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After The Storm A Kinder Tomorrow

September 20, 2017 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

I really can’t complain that my Leo has that wet dog smell. In fact, I’ve been happy for some rain up here in New England. Even a bit guilty. Watching the news about one weather calamity after another evokes in me both awe and fear. The aerials are eerily compelling. Almost hypnotic.

Hearing the name of the next storm is like learning the roll call of a kindergarten class… in the 1920s. Harvey, Irma, Maria. It makes the storms feel somehow personal, like the friend you just made on the first day of school and who turned out to be a bully. And maybe if you mustered the courage to stand up to him, he’d just go away. That is until you see trees eviscerated, roofs blown off, and people suffering. These are no schoolyard antics.

Weather scientists have predicted between 11 and 17 storms this hurricane season for the Atlantic. In an article on LifeScience.com it seems we should brace ourselves, “As of September 18, the Atlantic has experienced 13 named storms (Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee and Maria), way above the total typically seen over six months, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association [NOAA]. Already, seven of those storms have been hurricanes, exceeding the seasonal outlook’s forecast.” Of course, there are another 13 letters in the alphabet and I wondered what names they’ve come up with. (In a search the next up are Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince and Whitney). Apparently, at one point in history tropical storms only had female names as if the the wrath of nature must be feminine. The weather people have evened out the playing field. I confess, the naming convention has a bonding effect. A sense of common humanity. A befriending of those in the wake of the storm. I hope this anthropomorphizing of the elements is good for relief efforts.

I cant’ remember Nor’easters having names, those nasty ice storms more typical of where I live. Every year I say, “It’s time to move south.” And then…. “No, it’s not!” It wasn’t long ago that 8 feet of snow trumpled us in a matter of a few days, creating icicle dams, and cracking open our roof. In the aftermath there was terrific snow for sledding and snowboarding. Kids toppled out to frolic. There was a whole week of snow days off from school. A 5-year old girl was struck dead by a heaving branch in her backyard.

Every region seems to have forces of nature that seem beyond comprehension. Earthquakes, fires, mudslides, tornados, tsunamis, pestilence. As I write I see news of a second devastating earthquake in Mexico in just two weeks.

It is as if Mother Earth is in a constant state of heartbreak somewhere. She is. We are.

Just today I heard the haunting song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder, which was inspired by a tornado.

Today I’ve cried a many tear
And pain is in my heart
Around me lies a somber scene
I don’t know where to start
But I feel warmth on my skin
The stars have all aligned
The wind has blown, but now I know
That tomorrow will be kinder”

Yes, I thought: Hope is an aspect of kindness, a faith that brings us together and carries us forward. And the question remains: where in the world do we start?

Anywhere we can be of service is where. And that may be right where you are.

Resources

Make plan for hurricanes using a simple guide at Ready.gov.

What’s the difference between a hurricane, cyclone or typhoon?

Learn what to do before, during and after an earthquake using a simple guide at Ready.gov.

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder by the Secret Sisters

Current Natural Disasters: Help out

American Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund

American Red Cross Hurricane Irma Relief Fund

CruzRoja Mexicana Earthquake Relief Fund

Unicef Mexico Child Victim’s Relief Fund

Latest News from the American Red Cross

Stay informed on the latest Red Cross efforts HERE.

Image credits:

Daiga Ellaby

NOAA

What Would Ben Franklin Say?

July 3, 2017 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

It was a warm Sunday afternoon in April. We were on our way home from New York City, which is a good four hours away. The youngest flower girl in our own wedding had just been married. She was just as beautiful the previous evening as she was 23 years ago. I felt like I was watching a blessed soul walking down yet another aisle leaving a trail of anticipation and hope. Of course, it made me think of my own daughters and how I hoped they would be graced with lasting love. Alas, I was getting ahead of myself. The very thought of my girls getting married also made be depressed.

We had just picked up our dog Leo who spent his weekend with my in-laws. We were driving through the back roads of the Blackstone Valley in central Massachusetts pocketed with small towns. Hopedale. Mendon. Franklin. They were once home to French Canadians and other immigrants working in the textile mills or on farms. My husband’s earliest memories are of the old family farm, riding along in his father’s milk truck, or getting lost in corn rows. Many of the farms no longer exist and the mills have all but disappeared. Suburbia and service roads now take up the space. It feels somehow uncomfortable as if I could be in Anywhere America, unmoored and without clear landmarks or a sense of community.

Yet, there is a very small sign we always pass along route 140. It honors the town of Franklin as the home of the first public library in the United States. It was established in 1778 when the town changed its name from Exeter to Franklin to honor the inventor Dr. Benjamin Franklin. In gratitude for the recognition, Franklin gifted some of his books to the town. As the story goes, this apparently caused a ruckus about who would house these treasures. Some sensible town folk decided to lend the books to the town residents at no cost and thus birthing the first lending library.

I’ve driven by this little road sign countless times and often think of Ben Franklin. For over two centuries we have absorbed Franklin’s wisdom in ways we may not even be aware. I will guess my girls have a faint idea about electricity and a kite rather than his timeless insights on life, liberty, and freedom. In one way or another many of us are familiar with his kitchen table quotes.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

In taking a quick tour of Franklin’s quotes I find some other words of wisdom to be rather fitting when I think about our treasured and endangered institution of the public library.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

I wonder what Franklin might think of Google or Wikipedia? Even so, I offer a nod of gratitude every time I notice that small sign in Franklin.

