murray and Paul Bolton have worked together to develop a model for how to conduct high-quality research (including a randomized and controlled trial) and service delivery in culturally appropriate ways in low-resource countries. Their approach begins with a relatively quick (three weeks or less) ethnographic and qualitative study to help identify culturally specific definitions of distress and inform the selection of measures and interventions. This article describes this ethnographic phase in detail, and discusses the utility of using it in interventions designed to reduce the impact of disasters.

Here is their article:
Bolton, P., & Tang, A.M. (2004). Using ethnographic methods in the selection of post-disaster mental health interventions. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 19(1), 97-101.

Facilitated Conflict Transformation through Interactive Theatre

2008-04-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

The United Nations University for Peace Centre for Executive and Professional Education and Dramatic Problem Solving present:
Facilitated Conflict Transformation through Interactive Theatre

June 10-14, 2008

Puriscal, San Jose, Costa Rica

This 30 hour seminar is an experiential exploration of the history,
theories, and methods of the use of theatre as an agent of conflict
transformation.
The cost for this program is US $900 per person. Scholarships are available
for on a need basis. Money should not be a motivation for not doing the
workshop.
This includes the following:
-Ground transportation to and from the San Jose International airport
- Dramatic Problem Solving Training Manual
- Certificate from University for Peace
- Community Presentation at U Peace on Friday night
- Lodging at the Mountain Home Retreat Center in San Rafael de Puriscal
- All meals

Contact:
Assistant Professor and Coordinator
Justice, Peace and Conflict Studies
Eastern Mennonite University
Harrisonburg, VA 22802

540-432-4270

Dance/Movement Therapy Intensive

2008-04-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

The Dance/Movement Therapy Experience: An Introduction

Immerse yourself in the field of dance/movement therapy during our 5-day
intensive. This experiential/ didactic workshop is conducted by faculty of
Antioch University New England's Master's Program in Dance/Movement
Therapy and Counseling. The intensive will expose participants to a range
of approaches currently in use in the field. No previous experience is necessary.

June 9-13, 2008

Sponsored by the Department of Applied Psychology. The intensive will be held at Antioch University New England in Keene, New Hampshire, and each participant will receive a certificate of completion.
Housing information is available upon request. Full fee for the intensive
is $495; a $50 deposit ensures a place in the workshop. Please take
advantage of the undergraduate scholarship discount of $125.
Registration and payment in full is required by May 2, 2008.

For further information contact:
Lucy Marsh, (lmarsh@antiochne.edu)
AP/DMT Administrative Assistant
Antioch University New England
40 Avon Street
Keene, NH 0343l-3516
603.283.2148
www.antiochne.edu/ap

Notes on reshaping your destiny, from Sandy Davis

2008-04-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

From Sandy's latest newsletter:
Your destiny derives in large part from your habitual daily behaviors. At any given moment, you are effectively the sum of your daily habits. These are all the routine activities that you do repetitively, every day, for the most part with little or no conscious attention. Taken together, your daily habits have been moving you steadily in a certain direction for a long time. As long as you don’t change any of your daily habits, you will most likely keep going in precisely that direction. So if you want to know where you will end up (i.e., if you want a preview of your destiny), just look at where you are going now.

If you don’t like the direction you’re headed in and want to make a lasting change, the best (and possibly only) way to do this is to make a change in one or more of your daily habits.

This requires that you disrupt your normal way of behaving in order to substitute in a new behavior and to practice that new behavior repetitively over a long period of time. How long? Long enough for the new behavior to become as “wired-in” and invisible as the old one was. This takes at least months of continuous practice. Sometime it takes considerably longer.

Here’s the remarkable payoff: Even a small change in your daily practices has the power to change everything, including your destiny. Here’s the reality that most of us know intuitively and also somehow manage to disavow: The key to successful personal change is continuous daily practice.

The good news is that this reality has another side: When you are willing to practice just about any skill for at least 15 minutes each day, you can develop your mastery of that skill quickly and steadily––no matter how old you are when you start.

Call to Action: Identify one small behavior that you would like to turn into a future habit. Choose one that will make your life more enjoyable or more fulfilling in the long run. Then start practicing this behavior every day. For starters, set yourself a goal of practicing it for at least 90 consecutive days without a single miss.

Tip: If you want to know whether you are keeping your commitment to practice faithfully, you will need to keep a daily log of your practice times. Otherwise, you won’t know for sure in six weeks whether or not you practiced today. Let go of the responsibility of remembering such things. Just write them down and keep moving.

Relevant Quotes:

“If you want to know your future, look at what you are doing in this moment.” --Tibetan Saying

“Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but accustom yourself to something else.” -- Epictetus, 1st Century Greek Philosopher

“Be not afraid of growing slowly. Be afraid only of standing still.” -- Chinese Proverb

Saving the world. (Overwhelmed much?)

2008-04-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

When you think of all the needs in the world and all the changes that will have to happen, do you feel completely overwhelmed? This inspiring story reminds us that in order to create a world of great beauty, we need only start.

one good blog recommends another

2008-04-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

A retired military man runs this blog and dreams of peace, one step at a time. His site "seeks to establish a useful, global dialogue on the roots and far-reaching impact of terrorism and human conflict, and to discover innovative solutions."

