It was a colorful salute to abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock on his birthday, Jan. 28, when participants in a Menlo Park Library adult art class gathered to drip, smear, and move paint freely over their canvases.

Christie Inocencio, a teaching artist who leads programs at libraries, senior centers, schools, and other locations, helped participants explore Pollock's painting style through the greatest form of flattery: imitation.

Inocencio started her company, Christie's Creative Cupboard, in order to fill a need in the community for fun, educational programs for all age groups, according to the library's website.

Earlier today, she taught students how to paint in the style of neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The free art programs are funded by the Friends of the Menlo Park Library.

Learn about additional library classes and events here.

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Channeling their inner Pollock | News - The Almanac Online

Conestoga Indians walk into the woods. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

Conestoga Indians walk into the woods.

Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, a new graphic novel and art exhibit, depicts a gruesome, footnoted event in American history the Conestoga Massacre. The massacre was an act of brutality that killed an entire community of Native people and almost erased their voices from history. Ghost River hopes to give that voice back, reenvisioning the events through the eyes of Native people. (The comic is available to read online. A free exhibit featuring art from the book is running at the Library Company of Philadelphia until April.)

The Conestoga Massacre took place in Pennsylvania in December of 1763, when a band of about 50 white settlers rode 40 miles from Paxton Township to Conestoga Indian Town, (at the time, made up of 20 people). The white settlers, later dubbed the Paxton Boys, killed and mutilated six Conestoga in their homes, and then did the same for the remaining 14, who were sheltering in a workhouse nearby. In the course of an afternoon, Conestoga Indian Town was no more.

The Paxtons, who are intentionally drawn as faceless shadows, attack Conestoga Indiantown. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

The Paxtons, who are intentionally drawn as faceless shadows, attack Conestoga Indiantown.

In addition to wiping out the Conestoga, the massacre ignited long-simmering tensions between Scots-Irish frontiersmen, which included the Paxton Boys, and the Quaker elite, who were perceived to be running the Pennsylvania government. People in the frontier believed that the Quakers gave resources to Native people at the expense of white settlers. Over the course of the next few weeks, those tensions escalated, and in early 1764, white frontiersmen numbering in the hundreds marched east toward Philadelphia with the thinly masked intention of wiping out even more Native people.

But before they arrived in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was able to deescalate the mob. He persuaded folks to put down their weapons and, instead, print their grievances for the local government to read. What resulted was America's first "pamphlet war." In more than 60 pamphlets and 10 political cartoons, the settlers put their claims in writing. According to Ghost River, "At stake was much more than the conduct of the Paxton murderers. Pamphleteers staked claims about westward settlement, representation, and white supremacy in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania."

But conspicuously absent from all the discourse about the massacre were the voices of any Native people. Will Fenton noticed that absence while working on an online archive of the pamphlet war called Digital Paxton. And he realized he could do something about it. Fenton, who is the director of scholarly innovation at the Library Company of Philadelphia, thought turning the story into a graphic novel would be a way to accomplish several things: reconstruct the story to include Native perspectives, make the history more broadly accessible, and showcase not just the ideas in the pamphlets, but also the visuals and political cartoons.

A character holds a piece of paper with a political cartoon from the era, in which a Native woman seduces a Quaker. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

A character holds a piece of paper with a political cartoon from the era, in which a Native woman seduces a Quaker.

So he asked two Native artists Lee Francis IV of the Laguna Pueblo and Weshoyot Alvitre of the Tongva to write and illustrate the novel.

Neither artist is from the same nation, or even region, as the Conestoga. Bridging that gap was one of the project's biggest considerations. The project's advisers, including Lene Lenape, Delaware and other peoples who have histories in Colonial Pennsylvania, were brought on early to be part of the development process.

I talked to Francis and Alvitre about why this history is important, the nuances of writing for a Native audience, and why graphic novels are a medium that can help Native folks affirm their own identities.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Why comic books? Why is that your medium?

Francis: So first and foremost, I am just a big indigenerd. I love comics. I grew up on comics. I consumed comics and graphic novels and science fiction and fantasy and pop culture television. So there's that part of my existence and identity, both as Native and as a nerd, that's always been drawn towards that medium. But digging a little deeper, the idea of being able to couple images with a story, the imagery and the words is one way that we can undo a lot of this mystique, this pop culture misrepresentation and misinformation of Native people and Native identities.

