PHOENIX October 1 marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In Arizona, 100 people are killed every year due to domestic violence, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. The average woman will take the abuse, leave it and go back to her abuser seven times before saying enough.

"I went back to him several times, he would have eventually killed me," said Kerri Walker, who is a domestic violence survivor and is now an advocate at a center for battered women. "I was beaten sometimes with gun butts over the head.

It has been decades since her abuse happened and to this day, Kerri says the psychological scars remain.

"I managed at some point to be able to run away and get some help," she added.

Now she's one of two advocates at the Sojourner Center, a center that receives and helps victims of domestic violence, helping those who have suffered brain injuries due to domestic violence.

"Brain injury is a treatable condition," said Jonathan Liftshitz, with the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix. Lifshitz is handling a study of the brain's injuries to women and men who have suffered at the hands of their partners.

"These events happen behind closed doors between two individuals; one who receives the head injury and one that doesn't and the person who receives the injury suffers some type of loss of memory. So, if you can't remember the event, you can't report the event," adds Liftshitz.

According to the Executive Director of the Sojourner Center, 1 out of every 3 battered women suffer some type of traumatic brain injury (TBI).

"We would always do a screening for a TBI but it was a one page form that we would fill out we would ask if you questions like 'have you been hit in the head' or 'have you ever lost consciousness' or 'have you been strangled' and then we filed it, says Carrie Borgen.

Now, the Sojourner Center, through the two advocates and the partnership with community agencies is providing medical help to the women who have shown symptoms of TBI.

In about a week, a domestic violence survivor, dealing with a brain injury, is set to move into an apartment provided by the Sojourner Center. The apartment is one of two shelters available to provide a victim a place that is 'trauma informed' meaning that the colors and the feel inside the apartment is one of comfort and safety.

"The duplex that we were able to renovate with this funding is not only trauma informed, but TBI informed with a special needs of somebody with a TBI," added Borgen.

The funding for the efforts on furthering the support strategies to brain injury domestic violence survivors is part of a collaborative effort with the county attorney's office.

"A number of years ago we did some work on strangulation and we went to the legislature and the legislature responded by making that a class four felony and so hopefully we can present our findings at some point on traumatic brain injury to the legislature so that people really realize just how seriously that needs to be treated," said Rachel MItchell, Deputy Chief at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

In treating the brain injury, the ultimate goal is self-awareness, so that the victim is less prone to going back into the cycle one more time.

"Even meditation or yoga sometimes is good. Nutrition supplements are also good; there's a lot of work going....and that we can do here," added Borgen.

Anyone who is in need of help, or who knows someone in a domestic violence situation, can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-779-SAFE or visit http://www.thehotline.org.

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Traumatic Brain Injuries at the epicenter of 2019 Domestic Awareness Month - ABC15 Arizona

Westfield Elementary School student leaders of the month are, from left, front, Sidney Coleman; second row, Reegan Sutphin, Laughter Jessup, Jaelyn Leonides, Kyler Felts, back row, Rizal Holliday, Trae Flippen, Taylor Sutphin, Savanna Mathis, and Emily Spencer. Emily Lor, Zoey Edwards, and Piper Halstead are not pictured. - September Leaders of the Month are, from left, front, Hunter Harp; second row, Kennedy Branch, Nora Love, Emma Goins, Brayden Roberts; third row, Ryland Taylor, Coby Yarboro, Presley Hiatt, Levi Shelton, and Brantley Roberts. Ethan Kovatch and Joslynn Penn are not pictured. -

Westfield Elementary School recently named its Leaders of the Month for both August and September.

The students chosen for August were selected by their peers for demonstrating the leadership attribute, self-awareness, the school said in making the announcement.

Those chosen by their peers for the honor in September were selected for demonstrating the leadership attribute, accountability.

Westfield Elementary School student leaders of the month are, from left, front, Sidney Coleman; second row, Reegan Sutphin, Laughter Jessup, Jaelyn Leonides, Kyler Felts, back row, Rizal Holliday, Trae Flippen, Taylor Sutphin, Savanna Mathis, and Emily Spencer. Emily Lor, Zoey Edwards, and Piper Halstead are not pictured.

September Leaders of the Month are, from left, front, Hunter Harp; second row, Kennedy Branch, Nora Love, Emma Goins, Brayden Roberts; third row, Ryland Taylor, Coby Yarboro, Presley Hiatt, Levi Shelton, and Brantley Roberts. Ethan Kovatch and Joslynn Penn are not pictured.

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Westfield names students of the month - Mount Airy News

Photo-Illustration: by Stevie Remsberg; Source Imagery: New York Public Library

Doing the Mostis a special series about ambition how we define it, harness it, and conquer it.

Over the past year or so, Ive been haunted by the fear that Im running out of ambition. Its a broad and existential threat, but the more pressing issue is that Im having trouble self-motivating to start my next book. Procrastination isnt uncommon, especially among writers, but historically Ive overcome it through sheer force of guilt, anxiety, and ambition. This past year, though, somethings changed. I still feel bad about my lack of productivity, but I feel less bad than I did before. Only the ghost of guilt remains, and the animating energy it used to give me has begun to dissipate somehow.

On the one hand, this could be a good thing. I know its not healthy to worry about work all the time. Experts on the topic dictate that happiness must be sought outside work; that no level of professional success or fame precludes dissatisfaction. There is or should be so much else that can fill ones life, outside professional ambition. But still, I worry: What if mine is gone, and doesnt come back?

