Trees – The Iconic Metaphors for Resilience

Grass pushing up through concrete has always been such a powerful, universal symbol of resilience. Trees manifest that same spirit of life surviving and thriving under the most difficult of circumstances.

September 3, 2020

When You Find You’re Weary…

Most everyone is getting a bit weary these days. And poets still offer their lessons, from all of these struggles, in endurance, perseverance, determination, grit.

August 27, 2020

Poems That Stir the Heart and Shake Up the Soul

Poetry can be thought-provoking, inspiring, heart-breaking and heart-opening, even redemptive when shared among friends.

August 7, 2020

Karuna-Virus: Compassionate Connection and Radical Change

Ernest Skelton, an appliance technician, arrived at Caroline Brock’s home for a routine service call in Myrtle Beach, SC expecting to do his job and leave. However, when Brock, a white woman, asked Skelton what his experience was as a Black man living in the USA, the encounter was anything but routine.

July 14, 2020

One Petunia, One Voice, One Huge Redemptive Truth

Some days, when I get overwhelmed, I focus on just one petunia blooming in my garden. Not the whole garden. One petunia, blooming its heart out, manifesting the miraculous life force of all the petunias in the world.

July 13, 2020

Tiny Glimmers of Joy and Love Build Resilience, Too

Just when I was feeling a little bit more than weary….

July 1, 2020

Finding an Upward Spiral of Resilience…Even in the Hardest of Times

Practical and doable suggestions from Barbara Frederickson’s positivity toolkit

July 16, 2020

Decision Fatigue

Our brain, our CEO of resilience, can get fatigued when it has been coping with dilemmas and making decisions all day.

July 15, 2020

Love in Action

Enduring the sheltering in place is still “love in action.”

July 6, 2020

Free Guided Practice – Create a Resource of Safety Before the Flak Hits the Fan

We can create many resources for resilience as we go through our days, imagining and rehearsing them ahead of time

July 30, 2020

Free Guided Practice – How You Respond to the Issue…Is the Issue

I teach how you respond to the issue…is the issue all the time because it is true, all the time.  And then I teach how to shift our responses to any issue…

July 20, 2020

Recovering from Feeling Badly about Less-than-Resilient Coping

Use guided imagination to radically re-frame your view of yourself in moment of less-than-proud-of behaviors and less-than-resilient coping.

June 10, 2020

My Grandmother’s Hands

The New York Times best-seller My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Hearts and Bodies is one of the best books on trauma ever, especially about the multi-generational transmission of trauma.

August 24, 2020

I’m Hiding, Please See Me; Unmasking Shame

Excerpts and exercises from Dr. Nikki Rollo’s excellent article on healing shame.

August 17, 2020

Racism Is Terrible. Blackness Is Not

A deft and delicate balance of truths – scathing and uplifting at the same time – in the September 2020 Atlantic by Imani Perry, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. 

August 10, 2020

We Make a Decision…and Then They Change the Rules

A common lament these days…

July 27, 2020

Let This Young Black Woman’s Voice Be the One You Listen to Today

Christabel Nunoo gives voice to the truth of the pain and anger of young black men and women today.

June 24, 2020

The Whole Debacle in Less than 15 Seconds

Relating resiliently to just one person at a time can be hard; negotiating relationships between groups of people can be even harder.

June 22, 2020

What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others – Resilience for the Long Haul

Excellent recommendations from research in trauma, resilience, and post-traumatic growth. From New York Times, June 21, 2020.

June 29, 2020

Othering Is Everywhere

The evolutionary, neurobiological underpinnings of “us v. them” and resources to radically over-ride that programming.

June 17, 2020

Am I Doing Enough Right Now?

How we find the energy, the resilience, the determination to stay on course, working diligently to bring more equality, opportunity, justice to this complex country of ours.

June 15, 2020

Resilience 2.0: Compassion, Clarity, and Courage…

Resilience is foundational to shifting our responses to danger and life threat, to changing our world when the very fabric of that world is threatened.

Ongoing

The Hard Issues the Pandemic Is Back Burnering

The coronavirus pandemic has back-burnered many other social-political-health issues for the time being, perhaps rightfully so, but sadly so.

May 26, 2020

ABC’s of Working with Difficult Emotions

Just daily living evokes many emotions throughout the day anyway, and especially in a time of great disruption and change like the current pandemic, we experience some emotion or another every single moment of the day. 

May 15, 2020

Sounds True

Healing Racism: Embracing Diversity in Our Personal Lives, Our Communities, Our World

3-part series

Diversity and Inclusivity

Excellent resources from Oren Jay Sofer to resiliently and effectively learn and practice diversity and inclusivity in the face of the divisions and hostilities so evident right now in our common human enterprise.

June 18, 2020

Internationally revered meditation teacher Tara Brach has posted her own Anti-Racism Resources page with many excellent guided meditations

Ongoing

CPR for the Amygdala

The links here provide the most accessible introductions I have found to the simple yet powerful tools of “havening” and “rhythms of regulation” to be-friend and calm the nervous system.

July 8, 2020

Now More than Ever…Inspiration from the Arts

Music and dance have explored and expressed every facet of human life – deep joys, sorrows, struggles and triumphs – ever since there has been human life on this planet. Not a luxury, but rich re-Sourcing in the most challenging as well as the most ebullient of times.

Ongoing

Greater Good Science Center 

Resilience and Coping

Ongoing