A Healing Poem From Haiti
Nobody should die from diseases we know how to treat, but over 50,000 people die daily from them. Two UCSF Physicians have started a project called the HEAL Initiative that aims to address health workforce in resource poor communities, from Navajo Nation in New Mexico to Liberia and Haiti and India. They attempt to improve the quality of care, support and train local health professionals. This art... posted on Oct 22, 21747 reads

Public Art: A Path To Safer, Stronger Neighborhoods
Art that merges with the landscape brings human presence, safety, and physical activity into the city's spaces. This kind of art triggers more than one sense: it is something you move in, touch, and, in some cases, even eat. In Detroit, a spread-out city of single-family homes that is difficult to traverse and pockmarked by vacancy, these artistic interventions are an uncommonly powerful nexus of ... posted on Nov 21, 13724 reads

Skipping Lunch To Feed The Hungry
For Anton Cobb, inspiration came in the form of an online article telling of a girl whose family had benefited from a local food bank. The 32-year-old salesman then decided to turn that inspiration into a simple and creative way to help raise awareness and support for the Oregon Food Bank. Each Wednesday afternoon Cobb sacrifices buying his own lunch to donate to those in need. And sitting alone a... posted on Nov 15, 19840 reads

Healthy Habits of Heart & Mind In Leadership
As the world rapidly transforms around us each day, there is a growing need for us to create sustainable human communities. And in that vision, great leadership is paramount --leadership that not only calls for clarity of vision, but also a healthy dose of empathy that allows us to identify with, and understand, one another's situations, feelings, and motives. This article shares some healthy hab... posted on Nov 17, 17262 reads

Micro Moments Of Love
"Love is an emotion, a momentary state that arises to infuse your mind and body alike," writes Barbara Frederickson. Yet this transient state holds much promise beyond feeling good; love can be poignant in shaping perceptions of who we are, how we relate to the world, and even our health. Far from being a private event, love is an experience shared between people when they connect in the spirit of... posted on Dec 13, 33757 reads

Critical Steps To Integrating Life & Work
Often times we can feel overwhelmed by what we see as competing values: how can I be a good family member, a loving spouse, a supportive friend, pursue my hobbies and interests and maintain my career? For many of us integrating all of these elements into a fulfilling and rewarding personal life and career is difficult. Stewart D. Friedman's book, "Leading the Life You Want", gives insight on how t... posted on Dec 23, 25350 reads

What It Really Means To Live Our Mission
"How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say OK?" Maira Kalman asked in pondering happiness and existence. What is it that propels us to get up after loss, after heartbreak, after failure? That's precisely what the Reverend Victoria Safford explores in her essay "The Small Work in the Great Work."... posted on Dec 15, 23317 reads

The Fear And Anxiety Solution
If you live with fear and anxiety, you are not alone. Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S.-- more than 50 million people have been diagnosed with anxiety at some point throughout their lives. Thankfully, Friedemann Schaub gives anxiety sufferers a whole new way of looking at and addressing their condition in his book. He emphasizes that anxiety is the product of a limiting belief ... posted on Jan 14, 0 reads

Anne Lamott On Grief, Grace & Gratitude
In this sharp yet poignant piece, writer Anne Lamott reflects on mortality and what it means to be truly alive. She writes of her experience taking a walk with a friend who is dying, "First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors' reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living... posted on Dec 30, 37743 reads

The Art of Stillness
Giving up what seemed like an exhilarating life and a dream job in the heart of New York City, Pico Iyer made a pivotal decision by moving half way around the world and into the foothills of Kyoto, Japan. Gone was the hustle and bustle of a city that never sleeps, and found was a place that he felt afforded him a chance to find what he was looking for... stillness. For as Pico Iyer believes, it is... posted on Feb 25, 39834 reads

Stunning Images of the Power of Education
World-renowned photojournalist Steve McCurry has been one of the most influential voices in contemporary photography for more than thirty years. In this photo essay, McCurry takes you around the globe and offers up striking images of children and their learning environments, from Tanzania to Sri Lanka and from Mali to Peru. Enjoy these beautiful photos and the accompanying quotes on the power of e... posted on Jan 25, 21906 reads

The Forgiveness Of Unforgivable Acts
As a child, Sujatha Baliga experienced repeated abuse at the hands of her own father. The deep pain and trauma of her experience would spur her towards victim advocacy. She enrolled in law school determined to become a prosecutor and help punish the perpetrators of such crimes. But a personal crisis in India followed by a serendipitous sit-down with the Dalai Lama himself, changed everything. "Ho... posted on Jan 27, 45052 reads

34 Affirmations For Healthy Living
"When day-to-day life seems to revolve around providing for others, we can forget to nourish our own bodies and spirits. And yet, self-care is what empowers us to give back to the world, fully and joyfully. Start your practice by taking just a few moments each day to affirm your commitment to eat well and live a healthful life." Read on for a selection of inspiring everyday affirmations.... posted on Feb 2, 69520 reads