Reassuringly, Jacques Forest, a psychologist and professor at Universit du Qubec Montral, tells me that ambition is a self-sustaining resource (or it can be, at least). The question is not how much ambition I need, but what kind. There are four different reasons why you want to work or do any activity: fun, meaning, ego, and reward, he says. When ambition is motivated by a desire for fun or meaning, our performance and well-being increase. But when were primarily driven by ego and/or reward, our work suffers, and so do we. And when our work suffers, and fails to live up to the external, material expectations we set for it, its pretty hard to want to keep doing it. We cant grow out of our ambition Forest says hes found no real link between ambition and age or careerbut we can make ourselves miserable in service of it, which may lead to its demise.

We can also just get tired. Some studies on willpower have suggested that after so many minutes/hours/days spent resisting whatever temptation were trying to avoid (any of the seven deadly sins will do), we will grow fatigued and give in. Other studies have argued that we only run out of willpower if we buy the idea that willpower can run out. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between: Ambition can be depleted, but not permanently unless youre chasing the wrong thing.

Most people are motivated by all four forms of ambition, to varying degrees, Forest says. If I were to honestly examine the motivation behind every book I write, I know Id find the desire for fame, for credibility, for recognition, for money. There is also the love of the actual writing, the feeling I get when a good sentence is finished. And above all, there is the desire to connect, to tell stories I wish Id had access to when I was growing up. When I started writing, that dream of connection was all there was. The more success Ive found and its been pretty moderate the harder its gotten to prioritize connection above all else. Money and fame havent exactly taken its place, but my objectives are now muddier, more complex.

According to Forest, its probably good that I havent produced a huge hit yet for my psyche, at least. There is very good research showing that if you attain extrinsic goals, like financial success, fame, or popularity, its actually like doing drugs: you need a bigger and bigger dose to get high, he says. Attaining those ambitious goals ruins your well-being. Put in non-academic terms: it pays not to sell out.

But still, Im struggling to motivate so what do I do? According to self-determination theory, of which Forest is a proponent, all people have three innate needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When we feel ourselves losing steam, it usually means that one or more of them arent being met. Forest even calls those three innate needs vitamins, which I find helpful as a way to think about them regularly.

Ultimately, these needs arent surprising: We are more motivated to work when we feel basically good at our jobs, when we feel that we have a say in what we do, and when we feel connected to other people around us. Of course, accomplishing these things in a work setting is easier said than done. And in the world we inhabit, its impossible to ever really forget about money. Forest laughs when I ask him how we can reorient our ambitions to be less capitalistic.

Among my young students, their dream is, by 30, to get their Tesla car in the parking lot with a nice home and three trips per year, he says. I make them write down goals which are needs-satisfying, [so theyll think about] what theyll do on a daily basis to satisfy their psychological needs. At the risk of sounding like a mindfulness guru, much of Forests advice amounts to practicing self-awareness and introspection: thinking about what really matters to you, and how to obtain it.

Its easier, for me at least, to think about my work and ambition in day-by-day metrics in words written, in money earned. But with my more extrinsic ambition in hibernation, Im forced to revisit the bigger, fuzzier picture: what I need, and what Im doing about it. To be clear, Im still not sure how to go about this. Im just doing my best not to give myself a deadline, for once.

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Have I Run Out of Ambition? - The Cut

We all want our children to be happy, healthy and successful in whatever they do. Teaching your child how to meditate can give them a jumpstart to start accessing the many benefits of meditation.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report, that was released last year, says that one in four early teens in India suffers from one or the other mental health issue and depression tops the list. A quarter of children between the age group of 13-15 years suffer from depression. The National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 (NMHS), conducted by National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore emphasizes that 9.8 million teenagers in the age group of 13-17 years suffer depression and other mental health disorders and are in need of active intervention. The study also found that the prevalence of adolescent depression is highest in metro cities as compared to small towns and rural India. And these mental health issues do not necessarily start from the age group of 12 or 13 years, but it begins at an early age which keeps brewing till they turn adolescents.

As a child specialist in the Holistic and Alternative therapy, I come across many teenagers and children facing issues that directly impact their mental health and in turn affect their overall life. In fact, 30 -40 per cent of adults suffering from depression had a history of depression during middle school and adolescent years.

Hence, it is imperative that your children are guided towards tools that can help them to cope up with the emotional challenges. Meditation is a very effective tool which if used and practised from childhood will help in empowering and enhancing your childs life in many ways such as-

Healthy emotional development Kids who practice regular meditation are emotionally stronger, happier and more relaxed, have less temper or mood tantrums as well.

More self aware to make right choices Meditation creates self-awareness even at such young ages as during meditation the kids can analyze an action that they may have taken and check if it was right or wrong. With this kind of awareness, they will grow up to be more conscientious and have greater sense of understanding.

More compassionate and higher self-esteem Meditation among kids helps in developing higher levels of confidence and resilience, they are more connected to self and respectful of others and display good decision making and pro-social behaviour.

Better focus and memory Meditation not only changes brain patterns that enhances memory but also heightens mental focus and clarity which improves the cognitive performance.

Above are just a few of the benefits of meditation that have been listed but there are innumerable benefits that your children can avail for life, if as a parent you make them practice meditation regularly.

When meditation is done with the help of a professional, it becomes more effective since the help and guidance of such individuals helps the child to learn and practice meditation and turn it into a way of life. As an International Meditation Expert, I encourage and recommend all the parents to get your child not only acquainted to Meditation but also make Meditation a regular family fun activity. It doesnt have to be boring or uninteresting activity; the way I do it is by making it so much fun for them that the children yearn for doing it on a regular basis.

