Well-Being

Let Warm Memories Carry You

July 3, 2021 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Misty Memories. That’s the Benjamin Moore color I chose after splotching the wall with subdued colors in the room that once held my husband’s guitar equipment and old tax file boxes. I was claiming the space. A room of my own, as Virginia Woolf would have it. Misty Memories is a faint lavender, just shy of gray, with a hint of the miniature pink rose bushes that lined the circle driveway of a childhood home, the one the bank took over.

Purple. Lilac. Boysenberry. Plum. Magenta. Violet. The last color on the rainbow.

Purple is also the color of the seventh chakra, the crown chakra, a spindle of energy that connects your body to the heavens. And there is indeed something heavenly about lilacs and purples. I wore a lavender Faire Isle sweater in my sophomore year high school photo, with blush and lip gloss that matched Phoebe Cates’ look on a 1980s Seventeen Magazine cover I cherished. That sweater cost two whole paychecks from Bedients’ hardware store where I clerked for a summer.

I imagine that when I die people might call me that ‘ole Purple Lady with the bangles and beads prattling affirmations as she walked along the fence at the end of the drive. And that would be me, the Purple Lady.

The Misty Memories takeover room served me well for over a decade. The century old windows, set with poured glass, illuminated a dappled glow whenever the sun appeared, like you might find in a small chapel hidden in some sacred forest. It was the room where I sat with my clients handing out tissues or an essential oil, sharing a belly laugh or offering a hug on their way out. It was the room where I ignored my little girls when trying to meditate for just 5 minutes please.

It was the room I was in when my husband hesitantly knocked on the door in the middle of a client session, to my dismay. He just stood there staring at me, his eyes beginning to well. Oh my god, one of the girls? I raised my hand to my face as my heart seized. He shook his head. No. No. Your father.

First came relief. Then the recognition that the man I had finally forgiven was gone.

History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
~John Dalberg-Acton

We moved from that house, leaving behind two decades of family life, experiences that can only survive in the recesses of our unique recollections, and in ways that photos can’t capture. Like the presence of our house ghost, Ms. Margaret Sutermeister, nicknamed Daisy, according to a Historical Society booklet. She was one of the reasons I fell in love with the house at the base of Blue Hills, an anti-establishment hobby photographer in the 1850s who depicted the landscapes and daily life of dark skinned farmhands and the Massachusee descendants who weren’t wiped out from scarlet fever in the 1600s. Just the kind of spirit I wanted watching over my daughters.

“There’s Daisy,” I’d say when the floorboards creaked in a Nor’easter. Or, when we heard the eerie squeals of Chimney Swifts, who decided to nest in an old cooking chimney. It was as if Daisy invited in these the strange birds who swarm the Eastern skies at dusk for a few days respite, allowing them a launchpad to join the earth’s windstream toward the next southerly rest stop. She understood that climate change threatened their routes.

Creating safe space is an act of love

Of course, I brought the tattered Benjamin Moore paint chip with me. We’re in a tired rental for the time being. You can guess what color I painted the one room I claimed. Misty Memories, blessedly, has not been discontinued.

I ask you to think about what token or talisman, image or memory you hold dear.

How might you honor the gift it gave you? Misty Memories conjures safeness and spirit for me. And it’s not that I need to carry the old paint can with me, or cling to the paint card to heaven knows where I land next. It’s the understanding that creating a safe space is an act of love. It’s a kindness I allow for myself.

So dear one, what is it that you can behold in your mind’s eye, or in the clutch of your heart, simply because it once befriended you and served you so well? Or, still does?
And how might you carry that inner resource with you wherever you go? What nook, corner, or spot can you claim just for yourself, even if it’s inside your own heart?

Get A Little Deck of Kindfulness while supplies last (US shipping only).

Photo by Henri Lajarrige Lombard on Unsplash

Photo by Tara Cousineau (2021)

Notice Your Negativity Bias (Hint: We’ve all got one)

November 8, 2019 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel like sometimes you can be your own worst enemy?

You are.

