… Every person is divided. Part of us is on our own side optimistic, and confident in our goals and abilities. Another part of us is against ourselves, self-critical, and even self-destructive. In this short presentation, Dr. Lisa Firestone explains this division. Why do we turn against ourselves? What holds us back from being who we really are and accomplishing what we seek to accomplish? …
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In her interview with PsychAlive Senior Editor Lisa Firestone, Dr. Donna Rockwell talks about becoming enlightened. Watch or read the interview below. Woody Allen has this great line where he says that everybody’s already happy, only they don’t know it. You know, and that’s what I say, too. Everyone’s already enlightened, only they don’t know it. And you know when you get in the plane and it’s cloudy and dark and you say, “What an awful day this…
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…t-breath, notice a small gap, a space in time, before the in-breath occurs. 11. Repeat the process of maintaining attention on the breath as it goes out and dissolves. 12. When you find yourself lost in a thought: “What should we have for dinner?” for example, or if you feel an emotion like anger or envy, or even joy, silently, within your mind, simply label that thought, “thinking,” and bring your attention back, very gently, to the out-breath as…
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In her interview with PsychAlive Senior Editor Lisa Firestone, Dr. Donna Rockwell talks about how to introduce young children to mindfulness. Watch or read the interview below. Donna Rockwell: So, in parenting children, in Buddhist psychology they talk about the five senses as the five sense gates. So we actually experience life through tasting and smelling and how things feel, what they sound like, what they taste like. And we’re actually living…
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In her interview with PsychAlive Senior Editor Lisa Firestone, Dr. Donna Rockwell talks about optimal parenting. Watch or read the interview below. But really, the best that we can teach them is by being interested in them as people. And instead of saying I need you to be a doctor or a lawyer or a candle maker, to discover, what do you love about life and what’s interesting to you and what do you want to be, you know, tell me. And they are born a…
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The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about Terror Management Theory as it relates to moral courage. SS: The term moral courage I got actually from taking my kids to see the movie Little Women, when it was used in reference to the transcendentalists. And I’ve always found it – I like the term and I didn’t realize because I’m ignorant I didn’t realize…
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…Schneider. Dr. Kirk Schneider – Awakening to Awe, Gang Leader to Advocate Lisa Firestone: So in your book about Awakening to Awe you tell different stories of people’s experiences with awe and I was wondering if maybe you could recount one of those or think of one or an example of that. Kirk Schneider: Well, one example is the life of Jim Hernandez, who is a former gang leader in the Bay Area and who’s now a youth advocate and a gang mediator and…
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The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about a New York State program for economically and academically disadvantaged kids. So New York State has a program for economically and academically disadvantaged kids. And they pay for half and Skidmore pays for the other half. And these are kids, you know, from every kind of horrible background imaginable. Yo…
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The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon describes the elements of an ideal society. SS:And so here, if I recall accurately, we talk about three things: borrowing heavily from Becker, where he said, “OK, first and foremost, is, you know, does the culture provide for the material needs of its constituents, given its current level of technology and access to na…
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The following transcript contains part of an exclusive interview with Dr. Lisa Firestone and Dr. Sheldon Solomon. Sheldon Solomon talks about the empathic nature of human beings. LF: It’s interesting because I’m reading a book by Sara Hardy, she’s a cultural anthropologist and I love this. And we really are social creatures. And we really do care about what other people think and feel around us. That’s that how we evolved to be. SS: Agreed. And I…
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