But this Sunday drive was quickly punctured by another roadside scene. At one of the many dilapidated service lots was a group of white teenage boys sitting and standing atop of several cars. They were cheering with their fists in the air to the seemingly infrequent Sunday drivers like ourselves. Leaning against one of the cars was a large hand-painted sign with purple letters: TRUMP.

I asked my husband to turn on the news. Did something happen and we were blissfully unaware? We couldn’t tell. The day before was Earth Day. There were gatherings for the March for Science events across the globe, albeit with different sorts of placards, posters, and cheers. We had jauntily joined one such march for about five blocks down Central Park West on our way to the wedding.

What were these boys up to? Did they have nothing better to do on their Sunday? Like pick up trash on the roadside?

My mind slid into judgment. I went right to catastrophizing as I flashed to scenes of clean cut blond boys in uniforms. The Nazi’s paramilitary youth movement. Quite a leap, I confess. But I am of German heritage and the geographic legacy percolates up from time to time.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

The boys were exercising their free speech and I had to give them that. But the scene really bothered me. It seemed out of place. Maybe it was their fists in the air.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

I hoped my girls never dated one of those boys. (Oh, my mind again.)

That I’m writing about it two months later on the eve of Independence Day is testament to my irritation and my untethered stream of consciousness. I’ve been meditating on it, working with the difficult thoughts mired in fear, judgment, and implicit bias. I’ve been investigating my imagination with kindness, as recommended by my meditation teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. I have been noticing the content of my mind as if I were standing on the outside looking in. “Oh, how interesting,” I tell myself. Then I wander and wonder. Would I feel the same way if the sign was for another politician or public figure? For a cause to better humanity or the planet? Or, that the gathering was instead made up of black boys? Muslim boys? Boy Scouts? Veterans? Or girls for that matter? Or, any combination of demographics and personal characteristics? My mind began to play a mix-and-match combo game. A hornet’s nest of uncomfortable feelings swept in.

Honesty is the best policy.

The roadside scene flared up for me recently when I attended a meet-up about encouraging more women public speakers and how we can better promote ourselves, lest we be mired in endless keynotes, panels, and conferences populated with men. “Male and pale,” noted one of the organizers. I thought of the group of boys in Franklin. I thought of the Founding Fathers.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

A part of me wishes we had pulled over and had a conversation with these boys. Who were they? What were their names? Why were they out there on the last day of spring break? Why do they like the current president? What does he represent for them? What do they stand for? What do they want to do with their lives? Or, maybe it would simply be about their cars or what they will do when school gets out for the summer.

A conversation would at the least make some sort of connection. A bridge toward understanding.

I will never know the answers to my questions. If the opportunity arose and I were by myself, it’s unlikely I’d have a chat with a group of teenage boys on an empty roadside holding that particular sign. Yet, I do know a little more about my fears and biases. “Male and pale” stuck for me in part because a series of images and events conspired at the same moment: fears of the current political climate, patriarchy, adolescent idealism, group think, recollection of a holocaust, my heritage, my values, my daughters’ wellbeing, a beautiful wedding, and a march for science.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

I try to catch myself before getting trapped by judgment. I slow down my breath. This seems to give enough space so I can begin to respond in a thoughtful way—to my own internal life and to what sort of actions I might take—like having courageous conversations, taking social action, or nurturing our daughters to be good citizens and make wise choices.

That little roadside plaque in Franklin now serves as a new reminder: we are all rooted by place and time—if only we’d stop for a moment to be open and curious. And maybe even a little more kind.

Keep up to day about my book, The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart and Your World.

Resources

Franklin, America’s First Public Library

Quotes from Ben Franklin

Photo Credit

Eugene Triguba

On Turner’s Pond: A Walking Meditation

June 25, 2017 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

On the eve of the first day of summer I took a walk with my dog Leo. I’m not the dog walker in the family even though I should be (Leo was my idea), but I needed to get some head space and so I drove over to Turner’s Pond. Leo is getting on in years and twice around the pond seems too much for his short legs. We decided to give it the ole college try.

I edged around the first bend full of maples and oaks to a clearing. Cumulous clouds were bursting forth like cotton candy at a county fair. My mother used to tell me and my sister that when the sky turns bright pink the angels were busy baking cookies. This always made me happy as a child.

It still does.

This sky was pretty enough to take a picture. Alas, I had purposely left my phone in the car and was now feeling a twinge of regret. With a new mission in mind to get it I picked up my pace, while eyeing the ever changing hues. Please stay still.

I raced by a family. They were rather striking for their stature and number. Two parents and four boys of various ages. The older boy was close to being a teenager and the youngest, about 4, was on his red bike and mightily leading the pack. They could be from some Scandinavian country, I thought.

My four-legged companion was petering out. I decided to give Leo an out and let him sit in the car. I took the second lap around rather briskly with my cell phone in hand. Could I catch the sky’s dusty rose hue?

It was too late.

Why do we need to document such moments anyway, I chided myself. I slowed down and welcomed the breeze. Breathe in. Breathe out. My mind was flitting back and forth from appreciating the pond life to being lost in memory.