You have this space where Native folks get to reaffirm their own identities and non-Native folks have to deal with a little bit of cognitive dissonance, because the Native folks that we portray in the book don't look like the standard Native folks that we would normally see. They were accustomed to a Western style of dress or a modified traditional style of dress. The fact that it's set in the winter means you're not seeing Native folks that are wearing buckskin and not clothes.

So I think that coupling that with the images creates a counter-narrative. Plus, you can create scenes and images that are powerful and dynamic, that have iconographic features. Near the end of the book, when the Native folks rise up to meet their aggressor, you know, you can see that. When the Conestoga face their final moments, and they're facing the page, they're facing the reader. You see in their eyes that they're ready. They're determined. They are unafraid.

The Conestoga stand and face their final moments. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

The Conestoga stand and face their final moments.

This project was supported by the Library Company, one of the oldest libraries in the country. We know who has historically had access to certain kinds of records and histories, so how did you approach collaborating with this institution?

Francis: Too often we're brought in at the end of projects to greenlight things. Like, "Hey, I've got some Native characters and we just want to make sure everything's OK." And sometimes it's not OK. Sometimes it is OK. But the not OK usually is like, "Hey, there's some things we need to change, some things you need to work on. And that tends to ruffle some feathers. And at the end of the project, we can't really make a lot of changes. So Will [Fenton] wanting to draw us in at the beginning of the project and have myself and Weshoyot and, you know, Native writers, Native illustrators, Native publisher all the way across the board, was something that was refreshing for me.

Alvitre: From the very first field trips we went on, the very first meeting we had with the Library Company, [Will] introduced us to the building and the archive material. Some of his employees up in the print archive documents center pulled a selection of all the original cartoons that we were referencing from Day 1. So we got to see these old, archival, historical political cartoons, and we could literally touch them in the papers. And just to lay that out for us in such a respectful way, and it's not something that you get often.

Alvitre, Francis, Fenton and advisers examine documents in the comic, which jumps through time nonlinearly and includes the research process. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

Alvitre, Francis, Fenton and advisers examine documents in the comic, which jumps through time nonlinearly and includes the research process.

I was just discussing work that my father had done in regards to trying to find and access archives of our tribal languages and just archeological paperwork. And when he was my age, he was basically shut out from academics and, you know, educational archives. Because back in the days, you had to have a Ph.D. or have some sort of credentials to gain access to the things. They were never openly shared with Native people. And once you had those credentials, oftentimes it took years and years and a lot of money that many people didn't have to access those things. So I think that was one of the biggest, most amazing things of this project, was they were sharing these with us without any sort of hoops to jump through, sharing them openly to support the project.

I'm curious, generally, about who we tell histories for, especially indigenous history. Is that different when you're thinking about a Native audience versus a non-Native audience? How do you approach that?

Francis: First and foremost, I will always say that I write for a Native audience. I spent years in education, I spent a decade plus working with kids from my own home community and people in my community and my family members. And so I'm always going to approach whatever I look at from that perspective. Now, that's not going to say that I'm not touched by understanding the pop culture landscape and how that works. I write around those influences, or counteract those influences. So, for example, a big component that Weshoyot and I went back and forth talking about is that we did not want to see the incidences of violence. They are portrayed in a way that is very metaphorical, very artistic, because there's too much of Native folks that are dead and dying, and the violence perpetrated against Native folks. We fetishize that violence. We fetishize that tragedy and Native tragedy. And I really want to get away from that. So even the book ends in a way that is, for lack of a better term, wistful but serious. In terms of this moment, we're reflecting on history, where we're walking the land in present time.

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm not aware of all the folks that are going to read this. And this is essentially also an invitation. I want to make sure that there's an access point for for non-Natives, for other relatives, for globally indigenous peoples to access this work in a way that we create that common story of tragedy, of sorrow, but also resilience and hope and resistance and determination to continue to live, to continue to be, to continue to exist.

The wampum belt depicting the treaty between the Conestoga and William Penn. Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia hide caption

The wampum belt depicting the treaty between the Conestoga and William Penn.