It is much easier to build stronger children than repair broken adults!

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Why your child should meditate and become mindful! - Times of India

What is wisdom? One recent attempt to address this question, by Sharon Ryan, a philosopher at West Virginia University, begins with Socratess famous line, "The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." In doing so, Ryan argues, Socrates may have defined wisdom as Epistemic Humility, the notion that you are wise if you believe you are not.

However, per Ryan, an alternative interpretation of Socratesmay argue that his view expresses a notion of wisdom as Epistemic Accuracy, because he believes hes knowledgeable only when he actually is. Wisdom, in this view, resides in the accuracy of your beliefs. You are wise if you only believe you know what you actually know.

An alternative approach to wisdom, per Ryan, may argue that its not enough to know what you know; you also have to know a lot. Thus we may opt for a Hybrid Theory, by which a wise person is one who has extensive knowledge as well as few unjustified beliefs. Still, this formulation leaves out the question of successof living a good life. Intuitively, we can all envision someone who knows a lot, and has very few unjustified or false beliefs, and yet is unable to be successful in life.

So, a test of wisdom appears to be ones success in achieving a good life. Then again, who defines "good"in this context? Aristotle held that, It is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good. Most philosophers and lay people addressed to the question of wisdom would probably include moral virtue as inherent in the definition of living well.

However, otherslike the philosopher Dennis Whitcomb of Western Washington Universitymay argue cogently that a morally repugnant person could nevertheless be wise. Perhaps wisdom entails not a good life in the moral sense, but a rational one. A wise person, in addition to having world knowledge and self-knowledge, is one who lives their lives rationally and reasonably. Such a person will not be devoid of emotion but rather able to regulate it in a rational manner.

Historically, the question of wisdom has mostly resided in the domains of philosophy, religion, and literature. More recently, however, the question has attracted the attention of contemporary, research minded psychologists. An effort has been underway in psychology to pin down the concept of wisdom in terms that can be measured, and devise theories of wisdom that yield testable predictions.

Many laypersons, when asked about wisdom, will associate it with advanced age. When we imagine a wise person, we do not commonly imagine youth. It is possible that in ancient societiesin which tradition ruled over change, and in which arriving at old age was itself an achievementwisdom was indeed closely linked with age. Yet the relationship between age and wisdom, like much of everything else, is bound to be more complex today. Indeed, the psychological research literature by and large challenges the idea that age begets wisdom.

For example, Paul Baltes(1939-2006), the German developmental psychologist who founded the Berlin Wisdom Project at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, is perhaps the most influential figure in this area. In Baltes thinking,wisdom is defined asan expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life. That system hasfive components:

While age does not factor explicitly in the Berlin Model, Baltes and colleagues research suggests that wisdom rises steadily from age 13 to 25 and then remains relatively stable through to age 75, after which a decline is common, correlated with the physical decline. They also found that intelligence explains less of the variance in wisdom-related performance than personality traits. Life experience (in particular, interacting with other people) is the strongest predictoraccounting for more than25 percentof the variance.

Taking a somewhat different theoretical tack, Monika Ardelt, a professor of sociology at the University of Florida, has advanced the influential Three-Dimensional Theory of Wisdom. Unlike Baltes and the "Berlin Group" who consider wisdom to be an "expert knowledge system," Ardelt considers wisdom to be a "combination of personality qualities" that "cannot exist independently of individuals. For Ardelt, its not enough for one to be knowledgeable and articulate. True wisdom involves virtuous action as well as emotional self-control. Ardelt notes that:

Wisdom cannot exist independently of individualsif this is true, then wisdom itself cannot be preserved outside of individuals. Its distribution in society depends on the personal development of the people who make up society and not on the development of a cultural software. The moment one tries to preserve wisdom (e.g., by writing it down), it loses its connection to a concrete person and transforms into intellectual (theoretical) knowledge. I propose that even the most profound wisdom literature remains intellectual or theoretical knowledge until its inherent wisdom is realized by a person.

She has proposed a model of wisdom as a personality characteristic, made up of three dimensions:

For Ardelt, then, wisdom exists only to the extent that wise people exist. Wisdom, in her definition, can grow with age, but it doesn't do so automatically; rather, it grows for those who seek it and invest in nurturing it.

Ardelts workhas also found that college students scored at the same level as older adults on measures of wisdom. Yet some differences did emerge. Qualitative evidence suggests that many older adults, particularly in the top 20 percentof wisdom scorers, grew wiser with age by learning from life experiences. The results indicate that wisdom might increase with age for individuals with the opportunity and motivation to pursue its development.

The American psychologist Robert Sternberg, of Yale University, has developed his own ideas about wisdom in the Balance Theory of Wisdom. For Sternberg, wisdom is defined as, the application of tacit knowledge as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good through a balance among multiple (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) extrapersonal interests in order to achieve a balance among: (a) adaptation to existing environments (b) shaping of existing environments, and (c) selection of new environments.

His emphasis on balance refers to balancing self and social interests, long- and short-term goals, and multiple environmental contexts and demands. Sternberg has argued that we would be wise to pay more attention to wisdom when we choose whom to admit to university, whom to hire for a job, and whom to elect to high office. This is because, according to Sternberg, errors in judgment and policy decisions are more often failures of wisdom than of intelligence. He explains:

Although currently, our societies tend to emphasize analytical intelligence in their assessments of individuals in school, college, and beyond, one could argue that assessments of wisdom would be more valuable.When citizens and leaders fail in the pursuit of their duties, it is more likely to be for lack of wisdom than for lack of analytical intelligence.In particular, failed citizens and leaders are likely to be foolishto show unrealistic optimism, egocentrism, false omniscience, false omnipotence, false invulnerability, and ethical disengagement in their thinking and decision making. In other words, they fail not for a lack of conventional intelligence, but rather for a lack of wisdom.