You beat yourself up. Trip over yourself. Get annoyed with others. Cry at diaper commercials. Flip the bird. Numb yourself with Netflix. Or worse, create your own internal horror movie, usually with B ratings.

It happens. You are allowed to be human.

Here’s the thing: We all have this inclination of the brain called the negativity bias… and it’s part of the human design.

The negativity bias is sort of what it sounds like but has a neuro-physiological basis. Think of it like a background surveillance system or operating system. Just like the heart beats and the lungs breathe, the brain is continually scanning the environment for danger… and all this happens below our awareness.

The negativity bias prepares us for action and to get out of harm’s way. Better safe than sorry, right?

Now, the most common stressors most of us face in day-to-day interactions are typically not life threatening. The stressors are around being liked, performance, friendships and relationships, money, news, and the future—and the stories we tell ourselves about them. It’s our perception of threat that ignites the stress response. We tend to overestimate the perceived threat as if it’s “do or die” and underestimate our ability to cope. When your inner alarm switch is stuck ON, your body can’t easily recover without rest. You can feel worn down physically, mentally, and emotionally.

But have you ever noticed how you interpret these kinds of stressors—whether it’s the stuff that’s happening in the real world or in your own mind?

Psychologist Rick Hanson describes 5 ways in which the negativity bias manifests:

We scan for bad news as part of the human design (we can’t help it).
We focus on the bad news and it becomes associated with pain and unpleasant emotions; we get tunnel vision.
We overreact to it.
We remember it. In other words, the experience or sensations fast-tracks into our memory banks.
We can ruminate on the experience, reinforcing a negative feedback loop. I call this being caught in a “head spin.”

This negativity bias leads to cognitive habits like: overthinking, engaging in negative social comparison, perfectionism, procrastination, fixating on unhelpful thoughts and situations, and doing harmful or unhelpful things—usually to avoid the pain, like retail therapy, too much alcohol or other vices, social media stalking, oversleeping, or Haagen Dazs, to name a few.

Here’s the thing, no matter how intelligent, or kind, or confident you are, you can become negative, small-minded and mean without even realizing it—as you snap at people, become overly critical of yourself and others, and gripe with friends. It can be contagious, too. Misery loves company, right?

But in a state of personal distress and a narrow view with the negativity bias, it’s hard to get the clarity and empathy that will help you get perspective on things and be caring toward yourself and others.

A great image to depict this tricky state is that of an arrow. (Think The Hunger Games.)

Some physical and mental pain is inevitable in life. For example, I work with many students. Here’s a common scenario: You worked really hard on a project, spent hours in the library and even went to the writing resource center. But you get a less than desirable grade, maybe you even bombed. Ouch.

The first arrow is that unavoidable pain of disappointment or anger.

But your tricky mind steps in to interpret the situation… maybe you go into self-judgement: What is wrong with me? I must not be cut out for this job/school/program. I should just quit now.

Or else you might go into blame mode: That professor/boss/co-worker is terrible. What’s his problem? How could she?

Or let’s say you ask someone you’re crushing on to get coffee or dinner and that person says, ‘No thanks.’ Immediately, your mind will insert an elaborate ‘mind movie’ about what is wrong with you. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

We add insult to injury with our reactions with those 2nd, 3rd, and 4th arrows. It’s those arrows—the ones we aim at ourselves—that causes so much of our suffering. (So unnecessary. Trust me.) But we can practice deflecting those arrows.

It starts with noticing them!

So ask yourself when you might be directing unnecessary arrows at yourself. Just observe over the next week or so, without any judgment. Be curious about your mind. Observe your inner critic. Cultivate some self-compassion. After all, life gives us chances every single day to make different choices, to respond more patiently, and to get a bit of perspective.

Check out the next article on how to offset the negativity bias with a simple skill to practice (on positivity).

Also, you might consider my book and card deck on cultivating more love and kindness in your life—wonderful antidotes to those self-inflicted arrows!