I grew up with, I mean, we all grew up with the Declaration of Independence, but I'm a pop culture kid. Especially a theater kid. So I grew up in musical theater, and 1776 and Hamilton, and all these other things that, you know, espouse how amazing this Declaration of Independence is. And then as you start to peel back the layers and you know, people are like, "Well that's not what they meant." It's like yeah, it is absolutely what they meant. "Merciless Indian savages." This shows up in our Declaration of Independence. Everyone is created equal except for a certain select few that are not created equal, that are not even included in the document itself.

Why is this history meaningful? And why is telling the stories that you tell important?

Alvitre: My goal is to shed light on these sort of dark, dusty areas that have been hidden intentionally due to the system being a little bit of a propaganda system against Native people. But also to learn from and humanize these incidents. I think we need to stop guilt tripping people over what happened in the past. And I think we need to acknowledge those things. I think through that acknowledgement, just by saying that, yes, it did happen, instead of hiding, that's one step in a healing process. By people understanding these historical facts that happened in the founding of this country, it's really going to give them a broader understanding of what it is to be an American in this day and age, and the things that had happened in the past so we don't repeat them in the future.

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'Ghost River' Retells the Conestoga Massacre With Native Voices : Code Switch - NPR

ROB ROSE, 717-505-5418/@robrosesports Published 6:08 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020 | Updated 10:16 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020

Buddhism has helped Spring Grove High grad Eli Brooks deal with the ups and downs of his Michigan basketball career. He wears a tattoo symbolizing his faith on his left shoulder.(Photo: Carlos Osorio, AP)

While walking through the Morningstar Marketplace with his mother during his sophomore year at Spring Grove High, something caught Eli Brooks eye.

It took some convincing because of the high price tag, but Brooks got his mother, Kelly, to purchase a statue of the head of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha and the founderof Buddhism.

Little did she know that the purchase would change her sons life.

Brooks carried the statue in his backpack for every game of his sophomore season and into his junior year, until one night he slipped on some ice and the Buddha head broke.

Now, a junior and a starter for the University of Michigan basketball team, Brooks no longer carriesthe symbol of the faith in his bag. Instead, he carries that faith with him every time he steps on the court. It's a faith that has allowed him to deal with a Michigan career that's been full of ups and downs.

The tattoo on his left shoulder serves as a symbol of thefaith he has and how it has allowed him to thrive, even after finding himself on the bench and working with the scout team before emerging asa team leader this season.

Its a visual reminder of how it got me through dark times, Brooks said of his tattoo of the Buddha in a phone interview.

Michigan guard Eli Brooks (55) grabs the ball from guard Zavier Simpson (3) during the first half against Iowa in an NCAA college basketball game Friday, Jan. 17, 2020, in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette via AP)(Photo: Rebecca F. Miller, AP)

Test of faith: When Brooks originally purchased the Buddha head, he only knew a little about Buddhism. As he got older, andafterspendingmore time learning and researching the faith, he found hewas interested in it.

The point where he really found himself looking for guidance came during his sophomore year at Michigan. Brooks didnt start a game last season after he started 12 games as a freshman following his dominant career at Spring Grove High.

Brooks was asked to work with the scout team during practices to help the Wolverines prepare to defend opposing star players. During the rare moments when he was on the floor in the real games, he struggled with his shooting and confidence.

After he averaged 1.8 and 2.5 points per game in his first two seasons, respectively, Brooks admitted the idea of transferring to another school crossed his mind, but he decided to stick it out at Michigan.

I think that crosses everybodys mind when youre not getting the playing time, but I just looked at it like, 'its a great opportunity to get a great education,' Brooks said. The ball (will) start bouncing your way some time, so just take advantage of the resources that we have here and keep trying to bring up my game so I can get on the court.

Becoming a leader: Brooks worked to elevate physically on the court, but improving his mentality and focus werejust as important. His time on the court and in the gym, in combination with his faith and daily meditation beforepractice to get into the right frame of mind, helpedBrooks earn a spot in the starting lineup this season under new head coach Juwan Howard, a former member of the legendary Fab Five with the Wolverines.

Its easy to get caught up, so just having something there to believe in and trust and get you through tough times is really good, Brooks said.

After he had earned a starting spot, Brooks learned how important it is to be a leader on the team during a season whenthe Wolverines battled plenty of ups and downs.

Brooks said it was difficult at first to be a vocal leader, evident by one his nicknames, The Silent Assassin, given to him by teammate Isaiah Livers because of Brooks ability to get things done without talking too much.

Before he could lead his team, however, he had to learn how to lead himself.

