December 2016, we held our second Awakin Talks event at a local school auditorium in Mumbai. It brought together communities from our various local Awakin Circles and featured four remarkable speaker. Our last speaker was none other than Sister Lucy.  She moved us far beyond words, despite using a language she doesn't speak fluently. We love you, Sister Lucy! Rahul's Introduction: Sister Lucy, founder of Maher, was born in Kerala. At the age of 12, she moved to Mumbai. When she moved here, she saw the sight that you and I see everyday -- the slums of Dharavi. They had an impact on her that they don't have on you and I, despite of the fact that we see... posted on Jul 1 2017 (12,151 reads)

announces Black Friday closure at 143 stores as part of #OptOutside initiative. Credit: Suzi Pratt/Getty Images for REI. As any entrepreneur will tell you, success requires sacrifice. And this has never been truer for business leaders who have resolved to put purpose first. By sacrifice, we don’t mean getting up at the crack of dawn or having your social life squeezed, although these may be part and parcel of your purpose journey. We’re talking about the scary moments when staying true to your mission seems to risk the short-term health of your bottom line. The road to realising your purpose to its fullest can sometimes call for audacious, counterintuitive sacrif... posted on Jun 28 2017 (16,121 reads)

late-April 2017 the French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron stunned supporters of Marine Le Pen, his opponent, by directly engaging with them on a picket line. Macron handed the microphone to union members whilst arguing that closing borders would do nothing positive for the economy, and might well harm it. This was a rare act of engagement in western politics, where debates are characterised by the frothing of deeply divided sides. If Macron’s argument had been transmitted indirectly via the media it would probably have fallen on deaf ears, dismissed as more ‘fake news’ or standard ‘liberal bias.’ But he managed to create a relationship with people ... posted on Sep 1 2017 (8,906 reads)

following is based on the July 8th, 2017 Awakin Call with Thom Bond.  In 2002 Thom Bond was a successful environmental engineer, passionate about designing smart buildings that used alternative energy. Then he chanced upon Marshall Rosenberg's landmark book Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life. "By the time I read Chapter 1, it hit me that I had found what I was looking for...A set of concepts and ideas to be able to move through conflict." Thom realized instinctively that he'd found a new technology -- one that was human-oriented as opposed to building-oriented that would allow for more effective and harmonious use of energy. ... posted on Jul 9 2017 (21,131 reads)

River and the first thing I noticed was the stillness. The only thing I could hear was the gurgling of the water and swaying of the bulrushes. The river was gently gliding, an intense blue matching the blue of the sky. I just wanted to float downstream. Then it struck me that Fallujah was downstream. Not far away the river flows under the bridge where the four guards had been hung and on into the battleground between Marines and Iraqis. Whoa! It struck me how diametrically opposed those two images were: the quiet of the river and the intensity of the war zone. I couldn’t focus on both at the same time. A question formed, “Which one will you choose?” I had been unaware o... posted on Jun 20 2020 (19,849 reads)

visited 40 countries in 15 years, with just one suitcase. Inspired by the "power of one," Linda Cruse's all-encompassing friendliness, explorer's spirit, and desire to serve has brought her to every continent amid its catastrophic moments of crisis-- from the earthquake in Nepal to the tsunami in Thailand, two super-typhoons in the Philippines, and the Pakistani earthquake. She's been described as a cross between Florence Nightingale and Indiana Jones. Yet her life didn't always hold such high sights and intentions. In 1996, while driving on a motorway in the middle of the night, Linda suddenly went blind. &... posted on Aug 3 2018 (4,686 reads)

Dutton's research focuses on how organizational conditions strengthen capabilities of individuals and firms. She is a co-founder of the Center for Positive Organizations. Monica Worline’s research is dedicated to the mission of enlivening work and workplaces is a founding member of CompassionLab, and a collaborating scientist at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University. Immanual Joseph interviewed Jane and Monica on their lessons from decades long research on workplace compassion, and their new book Awakening Compassion at Work. What follows is an edited transcript of that interview. IJ: Let me start by congra... posted on Jul 15 2017 (11,858 reads)

to the truth of others, grounded in our own experience and expanded by experiences that are not yet ours, compassionate toward that which we do not yet understand, not only as a kindness to others but for the sake of our growth and our students and the transformation of education. Amen. In preparing these remarks, I’ve asked myself what are we trying to do here? We know it’s about spirituality and education, but what does that mean? For whatever it’s worth, these are the images that have come to me as I’ve tried to put a larger frame of personal meaning around this conference. I think we are here to seek life-giving forces and sources in the midst of an enter... posted on Aug 25 2017 (16,211 reads)

FROM THE GARDEN ALANDA GREENE explores the idea of openness and protectiveness against stimuli by a comparison with wearing garden gloves while working in her beloved garden in British Columbia. My relationship with garden gloves continues to consist of two opposing drives – the need to wear them to protect my hands, and the need for my skin to feel the plants without a barrier as I engage in garden tasks. Each drive excludes something. In one case, the sensitivity of touch is dulled. In the other, protection of my hands from abrasion, cuts, punctures, dirt and stains is gi... posted on Sep 27 2017 (8,542 reads)

travels deep into the brain and even into our genes, molding them as well.” He adds that “When a gene is turned on, it makes a new protein that alters the structure and function of the cell,” influenced by what we do and what we think.11 And Dr. Dawson Church, in The Genie In Your Genes, says that focusing on positive thoughts, emotions and prayers (which he calls internal epigenetic interventions) can positively affect our health. “Filling our minds with positive images of wellbeing can produce an epigenetic environment that reinforces the healing process,” he affirms, assuring us that, when we meditate, we are “bulking up the portions of our brain... posted on Aug 29 2017 (20,422 reads)