Resource: Resilient: Find Your Inner Strength by Rick Hanson

Photo by Henrikke Due on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Self-Kindness: Finding Refuge for Ourselves

October 10, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

When I grew up I learned a lot about being compassionate and giving to other people. My mother is German and came over after World War II at age 19 as a nanny. Eventually, she married an American guy (for worse rather than for better) and had two daughters. We really struggled when my parents split up. She began to sell Avon door-to-door to make ends meet. We were even on food stamps for a time. She either made our clothes or whipped up outfits from the local thrift shop. Few would ever have a clue about much we struggled. This led to a quiet kind of shame, an imposter syndrome. Still, we were always giving. If there was something that we didn’t need and somebody else could use it, we’d just gave it away. My mom’s cosmetic customers ended up with our hand-me-downs and toys for their children. It was quite the network of generosity.

Of course, kindness, self-sacrifice, and a reduce-reuse-recycle philosophy were very important values. But in our family it almost went to the extreme. When it came to giving for oneself, or even wanting or desiring anything, it was fraught with guilt and anxiety. Sometimes I became angry about it, too. It seemed somehow unfair and I threw fits of frustration.

I realized only later when I started learning about the science of compassion that I had found ways as a child to be caring towards myself. Often it was in the form of running away from home. This meant bee-lining through the backyard into the woods with my stuffed animal, named Rango, and my Raggedy Ann sleeping bag. I had many forts under pine trees and also up in the thick branches of a weeping beech situated on a rich neighbor’s estate. Mostly I’d find a favorite spot in a hidden thicket and lay down on the soft pine needles, looking up through the long arms of the trees, and just rest. I’d take in the sights and sounds and the smells; and it was really only when it got too dark that I would sneak back into the house and up into my room. (Of course, my mother knew I’d do that.)

Without knowing it, I was recruiting my own physiology for self-soothing. I engaged the “calm and connect” pathways in my body, also known as the parasympathetic nervous system. I also had some courage.

This past winter I “ran away” to my first meditation retreat. It was a 7-day silent retreat for women. There was snow everywhere and it was bleak. We were not supposed to write in journals or read books, and of course there was no speaking other than in the conduct of some shared chores. The rebel that I am, I cheated a little bit. At the last minute before I left home, I brought with me a very thin book of poetry by Mary Oliver, Swan, that someone had gifted my daughter for her 18th birthday. I thought, “I can sneak this in with me.”

One night just like a child, I took out a flashlight and began reading. One poem cut me to the core. It spoke to me as if from a long hibernation. I recalled that earlier time in my life when I found refuge in the woods and wept. The poem is called “Trees,”

Heaven knows how many
trees I climbed when my body
was still in the climbing way, how

many afternoons, especially
windy ones, I sat
perched on a limb that

rose and fell with every invisible
blow. Each tree was
a green ship in the wind-waves, every

branch a mast, every leafy height
a happiness that came without
even trying. I was that alive

and limber. Now I walk under them —
cool, beloved: the household
of such tall, kind sisters.
〜Mary Oliver

Such tall, kind sisters. We need to find our places of refuge. A safe place. A sense of feeling bolstered up. As a young girl I had to learn how to bring compassion to my own suffering. I did it without even knowing it and because of that I didn’t appreciate the essentiality of this kind of self-love. Instead, I felt guilty about being such an ornery, temperamental child, of which I was often reminded.

Self-compassion is a psychological resource that we need to repeat over and over again. It’s about being on your own side, like a true friend. Self-kindness is a source of inner strength. As the psychologist Rick Hanson teaches, we need to absorb these nurturing and beneficial experiences so they get turned into lasting changes in the neural structures of the brain. He refers to this resourcing as filling the “neural backpack” with the supplies needed for wellbeing and true happiness. Self-compassion is one of those survival skills to carry along the journey of life.

Speaking kind words

One way that we can cultivate self-compassion and add it to the neural backpack is to come up with kind words for yourself.

You can write down simple statements such as:

I am okay.
I’m taking a stand for myself.
I trust in myself.
I am enough.
Even though this feels hard, I will be kind to myself.

Or, refer to yourself in the third person or imagine a wise being, an angel or spiritual guide, speaking to you:

You rock.
You can do this.
Your true nature is love.