I feel like you have to be in control of yourself in order to lead someone else, Brooks said. If you dont know whats going on, its hard for you to teach someone else.

Brooks, who also goes by The Professor, a nickname given to him by Howard because of Brooks desire to ask questions and his high basketball IQ, is schooling his doubters now.

Through 27 games, he has more points, minutes, rebounds and steals than during his first two seasons combined. Brooks has been the Wolverines leading scorer on six occasions and has started every game while averaging 11 points per contest.

He's also helped guide his team through achallenging season, that saw the Wolverines (now 18-9) gofrom the No. 4 team in NCAA Division I, to unranked after a four-game skid, and now back into the top 25 at No. 19.

His status for Michigans next game is still unclear after he suffered a nose injury against Purdue. Brooks said he will likely wear a clear facemask, like the one made popular by Detroit Pistons guard Richard Hamilton in the early 2000s, until the black, carbon fiber model being made is ready for him.

Michigan guard Eli Brooks (55) walks off the court ofter being injured during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Purdue in West Lafayette, Ind., Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)(Photo: Michael Conroy, AP)

Ups and downs: As he prepares for the final four games of Michigans regular season, Brooks said the team is peaking at the right time and their challenges during the year have brought them closer together.

Much like his career at Michigan, the struggles have only made the successes mean more for Brooks. As the pressure on winning each game rises with the NCAA Tournament approaching, one glimpse at the tattoo on his shoulder, the symbol of his faith that has helped guide him through all the challenges, reminds Brooks of how far he has come during his college career.

Stay true to who you are, Brooks said. Just continue to do things youve done in the past that make you happy. Theres been ups and downs. A lot of good things happened and then bad things have happened, but thats life. Not everything is going to be glitter, so you just need to be able to get through those hard times.

Reach Rob Rose at rrose@yorkdispatch.com.

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Buddhism and meditation guide Eli Brooks through the ups and downs of his Michigan career - York Dispatch

Mindfulness and meditation have long been associated with positive health benefits. Now, a small new study suggests such benefits can emerge even after just a short period of meditation, - and even if you've never tried it before.

The study involved 17 people, so we can't make any sweeping generalisations from it, but the volunteer participants coped better with both physical pain and negative emotions when they applied techniques given to them in a short 20-minute mindfulness exercise beforehand.

None of the study participants had practiced meditation before, which isn't often the case with experiments like these. Hence, the results suggest that the brain can quickly get to grips with the state of mind brought on by meditation.

"The findings support the idea that momentary mindful-acceptance regulates emotional intensity by changing initial appraisals of the affective significance of stimuli, which has consequences for clinical treatment of pain and emotion," write the researchers in their published paper.

In the study, the volunteers were put through two sets of tests: one where something warm or hot was put on their forearm, and one where they were shown negative or neutral images. A negative image might be something like a mutilated body, for example, while a neutral image could be something like a chair.

During these tests, half the time the participants were told to act naturally, and half the time they were told to try and apply the ideas from the mindfulness crash course they had been given; when applying mindfulness, the participants reported less pain and fewer negative emotions.

While this was happening, the researchers were also using fMRI scans to see how the brains of the people being tested were reacting. This revealed something interesting: a significant drop in brain activity associated with pain and negative emotions when volunteers were trying to be mindful.

In the case of the physical experiment, when the highest temperatures were used, it was "as if the brain was responding to warm temperature, not very high heat",says neuroscientist Hedy Kober from Yale University.

What's more, these neurological shifts weren't happening in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the bit where conscious and rational decision-making is processed that suggests that deploying some mindfulness techniques can alter our brains on a subconscious level, without any deliberate effort in willpower.

Previous studies have demonstrated how lower brain activity and meditation practices can boost our health in numerous ways, but what this study shows limited in scope as it is is that the benefits can be relatively quick.

That in turn could give doctors new ways to try and treat physical and mental issues, though more research is going to be needed to see how these ideas play out in a bigger, more diverse group of people.

"The ability to stay in the moment when experiencing pain or negative emotions suggests there may be clinical benefits to mindfulness practice in chronic conditions as well even without long meditation practice," says Kober.