I observed something else that warmed my heart as much as my mother’s words about cherubs and a craving for warm cookies. I came upon a young couple who had set up portable hammocks among the birch trees just over the water’s edge. They were facing each other and quite animated in conversation. They paid no mind to the nocturnal insects, to the bellows of bullfrogs, or to my presence.

Hammocks. That took some planning. I felt soothed by the waning sounds of their voices.

I finally came to the opening at the far end of the pond where the geese and duck circle each other and a random dog inevitably chases them off. It happens every visit. This time two lumbering white retrievers had their fun. The owner and I exchanged a laugh. Poor Leo. He missed it.

And I missed my chance for the photo op. They sky quickly paled in the twilight. I headed back and came across the Viking family again. This time the mother, father, and the two older boys were tightly nestled on a short bench. Shoulder to shoulder. They barely fit. The littlest one poked a stick in the pond and the other child was skipping a stone. Like the young couple, they were deep in conversation looking out over the water.

Cozy.

I could hear that they were American. I think this surprised me — to see a family all together at dinner time rather than dispersed at some sport field or immersed in technology. That this family was so intimate, and in nature no less, made me pause. I felt a bit voyeuristic.

They also gave me hope. I’m not sure for what. Maybe just that nature is always there to restore us. And if we can appreciate this gift, as the couple and this family seemed to, then maybe we can be good stewards of each other and our planet after all — no matter the color of the sky.

Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to get future updates about my upcoming book: The Kindness Cure: How The Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart And Your World.

Photo Credits:
(c) 2017 Tara Cousineau

Hammock:
Nicole Harrington

Let’s Make Everyday Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2017 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

We could all use a little more kindness in the world.

The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote:

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Being kind is top of mind these days. I like to think of kindness as a daily practice. Some of the definitions of practice include “a habitual or customary performance” and a “condition arrived at by experience or exercise.” Kindness is not something that we just have or don’t have. Kindness is a value that requires intention and effort, and a joyful effort at that. Yet, it can be challenging to exercise kindness when we feel stressed or challenged by life.

The awesome news from neuroscience, however, is that doing kind things is a happiness boost, triggering the reward centers in our brain. That also means that practice really matters as it encourages positive neuroplasticity – real changes in the brain based on experience. So every little kind act builds up the kindness pathways. Really, what’s not to love about being kind when it really comes from the heart?

But let’s admit it. Sometimes we need a little encouragement to step outside of ourselves and our comfort zones. It may be doing something kind for another person, and sometimes it can be doing something kind for yourself. Sometime it’s a shift in attitude and being tender toward the people in your life.

So every year, when Valentine’s Day rolls around, it’s refreshing to remember that love and kindness is not limited to romantic notions. We all need daily doses of love and kindness. Luckily there is no shortage of ways to do this.

How kind do you think you are? Take my Kindness Quotient Quiz to find out!

This year in particular, kindness consciousness raising is on the rise and is the mission of some of my favorite organizations. Here is what they are up to this week.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

Become a RAKavist this Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week, February 12-18. RAK has a cool “kindness generator” that helps you track kindness. As the RAK team describes it: “The kindness generator is a tool that helps us in our goal to turn the world kind. Anyone can visit and find a kind act to do, or see acts being done by others. We keep a running total of who the kindest businesses, cities and people are across the globe.” You can register here.

Share your random act of kindness on social media using #RAKWeek2017.

Kindness.org

The new online platform crowdsources personal acts of kindness. You can join a specific kindness initiative, like creating a healthier planet, or create one for yourself, like developing positive habits. Their KindLab, where kindness meets science, is looking at how kindness creates happiness. You can contribute to the research as a participant and also check out their study about kindness.

City of Kindness

Stefani Germanotta, also known as Lady Gaga, has a kindness initiative through her Born This Way Foundation, Her mission is to build a kinder, braver world. In 2016, the foundation joined philanthropist Phil Anschutz of The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, to challenge America’s cities to be kind. Learn about creating Cities of Kindness here.

It’s never too late to tell your mayor you’re ready to make every city a kinder, braver place!

You can also take the Kindness Pledge and promote kindness in schools with Positive Schools Climate programs.

Connect with fellow kindness enthusiasts on social media using #kindmonsters and #hackharrassment

Compassion It

For the politically-minded or social justice peeps, CompassionIt.com has a cool initiative to send compassion wrist bands to your senator. Let’s keep kindness top of mind for our top officials. Compassion It’s mission is to inspire compassionate actions and attitudes. “We envision a day when compassion is practiced by every person, for every person, on every day.”

Spread the Compassion It message on social media using #CompassionIt and #CompassionItSenate

Kind World

Finally, if you need inspiration about humanity, check out the Kind World podcast by WBUR. Listen to the amazingly produced 7-minute stories about the profound ways one kind act can change lives. Listen to one story per week and see how it might change the way you look at life. I share these stories once a week on #CompassionateMondays on social media so check them out! They are inspirational.

Connect with other listeners on social media using #kindworld.

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The history of Valentine’s Day is a bit mysterious but one legend claims that St. Valentine was a priest in 3rd century Rome. His kind acts of marrying young men defied Emperor Claudius II, which at the time was outlawed because he believed single men made better soldiers. He was martyred for his kindness…There are other legends behind St. Valentine and how St. Valentine’s Day became what it is today. In case you’re curious, check out how this holiday evolved on the History Channel to what it is today. http://bit.ly/MNbOmJ

—

Remember, kindness is contagious! Make a small kind act your valentine today and everyday.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

A version of this post was originally published at www.bodimojo.com

You’ve Got a Friend in Me

January 29, 2017 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

What a week! Last week I hightailed it to the Boston Common for a peaceful rally, just like many others did for the various Women’s Marches that appeared from sea to shining sea. I knew about ten people but felt like I had 175,000 thousand friends! The crowd swelled of support, goodwill, and peaceful protest which brought me more comfort and joy than I felt all last year.