The only caveats are:

Be clear. Be authentic and true to your experience. Use a kind tone.

You can ask yourself what do I need to feel calm in my body? How can I bring kindfulness to this moment? The answers are typically universal human needs. For example:

Belonging
Connection
Encouragement
Love
Respect

You can also bring to mind times when your were really on your own side. Maybe it was through a hardship, failure, or loss; or you found yourself speaking up to someone who disappointed or hurt you. If this it too hard you can recall a time when you were encouraging or protective toward a loved one or friend. Direct that gentle attitude toward yourself.

Write down your phrases. Once you have one or two, try them on. Find a few minutes each day to quietly reflect on the statements. Repeat them aloud or in your mind and let them sink in. Call upon them when you find yourself in a challenging moment. You may use more traditional loving kindness phrases, too. These are phrases of wishing yourself well and including your being in the circle of humanity:

May I be safe and protected
May I be peaceful
May I live a ease and kindness
May I experience joy and purpose

Feel what it’s like to be committed to your own well-being, to being your own BFF. Let the feelings, thoughts and intentions of being a true friend to yourself sink in and becoming a part of you. And repeat.

Credits:

Photo by Savs on Unsplash

Photo by Raquel Smith on Unsplash

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Love Thy Neighbor

June 24, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

I joke when I say I belong to the church of Mr. Fred Rogers. People close me know how much I admire the late great TV host and often send me quotes, vids or articles about him. So when my husband and I went to the local community theatre to see the new documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, it was as much about being a flock member of his media ministry as it was much needed relief from the recent weeks in our country. Images of children separated from their families and behind wired fences is nothing short of a battle cry for compassion, care and reason. Of course, children the world over are suffering in unconscionable ways. Somehow it hurts more when it’s closer to home and under our country’s watch.

We need you Mr. Rogers.

I was three years old when the first season of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood aired. I was five when I got a FAO Schwarz stuffed animal for Christmas, a spotted leopard named Rango. To me he was a kindred spirit to puppet Daniel Striped Tiger and he soaked up buckets of snot and tears. Decades later Rango was adopted by my youngest daughter, although not with the same passion I once held as a lifeline. Even one glance at the now floppy cub, who is relegated to a bookshelf, infuses me with a love so big that I grin with gratitude every time.

Fabulous reviews about this Rogers documentary abound and you will simply have to see it for yourself. It is a salve for our times. The subtitle is “A little kindness makes a world of difference.” We all know that’s true. It’s just harder to implement on a moment-to-moment basis as seems warranted now.

When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed. – Fred Rogers

Mr. Rogers didn’t creep me out like some say. I was the perfect age for his pace of teaching and doctrine of love. I needed calm and consistency in order to deal with big questions I could only feel rather than understand when my family was breaking apart. We might all benefit from slowing down enough to listen to our own hearts and hear our own breath.

Fred Rogers’ kindness was fierce and compelling, soft and hard, timeless and true. He respected children: their vulnerability, imagination, and curiosity. He believed that what mattered — an enduring empathy and respect for the human condition — in all its variations, was also “invisible to the eye.” This is the subtle caring that inhabits the spaces between and within each other. I imagine this belief was also a nod to the 1943 children’s book, The Little Prince, that also impressed me so:

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Mr. Rogers showed us that there is good in this world and we can be part of it: Love Thy Neighbor. Love Thy Self. His numerology was: 1-4-3.

I L-O-V-E Y-O-U.

This is heart work. We need his legacy and light to speak loud and clear. It’s up to us.

Your fellow lightworker,

Tara

More Matters in Kind

Child Refugee Crisis, UNICEF
How to Take Action, ELLE
Call my Congress, online tool
Tune into my recent interview on the benefits of kindness with Brenda Michaels and Rob Spears on ConsciousTalk Radio.