Like Ardelt, Sternberg argues that age does not inherently confer wisdom. He summarizes thus:

Most important, the person has to utilize life experience in a way that is consistent with the development of wisdom people must want to develop their wisdom-related skills in order for them actually to develop, and then must adopt the attitudes toward lifeopenness to experience, reflectivity upon experience, and willingness to profit from experiencethat will enable this development to occur.

In conclusion, while psychologists (like laypeople) may differ in their definitions of wisdom, both theory and data in contemporary psychology appear to converge on the notion that old age is neither sufficient nor necessary for the development of wisdom. The question to ask when it comes to wisdom is not how much time youve had, but what you chose to do with your time.

On its face, this appears to be a fairly wise conclusion.

Read more here:
When Im Old and Wise: Is Wisdom Related to Age? - Psychology Today

There are indeed scant bright spots one can point to in Sands, which opened Sunday night at the Barrymore, the first production by writer/director/former escort Willa Ferreyra. For one, it does eventually end, though this, especially by hour two, was not a given, not something to be counted on, as some sacrosanct article of faith. In addition, there is a sort of ribald audacity to producing a play set in a pile of sand called Sands that does indeed caresswithout outright ticklingmy funny bone. And Willa herself, who I met backstage slightly before this assault on reason began in earnest, does seem possessed of a wry wit, and a self-awareness not often so proudly displayed on or off Broadway. Shes going to need both her wit and self-awareness to survive this sandy debacle, but Im rooting for her. Decency is a beautiful, fragile thing in a young playwright. Decency is, after all, not something youd assume of someone romantically involved with the mercurial Connor Roy, eldest son of Waystar Royco founder and CEO (and enemy to human progress) Logan Roy. Connor Roy has thrown his hat into the presidential ring, launching a quixotic campaign predicated on boredom and a flat tax, and it may be that in a year and a half Willa Ferreyra will be writing her next play from the second floor of the White House. Stranger things have happened. At least once or twice.

Sands is the story of five late-20-somethings who are on their way to the wedding of a couple they hate. These 20-somethings have clever noms de plume like Mr. Big Dreams and Ms. Deep Regret and Mr. Shithead. These youths inevitably get lost and, of course, start wandering deeper into the desert. Tensions rise. Secrets are revealed. The vitality of somnambulant millennial humanity set against a sandy inhospitable backdrop. So, the trenchant question is this: Exactly how many scenes of people kicking sand does a play need? If you answered, as a sensible patron of the arts would, One, maybe two at most, you will be in for a crushing disappointment. How many times must a character, crushed by ennui and boredom, fall to their knees and punch sand over and over again? I hate this goddamn sand! was admittedly a funny line the first three times it was uttered. And all the sand songs clumsily inserted into the proceedings. Sandcastles by Beyonc. Enter Sandman by Metallica. Wet Sand by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The one sincere moment of liftoff that the play achieves comes right before the (first) intermission, courtesy of a Gregorian chant version of Darudes Sandstorm that scores a fiercely realistic sand-eating competition.

Unfortunately, the meandering plot and confusing ethos is not the only culprit of on-stage homicide, as the performances in Sands are uniformly unbalanced, running the tangled gamut from truly bad to completely unwatchable. Indeed, Chloe Hannah, who plays Ms. Deep Regret, the central character, at times barely seemed to know her lines. There were many moments when she just didnt respond to her costars. They looked at each other, their eyes dancing, their thoughts some hidden maelstrom, and then theyd just walk around in the sand some more, leaving entire conversations unfinished. This happened many times. The whispers I heard from those in the know claim the actor meant to portray Ms. Deep RegretJennifer Something, I didnt catch a last namevery abruptly absconded to some Celtic bacchanalia, or in the words of one member of the production, Yeah, she like, got on a plane to go to some rich asshole party in Scotland or Ireland, Im not sure which ... whats the difference? She didnt really understand the sand anyway.

Which, of course: a final word about the sand in Sands. The action in Sandsset in three distinct time periods, all involving copious, even ludicrous amounts of sandtakes place in the desert. And yet, the sand that covers the stage at the Barrymore like an old Persian rug or a Spanish soccer players five oclock shadow, is clearly not desert sand. The hues are wrong, the color tainted. Sandy brown, earth yellow, field drab, golden Namibian sunset, all those familiar shades and tints found in dunes and deserts the world over, are totally absent. Instead, were treated to something brittle, something off-white, clunky and aliensandbox sand, construction site sand, the gray dead tooth of the sand world. Im not a sand snob, but it was hard to concentrate on who was betraying whom and why everyone would occasionally speak as though they were 1920s gangsters during Act III on account of all that disgusting sand they were stomping around in. Unfortunately, the contumelious aesthetics were just the chaser to the double shot of absinthe that involve what this humble theater critic will refer to as hygiene issues.