Three Benefits To Mindfulness At Work
We all know the benefits of mindfulness in our day. But, do we understand the link between our practice and our performance in the workplace? And is it possible to cultivate this moment to moment awareness in a 'bottom line' driven environment? In a recent study, researchers have found that the more mindful the supervisor, the lower their employees' emotional exhaustion and the higher their job sa... posted on Jan 16, 28567 reads

Free Hugs With Arie Moyal
Holidays can be a lonely and stressful time, particularly for those with mental health issues. Arie Moyal spends two weeks each year around the Christmas holidays providing support to travelers through free hugs. Virginia Satir, a noted family therapist, claimed that we need 4 hugs a day for survival; 8 hugs a day for maintenance; and 12 hugs a day for growth. And scientists have determined that o... posted on Dec 25, 2904 reads

The Gift Of Invisible Kindness
With a deep recognition of the legacy of kindness her parents passed on to her, Audrey Lin has made a life out of creating and sharing her own random acts of love and generosity. It is an approach that she says creates, "some giddiness in my heart." Read more on Audrey and her ongoing journey, including stories about a meaningful conversation with a homeless man, a three-day walking pilgrimage, an... posted on Feb 17, 21401 reads

Are You An Adrenaline Addict?
"The other day I was driving home and a text chimed in on my phone. It was one of those really important texts that makes you do stupid things like respond while you are driving. Which I nearly did. Instead, I pulled over, and started letting my fingers fly on the tiny keyboard...Before I could finish the text, I realized something interesting. I was actually addicted to that brief moment of relie... posted on Feb 11, 23036 reads

My Father's Gift
'Gift' is a short film that conveys a profound message on the importance of giving, and the true value of wealth. It illustrates how we touch others when we selflessly give of our time, love and kindness. 'Gift' is about a boy who grew up believing that his father was poor, unintelligent and unsuccessful. After his father's death however, the son discovers the true reach of his parent's generosit... posted on Mar 21, 6813 reads

A Brief History of Happiness
What happened to happiness? In the United States, we seem to have lost track of its true meaning, and instead come to see economic growth as synonymous with well being. Yet as Sarah van Gelder of Yes! Magazine reminds us, "Sustainable happiness is built on a healthy natural world and a vibrant and fair society...and cannot be achieved at the expense of others." What does sustainable happiness look... posted on Mar 13, 34506 reads

Living With Mystery In A Certainty-Obsessed Culture
In his book, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning, astrophysicist and philosopher Marcelo Gleiser explores the interface between our commitment to knowledge and our parallel flirtation with the mystery of the unknown. How has the progress of modern science compounded the perplexities and paradoxes of our quintessential human longing?... posted on Mar 16, 18729 reads

Opening Doors and Hearts
Opening a door is more than a physical act. It's about putting yourself out there, getting to know people, making them feel comfortable, and making them feel welcome. After being bullied, Josh Yandt decided to make a change that ultimately had a dramatic impact on his life and on the lives of his fellow students. Watch this sweet story of how the London, Ontario, high school paid forward Josh's ac... posted on Mar 29, 5370 reads

Before I Go: A Neurosurgeon's Final Reflections On Mortality
Einstein was one of the first to confirm that time and space are truly relative phenomena, and no where is relativity more palpable than in the operating room of a hospital. For neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, time as he knew it underwent a radical shift when he was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. From the rush of the operating room to the tortoise trudge of rest and uncertain recovery, Paul, ... posted on Mar 30, 66550 reads

Everybody Is Good At Something: Meeting VR Ferose
V. R. Ferose was a rising star at SAP in Bangalore when he first found out that his son Vivaan was on the Autism spectrum. He locked himself in his bathroom and cried for a half hour. His friend, on the other hand, congratulated him: "A lot of people struggle to find a purpose, but you're lucky that you purpose has found you." Indeed, Ferose and his wife found their purpose. "My wife...decided to ... posted on May 27, 28502 reads

What Makes A Great Workplace?
How many of us truly love our jobs? With longer work hours, and less opportunity for creativity and personal advancement - it's no wonder so many of us dread that Monday morning return to work. But, what alternatives do we have? It turns out - there are plenty. In his new book, The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace psychologist Ron Friedman explores the... posted on Apr 21, 193160 reads

What Does It Mean To Be Fully Human
"To be fully human is really to discover who I am ... To discover who I am is to discover also the unity between my head and my heart." Jean Vanier answers some "big questions" including "what does it mean to be fully human"-- questions that are the hallmark of the Templeton Prize. Vanier is the 2015 Templeton Prize Laureate for his work with L'Arche, a revolutionary international network of commu... posted on Apr 5, 6011 reads

