van der Kolk and On Being's Krista Tippett KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: The psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk is an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences on people and society. We call this “trauma” when we encounter it in life and news, and we tend to leap to address it by talking. But Bessel van der Kolk knows how some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can reach. He explores state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments, including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy. He’s been a leading researcher of traumatic stress since it first became a diagnosis in the wake of the Vietnam War, and from there, was applied to ot... posted on Oct 20 2017 (1,558 reads)

divorced. Then twenty years later, it dawned on me that I was well past the midpoint of life, and I realized I was afraid. I'm kind of a bull-by-the-horns kind of person, so the catalyst for the project was a comment of my partner's mother when she was in her eighties. She and her husband are booksellers. She said, "People are always asking us when are you going to retire." I liked the idea. It was very tangible and upbeat, and I started interviewing people over eighty who worked. Everything I learned about these remarkable people I was meeting and from my own research completely contradicted all these notions I had about what it would like to be that old, about immobil... posted on Feb 22 2018 (13,918 reads)

Harrod Buhner is an award-winning author of 22 books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers that include Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. He says that the greatest influence on his work, however, has been his great-grandfather, C.G. Harrod, who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911. Buhner, who says his DNA prevents him from working for others, has been a fulltime therapist in pri... posted on Mar 9 2018 (25,026 reads)

a life as they come,” she says. Then her brother-in-law, the CEO of Monsanto at the time, gave her a gift that would transform her life: $5,000 to use as she pleased. She had always been interested in personal development and human consciousness, so when he made the suggestion that she use the money to learn from the best coaches he knew, psychologists Gay and Katie Hendricks, she jumped on the opportunity. After studying with the Hendrickses for a decade and taking their work into a business context, Chapman is now one of the world’s foremost experts on conscious leadership. In 2014, she co-authored the influential book “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Lea... posted on Feb 13 2019 (8,586 reads)

I Skype Maria, it’s one of the last warm autumn days in Melbourne, and one of the last cold nights in Brooklyn. Maria’s face appears on my screen, beaming. She is standing up, looking down at her iPad, which is resting flat on her desk. It gives me the feeling that I’m looking up through the screen, all the way into her Brooklyn apartment. “I hope it’s OK with you that I’m standing up,” she says. “It’s just that I can never work sitting down. I can’t be that still. It makes me uncomfortable.” “It’s so nice to see some sunlight,” she says. “It’s so dark and gloomy here in Brook... posted on Feb 17 2019 (9,182 reads)

which is the highest possible level. Christian currently trains correctional institutions, sports teams, and organizations in the practical application of his Yield Theory anger management program, and with Sound True, Dr. Christian Conte has written a new book called Walking Through Anger. In this conversation with Christian Conte he explains Yield Theory and the three steps: listen, validate, explore options. It sounds simple, but in my experience, it’s pretty deep work and hard to master. Here’s my conversation with a gifted guide, Dr. Christian Conte: To begin with, Christian, I’`d love if you could share with our listeners how you became an ang... posted on Feb 9 2020 (6,493 reads)

the cancer had already spread to his bones, leaving him in considerable pain. After a biopsy the surgeon said he had three to six months left to live but never one to succumb to despair, he continued to live as fully as possible for another three and a half years. During this time our love only grew as our family united in providing life sustaining love and support. Our son Aaron and his wife Jan moved across the country from Los Angeles to be present for us in New Jersey, giving up their work and their lives there, with Aaron flying home immediately and Jan driving across the country with their belongings and our two grand-dogs, Annie and Reggie, in tow. Our daughter Gail lived nearby... posted on Feb 14 2020 (4,885 reads)

is also a place of potential transformation. As you enter the bardo, there facing you is the Buddha Akshobhya. His element is Water. He is holding a mirror, for his gift is Mirror Wisdom, reflecting everything just as it is. And the teaching of Akshobhya’s mirror is this: Do not look away. Do not avert your gaze. Do not turn aside. This teaching clearly calls for radical attention and total acceptance. For the last forty years, I’ve been growing a form of experiential group work called the Work That Reconnects. It is a framework for personal and social change in the face of overwhelming crises—a way of transforming despair and apathy into collaborative action. Like... posted on Oct 1 2020 (20,790 reads)

become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org. You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Mark Wolynn. Mark is the director of The Family Constellation Institute, The Inherited Trauma Institute, and The Hellinger Institute of Northern California. His book, It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, is the winner of the 2016 Silver Nautilus Book Award in Psychology. Mark specializes in working with depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, fears, panic disorders, self-injury, chronic pain, and persistent symptoms and conditions. In this conversation, we talk about how unexplained ... posted on Dec 4 2020 (10,530 reads)

follows is the transcript syndicated from an OnBeing interview between Krista Tippett, Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. You can listen to the audio version of the interview here.  Krista Tippett: If you have listened to On Being for any period of time, you have probably heard me invoke Rainer Maria Rilke. His works of prose and poetry are enduringly beloved — the Sonnets to Orpheus; the Duino Elegies; the Book of Hours. But none of his words have carried more persistently across time than his Letters to a Young Poet. It’s a small volume of ten letters Rilke wrote between 1903 and 1908 to a young military cadet and would-be poet, named ... posted on Jul 9 2021 (4,626 reads)

at a homeless shelter in the Bronx, and, later that night, at Lincoln Center. He remembers wishing so fervently that he could join the words and lives in those two rooms. Enter 2020, and Bryan Doerries found that amphitheater that could bring disparate worlds together — we call it Zoom. And now Theater of War is launching a new form of global amphitheater for the world ahead, in conjunction with the first ever Nobel Prize Summit on the civilizational issues facing humanity. This work is such a vivid example of a time-tested gift our world possesses towards grieving and healing and growing, and I’m delighted to shine a light on it. I’m Krista Tippett, and this i... posted on Feb 27 2022 (3,278 reads)