Marc's new book

2008-04-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

“A Spy's Resume: Confessions of a Maverick Intelligence Professional and Misadventure Capitalist.” Marc's book is "a survival guide for troops leaving the military, written from the perspective of an intelligence officer (aka 'spy'). The book is packed with lessons-learned from the experiences of transitioning from the structure of military life into the unforgiving, sometimes hostile, world of capitalism. The book is also an examination of loss. The military is more than a job for some; it is a way of life. Leaving that life behind requires grieving, and letting go of old dreams. An entire chapter compares leaving the military to a divorce."

Greetings, earthlings!

2008-04-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

"All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth."
Chief Sealth

In honor of Earth Day, check out this exclusive interview with Paul McCartney.

Here are some facts that might surprise you.

For more info on eating and the environment check out this site.

Finally, have you seen the new Smartcar? What a dream...

18 veteran suicides A DAY?!

2008-04-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Story by Paul Elias - The Associated Press, posted : Monday Apr 21, 2008 5:54:11 EDT

(I post these stories not because I criticize the Veteran's Administration or want to go negative in any way, but to make the point that war has terrible costs that are not counted; it should be illegal; it should never be waged. More psychiatrists is not the answer. Eliminating the senseless brutalization of human beings is.)

"An average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide, according to a December e-mail between top VA officials that was filed as part of the federal lawsuit.

'We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources,' said Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer representing the veterans groups. 'They don’t have enough psychiatrists.'”

Read more here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24226165/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-20-veterans-lawsuit_N.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_re_us/veterans_care_lawsuit
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/20/national/main4029429.shtml

New Resilience Center in Stockholm

2008-04-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

There was a resilience conference in Stockholm! They said:

"This year the public has become aware of a cluster of predicted crises, such as the rise of food prices due to energy market changes and the collapse of the financial market. We see that small instabilities and risks spread to practically all developed countries in the world.

However, globalisation also adds a great positive value because the individual or small groups can have an increasingly global effect."

They recommend "novelty thinking." Not sure what it's all about! Something about "transdisciplinary research for governance of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on resilience - the ability to deal with change and continue to develop."

How many Iraq and Afghanistan vets suffer symptoms of PTSD?

2008-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Can you guess?

A. 1 out of 30
B. 1 out of 15
C. 1 out of 5
D. All of them

Click here for the answer.

Researchers estimate that PTSD and depression among returning service members will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment.

The parts of the brain

2008-04-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

Want to learn more about how the parts of the brain make up YOU? Fantastic lecture by a scientist who had a stroke.

Life Expectancy Calculator

2008-04-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

This Life Expectancy Calculator can help you figure out how much self-care you're doing!

a movie about reconciliation

2008-04-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Please note that each event has a separate RSVP stipulation.

"As We Forgive"--a movie about reconciliation between pardoned murderers involved in the Rwandan genocide and the surviving family members of their victims.

Friday, April 18th at 7:30 pm
McLean Bible Church, Room 2400
Please RSVP to the evite

Wednesday, April 23rd at 12 noon
Capitol Hill Screening
Cannon Office Building, Room 121
In coordination with the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, International Justice Mission, and the ENOUGH Project.
RSVP to Suzanne@asweforgivemovie.com

Thursday, May 8th at 3 pm
The World Bank, Preston Auditorium
RSVP to: infoshopevents@worldbank.org

other child soldier resources

2008-04-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

From another friend:

Dear Atieno and friends,

Thanks for this information about Zion Project and the photo exhibit.

For those interested in other child soldiering organizations, I would recommend two compelling resources:

United Movement to End Child Soldiering( www.endchildsoldiering.org ) is an organization founded by my friend and attorney Art Serota which has been doing some excellent work especially in Uganda. A number of these child soldiers are studying peace. conflict resolution and development at universities!

An extraordinary visual resource is www.rwandaproject.org founded by the late David Jiranek which placed cameras in the hands of child soldiers and captured their realities in a most poignant way.

Take care,
Nazir

girl child soldiers' own photos - gallery opening

2008-04-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

A note from a friend:
This event marks the opening of a NEW kind of art gallery....One that wants to help change.

A collection of gripping photographs taken by girl child soldiers of Northern Uganda. Given disposable cameras by Zion Project, these girls photographed their own lives to show us how they live and what is important to them. Come and see what life is like through their eyes. Photographs for sale benefit girl child soldiers.

Admission is free. We're hoping to raise awareness and interest and inspire people to act.

717 N. St. Asaph St. Alexandria, VA (Old Town) 7-11 pm Friday April 25th.

insights from a gardener

2008-04-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

This little blog entry on gardening holds some secrets for sustaining resilience. Namely: 1. letting, not fighting, and 2. remaining present with the task of the moment.

Website especially for returned soldiers

2008-04-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

The Soldier's Heart website, run by Ed Tick, PhD, contains education materials, memorials, forums, and a different slant on PTSD as "Post Traumatic Soul disorder."

A blurb on Ed's latest book:
The key to healing post-traumatic stress disorder, says psychotherapist Ed Tick, is in how we understand PTSD. In war’s overwhelming violence, the soul—the true self—flees and can become lost for life. He redefines PTSD as a true identity disorder, with radical implications for therapy. First, Tick establishes the traditional context of war in mythology and religion. Then he describes in depth PTSD in terms of identity issues. Finally, drawing on world spiritual traditions, he presents ways to nurture a positive identity based in compassion and forgiveness. War and the Soul will change the way we think about war, for veterans and for all those who love and want to help them. It shows how to make the wounded soul whole again. When this work is achieved, PTSD vanishes and the veteran can truly return home.