The research has been published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

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A Short Meditation Could Help With Pain Management Even if You've Never Tried It Before - ScienceAlert

Run, javelina, run. Photo: The Damion Alexander Team/Facebook

The benefits of meditation are many and well documented. Taking some time each day to clear your thoughts and focus on your breathing has been shown to reduce anxiety, improve your mood, lower your blood pressure, even improve your skin. But can meditation really compare, I wonder, to the joy and serenity I experience when watching this incredibly fast pig zooming along the streets of Tucson, Arizona?

The video of the pig went viral this week after it was posted to Facebook by real estate agent Damion Alexander. Wee wee wee, all the way home, Alexander wrote.

Technically, the pig in the video isnt a pig; shes a javelina. Also known as collared peccary or musk hogs, according to Arizonas KOLD13, javelinas are neither pigs nor boars. Theyre hoofed herbivores who typically live in herds of eight or nine and have a scent gland on top of their rump that emits a strong, skunklike odor that they use to communicate with the other members of their herd. Speedy, stinky kings!

Watching this javelina speed along the side of the Los Portales apartment complex, I am overwhelmed with a sense of calm. Look at her grace, her determination. Look at the way she launches herself forward off of her powerful haunches and how she is, for a moment in each stride, suspended in the air, flying, free. Imagine what it would feel like to be that powerful, to have the wind rippling through your hair, your skunklike odor trailing behind you. Blissful.

If, for some reason, this doesnt immediately center you, try watching this clip of the javelina set to Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill.

I dont know about you, but my skin feels clearer already.

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This Video of a Speedy Pig Will Bring You Serenity - The Cut

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A new study has linked the emotional changes felt by people conducting transcendental meditation with measurable changes in the brain, data which adds further evidence for the benefits of the practice to the brain.

The research, which appeared in Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists in the silent repetition of a meaningless sound, a "mantra".

For the study, conducted at the Molecular Mind Laboratory (MoMiLab) of IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, the researchers enrolled 34 healthy young volunteers and divided them in two groups. The first one practiced Transcendental Meditation 40 minutes per day in two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and the other in the evening; the second group did not change its daily routine.

At the beginning of the study, the researchers also measured through psychometric questionnaires the anxiety and stress level of all the participants, as well as their ability to manage stressful situations. Each individual was also subjected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging test (fMRI), in order to measure brain activity at rest and changes in the functional connectivity among different cerebral areas. After three months, at the end of the study, the same tests were repeated.

The analysis of the data clearly showed that levels of anxiety and stress perceived by the subjects who followed the meditation program were significantly reduced in comparison with those of the volunteers who did not practice TM. "Magnetic resonance imaging also shows that the reduction of anxiety levels is associated with specific changes in the connectivity between different cerebral areas, such as precuneus, left parietal lobe and insula, which all have an important role in the modulation of emotions and inner states", explains Giulia Avvenuti, a PhD fellow at IMT School and first author of the study. "In the control group, instead, none of these changes was observed". "The fact that Transcendental Meditation has measurable effects on the 'dialogue' between brain structures involved in the modulation of affective states opens new perspectives for the understanding of brain-mind relationships" says Pietro Pietrini, IMT School's Director and coordinator of the study. "It also extends the results of recent research suggesting that drugs therapies and psychotherapy leverage on the same biological mechanism".

Transcendental Meditation has recently gained an increasing success worldwide as a relaxation practice also thanks to the David Lynch Foundation, which co-financed the study along with the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca. Founded in 2005 by the movie director David Lynch, who is himself a longtime practitioner and supporter of the social value of Transcendental Meditation, the David Lynch Foundation promotes TM practice as an approach to reduce stress in schools (as for the 'Quiet Time-Meditate Lucca' project at the Pertini High School) and workplaces, and to build resilience in victims of trauma.

"I am very happy of the results of this study that used the latest technology to show the beautiful benefits for the human beings of TM. Now I'm working to form my foundation also in Italy, with teachers who teach transcendental meditation in schools, work places and other groups, reaching as many people as possible" says David Lynch.

This new study, coherently with previous ones, shows that even a few months of practice of Transcendental Meditation have positive effects on psychological well-being and that these effects are correlated with measurable changes in the brain.

Reference: Avvenuti, G., Leo, A., Cecchetti, L., Franco, M. F., Travis, F., Caramella, D., Bernardi, G., Ricciardi, E., & Pietrini, P. (2020). Reductions in perceived stress following Transcendental Meditation practice are associated with increased brain regional connectivity at rest. Brain and Cognition, 139, 105517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105517

This article has been republished from materials provided by IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Transcendental Meditation Linked to Increase in Functional Connectivity in the Brain - Technology Networks

The subjective feeling of well-being experienced by many people with the practice of meditation is associated with specific changes in the brain, according to a study which may lead to better clinical recommendations of the practice.

