af·fec·tive (adj): relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions pros·per·i·ty (noun): a successful, flourishing, or thriving condition Affective Prosperity is the principal that all of our authentic emotions and feelings add a texture and richness to life, and can be a creative force to be drawn upon to…
No one is sure of the exact origin of the Rain Stick. Ancient versions of the percussion instrument have been found in Africa, pre-Mayan Peru and with the Aztecs in Mexico. They have been discovered among the artifacts of the Diaguita people of northern Chile and Argentina, as well as…
The New York Times Magazine recently published a story about a fisherman who fell off his lobster boat in the middle of the night, forty miles from Long Island. No one knew where John Aldridge had fallen off or when. It was hours before anyone discovered he was missing and…
(portions of this article first appeared on positive psychology news daily: http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/sean-doyle/2013032525681) In my first post on this topic, I concluded that in the face of hardship, injustice or deep trauma, the only answer was love and holding even tighter to kindness. This seems naive, trite. However whether in the…
What good are words? Can there ever be a poetry that saves nations or people? Abraham Joshua Heschel pointed out that “the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria, with tanks and guns. It began with uttering evil words, with defamation, with language and propaganda. Words create worlds.”
. . . and when everything feels like it is too much, when the full density of world is slipping loose from tired fingers and there is just so much that you do not know, let yourself breathe, breathe into the realization that: I do not understand; I do not…
Sometimes things in life happen that shatter your world. I am not talking about those expected traumas, as raw and difficult as they may be: The death of a loved one or the way time starts our decay while we are still conscious and breathing. Even if we have banished…
Today’s news is filled with the devastation and havoc caused by Typhoon Haiyan. Current estimates are that there at over 10,000 dead. Ten Thousand. That is a holy number. In the Tao Te Ching, 10,000 is meant to refer to something innumerable, too large to count. It is also a…
Resilience
** This post first appeared on Positive Psychology News Daily. Forgiveness. Mercy. Prudence. Modesty. The strengths of temperance don’t get as much attention as our more muscular qualities. Yet in a certain sense, maybe this cluster of strengths enables every other strength, and thus makes the good life possible. Excitement…