To my eye, and the keen eyes of others as well, the sand, those myriad heaps and mounds of workaday sand from Uncle Franks construction site, would occasionally shift in a way I can only describe as absolutely gross. It is my own bad fortune to have been sitting so close to the stage that it became my very own front-row Golgotha. That there were sand mites ensconced in these grainy ziggurats I have no doubt. In fact, I have the raw and red scratch wounds to prove it. That these creatures have infested that sand is doubly upsetting. First, it dovetails with other whispers Ive been privy to, the persistent rumors of the productions total lack of hygiene caused by Connor Roys paradoxical penny-pinching. Secondly, and infinitely more troubling, is that these sand mitespesky innocents essentially, brought here against their willwill be forced to watch Willa Ferreyras Sands over and over again, imprisoned in some hellish temporal time loop, trapped in the darkest possible version of Nietzsches eternal recurrence.

In conclusion: Loved the sand. Loathed the disgusting show. And to be honest, I didnt love the sand.

SundayTickets: Through Oct. 23 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre243 W 47th St, New York, NY 10036Run Time: 2 hours, 47 minutes.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

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A (Totally Real) Review of Willas Broadway Play in Succession - The Ringer

BRADENTON FL Stress at work can adversely affect other areas in life, such as relationships and sleep, studies show. And as stress in the workplace rises, having a stress management strategy is vital, say mental health professionals and experts in corporate culture.

Its not just workers who suffer from stress. Employers feel the effects of stress in increased absenteeism and lost production, and some companies address work-related stress with policies and practices.

But its important for over-stressed workers to develop their own tools to better deal with stress and not let it affect their job performance or quality of life, says Cynthia Howard (www.eileadership.org), an executive coach and performance expert.

Stress is the new normal and, to become resilient, you must practice strategies that will unhook you from the damaging, reactive nature of the stress reaction, says Howard, the author of The Resilient Leader, Mindset Makeover: Uncover the Elephant in the Room. One cannot think their way out of a stress reaction, and when you ignore what can happen, you leave yourself vulnerable.

Howard offers these strategies to build a tolerance to work stress and perform at a high level even during stressful situations:

Breathe

On a count of four, breathe. The goal is breathing with intention to shift the stress effect. Howard suggests taking four deep breaths breathing in on the count of four, holding on four, exhaling on four.

Breathing is your first line of defense against the distraction of the stress reaction and being overwhelmed, Howard says. Most people today are in moderate to severe stress, multitasking, or in the throes of strong emotions.

Breathing, she says, gets shallow and less effective in blowing off the buildup of carbon dioxide, leaving you more acidic the opposite of what the body needs to stay energized.

Take a moment

The three-second transition. Used at different parts of the day, such as before and after a meeting or difficult conversation, this strategy helps develop the feeling of being in the moment.

Be deliberate with three seconds, Howard says. Pause, breathe, and focus on what you are going to do for three seconds. This slows down your mind and opens your awareness. With practice, it will also expand your situational awareness and lead to more enjoyment of your day.

Mindfulness

Practice everyday mindfulness. Because many people are distracted in a social media-filled world, Howard says, its hard for them to focus for long periods. Mindfulness can tune out distractions.

Mindfulness means directing your attention to what is happening in the moment without judging what is happening, Howard says. This practice improves the quality of your attention and decreases your reactivity to stress.

Keep a journal

Howard suggests taking 10 minutes each day to write out thoughts. This practice will increase self-awareness and build your ability to stay in the moment, Howard says. You will get to know yourself at a deeper level and, with that, get to the real motives that drive your choices and behavior.

Then, she says, set a time limit to do your journaling and have specific goals in mind reflecting on a conversation, recapping your day, digging deeper into your reaction to something. Then go back and review your journal after every quarter. Have you made progress?

We tend to expend more energy than we renew, Howard says. Most people go through the day with constant interruptions, irritations, and other emotional triggers, all draining energy. It is essential to use some type of stress-relief strategy every day to keep our energy stores filled.

About Howard

Cynthia Howard, RN, CNC, PhD is an executive coach, performance expert and the author of The Resilient Leader, Mindset Makeover: Uncover the Elephant in the Room. She researched stress and its consequences in performance during her PhD. In the past 20-plus years she has coached thousands of professionals, leaders and executives toward emotional agility and engaged leadership.

For more information, visit http://www.eileadership.org.

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Stressed at work? Four strategies to reboot, refresh - Daily Herald

ST. JOSEPH Resiliency is a skill, and it's a state of being.

"Resiliency can be dealt by individuals and communities, and practiced through some very straightforward strategies," said Tami Miller,Krasl Art Center's deputy directorandcurator. "We're using the visual arts as a way to discuss this, and discussing the things thatresiliency is built from."

The Krasl willopen its new exhibit, aptly titled "Resiliency," tomorrow. It will be on display through Dec. 1.

The exhibit was developed with Spectrum Health Lakeland.

Resiliency is the process of adapting in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats and even stress such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stresses.

In 2016,Lakeland completed a Community Health Needs Assessment in which mental health emerged as the most urgent needin Berrien County.

The same year, KAC decided on a new mission to inspire meaningful change and strengthening the community.

"Through combining our expertise in art, and theirs in wellness, we developed a theme, and put out a call for artists," Miller said. "We reviewed the entries together and developed the exhibit."

The exhibition features contemporary artists from across the nation working in painting, drawing, illustration, dance and printmaking.

"It's not just one kind of art. It's so diverse," Miller said. "Some artists are using representational and some are actually using art making to make their own resiliency."

She said some pieces are calming, while other encourage positive coping skills.

"This is a positive and immediate way people can build their own skills," Miller said. "They're going to explore thisand find immediate ways to have them stay in the resiliency zone: staying grounded in a state of stress."