The Blind Man & Armless Friend Who Planted Over 10,000 Trees
"Looking at the lush, green, tree-filled stretch of land north of the Yeli Village in China, it's hard to imagine that just 12 years ago, those plains were filled with nothing but rocks and weeds. This miraculous transformation is all thanks to the hard work and dedication of an elderly blind man named Jia Haixia and his friend Jia Wenqi, a double amputee with no arms. For more than 10 years, the ... posted on Apr 27, 30639 reads

Once-Homeless Man Revolutionizing Care for the Homeless
"Barsema remembered what it was like to be homeless and at the end of his rope. He'd faced a series of challenges early in life -- he'd lost everything after a struggle with alcoholism cost him his marriage, his home, and his real estate business. That led him to a mountaintop in Alaska, where he meant to commit suicide." Luckily, Barsema's parents took him in and helped him slowly bounce back. Fi... posted on Jun 4, 14339 reads

Life Starts at the Edge of Our Comfort Zone
"The sounds of a dance tune blast through the carriage and the man erupts into dance. Half smiles, awkward glances. But then one lady gets up and joins him. A man joins them. Others stand up, hesitantly at first but then exploding into uninhibited dance. Soon virtually everyone is up dancing. Smiles shine out as strangers dance through the train. Barriers drop, fears evaporate and joy emanates." V... posted on Jun 3, 24259 reads

The Cross Road of Should & Must
"When we choose Should, we're choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, the rewards can seem clear, and the options are often plentiful...Must is different. Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It's that which calls to us most deeply. It's our convictions, our ... posted on Jul 1, 15718 reads

Start Before You Feel Ready
"Start now, just get on and do it." That's the sort of advice given by billionaire, Richard Branson -- and, his life is a testimony to this simple principle. In fact, Branson has started so many new adventures in his life -- businesses, charities, and expeditions - that it's unlikely he ever felt "ready" to start any of them. But, isn't that sometimes what makes the difference? Forging ahead in l... posted on Jun 25, 24657 reads

Jacob Needleman on Money and the Meaning of Life
How do we bridge the inner realm of spirit with the outer world of material? Writer and philosopher Jerry Needleman has been pondering this question (and many others) for years. Here in a fascinating dialogue he shares his perspectives on "Money and the Meaning of Life."... posted on Jul 4, 6496 reads

A Common Humanity: A Conversation with Bob Sadler
I began thinking, What am I doing this for? And I just stopped and relaxed. Something shifted in me and I took in the moment. I saw what was in front of me. Sadler describes the moment that marked a turning point and led to the remarkable story detailed here, of how Sadlers photos of homeless men have been transforming lives.... posted on Jun 13, 16087 reads

The Gift of Being Sincerely Enthusiastic
Here's a seemingly simple question: Which type of individual would you rather hang out with -- a positive, fun-loving person, or a mean-spirited, highly critical and negative person? As best seller author and blogger Gretchen Rubin sees it -- and further backed up by studies -- the answer for many is surprisingly not as cut and dry as you might think. Enjoy her eye-opening take on this ongoing bat... posted on Jun 18, 14043 reads

Building a Reading Revolution
As more and more people obsessively stare into their smart phones and tablets, the world seemingly grows a little more disconnected. But the folks at The Reader Organization, an award-winning charity and social enterprise, have gone about reversing that trend by offering to get people together to simply read aloud to each other. The benefits of this straightforward exercise are quite evident: impr... posted on Jul 3, 10154 reads

One Hundred Thank Yous
For a year and a half, artist Lori Portka painted her gratitude through individual pieces of art for 100 people who have made a difference in her life. In her effort to truly live a life of gratitude, Lori learned that gratitude grows, and grows, and grows. "The more that I focused on gratitude, the more I was grateful for." This beautiful film captures Lori's motivation and some of the reactions ... posted on Jul 5, 5376 reads

Can Compassion Change the World?
In this year of his 80th birthday, the Dalai Lama has collaborated with psychologist and bestselling "Emotional Intelligence" author Daniel Goleman to issue a call to action for creating a more compassionate world. To write "A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama's Vision for Our World," Daniel Goleman synthesized cutting-edge research from places like Stanford, Emory, and the University of Wisconsin to... posted on Jul 9, 20685 reads

We Can't Eat GDP
What does GDP - gross domestic product - fail to account for? When we really start to dig into the numbers, we find that this long-held standard for a country's "success" ignores many of the positives (and negatives) that determine a population's welfare and well-being. But new possibilities are already out there. Lorenzo Fioramonti shares exciting ideas for new measurements of progress, and what ... posted on Aug 22, 13458 reads

Surprising Lessons from Nature's Engineers
Biomimicry is the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. In this eye-opening Ted Talk, Janine Benyus offers up some incredible insight into the fast-growing world of biomimicry and all the promise it holds for humankind. As Benyus states in her talk, "Learning "about" the natural world is one thing; learning "from" the nat... posted on Aug 19, 9927 reads

