694th Week: Practicing Mutual Empowerment

694th Week: Practicing Mutual Empowerment

ByNancy Napier

Over the course of the past year, it has disheartened me to see how many people on Facebook and in other social media contexts have become comfortable using language that is attacking rather than curious, inviting, clarifying, or compassionate.  Not only are the words being used distressing through their intention to diminish or humiliate other people, but the anger inherent in these posts—anger that doesn’t suggest solutions or options—is decidedly jarring.

In my years of teaching about trauma resolution, I’ve drawn on something one of my dear friends and teachers taught me many years ago… Read More “694th Week: Practicing Mutual Empowerment”

693rd Week:  Orienting to “Seeing What’s Good”

693rd Week:  Orienting to “Seeing What’s Good”

ByNancy Napier

In a recent conversation with a colleague, she mentioned reading an article that focused on the fact that what we perceive, where we focus our “seeing”, has a concrete effect in our world.  This reminded me of the quantum physics findings around the “observer effect”.  The observer effect speaks to the fact that the observer of an experiment seems to have a powerful and important impact on the outcome of the experiment.  What the observer expects turns out to be what actually happens.

In the article my colleague mentioned, the author encouraged people to see what is good and right in their world as, in this way, they promote those qualities and outcomes, drawing on the dynamics of the observer effect.  This reminded me of something I’ve shared before in a number of experiments on the dynamics of what is called subtle activism.   Read More “693rd Week:  Orienting to “Seeing What’s Good””

692nd Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace

692nd Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace

ByNancy Napier

Sitting in Central Park one weekend morning, a morning that was cloudy and quiet in the park, I felt a deep sense of peace radiating from all the trees around me.  The quality of the trees and the environment they evoked reminded me of the Japanese practice of “forest bathing”, where people go amongst trees to soak in the healing that naturally emerges.

Attuning to the peaceful quality of the trees is, for me, similar to tuning in to a particular radio station, television channel, or on-line program.  It reminded me, yet again, of the importance and power of mindful awareness, of being able to choose where I focus my attention… Read More “692nd Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace”

691st Week: Return to Gratitude

691st Week: Return to Gratitude

ByNancy Napier

As I pondered what this week’s practice in conscious living might be, I came across an article I saved a while back about research that’s been done on gratitude. This research demonstrates the powerful health-giving effects of what David Steindl-Rast calls gratefulness. Then I ran across another note I saved about a Buddhist practice that focuses on “finding the hidden people”… Read More “691st Week: Return to Gratitude”