I was so impressed with the diversity of humanity around me. Where I was standing, it seemed as many men as women came out in solidarity. People of color. College students. Children and families. A sea of pink and purple hats worn by many. One father held up his gleeful infant like a protest sign among the many creative, blunt, and often humorous signs. Then the news reports of the marches in DC and around the world appeared. One after another. It was remarkable. Of course, some people felt left out or wondered why so many people didn’t appear side by side with members of Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock water protectors, too. It’s a good question: What do we show up for? When? Who are we leaving out?

It’s time to ask hard questions and dig deep for our personal values. As I stood at the Boston Common I felt invigorated, with an overriding sense of hope and optimism. Mostly, I felt the warmth of kindred spirits and friendship.

Then a friend posted the sweetest video of a father and daughter singing. It’s ranked over 100 million views in a matter of days! (Just maybe you’ve seen it.) That’s how much we could use a good dose of friendship. It brought me back to when my girls loved the Toy Story animation series. I often give a nod to Woody, Jessie and Buzz as some of the best teachers on empathy. These characters never failed to come together to help each other, and they fiercely traversed a world with both light and dark shadows. They are kind warriors.

So this little ditty sung by 4 year-old Claire and her Daddy reinforced exactly how I felt at the Women’s’ March.

Let these two minutes make your day. I’ll be humming this tune for while.

Marching on,
Tara

It’s Not So Simple

November 13, 2016 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Can true humility and compassion exist in our words and eyes unless we know we too are capable of any act? ~ St. Francis of Assisi

The recent outcome of the 2016 presidential election has unmoored me. I’m on the losing side. I sit in quiet contemplation in just how to respond. My childlike impulses are brimming. I want to erupt into a wailing temper tantrum. Instead I call to mind an old story.

tara-age-5-2-c-2016-tara-cousineau — A 5-year old Nazi

“Nazi. Nazi. You’re a Nazi.”

The little blond boy pointed at me. I was five years old, standing in the school yard, and very confused.

“Nazi! Your mother’s a Nazi.”

Part of me thought, what’s a notsie?

Is it shoe lace? Is it snot?

But the other part of me knew that he was judging me and I felt that red hot rush of shame.

I turned to him and said, “No she’s not,” and I ran away.

Everyone in our small town knew my mother. Yes, she was German. She was beautiful, impossibly glamorous, with big sunglasses and fancy head scarves of the 1970s. She would spend her days going door to door visiting women at home. She was an Avon Lady.

She worked really hard at it. She had that German work ethic. “Arbeiten über alles.”

Work above all.

When we were little my sister and I would get to go with her. We would show up at people’s houses. I remember sitting there at some lady’s kitchen table, the products spread out all over it, and my mother would take the woman’s hand, and look in her eyes, and softly say, “Your hand is so soft.” She really meant it. The woman would say, “Oh, really?” as if no one had ever said that to her before. Maybe nobody ever had. Then my mom would take the little sample lipsticks and start drawing them on the back of the lady’s hand to check if the shade fit with her complexion.

My mom wasn’t just a salesperson to these women. She was their confidant. She was their counselor. She was their aroma therapist. She talked with them without judgement and with sincerity. We even used to drive around with two boxes in the back of the car. One of them would be the blue Avon product case. Another box would be things that these women might need. A toy that we’d outgrown, an extra dish towel or hand me downs. My mom showed generosity without expectation of return and so people remembered and cherished her.

When I got a little older that bubble burst.

I’m 11 years old, sitting and watching TV and I am completely horrified by what I’m seeing.

There was a PBS special on the German holocaust with pictures of concentration camps. I had heard about the holocaust, of course, in vague bits and pieces. But I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My child brain was trying to work it out. Piles and piles of skeletons. This happened in Germany where my mom came from? While she was there?

My mom came in and I turned to her. “Mommy, how could this happen? Did you know? Why didn’t you do anything?”

My mom was born in 1938. She was only a toddler when all this happened. Her memories are of being shuttled into bomb shelters. But she didn’t tell me that. Instead she just said, “Darling, darling, don’t watch this. It’s too upsetting.” And she hurried out of the room.

I was left there thinking, “Wait? How can she ignore this?”

(Our poor mothers get blamed for everything…)

I thought, “If I learned about this and I lived there, I would have been fighting. It’s so simple.”

A few years after that I’m sitting nervously in social studies class. I’m carefully drawing lines and arrows and neatly writing names in the gaps underneath them. We’re creating our family trees and it was so confusing. My dad had left and was out of the picture. I didn’t know anything on his side other than they were a bunch of Scots and I knew about some cousins on the West coast. I try to fill in what I know from my mom’s side. Oma and Opa and Tantes and Onkels. I was the odd girl out. In my class there were Italian Americans and Irish Americans, but not a lot of German Americans. Then suddenly this one kid next to me pipes up and says,

Your family is German? Were they Nazis?