Christina E. Fontenelle, a Chicago psychotherapist and artist, will bring art pieces, a dance performance and dance/movement workshops to the Krasl Art Center as part of the "Resiliency" exhibition opening tomorrow.

A call she must answer

For Christina E. Fontenelle, a Chicagopsychotherapist and artist, resiliency isher theme in life.

"It just keeps coming up over and over again,"she said in a recent phone interview."It's just a call that I must answer.I like to do this to get messages across, and embody what I'm trying to get across."

Fontenelle will bring two pieces of art to the exhibition, as well as several dance workshops and a performance. The two art pieces focus around her work with migrant children.

"Theycrossed the border and experienced trauma," she said. "Movement was the only way to get through to them because they didn't speak Spanish or English. I created the pieces through my own self care."

To help others with their self care, she will put on two dance/movement therapy workshops at 11 a.m. Saturday at KAC, and at 6 p.m. Oct. 24 at Benton Harbor Public Library.

Through facilitation, she will lead attendees toward creative, nonjudgmental exploration of what self care means to them. The workshops include an ice-breaker, guided breathing meditation and skills/techniques that can be applied to everyday life.

"My workshops are based off my meditation journal, and I'd like to show people how that came about together," Fontenelle said.

Attomorrow's opening, she willhave a performance at 7 p.m.

"For me it's an honor to be able to be part of a space where we're able to acknowledge what's happening, and resilience as an individual and a whole," Fontenelle said.

She hopes people leave the exhibit with self awareness and self love.

"If I can have one person from the performance, workshop or my artwork leave, and they love themselves a little more, then I've done my job," Fontenelle said. "I want people to love themselves the way they were meant to be loved."

The space in between

Artist John Gutoskey believes that everyone is resilient, whether it's in the day-to-day spaces we're in or the world as a whole.

"It's a miracle we're not blowing each others heads off," he said in a recent phone interview. "We all sort of deal with it."

Gutoskey explores his own resiliency, and that of the queer community, in his eight mixed media mono prints he's bringing to theKraslfrom a collection he callsLiminal Landscapes."

"It's looking at queerness as this in between space," he said. "They are an exploration of what makes a space liminal or queer, and how queer space is different from heteronormative space."

The Ann Arbor artist said it was his own experience growing up gay that lead him to explore queer spaces.

"I was sort of grateful in my 20s for growing up gay because it forced me to deal with it, do therapy, grow up, and be resilient, rebound and believe in myself when people were telling me I'm useless," he said.

He said he also looks at the resiliency theme through the resiliency of others he's encountered through his therapeutic body work.

"When you're traumatized, a portion of our life force is taken away from us, we have to compartmentalize to move on, so it's not in our day-to-day," Gutoskey said. "As you move through the trauma, yourelease the traumatic energy, and you literally feel energy come back to you."

He said that's what he hopes people get from the exhibit.

"Ithink it's great some of the mental health issues we're talking about here and making it be about something more than the artwork," Gutoskey said."And how to seek out resources."

He said people these days need that with, for example, car accidents, surgery, abuse and veterans returning from war.

"You hope someone takes away something. If you see the work, there's a lot of arches and doorways and literal spaces," he said. "I'm just tryingto develop imagery that could talk about this luminality andjust trying to create images that are healing."

Other artists included in the exhibition are: Rachel Corbin, drawing, Nashville, Tenn.; Alli Farkas, painting, Dowagiac; Ginnie Hsu, illustration, New York; Olivia Hunter, photography, New York; the monarq, painting, Seattle; Sergio Goimez, painting, Chicago; and Martina Nehrling, painting, Chicago.

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Finding resiliency through art | Features - Herald Palladium

ONLY CONNECT! Edward Morgan Forster writes in Howards End, his enduringly powerful 1910 novel about class, morality, and love in Edwardian England; only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. In this line, the humanist Forster suggests the importance of linking what he describes as the Inner life and the Outer life: surface and depth, public image and private self. His books complex and vividly drawn characters are defined by their abilities to make these bridges, by their respective levels of hypocrisy, empathy, or compassion.

But in playwright Matthew Lopezs eviscerating and entirely absorbing new work, The Inheritance, the iconic line takes on an additional layer of meaning. The two-part, seven-hour play deftly connects Forsters novel to a pan-generational queer milieu in contemporary New York, effectively proving the timelessness of the novelists themes.

The play shattered audiences in a sold-out run at Londons Young Vic when it premiered in March 2018; The Guardians Michael Billington praised director Stephen Daldrys crystalline production and noted that the play pierces your emotional defenses, raises any number of political issues and enfolds you in its narrative. Before its transfer to the West Ends Nol Coward Theatre, it was lauded by The Telegraphs Dominic Cavendish as perhaps the most important American play of the century so far. It was subsequently garlanded with awards (the Evening Standards Best Play, the Olivier for Best Director).

Now The Inheritance, commandingly directed by Daldry and with several of the principal actors from the London production, has begun previews on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. With AIDS as a haunting presence, inevitable and favorable comparisons have been drawn with Tony Kushners game-changing 1991 epic, Angels in America. (Daldry and the show's designer, Bob Crowley, even give one of their characters prop-house wings in the London production.) But it is Forsters novel that primarily informs Lopezs new work. Whenever we hit a roadblock in a workshop, he says, the answer was very often to be found in Howards End.