The study, published in the journal Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists of the silent repetition of a meaningless sound.

In the study, the researchers from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca in Italy, enrolled 34 healthy young volunteers and divided them in two groups.

They said the first group practised TM 40 minutes per day in two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and the other in the evening.

The second group, the scientists said, did not change its daily routine.

Using questionnaires, they also measured the anxiety and stress levels of all the participants at the beginning of the study, as well as the subjects' ability to manage stressful situations.

According to the researchers, the participants were also subjected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scan, in order to measure the organ's activity at rest, and changes in the excitation among different cerebral areas.

They repeated the tests after three months, at the end of the study.

According to the study, the levels of anxiety and stress perceived by the subjects who followed the meditation program were significantly reduced in comparison with those of the volunteers who did not practice TM.

"Magnetic resonance imaging also shows that the reduction of anxiety levels is associated with specific changes in the connectivity between different cerebral areas, such as precuneus, left parietal lobe and insula, which all have an important role in the modulation of emotions and inner states," said study co-author Giulia Avvenuti from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca.

"In the control group, instead, none of these changes was observed. The fact that Transcendental Meditation has measurable effects on the 'dialogue' between brain structures involved in the modulation of affective states opens new perspectives for the understanding of brain-mind relationships," said Pietro Pietrini, IMT School's Director, and co-author of the study.

"It also extends the results of recent research suggesting that drugs therapies and psychotherapy leverage on the same biological mechanism," Pietrini said.

According to the researchers, even a few months of practice of TM can have positive effects which can be correlated with measurable changes in the brain.

More here:

Meditation may be associated with specific brain connection changes: Study - Deccan Herald

Houston writer Kate Murphy discusses her book, Youre Not Listening: What Youre Missing and Why It Matters.

From an early age were conditioned to not listen.

Were told to lead the conversation, not follow it, says Houston-based writer and journalist Kate Murphy. Theres sort of this urgency in our culture to shape the narrative stay on message.

Or, as a kid, if your parent stopped you and said, Listen to me, that was usually bad news.

Its a sure bet you were not going to like what was coming next, she said.

The same goes when a romantic partner says, Listen, we need to talk.

Plus, nowadays, technology is everywhere.

Everything around us is almost conspiring to keep us from listening, Murphy said.

She explores the often-lost art of listening in her book Youre Not Listening: What Youre Missing and Why It Matters. In the audio above, she discusses what she discovered with Houston Matters host Craig Cohen.

Murphy will discuss the book at Brazos Bookstore on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 6:30 p.m.

CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS

1. Listening Takes Effort. Wanting to listen is the first step, but there are plenty of tangible and psychological hurdles to clear too.

We can think a lot faster than people can talk, Murphy said. And, as a result, our minds start to drift. So it does it takes effort. And with all these other things going on keeping us from listening, it is becoming very much of a lost art.

2. Multitasking Is A Myth

Murphy says theres this persistent myth that we can successfully multitask.

But the research is really clear: each additional input degrades your ability to listen, she said.

3. Listening Is A Skill

To learn how good listeners hone that skill, she interviewed people from professions that demand a higher level of it.

I like to call them the Olympic athletes of listeners, she said. These are people like air traffic controllers, CIA agents, focus group moderators, bartenders, hair dressers. Theyre the people that have put in their 10,000 hours.

And just like any other skill, it gets better with practice.

Like a sport or playing a musical instrument the more you do it the better you get at it, Murphy said.

4. Your Listening Skills Can Atrophy

Murphy says, in a culture where good listening happens less and less, that compounds the problem.

Theres less and less listening going on, and as a result people get worse and worse at it, and when you get worse at something then you resist doing it, she said. Like, if you havent run for a long time, and then you try and run you feel like, OK, this is painful. Its hard for me to go back to doing that.

5. Treat Listening Like Meditation

So, in a world where distractions cant be completely avoided, what can someone do to improve their listening?

Murphy says to think about listening like meditation.

Where you acknowledge distractions but then bring your focus back to the listener, she said. Whereas, in meditation, you bring your focus back to breathing or a mantra. But, with listening, you bring yourself back to the conversation at hand.