Immediately, I turn my back to him and say, “No!” But I feel that red hot rush of shame. I knew my family members were not Nazis, but they were there at the time.

Later, I have a chance to go the source. In college I spent a work-study year in Germany, spending time with relatives and touring cities and villages with classmates. We visit Dachau, a concentration camp outside of Munich.

Tumbling out of the bus, I find myself standing in this yard and looking at rows and rows of empty buildings. I feel almost frozen with inability to take in what is around me.

We moved inside and saw images of prisoners of war, of hair, and gold teeth fillings. If I had thought that it was shocking watching that PBS documentary that was nothing compared to the way I felt now. Dachau was this cavernous, quiet place. It was incomprehensible that so much killing had happened at this camp, tucked away in the beautiful Bavarian countryside.

Later, when I visited my aunts and my uncles, I would ask them, “What did you do when this was happening?” They would say to me, “It’s history. Leave it alone.” Then I would hang with my cousins and Deutsche friends in the pubs and biergartens and I would say, “Ich kann es nicht verstehen.” I just don’t understand it.

We don’t want to talk about it. We weren’t there. It’s not our burden.

I felt angry. I judged them. Because in my mind it was important not to forget history. Otherwise, it might happen again. This is so simple!

Eventually, I went to grad school, started a family, and I became a therapist. As with most therapists starting out, when you’re young and green, you get assigned to the most challenging patients and heartbreaking situations: people with psychiatric disorders and people who have experienced trauma beyond anything I could have previously imagined, things I don’t know if I could have survived. I was assigned to work with patients who were my own age with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or OCD. I saw first hand that we’re thrown into lives and situations and we don’t get a choice about it. And I also saw that some patients began their healing in whatever ways they could. They showed resistance, courage, and traces of self-compassion and resilience — even in the face of things they could not entirely change.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Victor. E. Frankl

But it’s really not so simple, is it?

Not so long ago and many decades after first being called a Nazi in the playground, I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

I’m standing in front of a pile of shoes. Women’s shoes, men’s boots, children’s shoes. I look at faded photos of families on walls spanning a few stories high. There are passbooks. I read their names and where they lived. So many people.

It’s a walking timeline into catastrophe. It is like being trapped in a maze, a life-sized diorama cramped with other tourists where the air becomes increasingly thick and the mood ominous. I feel the weight, the enormity of it, but I feel something different as well. It’s that Arbeiten uber alles thing — a work ethic gone entirely mad.

Unlike the eerie quiet of Dachau, this exhibit was designed with no way out but through and with eyes wide open. Here one is faced with the stunning capability of the human imagination to devise assembly lines of murder and orchestrate a culture of hate.

It’s odd how sometimes that there can be one detail that makes you crumble.

For me it was seeing the illustrated children’s books, written for malleable minds. Children’s stories that planted seeds of fear and disgust of the Jews, the gypsies, and the disabled.

By this time in my life I had plenty of knowledge of this scar in human history. I read books. I watched movies. My graduate colleagues had written dissertations about intergenerational effects of the German Holocaust. I also devoured stories of resistance, abeit a weak salve. The story about Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement, gave me some hope. These brave souls chose to believe that the world could be a just, benevolent place, and they insisted on calling upon humankind’s better nature for compassion, kindness, morality, and hope. They were caught and executed.

For so many years I felt like I would have stood up. Yet, I wondered. Would I? Could I?

Probably not. I think of my mother. A German immigrant, who fled her homeland at age 19 by herself (the very age my oldest daughter is now), carrying the weight of cultural shame, and all I had to contend with was schoolyard children who didn’t know any better.

I think about how she chose kindness and compassion. The items that she would give away when we went on those Avon house calls. It wasn’t because she was rich. It was just the opposite, we were on food stamps. My dad left us bankrupt. She was glamorous and lovely because she always worked so hard to make her secondhand clothes look good and sew dresses for us girls. To put food on the table. To make our life beautiful. To a make ladies feel beautiful by selling sweet scents door to door.

Maybe it’s that Arbeiten ethic after all. A work ethic fueled by fierce love.

We are all capable of love and hate, of kindness and cruelty. And we can go to great lengths for either.

The truth is: It does take work to be kind and compassionate. To nurture our better selves. Anything with a purpose takes effort. And as I have learned, a part of that also means to stop judging others. To learn to accept that you can’t always see the reasons behind who people are, and why they do what they do, or don’t do… because those reasons aren’t always so simple.

This is particulary relevant this past week’s election results. I find myself on the side of a new form of resistance. To be sure, there’s much work ahead. As George Saunders said, “Kindness, it turns out, is hard.”

What, not who, are you voting for?

October 31, 2016 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Sometimes it seems that life is indeed stranger than fiction. This is how I feel about the 58th presidential election. With that said, I am make making an appeal to you.

Vote for democracy. Vote for Hillary.

First, let me tell you a story. When my daughter Sophie was three years old she chose to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. I was so delighted that at least for one season we avoided the princess theme. She was so cute standing there with her wings, shouting “To infinity and beyond.”

From then on the characters of Toy Story had a very large presence in our household. We had the Woody and Jessie dolls, of course. And, yes, like Andy’s mom, we eventually donated those toys in a box to the local church. When Toy Story 3 came out in 2010 my daughters were almost too old see it with their friends. Instead, we went as a family and snuck in the back row of the amphitheatre above all the littler kids. Toy Story 3 is by far the creepiest of the trilogy, which took me totally by surprise.