opinions are often based in emotion and group affiliation, not facts. Here’s how to engage productively when things get heated. It’s probably happened more than once: You spend a lot of time trying to convince someone that their opinion on a particular issue is wrong. You take pains to make sure your argument is air-tight. But instead of coming around to your point of view, your conversation partner pushes back, still convinced of her ultimate rightness. “What do you mean poor people need social programs? They have the same opportunities as everyone else!” By the end of your debate, you’re faced with the same stalemate you had at the beginning—and y... posted on Sep 8 2017 (11,371 reads)

had been a long, hot August day. We'd driven over six hundred miles and it was nearing 11 pm as we entered Kingman, Arizona. We pulled off and picked a motel. Much to my surprise, it being mid-week, the deskman informed me they were full. Next place, same story. This time, I asked the clerk for suggestions.      "Try the Hampton Inn."       At the Hampton we were greeted with, "We're booked. Sorry."      "What's going on?" I asked. "Is there some kind of convention in town?"      "A tour bus just pulled in with 60 people," the deskman said. "Plu... posted on Aug 22 2017 (9,686 reads)

she’s suited up in a duck costume at a library story hour, preserving Indigenous cultures in Belize, encountering small moments of beauty through free hugs, or blowing bubbles on the NYC subway, Kristin Pedemonti has got a knack for tapping into a depth of humanity around the world. The Accidental Librarian As a child, Kristin was “always the smallest kid in class— who was not athletic at all, almost legally blind, on top of being slightly hard of hearing”. After her grandmother taught her to read when she was four, stories became a way to escape and learn about the bigger world around her. In college, she tapped into into a passion for theater a... posted on Sep 17 2017 (9,313 reads)

Dienst, MD, is a rural family and emergency room physician from north central Washington who has been volunteering for humanitarian medical missions since 1982, when he was a young man in medical school. His first experience profoundly changed his life and he was “hooked,” he says, volunteering repeatedly for medical exchange programs in Veracruz, Mexico, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Most recently he served as the medical coordinator for Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM), a Seattle-based nonprofit conducting humanitarian and medical relief work with refugee populations in Jordan, Lebanon and Greece. After volunteering among Syrian refugees in Greece, Dienst and his fell... posted on Jan 6 2018 (9,574 reads)

economist Guy Standing, of the University of London, has popularized the term “precariat” to describe a global social class whose most salient characteristic is precariousness. Standing blames neoliberal economic policies, globalization, automation, and outsourcing for the rising number of precariats, who, if not completely locked out of the economy, must increasingly compete for temporary employment at low wages—to the point that they can’t pay off student loans or consumer debt, qualify for mortgages, save for retirement, or make plans for the future. Many are essentially one paycheck away from destitution. Standing’s solution is a 29-plank plat... posted on Nov 26 2017 (21,335 reads)

Also, and we use this in the program, it’s important to get rid of negativity.  I am totally involved in positivity. I don’t watch negative programs, I don’t like to be around people who swear, or are unpleasant. As a matter of fact, I have an Apple Watch that we’ve programmed so that, every 15 minutes, I receive a positive affirmation. So if you decide that you want to live a happier life, you can’t do it around negative people or negative headlines, or images. You need to fill up on positivity. I don’t own any Apple stock, but I think the Apple Watch is a wonderful thing to program so that you can receive positive messages throughout the day. ... posted on Nov 1 2017 (8,475 reads)

you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, don’t cut yourself off from other people, says Kelly McGonigal. Instead, double down on your capacity for connection. One evening when I walked into a classroom to teach my Science of Stress course, I found a newspaper waiting for me on the lectern. A student had brought in an article called “Stress: It’s Contagious.” The report claimed that stress is “as contagious as any airborne pathogen” and compared its toxicity to secondhand smoke. As an example, the news story described a study showing that participants had an empathic physiological stress response when they observed another person strugglin... posted on Nov 21 2017 (25,250 reads)

following is an excerpt from Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution Our ecological predicament challenges us for many reasons, not least of which is that it calls us to examine how we live. It calls us to recognize that we are part of the miraculous biosphere, not outside of it or above it; to accept, deeply, that we will die, and that death is also part of this miracle. Our bodies arise from this spinning, burning biosphere, and we mix back into it when we die. There is nothing to hold on to, and nothing to be afraid of. In my darkest moments, when faced with the uncompromising reality of global warming in all of its surreal truth, I come back to my body. I fee... posted on Aug 19 2017 (9,570 reads)

following is an excerpt from Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino. When people ask me what it feels like the first time you spacewalk, what I tell them is this: Imagine you've been tapped to be the starting pitcher in game seven of the World Series. Fifty thousand screaming fans in the seats, millions of people watching around the world, and you're in the bullpen waiting to go out. But you've never actually played baseball before. [...] You've run drills and exercises with mock-ups and replicas. You've spent months playing MLB on your Sony PlayStation, but you've never once set foot on ... posted on Sep 15 2017 (6,003 reads)

to the Human Race” an Interview with Parker J. Palmer on the topic of depression Excerpted from Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey through Depression, April 2015, Sounds True. This experience called “depression” is isolating to a greater extent than I imagined could be survivable, but I realize that this incredibly isolating experience ultimately reconnected me with the human community in a deeper, wider, and richer way. Tami Simon:  Parker, I want to start our conversation by talking about redefining the journey through depression and your experience of navigating through the darkness. Parker J. Palmer:  I like your emphas... posted on Oct 31 2017 (16,015 reads)