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5 Things To Know About The Lost Art Of Listening - Houston Public Media

The mega-round isn't going anywhere, as startups wait longer to raise outside capital and investors stockpile funds for backing the most mature companies.

Headspace, a startup that makes an app for guided meditation, is one of the latest beneficiaries of the capital blitz. The company that waited five years to raise its first significant round of financing in 2015 has just closed on $93 million in new funding. The Series C round is only a few million dollars short of being a mega-round, the term du jour for the industry, which describes a financing event where a company pulls in at least $100 million.

The cash injection will allow the Southern California startup to pour gasoline on its newer enterprise business, which sells app subscriptions to corporations as an employee benefit. Headspace for Work has doubled revenue two years in a row, according to a company statement.

The deal's size isn't unusual. Last year, the tech industry recorded 257 mega-rounds, an increase of almost 12% from 2018, according to PitchBook data.

However, the Headspace round is remarkable in the details.

Rich Pierson, cofounder and chief executive officer of Headspace, said the company fielded "lots of term sheets" from investors. The interest meant that the two founders could craft the conditions of the round to their liking.

They structured the deal in a way that it would not dilute shares of the company more than was necessary. And they selected a lead investor that offered terms that put the company's best interests ahead of their own, according to Pierson.

His advice for founders: "I wouldn't be forced to take some of the checks and terms that people are offering in this kind of cycle," Pierson told Business Insider.

The new funding has an almost even mix of equity and debt financing, which the company will have to pay back with interest. It includes $40 million of debt financing from Pacific Western Bank.

The main reason a startup would want to raise debt financing is because it doesn't create new chunks of ownership. That means the value of the equity held by existing shareholders remains the same.

Typically, a startup takes on debt when it expects to make enough money to settle up. Headspace's consumer business, which sells subscriptions to the app, is profitable, according to the company.

That wasn't always the case. Headspace began in 2010 as a meditation events company backed by a family-and-friends round of financing. The business model was "terrible," Pierson said, and two years later, the startup reinvented itself as an app with a business model baked in. The app requires a subscription to access that costs $12.99 a month or $70 for the year.

The latest round also includes $53 million in venture capital, which Headspace can spend to grow the parts of the business that are less predictable, like Headspace for Work. Pierson said hiring a larger staff is among the startup's biggest expenses.

Headspace could also use the capital to provide funding for clinical trials that study the effects of its app on a number of health conditions. If it gets approval from the Federal Drug Administration, the app could be prescribed by a doctor and paid for a health insurer. Healthcare opens a huge market opportunity for Headspace.

But the success of its healthcare business relies on an approval it doesn't have yet.

"We are at the mercy of the research results that come back," Pierson said.

The founders could have their pick of investors if the round was as competitive as Pierson said. They went with a mix of sector-specific funds and lesser-known firms that invest at the growth stage.

The round includes several venture capital firms that were founded by media moguls, including Shari Redstone's Advancit Capital and Peter Chernin's fund.Times Bridge, an investment vehicle affiliated with the largest media conglomerate in India, also participated.

Pierson said he and his cofounder, Andy Puddicombe, got to know their investors before signing term sheets to make sure they shared their values around "selfless drive," personal growth, and courage.

"The thing that sometimes people forget is that when you take an investment, it's harder to get out of than a marriage. You are in that thing," Pierson said.

As part of the process, they learned that Rishi Jaitly, the chief executive of Times Bridge, lost his brother to depression and addiction. He felt compelled to invest because of the benefits of meditation.

For a lead investor, the founders picked Blisce, a venture capital firm that writes checks into late-stage startups. They first got to know Alexandre Mars, one of the firm's partners, in a conversation about his foundation, Epic. It raises donations for a portfolio of organizations fighting social injustices experienced by children.

"They were people we wanted to spend time with," Pierson said of the two Blisce partners. The firm also gives 20% of its returns back to the foundation, according to its website.

The firm also stood out because of an offer it made: Blisce would surrender a board seat so the company could add a director who brings operating experience in the healthcare sector. A board seat is the typical remittance for an investment in a company of this stage, which made the firm's offer even more meaningful.

"That tells you a thing about them," Pierson said.

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Tech's favorite meditation app just raised another $93 million. The CEO reveals his unusual strategy for crafting the new funding round. - Business...

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