Here’s the quick synopsis. It’s where Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the cheerful toy gang are destined for an uncertain future as Andy, their human owner, goes off to college. Instead, the toys find their fate in the Sunnyside Daycare Center, where a mad doll, Big Baby, and a sociopathic bear, Lotso (Lots O Huggin’ Bear), run a prisoner-of-war like operation.

It’s the typical hero’s journey formula. The good toys ban together in an underground resistance, attempting to free all the other toys from the dictatorship. But there is a disturbing scene that could give nightmares to any three to five year old who goes to bed with their beloved stuffed animals. It’s where Woody and his pals find themselves close to the end of their lives, trapped in a garbage truck, and scooped into a trash incinerator. Woody, realizing that the end is in sight, holds his friend’s hands in a gesture of love and solidarity.

As they are about to be consumed by flames, I’m clutching the arms of the seat. I blurt out “Ohmygod. It’s the holocaust!” My Sophie turned to me and said, “Jeez, Mom! Calm down.”

When we walked out of the theater my family ribbed me for being overly sensitive. I have a reason. My mother came over from West Germany after World War II to make a better life for herself. She was not a victim of the holocaust, but she suffered the ravages of war as a small child, hiding in bomb shelters and living in poverty. The cloak of her cultural history enveloped all of us growing up. Learning about Nazi Germany was a gradual unfolding for me, at times quite distressing, and too horrible to comprehend. Ok, so maybe I am sensitive.

Life is Stranger than Fiction

And here I am – a half a century later no less, watching a new cultural scene unfold before my eyes, where it’s entirely possible that the next leader of the United States of America espouses ideology so dangerous, so incendiary, that we are at risk of eventually losing our basic freedoms and human rights. I’m not being dramatic. There are historical precedents in history of other countries’ slow walk toward fascism. A Trump presidency could open the floodgates, or the door for the next leader in line, perhaps someone brighter, more polished, better contained, and highly calculating. That individual could even be someone qualified, with a history of public-service, with a facility for diplomacy, and a basic understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But this future person is also power hungry, racist, misogynist, exclusionary, paranoid, and harbors an extremist mentality that serves not the many but the few. It is possible.

It doesn’t take a psychologist like myself to discern that Donald Trump has a severe narcissistic personality disorder, with seriously underdeveloped social and emotional intelligence, and an inability to self-regulate or take perspective. But he certainly has a skill: persuasion. And he appeals close to 40- 45% of the US population. Some of my friends are in that cohort. My friends are kind, intelligent, and want the best for their families and their communities. They strive for safety, success, and happiness. And yet it is very difficult for me to understand how the people I admire and love could support such an unstable and dangerous candidate. For the most part, I’ve concluded that they are making the anti-Hillary vote. I can understand that as well. People either hate the Clintons or they hate what they think of as the elite politician and “the establishment.” Many of my friends wanted Bernie Sanders. I listened to Bernie recently and he tells his supporters to go look at the facts and issues (yes, I know it’s hard to find unbiased assessments), and stay out of the myopic personality contest that has hijacked the media and the debates. It seems like wise advice but I don’t think many people are in a state of mind to step back and deeply look at the important issues facing the American public and our children’s futures, not to mention the future of our planet and all of its inhabitants. (Are you aware that a third of the Great Barrier Reef disappeared this year? Or, that we have the greatest humanitarian crisis of our generation happening in Syria?)

Love Your Neighbors

Second, as some of you know, I’m working on a project on kindness. This means that I’m taking a hard look at empathy and listening to lots of people’s stories. It’s been heartening and also eye-opening. There are cultural trends tracked by various surveys. Some show that narcissism is on the rise while levels of empathy are on the decline. It makes sense that those go hand-in-hand, as one goes up the other goes down.

One measure of empathy used in social science research (by Professor Mark Davis) is called the Interpersonal Reactivity Scale, a rather apt title for our times. We should all take it. Four components of empathy are identified. Two relate to cognitive empathy and two relate to emotional empathy. The questions are stated in positive and negative directions, on how well (or not) the item describes you on a five point scale. Here’s a worthwhile glance at all four categories to give you the flavor.

Cognitive Empathy

Perspective taking is about the ability to adopt the perspectives of other people and see things from their point of view while suspending your own feelings or opinions (that involves inhibitory control, too). Examples or questions include:

I’m sure I’m right about something so I don’t waste much time listening to other people’s arguments. (-)
I believe that there are two sides to every question and I try to look at them both. (+)

Another component is fantasy which is a kind of “imagination empathy” where you can identify with emotions and experiences of people or characters in movies, novels, and stories. (Just as I can identify with the plight of Toy Story’s characters.) This is the ability to mentally place yourself in another’s shoes. Stories are excellent ways to cultivate empathy. (Listening to real stories on The Moth radio hour is one good way to do this.)

I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel when I watch a good movie. (+)
Becoming extremely involved in a good book or movie is somewhat rare for me. (-)

Emotional Empathy

Empathic concern is about being able to arouse feelings of warmth, tenderness, and concern for others. Relating to the suffering of another person and wanting help is called compassion. We have the cellular blueprint for empathy, kindness and compassion otherwise the human race would not have survived.

Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal. (-)
I am often quite touched by the things that I see happen. (+)

On the other hand, we can also naturally experience personal distress or the feelings of anxiety and discomfort that can happen from watching another person’s negative experience like a person in pain for instance (Consider the plight of Syrian refugees when you hear them tell their story, being homeless on the street begging, or when you kid is writhing in pain after breaking a leg. DIfferent situation trigger different responses.)

Sometimes I feel helpless when I’m in the middle of a very emotional situation. (+)
When I see someone get,hurt, I remain calm. (-)

Obviously, empathy is an extremely important inner quality and it’s something that develops over time through supportive and loving relationships and experiences in life. It’s also something that can be cultivated. That’s the hopeful message. We can actually train the neural networks that stream through our brains – through various practices that include:

mindfulness
loving kindness meditation and reflection
gratitude
forgiveness
cultivating positive emotions
getting to know people who aren’t like you
considering other points of view
collaboration
prioritizing health and wellness

Love Trumps Fear

Third, it is very difficult to tap our empathic roots when our brains are hijacked by fear. I believe that many Americans are in a constant state of fear and feel threatened, whether that is real or imagined. And that’s why Donald Trump is so good at persuading people that we live in an unsafe and dangerous world. He’s triggering the limbic brains of many people, poking at their emotional hot seat.

What happens in such a state of mind? When the mind perceives a threat, the brain’s amygdala (our alarm bell) goes off. When that alarm system is constantly on, it’s very hard to access the other parts of the brain that can regain some control (the prefrontal cortex or the executive functions). For instance, when this “inner coach” is accessed, you are able to calm down, take perspective, and regulate difficult or uncomfortable emotions. Think about a child in a temper tantrum. The only thing that can help that screaming child is to coach him on how to calm down until he learns to do this on his own. Over time the child gets better and better at managing emotions and can “reset.” Of course, we all get stuck in fear based responses no matter what age. Life is hard. But the basics still apply.

Get Some Headspace, Open Your Heart

So friends, those of you who are on the fence, maybe it’s time to just sit still for a little bit and really take some time to think through what your vote might really mean for you and the American people. In finding a quiet space and lowering the mind chatter to step back from fear-based thoughts, there may be an opening to consider what is at stake. This is not an election of Republicans versus Democrats, this is a vote about an extreme and reckless ideology that can turn back hard-earned progress (women’s rights, civil rights, and human rights to name the biggies).

The outgoing president, whether you liked him or not, once said that our nation suffers from an empathy deficit. He’s not making that up. We are suffering from an empathy deficit, as surveys show, and it’s largely because we are locked in our limbic brains, in self preservation mode, and with a very narrow focus (me vs. them). Let’s step back and calm ourselves down and think rationally and reasonably about the greater good (me and we).

We all want what is best for ourselves and our loved ones. Yet, we also have to stretch ourselves and consider the existence and needs of others who may not be like us. We are a nation of immigrants. I am the daughter of one – the daughter of a once 19-year old German girl who courageously came from a country that had extremist ideology with tragic consequences on an unfathomable scale. That doesn’t mean that my mom or myself was a Nazi. Just as Muslim families who immigrated here are not extreme terrorists. Or that we have to build a wall to keep people out. Let’s get some bearings here.

Oh, and remember when a certain wall was knocked down? And a good thing, too.

Empowered Parenting & Leadership

If anything this election has questioned what it means to be a leader and how we lead in our daily lives. Parenting is a good place to start. People are influenced by the kind of parenting they had. There’s solid research that shows the healthiest parental-child relationships arise when the parenting style is authoritative (in contrast to permissive or authoritarian). This authoritative style includes: love and concern, consistency, clear expectations, respect, support for healthy striving, room for failure and new learning, and creating atmospheres where social, emotional and cognitive flexibility can grow. In contrast, authoritarian/overly strict or laissez-faire/permissive parenting results in major problems, interferes with the development of healthy attachment, and negatively impacts self-confidence, focus and attention, empathy, overall well-being, and life success. An authoritative style fosters social and emotionally intelligent children who can one day grow into kind, effective and inspirational people.

An emotionally and socially intelligent style is good for leadership, too. Being benevolently authoritative involves being kind, consistent, showing concern for others and mutual respect. It involves being courageous, confident, calm and cultivating an environment of safety, while at the same time setting limits, clear expectations, and accountability. This kind of leadership allows for growth, diversity, compassion, collaboration, creativity and innovation. People are craving this. Social and emotional intelligence is the hottest topic in corporate leadership and workplace education these days, not to mention schools. Somehow we need to infuse our political system with it. But we’ve got a bad seed running for the highest office. That he got this far is a travesty and a global embarrassment.

I’m exhausted from this presidential campaign to be honest. I can’t even be nice right now, my limbic brain is buzzing with fear for the future. Here’s the question:

You may not like Hillary, but do you really want an asshole leading this nation?

It’s hard to fathom that this will be the ninth election in which I will be voting. To me it is the most important election to date and it’s not about party lines. It’s the first presidential election in which my daughter, my little Buzz Lightyear, can vote. It’s an important milestone for her, and it is for all of us. What an election to start off with.

When we think about our families, our neighborhoods, and the community of the entire United States of America and beyond, the question of empathy matters and that question of leadership matters. We are all not that separate from one another. In fact, we are not separate at all. I beseech you to find a calm still place in your hearts and minds. Last thing we need is to be scooped up into an incinerator of ideology.