Moscow to Ghana to Tahrir Square. So, you know, I’m always interested in where the inquiries and passions that you hold, that you follow, were planted in your early life, in your childhood. And, you know, I see you as much as a historian as a journalist. And I know, for example, that you are a grandchild of Holocaust survivors. So I don’t know if that is a place you would start, or what else occurs to you when you think about this — the early seeds of what you’re working on now. Gal Beckerman:Yeah, that’s fascinating to think about. [laughs] One finds interests and curiosities, and sometimes it’s difficult to sort of, to go deep enough beneath t... posted on Apr 18 2022 (6,811 reads)

books include Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Drawing on the Artist Within, the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook, and Color: Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors.  The 4th revised edition of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain was published in 2015.  Dr. Edwards' books have been translated into 18 foreign languages.   In this interview with two academic researchers, she responds to some of the most salient questions about her life and her work. 1)           Michael Shaughnessy/Cynthia Kleyn-Kennedy (MFS/CKK): From reading your book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brai... posted on Jul 9 2023 (2,736 reads)

a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity? In some employment environments, the answer is yes, according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant. Grant has devoted significant chunks of his professional career to examining what motivates workers in settings that range from call centers and mail-order pharmacies to swimming pool lifeguard squads. In all these situations, Grant says, employees who know how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don't; they are vastly more productive, too. That conclusion may sound touchy-feely, but Grant has docum... posted on May 15 2012 (33,829 reads)

host: I'm Krista Tippett. Earlier this year, the TerriSchiavo case raised ethical and medical questions that remain long after her death. But the media and political frenzy around her tragedy focused on the right to life. Missing in that debate was a real attention to the quality and the meaning of death. My guest today, Joan Halifax, works as a kind of midwife to dying people. She'll speak this hour about what she's learned and how she lives differently after three decades accompanying others to the final boundary of human life. She says that Americans often think of death as a failure.  Today, we'll explore her very different per... posted on Jun 5 2013 (25,789 reads)

idea of fulfilling work—a job that reflects our passions, talents and values—is a modern invention. Open Dr. Johnson's celebrated Dictionary, published in 1755, and the word “fulfilment” doesn't even appear. But today our expectations are higher, which helps explain why job satisfaction has declined to a record low of 47 percent in the U.S., and is even lower in Europe. If you count yourself amongst those who are unhappy in their job, or at least have that occasional niggling feeling that your work and self are out of alignment, how are you supposed to go about finding a meaningful career? What does it take to overcome the fear of cha... posted on Aug 8 2013 (52,460 reads)

ago, you were talking about your grandfather and how important he was to you.   CS:  He was pretty impressive partly because he had no teeth left in his mouth, but he refused to wear his dentures. So everything was [mumbles]. He would even eat corn on the cob without teeth. RW:  Wow. CS:  And he would get so frustrated, if you didn’t understand him and he had to repeat himself. And he would even do funny things. He had one of those recliner Lazy Boy chairs. He worked at Sears Roebuck and he would come home after work and get in the chair and start watching something on TV. And immediately, he’d fall asleep. We would go to change the channel and he&rsq... posted on Dec 1 2013 (22,409 reads)

this. I know exactly what it is, but I can't describe it. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it. But it's there. And it's something for which you can't say, "Oh, well, it's sorta there, sorta not there." It's definitely there. You know when you've smelled the orange. A bunch of us run a non-profit, ServiceSpace, and we empower other non-profits with websites. It's fully volunteer run and we do everything for free, so there's a lot of work. Many times, I'll be working at 1:00 a.m. I'm doing work, and all of a sudden, OK, 1:00 a.m. I'm tired and I could really use some sleep. So I'm thinking, all right, I want to go ... posted on Mar 7 2014 (46,689 reads)

works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process. Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fa... posted on Mar 24 2014 (180,019 reads)

But equally, whatever the world wants to happen for you will not happen either. And what happens is this meeting. And it’s in that meeting that you overhear yourself being surprised by your reality, by the larger context that you haven’t yet explored. So you’re trying to overhear your self whom you didn’t know you knew. And you’re trying to speak it out loud in the world so it can be known consciously. There should be a lovely sense of surprise when you’re working at that edge and a sense of being gifted. Often people will say, “Well I didn’t write that piece, it just wrote itself.” Or “I felt as though I was the recipient of som... posted on Jul 7 2014 (40,979 reads)