Lopez makes Forster himselfhe goes by Morgana central character. A donnish, avuncular figure in buttoned-up tweeds, Morgan, at the plays inception, is instructing a group of young men on the art of transferring life experience to paper. This circle of friends, serving as a kind of Greek chorus, questions Morgan about the seemingly effortless elegance of his books opening lineOne may as well begin with Helens letters to her sisterso dashed off, as if to suggest it doesnt really matter how you start, one of them comments. One may as well begin with Tobys voicemails... to his boyfriend, they conclude. And so it begins.

A closeted man from an age that criminalized homosexuality, Morgan (played by Paul Hilton) is filled with wonder at this younger generation, a tribe of unencumbered men able to live their individual truths buoyed by preternatural self-awareness, PrEP (the daily preventative HIV medication), and pop-culture drollery. What they are often less aware of, as they navigate the travails of Manhattan real estate, Hamptons house parties, and nightclub dark rooms, are the struggles of a preceding generation that fought for liberation and was decimated by the early years of the AIDS holocaust in the 1980s. How can we learn from the past to forge a greater future together? queries actor Kyle Soller, who plays Eric Glass, an earnest activist. Its just such a universal, human story about how we need to recognize our collective history: Theres a message I think we really need right now.

At the outset of the plays action, Toby Darling (a lost-boy playwright, electrifyingly played by Andrew Burnap) is living in a spacious, rent-controlled Upper West Side apartment, the childhood home of his fianc, Eric. Forsters novel revolves around an inheritance, the romantic country house (Howards End) bequeathed by the mystical Ruth Wilcox to the freethinking Margaret Schlegel, a mere acquaintance whom she nevertheless recognizes as a kindred spirit. In The Inheritance, it is a house upstate that decades earlier the young lovers Henry and Walter intended as a refuge from the disease that was ravaging their circle of friends and that is destined to become a sanctuary of a different sort.

Lopez had a thwarted inheritance of his own. Raised in Panama City, a small town in the part of the Florida panhandle known, he says, as the Redneck Riviera, he yearned for the Brooklyn of his parents childhoods. I think they must have seen in it a kind of paradise, he continues. My dad was raised in housing projects; now theyre able to own a home and land. Their son, however, did not see northwestern Florida as a paradise. It was baffling to me. (He has now reclaimed his parents urban roots, living in Brooklyn with his husband of four years, Brandon Clarke.) The solace I hadbesides my parents, who were loving and caringwas the movies and theater and reading, he recalls. The local community theater was my salvation.

The teenage Lopez saw Ismail Merchant and James Ivorys powerful 1992 adaptation of Howards End. I knew nothing about E. M. Forster. I knew nothing about Howards End, he remembers, but seeing that movie absolutely changed my life. It was the first thing that really struck a chord with me as a writer. I was just so enamored of the film and then later the bookand the love affair has not abated. The 1987 movie adaptation of Forsters homoerotic Maurice, published only after the writers death in 1970, was to prove a further revelation, although Lopez had to seek this one out. They were not showing it in Panama City; thats for sure, he says, laughing, and it was not available at the local Blockbuster. When he finally watched the film and then researched Forsters life, he recalls thinking, Holy shit, this is Howards End but gay! The revelation gave Lopez the notion of retelling Howards End as a queer story, and six years ago the writer (who won acclaim for his 2006 breakout play The Whipping Man) set out to re-investigate the book. Lopez wrote every word of his original draft at a Brooklyn writers space, often working until three in the morning and even on Christmas Eve.

The result, as Andrew Burnap discovered during one of four major workshops that spanned two years, was a beautiful mess that ran some 10 hours. Burnap had been starring as a sad-sack Elvis impersonator turned stellar drag queen in Lopezs comedic play The Legend of Georgia McBride in Los Angeles but knew nothing about the new play until his manager sent him the script. I read it at night, he recalls. I started at nine and finished at six. For the sake of my roommates, I was trying to keep the weeping to a dull roar and muffle the laughing as wellbecause I also found it wildly funny.

During the workshop, Burnap played one of the young men in the circle of friends, but he was eventually asked to step in and play the part of Toby. I even told him, Youre too young for the role, but youd be doing me a huge favor, Lopez recalls. Months later, Burnap got a call while he was driving in L.A. I pulled over and sort of felt that my life was about to change, he remembers. Burnap had never been to Europe before he traveled for the play; the new production will mark his Broadway debut.

His fellow cast member Kyle Soller received the 400-page script the day before his audition. Undaunted, he finished reading it on the subway en route to the audition. I felt there was something special in my hands, Soller recalls. The characters are so fully formed and three-dimensional, and Matthews writing is heartbreaking and poetic in equal measure. (Sollers performance won him both the Olivier and Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor.)

It was something that hits you like a ton of bricks, says actor Samuel H. Levine of Lopezs writing. (The actor admits that he had no idea who Forster was when he embarked on The Inheritance. Now I feel like I know him, he says.) Levine plays both Adam, a young actor on a blazing meteors arc, and Leo, a hustler on the reverse trajectory. Having dropped out of school, Levine was working in a restaurant when he was called in to do the workshop. I thought, Theres no way in hell I am ever going to do this, he recalls, so lets just let it rip, and that unharnessed energy helped to secure him the dual roles of the very different characters. From those early stages, Levine remembers the constant flow of new pages. We must have killed a lot of trees!

There was just more than we could ever stage, Lopez admits of his first drafts. A play is theoretical until you actually get it on its feet and watch it in a run. I dont think those early audiences knew quite how much power they had, he adds. They taught us everything. The first preview before a Young Vic audience proved, as Levine recalls, overwhelmingly electricit hit really hard, hearing the reactions. Burnap remembers sneaking into the back of the theater, during the wrenching conclusion of act one, and witnessing the sort of theatrical event where everyones life is changed, almost as if the entire audience is held in suspension, he says. Im just so moved in every performance, says Soller, because we can hear the audience audibly crying, full of the histories that theyre bringing to the story.