Finding Comfort in an Emotional Storm: The R.A.I.N. Technique

January 4, 2018 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

As human beings living in the limitations in living in our physical bodies it is natural that we can find ourselves with strong reactions. After all, the body has a tendency to resonate with the energies in the environment, too. People, places, and things all hold energy. Your true self, your loving intentions, and soul purpose can get camouflaged by negative vibrations from worry, panic, exhaustion, anger and so on, or that of the people around you. This can cause disconnection. These triggers can also flare up an inner critical voice, who can wreak havoc on your sense of self. This is the voice who reprimands you, says you are not good enough, or admonishes you with, “Who do you think you are….” for wanting, needing, desiring something new, fresh, alive and loving.

The acronym R.A.I.N. is a helpful kindfulness tool for just such moments. It can be a salve for those times when you are caught under a spell of negativity, which can happen naturally when feeling overwhelmed or overly critical, and consumed with anxiety, fear or uncertainty.

You can use RAIN in a difficult moment to cultivate a deeper connection and direct experience to the world.

Let’s go through each step.

R. The R in RAIN stands for recognize — recognize what’s going on in the body, and consciously noticing in any given moment the strong emotions, thoughts or sensations that are arising… and doing so in a way without judgment.

Recognizing can be as simple as a silent nod, or a mental whisper, noticing that a reaction is occurring. It can be helpful to name the experience such as: “This is anger” or “I’m feeling frustrated” or “I’m just so tired.” “Oh that’s my inner bully acting up.”

A. The A in RAIN stands for allow — allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions or sensations simply be there… applying loving attention to your body… it doesn’t mean we have to agree with the inner critic or like the situation at hand. It simply means that we can honestly acknowledge the arising of any judgment, as well as the uncomfortable or painful feelings that percolate underneath.

Instead of trying to suppress the experience, or resist, avoid or repel, we can soften into it with the quality of kindfulness, and not get caught up in the thoughts or the emotions.

Rather it is about saying “Yes, this is what’s happening right now.” “It’s OK.” “Take a moment here and just be.” We can tell our inner bully to go take a seat in the corner. This is a time out.

I. The I in RAIN stands for investigate — to investigate your experience with kindness and care. Once we recognize and allow what is arising we can become curious, and call on our natural ability to inquire. Tapping your inner detective and asking yourself, “What most wants my attention right now?” “How am I experiencing this reaction in my body?” “What is my inner critic telling me, or trying to warn me about? Am I believing it? Is it true?”

You can reflect: “How can I bring kindness to this moment?”

It is essential to take a non-judgmental attitude and move away from trying to interpret or overthink. Instead, bring your awareness to the felt sense in the body and allow direct experience or connection in the moment. The body is an exquisite emotional radar system with important information and clues. You may notice over time that there is an incredibly wise and quiet voice inside. An attitude of care helps to cultivate a sense of safety and understanding. You begin to befriend yourself as you would care for a dear friend in need.

N. The last letter in RAIN stands for nurture or nourish. We can intentionally care for the vulnerable and wounded places inside. You can ask: What does this place deep inside me need most? Reassurance? Respect? Forgiveness? Friendship? Love?

N can also stand for what some meditation teachers call non-attachment. This means cultivating an ability to take a step back and having some distance from the reactivity. This means not getting hijacked by difficult emotions (the brain’s flight or fight reaction) or being harassed by mind’s incessant commentary. Instead, you can be a benevolent caretaker just as you might care for a small child. In this way, you’re not fused with or defined by the reactivity; instead you adopt a sense of care, ease and compassion.

RAIN allows you to find refuge from the emotional storm by a very deep inner sense of peace, comfort, and homecoming. When you are at home in your center you can intentionally choose who you want to be, how you want to act, and what kind of world you want to live in. And that is rather refreshing!

To listen to these instructions you may download an Audio version.

The R.A.I.N. Technique – guided instruction (7 min)

Plus: Learn about the negativity bias and how to nurture a positivity bias.

The RAIN technique was originally offered by senior meditation teacher Michelle McDonald and is frequently taught by my mentor Tara Brach, PhD. There are a number of variations of this technique. See what works for you.

Photo by Kostas Katsouris on Unsplash

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

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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

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!