More to explore

This says it all:

So much of our reactions and behaviors are unconscious. The Hidden Brain podcast gets it.

When it comes to our politics family matters

Too sweet or too shrill, the double bind for women

How can the United States heal after the election?

5 things to tell your kids about the election

How to Be a Kindness Magnet

October 4, 2016 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Recently featured on The Huffington Post on September 29th, 2016:

Sometimes it takes a child to teach us about our natural instinct for kindness. Something we could all use a little more of these days.

One late summer morning I was making a cup of tea in the kitchen. Thinking I was the first one up I was surprised when I spotted my daughter, about 12 years old, sitting stock-still by the bird feeder like a garden gnome. Oddly, she was wearing winter boots. They were sprinkled with birdseed. Sure enough, a chipmunk scurried over her toes and a bird paused momentarily on her knee. She remained stationary. This lasted a good 15 minutes, which is a long time for a kid who can’t sit still.

“What was that about?” I inquired when she came in.

“I was waiting for Charles” she said.

Charles?

“The woodchuck.”

I often reflect on my daughter’s focus that morning in her attempt to befriend the garden creatures. It was if she was experimenting with a combination of being mindful, curious, and kind. Short of being a Snow White, she was like a kindness magnet. Ever since then I have held the image of the garden as a metaphor for growing a kind mind.

(C) Steve Cousineau

It’s not a new way of approaching the mind, of course. Sages, poets, mystics, and scientists have been drawn to the natural elements to render our subjective life, too. It’s apt. We all have a natural capacity to cultivate empathy, love, generosity, kindness, and joy. In fact, we are wired with a caring circuitry from our head down to our toes.

Kind by Nature.

Discoveries from a broad range of disciplines including neurobiology, evolutionary sciences, psychology, and education have now shown that not only are we wired for kindness and compassion, but that we can foster this natural circuitry with our mere desire and attentiveness to do so, just as we can cultivate a garden to grow through attention and care. I call it kindfulness. And in today’s world, ripe with blatant negativity and meanness in the public discourse as new kind of normal, fortifying our compassionate hearts really matters.

Dacher Keltner, a social psychologist and director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, has devoted his career to bringing attention to our kinder nature. In his book, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, Keltner highlights a lesser-known aspect of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, namely, that sympathy is our reflexive social instinct, and it is stronger than self-interest or self-protection. This compassion instinct developed out of the necessity for the constant caring of human babies, who require years of nurturing before they are launched into the world. Keltner writes:

Our babies are the most vulnerable offspring on the face of the Earth. And that simple fact changed everything. It rearranged our social structures, building cooperative networks of caretaking, and it rearranged our nervous systems. We became the super caregiving species, to the point where acts of care improve our physical health and lengthen our lives. We are born to be good to each other (Keltner, 2012).”

But while kindness, sympathy, and compassion are a natural part of our evolution, the new neuroscience of neuroplasticity teaches us that every experience we have results in bursts of neural activity that fire in different parts of the brain, strengthening various connections.

Any positive or negative mental activity – sensations, thoughts, and feelings – that you habitually focus on eventually shapes the inner landscape of your brain.

That means as you engage in your day-to-day life and expose yourself to new learnings and ideas, neurons will fire and new connections will grow; conversely, neurons related to the things you no longer pay attention to will be weeded out and recede. While it is also true that paying attention to negative impulses, such as the emotions arising from stressful situations – anger, irritation, or numbing – can similarly strengthen neural pathways you may not want to empower, it’s helpful to know what we can control where our attention goes and focus more on the positive behaviors that lead to calm and happy states, healthy bodies, happy relationships, meaningful work, and caring communities.

So how does kindfulness apply to everyday life?

Cultivating kindfulness is a continual practice for everyone, even for the most well-adjusted and happy person you can think of!

If you want a kind mind and a kind life, don’t wait for the world to change, start with your own actions.

Here are a couple ways you can start:

1. Surround yourself with kindness.

This could mean establishing safety and support in your living environment, talking to a trusted friend or family member, setting personal boundaries, practicing mindfulness and meditation and other self-care activities, finding community, or doing things that inspire you. Tending to yourself in the company of other compassionate people amplifies the caring circuity.

2. Be kind on purpose.

Do something intentionally kind every day. The more kindness you exude towards the outside world, the more you’ll cultivate in your own heart and mind, and the more will come back to you in return. This could mean volunteering, calling someone out of the blue to say hello, smiling at strangers, spending time with pets, donating to charity, or even picking up a piece of trash that isn’t yours. After all, kindness is contagious.

3. Let kindness sink in.

Sometimes we take for granted our own generosity or that of others. Take a moment to acknowledge the tender, thoughtful, and kind moments and let them imprint in your brain. If you make it a habit of asking yourself every day “How did kindness show up for me today?” then you’re more likely to see positivity, health, and happiness thrive.

The heartening news is that the mechanism of positive neuroplasticity and our innate wiring for sympathy and caregiving provide all the necessary ingredients for living a happy life. It is up to us to transform these raw materials into moment-by-moment kindfulness. Over time, that process will become second nature, and life itself will flow with greater ease. Wait and see: One day you’ll wake up and be a kindness magnet.

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Would love to hear from you. Please leave your comments on my HuffPost article HERE!