Until we redefine prosperity, consumption will continue to drive us down a destructive path (from Joe Tegerdine). People are going to fly to vacation spots to sit in the sun to get a tan, a bit annoyed when all the smoke blocks the sun and they have to move hotels
Continue readingTag: mindfulness
A Puff of Absurdity: A Buddhist Perspective on Addiction: Nothing is Vital.
Now that the hangover from New Year’s Eve is abating for many, and we might be freshly open to some self-improvement, consider a Buddhist view of using meditation to tackle addictions. I don’t just mean for substance abuse, but also for that incessant drive to check social media just once
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Trying to Find Peace with Prem Rawat
Since falling into a pandemic funk, I’ve tried a variety of books and videos to try to get a little inner stillness in order to continue to function. Omicron and our region’s rising numbers aren’t helping matters! I’m crap at meditating, but Healthy Gamer’s course (my notes) came the closest to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Burnout
Dr. Alok Kanojia is a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment. His videos are fantastic for some everyday issues as well, like this one on burnout. The most impactful line from this video is that burnout tends to happen when, “people who want to do a good job are placed
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Stressed? Read This. Amygdala Highjacking – A Few Brief Thoughts
When under great stress, or when in great fear, our biological fight or flight response is triggered strongly, the amygdala is highjacked, which then highjacks our frontal cortex and our brain, and destroys both our peace, and also our capacity for rational thought. Knowing how to respond to, or better,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Buddhism: Surface & Depth; Or, Big Mind & Baby Minds
Buddhist meditation and mindfulness are very popular now, and have become mainstream. Hospitals, churches and secular classes are now offering meditation and mindfulness training and practice. That is a good thing, and it need not go with any kind of religious conversion; and in Western popular Buddhism, generally it does
Continue readingThings Are Good: You Make Choices to Have a Good Life
How you think about the world around will influence what you do in the world, which in turn impacts how you react to what’s happening around you. It’s a cycle, and you can influence it. Positive thinking won’t work, instead you can use tried and tested ways to better your
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Meta-Analysis of Well Being Reveals how to Help Your Mental Health
Many people are feeling worn out, down, and stressed after living through a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. People in nations which reacted swiftly and took scientific approaches to containing the spread are doing better, but those of us in areas with poor leadership (I’m in “Conservative” Ontario) the pandemic
Continue readingThings Are Good: Practicing Mindfulness Reduces Bias
Mindfulness training can reduce the biases one has according to a new paper published today in Nature. The researchers had a control group which was given a bias test but received no mindfulness training, the other group got training and then tested. The results are clear: being mindful can reduce
Continue readingThings Are Good: Be More Successful by Practicing Self Awareness
Self awareness helps in many aspects of one’s life, from romance to learning new things; it can also help you be successful in your professional life too. Let’s be honest though, self awareness is hard and is something that needs to be practiced everyday. Over at Fast Company they put
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: The Importance & Complexity of Compassionate Caregiving
It is my pleasure to host this guest post from author Christian Worstell on the subject of compassionate caregiving. Can compassion in caring be taught and learned? Or, is it a talent that is either in us, or not? Read on. Photo Credit: Pexels What do you think of when
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Seligman’s Hope Circuit
Martin Seligman is famous for a learned helplessness study I wrote about a few years back: In a famous experiment, dogs were put in a compartment and trained to jump a barrier when given an electric shock. After one or two tries, the dogs jumped the barrier immediately after being
Continue readingThings Are Good: Mindful People Experience Less Pain Than Others
Mindfulness is all the rage right now and for good reason, the benefits of being able to be aware of yourself and your impact on others are great. Mindfulness has a lot in common with metacognition insofar that it provokes self-awareness and the more you practice it the better you
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: MINDFUL PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE CAREGIVER
In photography, mindfulness is like observing something for the first time, even though you may have looked at it a thousand times before. For example, when you’ve been away from home for a long period, and then, upon returning, you suddenly notice things to which you had become so accustomed
Continue readingThings Are Good: Practicing Meditation Changes Your Brain and Sense of Self
Achieving mindfulness through mediation can help you relax and even assist you in achieving a more fulfilling life. Recent fMRI studies have shown that this can be proven by looking at the brain itself; indeed, structures inside your brain tend to alter based on how much meditation one does! This
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Pie and Goldblum on Trump’s Win
Two videos for a Saturday: Jonathan Pie argues that the left is responsible for this result because they’ve given up putting up any argument at all: “Clinton…a candidate who’s been dry-humping corporations for years….They didn’t vote for her because she offered no palpable change whatsoever….She represented very little.” But more
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: Caregiver Stress Eating Never Satisfies
I remember when Nicholas was young and in the hospital most of the time. Many times, his life hung in the balance. Jim tagged teamed shifts in the hospital when he could, but being the unemployed parent, I did most of the bedside care. And the worrying…
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: Caregiver Stress Eating Never Satisfies
I remember when Nicholas was young and in the hospital most of the time. Many times, his life hung in the balance. Jim tagged teamed shifts in the hospital when he could, but being the unemployed parent, I did most of the bedside care. And the worrying…
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: THIS WORKED TO QUIET MY MIND
Once, I tried relaxation exercises. I was hopeless. In an earlier life, I was an acting student and for actors, it’s important to relax your body and focus intently on listening to others. For me, there was something infuriating about being told to lie still and concentrate on my breathing.
Continue readingmark a rayner: The Digital Sabbath, or Why I Never Reply to Your Emails on Saturday
If it’s Saturday and you’re reading this, I am far away from you. That’s because every week, I unplug and celebrate what I call the digital sabbath. I know, I know, it’s kind of blasphemous, but it is the best way to think about the activity of disconnecting from the Internet to
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