One member of the London cast who brought a particularly poignant past to the story was the legendary Vanessa Redgrave, who was a haunting Ruth Wilcox in the Merchant--Ivory movie and played a mother whose son has succumbed to AIDS decades earlier in The Inheritance. (The actress herself lost her ex-husband Tony Richardson, father of her daughters, Joely and the late Natasha Richardson, to complications from the disease in 1991.) Though Redgrave will not be appearing in New York, Lopez notes the power of her performance. It was an incredibly humbling thing to watch her examine her own trauma and to see her put her personal experience in service of the play, he says.

More changes are afoot in the new productiona new chorus and a subtle reconsidering. With this new American ensemble comes a new personality, Lopez says. I think that the last thing were interested in doing is putting up a carbon copy of the production in Londonotherwise, just show the video. One of the things that I learned from Stephen is always to question your assumptions, and always go with the desire to make it better.

Thanks to the Forster estates supportive trustees, Lopez even visited the authors rooms at Kings College, Cambridge University, and was able to study the writers original manuscripts. I feel a different, newfound kind of kinship with Forster, he says, and Id like to think that the cast came away feeling as possessive of Forster and his writing and his legacy as I was when I started writing the play.

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The Inheritance, London's Epic, 7-hour Play of the Century Arrives on Broadway - Vogue

For many of us, when we make a mistake, self-criticism is often our default response. The voice in our heads that tells us that we are useless or worthless or that we are never going to amount to anything unless we pull our socks up. Surely, having such a coach on the side-lines, spurring us on, will make us perform better in the future? Many of us believe that self-criticism demonstrates our commitment to the highest possible standards.

If you had asked me 10 years ago how best to motivate myself, I suspect that self-criticism would have featured fairly high up the list. If someone had suggested I take a kinder approach to my setbacks or failures I probably would have laughed. Surely the only way toachieve the high standards that I had set for myself was to hold myself accountable by criticising my short-comings? That would ensure I didnt fall short again. It is certainly true that we dont like the feeling of being criticised. Criticism is painful. It feels bad, regardless of who is dishing it out. Yet, it would be a mistake to believe that self-criticism motivates us to keep moving forward.

Criticism hurts

When we criticise ourselves, the emotional pain we experience lights up the same pain centres of the brain as physical pain, namely the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. As a result of this overlap in neural circuitry, when our inner critic runs rampant inside our head, it can feel as if someone has quite literally punched us in the gut. Only, rather than a critical stranger, we are the ones inflicting the pain. In an effort to protect ourselves, we trigger fight or flight the very same mechanism that we call upon to help us defend ourselves from a predator. Only, in the case of self-criticism, we are both the predator and the prey.

Whereas the threat from an actual predator usually dissipates within minutes or hours, our self-criticism can last for days, months or an entire lifetime, slowly eroding our self-worth, self-confidence and our sense of safety. Yet, if we cannot find sanctuary in our own mind, where will we ever find refuge from the critical world we find ourselves in? As a result (and contrary to popular belief), self-criticism has been shown to have a negative effect on our long-term motivation. Our inner critic effectively undermines our self-esteem and, with it, our motivation to persevere.

A different approach to failure

Research into self-compassion shows that those who are able to cultivate greater compassion towards themselves, counterintuitively end up holding themselves to a higher standard and perform better than those who criticise themselves. A self-compassionate response has been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, stress, perfectionism, shame and pain. It has also been shown to increase life satisfaction, happiness, optimism, body appreciation and immune function.

Part of the reason is due to the fact that self-compassion doesnt induce our fight or flight response so there is no longer the fear of beating ourselves up if things go wrong. Instead, we tap into our parasympathetic nervous system, meditated by our mammalian caregiving system (also known as our tend and befriend response). It works by triggering the release of hormones such as oxytocin, which help to promote feelings of warmth towards ourselves and relieve any stress we may be experiencing. We become our greatest ally.

Cultivating greater self-compassion

When it comes to cultivating greater self-compassion towards our self, there is no silver bullet. It begins with mindful self-awareness of those moments when we are experiencing pain or suffering and learning to catch ourselves from mindlessly chastising ourselves. The second step is to be kind. A simple exercise that you can do to cultivate greater kindness towards yourself, which is an exercise from the Mindful Self-Compassion programme developed by Chris Germer and Kristin Neff, is set out below.

1. Think of a behaviour that you are keen to change and that is currently causing you problems. What happens when you display that behaviour? Do you get defensive? Do you close down?

2. What does the voice of your inner critic tell you? What words does it use? What tone does it use? How does it express itself?

3. Now get in touch with the part of you that feels criticised. What impact do those critical words have on you? How do they make you feel?

4. Finally, can you think of a kinder more compassionate way of acknowledging your pain in that moment? Imagine it was a close friend who had been berating themselves for a similar transgression, what would you say to them to help comfort them in that moment? Can you use similar words to comfort yourself?

Lastly, it can be really helpful to harness our common humanity. Reminding ourselves that we are not alone in moments of suffering can be a huge comfort. Humans are imperfect beings and all of us will have experienced setbacks and sorrow in our lifetimes. Reminding ourselves of this fact can help soothe the pain we may be experiencing in that moment. The more often we practise self-compassion the quieter our inner critics voice will become.

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Silencing the critic within - Thrive Global