Three Tricks to Help Find Your Flow
As more and more things continue to drain and distract our attention, it is imperative that we uncover ways to gain back our focus. In this inspiring article, Dr. Christine Carter, author of "The Sweet Spot," details three tricks to help create an environment that is relaxed, comfortable and productive, versus a mental state that is filled with anxiety and stress.... posted on Aug 21, 30533 reads

The Importance of Swapping Screen Time For Sunshine
In How to Raise a Wild Child, Dr. Scott D. Sampson asserts that topophilia, a love of place, is the key to restoring sustainability on our planet. As chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and host of the PBS KIDS television series Dinosaur Train, he argues that the current disconnect between kids and the natural world is a threat to their physical, mental, and emotional health. ... posted on Sep 3, 17574 reads

How One Artist Is Transforming Fear
"Julie Elman, like many artists, struggles with fear of the blank page. The creative process demands risk-taking, resilience, and messiness. An associate professor of visual communication at Ohio University, Elman understood the expectation to practice what she preached. To move beyond her fear and to explore what she was teaching her students, she conceived the Fear Project. People submit their f... posted on Sep 17, 9891 reads

Wendell Berry on How to Be a Poet
"Although poetry itself exerts a singular power over the human spirit... it is hardly a power that comes easily to the poet." In his poem, titled "How to Be a Poet (to remind myself)," the wise and wonderful poet Wendell Berry reminds us of the "vitalizing power of silence and stillness and self-refinement" which are so essential to being a poet, an artist of any kind, and really, a complete human... posted on Oct 17, 14972 reads

Understanding The People We Serve
While there is a huge appetite in development agencies for quantitative data on objective things like health, wealth and education, data on what people actually think lags far behind. And when the United Nations and the Overseas Development Institute finally asked 7.5 million people around the world about their priorities for themselves and their families., more than 80 per cent felt that what hap... posted on Sep 27, 5577 reads

Children Who Shine From Within
In this moving tribute to her daughter, Rachel Macy Stafford reminds us to look for the light within all children. "And it's that time -- time for back-to-school outfits, team tryouts, classroom assessments, and after school clubs. The Butterflies will be noticed. So brilliant. So colorful. Their talents so obvious. But let us not forget the Fireflies. Their triumphs are quiet and unsuspecting. Th... posted on Oct 4, 32825 reads

Walking the World at Three Miles an Hour
Polly Letofsky is the only woman to have walked across the world. She started in 1999 and took over five years. She tells, in an amazing interview, how you need to walk across at least four continents, cover at least 14,000 miles, and get signatures along the way of people who see you walk every day. She got into the Guinness Book of World Records but her own personal motivation was "to discover t... posted on Oct 1, 10233 reads

Leave No Child Inside
In the face-off between children's need for nature and the planet's growing need for more housing, one child, Richard Louv, fought urbanization of his cherished woods, then grew up to write a book about it -- "Last Child in the Woods." A developer who read it was "profoundly disturbed," joined a children-and-nature movement that grows in every arena, from conservation and health to urban design an... posted on Sep 22, 6860 reads

Leadership Lessons From Specially Abled Children
"I was of course at that time focusing on autism specifically. I kind of had a personal understanding of the situation. That led to a very interesting conversation with a very dear friend from Denmark, Thorkil Sonne, who also had a son with autism and who started a software company where all his employees were people on the spectrum. I met him, I tried to understand the model that he is working on... posted on Oct 10, 9039 reads

7200 Kites Flying for Peace and Dignity
This short excerpt from the feature documentary film, Flying Paper, is an uplifting story of Palestinian children in Gaza engaged in the age-old tradition of kite making and flying. The driving narrative of the film centers on a remarkable quest, but showcases the determination and artistic expression of the youth that come together to achieve a shared goal. This quest is a beautiful form of creat... posted on Sep 30, 2696 reads

Goethe's Poems for the Skies
"Since the dawn of our species, the water cycle's most visible expression in the skies --[clouds]-- has bewitched artists, poets, and scientists [...] as a beautiful natural metaphor for the philosophy that there in an inherent balance to life, that what we give will soon be replenished." Here, we read about the "singular quality of prayerfulness to clouds -- a certain secular reverence undergird... posted on Nov 5, 16467 reads

The Little Gardener: A Parable On The Power of Working with Love
"The Little Gardener" is a picture book by Emily Hughes, which is "at heart a parable of purpose -- tender assurance for anyone who has ever undertaken a labor of love against seemingly insurmountable odds and persevered through hardship, continuing to nourishing that labor until the love emanates out, becomes contagious, and draws in kindred spirits as a centripetal force of shared purpose and en... posted on Nov 19, 7412 reads