Category: Mindset

The Healing Potential of Poetry

Poetry offers a unique outlet for our creativity. It can let us bring expression to beautiful memories, or share something on a more essential level. Magdalena Montagne knows the value of poetry through her own experience as a frequent writer and published author with a degree in literature. Now she’s trying to help the elderly,…


What Would You Do If You Only Had a Short Time to Live?

It’s hard, from within the storm of everyday life, to see things with real perspective, to know what’s important and what’s simply pressing on our consciousness right now, demanding attention. We have people emailing us for information and requesting action, we have phone calls and visitors and a long to-do list and a million chores…


Gardening Is Good for Your Microbes, Muscles, and Mood

There are few activities more nourishing for both body and soul than planting and tending a garden. Gardeners have long known that the physical process of working with soil, water, and sunlight to coax a tiny seed through the miracle of growth and maturity has effects that go well beyond the pleasure of eating a…


Zen of Busy: Continual Letting Go When You’re Overwhelmed

These past two weeks have been hectic and exhausting for me. My wife’s father passed away, and I’ve been in non-stop planning, coordinating, cooking, cleaning, driving around mode. Yesterday was the funeral, and it was a long, tiring and busy day. Incredibly sad, but busy. In the midst of this busyness, I’ve been trying to remember…


Life After Loss

Two months earlier, Mita’s partner had died suddenly. “I hate this. I hate it so much. When will it get better?” she asked. Her plea carried the familiar chest-crushing tune of grief. As a widow of three years, I knew too well that the truth would seem incongruous if not insulting. So all I said…


Becoming Resilient in the Face of Grief

Two months earlier, Mita’s partner had died suddenly. “I hate this. I hate it so much. When will it get better?” she asked. Her plea carried the familiar chest-crushing tune of grief. As a widow of three years, I knew too well that the truth would seem incongruous if not insulting. So all I said…


Mindfulness Practices Are Becoming the Backbone of Disordered Eating Programs

The complication of disordered eating is that food cannot be avoided, unlike the source of other addictive behaviors. It’s a delicate mental illness that hides on the fringes of a diet-obsessed culture driven to focus on the exterior. Yet experts are finding that shifting exceedingly to psychology—particularly the practice of mindfulness—is altering the success rate…


Can Mindfulness Really Change Your Brain?

Meditation and other mindfulness practices may improve your attention, but they won’t lead to structural changes in your brain in the short-term, according to a new study. Previous studies have shown that learning new skills, aerobic exercise and balance training could trigger changes in the brain, and some research has suggested that mindfulness regimens could…


The Nocebo Effect

Most people are probably familiar with the placebo effect, but may not be aware of its less popular cousin, and opposite, the nocebo effect. According to the latest research, this mysterious phenomenon is perhaps more prevalent than many people realize, even medical professionals. Let’s define them both. The placebo effect occurs when someone is receiving…


The Challenge of Doing Hard Challenges

This year, I’m doing a series of 40-day discomfort challenges, as a way to continue my training in falling in love with discomfort and uncertainty. It’s a training I’ve been doing for 1 1/2 decades now, but I’ve been deepening into it even more in the last 5 years. And now I train others in…